Well if you examine the attachments, you will find that by factors of 10 to 100, soils tested in Japan between 1978 and 2008 have tested in higher than the soils sampled.
Well if you examine the attachments, you will find that by factors of 10 to 100, soils tested in Japan between 1978 and 2008 have tested in higher than the soils sampled.
The extent of radioactive contamination in Fukushima Prefecture is at the center of important debates as some scientists, NGOs, and citizen’s groups argue that the Japanese government has not gone far enough in dealing with the fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi accident and has deliberately downplayed the potential health effects of radiation. With so much attention focused on Fukushima, however, there has been less consideration of the impact of the crisis, ongoing since March 11, on other parts of Japan. The August 22 issue of AERA magazine, published by Japan’s major progressive newspaper Asahi Shimbun, ran a feature on contamination in the Kanto region entitled Kanto no ko kara hoshano (Radiation Detected from Kanto Children), which broadens discussions of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis’ potential impact. Below is a summary of the AERA article, published under the byline of editor Yamane Yusaku.
The Kanto region is a large area of central Japan that includes Tokyo and nearly 1/3 of Japan’s population including Tokyo. The Japanese government has taken the position that no one outside of the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi plant is likely to suffer health effects from the radiation that has been released since March. Many Japanese, especially parents of young children, are doubtful. The article begins by reiterating a point that has been made frequently by critics of the Japanese government – that we simply do not know what effects low levels of radiation and the presence of isotopes in the human body will have on long-term health. The piece tells the story of a mother in Saitama Prefecture who, in the absence of direct government support, arranged to have a sample of her daughter’s urine tested. The test indicated that despite stringent efforts to protect her fifth grader from exposure to contaminated food and airborne radiation, the result was 0.4 Bq of Cesium 137 per kilogram of urine. Cesium 137, with a half-life of just over 30 years, is one of main radioactive isotopes released from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “I felt a mixture of shock and a feeling that of course this is the case”, laments the girl’s mother.
Measures that the mother took to protect her daughter from exposure included hunting down produce from Kyushu – the southernmost of Japan’s major islands and the furthest from Fukushima – even going so far as to buy 80 eggs at a time from a mail order company in the far south. She has also used bottled water exclusively and washes clothes, umbrellas, and the walls and floors of her home daily. Stories like this one are by no means uncommon as many in the Kanto area have become increasingly mistrustful of the safety of their food supply, despite government claims that health risks are negligible. The story also alludes to the strength of alternative information networks in the wake of the March crisis – after announcing her daughter’s test results on Twitter, the mother’s number of followers jumped from a number of close acquaintances to 700 people asking for details and advice about how to have their own children tested. There are other reports of mothers who have strictly controlled their children’s behavior (such as not allowing them to play in parks and making them always wear a mask outdoors) finding trace amounts of Cesium upon arranging urine tests with private companies.
Urine tests conducted on children in Fukushima show considerably higher levels of radioactive isotopes than anything that has been seen in Kanto – over three times as much in some cases. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has deemed these levels “extremely small” and claim that they will not result in health effects. Sakiyama Hisako, a doctor and influential radiation health researcher, disagrees, “We cannot simply state that there are no potential health problems because the amount detected is low. We simply do not know what happens when even extremely low levels of radiation move through internal organs, the nervous system, and the brain.”
While airborne radiation has lessened as emissions from the Fukushima Daiichi plant have decreased, there are concerns across the Kanto region of radioactive buildup in the soil. Citizen’s groups, taking radiation testing into their own hands, have conducted tests in 130 locations around Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Ibaraki. In over 30 places they have detected levels of radioactive cesium of over 37,000 Bq, a level greater than that found in the area designated contaminated after the Chernobyl disaster. Readings in one area of Saitama were over 900,000 Bq – a level greater than that which resulted in forced relocation after Chernobyl. Areas of Tokyo, Chiba, and Ibaraki resulted in measures of over 200,000 Bq – a level which would have qualified residents for voluntary relocation after Chernobyl. There are reports that some children are complaining of headaches, nosebleeds, sore throats, worsening allergies, and other symptoms. Dr. Yamada Makoto, who runs a family practice in Hachioji and heads the “National Network of Pediatricians for Protecting Children from Radiation”, reports that parents face a dilemma – too much control or preventing children from going out can give rise to stress and related symptoms. On the other hand, parents must try their best to limit exposure. A balance between protection and the necessity of living in an environment with elevated levels or radiation must be struck. So far, however, the Japanese government’s focus on Fukushima instead of heavily contaminated areas outside and insistence that levels of radiation detected are “safe”, even when they exceed levels considered decidedly unsafe after Chernobyl, has not offered citizens outside of Fukushima adequate help in finding this balance.
Asia-Pacific Journal articles on related themes include:
Matthew Penney and Mark Selden, What Price the Fukushima Meltdown? Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima
Kodama Tatsuhiko, Radiation Effects on Health: Protect the Children of Fukushima
APJ Feature, 20 Millisieverts for Children and Kosako Toshiso’s Resignation
Norimatsu Satoko, Worldwide Responses to the 20 Millisievert Controversy
* * More o Business Exchange o Buzz up! o Digg * Print * Email
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the temperature of the No. 3 reactor pressure vessel at its crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant fell to below 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit), one of the conditions for achieving cold shutdown.
