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Radiation 'extremely high', fuel pool dry
Herald Sun ^ | March 17, 2011 6:06AM | Staff

Posted on 03/16/2011 12:20:20 PM PDT by Red Badger

THERE is no water left in the spent fuel pool of reactor No.4 at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, resulting in "extremely high" radiation levels, the chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned.

"In addition to the three reactors that were operating at the time of the incident, a fourth reactor is also right now under concern. This reactor was shut down at the time of the earthquake," said NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko.

"What we believe at this time is there has been a hydrogen explosion in this unit due to an uncovering of the fuel in the spent fuel pool," he said, noting the explosion happened several days ago but its effects were cause for concern.

"We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
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To: Red Badger
It is important to remember there is a difference between radiation and radioactive contamination. So far the contamination remains on or near the plant. Pray it stays that way. No more explosions please.
21 posted on 03/16/2011 12:55:22 PM PDT by jpsb
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To: Red Badger

The good news is that the wind is blowing out to sea. The bad news is Godzilla is pissed.

22 posted on 03/16/2011 12:56:17 PM PDT by McGruff (Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.)
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To: HamiltonJay
“...secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool...”

I thought this would put the contamination directly into the environment. What recourse is there after that?

23 posted on 03/16/2011 12:57:10 PM PDT by SMARTY (Conforming to non-conformity is conforming just the same.)
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To: Red Badger

“I don’t think they give a damn about PR right now. They’re too busy trying to save their country from becoming a nuclear desert................”

Agree.
The only thing I would partially disagree would be to properly inform people who would be at risk so they can take needed precautions.
But I really don’t care about any PR stuff either. As long as they are doing everything possible to fix the problem.

Having said that; the PR part is important unfortunately to many other people. They will held accountable for what they did and did not say.


24 posted on 03/16/2011 1:01:23 PM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Yes We Can, have smaller government)
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To: MsLady
Heck we should take them!

Highly educated, hard working people, yearning for freedom? shoot! they fit my list perfectly as the ideal candidates for immigration.

25 posted on 03/16/2011 1:04:14 PM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama = Carter 2.0 The Epic Fail Edition)
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To: McGruff

Blowing out to sea

toward America.

...studies from the California Air Resources Board have found that coal dust and other pollution from China regularly reaches the state.

But they want us to believe radioactivity from 4 Nuclear plants melting down at once, can’t reach the U.S....


26 posted on 03/16/2011 1:04:41 PM PDT by Freddd
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To: TexasFreeper2009
who cares about Nuclear catastrophe, I want to know how Obama did on the golf course today!

Why are you so cynical about President Obama?

Our President did NOT play golf today!

He was doing really important stuff!!

Whadda mean "What stuff"? It was really, REALLY important stuff!

Well, if you must know, he was .. mumble ... mumble ... mumble ....

You heard me.

Okay! Okay!

He was on national TV picking his NCAA "March Madness" Basketball favorites ....... March 16, 2011, ... WASHINGTON -- March Madness is back at the White House, and President Barack Obama picked each of the four No. 1 seeds to advance to the Final Four. .

27 posted on 03/16/2011 1:06:38 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: Electric Graffiti

Since the circulation pumps are not working, it may take a week to bring down the temperature. After everything is stablized, dump massive boron and concrete.

Likelyhood of meltdown......None. What will the SRM talk about? Obama’s illegal implemetation of Obamacare?/s


28 posted on 03/16/2011 1:07:04 PM PDT by Electric Graffiti (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their Moonbats)
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To: Red Badger

It sounds like they are taking good measures, and thus not demoralized. Personnel being demoralized is actually the most dangerous possibility in this event.


29 posted on 03/16/2011 1:10:38 PM PDT by bvw
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To: McGruff
The good news is that the wind is blowing out to sea.

If there is any good fortune in this situation, this is it.

The plant is on the east coast in the northern hemisphere. Prevailing wind is from the west.

30 posted on 03/16/2011 1:12:07 PM PDT by cicero2k
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To: bvw

If...

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!


31 posted on 03/16/2011 1:14:07 PM PDT by Red Badger (How can anyone look at the situation in Libya and be for gun control is beyond stupid. It's suicide.)
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To: Freddd

Its not a matter of whether it will reach the US...

