Meltdown in Japan's Reactors (1 Viewer)

[renesauz]

http://www.globalpos...odine?page=full

Nuclear industry veteran explains why Japan's disaster could take a year to unfold, and contaminate for decades.

This singular statement is right. Once all danger is averted, they'll use normal exposure and cnotamination limits. It will take years to clean up using these ultra-conservative, almost ridiculously restrictive limits. Meanwhile, trace (generally non-dangerous) amounts of radioactivity will be found in off places like distant airports that will manage to keep the disaster in the public view.Two seconds looking at the link reveals the "expert" to be a complete quack. Iodine tablets will be worthless to anyone within 3 weeks, and are only helpful to those in the immediate area of the initial coolant loss.

 

[renesauz]

This was probably covered elswhere, but I can't find it: wasn't the ultimate solution to Chernobyl burying it in conrete? Will they eventually come to that here?

I doubt it Tim. The radiation levels at Chernobyl were much MUCH higher because the fuel was literraly everywhere, 100% unsheilded. IN this case, once the spent fuel is properly covered and the Reactors have a couple weeks to dissipate decay heat (and the radiation generated from this), they should be able to commence a more normal cleaning process.That said, concrete could be much more economical and it wouldn't shock me. IE: If they use it, it will be just as much for the economic reasons as the radiation containment ones.

 

[renesauz]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-quake-wrapup-20110318,0,2262753.storyU.S. nuclear officials suspect Japanese plant has a dire breachFrom the article:...U.S. government nuclear experts believe a spent fuel pool at Japan's crippled Fukushima reactor complex has a breach in the wall or floor......based on the sequence of events since the earthquake and information provided by key American contractors who were in the plant at the time......the spent fuel pool does not have its own containment vessel...the pool...contains 130 tons of uranium fuel......A breach in the pool would leave engineers with a problem that has no precedent or ready-made solution...

This would indeed be problematic, as it would keep radiation levels high enough to prohibit easy access to the area. But as discussed in here before, it's only an environmental/public concern for rods removed from the reactor in the last few weeks. Older rods present a LOCALIZED radiation only problem which will be difficult to address. I'm sure someone a lot smarter than me can come up with a workable solution though...this isn't worthy of "panic"

 

[jamny]

My Ex-wife worked for the LA Times. They take reporting extremely seriously there. I hope though for all of the people in Japan that they are wrong about what they just reported.

china syndrome time.

It's on Netflix streaming. Think I'll watch it today.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

DD... do you WANT a disaster of mega proprotions? It's almost like you are hoping, even praying for the worst possible scenario.

It's one thing to be interested in a topic, to pass along information about it, and to discuss it with other people. It's another thing to constantly post nothing but the most sensationalized, worst-case-scenario stuff you can find and to update your thread every five minutes with more of the same.

 

[joffer]

page 2?

no more "THE END IS NEAR" headlines on msnbc.com?

 

[Biabreakable]

Bananas are naturally slightly radioactive. They contain high levels of potassium which decays into the radioactive isotope potassium-40. Some banana shipments into the US will even set off radiation alarms at inspection stations checking for illegal radioactive material.http://www.goblendit.com/banana-smoothie-recipe.html

you're about the 10th person to compare the situation to bananas. 7 others have done airplane rides and 11 smoking cigarettes.

Smoking banana peels on an airplane will get you in a heap of trouble. Trust me on this.

I confirm that this will likely lead to trouble but at least you will be laughing. Maybe that is what Otis and others are doing to cope with the situation because I would need to be smoking banana peels to find their jokes remotely funny.

 

[3C's]

Seems to be kind of conflicting stories

Power to be restored to cooling systems soon

Outside power source won't be available soon

 

[3C's]

No immediate danger to humans

 

[3C's]

page 2?no more "THE END IS NEAR" headlines on msnbc.com?

tourney started

 

[Osaurus]

So we're now at the Acceptance stage?

 

[Biabreakable]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

 

[Joe Summer]

So we're now at the Acceptance stage?

"Well, we all gotta go sometime."

 

[Dr. Gobbler]

Fox News reports radiation from Japan has reached California.

 

[Cliff Clavin]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

 

[Sinn Fein]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

The facility does not appear to be "massively complex".Massively damaged, yes. Complex, not as much. Complex does not get "fixed" by dumping water from helicopters imo

 

[Biabreakable]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

Not at all. I never suggested that this situation could be easily fixed unlike our pro nuclear friend that I was quoting.

 

[Cliff Clavin]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

The facility does not appear to be "massively complex".Massively damaged, yes. Complex, not as much. Complex does not get "fixed" by dumping water from helicopters imo

And here I was thinking that a nuclear power plant was complex. I feel stupid now.

 

[St. Louis Bob]

DD... do you WANT a disaster of mega proprotions? It's almost like you are hoping, even praying for the worst possible scenario.

It's one thing to be interested in a topic, to pass along information about it, and to discuss it with other people. It's another thing to constantly post nothing but the most sensationalized, worst-case-scenario stuff you can find and to update your thread every five minutes with more of the same.

IK, my son says you have the best Av on the board "because Mr. Monopoly is really, really, cool." /hijack

 

[Sinn Fein]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

The facility does not appear to be "massively complex".Massively damaged, yes. Complex, not as much. Complex does not get "fixed" by dumping water from helicopters imo

And here I was thinking that a nuclear power plant was complex. I feel stupid now.

 

[St. Louis Bob]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

The facility does not appear to be "massively complex".Massively damaged, yes. Complex, not as much. Complex does not get "fixed" by dumping water from helicopters imo

And here I was thinking that a nuclear power plant was complex. I feel stupid now.

Seriously? I made one in the 4th grade for the science fair. Powered the whole school. I got third place.

