The Latest Updates On the Fukushima Nuclear Emergency

The ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi in Northern Japan isn't going to come to an end anytime soon, and it appears that TEPCO understated the seriousness of the containment issues from the outset. Substantial damage occurred to the cores of at least two of the reactors; partial meltdowns mean that the damage is far more extensive and difficult to cleanup and contain than previously indicated.

For the first time since March 15, TEPCO sent crews into Reactor 2 to examine radiation levels.

There's also new video footage from within the stricken reactors and containment pools and ongoing efforts around the plants to contain dust and radioactive particles to keep them from being stirred up and affecting the surrounding area. Some of the video shows just how devastating the hydrogen explosions were in damaging the secondary containment facilities and it appears that vents that were supposed to alleviate the danger of hydrogen buildup didn't work.



The following video shows debris within one of the containment pools, including a ladder from elsewhere in the facility resting atop the stacks of fuel rods:

Japan Lays Out Roadmap For Fukushima's Nuclear Reactor Shutdown

The Japanese government and TEPCO have come up with a nine-month plan to bring the four damaged nuclear reactors into a state known as cold shutdown.

The goals are part of a two-part plan that represents Tokyo Electric’s most concrete timetable yet for controlling the reactors and improving safety conditions at the plant, which was damaged by 15-meter-high tsunami waves on March 11.

At least on paper, the program marks a turning point in the company’s struggles to shut down the reactors. For weeks, workers have fought to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools by pouring water on them. The deluge has created other problems, including a flood of contaminated water that seeped into the site and into the ocean.

But conditions have stabilized in recent days, giving the utility, widely known as Tepco, the confidence to unveil its schedule for shutting the reactors.

The first part of the plan would take about three months and include installing a cooling system to lower the temperature in the reactors and spent fuel pools, as well as reducing radiation in the surrounding area, said Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of Tokyo Electric.

The second part, which would take up to six more months, would include more pumping of water, the introduction of a heat removal system and reducing the amount of contaminated water. The wreckage from the three damaged buildings would then be removed and the buildings covered.

“The company has been doing its utmost to prevent a worsening of the situation,” Mr. Katsumata told reporters. “We have put together a roadmap,” he said, adding, “We will put our full efforts into achieving these goals.”

Mr. Katsumata said that he and the company’s president, Masataka Shimizu, would consider what’s best for the company before deciding whether to resign to take the blame for the crisis. The company said Friday that it plans to distribute $600 million in initial payments to 50,000 people forced to evacuate because of the accident.

The key to the safe shutdown of the nuclear reactors is building a new coolant system to handle and remove the heat, while providing a safe environment for operators to deal with dismantling the various damaged structures.

Japan Raises Nuclear Emergency Alert Level

The Japanese government has raised the nuclear emergency alert level to the highest level - it rates a level 7, which indicates the spread of radiation outside the reactor containment facilities and affects the region beyond the nuclear reactor, but the radiation released is a fraction of that which was released in the Chernobyl explosion. Of course, that particular distinction is lost on many people considering the scenes of damage and devastation at Fukushima and Chernobyl and that radiation is an unseen risk.



Fukushima isn't Chernobyl in several critical ways, particularly in how the reactors were constructed, the kind of damage done, and operational errors in dealing with both reactors:

There is a key difference, he says, in the type of explosions at Fukushima and Chernobyl. At the Ukrainian plant 25 years ago, he explains, a series of operating errors and misjudgments resulted in an explosion and fire releasing toxic smoke that contained parts of the fuel rods and graphite particles into the atmosphere. At Fukushima, however, there have only been steam explosions.

Also, there have been no reported deaths so far due specifically to radiation at Fukushima, where at least five workers have died from other operational mistakes. The initial explosion at Chernobyl killed two workers, and then 28 of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion because of radiation exposure.

Still, Oka concedes that it is very difficult to tell exactly what percent of the fuel rods have melted at Fukushima, and therefore how much radiation has actually leaked.

