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Japan Prepares To "Bury The Problem" Following News Of Uncontrolled Reactor 1 Chain Reactions
And once again our prediction about Fukushima (namely the inevitable entombment of the entire facility in thousands of tons of concrete) is about to be realized. Bloomberg reports that Japan will consider pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant to reduce radiation and contain the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The reason for the admission of total defeat is the gradual comprehension that the worst case scenario has come to pass: "The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna." Not one to cover up the worst case outcome for a week, TEPCO only did so... for five days: "Radioactive chlorine found March 25 in the Unit 1 turbine building suggests chain reactions continued after the reactor shut down, physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, wrote in a March 28 paper." It's good thought" Radioactive chlorine has a half-life of 37 minutes, according to the report." It appears Japan is willing to give up, and write off a several hundred square kilometer area, as nobody in their right mind will ever agree to move in next to a territory that, contrary to lies, er, promises, will not seep radioactivity in the soil and in the water. This is an unprecedented admission of defeat by the Japanese which unfortunately may be the only solution, which will certainly have major implications for the Japanese economy.
The now much expected spin on this last ditch effort:
Tokyo Electric mixed boron, an element that absorbs neutrons and hinders nuclear fission, with emergency cooling water to prevent accidental chain reactions, Kathryn Higley, head of nuclear engineering and radiation health physics at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said in an e-mail.
Dismantling the plant and decontaminating the site may take 30 years and cost Tokyo Electric more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said. The government hasn’t ruled out pouring concrete over the whole facility as one way to shut it down, Edano said at a press conference.
Dumping concrete on the plant would serve a second purpose: it would trap contaminated water, said Tony Roulstone, an atomic engineer who directs the University of Cambridge’s masters program in nuclear energy.
How anyone could think the outcome would be anything but following a brief look at the latest overflight of Fukushima is beyond us.
As for what happens after a concrete tomb, which increases the surrounding pressure by orders of magnitude, is put over what now appears is still a live fision reaction, well, we won't make any predictions. Suffice to say if historical precedent of how TEPCO has handled this situation to date is any indication, expect the sarcophagus to crack, and a 100 km "No Live Zone" radius to be extended around Fukushima in perpetuity.
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Well just call up Barry, remind him of the $2 you donated a couple of years ago, and ask him to have one of his boyz email a few shots to Tyler. I'm sure both have the bandwidth.
Great technology - you can actually see that Clarence Thomas fell asleep.
Bush looks like he's trying to contain some gas and LB looks like she had to take a 'happy pill' to avoid the onset of 'Obies Dementia'. "...What so proudly we hail'd at the teleprompters last gleaming..." Sarcasm aside, this technology is amazing and you're right in saying that it should be available for use here.
It'll make a great natural preserve.
In the meantime, I think TEPCO and/or the idiotic Japanese Government should be forced to pay a top dollar lease on that 'no live zone' in perpetuity, to the residents who were displaced.
yeah, I read one article about a farmer in the area food has been banned, land/farm has been in family since 1600s...think of the all the good and bad they have weathered over those years, to be broken by this...
Breaking:
GTFO out of that entire area, citizens of Japan.
Cesium 137 Isotope Found 25 Miles From Japanese Plant
By MATTHEW L. WALD and DAVID JOLLY 17 minutes ago
And that's the gravy stroke. When Cs137 covers dirt its game over for that area.
The best we can hope for now is the plutonium does not get mobilized in steam and smoke, as well, we already know it was mobilized in brine leaks.
dude. Your posts today have been stellar. +++
Thanks yor the 3 part analysis you posted this afternoon.
Very excellent.
Thank you.
At 3.7 MegaBecquerels of CS-137 at a 1cm distance the gamma dosage is 2.82 mSv/hr OR roughly 1 Sievert in 2 weeks OR about 100 rem over the course of two weeks. Same distances and decay rates yields 74 rads/hour of BETA radiation as well.
They better get the fuck out of there.
Beta Calculator : http://www.radprocalculator.com/Beta.aspx
Gamma Calculator: http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx
30 yr half life on that shit...
plants and animals love it as a nice K substitute
+1,000,000
voting in your own slavery is American as apple pie and ice cream!
I would bet they are still lying. I don't believe this for a second.
If they are saying they have pockets of criticality in reactor 1, the the truth is probably that they have hypercritical infernos from hell in at least 4 of them.
Think about it. Every admission they have made has been late, understated, grossly misleading or an outright lie.
Who was it that said early on that this will be worse than Chernobyl? I forget now, but we ought buy him a beer. Was it GW?
Bury the fucking site!
I agree. The time for action is not pending and authority over the solution needs to be stripped from the fucking PR guys!
Yeah. I absolutley agree with you about stripping authority from Tepco and putting some adults who can face fucking facts in charge.
This fucking bullshit will go down as an unprecedented fucking failure of corporate responsibility and government, both.
I said it...but I don't know how early it was.
Others did too.
Well, no matter. My hat is off to you sir. Good call.
If I remember correctly, your reasoning was the excessive quanitity of fuel on the site had the potential to eclipse the events at Chernobyl.
I'd say congratualtions, but it seems inappropriate given the circumstances.
