This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Will Tokyo Be Evacuated Due to Fukushima Radiation?
Tokyo Radiation Exceeds Chernobyl In Some Places … Japanese Government and Experts Discuss Evacuation
As I noted last month, radiation in some parts of Tokyo is higher than in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Yesterday, Al Jazeera pointed out:
Experts estimate the radiation leaked from Fukushima nuclear plant will exceed that of Chernobyl.
***
The need to evacuate parts of the sprawling capital of 35 million may have once seemed an incredible prospect but some experts say the possibility can no longer be ignored.
Indeed, as Japan Times reports today, the Japanese government started discussing the potential need to evacuate Japan soon after the quake hit:
In the days immediately after the crisis began at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government received a report saying 30 million residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would have to be evacuated in a worst-case scenario, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan revealed in a recent interview.
***
“It was a crucial moment when I wasn’t sure whether Japan could continue to function as a state,” he said.
After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant, Kan instructed several entities to simulate a worst-case scenario. One of those assessments said everyone residing within 200 to 250 km of the plant — an zone that would encompass half to all of Tokyo and cut clear across Honshu to the Sea of Japan — would have to be evacuated.
Things Are Getting Worse – Not Better – In Japan
While this is a worst-case scenario, things are getting worse – rather than better – at Fukushima. See this, this, this and this.
»
- advertisements -
Did I correctly detect an Appalachian "accent" in your comment?
40 "junks" and counting... impressive!
To see Greenpeace's reporting
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-update-for-september/blog/36858/
Oh wow man. What a tight ass!! Must be why you're known as 73mm tiny tim, just like that other Timmay with the big forehead on TV in shit. Typical small dog yelpin from behind the fence in shit. No wonder you don't like green .. wow .. must be one of those tweakers. You know what they say .. NEVER trust a tweaker -- except to keep the babes rollin laughing at your little man action.
...wonder if the One Two Punch of Typhoon Sonca and Tropical Storm Roke will suck up some Fukushima and bring it to the West? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkzVrAWjb3o&feature=channel_video_title ...not to mention the ocean current.
Update ''Roke'' now Cat 3 and tornado threats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaGlA6NgvIg&feature=channel_video_title By the way, quakes seem to happen when there is a Hurricane/Typhoon (losts of rain) ...so that's no good.
P.S. Houston, we have a problem brewing http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005x60.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/S_Pacific.php
5.8 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005wx9.php
http://news.yahoo.com/farmers-flee-worlds-deadliest-volcano-rumbles-100259369.html
5.8 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005wrc.html
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php
http://earthquake-report.com/
BlackholeDivestment
"wonder if the One Two Punch of Typhoon Sonca and Tropical Storm Roke will suck up some Fukushima and bring it to the West"
You mean bring MORE to the west.
if global warming becomes as bad as they say, they can relocate to vast swaths of WARMING siberian and kamchatkan wasteland just north within the territories of their friendly neighbor and fellow nuclear disastrophe comrades----RUSSIA!.
global warming for the russian/canadian/norway/sweden/finland win.
I'm looking into developing some vineyards in the Yukon.
George,
I am sympathetic to the current and potential additional suffering of the Japanese people.
"Thu, 03/24/2011 - 01:43 | barliman
The reactor site at Fukushima is similar to the situation at the Fernald plant site northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio (i.e. multiple structures are contaminated, all existing equipment is contaminated, groundwater and aquifer contamination, etc, etc, etc).
Brief description on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernald_Feed_Materials_Production_Center
Watching how effectively the story is disappearing from the media ... we have lent the Japanese government a wide selection of "technical experts" that are proving very helpful.
Making 350 square miles "invisible" in the U.S. - no problem
Losing 350 square miles PERMANENTLY in Japan - BIGGER problem
barliman"
The Fukushima problem is so large in scale and impact that a different value basis is being used to set priorities. The radioactivity from Fukushima will cause many Japanese people to develop terminal cancer, have weakened immune systems that will lead to deaths from other sicknesses and cause birth defects for generations. The low end of the cost in "early deaths" would be in the range of 250 - 500k over the next ten years.
The media is given too much credit for conspiracies, intelligence and perseverance. Fukushima is off the radar because there is no "if it bleeds, it leads" to be exploited for ratings. The largest geographic cost/area of natural disaster in modern times (i.e March 11th earthquake/tsunami/Fukushima) will not come back to the forefront absent a compelling new lead/visual.
