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Originally posted by HAKEN:
NEWSCIENTIST.COM - The situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has become extremely unnerving. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has now admitted that the spent fuel rods could go critical - that is, a nuclear chain reaction could restart...

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/nuclear-cr
isis-radioactive-fue.html

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As to the spike and drop in radiation....what's that about ?

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Originally posted by HAKEN:

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Originally posted by piratenews:

12,000 micro sieverts is how many rem?

Probably much higher, just pegged the meter.

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Originally posted by HAKEN:

What I don't understand is why they can't fly a remote control helicopter into the place to visually verify the status of the water level in the spent fuel rod pool. Something as simple as a Dragonfly would work or numerous others used by various film makers.

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:

My favorite cluster fuck quote of the day:

"General Electric said it will send about 10 (they don't even know the number) gas turbine generators to Japan to help replace lost power generating capacity. >> Michael Tetuan, a spokesman for the company, said that the operators of the damaged plant had requested generators, but he did not know what they would be used for. <<

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TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo

The following is the known status as of Friday evening of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami on March 11.

Fukushima Daiichi plant

-- Reactor No. 1 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Saturday by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Monday by blast at reactor No. 3, blast sound heard near suppression pool of containment vessel on Tuesday, damage to containment vessel feared.

-- Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground on Thursday and Friday.

-- Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature in spent-fuel storage pool reaching 84 C on Monday, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared, only skeleton of building survived the fires.

-- Reactors No. 5, 6 - Under maintenance when quake struck, water temperatures in spent-fuel storage pools increased to about 64 C on Thursday.

-- Spent-fuel storage pools at all reactors - Cooling functions lost at all reactors, water temperatures or levels unobservable at reactors No. 1 to 4.

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High radiation detected 30km from nuke plant

Japan's science ministry says relatively high radiation levels have been detected on 2 consecutive days about 30 kilometers northwest of the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The radiation measured 170 microsieverts per hour on Thursday and 150 microsieverts on Friday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says the government will take appropriate measures if this level of contamination continues in the area for a long period. But he says this would be unlikely.

Radiation was measured for 2 hours from 10AM on Friday at 18 spots in areas 30 to 60 kilometers from the plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

The highest reading of 150 microsieverts per hour was detected at around 1:30 PM local time, about 30 kilometers northwest of the plant. The location is within the zone where residents have been instructed to stay indoors.

Readings of 170 microsieverts were recorded at the same location at 2 PM on the previous day, Thursday.

Experts say exposure to this amount of radiation for 6 to 7 hours would result in absorption of the maximum level considered safe for one year.

The ministry also observed radiation levels of 0.5 to 52 microsieverts per hour at other observation points within a 30 to 60 kilometer radius of the plant. It says these levels are all higher than normal, but not an immediate threat to health.

The government has evacuated residents living within a 20 kilometer radius of the plant, and instructed those in a 20 to 30 kilometer radius to stay indoors.
Friday, March 18, 2011 17:38 +0900 (JST)

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

Tokyo has only 8 million residents. It's also 150 miles away.

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"Of course I am angry. I was ignored and then badly misled, and as a result the people were abandoned here to die. But I was the one who told them it was safe to stay, and now I have decided that I must be the last person to leave this city. I have been in my office since last Friday, and I won't go until the last person has left safely."
-Katsunobu Sakurai, Mayor of Minamisoma, 12 miles from Fukushima nuke plant
www.naturalnews.com/031747_nuclear_fallout_disinformation.html#ixzz1H6
qkcKgQ

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I heard on the news that someone on the US side of this was saying that this is stabilizing - but I don't see how that can be possible, because they're also saying that they think even if they do restore power that some of the coolant pumps are damaged beyond repair.

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TOKYO | Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:54pm EDT
(Reuters) - Following are main developments after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeast Japan and crippled a nuclear power station, raising the risk of uncontrolled radiation.

- Nuclear plant still emitting radiation but source unclear, says IAEA. The UN atomic watchdog says Japan has not given some information relating to one reactor.

- Smoke and steam seen rising from two of the most threatening reactors, No.2 and No.3, at the Fukushima nuclear plant on Tuesday, denting hopes of immediate progress in bringing them under control.

- Core of reactor No. 1 also a worry with temperature touching 380-390 Celsius (715-735 Fahrenheit), plant operator says. Reactor built to run at a temperature of 302 C (575 F).

- Engineers have re-established power cables to all six reactors and have started a pump at one of them to cool overheating fuel rods. Lighting had been restored at one of the control rooms, local media said.

* Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan says people should refrain from consuming leafy vegetables from Fukushima prefecture and tells the governor of Ibaraki prefecture to hold off on shipments of raw milk and parsley due to the nuclear crisis.

- Japan's health ministry says it has detected above-safety level radiation in 11 types of vegetables from the Fukushima area where the nuclear plants are located, Kyodo news agency reports on Wednesday.

- The World Health Organization said on Tuesday the detection of radiation in food is a more serious problem than first expected, and food contamination is not a localized problem. It says, however, there is no evidence of contaminated food from Fukushima reaching other countries.

- Plant operator TEPCO says a small trace of radiation had been found in the Pacific nearby, but officials stressed the levels were minute and posed no immediate danger.

- Miniscule numbers of radioactive particles believed to have come from the crippled nuclear power plant have been detected as far away as Iceland, diplomatic sources say. But the tiny traces were far too low to cause any harm.

- China and South Korea say they will toughen radioactivity tests on imports of Japanese food, and Japan tells four prefectures near the nuclear plant to halt shipments of spinach.

- Government also bans milk shipments from Fukushima province. Japanese food produced outside the nuclear crisis zone is safe.

- Official death toll from earthquake and tsunami exceeds 9,000, Kyodo news agency reports national police as saying.

- The government estimates the total damage from the quake will reach 15-25 trillion yen ($185-308 billion), the Nikkei newspaper reports.

* TEPCO, the crippled plant's operator, may eventually require more than one trillion yen in financing to help it overcome the disaster, Jiji news says.

(Tokyo bureau; Compiled by World Desk Asia)

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Neutron beam observed 13 times at crippled Fukushima nuke plan

Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11 quake-tsunami disaster.

TEPCO, the operator of the nuclear plant, said the neutron beam measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant’s No. 1 and 2 reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour and that this is not a dangerous level.

The utility firm said it will measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam, as well.

In the 1999 criticality accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant run by JCO Co. in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, uranium broke apart continually in nuclear fission, causing a massive amount of neutron beams.

In the latest case at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, such a criticality accident has yet to happen.

But the measured neutron beam may be evidence that uranium and plutonium leaked from the plant’s nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuels have discharged a small amount of neutron beams through nuclear fission.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80539.html

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Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian on Tuesday workers at the site appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.

“The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey said.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
They probably should have entombed it right when explosions started removing parts of the containment buildings. This goes back to my idea of why don't they build nuclear power plants underground, possibly dug into the bedrock. Pipe in groundwater from outside the bed rock, then, if it goes haywire, evacuate everyone via mine shaft or elevator then collapse it.

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"12 years ago workers were exposed to such a criticality, and 2 were dead within 7 months. The workers now are not being supplied with dosimetry meters...But we at Fox News have been issued one."

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