Earthquake off Japan

[mr friendly guy]

I'm not convinced by the "Nuclear is dangerous" arguments. Everything is dangerous. We live in a world where we need a certain level of power generation, and we should seek to achieve that power generation by whatever means we can to minimise human suffering and environmental damage. With this in perspective the relevant figures to look at would be these:

Wind: 0.15
Nuclear: 0.0009

Those are the figures for deaths caused per TW hr generated. The nuclear figure includes Chernobyl. If we were to generate all our nuclear energy by wind power we would have over 150 times the fatalities from that power generation.

Source? I want to throw these figures at the anti nuclear histrionic crowd.

Speaking of fuel, China donated 20,000 tons of diesel and gasoline. Don't know how quickly it will get there (or be distributed).

Not to mention also sending drinking water.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 784246.htm

[Julhelm]

The lack of information does not mean that there is no danger. Because of the Japanese information blackout, I am inclined to believe that the situation is much more seriously fucked that the mainstream media is reporting.

You don't think the media is being alarmist enough? What should the media be reporting in your opinion?

[Broomstick]

From what I’ve been reading and seeing on TV, Japanese have supplies, the transportation system seems to have near completely broken because of major shortages of refined fuels of all kinds. Truck drivers especially will not go anywhere near the nuclear accident site without being assured they have enough fuel to leave promptly.

You know, that's not an entirely irrational attitude - why SHOULD they drive near a damaged reactor in a heavily quake and tsunami-damaged region without sufficient fuel for a round trip? For that matter, why not have round-trip fuel even without radiation being a threat?

A lot of Japanese refineries are down, but my understanding had been that Japan was one of the few nations which actually had a strategic reverse of refined fuel. Not just gasoline. Maybe they’ve run that down in recent years? It looks like the disaster planning system simply did not anticipate total leveling of such outlaying areas.

Also, several of the massive fires post-quake were fuel storage facilities burning. So I have to ask, did part of the strategic fuel reserve burn? And if so, how much of it? Until you factor in that I'm not sure what to think about this part of your post. Is part of the fuel reserve burned, or is it a problem of transporting fuel reserves that are sufficient to where they are needed?

Transportation always seems to be a major bottleneck post-disaster.

Its getting absurd that Japan hasn’t asked for more US helicopter support when they have doctors eating a few small riceballs each day. They risk making Katrina no longer look so incompetence; and certainly China’s parachute commando recoilless rifle attacks on landslides the other year put everyone to shame.

Actually, transporting clean water is more important than food right now, though everyone seems to emphasize the food. A healthy human being can function on little or even no food for a week or two. It's unpleasant, but human beings have sufficient caloric reserves to cope with that. The first few days you need to fly in rescue crews to pull survivors out of the rubble, clean water, and emergency medical supplies.

After you stop hearing cries for help from under collapsed houses, then food becomes more a priority.

Of course, ideally the authorities would be able to get EVERYTHING into these areas, but the infrastructure is so fucked up that priorities must be assigned. Simply assigning more helicopters won't help that much if there's nowhere for them to either land or drop the supplies - food dropped onto broken up rubble will be hard for the survivors to retrieve, and perhaps result in more injuries.

On the other hand, there could be incompetence at work. I just don't know enough to make that conclusion at this point.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The lack of information does not mean that there is no danger. Because of the Japanese information blackout, I am inclined to believe that the situation is much more seriously fucked that the mainstream media is reporting.

Quite a few people in Japan, and most people who aren't hysterical anti-nuclear NIMBY Luddites, would like to disagree with you. If anything, the histrionic screaming from paranoid Luddites is getting annoying. Over 11,000 people have died from the earthquake and tsunami. Some 500,000 people are homeless. Old people are dropping like flies because the elder care system has apparently gone completely off the rails. People are sitting in darkness due to rolling blackouts. The trains don't run on time anymore. Fukushima Daiichi will kill, at most, fifty people. All of whom will die no sooner than five to ten years from now. Muammar Gaddafi has personally killed more people than Fukushima Daiichi has.

Let's try to do some calculations. There is about 1100 tons of nuclear fuel in the entire nuclear complex, thanks to those Japanese idiots who decided to store their spent fuel rods in the nuclear power plant (doesn't protocol dictate that these radioactive waste be transported to some remote and safe location for long term storage)?

And here, you immediately betray your ignorance. What happens is that spent nuclear fuel goes into onsite cooling ponds until the short-lived radionuclides decay and the spent fuel cools below "spontaneously combust" temperature. Then you cast the spent fuel into blocks of glass for dry storage. Since NIMBYs like you won't let anyone construct deep storage for spent nuclear fuel, the dry storage also ends up at the nuclear plant. Also, little of that fuel is in danger. From an earlier post:

• Reactor No. 1 fuel pool: 50 tons of nuclear fuel
• Reactor No. 2 fuel pool: 81 tons
• Reactor No. 3 fuel pool: 88 tons
• Reactor No. 4 fuel pool: 135 tons
• Reactor No. 5 fuel pool: 142 tons
• Reactor No. 6 fuel pool: 151 tons
• Also, a separate ground-level fuel pool contains 1,097 tons of fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage.

The reactor cores themselves contain less than 100 tons of fuel, Resnikoff noted.

The ground-level pool . . . no danger. You don't have to shoot water 150 feet up in the air to reach it. Dry storage. No danger. It's cooled to the point where they've probably converted it into glass blocks. Reactors #5 and #6 have been offline for a while, and their fuel pools have remained well behaved. Reactors #1 - #3 spent fuel pools only contain exhausted fuel rods, since they were in active operation at the time of the quake. The 100 tons of fuel in the reactor cores . . . they're not going anywhere since neither the quake nor the tsunami breached the containment vessels, and the reactors themselves have been thoroughly killed with seawater.

