Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1789

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant restarted its new reactor cooling system on Wednesday after fixing faults in the hosing.

Tokyo Electric Power Company was forced to suspend the system's operation earlier in the day after plant workers detected water leaking from 2 holes in the hosing.

On Monday, TEPCO halted the system after 90 minutes of operation due to water leakage from a displaced joint connecting plastic hoses.

The system was restarted on Tuesday afternoon, but more leaks from another joint were found.

After the series of leaks, TEPCO says it will look at ways to strengthen the system's hosing.

Also on Wednesday, workers found water leaking from a storage tank for decontaminated water.

TEPCO says the leak stopped after about 2 hours. It is now investigating the cause.

The cooling system is designed to decontaminate radioactive wastewater accumulating at the plant and reuse the treated water to cool the reactors. The leaky tank is part of its devices to filter radioactive materials and salt.

TEPCO says the system holds the key to stabilizing the reactors and reducing the amount of contaminated water.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 15:28 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

dizzy ....
by Edano 6/29/2011 5:04:55 PM

New Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Raw Ariel Fly Over Video Taken Today June 27, 2011 youtu.be
by Majj 6/29/2011 5:11:49 PM

well, i use to follow the kyodo timeline (under "Latest News"). kyodo seems to me the fastest agency, and their news timeline was very correct in the past, so i take this for true. english.kyodonews.jp nhk is always a few hours back.
by Edano 6/29/2011 5:12:09 PM

Intake Structure that cools reactor probably most vulnerable at Ft. Calhoun nuke plant . Arnie Gundersen on Five O'clock Shadow with Robert Knight, WBAI, June 28, 2011 at 5:00 pm EDT: Intake structure probably the most vulnerable, not auxiliary and containment buildings.
Intake structure draws in river water that cools reactor and spent fuel pool... critical that it stay dry.
If gets water in it and emergency service water pumps fail then you've got a case where you're going to cause fuel damage...
probably the most vulnerable... youtu.be
by Majj 6/29/2011 5:15:50 PM

New Mexico site called model for nuclear waste disposal
A half-mile under the flat, scrubby desert in southeastern New Mexico, a warren of rectangular chambers is chiseled into a 250 million-year-old salt formation. For the last dozen years, forklifts have been filling these tombs with radioactive waste left over from the country's efforts to build nuclear bombs.

Sometime this year, the 10,000th shipment will arrive at the Waste Isolation Pilot Program, or WIPP, sealed in steel casks the size of elephants on the back of a flatbed truck hailing from one of 10 government nuclear development sites around the country.

The need for a site that could serve both as a dump that could be sealed off for thousands of years and an accessible storage locker made designing a facility far more difficult, and it led eventually to the troubled Yucca Mountain project.

Yucca was picked in part because proposed sites in Texas and in Washington were in districts controlled by powerful politicians at the time. Texas Rep. Jim Wright was the Speaker of the House. Washington Rep. Thomas Foley was House majority leader.

The legislation that led to Yucca was known as the "Screw Nevada" bill.

More: www.businessweek.com
by joniver 6/29/2011 5:27:21 PM

As of 2001 there was an understanding that MOX assemblies at Kashiwazaki would be inspected periodically. No time frame for exactly how often is in the document translate.google.com
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 6:18:38 PM

TEPCO vs. 'Guerilla' Animal Rescue Family www.theatlanticwire.com
by Panserbjorne9 6/29/2011 6:19:20 PM

@Panserbjorne9 : yes, and environmentalists are called "partisans" in japan. strange world there. how do they call tepco ? terrorists ?
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:26:29 PM

@Panserbjorne9 Maybe TEPCO could be charged with animal cruelty? If they want to assert they are "their" dogs.
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 6:27:45 PM

@lillymunster animal cruelty in the dolphin slaughter land ? what you are dreaming of ? :)
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:30:34 PM

probably the dogs are there "for scientific purposes".
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:33:07 PM

@Edano there are some rather weak animal cruelty laws in Japan that relate to domestic pets. Now that you mention it, there is an interesting disconnect between the two. :-)
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 6:44:15 PM

On page twenty of the GoJ report to the IAEA from Jun. : fukushima.grs.de "...NISA estimated that total discharged amount of iodine-131 and cesium-137 (into the atmosphere) were approximately 1.6 x 10e17 Bq and 1.5 x 10e16 Bq respectively. Nuclear Safety Commission estimated the discharged amount of certain nuclides to the atmosphere (discharged between March 11 to April 5) with assistance of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) from the back calculation based on the data of environmental monitoring and air diffusion calculation; the estimations are 1.5 x 10e17 Bq for iodine-131 and 1.2 x 10e16 Bq for cesium-137. The discharged amount since early April has been declining and is about 10e11 Bq/h to 10e12 Bq/h in iodine-131 equivalent." In the next paragraph release seawater is estimated. Do the numbers make sense?
by Peter Melzer 6/29/2011 6:45:04 PM