The temperature on the outside of the base of the vessel was 98.4 degrees Celsius at 5:00 a.m. today from 102.7 degrees 24 hours earlier after the utility known as Tepco this month added a spraying system to cool the reactor, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager, told reporters.
It doesn’t mean the reactor has reached cold shutdown status because the utility still needs to assess the amount of radioactive materials leaking from the reactor, he said. Temperatures remain higher than 100 degrees on other sections of the reactor, the utility said.
Temperatures on the No. 1 reactor remain below 100 degrees Celsius after reaching that level around Aug. 20, Matsumoto said. The temperature of the bottom of the No. 1 reactor vessel was 85.1 degrees today, according to a table provided by the company.
On the base of the No. 2 reactor the temperature was 112.6 degrees, according to Tepco.
Tepco has been pouring water into reactors after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling system of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, leading to three reactor meltdowns.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Teo Chian Wei at cwteo@bloomberg.net
---------------------------------- See, just like TEPCO's plutonium report, where the Plutonium from the plant is harmless, this is a mark of progress. Tepco is approaching cold shutdown, the fact the rods may be in the basement or worse in the ground is irrelevant.
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04:08 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Hey one of the CFLs in my bathroom has been going on and off after it gets warm. Do you think that's because it's receiving radioactive fallout from Fukushima Daichi? It must be some Tepco conspiracy right?
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09:21 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Hey one of the CFLs in my bathroom has been going on and off after it gets warm. Do you think that's because it's receiving radioactive fallout from Fukushima Daichi? It must be some Tepco conspiracy right?
No, I am pretty sure its because you spend way to much trying to downplay everything, to get around to replacing it.
The mother that had her daughter's urine tested and found Cesium-137, the problem with that is that she had no tests from before the reactors melted down, so without a baseline there's no way to know how much of that Cesium was already pre-existing. Without knowing that, it's impossible to attribute negative health effects on her to Fukushima.
In fact, since there weren't any existing baselines it isn't reasonably possible to attribute any of the contamination across Japan to Fukushima. It could all the naturally occurring (Japan is on a volcano zone, after all) or left over from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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09:49 AM
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dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Well if you examine the attachments, you will find that by factors of 10 to 100, soils tested in Japan between 1978 and 2008 have tested in higher than the soils sampled.
You know at the beginning of this event, the media was stating Plutonium and Uranium were to heavy to "float". So how is it, Japan has Plutonium from weapons testing?
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12:42 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
The mother that had her daughter's urine tested and found Cesium-137, the problem with that is that she had no tests from before the reactors melted down, so without a baseline there's no way to know how much of that Cesium was already pre-existing. Without knowing that, it's impossible to attribute negative health effects on her to Fukushima.
In fact, since there weren't any existing baselines it isn't reasonably possible to attribute any of the contamination across Japan to Fukushima. It could all the naturally occurring (Japan is on a volcano zone, after all) or left over from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If a group of people in similar circumstances ended up with that same condition, it would be a higher chance that something in those circumstances caused this condition. If it is just one individual of the group that tests this way it would make people tend to believe that it wasn't from her group's circumstances.
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02:39 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Perhaps the conclusion should be that if floats that means it's made of wood and thus she is a witch.
Once again, such high class. I know the difference between to and too, its called a typo. You didn't even attempt to address my statement. The media stated uranium and plutonium particles were too heavy to travel very far, now they are saying the plutonium and uranium particles are from weapons testing. Since Japan has never had a nuclear weapons program, and these particles were never claimed to be from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, when was the pro nuclear industry lying? Before or now?
"In planning for nuclear reactor emergencies here, we don’t project uranium, which is the main radioactive element in the fuel, or plutonium traveling very far. Heavier elements such as uranium and plutonium settle out quickly, and would not reach the upper atmosphere and travel thousands of miles from Japan to Washington." http://www.doh.wa.gov/topics/japan-faq.htm
"Plutonium sticks around for a lot longer, but it’s very heavy so it’s not going to blow far from the reactor site. You could possibly develop lung cancer from inhaling large quantities of plutonium, says Andrew Maidment, an associate professor of radiology and chief of physics and radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. " http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...y-not-be-bad-iodine/
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 09-06-2011).]
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04:15 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
Once again, such high class. I know the difference between to and too, its called a typo. You didn't even attempt to address my statement. The media stated uranium and plutonium particles were too heavy to travel very far, now they are saying the plutonium and uranium particles are from weapons testing. Since Japan has never had a nuclear weapons program, and these particles were never claimed to be from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, when was the pro nuclear industry lying? Before or now?
Higher class than posting a video with a light in the background and implying that the source must be something that is being covered up by Tepco.
Maybe you could enlighten us on the 'pro nuclear' camp since you have said that you are "pro nuclear" and have never since taken the statement back. You clearly have made more statements about nuclear power than anyone else here.
