Fukushima News 11/21/13: 1st Round Of Fuel Transfer Complete; "Cask" Containing Fuel In Safer Pool

Source: MissingSky101
Date: 11/21/2013

Video Description

Published on Nov 21, 2013

TEPCO at final stage in 1st round of fuel transfer
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is preparing to complete the first transfer of nuclear fuel from a reactor building to a safer storage pool.
On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power Company moved the batch of nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor building to a nearby facility housing the safer pool.
TEPCO workers used a trailer to carry a cask containing 22 unused fuel assemblies to the building 100 meters away, then unloaded the cask inside the building.
The workers plan to transfer the fuel units from the container to racks in the storage pool on Friday.
This will mark the completion of the first transfer.
TEPCO says it will review whether there were any problems or challenges. If not, the utility says it may start removing spent fuel assemblies that are far more radioactive than the unused fuel.
The pool in the No. 4 reactor building contains more than 1,500 fuel units, most of which are spent fuel rods.

"Cask" containing fuel moved into safer pool
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant says it has removed the first batch of nuclear fuel from the reactor 4 building to a safer storage pool.
Footage released by Tokyo Electric Power Company on Thursday shows workers lowering a steel cask containing 22 unused fuel assemblies from the 5th floor of the reactor building. Engineers used a huge crane to lower the cask, 5.5 meters long and two meters across, onto a trailer on the ground.
The container was transferred slowly to a separate pool in a building 100 meters away, and lowered into water to store the fuel more safely.
TEPCO plans to begin on Friday plucking the fuel assemblies out of the cask and placing them in storage racks inside the pool. The utility says it will review the process before starting a second round of fuel transfer.
Thursday's transfer involved unused fuel units. The reactor's storage pool has 1,511 fuel assemblies left, including 1,331 highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies.
TEPCO says the building housing the separate pool can withstand an earthquake as strong as the March 2011 disaster that badly damaged the plant.
Nov. 21, 2013 - Updated 11:07 UTC

Trial run of last ALPS line at Fukushima resumed
The operator of Japan's damaged nuclear plant has resumed trial operation of the last of 3 lines of a key water decontamination system.
Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Company restarted the 3rd line of the Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, at the Fukushima Daiichi plant on Thursday.
The system is designed to remove from contaminated water 62 kinds of radioactive substances, excluding tritium.
But its test operation was suspended in June following leaks of unprocessed water from a tank due to corrosion.
The utility restarted the lines one by one after working to prevent further corrosion.
The officials say test runs so far have shown that the system is failing to fully remove 4 types of radioactive substances, including cobalt and antimony.
They say they will work to fix the system and confirm the effects of anti-corrosion measures before making it fully operational next year. ALPS was originally to be in full operation this autumn.
Tokyo Electric plans to add more lines to the system so that it will be able to process all radioactive water in the plant's storage tanks by March 2015.

http://enenews.com/professor-fukushim...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzXFx...

Oregon Official: Reports coming in of seafood with radioactive contamination, "They're kind of secretive, they don't want to give up their sources" — Locals concerned about impact Fukushima disaster is having on area fish (VIDEO)
http://videos.oregonlive.com/oregonia...

The Radioactive Ocean
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marbl...

Radionuclides in fishes and mussels from the Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Dump Site, California.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/86...

Fish Anyone? Farallon Islands (and other) Oceanic Radioactive Waste Dumps
Long before Fukushima dumped millions of gallons of highly radioactive water into the sea, the oceans have been designated repositories for radioactive waste and fallout according to reports from the USGS and articles in the SF Weekly and Mother Jones. -
http://www.defyingdisaster.com/2011/0...

America's Nuclear Waste Is Now Even Farther from Finding a Home
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/us-n...

Senator Boxer Says Records Possibly Missing On San Onofre
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/nov/21/...

EPA Radnet
http://www.epa.gov/radnet/radnet-data...

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry
http://nuclear-news.net/
http://www.youtube.com/user/MsMilkyth...

