Monday, June 19, 2017

Fukushima Daiichi June 20, 2017


(Japan time zone)

Fukushima Daiichi has been looking steamy again the last week or so. Prior to the recent resurgence in "steaminess," visible atmospheric emissions had appeared low.


The uptick in visible emissions I've seen could simply be a function of changing summer weather. I've not rule out that possibility yet.

I'm going to watch the cams this week to see if TEPCO pursues injections. Usually TEPCO's injections (Water? Nitrogen?) occur when atmospheric emissions rise. The injections, which I've documented at my blog (e.g., see here), lead to lower visible emissions.





Of course, the real drama is the ongoing contamination of the ground water and ocean, which are not visible on the cams.

TEPCO says the company is going to begin removing melted fuel from the wrecked reactors 1-3 after the Tokyo Olympics, BUT first must establish the location and conditions of melted reactor fuel.

TEPCO has struggled to find electronic robots capable of navigating the mangled wrecks and high radioactivity of the damaged reactor buildings, in order to determine the location and conditions of remaining reactor fuel.

[Very little is said about the remaining spent fuel allegedly residing intact in spent fuel pools 1-4.]

The Asahi Shimbun recently reported that Toshiba helped TEPCO develop its third robot prototype to navigate the wrecked, radioactive internal terrain of the reactor buildings.

TEPCO plans on deploying the latest robot probe into unit 3. Unit 3 was the reactor that had the explosion that resembled an atomic explosion in shape and size. Reactor 3 remains the major source of visible heat emissions and "sparks" that are visible on the TEPCO webcams.

Here is some background on the latest probe:
Associated Press (2017, June 15). Swimming robot to probe damage at Fukushima nuclear plant. The Asahi Shimbun, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706150057.html

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Prefecture--A Japanese industrial group unveiled Thursday a swimming robot designed for underwater probes.... The developers say they plan to send the probe into the primary containment vessel of reactor No. 3 at Fukushima in July to study the extent of damage and locate parts of melted fuel thought to have fallen to the bottom of the chamber, submerged by highly radioactive water.

… Officials hope the probe can swim deep into the reactor to illuminate the area underneath the reactor's core....
 
Earlier, snake and scorpion-shaped robots became stuck inside two reactors. The scorpion robot's crawling function failed and it was left inside the plant's reactor No. 2 containment vessel. The other, designed for cleaning debris for the "scorpion" probe, was called back after two hours when two of its cameras stopped working after its total radiation exposure reached 1,000 sieverts--a level that would kill a human within seconds. The plan had been to use the robot for 10 hours at an exposure level of 100 sieverts per hour.

 
 

2 comments:

  1. Dear Majia,
    I have been watching the Fuku cameras daily, as well as checking in on your blog, (so thankful for your work, Majia) and on 6/09 @1442 13 saw dirty pinkish green clouds over TEPCO unit #4

    On 6/19 2:46:64 on futaba cam very bright lights on the fuku horizon extending high in the sky. (rather early, don't ya think for so much light?)

    6/19 @ 3:58:30 on Tepco cam unit4 very full of emissions from ground up with lots of bouncing electrical charges.
    Unit 1 showed lots of smoke on left and at 7:02 pink clouds over the horizon at the futaba cam.
    Sorry, I am unable to send these screenshots accept to email. Will do if requested. Something going on there more than just one day.

    Bless you, Majia,
    Kagan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment Kagan. I looked back at my screenshots from 6/9 and found that I have screenshots from the evening of 6/8 up until midnight. The plant did look bad that night with lots of purple-looking distortion.

      I read that TEPCO is planning on incinerating debris at Daiichi (as if they've not been doing that all along) so I wonder whether that might explain what you observed. In the past, its looked as if fires have been behind the buildings, towards the ocean.

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.