"Fukushima has its own unique risks, but comparing it to Chernobyl is going too far. Fukushima is unlikely to have the kind of impact on the health of people in neighboring countries, the way Chernobyl did," nuclear specialist Kenji Sumita at Osaka University told Reuters.

Geography exacerbated the Chernobyl incident. While that radiation spread to the Ukrainian countryside and blew over Europe, much of the Fukushima radiation has dispersed over the Pacific Ocean. Greenpeace’s Mr. Myllyvirta says the Fukushima crisis would be much worse if Japan was a landlocked country.

The geographical differences are key in just how many people are affected by the spread of radiation downwind; because the prevailing winds take airborne particles from Fukushima out over the Pacific Ocean, the population affected by radiation is much lower.

TEPCO is continuing to attempt to bring the situation under control, and aftershocks continue to shake the region and can affect efforts to bring outside power to the reactors so that coolant systems can be operated to keep the reactors and the spent fuel pools cool. The aftershocks shut down the coolant systems for about an hour, but were restarted. This will be an ongoing problem and concern given that significant aftershocks are expected to continue for the next several months. The backup systems that have been put in place aren't protected against a possible tsunami, which is what caused all the problems at Fukushima to cascade into the troubles that TEPCO are dealing with now.

The overheating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi have two layers of backup functions in case of a power cut—diesel-powered generators and emergency fire pumps—so they can continue receiving cooling water. But these functions require workers to turn them on manually. This became a problem Monday as a tsunami warning forced all workers to move to a shelter on the plant grounds.

"These disruptions must be solved rapidly as a prolonged lack of cooling would easily end the respite they have managed to maintain," said Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor of radiation engineering at Nagoya University.

Two more earthquakes shook Japan early Tuesday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, with the levels of magnitude smaller than recent aftershocks that have struck.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the first quake hit the Fukushima area at 8:06 a.m. with a magnitude of 4.0. The second quake struck in the ocean east of Tokyo area at 8:08 a.m. with a magnitude of 6.3, shaking the downtown Tokyo area.

Despite the lesson from the earlier quake and tsunami that rendered the plant's backup cooling systems fully dysfunctional, officials acknowledge the temporary cooling functions at the plant aren't prepared for large tsunamis.

UPDATE:
The seven point INES rates nuclear emergencies based on how far the radiation has spread beyond containment. With Fukushima, while each of the 4 damaged reactors are individually rated as level 5 emergencies, the combined situation rates a 7 - due to the complexities of dealing with containment, the spread of radiation outside containment facilities, and the immediate region.

Major 7.4 Aftershock Renews Concerns In Japan

A major 7.4 aftershock rocked Japan just minutes ago:

Japan was rattled by a strong aftershock and tsunami warning Thursday night nearly a month after a devastating earthquake and tsunami flattened the northeastern coast.

The Japan meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning for a wave of up to 6 feet (two meters). The warning was issued for a coastal area already torn apart by last month's tsunami, which is believed to have killed some 25,000 people and has sparked an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.

Officials say Thursday's aftershock was a 7.4-magnitude and hit 25 miles (40 kilometers) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake that preceded last month's tsunami was a 9.0-magnitude.

Buildings as far away as Tokyo shook for about a minute.

The USGS is actually reporting this as two separate and distinct 7.4 aftershocks spaced about 2 minutes apart:
MAP     7.4      2011/04/07 14:32:42       38.253       141.640     25.6      NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP     7.4      2011/04/07 14:32:00       38.200       142.000     40.0      NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

The quakes occurred at slightly different depths and locations, and while each, by themselves, could have serious consequences, together they add to the woes facing the Japanese in their ongoing struggle to recover the remains of those killed in the tsunami and to regain control over the four damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima. Shake maps show moderate intensity for the region most heavily affected by the 9.1 monster quake.

