Making mountains out of meltdowns (in Japan)
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@unknownuser said:
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan released a preliminary calculation Monday saying that the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been releasing up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour at some point after a massive quake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11.
The disclosure prompted the government to consider raising the accident's severity level to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5, government sources said. The level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
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@unknownuser said:
The disclosure prompted the government to consider raising the accident's severity level to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5, government sources said. The level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
Does anyone actually read what I posted only an hour ago or so?
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The good news regarding radioactive iodine decay times. Still, by the factors below, assuming no further leaks, there remains 1,300 tera-becquerels dispersed over the environment.
@unknownuser said:
TEPCO: 1% of radioactive iodine released outside
Tokyo Electric Power Company estimates that about one percent of the radioactive iodine at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been released since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility.The company on Tuesday announced the estimated radioactivity levels of all substances at the plant's 6 reactors and fuel storage pools at the time of the disaster.
The estimates are classified under radioactive noble gases, iodine or other materials.
81 million tera-becquerels of iodine-131 are believed to have existed at the plant.
The utility says the amount of iodine-131 released outside the plant is about one percent of the total with a margin of error included.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said earlier in the day that 130,000 tera-becquerels of iodine-131 have been released so far.The company also says that, *provided no leak occurred, the level of iodine-131 at the plant had fallen to less than one-hundredth of the pre-disaster level as of Monday.
The level declines naturally, as the radioactivity of iodine-131 falls by half in 8 days*.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 03:18 +0900 (JST)
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Just for informational purposes, in case someone hasn't run into the term 'becquerel' before.
It's a measure of activity, in which 1 decay event occurs every second.
From that link:
@unknownuser said:
The nuclear explosion in Hiroshima (14 kt or 59 TJ) is estimated to have produced 8×10^24 Bq (8 YBq, 8 yottabecquerel).
For comparison purposes (as dangerous as that is) a terabecquerel is 1x10^12 Bq. So 130,000 x 10^12 bequerels, or 130 x10^15 bequerels, or 130 petabequerels, or .13 exabequerels (which is the prefix for "x10^18") of iodine 131 have been released.
About one - sixty one millionth the total decays per second. But that's really apples and oranges, because comparing the relatively slow decay of iodine 131 to an engineered millisecond-length nuclear chain reaction isn't really informative.
Another comparison is that about 3.5 million curies of iodine-131 have been released.
@unknownuser said:
A radiotherapy machine may have roughly 1000 Ci of a radioisotope such as caesium-137 or cobalt-60. This quantity of nuclear material can produce serious health effects with only a few minutes of exposure.
So there's the rough approximation of 3,500 radiotherapy sources floating around... dispersed over who knows how many cubic kilometers by now.
Iodine 131 does have a half life of 8.02 days. In four months (120 days) about 3 thousandths of a percent will still exist. In a year (360 days)2.84 x 10^-12 percent will still be undecayed.
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@unknownuser said:
TEPCO to check if plutonium leaked to seabed
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will examine the seabed off the facility to ensure that no plutonium has leaked into the ocean.Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday it will conduct the inspection as plutonium is heavier than other radioactive materials and could have accumulated on the floor.
Plutonium is a radioactive substance that could cause lung cancer if inhaled.
TEPCO detected earlier small quantities of plutonium in the soil around the plant. But it said the amount is too small to harm human health.
So far, no plutonium has been found in the air and sea water samples from around the plant.
TEPCO senior official Junichi Matsumoto said there is little doubt that plutonium has leaked from the plant during the accident. The soil samples have been found to be contaminated with a small amount of the material.
He said the company will continue with the examination so that residents can feel safe.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 05:43 +0900 (JST)
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@unknownuser said:
Plutonium is a radioactive substance that could cause lung cancer if inhaled.
That's hardly 'news' is it? "Could"? It's like "May". There is never a "Will".
You more likely to get cancer from smoking, and your probably more likely to die from an asthmatic attack brought on by coal dust or plain pollen.
My eyes, btw, are already itching.
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@unknownuser said:
Level now 3300 times limit at No. 2 reactor intake
The operator of the troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant says it has detected higher levels of radioactive materials in seawater samples from near the water intake at one of the reactors.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it detected 130 becquerels of radioactive iodine-131 per cubic centimeter in samples collected near the water intake for the Number 2 reactor on Saturday. The figure is 3,300 times the national limit and 30 percent higher than the level detected on Friday.
