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"Fuel Rods Most Likely Melt[ed] COMPLETELY at Reactors 1, 2 AND 3 in the Early Hours of the Crisis, Raising the Danger of More Catastrophic Releases"
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is pulling the plug on continuous monitoring of the Japanese nuclear crisis because:
The conditions at the Japanese reactors are slowly stabilizing.
I hope they are stabilizing. But as I noted last month:
The
Japanese government and Tepco claim that the nuclear reactors are
"stable" and that radiation releases have subsided to low levels.But world renowned physicist Michio Kaku - who studied under atom bomb developer Edward Teller - told Democracy Now today:
***
The
situation is not stable at all. So, you’re looking at basically a
ticking time bomb. It appears stable, but the slightest disturbance—a
secondary earthquake, a pipe break, evacuation of the crew at
Fukushima—could set off a full-scale meltdown at three nuclear power
stations, far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.***
When
the utility says that things are stable, it’s only stable in the
sense that you’re dangling from a cliff hanging by your fingernails.
And as the time goes by, each fingernail starts to crack. That’s the
situation now.***
TEPCO is like the little Dutch
boy. All of a sudden we have cracks in the dike. You put a finger
here, you put a finger there. And all of a sudden, new leaks start to
occur, and they’re overwhelmed.
The New York Times summarizes the real situation in a single sentence:
Tokyo
Electric in recent days has acknowledged that damage at the plant was
worse than previously thought, with fuel rods most likely melting
completely at Reactors 1, 2 and 3 in the early hours of the crisis,
raising the danger of more catastrophic releases of radioactive
materials.
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I asked a neighborhood teenager to conduct this thought experiment: If you were President, and were presented with proof positive that an asteroid was going to destroy the earth in 5 days, would you tell anyone (ignore the issue of being able to see the asteroid). She thought about it for a minute, and then said no. Then she backtracked and said, yes, so that folks would have time to tell each other goodbye. I asked what difference that would make if all were going to be dead in five days. She thought about that and reverted back to her no answer. Than I asked her how the asteroid predicament was any different than Fukishima today. I saw the light go on in her eyes when she got it.
If everyone is going to get cancer in 25 years because of Fukishima, and if there is no currently-known way to prevent this, what possible good will a global conversation about it do? A little less talk and a lot more action is what is called for in this situation. And you can be certain that the action is taking place, even though you can't see it. Somone above claims that there is no solution. Wrong focus. The question should be can it be made less bad? The answer to that is yes, and bright minds are even now working on the answer to how? (Of course bright minds will be the ones to find the answer. Do we think that dull minds will?)
Remember that the nuclear bomb did not exist, until it did. A way to make Fukishima less bad won't exist until it does. But a way to make Fukishima less bad will exist at some point. Bright minds will create that way, just as they created the nuclear bomb.
By the way, for those who might not know, Iran fired up their nuclear reactor and brought it on-line a couple of days ago. Just in time for May 21, 6p.m. local time ;).
You can keep your head burried up your ass. Do you realize the four decades of power supplied from that plant will take four centuries to clean up?
What do you think the chance of another Earthquake happening in Japan is over the next 4 centuries? ahhh... nevermind, I have some clean up work for you to do.
I'm not sure what your point is. I'm saying that I believe a way will be found to cut down or eliminate the radiation being released unchecked now. I'm not advocating that they restart the reactors. And yes, I understand that clean-up will take a long time. But, again, this discussion has been about cutting down or eliminating the release of radioactivity going on now, not about how long it will take to clean up.
+400x365
Coupla things today...
1. NY Times putting out a big series on the vents that the US keeps saying should have been on Fukushima Daiichi, and would prevent our older reactors here from exploding in a LOCA (loss of cooling accident). Turns out...TEPCO had the vents after all. Fail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/science/earth/19nuke.html?_r=1&hpw
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/world/asia/18japan.html?ref=earth
2. The recent discovery of tea leaves and pasture grass above legal radiation limits in prefectures outside of Fukushima now casts grave doubt on the US DOE radiation maps and summaries that, I believe, have been keeping a lid on the radionuclide story internationally. Clearly they are simply wrong. This in turn means that global efforts to measure and track the radioactive releases need to be maintained and strengthened.
http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/051311__Joint_DOE_GoJ_AMS_Train_Dat...
