- Japan Today, Japan Times and Asahi Shimbun say TEPCO has released a detailed 41 page time-line of what happened in the Fukushima Daiichi control rooms beginning on March 11. If the articles are correct, it seems the Plant Manager wanted to vent reactor containment pressures rather early into the emergency on March 11, but it seems he needed TEPCO home office approval. It was several hours before getting permission, but it was too late. Radiation levels were too high to send men into Units #1 and 3 for long enough to start venting, so teams were set up so each man would only be in a high radiation area for a short time. Once the venting began on Unit #1 began on March 12, the hydrogen explosion occurred an hour later. This slowed the attempts to vent Unit #3. When venting began March 14, another hydrogen explosion soon followed.However, the news articles have many questionable entries, such as initiating venting of unit #3 on March 13, and then initiating venting again on March 14. Were there two initiations? Why did the second cause the explosion and not the first? Plus, Unit #2 seems to have had 80 tons of cooling water pumped into the core by March 12. This certainly delayed damage to the core. Regardless, why didn’t units #1 and 3 have water pumped into their cores for as long as unit #2? And, there is nothing reported about the Unit #4 explosion. The allegedly detailed time-line is full of holes and creates a whole new set of questions. We will analyze the TEPCO time-line as soon as it is available to us.
- The waste water decontamination system which went into full operation this past Friday ran for about 5 hours, and had to be shut down. JAIF reports the reason for the shutdown was a Zeolite cartridge unexpectedly reaching its maximum radiation level. Zeolite has a chemical affinity for cesium, which is why it was chosen for use in the system. The cartridges were supposed to last for about a month each, based on the removal rate taken from the test run last week. It reached its limit about 150 times sooner than anticipated. TEPCO is trying to find out why. One possibility is the oil removal component somehow making the Zeolite more efficient. Another could be hot spots from nearby piping causing a false high radiation reading on the installed detector. But, what isn’t being suggested by TEPCO……Could this possible mean that the system is doing a better job than the test run indicated it would? It’s supposed to remove radioactive isotopes, so what’s the problem? This is a new system, created jointly by American, French and Japanese water decontamination experts. It has never been used before, anywhere in the world. Could it actually be better than we think? Remember, the new cooling system for unit #1 SPF was supposed to cool the pool in 10-15 days, but it did the job in 10-15 hours. Could this be yet another technological underestimation that turns out to be a blessing for Fukushima?
- TEPCO reports an equipment storage pool on the #4 refueling deck has lost a third of its water level due to evaporation. This has exposed one of the large internal reactor components stored in the pool, either the moisture separator or the steam dryer. Both have been neutron irradiated for years and are very radioactive. The uncovered component is a serious radiation source which makes unit #4 entry a problem. Water level must be recovered in order for the water to shield the radiation emitted from the component.
- TEPCO has opened the doors to unit #2 reactor building to try and reduce the high humidity inside. Airborne activity inside the building is so low that TEPCO does not believe off-site levels will be worthy of concern.
- JAIF reports TEPCO’s new “road map” for bringing the three damaged reactors to cold shutdown includes stricter control of employee working hours, automatic recording of worker exposures, and bringing in more whole body counters to expedite monitoring for internal radioactivity in workers. It’s about time! TEPCO’s HP (Health Physics – mitigation of exposure levels) record has been nothing less than deplorable, up to this point. It would be interesting to find out how worker dosimetry is automatically recorded.
- TEPCO’s most recent analysis at 12 of their 13 off-shore sea water locations show no detectable Iodine (it’s all decayed away) and no Cesium isotopic concentrations. One location, 8km due east of Fukushima Daiichi shows less than 10 Bq/liter of both Cesium isotopes. The health standards are 60 Bq/liter for Cs-134 and 90 Bq/l Cs-137. Also, the airborne activity level at the Fukushima Daiichi plant site is more than a factor of ten below the nuclear employee/worker threshold for wearing face masks, and is about the same as air outside the undamaged Daini plant 15 kilometers south of Daiichi. Obviously, face masks are now worn as a precaution, but not because of high airborne levels because there are none! This is all good news, and the world should be told. So, why isn’t this in news media reports anywhere in the world? Why isn’t this being reported by the Japanese government, the IAEA, the American NRC, or any of the other nuclear organizations that have been besieged by criticism? Why is the good news being with-held?
- Economy and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda has asked local governments to allow restarting of nuclear power plants that were shut down for safety checks following the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. He said he had confirmed that all power companies have implemented measures to avoid another serious accident, including hydrogen explosions, in keeping with new NISA regulations. He added that without the nukes now ready to go, and those that will be ready in the next month, japan can expect a major electricity short-fall by mid-summer.
- Fukushima Prefecture’s government will undertake an unprecedented study of the effects of the nuclear emergency on their citizens. They will monitor a representative number of residents from the Prefecture for a period of at least 30 years, not only the external radiation exposures but also internal isotopic depositions using whole body counters. Asahi Shimbun says this differs considerably from the follow-up public exposure monitoring after the Chernobyl disaster, where only external exposures were tracked. Since it will be impossible to track possible Fukushima health effects with the entire Prefectural population of some 2 million, they will first begin looking at those living it the higher exposure areas of Iitate and Namie Cities, and then subsequently expand it to areas of lower radiation levels outside the evacuation zone. The actual data will be compared to the estimated exposure data which has been used to date. All Fukushima residents will be sent questionnaires asking them to tell everything they did and everywhere they went for the period between March 11 and March 25, when the vast majority of the releases from Fukushima Daiichi were occurring. The results of this poll will determine how many residents will ultimately be selected for the study.
- Japan Today reports that Wikipedia stopped all anonymous editing of the Fukushima Accident for several hours after the emergency began. Wiki’s spokespersons say it was because they were flooded with thousands of attempts to report fearsome stories that were of questionable validity. Wiki was concerned these frightening entries might cause wide-spread panic, so they shut it down completely until the flood of attempted editings subsided. Way to go Wiki!
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