Your first quote talks about the distance between Japan and Washington. Clearly the particles landing in Japan would qualify as 'settling out quickly' when considering the distance referenced.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 09-06-2011).]
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07:39 PM
carnut122 Member
Posts: 9122 From: Waleska, GA, USA Registered: Jan 2004
Higher class than posting a video with a light in the background and implying that the source must be something that is being covered up by Tepco.
Maybe you could enlighten us on the 'pro nuclear' camp since you have said that you are "pro nuclear" and have never since taken the statement back. You clearly have made more statements about nuclear power than anyone else here.
Your first quote talks about the distance between Japan and Washington. Clearly the particles landing in Japan would qualify as 'settling out quickly' when considering the distance referenced.
More high class responses as always. As for the light its pretty obvious its coming from the plant grounds, best case appears to be a transformer explosion. If thats the case it was not reported by Tepco. I am pro nuclear technology, I am not however pro corporate down playing, this has been discussed many times in the past. As for your final criticism, The media at best was telling a half truth, because as is in high altitude nuclear weapon testing, plutonium can be spread great distances. Plutonium will not spread great distances if it doesn't reach the upper atmosphere. However explosions can cause that. So the answer was, they were lying before.
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09:47 PM
Sep 7th, 2011
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
More families leave Fukushima over radiation fears
By Takehiko Kambayashi Sep 7, 2011, 3:07 GMT
Fukushima, Japan - Tens of thousands of residents left the Fukushima prefecture in the wake of the nuclear crisis as they feared the health effects of radiation, local officials said.
Most of them wanted to avoid their children being exposed to the dangers of radiation while more grave problems about the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station emerged.
The plant has leaked radioactive material since it was hit by the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami. The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co has been struggling to bring it under control.
As of August 11, at least 51,576 people had left Fukushima , whose population is about 2 million, prefectural officials said.
Citizens groups are concerned about some symptoms appearing more frequently in children.
'Some children got diarrhoea or nosebleeds repeatedly and others developed a sore throat,' said Chieko Shiina, who works at the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation. 'Some children also say they feel listless and tired.'
She feared more children would develop such symptoms in the coming months.
'A wise measure is to evacuate from Fukushima. If a child cannot leave, decontamination measures must be conducted,' Shiina said.
Yoshiaki Takahashi, a poultry farmer in Kawamata town about 45 kilometres from the plant, said his youngest son started to get nosebleeds once a month after the disaster.
Takahashi said town officials would first decontaminate schools and roads leading to schools, so he would do that for his own land himself.
Locals said there are many families who cannot leave Fukushima even though they want to. They said that is due to travelling and living costs, jobs, children's ties with friends and school activities, ancestral land and elderly to take care of.
Seiichi Nakate, leader of the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation, said the government must evacuate all children from Fukushima immediately especially because the operator has not stabilized the damaged plant and sufficient decontamination has yet to be conducted.
But local public officials and assembly members are reluctant, he said.
'That is because they are worried about their own job after the relocation of children. Unfortunately, they are only thinking about what is right for their selfish interests,' he said.
Some people said the government wanted residents to stay in Fukushima because the place has become a testing ground of international experimentation on the long-term health effects of radiation.
Some experts argue there is little data available on the health effects of cumulative low dose of radiation.
However, MD Hisako Sakiyama, a former director at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, told a session of the science and technology committee in the lower house of parliament in May, 'It is an international consensus that there is no safe dose of radiation.'
Yuko, a mother in Fukushima, who declined to give her last name, said parents were stressed as they were constantly worried about the effects of radiation in addition to an economic slowdown in the aftermath of the disaster.
'Many children have been also stressed out as they cannot play outside freely,' she said.
Some parents were also frustrated the government later released information that showed the crisis was more serious.
It took nearly five months for the government to report the results of radiation checks on more than 1,000 children who then lived near the plant. The tests were conducted in late March.
The government said in mid-August that the results found 45 per cent of the 1,080 children aged 15 or younger had traces of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands.
Government officials said that their levels did not pose a health risk. But parents were concerned because radioactive iodine in the thyroid glands of babies and children can increase the risk of cancer later in life.
'Nobody can be relieved to hear what the government said,' Nakate said. 'Local residents no longer trust the government.'
Critics said the government and the media continued to downplay the risks of the nuclear crisis.
'I believe eventually the government will have to evacuate children,' Nakate said. 'But it will be too late to do so if the government waits for children to start to collapse.' http://www.monstersandcriti...over-radiation-fears
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11:48 AM
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dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
This is another example if you watch this video made for kids in Japan, you will see where it is stated the really nasty particles are too heavy to "float".
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03:04 PM
Sep 8th, 2011
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
A group of Japanese researchers say that a total of 15,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances is estimated to have been released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.
Researchers at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Kyoto University and other institutes made the calculation of radioactivity released from late March through April.
The combined amount of iodine-131 and cesium-137 is more than triple the figure of 4,720 terabecquerels earlier estimated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator. The utility only calculated the radioactivity from substances released from the plant into the sea in April and May.
