Tuesday, December 13, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Reactor 4 Is NOT Falling Apart (Yet); It Was Cleanup/Demolition Work by TEPCO

Contrary to what you may have heard, the rumor of the collapse of Reactor 4 is, for now, just a rumor. What you have instead is the result of a planned cleanup/demolition by TEPCO.

Several readers of my blog sent me the link that shows photographs of Reactor 4 at different times in December and links to a post that claims Reactor 4 is falling apart.

Alarmed, I started looking for information. There was absolutely no news or rumor of that in Japan, not even in the Internet message boards on the Fuku-I disaster. I looked at the photos again. I noticed that part of the ceiling trusses were gone, and it looked they were removed systematically.

Then I remembered the tweets a few months ago by the worker who tweets from Fuku-I, saying the debris clearing in Reactor 3 and Reactor 4 upper floors were ongoing. On checking his recent tweets, sure enough, it was a planned take-down of part of walls and ceiling in Reactor 4:

From December 13 tweet:

3号機はオペフロの瓦礫をクレーンを使って撤去してるよ。まだまだ先は長いでし。4号機はオペフロ南側の落ちそうな梁と柱と天井トラスを撤去してスッ キリしたよ。オペフロ南側の東西の壁もはなくなったから東側最上階の壁にあった4号機の「4」と書いてあった壁もなくなっちゃった。

In Reactor 3, they are removing the debris on the operation floor using a crane. It will take a long time still. In Reactor 4, they removed the failing beams, columns and ceiling trusses from the south side of the operation floor. It looks cleaner now. They also removed the wall panels on the east and west side of the southern end of the operation floor, so there is no more wall panel that had the letter "4" for Reactor 4 on the top floor on the east side.

Then one of my readers just posted TEPCO's Progress Status report on November 17, 2011 in the comment section. On pages 26 and 27, TEPCO shows the cleanup/demolition work in Reactor 4 in details:


So the long story short, no it is not falling apart.

(H/T anon reader)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

how much is TEPCO paying you?

Terry White said...

This is why you have the best Fukushima blog on the internet. Meticulous, fair and balanced reporting.

Apolline said...

Oh, what an unpleasant comment, anon at 1:56 !

Ultraman is an honest person. He spends much time to inform us. As I do it on my blog to communicate informations to french people (and french-speaking persons)

Please, avoid such stupid remark or go on another lying site...

PS : to anon at 2:39. There are some good french blogs about Fukushima, too.

Stock said...

Exposing one of the "Big Lies"

The Big Lies are Chronicled Here
http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/p/best-lies-of-nuclear.html

And a bunch of useful, forgive me -disorganized, information are stored here--
http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/p/japan-nuclear-information.html

THE LIE: "Nuclear is Safe as Long as You Can Feed Power Into Them"/ Carrington Event

The current lie is a form of misdirection....a shell game of sorts. By pretending that by increasing the current hours of backup power available at Nuke Plants from 4 hours to 8 hours, that in that case "Nuclear is Safe". The answer is Heck No! There are still many compelling reasons to eliminate nuclear power from our planet even if they made their backup power better than 4 hours. And one of these MOST COMPELLING is the Carrington Event.

Mr. Carrington was a researcher who observed the sun with a .....

no6ody said...

anon at 1:56 - pot, kettle, black, how much do they pay YOU?

Most aware people know that T3PC0 will give you (for free) all the lies your brain can hold (plus bonus radiation, both internal and external). For some reason, most of us don't seem to appreciate it. Mr. Ex-SKF's work spreading truth seems much more popular.

Reinhard said...

Some people love it, if it gets worse, as it already is. This story buildings to four tilts, circulating on the Internet for months, but it still stands.

Doyu Shonin said...

A couple of days ago, I watched the smallish crane shown in the photos -- it was plainly visible on TBS/JNN's camera -- snatching girders out of the south side and putting them on the ground, like a hungry dinosaur. "Oh," I said to myself, "They must be trying to get at the SFP from above." It surprised me, this talk of "falling down," and I found myself suddenly the conservative voice. The thing is dangerous enough as it is without our eyes making up stuff. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Anon 1:56 reads like the Finish troll. Get a clue.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at the top, in case you haven't noticed, almost all my posts here are based on the news from Japanese MSMs and TEPCO. Feel free to call me the government shill.

Anonymous said...

This was a ridiculous story when it was circulating (and getting regurgitated by Arnie) months ago. It was taken up as gospel by the conspiracy crowd, then conveniently forgotten about when better photographs and video became available. Kudos to ex-skf for this bit of mythbusting - even if it means he's made an enemy of one of the guys who just refuses to believe that unit 4 isn't falling over.

Anonymous said...

fascinating

Anonymous said...

Well it may not have fallen apart but it was still the source of the largest onland radiation contamination plume which spread northwest from the plant according to wind direction analysis. At the time everyone from the Japanese government to CNN announced that it was a fuel pool fire. Then they backtracked and said it was a "lube oil fire". Must have been the most radioactive oil in history if you believe that...

Atomfritz said...

I really don't understand why the info about such important cleanup work has been hidden so deeply in a big press release.

Maybe they want to get the work done without too many observers watching.
Like as we get almost no information what is being done in the #1 tent.

Best if nobody asks how radioactive the debris removed actually is, or even dares to request samples.
If there actually was radioactivity release from the spent fuel pool, these materials would show forensic evidence.

Post a Comment