Japanese Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Reactors

[dorispulaski]

There is a picture of the robot on the NHK website. I had to smile. It reminded me a lot of Johnny 5
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/images/johnny5.jpg

It makes sense that they started with Unit 3. The temperature at the water nozzle is below boiling, and the radioactive water in the subdrain isn't that radioactive. So perhaps, if the radiation inside looks low enough, they can send employees in.

Robot used to investigate reactor buildings
Tokyo Electric Power Company has started using a remote-controlled robot to investigate the reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

High levels of radiation have kept workers from approaching the buildings of the first 3 reactors, which lost their cooling functions in the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. The utility started investigating the buildings using a US-made remote-controlled robot on Sunday, starting with the No.3 reactor building. The robot took photos inside the building and measured radiation and oxygen levels as well as the temperature and humidity.

The utility says it is analyzing the findings. If successful, the condition inside the No.3 reactor building will be known for the first time since a hydrogen explosion occurred there on March 14th.

TEPCO says it will conduct the same investigation inside the No.1 and 2 reactor buildings, and use the findings to study what work can be done.
Monday, April 18, 2011 00:27 +0900 (JST)

And this is very good news. The Japanese government is beginning to talk about letting some or all of the evacuees go home during the next 3 to 6 months of the TEPCO plan (depending on what they decide is the moment the "reactors are stable".

Govt may let evacuees return when plant stabilizes
Japan's industry minister has hinted that the government may be able to tell evacuees if they can return home when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is stabilized.

Banri Kaieda spoke to reporters on Sunday shortly after Tokyo Electric Power Company presented a road map to cool down the reactors and significantly reduce radiation leaks in 6 to 9 months. Kaieda called the plan an important step for moving from the first-aid phase to the stabilization phase. He urged the utility to implement the road map and move up the schedule if possible. He also called on the company to assign sufficient workers and find enough materials and equipment to carry out the task.

The minister said the government will regularly check the progress being made and the safety of the plant. Kaieda hinted that the government is likely to review the evacuation instructions issued for the area around the plant after radiation leaks from the utility are controlled. By that time, the government will study detailed criteria for evacuation and try to decontaminate as much land as possible.

He expressed hope that the government will be able to tell some of the evacuees if they can return home when the nuclear plant is put under control.
Monday, April 18, 2011 00:27 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

A How To: Decontaminating Radioactive Water

TEPCO's recent plan inspired me to do some looking to see how this is done. If you recall, I was not fancying doing it by filtration. I found this old (1967) article, and several others in the same vein:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/25035723
"Decontamination of Radioactive Water by Co-Precipitation with Titanium Hydroxide"

Three methods, according to the author, Tsuyoshi Komatsu, are known: evaporation, ion exchange and coprecipitation or flocculation. Of these, coprecipitation is the cheapest, which considering the volume of water at Daiichi suggests to me that it mayl be used there, especially for water with lower levels of contamination.

Apparently, some 70% of the radioactive material in radioactive water can be removed using this titanium hydroxide process vs. 30% using ferric hydroxide or aluminum hydroxide. Of particular concern with the other hydroxides is relative failure to remove cesium 137, which is important at Daiichi.

Apparently you precipitate the radioactive stuff and then centrifuge it out.

They may of course go with ion exchange, but having actually had something to do with ion exchange resins, I don't think it would be a great idea here-just too high an amount of stuff, especially for the highly contaminated water.

The "Handbook of Radioactive Contamination and Decontamination" by Severa and Bar says that you sort by level of contamination and use either evaporation/distillation to purify or ion exchange.

 

[dorispulaski]

Meanwhile, NHK has more stories.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has visited Japan, and Prime Minister Kan has asked for both public and private help from the US. Hillary has promised to do whatever is asked.

Kan asks for continued US help to tackle Fukushima

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has asked for continued US assistance in putting the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control. Kan made the request at a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday in Tokyo, shortly after Tokyo Electric Power Company outlined a proposal to stabilize the plant within 9 months.

He said Japan must provide the international community with the lessons learned from the nuclear problems so that other countries can use them in the future. He added that Japan wants to maintain close cooperation with the United States to address the issue. Clinton reportedly accepted the prime minister's request. Kan expressed his gratitude for the US assistance for Japan after last month's earthquake and tsunami.

He told Clinton that on behalf of the Japanese people he wants to thank US troops, the State Department and other government offices that have been working for Japan in the same way they do for their own country. Kan said he is also grateful to the United States for making a positive assessment of Japan's economy and swiftly easing travel restrictions to Japan after the disaster.

Clinton said the United States is confident that Japan will recover and be a very strong economic and global player for decades to come. She added that the US public and private sectors are ready to provide Japan with any kind of support.
Monday, April 18, 2011 00:27 +0900 (JST)

Japan,US agree to join hands for reconstruction

The foreign ministers of Japan and the United States have agreed to keep working closely to contain the ongoing nuclear crisis and to reconstruct the areas affected by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. In a bilateral meeting on Sunday, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto thanked the United States for its support for Japan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded that she came to Japan to show the strong ties between the 2 countries. In a joint news conference, Matsumoto said the Japanese government will do its best to contain the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, while seeking the United States' support.

Clinton said the United States is ready to provide any support it can to help Japan deal with the unprecedented crisis. On the reconstruction of the affected areas, Clinton said the United States promises unchanged support. Matsumoto said they had agreed that the 2 countries should work in partnership both at the government and private-sector levels.

He said he wants to promote cooperation among a wide range of private-sector organizations, including businesses and NGOs.
Monday, April 18, 2011 00:27 +0900 (JST

People who make radiation measuring equipment of all sorts are going to become more rich. This will be a theme in the next several years.

Dosimeters to be distributed to public schools

As radioactive substances continue to leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Japanese government has decided to distribute dosimeters to all public schools in Fukushima prefecture. Students started their new school year earlier this month, but many parents and teachers are worried whether it is safe to let children attend classes.

The Ministry of Education will deliver 1,700 dosimeters to public schools, in order to measure the amount of accumulated radiation for each location. The Ministry will also install radiation monitoring systems at schools near the nuclear plant, where high levels have been detected. The Ministry has proposed an 11 million dollar budget for the purchase and operation of the necessary equipment, and will make the radiation data available to the public.
Sunday, April 17, 2011 06:49 +0900 (JST)

There are at least 2, if not three different groups of companies wanting to be involved with fixing Fukushima. One of them makes their pitch:


Builders submit plans to dismantle Fukushima plant

The builders of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have submitted draft plans to dismantle the reactors over the medium to long term.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plant, issued a schedule on Sunday for putting the crisis under control in 6 to 9 months. However, various issues remain over the medium term for completely decommissioning the crippled reactors.

Toshiba, which helped build the 2nd and 3rd reactors, has submitted to TEPCO and the industry ministry a draft plan to decommission the plant, jointly with US companies in the nuclear power sector. The plan states that it will take about 5 years to safely remove nuclear fuel rods from the pools and pressure vessels, and another 5 years to dismantle the reactors and clear the land while removing radioactive materials that leaked outside the plant.

The company says the process may take even longer, depending on the conditions inside the reactors. Hitachi, which was involved in the construction of the 4th reactor, submitted its draft plan to TEPCO earlier this month.

It states that the complete dismantling of the reactors will take more than 15 years, in view of the lessons learned from past accidents and the fact that 4 reactors broke down simultaneously. TEPCO is taking these proposals into consideration in studying concrete measures.
Monday, April 18, 2011 00:27 +0900 (JST)

 

[Olympia]

TEPCO's recent plan inspired me to do some looking to see how this is done. If you recall, I was not fancying doing it by filtration. I found this old (1967) article, and several others in the same vein:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/25035723
"Decontamination of Radioactive Water by Co-Precipitation with Titanium Hydroxide"

Three methods, according to the author, Tsuyoshi Komatsu, are known: evaporation, ion exchange and coprecipitation or flocculation. Of these, coprecipitation is the cheapest, which considering the volume of water at Daiichi suggests to me that it mayl be used there, especially for water with lower levels of contamination.

