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Radiation Level At Fukushima Reactor No. 2 At Its Highest Level Recorded So Far, Neutron Beam Observed 13 Times
Per the Japan Nuclear Agency: the Radiation level at Fukushima reactor No. 2 at its highest level recorded so far. From Reuters: "Radiation at the crippled Fukushima No.2 nuclear reactor was recorded at the highest level since the start of the crisis, Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Wednesday. An agency spokesman said 500 millisieverts per hour of radiation was measured at the No.2 unit on Wednesday. Engineers have been trying to fix the plant's cooling system after restoring lighting on Tuesday." And some more truthy news from Kyodo:
Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a
kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11
quake-tsunami disaster.
TEPCO, the operator of the nuclear plant, said the neutron beam
measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2
reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02
microsieverts per hour and that this is not a dangerous level.
The utility firm said it will measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam, as well.
In the 1999 criticality accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant
run by JCO Co. in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, uranium broke apart
continually in nuclear fission, causing a massive amount of neutron
beams.
In the latest case at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, such a criticality accident has yet to happen.
But the measured neutron beam may be evidence that uranium and
plutonium leaked from the plant's nuclear reactors and spent nuclear
fuels have discharged a small amount of neutron beams through nuclear
fission.
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Thanks jk.
A thoughtful break from the litany of moronic comments.
I feel like I'm back in the junior high lunchroom.
Sorry, that was an insult to junior high/middle schoolers everywhere.
From the last surviving Chernobyl cleanup worker, when asked:
What message do you have for Japan?
"Run away as quickly as possible. Don't wait. Save yourself and don't rely on the government because the government lies. They don't want you to know the truth because the nuclear industry is so powerful."
Can you cite a source on that? I'd like to look into that more. TIA.
Backspin,
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-fo...
Thanks, Natasha. Man, oh man...
While a perfectly plausible quote, I thought Confucious 222 was just paraphrasing / extrapolating. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction, and the ratio is getting further skewed every day.
Just reconnected with an old friend from Japan - he's rather urgently trying to get the hell out of Dodge (Tokyo). When in doubt, assuming the apparatchiks lie is generally a solid course of action.
YW, Backspin.
The lucky ones died early. :-(
Dear god what a terrible story.
I am glad I read her story. I'm going to go home and cry now.
One of my contacts snuck into unit 2, snapped this photo and emailed it to me before disintegrating into his molecular components from the intense radiation.
It looks like they just forget to turn the damn neutron beam thingy off. No problem. Back to sleep everyone. False alarm.
What does it mean Spock?....
May you live long and prosper.
And Buy The Fucking Dip.
I just took a look around. This is all I need to know:
"The beam of neutrons is obtained by drilling a hole in the side of a nuclear reactor."
Nuclear reactor vessel repair by way of a cordless Black & Decker 18 volt drill.
That looks like a Type I hand phaser.
http://www.fatwallet.com/static/attachments/66648_phaser.jpg
Blade Runner - with apologies to Ridley Scott
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002845/quotes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner
CG, did you know that Rutger Hauer wrote that line himself? He was a poet before he was an actor.
No I did not.
Blade Runner has always been in my top ten list of great movies and when I saw that Ridley Scott had finally been able to release his directors edition some time ago I snapped it up. I'm always interested in seeing how the director saw the movie as opposed to the editor or movie studio.
Rutger Hauer hit it big with that role and he never really made it back to that high perch. I've followed him ever since Blade Runner.
He did a Ninja movie that was ok. But Blade Runner is a film to hang it up on.
"The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy."
Dr. Eldon Tyrell
"I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter."
-- Jack T., from Vermont.
Another satisfied customer commenting on our fully-appointed bar and our courteous, professional staff at The Overlook Hotel. Eldon Lloyd Tyrell is our current senior barman and sommelier at The Overlook. Mr. Tyrell's hobbies include cooking, chess and genetic engineering/organorobotics. Eldon -- or as we at the Overlook affectionately call him, "Lloyd" -- hopes one day to create a line of genetically-engineered androids to help make our guests' stays at The Overlook that much more carefree and comfortable.
http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/WanadooFilms/Thriller/ShiningLoyd.jpg
"Rutger Hauer hit it big with that role and he never really made it back to that high perch."
Ever see him in Lady Hawk? I thought that was a pretty good movie.
