Video and Status of Activities at Fukushima-Daiichi

Video and Status of Activities at Fukushima-Daiichi – 5/17

TEPCO has a number of links and updates available showing the activities going on at Fukushima-Daiichi. Below is a 13 minute video provided by the company and uploaded to YouTube by Daniel Garcia who we mentioned last month.

There are quite a few good scenes of the work being done as well as the work still yet to be done. One of the more interesting parts was at about the 11th minute where you can see the workers busy changing shifts in their suits.

On top of the video, TEPCO has a simple 19 page pdf with pictures describing all of the countermeasures being taken to resolve the issues. Pages 1-5 describe the actions needed to cool units 1-3; pages 6-8 discuss actions being taken on unit four’s spent fuel pool; and the rest of the pages discuss mitigation steps to decontaminate and monitor the environment, plans for the installation of a temporary tide barrier in case of other tsunamis, and radiation monitoring data. Many of the pictures in the pdf and video above can be found here.

Also worth noting is that TEPCO has begun work on clearing space to install a temporary cover for unit 1. Installation is planned to begin in June.

And last to note, it’s been more than a month since we mentioned Daniel Garcia’s daily chart updates at his blog. Pasted below is one of his latest charts showing the revised water level for unit 1 after TEPCO fixed their monitoring gauge. Similar water levels for units 2 and 3 have not been ruled out yet.

Anyways, lots of info above to explore so have at it. Hat tip to Dan Yurman twittering at ANS for the links.

Comments

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog