*** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and links

TEPCO mishandled nuclear crisis, "overly confident" of safety: gov't panel
A government-appointed panel investigating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster concluded Monday that Tokyo Electric Power Co. mishandled its response to the crisis and nuclear regulators failed to prepare sufficient disaster-mitigation measures as they were "overly confident" about the safety of nuclear power.

"The utility and regulatory bodies were overly confident that events beyond the scope of their assumptions would not occur...and were not aware that measures to avoid the worst situation were actually full of holes," the panel said in its final report.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Oi's No. 4 reactor to reach full operation around 1 a.m. Wed.
The No. 4 reactor at the Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture will begin full-capacity generation around 1 a.m. Wednesday, its operator Kansai Electric Power Co. said Monday.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Public fears check Chinese nuclear
A new nuclear safety plan for China has been treated as a signal the sector is returning to favour. But old problems still plague the industry, writes Cui Zheng.

In mid-June, following a 15-month moratorium on construction of new nuclear facilities, China published the results of a nuclear safety audit and a fresh nuclear safety plan, signalling a possible end to the post-Fukushima freeze.

Since the days following Japan’s nuclear disaster in March last year, the number of countries to halt construction or operation of nuclear-power plants has grown, while the global nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on China coming back into the fray. Is it the case, then, as many believe, that construction will soon restart in China?
[link to www.chinadialogue.net]
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Nod for Swiss N-power stations

ZURICH: Switzerland’s four nuclear power stations are fit to withstand a major earthquake and pose no threat to the population and the environment, inspectors said yesterday.

“The nuclear power stations can withstand an earthquake of the kind that occurs a maximum of every 10,000 years,” said Georg Schwarz from the Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety (IFSN) in a statement.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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Russia delivers uranium to US nuclear power plants
Russia and the United States are nearing the completion of one of the most unusual joint programs. The agreement on the processing of uranium for nuclear power plants for deliveries to the U.S. was fulfilled 90 percent. The U.S. recycled Russian uranium suitable for nuclear weapons and secured energy supply of every tenth house using recycled Soviet uranium.

In turn, Russia positioned itself in the American market as a key supplier of fuel for the U.S. nuclear power plants. The agreement is known by its unofficial title "Megatons - to Megawatts," and in Russia under the simpler abbreviated name HEU-LEU (highly enriched uranium - low enriched uranium). It was signed in 1993 and provided for the use of highly enriched uranium extracted from nuclear weapons.

According to the National Nuclear Security Administration of the USA (NNSA), the agreement is fulfilled by over 90 percent, and over 450 tons of highly enriched uranium was recycled. It will be fully implemented by the end of 2013, when 500 tons of Russian highly enriched uranium will be processed, which is equivalent to 20,000 nuclear warheads.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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Fukushima Daiichi NPS February-May 2012

Photos
[link to cryptome.org]
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That is a lot more than can be said for the majority of the nuclear plants..

It should be the universal standard.

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Right, but can you trust the inpectors?... I'm not convinced...
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Noda vows no more Fukushimas
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says he expects to see the government's new nuclear regulatory body play a central role in preventing reoccurrences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Here is text from my posts on a related thread.
Thread: Fishy Catch: Fukushima fins spotted on US shores

The most popular fish, tuna, is the tip of the iceberg, and because it is at the top of the food chain, it concentrates radioisotopes more than other species of sea-life.

However the wording of the news story only continued to spread a misunderstanding about this subject which may allow the uneducated to fool themselves into a sense of false security.

The reporter kept saying things like,

"...radiation was found in the tuna..."

"The fish contained radiation."

"Fukushima spewed radiation into the atmosphere"

This kind of wording although not completely incorrect are very misleading to one who does not understand.

Ionizing radiation, is just like light, or is light (depending on the type).

"Radiation" exists for its tiny moment of time, and then it no longer exists, just like a photon of light in a box, it is only a flash of energy.

Alpha and to some extent Beta radiation can hardly penetrate even the skin, so they may pose little risk if the radioactive (flash) occurs outside of the body.

Radioactive isotopes on the other hand are materials which emit radiation, often alpha or beta radiation, but if they emit an alpha or beta or any other type of ionizing radiation from within the body, then the radioactive isotope (a chunk of material in effect) does much more continuous damage to a tiny area, which can easily stimulate the formation of a cancer.

There are may different types of radioactive isotopes and they concentrate or flush from a living body in different ways. Some types of radioisotopes like cesium, plutonium, uranium, may be at dangerous levels to a human in the form of food long before they contain enough of the material to be detectable on a Geiger counter.

