Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Sand]

Because you don't understand how half lives work, I guess I have to spell it out for you. 8 days means that in 8 days, it will be emitting half the radiation. In 8 more days, half again. Our detectors are extremely, incredibly, absurdly sensitive and can easily measure granularity far beyond a thousandth of a background dose. This means that we will be able to detect it for months and months and months as it goes from harmless to even more harmless.

And that yes, we can detect the radioactive steam that was released way back on day 2 and confirm that it has dispersed (harmlessly) about the globe. As shit that goes in the air is wont to do.

Actually I didnt know that, so thanks for the info. Im not a nuclear engineer nor I am going to pretend to be.

However, again, I do find it remarkable that people in the press and in this thread (IIRC) said the radiation would never even reach the US, and it did.
Call me chicken little, but given all the shit in our environment from chemicals in our households, to mercury in our fish,  to arsenic or e-coli in our drinking water, I would simply prefer not to have something else piled on to of it all. I mean for fucks sake I live in a state where according to the EPA's latest exposure thresholds 75% of the waters in the state are to filthy to even wade in.

[Paelos]

So can someone sum up where we are without all the guessing about how big it is and not using comparisons to previous disasters?

[Lantyssa]

However, again, I do find it remarkable that people in the press and in this thread (IIRC) said the radiation would never even reach the US, and it did.

Reach us, or threatening levels reach us?  Your monitor puts out as much radiation as you have to fear from Japan.  That's how sensitive our instruments are.

Saying you're more likely to increase your risk of cancer from using a cell phone doesn't sell stories though.

[bhodi]

I would simply prefer not to have something else piled on to of it all. I mean for fucks sake I live in a state where according to the EPA's latest exposure thresholds 75% of the waters in the state are to filthy to even wade in.

You like living in an industrialized culture, right? You like the internet, cars, electricity? Where do you think all that comes from?


As to where the plants are, as always, this is a good summary.

[Chimpy]

Are the refinery fires out yet?

[Lucida]

Are the refinery fires out yet?

See post #911. Or try search :P

[Arthur_Parker]

Groundwater at nuclear plant 'highly' radiation-contaminated: TEPCO

More signs of serious radiation contamination in and near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were detected Thursday, with the latest data finding groundwater containing radioactive iodine 10,000 times the legal threshold and the concentration of radioactive iodine-131 in nearby seawater rising to the highest level yet.

Radioactive material was confirmed from groundwater for the first time since the March 11 quake and tsunami hit the nuclear power plant on the Pacific coast, knocking out the reactors' key cooling functions. An official of the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, ''We're aware this is an extremely high figure.''

The contaminated groundwater was found from around the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, although the radiation level of groundwater is usually so low that it cannot be measured.

Japanese authorities were also urged to consider taking action over radioactive contamination outside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone around the plant, as the International Atomic Energy Agency said readings from soil samples collected in the village of Iitate, about 40 km from the plant, exceeded its criteria for evacuation.

The authorities denied that the seawater and soil contamination posed an immediate threat to human health, but the government said it plans to enhance radiation data monitoring around the plant on the Pacific coast, about 220 km northeast of Tokyo.

According to the government's nuclear safety agency, the radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration of 4,385 times the maximum level permitted under law has been detected in a seawater sample collected Wednesday afternoon near the plant, exceeding the previous high recorded the day before.

In Tuesday's sample, the concentration level was 3,355 times the maximum legal limit.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, acknowledged there is a possibility that radiation is continuing to leak into the sea, adding, ''We must check that (possibility) well.''
...
In Vienna on Wednesday, Denis Flory, IAEA deputy director general and head of the agency's nuclear safety and security department, said readings from soil samples collected in Iitate between March 18 and March 26 ''indicate that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded (there).''

In response to the IAEA, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Thursday the government may implement measures, if necessary, such as urging people living in the area to evacuate, if it is found that the contaminated soil will have a long-term effect on human health.

Nishiyama said at a press conference in the afternoon that the agency's rough estimates have shown there is no need for people in Iitate to evacuate immediately under criteria set by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan.

''The radiation dose of a person who was indoors for 16 hours and outdoors for eight hours (and continued such a lifestyle) would be about 25 millisieverts, which is about half the level which requires evacuation based on the commission's criteria,'' he said.

The commission explained that domestic criteria are based on measurements at radiation in the air, and not the soil.

