well sometimes people make poor decisions. Comes with being human.

The thinking is that we have a great deal of nuclear savvy readers (and those with wide boundary insight) and discussion on this issue might get disrupted by Libya, finance, Syria, etc. in the Drumbeat.

I am sorry. The crowd gripped by Fuku posts 500+ posts on a day. We are like nuclear waste, pouring over. We need a place to be. Sorry.
Dont bury us in deep repository please.

So my understanding is that no one (or robot or whatever) has actually located these "holes" or cracks or whatever they think is there? My point being that up to this point, its all just a guessing game on what really is wrong in regards to these breached reactors?

Yesterday some commented on the diverse info coming out "it is being solved" "reactor x is blowin up". Right now the same thing is still happening:

IAEA is glossing over the leaks into seawater for example, but JAIF shows some real problems at the facility, the "Science Ministry" (as per Jaif's collection of news) says, seawater is improving. NISA (?) says concentrations has increased to 3350 times normal... etc etc.
Further and more important: "now the tap water is drinkable" "now it is not", "export vegetables", "stop vegetables".

Conclusion: it is time for the Government of Japan (prime minister?) to start keeping a real iron fist on
a) what is being told should be consistent with yesterday, if nothing unexpected happens.
b) if rules require food or water to be stopped, then keep that for a week in that region.

Classical emergency response recommendations probably - instead we have everybody running around like chickens. I am disgusted.
Top politician, whoever you are: take some responsibility - you wanted this job because of that.

they believe low pressure in Reactors 2 and 3 are from leaking pipes/joints,

I hope that is true, but would not be surprised if a vessel has melted through.

One of the things that has always bothered me about the BWR is the large pipe connections to the vessel below the top of the core. That may account for the unchanging water level reports.

PWR’s have some small instrument tube penetrations from the bottom. Not big enough to flow a lot of water. The big pipe connections are all above the core, so it can boil like a tea kettle even with a large pipe break.

For a species hell-bent on mass-suicide, I'd say this is a fine next step. Press onward, brave leader! The cliff approacheth ever faster!

The NRC and EPA are here to protect you.

Protective Action Guides, or PAGs as they are called by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are used to enforce the law following any incident involving the release of radioactive material. If there were a dirty bomb attack in America or nuclear meltdown, how would the EPA interpret the Clean Water Act? How would it interpret a whole suite of laws that impact upon our food, water and soil? As with the incredibly toxic pollution which has claimed many lives of 9-11 responders, the sole decision about what is safe is an administrative EPA process shielded from public scrutiny.

In 1992, the EPA produced a PAGs manual that answers many of these questions. But now an update to the 1992 manual is being planned, and if the “Dr. Strangelove” wing of the EPA has its way, here is what it means (brace yourself for these ludicrous increases):

A nearly 1000-fold increase for exposure to strontium-90;
A 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for exposure to iodine-131; and
An almost 25,000 rise for exposure to radioactive nickel-63.i

The new radiation guidelines would also allow long-term cleanup thresholds thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever judged safe in the past. Under long-established EPA policy, in conformity with long-accepted international standards on “acceptable” amounts of radiation these proposed changes would increase the permissible amounts of radiation to levels where 25% of those exposed to these “new acceptable levels” would develop cancer based on the EPA’s own numbers.ii

http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/item...

Long Blackouts Pose Risk to US Reactors (AP)

Long before it happened in Japan, regulators in the United States knew that a similar, days-long power failure, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak in this country.

Alan Kolaczkowski, Nuclear Engineer: Looking at the blackout situations and losses of all power, we know that once those pumps finally die off -- I pointed out that DC-driven, steam-driven pumps can operate for maybe like half a day -- then you no longer can provide cooling water to the core. Ultimately the core can overheat, a lot of that heat would be deposited to the containment, and if in a long term you're not able to get the heat out of the containment, you can end up with releases to the environment. The plants that I understand are in Japan are similar in design to the Peach Bottom plant that I studied here in the United States. They are both BWR, I believe 4, Mark I-type designs, so the designs are certainly similar. So, I would expect that the kinds of issues that the Japanese have would be similar to what we studied with regard to Peach Bottom here in the United States. . . . Are there additional measures that perhaps can and should be taken to deal with a very prolonged loss of power such as Japan has had? . . . To be able to say that we are adequately defended to be able to have a loss of power for days or even weeks -- maybe that's something that we should look into.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/ap290311.html

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." (Upton Sinclair)

edit to add 1 more:

The report is the first broad, if limited, set of results of the radioactive material captured by the filters and canisters around the Pacific from Nome to Guam, and as far inland as Montgomery, Ala. Of all those stations, Guam is the closest to Fukushima, about 1,700 miles south and outside the prevailing winds. At its highest reading, on March 22, Guam reported only a fifth as much radioactivity from iodine-131 as Dutch Harbor.

