Group items tagged

To start with, those in charge of the replication attempt were members of the MIT Plasma Fusion Center. Their work with hot fusion Tokamak brought the university many millions of dollars in funding from the government, and maintained their job security. If cold fusion were to be accepted as a real phenomenon, it could have made hot fusion research appear to be near worthless. 

members of his department (including some scientists from others) took every opportunity they could to attack Pons and Fleischmann. For example, consider how..

A funeral party or "Wake for Cold Fusion" was held by the Plasma Fusion Center, before their replication test of Pons and Fleischmann's setup was even complete. They held another such party afterwards. Mugs belittling cold fusion were given out by Ron Parker, the head of the MIT hot fusion research group, who was supposed to be doing serious research to determine if cold fusion was a reality or not. The mugs read, "The Utah University: Department of Fusion Confusion" and had mocking instructions for cold fusion on the back. Ron Parker would use the test results to discredit cold fusion, while at a celebration of the death of cold fusion stated to Eugene Mallove (after being shown evidence in support for cold fusion) stated that the data from the MIT replication was "worthless." How examination of the data from MIT's replication showed obvious evidence of tampering. In fact, the corrected data showed excess heat. Yet it was still used to discredit cold fusion research for many years.

How the former President of MIT, Charles Vest, refused to order an investigation into how the Plasma Fusion Center handled the replication, and their obviously unscientific behavior -- such as partying for the death of something instead of doing unbiased research. Even worse, years later he signed onto a Department of Energy report stating that cold fusion did not deserve funding for research, yet hot fusion deserved millions of additional dollars and was a "bargain." Conflicts of interest were ignored from the very start. For example, those who had the strongest need for cold fusion to be proven not to work (hot fusion scientists), were tasked with the replication of the effect. It would be like giving a cigarette company the order to conduct a study on the reality of lung cancer, or the lumber industry the job of determining the usefulness of industrial hemp. What the hot fusion scientists were going to say was obvious! How some scientists were so closed minded they stated that if cold fusion was real, Pons and Fleischmann should be dead from radiation poisoning. In addition, some scientists went so far as to personally attack them. In one case, a scientist stated that even if a thousand tests showed excess heat, that the results would not vindicate Pons and Fleischmann.

At the same time, however, it is notable that the government has failed to clarify what a cold shutdown at the Fukushima plant specifically means. Currently, water contaminated with radioactive materials is purified and reused to cool down reactor cores as a last-ditch measure, and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is unlikely to be able to use a conventional cooling system in the foreseeable future.

If the cooling system with a total extension of four kilometers develops trouble, the temperatures of the reactor cores could rise again. Since it remains unclear where the melted fuel is situated in the troubled reactors, the temperatures of the pressure vessels alone are far from convincing. Under these circumstances, the phrase, "cold shutdown," should not be used in a casual manner without clearly defining it. It is important to grasp the actual conditions of the reactors and fuel as accurately as possible and take appropriate countermeasures in a well-organized manner.

The lifting and reviewing of evacuation advisories depends largely on whether the cold shutdown of the stricken nuclear reactors can be achieved. Therefore, the government should specifically explain the conditions of the reactors and risks involving them to the public. In anticipation that the reactors will be stabilized in a relatively short period, the government is set to lift its designation of areas 20-30 kilometers from the nuclear power station as "emergency evacuation preparation zones" as early as this month. In these areas, residents are allowed to stay in their neighborhoods, but kindergartens and schools remain closed. Such a contradiction should be eliminated according to the circumstances of each of these areas.

On the other hand, it is indispensable to regularly measure the precise levels of radiation and decontaminate areas tainted with radioactive substances so that residents can return to their neighborhoods without worries about being exposed to radiation. Moreover, it is necessary to speed up efforts to repair and build public infrastructure in the affected areas.

Hosono has sought cooperation from the IAEA to share its expertise in decontamination. It is an important task to bring together the knowledge of the international community to revive crisis-hit Fukushima.

Critics, however, were quick to question the stability of the system and its ad hoc design. The combination of filtering and decontamination technologies—mainly from the French nuclear giant Areva and the U.S. nuclear waste management company Kurion—includes some 4 kilometers of piping. The critics have a point. Even with the addition of a reportedly more robust system (to be used in parallel or as backup as needed) from Toshiba and IHI Corp., TEPCO admits the system underwent 39 disruptions between 10 July and 8 September. One consequence is that roughly 100 000 metric tons of water still need to be decontaminated.

