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TEPCO Admits To Another Cover Up As Radioactivity In Seawater Near Fukushima Soars To 1,251 Above Legal Limit
The latest news out of Fukushima confirms fears that irradiated water containment at the radioactive plant has been complete breached, after Radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,250.8 times the legal limit was detected Friday morning in a seawater sample taken around 330 meters south of the plant, near the drainage outlets of the four troubled reactors, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday. As Kyodo updates: "The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week,
after remaining around levels about 100 times the legal limit. It is
highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has found its way into
the sea, TEPCO said." It's all good though: the government has a prepared strawman for this unprecedented surge in radioactivity as well."Radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species, the agency said, adding it would not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not being conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant because the government has issued a directive for residents in the zone to evacuate." But none of this matter as we get the latest confirmation that no news coming out of the stricken plant can be trusted: "TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties."
From Reuters: " Officials said iodine 131 levels in seawater 30 km (19 miles) from the coastal nuclear complex were within acceptable limits established by regulations and the contamination posed little risk to aquatic life. "Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it gets consumed by fish and seaweed," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior official from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Despite that reassurance, the disclosure may well heighten international concern over Japanese seafood exports. Several countries have already banned milk and produce from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, while others have been monitoring Japanese seafood." So fear not - instead of having 10 fins, that yummy piece of toro you are injesting will sport only a substantially "diluted" 5. Also, expect to see Kan eating seaweed and sashimi, and washing it down with radioactive tap water on TV any minute to prove just how safe everything really is.
More from Kyodo:
The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week, after remaining around levels about 100 times the legal limit. It is highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has found its way into the sea, TEPCO said.
Radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species, the agency said, adding it would not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not being conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant because the government has issued a directive for residents in the zone to evacuate.
TEPCO is planning to inject fresh water into pools storing the spent nuclear fuel at the plant to prevent crystallized salt from seawater already injected from hampering the smooth circulation of water and thus diminishing the cooling effect. It has begun injecting fresh water into the reactor containers of the No. 1 and No. 3 as well as No. 2 reactors.
At the same time, the company is trying to remove the pools of water containing highly concentrated radioactive substances that may have seeped from either the reactor cores or the spent fuel pools.
On Thursday, three workers were exposed to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level at the turbine building connected to the No. 3 reactor building.
On Friday, a pool of water with a similarly high concentration of radioactive materials was found in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, causing some restoration work to be suspended.
Similar pools of water were also found in the turbine buildings of the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, measuring up to 1 meter and 80 centimeters deep, respectively. Those near the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors were up to 40 cm and 1.5 meters deep, respectively.
And the most dramatic example of strategic idiocy: all the hoopla about dumping tons of water on the reactors will now have to be undone:
While analyzing the radioactivity levels of the pools from the water found in the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, TEPCO will remove the water in all four reactor units to reduce the risk of more workers being exposed to radioactive substances, it said.
The risk would hinder efforts to restore the plant's crippled cooling functions, which are crucial to overcoming the crisis, the government's nuclear safety agency said.
But the most infuriating development is the latest disclosure from TEPCO that once again it covered up critical data.
TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties.
Edano criticized the utility's handling of the data, saying unless it reports necessary information to authorities in a timely manner, ''the government will not be able to give appropriate instructions and (TEPCO) will make workers, and eventually the public, distrustful'' of the firm.
So aside from the constant lies and misinformation, the public can be assued that all is well.
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What info coming from the MSM? Are you saying that ZH is MSM? Because this is about the only place that has any coverage at all.
Well said, Michelle. This has been frustrating and even unnerving for many of us, but there really is no other source. Congrats to Team Durden.
The deaths you are looking for will begin when the Japanese actually try to shut down these nukes, i.e. entombment. As for other deaths, cancer takes some time to emerge, but it will.
Lets reject the use of oil as it destroys primitive countries unable to defend this resourse against more powerful nations.
A national park surrounding this plant looks likely - I suspect Japan will be in better shape then Babylon which is now a urban wasteland when once it was a garden.
All economic activities have externalties - are we to reject all economic activities ?
I think the argument usually goes that if those externalities were all priced in, our energy resources would be economically out of reach for everyone but the ultra wealthy.
Maybe , I like to see the oil subsidy reduced and/or the nuclear subsidy increased so that we can get a truer reflection of cost - people talk of the nuclear subsidy like as if it was high relative to the imperial cost of oil - but since the defence applications of nuclear has been cut 50 years ago there has been little transfer to the civilian sphere beyond half hearted attempts at energy independence which was cut to pieces by the new monetarists whose entire philosphy was based on burning crude as fast as possible.
Good joke: "the oil subsidy"
The amount of money spent on expeditionary military operations and bases - quite a considerable sum although declining in effectiveness over the years as corporations take a larger and larger % of subsidy for their shareholders.
Sigh. Defense of Europe, Japan, Korea since WWII - no oil. Strategic missiles and subs to counter USSR - no oil. Vietnam - no oil. Lebanon - no oil. Defense of Israel - no oil. Defense of Kuwait benefits Japan and Germany. Iraq socialized national oil company offers $1 barrel payout to "joint venture" partners if they invest $100 billion, most of which is paid by China. US net loss in Iraq to date $600 billion - no oil. Afghanistan - no oil.
The world is a chessboard - when America reached peak production it changed its military doctrine under the Carter administration which geared its military towards expeditionary operations which culminated in the 2 major operations in Kuwait and Iraq.
The effectiveness of these operations was dubious but that is why we are conversing about this.
They've been pouring sea water in for two weeks. Who is surprised it runs back into the sea?
And who is surprised that the lying continues?
The only surprise is that anyone believes anything coming from the Authorities without direct personal knowledge of the facts.
Seawater injection was a desperate attempt to try and maintain some sort of water level in 1 & 3 reactor vessels.
It isn't circulated; it boils off as fast as it's injected [50+ gallons a minute] and is vented as steam, leaving the salt behind.
And then the steam condenses, falling into the adjacent ocean.