I found a 3 minute and 15 second video of Chernobyl and why this is very much something to get hysterical over...if not this (Fukushima), I don't know what could...
Warning: disturbing photographs (kinda' made me want to vomit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related
So next time some piece of shit government shill comes on TV and says "all is good" you will at least be armed with what is coming (for the very least many in Japan)
Yeah, Bob. I saw that video after watching Batle of chernobyl the other night. It really does make you realize what a horrible fukin thing radioactive contamination is to humans.
did you see those projections TerraHertz posted showing how it would take a sarcophagus the size of two Giza pyramids to cover this site?
So the real horror begins soon I guess.
I missed the projections.
It's definately something I'm worried. Iodine 133 has already been found in Washington states milk. Like I said earlier, not huge amounts but it unnerves me it's there at all.
http://everist.org/pics/Fukushima/Fukushima_fuel_tanks.jpg Before/after washed away fuel tanks (190KB)
http://everist.org/pics/Fukushima/Fukushima_pyramids_sm.jpg Fukushima vs Pyramids of Giza (109KB)
http://everist.org/pics/Fukushima/Fukushima_pyramids_large.png Ditto, large version (1.5MB)
All my fukushima links are here: http://everist.org/archives/links/!_Japan_disaster_info.txt
mind linking said TerraHertz projections?
did that helicopter just melt out of the sky?
I read that of the 600 helicopter pilots used to clean that fucker up...
....600 of them are now dead.
Holy shit, it's already made into the milk? this is not going to end well, man.
Check this link Truthinshunshine posted downthread:
Fukushima Forecast: Radioactive particles to be concentrated over Midwestern U.S. April 1st & 2nd
***IAEA: “Uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions” may be coming from melted fuel in No. 1 reactor
March 30th, 2011Japan Weighs Entombing Nuclear Plant in Bid to Halt Radiation
Bloomberg, March 30, 2011 :
Beautiful. so, I'm thinking they were fully cognizent of these facts when they floated the idea of a shroud tent mumu kimono thing this morning. amirite?
That would be affirmative.
Data shows increasingly concentrated xenon and chlorine (radioactive plumes) starting to heat up, with a wide band headed for the midwest of the USA this weekend.
This sucker is putting out major levels of radioactive material into the atmosphere, which they'll probably admit in a week:
Fukushima Forecast: Radioactive particles to be concentrated over Midwestern U.S. April 1st & 2ndThanks for the link, Truth. Christ. I have to admit that when this thing started I thought that surely these guys had the chops to deal with it.
I'm starting to think the Peter Principle may in fact be correct.
The level of incompetence, corruption, shortcuts taken, fudging of reports, lack of standards and safety protocol - all ASTOUNDING.
Just a basic point. TEPCO & the Japanese Government sent workers (untrained) in to the pooled water without proper safety gear, let alone boots, and they don't even have enough bottled water for emergency staff. That's just pathetic and criminal.
+ Yes, you are of course correct. I agree.
And.... people need to go to prison, imo.
It should also be noted that Chlorine-36 can be created by irradiation of seawater, which seems a possibility since they are cooling the units with seawater.
It's just all so depressing Ari. Wth, man?
Hey... did you see the youtube of the new sarcaphogus for Chernobyl? What do you think of this or some variation at Fukushima?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Well, it will not work now, as the place is too radioactive to do that kind of close proximity work....plus, that takes a lot of time. If they are going to entomb, it will have to be something faster. BTW...the seawater/chlorine-36 mention was to point out that the detection of chlorine-36 does not automatically mean spontaneous fission is going on. Although, it does not preclude it, either.
my resources are suggesting Cl36's primary route of existence is cosmic ray caused neutron spallation of Argon...is that likely here? Another origin involves muon capture by calcium. I guess muons come from cosmic rays as well. The other known processes all involve free thermal neutrons. I'm pulling this from U of Az
Perhaps this is just leftover Cl from Bikini lol
Some fractions will result from that...but when you pump seawater into a reactor core, you are going to get Chlorine-36....no way around it. The underwater bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean back in the 50's created a tremendous amount of chlorine-36...which is all still hanging around, since it has a half-life of 300,000 years. When we did fraction studies of the lagoon at Johnston Atoll back in the early 90's, we detected more chlorine-36 than anything else. Some of that came from the missiles that blew up (non-nuclear explosions) on Johnston, but most of it was typed from places like Bikini.
an operating reactor core...where is the source of free thermal neutrons in a properly scram'd one?
I think this is pretty strong evidence of subsequent criticality, no? Obviously, they didn't state the concentration of Cl36, but if it's above the Bikini expected level, it would appear to be evidence of criticality at least to a preponderance.
Gamma alone won't produce Cl36, only cosmic ray interaction with Argon. The way chlorinated water gets Cl36 would be thermal neutron capture. Pu 240? I'm not seeing a likely vector
Oh there is subsequent criticality going on, but in my mind it is low level interactions of ruptured fuel rods above the water level in the cores, thus the Neutron detection outside the plant probably emitted during core venting. There may be more than that going on, but I have no evidence for it. I do not see the sustained/uncontrolled critically suggested as the only source. This suggests fuel melt and vessel breach...I am just saying the detection of chlorine-36 can be caused by other means than vessel breach.
