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As TEPCO Reports Increased Possible Radiation Release, Japan Expands Voluntary Evacuation Radius To 30 km
The latest news from Fukushima continue progressing from bad to worse. Which of course means that the (physical) silver lining around the mushroom cloud will be that much more potent: after all, the greater the destruction, the higher the Russell 2000. Just ask the Keynesians.
- FUKUSHIMA REACTOR VESSEL MAY HAVE STUCK VALVE, UCS SAYS
- TEPCO FINDS POOLED WATER AT ALL FOUR TROUBLED REACTORS: KYODO
- INCREASED RADIATION RELEASE FROM FUKUSHIMA POSSIBLE, UCS SAYS
This in turn has prompted the Japanese government to increase the "voluntary" evacuation radius from 20 to 30 kms, finally. Shortly, this will be 80. But not before many more innocent people are irradiated and sacrificed at the altar of Nikkei 10,000 (and RUT 36,000).
From Kyodo:
The Japanese government on Friday encouraged people living within 20 to 30 kilometers of the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture to leave voluntarily, citing concerns over access to daily necessities, while maintaining its directive for them to remain indoors and for residents within 20 km of the plant to evacuate.
The government asked heads of affected municipalities to encourage people to voluntarily move farther away, promising to provide its full support in helping them to relocate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.
But he stopped short of declaring an evacuation advisory to avoid fanning fears about the increasing danger of radiation leaks, despite criticism from concerned municipalities and local residents of the central government's ''slow response'' over the evacuation instruction.
On a possible new directive from the government, Edano said the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan is looking into the possibility of whether an evacuation directive can be issued on the basis of living conditions rather than safety concerns. Evacuation directives to date have all been linked to concerns about radiation levels.
In a televised message to the public, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government is basing its decisions regarding evacuation advisories on the judgment of nuclear experts mainly from the commission.
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, also recommended voluntary evacuation the same day for residents 20 to 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi complex, saying the release of radioactive materials from the plant is expected to continue for some time.
Bearing in mind the shortage of supplies for people stuck indoors within the 30-km radius, the government had been looking into possibly extending its evacuation range but, according to a government source, decided against it because expanding the directive simply because of living conditions would ''cause confusion.''
The government is not planning at the moment to expand the designated exclusion zone, Edano said, noting there has been no fresh information about the levels of radiation since the government issued its directives.
With many affected residents already voluntarily evacuating from around the plant and more wanting to follow, Edano said it is ''preferable'' for people to leave of their own accord, given the difficulties they are encountering in their daily lives.
In the meantime, now that Tokyo has neither running nor bottled water, those particular 14 million residents are certainly giving a long hard look at at the voluntary evacuation option themselves. Which will be GDP bullish.
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Five Fukushima workers have been announced in the media as having died from their radiation injuries.
YOU = FAIL
I was referring to civilians, the situation for workers at the Fukushima is obviously different.
Source?
Three workers were exposed to high levels of radiation, however, no deaths have yet been reported.
Except maybe for the ones reported blown to smithereens in the explosions?
Oh, workers aren't civilians. Huh?
Japanese civilian deaths due to the Fukushima Daiichi incident to date: 0
Fixed it for you.
Your post really has nothing to do with mine. You either missed the point of the conversation, or ignored it.
Incidentally, I am NOT in some kind of panicking, sky falling mode. I feel sick for the people of Japan, and am angered by what seems to be (from the perspective we are allowed) a FUBAR handling of the aftermath. (I am also very aware of the position the Japanese government is in, attempting to avoid the mass panic of 100 million people stuck on a rock). That said, I am FIRMLY in the camp that radiation leaking from reactors/pools with no real hope of stopping it soon, is BAD, and I have a tendancy to want to nut-punch people who try to pooh pooh it.
I think their efforts would be better spent trying to convince people in Japan that life will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.
Excellent tutorial indeed.
We are being given a live demonstration of what happens when there is a cooling loss at this kind of facility. Without active cooling, you get a disaster. When the back-up systems fail, there is no backup plan. We are also being given a live demonstration of how 'authorities' 'run things' when the droppings fling off the fan blades.
Anyone is free to ignore the lessons to be drawn. Those who encourage others to ignore them ....
Yes. Agreed.
If you've been paying attention at all to the many hurricanes in the 1990s, Katrina and the GOM disaster you should have learned something by now.