Per TOD:
Here are the numbers from about 8 hours ago for units 1-3 from documents provided to me
Area Rad Monitors
1 "D/W: 4780 rem/hr S/C: 349 rem/hr"
2 "D/W: 5490 Rem/hr S/C: 193 Rem/hr"
3 "D/W: 6000 Rem/hr S/C: 158 Rem/hr"
The S/C stands for secondary containment. And those are huge numbers, that Dr. Mearns could explain.
Well in the D/W you'd feel like this after a few days -- after an hour of exposure:
Death within 30 to 50 hours
Prognosis = death 100% probability
In the S/C you'd feel this way after an hour of exposure:
Become severely ill during 3rd and 4th week, susceptible to infection
LD50 is ~350 REM
Good luck with that.
This at the top of ZH's homepage in yellow and a "Public Health Alert":
As a public service Aloha Medicinals is immediately discounting all reishi products so we can all have some protection from any radiation risk that may occur from the Japanese nuclear disaster. Reishi does not take the place of Iodine tablets (potassium iodide), but research has shown it may be effective in helping to reduce the effects of radiation exposure.
We are marking down our 90 count, 500 mg Red Reishi Capsules from $19.95 to $14.00 and our 90 count 300 mg Reishi Essential Capsules from $15.95 to $10.00 to make them affordable for everyone. Hopefully the USA will not experience the effects of Japan's nuclear disaster, but if things continue to get worse and the radiation reaches the West Coast we need to all be prepared.
It is far better to prepare now than to wish we had later. We are all in this together and we need to work together to get through it. Stocks are limited, so please order quickly. Suggested use is 3 capsules per day from now until this situation is resolved. Good Luck to us all.
I wish I could ask Alice about this. What to do?
I don't know about reishi for radiation (I know it as an immune booster only)....but seaweed, especially brown seaweed, contains natural iodine and can help flush radiation from the body. You don't want to go nuts with it, though, as seaweed can also pick up a lot of heavy metals. Studies have found that miso soup can help the body deal with radiation and there is some debate as to whether that's because of the miso itself, or the sea vegetables that are traditionally served with it.
Obviously, make sure these things aren't sourced from Japan. And if you're getting it from a Chinese establishment make sure it's a TCM pharmacy or a reputable store/brand....have experienced some nasty contaminated herbs cheaply bought in Chinatown before.
I would be cautious about herbs that come in a capsule and purveyors who are trying to take advantage of people's anxiety. That's rarely the best way to take an herb, and it's hard to evaluate the quality of the ingredients.
There's a product I know of called Tex-OE which is made by a French pharmaceutical company. It is made from a cactus. They have isolated the active constituents which help cactus survive in harsh conditions.
Tex-OE primes your body's repair mechanisms (heat shock proteins) to jump into action to fix DNA and cellular damage; this has been scientifically demonstrated. It is effective against many kinds of things that cause damage to the body - oxidative stress, solar radiation, alcohol, all kinds of things. I'm not aware of data specifically demonstrating that it helps with radiation poisoning - certainly not the acute kind - but it makes sense on a scientific basis that it would help repair the damage caused.
There is one way:
"There's another separate issue at play here - the size of the open interest in silver futures relative to the availability of physical silver needed to actually settled these contracts. Let's have a quick lesson: for every person short a silver futures contract, someone has an offsetting long position. If the longs don't close out their positions (by either selling them, or "rolling" them - selling them and buying the next month's contract),then they take physical delivery of silver at expiration - the person short the contract has to actually give silver to the person who is long the contract. In other words, it's the longs that determine physical delivery - not the shorts. If the long contract holders think there is a massive shortage of physical silver, why don't they just force the sellers to deliver the physical and create their own squeeze?"
So what would cause the longs to require their silver? Some instability of big magnitude, related also to bank like JPM , I guess, would be the right cause.
I am looking to justify this very soon spike and collapse prediction in silver prices, of course:
http://saposjoint.net/Forum/download/file.php?id=2673
The spike might cause the ones owning the shorts loose their nerve.
I count two completely off-topic posts by you in this thread, so I've junked you.
Shame on you for junking the light, blind dumbo.
Let me see into that radioactive smoke :
He's off topic, so he must must return to conformity: it's a must...
Keep submitting, cocksucking and vomiting, dumbo.
Oh, what's that flag coming out of your @ss???
Is it time to start talking about mass starvation in Japan, and also world food supplies?
In the past few days, ZH posts have linked to articles about folks refusing to deliver supplies to the affected areas around the power plant. Even those areas beyond the quarentine limit. These articles state that starvation is a distinct possibility for those without the ability to leave the area.
But iodine makes your dick bigger and snatch juicier. It's all good
so, let me get this straight. we are now bombing a leader's troops who is fighting a civil war against people who are supposedly our enemies as well, yet we (in this case) are supporting them???? makes perfect sense to me...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/840...
Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
Gaddafi was right all along.
I assume 'pertinent parties' is defined to include the subcontractor employees that got sent into the turbine room.
TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties.
--
"... About 34 minutes after the magnitude 9.0 quake shook the island on March 11, water levels from Orlando to the Florida Keys rose and fell up to three inches, according to the South Florida Water Management District. The reverberations were felt for two hours.
“It shows that the flow in the aquifer is pretty fast, which is good and bad,” said University of Miami earthquake researcher Shimon Wdowinski. “It’s good because we can filter a lot of water through there. But it’s bad because in the case of pollution, it can travel very quickly.”
Florida’s porous limestone allows water to flow easily below the surface of the earth, Wdowinski said. That’s probably why the water table registered changes here..."
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/19/2123485/japanese-earthquake-stirred-south.html#ixzz1Hj4FAOAkIt is my belief and albiet novice opinon that the solution will be to continue the operation as an ongoing cooling crisis until the fuel can be removed. And yes that might mean decades and it also means the reactors will never be brought on line again. Burying it in concrete is probably not going to happen unless the situation worsens.
