Japanese Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Reactors

[dorispulaski]

This article is not very clear-as the reactor is operating at a high pressure level, clearly there are no holes in the primary containment. However, TEPCO is clearly having problems understanding what is going on with their reactor. One does not just lose water, as we have seen with Unit 2 & Unit 3-there is a leak, the trenches fill up and if no one notices, suddenly there is a leak into the sea and everyone knows about it.

TEPCO looking into radioactive water leak

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is trying to identify where highly radioactive water from the No.1 reactor's containment vessel is flowing to, as the reactor is believed to have suffered a meltdown.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says the meltdown at the No.1 unit created holes in the reactor and damaged the containment vessel.

A large amount of highly radioactive water is believed to be leaking out, but it is not known where it is flowing.

TEPCO says the water could be flowing into the basement of the reactor building, but that workers cannot enter the site due to fear of high levels of radiation.

The company is examining footage from Friday's survey conducted by a remote-controlled robot of the first floor of the building, while analyzing data on radiation intensity.

TEPCO also began installing air-cooled heat exchangers on Friday so that water collected from the containment vessel can be reused for cooling the reactor.

The company plans to bring in 10 heat exchangers by Tuesday and connect them to pipes.

Water can be sent to heat exchangers only when the containment vessel holds a certain level of water. Uncertainty regarding the current level of the water is another challenge facing TEPCO.

Saturday, May 14, 2011 13:04 +0900 (JST)
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And if enacted, this law could be helpful to the people struggling to live in an adequately set up shelters.

Govt may enact special law over nuke compensation

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has told the governor of Fukushima Prefecture that the government will consider enacting special laws on compensating people affected by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato met Kan at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Saturday.

Sato said the meltdown at the No.1 reactor was finally made clear 64 days after the nuclear accident. He called on the central government to bring the situation under control as quickly as possible.

The governor also said the government should handle the compensation issue in a responsible manner by enacting special laws, which would back efforts to help nearby residents and rebuild the local economy.

Kan replied that the government will do all it can to end the crisis and hinted at the possibility of enacting special laws on compensation payments.

The Fukushima governor later told reporters that the leakage of radioactive substances into the air and sea is very troubling, and that he had called on the government to more tightly control the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Saturday, May 14, 2011 14:35 +0900 (JST)

and a worker in his 60's collapsed and died at Daiichi while carrying a pipe. His cause of death is not known, but it appears to be due to his own health issues rather than radiation. More info is needed to pinpoint the exact cause of death.

Cherry trees planted in New York

Cherry trees have been planted in New York's Central Park to commemorate victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Cherry trees have been planted annually since 2009 at events introducing Japanese culture.

This year 8 trees were planted at 3 locations in the park. Representatives from the Consulate General and New York City took part in the planting ceremony on Friday. The City donated some of the trees.

Consul General Shigeyuki Hiroki says he hopes these trees will grow well and that their strength will comfort people suffering in the disaster-hit area.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says he wants park visitors to remember the disaster in Japan.

Saturday, May 14, 2011 06:01 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

And now the radioactive water analysis files for the day are up, there is no huge sign of more highly contaminated water getting into the ocean. The spike from the Unit 3 pipe spill has either flattened out or decreased at all points, and there is no additional spike.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110514e12.pdf

The subdrain water from Unit 1 is about the same as it has been, but there is no evidence that some of the water in the Unit 1 subdrain has been in a reactor more recently than for other places. The I 131 concentration is below the Cs 137 concentration. Unit 2's subdrain is decreasing finally. The other units are under 1 Becquerel per cubic centimeter, like most of the water in the harbor or even lower, and the deep well has nothing found.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110514e10.pdf

So the search for the missing water is rather puzzling, and may be a search for a broken meter....or else Unit 1 has a perfectly watertight basement, which is unlike everything else on site.

Some of this confusion is due to the fact that workers have finally started to get a look at the inside of unit 1, and to try to make some of the equipment there functional again. Before they could look and try to calibrate, it all looked sensible to them. Now they have more info, and its hard to make sense of it.

There was a nice article in my morning paper:

How One Japanese Village Defied the Tsunami
http://www.theday.com/article/20110514/NWS14/305149892
and if that doesn't work for you, a shorter article is here.

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/may/14/how-one-japanese-village-defied-tsunami/?breakingnews

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA

Associated Press

FUDAI, Japan — In the rubble of Japan’s northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet.

Fudai is the village that survived — thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor’s expensive folly and now vindicated as the community’s salvation.

The 3,000 residents living between mountains behind a cove owe their lives to a late leader who saw the devastation of an earlier tsunami and made it the priority of his four-decade tenure to defend his people from the next one.

His 51-foot (15.5-meter) floodgate between mountainsides took a dozen years to build and meant spending more than $30 million in today’s dollars.

“It cost a lot of money. But without it, Fudai would have disappeared,” said seaweed fisherman Satoshi Kaneko, 55, whose business has been ruined but who is happy to have his family and home intact.

Apparently, a lot of people thought the mayor who got this thing built was nuts back in the day. It's too bad he is not alive to see the success of his seawall and floodgate.

Here's a picture
http://www.theday.com/apps/pbcsi.dl...ategory=NWS14&ArtNo=305149892&Ref=AR&Maxw=475

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

It's worth remembering the mayor's name:

The man credited with saving Fudai is the late Kotaku Wamura, a 10-term mayor whose political reign began in the ashes of World War II and ended in 1987.

 

[Blue Bead]

Thanks for the updates, Doris. I saw that article, on the town saved from the tsunami, in my local paper yesterday. I'll bet those who live there, and gave the former mayor such a hard time over building the dam, are exceptionally glad he spent the funds to build it. Otherwise, their little town would have been wiped out of existence like so many others along the coastline.

What I find troubling about the Unit 1 situation is...where that water is draining. If it's not going into the sea, where is it going, and what kinds of problems will surface when they find out where it's going? What a nightmare that will be to fix, not that everything else hasn't been one, already. This has certainly been a learning experience for the nuclear industry and anyone else following the issues in this.

 

[dorispulaski]

One thing that TEPCO has shown reasonable skill about is handling water, so while I'm concerned about the missing water, I'm not severely worried about it, particularly after looking at the subdrain data from yesterday. There are no spikes in the unit 1 subdrain data, and no radioactive material was found in the deep well. And they were right on top of the recent spill at Unit 3. Most of the water they lost is already out there, and has been for a month or more. They have already planned for that volume of water to have to be processed. The issue is whether the rate of leakage of stuff has increased, which is why the radioactivity of the subdrains interests me, and all the inner harbor measurements.

