Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

[seanm123]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

Lektrode - The plant operator pulled out 750 workers, leaving just 50 brave souls to deal with the situation, these brave souls are charged with keeping the fire apparatus running on diesel fuel and pumping sea water into the reactors to cool them and I would also gather if the fuel ponds catch on fire again they will need to put it out if possible.


The winds by definition are "prevailing westerly winds" and the coming week is going to be a test for everyone in North America not to panic, however I fear panic may rule the day. Might I suggest instead of worrying about fallout from the prevailing westerly winds say a prayer for these brave workers, they probably have all resigned themselves to fight until their last breath in a heroic attempt to keep Japan from becoming the Pompei of the Nuclear age.

[lektrode]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

Lektrode - The plant operator pulled out 750 workers, leaving just 50 brave souls to deal with the situation, these brave souls are charged with keeping the fire appartus running on diesel fuel and pumping sea water into the reactors to cool them and I would aslo gather if the fuel ponds catch on fire again they will need to put it out if possible.


The winds by definition are "prevailing westerly winds" and the coming week is going to be a test for everyone in North America not to panic, however I fear panic may rule the day. Might I suggest instead of worrying about fallout from the prevailing westerly winds say a prayer for these brave workers, they probably have all resigned themselves to fight until their last breath in a heroic attempt to keep Japan from becoming the Pompei of the Nuclear age.

tho i'm not the religious sort, mr 123 - with me 74yo mutha in the process of croakin (emphesema, then pneumonia, now OD'n on who-knows-what they pumpin into her, confined to a hospital bed and suffering - simply outrageous we dont have the absolute RIGHT to pull the plug if we so desire) - i've been doing a LOT of 'praying' - for everyone, these daze, trust me... gotta go, off to concord.

[c1ue]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

More info on what is really going on:

Summary: the radiation seen is probably due to sea water being used to cool the reactor - since the sea water isn't pure it gets much more radioactive than the normal distilled water.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...pdate_tuesday/

The story of the three quake- and tsunami-hit reactors at Japan's Fukushima plant continues, with indications that one of the three worst-hit reactors has sustained further damage. A fire also broke out at another reactor, shut down at the time of the quake and not previously thought to be a problem, but this has now been put out. None of this suggests that the reactors' crucial containment vessels could be breached, however.

World Nuclear News reported in the early hours (UK time) that a "loud noise" had been heard at the site of the No 2 reactor at Fukushima and pressure readings had fallen in the doughnut-shaped "suppression chamber" situated beneath the core. The suppression chamber holds a large quantity of water and steam from the core, released into it to be condensed, so reducing pressure in the core without the need to vent to atmosphere in some situations: though reactors 1, 2 and 3 have all been repeatedly vented to atmosphere since the quake nevertheless.

Following the apparent release from inside the suppression chamber, radiation levels at the site briefly rose to 8217 microsieverts per hour – such that an unprotected person outside would receive several years' normal background radiation dose in a single hour. Radiation then dropped to less than 2,500 microsievert/hr. (UPDATED TO ADD: The IAEA reports that as of 6am UK time this had fallen to 600 microsievert/hr). WNN reports that a statement from TEPCO, the plant operators, stated that there had been "no significant change" to the status of the vital containment vessel surrounding the reactor core.

According to nuclear experts at MIT, much of the radiation from steam releases comes from shortlived isotopes created when neutrons from the core strike water: these have half-lives of seconds, and are safe within a minute of being emitted. This is why previous high levels of radiation and continual steam releases within the plant site have not caused major health concerns for local residents on the part of the Japanese government.

However, as the crisis has developed, the normal coolant – pure demineralised water – has been replaced at the stricken reactors by seawater pumped in using the site's firefighting systems. Salt and other contaminants in the seawater result in the creation of other, more dangerous isotopes – though in small amounts. Furthermore it has been obvious since the weekend – and since officially admitted – that water levels in the reactors have sunk below the level of the fuel rods on several occasions, meaning that the fuel rods will have sustained heat damage and so that some material from their alloy cases or even the uranium itself could be present in the steam escaping from the reactors.