To go off-topic, I got an e-mail today suggesting that one of these reactors may have been hampered by a partially stuck-open vacuum breaker...common for the GE Type 1, and this could have caused the torus issues in the event of low water levels in the vessel. It can even result in Torus rupture. I know Hope Creek was shut down for this issue for awhile. Who knows, but interesting.
Yes, I see. Thanks for that.
I'm guessing from your comment that you do not see any kind of Kamakazii charge into the rubble as happened at Chernobyl. I am interested in your thoughts, if you care to share them, as to the human factor here.
I know it is pure speculation, so no worries about that, but as to casualties: what do you think? Not so much in terms of numbers but, where are the pitfalls? You know nothing of what choices they will make, I realize, but your thoughts if any on the subject?
This is where I seriously get fouled up. What is this really going to cost in human terms?
The human pitfalls are always those who will do more than required because they see a greater good that they are serving. Or, unfortunately, those who do not understand what they are getting into. I have a permanent sunburn with nice red blood pools about the size of BB's on my chest from radiation...not from being brave, just from being stupid.
First, radiation workers are aware of the dangers of what they do. You are shown videos and pictures of people dying from extreme radiation sickness. It is not a pretty sight.
Second, radiation workers understand that the media hype about the dangers of radiation is very overrated. Example: I am in my 60's, I spent years soaking up radiation, getting crapped out with particle contamination, and going onto fresh underground bomb test sites to survey the areas. I have been exposed to asbestos, Agent orange (twice...in Vietnam, then again on Johnston), and used to walk down to the plutonium yard on Johnston Atoll to eat lunch with a friend of mind who worked there. Also, there was 36,000 tons of nerve gas stored on Johnston, and I worked in those areas. All the while, I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I have no evident health problems as of now.
Do not worry that much about the human cost. There will be a cost, but every disaster has a human cost. Do not forget the earthquake and the Tsunami. In every respect, that cost will be much more.
Thank you, Ari. From my heart.
This thing sets right at the edge of the shoreline.
Salt water 'intrudes' into this area through the soil and as water is pumped from the aquafir inland salt water will intrude there also.
This stuff is going to keep migrating for a long time. No concrete 'cap' is going to stop it. And as pointed out in previous posts, another earthquake in that area will crack everything open again.
We have and continue to ravage our mother.
cassions...if I am spelling it correctly. How do you think we build bridge foundations under water?
You have the right idea, I think. But, damn, how do they manage the contamination while they do that?
People are going to die. I feel certain that it's going to be a lot of people too.
fuckin terrible.....
I'm afeard as they have been pumping thousands of gallons of water all over this thing for the last three weeks. I cannot believe that they have 'saved' all this water in containment ponds.
The radioactive particles have already penetrated the soil and been flushed over a wider area.
Caissons are really just pillars.
This whole thing need 'entombment'. At the World Trade Center, they removed all the dirt to build that 'bathtub'. I don't think they have that option here. This is REALLY clost to the shore line. Lot of things stacked against 'entombment'.
The reality here, in my mind, is that an almost continual flow of contaminated water has been flowing into the ocean since they started spraying, and continues to do so now. Under the circumstances, I do not think they are all that concerned about that. I am not endorsing it, just pointing it out.
The ocean is actually the best sequestration anyway though, right?
Seems like least bad way to me, anyhow.
?
Yeah, it is. I hate to say it too, but that is the reality on the ground.
You are assuming that a very thick concrete foundation under a steel core vessel and a drywell gets penetrated. That is theoretically possible, but not likely. As far as other earthquakes...well, who knows on that one.......
Everybody wants to entomb in concrete, but some people are pointing out that that won't work in an area where we might have another earthquake soon, and anyway concrete cracks, etc.
I want a great freaking huge geodesic dome, at least half a mile in diameter, with a great big air-filtration plant next to it. Suck the hot gases out the top, filter them and sequester the filters as they become saturated.
Stop the outgassing into the atmosphere that is contaminating the surrounding countryside, and, soon, Tokyo. This dome bends and doesn't break.
This preserves our ability to access the wreckage, once we build remote-controlled equipment that can get in there and dig out that damned fuel.
Have you seen the new sarcophagus design for chernobyl, brother? Parts of it are already fabbed. I wonder if that could be adapted to this perhaps even using the existing components they've built?
Holy freaking crap. Wow. No, I hadn't seen that.
Can we also have a 90-foot statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wearing his long coat and pointing toward the future?
Well, sure, I would settle for one just like that. Why build just one, when you could build two for twice the price?
I still think a great freaking huge dome would be easier, though. And they already have the world's largest geodesic dome in ... wait for it ... Fukuoka City, Japan! It's 700 feet diameter! All you have to do is, um, triple that. Or so.
The reason I bring it up is because it follows the same principle your idea does. Did you see it? If not, check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Yes! I went and found that after you mentioned that it was being planned. Totally amazing!
It makes me think this could really be done. Large Sarcophagus, with massive air conditioning. And do it in a big hurry. Highly non-trivial -- but I bet they could do it.
