http://af.reuters.com/artic...andChannel=0&sp=true
WRAPUP 5-Japan raises severity of nuclear accident to highest level
* Japan raises nuclear accident to highest level on par with Chernobyl

* Fire extinguished as another aftershock hits (Updates throughout)

By Shinichi Saoshiro and Elaine Lies

TOKYO, April 12 (Reuters) - Japan raised the severity of its nuclear disaster to the highest level on Tuesday, putting it on a par with the world's worst disaster nuclear accident at Chernobyl after another major aftershock rattled the quake-ravaged east.

Engineers were no closer to restoring the cooling systems at the plant's reactors, critical to bringing down the temperature of overheated nuclear fuel rods, showing that the battle to contain the damage was far from over, although a fire at the plant appeared to have been extinguished.

The rating of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was raised to 7, the worst on an internationally recognised scale, from a 5-rating. Japan said this reflects the initial severity of the crisis and not the current situation.

"This is a preliminary assessment, and is subject to finalisation by the International Atomic Energy Agency," said an official at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the government's nuclear watchdog, which made the announcement with the Nuclear Safety Commission.

Nuclear industry specialist Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University in California, dismissed the comparison.

"It's nowhere near that level. Chernobyl was terrible - it blew and they had no containment, and they were stuck. Their (Japan's) containment has been holding, the only thing that hasn't is the fuel pool that caught fire," he said.

A level 7 incident entails a major release of radiation with widespread health and environmental effects, while a 5-rated event, which is what Fukushima is currently classified as, is a limited release of radioactive material, with several deaths from radiation, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The scale is designed so the severity of an event is about 10 times greater for each increase in level. The 1979 U.S. nuclear accident at Three Mile Island was a 5-rated incident.

MORE AFTERSHOCKS

News of the fire at the plant came only minutes after a 6.3 aftershock struck off the coast of Chiba, 77 km (48 miles) northwest of Tokyo. Kyodo said Japan's main international airport Narita closed runways for checks but later resumed flights.

An aftershock measuring 6.6 quake hit Fukushima prefecture on Monday evening, temporarily cutting power and forcing workers to evacuate the nuclear plant.

Japan's nuclear agency NISA said Monday's aftershock, which killed one and knocked out power to 220,000 households, did not damage the plant.

There have been hundreds of aftershocks since March 11, when a massive 9 magnitude earthquake and 15 metre tsunami hit northeast Japan, plunging the country into its worst crisis since World War Two.

Nearly 28,000 Japanese are dead or missing and the world's third-largest economy is reeling with power blackouts, factory closures and cuts to supply lines. The disaster is estimated to cost heavily indebted Japan some $300 billion, making it the world's most costly.

The country's nuclear commission also released a preliminary calculation for the cumulative amount of external exposure to radiation, saying it had exceeded the yearly limit of 1 millisieverts in areas extending more than 60 kms (36 miles) to the northwest of the plant and about 40 km to the south-southwest, Kyodo reported.

TEPCO said on Monday it had stopped the discharge of low-level radioactive water into the sea that have drawn complaints from neighbouring China and South Korea.

It has already pumped 10,400 tonnes of low-level radioactive water into the ocean to free up storage capacity for highly contaminated water from the reactors.

In a desperate move to cool the highly radioactive fuel rods, TEPCO has pumped water onto reactors, some of which have experienced a partial meltdown.

But the strategy has hindered moves to restore the plant's internal cooling system as engineers have had to focus on how to store 60,000 tonnes of contaminated water.

Engineers are also pumping nitrogen into reactors to counter a build-up of hydrogen and prevent another explosion sending more radiation into the air, but they say the risk of such a dramatic event has lowered significantly since March 11.

Because of accumulated radiation contamination, the government is encouraging people to leave certain areas beyond its 20 km (12 mile) exclusion zone around the plant. Thousands of people could be affected by the move. ($1=85.475 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Tokyo and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by David Chance, editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Miral Fahmy)

A figure for perspective.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_05.html

quote Level 7 has formerly only been applied to the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986 when hundreds of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 were released into the air. One terabecquerel is one trillion becquerels. The agency believes the cumulative amount from the Fukushima plant is less than that from Chernobyl.

