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Japan Considers Extending Evacuation Radius After IAEA Finds Excessive Radiation 40 km Away From Fukushima
The IAEA which is quickly outstaying its Japanese welcome by disclosing actual facts about the radioactive fallout around the power plant, has just announced that it has found excessive radioactivity in a village 40 km from Fukushima. While the news will not be a surprise to anyone watching the grand lie unfold over the past three weeks, it may hopefully force the Japanese government to finally relent and extend the evacuation perimeter from the existing 20 km, thereby actually preventing the needless loss of life in the long run. From Reuters: "Radiation measured at a village 40 km from Japan's crippled nuclear plant exceeded a criterion for evacuation, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, the latest sign of widening consequences from the crisis. Criticized for weak leadership during Japan's worst crisis since World War Two, Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said he is considering enlarging the evacuation area to force 130,000 people to move, in addition to 70,000 already displaced."The first assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village," Denis Flory, a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said. "We have advised (Japan) to carefully assess the situation and they have indicated that it is already under assessment," he told a news conference." Hopefully our Japanese readers who have been following our coverage of this tragedy, which many have at times called "hysteric" even if always based on facts, have already evacuated long ago. Ultimately, it is one thing for the government to lie with just the Russell 2000's closing level being at stake. It is something totally different when people's mutagenic skills and/or life expectancy is at stake. When this is all said and done, Kan will likely be forced into exile for his tragic botching of an operationg whose only downside to disclosing the truth would have been a few hundred points in the Nikkei/S&P. Well, those losses will still come eventually, but at least thousands of lives would not have been put needlessly at risk in the meantime.
More from Reuters:
Greenpeace this week said it had confirmed radiation levels in this village northwest of the plant high enough to evacuate. But Japan's nuclear safety agency on Monday rebuffed a call by the environmental group to widen the evacuation zone.
The IAEA also said it had been told by Singapore that some cabbages imported from Japan contained radioactive iodine above the levels recommended for international trade.
"Some samples were over the Codex Alimentarius values recommended for international trade," said Flory.
David Byron, a U.N. food agency official seconded to the IAEA, said the recommended level was 100 becquerels per kg and that one of the samples in Singapore was up to nine times above that. "Other samples were also over that level," he said, although not as much.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said the situation at the Fukushima plant remained very serious despite increased efforts by authorities to get it under control.
And more on the recriticality news reported earlier:
In a potentially negative development, Flory said the agency had heard there might be "recriticality" at the plant, in which a nuclear chain reaction would resume, even though the reactors were automatically shut down at the time of the quake.
That could lead to more radiation releases, but it would not be "the end of the world," Flory said. "Recriticality does not mean that the reactor is going to blow up. It may be something really local. We might not even see it if it happens."
Eventually we are certain that the evacuation radius will be extended to at least 50 km, but not before many more horrendous political decisions are made, more lives at put at risk, all predicated exclusively by financial interest motives, and the preservation of the capital markets status quo.
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Nothing to see here. Move along...
ARR JAPANESE MATEYS, ABANDON ISLAND BEFURR YE START GLOWING
easier said then done.
If they expand to 50 km, that means evacuating 2 MILLION people.
140 miles = 11 MILLION PEOPLE!!!
TO WHERE?
and to be save, they should evacuate to 500 KM!!
just saying. They better do some brainstorming to solve that little problem...
i would dump the entire nuclear plant into a volcano and call it a day.
Pretty hard to pick up, what is essentially, a "nuclear volcano" and put that into a boring old "vanilla volcano."
Ye mad bastard...er hatter!
It would be much better to dump the entire UN in an active volcano. These are the wack jobs that paid for and created the phoney "science" of global warming. No numbers, no measurement methods, no nothing; "in our opinion" Fuck their opinion.
This is extremely bullish, think of all that new housing required and the increase in GDP!
Don't even think I need to look at the futures.
People that lose everything don't boost GDP.
Now, the Japanese Government will probably print a few quadrillion Yen a month, bringing Japanese living standards back to circa-1904, in an effort to rebuild.
I honestly feel for the Japanese People.
It's so bright, ya gotta have shades...
Sudden Debt: It's "easier said THAN done."
He is not a native speaker.
Why not send them to these Chinese ghost town?
Or start a new house bubble in the state- the house are their, just need new buyers...
So much for trusting in your government.
