Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1455

"Old", but I'm just running through: Stricken Fukushima nuke plant leaking oil search.japantimes.co.jp
by Markfm 5/31/2011 4:54:39 PM

TEPCO begins streaming video of Fukushima nuclear plant on homepage mdn.mainichi.jp
by Markfm 5/31/2011 4:55:21 PM

@Nancy, also look at the TEPCO http web address for the cam, delete it back to the /nu/ and look what they have sitting there. Looks like a bunch of stuff on all their plants (in Japanese).
by wtm 5/31/2011 4:56:55 PM

Some Fukushima soil same as Chernobyl 'dead zone' search.japantimes.co.jp
by Markfm 5/31/2011 4:58:23 PM

From Today’s JAIF Earthquake report (stories from NHK): (Fukushima NPP Site) ●Explosion heard near No.4 reactor ●Government tells TEPCO to test more workers ●TEPCO begins live video stream from Fukushima ●TEPCO studies workers' iodine consumption ●TEPCO tackles increasing contaminated water
●Seawater purifiers to be set at Fukushima plant ●High radioactivity levels at No.1 reactor ●Fukushima workers exposed to high radiation ●Internal exposure concerns (Other news) ●1,800 yet to evacuate ●Radiation exceeds limit in Iitate & Namie
by Markfm 5/31/2011 5:03:53 PM

NHK: "Tokyo Electric Power Company says a water sample taken from the reactor (#1)
building's basement on Friday contained 2.5 million becquerels of radioactive
cesium-134 per cubic centimeter. It also detected 2.9 million becquerels of
cesium-137 and 30,000 becquerels of iodine-131.
The levels are almost the same as those already measured in contaminated water
in the basement of the Number 2 reactor's turbine building."
by Markfm 5/31/2011 5:06:40 PM

Germany finally updated the CTBTO I-131 graph. www.bfs.de
by Bobby1 via Bfs.de 5/31/2011 5:08:47 PM

Ya see, if Tepco is waiting for the corium blobs to cool down via decay heat, it won't happen, because re-criticality keeps occurring.
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:16:51 PM

Scientists Estimate Radiation Doses To Wildlife Near Fukushima
Nuclear Disaster: Animals and plants near the Japanese nuclear plant may have received unsafe doses
pubs.acs.org
by Panserbjorne9 5/31/2011 5:20:39 PM

May 31, 2011
Safety violations at Diablo Canyon nuclear plant
On April 26, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff did a safety inspection at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, as part of NRC inspections of all U.S. reactors that were triggered by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan.
calcoastnews.com
by Panserbjorne9 5/31/2011 5:21:41 PM

@bobby1, is there explanation of the graph somewhere? I don't see time indicted.
by Ian 5/31/2011 5:23:29 PM

Deformed hamsters born in Tokyo translate.google.com
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:26:02 PM

Has anyone confirmed that the EPA detected plutonium? I've seen many pages that attribute a graph to EPA data that seems to trace to a Japanese blog. But I've never found this data on the EPA's site. I'd like to reference this, but only if I can confirm that it is from the EPA's test data.
by Ian 5/31/2011 5:28:55 PM

@Ian good evening I am just in and happy to go looking I saw a quote from tepco about it this morning
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 5:34:17 PM

@Ian we found it in an EPA database that they were not making easy to find on their website. What we don't know yet is the origin of the plutonium. So if it is old and left over from something else or new and from Japan is unsure. Some research needs to be done into the various types of plutonium to figure out if there is a way to tell origin or age.
by Nancy 5/31/2011 5:43:00 PM

@Ian The graph is of air concentration of iodine-131 at Takasaki Japan, and supposedly 8 other places around the world. There was a sudden spike in I-131 on the 22nd, soon after the bright pink flash and smoke show was observed on the JNN video feed.
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:44:04 PM

A bit of background on the plutonium, from Berkeley: www.nuc.berkeley.edu
by Markfm 5/31/2011 5:44:55 PM

@Ian this report has links etc and a wonderful tepco quote re plutonium being dispersed to far flung places www.bloomberg.com
"When asked to comment on the report today, Tokyo Electric spokesman Tetsuya Terasawa said the radiation levels are in line with those found after a nuclear bomb test, which disperses plutonium. He declined to comment further."
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 5:48:29 PM

