Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Sir T]

*passes out rulers to allow people to compare dick size and end this once and for all*

Now,  can we get back to some facts please?

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

What? No. What makes you think that? How did you get from "don't rely on experts" to "write Japan off"? Please don't put words in my mouth I never ever intended to say.

At this point it's just meaningless to quote any expert opinion because most clearly don't know what they are talking about and this has already become a huge astroturfing opportunity for both the pro and anti nuclear crowd. Hell Sarkozy had nothing better to do to visit a country ravaged by a tsunami and quake and dealing with a huge nuclear disaster and telling them that nuclear power is helping to fight off global warming, as if that was the main concern of Japan right now.

The first major text that got linked all over the net was from a pro nuclear shill and it got written the day after the quake and since then everybody that has a strong opinion about nuclear energy has voiced his opinion about the severity (or lack thereof) and why it is or isn't kingdom come.

This isn't helping. It isn't helping them with the consequences of the quake, it isn't helping them with the consequences of the tsunami. It isn't even helping them with dealing with the nuclear crisis.

[UnSub]

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

It starts with Russia and China erecting big signs that read "Closed - Please Try Elsewhere".

[FatuousTwat]

Shouldn't this have been moved to the politics section by now?

[Furiously]

So I had a thread meltdown and put some water on it.

[ghost]

Shouldn't this have been moved to the politics section by now?

It already did.  But it came back.

[Sand]

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

The dead are still dead. Its the living we need to be concerned about.

[MournelitheCalix]

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.

I think by now anyone that is still either defending or taking the position of that MIT professor simply has to be viewed as either refusing to see reality or too biased to the point of being self discrediting.  The facts as are being reported are very clear and the situation is getting worse from the standpoint that it looks like there will be serious 30 year health risks as a result of this "partial meltdown."  Quotes like below simply can not be ignored and if they are wrong, then hard data is needed to refute them:

That comes as the level of radioactive iodine in the sea off Japan's disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear plant today reached its highest reading yet at 4,385 times the legal limit.

or

And it also comes as the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week recommended that the Japanese authorities double their current 20-kilometer exclusion zone around Fukushima, after high levels of cesium-137 radiation were detected in a village twice that distance from the plant.

http://akio.tumblr.com/post/4240217557/more-detailed-account-by-richard-lahey-ex-ge-engineer

Even the safety experts of GE who installed these damn things are no longer adopting the oh "we are over blowing this situation" or the "your just scaremongers" linking to noncredible web sites happy talk.  They are using scary words like "I hope I am wrong" and "complete meltdowns of all cores."  Yet in this whole situation what I am reminded of is that we don't have a media that seems to want to seriously address what is happening in Fukushima.  It would be great to see even one major news agency get out on the nightly news programs and put together physicists, engineers, and MD's and have them discuss what it actually means to human health to have "high levels of cesium-137."

[Arthur_Parker]

What I'm trying to get at is that everyone is falling into the "don't trust the experts, because they're biased" trap.  

Everyone?  

Edit to make myself clear, I said exactly the opposite.  You should examine the content of what anyone says and use your own judgement.  Someone can be biased and still correct, just as someone can be unbiased and wrong.  Check the link schild posted, way back, about the TED "expert" talk.

[Arthur_Parker]

SRS pump will head to Japan

The world's largest concrete pump, deployed at the construction site of the U.S. government's $4.86 billion mixed oxide fuel plant at Savannah River Site, is being moved to Japan in a series of emergency measures to help stabilize the Fukushima reactors.
...
According to Putzmeister's Web site, four smaller pumps made by the company are already at work at Fukushima pumping water onto the overheated reactors.
Initially, the pump from Savannah River Site, and another 70-meter Putzmeister now at a construction site in California, will be used to pump water -- and later will be used to move concrete.
"Our understanding is, they are preparing to go to next phase and it will require a lot of concrete," Ashmore said, noting that the 70-meter pump can move 210 cubic yards of concrete per hour.
Putzmeister equipment was also used in the 1980s, when massive amounts of concrete were used to entomb the melted core of the reactor at Chernobyl.

