Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

[Chris Coles]

This Zero Hedge report brings a whole new debate about there may be three reactors with a China Syndrom Meltdown in progress. This is the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFLipZWlpOs

The link brings in, not only the original report but additional credible comments that indicate we may be about to experience a much bigger disaster; an uncontrolled meltdown into the water laden sub surface, beside an ocean.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed...tdown%E2%80%9D

[don]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

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[Sutter Cane]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Zero Cred, huh? But, it's so safe, you can drink the water!

Caught-out MP nervously drinks a glass of Fukushima water

Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo

November 3, 2011 - 8:52AM

Nervous ... Yasuhiro Sonoda. Photo: AFP


The press conference was going well for Yasuhiro Sonoda. He confidently reeled off figures showing low levels of contamination at the critically damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.


Then journalists asked him to prove it.


Looking nervous, hands trembling, Mr Sonoda drank a glass of water scooped up from pools inside the plant.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Mr. Yasuhiro Sonoda drank the water from the pool inside the Fukushima nuclear power plant. (See the above picture.) Tell that fact to all of the so-called "experts" and self-credentialed "scientists" in the eco-groups to-day: the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation, the Friends of the Earth, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the frauds who run the EPA in Washington.

We wouldn't be mired in the depths of this Great Recession if the public worldwide had stood-up and challenged these environmental extremists..... Now one can see what a folly solar energy was, and when the wind doesn't blow, windmills are another joke... But it is a little late now, as we lose our standard of living and our leadership in the world.

[c1ue]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

So let me get this straight:

Zero Hedge speculates that the presence of certain radioactive substances - without actually mentioning any levels - means a China Syndrome is going on?

And this is considered credible evidence?

The youtube link of the RT.com report shows Professor Kodama comparing radiation output with Hiroshima.

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a total of 110 kg of enriched uranium 235.

A given Fukushima reactor contains something like 133 tons of uranium, mostly U238 but some U235. According to this link, the enrichment is about 3% U235:

http://www.oecd-nea.org/sfcompo/Ver....i-2/index.html

Even assuming the 133 tons is not metric, the weight of U235 in just one reactor is over 3000 kilograms, or something like 30 times the U235 in the Hiroshima bomb. And there are 3 reactors with issues in Fukushima.

Of course, this U235 wasn't designed to go critical in an explosive manner - but sure makes for a great alarmist comparison.

So why exactly would there not be radioactive Xenon or whatever?

We know the reactors aren't cold; if they were then there would be no need for ongoing cooling.

It takes 18 months or so for a 'hot' reactor to go cold under controlled conditions. Clearly we aren't in a normal shut down situation. 1% of the U235 still 'reacting' because you can't shut off a fission reaction with physical separation (clearly impossible) still yields 100 kilograms of U235 fissioning, albeit slowly as opposed to all at once. The Hiroshima bomb only fissioned probably 0.6 kilograms of U235, but that happened in milliseconds and in a tiny area. If we assume 100 kg of the U235 is fissioning every 24 hours, vs. the 0.6 kg in 1 millisecond, the relative rate of fission release from 1 Fukushima reactor would be 0.0002% of Hiroshima.

This isn't nothing, but it isn't a nuclear bomb by any stretch of the imagination.

Summary: There's no reason whatsoever to think that fission byproducts would not be generated, nor is the presence of such byproducts proof of any kind of a runaway situation.

Then there's the Gunderson video. Isn't he the one that said the fuel rods would all catch fire/explode? That clearly hasn't happened.

Why exactly does he have credibility then since so far none of his predictions have come true?

