Kerncentrales Japan #26

TEPCO contractors reject higher radiation dose limit for workers
TOKYO, April 9, Kyodo

Companies dispatching workers to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are refusing to adopt the government-imposed provisional limit on radiation exposure for those workers at the plant, saying it would not be accepted by those at the site, Kyodo News learned Saturday.

The limit was lifted from 100 millisieverts to 250 millisieverts in an announcement made March 15 by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare at the request of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which has the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency under its wing, and other bodies.

The increase was requested to enable workers to engage in longer hours of assignments and to secure more workers who meet the restriction.

The advisability of the hastily decided limit may be called into question as workers have to handle a wider range of work over an extended period of time. They are now faced with tasks such as removing rubble and disposing of contaminated water in addition to their initial job of restoring the lost power sources at the plant that was crippled by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

The contract companies say they are sticking to the previous limit.

The health ministry said, ''Based on medical expertise, a maximum limit has been adopted that would not cause health damage such as a temporary decline in white blood cell count.'' The ministry's decision was made after consulting with the science ministry's advisory body Radiation Council.

The ministry said it referenced a view of the International Commission on Radiological Protection that sets the upper limit in an emergency situation to a dose of 500-1,000 millisieverts.

The limit was upheld at 100 millisieverts when Japan was faced with a serious accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant in 1999 in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture.

According to Tokyo Electric, 21 workers were exposed to a cumulative dose of more than 100 millisieverts as of April 1. On March 24, three workers from Kandenko Co. and a subcontractor were exposed to high doses of radiation during their work at a building close to a reactor, making employers of plant workers nervous.

A public relations officer at Kandenko, a TEPCO affiliate, said, ''Those at work sites would not agree to accept a suddenly lifted'' limit. The three in question were exposed to 173-180 millisieverts and two of them suffered burns to their feet.

''We have to be prudent. Considering safety, we will maintain the 100 millisievert limit,'' the officer said.

An official at Tokyo Energy & Systems Inc., a TEPCO subsidiary, said, ''The control target rate at the site is 100 millisieverts. In practice, we have set a limit lower at 80 millisieverts to make room for controlling radiation exposure.''

Construction companies Kajima Corp. and Taisei Corp. have also adopted 100 millisieverts as their yardsticks.

Hitachi Ltd. has adopted ''200 millisieverts under an in-house regulation,'' a public relations official said.

TEPCO has been going along with the higher limit. Just days ago, however, it was disclosed that not all its workers were equipped with radiation monitors due to shortages of units with alarms.

==Kyodo

U.S. Marine team conducts drill to prepare for nuke disaster
TOKYO, April 9, Kyodo

A U.S. Marine team versed in radiological disaster response conducted a drill Saturday at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo to prepare to assist Japan upon request in dealing with its worst nuclear crisis continuing at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

All 145 Marines of the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force's

Initial Response Force who arrived in Japan earlier this month took part in the drill along with six troops from a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force team capable of dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical attacks.

The drill, which was open to the press, was conducted under the assumption of a nuclear disaster and included rescue and decontamination for people exposed to radiation.

Marines wearing special protective suits and masks trained to rescue an injured person by using a stretcher slung over from the top of a building, an ability the SDF lacks, according to GSDF officers.

They also trained for removing radioactive substances by water at a large tent. With the method, 600 people can be decontaminated within an hour.

The CBIRF consists of about 450 personnel in two initial response forces who are trained in chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosion operations, and can detect and identify agents, search for and rescue casualties and decontaminate and provide emergency medical care to those exposed.

Set up in 1996, after the AUM Shinrikyo cult's deadly sarin nerve gas attacks on Tokyo subway lines in 1995, the team has dealt with the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States and terrorist threats, but was dispatched abroad for the first time.

The IRF brought a remotely controlled robot and analyzer equipment to deal with the nuclear crisis that evolved after the March 11 massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant some 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

The team will stay at the Yokota base for the time being, while coordinating its operations with Japan's Self-Defense Forces.

==Kyodo

wel het artikel wijst erop dat de verhoging door sommige bedrijven en medewerkers niet geaccepteerd word, die houden vast aan de eerstgeldende norm.

quote:

Op zaterdag 9 april 2011 15:02 schreef kitao het volgende:
@D99
zo zie je dus, gewoon de limieten verhogen en de veiligheid verlagen is standaard in die industrie.
vooral als het hun uitkomt.
goeie post.

nood breekt wetten zeggen ze weleens..

