Japan: 9.0 Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Reactor Status #5

[dsntslp]

NMK,
That's what I was thinking.
It's why I was wondering which created more long term damage, just blowing the whole mess up or letting it go long term.

I guess it is better to let it go long term and stay lower to the ground to be filtered (ugh!) by the ocean. If they were to blow it up it would definitely contaminate everything in the path of the airstream

 

[not_my_kids]

I'm not sure that anyone knows which would be worse. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl didn't go on like this for weeks, they melted down and then the attempt to rebuild started. It was relatively quick, horrible, but fast.
I think this is pretty much unprecedented, but at least if it goes fast, we know what we are facing. And by "we" I mean the residents of this planet.

 

[Daisyjane]

http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-rainwater-radiation-181-times-above-us-drinking-water-standard-2011-4

Radiation from Japan rained on Berkeley, California, during recent storms at levels that exceeded drinking water standards by 181 times. A rooftop water monitoring program managed by the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during those torrential downpours. The levels exceeded federal drinking water thresholds, known as Maximum Contaminant Levels -- or MCLs -- by as much as 181 times or 18,100%.

Iodine-131 is one of the most cancer-causing toxic radioactive isotopes spewed when nuclear power plants are in meltdown. It is being ingested by cows, which have begun passing it through into their milk and radioactivity has been detected. Read more:

 

[not_my_kids]

The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.

The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive.
http://picayuneitem.com/international/x930490290/Search-for-radiation-leak-turns-desperate-in-Japan

 

[dsntslp]

Am I understanding this correctly?
They need to put boron in the #1 reactor because it is self regenerating heat?
Does the efficacy of the boron last forever or will the boron need to be replenished at some point? Will it be effective until the rods are spent and can be moved?

Once the boron is added can they concrete everything in and under, capping it all?

They obviously have not found the right leak that is leaching radiation into the ground. I thought we heard it was #3 (plutonium) reactor that was affecting the soil? Doesn't this mean this would be the most natural culprit to be leaking underground and into the sea? Isn't the plutonium reactor (MOX) the one that gives off stuff that is increased in water not decreased?

So confusing, so many questions.

Not sure whether I am better off just not knowing or actually knowing...

I usually say I like to know so I can plan, now I am not so sure.

I wonder how many nuclear scientists are stocking water or if they look at us and think we are chicken-littles because they know this stuff will be filtered by the ocean or decrease in ppm in the air across the ocean.

 

[peeples]

http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-rainwater-radiation-181-times-above-us-drinking-water-standard-2011-4

radiation from japan rained on berkeley, california, during recent storms at levels that exceeded drinking water standards by 181 times. A rooftop water monitoring program managed by the university of california at berkeley’s department of nuclear engineering detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during those torrential downpours. The levels exceeded federal drinking water thresholds, known as maximum contaminant levels -- or mcls -- by as much as 181 times or 18,100%.

Iodine-131 is one of the most cancer-causing toxic radioactive isotopes spewed when nuclear power plants are in meltdown. It is being ingested by cows, which have begun passing it through into their milk and radioactivity has been detected. Read more:

whoa!!!

 

[dsntslp]

Not so Chicken Little, eh?

 

[dsntslp]

Re: Radio active iodine

"This is inferred to mean that it breaks down quickly, and it quickly dissipates in the environment. However, the 8 day half-life can be a misnomer because radioactive iodine can really persist in the environment for many months and has a 100 day biological half-life once inside the human body."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/san-...-drinking-water-standard-2011-4#ixzz1IaYtppxN

 

[not_my_kids]

Am I understanding this correctly?
They need to put boron in the #1 reactor because it is self regenerating heat?
Does the efficacy of the boron last forever or will the boron need to be replenished at some point? Will it be effective until the rods are spent and can be moved?

Once the boron is added can they concrete everything in and under, capping it all?

