Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Fukushima radiation contamination updates February 25 , 2014 - a look at impacts in Japan and abroad as well as the state of the Fukushima plant site..... US nuclear news including updates on the WIPP site in New Mexico and also a South Florida facility - St Lucie

Energy News - Japan......


Gundersen: “Nuclear core has disintegrated” at Fukushima Unit 3 — Japan Energy Expert: Location of melted fuel for 3 reactors is unknown, this has never happened anywhere before (VIDEO)



Hearst Newspaper: Bad news, Fukushima radioactive releases may be “far greater than originally stated” — Bloomberg: Levels ‘significantly’ undercounted — Fairewinds: Data they reported for nearly 3 years is wrong — Asahi Interview: “Politicians are hiding the dangers of radiation” (VIDEO)



Kyodo: Alarm sounds at Fukushima plant, Unit 4 cooling system stops (VIDEO)

Gov’t: ‘Very serious problem’ at Fukushima; Safety system ‘failed’ — Expert: 12 Trillion Bq of Strontium-90 leaked, could exceed 1/8 of total release since 3/11 — CNN: It’s absorbing into ground — Tepco: “You may feel we didn’t do enough” (VIDEO)

LA Times: Top NRC official in Japan compared Fukushima to ‘never-never land’ — At same time, US warned France about publishing ‘extremely high’ radiation doses for infants in Tokyo

Tokyo Press Conference: “Deliberate cover-up” of public’s exposure to Fukushima radiation and the health problems they are suffering from… This is now Japan’s biggest problem — “Continual, purposeful concealment of facts” — “Media will not properly report” what’s going on (VIDEO)

Nuclear Professor: Fish on West Coast found with Fukushima radioactive material — We’re testing fish that are sold at markets to U.S. consumers (AUDIO)

NHK: Failure at Fukushima — Gundersen: Extraordinarily radioactive leak will be in Pacific shortly; “Site is going to bleed into ocean for 100 years”




Energy News - US and Canada......


Most likely a ‘worst-case scenario’ at WIPP — NPR: ‘Huge chunk’ of salt believed to have crushed drums of radioactive waste — ABC: “Investigators now admit problem is serious” — NYT: Plutonium, americium can bombard organs “for rest of person’s lifetime” (VIDEO)





New tests show plutonium reached millions of times normal levels at WIPP site — Concern air filters at plant may not have worked — Gov’t accused of lying about radiation leak (VIDEO)

CBC: Radioactive particles arrive ‘far earlier than predicted’ for N. America — Mag: ‘Plumes stretch 4,800 miles across ocean!’ — Experts: There’s great alarm… Legitimate concern… Expected to dilute, but don’t really know — US Govt: ‘Monitoring beaches for debris from Fukushima nuclear disaster’ (VIDEO)

Officials: More may be affected by WIPP radiation release — TV: They don’t know how serious it is or how it affects community; Could take months to fix leak — CBS: Ceiling collapse or punctured canister suspected; Still in ‘guinea pig’ stage; EPA monitors requested in area (VIDEO)

TV: “Disturbing new development in WIPP radiation leak, surprising words today” — “What went wrong and why, those are some of the questions swirling around” — County official calls it ‘a disaster’ (VIDEOS)







TV: Most shocking thing is how US gov’t was “very concerned” about Fukushima radiation hitting West Coast and affecting Americans — Public told that everything fine (VIDEO)

Expert: Gov’t officials ‘very possibly’ know Fukushima is a worldwide disaster and just not revealing it — Columnist: “They can’t neglect the truth because they fear a panic outbreak… I’m panicking because there isn’t a panic” (AUDIO)



Officials: Nuclear release from container(s) indicated at #WIPP site — “We never, ever thought this kind of an event would occur” — “Absolute seriousness of this can’t be overstated” — Resident: “I feel like they’re not telling us everything” (VIDEO)


Fukushima Plume Arrives at West Coast — Expert: “If this was of greater health concern, we’d be very worried”; One model predicts levels over 1,000% higher than another, “this is not really acceptable” (GRAPHIC)

US Official: Large amounts of radioactive particles were released during initial ‘puff’ event at leaking nuclear site — Expert: Plutonium can travel ‘a long way’ in wind — TV: “They’re saying we shouldn’t worry… yet; Yet is the key word” (VIDEOS)

Radioactive contamination now reported in city over 20 miles from leaking U.S. nuclear site #WIPP — 10th largest population in state of New Mexico (MAP)

‘New tests show elevated radiation’ near U.S. nuclear site — ‘More airborne radiation detected’ around WIPP — Gov’t issues press release on ‘radiological event’ (MAP)

Experts: Areas along West Coast “may be… affected in a significant way” by Fukushima plume in coming months — Impact cannot be accurately predicted, currents to produce complex results — Radioactive materials can be ‘fairly concentrated’ even after crossing Pacific

Official: 4.4 mil disintegration of alpha radiation detected at leaking U.S. nuclear site, includes Plutonium; Highest recorded level — Santa Fe Briefing: “Serious incident involving radiation at the WIPP site” — Gov’t “reaching out to employees who are worried” about exposure

MAP: Fukushima radioactive plume over 3,000 miles wide by May 2013 — Only includes most contaminated area in Pacific with cesium more than 7 Bq/m³

US Gov’t: Scientists investigating if Fukushima radiation contributed to unusual deaths and sickness in marine mammals — Similar illness seen in Japan and other countries on Pacific — Expect ‘hairless seals’ this spring

Nuclear Expert: “They must be terrified” at South Florida nuke plant; “The damn thing is grinding down” — Gundersen: “Magnitude of what’s going on at St. Lucie is off the charts”; 100 times worse than average





Fukushima Diary.......