The cumulative lies, distortions, manipulation, and waste of resources and money has to be near a tipping point. Can people be this dull and never respond? My word, the amount of debt piled on the enormous pile of debt to sustain the unsustainable has to reach the point of combustion. Every nation seems to have the same problem - inept leadership. When this fire starts, it will be large, intense and not end well for most. Thankfully, I loaded up on graham cracker, marshmallows and chocolate. S'mores to the very end.
Flory said the agency "had heard" there might be recriticality. Do you even read this crap? Gee, I had heard there might anti-gravity; in which case the sky may up with rocks. These people are the sworn enemies of every type of every power plant in the world; they are your enemies; and they are indulging in cheap, no-science, propaganda; as always. We need a UN like a goldfish needs a bicycle.
IAEA....IKEA...whats the difference
While I accept that radiation is a far more direct and obvious threat to life, surely the Chairsatan's constant printing and fuelling high inflation in necessities of life for the poorest is also putting lives at risk too?
While I accept that radiation is a far more direct and obvious threat to life
so are cars, but this is like a slowmo plane crash with the potential that some of the debris could land in your backyard but in the end those four wheels driving down the streets of the world will kill more people today than this Fuku thing will ever kill
jesus tyler, it must be a slow news day over at 1537 Paper St
not more greenpeace
I'm imagine how it should be difficult to a conservative to be in the same side of the enviromentalists...
Or will you side with the Japanese government on this, instead of siding with the enviromentalists?
or... you could commit to continuing to collect data and resist the urge to reduce the situation to binary just yet.
Radioactive cabbage, a great addition to your 5 fruit and veg a day.
We're ruled by the scum of the earth. Liars, murderers, thieves.. absolute human filth the lot of them... didn't you know?
Evil runs amuck.
I hear ya man. I've been despondent about the recent events lately. Had to change the internal paradigm. Had a good night last night. Smoked some good herb, watched the matrix, listened to some pink Floyd. Woke up scared this morning realizing that this world is more of a matrix than portrayed in movie. Smoked more herb. Feel better now. I don't know about the rest of you but don't know how I'd deal without the old thc.
did you ever smoke fish?
how evolution dovetails with the 2nd law of thermodynamics
entropy will increase...
individual order is individual survival.
collective humanity meltdown in progress.
We have a little energy input to drive it. The sun produces all the entropy we need to produce localized "order".
It's all horrifically depressing, to be perfectly honest. Enjoy the herb while it works . . . oil may be next.
The truth frightens you? You have a big decision to make.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao
The "Ghosts of Fukushima Past"...
It's funny how this is not being talked about in the media anymore, it's all about Libya night and day. Who gives a rats a$$ about Libya? Other than Obama of course. This President has shown he is nothing but a liar through and through. He flat out ran a campaign on nothing but lies, then carries out the exact opposite of what he said to get him elected.
Man, I can't wait to run for office in 2012.
I like it. I'll vote for you. for President? Do you have lots money and look nice? Oh, speak great too.
liq·uid scin·til·la·tion
The scintillation of a solvent molecule when a radioactive solute molecule undergoes beta decay and emits an electron
(Apologies for the repost. I'd really like people to be aware of this, just in case. I won't repost again)
I share the feeling of many here that the risk of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown is underestimated and the likelyhood that it will spin completely out of control is significant. I would like to try to help in any constructive way I can.
Therefore: I give you a method to prepare iodide (as a substitute to commercial potassium iodide pills) from povidone-iodine disinfectant ("Betadine" or any other iodophor) and commonly available other ingredients (vitamin C). Potassium iodide pills are probably not available in the vast quantities that might be needed in a worst case scenario (a few billion doses?), and even if they were available would be hard to distribute, whereas this method uses commonly available ingredients that many people have at home and which are also available in hospitals and farms in very large quantities. The method does work, the chemistry is very simple, and I've tested it.
I hope this is not necessary and Fukushima Daiichi can be contained, but I think that someone in the Japanese authorities should be aware of this just in case, and ready to use it quickly if needed. I really don't know *who* to tell about this. I've sent this to every Japanese government contact I could find, every major newspaper, etc. I'm posting it here, to a group of people intensely concerned about the problem, in the hope that the more people know about it, the more likely it is to actually be applied if needed. Pass it along.
P.S. Yes I'm aware that iodide pills only solve a small part of the problem, it doesn't help with cesium and strontium and a bunch of other nasty isotopes. Still, much better to have iodide than not.
***
Preparing iodide from povidone-iodine disinfectant
Ingredients:
1. Povidone-iodine disinfectant (Betadine tm or generic equivalent)
2. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) pills, ideally generic 1000mg pills.
3. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Steps:
1. 3000 mg ascorbic acid (Vitamin C, for example three 1000mg pills) are crushed and dissolved in 100 ml (~1/2 cup) of water, then let sit for an hour with occasional stirring. There may be some undissolved residue from the pills.
2. 15 ml (1 tbsp) povidone-iodine disinfectant (Betadine or generic equivalent) is added to the solution of ascorbic acid and stirred.
3. The brown-purple color from the povidone-iodine should disappear almost instantly. If it does not, more of the ascorbic acid solution is made and added slowly to the mixture until it is clear. The mixture MUST be clear and not brown at the end of this step.
4. (optional) 1 tsp baking soda is added slowly, a few grains at a time, until adding more does not produce foam.
The resulting solution contains the iodide equivalent to 2000mg or twelve 165mg pills of potassium iodide (in this case as hydrogen iodide or, with the optional step, as sodium iodide). It is made entirely from food-grade or pharmaceutical-grade ingredients, and is IN THEORY a substitute for potassium iodide pills. One twelfth (9.6 ml, ~2 tsp) of the solution above (roughly equivalent to one 165mg pill of potassium iodide), measured out and taken with at a cup of milk or juice, would be IN THEORY the daly dose for an adult.
Explanation:
Ascorbic acid is a mild reducing agent, in step 2 it reduces the free iodine in Betadine to iodide, and is itself oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid. This causes more of the iodine bound to povidone to be released and reduced to iodide until all the iodine is reduced. In step 3, the disappearance of iodine color confirms the reaction is complete. In step 4, the solution is neutralized from fairly acidic to neutral pH with baking soda.
Oxalic acid might be used instead of ascorbic acid, but is less preferable. Electrochemical reduction might also be used.
Disclaimer:
This is not medical advice or a recommendation to do anything or to consume any chemicals/medicines, merely information on how to convert iodine to iodide by titration with a reducing agent, as may be found in many chemistry textbooks.
References:
http://www.outreach.canterbury.ac.nz/chemistry/vitamin_C_iodine.shtml
http://www.csiro.au/helix/sciencemail/activities/Titration.html
http://wwwchem.csustan.edu/chem1112/1112vitc.htm
http://paws.wcu.edu/bacon/vitamin%20c.pdf
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp
liq·uid scin·til·la·tion
The scintillation of a solvent molecule when a radioactive solute molecule undergoes beta decay and emits an electron.
While we're on the topic of nuclear prophylaxis, anybody know if anyone is working on this sort of thing besides the government of India? Have they trialed this stuff, can anyone make it, and will they share?
"US Patent Application 20080145448 - Calcium Potassium Ferrocyanide, a Prophylactic Mixture Comprising this Compound and the Use Thereof for Decorporation of Radiocesium in Subjects Affected by Nuclear Radiation"
http://www.patentstorm.us/applications/20080145448/description.html
Thank you, interesting. I favor alginate, it may prevent the absorption of Cs and Sr from food and it may (not very well though) remove them from the body. It is completely nontoxic, which is good because you'd have to eat pounds of the stuff for it to have an effect. You can make it fruit flavored :) Ferrocyanide as in the patent is a bit toxic, in the required doses it probably won't kill you but might make you pretty sick esp if you have a weak liver.
Thank you.
All the studies here are testing the level of vitamin C in something. In these the Iodide turns into Iodine, not what we want. I am not getting how this extrapolates to Betadine being turned into iodide via Viatmin C and the optional baking soda. Also, how do I know that even if it does turn Betadine into iodide, are there other harmful things in the mix we should not drink?
"In these the Iodide turns into Iodine" - read them more carefully, it's the other way around, ie exactly what we want. Iodine is colored, iodide is clear, so you can *see* it is working. Some of the titrations then back-titrate the other way for better sensitivity (with thiosulphate, etc) but that is not relevant in this case. The reaction works as intended.
"are there other harmful things in the mix we should not drink?" - I don't know of any, but I certainly can't guarantee it. Betadine contains povidone (which is non-toxic even if ingested, used as an excipient in many tablets for example), iodine, iodide, and a detergent. Dehydroascorbic acid, a byproduct of this reaction, is non-toxic, and readily converted in the body back into vitamin C. I can't speak for what else might be in the vitamin C tablets and how it might react with iodine, that depends. If this recipe is carried out with pure vitamin C, I would personally drink the product. YMMV. The question though isn't are there any harmful things - heck, iodide itself can be quite harmful - the question is are they more harmful than radioactive iodine in your thyroid :(
This is an emergency measure only, if there are official iodide tablets they would of course be preferable. I just want there to be *some* option for people if things go very badly, and there is a sudden need for a few hundred million doses of iodide.
