Radioactive steam is rising from reactor #1 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, according to recent reports from Tokoyo.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
TEPCO also said robots with cameras that entered Unit 1 -- one of the three reactors whose cores have melted -- found Friday that steam was spewing from the floor. Nationally televised news Saturday showed blurry video of steady smoke curling up from an opening in the reactor floor.
The radioactive fumes were suspected to be coming from the suppression pool area, which is near the reactor core.
Radiation levels in the steamy/smoky area are high.
The radiation level near the smoky area reached as high as 4,000 millisieverts per hour, much too high for any human to get near that area, and confirming the formidable obstacles Fukushima workers face in fixing the problems at the reactors.
And new tanks are being brought in as the failed nuclear complex continues to leak radioactive water that is pumped in continuously in attempts to keep the reactors cool.
Water storage trenches on site could be overflowing within the next two weeks.
Two of the 370 tanks were due to arrive Saturday from a manufacturer in nearby Tochigi prefecture (state), TEPCO said. Two hundred of them can store 100 tons, and 170 can store 120 tons.
The tanks will continue arriving through August, and will store a total of 40,000 tons of radioactive water.
The only progress being reported currently is the installation of new pressure monitors.
In one progress update, TEPCO said workers were successful in attaching additional pressure monitors at Unit 1. The plan is to keep adding pressure-reading equipment at all three hobbled reactors. The ones already there may have been damaged by the tsunami and quake, and may not be working properly.
Bringing the plant under control by January is not currently looking like a realistic possibility.
TEPCO has promised to bring the plant under control by January, but doubts are growing that the plan was too optimistic. The plan calls for a reprocessing system for the radioactive water by June 15, with hopes of reusing the water as coolant in the reactors.
In the meantime, according to a Bangor Daily News Editorial reported at Boston.com,
Germany, the world's 4th largest economy and 4th largest user of nuclear power has decided to phase out its 17 nuclear power plants by 2022.
http://www.boston.com/...
Switzerland is following suit. And Japan is reevaluating its own energy policy.
Switzerland says it will join Germany in being nuke-free by 2034. Japan, following the Fukushima incident, has dropped its goal of supplying half of its electricity through nuclear power.
Other European nations use no nuclear power at all.
Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal and several other European nations do not use any nuclear power. Some moved away from nuclear power after the Chernobyl disaster.
The upsides:
...for every kilowatt produced through renewable sources, the air is cleaner and more energy dollars (or Euros) remain at home.
Besides cleaner renewable energy sources like geothermal, solar, wind, and hydropower that does not damage important wild fish stocks, the cheapest, healthiest energy is the energy we don't use, the energy we conserve through improved and more sustainable construction methods, and the energy we use most efficiently.