IMPORTANT: COOLING PUMPS DAMAGED BEYOND REPAIR IN REACTOR #2

[link to enenews.com]

Food and water poisoned by Japanese nuclear leak as expert warns more could die than in Chernobyl, Mirror, March 20, 2011:

… One expert predicted that the death toll in the years ahead could top the 500,000 attributed to the Chernobyl accident of 1986 and warned that panicked repair attempts could lead to an even greater disaster. John Large, a British nuc­lear engineer, said: “The Japanese don’t know how to deal with it. They’re ad-libbing.

“Just throwing water on to the reactors, when they cannot get inside to see what the situation is, could mean the fuel goes critical again.

“And while the radiation leak so far is only a tenth of that at Chernobyl, that was in a rural area with a low population. In Japan it’s an urban, densely packed area so the potential numbers of deaths and cancers are much higher.” …

Here the link:

[link to enenews.com]

They should've known the pumps were beyond repair considering all the salt water they've been dumping on them.

It's ridiculous they didn't order them earlier!!

[link to enenews.com]

John King USA on CNN, March 21, 2011 at 7:00 pm


Transcript [Emphasis Added]

KING:… Here to talk over the nuclear crisis Arnie Gundersen. He’s is a nuclear safety advocate who consults with the Vermont state government about the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Mr. Gundersen, thanks for coming back. I want to draw your attention to these infrared images that we have received. The Japanese government put them out. I want to start with reactor one. These are infrared images obviously taken from above.

You see here the casing in the reactor one building and you see the heat signature here, the yellow and red. In reactor one, the government says the Ministry of Defense says the highest temperature 58 degrees centigrade so about 136.4 Fahrenheit the government say, what does that image tell you?

ARNIE GUNDERSEN, NUCLEAR SAFETY ADVOCATE: I don’t believe the highest temperature is anywhere near that. It’s probably much nearer to thousands of degrees, but — what it does show me is you’ll see sort of like a line, a straight line of hot material.

I don’t know anything inside that nuclear containment that’s a straight line. It’s all curves. So it shows me that the geometry of the hot material is distorted.

KING: What is that — if it’s been distorted, what that mean is happening inside?

GUNDERSEN: It will be — it will be harder to cool it because it looks to me like the energy is not in the spot where it should be. Looks to me like it’s formed a long line and it’s not good, but I’m more concerned about some of the other reactor there.

KING: Well, let’s close this picture down and move it over. I want to bring up reactor two. Now we don’t see as red hot here in reactor two as we did in reactor one.

But the entire, you see heat in the entire building. This is where TEPCO has said there’s a possibility of a breach in the core self. What does this picture tell you?

GUNDERSEN: Well, in the words that go with that the Ministry of Defense says that the containment vessel is at 262 degrees and that’s 50 degrees above the boiling point of water. That’s the containment vessel that’s believed to have a crack in it.

So water cannot exist inside it because it’s at atmospheric pressure as a result of the crack. It tells me the suppression pool is likely dry, and that’s the one I would be most worried about, because it seems to me that what you’re seeing there is super heated air with no water in sight.

KING: So, super heated air, a possible breach. What are the risks of trying to going and contain this to get in close what you need to do?

GUNDERSEN: You know, the vessel at 262 degrees, if you spray water, the water won’t even get to the vessel. It will begin to vaporize even before it gets there according to the Ministry of Defense. That one is the — will be the toughest nut to crack out of the three of them. …

Chernobyl shows Japan the difficult task ahead, CBS News, March 18, 2011:

25 years after Russia’s disaster, experts are still working to entomb the deadly reactor that still releases radioactivity

… In Japan, the Fukushima complex will also have to be entombed, and the radiation levels will make that very difficult.

“These reactors are never going to be used again,” said James Acton, of the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program. “They’re going to have to be entombed for a significant length of time before anything’s able to be done about them.”

And in Japan, officials are dealing not with just one rogue reactor, but six of them. …

That still unfinished containment dome at Chernobyl is only projected to last 100 years. And Chernobyl, like the Japanese plant at Fukushima, will remain radioactive — and deadly — for thousands of years.

Confusion: Radiation still being released from Fukushima — Officials don’t know where it is coming from


Japan site still leaks radiation, source unclear: IAEA, Reuters, March 22, 2011 at 12:29 pm EDT:

… “We continue to see radiation coming from the site … and the question is where exactly is that coming from?” James Lyons, a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told a news conference.

IAEA Expert bbristowe has been quoted saying "The radiation is probably coming from the reactors gaise!!!"

CNN, March 22, 2011 at 12:37 pm EDT:

… Earlier Tuesday, Tokyo Electric Vice President Sakae Muto said the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the plant suffered more damage from seawater than originally believed and will take more time to repair.

The tsunami that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake March 11 damaged electrical components and coolant pumps in units No. 1 and 2. Those are two of the three units now believed to have suffered damage to their reactor cores, Muto said.

Reactor No. 2 suffered more damage than No. 1, and the earliest those parts can be replaced is Wednesday, Muto said. The cause of the damage was unclear, but seawater was pumped in previously to cool the reactors as an emergency measure after the earthquake.