Not much today, I'm not sure if I'm more distressed about the uncollected bodies or the fact they are letting people stay in Iitate.

[Arthur_Parker]

As to where the plants are, as always, this is a good summary.

It's pretty clear that's a pro nuclear site, the information isn't wrong it's just selective.  Now, there's nothing wrong with either of those things, more accurate information (selective or not) is good, but I'd like to see a pro nuclear site being pushed that hasn't already half thrown in the towel on this one.

message from mitnse
Posted on March 29, 2011 12:54 pm UTC by mitnse
Many thanks to everyone who has been visiting our blog and sending us questions and comments since we started up a little over two weeks ago. Now that information on the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is becoming more widely available, we’re reducing the level of activity on our blog somewhat. We’ll continue to monitor your questions and comments and add to the content – posts, responses, and FAQs – but with less frequency than we did initially.

[bhodi]

Um, OK. If by "Pro Nuclear" you mean "People who understand nuclear physics" who happen to "reside at the most respected technical university in the USA". They aren't affiliated with any government or corporation involved with any of this and have no sort of master plan or secret agenda. They're just people who can explain sometimes confusing terminology to laymen. Like what a half-life is. Other than a game. By valve.

What I'm saying here is that you're projecting.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm not arguing the source, I'm giving an accurate summary of the content.

http://mitnse.com/page/3/

Note that a subsequent and similar explosion occurred at the Unit 3 reactor. This explosion destroyed the top and some of the sides of the reactor building, but did not damage the containment structure or the pressure vessel.  While this was not an anticipated event, it happened outside the containment and did not pose a risk to the plant’s safety structures.

I'm not really that interested in the pro/anti side of it, I'll even give you a better pro link

[devildog]

I think what he is saying is that MIT nuclear physicists have a dog in the fight so to speak and might be biased, and i agree. This is backed up by the goofy crap the nuclear industry has been putting out over the past few weeks which turns out to be bogus 3 days later. This isn't even as bad as 3-mile island, they have it under control, a 20 mile evacuation area is not really needed, etc. Now we are hearing that radiation leaking into the water isn't a big deal, the guys that got immediate radiation burns from contaminated water are fine and will suffer no long-term health effects, and who knows what is next. The Japanese people are even starting to call b.s. I have no interest other than i like to eat seafood and would rather hope that the west coast and Alaska fishing isn't hammered. I don't have an agenda other than not wanting to increase my health risks when i could have possibly avoided it. I think the Japanese government has already acted criminally in my opinion. You should give the people a chance to take care of themselves with the proper information.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think what he is saying is that MIT nuclear physicists have a dog in the fight so to speak and might be biased

No I'm really not, the content is selective and overly optimistic, if it was a greenpeace site that would still be true.

I don't really care about the source except it's clearly aimed at the public and if they really wanted to do this in the first place, then they should stick at it and not duck out at this point.  The public still needs to be reassured that the sea is pretty big and ultimately this will be fixed.

[Jeff Kelly]

I don't care if it's pro or anti, experts or laymen. Except for a select few people that most of you in this thread deemed to be overly dramatic, everybody else was just plain wrong all of the time.

How much value do have experts that have such a consistently bad track record?

The truth is that - just as two weeks ago - nobody knows exactly what's going on over there. Probably not even the people on site, yet everybody has offered an opinion analysing it from thousands of miles ago.

When you have to go from "nothing to worry about" to "bad but not TMI bad" to "bad but not Chernobyl bad" (seriously it's like describing the slaughter in Darfur or Srebrenica as being "not Nazi Germany bad") then you should just shut up and give back your 'expert' badge.

At this point I simply refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they're either shilling for or lobbying against nuclear power. Other than that most expert comments on the situation have been utterly useless.

[ghost]

It's clear from watching the overall picture that things have deteriorated, or at best, remained relatively constant from where they started.  If things were going well and the containment was solid I'm sure it would have been trumpeted all over the internets and television by now.  Is there anything else to know?

[Sand]

I don't care if it's pro or anti, experts or laymen. Except for a select few people that most of you in this thread deemed to be overly dramatic, everybody else was just plain wrong all of the time.

How much value do have experts that have such a consistently bad track record?

The truth is that - just as two weeks ago - nobody knows exactly what's going on over there. Probably not even the people on site, yet everybody has offered an opinion analysing it from thousands of miles ago.

