8.8 earthquake hits Japan

@oralloy,

It would take an idiot to walk up to any of these reactors carrying boron-loaded cement (presumably what you meant) at this point - so your question is irrelevant. Dropping boron and water on top is what they're doing - though they could be doing more of it, esp. since #3 with the 6% MOX is one of the 2 breached. As to radiation - that's monitored by every satellite that could be moved over Fukushima as well as by land stations, aircraft, and ships at sea. So far it's a purely local problem, esp. since winds are moderate from 180 to 210. How can you not know this? And if you know, why bring up Chernobyl?

I posted background info along with a sat pic of Daiichi (before the tsunami) on page 10 right here - read it. Things can get worse, true, but there's no reason to panic now. Anyone interested in a brief non-technical article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/03/post-earthquake_nuclear_crisis

1 Reply

@Eorl,

Eorl wrote:

I'm having enormous difficulty understanding how bad this is, or is not.

50 dead from radiation poisoning, hundreds could die early of tumours over the next 30 years. Not quite as bad as motor vehicle accidents.

Meanwhile the tsunami has killed, what... 30 000, maybe 100 000?

I just think the nuclear fear is a bit... out of proportion.

Hear hear! The very worse case scenarios right now do not even begin to approach a Chernobyl, and even a Chernobyl is orders of magnitude smaller of a problem than the rest of what they are dealing with.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

It would take an idiot to walk up to any of these reactors carrying boron-loaded cement (presumably what you meant) at this point - so your question is irrelevant.

No, since the subject that was being addressed was the possibility of entombing the reactors in cement like they did at Chernobyl, my question was entirely relevant.

High Seas wrote:

And if you know, why bring up Chernobyl?

Because I was responding to a point that involved Chernobyl.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Eorl wrote:
I'm having enormous difficulty understanding how bad this is, or is not.

50 dead from radiation poisoning, hundreds could die early of tumours over the next 30 years. Not quite as bad as motor vehicle accidents.

Meanwhile the tsunami has killed, what... 30 000, maybe 100 000?

I just think the nuclear fear is a bit... out of proportion.

Hear hear! The very worse case scenarios right now do not even begin to approach a Chernobyl, and even a Chernobyl is orders of magnitude smaller of a problem than the rest of what they are dealing with.

If they have an uncontrolled meltdown of a spent fuel pool, it'll probably be as bad as Chernobyl, and as bad as the tsunami.

Presuming they can avoid that, things shouldn't be as serious. But things can be "not as bad as Chernobyl" and still be bad.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

If they have an uncontrolled meltdown of a spent fuel pool..

TEPCO has been on top of spent fuel pool problem from the start; their updates are linked here: http://able2know.org/topic/169093-10#post-4539198

If you didn't understand the technology that would be one thing - but you do, so you have some extra responsibility not to spread baseless panic. Did you know people are now paying up to $1,000 on eBay for a bottle of potassium iodide pills?! Pharmacies from Vancouver to LA are sold out - truly pathetic.

Anyone here still worried: get regular multivitamin pills, they all contain the same stuff. Finally: the Japanese defense ministry has confirmed its crews are now continuously dropping boron and seawater on pools and reactors; radioactivity levels are way down inside the plant and negligible beyond it.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

HS, My wife who is a retired nurse laughed when she heard about the sell out of those iodine pills. They're probably afraid of their own shadows. An overdose of those pills will harm them.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

The Japanese government gave a pill to everyone in the country. Even they don't want people to take them unless absolutely necessary.

1 Reply

@Ceili,

Ceili, It's all those people buying iodine pills not living close to Japan that makes it a mockery.

1 Reply

This looks to be good news -

New power line may ease crisis at Japan nuke plant

By Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/14/international/i002205D47.DTL

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I know, its a bit ludicrous isn't it.

1 Reply

@Ceili,

Quote:

I know, its a bit ludicrous isn't it.

Quote:

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin was in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn't aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Surgeon-General-Buying-Iodine-Appropriate-118031559.html

Are you sure??

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As I see it, the EVENT in Japan was the earthquake/tsunami, Not the nuclear reactors. while the media is 99% focused on "the nuclear" (pretty scary stuff) the devastation in Japan is from the tsunami, the untold dead, the incredible havoc is not not nuclear related. The damaged reactors are collateral damage (at this point in time) The media has magnified the nuclear issue simply because "nuclear" is a real giant among scary words.

3 Replies

@ossobuco,

Sadly it's not - at least not yet.

The emperor addressed his nation on TV a little time ago. Such an address is so utterly unprecedented (except for the current emperor's father,who did the same by radio upon the declaration of surrender following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions) that all of Japan is preparing for the worst.

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@dyslexia,

Plus people can't pronouce it..

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

Quote:

The damaged reactors are collateral damage (at this point in time) The media has magnified the nuclear issue simply because "nuclear" is a real giant among scary words

If Tokyo gets radiated and if all of north Japan can not be rebuilt because of contamination that will be the end of Japan as a global power. It is all about being able to quantify risk. You fail.

If it is losing 7K people and needing to spend 200 billion dollars over ten years to rebuild japan this is no biggie, assuming of course that the political system can be made to function well enough to get this done.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I might be mistaken but (from memory of 3-Mile-Island scenario) they don't entomb the nuke reactor with cement and boron until after it has cooled off.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

Quote:

No explosion is possible in Fukushima!

Why do you think that? There already have been explosions there:

"Over the following days there was evidence of partial nuclear meltdowns in reactors 1, 2 and 3; hydrogen explosions destroyed the upper cladding of the building housing reactors 1 and 3; an explosion damaged reactor 2's containment; and fires broke out due to a fuel leak near a water pump at reactor 4. Radiation leaks led to a 20 km-radius evacuation around the plant. "

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

If

if wishes were horses, all men would ride.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Few Japanese even of the relatively educated classes outside the Imperial Household Agency could figure out what it was that Emperor Showa SAID; the current emperor may have been similarly misunderstood. You don't know who Showa was, fine, but look up his speech when he was named just plain Hirohito and he addressed his nation, as was his ultimate duty; all other civilian and military (except for the very extreme nationalists who were prepared to see all of Japan vaporized into radioactive dust rather than surrender) shut up when he said:

"The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage". That was final, then, and that's final for now. The sun is rising now Smile

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

Quote:

if wishes were horses, all men would ride.

We have seen nuclear meltdowns that destroy vast stretches of real estate, We know that the Japanese political system is dysfunctional, we know that the "experts" are providing contradictory and wrong information, and we know that due to long standing opposition to nuclear power in Japan based upon previous nuclear experience the leaders have a history of low balling risk........IF is appropriate here.

0 Replies

8.8 earthquake hits Japan

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