Scientists: 'Big One' Building Beneath Fukushima

[FourScore]

Wed Feb 15, 2012 at 12:28 PM PST
Scientists: 'Big One' Building Beneath Fukushima
by JoieauFollow

Last week the temperature in Fukushima Daiichi's #2 reactor vessel - as measured at the "0" position gage - began rising in an erratic manner. Over the weekend the gage shot over 80ºC, causing TEPCO to have to report that if the reading is accurate, the #2 reactor can no longer be considered to be in a state of "cold shutdown..."

SNIP

...Today the "0" level gage at unit-2 is still hovering around 250ºC, after having gone as high as 275.9ºC on Monday. TEPCO has been issuing reassuring statements that they 'think' the gage is broken because two other temperature gages in the vessel aren't reading that high, although at least one of them has behaved as irregularly as the "0" gage has. TEPCO employees at the site say they doubt the gage is actually broken, and have increased the water being added to the vessel as well as injected boron to help prevent criticality. Analysts have suggested that recent changes in the coolant flow due to changes made when the endoscopy was done may have affected the amount of water reaching the molten corium (wherever it may be), causing it to crack or shift, thus possibly going critical again for short periods to cause the temperature rise. Also over the weekend [Feb. 11 & 12] cesium levels measured around unit 2 jumped from single digits to 98.2 MBq/km2 for Cesium 134 and 139 MBq/km2 for Cesium 137.

SNIP

Some of us will recall the many reports during the fall of rising groundwater underneath the nuclear reservation, including boiling water and steam 'erupting' from the ground around units 1 and 2 through the extensive ground fissures and cracks that riddle the ground and widen with every 'aftershock' of the great earthquake that initiated the disaster nearly a year ago. In the last couple of days a new danger has reared its head with the release of a new study from the European Geosciences Union which issues the warning that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reservation is at increased risk of suffering a big earthquake epicentered essentially right underneath it, and that rising groundwater is an ominous sign that it could come very soon...

SNIP

...In the Iwaki area ~25 miles south of Fukushima Daiichi, where a magnitude 7 'aftershock' last April 11 occurred, Japan's seismic monitoring network recorded more than 24,000 tremors in the seven and a half months after March 11. There were a mere 1,300 quakes in the same area over the nine previous years. The research paper notes that Daiichi sits atop fractured crust with the same traits as Iwaki's, and that the fault under the plants can be weakened and "lubricated" by the same rising fluids. The conclusion of these geophysicist?

"Therefore, much attention should be paid to the FNPP (Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant) seismic safety in the near future..."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/15/1065089/-Scientists-Big-One-Building-Beneath-Fukushima?via=siderec

[spanone]

1. k&r...

[niyad]

2. k and r

[BeHereNow]

3. I'm starting to rethink the Mayan Calendar 2012 thing.

"a new study from the European Geosciences Union which issues the warning that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reservation is at increased risk of suffering a big earthquake epicentered essentially right underneath it, and that rising groundwater is an ominous sign that it could come very soon..."

Not good, not good at all.

BHN

[FourScore]

4. the Mayan calendar...

[snooper2]

8. Watch the Hitler channel they'll tell ya all about it

[Fawke Em]

11. Technically, the Mayans didn't say Dec. 21, 2012 was

the end of the world.

What they said was that it was the beginning of the Golden Age of Enlightenment.

2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation or apocalypse. Many interpret the completion of the thirteenth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Take that as you will, but I see signs of a "major change in world order." Sometimes I see those signs shifting to more enlightenment (Occupy, the Arab Spring, the Greeks protesting severe austerity), but sometimes I see those signs drifting into deep dispair (the GOP Clown Car, the war on women's reproductive systems, Andrew Breitbart).

This nuclear plant thing, though, this may be more of a sign of Man's absolute unwillingness to consider himself/herself one with nature and Mother Nature is about to give us all a great big smack down.

[Proles]

12. I hope so.

The whole world just feels like its getting a lot more complicated and tense, like people are fed up.

[GusFring]

5. if they know this, why not close the plant?

[NMDemDist2]

7. you're kidding right?

The plant has melted down already, they're just trying to figure out how to keep it from poisoning the planet at this point

[EOTE]

13. That's a great idea!

You need to tell every nuclear physicist you know right now!

[PCIntern]

21. DUzy!

Funny!!

[grahamhgreen]

6. Call Obama and tell him no nukes in my state (GA).

[Ron Green]

9. A little bit of Hell on Earth.

We're living in interesting times.

[hunter]

10. Or a thermocouple could have gone bad.

It's a sad thing to hate nuclear power so much that one desires further catastrophe.

Like it's not bad enough already?

[magical thyme]

14. would that explain the "cesium levels measured around unit 2 jumped from single digits to 98.2..."

"Also over the weekend cesium levels measured around unit 2 jumped from single digits to 98.2 MBq/km2 for Cesium 134 and 139 MBq/km2 for Cesium 137. "

And exactly where does the OP suggest that anybody "desires further catastrophe?"

[FourScore]

16. Way to dismiss what it ACTUALLY says. n/t

[SidDithers]

15. Link to the actual scientific paper here:

http://www.solid-earth.net/3/43/2012/se-3-43-2012.pdf

Had to go from here to Daily Kos, to the Wall Street Journal, to Solid Earth to get it.

Sid

[hunter]

17. Clearly you have it wrong, Sid.

If you read that paper carefully, you'll see that the molten reactor core is melting its way down into the earth and when it hits lava the whole mess is going to explode like Mount St. Helens.

Then EVERYONE will see how bad nuclear power is.

.

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.

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.

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One might hope I didn't need that that, but I'm not sure.

Joieau's post on Daily Kos is completely

[marions ghost]

18. yikes

seems like a good idea---

"much attention should be paid to the FNPP (Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant) seismic safety in the near future..."

[Hubert Flottz]

19. Fukushima Dai Ichi the Great Dragon, stands ready

to bite mankind where the sun don't shine?

And of all nations on the planet, you'd have thought that Japan would never have taken the chance and allowed this complex to have been built in such a dangerous location?

When the forces of greed overpower and overrule common sense, the end result is seldom something good.

[Taverner]

20. Until we develop safe fusion technology, we need to ditch nuke power

[hunter]

22. Safe cheap fusion power would be a catastrophe. Humans would eat the world.

I hope it doesn't happen until we are well past the age of materialism and our species has acquired a little wisdom.

Imagine a world covered by these things, powered by fusion:

wikipedia

The entire earth would soon be covered with suburbs and shopping malls, streets and highways, and big giant holes in the ground.

We would become the Borg.

[Taverner]

23. We're more like a virus than any other species in that regard

Actually any animal would reproduce to huge extremes if all resources were limitless...

We are going to have to go through the agony of a mass extinction to learn that capitalism is, at it's core, unsustainable, wasteful and inefficient.