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TEPCO Director Weeps After Disclosing Truth About Fukushima Disaster
The Daily Mail has released a dramatic picture showing the emotional exhaustion of TEPCO managing director Akio Komori who is openly weeping as he leaves a conference to brief journalists on the true situation at Fukushima, following his acknowledgment that the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens. "A senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis. He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans." This is precisely as Zero Hedge had expected would happen all along, following our recurring allegations of a massive cover up by the Japanese government. And furthermore as we predicted a week ago when we said that continued government lies and subversions would make the situation untenable once the population loses faith in the government, this is precisely what has happened.
A contrite Komiri crying after he discloses the truth:
And for those who believe the lies that TEPCO and the government has any control over the situation we suggest you read the following:
Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.
He said: 'With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.'
And Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said workers were in a 'race against the clock' to cool the reactor.
Attempts to quell the overheating plant with waterbombs from helicopters yesterday failed and despite the army pelting the site with water cannon, radiation levels rose higher.
Engineers are also working to restore power to the coolant pumping system knocked out by the tsunami.
Also, the Mail shows a dramatic photo of a crane used to move spent fuel rodes into a now empty storage pond.
pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.
Radiation is streaming into the atmosphere from the used uranium rods at reactor number four, after a 45ft-deep storage pool designed to keep them stable boiled dry in a fire.
And some of the radioactive material could reach Britain within a fortnight, according to experts.
However they say it will not be dangerous when it reaches our shores while low levels of radiation have already hit Southern California.
And while we descrbed the worst case scenario, i.e., the Chernobyl Solution, earlier, there is still hope for a last ditch deux ex machina over the weekend.
There was a potential breakthrough when engineers succeeded in connecting a power line to Reactor 2. This should enable them to restore electricity to the cooling pumps needed to prevent meltdown.
But it is not certain the system will work after suffering extensive damage.
Unfortunately, judging by how horrendously the government and the utility have handled the crisis so far, we are extremely skeptical any further attempts to improve the situation with fail spectacularly. In the meantime, the Japanese economy is slowing grinding to a halt as more people leave Tokyo, as factories lie dormant, and as high tech supply chains are suddenly halted. Out estimate, unlike that of an increasingly less than credible Bloomberg, is that the adverse impact to 2011 world GDP will be well at least 2% when all is said and done just factoring the events to date. Should the situation continue to stagnate it will get far worse.
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American way of fire, ready, aim is so much better...like blowing up TWO space shuttles. That requires special skills!
Really? Is this man somehow responsible for a 9.0 earthquake and a 30ft tsunami? Did this man lie to his superiors or did his superiors lie to the people? Sometimes things are nobody's fault. Sometimes things just happen. I'ld say a 9.0 earthquake is enough to throw a wrench in any contingency plan.
How to Protect Yourself from Radiation
Can we call it :-
"The Curry Cure" ?
I love some good Indian food!
Have they turned his desk towards the window?
..you mean, where the window used to be. lol.
Interesting Side Note
Israeli Security Firm in Charge at Japanese Nuke Facilities Prior to Disaster By: SaladinTags:
Magna BSP was established by Siboni about 10 years ago and is owned by several partners. Based in Dimona, Israel, the firm employs 15 people, a number which Siboni expects to expand dramatically in light of additional orders Magna has received from Japan and interest shown by the operators of nuclear reactors in other countries. Its operations in Japan are conducted through a Japanese government firm.
“We have an agreement in principle with the Japanese that we will provide protection for all of the country’s nuclear reactors,” Siboni said.
...but this happened early Friday afternoon. What's your point?
So, let me get this straight. An Israeli security company is somehow responsible for letting an Earthquake happen, cause a Tsunami, killing 16k people and for fucking up all the generators that were supposed to keep the Rx cool?
GOOD G-D MAN!?!?! WHY WASN'T THIS REPORTED BY EVERYONE!?!?
Now for your program, already in progress...more Jew bashing, because I know its like an intermural sport around here for some people.
Flagged as Wholly Conspiratorial and therefore suitable for select ZHers (you know who you are!)
Israeli's would like everyone to believe they are the "best and the brightest" and that's why they have all our money. Not so. They fuck up at least as much as the rest of us. Yet no one that I know has mentioned they were in charge of protecting the Japanese Nuclear Reactors.
Why? Because they control the flow of information in many areas, as so their fuck-ups are kept hidden.
(See Prior post for details)
Yes, protect them from Security Threats. Since when is a natural disaster a fucking security threat? I highly doubt that a bunch of anti Japanese terrorists broke into the plant, sabatoged the generators, then scuba dove all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and caused an earthquake.
Then after sitting back for a day or so, they caused hydrogen explosions to wipe out the Rx shell buildings and set fire to the spent fuel rods.
Idiot.
Hey...they had a Moses on the payroll and there was a tsunami...you do the math.
yes!!! I knew we could get a "jews did it" post.
congratulations on making a complete ass of yourself.
Uprisings over this too?
|-_
Pistol, temple, some assembly required. Have some dignity, you rice eating slug.
If they turn into the Fukushima 49..48..47 will that be covered up?
Here comes the really bad news, in about 5 minutes, when the market closes.
Wait and watch and see.
Japanese futures would seem to suggest you are correct. They ran them up the flag pole to the tune of over 100 pts...but the US futures did not take the bait...and now the J 225 is awkwardly coming back down...after realizing it was the only idiot standing.