Dutch Harbor is more in line with normal air and ocean currents from Fukushima, about 2,700 miles away. Nome is 2,850 miles away, and its highest reading, on March 23, was only a third as high as Dutch Harbor's.

Anchorage, at 3,320 miles, is the closest large U.S. city to Fukushima. Juneau is 3,890 miles away, Honolulu about 3,810 miles, Seattle about 4,650 miles and Anaheim, Calif., about 5,400 miles. Aside from Anchorage, all reported some fallout, with Anaheim coming closest to Dutch Harbor in reported levels of radioactive iodine -- 1.9 picocuries of radioactivity in each cubic meter of air in Anaheim to Dutch Harbor's 2.8.

Dutch Harbor also reported the highest levels of cesium-137, more than three times any other reporting station in the United States and twice the level of the next highest station, in Guam. Dutch Harbor's reading on quickly decaying but dangerous tellurium-132, though tiny, was more than 100 times higher than any place else that reported.

As one of Alaska's most important fishing ports, state officials have sought to quell fears in Europe that Dutch Harbor fish were contaminated from Fukushima radiation. Even though the raw numbers in the EPA report showed levels of radiation that are probably right around background -- the monitor there is new and actual background radiation is unknown, state health lab chief Jilly said -- the news was enough for the state to issue a new set of assurances.

The headline of the state's news release announcing the EPA report was, "Harmless amounts of Japanese radiation detected in Alaska," and among the assurances was this: "These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days and are still hundreds of thousands of times below levels of public health concerns."

http://www.adn.com/2011/03/29/1781982/dtuch-harbor-monitor-registers.htm...

"But this approach does seem inherently safer and more manageable"

Safer for who?

And what evidence do you have to support this notion?

Razrmom-

Just make sure they come with a big hook so a helicopter can pick them up easily and drop them in rivers, lakes, oceans, swimming pools should they begin to meltdown.

China's HTR-10, a 10 MWt high-temperature gas-cooled experimental reactor looks promising....
"In 2004, the small HTR-10 reactor was subject to an extreme test of its safety when the helium circulator was deliberately shut off without the reactor being shut down."

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

Hi - Attention the below is a rough calculation for fun. If you find major errors, reply on Wyo's comment and I will edit away errors!

500 MW x 90% x a year x 30 years is total energy output. For a year some 4000 million kWh.
The input is something like capital cost: 5 billion over 30 years 5 or 10% interest, is that some 200 -400 million per year?
maintenance: ? add some tens of millions
Work: ? 300 employees yearly salary about 25 millions
Fuel uranium: 100 tons x 62 $/pound (or 100 per kg) = about ten million dollars per year?

A kWh is what 0.05 $ a bit more, maybe. So income is about 200 million dollars per year.

Conclusion: Capital cost is major. Once the thing is built it looks pretty good. Normally if something pays off, and externalities are included (this case waste handling and insurance are weak points), then it also has a net benefit.

Compare to a solar heating system which pays off in maybe 15 years. That is probably still a net benefit (considering energy) because a large part of the cost is labor in making and installing it (the workers energy cost to live is only with difficulty included in EROEI).

IAEA Says "There Might Be Re-Criticality At Fukushima"

Remember Fukushima?
•IAEA SAYS `THERE MIGHT BE RE-CRITICALITY' AT FUKUSHIMA
•IAEA COMMENTS AT PRESS CONFERENCE IN VIENNA
•IAEA DIRECTOR GENERAL YUKIYA AMANO SPEAKS AT BRIEFING IN VIENNA
•IAEA HAS NO INFORMATION FROM TEPCO ON NEUTRON DETECTORS
If indeed the reactor has gone critical again, the whole concrete dome idea may have to be promptly scrapped.

The big difference between FUKUSHIMA and CHERNOBYL is during the crisis of the Chernobyl meltdown, the Soviet Union brought 500,000 of its citizens and spent $80 billion rubles to control the problem, whereas TEPCO a now broke corporation has employeed less than a few hundred people and has spent a fraction so far.

If the Japanese govt does not step in with international help, this might turn out to be the STRAW THAT BREAKS THE GLOBAL ECONOMIES BACK.

It is pretty easy to calculate a lifetime revenue.
500 MW unit and 90% uptime = 4 million KWhrs/year
$.03/Kwhr = $120 million /year
50/40/30/20/10 year lifespan = revenue of billions: $6.0 / $4.8 / $3.6 / 2.4 / 1.2

Construction cost =
Operating cost =
Interest =
Fuel =
Decommision = $2 billion /unit

Revenue (35 years)= $4 billion

Hmm It depends on what the billing is in Japan per KwHr for generation.
Isn't it higher than in the USA?

