Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Jeff Kelly]

Nobody knows how bad the radiation was exactly but it was bad. They didn't know because their instruments topped out at around 12 Sievert/h. Seriously, they were astonished because the crews on the roof lasted a lot longer than they'd expected then to.

They didn't last long enough to get any "cancer problems". The roof crews died horribly in a Moscow hospital a few weeks later.

[Tale]

*Regular robot robots went crazy and died within days due to the high levels of radiation affecting their circuitry.

What? We didn't have robots in 1986.

"Bio-robots" is simply gallows humour.

[Kail]

*Regular robot robots went crazy and died within days due to the high levels of radiation affecting their circuitry.

What? We didn't have robots in 1986.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/

[Arthur_Parker]

*Regular robot robots went crazy and died within days due to the high levels of radiation affecting their circuitry.

What? We didn't have robots in 1986.

"Bio-robots" is simply gallows humour.

Robots for nuclear power plants IAEA Bulletin Autumn 1985

[Arthur_Parker]

Outflow of highly radioactive water into sea stops

The outflow of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has stopped after the injection of a chemical agent, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.

In a bid to stem the leak, the utility, known as TEPCO, injected 1,500 liters of ''water glass,'' or sodium silicate, and another agent near a seaside pit where the highly radioactive water had been seeping through.

[Sheepherder]

The radiation was so bad that even the film in a camera was affected.

Film is highly sensitive to radiation, more so than electronics or humans.  An airport X-ray machine can kill standard photographic film.

[bhodi]

As a rule, pretty much everything that uses electricity or that's living but smaller than us is more sensitive to radiation than we are. We're damn hardy, relatively speaking.

[01101010]

As a rule, pretty much everything that uses electricity or that's living but smaller than us is more sensitive to radiation than we are. We're damn hardy, relatively speaking.

Cockroaches?

[bhodi]

Actually, come to think of it, most insects are special and have a lot higher resistance than we do. I guess I'm mentally thinking warm blooded vertebrates.

[MahrinSkel]

The Chernobyl forbidden zone has turned into a de facto wilderness preserve, and apparently the animals don't live long enough naturally for cancer rates to be meaningful for them.  Humans have roughly three times the life expectancy we should have for our metabolic rates, so we live long enough to get cancer.  Downside of modern nutrition and medicine: We get to die of different stuff.

--Dave

[Merusk]

There's also people living in the "forbidden zone" because, hey, that's where they've always lived. Apparently the cancer rate isn't that much higher than the Ukraine in general.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/17/134627793/chernobyl-a-quiet-wilderness-teeming-with-life

[Arthur_Parker]

I don't know how accurate that article is Merusk, but it says a lot more than just that.

Mr. SHUKMAN: ...200 odd or few hundred wolves that live in the region. You know, what that is doing to their genetic structure is not known yet. But it is known that mice that have been studied in the region are developing new characteristics, such as resistance to radioactivity, you know, so - some scientists talk about the region as a laboratory of microevolution.

CONAN: Post-apocalyptic microlaboratory.

Mr. SHUKMAN: Something like that, exactly. You know, things are changing at the, you know, deep in their DNA that will have unknown results, presently unknown possibilities. You know, there may be new species already in the making.

[Ubvman]

As a rule, pretty much everything that uses electricity or that's living but smaller than us is more sensitive to radiation than we are. We're damn hardy, relatively speaking.

Cockroaches?

Mythbusters did an episode testing that myth. The Beetles* shall conquer the earth after the Nuclear Apocalypse!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-6cIy_s8pQ

*and their rock and roll brethren, the Fruit Flies.

[bhodi]

I don't know how accurate that article is Merusk, but it says a lot more than just that.

Mr. SHUKMAN: Something like that, exactly. You know, things are changing at the, you know, deep in their DNA that will have unknown results, presently unknown possibilities. You know, there may be new species already in the making.

Evolutionary timescales are measured in millennia, not in decades. Evolution is not fast. It takes a long, long time.

[Arthur_Parker]

For new species sure, but that quote can also refer to mutations.  So things like the Italian Apolipoprotein AI are possible, which I'll link because the unknown really does mean unknown and it's not always a bad thing.