It is mindboggling to me that our President and politicians and MSM can even go about their business while possibly the greatest nuclear accident in history is occurring. This will result in 100 times more deaths than all the terrorists attacks combined. The coverups and inadequate response to this catastrophe mark a low point for civilized man in this century!
there are people who post good stuff here.. but I tell you George that I can filter and retain your work, without trying.. it is just that good.
Thanks and as always my best to you and yours, JW
by SirIssacNewton
None of us really want to know the answer to "how to solve the Fukushima".....because the answer is there is no answer
Unfortunately you are right. Most of the sheeple don't want to hear this because its too much truth and too hard to handle!
Please check Arnie Gunderson's videos. He is convinced that the HUGE explosion at Unit 3 was a "moderated prompt criticality". That is, it wasn't hydrogen explosion but a type of NUCLEAR EXPLOSION. Of course, its not like a full-on atomic bomb because the Uranium not enriched enough for that, but when water drained out of the fuel pool the rods went critical and generated enough heat in a fraction of a second to blow the rods out the pool and blow the entire roof off the building. This is why broken pieces of fuel rods were found 2km away. This doubtless put tons of nuclear fuel "dust" into the atmosphere.
This is what makes the situation so difficult to "solve". There is nuclear waste scattered everywhere. With all super-radioactive materials, time is your friend. The more radioactive an isotope is, the faster it disappears. They are hoping that as time goes by, they will eventually be able to get personnel in there to begin the entombment process.
I have a slightly different opinion than you have presented with regards to the statement "with all super-radioactive materials, time is your friend. The more radioactive an isotope is, the faster it disappears." Factually, that isn't correct. Unit #3 was using Mox fuel which contains plutonium 239 and its half-life is 24,000 years, plutonium 238 has a half-life of 88 years, caesium 137 has half-life of over 30 years. The material that was used in these reactors and the isotopes they produce during fission are very nasty and won't improve with age during our lifetimes. Remember, a half-life only means that at the end of that period...half of the material remains....just as potent....just as deadly. A radioactive isotope has to go through numerous half life periods before enough of the material has decayed to start to say that it is no longer a threat to the environment and to life. Even Iodine 131, which has a half-life of 8 days, depending on the concentration may take over 60 to 80 days of decay before its no longer a threat. Just something to think about. This meltdown is producing huge quantities of these various materials every hour of every day. Waiting is not the answer.
None of us really want to know the answer to "how to solve the Fukushima".....because the answer is there is no answer. As desperate as we are to have an answer, there really isn't one. Everything Japan & Tepco have been doing is merely very minimal stop gap measures. The fuel has been exposed since very shortly after the disaster 2 months ago and, still, nothing has been done to stop the reactions because they can't. The fuel is no longer encased in rod form.....there are no control rods at the bottom of the secondary concrete containment slab (that's assuming it hasn't already burned through the concrete into the ground below) so the fission reaction continues unabated.
We all know this is much worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl's core was complete exposed so sand and boron could be applied in very close proximity to the fission material. Fukushima's nuclear material is almost inaccessible because the containment structures, although high damaged, are in the way. It's great they're sending robots in to see what's what, but, in the mean time, the ocean, the air and our planet are getting blasted with highly radioactive materials that many of us will internally ingest during our lifetimes.
If Japan was serious about getting this job done, it would have a staging area the size of a mini-city with hundreds of thousands of lead bricks being delivered as we speak, hundreds of heavy pieces of equipment ready to go to work, supplies for concrete and rebar in mountain piles and, most importantly, Tens of Thousands of Workers ready to die. The conundrum in the next more significant stop gap measure is realizing that its either 10,000 die now or millions die later. The terrible situation has already happened and this solution can't be about worker safety..... its weighing how many lives will be lost with each day nothing is done. This nuclear disaster is a war and the nuclear meltdown is winning. This situation can't be about analysis paralysis like the Japanese can be known to do.....its about running with the best plan that time allows and moving as fast as humanly possible sending people in harms way...into the breach. Thats it. There is no situation in this nuclear disaster where large amounts of people aren't going to die and the sooner we face this fact the more people we will save for the future. If we wait until every worker that walks into the site is absolutely safe, most of the northern hemisphere will be screwed with high fatality rates for decades.