Today really took the cake at the Ministry of Truth [CNBC]. Finally, the man on the ground at the burning reactor site breaks down and gives up the propaganda...and yet Cramer and Griffeth respond by pouring the propaganda on. This was the seminal moment in this one week long story...and the Ministry of Truth [CNBC] took a pass.
Ratings will be fun to look at once out next week. I'll be writing a letter to the new owners of NBC over at COMCAST...because I love writing those kinds of letters.
Iodine Martini time!
Wouldn't it be awesome to see Lloyd in a photo like that but with handcuffs!
COMCAST IMPLOSION ALERT!
NETWORK REFUSES TO COVER ESSENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FUKUSHIMA STORY!!
Instead, they relentless cover mortgages, bank dividends [hooray], tech companies, insurance options plays...relentlessly into the close.
Just after close, Bill grandpa Giffeth declares radiation at Fukushima is "not at dangerous levels."
NETWORK CREDIBILITY REACHING CRITICALITY...RATINGS MELTDOWN IMMINENT!
GE.. "We cover up things for life"
flash, roll, duck.
roll, duck, flash.
duck, roll, flash
Right out of a US government training film this is.
Ratigan has a guy on right now saying the same shit I said 2 days ago...WTF is wrong with these people? Do I have to fucking do EVERYTHING?
trav are you a father? i bet your kids can't get a break, ever. well they must have strong constitutions.
he is a father, which i found to be shocking.
maybe he is nice in person (doubt it).
Trav is part of the regular dissenters that helps keep the ZH legion feisty. What if everyone agreed on everything? The late-night fights in Lou's basement wouldn't be as good if we didn't really want to punch someone into bloody oblivion. And I end up liking a lot of what he posits.
He's also added to my vernacular: "Hey, you...you...you moonbat!"
look, i don't hate the guy, he is brings a lot of technical competence to the blog. that being said, he is still an asshole. but that is what makes ZH great isn't?
that being said, his prior incarnation with one less 7 was blatantly racist and far more obnoxious.
you will never see me say he shouldn't be on here though.
Agreed.
Trav: "WTF I have to be an asshole because of all the DAMN moonbats!"
I have been reading ZH for 1.5 years (My favorite Homework distraction!), mostly on my older brother's account.
Went to Italy last year in May. Was on his smartphone nearly the entire time reading ZH overseas... This was during the Greece and imminent Euro default.
Trav was posting a ton then so it seemed.
I <3 him, my favorite ZHer!
Sorry for forgetting you Baby. Long week!!! I'm really proud of you.
l
did you know that 'Shima' in Fukushima translates into 'island'. Nuff said. Even though the pronunciation of the rest is Fookoo (- shima) .....it just looks bad. Sorry, couldn't help it.
'did you know that 'Shima' in Fukushima translates into 'island'. Nuff said. Even though the pronunciation of the rest is Fookoo (- shima)...'
Hey, I never knew that. I thought they called it Fukushima since last Saturday.
fear and loathing in project mayhem†
Quite apropos.
Agree!!
The gap between what's being reported in Japan and outside Japan is growing bigger and bigger. Saw the pic of fire engines at Daily Mail article, it's a Kyodo News photo but I don't think I've seen that kind of picture in any of the major Japanese newspapers.
Japanese newspapers have closeup pictures of those engines, from a low angle so that they look bigger, and almost always without any comparison (like humans standing next to them).
They had a German Physicist on CNN International who said they can't cool the SPF at Daiichi, and that they also can't 'Sarcophagus' it, because it will crack the dome continuously, given the heat. He said the concrete at Chernobyl is cracking all the time due to the heat 25 year later.
So, he concluded that the Japanese have a real technical dilemna on their hands, because there's no playbook for this.
Oh, he also confirmed that there's a shitload of fuel there, too.
That sounds correct. And I fear it is even worse than that. Encasement could lead to vastly worse disasters, as I speculated later in this thread.
In fact, a simple kind of "encasement" probably caused the disasterous situation we're in now. If the "spent fuel rod pools" were not "encased" in sealed buildings, the hydrogen being produced by those fuel rod casings in water would have risen out of the building. After all, hydrogen gas naturally rises quite effectively in air, one proof of which is "blimps".
If the hydrogen gas being generated had not been contained in the buildings, the buildings could not have exploded. If the buildings had not exploded, the cooling pools would not have been damaged and they could probably be refilled with water as soon as appropriate types of fire trucks and water cannons could be sent to the site.
So encasing those reactors and cooling ponds in water now is a very, very, very problematic if not dangerous idea. But as you say, good alternatives seem in very short supply.
What we need now is more good ideas in the next few days than they managed to implement in decades of nuclear plant design. That is the travesty.
"And furthermore as we predicted a week ago when we said that continued government lies and subversions would make the situation untenable...
Unfortunately, judging by how horrendously the government and the utility have handled the crisis so far,.."
Tyler, you are a good newshound, but this article shows you in a one-dimensional, juvenile and arrogant light. And worse for the large number of semi-literate, vulgar insensitive pricks in the comments section.
Japan has been hit by what is arguably the worst NATURAL disaster in modern times. Without a word of sympathy for the nation and its people or appreciation for the efforts of the tens of thousands working to alleviate the situation you launch into a diatribe against those that happen to be in charge. Do you think you would have handled the situation better than any of them? Expecting ANYONE, least of all an American administration to have handled this better than the Japanese have done is surreal thinking. Not that the current situation is perfect, but I can't imagine you, the US administration, the IAEA, the Chinese, the Russians, anyone or any other nation handling this better than the Japanese are doing. Tell us - how does your article HELP those suffering in any way.
