Breaking: Smoke/steam pouring out of Reactor No. 2, 3, 4 (Pics & Vids) + many more articles/vids

[stockholmer]

http://enenews.com/happening-now-smokesteam-pouring-out-of-reactor-units-no-2-3-4-photos-videos



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Watchdog: Inexplicable that US EPA shut down Fukushima radiation monitoring after finding high levels of radiation in drinking water

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/watchdog-criticizes-feds-pulling-back-radiation-monitoring-10200

“With the Japanese nuclear situation still out of control and expected to continue that way for months and with elevated radioactivity continuing to show up in the U.S., it is inexplicable that EPA would shut down its Fukushima radiation monitoring effort,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the watchdog group , in a statement.

He said the agency found high levels of radiation in drinking water, and now was not the time to be pulling their efforts back.

He also said the EPA’s monitoring program, RadNet, is unreliable and fails to cover large swaths of the West Coast. <...>

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“Very, Very Serious”: Unit No. 4 leaning, in danger of falling — Gov’t confirms stabilization efforts underway (PHOTO & VIDEO)

http://enenews.com/very-very-serious-reactor-no-4-leaning-in-danger-of-falling-govt-confirms-stabilization-efforts-underway-video

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“Reactor 3 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station is leaking” — TEPCO says Cesium at 620,000 times above limit

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_29.html

"Tokyo Electric Power Company says water containing radioactive material has been found flowing into a pit outside of the No.3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The flow was confirmed on Wednesday afternoon at a pit linked to a utility tunnel near the reactor's water intake.

Workers could not confirm whether the water was leaking out into the sea, but they reported seeing froth near the water intake.
TEPCO says the concentration of radioactive Cesium in water sampled from the pit was 620,000 times higher than the safety limit set by the government. The utility also says it detected 1.5 milli-sieverts per hour of radiation on the surface of water in the pit, which indicates contaminated water may be leaking into the sea............."

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http://www.agi.it/english-version/world/elenco-notizie/201105111823-cro-ren1083-damaged_japanese_power_station_has_new_radioactive_leak

DAMAGED JAPANESE POWER STATION HAS NEW RADIOACTIVE LEAK

"(AGI) Tokyo - Reactor 3 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station is leaking, a TEPCo spokesman announced. It is not confirmed whether the radioactive water has gone from the holding tank into the ocean. TEPCO, the company that manages the power station, is conducting tests. A similar leak happened last month at Reactor 2 and was plugged with a mixture. ......."

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MIT: Nuclear chain reactions must have been burning at damaged reactors long after disaster unfolded

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26738/

"Radioactive byproducts indicate that nuclear chain reactions must have been burning at the damaged nuclear reactors long after the disaster unfolded

<...> The question on many people’s minds is whether the hot nuclear fuel then melted allowing a critical mass of molten fuel to form, allowing chain reactions to restart.

Today, Tetsuo Matsui at the University of Tokyo, says the limited data from Fukushima indicates that nuclear chain reactions must have reignited at Fuksuhima up to 12 days after the accident. <...>

These chain reactions must have occurred a significant time after the accident. “It would be difficult to understand the observed anomaly near the unit-2 reactor without assuming that a significant amount of fission products were produced at least 10 – 15 days after X-day,” says Matsui. <...>


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Welcome to Tepco Industries - Fukushima Daiichi vs Planet Earth (Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_wIlblVas&feature=player_embedded

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New video of Reactor No. 3 spent fuel pool — But where are the fuel rods?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KugIrnThul0&feature=player_embedded


http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0510/TKY201105100398.html

translated..............


TEPCO has 10 days after the earthquake revealed the first underwater footage of the Unit 3 spent fuel pool Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant exploded in the accident. In effect the explosion blew the reactor building, littered with the debris of concrete and steel, were doing our cover fuel.

No. 3 is the pool of spent fuel assembly contains 514 of the body. TEPCO 08, was taken into the water in the state of the camera.

Collected from the water in the pool together, usually per 140,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter undetected radioactive cesium 134, cesium-137 is 150,000 becquerels, Becquerel discovered iodine-131 is 11,000. Deputy Division Headquarters located in Matsumoto Zyuniti TEPCO nuclear "fuel in the reactor is damaged during the explosion, thought to be dissolved in water in the pool of radioactive material left outside. Damage the spent fuel pool is not considered to have, "he said.

The spent fuel pool, the underwater camera to see the No. 4 also showed no noticeable damage. Also, analysis of the water a few that have been detected radioactive material similar both Unit, TEPCO, the possibility of damage to the spent fuel pool either by the explosion and the earthquake are expected to be low. (Tsuboya Hideki)

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. Move along, nothing to see here. This is not a Chernobyl.

