http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

Fusushima Daiichi:

Units 5 and 6 have reached cold shutdown.

Fire fighters have managed to spray large amounts of water into the spent fuel pools in Units 3 and 4. Pool temperatures in Units 1 – 4 are all below boiling. Seawater is being pumpd into the spect fuel pool on Unit 2. Circuit test ing underway prior to restoring power to the Unit 2 control room and planning for power lines to Units 3 and 4 in underway.

It appears that the Japanese now have the upper hand in dealing with this accidednt. In the end, it’s worse than TMI but an order of mangintude less severe than Chernobyl. It will be interesting to see the post mortem from this event.

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

Summary:

Fukushima Daiichi

Finally,  Reactor in Units 1,2 and 3 are stable as workers continue to inject seawater. All 3 ontainments are intact with elevated pressures within design limits. Workers restarted spraying of water into the Unit 3 Spent fuel Storage pool. ose rates have been dropping since Wednesday. Site boundary dose rates are about 2 millirem/hr. Workers are connecting power to Units 1 and 2, after which they will restart cooling systems. Workers plan to begin installation of a power line to Units 3 and 4 in about 2 days. Working diesels continue to supply Units 5 and 6.

It appears that the Japanese workers are finally starting to get things under control.

It’s interesting that with all of this progress, the focus of the press is anticipation of negligible levels of radiation reaching the US.

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

Fukusmima Daiichi

Summary: Today was the first day since the accident began that NEI reported no bad news. Units 1,2 and 3 remain stable. Workers completed laying a cable to reconnect Unit 2 to offsite power and are expected to restore limited power shortly. Diesel generators were restored to provide power to Units 5 and 6. TEPCO officials believe that Unit 2′s suppression pool may not be damaged as earlier believed. TEPCO stated that even though a wall had collapsed in the Unit 4 fuel storage struucture, tha the pool liner was intact and aerial photographs showed that water remained in the spent fuel storage pool. Additionally, site boundary dose rates had dropped to 2 – 3 millirem/hr.

Fukushima Daini

All four reactors have reached cold shutdown conditions, with shutdown cooling being provided by the Residual heat Removal Systems.

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

Summary:

Japanese officials efuted reports that the fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi 4 had gone dry. temperatures in the spent fuel pool were 84°C. Normal temperatures are approx 30°C. Aierial sparying of water to cool Unit 3 has recommenced. Japanese engineers are working to install a power line to restore power to cooling water pumps at the plants. DOse rates at the station boundary have continued to drop. At 4 am EDT, dose rates at the main gate were 75 millirem/hr. At 4 pm EDT dose rates had dropped to 34 millirem/hr.

http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

As of 9 pm EST

It appears that the situation at Fufushima Daiichi Units 1 and 3 has started to stabilize. Workers have been able to maintain cooling with borated seawater at Units 1 and 3. TEPCO confirmed today that Unit 2 has a leak from its suppression pool but wter levels in the rector core have been slowly increasing. It appears that radiation levels at the site are also dropping, although radiation reading provided to date are somewhat incomplete. It’s not clear where different reading are being taken. earlier today reading up to 40000 millirem/ hr were reported near Units 2 and 3 and site boundary doese as high as 1190 millirem/hr were reported. The latest doese rate data showed the site boundary dose rate dropping to 60 millirem/hr. 

Fuel damage estimates were provided for Units 1 and 2. 70% of the fuel rods in Unit 1 and 33% of the fuel rods in Unit 2 are estimated to be damaged. It wasn’t reported how this estimate was prepared

Apparently there have been 2 fires in unit 4, which had been shutdown and defueled for maintenance at the time of the earthquake.  The origin of the fire arrears to have been an oil leak in a cooling water pump, and did not involve the spent fuel pool as some media outlets had been reporting. There is no clear report on the cause of the second fire although NEI reported that the fire reignited, implying the same cause as the initial fire. However, it is reported that the second fire was extinguished after burning for approx 2 hours. 

Workers are preparing to remove roof panels on Units 5 and 6 to prevent any potential hydrogen accumulation in thos units.

In good news it was reported that all  four Units at the Fukushima daini plant are shutdown and being cooled by the rector coolant systems.

