This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Al Jazeera Explains What A Fukushima Meltdown Would Look Like
Following explosions in at least two reactor cores at Japan's Fukushima
nuclear power plant - and as the developing crisis is rated at level 6
of seven levels on the International Nuclear Events Scale (previously being 3, or below 3 Mile Island status, to keep the panic level low)- attention is
turning to just what is happening inside the 40-year-old power plant in
north-east Japan. Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan explains how a meltdown would happen.
»
- 35883 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
That one is in Tokyo. You really can't read, can you?
318 uSv?
That would be 1000x less than it was yesterday. It's also probable that you can't even get the fuckin units straight.
My apologies Trav. Milli-Sieverts it is.
Thank you for illustrating an important point.
Anyone with an agenda can use the geiger counter data and make a subjective interpretation of it to fit that agenda. That's bad science and it's a problem. The news media's agenda is to generate fear. They are clearly very good at it.
you got it, the ZHeeple are all over it
Al Jazeera has no axe to grind unlike this self-proclaimed expert whose only purpose in posting here is to spin the truth. That the scientific community allowed those GE reactors to be built is a CRIME--not only is the location asinine but the backup power system could not have been possibly designed by someone with an IQ greater than 70.
Well said.
ORI
can you take a sec. and find tokyo, and the melting cores on this eZ map???
http://www.cccarto.com/ne_volcano/
just to keep the trolls junking and the junksters trolling, of course...
+1...unless they WANTED to kill lots of people....then I guess they have a very high IQ, but just different morals than many of us.
"but just different morals than many of us."
Regrettably, more often than not, this is true.
Interesting...who is this "scientific community" of which you speak? Did "they" have the power to prevent construction of such reactors?
More important - please do share with all of exactly what was wrong with the design of the backup power system? The rest of us are in the dark as to exactly what went wrong. We understand there was a tsunami...but physically why that caused a failure has not been explained so far as I know. I can see that the water would snuff out the diesel generators, but why could they not be restarted given the hours they had for repairs? I have a good guess...but seems you claim to know. Please share.
Dude, no point in carrying on really... People on here are going to act like the world is going to end while others will take a logical, objective approach and not jump to conclusions until further data is collected/released.
the reactors were state of the art FORTY YEARS ago, you idiots.
Tyler do you have a link verifying the increase in severity to 6?
Good video, although a bit disjointed.
China in trade deficit and Japan already in deficit, exactly where is the incremental treasury bid coming from? Maybe Babdoc in the Carib banking center can scare up some cash
Nuclear energy is green energy - radioactivity ensues.
Boy am I glad I moved next to a nuclear power plant in 2007. Ignorance was indeed bliss. My house is now underwater, but chances are the water was just used to cool down the plant.
Don't worry. Haven't you heard about radiation hormesis.
http://radiationhormesis.com/
Perhaps that would explain the fact that I have not had the need to use antibiotics since 2008
You either take a lot of vitamin D or you are dead. Voila!
Plenty of liquid Vit D, but yes I am dead....dead to the madness anymore.
The hormesis effect is valid, not just for radiation, but for other environmental toxins as well. It says that reducing levels of toxins to zero is a fool's errand, expensive and counterproductive.
Of course everything has its limits, and hormesis obviously doesn't apply above those limits.
Bet you wish that there wasn't so much regulation of the nuclear industry now. Maybe then they would stop polishing these design turds and start using the designs that are literally meltdown-proof.
Also, what do you think the likelihood of a giant earthquake followed by a giant tsunami is in your area? Probably nil, unless you live next to one of the three or so coastal reactors in Cali. Or are you saying you live in Japan?
As I said last night, judging the safety of nuclear power in general by this accident is like judging the safety of all cars by a single accident in Cuba where the driver was drunk and had a seizure brought on by the alcohol. The embargo on Cuba has forced them to keep and maintain their cars for far longer than they were designed for, just like regulations in the US and Japan have done for nuclear reactors. Yes, this is a tragedy, but it was absolutely preventable, but the government stood firmly in the way of any and all progress for decades.
I really don't know enough as to whether subsidies to the industry is the cause of the nuclear problems or government regulation. I would assume the combination of both somewhere inbetween.