The probability of steam escaping directly from No 2's suppression chamber could increase levels of radiation further, as normal, controlled releases are carried out via filters and scrubbers. TEPCO said it was removing all non-essential personnel from the site as a precaution.

Thus far however, indications are that longer-lived isotopes are not being released from the plant in dangerous quantities. The Japanese authorities have nonetheless moved to complete a previously-ordered evacuation out to 20km from the plant site and that those 20-30km out should remain indoors to minimise risk from inhaling airborne radionuclides or getting them on their skin.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

I agree. I would also point out that we are only getting half-truths by this point. Those men ordering other men into danger and the men going into danger have very little objectivity on what they are facing. They can't or they wouldn't do it. There were some true heroes that lost their lives trying to stop Chernobyl.

Once there was an explosion (hydrogen or otherwise) entropy had clearly overcome the design. Once that was the case this is like predicting when a forest fire will stop burning and all the smoke carries some level of threat to those who experience it.

[don]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

The government ordered any inhabitants remaining within the 12-mile (20km) radius exclusion zone to leave immediately, told those between 12 miles and 19 miles away to stay indoors (approx. 170,000) and imposed a 19-mile no-fly zone. Experts backed their assessment that health risks beyond that area were minimal at present.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...hird-explosion

The threat is considered so severe that at the start of the crisis Friday, immediately after the shattering earthquake, Fukushima plant officials focused their attention on a damaged storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the No. 2 reactor at Daiichi, said a nuclear executive who requested anonymity because his company is not involved in the emergency response at the reactors and is wary of antagonizing other companies in the industry.

If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

BBC now reports a third blast and more radiation.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

People around the Chernobyl site are eating mushrooms and root vegetables, and they are doing fine. We saw this on television. The people laugh at the radiation hysteria.

I suspect that one or two years from now, people will look back at the radiation hysteria cooked-up now by the media and laugh.

But let's keep this investigation scientific: The normal background radiation in North America is 360 mrem per year. Let's begin our investigation of what happens from radiation with that background radiation as a baseline from which to measure.

And if you want to talk about cancer, every male over age 70 has prostate cancer. That is our baseline from which to measure.

[warren_c]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

People around the Chernobyl site are eating mushrooms and root vegetables, and they are doing fine. We saw this on television. The people laugh at the radiation hysteria.

I suspect that one or two years from now, people will look back at the radiation hysteria cooked-up now by the media and laugh.

But let's keep this investigation scientific: The normal background radiation in North America is 360 mrem per year. Let's begin our investigation of what happens from radiation with that background radiation as a baseline from which to measure.

And if you want to talk about cancer, every male over age 70 has prostate cancer. That is our baseline from which to measure.

I would like to see a citation for your claim that every male over 70 has prostrate cancer.
Also some proof that while the people around Chernobyl may have been eating mushrooms and root vegetables on TV that this is some how equivalent to proof that it was safe.
People do lots of things on TV that are not safe and it proves nothing.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

....The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was informed by Japanese authorities that the fire took place at a storage pond for spent fuel rods ...

What on earth is available to burn in a spent-fuel pool? Water, concrete, steel and spent fuel rods.

I'm told that as the years go by in a nuclear plant, certain parts and equipment become contaminated and irradiated and these get placed into the spent fuel pool rather than decontaminate them. A collection of pumps and brackets and valves and bolts and such that get swapped our during refueling shutdowns every few years.

So what burned? The metal objects in the spent fuel pool? Did things made of magnesium or aluminum catch fire? I'm confident it wasn't carpets or curtains or furniture....

[Starving Steve]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

I would like to see a citation for your claim that every male over 70 has prostrate cancer.
Also some proof that while the people around Chernobyl may have been eating mushrooms and root vegetables on TV that this is some how equivalent to proof that it was safe.
People do lots of things on TV that are not safe and it proves nothing.

OK, let's just go by the numbers: The average background radiation in North America is 360 mrem per year, and the average worldwide is 350 mrem per year. Source: Wikipedia. Or please google dosimetry, background radiation worldwide, wikipedia.
And the world's 350 mrem per year is high-energy cosmic radiation which would be mostly gamma radiation.