Apparently, some 70% of the radioactive material in radioactive water can be removed using this titanium hydroxide process vs. 30% using ferric hydroxide or aluminum hydroxide. Of particular concern with the other hydroxides is relative failure to remove cesium 137, which is important at Daiichi.

Apparently you precipitate the radioactive stuff and then centrifuge it out.

They may of course go with ion exchange, but having actually had something to do with ion exchange resins, I don't think it would be a great idea here-just too high an amount of stuff, especially for the highly contaminated water.

The "Handbook of Radioactive Contamination and Decontamination" by Severa and Bar says that you sort by level of contamination and use either evaporation/distillation to purify or ion exchange.

Wow. I actually understand this. They bind the particles to something that attracts them (in this case several hydroxides, which are molecules containing a bonded pair of oxygen and hydrogen atoms in a 1:1 ratio) and can then maneuver them out of the liquid by centrifuge, rendering the liquid safer...right? (Please correct anything I say that is inaccurate.) You do a great job of presenting concepts, Doris. And thanks for finding the precedent for this approach in the earlier article.

My degree was in medieval literature, and the science I'm reasonably competent in is biology, so if you can help me get my bearings in this, you can really pat yourself on the back. I'm just sorry we have to learn all this stuff from a real-world, real-time scenario, instead of someone's science fiction novel or a theoretical lab presentation. But at least things sound doable and solvable (not to mention soluble!--little chemical pun there), and it's possible to maintain hope for a good outcome.

 

[dorispulaski]

Olympia, That sounds about right.

And since it seems to be biology night, there's a blogger who produced this little gem. I've tried ( not too successfully I fear ) to express my frustration with some of the "health science" models used for the risks of radiation. This blogger, equally frustrated with a paper by an employeed of the "Union of Concerned Scientists," a heavily anti-nuclear group, one Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, entitled, "How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause." Her calculations disagree radically with what was found by UNSCEAR and the UN's World Health Organization:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

WHO's committee on Chernobyl, using the same base assumptions as Dr. Gronlund, calculates 4,000 to 9,000 cancer deaths. Gronlund gets 40,000 to 75,000 deaths (and claims them worldwide).

Obviously, one of these two groups is dealing off the bottom of the deck, since there is no intersection whatsoever in their solutions to the problem.

The blogger, Brian Mays of NEI, helpfully applies the Linear No Threshold model used by Gronlund to model the amount of deaths per year caused by travelling (or worse, piloting) airplanes and gets 68,000 cancer cases, resulting in 34,000 deaths per decade. He concludes, with his tongue in his cheek, that aviation is more dangerous to health than old Russian reactors.

As we've all discussed before, an average transcontinental flight exposes each traveller to 2 to 5 mrem of radiation.

Each airline flight exposes its crew and passengers to an excess risk of cancer in the form of cosmic radiation. As the US EPA explains, exposure to cosmic radiation depends on altitude, latitude, and solar activity, but the EPA estimates that "a typical cross-country flight in a commercial airplane" results in "2 to 5 millirem (mrem)" of dose from radiation.

The statistics from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics indicate that over 7 billion airline passengers (foreign and domestic) flew in the US between January 2001 and January 2011. Thus, if we assume a fairly low average value of 3 millirem per passenger, then aviation has resulted in a collective dose of 210,000 passenger-Sv over the past decade.

This is quite a large number already, but Dr. Gronlund did not consider the radiation exposure within just one country. She provided an estimate for the entire world. So we should follow suit.

The US aviation market comprises somewhere between 25 to 30 percent of the entire world's airline passengers (e.g., in 2009, passengers in the US comprised roughly 28% of the airline passengers worldwide, according to IATA statistics). Thus, if we conservatively assume that US passengers comprised 30% of the passengers worldwide during the past decade, then worldwide, the collective dose due to commercial aviation is 700,000 passenger-Sv.

Then using the multiplier Dr. Gronlund used, that amounts to 68,000 cases of cancer and 34,000 deaths per decade.
Q.E.D., but also crazy nutso, because no one has every been able to show that airline pilots and crews have any higher incidence of cancer than the general population.

But, it also demonstrates that the method used is highly specious as well.

And that the claims of the "Concerned Scientists" to be scientists are perhaps not well-founded.

 

[Olympia]

I'm a little belated, but thanks to you, Mot and Doris both, for the reports about the cherry blossom festivals and the clever way the Sultan of Oman figured out to support local Japanese businesses. Heartening indeed.

 

[dorispulaski]

Daini April 18th, 3:00 PM JST
Six Peripheral Measurement Points (2.7, 2.0, 2.8, 2.3, 2.3, 2.3) microSieverts per hour

DaiichiApril 18th 3:00 PM JST
Wind is in the east

Gamma Radiation measured by cart near West Gate 31.4 microSieverts per hour
Eight Peripheral Measurement Points (10, 34, 30, 29, 48, 81, 189, 169) microSieverts per hour
Temporary Measurement Points
Main Building 0.50 milliSieverts per hour (when it drops below .500, I'll switch to microSieverts)
Main Gate 62 microSieverts per hour
West Gate 26 microSieverts per hour

JAIF's update of MEXT data on the 30 km out data points. The latest any has been reported is April 15th.

Latest TEPCO data on points around the plant, April 16th. The bar chart has too much crammed together to be particularly useful, mixing distances off shore, sand lances, dates, people taking the measurements.

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1303106051P.pdf
Temperature going down in Unit 1 and Unit 2, which had temperatures at the reactor pressure vessel water nozzle of above boiling (100 C). Unit 3 still below boiling at that point. Pressure rising slowly at Unit 1, due to nitrogen injection.
Operation for cooling the spent fuel pools - From 5:39pm to 9:22 pm on on April 17th, we have sprayed water to Unit 4 by a concrete pump vehicle

Also, from 9:00am to 11:15am on April 18th, we threw in two sandbags between the screen pump rooms of Unit 1 and 2, and five sandbags between the screen pump rooms of Unit 2 and 3. From April 15th to April 17th, we threw in ten sandbags including zeolite in front of the screen rooms of Units 1 to 4. (On April 17th, we threw in two sandbags between the screen pump rooms of Unit 1 and 2, and five sandbags between the screen pump rooms of Unit 2 and 3, seven sandbags in total, and finished the work at 11:15am.)

NHK has a news report on what the robot found: ( see below)

- At 2:34pm on April 17th, power supplies to a common spent fuel pool was temporarily stopped because a breaker at the upstream side was released due to an electrical short circuit which was caused by an insufficient treatment of the end of the unused cable which was connected to the power source of the common spent fuel in parallel. However, after removal of the cable and checkups, at 5:30pm, the power supplies to the common spent fuel pool was restored.
- From 11:30am to 2:00pm, we opened and closed the double doors and conducted surveys of the situation of the inside of the nuclear reactor building of Unit 3 and measured a dose of radiation, or non-existence of a puddle of water, etc. by a remote control robot. Also, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm, we did the same kind of work on Unit 1. We confirmed plant conditions (radiation dose, temperature, measurement of oxygen density, etc) using the remote-controlled robot. In addition, we confirmed the plant conditions inside of Unit 1's reactor building from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm, April 17th.

●Robot measures radiation

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the maximum radiation level inside the No. 3 reactor building is 57 millisieverts per hour.

Tokyo Electric Power Company used US-made remote-controlled robots on the 1st floor of the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor buildings on Sunday to measure radiation levels, temperatures and oxygen densities. It announced on Monday that radiation readings were 10 to 49 millisieverts per
hour in the No.1 building, and 28 to 57millisieverts per hour in the No. 3 building. Exposure to the maximum reading in the No. 3 building for 4 and a half hours would exceed the [Japanese] emergency safety limit for nuclear power plant workers, set at 250 millisieverts.