11/18/2013 Dr. Chris Busby Appears on Alex Jones Show to Discuss Nuclear Fuel Rod Removal at #Fukushima I Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool

Source: The Alex Jones Show
Date: 11/18/2013

Video Description

Published on Nov 18, 2013

Alex welcomes chemical physicist Dr. Christopher Busby to discuss what the removal of nuclear fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant entails, and to examine the tsunami-battered nuclear reactor's persisting radiation threat.
http://www.llrc.org/
http://www.greenaudit.org/
Stay in the know - Follow Alex on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones
'Like' Alex on FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderEme...
http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
http://www.infowars.net/
http://www.prisonplanet.tv
**NEW ITEM**[[SURVIVAL SHIELD-NASCENT IODINE]]
http://www.infowarsshop.com/-Infowars...
Retail Price $49.95-Your Price $29.95*
Your Savings $20.00
[[START GETTING HEALTHY NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE]]
**Beyond Tangy Tangerine 2.0 is the most advanced multi-vitamin mineral complex to date. http://infowarshealth.com/
[[PREPAREDNESS PRODUCTS]] NEW ITEMS**
**EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SURVIVE THE COLLAPSE**
http://www.infowarsshop.com/-Prepared...
[[INFOWARS MAGAZINE]] NOVEMBER ISSUE**
http://www.infowarsshop.com/-Infowars...

Editor's Note: See Dr. Busby's article Fukushima Fallout Damaged the Thyroids of California Babies for his discussion of the thyroid study he co-authored.  I have embedded Dr. Busby's Fukushima worst case scenario paper mentioned in the interview below for your convenience.

Video Summary of Fuel Transfer in Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool at #Fukushima I NPP on 11/18/2013

Source: EX-SKF Blog
Date: 11/18/2013
In this, I don't blame TEPCO for not having posted a video of the entire work (9 to 10 hours) on November 18, 2013.

The preparation for submerging the cask started in the morning, with the cask submerged completely at 12:30PM. The removal of unused (new) fuel assemblies into the cask started at 3:18PM, and by 6:45PM 4 unused fuel assemblies were transferred into the cask.

The names of the companies and the names of the workers are blurred in the video. They could be TEPCO workers, but most likely from one of the primary contractors.

From TEPCO's photos and videos library (11/19/2013):

...
Read the rest of this great blog here.

11/18/2013 Removal of nuclear fuel rods begins at Fukushima I

Fukushima I Unit 4, Spent Fuel Rod Removal Training  Photo Credit: NHK World

Removal of the unit 4 spent fuel pool nuclear fuel rods has begun today (11/18/2013) at Fukushima I. The process will take more than a year to complete. See NHK's Removal of nuclear fuel begins at Fukushima article for video and Asian Gazette Blog by Joël Legendre-Koizumi for further details.

3/29/13 Fukushima Update for the last 6 days

Source: MsMilkytheclown1
Date: 3/29/2013


Description

I've been collecting all these Fukushima Daiichi updates since March 23, 2013 (the last time I posted an update). I didn't realize how much I had collected for updates until I assembled them. Sorry for the extensive length today. (Insert your own sarcasm where needed).
An important update to Prime Minister Abe's election invalidated, please see this video:
Japanese PM Purges Anti Nuclear Elements from Government
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV_lwx...

Lots of Smoke and Mirrors for health related problems from the Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima. Blamed on "stress and old age". WTF.

TEPCO to try a new decontamination device.

And lots of other news about the nuclear triple (plus) meltdown / melt through in Japan.

***sorry for the sloppy description box, I'm getting REALLY Tired of doing these updates!***

Radioactive Reality (29 March 2013) "America's Forgotten Nuclear Terror" (Magick)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN3o2N...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...
Fukushima disaster damages claim form distributed
But the process was delayed because the occupant and the owner of a property were often different. It was also more difficult than expected to set compensation levels for damage caused by tsunami and quakes.

