Quote of the Day
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
Abraham Lincoln
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
Overall, keep in mind some broad interim objectives: a transition from diesel/backup power to electric power; phasing out seawater for (preferred) freshwater; taking any steps necessary, under current conditions, to minimize worker exposure to harmful contamination; repairing/replacing pumps and restoring instrumentation functionality.
The latest scaremongering headline on Fox News is about 3 workers trying to connect a pipe and getting soaked to their underwear although supposedly wearing waterproof protective gear. If you read related news accounts, you'll find out that the workers quickly washed themselves off and were not injured; do you think Fox News mentioned this salient fact? [Of course not! What morally outrageous thing will these "journalists" do next? Try to suggest a link between an alleged uptick in Japanese baby illnesses with drinking water?] Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the country was on "maximum alert"; unfortunately, this lends itself to an impression that the situation is escalating out of control, other than on a clear path to stabilization, with favorable trends in ambient radiation level, declining measured traces in food and drinking water, etc., not to mention no related fatalities to date.
NEI notes:
- morning: One explanation for any recent spike in nearby ocean readings has been overflow of a reactor plant 2 trench, with 100 rem contaminated water. TEPCO is sandbagging relevant borders and monitoring other trenches with increasing water levels. (None of the trenches empty into the sea.)
- afternoon: TEPCO has revised its soil sample findings from yesterday: all 5 samples showing plutonium are now thought to be from (likely) reactor 3 fuel, still at a concentration not harmful to human health. TEPCO continues efforts to drain contaminated turbine room basement floor puddles (into condensers) for the first 3 reactors and any relevant contaminated water puddles for reactor 4. (Recall that all fuel had been removed from the reactor containment vessel from reactor 4 in November in order to do maintenance within the vessel. The relevant issue for reactor 4 is its large spent fuel pond and hence neutron-activated chlorine from the use of seawater as a coolant.) There is confirmation that the US Navy barges of freshwater arrived.
- evening: freshwater is now replenishing spent fuel ponds 2 and 3 and scheduled to start in fuel pond 4. (The use of freshwater should dilute the impact of activated elements in impure seawater coolant.) Over 60 food samples from 8 prefectures near or encompassing the Daiichi site showed safe readings of iodine and cesium. Readings off the discharge point from the Daiichi reactors to the sea show significantly lower radiation readings. Fish samples off the coast of the Chiba prefecture showed no material risk to human consumption. US EPA readings continue to show no risk from any relevant Japanese plumes.
The NEI blog recommended the Atomic Power Review blog. The relevant Tuesday morning post had an interesting discussion of a daisy chain arrangement for pumping out the turbine room basement puddles. Recall the issue is target full condenser hotwells. So the plan seems to be to pump water from condensate storage to the suppression pool, from condenser hotwells to condensate storage and then draining the puddles to condensate hotwells. The blogger also notes TEPCO hasn't announced a plan for relieving water levels in the near-full or overflowing trenches (discussed above).
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger provided some context for discussing yesterday's plutonium samples. If you recall, 5 samples taken at the plant saw traces of plutonium, 3 of which were originally reported to be typical samples of bomb plutonium (PU-239) from Cold War era nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific. [See above NEI briefing for a revision of results.] The remaining 2 samples revealed a mix of two other isotopes (PU-238, PU-240) in addition to PU-239, contained in reactor 3 fuel (roughly 1-2% and 33% respectively). So the big question is: how did the fuel plutonium get in the soil? Most probably through the air (just like the bomb plutonium). We already know there was some (differing levels of) damage in the cores for the first 3 reactors, with exposure of zirconium cladding within the reactor containment vessels until (the ongoing) coolant injections stabilized the situation. Any breaches in the cladding would have enabled some leaking of fuel/byproducts into the coolant and traces of relevant materials get evaporated with the steam, which makes its way through the system to the torus; the torus pressure builds to the point a relief valve releases the contaminated steam into secondary containment. We already know about steam releases into the environment, and as to the trench run-offs, the HS blogger makes reference to the contamination soup of neutron-activated chlorine from the spent fuel pools in combination with relevant contaminated reactor-generated steam.