For example, there can be a piece of dust of uranium 238 composed of thousands of uranium atoms, but a still very tiny speck, microscopic in size.

Let's say this piece of dust is inside the tuna, or inside your body. Uranium emits alpha which won't even penetrate the a quarter inch of flesh, so it will not be detectible on any Geiger counter outside, but that speck could do considerable damage to the quarter inch of flesh that surrounds it, and cause a cancer to develop within years.

Go ahead and check your tuna with a Geiger counter, with the tuna out of the can because the can will block alpha and beta radiation, but the risk could be there even if you detect nothing special on a Geiger counter. Only a laboratory that can do chemical analysis of the food can provide an idea of the levels of radioisotopes of a food.

(There are methods that a home scientist could perform to concentrate isotopes from substances, and that just might approach methods whereby a layman might be able to determine true risk but that is more than I would go into for this post.)

A Geiger counter does not read levels of radioisotopes, but merely radiation as light.

If you do get a higher reading on your Geiger counter from food... or from the general environment, and if you determine that the source is material, like radioisotopes (like from fukushima, and not mere radiation light, like from an event from space), then I would consider it to be already a deadly dose... of who knows what isotope, but it would be highly likely to be isotopes which will concentrate in the body and produce cancer in a matter of years.

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Here is related information on plants that are bio-accumulators of radioisotopes. This information would be useful when looking for methods of home testing of presence of radio-isotopes in the environment or in a substance.

More importantly, these would be foods to avoid if one knew the area were contaminated with a given isotope; cesium, strontium, or uranium for example.

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Such a home test (hypothetical to me) would first look for methods of concentrating target radioisotopes, have some foreknowledge of natural levels of such radioisotopes in a substance, (which would normally be pretty close to zero for any radioisotope in nature)

And then see if a difference can be noted on a Geiger counter placed against the concentrated substance.

Last Edited by ehecatl on 07/23/2012 04:59 PM

Good point. The Swiss are neutral.. doesn't mean the inspectors are..

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Thanks for that post, E. Excellent!

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agreed....

Disaster drill held at Onagawa nuclear plant
A Japanese power company has held an emergency tsunami drill at its nuclear plant in disaster-hit Miyagi Prefecture.

Tohoku Electric Power Company based Tuesday's drill on a scenario involving a magnitude-9.0 quake off Miyagi and an ensuing tsunami that hits the Onagawa plant.

About 150 workers used 4 power trucks to practice restoring external energy sources in case generators break down. The generators are on high ground to protect them from tsunamis.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Fukushima kids absent as schools to reopen
A town in Fukushima Prefecture is expecting only 18 percent of children to return to local schools when they reopen for the first time since last year's nuclear accident.

The town of Hirono is located 20 to 25 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Most residents evacuated after the March 11th disaster.

Town authorities began calling for their return after an evacuation advisory was lifted last September.

But the Board's recent survey showed that parents of just 95 kids -- or about 18 percent -- were willing to send their children back to the town's schools.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Ex-Fukushima Daiichi chief praises workers' dedication in crisis
The former chief of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant praises subordinates who strove to contain the disaster in video footage, made available to Kyodo News on Tuesday, that will be aired at an upcoming event.

Masao Yoshida, 57, describes the workers as "Buddhist saints in hell" and says he thought he could have died in the crisis and the "workers cooling the reactors at the plant could not leave the site" in the 30-minute video with English subtitles for a symposium to be held in the city of Fukushima on Aug. 11.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Multiple NRC Violations At Cooper
Brain J. O'Grady, VP Nuclear and CNO of Nebraska Public Power received the letter dated July 20, 2012 of the findings for teh NRC Component Design Bases Inspection.

6 violations...
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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OYSTER CREEK - UNUSUAL EVENT DUE TO LOSS OF OFFSITE POWER

At 0329 EDT, Oyster Creek experienced a loss of offsite power and a full reactor scram. All safety systems functioned as required. Unusual Event due to loss of offsite AC power to 4160V buses 1C and 1D for greater than 15 minutes. The cause of the loss of offsite power is currently under investigation by JCP&L.

At 0341 EDT, Oyster Creek declared an Unusual Event based on a loss of offsite power for greater than 15 minutes. As a result of the loss of offsite power, the unit automatically scrammed from 100% with all control rods fully inserting and all safety systems functioning as required. Both Emergency Diesel Generators automatically started and are carrying loads on the safety buses. The unit is stable in Hot Shutdown with decay heat removal via the Isolation Condenser.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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40 India nuclear plant workers contaminated: Firm
JAIPUR: More than 40 workers at a nuclear power station have been exposed to tritium radiation in two separate leaks in the past five weeks, company managers said on Tuesday.

