Recent content by Charles Smalls

Fixed link for the view up into Unit 3’s empty RPV

Some nice info in that report: 15 years after the earthquake, Unit 3's fuel debris pile still requires water cooling. Normal coolant flow and fuel rod configuration usually requires ~5 years before switching to air cooling. The fuel heat interacting with the cooling water is creating a fog...

Wow. Okay, a couple of things here. Within the actual micro-drone videos, I'm seeing some new info, some confirmations of things we already deduced, and at least one genuinely new question. New info: They have the water level in unit 3 PCV a good 2-3 meters lower than it was in 2017. They did...

Greetings all, I hope everyone is well. Just passing by to mark the anniversary and add a few small comments. It’s remarkable that despite the huge amount we all read and researched for multiple years, there can still be new surprises about fukushima. Many years ago, Kei Sugaoka alleged...

Wonderful footage of Fukushima Unit 1 being constructed in the 1960s. Part one shows the original ocean and soil surveys, laying the sea wall and the bulldozing of the cliffs to bring the site down to sea level (19m05s): Part 2 has ok auto-translate subs. It shows more cliff demolition, GE...

According to areas marked red in this TEPCO pdf, they seem to be estimating severe concrete damage to ~27% of the pedestal concentrated around the doorway. Plus the pedestal inner walls. The pdf source says 2016 though, so it's possible that further damage has been observed in later...

Hey all, I was going over some old posts today and was saddened to realize that Jim Hardy had passed away. I remember him being popular here and I'm sure he'll be much missed. My initial reason for going back was to recall exactly where things had left off and what the main unanswered questions...

I talked about it back in 2017, the process is called spalling. Great visual demonstration of it here: and in depth explanation here. Basically extreme heat causes moisture and air pocket pores trapped inside the concrete to expand into steam which explodes the surface concrete off. Varying...

Good article and translation Hard to believe it’s been an entire decade. Tepco recently posted a 53 minute long slide presentation on their website. It’s all in Japanese but from the images seems to chart their evolving picture of the melt out progression from the 3 cores and where data suggests...

I think when you design and sell a plant based on the notion that it is too safe to fail, you can’t really then go on to clearly and explicitly plan for an event in which then does. It’s like the unsinkable Titanic not having enough lifeboats for the all passengers on board, once you bill a...

There’s a new 49 minute feature by NKH investigating some sustained high level radiation releases that occurred from the plant during the accident but have never been clearly understood or explained: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CwlvPRpq7aw It’s very well done with a lot of work gone into tie...

You can see the new metal/ sheild clad walking surface erected over the original refuelling floor here. One of the techs appears to be using a Geiger counter to measure the amount of radiation coming up from below as they walk over it.

Domed roof and gantry crane in situ over Unit 3 for fuel and debris removal.

Something I wrote in my spalled concrete post back in March: This is the part that doesn't add up. On the video it looks like they basically lower the camera all the way down until it hits the surface of the sediment. If it was a loose amalgamation of materials as spalled concrete normally is...

The muon results already came back showing no significant amount of fuel remaining in the unit 3 RV. In Tepcos report they say: The evaluation at present shows possibility that some fuel debris remain inside the RPV, but massive and high density material has not been found. 85% remaining in...