Incident's Radioactive Materials Leaking From Reactors, Not Spent Fuel Pools

So says Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. NHK World has the details here:

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spoke to reporters on Friday about an accident in which 3 workers were exposed to radiation in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor.

It said 3.9 million becquerels of radiation was detected from 1 cubic centimeter of water sampled from the floor of the building. The radiation level was about 10,000 times higher than the water inside a normally operating nuclear reactor.

The agency said the water sample indicated it is highly likely the leak comes from the reactor itself, not from the pool storing spent nuclear fuel.

According to the officials, pressure inside the reactor core is stable and the agency doesn't believe the reactor is cracked or broken. But it says it is highly possible that radioactive materials are leaking from somewhere in the reactor.

The agency also said high levels of radiation have been measured at reactors No. 1 and 2, and speculates there may also be leakage from them. Cooling operations using seawater are continuing at the reactors.

Possible Damage To Reactor 3's Vessel, Pipes or Valves

As reported by Kyodo News, here:

A high-level radiation leak detected Thursday at one of six troubled reactors at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant indicates possible damage to the reactor's vessel, pipes or valves, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Friday. ...

Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the governmental nuclear regulatory body, told a press conference, ''At present, our monitoring data suggest the (No. 3) reactor retains certain containment functions, but there is a good chance that the reactor has been damaged.''

Nishiyama said the high-level radiation is suspected to have originated from the reactor, where overheating fuel rods are believed to have been partially melted, or a boiling pool that stores spent nuclear fuel, both of which are located in the reactor's building. ...

The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, recommended voluntary evacuation as the release of radioactive materials from the plant is expected to continue for some time.

Fukushima Reactor 3's Core Believed to be Source of Radioactive Puddle

As reported here by Kyodo News:

High-level radiation detected Thursday in water at the No. 3 reactor's turbine building at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant appears to have originated from the reactor core, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Friday.

But no data, such as on the pressure level, have suggested the reactor vessel has been cracked or damaged, agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama emphasized at an afternoon press conference, backing down from his previous remark that there is a good chance that the reactor has been damaged. It remains uncertain how the leakage happened, he added.

Fukushima Reactors' Surface Temperatures Exceeding Design Parameters

So said Kyodo News here on March 23:

While the maximum vessel temperature set by the reactors' designers is 302 C degrees, the surface temperature of the No. 1 reactor vessel briefly topped 400 C and dropped to about 350 C by noon, and that of the No. 3 reactor vessel stood at about 305 C, the agency said.

All Four Reactor Cores or Spent Fuel Pools Leak Highly Radioactive Water

So says Kyodo News here:

[H]ighly radioactive water was later found leaking near all four troubled reactor units at the plant.

A day after three workers were exposed to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level at the turbine building connected to the No. 3 reactor building, a water pool with similarly highly concentrated radioactive materials was found in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, causing some restoration work to be suspended, it said.

Pools of water that may have seeped from either the reactor cores or spent fuel pools were also found in the turbine buildings of the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, measuring up to 1 meter and 80 centimeters deep, respectively, while those near the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors were up to 40 cm and 1.5 meters deep.

Recent reports describe two phenomena: surface temperatures on reactor vessels far exceeding the prescribed limits, and the need to keep re-filling the spent fuel pools because of rapid evaporation and/or leakage loss.

Add to these observations the new information that radioactive water is now observed pooling in various places in all four reactor facilities, and the plain statement "Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it has begun injecting freshwater into the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor cores at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant," and it is difficult not to conclude that the nuclear reactors at Fukushima I are themselves damaged and that their spent fuel ponds were cracked in the earthquake and cannot retain water without constant attention to refilling.

This is a disaster for the people of Japan, and a terrible rebuke of the hubris of the nuclear power industry.

Earth Hour: Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 8:30 PM

We'll be celebrating!

Video here.