It's the same site where iodine-131 at a level 7.5 million times the limit was detected on April 2nd. TEPCO says it detected radioactive cesium-134 at 120 times the limit and cesium-137 at 81 times the limit at the same place on Saturday. But the readings taken for these 2 substances were down for the third straight day.
There was a 90 percent drop in levels of iodine and cesium to the south of water intakes for reactors 1 through to 4.
The level of highly radioactive water in the sea rose to three to four times the level of the previous day along the coast 10 kilometers south of the power plant.
TEPCO says it's continuing to monitor the level, though there has not been a fresh leak of highly contaminated water.
Monday, May 02, 2011 05:45 +0900 (JST)
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@unknownuser said:
NHK wrote:
And your opinion?
It's all very well to keep on copy and pasting this stuff, but it doesn't really take or get us us anywhere does it?
Apparently it would also be highly unlikely that I could get to swim around the reactor, because of several red tape reasons- including what a bunch of extreme bastards the Jap police are too!!
Meanwhile.... hundreds more innocent Libyan citizens die each day due to western intervention (I really dislike western 'democracy'- don't you?). Yes, Gaddafi is a nasty piece of work, but can't we just let his people decide that? Must the west carry on being the 'Police'?
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@tfdesign said:
........what a bunch of
extreme bastards the Jap policeare too!!..... -
You are very fond of repeating what others quote, but very rarely add your own input.
(and please don't say that 'Jap police have feelings too', or else I'll barf!!)
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@unknownuser said:
Radioactive water found in No.3 reactor pit
Tokyo Electric Power Company says water containing radioactive material has been found flowing into a pit outside of the No.3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.The flow was confirmed on Wednesday afternoon at a pit linked to a utility tunnel near the reactor's water intake.
Workers could not confirm whether the water was leaking out into the sea, but they reported seeing froth near the water intake.
TEPCO says the concentration of radioactive Cesium in water sampled from the pit was 620,000 times higher than the safety limit set by the government. The utility also says it detected 1.5 milli-sieverts per hour of radiation on the surface of water in the pit, which indicates contaminated water may be leaking into the sea.TEPCO is investigating the make-up of the water and considering burying the pit to stop possible leakage.
On April 2nd, the utility confirmed that highly radioactive wastewater was leaking into the sea from a crack in a pit outside the No.2 reactor.
That leak was stopped 4 days later, after workers sealed the crack with a special chemical known as liquid glass. But in the meantime, nearby seawater was polluted by radiation.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 19:02 +0900 (JST)
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@tfdesign said:
@unknownuser said:
Gaddafi is a nasty piece of work, but can't we just let his people decide that?
They did, didn't they? As I may have pointed out before, you seem to make no distinction at all between 'letting people decide for themselves' and 'allowing people to be slaughtered on a rather grand scale'. Two very different concepts, if you ask me.
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@unknownuser said:
TEPCO: Highly radioactive water flowed into sea
Highly radioactive water has been found seeping into the ocean near one of the reactors at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.Workers found that contaminated water was flowing from a pipe into a pit near the Number 3 reactor's water intake on Wednesday morning.
The workers then used a camera to film near the water intake pipe. They found contaminated water was also leaking from the wall of the pit into the ocean.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says that water in the pit contained 37,000 becquerels of cesium-134 per cubic centimeter. That represents 620,000 times above the safety limit set by the government.
TEPCO also found that seawater between the intake and a nearby special barrier had the same radioactive substance at 32,000 times the limit. The barrier was set up to prevent radioactive water from spilling into the ocean.
The firm says it managed to stop the leak later in the day after it blocked the pipe and buried the pit in concrete.
TEPCO is looking into the possibility that radioactive water in the reactor's turbine building may have leaked through a tunnel connecting to the pipe because water levels in the turbine building had fallen since Tuesday.
Last month, TEPCO confirmed that radioactive water had leaked into the ocean from a crack in a pit outside the No.2 reactor. It later stopped the leak.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 07:57 +0900 (JST)
New radioactive leak raises questions
Highly radioactive water was found leaking into the sea from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Wednesday. It's now been revealed that contaminated water levels in the No. 3 reactor's turbine building were already alarmingly high by Sunday.Tokyo Electric Power Company plugged the leak with concrete after it found highly radioactive water flowing into the sea through a pit.
Radioactive cesium 620,000 times higher than the government-set safety limit was detected from the leaked water.