What's missing - probably deliberately - in the "seawater will dilute the radioactivity by the time it reaches the fish" story is that heavy metals move up the ocean food chain. Little fish eat the tiny sea creatures, then bigger fish eat little fish; then even bigger fish eat the big fish; etc. That's why mercury is so concentrated in the big migratory fish - like tuna and swordfish. And that's exactly what is going to happen with the radioactive isotopes. So it doesn't matter how diluted the radioactivity is to begin with ( a likely story anyway) - mother nature will be sure to concentrate it all the way up the food chain so that by the time it gets into your kid's tuna sandwiches they will be positively glowing.
Water cannons and fire trucks flood the reactor----this contaminated water ends up near the drainage outlets of the troubled reactors. Obviously the run-off is toxic.
Now the floors of the reactors are wet from all the over spray and this water needs to be removed. To where? And how can they be this accurate to gather the water....are they going to pump it into disposal trucks? or sneak off and dump it somewhere?
Thats why they went to a watering schedule mid week. They had moved in equipment that could water around the clock, but went to a few hour intervals, because they realized the runoff was toxic. So they had to reduce the amount of water that was used.
Now they are 'injecting' the water.....indicating they are aiming more accurately to reduce run-off.
Thus, they must water these reactors daily to prevent explosion...but this water becomes contaminated.
They will tolerate some contamination until the world community steps in and/or a coordinated effort is designed to handle this maze.
The big questions: How can it be made temporarily safe enough to move in some big machinery and manpower? How can this be engineered to both keep these workers semi-safe and accomplish an entombment?
OR am I overestimating the world community and we'll all just watch the reactors leak into the air and water until we are FUBAR?
Who is the 'they' i refer to as the decision makers? It can't be just TEPCO.
Excellent questions. The answer is very simple.
Cooling systems to the cores must be closed systems for the reasons you pointed out.
The existing closed systems have been destroyed by salt and/or exploded all to hell. The current 'spray and pray' approach is a desperate and temporary measure at best. Closed systems must be restablished.
The solution to this problem will involve human sacrifice, most likely on a fairly shocking scale, because eventually flesh and blood must get up close and personal with the reactors, and it ain't a two man job. There is no other way.
What follows is anybody's guess.
The first agency to spend a dime on fixing anything will be the agency to whom the clean-up costs will be stuck. Thus, no one wants to be the first to assume responsibility for fixing anything. Watch the U.S. step into that role and assume command - as well as the bill.
According to Japan Meteorological Agency, earthquake activities have increased near at least 13 active volcanoes in Japan.
Muir, your avatar helps me remember there are still some things worth hanging on to in these terribly troubled times. Thanks.
I am so tired of people saying that the people of Japan don't have to worry about health problems from the radiation. First off the charts that give safe limits are basically for healthy people. These people have been through a major disaster, some have lost everything they had including loved family members, living in shelters, living in fear of what is going to happen next and food and water is limited. They have been stressed to the max both emotionally and physically. Their immune systems are low. Now they must endure radiation that they are taking internally which is not like an X-Ray or a CT Scan which is radiation for a short metered time. When you ingest radioactive material it keeps giving off radiation in your body until it reaches its end life. So one can say that the victim is being radiated 24/7 internally. Big difference. Over the next 2-8 years you will see many more people die than what the so-called charts say. Debate me all you want but that is fact.
Only 28 died from Chernobyl so I am sure you are exaggerating.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842
*sarcasm off*
Radioactive water on the floor in the turbine building implies a breach in the steam piping (or other piping to and from the reactor and core). This does not mean the main reactor vessel has been breached. I would be curious as to the particular radionuclides found in the water, since this would give a good approximation of the condition of the fuel rods. Generally, the steam piping going to the turbine contains short half-life products, mostly N-16....but heat in the core could have - via thermal head - pushed highly contaminated liquid/water vapor from damaged fuel rods up into the main steam line and back to the turbine building, possibly leaking on the floor from a damaged pipe.
I don't know the exact answer to your question, but NHK had a physicist on last night who said that he was quite disturbed by the presence of Iodines in the water.
He did not say which Iodines, just Iodines...plural.
Well, the heavy presence of iodines would be consistent with damaged cladding on the rods, since this would be one of the main products released into the reactor vessel and possibly into the piping system in the turbine building. But, no doubt there is a breach in the piping from the reactor to the turbine....but, this is easier to fix than a damaged reactor vessel (although this in itself does not prove that the reactor vessel itself is not also damaged).
Yes I noted the possibility you raised before, that possibly the problem is with the piping. That would be a great piece of news.
Did you see the comment made in the NY times piece yesterday by a nuclear power executive who wishes to remain anonymous, that there is a definite crack in one of the reactors?
The link was posted in one of yesterday's threads.
No, did not see that. It is certainly possible, although I have not seen anything yet that makes it a certainty. When you have such a cornucopia of potential crap going on (four reactors, spent fuel pools, etc.), it is difficult to sort through the evidence and come up a with a lot that makes sense, plus, not all of the available evidence may be accurate or forthcoming. . If this was a PWR and was not being vented, and was leaking fission products, then you could be sure of a ruptured core vessel. But, since on a BWR there are piping systems that go into the core vessel, it further complicates trying to ascertain where the leak is.
I recall a few days out from the disaster, "they" picked up levels of Strontium 90.
Where does strontium-90 come from?
Strontium-90 is a by-product of the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors, and in nuclear weapons. Strontium-90 is found in waste from nuclear reactors. It can also contaminate reactor parts and fluids. Large amounts of Sr-90 were produced during atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s and dispersed worldwide.
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/strontium.html
I found it alarming.
Since then there have been no more reporting of Strontium 90 numbers.
Care to speculate as to why?
Various Strontium products would be released duringthe venting of the core, and if the core ruptured, or various piping systems connecting to the core were compromised. Also, nuclear plants the world over release very small quantities of Strontium through water effluents. Why they would mention it early on, then not again, I am not sure, unless they are more concerned about the more immediately dangerous radionuclides being emitted into the environment. The cancer risk from Strontium-90 is mainly through ingestion, where it acts like calcium and is taken up by the bones. But, if there is a leak from the core, it is still there.
