Freezing of soil near Fukushima plant going well, says TEPCO

[yuiyoshida]

Rainwater is discharged from newly constructed drainage outlets into the plant's harbor during a media tour at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on April 4. (Pool)

The freezing of soil around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to block the flow of groundwater is proceeding “largely smoothly,” the plant operator said April 4.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. started making a frozen underground wall in late March around the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors at the plant, which suffered a triple meltdown triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The final part of the construction process to freeze the soil was unveiled to the media for the first time April 4 during a visit to the site by Yosuke Takagi, state minister of the economy.

To build the frozen soil wall to prevent groundwater flowing into the four reactor buildings and becoming contaminated with radioactive substances, the utility inserted 1,568 pipes to a depth of 30 meters and 1 meter apart.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604050046.html

[exboyfil]

1. Anyone have an estimate on the annual cost of energy for

the ice wall. I wonder how folks will enjoy paying for this 20 to 30 years down the line. The technology doesn't even exist yet for the primary clean up.

[madokie]

2. Somehow some people believe the future of our energy needs

lies in the splitting of atoms. Its sick what we're doing concerning this and the burning of fossil fuels when we have the technology to do better. Solar, Wind and Geothermal.

[Octafish]

3. Plutonium dust around the planet.

Just to boil water.

[FBaggins]

5. Nope... as has been pointed out to you multiple times

There isn't even enough of it to call it "dust".

Actual plutonium dust would be incredibly dangerous (similar to Heinlein's "Solution Unsatisfactory&quot .

The best estimates of release for Fukushima (for Plutonium) is in milligrams.

Note that Chernobyl released more than a thousand times as much... and nuclear weapons testing released tons.

[Octafish]

9. That's what you've pointed out. Do you have a source for your claims?

Above Reactor 3 containment building explodes, March 14, 2011, spewing plutonium all over.

Learn more: http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=13619

[FBaggins]

11. Lots of them

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep02988

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep00304

http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/anzen_kiban/outcome/Proceedings_for_Web/Topics_4-02.pdf

http://fukushimainform.ca/2014/08/29/plutonium-in-the-pacific-ocean-from-fukushima/

http://fukushimainform.ca/category/peer-reviewed/isotope/plutonium/

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044680.html

Above Reactor 3 containment building explodes, March 14, 2011, spewing plutonium all over.

Nope. It spewed cesium, iodine, and other volatile elements (noble gases, etc) "all over". It didn't "spew" significant amounts of uranium/plutonium/etc that are less volatile. Most of those don't boil until temperatures approach 6000-7500 degrees.

Decay heat is more than enough (without adequate cooling) to get over the ~1200 degree point that boils cesium. Left un-cooled long enough, it's enough to even melt steel (as in the RPV bottom), but there isn't nearly enough heat to turn uranium or plutonium to a gas.

[Octafish]

12. You must have missed these, which document Fukushima plutonium all over the planet.

For instance, Europe.

J Environ Radioact. 2011 Dec 27. (Epub ahead of print)

Radionuclides from the Fukushima accident in the air over Lithuania: measurement and modelling approaches.

Lujanienė G, Byčenkienė S, Povinec PP, Gera M.

Source : Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Savanoriu 231, 02300 Vilnius, Lithuania.

Abstract

Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs ranged from 12 ?Bq/m(3) and 1.4 ?Bq/m(3) to 3700 ?Bq/m(3) and 1040 ?Bq/m(3), respectively. The activity concentration of (239,240)Pu in one aerosol sample collected from 23 March to 15 April, 2011 was found to be 44.5 nBq/m(3). The two maxima found in radionuclide concentrations were related to complicated long-range air mass transport from Japan across the Pacific, the North America and the Atlantic Ocean to Central Europe as indicated by modelling. HYSPLIT backward trajectories and meteorological data were applied for interpretation of activity variations of measured radionuclides observed at the site of investigation. (7)Be and (212)Pb activity concentrations and their ratios were used as tracers of vertical transport of air masses. Fukushima data were compared with the data obtained during the Chernobyl accident and in the post Chernobyl period. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs were found to be by 4 orders of magnitude lower as compared to the Chernobyl accident. The activity ratio of (134)Cs/(137)Cs was around 1 with small variations only. The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.

SOURCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22206700

And another one:

Plutonium bioaccumulation in seabirds

Dagmara I. Strumińska-Parulska, Bogdan Skwarzec, Jacek Fabisiak

University of Gdańsk, Faculty of Chemistry, Analytics and Environmental Radiochemistry Chair, Sobieskiego 18, 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland

Received 7 April 2011. Revised 5 July 2011. Accepted 16 July 2011. Available online 23 August 2011.

