Sunday, April 22, 2012

Video Inside the Equipment Hatch Shield Plug of Reactor 3 at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant

I have no idea what I am seeing here. It is supposed to be mostly the image of inside the shield plug on the Containment Vessel of Reactor 3, which TEPCO finally admitted it had been open. The camera is sometimes upside down or sideways, but we cannot complain much to the camera crew (TEPCO employees) who received 8 millisievert radiation for their 4-minute work. Radiation looks to be much higher inside the shield plug.

Last November, a Packbot was sent to wipe off the guide rails for the shield plug. The robot was finding the radiation levels to be extremely high along the rails, with the highest at 1.6 sievert/hour.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fact that people are sent to work in there is despicable.

This is just as despicable, please repost:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120423a4.html

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon above, do you read Japan Times regularly? Do they write their own story based on, say Kyodo News, and adding their own reporting? Just curious because I don't read Japan Times regularly. I went to the link and read it, it said Kyodo. But it didn't read like what Kyodo would write. So I went to Kyodo News and searched for the article, and it is very different from Japan Times' article.

Anonymous said...

A::L,

Was the Kyodo news piece in Japanese, or was it an English version?

I used to work for MSM in Japan and Kyodo stories — which were received in appalling English 99% of the time — needed to be rewritten. The content wasn't changed, however, so if a Kyodo piece didn't make any sense or had wrong information it would be spiked.

I assume the above also happens at the JT, but cannot say for sure.

My feeling toward the JT's coverage of Fukushima et al. is that it's more impartial than its competitors and at times has been downright critical.

I'd love to speak with you further, but don't want to leave my email address up on the interwebs. One of my email's servers has been inaccessible for days and I'm dreading what awaits when I am reconnected!

Thanking you for all your efforts with this blog, much appreciated!

Anonymous said...

And apologies for cross-posting (I have nothing to do with the JT!), but this may also be of interest:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fd20120422pb.html

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 12:40AM, thank you for further info. I found the equivalent story in Kyodo English. So I don't have the full Kyodo story (that's for subscription only). But the information that appeared early in the Kyodo news doesn't appear at all in Japan Times.

Oh well. Mainichi Daily is worse, and Asahi English is no better.

Atomfritz said...

Thank you LaPrimavera and anon for the info.

The Japan Times articles are really worth reading. Only one road to Ooi nuclear plant, on landslide area, unbelievable but apparently true.

Regarding the video at the reactor hatch, I suppose it was taken with a long pole, so that the workers hadn't to approach the hot area too much. The strong increase of radiation distortion at entering the room behind the door indeed suggests quite high radiation there. I suppose if they dare to open the door, the gamma shine will render the area inaccessible to humans...

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

One road to Ooi plant. That's true. I was creating a post on that, and got sidetracked as usual.

Anonymous said...

What we see here does appear to be footage taken from a pole-mounted camera. There are a few interesting things I noticed.

*At around 0:47-0:49, the camera is being extended towards the gap in the shield plug and the electrical equipment visible on the upper left of one of the Packbot photos (below) is seen from above.

http://photo.tepco.co.jp/library/120419_2/120419_09.jpg

*At around 0:55 the pole camera is being passed through the gap pictured in the above packbot photo. The diagram provided by Tepco seems to be realistic in scale as the back of the shield plug is passed around 1:00. The joint where the necked portion of the plug is intended to seat is visible, from an overhead angle, on the right of the shot and the back corner of the plug is seen at lower left.

*After this point camera movements become somewhat erratic but by around 2:00 we seem to be nearest to the inner shield plug/equipment hatch, where a seemingly large quantity of corrosion has happened. Around 2:15 you can see what appears to be particles, possibly solid or liquid, that are being disturbed as the camera is seemingly dragged across the floor of the airlock.

*As noted by others, gamma shine effects (the overall white "snow") vary considerably, and generally seemed to attenuate at times when the camera lens was in close proximity to surfaces.

*By 2:30-2:40 the camera is back in the air, not sure what surface we are viewing here. Not long after 3:10 the camera is moved jarringly, appears to fall back to the floor, and then at 3:19 we seem to be able to see a rail embedded in the floor, lower center of frame and extending towards the camera's position. Can anybody here tell if this is a rail for moving the outer shield plug, or for the inner door systems?

*At 3:20 the camera is being dragged back out of the airlock, by around 3:30 it looks like the camera passes back through the outer gap, in an upside-down orientation and facing towards the right wall of the airlock. The ladder seen to the right on the Packbot photo is passed by the camera at 3:35 as the worker finishes retrieving the camera and the team makes a hasty retreat from the reactor building.

More spooooooooky footage, courtesy of Tepco. Perhaps they can get into the horror film business?

Anonymous said...

The rail is for moving the entire shield plug in and out, Atomfritz.

Anonymous said...

I'm not Atomfritz. Hah. If I knew as much as that guy seems to... I wish. But thanks.

Anyway upon further review of the video I have realized some of my errors. The object visible at 3:15-3:20 is actually the first shield plug joint once again, the camera is already on it's way out, the corrosion/material visible looks like it flowed partly out of the containment vessel, nearly through the outer door of the hatch.

I'm also not sure that the camera is ever in the air between around 2:00 and 3:10. It looks more like it was laying on its side, being dragged across the dark material. Notice the marked peaks of gamma shine, they are when the camera looks like it's in closest contact with this material.

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