They obviously have not found the right leak that is leaching radiation into the ground. I thought we heard it was #3 (plutonium) reactor that was affecting the soil? Doesn't this mean this would be the most natural culprit to be leaking underground and into the sea? Isn't the plutonium reactor (MOX) the one that gives off stuff that is increased in water not decreased?

So confusing, so many questions.

Not sure whether I am better off just not knowing or actually knowing...

I usually say I like to know so I can plan, now I am not so sure.

I wonder how many nuclear scientists are stocking water or if they look at us and think we are chicken-littles because they know this stuff will be filtered by the ocean or decrease in ppm in the air across the ocean.

Reactivity adjustment to maintain 100% power as the fuel is burned up in most commercial PWRs is normally achieved by varying the concentration of boric acid dissolved in the primary reactor coolant. Boron readily absorbs neutrons and increasing or decreasing its concentration in the reactor coolant will therefore affect the neutron activity correspondingly. An entire control system involving high pressure pumps (usually called the charging and letdown system) is required to remove water from the high pressure primary loop and re-inject the water back in with differing concentrations of boric acid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor

According to this, and it is Wiki, so take lightly, but it seems right, the boron would slow the neutrons, which would reduce the heat, but if it is self regenerating heat, then that means that the boron is dissipating within the reactor. So, yes, they would have to keep adding more until the neutrons were completely "dead" and stopped moving. I have no idea how long that would take. I think I saw somewhere that the fuel rods are swapped out every 6 months due to having generated the majority of the energy they can, but they still can't be transported far because they are still unstable and radioactive. So, I think it would mean consistently monitoring and dumping more boron until the rods burned themselves out. To do that fully, I don't know how long it would take, I don't know how long the rods were installed before the quake and I don't know how long it would take them to be safe for transport, if ever.

They can likely concrete over it at that point, but it won't help what is leaking, apparently, from under the reactors and by that point, there's nothing that can be done about the groundwater, seawater, and air that is already contaminated.
But all of that is just my take on it.

 

[memeanabby]

Dear President Obama, With all due respect,we the American people would like to know the types and levels of dangerous ispotopes that are the direct result of the multiple accidents in the Fukushima nuclear plant.We want ongoing monitoring with clear concise information.Please get on it.We deserve the truth,as do the Japanese people.Thankyou

 

[not_my_kids]

It'll take about two days for workers at a Japanese nuclear power plant to pump more than 3 million gallons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
They're doing so in order to free storage space for water that is even more highly radioactive than the water they're dumping.
~snip~
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Russia's nuclear agency says Japan has asked Russia to send a vessel that is used to help dispose of liquid nuclear waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines.
http://www.weartv.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/29777fbd-weartv.com.shtml
Confirmation of my earlier speculation.

 

[essies]

Fukushima Daiichi Reactors 5-6 Stability Under Threat 04.04.11 :banghead:
[video=youtube;-W7uGvW8xvY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W7uGvW8xvY[/video]

 

[dsntslp]

Maybe they should haul the rods out and pull them behind speed boats or boats that will go fast enough to keep them cool (would the motion create heat?), dump them in the frigid waters of the arctic ocean in the deepest place possible. Wouldn't that keep them cool forever? The ocean is already being used as a filtering system so why not?

I wonder how long the rods can stay out of water before they catch fire themselves? Long enough to yank them into the water there at the ocean?

Crazy idea, I know, and shows how little I understand all of this.

Just thinking aloud here is all.

I wonder if, at great depths, it would create so much heat that glacier melting would be a problem?

Sorry, so very many questions and no answers.




IOW, why take the water to the reactors then dump the water back out, instead of dumping the rods right in the water, idk.

Maybe they could wrap something around them while they were in frigid water, that would enable them to pull them back up at a later date, once spent, so they could be properly stored?

 

[essies]

FDA’s Comparison of Radiation in Milk to Everyday Exposures Called ‘Improper’ .
snip-

WASHINGTON--(ENEWSPF)--April 1 - A U.S. Food and Drug Administration statement regarding milk contaminated with radiation from Japan failed to accurately inform and educate the public, four watchdog groups and a former senior advisor in the U.S. Department of Energy said today, pointing to the fact that exposure to ingested iodine-131 is substantively different than everyday exposure to radiation in the environment.