Thanks Markfm, elainekirk, Nancy and Bobby! Right Nancy, I feel the plutonium EPA tests need more interpretation. But at the least Tepco reported plutonium on the campus. @Bobby1, curious, though I think the bright light on JNN was just a video-gain artifact. It lasted too long and was always in the dead center of the screen. Is there a link to that i131 data other than the image? It seems to have a line indicating the leel of i131 from Chrnobyl, and that I guess the level on the 2nd were about there.
by Ian 5/31/2011 5:55:41 PM

Same chlorine smell in California that was in Tokyo yesterday (I-131?) www.nuc.berkeley.edu
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:56:11 PM

Hi all! @Bobby1 I live in CA..no chlorine smell. As far as I know radiation is odorless and colorless.
by LM 5/31/2011 5:57:53 PM

@Ian It was also detected in high levels in the pool under reactor #2, but I don't have the link in front of me.
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:58:01 PM

@LM Iodine is an chemical element, it has properties.
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 5:59:03 PM

Here's a potent search term: site:tepco.co.jp plutonium
by Ian 5/31/2011 6:01:53 PM

www.google.com
by Ian 5/31/2011 6:03:31 PM

@ian - actually one of the intriguing things about the flash on 21 May was that it wasn't in the centre of the frame - see the false colour flash in particular fukushimafaq.wikispaces.com
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:05:50 PM

@nancy are you there this (if you haven't got it) is all the faults at fukushima area including the one IN the power station
www.tepco.co.jp
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 6:06:14 PM

Press Release (May 31,2011)
Submission of information regarding the fault unconsidered in the seismic design of TEPCO's Nuclear Power Station.
www.tepco.co.jp
This links to the faults plan
www.tepco.co.jp
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 6:09:01 PM

And here is a detailed seismic report....in Japanese.....but the detailed diagrams are interpretable by sight iykwim
www.tepco.co.jp
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 6:12:06 PM

Numerous Fukushima papers listed on PubMed : www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
by Ian 5/31/2011 6:14:56 PM

Fukushima cleanup could cost up to $250 billion
A private think tank says the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could cost Japan up to 250 billion dollars over the next 10 years.
The estimate is part of the Nuclear Safety Commission's ongoing survey of opinions on the disaster from nuclear and other experts.
Kazumasa Iwata, president of the Japan Center for Economic Research, gave the estimate on Tuesday.
He said the costs of the accident could range from nearly 71 to 250 billion dollars. The figure includes 54 billion to buy up all land within 20 kilometers of the plant, 8 billion for compensation payments to local residents, and 9 to 188 billion to scrap the plant's reactors.
Iwata said a drastic review of the government's nuclear energy policy is necessary to fund the cleanup.
He said the government could channel about 71 billion dollars to the necessary fund over the next decade by freezing research and development projects linked to the nuclear fuel cycle.
Another 150 billion could come from Tokyo Electric Power Company's reserve fund, and the government's nuclear energy-related budgets.
The Nuclear Safety Commission plans to continue interviewing experts over the coming months, and to incorporate outside ideas in future debates on nuclear energy.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 17:28 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:16:36 PM

TEPCO waited 12 hours to announce pump failure at No. 5 reactor
Tokyo Electric Power Co. acknowledged it delayed announcing a pump failure at the No. 5 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and that its backup plan did not run smoothly.
The utility learned of the failure at 9 p.m. on May 28, but it did not disclose the problem to the public until 9 a.m. the following day, during which time water in the reactor neared the boiling point.
The Fukushima prefectural government issued a warning to TEPCO to immediately disclose information concerning the crippled nuclear power plant, the company said.
The failure was caused by a defective electric circuit in a makeshift pump that injects seawater used to remove heat from the spent fuel rod storage pool and the reactor itself, TEPCO said.
The company said it delayed its announcement of the problem because it had to immediately connect the system to a backup pump.
TEPCO also said it had another emergency water-injection means on hand if the situation deteriorated further.
Work to connect the cooling system to a backup pump started at 8 a.m. on May 29, 11 hours after the problem was detected.
The backup system started working at 12:50 p.m., the company said.
However, the connecting work took more than four hours to complete, longer than the three hours TEPCO initially expected.
During the connection work, water temperature at the reactor rose to 94.8 degrees, compared with 60.8 degrees at 5 p.m. on May 28.
The utility said it managed to keep the temperature below 100 degrees, allowing the reactor to remain in a "cold shutdown" state.
The company said it would have adopted other emergency water-injection measures if the temperature had risen above 100 degrees.
/rest of article at www.asahi.com
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:20:51 PM

