New video: No. 2 reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi

The APR YouTube channel now has a new video posted: TEPCO has released a video for the press showing a tour (of sorts) by a robot inside the No. 2 reactor building. See it here:

APR YouTube Channel

5:40 AM Eastern Saturday July 16, 2011
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

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TEPCO, Japanese Gov't: "Reactors Stabilized"

Developing 9:00 PM Eastern.

NHK in Japan now is reporting that Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese Government have announced in a joint statement that the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi are stabilized. This means that cooling water injection is controlled, that temperature of the reactors is in an acceptable range and can be controlled, and that nitrogen to prevent hydrogen burn or explosion is being injected to all three. This follows the preliminary indication on this site Saturday in which this announcement was essentially predicted.

By "Japanese Government" we assume the indication to be from NISA and/or NSC. None of the major sites so far associated with official sources (TEPCO, NISA, JAIF, JNTI) are carrying this announcement yet; we will look for these to appear soon.

9:20 PM Eastern July 15, 2011
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

UPDATE: Saturday July 16, 2011
NHK is reporting that the Japanese government and TEPCO will make an official statement on Tuesday concerning this information, to the effect already reported previously. Many more details then.

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Nuclear in Japan / USA / Around the world: July 15

We find ourselves today at a point both roughly four months after the Fukushima Daiichi Accident began and at which we find nuclear energy at a defining moment conceptually around the globe. It is not difficult to figure out where the battles are, or who is on which side.

In Japan, TEPCO and NISA continue to work steadily in bringing the Fukushima Daiichi plant situation under complete control. TEPCO's deadline of July 17 for various functions to be in operation or restored fast approaches, and we find today that TEPCO is indeed injecting nitrogen into all three pressure vessels wherein there are damaged reactors at the site; however, while the operation at No. 1 is optimal, dry well pressure showed a sharp 5 kPa drop on No. 2 plant after rising acceptably and with less than 24 hours of nitrogen injection having occurred at No. 3 plant the dry well pressure reading hasn't changed at all. It is indeed possible that there is damage at all three plants to the integrity of the dry well; it's virtually assured at No. 2 plant. However, the nitrogen injection accomplishment does meet the letter of the requirement - and readers of this blog know all too well the trouble TEPCO has encountered at each turn at each plant in all preparations for any actions. Thus, on the balance, the setbacks are annoyances and delays surely but not failures.

Similar shaded conditions of success seem to be the story with all other site functions at this time; while the goals of all the plans are being approached, with the accomplishments now in sight, the actual processes are proving riddled with delays and complications foreseen and unforeseen. Maintenance of temperature of the three damaged cores seems stable enough, as one example, but the injection rate to No. 1 plant keeps fluctuating causing TEPCO to increase injection to avoid any temperature rise. Similarly, the water decontamination / desalination plant continues to fail almost daily or every 36 hours.... but TEPCO has not, in the last 48, run out of cleaned water for reactor core injection even with the system going down. So goes the entire story of the activity at the plant site.

Meanwhile, the political debate begins to really light up in Japan for that country's energy policy future. The Genkai debacle, wherein employees of the owner-operator and its suppliers have now been found to have been 'stuffing the ballot boxes' as it were in a recent poll, has ignited further anti-nuclear furor in the country. (This problem was totally avoidable, the action by the utility completely unnecessary, and the position it puts the utilities in is completely defensive.) The Prime Minister recently said he'd like to see a totally non-nuclear Japan. However, amidst reports of rolling blackouts, requests for energy conservation, estimates of massive expenditure required to go "green-renewable" and major reductions in GDP due to the cuts and costs, first Cabinet Secretary Edano "clarified" Kan's remarks and then Kan restated his position, calling it somewhat of an idealized, and personal (i.e. non-governmental) position. Further reporting by NHK shows that Japan would muddle its Kyoto Protocol obligations and raise annual CO2 gas emission by 210 million tons were it to quickly go non-nuclear.

Somewhat on the flip side, four utility companies in Japan recently voted down shareholder attempts to ban nuclear from the companies' generating assets, and two reactors have been undergoing tests (very prolonged tests, that is) for four months or roughly thereabouts since the NISA inspection process has been stalled but are ready to go on line producing power as soon as certified.

