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Update on the Japanese Nuclear Crisis: Not a Pretty Picture
Experts have long said that Tepco's projections for containing the
nuclear crisis this year were unrealistic. Now, even Tepco is admitting
that things won't be stabilized this year. As Kyodo News reports:
Stabilizing
the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant by the end of the year
may be impossible, senior officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co. said
Sunday, throwing a monkey wrench into plans to let evacuees return to
their homes near the plant.
***
On
May 12, it was confirmed that a meltdown had occurred at the No. 1
reactor, forcing the utility to abandon the water entombment idea and
try to install a new cooling system that decontaminates and recycles
the radioactive water flooding the reactor's turbine building instead.
Given that the contaminated water has leaked
from the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel, a Tepco official said,
"We must first determine where it is leaking and seal it."
The official added, "Unless we understand the extent of the damage, we don't even know how long that work alone would take," noting the need for one or two months more than previously thought to establish an entirely new cooling system.
In other words, Tepco has no idea how long it will take to contain the leaking reactors.
As
has been obvious from the start, Tepco has also covered up vital
information. Now, even the Japanese government is lambasting Tepco for
its secrecy. As Kyodo News notes:
Tokyo
Electric Power Co. did not fully disclose radiation monitoring data
after its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was crippled by the March 11
earthquake and tsunami, the government revealed Friday. Chief Cabinet
Secretary Yukio Edano, after being informed by Goshi Hosono, a special
adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told reporters that he instructed
Tepco to sort out the data, make it public and make doubly sure no more
information-withholding occurs.
Coming a day
after he blasted Tepco's flip-flop over the injection of seawater into
the plant's reactor 1, Edano said the government "cannot respond to
this matter on the premise" that no more undisclosed information will
emerge.
"There is a distinct possibility that
there is still more," he said, urging Tepco to accurately and swiftly
report the truth to the government.
Hosono also noted Tepco's delay in revealing this fact, 2? months after the nuclear crisis started.
The government will look into how this happened, the two officials said.
You've already heard that 3 of the Fukushima reactors melted down within hours of the earthquake.
Yomiuri Daily reports today that not only the pressure vessels (the innermost barrier) but also the containment vessels (the outer barrier) of reactors 1 and 3 were also damaged within hours of the quake:
Not
only the pressure vessels, but the containment vessels of the Nos. 1
to 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were probably
damaged within 24 hours of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami,
according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s analysis of the nuclear crisis.
As I previously noted,
the IAEA knew within weeks that there had been meltdowns at Fukushima.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew as well. As Kyodo News reports (scroll down to second story):
A
senior nuclear regulatory official in the United States said Thursday
he believed there was a "strong likelihood" of serious core damage and
core melt at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in the days immediately
after the crisis began.
"There were numerous
indications of high radiation levels that can only come from damaged
fuel at those kinds of levels," said Bill Borchardt, executive director
for operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "So we felt pretty confident that there was significant fuel damage at the site a few days into the event."
The
NRC also had "suspicions" about the conditions of the spent fuel
pools, Borchardt said after a speech at the Japan Society in New York.
Based
on that assumption, he said, the NRC recommended that U.S. residents
in Japan stay 80 km away from the crippled power plant, which was far
beyond the Japanese government's recommendation for residents within a
20-km radius to evacuate.
While
most of the problems have been at reactors 1, 2 and 3 (which were all
operating when the earthquake hit) and reactor 4 (where spent fuel rods
have been leaking), there have also been problems at reactor number 5 as
well. Specifically, as NHK writes:
The
operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says
temperatures in the Number 5 reactor and its spent fuel storage pool
have risen due to pump failure. The reactor has been in a state of cold
shutdown.Tokyo Electric Power Company says it found at 9 PM on
Saturday that a pump bringing seawater to cooling equipment for the
reactor and pool had stopped working.TEPCO says temperatures have been rising since then.
To make matters worse, Typhoon Songda has brought heavy rains to Fukushima. As Al Jazeera notes:
The
typhoon has already brought heavy rain to the Fukushima region and
there is still more to come. This has prompted worries that runoff
water may wash away radioactive materials from the land into the
Pacific Ocean.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company
(TEPCO) has been pouring synthetic resins over the complex in an
attempt to stabilise the plant. More work needs to be done, not just
now but also to ensure that future typhoons would not spread
radioactive materials into the environment.
As Raw Story reported:
Officials
from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are apologizing in
advance for the fact that the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant is not
ready for the high winds and heavy rain of Typhoon Songda, a massive
storm that could make landfall in Japan as early as Monday.The
BBC quotes a TEPCO official as saying, "We have made utmost efforts, but
we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings. We
apologize for the lack of significant measures against wind and rain."
Buildings
housing the plant's nuclear reactors are still standing open in the
wake of crippling hydrogen explosions that followed Japan's March 11
earthquake and tsunami. The approaching storm could scatter highly
radioactive materials into the air and sea. Plant operators are
currently spreading "anti-scattering agents" around the buildings
housing reactors one and four.
As I've predicted for a long time, the Fukushima disaster could end up being much worse than Chernobyl. See this, this, this and this.
Mainichi (and Japan Times) report:
Radiation released by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has caused soil contamination matching the levels seen in the Chernobyl disaster in some areas, a researcher told the government's nuclear policy-setting body Tuesday.
***
The
size of the contaminated areas in the Fukushima crisis is one-tenth to
one-fifth of those polluted in the Chernobyl disaster, Kawata said.
It's not just the soil, it's also the seafloor. NHK notes that radiation has been found in the entire 300 kilometer (186 mile) region of the coast tested near Fukushima.
And Harvey Wasserman notes that there may have been 10 times more radiation released into the ocean than by Chernobyl:
New
readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers
offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than
those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl."When
it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer
at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "the impact of Fukushima
exceeds Chernobyl."
