"Japan has opened the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to journalists for the first time since the disaster of last March. RT has obtained a video of the inside of the crippled complex.
On Saturday, representatives of the Japanese and international media – more than 30 reporters, photographers and cameramen – were taken on a tour of the facility which was the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.
Despite TEPCO’s assurances that the radiation leaks pose much less danger now, the visitors had to wear a full set of protective gear during the tour."
They have rendered a vast swath of their country uninhabitable. Think that word over. Uninhabitable. How long until we have our own? It's anyone's guess.
That said, try and picture this scene in Ohio. Or Illinois. Or California. Ask yourself, is it worth it?
March 29th, 2011 BREAKING 11:58am CST Please donate to Japan Relief by clicking HERE
The situation is increasingly disturbing at Fukushima. It seems likely that the entire Fukushima Dai-Ichi complex is a write off. From the reports of the last 30 minutes, it appears that the real question now is how bad the larger release of radioactivity is going to be when it eventually occurs.
From The Guardian: "The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.
"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."
The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines."
March 23rd, 2011 5:05am CST BREAKING Please give to Japanese Relief HERE, HERE,HERE,HERE and HERE
The Fukushima Dai-Ichi facility has evacuated again as plumes of black smoke are pouring from the building that houses troubled reactor #3 itself. Radiation has reached Iceland and is expected in France soon. Japanese food products have been banned from export to the U.S. Fear continues to dominate the world’s reaction in spite of expert pronouncements that it's not the level of disaster it could have been.
March 21st, 2011 10:40am CST Please give to Japanese Relief HERE, HERE,HERE,HERE and HERE
The catastrophe at Fukushima continues. From CNN: "Gray smoke spewed Monday out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No. 3 reactor, a setback that came despite fervent efforts to prevent the further release of radioactive materials at the stricken facility. Those who had been working nearby were evacuated to safety shortly after the smoke was spotted around 4 p.m. Monday , a Tokyo Electric Power Company official told reporters. This is the same reactor that has been authorities' top priority -- and concern -- in recent days. Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety, said measurements taken soon after the smoke was spotted did not indicate any spike in radiation. He said that there was no evident explosion, and no one was reported injured."
By F. Grey Parker
I have received hundreds of e-mails over the last several days from readers wondering "where" I had gone and, more pointedly, why I had "stopped covering" the events at TEPCO's Fukishima Dai-Ichi and Dai-Ni facilities. I have been right here.
Let me start by saying this: I believe the concepts of nuclear power make perfect sense. Surprised? Don't be. We're dealing with provable physics. It's not subject to whim or ideology. Science does what it does.
Science is verifiable, it is repeatable and it is consistently obedient to elemental laws. What I don't believe in is man. The limits of each cannot achieve parity. Bottom line.
I oppose nuclear energy as an option more fervently now than ever before. My long-time, two-fold argument against it not only remains unchanged but has been utterly affirmed by the events in Japan. The question of workable spent fuel storage and the limits of human discipline render the pursuit of this thing we can do extremely unwise. The profit motive as we tend to demonstrate it also renders our species nearly unworthy of the knowledge itself.
The atom doesn't lie. Industrialists seeking the shortest path to the largest treasure do.
At times, immediate safety was secondary to the steady flow of favorable quips about "growth" by the CEO. These are the obvious risks when unbridled greed is improperly regulated in capital driven systems. We have dealt with this flaw in our nature in arguably every endeavor where a few sought to enhance their wealth by enticing the many.
Sometimes, though, the stakes really are just too high.
Meet "the spent fuel rod":
There is no question that the energy demands of world society are at the breaking point. But know this. The disaster of failing to meet the future has already happened. What I have described before in this space as "Hoover Dam Thinking" is no longer possible as the global economy is presently defined.
Please give to relief efforts for Japan by clickingHEREandHERE
Well. This is not as surprising as it should be. From The Australian:
"Tokyo Electric Power Co injected air into the containment vessel of Fukushima reactor No 1 to artificially “lower the leak rate”. When caught, the company expressed its “sincere apologies for conducting dishonest practices”.