Your correct, Blade Runner did make Rutger and even though he hasn't been on that perch he still is a good artists and actor. The last fight scene he had with Harrison Ford was great.
+1
"I watched C beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate..."
You know, CD, that quote was the first which came to mind when I read of this "neutron beam." One of my favorite films of any genre, period. Ridley Scott's work is first-rate, from "The Duellists" to "Kingdom of Heaven."
Oki-blow
William, there is emerging one interesting side-effect from all this radiation exposure...alas, but how do you ask out a girl who is 10cm tall ? Do you have to pay a cover charge for two when going to a nightclub ?
"Saturday Night ( Fukushima ) Fever:"
http://cdn.everyjoe.com/files/2009/08/mthra_stl_1_h.jpg
Don Birnam made me post this image. Complain to him.
"Takashi-san, how do we explain this to the Prime Minister ?"
"Keep him out of the loop. It has worked thus far. Just don't let that Berlusconi character get wind of this, Kenso-san. You can't Bunga-bunga with a pair of six-inch chicks."
Aye donna know how much more she can take, Captain!
It's news Jim, but not as we know it.
Regards.
i couldn't help but notice that the black&decker ray-driller/phaser was, uh, not only cordless, but, uh, keyless, too...
Looks like earthquake damage on that sign. A fault line of some sort.
There is no special like the BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL when plutonium or uranium go critical and start a fission chain reaction. The blue light emitted at the start of the process is accompanied by those pesky neutrons. Recall that enhanced radiation bombs that kill humans but leave infrastructure intact are called "neutron bombs". Duck and cover doesn't cut it, even inside a tank with 12 inches of armored steel. Neutrons have a short half-life, so it is "safe" in a short while to visit the irradiated zone. Kmart will never be the same.
"The blue light emitted at the start of the process is accompanied by those pesky neutrons"
Are you talking about Cerenkov Radiation? Doesn't that require a charged particle? (Hint - neutron is so named as it doesn't carry a charge, or it's "neutral")
"Neutrons have a short half-life"
In that case, anything made out of atoms with neutrons in their nucleus would be continuously collapsing - i.e. nothing but Hydrogen would exist. Maybe you meant to say that many radionuclides that emit neutrons as they decay have a short half-life. Well, that isn't always true either. You do realize that the neutron bomb you are talking about is just one large "flash" of energetic neutrons as a result of the fast fission occurring during the "nuclear blast".
Geez, do you folks just make this shit up, or what? I guess so - it makes everything that much more scarier than the truth..
Another armchair nuclear physicist.
from wikipedia:
"Neutrons also degrade materials; bombardment of materials with neutrons creates collision cascades that can produce point defects and dislocations in the materials. At high neutron fluences this can lead to embrittlement of metals and other materials, and to swelling of some of them. This poses a problem for nuclear reactor vessels, and significantly limits their lifetime (which can be somewhat prolonged by controlled annealing of the vessel, reducing the number of the built-up dislocations)."
No need for a hand drill to get a neutron beam from a reator vessel. Neutrons eventually bore through anything.
"Neutrons eventually bore through anything."
I think that maybe the discussion of interstitial point defects may have led you to think of a single failure point in a localized area. What really happens is that the entire reactor vessel and any other structure exposed to neutron flux will exhibit overall degradation in it's metallic structure - but not in a localized manner. Consider leaving a piece of plastic in the sunlight for an extended time. The entire piece becomes brittle at the same time (wherever it is exposed to sunlight), a single hole or weak spot will not materialize. The neutron flux is not concentrated in a single area, or "focused" towards a single zone. It emanates in all directions from the source (core), like the light from an incandescent bulb.
The neutron embrittlement of the reactor vessel is indeed a concern of the industry. That is why the vessels are loaded with specimens that are routinely sent off for evaluation. The results of testing will determine if the vessel is suitable for a license extension. The embrittlement also changes the metallic properties of the vessel and will be taken into account when determining heatup and cooldown rates, as well as generating the brittle fracture prevention curve for system pressure versus temperature.
Your comments are important and appreciated.
Another quality post.
I only add that the more I learn, the more to admire the complexities overcome to have nuc power...and the awesome risks. [10 years in/outside of containment.]
Working with Flow Accellerated Corrosion, learned that metal alloys, at localized "spots" [not averaged over large areas] do exhibit wide variance in chemical composition and crystalline structure...whose exact locations are unpredictable.
