Sendai’s cooling tubes already leaking! But the pro #nuclear hubris goes on!
Japan Sendai Nuclear Restart — The Hubris Alone Is Killing Me, Let Alone the Volcano and Salt Water Leaks, Nuke Pro 21 Aug 15
I would drop a comment at the link, but I have been banned from Japan Times, so many TIMES that I can’t count. They have no interest in the truth.
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Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser. [diagram below by the author of this article]
And this is very dangerous way to think. Perhaps they have 2 sets of heat exchangers, so they can run at 50% whilst one set is completely shut down and worked on. Regardless, this is a stop gap measure, just like at San Onofre if some tubes are already going, there are many more right behind it. So these stories will slip out at the weeks go on.
Heat exchangers that can handle salt water are going to be stainless steel at least and ideally titanium. Industry has gotten a lot better at working with titanium in the last few decades. So those 40 year old heat exchangers at Sendai are probably stainless steel, not at good as titanium.
But in Typical japan Times Fashion, they try to downplay the incident by stating
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
Classic “don’t worry” it happens all the time. So the pimps of nuke will do anything to keep this plant running. Including putting your life and livelihood at risk………. http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/japan-sendai-nuclear-restart-hubris.html?showComment=1440185210724#c7323011781148838576
Kyushu delays increasing output at Sendai nuclear plant after cooling system problems detected
KAGOSHIMA – Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Friday it will delay planned increases in electrical output from the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture as seawater is believed to have entered into a reactor cooling system.
The company planned to bring the recently reactivated reactor up to full capacity on Tuesday. But this will now be delayed as it will take about a week to fix the problem, officials from the utility said.
A small amount of seawater is believed to have flowed into one of the three condensers in the reactor’s secondary cooling system, the officials said. Condensers turn steam into water by cooling it, after the steam runs power generation turbines.
But there should be no problem in continuing the reactor’s operations as the salt can be removed with the aid of desalination equipment, the officials added.
The level of electric conductivity, which is monitored to check water conditions, rose Thursday afternoon at an outlet of a condensate pump used to circulate secondary coolant water.
Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser.
The company will seal any tubes found to have holes, the officials said.
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
The output at the Sendai plant’s No. 1 reactor, restarted on Aug. 11, reached 50 percent of capacity last Sunday and 75 percent on Wednesday. The company had planned to raise output to 95 percent Friday.
The reactor is the first in Japan to run under strict new safety standards introduced in July 2013 following the meltdown accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant, which was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The reactor’s restart also brought to an end the total absence of active reactors in Japan that had become a feature since September 2013, when Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi plant in Fukui Prefecture suspended operations for routine safety checks.
Some nuclear experts have said reactors could face severe safety problems because they have been mothballed for such a long period of time.
Source: Japan Times
Unspoken Death Toll of Fukushima: Nuclear Disaster Killing Japanese Slowly
The Japanese government is still in denial and refuses to recognize the disastrous consequences of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, London-based independent consultant on radioactivity Dr. Ian Fairlie states, adding that while thousands of victims have already died, thousands more will soon pass away.
Embarrassingly, “[t]he Japanese Government, its advisors, and most radiation scientists in Japan (with some honorable exceptions) minimize the risks of radiation. The official widely-observed policy is that small amounts of radiation are harmless: scientifically speaking this is untenable,” Dr. Fairlie pointed out.
The Japanese government even goes so far as to increase the public limit for radiation in Japan from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year, while its scientists are making efforts to convince the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to accept this enormous increase.
“This is not only unscientific, it is also unconscionable,” Dr. Fairlie stressed, adding that “there is never a safe dose, except zero dose.”
However, while the Japanese government is turning a blind eye to radiogenic late effects, the evidence “is solid”: the RERF Foundation which is based in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is observing the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and still registering nuclear radiation’s long-term effects.
“From the UNSCEAR estimate of 48,000 person Sv [the collective dose to the Japanese population from Fukushima], it can be reliably estimated (using a fatal cancer risk factor of 10% per Sv) that about 5,000 fatal cancers will occur in Japan in the future from Fukushima’s fallout,” he noted.
“It is impossible not to be moved by the scale of Fukushima’s toll in terms of deaths, suicides, mental ill-health and human suffering,” the expert said.
http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150820/1025992771.html#ixzz3jSVAPg9L
Underground temperature never go down regardless of frozen wall beside common fuel pool
The underground temperature beside common fuel storage pool has not been decreased since the end of April from Tepco’s report released on 8/20/2015.