The misconduct came to light in 2002 after whistleblowers working for General Electric, which designed the reactor, complained to the Japanese government. Another GE employee later confessed that he had falsified records of inspections of reactor No1 in 1989 - at the request of TEPCO officials. He also admitted to falsifying other inspection reports, also on request of the client. After that incident TEPCO was forced to shut down 17 reactors, albeit temporarily.
Dale Bridenbaugh, a GE employee who was not the whistleblower, resigned 35 years ago after becoming convinced that the design of the Mark 1 reactor used at Fukushima was seriously flawed. Five of the six reactors were built to that design.
Mr Bridenbaugh told ABC News: “The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant.”
In a document entitled Lessons Learned from the TEPCO Nuclear Power Scandal, released by the company and seen by The Times, TEPCO blamed its “misconduct” in 2002 on its “engineers' overconfidence of their nuclear knowledge”. Their “conservative mentality” had led them to fail to report problems, the company said, resulting in an “inadequate safety culture”.
"The government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said Japan was considering seeking help from the US military.
All six of the plants reactors are experiencing problems following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami, in which an estimated 10,000 people have died.
The workers were ordered to leave the facility after the level of radiation at the plant soared to 10 millisievert per hour - above the level considered harmful to human health – possibly as a result of radioactive substances being emitted from the No. 2 reactor. The reading later fell to around 6 millisievert per hour, reports said."
"All the workers there have suspended their operations. We have urged them to evacuate, and they have,'' according to a translation by NHK television."
"Mr Edano also said a reactor containment vessel may have suffered damage, with steam appearing to be coming from reactor no.3.
He told the briefing that the likeliest explanation for a white cloud seen above the plant was that steam came from part of the containment vessel."
UPDATED 11:41pm CST
UPDATED 11:33pm CST: From WaPo:"Radiation readings from troubles throughout the plant spiked so high that the remaining skeleton crew of workers was at least temporarily ordered to abandon their posts, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference Wednesday.
The draw-down of the plant’s workers “is a sign to me that they have given up trying to prevent a disaster and gone into the mode of trying to clean up afterward,” said nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen".
UPDATED 10:34pm CST: (this post was originally headlined "No One Is There)It is unclear whether all containment workers, the "Fukushima 50" have actually been fully evacuated or are somewhere in the complex. Our source tells us they may still be onsite but that the efforts to battle the situation are on hold.
There is no one at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Complex at this time. Following a second round of fires at reactor number 4, radiation surged to severe levels.
From AP: "Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw.
Earlier officials said 70 percent of fuel rods at one of the six reactors at the plant were significantly damaged in the aftermath of Friday's calamitous earthquake and tsunami.
News reports said 33 percent of fuel rods were also damaged at another reactor. Officials said they would use helicopters and fire trucks to spray water in a desperate effort to prevent further radiation leaks and to cool down the reactors."
Scientists are now discussing this in terms of it's plausible worst case scenario.
"Several experts said that Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particular on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.
"This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This could be a five or a six -- it's premature to say since this event is not over yet."
France's nuclear safety authority ASN said Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident."
"The situation at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan ''has worsened considerably,'' the Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement released Tuesday.
Referring to fresh explosions that occurred earlier in the day at the site and problems in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods, the Washington-based think tank said, ''This accident can no longer be viewed as a level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events scale that ranks events from 1 to 7.''
Noting that a level 4 incident involves ''only local radiological consequences,'' it said the ongoing crisis is ''now closer to a level 6, and it may unfortunately reach a level 7'' -- a worst case scenario with extensive health and environmental consequences."
Please give to relief efforts for Japan by clicking HERE and HERE
From Sify of India reports: "A US aircraft carrier stationed in Japan about 320 km from the troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant has detected low levels of radiation, the US Navy said on Tuesday. The levels detected by the USS George Washington, which is docked in Yokosuka, posed no danger to the public, said Rear Admiral Richard Wren, the commander of US naval forces in Japan. Nevertheless, he urged US personnel on the base to stay indoors as much as possible
"There is no appreciable health risk, and we are being very conservative in our recommendations," he said.
Wren said the levels were less than one month's worth of natural exposure produced by the sun and other sources."