Thus various faults and proto-cracking will occur after years of exposure to nuclear particles not well understood. So 40 year old reactor vessels and 2,000 psi steam pipeing and "juvenile" plant designs and biased supervision should be replaced.
It's a Madoff scene.
"a single hole or weak spot will not materialize" ...
I disagree.
In the case of TMI failure analysis, at the time the core water level goes to 0 (boils dry) in the primary vessel, almost 80% of the core material is molten, and this causes the huge build up of hydrogen. We already saw that explode in #1 & #3.
Shortly thereafter, a now 100% molten core collapses into the bottom head of the primary vessel. The molten core is now sitting in the bottom of the primary containment vessel. I assure you this becomes a "weak spot" ...
A couple of things can happen pretty quickly now. The pressure build up in the primary vessel can cause the top head & bottom head of the primary vessel to separate (explode). As has been suggested by another poster here, this is the likely scenario for #2. This is definitely a "single hole", and provides an exact scenario for an emitted neutron beam ... as per Tyler's post.
The second outcome is the now 100% molten core melts through the bottom head, and falls into the base of the bulb drywell. I believe this has already occurred in #3. This is definitely a "single hole", and provides an exact scenario for an emitted neutron beam ... as per Tyler's post.
Cerenkov is a shockwave caused by exceeding c in medium
We interrupt the MSM's NON coverage of this story to announce that Liz Taylor has passed away
Nothing new to add here, Steve.
How do they know it's a beam and not just a general spray in all directions?
But seriously, this is evidence of re-criticality. From the SFPs perhaps?
Bad bad bad.
Atleast now they can look inside the containment vessel and see what's going on. Before it was encapsulated so they couldn't see inside. They probably don't even need a flashlight. Its well underway to being fixed. Just ask Ben Bernanke.
Maybe Japan will turn into a real life version of Doom 3. Always wanted to play that game for real.
A $1000 investment here would not be a bad idea:
http://surplusammo.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_28&prod...
Adjust to your caliber.
the bernank and his neutron beam... cover your shorts now and kiss your gonads goodbye!
bless be the bernank! may he ease a thousand years!
A question to ponder: I just saw one of my cows take a huge dump. Is that like quantitative easing?
"New Madrid Fault Line, Polar Shift, Strange Animal Behavior"
Start @ 3:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7nqwyQMemU
to buttress that thought: http://thegentleawakening.ning.com/forum/topics/geologist-jim-berkland
Keep an eye on those cows.
"Keep an eye on those cows."
I'm going out to check mine now. Have two that are due to calve. If I see any of them taking a dump, I'll be sure to get back here and let y'all know immediately! And those birds, my gosh, did you see them landing in trees and milling about so? That was eerie! It looks just like the grackles that invade our area every spring and poop all over everything.
Yup, I can smell an earthquake rumbling beneath the West Coast as I type.
Update:
I'm back, no new calves - but, man, that pasture is covered in poop!
I think it is definitely time to panic folks.
Grackles:
http://alifeinseason.com/2010/10/08/the-cackle-of-grackles/
if those are not radioactive piles, i think you'll be ok with the veal, bro. i would slaughter the herd pretty damned quick, tho, once ya get the young uns bucket trained. get everything into a meat locker under a lead blankie. it's practically organic, no matter what you use for feeding and meds, and will be worth it's weight in gold, compared to the geiger readings we'll be adjusting up to for safety, here, in a few, short months, cowboy/grrrl.
and again: http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/182785/19/WATCH-Basking-shark-seen-at-Panama-City-Beach-Florida-fishing-pier
So with all this massive loss of life and rising radiation levels... how long do you think it will be before we start hearing about the radiated dead rising from their graves and hungering for human flesh...
Radioactive Japanese zombies? Heck, why not? We have a buttload of them in the US looking for brains on Wall St. and Liberty Ave. Too bad the Japanese zombies will go without once they reach the TEPCO HQ building.
'Neutron Beam' = Gamma ray.
Damn, I thought a 'neutron beemer was a Japanese luxury car formerly known as a 'nippon beemer'.
Damn, I thought a 'neutron beemer was a Japanese luxury car formerly known as a 'nippon beemer'.
Gamma Ray = Incredible Hulk....see there. we will be saved afterall.....part of TEPCOs master plan.
"'Neutron Beam' = Gamma ray."
Oh, really?
Geesh.
