Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Arthur_Parker]

That newspaper story doesn't make any sense at all.  Nobody actually looked with their eyes at fuel rods inside a reactor that's only been off for a few weeks.

It's probably a garbled version of this.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/05/90715.html

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, revealed Thursday that holes had been created by melted nuclear fuel at the bottom of the No. 1 reactor's pressure vessel.

The company said it has found multiple holes adding up to several centimeters in welded piping. Earlier in the day, it said the amount of water inside the troubled reactor was unexpectedly low -- not enough to cover the nuclear fuel -- hinting that a large part of the fuel melted after being fully exposed.

The finding is raising concerns that the company will face difficulty achieving its plan to bring the damaged reactors to a stable condition known as a ''cold shutdown'' in about six to nine months, observers said.

[KallDrexx]

Arstechnica seems to have a good summary of the latest TEPCO analysis of how everything went down.

[Simond]

That newspaper story doesn't make any sense at all.  Nobody actually looked with their eyes at fuel rods inside a reactor that's only been off for a few weeks.

Is this where I link to the Windscale Fire again, where someone didn't technically do that but instead looked directly at a reactor core in the middle of a meltdown/fire?

[Arthur_Parker]

Link it if you like, I thought it was interesting when I read it.  Not really relevant here though is it?

[FatuousTwat]

I thought this was pretty interesting.


"a blue liquid that hardens into a gel that peels off of surfaces, taking microscopic particles like radiation and other contaminants with it. Known as DeconGel, Japanese authorities are using it inside and outside the exclusion zone on everything from pavement to buildings."

[Soulflame]

That sounds too good to be true.

[MahrinSkel]

Not really.  It would need a carefully tuned set of properties, but we're basically talking about a gel adhesive that cures into a rubbery sheet that doesn't easily lose small threads of itself when peeled away.  Ordinary "fugitive glue" used to stick mailing cards to magazines has most of the qualities needed.

--Dave

[Fordel]

But does it make you bounce too?

[Ingmar]

So basically it is Aperture Science repulsion gel.

[Morat20]

If they can make that, why can't I get aerogel insulation for my house? It's sand and air, and can be made to completely repel water. It's insulative properties are insane. Why does it cost so fucking much? An inch thick sheet of that through my walls and attic and I'd have an igloo for a home.

[Sand]

Official death toll topped 15k today. With the number of people still missing and not "officially" dead it will eventually surpass 23k.

In other news TEPCO has subjected thousands of its workers to internal radiation because they sent them into the area following the catastrophe without proper breathing masks.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/229006-Thousands-of-Nuclear-plant-workers-suffer-internal-radiation-exposure-after-visiting-Fukushima

The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture, the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

Most of the workers who had internal exposure to radiation visited Fukushima after the nuclear crisis broke out following the March 11 quake and tsunami, and apparently inhaled radioactive substances scattered by hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

The revelation has prompted local municipalities in Fukushima to consider checking residents' internal exposure to radiation.

Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee on May 16 that there were a total of 4,956 cases of workers suffering from internal exposure to radiation at nuclear power plants in the country excluding the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and 4,766 of them involved workers originally from Fukushima who had visited the prefecture after the nuclear crisis. Terasaka revealed the data in his response to a question from Mito Kakizawa, a lawmaker from Your Party.

Its like what happened with the first responders during 9/11 all over again. 

[ghost]

Sorry if this is a rehash of previous content, but it appears as if three of the reactors experienced full meltdown. 

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.
The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

This pretty much cements my belief that governments are not to be trusted at all in times of emergency.

[01101010]

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.
The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

Still... and yet, not even a footnote on this shitstorm that is still going on.

[Jeff Kelly]

Yeah, a few days ago a German publication casually cited the official radiation measurements inside 1 and one of the other buildings.

Mind you not the guessings by laymen and experts around the globe but official measuerments taken by technicians on site.

They reached 4,000 Millisievert or 4 Sievert. The reporter obviously had no idea what any of that meant because he just mentioned it off-handedly.

The guy didn't even realize that those are lethal radiation levels.

The topic is through, the 24-hour news cycle caravan has moved on so it's easy to claim that cleanup proceeds as planned.

[Arthur_Parker]

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/fukushima-i-nuke-accident-japanese.html

Yomiuri Shinbun (original in Japanese; 6/7/2011) reports that the Japanese government will now admit in the report to IAEA that the "melt-through" may have taken place in the Reactors 1, 2 and 3 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant.

According to Yomiuri, "melt-through" happens when the melted fuel leaked from the Reactor Pressure Vessel and deposits at the bottom of the Containment Vessel, and is considered worse than "melt down".

Well, "fear-mongering" and "sensational" US Representative Ed Markey, D-Mass. was right then. He said back on April 6 that he'd received information that part of the reactor core had probably melted through the Reactor Pressure Vessel at the Reactor 2 at Fukushima. And the NRC said they didn't know for sure. Uh huh.

