Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 868

Rules near N-plant put doctors in tight spot www.yomiuri.co.jp Basically, rules forbid hospitals to accept inpatients within the 30km zone, so if someone needs hospitalization they need to be sent further away.
by Markfm 4/27/2011 6:52:57 PM

@Anybody hazard a guess on how many liters are in the basement(s)?
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 6:54:23 PM

Kyodo, Japan to scrap workers' annual radiation dose limit at normal times english.kyodonews.jp They are wiping out the limits to have enough workers to handle the non Fukushima-daiichi 1 units.
by Markfm 4/27/2011 6:54:52 PM

@Jim Carver www.world-nuclear-news.org

I re-found the link.
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 6:54:58 PM

Including #4 basement that had 5m of water already as of a week ago, before they started the really huge surge of spraying?
by Markfm 4/27/2011 6:55:47 PM

@Jim Carver My understanding is there was 67,500 tons (tonnes?) of water in all three basements, roughly 20,000 tons/tonnes each. That's ovef 20,000,000 liters per.
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 6:57:26 PM

Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant www.nytimes.com "get along, make no waves"
by Markfm 4/27/2011 6:59:04 PM

@General Armchair and they have a plan to get 10,000 of it out by what was it, end of May?
by radioguy 4/27/2011 7:00:23 PM

@General Armchair K, they are (that link) saying tepco said that there are 25 000 tonnes of water under #2. So that's 25 000 000 liters or 25 million liters. That's just under #2, now they also say they move 480 tonnes a day out. Doesn't take an accountant to figure this one out.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:01:33 PM

@Markfm Isn't that now the atomic stewpot?
by radioguy 4/27/2011 7:02:05 PM

Americium and curium detected at plant (Japanese) www.yomiuri.co.jp
by Bobby1 4/27/2011 7:02:30 PM

4 just has a gentle glow compared to whatever is in the #2 torus (or whatever used to be in it)
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:02:49 PM

But since the water level is rising by their own admission. They're not even keeping up with what they have to add.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:05:46 PM

@all Has anybody come across TEPCO's Plan B for Unit 1? I read somewhere that "drowning the containment" isn't going to work for some reason. So what's the next idea?
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 7:08:44 PM

@General Armchair last I saw was that they were considering the flooding option.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:09:54 PM

#4 has had a fresh 1085 tons of water for the week of 20 - 26 April
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:10:31 PM

Well if you say two different things, you can never be wrong, right?
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:10:46 PM

@Markfm Okay, well they could catch up eventually, I guess. I'm for the flooding, since gotta do it eventually anyway. Their hallmark is too little, too late. So i don't have my hopes up.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:13:04 PM

From the JAIF report, concerning adding water to #1: "TEPCO also says it will make sure that the containment vessel, with the added
weight of the water inside, can withstand strong aftershocks." And just how are they doing that?
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:16:49 PM

Also from JAIF, concerning #4 SFP: "According to a schedule announced earlier on containing the ongoing emergency, TEPCO plans to install concrete pillars to support the fuel pool by around July to increase its earthquake resistance."
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:18:17 PM

@Markfm Geez, more gooble de ****. Like they can go in and do some construction work.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 7:18:35 PM

@General Armchair "So what's the next idea?" I believe air-cooling is the plan for this one.
by Rob in SF 4/27/2011 7:20:08 PM

JAIF, "TEPCO, says the radiation level in a tunnel at the No.2 reactor is especially high, and is transferring the water to a temporary storage site.
But the firm has also found high levels of radioactive substances at the site of the No. 4 reactor.
Last Thursday it detected 8,100 becquerels of cesium 137 and 7,800 becquerels of cesium 134 per cubic centimeter in the water in the turbine building's basement. The radioactive levels were about 250 times higher than a month before."
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:20:12 PM

@Markfm TEPCO (or someone) needs to explain how they propose to do this (the pillars in #4). I can't see how they will pull this off.
by Nancy 4/27/2011 7:24:00 PM

@Bobby1 can you interpret that for us noobs who are not keeping up on the isotopes? What does that indicate?
by Nancy 4/27/2011 7:25:23 PM

So the yomuir post below says that anericium and cerium was found 500m fron the NW of unit 1. And the 'no go' symbol on the survey map is in back of the admin bldg (main office bldg.). And as I posted earlier (re-posting) they were measuring high rates to the N. of admin bldg. and then stopped measuring there. And the admin. bldg is (according to there description on post) .5km NW of unit 1.....Guess there's my answer on why they stopped taking readings there. And why the only 'no-go'pics\radmonitoringNsideofadminbldg.png[/IMG]
by marie rich via I1207.photobucket 4/27/2011 7:25:49 PM

