Germany Shuts Down Nuclear Plants With No Plan For How To Make Up Energy Difference

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Japanese quake/tsunami, Germany made the rash decision to shutter nuclear power plants across the country.

I say it was a rash decision, because instead of figuring out whether the country could actually handle the decision to take that many nuclear power plants offline, it decided that it would take the plants offline and see whether the country could handle the loss after the fact.

Nuclear plants have long generated nearly a quarter of Germany’s electricity. But after the tsunami and earthquake that sent radiation spewing from Fukushima, half a world away, the government disconnected the 8 oldest of Germany’s 17 reactors — including the two in this drab factory town — within days. Three months later, with a new plan to power the country without nuclear energy and a growing reliance on renewable energy, Parliament voted to close them permanently. There are plans to retire the remaining nine reactors by 2022.

As a result, electricity producers are scrambling to ensure an adequate supply. Customers and companies are nervous about whether their lights and assembly lines will stay up and running this winter. Economists and politicians argue over how much prices will rise.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s just go for renewables,’ and I’m quite sure we can someday do without nuclear, but this is too abrupt,” said Joachim Knebel, chief scientist at Germany’s prestigious Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He characterized the government’s shutdown decision as “emotional” and pointed out that on most days, Germany has survived this experiment only by importing electricity from neighboring France and the Czech Republic, which generate much of their power with nuclear reactors.

Then there are real concerns that the plan will jettison efforts to rein in manmade global warming, since whatever nuclear energy’s shortcomings, it is low in emissions. If Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, falls back on dirty coal-burning plants or uncertain supplies of natural gas from Russia, isn’t it trading a potential risk for a real one?

The world is watching Germany’s extreme energy makeover, as politicians from New York to Rome have floated their own plans to shut or shelve reactors.

The International Energy Agency, generally a fan of Germany’s green-leaning energy policy, has been critical. Laszlo Varro, head of the agency’s gas, coal and power markets division, called the plan “very, very ambitious, though it is not impossible, since Germany is rich and technically sophisticated.”

Even if Germany succeeds in producing the electricity it needs, “the nuclear moratorium is very bad news in terms of climate policy,” Mr. Varro said. “We are not far from losing that battle, and losing nuclear makes that unnecessarily difficult.”

Experts are expecting to see blackouts, brownouts, and economic losses as a result of a power generation system that is now far less robust and far more susceptible to disruptions because so much generating capacity is being taken offline in such short time without any new capacity being brought online.

The problems may not be felt immediately within Germany's borders, but they will be soon enough as other countries scramble to find generating capacity and are more likely to turn to gas and coal plants to make up the difference. The net result will be a worsening of air quality over Europe, and despite advances made on wind and solar power, there are times when those sources will not be sufficient to provide capacity.

Turning the back on nuclear power is a tremendous mistake, and one that Germans and the rest of Europe will come to regret.

Inexcusable Omissions at Indian Point

Indian Point nuclear power plant sits 40 miles north of the heart of New York City, and supplies a significant portion of the region's power. Yet, the plant lacks basic fire safety and security systems according to documentation obtained by New York Attorney General Eric Scheiderman.

The aging plant 24 miles from the city is missing basic smoke-eating tools, even as it sits on an earthquake fault and has suffered two fires since 2007.

Such safety shortcuts, approved for years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, face new scrutiny in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuke plant.

Indian Point's two active reactors are divided into 275 fire zones, of which 198 lack automatic fire suppression systems, according to records that plant owner Entergy gave the NRC in 2009.

That means 72% of the facility lacks things like sprinklers and automatic deluge water sprays.

One vulnerable hot spot is the spent-fuel pool at Indian Point 3, where radioactive and superheated fuel rods are kept cool. A spent-fuel pool triggered Japan's nuke accident.

Records also show:
There are no manual fire suppression systems such as hydrants or fire extinguishers in 111 fire zones - 40% of the plant.

Fire detection systems common to most major office buildings such as smoke, heat or flame detectors are unavailable in 173 zones - 63% of the plant.

The data is contained in a little-noticed March 28 petition from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to the NRC alleging that most of the plant's 275 fire zones violate minimum federal fire safety regulations.

"Indian Point's ongoing failure to comply with federal fire safety requirements is both reckless and unacceptable," he told The News.

The NRC approved the current status of fire safety in the 1980s, but in 2006 it told Entergy to justify in writing why it should keep the exemptions.