The multiple nuclide removing system (ALPS) suspended again

One of the three systems of the multiple nuclide removing system called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) was suspended due to another accident again.
According to Tepco, the inverter of pump had a ground fault. The pump is to send contaminated water to an adsorption tower. The cause is not identified.

The government of Japan has no other plan to resolve the increasing contaminated water problem but freezing water wall. However, none of them has been in the operation yet. Especially ALPS hasn’t been in the full operation since they started the hot test last Spring.

Related article.. [Column] ALPS and frozen water wall can be the performance before discharging contaminated water to the Pacific [URL]




Tepco narrowed down the workers to re-interrogate to a few tens / “Asking the expert of investigation”

Following up this article.. Possibility that Tepco asks police to investigate the 100m3 overflow accident [URL]

Tepco narrowed down the workers to interrogate again to a few tens people. They stated in the press conference of 2/26/2014.
They had interviews with 106 workers, and decided to have the second interrogation with a few tens of them for the further details. The specific number and the reason were not announced.

There is a possibility that the recent 100m3 of overflow accident was an inside job. Tepco is asking the workers for witness.
Also, Tepco commented they are asking some expert of investigation for this interrogation. They didn’t announce if the expert is from police.











Tepco detected nearly 7 Trillion (10^12) Bq/m3 

of All β nuclides from contaminated water in 

the summer of 2013


Following up this article.. Tepco holds 40,000 past contaminated water samples / Too radioactive to dump [URL]

Tepco had measured approx. 7 Trillion (10^12) Bq/m3 of All β nuclides from contaminated water last summer, but they underestimated it to be 1/10 due to the “wrong analysis” according to Tepco.
On 2/24/2014, Tepco released the detailed list of 167 wrongly analyzed samples (and they stated 3 of them were correctly analyzed). (cf, Tepco mis-analyzed 167 samples since 311/ Correct readings can be over 10 times much as wrong ones [URL 2] )

From their report, 6 of them exceeded 100 Billion Bq/m3 in All β nuclides even based on the wrong analysis. These are the contaminated water samples taken from underground trenches of reactor2 and reactor3.
Tepco comments the wrong analysis underestimated the readings by 1/10. It means the highest reading would be 6.7 Trillion Bq/m3, which is the water taken from reactor3 trench pit.
The sampling date was about 2 months before IOC selected Tokyo as the host city of Olympic games in 2020.




Tepco holds 40,000 past contaminated water 

samples / Too radioactive to dump

Following up this article.. Leaked all β of “300m3 leakage accident” was also underestimated / INES level might be increased [URL]

Tepco holds approx. 40,000 samples of highly contaminated water.
Currently Tepco is planning to re-analyze the past samples for the accurate results. However actually Tepco hold too much samples, it is estimated not to complete the re-analysis shortly.
Tepco is supposed to dispose of the samples about 3 month after the analysis, but in reality, they cannot even dispose of them because the radioactive density is too high.




Possibility that Tepco asks police to 

investigate the 100m3 overflow accident

Following up this article.. [100m3 leakage] 64m3 of overflowed water still not removed [URL]

Tepco picked up 106 workers, who were in the related facilities when the tank overflowed highly contaminated water.
By 2/23/2014, Tepco had completed interrogating 91 of them, but they haven’t obtained any useful information about the suspicious operation of the valves that caused 100m3 leakage.

In the press conference of 2/24/2014, Tepco’s spokesman commented they may consider asking police to investigate it and also check the surveillance cameras.




5 comments:

  1. Japan snowy too: http://iceagenow.info/2014/02/record-snowfall-japan-hammers-farm-industry/

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    1. Jaan actually has had some decent snowfall this year !

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    2. Japan actually....

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  2. Wow a lot happened yesterday, Mt. Gox, Market Ticker (not a site I really ever used though), Big solar flares and a lot of Radiation with a side of snow.

    Gold up to 1340 this morning while bitcoin seems a bit more stable in the 500's.

    I found the zerohedge article on the FB advertising fraud interesting for some reason. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-25/mans-600000-facebook-disaster-warning-all-small-businesses

    You guys have a good day

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    1. Morning Kev - bitcoin seeing a rally around the flag , quite interesting Mt Gox tried TBTF as a justification to attempt to persuade other Exchanges and major bitcoin players to bail them out with hundreds of thousands of bitcoin and cash injections ( as noted in my post - no sale there ! )

      Gold has had a nice start to 2014 , as had silver for that matter.

      Market Ticker closed and Ticker Forum shutdown - and end of an Era !

      Actually the FB article was on Business Insider this weekend , Karl Denninger has written on numerous occasions expressing his doubts about FB's business model as well. Karl Denninger's blog will be missed , it was well researched and written - Karl never suffered fools well but always set forth solid reasons behind his thinking. His writing and thoughts on various subjects will be missed !

      No snow today ! Have a great day everyone !

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