ScribbleLive

I hope organic means that they don't spread sewage sludge on their soil. Sludge from contaminated areas in the US like San Diego or Phoenix is being applied now to farmland all over the US. This is a huge issue.

General Daiichi Situation Summary 6/17/11

1. Reactors 1-3 all ~100% Fuel Meltdown. All 3 RPV's have holes in them at various levels allowing highly contaminated water to leak out to buildings. Suspected Corium leaks from all 3 RPV's to torus, supression chamber and even concrete basemat. Large amounts of water need to be continuosly added to keep the mess cool. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 no known (or expected) problems.

2. Spent Fuel Pools
#1 Hot. Water being added to keep cool
#2 Cooling provided by newly installed heat exchanger system
#3 Hot. Water being added to keep cool
#4 Hot. Water being added to keep cool. Structural damage known and being reenforced.
#5, 6 and Common no known current issues

3. All reactor/Turbine buildings have large amounts of Highly Radioactive water in their basement areas.

4. Highly radioactive water has been transferred to the waste storage building (not tank) as temporary storage. This water is leaking out and all the turbine buildings are suspected of leaking to the sea and or groundwater.

5. The radioactive water is an enormous challenge. They estimate they currently are dealing with ~100,000 Tons of highly radioactive water in the buildings and temporary storage tanks. This tonnage increases every day. For perspective, the 136-meter-long, 46-meter-wide mega-float can store around 10,000 tons of water.Systems have now been put in place, and tested, to start treating this water. Their success will start to be seen in the next several days.

6. The plant area is already plagued with a high (pre quake) ground water level.

7. Reactor buildings all have extremely high radiation levels throughout, making stay/work times for humans very short inside.

8. The site itself is highly contaminated and some areas have very high radiation levels associated with them. Some areas have been "plasticized" to render this radioactivity immobile, and this work continues.

9. Several of the reactor buildings, spent fuel pools and yard areas continue to release radioactivity to the air, thereby adding additional radioactivity to the surrounding area and remaining population.

10. An evacuation zone of 30 Kilometers has been established, most people have complied with evacuation. Some population centers beyond the 30Km have been directed to evacuate, compliance is somewhat less in these areas.

11. People outside the evacuation zone are still having to deal with elevated radiation and soil radioactivity levels in their daily lives. These radiation and radioactivity levels do not impose immediate danger, but exposure at these levels will increase the risk of illness for these people.

12. The people in and around the affected area are suffering, both mentally and physically, from the dislocation, fears and exposure to this Unprecedented (3 plants at INES 7) nuclear disaster.

In closing, I haven't spoken of the massive tsunami and earthquake that occurred, and all the resultant victims and survivors, it is not out of a lack of compassion or empathy. My heart bleeds for these people, but that is a natural dissaster, the People of Japan know how to deal with it and will. Daiichi is a man made disaster that only required severe adverse nature to start the ball rolling.

@lillymunster not much has changed on staus since 6/2, but any comments or changes are welcome, and then prehaps replace the 6/2 post

3 just seems ugly, with those consistent high temperatures.

@RBeaner 11. People outside the evacuation zone are still having to deal with elevated radiation and soil radioactivity levels in their daily lives. These radiation and radioactivity levels do not impose immediate danger, but exposure at these levels will increase the risk of illness for these people. <--- nonsense, there are radiation exposure symptoms being reported all the way to Tokyo.

Beats me on #3. They've been pushing in 11 to 12 cubic meters of water per hour for a long time. Either that beast is leaking like a sieve or something bad has happened in the core, some kind of big mass that the water just isn't able to cool. Dean would likely have better insight.