Either way, I am not terribly concerned about the plant, just being a smart ass.
Not worried about much really anymore. Golden age is a coming.
If it weren't for government regulation - in the form of subsidies - nuclear plants would never have been built in the first place. They're just not economic over the entire life cycle.
And I'm not just talking about direct subsidies like research grants - you have to include limited liability laws, insurance company default backstop subsidies, planning waivers, cleaning up the decommissioned sites, storing the waste etc.
It's all very well pointing out that Fukushima was badly designed NOW - the only way we can know how well other plants are designed to withstand 1000 year events is if/when they fail. ie - when it's too late.
Via subsidies, nuclear is just another way for our elites to transfer our wealth... to them.
In a feudal system it's not your wealth; it's the Lord of the Manor's wealth. This has been The Rule for 1,000's of years. Those little unpleasantnesses of 1776 and 1789 changed nothing except for some minor rearrangements of the deck chairs.
Sheep often mistaken believe that the wool on their bodies belongs to them. It doesn't. It belongs to the Flock Owner, along with the sheep.
At least if the reactors in Cali blew, they would send the radiation over the US rather then over the ocean. Phew.
No kidding. Thank god. Less of those eaters running around. /sarc
where you been, Pan. Haven't seen ya in ages.
Another good chuckle - thanks!
What a shame that NRC regulators prevented construction of more boiling-water reactors like this. Golly, if only government had stayed out the way electric utilities would have worked out cheaper and cheaper technologies, perhaps doing away with the massively expensive and wholly unnecessary containment domes typical of US nuclear plants. Heck, the Soviets figured out how to make electricity without a reactor vessel or a containment! Great stuff - if only government would just get out the way... /sarc
new quake upgraded to 6.4....very near mt fuji....
new map of nuclear locations
http://nakedempire.wordpress.com/
Compare with Earthquake locations - looks like mother nature is bracketing Tokyo - watch out if there is a major fracture undersea off Tokyo Bay. Past time to be getting out.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_35.php
Come down 3.1 mils; come left 1.6 mils.
"Fire for effect"!
HOLY CRAP AGAIN!
"...the International Nuclear Accident Emergency Level now upgraded to 6 out of a possible 7, with 7 being a Chernobyl-like disaster, most major airlines have decided to cancel flights to and from Tokyo. The president of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Andre-Claude Lacoste said "We are in a disaster quite obvious.""
http://fiatsfire.blogspot.com/2011/03/breaking-news-panic-breaks-out-in-...
WHOA NELLY!
Was Andre wearing one of those cool shirts with a little alligator on it?
most major airlines have decided to cancel flights to and from Tokyo
That was FRIDAY'S news. not today. yet.
They began Friday but today is official... I just checked.
God help us all if there is a volcano-like spewing of fission materials and products into the atmosphere we all share.
Anyone know of a video monitoring site for the reactors?
I wish I did ...
Here is a good site, for those wishing to understand what the meltdown means:
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_disasters/nuclear_disa...
They explain what happened on Three Mile and Chernobyl as well for understanding.
The fact is, its not good.
iaea press releases
http://www-news.iaea.org/news/iaeapressreleases/default.asp
Link doesn't work.
try this
http://www.facebook.com/iaeaorg
I have a question/observation. With all of these videos both real and computer generated, is it possible that they are unknowingly helping other country's who are pursuing nuclear power with information on how to build nuclear reactors? Sorry if this is a ridiculous question.
You mean... ta da duhhh! - eeeeeevil Iran?
Well, let's hope so. That way, maybe they'll keep any future reactors off major known faultlines.
Apology accepted, because it is a bit of a silly question. :-)
Google "nuclear power" and you'll quickly see that no secrets are being revealed. A diagram of how a reactor works really doesn't give any insight into the details of actually building one. Take a tour of a nuclear plant and you'll likely see a very detailed model and perhaps some of the actual plant facilities...even then you won't learn anything that isn't readily available in a university library.
Thanks. I think I should have also said that "I am suprised no one has freaked out about giving this information away to the terrorists". I am fully aware of how easy it is to get this information. Sorry for my haste.
double post
The technology isn't secret. Its just difficult.
