Thursday, March 1, 2012

Quince No.2 Makes a Survey Trip to the 5th Floor of Reactor 2

Quince No.2 took some sharp photos of the operation floor (5th floor) of Reactor 2 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on February 27, 2012.

The highest radiation it encountered was 220 millisieverts/hour measured at the Reactor Well, only slightly better than 250 millisieverts/hour also at the Reactor Well on the opposite side that had met Quince No.1 on its last trip to the operation floor on October 20, 2011.

Quince No.1 by the way was found on the third floor, bravely holding the position to "monitor the effect of radiation" on itself.

From TEPCO's "Photos for Press" page:

Note the very small white pixels in the photos. Quince uses the fish-eye lens, so the straight lines look curved.

1. Reactor Well direction (east). Neatly arranged rain boots... (Click here for bigger photo.)



2. Spent Fuel Pool direction (east), north side. (Click here for bigger photo.)

3. Spent Fuel Pool direction (east), south side. (Click here for bigger photo.)


4. Looking toward north side. (Click here for bigger photo.)


Orientation, from TEPCO's handout for the press (2/28/2012):

Radiation levels on the 5th floor, from the same handout:

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least the first picture of the reactor well is photoshopped. Check out the differences between the published picture and the video here (not mine, all credits to gen4):

http://www.gen4.fr/blog/2012/03/nouvelles-photos-anciens-trucs-ou-les-petits-tepcomontages-des-familles.html

Atomfritz said...

Picture #1 has been manipulated ("photoshopped").

Reason might be a transmission error resulting in a missing part of the image, but editing such documentary photos shouldn't be done without explicitly announcing. Such only can serve to further damage Tepco's credibility.

(Actually the editing of the picture was done using Microsoft Photo Gallery, as the XMP header reveals)

See also
http://www.gen4.fr/blog/
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480200&page=779

Yosaku said...

Hey guys,

It appears that the "photoshop" you're referring to is actually a robot malfunction.

Each photo taken by the robot is actually a series of 16 photos taken in a 4 by 4 grid. If you go to the actual film (No. 6) and pause it at exactly the 3:12 mark, you'll see that for some reason our poor trusty Quince duplicated the x2 y2 frame at x1 y2.

Not that this will stop the conspiracy theorists, however...

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Thank you.

Atomfritz said...

Now downloaded the video and looked at it closely.
Around 3:10 plus/minus a few seconds there can be taken some more observations.

As Yosaku correctly notes, the image is parted up into 16 tiles, apparently transmitted sequentially, strangely of unequal size (would really like to know the technical reason why the tiles aren't equal-sized).

The image "blacks out" when the radiation counter jumped to about 0.2 sieverts (in 1 meter height? probably then higher near at floor level where the electronics are probably located).

The operator then hastily moved back Quince. I suppose it was a quick reaction to protect Quince 2 from crashing/latching-up because of radiation.

However, what appears strange to me is the discrepancy of the image shown in the video and the high-res image.
But there could be several benign technical explanations for this.
The display on the Quince control panel (showed in the video) is probably a zoomed-down version of the native resolution of the camera image.

But then the question comes up: how came the seamless impression of the duplicate tile which makes the impression of image editing?
If the tile was a simple duplicate as Yosaku assumes, it would be easily recognizable, like a copied-pasted part of the image.

It is probably not that simple.
When you look very carefully at the hires image you get the impression that the lower left tile actually could be sort of averaging overlaying of two tiles.
Technically this could be caused by a line decoder malfunction caused by radiation, leading to two lines being read out simultaneously, mixing/averaging the output.

So I have to retract my suspicion of image editing, as there seems to be nothing of particular importance in the lower-left image tile.

However, one thing can possibly be concluded of this: Quince's electronics radiation resistance probably is around 0.2 sieverts (assuming the radiation counter is located near the electronics)
I fear Tepco has to be very careful to avoid Quince 2 to die soon too.

Karen Sherry Brackett said...

Arevamirpal thank you for posting this video, pictures and link. Have to say that broken valve in the 12/17/11 video drove me nuts to listen too. Those workers needed to be wearing ear protection but that's just me. That said 220 mSv/h does not sound like much but it is. The conversion rate is
1 mSv = 100 mrem = 0.1 rem So, that's lol dare I say it =) 22,000 mrem or 22rem/h or 0.22 Sv/h times 24 hours in a day equals 5.28 Seivert/day.
Thank goodness for Quince the robot and his talented team. There is plenty of compton scattering going on what I find very very interesting is the rate is so much faster but the size of the neutron emmissions are smaller than what is occuring outside the buildings. To be honest as large as they have been at times outside I was afraid they were grouping that much larger inside. Their repulsive energy must be keeping them small inside? It does appear to be at the same rate as what is seen inside the vessel. So, that's interesting too. This week there have been some beautiful Aurora borealis captured on camera which are unusual in that no solar flares were known to be occuring and they suspect it is due to some cracks in the Earth's electromagnetic shield. It's possible these are occuring due to the same theory only generated by the radiation. They may just be an interesting phenomena to observe or they may grow. It's hard to know for certain. They have not flashed which was my main concern. So for know I have to say the video is alarming but it is not as bad as it could have been. So, hopefully before long the basements can be video taped and then we will really know where these reactors stand. One there is for certain. The most important way to make fuel assemblies earthquake safe for Japan in the future will be one to have them hang spring loaded and two do some laboratory testing on what happens to fuel that is shaken for five to ten minutes and tossed around until an assembly is created that can withstand the shock. It's great to have extra batteries and generators but if the fuel get's broken those won't make a difference anyway. It's preserving the correct configuration and getting the water out and noble gas in that is going to make nuclear safe. Looks like a top portion of the rods bounced out of the assemblies and broke into pieces out the top while the majority melted away and disappeared entirely in Unit4. Thicker cladding may also need to be engineered into fuel production as well. LOl, I have seen reactors with giant springs attached to the bottom of the pools and while this certainly will help. It is not the end game for sure. There are a lot of other concepts that need to be re-engineered. The good news is we have all come a long way since flint and steel to keep us warm but we still have some work to do in the small details.

