V interesting - thanks. I just watched a couple of his earlier reports. What he says (in report #11) about the potency of Plutonium as a carcinogen and its (ongoing) uncontrolled release into the environment, is worrying to say the least.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
- Thread starter Barking_Mad
- Start date
V interesting - thanks. I just watched a couple of his earlier reports. What he says (in report #11) about the potency of Plutonium as a carcinogen and its (ongoing) uncontrolled release into the environment, is worrying to say the least.
I feel very sorry for those with no way of getting far enough away to not suffer from the longterm effects. Friends of mine spent half a year in Kiev, about 5 years after Chernobyl and a safe distance away, or so they'd been told. Everything looked pretty normal where they were, except there were no children at all (except the ones v recently born) under the age of 5.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Intetersting, especially as other comments about these sorts of videos & pics of reactor 4 sometimes made reference to the green crane/refuelling bridge as not having collapsed, as still being in the right place. But what he says about the exposed fuel racks certainly does seem, to a non-expert like me, to look like fuel racks.
Anyways it seems like they have admitted to finding a crack in reactor 2 containment so I'm just about to see how this is being reported today.
elbows
Well-Known Member
OK looks like they were not referring the main containment. BBC used the word 'containment pit' and 'the crack under reactor 2' but other reports talk about it as a '2 meter deep pit that contains power cables near the reactors water intake'. I await further articles but that sounds to me like something much nearer to the sea than the reactor itself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12945525
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/02_21.html
Fuchs66
Ring a ding
I'm getting pretty sick of the total inability of the media to comprehend the units involved, example from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12949783
Total bollocks, Sv is the unit for dose, I can imagine they were referring to the dose rate but that would be (m)Sv/h or the unit for radioactivity [Becquerel].
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12949783
Total bollocks, Sv is the unit for dose, I can imagine they were referring to the dose rate but that would be (m)Sv/h or the unit for radioactivity [Becquerel].
It's shit. All of it.
Undoubtedly, someone, many people in the field know exactly how to explain it all to us everyday people. Instead we're just getting fed more and more bamboozle, which is more than a little worrying really. They wait 6 months for all the fuss to die down and then they will tell us it was actually really bad, but, don't worry - it's over now.
I'm beginning to suspect this is far worse than any previous.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its milliSv/hour, and the actual figures from the turbine building & pit has usually been quoted by TEPCO as being over 1000 mSv/h, with absolutely no indication of how much over this rate it may be.
The media overall have done such a bad job with Fukushima that I've even been considering whether to retrain as a journalist. However as such disasters have tended to be rather infrequent, who knows if Id ever get a chance to write about such things, nor do I hold out a huge expectation that it would actually make much difference to public perception of events.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its worse than previous incidents in terms of how many different reactors & fuel pits have gone wrong at once, and how long the site has been without proper power supplies. Its still too early to say how it compares in terms of radioactive release.
Much as I like to read your posts, I think that one was just a bit more contagious bamboozle. Why can't someone just publish readings from a Geiger counter?
Fuchs66
Ring a ding
Thats what I thought but not what the BBC wrote, very irresponsible reporting.
They're probably avoiding stating exact figures because they're measuring at a distance and then using the inverse square law to get an idea of the activity at source.
Its a thought that's crossed my mind a few times in connection with various subjects, I cant believe the arrogance of some reporters that they assume by throwing in a couple of technical terms they'll get away with writing complete shite.
Can I repeat?
6 months from now it will all be 'over'. So, it will all be OK. Pseudo scientists everywhere will try to get what they can from all the wobbly stats and measures. Very simply, we will be told the truth once the mutated evidence arrives.
If this wasn't so fucking huge and horrible we would already be told why it isn't so huge and horrible. We're not being given any relibale reassurances. It's ugly.
6 months from now it will all be 'over'. So, it will all be OK. Pseudo scientists everywhere will try to get what they can from all the wobbly stats and measures. Very simply, we will be told the truth once the mutated evidence arrives.
If this wasn't so fucking huge and horrible we would already be told why it isn't so huge and horrible. We're not being given any relibale reassurances. It's ugly.
elbows
Well-Known Member
They do, lots of them, from lots of different places. This hardly gives the whole picture.
For the whole picture you have to look at levels in the sea, the soil, the air, tapwater, etc, from a load of different places. We also need a better indication of how much stuff is continuing to escape from the plant right now, as the seawater escape route is the only one getting a lot of attention right now.
Im not sure quite what you are looking for in order to be able to judge the problem. There isnt a single number that will tell you much really. And questions that a lot of people seem to ask, such as 'is it worse than Chernobyl?', or gloomy reactions to words such as plutonium and meltdown dont really enlighten that much either.
More generally I dont think humans overall are setup to get a proper sense of risk and stuff when it comes to events that pose some osrt of health risk. We are use to seeing statistics, and of making a meal of stats in order to 'prove' a point. We dont tend to spend long talking about the full risk picture for things like coal powered stations, so its not surprising that this is also the case for nuclear, whether under normal operating conditions or during an emergency.
