Posted on 03/26/2011 6:46:40 PM PDT by Yossarian
The regulator overseeing Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on Saturday announced a sharp elevation in radioactive contamination had been detected in nearby seawater, furthering signs of distress at a plant where officials had cautioned of radioactive leaks near hobbled reactors the day before.
A spokesman said the spike in radioactive iodine—to 1,250 times the legal limit—didn't pose an immediate threat to human health or the area environment, since the material quickly dissipates in the tides and would become diluted before reaching fish and seaweed.
(...)
Saturday's report came a day after efforts to repower key cooling systems at the plant bogged down amid reports of highly radioactive water in puddles at the plant's troubled reactor No. 3. Workers who came into contact with the water on Thursday had to be hospitalized.
Mr. Nishiyama on Friday linked the radioactive puddles in plant No. 3 to a possible breach in pipes or ventilators leading to, but not inside, the vessels that surround the core at plant No. 3. Plant officials said later Friday that puddles at Nos. 1 and 2 also contained high levels of radiat
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
IOW, a no-brainer way to cool. This is rapidly becoming a non-event.
Hardly. Anyone with a clue knows that the deaths, missing, and the majority of evacuees were caused by the quake + tsunami.
I guess you missed that "Prayers out" second line of my posting? Don't you think this gives some clue as to the intent?
I find your intellect weak.
That tap water may have other contaminants than isotopes.
In fact, this whole “radiation hazard” is more about what may best described as “isodopes”, not isotopes.
Iodine has a half life of 8 days. How long ago did the reactor have control loss?
Nobody thinks rationally about this topic. People are more apt to remember Three Mile Island (0 dead) than major disasters like Texas City (581 dead), Bhopal (20,000 dead), or the numerous and sundry pipeline/industrial accidents.
True. But the announcements from the government indicate the situation at the nuclear plant is NOT getting better every day.
Yes. Owned by Toshiba, since 2006. Even if the Japanese are our allies, this greatly frustrates me.
Westinghouse has been involved with the nuclear power business for a lot longer than 2006. I remember when DuPont sold them the Savanah River Plant in the late 1980's...they have managed that facility as well as (maybe better than) DuPont did.
If you want to be "down" on that Japanese in 1974 who decided to build the Dai-Ichi plant so close to the ocean where a tsunami could damage it. The current management of the facility could not take a Mulligan on that decision...they had to live with it.
I would imagine that at this time every one of the execs are being watched carefully to make sure they do NOT try to take that route.
Until the hard questions have been asked and sufficient answers have been provided, AND the mess is cleaned up, that kind of honorable exit is not going to be allowed.
Generally speaking, suicide is still considered to be the ultimate apology, but not if you still have responsibilities that you are capable of meeting. It would not expiate the dishonor, it would magnify it immensely and spread it over the entire family.
Very few Japanese could handle that.
Thank you for the insight, it is greatly appreciated.
Yeah thats true, but the reality is the world's population is 7 billion and counting. we can't possibly get by with a 21st century lifestyle unless there is more nuclear power. I think that is eventually going to be more understood as economies struggle with high energy prices.
Typo, should read:
If you want to be "down" on the Japanese the be "down" on the ones who in 1974 decided to build the Dai-Ichi plant...
Perhaps one good area for research and investment will be on advanced technology for national / regional power grids. The reality is that IF there will be new nuclear plants, they will HAVE to be located in politically acceptable areas. This means, by definition, where large populations - who actually NEED the power - aren't.
Time to look at the latest results for large-scale superconductor structure research...
The situation is getting better?
Workers being hospitalized, cracks in containment vessels and sea water over the legal limit for radiation?
My concern is that we don’t yet know how bad it really is.
Not trying to be alarmist, but things have seriously deteriorated since the last time we were told that everything was under control.
“The fix to all this is always be prepared for the absolute worse thing that can happen and be ready to apply it almost instantly after a disaster.”
Come on, you’re EOD! Say that you are in the middle of defusing an IED and you are hit by a 9.0 earthquake. It doesn’t set off the IED, so you get to your feet, dust off and resume work. 10 minutes later you are under a 7 meter wall of water and building rubble, worst in recorded history.
Were you “prepared for the absolute worst that can happen”, say a Tunguska type meteor, or the tsunami that followed the meteor that made the Chicxulub crater?
You prepare for the worst probable case plus a margin of safety. They did that for these power plants. They withstood a stronger quake than designed for. Unfortunately, this tsunami did what the earthquake did not by exceeding the designed for 6.5 meter height.
What you ask for is impossible.
Look to LFTR
They use tech because they decided against from importing nurses from poor and down trodden countries
I don’t think so. The reason being that the tsunami was 2 to 3 times the height of the design tsunami and the earthquake was beyond the design earthquake too. Remember that the plant functioned as designed following both the earthquake and the resulting tsunami until the diesel generators ran out of fuel. Once the DGs used up the fuel in the day tank and for some reason couldn’t use the fuel from the main storage tanks, the fudge hit the fan.
Even with all the fear mongering by the press, the Japanese put together a plan and are close to restoring power and control. A major issue was the contamination that resulted from blasting and dropping water into the spent fuel pools that ended up spreading radioactivity into the sea and the turbine building.
And ... some of those units are a write off. That’s going to be expensive.
The Japanese are economic nationalists. While I have a great amount of sympathy for their human suffering. I have none for their economic position.
They used our openness and protection after WWII to build up - often at our expense - a great industrial machine. They currently have something like a 2:1 trade surplus with the US.
I’m all for nuclear power, but if one can’t envision a scenario at *least* as bad as Fukushima and plan accordingly then one has no business even being near a thermostat, to say nothing of planning energy strategy.
I *want* nuclear power here in California, but damn, any moron can see that a 9.2 is a *when*, not an *if*.
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