[Column] 4 reasons why we must be worried about reactor4 “other than earthquake”

Now the biggest risk of Japan is reactor4.

However, we are only supposed to be worried about an “earthquake” to seriously damage the SFP of reactor4. Is this true ? No, it is not enough. We are missing 4 important facts.

1. It’s already deteriorating.

About one hour ago, Fukushima Diary reported the coolant system of SFP4 was stopped from 12/8 to 12/11. [Link] It is not known if the M7.4 of 12/7 affected.

Because of the warning, Tepco reinforced SFP4 by building a concrete base to support from the bottom of the pool.

However, if Mr. Murata is all correct, the concrete base is deteriorating, and the damage is on-going somewhere we can’t see. In that case, that would be really difficult to replace the concrete base anymore and all we could do is just to see it become unable to support the pool horizontally.

2. Ground is weakened.

According to Tepco’s survey map released on 12/11/2012 [Link], Tepco is still constructing on the east side of the reactor4 for ground improvement and land development. I was a civil engineer when I was in Japan. Whether it’s to build some additional facility or not, it means the ground was weakened that they must improve it. Weakened ground can cause further uneven settlement for unexpectedly small earthquake to tilt the reactor4 building.

3. Tepco’s plant parameter is a lie.

I was shocked at the news above because I thought I knew the state of the pool to an extent.

I check the plant parameters twice a day. According to the data, the temperature decreased from 12/1 to 12/11 by 2℃ and there was no significant change in the water level.

The accident proved the plant parameter means nothing. Also, none of the massmedia reported it knowing what was going on.

In case SFP4 falls down, we would know it after everything becomes too late.

4. It’s more vulnerable for Tsunami than before 311.

On 5/29/2012, Fukushima Diary reported reactor4 still remains frail for Tsunami. [Link] The Fukushima worker Happy11311 comments, “Tsunami guard remains the temporary state as well.”

Tepco published the report titled “Lessons learnt from the 311 earthquake and measures” on 10/12/2012.[Link] In this report, they mention the tsunami guard but it’s about Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant, not Fukushima plant.

In 311, Tepco lost all the power panels and emergency diesel generators because of Tsunami and coolant system was turned off.

Tepco states now SFP4 can resist an earthquake up to scale 6+, but that size of an earthquake will cause as large tsunami as 311 for 100%. This means they can resist the seismic shock to the pool but they’d have station/plant blackout again due to tsunami to come after the earthquake and tsunami might damage the crippled reactor building. They might say they can recover the power immediately, but tsunami keeps coming several times with continuous aftershocks. Roads will sink under the water.

Now SFP of reactor4 might be secure for earthquake, but it’s even more vulnerable for tsunami than before 311.

 

 

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Français :

[Édito] 4 raisons de s’inquiéter du réacteur 4, “outre le séisme”

A présent le plus grand risque au Japon est le réacteur 4.

Toutefois, nous sommes supposés nous soucier seulement d’un possible “séisme” endommageant la SFP4. Est-ce vrai ? Non, il y a plus. Nous manquons 4 faits importants.

1. Ça se dégrade toujours.

Il y a à peu près une heure, le Fukushima Diary a rapporté que le système de refroidissement de la SFP4 a été arrêté du 8 au 11 décembre. [Lien] On ne sait pas si le M7,4 du 7 décembre y est pour quelque chose.

A cause de l’alerte, Tepco a renforcé la SFP4 en montant une base en béton pour soutenir le fond de la piscine.

Néanmoins, si ce qu’affirme M. Murata est correct, cette base en béton se détériore et il y a des dégâts en cours là où on ne peut les voir. Dans ce cas, il sera vraiment difficile de remplacer la base en béton et tout ce qu’on pourra faire sera de regarder si ça devient incapable de soutenir horizontalement la piscine.