They have Areva starting up the water treatment plant fairly soon (June construction was planned), and they have already started building and using temporary tanks (at Unit 6), and they have the refurbished fishing pier showing up fairly soon. They seem to have planned already to handle a huge amount of water.

The water they are talking about went astray over two months' time. In fact some of the water that has been labelled Unit 2 water in the past may be Unit 1 water, as the two reactors are immediately adjacent to each other
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f1_lmap-e.gif

Frankly, I think they are still in the diagnostic stage of figuring out what went on with Unit 1. There are several interesting points. And we won't know exactly what happened for a decade, when it will be possible to dismantle the reactor pressure vessel:

1. Unit 1 got into cooling trouble much quicker than the other units. (the explosion was March 12th, the day after the earthquake). Unit 3's explosion was on the 14th, Unit 2's on the 15th, the unit 4 spent fuel pool had an explosion on the 15th.
2. The explosion was really big, so there was a lot of hydrogen, which had evolved relatively quickly.
3. Somehow, the reactor is still managing to hold pressure.
4. They pumped a huge amount of seawater and boron into this plant. Both yield corrosive materials at high temperatures. And when boiled off, there would be a lot of salt residue lying around, in one chemical state or another.
5. The biggest spike in radiation/deposited material on land was between the 14th and 16th of March, when the wind was in the northwest--significantly after the hydrogen explosion at Unit 1, and coincident with the various explosions and troubles at Units 2 & 3 and the Unit 4 spent fuel pool.
6. Unfortunately, data from March 11th is not that available. (first data at both TEPCO and JAIF is for the 14th).
7. Unit 1 is a BWR3 while the other damaged units are BWR4's. Unit 6 (in cold shutdown) is a BWR5.

Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat has suggested that there may have been significant damage to Unit 1 in the earthquake, and I think that's possible. If you remember, Unit 1 definitely had recorded building vibrations that were larger than planned for. Despite that, the control rods were correctly inserted into the core, which helped control all this. However, that could be why Unit 1 failed earlier: the total cooling system could well have been damaged.

Today's 3 PM TEPCO report says they are doing this:

- At 1:28 pm on May 15, we have increased the amount of freshwater injected into the reactor from approximately 8m3/h to approximately 10m3/h so that we can monitor the trend shift of parameters of the Reactor Pressure Vessel as well as the Primary Containment Vessel, the shift which would be resulted from the increase of the amount of injected freshwater.

Really, the only changes they have made to date on reactors are adding more or less water (either fresh or salt), adding more or less boron, adding nitrogen, and using helicopters to dump water on top of the buildings to cool them back in March.) They don't have a lot of variables to use. This was better than cutting the amount of water.

I see from today's JAIF status that the pressure was still up there yesterday, even after the pressure gage was recalibrated,.

On Unit 3, they are

- At 2:33 pm on May 15, we started injecting boric acid through the fire
extinction system.

The purpose of this is to slow any nuclear reactions, as boron has a large capture cross section for neutrons, and neutrons are what keep the reaction going. The temperature of Unit 3 is hotter than Units 1 & 2 which are both at about 114 C at the water nozzle on May 13th. Unit 3 was 155 C on May 13th.

- At 3:07 pm on May 14, we started spraying water into the spent fuel pool of Unit 1 with the concrete pumping vehicle. We stopped it at 3:18 pm on the same day due to strong winds.

and the worker who collapsed yesterday was declared dead at the hospital. The doctor is reported by Kyodo News as saying he died of a heart attack.

Meanwhile radiation around Daiichi is still slowly dropping

Daiichi 2:00 PM JST May 15th

Eight peripheral points ( 6, 26, 19, 17, 21, 44, 133, 134) microSieverts per hour
Main Office Building 385 microSieverts per hour
West Gate 15 microSieverts per hour
Cart near west gate 16.7 microSieverts per hour

Daini 2:00 PM JST May 15th
Six peripheral points ( 1.9, 1.5, 1.9, 1.7, 1.7, 1.6) microSieverts per hour
Manual point 9 AM (1.2) microSieverts per hour

 

[dorispulaski]

And from NHK, right on time the refurbished fishing platform is on the way to Daiichi:

Massive floating platform heads for Fukushima

A massive hollow floating platform is being transported to Fukushima to hold radioactive water from a troubled nuclear power plant.

The steel platform is 136 meters long and 46 meters wide and can store up to 10,000 tons of water.
It was provided to Tokyo Electric Power Company from Shizuoka city, where it was used as a fishing park.
It was made water-tight and rust-resistant during one month of refitting at a Yokohama shipyard. A large crane was mounted and pipes attached.

After final inspection at a nearby port, the platform is scheduled to arrive off the coast at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in one to two weeks.
Sunday, May 15, 2011 13:00 +0900 (JST)

and here's what's being said about Unit 1. Yes there is water in the basement. So yes, there are holes in the containment.

TEPCO confirms water in No.1 reactor

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the amount of highly radioactive water in the basement of the Number one reactor is increasing. The water is leaking from a hole or cracks in the containment vessel.

On Friday, Tokyo Electric Power Company workers found that the water in the basement is 4.2 meters deep.

The company intends to measure radiation levels of the water as it tries to find ways to deal with the leakage. Also on Friday, a robot detected a maximum of 2,000 millisieverts of radiation per hour on the first floor of the reactor building.

The radiation level is the highest since the March 12th accident.The company says the water is leaking from the pipes leading to the reactor, which were probably damaged as a result of a meltdown.

The utility has been forced to revise its original plan before submitting it to the government on Tuesday.

Sunday, May 15, 2011 08:57 +0900 (JST)

More reports on later plans:

TEPCO to review cooling operation

Tokyo Electric Power Company will have to review its plan for stabilizing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility after a large amount of radioactive water was found in the basement of one of its reactor buildings.

The utility says it discovered an estimated 3,000 tons of contaminated water in the basement of the damaged Number 1 reactor building.

TEPCO says fuel rods in the Number 1 reactor melted down and created a hole in the bottom of the pressure vessel. It says the containment vessel also appears to be damaged and highly radioactive water has leaked into the basement of the building.

The company had planned to fill the containment vessel with water and set up a cooling system.

But it now says that it will study a plan to circulate water directly from the basement, through a decontamination filter and heat exchanger, and then back into the reactor.
On Tuesday, TEPCO is expected to submit a revised operation schedule to the government. However, a series of problems facing the company is likely to delay its efforts to bring all the reactors at the facility under control.

Sunday, May 15, 2011 08:57 +0900 (JST)

For scale, the fishing pier can hold 10,000 tonnes.

And if talking about recirculating this water, it would avoid adding as much additional water to the overall problem. In fact, the recirculators are already being delivered. They are on trucks headed to Daiich.