Isn't it interesting how Chernobyl was seen as a defining indictment of the Soviet system, and this incident is... is what?

Why, surely it's nothing like Chernobyl?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. Soviet communism, crony capitalism....

....two sides of the same coin.

New boss, same as the old boss.

[bvar22]

19. Relax!...They're just venting a little steam.

These plants have redundant back up systems,
and have been "engineered" to withstand Earthquakes, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks.
They are perfectly safe.

.
.
.
Did I mention that I know "science", and you don't.

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. We all need to vent off steam from time to time, thanks n/t

[buddysmellgood]

2. Those poor people in Tokyo are screwed.

[elfin]

4. And so may be VERY many others

In the time to come via wind and sea.

this is horrific and vastly underreported, in part due to Osama, but more likely due to clamping down of news by Japan and possibly US.

[valerief]

13. And I'm sure it's just the poor people. The rich must be vacationing in their

space stations.

[nonperson]

18. They must have somewhere else to go

Because they're certainly doing all they can to make this planet unlivable.

[nc4bo]

3. jeez.

Gonna take a few to go through all those.

Thanks for posting them.

[aquart]

5. Things seem to be a whole lot worse this week.

Which means it won't be better next week.

[Mimosa]

6. Uh oh. K&R. n/t

[drm604]

7. K&R

Let's not take our eyes off of this. It's just as important as it ever was.

[robdogbucky]

8. Are we experiencing the beginning of a slow silent death?

One blogger from Hawaii writes thus:


Will Fukushima’s Next Earthquake Start A Global Extinction Event?

May 9, 2011
By Tom Burnett

Those of you who have been following me at HawaiiNewsDaily or on my blog may not have been thrilled with my initial assessments back in March – and ongoing – that Fukushima isn’t going away.

The reactors can NEVER be placed in ‘cold shutdown‘ because the cores are partially melted together. We are talking about hundreds of tons of fissile material inside reinforced concrete containment vessels. The containment vessels are cracked. They are releasing radiation. Fission excursions are still occurring and no one can go inside those containments for hundreds of years – even if they could get to the fuel.

They continue to pour water on them and drain it off into the ocean because there is nothing else they can do. If they stop pumping water, the genie comes out. If they keep pumping water, it has to go somewhere and that somewhere is the ocean. It is still a stop gap. Those reactor cores cannot be put into ‘cold shutdown’ or dismantled or entombed. Ever.

They cannot treat as much radioactive water as they have to keep pumping in. No one can. So the radiation is going to come across the Pacific and impact the US and, certainly, Hawaii. Yes, I read that they are going to start treating it or storing it, but the task is impossible. Reactor cores have to be maintained in a ‘clean room’ environment or the water picks up particles – which then become radioactive – which then irradiate the reactor plumbing – and, eventually, become fuel. That’s why they have to keep pumping fresh water in and dumping it out. They cannot recirculate it, even if they manage to get new plumbing installed. The next major earthquake there will begin an extinction event...

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/05/will-fukushimas-next-earthquake-start-a-global-extinction-event/


Or take a gander at this:


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Recriticality at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Japanese Researcher Says Nuclear Chain Reaction May Have Reignited Long After Tsunami Disabled the Plant

Tetsuo Matsui is a professor at University of Tokyo's Institute of Physics. On May 2, he submitted his paper titled "Deciphering the measured ratios of Iodine-131 to Cesium-137 at the Fukushima reactors" to arXiv.org, in which he says "The data of the water samples from the unit-4 cooling pool and from the sub-drain near the unit-2 reactor show anomaly which may indicate, if they are correct, that some of these fission products were produced by chain nuclear reactions reignited after the earthquake." (quote taken from his paper)

Chain nuclear reactions reignited = recriticality

That is what some of the non-mainstream researchers like Japan's Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University and the US's Arnie Gundersen of Fairewind Associates have been saying all along, that there may have been recriticality in some of the reactors at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Now the Japanese mainstream Tokyo University professor is saying it. TEPCO's and the Japanese government's acknowledgement can't be that far away. (And no doubt it will be presented as "it's nothing, it's safe.")

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/05/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-japanese.html

[nonperson]

10. "On the Beach"

Not due to nuclear war but instead by one nuclear catastrophe at a time.

[nc4bo]

12. Great movie btw. Difficult to watch, especially the end. nt

[nonperson]

9. Where are the DU nuclear industry lobbyists?

Please. We need them to explain once more how we know nothing about nuclear energy and therefore can't recognize the danger that obviously doesn't exist.

