Topic: Japanese Quake and Pacific Tsunami

[Builder]

The Republicans liked it because it was a great weapon against their greatest fear - the rise of the Green movement, and their alternative energy agenda.

In Germany, the accident has caused unprecedented rise of Greens that may strip Merkel and rightist parties of power.

[Nichi]

Why are they waiting to bury the compromised reactor-sites?

[Jahn]

In Germany, they have closed 7 plants because of the Japanes melt down, and now the owners of the German plants will sue the the German authorities. Two of these owners are Swedish companies.

[Builder]

Why are they waiting to bury the compromised reactor-sites?

There are several reasons for that:
1) They still need to keep cooling the reactors as the fuel is still active there. The fuel in three stricken reactors could still burn for a week or more. Without cooling the reactor's core could be breached and there would be massive pollution;
2) They need to ensure that nothing is leaking out of reactor, its cooling systems and storage of spent fuel. Origins of all leaks must be established and, if possible, sealed off;
3) In order to build a sarcophagus, one needs a project and technical design that could withstand earth quakes and tsunamis (they're still there). It takes time to craft one: the disaster site must be thoroughly studied, assessments made, engineering solutions worked out for many problems
4) Resources for construction: it will be a massive work associated with radiation hazard. It takes time to assemble what one needs for accomplishing it.

All in all, Fukushima will remain a problem for years.

[Builder]

A good technical PowerPoint presentation on what happened in Fukushima

[Nichi]

There are several reasons for that:
1) They still need to keep cooling the reactors as the fuel is still active there. The fuel in three stricken reactors could still burn for a week or more. Without cooling the reactor's core could be breached and there would be massive pollution;
2) They need to ensure that nothing is leaking out of reactor, its cooling systems and storage of spent fuel. Origins of all leaks must be established and, if possible, sealed off;
3) In order to build a sarcophagus, one needs a project and technical design that could withstand earth quakes and tsunamis (they're still there). It takes time to craft one: the disaster site must be thoroughly studied, assessments made, engineering solutions worked out for many problems
4) Resources for construction: it will be a massive work associated with radiation hazard. It takes time to assemble what one needs for accomplishing it.

All in all, Fukushima will remain a problem for years.

Oh! Thanks for the illumination, E.

[Builder]

It seems pretty official now - Japanese will scrap 4 reactors in Fukushima.

[Nichi]

Toxic plutonium seeping from Japan's nuclear plant

By YURI KAGEYAMA and MARI YAMAGUCHI
from BusinessWeek

TOKYO

Highly toxic plutonium is seeping from the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan's tsunami disaster zone into the soil outside, officials said Tuesday, as the government grew frustrated by missteps in the effort to stabilize the overheated facility.

Safety officials said the small amounts of plutonium found at several spots outside the complex were not a risk to humans but support suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods -- a worrying development in the race to bring the power plant under control.

"The situation is very grave," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Tuesday. "We are doing our utmost efforts to contain the damage."

A tsunami spawned by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake March 11 destroyed the power systems needed to cool the nuclear fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

Since then, three of the plant's six reactors are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have grappled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have sent workers fleeing.

Radiation seeping from the plant has made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far away as Tokyo, prompting some nations to halt imports from the region. Residents within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant have been urged to leave or stay indoors.

The troubles have eclipsed Pennsylvania's 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island, when a partial meltdown raised fears of widespread radiation release. But it is still well short of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates and spewed radiation across much of the northern hemisphere.

A series of missteps and accidents, meanwhile, have raised questions about the handling of the disaster, with the government revealing growing frustration with plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The Yomiuri daily newspaper reported that the government was considering temporarily nationalizing the troubled operator, but Edano and TEPCO officials denied holding any such discussions.

The nuclear crisis has complicated the government's ability to address the humanitarian situation facing hundreds of thousands left homeless by the twin disasters. The official number of dead surpassed 11,000 on Tuesday, police said, and the final figure is expected to top 18,000.

The urgent mission to stabilize the Fukushima plant has been fraught with setbacks.

Workers succeeded last week in reconnecting some parts of the plant to the power grid. But as they pumped water into units to cool the reactors down, they discovered pools of contaminated water in numerous spots, including the basements of several buildings and in tunnels outside them.

The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposures more than four times the amount the government considers safe for workers and must be pumped out before electricity can be restored to the cooling system.

That has left officials struggling with two crucial but sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out -- and then safely storing -- contaminated water.

Nuclear safety official Hidehiko Nishiyama called it "delicate work." He acknowledged that cooling the reactors took precedence over concerns about leakage.

"The removal of the contaminated water is the most urgent task now, and hopefully we can adjust the amount of cooling water going in," he said, adding that workers were building makeshift dikes with sandbags to keep contaminated water from seeping into the soil outside.

The discovery of plutonium, released from fuel rods only when temperatures are extremely high, confirms the severity of the damage, Nishiyama said.

