Post Fukushima. Where Now for Nuclear Power?

[walker 0]

Hi all

TEPCO are continuing to look for millions of gallons of Highly Radioactive water that has suddenly drained away from Reactor One and its basement.

http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/06/03/water-levels-fluctuate-in-fukushima-building-as-tepco-looks-for-leak-060302.aspx

My hope and Tepco's and the Japanese Government's and the IAEA's; is that it has drained in to plant two's basement though there has been no corresponding increase in levels observed there.

I cannot emphasize enough how worrying this is.

Meanwhile Sea Floor sampling by Japan's science ministry MEXT has found very high levels of radiation out at sea confirming earlier Greenpeace monitoring.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_23.html

Considering the mutant bunny video in the previous post it seems timely that the long term effects on life are being examined, particularly humans.

The European Committee on Radiation Risk ECRR has estimated that 200,000 extra cancers will be caused by the radiation already released.

http://www.fairewinds.com/content/health-outcome-fukushima-catastrophe-initial-analysis-risk-model-european-committee-radiatio

Walker

Edited June 3, 2011 by walker
spelling

[Daniel 0]

the water level inside Reactor 1 has suddenly plunged and they do not know where the water is going:

Down the hole left by the melting core? :p I'll keep an eye out for it popping through on this side...

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Down the hole left by the melting core? :p I'll keep an eye out for it popping through on this side...

If it's gonna, then it will pop out off the coast of Ecuador. ;)

[walker 0]

Hi Iroquois Pliskin

Nah. If that is what has happened and I hope to heck it has not.

It will melt down in to the water table which will cool it.

Then it will poison the water for the area for thousands of years making the whole of the area unlivable for milenia. And it will then seap continuously into the Sea destroying the Pacific Fisheries.

I hope that it has not happened.

Crosses fingers Walker

[Rovka 14]

Its a matter of knowing the differences between Prosperity Lane and Profitary Avenue..

To bad many didn't look closer, and end up getting lost on Greed's Square.

[Dwarden 1124]

This clip was made before Fukushima, but I believe it's still relevant:

http://youtu.be/Usg7-xbQOcM

A handful of isolated incidents is hardly reason enough to end all nuclear power,

especially when there are no alternatives available that are nearly as efficient.

the clip exactly nails the problem of todays nuclear energy ...

no new modern safer/more effective reactors are built yet old ones are over-safety-lifetime

(Fukushima is pure example was supposed to be shutdown in Feb 2011) ...

we have one of latest built plants

and the German and Swiss ban on the nuclear power

is already turning into conclusion that price of electricity is going to increase by 10 to 40%

just because of shortage in theirs local sources

(energy will be sold to Germany on higher price and thus local one would be increased aswel)...

[walker 0]

Hi all

TEPCO forced to admit Radiation Releases were twice as bad they anounced.

Fukushima: Twice As Bad As Thought

Posted by Eben Harrell Monday, June 6, 2011 at 11:46 am

One recurring theme that has emerged after Fukushima is the tendency of nuclear experts to underestimate (publicly at least) the severity of the disaster. Today we received further proof of this when the Japanese government more than doubled the estimate for the amount of radiation released from the plant in the immediate aftermath of the crisis in March.

Government watchdog The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency also said that the meltdowns of the plant's reactor cores--at least one of which we now know suffered a total meltdown—happened much more quickly than Tepco has previously suggested, making it clear that the plant operators' desperate attempts to cool the reactors by dumping sea water on them were largely unsuccessful.

According to news reports, NISA now estimates the total amount of radiation released into the atmosphere in the first week of the crisis at 770,000 terabecquerels. This compares with NISA's previous estimate, released on April 12, of 370,000 terabecquerels for the first month of the crisis. NISA has pointed out that most of the radiation was released in the first week...

http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/06/06/fukushima-twice-as-bad-as-thought/#ixzz1OXACTySs

As Always follow the link to the origina text in full

As the Time article points out; the problem is that as an industry those involved in Nuclear Power, constantly under estimate the risks and seem to be activley involved in covering up its problems and even incedents.

Leaving everyone one with the feeling any one who is pro nuclear power can not be trusted.