 

[Charlie Frown]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?

Are massively complex facilities usually 'fixed' within a week of being bombarded by earthquakes and tsunamis?

The facility does not appear to be "massively complex".Massively damaged, yes. Complex, not as much. Complex does not get "fixed" by dumping water from helicopters imo

And here I was thinking that a nuclear power plant was complex. I feel stupid now.

Seriously? I made one in the 4th grade for the science fair. Powered the whole school. I got third place.

What? You go to school with Jimmy Neutron AND Wesley Crusher??

 

[St. Louis Bob]

Looks like we turned a potential Chernobyl into a mere Three Mile Island.

 

[Joseph]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

I don't think anyone is denying that this is a serious situation. The problem is with degrees of seriousness. On one hand, there's a lot of people that are worried about this, thinking that massive portions of Japan will be uninhabitable because of radiation for thousands of years because of a meltdown. On the other hand people who have knowledge of the technologies and science of radiation are basically saying that isn't a problem, that the issue isn't that serious.

When the people who have the worries see that, they're responding with "If its not serious, why is ________ (insert this concern/problem/worry here)?"

There's a huge amount of separation between portions of Japan being uninhabitable and nothing being wrong. Just because the problem there doesn't reach epic disaster status doesn't mean that it isn't serious, and just because someone is saying that its not an epic disaster it doesn't mean that they're saying its nothing either.

My take as an unknowledgable outsider interested in this is:

1. This is going to go down as the second worst nuclear disaster ever.

2. The number of people killed/injured by this nuclear disaster will be extremely small compared to the numbers lost in the Earthquake/tsunami.

3. The number of people killed/injured by this disaster on the US west coast will be 0 (baring some kind of panic driven evacuation where someone drives off the road and dies in a car crash).

4. The next generation of nuclear power plants will necessarily have more precautions built into their design because of this disaster.

None of those things are mutually exclusive. Just because this is an historically bad nuclear disaster, doesn't mean that hundreds of thousands of people will die of radiation poisoning. Even in Chernobyl there's no real record of massive causalities (though, its tough to trust Soviet records on that).

 

[Biabreakable]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

I don't think anyone is denying that this is a serious situation. The problem is with degrees of seriousness. On one hand, there's a lot of people that are worried about this, thinking that massive portions of Japan will be uninhabitable because of radiation for thousands of years because of a meltdown. On the other hand people who have knowledge of the technologies and science of radiation are basically saying that isn't a problem, that the issue isn't that serious.

When the people who have the worries see that, they're responding with "If its not serious, why is ________ (insert this concern/problem/worry here)?"

There's a huge amount of separation between portions of Japan being uninhabitable and nothing being wrong. Just because the problem there doesn't reach epic disaster status doesn't mean that it isn't serious, and just because someone is saying that its not an epic disaster it doesn't mean that they're saying its nothing either.

My take as an unknowledgable outsider interested in this is:

1. This is going to go down as the second worst nuclear disaster ever.

2. The number of people killed/injured by this nuclear disaster will be extremely small compared to the numbers lost in the Earthquake/tsunami.

3. The number of people killed/injured by this disaster on the US west coast will be 0 (baring some kind of panic driven evacuation where someone drives off the road and dies in a car crash).

4. The next generation of nuclear power plants will necessarily have more precautions built into their design because of this disaster.

None of those things are mutually exclusive. Just because this is an historically bad nuclear disaster, doesn't mean that hundreds of thousands of people will die of radiation poisoning. Even in Chernobyl there's no real record of massive causalities (though, its tough to trust Soviet records on that).

If you would read what I quoted I see some pretty serious denial going on there. If you don't see that I do not know what else to tell you.

 

[Joseph]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

I don't think anyone is denying that this is a serious situation. The problem is with degrees of seriousness. On one hand, there's a lot of people that are worried about this, thinking that massive portions of Japan will be uninhabitable because of radiation for thousands of years because of a meltdown. On the other hand people who have knowledge of the technologies and science of radiation are basically saying that isn't a problem, that the issue isn't that serious.

When the people who have the worries see that, they're responding with "If its not serious, why is ________ (insert this concern/problem/worry here)?"

There's a huge amount of separation between portions of Japan being uninhabitable and nothing being wrong. Just because the problem there doesn't reach epic disaster status doesn't mean that it isn't serious, and just because someone is saying that its not an epic disaster it doesn't mean that they're saying its nothing either.

My take as an unknowledgable outsider interested in this is:

1. This is going to go down as the second worst nuclear disaster ever.

2. The number of people killed/injured by this nuclear disaster will be extremely small compared to the numbers lost in the Earthquake/tsunami.

3. The number of people killed/injured by this disaster on the US west coast will be 0 (baring some kind of panic driven evacuation where someone drives off the road and dies in a car crash).

4. The next generation of nuclear power plants will necessarily have more precautions built into their design because of this disaster.

None of those things are mutually exclusive. Just because this is an historically bad nuclear disaster, doesn't mean that hundreds of thousands of people will die of radiation poisoning. Even in Chernobyl there's no real record of massive causalities (though, its tough to trust Soviet records on that).

If you would read what I quoted I see some pretty serious denial going on there. If you don't see that I do not know what else to tell you.

No, I read it. Assuming this is the part you're worried about:

- Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed.

What do you think happens to the radiation when that fuel is unshielded? The rods are emitting radiation, yes, but what next? Where do you think that radiation goes?

 

[bueno]

http://english.kyodo...1/03/79194.html



'Weeks' needed to cool down Fukushima nuke reactors: U.S. regulator

yes

 

[Joseph]

http://english.kyodo...1/03/79194.html



'Weeks' needed to cool down Fukushima nuke reactors: U.S. regulator

yes

How long would it take to cool down the reactors in a normal shutdown?