Has it ever happened that an American official or a company head taken responsibility for the suffering that THEY have caused(let alone Natural disasters) to their customers, or the general public of their own country and all the others where they have killed and pillaged? For God's sake, I don't recall America the nation ever expressing regret for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan!
The Japanese officials showing such heartfelt sorrow for the suffering caused shows they have a sense of duty, honour, unlike other people (3 mile, Chernobyl, Bhopal, Katrina). And you mock that. Shame on you.
Those "poor officials" showing such "hearfelt sorrow" could start making amends for making a terrible situation worse by LYING to their beloved people about the truth of the situation by lending a fucking hand ON SITE rather than letting some other poor SOB take the brunt of their contempt for proper conduct.
Everyone feels terrible for the suffering going on in Japan - but, personally, I refuse to feel bad for that asshole because he feels bad for being such a lying sack of shit and knowingly allowing good people risk a such a horrible death.
You mean the general should go and fight ahead of the soldier? Would the President of the company be more effective at the task than those who know the work and are trained, experienced, qualified for it? And how do you know that those people going ahead to work in the stricken reactor are not told of the danger? How do you know they did not volunteer for it?
When the general sells out his soldiers and his country the penalties are typically severe.
How do I know they they've been lying? Have you been paying attention to their fucking reports? Only now are they admitting that this the situation is actually worse than Three Mile Island.
Stevie Wonder could have told you that three days ago.
..You don't by any chance live in Notting Hill, London, do You?
No.
Hello!
Here here. :thumbsup
While the corruptions and ineptitude of a few have garnered the most attention because of their actions or inactions, the overall sense of duty and composure the Japanese people have shown during this time of crisis is truly remarkable. I for one am deeply moved by this and wish I could do more to help.
It is time for status-quo apologists to shut up.
This was nowhere near the worst natural disaster in modern times. Just a few years ago somewhere around 150,000 people we killed in a tsunami. I'm not sure how many were killed in Haiti more recently. Those are just recent natural disasters.
Compare that to 10,000 to perhaps 20,000 or even 30,000 killed in Japan.
The biggest disaster may very well be man-made, not "natural".
And there is ZERO excuse for the man-made tragedy unfolding. There have been multiple ~9.0+ earthquakes in the past century. Japan and Chile are the most likely and active places for huge earthquakes and tsunamis. This information has been well known for many decades at least.
Given this well known information, nobody in their right mind would fail to design nuclear power plants to withstand 9.5 to 10.0 earthquakes. And nobody in their right mind would put them where a 20 to 30 meter tsunami could possibly reach. And nobody in their right mind would put the cooling ponds way up high near the top of the buildings without any containment whatsoever (except the walls of the building themselves)... especially when they have always known the fuel rod casings in water generate huge quantities of explosive hydrogen when they overheat when water levels fall. And I could list several other completely insane and irresponsible design flaws that were known but purposely ignored because it was convenient to do so, and because they padded their bottom line.
I agree the administration in the USSA would probably have handled the situation even worse. However, the fact is, no administration should have anything whatsoever to do with situations like these. Every corporate executive and politician should be locked in cells during emergencies like these, so they will not be able to interfere with the best scientists and engineers available to plan and execute solutions.
We all feel horrible for the Japanese citizens. We all feel even worse for the poor people physically fighting the problems at the facility. My bet is, not a single one of the people who designed these atrocities are in danger. My bet is, not a single government big shot is in any personal danger. My bet is, not a single corporate executive is in danger. My bet is, not one single scientist or engineer who certified these facility designs as safe is in danger. My bet is, not ONE person responsible for this travesty is in danger, because THAT is the essential nature of the world system today. What is the system today?
Predators DBA large corporations.
Predators DBA fake regulators.
Predators DBA government.
Any rational human has all the sympathy in the world for everyone in Japan, and especially those who suffer. Any rational human has zero sympathy for those whose dishonesty, arrogance and desire for riches and prestige led to their suffering. Those executives and regulators and everyone in the chain of those government decisions should be forced to don those radiation suits, walk into those facilities, try to mitigate the disaster they caused, and suffer the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior.
Beauty in words.+++++++++++
Awesome post! +++++
instead, the Managing Director dons a shift worker's uniform for his presser
do you suppose he dresses like that for a board meeting?
Tears of joy surely.
Operation Extension Cord a complete success.
Now your getting it! LMAO!
What is not mentioned is what happens when the hot (thermal) fuel rods are hit with cold water.> can you say shatter? try it some day heat a hunk of iron red hot then quench it in cold water it is interesting. The fuel rods are a more fragile item, and when at about 1500c the cladding material and water converts to a oxide and hydrogen the core materials are then not cased and can separate and fall to the floor of the pool or get mobilized to the atmosphere
Zinc is a control factor. Cracks and all. It's those Damn pellets. They are cast not forged. Yes the water can excite reaction, but not a neutron reaction that retard talked about on Fox News earlier. The reaction requires a constant bath, to flow through control rods. The rods are not flat. They are flanged from spherical pellet (u238 or 236) Titanium rods.
OK, based on this article, ZH says they have been dead on so far.
May I ask what the final consequence will be?
We're taking up a collection to send Tyler over there to fix this shit right now. So...come Tuesday or Wednesday it will all be wrapped up.
Stay short until then.