From the numbers I've seen about Fukushima, it still appears several orders of magnitude lower, but the difference is it's being released over a longer period of time. Getting an accurate account of the total cumulative amount from Fukushima will be difficult.

quote Originally posted by Formula88: A figure for perspective. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_05.html From the numbers I've seen about Fukushima, it still appears several orders of magnitude lower, but the difference is it's being released over a longer period of time. Getting an accurate account of the total cumulative amount from Fukushima will be difficult.

http://www.washingtonpost.c.../AFxrFEND_story.html
Correct the Washington Post states its 10% of Chernobyl's release. Thats not a joke, but not Chernobyl amount yet. However a level 7 according to the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, is typified by a “major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects.”. If Japan, who has been downplaying this as long as possible is claiming this is the case, it shouldn't be sneezed at. Not accusing you of this Formula88. Just giving my impression of the current news.

Also from the washington post article
"According to the Kyodo news agency, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission reported Monday that the plant, at one point after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, had been releasing 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity per hour. The report did not specify when those radiation readings occurred. A release of tens of thousands of terabecquerels per hour, though, correspondents with the radiation leakage level that the IAEA uses as a minimum benchmark for a level 7 accident."

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-11-2011).]

I'm not trying to downplay it. But I'm not trying to sensationalize it and suggest they are the same just because both are rated a 7.
7 is as high as the scale goes. If every nuclear reactor on the planet simultaneously exploded and destroyed the entire planet - that would also be a 7.

I was just thinking that, if this is a 7 they are gonna have to add a few levels.

quote Originally posted by Formula88: I'm not trying to downplay it. But I'm not trying to sensationalize it and suggest they are the same just because both are rated a 7. 7 is as high as the scale goes. If every nuclear reactor on the planet simultaneously exploded and destroyed the entire planet - that would also be a 7.

Agreed, it wasn't directed at you. Level 7 is as high at the scale goes Chernobyl was worse at this point still. If 100% of all Japans reactors exploded and all the fuel rods melted and it was all dumped on California and everyone in the state died it would be a level 7 also, the scale doesn't go any higher.

As I said the Washington Post stated Fukushima is only 10% of the Chernobyl release at this point, however its still leaking and hopefully it doesn't surpass or equal Chernobyl by the time its over. Not trying to blow this up to anything its not, but also not saying its not serious.

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-11-2011).]

I guess there is no further level in the scale because it has to do more with the safety aspects of a radiological event only, not the after effects of the incident.


Level 7 (Major Accident) = Major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures.


http://www.iaea.org/Publica...ets/English/ines.pdf

[This message has been edited by newf (edited 04-12-2011).]

And it is being released in a different manner? so could be less or more dangerous health-wise no?

I would tend to put it at a high level 6, though the potential for level 7 is not insignificant. The fact that it's one month in and they're still desperately trying to get the situation under control bodes ill for chances of not going to a full 7 IMHO. It most certainly is not a 5, what TMI was rated at, because aside from some minor releases TMI did not irradiate a hundred square miles with significant radioactive isotopes as Fukushima has. Plus, the economic costs in terms of civilian damages and cleanup/remediation of TMI are a pale blip compared to what Fukushima will cost Japan directly, and the world indirectly as the Japanese economy is not isolated from the rest of the world's economies. I hazard that the direct and indirect costs of Fukushima will rival that of the non-nuclear part of this disaster, if not exceed it. Ten or twenty years from now, when the earthquake and tsunami damage will have been fully remediated, there will still be ongoing effects ecologically and economically from this one reactor catastrophe.

The "7" surprised me a bit, but obviously I am not in any position to argue it.

I wondered, however, if there might be some sort of a financial advantage to raising this as high as they did.
Japan is taking a huge financial hit with this, and with the earthquake in general. This, on top of an alreaady shaky economy.

Makes me wonder if it opens any doors in terms of financial assistance that wouldn't otherwise be available.
At the very least, it got peoples' attention. (As if that was necessary.)

"According to the Kyodo news agency, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission reported Monday that the plant, at one point after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, had been releasing 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity per hour. The report did not specify when those radiation readings occurred. A release of tens of thousands of terabecquerels per hour, though, correspondents with the radiation leakage level that the IAEA uses as a minimum benchmark for a level 7 accident"
http://www.washingtonpost.c.../AFxrFEND_story.html


I find it interesting that the report did not specify the date when this level was reached.