When you have to go from "nothing to worry about" to "bad but not TMI bad" to "bad but not Chernobyl bad" (seriously it's like describing the slaughter in Darfur or Srebrenica as being "not Nazi Germany bad") then you should just shut up and give back your 'expert' badge.

At this point I simply refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they're either shilling for or lobbying against nuclear power. Other than that most expert comments on the situation have been utterly useless.

This was the point I was trying to get across earlier. Thank you for doing what I obviously failed at.

[Soln]

I don't care if it's pro or anti, experts or laymen. Except for a select few people that most of you in this thread deemed to be overly dramatic, everybody else was just plain wrong all of the time.

How much value do have experts that have such a consistently bad track record?

The truth is that - just as two weeks ago - nobody knows exactly what's going on over there. Probably not even the people on site, yet everybody has offered an opinion analysing it from thousands of miles ago.

When you have to go from "nothing to worry about" to "bad but not TMI bad" to "bad but not Chernobyl bad" (seriously it's like describing the slaughter in Darfur or Srebrenica as being "not Nazi Germany bad") then you should just shut up and give back your 'expert' badge.

At this point I simply refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they're either shilling for or lobbying against nuclear power. Other than that most expert comments on the situation have been utterly useless.

This was the point I was trying to get across earlier. Thank you for doing what I obviously failed at.

echo that

[MahrinSkel]

Actually, we started at "TMI bad" after the first hydrogen explosion, and it still isn't close to Chernobyl.  We're pretty much at the worst case scenario I laid out a few days after it started: Containment breach, dumping water on the whole mess as fast as possible and trying to come up with ways to permanently seal the site.

Contamination is high enough there will be a measurably higher cancer rate in Japan for a generation, but not bad enough to significantly affect anyone not on Honshu.

--Dave

[Sheepherder]

Now we are hearing that radiation leaking into the water isn't a big deal, the guys that got immediate radiation burns from contaminated water are fine and will suffer no long-term health effects, and who knows what is next.

As AP said, the sea is big.  The burns from contaminated water are beta burns, those aren't terribly harmful unless they burn off a significant portion of your skin, or unless you ingest the material and it's concentrated enough to start searing your internal organs.

[Ghambit]

Now we are hearing that radiation leaking into the water isn't a big deal, the guys that got immediate radiation burns from contaminated water are fine and will suffer no long-term health effects, and who knows what is next.

As AP said, the sea is big.  

Tell that to the wildlife that live in it, then end up on your plate.   
The Japanese are the largest eaters of seafood in the world.  And typically this seafood consists of pelagics that traverse thousands of miles of water (yah, even dolphins and whales sometimes)... these creatures dont typically hang around a small area (like the area cordoned off around fukushima that is "unfished.")  Therefore you cant reliably say your sushi hasnt at some point frequented the radiated waters off the N. coast of Japan.

We get similar stupidity off of Lauderdale, when bottom fishermen many times wont fish near the sewage runoff.  Nevertheless, 12 miles up the coast you still catch fish with bleached flesh.       I can pretty much guarantee you this; Most all of the migratory pelagics near those waters are now effectively off the menu.  Even if they havent been in those waters, it's likely they've embibed baitfish that have... which is even worse.

To further piss you off... any plankton eaters off of japan are also in danger.  Currents can carry the radiated plankton thousands of miles before any "half-life" runs down... then it gets eaten by mollusks, corals, shrimp, whatever...  and on and on.

They need to get people out into those waters and constantly sample the wildlife.  Could be way worse than anyone thinks.

[Sheepherder]

I don't eat seafood or Japanese people, so again, I'm not worrying.

People who do eat seafood fished up off the west coast might eat a few molecules of radioactive iodine, the horror!

Japanese people have the right to worry, but I would hazard the guess that devildog is not Japanese.

[Furiously]

Like I told my mom as I bought two pounds of prawns yesterday... Eat it now.

[Lantyssa]

At this point I simply refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they're either shilling for or lobbying against nuclear power. Other than that most expert comments on the situation have been utterly useless.

You're probably right.  We can't trust anything anymore, so we should just write Japan off now.  Everyone has to leave.  It's the only way to be sure.

[Fordel]

What if that were actually true? Would that even be possible? How many people live in Japan.


Does anyone even pretend to have a "evacuate entire country" plan?

