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We’re In The Most Dangerous Moment Since the Cuban Missile Crisis
Scientists Warn of Extreme Risk
We’ve long said that the greatest short-term threat to humanity is from the fuel pools at Fukushima.
The Japanese nuclear agency recently green-lighted the removal of the spent fuel rods from Fukushima reactor 4′s spent fuel pool. The operation is scheduled to begin this month.
The head of the U.S. Department of Energy correctly notes:
The success of the cleanup also has global significance. So we all have a direct interest in seeing that the next steps are taken well, efficiently and safely.
If one of the pools collapsed or caught fire, it could have severe adverse impacts not only on Japan … but the rest of the world, including the United States. Indeed, a Senator called it a national security concern for the U.S.:
The radiation caused by the failure of the spent fuel pools in the event of another earthquake could reach the West Coast within days. That absolutely makes the safe containment and protection of this spent fuel a security issue for the United States.
Hiroaki Koide – a nuclear scientist working at the University of Kyoto – says:
I’m worried about whether Tepco can treat all the 1,331 [spent-fuel] assemblies without any problem and how long it will take.
Award-winning scientist David Suzuki says that Fukushima is terrifying, Tepco and the Japanese government are lying through their teeth, and Fukushima is “the most terrifying situation I can imagine”.
Suzuki notes that reactor 4 is so badly damaged that – if there’s another earthquake of 7 or above – the building could come down. And the probability of another earthquake of 7 or above in the next 3 years is over 95%.
Suzuki says that he’s seen a paper that says that if – in fact – the 4th reactor comes down, “it’s bye bye Japan, and everyone on the West Coast of North America should evacuate. Now if that’s not terrifying, I don’t know what is.”
The Telegraph reports:
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant … will begin a dry run of the procedure at the No. 4 reactor, which experts have warned carries grave risks.
***
“Did you ever play pick up sticks?” asked a foreign nuclear expert who has been monitoring Tepco’s efforts to regain control of the plant. “You had 50 sticks, you heaved them into the air and than had to take one off the pile at a time.
“If the pile collapsed when you were picking up a stick, you lost,” he said. “There are 1,534 pick-up sticks in a jumble in top of an unsteady reactor 4. What do you think can happen?
“I do not know anyone who is confident that this can be done since it has never been tried.”
ABC notes:
One slip-up in the latest step to decommission Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant could trigger a “monumental” chain reaction, experts warn.
***
Experts around the world have warned … that the fuel pool is in a precarious state – vulnerable to collapsing in another big earthquake.
Yale University professor Charles Perrow wrote about the number 4 fuel pool this year in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
“This has me very scared,” he told the ABC.
“Tokyo would have to be evacuated because [the] caesium and other poisons that are there will spread very rapidly.
Perrow also argues:
Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.
Former Japanese ambassador Akio Matsumura warns that – if the operation isn’t done right – this could one day be considered the start of “the ultimate catastrophe of the world and planet”:
(He also argues that removing the fuel rods will take “decades rather than months.)
Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen and physician Helen Caldicott have both said that people should evacuate the Northern Hemisphere if one of the Fukushima fuel pools collapses. Gundersen said:
Move south of the equator if that ever happened, I think that’s probably the lesson there.
Harvey Wasserman wrote two months ago:
We are now within two months of what may be humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
***
Should the attempt fail, the rods could be exposed to air and catch fire, releasing horrific quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. The pool could come crashing to the ground, dumping the rods together into a pile that could fission and possibly explode. The resulting radioactive cloud would threaten the health and safety of all us.
***
A new fuel fire at Unit 4 would pour out a continuous stream of lethal radioactive poisons for centuries.
Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata says full-scale releases from Fukushima “would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.”
Even Japan’s Top Nuclear Regulator Says that The Operation Carries a “Very Large Risk Potential”
Even the head of Japan’s nuclear agency is worried. USA Today notes:
Nuclear regulatory chairman Shunichi Tanaka, however, warned that removing the fuel rods from Unit 4 would be difficult because of the risk posed by debris that fell into the pool during the explosions.
“It’s a totally different operation than removing normal fuel rods from a spent fuel pool,” Tanaka said at a regular news conference. “They need to be handled extremely carefully and closely monitored. You should never rush or force them out, or they may break.”