Fukushima Beaming = (^__^)
That baby dolphin is probably already gutted, skinned and on a hibachi. No, maybe it was "pre-cooked" by the radiation.
well, at least it avoided the gill nets, the bottom bumpers, and the purse seines and it surfed the big wave ashore to the smokehouse.
As a group of wise mammals said... So long and ..
go long?
"...whoops." They said whoops....
...thanks for all the fish...
and "no" putting a paper bag over your head will not help..
Nuclear scientists have more optimism than Air Force generals.
This is my first post on ZeroHedge. I had to comment on this one...What the HELL is a neutron beam?!?
They need to cut the power to reactor 2 obviously. The hooked up the power cables and didn't realize that they left the "beam machine" on. Fools!
welcome aboard, shit4brained asswipe!
a neutron beam can best be grokked, perhaps, by analogy: imagine a Maglite with plutonium mox batteries that will be half-dead in 20,000 years or so. now, turn on the beam. go into the bathroom, turn off the lights, and put the beam in yer mouth. i know! pretty gay, but, listen: what you see there is the Future of yer primalplasma ass, kiddo.
plus, let's get U an avatar, 'k?
i'm getting a hospital I.V. drip line hanging from the bedside rack with a nice red cross and the tri-fuked radiation symbol, too.
"The utility firm said it will measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam, as well."
They...haven't...even...looked...for...uranium...and...plutonium...yet.
Where is that rogue IAEA team with the accurate gear? They in detention camp or still on the case?
IAEA is fervently working to protect the nuclear power industry. Accurate gear is not necessary.
They "volunteered" for fire hose detail.
Yet their leaders refrain,"it's only a tiny leak.....no worries....no need to run away...."
As EVERY Western company there and Embassies evacuated their staff a dat or two after it began. So what did they know that made them get out so fast?
They may have been asked to help. Risk outweighed profit potential.
Yet their leaders refrain,"it's only a tiny leak.....no worries....no need to run away...."
As EVERY Western company there and Embassies evacuated their staff a dat or two after it began. So what did they know that made them get out so fast?
U.S. release radiation info: http://energy.gov/news/10194.htm
Couple of days old but still shocking.
This article is complete gibberish. It sounds like maybe some physicist jotted down some measurements of radiation observed, then handed the paper to a chain of PR hacks, marketters and political spin masters. Who performed a kind of politically correct Chinese Whispers on it. Then the result was fed through several language translations.
It's not even self-consistent. Was the measurement made "on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant" or "about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors"? And if the latter, why mention 1 & 2, but not 3 & 4, which are closer (to the southwest)?
Next, saying 'beam', and 1.5 Km away is senseless. A 'beam' is a collimated stream of particles (ie all travelling in the same direction.) Hence usages like 'laser beam'. A particle accellerator can make a 'beam' (though not of neutrons as far as I'm aware, since neutrons are electrically neutral, which means there's no way to focus and steer them.) A pile of fuel rods definitely can't make a 'beam', it can only radiate neutrons more or less in all directions.
Neutrons have only one parameter of interest - their energy. Neutrons emitted by the breakdown of unstable isotopes are 'fast', (literally, travelling fast), with energies measured in millions of electron-volts. Fast neutrons travel in a straight line except when they impact the nuclei of atoms, which they can cause to shatter. As the fast neutron strikes numerous atoms on its path it loses energy and slows down. Once slowed down to the point where its energy is similar to the thermal energy of surrounding atoms, it is called a 'thermal neutron'. At this energy it becomes much more likely to merge with the nucleus of an atom it impacts. Both the shatterings and mergings with atoms can create unstable isotopes, and this process is called 'neutron activation' of materials exposed to neutron fluxes.
Trying to reverse the gibberish filter of that article, I'd guess the term 'beam' derived from a mention of neutrons that travel in straight lines. Implying it originally was taking about 'fast neutrons'. And so we come to the sentence:
"The utility firm said it will measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam, as well."
This cinches it. What was originally meant was that they had an instrument sensitive to fast neutrons, and it registered counts. In a normal environment this is extremely unusual, unless... there are particles of isotopes around that decay by emission of fast neutrons. Such as some of the isotopes of uranium and plutonium. And so now they are going to look for those.
