Fuel rod removal work halted at Fukushima plant due to crane glitch

Who remembers 'The China Syndrome' movie? Let's hope there are no more stupid mistakes!

Why am I not surprised ?

I just hope we can clear out as much of the spent fuel rods and the reactor rods as fast as possible. Its difficult enough dealing with a mega-quake on its own.. having a bunch of angry fuel rods next to the even angrier sea is terrifying..

TEPCO ..... Human error = Low....Low... pay for Highly Dangerous work ..... 11000 a day don't cut it

So, we have an extremely delicate operation being conducted by people who make such moronic errors? Ever wonder why this whole nuclear incident happened in the first place?

Experts in the field of handling Radioactive Assemblies should have been trained to use the cranes... Base pay 11000 Yen an hour. Not 11000 a day... Cheap Labor has No place near a nuclear accident site..

Happened last Wednesday morning at 9:30 am. Hope they've fixed it by now.

Joshuyaki Building those nuke plants on those risky locations in the first place shows the incompetence and lack of safety rules and regulatioins by these companies and the industry as a whole . Unit 4 is compared to 2 and 3 the easiest one , but having said that , even unit 4 is the most risky , most difficult fuel rod removal ever. By Units 1 2 and 3 i s not even possible to do any work , any fuel removal because of the radioactivity .

All the used-fuel-rod pools are built way up on top of the reactor buildings, a design which is now seen to be optimistic and out-of-date.

No 4 needed to be emptied first because a) it was temporarily over-packed with used fuel assemblies, ie too crowded and super heavy, and b) it was cracked, bulging, leaning, and liable to collapse or tip over (especially with the danger of liquefaction) under constant juddering from aftershocks or indeed from another biggie.

Good luck to them in their delicate job. Here's hoping they get it emptied by year's end!

Zichi Nice animation you got there at you tube video link voor no4 unit . Reactor 3 operating floors , may sound very professional but its nothing other than just removing debris by remote controlled cranes . Here i ve got a video for you too , check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqhcfXQHAi8 Everything you see in this video , all those huge and very complicated machinery , cranes , support structures , lines etc etc everything need to be built on unit 3 which is impossible to do . They cant put men on the site since radioactivity is deadly and there is no way anyone can builr all that remotely . Wake up .

zichi Its not a building as you know it , its just a prefab tent they are going to lower over the unit . No construction worker can work on unit 3 , they would die within an hour . DO you know why your video called reactor unit 3 operating floor ( in your prevuious message) , is so shaky/ swinging ? Because its just a camera dangled from a huge crane hanging over it . You know why ? cause they cant send anyone into that unit to hold the camera. He would die before he could record that movie . If they cant even send one guy to record an hour movie how are they going to construct a whole nuclear plant ?

I work with cranes on a daily basis. An I have common sense. This is just like "satellite spotted more debris" This is the kind of sensionalism that comes when there're no news.

This is just one big joke to both TEPCO and the Japanese Government for ALL of the world's specialists in these disasters have ALL started to bury ALL of the reactions, entomb them in a box.

That will only happen once the massive pay-offs to those in power of the Japanese government are finally placed In prison for the rest of their lives and that prison being built in the box that buries those reactors.

Zichi / overchan I am not an expert in nuclear power , i havent posted hundreds of comments on this forum and i dont think any of this is even relevant . Overchan , you say you work with cranes on daily bases , can you tell us , if its possible to build a hmmmm lets say even a car (never mind a nuclear plant) just by sending in remotely operated cranes and building that car from a distance . Is that possible ? Is that possible to build high precision instruments and structures to the milimeter precies using remote cranes ? Zichi you say you are en electrical engineer , so you of all people should know that there is just no way to builfd anything like that from a remote distance just using cranes ,, nothing even close to that has ever been achived . Even experts admit we dont have to technology to do it. There is no way , anyone can work on units 1 2 and 3 , unlkess japan send in thousands of suicide workes. There is no way you will see that green structure BEING BUILT , on unit 3 . What they are building are like metal frames with stretched kevlar like sheets on them , like a huge prefab tent and they are just lowering it OVER the building (unit 3 ) to cover it so that nobody can see what will NOT be done there. That s all they are doing .

Zichi about your question if i have any thoughts ,any solution for fukushima , simple answer is NO . I am not an expert at that level to give a solution to the problem and as far as i know nobody has came up with a REAL answer yet . Lots of discussions has been going on from building a ditch around it , walls with zeolite filling , sarchophagus , lead concrete filled covers underground tunnels , etc etc ,, but none of them are considered as a definitive answer to the problem . The most accepted theory at the moment is to try to cover it the best they can , walk away from it for xxxx years and come back to try to build something ,to find some solution when the site is more workable ,, A definitve solution does not exist at the moment . At least not that i know of .

All cranes are build with exact tolerances. But unlike old cranes. Modern cranes use computers that halt the operation under any abnormal event.