Every event is an object lesson.
When my kid read The Road he noted that after the protagonist saw the bright orange light in the sky, the guy began filling the bathtub with water. My kid said, "He must be your fictional twin brother."
Good post. During storms, it is very normal for power to be knocked out for long periods where I live. When we have a bad storm rolling in, my kids know to fill a bathtub in one of the bathrooms. May not seem like much, but it is pleasant to not have to "let your yellow mellow" if the powers going to be out for a day or so.
Another great piece at The Oil Drum, attributed to a podcast by Dr. Helen Caldicott:
"Every year they remove one third of the fuel rods from the reactors because they are so, so thermally hot and radioactively hot. And they are inefficient for the reaction anymore, and they are called 'spent' fuel. They are put in cooling pools which euphemistically the industry calls 'swimming pools'. And you see, thirty tons are removed every year, and so they've got six reactors there a few of them are forty years old, and a few of them are about thirty five years old." ".. the long-lived ones, the very dangerous ones, Cesium, Strontium, Uranium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Neptunium, I mean really dangerous ones, the long-lived ones - that's what the fuel pools hold." "the spent fuel ponds in the United States pose the same risks as at Fukushima." "..most of the cooling pumps for these pools are not even connected to diesel backup generators, and none of them have battery backup power."
"To decommission a reactor you have to wait until it cools, radioactively cools down. For about 40 years, until anyone can get near it." "It actually has to be taken apart by robots, by remote control, it's so radioactive." "A very big large nuclear reactor has never been decommissioned."
"Look, nuclear power makes war obsolete. Europe is covered with nuclear reactors. If the Second World War was fought today, Europe would be uninhabitable for the rest of time. And that holds true for the rest of time, because even if the reactors were shut down, you've got all these huge, huge pools full of thousands, hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive waste which lasts forever. Forever."
"It's the end of the nuclear industry. As soon as I heard about this accident, that's what I thought, it's the end. It's the end of uranium mining. Thank God."
And with Yucca Mountiain dead, human kind should just resign itself to a future of radioactive wastelands?
Where is the engineering muscle on the disposal issue? More importantly what forces/skewed incentives prevent viable solutions from seeing the light of day?
It is you who lacks perspective. Chernobyl allegedly killed 1,000,000 with millions more suffering from radiation sicknesses. This could easily end up at a similar scale ... while you and the 'authorities' keep chanting the "nothing to see here, move on" mantra. Sickening.
ZH is probably the only site continuing to monitor this situation and the plight of the Japanese people -- while you and the MSM are focused on O'bomber's latest attempt to win another Nobel Peace Prize in Libya.
Until all the fuel rods are covered in baths of circulating cold water, and the 'scratches' on the containment vessels have been buffed out, this is not over ... by a long shot.
1,000,000 killed due to Chernobyl?
Millions more suffering suffering radiation sickness?
Make up numbers much?
No more than anybody else. What is your estimate?
Wikipedia says there were 30 killed, Greenpeace in 2006 said "the full consequences of the Chernobyl disaster could top a quarter of a million cancer cases and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers." My 1 million figure came from somewhere else in the last few days.
The "Nuclear will kill us all!"-Greenpeace?! Ha ha haa!
"A United Nations report said Monday that the number of people killed in almost 20 years since the world's worst nuclear accident is 56 - much lower than previously estimated.
U.N. officials said the death toll was 47 emergency workers and nine children who had died of thyroid cancer. The report -- compiled by the Chernobyl Forum, which includes eight U.N. agencies -- said the final death toll was expected to reach about 4,000, and that the greatest damage to human health was psychological.
Most of the 4,000 expected deaths would be among emergency workers exposed to high radiation doses shortly after the accident. They were at higher risk of contracting cancer decades later."
Quite right.
The propensity of posters here to pull ridiculously inflated number out of their asses is quite something.
Well, if a UN committee said so, it must be true.
They did, naturally, discount the much higher count of the man in charge of the cleanup.
Keep making it up and scaring yourself silly.
After all, this is the Chicken Little Club.
[Guardian, 3/25/06]
"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine," said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. "[Studies show] that 34,499 people who took part in the clean-up of Chernobyl have died in the years since the catastrophe. The deaths of these people from cancers was nearly three times as high as in the rest of the population.
"We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They've not said why they haven't accepted it."
