Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Sand]

The EU limit for food is 600 Becquerel/kg (Becquerel is defined as the average number of decays/s) and for milk and baby food it's 380 Becquerel/kg.

A few things

1. The EU limit is three times that of the japanese limit for baby food (Japan: 100 Bq/kg, EU 380 Bq/kg) and twice that for normal food (300 vs 600), so the water would be safe to consume if checked against EU standards (highest value was 210).

2. Most game and wild fruit and mushrooms found in central europe today is still a whole lot over 600 Bq/kg and therefore unsafe for consumption (contamination is always checked) a legacy from the Chernobyl disaster.

Most species of fish higher up the food chain in the ocean right now are unsafe to eat due to mercury but the idiot sheeple seem to ignore that while gorging on sushi tuna. Same for most of the fresh water species of fish in the US.
 

[Ingmar]

Hm, 40 km away and in soil rather than groundwater, that almost sounds like it might be an unrelated bit of horribleness. If not,  .

And on fish and mercury, even people who eat sushi a lot aren't in a lot of real danger from it. Most sushi fish for example are not above the FDA recommended safe limit.

Educate thyself: http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/pubs/mercury.htm

[Sand]

Hm, 40 km away and in soil rather than groundwater, that almost sounds like it might be an unrelated bit of horribleness. If not,  .

And on fish and mercury, even people who eat sushi a lot aren't in a lot of real danger from it. Most sushi fish for example are not above the FDA recommended safe limit.

Educate thyself: http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/pubs/mercury.htm

Let me suggest you educate yourself in turn. Even the article you linked to says that tuna sushi is above the FDA's limit, but that somehow it magically blocks its effects on us.

Researchers found that some fish, including tuna, can block and reduce the toxicity of mercury in their tissues. This research may explain how we have safely eaten fish containing levels of mercury higher than allowed by FDA.

However, that is the only website I have seen making that claim.

Recent article in New York Times stated:

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

In 2004 the Food and Drug Administration joined with the Environmental Protection Agency to warn women who might become pregnant and children to limit their consumption of certain varieties of canned tuna because the mercury it contained might damage the developing nervous system. Fresh tuna was not included in the advisory. Most of the tuna sushi in the Times samples contained far more mercury than is typically found in canned tuna.

Over the past several years, studies have suggested that mercury may also cause health problems for adults, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and neurological symptoms.

Dr. P. Michael Bolger, a toxicologist who is head of the chemical hazard assessment team at the Food and Drug Administration, did not comment on the findings in the Times sample but said the agency was reviewing its seafood mercury warnings. Because it has been four years since the advisory was issued, Dr. Bolger said, “we have had a study under way to take a fresh look at it.”

“The current advice from the F.D.A. is insufficient,” said Dr. Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health and chairman of the department of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark. “In order to maintain reasonably low mercury exposure, you have to eat fish low in the food chain, the smaller fish, and they are not saying that.”

Study published in Biology Letters and American Association for the Advancement of Science:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/no-silver-lining-in-restaurant-s.html

Michael Gochfeld, an environmental toxicologist at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey, wanted to find out which types of tuna pose the greatest risk. Using DNA bar coding, a technique that categorizes organisms based on specific genetic markers, Gochfeld and his team identified five species served in 100 sushi samples from 54 restaurants and 15 supermarkets. They also measured mercury levels in each sample, as the researchers report today in Biology Letters.

The team found that restaurants sold tuna sushi with higher levels of mercury than supermarkets. Bigeye tuna or lean bluefin tuna, which are more common in restaurants, had concentrations that approached or overshot by about 4% the FDA limit— of 1.0 parts per million.

[Ingmar]

Yes, there is a lot of scare language in the NYT article. The second one reports some samples barely above the FDA limit, which appears to be set at a very conservative level. Unless you're a pregnant woman or you're eating it every day for an extended period of time, your chances of suffering any real problems are vanishingly small. There are much better reasons to not eat bluefin tuna sushi, like the population pressure it causes.

Anyway, ending derail, sorry all.

