Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

[elbows]

The BBC fixed their shitty reporting that I moaned about earlier.

The decision to raise the threat level was made after radiation of a total up to 630,000 terabequerels had been estimated at the stricken plant.

They also now mention what I said about TEPCO a post or two ago:

One official from Tepco said that radiation leaks had not stopped completely and could eventually exceed those at Chernobyl, Reuters news agency reported.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13045341

 

[elbows]

Well it hasnt taken many hours for me to conclude that the whole INES scale thing is a failure. Its been undermined by numerous forces, including the orgs that set it up and agreed to it in the first place.

The whole point of it is to try to convey information about nuclear accidents to the public in a simple and timely way. It would have been better if they could have reached this early conclusion sooner, and had not had to steadily upgrade the incident so many times, but I wouldnt go as far as to say these are fatal blows. But what has actually happened today pretty much is. What is the point of having a simple scale if you then feel the need to explain in detail why this is not the same as Chernobyl, and that only around a tenth of the radioactive shit has been released so far compared to Chernobyl?

Clearly there are a large number of interests that dont want this to be compared to Chernobyl. Well then you should have designed the rating system differently, Chernobyl-like levels of estimated total radiation release should be given a number like 8 or 9, leaving room for levels such as the current estimates for the Fukushima incidents to have number 7 to themselves. But as the opportunities to test how well the rating system works are limited, and most attention was probably paid to how to define the lower-level accidents, we probably shouldnt be surprised that its turned out not to meet their needs now that reality has bitten them. So now we have to be treated to a multitude of quacking droolery in the press, and various authorities bending over backwards to downplay the disaster, to talk up progress, and to go on about why Chernobyl was so very bad and incomparable to anything else.

Well I hope that this stuff, along with the sometimes painfully slow response on the ground to circumstances, along with the failure of magic robots and international nuclear rescue megaorganisation to come to the rescue, adequately demonstrates that a large portion of nuclear safety is mere window dressing. Irrational public fears are conveniently assumed to be a major threat, with more potential to do damage than the events themselves, and so the public messages go down the predictable road of credibility-destroying reassuring mixed-messages that we know and love from pretty much every disaster where stakes are high and powerful interests loom large. And take a moment to think that if you were in the shoes of one of the government etc servants who make it this way, such things really can be justified on the basis that the masses do benefit from this technology, they want to consume, and we know whats best for them. Can such ideas survive when faced with added threats that come from low-trust in institutions, conspiracy theories, relative freedom and transparency of information? Its a right mess, and I bet hardly anyone is surprised, we tend to know what to expect at times like these.

Oh such timing, think of all the sods who are crying over the potential loss of the new phase of nuclear reactor construction that seemed just around the corner. Id like to think that many of the worst deniers of risk will end up in the spent fool pools after this. I suspect that what we will see is a familiar approach based on large amounts of reassurance and denial, which gives way to some moderate reforms and lots of boring speeches about learning lessons and drawing lines under things. Im not sure if they will succeed or not. Chernobyl was a hard blow to recover from, even being able to blame it on Soviets and the ways of their system, along with the design of the reactor itself, it took decades before they could start seriously thinking that the industrys image was rehabilitated enough to support a large expansion of nuclear power.

Mind you, given that we dont exactly see hundreds of thousands of people coming out onto the streets in anger at this nuclear turd, public opinion of nuclear may not end up the difference maker anyway. Energy economics has an obvious and huge impact on whether anyone tries to build new plants, and even before Fukushima there were some uncertainties about whether a new generation of, for example, UK power stations would actually get built given the governments stance that private capital should do the initial financing (although Im sure we'd still be subsidising it over the lifetime of the plant, especially the end & the spent fuel issues).

 

[laptop]

we dont exactly see hundreds of thousands of people coming out onto the streets

Experience is that people mostly come out in the streets (and the fields) when ground is broken for a new nuke - especially if it's a green-field site.

To come out earlier demands an understanding of the planning process

Fuck-off big virtual reality is the way to go for anyone who wants to mobilise earlier than that

 

[elbows]

Well in that respect the UK has tried to be clever by using existing nuclear sites as proposed locations for the new ones, also figuring that towns with existing plants understand the economic benefits to the plant (jobs).

 

[Open Sauce]

Well it hasnt taken many hours for me to conclude that the whole INES scale thing is a failure. Its been undermined by numerous forces, including the orgs that set it up and agreed to it in the first place.