[Lantyssa]

Evolutionary timescales are measured in millennia, not in decades. Evolution is not fast. It takes a long, long time.

Usually, but some pressures can require extremely fast adaptions.  An event which causes a minority to thrive in a few years is just as significant to the population as a change which occurs over thousands.  There is no hard and fast rule.

[Pennilenko]

Hehe F13, where everybody can go from Nuclear Physicist to Evolutionary Biologist in .0001 seconds.

[kaid]

The Chernobyl forbidden zone has turned into a de facto wilderness preserve, and apparently the animals don't live long enough naturally for cancer rates to be meaningful for them.  Humans have roughly three times the life expectancy we should have for our metabolic rates, so we live long enough to get cancer.  Downside of modern nutrition and medicine: We get to die of different stuff.

--Dave

Yup pretty much the negative impacts of radiation are more than offset by the lack of human population in that large area. They are even starting to see some animals migrating back and establishing sizable populations that had not been seen in the area in generations.

So yes there may be mutations and disease in the animals at an elevated level but overall not having pressures of humans hunting/denying them territory more than makes up for it.

It will be very interesting to study the animals in the area to see long term how they adapt to the high ambient radiation levels.

[Morat20]

Evolutionary timescales are measured in millennia, not in decades. Evolution is not fast. It takes a long, long time.

Oh, it can be very, very fast. Just as a lame example: Pretend, among the wolves there, there is a single mutation that perhaps 2% of a pack has. It confers no real fitness benefit, except for a markedly lower incidence of cancer. It doesn't matter to wolves, because they breed and die well before that cancer can kill them -- say it's even it's balanced out with a higher liklihood of stroke. It's just conserved because there's no real selective pressures for or against -- stroke or cancer, it all happens well after a wolf's reproductive life is over.

Now introduce a shit-ton of radioactive contamination. All of a sudden those 2% have a massively longer average lifespan, because they're less prone to cancer. The contamination is enough to kill off wolves from cancer before their breeding days or done.

Give it, say, 20 years and the incidence of wolves with resistance to cancer (but a high liklihood of dying of stroke in late adulthood) is going to be damn near 100%.

Rapid evolution like that requires an already existing allele or trait that suddenly becomes critical. New traits appear over longer time-scales, although it's documented that under extreme pressure (starvation, sickness, etc) there tends to be far more DNA replication errors -- basically the stress of living in an extreme environment naturally produces more variety. ANything worthwhile coming out of that in a human noticeable timescale would take a lot of luck. Over thousands or tens of thousands of years of harsh environmental pressure it's more of a given.

Evolve or die, so to speak. :)

[Merusk]

You could have just talked about the Peppered Moth for a real-world example.   I remembered that one from.. geez.. 7th or 8th grade Science.

[Morat20]

You could have just talked about the Peppered Moth for a real-world example.   I remembered that one from.. geez.. 7th or 8th grade Science.

I could have. :) But I got real sick of that one, since it's one Creationists have gotten stuck sideways in their little stubborn heads.

[bhodi]

Yeah, of course. Oops! I chalk that up to PRS (Pre-Coffee-Syndrome) today.

[Morat20]

And to be honest: I'm guessing it's far more likely that "Death by irradiated surroundings < Death by Humans" as to why they seem to be doing so well, although how that works out for them over the next ten or twenty thousand years should be very interesting.

[Arthur_Parker]

Japan focuses on hydrogen buildup after nuclear leak

Workers started injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 on Wednesday night, following a morning breakthrough in stopping highly radioactive water leaking into the sea at another reactor in the six-reactor complex.
...
But TEPCO suspected that the outside casing of the reactor vessel was damaged, said the official.

Considering how far away from the reactor 2 building the liquid glass was inserted, I'm not sure I'd be calling it a breakthrough.  It's great news but they plugged the leak right near the sea, so that's not a long term fix.

The bold line is the first time I've seen them say no 1's reactor vessel is damaged.

[Arthur_Parker]

This is from yesterday.

U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear Plant

The document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.
...
The document urged that Japanese operators restore the ability to purge the structures of these gases and fill them with stable nitrogen gas, a capability lost after the quake and tsunami.