[Sand]

There are much better reasons to not eat bluefin tuna sushi, like the population pressure it causes.

Anyway, ending derail, sorry all.

Agreed 100%. And it wasnt a derail, sushi comes form Japan after all! 

[Ghambit]

How long till all these little things that wont harm you unless "you eat them everyday" or "you spend all day doing it" etc. just add up to the over-arching reality that you're generally fucked when you add all these little things together?

Personally, I'm sick of making all these small compromises and then realizing a few years later that I'm in the hole.  It's like paying compound interest with your health.  Tired of it and no longer falling for it if I can help it.

[Lantyssa]

You could always stop eating, I suppose.

[Sheepherder]

How long till all these little things that wont harm you unless "you eat them everyday" or "you spend all day doing it" etc. just add up to the over-arching reality that you're generally fucked when you add all these little things together?

They don't?

It's not like everything on store shelves is packed chock full of delicious mercury goodness.

[Arthur_Parker]

Hm, 40 km away and in soil rather than groundwater, that almost sounds like it might be an unrelated bit of horribleness. If not,  .

More dust sampling today.

Also this, Restoration work resumed at nuke plant, but 3 exposed to radiation

The government said, meanwhile, it detected 2.54 million becquerels of iodine and 2.65 million becquerels of cesium, another radioactive substance, from weed leaves in the village of Iitate in Fukushima Prefecture about 40 km northwest from the nuclear plant, far above the provisional limits for food of 2,000 becquerels for iodine and 500 becquerels for cesium.

Abnormally high levels of these materials were also detected again in the sea near the plant, TEPCO said, warning the radiation levels in seawater may keep rising.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano suggested that the government may consider the possibility of moving people beyond the 30 km radius as the crisis prolonged.

[Khaldun]

Do the seawater readings suggest that maybe some contamination has leaked into groundwater? Or could that come from releases into the air?

[Arthur_Parker]

No clue, I'm totally guessing, so happy if someone like Jeff corrects me.

I'd have thought they aren't in any position to treat the sea water they have been cooling with yet, so it's just running back off site into the sea.  The high 40km soil readings are to the north west, away from the sea, so the smoke/steam from reactors 2 & 3 seem most likely cause of that.

Not seen any test results for Uranium and Plutonium, I'm starting to think they know a lot more than they are saying and the current evacuation zone isn't far enough.  Not an expert disclaimer goes here.

[NiX]

Have they managed to get them all under control yet? Or are they just managing to keep enough information out of the public eye so it doesn't seem like a crisis?

[Arthur_Parker]

Seismic Damage Information (the 49th Release)(As of 19:30 March 24th, 2011)

That's the best summary out there.  Rods are still exposed in 1, 2 & 3, but reactor pressure vessel temperatures have cooled a lot in the past couple of days, they are hitting 1 with lots more water but it's still hot.  Currently I think they are most worried about the black smoke at 3, the other two they need to inspect damage.  A new problem at any of them would be real bad.

As an example, based on what's happened so far, newscientist does a comparison using the C word. (edit, math seems wrong?)

[Trippy]

Nobody's posted the dog video yet?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TM9GL2iLI

Translation is available on the full page.

[Sand]

Have they managed to get them all under control yet? Or are they just managing to keep enough information out of the public eye so it doesn't seem like a crisis?

No, NATO attacked Libya so no one cares anymore. 
Japan? 20,000 missing or dead? Pshaw that was soooo last week.

[Khaldun]

Nobody's posted the dog video yet?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TM9GL2iLI

Translation is available on the full page.

 

[Arthur_Parker]

Japanese nuclear officials fear crack in reactor core

Nuclear safety officials in Japan fear the core of a reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have cracked, causing a leak of high levels of radiation.

Growing uncertainty over the state of the stricken reactor prompted the government to tell people living within a 12-19 mile (20-30km) radius of the plant to consider leaving their homes temporarily.