I think you can just paint a small place on your belly with tincture of iodine from your medicine cabinet.
Thanks for your answer. I saw you left this post on at least one other blog. I have ordered the tablets from two places (the Saturday after all this started) but alas, one order cancelled (they were sending their stuff rightfully to Japan) and the other order is still waiting to be filled. I cut and pasted this to a set of files I have for things like this. I have betadine, always, but I think I will get some fresh tomorrow.
Thanks for the post. I thought getting KI was over the top in my preps so I didn't do it (too worried about being too tin hat, I should trust my gut). Now I have none and feel stupid. I live 200 miles from plants, ON A FAULT LINE. I don't need to be worried about Japan, I should have always been self suficient on this issue. If your post is accurate, I will be fine. Thanks again.
In my future I see a future grandchild asking "Grandpa, what were the Japanese?".
It's gone full retard.
In case some don't know what "recriticality" is: Massive Explosion plain and simple.
Incorrect. Even more massive contamination almost certainly. Small pockets of criticality could have been occurring in the damaged reactors all along. The recently detected "neutron beam" would be evidence of this given the likely meltdown scenario in reactors 1,2, and 3. There will likely be a large steam explosion if an uncontained fissioning critical mass should encounter a large amount of water, such as the water table. That would be (in technical terms even Trav can understand) "Bad."
A very interesting link in a post from the earlier IAEA thread:
by AlaricBalthon Wed, 03/30/2011 - 12:33
#1117489
A similar scenario was studied a number of years ago by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate. 3 computer models were used in their analysis, and in each hypothetical model recriticality was predicted.
Severe Accident Recriticality Analyses
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp5-euratom/docs/09-sara.pdf
"Recriticality is possible during reflooding with unborated water of a partly degraded
core"
remember the bit about neutron beams being detected?
I believe that's what happens when the fuel reaches criticality. Besides fission reactions, in a context of insufficient containment, I don't know of any other plausible explanation.
In other words, Nuclear Boy now has colorectal prolapse.
Thank you. That's why I love this site. Now, I know what rectal prolapse is.
The wind has so far been pretty favourable at blowing most of the radiation out to sea and away to the north. If the weather maps are right, there will be an area of slow moving high pressure sitting right over Northern Japan thisweekend. Winds will tend to circulate around this, so the airflow will be down the coast towardsTokyo. They do not have any time at all to get this thing under controll, and they have to be completely open about what Isotopes are spewing out because they are going to be spewed back inland. If not this weekend, then sometime soon.
ESA - Japan is slipping to the EAST - 20,000 foot drop off - confirmed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUXlxW8tGQ0&feature=feedu
This is bullish. Evacuations are good exercise! +100 on the Dow Jones tomorrow.
Stocks Gain as Radiation Rises Less Than Feared- AB
Stocks gain because of massive federal deficit spending, a ZIRP, and professional firms employing HFTs all backed by the Bernanke Put.
100% FUBAR Ponzi BS.
Hey, Mr. Kan!
Way to get ahead of this thing!
Now that external agencies are spilling the beans, you are going to consider a 40km evac zone?
Where did you go to school?
The Let-As-Many-Sheep-Die-Untraceable-Cancer-Deaths-So-As-To-Avoid-A-Public-Panic Academy?
Official Chernobyl deaths number in the thousands, but the New York Academy of Sciences determined that close to 1,000,000 actually died worldwide. Most died indirectly as a result of cancers attributable to Chernobyl, years later.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/harmless-chernobyl-radiation-killed-nearly-one-million-people.html
Oh - a 'prison-planet' article ... it's gotta be 4real ...
Does Prison Planet go into any real analysis of the New York Academy of Sciences statistics -
or is it simply a fear-based article containing no new information?
Not much about Tokyo lately, everything must be ok there.
Radius doesn't matter much. Depends on the wind, but they're not saying that, because wind can blow in the direction that's different from what the government agency (meteorological agency) forecasts, and therefore they may be held liable for the "wrong" information. Bureaucrats.
40 km down and only 180 km to go...
"mutagenic"...great word...almost as good as "criticality"
Wonder how a 40km evacuation zone is going to affect North/South travel in Japan. Seems that their railroads paralleled the coast. If most of their roads do as well... oh boy, the real cost might not be having to evacuate another 130,000 people but not being able to move people and goods between Tokyo and points north.
but not being able to move people and goods between Tokyo and points north.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Common sense says permanent residents go, travel along a route where you're there for a short time period is another matter ... plus, they may enforce travel restrictions if the wind shifts to the east ...
