Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
ZeroHedge weighed in last week with a few observations. Some clear diagrams too.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
- Thread starter Barking_Mad
- Start date
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Warning that foundations of Fukushima reactor chambers have been “compromised” — Groundwater rising fast, now just 10 inches from surface
http://enenews.com/warning-that-fou...rground-water-now-just-10-inches-from-surface
http://enenews.com/warning-that-fou...rground-water-now-just-10-inches-from-surface
elbows
Well-Known Member
enenews sometimes point to articles of interest but they are hysterical shits who specialise in scaremongering headlines that cherry pick the worst possible sentences out of stuff.
Thats not to say that some of the issues being worried about are utterly invalid, but that site should only be consumed as part of a balanced diet.
Thats not to say that some of the issues being worried about are utterly invalid, but that site should only be consumed as part of a balanced diet.
captain acab
page 303 boy
to be honest, radioactive water escaping into the sea is a fairly minor concern - it gets diluted down below background levels rather quickly, and Cs137 (the main isotope of concern here) doesn't bioaccumulate terribly much in marine life due to high dissolved potassium levels. groundwater contamination possibly getting into water supplies is more worrying.
i generally find the focus of the media on the nuclear issue while giving no attention to the close on 20,000 deaths, ongoing homelessness and suchlike rather distasteful. it's as though that vast human catastrophe is being somewhat erased.
i generally find the focus of the media on the nuclear issue while giving no attention to the close on 20,000 deaths, ongoing homelessness and suchlike rather distasteful. it's as though that vast human catastrophe is being somewhat erased.
Whole page saying this in this week's New Scientist, based on a passing comment from me that "dilution will do the trick"
I have little knowledge of these things, so for all I know this could be right, but it strikes me as suspicious. Does dispersal work like that? Nuclear contamination is resistant to simple washing isn't it? My impression was that this radioactivity embeds itself wherever it gets dumped and lingers for millennia.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The talk of dilution is in response to scare-stories about the whole Pacific being ruined by the leaks, or of very dangerous levels of radiation making their way to places like the US. You wouldn't want to go for a swim near the Fukushima plant or eat fish that had been living in the area. Attention will be paid to whether concentrations of radioactive substances will build up in certain species as a result of the food chain or feeding habits (e.g. eating stuff from the sea-bed). As for how long it lasts, it depends on the substances in question. For example Caesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Regarding todays headline Fukushima story mentioned earlier, the following disgrace is actually fairly typical of the sort of efficiency shown when taking radiation measurements since the early days of the disaster:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23918882
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23918882
so after thirty years it will be half as dangerous? Is that all there is among the contaminants?
elbows
Well-Known Member
After 30 years there will be half as much of it. Its not the only substance in the water that is leaking, but its one of the more notable ones for a number of reasons. The biological half-life is how long it takes for the amount in the body of a creature unlucky enough to consume some to halve, e.g. by excreting some.
Very probably that would be a less sensitive device, if it reads higher levels!
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Fukushima leaks: Japan pledges $470m for 'ice wall'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23940214
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23940214
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
Maybe this whole thing is a stroke of luck for pacific sea life. .. nothing like a bit of ceasium to keep the fishermen away, and in a few years time there's a chance of enormous glowing Kraken occurring. Soon the whole of the Pacific will be too hot to overfish. Or fish.
This doesn't add up. If they have been storing 400 tonnes a day where is it all? The site isn't big enough to contain tanks anywhere near to the volume required.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
These are big tanks and there are a 1000 plus on site but yes the mind boggles at the volumes. "The Fukushima site now has more than 338,000 metric tons of water stored in more than 1,000 tanks, with additional water remaining untreated in reactor basements and service tunnels." http://goo.gl/KpbJyq
What happens to the tanks if/when they get another earthquake?
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elbows
Well-Known Member
There are lots of things that can go badly wrong on site if a sufficiently powerful earthquake hits the right spot. The chances of that happening is not insanely high so I guess they are just going to take the risk.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The main cynicism about TEPCO and water is slightly less dramatic than this. Before the present round of water-related fears & headlines, TEPCO & the government were facing some protests about plans to release the 'not very contaminated' ground water into the ocean. Since this water is way less contaminated than the stuff in the tanks and some of the other stuff thats leaking into the sea after mixing with groundwater, some think that eventually they will get the go ahead to release the groundwater into the sea because it is by far the lesser of two evils.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The BBC do mess up some details and confuse different things sometimes so I'll be double checking these facts. There is certainly no doubt that they have water storage capacity problems though, its just the exact extent that could be questioned.
If via plans such as freezing the ground around the reactors, they manage to keep the bulk of the groundwater that flows through the site separated from the water that is being deliberately used in the reactor cooling systems, they will somewhat reduce the burden of highly contaminated water. Better water decontamination systems could also contribute to managing the issue, but right now even the water tarts been processed by things like the caesium absorption systems remains too radioactive to deliberately release or even store in a way that isn't hampered by high-radiation levels.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Based on a little bit of research the 400 tonnes a day is about right. A lot of their future hopes are probably pinned on another water decontamination system that is presently out of order due to corrosion.
Basically at the moment they have a system that removes most of the caesium from the water, and then they are storing it in those tanks. Removing the caesium mostly takes care of the gamma radiation. That leaves a variety of substances which emit beta radiation. The system which is presently out of order is supposed to remove most of these, leaving only tritium. Since nuclear power stations are allowed to deposit a lot of tritium-laced water under normal circumstances, I guess the longer-term hope would be that they be allowed to release this water into the ocean one day.