The whole point of it is to try to convey information about nuclear accidents to the public in a simple and timely way. It would have been better if they could have reached this early conclusion sooner, and had not had to steadily upgrade the incident so many times, but I wouldnt go as far as to say these are fatal blows. But what has actually happened today pretty much is. What is the point of having a simple scale if you then feel the need to explain in detail why this is not the same as Chernobyl, and that only around a tenth of the radioactive shit has been released so far compared to Chernobyl?

Isn't the point of level 7 supposed to be - shit has got out in a large enough quantity that you need to monitor it's dispersal, water, food consider evacuation. The "still not as bad as Chernobyl" is just marketing / PR which the Nuclear industry has mobilised everywhere from the media to twitter - interestingly much better planned and executed that then actual dealing with the problem

Clearly there are a large number of interests that dont want this to be compared to Chernobyl. Well then you should have designed the rating system differently, Chernobyl-like levels of estimated total radiation release should be given a number like 8 or 9, leaving room for levels such as the current estimates for the Fukushima incidents to have number 7 to themselves. But as the opportunities to test how well the rating system works are limited, and most attention was probably paid to how to define the lower-level accidents, we probably shouldnt be surprised that its turned out not to meet their needs now that reality has bitten them. So now we have to be treated to a multitude of quacking droolery in the press, and various authorities bending over backwards to downplay the disaster, to talk up progress, and to go on about why Chernobyl was so very bad and incomparable to anything else.

.

Not sure whether this idiots writings have been posted on here, but reading his post, dressed up as journalism, on this has infuriated me, but his current line (well, he has finally STFU), but was how Chernobyl was not that bad - okay, he moved from the Dr Oehnan stance that there would be no leak, to the leak was small, to how current safely levels are far to cautious to Chernobyl denying.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/fukushima_scaremongering_debunk/page2.html

 

[elbows]

Yeah I read some of his earlier articles, utter disgrace, and a fine example of why I stopped reading the Register some years back. When it comes to energy they have an agenda or two and they are extremists, I havent bothered to dig any deeper than that.

From what I read the whole INES scale is really about public & international communication, experts & those responding to the crisis will be looking at the detail rather than the rating on this scale.

Apparently the government got some heat from the press regarding how long its taken for these estimates & the ratings upgrade to emerge.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85142.html

Edano defended the way the government has handled the process leading up to Tuesday's announcement, saying, ''We have repeatedly issued instructions to relevant entities to fully disclose various information.''

He also said that Japan's safety standards will not immediately change as a result of the assessment upgrading because the level was based on additional analysis of existing data.

At the same time, the chief Cabinet secretary admitted that a proper assessment could have been possible more quickly if more extensive radiation monitoring data had been collected earlier.

''I believe we would have been able to make various decisions at an earlier stage if more monitoring of radioactive materials in the areas surrounding the plant had been conducted at more locations,'' Edano said.

There was also a very good NYT story yesterday that dealt with a number of the delays, contradictions and complications of this matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html?_r=1&ref=world

The nearly monthlong delay in acknowledging the extent of these emissions is a fresh example of confused data and analysis from the Japanese, and put the authorities on the defensive about whether they have delayed or blocked the release of information to avoid alarming the public.

Seiji Shiroya, a commissioner of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent government panel that oversees the country’s nuclear industry, said that the government had delayed issuing data on the extent of the radiation releases because of concern that the margins of error had been large in initial computer models. But he also suggested a public policy reason for having kept quiet.

“Some foreigners fled the country even when there appeared to be little risk,” he said. “If we immediately decided to label the situation as Level 7, we could have triggered a panicked reaction.”

 

[elbows]

I had been wondering if strontium 90 would get a mention in relation to this disaster, and it has finally made an appearance. I highly doubt that there is a legitimate reason for the long delay in releasing this info, and I take it as further evidence of the governments negligence when it came to evacuating places to the north west of the plant.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_05.html

Radioactive strontium detected outside 30km zone
Japan's science ministry says small amounts of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil and plants outside the 30-kilometer zone around the Fukushima plant where the government has advised people to stay indoors. Strontium could cause cancer.

The ministry has been monitoring the level of radioactive substances in soil and weeds in Fukushima Prefecture.

It found 3.3 to 32 becquerels of strontium 90 per kilogram of soil in samples taken from 3 locations in Namie Town and Iitate Village, 30 kilometers from the plant.

