Hiroaki Koide: "Adults in Japan Should Eat Contaminated Food" to Atone for the Sins of Having Allowed Nuke Power

During the press conference in New York after the lecture on the status of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident and radiation contamination in Japan, Dr. Koide of Kyoto University repeated his mantra (or curse, to many Japanese) that the food contaminated with radioactive materials from Fukushima should be consumed by adults who have allowed the nuclear power plants.

From the Japanese transcript by Portirland blog (5/5/2012):

クリーンな食べ物はない。

There is no clean food.

残念ながら福島の事故は起きてしまい、全地球に汚染を広げてしまっている。そのため、クリーンとか安全という食べ物というものはありません。

Sadly, the Fukushima accident happened, and has spread contamination throughout the world. So there is no food that is clean or safe.

ただし、猛烈に汚れている食べ物から比較的安全な食べ物まで、連続的に分布している。それをどのように受け入れるかが問題。

But there is a continuous variety of food from extremely contaminated food to relatively safe food. The issue is how to accept [allocate] such food.

猛烈な汚染食品は原子力を進めていた方々に食べてもらう。東電幹部、原子力を進めてきた政治家や、学者に食べてもらう。そういう仕組みを作りたい。

Extremely contaminated food should be eaten by people who have promoted nuclear power. TEPCO top management, and politicians and scholars who have promoted nuclear power. I would like to build such a system.

後は、原子力をここまで許してきてしまった大人たちに、汚染された食べ物を食べてもらって、子どもたちに汚染されていないものを食べさせてあげる。

The rest of the contaminated food should be eaten by adults, who have allowed nuclear power to this extent, so that the non-contaminated food goes to children.

ただしそれを実現するためには、どの食べ物がどれだけ汚染されているのかを正確に検査する必要がある。その情報を提供するように東京電力に言っている

However, in order to achieve that, it is necessary to accurately measure the contamination levels. I've been telling TEPCO to provide that information.

その作業をしようとすると、膨大な作業になる。多くのお米・野菜・魚をきちんと検査することをしないと子どもたちに食べさせることはできない。

To do that, it would be a huge task. But unless we inspect many samples of rice, vegetables, fish, we can't let children eat them.

Well, I wonder how he is going to enforce his system. Some people have suggested some type of ID cards that will be required when purchasing food. With that system, if you are above certain age, you won't be allowed to buy "clean" food.

Koide's supporters almost always defend his position by pointing to the episode that Koide ate contaminated pastas from Italy after the Chernobyl accident because he thought he was partly responsible for the accident for having been a nuclear researcher and unable to stop nuclear power.

In the real world, Japanese children are being fed with radioactive food items in school lunches even after radioactive cesium is detected from the particular food items and even when there are safe (radiation-free) alternatives. Why? Because it is below the government-mandated safety limit. What good is testing? In the real world, mothers and fathers who want to buy clean food for their families are laughed at and even criticized for being selfish.

In such a world, Koide's insistence that adults should eat contaminated food somehow fits well. And we'll all go down...

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How #Fukushima's Spent Fuel Pool Cooling Works

(or is supposed to work, considering numerous leaks...)

Spent Fuel Pools of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, particularly that of Reactor 4, continue to be in the news inside and outside Japan.

Dr. Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University spoke in New York on May 3 and held a press conference on the status of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and radiation contamination in Japan as he sees it.

He said about the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool (I'm reading off from the Japanese transcript),

補強工事というものを施した、ということになっています。

So-called reinforcement work was done [on Reactor 4 SFP]. (My translation, not the translation at the press conference)

Then, one of my blog readers sent me a link to the post that has an audio clip of a radio program, in which nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen seems to be saying that TEPCO has been pumping water into the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool from the top, the water drains to the basement, and TEPCO is pumping the water from the basement back into the SFP.

That's news to me, but then I haven't carefully checked how the cooling of the Spent Fuel Pools at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant has been done after TEPCO installed the temporary heat exchangers. So I decided to look for info, and here's what I've found.

Asahi Shinbun had an article on the temporary cooling systems for the SFPs back in June last year, and here's their simplified diagram of the system (missing the Skimmer Surge Tank):

Here's what TEPCO released on July 9, 2011 after they tested the pipes after installing the heat exchanger and the air cooling system (secondary cooling) for Reactor 4 SFP:

Here's TEPCO's diagram of the same system, released on April 16 this year after the Reactor 4 SFP cooling system stopped due to a leak (the information was released only in Japanese; I labeled "Heat Exchanger"):

As far as I can tell, it is basically a closed system though leaks have happened. The excess water from the Spent Fuel Pool goes to the Skimmer Surge Tank, which then is then goes through the heat exchanger to remove heat (0.9MW in the Reactor 4 SFP, as per TEPCO's press release above). The water is then pumped back into the SFP.