The cost in "early deaths" for abandoning half of the Tokyo area and permanently relocating 18 million people would add an additional 100 - 250k (from heart attacks, stress, suicides, disease) to the figure above but would have a negligible impact in reducing that "baseline" number. The monetary cost of abandoning half of Tokyo would be enough to reduce the median income nationwide to at least half of Japan's pre-quake number for at least 50 years. The Fukushima disaster will be downplayed as much as possible. The Japanese government may attempt a Fernald-style remediation effort but even at a cost of $ 1 trillion USD, it will essentially be window dressing.
The "Ring of Fire" has not quieted down since March. As awful as it is to suggest, the Japanese people may have more misery visited upon them in the form of new earthquakes/tsunamis.
barliman
P.S. For the casual reader who may find my statements above offensive, please read "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin for an insight into circumstances that require the application of a different value basis.
Link:
http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/105/
barliman, has there been any studies done of the long-term health effects of Fernald or has it all been swept under the carpet?
This link is from the early days and gives you a feel for what it was like;
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/society/nuclear/fernald/fernald.html
This link gives the site timeline and a good overview
http://epa.ohio.gov/swdo/divisions/FFS/Fernald/FernaldSiteInfo/chronology.aspx
This link shows the current use of the site
http://www.usgbc-cincinnati.org/?mid=70&mid2=164&mid3=18
There are many links available on Google on the health effects, this is just one of them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12921382
This link has transcribed interviews from former employees, managers and people who lived in the area.
http://www.fernaldcommunityalliance.org/interviews.html
Bottom line, after 20 years and $ 24 billion in remediation, including cleaning the aquifer water, the site is now a park. Fernald led to the development and application of new technologies to allow the removal of previously unremovable materials. Net, it was a success, but ... the K-65 silos are still there and entombed because the combined materials in them were a lower risk to leave in place than any of the ideas developed for trying to remove them.
barliman
thanks b-man. interesting developments in the timeline:
1952 Production of uranium ore into uranium metal as the first step in making atomic weapons begins in the Metals Fabrication Plant.
1953 K-65 silos are built to store radioactive materials received from the Belgian Congo.
all this just to find new & ingenious ways to blow each other into smithereens.
barliman
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Cold_Equations
The story was shaped by Astounding editor John W. Campbell, who sent "Cold Equations" back to Godwin three times before he got the version he wanted, because "Godwin kept coming up with ingenious ways to save the girl!"
http://100wordstories.com/2007/02/jeff_r_the_cold_solution.php
Are the fires still burning??? Anyone got some marshmellows???
They have to evacuate and they cannot make the decision. It is too dramatic for the country. They try to forget it but unfortunately this will not work. This is a tragedy larger than any war or catastrophe in the history. The problem is that some other countries will have to make special zones for those who agrees to be contaminated for life - zones for old people. Children must be evacuated.
Not wanting to seem crass as this is an unprecendented, horrific tragedy, but while the MSM has tried to hide this, has the market reacted to this? Nikkei? Yen? I expect the markets to be more perceptive. At what level is this being perceived by the world? Is it just the blogs? Will business continue as usual? Amazing.
It will be sadly interesting to see if upcoming births yeild damaged infants which get media attention. This news will be hard to stifle, but expect JapGov to explain away any rise in birth defects on stress, etc...rather than radiation.
We'll see if the MSM ignores this.
They'll keep raising the exposure levels deemed safe and carry on as usual. That's what Europe did in the years after Chernobyl. The safe radiation levels for milk were raised many times, and always after the prior level was exceeded.
What they have to worry about is human nature. Today, people have the Internet and are more likely to educate themselves. That was not the case with Chernobyl.
My prediction is you will see enough of a voluntary migration that property values are affected and it becomes a drag on Japanese production.
shrewd question.
i expected sionix to skyrocket by now. had to pull out early.
heh.
They're spending 2.4 Billion USD to "decontaminate" one town of 2000 down there, just so they don't have to permanently relocate anyone (along with greasing the appropriate palms - disu iisu Japan, afterall).
A Tokyo evacuation is probably the last thing anyone would ever see here in Japan.
