Fukushima The Truth Behind the Chain of Meltdowns NHK Documentary

Insight - Fukushima water tanks: leaky and built with illegal labor

As has been reported earlier - the water storage tanks at the Fukushima site were shoddily built using labor teams that were questionable.

Storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear plant like one that spilled almost 80,000 gallons of radioactive water this year were built in part by workers illegally hired in one of the poorest corners of Japan, say labor regulators and some of those involved in the work.

These bolted-style storage tanks, each as tall as a 3-storey building, were intended to last only until 2016, giving Tepco time to have a purification system in place so contaminated water could be cleansed and safely discharged.

In August, one of the tanks was discovered to have leaked about 300 tons of water, raising global alarm over Japan's handling of the crisis and prompting the government to order that the makeshift, bolted tanks like those assembled by the Okinawa crew be replaced by sturdier, welded tanks.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/us-japan-nuclear-fukushima-labour-insigh-idUSBRE9B415P20131205

Rice From Inside Fukushima 30-Kilometer Zone Delivered to Emperor

Rice from Hirono, Fukushima prefecture, will be served at dining halls and imperial residences.

As requested by Japanese Emperor Akihito, some of the first rice harvested in Fukushima prefecture since the March 11, 2011 disaster and subsequent nuclear meltdown has been delivered to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The Imperial Household Agency confirmed that 120 kilograms of Koshihikari premium rice from the town of Hirono arrived on Tuesday.

Hirono, a seaside municipality of less than 6,000 people, is located just 20 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The town was included in the emergency evacuation zone after the earthquake and tsunami that created one of the world’s most severe nuclear disasters. Public health concerns about irradiated Fukushima produce have devastated the livelihoods of local residents.

While that's nice that the Emperor is voting with his health, in actuality Hirono is south of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  Most of the radiation released from the power plant went in a north-westerly direction.  While Hirono was within the evacuation zone, it did not receive much radiation.

In other words the Emperor is not taking much of a risk, but it's a nice symbolic gesture.

Fukushima radioactive water decontamination delayed by hydrochloric acid leak

Water storage tanks at Fukushima

The trouble-prone water decontamination system at TEPCO's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant sprang a hydrochloric acid leak and had to be shut down on Sunday. The acid is used to neutralize alkaline water used in decontaminating the radioactive water that cools the damaged nuclear reactor piles. While only a tiny amount of acid leaked, it forced the shutdown of a system that was to have played a crucial role in the Fukushima site cleanup.

The Fukushima nuclear reactors were damaged and had nuclear meltdowns following a massive earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011. The damage is so extensive that the normal cooling systems aren't functioning, and TEPCO is having to pour massive quantities of water onto the nuclear piles to cool them down.

In an inspection of the Advanced Liquid Processing System, TEPCO engineers found Hydrochloric acid leaking from a pipe joint. They surrounded it with a plastic bag, which has collected only 1 liter of acid.

This system was in trial operation, and has been expected to play a crucial role in treating contaminated water at the Fukushima site. The system was due to have gone into full operation on Sunday.

In late September, plastic padding was found clogging pipes in the same system. In October, it had to be shut down due to a programming mistake.

TEPCO is facing a huge task, with storing hugely massive quantities of water that had been used to cool the nuclear pile. That radioactive water cannot be released, and given the massive amounts of water required to keep the nuclear piles cool, TEPCO has built a huge array of storage tanks. However the problem is not scalable due to the number of years that will be required to cool the nuclear piles, hence the amount of water and storage tanks that will be required. Any kind of water decontamination system will alleviate the need for on-site water storage.

Source: theaustralian.com.au - phys.org

Originally published: http://www.examiner.com/article/fukushima-radioactive-water-decontamination-delayed-by-hydrochloric-acid-leak

True facts about Ocean Radiation and the Fukushima Disaster

This piece, on deepseanews.com, was written by an Oceanographer, and is a debunking of fears around the radiation risks.  The bottom line is - Dilution means that by the time radioactive seawater makes it to the US West Coast, it'll be so far diluted to be barely an effect.