Fukushima plant groundwater likely contaminated despite data error

Groundwater at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is highly likely to be contaminated with radioactive materials, even though its operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. is reviewing its analysis released late Thursday due to erroneous calculations, the government's nuclear safety agency said Friday.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said some of the analysis data on the groundwater presented by the utility known as TEPCO cannot be trusted due to the errors, casting doubts on the finding that the concentration of radioactive iodine in the water was 10,000 times the legal limit.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the governmental nuclear regulatory body, said it was ''extremely regrettable'' that TEPCO had given incorrect radiation data at the plant for the second time. The agency has strongly warned the operator over the matter and urged it to take steps not to do so again, he added.

''TEPCO faces a grave situation as it is failing to live up to the expectations of people who are very worried by the company. Its data should be trustworthy,'' Nishiyama said.

[jakonovski]

Let's not forget that the experts have had significantly differing opinions.

[Arthur_Parker]

Nature blog on Fukushima update: did nuclear chain reactions continue after shut-down? - April 01, 2011

Links to.

What Caused the High Cl-38 Radioactivity in the Fukushima Daiichi Reactor #1?

Assuming that the TEPCO measurements are correct,this analysis seems to indicate that we cannot discount the possibility that there was another strong neutron source during the time that the workers were sending seawater into the core of reactor #1. However, without knowing the details of the configuration of the core and how the seawater came in contact with the fuel, it is difficult to be certain. Given these uncertainties it is nonetheless important for TEPCO to be aware of the possibility of transient criticalities when work is being done; otherwise workers would be in considerably greater danger than they already are when trying to working to contain the situation. A transient criticality could explain the observed 13“neutron beams” reported by Kyodo news agency (see above). This analysis is not a definitive proof, but it does mean that we cannot rule out localized criticality and TEPCO should assure that the workers take the necessary precautions.

Some reports that cold shutdown is going to take months.

Kenji Sumita, professor emeritus in nuclear engineering at Osaka University, said until the cooling systems are reactivated ''spraying water has to continue so that the temperature may not rise.'' A balancing act will likely be required as dousing the reactor and fuel facilities could increase the amount of contaminated water.

''If water is sprayed continuously, the heat from radioactive decay should gradually drop,'' Sumita said. ''At this stage, this type of stopgap arrangement has to be made.''

''It is necessary to anticipate that at least several months would be needed'' to achieve cold shutdowns of the reactors, he said.

[Arthur_Parker]

Let's not forget that the experts have had significantly differing opinions.

No doubt, but I'm having trouble finding anyone being positive about the water situation though, which means I'd really like to read something positive, if anyone finds anything.

[Jeff Kelly]

OK so without all of the foam at the mouth.

This has been a "twilight of the gods" moment for experts.

(1) because you could easily recognize the shills and which expert was shilling for whom.
(2) some experts had to revise their estimates and prognoses more often than an affiliate channel weather man.

This is frightening for several reasons. People that don't seem to know what would and can happen in such an event design those things and were the ones telling you for the last 30 years what was possible and impossible to happen. They also provide advice to governments on how to fight such an event and how to do cleanup.

People are now so confused that it even hampers rescue and clean up, in no small part because of those people.

[Arthur_Parker]

Jeff, did you see this?

Japanese Plant Had Barebones Risk Plan

TOKYO—Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s disaster plans greatly underestimated the scope of a potential accident at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, calling for only one stretcher, one satellite phone and 50 protective suits in case of emergencies.
...
There are no references to Tokyo firefighters, Japanese military forces or U.S. equipment, all of which the plant operators eventually relied upon to battle their overheating reactors.
...
Critics allege Japan's regulators and operators tend to avoid talking about or preparing fuller disaster scenarios, partly to avoid scaring the public. Fukushima Daiichi's own report on its accident-management protocols says: "The possibility of a severe accident occurring is so small that from an engineering standpoint, it is practically unthinkable."

Banri Kaieda, chief of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said Wednesday that the ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency plans to tighten scrutiny of emergency plans in light of Fukushima Daiichi. "We are painfully aware" the plans were inadequate, an agency spokesman said.