The researchers say the estimated amount of radioactivity includes a large amount that was first released into the air but entered the sea after coming down in the rain.
They say they need to determine the total amount of radioactivity released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant in order to accurately assess the impact of the disaster on the sea.
More high class responses as always. As for the light its pretty obvious its coming from the plant grounds, best case appears to be a transformer explosion. If thats the case it was not reported by Tepco. I am pro nuclear technology, I am not however pro corporate down playing, this has been discussed many times in the past. As for your final criticism, The media at best was telling a half truth, because as is in high altitude nuclear weapon testing, plutonium can be spread great distances. Plutonium will not spread great distances if it doesn't reach the upper atmosphere. However explosions can cause that. So the answer was, they were lying before.
I am for telling the truth. I am for accurate reporting. Accurate reporting is not alarmist reporting. Accurate reporting means the reporter needs to aim for the recipient to understand the situation discussed.
So regarding the spread of radioactive particles, it sounds like you are saying that if a reactor's core exploded with no containment, and then burned, that the radioactive particles would be spread further than if one just melted. Am I correct in that assessment?
Also there are situations where someone says things that aren't necessarily true and it doesn't mean they are lying you know. So when the media get's it wrong that means they are lying?
It seems to me that building a reactor next to the very ocean that one gets your primary source of protein from is a stupid idea. It seems to me that not making that reactor proof against the worst conceivable earthquake and tsunami scenario, in the middle of one of the most active earthquake zones in the world with a history of tsunamis, was a stupid idea. I think we've transitioned from the stage where it was possible to clean up the contamination (at a cost of a significant percentage of Japan's national GDP for the next few decades) to just plain impossible. What are they going to do, filter all the sea water in the ocean? A significant and growing number of fish and other ocean food sources are becoming increasingly contaminated. It is literally not possible to test every fish harvested from the ocean, so really the options are to go ahead and eat it anyway and hope for the best, or stop eating and replace that protein with something from someone else's food source. Hope they won't mind.
And, not only that, but fish migrate. How do you stop the contamination from spreading out through the food chain? And every time it rains the contamination that was dropped on hundreds of square miles of land washes out to sea. Animals on land take it up, other animals and birds eat them and in turn are contaminated. The birds and animals migrate to other areas, spreading the contamination even further.
At least a reactor built in the middle of the desert would have a more limited impact on the food chain when (not if) there's another major catastrophe on this scale.
And still no info on how the nuclear industry in Japan is compensating the refugees who've lost their homes, lands, farms, dairies, etc. right now. Are they getting checks equal to their expected income? Is the nuclear industry paying those folk's mortgages? How many hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of yen got taken out of the economy when these businesses, not damaged by the tsunami and only somewhat damaged by the quake (if at all, farm land, crops, and livestock is earthquake-proof), got removed from the economy by the Fukishima disaster. Who's replacing those yen right now, as I type this? I suspect nobody.
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06:35 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
I am for telling the truth. I am for accurate reporting. Accurate reporting is not alarmist reporting. Accurate reporting means the reporter needs to aim for the recipient to understand the situation discussed.
So regarding the spread of radioactive particles, it sounds like you are saying that if a reactor's core exploded with no containment, and then burned, that the radioactive particles would be spread further than if one just melted. Am I correct in that assessment?
Also there are situations where someone says things that aren't necessarily true and it doesn't mean they are lying you know. So when the media get's it wrong that means they are lying?
You are not correct in your assumption, Any one of the the hydrogen explosions could have scattered Plutonium provided it had leaked past containment at that point. I am fully aware the reactors had containment and how this differs from a core explosion, However, yes chernobyl would be more like to spread plutonium than 3 mile island.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 09-08-2011).]
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06:47 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
It seems to me that building a reactor next to the very ocean that one gets your primary source of protein from is a stupid idea. It seems to me that not making that reactor proof against the worst conceivable earthquake and tsunami scenario, in the middle of one of the most active earthquake zones in the world with a history of tsunamis, was a stupid idea. I think we've transitioned from the stage where it was possible to clean up the contamination (at a cost of a significant percentage of Japan's national GDP for the next few decades) to just plain impossible. What are they going to do, filter all the sea water in the ocean? A significant and growing number of fish and other ocean food sources are becoming increasingly contaminated. It is literally not possible to test every fish harvested from the ocean, so really the options are to go ahead and eat it anyway and hope for the best, or stop eating and replace that protein with something from someone else's food source. Hope they won't mind.
And, not only that, but fish migrate. How do you stop the contamination from spreading out through the food chain? And every time it rains the contamination that was dropped on hundreds of square miles of land washes out to sea. Animals on land take it up, other animals and birds eat them and in turn are contaminated. The birds and animals migrate to other areas, spreading the contamination even further.
At least a reactor built in the middle of the desert would have a more limited impact on the food chain when (not if) there's another major catastrophe on this scale.
