Japan's nuclear safety agency says abnormally high levels of radioactive substances found in seawater near the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant do not pose an immediate threat.

The reassurance comes as more worrying signs emanate from the stricken power plant, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, as engineers work to restart the cooling systems of the reactors.

High levels of iodine and caesium were sampled about 100 metres south of the facility, but authorities have been quick to stress it is not a threat to human health.

The plant's operator TEPCO says the level of iodine-131 is 126.7 times higher and caesium-134 is 24.8 times higher than government-set standards.

"Normally, such radioactive substances are not detected in the area," said Naoki Tsunoda, adding that the company will continue monitoring at the same point and in other areas.

Mounting evidence of radiation in vegetables, water and milk has also stirred concerns.

Radiation has also been found in the tap water in nine different prefectures, along with radiation that exceeds legal levels in milk and spinach.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/22/3170668.htm

Reports from Japan say radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is 10 million times the usual level.

Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated, Reuters news agency says.

Earlier, Japan's nuclear agency that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant have risen to 1,850 times the usual level.

The UN's nuclear agency has warned the crisis could go on for months.

It is believed the radiation at Fukushima is coming from one of the reactors, but a specific leak has not been identified.

The plant's operator has been berated for a lack of transparency.

The government said Tokyo Electric Power Co had to provide information more promptly.

The nation's nuclear agency said the operator of the Fukushima plant had made a number of mistakes, including worker clothing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707

The operators of the nuclear power plant crippled by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami say a spike in radiation levels they reported earlier is a mistake.

The apology came after workers fled from the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi complex when a reading showed water there was 10 million times more radioactive than normal.

But plant operator TEPCO then had to release a corrected reading showing radiation contamination at 100,000 times normal in water at the reactor.

TEPCO, which has previously been criticised by officials for its handling of the crisis at the plant, admitted it got the readings wrong.

Despite the mistake, the radiation spike at the No. 2 reactor was still very high and enough to evacuate workers.

The workers had been struggling to pump radioactive water out of the plant.

Last week three workers with inadequate protection suffered burns to their feet when they stepped in radioactive water at the No. 3 reactor.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/28/3175058.htm

The radioactive core in one reactor at Fukushima's beleaguered nuclear power plant appeared to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel, an expert warned yesterday, sparking fears that workers would not be able to save the reactor and that radioactive gases could soon be released into the atmosphere.

Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, had effectively lost their battle. "The core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," he said.

The damning analysis came as it emerged that workers at Japan's stricken nuclear plant are reportedly being offered huge sums to brave high radiation in an attempt to bring its overheated reactors under control. The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, is hoping to stop a spreading contamination crisis which could see another 130,000 people forced to leave their homes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/suicide-squads-paid-huge-sums-amid-fresh-fears-for-nuclear-site-2256741.html

Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) made the announcement three weeks after failing to bring reactors 1 - 4 under control. Locals would be consulted on reactors 5 and 6 which were shut down safely.

Harmful levels of radioactivity have been detected in the area.

More than 11,000 people are known to have been killed by the devastating 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

Japanese experts are considering whether to cover the reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi plant with a special material, to stop the spread of radioactive substances, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says.

On Wednesday, the government ordered nuclear power plant operators to start implementing new safety measures immediately.

The steps - to be completed by the end of April - include preparing back-up power in case of loss of power supply, and having fire trucks with hoses ready at all times to intervene and ensure cooling systems for both reactors and pools of used fuel are maintained.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903725

A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.

The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster.

Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods.

But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100 years before the nuclear fuel rods have completely cooled and been removed.

"As the water leaks out, you keep on pouring water in, so this leak will go on for ever," said Dr John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation.

"There has to be some way of dealing with it. The water is connecting in tunnels and concrete-lined pits at the moment and the question is whether they can pump it back.

"The final thing is that the reactors will have to be closed and the fuel removed, and that is 50 to 100 years away.

"It means that the workers and the site will have to be intensely controlled for a very long period of time."

But Laurence Williams, Professor of Nuclear Safety at England's University of Central Lancashire and the former head nuclear regulator for the UK, is relatively comfortable with the situation.

"I have been monitoring it for the last couple of weeks and [the] three reactors seem to be more or less unchanged from initially when they got into the seawater flowing into them," he said.

"We don't know exactly the state of the fuel in those reactors but looking at the data, the pressures and temperatures look fairly stable over the last couple of weeks.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/01/3179487.htm

----------------------

Thank you Laurence Williams for telling us you are comfortable... Bring on the deck chairs and the sake soda pops...

