Monday, August 19, 2013

(UPDATED) Mysterious Radioactive Dust Again at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant, Cause Still Not Known


(UPDATE 2) New post with a bit more information.

(UPDATE) NHK News says the mist generator was not in use this time.

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It happened again. According to TEPCO's email alert for the press on August 19, 2013, an alarm sounded from the dust monitoring system in front of the Anti-Seismic Building at 10:04AM.

This time, two workers waiting for bus in front of the Anti-Seismic Building were later found with 13 Bq/cm2 contamination on their heads.

The dust monitoring result shows cesium-134 at 2.6×10^-4[Bq/cm3] (0.00026 Bq/cm3), and cesium-137 at 5.8×10^-4[Bq/cm3] (0.00058 Bq/cm3).

When it happened the first time on August 12, 2013, the water used in the mist generator was first suspected, but it turned out to be not the case.

There is no information whether the mist generator was in use this time or not.

The cause is still unknown.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

what i do fear is that the underground molten blobs could be merging! After following the least-resistance path they could have finally carved their way to the same spot. Hence recriticality, raising underground pressure and a whole new level of disaster.
Also, if this "alarm bells" are allowed to ring in the media, it looks like Tepco has totally lost hope of any control and is not trying to hide information, which is a worrying sign in itself.

Anonymous said...

TEPCO has been doing the email alert for a long time, in case you don't know.

Anonymous said...

no i don't know .. email alert in case of recriticality? or what?

Anonymous said...

I doubt the melts have arranged themselves for fission. Maybe a fizzle here and there, that would be about it. Bad enough the melts can ionize anything and everything they come in contact with.

Fuel pools now are more of a worry for a sustained reaction.

Is it radioactive dust or gases or both floating around Fukus that keep contaminating workers? Why wear masks when you can wipe off radioactivity and go home? Does TEPCO have the workers scrub and shower then get scanned before they leave?

Anonymous said...

My guess is that the cause is 3 fully melted nuclear reactors...

Maybe Tepco should focus on that?

Anonymous said...

Amazing the swarm of people who want to believe the fuel is outside of the reactors, in the ground, rather than the obvious fact that the reactors are leaking corium laced water.

Anyway, TEPCO suggests the 'dust' may have come from #3 PV, due to a nitrogen injection.

Which would beg the question, why would those silly sausages inject nitrogen into a containment ... if the cores are in ground?

Complicated, no?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

TEPCO has started to make email alerts for the press to anyone since the beginning of this year. Prior to that, only those reporters/journalists who signed up with TEPCO could receive the alerts and the rest of us had to rely on them to tell us.

It's basically what TEPCO announces later in press conference and on the website as either handout for the press or in photos and videos library. It's about anything out of the "ordinary".

TEPCO does check workers for contamination before they leave. Workers take the bus that goes from Anti-Seismic Building to the Entry/Exit Control Station located near the gate for screening, and if they are found with contamination exceeding the level set by TEPCO (4Bq/cm2) they are decontaminated before they can leave, and they are tested with WBC later.

Corium in the ground meme is hard to eradicate. I found a diagram someone manufactured that shows Fukushima reactor building sitting on top of the ground with no foundation, and the melted fuel is deep inside the dirt, leaking into a huge aquifer.

VyseLegendaire said...

Wait a second....so its been confirmed where the coriums are at this point?
I was under the impression that they are too radioactive to even get close enough to investigate their current locations.

Sounds like speculation on all sides.

Anonymous said...

Vyse, some speculations may be more plausible than others. People who speculate that corium is in the ground tend to rely on tenuous information like fabricated drawings, unfortunately.

Besides, if it is too radioactive to get close, that means the corium is inside the building.

Apolline said...

RT : Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/

Anonymous said...

Helios, please spare us from RT.

Anonymous said...

Other things melted cores can do, like radiolysis of water where (mainly alpha particles) breakdowns H2O into hydrogen and oxygen which can be a very explosive mixture in certain ratios. So, the need to purge any pockets where hydrogen could collect using nitrogen injections like in what is left of the containments. I think they inject nitrogen in all three ruined containments 7/24.

Sure, get rid of any pent up hydrogen and force out any accompanying radioactive gases and particles at the same time. TEPCO went to great lengths to drape and duct tape flexible pipe in place in the destroyed Units so they could pipe in nitrogen for purging.

Any other time under normal circumstances with containment intact, the water and air is filtered. Here, there is no containment. Groundwater is free to interact with the melts, the melts are free to vent to air or to water and continue radioactive contaminating since the beginning on 3/11.

It is all rather simple and complicated but unstoppable without contained cores melted or not.

Fuel rods that shit spent uranium pellets will be the next headache if earthquakes don't spoil the removal plan.

warrenwest said...

our inferiors have risen on our bodes they feast.

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