The government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said 130,000 residents in the area had been encouraged to leave to improve their quality of life, not because their health was at risk.
...
Officials were preparing themselves for the possibility that the reactor core was damaged in an explosion three days after the disaster that destroyed its containment building. The reactor contains 170 tonnes of radioactive fuel in its core, and is the only one of the facility's six reactors that contains the potentially more dangerous plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel.

Radiation-exposed workers to be treated at Chiba hospital

Electrical engineering firm Kandenko Co., for which the two hospitalized employees worked, said its workers were not required to put on boots as its safety manuals did not assume a scenario where its employees conduct work soaked in water at a nuclear power plant.

[ghost]

Personally, I'm sick of making all these small compromises and then realizing a few years later that I'm in the hole.  It's like paying compound interest with your health.  Tired of it and no longer falling for it if I can help it.

I don't know what your eating habits are like, but if you eat any fast food at all, or if you eat a lot of processed crap from the grocery store, you are probably doing more harm to your body than from just about anything else.  Food is crap these days. 

[Ghambit]

-Some of the water in Tokyo is now supposedly contaminated beyond safe levels for a small infant.  To go along with the warnings in other areas.
-The workers who went into the reactor basement to do repairs on No. 3, which was flooded with water, were immediately beta-burned and they suspect it's come from a core breach.   If this is the case, is there really anything left to do besides bury the thing in concrete and sand?  I'm more inclined to believe it's a similar issue to No. 2, that being the suppression pool.  They still dont have enough power quite yet to really even determine the extent of the damage though (no power, no sensors).
-They're now surmising they've got to deal with leak issues at 1 and 2 as well, rather than just simply cooling.
-They're switching to freshwater to keep corrosion to a minimum

[Arthur_Parker]

Fresh coolant injected, high-radiation water leaks in nuke crisis

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it has begun injecting freshwater into the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor cores at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to enhance cooling efficiency, although highly radioactive water was found leaking possibly from both reactors as well as the No. 2 reactor.

The latest efforts to bring the troubled reactors at the plant under control are aimed at preventing crystallized salt from seawater already injected from forming a crust on the fuel rods and hampering smooth water circulation, thus diminishing the cooling effect, the plant's operator said.

The utility known as TEPCO is also preparing to inject freshwater into the No. 2 reactor core.

But a day after three workers were exposed to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level at the turbine building connected to the No. 3 reactor building, highly radioactive water was also found in the turbine buildings of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors.

Looks like might have containment leaks from reactors 1, 2 & 3.

News ticker reporting "Water radiation level near No 1 at 10,000 times normal" around the same level that burnt the workers at reactor 3.

New video footage from the 23rd

Edit - Water pools 40-150 cm deep found near all 4 troubled reactors: TEPCO (23:59)

[Jeff Kelly]

No clue, I'm totally guessing, so happy if someone like Jeff corrects me.

I'd have thought they aren't in any position to treat the sea water they have been cooling with yet, so it's just running back off site into the sea.  The high 40km soil readings are to the north west, away from the sea, so the smoke/steam from reactors 2 & 3 seem most likely cause of that.

Fukujima is sea water cooled, so the secondary circuit was always sea water. Another problem if the intake get's clogged - for example by the debris from an earthquake and tsunami.

Water for secondary circuits is always taken from a large body of flowing water (rivers or the sea). So I suppose that just like the steam that was let out to relieve pressure, the sea water either evaporated (and recondensed as rain over the sea) or spilled back into the sea.

As I said before, at that point it's no longer primarily about containing the material that already got outside but about preventing the cores from breaching. If there was already nuclear material in the environment it might have gotten washed away with the water that they used to cool the reactors.

As with the soil it entirely depends on how much radiation really got into the environment and if the comunicated numbers are true or not.

There exist radiological maps from Kiew for example that were made shortly after Chernobyl. There are areas with zero radiation (except background) right next to areas that contained so much nuclear material that you shouldn't have entered them without hazmat suits.