 

[Biabreakable]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

I don't think anyone is denying that this is a serious situation. The problem is with degrees of seriousness. On one hand, there's a lot of people that are worried about this, thinking that massive portions of Japan will be uninhabitable because of radiation for thousands of years because of a meltdown. On the other hand people who have knowledge of the technologies and science of radiation are basically saying that isn't a problem, that the issue isn't that serious.

When the people who have the worries see that, they're responding with "If its not serious, why is ________ (insert this concern/problem/worry here)?"

There's a huge amount of separation between portions of Japan being uninhabitable and nothing being wrong. Just because the problem there doesn't reach epic disaster status doesn't mean that it isn't serious, and just because someone is saying that its not an epic disaster it doesn't mean that they're saying its nothing either.

My take as an unknowledgable outsider interested in this is:

1. This is going to go down as the second worst nuclear disaster ever.

2. The number of people killed/injured by this nuclear disaster will be extremely small compared to the numbers lost in the Earthquake/tsunami.

3. The number of people killed/injured by this disaster on the US west coast will be 0 (baring some kind of panic driven evacuation where someone drives off the road and dies in a car crash).

4. The next generation of nuclear power plants will necessarily have more precautions built into their design because of this disaster.

None of those things are mutually exclusive. Just because this is an historically bad nuclear disaster, doesn't mean that hundreds of thousands of people will die of radiation poisoning. Even in Chernobyl there's no real record of massive causalities (though, its tough to trust Soviet records on that).

If you would read what I quoted I see some pretty serious denial going on there. If you don't see that I do not know what else to tell you.

No, I read it. Assuming this is the part you're worried about:

- Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed.

What do you think happens to the radiation when that fuel is unshielded? The rods are emitting radiation, yes, but what next? Where do you think that radiation goes?

I don't know how much of it is being contained. It seems clear that radiation levels are very high near the plants that is why workers are working in shifts and have difficulty working near the plants. So really until containment is achieved and all of the rods cooled down to a point where it can be managed again the crisis continues.What I take serious issue with is the use of the word "easy" because of this was so easy to achieve we would have done so already by now.

I also do not think that giving serious attention to the situation in terms of safe limits from the site is dangerous to people within the vicinity of the plants and precautions as far as safe distances from the plant and radiation readings on the ground should be followed. The rescue mission continues but all non essential people should evacuate to these safe distances as soon as possible. The Japanese government and Tokyo power have not put forth these precautions as quickly as they should. 1st it was 8km then 12km then 20km. That put people at risk when they tell them to stay home but they are too close in proximity to the site to not be in danger. And that happened because of "experts" minimizing the situation.

 

[renesauz]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

This is patently wrong, and unfair. I have never denied a serious accident and potential problems. WHat I have denied is the sensationalized the end is nigh BS that the media has continually tried to force feed us.The average person has no idea what1. meltdown means2. radiation even is3. decay heat generation means4. many believe spent fuel can litteraly melt-down like the reactor, but still don't know what a meltdown really means5. mistakenly believe ANY radiation dose is dangerous6. can't differentiate b/n radiation and contamination7. don't understand or believe why short half life stuff is so much less dangerous then long half-life stuff8. some (luckily few now) even believe that a nuclear reactor can blow up like an atomic bombThe problem isn't that there is no problem at all, but that any problem becomes immediately grossly overstated to a populace that has a very limited understanding of the terms and issues involved to begin with. Am I trying to minimize the crises?Honestly...maybe a very little. On purpose, because there are a HUGE contigant of folks who are blowing that problem up to a ridiculous point. No matter how much I minimize, people are still going to worry a disproportionate amount. If I (or others) said, there's a .0005% chance this is worse than Chernobyl, people are going to hear "this might be worse than Chernobyl". Irrational fear of a problem is usually more dangerous than the actual problem.There are a number of things stressed in the media that are flat WRONG. High radiation levels near empty spent fuel pools for example, pose virtually ZERO threat to the general population....ZERO. Only rods pulled in the last 3 or 4 weeks pose anything other than non-zero, and that represents not just a minority of the spent fuel, but a SIGNIFICANT MINORITY. FOX earlier today had the Presidants leading nuclear advisor coming on. Prior to a commercial break the headline was: "Stay with us. We'll tell you why the threat to the US is much worse than we've been told." Than they get a true, qualified expert on, and try 4 or 5 differant ways to get him to say there was danger to the West Coast. His answer, repeatedly, was "virtually none".Realize too that legal limits for radiaition, contamination, etc. are set ridiculously low. The limits are basicly: NONE DETECTABLE. These limits are not set so low because of health concerns, but because of political concerns. They don't want people to know too much about nuclear power, so they do everything possible to make sure people never even have to think about it.The absolute worst case scenario in these plants would have still cause the loss of 1/10th the lives the earthquake and tsunami cost, 1/4 the environmental damage, and 1/2 the economic cost. Yet here we are, still focusing on the worst case problems a meltdown could cost, and virtually ignoring the costs of the incredible natural disaster that caused it in the first place? ARE YOU F^#%$@**@ KIDDING ME????!!! My denials are based on real training and real science. I performed dozens of seminars centered on worst case scenarios, how to react, radiological perimeters and precautions. My specialty was as a RADIOLOGICAL CONTROL TECHNICIAN. I'm not talking out my ### or making s&% up.

 

[renesauz]

If you would read what I quoted I see some pretty serious denial going on there. If you don't see that I do not know what else to tell you.

And if you would read what I actually said you'd realize that nothing was being denied except for the danger posed by that specific aspect of the problem (exposed SPENT fuel rods).

 

[bueno]

DD... do you WANT a disaster of mega proprotions? It's almost like you are hoping, even praying for the worst possible scenario. You are worse than Anerson Cooper who keeps saying that "They are fighting for their lives..." which is sensationalism at it's absolute most pukifying.