It's scary really. They are next to four broken reactors, ALL of which are emitting radioactive clouds from various pools of burning fuel and at least one breached reactor core, and they are saying that now it occurs to them to try measuring the amount of uranium and plutonium in the air. Not because they are looking at four smoking blown up reactors, but because they found 13 counts of fast neutrons 1.5 Km away from the reactor ruins. So someone writes this bit of genius deduction down, and then it gets passed through a monkey-chain, who garble it into senselessness. Then that is passed out as an official release of the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
God help us all.
Yea, Terrahertz thanks. So many of the comments are negative and forlorn. You've lifted my optimism in there being a higher being being there for us all.
one deus ex machina, comin up! or could we use deux, here?
listen, terraHz, that "5" is not only starting to get pretty old, but piss me off, too. show some leadership and get a fuking 7 up there b4 the assholes in brussels bid the gand slam pre-emptorily, tHz.
then after the Racoon Lodge meeting on friday, put up a 9. screw em!
You remind me of Herb Caen, except on acid.
Yeah, but give him props for using a pixie tube in his avatar instead of an lcd. Very old school.
On further reflection a "7" or "8" would more properly reflect current inflationary trends, even terahertz be going ups.
I have enjoyed reading your posts.
Egg-zackly.
My guess, based on all the evidence shown here and elsewhere, is that reactors 1-4 have essentially "melted down" as of about a week ago. The Zr cladding is all corroded/burned off, and piles of fuel pellets, give or take some degree of burnup, are laying around in the bottoms of the containment vessels and spent fuel pools. This mess could create random bursts of uncontrolled criticality, but even if it doesn't, it will be very very hot in every sense of the word.
When all is said and done, this disaster may be worse than Chernobyl.
Agreed.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/criticality-accident.html
Aw shit. You agree?
You sound like you know what you're talking about too.
fuck....
urban roman & MSimon: for the record, i set the over/under line on this "event" at 5X chernobyl on or about March 14, 2011. tyler knows, perhaps, unless he was in a shift change meeting or doing a form change, at the time.
las vegas is using slewie's line, too! put yer money where yer mouths are: 5X chernobyl---Over, or Under? all wagers on this derivative product will be settled @ 4PM eastern time 3.31.11, in green stamps, assuming we are all still here, of course.
sounds like you're both leaning toward the under at this time: "how could this be 5X worse than chernobyl? maybe a little worse, but i'll take that bet!"
good, i'll put you down for $20 apeice, under 5X, and you can both be thankful that the pitcher of kool aid you downed, together, here, wasn't a LOT more expensive.
Yo bitch! Let me pick my own line at least. And which odds are you layin down? Fuck it, even if it's 1:1 or better I'm in:
Put me down for $1000 under
Technical talk and common sense will only get you junked here.
Now, one thing to consider is neutron streaming - a valid concern. If there is a breach in the bio wall (the concrete structure surrounding the reactor vessel within the drywell), then instruments may detect a straight line "beam". This is actually found in operating plants where the primary system piping penetrates the bio wall (or shield) and is expected. Although we are talking a particle form of radiation, it will act similar to a gamma source. Think of light streaming in under a door that has a gap between the bottom and the threshold.
Technical talk and common sense will not necessarily get you junked around here.
However, a smug superior attitude and abusive language used by some will.
ba da bing
"and abusive language used by some will"
I try to avoid the use of abusive language. At least I think I do.
"a smug superior attitude"
Guilty, as charged.
Is it wrong to try and correct misinformation though? If so, I'll just make it a point to not browse through anything vaguely tied to this nuclear disaster.
get over it! lol! between the scientific stuff and the emotional stuff, folks' "feminine sides" are comin up strong, here, cowperson. just human nature--those different brains, Un0. fight club...
5X chernobyl as of 4PM eastern, 3.31.11?
over or under? tell us where you stand for a $20, 'k?
and watch where ya step, toooo...
t.y. for your prompt consideration of these matters, friend.
Hah! I'll call my Uncle Ben for a fresh twenty. I'll even have him drop by and get his buddy Timmah to sign it for you - a real wet-ink signature?
I think what you are asking is do I think that the accident will be rated as 5 times greater than Chernoble - or less than that come the 31st of this month.
Hmm, I can't even come close to making a prediction at this point. Who would be the impartial judge as to the actual level of "badness" anyway? We would have to decide on the fair and impartial judge fo.....
(snaps fingers) Judge Judy? Will she be the one? Who's gonna ask her?
Gotta get to work - love me some night shift. I'll do my best to keep Texas free from any "Neutron Beams" tonight.