The stuff that's secret is how to get it make really big explosions. The stuff that's really, really secret is how to get that exploding package many miles away very quickly.
a good use for all those cloud seeding planes people with tin foil hats complain about.
make it rain on japan before the toxic shit goes any where.
I am assuming that they were storing 20 years worth of spent fuel rods on top of 4 waiting for Yucca Mountain to activate. Since it has been converted into condos for the EE armageddon center, WTF? Calling Harry Reid.
Harry is busy trying to save cowboy poetry....
Maybe waiting for space travel to get cheap enough to where we could send this shit on a never ending voyage through space or into the sun.
TD,
what's up with this?
K-Duffy "re taking" Libya?!?!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/qaddafi-retaking-libya.html
As is sometimes the case, one of their boys, is not doing as he has been told. He has been a problem for them. They underestimated him. They owned him for 40 years but now they wanted to get rid of him and get something else going there. He is refusing to go along with the script. They pissed in his corn flakes. Now he will make them pay for it.
I just saw they issued a "no fly zone" figured it was for Lybia. Nope. Its for near the reactor. Finally!! An enforceable no-fly zone! If you go near it, you will DIE! And US Navy doent even need to lift a flap to enforce it.
The KSA made the usa cancel the no fly zone. Sorry nobody told you.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/hillary-clinton-pledges-high-level-aid-to-rebels/story-e6frg6so-1226022076592
These spent fuel pools are more vulnerable to disaster than the core – the containment may well remain intact but those fuel pools are more vulnerable. It’s hard to imagine they haven’t been compromised in these explosions.
Robert Alverez has a blog at the Instititute for Policy Studies – he’s a Senior Scholar and former DOE official:
http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/meltdowns_grow_more_likely_at_the_fukushima_reactors
Along with the struggle to cool the reactors is the potential danger from an inability to cool Fukushima’s spent nuclear fuel pools. They contain very large concentrations of radioactivity, can catch fire, and are in much more vulnerable buildings. The ponds, typically rectangular basins about 40 feet deep, are made of reinforced concrete walls four to five feet thick lined with stainless steel.
The boiling-water reactors at Fukushima — 40 years old and designed by General Electric — have spent fuel pools several stories above ground adjacent to the top of the reactor. The hydrogen explosion may have blown off the roof covering the pool, as it’s not under containment. The pool requires water circulation to remove decay heat. If this doesn’t happen, the water will evaporate and possibly boil off. If a pool wall or support is compromised, then drainage is a concern. Once the water drops to around 5-6 feet above the assemblies, dose rates could be life-threatening near the reactor building. If significant drainage occurs, after several hours the zirconium cladding around the irradiated uranium could ignite.
Then all bets are off.
On average, spent fuel ponds hold five-to-ten times more long-lived radioactivity than a reactor core. Particularly worrisome is the large amount of cesium-137 in fuel ponds, which contain anywhere from 20 to 50 million curies of this dangerous radioactive isotope. With a half-life of 30 years, cesium-137 gives off highly penetrating radiation and is absorbed in the food chain as if it were potassium.
—-
it was the pool at #4 that was on fire last night that spiked the radioactivity levels
Apparently so. Perhaps Mr. Obama will reconsider his decision to close Yucca Mountain. When people figure out how dangerous it is to have nuclear waste stored in swimming pools all across the nation the objections to the highly-studied and already built nuclear repository ought to fade away. We need it, we paid for it, we ought to use it.
Any sources left for Potassium Iodide?
I'm trying to order a school desk online. I thought that's what we needed.
LOL duck and cover son
Bert the turtle is your friend...
LMFAO
Your local supermarket has plenty of Morton's salt on the shelf. That has all the iodine any of us needs right now.
A large part of my practice is nutritional counseling and I can tell you that you don't need potassium iodide. It is very hard to find right now anyway. The point of the iodine is to flood your system so that your thyroid is saturated thus not allowing uptake of any radioactive iodine isotopes. I have used a product from standard process call prolamine iodine for years on everything from menopause to thyroid issues. Each tablet has 2000% RDA of a protien bound iodine. You need a med license to buy from them but you can call them to find a local medical/chiropractic/nutritionist who resells. Hope this helps.
thanks for the tip. My nephew is in private practice and will square me up.
