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Following Radioactive Rain, Radiation In Tokyo Jumps 10 Fold, Hitachinaka Iodine 131 Surges To 85,000 Becquerels
Once again, we are left scratching our heads as to just where is it that the mass media is seeing an improvement in the Japanese radiation crisis. Because reading domestic media leaves one with a completely different impression. To wit, from the Asahi: "Iodine 131 detected in Tokyo hit 12,000 becquerels, compared with the
previous day: a tenfold increase in both radioactive Iodine and Cesium." As for Hitachinaka City, which according to SPEEDI has seen a surge in radiation over the past 24 hours, things are far worse: "Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, saw the highest radioactive values
recorded, with 12,000 becquerels of cesium, iodine
and 85,000 becquerels."
Per Asahi (google translated):
Ministry of Education, under the influence of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, announced the results of such measurements with radioactive dust fell from the sky. Tended to increase mainly in metropolitan areas. 5300 becquerels per square meter of cesium in Shinjuku, Tokyo 137,3 detection of iodine 131 becquerels 12,000, compared with the previous day, rose about 10 times the concentration of both. The values ??that affect health, but prolonged monitoring is needed.
Measurement of radioactive fallout, we put the nation at 9:00 am on October 22 from 9 am to 21 the ministry, were analyzed.
The value of Tokyo, yesterday's Cs 560 Becquerel, Becquerel 2900 soared from iodine. Announced value of the cesium 22, 8 / 1 40,000 becquerels of radiation controlled area reference value, iodine value, amount to five quarters.
The values ??of cesium in other municipalities, the 1600 Becquerel Saitama City (790 becquerels day), Kofu, 400 becquerels (the non-detection), Utsunomiya 440 becquerels (250 becquerels same), and rose across the board.
The day before, in Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, the highest values ??were recorded, although down slightly, 12,000 becquerels of cesium, iodine and 85,000 becquerels, still higher values ??are recorded. Fukushima and Miyagi can not be measured.
In the east, where it snowed a lot of rain and dust and floating in the atmosphere, believed to have dropped radioactive material. The short half-life of iodine, 8 days half-life of cesium in 30 years, continue serving after getting off the ground a long period of radiation. Soil and water, because it could lead to radioactive contamination of agricultural products, should continue to monitor future.
h/t Steve
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these relationships are indeed very hot and unpredictable.
decent chart posted the other day:
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
No simple conversion. Each isotope emits specific frequencies with different energy levels. Bequerels to rads. Then the type of radiation and other factors influence the biological dose. Rads to sieverts.
The government or SOMEONE has to start issuing information right quick on the total combined exposures and ways to convert the common emissions into doses.
Nice conversion info as far as it goes:
http://www.uottawa.ca/services/ehss/ionizconversion.htm
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35 Million Helpless People In Fear
Cesium... Iodine... Plutonium...
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becquerels ?
I give up. Wake me when people grow tentacles.
wake up...sunshine
bernanke going to eat a 3-eyed fish caught off the japanese shore:
http://static.tvfanatic.com/images/gallery/the-three-eyed-fish.png
Would six-legged Kobe beef really be a bad thing?
...or wherever the fillet comes from.
These people are out of their fucking minds. Plainly. Here is there latest 'little concern' as they trot out the Defense Minister to announce bogus thermal readings will be published daily, even though they will be taken by helicopter with NO line of sight...measuring the heat of the top of the building/rubble pile. Yesterday it was supposed to be 50 degrees in unit 1.
Now the inconvenient truth:
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=213303
". . . a TEPCO executive vice president, Sakae Muto, said the core of reactor No.1 was now a worry with its temperature at 380-390 Celsius (715-735 Fahrenheit).
"We need to strive to bring that down a bit," Muto told a news conference, adding that the reactor was built to run at a temperature of 302 C (575 F).
Asked if the situation at the problem reactors was getting worse, he said: "We need more time. It's too early to say that they are sufficiently stable."
Having been involved in plenty of crisis management, my feeling is that this is being managed by a task force that is talking to itself in a full-on 'bubble of unreality'. They are not sitting in a room with global staff or perspective. They have lied, bungled and killed people in every nuclear accident in Japan.
Time!?! They need more time? The damaged reactors' systems are not going to just turn back on. The waste bomb is not going to stop being a waste bomb.
Let us be clear: Until there is serious, credible, and yes goddamn it costly engineering and consulting studies of entombment, the pros and cons, critical paths and bottlenecks, then we are simply watching an out-of-control disaster be mismanaged into a nation-threatening catastrophe for Japan.