Oxygen densities in both buildings were around 21 percent, high enough for workers to enter the buildings.

On Monday, TEPCO plans to use the robots to take measurements inside the No. 2 reactor.

Based on the collected data, the company will study what kind of work can be done inside the reactor buildings.

Meanwhile, the level of contaminated water in the tunnel of the No. 2 reactor continues to rise. The level dropped 8 centimeters after about 660 tons of the highly radioactive water was moved into a turbine condenser. But as of 7 AM on Monday, the water had risen again, to a point 9 centimeters higher than before the transfer. TEPCO says contaminated water could be flowing into the tunnel since it plugged water leaks from a concrete pit outside the No. 2 reactor into the sea earlier this month.

It hopes to move the radioactive water from the tunnel to an onsite waste processing facility by the end of this week. Workers at the plant have been looking for and fixing water leaks at the facility.
Monday, April 18, 2011 12:44 +0900 (JST)

NHK also said, previous to that report, about the robots and other general TEPCO matters

Apparently, the limit quoted on radiation applies specifically to contractors rather than regular employees. Perhaps regular employees are allowed to choose whether to take a larger dose? This seems likely, given that 50 stayed on March 15th.

●Workers cannot approach reactor buildings
At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, high levels of radiation have kept workers from approaching the buildings housing the first 3 reactors, which lost their cooling functions in the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. On Friday, the highest radiation level measured outside the double-entry doors of the Number 1 to 3 reactor buildings was 2 to 4 millisieverts per hour. Radiation levels measured between the double doors of those reactor buildings was 270 millisieverts in the Number One reactor, 12 in Number 2, and 10 in Number 3.

The radiation level detected at the Number One reactor exceeds the national exposure limit of 250 millisieverts for nuclear contract workers.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, has started using a remote-controlled robot inside the reactor buildings. But issues remain as radioactive water has been found in turbine buildings and the utility tunnel outside the reactors.

At the Number 2 reactor, the level of highly contaminated water in the tunnel is still rising. To prevent overflow, TEPCO is stepping up the inspection of the nuclear waste processing facility, to which it aims to transfer contaminated water. Underground water at the plant is also contaminated. On Wednesday, the level of radioactive substances sharply increased at facilities where underground water from the Number 1 and 2 reactors is collected.

On Friday, workers kept on monitoring the situation. They say the level of radioactive substances has stabilized or decreased in every reactor from 1 to 6. So they say it's unlikely that highly radioactive water is still seeping into underground water.Monday, April 18, 2011 08:44 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

I've posted about the current residents of Chernobyl before, but there is an article out from a magazine I had not heard of before "More Magazine" with a set of interviews with the old women who live in Chernobyl. I'll post a link and some excerpts. The editor of the magazine was interviewed on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning. After I watched the interview, I looked the article up:

The article makes it clear what was also clear to me when I read "Wormwood Forest." Evacuees and refugees do not do well. A person needs their home. I hope the Japanese authorities will consider this and will start resettling areas as soon as they can clear them as relatively safe. Super safe is less dangerous than being an evacuee.:

http://www.more.com/chernobyl-women-nuclear-holly-morris

"A Country of Women," by Holly Morris (More Magazine)

Photo Gallery
http://www.more.com/entertainment/food-travel/chernobyl-women-nuclear-holly-morris-pictures
Of the photographers and reporters from More Magazine:

Nadezhda Tislenko, 71
When this widow met up with more’s team—reporter, photographer, translator— she immediately called a neighbor, saying, “hurry, quick, come over. There’s interesting people here, and they’re not missionaries!”

Maria Vitosh, 86
“A pigeon flies close to his nest. I would never leave my home,” says maria, who receives a monthly pension of 800 hryvnia (about $100) from the government. Her son, now 60, who lives in a neighboring village, worked in Chernobyl for 12 years after the accident, planting new trees after the radioactive ones were removed.

Hanna Zavorotnya, 78
“The main thing is that we have pig fat and vodka,” says Hanna, dismissing concerns about the difficulties of life in the radioactive zone.

and

Most of the babushkas share the belief that “if you leave, you die.” They would rather risk exposure to radiation than the soul-crushing prospect of being separated from their homes. “You can’t take me from my mother; you can’t take me from my motherland. Motherland is motherland,” says Hanna. Aphorisms slip matter-of-factly from the lips of the babushkas. “Replant an old tree, and it will die,” says one woman. One refrain I heard often was, “Those who left are worse off now. They are all dying of sadness.”

What sounds like faith may actually be fact. According to reports by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund, many of those who were relocated after the accident now suffer from anxiety, depression and disrupted social networks, the traumas of displaced people everywhere. And these conditions seem to have health effects as real as those caused by radiation. “Paradoxically, the women who returned to their ancestral homes in the zone outlive those who left by a decade,” says Alexander Anisimov, a journalist who has spent his career studying the self-settler community. No health studies have been done, but anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the babushkas die of strokes rather than any obvious radiation-related illnesses, and they’ve dealt better with the psychological trauma. Toxic levels of strontium and cesium in the soil are real, but so are the tug of the ancestral home and the health benefits of determining one’s own destiny.

The reporter takes a number of things the women say as fact, but some of them are highly unlikely to be right. 25 years after the event there are apparently people saying there is radioactive lava under the reactor. That's really unlikely to be so. They also think there might be a nuclear explosion if the Shelter Object over reactor 4 collapses, and that's not likely. It takes pure U235 or Pu239 to get yourself a nuclear bomb, do it yourself or otherwise. Even if they had been running the reactor with weapons grade materials, after 25 years, it would no longer be pure enough. However, a building collapse would throw a lot of radioactive dust and so forth into the air that would not be healthy to breathe.

Also some things she notes have nothing to do with radiation. The 10 foot catfish in the local waterways are Wels Catfish which can grow up to 10 feet in size. They are that big because very few people catch and eat fish in Chernobyl. The wels catfish in Chernobyl has plenty to eat, and is seldom caught and eaten.

http://animal.discovery.com/fish/river-monsters/map/map.html

Information on Fat Man, the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki by US forces during WWII:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man

This is why temporary Shelter Objects, especially ones that are not easy to dismantle, would be a bad idea at Daiichi.

By the way, throughout Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, whether you live near Chernobyl or not, men have a much shorter life expectancy. The usual items credited are smoking, drinking, accidents, and violence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/russia

The average life expectancy for men is 59. Villages not in the exclusion zone are populated by mostly old women, like the village SLyozi in Russia, reported on here by Luke Harding.

In fact, Slyozi's lack of men typifies the extraordinary demographic problem facing Russia, especially in the country's European north and west. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just 59. The figure is well below life expectancy in western Europe and in many developing countries as well. For women it is 70. The gap is exceptionally large.

Most of the gherkin sellers are women; in the cities, as in the countryside, there is a perplexing absence of old men.

In Slyozi, nobody is in any doubt as to why the men have disappeared. The problem is alcoholism - a ubiquitous rural phenomenon. Other social factors have certainly contributed: bad health care, smoking, unemployment, and the lingering health problems of many Russian pensioners who battled the Germans. But ultimately the men of Slyozi drank themselves to death.

And they will, according to the women villagers, drink anything, including window cleaner.

Speaking of all males in Russia:

On average, they consume a bottle of vodka a day, with some 30% of all male deaths in Russia alcohol related. "It's a really serious problem for our country," says Dr Tatyana Nefedova, a senior researcher at the Institute of Geography, at Russia's Academy of Sciences in Moscow. "Low prices for vodka make the death rate higher. In Sweden, the government has dealt with this by putting up prices. But here you can buy homemade vodka for 15 roubles (30p)."