NYT article was changed. This was removed:
Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, mentioned damage to the reactor vessel on Friday as a possible explanation of how water in the adjacent containment building had become so alarmingly radioactive. A senior nuclear executive who insisted on anonymity but has broad contacts in Japan said that there was a long vertical crack running down the side of the reactor vessel itself. The crack runs down below the water level in the reactor and has been leaking fluids and gases, he said.
The severity of the radiation burns to the injured workers are consistent with contamination by water that had been in contact with damaged fuel rods, the executive said.
“There is a definite, definite crack in the vessel — it’s up and down and it’s large,” he said. “The problem with cracks is they do not get smaller.”
Damn. I clearly remember reading that.
Unfortunately, I just saved the link in a file rather than the whole text.
I thought the NYT was better than this.
Trust no source.
Well, I'll be damned.
Nice catch, Doctor.
Well, that still does not make a lot of sense to me, since they have been reporting positive pressures in the reactor vessels, and this morning, relatively low temperatures. A cracked reactor vessel would heat up like mad and emit a large amount of radioactivity in the air and in any water that might be left in what would be a vary large heat flux. In my mind, at least on the evidence I have seen, it is probably a stream line dislodged by the earthquake.
We can hope.
Let us then also hope that we have been wrong about Tepco being less than honest, especially about this one thing.
*fingers crossed*
Yeah. It is difficult to try to predict what is going on when you cannot necessarily trust the information that is being given.
Aristarchan, I've really appreciated everything you've written about the reactor. Thank you. If the reactor vessel is cracked at the bottom could the weight of the concrete on the steel sides keep it closed up to certain pressures? TEPCO has suspected a breach because pressure has risen and then fallen mysteriously. Could the crack be opened up at a certain pressure threshold? Also what If the crack was completely submerged in a pool of water on the outside of the bottom of the reactor?
Thank you. Well, the reactor vessel is not encased in concrete, the drywell is. If the reactor vessel is cracked, then it would be open to the drywell, and through the vent pipes to the Torus. There are pressure transducers in the drywell, but I have not seen any published figures concerning that, all I have seen is in the reactor vessels themselves. Just a guess on the mysterious pressure rises..probably a breach in steam or other piping that ties into the vessel, which could be leaking through a crack or a separated flange, which might provide varying pressure sensitivity to the transducers in the core vessel. Water outside the core vessel would be in the drywell, which should not provide any pressure resistance...since there seems to be a leak somewhere. Freshwater only provides about one PSI per 2.31 feet of head, saltwater a little more.
The analysis of the water in the basement of Reactor 1 is one thing they have released....
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110325-6.pdf
Note that this is not the same reactor building where water burned the contractor's workers' feet.
Well, the nuclides and concentrations listed there, is in my mind, proof that at least some of the fuel rods in that core have been damaged to a degree that a gap release happened. There are several other products that should be on that list...but maybe they left them off since they are of less consequence than the ones shown. BTW, Lanthanum-140 is one hell of a gamma ray emitter.
The data from NISA and JAIF hasn't shown, despite continuing injection, a positive relative pressure in reactor 2 since it suddenly lost 3 bar [abs] pressure on the 15th. [If the parameters are believable; one data-set claimed they had achieved a negative absolute pressure - their physics Nobels are in the bag.]
To an engineer; TEPCO's facile "an internal hydrogen explosion 'cracked' the torus" is just a tad implausible, given that the building is wholly undamaged. [Elastic failure of an over-pressured steel vessel is never good - and has been known to flatten whole factories.]
As a "sustained period" when the 548 fuel assemblies were fully exposed preceded the pressure loss, my hypothesis is that a full fuel meltdown penetrated the lower section of the reactor vessel and the fuel is now spray-dispersed all over the seawater-flooded "drywell."
This may have some relevance to the unconfirmed high radiation leachate readings near reactor 2 today.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0326-dolphins-military-20110326,0,1733815.story
come on, don't blame the Navy, they were running away from the radiation in Japan... probably glowing too.
no need to donate any money, their gov has no problem printing $420 billion into existance im sure they can print much more than i can donate.
tyler... you undoubtedly have better contacts than me. please send this to that bitch ann coulter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcd4jOtNRB0
please post this video on zerohedge. everyone needs to see this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcd4jOtNRB0
wow. no words.
Japan situation is even worse than Chernobyl,
1. Reactors keep leaking & leaking, while Chernobyl exploded just once
2. There are four of them in cluster
3. Highly densed population around
4. And last but not least there is ocean
I say this as a man who was participating in Chernobyl disaster liqudation
Sergei - According to the IAEA, there are problems with 6 to 8 cores, now, with one (and possibly more) being definitively breached. Japan's land mass is tiny on an absolute and especially on a population basis, and it has meager fresh water and no domestic oil.
I wrote this in another thread -
Excellent post. Very good analysis.
TruthInSunshine -Thank you for sharing my concern. Due to the given facts Fukushima is NO longer only Japanese domestic problem it is GLOBAL and very protracted one. Thank you again for detailed analysis.
Japan as we knew it is finished.
Amen brother.
If the Pacific ocean was not next to Fukushima, and if the prevailing winds were not to the East, more "real" facts would be emerging much faster. Their hope is that much of the truth can be buried in the Pacific ocean.
The good news is that these factors have also saved a lot of lives.
Thank the Lord for all those smart fish that immediately left the area.
First analysis of Fission products in the atmosphere (over Seattle).
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26571/
As someone who has no background with radiation and contamination issues, I still struggle with what this all means for people beyond the area of the plant. Its obvious that toxic run-off into the ocean is pretty dire in terms of local food chain consequences. But its unclear to me whether this will really affect Tokyo or other areas that are far enough away. I hope the rosier outcomes are realized because its awful to think about the downsides to this.
One thing that everyone should be certain of off the back of this accident as well as the Deepwater Horizon spill is that the world needs seriously reconsider how we produce and consume energy. As has been noted in this and other threads here coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy are far more expensive in terms of their externalities than most people realize.
