TEPCO Fails To Release Portion Of Unit 1 Torus Inspection

TEPCO recently released videos and reports of their work in the unit 1 torus room. The work was split into two days with one half being investigated one day and the remaining half the second day. TEPCO reports that this work was successfully completed. The video and handouts show day one’s work on downcomer sections 1-4. Day two covered sections 5-8 plus the assumption they would also investigate the section between downcomers 4 and 8.

The video for the second day only included video for downcomers 5 and 6. Both visual landmarks and the on screen time displayed on the robot’s output screen indicate only these two downcomers are included on this video. TEPCO has not provided any follow up data on this work and has not released any information on the downcomer 7 and 8 sections. This leaves a considerable section of the investigation not released to the public with no explanation from TEPCO. This leaves almost 1/3 of the investigation not reported.

This section also happens to be the area of the torus room facing the reactor pedestal doorway. This doorway is the leak path for melted fuel to move out of the reactor pedestal and eventually out of the containment vessel. This undisclosed section of the torus room inspection is the most likely to have critical evidence of the meltdown and to any extent it burned through into this area. This is also the area that was directly below the location where steam was seen coming up through a hole in the first floor back in 2011. This location on the first floor was discovered to have 4 Sv/hr radiation coming up through the floor.

Red indicates the potential spread of melted fuel out of the pedestal to the edge of the containment vessel

 Photo of the pedestal area and doorway from unit 5 Fukushima Daiichi before the disaster

The considerable lack of transparency at Fukushima Daiichi and out of TEPCO has created considerable public distrust not just in Japan but world wide. TEPCO needs to disclose all of the information on this work at unit 1. There is a dire need for transparency in all aspects of this disaster from not just TEPCO but the agencies tasked with overseeing them.

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