It claims 538,100 terabecquerels (TBq) have been emitted from Fukushima, making it worse than Three-Mile-Island, and less than Chernobyl.

The writer goes over several Maps of Doom that have been bandied around on various blog posts, two of which are completely useless.  This one was described as being a Map of Terror, but at least it shows what the colors mean:

The red shows areas where the radiation concentration is 10,000 times less than the concentration near Fukushima, and the band further out near the US West Coast is 1 million times less concentrated.

The prediction from models are that the Hawaiian Islands will see concentrations of 30 Bq / Cubic-Meter of seawater, and on the US West Coast the concentration will be 20 Bq or less.  (Bq == Becquerels)

I could write a small novel explaining why the numbers differ between the models. For those that love the details, here’s a laundry list of those differences: the amount of radiation initially injected into the ocean, the length of time it took to inject the radiation (slowly seeping or one big dump), the physics embedded in the model, the background ocean state, the number of 20-count shrimp per square mile (Just kidding!), atmospheric forcing, inter-annual and multi-decadal variability and even whether atmospheric deposition was incorporated into the model.

To put the numbers into context they provide this map, coming from the Woods Hole Oceonographic Institute (http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=83397&tid=3622&cid=94989):

It shows the Pacific Ocean concentration of Cs 137 in 1990 was 4 Bq / cubic meter.  That makes the new concentration, thanks to Fukushima, about 10x the 1990 concentration.  The amount measured in 1990 would have been leftover from the Atomic Bomb testing in the Pacific occurring during the 1950's.

The writer of the piece concludes that it'll be safe to eat the fish and to swim in the ocean.

As for leaking groundwater - 300 tonnes per day leaking into the ocean - is that a concern?  It means the radiation won't be a one-time release, but is being released over time.  However the bulk of the release occurred early on.  

Most of what's being released now is Tritium and Strontium.  Strontium is a concern because it collects in bones, hence the risk is from eating fish that have bones in them.  However, the Strontium risk is only for such fish caught near the Japanese coast.

Source: http://deepseanews.com/2013/11/true-facts-about-ocean-radiation-and-the-fukushima-disaster/

NRC documents show all nuclear material had been released from Fukushima reactors - or maybe not

A newly released document from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a transcript dated March 16, 2011 concerning phone calls between US Officials who were dealing with the Fukushima crisis.  I've uploaded a copy to my Google Drive account in case the original copy on the NRC website is mysteriously removed.  My source of knowing about this comes from Michael Ruppert, in Facebook posts that I've embedded below.

A transcript of a critical part is here: NRC Transcript – TEPCO relayed information Unit 4 SFP Dry – Walls collapsed and incapable of holding inventory – Unit 3 “everything else gone” 

My reading of the transcript sounds like the speakers were in a state of confusion and dealing with conflicting evidence.  However, it clearly says that at that moment they believed the spent fuel pools in reactors 2, 3 and 4 were completely emptied, and perhaps unit 1 as well, meaning that there was a complete release of all nuclear material from both spent fuel pools.  In each case the spent fuel pools had a huge amount of highly toxic stuff in them.

According to fukuleaks.org the transcript was one of a group of transcripts released by the NRC in February 2012.

Enformable Nuclear News has a complete list of FOIA Documents Related to Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 4

A blog post from that time period discussing the documents says 

The transcripts document two things that this blog, and others, reported months ago.  First, the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Reactor #4 was never empty of water.  Second, remote sensing platforms, both aerial and in low earth orbit, were able to establish the status of the pool and that it had water in it.

If the pool had been empty of water, the infra red heat signature of the pool would have been a white hot spot visible even in the surrounding wreckage caused by a hydrogen explosion.  The Japanese government has declined to reveal their low earth orbit remote sensing data about Fukushima citing national security reasons.

