Published: May 25th, 2012 at 11:17 am ET
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Subscription Only: Fukushima No. 4 spent fuel pool sound enough to store fuel: TEPCO
Kyodo News
May 25, 2012
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said Friday that its latest inspection has confirmed that the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 unit is not tilting and is capable of safely storing the nuclear fuel inside.
Concerns remain regarding the pool because it contains a large number of fuel assemblies and the outer wall of the building housing the reactor and the pool was severely damaged by a hydrogen explosion in the early days of the nuclear crisis.
Based on the inspection conducted between May 17 and 23, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the No. 4 unit building is not tilting as a whole, while cracks over 1 millimeter wide in the pool’s concrete structure were not found during visual checks.
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Published: May 25th, 2012 at 11:17 am ET
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Brand new: Japan Unlikely To Exit Nuclear Power http://huff.to/KfSBFZ via @HuffPostPol
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""This summer will be the showdown for both pro- and anti-nuclear camps," said Shoichi Kondo, a ruling Democratic Party lawmaker and founding member of a non-partisan group advocating an exit from nuclear power. (Editing by Ron Popeski)"
more propaganda for the pro nukes.. wonder how much this is costing.. all the msm costs could create vast solar and wind fields.. still no real planning… very scary..
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What a load of crap. "…not tilting 'as a whole'"
Spin, spin, spin…
Okay, so maybe only the top half is tilting.
It's simple to verify. Look at photos of the Web Cam from May 15 or before and look at it now. That structure is HUGE. The top has dropped significantly. No doubt in my opinion.
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Yes, what are the various parts doing? Weasel wording.
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It seems every statement they make has some kind of modifier.
"as a whole"
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Every single one. It's like built subliminal disclaimers.
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Well thank God. I can finally sleep at night knowing Tepco is looking out for me. (sigh)
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not tilting "as a whole"…is that like being only a little bit pregnant?!
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"… Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the No. 4 unit building is not tilting as a whole, while cracks over 1 millimeter wide in the pool’s concrete structure were not found…"
Upon further inspection, investigators discovered that the reactors had not actually melted down or exploded either.
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They neglected to mention the 3,984 cracks they DID find, measuring .999 millimeters, but that's ok, because they believe they won't present a problem…as a whole.
/sarc
Curious to know how many cracks they did find smaller than 1 mm and whether the stress on those could cause them to become larger over time…
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"Uhh….Dad….like uhhhh….I partially totaled the car"
So the assumption here is that SFP4 can't be tilting if the building isn't tilting??? WTF!!??
Also, for those of us here in the US, a 1mm crack is 39 thousandths of an inch wide.
And that they felt the need to qualify the crack width dimension, then it surely means they found lots of serious cracks that are less than 1mm wide.
For reference, 30 thousandths (mils) is the standard thickness for credit cards.
So TEPCO has no problems with SFP wall cracks wide enough to shove a credit card in to and still have wiggle room.
So the question now is how many cracks .9mm wide did they find?
How deep?
How long?
How many half mm wide did they find?
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@WATK…
Strange synchronicity there that we posted the same theme at the same time.
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LOL
As they say, great minds think alike. 
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It is absolutely OUTRAGEOUS!
TO HAVE THE NERVE OF LYING ABOUT THE FOURTH REACTOR BUILDING.
THE BUILDING IS DEFINITELY LEANING!
AFTER THE TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION OF THE THIRD REACTOR, THE FORTH IS LEANING AWAY FROM THE THIRD. IT HAS A PARALLEL OFFSET.
IT IS SO CLEAR TO ANYONE THAT CAN COMPARE TWO PHOTOS, BEFORE AND AFTER!
THEY SEEMS TO BE LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING. THIS IS JUST A BUILDING LEANING, BUT ALL THE OTHER UNTRUE REPORTS – ABOUT RADIATION AND PEOPLES HEALTH, AND EMISSIONS. IT IS A CRIME TO HUMANITY TO KEEP LYING ABOUT THIS WHOLE SITUATION.
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OK, Urban, do you have to SHOUT throughout your entire post? I realize this is outrageous, but we get your point! We are probably all sympatico with your point of view.
Internet etiquette. Not an attack, just saying ….