These kinds of basic fire safety and suppression systems have been mandated for years, but Entergy and the prior operators managed to convince the NRC (the federal nuclear watchdog) to grant exemptions to these rules. In some instances, the company claims that fire suppression requirements aren't necessary for some areas because they are concrete and not capable of burning.

While those areas shouldn't be able to burn, there is always the potential for emergencies that aren't anticipated, and having fire suppression systems and alarms available to detect such emergencies is a good idea.

Here's hoping that the NRC requires that Entergy impose these necessary safety upgrades with all due haste. While the likelihood of a major earthquake is quite low in the region, the power plant has suffered from several fires in recent years and notification systems for the surrounding region have also been found to be inadequate. The plant's safety and security systems should be updated as part of the recertification process and the company should be forced to assume the costs without passing the costs on to rate payers.

As we saw with Fukushima in Japan, the ability to protect the spent fuel pools and other critical areas from overheating is a major concern and the plant should be upgraded in accordance with lessons learned from that nuclear disaster.

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:

25 Years Since Chernobyl

It's been 25 years since the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred at Chernobyl's Reactor 4 in the Ukraine took the lives of more than 40 who worked at the plant and emergency responders and affected the lives of millions living downwind and in the zone of exclusion set up around the stricken plant.



The explosion, caused by human error combined with poor design, killed several workers instantly. The RBMK reactor design had a fatal flaw when operating at low power, and when workers were conducting a test, they entered that low power state without necessary backups in place and output spikes became uncontrollable and ultimately led to the destructive explosion of the core. Without the kind of containment in place for reactors common around the rest of the world, the core ruptured the reactor building and exposed the surrounding region to heavy doses of radiation and radioactive debris was flung into the air.

It further killed several dozen of the firefighters and liquidators who came in to put out the fire and to seal up the exposed reactor with a concrete sarcophagus:



The health consequences for those liquidators is still up in the air, and health experts debate just how many more deaths can be linked to the disaster in the affected population downwind of the reactor.

Efforts to build a new containment structure have been hamstrung by a lack of funds, and the most recent effort came up nearly $200 short for the expected $1 billion project.

Ultimately, the disaster may have helped spark the breakup of the Soviet Union and exposed just how bad the country's infrastructure and technological prowess truly was.

Ukraine Falls Short In Fundraising Effort To Build New Containment System for Chernobyl

The existing containment sarcophagus that surrounded the badly damaged Chernobyl reactor needs to be replaced and the proposed new containment structure is likely to cost more than $1 billion and foreign donors are needed to get this critical structure built.

Despite the critical need, the effort came up short. Only $790 million was raised. With the world's attention focused on the ongoing Japanese nuclear emergency at Fukushima and the crises compared to each other, it's worth remembering just how deadly and dangerous Chernobyl was and that a containment structure is critical to managing future risk from radioactive contamination.

The original Chernobyl sarcophagus was built hastily and water leaks in, posing an ongoing threat to the water table. Equipment is in place to collect and treat the radioactive water, but earthquakes can cause further damage and highly radioactive materials within the sarcophagus could shift or collapse, causing further releases of radioactive particles into the environment. The new containment structure would not only protect the existing sarcophagus, but allow crews the ability to better stabilize and fortify the structures.

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 Preparing More Evacuations Around Fukushima As Relief Efforts Continue

A new aerial video survey was taken over the stricken Fukushima reactor complex, and you can see snow falling, but more ominously is the steam that continues belching from the damaged reactor buildings.



That compares with the video taken during the tsunami as it roared ashore:


The ongoing nuclear emergency is forcing the Japanese government to expand evacuations around the Fukushima reactor complex.

Japan's government Friday urged residents living within 18 miles of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to voluntarily leave their homes and suggested that officials could expand the mandatory evacuation zone.

People living within 12 miles of the plant have been evacuated, yet those living between 12 and 18 miles of the facility have been told it is safe to remain as long as they stay indoors. But two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the country and hobbled the plant, causing radiation to leak, the situation has yet to be resolved.

"It has become increasingly difficult for goods to arrive, and life has become harder," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a news conference. He called upon local governments in the zone near the plant to encourage people to leave. It was not immediately clear how many people remained within 18 miles of the plant.

It's feared that the radiation leaking from the reactor complex is much worse, particularly after several workers were injured by highly radioactive water.

