The focus these days at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant seems to be on bringing the Unit 1 reactor to cold shutdown. Unit 1 is reported to have the greatest percentage of fuel damage estimated at 50%--down from 70%. Tepco is preparing to flood the primary containment vessel of unit 1 to a level that will cover the fuel in order to help cool it down. This has been a part of the plan for some time. Delays have ranged from removing debris so that robots could check for leaks to the NISA requesting that Tepco do a study analyzing the effect of adding some 7,400 ton of water weight to the vessel. The robots founds no leaks and Tepco has now assessed that the added weight will not effect the seismic stability of the containment vessel.
Lyman tells the Christian Science Monitor
"They're basically getting ready to run a big experiment," says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear reactor expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear industry watchdog group that is closely monitoring the situation in Japan. "It sounds like they're assuming that the structural issues [with the primary containment structure] aren't that serious and there's debate over that."
But then he points out--
Even so, filling up the containment structure "seems like a reasonable thing to do if they can't cover the cores in any other way," Dr. Lyman adds. "They're just stuck with doing whatever is going to work. The problem is, they're learning by experimentation and not by some well-thought through contingency plan."
Since contingency plans didn't covered a 9.0 quake followed by a massive tsunami, Tepco is in essence--wingin it.
This experiment includes filtering the air inside the building so workers can get in for short stints to install new water measuring devices, hook up the external heat exchangers and install a new connection for the nitrogen feed.
The Alara Venti air filters have been installed.
Tepco has said it will be tripling its workforce from 1,000 to 3,000. Workers should be able to enter unit 1 soon and implement the plan of hooking up the external heat exchangers diagrammed below.
Some other bits--
New video from spent fuel pool 4
My thanks to fiver for adding video instructions.
One explanation for the lack of information from the Japan Times reporting on the exclusive kisha clubs.
Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted in a news conference on March 30 that on the 11th, the day the twin disasters hit the Tohoku region and crippled Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, he was traveling to Beijing with retired Japanese journalists, expenses for which were partially paid by the utility.
"We probably paid more than our share" of the travel fee, Katsumata said.
Kisha clubs are mainly attached to government ministries and industries, and their members generally belong to major newspapers, broadcasters and wire services.
In many cases, however, their membership is limited to major domestic news organizations, triggering criticism for screening out foreign press, magazine reporters and freelance journalists.
But since March 11, the exclusive clubs have been forced to open up to nonmembers.
Nonmembers have only been allowed to attend the press conferences held by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano once a week even after March 11.
But feeling the need to allow as many media as possible amid the disaster, the kisha club covering Edano allowed an Internet media organization to broadcast his news conference live from March 17, albeit on a temporary basis.
Still, the exclusivity of the clubs is notorious among foreign reporters in Japan.
Back in the US of A you can let Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission hear your voice on nuclear waste.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future is charged with submitting a draft report to the Secretary of Energy by July 29, 2011. As a first step toward meeting that deadline, the Commission directed the staff to prepare this report summarizing the key themes the Commission has heard up to this point in the process. By publishing this staff report, the Commission desires to provide individuals and organizations who have given us input an opportunity to confirm that their key messages have been heard or to highlight something that may have been missed, and to give those who are following the work of the Commission, but who have not yet provided input, an opportunity to raise issues they believe the Commission should consider as it prepares its report.
The Commission will use this report and comments received to help guide its examination of options as it develops a draft set of recommendations for the Secretary. We welcome your comments on the report and will provide them to the Commissioners for consideration as they develop their draft recommendations. Please submit your comments to brc@nuclear.energy.gov"