Right now, as the website says, they are adding more water:

TEPCO to inject more water into No.1 reactor

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will increase the amount of water being injected into the Number One reactor in a study of how to stabilize the reactor, whose fuel rods are believed to have melted down.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says the water level in the reactor is now extremely low and that the pressure vessel protecting the reactor core has a hole and cracks as a result of the meltdown.

It says the containment vessel was also damaged, and has been leaking a large amount of highly radioactive water into the reactor building.

TEPCO is now reviewing its effort to cool the reactor by filling the containment vessel with water. It says it decided to increase the amount of water being injected into the reactor from 8 tons per hour to 10 tons per hour.

The company says it will monitor the water level, temperature, and pressure inside the containment vessel for 2 days.
The company says after studying data obtained from the operation, it will come up with a specific cooling method on Tuesday when it reviews the roadmap.

TEPCO: Years needed to remove damaged nuclear fuel

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it may take a number of years to remove damaged nuclear fuel rods from the Number 1 reactor.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced on Saturday, that most of the fuel rods in the Number 1 reactor have melted and fallen to the bottom of the reactor where they are submerged in water.

TEPCO announced in April that it was aiming to get the reactor stabilized and cooled down in 6 to 9 months.
However, no timeline has yet been proposed for the removal of the nuclear fuel.

The company plans to study measures taken at the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the US, where a meltdown of nuclear fuel rods also occurred.

There it took almost 10 years to remove melted fuel at the bottom of the reactor, which resembled hardened lava.


Sunday, May 15, 2011 14:48 +0900 (JST)

Apparently they still have work to do with Unit 3 leaking water.

Radioactivity at No.3 reactor leaking into ocean

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant announced that radioactive materials continue to leak into the ocean near the plant. The Tokyo Electric Power Company said 140 becquerels of cesium-134 per cubic centimeter, was measured on Saturday morning near the water intake of the plant's Number 3 reactor. That represents 2,300 times the legal limit. It also detected 150 becquerels of cesium-137, which is 1,700 times the legal limit. On Wednesday of this week, the utility found that highly radioactive water was continuing to flow into the ocean from a pit located near the water intake of the Number 3 reactor.

On Friday, TEPCO detected 6,200 times the legal limit of cesium-134. The company says it will continue to monitor radioactivity levels near the plant.

Sunday, May 15, 2011 08:57 +0900 (JST)

I'm not sure this is quite right. I looked at yesterday's values for the Unit 3 bar screen, and they were less than the day before. Once in the water behind the silt fence, the stuff stays right there, unless gettered up by zeolite cat litter, and as the inner harbor is pretty much closed off to the open sea these days. However, it will slosh around some, so it's hard to tell what is coming from where. No new data is on the website today. Here's the most recent data

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110514e12.pdf

On the other hand, the Unit 1 & 2 intakes are up. So Unit 1 water may be causing this rise. This stuff may be mostly inside the silt fence/contained in some way, because concentrations out at the quay are down again, lowest we've seen. And while concentrations rose at the south canal, they were back lower again on the 14th.

Meanwhile, the people who actually got the brunt of the radioactive material from Daiichi are now being evacuated:

Evacuation begins in Fukushima

Evacuation of some people who live outside the 20 kilometer radius from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has begun.

Families with babies and children up to kindergarten age and pregnant women are the first of the 7,700 residents of two towns to evacuate.

Municipal officials say they have secured temporary housing for almost all of the residents who want it.
One evacuee says he and his family have to move out for the sake of his children, but it is very discouraging to leave.

He says they will do what they can until the day they are able to return to their home.

Some farmers cannot evacuate soon as they have not been able to find places to move their cattle or have them put down. Some families cannot move together to designated temporary housing or cannot decide on the place to go as they would be far from work or school.

The Japanese government expanded the evacuation zone around the plant to areas where cumulative radiation levels are 20 millisieverts or higher per year.
Sunday, May 15, 2011 13:00 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

Here's one attempt to restart the economy in the quake hit area:

Crafts of disaster-hit areas to be promoted abroad

An expert panel has urged the government to help reconstruct disaster-hit areas in northeastern Japan through overseas promotion activities for traditional crafts of the region.

In its report to be submitted to the ministry in charge of trade and industry, the panel said the nuclear accident triggered by the March 11th disaster has tarnished the image of Japanese products abroad.

The panel said the government should help sell Japanese goods to foreign countries through the Internet.

It called for increased cooperation with foreign hotel chains to extend the market for traditional crafts, such as "Kokeshi" wooden dolls in Miyagi Prefecture and ironware in Iwate Prefecture.

The panel also recommended the government support the product development of local industries in the affected region.

The ministry says the advice will be reflected on an action plan for overseas promotion that the government is expected to draw up by the end of June.

Sunday, May 15, 2011 08:57 +0900 (JST)

And it is expected that car shipments will be back to normal by year end.

 

[dorispulaski]

Today's water readings for the inner harbor area are not good-clearly there are leaks to plug in the Unit 1 & Unit 2 area. I expect to see more injections of liquid glass, probably around the foundation of the Unit 1 reactor first. And lots more bags of zeolite inside the silt fence.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e9.pdf

And TEPCO has finally made an announcement on their website about Unit 1's Core:

Press Release (May 15,2011)
The Reactor Core Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 1


Regarding the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused by the Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake which occurred on March 11,2011, we, Tokyo Electric Power Company, have been developing the immediate roadmap to restore the situation, and have taken all measures for this purpose at the moment.

Along with these efforts, we have been organizing the past work progress record as well as the plant data after the earthquake. In this task, we have decided to conduct the analysis of the reactor core
status based on the currently available records and on the hypothesis led from such records.

As a result, we estimate that regarding the Unit 1, nuclear fuel pellets have melted, falling to the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel at a relatively early stage after the tsunami reached the station.

Meanwhile, regarding the reactor core status of Unit 1, because the fuel has been cooled stably by water injection, we believe that there would not be likely the further situation transition, e.g. to the situation where we need to release a large amount of radioactive materials.

Because the current analyses are not always able to utilize every necessary information, which means that the analyses result are provisional, we will make effort to have more accurate status of the reactor core through further investigation.

For the Unit 2 and 3, we will also conduct the similar analyses.

 

[dorispulaski]

The above press release comes with complete data charts and analysis:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e10.pdf

And Will Davis of Atomic Power Review has a very good, layman-understandable explanation of the release, although the release is fairly good, for TEPCO, on its own..

http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com/2011/05/core-totally-demolished-at-fukushima.html

Also NISA has a 10 page report detailing all 6 reactors at Daiichi as of May 11th, showing everything that went on.
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110511-3-2.pdf

Two points to stress: apparently the entire core crumbled/melted down whatever in the first day with no water (16 hours after the tsunami) (Unit 1 was not hooked to fire engines as quickly after cooling failure as the other units were, because it was the first to go).