Over and out.
BTW, not a cowboy, as I don't have a horse. The gentrified term is cattleman, or I prefer rancher (when not at the better paying job).
If there is primary vessel breach (likely in #1 & #2 & #3), the next layer of containment becomes the drywell in the bottom of the containment bulb.
Failure analysis of TMI confirms that the corium does penetrate the drywell concrete at a rapid rate.
A lateral (parallel with the ground) neutron beam stream could confirm both a primary vessel breach & drywell breach ...
@Silverman
Earlier in the thread you posted this.
"a single hole or weak spot will NOT materialize" ...
Now you post - "neutron streaming is - valid concern. If there is a breach in the bio wall (the concrete structure surrounding the reactor vessel within the drywell), then instruments may detect a straight line beam".
You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Which is it exactly?
Is there a hole in the primary vessel & drywall containment or not?
I say unequivocal - YES.
Thank you for this, THz. It was with disbelief that I read a neutron 'beam' was detected 1.5 kilometers away.
There is almost exactly zero information in a statement like that.
No need to repeat what you said. The technical question is, I suppose, what sort of point source (omnidirectional) does it take to be able to detect whatever it was that they are calling a neutron beam from that distance? Seems inconceivable. Most likely, there are byproducts near the detector.
That this level of ignorance is expected of the public is simply appalling. I must echo what was expressed above; if you have anyone you care about near there, help them get the hell out of there. Not because of anti-nuke alarmism, but because through sheer stupidity or evil, the 'authorities' are not telling the truth.
Edit: If it turns out that the detector actually was scanned back and forth, and a beam really was detected, we could probably count this as a Bad Thing.
That this level of ignorance is expected of the public is simply appalling. I must echo what was expressed above; if you have anyone you care about near there, help them get the hell out of there. Not because of anti-nuke alarmism, but because through sheer stupidity or evil, the 'authorities' are not telling the truth.
---
what amazed me about this is not that TEPCO expects ignorance of the public, but that this particular presser from TEPCO (at least the article cites TEPCO as the source) is likely to be far more frightening to the general public (incl me) phrased as a neutron beam that was 'observed' 1.5 km away.
o the layperson (incl me) that conjures up images of visible laser beams firing out across the countryside blasting anything in their path. That on top of smoke, radiation blowups and all the rest. Graphic novel stuff.
IF TEPCO is trying to quiet public concern, they're approaching it with the same lack of competence they've shown elsewhere.
There is another interpretation by a former Naval Nuke.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/criticality-accident.html
The .02 microSieverts at 1 kilometer should be about .02 Sieverts, or 20 milliSieverts at 1 meter (1/r*r law). That is the ANNUAL dose allowed to nuclear workers. They didn't give a duration for these 'events'.
A non-critical reactor should not be producing a lot of neutrons that can travel a kilometer, and they shouldn't get out of the containment vessel either. But this is also a very small signal compared to a reactor at full power. So maybe these are these the spent fuel pools going critical during their fires? Not easy to figure out WTF they're talking about.
Well done TerraHertz. It's comments like these that keep me coming back to ZH over and over
Ahh, the praise of some person with a cute avatar. Makes it all worthwhile. :)
Ahhhh ... but deadly; just watch your step ...
Turn off the lights, the party's over.
Never before have so many well informed, well meaning people done so little.
Who exactly is 'well informed' on this?
It may be that 'prophet' sees 'things'; viewpoint may not reflect reality ...
Snip:
"That is VERY odd indeed.
I wonder if it's really a "beam" ore is isotropic and they only have
detectors in a few azimuths.
Could it be that in the MOX pool, there has been some selective
melting/fusing of one of the oxides or the heated Zirconium cladding is
acting as a reducing agent on the Plutonium oxide (possibly resulting in
metal- think Thermite reaction), raising the concentration of the
Plutonium so it goes critical, hence the Neutron flux??
If so, that would be REAL trouble!!"
:Unsnip
This was a criticality accident:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/criticality-accident.html
thanks for posting. that article has a fuller quote from TEPCO that says the observation was 'over three days from March 13.'
Help me out, Nuclear Plant People. If emitted neutrons are from uranium fission spectrum with a broad max of 1 MeV +/-?, you can't measure with a Geiger right? Don't you need a big activation detector? Are these things portable now? Can you use an ionization chamber?