Some Russian women are also alcoholics but the rate is two or three times lower than among men. "Women feel more responsible for their family and drink less," says Nefedova. The villagers of Slyozi agree. "I guess we live longer because we are working more and they [the men] are drinking more," Tamara says.

Things may even be better for the Chernobyl women than women in other semi-abandoned Russian village, because they get a little extra stipend because of Chernobyl, and there is a lot of game (radioactive, but at their age, unlikely to hurt them) and they have gardens.

 

[Olympia]

I have a Bulgarian friend who grew up in a traditional village and went away for university, which is how she came into the world, so to speak. A lot of what is said in this article rings true about the feeling for one's home turf. This is an especially hard concept for Americans to understand, because we've been on the move since our country began. Also, urban and suburban people tend not to get the idea of roots that deep.

The alcoholism is something Russia has been known for, alas, since the days of the Soviet Union. It's so prevalent that the lifespan of Russians may actually be decreasing, for men at any rate. This is a factor not present in Japan, thankfully. But the thought of relocating (literally dislocating) people being injurious is definitely something to consider. Thanks for the link! I'll look into it at the end of the work day.

 

[dorispulaski]

Having skipped updating over the weekend, the IAEA is back at it today:

IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Accident (18 April 2011, 15:35 UTC)
Presentation:
→ Summary of Reactor Status

On Monday, 18 April 2011, the IAEA provided the following information on the current status of nuclear safety in Japan:

1. Current Situation

Overall, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious but there are early signs of recovery in some functions, such as electrical power and instrumentation.

On 17th April, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced that TEPCO had issued a "Roadmap towards Restoration from the Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station". The roadmap outlines 63 measures to be taken in two steps over a period of six to nine months. TEPCO declared they will "make every effort to enable evacuees to return to their homes and for all citizens to be able to secure a sound life".

Changes to Fukushima Daiichi Plant Status

The IAEA receives information updates from a variety of official Japanese sources, through the national competent authorities: the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

Based on the information received by 18th April 2011 02:00 UTC the following update related to the reactor units at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), and related environmental conditions, is provided.

As a countermeasure against a possible tsunami, the distribution boards for the pumps injecting water to the reactor pressure vessels of Units 1, 2 and 3 were transferred to higher ground on 15th April. In order to minimize the liberation of radioactive material into the ocean, two sandbags filled with Zeolite were placed between the Inlet Screen Pump Room of Unit 1 and Unit 2. Further, five sandbags filled with Zeolite were placed between the Inlet Screen Pump Room of Unit 2 and Unit 3 on 17th April. The Zeolite material is designed to capture specific radioactive elements. [ETA particularly cesium] It is intended to sample and analyze the Zeolite material periodically to determine the effectiveness of this procedure.

The removal of debris (amount equivalent to 8 containers) using remote-control heavy machinery continued on 16th April. [ETA first indication of how much junk was removed by the remote control machinery]

Nitrogen gas is being injected into the Unit 1 containment vessel to reduce the possibility of hydrogen combustion within the containment vessel. The pressure in this containment vessel has stabilised. The pressure in the RPV is stable.

In Unit 1, fresh water is being continuously injected into the RPV through the feed-water line at an indicated flow rate of 6 m3/h using a temporary electric pump with off-site power. In Units 2 and 3, fresh water is being continuously injected through the fire extinguisher lines at an indicated rate of 7 m3/h using temporary electric pumps with off-site power.

RPV temperatures remain above cold shutdown conditions in all Units, (typically less than 95°C). In Unit 1 the temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV is 180°C and at the bottom of the RPV is 117°C. In Unit 2, the temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV is 141°C. In Unit 3 the temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV is 91°C and at the bottom of the RPV is 122°C.

In accordance with the report of the Nuclear Emergency Response HQs (Prime Minister's Office) from 15th April, thermography temperatures of the Containment Vessel and Spent Fuel Pool in Unit 1 were 33 °C and 36°C respectively. In Unit 3 the temperatures were 68°C and 59°C at the same positions. Also on the 15th April, thermography temperature of the Unit 2 reactor building roof was 31°C

As of 16th April, no white smoke was seen to be coming from Unit 1 although white smoke was still observed coming from Units 2 and 3. As of 16th April white smoke was also visible in Unit 4.

Fresh water injection (around 45 tonnes) to the spent fuel pool was carried out via the spent fuel pool cooling line of Unit 2 and completed by 16th April. Due to the occurrence of an earthquake on 16th April, the motor-driven pump was stopped. The spent fuel pool was confirmed to be filled with water.

In accordance with NISA Release 94, TEPCO took water samples from the spent fuel pool of Unit 4 on 12th April, in order to examine the conditions. The sample was taken by using the arm of the concrete pump vehicle.[ETA perhaps this is the "Giraffe" the TEPCO reports refer to ] At the same time, the temperature of water in the spent fuel pool of Unit 4 was measured with a thermistor attached to the arm of the concrete pump vehicle. The activities for I-131, Cs-134 and Cs-137 were 220 Bq/cm3, 88 Bq/cm3 and 93 Bq/cm3 respectively.

There has been no change in the status in Units 5 and 6.

The power supply to the Common Spent Fuel Pool was temporarily interrupted due to a short-circuit on 17th April.

2. Radiation monitoring

From 15th to 17th April, I-131 was detected in only one prefecture on 15th April; with a reported value of 4.1 Bq/m2. During this period, deposition of Cs-137 was detected in 8 prefectures. The total deposition of Cs-137 in these prefectures on these 3 days ranged from 2.3 to 66 Bq/m2.

Gamma dose rates are measured daily in all 47 prefectures. The values tend to decrease over time. For Fukushima, on 18th April a dose rate of 1.9 µSv/h was reported. In the Ibaraki prefecture, a gamma dose rate of 0.13 µSv/h was reported; in all other prefectures, reported gamma dose rates were below 0.1 µSv/h.

Dose rates are also reported specifically for the Eastern part of the Fukushima prefecture, for distances beyond 30 km from Fukushima-Daiichi. On 16th April, the values in this area ranged from 0.1 to 25 µSv/h.

In cooperation with local universities, MEXT has set up an additional monitoring programme, for 17th April, measurements of the gamma dose rates were reported for 53 cities in 40 prefectures. In 43 cities, the gamma dose rates were below 0.1 µSv/h. In 9 cities, gamma dose rates ranged from 0.12 to 0.17 µSv/h. In Fukushima City, a value of 0.42 µSv/h was observed.

Only in a few prefectures, I-131 or Cs-137 is detectable in drinking water at very low levels. As of 16th April, one restriction for infants related to I-131 (100 Bq/l) is in place in a small scale water supply in a village of the Fukushima prefecture.

On 15th and 16th April, the IAEA Team made measurements at 44 different locations in the Fukushima area at distances ranging from 20 to 58 km, West from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. At these locations, the dose rates ranged from 0.6 to 37 µSv/h. At the same locations, results of beta-gamma contamination measurements ranged from 0.03 to 2.8 Megabecquerel/m2. The highest values were observed at distances of less than 30 km from the power plant.

On 17th April, the IAEA Team made measurements at 17 different locations in the Fukushima area at distances ranging from 20 to 62 km, North and Northwest from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. At these locations, the dose rates ranged from 0.4 to 3.3 µSv/h. At the same locations, results of beta-gamma contamination measurements ranged from 0.03 to 0.27 Megabecquerel/m2.