TEPCO now feels that all the core material is still in the pressure vessel, but resting on the lower pressure vessel head It also feels the core is adequately cooled to prevent further release of core material.

According to Davis:

The high temperature seen at the feed nozzle is due to exposed fuel in the core superheating injected cooling water.

TEPCO indicates that damage to the pressure vessel is likely. However, it indicates that damage isn't so severe that the corium could exit. The rationale for this assumption is the grouping of similar temperatures on the lower head and two different parts of the CRDM.

TEPCO also feels that since temperature and pressure in the containment seem to move in step with primary plant changes, there is enough damage to the pressure vessel and/or piping to permit what would appear to be fairly rapid communication between the two. However, TEPCO has backed off from saying that there is a serious large breach of the lower vessel head... instead referring to a number of smaller openings.

TEPCO also feels that water has been exiting the primary containment for a long time, either due to damage to the primary containment or to piping exiting the primary containment.

And they've taken a liter of water from the common spent fuel pool:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e11.pdf

Before the earthquake, there was no detectable I131, Cs137 or Cs 134 in the common pool to analyze.

Today there is no detectable I 131, 1.2 Becquerels per cubic centimeter of Cs 137 and 0.17 Becquerels of Cs 134. I suppose it got there from deposition from the air.

So when you see the huge numbers in the Unit3 pool, you know something very different was going on there.

 

[dorispulaski]

TEPCO prepares to store more water. They are in the process of turning another building into a big tank. They are still planning for the Areva water treatment center to go up in June:

Press Release (May 16,2011)
Transfer of High Level Radioactive Wastewater to the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility (continued report 2)

Currently, a large quantity of radioactive wastewater exists inside the turbine building of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. In this regard, on April 10th, we received a direction from Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry to report on matters in connection with transfer of high level radioactive wastewater to the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility, such as necessity, assessment of safety, plans on permanent safety storage of wastewater and treatment facilities. (Previously announced on April 15th, 2011)

Since we completed implementing measures to prevent leakage in the main process building of the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility, we compiled the details based on the direction given and reported to Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry on April 18th, 2011. Concurrently, the content of the report has been confirmed by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
(Previously announced on April 19th, 2011)

From April 19th, 2011, we have been continuously transferring high radioactive wastewater from the turbine building of Unit 2 to the Process Main Building of the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility.

Since the level of radioactive wastewater in the turbine building of Unit 3 is increasing, we have been implementing prevention of leakage in the Miscellaneous Solid Waste Volume Reduction Treatment Building of the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility. As the prevention work in the Misc Solid Waste Capacity Reduction Facility is completed, we compiled the details based on the direction given and reported to Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The content of the report has been confirmed by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Based on the method described in the report, we will start transferring high level radioactive wastewater from the turbine building of Unit 3 to the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility once we complete preparation.
More plan verbiage.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/1110516e2.pdf

Schematic of Plan
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/1110516e3.pdf

The new seawater charts are up, and the situation with the Unit 3 and possibly Unit1 radioactive water in the inner harbor seems to have stabilized. Note that the charts are now in Becquerels per Liter, not per cubic centimeter (1000 ccs per Liter), so don't let the size of the numbers versus the old charts creep you out too much.

Daini & Daiichi Air Charts - they are now charting total cs 134, cs 137 and I 131. You can see the I 131 is going away.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110516e10.pdf

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110516e9.pdf

As the short lived isotopes disappear, we are getting to the area where to lower total dose in air, stuff will have to be cleaned up.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110516e7.pdf

This has major consequences for evacuees, and I'll be saying something about that, I hope some time today, after I get the numbers crunched.

Here's the result of TEPCO's raising the rate of water going into Unit 1:

TEPCO: Fuel rods partially exposed above water

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it believes the melted fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor are partially exposed above the water's surface.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says the reactor's fuel rods have melted and fallen to the bottom. It says holes were created and the containment vessel was also damaged. A large amount of highly radioactive water is believed to be leaking into the reactor building.

TEPCO says that as of 11 AM on Sunday, the temperature of the reactor's upper section was 110.4 degrees Celsius, and the lower part was 88.6 degrees.

It says it believes that the exposed fuel is generating hot vapor.

The company also says the temperature of the reactor's upper section fell more than 15 degrees after it increased the amount of cooling water being injected into the reactor from 8 to 10 tons per hour on Sunday.

The utility says it will carefully monitor the reactor's temperatures.

Monday, May 16, 2011 13:16 +0900 (JST)

Note that the temperatures are getting down to below boiling in parts, and just above in others. This is not a bad thing at all.

Maintenance going on at Hamaoka, now that the reactors are shut down.

Seawater found in coolant at Hamaoka plant

At the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan, seawater has been found in coolant at one reactor.

Five nuclear reactors at the Hamaoka plant in Omaezaki City, Shizuoka Prefecture, were all shut down on Saturday due to concern that a massive earthquake might hit the area. The move was in line with a request by Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

In the course of shutdown, plant operator Chubu Electric Power Company found impure substances in coolant water at the No.5 reactor.

The company reports damage to a pipe connected to a condenser, a system that turns the steam generated by a nuclear reactor to water through the use of seawater.
Chubu Electric Power Company says 400 tons of seawater may be mixed into the cooling water that goes through the reactor.

It says 400 tons would not severely affect the reactor, and that no radioactive substances were detected outside the building.

But in order to prevent the reactor being eroded by seawater, the operator will take measures to remove salt from the cooling water.

Monday, May 16, 2011 05:31 +0900 (JST)

NHK comments on TEPCO's plan for number 3's water:

TEPCO to move radioactive water from No.3 reactor

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will start transferring highly radioactive water from the No.3 reactor building to a temporary storage facility as early as Tuesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, estimates that there is about 22,000 tons of highly radioactive water in the reactor's turbine building and in a connecting tunnel.

The utility says the water in the basement of the turbine building was about 1.4 meters high as of Monday morning, a rise of more than 20 centimeters over the past 2 weeks. Part of the water leaked into the sea last week.

TEPCO says it will move about 4,000 tons of the contaminated water to the waste processing facility. The pace of the transfer will be 10 tons per hour.

