News Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, & Nuclear Disaster

[Belisarius]

TEPCO is really a very sorry company, clearly filled to the brim with incompetents

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12877198

The Japanese government has attacked the operator of a crippled nuclear plant for "unacceptable" mistakes.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had said radiation levels were 10m times higher than normal before correcting the figure to 100,000 times.

The mistaken reading at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has called into question the operating company's handling of the current crisis, says the BBC's Mark Worthington in Tokyo.

"Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major condition to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable," government spokesman Yukio Edano told a news conference.

"(The government) has ordered Tepco not to repeat this again," he said.

The government understood the workers were overworked and under stress, he added.

Yes, they may well be overworked and under stress, but somebody with a clear mind has to go through the figures and check them.

If they are no longer in a condition to carry out the most basic functions competently, they should call for emergency aid. I'm sure the IAEA could send them an emergency team of experts to take over the direction of the emergency within hours.

 

[Wishbone]

Am afraid it was Yukio Edano (he's not a spokesman but one of the most influential officials IMO) who ordered the company to "create" the "error" so as to allay panic. It doesn't really matter though. The current approach is not working, be the radiation 10M or 100K over the norm.

 

[Urwumpe]

Remember: We are still in a situation where all the good ways don't exist - not only are such old nuclear reactors not designed for being kept controlled from outside, but also the world around the nuclear power plant is a wilderness now. There is no infrastructure that you can rely on.

Still: TEPCO is a company that should have lost its permission to operate nuclear power plants already in the 1980s. It always acted irresponsible and tried to keep accidents secrets until it was impossible to deny them. The final big bang was just in 2003, when TEPCO was caught forging inspection reports about their reactors and their radioactivity. This resulting in a shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Fukushima and a massive inspection, that didn't change much of the company behavior. Latest news had been that they recruited their nuclear power plant operators among the homeless. If we are really lucky today, Fukushima has maybe more than just one Homer Simpson at the helm.

I wouldn't trust TEPCO. I am sure, many Japanese also will agree after the bigger problem of the Earthquake damage is finally solved. I doubt they will vote against nuclear power one day, but I am pretty sure, that TEPCO will not get through this unharmed. Japan has no real alternative to nuclear power, except maybe geothermal and a few square miles of shallow ocean for off-shore wind power. There is no coal, there is no oil, there is not even gas. And a country culture that consumes vast amounts of electricity.

Unless something magical happens, there is no alternative to nuclear power in Japan - but there is an alternative to the current operator and the current operation concept.

 

[Belisarius]

Latest news had been that they recruited their nuclear power plant operators among the homeless.

You're kidding, right?

 

[SiberianTiger]

Latest news had been that they recruited their nuclear power plant operators among the homeless.

I understand that in cramped Japan people may have problems having their own home, but how exactly was that worded in a source you remembered?

 

[Urwumpe]

You're kidding, right?

I understand that in cramped Japan people may have problems having their own home, but how exactly was that worded in a source you remembered?

Just checked, homeless had been a wrong report initially, but TEPCO did send untrained day-workers to the plant to reinforce the rescue teams there.

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,752444,00.html

Which is practically the same.

EDIT: Who has not enough to do in his freetime - there is a cardboard model for download of the European Pressure Reactor EPR from the manufacturer... also it exists as ~3100 part model for sale (just about $36 - a bit more than the value of Fukushima Daiichi now).

http://www.areva-np.com/scripts/de/publigen/content/templates/show.asp?P=737&L=DE&SYNC=Y

http://papermodels.net/p58.html

 

[steph]

Also worthy of attention is why they said the reading was an error. According to BBC, the worker who measured it ran away before he had time to take a second reading, so they said it was not credible. I don't know whether they sent someone else in or not.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also worthy of attention is why they said the reading was an error. According to BBC, the worker who measured it ran away before he had time to take a second reading, so they said it was not credible. I don't know whether they sent someone else in or not.

My personal, non-radioactive worker perspective of the use of a Geiger counter - if the sound of it reaches the c''' (about 1000 Hz) it is time to get distance and let a robot do that.

Sadly, there are no Geiger counters around, that I know of, that you can throw into a contaminated area.

 

[Wishbone]

TEPCO asks Areva and EdF for help. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/france-japan-help-idUKLDE72R19Z20110328

RPT-UPDATE 1-Japan asks French nuclear sector for help
Mon Mar 28, 2011 1:19pm BST

* French companies have exchanges with Japan's Tepco

* Japan asked EDF, Areva and the CEA for help

(Updates with details, repeats to sent to additional subscribers)

PARIS, March 28 (Reuters) - Japan has asked the French nuclear sector for help in dealing with the Fukushima nuclear plant for the first time since disaster struck earlier this month, French Energy Minister Eric Besson said on Monday.

This reflects growing unease about efforts by the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) (9501.T) to control the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex after it was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami.

"Japan explicitly asked EDF (EDF.PA), Areva (CEPFi.PA) and France's nuclear research body (CEA) to help them," Besson said adding this was the first time Japan had done so.

A spokesman for state-owned nuclear maker Areva said the company was studying the request but nothing was yet concrete.

"French companies have exchanges with Japan's Tepco and provide technical expertise on a regular basis," a separate spokeswoman for Areva said.

Areva and EDF provided Japan earlier this month with masks, overall suits and boric acid as well as water, soup, blankets, power generators, pumps and trucks, the spokesman said. (Reporting by Benjamin Mallet; Editing by Jane Baird)

 

[Urwumpe]

Tiny misinformation there - Areva NP is not French, but French-German, Siemens owns directly 34% of the shares because of their cooperation in the EPR project (see above), which is a merge of the French and German Pressurized Water Reactor technologies. The other 66% of the company shares are owned by the French government though. EDF is 100% French Government, but contrary to Areva, it is planned to sell this and make EDF private owned.