Those reactors may or may not be subjected to shutdown in light of the recently adopted IAEA style "stress tests" that Naoto Kan announced the country would undertake, right after another minister loudly proclaimed everywhere that the plants that were shut down were safe and were ready to start back up after meeting quake and tsunami mitigation requirements newly stipulated. The muddled political position in Japan is quite in opposition to the position of its nuclear establishment but frankly is simply responsive to both public outcry and a desire to remain in office. Many had called for Kan to step down; now, he has taken a nebulously anti-nuclear (but not now) stance in some attempt to remain in power. His indecisiveness and willingness to confuse the public by adoption of further IAEA stress testing is the single most complicating factor in the regulatory / governmental response to the nuclear portion of the (much larger) natural disaster.

Elsewhere, such as Germany, the political response is not nebulous at all; it's "no more nuclear." This will have to be tempered a bit though as newly released details indicate that one or perhaps two nuclear plants will have to be restarted and put on line in the winter for two years until sufficient alternative electricity supply (solar, thermal, natural gas, coal, nuclear from France) can be obtained.

In the entire span of nations we find ourselves here in the United States in probably the best position -- that is, if you are pro-nuclear. For starters, Japan has announced that it will terminate all governmental talks with other nations about the export of nuclear technology. That means essentially no Japanese-built reactors in emerging nuclear energy nations. While this leaves the door wide open for South Korea, it's a prime opportunity for the US to attempt to get into this market.

A number of nuclear projects continue in this country essentially as before, and the Westinghouse AP1000 licensing process is still moving. Further good news is the Generation mPower project (TVA-B&W-Bechtel) that will bring nuclear power to the Clinch River site and prove out modular reactors here in the US.

Quite a bit more wide-ranging and vastly more impactful is the newly released 90-day report of the NRC task group on Fukushima Daiichi. While it is important to note that this document is essentially the 90-day update on the NRC's running dialogue on the implications (if any) that Fukushima Daiichi has on the wide range of US nuclear plants, and that the document is by no means directly indicative of what the final regulatory promulgation will be, it does give a fairly clear set of indications on a number of topics. I will not reproduce them here. Having read the document, and having been fortunate to listen live to the teleconference on Tuesday by NEI on the subject, I can offer my further personal observations:

-It is of interest that the panel did not go all the way toward some of the perceived causes of damage at Fukushima and produce at least some recommendations thereon. For example, the panel report indicates that the cause for the explosion damage at No. 4 plant is not known, but in point of fact, TEPCO, NISA and JAIF have all indicated at one time or another that it's probable that hydrogen leakage into No. 4 building through the common vent stack piping -- having originated in No. 3 plant -- is the most likely and probable source. Considering the panel's considerable attention to multi-plant sites with events occurring at multiple plants on site, this seems odd.

-The panel report is fairly more complicated than perhaps required, and more than can be taken in easily by the layman due to the panel's desire to qualify the recommendation for rule formation and legislation with wandering comparison to the history of the NRC's regulatory history, even back to the days of the AEC and the pursuit of the DBA as the ultimate accident. People in the know are already well aware that the DBA scenarios are unlikely but still designed out, and that complicated strings of events such as at TMI which combine equipment and people problems are the only way to defeat the design / operation and defense in depth. It seems likely that if the NRC wishes to keep its mission clear to the vast majority of people in the USA, it should produce something more clearly readable and linear so that the layman can understand the foundation of regulatory approach today. Not that there's a problem with the regulatory approach today, at least in terms of procedure -- unless we begin talking about making derogatory statements about reactor vendors in public instead of simply reviewing and licensing and regulating.

-As pointed out clearly by the NEI Chief Nuclear Officer the NRC improperly and self-deprecatingly makes reference to the body of regulative legislation in place today as "patchwork." This would perhaps not be so glaring except for the fact that the statement is made on the first page, in the fifth paragraph of the Executive Summary of the panel report.

-Immediately after this paragraph the panel makes perhaps the most important statement of the entire report, which I will reproduce below:

The current regulatory approach, and more importantly, the resultant plant capabilities allow the Task Force to conclude that a sequence of events like the Fukushima accident is unlikely to occur in the United States and some appropriate mitigation measures have been implemented, reducing the likelihood of core damage and radiological releases. Therefore, continued operation and continued licensing activities do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety.