Why would I want a disaster to happen? That's pretty messed up to even think that. I have friends living in Japan and think these people have been through hell. I am posting links because I think this is an important event that has taken place.

I don't believe you want a disaster to happen, but why are you posting mostly the muck-raking doom and gloom links?Will the cleanup take years? Yeah - nobody familiar with nuclear power will argue that. But then even normal plant decommissioning would take years. And because seawater was used, the plants are shot and will have to be decommissioned.Is encasing the reactors in concrete an option? Of course it is. It may be as much an economic decision as a safety decision.My objection is that you, and the articles you post, seem to be sensationalizing. I can give you a pass to a degree, as your technical knowledge is pretty much nil, but you do seem to be more interested in the articles that sensationalize than the ones that try to explain highly technical issues in layman's terms. Why is that? Are you just reacting to fear?

 

[renesauz]

http://english.kyodo...1/03/79194.html



'Weeks' needed to cool down Fukushima nuke reactors: U.S. regulator

yes

How long would it take to cool down the reactors in a normal shutdown?

A couple of days to do it properly, but decay heat would need to be managed for a couple of weeks. IE: You can cool the temp to room temp in a couple of days (normally), but temps will quickly (or slowly depending on how long) rise if you remove cooling sources. How fast they will rise depends on how long since shutdown

 

[bueno]

Japan weighs need to bury nuclear plant

http://news.yahoo.co.../us_japan_quake

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.

Officials said they still hoped to fix a power cable to at least two reactors to restart water pumps needed to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods. Workers also sprayed water on the No.3 reactor, one of the most critical of the plant's six.

It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged that burying the sprawling complex was an option, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters were having little success.

"It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first," an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, told a news conference.

Saying that it is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete (the quote) is not the same as saying it may be the only way to prevent catastrophic radiation release (the lead). That's just trying to sell copy.

 

[Biabreakable]

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

This is patently wrong, and unfair. I have never denied a serious accident and potential problems. WHat I have denied is the sensationalized the end is nigh BS that the media has continually tried to force feed us.The average person has no idea what1. meltdown means2. radiation even is3. decay heat generation means4. many believe spent fuel can litteraly melt-down like the reactor, but still don't know what a meltdown really means5. mistakenly believe ANY radiation dose is dangerous6. can't differentiate b/n radiation and contamination7. don't understand or believe why short half life stuff is so much less dangerous then long half-life stuff8. some (luckily few now) even believe that a nuclear reactor can blow up like an atomic bombThe problem isn't that there is no problem at all, but that any problem becomes immediately grossly overstated to a populace that has a very limited understanding of the terms and issues involved to begin with. Am I trying to minimize the crises?Honestly...maybe a very little. On purpose, because there are a HUGE contigant of folks who are blowing that problem up to a ridiculous point. No matter how much I minimize, people are still going to worry a disproportionate amount. If I (or others) said, there's a .0005% chance this is worse than Chernobyl, people are going to hear "this might be worse than Chernobyl". Irrational fear of a problem is usually more dangerous than the actual problem.There are a number of things stressed in the media that are flat WRONG. High radiation levels near empty spent fuel pools for example, pose virtually ZERO threat to the general population....ZERO. Only rods pulled in the last 3 or 4 weeks pose anything other than non-zero, and that represents not just a minority of the spent fuel, but a SIGNIFICANT MINORITY. FOX earlier today had the Presidants leading nuclear advisor coming on. Prior to a commercial break the headline was: "Stay with us. We'll tell you why the threat to the US is much worse than we've been told." Than they get a true, qualified expert on, and try 4 or 5 differant ways to get him to say there was danger to the West Coast. His answer, repeatedly, was "virtually none".Realize too that legal limits for radiaition, contamination, etc. are set ridiculously low. The limits are basicly: NONE DETECTABLE. These limits are not set so low because of health concerns, but because of political concerns. They don't want people to know too much about nuclear power, so they do everything possible to make sure people never even have to think about it.The absolute worst case scenario in these plants would have still cause the loss of 1/10th the lives the earthquake and tsunami cost, 1/4 the environmental damage, and 1/2 the economic cost. Yet here we are, still focusing on the worst case problems a meltdown could cost, and virtually ignoring the costs of the incredible natural disaster that caused it in the first place? ARE YOU F^#%$@**@ KIDDING ME????!!! My denials are based on real training and real science. I performed dozens of seminars centered on worst case scenarios, how to react, radiological perimeters and precautions. My specialty was as a RADIOLOGICAL CONTROL TECHNICIAN. I'm not talking out my ### or making s&% up.

I agree that the situation is being sensationalized by our media but your overcompensating for that amounts to the same level of misinformation on the other end of the spectrum. Safe distances may be greater than is actually needed but better safe than sorry when it comes to this. That is why the Navy has moved to a distance that you seem to think is unwarranted. But your not there and your not seeing what they are seeing. Rescue efforts may be delayed somewhat because of this but the precautions are warranted nonetheless.The relative loss of life in comparison to the tsunami is not really relevant when the goal is to prevent further loss of life and long term effects of exposure to radiation.

 

[Raiderfan32904]

A couple of days to do it properly, but decay heat would need to be managed for a couple of weeks. IE: You can cool the temp to room temp in a couple of days (normally), but temps will quickly (or slowly depending on how long) rise if you remove cooling sources. How fast they will rise depends on how long since shutdown

Careful not to go into so much detail, soldier. The right answer is normal shutdown involves sustained pumping of coolant, and series of procedures and constant monitoring of fuel reactivity levels. How long, what does that matter? Unless there are plans to go from wet layup to dry layup, who cares?

