http://enenews.com/
and...
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/09/density-of-krypton85-is-more-than-9-times-much-as-before-in-reactor1/
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/09/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-video-inside.html
TEPCO still hasn't identified the cause for the decreased water flow into the reactors (1, 2, and 3), but the company suspects some rust or foreign particles clogging the system somewhere. On September 5, a video camera was submerged into one of the buffer tanks that store the treated water before the water is fed back into the reactors.
White particles floating around, like near the bottom of the ocean. I wonder what they are. TEPCO explains the bubbling seen in the video as "nitrogen".
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120908f1.html
http://enenews.com/tepco-official-in-washington-dc-we-dont-know-location-of-fukushima-melted-fuel
and...
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/09/density-of-krypton85-is-more-than-9-times-much-as-before-in-reactor1/
Density of Krypton85 is more than 9 times much as before in reactor1
Posted by Mochizuki on September 8th, 2012 · No Comments
Increase of Krypton 85 is detected in PCV of reactor1, which suggests nuclear fission is on-going. (cf. Intermittent increase of Krypton-85 to suggest on-going nuclear fission in reactor1)
Tepco announced the highest density of Krypton 85 was 948Bq/cm3. (Only in the Japanese version of report.)
According to their noble gas report published on 7/23/2012, it has been 1 ~ 150 Bq/cm3 since 12/22/2011.
It has been stably about 100 Bq/cm3 since the beginning of July 2012.
However, this report is only in Japanese, and copy is prohibited by Tepco for some reason.
You can read it from here. (P.6)
It proves the increase of Kryptom 85 is significant, about 9 times higher than the level of this July.
and....
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/09/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-video-inside.html
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2012
#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Video Inside the Buffer Tank Shows White Particles Floating in the Treated Water, Rust on the Bottom
TEPCO still hasn't identified the cause for the decreased water flow into the reactors (1, 2, and 3), but the company suspects some rust or foreign particles clogging the system somewhere. On September 5, a video camera was submerged into one of the buffer tanks that store the treated water before the water is fed back into the reactors.
White particles floating around, like near the bottom of the ocean. I wonder what they are. TEPCO explains the bubbling seen in the video as "nitrogen".
Here's a photo of the strainer of one of the 5 "chiller" machines (to cool water), fromTEPCO's 9/5/2012 Photos and Videos page. Rust flakes and curled-up white bits. (It looks like bits of jellyfish...) Click to enlarge.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120908f1.html
Saturday, Sep. 8, 2012
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| Sleeping dragon: Reactor 4 at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is seen July 18, the day Tepco removed an unused nuclear fuel assembly from the spent-fuel pool to check the extent of damage its fuel rods sustained in the March 2011 disasters. KYODO |
Global help urged to avert reactor 4 pool fire
U.S. expert appalled by Tepco's attitude over 'sleeping dragon' risk
Staff writer
KYOTO — The risk of a fire starting in reactor 4's spent-fuel pool at the Fukushima No. 1 plant continues to alarm scientists and government officials around the world, prompting a leading U.S. nuclear expert to urge Japan to tap global expertise to avert a catastrophe.
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| Go global: U.S. nuclear expert and opponent Arnie Gundersen addresses an audience Monday in Kyoto, after traveling to Japan to meet with Diet members and citizens' groups over conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.MICAH GAMPEL |
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer and former executive in the nuclear power industry who is now one of its foremost critics in the United States, has been monitoring the No. 1 plant since the March 2011 triple meltdowns through his Vermont-based Fairewinds Energy Education nonprofit organization.
During a trip to Japan in late August and early September, Gundersen met with Diet members, lawyers and citizens' groups to discuss conditions at the wrecked power station and told an audience in Kyoto on Monday that fears over the spent-fuel pool in reactor 4 remain high.
"The spent-nuclear-fuel pool at Fukushima No. 1's unit 4 remains a sleeping dragon. The situation and possibility of a fuel pool fire in reactor 4 in the days (immediately) after the (March 2011) quake was the reason the U.S. government recommended that the evacuation zone be (set at) 80 km," said Gundersen, who served as an expert witness during the federal investigation into the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania.
This evacuation recommendation was based on studies the U.S. conducted more than a decade earlier at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and researches atomic energy.
"In 1997, the laboratory did a study showing that if a nuclear-fuel pool were to boil dry, it would release enough radiation to cause the permanent evacuation of those living within an 80 km radius (of the complex).
"The Fukushima plant's reactor 4 (pool) has 1,500 fuel bundles. That's more cesium than was released into the atmosphere from all of the nuclear bombs ever exploded, (which total) more than 700 over a period of 30 years. That's also why the U.S. recommended an evacuation with an 80 km radius," Gundersen explained.