The contaminated water was streaming from the outlet of a pipe for electric cables.
The leak is thought to have stemmed from pooled water in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor.
TEPCO says it found that waste water levels in the facility had risen to a point where leakage was feared on Sunday.
The company says it doesn't know when the leak began, but that it will investigate if the monitoring of water levels was appropriate. The problem raises the question of whether the utility wasn't able to prevent the latest leak.
The utility is planning to soon begin transferring radioactive water accumulated in the turbine building to a provisional storage facility. It is now checking for other possible leaks.
Highly radioactive water poured into the sea from a crack in a pit outside the No.2 reactor in early April.
On Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the renewed leaking of radioactive materials into the sea was extremely regrettable.He says the government apologizes to the local residents, the fishing industry and neighboring countries.
Edano also said he had instructed TEPCO to investigate how the leak occurred, and that the company must take measures to prevent another episode.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 13:09 +0900 (JST)
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@unknownuser said:
Radioactive water leaked while being transferred
Tokyo Electric Power Company says an operation to transfer highly radioactive water pooled in the turbine building of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.3 reactor caused contamination of the sea nearby.
Highly radioactive water was found leaking into the sea from a pit near the reactor's water intake on Wednesday.
The utility company says 1,200 becquerels of radioactive cesium 134 were detected in one cubic centimeter of sea water near the water intake on Thursday. The figure is 20,000 times the state limit. 1,200 becquerels of radioactive cesium 137, which is 13,000 times the state limit, were also detected.
The company transferred radioactive water from the turbine building of the No.3 reactor earlier this month. It says during that process radioactive water leaked out from an underground pipe connected to the pit.
The company admitted in a news conference on Thursday that prior inspections to prevent leaks were inadequate.
Last month, highly radioactive water leaked into the ocean from a pit near the No.2 reactor.
Friday, May 13, 2011 05:21 +0900 (JST)
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@unknownuser said:
@tfdesign said:
@unknownuser said:
Gaddafi is a nasty piece of work, but can't we just let his people decide that?
They did, didn't they? As I may have pointed out before, you seem to make no distinction at all between 'letting people decide for themselves' and 'allowing people to be slaughtered on a rather grand scale'. Two very different concepts, if you ask me.
What's this got to do with Fukushima? Can you not PM me?
If you wanted me to reply in the other thread, I'm sorry but I have been very busy. Some of us have jobs you know!
We should NOT intervene at all in Libya! Even if it means "allowing people to be slaughtered on a rather grand scale", as you so nicely put it. The one major difference between Gaddafi and the west's insistence on wanting to compare Gaddafi with Adolf Hitler, is that we fought Hitler because he was threatening to invade our country (as well as other european countries). Is Gaddafi threatening to invade another country? Why do the west feel as if he would do? What have the British ever learnt from Northern Ireland? We're not very good at learning are we?
We, the west should have learnt our lesson in Iraq, and every other stupid invasion we've made in the name of queen and country, united nations etc. You could even take this way back to the time of Oliver Cromwell if you wanted to. But we as a "nation of nations"- well what have got that is so great to offer?? That Libya hasn't? Sweet f*** all. That's what! We're just as capable as colluding with the right wing or dictat as anyone else does. What's so great about "our great nation", something we can take to the east to say "hey this is "western democracy"". "Now swallow it".
Karl Sharro, a Lebanese/Iraqi architect, now based in London makes some excellent points on his blog here. I went to see him talk the other night at the Birmingham Salon (run by Birmingham University), which was very enlightening.
http://karlremarks.blogspot.com/
Anyway wrong thread, and I haven't got time to rant all day..... and interestingly, where was the last major bulletin on Fukushima? Oh yes- people are dying in Libya, because of western intervention. once again. So nuclear, once again, is old news.......
as for the fish... are they glowing in the water yet, or is it simply still a case of "heck let's just print another nuclear scaremongering press release once again"? "At least we'll keep the readership up".....
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Years from now, long after the effects of the tsunami on the infastructure are repaired, the problem with the nuclear power plant will remain.
@unknownuser said:
TEPCO looking into radioactive water leak
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is trying to identify where highly radioactive water from the
No.1reactor's containment vessel is flowing to, as the reactoris believed to have suffered a meltdown.Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says the meltdown at the No.1 unit created holes in the reactor and damaged the containment vessel.
A large amount of highly radioactive water is believed to be leaking out, but it is not known where it is flowing.