So...you're willing to take chemicals you absolutely do not need and risk serious health effects. Why?
!?!?!? Haven't you been reading!? Media keeps throwing out these 'possible' scenarios, and we all know that 'possible' is just another word for 'absolutely going to happen and you're going to die a terribe terrible death from radiation poisoning' !!!
They contain very large concentrations of radioactivity, can catch fire,
- - - - - - - - - - -
So, did the desk-jockey Robert Alverez with the blog at the Instititute for Policy Studies and Senior Scholar and former DOE official say -
- what it is that burns?
Ans: Apprantly the fuel rods themsleves can burn exposed to air ...
The boiling-water reactors at Fukushima — 40 years old and designed by General Electric
- - - - - - - - -
BTW, Reactor #1 had been renewed back in February 2011 for an additional 10 years ... well, it's not going to see that now is it ...
These spent fuel pools are more vulnerable to disaster than the core
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Darn good point; something overlooked in the contingency plans this far down the time line ...
.
This is completely off topic, but I just wanted to share that I was in my car flipping through the radio to find some news and by happenstance flipped to Glenn Beck's radio program as he and his co-hosts were blathering incoherently about Zero Hedge. I wish I could give specifics, about a specific article or whether they were praising or criticizing ZH, but they didnt really do any of that. All I got out out of it was Beck saying "Do you know what Zero Hedge MEANS???!? It means that on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero!" He said he had been obsessed with ZH and was up till 3am on here. Then he and the other guys rambled on incoherently for 5-10min. Between the chuckling to themselves, all I could get was "something something one hedge two hedge something something ..well if you cant get past the first fifteen hedges!..." ..."something something [hahhaha] on my tv show tonight I'm going to draw a trend line between zero and hedge [more chuckling] ..." Oh noes! [name of some dude] loves ZH so much he just got up and left the room"..... "Oh, he went to get a soda" "You haven't had a soda in 4 weeks?? We drove you to drink because of zero hedge!" ..."something something George Soros something something."
That's about it.
They were referring to PCRs article at the top of the page.
and the point of your rambing?
Glenn Beck is rather persona non grata around these parts. Odd that he is a reader. Wonder what his handle is?
umm call me a pooly educated numbnut. but wouldnt storiung spent rods at sub sea levels, instead of top of buildings make hgetting water in there a little easier,
errm especially in TSUNAMI prone areas!
Have you never watched a Godzilla movie?
not in many a year.
Radioactivity + ocean = angry Godzilla.
Cue the music -- Oh no, there goes Tokyo...
well i wasnt thinking water that " gets out to sea "
just a storage area thats easily flooded. ie below sea level. i mean of sea is going to come along and destroy your nuke plant, you may as well have the place under water so after it gets destroyed its in a pool of you know left over tsunami water.
but what would i know im no 100k+ a year nuclear plant designer.
Ok, pooly educated numbnut. (you asked)
I can appreciate people want to contribute to a serious problem. But many of those dump concrete, flood with water, bucket brigade type ideas just dont understand the constraints in that system. I dont pretend to know either. But considering the control rods are at 5000 degrees, and the core is flooded with water tells me the internal pressure of the core is extremely high in order to maintain water in a liquid form. If this is true, it would take some serious pump head to inject water. No gravity fed system would work (unless a couple miles high?). Correct my physics or nuclear engineering please.
Dr. No, could you please review your answer in light of the question (reposted below for your convenience):
- - - - - - - - -
by savagegoose on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:27 #1055777
umm call me a pooly educated numbnut. but wouldnt storiung spent rods at sub sea levels, instead of top of buildings make hgetting water in there a little easier,
errm especially in TSUNAMI prone areas!
- - - - - - - -
Do you see the contrast between the posed question about 'spent [fuel] rods' and
"But considering the control rods are at 5000 degrees, and the core is flooded with water tells me ..."
Just askin ...
I stand corrected. Wrong problem. I accept that storing spent fuel rods below sea level may mitigate the risk of not being able to maintain the water bath.
However my guess is, if the earth quake didnt happen, and sea water accidentally flooded the new state of the art passive system, about 99.99% of people would be screaming, "why the hell did we store them below sea level, you dont have to be brilliant to figure out there would be seepage."