The utility is to offer compensation based on how long the affected areas were designated as no-go zones. It will also assume that the value of the real estate will fall to zero 6 years after the accident.
~~~~~~~~`
tepco reforms
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...

google http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has compiled a reform plan based on lessons learned from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

A third-party panel set up by TEPCO approved on Friday the plan drawn up by an in-house task force.

TEPCO launched the task force after it was criticized for defending its response to the accident in a report it put together following an internal probe.

The task force says the company should not put all the blame for the accident on the huge tsunami that hit the plant on March 11th, 2011. It concluded that the accident would have been preventable if the company had been fully prepared for the tsunami.

The reform plan includes 6 measures to address issues that came to light in the accident.

One measure is the creation of an independent, in-house supervising body to keep watch on the company's approach to safety. The task force criticizes the company for pursuing economic efficiency and not putting enough effort into risk management.

Another is to clarify the chain of command in case of an emergency. The number of people that one supervisor can manage will be limited to 7 people to make sure that everyone is up to date in the event of a crisis.

The task force also says the company was reluctant to disclose risks associated with nuclear power plants and it calls for assigning "risk communicators" who will advise the management and nuclear division chiefs.

The reform plan is an apparent effort to persuade authorities and the public to agree to allow it to resume operations of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant along the Japan Sea coast in Niigata Prefecture.

But TEPCO President Naomi Hirose ruled out speculation that the reform plan is intended to help restart the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant soon.

Hirose promised to rid his company of arrogance and carry out drastic reforms to ensure nuclear safety. He said if the company fails to do this, it does not have the right to operate nuclear plants.

The head of the third-party panel, Dale Klein, said TEPCO has acknowledged its mistakes and come up with the reform plan so it will not cause a similar accident.

~~~
article rad waste
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...

interium fukushima report
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...
Nuclear experts issue interim Fukushima report

A panel of nuclear energy experts has released an interim report on the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. They noted that efforts to prevent a severe accident were inadequate.

The report said if the plant had been fully prepared in terms of safety it would have avoided releasing massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.

But as for the cause of the accident, the report only summarized what is already known. It did not offer any new findings or analyses distinct from similar reports by the government's and the Diet's special panels.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted on the Society's current executives and former members reflected some soul-searching. Many of them said they had been arrogant and overconfident concerning the safety of nuclear plants.

