#Fukushima I NPP: All Three Lines of ALPS (Multi-Nuclide Removal System) Are Stopped

TEPCO says "as a precaution". It looks ALPS Line B wasn't removing enough all-beta.

The multi-nuclide removal system ALPS is still on the extended "hot" test run using the waste water, treating less than 200 tonnes of water per day.

ALPS comes after the desalination (reverse osmosis) that comes after the cesium absorption by either SARRY or Kurion. These systems before ALPS haven't stopped. The water processed through SARRY/Kurion and reverse osmosis goes back into the reactors to cool the corium, and ALPS is to treat the waste water that is high in all-beta.

Even if ALPS is stopped, the water treatment and cooling the reactors continue.

TEPCO's email alert to the press (3/18/2014) says:

多核種除去設備（ＡＬＰＳ）では、汚染水処理設備にて処理した廃液を用いた試験（ホット試験）を行っていますが、本日（３月18日）、３系統（Ａ系，Ｂ系，Ｃ系）あるうちの１系統（Ｂ系）について、午後０時４分にフィルタの酸洗浄のため停止しています。

We've been conducting the "hot" test of the multi-nuclide removal system ALPS using the waste water after it is processed in the contaminated water treatment systems. Today (3/18/2014), one of the three lines, Line B, has been stopped at 12:04PM to acid-clean the filters.

同日、Ｂ系の処理後の出口水の全ベータの分析結果（３月17日採取分）が10の７乗Bq/L程度であることを確認しました。

Also today, we noted that the nuclide analysis of the water treated by Line B (collected on March 17) showed all-beta to be [in the order of] 10^7 Bq/L [10,000,000 Bq/L].

多核種除去設備（ＡＬＰＳ）の入口水については、全ベータで10の８乗Bq/L程度であり、処理が不充分となっている可能性があることから、念のため、Ａ系について同日午後１時38分、Ｃ系について午後１時39分に処理を中断しました。

The water before entering ALPS has about 10^8 Bq/L [100,000,000 Bq/L] of all-beta, so there is a possibility that the treatment by ALPS is not adequate. As a precaution, we stopped Line A at 1:38PM and Line C at 1:39PM.

Strontium-90, a beta nuclide, is mostly removed in the pre-treatment process of ALPS that uses iron coprecipitation and carbonate coprecipitation. TEPCO hasn't found what part of ALPS may be malfunctioning this time.

For my post on why ALPS may already be obsolete, click here.

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3 Years after #Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Bags Used to Store Contaminated Soil Were Meant to Last 3 Years

Oopsy...

Or rather, mainstream media outlets like TV Asahi has waited three years to tell us about what many of us suspected from the beginning.

It has been a sad, familiar sight of bags upon bags that contain contaminated soil removed from people's homes, roadsides, gardens, parks, schools, farmlands, etc. in Fukushima Prefecture and areas in Kanto Region for the past three years in the name of "decontamination".

TV Asahi apparently reported in the morning news on March 11, 2014 that these black plastic bags were made to last 3 years, and the manufacturer told Asahi that they were not meant to hold radioactive materials, according to a tweet by ‏@k_reichan:

If you always thought they looked awfully like oversized garbage bags, you were probably right. The photo in another tweet by the same person shows the bags ripped and shredded:

This is supposed to be "news", or "scoop" by TV Asahi.

At Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, there are a finite number of those huge tanks that are riveted together with the liner that was meant to last for 5 years but deteriorated in only two years. They are slowly being replaced by the welded tanks.

But these countless, seemingly infinite black plastic bags of soil that contain radioactive cesium whose half-life is 30 years, not 3? I wonder who came up with the idea to put the removed soil in these bags to begin with.

Now it is the 4th year since the start of the nuclear accident, and it feels Year 4 is just as relaxed as Year 3, Year 2, and even Year 1.

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(OT) New "Cold War" Between the US and Russia: US Will "Calibrate", Russia Will "Incinerate"

Too funny to pass these up...

President Obama says this, after slapping "sanctions" on Russia (and Ukraine's government officials, 11 of them in total) over what seems like a very democratic vote in Crimea to leave Ukraine and re-join Russia, according to Bloomberg News (3/17/2014):

Obama said at the White House. The U.S. can “calibrate our response” based on whether Russia chooses “to escalate or to de-escalate the situation.”

While President Obama, who didn't attend the National Security Council meeting at the White House over the weekend (again), "calibrates", Mr. Dmitry Kiselyov, a presenter of the Russian state-owned TV, says, according to The Independent (3/17/2014):

"Russia is the only country in the world realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," Kiselyov said standing in front of a large screen depicting a mushroom cloud produced by a nuclear explosion.

"Americans themselves consider Putin to be a stronger leader than Obama," he said. "Why is Obama phoning Putin all the time and talking to him for hours on end?"

Kiselyov suggested President Obama's hair is turning grey because he is fretting about Russia's nuclear capacity, which could turn the US into dust.

The Independent has a screen shot of Mr. Kiselyov with the image of a huge mushroom cloud in the back:

A less-colorful and plainer word is from Crimea's Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, according to CNN:

"We are going home. Crimea is in Russia"

Soviet Russia did have one awe-inspiring atomic bomb (Tsar Bomba):

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