Fukushima-Fuel Rod Removal starts November..Danger!

This, according to Fairewinds:

FWIW, that is if you put any stock in what Arnie Gundersen has to say. _http://fairewinds.org/demystifying/fukushima-daiichi-unit-3-going-explode


Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is not going to explode

Steam heat? What is happening at Fukushima Daiichi?

Beginning on Monday December 30, 2013, the Internet has been flooded with conjecture claiming that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is ready to explode. Fairewinds Energy Education has been inundated with questions about the very visible steam emanating from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Our research, and discussions with other scientists, confirms that what we are seeing is a phenomenon that has been occurring at the Daiichi site since the March 2011 accident.

It is winter and it is cold through out much of the northern hemisphere. Hot water vapor has been released daily by each of the four Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants since the accident. We believe that is one of the reasons TEPCO placed covers over Daiichi 4 and 1. Sometimes the steam [hot water vapor] is visible and sometimes it is not. If you have been outside on a cold winter day, you have personally experienced that phenomenon when you see the breath you exhale form a cloud in the cold air. The technical explanation is that hot water vapor becomes visible when it comes in contact with cold air and condenses. During the winter months in the Fukushima Prefecture, the sea air is cold and moist, thus forming the ideal conditions to see the released steam.

Why is there still steam coming from the plants especially since TEPCO says that they are in cold shutdown? As we at Fairewinds have discussed in our many videos, podcasts, and reports, radioactive rubble (fission products) was left in each unit following the triple meltdowns. While the plants are shutdown in nuke speak, there is no method of achieving cold shut down in any nuclear reactor. While the reactor can stop generating the actual nuclear chain reaction, the atoms left over from the original nuclear chain reaction continue to give off heat that is called the decay of the radioactive rubble (fission products). The heat from this ongoing decay of radioactive rubble is constantly releasing moisture (steam) and radioactive products into the environment. The radioactive decay is gradually slowing down, as fission products decay away. The cold moist winter air at this time of year is making steam from the ongoing decay easily visible.

How much radiation is escaping? When Unit 3 was operating, it was producing more than 2,000 megawatts of heat from the nuclear fission process (chain reaction in the reactor). Immediately after the earthquake and tsunami, it shut down and the chain reaction stopped, but Unit 3 was still producing about 160 megawatts of decay heat. Now, 30 months later, it is still producing slightly less than 1 megawatt (one million watts) of decay heat.

What does that figure mean; is it an inconsequential amount? 1 megawatt of decay heat is a lot of heat even today, and it is creating radioactive steam, but it is not a new phenomenon. These hot radioactive releases [not physically hot, but radioactive hot – meaning they contain radioactive fission products] have occurring for the entire 33 months following the triple meltdown. The difference now is that the only time we visibly notice these ongoing releases is on the cold days with atmospheric conditions cold enough to condense hot vapor into steam.

Fairewinds Energy Education would like to thank our viewers and listeners for following our work and supporting our work and sending it important questions like this one. We will continue to keep you informed.
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More new news for the New Year. They have been stirring around in R3 sfp, according to ex-skf:

"In order to remove fuel assemblies from the Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool, removal of large-size debris in the Spent Fuel Pool started (December 17)."

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2014/01/fukushima-i-npp-reactor-3-debris.html


So what does debris removal look like? Lets hope it goes better than it did on this attempt shown here by AGreenRoad's youtube video (at least see the last half minute of the 3:40 clip):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxiQwGYDO-w#t=108


Remove as much of the fuel as possible before the site becomes unmanageable. Glad Japan finally stepped in with some financing because TEPCO has a lot of problems to work on. Someone should make money and someone should pay is the capitalist way.
 
Many of the events seen by webcam viewers are followed by rising radiation levels measured downwind.