TEPCO Speculates Radioactive Puddle Contents Are Sign of Reactor Breach

NHK World has the story here about the puddle which injured 2 workers, exposing them to over 170 millisieverts while laying cable near the reactor 3 turbine room:

The level of radioactive cerium-144 was 2.2 million becquerels. Also, 1.2 million becquerels of iodine-131 was measured. These substances are generated during nuclear fission inside a reactor.

Tokyo Electric says damage to the No.3 reactor and spent nuclear fuel rods in a storage pool may have produced the highly radioactive water.

Obama Refuses to Secure America's Dangerous Nuclear Waste

For The Associated Press Jonathan Fahey and Ray Henry have an excellent story here about the problem America shares with Japan: "US Spent-Fuel Storage Sites Are Packed".

Nearly 72,000 tons of dangerous waste is being stored all over the US at reactor sites, 75 percent of it in vulnerable cooling pools just like Japan's.

We could have started moving it to Yucca Mountain long ago, but an unholy alliance between Nevada's people, its Senator Harry Reid of Obamacare fame, and President Obama himself keep the radioactive waste exposed to misfortune, mayhem and mischief in places like Illinois, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York and North Carolina, the top five states storing spent nuclear fuel totaling over 27,000 tons:

For long-term storage, the government had looked to Yucca Mountain. It was designed to hold 77,160 tons - 69,444 tons designated for commercial waste and 7,716 for military waste. That means the current inventory already exceeds Yucca's original planned capacity.

A 1982 law gave the federal government responsibility for the long-term storage of nuclear waste and promised to start accepting waste in 1998. After 20 years of study, Congress passed a law in 2002 to build a nuclear waste repository deep in Yucca Mountain.

The federal government spent $9 billion developing the project, but the Obama administration has cut funding and recalled the license application to build it. Nevadans have fiercely opposed Yucca Mountain, though a collection of state governments and others are taking legal action to reverse the decision.

Despite his Yucca Mountain decision, President Barack Obama wants to expand nuclear power. He created a commission last year to come up with a long-term nuclear waste plan. Initial findings are expected this summer, with a final plan expected in January.

Obama the feckless simply kicks that can down the road while he globe trots with GE's chairman Jeff Immelt in search of deals for GE's nuclear reactor business, for example in India which has had plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on nuclear, and most recently in Brazil.

In exchange look for Obama to get GE to finance his presidential library and millions in walking around money for his future "charitable" foundation which will rival Bill Clinton's.

For every operational 1000 megawatt nuclear plant a year, another 25-30 tons of the stuff piles up with no place to go.

And with Obama in charge, nowhere is where it's at.

Children Outside Evacuation Zone in Kawamata Getting 2 Microsieverts Per Hour

Kyodo News here reports that the Japanese government says 66 children checked in Kawamata (B) are not in danger of thyroid problems from radiation exposure from the crippled nuclear reactors (A).

The 2 microsievert per hour rate of exposure there is 2.8 times the normal exposure rate in America.

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Workers Laying Cable at Fukushima Reactor 3 Injured by Radioactive Puddle

Kyodo News reports here that the workers had on Tyvek suits but no boots and stepped into a 15cm puddle of water which threw off 200 to 400 millisieverts of radiation per hour and caused beta ray burns to the feet of two of the men Thursday morning Tokyo time.

So far 17 workers each have been exposed to over 100 millisieverts of radiation since the trouble began at Fukushima.

America's Number One Nuclear Problem is Spent Fuel Storage

So says Robert Alvarez for The Los Angeles Times:

[T]he nation's 104 nuclear power plants are legally storing spent fuel in onsite cooling ponds much longer, and at higher densities (on average four times higher), than was originally intended. And now that the Obama administration has called off proposed plans to store nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, fuel is likely to remain at the plants where it was used for decades to come.

This presents a serious threat. Our report found that, as in Japan, US nuclear safety authorities don't require reactor operators to have backup power supplies to circulate water in the pools and keep them cool if there is a loss of offsite power. ...