This entirely depends on wind direction wind speed and territorial layout (does a building act as cover to shadow the area on the other side from exposure)

[Arthur_Parker]

2 of 3 radiation-exposed workers suffer internal exposure

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences, where the three arrived earlier in the day for highly specialized treatment, said the two were exposed to 2 to 6 sieverts of radiation below their ankles, whereas exposure to 250 millisieverts is the limit set for workers dealing with the ongoing crisis, the worst in Japan's history.

While the two in their late 20s and early 30s may develop symptoms of burns later, all three can walk without assistance and are expected to leave the institute as early as Monday, it said, adding it will continue monitoring them over time.

That's just terrible.

[jakonovski]

Jesus, those guys could die with that kind of exposure. They're not going home on Monday unless they're extremely lucky (let's hope they are).

[ghost]

2 of 3 radiation-exposed workers suffer internal exposure

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences, where the three arrived earlier in the day for highly specialized treatment, said the two were exposed to 2 to 6 sieverts of radiation below their ankles, whereas exposure to 250 millisieverts is the limit set for workers dealing with the ongoing crisis, the worst in Japan's history.

While the two in their late 20s and early 30s may develop symptoms of burns later, all three can walk without assistance and are expected to leave the institute as early as Monday, it said, adding it will continue monitoring them over time.

That's just terrible.

And doesn't sound particularly good for containment efforts.

[Ghambit]

-They're getting 750F temp. readings from unit 1 (once they were able to sample).  250F more than the core vessel is designed to handle.  Likely that core is FUBAR.
-Right now those guys are getting a year's worth of RADS at least in 30 mins. working at that plant, which is the limit for their time spent there now obviously before they rotate.  That's barely enough time to swap workers let alone get anything done.   
-They're getting a chest x-ray per hour of RADS around the 30km radius (note, these are spikes...  not truly consistent)  So it was a good call for the U.S. to have their own safety-radius.
-Miyagi to the north (which doesnt even really exist as a city right now anyways) has no detectors obviously, so unkown levels there

Whole thing is just as much on a knife-edge as it was in the past, if not more, and the longer this drags on the more contaminants come into contact with the environment.  Fuckin local sushi is about to be banned for god's sake.  I'm with Kaku, "nuke the place."  Reduce it to ground and run a concrete airstrike...  then cross your fingers that the core damage doesnt allow ground seepage.

[bhodi]

From what I understand, there is no breach or crack in any reactors, the containment vessel pressure is stable and hasn't fluctuated in days. The leak has to be somewhere else, if there is a leak.

[Furiously]

Fukujima is sea water cooled, so the secondary circuit was always sea water. Another problem if the intake get's clogged - for example by the debris from an earthquake and tsunami.

Water for secondary circuits is always taken from a large body of flowing water (rivers or the sea). So I suppose that just like the steam that was let out to relieve pressure, the sea water either evaporated (and recondensed as rain over the sea) or spilled back into the sea.

Are you positive about that? I thought BWR's only had one coolant loop.   Now in Candu's the 3rd loop is freshwater, but I can't imagine a design where you would be one heat-exchanger failure from contamination.

[Nyght]

Yeah, can't imagine seawater in the turbine loop. Seawater for post turbine condensing perhaps.

A question to Jeff I guess: What are the typical radiation levels in the water in the primary loop? Do they drain this down to service the fuel rods or the turbine?

[Ghambit]

From what I understand, there is no breach or crack in any reactors, the containment vessel pressure is stable and hasn't fluctuated in days. The leak has to be somewhere else, if there is a leak.

This is what I thought.  Likely it's suppression pool water, but they're making it sound like it's impossible for that fluid to be pumping 3 sieverts and giving their workers beta-burns w/o there being a breach somewhere.

According to the officials, pressure inside the reactor core is stable and the agency doesn't believe the reactor is cracked or broken. But it says it is highly possible that radioactive materials are leaking from somewhere in the reactor.

How does radioactive material leak from somewhere in the reactor yet the reactor not be cracked or broken?  The compromise might be that a pipe inside containment broke, or a valve got stuck allowing energy to flow into the suppression pool system, which was leaking water to ground.  

