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Fukushima: Massive Leaks Continuing On a Daily Basis … For Years On End
You may have heard that Tepco - the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plants - announced a large leak of radioactive water.
You may have heard that the cooling system in the spent fuel pools at Fukushima has failed for a second time in a month.
This is newsworthy stuff ... but completely misses the big picture.
Japanese experts say that Fukushima is currently releasing up to 93 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium into the ocean each day.
How much radiation is this?
A quick calculation shows that it is about ten thousand times less than the amounts released by Chernobyl during the actual fire at the Russian nuclear plant. But the Chernobyl fire only last 10 days ... and the Fukushima release has been ongoing for more than 2 years so far.
Indeed, Fukushima has already spewed much more radioactive cesium and iodine than Chernobyl. The amount of radioactive cesium released by Fukushima was some 20-30 times higher than initially admitted.
Fukushima also pumped out huge amounts of radioactive iodine 129 – which has a half-life of 15.7 million years. Fukushima has also dumped up to 900 trillion becquerels of radioactive strontium-90 – which is a powerful internal emitter which mimics calcium and collects in our bones – into the ocean.
And the amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs Chernobyl ... and so could keep leaking for decades, centuries or millenia.
Tepco graphics of the Fukushima plants even appear to show water directly flowing from the plant to the ocean. And see this.
The bottom line is that the reactors have lost containment. There are not "some leaks" at Fukushima. "Leaks" imply that the reactor cores are safely in their containment buildings, and there is a small hole or two which need to be plugged. But scientists don't even know where the cores of the reactors are. That's not leaking. That's even worse than a total meltdown.
So what are the consequences for people living outside of Fukushima itself?
They could be quite severe, indeed.
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Sea water dilutes caesium and iodine. Not really a problem, unless you eat fish from that area. Tens of millions are not dropping dead each year, so can't be as bad as the doommongers said it would be.
Radioactive fish don't interest me. I'm a narcissistic homosexual who only cares about gay marriage. That and SF restaurant reviews. Let's keep it real.
So where are all these people dying of Fukushima cancer then?
Their individual tumors must have never gotten the notice that they were supposed to notify their hosts accordingly and make them all wear the appropriately colored ribbon.
Are you interested in this:
It has recently been reported a spike in the number of radioactive eels being removed from gay men's anuses at San Francisco area hospitals shortly after gay wedding banquets.
-National Institutes of Health
The 60/70s slogan for environmental pollution was: 'the solution for pollution is dilution'. That is why they built high chimneys and pipes way out into the oceans. Then it turned out that fixed weather patterns and ocean currents did not dilute much and the stuff ended up always at the same point.
Someone already posted, in another artice, a link to a previously secret report from the 50s that rebutts that myth that oceans dilute radiation.
Uh....gee....uh...don't fish migrate? Like across the ocean?
And then lets mention the currents that travel from there to the west coast of the U.S.
And o.k. kids...physical science..."sea water dilutes caesium an iodine"
Yeah, and a glass of water dilutes regular salt or sugar or...what have you..until it is saturated.
Juuuust pointing out the obivous here.
Caesium and iodine form soluble salts. The ocean is how many litres?
The San Diego sportfishing fleet was hauling in radioactive tuna at the end of 2011 (reported here on ZH). So yes, that myth is totally busted.
And then you have the ... Is it debris or derbis? ... pile "that is massive and floating out there." yeah I think I'll be sticking with Maine Lobsters...and rock lobsters too.
This site is good to look at on a regular basis to keep up on what is going on across the world.
http://enenews.com/
Anytime anyone mentions EneNews I say this:
Best aggregator on the Web for nuclear-related news.
GW I have really appreciated your reporting and updating throughout this whole Fukushima episode. THanks.
He's completely right on this one. Question is, is it a predicament or a problem. Problems have solutions, predicaments have outcomes.
This is predicament times 10. What I see is that most of the ocean life will be to contaminated to be able to eat due ot bio accumulation.
Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly
Find the Hotspot in this image.
