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Update on the Japanese Nuclear Crisis: Not a Pretty Picture
Experts have long said that Tepco's projections for containing the
nuclear crisis this year were unrealistic. Now, even Tepco is admitting
that things won't be stabilized this year. As Kyodo News reports:
Stabilizing
the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant by the end of the year
may be impossible, senior officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co. said
Sunday, throwing a monkey wrench into plans to let evacuees return to
their homes near the plant.
***
On
May 12, it was confirmed that a meltdown had occurred at the No. 1
reactor, forcing the utility to abandon the water entombment idea and
try to install a new cooling system that decontaminates and recycles
the radioactive water flooding the reactor's turbine building instead.
Given that the contaminated water has leaked
from the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel, a Tepco official said,
"We must first determine where it is leaking and seal it."
The official added, "Unless we understand the extent of the damage, we don't even know how long that work alone would take," noting the need for one or two months more than previously thought to establish an entirely new cooling system.
In other words, Tepco has no idea how long it will take to contain the leaking reactors.
As
has been obvious from the start, Tepco has also covered up vital
information. Now, even the Japanese government is lambasting Tepco for
its secrecy. As Kyodo News notes:
Tokyo
Electric Power Co. did not fully disclose radiation monitoring data
after its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was crippled by the March 11
earthquake and tsunami, the government revealed Friday. Chief Cabinet
Secretary Yukio Edano, after being informed by Goshi Hosono, a special
adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told reporters that he instructed
Tepco to sort out the data, make it public and make doubly sure no more
information-withholding occurs.
Coming a day
after he blasted Tepco's flip-flop over the injection of seawater into
the plant's reactor 1, Edano said the government "cannot respond to
this matter on the premise" that no more undisclosed information will
emerge.
"There is a distinct possibility that
there is still more," he said, urging Tepco to accurately and swiftly
report the truth to the government.
Hosono also noted Tepco's delay in revealing this fact, 2? months after the nuclear crisis started.
The government will look into how this happened, the two officials said.
You've already heard that 3 of the Fukushima reactors melted down within hours of the earthquake.
Yomiuri Daily reports today that not only the pressure vessels (the innermost barrier) but also the containment vessels (the outer barrier) of reactors 1 and 3 were also damaged within hours of the quake:
Not
only the pressure vessels, but the containment vessels of the Nos. 1
to 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were probably
damaged within 24 hours of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami,
according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s analysis of the nuclear crisis.
As I previously noted,
the IAEA knew within weeks that there had been meltdowns at Fukushima.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew as well. As Kyodo News reports (scroll down to second story):
A
senior nuclear regulatory official in the United States said Thursday
he believed there was a "strong likelihood" of serious core damage and
core melt at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in the days immediately
after the crisis began.
"There were numerous
indications of high radiation levels that can only come from damaged
fuel at those kinds of levels," said Bill Borchardt, executive director
for operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "So we felt pretty confident that there was significant fuel damage at the site a few days into the event."
The
NRC also had "suspicions" about the conditions of the spent fuel
pools, Borchardt said after a speech at the Japan Society in New York.
Based
on that assumption, he said, the NRC recommended that U.S. residents
in Japan stay 80 km away from the crippled power plant, which was far
beyond the Japanese government's recommendation for residents within a
20-km radius to evacuate.
While
most of the problems have been at reactors 1, 2 and 3 (which were all
operating when the earthquake hit) and reactor 4 (where spent fuel rods
have been leaking), there have also been problems at reactor number 5 as
well. Specifically, as NHK writes:
The
operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says
temperatures in the Number 5 reactor and its spent fuel storage pool
have risen due to pump failure. The reactor has been in a state of cold
shutdown.Tokyo Electric Power Company says it found at 9 PM on
Saturday that a pump bringing seawater to cooling equipment for the
reactor and pool had stopped working.TEPCO says temperatures have been rising since then.