The company says it took steps to make the waste facility more watertight, and received approval from the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Monday, May 16, 2011 19:49 +0900 (JST)

 

[mot]

Thank you, Doris, for your continuing update. I've been mind boggled by the latest discoveries of what have (or have been suggested to have) happened to the reactors. I am feeling sad. Really sad. How disappointing it must have been for those who have worked hard, hoping for the better situations. The evacuees, the workers on site, TEPCO staff on their HQ, government officials - I am worried about all of them. Their health, their mental health, physical and psychological fatigue they must be feeling. They might have made a series of errors at some stages, but they have worked as hard as they humanly could have. This is the situation they have never faced, and although they might have been too optimistic, the situation they have never predicted and prepared for. I am worried about meltdown of trust amongst the Japanese population. I have been seeing some really harsh opinions in Japanese social media (twitters etc). I hope they can wait and keep faith for the time being and back those at front line up. They are all human beings like us all, with weakness, limited capabilities, personal fears and concerns, and families to worry about and look after. I hope we do not forget that. We should not forget sympathies towards them as fellow humans. It's not time to be divided and suspicious. It can wait. It's time to work together and support each other.

I am not sure why I am writing this to be honest... And this is such a depressing stuff. I am sorry.

 

[dorispulaski]

It is indeed depressing stuff.

However, if Kan is correct, they are still on the same schedule for controlling the reactors, which is relatively good news.

If Unit 1 melted down in the first 16 hours, then most things they did since with it were right-of the 3 reactors, it is the one of the 3 that has caused the least radioactive contamination to the environment.

What is most depressing to me is the people suffering in shelters who should be home. The Kan government does not get it, but the governors of some of the prefectures do:

From NHK:

More prefectures want radiation forecast system
More prefectures across Japan are calling on the government to expand a computer system that predicts how radioactive materials will spread in the event of a nuclear accident. The data could be useful in drawing up evacuation plans for residents living around nuclear power plants.

The system, called SPEEDI, makes projections based on weather and geographical conditions and currently sends the data to 19 prefectures around the country. The forecast by SPEEDI turned out to be fairly accurate after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Radioactive materials spread beyond the 10-kilometer radius around the Fukushima plant initially assumed by the government in its disaster preparedness plan. People living in areas more than 30 kilometers away are now having to evacuate their homes to minimize radiation exposure.

Shiga Prefecture in western Japan is one of the prefectures that has asked for the radiation forecast system. It lies 13 kilometers from a nuclear power plant in neighboring Fukui Prefecture. Shiga Governor Yukiko Kada says it is unreasonable to draw up evacuation plans simply based on the distance from nuclear power plants. She says such plans should be studied based on data the system provides.

Kyoto Prefecture, also neighboring Fukui, has decided to expand the scope of its disaster preparedness plan to cover areas 20 kilometers from the power plant in Fukui.
Monday, May 16, 2011 10:30 +0900 (JST)

These governors want to plan their evacuations, should there be a problem, based on where the fallout will occur, not just draw a circle and evacuate those who do not need to be moved, and leave in place those who do based on it.

Meanwhile, here is the case:

20 milliSieverts per year is the Japanese government's rule for women and children, 50 milliSieverts per year for non-emergency workers (men), and 250 milliSieverts over 5 years for emergency workers. In fact, it is difficult to prove any bad effect for 100 milliSieverts per year, and people live in the city of Ramshar, Iran, where every year the radiation dose is 70 milliSieverts per year.

And already deaths are reported from the rigors of living in shelters, both from diseases (norovirus), and hypothermia, and other such deaths.

Note that the figures in the map below would only be that high if the radiation levels stayed the same all year (and it will be dropping as the last of the short lived isotopes decay, not staying the same)

On the radiation map of Fukushima generated by the US government working with MET, the color ranges mean:

http://i.imgur.com/lctIy.jpg
Dose at 1 meter high

• Red high 91.0 microSieverts per hour 797.71 milliSieverts per year
  
• Red low 19.0 microSieverts per hour 166.55 milliSieverts per year
  
• Orange high 19.0 microSieverts per hour 166.55 milliSieverts per year
  
• Orange low 9.5 microSieverts per hour 83.28 milliSieverts per year
  
• Yellow high 9.5 microSieverts per hour 83.28 milliSieverts per year
  
• Yellow low 3.8 microSieverts per hour 33.31 milliSieverts per year
  
• Green high 3.8 microSieverts per hour 33.31 milliSieverts per year
  
• Green low 1.9 microSieverts per hour 16.66 milliSieverts per year
  
• Light blue high 1.9 microSieverts per hour 16.66 milliSieverts per year
  
• Light blue low 1.0 microSieverts per hour 8.77 milliSieverts per year
  
• Dark Blue under 1.0 microSieverts per hour 8.77 milliSieverts per year
  

Certainly, at the least, people whose homes are in the blue and green zones should be sent home. And given the risks in the shelters, I would send home all who live in the yellow zone.

If you look at the map, which is normalized to April 29th values, there are significant amounts of yellow, green and blue in the mandatory evacuation zone. In fact, they comprise at least half of the evacuated area.

And if you look at the red and orange areas, over half of them are outside the mandatory evacuation zone. Clearly, the wrong people are in the shelters.


http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/05/15/1305909_051419.pdf
All these towns are outside the evacuation zone. These numbers are from yesterday's NISA values for radiation:

Fukushima city Sugitsuma 1.5 uS/hr 13.15 mS/y
Fukushima city Onami Takinoiri 2.0 uS/hr 17.53 mS/y
Fukushima city Ryozen 2.3 uS/hr 20.16 mS/y
Date county Kawamata 1.2 uS/hr 10.52 mS/y
Futaba county katsurao village 2.5 uS/hr 21.92 mS/yr
Futaba county Namie Tsushima Nakaoki 5.3 uS/hr 46.46 mS/yr
Futaba county Namie Akougi Toshichiro 15.2 uS/hr 133.24 mS/yr
Soma county Iitate Village 15.5 uS/hr 135.87 mS/yr
Futaba county Namie Tsushima Taikoupi 4.9 uS/hr 42.95 mS/yr
Date county Kawamata Yamakiya Oonukari 2.6 uS/hr 22.79 mS/yr
Tamura City Miyakoji Hurumichi 1.5 uS/h 13.15 mS/y
Date county Ryozen Ishida Holjizawa 3.0 uS/h 26.30 mS/y
Futaba county Namie shimotsushima 9.8 uS/h 85.91 mS/y
Futaba county Namie Akougi Ishikoya 18.8 uS/h 164.80 mS/yr
Futaba county Namie Akougi Kunugidaira 42.4 uS/h 371.68 mS/y
Futaba county Namie town Akougi Kunugidaira 42.0 uS/h 368.17 mS/y
Fukushima city Hikarigaoka 1.7 uS/h 14.90 mS/y
Minami Soma city Haramachi Ohara Daihata 2.6 uS/h 22.79 mS/y
Minami Soma city Haramachi Baba aza 1.8 uS/h 15.78 mS/y

They are just now starting to evacuate two of these areas-AFTER 2 months of radiation a lot higher than the values on this list.

