September 20, 2011 4:47 PM text size: TT
Typhoon Roke Nears Japan on Track for Leaking Nuclear Plant
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(Updates flight information in seventh paragraph.)

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Typhoon Roke brought evacuation orders and fears of floods to Nagoya city in central Japan today as it approached the main island of Honshu on a course toward the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

More than 1 million people in Nagoya have been advised to evacuate because of Roke and almost 80,000 have been ordered to leave due to flood risk, said Katsuya Kobayashi in the city's disaster prevention center.

That's more than double the numbers for typhoon Talas earlier this month, which dumped record rainfall on southern Japan, causing mudslides and floods that killed 67 people and left 26 missing. Talas was the deadliest storm to hit Japan in seven years.

“The major difference between the two typhoons was Talas was slow-moving over the Kii peninsula, dumping rain in the same area, while Roke is fast moving,” Kenji Okada, a forecaster at the Japan Meteorological Agency, said. “Roke is bringing strong gusts and dumping rain in a wide region.”

The eye of Roke, categorized as “strong” by the agency, was about 928 kilometers (575 miles) southwest of Tokyo at 3 p.m. local time today. It was packing wind speeds of 144 kilometers per hour (89 miles), with gusts of 216 kilometers per hour.

The typhoon, moving northeast at 15 kilometers per hour, is forecast to take three days to pass over Japan and its storm warning area is due to cover most of the country in that time, according to the meteorological agency's website.

Japan Airlines Co. canceled 49 domestic flights today as of 6 p.m. because of the typhoon, according to the company's website.

Toyota Watching Storm

Toyota Motor Corp., Asia's largest automaker, has yet to decide on whether to operate its plants in Aichi prefecture tomorrow afternoon, spokesman Dion Corbett said today by telephone. Tomorrow's morning shift will go ahead as normal, he said. Nagoya city is in Aichi prefecture.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp. will keep plants in the region operating as normal, Mitsubishi spokesman Yuki Murata and Suzuki spokesman Shigeyuki Yamamura said today.

Roke, due in Fukushima prefecture in 48 hours, may hinder work to control leakage of water into the basements of the Dai- Ichi reactor buildings, which contained 102 million liters of radioactive water as of Sept. 13, according to Tokyo Electric estimates.

The storm may drop 150 millimeters of rain on Fukushima within 24 hours, likely in short, heavy downpours, Okada of the Japan Meteorological Agency said by phone today.

Basement Problem

Since July, much of Tokyo Electric's work in Fukushima has focused on decontaminating highly radiated cooling water that ran off into basements and trenches at the damaged reactors.

In addition, as much as 500 tons, or 500,000 liters, of underground water is leaking into Dai-Ichi buildings every day through cracks in walls and trenches, Tokyo Electric spokesman Hajime Motojuku said today.

The utility has been injecting water into Dai-Ichi's reactors since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, causing the worst nuclear accident in 25 years. Reactors need to be cooled below 100 degrees Celsius to shut down the plant.

Levels of contaminated water in Dai-Ichi basements have fallen more than 14 percent in the last month as Tepco speeded up water decontamination by adding a system supplied by Toshiba Corp. and Shaw Group Inc.

The company is in the process of installing a cover for the No. 1 reactor building and aims to put similar covers over units 3 and 4 next year after debris is cleared, Tokyo Electric spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said today. The tops of those three units were blown off by hydrogen explosions in March.

Still, the covers are unlikely to prevent rainwater from flowing into the basements, Iwamoto said.

--With assistance from Tsuyoshi Inajima and Miyuki Seguchi in Tokyo and Masatsugu Horie in Osaka. Editors: Peter Langan, Patrick Harrington
http://news.businessweek.co...GH85QRAI9AUOIERT87N2

I'm more concerned with the isotopes that get taken up into the food chain. Cesium and Strontium (especially) concentrate because animals use similar elements in their bodies. Plutonium is dense enough that it'll just contaminate the sea floor, so as long as you aren't shrimping you'll be fine. Fine. LOL. Honestly? Everything that comes off a fishing ship in Japan now needs to be run by a radiation detector. For that matter, so do all land-based food products.