Not seen anything else on this so far.  Edit link to full report, apparently, not read it yet http://tinyurl.com/Fuku-RPV

[Arthur_Parker]

Inside report from Fukushima nuclear reactor evacuation zone

Core of Stricken Reactor Probably Leaked, U.S. Says

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s statement regarded unit No. 2, and the agency underscored that its interpretation was speculative and based on high radiation readings that Tokyo Electric had found in the lower part of unit No. 2’s primary containment structure, called the drywell. The statement said that the commission “does not believe that the reactor vessel has given way, and we do believe practically all of the core remains in the vessel.”

Nitrogen smoothly injected into Fukushima No. 1 reactor

After the company successfully stopped leakage of highly radioactive water into the sea from a cracked pit Wednesday, it detected a temporary rise in the level of tainted water in an underground trench connected to the No. 2 reactor building, from which the toxic liquid is believed to originate.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear regulatory body, said the water level, which rose about 4 centimeters and then returned to the previous level, suggests that highly radioactive water may have begun leaking again from somewhere else and said that TEPCO was expected to boost monitoring of seawater radiation levels.

To prevent further contamination of the sea from radiation leakage, TEPCO will install iron sheets as well as ''silt fence'' barriers close to the No. 2 reactor water intake and other areas near the plant. The utility will also put 100 tons of sandbags at a breakwater, Nishiyama said.

[Arthur_Parker]

A tsunami warning has been issued for north-eastern Japan after an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 struck off the east coast of Honshu.

The tsunami is predicted to have a wave 1m (3ft) high. Those in the warning zone should move to high ground, Japanese TV said.

The area was ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami last month which severely damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Thursday's quake was 118km (78 miles) north of Fukushima, 40km offshore.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates Fukushima, says it is checking on the situation at the damaged plant following the latest earthquake.

The quake was strong enough to shake buildings in Tokyo.

[Kageru]

Given they were worried about how a flooded reactor would deal with another earthquake I hope it was far enough away.

There's a video report from Arnie Gundersen who I believe is considered heavily anti-nuke biased. However in this case he's reading from an Areva internal report which lends some support to the suspicion things are much worse than the reports indicate (rather than just the expected "a bit worse").

The actual report seems to be available here, though possibly an earlier version.

[Sheepherder]

To prevent further contamination of the sea from radiation leakage, TEPCO will install iron sheets as well as ''silt fence'' barriers close to the No. 2 reactor water intake and other areas near the plant. The utility will also put 100 tons of sandbags at a breakwater, Nishiyama said.

 

[Arthur_Parker]

Pressure increasing in reactor 1 apparently, but nothing in English yet.  Edit, Reactor 1 details

New cooling options being explored

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is considering alternative methods, including the construction of improvised systems, to cool reactors at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Ongoing operations--which involve pouring water directly into the reactor cores to lower temperatures inside the pressure vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors to below 100 C--have not worked as expected, and restoration of the reactors' existing cooling systems is not likely to happen soon.

The discouraging outlook has prompted TEPCO to begin exploring new options.
...
One proposal is to build makeshift cooling systems. TEPCO would have to access pipes connected to the pressure vessels at some point outside the reactor buildings where radiation levels are low. From there, the company could connect the pipes to new heat exchangers and pumps.

Another option under consideration is trying to lower the temperatures of the pressure vessels from the outside, by filling the containment vessels that surround them with water or some other coolant. The success of this plan would depend on whether the containment vessels have been damaged.

"It might be wise to set up new cooling systems," said Michio Ishikawa, the top adviser of the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute. "If the current conditions continue, the amount of radioactive substances being discharged from the reactors might increase. Therefore, all possible options need to be considered."

Millions Without Power After Japan Aftershock

The possibility raised new questions. The Nuclear Regulator Commission said that its speculation about the flow of core material out of the reactor vessel would explain high radiation readings in an area underneath, called the drywell.

But some of the radiation readings at Reactors Nos. 1 and 3 over the last week were nearly as high as or higher than the 3,300 rems per hour that the commission said it was trying to explain, so it would appear that the speculation would apply to them as well. At No. 2, extremely radioactive material continues to ooze out of the reactor pressure vessel, and the leak is likely to widen with time, a western nuclear executive asserted.

