Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Sounds like a plan. I am wondering of the tarp will have any lead impregnated into it.

A bunch of good looking people. 

TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata (r.) speaks during a news conference at the company's head office in Tokyo, March 30. TEPCO owns Japan's earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, where experts Wednesday logged the highest radiation yet in nearby seawater.
Itsuo Inouye / AP

Sounds like a novel form of containment.  The Japanese like robots. 

...The US is readying a shipment (click title to entry - thank you) of radiation-hardened robots to help the Japanese fight this problem, said Peter Lyons, acting assistant secretary of the US Department of Energy.
“We’re moving expeditiously to ship not only the robots but also operators who [would] train Japanese operators,” Dr. Lyons told a Senate committee on Tuesday....


...The NRC believes that Fukushima Daiichi reactor units 1, 2, and 3 have experienced partial fuel damage due to overheating. Ominously, units 2 and 3 appear to have “some primary containment damage,” said Mr. Borchardt.

In other words, they have been breached in some way and are leaking radioactivity.

Meanwhile, TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata apologized for the trouble and anxiety cause by the Fukushima radiation leaks. He spoke to reporters on Wednesday in place of TEPCO’s president, Masataka Shimizu, who has been hospitalized for stress-related health problems.

I hope Mr. Shimizu will not be still yet another victim of this tragedy.  Sorry to hear he isn't well and wish him a quick recovery.  I realize all this is a serious set of circumstances, but, everyone is pulling with both oars in the water in the same direction.  There has been excellant monitoring and warning.  No one counted on this.  Hind sight is always better foresight.