Now, how to protect workers? Part of the way to protect workers is same as in this video -- assemble large pieces offsite. But Fuku is a lot hotter than Chernobyl is now. Hmmmmm...
ok I have refined the plan. Someone tell me why this won't work.
build a giant cassion around the complex. This keeps water out.
Dig flow channels through the rock layer fifty feet or more under the floor of the plant.
pile lead pellets in the flow channel so that if molten MOX flows in then it will be diluted by the melting lead.
Cover the whole thing in concrete and lead. Plan to recover and reseal it every ten years or so for eternity as it cracks
have monitors in the flow channels under the reactor. If molten radioactive material melts through the floor into the flow channel then fill the flow channels full of nitrogen. to keep lead oxides from forming. However they can't escape anyway because all the flow channels and the entire facility is covered by a concrete pyramid.
Might it eventually leak into the water supply? Sure. But that is a local problem, not a global problem.
OK, I'll take your underground part, and my above-ground part.
Now we have no leakage downward, and no outgassing upward.
Then, instead of replacing a concrete pyramid every 10 years or whatever -- we take 3 years to build remotely operated tech that can go in there, dig out the fuel, and put it into dry casks -- stop the reactions.
Then take down the dome. Sell pieces of it as glow-in-the-dark souvenirs, sort of like the Berlin Wall. Except, um, toxic.
My original idea was basically doing Cowboys Stadium, only upside down, with lots of sensors and air filters.
I mean, entombment is a good concept, but all the material there needs to be watered for a few years and accessed by sacrificial workers etc.
So I said, 'a giant frame building'.
Shall we? Otherwise it's just going to wreck Honshu and I don't think we want that.
Basically the UnBioDome....
Upside down? I'm trying to picture that....
I don't get it....
Point being we can build huge $1.2 billion structures. Let's build one here. Could be a geodesic dome, or an old-fashioned steel shed. But we have to intercept the airflow and filter it.
.
ah. I see. sorry. didn't mean to be dense. I agree with you.
I've posted this a couple times in this thread already, but did you see this design?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Well and here I thought you were just a friendly degenerate but you're a New Safe Confinement salesman!
j/k very appealing approach, but they have a lot more apparatus that I was envisioning, because they just have the one unit to deal with. I just want a shell to capture the airflow, and a few other basic functions.
Stripped down version of this, but bigger.
How are the workers going to get close to the site? There aren't many skilled trades-people to give up their health/life for this shit.
degenerate? salesman?
I've always treated you with complete respect.
Why would you insult me so?
<crickets>
<waiting for a set of balls to grow apparently>
<still waiting>
i think you missed the "j/k" at start of para 2 = just kidding
Yes, Mr. Trainwreck. I did miss it. And thank you for pointing it out. My feelings were truly wounded.
I shall leave it up as a testimony to my own fucking moronic emotionalism and stupidity.
Sorry to you Jim, and all.
You want to know how fucking stupid I am? I didn't even know that j/k meant just kiddinhg, and I've been on the internet since 98................
hahahahahahahaqhaqhqhqhqhahahahahhhqhqha
fuking idiot, me.... lol....
Thank god, I've never claimed an IQ of 145....
Sorry, you made a very good point in the first place.
I owe you an apology and a new invention: here's an internet Scotch.
Bottoms up.
lol... thank you, my friend. Sorry about that. Bottoms up.
Jim, I understand your point, but I am not sure it is possible here. This is going to take a lot of time...design time, procurement time, transportation time, building time, all in an area than is on-and-off accessible to humans. Filters: you would need vary large HEPA/carbon units that I am not even sure exist off-the-shelf in a configuration that would work, and they would have to be changed regularly and protected from rainfall. Heat....you are going to build a ton of heat in an enclosed system like this, and maybe you can cool it passively, or maybe it would require a mechanical system. In the meantime, under all this massive construction....pile holes being drilled, grade beams being excavated and poured...you have people trying to maintain control of four screwed-up nucs. I am not dumping on your idea, just trying to figure out how to make it work. My wife tells me I over-complicate everything, so maybe I am doing that here:)
I don't disagree with one bit of that. The idea that the air emissions simply go on for a year or two, however, is just horrifying. Might as well just stand around with hoses if nothing is done to capture the air emissions.
It could, of course, be partial capture and still do a lot of good; big hoods or funnels over each hot spot, for instance. I think the Japanese actually have some pretty amazing cigarette smoke catchers, so you can stand in a room and smoke and it just 'disappears'--not to make light but you know, there is really incredible gear in all of these fields...
My brother is a specialty engineer doing hard core clean room filtering and HVAC for folks like Medtronic and HP; he'll have a good read on the filtering difficulty.
Yep, you're right! I remember that! I think this 'Giant Frame Building' makes sense if the giant HVAC can be created.
Reason I am harping on geodesic is for scalability. Also -- possibly easier to prefab large sections and lift in. Maybe.
This structure would be at least 3x larger than Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida.
You guys aren't thinking outside the box. Forget the reactors, build a dome around the rest of Japan.
+1
At this point, why not.
If you want to read more about the radio active Boy Scout follow this link. It's 4 parts, click the link in the upper right hand corner for the next page.
http://talesfromthenuclearage.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/the-radioactive-b...