[Ghambit]

I don't eat seafood or Japanese people, so again, I'm not worrying.

You could at least worry for the Japanese people.  

To paint a rosy picture on this though.  It's been said that the Japanese do NEED to at least partially wean off of all that seafood as the oceans simply cant handle the demand (I've seen japanese boats fishing off the Bahamas even).  And it's also been said they need to invest more (like everyone else would like to) in clean, renewable energy.  As it stands now politically both nuclear power and seafood are on the chopping block.

edit:  to kill that rosy picture, scientists have been saying there's now a likelihood (relatively soon) of an epic showdown between the phillipine plate (where tokyo is) and the pacific plate now that the eurasian plate has shifted the stress.  So yah, Japan will go Green and be more seafood responsible... then a 9.0 + tsunami will strike the largest city in the world.   

[Khaldun]

Who knows what the long-term impact will be? It's extremely plausible that it won't be terribly bad, and certainly much less worse than all the people killed by a fault and by the ocean. But holy shit, come out with your hands up if you were blowing this whole thing off about fifteen pages back, and some people were. There is a huge goddamn excluded middle between "AHGH ALL OF JAPAN WILL BE UNINHABITABLE" and "I myself plan to move to a house five km from the reactor and rub the dirt of Fukushima on my genitals because nothing, nothing could ever happen to this kind of reactor that would pose any danger to anything beyond the facility itself". Some folks here, and some folks with a lot of expert knowledge out there in the wider world, were pretty goddamn close to the latter end of the spectrum. Skepticism is the watchword of decent science and it is the watchword of being a smart person generally. It's more than skepticism: it's also humility. I don't care how much you think you know: hedge your bets. Don't shill for anybody unless it's the financial and sexual equivalent of Robert Redford writing a big check to your Demi Moore body.

[MahrinSkel]

This is from my very first post in this thread:

A Chernobyl-style explosive meltdown is extremely unlikely, because the containment structures are a lot tougher and the cooling systems a lot more redundant.  Worst-case scenario is uncontrolled venting of steam carrying radioactive material as they dump water in to keep the fuel cool.  Bad in a "increased cancer rates and you can't eat fish from that part of the Pacific" sort of way, but not a major event in and of itself when compared to the earthquake and tsunami.

I stand by it.  It's gotten as bad as it's going to, in terms of overall impact, because it's gotten as bad as it *can*.

--Dave

[Tale]

Great pictures taken by drones of the damaged reactor buildings: http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm

[Ghambit]

This is from my very first post in this thread:

A Chernobyl-style explosive meltdown is extremely unlikely, because the containment structures are a lot tougher and the cooling systems a lot more redundant.  Worst-case scenario is uncontrolled venting of steam carrying radioactive material as they dump water in to keep the fuel cool.  Bad in a "increased cancer rates and you can't eat fish from that part of the Pacific" sort of way, but not a major event in and of itself when compared to the earthquake and tsunami.

I stand by it.  It's gotten as bad as it's going to, in terms of overall impact, because it's gotten as bad as it *can*.

--Dave

It absolutely hasnt gotten as bad as it's going to for the simple fact they still dont even know wtf is going on nor wtf effects there will be.  Your increased cancer rates could translate into 2500km2 of Japanese land that's unlivable and un-harvestable, to go along with 10's of thousands of square miles of unfishable sea.  For god's sake man, they cant even retrieve the bodies.  This is before we even discuss their ruined nuclear agendas.

Overall impact?  Gonna take a while to sort that one out methinks.

[MahrinSkel]

It absolutely hasnt gotten as bad as it's going to for the simple fact they still dont even know wtf is going on nor wtf effects there will be.  Your increased cancer rates could translate into 2500km2 of Japanese land that's unlivable and un-harvestable, to go along with 10's of thousands of square miles of unfishable sea.  For god's sake man, they cant even retrieve the bodies.  This is before we even discuss their ruined nuclear agendas.

Overall impact?  Gonna take a while to sort that one out methinks.

"50km radius" does not equal 2500km², you flunk basic geometry (not to mention that it's on the coast, so roughly half the area is ocean).  They aren't retrieving the bodies because every time their (very sensitive) radiation detectors chirp, they pull out.

Jesus Christ, it's like you assholes are cheerleading for a bigger disaster so you can win a freaking slapfight.  "Oh, I thought you said it wouldn't reach the US!" (when a detector in Oregon finds three atoms of Iodine 131).  "Oh, look, there's plutonium in the water!"

