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Top Nuclear Experts: Technology Doesn't Yet Exist to Clean Up Fukushima
World-renowned physicist Michio Kaku said recently:
It will take years to invent a new generation of robots able to withstand the radiation.
(The radiation inside the reactors is too hot even for robots.)
AP reports:
Hiroshi Tasaka, a nuclear engineer and professor at Tama University who advised the prime minister after the disaster ... said the government target of removing all the rods by the end of next year may prove too optimistic because of many unknowns, the need to develop new technology and the risk of aftershocks.
The world leader in decommissioning nuclear reactors, and one of the main contractors hired to clean up Fukushima - EnergySolutions - made a similar point in May:
Concerning the extraction of fuel debris [at Fukushima], which is considered the most challenging process, “There is no technology which may be directly applied,” said [top EnergySolutions executive] Morant.
A top American government nuclear expert - William D. Magwood - told the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:
It is very difficult to overstate how difficult the work is going to be at that site. There will need to be new technologies and new methodologies created to be able to enable them to clean the site up and some of these technologies don’t exist yet, so there’s a long way to go with that .... There’s a long, long way to go.
(Magwood is a Commissioner for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, former 7-year Director of Nuclear Energy with the U.S. Department of Energy , where he was the senior nuclear technology official in the U. S. government and the senior nuclear technology policy adviser to the Secretary of Energy, and the longest-serving head of the United States' civilian nuclear technology program, serving two Presidents and five Secretaries of Energy from 1998 until 2005.)
Greenpeace notes that even storing the waste removed from Fukushima is a challenge:
A group of scientists from the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) are advising the government via the Japan Atomic Energy Company (JAEC) to completely overhaul its nuclear waste disposal plan. Currently, the government plans to bury spent nuclear fuel 300 meters below ground, where it will need to stay for tens of thousands of years until it is no longer radioactive.
The SCJ group said that because Japan is so prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity, there’s no guarantee of safety for future generations.
Instead, the researchers recommend storing the waste in “temporary safe storage” facilities, either above ground or underground, for up to a few hundred years—and in the meantime, actively working to develop new technology to ensure safe burial of the highly radioactive material. That technology does not exist at this point. “Based on current scientific knowledge, we cannot determine a geological formation that would be stable for hundreds of thousands of years .... But discussions on where the spent fuel should ultimately be stored have not even begun.
Postscript: We don't mean to imply that the situation is hopeless. Indeed, we are big believers in the ability of humans to come up with ingenuous solutions ... when we put our minds to it.
For example, Sandia National Laboratories has engineered a special "molecular sieve" which can more efficiently remove radiation from wastewater.
And one of the world’s leading authorities on fungi and bioremediation says that certain types of mushrooms can naturally reduce radiation.
Engineers are also furiously working on developing robots which can withstand higher levels of radiation.
But before we can tame this monster, we have to admit that Fukushima is one of the top short-term threats to humanity and deploy the resources necessary to develop the required technologies.
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Years ago I used to fish for Sturgeon and Salmon on the Columbia River.
Wonder if Hanford waste has found its way into the Columbia watershed yet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Nuclear_Reservation
I do know that waste from the Paper processing plants did because occasionally the smelliest most disgusting sludge used to bubble up from the center of the river right by the boat. Would literally gag me.
the technology does exist its called slaves. They could find a few at the tepco headquarters to get the thing going.
"And one of the world’s leading authorities on fungi and bioremediation says that certain types of mushrooms can naturally reduce radiation."
And if you smoke enough crack, none of it matters, does it?
Hitting resistance...
Shitting resistance ....
(Must be all that dogmeat)
Chinese citizenism term for that is caninestipation.
Top Defecatory Experts: Technology Does Not Yet Exist to Clean Up Shit-Encrusted Chinese Roadsides.
From the report:
The official Chinese citizenism response to the recommendations from the SCAT group, as monolized in the speeching means by a talking mouth from the Ministry of Truth Bureau of AnEncephalous Blobbing, was simply "made me laugh." Because the response, and associated laughter, was made while the talking mouth was squatting alongside the road, severe aftersharts ensued.
In AnEncephalous Shitizenism, the poop is all.
In AnEncephalous Shitizenism, the roadside squatting ass is the king class.
In AnEncephalous coprophagous symbiotic citizenism, wokking the dog almost always results in a pu pu platter.
Why not just stick it in a rocket and launch it to the Sun or out of the solar system, another planet, etc?
Dumbest comment of the year. Congrats. Any other ideas, curly?
Yeah, one of our cool NASA rockets which never explo....oh wait. OH! I know! We could make a nuclear powered...mmm...maybe not.
This culture is insane. People make poisons with no antitdote, genetically modify seeds to be sterile, and build nuclear power stations and arsenals for which there is no technology to dismantle.
I can't wait for human extinction.
When is the last time a rocket blew up during liftoff? You could encase them in a failsafe container if worried... or launch them from an ocean platform...
Therefore there is no one living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Google Detroit vs Hiroshima to see which city is more liveable.
$10 says they just build a big barge, scrape everything off onto the barge with some of those giant dump trucks and then dump/sink it in a subduction zone subject to erosion burial, somwhere along the Marianas trench.
Fukushima was an Earth quake, followed by a Tsunami. Radiation didn't kill there... Radiation in the environment is much weaker than in Chernobyl...They only way is to avoid future Fukushimas is not to
operate Nuclear power stations in similar locations..,.and filter solar and wind propaganda out of the discussion...
Posting opinions and drinking do not mix well. But is is good entertainment for some of us readers.
Dumbest fucking post I've read all day.
Congratulations.
It's only a difference in info sources...
We should use clean coal.
Oh, wait, Dick O'Bama shot all the coal miners.
