Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw.
The level of radiation at the plant surged to 1,000 millisieverts early Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts. Still, that was far more than the average
“So the workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now,” Edano said. “Because of the radiation risk, we are on standby.”
Experts say exposure of around 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause radiation sickness.
There is no one there to pump water into the plants. A meltdown is inevitable at all four plants. The two others, No. 5 and No. 6, will be in danger from the crisis at the other four. I have no idea whether or not they will be damaged or not.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor’s containment vessel. Fire fighters are trying to put out the flames. Japan’s nuclear safety agency also confirmed the fire, whose cause was not immediately known.
On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the reactor’s fuel storage pond – an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool – causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere.
Reuters reported that two workers are missing inside the plant, and a Japanese official said that there was a crack in the roof of the No. 4 reactor.
This must be two of the fifty workers who remained on site after the other 750 were evacuated. There appear to be firefighters on the scene, so we don’t know how many are risking their lives to try and prevent a meltdown.
Of course, it’s prudent. Do you see any signs of the disaster getting smaller? I, myself, have predicted a very limited exposure to radiation in the United States but I still think it is prudent and intelligent to prepare for a very difficult time. The situations seems to get worse every few hours, sometimes a lot worse. So, I don’t think there is any reasonable certainty about American exposure. And without certainty, precautions are wise.
The fear that a nuclear cloud could float from the shores of Japan to the shores of California has some people making a run on iodine tablets. Pharmacists across California report being flooded with requests.
State and county officials spent much of Tuesday trying to keep people calm by saying that getting the pills wasn’t necessary, but then the United States Surgeon General supported the idea as a worthy “precaution.”
U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn’t aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared.
The situation is rapidly becoming unmanageable. It appears the reactors are so hot that they are producing hydrogen gas which eventually reaches enough concentration to explode damaging efforts to cool the reactor. The damaged reactor then produces even more hydrogen gas and we have a downward cycle where we eventually arrive at destruction of the containment vessel and radioactive venting.
Two workers are missing after Tuesday’s explosion at one of the reactors at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant, the country’s nuclear safety agency said.
The agency did not identify the missing workers, but said they were in the turbine area of the No.4 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was damaged by last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.
Agency official also told a news conference there was a crack in the roof of the reactor building.
Authorities are desperately trying to prevent the water which is designed to cool the radioactive cores of the plant’s reactors from running dry, which would lead to overheating and the release of dangerous radioactive material into the atmosphere.
It was possible the water in the reactor was boiling, the agency said.
I have been on the internet and seen various web sites predict everything from serious contamination to apocalyptic conditions.
Of course, the nuclear industry does not believe there is going to be a problem.
However, since they predicted that the current calamity was virtually impossible, and then that it would not get worse, and on at least one occasion suggested that the Japanese crisis was a “positive” development for nuclear power – I don’t believe anything they say.
Where does that leave us? I agree with those that say that if there is a meltdown at a Japanese nuclear plant, a great deal of the radiation will be dispersed on the way here. I do need to point out that there are now 6 nuclear plants in serious difficulty. Six meltdowns will produce a great deal more radioactivity than one.
I would like to point out that we have never actually had a nuclear plant like this do a full meltdown and almost certainly meltdown until it hits the ground water. This may be a far more difficult event than has been predicted.
But my biggest worry is duration. After a meltdown, how long will the reactor (or reactors) vent? One of the reasons that concerns me is that at Chernobyl, the Soviet Union had enormous resources to call upon. Japanese society, infrastructure and military are all in disarray. Can they seal a radiation vent from a meltdown? If so, how many vents from how many reactors? And how long will it take them?
Now, it appears that there is a great deal of nuclear waste at the site, at least some of which is in the form of used control rods. This is going to complicate efforts to get the situation under control now and to deal with any other crisis that develops.
My prediction is that those parts of the United States in the Pacific Northwest will receive radiation roughly equivalent to the amount at the far reaches of Chernobyl, about the same as the United Kingdom received from that incident.
In terms of their surface areas, Belarus (22% of its land area) and Austria (13%) were most affected by higher levels of contamination. Other countries were seriously affected; for example, more than 5% of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden were contaminated to high levels (> 40,000 Bq/m2 caesium-137). More than 80% of Moldova, the European part of Turkey, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria and the Slovak Republic were contaminated to lower levels (> 4,000 Bq/m2 caesium-137). And 44% of Germany and 34% of the UK were similarly affected.