But even today, concerns persist among experts worldwide that reactor 4's pool is still at risk of boiling dry. If this were to occur, it would necessitate a massive and immediate evacuation of the surrounding area.
Nuclear fuel rods are extremely thin and clad with zircaloy, a zirconium alloy that contains a tiny amount of tin and other metals. But zircaloy burns if it is exposed to air, as shown in a test conducted at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico just two weeks before the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the Tohoku region.
The facility is wholly owned by Sandia Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., and undertakes research for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
"Last week, I showed slides of the Sandia lab experiments to some Diet members. Afterward, Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials presented their plan to empty the nuclear fuel from the reactor pool," Gundersen said.
"I told Tepco that while I realized they hoped and believed that there will always be water in the nuclear fuel pool, I had to ask whether or not they had (already prepared and stationed) any chemicals to put out a nuclear fuel pool fire in the event they were wrong.
"Tepco's response was that there was nothing in the fuel pool that could burn, a statement I find appalling."
In July, Tepco announced it had removed two unused nuclear fuel assemblies from reactor 4's pool, the first of more than 1,500 that will have to be retrieved. If everything goes according to plan, the utility will begin extracting the remaining assemblies, used to store spent fuel rods, from December 2013 and complete the task within three years.
But the state of the fuel pool and the lack of preparations to deal with a possible fire has drawn intense criticism not just from experts like Gundersen but also from some senior officials in the U.S.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources who visited Fukushima Prefecture in April, sent a letter to Japan's ambassador in Washington upon his return urging Tokyo to tap the expertise and knowhow of the United States and other countries to complete the cleanup work more quickly.
"Tepco's Dec. 21 remediation road map proposes to take up to 10 years to complete spent-fuel removal from all of the pools on the (Fukushima No. 1) site," Wyden wrote.
"Given the compromised nature of these structures due to the events of March 11, this schedule carries extraordinary and continuing risk if further severe seismic events were to occur.
"Many nations possess expertise in nuclear energy technology and its full breadth should be made available to Japan in dealing with" the Fukushima disaster, the letter said.
Later that month, 72 domestic antinuclear groups, along with former Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata and ex-U.N. diplomat Akio Matsumura, called on the United Nations to establish a nuclear security summit to specifically focus on the spent-fuel pool at reactor 4 and to also establish an independent assessment team to investigate the matter.
However, Gundersen said he is still awaiting signs from the Japanese government or Tepco officials indicating they're ready to canvass a broad range of experts around the world over how best to deal with not only the unit 4 situation, but the larger question of what to do with the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
"Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and Tepco claim they are getting outside expertise from the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Article II of the IAEA's charter states its mission is to promote nuclear power. There is a real need for experts who think outside the box," Gundersen said.
and....
http://enenews.com/tepco-official-in-washington-dc-we-dont-know-location-of-fukushima-melted-fuel
Title: Fukushima panel told some details will take five years to learn
Source: Platts News
Date: 7 Sep 2012
Source: Platts News
Date: 7 Sep 2012
Key details of how the accident at Japan’s Fukushima I nuclear plant played out have yet to be determined and may not be known for five years or more, when important parts of the plant are safer to enter, officials with the Japanese and US nuclear industries told a US National Academies review committee Thursday.
A committee of the National Academies is conducting the study, which is mandated by Congress, on behalf of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The committee held its second data-gathering session Thursday in Washington.[...]Yasunori Yamanaka, manager of Tepco’s nuclear safety engineering group, said following the meeting that one of the key pieces of information that will be learned in the coming years is the location and condition of the core of nuclear fuel in the three reactors that experienced meltdowns. Tepco believes the uranium fuel of unit 1 at Fukushima I almost entirely melted its way through the bottom of the thick steel reactor vessel and poured to the floor of the containment structure, eating through a portion of the concrete floor of that area.The company plans to use cameras and other surveillance equipment to determine how much of the core of units 2 and 3 remain in the reactor, Yamanaka said. The company believes almost half of the fuel in those units, which maintained core cooling longer, melted, he said. It may take more than five years before Tepco can determine whether the fuel in those units remains in the bottom of the reactor vessel or also fell to the containment floor, Yamanaka said.
Regarding Yamanaka’s statements:
- Tepco has admitted that their simulation shows the fuel at Reactor 1 not only burned through the pressure vessel, but came within 27 centimeters of leaving the containment vessel. Others have said they believe the fuel is outside containment. (Source: NHK)
- Tepco has admitted that reactors 1,2, and 3 experienced full meltdowns — not “almost half” at Reactors 2 and 3. (Source: CNN)
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