Only luck and killing first responders is saving the day. The rest of this is bullshit, and I say this as a person who is willing to listen and critically take on new info from anyone.
We need to hear about the common waste pool. I back of the enveloped a guess at 10 days for that to boil. What is its condition and temperature?
What are the real temperature readings in the cores?
Where exactly are the spent fuel rods for each reactor?
No pictures, please, we're Japanese? This is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE.
Make the fucking VP of communications go in there with a camera.
+ 1984 and all that
715 to 735 degrees qualifies as "a worry?"
They need to "stive to bring that down a bit?"
And this is just referring to reactor number 1?
O
Rly?
Just a bit, mind you. They only need to bring it down "just a bit." And in a reactor that was shut down two weeks ago. Amazing isn't it?
Yes.
Time is on their side. Yes it is.
Jim,
If you could help me with extrapolating point of recognition, I would appreciate it.
I got it when #3 exploded after realizing it had a plutonium fuel mix.
I'm waiting to go full on retard short.
Several possible 'gates' could open...timing isn't really predictable but you might see it first.
At the plant site:
-extended withdrawal of workers due to radiation increase
-full loss of containment at any reactor (all have plutonium, just not MOX fuel, and the fission products are the same for any)
-large/extended waste pool fire at any reactor
-fire/loss of control at common waste pool
Away from plant site:
-Tokyo panic-exodus
-Kanto plain contamination (roughly 120 km south of plant)
-Detection of plutonium in soil, water
-High levels of cesium in soil, water
Still possible that none of these things will happen.
Understood.
Thnxs for the insight.
Right on, Jim.
Good Angsty rant jim.
Having served in the Navy (Indian, and before any smart-asses giggle, I'd suggest a quick look up in Janes, it's big, blue-water and ass kicking), where the truth is plenty of disaster planning on paper and fly-by-instinct in crisis, I can say with complete confidence that this thing is going downhill, fast. If this is what they are reporting, what they are not telling us would be frightening to say the least.
All the signs are of a massive cover-up added to Japanese slowness in crisis added to various pressures (don't tell the truth of we'll let the Yen go to 200)....
Tipping point is in the rear view mirror.
ORI
Amen... but maybe they are NOT trying to put it out quickly?
but maybe they are
whew, done with the heavy lifting. Time for a Kirin.
Purple Rain?
Acapulco Gold
Panama Red!
Maui Wowie! Washed down with a black and tan.
Northern Lights
The winds were southbound last night and that rain brought it all down. After this is all said and done, its likely the whole of east-central Japan will have to remove up to a foot of topsoil to be able to grow anything edible there again.
I131 = bad now.
C137 = bad for generations.
Anyone willing to put these numbers into perspective ? I guess nobody wants radiations but how bad / dangerous is it ?
Right. How is cesium infused rain falling on Tokyo not a big deal?
Hummm. The markets are tranquil as if everyone was on vacation.
Calm before the storm?
Tokyo is evacuating and mums the word.
Plumbers in Tokyo will be in high demand in the future. If the tap water is radioactive I imagine the pipes will absorb a great deal or residue.
When the time is right, buy Mitsubishi who manufactures all the trenching, boring, and excavating equipment used to replace municipal utilities.
They've got the stock indexes attached to signal generators now.
In all the media noise not one single mention of anyone in Japan being so pissed off at the way this has been/is being/will forever be mishandled that they are demanding that heads roll. Not one person pissed off! Everybody just bowing and 'so sorrying". It's a good thing ( for TPTB) that guns are banned in Japan.
Maybe the Yakuza need to step in and demand that the government be dissolved - they may be Japan's only hope. After all, if the whole damn place is irradiated there go all their lucrative enterprises. Mess with my string of Pachinko parlors and you die, MF.
Obviously speaking like a well tried hand in pink parlors. I remember the geisha shows my Zaibatsu partners put up while we discussed international deals. Lavish elegance.
There was one report today that the governor of Fukushima Prefecture refused to hear the TEPCO director's apology, saying there was no way he could accept it given the continuing situation and the feelings of the people in the prefecture.
No one else covered it....
Good grief...you guys just need to get some Valium. I mean who cares about radioisotopes poisoning Japan's food and water. It's all bullish. Rebuilding will add to the GDP. People dying does not matter. As more die, more will pour into the country to take their places. I know I'll be ready to rush in.
We were just treated to such thinking by some big muckity muck from Aflac. He knows...Tokyo is almost back to normal. Hardly any claims at all....probably raising the quarterly estimate at the company.
