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Here We Go Again: NHK Reports Fire At Fukushima Reactor #4
Just headlines for now. We can only hope that the containment pool is not involved.
- TOKYO ELECTRIC WORKER SAW FIRE AT 5:44 LOCAL TIME
- FIRE AT FUKUSHIMA DAI-ICHI NO. 4 REACTOR, NHK REPORTS
From AP:
A new fire broke out at a nuclear reactor early Wednesday, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan and left the government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's earthquake and tsunami.
The latest blaze erupted in the outer housing of the containment vessel at the No. 4 unit at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, said Hajimi Motujuku, a spokesman for the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Japan's nuclear safety agency also confirmed the fire, whose cause was not immediately known.
On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the same reactor's fuel storage pond - an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool - causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere.
Radiation levels in areas around the nuclear plant, which rose early Tuesday afternoon, appeared to subside by evening, officials said. But the unease remained in a country trying to recover from the massive disasters that are believed to have killed more than 10,000 people and battered the world's third-largest economy.
The radiation leak caused the government to order 140,000 people living within 20 miles (30 kilometers) of the plant to seal themselves indoors to avoid exposure, and authorities declared a ban on commercial air traffic through the area. Worries about radiation rippled through Tokyo and other areas far beyond that cordon. The stock market plunged for a second day, dropping 10 percent.
NHK is currently reporting live on Reactor 4 developments (click on picture for live stream):
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What really sucks is I know this from EMS, but still didn't notice the scale mistake.
Ask the folks at Perry.
Excellent summary, read every word.
They just showed a live feed from Fukushima on NHK (at last) and there was definitely still lots of smoke or steam coming out of reactor #4, proving TEPCO's assertion that the problem extinguished itself to be totally disingenious.
EDIT: Woops, meant this to be a reply to someone else.
No matter, attacking this with a fire fighter mentality is not going to work, it ain't a chemical fire.
I think you have your Milli's and Micro's a bit tangled up. Don't worry, happens to the best of us.
Ghargh! oopsies ... thanks
Element your prodigious use of deduction in attempting to fill in the voids was enlightening. I believe you've painted a pretty plausible picture in the most important dimensions.
That said, you may have accidentally juxtaposed milli and micro.
400 milli-Sieverts (thousandths of a Sievert) is equal to 400,000 micro-Siverts (millionths of a Sievert).
The "milli" prefix denotes the higher intensity reading.
Also, you may find that storing spent fuel in the pools for a number of months is Standard Operating Procedure. It allows the shorter half-life actinide byproducts of fission time to decay (losing heat as well as breaking down into less radioactive states)...both of which make transportation to a reprocessing facility less dangerous.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts though...not trying to nitpick a very helpful post...
Re milli v micro, quite! Sorry
As to the rest, I totally agree re SOP for cooling fuel-rods pre-processing, but that is not what I was getting at, see this comment:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-we-go-again-nhk-reports-fire-fukus...
ah , the Lunatic Fringe. we want your gold
Remember this is a GE design. So having the spent fuel rods stored in pools directly above the reactor was probably someone's 'Six Sigma' project. They probably got a promotion and pay rise as a result.
Six Sigma = cutting corners to save dollars, and damn the human consequences.
listening to nhk, 6.4 miliseverts? peak at 10:45. Dropped down to around 3k after that.
wow emergency earthquake warning
edit. no update on quake warning11:32 est