I wonder if Americans would be this heroic under the same conditions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367125/Japan-tsunami-Fukushima-...
Huge negatory Big Ben.
Many died going into those buildings on 9-11.
More died trying to storm the cockpit on that day.
Many have died in Afghan and Iraq since then.
The socialists won't do any of that though. It's their nature to get someone else to pay the tab.
It is highly unlikely that emergency responders would rush to the scene of a comparable nuclear accident in the USA. You would be obligated to inform them that they will very likely die if they choose to respond.
I worked in the fire service for several years before going into the HazMat industry. While I don't claim to speak for all professional firefighters and paid emergency responders, I can offer some insight into the types of 'calls' that frighten them the most.
Wanna see a paid firefighter flinch and show visible fear and trepidation? Say the words: "radioactive spill".
Even many chemical hazmat emergencies intimidate them if they lack the training and equipment.
If such an event were to happen in the USA, I suspect that entombment of the facility would have already begun within 24 hours of the EQ and tsunami.
I keep thinking they should have just started the entombment process when they started using seawater. At that point, you know you are not trying to save the reactor, so why not go ahead with the cement/boron process? But I am no expert and don't want to be an armchair quarter back.
The lawyers won't allow it.
In the days of practicality what you suggest would have been done.
Slowly, gradually, we have begun to act based on the pressure of expectations rather than outcomes; appearences rather than reality.
They should be burying it and containing it but instead will risk and cost more lives to "investigate" why the "problem" occurred - and they must SLOWLY and PAINFULLY try to remediate the known outcome. Perceptions are more important than reality.
There will be warehouses filled with tiny scraps of metal labeled 1 to 279,000 and several billion $'s (Yen - whatever) spent to "figure out what went wrong".
The following would be honest, and cost 1/10th of the latter, but we don't have the guts for it anymore:
"There was a 9.0 earthquake and a 150 year tsunami event that overwhelmed anything planned for. We are burying anything left under a mountain of sand and concrete and making it a monument to the dead and the hubris of humanity."
You can count me out. Let Dimon be the hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPsSWoYursc&feature=related
Why would the Japanese government be any different than any other government. They all llie almost all the time. US, Japan, China, Greece, Ireland, Spain, Russia etc etc - THEY ALL LLIE. Just another example of the 'rot-at-the-top' IMO.
and thats why our curent system has to be rebooted, restartet, reset, cold booted and the OS has to be upgraded to the new pure code and some hardware has to be upgraded
Will perfect anarcho capitalism run on Linux?
Komiri has likely spent his life covering shit up with nary a quiver of lip, and for the past week has probably been deep in denial.
I wonder what cracked his shell? It occurs to me that yesterday the elite of Tokyo's fire services spent considerable time in what is now admitted to be 4 Sv. Has Komiri had some phone conversations with horribly ill and dying firemen? Some of whom he may know personally? Family even?
Now we see if the lying stops in practice. I'm not hopeful.
Truth is they can't stop lying - the truth will be a tsunami. Just look at the real sources of the world's financial crisis - the crooks are still in charge - and getting paid extremely well for it too!
Maybe. That aspect is especially horrific. Especially if they thought they could keep doing it for weeks.
Nice equipment, although irradiated....no crews.
The international community needs to get on entombment. No armchair logic on why it's difficult, complicated or expensive. Just what are the challenges and how to overcome them.
This needs to happen. It will happen. But we are risking a lot by dithering and weeping instead of getting the global powers together and noodling out the logistics on a whiteboard.
Do we need to crack the buildings? Crack 'em.
COME ON PEOPLE
Jim, is there a possibility that entombment might limit the impact globally, while increasing it locally (however wide)?
In other words, will there be a conflict of interest over solution?
VERY good question
The lying will not stop. Humans are habit machines, and it takes a lot to break a strong habit that has been reinforced for years.
Likely he did suffer some strong emotional force that [partially] broke his habit of dishonesty. But almost always such breaks are isolated and momentary.
What we need is permanent honesty from all. And that we will certainly not receive.
How can Americans demand that all data from EPA and CTBTO monitoring stations be released immediately and continuously made public? Also, does anyone have information on the safety of airline travel as this plume moves from west to east?
less safe than it was last week...
I don't know but I'm trying to find out. My sister is a fight attendant for Northwest and regularly flys to Tokyo. I'll pass on anything I get.
Kyodo: Finland to move embassy operations to Hiroshima
Now that's just mean.
Where can I order one of those sporty TEPCO windbreakers?
Avoid buying used.
tell ya, Joe, there's nothing sadder than a sad Japanese man.
Just found this. . .this website is going to post the CTBTO monitoring station data on its website . . .
http://www.zamg.ac.at
http://www.zamg.ac.at/docs/aktuell/20110318_Japan_1300_engl.pdf
Finally, some g-ddamn information.
Thanks for nothing Barry "transparency" Obama.
HA! "Weeps after disclosing the truth?"
No..... he weeps after admitting lying about how bad it was.
No, he is weeping because he realizes his incompetence and hubris has/will result in much human suffering and death.
I would not want to be in his shoes. I retired without ever having an employee killed or die on the job site and/or facility and I am very grateful for that.
Prayers are all I can offer.
There are cultural differences here - but our counterparts in the U.S. would bullshit just as much (or more), storm out in anger after an admission, and then cry in private.
Kind of funny how that works...