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Groundwater Flowing Into Fukushima Nuclear Plant TOKYO (Kyodo)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday it suspects that 200 to 500 tons a day of groundwater might be flowing through pits and wall cracks into reactor and turbine buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tn...20110920D20JF261.htm

With thousands of gallons of water being pumped into the buildings every day, I would think the water would be flowing outwards into the ground. Either way, that equates into thousands of gallons that will end up somewhere.

quote Originally posted by carnut122: I guess Siemens doesn't don't know about how safe nuclear power is.

I think they're starting to realize that without the government subsidy gravy train and taxpayer funded waste disposal and liability exemption uranium fission power isn't a good...er...profitable bet in the long run.

I can't say it makes a whole lot of sense for a German company to make new nuclear reactors when the German government has stated that it won't be allowing any new ones to be built.

Now they did say they will keep on maintaining the existing reactors and making the money from that.

Not much of a news story there is it?

So Jazzman - you have some facts that the government is changing the liability limits of nuclear power plants and are going to now charge some increased amount for nuclear waste disposal? Or are these premises of your statement something that have no basis?

I may have missed this. Is the government going to raise the liability limits to a realistic limit? I'm not sure how the price of nuclear energy can reflect the cost of safely dealing with waste when there is no safe way yet, just theoretical ideas. But yes this has always been part of the cost, and should be reflected in the price. When it is finally included and builders have to address it, I don't see how any builder will be able to make a profit. I think when there is no profit, they might look somewhere else to invest.

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: I can't say it makes a whole lot of sense for a German company to make new nuclear reactors when the German government has stated that it won't be allowing any new ones to be built. Now they did say they will keep on maintaining the existing reactors and making the money from that. Not much of a news story there is it? So Jazzman - you have some facts that the government is changing the liability limits of nuclear power plants and are going to now charge some increased amount for nuclear waste disposal? Or are these premises of your statement something that have no basis?

They could help China, Iran, India, Pakistan and a variety of other countries build them. All they are doing is providing legacy support, which by contract they are probably required to do.

The way I see it, the best way to deal with it is to reprocess it into new fuel. Makes a whole lot more sense than to pelletize it and store it on a mountain the way I see it.

I haven't seen what the costs or safety of reprocessing are. That's what France is doing right? My nephew who actually is a rocket scientist suggested depositing it in a sub induction zone, but I couldn't find any reference to anyone actually proposing this when I googled it. Sounded good to me, although I don't know the techniques or costs that would be involved. At first look I thought just put it in a zone like that which is on the way to the center of the earth which is radioactive anyway. But my point was that there is no proven safe cost effective way that I know of. Only subsidized and theoretical systems as far as I know.

[This message has been edited by dratts (edited 09-21-2011).]

You could put it here
http://atlasobscura.com/place/oklo-reactor

quote Originally posted by dratts: I may have missed this. Is the government going to raise the liability limits to a realistic limit? I'm not sure how the price of nuclear energy can reflect the cost of safely dealing with waste when there is no safe way yet, just theoretical ideas. But yes this has always been part of the cost, and should be reflected in the price. When it is finally included and builders have to address it, I don't see how any builder will be able to make a profit. I think when there is no profit, they might look somewhere else to invest.

Maybe the Gov will do it and pay for it with taxes, thats how things that are not profitable are done these days it seems.

The nuclear industry is quite profitable despite what the greenies will try to tell you.