TEPCO says the water could be flowing into the basement of the reactor building, but that workers cannot enter the site due to fear of high levels of radiation.
The company is examining footage from Friday's survey conducted by a remote-controlled robot of the first floor of the building, while analyzing data on radiation intensity.
TEPCO also began installing air-cooled heat exchangers on Friday so that water collected from the containment vessel can be reused for cooling the reactor.
The company plans to bring in 10 heat exchangers by Tuesday and connect them to pipes.
Water can be sent to heat exchangers only when the containment vessel holds a certain level of water. Uncertainty regarding the current level of the water is another challenge facing TEPCO.
Saturday, May 14, 2011 13:04 +0900 (JST)
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@unknownuser said:
Radioactivity at intake of No.3 reactor rises
Radioactive materials in the ocean near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant rose to 3,300 times the legal limit on Sunday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it measured 200 becquerels of cesium-134 per cubic centimeter on Sunday morning near the water intake of the No. 3 reactor. The level was higher than on the previous day, when it was 2,300 times the legal limit.
220 becquerels of cesium-137 per cubic centimeter was also detected. At 2,400 times the legal limit, the level exceeded the one found the day before.
On Wednesday, highly radioactive water was found leaking into the ocean from a pit located near the water intake of the No. 3 reactor. 32,000 times the legal limit of cesium-134 was detected there.
TEPCO also reported 2,100 times the legal limit of radioactive iodine was found in seawater near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor. Three points among four research areas along the shoreline also exceeded the legal limit. And 1.7 times the legal limit of Cesium was found close to drainage gates near the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors.
TEPCO says the changes in readings are within a margin of day-to-day volatility. The company will continue to monitor radioactivity levels near the plant.
Monday, May 16, 2011 05:31 +0900 (JST)
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@honoluludesktop said:
Years from now, long after the effects of the tsunami on the infastructure are repaired, the problem with the nuclear power plant will remain.
It all depends on how you define the term 'problem' doesn't it? For instance this thread has simply ended up with you posting solitary press releases and not a lot else. We now know from experience that it is those who choose to sensationalise about problems, who are the real 'problem'. What about disused oil platforms? Are they not a 'problem'? What about prolonged exposure to the sun? Is that not a 'problem'? I mean the sun is also a nuclear reactor, and skin cancer kills more people each year than man made nuclear power ever will.
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@tfdesign said:
What's this got to do with Fukushima?
Er, you mentioned it.
@tfdesign said:
We should NOT intervene at all in Libya! Even if it means "allowing people to be slaughtered on a rather grand scale", as you so nicely put it.
Why's that then? Because the Libyans ought to make up their own minds, and we shouldn't think for them? They did, and we're not. Also, you seem to dislike the idea of people dying 'due to western intervention', whilst on the other hand it looks you're quite okay with Gaddafi doing the killing. I sort of sense a paradox in there.
@tfdesign said:
Is Gaddafi threatening to invade another country? Why do the west feel as if he would do?
We don't.
@tfdesign said:
But we as a "nation of nations"- well what have got that is so great to offer?? That Libya hasn't?
Emigrate, start a dissident paper/party/tv station/whatever, then report back.
@tfdesign said:
What about disused oil platforms? Are they not a 'problem'? What about prolonged exposure to the sun? Is that not a 'problem'?
Yes, and yes. The premise here, however, is that we needn't make a big deal out of Fukushima as there are other problems as well. This, obviously, is illogical.
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@unknownuser said:
@tfdesign said:
What's this got to do with Fukushima?
Er, you mentioned it.
I did? Er, yes, you're right. I did.
Anyway, Gaddafi isn't doing the killing. His fanatical fans are. (which seem to be majority of his fellow countrymen!
) Gaddafi just seems to do a lot of shouting. A bit of a Charles Manson sort of affair don't you think?
Interestingly, talking of Manson, he has become an environmentalist- which I suppose is both perplexing as well as surprising (hardly)- after all, he is a 'cuddly hippie'! I wonder what Jez Clarkson would make of that? @unknownuser said:
Crazed cult leader Charles Manson has broken a 20-year silence in a prison interview coinciding with the 40th anniversary of his conviction for the gruesome Sharon Tate murders — to speak out about global warming.
The infamous killer, who started championing environmental causes from behind bars, bemoaned the ‘bad things’ being done to environment in a rambling phone interview from his Californian jail cell.
‘Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere.
‘If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem…’ he added, trailing off.
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