Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[matsuki]

So I watched the most recent NHK documentary on this shit and it's amazing how much incompetence took place after the quake. Missed all kinds of telltale signs that could have prevented so much of this mess. I dunno if I can really blame them though, none of the monkeys on the job had any experience with what the functioning emergency systems looked/sounded like. (it hadn't been tested in 40 years as opposed to tests done every 4 years in other countries) Even the TEPCO officials admitted their employees didn't posses the necessary skills. (WTF??) Of course this is still all besides the fact that the plant upgrades/repairs/etc. that should have taken place but were long ignored. Finally, water injection by fire trucks as a last resort, despite it never being completely thought out (it failed) is just icing on the cake.

What's even more disturbing is this NHK documentary is far more detailed and investigative than anything the J-gov has performed (and it's NHK??) and uncovered a number of issues the J-gov report failed to address. Not even all the Japanese nuclear facilities are being retrofitted to prevent the "previously unthinkable" problems that occurred. In short the nuclear industry/j-gov here is not responsible/accountable enough to safely operate nuclear power plants in the land of four seasons, volcanos, earthquakes, and tsunami....not that it needed pointing out.

[Taro Toporific]

bth_oh-noes.gif

"White spots" on Fukushima cattle ignored by Japanese officials
Channel NewsAsia -- 29 Aug 2013
...Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, farmer Masami Yoshizawa kept his cattle alive to monitor changes due to prolonged radiation exposure. Now, mysterious white spots on the fur and skin are appearing on 10 of his Japanese black cattle.
As revelations about continued problems around the nuclear plant emerged, it should be a major concern for Japan's agricultural business. But so far, nothing has been said about the issue.
Kazuo Suzuki, the Ministry of Agriculture official responsible for livestock within the 20 kilometre exclusion zone, was informed of the white spots by Mr Yoshizawa when he visited Mr Yoshizawa's farm in December 2012.
More...

radioactive_cow_panic.gif

[Coligny]

I blame stress... nobody should have told them cows they wuz in the nukular exclusion zone... Now they are all a scared to be living in Ukraine since they can't speak the language...

[wagyl]

I remain open minded, and would be interested to hear more and from a range of sources. I just note that there were spots on 10 of the cattle in September last year. Now, eleven months later, this has blown out to affect a total of 10 cattle. It seems like these spots might be said to keep the cattle alive!

[Russell]

As the human population warily returns to Namie town, no one knows for certain what is happening to the cows on Mr Yoshizawa's Pasture of Hope. And Fukushima's agriculture officials, apparently, prefer not to find out.

On deeper thought, these white spots are nothing to worry about.

Michael Jackson had them too...

[Mike Oxlong]

Probably just lab animals for testing Kanebo cosmetics.

[Coligny]

I remain open minded, and would be interested to hear more and from a range of sources. I just note that there were spots on 10 of the cattle in September last year. Now, eleven months later, this has blown out to affect a total of 10 cattle. It seems like these spots might be said to keep the cattle alive!

audiofile3.jpg

Wonder if you can get faygo in Japan...

[matsuki]

I'd be more concerned about why they are allowing anyone in the are to just keep these walking hamburgers alive...

[Russell]

I'd be more concerned about why they are allowing anyone in the are to just keep these walking hamburgers alive...

By special request from the McDonalds in Toyohashi...

[Samurai_Jerk]

I'd be more concerned about why they are allowing anyone in the are to just keep these walking hamburgers alive...

By special request from the McDonalds in Toyohashi...

You don't know how much I hope that's the case.

[Coligny]

I'm switching to Lotteria right nao...

[Level Three]

An apologists view? Or just the counter argument to the hysteria of late?

Oh noes! New 'CRISIS DISASTER' at Fukushima! Oh wait, it's nothing. Again
By Lewis Page, 21st August 2013

'Nuclear crisis' - 'disaster' - FIVE TIMES the annual recommended limit? Surely this is it at last? The disaster is finally happening!