"But at a separate news conference, an official from the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, said that the radiation release from Fukushima could, in time, surpass levels seen in 1986. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2011...ld/asia/13japan.html

I think this is unexpected to a lot of you because of the downplay that Japan and the UN has done, it is closer to Chenobyl than most people are thinking as it has 1/10th the release at this point and some sources are claiming much closer than that. Such as this one... "In total, officials estimate the leak at 630-thousand terabecquerels of both substances. Since a terabecquerel is on trillion becquerels" "For comparison, Chernobyl’ released 1.8 million terabecquerels, although some experts rate its release of radiation as high as 2.6 million terabecquerels (which to this layman’s thinking makes the Japanese scientists’ calculations odd–seems more like a third of a Chernobyl’, not a tenth)" http://www.thepaltrysapien....just-like-chernobyl/

Guess it is confirmed more than 10%, so this is either 1/3 or 1/6th of Chernobyl right now and its still leaking radiation.
"According to Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, a government panel, 370,000 to 630,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials have been released into the air from the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors of the plant. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2011...ml?_r=1&pagewanted=2

"Michael Friedlander, a former senior nuclear power plant operator for 13 years in the United States, said that the biggest surprise in the Japanese reassessment was that it took a month for public confirmation that so much radiation had been released. "

“Some foreigners fled the country even when there appeared to be little risk,” he said. “If we immediately decided to label the situation as Level 7, we could have triggered a panicked reaction.” -Seiji Shiroya, a commissioner and the former director of the Research Reactor Institute at Kyoto University

"Until now, the Japanese government had refused to expand the evacuation zone, despite urging from the I.A.E.A. The United States and Australia have advised their citizens to stay at least 50 miles away from the plant. "
Once again from the NYTimes article...

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-12-2011).]

quote Originally posted by Raydar: The "7" surprised me a bit, but obviously I am not in any position to argue it. I wondered, however, if there might be some sort of a financial advantage to raising this as high as they did. Japan is taking a huge financial hit with this, and with the earthquake in general. This, on top of an alreaady shaky economy. Makes me wonder if it opens any doors in terms of financial assistance that wouldn't otherwise be available. At the very least, it got peoples' attention. (As if that was necessary.)

No financial incentives. The taxpayers are picking up the tab for the whole thing. They have to, the nuclear power industry is financially incapable of paying for it, never was, and never will be. The potential costs from a nuclear disaster like this are just too high for any industrial entity to cover. It's like a guy making five bucks an hour driving a million dollar Veryon down the road at 240 mph. If things go south there's nothing the guy can do to pay for it, nothing.

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: No financial incentives. The taxpayers are picking up the tab for the whole thing. They have to, the nuclear power industry is financially incapable of paying for it, never was, and never will be. The potential costs from a nuclear disaster like this are just too high for any industrial entity to cover.

I was thinking more along the lines of The WHO, or some other "world" entity. Not that I have a clue who that might be.

quote Originally posted by Raydar: I was thinking more along the lines of The WHO, or some other "world" entity. Not that I have a clue who that might be.

Make a list of what entities would have a spare XXX billion laying around and would be willing to spend it cleaning up a reactor in Japan...

To me the solution is simple: Take the number of nuclear-generated kWh in Japan, divide that into the cleanup cost out over 20 years, then add it to the bill of anyone who buys electricity that's nuclear-generated for the next 20 years. It's that simple.

bump

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-13-2011).]

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: Make a list of what entities would have a spare XXX billion laying around and would be willing to spend it cleaning up a reactor in Japan... T

The Chinese are the only ones that have that kind of spare cash laying around, But after what the Japanese did to China in WWII, I'm suspecting Japan won't be getting any yuan.

"On March 22, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency detected rainwater in Boise, Idaho with radiation levels at 242 picocuries per liter. "
"IEER indicated that this contamination was “about 80 times the U.S. drinking water standard if the level persisted for a prolonged time.” Much of the iodine-131 would dissipate before it reached drinking water from wells or from municipal supplies. "
http://www.boiseweekly.com/.../Content?oid=2182164

The way I see it, it's a defect or flaw in the fundamental way we're approaching the problem. To me, uranium nuclear power generation is much like putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger repeatedly. As long as all the safety systems are 100% functional and as long as it's 100% perfectly secure against deliberate and accidental human error then everything is fine. Engineers honestly feel that it's possible to design virtually perfect systems, if only enough effort is put into the process, but the real problem isn't at the designing stage, it's at the conceptual stage. Anyone who claims they can design a 100% perfect system is a fool, even most engineers can agree with that, so the flaw is utilizing a technology that requires 100% perfection in order to avoid a Chernobyl, a Fukushima, a Kyshtym.

It's always been the same, we look back and say that X won't happen now because that was an old design and the new designs are better. We said that after TMI, we said that after Chernobyl, and we'll say that about Fukushima at some point in the future. It's a repeating scenario and there's no way to prevent it because it is fundamentally impossible for human beings to design a perfect mechanical system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...ry_nuclear_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...an_nuclear_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...an_nuclear_incidents

And this doesn't even touch on the subject of terroristic use of high-level nuclear waste resulting from civilian nuclear power generation.