The cost of a Nuclear Power accident is way beyond the simplistic one page disaster planning that seems so typical of this industry.

A moments thought would show that risks to a nations economic prosperity like these: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355090185079246.html

make the Nuclear Power equation decidedly negative; and that is just one of many many effects a nuclear power accident has.

Yet for all their supposed education, all those nuclear scientists and fine brains failed to even consider that Tsunamis happen fairly regulary in Japan and their total consideration of the risks at Fukushima was one page.

Not surprisingly TEPCO are heading toward bankruptcy:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4639a818-9020-11e0-85a0-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss

As usual for the Nuclear Power Industy the fall guy is the Tax Payer.

Never ceases to amaze how communist, capitalists become when the chips are down.

Walker

Edited June 6, 2011 by walker

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Oops. Yawn,

Japan Finds Plutonium One Mile Away From Fukushima, Doubles Radiation Leak Estimate

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/japan-finds-plutonium-one-mile-away-fukushima-doubles-radiation-leak-estimate

In a double whammy of bad news from the mainstream media blackouted Fukushima (or perhaps the general population just doesn't care any more) today we learn that not only did The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) double its estimate of the radiation leak in the early days of the Fukushima catastrophe, something we had predicted would happen eventually courtesy of the secretive Japanese government, but that Plutonium from Fukushima has now been found in the town of Okuma, over 1 mile away from the stricken Nuclear Power Plant.

Reported by my crew a few months ago. Have a nice sushi, everyone.

[walker 0]

Hi all

TEPCO is preparing the way to admiting that there has been a full "China Sydrome" event at Fukushima.

'Melt-through' at Fukushima? / Govt report to IAEA suggests situation worse than meltdown

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has possibly melted through pressure vessels and accumulated at the bottom of outer containment vessels, according to a government report obtained Tuesday by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

A "melt-through"--when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels--is far worse than a core meltdown and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.

The possibility of the situation at the plant's Nos. 1 to 3 reactors was raised in a report that is to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110607005367.htm

As Always follow the link to the full original text

I am trying to get hold of a copy of the report.

Hoping this is not true walker

---------- Post added at 12:11 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:46 PM ----------

Hi all

I am Afraid the evidense is there.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B7UHJ4II

Bottom right hand corner of the Pdf

Walker

[Infam0us 10]

I accidently, all over the thread :(

[walker 0]

Hi all

Has any one done the maths for a "China Sydrome" event?

Is there any computer modeling of a full scale core melt down and melt through of containment?

They are having a significant rise in radiation levels from the point above funnel 3 of 4000? I am presuming they are mSv/h as with the other monitoring but there is no key so I can not be sure.

Walker too shocked for more

Edited June 7, 2011 by walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

TEPCO has now admitted that they now think all three reactors have suffered a "China Syndrome" event; where the core has melted down through both levels of containment

Japan fears meltdown worse than first thought

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 10/06/2011

Reporter: Mark Willacy

Japanese authorities admit nuclear material in the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant's reactor may have leaked into the ground.

Transcript

ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: Japanese authorities have admitted the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in March may have been worse than a core meltdown.

In an official report that will go to the UN's nuclear watchdog, Japan says nuclear fuel in three reactors possibly melted through several pressure vessels and into the earth below.

As North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports, a so-called melt-through is the worst outcome in a nuclear accident.

MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: For the Japanese the news from Fukushima gets worse every day.

This week it went from a reactor meltdown to what they're calling a melt-through.

GOSHI HOSONO, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO JAPANESE PM (Translation): At present there is damage to the bottom of the reactor container, we call this ‘core melting’ in English. Part of the nuclear fuel has fallen onto the dry earth floor and it's possible that it's still lodged there.

MARK WILLACY: According to atomic experts, this is about as serious as it gets in a nuclear disaster. Dangerous levels of radioactive iodine and cesium have already contaminated the sea, the soil, groundwater, and the air...

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3241508.htm

As always follow the link to the original text in full

If so the TEPCO's disaster Dwarfs that of Chernobyl.