Tokyo Electric in recent days has acknowledged that damage at the plant was worse than previously thought, with fuel rods most likely melting completely at Reactors 1, 2 and 3 in the early hours of the crisis ...
Many people suspected / assumed that was the case in spite of government denials.
Chernobyl melted down within 24 hrs of the initial explosion, likely within a few hours.
TMI melted down within 24 hrs of the initial emergency, likely within a few hours.
When coolant circulation is lost, these reactors producing millions of BTUs of heat melt down rather quickly.
The Japanese government and Tepco claim that the nuclear reactors are "stable" and that radiation releases have subsided to low levels.
They've been lying all along. Why should anyone believe them now?
Here's the bottom line:
1) North central Japan is ruined. Permanently. Fukushima evacuation zone will be 100 - 150 mile radius eventually, extending west to the sea, and it will be permanent, never to be re-inhabited.
2) Radiation will contaminate northern and central Japan, including Tokyo, until they get all four reactors, containment vessels, SFPs, and adjacent areas entombed somehow ...and they're making NO progress on that.
3) If they don't get that shit entombed fairly soon, northern and central Japan will be a permanent evacuation zone, and Japan is pretty much his-to-ry.
Though "atom bomb developer" is technically correct, Edward "Excavator" Teller is more known as the father of the hydrogen bomb.
And for his plan to excavate a harbor in Alaska using said bombs.
So what about Teller's harbor? Could this be the ultimate Fukushima "solution"?
An underground hydrogen bomb explosion designed to pulvarize the entire site and drop it into a crater. Glassify the cores/spent fuel and entomb the entire site ala Ivy Mike?
All it would do is bust everything up and drop it below sea level creating a huge radioactive harbor dumping radiation into the ocean rather than the air. Not a workable solution by any means.
Yes, I was thinking a series of secondary explosions would immediately follow to raise the sea floor some distance offshore, essentially creating a lagoon.
there might be a quantifiable amount of risk in these proposals, given the uncertainty over the composition and physics of meltdown materials (ref.: Corium, for illustration)
above: ironic: risks obvious and extensive.
ATOMS FOR PEACE - Yeah baby!
I will add my thanks to the others, GW. It could get VERY bad.
All aboard the FAILboat, next stop Tokyo.
I wonder if Tokyo will be habitable again in our lifetimes...
From what I've read (mostly Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers), they seem to believe that prevailing winds will save them in Tokyo.
Never mind typhoons, or finding safe food for 13M people.
@tense indian: We are (purposely)not being told about the cancer causing radiation fallout already affecting us here on the N. American continent. The Chernobyl coverup story said that few died; the facts were that millions of Europeans got cancers that they shouldn't have had. Google Dr. Helen Caldicott and see her Montreal talk. Although she is an anti nuke activist, she has done her research.
We are likely to see in North America millions of cancers over the next 20 years as Fukushima is many times worse in fallout than Chernobyl.
YEAH, they'll blame it on cigarettes, just like they did to cover up asbestos related cancers. Or "unhealthy lifestyles" as they cover up for the fast food industry and the use of high fructos corn syrup and aspertame.
After all BP destroyed an entire ocean and the CEO got a nice retirement package and went sailing off the coast of England. So GE destroys the Pacific, what's the big deal we have like 5 or 6 more oceans left. Immelt get's a promotion and Jack "Mehoff" Welsh writes a book.
Not GE. Toshiba. Not saying GE is pure here, but Toshiba ( as a matter of pride for the Japanese ) took the lead in the engineering.
All of the reactors at Fukushima Daichi are GE designs.
But the full power-plant is a Toshiba design. It is the power-plan design that sited it on the fault-line next to the ocean. It would be the power-plant design that put the fuel rod storage above the reactors. It was the power plant design that sited the back-up generators where the tsunami would take them off-line.
No Toshiba has plenty of blame on this one.
"load of old tosh" as they used to say in Blighty, before Toshiba started producing home electricals. Which if I recall correctly were so up to the mark that said manufacturer even used phrase in a self mocking advert.
Self mocking is not a good advertising strategy in a credibility-poor setting.
What say "load of old Tosh" applies here too.
They wny do we have dozens of similar designs of the same age right here in the United States? GE's culpable in this fiasco. GE, bringing good things to life.
