Posts from — March 2011

Everyone is traveling West on the northern coast of the Norton Sound and the weather continues to be good.

While everyone talks about John Baker breaking the overall record for the race, few have noted that he smashed Doug Swingley’s 1995 record for the Southern Route: 9 days 2:42:19. Breaking John’s new record on the Northern Route is very possible, but the record on the Southern Route should stand for quite a while.

Ellen Halverson (26) may get an unwanted record as the only musher to win the Red Lantern twice, but she may also beat Celeste Davis’s record for fastest Red Lantern time: 13 days 5:06:40. This has been a seriously fast race.

At Nome

25 Trent Herbst (4)
26 Kelley Griffin (20)
27 Ed Stielstra (56)
28 Nicolas Petit (14)^R
29 Kristy Berington (7)
30 Kelly Maixner (55)^R
31 Jodi Bailey (16)^R
32 Lachlan Clarke (42)
33 Magnus Kaltenborn (22)^R
34 Paul Johnson (46)
35 Cain Carter (48)^R
36 Wattie McDonald (38)

Beyond White Mountain

37 Justin Savidis (63)
38 Billy Snodgrass (24)
39 Gerald Sousa (62)
40 Matt Giblin (60) [Read more →]

Just Flight

Got to go …

[Editor: This grainy picture was taken at long distance of a yearling feral who has spent most of its life a step away from me, but that I almost never see as anything other than a blur. This is one of two kittens who were raised and live under my house, but run whenever they see me. While the facial markings are similar to Tip, Tip is spayed and both inherited the markings from the Grey-nose Tom. Some day I may get a picture of the littermate, but it will be another accident.]

Friday Ark

Power plants on land weren’t the only major damaged infrastructure. The BBC reports that Japan to repair damaged undersea cables

Aftershocks are still preventing Japan’s telecommunication companies from repairing undersea cables, damaged in the recent earthquake and tsunami.

To restore services, many providers have rerouted traffic to backup cables.

KDDI, Japan’s second-largest telecoms operator, said it will send out a ship equipped with remotely-controlled robots as soon as the ground is still.
…

KDDI is not the only telecommunications company in Japan badly affected by the disaster.

The country’s biggest operator, NTT, was hit hard as well.
…

Other companies with undersea cables in the waters around Japan include Australian operator Telstra International, Taiwan’s largest phone operator Chunghwa Telecom, and global telecommunications service provider Pacnet, headquartered in Singapore and Hong Kong.

While some of them say their services have been restored, others are still struggling.

The guy in charge at KDDI has his head on straight. Since they can’t do anything until the aftershocks calm down, he is the only one going to the office. He assumes that his employees have a lot to do that wouldn’t be helped by sitting around at the office doing nothing.

In the same vein, the US is pulling military dependents out of Japan. The Japanese need the resources currently being used by non-essential US citizens.

This was written by Richard Black, an Environment correspondent for BBC News. It is not a Monty Python script: Choppers and cannons bring no nuclear relief

The attempt to use helicopters to dump seawater on to the Fukushima power station is almost certainly unprecedented in more than half a century of nuclear power operations around the world.

And the long-range video images coming in indicate why it is not a method in general use: it does not appear to work.

The helicopters flew in some way above the reactor buildings, and went past without hovering – presumably because of fears of radiation.

Later, at a news conference given by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), a spokesman said they were not able to tell whether any of the water had been successfully delivered.

[Read more →]

We start the day with all of the remaining teams on the coast of the Norton Sound.

Nicholas Petit (14) will take took the rookie race this morning and Jodi Bailey should has completed her Quest-Iditarod rookie runs later today.

Ellen Halverson (26) is looking good to enter the record books as the first musher to win the Red Lantern twice.

The “unkindest cut of all” – Karin Hendrickson (37) has scratched at White Mountain. She dropped three dogs when she came in, and has been waiting at the checkpoint beyond the 8-hours. She was probably hoping for the puppies to improve after extended rest, but decided to scratch. So close, and yet so far.

The first 17 teams made it to Nome in 10 days or less. [They subtract the mandatory 36 hours from the overall time.]

At Nome

16 Lance Mackey (17)
17 Michelle Phillips (39)
18 Martin Buser (11)
19 Robert Nelson (51)
20 Rick Swenson (49)
21 Cim Smyth (59)
22 Matt Hayashida (61)
23 Bruce Linton (13)
24 Allen Moore (5)
25 Trent Herbst (4)
26 Kelley Griffin (20)
27 Ed Stielstra (56)
28 Nicolas Petit (14)^R
29 Kristy Berington (7)
30 Kelly Maixner (55)^R
31 Jodi Bailey (16)^R
32 Lachlan Clarke (42)

Beyond White Mountain

33 Magnus Kaltenborn (22)^R [Read more →]

The CBC reports on Japanese irritation with a US official:

Japanese officials have rejected a dire appraisal of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility by the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who says water is absent from a reactor’s spent fuel pool, raising the potential of a meltdown.

