Japan: 9.0 Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Reactor Developments #3

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
More workers were drafted for the frontline of Japan’s biggest nuclear disaster as radiation limits forced Tokyo Electric Power Co. to replace members of its original team trying to avert a nuclear meltdown.

The utility increased its workforce at the Fukushima Dai- Ichi plant to 322 today from 180 yesterday as it tried to douse water over exposed nuclear fuel rods to prevent melting and leaking lethal radiation. Levels beside the exposed rods would deliver a fatal dose in 16 seconds, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear physicist for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety instructor.
Click to expand...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...kers-hitting-radiation-limits-for-humans.html
 
not_my_kids said:
Like I said, I know where the pools are. But it still doesn't tell me if they had to store them that way...google just ain't helping this time.

I know that they couldn't move them far, no matter what. They give off radiation and they are unstable. I get that. But was there a better place that they could have stored them?

It almost seems to me that they didn't think it was ever possible that any sort of calamity could strike the plant. Not that they had planned for every possibility, like they keeprepeating, but more that they just thought, "Nope, not here. Not us." I don't even think it matters at this point, but little things like that bother me, and if there was a better way, that could be part of the reason that we keep being told by our experts that the pools are dry and told by theirs that they are just fine.
Click to expand...
I heard an expert on CNN a couple nights ago, it was a woman and I will see if I can find her name and title. She said this is a universal design to put the pools in this type of location and all reactors store them this way. IF I am undestanding what you are asking. He was asking if the location and container for the pools was adequate or designed poorly. ETA: I know the other guedt that evening was Arnie Gunderson and they were on spolit screen if anyone else remembers who she is. She is in charge of something but I cannot remember what.
ETA: Sharon Squassoni and now I am looking for the right interview to see if I have the right info and if it answers your question as I understand it.
 
An hour’s exposure in some areas equates to half the annual maximum level, said John Price, a Melbourne-based consultant on industrial accidents and former safety policy staffer at the U.K.’s National Nuclear Corp.

“They have an access time of 10 to 25 hours at the most,” Price, 60, said in a telephone interview today. “At that rate, you are going to go through workers very fast.”

Ordered Out

Workers are being ordered to leave the plant, located 135 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo, before radiation dosages reach the maximum permissible level, said a spokesman for the utility who declined to give his name.
Click to expand...

another snip from the bloomberg link I posted above
 
On CNN, Gupta said there is a very narrow window of about 48 hrs of exposure when one should take the iodine pills and that they are not helpful otherwise. Not sure if he means before or after the exposure but that they are not going to do anything useful if taken in advance of that window.
 
not_my_kids said:
Panic over radiation leaks at a Japanese nuclear plant may be diverting attention from potentially worse threats to public health, such as thousands of people living in the open in cold weather after a tsunami.

Experts said efforts in Japan should focus on ensuring safe drinking water and the disposal of sewage to prevent outbreaks of killer diseases such as typhoid and cholera, although the likelihood of any such epidemic was remote so far.

"People are getting so concerned about what are, at the moment, pretty low levels of radiation as far as the general public is concerned. But the real problems ... are in dealing with the earthquake and the tsunami," said Dr. Richard Wakeford of Britain's University of Manchester.

"If this was a developing country, we'd have people going down in the hundreds and thousands with the likes of typhoid and cholera by now. The questions should be: Where is the sewage going? What is the state of the drinking water?"


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Radiation+fears+mask+worse+threats/4453198/story.html#ixzz1GqCUSltI
Click to expand...
At this point the sewage issue is really a non issue as didnt we hear yesterdays the tap water has been polluted with Radition already?
I realize some area's might not have been but given the concern I wouldnt think they would be advising anyone drink water or cook with it or even shower with it until they get the ground level test back. Sewage or not. IMO

not_my_kids said:
-Updates with Minor New Info Throughout --Emergency Crews Spray Reactor 3 With Water Cannon --Crews Had Temporarily Withdrawn Cannon Due To High Radiation Levels --PM Kan and President Obama Agree to Cooperate on Crisis in Phone Call --Decision to Proceed on Water Spraying, Dumping Despite High Radiation --Nuclear Offl: Need to Prevent Same Thing Happened Last Two Reactors --U.S.-Japan Disagree on Details of Danger --Radiation Levels Higher 20 Kilometers From Fukushima
http://www.automatedtrader.net/real...rews-begin-spraying-reactor-with-water-cannon

What exactly has happened to the other four reactors?
Levels are higher 20 km out...would someone please define higher?
If the levels outside the plant are dropping, why did they have to withdraw the cannon?
And from the last article I linked, is there any way that one of our smart people can clue us in on a guess at the actual radiation levels above the plant? If the crews can only stay up there 40 minutes at a time to remain within safe levels, then what are they really looking at there?TIA if anyone can answer that.
ETA: And I wonder if they mean the original safe limits or their new, improved, handy dandy safe limits.
Click to expand...

