Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2504

Kyushu Electric managers to stay on, Edano dissatisfied

FUKUOKA, Oct. 14, Kyodo

Kyushu Electric Power Co. announced on Friday a three-month, 100-percent salary cut for its chairman and president over a scandal involving the company manipulating public opinion in favor of restarting reactors at its Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture.

The move effectively means that Shingo Matsuo and Toshio Manabe will respectively remain as chairman and president, company sources said.

Earlier in the day, Manabe visited the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, an organization under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, to file a final report on its probe into the scandal. english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 10/14/2011 10:35:20 AM

you bet !
by Edano 10/14/2011 10:36:06 AM

@Edano nightmare world for children to live in totally disgusted
by elainekirk 10/14/2011 10:50:10 AM

@elainekirk but the world doesn't care. they go on like nothing happened.
by Edano 10/14/2011 10:58:58 AM

except germany.
by Edano 10/14/2011 11:05:08 AM

Morning! (afternoon-evening)
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 11:28:12 AM

@lillymunster @Edano g morning yup Edano they just put profits before people
by elainekirk 10/14/2011 11:40:30 AM

Hi@all, when i read that these seals have lost most of their hair i thought of radiation poisoning. Could it be? A mysterious and potentially widespread disease is thought to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of ringed seals along Alaska's Arctic coast. Scores more are sickened, some so ill that skin lesions bleed when touched…..
……The sickest ones don't move much on the beaches and they have blisters or wounds that bleed easily, including around the nose, eyes and especially the rear flippers. Others have lost much of their hair. "They're not deathly skinny. It's not like they're dying from malnutrition. But they're not in great body condition," he said. The reports haven't let up. "I just went out this morning and I saw a seal that died last night," Herreman said Wednesday afternoon. "It was frozen and the seagulls had gotten to it," he said. Weakened seals are susceptible to predator attacks. Large numbers of polar bears have been gathering at Kaktovik, east of Barrow near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and some have been eating hauled-out ringed seals there, he said. Some sick seals have survived weeks with the illness. Scientists also don't know how pervasive the illness is, since even healthy ringed seals are difficult to track and census. Ringed seal numbers aren't well documented. A study done in the 1980s estimated about 250,000 ringed seals hauled out on northern Alaska's shore-fast ice during the spring. Many more are thought to live farther out in the pack ice. But those estimates are very rough, Herreman cautioned. The worldwide population has been estimated at 4-6 million, he said.
hisz.rsoe.hu
by Liz 10/14/2011 11:57:38 AM

@Liz It would be possible. Much of the fallout circled up to Alaska and then down the US west coast. They still don't fully know any circulation of pockets of radiation in the water. If the seals encountered a highly radioactive pocket of water it could certainly do this. The US refusal to monitor is going to cause more problems like this.
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:04:47 PM

Davis Bessie the reactor that had a pineapple sized hole in the reactor cap, now has a crack in containment. The power company claims this is not a problem. www.bloomberg.com
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:09:41 PM

Govt cabinet member questioning TEPCO's handling of worker deaths and not involving any agency. Said there should be an investigation.
"Why do not enter the investigation only TEPCO?"

"We are the agencies to respond appropriately," "not yet take contact with the families,"
"What government agencies such as police work why? TEPCO or just a special treat Why?

news.livedoor.com
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:14:32 PM

Wild game in Tochigi over limit for food www.mhlw.go.jp
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:17:42 PM

Rockhopper translated worker tweets

The Fukushima worker's tweets: "The cover (for R1?) is done. Plumbing and lighting stuff will follow, though. (cont)

"Hydrogen is still in the upper pipes of R1, which is harder to handle and not yet done. For R4's pool, cover construction is done. (cont)

"Next week will be examinations of high rad areas of R1. R2 & 3 is under investigation, including hydrogen gas concentration. (cont)

"These days, there are many temporary visits of residents in the area and they seem to bring out many stuff from their home. (cont)

"Problems are: amount of contaminated water in the basement have not decreased due to influx of ground water; (cont)

"how to figure out conditions of inside the R1, 2, and 3; ever-increasing contaminated debris and waste; and decontamination."
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:18:41 PM

I thought there was something weird about the highly localized nature of these readings.
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:20:58 PM

@dean, I havnt
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:23:05 PM

...watched the video yet myself, lol.
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:23:26 PM

@lillymunster, I wonder of the static on the video is the effect high radiation can cause on imagery, aka, 'visible radiation'.
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:27:01 PM

