Japan - Nuclear Crisis Spreads to 4th Reactor

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Quigley_Sharps, Mar 13, 2011.


  1. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Japan - Nuclear Crisis Spreads to 4th Reactor <hr style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1"> NY Times reports 17 minutes ago....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/wo...r.html?_r=1&hp
     
  2. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Remember......"Nuclear is good clean energy, we should be harnessing the abundance of repercussion free development".....[​IMG]
     
  3. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    Yeah. I called this one. I hate it when good people die.
     
  4. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

  5. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    And flying is safer until your plane crashes. :D
     
  6. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    NO form of power or transportation is wholly safe - but "life will find a way!"

    Hopefully, this lesson will lead to safer new reactors in future.
     
  7. BAT1

    BAT1 Cowboys know no fear

    We have 23 reactors here of the same design. All this as 'O' is shutting down the coal production because it is 'unsafe'.
     
  8. TXKajun

    TXKajun Monkey+++

    Welcome to the death of any future nuclear power plants here in the U.S.

    Buy more oil! Burn more coal! Use up that natural gas! Let them eat cake! :mad:

    Kajun
     
  9. BAT1

    BAT1 Cowboys know no fear

    The nuclear reactors are out of control. #3 is fueled with MOX, A recycled mix of Plutonium and Uranium. For 40 years they have stored some 600,000 spent fuel rods on top of the reactors which have blown up, now those particles are airborne. The levels are so high, the workers are only able to work in the structure for a few minutes getting a lifetime dose in that time. 30 Navy personnel are in containment with severe radiation sickness. The support group recorded radiation 'off the charts' and have retreated out of the areas. This radiation will containment air particles and one particle if inhaled will kill you within two days, and its being carried by the jet stream here, affecting many systems of the enviroment. They already see high readings in Alaska. Being heavy, it will fall into the ocean killing sea life and Seaweed and Kelp which is high in iodine, the very thing that could help their thyroid. How ironic. Pray for humanity. i have found a a new source for iodine.
    Potable Aqua, an iodine treatment for water, has 6.68% titratable iodine. Kelp, Seaweed, fish, {Cod= 115mcg] and other foods high in iodine will help keep your thyroid safe. Eat sushi wrapped in seaweed. Dulce, Koumbu, Selenium,Zinc,Omega 3 oils,and vitamin D will help. Keep watch with a Geiger counter. Radiation - Web Server Tools and CGI Software for Webmasters
     
  10. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

  11. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Thanks Ghrit.... There is a LOT of BS floating around the internet, on what some Talking Heads, "think" is going on, as opposed to what folks in the LOOP are saying. It is my opinion, that the link you posted is about as Authoritative as we are likely to see from ANY Publicly Published source. Oh yea... I consider Alex Jones, a Talking Head, on this particular subject, as I find his reports just a bit to hysterical for my taste..... YMMV....
     
  12. Falcon15

    Falcon15 Falco Peregrinus

    Oh, so solly Cholly. Geigel countel bloke. We redoo leading.

    The reading of 1530 millisieverts/hr is not good. 1000 millisieverts/hr exposure and you have radiation sickness.

    Dosage at this level causes:
    1 – 3 Sv (1000 - 3000 mSv): Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow damage, lymph node damage, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.

    While not yet a Chernobyl, it is bad in and of itself.
     
  13. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    New Hope is coming, but how soon is the question....

    Hopes new power line may ease Japan nuclear crisis
    A nearly completed new power line could restore cooling systems in Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant, its operator said Thursday, raising some hope of easing the crisis that has threatened a meltdown and already spawned dangerous radiation surges.

    The Associated Press

    TOKYO —
    A nearly completed new power line could restore cooling systems in Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant, its operator said Thursday, raising some hope of easing the crisis that has threatened a meltdown and already spawned dangerous radiation surges.

    The conditions at the plant appeared to worsen, with white smoke pouring from the complex and a surge in radiation levels forcing workers to retreat for hours Wednesday from their struggle to cool the overheating reactors.

    As international concern mounted, the chief of the U.N. nuclear agency said he would go to Japan to assess what he called a "serious" situation and urged Tokyo to provide better information to his organization.

    Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said the new power line to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is almost finished and that officials plan to try it "as soon as possible," but he could not say exactly when.

    The new line would revive electric-powered pumps, allowing the company to maintain a steady water supply to troubled reactors and spent fuel storage ponds, keeping them cool. The company is also trying to repair its existing disabled power line.

    Wednesday's pullback by workers who have been pumping seawater into the reactors cost valuable time in the fight to prevent a nuclear meltdown, a nightmare scenario following Friday's horrific earthquake and tsunami. The disasters pulverized Japan's northeastern coast and are feared to have killed more than 10,000 people.

