Japan's Nukes Following Earthquake

[OldHP]

I try to live by Marlin's rules, CM. 
Justin

I wish I followed my own advice more.  
Maybe I just like to hear myself type. 

Sometimes I slip myself, but when someone posts such as that above, it is easy to remember them. Justin

JMO - JH you are trying to respond to a pair of newbies that have an opinion on everything and want to argue everything, even when they are talking apples and oranges.

Remember Marlins Rules!     And then every now and then throw a  !

[navynukedoc]

anybody hear of any contract companies hiring yet (Rad Techs) to go to Japan?

http://www.nukeworker.com/job/job/japan---immediate-need-sr.-rct-and-sr.hp/14254/

Go get'em tiger.

Also read Teco is hiring "jumpers" at $5K a day.

[a|F]

I have sat back for a while now watching this thread develop and devolve, but have yet to see a discussion on #3 SFP...?  Although the NYT recently mentioned it in passing- that some material from the explosions could be up to a mile away, they weren't too specific.  It would appear that the area where it used to reside doesn't exist anymore... Anyone else find this weird? 

Side note- I found the discussion at ars technica forum to be quite interesting...
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1139141&sid=b4a0c0af3bb3156d0fe6d2f8aa979703&start=2280

[roadhp]

Looking at the current hi-res pictures, unit 3 refuel floor is somewhat intact at the floor level, so the explosion appears to have affected only the refuel floor and not the spent fuel pool itself.  You can see the drop down area, which is wide open, and the rest of the floor structure seems to be intact.  Sure, the refuel bridge and all of the other miscellaneous materials are gone, but the spent fuel appears to still be in the pool.

[a|F]

NRC Reactor Safety Team's assessment.  It's a week old but still pretty interesting...

http://cryptome.org/0003/daiichi-assess.pdf

[roadhp]

Well, they don't tell you that on the news.  Thanks for that link.  Don't see how the explosion could have ejected parts, but it is what it is.

[chimmike]

CNN just reported a magnitude 7.1 quake near the Miyagi prefecture.

They also reported (can't validate) the Daiichi plant is being evacuated because of the quake.

Hopefully this is just precautionary and systems are still functioning......but who knows.

[navynukedoc]

CNN just reported a magnitude 7.1 quake near the Miyagi prefecture.

They also reported (can't validate) the Daiichi plant is being evacuated because of the quake.

Hopefully this is just precautionary and systems are still functioning......but who knows.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/japan.quake/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135206877/major-earthquake-hits-off-japans-coast?sc=fb&cc=fp

Looks like they just got a scare. But still, can't they get a break???

[playswithairplanes]

Aftershocks will probably go on for months. Given the magnitude 9.0 of the initial quake, the aftershocks are going to be pretty massive quakes in and of themselves. It's not a new phenomena, but yea... pretty much sucks. I hope that the recovery at the plant is unaffected. The good news is there doesn't seem to be any tsunami associated with this aftershock. The tsunami is really what did the vast majority of the damage (not just to the plant). 

[playswithairplanes]

Fukushima tsunami now estimated at 48 feet. One of the plant employees got it on video.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/09/unavoidable-disaster-watch-the-tsunami-wave-crash-into-the-fukushima-power-plant/?xid=rss-world-huffpo

[navynukedoc]

Aftershocks will probably go on for months. Given the magnitude 9.0 of the initial quake, the aftershocks are going to be pretty massive quakes in and of themselves.

What really qualifies as an aftershock? I mean to me a 7.1 quake a few weeks later is what I would concider another earthquake. I am not a geologist nor do I study geology, but doesn't that make sense to you? Just curious.


-Doc

[namlive]

My understanding is that a quake is caused when plates move. An aftershock is caused by the "settling" of the plates into a stable condition.

[Radwasted]

The new ranking signifies a "major accident" with "wider consequences" than the previous level, according to the Vienna-based IAEA.

"We have upgraded the severity level to 7 as the impact of radiation leaks has been widespread from the air, vegetables, tap water and the ocean," said Minoru Oogoda of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

"The announcement is being made now because it became possible to look at and check the accumulated data assessed in two different ways," he said, referring to measurements from NISA and the Nuclear Security Council.

But what the public needs to make clear is that.
Nishiyama noted that unlike in Chernobyl there have been no explosions of reactor cores at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, although there were hydrogen explosions.

"In that sense, this situation is totally different from Chernobyl," he said.

[a|F]

"But what the public needs to make clear is that" ... 15 yard penalty!  

I wish these guys would stop comparing it to Chernobyl - trying to make their situation seem better than it really is.  The ONLY thing that's positive is the apparent lack of deaths caused or immediate deaths anyways.  I say apparent cause many workers didn't have proper dosimetry and therefore who knows their accumulated dose?  Also, the cleanup for this situation is more complex and I doubt anyone who's followed the situation closely thinks their total release will be less than Chernobyl.  Amazingly enough, their biggest helper has been the ocean... dilution is the solution!

I digress.  Here's an amazing set of pictures of #3 and #4 reactor buildings for you all.
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/fukushima.html


**Edit:  removed "half a brain" and replaced with "who's followed the situation closely".  That was inappropriate and unnecessary.

[Cycoticpenguin]

"But what the public needs to make clear is that" ... 15 yard penalty! 

I wish these guys would stop comparing it to Chernobyl - trying to make their situation seem better than it really is.  The ONLY thing that's positive is the apparent lack of deaths caused or immediate deaths anyways.  I say apparent cause many workers didn't have proper dosimetry and therefore who knows their accumulated dose?  Also, the clean-up for this situation is more complex and I doubt anyone with half a brain thinks their total release will be less than Chernobyl.  Amazingly enough, their biggest helper has been the ocean... dilution is the solution!