And still no info on how the nuclear industry in Japan is compensating the refugees who've lost their homes, lands, farms, dairies, etc. right now. Are they getting checks equal to their expected income? Is the nuclear industry paying those folk's mortgages? How many hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of yen got taken out of the economy when these businesses, not damaged by the tsunami and only somewhat damaged by the quake (if at all, farm land, crops, and livestock is earthquake-proof), got removed from the economy by the Fukishima disaster. Who's replacing those yen right now, as I type this? I suspect nobody.
Do you have any substantiated numbers on expected contamination?
Ocean currents move and dissipate contaminated water fairly well. I would be surprised to find there are long term problems with the contamination in the ocean. Remember they tested multiple nuclear devices in the ocean.
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08:11 PM
Sep 9th, 2011
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Fukushima nuclear disaster: PM at the time feared Japan would collapse
Naoto Kan said that Tepco had considered abandoning the plant after it was hit by the 11 March tsunami
* o o o reddit this
* Justin McCurry * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 September 2011 20.26 BST * Article history
Aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power An aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power, two weeks after the tsunami struck Japan. Illustration: Reuters
Japan's prime minister at the height of the nuclear crisis has said he feared the country would collapse, and revealed that Tepco had considered abandoning the Fukushima Daiichi power plant after it was hit by the 11 March tsunami.
In candid interviews with Japanese newspapers, Naoto Kan, who resigned this month, said that at one point he believed the disaster could become many times worse than Chernobyl.
"It was truly a spine-chilling thought," he told the Tokyo Shimbun, adding that he foresaw a situation in which greater Tokyo's 30 million people would have to be evacuated, a move that would "compromise the very existence of the Japanese nation".
In the first week of the crisis Tepco played down speculation that fuel rods had melted after the quake and tsunami crippled the reactors' cooling systems. "The power was totally lost and there was no cooling capacity," Kan said. "I knew what that meant and I thought, 'This is going to be a disaster'."
His unease grew when his trade minister, Banri Kaieda, told him that Tepco was considering pulling its staff out of the plant and leaving it to its fate. "Withdrawing from the plant was out of the question," he said. "If that had happened, Tokyo would be deserted by now. It was a critical moment for Japan's survival. It could have been a led to leaks of dozens of times more radiation than Chernobyl."
Kan demanded an explanation from Tepco's then president, Masataka Shimizu, but "he never told me anything clearly".
Kan was also critical of Tepco's failure to immediately obey his order to vent one of the overheating reactors, prompting him to view the plant by helicopter the day after the tsunami.
"I went because we were not receiving accurate information," he told the Asahi Shimbun. "I felt I had to go there in person and speak to the people in charge or I would never have known what was going on."
Kan, whose handling of the crisis drew widespread public criticism, said Washington had also grown frustrated with his government's response.
"We were not told straight out, but it was obvious that they questioned whether we were really taking this seriously," he said.
Kan defended the gradual widening of the exclusion zone, and his conversion to a non-nuclear energy policy: "If there is a risk of accidents that could make half the land mass of our country uninhabitable, then we cannot afford to take that risk." http://www.guardian.co.uk/w...ar-disaster-pm-japan
--------------------------------------------- So the prime minister of Japan was worried about the destruction of Japan, and people were calling me a fear monger at the time, for stating I thought containment was breeched, and that disagreed with what the "experts" with Phds were saying on MSNBC.
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10:57 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
TOKYO—The Japanese government initially underestimated radiation releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, in part because of untimely rain, and so exposed people unnecessarily, a report released this week by a government research institute says.
In candid interviews with Japanese newspapers, Naoto Kan, who resigned this month, said that at one point he believed the disaster could become many times worse than Chernobyl.
"It was truly a spine-chilling thought," he told the Tokyo Shimbun, adding that he foresaw a situation in which greater Tokyo's 30 million people would have to be evacuated, a move that would "compromise the very existence of the Japanese nation".
In the first week of the crisis Tepco played down speculation that fuel rods had melted after the quake and tsunami crippled the reactors' cooling systems. "The power was totally lost and there was no cooling capacity," Kan said. "I knew what that meant and I thought, 'This is going to be a disaster'."
His unease grew when his trade minister, Banri Kaieda, told him that Tepco was considering pulling its staff out of the plant and leaving it to its fate. "Withdrawing from the plant was out of the question," he said. "If that had happened, Tokyo would be deserted by now. It was a critical moment for Japan's survival. It could have been a led to leaks of dozens of times more radiation than Chernobyl."
Oh. My. God.
Just one nuclear power plant has the ability to bring down a nation.
Just one.
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01:49 PM
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dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
So this story is telling us that the prime minister of Japan was the one calling the shots on how the details of the nuclear plant disaster was being handled?
Not the engineers? Not the operators? But some politician who has no idea what he is doing? That seems quite hard to believe.
---
Oh and maybe you want to go back and find where ever it was that you said something to the effect of "I believe the core is melting". My continued complaints about your posts were that you stated as fact things that couldn't have been known at the time.
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03:41 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
On March 11, at 22:35, the Cabinet received advice predicting that the fuel would be damaged and the pressure vessels would be breached
Forecast: exposure of top of active fuel (TAF): 21:40 (approx.) Forecast: damage to the reactor core(s) begins: 22:20 (approx.) Forecast: breaching of the pressure vessel(s) begins: 23:50 (approx.)
