Fukushima Site Update.

Well, while the major news feeds were issuing strident notifications yesterday about Japan raising it's nuclear accident level designation from a 4 to a 5, which is required because it has become obvious that the area surrounding the site has been affected by the offsite radioactive releases, industry watchdogs such as NEI have been releasing calm, objective updates.  It never ceases to amaze me how far the media will go to stay misinformed and how unashamed they are about passing on that misinformation in a timely manner.

 

What I mean by that is that organizations like NEI are not secret, anybody can go to thier website and get good quality information.  The news media knows these organizations exist yet they prefer to tap the local or well known "experts" because they know how to spell nuclear power.

 

Anyway, conditions at the site are improving.  The reactors at units 1, 2 and 3 are stable but the cores are damaged as previously noted.  Cooling is still being provided by seawater injection.  Efforts to intall high voltage power lines to reactors 1 and 2 from a nearby power source are proceeding successfully and Tepco expects to restore power to the residual heat removal and cooling water pumps late Saturday.  Plans are to extend the transmission lines to units 3 and 4 next.  Units 5 and 6 are being powered by emergency diesels.

 

An unmanned vehicle has been used to spray 1500 gallons of water into the spent fuel pool at unit 3 and preparations are being made to spray water into the unit 4 spent fuel pool next.

 

No furthier information is available regarding the unit 2 fuel pool or unit 2 containment integrity.

 

Site dose rates have continued to lower and are now about 1 to 2 mr per hour at he site boundary.  The highest dose rate in the region between 30 and 60 kilometers surrounding the site was about 14 mr per hour earlier today.

 

Once power has been restored and the fuel pools and reactors are being cooled and supplied with makeup water, efforts will shift to long term plans to disposition the remains of units 1, 2 and 3.  My personal guess is that they will decide to inter the plants in some fashion such as encasement and burial rather than attempt a cleanup which would involve herculean efforts and astronomical costs.  But we'll see.

 

Shalom.