 

[renesauz]

I don't know how much of it is being contained. It seems clear that radiation levels are very high near the plants that is why workers are working in shifts and have difficulty working near the plants. So really until containment is achieved and all of the rods cooled down to a point where it can be managed again the crisis continues.What I take serious issue with is the use of the word "easy" because of this was so easy to achieve we would have done so already by now.I also do not think that giving serious attention to the situation in terms of safe limits from the site is dangerous to people within the vicinity of the plants and precautions as far as safe distances from the plant and radiation readings on the ground should be followed. The rescue mission continues but all non essential people should evacuate to these safe distances as soon as possible. The Japanese government and Tokyo power have not put forth these precautions as quickly as they should. 1st it was 8km then 12km then 20km. That put people at risk when they tell them to stay home but they are too close in proximity to the site to not be in danger. And that happened because of "experts" minimizing the situation.

And here you show your ignorance (not being fecetious, I literaly mean lack of knowledge).Radiation is energy. Think of it like light. You can block light (sheild it) or you can move away from it. The further you move away from it, the less of it actually hits you. As long as the light SOURCE stays put, it's pretty easy to keep that light from hitting you.IN that sense, unless you're in a spot close to the SOURCE, it's not an issue...it's not a general danger to the public at large.Dangers to the public come when the SOURCE becomes uncontrolled. A particular source can be very small, putting out very little actual radiation, but if it becomes injested, and migrates or concentrates in a specific spot in the body, beta radiation can cause pretty severe damage to live cells. Betas OUTSIDE the body pose little risk, because they have very low penetrating power. (A beta is actually a free electron with significant kinetic energy...it carries a charge and easily interacts with atoms nearby, quickly disturbing chemical structures, but losing it's kinetic energy quickly...once it's energy is lowered to environmental, it's no longer considered a beta, just a regular electron.) True danger (to the public) happens when significant long lived nucleides are somehow made airborne. There aren't enough of these in normal coolant for that to happen. A SIGNIFICANT meltdown, coupled with steam vapor and/or fire (in/on/around the fuel) is necessary. The fires were NOT in/on the fuel, and the radiation levels in/near/around the plant are low enough to suggest complete meltdown did not occur.Spent fuel rods do not have enough decay heat to "meltdown", they will remain relatively intact, but they do give off a lot of radiation. They require sheilding. Big water pools (literraly like a swimming pool) are a very low tech, but highly effective means to provide that sheilding. Losing the water causes very high radiation levels locally, but like light from a finite source, only travels so far...and it aint far. It's a technical problem for the workers, but not a danger to the public.The public was moved back because legal limits required the gov't to move them back, but recall that those limits are set extraordinarily low. The move really was precautionary in case all control was lost and full meltdown/fire ensued. Expect that the evacuation will be a temporary one.

 

[3C's]

A couple of days to do it properly, but decay heat would need to be managed for a couple of weeks. IE: You can cool the temp to room temp in a couple of days (normally), but temps will quickly (or slowly depending on how long) rise if you remove cooling sources. How fast they will rise depends on how long since shutdown

Careful not to go into so much detail, soldier. The right answer is normal shutdown involves sustained pumping of coolant, and series of procedures and constant monitoring of fuel reactivity levels. How long, what does that matter? Unless there are plans to go from wet layup to dry layup, who cares?

How dare you call a sailor a soldier.

 

[renesauz]

DD... do you WANT a disaster of mega proprotions? It's almost like you are hoping, even praying for the worst possible scenario. You are worse than Anerson Cooper who keeps saying that "They are fighting for their lives..." which is sensationalism at it's absolute most pukifying.

Why would I want a disaster to happen? That's pretty messed up to even think that. I have friends living in Japan and think these people have been through hell. I am posting links because I think this is an important event that has taken place.

I don't believe you want a disaster to happen, but why are you posting mostly the muck-raking doom and gloom links?Will the cleanup take years? Yeah - nobody familiar with nuclear power will argue that. But then even normal plant decommissioning would take years. And because seawater was used, the plants are shot and will have to be decommissioned.Is encasing the reactors in concrete an option? Of course it is. It may be as much an economic decision as a safety decision.My objection is that you, and the articles you post, seem to be sensationalizing. I can give you a pass to a degree, as your technical knowledge is pretty much nil, but you do seem to be more interested in the articles that sensationalize than the ones that try to explain highly technical issues in layman's terms. Why is that? Are you just reacting to fear?

 

[renesauz]

A couple of days to do it properly, but decay heat would need to be managed for a couple of weeks. IE: You can cool the temp to room temp in a couple of days (normally), but temps will quickly (or slowly depending on how long) rise if you remove cooling sources. How fast they will rise depends on how long since shutdown

Careful not to go into so much detail, soldier. The right answer is normal shutdown involves sustained pumping of coolant, and series of procedures and constant monitoring of fuel reactivity levels. How long, what does that matter? Unless there are plans to go from wet layup to dry layup, who cares?

"proper cooldown" is immaterial. Cooldowns are usually done slowly to prevent metal fatigue. Metal fatigue is not an issue here because these plants will never be used again.

 

[Sinn Fein]

I hope Dodds is ok

 

[bueno]

My Ex-wife worked for the LA Times. They take reporting extremely seriously there. I hope though for all of the people in Japan that they are wrong about what they just reported.

Well seeing as no one had actually seen the pool at the time of that writing, everything is speculation.Having said that, here is the worst case scenario that I see if the pool is leaking:

If you remember your basic chemistry, you remember the phrase: loss of electrons is oxidation, gain of electrons is reduction? Okay, then uranium cations can occur in two states: an oxidized state and a reduced state. It doesn't take much energy to oxidize or reduce one cation to the other. Why is this important? Because oxidized uranium is highly soluble. Reduced uranium is very insoluble. Oxidize uranium and it may dissolve in water.

