No guided tour of Fukushima for him?

GE’s Immelt defends nuclear industry safety record

“A GE Japan spokeswoman later told Reuters that Immelt excluded the Chernobyl incident when referring to the industry’s safety record over the past four decades because it did not involve facilities designed by Western or Japanese firms.”

LINK.

The original Reuters story is now no longer available, and even the sites who have carried the story (e.g., MSDNC) have the reactor meltdown not only buried in the middle of the story, but underneath the subhead “NRC-FUKUSHIMA VESSEL NOT BREACHED.”

NRC-FUKUSHIMA VESSEL NOT BREACHED

At the hearing, Edward Markey, a prominent critic of the nuclear industry, said the NRC had warned that Fukushima’s No. 2 reactor had likely melted through its vessel, a key part of the containment for radioactive materials.

But Virgilio said that had not happened yet, based on information from NRC staff in Tokyo.

“We get situation reports from our team multiple times during the day and so far we do not believe the core has actually breached” the vessel, Virgilio told reporters.

It’s really quite startling, Markey’s statement is left alone in the middle of the entire article as if by ignoring it it will somehow go away.

That decade figure assumes that criticality ceases in the corium. As long is the corium stays critical , the timeline for decay heat doesn’t start.

Right? Where my ‘nuke experts at?

Correct.

Boxturtle (But remember, we’re in a brand new world and EVERYBODY is guessing)

Maybe Immelt could make a close-up personal inspection, giving new meaning to Immediate meltdown.

Immelt: v,t: Usage: The Fuku reactors are “Immelting”

At this point we’re really just down to theoretical physics, aren’t we?

Scary sheet, BoxTurtle.

Little Melting Jeff is already weird enough. We don’t need to irradiate him. Besides, I’m think the Japanese might consider it an act of war if sent his crazy ass over there.

I’d have said “Engineering Disasters,” although it was really “Management Decisions.”

Talk about an Eternal Flame…

He could expense it as a sales call, and contribute to the cleanup by self Immolation.

Reuters UK is actually playing Markey’s statement both ways now – in one story extensively quoting an NRC official denying the pressure vessel breach, but in another story quoting Markey only.

Democrats raise concern about nuclear plant

Japan No 2 core melted through reactor vessel – Markey

Reuters US is not carrying the separate Markey statement at all.

Nothing quite so solid, I’m afraid. I hear a lot of ‘maybe’ and ‘probably’ and ‘It should’ and ‘best guess’. Part of that comes from limited data. But I think we’d hear a lot of it even if we had complete, crunchy data.

Boxturtle (Our data is currently mostly lies, damn lies, and statistics)

The core at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel, Democratic Congressman Edward Markey told a hearing on the nuclear disaster on Wednesday.

Oh come on. That’s not news, that’s opinion. Ed Markey may have access to the NRC that the rest of us don’t but he’s going to have to do better than that. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and while I wouldn’t be surprised if what he’s claiming is true, so far it’s just speculation.

I just learned that the security systems in my office building are manufactured by GE. I’m wondering when the keypad on my wall will melt down.

This is even more interesting and small-worldish, coupled with the fact that my company was just purchased by Hitachi Consulting, part of Hitachi, Ltd., who manufactured Unit 3 at Fukushima Daiichi.

That meltdown already occurred in someone’s wallet. Caused by the maintenance bill.

Like it!

You’re on point :)

I commented in the earlier thread from Scarecrow that it sounds like Markey is just talking about the NYT story last week that analyzed available data so far, mostly around the “neutron beams”, and concluded that there was probably a melt through containment, most likely at Unit 2.

If, (or when) the corium melts through containment, we will likely see more contamination of the ocean. The Oyashio current comes in from the North and moves towards the farmlands of Northern Chiba, where it meets a northerly current. the Koroshio, creating a rich and diverse marine environment.

Wow. The news has been cancelled out.

Wow I’m stealing that …

Not sure I’d consider it just opinion.

The Pentagon has sent at least one drone over the site and there have been innumerable spy satellite passes. They know a lot of information that has not been publically released. This includes isotope ratios, radiation intensity, and IR/UV/Gamma photos as well as visible light. With just what I know about the sensor suites (and I have no non-public info that I’m aware of), they have the data to know if a melt is outside the core. Nobody in a position to know is denying it.

That information might have been shared with congresscritters, especially west coast congresscritters.

But extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary proof.

Boxturtle (Firmly on the fence)

Drones and spy satellites are equipped to pick up that kind of information? Not disputing, asking out of ignorance.

Not sure I’d consider it just opinion.

Until somebody produces more evidence to me than what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission thinks is “probable”, it’s just an opinion and a lack of clear denial isn’t evidence for anything other than their usual lack of transparency. Now that’s not my opinion, that’s the way it is. Lack of evidence isn’t a reason to reach a conclusion.

readings of the water near the Fukushima Daiichi plant show it to be 7.5 million times above normal.

On the other hand, water that is…activated in such a manner makes an excellent breakfast tea. At least that’s what I’m given to understand by various (and, I might add, illustrious members) of our two national legislative bodies. EPA, SchMEPA…

What did you think spy satellites were looking for?