Also. Most of those cranes can be used remotely. It can e build. Heck. We can even build a crane all over fukushima nuclear power plant. But its very expensive and Tepco wa ts profit

There're problems when working under high radiation. Since ionizing radiation damages electronics.

I strongly believe that fukushima plant needs a redundant system. Just like triple water filtering. Kore tanks. More cranes with tungsten shields. Etc. But TEPCO WANTS PROFIT

overchan It can not be build only by using remotely controlled cranes . It s impossible . If you know of any other similar example , of a remotely build complex structure please let us know . Using a crane remotely to take some piece from place a to place b is NOT building a nuclear plant remotely . Even a child can control an rc toy remotely ,, NOT THE SAME THING !!! I am sorry to say but you don't know what you are talking about . We are talking about building a nuclear plant (at least the upper half of it )from scratch , using only remotely controlled cranes . I don't know what kind of cranes you are using , but you wouldn't be able to build a single wall if you didn't have man on the ground .Let alone those fuel cranes . It s never been done , and the technology to do it is still not invented yet .

A redundant system ? What they need BEFORE anything else is to stop the leakage of huge amounts of radiation into the environment continuously . If they can ever manage to do that than they can start talking about redundancy .

Tanks are no solution . As long as you keep producing more and more toxic water you will be building more and more tanks . How long can you do that ?

The assemblies of fuel rods are first lifted out of their underwater storage rack using the large, specially built Hitachi fuel handling machine that has a gripper device. Resembling a piece of construction equipment, the big green machine moves back and forth over the surface of the pool as workers control it in a cockpit.

specially built Hitachi fuel handling machine, Yes But No word of Hitachi or TEPCO engineers handling anything hazardous only workers.....

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/540220/crane_sensor_systems_key_removing_fukushima_fuel_rods/

Also, TEPCO uses Nature in their calculations. The radioactivity is decaying, some isotopes faster than others, but by attacking what they can, and waiting on certain more hazardous jobs, natural decay can sometimes give them a little hand.

A good example for me was the concrete that they laid on the harbor floor to cover the cesium that had leaked into the sea. In 50 years the concrete will be breaking up, sure, but the 30-year radioactive half-life of cesium ensures that it will be less dangerous by then.

They also waited more than two years with Pool No 4 for the hottest fuel rods to cool down before they started work removing them.

So John, there is method in their madness!

Utrack zichi nandakandamanada ;;;; Here is a video of the crane we are talking about , removing fuel rods . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqhcfXQHAi8 Anyone who thinks this can be built remotely ? Please pause the video at 10 seconds. Look at the size and complkexity of that thing . EVERYTHING that looks green on that video is part of the crane . In short EVERYTHING you see on that video needs to be built remotely , nobody touching anything!!!! ,no man on the ground !!! just using remote cranes !!!!,,, IMPOSSIBLE ,, I am sorry but you guys don't know anything about engineering , construction , machines or buildings . If there is any example of anything built ,with such a complexity , totally remotely please let me know cause i dont know of any .

utrack ///The assemblies of fuel rods are first lifted out of their underwater storage rack using the large, specially built Hitachi fuel handling machine////

That specially built hitachi machine , that huge crane , THAT need s to be built in the first place ,,ON SITE!!! ,,, WITHOUT ANYONE ON THE GROUND !!!,, TOTALLY REMOTELY ,,!!! Not possible ,, they cant even build the concrete base to carry that crane , never mind the crane itself .

Nandakandamanda Very true , they are just winning time ,, cause they know that just as some isotopes , and more importantly , public response erodes in time . One fact everybody seems to be avoiding is that , it is STILL an erathquake prone area , and the longer they wait the higher the risk of another large earthquake , and when that happens , those fuel pools , allready weakend by the earrth quake/tsunami , and thousand s of tons of water being poured on them for years , they will crush down and all that fuel will burn in open air . That is a disaster waiting to happen and it will dwarf anything we have seen so far . The longer they wait , the higher the risk of that happening .

It looks as though they have got the crane working again as of midday today.

I wonder why it took four days to fix what they say was only a simple error?

johndpugh I agree with you that the structural integrity is non existent for those reactors.. I was addressing Zichi's claim that Hitachi and TEPCO engineers who are removing the spent fuel and not like day laborers..

Meanwhile, the radiation around the pool near reactor four is another danger.

"The (Nuclear Regulatory Authority) conducted an independent survey of its operation and found high radiation levels measuring 81 microsieverts per hour above the fuel handling machine and 90 microsieverts per hour above the operation floor at Unit 4," Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, wrote in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

"The NRA believes that this high-level radiation may be caused by cobalt 60 contamination in the storage pool, which might have been released during fuel handling before the disaster of March 11, 2011."

Normal background radiation in major cities including Tokyo is usually less than 0.1 microsievert per hour

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/540220/crane_sensor_systems_key_removing_fukushima_fuel_rods/

No one but workers a.k.a. day Laborers are being put at risk of recieving high doses of radiation.