By the way, gamma radiation is the most destructive because it is high-energy. It is X-ray radiation from the stars!

[ASH]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

What on earth is available to burn in a spent-fuel pool? Water, concrete, steel and spent fuel rods.

I'm told that as the years go by in a nuclear plant, certain parts and equipment become contaminated and irradiated and these get placed into the spent fuel pool rather than decontaminate them. A collection of pumps and brackets and valves and bolts and such that get swapped our during refueling shutdowns every few years.

So what burned? The metal objects in the spent fuel pool? Did things made of magnesium or aluminum catch fire? I'm confident it wasn't carpets or curtains or furniture....

The zirconium cladding of the fuel rods themselves can burn at sufficiently high temperature.

A co-worker who does radiation testing for my company pointed out that after a few years, spent fuel can be safely stored in dry containers without risk of fire, so it's really only spent fuel that has recently been unloaded from a reactor core which can spontaneously combust (due to decay of fission products). However, if older rods are stored next to newer rods in the same tank, then a fire started by decay in the newer rods could still potentially ignite the older rods. So lets hope they keep those pools topped off.

[warren_c]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

OK, let's just go by the numbers: The average background radiation in North America is 360 mrem per year, and the average worldwide is 350 mrem per year. Source: Wikipedia. Or please google dosimetry, background radiation worldwide, wikipedia.
And the world's 350 mrem per year is high-energy cosmic radiation which would be mostly gamma radiation.

By the way, gamma radiation is the most destructive because it is high-energy. It is X-ray radiation from the stars!

You did not provide a citation for the requested data. You have answered a question I did not ask. Although it may be helpful for information purposes.

I would like to see a citation for data concerning your claim that all men over 70 have prostrate cancer and also that some how the people eating mushrooms and other plant life near Chernobyl some how proves that their activity was safe.

Please try again.

[don]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

(hat tip to the premium site)

[don]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

Early on Tuesday, the power plant in the country's stricken north-east was rocked by an explosion at the No 2 reactor, the third blast at the site in four days. That was followed by a fire that broke out at the No 4 reactor unit, which appeared to be the cause of today's radiation leaks. There are now concerns about the storage ponds at reactors 5 and 6.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...hird-explosion

[don]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant



CHERNOBYL, Ukraine—The face mask and three radiation monitors I'm wearing here are grim reminders that I'm at the site of the worst nuclear accident in history. On April 26, 1986, 1:23:44 A.M. local time, explosions destroyed reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, releasing approximately 400 times more radioactive fallout than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Now, almost 25 years after the disaster, the Ukrainian government has officially opened the area up for tourism. But just how safe is the zone now?

Radiation

After the explosions, it was unclear how contaminated the surroundings were, so the authorities declared an arbitrary 30-kilometer distance from the reactor off-limits, and roughly 115,000 people were evacuated from the area. This "exclusion zone" is now open to tourism.

I drove to Chernobyl with health physicist Vadim Chumak at the Research Center for

Radiation Medicine at the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine and his colleagues. A car shuttles there every week to collect stool samples from workers to test for any plutonium they might have accidentally absorbed. (Science, like journalism, can be a dirty job, but someone has to do it.)

The world is normally bathed in a low level of radiation. In Kiev, where I started my trip, one normally receives 0.1 millionths of a sievert every hour. This is pretty much the level of radiation we saw on the road on the roughly two-hour, 150-kilometer drive into the exclusion zone, but readings on our dosimeter temporarily climb up to 4.76 millionths of a sievert per hour when our car passes through the old path of the radioactive plume from the destroyed reactor.

How safe this area is now after the accident depends on what radioactive material was released and where it went. There are four kinds of radionuclides or radioactive isotopes that are of special concern at the site. Iodine-131 is rapidly absorbed by the thyroid gland and increases the risk of childhood thyroid cancer. Cesium-137 mimics potassium inside the body, seeking out muscle. Strontium-90 acts like calcium, attracted to bone. Plutonium-239 and other isotopes can stay in the body indefinitely, irradiating organs.

