Sunday, December 2, 2012

Unit 4




Majia here: The New York Times today reported a rather strange article that describes a fire that could not be quenched at unit 4 on March 16. The article ends with a failed attempt to put out the fire by a helicopter. It provides us no evidence of what happened after that failure.

Why is the New York Times running this article? Why is the issue of a fire at unit 4 being revisited now?
 
New View from Inside Fukushima: Chaos and Uncertainty Nov 30, 2012 by Hiroko Tabuchi
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/new-view-from-inside-fukushima-chaos-and-uncertainty/?smid=tw-share
[Excerpted] In the early hours of March 15, Mr. Yoshida raised a new concern, this time about flames sighted deep within the building housing the No. 4 reactor, which was shut down at the time of the disaster. But the reactor building housed almost 1,500 highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies in a pool of water, and it was the second fire spotted there in less than 24 hours....

...After some tweaking, Tokyo Electric issued a statement saying that a fire had been spotted at the No.  4 reactor building, and that the site personnel were attempting to put out the blaze.

The plant personnel were just as evasive when they  finally got through to local firefighters, choosing to say nothing about high radiation readings at the plant.


“There’s no use in us telling the fire department. That’s a conversation that needs to happen at higher levels,” an official at headquarters said.
  

Majia here:  Here is a good link of images of unit 4 taken in 2012 http://cryptome.org/2012-info/daiichi-12-0526/daiichi-12-0526.htm


Read what John Monger said in the NRC discussions March 16, 2011 about the state of unit 4
 
NRC Transcripts March 16, 2011 http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12052A108.pdf

John  Monger page 62: “unit 1 and 2 is boiling down, and unit 3 and 4 is having zirc/water reaction. They believe there is essentially no walls on unit 3. The explosion – I’m sorry – unit 4. The explosion leveled the walls, leveled the structure for the unit 4 spent fuel pool all the way down to the approximate level of the bottom of the fuels. So, there’s no water in there whatsoever.” 

Majia Here: Let us go back in time with CNN:


Wednesday, March 16, 2011 CNN: Very High Radiation Released from Unit 4 of Fukushima Plant http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1

[Excerpted] Tokyo (CNN) -- Spent fuel rods in Unit 4 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been exposed, resulting in the emission of "extremely high" levels of radiation, the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday. 

What we believe at this time is that there has been a hydrogen explosion in this unit due to an uncovering of the fuel in the fuel pool," Gregory Jaczko told a House energy and commerce subcommittee hearing. "We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool, and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

Majia here: Now Let's look at two more reports, from the Guardian reported March 17, 2011 and Kyodo News March 2011:

Japan's nuclear battle continues as extra workers drafted in. March 17, 2011 Ian Sample The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-deepens-radiation
[Excerpted] "The emergency workers focused their efforts on the storage pool at reactor 3, the only unit at the site that runs on mixed oxide fuel, which contains reclaimed plutonium. The strategy appeared to conflict with comments made by US nuclear officials and Sir John Beddington, the UK government's chief science adviser, who are most concerned about the storage pool at reactor 4, which they say is now completely empty...."

Kyodo news confirms that there exists no containment of the pools in both unit 3 and 4.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79057.html
"The spent fuel pools at the power station lost their cooling function after the quake and tsunami struck last Friday. It is also no longer possible to monitor the water level and temperature of the pools of the Nos. 1 to 4 units..."

Majia here: I find it strange that the subject of unit 4 is being brought up again. I personally feel that the building has burned on more than one occasion. 

Remember when Gundersen reported that Tepco asserted there was no intact fuel left in unit 4? 
Gundersen v. Tepco: Watch audience uproar after official says “there’s nothing in the fuel pool to burn” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/gundersen-tepco-watch-audience-uproar-after-official-fuel-pool-burn-video
 
I don't know the truth of Fukushima, but I do know that many lies have been told to hide what I believe is undoubtedly the BIGGEST HUMAN-CAUSED RADIATION DISASTER IN HISTORY.

If Fukushima is indeed an ELE it will take generations to unfold. I can only hope that future generations do not curse us for destroying their genome.
 
Jul 05, 2012
Is Unit 4 Pool (and Building) Gone? Someone posted at Enenews that spent fuel pool #4 is now gone. There is an inventory of videos available here: http://www.youtube.com/user/jnnlivecam. These videos are not of high ...

Oct 23, 2012
A speaker asserts that there are “no walls” on unit 4 spent fuel pool: “The explosion leveled the walls, leveled the structure for the unit 4 spent fuel pool all the way down to the to the approximate level of the bottom of the fuel.

Apr 19, 2012
RE UNIT 4: “The explosion leveled the walls, leveled the structure for the unit 4 spent fuel pool all the way down to the to the approximate level of the bottom of the fuel, so there is no water in there whatsoever” ...

Jan 06, 2012
MAJIA HERE: The scenario of unit 4 spent fuel pool drying up does NOT appear to have been purely hypothetical. I went back through all of the articles I've saved and looked at early reports on the status of spent fuel pool #4.

Jun 23, 2011
"Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 03:50 UTC that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the ...

Jul 07, 2012
July 2012: Gundersen: Latest probe at Unit 1 indicates nuclear fuel has left containment (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/gundersen-latest-probe-unit-1-indicates-nuclear-fuel-left-containment-audio. UNIT 2 (Explosion later in day on ... But there are other facilities in Japan that produce enriched fuel for reactors and manage highly radioactive waste, some of which are in remote areas in the north, "and no one has said 'boo' about them," he said. "It's not inconceivable that ...

May 28, 2012
Many observers had believed spent fuel pool 4 was indeed intact (e.g., Sickputer & Joy) because the incineration of the pool would have been undeniably visible in the form of skyrocketing radiation readings in Tokyo and ...

Apr 06, 2012
STATUS FOR SPENT FUEL POOL #4: IMMINENT DANGER? A former Japanese diplomat, with a rather extensive history as secretary generals for United Nations administrative units, has a webpage that discusses ...

Jun 11, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012 ... system in Pacific Northwest • Noble gas does not “washout,” and is the first emitted from any possible fuel damage • Levels persisted for weeks and isotopes were ultimately detected across the northern hemisphere ... S. Biegalski, et al., US Particulate and Xenon Measurements Made Following the Fukushima Reactor Accident, accepted for publication in Jour. of Envir Radioactivity, 2011. • T. Bowyer, et al., Elevated Radioxenon Detected Remotely Following ...


2 comments:

  1. Thank you for this, Majia. If the fuel at R4 has flown the coop from the beginning, then why all the talk about it? I have noticed that public talk about R4 does seem to happen at the same time as increased levels of radiation at Fukushima. It is hard to say, because Fukushima is always a mess, but the talk about it does seem to correlate with higher levels of radiation. Is it code for "send your kids to Brazil?" I don't know, but I wonder.
    NoNukes

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi No Nukes

    I hope you are well.

    I wonder whether the release of these early videos that is occurring now will reveal anything new.

    I kind of wonder whether Tepco has been making up news for the last year...

    be well....

    ReplyDelete

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