Links to the webcams can be found at nuckelchen’s site: http://fukushima.xobor.de/t9f7-fixed-cameras.html

Watch the national weather reports and look at netc alerts. A storm front moves across the Midwest and alerts show up along the front’s precipitation. I notice elevated measured levels of radioactive fallout drifting across the US. EPA measurements would give more information than netc alerts but stations go offline frequently at critical times. Radcast has a simple to understand chart and a 100 alert level.

Netc: http://www.netc.com/
EPA RadNet: http://www.enviroreporter.com/radnet-air-monitoring
Radcast: http://www.radcast.org/index.html
Radiation Network: http://www.radiationnetwork.com/
California EPA readings at gregslab: http://www.gregslab.com/tools/radwatch
International radiation monitoring stations: http://sccc.org.au/international-radiation-monitoring-stations

Background radiation level increases averaged 5 cpm in 1950 to the present 25 cpm. Unlike an atom bomb blast that spikes and diminishes, Fukushima is a dirty bomb that continuously emits low level radiation. Studies of low level radiation show increased health risks in downwinders.
 
The video’s captured a smoke/steam event that was not coming from R3. TEPCO reissued information about steam events at R3 drowning out any discussion of where the smoke/steam originated. The Turner article also helped to shift attention to R3. The problems of handling hot fuel rods and spent fuel pool fires were not mentioned. Will fuel rod removal and placement in pools cause more emissions that we shouldn’t know about without proper clearance and a need to know? The lack of data prevents any real assessment. Watching the cams and capturing events, monitoring rad levels may provide evidence that all is not as TEPCO would like us to believe.

An image that tbg captured of the full field of view of the TEPCO cam. The view was not zoomed in as is usually seen. The bright lights show the rainbow effect as a lens artifact. The camera seems to be located further from the site than the map shows. The perspective at that angle greatly distorts distance, especially when zoomed. Wotcha noticed the cooling tower looks wonky, or in other words, leaning or tilting.
http://imgur.com/Yolpkli

elibi posted the location map from TEPCO: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5772834/FUKUSHIMA/location-tepco%20cam.jpg

SOTT readers might appreciate this spreadsheet to calculate an asteroids mass and energy in equivalent Atom Bombs: http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2014/01/another-asteroid-enters-earth-with-no.html
 
1-8-2014 1430-jst
Again like on the 24th last month, smoke/steam, from the same area and it is not R3 steaming. TBS view: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bblr08ij8uy9j86/1-7-2014%201430-jst.avi

pure water captured the tepco cam, it shows the smoke drifting from the left of the cooling tower and R3: http://www.imagesup.net/?di=9138915940915

tepco time lapse (about a minute into the clip): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_48pgMt2BA&feature=c4-overview&list=UUDu1KkkwuzybKx6MXQgGHuw
 
Homo Insapiens reports: “The number of removed assemblies remains at 132 since December 24th, 2013 There was no weekly update on December 31st, 2013 The weekly update on January 6th, 2014 indicate 0 (zero) additional removed assemblies. I recommend checking that link at the end of the day (Japan time) Monday, January 13th, 2014. If it's still at 132, that would be troubling.”
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html

nuckelchen provided links to another camera put online:
tepco opens one of their network-cameras placed beside reactor nr 1:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index2-j.html
http://mfile.akamai.com/267499/live/reflector:52538.asx
http://mfile.akamai.com/267499/live/reflector:49686.asx
http://mfile.akamai.com/267499/live/reflector:49686.asx?bkup=52538
and here is the camera beneared reactor nr 4:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index-j.html

The new camera view shows from left to right; R1 with its tent covering, R2 that didn’t explode, and the lower right hand corner shows what is left of R3. The new camera shows mostly a view of the sky and doesn’t show any ground activity. This new view isn’t going to show the steam releases at R3 unless they fill the air above it. It won’t show any steam events from the common or the new spent fuel pools area.

