[ RadSafe ] NEI Update 3-19-11

[Jeff Terry]

Some Good News:

UPDATE AS OF 8 P.M. EDT, SATURDAY, MARCH 19:
Powered by an emergency diesel generator, pumps are circulating cooling water in the spent fuel pools of reactors 5 and 6 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to reports. The company also added water to the used fuel pool at reactor 3 after elite firefighters from Tokyo spent 13 hours operating a high-pressure spray truck that pumped seawater into the pool.

The company and response workers were planning to spray water into the used fuel pool at reactor 4 on Sunday.

Electric power lines are connected to reactors 1 and 2, and engineers expected to bring power to the remaining reactors on Sunday, according to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum. “We do not know if the water pumps [at Fukushima Daiichi] have been damaged and if they will work when power is restored,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported that holes have been drilled into the ceilings of the buildings that house reactors 5 and 6 to prevent the buildup of hydrogen in the buildings.

Fukushima Daini
All four reactors at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant have reached cold shutdown conditions with normal cooling.


UPDATE AS OF 2 P.M. EDT, SATURDAY, MARCH 19:
Radiation doses at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continue to decrease. Radiation dose rates at the site boundary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant ranged from 1 millirem to 3 millirem per hour on March 18. Eighteen locations were monitored in a 30-kilometer to 60-kilometer radius of the plant. The highest radiation dose rate at any of those locations was 14 millirem per hour.



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