The possible breach was suspected when two workers waded into water 10,000 times more radioactive than normal and suffered skin burns, according to the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency.

"It is possible there may be damage somewhere in the reactor," spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said, adding that the cause of the burns still remains unclear.

Nishiyama said there is no data suggesting there were any cracks, and that a leak in the plumbing or the vents could be the cause.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Japan reached a milestone as NHK broadcasting reported the latest estimates of 10,175 people dead and more than 17,400 still missing since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami rattled the country March 11.

The U.S. military is now taking a direct role in attempts to cool reactors at the damaged nuclear plant, according to U.S. and Japanese officials.

As a first step, the U.S. military plans to ship 525,000 gallons of fresh water on two U.S. Navy barges from a U.S. base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Forces Japan.

The move to ship fresh water is critical to restarting the coolant systems because the sea water contains salt that can gum up critical components and would need to be flushed out before they can be safely restarted.

Japan Continues Efforts To Contain Nuclear Emergency As Radioactive Elements Enter Food and Water Supplies

On top of trying to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people who were displaced from the quake and are without homes, the Japanese government is dealing with the ongoing evacuation around Fukushima's nuclear power plants and trying to contain the spread of radioactive materials through the food supply.

Traces of radioactive iodine have been found in Tokyo's water supply, which has led to an increase in consumption of bottled water.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government said radioactive iodine levels in Tokyo's tap water fell to within the government's threshold for consumption by infants Thursday after rising above the permissible level earlier in the week, but there are lingering concerns among many Japanese about the safety of the water.

Coca-Cola (Japan) Co. has been operating all of its seven mineral-water plants in Japan at full capacity since the March 11 earthquake, a company spokeswoman said Thursday.

There has been some disruption of output at one of its plants north of Tokyo, due to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s decision to implement power outages in its service regions, in order to prevent more widespread power outages. However, "we are trying to respond to increasing demand as much as possible," she said.

Suntory Holdings Ltd.'s four domestic mineral-water plants are also running at a full capacity. Suntory also bottles and distributes PepsiCo Inc. products in Japan.

Water and other basics remain in short supply and manufacturers are dealing with power shortages that hamper manufacturing processes.



Meanwhile, a new video has emerged showing an aerial survey of the Fukushima complex as the tsunami surges were receding. It is believed that a 14m wave hit Fukushima, and you can see wrecked equipment and piping and structures closest to the ocean, while the containment buildings appear at first glance to be intact.

Three workers at Fukushima were being treated for radiation exposure, and has led to another evacuation of personnel trying to regain control over the four damaged reactors in the complex. The workers were injured while working on reactor 3:

The injured workers were contaminated with up to 180 millisieverts of radiation, close to the recommended limit, after working in water while laying a power cable. An exposure of 100 milli-sieverts a year is considered the lowest level at which any increase in cancer risk is evident. Two of the workers were taken to hospital , the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

''We're trying to prevent further deterioration as well as restore the power,'' Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said. ''We cannot let our guard down.''

Electricity is needed to help circulate cooling water and keep the nuclear fuel rods from overheating and end the world's largest nuclear crisis in 25 years. Tepco will stop workers from conducting similar work that led to the accident, the company's vice-president, Sakae Moto, said.

And concerns about nuclear power safety stretches well beyond Japan. Nature has put together a map showing locations of all nuclear power facilities by type, and overlays for other key data - including population density nearby, etc.

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.

Japan Continues Dealing With Nuclear Emergency With Little Solid Information

The New York Times reports that the US is sending flights of specialized aircraft over Fukushima to get a better sense of what's going on at the stricken reactor complex.



The US has a radically different take on the dangers and status of the reactors from the Japanese and the reactor operator, Toyko Electric (TEPCO). Apparently, the Japanese government has been relying on TEPCO, and the US has been warning the Japanese government that the situation may be far worse than TEPCO was letting on and that the action plan wasn't moving fast enough.

The data was collected in the first use of the Aerial Measurement System, among the most sophisticated devices rushed to Japan by the Obama administration in an effort to help contain a nuclear crisis that a top American nuclear officials said Thursday could go on for weeks. The data show harmful radioactive pollution in the immediate vicinity of the stricken plant — a different standard than the trace amounts of radioactive particles that make up the atmospheric plume covering a much broader area.