"He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were"
well we finally get the truth....this should have happened from the beginning...new leaders with a penchant for truth are needed....
i still pray that the lord have mercies on the japanese people...the 4 horsemen rideth in thunder...who shall save us? (hint: it's not the banksters, plutocrats, religious quacks, or other sundry fucktards)
POSSIBLY IMPORTANT
People love to kick me around for thinking out loud because I'm only a scientist and engineer, but not a nuclear scientist or engineer. I refuse to shut up, but I hope other scientists, engineers and rational folks try to address these issues constructively rather than just throw cheap shots.
Consider this.
They are considering "encasement". Consider how incredibly dangerous that could be.
I'll start with what I suspect might be the somewhat less likely risk, which is the reactors themselves.
Since the reactors shut down immediately when the earthquake struck, presumably that very substantially reduces the maximum heat that could be produced in a completely uncooled situation like encasement (except for the very modest thermal conduction of concrete). In this configuration the uncooled fuel rods will presumably "melt down", but probably not to anything like a liquid state... probably more like a highly viscous state. Since the absorbing rods will prevent maximum heat levels from being as high as the "running wild" case, hopefully the lower temperature and thick viscous state of the fuel rods will not be able to push their way down to the water table. And if they don't, the most well known "worst case" scenario is avoided.
However, there is a less discussed "worst case" scenario that has been raised by observation of recent events. I cannot be certain about this due to the complexity of the situation and configuration of the reactor, but hopefully others who are can add to this worry. The problem is, we might be able to get something similar to the "worst case" water table scenario without even escaping the reactor building.
The diagrams of the building show a ring structure full of water below the reactors. What happens if they completely fill the reactor building with concrete? This will serve to separate the primary containment vessel of the reactor from that water. If that separation is never breached, probably encasement will hold.
The 8" specialty steel containment might be able to contain those rod temperatures. I don't know. However, if any of the rods or partially melted rods manage to find their way to the water, a terrible situation will occur (assuming I understand the physics well enough, which I believe I probably do).
The first situation is obvious... vaporization of the water, leading to enormous pressures within the encasement. At some point the pressure would become so extreme the entire concrete encasement would either crack, which would spew some quantity of burned, burning, crushed and/or vaporized rod material into the atmosphere.
The second situation seems less likely, but is vastly more dire. If somehow the whole fuel rods themselves found their way to the water, massive quantities of hydrogen would be created as oxygen atoms are pulled from the H2O water molecules to oxidize the zirconium rod casings. We pretty much know this would happen, because that's the process that blew up the buildings in the first place.
What would happen next depends upon the physical configuration of the encasement. It is possible steam would crack or explode the encasement before hydrogen pressure. If not, perhaps hydrogen pressure would crack or explode the encasement just from pressure but not ignition.
The worst version of this scenario seems to be room in the encasement for a large quantity of highly pressured hydrogen to collect, followed by ignition of the hydrogen. If this happens, the entire encasement would likely be blown to smitherines, and untold quantities of completely unshielded fuel rod vapor, dust, granules and pieces would shoot high into the atmosphere.
If this happens in reactor #3, the reactor that reportedly has 7% plutonium rods, the best-case consequences would be horrific, and the worst-case consequences would probably be untold millions of deaths worldwide over time (my guess). Plutonium vapor and dust is beyond horrible.
I suspect that's the least likely disaster that encasement might lead to (though I might have it backwards and that's the more likely).
The most likely consequences of encasement is from those awful "spent fuel rod ponds". I'm not sure where they're going to find enough cement to encase those facilities all the way up to and over the top of those ponds, but let's say they do that. What then?
We might encounter a similar problem as the one I already described above. Those "spent fuel rods" are sitting in huge pools of water. True, some of the water has leaked out. True, maybe they can shoot holes in those tanks and drain most water out before they raise the cement level over those pools. But do we know how much water is in cement? Sure we do. Lots!
So they would be encasing those zirconium clad fuel rods in water! Yes, nowhere near 100% pure water, but... I dunno... what percentage of cement or concrete is water? I've seen it mixed... it contains a lot of water. Would they switch to asphalt or something else? Would they even consider it? I don't know.
This scenario might be considerably worse than the previous scenario described above. Hopefully most of the nasty materials would remain in that 8" thick specialty steel vessel when that explosion occurs, if it does. And that innermost primary vessel seems to be contained inside yet another secondary vessel of steel and concrete. So at least the quantity released might at least be less than from the cooling ponds.
So similar explosions in the encased "spent fuel rod pond" area is likely to cause much more damage to the outside world. No 8" thick vessel of specialty steel contains the "spent" fuel rods. In fact, nothing contains the fuel rods except the overheated zirconium clad that appears to be causing the problem in the first place by stealing the oxygen from any water/steam it contacts. And since these pools are very near the top of the reactor buildings, there is nothing to contain the dangerous materials or mitigate another hydrogen explosion from spewing high into the atmosphere. The zirconium clad will not help, for it has already been rendered massively fractured and weakened.
I won't continue this extrapolation. What I describe is bad enough. My only purpose to post these inferences is to stimulate more information and ideas for better ways to deal with the situation. Perhaps knowing these potential problems can lead to encasement with less problematic, water-free materials. Or perhaps ideas better than encasement.
I welcome constructive ideas. I'm looking to identify "mistakes" before they happen. I'm looking to identify better approaches. I'm not an expert in nuclear plants, I'm just a scientist and engineer with a brain that works, and a willingness to look stupid if necessary in the process of looking for dangers and solutions. We don't have time for conferences. We need more good ideas, and we need them now.