A prediction is not the same as a fact.
Again you need to stop stating your conclusions as facts when they are not supported from your references.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 09-09-2011).]
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04:01 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
So as they add water to the spent fuel pools they need to add boric acid to the pools. The boron acts to keep the nuclear reaction from happening inside the pools.
Add water and things could go bad. Real bad. I'm not sure the details and how dangerous the rods can be. IDK if the rods are stored with control rods inserted between them.
For the fission chain reaction process to occur the particles that are emitted from a fission need to be 'moderated' or slowed down before hitting the next fissionable atom. The water acts as that moderator inside the reactor vessel. The inserted control rods absorb the fission particles and slow/stop the fission process.
Yeah those blown open buildings and substantial rain could cause problems. Yes blasting water out of a fire hose can cause problems. You can dump sea water into the reactor since the control rods are inserted. Inserting boric acid into the reactor is a secondary way of shutting down the reactor.
Fukushima nuclear disaster: PM at the time feared Japan would collapse
Naoto Kan said that Tepco had considered abandoning the plant after it was hit by the 11 March tsunami
* o o o reddit this
* Justin McCurry * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 September 2011 20.26 BST * Article history
Aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power An aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power, two weeks after the tsunami struck Japan. Illustration: Reuters
Japan's prime minister at the height of the nuclear crisis has said he feared the country would collapse, and revealed that Tepco had considered abandoning the Fukushima Daiichi power plant after it was hit by the 11 March tsunami.
In candid interviews with Japanese newspapers, Naoto Kan, who resigned this month, said that at one point he believed the disaster could become many times worse than Chernobyl.
"It was truly a spine-chilling thought," he told the Tokyo Shimbun, adding that he foresaw a situation in which greater Tokyo's 30 million people would have to be evacuated, a move that would "compromise the very existence of the Japanese nation".
In the first week of the crisis Tepco played down speculation that fuel rods had melted after the quake and tsunami crippled the reactors' cooling systems. "The power was totally lost and there was no cooling capacity," Kan said. "I knew what that meant and I thought, 'This is going to be a disaster'."
His unease grew when his trade minister, Banri Kaieda, told him that Tepco was considering pulling its staff out of the plant and leaving it to its fate. "Withdrawing from the plant was out of the question," he said. "If that had happened, Tokyo would be deserted by now. It was a critical moment for Japan's survival. It could have been a led to leaks of dozens of times more radiation than Chernobyl."
Kan demanded an explanation from Tepco's then president, Masataka Shimizu, but "he never told me anything clearly".
Kan was also critical of Tepco's failure to immediately obey his order to vent one of the overheating reactors, prompting him to view the plant by helicopter the day after the tsunami.
"I went because we were not receiving accurate information," he told the Asahi Shimbun. "I felt I had to go there in person and speak to the people in charge or I would never have known what was going on."
Kan, whose handling of the crisis drew widespread public criticism, said Washington had also grown frustrated with his government's response.
"We were not told straight out, but it was obvious that they questioned whether we were really taking this seriously," he said.
Kan defended the gradual widening of the exclusion zone, and his conversion to a non-nuclear energy policy: "If there is a risk of accidents that could make half the land mass of our country uninhabitable, then we cannot afford to take that risk." http://www.guardian.co.uk/w...ar-disaster-pm-japan
--------------------------------------------- So the prime minister of Japan was worried about the destruction of Japan, and people were calling me a fear monger at the time, for stating I thought containment was breeched, and that disagreed with what the "experts" with Phds were saying on MSNBC.
This sounds like a whole lot of revisionist history. The only thing left out were the contrasting sets of spandex and capes.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 09-09-2011).]
Nuclear devices set-off Fukushima says ex U.S. official
DATE: 09 SEPTEMBER 2011POSTED BY : COMPILED BY JIM STONE
Jim Stone is a former U.S. government official with a high security clearance.
The destruction of the Fukushima facility is so severe it could only have been accomplished with nuclear weapons. Hydrogen produces a non-ideal subsonic explosion. It cannot turn concrete into dust. It can produce high pressures if sealed off, but the metal roof on all the reactor containments should have provided the relief and been the only thing destroyed. It takes a high intensity explosive to strip concrete off rebar, a blast wave many times faster than supersonic.
I have made a massive report on Fukushima as an act of war on my website: Jimstonefreelance.com . If you have troubles understanding it, just look at THIS picture of the vanished reactor, THIS picture of the destroyed facility and THIS picture, of Magna BSP's camera. Then scroll down to the photos of the NON EXISTENT quake damage and seismic charts which prove there was no 9.0 and therefore the very real tsunami could not have been natural. The fact that what happened in Japan did not occur naturally has been very well documented by a skilled investigator, who spent hundreds of hours getting to the bottom of this story
Nuclear weapon(s) were placed inside of the reactor containment(s) disguised as security cameras installed under contract this year by Arava based security firm Magna BSP (Arava is a district around Dimona, not a city.) Their "security cameras" weighed over 1,000 pounds and were the size and shape of gun type nuclear weapons.The reason Magna BSP gave for the odd shape, enormous weight, and giant proportions of their cameras was that they were stereoscopic.