Don't you people ever listen to big goverments, big corporations, actuaries, Marxist media members over at the Ministry of Truth [CNBC], criminal syndicate Wall Street bankers...and such? Seriously, as brother Truth pointed out, the power has been hooked up to the tree stumps...problems solved. Go buy an new Ipad 2 already.
And get off the fluoride, folks! It is not suitable as pate on crackers.
Hummm. Will they suspend all air traffic in the US in order to send our planes to Japan to coordinate the most massive airlift of humanity know to mankind?
Buy all American airline stocks. They will charge quadruple for the inconvenience.
You're welcome.
The only phrase anybody with half-a-brain needs to read to realize it's time to get the hell out of Dodge.
"Fukushima and Miyagi can not be measured."
Is the ruler missing or just not long enough??
I beleive he's in Rio...
No, more than likely the meter is pinning.
mega godlike hard-on rising into the sky. Awesome Zeus.
It's not a direct conversion, but you can do a calculation if you know the specific activity of the isotope in question and distance from said source so you can get a rate of rad/hr that you can start to guestimate health effects. As an example 12,000 Bq Cs137 at 5cm gives a rate of 4.18 x 10(-5)rad/hr which is very small. I wouldn't characterize that as hormesis but at that specific activity, you're not going to see any hair loss or alteration in blood counts. The real concern IMO is contaminated food/water supplies where you can build up a concentration of slowly decaying gamma emitters which could pick off your bone marrow over time. Pancytopenia -> Death.
I highly recommend this excellent calculator to plug in whatever unit they throw at you. RADPROCALCULATOR.COM
Readings at Monitoring Post out of 20 Km Zone of Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/21...
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, nuclear fuel damage – detected six times the standard Iodine 21 March 2011 (Asahi Google trans from Japanese) http://tinyurl.com/6zzems2
Traces of Radiation Found In The Pacific Sea Waters 21 March 2011 (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/japan-quake-snapshot-idUSL3E7EF28320110322
Contamination has been found in seawater near the Daiichi site; this could affect fishing in the region 22 March 2011 http://nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/Fukushimafactsheet.pdf
UPDATE 12:30 pm, Monday, March 14, 2011. Air dose rate on site (outside the reactor building) was 3,130 at around 9:30pm.”
We believe the 3,130 figure means 3,130 MicroSievert/hour, which would be highest reading yet recorded—about 310 millirems/hour. http://nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/Fukushimafactsheet.pdf
My element list till now: (Plutonium and Strontium not yet found)
Plutonium 239 Strontium 90 Caesium 137 Iodine 131 Xenon 133 Tellurium 132
Once was too much. Junked for spam.
Highest reading is 111 Micro/Sievert/hour, or about 11 millirems/hour, 30 kilometers (18 miles) from reactor site. Maximum allowable dose to public would be received in about 9 hours.
Official Japan website showing radiation readings in nearby towns as of March 22 http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/21/1303997_2119.pdf
''Babies can easily absorb radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands,'' a ministry official said.
This one takes the "yellow" cake !
There is a punch line in there somewhere...................
"you can't have your yellow-cake and eat it too." or how about from the PM "let them eat yellow-cake!"? or maybe "if i knew that you were coming i'd a baked that yellow cake!"...but i digress...
The memo to the media has gone out:
A panic must be avoided at all cost, and that means putting as positive a spin as possible on this story. We're not asking you to lie, just to be as positive as possible.
Remember that good old catch phrase from the late 90's? Don't worry, be happy?
The problem is that they betray themselves when they ask John Doe correspondent from Tokyo about the "positive developments" with panic in their voices and on their faces.
The more they spin this thing positive with the same old sound bites over and over again (gee, I guess I could also be talking about Libya right now), the more skeptical (for lack of a better word) I get.
What's the alternative?
I wonder if fallout has reached The Georgia Guidestones yet ?
Well, they've started humming and the carved inscriptions have started to glow.
Don't know if this is significant....
Fed delenda est.
Spain evacuated 154 people yesterday including 80 Spaniards, 35 Japanese, 22 Belgians and 8 Brazilians. The flight time was 12 hours, with a 5 hour stopover in Bangkok, Thailand. None of them lived in the 100 km surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Some said schools and factories are closed and water and gasoline were in short supply. A blogger from Spain said.
Do not worry, all is well! If only you knew what was really happening, as expertly explained by nuclear boy from Japan, you would have no cause for alarm!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded
Do not worry, all is well! If only you knew what was really happening, as expertly explained by nuclear boy from Japan, you would have no cause for alarm!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded
Lots of aftershocks today in Japan ranging from 4.5 to 6.5 magnitude.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php
Question: Ocean water is being pumped around the clock by machine---if the reactor stays cool, how much radiation will this run off water have? They can now keep the reactor flooded.....but there will be millions of gallons of runoff. What is the hazard level of this runoff water used to keep the reactor cool?
