From: Jimenez, Manuel I {\ •
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2011 2:02 PM
To: Cartwright, William
Subject: FW: Japan’s Fukushima plant
Bill:
I am new at this thing so I am going to send you what I have – don’t know if this is applicable to your request Most if not all is publically available
manny
From: Boggi, Michael \ fxQ'(QL .
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 12:38 PM
To: Boggi, Michael; Clemons-Webb, Candace; Conatser, Richard; Franklin, Carmen; Garry, Steven; Jimenez, Manuel;
Keefe, Molly; Lapinsky, George; Martin, Kamishan; Pedersen, Roger; Barnes, Valerie; Fleger, Stephen; Lois, Erasmia;
Bongarra, James
Subject: Japan’s Fukushima plant
See below, my guess is a station blackout and other malfunctions/failures from the earthquake, possibly even something close to a design basis accident?
Mike
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 12 minutes ago
Key details
* U.S. Air Force delivers coolant to stricken nuclear plant
* Cooling system failed at Fukushima No. 1 plant after quake
* Fire reported at Onagawa nuclear facility
The United States has transported coolant to a Japanese nuclear plant hit by the massive Friday earthquake, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
“We just had our Air Force assets in Japan transport some really important coolant to one of the nuclear plants,” Clinton said at a meeting of the President’s Export Council.
“Japan is very reliant on nuclear power and they have very high engineering standards but one of their plants came under a lot of stress with the earthquake and didn’t have enough coolant,” Clinton said.
The move came after Japanese authorities evacuated thousands of residents from an area around the Fukushima reactor after damage caused by the powerful 8.9 quake that hit the Pacific Rim nation raised fears of a radiation leak. Officials, however, said there was no sign of leakage at present.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency said the order applied to about 3,000 people and followed a government emergency declaration at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant northeast of Tokyo after its cooling system failed after the quake.
Work begins
Work has begun on restoring the reactor’s cooling function, the Jiji news agency quoted the Trade Ministry as saying, while the Kyodo news agency quoted a Fukushima prefecture official as saying that water levels at the reactor were not at critical levels.
The plant, which is owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and is located in Onahama city, about 170 miles northeast of Tokyo, experienced a mechanical failure in the backup power generation system to supply water needed to cool the reactor. Nuclear reactor cores normally remain hot even after a shutdown.
Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, said there did not appear to be an imminent danger of a radiation leak.
“Even if fuel rods are exposed, it does not mean they would start melting right away,” she said. “Even if fuel rods melt and the pressure inside the reactor builds up, radiation would not leak as long as the reactor container functions well.”
But Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned that the situation could turn grave. “This is no laughing matter,” he said, referring to unconfirmed reports that one or more of the emergency diesel generators for the cooling system were not working.
Serious concern
He said there was serious concern in Japan whether the cooling of the core and removal of residual heat could be assured. “If that does not happen, if heat is not removed, there is a definite danger of a core melt … fuel will overheat, become damaged and melt down.”
TEPCO confirmed that water levels inside the reactors at the Fukushima plant were falling but it was working to maintain water levels to avert the exposure of nuclear fuel rods.
The company has been trying to restore power to its emergency power system so that it could add water inside the reactors, a TEPCO spokesman said.
“There is a falling trend (in water levels) but we have not confirmed an exposure of nuclear fuel rods,” a TEPCO spokesman said.
Emergency cooling
The four Japanese nuclear power plants closest to the epicenter of the quake were safely shut down, the United Nations atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Friday. Eleven nuclear reactors were automatically shut down in the quake-affected area, the government said.
In a statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said: “Parts of nuclear plants were automatically shut down but we haven’t confirmed any effects induced by radioactive materials outside the facilities.”
The quake struck just under 250 miles northeast of Tokyo, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was followed by more than a dozen aftershocks, one as strong as 7.1.
Reactors shut down due to the earthquake account for 18 percent of Japan’s nuclear power generating capacity.
Planned maintenance
Japan’s nuclear power sector produces about 30 percent of the country’s electricity and has been rocked periodically over the past decade by safety concerns. Many reactors are located in earthquake-prone zones such as northeastern Fukushima prefecture and Fukui prefecture on the Japanese coast.
Related articles
- March 15th, 2011 – Congressional Research Service – Fukushima Nuclear Crisis (enformable.com)
- April 01, 2011 – FYI on Unit 4 SFP new video footage (enformable.com)
- September 23, 2011 – Congressional Research Service – Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress (enformable.com)
- Important – Keep language professional, objective, avoid use of extreme opinion,careless hyperbole (enformable.com)
- March 31st, 2011 – More surprises…did not hear about this on the 10:00 call – US Military sending Marines specialized in nuclear emergencies to Fukushima Daiichi (enformable.com)
- TEPCO Claims Able To Remove Nuclear Fuel From Reactors Quicker Than Three Mile Island (enformable.com)
- April 2011 – Risk versus Concern – Public Health Messaging of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Incident (enformable.com)
- German nuclear professor: Fukushima like a mini atomic bomb? Warns against future nuclear explosion (enenews.com)
- Damaged Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 just had 204 “new” fuel rods inserted before quake + Scientists say another 9.0 megaquake may hit at year’s end = “Fukushima is still on the edge” (enenews.com)
- Japan faces many hurdles before government can safely declare Fukushima Reactors in Cold Shutdown (enformable.com)
- June 2011 – Fukushima Nuclear Complex Severe Accident Worker Dose Management (enformable.com)
- TEPCO to release interim report on Fukushima nuclear accident in November (enformable.com)
- April 1st, 2011 – Bet the Japanese wished they had used more of these… (enformable.com)
- March 29th, 2011 – Has TEPCO-NISA determined extent of damage to floors around spent fuel pool? (enformable.com)
- March 31st, 2011 – Six US Nuclear Power Plants under intensive review after Fukushima – Why these six? (enformable.com)
- March 30th, 2011 – Now that you’ve returned from Japan, would you meet with us? (enformable.com)
