ScribbleLive

S.&P. Downgrades Japan's Outlook to Negative

"Nearly seven weeks after a powerful earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, the Japanese economy is still struggling to return to normal, and the country faces reconstruction costs that could severely strain its already stretched public finances.

The latest warning about the country’s fiscal health came on Wednesday, when Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook on Japan to negative, saying that the massive costs of rebuilding the devastated areas — which it estimated as high as ¥50 trillion, or $612.6 billion — could lead to a lower credit rating unless the government steps up its efforts to keep high government debt levels from rising much further.

The ratings agency kept its long-term rating for the Japanese economy, which it had downgraded in January, unchanged at AA-. But its now negative outlook highlighted the huge uncertainty that overshadows the country’s recovery from the March 11 disaster.

Nearly 26,000 people are missing or have died, tens of thousands of buildings were flattened and hundreds of thousands of cars destroyed. The flow of components and spare parts needed by manufacturers was thrown into disarray, and damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station severely disrupted power supplies in key parts of the country."
www.nytimes.com

After Quake in Japan, Toyota Slowly Regains Its Footing

"Still, Japan’s auto industry can go only so far toward meeting local demand while trying not to neglect its global customers. Toyota’s plants in Japan are now working at only 50 percent of normal production levels, and Honda’s factories are at similar levels. Nissan’s plants are producing at only 40 percent.

“Much of what we can produce, we are sending into the afflicted areas,” Shiro Nagai, a Nissan spokesman in Yokohama, said. “At the same time, we are trying to revive operations up and down the supply chain, from suppliers to dealers.”

Last week Toyota said it did not expect to return to normal production volumes before the end of the year. And on Tuesday, in a conference call with reporters, a Toyota executive said the company had only about two-and-a-half months’ worth of finished vehicles in its global inventory and remained hampered by a shortage of about 150 critical parts.

The “most critical” shortages include microprocessing units for computerized car controls, rubber items and paint additives."

Fukushima Operator Starts Test-Drowning Damaged Reactor

"Tokyo Electric Power Company has increased the flow of water into the containment vessel of the damaged No.1 reactor to test whether the construction can withstand increased weight and to check for possible leaks.
­If the test is successful, TEPCO will go on with its plan to drown fuel rods at the No.1 and No.3 reactors to make them cool down in a controlled manner, reports NHT TV channel. The current schedule would see the operation completed by July.
As more water is being pumped in, experts monitor temperature, pressure and radiation levels in the containment vessels via remotely operated robots.
The reactor is already partially drowned with water about six meters deep. Once TEPCO’s plan is fulfilled, the water will be 18.8 meters high and will completely cover the fuel rods. The operation was conceived specifically for the Fukushima disaster and had never been tried before, reports Itar-Tass news agency.
Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant was badly damaged due to the powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami which hit Japan in March. Two of its reactors, which were loaded with fuel at the time of disaster, went into partial meltdown.
The event is considered one of the worst-ever nuclear incidents, sparking public fears over the risks of nuclear energy throughout the world."
rt.com

i am more skeptical of the goverments and tepco, wonder how many nano particals have found a home.

TEPCO boss wanted use of SDF plane / Minister nixed March 11 plan to rush to HQ
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu tried to fly to Tokyo from Aichi Prefecture on an Air Self-Defense Force airplane on March 11 after the massive earthquake that struck that day, but his permission to use the aircraft was revoked shortly after it took off, it has been learned.

About 20 minutes after takeoff, the ASDF C-130 Hercules transport plane carrying Shimizu was ordered by Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa to change course and return to Komaki Air Base in the prefecture.

Shimizu's attempt to rush to TEPCO's Tokyo head office on the ASDF plane to help manage the response to the disaster had been authorized by the Cabinet's emergency response team, government sources said Tuesday.

The defense minister had not been informed of the plan, ministry officials admitted.

When Kitazawa learned of the plan, he said the aircraft should be kept available to use for disaster-relief efforts, and immediately revoked permission for Shimizu to use the plane, the sources said.

However, Kitazawa's order did not reach officers at Komaki Air Base until more than 10 minutes after the plane took off, according to the sources."
www.yomiuri.co.jp

@Edano I think Arnie uses the same wig shop as Donald Trump.

@Reed , flawed MIT logic. Reprocessing was deemed necessary to reduce the waste that needs to go into end storage. Plutonium is supposed to be used as fuel not because of a shortage of uranium, but because of an abundance of plutonium. The MIT proposal is going to increase the volume of waste that needs to be stored and safe-guarded.

"Much higher readings in parts of Tokyo vs a few days ago" "Radiation in the #1 building is at highest levels since the crisis" falloutphilippines.blogspot.com

@Reed , I guess that is why Sellafield and Le Hague are on the sea.

@all. I have some inside info from a Japanese reporter that they shared with me. They state they talked to an industrial electrician and a govt. official in the industry. Below is what they shared:

Some updated information about the plant.(updated 26th April Japan Local time)
Source of the imformation below is electricity mechanic who has been
working in the plant, and Government Official realated to nuclear
development.

<<<< 1 >>>>
One of the electricity mechanic told me that it is almost impossible
to recover the original power bord in plant2. Half of the circuit
breaker is under water, and the water it self is highly contaminated.

<<<< 2 >>>>
For plant1, it has been decided that they are going to use air-cooling
heat exchange system, instead of water-cooling system.(Government
official)They say that they will have it ready by next month, and
begin cooling the plant as soon as it arrives.

<<<< 3>>>>
For plant4, though there is no nuclear fuel rod inside the plant,
there are used ones gathered in pool to be cooled douwn.
The problem is that the main frame of the building that sustains the
pool is badly damaged by fire, and if next quake strikes the plant,
they are not sure if it could hold.
To solve this problem,Tokyo Electric Company is planning to build an
iron frame column from the bottom of the pool to prevent it from
breaking up. They say that this could be done by the end of June.
Hope that no quake will strike until then....

@Reed, on a serious note, I believe the knell of death to the nuclear industry will be that nobody will be able to resolve the fuel cycle in a sustainable fashion. If the spent fuel is not reprocessed, the radionuclides with hundreds of thousands of years half life will be part of that waste in the dry casks forever. These casks may fix the current problems with overcrowding the SFPs, but do not constitute a long-term solution. The so much touted safer reactor designs do not address this question at all.

@Scilla That is the first strontium result published since March 18. A cursory look at gross beta radiation from Radnet suggests that it is a much bigger problem.

@Peter Melzer I think you're correct. I read here that the global renewable energy output surpassed the nuclear energy output for the first time this year. I hope that that trend continues until all waste is safely stored and no more is generated.

Does stronium 89 act in the same ways and with the same bad outcomes as stronium 90?

@fitter I am still working on trying to get a source to translate things. The report that #2 is likely not getting additional electricity working probably ever is of note. I didn't put much stock in TEPCO's claims that they could get back into the reactors and get core systems running again. What wasn't ruined by the earthquake has by now been ruined by the radioactive salt water. I noticed the news reports have removed #2 from their "fill them up" plan. I guess the fact that it is leaking like a screen door ruined that. So what will they do with #2? They seem to have no game plan.

@Nancy Did you see the Tera Bq/hr conversion that you wanted ?
@Optim The level escaping the plant is supposedly down, but they're discovering higher and higher levels as they explore the interiors of the reactors.

@Nancy That's the major difference much shorter half-life. Chemically no diff, of course.

Is the rubble counted? :
 
The commission calculates the volume of radioactive material discharged based on radiation measurements taken at several places around the plant. Radioactive emissions on April 5 were estimated at 1 trillion becquerels per hour.

"Radiation dosages around the plant are on a downward trend. Emissions of radioactive material have diminished to about one-hundredth [of levels earlier this month]," the commission told reporters Monday.

www.yomiuri.co.jp

(Apr. 27, 2011)

Somebody took down Dean's pin for the decay calculator :(

- We have been confirming the exposure dose of each worker during the
emergency work at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. On April
27th,2011, we have confirmed that the effective exposure dose from
January 1st, 2011 to March (Fourth quarter of the 2010 fiscal year) of a
female employee who has been in the restoration work after the
Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake is 17.55 mSv, which is an excess
of statutory dose limits (5 mSv / 3 months). With regard to the female
employee, we have confirmed that there is no impact on her health
according to medical diagnosis www.tepco.co.jp Another "no harm to human health"...