I digress.  Here's an amazing set of pictures of #3 and #4 reactor buildings for you all.
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/fukushima.html

And you are basing these seemingly subjective, opinionated statements on?

[MacGyver]

"But what the public needs to make clear is that" ... 15 yard penalty! 

I wish these guys would stop comparing it to Chernobyl - trying to make their situation seem better than it really is.  The ONLY thing that's positive is the apparent lack of deaths caused or immediate deaths anyways.  I say apparent cause many workers didn't have proper dosimetry and therefore who knows their accumulated dose?  Also, the cleanup for this situation is more complex and I doubt anyone who's followed the situation closely thinks their total release will be less than Chernobyl.  Amazingly enough, their biggest helper has been the ocean... dilution is the solution!

I digress.  Here's an amazing set of pictures of #3 and #4 reactor buildings for you all.
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/fukushima.html


**Edit:  removed "half a brain" and replaced with "who's followed the situation closely".  That was inappropriate and unnecessary.

Too late.

Japan ups nuke crisis severity to match Chernobyl

and this

Japan Raises Nuclear Crisis to Same Level as Chernobyl

and this

Slight amounts of strontium found near crippled Japan nuclear

[playswithairplanes]

Yep, I knew when I heard about this on the radio this morning that the idiots in the press would make this situation to be now the SAME as Chernobyl, both in magnitude and impact. Now there will be even more stupid statements, and the press will create more hysteria (all in the name of selling more ad space and making more money, no doubt).

[Cherenkov]

IMO, this "level" system for nuclear accidents is as useless as the Homeland Security threat levels. It provides no real value except to confuse and scare the general public.

So it is now a level 7... so what? It is a meaningless label as the actions to combat and consquences of the accident don't change.

-C

[hamsamich]

The Japanese situation is bad, but not even close to chernobyl.  people were kicking pieces of the reactor core back into the reactor building for god sakes at chernobyl.  assign whatever level you want to it but really nasty things happened to alot of people at chernobyl because of the immediate release of a large amount of radiation right after the reactor was critical with no containment building.  this didn't happen in japan and can't because the japanese reactors didn't explode, they have containment, and they slowed the release of the radiation by cooling the fuel for as long as they could.  plus people were evacuated in Japan and TEPCO has been better than USSR at telling people to get away.  Even though TEPCO could have shared more info, they did way better than the USSR did.

[playswithairplanes]

Well, at least one media organization is not hyperventilating about it. The Christian Science Monitor.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0412/How-can-Fukushima-crisis-be-rated-as-severe-as-Chernobyl

[namlive]

I would say the Sr-90 was there from the initial release. The article didn't say where or when the samples were taken and at what levels the Sr-90 is at. The severity of the accident was classified separately for each unit. When they combined the curie content of the releases of units 1,2, and 3 (each given a 5 rating previously) they totaled a 7. Perhaps this was done to trigger certain relief and aid available. Unit 4 still has a separte classification of 3. Depending on the source, I have seen the release been stated as 10%, 40% and >100% of Chernobyl. Certainly with fuel from 3 reactors and over a 1,000 spent rods in a fuel pool, the potential release is greater than Chernobyl.

In comparing accidents, it is like comparing apples and oranges. Yes people died at Chernobyl, but how much of the countryside and nation's econmy did it effect? The Soviet military came in, shot all the pets and herded people into buses. Stay away. Area isolated.

In Japan they have contaminated part of their "bread basket." Farm lands can not be used. Factories in the US have been shut down. Fishing waters can not be used. Massive amounts of radioactivity is being dumped into the ocean. 400,000 gallons of waste water is generated per day and they don't have anywhere to put it all. The units are in continuous release. They are still trying to get the accident under control after a month. Japan was "fortunate" because people left due to the tsunami.

Nuclear power: We are safe for all the accidents we plan for.

[somewhat_nuke]

Thanks Guys and Gals for keeping some form of sanity to this discussion.  I've been following the problems in Japan since the start and here is the only place I've found reasonable discussion of the severity of whats happening in Japan.  Keep up the good work and keep the trolls in their dark uneducated holes.

Thanks again,

[Cycoticpenguin]

Thanks Guys and Gals for keeping some form of sanity to this discussion.  I've been following the problems in Japan since the start and here is the only place I've found reasonable discussion of the severity of whats happening in Japan.  Keep up the good work and keep the trolls in their dark uneducated holes.

Thanks again,

welcome!

[HAIRDUDE]

Plutone ... You are a boob. I don't care to waste more time or words on you than that.

Floyd "Hairdude" Flanigan

[Nuclear NASCAR]

We are no longer seeing I-131 in our air samples here in Northern CA.

The problem with all of this is that we have the ability to look for atoms (E -14). Because the MDA is so freaking low, we can't just say <MDA. Once you make results available to the public that don't say <MDA, they don't understand anything else...they just get freaked out that we can see anything at all.

I went on a small campaign to enlighten non-nuke folks about the misinformation the media was spreading. It was received very well by many, but I was also called a "Liar for the industry" many times by others. It is shamefull how the media has handled all of this.

Shamelessly stolen from another thread discussing I131 from Japan.  I understand being apprehensive & even scared of something we haven't ever experienced before.  There is no denying that this is major.  There is also no denying that we can & will learn from it. 

You've come to a great place to get TRUE answers to your questions & concerns.  What you do with that truth and how it gets retold is what I look forward to hearing in the future.  Please let us know when it does, OK?