There is single number. It can be reported on a relative scale that we can all understand.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Which truth in particular do you seek? If its total number of deaths and cancers then, if Chernobyl is anything to go by, we never get a straight answer. The stakes with nuclear are high, and the true believers and those who hate nuclear are both very passionate and will prejudge the extent of the problem. Powerful interests of a variety of kinds have an interest in playing down the health risk, and of keeping the cancer stats nice and low.
What we can look forward to in future is more detail about the technical condition of the various reactors and fuel pools. A geek like me is very interested in this but I'm not sure this stuff is really the answer that the public seek. And we can also expect to see a boatload more data about the levels of contamination in different places, different foodstuffs etc. We will also find out how large the near-permanent exclusion zone will need to be. I suppose these are the sort of details with which the masses will judge the scale of the problem, but like I said before, good luck ever finding out the true scope of the health effects.
elbows
Well-Known Member
What is the number? Total deaths? Some magical radiation reading from one time & place? The nuclear incident scale number?
There is a measure.
Nuclear crap is not a new thing. The fact that no-one is prepared to say what the outcome from this disaster is immediatley very clearly says they're just buying time. The immediate affect is negligable. The animals born mutated in a few months time, the human casualties 6 months, a year from now will not be so easy to deny.
We are not being told the truth. If the truth is that hard to stomach, then it's bad truth. Fuck the numbers, stats and charts, very simply we just need a true answer.
Geiger counters still work?
Fuchs66
Ring a ding
Er yes but a single, unqualified Dose rate or activity is absolutely meaningless
No it's fucking well not. It's a qualified measure. Why is everyone succuming to all this bamboozle?
It's 20, but it's not a Chernobyl 20 because, well, because it's not Russian. FFS people. Don't hide from the facts.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Anyway todays news has mostly been about the continuing failure of efforts to stop the cracked pit from leaking radioactive shit into the sea. Concrete didnt work, they have tried something else which hasnt worked so far either. They may be looking at using dyed water to trace possible path of contaminated water.
The government is now talking in terms of it maybe taking months to stop radiation leaking from the plant!
The bodies of the 2 workers who died in reactor 4 turbine building, probably due to the tsunami itself, have been retrieved and the news now made public, after some days delay for sake of family etc.
Reactor 1 continues to generate some interesting stories. They have had several battles with temperature and pressure at this reactor, including within the last week, and they are now talking about injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel sometime this coming week, in order to prevent possible further hydrogen explosions according to press reports. There have been a number of very badly worded stories in recent days that reactor 1 may be occasionally going critical again, but the lack of detail in reports makes it hard to persue this story further right now. Im certainly interested why the radiation dose rate measured inside the reactor has sometimes been going up quite a bit recently, when at the other reactors its been steadily falling. I suppose some of the issues at reactor 1 may be because unlike reactors 2 and 3, it doesnt seem to have suffered from damage which has caused almost total loss of pressure, and containment damage. So its still not a good idea to try to guess which of the 3 reactors may have ended up in the worse state, they are all really bad in different ways.
Away from the mostly bad news, there are occasionally some hopeful signs regarding contamination further away from the plant, and the general level of radiation at the plant perimeter has been steadily falling for many days now, without the sorts of brief spikes back upwards that we saw a number of times earlier on in the crisis. There have also been some further developments with getting more permanent power sources & pumps going in some of the fuel pools or reactors, but things remain a very long way away from the faster-paced cooling system recovery plans that were heavily touted during the good news week, all that came to an abrupt end when the turbine basement & trench contaminated water details emerged.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82882.html
The government is now talking in terms of it maybe taking months to stop radiation leaking from the plant!
The bodies of the 2 workers who died in reactor 4 turbine building, probably due to the tsunami itself, have been retrieved and the news now made public, after some days delay for sake of family etc.
Reactor 1 continues to generate some interesting stories. They have had several battles with temperature and pressure at this reactor, including within the last week, and they are now talking about injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel sometime this coming week, in order to prevent possible further hydrogen explosions according to press reports. There have been a number of very badly worded stories in recent days that reactor 1 may be occasionally going critical again, but the lack of detail in reports makes it hard to persue this story further right now. Im certainly interested why the radiation dose rate measured inside the reactor has sometimes been going up quite a bit recently, when at the other reactors its been steadily falling. I suppose some of the issues at reactor 1 may be because unlike reactors 2 and 3, it doesnt seem to have suffered from damage which has caused almost total loss of pressure, and containment damage. So its still not a good idea to try to guess which of the 3 reactors may have ended up in the worse state, they are all really bad in different ways.