The nuclear industry has been paying into a fund to deal with nuclear wastes. There is an accumulated fund of $25 billion waiting for a disposal method to be approved by the government.

quote Generators and owners of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste were required to pay the costs of disposal of such radioactive materials. The waste program, which was expected to cost billions of dollars, would be funded through a fee paid by electric utilities on nuclear-generated electricity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...ear_Waste_Policy_Act

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: The nuclear industry is quite profitable despite what the greenies will try to tell you. The nuclear industry has been paying into a fund to deal with nuclear wastes. There is an accumulated fund of $25 billion waiting for a disposal method to be approved by the government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...ear_Waste_Policy_Act

If I read between the lines correctly, the government has spent the $25 billion already-kind of like the Social security Trust Fund? "In Obama's 2011 budget proposal released February 1, all funding for nuclear waste disposal was zeroed out for the next ten years and it proposed to dissolve the Office of Civilian Waste Management required by the NWPA. In late February 2010 multiple lawsuits were proposed and/or being filed in various federal courts across the country to contest the legality of Chu's direction to DOE to withdraw the license application." It's interesting that they want the disposal method to be fool-proof for a million years.

So in effect you are saying instead of the government subsidization the nuclear power industry's waste disposal, it is the nuclear power industry's waste disposal fund that is subsidizing our government?

Hmmmm

96 billion for yucca mountain and the last I heard there are problems with ground water entering the site. We still don't have anything more than theories on nuclear waste. The program was allowed to advance on the hope that something would be found to work before all the waste becomes critical. A little bit of a leap of faith it seems. Anyway there's where the money went and then some. Not to subsidize the government.

quote Originally posted by dratts: 96 billion for yucca mountain and the last I heard there are problems with ground water entering the site. We still don't have anything more than theories on nuclear waste. The program was allowed to advance on the hope that something would be found to work before all the waste becomes critical. A little bit of a leap of faith it seems. Anyway there's where the money went and then some. Not to subsidize the government.

Try again. 90 billion is the expected lifetime cost of the the storage facility. It has not been constructed, only studied. So no that is not where the money went.

quote For the first 10,000 years, the EPA would retain the 2001 final rule’s dose limit of 15 millirem per year. This is protection at the level of the most stringent radiation regulations in the U.S. today. From 10,000 to one million years, EPA established a dose limit of 100 millirem per year. EPA's rule requires the Department of Energy to show that Yucca Mountain can safely contain wastes, considering the effects of earthquakes, volcanic activity, climate change, and container corrosion, over one million years. The current analysis indicates that the repository will cause less than 1 mrem/year public dose through 1,000,000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...ear_waste_repository

quote The program was allowed to advance on the hope that something would be found to work before all the waste becomes critical.

You somehow think the nuclear wastes are going to become critical? Seriously?

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 09-22-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: I can't say it makes a whole lot of sense for a German company to make new nuclear reactors when the German government has stated that it won't be allowing any new ones to be built.

Siemens is a multinational corporation that hasn't been purely German in many, many years, if not decades. So your attempt to connect a "German" company with the decision by Germany's elected leadership to abandon the money-sucking black hole that is uranium fission is specious, at best, and ignorant at worst.

ig·no·rant   [ig-ner-uhnt]
adjective
1. lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man.
2. lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics.
3. uninformed; unaware.
4. due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement.

quote Siemens Chief Executive Officer Peter Loescher told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine “We’ve closed that chapter,” Loescher said, according to an interview with the German weekly. Siemens is responding to the “clear position taken by society and politics in Germany” in regard to a retreat from nuclear power, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/ne...omic-power-plug.html

I would say definition #2 applies to you the best in this situation JazzMan.

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 09-22-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: ig·no·rant   [ig-ner-uhnt] adjective 1. lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man. 2. lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics. 3. uninformed; unaware. 4. due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement. http://www.bloomberg.com/ne...omic-power-plug.html I would say definition #2 applies to you the best in this situation JazzMan.

I agree, I'm completely ignorant of quantum physics. I think... you can never be sure when dealing with quantums...

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: You somehow think the nuclear wastes are going to become critical? Seriously?

I didn't mean critical in the sense that it would begin fission, what I meant is that it would at some time become critical to deal with it. We can't just let it sit in pools at the reactor forever. The number I got on yucca mountain was from googling it. There are lots of references, and they were not just studies. There has been a crap load of work done there, not just studies. Look it up.