These four materials escaped from the explosions to varying distances, given factors such as their mass and melting points. Iodine-131 and cesium-137 were both very broadly transported hundreds of kilometers, while strontium-90 remained in dust just 30 kilometers from the power plant and plutonium traveled only four kilometers or so.
Iodine-131 decays rapidly, and was virtually gone from the environment after only three months, Chumak says. However, cesium-137 and strontium-90 both have approximately 30-year half-lives, meaning they each take roughly three decades for half their material to decay, and plutonium-239, one the main isotopes in nuclear reactors, has a half-life of more than 24,000 years.


After the disaster, both emergency workers dubbed "liquidators" and natural forces helped to reduce airborne levels of radiation. The liquidators sprayed detergents and latex-like binding solutions from helicopters and automobiles to bind contaminants. The roads were paved to cover radioactive dust, while ploughs flipped soil over to bury polluted soil. Meanwhile, rain helped contaminants migrate down into the ground.

The exclusion zone was possibly safe for tourism "about five years after the accident," Chumak says. Still, just because one can tour the area does not mean everywhere here is safe to tread. There are hot spots that remain highly contaminated, especially in the path of the radioactive plume. Where tourists are allowed to go and how long they will be allowed to stay will be strictly controlled to keep their risks of exposure down.

And there are some places here that remain too dangerous for tourists to go, such as the sarcophagus.

Inside the sarcophagus

Soon after firefighters extinguished the blazes from the explosions at Chernobyl, workers quickly built a structure of steel and concrete technically known as the Shelter Object but commonly known as the sarcophagus to entomb the remains of the damaged reactor and keep any more contaminants from escaping. It remains one of the most radioactive areas in the zone.



Nowadays, workers here maintain the corroding sarcophagus, monitor the radioactive material inside, and decontaminate what they can. To enter the structure with them, I strip down to only my underwear in a "clean room" and walk in a hospital gown and slippers into a "hot room," where I put on the pure white outfit given to everyone on site—scrubs, a jacket, trousers, a scrub cap, socks, gloves and a mask with the highest-grade filter available for dust. On top of that I don an overcoat, a hardhat and crusty boots. In addition, I am carrying the radiation

badge I had when I entered the 30-kilometer exclusion zone, a second radiation badge I was given when I entered the area of the plant, and a personal electronic dosimeter to tell me exactly how much radiation I am receiving.

(The workers don't normally wear lead shielding, and neither do I. Although lead can protect against radiation, it slows you down, thus increasing the dose you ultimately receive.)

The maximum dose of radiation that workers here are generally allowed on a daily shift is 0.1 thousandths of a sievert, the level of radiation one gets from a 90-minute transatlantic flight or from four hours watching a plasma screen television, says Vladimir Malyshev, chief safety officer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. When I am standing right in front of the sarcophagus, the readings leap up to 0.12 thousandths of a sievert per hour, or 1,200 times that seen in Kiev.

After passing an electronic checkpoint—one of a half-dozen or so that I stopped at—I find myself in the dark, gutted remains of the control room for reactor No. 4. Here engineers made the fateful errors that poisoned the Earth.

After returning from the sarcophagus, I leave everything I wore outside in a locker in the hot zone and take a mandatory shower to wash away any potential contamination. I don't think I've ever wanted to be clean more in my life.

Life and wildlife

Although Chernobyl might be safe for a day of tourism, living there is another question. The Ukrainian government did allow people who originally lived in the exclusion zone to resettle on an individual basis. For instance, some areas within 30 kilometers of the explosions are relatively clean, and the elderly would probably not absorb unhealthy levels of radiation in what time they had left, Chumak says.

However, some places remain too dangerous for resettlement. "People might be allowed to live in the 30-kilometer zone, but I don't expect anyone to live within the 10-kilometer zone, ever," Chumak says. "There's some plutonium there."

Officials there did say I should look out for wildlife in the zone. "A mad wolf attacked six people here recently," Malyshev says.