On March 30, in response to reports that radioactive iodine-131 has been found in milk in Washington state, FDA senior scientist Patricia Hansen said, “Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.”

Damon Moglen, Director of the Climate and Energy Project at Friends of the Earth, said:

“This is an apples-to-oranges comparison that lacks integrity. There is a big difference between ingesting radioactive material that accumulates in the thyroid and sitting on an airplane. You can’t drink a TV or eat an airplane.”

Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Specialist at Beyond Nuclear, said:

“It is important to remember that regardless of exposure level, as the National Academies of Science have reported, there is no safe dose of radiation. Children and pregnant mothers are particularly at risk from low-dose, long-term internal exposure.”

http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/...lk-to-everyday-exposures-called-improper.html

 

[Noddy]

Here's a web cam positioned on top of the hill in the center of Fukushima. It's a big city! It's 45 miles from the Daiichi Plant. The web cam is live and you can see cars on the roads. You might have to allow the Windows Add On temporarily.

http://www.nttfukushima.com/live/shinobu/Default.html

 

[essies]

Rush to get rid of radioactive water at Japanese nuclear plant: 11,500 tons of radioactive water will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean
snip-

Mon, 04 Apr 2011
Tokyo -- The dumping of tons of radioactive water from a waste treatment facility at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility into the ocean has started, Tokyo Electric Power Company officials said Monday. The additional dumping of water from reactors Nos. 5 and 6 will begin within hours, they said.

In all, about 11,500 tons of radioactive water that has collected at the nuclear facility will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean, officials said Monday, as workers also try to deal with a crack that has been a conduit for contamination.

The radiation levels were highest in the water from reactor No. 6, the officials said.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20110404-271670.html

 

[peeples]

what are we doing to our environment????

 

[essies]

Don't recall seeing this story, maybe I've missed it. The video clip shows the dogs excitement

Rescued drifting dog reunited with owner

A dog rescued while drifting off the tsunami-stricken coast of Miyagi has been reunited with its owner more than 3 weeks after the disaster.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/04_23.html

Thank God we can pause for some good news!!!:fence:
[video=youtube;ePdWLV3jzqA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePdWLV3jzqA[/video]

 

[Quiche]

what are we doing to our environment????

It's such an irony to be watching the Eagle Cam at the same time as reading about this disaster. It doesn't escape me that the nest location is not even immune to the fallout.

eta: http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/index.html

 

[buffetoflies]

I don't know how many of ya'll here listen to hard rock, but there is a song called 'help is on the way,' by Rise Against that has been getting heavy play the last month or so. The band wrote it about Hurricane Katrina, and about the BP oil spill, but when I hear it, some of the lines make me think of the situation in Japan.

http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858857766/

The song is long so here are the lines/verses I feel apply to Japan:

Can nobody save us?
Will anyone try?
pyre is burning
The severance is tight

This verse b/c relief workers are scared of the burning hot cores of the nuclear reactors so they aren't sending people over to help. I heard that after mid april the US is pulling out people.

five thousand feet below
as black smoke engulfs the sky
the ocean floor explodes
11 mothers cry

These two lines because the fault line for the earthquake is at the floor of the ocean, and it 'explodes' when the earth starts to quake.

My bones are resining
a burning lullaby
you can't take that from me
just go ahead and try

This verse because the people of Japan are proud and it is thought that a lot of Japanese won't leave, that will stay and face whatever is to come.

we were told, just to sit tight

There were told to stay inside to keep away from the radiation, that everything is just fine, but it clearly isn't and I feel the people that were in the optional 30km zone will die from staying so close.

Help is on the way
They never came
They never came

Not as much is coming b/c of the reactors, and if (when) the reactors completely meltdown everyone will abandon ship, sorry to say.

Thought I'd share.