But if you don't remember the Siemens influence there, you would not really get the connection: The 10 Areva engineers who worked on Fukushima-Daiishi Unit 4 during the Earthquake, had been Germans. Also Areva NP is considered world market leader in terms of nuclear power, so it is pretty hard to do something without them getting involved.

---------- Post added at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 PM ----------

Plutonium has been detected in soil samples near the power plant - that means that the worst case for this kind of plant has now happened silently.

 

[SiberianTiger]

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ifty-pictures-inside-nuclear-power-plant.html

Workers collect data in the control room for Unit 1 and Unit 2. They must wear rubber suits to prevent as much radiation from entering their bodies as possible

BTW, is it likely that poor quality of this pic is because of CMOS matrix are being affected by radiation?

Swabbing the decks: A U.S. Navy photo shows sailors conducting a wash down of the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan today to wash away radiation

 

[Urwumpe]

BTW, is it likely that poor quality of this pic is because of CMOS matrix are being affected by radiation?

No, that is just poor lightning conditions. It is pretty dark in the control room. If a CCD sensor is not light sensitive enough, it needs longer exposure times to produce a image at such conditions, and every tiny motion of the person holding the CCD makes the image blur.

How radiation affects a CCD depends on the kind of CCD, often you have discharge and a dark pixel, while some other types react with a overcharge of a pixel and the following pixels in the sensor column being affected - white stripes form in the picture.

 

[Wishbone]

what is truly damning is the fact they have been covering that up for a week:

Source: Reuters (http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFLDE72R1SU20110328)

UPDATE 1-Japan says plutonium found at Fukushima
Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:16pm GMT

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Plutonium has been found in soil at various points within Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex but does not present a risk to human health, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Monday.

TEPCO vice-president Sakae Muto told journalists at the company's latest briefing that test results showing the plutonium came from samples taken a week ago.

It was the latest bad news from the plant, where evidence of radiation has been mounting and engineers face a protracted battle to control reactors damaged by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

(Reporting by Yoko Nishikawa; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Michael Roddy)

EDIT: Re - decon at USS Ronald R. I've got accustomed to the fantastic shots of automatic decon at American carriers, never would have thought that it is as labor-intensive as 50 years ago.

 

[Urwumpe]

The next problem at the reactors that is now out, but hardly a surprise: 45 tons of salt have accumulated in the reactors and isolate the fuel from the cooling efforts. Roughly the result of 1285 tons of sea water evaporating, if the information is correct... Would again mean that the fuel elements had generally been hotter as published.

 

[Belisarius]

test results showing the plutonium came from samples taken a week ago.

So all of last week while they were telling everyone it was all under control, and that there was no significant radiation, they knew about the plutonium leak.

The 2003 falsified reports and now this confirm what we suspected: that TEPCO is a company with a culture of secrecy and lies. Who knows what else they're not telling the public or even the govt right now?

Time to visit the TEPCO boardroom and hand out the wakizashis. I'll do the beheading honours, I've been training for years for just such an eventuality. It'll be my pleasure...

 

[Urwumpe]

Time to visit the TEPCO boardroom and hand out the wakizashis. I'll do the beheading honours, I've been training for years for just such an eventuality. It'll be my pleasure...

That is for honorable people. Such thieves don't have any honor that has to be restored. If you just behead them, that would even be too much of a service for them.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/29/business-us-tepco-nationalisation-idUKTRE72S16P20110329

By Mariko Katsumura
TOKYO | Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:06am BST



TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan may nationalize Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) as mounting costs and public anger threaten the future of the company at the center of the country's deepening nuclear crisis.


The outlook for Tokyo Electric, known as TEPCO, has been uncertain since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, causing radiation leaks, blackouts and massive evacuations. Its shares have fallen almost three-quarters and the cost of insuring its $92 billion in debt against default has jumped 10-fold.


Imposing state ownership on Asia's largest utility is one option Japan is mulling, National Strategy Minister Koichiro Gemba said on Tuesday, as the cost of fixing broken reactors and compensating businesses and households soar.


At the same time, the utility's ability to pay has been hobbled by a fall in generating capacity that is causing rolling blackouts that are expected to last for weeks if not months. TEPCO provides electricity to a third of the Japanese population and usually operates enough capacity to power the whole of Britain.


"I see no other options than nationalizing TEPCO," a fund manager at a major Japanese asset management firm said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. "People are so angry with the company and that anger won't subside if the government just injects money and lets the management stay."


Shareholders will be hurt, but the risk of the company collapsing without government support would be tremendous, he added.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.businessinsider.com/masataka-shimizu-missing-2011-3

TEPCO CEO Hasn't Been Seen In Weeks, And There Are Rumors He Has Fled Or Committed Suicide

Mar. 29, 2011, 5:51 AM

His company is in the midst of an existential crisis that may see it go bankrupt or nationalized. So where is TEPCO CEO Masataka Shimizu.

The Washington Post runs a startling report noting that he hasn't been seen in two weeks at his upscale Tokyo apartment, nor is he showing up in public, nor did he join the head of the country's nuclear safety board in front of the Diet.

There are rumors in Japan that he has fled the country or committed suicide, More likely, however, is that he's basically gone into hermitude, not unlike Toyota's CEO during the recent brake pedal controversy.

Politicians are furious, calling his absence inexcusable.

Meanwhile, TEPCO shares have crashed hard for the second straight day as the odds grow that a nationalization will wipe out all the equity.

 

[Wishbone]

Computed plume map

From March 28 IAEA technical briefing the following maps of predicted plume deposition are available:
Caesium 137, Iodine 131, Tellurium-132

 

[Stevodoran]

Radiation traces were found in Scotland and Holland form japan......