He said it would be a disaster if fuel rods are pulled forcibly and are damaged or break open when dropped from the pool, located about 30 meters (100 feet) above ground, releasing highly radioactive material. “I’m much more worried about this than contaminated water,” Tanaka said
The same top Japanese nuclear official said:
The process involves a very large risk potential.
BBC reports:
A task of extraordinary delicacy and danger is about to begin at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station.
***
One senior official told me: “It’s going to be very difficult but it has to happen.”
Why It’s Such a Difficult Operation
CNN notes that debris in the fuel pool might interfere with operations:
South China Morning Post notes:
Nothing remotely similar has been attempted before and … it is feared that any error of judgment could lead to a massive release of radiation into the atmosphere.
***
A spokesman for Tepco … admitted, however, that it was not clear whether any of the rods were damaged or if debris in the pool would complicate the recovery effort.
The Wall Street journal notes:
Among the risks [Hiromitsu Ino, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of Tokyo] and other experts cite is the possibility that a container being used to move the units falls and breaks apart, exposing the fuel to the air.
Similarly, Edwin Lyman – a nuclear expert and the chief scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists notes:
The biggest risk with Unit 4 pool unloading is that a spent fuel cask might drop and damage the pool, causing a leak that could expose some fuel and cause overheating.
Professor Richard Broinowski – former Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Central American Republics and Cuba – and author of numerous books on nuclear policy and Fukushima, says some of the fuel rods are probably fused.
Murray E. Jennex, Ph.D., P.E. (Professional Engineer), Professor of MIS, San Diego State University, notes:
The rods in the spent fuel pool may have melted …. I consider it more likely that these rods were breached during the explosions associated with the event and their contents may be in contact with the ground water, probably due to all the seawater that was sprayed on the plant.
Fuel rod expert Arnie Gundersen – a nuclear engineer and former senior manager of a nuclear power company which manufactured nuclear fuel rods – recently explained the biggest problem with the fuel rods (at 15:45):
I think they’re belittling the complexity of the task. If you think of a nuclear fuel rack as a pack of cigarettes, if you pull a cigarette straight up it will come out — but these racks have been distorted. Now when they go to pull the cigarette straight out, it’s going to likely break and release radioactive cesium and other gases, xenon and krypton, into the air. I suspect come November, December, January we’re going to hear that the building’s been evacuated, they’ve broke a fuel rod, the fuel rod is off-gassing.
***
I suspect we’ll have more airborne releases as they try to pull the fuel out. If they pull too hard, they’ll snap the fuel. I think the racks have been distorted, the fuel has overheated — the pool boiled – and the net effect is that it’s likely some of the fuel will be stuck in there for a long, long time.
In another interview, Gundersen provides additional details (at 31:00):
The racks are distorted from the earthquake — oh, by the way, the roof has fallen in, which further distorted the racks.
The net effect is they’ve got the bundles of fuel, the cigarettes in these racks, and as they pull them out, they’re likely to snap a few. When you snap a nuclear fuel rod, that releases radioactivity again, so my guess is, it’s things like krypton-85, which is a gas, cesium will also be released, strontium will be released. They’ll probably have to evacuate the building for a couple of days. They’ll take that radioactive gas and they’ll send it up the stack, up into the air, because xenon can’t be scrubbed, it can’t be cleaned, so they’ll send that radioactive xenon up into the air and purge the building of all the radioactive gases and then go back in and try again.
It’s likely that that problem will exist on more than one bundle. So over the next year or two, it wouldn’t surprise me that either they don’t remove all the fuel because they don’t want to pull too hard, or if they do pull to hard, they’re likely to damage the fuel and cause a radiation leak inside the building. So that’s problem #2 in this process, getting the fuel out of Unit 4 is a top priority I have, but it’s not going to be easy. Tokyo Electric is portraying this as easy. In a normal nuclear reactor, all of this is done with computers. Everything gets pulled perfectly vertically. Well nothing is vertical anymore, the fuel racks are distorted, it’s all going to have to be done manually. The net effect is it’s a really difficult job. It wouldn’t surprise me if they snapped some of the fuel and they can’t remove it.
The Japan Times writes:
The consequences could be far more severe than any nuclear accident the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting much of Japan — including Tokyo and Yokohama — and even neighboring countries at serious risk.
Reuters notes:
Experts question whether it will be able to pull off the removal of all the assemblies successfully.
***
No one knows how bad it can get, but independent consultants Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013: “Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date.”