People screamed that about New Orleans, and there wasnt even a reactor.
Well, if there was no earthquake and water happened to flood the storage pool building/wash it away, I think everyone would be more concerned about why the hell they just got ass-fucked by a giant tsunami as opposed to what happened to the spent fuel?
My guess - the safety basis for the spent fuel pool scored a tsunami as an incredible event and didn't think they'd need protections in place. I'm sure once this is eventually sorted out and the safety analysis reports are reviewed for this plant, people are going to be smacking their foreheads saying "what the fuck kind of show were you running over here?"
thanks for the retraction. you are prob right , i mean why did they store em there up top in the 1st place prob was because of fear exterrnal contamination.
but there was a report about this style of reactor being dangerous if storage coolant was leaked and a fire hazard.
they did build nuke launch facilites strong enough to survive near misses with DAMN nuke strikes. you would think as much concern might have gone into storage areas?
anyhow i see now theyre uysing a fire truck to try n cool down a building or 2, maybe my ida of a floodable area isnt sounding so crazy after all.
AJ is delivering straight information and expoiting a market more or less abandoned by the U.S. media.
I hope the pendulum starts to swing back the other way cause it's hurting the whole "truth justice and the American way" meme.
seriously
I am not an engineer, but steam powered backup water pumps would have prevented most of these problems. If the core is active, there will be steam!
dup
Right; assuming NOTHING else was damaged as a 30' Tsunami wave swept over the plant ... you have seen pictures of the debris around the nuclear plant(s)?
Understand, but most of the damage was the result of losing electricity to power the pumps. Older aircraft B-52D used air pressure to run hydraulic pumps, it is not as efficient as electricity but they worked. They could also have used the steam to run electic generators to provide the power for electic controls. Ideally, you would have the steam water pumps run anytime the power is lost to the plant.
Day late and a dollar short; the shortcomings are/were taken care of in later designs by GE and their design team partners (like Hitachi).
Since I don't have time to outline a 101-level course, I'll just link to source rich with information on the evolution of the BWR (Boiling Water Reactor):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_Water_Reactor
Pertinent excerpt:
General Electric (GE) also developed a different concept for a new boiling water reactor (BWR) at the same time as the ABWR, known as the simplified boiling water reactor (SBWR). This smaller (600 megawatt electrical (MWe) per reactor) was notable for its incorporation—for the first time ever in a light water reactor—of "passive safety" design principles. The concept of passive safety means that the reactor, rather than requiring the intervention of active systems, such as emergency injection pumps, to keep the reactor within safety margins, was instead designed to return to a safe state solely through operation of natural forces if a safety-related contingency developed.
Good, it seems like an obvious solution. Sounds like they need to retrokit/upgrage the existing cooling systems.
Agree 100%
My understanding is the DFs put the switch gear in "basement" which flooded, they could not dewater and could not get any of the necessary "support"equipment/instrumentation on line required to monitor and control water cooling. Had to bring pressure down in reactor to pump in water, need power to the equipment and instruments to do this, non starter with switch gear 20' under water.... they had other generators brought to the site shortly after the incident but they were useless with out isolating the switch gear, which was unrealeastic given the time constraint and the size of the facility.
My Amerifat brain can't process these images. Is there an Xtranormal video on the subject? Wait who cares? CNBC just told me to buy the dips as this event will strengthen Japanese GDP.
Nuclear drill;
Bending over, grasping firmly behind both knees, stick head between legs and kiss your *** goodbye!
Please let us cut away some of the simplistic disinformation espoused by these low-grade animations.
The reactor vessel is enclosed within a much larger containment vessel (never shown) which also acts as a secondary cooling system (if water can be pumped to it) so an assumed 'meltdown' - partial or total doesn't burn through the concrete floor after it gloops out of the reactor. If this is what happened, then very hot molen metal came into contact with hot water (at best) and generated a lot of steam, hydrogen and oxygen all of which severely pressurises the outer containment vessel.
Sooner of later this ruptures explosively.
My greatest concern is that we have not been treated to any pics of reactor #2 since it went off, has the outer, concrete biological casing been trashed?
