Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[seemslikeadream]

TEPCO CEO Hasn't Been Seen In Weeks, And There Are Rumors He Has Fled Or Committed Suicide
Joe Weisenthal | Mar. 29, 2011, 5:51 AM
His company is in the midst of an existential crisis that may see it go bankrupt or nationalized. So where is TEPCO CEO Masataka Shimizu.
The Washington Post runs a startling report noting that he hasn't been seen in two weeks at his upscale Tokyo apartment, nor is he showing up in public, nor did he join the head of the country's nuclear safety board in front of the Diet.
There are rumors in Japan that he has fled the country or committed suicide, More likely, however, is that he's basically gone into hermitude, not unlike Toyota's CEO during the recent brake pedal controversy.
Politicians are furious, calling his absence inexcusable.
Meanwhile, TEPCO shares have crashed hard for the second straight day as the odds grow that a nationalization will wipe out all the equity.

[barracuda]

The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.

At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

[Iamwhomiam]

Did you know that 16 of Canada's 18 nuclear reactors are located in Ontario Provence?

Here are a few links to industry information:

http://www.nucleartourist.com/world/canada.htm

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf49a_Nuclear_Power_in_Canada.html

Others can locate their proximity to their country's nukes here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors

http://www.world-nuclear.org/

edited once to correct misspelling of 'Did'

[Jeff]

Yep.

A water leak at the Pickering nuclear power plant east of Toronto does not pose any significant threats to public health, officials said Wednesday

March 16

[Nordic]

The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.

At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

Seems this will probably be far worse than Chernobyl.

That's how it won't be "Chernobyl-style".

[Nordic]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... nobyl.html

Caesium fallout from Fukushima rivals Chernobyl

Radioactive caesium and iodine has been deposited in northern Japan far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at levels that were considered highly contaminated after Chernobyl.

The readings were taken by the Japanese science ministry, MEXT, and reveal high levels of caesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the 30-kilometre evacuation zone, mostly to the north-north-west.

Iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, should disappear in a matter of weeks. The bigger worry concerns caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years and could pose a health threat for far longer. Just how serious that will be depends on where it lands, and whether remediation measures are possible.

The US Department of Energy has been surveying the area with an airborne gamma radiation detector. It reports that most of the "elevated readings" are within 40 kilometres of the plant, but that "an area of greater radiation extending north-west… may be of interest to public safety officials".
Caesium contamination

An analysis of MEXT's data by New Scientist shows just how elevated the levels are. After the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the most highly contaminated areas were defined as those with over 1490 kilobecquerels (kBq) of caesium per square metre. Produce from soil with 550 kBq/m2 was destroyed.

People living within 30 kilometres of the plant have evacuated or been advised to stay indoors. Since 18 March, MEXT has repeatedly found caesium levels above 550 kBq/m2 in an area some 45 kilometres wide lying 30 to 50 kilometres north-west of the plant. The highest was 6400 kBq/m2, about 35 kilometres away, while caesium reached 1816 kBq/m2 in Nihonmatsu City and 1752 kBq/m2 in the town of Kawamata, where iodine-131 levels of up to 12,560 kBq/m2 have also been measured. "Some of the numbers are really high," says Gerhard Proehl, head of assessment and management of environmental releases of radiation at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Health risk

Whether people's health is at risk is not clear, however. Epidemiologists still argue over how many cancers were caused by caesium released by ChernobylMovie Camera. "We would investigate the exposures and effects when the emergency phase is over," says Malcolm Crick, secretary of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.

It isn't a straightforward matter of how much caesium has landed. People's exposure depends on the local soil type, says Proehl. Sandy soil readily releases it, but clay binds it tightly, so contaminated clay can simply be buried.

Otherwise, it depends on whether the caesium lands on farms and gardens, or relatively undisturbed forests and mountains. With thousands of people in northern Japan made homeless by the tsunami, further evacuation of areas affected by the uncertain risk of fallout seems unlikely.

