TEPCO "To Issue All Radiation Data" at Fukushima as PRE-Restart at Sendai Begins update 3/30/15

AS IF WE CAN BELIEVE THIS: TEPCO To Issue All Radiation Data at Damaged Plant Mar. 30, 2015 - Updated 06:41 UTC-4 Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will release all radiation data taken at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to improve information disclosure. TEPCO made the announcement on Monday after mounting criticism about its handling of tainted rainwater leaking into the sea. Its workers had been aware since April last year that radiation levels in a drainage channel at the No.2 reactor building rose every time it rained. But it did not make the problem public for months. The workers were worried that it might impact talks with local farmers about a plan to discharge treated groundwater into the sea. TEPCO will name an executive officer posted to the plant who is responsible for communicating information to the public. President Naomi Hirose said his company will implement measures that take into account the public's viewpoint. ~~~~~ Pre-restart Nuclear Reactor Check Begins (At Sendai) Mar. 30, 2015 Nuclear regulators in Japan have begun examining a power plant in southwestern Japan. They want to see whether it can return online under new regulations introduced after the 2011 Fukushima accident. The Nuclear Regulation Authority began inspections of the No.1 reactor at the Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture on Monday. All nuclear reactors in the country are currently offline. The reactor became the first to clear the new, tougher regulations last year together with another reactor at the plant. The regulators will check whether facilities and equipment newly introduced to improve safety have been installed as planned and function properly. The regulators plan to focus on about 500 of the new items that are designed to withstand a severe nuclear accident. The No.1 reactor has been offline since May 2011. The operator, Kyushu Electric Power Company, hopes to load nuclear fuel into the reactor in early June and restart it in a month's time. But the schedule depends on the pre-restart inspection. ~~~ audio called feeling dark (behind the Mask) by 7003PD featuring Artexflow on ccdigmixter ~~~ TV: Dam gates ‘shifted’ in Fukushima Unit 3 fuel pool — Damaged by massive piece of falling debris — Concern it could trigger drainage from pool — Tepco: It does not ‘appear’ to be leaking http://bit.ly/1BFYVNi Kyodo, Mar 27, 2015 (emphasis added): [Tepco] disclosed that a 35-ton piece of machinery debris might be resting on the inner gate of the spent fuel pool for reactor 3… and that the gate is slightly out of position. Tepco said Thursday that a fuel-handling machine… is touching one of two gates that stand between the pool and the reactor containment vessel [and] both… gates are slightly out of position but said the pool… does not appear to be leaking… If the gates are damaged, it might trigger a water leak from the pool… The Japan Times changed the headline on Kyodo’s report from ‘Debris poses risk to spent-fuel pool gate in Fukushima No. 1′s reactor 3‘ to ‘Setback at Fukushima No. 1 plant threatens reactor 3 rod removal’. NHK, Mar 27, 2015: Fuel pool gates found shifted at Fukushima plant… [TEPCO] says 2 iron gates that keep cooling water inside a spent fuel pool were found to be out of position… officials say this could affect the removal of debris… TEPCO officials said on Thursday that both of the iron gates in the pool had shifted from their original positions. They say the inner gate was likely damaged by a large machine that fell into the pool. The operator says it will examine if removal of the machine from the pool may trigger water leaks. Enformable, June 2012: Nuclear engineer Chris Harris identified the “weakest link” which may initiate a spent fuel pool draindown… The gate is a long rectangular “dam” in the side of the fuel pool… The gate has seals so that the fuel pool doesn’t drain into the cavity and dangerously expose fuel assemblies… If the seal were to fail, then the fuel pool would drain to dangerously low levels right through the damaged gate. Chris Harris, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and engineer, Nov 2012: “One of the Tepco releases that really intrigued me was that there is something called ‘curing material’… to me it means they know about a tear or a rip in the spent fuel pool liner [of Unit 3 and] they tried to repair with some sort of epoxy and something that needs to cure or cure time on it before they can proceed.” Tepco, Sept 2012: Prior to removing the steel beam which fell into the spent fuel pool… liner curing of the pool will be implemented in mid November once the preparation is complete. see also: Fukushima Fuel Pool Gates To Hell are Shifted update 3/27/15 http://bit.ly/1OT7yxW