[Ironwood]

A stretcher, a phone and some protective suits.

...

If only they had a wheelbarrow.

[Jeff Kelly]

The emergency response plans over here treat such an event as if it were a small scale war. Everything will be deployed, fire depts., police, rescue services and technical emergency response teams. There are stockpiles of bottled water and food and basic medication. Even the military's own nuclear emergency response team is involved. There are schools and gymnasiums that are designated shelters and we have storage facilities for camp beds and blankets and there are basic evacuation plans that involve using the motorways as evac routes by bike or on foot (much better than by car). Any medium size voluntary fire department is required to have a specialized hazardous materials vehicle equipped with hazmat suits for both chemical and nuclear protection and pumps that can handle that stuff.

Each large scale industrial facility is required to fund an on-site fire fighting unit that knows its way around the facility, knows the properties of the stuff they're handling there and is equipped to deal with first response. Also hospitals have to stock a 30% overhead of beds and medical equipment to be prepared for disaster relief.

Granted Germans are OCD when it's about planning and since distances are small it's arguable if it would help that much but it's a bit more than 50 suits and a stretcher.

Also to be fair most of these measures were plans designed in case of a nuclear conflict at the time of the cold war and have since been reappropriated for civil type disasters.

I don't want to brag (but apparently did anyway) it's just mindboggling that they didn't seem to have any emergency response plans at all.

[jakonovski]

Even Chernobyl had its own fire brigade. Pretty crazy that Fukushima had sub-Soviet Union levels of preparedness.

[Arthur_Parker]

Tsunami footage of Fukushima thermal plant posted

Video footage of the March 11th tsunami, apparently taken by someone at a thermal power plant in Fukushima prefecture, has been posted on YouTube.

The video was apparently taken from inside the Tohoku Electric Power Company's Haramachi thermal plant in Minamisoma City.

The video shows the crest of tsunami waves approaching from offshore, while emergency alarms ring in the building. The tsunami then reaches the grounds of the plant.

The one-and-a-half minute video ends with a scene of workers running away.

The plant caught fire on the day of the massive quake. Three days later, another fire broke out after leaked heavy oil ignited.

The power plant is located about 25 kilometers north of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Better quality link to the full video.

[Arthur_Parker]

Gov't eyes injecting nitrogen into reactor vessels to prevent blasts

The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are considering injecting nitrogen into containment vessels of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's reactors to prevent hydrogen explosions, government sources said Friday.

TEPCO data credibility suffers on serious groundwater contamination

Tokyo Electric Power Co., whose contamination data on the groundwater was temporarily in doubt, said it became sure through reexamination that the concentration of radioactive iodine in the groundwater was 10,000 times the legal limit as it announced earlier, but the government criticized the utility for sloppy handling of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The company said the finding of the groundwater contamination can stand but admitted suspicious data concerning different elements were caused by a programming error on a measuring device.

[ghost]

Even Chernobyl had its own fire brigade. Pretty crazy that Fukushima had sub-Soviet Union levels of preparedness.

Years and years and years of having nothing go wrong leads to laxness.

[Ubvman]

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

Thanks, thats incredibly revealing about the size of the facility. You can see the fire engines and trucks near the reactors and they are positively dwarfed by the buildings. The trucks look like ants. Makes you think about the size of the explosions and the fires.

Why is there a giant hole in the roof of the building next to Reactor #3?

You know, Reactor #3 looks completely smashed and burnt out.

Does it look like the pipes feeding in coolant INTO the reactors are intact anymore? Frankly it looks like all the coolant pipes have been destroyed and the Japanese have been reduced to spraying water onto the outsides of the containment vessels  and praying that the molten cores of the reactors cool down before they melt through to the outside environment.

So whats the final "win" status of this sorry mess? Four giant sarcophagus buildings like Chernobyl?

[devildog]

I think the provider of the pumps said they were preparing for stage 2, where the pumps would be used to pour concrete. Oh, and as for the wheelbarrow, i think they would be better served with a holocaust cloak.

[Fabricated]

el-oh-fuckin-el.