Is it just masking the problem by shifting the radiation from airborne to submerged? Or will the exposed fuel give off less radiation if it stays flooded?
Bloomberg is reporting:
Five kinds of radioactive materials released by damaged fuel rods were detected in the sea, including iodine-131, cesium-134 and cobalt, according to Tokyo Electric. Radiation in food is measured in Becquerel, a gauge of the strength of radioactivity in those materials. The prescribed safe limit for I-131 in vegetables is set at 2,000 Becquerel (Bq) per kilogram and 500 Bq/kg for radioactive cesium.
Screening food for radiation is being stepped up as Japan seeks to calm a population that eats more fish than any other nation except China. Shih-Yew Chen, a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, said the levels found so far in milk and vegetables could cause a slight increase in the number of cancer cases.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/nuclear-plant-s-fuel-rods-damag...
It is truly sad reading posts about opinion about things fissionable. Try listening to Dr. Michio Kaku for a few minutes and get a whiff of reality. 10% of us understand fission 101, but 1 percent understand 201. 1% of them understand this issue, 90%% of them are gagged by government rules. Tyler gets it, even when he doesn't try to ram it down your throats. Get Smart people. You don't have that much time left to protect yourselves. If you won't learn, find someone you respect for their learning, fast!
michio kaku also said there's gonna be a coronal mass ejection from the sun that fry's all of the world's electronics this year...on FOX news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36iBJXcKMHQ
So the man's possibly weak with his solar physics; it may be his nuclear physics that counts ...
When choosing mascots who lie to me, I prefer Bill Nye.
Science Rules!
Europe-wide streaming geiger counter data:
http://eurdeppub.jrc.it/eurdeppub/home.aspx#
Ministry of Education and Science does measure the radioactivity, but it has said all it does is to measure. For the interpretation of the data, the Ministry has said, please go to the Prime Minister's Office.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake-more-on-bureaucracy-...
So, whatever the writer of the Asahi article says about long-term effect and what not, unless he was given the info by the Prime Minister's Office, it's his conjecture.
In the meantime, SDF's armored tanks that could shove radioactive debris at the plant sit idle because TEPCO and the government hastened to lay cables without even thinking about clearing the debris first. Duh.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-they-laid-powe...
For what it's worth, here is a live radiation monitor in tokyo. I've been watching for a week and no big change at all.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD%E4%B8%96%E7%94...
Look at the video on this website, around 2:40 minutes in.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20110322/japan-fukushima-nuclear-plant-c...
Dark grey + orange coloured smoke, coming out the left side of the reactor building as the camera pans past. I'm not sure if it is reactor 2 or rector 3. But it definitely looks like smoke, not steam.
The photo on that page of the fire truck with its long boom is also new, I didn't know they had workers standing around on the ground so close to these reactors.
When you post these giant becqerel numbers it would also be helpful to post what human damage occurs at what numbers.
Fukushima Prefecture = Dead Zone, bitchez.
use the Schmuck indicator to decide when its safe to go back to Japan.
When the Schmucks and Elite go there to vacation or live, then its safe.
This summer, if the winds are right, I'm going to have some people over for a back yard becquerel. If figure a nice, tossed spinach salad with cesium dressing ought to get people ready for the iodine-infused sushi second course, and then we'll grill - heh, heh, we don't have to grill, they come glowing straight from the ocean - some seven-eyed mackerel on a glowing bed of picocurie rice.
And of course, for dessert, some fresh yellow cake, smothered in plutonium glaze. My guests will be glowing.
You'll have plenty of time to prepare. You'll know it's getting bad when Joe Kernan's face begins to melt, live on "Squawk Box," which, afterwards, will be known as "Scream Box."
"Saltwater may further damage Nuclear reactors"
The joke is on you. The reactors are already completely destroyed. Completely. The saltwater is an attempt to keep the temperture of the "nuclear pile" down and to wash as much of the pile as possible into the ocean. The ocean is the final destination for this disaster. Except of course for the bits that end up in the atmosphere to be deposited wherever.
Just to be serious for a moment, this shit is kind of freaking me out. I realize the media doesn't want to scare us into panic mode, but I can't help but think that it's actually much worse than the MSM is letting on.
We're all very well aware of the constant stream of lies and obfuscations that emanates from the airwaves, and every minute of every day these busted up reactors are spewing some form of radiation into the air, the sea, and eventually into the ground, the groundwater, etc.