Latest status:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/n...-power-plant-updates

Still battling to regain control of the reactors and spent fuel storage pools, more than a month later.

Interesting it appears some of the Iodine may not be from Fukushima, but at the same time PA had some rainwater from Fukushima that was laced with Iodine 131...
Radioactive iodine in city water spurs enhanced testing
April 12, 2011|By WILLIAM BENDER, benderw@phillynews.com 215-854-5255

The Philadelphia Water Department announced yesterday that it is enhancing its testing procedures and reviewing treatment technology after federal environmental officials found radioactive iodine in the city's drinking water.

The level of Iodine-131 found at the Queen Lane treatment plant is the highest of 23 sites in 13 states where the particles have appeared following the massive radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Lower levels were found at the city's two other plants.

But the Iodine-131 in Philadelphia may have no connection to Japan, officials say.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the Daily News yesterday that Philadelphia water samples from last August contained nearly twice as much radioactive iodine as the recent samples collected after the Fukushima disaster.

"This is just unacceptable that this stuff is showing up," said Chris Crockett, the department's acting deputy commissioner of environmental services.

Perhaps more disturbing: Nobody knows exactly how the Iodine-131 - which can cause thyroid cancer if consumed in large quantities or over a prolonged period of time - is getting into Philly's drinking water.

"At this point, that is not really known," said EPA spokesman David Sternberg. "We're investigating."

Kathryn Higley, a health physicist at Oregon State University, said the most likely source is a nearby or upstream medical facility that treats cancer patients with Iodine-131, which can enter the water supply when patients go to the bathroom.

"That's the big wrinkle. If you saw it last year, it wasn't from Japan," she said.

"It's probably from a hospital."

Higley said the iodine levels found in Philadelphia and other U.S. cities did not pose a health threat.

"The water is safe. We were all drinking it today," said Debra McCarty, the Water Department's deputy commissioner of operations.

But environmental officials at the city, state and federal level are trying to identify the source, and carbon has been added at the Queen Lane plant as a "cautionary measure" to help purify the water.

"We want to have as clear a picture as we can of what the source is," said Katy Gresh, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

She said that a hospital or other medical facility is "a possibility."

Crockett said the Water Department was informed this month that iodine was found in Philadelphia's water last summer.

"We're not happy about this," Crockett said. "To find that this stuff showed up in the river before [the Fukushima emissions] means that something is coming from somewhere that is not Japan and we need to track that down and stop it."

http://articles.philly.com/...s-radioactive-iodine

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-13-2011).]

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: Kathryn Higley, a health physicist at Oregon State University, said the most likely source is a nearby or upstream medical facility that treats cancer patients with Iodine-131, which can enter the water supply when patients go to the bathroom. http://articles.philly.com/...s-radioactive-iodine

I think that's called job security(sarcasm).

Looks like the end is still a long ways off...

More signs of fuel rod damage at Japan nuke plant
Utility says it is still working on a blueprint to end radiation crisis

updated 4/13/2011 7:17:18 PM ET 2011-04-13T23:17:18


TOKYO — Water in the spent fuel storage pool at the No. 4 reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has risen to about 194 degrees in one sign that spent fuel rods may be damaged, according to a report in NHK World.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO discovered Tuesday that the temperature was much higher than the normal level of about 104 degrees.

The finding is the latest setback for the utility company as it tries to contain damage at the nuclear plant, devastated by a March 11 tsunami and now rated on a par with the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. TEPCO said Wednesday it was still working on a detailed plan to end the country's nuclear crisis as tests showed radiation levels in the sea near the complex had spiked.

Engineers moved a step closer to emptying highly radioactive water from one of six crippled reactors, which would allow them to start repairing the cooling system crucial to regaining control of the plant.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the latest tests showed radiation nearly doubled last week, to 23 times above legal limits, in the sea off Minamisoma city near the plant.

But radiation in Tokyo, 150 miles from the plant, had fallen to pre-disaster levels on Tuesday, the science ministry said late Wednesday.

TEPCO's analysis of a 400-milliliter water sample taken Tuesday from the No. 4 unit's spent nuclear fuel pool revealed the damage to some fuel rods for the first time, according to Kyodo News. The sample detected higher-than-usual levels of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137.
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The storage pool at the No. 4 reactor housed all the fuel rods that were in operation at the reactor, NHK World reported. Since the quake and tsunami, TEPCO has used fire engines and special vehicles to spray more than 1,800 tons of water to try to cool the rods at the No. 4 reactor.

