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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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Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto
Mata ahoo Hima de
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto
Himitsu wo Shiri tai.
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape.............. Nippon!!!
Thank you for getting stuck in the debris
For floundering around oh I'm so glad that it is not me
Now we can blame the whole mess right on you!
Domo, domo!!!
Domo, domo!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/asia/31japan.html
Japan Times reporting as many as 1000 bodies in the Fukushima irradiated zone.
Bodies too radioactive to recover, conduct autopsies on, cremate or even bury!
One wonders how many people, without power, radio or TV, fuel, food and water never got the word to evacuate and are still in the irradiated zone, drinking from streams or snow fall, eating what food as they find in the rubble or fields.
News out of the Fed this morning
The Bernank likes the idea of a new intervention called Quantitative Fission. May use the new economic term at next meeting.
Since no one will touch nor investigate the total output for fear of death, they will go nuclear to ensure lack of transparancy thus maintain a quality of life for good citizens
Tyler
312 divided by -8?
Clearly Quantitative Captcha is catching on
How do you manage to turn "hasn’t ruled out" into "prepares to"?
FWIW.
Fukushima Daiichi, comprising 6 cores has been shaken by an earthquake many times more powerful than it was designed to withstand. Shortly afterwards, it was struck by an incoming tsunami containing incalcuable forward kinetic energy. Then it was re-battered by backwash (including heavy debris) as the water displaced by the tsunami rushed back out to sea.
OK. So this is quite bad.
It got a bit worse. It transpires that spent fuel rods ( http://www.ensreg.org/safe-management-spent-fuel-and-radioactive-waste/m... ) totalling at least 1760 tons ( http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/6-1_powerpoint.pdf page 4 ) are stored at the site. Many of them above the reactors themselves. These spent fuel rods are just about the most poisonous/dangerous thing known to humankind, radioactive with mainly plutonium and uranium, released as alpha and beta particles. These particles are more difficult to detect than the gamma radiation particles we all keep hearing about in the water, foodstuffs etc.
Neutron beams (affiliated with plutonium release) have been observed ( http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80539.html ) and more recently plutonium has been detected in the soil at the plant ( http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81589.html ).
So, to recap, we have an out-of-control situation being 'managed' by a group of people in business (TEPCO), a government whose sole aim in life (thus far) has been to generate vast sums of wealth for themselves and their buddies (already struggling with the devastation caused by earthquake and tsunami), capped off with a vested-interest nuclear industry who comprise the only people on the planet who really understand what's going on, sitting round tables nodding their heads in agreement with each other based on fragments of information released by TEPCO, whilst covertly shitting their pants about the implications of this catastophe.
Oh, and don't forget, Fukushima DaiNI, just seven miles down the road, was hit by the same earthquake and tsunami as it's sister station. Not hearing much about that plant except for small fires and smoke. If the exclusion zone around DaiICHI continues to expand, Fukushima DaiNI is going to be a no-go area as well. Good luck with keeping the 1000+ tons of spent fuel rods at DiaNI cool for the next 250,000 years.
And we find ourselves here. A media feeding tripe to a citizenry with an attention span of seconds, a series of governments mired with their own restless populations/fiscal problems, a leader of the 'free' world more interested in looking and sounding good on camera than facing reality and a system that deems anything beyond concensus as conspiracy.
It's standard proceedure not to frighten the populace.
Alpha and Beta **Dismissive Wave...
Go to your Library and if it is old enough, it should contain a collection of Cold War Books such as "The Day After" Or after a nuclear war and such similar subjects. Within those books as prepared by Civil Defense back in the day are explicit preparations and other data useful to help one fight against the fallout itself for up to a month or more provided you can maintain airflow (Modern Israelis have that in apartments today), eliminate waste and manage your food and water in addition to daily down time and sick call for everyone with you.
This Generation (Anyone younger than 30) has no experience with such information.
Well, they are learning now.
Once they learn what it takes to shelter in place, I would expect to see Home Depot, Lowes and such big box supply stores to be picked clean.
And if that's áctually true, any geologist will tell you, that is a;
F U C K I N G D I S G R A C E !
given the geological setting they built the damn thing in, which is one of the most dangerous, and most active, on earth.
Which requires that any similar plants, also not built to withstand an 8.5 quake, or higher, on the eastern coastline, be I M M E D I A T E L Y shutdown.
Btw, just one more tiny lie among many... the two header pictures for this article, which are described as from the 'latest overflight' - are not.
The top one is from the last few days. Observe between reactor 4 and the main vent tower, there's an area of ground that has been cleared of rubble (presumably by one of those tanks-with-dozer-blade we saw a photo of). In the cleared area there is the red water spraying machine, with its arm extended up to the top of reactor 4.
However in the second image, that area has not yet been cleared. It is from some previous time, many days ago now.
Where are the hi res pix of 1 and 2 ?