Back in February when the water level of the Reactor 4's Skimmer Surge Tank was dropping more than usual, TEPCO injected the water from the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel (which is filled with water). That water went from the RPV to the Reactor Well to the SFP to the Skimmer Surge Tank.

Contaminated water in the turbine building basements in Reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4 gets treated through cesium absorption towers (Kurion or SARRY) and desalination systems, then pumped back into the Pressure Vessels but not to any of the Spent Fuel Pools.

But all my information is from publicly available sources (newspapers, TEPCO, etc.). Mr. Gundersen may have his own private sources of information that points to the collapsing Reactor 4 SFP or the SFP water boiling. (As far as I can gather, the temperature of the SFPs at Fukushima is below 30 degrees Celsius.)

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Workers Knew About the Extremely High Radiation Around Exhaust Stack

They may not have known the exact number (well, for that matter, no one knows because the survey meter went overscale at 10 sieverts/hr), but they've been running past the area when they have to enter Reactor 1 building to install the external heat exchanger to the Spent Fuel Pool, according to the tweets by a worker currently at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

So much for TEPCO's word that "there is no work planned near the area, and there will be no effect on the progress of the work at the plant", which is technically correct, at least the first half.

There may not be any work planned in the area there, BECAUSE RADIATION IS TOO HIGH. There may be no work planned there, but the workers have to go near it to enter the Reactor 1 building. The radiation is so high that the workers, with all their full protection gear and equipment and construction materials they carry, have been running past the area in order to minimize radiation exposure.

So it's been known.

More information from his tweets:

(Someone asked if it's true that TEPCO does not have the survey meter that can measure more than 10 sievert/hr radiation.) I think that's correct. We do have the instrument to measure the radiation of the nuclear fuel rods, but I wonder what happened to that. Broke?

(Referring to the area where over 10 sievert/hr radiation has been detected,) the radiation level around the exhaust stacks has been too high to even go near, ever since the accident started. Not just the area around the stack for Reactors 1 and 2, but also the stack for Reactors 3 and 4.

Debris are removed by shielded heavy equipment or remote-controlled equipment. That (10+ sievert/hr) spot was found during such operation.

We have to run when we go by the stack to enter Reactor 1. That's hard work. My legs hurt already from climbing up and down the stairs in the reactor building. Now I appreciate elevators!

All the elevators inside the reactor buildings at Fukushima I Nuke Plant are broken.

As to the worker who measured the radiation with the survey meter attached to a stick, Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University says he must have spent only 1 or 2 seconds near the stack to get 4 millisieverts radiation.

Let's see. 2.78 millisieverts for one second, if the radiation was 10 sieverts/hr.

Koide thinks the radiation level is impossibly high to be coming from inside the duct or stack. He suspects there is a piece or two of the spent fuel blown out of the Spent Fuel Pool when Reactor 1 and Reactor 3 had hydrogen explosions.

He also says the protection suits that workers wear do nothing to protect them from gamma rays, unless they wear lead vests, but even then only marginally.

(For more of his comment, there's a transcript of the radio program that he appeared in, in Japanese.)

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Hiroaki Koide: "Pressure Not To Release Radiation Data"

In the testimony in the Japan's Upper House Government Oversight Committee, Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University said there was an outside pressure on him and his colleagues not to release the survey data including the radiation data on March 15.

He talks straight.

The committee hearing is still on-going. Access is still spotty.

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Things Are Slowly Changing in Japan Over the Fukushima Crisis

Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University is testifying in the Upper House government oversight committee. The session is broadcast over the Internet, but the Upper House site is being overwhelmed with access requests.

Alongside Koide, Masashi Goto, whistleblower ex-Toshiba engineer who designed the containment vessel at Fukushima I Nuke Plant, Masayoshi Son of Softbank, geologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi are also there.

(Ishibashi insists on doing it (dealing with Fukushima I Nuke Plant) by the Japanese experts only.)

In the meantime, angry and concerned parents and citizens are swarming the Ministry of Education and demand that the government withdraw the 20 millisievert/year radiation (external only) limit for children. The Minister is hiding.

They are holding a meeting outside the Ministry. Each time some punk of a bureaucrat utters something, he is being shouted down by angry protesters, demanding the Ministry retract 20 millisievert/year.