Today, every single measurement at Daini, 10 km south of Daiichi, and deep within the evacuation zone, was under 2.0 microSieverts per hour, which is 17.53 milliSieverts per year, well within the dose for women and children. The I 131 is nearly gone from the air. In fact, the southernmost measurement on the Daiichi periphery is 6 microSieverts per hour, which is 52.6 milliSieverts per year.


The people south of Daini should be back home. The people in shelters have experienced almost no radiation, especially compared to people living in Namie and Iitate Village.

And if you move the people who live south of Daini back home, there would be more room in the shelters for those who must remain there.

I know I go on about this a lot, but no one in the press seems to be talking about it. And the government is not moving on it, either.

I find it frustrating and saddening.

JAIF has an article about the sampling in its Atoms in Japan magazine. A link is given to the original US Department of Energy / MEXT report. It includes a good copy of the maps.

http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/05/10/1304797_0506.pdf

and there are more installments of Kitamura's Diary of Evacuation Life

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1305533962P.pdf

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1305533993P.pdf

And as to how it looks to an evacuee:

Oh yes, the accidents deprived us of freedoms. If unable to return home, we would lose our houses and all household goods. But that is not certain, yet. What we lost so far is freedoms. Our constitution assures our freedoms. We never lose it unless we are imprisoned. The government instructed us to evacuate for protecting our health. But, in a sense, we are deprived of our fundamental human rights. In fact, there are some people who do not evacuate against the instruction and still remain in the evacuation zone on their own will. To the mindset of evacuees, our evacuation is not caused by a natural disaster, but basically by a human disaster. Controlled access to our houses is different from the controlled access in the volcanic areas for safety protection from the eruptions. People here cannot stand the prolonged infringement of their human rights.

Even if the government is not aware that Kitamura's town is habitable (or nearly so) again, he does:

4. Evacuation termination wanted
This is the biggest interest of all evacuees. But nothing is foreseen. The mayor of our town
watches every day the radiation monitoring reports. He wonders if the monitoring spots could
be increased, too. The radiation levels in our home town Tomioka-cho are reported to be
lower than those in some northwestern areas like I-idate-mura Village.

 

[dorispulaski]

Meanwhile from TEPCO, the external seawater report:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110516e14.pdf

No real change in seawater outside the inner harbor. It looks like any spill from Unit 3 has been contained successfully, and whatever water is in the basement of Unit 1 is staying there.

and the report that NISA requested, which includes lots of drawings and photographs

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11051613-e.html

And from your regularly scheduled channel, see what I mean about Daini?:

Daini 9:00 PM JST May 16th
Six peripheral points ( 1.8, 1.5, 1.9, 16, 1.7, 1.6 ) microSieverts per hour
Manual point 9 AM 1.2 microSieverts per hour

Daiichi 9PM JST May 16 Wind variable, south south east

Eight peripheral points ( 6, 26, 19, 17, 21, 43, 132, 133 ) microSieverts per hour

Main Office Building 393 microSieverts per hour

West Gate 16 microSieverts per hour

Cart near West Gate 16.6 microSieverts per hour

From 3:00 pm to 6:32 pm, on May 16, we sprayed water to Unit 3 by a temporary motor driven pump (from 3:10 pm to 5:30 pm, injected hydrazine [corrosion inhibitor] at the same time).
- At 10:00 am on May 16th, we recommenced transferring puddle water in the basement of the turbine building of Unit 6 to the temporary tank. At 2:00 pm on May 16th, we stopped the transfer pump (approx 80 m3)
- On May 16th, we are spraying dust inhibitor to areas including nearby Solid Waste Storing Facility by a conventional method.

 

[dorispulaski]

And from NHK:

Governors' nuclear demands

Prefectures hosting nuclear power plants have agreed to demand that the central government establish clearer nuclear safety standards.

The governors of 14 prefectures met in Tokyo on Monday. They discussed ways to ease residents' concerns over nuclear safety in the wake of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant caused by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

Aomori Governor Shingo Mimura, who chairs the group, said the Fukushima accident will likely have a variety of impacts on prefectures hosting nuclear facilities.

The prefectural leaders agreed to ask the central government to fully investigate the Fukushima nuclear accident. They also want a rational explanation of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request to shut down the Hamaoka power plant in central Japan. They are demanding that the government set clearer standards and conditions for nuclear safety.

Currently 35 reactors, or two-thirds of Japan's total, are shut down. Some were stopped after the March disaster while others remain down after routine inspections.
Monday, May 16, 2011 19:49 +0900 (JST)

TEPCO does well with moving radioactive water. It has lots of experience now.

TEPCO to move radioactive water from No.3 reactor

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will start transferring highly radioactive water from the No.3 reactor building to a temporary storage facility as early as Tuesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, estimates that there is about 22,000 tons of highly radioactive water in the reactor's turbine building and in a connecting tunnel.

The utility says the water in the basement of the turbine building was about 1.4 meters high as of Monday morning, a rise of more than 20 centimeters over the past 2 weeks. Part of the water leaked into the sea last week.

TEPCO says it will move about 4,000 tons of the contaminated water to the waste processing facility. The pace of the transfer will be 10 tons per hour.

The company says it took steps to make the waste facility more watertight, and received approval from the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Monday, May 16, 2011 19:49 +0900 (JST)

TEPCO to announce revised reactor cool-down

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will announce on Tuesday a revision of its plan to cool down the plant's reactors. The revision comes one month after the original plan was announced.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it needs to change its plan to pour water into the reactors after confirming that the fuel rods have melted and may have burned holes in the pressure vessel of the Number 1 reactor. Radioactive water is likely to be flowing out from the containment vessel to the basement.

TEPCO says it suspects a similar situation is happening in the No. 2 and 3 reactors.

The firm says it is considering pumping water out of the containment vessels and circulating it back into the reactors after cooling it with heat exchangers. It is also considering pumping water from the basement back into the reactors.

TEPCO is expected to keep to its original schedule of stabilizing the reactors within 6 to 9 months.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 05:17 +0900 (JST)

Here's a schematic picture
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/update/images/17_03_v_s.jpg

Work resumes at Sharp LCD plants

Major electronics maker Sharp has resumed production of liquid crystal displays at 2 factories in western Japan that were suspended after the March 11th earthquake.

Operations resumed at a plant in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, and another in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, on Monday.

The factories were shut down in early April due to a shortage of industrial gas needed to make LCD circuits and surplus inventories amid a decline in sales of LCD TVs.