I assume a meltdown is not priced into the cost of electricity? No.

Wow, was that Greenpeace that reported finding Cesium at 2,200 times normal levels 30km from Fukushima?

Dang...

(Sorry about lack of citation...was on NHK show just when I clicked on link--maybe I even heard it wrong.)

A catastrophe waiting to happen.

Pausing construction while we learn the lessons from Japan seems the most sensible thing to do. All the countries shoud be doing that.

Really good, thanks. Noticed only one error in the report, the photo with the fire car pumping water is into probably pool 4 (not 1 as said in text, as that one should be next to the building still standing which is reactor 2). The photos are great.

For instance, I would like to check where the spent fuel pool 4 is, it should be possible to see how much the fire car pumps to the correct location. Well I am sure the technicians over there do that too.

It is really a sad story. It appears as if the response is a little low at the moment, probably sending a few hundred soldiers would improve the situation. At least they should clean up material which is not highly radioactive on the path from the gate to plants, for instance.

I'm starting to think the minimal staffing at the plant (50 - 100 people), and lack of detailed information in press releases (unless a worker steps in some water and gets injured) are merely delaying tactics.

It certainly doesn't look, to me, like a serious effort to manage a disaster of this magnitude.

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind..."

~Bob Dylan

I'm starting to think the minimal staffing at the plant (50 - 100 people), and lack of detailed information in press releases (unless a worker steps in some water and gets injured) are merely delaying tactics.

The communists certainly did a lot better with their command and control than the Corporation is doing. I think that there would have been much prompter outcry and demand for multi-national cooperation if there weren't prevailing offshore winds and the presence of an infinite-appearing pollution sink nearby. We're going to keep moving the bar downwards and establishing new normals and baselines as we descend. 25 years after Chernobyl, we have much less resources to throw at disasters and problems; witness the disappearing international aid, even from the American empire. Just set the bar lower; potroast for all.

It seems the minimal response/staff at the site may not be a bad approach.
The reactors are scrap and the site is an unapproachable contaminated mess other than through tunnels. There is nothing useful to do that anyone has thought of.
Fixing some marginal problems, such as draining a few sumps or getting the lights back on in places does no harm, but does not change the reality that the site is leaking enormous amounts of radioactivity, not just into the water but also into the air and will do so for as long as the fuel stays hot, which is several years.
There is no known solution, no robot can even go through the wreckage to retrieve fuel rods from the remains of the storage pools, much less pull out the remains of the fuel from the bottom of the damaged reactors.
Meanwhile, cooling the reactor hulks makes steam that carries away the iodine and cesium that will poison central and northern Japan for centuries during that time. Increased cooling would mean increased runoff, not good given the limited water storage available. Pumping water into barges buys a bit of time, maybe, but where do the barges go?
Above all of that is the potential for recriticality, because the damaged fuel may accumulate a critical mass accidentally. TEPCOs reports of a "neutron beam" being repeatedly noted several days ago may be real observations. There was a lot of fairly fresh fuel in the reactor 4 pool, so the risk is not zero.
Either way, southern Japan should be less impacted, the winds over Japan rarely come from the north east. So Tokyo should be ok, even as Japan suffers

Yup. As has been noted, local communities have major influence on land use decisions in the US.

PG&E, already in a world of trouble over a lax safety culture, may finally have to respond (expensively) to public outcry.

Sure. Depending upon one's definition of "long," the question arises for all species.

If, instead of species longevity, we compare the history of human social stability to the half-lives of certain radioisotopes...

Rather than 12,000 reactor years it seems more appropriate to say - out of 400 reactors, 6 catastrophic failures (TMI, Ch, + Fuk 1-4)...

I think Wall Street ran those probabilities 30 years ago, and the insurance industry 40 years ago. Too bad that even now, with real numbers, our politicians (of both parties) don't seem to care.

Yup. Someone should do a Google Map where clicking on a nuclear plant site pops up a photo gallery of its spent-fuel pool(s).

Neighbors might find it instructive.

As I've said here recently, and to various deaf ears over the decades, the spent-fuel ponds are a scary situation.

However, they aren't scary if one has the illusion that business-as-recently-usual will continue indefinitely, and short of that it's hard to prove a rationale.

Unless some initiative is taken, I expect many of them to ultimately evaporate/burn/melt in place through simple neglect: it won't be a priority until they start going sideways, and once that happens everyone will run the other way. For instance, in 30 years many locations won't even have working fire engines or the fuel to run them, much less the ability to deal with a melting radioactive slag pit.

In addition to a heavily-mechanized command economy, the Soviet response depended heavily on the basic trust and ignorance of the 500,000 troops exposed to radiation; that would simply not be replicable today even if one wanted to do it, much less in a resource-starved future.