He went on to connect the transcripts with the 50 mile exclusion zone ordered for all American Citizens, prohibiting approach by Americans to the reactor site.  With the documents it's clear the NRC made this order in reaction to reports that "the spent fuel pool at reactor #4 had lost all of its water and was spewing huge amounts of radiation as a result."  It's that part of the transcript that Ruppert is focusing on.  However, it's clear later in the transcripts, according to this report, that "NRC transcripts report that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew over the reactor persuading NRC executive Chuck Casto, who was the NRC's man in Tokyo, that there was after all some water in the pool."

A Washington Post news report from Feb 2012 agrees with that blog post:

The transcripts also include lengthy discussions justifying NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko’s controversial decision to urge Americans within a 50-mile radius of the Japanese nuclear plant to evacuate. They show that the decision was based in part on an assessment, now thought to be false, that one of the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools was dry and that its walls had, in the words of one official, “crumbled,”

A NY Times news report on the documents also focus on the confusion apparent in them.

The issue of water in the spent fuel pond is important because "If the pool had been empty of water, the infra red heat signature of the pool would have been a white hot spot visible even in the surrounding wreckage caused by a hydrogen explosion."  Further emptied fuel ponds would indicate the nuclear material had been released into the wild.

That's ultimately what we're all concerned about - how much of the nuclear material has been released, and just how big is the problem we're all facing?

Post by Michael C. Ruppert.

Post by Michael C. Ruppert.

Robot detects locations of radioactive leaks at crippled Fukushima nuclear plant

TEPCO is using a robot to traverse the Unit #1 reactor looking for leaks.  It has found its first leak, close to the lower part of the Reactor 1 containment vessel at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi on Wednesday. 

The camera spotted two leaks from the reactor into the containment building.

Radiation levels near the leaks were measured at  0.9 to 1.8 sieverts an hour - whereas a typical release of radiation is generally accepted to be 1 millisievert a year.  In other words the radiation level is off the charts compared to normal radiation releases.  However that radiation release is occurring inside the containment building.

However it's demonstrating that the containment vessel is cracked - which is to be expected.

Source: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20131114/k10013066251000.html
Source: http://rt.com/news/fukushima-robot-detect-radiation-729/

Fukushima water storage tanks flawed, workers say

According to quotes from workers who had built the water storage tanks at the Fukushima plant - the storage tank construction was slipshod.  They hired workers who weren't construction workers - they hired people like bus drivers. 

“I must say our tank assembly was slipshod work. I’m sure that’s why tanks are leaking already,” Uechi, 48, told The Associated Press from his hometown on Okinawa. “I feel nervous every time an earthquake shakes the area.”

“We were in an emergency and just had to build as many tanks as quickly as possible, and their quality is at bare minimum,” said Teruaki Kobayashi, an official in charge of facility control for the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Leaks and other flaws found in several tanks have raised concerns about further and more damaging failures, particularly if another big earthquake, tsunami or typhoon hits. The plant suffered a triple meltdown after Japan’s devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The plant has more than 1,000 tanks and other containers storing 370,000 tons of partially treated but still highly contaminated water. About one-third of the containers are easy-to-assemble steel tanks with rubber-sponge seams tightened with bolts; they were always considered a stopgap measure. The other tanks are considered sturdier.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/fukushima-water-storage-tanks-flawed-workers-say

Big quake near Fukushima would ‘decimate Japan, lead to US West Coast evacuation’

Speaking at a symposium on water ecology at the University of Alberta in Canada, prominent Japanese-Canadian scientist David Suzuki said that the Japanese government had been “lying through its teeth” about the true extent of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

“Fukushima is the most terrifying situation that I can imagine,” Suzuki said, adding that another earthquake could trigger a potentially catastrophic, nuclear disaster.

“The fourth [reactor] has been so badly damaged that the fear is if there’s another earthquake of a 7 or above then that building will go and all hell breaks loose,” he said, adding that the chances of an earthquake measuring 7 or above in Japan over the next three years were over 95 percent.

“If the fourth [reactor] goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,” Suzuki said. 

Multi-decadal projections of surface and interior pathways of the Fukushima Cesium-137 radioactive plume

Highlights

• Cs-137 plume strongly diluted by July 2011, reaches American coast by 2014.
• Mode water formation and persistent upwelling affect Cs-137 concentrations.
• Cs-137 enters the deep ocean and exits the North Pacific in the next 30 years.
• Sensitivity to uncertainties in the source function and to interannual variability.