The explosion that struck 25 years ago this month, in the world’s worst nuclear accident, set in motion a major undertaking that today bears on the life of the entire country. It is a model, or a warning, for what could await Japan. The crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant will at some point be contained — but then there begins a national project from which there is no exit strategy.

Though the turbines are still, and cranes dangle above two unfinished reactors, just as they have for the past 25 years, too radioactive to be moved anywhere else, this is not a ghost town. Trains arrive on freshly laid tracks, workshops in an un-Soviet shade of blue dot the grounds and steam billows from the chimney of a new gas-fired heating plant that sends hot water throughout the complex.

About 3,000 people work here, in decontaminated areas, maintaining and decommissioning the plant. An additional 4,000 work nearby, providing security in the 19-mile-deep exclusion zone — from which residents were evacuated and where entry is possible only with a permit. (The Fukushima zone has a radius of 12 miles.) Exclusion zone workers also handle water-management and forest-fire-suppression duties, part of the never-ending effort to keep contamination from spreading.

And beyond the exclusion zone lies the vast social structure of evacuees, former emergency workers and their families, farmers whose dwindling villages are contaminated but habitable — survivors, many in ill health, battling an implacable government for the care and assistance they believe they deserve.

“I so much hope the Japanese liquidators will be treated better than we were,” said Yuri Andreyev, who was a chief engineer at Chernobyl and now heads the Chernobyl Union, an umbrella group of advocacy organizations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-chernobyl-a-warning-for-japan/2011/03/31/AFLGWeXC_story.html?hpid=z1

Workers struggling to halt the leaks successfully used a mixture of sawdust, newspaper, concrete and a type of liquid glass to stem the flow of contaminated water near a seaside pit, said the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

Earlier efforts involving cement, an absorbent polymer and rags were unsuccessful in plugging the leak, which was discovered on Saturday, while radiation of more than 7.5 million times the legal limit for seawater was found just off the earthquake-hit plant.

In a sign of Tepco's desperation, it breached its own regulations on Monday by beginning an intentional discharge of 11,500 tonnes of less contaminated water into the Pacific to make space for the highly radioactive liquid that was seeping out in an uncontrolled manner.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/japan-nuclear-fukushima-leak

Japan has lifted the crisis rating for the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant to seven, the maximum international level.

Until today, only the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster had been given a rating of seven.

Now Fukushima is being upgraded to the same level after emitting radiation for more than a month.

It had previously been rated at level five.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was badly damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan and has been leaking radiation since, despite efforts to cool and stabilise its reactors.

This morning, another fire was reported in reactor four, but it was later extinguished.

The reactor fire was reported just moments after Japan was hit by yet another powerful aftershock.

This morning's magnitude-6.3 quake halted Tokyo trains and caused a brief delay at Narita Airport.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/12/3189175.htm

From Helen Caldicott

Soon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry's campaign about the "minimal" health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the "nuclear renaissance" to slow down appears to be evident from the industry's attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima.

Proponents of nuclear power – including George Monbiot, who has had a mysterious road-to-Damascus conversion to its supposedly benign effects – accuse me and others who call attention to the potential serious medical consequences of the accident of "cherry-picking" data and overstating the health effects of radiation from the radioactive fuel in the destroyed reactors and their cooling pools. Yet by reassuring the public that things aren't too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure – and they play a predictable shoot-the-messenger game in the process.

To wit:

1) Mr Monbiot, who is a journalist not a scientist, appears unaware of the difference between external and internal radiation

Let me educate him.

The former is what populations were exposed to when the atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; their profound and on-going medical effects are well documented. [1]

Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). [2] After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/swiss-to-decommission-all-nuclear-power-plants/2011/05/25/AG69lFBH_print.html

One recurring theme that has emerged after Fukushima is the tendency of nuclear experts to underestimate (publicly at least) the severity of the disaster. Today we received further proof of this when the Japanese government more than doubled the estimate for the amount of radiation released from the plant in the immediate aftermath of the crisis in March.

Government watchdog The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency also said that the meltdowns of the plant's reactor cores--at least one of which we now know suffered a total meltdown—happened much more quickly than Tepco has previously suggested, making it clear that the plant operators' desperate attempts to cool the reactors by dumping sea water on them were largely unsuccessful.

According to news reports, NISA now estimates the total amount of radiation released into the atmosphere in the first week of the crisis at 770,000 terabecquerels. This compares with NISA's previous estimate, released on April 12, of 370,000 terabecquerels for the first month of the crisis. NISA has pointed out that most of the radiation was released in the first week.

