Video Summary of Fuel Transfer in Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool at #Fukushima I NPP on 11/18/2013

In this, I don't blame TEPCO for not having posted a video of the entire work (9 to 10 hours) on November 18, 2013.

The preparation for submerging the cask started in the morning, with the cask submerged completely at 12:30PM. The removal of unused (new) fuel assemblies into the cask started at 3:18PM, and by 6:45PM 4 unused fuel assemblies were transferred into the cask.

The names of the companies and the names of the workers are blurred in the video. They could be TEPCO workers, but most likely from one of the primary contractors.

From TEPCO's photos and videos library (11/19/2013):

Compared to the still photos (see below), the water in the pool looks slightly murky. After the day's work ended at 7PM on November 18, another set of workers were scheduled to be there all night, clearing small debris and particles using a vacuum cleaner in the water.

(From TEPCO, 11/18/2013; click to enlarge. For higher resolution photos, go to the link.)

Today (November 19, 2013), the workers have removed 8 unused fuel assemblies into the cask as of 1:30PM, according to Nuclear Regulation Agency (secretariat of Nuclear Regulation Authority). The Agency thinks the workers will be able to remove additional 10 fuel assemblies to fill the cask.

There are six group of workers who take turns in removing the fuel assemblies so that each group of workers spends less than 2 hours on the operating floor.

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(UPDATED) Fuel Assemblies Are Being Transferred into the Cask in Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool at #Fukushima I NPP

(UPDATE-2) Jiji reports (11/19/2013) that the workers successfully removed 4 unused new fuel assemblies into the cask by 6:45PM. The air dose level near the pool was 0.04 millisievert/hour (or 40 microsieverts/hour).

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(UPDATE) TEPCO says the workers started lifting the very first fuel assembly at 3:25PM JST.

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NHK's latest (11/18/2013 at 3:55PM; part):

東京電力は福島第一原子力発電所４号機で午後３時１８分から使用済み燃料プールから核燃料を取り出す作業を始めました。

At 3:18PM, TEPCO started to remove the nuclear fuels from the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

１８日はこのうち、未使用の新しい燃料の一部を燃料プール内でキャスクと呼ばれる輸送用の容器に移します。

On November 18, part of the unused, new fuels will be transferred to the cask, a container for transporting the fuels, in the Spent Fuel Pool.

作業は燃料取り扱い機という設備を使って午後７時ごろまで行われます。

The work uses the fuel handling machine, and will continue until about 7PM.

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Cask Is Now In the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant

(UPDATE) According to TEPCO, it took 30 minutes from the moment the bottom of the cask touched the water in the cask pit till the cask bottom is securely at the bottom of the cask pit in the SFP.

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TEPCO released the high-resolution (for TEPCO, at least) photographs of the cask being submerged in the cask pit of the Spent Fuel Pool in Reactor 4 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

According to the schedule, they should soon start removing the first fuel assembly from the pool into the cask.

From TEPCO, 11/18/2013:

(Click to enlarge. For high-resolution photos, follow the TEPCO link.)

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(UPDATED) #Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Fuel Assembly Removal from Reactor 4 SFP Starts

(UPDATE 3)

The cask has been submerged in the cask pit inside the SFP, and the workers have started to transfer fuel assemblies into the cask (from 3:18PM Japan Standard Time)

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(UPDATE 2) From Nikkei Shinbun (11/18/2013, 11:16AM):

Removal of the fuel assemblies will continue tomorrow (November 19), the cask will be lowered to the ground on November 19. It will take about a week for the first cask to be transported to the Common Pool 100 meters away.

A week?

(UPDATE) Wrong schedule. From NHK News at 12:05PM:

1. AM: The cask is being submerged into the cask pit.

2. At 3PM: Start removing the 22 fuel assemblies (unused, new assemblies) using the fuel handling machine into the cask

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According to NHK News (11/18/2013 at 6:07AM), the schedule is:

1. AM: Using the fuel handling machine, put fuel assemblies (unused, new, 22 of them) into the cask submerged in the cask pit

2. At 3PM: Lower the cask using the gantry crane

It must be proceeding well so far, as the bright pink headline banner on NHK's homepage (circled in blue below) only says "We will let you know as soon as there is further news."

The fuel handling machine is operated by the workers with long experience of handling the nuclear fuel, according to the workers who regularly tweet from Fukushima I NPP.

Here's the link to the 7-page summary of the fuel removal operation, from TEPCO (11/13/2013).

