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Fukushima Raised To Level 6 On INES Scale: Now Officially More "Serious" Than 3 Mile Island
According to Asahi Shimbun which is quoting the Japan NRC, the Fukushima event has just surpassed Three Mile Island in terms of seriousness, and has been upgraded from Level 5 "Accident with Wider Consequences" to Level 6 "Serious Accident." Only Chernobyl is a Level 7 event. We believe Fukushima should get there within 2 weeks as ever more of the current devastation becomes public. Of course, all of this is a paper-pushing formality. What isn't, are people who may be developing serious diseases as the government continues to misrepresent the severity of the situation.
Source: W7VOA
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Links?
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v393/youricarma/Fukushima%20-%20Daiichi%20Reactor%20Design/?albumview=slideshow
I guess I should have used a sarc switch, sorry rusty
I felt Fukushima was already a 6 by any measure based on what is happening and the number of reactors involved. What took them so long?
Denial.
Uh, major vs. serious? Do we have a Colonel accident above that level?
At this point, I don't particularly care that "babies are okay to drink the water now that we have assessed things".
I'd be getting the Hell out of Dodge and Tokyo.
I guess 13 million people with no water is merely serious. Next up, moon-size meteor about to wipe out the planet. Futures up 20 points.
Buying would be the correct move in that case, for other than cashing a bit out for last minute spree, you would buy in case it missed.
BTFD - buy the fucking doom!
"Next up, moon-size meteor about to wipe out the planet. Futures up 20 points."
a hedge bet if I've ever seen one.
Hey - it's all OK. Another US nuclear expert has just weighed in to assure us that this whole Fukushima thing is no big deal. Take it away Dr William Hannun from the American Nuclear Society:
"This was not a disaster (the earthquake and tsunami were disasters). This was not an accident; the plant experienced a natural event (“Act of God” in insurance parlance) far beyond what it was designed for. Based on the evidence available today, it can be stated with confidence that no one will have suffered any identifiable radiation-related heath effects from this event."
I don't think those three workers in hospital with radiation burns got his memo yet.
Here's the rest of his words of wisdom:
http://thesciencecouncil.com/index.php/william-hannum
Oh, and that's not smoke coming from an actual fire in the reactor, it's just a special kind of black steam . . .
Looks like that was the core melting on Monday (smoke) ... hitting water (steam/vapor) in base of inner containment ... thus boiling it off thru Tuesday ... once gone, ablating away the inner containment thru Wednesday and Thursday (more and darker smoke etc radiation going apeshit) ... so now its gone through to the suppression chamber ... and probably hit water again .... so will probably go to steam/vapor again ... until that also boils off (if it can;t be approached) ... then ... all that concrete foundation ... (smoke ... BOOM!).
Just remember though No.2 was smokin earlier this week also.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html
worth a listen
NHK reporting that the levels of radiation in the water in the basement of reactor 3 is 10,000 times the level normally found in the reactor core. Yep - 10,000 times! Futures up!
This is what those in the market refer to as the event being fully priced in. Again, the market doesn't care about this because the authorities have it covered. They can back stop everything including a partial (or full) nuclear melt-down.
TPTB can stave off everything from sovereign default to radiation poisoning. All hail our overlords who protect us from all the tail risks and bathe us in the warm glow of iPads, Glee and neutron beams.
Important PDF Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Systems - Mark I Containment Design http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/teachers/03.pdf
The Case For Nuclear Fukushima Daiichi Unit-3 Top Blown Completely Off Clearly Explained trough High Res Photographs http://tinyurl.com/4wxngp8
Fukushima I - 3 General Electric Mark I BWR 760 MW March 1976 - PLUTONIUM MOX REACTOR! http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/mox/puupdat4.txt
60% Chernobyl Levels Reached!!! Contamination To Stay For “Decades And Decades” http://nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/Fukushimafactsheet.pdf
Radiation rising in British Columbia:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/03/21/bc-radia...