While the findings were reassuring in the short term, the United States declined to back away from its warning to Americans to stay at least 50 miles from the plant, a far larger perimeter than the Japanese government has established.

In interviews, American officials said their biggest worry was that a frenetic series of efforts by the Japanese military to get water into the four reactors — including water cannons and fire-fighting helicopters that dumped water but appeared to largely miss their targets — showed few signs of working. Another effort by the Japanese, to hook electric power back up to the plant, only began on Thursday and was likely to take several days to complete — and even then it was unclear how the cooling systems, in reactor buildings battered by the tsunami and then torn apart by hydrogen explosions, would work, if at all.

“What you are seeing are desperate efforts — just throwing everything at it in hopes something will work,” said one American official with long nuclear experience, who would not speak for attribution. “Right now this is more prayer than plan.”

After a day in which American and Japanese officials had radically different assessments of the danger of what is spewing from the plants, the two governments attempted Thursday to join forces. Experts met in Tokyo to compare notes. The United States, with Japanese permission, began to put intelligence-collection aircraft over the site, in hopes of gaining a view for Washington as well as its allies in Tokyo that did not rely on the announcements of officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Officials say they suspect that company has consistently underestimated the risk and moved too slowing to contain the damage.

Aircraft normally used to monitor North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities — a Global Hawk drone and U-2 spy planes — were flying missions over the reactor, trying to help the Japanese government map out its response to the quake, the tsunami and now the nuclear disaster.

It would appear that the Japanese and US are finally beginning to gather data independent of TEPCO, and while there's significant radiation in the vicinity of the stricken reactors - airborne radiation is minimal.

For the first time, it seems that the Japanese government might get a better handle on the nuclear crisis - gathering information that it needs to make critical decisions.

But those workers at the plant are risking their own lives to get the reactors under control.

The WHO has issued guidelines for exposure.

UPDATE:
Curiously, the Japanese have not deployed special robotic systems to deal with the monitoring of the crippled reactors. That's a dangerous oversight, and means that the plant operators are putting their own lives in danger to take measurements that could potentially expose workers to lethal doses.

Crisis Continues In Japan As Relief Efforts and Nuclear Emergency Take Toll

How to help.

The death toll continues rising, and is over 3,600, and the number of missing is still over 8,000 as hope fades for finding more survivors. Half a million people are without homes and getting aid to the stricken areas is complicated not only by damaged roads, washed out bridges, and debris fields that stretch on as far as the eye can see, but snow, rain, and the radiation danger from the damaged Fukushima reactors is omnipresent on the minds of Japanese and the rescue crews sent in to the area to look for victims and assisting survivors. It's a herculean effort to get supplies into the damaged areas even without worrying about a nuclear crisis.

The damage from the quake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency is likely to cost upwards of $200 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in history, and it puts tremendous pressure on the Japanese government.

The stricken reactors continue to vex operators trying to get the pressure and temperatures under control. After considering using helicopters to dump water on the damaged reactors, operators have turned to using water cannons as used in riot control to spray water on the reactors because of the radiation danger posed to helicopter crews.

There are further reports that a second reactor at the stricken nuclear power complex was damaged and may be leaking radiation. Reactor 2 has been the focus of scrutiny since an explosion rocked that reactor facility and appears to have damaged the suppression chamber that holds the water and steam necessary to cool the reactor core. While experts believe that the containment structures at reactors 1 and 3 are intact, they aren't sure about the damaged reactor 2.

As a result of the explosions, radioactivity levels rose sharply around the Fukushima Daiichi plant on Tuesday. The Nuclear Energy Institute reported that a dose rate of 1.19 rems per hour was observed at the site boundary and dose of 40 rems per hour was seen close to the plant (a rem is a measure of biological damage to tissue). The 1.19 rem reading dropped to about 0.06 rems per hour later in the day, however.

The readings are considered high, engineers said. On average, individuals are subjected to about 0.6 rems per year. Nuclear power plant workers are typically limited to about 5 rems per year. According the 1982 book, Nuclear Power: Both Sides by Michio Kaku, 1,000 rems would kill a person a few days after exposure, 500 rems would kill half of the exposed population within a few weeks, 200-400 rems would cause radiation sickness and hemorrhaging, and 50 rems would cause no immediate visible effects, but could induce long-term damage.

As if all that wasn't enough, a fire was detected at a fourth reactor at Fukushima, which lasted for about 30 minutes before it was put out.