And if you have ever wondered where the term SCRAM comes from, you can read how it came about here.
http://talesfromthenuclearage.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/you-can-be-sure/
Drag Racer-You didn't build them while being exposed to 1 servert
of radiation :) No need for birth control here...
AC
If society has condoned the use of the awesome power called "nuclear power" then they sure as hell should have had 100 or so senarios of what could possible go wrong (and don't give me that "We never could have imagined a disaster of this magnatude" crap. That's like Condi saying "We never could have imagined terrorists flying planes into buildings") and 1000 ways to fix it!
Am I the only one who is getting really pissed watching these fucking clowns continue to slowly feed us worse and worse news while doing seemingly nothing to bring this under control?!
Don't have remore contol robots that can withstand high does of radiation and go in and fix and repair the plant? Then don't build a nuclear power plant!!!!
This world is so screwed up! I've had it!
"Don't they have remote contol robots that can withstand high does of radiation"
Let's not mention that to the Mars rovers ok ? we dont want too hurt their feelings. You don't know what will file a lawsuit these days !
Mars rovers would die pretty quickly in a high radiation environnement I think.
And let's be honest, they always get stuck in a bit of sand on Mars, I don't think they could go really deep into the rubble pile.
Breaking (on NHK):
Highest yet levels of radioactive Iodine and Caesium found in ocean near Fukushima plant.
Radioactive Iodine 4,385 times higher than Govt safety limits, and Caesium 527 higher than Govt safety limits found near various outlets from the plant.
Also, IEAE is calling for widening of evacuation zone because it has found levels of radioactive Iodine in a village 40 kms from the Fukushima plant that are double the safety limits considered necessary for evacuation. Japan Govt responds by saying it has no current plans to expand the 20kms evacuation zone - but it will 'monitor the situation'.
I hope that is not coming out in the steam vapors as well.
I think a wider evac zone is not going to work well. People won't take it seriously enough - even the feckin Govt doesn't.
I doubt they can imagine that Cs137 will be a problem. They have seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki turn into prosperous healthy cities again, and don't 'get it' that widespread low-altitude dispersal and deposition of concentrated Cs137 Sr90 and Pu239 is a totally different beast, and much more chronic and long-term than the a-bombs were.
The a-bombs almost immediately pulled almost all the bad stuff up to 25 to 40k feet and wafted it away and diluted it.
Much of the extreme radiation dose then came from prompt exposures from the actual detonation's release, and you had to be close to that to get the lethal dose, because the air really attenuates it fast.
This is different.
In Japan many people traditionally sleep and sit and eat near the floor level, and that is where the isotopes will settle. The closer you are to the ground the worse the exposure to internal organs.
And this effect is what damages and kills children so much faster. They are shorter, so their organs are closer to the ground for longer, and get a larger body dose much faster, and get sick first, and remain so for longer.
Sleeping and sitting close to the ground needs to be strongly discouraged in Cs137 contaminated areas.
I think we need to do some more analysis on this. The Austrians at ZAMG made some good estimates for release rates, but they appear to have mixed up their iodine and cesium discussion, at least in the English version. Hopefully that will get corrected.
The winds have been kind, but my reading tells me that onshore winds are a daily feature in the summer.
We're about to go up several levels with this thing.
Indeed, winter is normally offshore in that part of the world, and we are in the transition to prevailing onshore.
Here's a find: wind rose (graphic of average wind speed and direction) for 40 km off the coast of Fukushima.
http://www.dcpower-systems.com/documents/ZephyrAirDolphinWhitePaper.pdf
Bad. West winds are not typical, at least not from April-Sept when this data was gathered.
Now that was some lateral thinking Jim, good find.
scratched my post...Cs137 emits gamma too.
Primary problem with Cs is soil deposition and the biouptake in that it is in the alkali period and mimics K and Na.
Edit again: Cs137 does not emit gamma, I was right the first time. It decays to a Barium isotope with a short half-life and that emits the gamma. However, that isotope, Ba137 has a 2 minute or so half-life.
http://www.fairewinds.com/multimedia
Breaking as of 1:35 am EST, March 31.
Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gunderson has new video update out. This guy is very good at presenting the facts, and then gives his theories as to what's happening, why, and what the possible and likely outcomes might be.
Very grim.
A must see (top video, March 31st):
http://www.fairewinds.com/multimedia
I concur...I said from like day 4 that fires must be prevented at all costs in SFPs.
I have no clue what is in that steam, as the necessary monitoring equipment has been shut off or "under survey." I dunno about 70% core loss either.
Nuclear engineers didn't anticipate a fuckin pool burn? JFC, I posted a link to DOE study of THIS EXACT EVENTUALITY maybe 2 fuckin weeks ago; it was from last year!
If the contamination is really that high, this becomes "Level 8" accident.
I'd still like to know how so much of the core could have mobilized; everything seemed aligned around I131 in steam; we didn't see any significant fires in any videos.
I expect Mark 1 BWRs to start going permanently offline going forward unless the operators can prove their installations backup power systems to be FAIL SAFE. And I mean 100% no caveats. Any reactor of this type has a tail risk of a, what, 25, 30, 50 mile serious contamination radius in the tail risk?