Well, no. The situation is this. The melted-down cores at the damaged reactors (the site is not "crippled", two reactors were undamaged and will return to service) are still hot - though much less hot than they were two years ago - and need to be cooled. This is done by pumping water through their buildings, then sucking it out again and putting it into holding tanks before purifying it to remove the radiation it picks up from the cores. Then it gets used again.

What has happened is that one of the holding tanks, containing water that had only been through one stage of purification, has sprung a leak and about 300,000 litres of water has got out. Almost all of this was contained by a backup dam which had been built around the tanks when they were set up (this is the nuclear industry, there is always a backup). However, "two shallow puddles" of the water got out of the dam via a rainwater drain valve which has since been sealed off.

The water is quite radioactive, and dose rates measured next to the puddles were 100 milliSieverts per hour. Nuclear powerplant workers, whose cancer rate is somewhat lower than in the general population (probably because they don't smoke so much) are allowed to sustain 50 millisievert in any one year in normal times and average doses across five years of 20 millisievert/yr.

However what Reuters haven't picked up on is that the high 100 milliSievert reading is for beta radiation only. The reading for gamma rays is only 1.5 milliSieverts per hour.

But I did note with some sadness in the first paragraph that this Noookleah stuff really is over-shaddowing the news that so many people did lose their lives and many many more lost homes and businesses and so many are STILL living in temporary housing. But what is a human story compared to the horror of nuclear fallout and unseen deathly rays.

It's nothing more than just a few bananas a day worth of rad. Nothing really. You get more rad by flying to the moon and back. But actually theres no difference between getting rad from bananas or the sun and ingesting a piece of cesium floating on a speck of dust you ingest and which then lodges into your lung or digestive tract and then emits rays directly into the surrounding tissue the rest of your days. People around here need to stop panicking and get a BA degree in science to understand what's really going on.

[Coligny]

Marry me...

[jingai]

I don't see Lewis Page as a credible source on anything science related.

See easy to debunk articles like:
Lewis Page: Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
Lewis Page: US ecosystems basically unaffected by global warming, studies show

on sites like junkscience.com for an idea of who he is and his biases.

The destroyed reactors will remain hot for decades to come, and it's a serious problem to have parts of the reactor core out of primary containment post meltdown as it violates the idea of keeping the cooling water from getting radioactive so it can be easily controlled and reused. TEPCO seems to be left with finding a way to deal with a growing accumulation of vast quantities of radioactive water that it made radioactive by using it for cooling, and then of groundwater that it had nothing to do with, except that it passed through the contaminated site on it way to the ocean.

It's not an immediate cause for panic, but this situation has got to become stable to handle the next earthquake and to make clean up possible over the next century. It's really messy. I think the biggest current threat to public health is the accumulation of radioactive material in sea-life, as it's a lot harder to avoid than just not buying rice from Fukushima prefecture. I believe the biggest future threat is getting the spent fuel rods out of the pools into dry storage without any major mishaps.

[Russell]

I don't see Lewis Page as a credible source on anything science related.

See easy to debunk articles like:
Lewis Page: Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
Lewis Page: US ecosystems basically unaffected by global warming, studies show

on sites like junkscience.com for an idea of who he is and his biases.

The destroyed reactors will remain hot for decades to come, and it's a serious problem to have parts of the reactor core out of primary containment post meltdown as it violates the idea of keeping the cooling water from getting radioactive so it can be easily controlled and reused. TEPCO seems to be left with finding a way to deal with a growing accumulation of vast quantities of radioactive water that it made radioactive by using it for cooling, and then of groundwater that it had nothing to do with, except that it passed through the contaminated site on it way to the ocean.

It's not an immediate cause for panic, but this situation has got to become stable to handle the next earthquake and to make clean up possible over the next century. It's really messy. I think the biggest current threat to public health is the accumulation of radioactive material in sea-life, as it's a lot harder to avoid than just not buying rice from Fukushima prefecture. I believe the biggest future threat is getting the spent fuel rods out of the pools into dry storage without any major mishaps.