***
Nonetheless, Tepco inspires little confidence. Sharply criticized for failing to protect the Fukushima plant against natural disasters, its handling of the crisis since then has also been lambasted.
***
“There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other,” Gundersen said.
***
The rods are also vulnerable to fire should they be exposed to air, Gundersen said. [The pools have already boiled due to exposure to air.]
***
[Here is a visual tour of Fukushima's fuel pools, along with graphics of how the rods will be removed.]
Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris during an investigation into the chamber earlier this month.
Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician, who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.
“Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don’t have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods,” Kimura said.
***
Corrosion from the salt water will have also weakened the building and equipment, he said.
ABC Radio Australia quotes an expert on the situation (at 1:30):
Richard Tanter, expert on nuclear power issues and professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne:
***
Reactor Unit 4, the one which has a very large amount of stored fuel in its fuel storage pool, that is sinking. According to former prime Minister Kan Naoto, that has sunk some 31 inches in places and it’s not uneven.
And Chris Harris – a, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and engineer – notes that it doesn’t help that a lot of the rods are in very fragile condition:
Although there are a lot of spent fuel assemblies in there which could achieve criticality — there are also 200 new fuel assemblies which have equivalent to a full tank of gas, let’s call it that. Those are the ones most likely to go critical first.
***
Some pictures that were released recently show that a lot of fuel is damaged, so when they go ahead and put the grapple on it, and they pull it up, it’s going to fall apart. The boreflex has been eaten away; it doesn’t take saltwater very good.
Nuclear engineers say that the fuel pool is “distorted”, material was blown up into air and came down inside, damaging the fuel, the roof fell in, distorting things inside.
Indeed, Fukushima documents discuss “fuel that is severely damaged” inside cooling pool, and show illustrations of “deformed or leaking fuels”.
The Urgent Need: Replace Tepco
Tepco is severely downplaying the risks involved in removing fuel rods. For example, Tepco’s head of the Fukushima plant, Akira Ono, says:
We have removed spent fuels many times. Therefore, we don’t think we are going to be doing anything that is very dangerous.
That is idiotic given that (as shown above) this is anything but a normal fuel removal operation.
Tepco is incompetent and corrupt, and has been in cover-up mode since day one. As such, it is the last company which should be in charge of the clean-up.
Top scientists and government officials say that Tepco should be removed from all efforts to stabilize Fukushima. They say that an international team of the smartest engineers and scientists should instead handle this difficult mission.
Bloomberg notes:
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being told by his own party that Japan’s response is failing. Plant operator [Tepco] alone isn’t up to the task of managing the cleanup and decommissioning of the atomic station in Fukushima. That’s the view of Tadamori Oshima, head of a task force in charge of Fukushima’s recovery and former vice president of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party.
***
[There's] a growing recognition that the government needs to take charge at the Fukushima station…. “If we allow the situation to continue, it’ll never be resolved” [said Sumio Mabuchi, a government point man on crisis in 2011].
Because the U.S. controls Japanese nuclear policy, Americans should demand of our political representatives that they pressure Japan to kick Tepco off the job ... and let an international team of scientists and engineers take over.
Postscript: As challenging as removing the fuel rods from the pool at unit 4 will be, it will be even harder at units 1 through 3. Specifically, it's too radioactive for Tepco to even get a look at what's going on in those 3 reactor pools, and they have no idea how to do it. Indeed, the technology does not even exist to approach those reactors, as the high radiation levels quickly destroy even robots.
Nuclear fuel rod expert Gundersen says the pool at unit 3 is in much worse shape than at 4:
Unit 3 is worse [than No. 4]. Mechanically its rubble, the pool is rubble. It’s got less fuel in it [than unit 4, but] structurally the pool has been dramatically weakened. And, god nobody has even gotten near it yet.
Tepco's not up to it ... we need a focused, well-funded international effort to fix this mess.
»
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It is without a doubt a very serious problem for Japan. But:
2/3 of the globe is covered with water. How many quadrillions x qudrillions of gallons of water are there in the oceans?
Will this not dilute the radioactive water coming from Fukishima?
just asking.
Edwards are historically, inspirationally, fiercely, independent. Around here.
Only if the cesium solution would be instantly distributed over the entire volume of water all over the world.
If it stays concentrated in, say, the Japan current and gets carried in that defined river of water, no so much.