The problem is that humankind is demanding more juice each day for their everyday pursuits. Meanwhile the sources of our energy are either dwindling or too dirty or the downside tail risks associated with them involve threats to large populations and swaths of land. Or all of the above.
Whether this issue ignored or is solved via conflict or some extraordinary cooperation amongst world leaders will determine what kind of existence our offspring enjoy going forward. But the time to take action on this is now.
Friends of mine used to build large tilt-up warehouses in weeks. Could a water-containment-strength concrete perimeter wall around each reactor be built quickly and filled with water to cool things down to facilitate some next step? Would they have to first tunnel down and add a below- ground concrete floor as was done in Chernobyl ?
Yes I know, an off the wall, outside the box idea, but isn't it time for the spray 'n pray approaches to be replaced with some heavy engineering solutions ?
"some heavy engineering solutions" - exactly! where are the Army Corp of Engineers, the Nobel prize winners, nuclear physicists, robots, et al? this should be a global effort at this point. what am i missing?
What is missing is definitive leadership and management and decisive action on a huge scale with even larger scale staging of people and equipment for contingencies. What is in abundance is mind-boggling ineptitude.
The "saving" grace and one of the less desirable scenarios is that there is a very large pool of water nearby. Lets hope it does not come to that.
For starters, the damaged power plant is in Japan, not the U.S. So what does the Army Corp of Engineers have to do with anything? I'm sure they would be happy to contribute should the ever be invited to contribute by the Japanese government. American Army boots on the ground in Japan?? I'm sure that is not a political football for the Japanese government.
army corp foreign duty currently consists of building underground wall between Egypt and Gaza....they don't have time for this
whoever can help. we already have a significant military presence in Japan.
But wait, there's more. TEPCO said it was Reactor 1 water in the morning conference, but then it was Reactor 2 in the evening conference the same day. The government mouthpiece says he's upset that TEPCO didn't tell him.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-it-was-reactor...
Watch video of Bush doing face time in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhbtOuF01w
“TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties.”
Is it unreasonable to expect journalists to ask what specifically are the radiation levels within the reactor buildings and immediate vicinity? What specifically is the value "extremely high" represents?
Basic journalism right?
Instead we have two figures quoted with variations. Namely 10,000 x the "normal radiation" in the building, or as quoted by one here safe levels. What is the normal level there?
The second is 400mSv/h in the basement water 100msSv/h in the.air.. The first is the same figure reported on March 15 and still cited by Tepco without being updated.
I suspect those figures are similar.
"The three workers on the 1st floor and the underground floor of turbine building were exposed to the radiation dose of more than 170 mSv." I was under the impression the turbine building was near but not the same as the reactor building. One hospital report says the exposure was way more than 170 but it is hard to find any report other than ZH citing a blog to confirm this.
.At #1103014 Irelevant has figures equivalent to 50-60 Sv/hr DW and 1.5 -3.5 Sv/hr within the secondary containment. He says per TOP which means what? DW is presumably dry wall. A citation would be helpful.
If there is a breach of containment the area in which the workers have to go would likely be higher than reported and would effect their ability to work there
Anybody remember that old Simpson's episode about the three-eyed fish downstream from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant? Like Mr. Burns, the Tepco executives should be served the local fish for dinner to prove that it's as safe as they claim.
Yes, some healthy 'blue-water', 'wild-caught' baby NewFin tuna will be a nice presentation.
Oh wait, there's still more. Nuclear Safety Agency says there's a trace of water from Reactor 2 to the regular drainage duct, and high radiation was detected.
But what do they say? They say the relationship between that, and high radiation in sea water is "unknown".
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-stating-obviou...
ready mix concrete trucks at Reactor 4??...does boron mix with concrete? what the hell...they tell us about the firmen but not hte concrete placement...and those trucks have to get much closer than fire trucks...unless there is a pump truck, they have to back right up to where they are pouring....and who is making the concrete, you can't ship from 100 miles away practically, the ready mix plant has to be fairly nearby..what is going on...wtf
The jib-crane may be relevant. It's possible that it's got a concrete hopper on the hook for the trucks to discharge into and it can then swing that out over the target and dump it remotely without anyone getting too close.
If they put enough retarder in the mix, they might be able to haul it from outside the evacuation zone - at least the roads would be quiet - and nobody's going to want sample cubes to analyse...
TEPCO said they were using a concrete pump truck's extending arm to get water into the SFP earlier in the week - that's logical, as it's a better way to accurately place water at a height than just spraying it everywhere.
The other point to note in that shot was the spent fuel pool on reactor 3 - or where it had once been... Are those natty little brown structures radiation shelters - covering strewn, plutonium-laced, fuel/rods lying on the ground?
We're sure getting the mushroom treatment - trying to decipher the true picture is like assembling a 1,000-piece puzzle with 850 pieces missing.
"Radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species,"
As will the truth
"adding it would not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not being conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant because the government has issued a directive for residents in the zone to evacuate."
So since when have fish become residents to evacuate from the 20 klik zone?
Who the fuck thinks this shit up?
Just think of how high the concentration must have been right after the SCRAM, since I-131 has a half-life of eight days.
Unless this stuff is fresh-brewed.
All of us are living in the gutter,
while some of us take a last glimpse at the dying stars,
as the weight of our enslaved and broken bodies
melts like glass into this contaminated and exhausted soil
this radiant blue planet, this blood soaked blackened Earth,
this toxic waste-dump, forever in space and time
our lost paradise, our mother earth,
we once called home
- ow, gh 2011 -
America's Atomic Time Bomb - der Spiegel 03/24/2011
(excerpt...)
The Deadly Legacy
America was proud of Hanford. As a way of thanking them for their daily sacrifice, the employees and contractors at Hanford got little lapel pins in the shape of a mushroom cloud. D'Antonia recounts how the mushroom cloud was also the mascot of Richland's high school football team, the Bombers, and how there were local businesses called Atomic Bowling, Atomic Foods and Atomic Lawn Care.
