Nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html ^

[Scythian]

The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens

'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'

[gleeaikin]

Here is an AOL News report regarding the Japanese government’s admissions. They acknowledge that while they immediately accepted help on the tsunami (unlike our government on Katrina), they were slow to accept help with the nuclear. Concerning radioactivity fears in the US, one report I heard about this danger pointed out that the granite and marble countertops people put in their houses have slightly elevated levels of radiation. Hopefully rain will wash it out of the air over the Pacific. Meanwhile for a while only eat low on the food chain fish. This is a long article with 500 photos.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/18/japan-raises-severity-of-nuclear-accident-now-on-par-with-three/?ncid=webmail

[geologist]

One thing to consider is the difference in cultures, with the Japanese thy are concerned about honor and face. Do nothing to lose face. Act in honorable fashion for their family.

Japanese do think differently, especially on the world stage. It is rather an unknown catastrophes. Supposedly according too our engineers and scientist, the Japanese people are being told less than the truth. Their is more danger and lethal levels than the people are being told.

Pray for the people of Japan during this devastating time.

[9YearLurker]

It strikes me as if Palin has a good realist’s understanding of how to deal with these energy companies, which is that you’ve got to have and encourage them but keep right on top of them with forceful regulatory oversight. The risk/reward profile of their business makes it a moral hazard for management to be left unchecked.

[mad_as_he$$]

I believe it is Unit 3 that the containment is breached in. Based upon their actions and not refilling the core with seawater it seems logical that it is the problem one. Yes, it reportedly has MOX fuel.

[mad_as_he$$]

I believe the upgrade to 9.0 made it the fifth biggest.

[sima_yi]

In addition, keep in mind that there were 55 operational nuclear power plants in Japan, and that after a Richter 9.0 earthquake and a 10 meter tsunami, only one is in trouble. This is not to minimize the seriousness of the problems at Fukushima Daiichi, but that is an impressive safety record.

[Joya]

Thanks.

Ping.

[Uncle Miltie]

Dead is perfectly bad, so I never mean to say that any death of an innocent is to be wiped away as meaningless. Death is perfectly the worst possible thing.

But more dead is worse than fewer dead. And people, especially leftists, only want to focus on the dead who serve their political cause. The few who will die of radiation poisoning will get 100X the coverage of the 20,000 who are ALREADY DEAD due to Gaia.

For example, while in my Jewish Community the Holocaust is massive and perfectly evil, my fellow Jews are often unwilling to heap the same blame on Communism, which killed far more people than Hitler ever dreamed of. Mainly, because most Jews are leftists, and a hundred million murdered in the cause of leftism is far less worrisome to them than 6 million dead in the camps.

Let’s keep proportion, people!

[Tarantulas]

The half life of Iodine-131 is 8 days, so it would be at about half of its initial strength after 8 days. It has had a few days to decay anyway, since the earthquake occurred on March 11. And if it’s coming from the spent fuel pool, then it has had more time to decay, since whenever it was originally removed from the core. Iodine-131 goes right to the thyroid gland, and it’s a beta emitter, so it does localized damage if it gets in there. If you take potassium iodide and “fill up” the thyroid so it can’t store any more Iodine, then the radioactive Iodine can’t get in. KI has side effects, though, so it’s not to be taken unless necessary.

Cesium-137 is another important fission product with a half life of 30 years. It is water soluble. I would think that since the release is occurring at a fairly low level, nothing will be able to get into the upper atmosphere/jet stream, so the dispersal wouldn’t be as severe as Chernobyl or an above-ground nuclear test. But I’m not a meteorologist, just a guy who knows something about radiation.

[D-fendr]

Thanks very much for your post, very helpful.

[a real Sheila]

I have a feeling obama won’t return to the U.s. for several weeks, instead jetting here and there, as far away from the radiation which he claims “is no danger to the U.S.”

[Eyes Unclouded]

It isn’t 20/20 hindsight to tell the Japanese that every few centuries they get a quake on this scale. Also it isn’t hindsight to tell them that the bigger the quake is out at sea the bigger the resulting tsunami will be.

It is poor planning to just hope your plant is built, run, decommissioned, and replaced with a newer plant all before a big quake hits. Ok fine, I understand that they did the numbers and figured that they should build it for a certain level of quake. I’m very happy to see the plant did far better than anticipated. I understand you can’t plan against every possible disaster even if you have the right kind of challenge in mind (wtc towers could have survived smaller jet planes for example).

Sometimes you don’t even know you have a hole in your defenses, but when you do there is no excuse for not having a plan ready to go. In New Orelans people were told that should a storm much bigger than the ones they had been getting hit the city disaster will result. They did nothing and didn’t even plan for that event and we all know how that turned out.