No. The radioisotopes bioaccumulate in animals.
It is not just that. When concetrated it kills off the Plankton which happens to be at the bottom of the Oceanic Food Chain and the source for a substantial percentage of Oxygen in the Oceans and in our atmosphere.
The conveyor belt of Ocean Current delivers fresh Plankton to the Kill Zone continuously, depleting Plankton populations.
We will slowly suffocate as a result.
I am glad to see someone shares my opinion on oxygen. Global warming? CO2? Pshht. If enough oxygen is depleted, then the PPM of CO2 rises. The earth is not looking at a CO2 production problem, it is looking at a lack of O2 production from all the little plankton that are being killed off.
Sure. But not before the more concentrated solution washes up on ocean swells all over the world etc. etc. etc. And certainly diluted arsenic poisoning takes longer to cause organ failure. But the hands of a clock aren't tick tick ticking because you watch them and then stop while you look away.
Thank you for this excellent post GW...now my peanut ... All this arguing about how bad is it .... the focus on language and semantics in response to this column is hilarious ... it is f%'gh bad ... that is message 1 loud and clear. Message 2... We need to beg beg beg anyone who can do something to to get Telco out and put some better heads in place to slow the catastrophe that is this entire universe.. That is loud and clear also. Arguing that it is a waste of time to worry b/c we all die anyway is like arguing there is no point cleaning your house because it just gets messed up again. Yes, it does but we live here now as do the people we love and while we are here it is nicer if I expend a little effort on cleaning and I prefer we not live in a pig sty of our own filth or in slow cancerous pain surrounded by other dead and dying. I say go the website in the column that gives you access to our representatives SPAM the shit out of our so-called government reps telling them to f&%() replace Tepco I spent last night doing that and I didn't care if they were from my state or not or if my email is traceable or not... the easter bunny could do a better job extracting those rods. Do what we can or we are just children staring at a clock until we convince ourselves from watching it that we are what causes the hands to move.
failsafe, i tried to click yes, but my computer keeps freezing, & i have to quit & reboot (who knows) anyway yes, and thanks.
OK, so... why?
Move out of the Northern Hemisphere? Really?
Again: why?
Suzuki and his ilk are attention-whores, for the most part. "Hey, listen to me, I've got a Ph.D!"
I'm not saying that they aren't correct - I'm saying that they aren't giving any reasons for why things would be as bad as they say.
Consider: Kwajelein, Trinity, Bikini, Tsar Bomba, Jackass Flats, etc., etc., etc.
Humanity has thrown countless tons of radiation into the atmosphere, and it certainly wasn't a good thing. There are clear cases of people dying, people getting sick, etc.
But "evacuate the Northern Hemisphere?" Let's have some perspective.
What makes Fukushima worse than the dozens of H-Bombs detonated by the USA in the Pacific? Some of those detonations were surface bursts - very, very dirty.
But California is still there, and the citizens (while crazy) are fine.
Either give me some specifics, or shut your attention-whore yap.
It's how many thousands of fresh fuel rods are there.
If it was just 500 or so it wouldn't be so bad. Apparently it's 6 floors full of them.
Hm.
Game over man. You know the words to Kumbaya?
Maybe we should ask Hicks.
It's Hudson, Sir. He's Hicks.
"Move out of the Northern Hemisphere? Really?"
I agree, but not for the same reasons. If you take a look at this NOAA image most of the contaimination is heading for Central and South America:
http://americanlivewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fukushima__noaa_r...
"What makes Fukushima worse than the dozens of H-Bombs detonated by the USA in the Pacific?"
I believe world wide there have only been about a dozen H-Bomb detonations including both the US and the Soviet Union. I believe all of the bombs used in these tests had a "clean jacket" to avoid widespread contamination. In a H-bomb, the fuel is Lithium deuteride which does not produce long lasting radioactive isotopes. The H-Bombs use a small fission core that is used to set off the Lithium deuteride fuel.
The Spent Fuel Pool #4 contains more material than all of these detentions. A typical Fission core contains a mass measured in kilograms, where as SFP's contains dozens or even hundreds of metric tons of highly radioactive material.
I suppose if there is a diaster, they would probably have to somehow bury the exposed rods. but rain and ground water will carry contaminates into the sea for +10K years. I suppose they would build a massive sea wall with deep steel caissons pounded into the ground. I would suspect that any cleanup effort would costs in the hundreds of billions. something which Japan can't possibly afford, especially when more than half the population of Japan flees or gets very sick from exposure.