TEPCO reports that they're continuing to inject sea water into Unit 1, along with boric acid to soak up the neutron emissions that release the heat that is causing the pressure to rise - and raising the risk of further explosions and breach of containment. As for the other reactors:

*Unit 2
At 1:25 pm, March 14th, since the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System has failed, it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15, clause 1 occurred (failure of reactor cooling function). At 5:17 pm, while the water level in the reactor reached the top of the fuel rod, we have restarted the water injection with the valve operation. At approximately 6:14 am, March 15th, the extraordinary sound was confirmed near the suppression chamber and the pressure inside the chamber decreased afterwards. It was determined that there is a possibility that something extraordinary happened in the suppression chamber. While sea water injection to the reactor continued, TEPCO employees and workers from other companies not in charge of injection work started tentative evacuation to a safe location. Sea water injection to the reactor is still under operation.

*Unit 3
At 6:50 am, March 14th, while water injection to the reactor was under operation, the pressure in the reactor containment vessel increased to 530 kPa. As a result, at 7:44 am, it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15, clause 1 occurred (abnormal increase of the pressure of reactor containment vessel). Afterwards, the pressure has gradually decreased (as of 9:05 am, 450 kPa).

At approximately 11:01 am, March 14th, an explosion followed by white smoke occurred near Unit 3. 4 TEPCO employees and 3 workers from other companies (all of them are conscious) have sustained injuries and they were already dispatched to the hospital by ambulances.

*Unit 4
At approximately 6:00 am, March 15th, an explosive sound occurred and the damage in the 5th floor roof of Unit 4 reactor building was confirmed. At 9:38 am, the fire near the north-west part of 4th floor of Unit 4 reactor building was confirmed. At approximately 11:00 am, TEPCO employee confirmed that the fire was off.

Due to the ongoing concerns about the radiation risks and ongoing seismic hazards, the US is warning against travel to Japan. Other countries, including Canada, are issuing similar warnings.

Meanwhile, damage estimates are being tallied for Hawaii and parts of California and Oregon where the tsunami came ashore. In Hawaii alone, damage is estimated at $300 million.

UPDATE:
The latest death toll is now 4,255 with more than 9,000 still missing.

UPDATE:
The relief efforts are still hampered by bad weather, the ongoing nuclear emergency, and that access to the hardest hit areas is still limited. The task is painstaking and heartbreaking all at once.

“In an earthquake, if it’s within 72 hours and we reach them, they’re likely to be found alive; and in an earthquake, you find them in place and evacuate them,” said Kazutaka Hiramatsu, 48, a Tokyo firefighters’ school official who was helping direct the Shishiori search.

“But because the tsunami carries everything so far away, it’s very difficult to find people. And because it’s a tsunami, when we find them, they are usually already dead.”

Because most victims are neither in their homes nor able to call for help, the search-and-rescue teams that attend most natural disasters are less useful. In this case, the first victims are found and zipped into body bags by the workers sent in to clear paths through the debris fields that the tsunami has left behind.

“The problem,” Mr. Sato said, “is that there’s a lot of water, and a lot of the debris is just too big to move. So our search has become search-and-removal — we have to do it all together.”

Sometimes other homeowners, coming back to pick through the rubble of their belongings, discover the dead. In Kesen-cho, a village in another tsunami-flattened coastal area eight miles northeast of Kesennuma, journalists on Tuesday encountered two victims by a plowed roadside, laid on planks and carefully covered with a beige duvet and a Mickey Mouse bedspread. Bodies also have been recovered at sea by the Japan’s Coast Guard and the United States Navy, which have mounted helicopter searches from ships offshore.

That leaves the most difficult and painstaking work to the squads of searchers from Japan’s military, the Self-Defense Force, and emergency bodies like the Tokyo Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Here in Kesennuma, about 800 searchers are deployed in all, outfitted in mud boots and slickers and carrying the tools of their trade. “We use bars, axes, and breaking tools that look like spurs to lift and turn over debris,” said Keiichiro Horiguchi, one of the Tokyo agency’s searchers. “We break walls and windows, and use metal cutting tools to turn over the tiles that cover the roofs to see if there is anybody beneath.”

UPDATE:
The US Navy is continuing to provide search, rescue, and relief assistance. Ships, including the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Essex are involved in the efforts. Via Twitter, the Essex ARG w/ @31stMEU are in the Sea of Japan and are positioning themselves off Sakata to conduct disaster relief operations.