University of Tokyo Professor Koji Okamoto told NHK World that the temperature of 90 degrees indicates that cooling is continuing, although some of the water in the pool may be boiling.

Okamoto said high radiation indicates the possibility of radiation leaks from damaged fuel.

Slowing the recovery effort, a series of strong aftershocks this week has rattled eastern Japan, forcing temporary evacuations of workers and power outages at the nuclear plant.

"As instructed by Prime Minister Kan we are working out the specific details of how to handle the situation so they can be disclosed as soon as possible," TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu told a news conference in Tokyo.

Shimizu has been largely absent from the recovery operation, only visiting the area on Monday. He refused to comment on public calls for his resignation, and again apologized to the Japanese people for the crisis.

"We are making the utmost effort to bring the reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi to a cold shutdown and halt the spread of radiation," he said.

Angry protests
TEPCO's Tokyo head office has been the target of angry protests over the nuclear crisis , and authorities took no chances on Wednesday, with riot trucks and security officers guarding the front gate during the news conference.

The government earlier this week revised its rating of the severity of the crisis to level 7, the worst possible on an international scale. The only other level 7 was the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl plant in what is now Ukraine, though that explosion released 10 times the radioactivity that has come from Fukushima Dai-ichi so far.

But experts were quick to point out the two crises were vastly different in terms of radiation contamination, and on Wednesday, Russia's nuclear chief said Japan was exaggerating the scope of the disaster.

"It is hard for me to assess why the Japanese colleagues have taken this decision. I suspect, this is more of a financial issue, than a nuclear one," Sergei Kiriyenko said on the sidelines of a meeting of major economies in southern China.

There have been fears of contamination among Japan's neighbors, but China said the impact there had been small, noting the radiation was just 1 percent of what it had experienced from Chernobyl.
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The toll of the disaster is rising. More than 13,000 people have been confirmed dead, and on Wednesday the government cut its outlook for the economy, in deflation for almost 15 years, for the first time in six months.
Story: Amid losses, Japan determined to reopen schools

"The biggest risks, or uncertain factors for the economy, are when power supplies will recover, whether the nuclear situation will keep from worsening," Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano said.

The total cost of the triple catastrophe has been estimated at $300 billion, making it the world's most costly natural disaster. TEPCO said it was working on a compensation plan.

The Yomiuri newspaper reported on Wednesday that the government may cap TEPCO's liability to as little as $24 billion for damages. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch has estimated compensation claims of more than $130 billion.

Seawater radiation spike
Radiation readings in seawater near the crippled plant spiked last week, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Wednesday.

Seawater samples collected on Monday from around nine miles off the coast of Minamisoma city showed radiation in the water rose to 23 times the legal limit from 9.3 times on April 7, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a NISA deputy director-general.

He later said NISA had asked TEPCO to assess the quake resistance of the buildings, and to look into how they could be reinforced against aftershocks.

"We need to think about how these aftershocks are affecting the buildings, which are already damaged," he said.

Japan has expanded the 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant because of high accumulated radiation.

No radiation-linked deaths have been reported and only 21 plant workers have been affected by minor radiation sickness.

Still, the increase in the severity level heightens the risk of diplomatic tension with Japan's neighbors over radioactive fallout. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told Kan on Tuesday he was "concerned" about the release of radiation into the ocean.

To cool the fuel, TEPCO sprayed 195 tons of water for 6 hours on Wednesday morning.

The company thinks the pool's water level was about 5 meters lower than normal, but 2 meters above the fuel rods, NHK World reported.

TEPCO believes the water level is likely to rise by about one meter after the water spraying on Wednesday.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/...ld_news-asiapacific/

Not a single death can be attributed to radiation yet. Did anyone hear about all of the gas and oil fires that followed the quakes and tsunami? The death count will be in the tens of thousands yet the media is fixated on a disaster that hasn't killed anyone yet.

The news coverage as usual goes to the sensational rather than the rational.

quote Originally posted by Doug85GT: Not a single death can be attributed to radiation yet. Did anyone hear about all of the gas and oil fires that followed the quakes and tsunami? The death count will be in the tens of thousands yet the media is fixated on a disaster that hasn't killed anyone yet. The news coverage as usual goes to the sensational rather than the rational.

That could have been said and probably was said about chernobyl at one point. This has the potential to shorten thousands of Japanese lives by 10, 20, or 30 years as it stands now. Unless the disaster gets much worse, the deaths won't be quick, it will be increased cancer rates, and like chernobyl the actual death toll will be much harder to measure. I don't expect to see as much cancer related deaths at this point as chernobyl, as only 1/10th the radiation has been released at this point.