    The tsunami destroyed the complex's backup power system and left operators unable to properly cool nuclear fuel. The 180 emergency workers have been working in shifts to manually pump seawater into the reactors.

    Japan's emperor, in an unprecedented made-for-TV speech, called on the country to work together.

    "It is important that each of us shares the difficult days that lie ahead," said Akihito, 77. "I pray that we will all take care of each other and overcome this tragedy."

    He also expressed his worries over the nuclear crisis, saying: "With the help of those involved I hope things will not get worse."

    But officials are also taking increasing criticism for poor communication about efforts at the complex. There has been growing unease at the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 board member nations, who have complained that information coming from Japan on the rapidly evolving nuclear disaster is too slow and vague.

    IAEA head Yukiya Amano spoke of a "very serious" situation and said he would leave for Tokyo within a day.

    He said it was "difficult to say" if events were out of control, but added, "I will certainly have contact with those people who are working there who tackled the accident, and I will be able to have firsthand information."

    The nuclear crisis has partly overshadowed the human tragedy caused by Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest recorded in history.

    Millions of Japanese have been with little food and water in heavy snow and rain since Friday. In some towns, long lines of cars waited outside the few open gas stations, with others lined up at rice-vending machines.

    National broadcaster NHK showed mammoth military helicopters lifting off Friday afternoon to survey radiation levels above the nuclear complex, preparing to dump water onto the most troubled reactors in an effort to cool them down.

    The defense ministry later said those flights were a drill - then later said it had decided against making an airborne drop because of the high radiation levels.

    "The anxiety and anger being felt by people in Fukushima have reached a boiling point," the governor of Fukushima prefecture, Yuhei Sato, fumed in an interview with NHK. He criticized preparations for an evacuation if conditions worsen, and said centers do not have enough hot meals and basic necessities.

    More than 4,300 people are officially listed as dead, but officials believe the toll will climb to well over 10,000. Police say more than 452,000 people are staying in temporary shelters such as school gymnasiums.

    Wednesday's radiation spike was believed to have come from the complex's Unit 3. But officials also admitted that they were far from sure what was going on at the four most troubled reactors, including Unit 3, in part because high radiation levels made it difficult to get very close.

    While white smoke was seen rising Wednesday above Unit 3, officials could not ascertain the source. They said it could be spewing from the reactor's spent fuel pool - cooling tanks for used nuclear rods - or may have been from damage to the reactor's containment vessel, the protective shell of thick concrete.

    Masahisa Otsuki, an official with Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the complex, said officials are most concerned about the spent fuel pools, which are not encased in protective shells.

    "We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools. We don't have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors," he said.

    Late Wednesday, government officials said they'd asked special police units to bring in water cannons - normally used to quell rioters - to spray water onto the spent fuel storage pool for the complex's Unit 4.

    The cannons are thought to be strong enough to allow emergency workers to remain a safe distance from the complex while still able to get water into the pool, said Minoru Ogoda of the Japanese nuclear safety agency.

    In the city of Fukushima, meanwhile, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) inland from the nuclear complex, hundreds of harried government workers, police officers and others struggled to stay on top of the situation in a makeshift command center.

    An entire floor of one of the prefecture's office buildings had been taken over by people tracking evacuations, power needs, death tolls and food supplies.

    Elevated levels of radiation were detected well outside the 20-mile (30-kilometer) emergency area around the plants. In Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, officials said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late morning. It would take three years of constant exposure to these higher levels to raise a person's risk of cancer.

    A little radiation was also detected in Tokyo, triggering panic buying of food and water.

    Given the reported radiation levels, John Price, an Australian-based nuclear safety expert, said he saw few health risks for the general public so far. But he said he was surprised by how little information the Japanese were sharing.

    "We don't know even the fundamentals of what's happening, what's wrong, what isn't working. We're all guessing," he said. "I would have thought they would put on a panel of experts every two hours."

    Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government expects to ask the U.S. military for help, though he did not elaborate. He said the government is still considering whether to accept offers of help from other countries.

    There are six reactors at the plant. Units 1, 2 and 3, which were operating last week, shut down automatically when the quake hit. Since then, all three have been rocked by explosions. Compounding the problems, on Tuesday a fire broke out in Unit 4's fuel storage pond, an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool, causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere.

    Units 4, 5 and 6 were shut at the time of the quake, but even offline reactors have nuclear fuel - either inside the reactors or in storage ponds - that need to be kept cool.

    Meanwhile, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency estimated that 70 percent of the rods have been damaged at the No. 1 reactor.

    Japan's national news agency, Kyodo, said that 33 percent of the fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor were damaged and that the cores of both reactors were believed to have partially melted.

    ---

    Yuasa reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, David Stringer in Ofunato and Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok contributed to this report.
     
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