Check out this NOAA image of melting Greenland ice from July 2012. This is dated July 11 and it shows nearly every square meter of ice melting (see legend below image). Just FYI, if Greenland ice were to melt it would raise sea levels by 23 feet; James Hansen of NASA says outflows of Greenland ice have quadrupled in the past 15 years!
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Greeland_melt_SSMI_jul11_2012_lrg.jpg
This NOAA image from July 12, 2012 is even more shocking. Here you can see that literally the entire Greenland ice sheet is melting. ALL OF IT. The little specks of white are frozen ice. All the pink and orange is meltwater.
http://www.motherjones.com/files/greenland_july_2012_melt.jpg
A July image - middle of summer and ice is melting? Shocking indeed. Now I'm curious what a Jan. 11th image would show.
I think the point just flew completely over your head Snarky. I'll spell it out for you. This is new. Nothing like a complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet has ever been seen before... at any time of year. Do you get it now?
Haha, you warmists are amusing. Tell me, do you know why it is called Greenland ?!?
Thought not...
Well we see how amusing you think it is when we have the next superhurricane or firestorm or flood. Easy to laugh it off when living in your parent's basement. We'll see how funny it is when your and your clan are waving for RIBs to take you to high ground.
First...I'm in no way a warmest...But,Greenland is called that for the same reason Iceland is called Iceland
WOW. GREAT IMAGE.
That is incredibly disturbing. Does anyone know if it's actually possible for the cores to warm the ocean by that much, or might this be a coincidental artifact from the sub-sea earthquake (eg geothermal heating from fissures).
Using runaway cores, it would seem possible to warm the water more than what the graph is indicating. Please note, the graph is normally only expected to monitor a range from -3 to +3 degrees. The graph shows +3 degrees for the coast of Japan. But the actual temperature anomaly might be higher, just, the graph is not calibrated to show a higher temperature divergence. The graph is maxed out!
The graph is lying. The anomaly is worse than indicated. If it were an analog indicater, it would have broken by now.
Your question is still open about whether it could be leftover from the earthquake. Lava under or on the ocean floor could warm the water too. You can change the date on the graph and compare it with other known Pacific-Rim quakes. If earlier quakes show a temperature change, then a lava hotspot could be a factor, or *the* factor. I am not necessarily refering to emitted lava, but rather, a hot spot under the stone/ocean floor.
There are several natural hotspots under the Pacific Basin. One of which is under Hawaii. That's where the islands came from. When the ocean floor gets too warm, it forms into a giant zit.
It just seems like heating that much ocean by 3deg would take an increadible amount of heat. Way more than should be possible by just the cores/storage pools. I mean, they had to cool them before the meltdown using ocean water. . .
This shit makes me wonder if the whole NK nuclear bullshit is a set up to give them a fake bad guy to blame when we all grow our second heads. A nuke going off around Japan (even an alleged misfire into the ocean) would be nice cover for these psychopaths.
If that big anomaly off the coast of Greenland keeps up, it will take care of itself, so I guess that's good news. On a long enough timeline, everything will reach equilibrium.
Fukushima radiation mutated my post.
That anomaly off the coast of Greenland is the reactor cores coming out the other side.
Hey!! You found the missing reactor cores!!
Resourceful Russian is gather much nuclear material aftermath Chernobyl. Heavy Metal and Actinide is abundance. Can is store Cesium and Polonium in old fridge on balcony for sell to KGB agent.
Good find. Thanks!
Is remind Boris of Chernobyl aftermath, massive leaks. At first, is leak from reactor core and waste, but soon every citizen experience massive leakage from, how you say, rectal cavity for radiation sickness. Fortunate in Japan, market for adult diaper already is much develop from inverted demographic pyramid. Maybe new asset bubble is pulp paper and absorptive underwear?
(Boris is apology for sarcasm because is have many beloved Japan friend and inside heart is well up tear for Japan suffering. But cruelty of TEPCO, Japan Government, Big Corporation to deny Nukushima catastrophic event is catastrophic.)