A loss of water oxidizes the casing to the point where it will crack, exposing the uranium fuel pellets. The uranium fuel pellets also oxidize. Now if you put water on the oxidized rods, some uranium that is oxidized will dissolve. If there is a crack in the pool, the water containing dissolved uranium will escape into the ground water (and likely some of the decay products are also soluble, but they are of less long-term concern. So what happens next? The uranium migrates with the ground water it mixes with and continues to migrate until it finds a reductant (in this case likely organic material) where it will precipitate. In short, the escaped uranium will be very dilute compared to the fuel rods, dilute to the point where it poses minimal risk, but it could concentrate elsewhere, but again, posing minimal risk.

During this entire sequence of events, the escaped uranium will not be undergoing fission - it simply won't be concentrated enough. it will still be radioactive, but uranium is a beta -emitter. Beta particles are stopped by a sheet of paper. The first daughter of normal radioactive decay is also a beta emitter. In fact, the most gamma radiation (the penetrating type of radiation) produced during radioactive decay comes way down the chain, near the end: radon, bismuth, and a radioactive isotope of lead.

Now there will be some short term elevated levels of radioactivity while teh rods cool from radioactive fission products: krypton, for example, and low evaporation point elements such as iodine, but they are very short-lived products.

This company has a uranium 101 education link on their web page. I believe it also has photos of some of the deposits they are evaluating where uranium oxide is literally exposed right at ground level. so you can evaluate the effect of uranium on local flora for yourself. Just remember that Argentina is largely desert because of climate.<br><br>ETA: I am ignoring the effect of radioactive elements lost when steam evaporates because I wanted to address the increased risk of the pool leaking. There could be loss as water flashes to steam during cool-down, but those losses are independent of the pool possibly leaking.<br>

 

[bueno]

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz1GuCV3IcG

It's %!@$#^$ pathetic that irrational fears of radiation are keeping aid from reaching people who desperately need it. And STILL the reactors dominate the news because they breed fear.ETA: Some people here will go ape&^#@% if they learn even 50 people died of radiation poisoning. Others will go ape&%^$# when they learn of trace radioactivity found in some pond 10 miles away form the site 2 years from now, and they'll use this as evidance that nuclear power is unsafe.

Never mind the fact that the problem was caused by an earthquake and tsunami that DIRECTLY caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and left another 1/2 million homeless. Never mind the fact that the tsunami probably dragged 1000X more dangerous debris, fuel oil, gasoline and other environmental pollutants out to sea with it than the "nuclear catastrophe" will add.

Get a ^@#&$*@()$ grip people.

The awful truth is that the death count was set the day this tragic earthquake/tsunami happened. There is very little hope of any search and rescue mission. Have you seen the pictures? As for the fear, it's real and I don't blame them for feeling it. This is an unprecedented event, and we don't have enough information to declare a safe environment. I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta warn pregnant women and children of the effect of radiation on growing body cells and the link to cancer. I hear that the radiation around #3 and #4 is so bad around the pool that exposure for less than a minute could cause death. It's enough to make people fearful. If its my life and my childrens life, I err on the side of caution, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Please dont critisize, you arent in thier shoes.

I'm talking about the people here. I'm talking about things like the US gov't telling her NAVY to stay several hundred miles away.Radiation around unsheilded spent fuel would be stupid high, deadly high no doubt...but that's NOT released radioactive material to the environment, and it's fairly easily fixed. Of course...nobody tells you it's relatively easily fixed and not a general danger to the public because tehy're too busy peddling fear...fear that's interfering with getting help to people who desperately need it.

Your denial of this being a serious situation doesn't make sense. If it was so easy to fix then why has everyone been struggling to fix it for over a week now and counting?ETA- Your denials are biased and that outweighs your knowledge of the situation so much that I cannot believe anything you say. The nuclear industry is full of people like you who will seek to minimize these crisis situations and their real long term impacts. That is a disservice to humanity.

If you want to discuss the politics of this that is fine but I am of the opinion that such discussions should wait until the crisis is averted. We are not at that point yet.

He isn't saying it is an easy problem to fix. He is saying the danger is being over-blown and over sensationalized.

 

[geoff8695]

I agree that the situation is being sensationalized by our media but your overcompensating for that amounts to the same level of misinformation on the other end of the spectrum. Safe distances may be greater than is actually needed but better safe than sorry when it comes to this. That is why the Navy has moved to a distance that you seem to think is unwarranted. But your not there and your not seeing what they are seeing. Rescue efforts may be delayed somewhat because of this but the precautions are warranted nonetheless.The relative loss of life in comparison to the tsunami is not really relevant when the goal is to prevent further loss of life and long term effects of exposure to radiation.

Renesauz and a couple of other knowledgeable posters have lent infinitely more to my understanding of this crisis than all of the fear mongering and MM hysteria combined. And it has been far more useful and helpful for appraising my family's personal safety. Therefore, I have GREATLY appreciated their contributions here, which have not been "the same level of misinformation", as news outlets that strive to find cataclysm even when experts tell them point blank the human and environmental cost of this disaster are not going to be as monumental as they seemingly want to hear.If you have some factual point you wish to dispute, then by all means dispute it; but please don't come in here and insinuate that the most knowledgable FBGs on the situation are not trustworthy and are hacks who are pushing some nuclear conspiratorial cover-up and accuse them of being the equivalent of the talking heads who have repeatedly demonstrated their ignorance of the situation and drummed up irrational fears. When you call them out and characterize them as such it actually only destroys YOUR credibility and the willingness of others to carefully weigh your opinions - not theirs...