Analytical results related to food contamination were reported by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on 15th April (34 samples), 16th April (65 samples) and 17th April (51 samples). These reported analytical results covered a total of 150 samples taken from 13th to 16th April. Analytical results for 146 of the 150 samples for various vegetables, spinach and other leafy vegetables, shitake mushrooms, fruit (strawberry), seafood and unprocessed raw milk in nine prefectures (Chiba, Fukushima, Gunma, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Niigata, Saitama and Yamagata), indicated that I-131, Cs-134 and/or Cs-137 were either not detected or were below the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities. In Fukushima prefecture, three samples of shitake mushrooms taken on 14th April were above the regulation value set by the Japanese authorities for Cs-134 and Cs-137. One sample of shitake mushrooms taken on 14th April was above the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities for I-131 and/or Cs-134 and Cs-137. [ETA no seafoord/sand lance problems found. Only problem was mushrooms from Fukushima]

On the 16th April, the restriction on the distribution of raw unprocessed milk produced in Fukushima was lifted in 25 areas (Fukushima city, Nihonmatsu city, Date city, Motomiya city, Kunimi town, Otama village, Furudono city, Koriyama city, Sukagawa city, Tamura city (excluding former Toji village area), Miharu town, Ono town, Kagamiishi town, Ishikawa town, Asakawa town, Hirata village, Shirakawa city, Yabuki town, Izumisaki village, Nakajima village, Saigo village, Samekawa village, Hanawa town, Yamatsuri town, Iwaki city).

On the 17th April, the restriction on the distribution of Kakina and parsley produced throughout Ibaraki prefecture was lifted. The restriction on the distribution of spinach from Ibaraki prefecture was also lifted with the exception of spinach produced in the cities of Kitaibaraki and Takahagi.

3. Marine Monitoring

TEPCO Monitoring Programme

TEPCO is conducting a programme for seawater (surface sampling) at a number of near-shore and off-shore monitoring locations. Following a directive from NISA, on 16th April TEPCO announced they will increase the number of sea sampling points from 10 to 16. A further four points will be added at 3 km from the coast and two points will be added at 8 km from the coast.

On some days, two samples were collected at the same sampling point, a few hours apart and analysed separately.

Until 3rd April a general decreasing trend in radioactivity was observed at the sampling points TEPCO1 to TEPCO4. After the discharge of contaminated water on 4th April, a temporary increase in radioactivity has been reported. Again since 5th April, general downward in the concentration of radionuclides in sea water for all TEPCO sampling points has been observed. [ETA after the leak was fixed and the dumping of low level radioactive water stopped]

On the 18th April no new data for TEPCO sampling points have been reported.

MEXT Off-shore Monitoring Programme

Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) initiated the off-shore monitoring program on 23rd March and subsequently points 9 and 10 were added to the off-shore sampling scheme. On 4th April, MEXT added two sampling points to the north and west of sampling point 1. These are referred to as points A and B (see Map1: MEXT Seawater sampling Locations).

The last results reported on 18th April (sampling date 15th April) showed that Cs-137 and I-131 were detected at MEXT 4, 6 and 8. The highest concentrations were recorded at MEXT4 (below 200Bq/l for Cs-137 and about 160 Bq/l for I-131). At MEXT 6 and 8 sampling locations both C-s-137 and I-131 were reported at levels below about 40 Bq/l.

 

[dorispulaski]

And here's TEPCO's afternoon update:

Wind is in the west

Radiation Monitoring

9:00 PM JST April 18th Daini
Six Peripheral Measurement Points ( 2.6, 2.0, 2.8 ,2.3, 2.3, 2.3) microSieverts per hour
Measure Point 7 is measured once a day manually. At 9:00 AM, on April 18th, it was 1.7 microSieverts per hour.

9:00 PM JST April 18th Daiichi

Eight Peripheral Measurement Points (9, 34, 30, 28, 47, 80, 188, 169) microSieverts per hour

Daiichi gamma radiation by cart near West Gate 31.2 microSieverts per hour

Temporary Measurement Points
Main Building 0.51 milliSieverts per hour
Main Gate 53 microSieverts per hour
West Gate 26 microSieverts per hour



Seawater around Daiichi
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e14.pdf

Amounts of Iodine rapidly disappearing, cesium lower.

Actual values
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e12.pdf
On second page note, that in the remote locations, sampling was cancelled due to bad weather.

Seawater inside the little harbor
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e11.pdf
The only place that concentrations are not dropping quickly is next to the Unit 2 grate where the leak was.

They tried to find Plutonium 238, 239, or 240 in sea water, but they couldn't find any, either at the north or south discharge channels of the plant, or 15 km offshore.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e13.pdf

Dust at Daini (values have stabilized at a low level
No cesium isotopes, either volatile or particulate were found in the last measurement. A small amount of I 131, both particulate and volatile, was found.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e6.pdf
Graph
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e9.pdf

Dust at Daiichi are bouncing around at a higher level than Daini. Volatile Cs 137 not found.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e6.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e8.pdf

No Plutonium was detected in the air at Daiichi
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e7.pdf

TEPCO is starting work on spent fuel pools, starting with analyzing what needs to be done at Unit 2's pool

*Skimmer surge tank Two tanks installed between pool and well, in order to store the water overflowed from the spent fuel pool and the reactor well. The tank has the role of collecting materials such as waste floating in the spent fuel pool and the reactor well

:Spent Fuel Pool Cooling and Purification System (PDF 13.4KB) [ETA a schematic drawing]
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e5.pdf
Results of Analysis
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110418e4.pdf

The water in the Unit 2 spent fuel pool is very radioactive, and it wasn't in February when the pool was last sampled. Radiation at pool surface is 3.5 milliSieverts per hour.
However, most of the Iodine is gone. There is still a heck of a lot of cesium, though: 160,000 Becquerels per cubic centimeter of Cs 134 and 150,000 Becquerels per cubic centimeter of Cs 137.


TEPCO Status

* From 11:50 am to 1:05 pm on April 18th, hoses, which were used for injecting water to the reactor of Unit 1 to 3 were replaced (injecting water was suspended temporarily). After restarting the pump, we have confirmed no significant changes are existed with regard to the operation of each pumps and plant parameters.
From 1:42pm to 2:33pm on April 18th, we opened and closed the double doors, measured a dose of radiation and so on, and conducted surveys of the situation of the inside of the nuclear reactor building of Unit 2, by a remote control robot.

Operation for cooling the spent fuel pools
* At 2:17 pm on April 18th, water spray by the concrete pumping vehicle to the fuel spent pool of Unit 3 was started and finished at 3:02 pm on April 18th.
-From 5:39pm to 9:22 pm on April 17th, we have sprayed water to Unit 4 by a concrete pump vehicle.

* From 9:00 am on April 18th, we conducted spraying dust inhibitor in order to prevent diffusion of radioactive materials on the ground. This attempt was conducted on trial basis around the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility in the range of approximately 1,200 m2 and finished at 2:30 pm on April 18th.

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1109/ML11095A064.pdf

Letter from NRC Chairman Jaczko addressed to Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Environmental and Public Works, and to Senator Tom Carper, minority leader of the same committee. Chairman Jaczko answers questioned asked by Senator Boxer on the preparedness of US nuclear plants, both reactors and spent fuel pools, for earthquakes and other disasters, and station black outs.


Prior to the events at Daiichi, the Vermont legislature decided it wanted to close Vermont's one nuclear plant, Vermont Yankee. Entergy, the operator of the plant, is suing to stay open.

http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2011/04/entergy-files-suit.html

Their grounds are interesting:

This morning, Entergy filed suit to keep the plant open by requiring Vermont to honor its signed contracts. The State of Vermont signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Entergy in 2002. The State has attempted to amend that contract on a one-sided basis. Entergy's lawsuit was described in a Burlington Free Press article this morning. You can also download the filed lawsuit here.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (page 6) the parties "espressly and irrevocably decree that the Board (Public Service Board) (1) has jurisdiction under current law to grant or deny approval of operation of VYNPS beyond March 12, 2011."
However, in 2006, the legislature voted that the PSB could not issue such a certificate without legislative approval (Act 160). This was basically a one-sided change to a written contract. There are tons of precedents that one side cannot change a contract without the other side's approval. Let's see the list of such precedents.