Of course, I am hypothesizing a rapid transit by wind across the Pacific and a continuous post meltdown venting at the reactors for some weeks.
Japanese workers fight to contain nuclear accident.
Map: Fukushima Daiichi
“There is still a very high risk of further radioactive material coming out,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, asking people to remain calm.
About 200,000 people living within a 12.4-mile radius of the plant already had been evacuated.
Authorities also banned flights over the area and evacuated most workers from the plant.
Those who remained behind continued a seesaw, last-ditch effort to flood reactors with seawater to keep them cool and prevent a wider environmental and public health catastrophe.
The beleaguered crew had to abandon the plant control room Tuesday night because of high radiation levels, Kyodo News reported, citing plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company.
“Their situation is not great,” said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. “It’s pretty clear that they will be getting very high doses of radiation. There’s certainly the potential for lethal doses of radiation. They know it, and I think you have to call these people heroes.”
There cannot be any more dangerous job on earth right now. And there will be casualties.
If they have to leave because the radiation levels become too dangerous, the pumping of sea water into the containment vessels will become impossible.
The worst situation (that I can think of) and unfortunately a likely one is that reactor No. 2 which has breached its containment somewhere at the base of the containment vessel, will meltdown and the super heated steam will shatter the remainder of the containment dome. This will creat an intense local zone of high radiation while scattering further radiation into the atmosphere.
Wikipedia Commons
But it gets worse. If that happens they will be unable to maintain a human presence at reactors No. 1 and No. 3 to keep the water level in those reactors. Once they are abandoned, each of those reactors will melt down destroying their containment domes.
Thus all three plants are likely to melt down in a brief period of time and are likely to all be spewing radiation at the same time.
Now, Reactor No. 4 appears to be a storage area for spent nuclear fuel rods. There are conflicting reports that a fire is either ongoing or put out at that location. Considering the accuracy of what we have told so far, I am assuming that it is still burning. It seems that the Japanese store significant quantities of nuclear waste on site. (Yes, I know, it took me a while to wrap my mind around the idea that someone would want to do that.)
It would seem likely to me that after three meltdown explosions destroy the containment vessels, a new fire will be started at the spent fuel rods in Reactor No. 4.
The big question after this is “How long will these meltdown reactors spew radiation into the air and in what quantities?
I have heard repeatedly that these reactors are not as bad as the one at Chernobyl. I’m not convinced. It seems to me that the Russian reactor did not melt into the earth for any real depth. I think that these Japanese reactor cores could travel some distance into the earth and that area has a high water table.
After you ask the question about how much radiation and for how long, you get to ask a new question, “How do we stop it?”
Probably, you will want to drop some kind of neutralizing agent into the reactors to slow and eventually stop the nuclear reaction. That’s all very well and good, if the containment vessels are breached upward. But what if they breach the reactor walls sideways? How will you get a neutralizing agent into the building under those circumstances?
This problem could be ongoing for months and cleanup could last decades.
These are just my thoughts. Please criticize them or add to them. This is what I think is likely.
This is a cable from the United States Embassy in Japan which was sent to the State Department in Washington on 10/27/2008.
To summarize, the Japanese government and the power companies routinely deceive the public and elected officials about nuclear accidents, the true costs of various nuclear energy progjects and have no effective plan to dispose of nuclear waste.
As you can imagine the part about deceiving the public about nuclear accidents caught my attention. It jives nicely with the strangely comforting but rapidly disproved claims of the Japanese nuclear industry and Japanese government over the past few days.
able dated:2008-10-27T08:20:00
C O N F I D E N T I A L TOKYO 002993
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR EAP/J, ISN/CTR, ISN/MNSA, ISN/NESS DOE FOR KBAKER, NA-20 E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/24/2018 TAGS: PARM, ENRG, TRGY, NRR, MNUC, PUNE, JA“>JA“>JA SUBJECT: MP CRITICIZES JAPANESE NUCLEAR PLANS REF: STATE 107836
Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
1. (C) Summary: Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono also criticized the Japanese bureaucracy and power companies for continuing an outdated nuclear energy strategy, suppressing development of alternative energy, and keeping information from Diet members and the public. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law. End Summary.