"Why can't you understand? What can't you understand?" they are shouting at the bureaucrat.

I'm watching live on USTREAM.

(Photo by Yusuke Hara)

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Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University: "No One Knows How Fukushima Could Be Wound Down" As the Corium May Be Melting Through the Foundation

So says Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, in a telephone interview on May 19 with independent video-journalist Tetsuo Jinbo of Videonews.com (who did the video report of the 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone back in April, showing cows and dogs prowling the deserted towns).

Koide is practically agreeing with Christopher Busby that there's not much anyone can do to stop the release of radioactive materials and further contamination of air, soil and water, other than somehow "entomb" the reactors (a.k.a. Chernobyl solution).

Koide reiterates his view that the corium (he says "melted fuel" and "melted core" in the interview for lay people, but it is melted fuel, and anything else that melted with the fuel inside the RPV) may have already escaped the Containment Vessel in the Reactor 1.

Following is my notes as I jotted down the salient points Koide made in the interview:

• (Assuming that TEPCO is telling the truth) the worst-case scenario of a hydrogen explosion inside the reactor caused by the melted fuel seems to have been avoided.

• I believe the Reactor Pressure Vessel has a large hole, not the small holes that TEPCO says.

• TEPCO cites the pressure and the temperature data as the reasons to believe the melted fuel still stays inside the RPV. However, I wonder if the pressure and the temperature data of the Reactor 1 is accurate. After all, the data on the water level was completely wrong.

• That much water has leaked (4,000 tons in the reactor building basement) and yet TEPCO says there's still pressure inside the RPV. It is impossible, given the structure of the reactor.

• There is no definite data as to whether there is any water in the Containment Vessel. Considering the reactor building basement is flooded with water, I think it is possible that the melted fuel already damaged the Containment Vessel.

• Outside the Containment Vessel, what's left as containment is the concrete foundation of the building.

• In order to have a reactor in "cold shutdown", you need to have the RPV intact so that the cooling water can circulate. No point in talking about cold shutdown when we don't even know whether the fuel is still inside the reactor.

• We're in the uncharted territory that we enter for the first time ever since the human race started to use nuclear power.

• As to whether the radioactive materials are going to be released into the atmosphere [from the meltdown and breach of RPV and Containment Vessel], I don't think it is likely as of now. The concrete foundation of the reactor building may have sustained some damage, but as a whole I don't think it is completely broken.

• I cannot properly assess the possibility of the corium melting through the concrete foundation and reaching the water table. If that should happen, the radioactive materials will flow into the ground water and contaminate the ocean even more.

• As to the the corium, I think the inside of the corium is not solid even if there's water in the reactor.

• The Suppression Chamber in the reactor building basement is torus-shaped. The location where the corium may have dropped is the center of the torus, and it is concrete. The thing to worry about is how far down the concrete the corium will go.

• The water circulation system using water in the building proposed by TEPCO is tantamount to admitting that the Containment Vessel is broken. It is a much more serious situation than I envisioned, and there's no other way to cool [the corium] other than the one proposed by TEPCO.
  
  [Koide was proposing a system that circulate water inside the Containment Vessel back into the RPV, as he had assumed correctly that the RPV had been breached.]
  

• However, if the corium goes into the concrete, no point in talking about circulating water to cool. There will be nothing you can do. The only way may be to entomb the whole building in a concrete coffin.

• I suspect that TEPCO's "roadmap" was created by the TEPCO headquarters under political pressure, and not by the TEPCO people in Fukushima I Nuke Plant who struggle everyday to contain the situation. If anything, the "roadmap" should be created by them, not by the headquarters.

• According to TEPCO's data, even now the fuel rods in the Reactors 2 and 3 are soaked in water up to half the height.

• Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima, Fukushima is still on-going. There is a possibility of further hydrogen explosion, and it is still possible that Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl in terms of magnitude of the disaster.
  

For those of you who understand Japanese, here's the interview:

If you are curious about this maverick nuclear researcher, here's a good interview of him done in 2007 (translated from original Japanese). Koide entered the field of nuclear science full of hope for the peaceful use of nuclear technology in 1968, only to see the reality two years later when he saw Onagawa Nuke Plant being forced upon the residents and understood why. Ever since, he has continued to research nuclear energy as an opponent of nuclear energy.

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Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University: "Melted Core Outside the Containment Vessel"

Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute is quoted by Mainichi Shinbun as saying that the melted core of the Reactor 1 is not just out of the Reactor Pressure Vessel but out of the Containment Vessel.