[eyeno]

RIU suddenly changed their sims to show hardly any fallout coming from the reactor now that the cores are melting. Maybe they have been pressured to moderate some? Because up until yesterday the thick orange fallout was billowing from the sims like crazy. Strange

http://www.eurad.uni-koeln.de/index_e.html

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Still don't get why people in the US or Finland are stockpiling iodine tablets, though. It only works if you know exactly when exposure is coming, and take it no more than a day in advance, and most people aren't going to be told in advance. Taking a lot of it over a longer period as a preventative measure probably isn't a good idea either.

As one physician told me, it's better for a child to ingest 65 mg of potassium iodide (KI) than for his or her thyroid to absorb high levels of radioiodine (Iodine-131).

KI puts up the sign, "No Vacancy", at the inn of the thyroid.

It's a no-brainer for me.

Fair enough, 23. It's starting to look like you are (and were) right all along anyway, and as I should've said at the time a person would have to take a ridiculous dosage of iodine before they would do any harm to themselves. The ebay scammers and other suddenly-appearing iodine tablet hucksters are still a worry, though, since they might not even be selling iodine. If you're getting it from a pharmacy and with doctor's advice then it's not you I'm worried about.

Turns out that radiation from Fukushima has turned up in the UK, detected in both Oxfordshire and Glasgow.

"The dose received from inhaling air with these measured levels of iodine 131 is minuscule and would be very much less than the annual background radiation dose.

"The detection of these trace levels reflects the sensitivity of the monitoring equipment."

HPA said that levels of radioactive iodine "may rise in the coming days and weeks" but these would be "significantly below any level that could cause harm to public health".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-g ... t-12892383

Not a good sign.



Here's a boiling water reactor of the type used at Fukushima being built (look at the little guy on top of it!). No wonder they cover them with the sky-blue boxes. That big doughnut at the bottom is the torus.

[justdrew]

here... let me finish that for you...

[norton ash]

^^ Drew, that's brilliiant.

[justdrew]

^^ Drew, that's brilliiant.

it almost looks like he's going "what? what?" and I was that close to making it into a dobbshead. but - the point is valid, erybdy be made to pass through the diffuse'd fire now.

[anothershamus]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tepco- ... now-charge

TEPCO Confirms CEO Shimizu "Ill And Hospitalized", Chairman Katsumata Now In Charge
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/29/2011 23:39 -0400



While it is no secret that TEPCO CEO Masataka Shimizu had been MIA in the aftermath of the Fukushima explosion, it appears things are progressing for the worse. From Reuters' Natsuko Waki: "TEPCO CEO "ill and hospitalised", TEPCO says company president Shimizu suffering from extreme dizziness, chairman Katsumata now at helm, and that the president was not taken to hospital by an ambulance." TEPCO has scheduled a press conference for 6am GMT to go over these and other matters.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

here... let me finish that for you...

Hehe, I have places to repost this beautiful image, if you'll permit me. I like that you kept the little man at the top of it, for scale. Also for accuracy.

EDIT: Sadly, that's me up there, yelling: "Nothing to worry about lads! It's all under control!"

[justdrew]

Hehe, I have places to repost this beautiful image, if you'll permit me. I like that you kept the little man at the top of it, for scale. Also for accuracy.

EDIT: Sadly, that's me up there, yelling: "Nothing to worry about lads! It's all under control!"

Ahabsolutly

now, if one were really ambitious, one would take a pic of the collapsed blue/white box outer building, and work into the internal wreckage, a big brass arm, a horn on a bullhead... but I'll leave that to the imagination.

but much of the blame lays with the design. I mean, how pathetic is it to not have a "core catcher" built in, to receive and safely isolate, into thin tubes, the corium in the event of a meltdown. in fact, it could be so well deigned, that at a point they could just say, "well... nothing we can do to stop it melting, so... let's help it melt..." - and it all flows down into a volume of pencil thin receiving tubes, in a ceramic structure to contain the heat (possible I think). Which can then be sealed and air lifted to a cooling pond elsewhere. but no... they decided to think positive thoughts.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Hehe, I have places to repost this beautiful image, if you'll permit me. I like that you kept the little man at the top of it, for scale. Also for accuracy.

EDIT: Sadly, that's me up there, yelling: "Nothing to worry about lads! It's all under control!"

Ahabsolutly

Thanks man. I will now save it to desktop (haha, yeah, like #i didn't before asking). Cheers! It's a beauty.