The first accident occurred on June 23 when 38 people were exposed during maintenance work on a coolant channel at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station in Rawatbhata, senior plant manager Vinod Kumar told AFP.

Two of them received radiation doses equivalent to the annual permissible limit, he said, but all those involved have returned to work.

In a second incident last Thursday, another four maintenance workers at the plant were exposed to tritium radiation while they were repairing a faulty seal on a pipe.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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Navy: Nuclear Sub Worker Set Fire So He Could Leave Early
Navy investigators have determined that a civilian laborer set a fire that caused $400 million in damage to a nuclear-powered submarine because he had anxiety and wanted to get out of work early.

Casey James Fury of Portsmouth, N.H., faces up to life in prison if convicted of two counts of arson in the fire aboard the USS Miami attack submarine while it was in dry dock May 23 and a second blaze outside the sub on June 16.
[link to abcnews.go.com]
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GOVERNMENT PROBE: Reactor cooling botched at Fukushima No. 1, but not No. 2 plant
One of the striking points about the final report of the government's investigation panel on last year's nuclear disaster is the comparison of the crisis response at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and its sister, the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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Causes of largest radioactive leaks may be found
Experts say work to lower the core pressure at one of reactors may have led to the largest radioactive leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March last year.

Among the 4 reactors at the Fukushima plant, the No. 2 reactor leaked the largest amount of radioactivity according to nuclear disaster monitoring.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and other experts have examined the crisis response log at the reactor facility. They also checked radiation levels in surrounding areas.

They found radiation levels rose sharply 3 times at monitoring posts 10 kilometers south of the plant over a period of 5 hours during the night of March 14th.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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New decontamination device for Fukushima plant
A new decontamination device that can remove a large variety of radioactive substances, including strontium, has been developed for the defunct Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The decontamination tool now in use at the plant can only remove radioactive cesium.

More than 170,000 tons of treated water, still contaminated with other radioactive substances, is being stored in tanks in the plant compound. The volume keeps growing.

The new device unveiled in Yokohama near Tokyo on Tuesday can lower contamination to acceptable levels for 62 types of radioactive materials, such as strontium and cobalt.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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A Full Reactor Scram..
They call it success.. when the reactors don't melt down.

Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants
[link to www8.nationalacademies.org]

GOVERNMENT PROBE: Many Fukushima hospital patients died during botched rescue operation
[link to ajw.asahi.com]

Complaints over N-crisis to be accepted / Building cases may be difficult for prosecutors
[link to www.yomiuri.co.jp]

Here is a new wrinkle..

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Groups warn on cracks in nuclear reactor
[link to www.taipeitimes.com]

[snip]

Cracks of up to 30cm have been found on the core shroud of the No.1 reactor at the idled Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District

Lee Kuei-lin a retired Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) employee who had worked at the plant for 33 years, told a press conference yesterday that the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant had had many instances of sudden emergency shut-downs and the thermal effect from a sudden drop in temperature from 300oC in the reactor core may be the real cause of the cracks.

Similar cases of core shroud cracking were reported at many reactors in Japan in 2002, including the three reactors that had gone into meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant last year, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance board member Lai Wei-Chieh said, adding that although the power shortage caused by the tsunami and earthquake were blamed for the accident, the possible impacts caused by the cracks should also be explored.

Hokuriku Electric submits crack assessment plan
The operator of a nuclear power plant in Ishikawa Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast, has informed the government of its plan to probe a seam below the facility to determine whether it's an active fault.

Hokuriku Electric Power Company submitted the plan on Wednesday to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which had ordered the probe.

Last week, a government panel of experts said that the 300-meter-long crack running about 250 meters below the No.1 reactor at the Shika nuclear power plant is highly likely to be an active fault, but that further assessment is needed.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Seams not checked for 25 years at Shika
Seams beneath the Shika nuclear plant were judged safe 25 years ago, and have not been reassessed since.

Hokuriku Electric, the operator of the Shika plant, applied for government permission to build the plant's No.1 reactor in January 1987.

The utility decided the seven underground breaches, including the one at issue, in the area were not a hazard, and the industry ministry agreed based on its own safety assessment. The ministry is in charge of nuclear power plants.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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