Anonymous said...

Go away Brackett. Site admin is distressed to see your name. I can tell. No one reads your crap. Go away.

Anonymous said...

>Looks like a top portion of the rods bounced out of the assemblies and broke into pieces out the top while the majority melted away and disappeared entirely in Unit4.

Ms. Brackett, please don't spread baseless rumors here. Where did you "look"? Two videos of Reactor 4 SFP don't show anything like what you write.

Besides, how do you propose to videotape the basements? Do you even know that they are flooded with highly contaminated water?

It is very disheartening that after nearly one year since the accident people like you still pop up and be so ignorant and stupid and arrogant all at the same time. Not to mention your inability to use paragraphs.

Anonymous said...

Karen, how about I give you some pointers instead?

1) We don't need you to calculate elementary conversions for us.

2) We don't need your mostly erroneous analysis.

3) Stop making shit up.

4) Go back to when this disaster took place and start reading from the first article Arevamirpal wrote about it.

5) Just because you lasted almost a year at Nuclear Fuel Services before they canned your pathological ass, doesn't make you some kind of expert that needs to teach us anything.

6) Make use of paragraphs.

7) Most important of all. Fuck off.

Anonymous said...

Karen, how about I give you some pointers instead?

1) We don't need you to calculate elementary conversions for us.

2) We don't need your mostly erroneous analysis.

3) Stop making shit up.

4) Go back to when this disaster took place and start reading from the first article Arevamirpal wrote about it.

5) Just because you lasted almost a year at Nuclear Fuel Services before they canned your pathological ass, doesn't make you some kind of expert that needs to teach us anything.

6) Make use of paragraphs.

7) Most important of all. Fuck off.

Karen Sherry Brackett said...

You are right I found the pictures of underneath unit 4. That's good news. I have not had a lot of time to be on line today due to events and stormy weather. Does anyone know if the square concrete plate that blew off the side of unit 2 was ever replaced or covered up?
I have searched so far from March to June of 2011 and have not found photographic evidence of it's replacement.

Anonymous said...

Excuse me? "That's good news"?? You were spreading lies without even knowing anything. Geez...

"Square concrete plate"?? Oh boy. Don't you know that's called "blowout panel"?

Go away. Why do you still come here? Fukushima Diary or Enenews will welcome you with open arm.

Karen Sherry Brackett said...

"Geez" Someone's touchy :) No, I did not know that was called a "blowout panel" and even if I do know it. I certainly would not use that term for it. Anyway, I searched the archives and found no reference for it having been covered to date.

Here's the thing light can play tricks on your eyes and on a camera lens. Yesterday when I viewed the video I just assumed the entire time that I was seeing daylight come in from the opening. Just to make certain I had seen everything I took a second look today and it ocurred to me that I might be seeing something else but there is not enough data to know. What I do know at this point is that I suspect the sunlight is reflecting off the stainless panel around the tank and creating the illusion of a ball of light over the tank. That's what I am hoping for anyway. Otherwise, my fear that they were grouping is actually happening and I was just not prepared to see that yesterday.

At this point I would suggest that some one needs to observe whether it can be seen at night from the outside. In the meantime a simple canvas tarp or anything would be preferable to leaving it open to the environment. Obviously, and of course I know they know this but if light can be seen at night unit2 needs to be moved up to first priority.

This is kind of a catch 22. I don't want it be anything dangerous and at the same time it might be something remarkable. Hopefully, I am not just being a moth drawn to a flame. If it is what I think it may be, I want to name radiation structure, Jacob's Well. That will be a perfectly fitting name for it too. =)

Anonymous said...

It's called "blowout panel" whether you would use it or not. Industry standard.

Why don't you go away ASAP? You make me sick.

Anonymous said...

No, I did not know that was called a "blowout panel" and even if I do know it. I certainly would not use that term for it.

Not up on your nuke terminology, Karen? "Blowout Panel" is what everyone calls it in the nuke industry.

Anonymous said...

Just above the double image, is that not a nice size crack running along the concrete curb looking thing? I at first thought it was a pool of water, but after zooming in on the bigger photo, it looks like a nice size crack in the floor.

Post a Comment