Giant frame building, or series of smaller buildings, with shielding and venting/filtering robust enough to suck up all the air inside and replace it.
Maybe nested like Russian dolls.
Like Cowboys Stadium, upside down, covered in HVAC and sensors.
Maybe a couple of sprinklers.
Oh, and paint it a color people won't mind seeing for a couple of centuries.
People love to kick me around for thinking out loud because I'm only a scientist and engineer, but not a nuclear scientist or engineer.
Take some advice from a fellow engineer with a lot of gray hair.
Shit can your ego!!!!!
You sir are a total fracking moron.
My ego or lack thereof has zero to do with anything, and that should be obvious to anyone with one bit of concern for anyone or anything but their own ego.
My statement was an attempt to get people to answer with constructive comments. Did you read that? Thanks a lot for your blatantly unconstructive comments, jerk. Turn on your brain and think about the situation in Japan, not personal trivialities.
Apparently few people care what actually happens. I do.
And in so saying, you prove his point.
Someday learn what constitutes proof, or even evidence.
Why you people don't care what's going on in Japan eludes me.
With enough heat the reactions in the rods could restart spontaneously and release much, much more radiation.
They can't "entomb" anything until they make sure that won't happen - which they can't at this point - and anyone getting near enough to it will be at risk.
Your response was seven paragraphs too long; verbosity can indicate an under-active super-ego.
I've looked at the aproximate layout of the building and I would like to know if the picture I provide below is correct then what does all of what you are talking about"spent fuel rod pond" have to do with the picture. What am I missing cause I don't see any pond or the posibility of correcting cooling.
http://www.tagesschau.sf.tv/var/storage/images/sf/auftritte/tagesschau/b...
Is that #3 reactor building? Yes, I think it probably is.
Probably the steam is coming from what remains of the "spent fuel rod pond".
Unfortunately I can't tell what percentage of the building has been blown away. If the top of that white piece was the top of the building, then the base of the white steam and smoke is just about at the height where the pond should be (assuming the pond is on this side of the building).
However, that is one sturdy freaking steel structure lying on its side in that building! I'm trying to imagine what that could be other than the framework for the secondary containment vessel for the reactor!
I do not understand how a hydrogen explosion would be powerful enough to completely denude that secondary vessel of the concrete that steel framework would be imbedded in and knock it over like that. But there it is, lying in front of our eyes... IF... that is indeed the framework of the secondary vessel. Let's hope not!
So I have two thoughts but not answers to your questions.
If the explosion was too powerful, which visual evidence indicates it might have been, probably the entire structure of the pond was destroyed, and the rods are just lying on the ground in the building.
If that framework is something else, and the pond structure was not completely destroyed, the steam seems to be coming from where I would expect the pond to be.
However, given the obvious power of the explosion that destroyed that building, we must wonder whether anything even remotely like a pond structure still exists. What I mean is, even if the rods are somehow still secured where they were, if the "tub" of the pond is significantly damaged, it will not hold water. And if the pond will not hold water, the rods cannot be adequately cooled.
They may need radiation resistant avatar robots to go into that building and build some kind of makeshift pond on the "ground floor" (whatever that means as this point), or else repair the existing pond walls, so they can surround those rods with water (or probably at this point sand would be much better). Nobody has mentioned avatar robots, and nothing adequate may be available at this time (though some kinds of avatar robots do exist).
Unfortunately, this new evidence makes the difficulty look much greater than reports implied. This simply re-inforces the difficulty of making these kinds of facilities safe. When people cannot physically go in to take actions, the number of recourses drops drastically.
Thanks for the photo. I appreciate this information (new to me).
I look at entombment as a multi phase project. It has to be encased fully. I visualize an initial above ground cap to allow as a temporary fix to allow workers to get nearer the building and do the tough work-----encase the reactor below ground to prevent leakage into the ground water. They may be able to 'dewater' around the buildings to get down to a certain level and then bore under the existing structure and force concrete underneath. Kinda like building a bridge (pumping concrete underwater). This is going to be time consuming and costly. They will need a buffer zone of several miles and need to constantly monitor this wasteland.
Structural engineers in concert with nuclear experts will have to design the materials to be used and the thicknesses. They say there is 5 to 10 feet of concrete underneath right now. Another 10 feet all the way around?
Cap the above ground exposed material. Check for leaks underneath and patch to allow work. Then encase the entire building underneath and a second cap on top to fully seal. I won't be working there for any price. Its very do-able, hopefully the cracks underneath right now are minimal to facilitate a new encasement.
The above ground only encasement at Chernoybl is a cheap, unreliable fix. Japan is too densly populated and right on the ocean to allow just a cap over the top.
Just heard Rockfellers, Gates and Buffett all in India right now. They knew something by coincidence? I guess there is no falloff in India.
did you know GE's Immelt is there as well... hmm
can you divulge where you found that nugget?
I can't resolve my cognitive-dissonance about this coincidence.
Hmmm...I was wondering why the BSE 30 fell 1.5 percent yesterday.
anyone notice they just did a complete if the article this story links to at the Dailymail. took out references to 'weeping'... no guts
Very detailed briefing on Operation Extension Cord. They are planning to go through buildings 1 and 3 to get to 2. They will then need to test each component and repair as needed. The work "faces a number of problems."
Mentioned levels of 10 to 15 millisieverts by units 1 and 2. Nothing about levels near 3. I think that means you'd get pretty sick within a couple of duty shifts. There have been widely varying reports on the levels in the plant grounds.