Are you young, capable, and not irradiated? How would YOU like to make thousands of dollars!?

TOKYO — It's a job that sounds too good to be true — thousands of dollars for up to an hour of work that often requires little training.

But it also sounds too outrageous to accept, given the full job description: working in perilously radioactive environments.

In its attempts to bring under control its radiation-gushing nuclear power plant that was severely damaged by last month's massive earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is trying to get workers ever closer to the sources of stubborn radiation at the plant and end the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Workers are reportedly being offered hazard pay to work in the damaged reactors of up to $5,000 per day — or more accurately, a fraction of a day, since the radiation-drenched shifts must be drastically restricted.

A TEPCO official said this week that the beleaguered company has tasks fit for "jumpers" -- workers so called because they "jump" into highly radioactive areas to accomplish a job in a minimum of time and race out as quickly as possible.

Sometimes jumpers can make multiple runs if the cumulative dosage is within acceptable limits — although "acceptable" can be open to interpretation.

In cases of extreme leaks however the radiation might be so intense that jumpers can only make one such foray in their entire lives, or risk serious radiation poisoning.

For three weeks the reactors at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, 150 miles north of Tokyo, have been explosive cauldrons of hydrogen blasts, radioactive steam and contaminated water that has apparently run off into the ocean, where levels of radioactive iodine have been found at several thousand times the normal level in recent days.

TEPCO said 18 employees and three contractors were exposed to 100 millisieverts of radiation on Friday. The average dose for a nuclear plant worker is 50 millisieverts over five years.

Last week two workers in Reactor 3 were admitted to hospital after their feet were exposed to 170-180 millisieverts, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The company said this week it will shut down permanently at least four of the six reactors at the plant. But it first must stabilize and then cool the fuel, and has been desperately trying to douse fuel rods with water, and now clean up the radiation-contaminated water that's stagnating on reactor floors.

Asked on Monday how the contaminated water could be pumped out and how long it would take, a TEPCO official replied: "The pump could be powered from an independent generator, and all that someone would have to do is bring one end of the pump to the water and dump it in, and then run out."

Translation: Jumpers wanted.

TEPCO and its contractors are already trying to recruit jumpers, according to reports in the Japanese press.

"My company offered me 200,000 yen ($2,500) per day," one subcontractor in Iwaki city, about 25 miles south of the crippled plant, told the Weekly Post magazine.

"Ordinarily I'd consider that a dream job, but my wife was in tears and stopped me, so I declined," said the unidentified worker, who is in his 30s.

"The working time would be less than an hour, so in fact it was 200,000 yen an hour, but the risk was too big."

Ryuta Fujita, a 27-year-old worker also from Iwaki, said he was offered twice that amount as hazard duty pay to venture into Fukushima Dai-ichi's Reactor 2.

But Fujita, who evacuated his wife and 3-year-old son to a shelter in a sports arena just outside Tokyo, said the 400,000 yen a day wasn't worth it.

"I hear that guys older than 50 are being hired at high pay," Fujita told the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper. "But I'm still young, and radiation scares me. I don't want to work in a nuclear plant again."
Story: Help wanted: Self-starter to fix reactor, travel required

The reluctance of workers to enter the stricken plant highlights one of TEPCO's basic dilemmas — it can't get people close enough to see if its efforts to cool fuel rods are working; indeed, to confirm what the exact problems are in the first place.

Most of its efforts have involved pouring water on exposed fuel rods in a bid bring down their temperature and rein in their toxic emissions.

What TEPCO needs is surgical-strike jumpers.

Jumpers were common at U.S. nuclear power stations in the 1970s and 1980s. "It's still a job that exists but it's much rarer than in the past," said Rock Nelson, a manager at Nelson Nuclear Corp in Richland, Wash.

These days such jobs are more commonly performed by robots, but the interiors of Fukushima Daiichi's mangled reactor buildings are so filled with debris that using robots is too difficult.

Some workers have said they feel they are being pressured to take the high-risk jobs at the plant.