This situation would be far easier for the goddamned PEOPLE to assess (including me) if the fucking dosimeters were spitting out results. I'm fucking tired of this trickle out bullshit from these assclowns, where nobody seems to know nothing.
Anybody with a brain could have taken a look at beta vs gamma downwind and said either "bad but not horrid" or "fucking run"
A Must See Indeed!
Link to Japan water table map here:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/core-on-floor.html
;
Some thoughts on just how long Japan could be down for the count.
http://goldandsilverlinings.com/?p=410
Govt may spray resin on N-plant / Sticky material should keep down radiation http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110330005470.htm
From your link:
I'm no scientist, but this seems to be pure desperation. Hopeless and desperate efforts.
Ministry of Crumpets, Used Socks, Science, and Glitter Evaluating Use of Huge Lint Brush at Prostrate Plant
And can someone please explain to me in the most simplest of terms why nuclear power is still a "good option". If there is a .00000000000000000001% chance of this happening again somewhere else (but I'm willing to bet it is much greater than that) is it really worth the risk? Its kind of like taking out a bank loan for 60 years and committing your unborn grandchildren to paying it off. It makes no fucking sense. These people are madmen.
It's not a good option, it's the only option.
Imagine what the oil peak cornucopians are shitting right now...bricks. The future was supposed to be paved with nukes while we "transitioned" to some liquid fuel other than oil. They had the whole CTL and fischer-tropsch thing laid out.
Now wtf are we supposed to do? It's the devil or the deep blue sea
What we are supposed to do right now in build z-machines like they did in the U-S and transform it in a fusion reactor by any mean necessary. It looks to me like you have some knowledge on nuclear reactions so you will know more than me for the next part, but I heard that there are some fusion reactions that are non radioactive (or radioactive with very short half life waste). Those reaction are possible at around 500 million K to 2 billion K.
The z-machine reached 2 to 6 billion K.
What do you thing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine
EDIT: ok source is wikipedia, but they say it is light hydrogen + boron or light hydrogen + lithium = He + energy but no neutron!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion
I say this is our best bet and need to be developed ASAP
nobody knows how to do a sustained fusion reaction. It's presently an insoluble technical problem.
no need to sustain it. They talk about doing 1 shot an hour at the beginning, then they want to move on to 1 shot every 100 sec. Like a car, you don't need sustained gas to move.
This clusterfuck and the BP Oil spill speak volumes for regulation when it comes to energy projects. Corporations can't do it themselves because they always want to do it cheaper and faster - that is the way they work. (I know I will get junked into oblivion for this post from both sides but when dealing with this type of energy, regulations need to be in place).
Right now there is no alternative to nuclear energy which delivers around 15% of all power in North America (don't know the Asia numbers).
Would I prefer a safer alternative - yes. Do I believe we can come up with alternatives in the future - yes - but it is going to come out of left field.
Do I believe the current oil and nuclear oligarchies would embrace this change - no it will be an uphill battle.
Edit: but I think we can find alternatives - eventually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_the_world
Take your pick. Duplicate on plant site. Filter air, circulate water.
Wait.
iodine-131 at 4,385 times the limt, from the ocean near the drain pipe at Fukushima plant.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-iodine-131-is....
Long VMC!
Sorry for this pseudo relevant post amid the more serious issues but a little levity may be called for:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-30/greece-may-need-to-break-taboo-on-selling-land-to-slash-its-debt.html
Humor on many levels.
I'm no geologist, but take note of the fixed camera position relative to the Fukushima Power Plant before and after quake ... between :25 and, well the rest of the video.
These images imply a major geological deformation of the area around Fukushima.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FobcdNqlcVw
Not sure, but it looks like the cam's view angle shifted abruptly to the left about :33 into the clip. Notice that the near field foliage in the lower right corner is closer to the edge of the scene after that point; probably the cam's support shifted during the quake. Also notice no trees or structures (aside from the crane which is also in the path of the tsunami) have fallen.
Question for the astute ... in the first photo accompanying this article you see the damaged from the explosions at the nuclear plant. Look closely near the water. There are little bitty containers and lots of nice light boxes and stuff lying around. No damage. How does this square with the tidal wave that came in and destroyed everything. There seems to be no photographic evidence of wave damage. Do you suspect that TEPCO lied and really the power shutdown killed the whole place? It certainly was not damage from a tidal wave.
Sea water is a good conductor and could have shorted out any number of electrical subsystems that were submerged.
put contained radiogunk into a rocket and shoot it into the sun, maybe we can summon superman.
Atomic weapons. By the boatload. Thats why these reactors don't use other less dangerous fuel.
They bring good things to life...
My brother's a geologist and he says we need Angus MacGyver.
How do you say RUNNER in japanese?
Based on the fleeing international workers in Tokyo, probably 'gaijin'.
What you need here is a black hole to draw in everything in a 50-km radius, once that's done, it goes poof!
Nuclear weapons.
Deliver a few MOAB's under the Plant. One under each reactor. 4 Total.
Follow the Moabs with Nuclear weapons of sufficient megatonnage to envelope the entire complex inside the sun that will be generated by the detonation of said nuclear weapon.