But, today, that pride has turned into horror. The farmers in the area and people in Richland and the two neighboring towns, Pasco and Kennewick -- known collectively as the Tri-Cities -- are among the most highly radiated humans on earth.
It is a horrifying legacy. Fifty-two buildings at Hanford are contaminated, and 240 square miles are uninhabitable due to the radioactivity that has seeped into the soil and ground water: uranium, cesium, strontium, plutonium and other deadly radionuclides. Altogether, more than 204,000 cubic meters of highly radioactive waste remain on site -- two-thirds of the total for the entire US.
In one area, discharges of more than 216 million liters of radioactive, liquid waste and cooling water have flowed out of leaky tanks. More than 100,000 spent fuel rods -- 2,300 tons of them -- still sit in leaky basins close to the Columbia River.
The cooling water for the facilities came from that river. Until 1971, it was secretly pumped right back into it after only a minimum amount of treatment. High radiation levels were measured 250 miles (402 kilometers) further west, where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific. It was mostly Native Americans who ate the poisoned fish.
Radioactive Clouds
The plants also emitted radioactive clouds, which were carried by the wind all the way to Oregon, Idaho and Montana and even up into Canada. The people affected by the fallout, the so-called "down-winders," suffered the most during the initial phase, between 1945 and 1951, when they were irradiated with iodine-131, which slipped into the food chain through livestock, milk and eggs.
In addition, thousands upon thousands of workers, residents and farmers were deliberately contaminated -- for testing purposes.
On December 3, 1949, Hanford physicists released a highly radioactive cloud through the smokestack of the so-called T-Plant, the world's largest plutonium factory at the time. The radiation was almost 1,000 times more than what was released during the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the worst nuclear accident in American history. Fallout from the experiment, which was called "Green Run," drifted all the way to California. People wondered why they suddenly got sick.
Studies would eventually show that some babies at Hanford were radiated twice as much as the children of Chernobyl. Before the "Green Run," Tom Bailie, the 2-year-old son of a farmer loved to play in the fields. But then he suffered an inexplicable paralysis; later, he wouldn't be able to father children. His entire family died of cancer.
But it wasn't until 1986 that Bailie, with the help of a dogged reporter from the Spokesman Review, a regional newspaper, began to figure out why. It was the beginning of what would turn out to be a decades-long fight between the radiation victims and the USgovernment. The victims sued the government and forced it to open its secret files. Some of the lawsuits have been consolidated into class-action suits and are still ongoing today.
America's Atomic Time Bomb - der Spiegel 03/24/2011
Hanford Nuclear Waste Still Poses Serious Risks by Marc Pitzke in New York
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752944,00.html
Article pulled from a newspaper site gives a glimpse to much-lauded "Fukushima 50". They are subcons, and they are angry.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-disappeared.html
and Minister of national strategy says let's all cheer for TEPCO.
unreal.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/let-us-all-cheer-for-tepco-says-japan...
Hip, hip, hoolay,
Hip, hip, hoolay,
Hip, hi bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttttt
Where are Obama, Gore and all of the "global warming" fanatics?
Shouldn't they be going absolutely apesh*t about this?
While we're on the topic about things being fucked up, maybe some insightful researchers should embrace this travesty, taking advantage of the radiation in combination with genetic engineering and fast forward man's progress.
For example, genetically engineer a cow that when butchered, the fillet already comes wrapped in bacon.
Or for that matter, many genetic engineered plant species have animal genes in them (sounds like a winner!) so why not a bacon tree?
Which could be grown right next to a hen house where the hens lay eggs with cheese already in them?
Who said every yellow radioactive cloud can't have a silver lining?
And talking about silver, the more TEPCO talks.... like POMO time and the S&P.
Priceless.
LMAO!
I'm envisioning that Embalma and the rest can now only relate to crises that shouldn't be let go to waste because they can be used to create a new agency with 20k plus jobs filled by sympathetic applicants from their home districts; the nuclear crisis 6000 miles away in a foreign country just doesn't qualify.
I really think that's all that is going on, and the responce to Fukushima - sounds of crickets - proves to me statesmanship has been totally lost, and we are rudderless.
I'm making the expensive addition of a geiger counter to my prep inventory, and will report significant and lasting radiation level increases, and hope others do the same.
Can someone explain why the guys who got radioactive water in their shoes were covered up on the way to the hospital by that big blue sheet?
Were they glowing too much for the cameras?
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/26/world/26japan2-span/26jap...
Looked to me like they were trying to collect the radiated water that was dripping from the workers legs and shoes, so it could be put back and not contaminate where the men walked.
It appears they were trying to perform a typical process in emergency protocols knows as "cocooning," which prevents the spread of contamination. However, those same protocols state that contaminated people should be stripped of contaminated clothes, and their bodies decontaminated prior to being loaded in an ambulance...unless, a life-threatening condition exists that precludes that. Since they were walking, that does not seem to be an issue.
Pray explain how cocooning consists of draping a tarp over their heads, so their faces can't be seen?
I said it "appears" they were trying to do that, based on my view of reality of what typically happens when a person is contaminated heavily, and I gave reason why that was probably not the case. I have no reason to speculate beyond that.
I've seen video of this 'perp walk' (not just a still photo) and it is absolutely plain that the three victims are wearing cloth bandage boots and the blue tarp is being used to hide their faces, period. Nothing is being mopped up behind them. They are escorted to a big van, all the while with blue tarp interposed between the three victims and cameras. Also saw a still of them arriving at Natl Radiological Center, faces hidden behind masks.
May be. I have no insight on that, though....I was just pointing out the normal procedures for dealing with this, and what they were doing does not seem normal.
Just seems that none of this makes any sense at thisjuncture.... it gets worse and worser, the game plan stays the same.... screw the pooch, obfuscate, deny and then admit way after the fact, but all's well that hasn't ended yet.... and with what's happened, been untold and lied about, chances are that its downhill really big from here.