Just as the independent journalist Ryuichi Kino said previously, "Fuel removal conducted in the daytime, and debris removal at night".

Perhaps as a small pushback against the LDP politicians who demand "acceleration" and "ahead of schedule" work, TEPCO says on the 2nd page in red letters:

After conducting the above actions, we will proceed with fuel removal with “first priority given to safety”, not to achievement of the schedule.

Mainichi Shinbun (11/13/2013) says the reactor building cover over the Reactor 4 operating floor was built with 4,200 tons of steel beams, the same amount of steel beams that were used to build Tokyo Tower. If I remember right, the design and construction was by Kajima. It was designed and built so that the weight of the heavy cover would not be borne by the original reactor building.

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: TEPCO Admits Total 80 Spent Fuel Assemblies Had Damages Before the Nuclear Accident, 70 of Them in Reactor 1 Spent Fuel Pool

Move over, three fuel assemblies with damaged/deformed fuel rods inside in the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool!　You're nothing.

According to Kahoku Shinpo, a Fukushima local paper, TEPCO admitted on November 15, 2013 that there are 70 fuel assemblies with damaged fuel rods in the Reactor 1 Spent Fuel Pool, located on the operating floor (top floor) of the reactor building whose air radiation levels are measured in millisievert/hour and sievert/hour (first floor).

There are also three such fuel assemblies in the Reactor 2 SFP, and four of them in the Reactor 3 SFP.

Total 80 spent fuel assemblies in the SFPs in Reactors 1 - 4 are damaged.

The damages had been there long before the March 11, 2011 accident, and TEPCO claims it properly notified the national government as they discovered the damages. But the company has come clean in public only now.

Kahoku Shinpo article below suggests that the oldest of such damaged fuels may have been there for 40 years in the Reactor 1 Spent Fuel Pool. (Reactor 1 started generating electricity in 1971.)

Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant is TEPCO's oldest nuclear reactor; it was entirely the project by General Electric of the US, a turnkey.

From Kahoku Shinpo (11/16/2013):

福島第１原発１号機　燃料震災前破損７０体　全体の４分の１

Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 1 has 70 fuel assemblies damaged before the March 11, 2011 disaster, a quarter of the total spent fuel assemblies [in the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 1]

福島第１原発１号機の使用済み燃料プール内にある燃料棒７０体が東日本大震災前から損傷していたことが１５日、分かった。

It was revealed on November 15 that 70 fuel assemblies in the Reactor 1 Spent Fuel Pool at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant had had damages before the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami.

プール内に保管されている使用済み燃料２９２体の４分の１に相当する。損傷した燃料棒を取り出す技術は確立しておらず、２０１７年にも始まる１号機の燃料取り出し計画や廃炉作業への影響が懸念される。

The damaged assemblies are about one-quarter of the 292 spent fuel assemblies stored in the pool. Technologies to remove damaged fuel haven't been established, and there are worries that [the revelation] may negatively affect the plan to remove the fuels from Reactor 1 [SFP] starting 2017 and the decommissioning work in general.

東京電力は、１５日まで事実関係を公表してこなかった。同社は「国への報告は随時してきた」と説明している。

TEPCO hadn't disclosed all the facts until November 15. The company says it had reported to the national government as required.

東電によると７０体の燃料棒は、小さな穴が空いて放射性物質が漏れ出すなどトラブルが相次いだため、原子炉から取り出してプール内に別に保管していたという。

According to TEPCO, these 70 fuel assemblies had series of problems including leakage of radioactive materials from small [pinhole-size] holes [on fuel rods]. So the company removed them from the reactor and stored in a separate location inside the Spent Fuel Pool.

１８日に燃料取り出しが始まる４号機プール内にも損傷した燃料棒が３体あり、東電は通常の取り出しが困難なため、対応を後回しにしている。

There are three damaged fuel assemblies inside the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool, where the removal of the fuel assemblies will start on November 18. TEPCO has postponed the removal of the damaged assemblies as it is difficult to remove them in a normal manner.

損傷した燃料棒は１、４号機プールのほかにも２号機プールに３体、３号機プールに４体の計８０体ある。東電は専用の輸送容器を新たに製造するなど対応策を検討する。

Other than in the Spent Fuel Pools of Reactor 1 and Reactor 4, the Reactor 2 Spent Fuel Pool has three damaged fuel assemblies, and the Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool has four, making the total of damaged fuel assemblies 80. TEPCO will consider the measures such as building a dedicated container for transfer for these damaged fuels.