You're wrong.
The count exceeds 2000.
http://youtu.be/LLCF7vPanrY
That map it's a fake, pal.
Anyway, in a long enough timeline, radiation will reach the entire globe.
exactly:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/fukushima.asp
If a person is old, it does not matter. Something will probably kill them off long before any radiation does. This may very well be the perspective of all our politicians. They will be long gone before the cancer epidemic hits the world.
cursing fish cafepress
holy shit man, did you not pay attention in physics class?
A plutonium initator for a fission fusion fission hydrogen bomb (such as the Tsar) only uses about 20lb of plutonium which is i think a little bigger than an orange in size. Deutrium/tritium is not radioactive, and in the bomb, might weigh more than the plutonium. The final fission stage (uranium 238 tamper) will be a couple more lbs. So lets even say, worst case scenario you're talking 100lb of plutonium and uranium (and note the 238 uranium isn't radioactive), this for a multimegaton bomb.
Fukushima by contrast has about 4,000 TONS of fuel rods.
or about 8.8m lbs.
or the equivalent fuel load of about 80-100,000 nuclear bombs
Do you understand the issue now?
Libertarian777... You wrote, "holy shit man, did you not pay attention in physics class?"
Then you wrote, "and note the 238 uranium isn't radioactive"
The Truth is, "Uranium is weakly radioactive because ALL (of) its isotopes are unstable."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
That includes 92U238
I had to pay attention in Physics class since I was the instructor.
Other than that I do agree that there is a major problem at Fukushima. The problem occurs because of the Critical Density and Geometries. Furthermore it catches on fire when exposed to air
removed
Remember the USA and Soviet Union signed a treaty to ban above-ground nuclear testing. Well, the best of the worst alternatives since this mess has been created is to drill a hole as they do for underground testing and explode a huge hydrogen bomb underneath the reactors and bury the whole mess. Humanity has significant experience with underground nuclear testing, but they always did this testing in desolate places. Fallout would be an issue and you would probably need timed explosions like they do when a large structure is imploded.
Russia, China, French, British and America should all be invovled as George Washington advises because this is a huge and grave problem for us all.
Humanity has significant experience with underground nuclear testing. May I add that this experience doesn't encourage repetition. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gnome , or here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
Hey Bear,
Fukushima is already a disaster. If they could use nuks to bury this mess, this would be a great outcome. I take different perspective on your links. Between the USA and Russia, we should have a great experience base with nuk implosions. The chance of success would be very low; however all we have right now is a pressure cooker that the experts hope they can keep from exploding.
It would indeed be great, but as you state yourself chances would be very low. I would not encourage the use of nuclear devices, because that could create a neutron flux which would be capable of fissioning nearby U 238. I discussed this with Element shortly here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-10/radioactive-water-spills-over-f...
Thanks Bear.
This is what is at risk:
Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival
You might want to read the citations within this article, before giving a moronic knee jerk ad hominem response.
Let's say that you are exactly correct, and that Fukushima does - indeed - release 85 times more Caesium 137 than Chernobyl.
That's a very, very bad thing. I get it.
But look at the hyperbole here. "Evacuate the Northern Hemisphere?"
The article has Apocalyptic quotes for a non-apocalyptic event.
Environmental disaster? Of course. It already is.
But world-ending? Not even close. And nowhere near comparable to what would have happened in an actual nuclear exchange. Not Even Close.
Tens of millions of Americans would have died if there had been a nuclear exchange in 1962.
Alarm over Fukushima? Yes. Of course. This is very serious. But "THE SKY IS FALLING?" Not quite yet.
Amazingly, babies are born every day right in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Healthy babies. Nobody is arguing that those two cities suffered the worst-case scenario - far beyond what Fukushima has wrought.
It's bad. It's very bad. It's a catastrophe.
But it is not a hemisphere-ending event.
All I'm saying is "enough with the attention-grabbing, and a bit more science and perspective."
clearly you DON'T GET IT. It means 80% to 100% crop losses and livestock losses for the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. It means all immune systems for all animals are compromised.
Just imagine if EVERYONE had AIDS all at once. everyone.
That's the NEAR term future. The long-term future is desolation. Extinction. No humans.