Away from the mostly bad news, there are occasionally some hopeful signs regarding contamination further away from the plant, and the general level of radiation at the plant perimeter has been steadily falling for many days now, without the sorts of brief spikes back upwards that we saw a number of times earlier on in the crisis. There have also been some further developments with getting more permanent power sources & pumps going in some of the fuel pools or reactors, but things remain a very long way away from the faster-paced cooling system recovery plans that were heavily touted during the good news week, all that came to an abrupt end when the turbine basement & trench contaminated water details emerged.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82882.html
Fuchs66
Ring a ding
You dont know what you're talking about do you?
elbows
Well-Known Member
What are you going on about? A geiger counter will give you one number for one place at one moment in time. Where do you want this geiger counter to be located? I can give you dose rates inside the reactors, just above the water in a basement and water at a pit, rates at a couple of locations at the perimeter of the plant, rates in tokyo and umpteen other locations on a variety of days, rates 40km to the north west of the plant where some quite high levels have ben detected.
Is any of that actually any good to you, or will just be written off as more bamboozling because its not Fukushima Duplo edition?
There are thousands of numbers, some of which will be used to present good news stories, as the iodine with a relatively short-halflife starts to go away. Then we have to dig down further into the nitty gritty of how cesium on the ground gets into cattle, areas where we have learnt something in the UK from the Chernobyl experience. And I know one thing we learnt is that assumptions about how quickly the cesium would start to become a non-issue for our farmers in certain locations turned out to be wrong, it continues to be a problem long after they had initially hoped it might no longer be.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
Clearly.
Hey, it's raining here this evening. That rain came from somewhere. The clouds in Spain don't just hang around here.
Japan is a very rich country. I feel for all who have suffered the immediate consequences. But... perhaps Chernobyl wasn't worth searching for private compensation? Long Island was covered up during less financially sophisticated times. A huge nuclear cloud is drifting around the World. Poisons spilling into the sea. It's not just going to kill people, it's going to affect industrial profits.
And, I am really suspecting this is 100x worse than Chernobyl. It's lasted weeks now and still it's polluting.
We are not being told the facts because financially it is a huge thing. You think the leaders actually care about us? No. They care about income, and this is going to affect income in many countries.
It's World economics. Japan is critical in the whole cycle of things.
In these days of free information you would think we had more. We don't. Why?
Japan is a very rich country. I feel for all who have suffered the immediate consequences. But... perhaps Chernobyl wasn't worth searching for private compensation? Long Island was covered up during less financially sophisticated times. A huge nuclear cloud is drifting around the World. Poisons spilling into the sea. It's not just going to kill people, it's going to affect industrial profits.
And, I am really suspecting this is 100x worse than Chernobyl. It's lasted weeks now and still it's polluting.
We are not being told the facts because financially it is a huge thing. You think the leaders actually care about us? No. They care about income, and this is going to affect income in many countries.
It's World economics. Japan is critical in the whole cycle of things.
In these days of free information you would think we had more. We don't. Why?
.The crack causing pit water to leak into sea wasnt exactly well hidden, nor was it 'under the reactor' like that shit BBC article I moaned about recent suggested.
It's a picture of a crack and a man in a protective suit. Clearly evidence. Unquestionable evidence.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I probably didnt give sufficient prominence to this news when I mentioned it above:
I expect this is bound to lead to more calls, such as the ones we have already seen on this thread, to cover the reactors in concrete etc as soon as possible.
I still dont know if this si the best idea, since it has other implications, but really, letting radiation leak for months is not a good idea either. I dont know if their plan is actually sensible for a variety of practical reasons, or whether they are still deluded about how bad things are or how likely it is they can salvage things/get some control over all reactors and fuel pools.
I expect this is bound to lead to more calls, such as the ones we have already seen on this thread, to cover the reactors in concrete etc as soon as possible.
I still dont know if this si the best idea, since it has other implications, but really, letting radiation leak for months is not a good idea either. I dont know if their plan is actually sensible for a variety of practical reasons, or whether they are still deluded about how bad things are or how likely it is they can salvage things/get some control over all reactors and fuel pools.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I dont disagree about all you other points. And its very clear that information here is being managed. But Im utterly unclear about what it is exactly that you want to know? You havent said anything that would make me think you are looking at the reams of info that is being made available online, nor have I been able to work out what exactly the magic number you seek consists of.
If you want to be able to compare it to Chernobyl, eg is is 100x worse, then can I ask whether you think you know what the true and full affects of Chernobyl were?
I know that I will have to wait quite a long time to get some idea of the scale of contamination. The information that hasnt been released that I am annoyed about is detail on the exact state of various parts of the reactors, including containment and core. The crack outside is important for determining how stuff is presently getting into the sea, but Im more interested in the potential crack in the suppression chamber of one of the reactors etc.
Look at that photograph again. It is pure propoganda. The psychology behind it is very sophisticated.
A man in protective suit pointing at a crack a Thousand, or more Miles away. He is putting himself at risk on your behalf just to reassure you.
This is not good. Not good at all. However, it is probably more about money than risks to human health.
A man in protective suit pointing at a crack a Thousand, or more Miles away. He is putting himself at risk on your behalf just to reassure you.
This is not good. Not good at all. However, it is probably more about money than risks to human health.
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