[D-Mack]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Plutonium and clay reaction observed


Scientists have made an interesting discovery about the interaction between clay and plutonium, which could have implications for the way the nuclear waste is stored.
A team of scientists at Argonne National Lab (ANL) explained that the steel barrels containing nuclear waste will eventually corrode, and as plutonium has a half-life of 24 thousand years and has high levels of radioactivity and toxicity, investigations must be done to ensure nuclear waste repositories will stay safe.
"We want to be sure that nuclides (like plutonium) stay where we put them," explained Moritz Schmidt, an ANL post-doctoral researcher.
The team examined the interactions between plutonium ions dissolved in water and a mineral called muscovite, which is structurally similar to clay, and found that the plutonium becomes trapped on the surface of clay, something which could further prevent the spread of the toxic waste in the natural environment.
"In this respect, it's a rather positive effect", Dr Schmidt said, adding that "it's hard to make a very general statement" about whether it could actually prevent plutonium leaks.


http://www.labmate-online.com/news/n...bserved/17420/

Looks like we are still learning

[/QUOTE]

[oddlots]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Here's a promising looking review of the disaster:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nucl...at-fukushima/0

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Chernobyl is fine. The entire area around Chernobyl is healthy and ecologically unaltered. Nothing was released from Chernobyl that affected anything. We went over this before, but these eco-frauds and self-appointed "experts" in the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and other groups keep drowning on and on and on with their lies. There are no cancers. The human body --- and the bodies of all living-things on this planet --- have evolved to tolerate and repair cell damage done by radiation. We have gone over this before. The entire theory of radiation and cancer was found to be rubbish.

Nothing happened at Three-Mile Island. No-one was injured. There were no deaths or cancers. We went over this before.

At Fukushima, the damage was from the largest earthquake the world has ever experienced in modern times--- a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The quake was about 7 times stronger than the earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906. The Fukushima earthquake was about 80 times stronger than the earthquake that caused major damage in SF in 1989, i.e. the earthquake that was so strong that it caused the eastern portion of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge to collapse.

The Fukushima earthquake caused a tsunami so large that it travelled across the entire Pacific Ocean, reached California and did damage along the coast of California. Even now, especially now in November 2011, debris from the tsunami is washing-up onto the beaches of California..... This has never happened before.

One has to wonder: Why do the environmentalists blame the nuclear power industry and TEPCO for the damage done by the tsunami and the largest earthquake that mankind has ever experienced? Both the tsunami and the earthquake that caused the tsunami were natural events, and they had nothing to do with nuclear power.

There were no deaths from atomic energy at the Fukushima power plant. There was a steam explosion due to over-heating in reactor #1 caused by the tsunami. Conditions were extra-ordinary at Fukushima City: roads were closed and damaged; power was out; the tsunami had flooded the city; and everything was in rubble from the earthquake; and the TEPCO plant at Fukushima was flooded with sea-water from the tsunami.

There will be no subsequent cancers from radiation that leaked out of the TEPCO plant at Fukushima, and very little radiation did leak out of the TEPCO plant. Although there was at least one core meltdown at the TEPCO plant, very little happened. Aside from the clean-up mess due to the earthquake and tsunami at the TEPCO plant, nothing has happened.... If anything, the case in favour of atomic power is even stronger: the meltdowns at Fukushima created a mess but little more. And the meltdowns occurred because everything was washed-away by the natural tsunami and shaken to rubble and debris in the natural 9.0 earthquake that preceded the tsunami. Both of these natural events began on the sea-floor, offshore of Fukushima City and offshore of the TEPCO plant at Fukushima.

Please speak-out against the environmental-extremists who are now trying to disparage the atomic power industry. They are also trying to disparage the oil industry, the coal industry, the hydro-electric dam industry, the tar sands project in Alberta, Canada, deep-sea oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and they are trying to destroy the pipeline project between the tar sands in Alberta and the oil refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. These extremists are also trying to destroy the natural gas power industry. They have also prevented oil drilling and oil recovery offshore of Southern California.

Make copies of this blog, show this blog to your friends, and push-back against these extremists in the environmental movement. Confront these extremists in your classrooms. Confront them in your civic clubs and in your churches. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Telephone in onto radio talk-shows, and tell the moderator how outraged you are about the damage that these extremists have caused in the world; tell the moderator that this Great Recession was caused, in no small part, by the damage these environmental extremists have done to the energy industry in North America and in the world.

LEAN FORWARD. My name is Stephen N. Jacobs, and I am outraged. Let's push-back together. LEAN FORWARD.