They also said that, as part of the nuclear-related industry, they had reservations about opposing power companies.

~~~
vote invalid
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/2...

8/19/2012 Can Spent Fuel Pools Catch Fire?

Source: Fairewinds Associates
Date: 8/19/2012
by: Arnie Gundersen

About this video
In this Fairewinds’ feature, Fairewinds Associates Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen analyzes a US government national laboratory simulation video that shows nuclear spent fuel rods do catch fire when exposed to air. This simulation video proves Fairewinds’ assertions that nuclear fuel rods can catch fire when exposed to air, and Arnie discusses the ramifications of this phenomena if the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent fuel pool were to lose cooling water.

...

Visit Fairewinds Associates for other links, the text transcript of the video and other great resources

7/3/2012 Collapse of spent fuel storage pool at Fukushima Daiichi could be worse than initial accident, says new report

Source: Bellona via TruNews
Date: 7/3/2012
by: Charles Digges

The devastation of buildings at Fukushima Daiichi makes unclear how long it will be before spent fuel from the pond and reactors is safely stored.

Kyodo

A collapse of the already tilting reactor No 4 building at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, ¬atop which sits a spent nuclear fuel storage pool containing 1,535 fuel assemblies – including 204 unused ones – would lead to a “significant global impact,”– by far topping last year’s triple meltdown at the plant, a new report says.
...
Read the rest here

7/1/2012 TEPCO resumes cooling Fukushima Daiichi No. 4 reactor fuel pool | House of Japan - Japan News Technology Autos Culture Life Style

Source: House of Japan
Date: Published on Monday, 02 July 2012 

TOKYO, July 1, Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday it has resumed cooling the spent fuel pool of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant's No. 4 reactor following emergency repair work after the cooling system shut down on Saturday.
 ...
Read the rest here

6/30/2012 Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool Cooling Problems

This development looked somewhat alarming.  Apparently the spent fuel pool from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor 4 building has lost cooling as of 6:25 AM EST Saturday Morning (6/30/2012) as per WSJ MarketWatch.  According to TEPCO the temperature climbed at a rate of 0.26 C by late Saturday afternoon.  Quoting MarketWatch:

 [...]

If Tepco continues to be unable to cool the pool, the temperature could reach 65 C, which is the upper limit designated in the safety regulations, on Tuesday morning.

[...]

Here is another estimate from Fukushima Diary if the spent fuel pool cooling is offline for a longer period:

[...]
Prof. Takeda [Link] estimates the coolant water of SFP4 will reach 100℃ in the evening of 7/5/2012 (Thursday).
[...]

Spent fuel pool 4 contains 1535 fuel rods and there have been continued fears that a collapse of the elevated pool due to another earthquake could cause a massive release of radiation in to the environment, possibly rendering Japan uninhabitable.

6/25/2012 Experts warn of another disaster awaiting at Fukushima

Source: ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News 7.30
Date: June 25, 2012 21:04:00
by: Leigh Sales, Mark Willacy
Japanese and US nuclear experts warn that another earthquake hitting Fukushima could spark a disaster worse than Chernobyl.

BYOG: Bring Your Own Geiger counter and Hazmat gear

Source: End The Lie
by: Christina Consolo

It has been 6 weeks since I wrote my first piece for End the Lie about the potential Fukushima reactor number four end of the world scenario. Numerous nuclear experts, ambassadors, former Fukushima Daiichi workers, and senator Ron Wyden of Oregon have warned about as well. And still, no progress to report.
...
Read the rest here

5/26/2012 Nuclear Crisis/Environment Minister and Reporters visit Fukushima No.4

Source: CNTV, NHK World


Environment minister Goshi Hosono and four reporters are given a tour of Fukushima No.4, where the spent fuel rods are housed. The storage pool contains 1,535 fuel rods. This is at a time when there are fears that the spent fuel pool could collapse if there is another earthquake, and cause a massive release of radiation.

5/23/2012 Fukushima: If Number 4 Collapses, Japan Will Be Evacuated

Source: Infowars
Date: 5/23/2012
by: Kurt Nimmo

Fukushima Daiichi Reactor building 4 with its exposed fuel pool.

Chris Canine – who has 15 years experience as a health physics technician, chemist and radiation safety instructor – told Energy News that if number 4 reactor fuel pool at Fukushima collapses, Japan will be evacuated.
...
Read the rest here

5/23/2012 Fukushima disaster is ‘nuclear war without a war’

Source: Natural News via Infowars
Date: 5/23/2012
by: Ethan A. Huff

It has been more than a year now since the massive 9.0-plus magnitude earthquake and corresponding tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the eastern coast of Japan, sending untold amounts of nuclear radiation into the environment. And to this day, the threat of nuclear fallout is ever-present all around the world in what some have described as a “nuclear war without a war.”
...
Read full article here

Commission the Fukushima International Scientific Advisory Team, save Spent Fuel Pool #4, and stop Fukushima.

The following Whitehouse.gov petition for international support to save spent fuel pool #4 has gotten only 678 of  24,322 needed by May 8, 2012:

The #4 Spent Fuel Pool was badly damaged in last year's earthquake and ensuing hydrogen explosion. Its collapse would result in a complete loss of control at Fukushima and a subsequent release of radioactivity so great as to cause what former Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called "a demonic chain reaction" of nuclear meltdowns at nearby plants. Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura has said this release would "destroy the world environment and civilization."


