Fukushima's contaminated water may have reached the Pacific Ocean??? Say What!
Japan formally raises Fukushima water leak
to INES Level 3 incident
The upgrade by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) raises the rating of what was Japan's first warning on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) since the three reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima plant in March 2011, which were triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami. Those meltdowns were classified as Level 7, the highest INES rating.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said last week that 300 metric tons (330.69 tons) of highly radioactive water leaked from a storage tank at the facility. The utility still does not know how long the water may have been leaking and said it was possible the contaminated water may have reached the Pacific Ocean.
The NRA had said last week that it may upgrade the severity of the crisis from a Level 1 "anomaly" to a Level 3 "serious incident" on the INES scale, after consultations with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
link: http://preview.reuters.com/2013/8/28/japan-formally-raises-fukushima-water-leak-to-ines
below is an article I found on CNN:
Why Fukushima is worse than you think
“Careless” was how Toyoshi Fuketa, commissioner of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, reportedly described the inspection quality of hundreds of water tanks at the crippled Fukushima plant following the recent discovery of a serious radioactive spill. China’s Foreign Ministry went further, saying it was “shocking” that radioactive water was still leaking into the Pacific Ocean two years after the Fukushima incident.
While the amount of radioactivity released into the environment in March 2011 has been estimated as between 10 percent and 50 percent of the fallout from the Chernobyl accident, the 400,000 tons of contaminated water stored on the Fukushima site contain more than 2.5 times the amount of radioactive cesium dispersed during the 1986 catastrophe in Ukraine.
So, where has this huge amount of highly contaminated water – enough to fill 160 Olympic-size swimming pools – come from? In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the reactor cores of units 1, 2 and 3 melted through the reactor vessels into the concrete. Nobody knows how far the molten fuel went through the containment – radiation levels in the reactor buildings are lethal, while robots got stuck in the rubble and some never came back out.
TEPCO’s account of the discovery this month of the leak of 300 tons of highly radioactive water showed a frightening level of amateurism:
“We found water spread at the bottom level of tanks near the tank No.5... Therefore, we checked the water level of this tank, and… confirmed that the current water level is lower by approximately 3 meters than the normal level.”
TEPCO reportedly admitted that only 60 of 350 tanks in that area are equipped with volume gauges. “Inspection” is done visually by a worker with a radiation detector. Meanwhile, the soil around the leaking tank delivered a dose per hour equivalent to the legal limit for nuclear workers for five years. No remote radiation measuring devices, no remote handling.
The tank leak is just the latest in a long list of signs that things are going fundamentally wrong at the site of what could still turn out to be the most serious radiological event in history.
via CNN
link: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/30/why-fukushima-is-worse-than-you-think/
 |
| via REUTERS/Tokyo Electric Power Co. |
The upgrade by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) raises the rating of what was Japan's first warning on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) since the three reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima plant in March 2011, which were triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami. Those meltdowns were classified as Level 7, the highest INES rating.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said last week that 300 metric tons (330.69 tons) of highly radioactive water leaked from a storage tank at the facility. The utility still does not know how long the water may have been leaking and said it was possible the contaminated water may have reached the Pacific Ocean.
The NRA had said last week that it may upgrade the severity of the crisis from a Level 1 "anomaly" to a Level 3 "serious incident" on the INES scale, after consultations with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
via Reuters
link: http://preview.reuters.com/2013/8/28/japan-formally-raises-fukushima-water-leak-to-ines
below is an article I found on CNN:
Why Fukushima is worse than you think
“Careless” was how Toyoshi Fuketa, commissioner of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, reportedly described the inspection quality of hundreds of water tanks at the crippled Fukushima plant following the recent discovery of a serious radioactive spill. China’s Foreign Ministry went further, saying it was “shocking” that radioactive water was still leaking into the Pacific Ocean two years after the Fukushima incident.
While the amount of radioactivity released into the environment in March 2011 has been estimated as between 10 percent and 50 percent of the fallout from the Chernobyl accident, the 400,000 tons of contaminated water stored on the Fukushima site contain more than 2.5 times the amount of radioactive cesium dispersed during the 1986 catastrophe in Ukraine.
So, where has this huge amount of highly contaminated water – enough to fill 160 Olympic-size swimming pools – come from? In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the reactor cores of units 1, 2 and 3 melted through the reactor vessels into the concrete. Nobody knows how far the molten fuel went through the containment – radiation levels in the reactor buildings are lethal, while robots got stuck in the rubble and some never came back out.
TEPCO’s account of the discovery this month of the leak of 300 tons of highly radioactive water showed a frightening level of amateurism:
“We found water spread at the bottom level of tanks near the tank No.5... Therefore, we checked the water level of this tank, and… confirmed that the current water level is lower by approximately 3 meters than the normal level.”
TEPCO reportedly admitted that only 60 of 350 tanks in that area are equipped with volume gauges. “Inspection” is done visually by a worker with a radiation detector. Meanwhile, the soil around the leaking tank delivered a dose per hour equivalent to the legal limit for nuclear workers for five years. No remote radiation measuring devices, no remote handling.
The tank leak is just the latest in a long list of signs that things are going fundamentally wrong at the site of what could still turn out to be the most serious radiological event in history.
via CNN
link: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/30/why-fukushima-is-worse-than-you-think/