An extremely small amount of strontium was also found in plants taken from Motomiya City, Ono Town and Otama and Nishigo Villages. The areas are 40 to 80 kilometers from the Fukushima plant.

Strontium 90 has a half-life of 29 years. It tends to accumulate in bones and could cause cancer.

The ministry says the amount found is extremely low and will not have a negative health impact even if a person ingested one kilogram of the contaminated soil.

The samples were taken between March 16 and 19.

A nuclear engineering expert says the fact that strontium was detected proves that the fuel in the reactor or the spent fuel in the pool was damaged at that point. He says a hydrogen explosion occurred at Reactor 3 around that time and the particles may have been carried by winds.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 07:52 +0900 (JST)

 

[elbows]

The other recent news seems to be that radioactive substance levels int he sea 15km from the plant have reached their highest level yet, very radioactive water from the number 2 trench has started to be pumped into storage.

And for the first time in a good while we hear something about unit 4's fuel pool:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_24.html

TEPCO also says it injected nearly 200 tons of water into the spent fuel storage pool at the No. 4 reactor early Wednesday.

It says an analysis of the water from the pool on Tuesday put the radiation level on the surface at 84 millisieverts per hour and the water temperature at around 90 degrees Celsius, higher than usual.

The company says it will try to identify radioactive substances in the water in the pool and their densities to determine whether the reactor's fuel has been damaged.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Well in that respect the UK has tried to be clever by using existing nuclear sites as proposed locations for the new ones, also figuring that towns with existing plants understand the economic benefits to the plant (jobs).

I live near an existing plant, and there are plans to build a new one. The economic situation here is so dire the Council is marketing itself as an "energy island" and is desperate for the new nuke to be built. Most people around here want it to, because of the jobs it will bring. There have been a couple of disorganised protests, but only a handful of people turned up.

 

[elbows]

Cheers for confirming the local realities of this stuff.

Meanwhile, hmm this sort of thing sounds familiar, reminds me very much of the fallout from the banking woes, captured regulators etc:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85206.html

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Wednesday he believes that former government officials taking senior posts at Tokyo Electric Power Co. is ''socially unacceptable.''

Over the years, many industry ministry officials have taken highly paid post-retirement jobs at the utility, the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Since the crisis at the plant, caused by the March 11 deadly earthquake and tsunami, many people have suspected that cozy ties between the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the power company, known as TEPCO, have prevented Japan from having strict safety control of nuclear facilities.

Edano, the top government spokesman, said at a news conference he cannot overlook that such mistrust is growing among the public, even if close ties between the ministry and the company are not affecting nuclear safety management.

Most recently, Toru Ishida, a former head of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which is under the wing of the ministry and plays a pivotal role in formulating nuclear policies in Japan, became a senior adviser to the utility in January.

Ishida's case is widely seen as so-called ''amakudari'' -- a practice in which Japanese senior bureaucrats retire to highly paid posts at government-affiliated bodies or private-sector firms related to their former areas of supervision.

Edano said, ''Regardless of whether his case is amakudari from a legal standpoint, I believe it should not be accepted socially.''

Edano said the government will do all it can to block officials of the ministry from taking jobs at TEPCO or other power companies.

 

[elbows]

Now then, rather understandably people have been trying to figure out for themselves the state of certain facilities using the various photos and videos available. Specifically the spent fuel pool at unit 4, and both the fuel pool and reactor of unit 3. Given the differences between the explosions at units 1 & 3, I think some people think that reactor 3 may have exploded. Personally I find the image quality too poor to perform much sensible analysis, but that doesnt stop people trying:

http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/fukushima.html

I would not take everything on that site at face value, but some of it, especially fuel pools, seems reasonable enough. And there are some useful blueprints on one of the pages. But I think there is far too much debris over reactor 3 to be able to ascertain what may have happened to the reactor & containment there. It would not shock me if it later emerges that reactor 3 went boom, as the explosion was certainly 'interesting', but on the other hand I would have thought that radiation levels would be worse if the main containment had exploded in such a dramatic fashion.

 

[elbows]

Following on from the story earlier where we got to hear about the unit 4 spent fuel pool for the first time in a while, theres more:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85295.html

Some of the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in the No. 4 reactor building of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi power plant were confirmed to be damaged, but most of them are believed to be in sound condition, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.