Sharp says it plans to gradually boost output at the 2 plants while monitoring the availability of the gas and demand for LCD panels.
Monday, May 16, 2011 14:32 +0900 (JST)

Whereabouts of over 9,000 evacuees unknown

Municipal governments in Fukushima Prefecture say they are unable to confirm the whereabouts of more than 9,000 people who were forced to evacuate after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Residents of 8 municipalities within the 20-kilometer no-entry zone around the plant had to leave the area. Local governments do not know where about 9,200 of them, or 12 percent of the population, have relocated to. As a result, the governments have not been able to help these survivors. They cannot issue disaster certificates, pay aid funds, or explain procedures for brief home visits.

The governments are concerned they will face difficulties rebuilding their towns and villages if these residents remain unaccounted for.

The central government says it will work to make the public aware of a toll-free phone number for survivors, and a system that notifies the 8 localities when evacuees contact a municipality they have fled to.Monday, May 16, 2011 11:32 +0900 (JST)

The phone number for compensation is on the front page of the TEPCO website, should you happen to know someone who qualifies.

 

[Olympia]

I agree with you, Doris, that the worst aspect of the situation right now is all the people still stuck in shelters. Shades of Hurricane Katrina. Elderly people lying on mats on the floor; children not in their classrooms. There's no way that people are doing well in those areas.

 

[dorispulaski]

Yes, Olympia, I am also flashing back to Hurricane Katrina and our country's inabilities to cope with a large group of evacuees whose houses were ruined, and contaminated with mold and worse. We still haven't recovered, and the flooding headed at New Orleans right now depresses the heck out of me.

Morning's NHK news.

At IBM there was a poster that made the rounds, that I think I have discussed before, about the stages of the project.

We are now proceeding to the stage about the search for the guilty and punishment of the innocent, in this case, the evacuees and contract workers at TEPCO.

It remains only for their to be reward for the non-participants.

Can't arrive too soon!

"Mega float" arrives at port near Fukushima plant
A giant storage barge that will be used to hold radioactive water has arrived at a port near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The steel mega-float, 136 meters long and 46 meters wide, can store up to 10,000 tons of water. It has been provided to Tokyo Electric Power Company from Shizuoka City in central Japan, where it had been used as a fishing park. The floating structure entered the Onahama port in Iwaki City, south of the nuclear plant, on Tuesday morning. After some final checks, it will move to a wharf at the stricken nuclear plant on Friday.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 09:36 +0900 (JST)

And now that they know more about what happened, plans change:

TEPCO revises plan to stabilize reactors
The operator of the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has revised its plan to bring it under control. Tokyo Electric Power Company announced the changes on Tuesday, exactly one month after it released the original plan. That plan called for filling the Number 1, 2 and 3 reactors with water, but the recent discovery that fuel rods had melted and damaged the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor has forced TEPCO to reconsider.

The utility suspects a similar meltdown at Number 2 and 3 reactors.

The company will now try to cool the reactors by pumping out water from the lower part of the containment vessels, chilling it with heat exchangers, and then circulating it back into the reactors. It also plans to install heat exchangers to cool spent-fuel storage pools at Number 1, 3 and 4 reactors by around July. Despite the revised plan, TEPCO is sticking to its schedule of achieving stable cooling by July and bringing about a cold shutdown of the reactors by around October to January.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 19:48 +0900 (JST)

More info on what may have happened to Unit 1

Nuclear plant cooling system manually shut down
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says workers may have manually shut down the No.1 reactor's emergency cooling system in order to prevent damage to the reactor. It says pressure inside the reactor had dropped sharply after the earthquake struck the plant on March 11th.

Tokyo Electric Power Company on Monday disclosed records of its operations at the plant. They show that the reactor automatically halted operations after the earthquake. The emergency cooling system was automatically activated but stopped about 10 minutes later and remained off for about 3 hours until after the tsunami arrived.

TEPCO says plant workers may have manually shut down the cooling system because pressure inside the reactor had dropped sharply from 70 to 45 atmospheres. The system is designed to cool the reactor even if all external sources of power are lost, but the move to shut it down temporarily means that it did not fully function. TEPCO says the decision may have been made based on a manual to prevent damage to the reactor.

It says if the system had worked, it may have had more time until the meltdown, so it will investigate developments leading up to the decision to turn it off and whether the move was correct.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 13:18 +0900 (JST)

Little generators didn't work

Generator trucks proved useless at Fukushima plant
The operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says dozens of power-generating trucks brought to the plant just after the March 11th disaster mostly proved to be useless. About 70 generator trucks from the Self-Defense Forces and other entities headed to the plant after the quake knocked out external power and the tsunami disabled the facility's backup generators. But plant operator TEPCO says debris strewn across the compound and flooded switchboards hampered the trucks' set up.

The utility says a switchboard for the No.2 reactor was finally wired to one of the generator trucks about 24 hours after the disaster.

But moments later, a hydrogen explosion at the neighboring No.1 reactor fried the wiring and cut off the power supply from the truck. Another hydrogen explosion 2 days later at the No.3 reactor damaged generator vehicles with chunks of flying concrete. Electricity was finally restored to the plant through the regular power grid on March 21st --- 10 days after the quake and tsunami.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 09:59 +0900 (JST)

Meanwhile, the government wants more details.

Govt spokesman seeks clarifications
Japan's top government spokesman has demanded that TEPCO present a detailed report on how workers manually shutdown the reactor's emergency cooling system before the tsunami struck.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters on Tuesday that he learned about the manual shutdown in morning news reports. He said the government's nuclear safety agency has asked TEPCO to explain the matter.

Edano said the utility should first present a detailed account of the facts and developments, so that an assessment can be done. He said the company will be asked to publicize all findings.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 11:59 +0900 (JST)

Unfortunately, damages to farmers do not extend to the support structure for farmers-people who work at feed and grain stores, and various other trades.

Farmers to make 1st damages claim against TEPCO
Farmers in Fukushima Prefecture plan to demand about 5.5 million dollars in damages from TEPCO over radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

32 agricultural groups decided at a meeting in Fukushima City on Tuesday that they will make the demand to Tokyo Electric Power Company on May 27th. It will be their first compensation claim.

They say that 4 farmers' cooperatives lost about 1.8 million dollars by the end of April because they could not ship vegetables such as spinach due to the contamination.

A dairy farmers' cooperative estimates that losses from halted shipments of raw milk in March reached about 3.7 million dollars.