Taking the first sentence in order is important- it finishes with the wrong part. This paragraph would have been better worded as such:

"Core damage and / or radiological releases of significance are highly unlikely at US nuclear plants. The panel finds that the current regulatory approach, and more importantly, the resulting plant capabilities (enhanced by some appropriate mitigation features) indicate that a sequence of events such as occurred at Fukushima Daiichi is unlikely to occur in the United States. Therefore, continued operation and continued licensing activities do not pose an imminent risk to public health or safety."

The above wording is clearer, is delivered to ensure that the first sentence does not end with 'scare words,' and less self-deprecating by a hair. And also completely, totally true. Having performed this exercise, though, I still wish to point out the CORRECTNESS of this information no matter which way it's worded - and this part of the NRC paper is that very part most UNlikely to get reprinted in the mainstream media.

-The NRC, owner-operators, and vendors should prepare themselves for a renewed multi-media onslaught against reliable hydrogen venting and also against Mk I pressure suppression containments by the press in general and by the anti-nuclear forces in particular, because these again receive serious attention in the panel report. This author has wondered before, and does so again now, if there will be a day when any sort of suppression / condenser containment is disallowed and high-volume dry containments are mandated. Surely this expensive feature would be a sound investment in the public eye; this author has spent an inordinate amount of time since the accident on this blog explaining suppression containments. One of the suppression containment videos has received enough hits on the APR YouTube channel that it was very quickly made eligible for revenue sharing, further pointing up the curiosity of a more-informed-by-the-day public on the actual design of plant features .. and helping underscore the assertion I make that an inordinate amount of commentary and e-mail has been devoted to this topic.

I could continue for hours on the coverage of this 92-page report, but many others have, and continue to and so for now will withhold. What is most important to understand about the report is the fact that it appears not to be too over-reaching or overly reactionary, which is encouraging.

So today, we find ourselves -- and that is 'ourselves' almost anywhere we are -- in some sort of transitionary mode vis a vis nuclear energy. The back and forth has begun in earnest on all sides in all countries with nuclear energy. We here know we cannot abandon it, and are preparing to license and build new-generation LWR plants in a deliberate, calm and safe fashion. We are avoiding the crash nuclearization seen in some nations and the crash denuclearization seen in others, and attendant potential and real problems. Although the late 60's appear to have been the halcyon days for nuclear energy both as business venture and technological endeavor, it is likely the next few years that will prove definitive in the overall history of nuclear fission energy on Earth. Frankly, it is a process I cannot wait to detail.

5:45 PM Eastern Friday July 15, 2011
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Nuclear Energy in Japan: July 15 brief update

-TEPCO has begun nitrogen injection into No. 3 plant's dry well at Fukushima Daiichi.

-The Japanese government is now reported as taking the position that it will suspend all talks with other nations about the export of Japanese-built nuclear plants. Japan had, as announced on this blog last year, begun a government-backed program to export nuclear energy technology.

-NHK is reporting that if Japan were to stop all nuclear energy, its production of CO2 gas would increase annually by 210 million tons.

-Naoto Kan now indicates that he did NOT mean to imply that a "nuclear free future" is an official government policy, but only a personal aim. This is a reversal from the implication of his original statement, which Cabinet Secretary Edano later clarified.

6:05 AM Eastern Friday July 15, 2011
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Nuclear Energy in Japan: July 13, 2011

Beginning with this entry, we will begin combining our regular Fukushima Daiichi updates with other nuclear energy news items from Japan. This will do two things: First, it will make it easier for our readers to locate posts concerning either the accident recovery at Fukushima Daiichi or the situation developing for the future of nuclear energy in Japan. Second, it will simplify and reduce overall posting on the site as the US nuclear industry and regulatory bodies begin to gear up for the two serious tasks ahead, which namely are the development/implementation of Fukushima-related safety measures and the design, licensing and construction of new nuclear plants in the US.