Is this pointless if 1/2 life U235 is couple 100 million years?
ie. If you boron/sand/concrete, doesn't this still leave a 50/100 mile radius uninhabitable permanently?
You use something like borated polyethylene say a couple of inches to 6 inches thick (depending on the detector efficiency and directivity you want) and read out the "flashes with a photo multiplier (PM) tube.
Nice little neutron counter.
Examples of portable neutron detectors: http://www.johncaunt.com/pages/neutron/neutron_instrumentation.html
Periodic Chart of the Isotopes: http://www.qe3c.com/dqo/elem_lst.html
Detailed data on radionuclides properties: http://roeug.50megs.com/NKE.htm
Some others (not checked if still current.)
http://nucleardata.nuclear.lu.se/NuclearData/toi/pdf/chart.pdf
http://nucleardata.nuclear.lu.se/nucleardata/
http://nucleardata.nuclear.lu.se/nucleardata/charts.asp
http://www.webelements.com/ Really good
http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Hg/econ.html Electron shell tool
http://ie.lbl.gov/toi/
http://www.wise-uranium.org/rccu.html
Uranium Radiation Properties
http://www.wise-uranium.org/rup.html, section 'Depleted Uranium Activity (U-238 series)'
"Depleted uranium thus has the unusual property that it becomes more hazardous with time."
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/ The wooden periodic table table
http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/
interactive Chart of Nuclides, with decay modes, energies, etc.
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/stability.html
Stability of the Atom (chart)
Hmmm... 500 millisieverts per hour...
500 millisieverts means half a "sievert" (whatever it is)
Maybe they will soon be measuring the radiation in sieverts per hour, not millisieverts...
According to Wikipedia:
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
It means that the "volunteers" are working under the maximum limit already. Any other increase in the radiation and that will become a "Kamikaze mission"
To expand on the above, Sievert is a measurement of 'effective dosage'. It's an attempt to scale and sum different varieties of radiation and particle energy, to give an overall damage effect. Bit like a 'basket of fiat currencies'.
Dosage is of course cumulative.
Hence where measuring a radiation field it's 'Sv per hour' (of exposure), while when measuring a person's exposure so far it's a number.
500 mSv/hr, means after two hours you have received 1000mSv, = 1Sv. And so on.
I recall it's about 5 Sv lethal. So that's 10 hours of 500 mSv exposure.
the rule of thumb was 500 rads/5 hrs...which comes to 5 Sv/5hrs as the two directly convert by a factor of 100. Sievert/Gray converts from rem/rad cgs to kgms units.
Any reading in the whole sieverts/hr is a good rule of thumb to expect death. Anything at triple digit millisievert or in excess should be fled.
Thank-you.
Does anyone know of a Nuke Power site equivilant to the Oil Drum?
I need to piss away my day attempting to understand Fukishima tech babble.
Ah, come on already. If everything is going to get irradiated, just get on with it.
No amount of bitching will avoid the inevitable, and it is inevitable because people are stupid. We're only good at killing one another off, so let's get the microwaves rolling, goddamnit.
Amazing that people overvalue our species so much. Look at it: an entire nation is being microwaved and they can't do anything about it but deny, and everyone else is sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, thinking spraying some water over the top of a reactor is going to cool it.
I can't wait until the energy crises this century; fuck all of it because we're too goddamned stupid. Look at what the fuck we're capable of, and we waste our potential on shit. We deserve this, and I say fuck all of you. Bipedal apes with a god complex; lording over the mound of shit we call civilization, completely oblivious and incapable (because of our hedonistic, solipsistic ignorance) of anything more.
edit: and screw you if profanity bothers you--you stupid conditioned little ape
You're crisis-fatigued, brother.
co-valent crackling
neutron Fukushima smiles
the black swan gave birth
In the neutron beam
Technicians worked on the beach
Too short a half-life
Very nice. The last line is sublime.
I take that back. Each line is sublime. You, sir are a master.
Sir, you are too kind.
spend more time away from ZH...it has become the home of people who not-so-secretly wish for doom.
I noted such a shift on forums such as TF, where it became evident that people there were not actually interested or desirous of a solution or any type of progress. They really wanted a collapse and to be holding FRNs so that they could become the slumlords and oligarchs of the future.
It wasn't about anything other than their cupidity directed at today's plutocrats. ZH is increasingly populated with a different kind of would-be vulture, the gold and silver vulture, who hopes for the same outcome, except to use gold to "buy up all the assets," instead of FRNs.