Nuke industry targeted for budget cuts, money to be shifted to compensation and recovery search.japantimes.co.jp
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:27:14 PM

gah. not seeing everyone's posts. darn gremlins
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:28:09 PM

There's currently an elevated risk of massive tsunami for the US east coast, which has been predicted if mountains of the Canary Islands slide into the sea, which is believed to be slowly in progress, and with new earthquake clusters might accelerate and destroy the US east coast and cause multiple NPP melts, nothing too dramatic : www.shtfplan.com
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:30:34 PM

Canary Islands eruption triggers US tsunami fears
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:33:02 PM

@Ian did Dean post this morning? I'm not seeing it.
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:33:40 PM

@lillymunster, Dean posted a comment to me yesterday.
by Ian 10/14/2011 12:34:29 PM

by Ian 10/14/2011 12:34:38 PM

greetings to every one
by dean 10/14/2011 12:40:02 PM

@Ian What a big activity in all Europe with eathquakes!
by Mona 10/14/2011 12:54:16 PM

Hi Dean, Hi Mona (your on auto now)
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 12:54:51 PM

@ lilly.. I've plowed through alot of the FOIA documents and many many of them deal with operating with some fuel that has a new cladding material. Not sure what the new cladding material is in detail but will check it out. These were older doc's 2008-10 or so. They discuss the ECCS which has dependencies for cooling time and capacity to meet the demands from reactor core physics analyses run with the new cladding material. I know the industry has been trying to study and test new materials for cladding with increased melting points. One under study is beryllium which is much much higher.
by dean 10/14/2011 1:03:54 PM

@dean ooh that sounds interesting. I wonder if we could find fuel details for Fuku? Do they get their LEU made domestically?
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 1:06:23 PM

edocket.access.gpo.gov one type of cladding from Areva
by dean 10/14/2011 1:07:24 PM

@ lilly, fuel cladding would be a good topic to look at since it's an evolving activity that is going on now. If a different cladding material with a much higher melt point is used the severe accident consequences would go way down
by dean 10/14/2011 1:08:55 PM

that link talks of m-5 advanced proprietary, zirconium based cladding which is chemically different from zircaloy or ZIRLO cladding. One of the main this as you read is the ECCS capacity to support running these fuel systems.
by dean 10/14/2011 1:12:14 PM

I'm sure the cladding material probably challenges them with increased heating rates in the fuel elements, some times referred to as the "point power limits" and "heating rates" .... ie: higher operating temperatures requiring sufficient cooling and perhaps higher decay heat levels requiring sufficient emergency core cooling
by dean 10/14/2011 1:14:26 PM

@dean would asking for operating
power increases at a reactor be tied to this at all
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 1:15:12 PM

www.ne.anl.gov another point is the burnup rate or power limit on the fuel... getting fuel to last longer reduces costs to replace
by dean 10/14/2011 1:15:40 PM

@lilly, it's possible, the request to increase design rated power levels is usally focused on the question .. will the fuel handle it
by dean 10/14/2011 1:16:45 PM

@dean Cooper asked to go to a 24 month fuel cycle on their BWR
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 1:16:49 PM

now that would be an interesting study to see how they justified that.. perhaps an interim outage or something... do you have details?
by dean 10/14/2011 1:18:15 PM

@dean just an nrc email announcement no details with it
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 1:19:09 PM

article.nuclear.or.kr @ lilly if you notice in this one.. the testing performed pushed the fuel to higher MEGA WATT DAY/KG values
by dean 10/14/2011 1:20:08 PM

elaine will have a hay day with this stuff.. she wanted some new search material
by dean 10/14/2011 1:20:34 PM

the MWd/day = mega watt day/kg is the burnup rate for fuel .. higher the better but the fuel cycle craddle to grave has to be analyzed to be ok ..
by dean 10/14/2011 1:21:41 PM

@dean hmmm. There has been an ongoing concern that something wasn't right at unit 1. The re-shrouded it and did a power upgrade (iirc) I have to wonder if they could have been doing something more experimental there.
by lillymunster 10/14/2011 1:22:42 PM

the term hydrided is mentioned at xxppm PARTS PER MILLION so the fuel element cladding surfaces are preconditioned to reduced oxide buildup
by dean 10/14/2011 1:22:50 PM

very possible @ Lilly... and another reason why I asked my Senator to introduce legislation to break NRC up to those separate agencies
by dean 10/14/2011 1:24:01 PM