Essentially this means most of TEPCO and the industries work now, is just locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, and make work so that it appears something is being done. We essentially have one to three cores completely outside human control burrowing their way into the ground. The fabled SCRAMing of the reactor had no effect; like "Spent Fuel Rods" "SCRAM" was just pseudoscience marketing speak to fool everyone.

This also explains why we continue to see short half life radionuclide's in the area. Essentially the core(s) is/are still super-critical and active.

Hence civil societies trust in the company, the industry, government and the IAEA is declining especially after Greenpeace discovered hot-spots in various areas of Japan up to 60 kilometres away from the Plant including plutonium and strontium, the findings have since been confirmed by MEXT the Japanese Government science department.

Citizens are now doing their own monitoring:

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/8933-still-melting-citizens-monitor-fukushima-fallout.html

This will probably be more important in the next few months as the only analysis I have been able to find of what happens now makes clear:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20457%20CSE%20462%20Safety%20Analysis%20of%20Nuclear%20Reactor%20Systems/China%20Syndrome.pdf

The water table at Fukushima is believed to be less than 10m below the surface and a melt through would reach it in about 5 to 6 moths after leaving the containment.

At this point there is a risk of both a prompt criticality and explosion:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31746

Either way Fukushima will if that analysis is correct reach its most dangerous phase around 5 months after the melt through, which many now believe to have taken place in the first week of the disaster:

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/03/when-the-fukushima-meltdown-hits-groundwater/

The hope is that the core and the steel have mixed with the molten concrete and dispersed the radioactive material sufficiently to reduce neutron output sufficiently for it to cool and drop below criticality.

If that happens, and I hope that it does, then there will be a need to robot mine out the corium and extract it and the polluted rock, so as to reduce the period of water percolating through the rock into the water table thus reducing how many hundreds of years the water table of the region will be radioactive and how badly it affects the pacific fisheries.

I wondered why early in the reaction plan there was the requirement to construct a coffer dam ten metres below the ground surface at Fukushima all around the plant. They must have realised the risk even back then.

On a personal note I would be going for a 20m coffer dam; and making it a requirement for all existing nuclear plants. Heck, I would require a 20 meter coffer dam and base filled with boron and sand under every reactor in the light of what has happened at Fukushima. I would also create dispersion channels in the sand by layering sand with different melting temperatures so that in the event of a melt through the radioactive materials were spread out within the coffer dam as far as possible, thus creating a fail safe method of reducing criticality in the event of a melt through.

I find it shocking that the industry has not done more research in this field.

Certainly we should now assume all reactors meltdown if given the chance and will melt through as a result and so plan accordingly.

walker

Edited August 25, 2011 by walker

[Hans Ludwig 0]

The fuel rods are "burrowing" into the ground? WTF?

Edited June 12, 2011 by Hans Ludwig

[Rovka 14]

Perhaps it is meant to be: "sinking themselves into the ground"?

[Hans Ludwig 0]

I love how everyone stopped posting in this thread. I guess since MSM moved on so did everyone else?

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I love how everyone stopped posting in this thread. I guess since MSM moved on so did everyone else?

Since March 21st, when winds turned to Tokyo.

As I said, have a nice sushi everyone, forever and ever, one alpha, two alpha, three alpha particles ingested and it'll be the best bad sushi one could ever have.

[Rovka 14]

As for failing society-wide used systems: No like, no keep, no stay no pay. No use, no bruise and so forth..

You either adapt, or your species eventually end up having gone into extinction. And that's an unwritten law of nature herself.

Always has been, always will be.

The key to lengthen survival-time as far as mankind goes, is widespread reappliance of positive self-sustainance and focus of education on personal responsibility on your own part of whatever is happening.

We may not be guilty atm due to possible problem being caused by somebody else's behavior, but we all do have a part in accepting it, rejecting it, or not caring for it in the world and denying it has happened or pretending it never had excisted to be.

People sadly only learn best when piss hits their own fan, and shit starts hugging their own faces, going for a slide face first thrown into the mud before they learn to act appropriate to what is needed to be done differently.. As for the mud: Radioactive mud perhaps to keep it a bit ontopic here. (No pun intended btw.)