By itself, a quake this size could cause tremendous damage in a country that doesn't have strict or adequate building codes. Thus far, the initial reports indicate that the quake didn't add to Japan's misery - though there are tsunami warnings and alerts. 

No such alert is issued for Hawaii, Alaska or the West Coast though.

Meanwhile, TEPCO has evacuated Fukushima in the wake of the latest quake and potential for tsunami.

Public broadcaster NHK reported a tsunami warning for Miyagi prefecture, saying people in that area should evacuate away from the shore to a safe place.

NHK also reported a tsunami advisory for Iwate prefecture, saying a tsunami is expected to arrive in coastal regions there as well.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said based on all available data, "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected and there is not a tsunami threat to Hawaii."

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered 41 miles (66 kilomemeters) from Sendai -- one of the areas worst hit by last month's 9.0-magnitude quake -- and 73 miles (118 kilometers) from Fukushima, where a crisis has been under way at a nuclear plant since last month's tsunami.

Japanese Nuclear Emergency Will Take Months To Bring Under Control

Japan's nuclear emergency will take months to fully bring under control as efforts to keep the nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools cool have caused their own problems that are proving to be as problematic as the coolant problems were.



To keep the reactors and spent fuel pools cool, TEPCO and the Japanese government were pouring hundreds of tons of sea water, including boron infused water, and TEPCO now faces tons of radioactive water due to leaks in any number of places.

It is those leaks that are now dogging the efforts to contain the radioactivity because the water is disrupting efforts to contain the reactors.

The remains of two workers at Fukushima were discovered; they had been presumed missing since the tsunami hit. Their bodies will need to be decontaminated for radiation due to the ongoing exposures at the nuclear reactor.

Workers are trying to plug leaks and aren't having much success.

On Saturday, workers discovered an 8-inch-long crack in a maintenance pit at the Fukushima plant that they said was believed to have been caused by the earthquake. Water containing levels of radioactive iodine far above the legal limit spilled from it into the Pacific, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

A picture released by TEPCO shows water shooting some distance away from a wall and splashing into the sea, though the amount of water was not clear. The contaminated water was expected to quickly dissipate in the ocean but could pose a danger to workers at the plant.

Pooling water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex — which is believed to come from the reactor cores — has repeatedly forced technicians to pull back and suspend their work.

Word of the leak came Saturday as Prime Minister Naoto Kan toured the town of Rikuzentakata, his first trip to survey damage in one of the dozens of villages, towns and cities slammed by the tsunami.

"The government has been too focused on the Fukushima power plant rather than the tsunami victims. Both deserve attention," said 35-year-old Megumi Shimanuki, who was visiting her family at a community center converted into a shelter in hard-hit Natori, about 100 miles from Rikuzentakata.

More than 165,000 are still living in shelters, and tens of thousands more still do not have electricity or running water.

Although the government had rushed to provide relief, its attention has been divided by the efforts at the Fuskushima plant.

The plant's reactors overheated to dangerous levels after electrical pumps — deprived of power — failed to circulate water to keep them cool. A series of almost daily problems have led to substantial amounts of radiation leaking into the atmosphere, ground and sea. Huge hydrogen explosions destroyed the buildings surrounding two of the reactors.

Over the past 10 days, pools of contaminated water have been found throughout the plant and high levels of radioactivity have been measured in the ocean, but this marks the first time authorities said they had found a spot where the water was directly entering the sea.

Japan Struggles To Contain Nuclear Emergency

New video footage has been taken showing several of the damaged reactors at Fukushima from much closer than previous videos. It would seem that the footage was taken from the boom used to pour water on the damaged reactors:



The Japanese Prime Minister is expected to visit the restricted area around Fukushima, but the government and TEPCO are struggling to deal with the ongoing radiation discovered in and around the damaged facility. Radiation has been found in ground water near the plant, and there have been contradictory messages by both the government and TEPCO about radiation levels at different times:

High levels of radioactive materials have been found in groundwater below a stricken nuclear power station in north- eastern Japan, the plant's operator said Friday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) confirmed that radioactivity in groundwater below the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant measured 10,000 times the legal threshold after the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said earlier in the day that part of the data had errors and ordered the operator to re-examine the figures.