It appears, however, that the process is now ahead of schedule. Environment Minister Goshi Hosono, who is also in charge of the Fukushima nuclear accident recovery, told the International Atomic Energy Agency's annual general conference in Vienna on 19 September that Japan was now aiming to complete a cold shutdown of the Fukushima plant by December 2011, instead of mid-January 2012. Progress was already evident in July, when Hosono announced that workers had completed step 1 of the two-step road map on schedule, reducing radioactive emissions and starting to bring down the core temperatures in reactors 1, 2, and 3. Hosono attributed the success to the construction of a new cooling system, which had begun pumping water into all three damaged reactors. In addition to cooling, the system also decontaminates the water accumulating in the basements of the reactor and turbine buildings. The contamination is the result of injected water coming into contact with the molten fuel in the pressure vessels.

Disruptions and remaining challenges notwithstanding, TEPCO has been making progress toward step 2 of the road map: a cold shutdown. According to TEPCO, that means achieving and maintaining a temperature of less than 100 °C as measured at the bottom of a reactor pressure vessel—the steel vessel containing the fuel rods—which itself is enclosed inside a protective containment vessel. A major advance came at the beginning of September, when TEPCO was able to start up the core spray lines to cool reactors 1 and 3. The core spray lines apply water directly to the cores from above, while the system installed in July has been cooling the cores by injecting water from the bottom. TEPCO has also begun increasing the amount of water being injected into reactor 2. The core spray line could not be used until recently because TEPCO first had to survey the subsystem's piping and valves. Given the high radiation in the area, this was difficult, but workers completed the job in July and confirmed the system's operability in August.

By late September, as a result of these efforts, the temperatures in all three reactors had dropped below 100 °C for the first time since the accident. As of 29 September, the temperatures for reactors 1, 2, and 3, respectively, were 77.5 °C, 99.7 °C, and 78.7 °C. "We are steadily bringing the postaccident situation under control," says Hosono. "To achieve step 2 this year, we'll move the schedule forward and do our best." But Yoshinori Moriyama, deputy director-general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) is cautious. "We need to maintain this state over the midterm," he says. "Temporary lower temperatures and the nonrelease of radioactive substances do not immediately mean that this is a cold shutdown." In order for NISA to declare a cold shutdown, the temperatures must remain stable and below 100 °C into December. So NISA won't officially declare a cold shutdown until near the end of 2011.

Despite these positive developments, nuclear experts point out that achieving a cold shutdown does not make the troubled plant completely safe, given that even spent fuel continues to generate heat for years after use. And upon achieving a cold shutdown, TEPCO must take on a new series of challenges. These include finding where the injected water is escaping, stopping those leaks, dealing with the accumulated contaminated water, removing and storing the thousands of spent fuel rods from the pools in reactors 1 to 4, and then figuring out a way to remove the melted fuel. The last is a task that could take a decade or more, according to experts.

"There are about 110,00 tons of contaminated water (in the plant) and the situation is still not completely under control because coolant water is leaking from the containment vessels. There is no guarantee that the irradiated water won't leak from the plant (and contaminate the environment)" if another natural disaster strikes, said Hisashi Ninokata, a professor of reactor engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

After achieving cold shutdowns of reactors 1, 2 and 3, the government may declare parts of the 20-km no-go zone around the plant safe. It may even let the evacuees return, as long as the area is decontaminated and crucial infrastructure restored.

But the longer the tainted water leaks, the more the radioactive waste will grow, leaving the Fukushima plant vulnerable to further disasters, Ninokata said. Before the Fukushima crisis can be said contained, the holes and cracks from which the water and fuel are escaping must be located and sealed. But this extremely difficult task could take years because the radiation near the reactors is simply too high to let workers get near them.

"It'll be too early to say that the situation has reached a stable phase even after Step 2 is completed," said Chihiro Kamisawa, a researcher at Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a nonprofit group of scientists and activists opposed to nuclear power. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, the water cooling its fuel is still hot but no longer boiling, which significantly reduces the amount of radioactive emissions.

In late July, the temperature in reactor No. 1's pressure vessel fell below 100 degrees. On Monday, the same thing was achieved in reactor 3 after Tepco activated a system that pumps water deep into the containment vessel. But on Friday, reactor No. 2 was still boiling away with a reading of 112.6. "Efforts seem to be making smooth progress, and I think Step 2 is likely to be achieved by mid-January," said Shinichi Morooka, a Waseda University professor and reactor expert.

Another reason for optimism is the progress being made with the water decontamination system. The cleaning rate has greatly improved in the past few weeks and exceeded 90 percent of capacity last week. If the decontamination system ever reaches its full potential, it will allow Tepco to inject coolant at a higher rate and bring the melted cores to lower and stabler temperatures.