To make matters worse, Typhoon Songda has brought heavy rains to Fukushima. As Al Jazeera notes:
The
typhoon has already brought heavy rain to the Fukushima region and
there is still more to come. This has prompted worries that runoff
water may wash away radioactive materials from the land into the
Pacific Ocean.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company
(TEPCO) has been pouring synthetic resins over the complex in an
attempt to stabilise the plant. More work needs to be done, not just
now but also to ensure that future typhoons would not spread
radioactive materials into the environment.
As Raw Story reported:
Officials
from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are apologizing in
advance for the fact that the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant is not
ready for the high winds and heavy rain of Typhoon Songda, a massive
storm that could make landfall in Japan as early as Monday.The
BBC quotes a TEPCO official as saying, "We have made utmost efforts, but
we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings. We
apologize for the lack of significant measures against wind and rain."
Buildings
housing the plant's nuclear reactors are still standing open in the
wake of crippling hydrogen explosions that followed Japan's March 11
earthquake and tsunami. The approaching storm could scatter highly
radioactive materials into the air and sea. Plant operators are
currently spreading "anti-scattering agents" around the buildings
housing reactors one and four.
As I've predicted for a long time, the Fukushima disaster could end up being much worse than Chernobyl. See this, this, this and this.
Mainichi (and Japan Times) report:
Radiation released by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has caused soil contamination matching the levels seen in the Chernobyl disaster in some areas, a researcher told the government's nuclear policy-setting body Tuesday.
***
The
size of the contaminated areas in the Fukushima crisis is one-tenth to
one-fifth of those polluted in the Chernobyl disaster, Kawata said.
It's not just the soil, it's also the seafloor. NHK notes that radiation has been found in the entire 300 kilometer (186 mile) region of the coast tested near Fukushima.
And Harvey Wasserman notes that there may have been 10 times more radiation released into the ocean than by Chernobyl:
New
readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers
offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than
those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl."When
it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer
at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "the impact of Fukushima
exceeds Chernobyl."
***
For all the focus on land-based
contamination, the continuing flood of radioactive materials into the
ocean at Fukushima could have the most problematic long-term impacts.
Long-term studies of radiological impacts on the seas are few and far
between. Though some heavy isotopes may drop to the sea bottom, others
could travel long distances through their lengthy half-lives. Some
also worry that those contaminants that do fall to the bottom could be
washed back on land by future tsunamis.***
"After Chernobyl, fallout was measured," says Buesseler, "from as far afield as the north Pacific Ocean."
A
quarter-century later the international community is still trying to
install a massive, hugely expensive containment structure to suppress
further radiation releases in the wake of Chernobyl's explosion.Such
a containment would be extremely difficult to sustain at seaside
Fukushima, which is still vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. To be
of any real use, all six reactors and all seven spent fuel pools would
have to be covered.But avenues to the sea would also have to
be contained. Fukushima is much closer to the ocean than Chernobyl, so
more intense contamination might be expected. But the high radiation
levels being measured indicate Fukushima's most important impacts may
be on marine life.The US has ceased measuring contamination in
Pacific seafood. But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive
materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the
creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them.
To add insult to injury, Zero Hedge notes that oil is also spilling into the ocean near Fukushima:
Just because mega-radioactive water leakage was not enough. From Xinhua:
"Operator of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant found
that oil has been leaking into the sea close to the facility, the Kyodo
News reported Tuesday. The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)
said the oil leaks were possibly from nearby oil tanks that may have
been damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami, and it would set up
oil fences to prevent the liquid from pouring into the Pacific Ocean."
Oh, but they only discovered this now? Odd how it took nearly 3 months
for those oil tanks to rupture and start spilling into the water.
Update: While an explosion occurred near reactor 4 today, that appears to be the least of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear complex.
»
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"The typhoon has already brought heavy rain to the Fukushima region and there is still more to come. This has prompted worries that runoff water may wash away radioactive materials from the land into the Pacific Ocean."