About that recriticality, Bloomberg Japan reported, but not Bloomberg US.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/more-on-iaeas-re-criticality-at.html
Wait, watch and see what happens to Toyko's municipal and non-municipal water supply.
Neither Brita nor Pur makes an 'app' for radiation in water, and the shit's about to get real, yo.
since no one has said it yet:
"KKKaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMA5_op9aOA&feature=related
KKKKKKHhhhaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn!!!!
Spellcheck it .... you just screamed about the quality of your tuna container.
so,...the 2012 mayan calendar thing looks like it's all coming together on plan. man, were they prescient.
Recriticality is not good but not necessarily all that bad. More heat = bad; restarting the clock on decay heat = very bad. But it's just more heat really. There was already plenty of decay heat to cause problems, including fires and meltdowns, and it would be surprising if the recriticality here was enough to make a substantial difference in the basic problem set.
Still, these are not anyone's favorite words the past few days....recriticality...meltdown...plutonium.
Here's a word not heard recently that needs a new hearing:
FUGLY.
Fissile
Uranium
Goo
Levels
Yen
Recriticality is not good but not necessarily all that bad. More heat = bad;
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jim, it's more than just heat -
Per a post originally by CD here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/iaea-says-there-might-be-re-criticality...
Linked from TIME blog:
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/03/30/has-fukushimas-reactor-no-1-...
Excerpt:
On March 23 ... report by Kyodo news agency .... observed a neutron beam about 1.5 km away from the plant. Bursts of neutrons in large quantities can only come from fission
To nuclear workers, there are few events more fearful than a criticality accident.
In such a scenario, the fissile material in a reactor core--be it enriched uranium or plutonium--undergoes a spontaneous chain reaction, releasing a flash of aurora-blue light and a surge of neutron radiation; the gamma rays, neutrons and radioactive fission products emitted during criticality are highly dangerous to humans.
Criticality occurs so rapidly--within a few fractions of a second--and so unpredictably that it can suddenly kill workers without warning. There have been 60 criticality incidents worldwide since 1945. The most recent occurred in Japan in 1999, at an experimental reactor in Tokai, when a beam of neutrons killed two workers, hospitalized dozens of emergency workers and nearby residents, and forced hundreds of thousands to remain indoors for 24 hours.
Tyler,
Say it isn't so. Are you actually asserting that "The economic toll here should be much worse than the human toll," and if that were the case here "we would be grateful for that.”
None of the banksters will get in bed with you now, you're so, ewwww, all ethical and stuff. It could rub off or something. Better to be irradiated by a cabbage. No sloppy Kudlow seconds for you!
Okay I'll agree that there's a difference, but I'll bet there's more than a couple of retirees that would press you hard for a clear distinction.
I hate to quote movies. Don't know why though - some are just as great, if not more so, than classic literature.
So much for my inner reflections.
- Merlin, from John Boorman's Excalibur (a mighty fine flick that I highly recommend).
Dow at 6-Week High On Better Than Expected Radiation. -Heuters
NEW YORK (Heuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday with activity dominated by money managers buying recent winners, including energy and small-caps, as Japan nears its end.
You might check out an obscure book entitled, 'Death by Government'.
The Japanese authorities will quite logically wait until the last possible moment before they sound the alarum and send the masses funneling onto the freeways.
They will wait because they don't want to create a panic situation. This is the logic.
The grotesquerie of attempting to vacate major cities will be one of the horrors of this century.
And it will be done be too late; because that is how governments operate.
I have a geat idea, lets move all japanese out of japan and populate the island with the likes of obama, bernanke and ann coulter, who actually said on fox that some scientists (who? bill nye the science guy?) say that radiation is good for you. now to be fair, in europe there are treatments with radon gas under the supervision of doctors. but plutonium fallout? the stupidity on TV is starting to hurt.
She's gone from suck to blow.
Soil checked for radiation before rice planting
Japan's agriculture ministry is to check soil around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for radiation, before the start of rice planting next month.
Levels of radioactive cesium-137 as high as 2,200 times the normal figure have been detected in soil about 40 kilometers northwest of the plant.
Cesium-137 stays in the environment for a long time, as it has a half-life of 30 years.
The agriculture ministry is preparing to check soil of 150 paddies located more than 30 kilometers from the plant.