The government also plans to start decontaminating soil in various hot spots so the evacuees can return once the second step is completed. But some experts are questioning whether residents should be allowed to return so soon. The cracks and holes in the leaking reactors haven't even been pinpointed yet, let alone fixed, they say.

"As an engineer, I am worried (about the plan to let residents return) when it is still unclear what is really going on inside the reactors," said Morooka. For the time being, Tepco can only guess where the water is leaking from and which parts need repair, because radiation has prevented workers from fully exploring the buildings.

Spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said that since no extensive damage to the reactors was found during inspections of the first and second floors of the buildings, any holes or cracks are probably at the basement level. But with the basement floors flooded, Tepco's top priority is just to get the water out. Plans to fix the reactors aren't even being discussed yet, Matsumoto said.

Asked if the containment vessels can take another quake, the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Ninokata said he believes the impact would likely be distributed evenly through the structure without widening existing cracks or holes. But if the impact somehow focuses on parts damaged by the March 11 disasters, there could be further damage, he said. "The containment vessel is what really ensures the safety of a nuclear reactor," Ninokata said, warning that if radioactive materials are still leaking out, allowing residents to return would risk harming their health.

There are many other unsolved issues, including how to cope with contaminated water said to be accumulating at a rate of 200 to 500 tons a day in underground areas of the reactor buildings. The government and TEPCO must thoroughly solve these issues without being bound by their timetable. Source: Yomiuri Online

Dear Alessandro Casali: This photo [shown in the opening of this PESN story] has been taken during the stress test of a series of E-Cats a couple of weeks ago, together with the Greek Scientist Christos Stremmenos. They are some of the E-Cats that will compound the 1 MW plant. In that phase the E-Cats were working making steam WITHOUT energy input. This is why you see us so focused (me and Stremmenos). The 1 MW plant, probably will work mostly without energy input, I suppose, because we are resolving the safety issues connected. The 4 red spots are pumps, the E-Cat clusters are hidden. The three characters in the photo are Prof. Sergio Focardi, Prof. Christos Stremmenos and me. Warm Regards, A.R.

Here is a comment on this topic from Rossi's blog, "The Journal of Nuclear Physics." http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=501&cpage=2#comment-54414 

(I think the reason he uses the word "mostly" in the above post, is that the one megawatt plant will require input power to start. Also, if a reactor core starts to drift lower in output, power will be used for a few minutes to bring it back to a normal operating temperature. For the vast majority of the time, there will be no input power.) The fact that the one megawatt plant will use no input power (the vast majority of the time) is very important. This will be absolute -- beyond any doubt -- proof that the technology works as claimed. Simply put, the pathological skeptics and naysayers will not be able to refute that cold fusion is taking place. 

Confirmation the Catalyst and Fuel is Super Cheap

The damaged Fukushima reactors and burning fuel rods released many, many tons of of iodine (a highly-reactive ozone-attacking agent)  and xenon, which soon transformed into xenon fluoride (produced when xenon comes under UV catalysis to combine with fluorine gas in the atmosphere).     Fluorine is abundant over the US Pacific Northwest and Canada. The jet stream carried the iodine and newly-formed XeFl compounds in a northeasterly direction, crossing into the Arctic circle and looping back down over Greenland, Scandinavia and European Russia. This exactly accounts for the oblong shape and direction of the expanded ozone hole.

"This was a phenomenon we had not anticipated," Nakajima said.   "If the layer of ozone that blocks ultraviolet rays is eradicated, it will negatively affect human health," he said, adding, "We need to monitor the situation down the track."   The team, which has been observing the distribution of atmospheric ozone in the Northern Hemisphere, found in March that the area of low ozone density had spread from the Arctic Sea to over Scandinavia, northern Russia and Greenland.

The loss of the ozone layer was especially prominent in high-altitude zones, with the team estimating that around 40 percent of the ozone layer has been lost, up from a previous reading of 30 percent.   The level is comparable to that of the ozone hole that annually appears over the Antarctic in the September-October period, it added.   (Mainichi Japan) October 3, 2011

The government and plant operator TEPCO are trumpeting the operation of the circulation cooling system, as if it marks a successful resolution to the disaster. However, radiation continues to leak from the reactors. The longer the circulation cooling system keeps running, the more radioactive waste it will accumulate. It isn't really leading us in the direction we need to go.