The contaminated groundwater was detected around the turbine building of reactor number 1 at the plant, TEPCO said. The plant, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami and has been leaking radiation.

Further muddying the issue was the revelation from TEPCO late Friday that the computer monitoring radiation levels at reactor number 1 was not working properly, reported the NHK broadcaster.

Experts have criticized information from the plant, saying levels reported in the water tested at the plant were too high. The revelation adds to a long chain of concerns about TEPCO's reporting on the process to restore control at Fukushima.

The Health Ministry reported Thursday that beef in Fukushima prefecture contained radioactive material above the legal limit, the first such detection in beef.

But a re-examination showed Friday that no radioactive substances were found in beef, the ministry said. No explanation was offered for the change.

There's no explanation for how the water levels have become radioactive - whether that was due to the water being poured into the reactor complex to cool down the damaged reactors and spent fuel pools, or whether leaks in the reactor core containment and spent fuel pools is contributing to the problem. The solutions will depend greatly on determining the source of the radioactive water and how to limit its further spread (although radioactive water has been detected in the ocean nearby - sourced to the reactor complex).

Also, the US Marines are deploying a unit that has special training in dealing with NBC hazards. Navy units are also participating in efforts to clear harbors and waterways of obstacles so shipping can resume to the affected region.

Japan, Struggling To Regain Control of Nuclear Reactors, Announces Scrapping of 4 Damaged Reactors

The Japanese government and TEPCO continue to try and regain control over the four damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima and are having little success despite finally being able to run power lines to the plants. The damage to the reactor facilities is so bad that the government announced that it would decommission the four reactors that have been central to this crisis in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The situation is particularly bad to the point that the government is considering building a containment structure around the most heavily damaged buildings.



It's now the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, and the discovery of plutonium outside the reactor facilities suggests that there was at least partial meltdowns of one or more reactors and possible breaches of the reactor containment structures. Radiation levels are much higher than normal outside the plants, and in the ocean waters offshore. The stress has also apparently gotten to TEPCO's President, who was hospitalized:

It's already been determined that radiation has seeped into the soil and seawater and made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far as Tokyo, 220 kilometres to the south.

Also Wednesday, TEPCO conceded that it would have to decommission four of the six reactors at the Fukushima facility. The seawater used to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools would have been corrosive to the reactors, leaving them inoperable.

More consultation would be needed to determine the fates of reactors 5 and 6, which were not operating at the time of the quake and tsunami and were cooled down safely.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano was unable to say when the country might feel assured that the problem at Fukushima was contained.

"We are not in a situation where we can say we will have this under control by a certain period," Edano told a Wednesday briefing.

The stress of the disaster has taken its toll on TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, who was sent to a hospital late Tuesday.

Shimizu, 66, has not been seen in public since two days after the disaster hit, when he attended a March 13 news conference in Tokyo.

His absence since has raised speculation that he had suffered a breakdown. For days, officials deflected questions about Shimizu's whereabouts, saying he was "resting" at company headquarters.

Spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said Wednesday that Shimizu had been admitted to a Tokyo hospital after suffering dizziness and high blood pressure.

There are concerns of a power vacuum at TEPCO, and that the crisis management has been abysmal since the tsunami came ashore. Mind you though that many of the workers trying to save the reactors from melting down are dealing with monumental crises all around them - with family members among the missing and dead from the tsunami and are working in horrific conditions to regain control over the damaged reactors.

The government also announced new measures that would be implemented immediately to upgrade security and safety at the country's nuclear power plants. They include improved backup systems, and a review of tsunami protection systems like sea walls:

A Reuters investigation showed Japan and TEPCO repeatedly played down dangers at its nuclear plants and ignored warnings, including a 2007 tsunami study from the utility's senior safety engineer.