In addition, the HS blogger returns to the ongoing controversy of whether the reactor 4 spent fuel pool (with 250 tons of spent fuel) boiled dry. Citing a recent study by Dr. Mattias Braun, the estimated time required would be 10 days--but replenishment of the spent fuel pond started within the second half of that period. (There have also been some general hypotheses about whether the earthquake displaced a significant amount of coolant from the spent fuel and/or whether there has been structural damage to the pool lining. However, we know this much: the ambient radiation levels have been steadily improving with existing spraying into the spent pools (to accommodate evaporation due to decay heating).) He also provides an interesting motivation for the recent switchover from firetruck pumps to temporary electrical pumps: he suggests the stronger firetruck pumps were more capable of injecting coolant at initially very high temperature/pressure reactor readings.
Political Rhetoric Over Libya: Stop the Madness
Yes, by "madness" I mean both Qaddafi and the political talking points. I have heard predictable, hypocritical partisan sniping from both sides. A bit of a history: the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress voted against the authorization of the use of force in the first Gulf War, despite an international coalition of 30 nations, which sought the liberation of occupied Kuwait. The post-2004 rhetoric of all the major Democratic Presidential candidates (including Obama, Clinton, and Biden) is clearly inconsistent with the reality of the surge in Afghanistan and the Libya engagement. On the other hand, many of the Republicans are trying to turn the tables on the Democrats, echoing their arguments on military scope creep, ill-defined parameters, unaffordable costs (see below), Presidential overreach (checks and balances), etc. PLEASE. Enough already! Fox News coverage, which I've heavily criticized recently for misleading coverage on the Fukushima nuclear incident, is heavily slanted in favor of the GOP/conservative critics. There's been coverage sympathetic with Qaddafi's claim the opposition is a proxy for Al Qaeda. I must have heard morning host Gretchen Carlson repeat "slippery slope" 3 or 4 times within 10 minutes...
The Congress is not a rubber stamp for a militarily-aggressive President, but it's difficult to argue that Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Obama, whom deliberated for some time on the Afghanistan surge and the Libyan no-fly zone, is abusing his power and responsibilities as Commander in Chief. In fact, the US Senate passed a referendum early this month, urging the President to establish a no-fly zone. The polls I've seen show strong majority support for our measured steps on Libya. The Congress can defund any unauthorized adventure.
As for Gretchen Carlson's anxiety, there's a qualitative distinction between what has happened elsewhere and Qaddafi's actual actions (including well-known incidents from years ago) and threats against innocent Libyan citizens or others. The US is not responsible for the Libyan revolution. But to look the other way as genocide occurs, when in fact the US military also has a secondary mission of humanitarian assistance, undermines our international leadership and standing. Do we need to be worried about mission creep? Of course, but I do support what Obama has done (although not his process in getting there).
I don't have a problem with Obama's playing his cards close to his vest on this occasion. If Syria thinks twice about brutally suppressing dissidents, if Qaddafi decides to go into exile worried about what Obama might do next...: so much the better.
Lindsey Graham: GOP Funding Criticism of Libya: Thumbs UP!
I am a fiscal hawk--just check my blog description. I would radically streamline regulatory authorities, I would wring out redundancy, I would make deep cuts in manpower and compensation and flatten bureaucracy, consolidate federal offices and military bases, cut (if not eliminate altogether) corporate subsidies (including food and energy), and slash military and entitlement spending. Let me say--I know it's easier said than done, and I fully expect it would make me enormously unpopular. Whether it is the costs of liberating and rebuilding Iraq and/or Afghanistan or enforcing a no-fly zone against Libya, I believe in full transparency of the costs--fiscal and attrition on the battlefield.
I think just like disingenuous progressive federal judges whom rationalize their way to a policy-based preference, some Republicans or conservatives are trying to suggest fiscal conservatism as the rationale for their opposition, in reality this is little more than a politically convenient argument against all things Barack Obama. The amount of money spent on the Libyan operation is a rounding error in over $3.5T federal spending. Every little bit counts, of course--but if these GOP or conservative voices were truly all that concerned about defense spending, why haven't they explicitly come out for scaling back and/or consolidating overseas bases, cutting the military payroll, eliminating cost-overrun projects, etc.? (For the record, I support those steps.)
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently purchased a MiG-29 Russian fighter jet. It just goes to show what lengths men will go to in order to impress Anna Chapman....
- Jimmy Kimmel notes nobody seems to know how to spell the Libyan dictator's surname. So the question is: we know he's under the no-fly zone, but did he make the no-fly list?
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Beach Boys, "Surfin' Safari"