2. (C) Member of the House of Representatives Taro Kono spoke extensively on nuclear energy and nuclear fuel reprocessing during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party first elected in 1996, is the son of Yohei Kono, a former President of the LDP who is currently the longest serving speaker of the House in post-war history. Taro Kono, who studied and worked in the United States and speaks excellent English, is a frequent embassy contact who has interests in agriculture, nuclear, and foreign policy issues. He is relatively young, and very outspoken, especially as a critic of the government’s nuclear policy. During this meeting, he voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear fuel reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security. Kono claimed Japanese electric companies are hiding the costs and safety problems associated with nuclear energy, while successfully selling the idea of reprocessing to the Japanese public as “recycling uranium.” He asserted that Japan’s reprocessing program had been conceived as part of a nuclear cycle designed to use reprocessed fuel in fast breeder reactors (FBR). However, these reactors have not been successfully deployed, and Japan’s prototype FBR at Monju is still off-line after an accident in 1995.
3. (C) Kono said following the accident at the Monju FBR, rather than cancel plans to conduct reprocessing, the electric companies developed the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program. However, Kono criticized the MOX program as too expensive, noting it would be cheaper to just “buy a uranium mountain in Australia,” or to make a deal to import uranium from other sources. Kono claimed the high costs of the reprocessing program were being passed to Japanese consumers in their power bills, and they were unaware of how much they paid for electricity relative to people in other countries. In describing the clout wielded by the electric companies, Kono claimed that a Japanese television station had planned a three part interview with him on nuclear issues, but had canceled after the first interview, because the electric companies threatened to withdraw their extensive sponsorship.
4. (C) In addition to the electric companies, Kono was also very critical of the Japanese ministries, particularly the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). He claimed the ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge. As an example, Kono noted that Japanese radiation standards for imported foods had been set following the Chernobyl incident, and had not changed since then, despite other nations having reduced their levels of allowable radiation.
5. (C) In a similar way, he alleged, METI was committed to advocating for nuclear energy development, despite the problems he attributed to it. Kono noted that while METI claimed to support alternative energy, it in actuality provides little support. He claimed that METI in the past had orchestrated the defeat of legislation that supported alternatives energy development, and instead secured the passage of the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) act. This act simply requires power companies to purchase a very small amount of their electricity from alternative sources. Kono also criticized the government’s handling of subsidies to alternative energy projects, noting that the subsidies were of such short duration that the projects have difficulty finding investors because of the risk and uncertainty involved. As a more specific example of Japan neglecting alternative energy sources, Kono noted there was abundant wind power available in Hokkaido that went undeveloped because the electricity company claimed it did not have sufficient grid capacity. Kono noted there was in fact an unused connection between the Hokkaido grid and the Honshu grid that the companies keep in reserve for unspecified emergencies. He wanted to know why they could not just link the grids and thus gain the ability to add in more wind power.
6. (C) He also accused METI of covering up nuclear accidents, and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry. He claimed MPs have a difficult time hearing the whole of the U.S. message on nuclear energy because METI picks and chooses those portions of the message that it likes. Only information in agreement with METI policies is passed through to the MPs. Elaborating on his frustrations with the ministries, Kono noted that the Diet committee staffs are made up of professional bureaucrats, and are often headed by detailees from the ministries. He said he had no authority to hire or fire committee staff, and that any inquiries he made to them quickly found their way back to the ministries.
7. (C) Kono also raised the issue of nuclear waste, commenting that Japan had no permanent high-level waste storage, and thus no solution to the problem of storage. He cited Japan’s extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the “land of volcanoes.” He noted that Rokkasho was only intended as a temporary holding site for high-level waste. The Rokkasho local government, he said, had only agreed to store waste temporarily contingent on its eventual reprocessing. Kono said that in this regard, the US was better off that Japan because of the Yucca mountain facility. He was somewhat surprised to hear about opposition to that project, and the fact that Yucca had not yet begun storing waste.
8. (C) In describing how he would deal with Japan’s future energy needs, Kono claimed Japan needed to devise a real energy strategy. He said while he believed Japan eventually would have to move to 100% renewable energy, in the meantime he advocated replacing energy produced by nuclear plants ready for decommissioning with an equal amount of energy from plants using liquid natural gas. To this he would add new renewable energy sources.
9. (C) Kono also made a few side remarks concerning the Japanese election process. He expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law, which he called outdated. He noted, for example, that during the official campaign period he was not allowed to actively campaign on the Internet. He said he could print flyers during this time, but only a limited number, which had to be picked up by constituents at his campaign office. So, to get around these and other limitations, MPs had to campaign before the official campaign period began. Given the current uncertainty on a date for elections, he noted in a humorous manner that if the government delayed elections long enough, he and the other MPs would go broke.
Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility. 
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