@Peter Melzer did you read bobby's report ?
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:46:32 PM

www.meti.go.jp
"UNSCEAR estimated total Chernobyl release was 1.2 x 10^19 Bq. The document says xenon just from #4 alone was 1.1 x 10^19 Bq.
@Edano I think it adds up to 2.4E19 Bq of xe-133 for all 4 units."
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:49:44 PM

@Edano , I just read that and only remember that you tried to estimate the source term. A release of roughly 10e10 Bq/h iodine-equivalent (whatever that is) is ongoing.
by Peter Melzer 6/29/2011 6:51:40 PM

@Peter Melzer : my calculation was about 10^18 bq. but the xenon release alone seems to be higher.
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:54:29 PM

and 10^18 was worst case scource term.
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:55:12 PM

meaningless numbers ....
by Edano 6/29/2011 6:57:10 PM

@Edano , and this figure estimates only releases into the atmosphere.
by Peter Melzer 6/29/2011 6:57:19 PM

@edano, the quest for the total release may conclude like Pflugbeil's quest for the Chernobyl release. I approximate his conclusion: "We shall never know precisely how much radioactivity was released from Chernobyl. But we do know for sure that it was way more than they led us to believe."
by Peter Melzer 6/29/2011 7:06:16 PM

Xenon Xe 133 decays by beta and gamma emissions with a physical half-life of 5.245 days.1 Photons that are useful for detection and imaging studies as well as the principal beta emission are listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Principal Radiation Emission Data Radiation Mean % Per Disintegration Energy (keV)
Beta-2
Gamma-2
K alpha x-rays
K beta x-rays 99.3
36.5
38.9
9.1 100.6 Avg.
81.0
30.8 Avg.
35.0 Avg.
www.drugs.com
by Edano 6/29/2011 7:06:25 PM

ah, interesting. the decay line is
J133 -> (100%) -> Xe133 -> (100%) Cs133
so the amount of J133, xe133 and cs133 is equal. www.pse118-online.de
by Edano edited by Edano 6/29/2011 7:13:11 PM

Here's the report on the accumulated water treatment and treated water injection time line according to TEPCO's latest report:

"- From 8:00 pm on June17, we started operation of water treatment of
accumulated water at accumulated water treatment facility.
- At 9:56 am on June 22, we started transferring accumulated water in
turbine building of Unit 2 to central waste treatment facility building.
- At 4:20 pm on June 27, the operation of circulation injection cooling
was initiated by injecting water from the filter water tank as well as
usage of the treated water regarding water injection to the reactor. At
5:55 pm, since we confirmed a leakage from the pipe which supplies water
from treated water tank to injection pump of reactor, we stopped
supplying treated water. Subsequently, we have implemented measures
against the leakage at pipe joint. At 2:36 pm on June 28, we started
operation of supply pump for treated water, and resumed the operation of
circulation injection cooling at 3:55 pm.
- At around 3:00 pm on June 28, water blot was confirmed at the outlet
flange of the processing transfer pump of the accumulated water
treatment system, and a saucer was installed at 3:45 pm. After that, no
increase of the blot has been confirmed.
- At 8:10 am on June 29, (two) minute holes were confirmed at the hose for
the injection cooling system of the accumulated water treatment system,
and we temporally repaired them. At 10:59 am, we replaced the pipe with
a new one while operation of the processing transfer pump was suspended.
We started to operate circulating injection cooling at 1:33 pm.
- At around 9:30 am on June 29, water leakage was confirmed at the drain
of lower part of the primary storage tank for water desalinations
reverse osmosis membrane concentrated water in the accumulated water
treatment system. We stopped the leakage by installing a drain cap at
10:30 am.
- Since an alarm showing water leakage was sounded in the On-site Bunker
Building at 2:49 pm, the accumulated water treatment system was stopped
at 2:53 pm.
- From 9:40 am to 3:29 pm on June 28, we injected fresh water to the
reactor well (unit 4) and temporally dry separation pool for environment
improvement (reduce radio active dose) on 5th floor reactor building of
unit 4." www.tepco.co.jp

If you read the rest of the report you'll find two more incidents that apparently haven't been reported on the news yet.
by xxx edited by Markfm 6/29/2011 7:13:31 PM

funny, i released a different post from mod, but now it shows this old one. (?)
by Edano 6/29/2011 7:16:01 PM