So, I'm getting a little nervous about thinking ahead. Things were bad enough without a nuclear meltdown mucking up what little is left of sanity in this world, and, naturally, one would want to keep an eye on the politicians, bankers and corporate execs to see if they all begin to exit, stage South, as if being in Rio de Janeiro or Montevideo might be far enough away from radioactive people, water and food.
From my limited experience with these kinds of things, as a casual observer and often with the hat of a reporter or new publisher on, they always seem to get bad, then better, then worse, but we don't find out all the facts until years later when people start dying and blabbing about what really happened.
So, excuse me if I'm more than a little bit alarmed. Nuclear winter is not my idea of how I'd like to spend the few remaining years I may have left, though, on the other hand, if it's going to kill us all eventually anyway, might as well go full retard survivalist NOW rather than later.
I mean, I could probably survive a currency collapse with my silver, food and arsenal, but there isn't much one can do when everything is irradiated for the next 2000 years or so.
Good luck to all. I find the community here at ZH to be the best on the internet and I always enjoy the articles and comments. Hell, even the trolls are top notch, and likely to be even better when they grow a second head.
Keep up the good work, Tyler and all others. You fight the good fight.
Nuclear winter vs Global warming.
Pay per view. As Carlin said, Become a spectator and enjoy the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f0GStBCeUU
also, governments have been nuking themselves and eachother for years, and we're still doin' ok. Tests in nevada, new mexico, the south pacific, Russia, the list goes on. I stumbled upon a cool article, can't find it now comparing all of the nuclear testing governments have done on their own soil in posturing procedures to a limited scale nuclear war. Get mad and scared that we've been lied to for 50+ years. Japan is just par for the course.
http://www.magamaps.com.php5-20.websitetestlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/infoporn-nuclear-explosions-since-19451.jpg
And to answer some questions about radiation.
(1) The nuclear fuel rods - and nearby material, for example the water in the primary containment - contain a mix of different radioactive materials, and they are making new radioactive materials (by decay of uranium) all the time. (A reactor is still "on" at all times when it has fuel rods in it, but in shutdown it is like it is turned down to 5% of normal power - less if they can get Boron or Boric Acid in there. So reactors 1, 2 and 3 are still creating new radioactive materials every day.)
(2) Some of the radioactive materials produced have short half-lifes measured in seconds or minutes. Although there is intense radiation inside the reactor from these, and also in the steam which is vented out, that level of radioactivity in the steam will mostly have gone after a few minutes or hours - so the steam is considered to become "mostly" safe after a few minutes or hours, which is why it is considered safe for the wider environment to vent steam at all. But, the steam when it is freshly vented can deliver intense doses of radiation to nearby workers at the plants. The workers need best to get behind several feet of concrete or steel or lead or water shielding at the times when large clouds of steam are freshly vented.
(3) The nuclear fuel also produces radioactive cesium, iodine, strontium and many other things, those three are the most important ones. These materials have slow half lifes, measured in months, years, or decades, so wherever these materials are, their radioactivity lingers. They are bad in the environment, you do not want these things in quantity anywhere near farmland, water sources, or cities etc. Fortunately - or if you like, it's part of the general design of nuclear reactors - these materials normally remain mostly inside the nuclear fuel rods or at least in the containment vessel - there is always some ongoing contamination of the containment vessel and everything else in there. These materials should not normally come out in large quantities when steam is vented in normal operations. In normal operations, the reactor has a "torus" secondary cooling system with water in it which helps to collect these materials out of steam vented (steam has to be vented occasionally in 'normal' operations to prevent overpressure situations).
(4) Currently the secondary cooling systems are not thought to be working, so the reactors are being directly vented to the air when the pressure is high. This means the steam being vented at Fukushima has more iodine, cesium etc carried in it than steam vented from a fully safe nuclear reactor would have. It's hard to say how much more. But this stuff is definitely getting out into the air, currently.
(5) If there are fires of nuclear material then the iodine, cesium etc problem in the atmosphere goes up by a huge factor compared with just steam. The smoke from fires, if nuclear material (fuel rods, spent fuel rods, or other items contaminated by fuel rods) will contain large quantities of all the radioactive materials. This is why the Japanese official announcements try to distinguish between smoke and steam. Smoke is much worse for the downwind environment than steam would be. (At Chernobyl, there was burning nuclear material making a lot of smoke for a period of weeks.) Smoke in the air (outside of concrete containment walls) is also dangerous for workers at the plant, like steam is. My guess is one of the purpose of any "generalised" water spraying at Fukushima, where it looks like it is just going into the air, is to try to tamp down some of the smoke, to reduce radioactivity levels for the workers.