We the People call on President Obama to commission the Fukushima International Scientific Advisory Team and lead the international community in bringing the weight of the world's collective resources to bear in saving the Reactor #4 Spent Fuel Pool from collapse and ending the slow-motion radiological holocaust emanating from Fukushima.

Please sign and spread the word, looks like they could use our help.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/commission-fukushima-international-scientific-advisory-team-save-spent-fuel-pool-4-and-stop/Y9mVpJWH

4/27/2012 Fukushima: Hanging by a Thread

Source: The Intel Hub
April 27, 2012
by: Dr. Marc Sircus

After writing my essay “Radioactive Hell on Earth”—actually I wanted to change that title to “Fukushima on Steroids”—I see Christina Consolo’s essay “Fukushima is Falling Apart”: Are you ready—it is becoming clear that we, our children and our entire civilization is hanging by a thread. It is a very sorry thing to report that we have literally shot ourselves in the foot with a big nuclear shotgun full of radioactive particles of the worst conceivable kind. It has taken a year but finally “a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing. ... Read the rest here

4/22/2012 The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Is Far From Over

Source: Huffington Post
Date: 04/22/2012 3:45 pm
by: Robert Alvarez

Spent reactor fuel, containing roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl, still sits in pools vulnerable to earthquakes.
...
Read full article here 

4/8/2012 Fukushima Unit 3 Fuel Pool, Did it Explode?

Source: Goddard's Journal
Date: 4/8/2012


Description

Footage used:

March 16, 2011 flyover of Fukushima:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV_r5Ifp8-I&hd=1
http://photo.tepco.co.jp/en/date/2011/201103-e/110317-01e.html

March 17 saw the first effort to add water to the fuel pools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_log,_March_2011#Thurs...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YjEOpnsCc#t=30s

Infrared Imagery:
http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/defense/saigai/tohokuoki/temp.html

Unit 3 overhead shot, March 24:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLXtUnE5cFG_y-oxUmsVuqDKwJ4xorr0NBQkndFjN6mgYrcFMMHSraczGCOf104o757Jt0gR1mrEMKaIKdECv6L6TADaZ5WhW1absFhR68o6VtJMvMmTYC66t8OwlzPTgWF7YxxUz5dIc/

Unit 3 directly above fuel pool, brief clip in news report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThB9yg8wCSY#t=0m24s

More footage of girders underwater at the NW pool corner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Okncug11aY#t=6m4s

Unit 3 fuel pool, underwater footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KugIrnThul0

8/26/2011 Newly Released TEPCO Data Proves Fairewinds Assertions of Significant Fuel Pool Failures at Fukushima Daiichi

Source: Fairewinds Associates
Date: 8/26/2011
by: Arnie Gundersen


New TEPCO data measured on August 19 & 20 shows severe damage to the spent fuel in Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3. The adjacent TEPCO table posted on the front page shows incredibly high levels of Cesium 137 and Cesium 134 in all three spent fuel pools of Units 1, 2, & 3. This TEPCO data clearly contradicts and refutes the July assertion by the NRC the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools were not damaged in this tragic accident. Crytome (cry to me) has a new high resolution photo, also uploaded, that shows the extensive damage of the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and the reactor building. Check it out.

TEPCO report on spent fuel pool water in unit 1-4: http://fairewinds.com/content/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-station-analysi...

Photograph of damaged reactor 3: http://fairewinds.com/content/new-build-3-damage-photo-published-crytome

8/21/2011 New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide

Source: Fairewinds Associates via MsMilkytheclown
Date: 8/21/2011
by: Arnie Gundersen

Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds' April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity.

In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC's latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors. If such a statement were true, it indicates that the nuclear power plant containments failed and were breached with debris landing far from the power plants themselves. Such a failure of the containment system certainly necessitates a complete review of all US reactor containment design and industry assurances that containments will hold in radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. The evidence Fairewinds reviewed to date continues to support its April analysis that the detonation in the Unit 3 Spent Fuel pool was the cause of plutonium found off site.

Third, the burning of radioactive materials (building materials, trees, lawn grass, rice straw) by the Japanese government will cause radioactive Cesium to spread even further into areas within Japan that have been previously clean, and across the Pacific Ocean to North America.

And finally, the Japanese government has yet to grasp the severity of the contamination within Japan, and therefore has not developed a coherent plan mitigate the accident and remediate the environment. Without a cohesive plan to deal with this ongoing problem of large scale radioactive contamination, the radioactivity will continue to spread throughout Japan and around the globe further exacerbating the problem and raising costs astronomically.

Editor's Note: Below are links to the recent reports sited by Arnie Gundersen in his video.
[1] Evidence of Neutron Leakage at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant From Measurements of Radioactive 35S in California
[2] Briefing on the Task Force Review of NRC Processes and Regulations Following the Events in Japan