EDIT: Certainly the photos in various ranges. The isotope ratios would require sampling in the atmosphere. Drones.

Sure. One of the original purposes was to detect and identify nuclear activity. They can detect gamma rays and determine their energy, which can be very informative about the reaction that produced it. There are spectroscopes that can very accurately determine elemental composition, as well as certain compounds that show distinctively.

So we would know if any of the reactors went recritical. And the gamma intensity would be WAY higher if the melt was on the floor. Light in the Gamma range isn’t going to care much about what’s on top of it, so we should see that clearly.

Add to that our Navy is in the area and they are most certainly sampling with ground based sensors. We detected NK’s UNDERGROUND nuke and confirmed it was a nuke from aircraft outside NK’s air space.

Boxturtle (Non-publically, who knows what a Lacrosse can do?)

Yes, I was thinking along those lines, but didn’t know for sure.

The drone bit surprised me though. I have been thinking of them as offensive weapons bc that’s how I usually read about them. So didn’t think of them as having other purposes.

Thanks.

Thanks also. See my 28.

From NASDAQ:

Markey, a vocal critic of nuclear power, says a member of his staff received an e-mail Tuesday from an NRC official stating the core “may be out of the reactor pressure vessel.”

“Based on radiation readings in the drywell and the torus … the NRC staff speculates that part of the Unit 2 core may be out of the reactor pressure vessel and may be in the lower space of the drywell,” according to a copy of the e-mail provided to Dow Jones. “Lower radiation readings in the torus suggest that there is not core material in the torus.”

The e-mail was sent by Timothy Riley, a congressional affairs officer with the NRC.

It is unclear whether Virgilio or other NRC officials are aware of the e-mail Riley sent Markey’s staff. An NRC spokesman didn’t respond to immediate requests for comment.

Markey “obviously received the information from somebody or some source and from the NRC,” Virgilio told reporters. “So we’ll have to sort that out.”

The same was said by the Guardian 3/29 http://tiny.cc/f8kwo

However the Reuters link is gone! See no evil and all that. Amazing.

Drones are also being “tested” on the border with Canada … which is a bit disconcerting to border region residents. Last year (or the year before … or … when this was first announced) there was a suggested protest action to moon the drones from Windsor, across the river from Detroit: I don’t know if it actually happened.

They don’t want people to know. “Meltdown” is a very scary word. All the public *knows* is it’s harmless OR it’s the end of the world. Cue Charlie Sheen.

The drone in the moon.

lol. Prolly works better than dieter’s tea to clean out the system. If not, at least one’s digestive tract would glow bright for a doctor’s inspection.

But he is in Japan, KrisAinCA. He’s over there shilling for GE, while workers at the GE-built Fukushima plant are literally risking (actually, some are giving) their lives to try and get that horror under control. Little Jeff Immelting. Yep, he’ll do wonders in terms of economic recovery and jobs here at home in the old USA.

And thanks so much, Synoia @ 5. That was excellent!

sad thing is that the future of all of the uncontrolled reactors will eventually meet the same fate: partial meltdown accidents.

the journos and the governments are really being exposed as criminal in their lack of properly addressing–let alone dealing with–the actual physical situation: hundreds of tons of uranium are in vessels without functioning cooling systems.

one’s digestive tract would glow bright for a doctor’s a forensic archaeologist’s inspection.

Went ahead and fixed it for ya. I’m just here to help.

If drones and spy satellites were so good, they would have located Bin-laden
by now, and read his journals.

Nothing beats on site irradiated inspection or semi-irradiated for that matter. What exactly is Congressman Markey’s agenda? How does speculation as fact add to helping resolve a problem?

Why does the New York Times rely so heavily on third/fourth hand information that is vague as to substance and apparently only available in the English language?

I doubt it would be lacrosse. But there are others.

guardian seems to have the most updated information on the Fukushima reactors:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/18/japan-nuclear-power-plant-updates?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

I’m hearing people say that Nuclear is still safer than fossil fuels. No one has died yet (emphasis on “yet”). People die all the time due to fossil fuels. People live in the areas that were atomic bombed and they’re OK. Nuclear is the new “green” fuel.

Guess it depends on how close you are. Has anyone ever done a study on how many nuclear reactors could melt down before life on the planet was extinguished? I would think as few as 50 might do it.

It is a 100% probability that the nuke industry will kill the planet. How can we decommission nuke plants and store the poison for thousands of years? How long until we are hit by a big solar flare that will knock out the electricity around the planet and nuke plants start to melt down. Generators will help for a while but not the entire time we are rebuilding our grid. The last big solar flare that could have done this was in the early 1800′s. Just a matter of time.

We have sensors that can detect the age of a dog turd by its smell. I’m pretty confident that we have the ability to detect, from a distance, any radiation source above that of a smoke detector, further, we have very likely monitored the entire disaster constantly from the time the tsunami water ebbed. But, what has or has not been detected probably isn’t going to be shared with us peons (need to know and all that).