Perhaps, more importantly, the USNS Safeguard has offloaded high-pressure water pumps in Yokosuka for transfer to the Japanese government to be used in getting the situation at Fukushima under control.

Those high pressure water pumps are going to be critical to getting water on the damaged reactors to keep an already dangerous situation from getting even worse.

UPDATE:
US officials are extremely concerned and alarmed at the way Japanese officials are handling the crisis at Fukushima - and believe that the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 may be dry - exposing the cores to air - and releasing tremendous amounts of radiation to the point that it can be impossible to approach without being a suicide mission.

"We are all-out urging the Japanese to get more people back in there to do emergency operation there, that the next 24 to 48 hours are critical," the official said. "Urgent efforts are needed on the part of the Japanese to restore emergency operations to cool" down the reactors' rods before they trigger a meltdown.

"They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission," the official said.

The official said the United States is in very deep consultations with Japanese about the way forward and that the only thing that has been favorable is the wind pattern that is blowing the contaminated material out to sea instead south towards Tokyo and other populated areas, but that can't be counted upon.

The U.S. official says experts believe there is a rupture in two, maybe three of the six reactors at the Fukushima power plant, but as worrisome is the fact that spent fuel rods are now exposed to the air, which means that substances like cesium, which have a long half-life, could become airborne.

"That could be deadly for decades," the official said.

There is a growing concern around the world that a nuclear catastrophic disaster is in the works.

"There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen," European Union's energy commissioner Günther Oettinger said today, according to various reports. "Practically everything is out of control. I cannot exclude the worst in the hours and days to come."

Yet, the IAEA director says that things aren't yet out of control.

I'm thinking that no one really knows the true extent of the damage and everyone's resorting to suppositions based on what information they do know (and however outdated that information may be - a pronouncement based on outdated information may lead to a vastly different conclusion than more current information).

Meanwhile, the US is deploying additional radiation sensors in Hawaii to detect potential radiation downwind of the stricken reactors.

Nuclear Emergency At Fukushima Gets Worse as Death Toll Climbs

How to help.

The death toll continues rising in Japan and is all but likely to grow over 10,000 (current official death toll is about 2,500 and 15,000 are unaccounted for) while the economic toll is likely to be over $100 billion (and the Japanese markets are taking a beating).

The situation at the Japanese nuclear reactors at Fukushima remains uncertain but is worsening (now rating a 6 out of 7 on the nuclear emergency scale) and the TEPCO and Japanese government is dealing with multiple emergencies at the facility - reactors that have lost coolant, a fire at storage pool facility for spent fuel rods, and explosions at the buildings housing reactors and their containment vessels.



The fire at the storage pool appears to be the most serious situation - and it is the one that has released significant amounts of radiation. There are concerns that the pool might be boiling and temperature control was lost. That's only the latest in a series of problems resulting from the 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunamis that destroyed backup systems, causing multiple failures, and power troubles for the country.

Radiation levels have risen and levels triggered alarms on the USS George Washington, which was in Yokohama. The US carriers USS George Washington and USS Ronald Reagan (which is currently conducting relief operations off the coast of Japan) are equipped to deal with nuclear emergencies - they are nuclear powered after all, and they've got nuclear engineers and experts on board to deal with potential radiation problems.

The rest of the Japanese people? Not so much, and the radiation exposures are extremely troublesome - and the problems seem to be overwhelming TEPCO and the government's ability to deal with them. So, while levels have dropped back down for the moment, the government is calling on Japanese to remain indoors to minimize potential exposures.

There are too many problems happening at once - dividing attention of those who need to get the situation under control. And just when you think one situation is calming down, a problem at the reactor next door takes your breath away - leaks, explosions, fires, etc.

Yet, even before all the facts are in, Germany is shutting down all its pre-1980 reactors, in what appears to be a political decision as the Germans don't exactly have a way to make up the generating capacity lost by shuttering those reactors.

What is clear is that backup systems will need to be reevaluated - how to deal with emergency situations such as now facing the Japanese. The backup coolant systems in place rely on pumps, but newer backup systems rely on gravity so that a loss of power would not disable the coolant systems. The situation may also lead to a reevaluation of how multiple reactors are sited at a given plant - such that a problem at one plant could lead to cascading failures at adjacent facilities particularly during a nuclear emergency - or that siting multiple reactors at a quake/tsunami prone area should not be done in the future because it could lead to too many power plants being thrown offline in a disaster event - disrupting the power grid.