Look folks its real simple.. as things move further and further from the site, the more spread out they become.. its not that no radiation from this thing might hit the US.. its whether those radioactive particles will be concentrated in any way close enough together to provide any real threat to anyone.

Those particles are going to have to travel nearly 6,000 miles to reach the US.. During that time radioative particles will be mixing with air molecules, dispersing, heavier particles will be falling into the see or being washed to the sea by rain, etc etc etc.

Some of the particles will reach the US certainly, but they aren’t going to be packed densely together by the time they do and they aren’t all going to fall to earth at once.. they will be dispersed and will not likely even create any noticeable difference in typical background radiation, let alone be at levels that are risky.

Same thing with if the contaminated water gets into the ocean.. it will mix with non contaminated until such a point as the radioative particles will be so dispersed they will pose no threat to anyone.

Now, near the actual site, that’s a whole other story, but worldwide? Not likely.

The solution to pollution is dillution.

1 part per 100 of something could be very very deadly... 1 part per 100,000,000,000 isn’t even noticeable.


32 posted on 03/16/2011 1:18:58 PM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: TexasFreeper2009

“who cares about Nuclear catastrophe, I want to know how Obama did on the golf course today”!

...me too!! I want to know if he likes sprinkles on his ice cream!!


33 posted on 03/16/2011 1:21:43 PM PDT by albie
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To: Red Badger

A great poem, yet why do our “elites” and present leaders have obviously no sense of it and its ideals? There’s the rub!

As it is today now we have the Gods of the Copybook Headings rampant.


34 posted on 03/16/2011 1:25:52 PM PDT by bvw
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To: bvw

Your answer is in the last line of the poem..................


35 posted on 03/16/2011 1:27:25 PM PDT by Red Badger (How can anyone look at the situation in Libya and be for gun control is beyond stupid. It's suicide.)
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To: HamiltonJay

Oh really? Since when did it become an issue of it won’t reach the U.S.

That’s not what posters on FR have been saying for days and days...


36 posted on 03/16/2011 1:36:01 PM PDT by Freddd
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To: Red in Blue PA
5000 degrees to be exact.

Offhand...

37 posted on 03/16/2011 1:38:37 PM PDT by null and void (We are now in day 784 of our national holiday from reality. - It's 3 AM somewhere)
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To: Freddd

Not this poster.

This poster has said until you see evidence that containment has been breached you have a lot of hysteria without much fact to back it up.

It is clear that containment at at least one of these 4 reactors has breached at this point.

However the idea that this cloud as it now stands is going to present any sort of radiation threat to the general US population is just fearmongering at this point.

Could the situation change? Sure, but at what we know right now, the dillution of the radioactive materials over 6,000 miles of travel is not going to result in massive amounts of concentrated radiation over the US mainland.

The solution to pollution, no matter what kind it is, is dillution. Eventually the toxic item becomes so dilluted that it leaves no real threat to anyone.

Face facts a bit shall we? We above ground tested nuclear weapons in our own country, and we didn’t see massive radiation problems in the general population over the east coast where all that radioactive fallout landed now did we? I guarantee the levels released from those tests were far above the numbers coming out of Japan today.

Everyone needs to just sit back and THINK and reason a bit instead of just buying into the fearmongering of the news media.


38 posted on 03/16/2011 1:55:15 PM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: aquila48
What I can’t believe is how poor the quality of information is. Most of what we get is speculation.

Part of the issue is that they cannot see inside the container which holds the rods. They cannot just go and open up the pressure cooker which holds the containment vessel for the rods.

In that situation, you have to look around at your situation and determine what is happening by what evidence you see.

It took 5 years after TMI, when we could actually get a camera inside the pressure cooker, to see that yes, there had been a meltdown and how much material was melted.

39 posted on 03/16/2011 2:16:05 PM PDT by Dianna
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To: darkside321

YIKES!!! Have you had any increase in cancer in your area? I really feel badly for these people, especially the older people. I think anything like this is hardest on them.


40 posted on 03/16/2011 2:44:03 PM PDT by MsLady (Be the kind of woman that when you get up in the morning, the devil says, "Oh crap, she's UP !!")
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