 

[renesauz]

I agree that the situation is being sensationalized by our media but your overcompensating for that amounts to the same level of misinformation on the other end of the spectrum. Safe distances may be greater than is actually needed but better safe than sorry when it comes to this. That is why the Navy has moved to a distance that you seem to think is unwarranted. But your not there and your not seeing what they are seeing. Rescue efforts may be delayed somewhat because of this but the precautions are warranted nonetheless.The relative loss of life in comparison to the tsunami is not really relevant when the goal is to prevent further loss of life and long term effects of exposure to radiation.

I appreciate this post. Over-compensating is virtually impossible to avoid. The reason for that is because folks WANT to believe the sensationalized reports. I literaly can't say "there's ony a .05% chance this turns out to be as bad as Chernobyl". Such a statement falls on deaf ears. But saying it can turn out that bad, or even worse, insinuating (as the media and others have) that it's actually LIKELY to turn out that bad, is irresponsible fear-mongering. IN such an environment, my statistical statement is lost, and is simply further proff of the worst.Instead I say "there's no way this comes remotely close to as bad as Chernobyl", knowing that I have a 99% chance of being right (its a lot less bad), and only a .0005% chance of being dead wrong (it turns out worse). Call that over-compensating if you want, but it sure isn't by much.Rescue efforts are hampered by legalities and politics. Radiation (More properly, contamination or airborne radioactivity) is above the legal limits which every nation recognizes are more restrictive than strictly necessary. Therefore folks won't go in to help. I think that's sad since the actual danger to the helpers is FAR FAR FAR less than the danger to the affected individuals if they don't get help.It's akin to the fireman refusing to step 4 feet into a burning building to save a child.

 

[bueno]

<br>

<br>

<br><a href="http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79194.html" class="bbc_url" title="External link" rel="nofollow external">http://english.kyodo...1/03/79194.html</a><br><font color="#2f2f2f"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br><b>'Weeks' needed to cool down Fukushima nuke reactors: U.S. regulator</b><br><br><br></font></font><br>

<br><br>yes<br>

<br>How long would it take to cool down the reactors in a normal shutdown?<br>

<br><br>weeks- at least to cool down the rods.<br>

 

[Biabreakable]

I don't know how much of it is being contained. It seems clear that radiation levels are very high near the plants that is why workers are working in shifts and have difficulty working near the plants. So really until containment is achieved and all of the rods cooled down to a point where it can be managed again the crisis continues.

What I take serious issue with is the use of the word "easy" because of this was so easy to achieve we would have done so already by now.

I also do not think that giving serious attention to the situation in terms of safe limits from the site is dangerous to people within the vicinity of the plants and precautions as far as safe distances from the plant and radiation readings on the ground should be followed. The rescue mission continues but all non essential people should evacuate to these safe distances as soon as possible. The Japanese government and Tokyo power have not put forth these precautions as quickly as they should. 1st it was 8km then 12km then 20km. That put people at risk when they tell them to stay home but they are too close in proximity to the site to not be in danger. And that happened because of "experts" minimizing the situation.

And here you show your ignorance (not being fecetious, I literaly mean lack of knowledge).Radiation is energy. Think of it like light. You can block light (sheild it) or you can move away from it. The further you move away from it, the less of it actually hits you. As long as the light SOURCE stays put, it's pretty easy to keep that light from hitting you.

IN that sense, unless you're in a spot close to the SOURCE, it's not an issue...it's not a general danger to the public at large.

Dangers to the public come when the SOURCE becomes uncontrolled. A particular source can be very small, putting out very little actual radiation, but if it becomes injested, and migrates or concentrates in a specific spot in the body, beta radiation can cause pretty severe damage to live cells. Betas OUTSIDE the body pose little risk, because they have very low penetrating power. (A beta is actually a free electron with significant kinetic energy...it carries a charge and easily interacts with atoms nearby, quickly disturbing chemical structures, but losing it's kinetic energy quickly...once it's energy is lowered to environmental, it's no longer considered a beta, just a regular electron.) True danger (to the public) happens when significant long lived nucleides are somehow made airborne. There aren't enough of these in normal coolant for that to happen. A SIGNIFICANT meltdown, coupled with steam vapor and/or fire (in/on/around the fuel) is necessary. The fires were NOT in/on the fuel, and the radiation levels in/near/around the plant are low enough to suggest complete meltdown did not occur.

Spent fuel rods do not have enough decay heat to "meltdown", they will remain relatively intact, but they do give off a lot of radiation. They require sheilding. Big water pools (literraly like a swimming pool) are a very low tech, but highly effective means to provide that sheilding. Losing the water causes very high radiation levels locally, but like light from a finite source, only travels so far...and it aint far. It's a technical problem for the workers, but not a danger to the public.

The public was moved back because legal limits required the gov't to move them back, but recall that those limits are set extraordinarily low. The move really was precautionary in case all control was lost and full meltdown/fire ensued. Expect that the evacuation will be a temporary one.

The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Last updated at 5:18 PM on 18th March 2011

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The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.

Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.

After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.

He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.

'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'

Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the crisis' severity.

It is now officially on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Only the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 has topped the scale.

Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.

He said: 'With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.'

But prime minister Naoto Kan insisted that his country would overcome the catastrophe

'We will rebuild Japan from scratch,' he said in a televised speech: 'In our history, this small island nation has made miraculous economic growth thanks to the efforts of all Japanese citizens. That is how Japan was built.'

It comes after pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html#ixzz1GyPjEVRq

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html?ITO=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[Joseph]

http://mitnse.com/

News Brief, 3/18/11, 10 AM EDT

Spraying of spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 is still underway. Visual inspection of Unit 4’s pool showed water in the pool, and so efforts have been temporarily focused upon Unit 3. While efforts at using helicopters to dump water onto the pools had been largely unsuccessful , army firetrucks used in putting out aircraft fires have been employed with some success. The elite Tokyo Hyper Rescue component of the Tokyo fire department has arrived on scene and is conducting missions of roughly two hours in length, during which they spray the pools for 7-8 minutes, wait for steam to dissipate, and spray again.