The research paper concluded there was a roughly 10 per cent chance that a tsunami could test or overrun the defences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant within a 50-year span based on the most conservative assumptions.

The new safety steps, to be completed by the end of April, include preparing back-up power in case of loss of power supply, and having fire trucks with hoses ready at all times to intervene and ensure cooling systems for both reactors and pools of used fuel are maintained, the Trade Ministry said.

Other measures such as building higher protective sea walls would be studied after a full assessment of the Fukushima disaster, officials said.

The immediate measures do not necessarily require nuclear plant operations to be halted, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda told a news conference.

BTW, there's a webcam that shows a portion of Fukushima, but it only captures images once an hour (and it is currently dark). It's better than nothing.

Japan Struggles To Deal With Nuclear Emergencies As Death Toll Climbs

The Japanese government continues to struggle to deal with the massive death and devastation following the 9.0 quake and tsunami swamped much of the northeastern portion of the country and disabled and badly damaged the nuclear reactors at Fukushima's nuclear power complex.

The death toll is now over 8,800 and expected to climb much higher in coming days. Hundreds of thousands are still homeless and many more have been evacuated from the exclusion zone around Fukushima because of the radiation hazard posed by the damaged reactors and storage pools.

A number of workers were forced to evacuate from reactor #3 because of smoke rising from the stricken reactor. Power crews from TEPCO have run new power lines to the four stricken reactors in the hopes of restoring coolant systems, but damage to some systems at one of the reactors has delayed efforts, and the smoke rising from #3 has led to still more delays. Delays were also likely because insufficient power is being delivered to the damaged reactors.



The US NRC has reported that they consider the situation at Fukushima to be stabilizing, which is a bit of good news in a sea of trouble.

Radiation containment domes at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear reactors are intact and the situation at the plant “is on the verge of stabilizing,” a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said.

“Containment at units 1, 2 and 3 appear to be functional,” Bill Borchardt, executive director for operations at the agency, said today during a meeting at the agency’s headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.

Spent-fuel pools used to keep fuel rods from overheating at units 3 and 4 are stabilizing. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said progress was being made in restoring power to reactors No. 1 and No. 2, while Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it had connected No. 3 and No 4.

“The fact that offsite power is close to being available for use at plant equipment is perhaps the first optimistic sign that things could be turning around,” Borchardt said.

The damage to the reactors and the spent fuel pools is going to cause a redesign and reassessment of how spent fuel is stored. The design of the TEPCO reactors and spent fuel pools is no longer used, and there were tradeoffs in where and how the spent fuel rods were stored. The massive quake and resulting tsunamis highlighted the tradeoffs and the vulnerability of the spent fuel pools, which will likely lead to work to bolster the containment at spent fuel pools around the world to prevent the kinds of problems seen at Fukushima to minimize the possibility that a radiation release could occur as a result of failures to the coolant systems and backup systems.

More than a week after the quake and tsunami, new footage of the tsunami crashing ashore is being posted online along with some startling tales of survival:





The second video shows the sea walls handling the surging ocean for the initial bursts, but at the 8:00 mark or so, the waves simply overtop the sea wall, and the water rushes in. Those sea walls gave a measure of protection and time for people to get away from the coast as the tsunami came ashore. Those precious minutes cannot be overlooking in how Japan prepared for the tsunami and earthquakes - the death toll would have been surely much higher had those sea walls not been in place and the water rushed inland with those first surges.

UPDATE:
The NY Times has a good graphic showing the status of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, along with their storage pool situations. Meanwhile, TEPCO admits that it missed certain key inspections just weeks before the devastating quake and tsunami. A March 2 response from Japan's nuclear regulator says that it did not believe there was an immediate risk to safety as a result of the missed inspections. Those items that were not inspected included backup systems on one of the crippled reactors.

