Kerncentrales Japan #31

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Steam Detected at Damaged Fukushima Reactor

Remote camera footage Thursday showed steam escaping from the top of the No. 3 reactor’s primary containment structure, which houses its fuel vessel, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco. A worker who checked the footage Thursday morning noticed the steam, said Hiroki Kawamata, a spokesman for the operator.

Mr. Kawamata said officials were unsure what was generating the steam, and hypothesized that rainwater seeping into the containment vessel may have turned to vapor. Extremely high levels of radiation in the now roofless upper sections of the No. 3 reactor building destroyed in a hydrogen explosion that rocked the reactor during the early days of the 2011 disaster make it too dangerous for workers to approach.

But workers are standing by to inject boric acid into the reactor from the outside at any signs of further trouble, such as a rapid rise in temperature or radiation parameters, Mr. Kawamata said.

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Op donderdag 18 juli 2013 12:08 schreef Perrin het volgende:

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BBC: It’s boiling inside Fukushima Unit No. 3 — Reactor supposed to be in cold shutdown — Situation ‘worrying’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23419325

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Radio: Fukushima Daiichi has “contaminated the biggest body of water on the planet” — Radioactive leaks to harm marine and human life —
Whole Pacific Ocean likely to have cesium levels 5-10 times higher than at peak of nuclear bomb tests (AUDIO)
http://enenews.com/radio-(...)ear-bomb-tests-audio

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Japan gov’t intervening at Fukushima nuclear plant —
Will take over measuring radiation levels —
Top official “questioned accuracy of Tepco’s data on contamination”

http://enenews.com/govt-i(...)ata-on-contamination

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Official reveals contamination levels at Fukushima plant are likely higher outside reactor units than inside — ‘Serious threat’ if trenches leak a large amount of water

http://enenews.com/strang(...)nts-leak-groundwater

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The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) plans to pull together two dedicated teams to investigate water contamination and its impact on the ocean’s ecosystem, according to the the official.

“We still don’t know the root cause of the problems as they are more complicated than initially thought,” the NRA official said
http://enenews.com/afp-al(...)-are-more-complicate

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Op dinsdag 30 juli 2013 21:10 schreef Resonancer het volgende:
Hoeveel geld ze er ook tegen aan gooien, dit krijgen we nooit meer schoon.

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Zullen de metingen vast nog hoger uitvallen.

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Dat gaat rap.

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Fukushima clean-up turns toxic for Japan's Tepco

• Japanese public also in the dark over clean-up, say critics
• Utility says radiation makes it hard to reach all parts of facility
• Says trying to explain clean-up problems to the public
• Chair of third party panel blames incompetence, not deliberate policy

TOKYO, July 31 (Reuters) - Two and a half years after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, the operator of Japan's wrecked Fukushima plant faces a daunting array of unknowns.

Why the plant intermittently emits steam; how groundwater seeps into its basement; whether fixes to the cooling system will hold; how nearby groundwater is contaminated by radioactive matter; how toxic water ends up in the sea and how to contain water that could overwhelm the facility's storage tanks.

What is clear, say critics, is that Tokyo Electric Power Co is keeping a nervous Japanese public in the dark about what it does know.

The inability of the utility, known as Tepco, to get to grips with the situation raises questions over whether it can successfully decommission the Fukushima Daiichi plant, say industry experts and analysts.
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One of its biggest headaches is trying to contain radioactive water that cools the reactors as it mixes with some 400 tonnes of fresh groundwater pouring into the plant daily.

Workers have built more than 1,000 tanks to store the mixed water, which accumulates at the rate of an Olympic swimming pool each week. With more than 85 percent of the 380,000 tonnes of storage capacity filled, Tepco has said it could run out of space.

The tanks are built from parts of disassembled old containers brought from defunct factories and put together with new parts, workers from the plant told Reuters. They say steel bolts in the tanks will corrode in a few years.

Tepco says it does not know how long the tanks will hold. It reckons it would need to more than double the current capacity over the next three years to contain all the water. It has no plan for after that.

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TEPCO took no action about radioactive water leak for 2 years.

TEPCO's inaction is likely responsible for the spread of radiation.

http://ajw.asahi.com/arti(...)shima/AJ201308010053

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Revealed: The deeper they check underneath Fukushima plant, the higher contamination levels get — Now sampling over 40 feet below surface

http://enenews.com/reveal(...)0-feet-below-surface

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Asahi: Radioactive contamination ‘soaring’ in Fukushima groundwater — Strontium and other beta emitters up 4,500% in recent days; Cesium levels rise nearly 1,500% — Tepco says it doesn’t know why levels are spiking

http://enenews.com/huge-s(...)els-1500-tepco-video

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Tepco Press Conference: The situation at Fukushima is bleak — “This discharge is beyond our control”

http://enenews.com/tepco-(...)beyond-control-video

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Regering Japan grijpt in bij lek Fukushima
De Japanse regering grijpt in bij de beschadigde kerncentrale van Fukushima. De eigenaar van de centrale, Tepco, probeert het weglekken te stoppen maar slaagt daar op eigen kracht onvoldoende in.

Premier Shinzo Abe van Japan heeft het ministerie van Industrie woensdag opgedragen actiever eraan mee te werken dat er een einde komt aan het weglekken van radioactief grondwater uit de beschadigde kerncentrale van Fukushima in de Grote Oceaan.

Een afsluiting die het besmette grondwater bij Fukushima in toom zou moeten houden, vertoont gebreken. De centrale staat voor een nieuwe noodsituatie, meldde de Japanse toezichthouder op kerncentrales maandag al.

Abe zei niet of de regering extra geld uittrekt om de problemen met het radioactief grondwater beter te kunnen bestrijden.