They say unit 2 is tricky because the building is still intact, making it harder to cool from outside.
How can this be right? Ok maybe building 1, but building 3 is utterly blown to shit, and radiation levels have got to be high with the upper level (and fuel storage pool) completely exposed.
Well, it IS mass confusion. Here's what the govt reported to NHK earlier:
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters on Friday that the radiation level at the plant's west gate was 271 microsieverts per hour at 7:30 AM.
So you know, maybe. The readings above unit 3 were like a thousand times that high for the helicopter runs. Or so I read.
Very steep gradient if it's not burning/smoking.
Read my message immediately above. If the radiation readings above #3 pool is because they have a load of MOX (7% plutonium) rods in the cooling pond waiting for installation into the reactor, that would explain massively higher radiation.
But that means the disaster to come is much worse than anyone is letting on.
#1 - 10 milliSv
#2 - 15 milliSv
workers exposed to 100 milliSv
i doubt the top numbers are true. If they were workers could spend 67 hours in there with only a mild case of nausea. I think they raised exposure limits to 250 which i'm betting they get in less than 8 hrs. close to any of those plants.
I agree. Up to 10Sv/hr.
see Wikipedia chart
I have been trying to determine whether any of the fuel rods in the cooling pool of reactor #3 were MOX. From what I've heard (conflicting statements), they only started putting MOX (7% plutonium) rods in the reactor last year, so maybe the cooling pool only contains "spent" uranium rods. Yes, some percentage of the uranium in "spent" rods has been converted into plutonium, but it must be far, far less than 7%.
However, I've also heard that sometimes the next batch of fuel rods for the reactor are stored in those cooling ponds, and that the cooling pond hold several if not many reactor loads of rods. Which means, it is possible the now completely exposed [and uncooled] pond near the top of reactor #3 building includes some unspent plutonium rods! That is horrific, if true, given the nature of plutonium.
Have you seen any clarification of these questions?
#4 - 6 were undergoing inspection at the time.
perhaps #1-3 recently went thru their own inspection, which might have impacted what remains in the SFP post inspection.
Which raises a question I've not seen addressed.
What percentage LESS exposure does a human receive when wearing those protection suits?
If 100mSv outside the suit equals 1mSv inside, then work in those buildings may be feasible, especially in quickly rotating shifts.
Also, they need to immediately place lots of cameras so people outside can see what is happening and make wise and efficient scheduling decisions.
The suits don't stop gamma rays, etc., they wear them so that the contaminated dust/particulate matter does not settle on their clothes/skin or get into their lungs.
Yes, but what is the relative danger of each? A microgram of plutonium in your lungs will kill you dead. So keeping those particles off your body is worth a lot. However, too high a dose of neutrons piercing your body is deadly too.
So my question also turns into "how much danger from radiation versus physical micro-particles" AND THEN "how much help from keeping those micro-particles off your body"?
I don't know which aspect is the biggest problem in the environment inside and near those facilities. Do you?
No offence, but I highly recommend that you take a HazWOpER course. (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response).
Edit: You can't adequately protect yourself from gamma and neutron radiation, however there is definitely respiratory protection.
Nothing like people who spew useless nonsense, but won't answer questions.
Those hazmat suits are a joke. I hear they are duct taping the sleeves and collars. LOL. Better have air tanks on. Call NASA and get some real protection. I'm telling you....its going cost 500bil?? to encase these reactors OR 5,000-10,000 causualties doing the work.
That does appear correct. I wonder whether there's enough DRY sand available in Japan to completely cover up those reactor buildings... because something like that may be the only BAD solution (all others being much worse).
The cost of dragging that much material in would be enormous. Maybe only the material within 10 meters or so of the reactors and ponds needs to be dry sand. Maybe the rest can just be local dirt (way cheaper).
Perhaps it's nonsense to you. Clearly you are unfamiliar with decontamination procedures, hot zones, exclusion zones and the like. But then again, I try not to engage in long-winded, multi-paragraph generalizations about things that I know absolutely nothing about.
Why do people pretend they're stupid?
Obviously the course is not nonsense... for people it is appropriate for.
What is nonsense is to suggest someone take a long, involved, expensive course when all they want or need is a simple answer to a few questions.
Why not try to be helpful, rather than adversarial for no purpose?
At least the Japanese government is admiting there's a coverup and officially acknowledging its own failures. Our government's still remarkably mum about the events of 9-11 and of course no one in the FBI has been demoted or fired for ignoring warning from the Minneapolis field office about hijackers. We have the ATF's brilliant Phoenix field office which literally decided to sell thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
It doesn't matter what happens as long as someone answers for what's been done. The mark of good government isn't avoiding mistakes, it's being accountable for what has or hasn't been done.
I wonder if it will work at all connecting the power line. In fact I don't think it will work. There is to much damage (just look at the building, and they expect relays and wiring to still be intact). And another thing, by applying electricity, who's to say that an open contact or frayed line in the building might ignite pockets of hydrogen. This won't work and I think they know it because of the slow time it's taking putting this power line into the plant.
You guys are so quick to criticize, but if your nuclear reactor blew up you'd probably cry too.
Only if it wasn't adequately insured, it hadn't outlived its full depreciation schedule, if I could not pass along a rate increase to the customers for its replacement, and finally if I could not lay it off on my government because I am too big to fail.
That is why you will never see an executive of an American utility (or any major corporation for that matter) cry over such a trivial thing.