(6) The pumped seawater currently being used to cool the plants will carry away a lot of radioactive materials, either by dissolving them or just washing away any build up of ash or dust. The seawater outflow will contain relatively large quantities of the nasties (iodine, cesium etc), similar to what could be in smoke. It is a disaster for the nearby marine environment as it gets into the food chain, shell fish, bottom feeding fish etc, so don't eat the local seafood. Dissolved in the whole Pacific Ocean, though, it's not a big deal, at all. The nuclear tests which the US Government did in the Pacific Ocean in the 1950s-1960s created much much more radioactive material in the Pacific but that has not done anyone any harm.
(7) Radioactive iodine in the environment does not magically disappear after 90 days (the half life), it just gets less. (Nuclear half life: the amount of time for one half of the remaining radioactive material, to stop being radioactive. After twice the half life has passed, only 1/4 of the original radioactive material is left. Three times, 1/8 is left. Ten times the half life, 1/1024 is left. etc.)
(8) Normal environmental processes like wind and rain have the effect of both spreading radioactive materials around and, in the process, diluting them. The level of radioactivity can vary from house to house and from field to field. After Chernobyl, in affected areas of Northern Europe (for example, Scotland), radioactivity levels were measured sometimes on a field-by-field basis and farmers banned from grazing sheep and cattle in specific fields where the levels were too high.
(9) As many commentators have noted, apart from preventing meltdown, the other objective of the plant operators is to prevent fires. The spent fuel pools are the likely location of fires, if the water levels become low. Unfortunately, the spent fuel in the pools also contains the highest quantities of iodine, cesium, strontium etc as well as still quite a lot of uranium (and plutonium in the case of Reactor 3's spent fuel pool.) Therefore, for the good of the environment - and this could mean the population of metropolitan Tokyo depending on which way the wind is blowing - the most important thing is to prevent fires in the spent fuel pools of reactors 3, 4, 2 and 1 in that order. This is what TEPCO have been doing, it's what the helicopter drops, water cannon, and fire engines with booms are all about. The fact that they are doing these operations continuously suggests to me there may be water leaks from the spent fuel pools. So they are trying to keep the water levels topped up whichever way they can.
(10) If a spent fuel pool does not have the fuel completely covered with water, then direct radiation from all that spent fuel together (and there is a *lot* of it when it is all together) shines on anything which can "see" into the spent fuel pool - it can't get through the concrete shielding, but it can shine through the aluminum roof of reactor 2 which is pretty close to transparent like glass so far as this radiation is concerned. It's basically shining upwards. One expert described it as a "gamma ray searchlight" which is pretty much accurate but doesn't cover the strength of it. This is why flying helicopters over the plant was quickly discovered to be a bad idea. I think each Chinook did 2 overpasses total before it was decided it was taking too much radiation. This will also be preventing any workers, currently, from doing any work at all at roof level. A worker spending even a few minutes on the roof would basically take a lethal dose of radiation. This situation will continue until they can find a way to fill the spent fuel pools to the top with water. Although it all seems like high tech, for the spent fuel pools it is basically a question of how best to fill up (and keep filled) a large, square, concrete tank, with water, when it has unknown cracks or leaks.
(11) The US government has classified satellite, spy plane and drone data meaning they have a good idea exactly how much radiation is on the site and being released into the environment generally. If you want a realistic measure of whether things are safe for the Japanese population or not, look at how the US government is advising its citizens (and its military).
My evaluation - based on what I see, not what I read from the Japanese government sources - is that TEPCO are acting in sensible ways to contain this as best they can, but there are still many unknowns, including how leaky the spent fuel pools are, what the status of the fuel rods inside the reactors is, and how much of the cooling pumps and other equipment damaged by the tsunami will still work. I think the current situation will play out over weeks and months, not days. Radiation will continue to leak into the environment for many months ahead. Contamination of various downwind areas of Japan will be a slowly growing problem throughout this time.
^ fookin aye you wrote that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXVzR6C7K94&feature=related
If not, he needs to cite 'is ref.
I wrote it! I am a former physicist (Bachelors), I once delivered a lecture on different nuclear power plant designs. I'm not up to speed with the latest designs but this tech is 40 years old.
Dear Japan,
We weep for you in compassion and sorrow, for your loss and pain.
However, we the survivors of your atrocities have not forgotten:
The countless innocent Koreans you slaughtered during the colonization period, the countless innocent women you kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. Korean girls had to marry at age of 10 so that the Japanese soldiers wouldn't steal them. The thousands of Korean men who were tortured for your political gains...only atom bombs on your homeland freed us.