Free Press Article
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/...nuclear-plant-open-?odyssey=mod|lateststories

Lawsuit
http://www.entergy.com/content/investor_relations/pdfs/4-18-11_complaint.pdf

A little more detail on TEPCO's building plans

2. Many, many press outlets are already using the term "sarcophagus" for the enclosures planned by TEPCO. Readers here know better. There will be two phases of enclosure; first, a fabric type enclosure on steel framing that will prevent aerial release of contamination, and later a concrete and steel building surrounding the original (damaged) reactor buildings. This second enclosure will provide weather protection to workers dismantling the plants, and prevent any further spread of contamination.

 

[dorispulaski]

Recent NHK articles

This by the way is no surprise. From what we know about Chalk River, this is expected. What is a surprise is that there are no Jimmy Carter's allowed in Japan to work for 90 seconds at a time fixing things. And that Unit 2 is not as radioactive at the doors as Unit 1 and even Unit 3.

Robots detect high levels of radiation

Remote-controlled robots have detected high levels of radiation inside the reactor buildings at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, on Monday released radiation data and photos taken by the US-made robots. The company conducted the survey using the robots on Sunday and Monday.

This is the first time the situation inside the buildings has been made public since the March 11th disaster triggered a series of nuclear accidents. Workers have been unable to approach the buildings due to high radiation levels.

TEPCO said the robots surveyed the first floor of the No.1 reactor for about 50 minutes and detected maximum radiation readings of 49 millisieverts per hour.

A person staying in such an environment for 5 hours would be exposed to 250 millisierverts of radiation -- the legal limit for nuclear workers in emergency situations.

The survey inside the No. 3 reactor lasted for about 2 hours, but the plant operator says the robots had difficulty moving around because of the debris. The maximum radiation reading was 57 millisieverts per hour.

The power company says it hopes to find locations where workers can go to carry out decontamination tasks so it can implement its schedule for bringing the troubled plant under control.

On Sunday, the utility presented a schedule for cooling down the reactors and significantly reducing radiation leaks within 6 to 9 months.
Monday, April 18, 2011 18:58 +0900 (JST)

Workers cannot approach reactor buildings

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, high levels of radiation have kept workers from approaching the buildings housing the first 3 reactors, which lost their cooling functions in the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

On Friday, the highest radiation level measured outside the double-entry doors of the Number 1 to 3 reactor buildings was 2 to 4 millisieverts per hour.

Radiation levels measured between the double doors of those reactor buildings was 270 millisieverts per hour in the Number One reactor, 12 in Number 2, and 10 in Number 3.

The radiation level detected at the Number One reactor exceeds the national exposure limit of 250 millisieverts for nuclear contract workers.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, has started using a remote-controlled robot inside the reactor buildings. But issues remain as radioactive water has been found in turbine buildings and the utility tunnel outside the reactors.

At the Number 2 reactor, the level of highly contaminated water in the tunnel is still rising. To prevent overflow, TEPCO is stepping up the inspection of the nuclear waste processing facility, to which it aims to transfer contaminated water.

Underground water at the plant is also contaminated. On Wednesday, the level of radioactive substances sharply increased at facilities where underground water from the Number 1 and 2 reactors is collected.
On Friday, workers kept on monitoring the situation. They say the level of radioactive substances has stabilized or decreased in every reactor from 1 to 6. So they say it's unlikely that highly radioactive water is still seeping into underground water.
Monday, April 18, 2011 08:44 +0900 (JST)

TEPCO has decided that the spray coating it is using works

TEPCO to prevent radioactive dust migration

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will spray a chemical hardening agent around the damaged plant to prevent the migration of radioactive dust and soil.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will begin spraying the polymer emulsion on top of debris near the plant's reactor buildings starting on Tuesday next week. It has been test-spraying the emulsion since April 1st.

The operation is part of a blueprint announced by TEPCO on Sunday to stop the leaking radiation and bring the plant under control within the next 3 months.

Hydrogen explosions in the first few days of the emergency at Fukushima blew off the roofs and walls of the buildings housing the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors and showered radioactive rubble and dust over the site.

To prevent the debris around a common spent fuel storage pool from scattering, about 2 weeks ago the utility began test coating it with an emulsion widely used in construction sites to settle dust.

TEPCO says the polymer has hardened the debris and that radiation levels in the plant's compound have remained relatively low.

TEPCO says it hopes to finish spraying the agent around the reactor buildings by the end of May, and in the rest of the compound by the end of June.

After that stage, the company plans to cover the reactor buildings with huge filter curtains to prevent any further spread of radioactive materials into the environment.Monday, April 18, 2011 18:42 +0900 (JST)

And in the good part of the news:

Tohoku Shinkansen to fully resume April 30

The quake-hit Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train will resume full service between Tokyo and Shin-aomori in Aomori Prefecture at the end of this month.

On Monday, East Japan Railways announced that it will be reopening the 3 disrupted sections of the Tohoku Shinkansen route.

The company said service in the northern most section between Ichinoseki and Morioka will reopen on Saturday this week. Service between Fukushima and Sendai at the southern end will resume on Monday next week, to fully link Tokyo and Sendai.

The central section between Sendai and Ichinoseki will likely reopen on April 30th.

The full-service recovery will only be about 50 days after the bullet train route suffered major damage from the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

The operator warns however that service will be reduced and the rides will take longer, because trains will have to slow down in some areas.
Monday, April 18, 2011 17:42 +0900 (JST)

 

[dorispulaski]

For those who wonder how the USA's two plants that might have earthquake/tsunami risks stack up, here's the lowdown on Diablo Canyon, which by the way, has a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), not a boiling water reactor. Features of the PWR that are superior to Daiichi's BWR reactors are:

1. Lower temperature
2. The spent fuel pools are not up in the air. They are on the ground floor.
3. Less/no susceptibility to hydrogen explosions.

but also, as told here by the president of PSG, the company that runs Diablo Canyon. It's worth reading the rest of it as well:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/15/3554329/us-plant-operators-commit-to-safety.html

The plant was built and seismically reinforced to withstand earthquakes greater than those that geologists postulate might occur in the region. The geologic features and characteristics of our area are significantly different from those in Japan.

Of particular importance, the latest information from Japan suggests that the tsunami presented the greatest challenges to the Fukushima facility. The tsunami damaged and disabled the plant's backup electrical generators and electrical switchgear that supply power to systems that maintain cooling to the reactors and vaults holding used fuel rods.

At Diablo Canyon, the backup diesel generators sit 85 feet above sea level, and their fuel tanks are protected in underground vaults, providing added protection against rising sea levels.

In addition, the plant's large, raw water reservoirs, located more than 200 feet above the plant, provide a gravity-fed source of water to augment the plant's cooling systems. These factors provide added mitigation for the types of challenges that have occurred in Japan.

Our industry is committed to safety and continuous learning – we do not have an "it can't happen here" attitude. That's why upon learning of the situation in Japan, PG&E and all other U.S. nuclear utilities immediately undertook a review of the design of their nuclear plants and their readiness to respond to an extreme emergency.

Also legislators are not giving up on nuclear power in the US:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/democrats-warm-to-nuclear-domestic-drilling-2011-04-15
pril 15, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
Democrats warm to nuclear, domestic drilling


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — At a hearing this week, Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware asked one of the nation’s top regulators how many Americans have been killed by nuclear power. ”There are no known fatalities in the U.S. from the use of nuclear energy,” replied Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Carper then turned to Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He asked her how many people have been killed or had their lives shortened by the use of pollution-emitting fossil fuels. Tens of thousands, she said.