Increased radiation detected by B.C. monitorsHealth Canada says its monitoring stations are detecting a "minuscule" increase in radiation levels along the B.C. coast in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan.
Gary Holub says increased radiation levels were expected, and are less than the increase in radiation levels Canadians would see naturally when it rains.
Holub stressed that the increase poses no health risk to Canadians.
The agency installed nine additional monitoring stations along the West Coast late last week, as public concerns persisted about possible radioactive drift from Japan making it thousands of kilometres across the Pacific Ocean to North America.
Canadian health officials are reassuring the public there's no need to fear fallout from Japan, but some residents of B.C. remain nervous.
The nuclear complex in northern Japan was crippled 10 days ago by a huge earthquake and massive tsunami that killed thousands, and workers are still struggling to stabilize the reactors.
On NHK now: addmission by TEPCO that fuel rods are damaged in reactor 3 - and probably in 1 and 2 as well. Zirconium cladding elements have been found in basement water in reactor 3. Spokesman admitting that this is why large amounts of radiation are leaking into the enviroment, and making attempts to control the situtation 'very challenging'.
Translation: the sitation is out of control.
Huge kudos to Zerohedge for being the just about the only site that has been tracking this clusterfuck closely from the start. How much longer can the MSM keep pretending that things are getting better?
+1
I agree.
But how can or did they get near it, to confirm that is was fuel-rod sheaths? Are you sure they confirmed this?
They stepped in it and burned their ankles. Probably then (and only then) thought to send out another one of the Fifty to look at the water, take a quick reading.
Jim, as I understand it, that was in the Generator basement. What was being referred to above was the Reactor 'basement'? Which I presumed to mean is the lowest floor of the reactor, which is indeed underground.
Probably just more confusion. I know they sampled the water that the workers stepped in. Also possible that the reactor and generator room share a level/basement down there.
According to reports at http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/ on March 25, 2011:
12:05 NEWS ADVISORY: Evacuation near plant to improve daily lives, not for safety reasons: Edano
12:09 NEWS ADVISORY: So far no plans to expand evacuation area near nuke plant: Edano
13:09 Gov't asks people within 30 km of nuke plant to voluntarily leave
Merely for convenience, of course.
You know what is convenient? The lack of a nuclear incident on top of Earth quake and Tsunami. (Which there is little that men can do.)
I'd say all of this is a little in-convenient.
Hey we're having a party over here. Not for safety reasons... come on over and join the fun.
Reading the histrionic comments here, I have to wonder what you ZH posters
would do in case of a real, rather than imaginary, disaster.
Such as the all too real recent earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku.
Webcam in front of Shibuya Station, Tokyo:
http://www.sibch.tv/share/contents/livecamera/ekimae.html
Check back in a week, month, year, etc. It will look exactly the same, only busier.
They move pretty fast don't they?
Now, as far as "rather than imaginary, disaster." if I were you, I'd take my meds right now (seriously.)
Say hello to probably the dumbest motherfucker on this site, or anywhere else, ZHers. Hi Colonel Sun!
This is the same dumbass who was fucking quoting a mouthpiece for the nuclear industry, the WWA, with links as backup for his earlier claims that "all was well."
Beyond the point of stupidity, and no hope for salvation from a never ending brain fart.
I wouldn't be so testy if it weren't for the fact that millions of Japanese are in for an absolute nightmare, and assholes like this are ignorantly or (worse) intentionally posting bullshit to minimize the direness of the situation.
Typical of the <sarcasm> well-reasoned </sarcasm> posts one reads here.
Anyways, have fun with your disaster and doom fantasies.
In the mean time, Japan will clean up, mourn it's dead, and get on with life as
the world's most advanced industrialized economy.
Go back and crawl up Larry Kudlow's asshole, ColonelSun. It's nice and warm and dark up there, and there's plenty of bullshit to graze on.
I love the Sun. The name, the planet, the symbolism. Really.
Can you change your avatar? ColonelMoon or ColonelMars or ColonelNuke... Whatever...