UPDATE:

Japan Raises Nuclear Emergency Severity Rating As Relief Efforts Continue

The death toll from the massive 9.0 quake and resulting tsunami has surpassed 6,500 and many thousands remain missing and presumed dead. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced, and evacuation efforts trying to get foreign citizens out of Japan are gaining speed.

The Japanese government has raised the severity of the ongoing nuclear emergency at Fukushima's nuclear power plants. Several of the reactors and at least one storage pool are in bad shape and releasing radiation due to failures in the coolant systems following the massive 9.0 earthquake.



Efforts to string up power lines to restore power to the backup systems are underway, as is efforts to manually pump water onto the stricken reactors to cool them down.

Japan on Friday increased the severity of the crisis at the Fukushima site from 4 to 5 on a 7-point international nuclear event scale.

Firefighters are dousing water on damaged reactor buildings with powerful hoses. But they have to limit their time inside the complex due to the high radiation levels.

Japanese engineers also are extending an emergency power cable to the nuclear reactor complex. A steady supply of power could enable workers at the Fukushima plant to get water pumps working again.

Meanwhile, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, says Japan is racing against time to cool the overheating reactors. Amano arrived in Japan Friday to meet with top Japanese officials and learn how the IAEA can help with the crisis.

The increase in the nuclear accident's severity rating comes shortly after the chief secretary of Japan's cabinet, Yukio Edano, tried to calm fears about the radiation. He said elevated radiation levels detected kilometers away from the plant were not a health risk.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Japanese authorities have told them they have successfully laid a cable line to reactor number two at the nuclear plant. However, it is not clear how close workers are to actually restoring power.

One of the possible solutions to prevent a significant release of radiation being proffered is that the Japanese and Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) may erect a concrete and sand sarcophagus, similar to the containment structure erected by the Soviets following the Chernobyl disaster.

UPDATE:
The disaster is sure to spark a renewed look at Japan's nuclear industry and failures of oversight and recognition of risks based on site analysis. While the engineering of the containment facilities appears to have been vindicated as far as the reactor cores are concerned, risks from seismic events and tsunamis were underestimated and design decisions did not take the tsunami risk seriously enough:

Back-up diesel generators that might have averted the disaster were positioned in a basement, where they were overwhelmed by waves.

“This in the country that invented the word Tsunami,” said Brockman, who also worked at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Japan is going to have a look again at its regulatory process and whether it’s intrusive enough.”

The cascade of events at Fukushima had been foretold in a report published in the U.S. two decades ago. The 1990 report by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for safety at the country’s power plants, identified earthquake-induced diesel generator failure and power outage leading to failure of cooling systems as one of the “most likely causes” of nuclear accidents from an external event.

While the report was cited in a 2004 statement by Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, it seems adequate measures to address the risk were not taken by Tokyo Electric, said Jun Tateno, a former researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and professor at Chuo University.
Accident Foretold

“It’s questionable whether Tokyo Electric really studied the risks,” Tateno said in an interview. “That they weren’t prepared for a once in a thousand year occurrence will not go over as an acceptable excuse.”

Hajime Motojuku, a utility spokesman, said he couldn’t immediately confirm whether the company was aware of the report.

UPDATE:
Among the latest measures the Japanese government has done in conjunction with raising the nuclear emergency alert level was purchase 150 tons of boron from South Korea and France to help tamp down the neutron reactions in the affected reactors. The boron would be mixed with the water being pumped on to the reactors to cool them down.

That raises questions as to the preparedness of Japan to deal with a nuclear emergency, why they didn't have sufficient stocks of boron on hand to deal with a potential disaster, and why they didn't move sooner to attempt to add boron to the water being poured on the reactors.

Also, the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 is among the priority concerns because there appears to be damage to the pool itself, allowing water to leak and affecting the ability to keep the fuel rods submerged and cool. It's a danger because the spent fuel pools aren't designed with containment to the same level as the reactor core is.