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.

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.

James Pilant

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.

(I will highlight the appropriate sections.)

James Pilant

From the Guardian –

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.

SCHIEFFER

This is reactor number 4 of the site where the other reactors are having problems. The Japanese apparently didn’t mention this to anyone until after the second explosion at No. 2.

CBS News –

A fire at a fourth reactor in a quake-damaged nuclear plant sent radiation spewing into the atmosphere Tuesday. Earlier, a third explosion at the plant in four days damaged a critical steel containment structure around another reactor, as Japan’s nuclear radiation crisis escalates dramatically.

From the New York Times –

The problem at the fourth reactor had not been reported before late Tuesday morning. According to officials, a fire broke out at that reactor, which had been offline at the time of the earthquake but was storing spent nuclear fuel.

“No. 4 is currently burning, and we assume radiation is being released. We are trying to put out the fire and cool down the reactor,” the chief government spokesman, Yukio Edano, said at a televised press conference. “There were no fuel rods in the reactor, but spent fuel rods are inside.”

Spent fuel rods, depending on their age, can still emit large amounts of radioactive material and need to remain immersed in cool water. Even so, and despite the fact that the No. 4 reactor was emitting large amounts of radioactive material, Mr. Edano said the reactor “did not pose an imminent threat.”

Radiation is now coming out of the breach. We are in unknown territory but with the Japanese evacuating the workers at No. 2, it is likely that the fuel rods will fully melt down.

James Pilant

New York Times

Japan faced the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident Tuesday morning, as an explosion at the most crippled of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station damaged its crucial steel containment structure, emergency workers were withdrawn from the plant, and a fire at a fourth reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.

“No. 4 is currently burning and we assume radiation is being released. We are trying to put out the fire and cool down the reactor,” the chief government spokesman, Yukio Edano, told a televised press conference. “There were no fuel rods in the reactor, but spent fuel rods are inside.”

Government officials also said the containment structure of the No. 2 reactor had suffered damage during an explosion shortly after 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

They initially suggested that the damage was limited and that emergency operations aimed at cooling the nuclear fuel at three stricken reactors with seawater would continue. But industry executives said that in fact the situation had spiraled out of control and that all plant workers needed to leave the plant to avoid excessive exposure to radioactive leaks.

CNN

Japanese authorities trying to stave off meltdowns at an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant reported more grim news Tuesday as radiation levels soared following another explosion at an overheating reactor.

The risk of further releases of radioactive material from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains “very high,” Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday. In addition to an explosion at the No. 2 reactor, the building housing the No. 4 unit — which had been shut down before Friday’s earthquake — was burning Tuesday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano announced.

The plant’s owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, evacuated all but about 50 of their workers from the plant following Tuesday’s explosion at the No. 2 reactor. Radiation levels at the plant have increased to “levels that can impact human health,” Edano said — between 100 and 400 millisieverts, or as much as 160 times higher than the average dose of radiation a typical person receives from natural sources in a year.

“Howard” wrote me today with the following information which I now pass on to you. By the way I had a look the web site showing the track of the jet stream. It’s quite good.

James Pilant

Full text of Howard’s post:

James,

I found this website that shows the track of jetstreams. They have an option to choose animation or still images. Here’s the link:

http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html

I worked with nuclear power many years ago, and so am not current on modern design of reactors. But the basics should still be the same. The fuel rods interact with each other (a fission reaction), causing extreme heat. The reaction is controlled (read “cooled or shut down”) by the control rods being inserted between the reacting fuel rods.

The reason I’m putting this information on here is the explanation being given on the news (about attempts to “cool the reactors with water”) seems nonsensical. No water I know of can slow or stop a nuclear reaction. That’s what the control rods are for. The water circulating through a reactor is there to transfer heat from the fuel rods to a secondary water system, where pressure is relieved allowing the secondary water to flash into steam. The steam then drives turbines that perform work such as generating electricity.

If the reactor is melting, that means something must have gone wrong with the insertion of the control rods. My guess is the earthquake damaged their control systems, preventing the emergency shutdown of the reaction. I don’t know how any amount of water passing over an uncontrolled fission reaction can even begin to cool it down. It certainly can’t be put out like a fire.