Please?
Splendid, a good reason for my first experiment with junking.
Oh look, it dynamically updates. Cooool!
Colonel Sun wa, baka desu neh.
I'd like to know what the US Navy proposes to do. Something about "cooling." Like how? (aircraft?) With what coolant? How much of it?
Two ships with 350,000 gallons each. Three and a half days worth, but at least it's fresh water. That salt water is bad news if this isn't going to get fixed before the excuses to bomb Libya run out...
US Protectionism just around the corner...
http://seenoevilspeaknoevilhearnoevil.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-protectionism-just-around-corner.html
I just covered my freshly tilled organic vegie gardens with tarps. It's sprinkling outside here in the Pacific NW. I wonder what's in the rain.
Wouldn't it be nice if the media pretended, for a change, that we all understood basic chemistry and mass spectrometry and would simply announce some of the raw data regarding what isotopes are being detected, where, and in what concentration?
6?
Ha ha ha!
You ask me this seems a lot closer to a 7 (Chernobyl) than a 5 (Three Mile).
More from NHK: Japanese nuclear officials saying their is no likelihood that the Fukushima plant will stop emitting radiation in the forseeable future and residents in affected areas should consider 'volutary evacuation'.
I'm not clear what they mean by 'affected area' in this case - but clearly outside the 30km exclusion zone that has already been evacuated.
Nikkei still trading higher!
Finally, capitulation, bitchez.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfNM2qNZa2U
Game Over.
Empty Chinese cities definitely looking good now.
Just up on Bloomberg:
European Carmakers May Be Forced to Idle Plants as Japan Supplies Dry Up
Just up on Bloomberg:
Japan Extends Evacuation Zone as Workers Battle to Repair Leaking Reactor
Gotta' love how the Japanese Government is telling the world they're asking people with a large radius of Fukushima to leave their homes "for their convenience."
Really? Convenience?
When are they going to do the moral and ethical thing, hang up the saving face cultural bullshit, and level with their citizens?
First video of "Yellow Rain" in Japan here !
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/03/24/newscientist-japan-radioactive-fallout-hits-73-chernobyl-levels-10613/
Same as Chernobyl--the Russians told their people it was pollen !!
Problem is that it is winter in Japan and everything is blanketed with snow ????????? Pollen ?
Radioactive pollen from the nearby giant Fukushima power plant.
You've heard of nuclear winter...meet nuclear spring, courtesy of the TEPCO Ministry of Agriculture.
Abandon all Hopium ...
Just up on Bloomberg:
Roach Sees a ‘Powerful’ Japan Rebound Fading to Lost Decade
Wanger probably thinks the same (if he isn't actully Roach himself)
That iodine (regardless of which isotope) is strongly yellow in solution would of course be completely coincidental.
What is more scary than the MSM going all 'puppies and butterflies'?
When they start uttering lies that are downright insultingly stupid.
The only 'level' after that, is when they go completely silent. Because all the staff have left for the deep underground military bases.
Dumbing down for us, down to the DUMBs for them.
Given the lovely colorful pyramid graph to this article, I just have to repost this: http://everist.org/pics/Fukushima/Fukushima_pyramids_large.png
(If anyone wants to hotlink that from a high bandwidth site, *please* either rehost it or use the smaller versions in the same folder. Ow, my bandwidth!)
I'm beginning to think that the Mar. 14 explosion of #3 and further airborne emissions caused most of the observed contamination on land. Runoff from water sprayed on the reactor building debris and hot vapor from the SFPs contaminated the ocean. I think the plant was supplied with fresh water from higher ground and therefore did not contaminate an aquifer. It would be nice to have that confirmed by an as-built plumbing diagram. It would also be nice to know what happened to the plant's fresh water supply as a result of the quake and/or tsunami.
Do I understand it correctly that the US Navy is going to push two barges full of fresh water to the plant quay for firefighting shenanigans? - as opposed to topping up the circulating cooling systems, if any are still functional?