But after all, it did distract us from Libya,
Which distracted us from Egypt,
Which distracted us from Bahrain,
Which distracted us from Afghanistan,
Which distracted us from Ireland,
Which distracted us from gun running to Mexico,
Which distracted us from drug running from Mexico,
Which distracted us from the Gulf of Mexico
Which distracted us from Portugal,
Which distracted us from Spain,
Which distracted us from Charlie Sheen,
Which distracted us from muni defaults,
Which distracted us from Arizona,
Which distracted us from Greece,
Which distracted us from Mexican Drug Wars,
Which distracted us from Jersey Shore,
Which distracted us from those Tea Party Crazies,
Which distracted us from those Democratic Crazies,
Which distracted us from Rick Santelli,
Which distracted us from Republican Crazies,
Which distracted us from Health Care Legislation,
Which distracted us from Timmah,
Which distracted us from Ben,
Which distracted us from JP Morgan's silver,
Which distracted us from HSBC's gold,
Which distracted us from commodity inflation,
Which distracted us from margin compression,
Which distracted us from equity valuations,
Which distracted us from housing prices,
Which distracted us from foreclosures,
Which distracted us from Fannie, Freddie, et al,
Which distracted us from bank capital adequacy,
Which distracted us from Goldman,
Which distracted us from GM
Which distracted us from TARP
Which distracted us from HAARP
Sweet!
Damn, Knukles. Even I subract the ones I would normally want to argue with you about, it's still a looooooong list.
Good point.
That's why I love this site. Thanks guys.
BTW, are these workers sloshing around highly radioactive water as they walk?
And what's your thoughts on the conclusions from this photo; are they just throwing out protocol; just getting it half right or were those guys just in so much pain they couldn't wait any longer?
To be honest, I don't know what they are doing. I have been contaminated with crapped-up water before, and I just stripped and took a shower, and then took a whole body scan. Of course, this was not from the core of a reactor that obviously has damaged fuel rods...it was from a vessel that the rods had already been pulled from and inserted in the pool. Still yucky, but not any kind of life-threatening situation (common, matter-of-fact). In my view, if someone gets really zapped to the point they have epidermal damage, you do not leave the contamination on them...you get clothes off fast and wash them down, because every second you leave that kind of high-yield contamination on them, it is doing more damage. I am...puzzled.
I wonder what the PH value of that water was?
Building 3 is shattered, so how alkaline would seawater be after it had seeped through feet-thick, so possibly still reacting, reinforced concrete?
Seems slightly strange that the one wearing rubber boots was so completely unaffected?
Cutting corners at TVA's Watts Bar nuclear reactor that's under construction:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110325/NEWS01/103250314/1969/
What's in a name?
A reactor's name... a few with problems or maybe's...
Millstone
Turkey Point
Diablo Canyon
Watts Bar.... A buncha drunks fucking with high energy electro-plasma Tesla radiation coils....
Watts Bar is just down the road from Oak Ridge, TN.
Very grim news from Fukushima and more safety concerns for California:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370113/Japan-earthquake-Fukushi...
There's no heat source; everything is cooling off; the time for melting is long over. gone, and past. Nothing but cooling down and less, and less, meaningless atmospheric and water based particle counts; zero effect on public health. grow up; do your homework.
Okay, at first your trolling was amusing. Now it's just annoying.
Do your homework, how? With all the outright lies, disinformation and obfuscation coming out of the Japanese "officials"?
Grow up FFS
Reactor 1, 2 and 3 turbine halls highly radioactive.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/fixed/asx/27_06_256k.asx
and...
"The situation inside the reactor cores is not very stable and we can't say specifically how long that's going to last," Sakae Muto, executive vice president of Tokyo Electric, said late Saturday.
Koyama Kota, deputy chief of TEPCO Fukushima office, told Xinhua the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi plant was very complicated. It was difficult to determine when the clean-up would be completed, he said, since the major task at present for the company was to control radiation leakage.
The translation was a little confusing, but obviously there are breaches in the piping coming into the turbine buildings, or the steam pipe tunnels filled up with water and backed up into the basements of the turbine buildings. So, on at least one of them they are going to scavenge the water and store it in the condensate tanks. Wonder why they can't do that on all of them?
Did someone here just come back from another planet or WTF is shit like this pure bs: There's "no heat source" heat source will be with us for many years in the FUBARFuku zone.
excuse me sir, you put 1 in front of the 45 for your IQ. you should really fix that, preferably by suicide.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704396904576225961395484904.html
From the article
"Earlier in the day, workers were evacuated from one of the reactors when the company running the plant announced that radiation had been detected at an eye-popping 10 million times normal levels"
I arose from my sleep this morning to a beautiful sunny day, hoping for some good news on this issue.
Sigh...
Better decay heat estimates from MIT:
http://mitnse.com/2011/03/16/what-is-decay-heat/
I think this needs to be clearly understood: After one full year, the smallest reactor (unit 1) will hold 2.9 MW of energy and units 2 & 3 will hold 5 MW each.
AFTER A YEAR OK>?????
If you don't think 3-5 MW will boil a lot of water off in a hurry, please stay away from anything bigger than a coffee maker.
These units will be an hour or two away from meltdown for a VERY LONG TIME.
Got that? Aight.
I would like some data on Reactor 1, 2, 3, 4 spent fuel pools. Last I saw (3/24) none of them were under control and cooled with circulating pumps. I suspect #3 SFP was wrecked and collapsed in the explosion that demolished #3 containment building. Black smoke from #3 suggests fire AFAIK. Previous thermal image of #2 and constant flow of steam makes me think there's no cooling operative in #2 SFP and they were unable to spray it with a firehose. Please correct me if any of the foregoing facts and conjectures are proved wrong.
Wow - that is staggering !
5 Million watts - a year from now.
Illustrates how dangerous this really is.
Does this change your probability estimates above?
No, I had been figuring 2-3 MW just as a fast percentage of their normal output. These figures are bigger, but not materially so in terms of the need to maintain this balancing act for longer than most would suppose.
