Published: October 9th, 2012 at 9:42 am ET
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(Subscription Only) Title: TEPCO begins to look inside crippled Fukushima No. 1 reactor
Source: Kyodo
Date: Oct. 9, 2012
Source: Tepco
[... Tepco] inserted a camera inside the primary containment vessel [at Reactor No. 1 at Fukushima Daiichi] to capture some images, which are expected to become available as early as Wednesday. It also plans to take a sample of water inside the reactor on Friday, the first such attempt since the accident at the plant occurred in March last year.
By analyzing what kind of radioactive substances are contained in the water and the density level, the utility hopes to get more clues about the condition of the fuel that is believed to be accumulating at the bottom of the vessel. [...]
Oct. 9, 2012 Kyodo News report with summary translation by Enformable
[...] The goal of the work is to determine the amount of contaminated water in the vessel, but after the first day of investigation, workers were unable to find the water level in the reactor, and some damage was found. [...]
Update: Oct. 9, 2012 Kyodo News report with translation by SimplyInfo
09, TEPCO he announced in a reactor containment vessel of Unit 1 Fukushima Daiichi, start a study with a small camera, and was confirmed by the video for the first time on the water seems to be contaminated water at the bottom. Water level is unknown, measured 10 days. The 12th plan to collect the contaminated water.
Piping from the walls of the Unit 1 containment vessel, a survey of 09, it was confirmed internal hanging a camera field of view can be adjusted up, down, left, or right.
Inside the entrance of the equipment in the wall of the containment vessel, major damage was not found. [...]
From May 2012: Japan Nuclear Experts: Fears corium not totally covered in water at Reactor No. 1 -- May only be 15 inches deep, even lower than No. 2
Published: October 9th, 2012 at 9:42 am ET
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sending...
Why are they just finding this out now??
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Don't these type of statements make you just want to Scream and choke these TEPCO asshats? GEEEZZZZ… and it goes ON……and ON!
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YES THEY DO
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Governments and nuclear industries of the world are ok with this situation, it seems.
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"..workers were unable to find the water level in the reactor.."
Dear Mr. Gundersen,
(or anybody)
What does this really mean?
What are they really saying or NOT saying?
Sincerely,
ChasAha
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Yes! The obvious questions, ChasAha! Is something restricting the camera's movement or blocking it's view? It seems odd to report they can't determine the water level without offering explanation of hold-up.
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Thanks to so many ENE, and Admin – for the information shared here (this post and throughout ENE!)
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@Maggie123: could be a combination of refractive distortion and murky conditions…
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Chas – It means the primary containment contains no water or coreium. All has melted thru the floor. Elvis has left the buiding.
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I think you need to be careful on the statement as shown here. I saw this (http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=7835) and it appears that they see water but can't figure out what the level is.
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The plan in the pdf file says that they are measuring the level tomorrow.
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Thanks, updated with SimplyInfo link.
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Looks like the water level was measured. If read correctly, it looks like 2.8 m above the drywell bottom.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_121010_01-e.pdf
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They are saying that there is little or no melted fuel in Fuku1.
They are saying that all the water they have poured into Fuku1 is now in the Pacific Ocean.
Containment1 is full of scrap metal remanents of Reactor1, which was the first Fukushima reactor to blow up.
The corium has disappeared from Building1, and now rests in mudrock beneath the plant ruins.
For those who haven't been following, the trend is upward in radiation levels. Just now, there are 6 US cities with radiation at 50 cpm or above. Minneapolis is 68 cpm today. Alert level is 100 cpm, which causes harm to a human body. http://radiationnetwork.com/
Fukushima isn't an accident that happened last year, and is now over. You won't hear much about Fuku on the MSM, but this situation is getting worse, not better. Experts tell us that there are no existing technologies that can deal with this situation. Humans can do nothing to "fix" what happened at Fuku. We have not 1, but 3 coriums in the ground underneath Reactors1,2,&3. One wall of Building4, with its heavy load of spent fuel assemblies, appears to be sinking, according to Kevin Blanch on his October 8 report. http://m.youtube.com/?reason=8&rdm=2567#/user/kevindblanch?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2Fkevindblanch. (Find the video for 10/8/2012).
Blueprint of Reactor1:
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/blueprint.html
No way any GE Mark 1 reactor should be allowed to operate. They are one big design flaw from top to bottom, known not to work…
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GE Mark 1 reactors were known not to be a workable design since the 1960s. (Containment is too small–add a Torus wet well. Containment can't contain excess steam–retrofit a vent to the open air from the containment. The problems with GE Mark1 comtainment were known from the beginning, yet many were built, including those at Fukushima. Where are the lawsuits that will shut down GE Mark1 reactors throughout the world?)