The new estimate brings falls in line with another government watchdog, the Nuclear Safety Commission, which has projected the total radiation release at 630,000 terabecquerels...

Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/06/06/fukushima-twice-as-bad-as-thought/#ixzz1OYUXN5Eu

As the area east of Honshu, Japan, still gets about six medium tremors of 4.5 to 5 everyday (sometimes 6 and 6+), the Japanese authorities are now giving a truer picture of the catastrophe at Fukushima:

------------

For the first time, Japanese authorities have suggested the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant may have gone beyond a meltdown.

An official report, which Japan will submit to the UN's nuclear watchdog, says nuclear fuel in three reactors at Fukushima has possibly melted through the pressure vessels and accumulated in outer containment vessels.

Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper says this "melt-through" is far worse than a core meltdown, and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.

This is the first official admission that a "melt-through" may have occurred.

In the report, Japan also admits it was unprepared for the scale of the Fukushima disaster, which struck after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/08/3238720.htm?section=justin

Independent scientists have been monitoring the locations of radioactive "hot spots" around Japan, and their findings are disconcerting.

"We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl," said Gundersen. "The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometres being found 60 to 70 kilometres away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl."

Radiation monitors for children

Japan's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters finally admitted earlier this month that reactors 1, 2, and 3 at the Fukushima plant experienced full meltdowns.

TEPCO announced that the accident probably released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html

 "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.

Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.

Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.

"The problem is how to keep it cool," says Gundersen. "They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?"

Even though the plant is now shut down, fission products such as uranium continue to generate heat, and therefore require cooling.

"The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor," Gundersen added. "TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water."

Full Meltdown: Fukushima Called the 'Biggest Industrial Catastrophe in the History of Mankind'

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."

Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.

The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.

"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima

In March 2011, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

As tens of thousands of people were evacuated from nearby towns and villages, the world waited anxiously to see whether the radioactive fallout would spread across the country, or even be carried overseas.

Unsurprisingly, in the wake of this incident, the nuclear operations of other countries have come under considerable scrutiny.

One such country is the US where more than 100 similar reactors - some of them in earthquake zones or close to major cities - are now reaching the end of their working lives.

Their owners want to keep them running, but others - from environmentalists to mainstream politicians - are deeply concerned.

In this investigation for People & Power, Joe Rubin and Serene Fang of the Center for Investigative Reporting examine whether important safety considerations are being taken into account as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers extending the licences of these plants.

The agency has recently come under fire for glossing over the potential dangers of ageing reactors, for becoming too cosy with the industry and for political infighting among the agency's senior executives, which critics in the US Senate and elsewhere say seriously hampers its ability to ensure safety.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/02/2012222134934495461.html

With the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan still fresh in their minds, protests by villagers have forced the suspension of work at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in southern India.

Villagers in the town of Kudankulam, around 650 km from the state capital Chennai, have hardened their stand against the construction of two atomic power reactors. They are not convinced by the government's repeated assurances of the safety of the upcoming atomic reactors.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15759640,00.html

That’s right — Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima.

Australian uranium is now radioactive fallout that is contaminating Japan and beyond — but the response of the Australian government, Australian uranium producers and their industry association has been profoundly and shamefully deficient. Prime Minister Gillard speaks of business as usual, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson talks of the ‘unfortunate incident’ and the more bullish of the uranium miners have called the crisis a ‘sideshow’.

This denial and failure to respond to changed circumstances is in stark contrast to the views of Aboriginal landowners from where the uranium has been sourced. Yvonne Margarula, the Mirarr senior Traditional Owner of that part of Kakadu where Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger mine is located, wrote to UN Secretary General to convey her communities concerns and stated that the accident

‘…makes us very sad. We are all diminished by the awful events now unfolding at Fukushima.’

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/life/health/fukushima-and-australias-uranium-shame/

Twelve years of supersized earthquakes have contaminated GPS sites around the world, a new study finds.

The Global Positioning System is a network of satellites and ground stations that provide location information anywhere on Earth. Except for spots in Australia, western Europe and the eastern tip of Canada, every GPS site on the ground underwent small but important shifts since 2000 because of big earthquakes, according to a study published May 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

The research confirms that great earthquakes, those bigger than magnitude 8.0, can have far-reaching effects on the Earth's crust. And because GPS is critical for everything from calculating satellite orbits to sea level rise to earthquake hazards, scientists can't ignore these tiny zigs and zags, the researchers conclude.

http://www.livescience.com/34651-gps-errors-from-earthquakes.html

Scientists know that the Australian tectonic plate is moving northward at around 7 centimetres per year. In 40 years, our "home" has shifted 2.80 metres... Quite a considerable amount really...