UPDATE:
Japan has requested assistance from the IAEA.



The ongoing release of radiation has meant that the classification of the nuclear emergency has been raised to a level 6 (Chernobyl being a 7).

The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania rates five on an international scale of zero to seven, while Chernobyl is put at seven, the highest.

Level 3 indicates a "serious incident" according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scale, while level four means there has been an "accident with local consequences". Level 6 is a "serious accident".

The 1986 explosion at the Soviet nuclear power plant in Chernobyl - rated a maximum 7 - was the world's worst nuclear disaster, with death toll estimates ranging from 4,000 to tens or even hundreds of thousands.

Mr Lacoste also said the concrete vessel around reactor No.2 at the plant, designed to contain radioactive debris, was "no longer sealed".

The confinement vessel, made out of reinforced concrete, surrounds the steel vessel that houses the nuclear reactor. It is designed to contain radioactive gas or dust, preventing them from being expelled into the air.

The agency said two "successive explosions, at 6:10am and 10:00am local time probably caused damage to the confinement vessel which is the source of the significant increase in detected radioactive releases".

If the containment vessel at Reactor 2 is no longer sealed, radiation will continue escaping until such time that the Japanese can figure out how to seal the reactor. That means likely encasing it in concrete much as the Soviets did with a sarcophagus around the ruined Chernobyl reactor and using sea water and boric acid to stop the nuclear chain reactions that give off tremendous heat even when the reactors are shut down; it was the failure of backup coolant systems that precipitated the failures and subsequent leaks and explosions. In the meantime, they have to deal with ongoing emergencies at adjacent reactors.

UPDATE:
Updating status on the Fukushima reactors (as of about about 1PM ET):

Fukushima Daiichi Plant

Reactor No. 1: Cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, hydrogen explosion, seawater pumped in.

Reactor No. 2: Cooling failure, seawater pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, damage to containment system, potential meltdown feared.

Reactor No. 3: Cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater pumped in, hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby.

Reactor No. 4: Under maintenance when quake struck, fire caused possibly by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, pool water level feared receding.

Reactor No. 5: Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature slightly rising at spent fuel pool.

Reactor No. 6: Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature slightly rising at spent fuel pool.

Fukushima Daiini Plant

Reactor No. 1: Cooling failure, then cold shutdown.

Reactor No. 2: Cooling failure, then cold shutdown.

Reactor No. 3: Cold shutdown.

Reactor No. 4: Cooling failure, then cold shutdown.

Kyodo also reports that about two-thirds of Toshiba's 350 nuclear engineers, "are currently dealing with accidents at the Fukushima nuclear power plant."

Toshiba supplied much of the equipment for the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1, or Daiichi plant, Kyodo explains.

The Death Toll Sharply Rises As Rescue Efforts Keep Eyes on Sea and Nuclear Reactors

How to help.

Japan continues to be rocked by aftershocks and scientists are warning of the potential for an aftershock above magnitude 7 within the next week. Several hundred aftershocks have been recorded, and more than two dozen have been above magnitude 6.

With each strong aftershock, the potential for another tsunami exists, and rescue and relief efforts are trying to reach the hardest hit areas.

Yet, the most dangerous situation right now appears to be the ongoing problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, where two reactors suffered damage from hydrogen gas explosions, and a third reactor has lost coolant and the plant operators warn that the fuel rods may have been fully exposed - raising the specter of radiation leaks significantly.



Already, crews aboard the USS Ronald Reagan have been hit by radiation spewing from the damaged reactors.

The nuclear powered aircraft carrier and her task force is providing relief efforts along the stricken coast, but the ships are moving away from the projected path of radiation emanating from the damaged nuclear plants. That is going to further slow relief efforts as the ships are providing critical logistical support with their contingent of helicopters.

Entire towns were swept away, and the death toll is expected to rise sharply as estimates suggest the toll may exceed 10,000. Currently the official toll is 2,800 and bodies are being cremated where possible, but local officials are overwhelmed by the numbers.

The scenes of devastation harken back to the massive tsunami in South Asia in 2004, and that's despite Japan being among the most advanced technologically to deal with natural disasters. Even though towns had several minutes warning, the advancing wall of water was simply incredible and overwhelming.