Nice little list of Nuclear power plant accidents in the US. Still not against nuclear power, but I am very much against corporate BS, Thorium reactors may be the future.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Power Plants
3 January 1961
The world's first nuclear-related fatalities occurred following a reactor explosion at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three technicians, were killed, with radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins. Another incident three weeks later (on 25 January) resulted in a release of radiation into the atmosphere.

24 July 1964
Robert Peabody, 37, died at the United Nuclear Corp. fuel facility in Charlestown, Rhode Island, when liquid uranium he was pouring went critical, starting a reaction that exposed him to a lethal dose of radiation.

19 November 1971
The water storage space at the Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River. Some was taken into the St. Paul water system.

March 1972
Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska submitted to the Congressional Record facts surrounding a routine check in a nuclear power plant which indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

27 July 1972
Two workers at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia were fatally scalded after a routine valve adjustment led to a steam release in a gap in a vent line. [See also 9 December 1986]

28 May 1974
The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation's 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

22 March 1975
A technician checking for air leaks with a lighted candle caused $100 million in damage when insulation caught fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama. The fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

28 March 1979
A major accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. At 4:00 a.m. a series of human and mechanical failures nearly triggered a nuclear disaster. By 8:00 a.m., after cooling water was lost and temperatures soared above 5,000 degrees, the top portion of the reactor's 150-ton core melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses, leading as many as 200,000 people to flee the region. Despite claims by the nuclear industry that "no one died at Three Mile Island," a study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

1981
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981, up from 3,804 mishaps and 104 serious events the previous year.

11 February 1981
An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.

July 1981
A flood of low-level radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement at Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 (in New York state) caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of low-level radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup. The discharge was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the sub-basement contamination was not. A report leaked to the press 8 years later resulted in a study which found that high levels of radiation persisted in the still flooded facility.

1982
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that 84,322 power plant workers were exposed to radiation in 1982, up from 82,183 the previous year.

25 January 1982
A steam generator pipe broke at the Rochester Gas & Electric Company's Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and small amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.

15-16 January 1983
Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.

25 February 1983
A catastrophe at the Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems to act properly. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before, and other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of "mildly" radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

9 December 1986
A feedwater pipe ruptured at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility. This was the second time that an incident at the Surry 2 unit resulted in fatal injuries due to scalding [see also 27 July 1972].

1988
It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987, down slightly from the 2,836 accidents reported in 1986, according to a report issued by the Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc.

28 May 1993
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a warning to the operators of 34 nuclear reactors around the country that the instruments used to measure levels of water in the reactor could give false readings during routine shutdowns and fail to detect important leaks. The problem was first bought to light by an engineer at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut who had been harassed for raising safety questions. The flawed instruments at boiling-water reactors designed by General Electric utilize pipes which were prone to being blocked by gas bubbles; a failure to detect falling water levels could have resulted, potentially leading to a meltdown.

15 February 2000
New York's Indian Point II power plant vented a small amount of radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initially reported that no radioactive material was released, but later changed their report to say that there was a leak, but not of a sufficient amount to threaten public safety.

6 March 2002
Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water. In April 2005 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining plant owner First Energy 5.4 million dollars for their failure to uncover the problem sooner (similar problems plaguing other plants were already known within the industry), and also proposed banning System Engineer Andrew Siemaszko from working in the industry for five years due to his falsifying reactor vessel logs. As of this writing the fine and suspension were under appeal.

November 2005
High tritium levels, the result of leaking pipes, were discovered to have contaminated groundwater immediately adjacent to the Braidwood Generating Station in Braceville, Illinois.

June 2011
An AP investigation revealed that three quarters of all nuclear plants in the U.S. were found to be leaking radioactive tritium. Over half the plants studied had concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard, and while none had reached public drinking supplies, leaks at three plants had contaminated the drinking wells of nearby homes.