Please donate to the efforts for relief in Japan HERE and HERE.
While many experts continue to reassure us that the critical core containment structures involved in the Fukushima Dai-Ichi complex are not breached, the latest pronouncements from NISA don't make me feel any better. From The Guardian:
"On Monday evening, Ryohei Shiomi, an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa), said reactors 1 and 3 appeared stable for the time being, but that reactor two, where fuel rods were most exposed, was still a concern. "Unit 2 now requires all our effort and attention," he said.
The day began with an orange flash and a violent blast that destroyed most of the containment building around reactor 3, with debris falling back inside and onto the structure housing the reactor. The blast was caused by a buildup of hydrogen that was produced when superheated steam in the core reacted with the zirconium alloy cladding that surrounds the reactor's fuel rods.
Tepco said 11 people were injured in the accident, one seriously. A similar explosion blew the top off the reactor 1 building on Saturday morning.
Despite earlier assurances from Tepco that the steel containment vessels surrounding the reactors were undamaged in both explosions, Naoki Kumagai, a Nisa official, said "It's impossible to say whether there has or has not been damage."
For the record, Glenn, those of us of good conscience are concerned about the ongoing crisis in Japan's nuclear facilities because we are human beings. Also, for the record, I do not disseminate "propaganda from George Soros."
"Engineers had begun pumping seawater into the reactor at the facility, the third reactor to receive the last-ditch treatment, after the plant's emergency cooling system had failed and the fuel rods
had been partially exposed to the air.
But apparently something went wrong and the injection of water failed. Workers were scrambling to re-immerse the fuel assembly before more damage is done to the reactor core.
No one knows how much damage has been done to the fuel rods, either in this reactor, No.2, or in reactors No.1 and No.3, where engineers began pumping in seawater over the weekend.
Officials have called the situation a partial meltdown because they have detected minute quantities of radioactive caesium and iodine - byproducts of the nuclear fission that powers the reactor - outside the plant.
That may mean simply that the zirconium cladding that sheathes the uranium fuel pellets has cracked due to heat from being exposed to the air, allowing small quantities of the radionuclides to escape, or it may mean that the fuel pellets themselves have partially melted.
As long as the reactor containment vessel remains intact, however, no one will know until workers can physically examine the fuel rods for damage."
"Experts called the injection of seawater and neutron-absorbing boron into the site's three crippled reactors units a desperation move never attempted before in the industry.
It amounted to sacrificing the reactors in an attempt to maintain the structural integrity of the reactor and its encasing concrete containment structure and prevent a potential uncontrolled major radiological release. Three other Fukushima Daiichi reactors had been shut down for planned work before Friday's 8.9 earthquake and were not part of the crisis.
"I would describe this measure as a Hail Mary Pass but if they succeed, there is plenty of water in the ocean and if they have the capability to pump this water in the necessary volume and at the necessary rates ... then they can stabilize the reactor," said former Energy Department official Robert Alvarez, according to press accounts of his press conference Saturday."
"Fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant may have melted when water levels fell, Japan’s top government spokesman said.
Rods in the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 reactors may have melted, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said to reporters in a briefing today. Molten rods would increase the risk of a meltdown.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the nuclear power plant, stopped pumping seawater into its Nos. 1 and 3 reactors earlier today because it needed to use the one working water pump on the No. 2 reactor to cool it down, said Nishiyama Hidehiko, director general at Japan’s trade ministry."
From the IAEA: "At the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) and at its International Seismological Safety Centre (ISSC), IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano received a briefing at 0930 CET 14 March 2011.
Director General Amano was briefed as well on nuclear safety, seismological activity, and the on-going disaster recovery efforts in Japan. The video of the briefing is available here."
The latest press releases from Tokyo Electric Power Company are available HERE.
March 14th, 2011 6:18am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
UPDATE: 8:03am CST From Wexford: "The fuel rods in one of Japan's damaged nuclear reactors have been temporarily fully exposed from their coolant, raising the risk of overheating and a meltdown.
A spokesman at the Fukushima plant said that Unit 2's rods were briefly exposed.
Sea water has been channelled into the reactor to cover the rods again.