Well, the monster pump trucks actually are concrete pump trucks. Not sure how they create the forms in there.
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:26:16 PM

Katz is currently streaming live from Japan and is due to broadcast a live interview with Al Jazeera (for their 'The Stream' programme) shortly: yokosonews.com
by es 4/27/2011 7:27:20 PM

@es Oooh major echo!
by Nancy 4/27/2011 7:29:13 PM

@Jim Carver -- I can't find where I saw that the "flooding" plan had been abandoned. I thought it might have been on NHK, but I see on there now that they are continuing with the "flooding" plan.
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 7:29:31 PM

@Nancy The Al Jazeera programme is here: www.ustream.tv
by es 4/27/2011 7:32:40 PM

@General Armchair. This article talks about abandoning unit 1 flooding. I guess it's old news ?? www.bloomberg.com
by Scilla 4/27/2011 7:33:35 PM

@Nancy Americium-241 is the daughter isotope of plutonium-241, that means plutonium decays into americium. Gundersen said americium was already detected in New England.
by Bobby1 4/27/2011 7:35:08 PM

@Scilla Thanks! I had just re-found that article -- that was what I had based my earlier comment on. I misread it -- it says they may have to abandon plan, not that they actually have.
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 7:37:52 PM

From the latest JAIF report, "The firm says robots on Tuesday detected radiation levels of up to 1,120 millisieverts per hour inside the No.1 reactor building. It says some contaminated water may be leaking from the reactor into external pipes." The increase of wtaer pumping into #1, test phase, was supposed to have occured on Wed, after those high rad readings on Tuesday. I haven't seen any report that it was called off.on Wednesday that I can see.
by Markfm 4/27/2011 7:38:26 PM

@General Armchair
The possible use of an air-cooling system like the one common in U.S. and European plants was among new details offered for a plan disclosed Sunday to bring under control the three damaged reactors at the center of Japan's nuclear crisis.

"An envisioned air-cooling system would look like those already used in French nuclear plants," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman and deputy director general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Tepco is sounding out potential manufacturers, the agency said.

Such systems aren't used in Japan, where reactors are located next to the ocean to employ heat exchangers that rely on cold ocean water. Japanese experts say that while an air-cooling system is less effective, it might provide a more practical alternative than repairing underground water-pumping systems. online.wsj.com
by Rob in SF 4/27/2011 7:43:28 PM

@all Does anybody know why they are going to remove radioactive contaminants from the water in the turbine buildgins before reinjecting back into the reactors to cool them? I can see getting rid of the salt, but what's the point of removing radioactive contamination? The water is just going to be contaminated again. Obviously eventually they will have to deal with the contamination, but why is this part of the overall 9 month TEPCO plan? Seems like just another headache and/or place for screw-ups, and I wonder if it's necessary. Any thoughts?
by General Armchair 4/27/2011 7:47:06 PM

@General Armchair "Any thoughts?"
I've been curious about that myself, the only thing I can think of is radiation embrittlement.
by Rob in SF 4/27/2011 7:49:46 PM

@General Armchair @Rob in SF Yes, embrittlement, and the outside of the pipes would be radioactive, and if they popped a leak again....
by marie rich 4/27/2011 7:50:51 PM

www.blogcdn.com
@Nancy "TEPCO (or someone) needs to explain how they propose to do this (the pillars in #4). I can't see how they will pull this off."
See above.
by Rob in SF via Blogcdn 4/27/2011 7:56:48 PM

@Markfm Well i think tepco is going to need a good case of "whip it" on this one. The problems with the water are pretty serious and to tell the truth I think they would like to dump it in the sea and forget it.
by Jim Carver 4/27/2011 8:07:56 PM

The radiation readings, assessed using iRobot Corp.'s Pakbot, showed that levels ranged from 10 to 49 millisieverts per hour on the ground floor of reactor No. 1, and 28 to 57 millisieverts in reactor No. 3. Workers are allowed to be exposed to a total of 250 millisieverts per year under Japan's regulations.

The robot wasn't sent into the No. 2 reactor building, believed to have the highest level of radiation.
by Rob in SF 4/27/2011 8:10:02 PM