Edited June 13, 2011 by Thani '82
made long story short.. (hurray! :P)

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Head of Fukushima health study “Effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy… They come to people that are weak-spiritedâ€

http://enenews.com/head-fukushima-health-study-100-msvyr-pregnant-moms-effects-radiation-people-happy-laughing-people-weak-spirited-brood-fret

June 11th, 2011 at 07:18 PM

AMY GOODMAN: And a new study is being done by the prefecture, Aileen?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Yes, we’re very concerned that a health study is starting at the end of this month. This is concerning the effects of the Fukushima residents, on the prefectural citizens. It’s headed by a Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, who’s at the Atomic Bomb Research Institute. He’s the radiological health safety risk management adviser for the prefecture. He’s widely shown on national TV. He speaks widely in the prefecture, always saying there’s absolutely no concern with the levels of radiation in Fukushima. He says that mothers, even mothers exposed to 100 millisieverts, pregnant mothers, will not have any effect, health effect. Remember the number 100. Compared to that, the Soviet Union required a mandatory evacuation during Chernobyl at five millisieverts. This doctor is quoted as saying, “The effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy and laughing. They come to people that are weak-spirited, that brood and fret.†This is a direct quote. And he’s heading the study. And so, the citizens in Fukushima are very concerned. [...]

You know, I'm not quite sure if it's ignorance of the science of splitting an atom, or if it's general stupidity, people over there deserve whatever the fuck had condensed into their water supply and soil over these 3 months.

We can't be sympathetic, can't devise a plan to contain it, without them releasing true telemetry from that NPP. Oh, well.

P.S. This video of an ear-less bunny has 2.1 million views, most from Japan,

UqVY9azhH3U

If this is not the definition of a BANANA REPUBLIC, then I don't know what is. Bye-bye, Atomic Energy, the second-third world had hardly known you. LOL

Edited June 13, 2011 by Iroquois Pliskin

[Rovka 14]

No doubt body and mind are two elements strongly influencing one another, but it is rediculous to state that one can outlive 100 mS without dire personal consequences by laughing their arse off whilst disaster occurs around them...

[walker 0]

Hi all

Fukushima is showing signs of prompt criticality radiation spikes as would be be expected from a "China Syndrome" melt through with an uncontroled reactor core burrowing into the ground and hiting pockets of water before reaching the water table.

Hawaii Monitoring Stations Detect Spike in Fukushima Radiation

June 13, 2011

By Tim Flanegin

Early Friday morning (June 10, 2011), at about 3:00 A.M. local time, one of our new Monitoring Stations in Hawaii broadcast a Radiation Alert over the network, reaching a sustained level of over 100 CPM (Counts per Minute) for a period of about 15 minutes, peaking as high as 141 CPM at one point. The readings then subsided to normal background levels of about 37 CPM for that station, but within less than 2 hours, trended quickly up again to over 100 CPM for another 5 minutes or so. The graph at right depicts this activity...

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/06/hawaii-monitoring-stations-detect-spike-in-fukushima-radiation/

Follow the link to the original text in full

This may indicate the posibility of an explosion it may also cause sufficient neutrons to be released so as to make the Fukashima plant unworkable for humans.

I would expect it to cause a serious rise in the number of workers suffering radiation exposure beyond the already increased limits. Which is what we are seeing:

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Radiated workers may be drop in Fukushima bucket

Six more Tepco staff exposed beyond limit

Kyodo

Six more workers involved in efforts to contain the nuclear crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant are feared to have been exposed to radiation above the emergency limit, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

The announcement follows a finding that two Tepco employees suffered more than twice the maximum limit of 250 millisieverts that has been set exclusively for workers dealing with the crisis at the complex.

The eight are among some 3,700 workers who were involved in emergency work when the crisis began in March, the nuclear safety agency said.

Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said Tepco has submitted provisional assessments of the external and internal radiation exposure levels for 2,400 of the workers to the government, indicating that the number who received the maximum dose is likely to climb even further...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110614a1.html

Meanwhile high levels of Strontium that can only created by a reactor core have been found in Sea Water. This confirms a large scale reactor containment breach.

