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| a GE Mark I BWR, pressure vessel in red |
Latest: One month on and the news from Fukushima is not getting better. Finally bowing to reality, the Japanese government is considering upgrading the Fukushima meltdown to the worst level on the international scale of radiological disasters, a
7, or equivalent to the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986. It is also said to be considering a permanent exclusion zone around the nuclear facility making it a "national sacrifice zone" similar to the exclusion zone that surrounds the Chernobyl ruins. The Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission calculated a massive
10,000 terabecquerels of radiation/hr was released at Fukushima at one point. The number is beyond imagining for most. Suffice it to say that people living as far as 60kms to the northwest and 40kms to the south have already received their annual allowable
dose of radiation. Five more villages are slated for evacuation. Another strong aftershock of 6.6 magnitude knocked out power to the plant for about an hour, preventing the pumping of cooling water over spent fuel assemblies and reactor cores. Semi-molten fuel rods and salt buildup from seawater are preventing the free circulation of cooling water
according to US engineers sent to the site to help with the disaster. There are ominous signs that
fission has resumed in Unit 2, and
a fire broke out at Unit 4 on Tuesday, Tokyo time.
More: {6.4.11}TEPCo reports the high level radioactivity leak in Unit 2 was stopped on Wednesday. But the
NY Times reports radioactive spent fuel was ejected from the exploding reactor buildings
"up to one mile from the units". Germany's Minister for Environment & Nuclear Safety
announced that all of Germany's nuclear power plants will be permanently closed by 2020. Eight will be shut down this year, and the remaining nine by the end of the decade.
Update:{5.4.11}Radiation monitors are basically pegged inside the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear reactor buildings,
says a worker interviewed on NHK TV. Levels of 10rems/hour have been measured outside the buildings. Some disaster workers will eventually die from their dosage. The cores of Units 1,2, and 3 remain partially exposed despite weeks of efforts to keep them covered with water, so fuel melting is likely to be continuing. Japan has established its first radiation standards in fish. Fishermen from Ibaraki prefecture experienced a 65% price decline for their bream and flounder catch. Both iodine and cesium have been measured in seawater exceeding the legal limit by a factor of millions. Radioactivity in exposed marine life will remain for centuries. India is the first country to ban imports of Japanese food products for three months.
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| AP: old high water mark |
{4.4.11}To make room for more highly radiated seawater after use to cool the melting reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi, Japanese disaster workers dumped 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the sea on Monday. Unit 2 has a cracked wet well, the torus shaped concrete containment structure below the pressure vessel [see schematic] that is allowing high level radiation (
100rems/hr) to escape into the environment. TEPCo said it has located the crack, but attempts to seal it have proved unsuccessful. Two workers were confirmed dead over the weekend, apparently killed in the initial tsunami. It will take months to put the situation at Fukushima under control with more releases of high level radiation to come*. The computer model used by the UN to predict the public health effects of fallout calculates about 6,000 cancer cases attributable to Fukushima releases. GE said it will donate $10 million to earthquake victims in Japan. The Unit 2 reactor is a GE Mark I with well known containment design flaws that is contributing to the severity of the Fukushima disaster. GE paid
no US income taxes on $5.1 billion in domestic profits last year. GE's CEO Jeff Immelt is on Obamacon's council for jobs and competitiveness. Remember reader, irony does not exist.
*Fukushima has been emitting radioactive iodine and cesium at levels not seen since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. According to the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna, iodine-131 is being released at daily levels equivalent to 73% of Chernobyl levels, while cesium-137 is about 60% of Chernobyl levels.