It's doubtful that there's even a need to keep pouring water into the No.1 reactor, where nuclear fuel is suspected to have burned through the pressure vessel. Meanwhile, it is necessary to keep cooling the No. 2 and 3 reactors, which are believed to still contain some fuel, but the cooling system itself is unstable. If the fuel were to become overheated again and melt, coming into contact with water and trigger a steam explosion, more radioactive materials will be released.

TEPCO says it is aiming to bring the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors to cold shutdown by January 2012. Cold shutdown, however, entails bringing the temperature of sound nuclear fuel in pressure vessels below 100 degrees Celsius. It would be one thing to aim for this in April, when the government had yet to confirm that a meltdown had indeed taken place. But what is the point of "aiming for cold shutdown" now, when we know that fuel is no longer sound?

In the days ahead, the storage of enormous quantities of radiation-contaminated waste, including tainted mud resulting from the decontamination process, will become a major problem.

When the Three Mile Island accident took place in 1972, the melted nuclear fuel had stayed within the pressure vessel, making defueling possible. With Fukushima, however, there is a possibility that nuclear fuel has fallen into the ground, in which case it will take 10 or 20 years to recover it. We are now head to head with a situation that mankind has never faced before.

That's half the rated capacity, but it is still a major accomplishment for the device that was completed earlier this week -- the first of its kind on the planet.

A government-appointed panel estimated in October that sealing or dismantling the site’s four ruined reactors could cost Y1,100bn, but some government officials and outside experts argue that the true amount could be several times higher.

Mainchi points out that reactors 1 and 3 are probably in no better shape: The fuel inside the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors is believed to have melted through the pressure vessels and been accumulating in the outer primary containers after the Fukushima plant lost its key functions to cool the reactors in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year.

To substantially reduce the amount of radioactive materials released from the plant, Tepco needs to get to the bottom of the problem: plugging holes or cracks in the reactors' containment vessels that are allowing contaminated water to flood on-site facilities, including the reactor buildings and turbine buildings, experts said. The updated road map, however, includes no reference to this critical work in the second stage, even though it was mentioned in past plans. And without fixing this problem, it is difficult to say that the release of radioactive materials is under control.

Since the Liberal Democratic Party selected him as prime minister in September 2006, the hawkish Abe repeatedly called for Japan to move beyond the postwar formula of a strictly defensive posture and non-nuclear principles. Advocacy of a nuclear-armed Japan arose from his family tradition. His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi nurtured the wartime atomic bomb project and, as postwar prime minister, enacted the civilian nuclear program. His father Shintaro Abe, a former foreign minister, had played the Russian card in the 1980s, sponsoring the Russo-Japan College, run by the Aum Shinrikyo sect (a front for foreign intelligence), to recruit weapons scientists from a collapsing Soviet Union.   The chief obstacle to American acceptance of a nuclear-armed Japan was the Pentagon, where Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima remain as iconic symbols justifying American military supremacy.The only feasible channel for bilateral transfers then was through the civilian-run Department of Energy (DoE), which supervises the production of nuclear weapons.

Camp David Go-Ahead   The deal was sealed on Abe's subsequent visit to Washington. Wary of the eavesdropping that led to Richard Nixon's fall from grace, Bush preferred the privacy afforded at Camp David. There, in a rustic lodge on April 27, Bush and Abe huddled for 45 minutes. What transpired has never been revealed, not even in vague outline.   As his Russian card suggested, Abe was shopping for enriched uranium. At 99.9 percent purity, American-made uranium and plutonium is the world's finest nuclear material. The lack of mineral contaminants means that it cannot be traced back to its origin. In contrast, material from Chinese and Russian labs can be identified by impurities introduced during the enrichment process.

The flow of coolant water into the storage pools ceased, quickening evaporation. Fission of the overheated cores led to blasts and mushroom-clouds. Residents in mountaintop Iitate village overlooking the seaside plant saw plumes of smoke and could "taste the metal" in their throats.   Guilty as Charged   The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami were powerful enough to damage Fukushima No.1. The natural disaster, however, was vastly amplified by two external factors: release of the Stuxnet virus, which shut down control systems in the critical 20 minutes prior to the tsunami; and presence of weapons-grade nuclear materials that devastated the nuclear facility and contaminated the entire region.   Of the three parties involved, which bears the greatest guilt? All three are guilty of mass murder, injury and destruction of property on a regional scale, and as such are liable for criminal prosecution and damages under international law and in each respective jurisdiction.