The groups say they plan to hold meetings once a month to assess ongoing losses and demand compensation from TEPCO.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 19:48 +0900 (JST)

Meanwhile the tea planters of Ibaraki are trying to figure out what to do with tainted tea leaves. They are picking them and sequestering them at this time.
The government is trying to figure out what to do with the evacuees.
This is such garbage. Let the ones who are in blue, green and yellow areas, just go home. Then house the others. The people will be happier and healthier and the financial problem smaller.

Govt's plan to support Fukushima sufferers
The Japanese government has announced its policies for supporting people and businesses affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The government's nuclear disaster taskforce held a meeting attended by all cabinet ministers on Tuesday.

In the meeting, the government admitted that promoting nuclear energy has been a state policy and promised to deal responsibly with all victims of the nuclear accident until the very end of reconstruction. Under the planned timeline, 15,200 temporary housing units will be secured by mid August for people evacuating areas near the nuclear plant.

Starting in late May, the evacuees will be allowed to retrieve their vehicles from within the 20-kilometer no-entry zone. They will also be allowed to make further temporary visits to their homes later. The government promised to monitor residents' health even after the nuclear disaster is resolved. It says it also plans to decide, in July, mid-term guidelines for Tokyo Electric Power Company on compensating sufferers.

For small-and medium-sized companies, special zero-interest long-term loans are planned, while soil in the affected areas will be decontaminated and refined.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 12:32 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

Why don't they just issue dosimeters to the evacuees and send home those who choose to go. When their total dose exceeds whatever number, they have to go back to the shelter until the one year anniversary of going home. Lots cheaper than permanent internment for these people. And people would be careful not to be exposed for fear of having to go back.

This is a country that allows smoking. I fail to see the logic of the current set of actions.

 

[mot]

Why don't they just issue dosimeters to the evacuees and send home those who choose to go. When their total dose exceeds whatever number, they have to go back to the shelter until the one year anniversary of going home. Lots cheaper than permanent internment for these people. And people would be careful not to be exposed for fear of having to go back.

This is a country that allows smoking. I fail to see the logic of the current set of actions.

For some reasons, I do not think that will happen. I do not mean to bad mouth my own country, but Japan is a nation of followers and known for obedience. It can work both ways. It was the cause of surprising calm amongst the victims at the time of the disasters. But many are not used to make decisions by themselves and take responsibilities over their own action. They'd rather be told what to do. They would like an assurance (of safety, etc) by someone of authority before they take any action. Of course, I am generalising a lot here... and perhaps unfairly so...

 

[dorispulaski]

mot, I would defer to your personal knowledge. I hope you are wrong, but fear you are right, from the way people are behaving. But the people in authority (MEXT and for that matter the US department of energy) have the dose map that they made & measured, and which matches closely to the SPEEDI model, created by one of the Japanese universities. And it matches the measurements made on the ground, as well as the ones made by the planes.

What more do the people in the government need to say, "It is safe to go home. Here is this dosimeter. If you are worried that your area is anomalous, or that what you do and where you go is dangerous, refer to it, and if it is not beeping overdose, you are OK. If it is close to overdose, here's what you do. (Maybe go to this clinic and await further instructions, I don't know)

It is all very strange for me. I am praying for all the people, the ones dying in the shelters who shouldn't be there, and the ones being overexposed still in Namie & Iitate village, also wrongly.

mot, Is there anything that you can think of that we all could do that could get some exposure to the facts? I can write this little thread, but that is all I can think of to do?

Tomioka-cho is the town which has Daini in it, and it is the town Toshiro Kitamura comes from. I would love to hear that he & his family are back home.

There are two more installments of his diary today.:

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1305619427P.pdf
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1305619460P.pdf

I asked my friend Jimmy, who was the liaison between Indian Point Power Plant in Buchanan, NY, and the town of Buchanan since before it was completed, what the evacuation plans are. He said 30 years ago, they had NYU make measurements, set up a model, and draw maps for where any fallout would go, based on the prevailing winds and weather. Since then, they have had them updated by computers, and the new plots match the old ones. People will evacuate, based on whether they will be at risk, not some arbitrary radius circle. He says that most of the year, the evacuation is to New York City, to the south, as the prevailing wind is north, and that people know how to be informed where to go.

That's a relief to know.

Our plans here in CT are not as good. We do have defined, fixed places to go and alternate routes to get there, by town, but the determination of who gets evacuated appears to be based on a circle, an idea I dislike very much, having seen how that played out both in Chernobyl and in Daiichi.

 

[mot]

Doris,

mot, Is there anything that you can think of that we all could do that could get some exposure to the facts? I can write this little thread, but that is all I can think of to do?

I will think about it, but at the moment, I am not sure if there is any effective means to draw people's attention to the facts, more than to the official instructions.

There is this universal fear of 'getting it wrong'. People are increasingly avoiding any risks and when they have to take risks, they search for someone else they can hold accountable first. That's the reason why they wait until someone, who is willing to be held responsible for any consequences, to do something. It is not only in Japan, I presume. Building industry can be the worst, in UK at least. The industry is made up of a chain of passing down responsibilities; without finding someone to hold accountable first, nothing can happen. My heart sinks each time I write something as ridiculous as 'please be careful when you work on a high platform on scaffolding' in the risk assessment, so that if someone does fall, I can safely wash my hands off by saying 'but I told you to be careful first! It's not my fault!'

I am impressed with the evacuation plans in Buchanan. Do you think that was a valuable lesson learnt from the Three Mile Island accident? Or Americans are more logical and scientific than Japanese?

 

[dorispulaski]

It is partially because Jimmy is involved on the town's side. He's a physicist and relentlessly logical. And scientific. If Buchanan were doing something stupid, he would be sure to tell them. He is not one to keep his mouth shut. The equivalent guy here from Groton is my third cousin Phil who has a garden center, plus Groton isn't the main town for Millstone in any case. Phil's relentlessly crazy, not logical. On the other hand, if Phil thinks something is stupid, he also would not keep his mouth shut, because he's crazy. I don't know whether Japanese are less logical or scientific than Americans, but I do think that perhaps we are a little more likely to set our faces against the authorities, perhaps a little more likely to make a decision before achieving some kind of consensus. Some of that is the Wild West, pioneer spirit thing that goes back to our roots when people were often in a situation where there was no one to take responsibility but themselves. I believe that Japanese kids test wildly better than American kids on math and science tests, so it is certainly nothing to do with aptitude.

Surely lessons were learned from Three Mile Island. One lesson learned at Three Mile Island was, "It can so happen here." People in Japan kept mentioning that they were told it can't happen there by NPP operators.

And TMI caused a large number of people to be actively anti-nuclear, rather than not caring, and many of those are in our journalistic elite, who are not logical and not scientific. So Indian Point has been under attack by the New York Times several times a year since Day One. Indian Point knows their plans must be perfect, more so than any other site in the country.