(Updated with information of the depth of the frozen soil wall holes, which is 30 meters)
The water was drawn from the lower permeable layer 20-meter deep, according to Kyodo News (6/24/2014) from an observation hole newly dug in preparation for monitoring the frozen soil impermeable wall that is to surround the reactor/turbine buildings of Reactors 1-4.
Cesium and all-beta (that includes strontium) are below detection levels, but tritium in 4-digit Bq per liter is apparently not what TEPCO has expected (or so they claim).
TEPCO's handout for the press on 6/24/2014 is about the observation hole No.H25J7 between the Reactor 3 turbine building and the Reactor 4 turbine building, whose water sample taken on June 10 was found with 140 Bq/L of tritium:
However, the handout also shows the test results for the sample water drawn from the observation holes for future monitoring of the frozen soil impermeable wall (whose construction has just started around the corner of the Reactor 1 building), Fz-4, Fz-5, and Fz-8.
The water sample drawn from the frozen soil wall observation hole Fz-5 between the Reactor 1 turbine building and the Reactor 2 turbine building on June 4 was found with 4,700 Bq/L of tritium (in red rectangle below):
TEPCO's simplified cross-section drawing:
English labels are by me, but I don't pretend that I understand what they mean by "groundwater pressure for the lower impermeable layer" (green line in the diagram).
Kyodo News says this will likely delay the construction of the frozen soil impermeable wall because an added work of preventing the spread of contamination is necessary when drilling holes for the frozen soil wall. The holes for the frozen soil wall are to be 30-meter deep.
The construction of frozen soil wall is already a challenge of dodging the underground structures (trenches, pipes, and other facilities) that TEPCO doesn't quite know about. No one apparently knows what's underneath the surface, after 40-plus years of plant operation and continuous construction and maintenance of the site. I suppose that problem would be the same whether it is Kajima's frozen soil wall or more traditional wall of sheet piles, as proposed by Kajima's competitors. (Not that it is any consolation.)
But this is hardly a piece of news, hardly anyone cares, as Japan's politicians, mainstream media and alternative media and social media are abuzz and obssessed with "sexist heckling" by a fifty-something LDP male politician in Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly against a 35-year-old assemblywoman whose former life was a pin-up girl for men's magazine and a minor TV "talento (talent, or personality)".
30-Day free trial by following the link.
Tokyo Time
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24 comments:
Hi ex-skf, The green line shows the water pressure of the lower permeable layer. This is important because if the green line is higher than the blue line (the water pressure of the upper permeable layer) and you were to pierce the impermeable layer with, say, a monitoring well, then you would expect water to flow from the lower permeable layer (which is relatively uncontaminated) to the upper permeable layer (which is very contaminated). If the blue line is above the green line, you would expect the opposite. It seems here that the water pressure of the lower permeable layer was lower than they expected (i.e., below the blue line), so the lower permeable layer is now being contaminated by the water from the upper permeable layer in that location. This flow could be due to a damaged monitoring well or to damage done to the adjacent impermeable layer during the boring work, for example.
We can only assume the coriums are tritiating the groundwater. Due to the 4-digit figures it almost certainly indicates the coriums have left the containments, Totally, and are in the soil beneath the reactors.
Steaming fissures in the ground, yes, required.
Yosaku, thank you for the explanation. Much appreciated.
Anon at 12:40PM, tritium in thousands of Bq/L is not that contaminated. Level allowed for discharge in a functioning nuke plant (with BWR) is 60,000Bq/L.
What you're probably looking at is an artifact of the inverse square law where the water nearest the coriums is the most contaminated. Based on doubt there's much water actually "circulating" past the coriums themselves, that's probably what those 4-digit figures are, diffusion levels/inverse square.
Frankly, and no jibe, I could care less what the "allowed" tritium level is.
You couldn't pay me enough to drink a glass of 4-digit tritium water.
Anon above, a Japanese politician did that, for free.