My other concern is about the basic layout design that results in the spent fuel rods being 'stored in the attic'. Afaik that doesn't happen in Europe (thank god) - they cooloff old rods in ponds AWAY from the reactor.
Third - bearing in mind that the shit was kept 'upstairs' - who in hell thought it a good idea to keep 20 bloody years worth in reactor 4? You don't cool rods for that length of time, this looks like managerial cost-cutting. Plenty of old Jap stuff has been processed (and returned to Japan) so why were they sitting on this much?
I share your concern with not being able to locate pictures/videos of Reactor 2 post blast. Not a good sign. I wonder if someone like Skywatch has gotten a hold of close up satellite passes over the facility, post #2 reactor blast? Anybody found a link for post #2 reactor blast pictures?
Looks like the outermost containment (building) for #2 is damaged. Primary and secondary containment both "leaking, unable to hold/maintain water/pressure levels in core and containment" From NHK.
In 2012, the world won't come to an end. It'll be when the aliens come back and share their technology with us that saves the planet.
Also, am I the only one who is starting to believe that it's Al Jazeera that is more trustworthy than any other MSM?
No, Al Jazeera has better reporting than any of the MSM's.
Here ya go Tyler:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300189582P.pdf
Talk about a "cluster F*k" !!
Why are the Spent Fuel Ponds temps. on 5 & 6 increasing?
Did they give up on the SFPs on 1 & 2 & 3?
SAT images of damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siDm0bobltI&feature=feedu
Thanks CitizenPete
They mention reactor 2 but the building appears intact even though a blast was reported.
Seems they may be using older shots inconsistent with current damage. Also no visible fire damage on #4.
Comments?
These are the instructions my father was issued in Japan in 1950
Individual Action
Air Burst of Atomic Bomb
GPO Document 1950 O- 908880
Before Burst
Air raid alert or General Quarters is sounded. Take prescribed action! The best defense against an "A" bomb is the same as against HE bombs.
During and After Burst
If At Duty Station
If Not At Duty Station
Report to Duty Station
Don't Panic and Don't Spread Rumors
Effects of Air Burst of Atomic Bomb
Blast
Heat
Fires
Nuclear Radiation
Flash Radiation
Lingering Radiation
1. So small it is not a hazard. Disregard it.
Coolant in fourth Fukushima reactor might be 'boiling away'
Fukushima No. 4 reactor's coolant now boiling, evaporating
In Japan plant, frantic efforts to avoid meltdown Newsday - 20 minutes agohttp://www.japannuclear.com/nuclearpower/program/location.html
Location of Japanese nuclear plants ......Man they went whole hog on this stuff.
Japan has little in the way of domestic energy sources. To become such a big economy they had to import energy sources. Importation of energy sources means exposure to supply disruptions. The most secure power source in the face of supply disruptions is nuclear power, as the fuel source is concentrated and has a relatively long use lifetime.
Much of Japan's current economic woes are due to escalating fossil fuel import costs. It is bad news for them that now nuclear costs will rise as well.
The large economy island nations of Japan and England are our "canaries in the coal mine" for what lies ahead for the rest of the planet. The combination of limited resources and the decline of globalization due to fossil fuel depletion and geo-political strife will be especially tough on these countries early in the process of deindustrialization. They will be ahead of the rest of us on the curve.
TPOG
duct tape is flying off the shelves.......
The decision making process seems totally paralyzed and because of that the situation is really dangerous. They did not come out swinging AFTER the first explosion! They could have shutdown all reactors with reactor killer operations, like pumping sea water or maybe powdered bismuth into all of them. BUT they did not.
Utterly and completely wrong.
The reactors were SCRAM'd as a result of the earthquake. They were made subcritical at that time.
or maybe powdered bismuth into ...
- - - - - - - - - -
That's a new one; maybe boron would work?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_moderator
Excerpt:
Good moderators are also free of neutron-absorbing impurities such as boron. In commercial nuclear power plants the moderator typically contains dissolved boron. The boron concentration of the reactor coolant can be changed by the operators by adding boric acid or by diluting with water to manipulate reactor power.
Or fluffy bunnies?
All is well.