Tepco is testing the frozen underground wall to circulate the coolant material in the frozen duct.
They have been monitoring the temperature at 18 points around the crippled reactor buildings.
From their data, the temperature of the monitoring point “No.12″ is showing almost no decrease from the beginning.
This is located between Reactor 4 building and the common pool, where is stocking the fuel assemblies removed from SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool in Reactor 4). At the moment of 8/20/2015, it is still over 10 ℃.
For some reason, Tepco stopped sending the coolant material to 4 of the monitoring points.
Among the rest of the points, the temperature is still above 0 ℃ at 8 of 14 monitoring points.
Japan asks for WTO panel to rule on S.Korea’s Fukushima-related food import restrictions
Aug 20 Japan on Thursday asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to rule on South Korea’s import bans and testing requirements for Japanese food after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, since the restrictions show no signs of being eased.
Japan launched a trade complaint at the WTO in May, saying the South Korean measures violated a WTO agreement and that Seoul had failed to justify the measures as required.
“We held two days of bilateral discussions on this on June 24 and 25, but there was no expression from the Korean side of when the restrictions might be lifted,” Japan’s Agriculture Ministry said on its website.
“Since more than 60 days have passed since the complaint was lodged, and there is no sign of when the restrictions might be repealed, we have asked today, in accordance with WTO rules, for the establishment of a panel.”
South Korea in May expressed regret at Japan’s move and said then that the ban on some Japanese seafood was necessary and reflected safety concerns.
Japan countered by saying levels were safe and that a number of other nations, including the United States and Australia, had lifted or eased Fukushima-related restrictions.
The average annual value of South Korean imports of Japanese fish and seafood was $96 million in 2012-2014, less than half the average of $213 million in 2006-2010, according to data from the International Trade Centre in Geneva.
Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/20/japan-southkorea-wto-idUSL3
Editorial: Use wisdom in drawing curtain on nuclear fuel cycle
With the recent reactivation of the No. 1 reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, the government has moved a step ahead with a policy for maintaining nuclear power. To keep in tandem with that move, a working group of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in July began looking into measures to maintain the nuclear fuel cycle. While the move is aimed at improving the environment for nuclear power businesses amid liberalization of the electricity market, it is posing serious problems.
Under the nuclear fuel cycle, spent fuel from nuclear plants is reprocessed to extract plutonium for reuse as fuel. While the project is promoted as part of Japan’s national policy, the actual reprocessing of spent fuel is undertaken by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., a company jointly invested in by power companies. If free competition progresses in the electricity market, utilities would not be able to secure as much profit as before and some might no longer be able to support Japan Nuclear Fuel.
The ministry’s working group is considering intensifying government involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle to keep the project afloat. The group is also mulling more secure ways to raise a total of 12.6 trillion yen in operating costs for the project.
Currently, the cost for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is tacked on to electricity bills. If the government is to step up its involvement in the project, it will need to seek public consensus over its relevance, including the additional public financial burden.
The nuclear fuel cycle has been riddled with major problems in terms of technology, safety and costs. The completion of Japan Nuclear Fuel’s reprocessing plant under construction in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, has been postponed 22 times following regular trouble. The construction cost has already tripled from the initial estimate of 760 billion yen, and could further snowball for safety and other necessary measures. The development of a fast-breeder reactor, which is supposed to act as “wheels on a car” for the nuclear fuel cycle along with the reprocessing project, has been stalled at the stage of operating the Monju prototype reactor, with no prospects for putting it into practical use. The so-called “pluthermal” project using plutonium in conventional light-water reactors is not making as much progress as expected.
There also lies a serious problem in plutonium extracted in the reprocessing of spent fuel from the viewpoint of nuclear non-proliferation. Japan currently possesses more than 47 metric tons of plutonium at home and abroad, and if the country is to produce additional plutonium that could be diverted to military use with no destination for consumption amid lowering dependence on nuclear power, the international community would only grow suspicious about such possession.
In the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission released an assessment showing that the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel over the next 20 to 30 years would be equal to or more beneficial than reprocessing such fuel in terms of economic efficiency, nuclear non-proliferation and other effects. Given such estimates, the government should focus its efforts not on measures to prolong the nuclear fuel cycle but on putting forth steps to draw a curtain on the project.
