Japan: Temperature rises at Fukushima No.2 reactor

NHK ^ | 02/06/12

[TigerLikesRooster]

Temperature rises at Fukushima No.2 reactor

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the temperature in the No.2 reactor remains high despite the injection of additional water.

A thermometer at the bottom of the reactor showed 73.3 degrees Celsius on Monday morning. It was around 45 degrees on January 27th and 71.7 degrees at 4 PM on Sunday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company began injecting 10.6 tons of water per hour from around 1:30 AM on Monday. That's one ton more per hour than before.

The utility says 2 other thermometers placed at the bottom of the reactor have been giving readings of about 44 degrees.

It says the flow of water in the reactor may have changed after plumbing work, causing difficulties in cooling the nuclear fuel.

In December last year, the government and TEPCO declared the 3 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had been successfully put into a state of cold shutdown as their temperatures had fallen below 100 degrees. But the situation inside the reactors remains unknown.

TEPCO says the regulations set after the state of cold shutdown was achieved require the utility to keep temperatures inside the reactors below 80 degrees. So it says the No.2 reactor is still in the state of cold shutdown.

Monday, February 06, 2012 13:12 +0900 (JST)

[justa-hairyape]

When I first looked at the camera tonight, was after all this smoke or vapor had filled the air. Was assuming it was fog from the ocean. However, someone posted on a anti-nuke blog that they saw the initial expulsion of smoke/smog from reactor #4. So I then went to the archive and saw the initial releases from number 4. Now one would hope it was steam (vapor) and not smoke. Impossible to tell from that video. However, when the area around the reactors filled with smoke/steam, it was blowing out to the ocean. So there is no ocean fog rolling inland tonight. It is all coming from those reactors. And it looks like that smoke/smog is coming from more then one area.

Now if you can stomach it, check out this video from about an hour before #4 starts blowing smoke or steam. That beam or whatever it is, on the right area near the lower part of the stack, came out of the ground. The anti-nuke people are going ape-crap over this. I have no idea what came out of the ground over there earlier tonight. And it appears that the smoke/steam is coming from possibly multiple sources since it was rolling into the camera view from the far right.

2012-02-06 17:08 light rays connects to spot light @ tepco fukushima

That video is a little over 1 hour before #4 started blowing smoke/steam. And around the time that TEPCO decided to inject boric acid into #2. Also reports that other SFP are getting too warm #3 and #5.

[justa-hairyape]

My last post on this subject. Very busy right now.

In that short video above, note that at the end there is a bright flash. That is similar to the bright flash that was documented in the video archives back in early January when an unreported and rumored explosion occurred in #4. So it looks like #4 went boom again. Small explosion with a bright flash. You can see the sequence in the Tepco video linked below.

First there is an arclight (for lack of a better descriptive term) that appears at 14 sec (17:04:54 JST). It is located to the right of the far right stack between the far right crane. A small one. Then the big arclight comes out of the ground at 26 sec (17:09:02 JST). It is below and left of the bright light TEPCO uses to cover up the exotic radioactive gas bleed building. Then at 30 sec a bright lightning flash occurs that lights up the sky. That is probably when #4 went boom. Smoke or steam starts slowly filling the air at around 1:28 (17:29:43 JST).

2012.02.06 17:00-18:00 / ふくいちライブカメラ (Live Fukushima Nuclear Plant Cam)

Actually that now could be considered to be the best case scenario. The worse case would be that the exotic gas bleed building, which is connected underground to all the reactors, is getting overloaded with what is coming up out of those melted reactor core masses.

Just my 2 cents.

[bgill]

That is similar to the bright flash that was documented in the video archives back in early January when an unreported and rumored explosion occurred in #4. So it looks like #4 went boom again

Unreported and rumored by the powers that be but it's all there on tape. Just more cya.

What happens in 4 weeks?

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We are NOT supposed to ask questions like that! Don't you know Demi is in rehab! Didn't you see Madonna 'kill it' last night?