This was a quote last week from a Japanese Nuclear scientist (eerily prophetic):

"Damage to the suppression pool means that part of the containment vessel has been broken," he said.

Kobayashi said if water contaminated with high levels of radioactive substances should leak from the containment vessel, workers' access to the reactor would be blocked due to risks of exposure.

So simply put, the core vessel containment may be holding but the radiative water in the secondary containment is borked.  And any water they pump into that part of the containment for cooling purposes will just serve to spread the problem?  /headscratch

[Nyght]

Speculation: A high pressure relief valve opened during the worst of the event, allowing steam from the primary loop to escape into the secondary containment. It would condense onto the floor. As usual, no technical details are released because the public is too dumb and might ask embarrassing questions.

[MahrinSkel]

Until they restored power, they had very little knowledge of what was happening inside the reactors (all the instruments that measure in there directly need electricity).  So it's entirely possible they had venting during the partial meltdowns and didn't know it.

The next step in the failure cascade has been local radioactivity getting too high to put people where they needed to be to keep things from getting worse.  So it's a really bad thing that part of the reactor complex is now effectively inaccessible.

--Dave

[Arthur_Parker]

U.S. Experts Blame Fukushima 1 Explosions and Radiation on Failed Venting System

New York Times take on US expert opinion.

[Arthur_Parker]

From what I understand, there is no breach or crack in any reactors, the containment vessel pressure is stable and hasn't fluctuated in days. The leak has to be somewhere else, if there is a leak.

According to NHK world

The agency said the water sample indicated it is highly likely the leak comes from the reactor itself, not from the pool storing spent nuclear fuel.

Sample results from the water here.

Also from a comment here

The analysis by Gerhard Wotawa written up in the New Scientist is interesting in one respect: the levels of iodine relative to caesium suggest that the reactor cores of units 1, 2 and/or 3 are the source (and pretty much the sole source) of the long-range release – leaving its size to one side for now. Iodine-131 in 5 & 6 and in all the spent fuel pools would be basically non-existent, but caesium-137 would still be present at only slightly-reduced levels compared to the reactor core.

Obviously just some dude on the internet, (not even applying to all of reactor pool 4) but interesting if true.

Japan Encourages a Wider Evacuation From Reactor Area

Concerns about Reactor No. 3 have surfaced before. Japanese officials said nine days ago that the reactor vessel may have been damaged.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, mentioned damage to the reactor vessel on Friday as a possible explanation of how water in the adjacent containment building had become so radioactive. A senior nuclear executive who insisted on anonymity but has broad contacts in Japan said that there was a long vertical crack running down the side of the reactor vessel itself. The crack runs down below the water level in the reactor and has been leaking fluids and gases, he said.

The severity of the radiation burns to the injured workers are consistent with contamination by water that had been in contact with damaged fuel rods, the executive said.

“There is a definite, definite crack in the vessel — it’s up and down and it’s large,” he said. “The problem with cracks is they do not get smaller.”

But Michael Friedlander, a former nuclear power plant operator in the United States, said that the presence of radioactive cobalt and molybdenum in water samples taken from the basement of the turbine building raised the possibility of a very different leak.

Both materials typically occur not because of fission but because of routine corrosion in a reactor and its associated piping over the course of many years of use, he said.

The aggressive use of saltwater to cool the reactor and its storage pool for spent fuel may mean that more of these highly radioactive corrosion materials will be dislodged and contaminate the area in the days to come, posing further hazards to repair workers, Mr. Friedlander added.

Whichever explanation is accurate, the contamination of the water in the basement of the turbine building poses a real challenge for efforts to bring crucial cooling pumps and other equipment back online.

“They can’t even figure out how to get that out, it’s so hot” in terms of radioactivity, the senior nuclear executive said.

[Fordel]

Are we back to we are all doomed? Or did we never leave?

[Nyght]

Are we back to we are all doomed? Or did we never leave?

We went out for a smoke break, but the bell just rang and it's time to wade back into deep shit.