Nuckelchen also added more clips of the 1-8-14 event. The first youtube of the tepco cam shows the steam coming from the left of the cooling tower and R3 area. The next two images of the tbs cam show that its not just steam. The last tbs animated gif captures the event in timelapse.
"smoke & steam on
2014/01/08 14-15 JST :"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_48pgMt2BA
http://i.imgur.com/EpTbO0t.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NUXO0C5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0n3cQkk.gif
 
Fuel Removal from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi NPS
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html

Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 110 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies

Number of times of cask transportation:
6 times

as of Jan.6,2014
Completion status of transfer will be updated every Monday.

TEPCO doesn't update their information page regularly. Keep checking
 
Fuel Removal from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi NPS
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html

Number of transferred assemblies
154/1533

Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 132 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies

Number of times of cask transportation:
7 times
as of Jan.14,2014
 
I think nuckelchen’s capture shows work being done at R3. The cranes have a large object suspended over the steam. They may be dropping water/chemicals on a hot spot.
nuckelchen
steam reactor nr 3 fukushima daiichi
2014/01/17
11:48 JST
http://youtu.be/cuunn1hkVD0
i got five more captures posted here:
http://i2h.de/hIm9

Fuel Removal from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi NPS
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html
198/1533
Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 176 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies
Number of times of cask transportation:
9 times
as of Jan.20,2014
 
1-22-2014 13:00 to 14:00 jst Webcam watchers catch another smoke event.

Paulie777
12.22 eastern us. Smoke near the tower at reactor 3 then the JNN cam gets slowly fogged of smoked out. sketchy. This will be interesting if it doesn't totally smoke out.

chemfood
ya. fast-mo version at 2:20 … SMOKE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhXGqQyT1g

gomekwins
crane goes in… smoke comes out? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhXGqQyT1g#t=2m12s

chemfood
next hour. new "smoke"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H97vLUP39AE&list=UUDu1KkkwuzybKx6MXQgGHuw&feature=c4-overview

Horse
Looks to me like another cask was transferred into a cooling pool. Smoke coming from the left of the reactors, smoke events occur during the work day. The smoke event doesn't last very long. Would expect to see the smoke when hot fuel is quenched in cool water. A tbs view would show if the origin is the same place as the smoke events seen previously. Match the smoke events to the 'casks transferred' TEPCO reports and see if we catch them all.
 
Fuel Removal from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi NPS
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html

220/1533
Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 198 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies
Number of times of cask transportation:
10 times
as of Jan.27,2014

----------

I have been following 311, concerned and wondering how bad it really is. ENENews is a news aggregator that has educated me to the extent of the disaster. The bloggers there share information and insight that I'm sharing here. Watching the webcams became something of a hobby and motivated me to post instead of my usual lurking.
ENENews:
http://enenews.com/
http://enenews.com/forum-fukushima-webcam-discussion-thread-dec-26-1013-present
 
Fuel Removal from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi NPS
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/removal4u/index-e.html

264/1533
Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 242 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies
Number of times of cask transportation:
12 times
as of Feb.3,2014

308/1533
Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel 286 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel 22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies
Number of times of cask transportation:
14 times
as of Feb.10,2014

Iori Mochizuki at Fukushima Diary reports that high radiation levels are endangering the work there.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/02/atmospheric-dose-of-reactor4-pool-area-is-nearly-0-1-msvh-reaches-the-annual-dose-limit-only-within-200-hours/

http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/02/nra-radiation-dose-is-too-high-in-reactor4-spent-fuel-pool-area-%E2%86%92-tepco-covered-lead-plate-over-the-crane/

Fukushima Diary has recent TEPCO video of sfp4 disfigured fuel assemblies.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/02/video-disfigured-fuel-assembly-of-reactor4-pool/

Advanced Nuclear Technology International Europe AB published a Special Topic Report, BWR FUEL CHANNEL DISTORTION, in Oct 2011. The report covers industry experience with distorted fuel assemblies.
https://www.antinternational.com/fileadmin/Products_and_handbooks/Zirat/Examples/ZIRAT16_STR_ChannelDistortion_sample.pdf

Since fuel removal might be slowing and there isn’t much to see, here’s an interesting effect seen on the south tepco cam. Usually seen when it rains at night, but not every rain. I look for them when it rains after steam/smoke and heavy emission events.