An unannounced reason for Cheney's visit was to promote a quadrilateral alliance in the Asia-Pacific region. The four cornerstones - the US, Japan, Australia and India - were being called on to contain and confront China and its allies North Korea and Russia.. From a Japanese perspective, this grand alliance was flawed by asymmetry: The three adversaries were nuclear powers, while the U.S. was the only one in the Quad group.   To further his own nuclear ambitions, Abe was playing the Russian card. As mentioned in a U.S. Embassy cable (dated 9/22), the Yomiuri Shimbun gave top play to this challenge to the White House : "It was learned yesterday that the government and domestic utility companies have entered final talks with Russia in order to relegate uranium enrichment for use at nuclear power facilities to Atomprom, the state-owned nuclear monopoly." If Washington refused to accept a nuclear-armed Japan, Tokyo would turn to Moscow.

Throughout the Pantex caper, from the data theft to smuggling operation, Bush and Cheney's point man for nuclear issues was DoE Deputy Director Clay Sell, a lawyer born in Amarillo and former aide to Panhandle district Congressman Mac Thornberry. Sell served on the Bush-Cheney transition team and became the top adviser to the President on nuclear issues. At DoE, Sell was directly in charge of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, which includes 17 national laboratories and the Pantex plant. (Another alarm bell: Sell was also staff director for the Senate Energy subcommittee under the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who died in a 2010 plane crash.)   An Israeli Double-Cross   The nuclear shipments to Japan required a third-party cutout for plausible deniability by the White House. Israel acted less like an agent and more like a broker in demanding additional payment from Tokyo, according to intelligence sources. Adding injury to insult, the Israelis skimmed off the newer warhead cores for their own arsenal and delivered older ones. Since deteriorated cores require enrichment, the Japanese were furious and demanded a refund, which the Israelis refused. Tokyo had no recourse since by late 2008 principals Abe had resigned the previous autumn and Bush was a lame duck.

The Japanese nuclear developers, under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, had no choice but to enrich the uranium cores at Fukushima No.1, a location remote enough to evade detection by nonproliferation inspectors. Hitachi and GE had developed a laser extraction process for plutonium, which requires vast amounts of electrical power. This meant one reactor had to make unscheduled runs, as was the case when the March earthquake struck.   Tokyo dealt a slap on the wrist to Tel Aviv by backing Palestinian rights at the UN. Not to be bullied, the Israeli secret service launched the Stuxnet virus against Japan's nuclear facilities.   Firewalls kept Stuxnet at bay until the Tohoku earthquake. The seismic activity felled an electricity tower behind Reactor 6. The power cut disrupted the control system, momentarily taking down the firewall. As the computer came online again, Stuxnet infiltrated to shut down the back-up generators. During the 20-minute interval between quake and tsunami, the pumps and valves at Fukushima No.1 were immobilized, exposing the turbine rooms to flood damage.

The Texas Job   BWXT Pantex, America's nuclear warhead facility, sprawls over 16,000 acres of the Texas Panhandle outside Amarillo. Run by the DoE and Babcock & Wilson, the site also serves as a storage facility for warheads past their expiration date. The 1989 shutdown of Rocky Flats, under community pressure in Colorado, forced the removal of those nuclear stockpiles to Pantex. Security clearances are required to enter since it is an obvious target for would-be nuclear thieves.   In June 2004, a server at the Albuquerque office of the National Nuclear Security System was hacked. Personal information and security-clearance data for 11 federal employees and 177 contractors at Pantex were lifted. NNSA did not inform Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman or his deputy Clay Sell until three months after the security breach, indicating investigators suspected an inside job.

The White House, specifically Bush, Cheney and their co-conspirators in the DoE, hold responsibility for ordering the illegal removal and shipment of warheads without safeguards.   The state of Israel is implicated in theft from U.S. strategic stockpiles, fraud and extortion against the Japanese government, and a computer attack against critical infrastructure with deadly consequences, tantamount to an act of war.   Prime Minister Abe and his Economy Ministry sourced weapons-grade nuclear material in violation of constitutional law and in reckless disregard of the risks of unregulated storage, enrichment and extraction. Had Abe not requested enriched uranium and plutonium in the first place, the other parties would not now be implicated. Japan, thus, bears the onus of the crime.

The International Criminal Court has sufficient grounds for taking up a case that involves the health of millions of people in Japan, Canada, the United States, Russia, the Koreas, Mongolia, China and possibly the entire Northern Hemisphere. The Fukushima disaster is more than an human-rights charge against a petty dictator, it is a crime against humanity on par with the indictments at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. Failure to prosecute is complicity.   If there is a silver lining to every dark cloud, it's that the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami saved the world from even greater folly by halting the drive to World War III.