Someone at some point somewhere in the Japanese governemnt, IAEA, TEPCO, or somewhere else even must have asked “What would happen if Fukushima got hit with a quake much bigger than anticipated and the ensuing tsunami?”. Someone else must have said either “We don’t think that is possible”, when scientifically it is inevitable, or that “we just hope such a quake never hits while Fukushima is running”.

It is very inspiring to see the Japanese respond and improvise to this situation but you can’t tell me that they didn’t know this would happen one day. This phenomena isn’t specific to the Japanese by any means. Look globally about the a future asteroid impact Earth will have. Right now the thinking is basically “we hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon” and as long as it doesn’t we are good to go. Should it be discoverd that there will be an impact of significance in a few months time what could be done?

[4woodenboats]

Our country needs comforting from the nuclear disaster, regardless of whether a single rad makes the 5000 mile trek here or not.

There's only one hero that could allay all of our fears, but he has retired to the Peanut Farm, so we have The Emperor Noclothes to follow Jimmah's example of visiting the control rooms of each and every stricken reactor, and stay there until the danger has passed ~

passed like a 3 year old intestinal blockage ~

passed so he'd have someone besides a roomfull of teleprompters to keep him company, and no one would do like Mr. Hanky does.

Mr. Hanky.

For our own POS, no one else could pass like he do.

[Frantzie]

I agree that the media - I watch no TV as it is all s***t - is going mental. On the other hand this is no small or minor deal. If the reactor with MOX fuel has been breached then it is not good.

Why have a Dept of Energy or a Intl Atomic Energy Commission when you don’t have a swayt team of experts ready to fly out generators to keep cooling pumps running. They spend more money on luncheons. Idiots.

This is another crisis that someone is exploiting and the Japanese eff’ed up too.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Why have a Dept of Energy or a Intl Atomic Energy Commission when you don’t have a swayt team of experts ready to fly out generators to keep cooling pumps running.

The problem isn't the lack of generators. It's that the underground switching room where you connect the generators to the cooling system was flooded out and apparently destroyed.

[American Quilter]

A couple of years ago I watched a speculative show titled, “Life After People,” which was intended to show (though of course this was not stated) how much better off the planet would be without us. It began with a day after all humans had (inexplicably) vanished, then a week, a month, a year, etc. For the “20 years later” segment, the camera crew went to a town close to Chernobyl to document what a previously inhabited town would look like 20 years after all the people had left. In and amongst their observations about the disintegration of the roads, buildings, etc., were a few surprised murmurs about the thriving flora and fauna, and much-lower-than-expected radiation levels, which made it possible for the crew to film safely.

Remember all the statements at the time of the Chernobyl incident about how the area would be uninhabitable for 10,000 years? Apparently today, 25 years later, people could move back and live there without risk of radiation poisoning.

[chimera]

If the reactor with MOX fuel has been breached then it is not good.

MOX fuel is being used as a bogeyman to scare people. First, it is only about 7% Pu when fabricated. Almost all of that Pu is burned up during the fuel cycle. You end up with about as much Pu as you would with ordinary uranium oxide fuel at the end of a fuel cycle.

Fuel type isn't terribly important in the source term for a LWR accident. Fission product spectrum is. Why? Because that is what is released in a fuel damage event. The fuel particles themselves lack the stored energy necessary to drive them out into the environment. Cladding damage releases noble gases which are chemically non-reactive, and volatile elements like iodine, cesium, and some strontium. The fission product spectrum for MOX fuel is essentially identical to that of ordinary uranium oxide fuel. So the source terms are essentially equal.

[chimera]

People said the same thing about Nagasaki. Today everyone is freaked about a few attograms of Pu being released in this accident, but they forget that kilograms of plutonium were vaporized over Nagasaki in 1945, being blown hither and yon by the four winds. But the place isn't looking too bad today, hardly a "wasteland":

[Frantzie]

No I understand. The old generators were screwed. I would have hoped they could have fugure a way to wire up some aux gas turbine generators to keep the pumps running or recharge the back up batteries. I know it would not be easy but we are seeing the alternative play out.

GE said they had them ready to go
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/gas_turbines_cc/en/index.htm

Caterpillar has them at up to at least 2000 KW. Onan up to 6000 KW.

The US Military has gas turbines and big diesel generators.

[Marine_Uncle]

To put things into perspective. Uranium is distributed in a lot of upper crust formations. One only has to look at the levels of radioactive emission that takes place in say towns north west of Philadelphia, say Boyertown and neighboring towns only twenty miles away from this huge east coast city.
I used to own Geological Survey maps that showed the bands in this area. People in those areas many years back where told to have their homes checked for Radon. A naturally emitted radioactive gas coming out of the ground in that area. In fact new homes even as far north as Allentown area some twenty, thirty miles north of that where required to have the homes tested, as well as homes being sold in general.
High incidents of various forms of cancer have long been known to occur in the Boyertown area.
Yes. The natural decay of uranium within the granites and marbles has long been known.