By contrast, wind and solar generate less than 2% of the nation’s electricity, and despite rapid growth, and they’ll remain a small part of the energy mix for the next two decades, according to government forecasts.

The problem with renewables such as wind and solar is that they are not always on: The wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine. There are other problems. Wind and solar farms require huge tracts of land, have to be located far from population centers and require large subsidies because of high production costs, to name a few.

Nuclear plants have many advantages. They don’t emit anything, produce huge amounts of energy, take up very little real estate and can be placed closer to population centers where the power is needed. What’s more, there have been massive advances in the safety of nuclear technology since the last generation of U.S. reactors were built.

While the crisis in Japan has revived fears of nuclear power, Obama and other Democrats haven’t retreated. They say regulators and the industry must redouble efforts to improve safety and reassure a worried a public.

“Nuclear energy will almost certainly continue to be part of America’s energy mix,” said Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, “but it will be hard to build new reactors if the American public lives in fear of them.”

Still, fewer Democrats these days are openly against nuclear. Rep. Lois Capps of California, for example, made it clear in one hearing that she has no intention of seeking the closure of a coastal nuclear plant in her district despite her concerns about its safety procedures.

A video about the two new nuclear plants being built in Georgia, Vogtle 3 and Vogtle 4http://southerncompany.com/annualreports/ar10/video_new_nuclear.html

Transcript that is missing info that is written on the screen rather than spoken:
http://www.southerncompany.com/transcripts/transcript_NewNuclearEnergy.aspx

 

[mot]

whole post #468

Thanks, Doris. This is very interesting - people are more prone to suffer from psychological damage than from physical one then.

My home town Osaka spent a lot of money converting one of their trade centres into a top-notch evacuation centre with medical facilities for dialysis, as they thought those who are on dialysis were one of the most vulnerable. But I heard no one took up the offer, partly because the medical facilities in the stricken areas quickly recovered, but also because Osaka is too far for them to move to even temporarily. There is, I understand, a fear amongst the evacuees that once they move away from their areas, it will be difficult to move back later. Also they want to stay with their own community.

Last time I was in Japan around Christmas and New Year, it was one of the headline news that those elderly people, who had lost homes in the Kobe Earthquake 16 years ago and were subsequently housed in the privately-let accommodation by Kobe City Office, now needed to move yet again as the contract between the city council and private landlord was about to expire. They were very worried that they may not be able to stay close to each other and loose the long established community with shared experiences and memories. Physically, Kobe has been brought back from ashes, but psychological scars left by the disaster lingers on after all those years. If I remember correctly, it was only a few years ago when the last person moved out of the temporary shelter built to house those made homeless by the earthquake in Kobe. It's a long and difficult process...


On a separate note, I found this rather moving article about the determination of a small soy sauce manufacturer in tsunami-swept Rikuzentakata to rebuild his business, which has lasted for 9 generations.

Soy sauce company symbolises Japan's determination after the tsunami

 

[Olympia]

Nine generations? Simply unimaginable continuity. Awesome.

 

[dorispulaski]

TEPCO's Plan for Moving the Water from Turbine Building 2

They have copy-protected these plans, so I have respected their wishes and not just clipped them here. You can view the plans at the two following links:

Plan ( in words)
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e2.pdf
Schematic drawing of how the water will be pumped out of the shaft and the Unit 2 turbine Building to the Contaminated Waste Treatment Facility

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e3.pdf

Now, I may have missed or misunderstood some of the salient points of this plan, so I hope you'll take a look at them yourselves, and correct me when I need it.

The plan is to pump the water to the Main Process Building, since that is the largest building in the facility. They estimate they have 25,000 cubic meters of water in Turbine Building 2, with water accumulating every day, especially given that they are pumping 168 tonnes of water into Unit 2 for cooling every day. They have no time to build a tank for this water before leakage to the sea will happen again.

They believe that they can store 10,000 cubic meters of the water in the Main Process Building, and they will be pumping out about 480 cubic meters a day.
Given the construction of the building, they believe that the dose outside the building will be about 0.011 milliSieverts per hour, based on the amount of radioactive material and the building's construction.

They have sealed all the cracks holes and leaks in the main process building and verified its structure. They will install a water gauge there, and they will fill only the basement, if I am understanding this correctly.

The pipes will be run through the Unit 3 turbine building to minimize the possibility that a leaking pipe would let more water into the soil. Lead woven mats will be used to isolate workers as much as possible from the more radioactive parts of the turbine building.

They will make a test run with less radioactive water to assure that there are no leaks, prior to transferring the extremely radioactive water.

They will have the Water Treatment facility built by June to clean up the water. They will be both desalinating as well as lowering the radioactive level of the water. They will be using both co-precipitation and ion exchange (and I'm guessing they will get the big stuff with co-precipitation, and then cleaning up what's left with ion exchange, so that you don't have the nightmare of getting rid of tons of radioactive ion exchange resins very often.

Eventually they will be using this water for reactor and spent fuel cooling, and will be dismantling and disposing of the Main Process Facility Building they are using to store water now..

 

[dorispulaski]

And doing the EDT morning status (as of April 19th 4:00 PM), they have already started to execute their water moving plan, having filed it, as required by NISA. And they are started to do some electrical work again, I presume based on dose measurements they got

From 10:17 am to 11:35 am on April 19th, the spent fuel pool of Unit 4 was sprayed with water using the concrete pumping vehicle.
* From 11am to 3pm on April 19th, draining water from the basement of the turbine building of Unit 6 was transferred into the condenser.

* At 10:23 am on April 19th, connection work between high voltage switchgear of Unit 1&2 and Unit 3&4 was completed.

* On April 18th, in terms of the transfer of high level radioactive wastewater to the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility, measures to prevent leakage in the facility building was completed. After reporting the necessity of the transfer, the assessment of safety and principle of the permanent storage of the wastewater and treatment facility to Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry with the confirmation by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the wastewater transfer from the vertical shaft of the turbine building of Unit 2 to the Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility was started from 10:08 am on April 19th.

 

[dorispulaski]

Radiation Monitoring
Wind is in the northwest

Daini 9:00 PM JST, April 19th
Six Peripheral Measurement Points (2.5, 2.8, 2.7, 2.1, 2.2, 2.1) microSieverts per hour
Measurement point Six is manually taken once at day at 9:00 AM JST.
Data for April 19th 1.6 microSieverts per hour

Daiichi 9:00 PM JST April 19th
Gamma radiation by mobile cart near West Gate 27.9 microSieverts per hour

Eight Peripheral Measurement Points (9, 31, 27, 25, 41, 73, 175, 158) microSieverts per hour

Temporary Measurement Points

Main Office Building 480 microSieverts per hour (note the unit change, since this is the first time this point has dropped below 0.500 milliSieverts
Main Gate 59 microSieverts per hour
West Gate 24 microSieverts per hour



April 19th air chart (particles and volatile) Daini
At this point, just bouncing around

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e10.pdf

April 18th air quality Daiichi
Dropped down again
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e9.pdf

Raw Data for both
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e8.pdf

A just bearly measurable amount of I 131 was found at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant (as was true at two previous checks). Not surprising.

Seawater data for April 18th is now reported:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e13.pdf

Seawater charts offshore
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e16.pdf

Seawater charts onshore (everything way down)
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e15.pdf

Graph comparing the onshore charts.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e14.pdf

Raw Data inside the little harbor at Daiichi
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e13.pdf
Trend charts of data inside the little harbor
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110419e18.pdf

Only data inside the silt fence is staying flat/rising a little bit.

 

[dorispulaski]

NHK Stories April 19th

This is what comes of frightening people to death. Our media should take note.

SDF sergeant sent to nuclear zone flees in panic

A Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force member who'd been assigned to work near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been dismissed for fleeing in panic.

The Defense Ministry says the 32-year-old sergeant was sent from Tokyo to Koriyama city, in Fukushima Prefecture, 2 days after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami to help decontaminate local emergency shelters.