In fact, the quake was a bold faced lie, packing a political agenda. There is even more proof now, and it goes beyond the linked Japanese chart.
9/11, 4/11, 3/11? see a pattern? Let's not see a 6/11. Your time and effort in spreading the word may really make a difference.
　
I challenge ANYONE to send me pictures of this quake showing me devastation in an area not hit by the tsunami. All we have, all the pictures are tsunami damage. Let's see pictures of quake damage. The Kobe quake was a 6.9/7.2 depending on source. That makes this quake, at a 9.0 100X as powerful. Sendai was near the epicenter and would have been devastated if it really happened. Look at the earthquake photos of damage from the Kobe quake, and try to find ONE THING SIMILAR in SENDAI. Just try. They do not exist. Outside of the tsunami, the quake which supposedly hit Sendai with many times the power of the one in Kobe, did not destroy a single building there. Sendai was only 48 miles from the epicentre of this "9.0" which would have devastated everything in an area 1,000 miles across if it was real. All of Japan would be toast.
Try to find a photo of seismic damage in Sendai. I challenge you. Try to find it in any of the coastal cities, as little as 25 miles from the "epicentre".
I looked for 5 hours, and except for some tanks that fell at a brewery not a single one exists. No pictures of collapsed skyscrapers or high rises equals NO 9.0.
You will not find a single skyscraper photo where the windows got broken either. You will find no downed power poles, no flipped over cars, no uprooted trees, no derailed trains (except for one the tsunami hit), and the road damage is typical of even a 5.0.
You will not find pictures of a single damaged multi story building or even a structurally damaged wood framed house outside the tsunami zone. In Sendai the quake messed up grocery stores and kitchens and that really is about it.
I consider this pretty whacko too. There are pro nuclear nuts with Phds, believe it or not............. Tadashi Narabayashi Professor in Engineering Hokkaido University (in TV Asahi "Sunday Scramble" on Apr. 3, 2011)
Well, half of adult males will die if they ingest 200 grams of salt. With only 200 gram. However, oral lethal dose of plutonium-239 is 32g. So, if you　compare the toxicity, plutonium, when ingested, is not very different from salt. If you inhale it into your lungs, the lethal dose will be about 10　milligram. This is about the same as potassium cyanide. That sounds scary but the point is plutonium is no different from potassium cyanide. Some toxins like botulism bacillus that causes food poisoning is much more dangerous. Dioxin is even more dangerous. So, unless you turn plutonium into powder and swallow it into your lungs....
MC: "No one would do that."
Besides, plutonium can be stopped by a single sheet of paper. Plutonium is made into nuclear fuels in facilities with good protective measures, so you don't need to worry.
Keiichi Nakagawa Associate Professor in Radiology University of Tokyo Hospital (in Nippon TV "news every" on Mar. 29, 2011)
For example, plutonium will not be absorbed from the skin. Sometimes you ingest it through food, but in that case, most of it will go out in urine or stools. The problem occurs when you inhale it. Inhaling plutonium is said to increase the risk of lung cancer.
MC: "How will that affect our daily lives?"
Nothing.
MC: "Nothing?"
Nothing. To begin with, this material is very heavy. So, unlike iodine, it won't disperse in the air. Workers at the plant MAY be affected. So, I'd caution them to be careful. But I don't think the public should worry. For example, 50 years ago when I was born, the amount of plutonium was 1000 times higher than now.
MC: "Oh, why?"
Because of nuclear testing. So, even if the amount has now increased somewhat, in fact it's still much less than before. However, if it is released into the ocean through exhaust water, that's a problem. Once outside, plutonium hardly decreases.
MC: "It takes 24,000 years before it dicreases to half, doen't it?"
That's right. So, in that sense, plutonium is problematic. But then again, there will be no effect on the public. I think you can rest easy.
MC: "Let me summarize. Plutonium won't be absorbed from the skin. If it's ingested through food, it will go out of the body in urine. If it's inhaled, it may increase the risk of lung cancer. But since it's very heavy, we don't need to worry."
Hirotada Ohashi Professor in System Innovation University of Tokyo (at a panel discussion in Saga Pref. on Dec. 25, 2005, regarding using MOX fuel at Genkai Nuke Plant)
MC: Dr. Ohashi, please.
I'd like to point out two things. What happens in a [nuclear] accident depends entirely on your assumptions. If you assume everything would break and all the materials inside the reactor would be completely released into the environment, then we would get all kinds of result. But it's like discussing "what if a giant meteorite hit?" You are talking about the probability of an unlikely event.
You may think it's a big problem if an accident occurs at the reactor, but the nuclear experts do not think Containment Vessels will break. But the anti-nuclear people will say, "How do you know that?" Hydrogen explosions will not occur and I agree, but their argument is "how do you know that?"