I'm just tired of folks beaming in with these smug 'never mind, it's turned off so it's all cooled down by now' messages.
Yes - that is an incredible amount of energy trying to get through the bottom of the drywell.
"Balancing act" ...
I believe that spalling is occurring, even with continuous water dousing.
TMI failure analysis suggests pervasive concrete penetration.
Concrete spalling? I have seen absolutely no evidence to date that suggests the fuel components are anywhere but in the steel reactor vessel. There is evidence for a gap release, but none for a spalling reaction.
Is there any credible evidence to suggest that they ARE still in the steel reactor?
Yes, the radionuclide's released have very unique characteristics when they interact with concrete, and the data (if correct) that I have seen, suggests a gap release only, and if the fuel rods had melted and pooled in the drywell, then burned through that onto the concrete base mat, then you would be seeing a shitstorm of airborne radiation streaming out of what is without doubt, compromised piping going from the reactor vessels to the turbine buildings....they would have to evacuate the entire site. I have no proof of this, just my surmising.
What data did you see? Source?
Since you obviously have none, save me some time and go look up the word "corium."
#2 primary vessel blew its 100% molten guts into the drywell more than a week ago.
Where have you been?
Well...can you cite me the evidence for that, as I have seen none. This morning they are reporting positive pressures on all reactor vessels.
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/jaif_status_24march.png
Reactor Pressure Vessel Integrity - 1/2/3 Unknown
Pressure / Temperature of the Reactor Pressure Vessel - 2/3 Unknown
Core and Fuel Integrity - 1/2/3 Damaged (maybe you can tell us what the Failure codes 400/548/548 mean)
Not sure we can believe any of this data ...
Would they really tell us that the primary vessels have been breached !
Radioactive zirconium has been detected outside the reactors. The only way for that to happen is A, the reactor has been breached and material that was inside is now outside, or B, magical skittle shitting unicorns now come in radioactive zirconium flavor.
I just ran a quick calc on the back of an envelope, and without figuring in a delta, just to maintain stasis, you will need about 2000 GPM for 5 MW....I did not calculate losses, just a straight Joule/sec/MW calc.
Please tell me how you get that much water into the bottom of the drywell 24/7!
You dont want it in the drywell, you want it in the reactor vessel, unless you are suggesting the vessels have failed, which there is no evidence for. Remember, the coolant pumps, if you can get them running, can pump around 100,000 GPM.
Coolant pumps?! They failed more than 2 weeks ago ...
Very low probability they will ever run again ...
I don't know...we will see
Ari, I appreciate your participation tonight. Am I wrong in thinking there must be a break or leaking flange in the reactor plumbing? -- and further that the pumps have failed in one or more reactor cooling systems? I don't know how else to explain contamination of seawater.
My guess is there is a break in the piping in the turbine building, and possibly in the reactor building as well. They are going to try and crank up some cooling pumps starting tomorrow...They only need one of them per unit to function. I think the seawater contamination is largely runoff from the spraying, and possibly the high-level drains in the Turbine building. Again, just my guess.
Also keep in mind that at those temperatures, sea "water" (ie steam) will eat through a 3/4" steel plate in hours rather than days. My father is an engineer, and we spoke about this (though not in this context). We were talking about it in regards to biofouling of cooling towers. The temperatures there were much lower than what those guys are dealing with. What are those reactors made of, exactly?
316 stainless, 8" thick I am told
Hmmm, at 1.9% chloride in seawater, 316 stainless steel will begin pitting at 30 C. Jesus fuck.
If exposed to alternating rounds of high temperature (420+ C) and sea water, then the problem is greatly magnified. Since this appears to have been cycled multiple times, they've got a big fucking problem, especially if the pressure starts to go out of control again. Those stress corrosion cracks are liable to turn into gaping holes.
This accident is just way beyond anything we've seen, taken in toto. The complexity. The workforce being decimated over time. It's just unreal.
You probably have a good perspective on this point: no two plants or units are the same when it comes down to daily operations, and especially safety. Can you imagine putting someone new into this, even if they're experienced? What the heck would you do first?
Still hoping for a detailed, point by point analysis of the failure modes here, pools included. It's freaking me out how much of a 'blind folks feeling the elephant' vibe is going on even now. They need to put some people on visual/camera survey immediately. Or just put some portable floods and video cameras in there and run like hell.
Nevada Test Site could air freight a half dozen radiation hardened high def video cameras. I know, I built them.
I used to work there...did you work for EG&G?
Subcontractor/supplier 3D Television
Working on conventional explosive formation and pressure wave recording I would guess?
Well, there are a lot of potential "failure" modes, at least as far as large radiation releases are concerned. Actually, the systems of that reactor are so similar to other installations of the same type, that if one is familiar with one, he can get around pretty well with the other. I do not think these guys are following the Health Physics protocols to the letter, and I can understand that...they are balls-to-the-wall, undermanned, tired, dosed and worried. The problem with a deal like this is there really is no large front-runner for "first." Everything went to hell almost simultaneously. Because of the hydrogen explosions and high levels of radioactivity, access was a problem. The control rooms were down for some time, so remote instrumentation was not available. It appears that most of the damage was done during that period when access and data availability was not possible. Plus, loss of power, some systems probably damaged.....Jesus, that is one honking chunk of hell to deal with. In a perfect world, they would have sent a Health Physics team in bubble suits to survey the Turbine building basement prior to sending in the techs, but, maybe they had no reason to suspect that kind of problem there, or did not have time to do that, or knew it and it just accepted the possible consequences. I also wonder when they talk about "puddles" of radioactive water...then they say ankle deep....that does not pass the smell test - although maybe something is lost in the translation. You do not have puddles on a flat concrete floor, unless you step off in a drain well and call that a puddle. I think things will change one way or the other in the next few days.
It would be nice for Tepco to win, but I think they're going to have to admit failure and call in the Americans.
The floors might be bent or broken, either from the earthquake, tsunami, or the explosion.
And, just for some perspective, that comes to a flow velocity in the reactor vessel of about 5 ft. per minute.