[ RadSafe ] One More NEI update

[Jeff Terry]

EB UPDATE AS OF 2:15 P.M. EDT, TUESDAY, MARCH 15:
An explosion at Unit 2 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant earlier today has damaged the suppression chamber, which holds water and steam released from the reactor core. Personnel not directly supporting recovery efforts have been evacuated from the plant, with about 50 employees remaining, principally to restore cooling water in the reactors.

Later in the day, water level inside the Unit 2 reactor was measured at 1.7 meters below the top of the fuel rods, but it was rising as workers pumped sea water into the reactor, reports said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that an oil leak in a cooling water pump at Unit 4 was the cause of a fire that burned for approximately 140 minutes. The fire was not in the spent fuel pool, as reported by several media outlets. Unit 4 was in a 105-day-long maintenance outage at the time of the earthquake and there is no fuel in the reactor.

All four reactors at the Fukushima Daini power plant are shutdown and reactor coolant systems are keeping the reactors safe.
Residents have been evacuated from the area surrounding the facility and they have been given potassium iodide tablets as a preventive measure. The ingestion of the tablets can help prevent the accumulation of radioactive iodine in the thyroid.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent 11 experts to Tokyo to provide assistance requested by the Japanese government. Two reactor experts were dispatched Saturday; others began departing Monday.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today that nuclear energy is safe and important to the country's energy portfolio. Americans should have full confidence that the United States has rigorous safety regulations in place to ensure that our nuclear power is generated safely and responsibly.

In testimony before the House of Representatives, Chu said: Safety remains at the forefront of our effort to responsibly develop America's energy resources, and we will continue to incorporate best practices and lessons learned into that process. He said the country must rely on several energy sources, including nuclear.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement, I think undoubtedly they'll (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) be taking a fresh look at the safety precautions and provisions that are in place, in light of whatever is learned from the Japanese. I hope that the Commission will quickly reach some conclusions about whether the safety precautions and provisions that it has insisted on are adequate for the future.


Jeff Terry
Asst. Professor of Physics
Life Science Bldg Rm 166
Illinois Institute of Technology
3101 S. Dearborn St. 
Chicago IL 60616
630-252-9708
terryj at iit.edu




On Mar 15, 2011, at 5:06 PM, Jeff Terry wrote:

> Sorry, lost the links here they are:
> 
> http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300168169P.pdf
> 
> http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300166591P.pdf
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/4qfm6nc
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/4s8mrul
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/48konl8
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> On Mar 15, 2011, at 4:58 PM, Jeff Terry wrote:
> 
>>> On the JAIF website, there is a complete summary PDF that includes status updates of all units at the Fukushima plant. 
>> 
> 
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