This!

And one more problem they are facing is extracting the (partly) melted-down fuel rods from the damaged reactor vessels, or at least isolate them from the environment in a permanent way.

[Russell]

Excellent written piece by Jake Adelstein.

Japan’s nuclear comedy just goes on and on

[...]

Here’s the basic pattern: An accident occurs in Japan’s nuclear industry; those in charge fail to deal with it well; people suffer; those in charge lie to the public; finally they admit it and apologize profusely. Then the cycle is repeated.

The latest revelations of leaks from at least one of more than 1,000 storage tanks being used to store radiation-contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) are really nothing new; it’s just another in a series of follies being handled in an irresponsible and short-sighted way.

True to form, while the media had been reporting on the problem for weeks, Tepco had denied it. Finally — and oddly, just after July’s Upper House elections — there was the admission, the obligatory apology, and an announcement by the Japanese government that it would come to the rescue.

They say those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it — yet the patterns of mishaps in Japan’s nuclear industry that I write about are so reproducible as to give me a strange sense of déjà vu. We have been here before.

The explosions and meltdowns of three reactors at Tepco’s Fukushima facility in March 2011, leading to massive leaks of radiation, comprised the world’s worst nuclear disaster since a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the USSR (present-day Ukraine) in April 1986. In the northeastern Tohoku region of Honshu, where the Fukushima plant is located, more than 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate due to high radiation levels and the cleanup will likely take at least 40 years.

Tepco at first blamed the accident on “an unforeseen massive tsunami” triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Then it admitted it had in fact foreseen just such a scenario but hadn’t done anything about it.

A Special Diet Commission reporting in July 2012, and other studies, concluded that the earthquake alone probably damaged the cooling system of the Fukushima plant’s 40-year-old Reactor 1 so badly that, even before the tsunami, meltdown was inevitable because it would overheat so much.

In other words, some of Japan’s nuclear power plants may be unable to withstand an earthquake. Not a comforting thought in a country that has constant seismic activity.

Of course, “nuclear meltdown” itself was denied for months. Even up to May 2011, while the foreign media had long labeled the Fukushima disaster “a triple meltdown,” Tepco — and the national government — stonewalled, insisting that meltdown had not been confirmed.

Then finally, just a week before members of an International Atomic Energy Agency investigation team were to arrive in Japan, the government and Tepco admitted the facts — with the usual ritual apologies.

The current leakage problems at the Fukushima plant are even more baffling to those of us blessed with a memory. That’s because, in December 2011, the government announced that the plant had reached “a state of cold shutdown.” Normally, that means radiation releases are under control and the temperature of its nuclear fuel is consistently below boiling point. Great! Mission accomplished! Let’s go home.

Unfortunately, though, if Tepco stops pumping coolant into the reactors to keep their temperature down, then they won’t be in “a state of cold shutdown” anymore.

And thanks to the haphazard cleanup at the plant, even just a few rats can jeopardize that shutdown. Yes, rats — not Tepco executives, but real furry rodents.

The plant is being run on makeshift equipment and breakdowns are endemic. Among nearly a dozen serious problems since April this year there have been successive power outages, leaks of highly radioactive water from underground water pools — and a rat that chewed enough wires to short-circuit a switchboard, causing a power outage that interrupted cooling for nearly 30 hours. Later, the cooling system for a fuel-storage pool had to be switched off for safety checks when two dead rats were found in a transformer box. Perhaps there’s a secret Tepco PR manual 101: When in doubt, blame the rats.

However, the words of a top Tepco exec should be of some comfort: “I wish to express regret for the recent cases of misconduct at our company, which eroded public confidence in the nuclear power industry. We will do everything … to prevent similar incidents and to maintain safety. We will promote release of information in order to reassure the general public that we are making sincere efforts, and to convince them that ‘Tepco is trustworthy’ again.”

