1100 CET: The SDF helicopter cooling attempt was aborted for high radiation levels above the plent. New cooling attempts will use a water cannon on a fire truck borrowed from the US military.
From Paris, the BBC’s Christian Fraser says that France’s decision to offer its Tokyo-based citizens the chance to leave is partially motivated by domestic political problems.
0830 CET: Japanese TV reports that an SDF helicopter has taken off to spray water onto the plant. Helicopter spraying will be difficult to direct accurately and was thought to be a “last resort”. This suggests that other options are not feasible.
It is snowing in Fukushima.
0730 CET: Some workers have returned as radiation levels have fallen at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. While the Nikkei has risen some 6%, TEPCO shares have tanked. They were untraded but were bid down by the daily limit and are down 24.7%.
The operation could take on a military footing and responsibility could shift from TEPCO to the military. The Japanese Defence Minister has just said that if cooling efforts fail, the SDF would move in and SDF helicopters would spray water onto the plant.
TEPCO press releases are worthless and give virtually no information and the main source of public information is by the Chief Cabinet Secretary’s Edano’s press conferences. He himself is impressive and generates some trust but it means that all information is being “politically” vetted so as not to be too alarmist. But just the filtering of information itself leads to assumptions (which may or may not be justified) that the actual information is worse than is being released. TEPCO’s communications and press conferences are not impressive.
Status at 0600 CET 16th March:
Work at the reactors may have stopped because radiation levels were too high. Radiation is fluctuating and has reached high levels at times. Levels were being reported in milli Sieverts(mS) rather than micro Sieverts (μS). For short periods levels upto 11 mS (11,000 μS). The normal working limit of 100 mS was raised 3 days ago to 250 mS and levels have been higher in parts of the plant.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is being continuously subjected to new problems. All problems are unprecedented in the wake of the quake and the tsunami but TEPCO’s ability to cope is now raising cause for concern. Personnel from Toshiba, the manufacturer of the plant, have been called in by TEPCO. The initial plant design was to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 8.2 and it has been through a magnitude 9.0 quake some 15 times stronger than the design value. But the height of the tsunami wave was something not designed for. TEPCO spokesmen are getting testy when questioned and this is also an indication that they are frustrated and confused.
I have revised my view that TEPCO was in control of the situation. TEPCO seems to be unsure how to proceed.
Reactor #3 containment vessel is damaged and emitting steam (smoke?) and radiation. TEPCO does not know what it is. Workers near the central control room were evacuated temporarily(?). Workers are evacuated at levels higher than 259 Milli Sieverts.
Reactor #4 spent fuel pool is getting dangerous again. Pictures of the fire on 15th here were shown by TEPCO. It seems as if radiation levels here are also too high for workers to approach and attempt cooling. Winds and/or radiation levels are preventing the use of helicopters to dump water onto the reactor#4 spent fuel pool through a hole in the building roof. No other way to get cooling started seems to have been found.
The k2p blog 