You can bet your ass that something similar will have to occur in the US before any serious attempt is made to decommission our reactors. So where's it going to be?
Indian Point is 38 miles from NYC, and apparently sits directly atop a fault line.
38 miles would be inside the primary exclusion zone of Fukushima (i.e ghost town).
Pascal's Wager would confirm this to be a poor risk/reward situation.
Every day I say a little prayer for that place.
Japan ceased to exist as a state when they signed their surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
Now Japan will cease to exist.
AH...meex...nal you be a true Manichean. Its black or its white. Ah..tchoom...nal please take my kleenex to wipe your nose. Ahnal for short...it rhymes well with you know what. Why this arrogance of "they are irrelevant species"...such an obsession?
A nation's history is longer than a sixty + year romp. So sit back and enjoy the longer ride beyond your own personal horizon.
ignorant comment as usual.
the japs controlled by the rothchilds, too?
Since you're so smart, tell us all how such a resourceful people managed to ruin themselves first economically, and now environmentally.
Their 2-decade ZIRP policy did a lot to enable the carry trades that so enriched bankers. Why did they eviscerate their people's savings for this? Were they that stupid, or is something else at work? Where there's smoke there's fire.
I look forward to your un-ignorant explanation.
GoldBricker
"Since you're so smart, tell us all how such a resourceful people managed to ruin themselves first economically, and now environmentally."
Tentacle porn
Wouldn't be the first time they just maybe decided to commit national suicide. You can't understand the Japanese with a Western mindset.
Sad to see America bent on doing the same...propping up zombie banks, ZIRP forever, equally dysfunctional politics.
Too bad there's nothing we can do about it though...
No? Open offer to Japanese school girls: you can live in my basement for free as long as you agree to daily humiliation sessions. Food and a radiation free environment will be provided. You have to agree to keep wearing those lovely knee length socks too.
This is all coming home to roost.
I'll worry about it later. The football game is on.
Tokyo has some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Major correction coming?
BTFD!!!
Tokyo should have been evacuated a long time ago.
A lot of people in Tokyo are breathing radioactive dust. Maybe not a lot every day but it'll get them cancer in a few years you can bet on that.
It will not happen because it cannot happen.
Greater Tokoyo will go the way of ancient Rome. Well into the 20th Century, Rome's population was less than it was at the height of the Roman Empire. The population of Tokoyo will waste away, likely over several hundred years.
I'm amazed at the lack of press this is getting, as well as the "don't worry, be happy" attitude most (non-Japanese) people have toward this issue.
The current prognosis is that this may take several years, assuming, get this, that new technology can be developed to deal with the problem.
We have 3 nuclear reactions, occuring outside containment. The radiation readings I've been seeing in places in Tokyo like railway stations, are mind boggling. The problem is, the general public has no idea what these readings mean, and have been mislead by the nuclear industry. For example the purposeful confusion between external emitted radiation, and internal emitters, is one obvious ploy.
It is only a matter of time before widespread health effects in Tokyo are admitted to. Currently, based on the few pieces of information that do escape Japan, it sounds like there are increasing accounts of syndromes that can only be explained by low-level radiation sickness: hair coming off in clumps, children with persistent nausea, nosebleeds, even arhythmia and heart attacks (CS-134 attacks muscle, including the heart, and is known to cause heart attacks with 20-30 Becqueral exposure).
For those who would like to believe this is a Japanese problem, you are mistaken. The jet stream has been bringing low levels of radiation, which by themselves are both measurable and a health hazard. CS-134/137 measured in concentrations in pasteurized milk, has ominously started climbing, after having dipped below the point of detectability (google "UC Berkeley Radiation").
Videos of Fukushima which show strange flashes, likely ongoing criticalities, can be found on YouTube. The land there has been turned into a Frankenstein's nightmare of runaway reactions, burrowing down into the soil, likely in the groundwater. Cooling water incessantly pumped in, has been running out into the ocean in frightening volumes and concentrate of contamination (although I believe they have recently stopped this using a type of glass to form a plug...the concentrated water gathers in tanks that are rapidly filling now).
It's interesting, I guess people are too scared to hear the truth. Or maybe too bored.
The east coast of the US has hundreds of reactors, a few of which have the same design (although not on fault lines). The problem (old reactors failing) is a reflection of the global Ponzi unwind. Soon to be coming to upstate NY.