On the next day, he drove away without permission in one of his unit's trucks. He was later arrested by a Self-Defense Force police unit on suspicion of theft.

The sergeant has reportedly told investigators that fear of the nuclear accident made him panic. He was dismissed on disciplinary grounds on Tuesday.

The commander of the Ground Self-Defense Force's First Division, Yoshiaki Nakagawa, expressed regret at what happened while so many SDF personnel are working hard in the disaster zone. He pledged to tighten discipline and prevent a recurrence.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 18:54 +0900 (JST)

Areva came to Japan at the very beginning, and the subject of discussions was dealing with radioactive water. No surprise, they have the contract to build the treatment plant.

And yes, co-precipitation is being usde.

French company to decontaminate Daiichi water
French nuclear reactor maker Areva says it has agreed with the Tokyo Electric Power Company to build a facility to decontaminate radioactive water at the compound of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

CEO Anne Lauvergeon told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that Areva -- one of the world's largest nuclear energy firms -- will build the facility to remove radioactive substances from the contaminated water.

The facility is to use chemical agents to remove radioactive iodine and cesium from contaminated water. The concentration of the radioactive substances is to be reduced to one-one thousandth to one-ten thousandth of the current level. A similar system is already in place in France.

Lauvergeon said it is most important to decontaminate the water at the plant, and that her company will try to do this in every possible way.

TEPCO told reporters on the same day that it has adopted Areva's proposal. The company says it will first transfer the contaminated water into a waste processing facility at the plant, and then decontaminate 1,200 tons of the water per day. It hopes to use decontaminated water to cool the reactors.

TEPCO hopes to start operating the decontamination facility in June.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 21:47 +0900 (JST)

It's news like this that makes me realize the horrible scope of the disaster

110 school buildings in disaster zone unusable

Over 100 schools in northeastern Japan whose buildings were destroyed or swept away in the March 11th disaster are being forced to resume classes in alternative facilities.

NHK has learned that 73 elementary schools and 37 junior high schools in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures have had to borrow space in other schools or public institutions, or are using shut-down school buildings.

The situation is creating overcrowding and shortages. In one case, students from 4 elementary schools are being crammed into a single building. In another, a school serving as an emergency shelter has also accepted students from another school, resulting in class sizes of nearly 60 children.

14 elementary and 9 junior high schools near the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant don't know if they can resume classes at all. Their students may have to transfer to schools in areas where they have evacuated.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 17:09 +0900 (JST)

And when something happens, people reassess the way they do things. In this case, certification of tap water for drinking. The US did a lot of this stuff following 9/11.

Gov't to set up study group on tap water safety

Japan's health ministry is to set up a panel of experts to discuss ways to safeguard tap water from radioactive contamination.

The move comes after radioactive iodine at levels higher than national limits was detected temporarily in tap water in parts of Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures amid the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

The ministry on Tuesday held a meeting of advisors including environment experts and water utility industry representatives to discuss countermeasures.

Some participants asked that tap water safety be promoted publicly whenever radiation levels are low. Others said water in rivers and reservoirs should also be tested for radiation.
The advisors agreed that a panel of radioactivity experts should be set up to discuss effective ways to prevent radioactive contamination of tap water through rainfall and other routes. The panel is also to discuss a long-term inspection system for tap water.

The panel is to start discussions next week and come up with a report on specific measures by around June.

Advisory council leader Sinichiro Ogaki, who heads the National Institute for Environmental Studies, says radioactive levels in tap water have stabilized. But he says he hopes to see the panel work out effective prevention measures and a proper inspection system so that everyone, from babies to adults, can safely drink tap water.

Some municipalities of Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures advised against tap water consumption by infants after radioactive iodine-131 at levels higher than 100 becquerels per liter was detected at water purification plants.

Such advisories were also issued in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures after iodine levels at water purification facilities were found to exceed the safety limit for infants. But the advisories were all lifted by the end of March.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 18:10 +0900 (JST)

Photos from inside the reactor buildings
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/19_h16.html

New photos show reactor building interiors

For the first time after the accident at the Fukushima plant, TEPCO has released photos of the inside of the reactor buildings. Remote-controlled robots took the pictures on Sunday and Monday to check the interior of the buildings housing the No.1, No.2 and No.3 reactors.

This photo of the first floor of the No.3 reactor building shows a sheet-like object hanging from the ceiling and what appears to be equipment for moving the control rods. TEPCO says it cannot identify whether there are any pools of water on the floor.

The bright area at the innermost part of the building is an entrance for vehicles to bring in large machinery and materials.

The company says the double-door of the entrance is supposed to be closed and that it cannot determine when and how it opened.

This photo of the first floor of the No.1 reactor building shows the remote-controlled robot and what looks like concrete rubble on the floor.

The utility says a part of what appears to be a switchboard is also shown in the photo. It says the floor of the No.1 reactor building was dry.

And in this picture of the first floor of the No.2 reactor building, the robot's camera lens, pointed toward the reactor, captured a large-diameter vertical pipe.

The company says the robot was not able to move further inside as its lens became clouded in the high humidity of up to 99 percent. But it says it found no pools of water on the floor.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 14:50 +0900 (JST)

People have written fanciful pieces about Daiichi workers sleeping in the reactors, but that's not what they do.

Video footage of Fukushima base camp released

The Japanese defense ministry has released video footage of a base camp for workers dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The footage of an athletic training facility, about 20 kilometers from the plant, was made public on Monday.

Self-Defense Force officers and Tokyo Electric Power Company workers are lodging and training at the facility.

Footage taken last Tuesday shows SDF personnel using meters to measure radiation on a helicopter that flew over the nuclear plant.

The film also shows SDF officers training to clean vehicles exposed to radioactive materials.

One part of the footage shows a daily meeting of SDF and TEPCO workers discussing contingency plans.

NHK acquired extra footage showing futons laid out in the hallways and workers dressed in protective clothing.

Hallways and stairs appear crammed with boxes of protective clothing, masks and rubber gloves.

In one scene, radiation levels at the nuclear plant are displayed on a board.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 05:43 +0900 (JST)
Video Quality
Low (256K)High (512K).

 

[dorispulaski]

Here's what Areva has to say about the treatment plant:

http://www.areva.com/EN/news-8856/a...amination-process-for-the-fukushima-site.html

And, by the way, I feel quite prescient about this

April 19, 2011

Following a request from Tepco, AREVA proposed a solution to treat most of the contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, which the Japanese power company has just accepted. The contaminated water must be treated rapidly as it is preventing Tepco from repairing the power plant’s power supply and cooling systems.

For three weeks, AREVA has sent radioactive effluent treatment specialists to Japan to participate in work groups with Tepco. Backed by large teams in France, Germany and the United States, they proposed a method based on a co-precipitation concept. Developed by AREVA and used in the Marcoule and La Hague facilities, the process uses special chemical reagents to separate and recover the radioactive elements. AREVA will then draw on its expertise and solu-tions for treating and managing these elements.

AREVA also called on the skills of Veolia Water . A large-capacity treatment plant equipped with the co-precipitation process will be delivered by AREVA. This installation will sharply reduce the radioactivity levels of the treated water, which could be reused in the power plant’s cooling systems.

Other processes may be used in parallel with this solution, which is the most suited to the present emergency. It could be supplemented by other medium- and long-term actions.

This operation is part of the follow-up to the visit to Japan of the President of the French Republic.

Veolia does desalination using reverse osmosis filtration and /or distillation.

I believe that the chemicals used at Marcoule and LaHague in coprecipitation are Potassium Ferricyanide and titanium sulfate, among others.

My understanding is that the US government also had a contract with Areva to reprocess liquid wastes at Hanford, as well as at its own Marcoule and La Hague facilities.