WHile the press has been fixated on the hydrogen explosion in Unit 3 at Fukusmima Daiichi, Unit 2 lost cooling today twice for approx 140 minutes due to issues with a pressure relief valve, which allowed reactor vessel pressure to increase, blocking the injection of saltwater. The core has been recovered. However, there has been a report of another explosion in the vicinity of the Unit 2 suppression pool. TEPCO reported that the suppression pool pressure dropped to ambient atmospheric pressure shortly following the explosion, indicating possible damage to the reactor’ pressure suppression system. This is serious. However, as long as TEPCO can keep the cores covered, any radiation releases can be minimized. The maximum measured dose rates around the reactors have risen to a peak of 330 millirem/ hr just prior to the second uncovery of the Unit 2 core. However dose rates continue to fluctuate.

At the Fukushima Daini site, offsite power has been restored to all Units and reactor water levels are stable. Normal Residual Heat Removal systems are being restored to cool the reactors to cold shutdown.

Attached is a link to the NEI Update:
http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

Summarizing:

At Fukushimma Daiichi (Site where core damage exists): TEPCO continues to cool the cores at Units 1 and 3 with seawater. Core damage is suspected in both Units. Containments at both Units are being vented. The hydrogen explosion in the Unit 1 reactor Building resulted from hydrogen vented from the Unit 1 containment. Maximum reported dose rate around the site is 128 millirem/hr.  For contrast an airline crew get approx 100 millirem exposure for each 100000 miles flown and occupational exposure limits for US Nuclear plant workers are 5000 millirem/year. The dose rate are definitely elevated but not life threatening. They are also reporting that one worker has recieved a dose of 10600 millirem ( twice US yearly limit).

There is also a report for  Fukushimma Daini. At this station 3 Units (Units 1,2 and 4) are in a declared state of emergency. All three Units have emergency power, but all have limited use of emergency cooling water pumps due to tsunami damage. There has been no reported release of radiation at this site.

Based on informatio I’ve been able to get from NEI, it appears that cooling has successfully been restored to the reactor cores. As of 12:30 pm EST, the Unit 1 containment had successfully been vented to reduce pressure and TEPCO was making preparations to vent the Unit 2 and 3 containments. Apparently, there was a hydrogen explosion inside the Unit 1 containment earlier today, but neither the containment or reactor vessel were damaged. This explosion is an indication that there is probably significant fuel damage( but not neccessarily melting). Hydrogen is produced from a Zirconium - water reaction within the core, which is expected when the clad overheats in the presence of steam. Hydrogen is also produced by dissasociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen gas during the fission process. However, with the reactor shut down, the most likely source of the hydrogen is a Zirconium water reaction.

The NEI news release also stated that the cores were being cooled with Boric Acid and seawater. Boric acid is a neutron poison (Boron absorbs neutrons). The fact that TEPCO is using seawater mean that they understand that they probably have significant fuel damage, and won’t probably be operating these reactors anytime soon, if ever. If the cores were undamaged, they would never introduce seawater, with all of it’s impurities into the reactors.

The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has classified this accident on th International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) lower than the TMI accident in 1979.

So despite the fear mongering of the press, it appears that there won’t be a meltdown with large scale contamination and loss of life like Chernobyl.

As you may have read in the press, the Japanese earthquake caused the Fukushima Nuclear plants to shutdown and emergency power failed, causing a failure of emergency cooling systems in Fukushima 1. as a result of the failure of the cooling systems, the containment was pressurizing. The press was breathlessly anticipating a Chernobyl style meltdown. While the loss of cooling is certainly serious, comparisons to Chernobyl are significantly overblown. Fukushima 1 is a BWR , which has a robust containment structure to contain any radioactivity released from core damage.  The latest reliable information I have from NEI’s website is that as of 5 pm EST, Tokyo Electric Powr Co had delivered 3 of 4 mobile power units to the site and engineers were connecting the units. Containment pressures had increased, but were well within enginering design limits. If pressure continued to rise, vepor could be vented through filtered vent systems to prevent overpressurization of the containment and contain any released radioactivity.  

Significant diffeences betwen Fukushima and Chernobyl are:

Chernobyl had no containment structue – Fukushima 1 has a robust engneered steel and concrete containment.