Abstract

Following the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, large amounts of water contaminated with radionuclides, including Cesium-137, were released into the Pacific Ocean. With a half-life of 30.1 years, Cs-137 has the potential to travel large distances within the ocean. Using an ensemble of regional eddy-resolving simulations, this study investigates the long-term ventilation pathways of the leaked Cs-137 in the North Pacific Ocean. The simulations suggest that the contaminated plume would have been rapidly diluted below 10,000 Bq/m³ by the energetic Kuroshio Current and Kurushio Extension by July 2011. Based on our source function of 22 Bq/m³, which sits at the upper range of the published estimates, waters with Cs-137 concentrations >10 Bq/m³ are projected to reach the northwestern American coast and the Hawaiian archipelago by early 2014. Driven by quasi-zonal oceanic jets, shelf waters north of 45°N experience Cs-137 levels of 10–30 Bq/m³ between 2014 and 2020, while the Californian coast is projected to see lower concentrations (10–20 Bq/m³) slightly later (2016–2025). This late but prolonged exposure is related to subsurface pathways of mode waters, where Cs-137 is subducted toward the subtropics before being upwelled from deeper sources along the southern Californian coast. The model suggests that Fukushima-derived Cs-137 will penetrate the interior ocean and spread to other oceanic basins over the next two decades and beyond. The sensitivity of our results to uncertainties in the source function and to inter-annual to multi-decadal variability is discussed.

Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant operator says another tank leaked toxic water

(Reuters) - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday another tank holding highly contaminated water overflowed, probably sending the liquid into the Pacific Ocean, in the second such breach in less than two months.

Tepco said the water that leaked contained 200,000 becquerels per liter of beta-emitting radioactive isotopes, including strontium 90. The legal limit for strontium 90 is 30 becquerels per liter.

About 430 liters (113 gallons) of water spilled over a period of as much as 12 hours after a worker misjudged how much could be held by the tank, which is tilting because of an uneven location, Tepco spokesman Masayuki Ono told reporters.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/us-japan-fukushima-water-idUSBRE99200R20131003

Japan must get ready to release Fukushima water into the sea: U.S. adviser

(Reuters) - Japan should begin preparing to release a massive tide of water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, once it regains public trust and can confirm the water has only low levels of radiation, a U.S. adviser to the plant's operator said on Friday.

Lake Barrett, a former head of the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management, spent nearly a decade at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and led the clean-up operations after the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. He has been brought in by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) to advise it on the lengthy decommissioning process at Fukushima.

He said work should begin now to pump groundwater from the plant before it reaches wrecked reactors - a measure that has been stalled by local opposition.

"They should start pumping as soon as practical," said Barrett, adding that groundwater would have to be released into the sea along with water that had been treated to remove most radiation - by a system designed by Toshiba Corp.



The utility is pumping 400 tonnes of highly radioactive water out of the reactor buildings' wrecked basements every day, treating it to remove most radiation and storing the water in hundreds of makeshift tanks around the plant. Some 330,000 tons of contaminated water - enough to fill more than 130 Olympic swimming pools - has been pumped into storage pits and above-ground tanks at the facility.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-japan-fukushima-adviser-idUSBRE98C0GB20130913

Fukushima's radioactive ocean plume due to reach US waters in 2014

A radioactive plume of water in the Pacific Ocean from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, which was crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will likely reach U.S. coastal waters starting in 2014, according to a new study. The long journey of the radioactive particles could help researchers better understand how the ocean’s currents circulate around the world.

TEPCO estimated that between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels (units of radioactivity representing decay per second) of radioactive tritium have leaked into the ocean since the disaster, according to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The Fukushima plant is still leaking about 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean every day, according to Japanese government officials.

The Fukushima plant is leaking much less contaminated water today compared with the immediate aftermath of the nuclear meltdown in June 2011 — a period when scientists measured 5,000 to 15,000 trillion becquerels of radioactive substances reaching the ocean.