Have everything done facing the ocean side.
An Alternative would be to detonate a warhead seperated by sufficient altitude to create a column of fire and still hammer the earth under the plant complex with more nuclear bombs.
We will experience a one hell of a light show, thunder, a few quakes and possibly a burst of fallout. If necessary, we can lob another nuke into the smoking cratered rubble to seal it in glass.
Make it happen. Soon.
All other options take too long and cost too much in terms of effort, lives and money.
I tell you why.
The Hoover Dam we built a long time ago is still curing. It will be another few hundred years before it reaches full strength. A simple nuke strike from one of the Soviet Earth Penetrators will remove that dam, drain lake Mead and extinguish Las Vegas lights.
Nuclear power, it must be killed with fire from equivilant or greater force. We will suffer a few more weeks of fallout and that will be the end of it.
....that is good. Funny stuff.
You laugh.
But consider the scale of the construction otherwise.
We have entered into a time of madness where if this thing is not "Snuffed" it's going to be very bad for a long time.
Keep laughing. I sip my drink with solace that at least one person here thinks my plan has some possibility to it.
What is sad is we have no one with a pair of balls big enough to slam a fist down onto the big red button to make it happen. They say nuclear weapons for peace delivered in 30 minu6tes or less gauranteed.
It's time to prove it. Use the weapons for good for one damn day.
Look i dig it..Looking to short (cheap puts on AUD), so yeah. Blow the fucking thing up.
That's roight. Blow the fucking thing up.
No different than dynamiting entire city blocks to stop a city wide firestorm that hit Baltimore or Chicago or San Fran at one time or another.
yeah but, what about our precious bodily fluids?
Let's see.
Nuclear detonation. Big light, thermal wave, heat like the sun for a few moments. Then debris will rain from the sky. After a few minutes depending on wind, radiation will carry to sea all the airborne particles of dust, material and other debris that is irradiated. The People would have mostly evacutated anyway.
We must get done with this before hurricane season and we need to do it while there is winter there. Once spring winds shift onto the Japanese and Chinese Lands it's too late for the nuclear option.
Everything else would be no different than say Tsar Bomba, Bravo Test or any number of underground detonations as well as other tests by the dozens which are all well documented.
The thing is to dig deep and deeply fast. Bury the complex and allow the ocean to cover it and it will.
The rest is years of clean up and rebuilding.
I am already planning a solar solution for the home and Geothermal for the land. Just need about 12 sections of 300 feet long copper conducting sunk into the earth to provide enough heat exchange to allow my home to maintain heat and cooling from the earth itself.
Either way, nuclear power is dead. We need to move forward.
So. It's good. Fast. And finished in a matter of hours or a day. Then we can build a new Japan.
The other alternative is weeks, months and maybe more than a year of the same old shit spweing into the sky, contaminating the ground water and irradation across valuable lands Japan must have to grow, fish and live. Eventually even forcing the United States to dig up the old Civil Defense Manuals, dust em off and teach our children how to check everything for radiation before beginning to cook a meal.
If it is the lesser of two evils.
And now is the time to take old units in USA an dEurope offline while things are stable. Say... 30+ years old. Cold Shut them down, gather the spent fuel ship the damn things to Yucca Mountain or launch em into our sun. But whatever they do, they need to do it now. I am more than willing to see my electric bill increase by a few percentage because of loss of nuclear power. We still have so much resources to replace nuclear infrastructore.
Our Navy has a pretty good record of Nuclear use on the Subs, Ships and what have you. We can learn and adapt to it rather well.
My problem is more of a basic anger towards the spineless and weak leaders who are paralyzed and unable to make decisions that need making. So they run about trying to do this and that which I know damn well will only proglong the death of northern Japan and eventual irradiation of the United States and other locations.
To live each day in this world is but a heart beat from enternity. To accept this fact and to live to the fullest each day with both hands and getting it done NOW instead of fucking around at Fukushima while we all get cooked.
No.
Not. Acceptable.
I sympathise with your angst and frustration with the dickheads in charge.
Your 'nuke it away' solution just ain't gonna happen for so many reasons, not the least of which is that most of the shit in the SFPs would end up in the upper atmosphere and decimate multicellular life on a global scale and keep it uninhabitable for at least a thousand years.
So I guess your "one hell of a lightshow" is off the menu.
HTH
False alarm re No.4 explosion video, some prick faked with a geothermal plant.
There are several hundreds to a thousand dead bodies within 20-kilometer evacuation zone (of people who died in the quake/tsunami) that cannot be recovered because they are too radioactive.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-hundreds-of-de...
Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gunderson has new video update out. This guy is very good at presenting the facts, and then gives his theories as to what's happening, why, and what the possible and likely outcomes might be.
Very grim.
A must see (top video, March 31st):
http://www.fairewinds.com/multimedia
Well, we are going to have to creamate the bodies where they lay "In situ" using NBC equippted vehicles to deliver the fire to them. After a few weeks areas will start to be ready to be cleaned up, ashes disposed of and we will move on. The funeral pyres will burn day and night for weeks.
But nothing compared to the Blue Neutron fire that will burn through Japan and hurt the rest of the world.