Nuclear plant co. may spray reactor by helicopter
Japan nuclear crisis eclipses Three Mile Island, nears 'Chernobyl' --Fifty workers and fire hoses are all that remain at Japan's Fukushima I plant to cool three hot reactors and six pools containing spent fuel rods – perhaps for months to come.Nope. The folks with the fire hoses will be dead in a month or so from aacute radition poisioning. They'll need some new public sector employees to replace them then. Oh yeah, the much reviled public sector employees...The folks that are expendable, so long as banker bonuses remain at record levels.
Of course, the wealthy are already getting off the island of Japan now, by whatever helicopter or Lear jet is available, leaving the masses stranded.
To bad for all those overcompensated public employees with "gold-plated" pension plans. I wonder if the survivor benefits are so good. Let's slash those too, because folks rescuing the injured and trying to prevent a full-on nuclear catastrophe aren't nearly as important and brilliant as financial sector vampire squids who produce NOTHING, except for global food inflation that kills untold numbers of poor people around the world. But bondholders must NEVER take a haircut. Let's take it out on that fireman in Japan, who knows he's a dead man walking and his wife and kids. Is your irrational hatred of public employees still intact, Mish? We should lay off thoses firemen right away to calm the fears of the poor Japanese muni bondholders, currently enjoying a cold one on the private jet.
As long as the widows and orphans continue to pay taxes to service the debt then all will be well for the elite.
Don't get too distracted by the left-right (union-nonunion) debates that are manufactured to keep the masses from seeing who the real enemy is.
I understand your point and agree, but stop and think....why does the MSM encourage us to debate...should we raise taxes? or cut benefits on firemen? the debate is never framed...what do we lose if we stop servicing the debt? stop taxing teachers AND the private sector middle class to pay billionaires?
But what do you really think? Wow.
pure dreck.
As long as the widows and orphans continue to pay taxes to service the debt then all will be well for the elite.
Don't get too distracted by the left-right (union-nonunion) debates that are manufactured to keep the masses from seeing who the real enemy is.
I understand your point and agree, but stop and think....why does the MSM encourage us to debate...should we raise taxes? or cut benefits on firemen? the debate is never framed...what do we lose if we stop servicing the debt? stop taxing teachers AND the private sector middle class to pay billionaires?
Now back to your regularly scheduled program -- With the International Nuclear Accident Emergency Level now upgraded to 6 out of a possible 7, with 7 being a Chernobyl-like disaster, most major airlines have decided to cancel flights to and from Tokyo. The president of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Andre-Claude Lacoste said "We are in a disaster quite obvious."
How stupid can humans get? This is not Chernobyl. If Chernobyl was 7, Fukushima will be a 10. At least the French were not afraid to call it a six when the Japanese government called it a 4.
With the International Nuclear Accident Emergency Level now upgraded to 6 out of a possible 7, with 7 being a Chernobyl-like disaster, most major airlines have decided to cancel flights to and from Tokyo.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Inference: The airlines have ceased operations into Tokyo since the IAE has upgraded the [fear?] level to a 6 out of a possible 7
Cause and effect linkage: True?
Or, are airline operations affected in some other way WRT Tokyo?
- - - - - -
If Chernobyl was 7, Fukushima will be a 10.
- - - - - -
Oh - will be a 10.
Let's hope not ... nuclear engineering says there isn't the potential for a melted mass of reactor rods to 'go critical' like part of the reactor pile did at Chernobyl and which then blew the graphite-moderated reactor wide open.
Not word one about entombment. No evacuation for Tokyo. These guys are just going to sit there.
Next 12 hours are absolutely crucial.
--Wind tends to shift offshore at night, allowing a bit more time.
--They might get the power back on.
--Almost out of buildings to explode.
Never mind the power company or the govt downplaying the incident/positive spin to reduce chance of panic...
The Japanese culture is one that tends to discourage any admission of failure (no matter how it is achieved, corruption, incompetence, whatever). This permeates even Japanese corporate culture (recall japanese corporate CEOs resigning in discrace?).
Therefore, things are, and likely have been, worse than the Japanese Govt or power company has been admitting.