It's bad, it's a fucking mess, but tone down the freaking hysterics.

--Dave

EDIT: For the record, if they wind up with a 50km exclusion radius, we're talking roughly 4000km²

[Sand]

It's bad, it's a fucking mess, but tone down the freaking hysterics.

--Dave

No one is being hysterical. What we are doing is demonstrating a healthy sense of skepticism for those (ie governments and profit companies) who are continually downplaying and or hiding industrial accidents and their resulting side effects.
And worrying about the long term potential problems they are unaware of in light of how they thought it would never ever get this bad.

[MahrinSkel]

It's bad, it's a fucking mess, but tone down the freaking hysterics.

--Dave

No one is being hysterical. What we are doing is demonstrating a healthy sense of skepticism for those (ie governments and profit companies) who are continually downplaying and or hiding industrial accidents and their resulting side effects.
And worrying about the long term potential problems they are unaware of in light of how they thought it would never ever get this bad.

Meanwhile, the *other* damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami includes 20,000 deaths and untold trillions of yen in property damage, plus the release of a truly ridiculous quantity of carcinogens.  Fukushima has killed one person, put perhaps a dozen in the hospital, and cost roughly a trillion yen (admittedly, so far).  Perspective, please.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

It absolutely hasnt gotten as bad as it's going to for the simple fact they still dont even know wtf is going on nor wtf effects there will be.  Your increased cancer rates could translate into 2500km2 of Japanese land that's unlivable and un-harvestable, to go along with 10's of thousands of square miles of unfishable sea.  For god's sake man, they cant even retrieve the bodies.  This is before we even discuss their ruined nuclear agendas.

Overall impact?  Gonna take a while to sort that one out methinks.

"50km radius" does not equal 2500km², you flunk basic geometry (not to mention that it's on the coast, so roughly half the area is ocean).  They aren't retrieving the bodies because every time their (very sensitive) radiation detectors chirp, they pull out.

Jesus Christ, it's like you assholes are cheerleading for a bigger disaster so you can win a freaking slapfight.  "Oh, I thought you said it wouldn't reach the US!" (when a detector in Oregon finds three atoms of Iodine 131).  "Oh, look, there's plutonium in the water!"

It's bad, it's a fucking mess, but tone down the freaking hysterics.

--Dave

EDIT: For the record, if they wind up with a 50km exclusion radius, we're talking roughly 4000km²

Congratulations on completely missing my point. Thanks.

[ajax34i]

It's gotten as bad as it's going to, in terms of overall impact, because it's gotten as bad as it *can*.

My understanding so far is this:  immediately after the quake, they focused on preventing a meltdown and didn't have time to consider or care about contaminating the environment during their cooling efforts.  Now they're probably able to keep things cool, but there aren't enough samples taken to figure out just how big the contamination is.

So it may have gotten as bad as it can get, but we don't know how bad it is until the gaggle of international experts converging into the area finish taking samples and figuring out just how much sea, land, and air have been contaminated.

The workers on-site are in danger of x and gamma radiation, at levels high enough to kill.   For everyone else, the concern is about ingesting some of these radioactive metals, which will then accumulate in your thyroid or in your bones.  I think the experts will have a huge opinion-fight over just how bad the contamination is or isn't, and how much of it can reach around the world, so we'll probably never get a straight answer.  Measure cancer rates over the next 10 years and there's your answer.

As for preventing the local contamination from spreading via sea and air, Japan has to deal with the effects of a quake, and TEPCO is done for, so I'm not sure who exactly is in a position to pay for area decontamination or leak prevention.

[MahrinSkel]

Congratulations on completely missing my point. Thanks.

And the same to you.  I counter your wild ass guess with a number based on actual math (which is actually worse than the one you pulled out of your ass), and you think that means you win.

--Dave

EDIT: What I'm trying to get at is that everyone is falling into the "don't trust the experts, because they're biased" trap.  Yes, the experts can be wrong, but they're still your best bet for *intelligent* input for how to deal with the situation.  Would you rather have guys with degrees in medicine and nuclear physics deciding how to handle the situation, or somebody waving crystals to disperse the negative energy?

[Khaldun]

I didn't make a single fucking GUESS about anything.  I made an observation about expertise and its proper uses, skepticism and humility. Read again.