2. Le sol est affaibli.

Selon la carte d’exploration de Tepco publiée le 11 décembre 2012 [Lien], Tepco est toujours en train de construire sur le coté Est du réacteur 4 pour en maintenir le sol. J’étais ingénieur en génie civil quand j’étais au Japon. Que ce soit pour construire quelque équipement supplémentaire ou non, ça signifie que le sol est affaibli au point qu’ils doivent le stabiliser. Les sols affaiblis peuvent induire des irrégularités dans les fondations après de petits séismes et ça peut amener tout le bâtiment du réacteur 4 à s’incliner.

3. Les paramètres-centrale de Tepco sont des mensonges.

J’ai été choqué par les nouvelles précédentes parce que je pensais que je connaissais à peu près l’état réel de la piscine .

Je vérifie les paramètres de la centrale deux fois par jour. Selon les données, la température a diminué de 2℃
entre le 1 et le 11 décembre et il n’y a pas eu de changement significatif du niveau de l’eau.
L’accident a prouvé que les paramètres de la centrale n’ont aucune signification réelle. De plus aucun des grands de la presse n’en a parlé tout en sachant que ça avait lieu.

Si la SFP4 s’effondre, nous ne le sauront que lorsqu’il sera trop tard.

4. Elle est plus vulnérable aux tsunami qu’avant le 11-3.

Le 29 mai 2012, le Fukushima Diary avait rapporté que le réacteur 4 était toujours fragile face aux tsunamis. [Lien] Le travailleur de Fukushima, Happy11311, disait “La protection contre les tsunami reste aussi en état provisoire.”

Tepco a publié le 12 octobre 2012 un rapport intitulé “Leçons apprises du séisme du 11-3 et mesures”.[Lien] Dans ce rapport, ils mentionnent la défense anti-tsunami mais c’est à propos de la centrale de Kashiwazaki Kariwa, pas la centrale de Fukushima.

Le 11-3, Tepco avait perdu tous les tableaux électriques et tous les générateurs diesel de secours à cause du tsunami et le système de refroidissement s’est arrêté.

Tepco affirme maintenant que la SFP4 peut résister à un séisme de classe 6+ mais ce genre de séisme provoque à 100 % un tsunami aussi grand que celui du 11-3. Ça signifie qu’ils peuvent résister au choc sismique sur la piscine mais il devrait y avoir encore un black out de la centrale à cause du tsunami qui suit le séisme et ce tsunami peut endommager le bâtiment déjà dévasté du réacteur. Ils pourraient dire qu’ils peuvent rétablir le courant immédiatement mais un tsunami revient en plusieurs vagues dans des répliques continuelles. Les voies seront noyées sous l’eau.

A présent, la SFP du réacteur 4 est peut-être protégée contre un séisme mais elle reste bien plus sensible à un tsunami qu’avant le 11-3.

  1. And this is ONE of many reasons why we must ALL OF US help support Mochizuki-san. If you haven’t sent him a Christmas present yet, be sure to send him some holiday cash.

  2. Another concern: I’ve read that there is actually a drain at the bottom of the pool. It is fitted with a rubber flange/stopper with a thin steel collar; how thin, I don’t know. If the flange is twisted, or pushed out of alignment, the pool can drain.

    My biggest concern: Not that SFP4 is knocked over, and the fuel all falls to the ground. No, I think it would be much worse, and perhaps more likely, if the pool were to crack, to form a leak that would drain faster than water can be pumped in from the cement pumps. This way, all the fuel would remain in place and all melt down together, in one huge molten mass. The surface of the mass would vaporize, sending much more radioactivity into the air than individual pieces of fuel; also the risk of melting through the whole building and into the ground, to hit water, much abundant nowadays.

    I hate to sound bad news, positive thinking is good, but I need to point out the urgency, the need to take care.

    1. Nick, Excellent point – 4 is so vulnerable that a tiny detail can undo it – not some catastrophic event like a collapse that most folks are thinking about – as nature and time have unlimited power against human plans.. I hope things can quicken up there for removing these rods.