Unit 2 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is the latest reactor to lose its ability to cool down. The other two reactors at the plant are facing a meltdown and authorities are racing to cool them with sea water."
JUST IN from Reuters: "Nuclear fuel rods at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor are now fully exposed, Jiji news agency said, quoting the plant's operator, Tokyo Eletcric Power Co.
The report referred to the Fukushima Daiichi complex's No.2 reactor, where levels of water coolant around the reactor core had been reported as falling earlier in the day.
The Jiji report said a meltdown of the fuel rods could not be ruled out. A meltdown raises the risk of damage to the reactor vessel and a possible radioactive leak, experts say."
March 14th, 2011 2:45am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
Both AP and The Washington Post are reporting that a third reactor has lost cooling and they again will be attempting to inject seawater as a stabilizer:
"The operator of a quake-stricken nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan says a third reactor has lost its cooling capacity, which could lead to overheating and an explosion similar to two blasts at its other reactors.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. official Takako Kitajima said Monday that plant workers were preparing to inject seawater into the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant's Unit 2 to cool down its reactor following the loss of its cooling system.
Kitajima said officials are also set to take other steps, including a release of pressure through ventilation if the reactor overheats."
In other related news, MSNBC reports via AP that the U.S. 7th Fleet has been moved further offshore from the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex after the detection of low level radiation:
"The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore when its instruments detected the radiation. But the fleet says the dose of radiation was about the same as one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment."
March 14th 2011 1:20am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
Aerial view of 2nd incident
Late yesterday afternoon CST, word began to spread that a second Japanese reactor was in critical condition. By mid evening, it had been reported that it was Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor number 3. Somewhere between 11:00pm and 11:10pm CST this reactor experienced a hydrogen explosion and possible meltdown.
It is still being reported that the containment structure is not ruptured. The footage below is the most recent of that event.
March 14th, 2011 12:52am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
Only time will tell...
As we watch the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan and deal with conflicting information and patent errors, as well as one outright hoax, some very learned scientists have written and spoken out against rampant alarmism.
We hope and pray that they are correct. Most prominent, is this piece from Business Insider by MIT research scientist Dr. Josef Oehman which has gone viral:
"I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By “not free of errors” I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism – that is quite normal these days. By “not free of errors” I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are build and operated. I have read a 3 page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.
We will have to cover some fundamentals, before we get into what is going on."
I cannot begin to stress the importance of his scientific critique. The piece is long but highly recommended as it breaks down the actual physics and materials involved in this crisis.
Please also read Professor Barry Brook's work referencing the Oehman essay and adding to the understanding of the particular activity within the type of reactor found in the Fukushima Daichi complex.
The diagram above shows the design used at Fukushima Daiichi
USAToday notes: "Cynthia McCollough, a medical physicist and professor at theMayo Clinicin Minnesota, notes that theInternational Atomic Energy Agencyhas rated the danger from the damage in Japan a 4 on a 7-point scale. That's lower than the risks caused by the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, which rated a 5, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which rated a 7. Thousands of people did develop thyroid cancer after Chernobyl."
Mar 13th, 2011 11:50pm CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
We reported earlier on the possibility of serious danger at Fukushima reactor #3. There has been an explosion event but the core's containment structure is reportedly intact at this time.
Business Week reports: "The vessel containing the radioactive core of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi No. 3 reactor is intact after a hydrogen explosion at 11:01am local time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Ykio Edano said.
The possibility of a large radiation leak is very small, even as radiation levels at the reactor are rising, Edano, the government's main spokesman, said at a press conference. Tokyo Electric said one worker was injured and seven are missing after today's explosion at the station 220 kilometers (135miles) north of the Japanes capital."
International Business Times reports: "Japanese officials had been injecting seawater into overheating nuclear reactors on Sunday, in an attempt to relieve pressure at the plant.
The number 3 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 plant may have been deformed due to overheating, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier in the day. He denied that there had been a "meltdown" at the plant."
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a meltdown is possible at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 3 reactor where a hydrogen explosion occurred, injuring six workers."
Below is raw video of the event. I hesitate to post untranslated feeds, but this is the only footage available at this time.