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 04-14-2011).]

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: That could have been said and probably was said about chernobyl at one point. This has the potential to shorten thousands of Japanese lives by 10, 20, or 30 years as it stands now.

Yup and that doesn't begin to take in the psychological factors that will stick around for years and years.

I think sometimes news gets overblown for sure but it's also a factor that we have tons of 24 news channels looking for our attention so stories like this are covered to an extreme level in terms of the amount of time dedicated which can make people think it's being excessive as well.

Same reason as you can't escape crap like Charlie Sheen or whoever is the latest trainwreck or provocative "star". How much garbage has seeped into my brain about other peoples lives that I don't care to know because of the "news"?

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: That could have been said and probably was said about chernobyl at one point. This has the potential to shorten thousands of Japanese lives by 10, 20, or 30 years as it stands now. Unless the disaster gets much worse, the deaths won't be quick, it will be increased cancer rates, and like chernobyl the actual death toll will be much harder to measure. I don't expect to see as much cancer related deaths at this point as chernobyl, as only 1/10th the radiation has been released at this point.

More media hype. Chernobyl killed 64 people who were mostly cleanup people that had poor training, poor equipment and Soviet era leadership that didn't give a rat's ass about them. Of the 4000 or so cases of cancer from Chernobyl, all of them were thyroid cancer which has a 99% cure rate. Only 9 children of the 4000 died from it.

Here's a report on Chernobyl from the WHO. http://www.who.int/mediacen...5/pr38/en/index.html

quote Major study findings Dozens of important findings are included in the massive report: Approximately 1000 on-site reactor staff and emergency workers were heavily exposed to high-level radiation on the first day of the accident; among the more than 200 000 emergency and recovery operation workers exposed during the period from 1986-1987, an estimated 2200 radiation-caused deaths can be expected during their lifetime. An estimated five million people currently live in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that are contaminated with radionuclides due to the accident; about 100 000 of them live in areas classified in the past by government authorities as areas of “strict control”. The existing “zoning” definitions need to be revisited and relaxed in light of the new findings. About 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children and adolescents at the time of the accident, have resulted from the accident’s contamination and at least nine children died of thyroid cancer; however the survival rate among such cancer victims, judging from experience in Belarus, has been almost 99%. Most emergency workers and people living in contaminated areas received relatively low whole body radiation doses, comparable to natural background levels. As a consequence, no evidence or likelihood of decreased fertility among the affected population has been found, nor has there been any evidence of increases in congenital malformations that can be attributed to radiation exposure. Poverty, “lifestyle” diseases now rampant in the former Soviet Union and mental health problems pose a far greater threat to local communities than does radiation exposure. Relocation proved a “deeply traumatic experience” for some 350,000 people moved out of the affected areas. Although 116 000 were moved from the most heavily impacted area immediately after the accident, later relocations did little to reduce radiation exposure. Persistent myths and misperceptions about the threat of radiation have resulted in “paralyzing fatalism” among residents of affected areas. Ambitious rehabilitation and social benefit programs started by the former Soviet Union, and continued by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, need reformulation due to changes in radiation conditions, poor targeting and funding shortages. Structural elements of the sarcophagus built to contain the damaged reactor have degraded, posing a risk of collapse and the release of radioactive dust; A comprehensive plan to dispose of tons of high-level radioactive waste at and around the Chernobyl NPP site, in accordance with current safety standards, has yet to be defined.

quote How many people died and how many more are likely to die in the future? The total number of deaths already attributable to Chernobyl or expected in the future over the lifetime of emergency workers and local residents in the most contaminated areas is estimated to be about 4000. This includes some 50 emergency workers who died of acute radiation syndrome and nine children who died of thyroid cancer, and an estimated total of 3940 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukemia among the 200 000 emergency workers from 1986-1987, 116 000 evacuees and 270 000 residents of the most contaminated areas (total about 600 000). These three major cohorts were subjected to higher doses of radiation amongst all the people exposed to Chernobyl radiation.

[This message has been edited by newf (edited 04-14-2011).]

quote Originally posted by Doug85GT: Not a single death can be attributed to radiation yet. Did anyone hear about all of the gas and oil fires that followed the quakes and tsunami? The death count will be in the tens of thousands yet the media is fixated on a disaster that hasn't killed anyone yet. The news coverage as usual goes to the sensational rather than the rational.