Indian Point is 24 miles from NYC, and is on the Stamford-Peekskill fault line. What could go wrong?
On 9/11 the hijacked plane flew over Indian River on its way to the towers. Dodged bullet?
What we know now (2011):
- Indian Point incl. 2 PWR reactors. Heat exchangers and primary cooling pumps inside the (safe) containments.
- Secondary cooling pumps, emergency cooling, backup diesel generators, diesel fuel tanks and service water pumps are all inside the TURBINE BUILDING or NEXT to it, NOT inside the safe containments.
- The planes hitting the towers shorted/destroyed the two, big substatios that converted high-tension grid electricity to 'service' current: lower Manhattan was without power for weeks until new cables could be laid -- in the gutters and on sidewalks -- from other substations.
- A plane hitting Indian Point in the 'lucky' spot would destroy service water pumps, backup generators, fuel supply, grid connections/substation, cooling connections and emergency cooling. The control room is also outside the containment; at the time of 9/11 the spent fuel pools were also in 'soft skinned' buildings (they still are).
- A plane hitting Indian Point would cause a station shutdown, eliminate control, destroy backup power and emergency cooling. Radiation release from spent fuel would be massive, perhaps enough to prevent workers from approaching the plant. Primary cooling failure or control rod insertion failures would cause steam explosions in both reactors within minutes (!) Destruction of containment would allow multiple Chernobyls worth of rads to flow out of the facility.
- Wind blows to the south in downstate NY about 20% of the time. That means, within five days New York City would be irradiated at a very high level ... along with western Long Island, western Connecticut, the 'stockbroker belt' in Westchester, northern New Jersey as well as part the the NYC water supply.
- Oops, wouldn't take an airplane crash, just a series of missteps. http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html
Some say nuclear power is a good thing ... what do you finance dudes think? Can't get to the Hamptons except in a lead suit ...
I generally find conspiracy theories interesting albeit a bit annoying, and take the view 'don't attiribute to malice what can be explained by stupity'. In this case, however, may I suggest this is exactly why Indian Point plant was not the target...? I'm not a finance dude, just an interested observer of the big playout.
Most people avoid the "truth" because they get depressed. I don't know how anyone can call themselves an optimist or a reasonable person, when they ignore reality and live in an imaginary world of filtered realities, but that's the fact. I am surrounded by dumb asses who every time I try to awaken tell me, you're depressing me, I don't want to know. I do not reply back that they're depressing me... I just hold the contempt till the day reality makes them confront the horrors. At that time, they'll expire and I'll be free to look at an empty landscape destroyed by their ambivalence. People do not seem to realize every indecision is a decision and inaction is action...just in the wrong direction... these ignorant fucks are killing me and they think that I'm the miserable fuck and that they're somehow happy. One recently asked me how I sleep at night... I said I don't have to avoid reality to be able to sleep. Fucking joke really.
Am I dreaming this or is this really happening?
Anymore when I wake from a nightmare I want to go back to sleep and return to it.
Score 1 for old man winter. Just in time!
Get fuk'n wasted
Alchohol keeps the chi moving; too much green food will inundate the thyroid. Got to keep the balance.
Alcohol gets chi moving temporarily.
Its long term effect is to stagnate chi, however.
BigJim & Mr Lennon Hendrix
And Coffee causes greasy Chi.
Ma or Qigong, boys? Which flavor of orientation are we talking.
Wow, and how many of us were saying in March that Tokyo would need to be evacuated? ;-)
Just a matter of time, bitchez. We got too comfortable with having the nuclear genie bottle around the living room and thought if it accidentally got out it would be no big deal; we'd just play with it for a while and then make it go home.
The reality is much different...
Yup, I was among them, further suggesting that whole penensula to the West of Tokyo would be evactuated within ten years.
However, that does not mean that nuclear is bad. Rather, this is the fault of government regulations so strict that it became more profitable to prop up the nuclear shantytown that was Fukushima than to build new plants with new technology that are immune to meltdown by design.
Government regulations everywhere and always have the effect of freezing development of technologies at the time they were implimented, and worse, slowly degrading the quality of those services as time goes on (see the airline industry).
Time for the old "picking up pennies in front of a steamroller metaphor".
So many ZH items seem to fit that cliche these days.