This again, falls into the category of "Does it really matter?" Tepco has admitted to intentionally releasing tons of radioactive water into the ocean. Tepco has also admitted that there may be a few cracks here and there that "unintentionally" some of that cooling water may have seeped through back into the ground water and ocean. So a little rain should be the least of their worries, c'mon, on the land or in the ocean, what's the difference? With ahi and marlin season approaching, some big game fishermen are just drooling at the chance to reel in a 2000 pound, four eyed marlin, then after landing him, the crew is going to have to beat him to death with baseball bats, maybe even some lead slugs to neutralize the gamma rays. Baseball's very big in Japan, so we can combined two popular sports into one. Those marlin will be mean and nasty, so this should easily make some sort of reality TV, deadliest catch or something.
HK you have decent ideas. Break them down into paragraphs.
You are not writing your mommie.
Hmm, covering up Fukushima sounds like a job for...
the Masons! Go, Masons! Get it while it's hot!
Nikkei up on this news...bullish
Typhoon seems to be limiting the airborne radiation reaching us here in Northern California. According to my readings, things have dropped back to background levels. I can't remember the last time my dosimeter read 0.07-0.09 (micro Sieverts) consistently.
However, we have been having rain lately, so it's not completely clear how much the typhoon accounts for reduced readings.
Typhoon season lasts until January.
Expect more scathing comments to come from Korea and Taiwan about how Japanese are handling the problem (since they'll be getting most of the radiation for the next few months).
Fucking Bullshit Japan
No comment. Watch exporter flows over the next 48 hours! You are welcome.
Yen cross
At least we still have exporter flows -if not reliable news flows-
Thank you for the update. I have a Jet to catch. Small, fast and on time.
This is pretty silly.
The NRC people who approved this reactor design, to their subsequent regret, had done simulations for the consequences of a "Station Blackout". These showed clearly that the core would melt down within half a day at the outside. Neither TEPCO or GE, much less the NRC, ever saw fit to proactively share this information with the general public. One such study is here: http://www.slideshare.net/srgreene/conf-9110792
Even so, it took no secret knowledge or extraordinary insight to know that things were worse than TEPCO's "Bagdab Bob" briefings would suggest, unless the US 50 mile evacuation zone recommendation escaped your notice.
The situation now, 10 weeks after the event, is quite unlikely to reemerge as an explosive catastrophe. The molten remains of the three cores each generate a few megawatts of heat from crusted lumps of salt and metal at the bottom of the reactors, poisoning the cooling water that runs over them. This will continue for years, so the task now is to clean up the dirty water. AREVA, the French nuclear champion, is setting up a large plant on site to do this, for about $1 billion. The 'cleaned' water will still be quite contaminated, but is forecast at less than 0.1% of the input level. It will probably get dumped into the Pacific.
The rest is noise. Of course there is strontium contamination in the area. It is hard to have three reactors melt down and explode without making some mess. Still, compared to the Chernobyl disaster with its dispersion of most of a reactor core into the air, Fukushima is a small and gentle nuclear disaster. It could have been so much worse and we do ourselves no favors by harping on the still enormous difficulties facing the cleanup team.
I doubt that there is anything that could have been done that would have significantly improved the outcome for this site, but I can easily see things that could have been done worse. At this point, the site is reasonably stable and ready to start trying to manage the very long slog back to a cleanup. That will take a decade, maybe more, if the US experience at TMI is any indication. We should recognize and applaud the work done.
"The situation now, 10 weeks after the event, is quite unlikely to reemerge as an explosive catastrophe"
If you know: How much radioactive matter is daily steaming into the atmosphere?
What will happen when the melts reach the watertable?
Thanks.
Note "quite unlikely." No one can know the future.
Also, no one, not even TEPCO knows how much radioactivity is going into the atmosphere or sea. They have some models, in which there are a few constants they tweak (guess what, these are always tweaked low enough to keep people from panicking).
We're in uncharted territory. No one knows.
That's an incredibly smug estimation from someone who doesn't have the full information of what is actually transpiring (as none of us do).
Comparing this to Chernobyl at this point and saying "it's not as bad" is irrelevant, especially since we are probably 12 months or longer to a point of some resolution. You have no idea whether this is or isn't as bad due to the managed perceptions of how much leakage has occurred.