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@PhilipUpNorth
October 9, 2012 at 11:53 am
ECRR 2010 has been incorporated into Japanese law and so they will be into Indian law I hope and into UNSCEAR 2012 and into the all the national laws I predict. There is no other way except to make ECRR 2010 more strict. International jurisprudence change now.
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Thank you PhilipUpNorth
I've noticed and been alarmed by significantly rising radiation levels in areas around the national also.
I cannot figure out what is causing these rising levels.
Emissions at the plant continue but they do not appear nearly as bad as they were this time last year.
What is going on?
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I'm thinking majia, the recently discovered 40-day rad-cloud that's circulating around the northern hemisphere may be a contributing to this gradual buildup…
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The initial FALLOUT has CIRCLED the PLANET over 14 times in the 578 days since 311.
Each time the fallout is accumulating as it goes around and around.
The continued releases from Fukushima have not stopped. Their is no plan and no end in site.
It will continue to accumulate. No doubt!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=march+11+2011
…and it's only the beginning.
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majia: I believe that two things have happened.
First, Geiger counters and other radiation monitoring equipment in Japanese official hands has been quietly "recalibrated" after 311. Official radiation levels throughout Japan are routinely cooked, to minimize the readings. I suspect the real radiation levels are much higher than published levels.
Second, The source of the radiation is definitely Fukushima. Specifically, from smoke and steam of the 3 coriums located in mudrock under Buildings1,2,&3. TEPCO has no answer for this, there are no technologies to handle corium, and there is no plan to limit the radiation pouring into the air and Pacific Ocean from Fukushima.
I suspect that levels will coninue to rise. I know, majia, of your concern about the upward trend in radiation, and have read your recent thoughts on your blog. http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/. (Plug). What is your latest thinking? I have been growing increasingly alarmed, lest the trend continue. The longterm harm from these levels is already becoming clear.
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Well put they make hitler and salin like amateurs.
Tell me if Fukushima continued to spew radiation into the atmosphere for the nexts thousand years, at what point will the background radiation become harmful or are we already their, I believe the threshold is MSV/.50 correct me if I am wrong and I get a average of .170 in Toronto, before nuclear age beck ground .06. Please correct me.
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Weeman: Alert level of 100 cpm is considered to be a level of radiation that can cause cancer if exposure occurs overtime.
100 ms/yr is concidered the "Lowest level at which any long-term increase in cancer risk is clearly evident."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435
A good primer of radiation basics:
http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/radiation.html
Should anybody be living in Japan? No. The only sound in Japan should be the wind blowing down empty streets. This situation will come, eventually, but not voluntarily, with dislocation the only cost. Now, the toll will be in human suffering.
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In PA according to Radnet we are at 73 CPM. I think some of this is due in large part to all the US nuclear plants. I'm not surprise at this high reading as I live within 100 miles of 5 nuclear power plants with TMI being the closest and they just had a problem as you recall and there was another incident at one of the other five, can't recall which one, I grow weary.
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Saw it hit 89 in PA a couple of days ago. Getting awfully close to the 100 threshold. What do you think the gov response will be when readings start hitting 100+. They will probably say radiation network is not an accurate source.
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TEPCO internally has conned themself into believing that there is 10 M of water in the PCV of every reactor, so they do the first test, expecting a high level of water.
Then they discover it's a lot lower, and usually showing a lot of infiltrated ground water.
I expect that the cores of Rac 1 and 3 are somewhere 100 M below the building
I am not sure about rac 2 and 4
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(PHOTO)?
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It may all be for nothing quoting the Pres.of the Retired Workers for Fukushima as, "Reactor's 10 story fuel pool building's #1,2,3 can collapse in predicted large earthquake detonating fuel pools." They have no reinforcing and are earthquake damaged! He was there in June 2012.
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Tepco knows full well containment is gone, and Swiss cheese buildings hold no water…
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Plus 10 on Swiss Cheese!
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Quoting http://www.radiationhealthhnews.com "What was President Obama thinking not activating our new 10-min alert Civil Defense System to notify the public of the "3" incoming radiating clouds from 1,2,3 reactors & not sending help to reinforce all buildings now! Its like everyone is in denial. I talked to Arnie Gunderson in DC 9/20 & he said we need to be there in force or pack a bag South of Equator. Just got my Commonwealth Bank AU on-line acct. & $9.95 AU Visa as Ambassador Murata said, #4 is sinking & the Shouwa-Sanriku Earthquake Fault is going to be a big one. See article~www.radiationhealthnews.com
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He was thinking about global implications monetarily and both parties are bought by Energy companies, Pharma, etc. but it matters not as we just can't seem to wake up and vote for another Party like Jill Stein, the Green Party she stands for everything I believe in but will never win as nobody knows she is even running.