The disaster's impact on wildlife in the zone remains hotly contested. For instance, radiation biologist Ron Chesser at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and his colleagues suggest the area is thriving with life now that humans have left, finding that the wild boar population there has grown 10 to 15 times than what it was before the accident, and that other fauna are often seen in the area, such as wolves, rabbits, red deer, black storks and moose. Their genetic work suggests that any effects of radiation are subtle enough to not lead to any mutations passed down across generations, with the animals perhaps acclimatizing to any damage by boosting their genetic repair mechanisms. As bad as the radiation is, the effects of humans on the environment might have been worse, Chesser concludes.

On the other hand, biologist Tim Mousseau at the University of South Carolina at Columbia and his colleagues have found that species richness of forest birds was reduced by more than half when comparing sites with normal background levels of radiation to sites with the highest levels in the exclusion zone, and the numbers of bumblebees, grasshoppers, butteries, dragonflies and spiders decreased too. Analysis of more than 7,700 barn swallows in Chernobyl and other areas in Ukraine and Europe suggested ones from in or near the exclusion zone had higher levels of abnormalities such as deformed toes, beaks and eyes or aberrant coloration, and recent work also suggests that birds living in areas with high levels of radiation around Chernobyl have smaller brains.

Both teams stand by their own work and suggest the other made errors related to geographic variability.



Tourist attraction?

So what can tourists see at Chernobyl? One can often see and feed giant catfish in the 22-square-kilometer nuclear power plant cooling pond, although during cold weather, the pond is frozen over and covered in snow. In the distance, one can also see a giant radar grid roughly 150 meters high—taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza's current height—once meant to track any nuclear missiles launched from the United States. "It needed a lot of power, which is why it was near Chernobyl," Chumak explains.

The city of Pripyat, abandoned after the accident, is frozen in time, with the Communist hammer and sickle still adorning streetlights here. Nature is reclaiming the area, with white birch and green pines hiding many of the blocky Soviet buildings and animal tracks fresh on the snow still covering the ground here in the first week of March.

By a dock near a riverside cafe in Pripyat, the scientists I traveled with started gathering pussy willows, completely unbidden. These flowers bloom under the snow, and the men want to bring them back for International Women's Day on March 8. "These mean spring," says physicist Vitalii Volosky at the Research Center for Radiation Medicine in Kiev.

Despite the official announcement, tourism to Chernobyl is nothing new—trips have been going there for about a decade. The recent publicity regarding tourism may have its roots in the economic impact of Chernobyl—even two decades after the disaster, roughly 6 percent of the national budgets of both Ukraine and Belarus were still devoted to Chernobyl-related benefits and programs, according to a 2005 report from the Chernobyl Forum, comprised of eight United Nations agencies and the governments of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. "There is this motivation there to do what can be done to return some of this land to productive use," Mousseau says.

Among those who lived through the disaster, the idea of tourism to Chernobyl brings up strong emotions, just as it might for New Yorkers dealing with 9/11. "If we are wise, we will make Chernobyl a museum for humankind just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Chumak says.

Among the younger generation in Kiev, there is real interest in visiting. "My son really wants to go, as do a couple of young students here," Chumak says.

Still, for others, tourism to Chernobyl holds no attraction. "Personally, every trip I make there is not a positive one," says physicist Elena Bakhanova at the Research Center for Radiation Medicine in Kiev. "It was a human error, a sign of human foolishness."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...-in-2011-03-14

[Starving Steve]

Re: Excellent article explaining the situation at the Fukushima plant

Please read the findings of Dr. S.M. Javad Mortazavi: "High Background Radiation Areas of Ramsar, Iran". He found Ramsar, Iran, an inhabited area or settlement in Iran at 10.2 mSv/year with a maximum of 260 mSv per year as background radiation. His study found no ill effects from such radiation, and he wrote that the radiation might even induce radiation resistance in living things including human-beings. Dr. S. M. Javad Mortazavi at Kyoto University, Biology Education Division, 612-8522, Japan.

I think the journal was The Journal of Health Physics , but I am not sure.