The biggest threat in the contaminated water that flowed directly from Fukushima's reactors into the sea in June 2011 was huge quantities of the radionuclide called cesium. But the danger has changed over time as groundwater became the main source for leaks into the ocean. Soil can naturally absorb the cesium in groundwater, but other radionuclides, such as strontium and tritium, flow more freely through the soil into the ocean.

California’s coast may receive just 10 to 20 becquerels per cubic meter from 2016 to 2025

About 10 to 30 becquerels (units of radioactivity representing decay per second) per cubic meter of cesium-137 could reach U.S. and Canadian coastal waters north of Oregon between 2014 and 2020.

A large proportion of the radioactive plume from the initial Fukushima release won't even reach U.S. coastal waters anytime soon. Instead, the majority of the cesium-137 will remain in the North Pacific gyre — a region of ocean that circulates slowly clockwise and has trapped debris in its center to form the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — and continue to be diluted for approximately a decade following the initial Fukushima release in 2011. (The water from the current power plant leak would be expected to take a similar long-term path to the initial plume released, Rossi said.)

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/38844-fukushima-radioactive-water-leaks.html

Wrecked Fukushima storage tank leaking highly radioactive water

(Reuters) - Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the cleanup of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The storage tank breach of about 300 metric tons of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/20/us-japan-fukushima-leak-idUSBRE97J02920130820

Breaking News: Fukushima Radiation Affecting Americans And There’s No Way To Stop It

Overly alarmist and maybe even inaccurate reporting on the radiation risk.

It includes information claiming the debris in the ocean heading towards the US is radioactive - when there's no way for that to be true.

Source: http://elitedaily.com/news/world/breaking-news-fukushima-radiation-affecting-americans-and-theres-no-way-to-stop-it/

Japan says Fukushima leak worse than thought, government joins clean-up

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tons a day, officials said on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to step in and help in the clean-up.

The revelation amounted to an acknowledgement that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has yet to come to grips with the scale of the catastrophe, 2 1/2 years after the plant was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami. Tepco only recently admitted water had leaked at all.



As early as January this year, Tepco found fish contaminated with high levels of radiation inside a port at the plant. Local fishermen and independent researchers had already suspected a leak of radioactive water, but Tepco denied the claims.



"We think that the volume of water (leaking into the Pacific) is about 300 tons a day," said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees energy policy.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-japan-fukushima-pm-idUSBRE97601K20130808

Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an 'emergency'

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an "emergency" that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country's nuclear watchdog said on Monday.


This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-japan-fukushima-panel-idUSBRE97408V20130806

Radioactive Fukushima groundwater rises above barrier: media

TEPCO has been trying to build an underground wall to contain Radioactive groundwater, preventing it from getting into the ocean.  But the water seeps over the top of the barrier and gets into the ocean anyway.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/03/us-japan-fukushima-nuclear-idUSBRE97203M20130803

Japan nuclear regulator alarmed at Fukushima contamination reports

Japan's nuclear regulator expressed growing alarm on Wednesday at increased contamination beside the seafront of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and urged the plant's operators to take protective measures.

Shunichi Tanaka, head of the new Nuclear Regulation Authority, told reporters he believed contamination of the sea had been continuing since the March 2011 catastrophe.

"I think contamination of the sea is continuing to a greater or lesser extent," Tanaka said. "It was contaminated at the time of the accident, but I think it has been continuing for the last two years. Coming up with countermeasures against all possible scenarios is a top priority."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/10/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE9680DY20130710

Fish Near Fukushima Reportedly Contains High Cesium Level

The Japanese utility that owns the tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant says it has detected a record 740,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in a fish caught close to the plant.

That's 7,400 times the government limit for safe human consumption.

The bottom-dwelling fish called a greenling was found Feb. 21 in a cage set up by Tokyo Electric Power Co. inside the port next to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, said a utility official who requested anonymity, citing company policy.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/17/fish-fukushima-cesium_n_2894350.html