Een aardige update....

TEPCO tries to enclose high radiation in sea in nuke crisis
TOKYO, April 9, Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. started Saturday to install enclosing materials in the sea to prevent a further spread of highly radioactive water that seeped from a crisis-hit nuclear power plant, while continuing other efforts to stabilize Japan's worst nuclear crisis.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Fukushima Prefecture saw the same day the first visit by a Cabinet minister since it was rocked by explosions and began emitting radioactive materials shortly after the March 11 quake and tsunami, with Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda coming in the afternoon to encourage workers and check damaged reactors.

Before his roughly 45-minute visit to the plant, Kaieda, whose ministry promotes and regulates the nuclear power industry, told reporters the situation was far from being brought under control and expressed his resolve to contain it as soon as possible.

TEPCO, as the company is known, enclosed a seawater intake for the No. 2 reactor at the six-reactor plant with seven steel sheets and a ''silt curtain,'' while planning similar curtains at other locations nearby, such as near the intakes for the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 reactors.

The power supplier stopped the leakage of water highly contaminated with radioactive materials from near the intake for the No. 2 reactor on Wednesday. But the company, facing mounting environmental concerns, hopes that the installation will help prevent contaminated water from spreading outside the plant's bay.

The radioactive iodine reading was 63,000 times the legal limit in seawater near the intake a day after contaminated water stopped leaking into the sea.

The utility also is close to finishing the release into the sea of 10,000 tons of water containing relatively low-level radioactive materials to help lead to resumption of work to restore the plant's crucial cooling functions, with priority placed on the No. 2 among the damaged Nos. 1 to 3 reactors.

''We must move high levels of contaminated water at the No. 2 reactor and elsewhere to a radioactive waste processing facility as soon as possible without leaking it into the sea,'' Kaieda told reporters back in Tokyo after the visit, adding, ''The plant chief said it must be given the priority right now and I agree with him.''

To free up room to pool highly contaminated water that has flooded the No. 2 reactor's turbine building and prevented the restoration work, the company has dumped about 7,700 tons of low-level radioactive water into the sea from the plant's waste processing facility, with an estimated 800 tons of water left to be discharged.

It also pumped out into the sea 1,300 of the 1,500 tons of low-level contaminated groundwater from the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors, expecting to complete the work on Sunday.

For the tainted water filling a tunnel near the No. 2 reactor, the utility will begin channeling it to a 3,000-cubic-meter container inside the turbine building on Sunday to reduce the risk of it seeping into the sea, the government's nuclear safety agency said.

TEPCO also continued to pump nitrogen, an inert gas, into the No. 1 reactor to prevent hydrogen from causing another explosion, while enhancing the purity of the gas to reduce the amount of oxygen mixed in it.

The utility said it will fly a small unmanned helicopter to survey the plant, possibly starting on Sunday depending on the weather, expecting it to capture images of damaged installations at the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors that workers cannot approach due to elevated levels of radiation.

Asked after the visit if workers' working conditions have improved, industry minister Kaieda said, ''Because many people still sleep in the corridors (of a two-story antiseismic building on the plant's premises), they are not enough but have improved to a fair degree compared with what they were before.''

Meeting with Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato in the city of Fukushima before the visit, Kaieda asked what local residents' requests are as the government has directed those living within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant to evacuate to ensure their safety.

On the nation's atomic energy policy, he told reporters in Fukushima, ''While I can't say at this point, we need to review standards to enhance safety.''

Also Saturday, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency called on the nation's power suppliers to have at least two backup diesel generators on standby even when a reactor is in a stable condition called ''cold shutdown'' or undergoing fuel replacement.

The move came after all three diesel generators failed to function at the Higashidori nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture at one point following the 7.1-magnitude aftershock late Thursday of the March 11 deadly earthquake.

The agency's previous rule that required the suppliers to have just one diesel generator on standby in situations including cold shutdown was ''not enough, I must say,'' agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said at a news conference.

The nuclear crisis erupted after last month's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami knocked out external power supplies and backup generators for cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and allowed reactors there to overheat.

Nishiyama also displayed candor about the missteps and failures that precipitated the disaster, saying, ''We had said all along that (nuclear power) was absolutely secure thanks to its multiple layers of protection and five-layer barriers, and I believed this, but we brought this situation onto ourselves.''