The firm known as TEPCO said its analysis of a 400-milliliter water sample taken Tuesday from the No. 4 unit's spent nuclear fuel pool revealed the damage to some fuel rods in such a pool for the first time, as it detected higher-than-usual levels of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137.

According to TEPCO, radioactive iodine-131 amounting to 220 becquerels per cubic centimeter, cesium-134 of 88 becquerels and cesium-137 of 93 becquerels were detected in the pool water. Those substances are generated by nuclear fission.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the confirmed radioactive materials were up to 100,000 times higher than normal but that the higher readings may have also been caused by the pouring of rainwater containing much radioactivity or particles of radiation-emitting rubble in the pool

TEPCO said the fuel rods may have also been damaged by steel frames that fell into the pool in addition to overheating caused by the loss of cooling functions after the twin disasters.

The utility plans to examine the condition of the plant's reactor buildings by deploying a small unmanned helicopter to see whether it is possible to extract spent fuel from pools.

The nuclear agency said now that the condition of the No. 4 unit pool is partially known, workers can better prepare for recovery works there.

There is other stuff in the article about TEPCO being ordered to check if various buildings are still earthquake-proof, radiation doses that workers have received, and the continuing work to move water around.

As I am not an expert I shall wait until there are further press stories, official documents in english, and a variety of comments from people on a few internet sites before I attempt any analysis of this latest info about unit 4's pool. Uncontained fission in the pool would be worth shouting about, but Im not going to make the mistake of being sure thats what this news strongly suggests, when it might not be. Although as this possibility was discussed back when the unit 4 pool was in the news a lot due to explosion and fire, it would not be shocking to now get confirmation that it happened.

 

[story]

Could you outline what "uncontained fission" means please elbows or laptop, so that when we find that it hasn't happened we can all be terribly pleased.




Had a look at this, v v but not sure I'm understanding it properly...

http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com/2011/03/few-bothersome-facts.html

 

[elbows]

Well fission is whats supposed to happen inside a normal reactor, behind multiple levels of containment (concrete and steel). If it happened in the fuel pool then that would be bad because there is not much containment around the fuel pool, only the outer building which due to the explosions is barely a building at all.

At the time unit 4's pool went wrong and there was an explosion, it was TEPCO themselves who mentioned that the possibility of recriticality was not zero, although many people scratched their heads as to why they would say this, as the chances of it happenening seemed rather small and why would the company want to hype up this possibility?

At the end of the day what matters to the people at large is how much radiation escaped, where it went and hwo long it will last. The exact detail of what happened to unit 4 may not necessarily help to clarify these things completely, although it would probably help them to estimate what was released into the atmosphere from unit 4 pool, and certainly matters to their plans for how to deal with the pool going forwards.

I still havent learnt enough about the data released today to make any claims about fission. I would think that there would be some fission products in the used fuel, left over from when it was doing its thing inside a reactor, so fission does not need to have occurred in the pool in order to explain the presence of these substances, they were already in the fuel and just leaked out when it got damaged. However, if some of the detected substances have a short half-life then I dont know why they would still be in the pool now. Then again I dont know when they took the water sample, and my knowledge about this stuff really isnt good enough to be trying to be tryingto do this sort of thinking just yet, but oops I couldnt resist a little speculation.

 

[elbows]

OK so the article says the sample was taken on Tuesday,and iodine-131 is one of the substances mentioned,and that has a half-life of 8 days. Even so I suspect I am still missing a few details before I can draw a conclusion from this, there remains great danger that present tempting conclusions will be wrong due to ignorance.

 

[story]

Oh so uncontained fission means... uncontained fission.

For some reason I thought it was some kind of jargon for a specific kind of nuclear reaction.

 

[stuff_it]

Through complete chance I have found out that Nissan is currently looking for 'as many corporate lets' as they can find in the Milton Keynes area for 3 year minimum term lets, they want stuff that is available 'immediately', as many as possible. No idea if this is happening in other areas that are an easy commute to London or any of their EU factories/major cities. Any chance they are helping their execs do a runner? and

(Head office is in Yokohama, not far from Tokyo or the coast- I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be living there if I had the option of going somewhere else)

 

[elbows]

I've no way to know about that, though it is very interesting, and depressing.

I havent learnt much more about the unit 4 stuff yet, except that the reported levels of radioactive substances seem very low compared to the water found in turbine basements, and measurements really close to the sea outlet pipes. The relatively low levels may well be what they've used to conclude that some but not much of the fuel has been damaged. So maybe its good news. Or maybe the water leaks out of the pool, and/or a lot of this material escapes in the steam, and this makes the numbers from the sample misleadingly low.