By the time the report is submitted and discussed at the IAEA, they will be talking about the corium out of the Containment Vessel, eating away the foundation.

[Jeff Kelly]

I have to say that the coverage of the incident by Al Jazeera has impressed me the most out of all of the news channels I have access to on german cable. (In no particular order. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC News, Sky News, a lot of German news networks, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg and a few others like Euronews)

They had a very calm style of reporting, they had the best experts in hindsight (the ones that were consistently spot on about the situation) they had the correspondents that could actually contribute something to the reporting (like actually spoke japanese or had access to people instead of just rehashing press releases and conjecture) and they actually covered most of the situation not just the nuclear accident.

[ghost]

This went away for a while, but apparently is still putting out a lot of radiation.

[Arthur_Parker]

This isn't a situation where there is going to be any good news.

Tepco Reports Second Deadly Radiation Reading at Fukushima Plant

The 10 sieverts of radiation detected on Aug. 1 outside reactor buildings was the highest the Geiger counters used were capable of reading, indicating the level could have been higher, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility, said at a press conference.

Maxing out your Geiger counter is funnily enough exactly the same thing that happened in Chernobyl.  I don't have a banana to 10 sieverts conversation chart handy.

Edit, I think they will have to bury the reactors, it just might take them a year or two to acknowledge it to the public.

no wait, found the chart

[Arthur_Parker]

This guy translates stuff, no idea who he is but it's pretty obvious that the release of information is being carefully controlled even if he's only right 50% of the time..

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/

One bright spot in this case of radioactive compost and manure that came to light in late July: It all started with a citizen in Saitama Prefecture who went in to the garden center nearby in June to measure the radiation on the surface of a bag of leaf compost. Power of an individual.

She (I think it is she) had heard rumors that the radiation was high near the pile of leaf compost bags in the center, so she went there with a personal survey meter and a camera, and uploaded the video on Youtube. That was in late June. Then, more citizens went to garden centers in other prefectures to measure the radiation, and alerted the municipal governments. And the governments had to act.

(Referring to the area where over 10 sievert/hr radiation has been detected,) the radiation level around the exhaust stacks has been too high to even go near, ever since the accident started. Not just the area around the stack for Reactors 1 and 2, but also the stack for Reactors 3 and 4.

There was the news in early April that radioactive silver was detected in South Korea. There was no way the same nuclide wasn't falling in Japan if it could fly all the way to Korea, I thought.

Sure enough.

It was not until 2PM on July 29 that the Ministry of Education and Science announced the "reading of environmental radioactivity level by prefecture [Fallout]" for March 2011.

[Jeff Kelly]

It#s getting harder and harder to get any information on Fukushima the more time passes. The last thing I heard was that Japan plans to outlaw personal metering of radiation and my connections to the industry tell me that the situation is still as bad as it was in March but that the government has issued a complete information blackout.

[Khaldun]

The piece in the NY Times about how people 20-30 miles from the plant are using their own dosimeters to find patches of strikingly high radioactive contamination in places that the government and industry have said are more or less safe was very interesting.

Once again, basic story is: the only experts who are worth a damn in these situations are people who practice prophylactic skepticism, are fairly independent of direct ties to the parties involved while knowing some of the inside story, and are willing to revise, correct and mea culpa when their tentative guesses prove wrong. Which in the case of nuclear power describes very few people, pro or con. It's more a story of the failure of expertise as a concept and of all the safeguards and public systems that depend on experts doing their jobs with professional detachment. Which I think is a very big story with global reverberations: if the 21st Century can't find an answer to that, whether it comes from individuals finding a way to be dedicated to something bigger than they are, or systems that are more responsive and dynamic in the way they connect professionals and public supervision to complex technical systems, we are seriously screwed. No one should tell this as a story of an unprecedented disaster that will never be repeated, or dismiss what it might mean to go out in your backyard with a dosimeter and find water or ground irradiated at levels well above government-mandated safety levels.

[01101010]

It#s getting harder and harder to get any information on Fukushima the more time passes. The last thing I heard was that Japan plans to outlaw personal metering of radiation and my connections to the industry tell me that the situation is still as bad as it was in March but that the government has issued a complete information blackout.

That's pride fucking with them....

[Morat20]

It's been fun watching the pro-nuclear guys. Not that I'm particular anti-nuclear. I'm just a bit skeptical about people and business in general -- especially when it comes to safety.

When nukes go bad, they go REALLY bad for a very long time. Not quite the same with a badly built wind turbine. Or even a oil or coal plant. I mean, the worst they do is blow up and catch on fire then it's over.

I think my biggest beef with the nuclear power fanboys is their ability to both talk up the safety of nukes while downplaying the risks. Fact of the matter is, the "downside" is so "down" that the upside has to be a heck of a lot higher.

Nukes can't be "Safer" than regular power plants, because their failure modes are many times worse. They have to be orders of magnitude safer, which adds a lot to cost. Which generally makes them a poor choice, because they cost so much.