The Fukushima disaster may just be getting warmed up (pun intended). The Japanese government is lying about it, TEPCO is lying about this, and our own government is hugely silent. All that water is going right back into the Pacific. Now, please pass the remote because we need to change the channel.

[DainBramage]

2500 gallons and hour. A fire truck and pump 1500 a minute.

[justa-hairyape]

What happens in 4 weeks?

Personal changes for me. Not directly related to the Fukushima situation. Also hoping the new Persian War is delayed for another 4 weeks (gas prices).

Hey, its 2012 ! Lots of excitement.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Would you rather have a coal power plant next door?

Yes. That is such an easy answer.

[driftdiver]

Coal releases more toxins and radiation than the plant.

[TheOldLady]

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[gunsequalfreedom]

Oh I know. And just think of all the radiation the sun releases. I thonk those people in Japan are foolish not to move back into the radiation impact areas. If it wasnt for all the hysyetia about radioactive waste from nuclear reactors they could use the cooling water for other things and not waste it. We could have lower electricity too.

[driftdiver]

The dark ages really weren’t all that bad.

[ransomnote]

Me, I see it a bit differently. I don’t believe we have to choose between the dark ages and multiple nuclear melt-downs. I think there was plenty of good in between, before the nuke people developed their sense of entitlement - it’s like they have a theory of nuclear waste ‘manifest destiny’ and they just ‘get’ to dump it and melt it and spray it and burn it whenever they want to and we should just get used to it or we are whiners. Yeah...those were the days.........

[driftdiver]

I agree there is a lot of middle ground, which includes modernizing nuclear power plants.

[ransomnote]

Modernizing nuclear power plants will not address the management rot that I believe is ultimately more harmful than aging plants. Just my 2 cents.

[gunsequalfreedom]

The dark ages really weren’t all that bad.

Good one. Good come back. You got a chuckle out of me on that one. Of course, I was not advocating we go back to the dark ages.

Actually I share your faith that man through technology can improve his condition. Just not necessary to do that with nuclear power plants. We have alternatives that will keep us out of the dark ages and that don't run the risk that radiation will render large areas of our country uninhabitable for the next 100 years or so.

[driftdiver]

Yes there are problems. I think they can be overcome with oversight and innovation.

Its sadly ironic that the fight to eliminate nuclear energy has made the plants less safe and more likely for accidents. Its stifled innovation, prevented safety from being added to existing plants, force obsolete plants to continue operation, and prevented good people from entering the field.

[ransomnote]

Its sadly ironic that the fight to eliminate nuclear energy has made the plants less safe and more likely for accidents. Its stifled innovation, prevented safety from being added to existing plants, force obsolete plants to continue operation, and prevented good people from entering the field. ___________________________________________________________ Our areas of disagreement increase. Mismanagement early on alerted people to entrenched issues in the industry - had the NRC et. al behaved better from the start, they would have been given more responsibility, money, support. But this protected industry inspired no public confidence and so the brakes were applied to development. Increased innovation, safety retrofitting, and modernization would not have Japan from building the largest reactor in the world right on top of a seismic fault. From Wiki: "It is the largest nuclear generating station in the world by net electrical power rating. It was approximately 15 miles from the epicenter of the second strongest earthquake to ever occur at a nuclear plant, the Mw 6.6 July 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake. This shook the plant beyond design basis and initiated an extended shutdown for inspection, which indicated that greater earthquake-proofing was needed before operation could be resumed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Power_Plant I've seen people decry reactor design as the primary cause of Chernobyl but after researching it, I believe it was the same rotting management hubris that brought the plant down. Initially nuke supporters on FR blamed the lack of containment in Chernobyl for their disaster and confidently said that Fukushima would never have melt down/melt throughs because of the secondary containment and more modern design. The stakes, power, and protection from public oversight attract the worst in nuke industry management regardless of the nation or government that houses it. Sorry for the blob text - I am typing it into paragraphs and the preview feature is displaying this post as one giant blob...fingers crossed it resumes paragraphs after posting.