Yes, but how many trillions of dollars do we waste chasing our tales and using oil? How many wars have resulted from oil disputes (Vietnam was about Southeast Asian oceanic trade, aka oil), the gulf war obviously was, as well as Iraq. Not to mention, deaths related to oil exploration are pretty regular. Nuclear is still the better technology in the long run. It's implementation has been very sloppy and rife with corruption
In '72 we had an undergrad science course on nuclear energy. Several of the faculty had worked at Oak Ridge, and had first hand experience with radiation dangers. Nuclear power is one of those things that was never thought through all the way. It's fine if you never make a mistake, and can invent some way to keep the waste products isolated for thousands of years. But industry then never met a problem they could not conquer. Recall they were going to build rockets powered by open reactor cores, and use fission bombs to excavate river channels! Now those genius efforts are focused on great financial tools like derivatives. The only dark agenda in all of this was stupidity, mankind's greatest, and seemingly unlimited, natural resource. Greed comes in a close 2nd, since now there are massive investments involved in this life ending technology that should never have made it out of the lab. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for Fusion! ROCK ON HUMANITY!
"build rockets powered by open reactor cores"
My grandfather worked on that project (we found out in the 90s) project pluto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto , he said they fucked up one day, came home disturbed as hell but was never allowed to speak about what he did or worked on, he died a few years later at 53 of pancreatic cancer, granny didn't get no lotto either.
BTW this was in LA CA, the DOD's nuclear shennanigans weren't limited to their top secret labs but contracted out all over America.
The state loves to experiment on "its" citizens.
The first reactor meltdown occured in 1959 near Simi Valley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment
O'Bama can fix it.
Hey! I got a down arrow!
I know He can do it! He said he could make the oceans recede, and, by gosh, I watch it do exactly that twice a day!
It all begs the question, "Why would the world build thousands of nuclear fucking reactors -- or for that matter, even one -- if the technology doesn't exist to clean up the inevitable mess?
cough...greed...cough...arrogance...cough
Processes and materials from the world over are used today just to make a pencil. The supply chain required to maintain nuclear reactors is vast. What happens when WW3 or whatever global upheaval occurs?
The whole biosphere begins to glow a pretty, neon green...
Humans have already destroyed themselves. We're just waiting on the axe to fall.
Things are always invented before the things that clean them up. Were there firefighters before man figured out how to make fire? The disaster creates the neccessity which leads to the invention of the devices and procedures to deal with the disaster. Human beings are terrible at taking proactive action to prevent disasters before they occur.
LOL! That's some pseudo-logic Matt! Do you think that, say, Hollywood decided it was okay to invent the Flaming Stuntman before they had a way to put him out?
I'm sure people on fire and fire extinguishers both existed prior to Hollywood stuntmen. Next example?
The low bidder, now long gone, assured us that wouldn't be a problem.
(/sarc)
I don't see the sarcasm in this comment.
Yup, that's the real danger, just one EMP attack over Russia, Europe, the US, or China ... and all bets are off for the biosphere. We'd get hundreds of Fukushimas from that.
We know that Fukushima was not an earthquake as we were told (lied to) but given the obsession with destruction and fear to get what they want, did the NWO actually intend for it to spin out of control or did they intend something else, like a message?
Because clearly they do not have the brains to manage the mess they made, and it seems to me that they never factored in a plan for clean-up and got caught off guard. They do not appear to understand nuclear science nor did they consult with scientists beforehand, even the ones they own. They have the personalities and behavior of chimps.
The Russians manned the fuck up and sent waves of men in there to contain that shit. The Japs not so much. They have brought shame to their culture imo and should behave accordingly since the rest of the world is paying for their foolishness and continued cowardice to contain the problem.
So you are telling me that we dived into using this potentially deadly technology with no idea what to do if it got out of hand? Human stupidity never ceases to amaze me. We don't need a natural predator because we're going to kill ourselves off.
Just vitrify northern Japan and sink it in the Mariana Trench. So we have "glow-in-the-dark" tuna for a few hundred thousand years. Ann Coulter says it's good for you.
A plan to make a plan by next year plan b , plan b more money and schedule plan c . Those who evolve to eat glowing green fish will survive.
"Technology Doesn't Yet Exist to Clean Up Fukushima"
yes, it does, it's called fungi:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/677/
and then you smoke the shrooms or burn them?
half life of radiation does not change, it is a constant.
yes, true about the 1/2 life (at least through our current understanding of it).
but why would you burn or smoke them? that would negate the point of accumulating the radiation in the shrooms.
why not shoot them out into space for example?
if you'd put down your sarcasm for 5 minutes, you'd probably come up with 5 other possibilities.
His sarcasm was appropriate for a science illiterate like yourself. Get a basic education before you spout retardedly ignorant comments on ZH.
Oh the Humanity! Let me know when Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein's hair fall's off.
hmmm, smells like a huge exageration!
in what way is this a "The Top Short-Term Threat to Humanity"? It's a medium to long term risk to the health of the people of the Tohoku region I guess.
And "Scientists say that there is a 70% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima this year, and a 98% chance within the next 3 years."
And aren't they doing well at predicting earthquakes so far. The only groups who are seeing any possiblities from radium emmions or EMF interference a week before are very hit and miss, very experimental and more importantly completely un-funded by govenment, even in JP, who are really believing that it can't be predicted but at the same time living off the fear it generates.
The US might use the fear of terrorist but that one won't work in JP, so the fear of earthquake under a reactor is the way to keep people distracted from the record levels of debt and immanent collapse!
"Don't listen to Kyle Bass!!! buy bonds and worry about an earthquake!"
I wonder what the banksters will do with their stolen trillions when the whole world is dead.