Posted on 03/17/2011 11:01:03 AM PDT by socialism_stinX
“According to that animation California is already glowing!”
California (parts of it) has been glowing since at least 1967 and the suummer of love.
It’s the continual uncontrolled releases of contaminated steam, contaminated with radioactive particles, that will add up overtime unless they are controlled.
Everything that comes in contact with the area will be contaminated and have to be dealt with as nuclear waste i.e. garden hose, cables, generators, water, saltwater, firetrucks, etc.
I watched three nuke experts interviewed, one domestic and two aboard, and none of them could believe or understand why the spent fuel rods were/are stored on top of the reactors. One guess was that it was a cost saving measure for the operator. There is absolutely no containment possible with exposed spent fuel rods after the water is gone esp. if during an explosion they are ejected throughout the plant.
Obviously, some of the reactors are non-functional due to damage so electrical power is not going to help. Cooling down the waste is the only goal so it can be safely handled and contained and accomplishing that aim is a monumental task at this point.
Not surprising.
I'm sorry, but I don't quite know how to simplify it any more.
“And we can detect minuscule amounts of radiation that are completely negligible in the grand scheme of things. No one has said anything about that in those reports, from what I have seen.”
I can tell you that regulations follow the detector sensitivity. For example if compound X is toxic and they have a sensor that can detect 1/1000 of a gram, they set the allowable amount at 1/1000 of a gram. Then someone invents a sensor that detects 1/1000000 of a gram, the regulatory agencys will reduce the acceptable limit to 1/1000000 of a gram.
Actually I’ve been following NHK and live translating the whole affair since it began on justin.tv, and I can definitively say that TEPCO and the government have done a decent job explaining what is happening (revealing radiation levels/containment unit pressures/etc.).
The problem has been “experts” who are against nuclear energy screaming from the hilltops that we’re all going to die. The American press is ignoring the honest, yet “bland” information coming out of Japan and jumping immediately on information that shocks and stirs emotions.
Example (March 15th):
NHK - “We gave the workers 45 minutes time away from the plants so that they could get some rest.”
Drudgereport and other outlets: “NUCLEAR WORKERS EVACUATED”
I kid you not. It’s silly.
It has been proven that low levels of radiation (3-5 times typical) reduces the risk of cancer and cancer deaths, by 30%-97%, depending on the type of cancer studied.
The most dramatic was a large-scale study of building materials that had a large amount of radioactivity. The expected number of cancers was around 240. The actual number was 7, a decrease of 97%.
ooh, the animation indicates that there are radiation levels measured in “arbitrary units” heading our way.
It is true that there is no threshold level for safe radiation exposure. There is no level guaranteed safe...going out in the sun and getting one shot can give you skin cancer. Other people are exposed to large amounts with no obvious deleterious health effect.
To be honest, without looking at the mechanics of a study, how it was done, who did the study, etc. I would not buy into anything is proven. We have seen a lot of “proven facts” in science that have been anything but.
In reality, radiation and its effects on living organisms is one of the most extensively studied phenonmenon EVER, with a huge body to support current radiation safety standards. I remain skeptical of anything that has come out in the last twenty years. This is the damaging legacy of global warming “science” in my opinion.
Wow, are you sure you can’t get one more What If outta a lack of facts?
“to harebrained schemes (such as nuking the site to protect us all, as advanced right here on FR)”
I wish you were joking
I wish I were too, but I will say, I did have kind of a nervous giggle when I read it and thought “Holy smokes, this guy is serious, and nobody is calling him out on it! Some people are even discussing it!”
Bless your heart, so does ranting on in systematic fearmongering about something about which one is entirely ignorant.
Great. Another condescending I`m-smarter-than-you know it all.
FWIW, those of us who work around radioactivity joke about how much less energetic and more unhealthy we feel when we haven’t been exposed for a while...maybe there is more to it than we think...:)
Hooking up electrical systems and mechanical pumps etal is a core competency of these guys. If they have power, it will take a few days, but by Monday this will start to fall off the front page. When the chance of a meltdown diminishes, the MSM will lose interest in a hurry.
I hope so.
schu
All good questions and in the absence of equally good answers one has to suspect there aren’t any good answers and that the truth is ... additional generators would not have done any good, though I wondered from the outset why they were not airlifted in VERY early if they would have done anything good.
Obastard doesn’t care about relations or the truth, only his smarmy agenda.
that animation is so reminiscent of the oil spill forecast last spring!
AMEN!
THe media has proven time and again that if THEY are not kept briefed every 5 minutes by those in the know, they WILL MAKE UP $HIT and report it as fact!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.