 

[stuff_it]

It is only through fluke that I found out, the sources are reliable and from two different rental agencies.

 

[Fuchs66]

The BBC are shit at covering this story. From the article you mention:

Quite, they seem to have people reporting on this who have absolutely no idea about even the basic concepts involved.

No BBC, in no way is the 630,000 terabequerels figure 'per hour'. 630,000 terabequerels is the estimated TOTAL release, the high hourly releases have actually been estimated around the 10,000 per hour mark.

Well seeing as 1 Becquerel, as a measure of activity, is 1 Decay per second, bequerels 'per hour' would be "decays per second per hour"! Does not compute!

 

[elbows]

Will you get any opportunity to follow up on the story at some future point?

Now then, what else has been in the news in recent days that I've forgotten to mention here? Well they are concerned that the containment at unit 1 may be damaged, because since they have been injecting nitrogen the pressure has not risen as much as they think it should of.

I also read a dodgy computer translation of a Japanese info update that sounded a bit like it was discussing someone falling into the sea when getting on or off a barge on April 1st. But I wont know for sure unless a proper english translation comes out or the media pick up on this.

 

[elbows]

Well seeing as 1 Becquerel, as a measure of activity, is 1 Decay per second, bequerels 'per hour' would be "decays per second per hour"! Does not compute!

Even though becquerels are based on a rate of radiation emission per second, they are used to describe a quantity of radiation/radioactive substance. So I dont think there is anything wrong with then talking about how many becquerels per hour have been released during an accident. My gripe with the BBC was that the 630,000 figure was an estimate for the total release of material over the entire course of the disaster, not how much they think was released in just one hour at the height of the woes. But the total figure still includes a time period too, its just a very large number of hours rather than just one, so your 'does not compute' would still apply to the grand total as well as the hourly rate, so you'll have to recompute the concept of a becquerel in order for any data given in this unit to make any sense to you?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

(Head office is in Yokohama, not far from Tokyo or the coast- I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be living there if I had the option of going somewhere else)

Not even if thats where you had grown up, where your family and all your friends lived, and day to day life was continuing as normal. I don't think Yokohama is in any immediate threat, I'm not sure Tokyo is all that worried either for that matter. Yokohama barely felt the big quake.

Anyway I suppose it's the long term that is the worry. The flight back to the UK was made up of two flights and still half empty (the flight over was made of four flights and fairly full).

 

[Dr Jon]

Just spotted this powerpoint presentation Anatomy of a Tragedy: Fukushima Dai-Ichi which is a good animated explanation.

 

[elbows]

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano tastes a tomato produced in Iwaki city, Fukushima prefecture, during an event to help selling farm products which are approved safe to eat by the government's radiation test

Well at least he didnt feed it to his daughter for the cameras. Although having said that....

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110412a9.html

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano flatly denied rumors Monday that he sent his family abroad to protect them from radiation exposure when workers began to battle the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis.

According to Internet rumors, Edano told a news conference last week that his wife and twin sons in kindergarten were "on a trip" overseas. But no such comments were made to the press, and Edano brushed off what was termed hearsay at a news conference Monday morning, saying his family has been in Tokyo or in his electoral district in Saitama Prefecture.

"Ever since the earthquake, my family has either been in the lodging for Diet members in Tokyo or in Omiya for the local election. They have not been anywhere else at all," Edano said.

The top government spokesman has spent the last few weeks reporting to the public on the radiation hitting the environment, food and water and generally issuing assurances that is poses "no immediate health risk." But the rumor triggered angry suspicions he was telling the public one thing and his family another.

Edano said he has also been telling his family exactly the same thing.

"I have not been telling the people of Japan and those in Tokyo that there is something for them to be worried about and that goes for my family as well," Edano said.

He also pointed out that his wife had been instructed by his children's kindergarten teacher to bring drinking water in thermos bottles, but he told her that was unnecessary. "If they need to bring water in a thermos, tap water is fine," he said he told his wife.

 

[elbows]

The failure on multiple levels of the public relations/disaster information & evacuation approach taken by the Japanese government is taking its toll:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85377.html

'We are looking into how we can properly convey the information (to evacuees),'' Edano, the top government spokesman, told a news conference. ''As communication (between the central and local governments) has not been sufficient, we need to take this seriously.''