If we do my plan, stop the Fukushima train wreck and begin the clean up now, the better it will be for all.
Oh yes, let's not forget at least three feet of all topsoil between Tokyo and Fukushima will have to be removed and disposed of to eliminate the last of the residue.
200 MegaBecq of decay matter in EACH square yard? What amounts and isotopes? If that is even close to being true everyone in that area is a dead man walking.
Watch the video. Link: http://www.fairewinds.com/multimedia
He was called in to handle the Three Mile Island crisis, which he got under control.
And it was good.
Last time I hauled a load past that TMI Facility, I felt very cold, as if death was in the cab with me.
But as a child all we did was wait three days during that event. We lived in a very strong home at the time built in the early 1920's and capable of sheltering us all for some time in a fall out situation for a while until it became safe to leave the Irradiated Northeastern USA forever.
But it did not come to that.
Now I have to deal with teh New Madrid fault under my feet to the east and Nuclear One on my west along with some other important plants as well.
We might just move somewhere else where geology pose little risk of quakes and no nuke plants upwind of us within 300 miles.
I watched your video. It is NOT 200 MILLION Becquerels. At 2:14 in the video he cites 2,000,000 Becquerels / M^2.
Everything else is dead on and 2M Bec is more than enough to force evacuations.
What is truly disturbing is that he says, with respect to the radioactive water 'bleed,' it is so radioactive that instruments can NOT get accurate readings on it.
We need to calculate RAD...need to know the isotopes
@TruthinSunshine
Saw the vid, need to correct you on a couple of points you raised:
"
"
He actually said 2 million Becq / m2
That might mislead some. 200 tons of fresh water are ported to and 200 tons of radioactive crap come out. Subtle difference.
The feed and bleed obviously ends when they've dissolved all the lost core material -- and on current form they'll dump it all in the sea. Pity they can't pump the radioactive water back round to the ruptured reactor vessels.
Right. Agreed on the beq. But it was an error while typing and listening.
But 2 million beq per meter is 4 times 'hotter' than what was considered mandatory evacuation and dead zone at Chernobyl, and this is 25 miles (so far) from Fukushima (*also, there was an article from Kyodo News that said the actual samples they found 25 miles away were 3.7 million beq per meter - it's on page one of this article under the comments).
Also - If you listen to the video, Gundersen said that 200 tons of fresh water are being dumped into Fulushima, and 200 tons ('feed and bleed') of highly contaminated radioactive waste is coming out as water AND steam, with the steam being the method of deposit of things like Cesium 137 as far as 25 miles inland from Fukushima.
If this goes on for months or years, which it seems likely to be the unfortunate case, that cesium 137 and other isotopes are going to keep getting blown further inland, especially with storms coming in and just plain vanilla shifting winds.
And that doesn't even get into the complications and hazards of highly contaminated ground water.
UN maps of Chernobyl contamination, to facilitate comparisons.
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobylmaps.html
The reality of the situation is that Japan is in Denial and the longer they delay the inevitable (burying the damn thing) the worse the situation will become. A plethora of Japan News links here..
http://bit.ly/henAhv
Fedspeak
Criticality events, as Homer Simpson would say DOH!
Criticality events lead to massive releases of neutrons, which lead to more chain reactions, which lead to more heating, which lead to more melting, which lead to more critical mass bubbling at the bottom of what is left of the pressure vessel.....you get the picture.
The question is; will more melting concontrate it further, into a necking sink-hole in the foundation, that then goes bang from exponential thermal rise, that blows the secondary containment open.
Ordinarily I would think no, but with all that water in the torus ... and seawater still being pumped in ... I just don't know ... a big steam explosion is possible.
I really, really hope not though.
“RUN AWAY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE”: Chernobyl Scientist On Japan Nuclear Meltdown Risk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDTX_tYu4-0
BREAKING: Fukushima nuclear plant to be entombed in concrete as Japan admits it has lost battle with crippled reactors 31st March 2011 (MailOnline) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371793/Fukushima-nuclear-plant-entombed-concrete-Japan-admits-lost-battle-crippled-reactors.html
Fukushima Workers Face Risk of Uncontrolled Reactions Mar 31, 2011 (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-30/record-high-levels-of-radiation...
However: "Boron, an element that absorbs neutrons and hinders nuclear fission, has been mixed with cooling water to prevent this, Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the agency, told reporters today."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
SL-1, prompt critical, boom.
Low-Yield IN-Earth Nuke(Fix?)
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo200/pawnhaus_pa/undergroundshot.jpg
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/new_nuclear_weapons/loyieldearthpe...
THAT is what I have been pounding the table for to advance the idea all this time.
Can't they drop the Bernank on the reactor just before encasing it in concrete for 30 years?
The three Stooges...
every time I watch TEPCO come up on my TV to make a statement :
"we cannot sit back and relax just yet, we still have to keep alert"
and then bow like robots, while eagerly apologizing for all the inconvenience.....
as if they had just spilled somebodies drink....
I get this weird sense of watching a classic 3 Stooges movie.
Remember the 3 Stooges fixing things like the plumbing ?
oh dear...
Time to go long Netflix?