Inspectors are to examine samples of soil 15 centimeters underground for radioactive cesium.
The ministry plans to study how much cesium rice plants would take in from contaminated soil, draw up guidelines on the level of contamination allowed for rice growing, and release the results by mid-April.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 16:39 +0900 (JST)
Tyler! I thin you MUST do a thread only about this presentation from Areva! http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentation/
Everybody should see it.
Don't know how they know, but even if it was all lies, I understand the situation a whole lot better now.
Thanks.
Everybody should see it.
- - - - - - - -
Great find! Thanks!
A 40km Fuckushima no go zone would totally FUBAR all traffic from the MAIN Tohoku Expressway making travel and commerce to the northern half of Japan a nightmare...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dhoku_Expressway
AC
I gotta believe they would exempt transient travel along that route ... evac would be for permanent residents ...
They could just put up signs on the expressway.
Caution, entering a radioactive zone which is 5,000 times below levels of concern.
Expanding the evacuation zone from 20 km to 40k m has a big effect because a doubling of the radius results in four times the area of the 20 km evacuation zone.
Dow Future's Down as Radiation Levels Drop.- Hooters
TOKYO,JAPAN (Hooters) One slightly radiated head fund manager exclaimed, Its a brutal market
as the radiation levels just go up and down as if someone was just throwing
numbers out.
Meanwhile, politicians are busy ordering custom "uniform" with the party name and logo to wear when they appear in front of people in earthquake/nuke plant disaster related events. They can't help "fiddling"...
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/while-japan-burns-with-radiation.html
I still can't help but think the severity of the unfortunately named Fukushima episode is being exaggerated a bit. So much went RIGHT with the safety features when the earthquake and tsunami hit - and none of this is being discussed. Designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, the site was hit with a 9.0... and survived intact. (The Log scale makes that 70 times the force of a 7.5.) The reactors scrammed and the backup diesel generators kicked on to power the coolant pumps. Nice job! Then, when the second force of nature - the tsunami - hit, the plants still survived, only the diesel generators were shut down. And still, two weeks later, we haven't had the massive radioactive release that doom-n-gloomers (and usually I am one) have been wringing their hands over. I am not convinced by stories about radiation levels umpteen-thousand times higher than "normal," because "normal" is an artificially low construct that reflects what one would receive from the sun, cosmic rays, and decay from isotopes in the Earth's crust, and therefore cannot be used to realistically estimate the severity of a nuclear incident. As always, the folks on the scene (whose bravery is commendable) are certainly at an elevated risk; but for folks across the pond on the Left Coast to be buying KIO3 tablets is a bit absurd, methinks.
I really hope I'm right about that.
Actually, we don't even know that not really. We get much of this information from TEPCO which is like pulling teeth in getting information. The reactor would have had safety measures turned on anyway when an earthquake of a significant size (6.5 up) and length happens. Putting a nuclear reactor on the shore of an ocean you have to take into account that the shore may get flooded, and they didn't (or to be exact the did it at the most minimum). They put a flood wall at 20 feet and the tsunami was 33 feet. Cutting corners they put the backup generators down on the ground confident that the wall of 20 feet would protect them. With no one saying what if the flood waters atre 21 feet or above. They should have moved those things either up on a 3 story platform or have these emergency generators on the top of the reactor by the cooling pool in case power is loss they cut in. Because if the waters is that high to swamp 5 stories you have bigger issues.
They cut corners to cut costs and they got caught by the law of averages.
10X normal is nothing to worry about.
100X normal is serious.
1,000X normal is very serious.
(Reuters)...."meltdown expected at 1.30 GMT"
(traders in dealing rooms worldwide)..."SELL,SELL,SELL"
(Reuters 5 mins later)..."correction, meltdown now expected at 1.40GMT"
(traders)..."the news is better than expected!!!!! ...BUY,BUY,BUY"
Low levels of radiation found in US milk
Results from a March 25 milk sample taken from Spokane, Wash., showed levels of radioactive Iodine-131 that were still 5,000 times below levels of concern set by the FDA, including levels set for infants and children.
WTF
5,000 times below levels of concern
Mutagenic skills ... I want that to be my superpower.
** waves hands in air **
fazooop! You are now a slime mold! Hahahahahahahaaa!
Ha! Japan does no such thing! That was Reuters' wishful thinking because of their ignorance of "bureaucrats speak".
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/iaea-to-reuters-to-edano-to-japanese....
Besides, Japan doesn't care about soil. They base their decision on air.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/iaea-correction-iodine-131-in-iidate....