If death were the only consideration then your statement would have value. Loss of arable farm land, loss of meaningful economical use of the land (except radiation disaster tours, those are working out great for Chernobyl), loss of human habitability, economic losses for mitigation and cleanup, etc, are all real losses. Expensive losses. Even non-tangible losses such as for the families of the thousand or more radiologically contaminated victims whose bodies will likely have to be buried in a radiation waste dump instead of being cremated as is so important to their theology, are significant. We Americans don't place much importance on the body after we die, so we can't really understand in a real, tangible way, just how important it is in Japanese culture what happens to the body after death.

The long-term economic and sociological footprint of this nuclear disaster will be bigger in Japan than September 11 has been and will be for us. The only difference is that in their case it was an enemy from within instead of from without.

That's real. That's now. That's not media hype.

Edit to add, over a month since the nuclear disaster started (and the earthquake/tsunami disaster ended) and they're still attempting to stabilize the situation. Just like with the BP oil spill we keep hearing them say "We'll get it under control Real Soon Now (TM)". Everywhere else in Japan that suffered damage from this earthquake and tsunami they're cleaning up, repairing, recovering, starting to rebuild both property and lives. Everywhere except, of course, the nuclear exclusion zone where residents are still being kept away from their homes, even homes not damaged by the quake and were beyond the tsunami's reach. It's like they got a season ticket to a never-ending disaster and can't even opt out. Any other technology could not even produce this kind of disaster, not a single one. Maybe they'll get to go home by the end of the year and can start rebuilding their lives.

[This message has been edited by JazzMan (edited 04-14-2011).]

Tokyo Electric Power Co. estimates the fight to stabilize its crippled Fukushima reactors will last through June, leaving them vulnerable to more aftershocks and radiation leaks, a person briefed on the utility’s plan said.

Engineers at Tokyo Electric rejected a proposal to flood reactors at the damaged plant, which could lower temperatures in days rather than months, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. Instead, the utility is pumping in water and venting off steam, a method called “feed and bleed.”

Since the magnitude-9 quake and tsunami hit the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station on March 11, there have been hundreds of aftershocks, including one this week that disabled the plant’s power and cooling systems for almost an hour. As the crisis drags on, there’s the risk of new accidents, said Pierre Zaleski, a former member of the French Atomic Energy Commission.

“The major problem is these aftershocks,” said Zaleski, executive director at the Center for Geopolitics of Energy and Raw Materials at the University Paris Dauphine. “You never know if there are more aftershocks and containment may fail --maybe not completely -- but these structures have been weakened.”

Tokyo Electric is reluctant to flood its reactors because the move might generate bad publicity, the person said. Flooding would increase the amount of contaminated water that gets into the ocean and also raise the possibility of more hydrogen explosions inside the containment, the person said.
Heat Blocks Decommissioning

Workers can’t start the process of decommissioning the plant’s four crippled reactors until temperatures and pressure have been brought down. Cleaning up the disaster, which has forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people living within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the plant, could take decades and cost more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion).

The primary danger at the plant is reactor No. 1, where temperatures and pressure are still high and the water level is low, the person said. Water levels inside the core of the reactor dropped yesterday, according to data released by Tokyo Electric, leaving 1.65 meters of fuel rods exposed to air, where they can heat up and melt, releasing radiation into the pressure vessel.

While Tokyo Electric’s plan for ending the crisis says getting exposed fuel rods covered with water again is one measure of stabilization, according to the person briefed on the document, the utility’s data shows pumping efforts have failed to raise the water level more than 20 centimeters in the 35 days since the disaster started.
Low Water Levels

The failure to raise water levels is part of the reason U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko this week called the situation “static,” rather than stable. “Significant additional problems” could still occur at the plant, he said at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on April 12.

A make-shift combination of fire hoses and pumps being used to cool the reactor isn’t providing enough water, according to the person. Temperatures that measured 204.5 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit) inside the vessel yesterday, or twice boiling point, cause the water to turn into steam, creating a sauna-like cooling system that’s less effective, the person said.

Flooding the space between the pressure vessel and the surrounding containment could bring temperatures down in days rather than months, according to the person.
Generators Move Uphill

Tokyo Electric said today it will move backup generators for the plant to higher ground away from the sea to ensure cooling systems aren’t disrupted by future tsunamis. They will be placed 20 meters (66 feet) above sea level, double the current height, according to the company.

The utility also said it discovered uranium in soil sampled at the power station. The levels of uranium-234, uranium-235 and uranium-238 are almost identical to those found in nature, and it is unlikely the uranium came from reactor fuel, Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric, told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo today.