Plutonium is a heavy element that doesn't readily combine with other elements, so it is less likely to spread than some of the lighter, more volatile radioactive materials detected around the site, such as the radioactive forms of cesium and iodine.

"The relative toxicity of plutonium is much higher than that of iodine or cesium but the chance of people getting a dose of it is much lower," says Robert Henkin, professor emeritus of radiology at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine. "Plutonium just sits there and is a nasty actor."

When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation.

Plutonium also breaks down very slowly, so it remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

"If you inhale it, it's there and it stays there forever," said Alan Lockwood, a professor of Neurology and Nuclear Medicine at the University at Buffalo and a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group.

[Jahn]

... heavily
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/03/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html

[Nichi]

Nuclear experts: Many challenges, few options for Japanese
By Jim Barnett, CNN Senior Producer
April 7, 2011 7:32 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    Union of Concerned Scientists spokesman: They "have no margin for error"
    With strong aftershocks, scientists concerned about containment structures
    Expert says huge hurdle is that every reactor at Fukushima Daiichi is in trouble
    Engineers began injecting nonflammable nitrogen into the No. 1 reactor Thursday

Washington (CNN) -- Nuclear experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists said again Thursday there are many challenges ahead and few options left to Japanese workers trying to ease the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

"The fact they have to handle two spent fuel pools and three reactor cores with kid gloves, (they) don't have any margin for error," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and director of the group's Nuclear Safety Project.

"It's hard to say whether things will get better or things will get worse because they have so many challenges to face on so many places that it's going to be difficult to be 100% right all five times. So it is a bad situation over there."

At the damaged plant, engineers began injecting nonflammable nitrogen into the No. 1 reactor Thursday to counter a buildup of potentially explosive hydrogen. That work continued even after a strong aftershock rattled much of central Japan shortly before midnight, the plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, reported early Friday.

Hydrogen buildup is a symptom of overheated fuel rods in the cores of the reactors, which plant workers have been struggling to keep under control since the earthquake and tsunami. The nitrogen injections are aimed at displacing oxygen in the reactor shell, reducing the possibility of an explosion, a chance Tokyo Electric called "extremely low."

"Now that there has been so much venting, over weeks, to try to control the pressure buildup in the containment, that nitrogen is not in the containment building as much as it needs to be. So, they're trying to re-inert the containment or refill the containments with nitrogen to guard against a hydrogen buildup and also oxygen buildup," said Lochbaum.

The scientists could not ever recall another time that nitrogen had been injected into a nuclear containment vessel.

"After the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, the hydrogen built up to the point where it did explode about 10 hours after the initial event. ...They had no control over it," Lochbaum said. "Because of that, in this country, we started putting in hydrogen recombiners, hydrogen inerting, hydrogen igniters and so on, to try to control it, but I don't know of anybody who has actually gotten into this situation and tried to put in nitrogen after the fact or to restore the nitrogen that was there originally," he added.

In Japan, a hydrogen explosion blew the roof and upper walls off the No. 1 reactor building two days after the quake, and another blast two days later blew apart the No. 3 building. A suspected hydrogen explosion is believed to have damaged the No. 2 reactor on March 15 as well.

The scientists expressed concern about the viability of the containment structures in light of Thursday's strong aftershocks, saying the plant was designed to withstand seismic forces but that was before the hydrogen explosions and addition of water.

"It's hard to judge how those structures will last during the aftershocks or new earthquakes. It's just too hard to speculate," Lochbaum said.

The scientists told reporters on a telephone conference call there is a limited amount of equipment to deal with the emergency.

Lochbaum said, "They're so far beyond where emergency procedures and preplanning have done that they're basically having to jerry-rig solution paths or potential solution paths for situations that were never anticipated.

"The other problem that's complicating it is nobody ever anticipated an accident on more than one reactor or more than one spent fuel pool at a site," Lochbaum said.

"The assumption all along was we'd have a problem at one reactor or one spent fuel pool, and we'd use the equipment from the others to help deal with the situation. Now you've got problems across the board, and you don't have that supplemental equipment that you can shift from one unit to the other to try to help you out. Everybody needs help, and there's just not enough equipment to deal with that."

The Union of Concerned Scientists is an independent nuclear-industry watchdog group that focuses on safety issues.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/japan.nuclear.options/

[Builder]

Japan seems to be firmly in the crosshairs of the higher powers. Another quake, another nuclear plant rattled:

Radioactive spill in Onagawa plant

[Builder]

Japan seems to be firmly in the crosshairs of the higher powers. Another quake, another nuclear plant rattled:

Radioactive spill in Onagawa plant

Correction: Problems reported not only at Onagawa, but also at Higashidori nuclear power plant and Rokkasho nuclear fuel reprocessing facility.

[Builder]

Fukushima - level 7 incident

[Jahn]

Fukushima - level 7 incident

Surprise!?