Fukushima Nuclear Plant: Possible Meltdown
Live Blog
Thu-0326AM-2011
It seems things just aren’t getting better at the Fukushima plant and the pressure is mounting on TEPCO to get things under control. Low levels of radiation are now being detected throughout the United States and within our food supply which was once considered improbable. Meanwhile the Japanese company who runs the plant continues to deny that things are out of control even as radiation in water inside the reactor area reaches above 4,000 times the legal limit.
Wed-0221AM-2011
Japan is urging other nations to follow in the United States and Britain’s lead in banning shipments of food that are susceptible to radiation like milk and cheese.
Wed-0220AM-2011
Tap water within Tokyo has been deemed unsafe for consumption. The warning only applies to infants as only trace amounts of radiation has been discovered within a purifier.
Fri-1528PM-2011
Fri-1521PM-2011
Nuclear plant operator in Japan weeps as they finally announce that radiation levels are high enough to kill people. The world knew this 4 days ago.
Fri-0048AM-2011
U.S. government nuclear experts believe a spent fuel pool at Japan’s crippled Fukushima reactor complex has a breach in the wall or floor, a situation that creates a major obstacle to refilling the pool with cooling water and keeping dangerous levels of radiation from escaping.
Thu-2114PM-2011
The USS Ronald Regan was hit with one month’s worth of radiation in just one hour after sitting off the coast of Japan.
Thu-1857PM-2011
A power cable has reached the Fukushima nuclear plant which will allow for cooling pumps to be restored.
Thu-1329PM-2011
The Chicago mayor has said that passengers arriving from Tokyo have set off the radiation detection alarms at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
Previous Updates
According to the founder of @BreakingNews on twitter @Mpoppell sources are saying that the temperature is now rising in both reactor 1 and 2 and that they have lost control of the pressure within both reactors. TEPCO reports that Fukushima No.2 plant will lose 3 reactors cooling systems.
@NBCNightlyNews #Tokyo Electric Power Co. is reporting that they have lost control of the pressure in their No. 1 & 2 nuclear reactors with temps rising.
NHK media is reporting that all is fine with the reactors and that no radiation is leaking however Kyodo news is reporting quite the opposite.
Reuters is now reporting that TEPCO has said pressure inside Daini 1, 2, 4 containment vessels is on rising trend however they’re still ‘stable.’
URGENT: Kydo News has reported that the cooling system for Fukushima plant number two has failed.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan is going to inspect the power plant and won’t return to Tokyo until 10:50 pm where an emergency government meeting will be underway without his presence. Kan said he wants to get a “grasp on the situation.”
Government to order TEPCO to open valve to vent pressure from Fukushima reactor number 1. Material released will be radioactive however it will not harm human life or environment allegedly.
Japan has issued a state of emergency after a second nuclear power plant has lost its ability to cool reactors according to the Associated Press. The United States has offered to provide coolant to Japan however Japan declined.
The 3,000 people in the initial 3km evacuation zone have completed their evacuation.
Japan currently has 5 reactors at two power plants listed under a state of emergency.
According to multiple sources, including the LATimes, the risk for a meltdown is rising. If a meltdown does occur it would be far worse than Chernobyl however the current winds would carry most of the radiation out to sea.
URGENT: According to Kyoto News a 3km evacuation order has been issued for the areas surrounding Fukushima No.2 which is experiencing similar difficulties with cooling.
FLASH:Evacuation around Fukushima now covers 20,000 people. It originally covered 3,000 people. Via Reuters
Analysts are saying that Japan may only have a few hours left to be able to properly cool the reactors and prevent a meltdown.
URGENT: The government has confirmed that so far there has been no leak of radiation at the quake hit nuclear plant.
URGENT: The government as well as TEPCO have now confirmed that there is in fact a radiation leak at the Fukushima plant.
A pumping system that the workers were using to try and cool the reactor at Fukushima #1 caused an explosion at the plant however no damage was done to the containment building. There was a slight radiation leak that officials say was an amount equivalent to what is allowable for ordinary people in one year.
The evacuation area has been expanded to 20km
They now plan to flood the reactor with sea water in the hopes that it will cool it down enough to stave off a meltdown.
The plants shutdown has caused a loss of power to over 1,000,000 people.
URGENT: A 6.4 magnitude quake has struck near the problematic Fukushima nuclear power plant.
URGENT: Three evacuees from area near Fukushima nuclear plant have been exposed to radiation. Via Kyodo News
Reuters Flash The Japanese Nuclear Safety agency has rated the incident as a 4 on a scale of 1 to 7.
Japan has said that the radiation levels have diminished slightly and that the sea water infusion process is underway. Flooding the reactor containment building will take days and will likely cause the reactor to never re-open due to safety concerns.
According to the White House press corps Fukushima’s reactor No.3 cooling system has failed.
URGENT: “There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown,” said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the Japanese nuclear safety agency’s international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency’s headquarters in Tokyo. “At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility.” Via CNN
News Flash 300,000 People are now being evacuated out of the area surrounding the failing nuclear plants. The plant was also rocked by another 6.3 magnitude aftershock.
URGENT: Japan’s TEPCO has started releasing radioactive material from reactor number three into the air.
IAEA is reporting that Unit 3 at Fukushima is now safe and in a cold shutdown.
A Japanese government official has said that a partial meltdown is likely underway at the second reactor. via AP
Updates have ceased for this section! Please refer to the live blog.