***
For all the focus on land-based
contamination, the continuing flood of radioactive materials into the
ocean at Fukushima could have the most problematic long-term impacts.
Long-term studies of radiological impacts on the seas are few and far
between. Though some heavy isotopes may drop to the sea bottom, others
could travel long distances through their lengthy half-lives. Some
also worry that those contaminants that do fall to the bottom could be
washed back on land by future tsunamis.***
"After Chernobyl, fallout was measured," says Buesseler, "from as far afield as the north Pacific Ocean."
A
quarter-century later the international community is still trying to
install a massive, hugely expensive containment structure to suppress
further radiation releases in the wake of Chernobyl's explosion.Such
a containment would be extremely difficult to sustain at seaside
Fukushima, which is still vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. To be
of any real use, all six reactors and all seven spent fuel pools would
have to be covered.But avenues to the sea would also have to
be contained. Fukushima is much closer to the ocean than Chernobyl, so
more intense contamination might be expected. But the high radiation
levels being measured indicate Fukushima's most important impacts may
be on marine life.The US has ceased measuring contamination in
Pacific seafood. But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive
materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the
creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them.
To add insult to injury, Zero Hedge notes that oil is also spilling into the ocean near Fukushima:
Just because mega-radioactive water leakage was not enough. From Xinhua:
"Operator of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant found
that oil has been leaking into the sea close to the facility, the Kyodo
News reported Tuesday. The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)
said the oil leaks were possibly from nearby oil tanks that may have
been damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami, and it would set up
oil fences to prevent the liquid from pouring into the Pacific Ocean."
Oh, but they only discovered this now? Odd how it took nearly 3 months
for those oil tanks to rupture and start spilling into the water.
Update: While an explosion occurred near reactor 4 today, that appears to be the least of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear complex.
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This accident may ultimately qualify as an Extinction Level Event. If the main island of Japan is forced to be evacuated, who remains behind to operate and maintain the other reactor sites?
The Earth is going through some major changes. Seismic activity along with the number of dormant volcanoes that have been waking up over the past few years is also increasing. Severe weather phenomena is beginning to become much more frequent, with record flooding occurring around the world.
These may in fact be the "End Times".
Edit: This guy is sourcing GLP, so take it with a large grain of salt. A very frightening scenario if any of it is valid information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoprTUc8r6g&NR=1
Wonder if anybody has been preparing for the inevitable unplugging of Japan as the worlds third largest economy?
Guess just me. Well, i guess they could turn radiation into an export maybe? US exports inflation, Japan exports radiation,
problem solved. Let 'er go.
You're not the only one. The decline in Japan's participation in the global economy, added to the inevitable sales of US dollar denominated assets will likely be the trigger initiating the collapse of all the other global imbalances.
Japan's problems are just beginning and the whole industrialized world will feel them before it's over.
We're about to re-discover community. Get to know your neighbors now because you're going to desperately need the ones that don't try to kill you. And you should be getting an idea which is which right now.
Good luck with that--you never know who is who until the shit hits the fan. Never. Look at how many times you've been right v wrong and you'll see it was just luck.
I like how they are still using the term "crippled" instead of outright paralyzed.
I like how they are still using the term "crippled" ...
I think they should be sued for using hate language.
Appeals to that rooting for the underdog empathetic response in us all. Makes it seem as though in the era of modern pseudoscience that there might be a cure, that things are just not quite as bad as they seem, maybe hope for changie thingie sorta miraculous revelations appear (sorry, couldn't help it) accompanied by blazing lights from on high, the clouds parting, voices of millions in harmony singing Kumbaya or some such shit, mystical experiences and good feelins abound. When in reality, all the opossums have already died.
Perceptions management.
Makes me feel better already.
(happy face)
They are escaping. Not one, but 3. That's where all the radio active particles are coming from.
This disaster has been one massive and coordinated cover-up. The U.S. government media is complicit as well. God forbid the public hears the truth about what used to be refered to as "electricity too cheap to meter".
We are all going to be poisoned at some level or another by this fucking smoking heap of plutonium and uranium. It is melting slowly through the secondary containment concrete floor, where it will fall in to the basement, then melt through to the bedrock. God help us if this molten shit hits the water table, or melts at an angle and pops out in the ocean.
Don't forget the media.
How many corporations own the entire US media at this point? Is it as few as 9? I remember 23 years ago a statistic from the movie "Manufacturing Consent." It was something like "75% of all US media is owned by 15 corporations."
Back then, there was still some actual news that would penetrate the Matrix once in awhile. The media still had teeth.
But there just isn't that much coming out of the (mainstream) media on this topic, or any other.
you hit it fiat.
only 6 media corps control all. full details:
http://www.pjresearch.com/why-nobody-trusts-the-mainstream-media
Fukushima - the story our grandchildren's grandchildren will still be reading about.
your assuming our grandchildren's children will be fertile...
Japan is fucked. If one of those cores escapes the last failsafe on which it sits, we're all fucked.
Bullish.
What is the necessary next, the absolute execution of every corporate officer in the world??
Milestones
Eventually, all positions will be eliminated, as in the perfect corporate paradigm. In the end there can only be one owner of all things, all competition eliminated, and this "worldwide CEO" must then kill himself in order to maximize corporate profits to 100% by eliminating himself, the only remaining labor cost.
Suppuku, the only fitting end to all of them.
"seppuku"
ten thousand holes
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7964
The good news out of all of this is that if aliens are pointing their telescopes at earth, for about 12 hours each earth day, they'll get to see some bright glow in the gamma ray section of their astro telescope. (sarcasm)
Here is how you can see the gamma ray from contamination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Q7VfWdgEg