Sunday, September 15, 2013

TEPCO Official Admits Plant is Out of Control


hat tip Enenews for the headlines (Thank you)

A high-ranking TEPCO official announced that the Daiichi site was 'out of control.'

(source TEPCO official says Fukushima plant situation "out of control" Sep 13 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-09/13/c_125386760.htm)

This news comes after weeks of spiking radiation levels, particularly of tritium, which suggests that fission activity may be the source, not simply contaminated water spills.

(sources Tritium rises in groundwater in Fukushima Daiichi Sep 13, 2013 NHK, http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130914_03.html and see Radioactivity levels in Fukushima groundwater increase 47-fold over 5 days THE ASAHI SHIMBUN August 06, 2013 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201308060059)

Yesterday I posted screen shots of emissions and noted what looked to be black smoke coming from the remains of unit 3 http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/alert-looks-like-black-smoke-sep-15.html

I will post additional screen shots from today at the bottom of this post.

I am very concerned because TEPCO officials are apparently becoming very frightened about plant conditions, although the exact threats remain undisclosed:

[excerpt] Chairman of the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority Shunichi Tanaka was quoted Thursday ... as saying the situation was alarming "We cannot waste even a minute," he said. "This is what we have been fearing.".…Atsunao Marui, director of research at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said the situation is likely to get worse. "It's important to think of the worst-case scenario," he said. [end](Worst-case scenario' at Fukushima Aug. 22, 2013 http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/08/22/Worst-case-scenario-at-Fukushima/UPI-63001377171938/)

For background on my analysis, please see my interviews with Voice of Russia, within which I described the deteriorating conditions being reported at plant:

Sep 7, 2013 Voice of Russia http://voicerussia.com/2013_09_07/Fukushima-not-under-control-6308/

July 23 2013 Voice of Russia http://voicerussia.com/radio_broadcast/70924886/118436060.html

I also created a PowerPoint of data examining reports of conditions at the plant and evidence of criticalities, which can be seen here http://www.academia.edu/4314657/Fukushima_Update_Aug_2013  or here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/11xz1zjgwcsbpo0/Fukushima%20Update%20Aug%202013.pptx
 
Helen Caldicott recently divulged that unit 3 had extra plutonium in its core as it was involved in an experiment

(source: Endless Fukushima catastrophe: Many generations’ health at stake. Helen Caldicott RT Sep 13 http://rt.com/op-edge/fukushima-catastrophe-health-japan-803/)


This morning the Daiichi site was veiled in a thick fog, of what appears to be radioactive emissions:



TEPCO officials' slips, rising tritium (among other spiking radionuclides), and webcam conditions have me very concerned. Are we - the inhabitants of planet Earth - simply going to be left exposed with no warning and no official efforts at risk mitigation?

Hannah Arendt described the 'banality of evil' and now I fully understand what she meant by that.

Our governments are complicit.

Introduction to Majia's Blog and Index of Posts Here http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/break-from-bloging.html
 
 

6 comments:

  1. don't know why, just had a hunch... bingo! a new entry in the best blog, thanks Majia, pray safe

    ReplyDelete
  2. Majia,
    Caldecott didn't "reveal" anything about plutonium in #3. She is simply describing, in and interestingly innocuous way, the MOX fuel that had been placed into the core of #3 in August 2010.

    It wasn't really an "experiment", more a trial run. It was just the first use of MOX in a reactor after a 10 year legal battle over the use of it. Apparently they placed 32 MOX assemblies into the #3 reactor.

    It is unknown how many MOX assemblies were on-site other than the known ones in the #3 core.

    Tepco has claimed many times that there was no MOX in the spent fuel pools. But if you read between the lines, that does not rule out MOX being on the premises. There are (were) two pools in each of the reactor buildings - the spent fuel pool, which is on the south side of the reactor core, and the machinery pool, which is on the north side.

    Technically the machinery pools are not "spent fuel pools" so if MOX was stored there, then they could claim no MOX in the SFP's and be technically correct - and morally bankrupt.

    I believe they were readying the #4 reactor for MOX at the time of the accident, and the MOX rods were in the Machinery pool. The machinery pool of #4 was obviously the source of the explosion of the #4 building on March 15th. The blast patterns permeate outward from that pool, and the reactor - which was empty and undergoing maintenance at the time - and the spent fuel pool remained intact. The entire north end of the building was destroyed. - as was the entire north end of the #3 building

    It's highly possible they had a bunch of MOX in the #3 machinery pool as well.

    Caldecott says that a millionth of a gram of Plutonium can be fatal to humans and that hundreds of pounds of Plutonium was distributed in the blasts - Oh and the half-life is hundreds of thousands of years.

    Every speck of that plutonium could kill humans for the next 2 million years - over and over again. And there's lots of specks of it released.

    I suspect the problem at the plant is that the first generation of workers are coming down with really nasty cases of cancer, and they are terrified that word of it will get out - it may have already gotten out in limited circles. When that happens, further work in the area is a known suicide mission, and it will be near impossible to staff.

    James

    ReplyDelete
  3. I suspected that unit 3 had more than just normal MOX.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think so.

      The French and US nuclear industry would throw the Japanese under the bus in a second if they could claim that they had operated those reactors in an unsafe manner by loading something besides MOX.

      Instead, they've chosen to cover the whole thing up because even that small amount of MOX exploded violently - exposing how dangerous that stuff is.

      The industry is in the beginning of its death throes - but it looks like it will be a long slow death.

      I just hope somehow mankind has avoided a death sentence from the Fukushima disaster and if it has, fukushima might turn out to be the straw that breaks this ugly camel's back.
      James

      Delete
  4. Hi everyone

    I thought from caldicott's account that there was more Pu than MOX in 3. Did I misunderstand her comment.

    James I thin you are right about the machinery pool. Your account has always made sense to me.

    ReplyDelete

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