損傷燃料が１号機に集中している理由について、東電は「１号機は当社で最も古い原発で、燃料棒の製造時、品質管理に問題があり粗悪品が多かったと聞いている。２号機以降は燃料棒の改良が進み、品質は改善した」と説明した。

As to the reason why Reactor 1 has the largest number of damaged fuels, TEPCO says, "Reactor 1 [at Fukushima I Nuke Plant] is the oldest nuclear reactor of our company, and we hear that there were quality control issues when the fuel rods were manufactured and that there were many fuel rods with inferior quality. From Reactor 2 onward, much improvement was done on the fuel rods, and quality improved."

１号機は東電初の原発で、１９７１年３月に商業運転を開始した。

Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant is the first nuclear reactor for TEPCO, and it started the commercial operation in March 1971.

No major national newspaper has covered this story so far.

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#Fukushima I NPP: TEPCO to Delay Start of Fuel Assembly Removal from Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool by 1 to 2 Weeks

The company says it now needs time to conduct a test run.

(So......, test runs were not originally scheduled ......)

From Kyodo News (11/5/2013):

福島原発４号機、実証試験を追加　燃料取り出し延期へ

Removal of fuel to be delayed at Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 4, to add a test run

東京電力が福島第１原発４号機の使用済み核燃料プールからの燃料取り出しを前に、実際の燃料輸送容器を使って作業の安全性を確認する実証試験を追加し、４号機内で近く実施することが４日、関係者への取材で分かった。実証試験には準備を含めて数日かかる見込みで、早ければ８日にも始まる予定だった燃料取り出しは１～２週間延期となる見通し。

Kyodo News found out on November 3 by talking to people involved that TEPCO will conduct a test to verify the safety of the work using the actual container to transport the fuel [assemblies] before they start removing the fuel [assemblies] from the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The test will take several days including preparation, and the removal of fuel which was slated to start as early as November 8 will be delayed by one to two weeks.

燃料取り出しに向け、クレーンを備えた４号機の建屋カバーは既に完成しているが、実証試験は行われていなかった。

The building cover for Reactor 4 with the crane for removing the fuel has been completed, but no test run has been done.

I can't really blame TEPCO other than to say they should grow some backbone to say no to the meddling by the national government and LDP.

LDP politicians including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Minister of Economy Toshimitsu Motegi have made a lot of noise demanding TEPCO do everything "ahead of schedule" and "accelerate".

Removal of fuel assemblies, first unused (new) fuel assemblies then used fuel assemblies, was not scheduled to start until 2014. The LDP government, installed after the Lower House election in December 2012, has been eager to give the impression to the gullible portion of the populace and to the world outside Japan that it is totally in charge, that things are going so well under their leadership. One of the ways they used to give that impression was to unilaterally declare, out of the blue, that the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident would be now dealt with at an accelerated pace, with everything being done ahead of schedule, including removing the corium from the broken reactors.

Despite huge misgivings of the workers at the plant and people who have followed the accident, TEPCO headquarters dutifully obliged. Plant safety and worker safety be damned.

But it is not just test runs that were missing. Independent journalist Ryuichi Kino tweeted a horror two days ago:

がれき撤去は夕方から翌日午前中まで深夜完徹の作業。たいへんさは想像に余りある。

Removal of debris will be done through the night, from the evening till the morning of the next day. What an enormous task it will be.

That means TEPCO hasn't removed debris that fell inside the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool, even though they have created a detailed SFP debris map. Compared to Reactor 3's SFP, Reactor 4's SFP looks relatively clean, and not a whole lot of huge, awkward pieces of debris are in the pool. But if what Kino says is true, TEPCO will have the workers clear the debris from the pool all night, enough to carry out the removal of fuel assemblies next morning. And repeat this day in and day out.

In other words, TEPCO continues the accident cleanup haphazardly, as it has been doing since the day 1 of the accident.

But TEPCO cannot say no to the authorities stronger than them. They could have said to the government, "No we are not going to accelerate the removal of fuel assemblies. We will first remove the debris completely from the pool, then we will carry out dry runs to make sure things will go smoothly. Only then we will start removing the fuel assemblies."

But back in March 2011, TEPCO couldn't even take much-needed car batteries from the stores, and they couldn't bring the batteries made for the plant because they didn't have a government permit to travel on the highway (see my post from October 2012). So it is too much to ask, I know.

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