Rachael Maddow has some interesting remarks about this fight for progress. She is on MSNBC on television. Dr. Bill Wattenburg also has some interesting comments about this fight for progress. He is on radio in San Francisco on KGO 810 on the AM dial. He speaks on weekends late nights after 10PM Pacific Time.

[mooncliff]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Oh, dear, this has been going on forever and will never stop. You will recall that right after the explosions, it was going to melt into the ground and cause a China syndrome and blow up and everyone was gonna die. Well, it did melt though and was over in about a week, and so now we must move the goal posts.

There is an easy way for Mr. Gundersen to find out: go to Japan and take samples.

Notice in this video above he is showing car air filters from April. Of course they are contaminated. No one expected them not to be.
Why is he not showing air filters from May, June, July, August, September, and October?

I know people like this who have gone on and on for months about how everyone gonna die. So I asked them why they don't actually have samples tested. They do nothing. I think it is hopeless so just gave up explaining the same things over and over and over and over. I asked them why if they were so afraid they don't leave.

This is the behavior of "sunk costs". I can't admit that the damage, while substantial, is much less than everyone gonna die, so I must push everything off into the future and more subtle effects, since everyone isn't dead.

In the meantime, if what is being said is not true, you are just scaring everyone.

I will believe him if he comes and takes representative samples and has those tested. And then it is replicated by Greenpeace or someone.

This kind of behavior is extremely unhelpful since it doesn't help understand what the actual situation is.

[Shakespear]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

It must be really sad to be Japanese these days where you realize that in the greatest tragedy your only recourse is yourself. With the wealth that country has you would think (not a good assumption) that they would do the right thing, move the young. One could suspect that the government has put them in the "collateral damage" category.

"Official recovery policy focuses on decontamination rather than protecting the health of those most vulnerable - children and pregnant women," activist Aileen Mioko Smith told IPS.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105745

[c1ue]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Here's a promising looking review of the disaster:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nucl...at-fukushima/0

The problem with this 'review' is it is advocacy disguised as engineering.

Although it does admit that TMI and Chernobyl were both human error caused, not design issues - though absolutely exacerbated by poor design - there is not a single mention in the article about what the Fukushima design limits were.

To say that Fukushima was somehow preventable is ridiculous: only if it was known that a 9.0 scale nearby offshore earthquake plus a 15 meter tsunami would occur, all the way back in the late '60s when Fukushima was built, and the design decision was made back then to build Fukushima to account for this scenario, could anyone in any way say that Fukushima was preventable.

We don't require buildings, bridges, or anything else in the United States to withstand such a sequence of events even today.

It is articles like this why I don't bother reading IEEE anymore - between transparent alternative energy promotion and such patently non-objective analysis of nuclear events, this publication has long since crossed over the divide from technical to media pandering.

[don]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Distribution of Cesium

By HIROSHI ISHIZUKA / Staff Writer

Some 8 percent of Japan's land area, or more than 30,000 square kilometers, has been contaminated with radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Spanning 13 prefectures, the affected area has accumulated more than 10,000 becquerels of cesium 134 and 137 per square meter, according to the science ministry.

The ministry has released the latest version of its cesium contamination map, covering 18 prefectures.

Radioactive plumes from the Fukushima No. 1 plant reached no farther than the border between Gunma and Nagano prefectures in the west and southern Iwate Prefecture in the north.

Ministry officials said the plumes flowed mainly via four routes between March 14 and 22 after the plant was damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The first plume headed westward from late March 14 to early March 15, when huge amounts of radioactive materials were released following a meltdown at the No. 2 reactor.

It moved clockwise over a wide area in the Kanto region. Radioactive materials fell with rain and snow, particularly in the northern parts of Tochigi and Gunma prefectures.

A branch of the plume moved southward from Gunma Prefecture, passing through western Saitama Prefecture, eastern Nagano Prefecture and western Tokyo.

It stopped in western Kanagawa Prefecture, where the Tanzawa mountain range rises up.

The second plume headed northwest in the afternoon of March 15, heavily contaminating parts of Namie and other municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture.

The third plume headed northward, apparently in the afternoon of March 20.

Areas in northern Miyagi Prefecture and southern Iwate Prefecture were probably contaminated when it rained between the late afternoon of March 20 and early March 21.