''We need to review everything to ensure safety, regardless of precedents,'' he said.

==Kyodo

Excessive radioactive cesium found in fish sampled off Fukushima
TOKYO, April 10, Kyodo

Radioactive cesium above the legal limit for consumption was detected Saturday in young sand lance caught off Fukushima Prefecture, as the prefecture took samples amid a voluntary ban on fishing there in the wake of the ongoing nuclear crisis.

One of the four sample fish had a level of cesium of 570 becquerels per kilogram on Thursday about 1 kilometer off the city of Iwaki, and the other three measured 480 to 500 becquerels. The limit is 500 becquerels under the Food Sanitation Law.

The samples were taken after the species was found contaminated off Ibaraki Prefecture, although fishermen have voluntarily refrained from fishing off Fukushima due to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

Radioactive iodine measured 1,100 to 1,700 becquerels in the samples against the legal limit of 2,000 becquerels.

The move came as food makers and restaurant operators in Japan have increasingly begun to check levels of radioactive substances in food coming from the Kanto region, where Fukushima is not included.

A guild of tobacco growers in Fukushima said, meanwhile, it has decided not to plant leaf tobacco this year although the prefecture ranked seventh last year in output among Japan's 47 prefectures.

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano visited the prefecture the same day to coordinate with local authorities to keep farmers from planting rice near the nuclear complex, saying he expects the size of the banned area to be decided on in about mid-April.

Up to 26 becquerels of iodine and 8 becquerels of cesium were found in two flatfish species caught Friday off the Ibaraki city of Hitachinaka, according to the latest test results released by Ibaraki Prefecture.

The radioactive levels were also below the limits or none in strawberries and other farm produce in Fukushima, while no levels were found in spinach and three other types of produce tested in Niigata Prefecture.

==Kyodo

quote:

Op zaterdag 9 april 2011 23:59 schreef THEFXR het volgende:
kunnen we misschien stoppen met die berichten van TEPCO? het is nl erg duidelijk dat ze alles aan elkaar liegen.

Ik ga gewoon stocijns door in ieder geval en als het je niet bevalt lees je het maar niet

Highly radioactive water in nuke plant to be moved for storage
TOKYO, April 10, Kyodo

Workers at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began work Sunday to remove highly radioactive water that has leaked and prevented restoration work that is necessary to stabilize Japan's prolonged nuclear crisis.

Toxic water has been found in the basements of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactor turbine buildings, as well as in nearby underground trenches connected to them. Transferring the water, totaling some 60,000 tons, to nearby tanks and other storage places is seen as vital to move ahead with the work to restore the key cooling functions for reactors damaged after the March 11 quake and tsunami.

The workers were to start soon with pumping out water filling a trench near the No. 2 reactor to a storage place they have secured inside the reactor's turbine building, as the level of the water is edging up, apparently because of steps taken to block the water from leaking into the Pacific Ocean, the government's nuclear safety agency said.

The water inside the basement of the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the trench connected to it is highly contaminated because it is believed to be originating from the No. 2 reactor core, the most dangerous of the three reactors where fuel rods have partially melted.

''As contaminated water with high concentration (of radioactive substances) will be moved, we would like to confirm the safety of the process,'' Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said at a press conference in the morning.

A worker in his 30s was taken to a hospital as he complained of feeling sick around 11:10 a.m. after laying a hose pipe for the work from 9:30 a.m., but is conscious and was found to have no radioactive materials on him, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

Wearing a full-face mask, outerwear upon protective clothing, rubber gloves and high boots, the worker was exposed in the work to 4.84 millisieverts of radiation, which is below the limit of 5 millisieverts set for Sunday's work, said the utility known as TEPCO.

The water in the trench was to be transferred to a ''condenser'' inside the No. 2 reactor turbine building, where in normal operations steam created from the reactor is converted into water.

The condenser has a capacity to store 3,000 tons of liquid and work to empty the condenser finished Saturday.

Workers are also trying to open up a facility for nuclear waste disposal in the plant by continuing to dump relatively less contaminated water found inside the facility into the Pacific Ocean.

A total of 8,900 tons of water had been disposed of from the facility as of Sunday morning and TEPCO aimed to finish releasing the remaining 200 tons during the day.

The utility also flew a small unmanned helicopter to survey the plant, Nishiyama said.

==Kyodo