Kenichi Matsumoto, a renowned writer who serves as a special adviser to the Cabinet, sparked the controversy during a conversation with reporters Wednesday after his meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, quoting the premier as having said people evacuated from homes near the plant would be unable to return to their hometowns ''for 10 or 20 years.''

Matsumoto later retracted his remark, while Kan himself told reporters that day, ''I did not say that.''

While Edano backed the premier's account, he apologized that the incident ''as a result gave cause for worry'' to evacuees and stressed that the central government, for its part, will tell the concerned communities that no such remark was made.

He urged people meeting the premier to be careful in explaining what the premier had told them to avoid misunderstandings.

 

[elbows]

Its looking like the big fears that the amount of very radioactive water they are trying to deal with at unit 2 is just going to keep on growing, are coming true:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85401.html

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. pumped out about 660 tons of highly radioactive water Tuesday and Wednesday from one of the trenches to a ''condenser'' inside the nearby No. 2 reactor turbine building, where in normal operations steam from the reactor is converted into water.

But the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the water level at the vertical part of the trench as of 7 a.m. Thursday had increased by about 3.5 centimeters from the level observed at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The level of the water is 2.5 centimeters lower than just before the water-transferring mission started.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, the agency's spokesman, said that the rise in the water level is likely linked to the continued injection of water injection into the No. 2 reactor core, which is necessary to prevent the nuclear fuel inside from overheating.

''As there is believed to be around 20,000 tons of water (in the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the trench connected to it), we feel the difficulty of lowering the level of the water in a stable manner,'' he said.

Tokyo Electric, known as TEPCO, is preparing to transfer more of the highly radioactive water into a facility for nuclear waste disposal in the plant, which can accommodate 30,000 tons of liquid.

The water in and around the No. 2 reactor turbine building is believed to contain higher concentrations of radioactive substances than other contaminated water found at the site, and is believed to originate from the No. 2 reactor's core, where fuel rods have partially melted.

They had previously expressed concern that this would be the case, and its a real tricky one that threatens their whole approach to how they deal with the site in the months ahead. They need to cool the reactor, but some of the cooling water comes back out and has to go somewhere. Given the length of time they will need to maintain cooling, and the difficulty of getting anywhere near the actual reactor core, they will have a serious dilemma on their hands.

 

[Fuchs66]

Even though becquerels are based on a rate of radiation emission per second, they are used to describe a quantity of radiation/radioactive substance. So I dont think there is anything wrong with then talking about how many becquerels per hour have been released during an accident. My gripe with the BBC was that the 630,000 figure was an estimate for the total release of material over the entire course of the disaster, not how much they think was released in just one hour at the height of the woes. But the total figure still includes a time period too, its just a very large number of hours rather than just one, so your 'does not compute' would still apply to the grand total as well as the hourly rate, so you'll have to recompute the concept of a becquerel in order for any data given in this unit to make any sense to you?

I know what you meant but activity is a "snapshot" at one particular time and not a good method of estimating the total release. Better would be to give the mass of isotopes released and an estimated initial activity.

You wouldnt say that you drove a distance of 50 miles per hour per hour would you?

E2A Furthermore activity alone is not very useful unless the isotope and/or type and energy of radiation produced is given.

 

[mincepie]

Its looking like the big fears that the amount of very radioactive water they are trying to deal with at unit 2 is just going to keep on growing, are coming true:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85401.html



They had previously expressed concern that this would be the case, and its a real tricky one that threatens their whole approach to how they deal with the site in the months ahead. They need to cool the reactor, but some of the cooling water comes back out and has to go somewhere. Given the length of time they will need to maintain cooling, and the difficulty of getting anywhere near the actual reactor core, they will have a serious dilemma on their hands.

I can see this ending up in the sea
Simply as there is too much water to do anything else with it.

 

[xes]

http://blog.imva.info/medicine/exposure-levels

Exposure levels going up everywhere

“Radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors, the situation is not stable at all, radiation continues to leak,” says Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and top graduate of Harvard. “We are looking at a ticking timebomb. It appears stable but the slightest disturbance, a secondary earthquake, a pipe break, evacuation of the crew at Fukishima could set off a full scale melt down at three nuclear power stations–far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.”

How secure should we feel about the evolving situation? Dr. Kaku couldn’t make it any more frank when he said, “Fukushima is about as stable as "hanging by your fingernails off a cliff, and they’re beginning to break one by one."