High levels of strontium at Fukushima

06.13.11 - 1:19 pm | Sarah Phelan

More bad news for Japan and its stricken fishing industry: Tokyo Electric Power Company says radioactive strontium up to 240 times the legal concentration limit has been detected in seawater samples near an intake at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

According to Japan Times, the utility said the substance was also found in groundwater near the plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors. And Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it is the first time that the substance has been found in groundwater—and that is necessary to carefully monitor the possible effects of the strontium on fishery products near the plant. Strontium tends to accumulate in bones and is believed to cause bone cancer and leukemia...

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/06/13/high-levels-strontium-fukushima

As always follow the link to the original text in full

If you look back you will see that it also agrees with the prediction made for a worst case scenario at Fukishima where a "China Syndrome" event would hit the water table and leach into the sea and cause the long term destruction of the Pacific fisheries, while making Northern Japan uninhabitable.

If all three reactors have gone "China Syndrome" then we have an event that dwarfs Chernobyl:

http://www.westhartfordnews.com/articles/2011/06/13/opinion/doc4df67175d25c5029052690.txt

I still hold out hope that this is not what is happening, but increasingly I fear that we are looking at an event that will change the world we live in.

The human cost of Fukushima continues:

The once pro nuclear, Local Government of Fukushima city has lost faith in TEPCO, the government, the nuclear industry and the IAEA, and has started issuing radiation monitors to all its Children.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/fukishima-to-hand-out-radiation-gauges-to-34000-children/story-e6frf7jx-1226075110873

This is following the trend of the Japanese people to stop trusting in government and industry controled monitoring and start setting up independent monitoring systems:

http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/2011/06/08/video-fuji-tv-covers-independent-radiation-survey-in-fukushima-1-of-2/

Hardly surprising realy, since SPEEDI the government controled radiation monitoring system has been and remains censored as soon as the radiation levels got disturbing.

http://www.bousai.ne.jp/eng/

A Dairy Farmer who is outside the FEZ and thus believed himself unlikely to get compensation after milk the from the whole region he lives in was rejected for higher than allowed radiation levels commited suicide.

http://en.trend.az/regions/world/ocountries/1890997.html

Meanwhile in a continuation of Conservative Captilism's Conversion to Commmunism: another not to be exposed to moral hazards company Too BIG To Fail TEPCO is to be Bailed out by the Tax Payer in yet another Western Welfare for the Wealthy program!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576384952194006370.html

Not surprisingly the people in Japan against Nuclear Power has risen to 74%: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/japan-poll-finds-most-back-a-nuclear-free-future/story-e6frg6so-1226075144056

Meanwhile Italy has joined the bandwagon of countries banning Nuclear Power after a referendum in the country came out 95% against Nuclear Power:

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE75C1IZ20110613

walker

Edited June 14, 2011 by walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

***Breaking News***

There appears to have been a Prompt Critical event, resulting in an Explosion and subsequent Fire at Fukushima plant 4; that is the "Too Radioactive to use" Fuel Pool.

The news has not reached the main media out lets yet.

2sE6050Vhh0

I will try to find out more.

Ohh No!

You can see the Cherenkov Radiation. ~1.05 in the video.

Walker

---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:59 PM ----------

Hi all

Main stream media has noticed

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/06/apparent-explosion-and-fire-at-fukushima-4/

The Fukushima live cam site has been taken down [Edit now back up] There seems to have been considerable dammage to building 4.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index-j.html

There appears to be a media blackout. Information still comming in from bloggers.

Walker

Edited June 15, 2011 by walker

[.kju 3240]

Walker often times it is useful to give time a chance.

Jumping on the first horse you see is not always a good idea.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Sorry apears ABC report was from the previous fire, not the current one.

So far only one news outlet, Youtube and the Blogosphere are carrying the news on the new fire and explosion at Fukushima.

Walker

Edited June 15, 2011 by walker

[.kju 3240]

Walker I recommend you to follow this one:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com

More recommendations here:

http://fukushima.physikblog.eu/discussion/42/linksammlung

If you are good in German, follow that forum.

[walker 0]

Hi PvPscene

Follow both of them already.

But this is more relevant:

http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Not%20A%20Mothership

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/984763/41974277#c2

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 15, 2011 by walker