Also, it's irrelevant to talk about the Fukushima Fifty cleanup crew, and say we are harping on them. Big fucking deal. None of them is reading ZH (now or ever). Further, we are not saying "all sorts of mean shit about the cleanup crew." And even further, the "Fukushima Fifty" is a media construct, designed to make mental sock puppets feel like the heroes are doing all they can, so lets focus on their heroic efforts (not on the real issues...god forbid the real issues get discussed).
Congratulations, you got taken by the MSM.
You really doubt that anything could have been done? How about checking that the fucking adapter plug on the end of the cord would actually fit (to supply power)? How about retrofitting the known to be fucked designs with valves that didn't require electricity to power them (see design 1.1 of this reactor type for what got fixed).
Since you sound pretty knowledgeable, I'm going to guess you're a paid sock puppet of the NRC. Keep spouting your positive spin blather rather than real arguments. It's entertaining for us.
Thank you for your concerned views.
The power issue you refer to was not a plug match problem, afaik, but rather that that part of Japan is using 50 cycle power, whereas the other half is on 60 cycle. Incompatible at a very basic level. It was probably a moot point though, as the switching facility had been flooded, so powering up anything was impossible.
Could/should the design have been better, no question, as even the NRC minutes suggest real reservations about it. That said, afaik TEPCO did install the suggested updates, including the hardened vent. That did not work, perhaps because there was no juice for the valves and there had been a deliberate NRC choice not to include a rupture disk because then the reactor would then be venting uncontrollably. In the event, we got that anyway, along with some blown up buildings. All I am saying is that in the circumstances, with powerless reactors in the middle of Japans worst post war natural disaster, the response was as good as could be expected.
The main point of the comment though was that the reactor cores are relatively quiescent at this stage and unlikely to spew dramatic volumes of radioactivity all over the world. Thery still could, more slowly, via the 100,000 plus tons of highly contaminated water flooding the site. That is what needs to be managed now and we can only hope the AREVA process works reasonably well.
The rest of the problem I do dismiss, because they are local. Strontium, unlike iodine or cesium, is not volatile. It needs high temperatures such as are found in a bomb or a meltdown to get mobilized. It will stay at Fukushima, unlike the cesium, which with its 30 year half life is a global problem.
All nuclear incidents are downplayed consistently at first. It isn't until _years_ later that we actually find out how much worse they are (if at all). Neither the Japanese nor the NRC have scored any points for credibility. At this point they are just hoping the thing doesn't fucking explode.
My favorite comment from the Obama admin high level handler "we didn't really know what was going on or the extent" - I call bullshit. We have all sorts of intelligence on this crap. Hell, even ZH readers (or wikipedia readers for that matter) knew something was up. You just had to care slightly more than the average person, and have the slightest bit of intellectual curiosity to figure out how screwed up it was. Example: look up nuclear meltdown on wikipedia and it will tell you the exact sequence (including the fact that hydrogen explosions happen when the core exits the containment). So basically, anyone with a scintilla of nuclear background knew they were lying - I guess everyone's on the nuclear power gravy train and they don't want to tell the public the truth.
Also, I wouldn't be so sure about strontium and plutonium not going anywhere. The analysis at fairewinds shows that a large part of the MOX pile was detonated hundreds of feet into the air and out to sea. This stuff gets ingested by small fish, which get ingested by bigger fish, which concentrate the products, just like cows concentrate radioactive iodine. Did you know large tuna, which are voracious eaters of other fish, travel back and forth several times between Japan and Hawaii, each year? I guess you'll just have two other heavy metals in your sashimi to go along with the rising levels of mercury (which by the way is yet another heavy metal which shouldn't be able to travel far).
So don't be too sure or too dismissive of things which "can't happen," according to a bit of theoretical knowledge. There's always the law of unintended consequences.
The problem with our unfunded entitlement programs is now solved; future generations won't make it to 65.