The thousands who died in WWII, the millions you murdered in China.....
And yet the glorious emporor has yet to apologize.
Yeah, and Pearl Harbor too.
/troll
Still mad at Germany, Russia, and, hell the Ottoman Empire?
Uh, some further research may be warrented there Bazooka. The atomic bombing was not what 'freed us' nor was it needed to end that war. China was mowing through their forces and would have moved over to Japan's mainland within weeks to months, all we had to do was hold the embargo in force and watch the show. It was done to unveil the super-weapon to the world for post war posturing. The Japanese tried surrendering and we insisted on terms that we knew would not be accepted (their emperor was considered god on earth to these people) just so we could use the bomb. We purposly left Hiroshima and Nagasaki out of the massive civilian city fire bombing campaigns so the damage from the A-bombs could be displayed to the world for maximum effect.
It does seem that the bombings were meant to demonstrate to other world elites that the "leadership" in the US were willing to kill massive numbers of innocent people, just to assert their dominance in the global politic.
Um, the Soviet Union was mowing through the Japanese forces in Manchuria, actually dissapeared one of their divisions. We also couldn't sustain the projected 1 million casualties an amphibious attack on Japan was projected to cause. We dropped the bombs to avoid a million casualties and keep the Soviets out of Japan.
Never forget Bataan.
12,000 Beq = ~0.3 micro Curies (Doesn't sound so bad now, eh?). The average household smoke detector is a 30,000 Beq source; the average human 7,000 Beq. 30 pounds of granite is a 12,000 Bec source, give or take.
Suggested reading
http://eponline.com/articles/2011/03/21/japan-worstcase-scenario-unlikely-to-cause-catastrophic-radiation-release.aspx
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
When do people in Tokyo just start leaving on their own?
They don't know enough to leave, or afford it.
Just like Katrina years ago.
SilverRhino stated earlier: "85,000 Becquerels = .04 mSv/hr at a distance of 1cm from the source." Getting a full set of dental X-Ray is .40 mSv, or 40 mrem. Exposure from natural radiation averges about 3 mSv per year in the U.S. Watching a color TV gets you about .02 to .03 mSv. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=482&tid=86
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I've been lurking the ZH threads about Fukushima for the last week but just passed the ZH math test, so here's my 2 cents: The only thing anybody not on the scene can say for certain about Fukushima Units 1-6 is that they are all seriously fucked up, regardles what any mouthpiece is spinning. And that is just from looking at the pictures.
I seriously doubt that any of the reactor internals, carefully stacked spent fuel elements in the holding ponds, internal or external reactor plumbing, control instrumentation, mechanical and electrical systems or even the doors or stairwells in the reactor buildings were done any good by the ground shaking from a M9.0 just 95 miles away.
Then, when hydrogen gas and God Only knows what else, a sure indicator that the situation inside the reactors and spent fuel pools was certainly not "normal" or "under control", filled the buildings and was ignited (source of ignition?), first blowing the top of the Unit 1 building off, the fun really began.
If you step, frame by frame, through the video of the Unit 1 explosion you can see that it is fast enough to produce an atmospheric shock wave with condensation behind it. It is directed upwards by the tamping confinement of the upper building structure, and the fact that the roof is the weakest part of that structure. But it only goes about a high as the building is tall.
Every connected internal volume in Unit 1 was pressurized by that explosion, including top loading the surface of the water in the spent fuel pools until the building walls and roof let go. This impulse was transmitted through the water to the floor and walls of the pool and everything else in the pool. (compressibility of water <2% at 5800 psi - think "depth charge") All the closed spaces; reactor vessel, containment, and especially all the external plumbing, instrumentation and support equipment was over-pressured to some degree with crushing and penetrating failures to be expected. Ejected and translated debris rained down on all that carefully engineered geometry. Then there is the state of all the construction materials to be considered. These plants are all circa 40 years old. What are the mechanical properties of construction materials that have been in high radiation fields or weird chemistry environments for that length of time? Were all the construction materials as they were certified to be when emplaced? Probably not.
When Unit 3 blew the initial hydrogen explosion is seen as a (rich) flash as the building opens up. The outward flow is very quickly reversed as the greater mass flow of the upward ejection drags that flow back into the ejecta stream. This upward stream looks for all the world like a WW1 subterranean mine in no-mans-land going off. There is a lot of mass and not a lot of gas in this event. It is relatively slow too, there is no shock wave like Unit 1. It is also very confined by some thing in the structure of the building and appears to originate from very low down in the structure. I wonder if it wasn't a "hydrogen explosion" but a steam explosion; a Mt. St. Helens-like depressurization event. Perhaps caused by a transient criticality event in the reactor which boiled all the water and puked it straight up out of the containment? You can also see some big meaty chunks falling back out of the fountain to crash down onto whatever was below.