From Dr Helen Caldicott

As the escape of radiation at Fukushima seems virtually unstoppable, there are still steps that governments all over the world should take to prevent worst case consequences. One of them would be canceling the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores of Oregon, Washington State and Canada early next year. California will probably be impacted later that year. Because the ongoing flow of water from the reactor site will be virtually impossible to stop, a radioactive plume will continue to migrate across the Pacific affecting Hawaii, North America, South America and eventually Australia for many decades.

We are only talking about ocean currents, however, fish swim thousands of miles and don’t necessarily follow the currents. As noted in Part I, big fish concentrate radiation most efficiently, and tuna have already been caught off the coast of California containing cesium from Fukushima. Seaweed also efficiently concentrates radioactive elements.

As I contemplate the future at Fukushima, it seems that the escape of radiation is virtually unstoppable. The levels of radiation in buildings 1, 2 and 3 are now so high that no human can enter or get close to the molten cores. It will therefore be impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years if ever.

read more: http://www.countercurrents.org/caldicott150913.htm

The catastrophic triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 was "a warning to the world" about the hazards of nuclear power and contained lessons for the British government as it plans a new generation of nuclear power stations, the man with overall responsibility for the operation in Japan has told the Guardian.

Speaking at his Tokyo corporate headquarters , Naomi Hirose, president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the stricken Fukushima plant, said Britain's nuclear managers "should be prepared for the worst" in order to avoid repeating Japan's traumatic experience. "We tried to persuade people that nuclear power is 100% safe. That was easy for both sides. Our side explains how safe nuclear power is. The other side is the people who listen and for them it is easy to hear OK, it's safe, sure, why not?

"But we have to explain, no matter how small a possibility, what if this [safety] barrier is broken? We have to prepare a plan if something happens … It is easy to say this is almost perfect so we don't have to worry about it. But we have to keep thinking: what if …

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/19/uk-government-new-plant-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-warning

---------------------------------

Gus: In the early 1970s, I investigated the French plutonium "Fast Breeders"... Knowing a bit about nuclear energy, I was quite amazed at the risks taken on the construction of such "beasts"... It's the stuff of nightmares where everything is all right for 50 years and then one has ten seconds left to pray. At the time, the need to run liquid sodium at about 700 degrees Celsius to cool the reactor seems like a nuclear physicist's dream but the technology has to be extraordinary precise to run such sodium through kilometres of stainless steel pipes, in super hot environment such as a nuclear reactor... If my memory serves me right, there was near 6000 tonnes of sodium as coolant and more than 200 tonnes (unless it was 200 kilos?) of plutonium as "fuel"... The technology and the applied physics were quite phenomenal, but ten seconds was the reaction time between a safe shut down and a full melt-down...

Considering one only needs 5.8 kilograms of plutonium to make an atom bomb (about half a can of beer), one could see a major "reaction" with 200 TONNES  of the stuff (or even 200 kilos) ......

The retired chief of India’s nuclear regulator, Dr. A Gopalakrishnan has sent out an urgent note in which he has cautioned that a ‘loss of coolant accident(LOCA)’ might be underway in Gujarat’s Kakrapar Nuclear Power Station(KAPS). A LOCA accidents is the most serious accident that can happen in nuclear plants and it might lead to the meltdown of the reactor fuel core.

The same reactor had a major accident in 1994 when floodwaters drowned Kakrapar. The floodgates meant to release excess water could not be opened and the water kept increasing–which could lead to a major accident–but it was prevented with the efforts of local engineers. Mr. Manoj Mishra, a worker in the power station then who blew whistle on that accident was terminated by the NPCIL. He was denied justice even by the Supreme Court in India which bought the NPCIL’s argument that he cannot be a whistle-blower as he did not have technical degrees. Mr. Mishra had years of experience in the reactor and he was a strong leader of the workers’ union.

Kakrapar is situated not very far from the Vansda-Bharuch earthquake faultline running through Gujarat, which has experienced several major earthquakes.

Exactly on the 5th anniversary of Fukushima, a leak has been reported in the Unit-1 of the Kakrapar Nuclear Power Station near Surat in Gujarat.

Here is the note by Dr. Gopalakrishnan:

The Kakrapar Unit-I nuclear reactor in Gujarat is undergoing a moderately large leakage of heavy water from its Primary Heat Transport (PHT) system since 9.00 AM on March 11,2016. From the very limited information released by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) of the government , as well as from the conversations I had with press people who have been in touch with nuclear officials, few inferences can be drawn.