“There is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures,” NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said.

Without any water in the spent fuel pool, the fuel rods would eventually overheat and melt down, causing the outer rods to burn and spread radioactive fuel widely.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima complex, denied that water was gone from the spent fuel pool. Company spokesman Hajime Motojuku said “the condition is stable,” at the Unit 4 reactor, one of six at the plant.

Jaczko made his statement Wednesday before a U.S. House energy and commerce subcommittee in Washington, D.C., and did not provide the source for his claim, but the NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy have experts in Japan.

The spent fuel rods are located on the top floor of each reactor’s building, without the greater protection of thick steel walls that surround the reactor cores. As well, the containment building for Unit 4 has been punctured.

According to the BBC, the information on the spent fuel comes from TEPCO and they have a nice explainer as to why the spent fuel pond is the point of greatest concern.

TEPCO is running cable to put the plant back on the grid, but the plant’s control room was flooded by the tsunami and isn’t likely to be functional, so I don’t know what they are going to do with the electricity if they get it.

The Japanese have “dancing robots”, so why aren’t they using robots to position hoses to cool down the plants rather than people? You could run steel water pipe in and direct it without endangering anyone, and you could add the boric acid at any concentration you wanted. This looks a lot like the BP response to the Well from Hell.

Éireann go Brách!

Well everyone agrees that he died on March 17^th, but the year is subject to debate. This is his feast day on the Catholic calendar. Enjoy as you are wont.

Wikipedia has more on Saint Patrick’s Day, if you need more.

From the ABC: Japan eyes water cannon to cool troubled reactor

Japan has asked its national police agency to send a water cannon to the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant after the military was forced to abandon an attempt to drop water from helicopters due to radiation fears.

The request comes as Japanese Emperor Akihito made a rare TV appearance saying he is “deeply concerned” about the unfolding nuclear crisis in his country and is praying for the safety of survivors of last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Broadcaster NHK says the National Police Agency has been asked to send a water cannon to cool a pool storing spent fuel rods at the troubled No. 4 reactor.

Workers at the plant have struggled to top up water levels as the rods have heated up the water, threatening to evaporate it and expose the rods to air, sending out radioactive material.

Earlier, Japan’s military abandoned a mission to use a helicopter to drop water into the overheating No.3 reactor because of radiation fears.

The majority of the radiation and hydrogen are coming from the open spent fuel rod pools, not from the reactors themselves. While dealing with the reactors, no one was watching the spent fuel rod storage and it started boiling off water and producing the hydrogen that has been causing the explosions and fires.

They have all of these “nuclear technicians” running around, and none of them seems to be able to see what is going on, or what is needed to stop it. Almost every volunteer fire department in the US has a ladder truck that can do what needs to be done. If you throw in a few wildfire aircraft and fill their tanks with a chilled boric acid – water solution, they would be a lot of help.

Don’t they have any emergency operations people in Japan? [I will ignore for the moment that the Japanese police have the water cannons, not the fire departments.]

As much as I would like to see Jodi Bailey (16) crown her Quest/Iditarod rookie run with winning the race here, Nicholas Petit (14) has a solid lead to be the first rookie in.

None of the former Iditarod winners could break into the top 15 this year, which may reflect a difference in racing conditions, as the strategies that made them winners may no longer work. The weather was good this year, without precipitation to mess up the trail for the leaders.

I’ll hang in until the Red Lantern is extinguished.

Update: Just after I posted, I glanced at the weather report for Kaltag and see that temperatures have returned to normal on the Yukon -20° with a windchill of -31° for the Red Lantern teams to start their day.

At Nome

7 Ray Redington, Jr (3)
8 Peter Kaiser (54)
9 Ken Anderson (43)
10 Jessie Royer (58)
11 Aliy Zirkle (18)
12 DeeDee Jonrowe (2)
13 Michael Williams, Jr. (41)
14 Sven Haltmann (45)
15 Sonny Lindner (52)
16 Lance Mackey (17)
17 Michelle Phillips (39) [Read more →]

The ABC updates this link when new information comes in.

Japanese crews battling to avert a nuclear disaster say they may spray acid from helicopters to stop fuel rods from “reaching criticality” and releasing more radioactivity.

A fresh fire broke out in the No.4 reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant this morning but reportedly later put itself out, with firefighters unable to approach because of high radiation levels.

Engineers were also keeping a close eye on the plant’s No. 5 and No. 6 reactors amid fears they could overheat after cooling systems began to fail.
…

A proposal for helicopters to dump boric acid into the reactor is one idea being considered as authorities grapple to keep up with the unfolding crisis which followed Friday’s massive earthquake and tsunami.

Boric acid is often used as an antiseptic, insecticide, flame retardant and in nuclear power plants to control the fission rate of uranium.
… [Read more →]

John left White Mountain with 10 puppies at 12:04AM local time, and Ramey left 50 minutes later with 9. Their race is down to the 77 mile final sprint to Nome.