4-Digit becquerel counts of tritium tell us nothing about the cores. Most likely the ground is getting saturated with contaminated water coming from all sources (water goes into pressure vessels, leaks out at various places, and picks up radionuclides from pressure vessels, molten fuel, suppression chambers, perhaps even from the floors of the buildings, etc...).
Actually, my guess would be that had the coriums actually ended up outside the buildings and were located in the soil and or groundwater, the radiation counts in Units 1, 2, and 3, would be far lower than what we see.
Anon@9:37
You ASSume that the coriander all behaved in a predictable orderly mannerl when molten. Clearly it was not so. The fuel coating the inside of the vent between R 1 & 2 (with resultant radiation levels of 25 SV) indicate that the fuel was a bubbling splattering mess. Tepco found raw fuel debris on site with similar monstrously high levels of radiation.
It's nowhere near as neat and tidy as you might wish for.
Oops, damn spell checker... Coria not coriander lol
I wasn't aware that Tepco had found "raw" fuel on site. Could you point to a non-hysteric site where this is discussed? I never mentioned it was either neat or tidy, only that if they were "totally in the soil" as mentioned by the poster @ 12:40, we would have lower levels of radiation than what we are seeing. But I thank you for the opportunity to engage in yet another pointless internet argument. (Rolls eyes exaggeratedly in an unmistakable gesture of incredulity.)
Anon @ 9:35, tritium levels in the groundwater is certainly telling you that the water is being tritiated. Doesn't seem to occur frequently other than near nuclear fuel so it's certainly speaking of some "relationship" to fuel in the area.
Anon @ 9:37, when these cores melt to molten they also volatilize and whatever the volatiles come in contact with receives "the gift".
Empty RPVs retain their extreme radiation levels LONG after being emptied of fuel and the majority of those RPVs did not have melted fuel in them at any time.
"non-hysteric", blah blah blah ...
Still no clue why they covered the ground around 3 with thick steel plates?
"rolls eyes", blah blah blah ...
You need a new job as Daily Checker of the Stack, or The 10 Foot Pole Technician
> You couldn't pay me enough to drink a glass of 4-digit tritium water.
I'd do that. I'd drink 4000 Bq/l tritiated water for $100, easily.
My body already contains 4000 Bq of K-40 and 1200 Bq of C-14, and their betas are MUCH more energetic than puny 18kEv betas from Tritium.
And since tritium doesn't bioaccumulate, drinking a few extra beers following few days would remove most of it real fast ;)
Small point, but I really wish people would "man up" and identify themselves in some way. With everyone taking the easy road of "Anonymous", it can be confusing to keep track of who says what. And, I am...
Curb your ambitions, Darth, you're encouraging the Beast ..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/oreillymedia/2011/10/03/the-rise-of-crime-sourcing/
"the man", (not sure if he's "up" or not), has arrived ..
Radioactivity and the Systematic Falsification of Nuclear Risk
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/radioactivity/
Nuclear Technology:
The Inappropriate Exercise of Human Intelligence
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/NTIEHItoc.html
Now that you've been "exercised", tribute is demanded ..
Lmao @ the pro-nuclear shills posting in here.
Anon @ 7:26 Absolute rubbish. In Australia, the standard for tritium in drinking water is 70,000 becquerels/liter. In Finland its 30,000bq. In Switzerland its 10,000. In Canada its 7,000. In Russia its 7700. But nothing on these boards surprises me anymore. When facts can be dismissed by simply labelling them as "pro-nuclear", then anything and everything becomes believable. Even the most hypochondriac person in the world (Fukushima Diary) becomes a credible source.
Anon @ 2:47 Obviously the tritiated water has come into contact with the cores or molten material at some point. I was never arguing that it didn't. I was arguing, as you surely know by now, and as I will say for the 3rd time now, that if the entire cores were out of the buildings in ground or ground water, the radiation levels would be lower than what we are seeing. But if you believe the fuel exploded and ended up in Europe, or even ended up on the ground outside the reactors, then you will believe anything.