I haven't been able to find images of the Unit 2 or Unit 4 explosions. Though the aftermath images of Unit 4 don't invoke any confidence that plugging them back in to the grid will make anything but sparks when they flip the switch to turn on those "cooling" pumps.
As far as the atmospheric radiation and biological susceptability is concerned, check out this paper: Radioactive Polution of the Atmosphere at http://whqlibdoc.who.int/monograph/WHO_MONO_46_%28p381%29.pdf There is some irony in that the French (1974) and Chinese (1980) were the last to cease atmospheric testing.
You can debate isotopes and half lives endlessly but in the more radiation is always worse than less, regardles of what that twat Coulter has written. As I recall Chernobyl doubled the atmospheric radiation burden, which was already elevated from the pre-WW2 level by the residual effects from over 2000 nuclear weapons tests, of which over 600 were atmospheric. We only discovered those evil Commies had their own bomb from elevated atmospheric radiation levels and isotopic fingerprinting of airborne fallout. And not all went well during testing, including the US Castle Bravo shot at 15 megatons that was 2x the anticipated yield (Oopsy!) and the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba (Theirs was indeed bigger than ours!) exploded by the Soviets. The long term legacy, now at about 70 years, of the Manhattan Project and just US Cold War follow-ons in contaminated research, mining and production sites like Oak Ridge, Hanford, Fernald, Rocky Flats, Arco Desert, Moab & etc is as unknown as Fukushima is presently. Then what about Soviet, Israeli, N. Korean, Chinese, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, French, British or South African sites associated with their weapons development programs? What is where and how much is it contained? Or not...
To illustrate how slippery the statistics of human effects from events like Chernobyl can be: In 1988 I was in a NYC taxi and after reading a Russian sounding name on his hack license I asked the driver where he was from. "Kiev, he replied. asked if he was there when Chernobyl happened? "Da. I worked at Chernobyl." A little incredulous, I asked him what his job was. " I was truck driver." How long did you work there? "Eight hours. Then they let me emigrate." I'd bet he's not in any Ukranian or IAEA Chernobly Effects database.
And, Las Vegas is still downwind of the Nevada Test Site.
I liked your post, Abandon in Place, seems very sound.
Following my suggestion to look and see how the US government acts for a realistic guide to the true radiation problem, this today:
(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/23/tokyo-water-unsafe-infants)
"The US, meanwhile, has become the first country to ban milk and food imports from Fukushima and three neighbouring prefectures.
The US food and drug administration said it would halt imports of dairy products, vegetables and fruit from the four prefectures, and would screen seafood and other produce imported from other parts of Japan.
South Korea is reportedly considering introducing similar measures, while France has asked the European commission to examine a community-wide response to Japanese food imports found to have been contaminated.
The Japanese government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said abnormal levels of radioactivity in food posed no threat to human health and urged trading partners to act rationally."
Also I repeat my comments that any local environment (& Tokyo water supply) effects being seen today are the result of only approximately 1 week of atmospheric contamination from the plant. However, it is likely to be an ongoing situation for many more weeks and months, so the level of contamination might eventually, as time passes, be expected to increase by a factor of 10x or 20x from what it is today. (As with any large scale contamination, for any particular region a lot will depend on which way the wind blows.)
I'm afraid to say if I and my family were currently living in Tokyo (especially the northern and eastern suburbs), I would be currently looking to relocate ahead of the herd. Obviously that is tricky if your work, school and whole family life is in Tokyo. The personal pressures and dilemnas - especially for parents of young children - must be huge at the moment. However, looking ahead 6 months, I would expect there won't be much of an economy in Tokyo because all those who can afford it will have left. Even if scientific, statistical data states that the risk to health is "low", the fear factor associated with radiation is huge and will keep all those who have a choice away - the same as for Japanese food exports.
And turning from the human issues to the markets, I seriously do not believe that global markets have contemplated the full outcome of this, currently.
Want another ironic coincidence? The Japanese paid $18,000,000 to participate it the Three Mile Island autopsy and cleanup to learn how to deal with exactly the problem they are now facing. Did anybody read that memo?
http://republicanherald.com/news/japan-s-nuclear-crisis-spurs-memories-o...
http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=14250206