Evgenia Stepanova, of the Ukrainian government's Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine, said: "We're overwhelmed by thyroid cancers, leukaemias and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which were practically unknown 20 years ago."
Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were received by the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts all over the Soviet Union.
The above claims by Omelyanets and his colleagues have now been published:
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
By Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko
http://goo.gl/5jvjS
and reviewed
1/ http://goo.gl/BBmxk
2/ http://goo.gl/M02SJ
3/ http://goo.gl/JcuBD
Omelyanets does not distinguish between people who died of cancer due to natural causes and the few who may have died due to radiation
from Chernobyl. Omelyanets assumes, without providing scientific evidence, that any death from cancer in the region -> caused by
radiation from Chernobyl.
To put this in perspective, cancer is the second leading cause of death in in the USA. In 2007, 562,875 people died from cancer
in the USA.
Ref. CDC: http://goo.gl/5bZFT
To sum up. Omelyanets claims = GIGO: Garbage In -> Garbage Out
Latest photos of reactors from vid taken by self defense force. they look bad.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-sdf-vid-from.html
from NYTimes, fwiw
A senior nuclear executive who insisted on anonymity but has broad contacts in Japan said that there was a long vertical crack running down the side of the reactor vessel itself. The crack runs down below the water level in the reactor and has been leaking fluids and gases, he said....
“There is a definite, definite crack in the vessel — it’s up and down and it’s large,” he said. “The problem with cracks is they do not get smaller.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26japan.html?_r=3&hp
This complicates the engineering. It may be possible to temporarily plug the cracks, but how will you access them? The facility has to be made semi-stable to allow massive manpower to move in and encapsulate the radioactivity for eternity.
True. Any one of the problems at any one of the reactors they're dealing with would be a big enough head ache, but the sheer multiplication of different issues to resolve in mind boggling. And each new problems just compounds the others.
I hope that off camera there is a Manhattan Project on steroids involving the best minds available working on this and lining up international resources to deal with it.
dept of redundancy dept
more NYTImes
But Michael Friedlander, a former nuclear power plant operator in the United States, said that the presence of radioactive cobalt and molybdenum in water samples taken from the basement of the turbine building raised the possibility of a very different leak.
Both materials typically occur not because of fission but because of routine corrosion in a reactor and its associated piping over the course of many years of use, he said.
The aggressive use of saltwater to cool the reactor and its storage pool for spent fuel may mean that more of these highly radioactive corrosion materials will be dislodged and contaminate the area in the days to come, posing further hazards to repair workers, Mr. Friedlander added.
and yet more
Like the injured workers, many of those risking their lives are subcontractors of Tokyo Electric, paid a small daily wage for hours of work in dangerous conditions. In some cases they are poorly equipped and trained for their task.
A Japanese physicist, who asked not to be identified so as not to damage his relations with the establishment, said it was “ridiculous” that the workers had not been wearing full protective gear.
Things seem to be going from bad to worse at reactor 3 which has MOX fuel rods which include Plutonium. According to a front page story at the NY Times, the reactor vessle itself is cracked from top to bottom and highly radioactive water has now flooded the floor of the building it is housed in. I'm amazed that this story on many media outlests now has been stuffed into a back page which just goes to show you how much controll corporate oligarchs have over the news their willing to put into print.
The Register | Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate
http://goo.gl/EcCDe
Etc.
You can watch the people in Tokyo panicking here in real time: Shibuya Ekimae [in front of Shibuya Station]
http://www.sibch.tv/share/contents/livecamera/ekimae.htm
Not.
Page is going to burn in hell for remarks like this:
Events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan continue to unfold, with workers there steadily restoring redundancy and containment measures across the site. It remains highly unlikely that the workers themselves will suffer any measurable health consequences from radiation, and – continued media scaremongering notwithstanding – effects on the public look set to be nil.
Innumeracy much?
What an out and out lie that is. They STILL dont have control and yet The Register says rubbish like that. Either some teenager on work experience creating stories for the status quo or deliberate lying.
The Japanese PM only yesterday said with regard to stopping things DETERIORATING further that he didn't have optimism.
Was not optomistic that they could stop things from getting Worse.
The Register - credibility much?
duplicate
Let's see what their feet look like in a few weeks. If a radiation burn is bad enough to discolor skin, depending on what the contaminates were, it's likely to be not very pretty later on.
and on MSNBC, the question is: should a paralyzed mother get visitation rights?
