8.9 earth quake + tsunami in Japan

[Professor S]

By the way, when the media says that people have been treated for radiation exposure, what they are actually saying is that they bathed in soap and water. This is the extent of the exposure.

[Seth]

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

Live stream. Another explosion and the pressure's let up so that means a leak.
wtf

Its difficult not to be upset over the seeming lack of backup safety avenues.
The live stream ended and they're looping the know nothing news. Talking about it but not showing any more footage. RT had something that might have been the latest explosion.

[Angrist]

I watch http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLi...html?stream=/3 from time to time. But yeah, not that many new news coming out.

[Seth]

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13320522

Question/answer panel with engineers and designers of the Fukushima plant. Not employees of TEPC or the government.
Hour and forty minutes but worth it for the info if you're wrackin like I am.
At 1:40 of this video it shows the jetstream path for the next few days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEsHbN-75e8&NR=1

not wanting to incite fear. But this, for me, is reason enough to have KI on hand...

[Angrist]

Here in the Netherlands we're almost the furthest away from Japan. And even where you are, I'm sure radiation won't ever reach unhealthy levels. Remember the 2 a-bombs on Japan? America didn't suffer from that, did it?

Of course it could be dangerous for Japan and maybe Korea/China/Russia, depending on where the wind blows. If we ever get to a meltdown, which I doubt.

[Seth]

Originally Posted by Angrist

Here in the Netherlands we're almost the furthest away from Japan. And even where you are, I'm sure radiation won't ever reach unhealthy levels. Remember the 2 a-bombs on Japan? America didn't suffer from that, did it?

Of course it could be dangerous for Japan and maybe Korea/China/Russia, depending on where the wind blows. If we ever get to a meltdown, which I doubt.

The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were a different scenario altogether.
Anyway, unfortunately, at this moment, the prevailing wind is heading across the Pacific in usual March fashion. Because there's a loopy trough we're gonna get it up north. According to the predictions charts central alberta is right on the fringe so hopefully the forecast isn't being modest.

Angrist, I hope you're praying my friend.

Being in class is kind of weird today since NO ONE seems to be aware of the news and understandably. It'll probably come up in my shakespeare class later today.
What's sick is the administration of foreign efforts. Why is the reaction based on a 'request plea' by the Japanese gov't? This is where someone from the west, like Obama, needed to bully their way in like they usually do in so many other matters and get a clamp down on the situation. THEY COULD NOT COOL SOME OF THE REACTORS AS OF RECENT BECAUSE THEY HAVE RUN OUT OF GENERATOR FUEL!!!

What the fucking isotope is going on? This event, beyond the immediate murdoch and counter hypes going on, is going to completely change the way nuclear power is governed by 'independant' international bodies.
There has to be collusion, at least until ratification of safety standards is somewhat organized in a nuclear world that has vastly different ways of operating programs nationaly.

Another awful component of this event is that the blame can't really be put on a single individual. Tokyo ECP is obviously at fault for irrational cost cutting. But it goes so much beyond.

What freaks me out beyond measure is that they have an estimated hundreds of thousands of used reactor cores at these plant locations. The submersion pools are on the upper floors of these reactor facilities? Like, fuck, if the hydrogen was enough to blow the roofs off then how hot are the pools getting. Pray they figure out how to permanently get everything cooled down.


Scary scenario is if the evacuation gets worse and the other plants in the country aren't cold shut off in time. And since they might need to be 'offed' that means even less power to a country that's already short.
Radiation readings have stopped coming in since sometime yesterda? I haven't found anything since 11,000 ms was detected. Before that they had it on loop at 3,000 roughly.

[Professor S]

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/1...march-summary/

During March 12 and 13, there were serious issues with providing sufficient cooling to units 1 and 3 after the tsunami had caused damage to the diesel backup generators and compromised the emergency cooling water supply. This resulted in a decision to use sea water injection to keep the reactors cool — a process that is ongoing. Steam was regularly vented as part of the effort to relieve steam pressure within the reactor vessels, but this also led to an accumulation of hydrogen gas within the secondary buildings that house the reactor units. Possible sources for the hydrogen are discussed here. Unfortunately, this hydrogen could not be vented sufficiently quickly, resulting in chemical explosions (hydrogen-oxygen interactions) within the two reactor housing buildings of both unit 1 and unit 2 during March 12-13.

The roof and part of the side walls of both buildings were severely damaged as a result. After the first hydrogen explosion there is no longer a roof on the building, so there is little chance of any large buildup of hydrogen or further explosions at these units. [In restrospect, the designers (40 years ago) perhaps should have more carefully considered the implications of the decision to vent the pressure suppression torus to the reactor building space]. Although hydrogen recombiners are a standard feature of that design, they unfortunately lost all AC power, and then the batteries were run down. Containment (the robust concrete shell and 18 inch thick steel reactor vessel within it), however, remained intact. This was verified by monitoring levels of radiation surrounding the units — if there had been any containment breach, levels would have jumped...

Regarding radiation levels: It is very important to distinguish between doses from the venting of noble-gas fission products, which rapidly dissipate and cause no long-term contamination or ingestion hazard, and aerosols of other fission products including cesium and iodine...

Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear experts” on TV.

[Vampyr]

@Seth I think you're over reacting. (pun not intended)

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/ban...=Google+Reader


Saw someone post this somewhere else. When the explosions first happened radiation spiked to the equivalent of eating 30 bananas a day for a year (which is crazy, but not likely to kill you from radiation poisoning), and now it has dropped back down to eating 1 - 2 bananas a day for a year.

Unless you're equally worried about the radioactivity of bananas, I think you're gonna be alright.

[Angrist]

Your PC, cell phone and handheld probaly emit more radiation than you have to fear from these reactors.

[Bond]

This is clearly the prelude to the end of the world in 2012.

[Seth]

The containment building blew so there's been open release. And they haven't been able to keep it sprayed. So i dunno, see where it goes.

http://bravenewclimate.com/
"There appears to have been some exposure of this spent fuel, and radiation levels around this area remain high — making access in order to maintain water levels particularly troublesome. Note that apart from short-lived fission product gases, these radiation sources are otherwise contained within the rods and not particularised in a way that facilitates dispersion. Again, the problems encountered here can be linked to the critical lack of on-site power, with the mains grid still being out of action. As a further precaution, TEPCO is considering spraying the pool with boric acid to minimise the probability of ‘prompt criticality’ events. This is the news item we should be watching most closely today."

[Angrist]

At the moment I'm most worried about the lack of water, food and fuel. And I think people haven't had a shower for almost a week.

I'm surprised such a rich and civilized country has problems like that. I know it's chaos, but still... how hard can it be to keep driving food and water trucks towards the aid centers?

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by Angrist

At the moment I'm most worried about the lack of water, food and fuel. And I think people haven't had a shower for almost a week.

I'm surprised such a rich and civilized country has problems like that. I know it's chaos, but still... how hard can it be to keep driving food and water trucks towards the aid centers?

The issue is the amount of people that are left homeless. Its the amount of food and water necessary that's the problem, I'm sure, not the transportation.

[Angrist]

So even if 1/10 of the country (it's less) was damaged, I bet that 9/10 can share their food. Heck, if they asked me, I would share my food.

[Fox 6]

So I guess the reactor problem is getting quite serious now. Ive read some headlines along the lines of "Japan has 48 hours to stop nuclear catastrophe". Ive also heard that they have limited the working parties to 50 person rotations, all whom are prepared to die to stop it.