[A] severe pool fire could render about 188 square miles uninhabitable, cause as many as 28,000 cancer fatalities and cost $59 billion in damage.

Read all of it here.

Fukushima City Radiation Tuesday Evening 10 Times the US Normal Level

So Kyodo News here:

[T]he radiation dose detected in Fukushima Prefecture stood at 6.85 microsieverts per hour in the city of Fukushima at 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Fukushima prefectural government said. The dose is gradually receding in the area, it added.

At that rate one would be exposed to 60 millisieverts in one year. Normal in the US is about 6 millisieverts per year.

Based on data plugged into a computer model, the article speculates that certain individuals even outside 30 kilometers of the plant could have been exposed to 100 millisieverts since the tsunami.

About a week ago levels in the city stood at 20 microsieverts per hour, so observations are trending lower already 66 percent. 

Fukushima Main Gate Radiation Tuesday Evening Up from 0.26 mSv/hr in the Morning

So Kyodo News here:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it detected 470 microsieverts per hour near the chief gateway to the nuclear plant at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Expressed in millisieverts this is 0.47 mSv/hr, almost 81 percent higher than the reading observed mid-morning (see here).

Fukushima Reactor 2 Radiation 500 mSv/hour Since Friday

As reported by Kyodo News here:

At the No. 2 reactor, workers have been unable to replace some parts to help revive its internal cooling systems since Friday as high-level radiation amounting to at least 500 millisieverts per hour was detected at its turbine building, the spokesman also said.

The equivalent in an hour of a lifetime's worth of radiation.

A Woman Decides Her Husband is Right: Women are Nuts

Her name is Heather Wilhelm:

"Men may be jerks," my husband likes to occasionally declare, "but women are insane." I hate to admit it, but he's right-and anyone who has spent two years living in a sorority house filled with alpha girls (I'm raising my hand) can attest that this is true.

Women are likely going nuts for a number of reasons. For instance, it's quite tiring and stressful, not to mention impossible, to try to have the brilliant job, the perfect family, shiny hair and manicured hands. Some women say they want total "equality" but still want guys to pick up the check. But perhaps another reason women are losing it is that they're repeatedly told that they're no different than men-and many believe it, particularly in the realm of sex.

This, of course, is clearly not true.

In other words, only the woman has the instincts to make a family perfect and all the "child men" are their fault, "with all my worldly goods I thee endow" for sex is a no brainer that proves men are inferior, and bearing children trumps making them. 

You can read the rest here.

TEPCO Says Radiation Drops Near Fukushima Reactor Main Gate

Company officials told reporters that the radiation level near the plant's gate 1 kilometer west of the reactors was up to 1,932 microsieverts per hour at 6:30 PM on Monday.

By midnight, the figure had dropped to 331.8, and by 10 AM on Tuesday, it was down to 260.2 microsieverts per hour.

Normal in the US is less than 0.71 microsieverts per hour.

Read more at NHK World here.

Iodine 131, Cesium 134, Cesium 137, Cobalt 58 All Found in Sea Water Near Fukushima

As reported here:

According to TEPCO, radioactive iodine-131 was detected Monday in the seawater samples at levels 126.7 times higher than the legal concentration limit. Levels of cesium-134 were 24.8 times higher and those of cesium-137 16.5 times higher while a trace amount of cobalt 58 was detected in a sample of seawater taken from near the plant.

Radiation in Namie, Japan

Kyodo News reports here that radiation levels in Namie (B), 20 km north of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant (A), are 161 microsieverts per hour.

It would take just under 26 days of continuous exposure to such levels to accumulate 100 millisieverts of radiation exposure, and in a year over 1,400 mSv.

Devra Davis for Reuters, here, puts that in its health context:

In terms of cumulative exposure, 100 millisieverts a year is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer risk is clearly evident. A cumulative 1,000 mSv over a lifetime would be expected to cause a fatal cancer many years later in five out of every 100 persons with that kind of exposure.