Anyone who approaches our collective situation with some other outlook or interest will be junked.
I think it is the "collective" that many on this board have in mind when pining for a reset.
I had the impression most here 'wanted a collapse' in the sense of watching the evil global financial elites finally get the flick, and were thinking the 'collapse' would result in things getting much better for 99.9% of humankind. Hundreds, possibly thousands of years of payback time due.
It seemed so close, one could almost taste it.
Now, even though the elites will likely still go down, there won't be any victory celebrations. Too many funerals of good people, takes all the fun out of hanging Rothschilds and Bushes from streetlights.
If there's a sense of bitter enjoyment of events, perhaps it is because the Japanese government & TEPCO are standing in effigy for all the mindless, destructive officialdom most of us have deeply hated all our lives, and by damn, it's satisfying to see events showing the bastards up so very clearly.
A very conflicted satisfaction though. Would rather have not had the opportunity.
Well said Terrahertz! phyrric victory bitch'z!
Be careful what you wish for ...
that is exactly why I stopped interacting here once ZH left blogspot.
You have to be a fucking idiot to imagine that some amount of future gold will enable you to extract more value from society than an equivalent of today's FRNs do now.
Have these people ever traveled outside of the US?
What you have access to, right now, priced in FRN - in equivalent barrels of oil, in equivalent manhours of productivity, in equivalent anything - is INSANELY higher than anything you will have access to, priced in gold, after any monetary "reset."
People who want to talk about peak this or peak that, just know that we are at the peak of getting-shit-cheap RIGHT NOW.
Bask in the glory while you can, bitchez. The FRN will not be around forever
'scuse my ignorance, but floating rate note? doesn't make sense in this context, so I googled it. Could you mean "The Bank of New York Mellon New Frontier DR Index: The Index tracks the performance of depositary receipts, in ADR or GDR form, that trade on the LSE, NYSE, NYSE Arca and NASDAQ, of companies from countries that are defined as the Frontier Market. The Bank of New York Mellon defines Frontier Market countries based upon an evaluation of gross domestic product growth, per capita income growth, experienced and expected inflation rates, privatization of infrastructure and social inequalities", in which case I'm still sort of puzzled.
Federal Reserve Note
the most hated, can't fade it
not saying keep your savings there, just saying smoke em while u got em
Trav; it is you who are ‘transitioning’ here. From an informed and thoughtful commenter, very much worth listening to, to an unbearably condescending smartarse who does not know how to cope with the greater fraction of the less god-like.
If you want to tell everyone to stick to the facts, and not constantly overreact in extremis, or constantly troll, how's about you first?
Just another section of the Intelligence test Humanity is being subjected to -- bad news: We're failing.
What really pisses me off (apart from losing Japan), is that for the first time in my life it's possible I might make some serious money (silver of course, bitches) and what happens? Nuclear armageddon. Well shit.
Never mind that your profit indicates the worthlessness of money, this is no nuclear Armageddon.
It is at most a nuclear Leningrad.
But yeah, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be pissed.
It's barely begun. The fat plutonium lady in #3 has yet to sing. I have a feeling she insists she will. And so... armageddon.
I don't know, bro. That puts you pretty long Armageddon. You sure?
dupe... junk away
That would be sociopathic, even anti-human perhaps.
I'm no Incubus, fuck it.
the neutrons are being sourced from SFPs due to random criticalities that are known to occur within these structures. There is a history of neutron flashes when SFRs are mishandled and sometimes they just happen.
Unlikely that these neutrons came from reactor cores or sustained critiicality, otherwise they would not have been sporadic or limited in duration. Without water in SFPs to absorb the neutrons, they escape.
This is why the focus shifted in the first week toward getting SFPs refilled and showering them with water.
What is producing the black smoke from #3?
Could it have been triggered by an attempt to power up cooling in #3? I heard on NHK that the power up effort was "aborted" when smoke began to rise from #3.
Seems like a no brainer to split that hair.
A few good Quantum Mechanics could put a positive spin on this, and re-align some crystal latticework...
About 25 mins ago, NHK showed a fairly alarming bit of footage from the site with alarms going off and people running for cover, with chatter about 70mSv/h exposure. Just caught the end of it so it was hard to tell what was going on there. Since then it has switched back to sad earthquake stories. Waiting for the recorded loop to go round again...