Chernobyl had a graphite moderated core that caught fire spreading radioactivity as a result of the fire. Fukushima has a water moderated and cooled core. There would be no fire. The core might be damaged, but even if water levels within the vessel fell below the top of active fuel, significant steam cooling would still occur. As I mentioned earlier, even without cooling water, containment pressure can still be controlled through controlled filtered venting. Therefore a significant uncontrolled release of radioactivity is extremely unlikely, even if the core is damaged.

Even though Japanese authorities have ordered the evacuation of residents within a 3 km radius, this does not mean that an uncontrolled release of radioactivity is imminent. Nuclear plant emergency planns are extremely conservative and forward looking. In US nuclear plats, evidence of potential fuel damage would be enough to trigger emergency evacuations without any expectation that containment structure failure was imminent.

This accident is serious but it won’t be another Chernobyl.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Steve Malloy of Climate Audit has finally pried loose the data behind the bristle cone pine studies, that formed the basis for Mann’s hockey stick graph, which has been widely accepted as “proof” of global warming by the IPCC. What did he find in the data? I’ll give it to you in his own words:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168

“The second image below is, in my opinion, one of the most disquieting images ever presented at Climate Audit.

Two posts ago, I observed that the number of cores used in the most recent portion of the Yamal archive at CRU was implausibly low. There were only 10 cores in 1990 versus 65 cores in 1990 in the Polar Urals archive and 110 cores in the Avam-Taimyr archive. These cores were picked from a larger population – measurements from the larger population remain unavailable.

One post ago, I observed that Briffa had supplemented the Taimyr data set (which had a pronounced 20th century divergence problem) not just with the Sidorova et al 2007 data from Avam referenced in Briffa et al 2008, but with a Schweingruber data set from Balschaya Kamenka (russ124w), also located over 400 km from Taimyr.

Given this precedent, I examined the ITRDB data set for potential measurement data from Yamal that could be used to supplement the obviously deficient recent portion of the CRU archive (along the lines of Brifffa’s supplementing the Taimyr data set.) Hantemirov and Shiyatov 2002 describe the Yamal location as follows:

The systematic collection of subfossil wood samples was begun, in 1982, in the basins of the Khadytayakha, Yadayakhodyyakha and Tanlovayakha rivers in southern Yamal in the region located between 67°00 and 67°50 N and 68°30 and 71°00 E (Figure 1). These rivers flow from the north to the south; hence, no driftwood can be brought from the adjacent southern territories At the present time, the upper reaches of these rivers are devoid of trees; larch and spruce-birch-larch thin forests are located mainly in valley bottoms in the middle and lower reaches.

Sure enough, there was a Schweingruber series that fell squarely within the Yamal area – indeed on the first named Khadyta River – russ035w located at 67 12N 69 50Eurl . This data set had 34 cores, nearly 3 times more than the 12 cores selected into the CRU archive. Regardless of the principles for the selection of the 12 CRU cores, one would certainly hope to obtain a similar-looking RCS chronology using the Schweingruber population for living trees in lieu of the selection by CRU (or whoever).

As a sensitivity test, I constructed a variation on the CRU data set, removing the 12 selected cores and replacing them with the 34 cores from the Schweingruber Yamal sample. As shown below, this resulted in a substantial expansion of the data set in the 19th and 20th centuries and a modest decline in the 18th century. (Hantemirov and Shiyatov 2002 had reported a selection of long cores of 200-400 years; while the CRU archive does not appear to be the precisely the same as the unavailable Hantemirov and Shiyatov 2002 archive, it does appear to be related. This pattern of change indicates that the age of the CRU cores is systematically higher than the age of the Schweingruber cores.) …

Figure 1. Comparison of core count. Black – variation with Schweingruber instead of CRU; red- archived version with 12 picked cores.

The next graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red – the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black – the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive [leaving the rest of the data set unchanged i.e. all the subfossil data prior to the 19th century]. The difference is breathtaking.

…

I hardly know where to begin in terms of commentary on this difference.

The Yamal chronology has always been an exception to the large-scale “Divergence Problem” that characterizes northern forests. However, using the Schweingruber population instead of the 12 picked cores, this chronology also has a “divergence problem” – not just between ring widths and temperature, but between the two versions.