The aim of the paper was plutonium (238Pu and 239+240Pu) determination in seabirds, permanently or temporarily living in northern Poland at the Baltic Sea coast. Together 11 marine birds species were examined: 3 species permanently residing in the southern Baltic, 4 species of wintering birds and 3 species of migrating birds. The obtained results indicated plutonium is non-uniformly distributed in organs and tissues of analyzed seabirds. The highest plutonium content was found in the digestion organs and feathers, the smallest in skin and muscles. The plutonium concentration was lower in analyzed species which feed on fish and much higher in herbivorous species. The main source of plutonium in analyzed marine birds was global atmospheric fallout.
Highlights

► We determined 239+240Pu in seabirds living in northern Poland at the Baltic Sea. ► We noticed plutonium was non-uniformly distributed in organs and tissues of seabirds. ► We found the highest plutonium content in the digestion organs and feathers. ► We found Pu content was lower in birds feeding on fish and higher in herbivorous.

SOURCE: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X11001676

So, given that, I find it most disheartening to learn that research on fallout from Fukushima, does not get funded in the United States -- even after radioactive sulfur from Fukushima was monitored in Southern California.

Ocean water off La Jolla coast being monitored (and not) for Fukushima radiation

By Pat Sherman
La Jolla Light, Feb. 4, 2014

EXCERPT...

In 2011 Thiemens and a crew of UCSD atmospheric chemists reported the first quantitative measurement of the amount of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami there.

Their estimate was based on radioactive sulfur that wafted across the Pacific Ocean after operators of the damaged reactor had to cool overheated fuel with seawater — causing a chemical reaction between byproducts of nuclear fission and chlorine ions in the saltwater.

Thiemens has, for the past several years, unsuccessfully sought to obtain grant funding to follow-up his research, first reported on Aug. 15 2011 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

However, he said neither the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, California Air Resources Board or National Academy of Sciences (of which he is a member) were interested in funding additional research to measure the Fukushima fallout.

“It’s probably one of these things that just fell through the cracks,” Thiemens said. “It doesn’t quite fall under classical (research criteria).”

CONTINUED...

http://www.lajollalight.com/2014/02/04/ocean-water-off-la-jolla-coast-being-monitored-for-fukushima-radiation/

So, there's that.

[FBaggins]

13. Do you have that selective a memory? We've discussed all three of these in the past as well.

* The first one doesn't talk about plutonium from Fukushima... they just identified that it didn't come from Chernobyl. Since the VAST majority of plutonium in the atmosphere also didn't come from Chernobyl (and yes, was also from spent fuel)... that doesn't tell us much.

* The second report was published after Fukushima, but all of the readings that they studied are from before Fukushima. Unless you're joining RobertEarl in his time-traveling radiation adventures... this one should be particularly embarrassing for you.

* The third report doesn't even discuss Plutonium (other than identifying that radioiodine and radiocesium come from the fission of uranium and plutonium).

None of these support a claim that it was spread all over the globe... but that isn't really relevant - because it almost certainly was spread all over the world. The problem here is that the released amount was so tiny compared to Chernobyl (which itself was incredibly tiny compared to existing global fallout), that it's entirely insignificant. As was pointed out to you from the beginning, it isn't that there isn't any, it's that there's so little of it that it can't be differentiated from the existing background except right next to the plant (or, in the single exception you found, on the leaf of a plant shortly after the incident - where a fresh deposition could be identified).

The total release is estimated to be in milligrams (likely low single digits worth), while Chernobyl was tens of thousands of times larger and nuclear weapons fallout was many many millions of times larger.

[lagomorph777]

4. It seems like no disaster is big enough to dissuade some people

Polls seem to be all over the place. Why is there even a debate any more?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-power-year-fukushima.aspx
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-nuclear-20150330-story.html
http://www.carbonbrief.org/poll-fukushimas-consequences-for-the-global-energy-mix
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/09/japan-split-restart-first-nuclear-reactor-since-fukushima-disaster

[snooper2]

8. No- the future of our energy needs lies in the COMBINING of atoms!

FUSION POWER BABY!

[madokie]

10. I'll agree

except its been a very elusive quest to get there so far. In theory its the cats meow but in reality it just remains out of reach. Hopefully that will change in time. Until then we're stuck with what we know works, Solar, Wind and Geothermal.

Fission sucks

[FBaggins]

6. It wouldn't be much.

Keep in mind that the earth is a pretty decent insulator - which is why caves maintain a fairly constant temperature and they estimate that it would take months for the "ice wall" to thaw if the power were cut off.

Now... the initial energy required to freeze it for the first time? That will be expensive, but nothing compared to the cost of the building it in the first place.

The technology doesn't even exist yet for the primary clean up.

That's an oft-repeated canard that relies on a careful use of the word "technology". There isn't any reason to believe that they can't do it... they just haven't selected which method they'll employ because they still don't know critical pieces of information like whether or not they'll be able to flood the reactor.

[gratuitous]

7. I'm sure we can trust TEPCO

After all, haven't they been a model of corporate responsibility and integrity all along?

[Sunlei]

14. how will a 100 foot deep 'frozen wall' keep contamination contained if water table is 4 miles deep?

what about the years of contamination that has flowed to the sea?

And the next Tsunami , what will happen then? contaminated ice walls floating out to sea?