Till 7.00 PM on March 12,2016 , the DAE officials have no clue as to where exactly the PHT leak is located and how big is the rate of irradiated heavy water that is leaking into the reactor containment . However, some reports indicate that the containment has been vented to the atmosphere at least once , if not more times , which I suspect indicates a tendency for pressure build up in that closed space due to release of hot heavy water and steam into the containment housing . If this is true, the leak is not small , but moderately large , and still continuing. No one confirms that any one has entered the containment (in protective clothing) for a quick physical assessment of the situation , perhaps it is not safe to do so because of the high radiationfields inside . When NPCIL officials state that the reactor cooling is maintained , I believe what they may be doing is to allow the heavy water or light water stored in the emergency cooling tanks to run once-through the system and continue to pour through the leak into the containment floor through the break .

All this points to the likelihood that what Kakrapar Unit-1 is undergoing is a small Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) in progress. It is most likely that one or more pressure tubes (PT) in the reactor (which contain the fuel bundles) have cracked open , leaking hot primary system heavy-water coolant into the containment housing . The reactor cooling is said to be maintained which , in view of the PT breach , can only be by supply of heavy water or light water from the storage tanks of the emergency cooling systems . While it may perhaps ensure bulk coolant temperatures in the PHT system to be well under control , it could still mean fuel centreline temperatures in the channel which may have a breach could be quite high . The seriousness of the accident and the potential high risks to the plant and personnel in the near vicinity are yet to be assessed , because NPCIL and AERB do not yet know where the location of the leak is or how to initiate actions to stop it. They were waiting for a team of AERB Specialists to reach Kakrapar in the afternoon of March 12 th to jointly decide between AERB & NPCIL how to proceed from here on. This is therefore a potentially serious accident in progress , and the DAE, NPCIL and AERB appear to be clearly saying at the moment that they know very little of what is happening. I was just told that a senior team from AERB has reached Kakrapar this evening and now the serious accident investigations will hopefully begin and decisions initiated .

In August 1983 , the Pickering Heavy Water Reactor in Canada had a serious Small LOCA , due to a sudden two-meter long rupture of a pressure tube (PT). Upon later analysis , the cause was found to be the mislocation of annulus gas spacer springs which allowed the pressure tube to sag and contact the calandria tube , leading to hydrogen enrichment of the cooler areas of the PT. This made the tube more brittle in such cooler locations and it ruptured due to the internal fluid pressure. In 1983 , when this accident in Canada occurred , India was under international nuclear sanctions following the Pokhran-1 test and it took some time before root causes of this accident were understood by our Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) institutions. But , the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) did commendable work immediately in analysing the phenomenon of hydriding of PTs in a PHWR , and carried out experiments, developed computer programs and the appropriate PT Integrity Inspection Equipment within the next decade. Based on all this work , a Pressure Tube Aging & Integrity Management Program was develop jointly by BARC & NPCIL , for strict adherence to and use by NPCIL in all their PHWRs. Besides , it was found essential that the PT material has to be changed to Niobium-stabilized Zircalloy , and accordingly all previous Indian PHWRs including Kakrapar Unit-1 were re-tubed with the new alloy tubes in subsequent years . But , this re-tubing did not preclude the need for strictly following of the PT Aging Management Program and the periodic checking of the garter spring position between the PT and the Calandria tube to minimize the PT sagging within the calandria tube. It may be possible that , having built more than 20 PHWRs , NPCIL and AERB in recent years have become overconfident and relaxed their strict adherence to this Aging Management Program , which might have been the reason for the current accident.

Let me caution the reader that the above conjecture is based on bits and pieces of reliable and not so reliable information gathered from different people close to the accident details and in positions of authority. Future detailed evaluation may or may not prove my entire set of conclusions or part of them to be not well-founded. But , technical experts are compelled to put out such conjectures because of the total lack of transparency of the Indian cilvilian nuclear power sector and the atomic energy commission (AEC) , the Dept. of Atomic Energy (DAE) , the NPCIL and the AERB . Public have a need to know and , therefore , the AEC and its sub-ordinate organizations need to promptly release status reports on the progressing safety incident which could affect their lives , to alleviate their concerns and anxieties . It is a series of such lapses in communication over the years which has built up the ever-increasing trust deficit in the DAE system among the general public. All future plans for expanding the civilian nuclear power sector should be put on hold until a truly independent nuclear safety regulator is put in place , who is not controlled by the AEC or the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) , who will then be answerable to openly communicating with the public on all civilian nuclear power matters.