“It’s a little like pulling a thread out of your tie,” said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business connections in Japan. “Any breach gets bigger.”

Flashes of extremely intense radioactivity have become a serious problem, he said. Tokyo Electric’s difficulties in providing accurate information on radiation are not a result of software problems, as some Japanese officials have suggested, but stem from damage to measurement instruments caused by radiation, the executive said.

Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions.

[Ghambit]

So the radiation readings are errant due to radiation?   
Restoring the cooling system wont happen soon so building a new one is better? 
The spent fuel pools were supposedly intact, but hey... nothin to see here as we bulldoze over fuel rod shrapnel. 

I grow tired of this whole situation and I dont even live there.  Just send the roughnecks in there already and 'crete the whole goddamned place.
Oh, and wouldnt the pressure increase in No. 1 be a good thing?  That denotes vessel integrity.  Granted, they'll have to stay on top of getting rid of the hydrogen buildup.

[Kageru]

We picked a great time to book for a Japan holiday :/ And the information is so fragmented and controlled it's hard to make a sensible judgement. Avoid Japan because the plant is clearly going to be leaking radioactive substances for many months to come, visit Japan because Tokyo should still be safe or visit Japan before Tokyo becomes an abandoned glowing wilderness.

Accurate radiation readings don't really matter so much. Once it becomes "don't go in there, you'll die" it all becomes a bit abstract.

They're not going to be restoring the cooling system. The buildings are too "hot" to work in and the damage is almost certainly too extreme to use without a lot of work. It seems like the plan is to do what they can to keep it from exploding or draining into the ocean (so a "tent", pumping off water, and building a silt fence in the water).  Then hope it cools and stabilises to the extent they can start disassembling the plant. It's going to take years, cost billions and create a substantial dead-zone even if everything goes perfectly.

What an astounding mess.

[Arthur_Parker]

Oh, and wouldnt the pressure increase in No. 1 be a good thing?  That denotes vessel integrity.  Granted, they'll have to stay on top of getting rid of the hydrogen buildup.

It seems to have levelled off somewhat but no, increased pressure & temperature wouldn't be great at this stage, just because it makes cooling more difficult.

7.1-magnitude quake jolts Japan, tsunami warning in effect

TOKYO, April 11 (Xinhua) -- A strong quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 jolted eastern, northeastern parts of Japan at 5: 16 p.m. local time (0816 GMT) on Monday. A tsunami alert was issued, according to Japan Meteorological Agency.

The epicenter, with depth of 10 km, was near Hamadori of Fukushima Prefecture. Swaying was strongly felt in buildings in Tokyo, some 200 km south of Hamadori.

Two-meter tsunami waves are expected to hit the Pacific coast in Ibaraki Prefecture soon, the agency said, urging people to evacuate to higher locations.

Nuclear power stations in Ibaraki Prefecture were normal after the quake, operator said.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/

NEWS ADVISORY: Kan ask gov't officials to make utmost to grasp nuke plant conditions (18:01)
NEWS ADVISORY: Water pumping into 3 Fukushima Daiichi reactors stops: TEPCO (17:56)
NEWS ADVISORY: External power sources unavailable at Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1-2 (17:49)
NEWS ADVISORY: Kan's news conference to be delayed after big quake: gov't official (17:46)

edit

Coolant water injection at Fukushima's Nos. 1-3 reactors resumed: agency (18:11)

[Fordel]

So a little while back, they dumped a whole slew of radioactive water into the ocean. What does that actually mean for say, the sea life and/or sea food? Japan eats a shit load of seafood if my internet facts are correct.

[Arthur_Parker]

They leaked a lot but fully diluted in the ocean it would be difficult to detect it.  

It won't be fully diluted immediately, so the local area will be impacted but nobody really knows how badly or for how long.  People are going to avoid Japanese sea food anyway but the government wouldn't let them sell anything that wasn't safe for consumption.

If they had to dump it anywhere the sea is the best place, it's just a pity they can't dump all 4 reactors buildings in the middle of the pacific away from everybody.