From Mainichi Shinbun, Koide's comments only (5/16/2011):

小出裕章・京都大原子炉実験所助教は「電源喪失で原子炉が冷やせなくなれば、早い時期に炉心溶融に至ることは想定できていたはずだ。燃料の損傷が限定的だとしてきた東電の説明は完全に誤っていたことになる。データの公表も遅すぎる」と指摘する。

Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute points out that "[TEPCO] could have foreseen the core melt at an early stage when the cooling of the reactor stopped due to the power failure. TEPCO's assessment that the damage to the fuel was limited has turned out to be completely wrong. The disclosure of the data came too late."

　東電は今回の解析で「圧力容器の損傷は大規模ではない」と説明するが、小出助教は「圧力容器は完全に破損し、溶けた燃料が格納容器の底に穴を開け、原子炉建屋の地下に大量の汚染水が漏れ出す原因になっている」と推定する。

According to TEPCO, the data analysis shows that damage to the RPV is not extensive. However, Koide thinks "The RPV has been completely damaged, the melted core bore a hole at the bottom of the Containment Vessel, causing the large amount of contaminated water to leak into the ground beneath the reactor building."

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Kyoto University Researcher "Reactor 1 May Be Undergoing "Recriticality"

Evidence? Chlorine-38.

I posted this on my Japanese blog for the Japanese readers. I'm putting out the summary for the English readers here, too.

A nuclear researcher at Kyoto University (which is considered one of the two most prestigious national universities, the other one being Tokyo University) has reversed his opinion and now says the Reactor 1 may be experiencing the "recriticality".

His name is Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute who belongs to the Nuclear Safety Research Group at the Research Reactor Institute. He has given interviews on TV and radio, mostly in Kansai stations and not aired in Kanto (where Tokyo is), and would be considered one of the "sceptics" of the official story about Fukushima I Nuke Plant that everything is safe, getting under control.

There ARE researchers in Japan who go against the mainstream government scholars. Koide is one of them (and far from being the most critical), and there are others from universities other than the top few schools (and therefore they don't get hardly any airtime on the Japanese MSM). But thanks to talk radio shows and the Internet (hey it's the same as in the US), at least a small portion of the Japanese people are getting the "alternative" reality other than what's given by the government and the MSM.

This is from the transcript of the interview (in Japanese, NOT the literal translation) Koide gave on April 5, 2011 on Osaka's MBS Mainichi Broadcasting Radio:

"The Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident is not winding down at all. I think I have to revise my opinion which was too optimistic."

- What was too optimistic?

"We thought the reactors "cold stopped", which means the uranium fission stopped. But now I've started to think the fission has started again. In other words, the reactor has become "critical" again - which we call "recriticality"."

- Professor Koide, you were of the opinion that the recriticality was not happening.

"Yes, and I've changed my mind. It may be happening."

- On what evidence?

"First, the level of iodine[-131] is not decreasing; it is increasing. Iodine[-131]'s half life is 8 days. It has been more than 3 weeks since the accident, so the level of iodine[-131] should be about 1/10 of the initial level measured. Second, the presence of chlorine-38 was detected from the contaminated water in the turbine building [he doesn't say which one]."

- What about chlorine-38?

"Well, if chlorine-38 was detected [according to TEPCO], and that can only mean "recriticality".

Chlorine-37 is a stable isotope, and it exists in salt in the sea water. TEPCO had poured literally tons and tons of sea water into the Reactor Pressure Vessels at Fukushima. The way the stable chlorine-37 becomes highly unstable chlorine-38 (half-life 37 minutes) is for chlorine-37 to acquire neutron.

The only way for neutron to be present near chlorine-37 is for uranium to go critical and emit neutron.

That's what Fairewinds Associates' Arnie Gunderson said in his April 3 video, and that's probably why IAEA mentioned the possibility of "recriticality" on March 30.

Koide thinks the recriticality may be happening in the Reactor 1 where the fuel rods may have been melted down most (Koide thinks there is no cladding left, and the tiny uranium pellets are forming a heap at the bottom of the RPV), but says the other two reactors (2 and 3) are also vulnerable if TEPCO cannot cool them sufficiently and the core melt continues.

He also suspects TEPCO is not pouring enough boron to prevent fission.

Maybe that's another item at Fukushima I that's missing: boron.

It took almost 3 weeks for TEPCO to admit they didn't have enough dosimeters for the workers.

Don't hold your breath for a TEPCO's announcement that they are out of boron. Maybe they can dump bath salt in the pressure vessels and that may stop the fission.

And remember, repeat the mantra of the Japanese government: it is safe.

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