Sea walls were clearly overtopped by the tsunami, but it does appear that they provided at least a momentary reprieve from the wall of water - giving precious minutes of time for people to attempt to flee.





With much of Japan reliant on nuclear power and the ongoing nuclear emergencies, Japanese authorities are implementing rolling blackouts to prevent a total collapse of the power grid until things stabilize. That means that manufacturers are going to take it on the chin - companies like Honda, Toyota and Nissan had affected plants, damaged vehicles and infrastructure, and aren't going to be able to export vehicles for some time - not only affecting their bottom line, but reducing available funds for the Japanese to deal with the crisis. For those in the US, this means that the availability of some vehicles, like the Toyota Prius, Lexus, and other hybrids are going to be limited in the short run.

UPDATE:
Moved the link for helping with relief efforts to top, and note that the NY Times has an excellent interactive primer on the ongoing troubles at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

UPDATE:
Telecommunications providers are scrambling to reroute and repair numerous undersea cables that were damaged or cut as a result of the massive quake. The damage to the cables has reduced Internet connectivity with Japan and made an already tough situation even more difficult.

Japan's Nuclear Emergency and the Future of Nuclear Power

The ongoing crisis in Japan at several of the country's nuclear reactors is sure to fuel a renewed debate over the future of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel and other alternative energy sources.

Concerns over a possible meltdown and containment failure hearkens back to crises at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, both of which effectively ended the development of nuclear power in the United States.

Yet, there are lessons to be learned from the ongoing situation in Japan.

For starters, it took a massive 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis and the failure of several backup systems to bring the Fukushima to the point of failure. The reactors at issue were first brought online in the early 1970s, and the technology has progressed significantly since then. Lessons learned from Fukushima will be incorporated into the development of nuclear reactors in Japan and elsewhere.

It appears that while the reactors survived the earthquake and its aftershocks intact, not as much attention was paid to the tsunami threat, which caused significant damage as seen by before/after photos here and a legacy of trying to achieve a perfect solution to a crisis rather than one that would be adequate to avert a crisis:

In the hours after the blast at Reactor No. 1, nuclear advocates argued that Daiichi’s problems were singular in many ways and stemmed from a natural disaster on a scale never before experienced in Japan. They pointed out that the excavation of fossil fuels has its own history of catastrophic accidents, including coal mine collapses and the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some also said there might have been missteps in handling Reactor No. 1. A quick alternative source of water for cooling the destabilizing core should have been immediately available, said Nils J. Diaz, a nuclear engineer who led the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2003 to 2006 and had visited the Daiichi plant.

Mr. Diaz suggested that the Japanese might have acted too slowly to prevent overheating, including procedures that might have required the venting of small amounts of steam and radiation, rather than risk a wholesale meltdown. Fear among Japanese regulators over public reaction to such small releases may have delayed plant operators from acting as quickly as they might have, he said — a problem arising in part from the country’s larger nuclear regulatory culture.

“They would rather wait and do things in a perfect manner instead of doing it as good as it needs to be now,” Mr. Diaz said. “And this search for perfection has often led to people sometimes hiding things or waiting too long to do things.”

With virtually no natural resources, Japan has considered nuclear power as an alternative to oil and other fossil fuels since the 1960s. It has regarded its expertise in nuclear power as a way to cut down on its emission of greenhouse gases and to capture energy-hungry markets in Asia.

Japan is one of the world’s top consumers of nuclear energy. The country’s 17 nuclear plants — boasting 55 reactors — have provided about 30 percent of its electricity needs.

However, there should be significant concern over the reactors recently built or conceived in China, which is criss-crossed with numerous active faults. The Sichuan quake revealed that the Chinese authorities did not adhere to its own building code standards, and that substandard building techniques and materials led to countless deaths and injuries. Schools that should have been seismically resistant to the Sichuan quake collapsed killing all within.

A nuclear plant built with similar quality of construction would be a disaster waiting to happen and one can't rely on the Chinese government to give assurances that these structures were built to specification.

However, the Japanese building codes exceed anything seen in China or the United States. They are built to resist earthquakes but failures in the backup systems exposed a weak point in the technology and procedures that will have to be addressed.

UPDATE:
Conflicting reports over whether another tsunami is imminent - no significant quakes are reported in the vicinity, but there are reports that a hydrogen explosion involved reactor 3, the other reactor at Fukushima that was of serious concern.