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Areva Halts Construction of Virginia Reactor Component Plant
Citing unfavorable market conditions, Areva announced on Monday that it will indefinitely suspend construction of the Areva Newport News manufacturing facility.

The plant was to supply heavy parts like reactor vessels and steam generators for Areva’s U.S. EPR reactor. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Areva recently told Newport News’ development director that its goal is to restart construction in 18 months, but statements from Areva indicated the company does not know for sure when work on the project will resume. Last year, Areva and partner Huntington Ingalls Industries–Newport News Shipbuilding pushed the plant’s completion date from 2012 to 2013.

nuclearstreet.com

"Kan: Fukushima plant may be contained as scheduled
Prime Minister Naoto Kan says the accident-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may be brought under control in 6 to 9 months as laid out in a timetable released by its operator last month." www3.nhk.or.jp

@Hud With new bad news everyday, how can they do that? The workers time at the plant is simply too short to do effective work.

They would have to Apollo 13 it and recreate the plant on another site so workers could be familiar with the site while not getting radiation. Knowing my job is important, but knowing the job site takes a while.

"Crews fixing gauges inside Fukushima Daiichi unit 1 discovered water levels in the reactor were much lower than originally thought – likely 5 meters below the top of the 4-meter-long fuel rods."

Since when, the tsunami?!!!

nuclearstreet.com

Hi @bo

@bo - I was thinking - as the Fuku news is getting markedly worse (or reflecting the actual situation at last) it would be great if Kyodo would make their Nuclear crisis news feed open access again. I tried to email them but they won't accept gmail addresses. Do you have a contact who could ask them?

@hudebnik Agreed. It seems to have taken a while to gain traction, but the anger among the Japanese press has been apparent for a while.

There is so much I do not understand (not surprising) but the experts are also confused.

Good grief...

Govt preparing N-crisis road map
"The third-party panel will investigate the cause of the nuclear accident and discuss measures to prevent similar accidents. It will also review the government's and TEPCO's handling of the nuclear crisis.

The government plans to stipulate in its road map that full-fledged restoration activities for areas contaminated by radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will begin by autumn, so that the rebuilding activities in the areas will not lag behind those in other areas hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the sources said.

In its initial road map, TEPCO said it would seek to significantly reduce the amount of radioactive substances from the crippled nuclear complex within six to nine months. However, various newly-emerged factors forced the utility firm to review the plan."
www.yomiuri.co.jp

@all - one thing that has struck me lately is how much worse the fukushima accident is than any safety case ever envisaged. If a loss of coolant accident was something like once in 100,000 years and a loss of containment effectively/supposedly impossible, and we have 3 total containment failures.

Preliminary analysis shows that No. 1 had already entered a critical state by 6:50 a.m. on March 12, with most of its fuel having melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel, the plant operator said. Tepco released data Thursday showing some of the fuel rods had melted.

The reactor automatically halted operations immediately after the 2:46 p.m. quake, but the water level in the reactor dropped and the temperature began rising at around 6 p.m. The damage to the fuel rods had begun by 7:30 p.m., with most of them having melted by 6:50 a.m. the following day, the utility said.

search.japantimes.co.jp

In a related revelation concerning a major mixup after the six-reactor complex lost power, Tepco and other sources said the same day that the utility had assembled 69 power supply vehicles at the plant by March 12 but that these proved virtually useless.

The inability to use the vehicles delayed the damage control work at the plant, significantly worsening the emergency.

Tepco earlier said it had tried to connect the vehicles to power-receiving equipment needed to operate the water pumps intended to cool down the reactors. But this failed because the equipment was submerged in seawater from the tsunami, which posed the risk that the equipment would short out.

Tepco's account conflicts with the one detailed by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which mentioned the first arrival of such a vehicle on the evening of March 11 but stopped mentioning it the following day, as the focus of attention had shifted to the need to release radioactive steam to relieve pressure that had built up inside the containment vessel of reactor 1.

search.japantimes.co.jp

@Ralph Unger Yes. That was another screw-up.

@Ralph - major earthquakes are well-known to cause significant permanent ground movement, often 1 or 2 metres. It was well known that the fault to the east of Fukushima could cause a 'megathrust' quake it it went, and there was a very similar quake and tsunami in Indonesia on Boxing Day 7 years earlier, so the whole thing may not have need predictable but was anticipateable, especially as such a vulnerable facility.

Yep, and a geological record that showed 50ft tsunamis.

Sea sheel on a hillside 15 meters above sea level might be the first clue, the second clue would be a stone tablet marking the last large tsunami. www.cbsnews.com

"Shell" oops.

Shared ventilator stack that may have cause #4 explosion (from 3# gas) is pure negligence.