Stills 12-14-2013 had high humidity, maybe misting. Least distortion I’d seen and motivated me to get video capture software to show the motion better.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fa8ic5s9jwaqvec/Capture62.PNG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2xrly86b4jy5873/capture63.bmp

Stills 12-19-2013 raining.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ywx3cyn4hsqyxx1/Capture68.PNG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pqcxmgiuvv85qmx/Capture73.PNG

Normal speed movies during a snowstorm 2-8-2014:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fziqu06uadygj5f/2-8-2014%202050-jst1.avi
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ty0uhu3oo865ao7/2-8-2014%202100-jst.avi
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x4gjoa9gzocrknb/2-8-2014%202108-jst1.avi
https://www.dropbox.com/s/es0kaeu8ektev2d/2-8-2014%202144-jst.avi
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k12zq6ahoiyp4g5/2-8-2014%202144-jst2.avi

Easy to dismiss the light as reflections in raindrops, what else could it be? Any guesses?
 
There is debate about whether the R4 SFP has fuel that can be removed.

Cesium-136/-137 ratio demonstrates radiation releases from spent fuel pools.
http://optimalprediction.com/wp/cesium-136-137-ratio-demonstrates-radiation-releases-from-spent-fuel-pools/

TEPCO claims the r4 explosion was caused by hydrogen venting from r3 but the vent pipe was collapsed. TEPCO claimed that r4 was empty because of refueling, yet the reactor area showed a definite hot spot. The r4 equipment pool is a melt oozing out of the buckled north wall. The r4 spent fuel pool assemblies are warped. MOX assemblies are seen in the r4 sfp. TEPCO didn’t have the required Prefecture license to enrich MOX fuel. A lack of paperwork might cause a national scandal but any military nuclear inventory or activities revealed could bring unwanted international attention.

Speculation started soon after 311. Pattie Brassard, claiming to be a NASA whistleblower with insider information posted that Fukushima was being used in breeder reactor experiments and a bomb/warhead making lab was in r4. Google pattieb + fukushima. Link to the translation of the insider’s blog postings with timelines and pictures.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhamanora.blog.ocn.ne.jp%2Fkaiin02%2F2011%2F06%2Fpost_8986.html

The FOIA documents have early reports of sfp4 losing cooling long enough to burn up. Google Hatrick Penry or Plume-Gate for a theory based on FOIA documents that Israel stuxneted and neutron gunned the reactors. Other theories I found on the internet are that Russia or China or US did it with HAARP and that Japan did it accidently with experiments at Tokai.

The secret war may be a cause but don't overlook the fact that Daiichi was past it's 40 year design life using MOX fuel it wasn't designed for, safety upgrades were not done to save money, maintenance not performed, oversight and regulation watered down, numerous past accidents never properly addressed, and Japan’s shroud replacement innovation to extend the life cycle.

I think the earthquake shook the cooling pipes loose based on worker accounts. The reactors were in trouble before the tsunami took out power and diverted early response to the reactor problems. TEPCO insists it was the tsunami because admitting it was a 6.5 earthquake would make it difficult to restart other NPP's in fault/quake zones. By focusing on the Daiichi reactors attention is diverted from damage at other NPP’s and information is more easily controlled.

TEPCO’s efforts to keep secret the causes and effects of their industrial accident fuels the speculation as others try to fill in the gaps and make sense of the events. The actual amount of fuel that went into the air and how much scattered and what melted corium remains burning into the earth are the important facts that everyone including TEPCO guess at. The pools hold more fuel than the reactors and have no containment.

Japan has had heavy snows lately and maybe that has slowed the fuel removal. Crane work over R3 has increased though. The update is a few days late.
 
horse, you're doing excellent work here in keeping us posted in a blow-by-blow sequence ~ thank you so much for all you're doing :flowers: :clap: :rockon:
 
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