  3. maybe we should put a large drain at bottem of building to pumps then use agricultural matting over top fill the plant with large gravel then sand and boron and keep wet all the way up to the fuel pools at least this would support them and keep from falling and we could still drain water and replace with cool water then stack railroad cars around plant to reinforce then fill with portland cement sand boron weld cars together with dumpsters inbetween cars then top with more cars at least it would be entombed in some way last time we had a big coal mine collapse in pennsylvania we used train cars to slow it down ideas please we are frankly out of time thankyou

  4. sorry i didnt finish my sentence to stop sink hole in river to coal mine they put rail cars down hole

  5. They will lie and keep risking everyones life until the whole land is destroyed and no human can live their anymore. There are no mechanism in human political hierachy to stop this.

  6. Hi Lori,

    We are so worried about #4 here that we started a yoga club.

    All the neighbours in our street go to the local park every evening and practice stretching and bending for two hours to be prepared in the event that the building falls.

    You would be proud of them all….everyone reads your work.

    We are all so supple now that should the occasion arise, 94% can now bend and kiss their own bottoms goodbye.

    (The other 6% are in lust together and prefer to reciprocate.)

  7. Iori make sure to create a contact email address so if should you need to travel we can send you our addresses and you will have shelter no matter where you go.

    Namaste
    Grace

  8. This is terrible. Reposting.
    Has anyone noticed 3 or 4 sides of Japan has newly active volcanoes around it?
    There is a map of them on radioactivechat.com

  9. Mochi, might you be able to review these articles? The message seems clear for an immediate warning given for the next 7 days regarding another Sanriku quake. I may have misinterpreted the translation a bit. Thank you!

    Possibility of earthquake prediction … company is calling for massive earthquake warning, attention on the net (12/12 JST)’ from the International Institute for Earthquake Prediction Study Group Kirin NPO members. ‘..and there is a possibility that a major earthquake will occur in the reaction of 1,2 atmospheric gravity waves and observation aircraft,’ ‘large reaction appeared very”, even after the earthquake of M7.4 occurred, a large earthquake again off Sanriku as may happen..”

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread906946/pg1

  10. FOIA documents state that based on the data available to the USA military (drone fly-over, satelite imaging) and all those federal agencies involved in “managing” the crisis – two things were clear……

    a) 8 days after 3-11 spent fuel pool #4 went DRY, had two fires and is no longer structuraly capable of holding water.

    b) The consensus of the USA is a 100% release of the spent fuel pool of building 4 into the atmosphere.

    This was the judgement only 8 DAYS after 3-11.

    PLEASE read the FOIA documents, and take what arnie gunderson says with a grain of salt. He has an industry to protect as he has stated time and time again – HE IS PRO-NUKE.

    Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop……read the FOIA documents and realize it already did drop.
    Peace

  11. Any other country would hire a barge crane and water filled barge and pull those rods out pronto, I don’t get the mentality here.
    Is there any?
    The robots suck, that’s why the Russians used human robots for Chernobyl.
    We are so doomed.
    Send Mochizuki-san some cash.

  12. I have made a recollection of warnings concerning reactor 4 and its extreme danger, text too long to publish as a comment (about 6 pages).
    If you want to know what is in the coming, I invite you to click :
    http://attentiondanger.over-blog.com/article-fukushima-recollection-of-divine-warnings-concerning-danger-from-reactor-4-113395715.html
    And the recollection of warnings of the coming Very Big earthquake you can find here :
    http://attentiondanger.over-blog.com/article-recollection-of-divine-warnings-announcing-big-earthquake-japan-113356715.html

    I don’t know what can be done more to warn humanity…..
    I

  13. Maybe building a very large pool around and above the fuelpool then disasemble the fuel in small blocks scatered all around the big pool and then build walls between the individual pieces. Problems: Soil state. Reactor structure stability. Levels of radiation exposure (maybe modificated EOD suits can do the trick for this one). Overall I think the World we know now have years numbered because If they lost control and Japan have thounsands of thousands of victims then scores of Japanese nuclear reactors would be unmanned resulting a chain of nuclear disasters.

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About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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