All very well — but those remarks were made in 2003 by then Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata after the company admitted to extensive falsifying of safety records for more than a decade. The coverups included dangerous problems in a number of its aging nuclear power plants.

At that time, the entire nuclear industry came under great scrutiny. Reform had come. And just to show lessons had been learned, there were further apologies in 2004, when five workers at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture were scalded to death by steam leaking from a corroded pipe that hadn’t been inspected since 1976. Well, apologies are cheap; safety is expensive.

Do you see the pattern? My guess is there is only one way to stop it, and that’s to finally pull the plug on Japan’s nuclear energy industry. We can only trust them to do one thing: place profits first, wreak havoc, lie about it and then apologize. But I don’t think that works so well anymore.

More

[Taro Toporific]

Excellent written piece by Jake Adelstein.
Japan’s nuclear comedy just goes on and on

After putting batteries in inspection equipment >>> TEPCO Reports Radiation Levels of Up to 1,800 Millisieverts Jiji Press 2013-08-31

(via @Shogannai)

[Russell]

Hah, Taro, you made that up, did you?!?

The batteries, that is...

[Taro Toporific]

Hah, Taro, you made that up, did you?!?
The batteries, that is...

Oh no, I am way too overheated to quip. The original "batteries" joke was as I said a tweet, "(via @Shogannai)".

{I belong to a twitter circle of Japan reporters and they tweet the "real headlines" that their bosses at AP, Guardian, Gomiuri, Japan Times, NYT, et al don't dare to publish.}

[Russell]

Maybe they were out of batteries due to cost-cutting.

But then again, at least they could've tried banana batteries...

[Coligny]

Excellent written piece by Jake Adelstein.
Japan’s nuclear comedy just goes on and on

After putting batteries in inspection equipment >>> TEPCO Reports Radiation Levels of Up to 1,800 Millisieverts Jiji Press 2013-08-31

(via @Shogannai)

Hope the guy who did the measure can run fast...

Is there an Hallmark postcard saying radiations are harmless and everywhere anyway ?
Because if not, it's a bad omission...

[Russell]

Hope the guy who did the measure can run fast...

Seems there were two guys.

And they didn't carry dosimeters to measure their exposure...

Tepco admitted recently that only two workers had initially been assigned to check more than 1,000 storage tanks on the site. Neither of the workers carried dosimeters to measure their exposure to radiation, and some inspections had not been properly recorded.

It's getting worse.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said radiation near the bottom of the tank measured 1,800 millisieverts an hour – high enough to kill an exposed person in four hours.

Tepco said water levels inside the tank had not changed, indicating there had not been a leak. But the firm said it had yet to discover the cause of the radiation spike.

Great, they don't know how that particular spot got that radioactive.

If they don't know, they cannot solve the problem.

If they cannot solve the problem, there is a significant risk of more spots with these radiation levels in the near future. We cannot even discount the possibility that everywhere within a certain radius of Daiichi it will become too radioactive for people to work more than a few hours.

If no people can work there, they will be unable to keep those melted-down reactors and storage pools stable.

This problem has not finished yet. In fact, it has just only begun...

[Coligny]

And just in case...

a problem can't usually be solved by the same people who created it...

[Level Three]

It's the same as eating bananas or going to the moon. Of course the particles are different though, BUT...

So what if the cesium particles land at your feet on a speck of dust. They arent going to harm you unless you ingest it by breathing or eating it (contact eg tying your shoelaces, taking off your shoes and transferring the particle onto your face/eyes/mouth).

STOP PANICKING! Remember - BANANAS

[Russell]

It's the same as eating bananas or going to the moon. Of course the particles are different though, BUT...

So what if the cesium particles land at your feet on a speck of dust. They arent going to harm you unless you ingest it by breathing or eating it (contact eg tying your shoelaces, taking off your shoes and transferring the particle onto your face/eyes/mouth).