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moonshellblue,
(TV democratic) debates rely on corps's fundings.. Which the Green party lacks..
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The Japanese, Americans, and French nucleocrats have known for nearly a year that the coriums were ex-building in Units 1-3.
There are also clues that tell us of the Tepco strategies:
A single massive high rise concrete pump truck from Germany was used to try and cool the nuclear fires and went into the plant March 22, 2011:
http://www.pmw.de/cps/rde/xchg/pm_online/hs.xsl/Concrete%20pump%20is%20used%20to%20cool%20in%20Fukushima_ENU_HTML.htm
Later four more arrived (one for each critical unit):
http://www.pmw.de/cps/rde/xchg/pm_online/hs.xsl/9419_ENU_HTML.htm
Of interest to me was this sentence:
" Initially, they will probably pump water; later they will be used for any necessary concreting work."
MSNBC also speculated they were going to be used to entomb the buildings:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42359020/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/entomb-cement-pumps-flown-nuke-plant/
Tepco announced May 2012 nuclear fissile fuel burned through the Unit 1 and 3 reactor vessels and the reactor pit wall:
"TEPCO is now reporting the discovery of holes in the containment vessels at reactor 1 and reactor 3, which contains the plutonium mox fuel, both of which are leaking radiation into the ocean. The holes have reportedly been caused by molten lava from the nuclear meltdown at the power plant burning through the reactor walls."
http://blog.alexanderhiggins…
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Sorry… Got hit by word count:
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/05/13/tepco-holes-fukushima-nuclear-reactor-1-3-discovered-radiation-leaking-ocean-22704/
Also… Did you ever wonder why thousands of concrete trucks were seen traveling on the highway to Daiichi?
My guess: fuel rods and hot debris were dumped in the lagoon (we suspected from crane views) and then they paved the lagoon with concrete. Possibly some of the corium also flowed down to the lagoon and it is under concrete.
More concrete has been poured into fissures in the ground around Units1-4 to try and slow down the hydrovolcanic nuclear steam. They could care less about less visible ocean radiation leaks. It's all about appearances…visible appearances.
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@Sickputer: "It's all about appearances…visible appearances." Kinda like their buddies in the Gulf of Mexico. So, how's that Corexit fix working out for you guys at BP? Apparently very well, because the fisherman in my area would've rowed you bums out to sea and used ya for fish-bait, a long – long – time ago…
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It's a world problem. Every government, and every branch of the nuclear industry is responsible for the out-of-control radiation spewing from Daiichi.
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TheBigPicture – exactly so.
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@TheBigPicture
October 9, 2012 at 1:13 pm
As time passes…
Every uranium mine and every nuclear reactor and every spent fuel pool and every nuke waste storage dump and every living being incorporating in his body uranium/plutonium,Sr90,Cs137 etc together are extinction level events as time passes. A Clause in Nuke liability Act in India has this in effect:
"a time period for suppliers to be liable depending on the material in question"
What a contrast to ECRR 2010 which brings out the infinite dangers of nukes and which is incorporated into Japanese Law!
Manmohan Singh must be impeached and jailed for including this clause in the Nuke Liability Act in India which is fit to be replaced by another which in effect bans nukes globally. Because every nuke anywhere is an extinction level event everywhere as time passes.
Hail Kudankulam protesters working for all of us.
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A sieve does not hold water….. and there are three of them lined up in a row.
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Everyone understands that the smallest of inputs can have the most dire of consequences. But, when it is the an input of the largest most important of considerations, and it fails, and fails repeatedly, then there may be no path available for a fix.
Thanks Jack, for the undeniably flawed designs for these demon machines. Your company may have introduced all of us to our extinction event.
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help can not find (PHOTO).
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Tepco workers “unable to find water level”
stupid workers.
irony
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cute report-photoshopping :
- 'seems to be contaminated water at the bottom'
- 'Water level is unknown'
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If there's no water, the whole edifice has cracked after the quake.
I was wondering how much maintenance could it have had in thirty years, with the moisturizing of the ocean brine all around.
It may have cracked like sand down there, disregarding the original specifications (which were below the shaking of 2011, btw).
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