Here's a link I posted in another thread to a long, hard-hitting LA Times story this morning on how TEPCO et al. have been economical with the truth and have underplayed the situation's seriousness.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-japan-quake-secrecy...
I see they had a picture of some of those pesky panic mongers at the top of that LA Times article.
Just up on Bloomberg:
Tsunami Risk Well Known to Nuclear Engineers, Regulators Who Failed to Act
Communiqué criirad
25 March, 2011 - 15h
PROTEST AND INDIGNATION
PART 2
[1]
: While contaminated air masses have been detected in Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Germany, the CRIIRAD denounces the dissimulations on the part of the DoE.
CRIIRAD Reiterates its call for mobilization worldwide to make available to the public all the analyses results of the CTBTO. The States that are opposed to this must be identified. It is, for instance, the case of France. Each citizen must know the identity of those who are blocking the vital information on the radioactive level of the air we are breathing.
THE CRIIRAD has launched on March 23rd an international call in order to have the analyses results on the radioactivity of the air made available to the public. This call concerned most specifically the data from the international network set within the scope of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization network (TICE or CTBT). They have been endowed with the mission to monitor and evaluate ANY radioactivity in the air susceptible to indicate whether a nuclear test has been undertaken in violation of the treaty, the laboratories of this network are equipped with very performing detection instruments that are dispersed in many areas around the planet. Each state has access to the results of the entire network ; Results that are updated and available to them on a daily basis.
The CRIIRAD reiterates with force this call claiming that it does not want just the publication of some figures carefully selected by governments and their experts, CRIIRAD is claiming ALL THE FIGURES!
IN THE UNITED STATES, the Department of Energy has made public results that do not reflect the reality of the actual contamination. Today, March 25, 2911 (14:30 French time), the information that they currently publish is still limited to the results recorded in Sacramento, California in the night of March 16 to 17, 2011, that is 0,165 mBq/m3 for iodine 131.
Access to site : http://www.energy.gov/news/10190.htm
Whereas, according to the graph placed on line on the site of the Bfs, the CRIIRAD was able to access to the evolution of the air activity in iodine since March 17. The curb related to the measuring station in Sacramento is in the orange color.
Access to graph (data updated as 23 March,2011)
Access to site : http://www.bfs.de/de/ion/kernwatest.html
We notice that as early as the following day, the contamination in iodine 131 was above 4 mBq/m3, then 10 mBq/m3 on the night of March 18 to 19, a value 60 times over that of the previous two days. Since then and until March 23rd, the activity in iodine 131 in the air in Sacramento remained superior to 1 mBq/m3. The Department of Energy receives continuously the correct analyses results. The DoE is therefore perfectly informed and in the position of making these data fully public. .
The CRIIRAD asks for the publication of the complete data collected by All the laboratories of the CTBTO network : daily results, for all the measured radionuclei, from all the monitoring stations, in the United States as well as in the other countries and so, as of March 10, 2011 in order to have at disposal reference values.
Iodine 131 is only one of many radionuclei present in the air. The CRIIRAD would like to know the evolution of the activity of xenon 133 recorded at 100 mBq/m3 by the National laboratory of Pacific North-West, in the State of Washington, between March 16 and 17, 2011. This is a rare radioactive gas that is generated by fissions that occur in reactors and which is present in the radioactive rejections to the FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI Plant.
In Nuclear-powered states, populations have generally not been consulted on the nuclear program developments. As for the citizens of non nuclear powered states, they are exposed to the risks and pollutions of a technology that they have not chosen. In such a context, the very least would be to guaranty a complete transparency on the radioactivity levels in the air that we breathe. The OBLIGATION TO BE SUJECTED TO – and in any case today – GIVES US THE RIGHT TO KNOW
[2]
.
CRIIRAD reminds the content of its communique of March 23rd, 2011 : The operation of the network of laboratories installed within the scope of the treaty for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban is financed by States, therefore by citizens of these states, the very same who are kept from information thereby acquired.
If the information is confiscated while the radiologic risk levels in the occidental states are, to date, relatively low, what will happen when the sanitary and economic stakes will have become major ? It is therefore capital to obtain full and continuous transparency on the analyses results produced by the dedicated air monitoring international network.