STOP PANICKING! Remember - BANANAS

You have a problem with reading comprehension, do you?

We are not talking here about current radiation levels beyond Fukushima prefecture, but about radiation levels on site of the Daiichi reactors. These are very high at certain spots, and TEPCO apparently does not have a clue why. That means that they have no clue either on how to solve this problem.

The big worry is that they can't keep the fuel rods in the storage pools and reactor vessels stable. This is not a trivial issue. If they can't keep that shit stable, there is a serious risk of significant contamination of areas outside Fukushima.

[Coligny]

I think he was obscenely cynical...

Which might not translate well to dutch...

Or I'm completely missing something, which down here is called "day finishing in 'y' "

[matsuki]

Here’s the basic pattern: An accident occurs in Japan’s nuclear industry; those in charge fail to deal with it well; people suffer; those in charge lie to the public; finally they admit it and apologize profusely. Then the cycle is repeated.

........

there is only one way to stop it, and that’s to finally pull the plug on Japan’s nuclear energy industry. We can only trust them to do one thing: place profits first, wreak havoc, lie about it and then apologize. But I don’t think that works so well anymore.

THIS

When it comes to nuclear safety, the only thing guaranteed is that it's well below profit, amakudari, and public image on the priority list.

[Level Three]

It's the same as eating bananas or going to the moon. Of course the particles are different though, BUT...

So what if the cesium particles land at your feet on a speck of dust. They arent going to harm you unless you ingest it by breathing or eating it (contact eg tying your shoelaces, taking off your shoes and transferring the particle onto your face/eyes/mouth).

STOP PANICKING! Remember - BANANAS

You have a problem with reading comprehension, do you?

We are not talking here about current radiation levels beyond Fukushima prefecture, but about radiation levels on site of the Daiichi reactors. These are very high at certain spots, and TEPCO apparently does not have a clue why. That means that they have no clue either on how to solve this problem.

The big worry is that they can't keep the fuel rods in the storage pools and reactor vessels stable. This is not a trivial issue. If they can't keep that shit stable, there is a serious risk of significant contamination of areas outside Fukushima.

You can't see the difference between non ionizing bananas and burn-a-hole-in-your-dna cesium laying in the dust in your street? What's the matter with you?

The major media outlets are running with this now. Hopefully The Great Japan will recover and work out what to do with this totally fcked situation.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushim ... ter-2013-9

[Russell]

The major media outlets are running with this now. Hopefully The Great Japan will recover and work out what to do with this totally fcked situation.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushim ... ter-2013-9

Thanks for clearing that up.

The leaking pipe was found to be dripping one drop about every 90 seconds, the company said.

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that one drop every 90 seconds can cause these lethal levels of radiation. Is there another source? Like ground water that has been in direct contact with nuclear fuel. This water could rise up when the soil is saturated.

Workers tightened 12 bolts to stop the leak and bolstered the repair using special material and plastic tape.

Let me guess. J-B Weld and duct tape. At least good to know TEPCO has budget to buy that...

[Level Three]

The major media outlets are running with this now. Hopefully The Great Japan will recover and work out what to do with this totally fcked situation.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushim ... ter-2013-9

Thanks for clearing that up.

The leaking pipe was found to be dripping one drop about every 90 seconds, the company said.

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that one drop every 90 seconds can cause these lethal levels of radiation. Is there another source? Like ground water that has been in direct contact with nuclear fuel. This water could rise up when the soil is saturated.

Workers tightened 12 bolts to stop the leak and bolstered the repair using special material and plastic tape.

Let me guess. J-B Weld and duct tape. At least good to know TEPCO has budget to buy that...

Yeah, I actually think you are right - it's a huge conspiracy from the Oil Companies to tell the world that Big Oil Good - Nuclear Power Bad.

I think these articles about the meltdown are totally false and wrong

http://enenews.com/governor-instructed- ... told-video

And I think that there's nothing to worry about. Banana Banzai!