This is a mirror of every government outside of a very few farsighted ones that have the benefit of currently having a relatively stable political and geological situation. Let one thing go wrong and; "Oh, Oh, domino. Roll me over domino, there you go". We have republican or pariamentary forms of government masquerading as democracies all over the world succumbing to fascist takeovers daily. We have never had democracy in the moder world. One day we must try it, hmm?
Dumbocracy or dumbocrazy cannot work and has never worked.
A clueless "majority" dictates to the other 49.99% of the people?
Explain to me how that would fly.
No worries - radiation is good for you !
Tom Burnett at Jeff Rense speculates TEPCO is lying about the explosion reported today (as a gas tank that was hit)
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13723866
Burnett thinks the explosion may have been the spent fuel pool at #4 collapsing
http://www.rense.com/general94/tep.htm
That would agree with the apparent flames and steam/smoke visible this morning in the new webcam...
If so SHTF
The easiest route to take going forward is to assume Tepco is lying as they have done in the past. So for example, we can eliminate a gas tank being hit as a cause of the explosion. Next assume that everything is at least 10 times worse than what Tepco says. So, what is at least 10 times worse than a gas tank exploding? Easy, the explosion was caused by a spent fuel pool. This formula can easily be applied, with slight modifications, to any government, corporation, politican, the FED, you name it. Feel free to use it and abuse it any way you like, there's no copyright on it. So remember, they're lying and it's worse than what they say and chances are you're much close to the truth.
I have said in the past, nuke a hole under the plant and use the second one to bury the glowing rubble. A few weeks of pain, starshine and other woes wear off soon enough.
Now we have to consider a future radioactive wave? OMFG.
What a waste. Maybe those Germans are not stupid after all. That coal is good.
An inane comment made a second, third or fiftieth time doesn't make it any less inane.
in·ane[ih-neyn]
–adjective1.
lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly: inane questions. 2.
empty; void.
nuking it was on the table--guaranteed. too late now, though. "now it has to be fixed." and of course "it has yet to be even contained."
Ummmmmmmmmmmm
At what point was an insane idea such as nuking 6 nuclear reactors in order to dispose of 6 nuclear reactors the right time if it is too late now? And why would it be too late now?
Now it's kind of easy to understand why the US Navy/ Army/ Air Force as well as US Gvt agencies did an about face and started moving their personnel out quickly within a week of 03-11-11. Also it's now clear in my mind that the mass exodus from Tokyo by many US/multinational corporations at nearly the same time wasn't just prudence.
I suspect they were told on the QT that things were much worse than the government was revealing and for that reason there was no real way of knowing if Tokyo would be in serious danger. To exit stage right and ask question, or make apologies, later.
Funny how the little people were once again left to fend for themsleves.
WSJ article about Tokyo returnees 03/23/11
TOKYO?Life in Japan is showing tentative signs of returning to normal, but a fresh challenge may be facing the expatriates and Japanese who left and are now trickling back to their offices: how to cope with ostracism and anger from their colleagues who have worked through the crisis.
One foreigner, a fluent Japanese speaker at a large Japanese company, said that his Japanese manager and colleagues were "furious" with him for moving to Osaka for three days last week and that he felt he was going to have to be very careful to avoid being ostracized upon returning to work in Tokyo.
The flight of the foreigners?known as gaijin in Japanese?has polarized some offices in Tokyo. Last week, departures from Japan reached a fever pitch after the U.S. Embassy unveiled a voluntary evacuation notice and sent in planes to ferry Americans to safe havens. In the exodus, a new term was coined for foreigners fleeing Japan: flyjin.
The expat employees' decision to leave is a sensitive cultural issue in a country known for its legions of "salarymen": loyal Japanese employees whose lives revolve around the office, who regularly work overtime and who have strong, emotional ties to their corporations and their colleagues.
There is a split between [the Japanese and foreigners] on where their allegiances lie. In Japan, the company and family are almost one and the same, whereas foreigners place family first and company second,
The head of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, at a news conference Tuesday, expressed his disappointment that so many foreigners?from the U.S., France, the U.K., China and Hong Kong, among others?had been urged to leave the country by their governments and by worried families. Their flight was at least in part due to the more alarmist tones the foreign media took in coverage of the disaster, compared with the local news that emphasized how problems were being addressed.