$.02
WASHINGTON (AFP) – 1740 GMT: Europe's energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger dubs Japan's nuclear disaster an "apocalypse," telling the European Parliament that Tokyo had almost lost control of events at the stricken Fukushima power plant.
We have all witnessed this play before. It's always the same.
Right now, whatever true media is left is being censored, government officials are self-censored, and delay-deny-obfuscate is the tactic of the IAEA and Japanese Government (for widely different reasons).
Unlike a gulf oil spill, however, there is nuclear material at the bottom of this well, and 50 personnel to battle a core reactor with firehoses. Oh, and Tokyo Electric & Power may fly some helicopters in to dump some water on it, they claim.
Maybe I'm just too pessimistic.
Crisis simulation drills: I doubt they ever practiced with this many simultaneous critical failures. The resources available compared to those needed are like Chernobyl, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Exon Valdez, x3.
Is anyone elses internet slower than usual?
Obummer to the kill switch with him when he went golfing today and I think it is rubbing the inside of his golf bag.
Is anyone elses internet slower than usual?
- - - - - - - - -
The internet control rods - to be embodied in Obama's (golf) Irons ...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_LIBYA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEM...
the plan is to surround Benghazi and leave one way out and when the turkeys run out, it will be time for the turkey shoot. oh my.........
Hey. They stole that from us when we used it during that Kuwiati War for Oil thats Not for Oil thingy. Highway of Death. Bet Cheney came up with that name while he was masturbating and viewing the raw footage from gun cameras.
I just saw a video of people standing in orderly long lines waiting to get inside super-markets in one of the devastated areas.
I must say, I am in complete awe of the Japanese people and have the utmost respect for them. Inspite of all that is happening, they are still stoic about their situation and there has been no rioting, no looting, no herding to get inside super-markets etc.
A great culture indeed !
Yes it was.
Unlike Africa, I mean New Orleans after Katrina.
touche
True Dat :thumbsup
Good point. But I wonder if it can be a double-edged sword? Those good people of that respectable culture deeply fear standing out from the crowd, for all their composure and self-discipline, they are Lemmings with a capital L.
I just had this vision of the Three Stooges running plant #4. "Hey Larry. Hey Moe! I think I'll put all these old things on the roof! Nyuk, yuk yuk."
Sometimes laughter is the best medicine..
We keep hearing about 50 employees of TEPCO on site, what about the Japanese ARMY?!?!
In Chernobyl Army was the biggest contributor to relief efforts
Japanese Nuclear Bukkake...
That movie needs more cowbell...or talking bears....just sayin'.
Essential reading:
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110315D15NY123.htm
There are holes in reactor building 4, so any radioactive smoke from any burning spent fuel rods (i.e. from fires which start by themselves once the rods are exposed to air), if that happens, can go straight out to the atmosphere.
The 50 engineers still at the plant have retreated to a "remote monitoring site" because radiation levels in the control room are too high to spend more than 10 minutes there at a time.
TEPCO have been "ordered" to top up the pool of spent fuel rods with water but the engineers were not able to all day on Tuesday because radiation near reactor building 4 was too high. "The firm said it has not yet confirmed the current water level or water temperature in the pool and will try to pour water into the facility from Wednesday through holes that were created following an explosion earlier Tuesday in the walls of the building".
So basically, the pool was low on water on Tuesday morning (Japan time) and since then has been boiling, unmonitored, for 18 hours.
Not good. I'm very sorry for all involved, but I don't see how this can end well.
4rth explosion in Fukushima. It seems as if everything was going the worst way
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, states that after a high-level government meeting, “Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” and that censorship of what is really occurring at the plant is being overseen under the Article 15 Emergency Law.
Professor Richard Wakeford, a nuclear expert at Manchester University, said yesterday: ‘If the fuel is not covered by cooling water it could become so hot it begins to melt – if all the fuel is uncovered you could get a large-scale meltdown.’
Nothing to see move along and don't forget to order that new ip00d.
What's an English guy doing on Al Jazeera and why hasn't he been declared an infidel yet?
The lower echelons of a tyrannical regime who are responsible for (most likely) imposing unjust rulings against the oppressed masses are now scrambling over one another in a last-ditch effort to avoid their date at the hands of the lynch mob.
car loans