It is no understatement to say that nuclear energy worldwide is at a watershed moment, with the most serious nuclear accident in history being met with the sheer abandonment of nuclear energy in some countries, almost crash nuclearization in other countries (all of whom are unaffected) while at the same time the nuclear renaissance hangs in the balance here in the United States. For this reason, simplification of the many varied topics about to begin appearing (or reappearing) on this blog is for the best. Now, on to our topical material.
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FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI UPDATE: July 13, 2011

-Cooling injection to the reactors (No. 1, 2, 3) remains roughly as previously reported with units 1 and 2 receiving 3.5 m³/hr and unit 3 receiving 9 m³/hr. Temperatures are stable.

-Nitrogen injection continues at No. 1 and No. 2 plants, but pressure indication for the dry well at No. 2 plant has now dropped down to 15 kPa. TEPCO has flagged this reading as "under constant supervision," which is the tag that TEPCO uses to indicate that a reading is either suspected incorrect or else is correct and indicative of some other problem. Keeping in mind the suspected damage by hydrogen burn to the dry well / suppression chamber of No. 2 plant, it is of course easily possible that the nitrogen is leaking out at any uninspectable point. Preliminary connecting work for the nitrogen injection to No. 3 plant dry well has begun. TEPCO has five days to meet its own goal for nitrogen injection being in progress at all three reactors.

-As reported before, and frequently in Japanese media, the decontamination / desalination plant continues to have minor failures - which are then fixed, seeing the plant return to service. Total accumulation of extra amounts of contaminated water is minimal compared to previously since the system is operating more than it is not.

-Heavy work continues at No. 1 plant to install the reactor building enclosure. Parts of the base have been assembled preliminarily at Onahama for checkout:


Further, the giant construction crane to erect the structure at No. 1 plant is frequently visible on the FUKUICHI LIVE CAMERA:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index-j.html

-Surveys to determine radiation fields and exposure rates continue sporadically at No. 2 and No. 3 plants. A cursory review of the surveys and levels discovered reveals nothing surprising to this writer at this time in terms of fixed or solid contaminanation and radiation therefrom, but there is a high airborne level in No. 2 reactor building, some 65 times the limit set by NISA.

JAPAN'S NUCLEAR FUTURE

-While Kyodo News has reported that over 50 utility workers were involved in the e-mail campaign to POSSIBLY influence the public view on the restart of Genkai, NHK is now reporting the total to be over 100 workers. A Kyushu Electric internal investigation will be submitted to the Japanese government within one week. The mayor of Genkai has withdrawn his approval to restart the plant.

-Two reactors in Japan -- Hokkaido Electric's Tomari-3, and Kansai Electric's Ohi-1, have been operating at various power levels in testing modes for several months, much longer than normal, according to NHK. NISA and the operators are presently rapidly moving to get the final testing performed so that the plants can be brought on line.

-There are some vague initial reports that JAPCO's Tokai Daini station may have suffered some equipment damage in the Great East Japan Earthquake. There are reports of both primary (safety injection) and secondary (main turbine) damages possible caused by the quake. The reports are very preliminary; we will remain attentive for further developments at this site.

3:40 PM Eastern Wednesday July 13, 2011
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Fukushima Daiichi: Almost at a milestone

It would appear that a number of the most important priorities of the recovery effort at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are about to be achieved. Quite a number of these were developed and promulgated in TEPCO's elaborate 'road map' for recovery. Some of the most important things to an informed, outside observer are the following:

-Stable cooling of the reactor cores (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 plants)
-Prevention of further hydrogen explosions (all four plants)
-Stable cooling of the spent fuel pools (all four plants)
-Prevention of further spread of contamination in the ocean or ground water
-Prevention of further spread of airborne contamination

As to the first point, stable cooling of the reactor cores exists at this time. TEPCO has demonstrated its ability to fine tune the feed rate of cooling water to the reactors to control their temperatures. A great deal of work has gone into this effort, which has seen firefighting injection connection by fire trucks using seawater be replaced steadily at all three plants by fresh water injection using the normal feed system piping to the pressure vessels.

As to the second point, at this time TEPCO is preparing to commence nitrogen injection to the dry well of the last plant not already receiving nitrogen, namely No. 3 plant. Earlier attempts to reach the required location by use of a lift truck and robot proved daunting, so volunteer employees rode a lead-apron-draped scissors lift truck platform to the area and installed a fitting to allow nitrogen injection. As with the other plants TEPCO has received some specific instructions for reports from NISA which it is processing and will submit immediately. Once this is done and preparations made on site (which will not take long) nitrogen injection for the purpose of hydrogen gas inertion will begin at No. 3 plant completing the objective of the second point.