"It's dangerous work there, I'm sure, but if I refuse, I don't think I would keep my job," one 41-year-old contractor, who was asked by his employer to return to his job of scanning work areas to see if they are safe, told the Tokyo Shimbun. He said he will go back to work there this month.

So will another contractor in his 40s who is worried about putting food on the table.

"The reactors may be stopped, but I still have expenses," he told the Weekly Post. "I have to support my family. And more than anything, if I refuse to go back I'm genuinely afraid I won't get work again."

Ha. Ahaahahah

[Jeff Kelly]

I'd take unemployment over some money and an early horrible slow painful death any time - especially if I have a family that needs my support.

[Morat20]

(2) some experts had to revise their estimates and prognoses more often than an affiliate channel weather man.

In defense of the experts, when you're not on-site and don't have all the available information at your fingers (and hell, lots of times even when you are -- fog of war and whatnot) "speculation" and "best guesses" are all you've got.

The problem is more with a media that doesn't challenge that, or at least force and acknowledgement that the experts are giving their best guesses based on whatever information is out there, and that in a chaotic situation like this -- that information is incomplete and often distorted.

The safety plan thing reminds me rather uncomfortably of BP's plan -- fuck, as we've learned EVERYONE's plan -- for offshore oil well incidents.

[Simond]

Now,  can we get back to some facts please?

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Accident (1 April 2011, 14.30 UTC)

On Friday, 1 April 2011, the IAEA provided the following information on the current status of nuclear safety in Japan.

1.Current Situation

Overall at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the situation remains very serious.

The Unit 1 condenser is full. In preparation for transferring water in the basement of the turbine building to the condenser, water in the condenser storage tank is being transferred to the suppression pool surge tank since 31 March, 03:00 UTC. Water in the trench was transferred to a water tank at the central environmental facility process main building. In order to prepare for removal of the water from the turbine building basement in Unit 2, pumping of water from the condenser to the suppression pool water surge tank started at 07:45 UTC 29 March. For Unit 3 pumping of water from the condenser to suppression pool water surge tank was started at 08:40 UTC March 28 and was completed at 23:37 UTC on 30 March.

For Unit 1 fresh water has been continuously injected into the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) through the feed-water line at an indicated flow rate of 8 m3/h using a temporary electric pump with diesel backup. In Unit 2 fresh water is injected continuously through the fire extinguisher line at an indicated rate of 8 m3/h using a temporary electric pump with diesel backup. In Unit 3 fresh water is being injected continuously at about 7 m3/h into the reactor core through the fire extinguisher line using a temporary electric pump with diesel backup.

The indicated temperatures at the feed water nozzle of the RPV and bottom of RPV on Unit 1 are stable at 256 °C and 128 °C respectively. There is a slight decrease in RPV and Drywell pressures. The indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV of Unit 2 is stable at 165 °C. The temperature at the bottom of the RPV was not reported. Indicated Drywell pressure remains at atmospheric pressure. The indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV in Unit 3 is stable at 101 °C and at the bottom of RPV is also stable at 112 °C. Indicated Drywell pressure remains slightly above atmospheric pressure. The validity of the RPV temperature measurement at the feed water nozzle is still under investigation.

The pumping of water into the Unit 1 Spent Fuel Pool by concrete pumping truck was started at 04:03 UTC on 31 March. Fresh water was sprayed to the spent fuel pool at the Unit 3 by the concrete pump on 31 March and to the spent fuel pool on Unit 4 on the 1st April.

Units 5 and 6 remain in cold shutdown

2. Radiation Monitoring

On 31 March, deposition of iodine-131 was detected by the Japanese authorities in 8 prefectures, and deposition of cesium-137 in 10 prefectures. In these prefectures where deposition of iodine-131 was reported, on 31 March, the range was from 29 to 1350 becquerel per square metre. For caesium-137, the range was from 3.6 to 505 becquerel per square metre. In the Shinjyuku district of Tokyo, the daily deposition for iodine-131 was 50 becquerel per square metre and for cesium-137 it was 68 becquerel per square metre. No significant changes were reported in the 45 prefectures in gamma dose rates compared to yesterday. As of 28 March, recommendations for restrictions on drinking water are in place at two locations in the Fukushima prefecture and restrictions continue to apply for infants only. The IAEA monitoring team made additional measurements at 9 locations West of Fukushima-Daiichi NPP. The measurement locations were at distances of 30 to 58 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The dose rates ranged from 0.4 to 2.3 microsievert per hour. At the same locations, results of beta-gamma contamination measurements ranged from 0.01 to 0.49 Megabecquerel per square metre. The other team who had made monitoring measurements in Tokyo during the last week, has finished its activities.