Not everybody gets sick. It's a crap shoot. My father, who worked for Eldorado Nuclear in Port Hope Ontario insisted that it was a perfectly safe place to work, right up until he died of cancer. Because most of the workers did not get cancer. Not right away.
Actually, your comment does have a lot to do with the unfolding disaster.
You're using the wrong end of the minimax scale. The design was minimized to save money, the disaster plans were minimized for PR, the financials were minimized to make it possible.
If this is maximizing hazards, perhaps it's about time.
"Tens of millions of Americans would have died if there had been a nuclear exchange in 1962."
Tens of millions of people will get sick or have cronick illness related to Fukushima. Its not going to be acute poisoning where people die in a few days or months but over a 10-20 year people. Many expose will live but suffer frequent illness and will likely die below the median life expectancely. Everyday more contaminated water leaks into the ground water and into the sea and all this contaimination become apart of the food chain.
"Amazingly, babies are born every day right in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Both bombs were air-burst detentions which limited the amount of radioation emitted, and both bombs where small. Fat man had only 6 Kilograms of Plutonium. And most of the people nearby where immediately killed or died shortly after. The Few survivors of Hiroshima and and Nagasaki became outcasts and few any children.
"But it is not a hemisphere-ending event."
Perhaps not, but its a it will be disrupt food production globally as the paciific region becomes off limits for food production.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki didnt have to breathe Plutonium dust. We do.
I'm in the PacNW and this has got my full attention. Appreciate your perspective but I have to admit, I'm worried this just might put the entire PacRim region over the edge. South of the equator sounds like a good place to be when it all goes to shit up here.
Absolute nonsense! The world environment can do fine with radiations. Even mankind can except for some cancers and crazy people going nuts! We are currently destroying the planet at an accelerated speed, emptying the oceans of fishes, cutting the forests, polluting the land with fertilizers, the seas with heavy metals, the list is endless. Fukushima is a catatrophy but just one among many. The planet is at risk from over-consumption and over-population, not from Fukushima!
Shinobi-7: The world is at risk from a lack of accountability. Ill keep it simple. The designers were brilliant and accountable. The management after corrupt, hiring less competent to cut cost. Beyond this catastophe think in scale of mismanagement in all arenas.
In the short term expect catastrophe until accountability is learned via pain. Its evolution. Thank you GWB for your tireless diligence on this matter (and others). Stewardship is not often properly rewarded but some of us notice and are grateful.
You should tell that to the Evacuees from Chernobyl and Fukushima they can go home safely now... Also those who died from the environmental effects... they can now rise from the dead and go shopping.
I'm glad to have your reassurance... pass the tuna.
The US has killed tens of thousands of people in Iraq for no reason whatsoever. And even today besides the daily bombings, far more people are falling sick in Iraq due to depleted uranium poisoning than in Fukushima. So yes, Fukushima is a tragedy which could and should have been avoided but they are so many others that not many people seems interested in.
We now understand that nuclear energy was the wrong one for Japan but at least it was built with the positive intention of bringing electricity to people. Japan is now back to gas and so be it but I am afraid we'll see the consequences soon enough.
The previous nuclear explosions were one time events... the Chernobyl and Fukishima disasters are ongoing and if the current operation fails... Fukishima will be poisining the planet for a long time to come. read about the 2600 km 2 Chernobyl exclusion zone here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_alienation
The whole north island of Japan will be a pro rated area of exclusion in the case of the failure of the proposed operation.....it is a big deal
Ok. Suppose it goes up. Why not just bury unit #4 under a few million tons of sand? Entomb it. That is what the Russians did at Chernobyl.
Can't get close enough WITH sand or concrete without getting killed, that's why.
It's that bad right NOW. lethal doses of radiation if you are OVER it in a helicopter, crane, etc.
Ok. Suppose it goes up. Why not just bury unit #4 under a few million tons of sand? Entomb it. That is what the Russians did at Chernobyl.
It's 100 meters from the Pacific Ocean. Try looking up "ocean" and see what the word means.
Yeah...That is what the Russians did at Chernobyl. How many lives were lost? How many are still disabled?
Tell you what...You can pick up a Shovel and start digging.
The Russians dealt with ONE REACTOR. There are Four of them at Fukushima. The Russian Reactor was not built next to an Ocean. But the Kiev is still at risk today. It it had breached containment through the Concrete floor the Kiev and the Black Sea would have been poisoned.