2:53, As far as believing anything, the trench water near 2 at that high a level is not something I would have expected.
Vyse, how many times will we see Hormesis Man blowing his tin trumpet, yet refusing to document his increased vitality stats?
They take a simple buffoon's pleasure in being accepted into a surrogate mommy/daddy structure called the corporation.
Critical thinking left behind, they "perform".
Corium or actual core material/debris has nothing to do with the tritium.
During the NPP operation the tritium slowly builds up in the cooling water: it's mostly originated from the control rods interacting with the high neutron flux of the reactor.
No high neutron flux -> no new tritium.
The tritium observed is all from the migration of the primary coolant from before the accident, diluted to various levels.
Same for the Cs variants. As it is now it's safe to assume that the remaining core material has only a very limited amount of any water soluble elements. The main part of the initial inventory is already in the basement or torus waters. With these as the main source of any further contamination, the migration of the contamination is no longer indicating the actual state/position of the core material.
" .. core material/debris has nothing to do with the tritium. "
Really? And when tritium levels continue to rise we're to suppose that your "x-ray vision" of some sort has espied the original tritium reservoir, one that has survived 3+ years of dilution by flowing groundwater, and that because you simply Refuse to believe the water had been in contact with corium .. it has not been in contact?
After displaying prominently your Refusal, you somehow mysteriously Forget to explain increasing tritium levels.
And that, in your mind, presents yourself as "knowing"?
We see that affect a lot in those who chaperone the "developmentally disadvantaged" in public. Their role is to assist inclusion, and presumably that is your purpose, too, to assist the public in thinking about nuclear events in an unlikely manner.
After you perform your daily "duties", you sit back amongst your cohorts and tee-hee about how effective you were, yet again, today.
He explained that the rising tritium was from migration of water that had once been in contact with control rods.
While I admire the effort that goes into each and every single post of yours in ascribing a nefarious "pro-nuclear" agenda to those who hold different opinions from you, it does get a bit hard to wade through. Actually, its quite tedious.
You should admire it, for that will be the beginning of your personal transcendence from the murk of your trained mentation.
It really has nothing to do with ascribing a "pro-nuke" agenda, but rather identifying that your purpose Must be to quite & simply .. Confuse.
Some corporations evidently see value in spawning terato-children from themselves, and the best angle to perceive that from is a focus on what the corporation's Human Resources Dept. finds acceptable.
Assuming word gets back to a CEO, we can also assume the CEO sees value in spawning terato-children, and in that 2 birds are achieved: corporation as "fuk-device" with a mission, and HR as the instrument of "mediation".
We see a similar phenomena in nature: people of temperate climates have a sort of baseline to compare other species' behaviors against. The behavior of many insects will serve: how many insects have never seen the desirability of a little grace in relation to other forms of life, and directly view mammals as deserving of unrelenting harassment, presumably to satisfy some consensual quirks of their pissant moments?
In THAT you will find the regard for corporate terato-children.
In your offering of rising tritium levels Still attributable to 3+ years old reactor water, ditto.
For you I'm sure it funny, though, as your terato-buddies doubtless know the water TEPCO's been dumping is far more concentrated than they claim.
I, of course, will say that For You.
You made more sense when you were taking about the migration of coriander.
@ 2:56.
Son, trust in that we understand. You needed employment, you sited down upon a corporation that suggested it meant more than surrendering your identity for a paycheck. Your pride currently tells you it's best to toe the line. Ok.
We invite you to return to what the Christians call :"the Fold", what we call sanity.
You no longer need to adopt the corporation's viewpoint over your own.
Your "cry for help", every time you demonstrate the wrongness of presenting the corps.' view over your own, has been heard.
Return & repent of your ways, for the forgiveness of "the Lord" (yourself) is vast, and certainly encompasses yourself.
LOL
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