John was through Safety at 6:48AM local with 22 miles to go.

In the rookie race, Nicolas Petit (14) has a two-hour lead on Kelly Maixner (55) beyond Shaktoolik, but Kelly has a 3 puppy advantage – 13 to 10. Kelly has been moving up the rankings steadily.

Note: Petit is running Jim Lanier’s all-white huskies. Jim is laid up after hip surgery, but his team is making the run.

Ramey went through Safety at 8:13AM local, +1:25, and had to drop a dog.

John Baker, an Inupiaq from Kotzebue, has won and set a new record. His exact time hasn’t been posted, but the unofficial time is 2 or 3 hours faster than Martin Buser’s 2002 pace. He has been a consistent top-ten finisher, and this was his year. The puppies wanted to get out of the heat in the “south”.

From the Anchorage Daily News: “Baker crossed the line at 9:46 a.m., finishing the race that began March 6 in Willow in 8 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes, 39 seconds and slicing three hours off the previous record.”

Update: Three teams have scratched. Mike Santos (27) scratched because his team didn’t want to play any more. Kris Hoffman (8) and Robert Bundtzen (10) both scratched when they ran out of leaders for their teams.

At Nome

1 John Baker (53)
2 Ramey Smyth (30) +1:04
3 Hans Gatt (23)
4 Dallas Seavey (21)
5 Hugh Neff (35)
6 Sebastian Schnuelle (31)

Beyond Safety

7 Ray Redington, Jr (3)
8 Peter Kaiser (54)

Beyond White Mountain

9 Jessie Royer (58)
10 DeeDee Jonrowe (2)
11 Ken Anderson (43)
12 Aliy Zirkle (18)
13 Sven Haltmann (45)
14 Michael Williams, Jr. (41)
15 Sonny Lindner (52) [Read more →]

CNN reports that number 2 has exploded, no doubt as a result of hydrogen build up, like 1 & 3, and now there is a fire in number 4.

The radiation level is rising, so all but 50 emergency personnel have been evacuated.

The Three Stooges? This is just FUBAR.

The media talking heads had better cease and desist on their attempts to play down what is happening at the plant in Japan by repeating the mantra of tougher safety standards and Japanese technical prowess, because reality is painting a different picture.

From the BBC – Meltdown alert at Japan reactor

Technicians are battling to stabilise a third reactor at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant, which has been rocked by a second blast in three days.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant’s operators have resumed pumping seawater into reactor 2 after a cooling system broke.

They warned of a possible meltdown when the fuel rods became exposed after the pump stopped as its fuel ran out.

A cooling system breakdown preceded explosions at the plant’s reactor 3 on Monday and reactor 1 on Saturday.

The latest hydrogen blast injured 11 people, one of them seriously. It was felt 40km (25 miles) away and sent a huge column of smoke into the air.

The outer building around the reactor was largely destroyed.

But as with the first explosion, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said the thick containment walls shielding the reactor cores remained intact. It also said radiation levels outside were still within legal limits.
…

The US said it had moved one of its aircraft carriers from the area after detecting low-level radiation 160km (100 miles) offshore.

So, how long until they figure out that venting the building to reduce the hydrogen build-up releases less radioactivity than not venting and having the building blow up? How long until they find someone capable of checking the fuel level on the cooling pumps and ensuring they don’t run out? How long until they figure out that they need to get as many people as possible, as far away as possible because Tokyo Electric Power is not up to the job? The radiation sensors on that aircraft carrier tripped an alarm 100 miles off the coast! The fuel rods were exposed for more than two hours!

James Bardoner (57), the doctor from Tennessee, scratched with all 16 puppies at Iditarod. As the Red Lantern he was ploughing snow that was churned up by more than 50 teams in front of him.

Ramey is slower than John. Ramey was 41 minutes behind John leaving for Koyuk, but arrived an hour and 42 minutes after him. He is, again, cutting rest time to stay close, which is fine for him, but the puppies need rest. John’s puppies can smell home, because they live in Kotzebue, on the coast North of Nome. Ramey’s puppies are from Willow, the start of the race.

Update: John raised the stakes by anticipating Ramey’s move, and going through Elim towards White Mountain without taking a break. There is a mandatory 8-hour stop at White Mountain. Ramey’s best chance would have been to catch John at Elim and move through to White Mountain where his team could recover. Ramey’s team has been slower than John’s or Hans Gatt’s team, and he has only maintained second by cutting his rest periods.

Update: Brennan Norden (44) scratched at Shageluk for pretty much the same reason as James Bardoner, the puppies were not happy acting like snowplows.

Update: John is at White Mountain for the 8-hour stop.

At White Mountain

1 John Baker (53)
2 Ramey Smyth (30) +0:51
3 Hans Gatt (23) +3:30

Beyond Elim

4 Dallas Seavey (21)
5 Hugh Neff (35)
6 Sebastian Schnuelle (31)
7 Ray Redington, Jr (3)

At Elim

8 DeeDee Jonrowe (2) [Read more →]