Maybe the control rods were successfully inserted partway, and what we’re seeing really is a “partial meltdown”. Maybe there’s only a small amount of exposed fuel, and it’ll use itself up soon. In any case, it’s a good idea for all of us to keep an eye on the situation and on any fallout that may come our way.

Prayer is always a good idea. For anyone who isn’t already a born-again Apostolic Christian, I encourage you to read Acts 2:38 in the Bible. None of us knows when our time here on Earth will end, and it’s best to be ready to meet our Maker at any time.

Howard

His post concludes here. I want to thank Howard and invite him back to comment whenever he wishes.

James Pilant

I’m not an engineer but there was a massive explosion, the Japanese government reported damage to the container shielding the reactor, there was a sudden spike in radiation (spiked after the explosion to 8,217 microsieverts an hour from 1,941 about 40 minutes earlier), water started pumping in faster than it would if the container were sealed (The U.S. official said water being pumped in is disappearing faster than it would if it only were caused by evaporation) and Japan began urgently requesting help from American and UN experts. Further, the Japanese officials were giving out varying information at different times to different people, that tells me something happened they couldn’t coordinate for a while. All this makes me believe there has been a breach in the containment vessel.

From the BBC –

The blast occurred at reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which engineers had been trying to stabilise after two other reactors exploded.

The protective chamber around the radioactive core of reactor 2 has been damaged and radiation levels near the plant have risen, officials say.

From The Telegraph –

From ABC News –

The U.S. official said water being pumped in is disappearing faster than it would if it only were caused by evaporation, which suggests there may be a leak in the reactor’s containment vessel. But, the official said, it also could be that there is so much pressure inside the reactor that it is hard to pump in water.

A government official said that though the level of radiation rose around the reactor, there was no danger.

“The radioactive level near unit 2 has gone up, but at this juncture, the level is not judged to be immediately harmful to human bodies,” said Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman in the prime minister’s office.

But Japanese news agency NHK reported that the radiation levels at the front gate of the Daiichi plant were so high that a person would receive more in one hour than they would receive naturally in an entire year.

From the New York Times –

This explosion, reported to have occurred at 6:14 a.m., happened in the “pressure suppression room” in the cooling area of the reactor and inflicted some degree of damage on the pool of water used to cool the reactor, officials of Tokyo Electric Power said. But they did not say whether or not the incident had impacted the integrity of the steel containment structure that shields the nuclear fuel.

Radiation levels around plant spiked after the explosion to 8,217 microsieverts an hour from 1,941 about 40 minutes earlier, the company said. Some emergency workers there were evacuated, though the levels would have to rise far higher to pose an immediate threat to health, officials said.

Any damage to the steel containment vessel of a nuclear reactor is considered critical because it raises the prospect of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material and full meltdown of the nuclear fuel inside. To date, even during the four-day crisis in Japan that amounts to the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, workers had managed to avoid a breach of a containment vessel and had limited releases of radioactive steam to relatively low levels.

This is an alarming report from the former editor of the Japan Times –

This is a particularly good report and it reports the various arguments as to whether or not radioactivity will reach the United States.

America on nuclear alert: Could fallout from Japan explosion reach U.S. West Coast?

Officials revealed fuel rods are melting inside three damaged reactors at the Fukushima plant, triggering fears of a serious radiation leak.

Scientists in the U.S. warned today of a ‘worst-case scenario’ in which the highly radioactive material could be blasted into the atmosphere and blown towards the West Coast of America.

They said it could be picked up by powerful 30,000ft winds, carrying the debris across the Pacific and hitting America within four days.

From the New York Times – Obviously, the longer the leakage of radioactive material last, the more danger.

Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say

More steam releases also mean that the plume headed across the Pacific could continue to grow. On Sunday evening, the White House sought to tamp down concerns, saying that modeling done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded that “Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity.”

But all weekend, after a series of intense interchanges between Tokyo and Washington and the arrival of the first American nuclear experts in Japan, officials said they were beginning to get a clearer picture of what went wrong over the past three days. And as one senior official put it, “under the best scenarios, this isn’t going to end anytime soon.”

This is from the Daily Kos. I don’t think we are at a point of such certainty but I think a close monitoring of the situations is wise.

When the Radiation from Fukushima Reaches the US

I am sorry to have to report this, but it is clear that the efforts to contain radiation from multiple nuclear power plants melting down in Japan is failing and that the radiation entering our atmosphere is in all likelihood going to arrive in the United States in a matter of days or weeks. When Chernoby had its explosion and meltdown nearly a quarter century ago, the radiation reached the United States after it blew across the Pacific Ocean and came down across North America in the rain. The Nuclear Industry will obfuscate and lie and cover up as it has done for more than a half century, but the reality is that we need to be prepared for the fact that no matter what anyone does now, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle and the price will be high. Yet there are some steps you can take to protect yourself and your loved ones if the very worst happens.

American warships detect radioactive contamination more than 100 miles offshore.

UPDATE – From MSNBC –  The U.S. Seventh Fleet moved its ships and aircraft away from a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant Monday after discovering low-level radioactive contamination more than 100 miles offshore.

The fleet said that the radiation was from a plume of smoke and steam released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where there have been two hydrogen explosions since Friday’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles offshore when its instruments detected the radiation. The fleet said the dose of radiation was about the same as one month’s normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment.

The ships did not move because helicopter crews were contaminated. The ships themselves were contaminated. They have been contaminated by a radioactive plume from one of the reactors.

From Yahoo News – Seventeen U.S. military personnel involved in helicopter relief missions were found to have been exposed to low levels of radiation upon returning to the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore. U.S. officials said the exposure level was roughly equal to one month’s normal exposu … Read More

via Pilant’s Business Ethics Blog

This guy, Karl Stephan, knows his stuff. I’ve been reading his blog for more than a year and I don’t always agree with his conclusions but his science and engineering knowledge is superb.

In short, I trust him.

This is from his post on Sunday –  (I am serious — Go read the whole thing.)

Nevertheless, things are still dicey. Even if the nuclear reaction is shut down by emergency flooding or moderator-rod insertion, you still have a tremendous amount of heat to deal with, and the failure of the cooling-water pumps means that the reactors have already overheated and sustained a certain amount of damage. And of course, most of the instrumentation that engineers would normally use to figure out what is going on inside the plants has also gone flooey. Plus, nobody wants to get near the things with radioactive fuel sloshing around. Possibly it is a job for some radiation-hardened robots. If there are any such things, you can bet they have them in Japan and they’re trying to use them now.

A late report mentions that engineers working with at least one plant have thrown in the towel, and are pumping seawater mixed with boron into one reactor vessel. This is a last-ditch emergency measure that will cool the reactor core fast, but will also corrode it to the point of destruction. It’s likely that the reactor was beyond salvaging anyway, but this action seals its fate. At this point, this is an appropriate action that puts public safety ahead of the power company’s investment.

I’m asking him for an update and will put it up as soon as I can.

James Pilant

From Yahoo News –

Seventeen U.S. military personnel involved in helicopter relief missions were found to have been exposed to low levels of radiation upon returning to the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore.

U.S. officials said the exposure level was roughly equal to one month’s normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment, and after scrubbing with soap and water, the 17 were declared contamination-free.

But as a precaution, the U.S. said the carrier and other U.S. 7th Fleet ships involved in relief efforts had shifted to another area.

This is a very interesting little news piece. The crews were on “relief” missions presumably not helping with the reactor problems. And I’m sure they were. Helicopter crews and rescue personnel would be of precious little use at the reactor sites.

Now, add this from the beginning of the article –

The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked a Japanese nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive cloud of smoke into the air and injuring 11 workers. The blast was felt 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, but the plant’s operator said the radiation levels at the affected unit were still within legal limits.

Are the Japanese telling the truth?

How are Americans on relief missions getting contaminated if the radiation is still below the legal limits?

And if everything is under control, why is the navy concerned for its ships?

James Pilant