ALL THE FIGURES MUST BE ACCESSABLE :
·
THOSE OF TODAY in order to monitor, day by day, the impact of radioactive rejections of the FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI nuclear plant, which, two weeks after the accident, are still uncontrolled;
·
THOSE OF YESTERDAY in order to review all the past pollutions, that were eventually kept secret from the populations ;
·
THOSE OF TOMORROW in order to avoid being left without any access, as this has been the case for over a week now, to the results on the air activity, while this is a key parameter to evaluate the sanitary risks.
The CRIIRAD invites each citizen – in France and abroad – to intervene with their local authorities in order to mandate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization network (TICE or CTBTO) to make all the data related to air contamination public.
It is capital that everyone know who are the States that actually stand opposed to this mandate, with an interdiction to publish said data figures. It is the case of France. We salute however official organizations in charge of this issue in Austria and Germany and which deliberately acted against this interdiction, considering that maintaining the secret on the data is not compatible with the regulations of their country. Without this information – partial but nevertheless precious – that they have published, the present communiqué could not have been written.
Access to updated data : http://www.bfs.de/de/ion/aktivitaetskonzentrationen_jod.jpg
Document in pdf.
[1]
Part n°1 : Figures related to the air contamination exist but they are confiscated by the States !
[2]
« the obligation to be subjected to, gives us the right to know” Jean ROSTAND.
One of the fundamental roles of government is keeping the peace and maintaining order. The government world-wide is now vigorously involved in keeping the peace and maintaining order. You will not get the figures you seek.
Really, nothing to worry about. Take it from the US government. Here are your instructions:
Individual Action
Air Burst of Atomic Bomb
GPO Document 1950 O- 908880
Before Burst
Air raid alert or General Quarters is sounded. Take prescribed action! The best defense against an "A" bomb is the same as against HE bombs.
During and After Burst
If At Duty Station
If Not At Duty Station
Report to Duty Station
Don't Panic and Don't Spread Rumors
Effects of Air Burst of Atomic Bomb
Blast
Heat
Fires
Nuclear Radiation
Flash Radiation
Lingering Radiation
1. So small it is not a hazard. Disregard it.
I always wondered where the phrase 'keep your shirt on' came from
Just up on Bloomberg:
Japan Cows Barred From Grazing as Damaged Plant Leaks Radiation
Now they are admitting No.3's water puddle may be the result of the leak from the reactor itself, not from the spent fuel pool.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-reactor-3s_25....
Gubmints derive their funding, sustenance, existence from their citizenry, and are thus highly reluctant under even the most awful, dire circumstances (Fukushima) to encourage the citizenry to flee to safer lands led by other Gubmints. That is what Kan's gubmint should be doing now, rather than suggesting, two weeks later, voluntary evacuations from within 20 miles of Fuku. How unfortunate.
Drop everything and GTFO of Tokyo and environs now, come back if and when it is safe again, whether in one month or one year or whenever. Tough thing to do, but right thing IMHO, given the potential downside to remaining in place.
there's a bunch of radiation counters on this site:
http://www.pachube.com/feeds/21223
geiger counter readings from various sources have been dropping off over the past 4 days. there are a number of links to data streams for radiation counts in water, too, which all show zero at the moment. only as good as the source, in this case the
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (...JAIST was founded in October 1990 as the first independent national graduate school...), but this is an attempt at a crowdsourced gathering of radiation data streams. given that pretty much everything in the MSM appears to be downplaying the situation, i figure hard data is useful.
..
Look carefully at this image: http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloads/featured_images/japan_earthquakets...
Not only is the damage to Units 1-3-4 self evident. There is also blast damage from an explosion inside a heretofore unmentioned building at the very top of the frame. WTF was in there?
Also notice the gaping hole(s) in the turbine hall roof.
Digital Globe has the best images I've seen, but even they are purposely degraded by US GOV'T decree before release. Look at the full sequence.
As far as restoring control room function,ask any racer and they'll tell you, the only thing gages are good for is to tell you what already happened. That knocking sound you hear is the hooves of the 4 Horsemen.
Eventually it will be a scrub and they will run, so long the whole eastern seaboard of Japan.
and TEPCO didn't bother to tell the subcon of the subcon of TEPCO that the radiation was high in Reactor 1, I guess supposedly the workers were going to work on Reactor 3. So the workers waded the puddle and got irradiated.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/tepco-criminal-enterprise-didnt-bothe...