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Fukushima

Chernobyl clean up still a work in progress, 25 years later! Nuke disasters never end!

Japanese media recently listened intently to officials describing their plans to deal with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.  If the Japanese are expecting a specific time line, they shouldn’t hold their breath.  Clean up of the Chernobyl nuke plant, in Ukraine, is still ongoing, 25 years later.

The current phase of clean up, for Chernobyl, involves building a new radiation proof containment building for the damaged reactor.   The graphite fueled reactor is still emitting high levels of radiation.

In 1986 the Soviets (Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union then) buried the reactor in sand, lead, concrete and boric acid.  Then they built a concrete tomb around the building.   But that’s not enough, over time the tomb is breaking down.

The new containment building is an 18,000 ton metal arch, 110 meters (360 feet) high, 200 meters (656 feet) long and 257 meters (843 feet) wide.  They have recently laid the concrete pad for the building, it’s more than one meter (3.2 feet) thick.

The lesson is that when you’re dealing with a nuclear disaster, it’s never ending.

 

Fukushima

What really matters is how long you’re exposed to Radiation, one Japanese town hit with 17,000 millisieverts!

Cumulative exposure to radiation is a real killer.  The Japanese town of Namie has a cumulative (build up over time) of radiation at 17,000 millisieverts.

The official acceptable exposure rate, for people in Japan, is 1,000 microsieverts, per year.  A millisievert is 1,000 times more than a microsievert, and Namie has hit 17,000 millisieverts since the reactor buildings exploded, in about four weeks.

Cumulative exposure refers to how many times you’ve been exposed to radiation, or, how long you are continuously exposed.  Certain radioactive isotopes build up in your body over time, they don’t go away, so the more times you’re exposed the worse it is.

Fukushima

Smoke from Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear complex

More problems for Tokyo Electric Power Company.  Another one of their nuke plants, in Niigata Prefecture, started smoking.  The smoke came from a control panel.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant is located on the west side of Honshu, opposite where the 11 March 2011, 9.0 quake hit.

TEPCo officials say the control panel started smoking when they were checking water purification equipment.  At this point, they don’t know why.

Fukushima

U.S. offers Unmanned Helicopter to remove Nuclear Fuel Rods

The K-Max has been offered to help remove spent fuel rods from damaged fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.  The helicopter is remote controlled.

The helicopter will help set up large cranes, that will be used to remove the fuel rods.

The offer was made by Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, in late March.

Fukushima, Technology

Germany will dump nuke plants ASAP

The German government announced that they will end the use of nuclear power plants as soon as possible.

Germany is prepared to spend the money necessary to make renewable clean energy sources their main power supply by 2020.  Germany will keep its coal and natural gas fire electrical plants in operation.

Fukushima, Technology

Geiger Counters don’t work on Food!

“Just pointing a measuring device at your food before dinner is pretty much meaningless.”-Katayama Atsushi, Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.

The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry says you should use scintillation counters to detect iodine-131 in milk and vegetables.  Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers should be used to trace uranium.  Nitric acid and dehydrated samples are turned to ash over a 24-hour period in temperatures exceeding 400 degrees Celsius, in order to detect strontium.

“Just to know what the radiation levels are in your home, it’s relatively straightforward, but when you get to measuring it in food, milk and soil it gets much more complicated.”-Joseph Rotunda, Thermo Fisher Scientific

You could spend $400.00 on a Geiger counter just to measure radiation in and around your home, but lots of things can affect the reading.  Things like concrete walls and driveways, granite counter tops and even cell phones.

To save some money, if you don’t think it’s safe to eat, don’t eat it.

Fukushima

Toyota to halve production in Japan

“As (Toyota) continues to address its production situation in Japan following the disaster, it has decided that vehicle production from May 10 to June 3 will proceed at approximately 50 percent of normal.”-company statement

Basically the situation for “key component suppliers” (parts makers) is still too unreliable to resume full production.

Toyota says it will continue to evaluate the situation, and make the necessary adjustments to production.

Fukushima

Japanese public transport employees caught not paying for tickets

8 employees were fired, and 25 had their pay cut by 30%, for not paying for tickets on their own monorail service.

JR East Tokyo Monorail, says most of the employees were in management positions.  They would board the train for work, swipe their pay cards, then once at work, would use the company computers to delete the charge.

One employee almost got away with 590,000 yen worth of fares.  Unpaid fares have cost JR East over 1.2 million yen.

Fukushima

TEPCo swimming against a current of contaminated water. Radiation levels at Max!

Tokyo Electric Power Company can not keep up with the amount of contaminated water coming from their Fukushima Daiichi reactors.  So far they’ve removed 660 tons of water, but the reactors and fuel pools hold more than 80,000 tons combined, and the water continues to pour out.

Water levels in the tunnel connected to Reactor 2 has risen to a point higher than before they started removing the water.  They still aren’t sure where the water is coming from, but suspect damaged reactor vessels.

On top of that they’re now saying the radiation levels in the contaminated water are maxed out (they used a term similar to that).  As of 15 April, the radiation levels in the leaked water are now 38 times what they were last week.  TEPCo also thinks the contamination is getting into the groundwater, not just the Pacific Ocean.

It turns out that TEPCo was testing radiation levels, in the leaked water, only once per week!  They say they will now test three times per week.

The high radiation indicates that not only could reactor vessels be damaged, but fuel rods have melted.

TEPCo says they won’t be able to transfer recovered water, to a waste plant, until the end of next week.

 

Fukushima

Atlantis Syndrome: Officials confirm land sunk after 9.0 quake

The Geographical Survey Institute surveyed 28 benchmarks in three prefectures, hit by the 11 March earthquake.

They confirmed that the land has dropped as much as 84cm (33 inches, just under 3 feet).

The land sunk in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures.  They are now dealing with high tide flooding caused by the loss of their sea walls, and their sunken land.