Similar REACTOR Designs -- not Power Plants, which is much more than just the reactor.
can anyone tell me ...how much is the rest fo the world at risk from this ...I have already read reports about radiation blowing into USA....how about South Asian countries like INDIA.
Google Fukashima radiation maps. There is a significant risk from Xenon, Cesium and Iodine at this time. Not sure about India, but the west coast of the US, northeast and Europe are seeing exposure.
Well it's an economic trade off. Let's see, GE and Tepco and every corrupt politician involved make tons of money, GOOD for them. On the other hand, millions of innocent people, the pollution of an entire ocean killing billions of sea creatures and embedding radiated particles into our very food chain, making Japan uninhabitable for humans destroying their way of life COMPLETELY. Hmmmm, Jeffrey Immelt got a nice yacht, GE employees got great Christmas bonuses and the stock options did well. Most all the people in on the deal don't live anywhere NEAR Fukushima just the suckers they used to get the deal done who got a few bucks. Well, i'd say GE would consider Fukushima a huge success.
yes . thank you george for staying on top of this and thanks zh for keeping it on here.
GW, thanks for being persistent with getting information out about Fukishima. Nuclear contamination from its reactors will eventually be a worldwide environmental catastrophe.
It already is a worldwide catastrophe, but your "demoncratically" elected "leaders" are lying to you, and they have stopped monitoring to prevent you from seeing their lies.
yes thank you for keeping it real. if i did not know better i would focus attention on:
- IMF sex drama
- Bin Laden something something
- Arnold and Maria
- LinkedIn
- Jobless claims ... revised ... forecast ... green shoots ... something
turns out we have a major nuclear catastrophe in progress, just no corresponding headline. anyone have good sources on science/analysis of geographic reach & effects vs time?
And you surely will very happy to learn that swiss authorities don't show any detail about the fukushima fallout...
http://www.ensi.ch/index.php?id=165&L=1&tx_ttnews[backPid]=164&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=303&cHash=62ec7dd649a3cc5a21810c591cf6e24e
Dose rates (in Sv, no Bq/m2) hourly, not so readable:
http://www.ensi.ch/index.php?id=64&L=2
No becquerels/m2 readings.
So you better read some of this:
http://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/fukushima-2011-versus-...
the number of systemic crisis lately is rather austounding, all have one thing in common. government corruption, regulatory capture, revolving door from regulator to regulated, big money in politics.
Most people, george not included, don't draw these all together.
UGH
the number of systemic crisis lately is rather austounding, all have one thing in common. government corruption, regulatory capture, revolving door from regulator to regulated, big money in politics.
Most people, george not included, don't draw these all together.
UGH
2012, bitchez!
Never underestimate the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they all are if they manage to manifest.
why are we not shipping every ton of available concrete on the planet to Japan right now? The simplest solution is nearly always the best. Pour a giant reinforced slab close to the reactor site and then start pouring blocks, embedding 40% debris into each of the blocks and as they cure start stacking..... that site should be leveled right now and being put into a pyramid tomb... This isnt unheard of we did just about the same freaking thing in the atolls in the pacific http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enewetak_Atoll with the cactus dome. WTF? Are we stifled by stupidity? Obsessed with what stupid number to put on the disaster "oh is it a 6 or a 7" Y'know what instead of arguing about it I'll let you label it a 43, now grab a freaking shovel!
You seem not to understand. This is not a backyard barbequeue. The "charcoal" in this baby does not "go out just because you have "covered it up"
The fire at fuku-shima burns forever. You can not "put it out". End of lecture.
The tomb doesn't "put-it-out" it prevents "it" from getting out. It burns in "relative" safety - Just Like Chernobyl. Go to the link and see the "cactus-dome". It has been done before.
Oh and it doesn't "burn forever" nuclear physics is VERY clear on that. You should attend more lectures it seems.
Because the outcome is to SUSTAIN the terror. The stasis of torture is the point for the sadists and the masochists.
dup
PRECISELY.
What do people do when they become frightened?
BUY STUFF.
I was at Nye Beach in Oregon when the quake hit.
They evacuated the campgrounds at 5AM and nearly everybody in the area went to the GAS STATION and WAL-MART.
There was no 'wave'.
+1000
spot on
So if I understand you correctly - and I think that I do - what you're suggesting is that TEPCO managment and its state enablers are (a) lying sacks of donkey shit; (b) fucking morons or (c) both. What a wonderful world.