On the other hand Fukushima is next to the Pacific Ocean and poisons it continuous as containment has been breached. You might be able to bury the top. How do you contain the poisoned water that flows, leaches out, into the Ocean?
This article addresses the easiest problem...the removal of Fuel Rods from a Cooling Pool in Reactor #4. There is no idea of the condition of the Reactors #2 and #3 because it is far too hot (thermally hot) to get anyone close or inside...including the State of the Art Robots that get fried electronics and fail.
Fukushima is an Order of Magnitude worse than Chernobyl. That is my opinion when presented with the information at hand. It may be less, Three of Four Times as worse at the very least, considering that more Reactors are involved.
Of course I am wagering that I am not being given all of the information. That CNN News Crew was restricted in what information that they could have...through TEPCO's restriction the locations of Filming, it is EVIDENTIAL that information is being restricted. So I have excellent odds that information is being withheld.
Do you think that information is being withheld? Do you believe me to be UNFAIR in that statement?
So since information is being withheld this disater may be not just an Order of Magnitude, but, perhaps, MULTIPLE Orders of Magnitude worse than Chernobyl in the scope of the PREDICAMENT.
It is important that you understand that an Order of Magnitude is a factor of Ten. Two Orders of Magnitude mean 100 tomes as intense, Three means 1000 Times as intense, etc. It is important that you develop Exponential Thinking.
Economics depends on this type of thinking. Finance depends on this type of thinking. The Natural Sciences depend upon this type of thinking.
More likely than not the OUTCOME will be most unfavorable for many years if we so shall live that long.
You can go to Japan. It is only a few million tons of sand. Have fun digging. /sarc
"We now understand that nuclear energy was the wrong one for Japan but at least it was built with the positive intention of bringing electricity to people."
No it was built to bring an end to WWII as a weapon by both sides the US just happened to get there first.
It was never designed in mind to provide energy as the primary reason for developing it. If anything nuclear power for energy is just a front to continue developing weaponized nuclear fuel We are just taking advantage of byproduct of the process to get there.
My personal opinion of all the reading I do and how governments and people in power react, I've come to conclusion the ONLY reason for nuclear power reactors is a cover to ultimately create weapons grade Uranium and/or Plutonium. There is no other reason for them to be using either for reactors when they could be using Thorium instead. Which as far as I know can not be refined into weapons grade nuclear fuel.
And from reading this.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/nuclear/is-the-superfuel-...
This is their argument for why it is risky
...
When thorium is irradiated, or exposed to radiation to prepare it for use as a fuel in nuclear reactions, the process forms small amounts of uranium-232. That highly radioactive isotope makes any handling of the fuel outside of a large reactor or reprocessing facility incredibly dangerous. The lethal gamma rays uranium-232 emits make any would-be bomb-maker think twice before trying to steal thorium.
But Ashley and his co-authors say a simple tweak in the thorium irradiation recipe can sidestep the radioactive isotope’s formation. If an element known as protactinium-233 is extracted from thorium early in the irradiation process, no uranium-232 will form. Instead, the separated protactinium-233 will decay into high purity uranium-233, which can be used in nuclear weapons.
"Eight kilograms of uranium-233 can be used for a nuclear weapon," Ashley says. "The International Atomic Energy Agency views it the same as plutonium in terms of proliferation risk."
Creating weapons-grade uranium in this way would require someone to have access to a nuclear reactor during the irradiation of thorium fuel, so it’s not likely a terrorist group would be able to carry out the conversion. The bigger threat is that a country pursuing nuclear energy and nuclear weapons (say, Iran) could make both from thorium. "This technology could have a dual civilian and military use," Ashley says.
...
Think about that for a second if you already have the ability to create nuclear power you can most likely create weapon grade uranium from it anyways so using it to irradiate thorium to create weapon grade uranium is their argument when you could already create weapon grade uranium in the first place. Anyone see something wrong with that argument?
I asked a seminar speaker from the DOE management about thorium reactors and he said something similar - that it presented a huge proliferation risk from the U-233. He said that the only people who really want Th-232 reactors are the lanthanide miners who have lots of excess thorium they can't sell.
Popular Mechanics ?
The magazine that supposedly debunked 9-11 conspiracy ?
You make it seem like nuclear fuel reprocessing is easy.
Try wikipedia instead.
Thanks for these posts George. Lord knows we ain't getting jack out of the MSM...