Two years after sacrificing one robot, TEPCO officials have aborted their latest robot mission inside the Fukushima reactor after the 'scorpion' became unresponsive as it investigated the previously discovered hole where the core is believed to have melted.
A "scorpion" robot sent into a Japanese nuclear reactor to learn about the damage suffered in a tsunami-induced meltdown had its mission aborted after the probe ran into trouble, Tokyo Electric Power company said Thursday. As Phys.org reports, TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, sent the remote-controlled device into the No. 2 reactor where radiation levels have recently hit record highs.
The "scorpion" robot, so-called because it can lift up its camera-mounted tail to achieve better viewing angles, is also designed to crawl over rubble inside the damaged facility.
But it could not reach its target destination beneath a pressure vessel through which nuclear fuel is believed to have melted because the robot had difficulty moving, a company spokeswoman said.
"Scorpion's mission is to take images of the situation and collect data inside the containment vessel,"TEPCO spokesman Shinichi Nakakuki said earlier.
"Challenges include enduring high levels of radiation and moving on the rough surface," he said.
Radiation levels inside the reactor were estimated last week at 650 sieverts per hour at one spot, which can effectively shut down robots in hours.
The robot sent to inspect a reactor' containment vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant stopped responding three hours into the operation.
Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under control when levels of radioactivity in the ocean indicate ongoing leaks“. And now we have just learned that the radiation level inside reactor 2 is so high that no human could possibly survive being exposed to it.
The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said.
It is hard to find the words to convey how serious this is.
If you were exposed to a radiation level of just 10 sieverts per hour, that would mean almost certain death. So 530 sieverts per hour is simply off the charts. According to the Guardian, this recent measurement is being described by scientists as “unimaginable”…
If that isn’t frightening enough, one Japanese news source is reporting that this melted nuclear fuel “has since come in contact with underground water flowing from the mountain side”…
The melted fuel has since come in contact with underground water flowing from the mountain side, generating radioactively contaminated water every day. In order to dismantle the reactor, it is necessary to take out the melted fuel, but high radiation levels inside the reactor had hampered work to locate the melted debris.
If this disaster was just limited to Japan, the entire northern hemisphere would not be at risk.
But that is not the case.
Most of the nuclear contamination from Fukushima ended up in the Pacific Ocean, and from there it was literally taken around the rest of the planet. The following was reported by PBS…
More than 80 percent of the radioactivity from the damaged reactors ended up in the Pacific — far more than reached the ocean from Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Of this, a small fraction is currently on the seafloor — the rest was swept up by the Kuroshio current, a western Pacific version of the Gulf Stream, and carried out to sea where it mixed with (and was diluted by) the vast volume of the North Pacific.
We don’t know if there is a connection, but it is extremely interesting to note that fisheries up and down the west coast of the United States are failing because of a dramatic decrease in fish populations. Just check out the following excerpt from a story that was posted on January 18th…
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today determined there are commercial fishery failures for nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington.
In recent years, each of these fisheries experienced sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass or loss of access due to unusual ocean and climate conditions. This decision enables fishing communities to seek disaster relief assistance from Congress.
Things are particularly bad up in Alaska, and biologists are “stumped” as to why this could be happening…
In 2016, the pink salmon harvests in Kodiak, Prince William Sounds, Chignik and lower Cook Inlet came in woefully under forecast and stumped biologists as to why.The estimated value of Kodiak’s 2016 haul was $2.21 million, compared to a five-year average of $14.64 million, and in Prince William Sound the ex-vessel value was $6.6 million, far less that the $44 million five-year average. The total state harvest was the smallest since the late 1970s.Although state biologists weren’t ready to declare a cause for the poor pink salmon performance, the Commerce Department press release attributed the disasters to “unusual ocean and climate conditions.”
Further south, it was being reported last month that millions of dead sardines are washing up on the shores of Chile.
I could go on and on with a lot more examples like this, but hopefully you get the point.
Something really strange is happening in the Pacific, and a lot of people believe that there is a link to Fukushima.
Not too long ago, I wrote about how the elite of Silicon Valley are “feverishly prepping“, but the truth is that all of us should be. If you need some tips on how to get started, you can find my prepping book right here. Our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster is just one piece of the puzzle.
But it is definitely a very important piece. The nuclear material from Fukushima is continuously entering the food chain, and once that nuclear material gets into our bodies it will slowly irradiate our organs for years to come. The following is an excerpt from an absolutely outstanding opinion piece by Helen Caldicott that was published in the Guardian…
According to Bloomberg, they are not even going to start removing melted nuclear fuel from these reactors until 2021, and it is being projected that the overall cleanup “may take as long as 40 years”…
A lot of people that end up dying as a result of this crisis may never even know that it was Fukushima that caused their deaths.
Personally, I am convinced that this is the greatest environmental crisis that humanity has ever experienced, and if the latest reading from reactor 2 is any indication, things just took a very serious turn for the worse.
Large parts of Northern California were placed on a flood advisory on Sunday ahead of a storm system expected to bring heavy rain, wind and snow to the state, still cleaning up from a deadly storm that deluged Southern California two days ago.
The storm is expected to drop as much as 5 inches (13 cm) of rain in the San Francisco region through Wednesday, bringing more water to already saturated land that has been inundated with heavy precipitation since early January, the National Weather Service said.
"We could see flooding in areas that haven't flooded in a long time and there will be additional stress on levees, rivers, creeks & streams," the service said.
"The heaviest rainfall and higher elevation snow will be from Monday through Tuesday," it said.
It added the Sierra Nevada mountain area could receive as much as 40 inches (101 cm) of new snow.
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services said the state was more susceptible to flooding because of destructive wildfires that left many areas in Northern and Southern California with burn-scarred hills.
On Friday and Saturday, Southern California was hit with its biggest storm in years. The system unleashed a wave of rain and snow that killed at least five people and triggered flooding, mudslides, high winds and power outages, officials said.
Should there be a sense of urgency with “5-7 inches of rain” being forecasted in the next 48 hours for the Oroville area by the National Weather Service? Why isn’t the silent Governor-in-hiding, Jerry Brown, who has seized control of the situation as well as the media press releases, paying at least some attention to the National Weather Service forecast and issuing his own risk assessment statements in conjunction with the weather report and then moving to protect the potential victims?
With 2 million lives at risk, it is surprising that the National Weather Service (NWS) would not make this the LEAD STORY, especially since they acknowledge that they are “concerned” about the Oroville Dam, but presented this concern, as the readers just witnessed, as an after-thought.
Regardless, of where the NWS placed this weather report in their broadcast, shouldn’t this be enough evidence that the region should be evacuated as a precaution? (Author’s note: Please note that the recorded forecast will undoubtedly update – however, I don’t see the situation changing as originally reported by the NWS).
In light of the attention that the Oroville Dam sitaution has brought into the public view, several other dams in Northern California are at risk as well. The most prominent dam that could be joining the Oroville Dam on the endangered list is Mt. Shasta.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the state’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, is also approaching its capacity. Lake Shasta has reached a very dangerous level of 95% of capacity and is presently releasing maximum water outflows just prior to the present series of storms which are ripping through the area. Subsequently, this situation is out of control and virtually, the entire Northern region of California is in grave danger.
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