Reactors No. 3 and 4 were still being evaluated to determine which parts need repair or replacement, he said, adding that restoring lighting and air conditioning was a priority so crews can work from inside and gather further data. …

Comparisons with X-rays and CT scans “meaningless” — Inhaling particles increases radiation exposure by “a factor of a trillion” says expert

Hirose Takashi: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and the State of the Media, Asahi NewStar, March 17, 2011:

Translation by Douglas Lummis

… [Interviewer] Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity. All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan. What is the truth of the matter?

Hirose: For example, yesterday. Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means. All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it. The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . . .

“Bubbling” spent fuel pool must be taken care of it as quickly as possible: Japan Official

Anxiety, weariness burbles among evacuees as Japan nuke plant storage pool boils, The Associated Press, March 22, 2011 at 5:46 am EDT:

In another day of progress and setbacks, a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to around the boiling point, a nuclear safety official said. With water bubbling away, there is a risk that more radioactive steam could spew out. “We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible,” said the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama.

i could have told them that.

very good! where did you get this from, or do we have an expert here on glp?

nuke em till they glow

[link to enenews.com]

If reactor 2 will take weeks to repair the pumps, think how long it may take to fix 1,3, and 4. Reactor 2 is in the best shape out of all the reactors (Besides 5 and 6)

for pin

Don't lose focus on the real doom

Scientists: Chernobyl resulted in 985,000 deaths worldwide as of 2004 — 500 percent more cancer fatalities when using MOX

Rethinking nuclear power, Jerusalem Post, March 21, 2011:

[P]ublished by the New York Academy of Sciences, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment [was w]ritten by scientists who used health data from 1986 to 2004… t found that 985,000 people died worldwide as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Most were in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus…

Warning signals, Frontline Magazine (India), March 26, 2011 issue:

Reactor 3 uses mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel in the core. According to Edwin Lyman of the UCS, “the use of MOX generally increases the consequences of severe accidents in which large amounts of radioactive gas and aerosol are released compared to the same accident in a reactor using non-MOX fuel…. Because of this, the number of latent cancer fatalities resulting from an accident could increase by as much as a factor of five for a full core of MOX fuel compared to the same accident with no MOX.”

Fukushima radioactive inventory is “30 to 40 times as high as in Chernobyl”: German radiation expert (Google Translation)

Nie wieder Sushi, Frankfurter Rundschau, March 20, 2011:

Google Translation

How long does it take for a contaminated area can be inhabited again?

[Renowned radiation biologist Edmund Lengfelder:] There is a rule of thumb: For a nuclide such as cesium-137, the half-life of 30 years. It takes ten half-lives, so you can populate an area again, making a total of 300 years. But in Japan is still added a difficulty: the nuclear fission process, radioactive substances, it is called the radioactive inventory of a reactor. In a boiling water reactor in Fukushima this inventory is 30 to 40 times as high as in Chernobyl, it can thus escape much more radiation. If we summarize it: In Japan, more people are concerned because the population density is higher than in Chernobyl and there is a higher contamination.

PIN !!!!!!!!!!!!

This is so exhausting. WHEN WILL THEY BE HONEST ABOUT THE FUCKING SITUATION! God help the Japanese. They may have the most naive Government on the face of the planet that they are irradiating!

I can't believe they are not required to have them in duplicate as back-up anyway.

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THIS AIN'T NEWS!!!!!

Fukishima Plant #1 is down forever. Nothing will get fixed, replaced or repaired due to the high radiation levels.

The question is... how much worse will it get from here.






.

They knew last week that the pumps and electrical systems were damaged.
They are just following some archaic corporate TEPCO standard reactor troubleshooting handbook and will go step by step until they "isolate the problem"

1. Restore Power
2. Test plumbing and electrical systems.
3. Isolate damaged components.
4. Report findings to superiors.
5. Order replacement components.
6. Cut power.
7. Install replacement components.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 until plumbing and electrical systems are fully functioning.




They just want the world to think they are trying to fix the problem.

Pin

Bump and pin!

will the cancer rates go up worldwide??

“Abnormal” readings on 8 of 18 EPA radiation monitors on US West Coast — Devices now “undergoing quality review”

Some Radiation-Tracking Air Monitors May Not Be Working Properly, EPA Says, Bloomberg, March 21, 2011 at 5:11 pm EDT:

Eight of 18 air monitors in California, Oregon and Washington state that track radiation from Japan’s nuclear reactors are “undergoing quality review,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. …

“What we are seeing is not a problem,” [Ronald Fraass, director of the EPA’s National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory in Montgomery, Alabama] said today in a telephone interview. …

Monitors are listed as undergoing review if they report an abnormal reading, Fraass said. Scientists then evaluate the reason, Fraass said.

An abnormality might mean that the monitor isn’t working correctly, or the device measured a spike in radiation levels attributable to an environmental change, Fraass said. For example, higher temperatures can cause higher levels of naturally occurring radon gas, he said.