Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Is this IT? Have Surface Nuclear Fires Broke Out at Fukushima Daiichi?




The TBS cam is down again. The TEPCO cam was caught running a loop yesterday by an Enenewser. TEPCO has announced it is taking a one week vacation over the holiday (see Fukushima Dairy here).

Plant conditions looked bad before the TBS cam went down. Steam was seen coming from unit 3, but the volume was relatively small. However, smoke (indisputably) was seen at the plant, but it was not coming from units 1-4 (maybe unit 5 or 6? See here). Additionally, pixilation of both the TBS and TEPCO cams had worsened significantly (see here). Some strange phenomena had also been sighted (see here).

The Ecologist is now reporting 'Fukushima meltdown? Mystery steam rising over Reactor 3' here. The article offers 3 different explanations for the steam:

1. A meltdown in unit 3's spent fuel pool

2. Melted corium reaches groundwater

3. Rainwater on stray fuel elements

The author, Oliver Tickell, doesn't tell us what he thinks.

TEPCO says it doesn't know why steam is erupting because the building is too hot to approach. However, I think TEPCO lies. Modern drone surveillance and satellite technology are probably good enough to give TEPCO an idea what is happening in unit 3. So, I doubt the problem is simply rain water because TEPCO would have been happy to report that. Scratch option 3.

Options 1 and 2 are bad but I also think they've been ongoing since 2011. So, what I don't understand is why 'steam' at Daiichi is getting so much attention when the plant previously had FIRES visible on the webcams. For example,  I saw fires June 2011, August 2011, November 2011, July 2013. I have screen shots. The ones from 2013 were sent to The Guardian newspaper but they chose not to print them. How could the screenshots be 'fact-checked' in the face of international official denial?

So, why the attention NOW when the emissions into the atmosphere have been intermittent since March 2011 and the ocean and fresh water contamination have been escalating unceasingly?

Sample PowerPoint of evidence of criticalities from the summer of 2013, 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

Are the media attention and defection by low-level scientists because the effects are now becoming undeniable? Animals are dying up and down the US Pacific coast (see here). The official stance has been no evidence of 'excess' radiation. Now the consensus is cracking as scientists and more mainstream type environmentalists are starting to raise the 'r' word (see here).. Soon the chorus for testing and transparency will grow much louder.

An alternative explanation is that truly ferocious nuclear FIRES have finally broken out on the surface, perhaps in the badly damaged fuel pools. Nuclear fires on the surface could lead to nuclear dominoes. That is an apocalyptic scenario if it unfolds quickly.

It had seemed to me that plant workers and consultants had been able to prevent loss of all control at the site. But I knew that some areas of the site were completely inaccessible because of high radiation when TEPCO reported that a vent was measuring 25 sieverts an hour, which can you kill you pretty immediately. Perhaps there are many areas of the site like that now. Perhaps TEPCO left the site to simmer and burn.

I sure hope this worst case scenario has been avoided. It is indeed tragic that we have no transparency so we could prevent the worst exposures by avoiding highly radioactive rain, milk, etc.

The problem is government and industry fear 'panic' and economic liability and loss OVER LIFE ITSELF. I've posted previously on the alarming increase in allowable radiation levels in food and water by the EPA in radiological emergencies. The response of the machine is simply to raise the acceptable levels.

I apologize but I don't know if nuclear fires have erupted on the surface at Daiichi. I don't know if we are about to be deluged with very high levels of radionuclides from fuel pool fires.

I do know that unless some sentiments change we will not be warned.

We dwell in peril because we are dispossessed by so-called democratic governments.


WEBCAM VIDEO AND SCREEN SHOTS AVAILABLE HERE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjSN51eaFuI

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5c5wafn5h4fpvf/December%2019%202013.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4mzyxn18fsbrdh/December%208%202013%20Heavy%20Emissions%20and%20Yellow%20Blob.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lpba3iey4hmuuq6/December%208%202013%202.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k91e81mw1stix5o/December%208%202013%203%20TEPCO%20CAM%20EMISSIONS.pdf

5 comments:

  1. To the extent that there is news and discussion the following picture is emerging. On the one hand, some seem to think that an inevitable disaster which will profoundly affect the whole planet is in store--just waiting for an earthquake or perhaps just the outcome of causes already at work. Gundersen talks of putting a sarcophagus under the nuclear reactors--but that sounds fantastic at this point. On the other hand, some are saying that while a percentage (and a rather small one at that) will get cancer as a result of the radiation, the majority of the world's population will not in which case it is a disaster we will live through more or less in one piece.
    Perhaps you or someone knows who knows just how severe the radiation will be. It is definitely going to get worse and with an increasing accumulation. There must be hundreds of scientists and doctors who know the outcome given even a rough estimate of what Fukushima will eventually produce. I remember one military doctor who worked with persons exposed to DU and was himself so suffering. It was fairly terrible like bone cancer. There must be quite a few of these doctors who could make some kind of speculations.
    Personally I have thought almost since the beginning that this problem had no solution given the world's power arrangements. I believe it could be solved if there were a genuine good will about--but that has been absent for a long time in world affairs. Now only destroying nations has cooperative appeal. What a great shame.

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  2. Hi, just found your blog.
    Your entry story about NPP #3 is especially interesting because in the middle of this, with no fanfare, TEPCO is announcing they've (claimed) started removing debris from SFP #3!?
    Not reactor 3 core, of course, since that's acknowledged to be hot glowing corium burning its way out the bottom of the containment vessel.
    And not SFP 3 fuel rods, either.
    So how is this being done when it's acknowledged the radiation near Reactor 3 is so fierce it's in Seiverts/hour?
    http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2014/01/fukushima-i-npp-reactor-3-debris.html

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  3. Hi again.

    I just did some fast reading after my first post here tonight Jan 1 above, & something does not add up with the news about SFP #3.
    Supposedly the debris removal at Daiichi NPP SFP #3 was started, or ongoing, many months ago.

    A long way down the page this site, under looks like excerpt from that Turner radio alarm of DEC 28, reads this snip:

    The video below was taken several months ago by TEPCO. It shows that the roof is totally blown off reactor building # 3. It shows a robotic crane being operated by remote control, trying to clear debris from the Reactor # 3 spent fuel pool several months ago. TEPCO is forced use robotic cranes operated by remote control because the area is so contaminated, anyone entering the area would die from radiation within one hour.


    Imagine, now, 89 tons of nuclear fuel boiling away that water and releasing 89 tons of deadly radioactive fuel directly into the air. Two to three days later, the west coast of north America would be "fried" by levels of airborne radiation and "hot particles" which could kill.
    http://www.nukeprofessional.blogspot.ca/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can only hope that the fuel isn't burning, or close to burning

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