If the reprocessing of spent fuel is to be terminated, Aomori Prefecture would demand that such fuel it has thus far accommodated should be brought back to where it was originally generated. Such a project termination would also cause problems to local employment and the disposal of existing plutonium. The government should rather rack its brain over how to resolve these issues.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20150820p2a00m0na016000c.html
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
Researchers deployed time-series sediment traps 115 kilometers (approximately 70 miles) southeast of the nuclear power plant at depths of 500 meters (1,640 feet) and 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). The two traps began collecting samples on July 19, 2011—130 days after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami—and were recovered and reset annually.
WOODS HOLE – Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have been studying the effects the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 has had in the Pacific Ocean.
WHOI has recently released the results of a three-year study of sediment samples collected offshore in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology.
The purpose of the study is to understand what happens to the Fukushima contaminants after they are buried on the seafloor off of coastal Japan.
The team, led by senior scientist and marine chemist Ken Buesseler, found that a small fraction of contaminated sea floor sediments off Fukushima are moved offshore by typhoons that resuspend radioactive particles in the water, which then travel laterally with Southeasterly currents into the Pacific Ocean.
Researchers used funnel-shaped traps to collect the data at depths of 500 meters and 1,000 meters starting 130 days after the disaster.
The research found radiocesium from the plant along with sediment with a high fraction of clay material in the samples. The clay material is characteristic of shelf and slope sediments and suggest a near shore source.
Buesseler says that more than 99 percent of the contaminated material from the plant moved with the water offshore and that less than 1 percent ended up on the sea floor as buried sediment.
Source: CapeCod.com
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
The week that was, in nuclear and climate news
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
WORLD. Ionising radiation:
- Concerted Uranium Research Europe (CURE) to conduct independent research on ionising radiation.
- International Research Team studies Fukushima contaminants in seafloor sediments.
- Nuclear bomb testing has resulted in radioactive polonium in seafoods.
- Unusual Pro nuclear search for making ionising radiation look good.
Iran nuclear agreement is endorsed by Nuclear Nonproliferation Experts. Over 300 US rabbis urge Congress to support Iran nuclear deal. Obama can still do the Iran nuclear deal, despite Congress opposition. Iran has compliedon key condition of the nuclear deal – submitting documents to IAEA.
CLIMATE CHANGE. Islamic leaders call on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to embrace climate change action. Dangerous Heat Sets Sights on Southern United States.
CHINA. Tianjin explosion highlights need to prioritise environment over economic growth. China censors Internet on Tianjin explosion news. France worried that China’s hasty nuclear power programme is unsafe.
JAPAN. Japanese environment groups protest against Restart of Sendai Nuclear Power. Volcano alert issued just miles from newly reopened nuclear reactor. Japan nuclear utility says no special precautions over volcano. Utilities spent ¥1.4 trillion last year to maintain idled reactors. Japan’s Plutonium Problem.
Fukushima. Extra high radiation level in atmosphere above Melted slag storage facility of Fukushima sewage plant. Fukushima operator’s mounting legal woes. Earthquake M5.0 offshore of Fukushima prefecture.
USA. Momentum growing in campaign to shut down Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. Questions on safety, and silencing of critics – HUMBOLDT BAY POWER PLANT. America feared that Israel would deploy nuclear weapons.
UK. Bristol Nuclear Protestors Fined...instead…shouldn’t they be awarded Medals?!
CANADA ‘s radioactive trash dump plan, all too close to USA border. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission called upon to disclose study on nuclear disaster.
SOUTH AFRICA. African National Congress calls for transparency on nuclear tender process.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. Tax-payer money going to nuclear related companies in UAE.
NORTH KOREA. Concern over North Korea’s uranium enrichment.
NORWAY‘s dangerous plan to dump nuclear trash on island
AUSTRALIA: Nuclear stooge Senator Bob Day not able to dismantle Australia’s law against establishing nuclear facilities.
1 This Month.
Nuclear Power? -Never again
(Switzerland –https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/handeln/atomkraft-nie-wieder/+)
PETITION – Close Down the Monticello Nuclear Reactor on the Mississippi River!
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
of the week. STAND – Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development . THE TRUE FACTS ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER
Why it is: Unaffordable – Dangerous – Unnecessary – Bad For The Environment
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