Fukushima 50? Just don't think of them as TEPCO employees because they are not.
Two workers who were hospitalized for radiation are from a subcontractor of a subcontractor of TEPCO.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-radiated-worke...
Some more offcial news: Radioactive material to spread around the world
http://dawnwires.com/politics/dire-warning-radioactivity-to-spread-around-the-world/
This will definently affect real estate values there; but also here.
I think for anyone owning an underwater mortgage in the quake zone near a nuclear plant - this might be the final straw in deciding to default.
i live in Northern Thailand and since last night we have
had several shocks ( epicentre in Myanmar ) so yes
the risk seems to be increasing all the time now
yeah me too, i wondered why everyone was on their knees and crawling around last night, but hey - it IS thailand
They may as well move it to a "7" now.
Notice how last week, the MSM declared the nuke problem essentially solved and everything was going to be ok? Some, besides Ann Coulter, even claimed the issue was no worse than eating a banana. Then....all together, they turned their attention to Libya, pushing the nuke crisis to the bottom of page 3 so to speak.
It's as if the MSM has ADD and they don't take their meds.
Then again, my foil hat could be on crooked again.
so now we have distinguished nuclear expert Helen Caldicott
says it could be much worse than ” 30 multiples of Chernobyl."
http://dawnwires.com/politics/dire-warning-radioactivity-to-spread-aroun...
Futures up again today no doubt ?!!
On NHK now: addmission by TEPCO that fuel rods are damaged in reactor 3 – and probably in 1 and 2 as well. Zirconium cladding elements have been found in basement water in reactor 3. Spokesman admitting that this is why large amounts of radiation are leaking into the enviroment, and making attempts to control the situtation ‘very challenging’. http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x283236
High radiation detected in water at plant (FISSION ADMITTED) http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_10.html
Nuke safety agency: No.3 reactor likely be damaged http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_19.html
High radiation leak suggests damage to No. 3 reactor vessel: agency, TOKYO, March 25, Kyodo http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80947.html
Neutron beam observed 13 times at crippled Fukushima nuke plant, TOKYO, March 23, Kyodo http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80539.html
TEPCO's Damage Cover-up and Data Falsification http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit92/nit92articles/nit92coverupdata.html
Duh …. http://tinyurl.com/4wxngp8
Just heard a report on the telly that Tepco says it might take them as long as a month to get the reactors under control. Phew I was getting worried for a bit.
Job #1? Protect the nuke industry.
The peasants? Let them wear a Chernobyl necklace. If their health plan will cover it, that is.
Gawd, I'm in a mood this morning.
[Contribution] What is Happening in the Reactor Cores of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station?, Mar. 24, 2011 Author: Michio Ishikawa (Chief Adviser of Japan Nuclear Technology Institute (JANTI)) http://www.shimbun.denki.or.jp/en/news/20110324_01.html
Excerpt:
When their temperature reaches about 900°C, they react with surrounding steam and cladding tubes begin oxidizing. Because this reaction is a strong exothermic reaction, the temperature around such cladding tubes locally increases when oxidization begins. When the temperature reaches close to 1,300°C, the reaction accelerates and the increase in the temperature of cladding tubes cannot stop. As a result, the outer surface of cladding is covered by thin oxide films (zirconium dioxide), and the inner surface of cladding tubes also creates the same oxide films by taking away oxide from fuel pellets (uranium dioxide).
In other words, the inner and outer surfaces of cladding tubes are covered by thin oxide films, and zircaloy alloy as the material of cladding tube is sandwiched between them. It should be noted here that the melting point of oxide film is higher than the melting point of zircaloy, i.e., about 1,800 °C, as the material of cladding tube. Therefore, the sandwiched zircaloy melts and flows down between films to form a puddle. On the other hand, the inner and outer oxide films stick to each other and are crimped by the reactor pressure onto fuel pellets. If it is likened, a fuel rod looks like a mass of pellets wrapped by polyethylene wrap. As the oxide films are strong at high temperatures, even if a fuel rod deforms a little, it keeps sealing radioactivity and standing upright above the water surface. This is the reason that radioactivity did not leak from fuel rods exposed above the water surface in the accident at the Fukushima power station. It is no wonder, and it is not an error of measurement, either.
