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Page added on September 3, 2013
Japan Radioactive Water Alarm Spurs Government Intervention
Japan may announce measures today to contain the growing volume of radiated water at the Fukushima atomic station, following findings of radioactive hot spots and leaks more than two years after reactors melted at the plant.
The Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters may present steps to tackle the leaks today and plans a “complete package” of measures on the water management crisis, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said yesterday, relaying earlier comments made by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
The government may spend as much as 50 billion yen ($502 million) on steps that include constructing a frozen wall to block underground water from flowing into the Dai-Ichi nuclear plant area, the Yomiuri newspaper reported today.
The government is preparing to intervene after repeated leaks of radioactive water in the last month indicated operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) can’t handle the task alone. The utility known as Tepco has reported repeated leaks from storage tanks that included the loss of about 300 tons of contaminated water. A new hot spot emitting radiation of more than 100 millisieverts per hour was reported by Tepco yesterday.
The Fukushima site now has more than 338,000 metric tons of water of varying levels of toxicity stored in pits, basements and hundreds of tanks. That’s enough to fill a very large crude oil tanker or 132 Olympic-size swimming pools. Levels of toxic water are rising at a rate of 400 tons a day as groundwater seeping into basements mixes with cooling water that has been in contact with highly radioactive melted reactor cores.
Controlled Discharge
One measure being considered at the site is a controlled discharge of water into the ocean once radiation levels are brought within safety limits through filtration or other treatments, Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said yesterday.
At the weekend, more leaks were discovered along with a “hot spot” emitting 1,800 millisieverts of radiation per hour around the bottom of a water storage tank.
The weekend’s findings probably reflect Tepco’s beefed-up monitoring crews finding contamination that was missed earlier, former nuclear engineer Michael Friedlander said in a phone interview.
Tepco boosted the number of tank-inspection patrols from twice a day to three times a day after last month’s 300-ton leak, Yoshikazu Nagai, a company spokesman, said by phone. Patrols increased further to four times a day starting yesterday, when the number of inspection staff grew to 60 members from 10, he said.
No Immediate Concern
Radiation levels Tepco disclosed at the weekend don’t raise an immediate concern for the general public because the site is off limits, Tetsuo Ito, head of Kinki University’s Atomic Energy Research Institute, said by telephone on Sept. 1.
Direct exposure to 1,800 millisieverts for four hours can be lethal, but it’s not life-threatening for Tepco’s inspectors as they don’t stay in one spot for four hours, he said.
Tepco said the 1,800 millisieverts reading was found 5 centimeters above the area that was checked, falling to 15 millisieverts at 50 centimeters. The reading was for beta radiation that travels short distances and can be blocked by use of metal sheet such as aluminum, the company said on its website.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month said Tepco isn’t able to handle the disaster recovery after the company acknowledged that contaminated groundwater at the plant was seeping into the ocean. Japanese government officials estimated that leak at 300 tons of irradiated water a day.
9 Comments on "Japan Radioactive Water Alarm Spurs Government Intervention"
BillT on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 3:05 am
Whatever they admit to, you can be sure it is magnitudes worse…
curlyq3 on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 3:17 am
Hello BillT … “Whatever they admit to, you can be sure it is magnitudes worse…” … The link below is helpful for perspective to the magnitude of this crisis … curlyq3
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/28/fukushima-how-many-chernobyls-is-it/
MrEnergyCzar on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 3:57 am
Reminds me of when they froze the “Blob” and dumped it in the arctic…
MrEnergyCzar
Norm on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 6:29 am
I know how to fix this problem simple and fast. Set off a great big nuclear bomb in the middle of the Fukushima complex. That will vaporize everything and cover the site over with green glass. Problem solved. Lets get goin on this. Tired of all this lolly gagging and workers in white suits leaning on their radioactive shovels.
BillT on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 11:02 am
Well Norm, I guess sending all the millions of tons of radioactive debris into the stratosphere at one time is your idea of a solution. However, radioactivity is not ‘vaporized’. Nor would it all become a ‘sheet of glass. and all of those spent fuel rods in the pools would be blown into the air like a hundred Hiroshimas, to rain down everywhere.
Then you have the problem of it being on a major fault line and near a volcano chain. A large nuclear explosion could set off a mega-quake that sets up another tsunami of unknown magnitude, which takes out Tokyo, and maybe Honolulu or the West Coast of America? Not to mention starting a chain of volcanic eruptions. Tsunamis come in thousand feet high sizes also.
If I am wrong, prove it.
DC on Tue, 3rd Sep 2013 10:35 pm
Those guys have NO clue what-so-ever as to what they are doing, or even if it has a snowballs chance in hell of working(it doesn’t and it wont). But since you have Japanese culture, which places a premium on ‘face’ and the nuclear industry, which lies its face off routinely, you have a perfect combination of systems that are willing not to admit there reckless and expensive ‘containment’ schemes simply cant and wont work.
On the remote chance that it is marginally effective, say a 1% decrease in the rate of radioactive crud flowing well, just about everywhere, how long does the brain trust think they can keep the ground frozen @ -40c for anyhow?
1 year…
5 years….
50 years….
or the 250,000 years give or take that it will actually require to keep the ground permanently frozen at fukushima.
Place your bets everyone….
BillT on Wed, 4th Sep 2013 1:25 am
“…TEPCO finally admitted it has been downplaying the ongoing radiation release levels by a factor of almost twenty…regarding the level of hourly 1800 mSv, “There is only a thing called death if you stay exposed to this for four hours. One hundred percent of persons will die within 30 days.”…”
http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2013/09/fukushima-radiation-leaks-far-worse.html
Told you so!
curlyq3 on Wed, 4th Sep 2013 2:02 am
Hello BillT … I work in a dangerous forensic hospital(criminally insane people) … When situations gets out of control my line has been to my colleagues is “I didn’t run away, my feet did.” … curlyq3
Kenz300 on Wed, 4th Sep 2013 5:49 pm
Too much secrecy since the beginning of this disaster.
TEPCO and the government of Japan both need to be more open and honest.
It is time to bring in some outside experts…..
The international media needs to put pressure on TEPCO, the government of Japan and the nuclear industry to let outside experts and media more access to the site. An international panel of experts needs to be assembled to help find solutions to this disaster. They have been fumbling along for over two years. They need to ask for and get outside help.
They are too afraid of the public reaction in Japan when they have to admit that they are in over their heads
Their attempt to protect the nuclear industry is clouding their judgement in moving forward with a clean up. .