Third is the objective of achieving reliable cooling of the spent fuel pools. Operations in the last several days at No. 4 plant have seen the removal of rubble blocking a necessary system valve, operation of that valve, repair of some system piping and a preliminary filling test of the system. TEPCO is about to commence recirculating cooling of this spent fuel pool via heat exchangers located in the rad waste building. Item: It should be noted that the JAIF reports are indicating that TEPCO's analysis of spent fuel pool water show that MOST of the spent fuel at No. 2 and No. 4 plant spent fuel pools is UNDAMAGED.

The operations at the rad waste facility also point up item four, which is the prevention of spread of further contaminated water. TEPCO had accumulated over 120,000 tons of contaminated water on site from a number of sources, the worst of which was that derived from the feed and bleed cooling of the three damaged reactor plants. TEPCO has put immense and unprecedented effort into the establishment of a great deal of available storage space in the forms of on site buildings and tanks, tanks brought in by sea (the mega float) and many tanks brought in by land which have been joined with a complex decontamination / desalination plant built by a consortium of manufacturers (notably Kurion and AREVA.) The establishment of this network of cleanup system and tankage means that water on site is essentially now being recirculated, so that the previous constant worries of turbine building and pipe trench overflow so common over last two months are being alleviated.

Finally the fifth point mentioned above is the prevention of further aerial spread of contamination. TEPCO has practically been covering the entire site with anti-scattering agent which is quite visible on the various site buildings, and all over the grounds. More important perhaps is the fact that the reactor building enclosure work is now clearly producing tangible results, and the first building's enclosure is under construction at this time. Completion of these 'first round' enclosures at all four plants will prevent further spread of aerially dispersed contaminants, which is already very much lower than during the most serious phase of the accident.

It is no mistake to take the position that all of these things added together bring us to a fairly important place in the recovery effort where the worst challenges are now viewed as not only achievable but nearly achieved. For months now there have been so many constant but separate battles being fought on site and elsewhere to contain and control the massively complex accident site/scenario that at times it has seemed nearly impossible (and was advertised as completely impossible in the mainstream media.) It is clear now that all of this work has not only paid off but brought us to the brink of a turning point in the recovery at which we may say that the recovery effort is a success. Perhaps we will add all too hastily that this 'turning point' is, or will not be, a sharp curve but a broad swing slowly toward the final proper end direction in the recovery ... but the developments taken on the whole at this time are enough for this writer to finally say that we have reached a time where we may at least take a breath and a moment to reflect rather than take all our moments to scan the news wires and official sources for any further bad news, complications or hurdles.

There is very much work yet to be done, some of it dreadfully complicated and dangerous. This will be better detailed in the near future.

There are not sufficient words to express the true feelings for, and debt owed to, those men who have struggled heroically and tirelessly on site to bring us to this point. Many of them will continue at their work for many years, seeing the work though to complete decommissioning of the entire plant site.

Finally for now... We were hoping to have new large pictures of some of the work today, but TEPCO's press photos were uploaded very small in size and we will wait to see if proper hi-res photos are uploaded, or else if the press handouts have better illustrations before presenting them. If better photos are not issued we'll run with those available tomorrow afternoon.

9:40 PM Eastern Saturday July 9, 2011
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Fukushima Daiichi Bulletins

Four bulletins this morning; full details and more photos later today.

-TEPCO has repaired and tested the spent fuel pool cooling and filtering system setup at No. 4 plant and found it to be sound.

-TEPCO has sent personnel into No. 3 reactor building, instead of a robot, to prepare a connection to inject nitrogen to No. 3 plant's dry well. The photos appear to show a large snap-type Hansen (or Swagelok, etc) coupling.



-NHK is reporting that it has obtained a not too widely circulated time frame outline for the entire plant recovery that details core removal in ten years.

-Preliminary assembly of No. 1 reactor building's cover is underway at Onahama, and the large crane at Fukushima Daiichi is now frequently seen in the live camera view.

MANY more details and photos later today.

6:10 AM Eastern Saturday July 9, 2011
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