A cable has been laid from a TEPCO power line 1.5 km from the facility, which will be used to supply power to emergency cooling systems of the reactors at Units 1 and 2.

Backup diesel generators have been connected to cool the spent fuel pools at Units 5 and 6. As of 4 PM JST, temperatures in those pools have reached 65.5 and and 62 degrees Celsius.

Visual inspections have been conducted of both the central spent fuel pool, which contains 60% of the facility’s fuel, and the dry cask storage area. Water levels at the central pool have been described as “secured”, and the dry casks show “no signs of an abnormal situation”. More detailed checks of these areas are planned for the future.

A Japanese government agency has released the results of radiation measurements at dozens of monitoring posts. See the data here: http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/18/1303727_1716.pdf.

These measurements give doses in excess of background radiation, which is why some may appear low. High measurements at reading point 32 are thought to be the result of a controlled containment venting and a simultaneous fire which carried radioactive particles inland. Over the course of the incident, the general trend has been for weather patterns to sweep radioactive particles out to sea.

As a result of these radiation measurements and the ongoing work, the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded the event to a 5 on the INES scale. This is the same level as the Three Mile Island accident, and two steps below Chernobyl.

Resources: ANS Nuclear Café’; World Nuclear News,; IAEA; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

 

[renesauz]

Well seeing as no one had actually seen the pool at the time of that writing, everything is speculation.

Having said that, here is the worst case scenario that I see if the pool is leaking:

If you remember your basic chemistry, you remember the phrase: loss of electrons is oxidation, gain of electrons is reduction? Okay, then uranium cations can occur in two states: an oxidized state and a reduced state. It doesn't take much energy to oxidize or reduce one cation to the other. Why is this important? Because oxidized uranium is highly soluble. Reduced uranium is very insoluble. Oxidize uranium and it may dissolve in water.

A loss of water oxidizes the casing to the point where it will crack, exposing the uranium fuel pellets. The uranium fuel pellets also oxidize. Now if you put water on the oxidized rods, some uranium that is oxidized will dissolve. If there is a crack in the pool, the water containing dissolved uranium will escape into the ground water (and likely some of the decay products are also soluble, but they are of less long-term concern. So what happens next? The uranium migrates with the ground water it mixes with and continues to migrate until it finds a reductant (in this case likely organic material) where it will precipitate. In short, the escaped uranium will be very dilute compared to the fuel rods, dilute to the point where it poses minimal risk, but it could concentrate elsewhere, but again, posing minimal risk.

During this entire sequence of events, the escaped uranium will not be undergoing fission - it simply won't be concentrated enough. it will still be radioactive, but uranium is a beta -emitter. Beta particles are stopped by a sheet of paper. The first daughter of normal radioactive decay is also a beta emitter. In fact, the most gamma radiation (the penetrating type of radiation) produced during radioactive decay comes way down the chain, near the end: radon, bismuth, and a radioactive isotope of lead.

Now there will be some short term elevated levels of radioactivity while teh rods cool from radioactive fission products: krypton, for example, and low evaporation point elements such as iodine, but they are very short-lived products.

This company has a uranium 101 education link on their web page. I believe it also has photos of some of the deposits they are evaluating where uranium oxide is literally exposed right at ground level. so you can evaluate the effect of uranium on local flora for yourself. Just remember that Argentina is largely desert because of climate.

Very much spot-on. Very good chance that these rods will need a better long-term home than a swimming pool now. I wouldn't think this would be a particular danger this quickly unless multiple fuel plates/rods had cracks AND the pool itself was leaking. That seems extremely unlikely, and certainly not an unworkable or immediate problem.

 

[Biabreakable]

I agree that the situation is being sensationalized by our media but your overcompensating for that amounts to the same level of misinformation on the other end of the spectrum. Safe distances may be greater than is actually needed but better safe than sorry when it comes to this. That is why the Navy has moved to a distance that you seem to think is unwarranted. But your not there and your not seeing what they are seeing. Rescue efforts may be delayed somewhat because of this but the precautions are warranted nonetheless.The relative loss of life in comparison to the tsunami is not really relevant when the goal is to prevent further loss of life and long term effects of exposure to radiation.

I appreciate this post. Over-compensating is virtually impossible to avoid. The reason for that is because folks WANT to believe the sensationalized reports. I literaly can't say "there's ony a .05% chance this turns out to be as bad as Chernobyl". Such a statement falls on deaf ears. But saying it can turn out that bad, or even worse, insinuating (as the media and others have) that it's actually LIKELY to turn out that bad, is irresponsible fear-mongering. IN such an environment, my statistical statement is lost, and is simply further proff of the worst.Instead I say "there's no way this comes remotely close to as bad as Chernobyl", knowing that I have a 99% chance of being right (its a lot less bad), and only a .0005% chance of being dead wrong (it turns out worse). Call that over-compensating if you want, but it sure isn't by much.Rescue efforts are hampered by legalities and politics. Radiation (More properly, contamination or airborne radioactivity) is above the legal limits which every nation recognizes are more restrictive than strictly necessary. Therefore folks won't go in to help. I think that's sad since the actual danger to the helpers is FAR FAR FAR less than the danger to the affected individuals if they don't get help.It's akin to the fireman refusing to step 4 feet into a burning building to save a child.

I haven't followed up on this but I was deeply concerned reading about Japanese folks migrating to a nearby town only 8km from the site. It is my hope that everyone has at least moved to the 20km distance by now but I do not know if they have.