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Good call u27…"parallel offset". That ol' TEPKiLL Trapezoid Trick..! I've thought this too since the TEPKILL release of measurements take from the top edge of SFP to the water level, about 2 months ago. Showed that the floor/SFP was pretty level relative to the ground, but omits the other part of the picture that the whole building has shifted sideways. This is pretty clearly visible (IMHO) in these pics from the very highly recommended source simplyinfo.org:
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2012/01/17/fukushima-reactor-building-4-severely-leaning-new-photos/
More diagrams from new TEPKILL PR: http://modernsurvivalblog.com/current-events-economics-politics/fukushima-building-4-is-bulging-and-leaning/comment-page-1/#comment-29056
Excellent U4 archive by Nuclear News: http://news.lucaswhitefieldhixson.com/2011/06/tepco-works-to-save-reactor-4-spent.html
As part of the 'Healthy Smile Movement' the Japanese Ministry of Tourism should do as well as the Pizza Tourism Board…The leaning TOWER of TEPKiLL…now with new improved Trapezoid Trick..
…see it before it's too late!
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There's only one leaning building that I love and trust and that's a tower somewhere in Italy!!!!!
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How ironic: TEPCO still cannot find any 1 mm cracks, but TEPCO itself and the whole of Japan are crumbling.
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I get the feeling that now I can totally ignore the Fuku situation, and simply follow Japan EQs. When the m7 EQ hits Fuku, time to go into the shelter for a year or two. NBC Air Filtration anyone? http://www.americansaferoom.com
What I wonder is just how long the TEPCO spokesman's nose is after telling this whopper? Peace.
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"As a whole"..The engineers here are going to laugh..
This is also perhaps the wrong term..
Why are they worried about "plumline"?
Please see pg.17.
( might be worthy of a download.)
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_120525_07-j.pdf
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Plumb line measures vertical lines straight up and down. It's used to determine vertical angles and depth. Measure the angle against the plumb line (straight up and down vertical). 'Trying to give a simple explanation; hoping it comes across. Engineers, surveyors, construction industry use plumb lines a lot.
Dowsing instruments look a lot like plumb bobs, but they are intended to move. Plumb bobs should be stationary when taking a measurement.
From the Free Dictionary:
plumb line
n.
1. A line from which a weight is suspended to determine verticality or depth.
2. A line regarded as directed exactly toward the earth's center of gravity.
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@HoTaters..thanks again…Sometimes people don't use expressions very often..
It's Plumb line…lol
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PS..I'm having to work a little extra hard here..
Physics Forum..usually is quick to translate the TEPCO hand outs..but they are more involved in arguing about the origin of the explosion in reactor 3.
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That's a good pdf, Heart. The photos help clarify some of the "support" issues for SFP4 that we were wondering about a week or two ago – but – I haven't found a good way to translate it to English yet. When I run it through Google Translate, I get all the captions in English but lose the matching photos. Suggestions welcome.
HoTaters is right about plumb lines. More plumb trivia – it's from the Latin word "plumbum" meaning "lead" (the metal) because old Roman pipes were made from lead. Hence "plumber" in English. The weight on the bottom of a plumb line, was originally made from lead.
I would guess that all of Tepco's measurements would be done with lasers, rather than with plumb lines.
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Thanks.. aigeezer…is the measurement itself still called plumb line?
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Yes, in the sense that orthogonal components like walls, floors and ceilings are normally supposed to be "plumb" or "in plumb" or "plumb fits" and so forth. Not really my area of expertise, but that's my understanding.
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Heart, I've been wallowing in the Google translation some more. Most of it is just machine-generated word salad, but there are occasional eyebrow raisers such as:
"for inspection at the site of three, corrosion of rebar that affect the durability has been confirmed"
I hope someone can get us a quality translation of the Tepco pdf that Heart posted. Link repeated here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_120525_07-j.pdf
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Love that "As a whole", but I think one
word was badly translated. Should have
been HOLE. Now that would make sense.
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Are we reassured with just the visual check? If the check was done by US engineers (and not just any 'inspectors') would they have used some kind of equipments to see if there were any cracks? I'm no expert but knowing the seriousness of the situation, I personally would have gone a step further to make sure there ain't any cracks!!
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I would prefer they did so too, Andii, especially with the corroding rebar they discovered and admitted finding at Unit 3! (see Aigeezer's comment above.)
All that salt water, oxidization and radiation together must be quite the corrosive force. How long can any of what's left of these "buildings" withstand the corrosion, erosion and jarring movements of constant aftershocks?
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