Updates from Fukushima

[robdogbucky]

Nice to know the Keystone Cops are in charge over there:


Saturday, May 21, 2011

Sources: Kan halted cooling day after quake

Water to reactor 1 was stopped 55 minutes on advice of Nuclear Safety Commission
Kyodo

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. started to inject seawater into the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant a day after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami but suspended the operation for 55 minutes at the direction of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, according to government sources.

With criticism growing that a delay in the seawater injection may have caused a meltdown in the reactor and aggravated the disaster, analysts have said Tepco should have continued pumping the water into the reactor vessel to cool it down.

The government had previously said Tepco started to inject seawater into the No. 1 reactor at 8:20 p.m. March 12, but a document released by the utility Monday revealed it began the work at 7:04 p.m. that day, stopped it at 7:25 p.m. and resumed it at 8:20 p.m.

According to the sources, the Nuclear Safety Commission advised Kan that seawater injection into the reactor vessel could rekindle a chain reaction in a state called "recriticality," prompting him to require the utility to suspend the operation. But the commission later confirmed that the injection wouldn't cause any problem, and Tepco, which initially began pumping seawater at the discretion of on-site workers, restarted the work by also putting in boric acid, which works to suppress criticality, the sources said…

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110521x2.html


Hmmmm? So someone else has used the word "recriticality." Wonder where I have heard that word before?




So, someone else noticed the Japanese government never had any adequate evacuation plans:





Saturday, May 21, 2011


Public flooding officials with tsunami fears
Kyodo
Sendai KYODO

"Local governments in tsunami-prone areas across Japan have been swamped by thousands of public inquiries related to earthquake safety since the March 11 mega-quake and tsunami disaster.

Nine prefectures expected to suffer serious tsunami damage in the event of strong quakes triggered by ocean trenches from Hokkaido in the north to Miyazaki in the southwest are now faced with easing public concern by reviewing their disaster prevention measures, such as escape routes and location of evacuation shelters.

Most inquiries came from residents along the Pacific coast in central and western Japan, which the government predicts will likely be hit by magnitude-8 quakes in the first half of this century. Concerns mostly focused on the likelihood of tsunami damage to their homes, local officials say.

Among the most widely feared scenarios are the so-called Tokai, Tonankai and Nankai earthquakes."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110521b1.html




Latest report from inside one of the three melted down reactors:



No.1 reactor has 4.2 meters of contaminated water

"Workers have confirmed that more than 4 meters of highly radioactive water has flooded the basement of one of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, sent workers inside the No.1 reactor on Friday as part of preparations to install a cooling system to stabilize the reactor core.

TEPCO suspects that the reactor's fuel rods have melted down, creating holes in a pressure vessel and damaging the reactor's containment vessel.

Contaminated water is apparently leaking from the holes. Under a revised plan announced this week, the utility plans to decontaminate the water and circulate it to cool the reactor core…"

Friday, May 20, 2011 19:46 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20_34.html




Hi ho!

[bananas]

1. So the Nuclear Safety Commission warned Kan about recriticality

and yet some here insisted it was impossible ...

[robdogbucky]

2. Yup, and I was thinking also of Zerohedge and Arne Gunderson

Oh, about 2 weeks after the disaster started:

Tellurium 129 Presence Is Proof Of Inadvertent Recriticality At Fukushima
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/03/2011 18:57 -0400

"For those wondering just why TEPCO and Japan in general have been in such as scramble to cover up as much of the reactor in a concrete sarcophagus, after up until now the utility had been perfectly happy to come up with one after another useless idea of delaying the inevitable moment of sarcophagation, here is Arnie Gunderson from Fairewinds and Associates explaining that now there is definitive proof, courtesy of Tellurium 129 and a order of magnitude higher concentration of Iodine 131 in Reactor 1, that the reactor is now undergoing sporadic events of recriticality: in other words, the fission reaction is recommencing on its own, and without any supervision, emitting undetectable neutron beams which are irradiating any and all personnel still on location..."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tellurium-129-presence-proof-inadvertent-recriticality-fukushima



Newly Released TEPCO Data Provides Evidence of Periodic Chain Reaction at Fukushima Unit 1

A 5:20 minute video explanation:

"Recent press reports have discussed the possibility that Fukushima Unit 1 may be having a nuclear chain reaction. New data released by TEPCO indicates that even though Fukushima Unit 1 was shut down during the March 11 earthquake, it appears to have "gone critical" again without human intervention. The detection by TEPCO of short-lived radioactive isotopes substantiates the existence of this inadvertent criticality."

http://www.fairewinds.com/updates


Ironic that Arne's next video in chrono order is about:


Closing Ranks: The NRC, the Nuclear Industry, and TEPCO are Limiting the Flow of Information

A 7:30 minute video about why we are not getting reliable information from TPTB

"Arnie Gundersen discusses inconstancies between what the NRC, TEPCo, and the Nuclear Industry are saying privately and publicly. Documents from the french nuclear firm, Areva, and the NRC reveal what the industry knows about the Fukushima disaster."

http://www.fairewinds.com/updates



And this is still going on, there are 3 reactors that have melted down and they are nowhere near understanding what can or should be done to contain fissioning that apparently is still occurring, other than coming up with blueprints that are revised almost immediately after new revelations. Every day this happens and no one over here cares anymore. It wasn't me that initially brought up the idea of China Syndrome at Fukushima, I think it was NYT just last week.

Who knew? A lot of people that were smeared and/or ignored.


Hi ho!

[Octafish]

3. Thank you for the important information, robdogbucky!

The infrequent mentions of Fukushima Daiichi in recent days I've seen in Corporate McPravda uniformly play down the seriousness of the disaster.

One quote I remember from "alternative media" said not to believe anything anyone says who is connected to the nuclear industry.

So, I turn to DemocracyNow for news and analysis, such as this interview with Thomas Breuer of Greenpeace Germany:

Nuclear Catastrophe in Japan “Not Equal to Chernobyl, But Way Worse”

[Mnemosyne]

4. K&R for truth and visibility. n/t