from the from-bad-to-worse-to-even-worsterer dept.
Water leaks indicate new damage at Fukushima nuclear plant:
Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage, its operator said Friday.
New damage could further complicate the plant's already difficult decommissioning process, which is expected to take decades.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Keisuke Matsuo said the drop in water levels in the Unit 1 and 3 reactors indicates that the existing damage to their primary containment chambers was worsened by Saturday's magnitude 7.3 quake, allowing more water to leak.
The leaked water is believed to have remained inside the reactor buildings and there is no sign of any outside impact, he said.
[...] Increased leakage could require more cooling water to be pumped into the reactors, which would result in more contaminated water that is treated and stored in huge tanks at the plant. TEPCO says its storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full next summer. A government panel's recommendation that it be gradually released into the sea has faced fierce opposition from local residents and a decision is still pending.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo High Court on Friday held the government as well as TEPCO accountable for the 2011 nuclear disaster, ordering both to pay about 280 million yen ($2.6 million) in compensation to more than 40 plaintiffs forced to evacuate to Chiba, near Tokyo, for their lost livelihoods and homes.
NOTE: Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami occurred on Friday, 11 March 2011
Historical information about the disaster is available on Wikipedia.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 26 2021, @12:46AM (4 children)
Want to know why? Because the Jews saw that the most profitable way forward was to ally with China, and Japan with the USA were not friendly to China. So the Jews, wanting to curry favor with China, detonated an undersea nuke [americanfreepress.net], which led to the Fukushima disaster.
"No way," you all say, as you dismiss it as a conspiracy theory. Well, the Jews have this thing called "Chutzpah," and along with that their disdain for Goyim and their willingness to do anything for a few pennies' profit. Alliances mean nothing to them, they follow the money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @02:14AM (1 child)
The Jews want to curry favor with India, you culinarily insensitive clod.
(Score: 3, Funny) by khallow on Friday February 26 2021, @02:41AM
FTFY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @05:48AM (1 child)
what is it with you and the jews dude
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:18PM
He's a Hitler wannabe. He's scared that an immigrant is going to take his job or maybe even take his spot at the McDonald's drive-through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @12:55AM
A leak in Tokyo
Yakuza Teriyaki
The Toxicity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @01:00AM
Japanese fishes are now 5-100 times more radio-active than before the recent earthquake.
Hurry up, get in line, buy your "made in Japan" fish to gain your superpower.
If you call now, you get panties worn by genuine Japanese school girls, absolutely free (just pay a separate fee).
Call now.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @01:44AM (6 children)
You’ve got more than a million tons of water sitting around, at ambient temperature, much of it with reduced radiation levels. Just use it as coolant. Better than contaminating new water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @02:00AM (4 children)
I was about to post this. If the water is already contaminated, just run it through again. Is there any upper limit on the number of times they could use the same water to cool the plant?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @02:18AM (2 children)
If we've learned anything from the Godzilla documentary series, it's that the upper limit on the number of times they could use the same water to cool the plant is one less than the number of times they actually use the same water to cool the plant.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday February 26 2021, @02:47AM
Quick, alert Blue Öyster Cult!
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 26 2021, @03:37AM
How is Godzilla supposed to play into this if they don't release the radioactive water into the sea?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @04:57AM
There is an upper limit, but most of the water is going to be nowhere close to it. But there are problems with making the water too radioactive, it is more dangerous it is and dangerous for longer. All the meantime you have to store it safely. So I think their engineering calculation is that they are better off with more slightly contaminated water than less really contaminated water. That way, it is safer in case of an accident and if they do get approval to release what they have, they will have the ability to slowly cycle through the contaminated water.
And that may actually be the biggest danger of not approving the gradual release of the water they do have. They may just say "screw this" and contaminate the water to the limit and just wait for the next disaster.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday February 26 2021, @06:21AM
I was wondering about that myself. It's not like there's a risk of contaminating the core with radioactive water...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @07:16AM
...that's the only way to be sure.... Oh, wait
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday February 26 2021, @10:15AM
What the article did not mention is that seismic sensors at the plant were broken, so they didn't even register an earthquake, and it was easy for them to at first say "oh, nothing was damaged", although it should've been friggin' obvious that a magnitude 7+ quake would cause some harm to all the makeshift contraptions there:
https://soranews24.com/2021/02/23/tokyo-electric-power-company-admits-it-knew-earthquake-sensors-were-broken-at-fukushima-power-plant/ [soranews24.com]
(This mentions sensors at Unit 3, however, it is not clear if those were the only ones)
Also, I'd like to see an animation of the map at https://jciv.iidj.net/map/ [iidj.net] over time. (What I think was) the original fallout trail across the northern part of the Futaba district persists, but the entire south-east of the Fukushima prefrecture seems to become increasingly radioactive, with about all readings >50nSv/h, while slightly south in the Ibaraki and Togichi prefectures, readings stay around the same values as in the remaining country.