"Many countries arranged for planes to bring their people back home. In some embassies, they sent messages to their nationals in Japan that the situation is very dangerous, while at some companies, top executives have come to Japan to provide reassurance," said Atsushi Saito, head of the TSE. "It may be part of TSE's role to put down rumors and to transmit to foreign nations what a great country Japan is."
One expat in Tokyo, who runs his own small business, decided to go to London last week with a business partner. "It has been the right thing to do from a work-productivity point of view, as we have a big deadline to meet at the end of the month," he said. "That said, I don't feel very good about leaving and I'm sure people will perceive it as cowardly, and I won't object to that."
Those foreigners who return will find life in Tokyo is largely back to normal, with trains crowded during rush hour and men in suits packing restaurants during lunchtime in the city's main financial district. But signs of disruption linger: Many shops close at 6 p.m. to conserve electricity and many stores are still out of basics such as milk and toilet paper.
One foreign investment banker in Tokyo says he wasn't surprised that so many employees left. "We don't hire people into the financial industry to risk their lives?this is investment banking and we hire investment-banker types," he said. "We are trying to avoid ostracism for those who come back?there is no upside in that?but there is good-natured hazing."
To be sure, most foreign senior-level managers leading teams in Tokyo stayed in the capital or relocated their entire offices to other locations in Japan, according to several managers interviewed Tuesday. In most cases, the expats who left are stay-at-home mothers, their children and those workers who don't have staff reporting to them and can work remotely from Hong Kong and Singapore. Some Japanese, of course, also left Tokyo, though mainly women and children going home to their families in other parts of Japan, while their husbands stay in behind to work.
"If I had left as the president, my role as a leader would have been diminished," said Gerry Dorizas, the president of Volkswagen AG's operations in Japan, who has been in that role four years. "We've been very transparent."
VW Japan has moved all its staff, including 12 expats and 130 Japanese staff and their families, to Toyohashi in Aichi prefecture.
Boeing Co., which has operated in Japan for more than 50 years, says the majority of its 30-strong staff in Tokyo have remained, despite an offer to work in Nagoya, or for expats to take a home leave.
Christine Wright, managing director of Hays in Tokyo, one of the country's leading recruitment firms, said: "I saw no reason to leave; if you have a commitment to your staff, you stay there."
Some said the expats would likely find local colleagues to be more understanding than expected. They say a decade of deflation and economic hardship has changed the Japanese mindset. "I think the Japanese had more of the group mentality decades ago, but not so much now," said Shin Tanaka, head of PR firm Fleishman Hillard's operations in Japan. "I think most [Japanese] people are staying because they think there is little risk."
A freind of mine in Tokyo sent me this when I asked if he was worried.
They did their own measurements. Japan is pretty closed so I'm sure they got some very superficial information.
There was also a story about their service men getting dosed (thought it was on ZH). I'm sure they have pretty strict protocols about what to do in these cases (just a guess).
Are you saying American service men were 'dosed" in Tokyo? I can understand pulling the aircraft carrier away from Fukushima because some airmen got dosed. But that wouldn't mean Tokyo should be evacuated unless they were worried it could get much worse.
Sorry for the crap post, I should have looked up the article:
http://world-news-post.blogspot.com/2011/03/17-us-soldiers-are-positive-....
Some excerpts:
The Pentagon reported Monday that 17 military officers involved in relief efforts in Japan have tested positive for "low levels" of radioactivity and ordered away temporarily from the Japanese coast ships of the Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka.
The Seventh Fleet also reported in a statement that it has decided to move its ships and aircraft carriers away from the area of \u200b\u200bnuclear power plant in Fukushima (northern Japan) after detecting contamination of "low level" in the air where they operated ships.
