NHK Documentary; "Radioactive Water-Fukushima Daiichi's Hidden Crisis"

[JohnyCanuck]

It's mostly in English, and for the apparent gaps in the audio, notice the explanation below from the Youtube description:

Nearly 3 years have passed since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, but leaking radioactive water is an ongoing problem. The plant's operator believes the leaks are caused by damage to the containment vessel in Reactor 1. A special remote-controlled boat equipped with a camera captured images of tainted water flowing down a wall inside the vessel. On this program, we explore the causes and potential risks of this hidden crisis.

In order to avoid content ID copyright issues, I removed all background music which was inserted throughout the original broadcast. I have included captions in the portions where audio is eliminated. Nearly 50 percent of the video had background music and I didn't want another copyright strike. Nonetheless, there is important information in this video.
Please excuse any typos. I spent many hours editing this today

[Peace Patriot]

1. First, profound thanks to the workers at these sites who are risking their lives to try to...

...mitigate this horrible, man-made disaster!

Then...

WHAT HATH OUR PREDATORY CAPITALIST SYSTEM WROUGHT?!!!!

It is beyond words, beyond thought.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. EU funded study: "New insight on the spread of contamination from Fukushima"

A study on the transport of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima in the two months after the nuclear incident suggests that they were at official levels of contamination for 34,000 km^2 (approx 13,000 square miles) of Japan, and that 2.8% of iodine radionuclides from the event were calculated to have reached the EU.

The 2011 nuclear accident at Fukushima , Japan, caused the release of large amounts of radionuclides (unstable atoms that produce radioactive emissions) to the atmosphere. Caesium and iodine radionuclides can negatively affect human health through the contamination of air, water, soil and agricultural products.

The EU funded study1 modelled the global spread of radionuclides of caesium and iodine from Fukushima in the atmosphere and the deposition pattern s between March and May 2011 using the ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) general circulation model. It focused on radionuclides that were emitted as gases and used estimated emissions of radionuclides from the incident. The modelling accounted for processes that affect radionuclide concentrations, such as precipitation, particle sedimentation and radioactive decay. The prevailing winds after the incident transported most of the radionuclides in an easterly direction, away from Japan and over the Pacific Ocean where about 80% of the caesium was deposited. The rest was deposited mostly in Japan, while a small fraction (less than 1%) deposited in the Arctic.

The situation was different for iodine radionuclides, where meteorological conditions and convection promote more long distance transport. This is because iodine does not dissolve as easily as caesium so it remains in a gaseous form and is redistributed by convection to the troposphere (lowest part of atmosphere) where the wind speed is greater and transports the iodine greater distances. The model results suggest that 12.7% of iodine radionuclides were deposited over the USA and Canada, 4.5% over Russia and 2.8% over the EU. Approximately 50-60% was deposited locally in Japan.

The International Atomic Energy Agency defines ’’contamination’ as the presence of a radioactive substance in quantities more than 40 kilobecquerels (kBq - unit of radioactivity) per m^2. The study estimates that the land area affected by radioactivity from both types of radionuclides above this threshold is approximately 34,000 km^2 of Japan, inhabited by around 9.4 million people.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/310na3.pdf

[JohnyCanuck]

3. New TEPCO Report Shows Damage to Unit 3 Fuel Pool MUCH Worse Than That at Unit 4

http://vimeo.com/86536136

As the eyes of the world have been focused on the Unit 4’s removal of spent fuel, TEPCO released a report entitled, TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Roadmap, that contained some astounding information regarding Unit 3. Follow Fairewinds Energy’s Arnie Gundersen as he shows you the 35-ton refueling bridge that fell in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool during the Unit 3 detonation explosion. Do the math. The bottom line here is that TEPCO has just acknowledged that at least 50-tons of rubble has fallen on top of and into the spent fuel pool in Unit 3. What does this 50-ton pile of debris mean to the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and its cleanup?

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Tepco hid record level radiation data

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Record-high tainted water leak at Fukushima plant

Record-high tainted water leak at Fukushima plant

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says 100 tons of water containing record high levels of radioactive substances overflowed from a storage tank.

Tokyo Electric Power Company officials on Thursday said workers on patrol found the leak in one of the tanks located on the mountain side of the Number 4 reactor building late Wednesday night.

They said the leaked water contained an extraordinarily high 230-million becquerels per liter of beta-ray emitting substances, consisting mainly of strontium 90.

The level is about 7.6 million times the government's permissible standard for the nuclide level of water allowed to be released into the sea.

It is also the highest level of radioactive substances detected so far in the series of tank leaks at the site.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140220_22.html

Water leak may be due to workers' mistake

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the latest spill of radioactive water from a mountainside tank may have been caused by worker error.

About 100 tons of contaminated water spilled from a tank at the No. 4 reactor from Wednesday to Thursday. The escaped water flowed to the ground around the tank.

Tokyo Electric Power Company found the water contained 240 million becquerels per liter of beta-ray emitting substance, including strontium. That's the highest level ever detected in tainted water which leaked at the plant.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.htm

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