The Japanese nuclear power plant that went offline after the giant earthquake this morning is now experiencing some major problems. Shortly after the earthquake the operators noticed that the plant was not receiving enough electricity to properly pump water needed to cool the reactor. They soon issued an evacuation of a 3km area just in case things went south and they certainly have. The authorities have since been forced to evacuate a 10km area because the radiation is rising fast. Reports indicate that the radiation level inside the control room is nearly 1,000 times normal. Levels outside the gate are rising well above 8 times the normal. Authorities have said that they have a last resort measure in place and that is an emergency cooling system that has not been activated yet. They’re also planning controlled releases of irradiated materials to keep the pressure down in the reactor room. The United States is rushing nuclear experts, who specialize in the type of reactor at Fukushima, to the area as fast as possible. If the situation becomes any worse we may have a 21st century Chernobyl on our hands.
The situation still has many on edge however the likelihood of an actual meltdown at this point seems to be diminishing. Nuclear experts from around the globe are pouring into Japan to advise and assist in anyway possible. TEPCO is currently flooding multiple reactors with seawater to cool them down as a last ditch attempt although experts have said they expect that method to work. With nearly 1,000,000 people dependent upon Fukushima’s nuclear power and the possibility that 3 of those reactors may never open again seems to be Japan’s biggest problem now.
Source: MSNBC
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This is not good!
No it is not. They’re having one hell of a day
That’s pretty scary. If they are releasing pressure that means they are releasing coolant and the only reason to do that is that otherwise the vessel would just explode. Without power supply for emergency cooling, this is essentially an uncontrollable situation.
There are lots of aspects which will make the situation worse if they cannot get cooling to work:
- if rods are not covered by coolant they will melt because of slow secondary nuclear reactions wich cannot be switched off. Molten Uranium/oxide will then concentrate in the low point of the vessel.
- pressure release means that the amount of coolant will continue to shrink.
- at some point the cooling system will become so damaged that it won’t work anymore even if power is back.
- above some temperature the vator vapor will dissociate into Oxygen and Hydrogenium. Which is an explosive mixture. It was this mixture which gave the Chernobyl Plan the last blow.
- The molten uranium may concentrate at the deepest point of the vessel. Depending on some factors it could reach a certain density and mass which will re-ignite the nuclear chain reaction.
As can be seen there are several ways which surely will blow up the plant and only one way to control it, to get cooling working. But it might be too late for this, and there are many symptoms that the situation is almost completely out of control.
We can only hope for the best,
Thank you so much for your comment and vast amount of information. It is much appreciated!
This is horrible!
Let’s hope it gets better here soon!
“Reuters is now reporting that TEPCO has said pressure inside Daini 1, 2, 4 containment vessels is on rising trend however they’re still ‘stable.’”
Considering the other facts calling something “stable” there is nothing else than a lie. It’s highly probable that a meltdown is happening right now.
It’s a situation very close to the one in Harrisburg / Tree Miles Island and we know that that reactor was pervasibely damaged inside. And people at Harrisburg had a large amount of luck – the meltdown was stopped about twenty minutes before an explosion of the vessel would have occured, reports said later. But in Harrisburg there was coolant and power. In Fukushima, no. And a large part of the safety equipment is possibly destroyed by the tsunami.
> “If a meltdown does occur it would be far worse than Chernobyl however the current winds would carry most of the radiation out to sea.”
That’s about the only thing which is positive about the situation. But winds can change very quickly and if radiation is released nothing can prevent Tokyo do suffer radioactive rains. Contamination patterns can also be quite patchy. If you look at a map of the areas affected by the Chernobyl accident, this are hundreds of kilometers… but in an area which even before wasn’t populated very densely. You can try to place that map over the area in Japan just to see how big the area is:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Tchernobyl_radiation_1996-de.svg&filetimestamp=20070206221147
In the 1979 and 1989, in Germany there was a report called “Deutsche Risikostudie Kernkraftwerke” which extensively deals with scenarios of that kind and might be worth reading. It’s here:
http://www.grs.de/begriff-der-woche-deutsche-risikostudie-kernkraftwerke
In place of Japanese people, I would try to get at least a 200 kilometer distance to the plants. I wouldn’t believe anything what government tells. Contamination can become so severe that it is impossible to rescue people. In Germany in the eigthies, plans have appeared that the military will hinder people to leave highly contamined areas by force, enclosing this areas. The government could just give up people which are living close. It is important to get away now, without waiting. People should wear rainclothes and carry clean water. They should wear shoes which can be disposed, preferable made out of plastic. Radiation is like an invisible dust which is trying to enter the body. In case of a release, it is good to shower after being outside and to treat everything from outside like poisoned.
Thank you for the wealth of information!
What’s the chance of the jet stream carrying fallout to the west coast of the US?
Well they’re saying that it would be carried out over the Pacific but don’t know if it would dissipate in time. Who knows?
@JamesMcCabe1 Tokai get the #maintanenceAWARD
Radioactive clouds are reaching North America today. Officials state that currently these levels are not harmful at this point. If the reactors ALL meltdown, which is very possible, wouldn’t that significantlly increase the radioactivity in the clouds heading towards US?
It would certainly raise the levels dramatically but the question is will the levels be harmful to human health or not? There are so many reports contradicting one another that it’s hard to decipher fact from bullshit.
Hopefully they can start those cooling pumps now that electricity is being restored. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the sea water did not cause too much corrosion and damage the pipes.
It does seem that the situation is now under control however the definition of control is a loose one. They have now detected small amounts of radiation in rainwater as far away as Massachusetts but levels “not harmful” to humans. I wouldn’t recommend drinking it though
This situation is still totally fu**ed up!