The reactors, problematic as they can be, are a distraction: the real monkey trap is those fuel pools. They will be utterly low-profile and benign... until they aren't. It's not an engineering question, it's the intersection between aggregate human decision-making heuristics and the tangible world.

Like "global warming", "spent fuel" has a comfortable feel to it in the human mind. Perhaps we should re-name both. I'll work on it.

Jeez, this oughta be interesting to watch unfold (Like, it hasn't been already).

Best, Roger Dodger.

I hope those presumed possible pockets of re-criticality are few, small and isolated.

But hopium is in increasingly short supply at Fukushima Daiichi.

The key is presumed criticalites. Until they get those robots to do some measurements it only so much hot air.

Thanks for sharing that. It must have been heart-wrenching work.

Sad
.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kiev-UkrainianNationalChernobylMuseum_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

I was hoping someone would post the reality of long term radiation damage, even if just a small slice. I'm sick of the liars here who are trying to minimize and disguise the dangers by legalistic methods that should be obvious to anyone familiar with how defense lawyers work: first get rid of all evidence you can (near meltdowns, errors where systems grew out of control but the accident was kept out of the public eye), then reduce the numbers as much as possible until you can try for reasonable doubt (ignore full spectrum of radiation damage long term, focus only on deaths, that's a dead obvious sign someone is either deceived and then speaking as one deceived, or that one is a paid PR person promoting vile toxic ways of creating long term waste that they will never get taken care of).

I've also, by the way, talked to a friend who has family in Japan, and he says similar things about how the Japanese deal with the after realities of Hiroshima / Nagasiki.

These apologists are doing one of two things: lying to themselves to excuse the inexcusable, or lying outright because they get paid to do so.

I was just talking to a friend about Chernobyl, he told me he just saw some documentary about the aftereffects of Chernobyl, 43 is indeed total BS, pure spin, blatant and flagrant attempt to mislead and deceive. I now give the nuclear industry, and those who are either inadvertently, or willingly, mislead by it, zero credibility. I consider everything they say and promote as a lie. Just like Big Coal.

Apparently nuclear ideology has an enforced off switch to the reasoning parts of brain, which lead people to either lie to themselves, or to others. All these lies are easy to pierce, which is what makes me wonder just what is going on here.

I do however understand why people who are allowing themselves to be deceived do so: the choice is actually conservation and powering down, and capitalism and industrial production simply has no model to support an economic system that is doing that, only growth, endlessly, at any cost. And many people here are deeply connected and attached to the notions of continued generation of business for BAU, no matter what form that might take.

Speaking for myself, I'm not going to waste any more time talking to these people, they are the problem, not the solution, and we only have one life to live, it's important to avoid people who are dead set on creating hell on earth in my opinion, no matter how they justify that to themselves. Just as it's even more important now, today, to support the people who are actually working at creating solutions and lower impact ways of life. The problem of course for future generations is that they will have to clean up the messes, or try, while the people who profited from all this are long gone. Hardly seems fair to me.

It is a special moment. Also the largest Swedish newspaper has slowed down reports, and puts them out of sight - yesterday the link did not even work - you got to see "world news" instead. Like if many want to hide their heads in the sand : "no news is good news" - just that we who dig a bit deeper knows it is not.

See for example mega bequerels/m2 in Iitake (?) the village 40 km to the north. Or Reactor 2 suspected to melt through reactor vessel (the other, at least reactor 1 holds still, I insist, although the pressure is really high 6 BarA 31st - please get it down a bit Tepco...). Or small flows of highly radioactive water into ocean likely. This is not peanuts, folks. And it can get worse if wind changes, that is absurd, or if one pipes breaks, that is a risky game.

And it will cost, human suffering, and to Japanese society (like a small added tax the next 10 years). I believe the product supply is not such a worry, as the companies that used to do it in Japan, well, some other companies will rapidly (few months) step in an take over and sell. Sure, quality and so on might change, but after 2 months from now, there will be no more important parts missing for a customer who needs it and is willing to pay. Sure price might be a tad higher. But I am sure a PC or an industrial robot or flat screen will be available.

But the risk for Japan economy, and companies that were active with factories in northeastern Japan, the risks of a complete no-return is very real, still.
One accident, one cloud, one rainy day, 300 km away.

I think its a story about bodies (of people killed in the quake/tsunami) that have not been retrieved because of concern about post-mortem irradiation.

Here's an English version (I think):

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110331x1.html

Is this true from man down to viruses and prions?

Microbes are tougher than man when it comes to radiation. There is variation depending on the species. 500 Rads or so will kill you but Deinococcus radiodurans can take 3,000,000 Rads and keep on ticking:

That said sewers are full of life because they are full of "food" i.e. organic material, and there is not much of that in the construction of the reactor building. But given time there will be critters down there, life will find a way