[valerief]

14. +1

[robdogbucky]

15. Back on March 11, I posted something like this

"...2) No known emergency plans to deal with such a disaster to their plants...."


In response to that assertion, I got this response from one of the local industry experts:


"And #2 is laughable.

To think Japan just doesn't have any plans for dealing with earthquakes and their potential impact on reactors?

Did Japan slide into the 3rd world last week and I missed it?"



Such brilliance from shills.

I actually have some basis for my assertion:


Sunday, May 23, 2004

Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette

By LEUREN MORET
Special to The Japan Times

"Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list...

...However, many of those reactors have been negligently sited on active faults, particularly in the subduction zone along the Pacific coast, where major earthquakes of magnitude 7-8 or more on the Richter scale occur frequently. The periodicity of major earthquakes in Japan is less than 10 years. There is almost no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan -- the third-ranked country in the world for nuclear reactors. "I think the situation right now is very scary," says Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and professor at Kobe University. "It's like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs just waiting to explode."...

...After visiting the center a few kilometers from Hamaoka, I realized that Japan has no real nuclear-disaster plan in the event that an earthquake damaged a reactor's water-cooling system and triggered a reactor meltdown...

...When I asked ERC officials how they planned to evacuate millions of people from Shizuoka Prefecture and beyond after a Kobe-magnitude earthquake (Kobe is on the same subduction zone as Hamaoka) destroyed communication lines, roads, railroads, drinking-water supplies and sewage lines, they had no answer..."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040523x2.html



So, Japan and the industry had known of the dangers, and were put on notice that designs were obsolete and would not withstand quakes of which Japan had a history of many large quakes and tsunami, at least since 2004. The two whistleblowers cited in the article were blackballed in Japan, just like the industry tries to smear anyone in the world that speaks out about the dangers of radiation not being accurately reported and the dangers of building these out-moded dinosaurs on fault lines, etc.

And the irony is that they are just now realizing there is no where to evacuate large numbers of people in Japan. This has been known all along and the utilities and the government chose to play with their citizens' lives. The people have been used and now will be discarded. Worldwide it seems.




Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!


rdb

[StarsInHerHair]

22. the names of the 2 whistle-blowers, now citizen-heroes

Kei Sugaoka & Yoichi Kikuchi," a Japanese nuclear engineer who also became a whistle-blower, has told me personally of many safety problems at Japan's nuclear power plants, such as cracks in pipes in the cooling system from vibrations in the reactor. He said the electric companies are "gambling in a dangerous game to increase profits and decrease government oversight."

[robdogbucky]

16. Don't worry, be happy

Dr. Mark Sircus: Nuclear Contamination 101

The Intel Hub
By Dr. Mark Sircus - Contributing Writer
May 10th, 2011

Listen to this video. It is a necessary lesson in nuclear toxicity and the world of difference between external radiation levels and their threat and internal levels of radiation from particles we have ingested into our systems through the air, water and food.

Nuclear particles have both chemical and nuclear attributes and when such particles actually get inside of us it does not take a lot to create much harm to the tissues and cells.

We have rising levels of radioactive dust in the northern hemisphere so beware and take care—just a little is a lot.

You will hear in this video solid understanding of why Americans have a lot to worry about being on the same general latitude as Japan. From experience nuclear engineers understand latitude and longitude implications, none of which looks good for the Americans or of course not for the Japanese or anyone downwind. Downwind of course is the entire northern hemisphere...


http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/10/dr-mark-sircus-nuclear-contamination-101/

[nonperson]

17. Not with a bang

But a whimper.

It was inevitable the moment the nuclear power industry built their first reactor. From day one I've had nuclear proponents tell me that nuclear power was safe. When it proved to be unsafe those same proponents swore that the "new generation" nuclear power was safe.

SAFE NUCLEAR POWER DOES NOT AND CANNOT EXIST ON EARTH

[bvar22]

20. The Lesson of Fukushima:

As long as we are using Nukes,
It WILL happen again.
.
.
.
The "next one" is only a matter of time.

[nonperson]

23. Yep, You're absolutely right

Since I am in fact a rather coarse individual (and I gladly admit to being so", the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the name "Fukushima" was that the letter "c" was missing preceding the letter "k".

As in Fuck u shima.

Not understanding a word of Japanese, I also postulated "shima" is Japanese for "planet Earth".

"Fuck u Earth" should be the prefix for every nuclear power installation on the planet, because nuclear catastrophes, as you correctly note, are not a matter of if but when.

[Left coast liberal]

24. We are so fucked...

:-(

[in_cog_ni_to]

25. Totally fucked.

:(