From France: CRIIRAD mission in Japan from May 24th to June 3rd, 2011 Preliminary comments (in english!) www.criirad.org
by Olivier 6/29/2011 7:22:21 PM

@Edano try refreshing it did that to me yesterday
by Elaine Kirk 6/29/2011 7:23:08 PM

@Elaine Kirk : the name was "retrieved" and he asked sth about the water level. when i released the post (auto-approve), it did not show.
by Edano 6/29/2011 7:25:42 PM

@Edano we can only hope @retrieved sees your post and reposts
by Elaine Kirk 6/29/2011 7:42:26 PM

All the newly installed software on both computers has rendered it impossible to screen capture youtube stills. GAH! If anyone has any ideas what to try let me know
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 7:47:46 PM

@lillymunster : no. you can only take a photo. :(
by Edano 6/29/2011 7:51:58 PM

Latest News

*
04:46 30 June
TEPCO repeatedly halts water treatment system due to alarm

english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 6/29/2011 7:53:58 PM

@lillymunster there are quite a few screenshot apps around could one of those help?
by Elaine Kirk 6/29/2011 8:01:45 PM

@Elaine Kirk tried a few and in multiple browsers, all seemed to strip out flash content..
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 8:06:40 PM

Back for rest of the day. yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
by dean 6/29/2011 8:08:43 PM

@dean LOL.
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 8:10:53 PM

@dean hurrah!
by Elaine Kirk 6/29/2011 8:12:02 PM

Dean, this may be a little out of your shpere of expertise, but I can't seem to find anyine who knows the answer. blog.alexanderhiggins.com Harrisonburg, VA seems to gave gamma radiation readings about in line with everyone else, but their beta radiation levels seem to be way higher than the other cities, even some of the West Coast, high altitude (Denver) and AZ cities which have reasonably good explanations for that. There are also some spikes which can make itgo really ridiculously high. Do you have any ideas or theories on why this might be? I had seen some reports on why say Southwestern PA and Western Maryland had some features which made them more vulnerable long-term to say some of the radiation from the weapons testing in decades past, but haven't seen anything on sleepy central Virginia.
by wrshpr 6/29/2011 8:14:41 PM

Nancy, you might check out ZScreen. It tends to work pretty well, though I haven't tested it explicitly against youtube. It had no problem capturing what I was viewing in VLC.
by Markfm 6/29/2011 8:17:59 PM

checking into it now wrshpr,,,, I did notice on thing,, after fukushima and the big rush to determine the plume,,, all the many monitoring places hurried to get some detailed readings and there have been hundreds of those types of worries or wondering what the heck is going on... the area where I live in Idaho said.. oooooooooo wow Boise Idaho has the highest levels of the nation.. it's all so dependent on where you are, what instruments they use, if they use filters do they change them often, whats the background readings .etc..
by dean 6/29/2011 8:19:19 PM

A brief update on what I found on the MOX hunt. Fuku did store their MOX in the spent fuel pool up until they put it in the reactor. There was testing for americium and degradation. Some minor pitting/discolored areas and some small thin flakes of cladding were found on the pre-install inspections. There were also some minor irregularities found on the fuel pellets in the sample rods. The clear plastic cover seen in some of the pre-quake photos of the #3 spent fuel pool was supposed to keep contamination out of the mox assemblies. No explanation about how that would work. I found records of annual inspections of the 28 assemblies at Kashiwazaki up until 2005. Still looking for newer inspection records. Records up until 2005 were fairly easy to find. Not sure why newer records are not easily found but will keep digging for a while to make sure they are or are not there. So far Kashiwazaki's MOX post 2005 is still a mystery.
by lillymunster 6/29/2011 8:27:13 PM

@wrshpr,, I compared data from that link for 5 major cities and they varied all over the place. the largest spike of those 5 was the one on 6-1 and about 6-7 inwhich it spiked from a background of about 75 to 650. I don't have an immediate explanation for it but wonder if you could email the data people and ask why the spikes there but not such extreme spikes in the neighboring areas? ..
by dean 6/29/2011 8:30:36 PM

@lillymunster the mystery of the mox deepens
by Elaine Kirk 6/29/2011 8:31:21 PM

good find lilly, putting good elements in the SFP is sure a waste of space and a waste because they have to then keep pristine chemistry controls going.. I also wonder if they have testing or limits for the OXIDE LAYER on the fuel before it goes in ...
by dean 6/29/2011 8:31:44 PM