I've noticed that the pro-nuclear stance has been a pretty startling series of steps backwards on this disastor, with never any awareness that the systemic errors, cut-corners, and poor planning here might be replicated elsewhere.

[Arthur_Parker]

Disclaimer, I'm just linking and quoting this article because I found it interesting.

Fukushima disaster: worse than Hiroshima

The reading of 10 sieverts of radiation per hour outside the damaged reactor buildings was the highest level the equipment used could have detected, meaning the lethality of the contamination was off the scale;

and

For the first time a tenured nuclear expert Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University concedes that the melted cores of one or more reactors may have melted through the supposedly failure proof containment vessel floor, sinking deeper into the subsoil and given the nature of the radioactive material concerned, into a position where it can spread a very long distance directly through the subsoil water table.
...
In what would be consistent with a deliberate policy of gradually revealing the truth some months after the event, the Japanese nuclear authorities and government are also now routinely referring to the fact that contamination levels outside the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi complex include hot spots that are as highly affected as they were around the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in the former Soviet Union 25 years ago.
...
The bigger context to these reports from Japan is that the guidance given by nuclear scientists and apologists alike to the media in Australia was disgracefully inaccurate and patronising. The reality of the caesium contamination was ignored, and the quoting of initial radiation readings in the wrong metric was ignored (and later found to be fictitious as well as mischievous, when TEPCO confirmed that it didn’t actually have any capability of measuring contamination within key parts of the complex).

[Arthur_Parker]

Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University , (who I guess qualifies as a real expert) lays into the government.

[CharlieMopps]

It's been fun watching the pro-nuclear guys. Not that I'm particular anti-nuclear. I'm just a bit skeptical about people and business in general -- especially when it comes to safety.

When nukes go bad, they go REALLY bad for a very long time. Not quite the same with a badly built wind turbine. Or even a oil or coal plant. I mean, the worst they do is blow up and catch on fire then it's over.

I think my biggest beef with the nuclear power fanboys is their ability to both talk up the safety of nukes while downplaying the risks. Fact of the matter is, the "downside" is so "down" that the upside has to be a heck of a lot higher.

Nukes can't be "Safer" than regular power plants, because their failure modes are many times worse. They have to be orders of magnitude safer, which adds a lot to cost. Which generally makes them a poor choice, because they cost so much.

I've noticed that the pro-nuclear stance has been a pretty startling series of steps backwards on this disastor, with never any awareness that the systemic errors, cut-corners, and poor planning here might be replicated elsewhere.

The problem is, you're totally wrong. In every way shape and form nuclear is safer than "regular" power plants. Most of which are coal. Around 6000 people a year die in China alone in coal mining accidents: http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/19316

After coal we have Hydroelectric, and a great example. Right next door to the Fukushima Reactor (ok it's a 2hr drive) we have the Fujiyama Damn. It failed in the very same earthquake as the reactor, but unlike the reactor it actually killed people! 8 people dead and homes washed away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujinuma_Dam

Then we have Wind Turbines... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Safety Don't want to fall off those...

[Tebonas]

No it isn't.

You are mixing apples and oranges here.

Nuclear Power plants are safer because of unsafe conditions while mining coal? So I guess there are no mining accidents when mining for Uranium in Kazakhstan?

8 people dying is worse than huge areas being uninhabitable for generations? And thats even if we ignore that

the foundation for the dam was not prepared properly, according to the study

And Wind Turbines being noisy for immediate neighbors isn't even in the same ballpark.


Professional Nuclear Power advocates at least use arguments that sound like they make sense! This is just ridiculous.

[Arthur_Parker]

CharlieMopps

 



Cone on the left, 10+ Sieverts An Hour.

Show me a scary coal plant cone.

[Talpidae]

Directly related to coal use.  True Story.

[Jeff Kelly]

So when can we expect our first ghouls? If Fallout has taught me anything it is that insane doses of radiation can make you live eternally (well without skin and horribly disfigured but everything has drawbacks).

By the way if there really was a radiation source with 10 Sv/h right next to the cone then you'd be looking at the picture of a dead man walking. He'd be exposed to a fatal dose of radiation within minutes.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's a TEPCO released photo, apparently they don't walk in that area, they run.

[Jeff Kelly]

BTW the blur you see on the photo is overexposure from radiation which fucks both with real film but also with CCD sensors.

[ajax34i]

That guy's got a tyvek suit on.  It's paper thin, designed to protect the environment from your shed skin cells / hair, used in microchip plants and/or bio-pharmaceutical labs, and afaik does nothing to protect against gamma radiation.  Also, latex gloves and a breathing mask, again no protection against gamma.

So either the 10 sieverts/hr are not gamma (this theory is proved false by the camera blur), or the guy is dead.

[Arthur_Parker]

Well I wouldn't want to get that close given the earlier linked Gamma camera image (further back and slightly different angle).

[Arthur_Parker]

Slightly surreal

August 4, Fukushima city office=0.90 micro Sv (16:05). Highway west I.C.=0.54 micro Sv (15:51). Sunny then downpour. 31.5 C.