De kerncentrale bij Fukushima werd in maart 2011 ernstig beschadigd door een aardbeving en een daaropvolgende tsunami.

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Fukishima Springs Water Leak
The Japanese Fukishima crisis took a turn for the worse this week as it was found a barrier built to contain contaminated water has been breached; a leak defined by 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium. This is yet another problem on top of a spate of errors plaguing the 2011 nuclear disaster site.

Nuclear regulatory official Shinji Kinjo has cited Tokyo Electric Power Company as having a 'weak sense of crisis' as well as hinted at previous bunglings by TEPCO as the reason one cannot 'just leave it up to Tepco alone.' If Nuclear energy is ever to move forward, these types of disasters need to be eliminated.

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Op woensdag 7 augustus 2013 15:30 schreef Bigs het volgende:
Ik denk dat we nu wel kunnen concluderen dat we beter maar gewoon kunnen stoppen met kernenergie voordat we de planeet helemaal onbewoonbaar maken. Het nieuws wordt alleen maar slechter.

Het lijkt onderhand wel of er ondergronds nieuwe kernreacties ontstaan. Zou dat mogelijk zijn?

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“Japan Gov’t in Chaos”: Completely out of control at Fukushima — Melted reactor cores contaminating Pacific with full range of radioactive material http://enenews.com/japan-(...)e-contaminants-video

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TV: Very likely some of Fukushima’s melted cores have moved into the earth — “It’s beyond containment right now”
http://enenews.com/tv-ver(...)ment-right-now-video

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Watch: Young kids play in ocean nearby leaking Fukushima plant — “Real cause for concern” over radiation levels in sand

http://enenews.com/tv-peo(...)-play-in-ocean-video

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Abe’s Japan Is Blind to Scary Nuclear Reality
Forget Abenomics. Ignore Shinzo Abe’s efforts to rejuvenate Japan’s diplomatic and military clout. Look past the quest to rewrite the constitution. History will judge this prime minister by one thing alone: what he did, or didn’t do, to end the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

It’s mind-boggling how disengaged Japan’s leaders have been since their “BP moment” -- the March 2011 near-meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. Abe’s predecessors Naoto Kan and Yoshihiko Noda virtually ignored the radiation leaks and spent fuel rods sitting 135 miles (217 kilometers) from Tokyo. In December, Abe became the third prime minister to pretend all was well at Fukushima after a devastating earthquake and tsunami that flooded the plant.

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Insight: After disaster, the deadliest part of Japan's nuclear clean-up
TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.

Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) is already in a losing battle to stop radioactive water overflowing from another part of the facility, and experts question whether it will be able to pull off the removal of all the assemblies successfully.

"They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods," said Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies.

The operation, beginning this November at the plant's Reactor No. 4, is fraught with danger, including the possibility of a large release of radiation if a fuel assembly breaks, gets stuck or gets too close to an adjacent bundle, said Gundersen and other nuclear experts.

That could lead to a worse disaster than the March 2011 nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, the world's most serious since Chernobyl in 1986.

No one knows how bad it can get, but independent consultants Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013: "Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date."

Tepco has already removed two unused fuel assemblies from the pool in a test operation last year, but these rods are less dangerous than the spent bundles. Extracting spent fuel is a normal part of operations at a nuclear plant, but safely plucking them from a badly damaged reactor is unprecedented.

"To jump to the conclusion that it is going to work just fine for the rest of them is quite a leap of logic," said Gundersen.

The utility says it recognizes the operation will be difficult but believes it can carry it out safely.

Nonetheless, Tepco inspires little confidence. Sharply criticized for failing to protect the Fukushima plant against natural disasters, its handling of the crisis since then has also been lambasted.

Last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to take a more active role in controlling the overflow of radioactive water being flushed over the melted reactors in Units 1, 2 and 3 at the plant.

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10 workers exposed to radiation at crippled Japanese nuclear plant; no injuries
IWAKI, Japan — Ten workers at Japan's crippled nuclear plant were exposed Monday to small amounts of radiation while conducting cleanup activities, the plant's operator said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it is still investigating how the workers were contaminated at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, but that it may have been from radioactive dust.

It said small amounts of radiation were found on the workers' faces and hair.

A powerful earthquake and tsunami destroyed power and cooling systems at the plant in March 2011, causing the release of large amounts of radiation. Makeshift equipment is being used to cool the reactors, and the plant has been plagued by blackouts and leaks of contaminated water.

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Op woensdag 14 augustus 2013 09:46 schreef Aether het volgende:
* knip *

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Op zondag 18 augustus 2013 23:34 schreef Woods het volgende:
Jammer weer dat er alleen maar naar de nadelen van kernenergie wordt gekeken. Er is dankzij kernenergie al joost mag weten hoeveel 'gevaarlijk' CO2 vermeden en schoon opgewekt.

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Weer groot lek bij kerncentrale Fukushima
Uit een opslagtank van de verwoeste Japanse kerncentrale Fukushima Dai-ichi is zo'n driehonderdduizend liter radioactief water gelekt.

Dat heeft de beheerder van de centrale, Tepco, dinsdag gezegd. Niet eerder lekte zoveel radioactief water uit opslagtanks bij Fukushima.

Het water is waarschijnlijk door een klep in een goot rond de opslagtank beland en deels in de bodem gesijpeld, aldus Tepco. Inmiddels is de poel die daarbij ontstond weggepompt, evenals het water dat zich nog in de tank bevond, zodat het elders kan worden opgeslagen.

Boven de poel is een stralingsniveau van honderd millisievert/uur gemeten - vijfmaal de jaarlijks toegestane hoeveelheid voor medewerkers van kerncentrales.