This condition changes at the moment when water is added into a reactor core. The oxide film becomes brittle when the temperature decreases. Moreover, as the film cools down and contracts, a fuel rod is divided at the boundary of pellets, and drops to pieces (not melting) and such pieces accumulate in the water in a state like a toy box upturned. They can accumulate in the water because fuel rods under the water surface are sound. These are the conditions that happened in the reactor core at the time of TMI accident.
Excellent detailed article (in English):
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201103250388.html
Explains the current operations, including the possible decision today to do a "dry" venting of steam from Reactor 1.
Also goes into what is involved in cooling pump replacement and how long that is likely to take (more than 1 month)
Premier Kan is now addressing the Japanesse people live...carried on NHK. About ten minutes in the LPM reading on his speech is, astoundingly, threatening to surpass the LPM readings set by the master, Barry Soetoro himself. Unbelieveable.
(Note: LPM = "lies per minute")
I just had a massive criticality excursion from my bowels.. Double-flusher- level 6 at least.
I AM CHUMBADUMBA!
no need to worry until it starts to glow in the dark
Reveal fallout data: ex-nuke chief Shunichi Tanaka, – Evacuees must know radiation exposure risks, expert says 25 March 2011, by Tai Kawabata (The Japan Times)http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110325f2.html
Excerpt:
Hydrogen emerges when the fuel rods are so hot that their zirconium cladding starts burning and reacting with the water in the pressure vessel. The accumulated hydrogen can ignite when it comes into contact with oxygen.
He said the situation at Fukushima No. 1 is so serious that it is imperative for the government to bring all of Japan’s knowledge and wisdom to bear on the crisis because Tepco and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency are outmatched.
He said a system should be set up that allows Tepco, all the nation’s nuclear-related authorities and universities to work together to end the crisis.
Japan should also not hesitate to cooperate with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as it has been doing for the past week, he added.
See Also: Why Fukushima’s “spent” fuel rods will continue to catch fire, 15 March 2011, by Kirk James Murphy, M.D. (FDL) http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2011/03/15/why-fukushimas-spent-fuel-rods-will-continue-to-catch-fire/For all their highly educated brilliance, these people have no idea what they need to do. Nothing like on the job training in the midst of a crisis, eh?
Research into accidents and clean up must not be profitable enough. Yet they tell us how safe, reliable and clean it all is. Liars the lot of 'em.
Again thank you all for helping get this into the hands of students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Q7VfWdgEg
The Argentine translation that was done on a cooking TV/website site on the banana equivalent dose rate was fun I thought.
http://www.cukmi.com/como-hacer-un-detector-casero-de-radiactividad-con-bananas-y-una-camara-de-fotos/
Please let the woman who wrote the article how it also helped the people of Japan know they can have a safe food supply.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Andrew
They just announced that one reactor enclosure is cracked and is spewing radiation to the enviroment.....not good boys and girls...
I haven't heard a peep out of AFLAC or AIG... even after AFLAC was bragging that their profits were far greater in Japan than the US. They reported those #'s last month.
Appears another BAILOUT to AFLAC annd/or AIG are in the wings.
What, I can't have an anamolous deviant accident??
I understand that the levels go on:
"Level 8" - accident reduces the entire state to rubble
"Level 9" - half the continent is oblitered to below sea level
"Level 10" - The globe is split asunder and the moon crashes into the earth
"Level 11" - The earth turns into a small supernova
"Level 12" - The entire corner of the galaxy rushes into a giant black hole
"Level 13" - The universe collapses into a giant black hole
"Level 14" - All of time is obliterated so that we never existed
"Level 15" - Obama balances the budget