Here is that California plutonium graph. www.cartoradiations.fr
by Bobby1 via Cartoradiations.fr 5/31/2011 6:21:44 PM

High levels of strontium detected at Fukushima
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has detected high levels of a radioactive substance that tends to accumulate in human bones.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it took soil samples on May 9th at 3 locations about 500 meters from the No.1 and No.2 reactors and analyzed them.

The utility detected up to 480 becquerels of radioactive strontium 90 per kilogram of soil. That's about 100 times higher than the maximum reading recorded in Fukushima Prefecture following atmospheric nuclear tests carried out by foreign countries during the Cold War era.

TEPCO reported detecting 2,800 becquerels of strontium 89 per kilogram of soil at the same location.

This is the second time since April that radioactive strontium has been found inside the plant compound. www3.nhk.or.jp
by LM 5/31/2011 6:23:00 PM

Opera stars, fearing radiation, cancel
AP
Two of the biggest stars of New York's Metropolitan Opera have bowed out of a Japan tour, citing fears of radioactive contamination and sending the company scrambling to find last-minute stand-ins.
Soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Joseph Calleja announced just days before the opening show that they would not join the tour of Nagoya and Tokyo despite experts' assurances they would be safe, forcing the Met to "scour the world" for replacements, general manager Peter Gelb said Tuesday.
"Part of what makes opera such an exciting art form is that it is so unpredictable," Gelb remarked. "If there were a rationality clause in opera singers' contracts, not many opera singers would perform."
The disaster and the uncertainty it spawned caused a spate of concert cancellations, and the arts scene is only now returning to normal.
Along with pop music and sports events, classical concerts by the Vienna Boys Choir, the Lyon Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra also were nixed, along with performances by violinists Hillary Hahn and Anne Sophie Mutter.
search.japantimes.co.jp
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:24:11 PM

WOW I wonder how confident the IAEA are that they will have suffered no ill effects from their visit ?
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 6:29:02 PM

The nuclear environmental disaster of Fukushima Daiichi is just beginning. www.next-up.org
by Bobby1 5/31/2011 6:30:40 PM

@hudebnik, yeah, now I see it was off-center a bit. Too bad the camera didn't move around then. We might get further chances to observe this phenomenon.
by Ian 5/31/2011 6:33:10 PM

@Ian - and in deb's blue video, taken several hours later, it still isn't in the centre. I'm still searching for an explanation for the flash, tho not the pink/blue effects.
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:36:36 PM

This is for @radioguy when you look in - have you had a moment to try out greyscaling the flash pics as we discussed? (Sorry to nag!)
by hudebnik 5/31/2011 6:37:53 PM

A local nugget..Another Oopsy at San Onofre Nuke Plant. www.sdcitybeat.com
by LM 5/31/2011 6:37:53 PM

Very quiet tonight are people starting to feel impotent there used to be such fire on here
by elainekirk 5/31/2011 7:46:05 PM

Hi Elaine! Just popped in..looked on Tepco live...smoke from 3.....I think. I can't wait until the TBS cam clears. The Tepco cam location was very carefully chosen for closeness without showing a whole lot.
by LM 5/31/2011 7:50:31 PM

TEPCO gets worker safety rebuke
The health ministry on Tuesday ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. and a partner firm to correct practices regarding their failure to prevent workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant from being exposed to radiation.

www.yomiuri.co.jp
by Panserbjorne9 5/31/2011 7:50:58 PM

@elainekirk I think there's some of that, but I know from my point here, you can only run at emergency level for so long before you have to catch up with other stuff. We all know this is not going away. Today's my world hits show, so I'm prepping that.
by radioguy 5/31/2011 7:53:57 PM