Hi KrisAinCA,

Just catching up after a long day at work. The corium is very likely not critical (i.e., being heated by a self-supprting fission chain reaction). Probably this is decay heat. Still very bad, though, especially since there is no credible plan that has been floated to gain control of the situation. This is a very slow-motion accident — by design. People that design these things figured that if they could slow down the accident enough, there would be time to come up with a viable plan to stop it.

It isn’t clear why they thought people would get a lot smarter under serious pressure.

Much more likely: some far more objectionable strategies will emerge. With the idea that the ultimate aim must be to keep the 700 tonnes or so of fuel and spent fuel that is on site out of the atmosphere (because that really would be devastating), the nearby ocean is going to look more and more tempting as a final resting place.

I do not know how one could accomplish this or if it is even possible, but the closer the situation gets to being “incompatible with life” (appropriating a very sad phrase), the more plausible the wild ideas will seem.

Situation bad and only getting worse.

Kyodo:

With the U.S. side especially concerned about such a risk at the No. 4 reactor, the aircraft is expected to be first used to examine radiation levels around it, the sources said.

(my emphasis)

———————————-

There are a lot of risks in play, but unit 4 does seem to be the worst current risk. Markey is talking about corium in the drywell of unit 2. That is unquestionably bad, partly because you always want to keep the levels of containment that exist intact. The zircalloy cladding containment has been lost, and if the corium is outside the RPV, a second level of containment has been lost. For unit 2, there is still the drywell containment building (though that has been compromised, too, it isn’t known to be cracked wide open and that makes a difference).

Compare with Unit 4: the entire core was outside containment before the earthquake. Then there was an explosion and fire(s) associated with the loss of zircalloy containment. There was dispersal to the environment (how much is unknown or unreported). The reactor core of Unit 4 is in a leaky, steaming pool somewhere in the wreckage but outside containment and still hot. They needed robots weeks ago.

Non-nested comments are nice.

Lobster, thanks for weighing in. I appreciate the response.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that core fuel in Unit 4 was scattered by the explosion and subsequent fire? I can’t seem to imagine a scenario where fuel rods were all contained within the pool structure when the explosion happened, or during the following collapse of equipment into the pool.

Also, along the same line; if equipment and pieces of the roof/building collapsed into the pool, this must have (if the explosion didn’t before) dislodged fuel rods from their racking. This would jumble them at the bottom of the pool without the control rods properly interspersed, right? So we’re possibly looking at a large re-criticality event in the near future at the bottom of the spent fuel pond at Unit 4. Let me know if I’m off base here.

We might soon find out if 6 will do it.

Two of the workers at the plant were killed. Others have been taken to hospital with injuries at various levels of seriousness. This crisis is still on-going and we don’t know what the final butcher’s bill will be.

It’s more than likely they were killed by the tsunami, though it can be said that the tsunami should not have entered where they were working. Tepco lost 4 from a chimney at a thermal generator plant with the quake and one additional also at a thermal plant. The tsunami took 12,810 kl of stored oil (60,450 drums) into the ocean at Kesenuma from one oil storage facility.
Comparing and contrasting does not really prove all that much except to say that things are fucked.

The nuke stuff is scarier however and it will go on and on, but a little perspective may be in order.

You’ve probably by now seen the news that says current estimates of fuel rod damage (melt, I presume) is:

Reactor #1 = 70%
Reactor #2 = 30%
Reactor #3 = 25%

In other news, the water draining into the ocean is now tested at 52000x the permitted limit (as opposed to 7.5 million times on the 2nd.). Its a sad day when the good news is that water is “only” 52000 times the permitted limit, but these days I take may good news wherever I can find it.

Japan’s Yomiuri Shinbun is reporting that the nitrogen injection into reactor #1 was done at the urging of the NRC. The same newspaper is reporting that the NRC’s paper on Fukushima says that even after adding water to reactors #2 and #3, the water level in the pressure chamber does not rise, thus the NRC concludes that there is damage to the pressure chambers in those reactors.

Up until now the Japanese press has been reporting that there is no information on the water levels of any of the reactors. If the NRC information is true, it means the NRC has info that is not getting picked up by the local press. It also means that every clean bucket of water that gets pitched into #2 and #3, comes out with radioactive particles tens of thousands of times more than what would normally be allowed.

Is this like “The China Syndrome” only really “The Haiti Syndrome”? When the IAEC gets off its a** and begins to make TEPCO really come clean (well there’s an non sequitur if I ever heard one) with how bad things REALLY are, the TEPCO officials and the senior Japanese government officials who participated in this fraud should be hauled to the Hague for a ‘crimes against humanity’ trial. Wait until more people than the 150 TEPCO employees who are working to stop this abortion created by their senior management start to die. When the civilian death toll passes 100 or so, the TEPCO and Japanese officials better start wearing open neck shirts, because closed with a tie will be too uncomfortable to deal with. Can you imaging the courage of those 150 TEPCO technicians? They know they are going to die, but they keep plugging along around the clock trying to fix something that is not fixable.