Was the 20km out meaning out this way -----> or out this way ? or up? I thought they were meaning away from the plant 20km and not 20 km up?
 
Steve Herman, a Voice of America correspondent who is in Fukushima Prefecture, where Japanese officials are struggling to contain the damage at a nuclear plant, reports on Twitter that he, like many people in Japan and around the world, is following the latest news from the plant by watching Japan's state broadcaster, NHK. (Readers of The Lede can watch a live feed of NHK's rolling news coverage, with simultaneous English translation, in the player at the top of this post.)

Within the past hour Mr. Herman observed a change in tone by the state broadcaster's journalists and guests, writing on Twitter: "NHK on-set commentators [are] being openly critical now of contradictory and opaque communications coming from [the] Japanese government."

As several journalists on The Lede's Japan Crisis Twitter list observed about 30 minutes ago, another strong aftershock just struck the region, measuring magnitude 5.8 at a depth of 30 kilometers, or about 18 miles.
Click to expand...

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...d-earthquake-aftermath-4/?partner=rss&emc=rss
 
• 1st operation
Japan Self-Defense Forces dropped 4 huge buckets of seawater from helicopters in this morning. Lead plates were installed at the bottom of the helicopters to shield radiation and crew members wore radiation protection suits.

• 2nd operation
The National Police Agency tried to pour water from the ground with pumper truck in the evening. However, they were not able to come close because of high radiation and water did not reach the pool.

• 3rd operation
Japan Self-Defense Forces poured 30 tons of water from the ground with 5 special pumper trucks from 19:45 to 20:09. Because these trucks are special, they were able to do this operation without getting off the trucks. Effect of this operation is under evaluation.
Click to expand...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath
 
Not sure if this has been posted eh? as I just awoke and drinking my 1st cup of coffee for the day and scanning various news, etc..

"The U.S. Postal Service in Hawaii has begun checking mail arriving from Japan after mail in San Francisco and New York showed low levels of radiation, USPS officials said. "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42121934
 
apan's science ministry says radiation levels of up to 0.17 millisieverts per hour have been detected about 30 kilometers northwest of the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Experts say exposure to those levels for 6 hours would result in absorption of the maximum level considered safe for 1 year.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_38.html
 
lol, never mind, just as I posted, I got in...................Morning Ya'll!
 
Japan may build robots to play the violin, run marathons and preside over weddings, but it has not deployed any of the machines to help repair its crippled reactors.

While robots are commonplace in the nuclear power industry, with EU engineers building one that can climb walls through radioactive fields, the electric power company running Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has not deployed any for the nuclear emergency.

Instead, its skeleton team has been given the unenviable and perhaps deadly task of cooling reactors and spent nuclear fuel on their own, only taking breaks to avoid over-exposure.

A science ministry official said a robot used to detect radiation levels is at the site of the accident in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, but nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said: "We have no reports of any robots being used."
Click to expand...

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE72G00Y20110317?sp=true


***I have learned from reading on chernobyl that robots were not able to function in high radiation so humans had to take the job... is that what is happening here???***
 
Morning, just got caught up... Now to peruse the internet for info.
 
apan will continue dropping water from the air on the No.3 reactor of its quake-stricken nuclear power plant on Friday, the country's nuclear safety agency said on Thursday night.
In a separate statement, the Fukushima Daiichi plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said white smoke or steam had been seen coming from the No.2 reactor.
Click to expand...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110317/wl_nm/us_japan_nuclear_reactor
 
Okay, am up and TRYING to function.

Thanks for all the info. everyone. I was wondering how that water cannon plan went. Sounds like it was not successful.
 
Low radioactivity seen heading towards N.America

VIENNA - Low concentrations of radioactive particles from Japan's disaster-hit nuclear power plant have been heading eastwards and are expected to reach North America in days, a Swedish official said on Thursday.

Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Institute, a government agency, was citing data from a network of international monitoring stations set up to detect signs of any nuclear weapons tests.

Stressing the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would eventually also continue across the Atlantic and reach Europe

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/ra...ards+America/4455537/story.html#ixzz1Gs2848Jv
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 151 more.
Total: 2,949 (members: 152, guests: 2,797)

Online statistics

Members online
152
Guests online
2,797
Total visitors
2,949
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
592,514
Messages
17,970,176
Members
228,791
Latest member
fesmike
Back
Top