While Tokyo Electric hasn’t announced a time line for resolving the crisis, the person said the utility drafted an internal document two weeks ago called the “Tepco Short/Medium/Long Range Recovery Plan” that aims to have the reactors stabilized by the end of June.

Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu, speaking publically this week for only the second time since the disaster started, said a schedule for dealing with the crisis “will be presented soon.”

U.S., French Support

Shimizu spoke to reporters a day after a magnitude-6.6 temblor disrupted power at Fukushima for 50 minutes, setting back efforts to cool reactors at a plant already weakened by explosions and last month’s quake and tsunami.

“We’re studying a variety of ways to resolve the crisis and getting support from the U.S. and France,” Naoyuki Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based spokesman for the utility, said yesterday. He declined to comment on specific measures being considered.

Decision-makers at the utility are walking a tightrope between risks, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington D.C. Although flooding could cause weakened containment structures to break, a slower process also has drawbacks, he said.

“They’re getting back to a situation where they have more control,” he said, referring to progress that’s been made in restoring roads and power to the plant. “The downside is that a surprise or a curveball could cause things to get worse.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Clenfield in Tokyo at jclenfield@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/ne...ushima-reactors.html

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: Excessive radioactive cesium found in fish caught off Fukushima In this photo from a footage of a live camera released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), black smoke billows from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, northeastern Japan,Tuesday, March 22, 2011.(AP) In this photo from a footage of a live camera released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), black smoke billows from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, northeastern Japan,Tuesday, March 22, 2011.(AP) TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Radioactive cesium 25 times above the legal limit for consumption was detected Wednesday in young sand lance caught off Fukushima Prefecture, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. One of the sample fish had a level of cesium of 12,500 becquerels per kilogram about 500 meters off the city of Iwaki, and 35 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, it said. The limit is 500 becquerels under the Food Sanitation Law. (Mainichi Japan) April 14, 2011 http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnn...2g00m0dm006000c.html

MMMmmmm!!!! Cesium really makes the subtle flavors in fish pop out!

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: Good thing they weren't your children. You have children? Just curious...

Nice emotional argument there. I'll stick to the facts and rationality.

The media loves people who live their lives on emotion since they are an easy audience to control. The find the next big thing that has the slightest chance to kill you or your children and presto, captive audience.

As with most things there are all kinds of beliefs on the issue, people that believe that this nuclear disaster will kill many and ruin the environment for ages and those who will discount it all and think it's all just hype. Then there are the majority that are concerned and interested in the truth especially those who live near similar plants.

quote Originally posted by Doug85GT: Except that fishing has already been halted for over a week. I'm sure if you insist on eating radioactive fish you can still throw your line in the water: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305413

So who's paying the fishermen and women's lost income? Cesium has a half life of around 30 years, how long will the ocean food chain be off limits in that area? BTW, primary source of protein in the Japanese diet is fish, http://www.livestrong.com/a...465-a-japanese-diet/

I know you didn't mean to be flippant when you brushed aside this issue as not being really important, but to people in Japan this is critically important (no pun intended). Farmers and fishermen have lost the value of their work, their hard work, and who knows for how many years. Will the Japanese nuclear industry pay these people's property taxes for them, put food on their kid's plates, save up for their retirement for them? Or pay for training into another career besides farming and fishing?

A long time ago I went to a team building seminar put on by my company. The teacher had an impressive curriculum vitae as an engineer, designer, consultant, etc. The one lesson he taught us that day 17 years ago that still sticks with me today centers around an anecdote he told us. Basically, he was hired to try and figure out how to solve a problem that a sewage treatment plant had with unintentional releases of untreated sewage. The plant engineers had tried all sorts of things but still the problem persisted. After studying and analyzing the situation the consultant came up with some suggestions WRT process control, etc, but then he hit them with the bombshell: Rearrange the intake and outflow lines to the river such that the treated water was released upstream of the process water intake. They told him he was crazy, that doing that was stupid because an unanticipated release of untreated sewage would result in contamination of the intake water, a bad, bad thing.

Anyway, it decision was made to rearrange the lines and suddenly the untreated releases went to zero.

The reason wasn't any new technology, it was that now the sewage plant itself was the first to suffer the consequences of a mistake, rather than the towns and farms downstream. The lesson was simple: If the people running the show are the first to suffer the consequences of their mistakes, that responsibility loop will go a long way toward eliminating those mistakes.

I find it highly unlikely that any of the people involved in selling, buying, designing, or building the nuclear power industry are eating the fish, so to speak. No responsibility feedback loop means the problems will continue.

So Nuclear Power execs should have their mansions on the plants front lawn then and not be allowed to evac? I like.