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TEPCO Finally Seeks Outside Help, As Pot Calls Kettle Radioactive - Government Says Not To Trust Greenpeace Radiation Data
It only took TEPCO about two weeks to realize what had been so glaringly obviously to many - namely that the company is largely unprepared to deal successfully with the Fukushima catastrophe on its own. Reuters reports that TEPCO, which has conceded it faces a protracted
and uncertain operation to contain the crisis, sought outside help,
asking help from French firms including Electricite de France SA and
Areva SA. The question now arises whether it is too late for any help to come, and how fast before the sudden inlfux of new cooks spoils the radioactive broth. The news comes after TEPCO announced highly radioactive water has leaked from a reactor
at Japan's crippled nuclear complex, as environmental group Greenpeace said it had detected high
levels of radiation outside an exclusion zone.
From Reuters:
Reflecting growing unease about efforts to control the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) had appealed to French companies for help, the Kyodo news agency said.
The plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, was damaged in a March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 27,000 people dead or missing across northeast Japan.
Fires, explosions and radiation leaks have repeatedly forced engineers to suspend efforts to stabilise the plant, including on Sunday when radiation levels spiked to 100,000 times above normal in water inside reactor No. 2.
Apparently one can have a partial meltdown, which is comparable to being only partially pregnant:
A partial meltdown of fuel rods inside the reactor vessel was responsible for the high levels of radiation at that reactor although Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the radiation had mainly been contained in the reactor building.
TEPCO later said radiation above 1,000 millisieverts per hour was found in water in tunnels used for piping outside the reactor.
That is the same as the level discovered on Sunday. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a single dose of 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause haemorrhaging.
TEPCO officials said the underground tunnels did not flow into the sea but the possibility of radioactive water seeping into the ground could not be ruled out.
And now that Greenpeace is there, things are about to get much worse, as the environmental group is certain to announce radioactivity levels far worse than the government's "conservative" estimates.
Greenpeace said its experts had confirmed radiation levels of up to 10 microsieverts per hour in a village 40 km (25 miles) northwest of the plant. It called for the extension of a 20-km (12-mile) evacuation zone.
"It is clearly not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum allowed annual dose of radiation in only a few days," Greenpeace said in a statement, referring to the village where the radiation reading was taken.
The hilarious thing is that it took just a few hours for the first attempt at discredicitng Greenpeace to arrive: Reuters notes that the Japan Nuclear Agency says Greenpeace's radiation measurements outside evacuation zone can't be considered reliable. As for those uber-reliable measurements from the government:
Residents there have been repeatedly rattled by aftershocks from the strongest earthquake in Japanese history, including a magnitude 6.5 tremor on Monday that triggered a tsunami warning.
"I lived through World War Two, when there was nothing to eat and no clothes to wear. I'll live through this," said Mitsuharu Watanobe, sitting cross-legged on a blanket in an evacuation centre in Fukushima city.
"But the scary thing is the radiation. There is a gap between what the newspapers write and what the government is saying. I want the government to tell the truth more."
So as the pot calls the kettle radioactive it is now glaringly obvious that the strategy here is to stupefy and obfuscate for as long as possible, while it becomes even more obvious that there is absolutely no strategy on how to deal with the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. In the meantime BTFD.
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me luddite 2. nice ears!
there is more than 1 way to skin a luddite. this is not about apple, ok?
i just open the page i want to link to. right-click on an open area w/out ads or pics, and left click on "bookmark page".
next hit "done" in the box that opens.
next, go to your bookmark drop down which is at the top, just below the blue line, btween "history" and "tools" the page you just did will be the last one there. right click on it.
then left click on "copy".
for zeroH, when i am in the comment box, sometimes, quite often, i need to hit "enter" to drop my corsor down to a fresh, blank line. then, i place the cursor just v. slightly below the cursor, about the middle of the Comment box. right click & left click "paste" and the link is there. then i can move the link back up w/ backspace after placing cursor at the rh margin of the link, if it's not still there. you can also do it w/ the keyboard.
most jr colleges or adult schools have classes. i took windows and excel when i started at the j.c. "annex" and later, i took "quickbooks" at the adult school. all were "self-paced" with a workbook. the "classes" met at certain times, meaning the instructor was there and if you showed up and a computer was open, you could get at it. there were tests for all the chapters in all the courses. very methodical.
there are also the "for dummies" series for most operating sysytems and software. if you don't like school or are far away, get a book, take it home, and use it for a desk reference. there are also "Help" buttons, up to the right of of "bookmarks & tools". sometimes it is very helpful, most of the time it makes me want to toss the whole thing out the window.
lol---you sound like a "dummy"! get the book for "windows for dummies" book! see ya!
pi-rat, um, what's a cursor? haha. "nice ears." thanks. and thanks for the tutorial and suggestions.
I'm a luddite. Don't know how to highlight words or links. Help?
That's a tough one. Who is more credible: Greenpeace or TEPCO?
I presume you feel that anyone who tells you something you don't want to hear is instantly 'discredited' - right?
Liberals - someone please explain to them they don't live in a bubble - despite what the markets are doing.
All that fuss about N. Korea and Iran getting the bomb and all the time we should have been watching out for the bombs being built on our soil every day.
It seems self destruction is more likely that mutally assured destruction these days.
So as the pot calls the kettle radioactive it is now glaringly obvious that the strategy here is to stupefy and obfuscate for as long as possible, while it becomes even more obvious that there is absolutely no strategy on how to deal with the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. In the meantime BTFD.
...bears repeating...
...it's hard for normal, hard-working people to comprehend that their own elected government may not have their best interests at heart.
But it's time to face the truth, Japan. Face the truth. Save yourselves. Your government will not save you, or warn you. You must think for yourselves, now. Do what you must for yourselves and your families. Make your own choices on your own now.
You now have proof that your government is lying to you.
Do what you must...
Called voting with your feet; the realization and the process are spreading worldwide.
You need to go learn about the dynamics of CO2, it's ability to retain IR radiation, it's concentration in the atmosphere, etc., etc. and quit being a sucker.
"it's only a tiny leak" the officials said......
"No one could have seen this coming" the Japanese officials said quoting the famous Bankers testifying before Congress about the subprime collapse.
"it's better then expected," the utility chief is rumored to have said....
The French reprocess their own spent fuel (as well as some from other countries) at an added cost of 6% to utility users, preventing the massive buildup of spent rods occurring in the US and elsewhere.
Wish someone would ask Pres. Carter how his 1977 non-proliferation based defunding of the proposed US reprocessing program is working out for him, and do it before he were to ever be exposed to any cataclysmic, worldwide radiation release from, say, a multiple-reactor meltdown event somewhere, or a terrorist attack on any of the hundreds of spent fuel pools around the globe.
Halliburton could have a solution, I bet they're in contact with TEPCO as we type.
This sounds idiotic. The experts to call in would be GE (apparently now GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy) as they are the ones who built the reactors--not a French competitor.
I don't see how there could be any experts around on dealing with nuclear meltdowns as it has been decades since there has been a partial one.
Maybe they were hoping to turn it into a kind of fortuitous arson - if they have insurance of some kind, like the WTC. They were nearing the end of thier useful life and it would cost billions to de-commission, dismantle and dispose of them. A few humans are cheap.