Combine that with any success they have at reducing the mixing of groundwater with the cooling water/basement water and I suppose thats how they've retained any hope of managing the water storage issues.
Basically at the moment they have a system that removes most of the caesium from the water, and then they are storing it in those tanks. Removing the caesium mostly takes care of the gamma radiation. That leaves a variety of substances which emit beta radiation. The system which is presently out of order is supposed to remove most of these, leaving only tritium. Since nuclear power stations are allowed to deposit a lot of tritium-laced water under normal circumstances, I guess the longer-term hope would be that they be allowed to release this water into the ocean one day.
Combine that with any success they have at reducing the mixing of groundwater with the cooling water/basement water and I suppose thats how they've retained any hope of managing the water storage issues.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't exactly say its getting worse based on that story from September 10th. More a case of Tepco gradually admitting what people already anticipated when the tank leaking stories first emerged.
Don't get me wrong, part of the reason I say this stuff if because TEPCOs handling of the disaster has sucked all the way along. But also because I tire of things that don't keep a sense of proportion to the original magnitude of the disaster (e.g. the original land & sea contamination are in a different world to any of the problems of subsequent years, so far at least).
And also because a lot of the journalism tries to play the usual trick of bringing a sense of immediacy to every problem, only for there to be no real dramatic followup in subsequent days. For example the way the rising groundwater levels were talked about as if it was a nightmare race against time with high chances of doom-ridden followups. What actually happened? Fell straight off the press radar and we moved on to these leaky tanks instead. Even the reporting of radiation levels around the tanks by mainstream press was iffy, since they talked about the >1 Sievert levels with quotes about this level 'killing in hours' but neglected to notice that these were beta emissions, not gamma ones, making a mockery of these oversimplified death stats.
Don't get me wrong, part of the reason I say this stuff if because TEPCOs handling of the disaster has sucked all the way along. But also because I tire of things that don't keep a sense of proportion to the original magnitude of the disaster (e.g. the original land & sea contamination are in a different world to any of the problems of subsequent years, so far at least).
And also because a lot of the journalism tries to play the usual trick of bringing a sense of immediacy to every problem, only for there to be no real dramatic followup in subsequent days. For example the way the rising groundwater levels were talked about as if it was a nightmare race against time with high chances of doom-ridden followups. What actually happened? Fell straight off the press radar and we moved on to these leaky tanks instead. Even the reporting of radiation levels around the tanks by mainstream press was iffy, since they talked about the >1 Sievert levels with quotes about this level 'killing in hours' but neglected to notice that these were beta emissions, not gamma ones, making a mockery of these oversimplified death stats.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Anyways much more recently a typhoon dumped rather a lot of rainwater at the Fukushima plant. This caused them to dump some water that wasn't very contaminated into the ground, although a slow pump-start at one location means some more heavily contaminated water got out. All this rainwater may also affect their ability to compare measurements to previous ones, since some stuff that leaked from the tanks previously may have gotten flushed more rapidly towards the sea. I think they had problem with some sandbags in a drainage ditch near to the leaky tanks being overwhelmed by all the rainwater, and they had to put them back into position after noting they had been washed away.
In any case I still think all these stories about tank leaks etc are mostly good for bringing to peoples attention the perilous state of water-storage at the site, rather than the pollution caused by the leaks involved being particularly significant. Under normal circumstances at a nuclear plant the amounts in question would be notable but compared to the overall magnitude of original pollution from the disaster I don't get too excited about them.
In any case I still think all these stories about tank leaks etc are mostly good for bringing to peoples attention the perilous state of water-storage at the site, rather than the pollution caused by the leaks involved being particularly significant. Under normal circumstances at a nuclear plant the amounts in question would be notable but compared to the overall magnitude of original pollution from the disaster I don't get too excited about them.
Tankus
Amused OAP
There's no way they can be storing all the groundwater runoff from a typhoon
There must be shitloads of contaminates heading for the ocean not just from the site but from surface wash near to the plant in the heavy fallout areas .
if they don't monitor it , then its not there!!!
This from last week
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-prefectures-on-radiation-fears/#.UjkZt5BwYiF
There must be shitloads of contaminates heading for the ocean not just from the site but from surface wash near to the plant in the heavy fallout areas .
if they don't monitor it , then its not there!!!
This from last week
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-prefectures-on-radiation-fears/#.UjkZt5BwYiF
elbows
Well-Known Member
They aren't storing groundwater from the site full stop. Well the stuff that enters building basements and mixes with the highly contaminated water gets stored, and some of the stuff they are now pumping out of the ground does too, but the former is only because they can't yet stop the two mixing and the latter is only a recent thing. So yes, a lot of the typhoon rainwater, and water from previous typhoons, has made its way into the sea. I don't think anyone is pretending this isn't happening, but there isn't much they can do about it, especially further away from the plant. Monitoring it won't be that easy either, they do monitor the sea around the plant but a lot of the numbers aren't very interesting due to dilution etc. As I keep saying, its hard to jump up and down about these numbers when we compare it to the contaminated water that went into the sea in the first month or 3 after the meltdowns. And the Japanese attitude towards food & land contamination is often messed up, with an emphasis on attacking what are described as 'baseless rumours' and exporting products to other regions or countries, often as part of PR campaigns that make me angry.
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