+10^9
Traveling right now ... found out today listening to the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists) that their information shows that there is no MOX in the Spent Fuel Pool (SFP). This is a good thing if there data is correct and true.
It does not solve any issues with radiation plumes and plutonium release from the cores, it does however slightly reduce the severity of the SFP fires (slightly).
http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear?utm_source=SP&utm_medium=more&utm_campaign=sp-nuke-more-3%2F13%2F2011-pm
BTFD (D=disease)
NaturalNews) Largely absent from most mainstream media reports on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is the fact that a highly-dangerous "mixed-oxide" (MOX) fuel in present in six percent of the fuel rods at the plant's Unit 3 reactor. Why is MOX a big deal? According to the Nuclear Information Resource Center (NIRS), this plutonium-uranium fuel mixture is far more dangerous than typical enriched uranium -- a single milligram (mg) of MOX is as deadly as 2,000,000 mg of normal enriched uranium.
On March 14, Unit 3 of the Fukushima reactor exploded, sending a huge smoke plume into the air. This particular reactor, of course, contains the rods fueled with MOX. You can watch a clip of that explosion here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_N-...
If even a couple milligrams of MOX were released during this explosion -- or if other explosions at the plant inflict any damage on the MOX-filled rods -- then the consequences could be exponentially more devastating than the mere leakage of enriched uranium. And since nobody knows for sure exactly which rods have been damaged, and whether or not the situation can actually be contained, it is only a matter of time before the world finds out for sure.
An exact quote from the report reads:
"In the event of such accidents (involving the accidental release of MOX), if the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) recommendations for general public exposure were adhered to, only about one mg of plutonium may be released from a MOX facility to the environment. As a comparison, in [sic] uranium fabrication facility, 2kg (2,000,000 mg) of uranium could be released in the same radiation exposure."
A simple calculation reveals that one mg of MOX is basically two million times more powerful than one mg of uranium. This is clearly not a good thing when the plutonium-containing fuel rods in Fukushima may be damaged from the recent explosions and leaking into the environment.
A recent National Public Radio (NPR) piece explains that the half-life of plutonium-239, a component of MOX, is an astounding 24,000 years. The same piece explains that if even a small amount of this potent substance escapes from the plant in a smoke plume, the particles will travel with the wind and contaminate soil for tens of thousands of years (http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/13460...).
Amazingly, most mainstream reports that mention MOX discount it as a non-threat. But the truth of the matter is that the threat posed by MOX is very serious. The NIRS report explains that inhalation of MOX radioactive material is significantly more dangerous than inhalation of normal uranium radioactive particles. You can read the entire MOX report for yourself here:
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/469-47...
Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/031736_plutonium_enriched_uranium.html#ixzz1Gymg9M6O
At least this guy has a conscience. This was out of his control. The bankers have destroyed families and caused countless death and suffering. Never saw a sincere apology from one of them. It was only to save face. Otherwise bonuses would not be an issue
This is a crisis because greedy TEPCO wanting to "save" the plant, they can pour 1000 tons of arena and concrete and solve the radiation issue 100% making a new pretty knoll and a park on the top.
I do not see a much more of nuclear problem but the stupid guy that does not want to bury this sh@t in sand.
The entire reactor will have to be encapsulated.....including underneath. It will take several phases. 5-10 mile radius will have to be annexed as a buffer zone. Will take several years to do properly. Loss of plant = big $$. Encapsulating = bigger $$.
This has to be done right and will always leave Japan vulnerable to a military strike at this location....let alone the constant reminder of several miles of wasteland.
Thats why they are being allowed to piss into the wind. To make the inevitavble more pallatable.
+1
Very interesting, thanks for enriching this tread.
Think of the BP disaster. Although not as severe to human life, I did not see any real emotion from the BP officials or the Obama administration who covered stuff up. Even in the settlements they were trying to close the settlement down before the extent of the damage is even known
Appropriate Response
(in Haiku)
First, apology.Second, slow jig-jag of sword.
Third, friend cuts off head.
maybe they can fill
those cooling ponds ....
with tears
Wow, a government official showing remorse, empthay, regret, and human emotions. We should import some of those from Japan to this country.
Didn't see Lloyd crying.
Sorry,
You are all wrong.
He is crying because the Chef told him the there was no Shark's Fin soup today.
He doesn't give a shit.
He is not unlike Qaddafi.
INSPIRE
I'm not wrong. I think he should be crucified within view of number 3.
Dude is sporting a comb-over. That makes him suspect. People who can fool themselves by hiding a bald spot with a comb-over - 'look, I'm no longer bald!' - can fool themselves into hiding problems of larger magnitude.
Beware The Comb-over Man.
He had one of those cute P-cutter looking blue hats but the fallout vaporized it!
EMPATHY plus ETHICAL INTENT equals: PEACE IN YOUR SOUL
Doom on there was Plutonium in all six reactors!
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8518753-doom-in-japan-plutonium-in-all-six-reactors
allvoices.com is the one doomed ...
This is going to sound ridiculous but I see no other option:
They need to build somekind of wall around that plant wether it be with inflatedable material, concrete, whatever, and fill it with water; then concrete. Obviously this would be an incredible engineering feat and many would certainly die.
I don't see any other alternative.
I've been thinking the same thing,poli-foam,lot's of it
As a start,ofcourse.and how about jig-rigging some lead-lined sheet-rock on the face of the water-cannon's ? To stop the radiation,create a sort of shadow-space. Not a perfect solution,but a start. It will still be an unhappy ending