The fourth plume headed southward from the night of March 21 and early March 22.

It passed through northern Chiba Prefecture but largely skirted central Tokyo due to a pressure pattern, limiting contamination in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture.

It is believed that the amount of radioactive materials released from the Fukushima No. 1 plant increased between March 20 and 23, but the reasons are not yet known.

In Fukushima and seven other prefectures, 11,600 square kilometers, or 3 percent of Japan's land area, have annual additional radiation levels of at least 1 millisievert, according to Environment Ministry estimates.

The government has said it will remove radioactive materials if annual additional radiation levels reach 1 millisievert or more.

The science ministry has been carrying out aerial monitoring of radioactive materials since April.

Helicopters fly at relatively low speeds, allowing monitoring of levels of radiation released from the ground at a height of 1 meter.

Cesium accumulations in soil and radiation levels are also measured separately at selected sites on the ground.

Officials estimate cesium accumulations at other locations using correlations between radiation levels 1 meter above the ground monitored from helicopters and the actual cesium accumulations at the selected sites.

Cesium 137 will have a long-term impact on the environment because it has a half-life of 30 years.

It was detected even before the Fukushima accident, apparently as a result of nuclear testing conducted by other nations.

Still, the maximum amount found in nationwide surveys since fiscal 1999 was 4,700 becquerels in Nagano Prefecture.

The science ministry's cesium contamination map excludes the effects of pre-disaster contamination.

The map will cover 22 prefectures when it is completed by the end of the year. Data for Aomori, Ishikawa, Fukui and Aichi prefectures will be added.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis...AJ201111210014

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima; Experts suspect China Syndrome meltdown; Lethal radioactive groundwater steam

Four points:

1.) Radio-nuclides thought to have come from Fukishima in the Tokyo area have now been traced back to natural radioactive ores in the soil of that area of Japan. Radio-nuclides are everywhere in the environment, worldwide, and always have been. Not only this, really exotic stuff like Plutonium, Lawrencium, Californium, Einsteinium, etc. are found in trace amounts in the Earth, worldwide. Go look inside your rocks of Uranium for example, and all kinds of interest stuff is found in those rocks but in trace amounts only.

2.) Living-things have adapted naturally to radiation because radiation is everywhere on this planet. Some comes from the soil and rocks, some from cosmic radiation, some from the Sun, some from our foods and our water, some from building materials, and some from other living-things such as your spouse. Bananas everywhere on Earth are particularly rich in radioactive Potassium.

3.) Long-lived radio-nuclides ( those with long half-lives ) have the LEAST radioactivity. These are found everywhere because they decay so slowly. They never disappear. They are harmless to living-things.

4.) Eco-frauds have been trying to scare the public with stories about contamination from Fukushima. From The Guardian newspaper, November 21, 2011, please meet Dr. Christopher Busby. He has been selling at outrageous prices so-called "anti-radiation pills" to people in Japan to protect them from so-called contamination from Fukushima. The outrageous prices of these pills is in The Guardian. Condemned by scientists as worthless and junk science, Busby sells his pills and other potions through Busby Laboratories, available to the public on the internet through the California company: 4u-detox.com .

Sad to say, Dr. Christopher Busby was the former science and technology spokesman for the Green Party in the U.K. When this story broke, the Green Party distanced itself from him. Busby is also a visiting professor at the University of Ulster.

You can't make this stuff up! I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. But the story is in the news now, this week in The Guardian.

Starving Steve. Let's work together to expose the environmental movement for what it is, worldwide. We've exposed their mis-mapping of the Greenland ice sheet. We've exposed their lies about radiation. We've exposed their lies about global warming. Here we have pill and potion pushing at inflated prices by another leading environmentalist, a spokesman for the Green Party in the UK and a visiting Prof. at the Univ. of Ulster..... Let's continue. Keep digging..... Show this story in The Guardian to your classmates in school, to your teachers, to your civic clubs, churches, synagogues, universities, town councils, representatives in government, etc. Phone into radio talk-shows. Demand government stop funding the EPA in Washington, etc.

LEAN FORWARD.