The "mass exodus" from Tokyo is largely irrelevant at this point because the US military moved all their personnel right back within a few weeks - equipment, highly trained warriors, and wives and kids together. If the military considered the current plumes to be (that) dangerous, they would move these assets more permanently. That is the event to be looking for. I'm not saying this isn't serious, I'm just saying remember that everyone has returned. Tokyo to the south and Misawa to the north (and the recipient of prevailing winds) are fully staffed. If most of the radiation is flowing into the sea, that is bad for the environment and regional seafood industry, but good news (as these things go) for the people in Japan north of Tokyo.
When the USS Reagan went thru the Fukushima plume their radiological lab knew what happened right away.
Tepco now fessing up to Strontium 89/90 in concentrations higher than residual bomb test contamination.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110531e15.pdf
That and mysterious blue halogen flashes and green neutron beams emanating from the plant were additional minor, subtle, hard to read between the lines clues. (Rolling of eyes toward heavens.)
Which, after I'd pointed out that those meant the cores had gone semi-to-fullfuckingcritical was junked a bazillion times.
Jesus, some people'd even soak shankers in Listerine if told it'd work. Ever get that surrounded by fucktards feeling?
Yes, 24/7/365, but it is the fucking volume that is starting to get to me. 'Merica's turned into a sea of ignorance.
we are conditioned to believe the authorities. which is actually a good thing in my view. "once the doubts creep in" and you "overlay money" you realize "there's a whole 'nother world out there."
Exactly.
that's what i was going to say. there's no way the Japanese government didn't know either--blaming Tepco? Ridiculous. Still the ramifications are not even being remotely reported relative to the economic/financial impacts--it is quite odd especially given the fact that with a nuclear accident in a highly industrialized society the impacts are by definition catastrophic. "i sense vulture investors allowing a first look at the books" shall we say.
At least I can plug my IPhone into the waves when I am at the beach for a recharge...fucking battery
Sorry for the double-post from a previous article but early this morning there appeared to be quite a bit of steam or smoke coming up from the building to the far right in this feed. http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index-j.html
Others at e-news confirmed my sightings http://enenews.com/explosion-heard-near-heavily-damaged-no-4-reactor
Speculation that it may have been pool #4 burning. The current image up shows daytime and nothing unusal--though the sound of birds is now gone...
Radiation levels at reactors 1 and 2 this week have been posted at 204-225 sieverts per hour!
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_07.html
Record Radiation at Reactor #1: 225 Sieverts an Hour
http://enenews.com/225-sieverts-hour-reactor-1-highest-radiation-dose-measured
Radiation monitoring showing significant increases in plant radiation output this week
http://www.bfs.de/de/ion/imis/ctbto_aktivitaetskonzentrationen_jod.gif
Water contamination at the plant has been rising and there is no place to store contaminated water
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/29_21.html
What happens to the core if it melts down through the concrete? Will it cool as it goes? What if it doesn't?
The "news" today would have us believe cell phones are much more dangerous.
Radiation's good for you, it builds a strong immune system - if you live through it...
A fairly sane bud of mine had a pet opossum that he tried to teach to live without food. It almost worked until it got real weak, fell out of the tree into his neighbor, Mrs. McGillicuddy's hair one day. The opossum was so hungry he started to gnaw through her skull, she had a heart attack and they both died.
225 Sieverts/hr (not milli or micro) measured in Reactor 1 Drywell.
http://enenews.com/225-sieverts-hour-reactor-1-highest-radiation-dose-measured
Without understating the scale of the problem, is anyone out there willing to cross correlate the lives lost through 5(?) nuclear meltdowns with the lives lost seeking energy stability in the middle east over the last 10 years?
false forced-alternative structure
The Hegelian dialectic.
Whose?
Wikipedia is your friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegelian_dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic
why?
The radiation releases have already been many multiples of Chernobyl. But most of it is in the water. Some in the 'contained' (leaking) on site water, the rest in the ocean.
The media is a bit challenged on this story to put it mildly. Still, they are trying to varying extents. But the last big marker is 'worst ever nuclear accident' and that one may fall at any time...or not...if people figure out the multi-media dispersal.
And how to think about the worker casualties. There we can hope Chernobyl retains the prize.