Since our written briefing of yesterday, significant data related to food contamination was reported on 31 March by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Reported analytical results covered 2 samples taken on 15 March and 109 samples from 27-31 March. Analytical results for 98 of the 111 samples for various vegetables, spinach and other leafy vegetables, fruit (strawberry), seafood, various meats (beef, chicken and pork) and unprocessed raw milk in eight prefectures (Chiba, Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Niigata, Tochigi, and Tokyo), indicated that iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137 were either not detected or were below the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities. However, it was reported that analytical results in Chiba, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures for the remaining 13 of the total 111 samples for spinach and other leafy vegetables, parsley and beef indicated that iodine-131 and/or caesium-134 and caesium-137 exceeded the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities.

The following restrictions are in place (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Press Releases 21 and 23 March 2011):

Fukushima: Distribution and consumption of leafy vegetables (including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kakina, komatsuna and spinach), turnip and unprocessed raw milk. Ibaraki: Distribution of spinach, kakina, parsley and unprocessed raw milk.
Gunma: Distribution of spinach and kakina.
Tochigi: Distribution of spinach and kakina.

The Joint FAO/IAEA Food Safety Assessment Team has completed its mission and presented its report to the Japanese Cabinet Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on 31 March. The IAEA members of the Team are returning to Vienna today.

The Agency, in agreement with the Japanese government, will dispatch two reactor experts to Japan. They will hold meetings with the Nuclear Safety Commission, NISA, TEPCO and other Japanese counterparts from Monday 4 April onwards. The objective of this visit is to exchange views with Japanese technical experts and to get first-hand information about the current status of reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, measures being taken and future plans to mitigate the accident.

The following countries have provided the monitoring data to the IAEA�s Incident and Emergency Centre � Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland and Singapore.

[Sheepherder]

Why is there a giant hole in the roof of the building next to Reactor #3?

You know, Reactor #3 looks completely smashed and burnt out.

Explosion.

Frankly it looks like all the coolant pipes have been destroyed and the Japanese have been reduced to spraying water onto the outsides of the containment vessels  and praying that the molten cores of the reactors cool down before they melt through to the outside environment.

No.

[jakonovski]

el-oh-fuckin-el.

Are you young, capable, and not irradiated? How would YOU like to make thousands of dollars!?

Ha. Ahaahahah

Sounds like capitalist biorobots.

[Trippy]

Fukushima Fallout Reaches San Francisco

Last week, we looked at evidence gathered in Seattle of tiny amounts of radioactive material that had made its way across the Pacific from the stricken nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

So it's no surprise that similar evidence is turning up further down the coast in San Francisco.

Between 16 and 26 March, Eric Norman and pals at the department of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley placed buckets at various locations in the Bay Area to gather rain water (the earthquake that triggered the accident occurred on 11 March). They then analysed the water they collected, looking for the tell tale gamma rays from radioactive stuff.

As expected, they found it. "Gamma ray spectra measured from these samples show clear evidence of fission products - iodine-131 and132, tellurium-132 and cesium-134 and 137," say Norman and co.

That's very similar to the spectrum of stuff seen in Seattle.

Just how much material is in the rainwater is interesting. Norman and co say the US Environmental Protection Agency places a limit for the amount of iodine-131 allowed in drinking water of 4 becquerels per litre, which equates to 4 decays per litre per second.

By comparison, San Francisco's rainwater contains 16 Bq/litre.

This number needs to be placed in context, however. Norman and co say: " If a person were to drink a typical amount of water per day containing the EPA limit of I-131, then in one year he or she would receive a whole body dose of < 0.04 mSv (4 mrem). This dose should be compared to the US average annual radiation dose of 6.2 mSv (620 mrem)."

