Sunday (HERE) I posted on my concerns about significantly heightened atmospheric emissions from Fukushima Daiichi that began after the 6.0 earthquake last week (see The Mainichi).
The heightened emissions coincided with TEPCO's report to the media of contaminated water leakage (see here).
I've noted in the past that TEPCO will often report palatable bad news rather than reporting the latest unpalatable development at the plant.
The contaminated water leakage is indeed bad news but it is "palatable" because the global public has been conditioned to expect ongoing "leakage" of contaminated water at the site since the beginning and certain expert authorities have gone out of their way to reduce the public's angst about the implications of contaminated ocean water, despite the potential for significant bioaccumulation and biomagnification of radionuclides in ocean life.
Atmospheric emissions, in my opinion, have been regarded as less palatable by the public and therefore stories concerning the endless stream of tritium and other radionuclides escaping into the atmosphere are rarely circulated.
Atmospheric emissions have often gone up after earthquakes. This is a recurring pattern. Last week the emissions went up significantly, as I've been documenting at my blog.
Yesterday, I was away from my computer and could not check the webcams until evening. I saw that TEPCO is injecting water or whatever it injects into unit 1:
I did not see TEPCO lower the device near units 2 or 3 but I did see the general cloudiness of the webcam view clear up slightly (although, visibly) after the injection into unit 1 (most recent screenshots here).
Today the emissions still seem high from units 2 and/or 3 but the plume is less distinct, with the emissions appearing more diffuse:
Fingers crossed that TEPCO's efforts to reduce emissions in unit 1 are being matched out of view with efforts to contain emissions from units 2 and 3.
SCREENSHOTS FROM THE LAST WEEK
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