So, right now in the safety review, we're assuming every technically possible situation. For example, such and such parts would break, plutonium would be released like this, then it would be stopped here...something like that. We set the hurdle high and still assume even the higher-level radiation would be released and make calculations.
This may be very difficult for you to understand this process, but we do. To figure out how far contamination might spread, we analyze based on our assumption of what could occur. However, the public interpret it as something that will occur. Or the anti-nuclear people take it in a wrong way and think we make such an assumption because it will happen. We can't have an argument with such people.
Another thing is the toxicity of plutonium. The toxicity of plutonium is very much exaggerated. Experts dealing with health damage by plutonium call this situation "social toxicity." In reality, there's nothing frightening about plutonium. If, in an extreme case, terrorists may take plutonium and throw it into a reservoir, which supplies the tap water. Then, will tens of thousands of people die? No, they won't. Not a single one will likely die. Plutonium is insoluble in water and will be expelled quickly from the body even if it's ingested with water.
So, what Dr. Koide is saying is if we take plutonium particles one by one, cut open your lungs and bury the plutonium particles deep in the lungs, then that many people will die. A pure fantasy that would never happen.
He's basically saying we can't drive a car, we can't ride a train, because we don't know what will happen.
MC: "Thank you very much."
Pluto-kun (Little Plutonium Boy) Mascot Character of Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (now Japan Atomic Energy Agency)
Let's imagine some bad guys have just thrown me into a reservoir. I'm not only hard to dissolve in water, but also hard to be absorbed from the stomach or intestines, and eventually I will be out of the body. So I can't actually kill people.
But it so often happens that bad guys take a small thing and turn it into a big lie to threaten people.
Radiation expert says outcome of nuke crisis hard to predict, warns of further dangers Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute. (Mainichi) Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute. (Mainichi)
As a radiation metrology and nuclear safety expert at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, Hiroaki Koide has been critical of how the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) have handled the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Below, he shares what he thinks may happen in the coming weeks, months and years.
The nuclear disaster is ongoing. Immediately after the crisis first began to unfold, I thought that we'd see a definitive outcome within a week. However, with radioactive materials yet to be contained, we've remained in the unsettling state of not knowing how things are going to turn out.
Without accurate information about what's happening inside the reactors, there's a need to consider various scenarios. At present, I believe that there is a possibility that massive amounts of radioactive materials will be released into the environment again.
At the No. 1 reactor, there's a chance that melted fuel has burned through the bottom of the pressure vessel, the containment vessel and the floor of the reactor building, and has sunk into the ground. From there, radioactive materials may be seeping into the ocean and groundwater.
The use of water to cool down the reactors immediately after the crisis first began resulted in 110,000 cubic meters of radiation-tainted water. Some of that water is probably leaking through the cracks in the concrete reactor buildings produced by the March 11 quake. Contaminated water was found flowing through cracks near an intake canal, but I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that contaminated water is still leaking underground, where we can't see it. Because of this, I believe immediate action must be taken to build underground water barriers that would close off the nuclear power plant to the outside world and prevent radioactive materials from spreading. The important thing is to stop any further diffusion of radioactive materials.
The government and plant operator TEPCO are trumpeting the operation of the circulation cooling system, as if it marks a successful resolution to the disaster. However, radiation continues to leak from the reactors. The longer the circulation cooling system keeps running, the more radioactive waste it will accumulate. It isn't really leading us in the direction we need to go.
It's doubtful that there's even a need to keep pouring water into the No.1 reactor, where nuclear fuel is suspected to have burned through the pressure vessel. Meanwhile, it is necessary to keep cooling the No. 2 and 3 reactors, which are believed to still contain some fuel, but the cooling system itself is unstable. If the fuel were to become overheated again and melt, coming into contact with water and trigger a steam explosion, more radioactive materials will be released.
TEPCO says it is aiming to bring the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors to cold shutdown by January 2012. Cold shutdown, however, entails bringing the temperature of sound nuclear fuel in pressure vessels below 100 degrees Celsius. It would be one thing to aim for this in April, when the government had yet to confirm that a meltdown had indeed taken place. But what is the point of "aiming for cold shutdown" now, when we know that fuel is no longer sound?
In the days ahead, the storage of enormous quantities of radiation-contaminated waste, including tainted mud resulting from the decontamination process, will become a major problem. Because the responsibility for spreading nuclear materials into the environment lies with TEPCO, it makes sense to bring all the radioactive waste to TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo.
Since that's not possible, the waste should be taken to the grounds of the nuclear power plant. If the plant is not large enough to accommodate all the waste, then a location close to the plant will also have to be designated as a nuclear graveyard. However, no one should take advantage of the chaos and force Fukushima to host interim radioactive waste repositories for spent fuel from other nuclear power plants.
Recovering the melted nuclear fuel is another huge challenge. I can't even imagine how that could be done. When the Three Mile Island accident took place in 1972, the melted nuclear fuel had stayed within the pressure vessel, making defueling possible. With Fukushima, however, there is a possibility that nuclear fuel has fallen into the ground, in which case it will take 10 or 20 years to recover it. We are now head to head with a situation that mankind has never faced before.