And since Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days, and so decays very quickly, Norman and co say that it is extremely unlikely that the public will be exposed to anywhere near these levels in drinking water.

They end their paper with this conclusion: "Thus the levels of fallout we have observed in San Francisco Bay area rain water pose no health risk to the public."

Worth keeping an eye on, though.

[Arthur_Parker]

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Tepcos_plans_for_water_issues_0104112.html

To tackle the discharges Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to construct a 6000 tonne water tank as well as a 4000 tonne pond. These will work in conjunction with a 20 tonne per hour treatment facility to handle water from drainage canals around all six reactors at the plant.
 
The tank and pond should be complete around the middle of this month, with the treatment facility following about two weeks later. The set-up should let the company mitigate the discharges to sea by safely storing and sampling the water and only discharging it after treatment.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110401D01JFF02.htm

The city of Shizuoka said Friday that it will provide a so-called megafloat that serves as a fishing park in Shimizu Port after receiving a request from the firm. This steel structure is said to be able to hold around 10,000 tons of water without sinking.

Tepco will tow the floating island to a Kanagawa Prefecture shipyard, where it will be outfitted, then transport it to alongside the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The power utility has yet to decide when to start using the megafloat.

Tepco also began spraying a resin on the plant grounds from 3 p.m. Friday to prevent the spread of radioactive materials. It sprayed an area of 500 sq. meters near the No. 4 reactor with 2,000 liters of the resin.

Nice to see a plan for the water forming.

[Ghambit]

Those biorobots are only gonna really be there to keep the situation from deteriorating beyond control.  Once those 'crete pumps FINALLY get in place and they can "kill" these reactors, my guess is that you're going to start seeing large auto-mechanized equipment doing most of the work.  Especially regarding cleanup.  Cha ching!!

Oh, and yah. The title of this thread is the most appropriately tagged title since I joined f13.  Aint nuthin unfucked about any of this.

edit:  kind of amazing how hot the water still is at the output nozzles of those temporary pumps.  What like over 250C?   The radiation cloud has to be pretty 

[Morat20]

They just put a robot on the space station. I'd wondered forever why it was human-looking. (Looks like a torso and head with arms and fairly realistic hands). I'd even seen it in the cafeteria, though I didn't bother getting my picture taken with it.

Turns out the hands and shape were so that it could use the tools already up there. They just plan to stick it on the manipulator arm, just like they would an astronaut, and remote control it. I *think* it's actually got cameras in the head (And in a few other places) to make it easier to use.

Not up to full human flexibility and articulation, but the hands and arms are fairly close.

[Furiously]

Those biorobots are only gonna really be there to keep the situation from deteriorating beyond control.  Once those 'crete pumps FINALLY get in place and they can "kill" these reactors, my guess is that you're going to start seeing large auto-mechanized equipment doing most of the work.  Especially regarding cleanup.  Cha ching!!

Oh, and yah. The title of this thread is the most appropriately tagged title since I joined f13.  Aint nuthin unfucked about any of this.

edit:  kind of amazing how hot the water still is at the output nozzles of those temporary pumps.  What like over 250C?   The radiation cloud has to be pretty 

I forget where I read it, but imagine you are microwaving a potato. Now try cooling it with water while it's still being microwaved. That's basically what the nuclear pile is doing.  Be something like 5 years before it gets to a point where it won't need cooling.

[penfold]

So whats the final "win" status of this sorry mess? Four giant sarcophagus buildings like Chernobyl?

I guess they want to clean up, encase, cool down, remove the core, clean up some more leaving it a green field site?

Surely long term encasement is futile seeing the site will be a beach, and then underwater long before the plutonium decays to safe levels. If a dinosaur power company had fucked up and scattered neptunium 237* all over their dino power station, we would have to put up a fence around what ever part of the world it ended up in today. The mind boggles at the long term issues of this stuff.


*The wiki page on high level radioactive waste was a sombre read and I just picked a "troublesome" element from the top of the article. I'm a layman, and one more puzzled by the day.