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html

How about instead you look it up before you start posting things you don't know about.

quote Originally posted by dratts: I didn't mean critical in the sense that it would begin fission, what I meant is that it would at some time become critical to deal with it. We can't just let it sit in pools at the reactor forever. The number I got on yucca mountain was from googling it. There are lots of references, and they were not just studies. There has been a crap load of work done there, not just studies. Look it up.

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: How about instead you look it up before you start posting things you don't know about.

Nice tactics, marginalize anyone who dares disagree with you. He clarified his position, yet you still attack.

Yucca Mountain (TOTAL LIFETIME) cost estimate rises to $96 billion

06 August 2008
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has issued a revised total cost estimate for the planned national used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.


Yucca Mountain (Image: DOE) The latest estimate puts the cost of research, construction and operation of the geologic repository over a 150 year period - from when work started in 1983 through to the facility's expected closure and decommissioning in 2133 - at $96.2 billion (in 2007 dollars). This is a 67% increase on the previous published estimate in 2001 of $57.5 billion. Excluding inflation, the new estimate increased 38% to $79.3 billion.

The new estimated cost of $96.2 billion includes some $13.5 billion that has already spent on the project; $54.8 billion for the construction, operation and decommissioning of the repository; $19.5 billion for transportation of the used fuel; and, $8.4 billion for other program activities.

http://www.world-nuclear-ne...rticle.aspx?id=20196

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: I attack people who post crap. His 'fact' is still total bullshit. Saying 'you look it up' is not clarifying his position.. I don't post pure crap and then back it up whit 'you look it up'.

You claimed 90 billion, he claimed 96 billion. He was right on that one.
He claimed work outside of studies, was already done, you were right on that one.
You accused him of stating fuel would go critical, he stated he meant the fuel storage situation. Tie
So why are you attacking him again?

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: •To date, DOE has spent approximately $8 billion studying the site and constructing the exploratory tunnel. http://www.state.nv.us/nucw...1/pdf/nv110427ym.pdf

So there has been 8 billion spent, and another 96 billion to go except that it won't work. 25 billion set aside by the industry. I must be missing something here. It doesn't seem to me that 25 billion is going to come even close to the actual cost of dealing with it.

So google it and you will find out how the numbers really add up.

Yes the amount of money they had before Obama took it was enough.

Wait a minute! You're not one of those pro-nukers are you?

I am pro truth.

You apparently are pro slinging bs and expecting others to believe it.

So you are totally off on your statement of the cost to date. Even after I challanged you, you asserted the numbers were right. And they are not. Now you are looking to change the subject to labeling me so you can attempt to dismiss me.

I am pro truth. You are pro-????

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: So google it and you will find out how the numbers really add up. Yes the amount of money they had before Obama took it was enough.

Some of that money was our tax dollars. All of it if you want to consider the tax put on end users of nuclear power.
"The cost of the facility is being paid for by a combination of a tax on each kilowatt hour of nuclear power and by the taxpayers for disposal of weapons and naval nuclear waste. Based on the 2001 cost estimate, approximately 73 percent is funded from consumers of nuclear powered electricity and 27 percent by the taxpayers."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...ear_waste_repository

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 09-22-2011).]

The 25 billion that was from the nuclear power industry.

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: The 25 billion that was from the nuclear power industry.

25 billion of 96 billion? Sounds like they were paying a fair share. /sarcasm

You are really appear to be not too bright Dennis.

The projected LIFETIME cost was to be 96 billion by the last estimate

The project was NOT built. So paying any amount of money for a facility not being built is too much.

25 billion was the amount collected by the nuclear industry thus far. It is not the total amount of money that was projected to be collected by the nuclear industry.

As per your post - " approximately 73 percent is funded from consumers of nuclear powered electricity and 27 percent by the taxpayers" (for disposal of weapons nuclear wastes).

So comparing the $25 billion collected by the nuclear power industry to date to the projected cost of a facility that isn't being built is pretty meaningless.

So question Dennis. Are you really this stupid? Or are you just yanking my chain?