Perhaps there’s some reason why Schweingruber’s Khadyta River, Yamal larch sample should not be included with the Yamal subfossil data. But given the use of a similar Schweingruber data set in combination with the Taimyr data (in a case where it’s much further away), it’s very hard to think up a valid reason for excluding Khadyta River, while including the Taimyr supplement.”

Gee what a surprise. It appears that the data behind Mann’s hockey stick was cherry picked to produce a hockey stick. Accident?, willful academic fraud? I’ll let you decide. The other interesting thing about McIntyre’s analysis of the expanded data set is that it no longer shows the Mideval Warming period as one of the coldest periods in earth’s history. It’s always nice when your analysis matches the history, rather than trying to reinterpret the historical record to fit your analysis.

Will the major media publicize these findings? Will Mann respond in some fashion other than to try to cast aspersions on McIntyre’s credentials? I’m not holding my breath. But in the immortal words of Paul Harvey,”Now you know the rest of the story.”

According to this link, global warming is responsible for a shortage of prostitutes in Sophia, Bulgaria.:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=39945&in_page_id=2

Evidently, the best of the pros are working at ski resorts because… wait for it… Global warming has reduced the snow pack, and the ski tourists have to find other things to do. The Sophia Brothels have responded by hiring temps. I wonder if these are some of Obama’s “green jobs”? I hope my wife doesn’t read this article. She’ll never let me go skiing again.

http://peacelegacy.org/articles/how-see-yourself-global-warming-climate-models-are-false

Linked from JunkScience.com. This article is one of the best in explaining the one simple argument that proves that the AGW models from the IPCC are based on false assumptions. Basically it debunks the positive feedback mechanism attributed to water vapor in the AGW models, by showing that the atmospheric hot spot over the tropics, required to provide the positive feedback is not occuring. What is particularly impressive about his articlle is that it presents the argument with an example of the physics that any layman can understand. Read and enjoy.

Kudo’s to national Review, Planet Gore Blog for providing the Link.

Chrysler is rolling  out it’s 2009 GEM Peapod (I’m not kidding, it’s the real name)

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z15805/Chrysler-Peapod.aspx

Vehicle highlights: It has a top spped of 25 mph and can go a whopping 30 miles on a single charge and only takes 6 – 8 hours to charge. They have to be kidding. Why would anyone in their right miind buy a car that can only be driven 30 miles every 6 – hours. It would make more sense to just buy a bicycle. I sure hope the UAW wasn’t counting on Chrysler profits to fund their pension plan. With vehicle designs like this, they should be able to drive their vehicle sales to zero by the end of 2010.

In his ongoing threats against the secured bondholders of Chrysler and attempts to rig the bankruptcy proceedings, Obama has sowed the seeds of Chrysler’s and GM’s ultimate demise. Both of these firms are starved for capital. Given that the Obamafia has shown a willingness to change the terms of contracts mid-stream and to violate current bankruptcy; why would any sane person ever loan money to any of the government owned and directed firms? Obama is going to have problems convincing the general public that he need to lend the UAW (I mean chrysler and GM) 10 billion every quarter ad infinitum. These forms are doomed.

For your viwing pleasure, A visual example of the problems associated with rotating equipment, or why wind power is a poor substitute for coal or nuclear.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/britain%e2%80%99s-only-wind-turbine-plant-to-close/

If Obama thinks we can run an economy with these types of power sources, we’ll all pay dearly.

It must be global warming.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1586-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m1d21-Oceans-are-cooling-according-to-NASA

Of course, when your data doesn’t support your theory, you can always adjust the data:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/

We just drop the data we think is over representing cooling and add data which over represents warming and voila the cooling goes away. Now if we could just explain why global air temperatures have dropped since 1998. Oh well, I’m sure NASA can find more data to manipulate. maybe we can substitute September data for October data:

http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2008/11/james-hansens-nasa-group-doctors-data.html

That ought to do it. No wait, we can eliminate Antarctic cooling also:

http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/12/scientist-adjusts-data-presto-antarctic.html

Playing with data is so much fun. I can’t understand why people don’t take the threat of global warming seriously. Mom, throw another log on the fire, it’s -20 outsude. (snark off)