That leaves Reactor #4's fuel pool, which contains live fuel rods, since #4 was down for maintenance at the time. Which means the rest of your post is completely lacking in credibility.

NY times recently published a simulation about the radioactive fallout and its movement across the pacific. Some parts of California will be hit with a maximum of 0.1 units of radiation where 1.0 units is the radiation intensity at the source. Unfortunately, their methodology was not disclosed, but let's assume it is legitimate and accurate for now.
(See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... ef=science)

It's actually a gross overstatement based on some very pessimistic assumptions.

So now can anyone offer to convert what levels of radioactivity we would get if exposed to 16793 mol of Iodine-131? That's about 2.2 tons of pure Iodine-131 isotopes if you'd like that in mass.

Even if 2.2 tons of radioactive iodine was pumped into the atmosphere (which there won't, since your 2.2 tons is based on an estimate that bears no passing resemblance to reality whatsoever,) the public health hazard here is going to be insignificant. Why? Well, there's the entire Pacific Ocean in the way, for one. For another, if we assume it all went straight to Los Angeles, there'd be nearly fifty-two million tons of air over the urban sprawl of Los Angeles (to an altitude of about 10,000 meters) to mix that iodine in. Assuming it stayed in an LA-sized blob. Which it wouldn't.

[PeZook]

You know, that's not an entirely irrational attitude - why SHOULD they drive near a damaged reactor in a heavily quake and tsunami-damaged region without sufficient fuel for a round trip? For that matter, why not have round-trip fuel even without radiation being a threat?

Logistical considerations sometimes call for something critical to be delivered. If it will take two trucks to do so, and you only have fuel to fill up one,you split the fuel and have the trucks wait at the destination for a bit to be refuelled. Or you do that when there's two places that need supplies and you only have fuel for one round trip etc.

Basically if it's deemed more important to deliver certain supplies RIGHT THE FUCK NOW than losing use of two trucks for a bit, you can see such a scheme. It's probably happening a lot with stuff like clean water, where people can't exactly wait until you get enough fuel.

[AndroAsc]

The lack of information does not mean that there is no danger. Because of the Japanese information blackout, I am inclined to believe that the situation is much more seriously fucked that the mainstream media is reporting.

You don't think the media is being alarmist enough? What should the media be reporting in your opinion?

No, it is hardly alarmist. Nobody is talking about the 1000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods that in all likelihood are having a burn fest because the Japanese can't cool their reactors down. That's the accumulation of 20 fucking years of radioactive waste... why isn't anyone making a fuss about their safety protocols?

Not to forget that one of the reactors has nuclear fuel rods that are plutonium based that have a half life of 10,000+ years. Iodine may go away in a few weeks, but plutonium is here to stay. So why hasn't the mainstream media talked about it yet? Why hasn't anyone done a calculation of the worst case scenario? Simply because the Japanese government and the Toyko Power company (whatever their name is) is trying to keep things under the lid. This is the same company that neglected all their safety warnings that were issued as way back in the 1970s. This is the same company that claimed it was a level 4 (out of 7) disaster and only recently did they escalate it to a level 6 (which is what the French has been saying from Day 1). And this is the same company that is still trying to "save the situation" when they have completely lost fucking control over the situation.

Only today did they admit that they might need to bombard the area with concrete and boric acid to seal off the entire place like what the Russians did in Chernobyl... BUT they said they wanted to try to get their water pumps working first to see if they can salvage the situation. Seriously... WTF!?! This is no time to be a pussy to try things out, it's time to take definite actions that have been proven to work in the past.

The way the Japanese government and the Tokyo power company are acting are seriously selfish and self-centered... and the latest report indicate that they are refusing US help. I hope the Pacific winds change and blow the shit back out to them.

[PeZook]

What the hell, dude?

First, MOX is not plutonium, it's a mix of uranium and plutonium oxides that you get from reprocessing fuel. It simply contains more plutonium than your usual fuel (ALL reactors produce plutonium as part of their normal operations). They're not "plutonium based", it's a massive misrepresentation.

Second, "salvaging the situation" at this point means preventing a meltdown/another fuel fire, not "getting the plant operational again". What, you think they should just stop and let the situation fester? What are you even suggesting here? First you complain nobody's panicking at a worst case scenario, then complain they're trying to PREVENT a worst-case scenario?

Your screeching about 1000 tonnes of spent fuel is also a red herring, because only a fraction of that is actually in danger. Every plant in the world stores its waste on site, because people scream about building deep storage facilities anywhere on the damn planet.

In other news, I have run across information that the plant's work crews were increased and (though that's not definitive), exposure for the initial work crews was around 250 mSv total per person, which is entirely survivable. Hopefully these guys are not actually dead men walking and will live through the whole debacle.

[AndroAsc]

And here, you immediately betray your ignorance. What happens is that spent nuclear fuel goes into onsite cooling ponds until the short-lived radionuclides decay and the spent fuel cools below "spontaneously combust" temperature. Then you cast the spent fuel into blocks of glass for dry storage. Since NIMBYs like you won't let anyone construct deep storage for spent nuclear fuel, the dry storage also ends up at the nuclear plant. Also, little of that fuel is in danger.

Ok, so you claim there is two sets of spent nuclear fuel. One type are the "old ones" that have the short-lived radioisotopes decayed to nothingness and those are not spontaneously combustible. Fair enough. But what happens when it is heated up for prolonged periods of time like now? The second type are the "new ones" that are in the cooling ponds. Well... the US has claimed that the water is now gone from the cooling ponds and so these fuel rods may be spontaneously burning (never mind the ongoing fires).

And before you make accusations of NIMBYs, I am in favor of nuclear power. In my opinion this incident is illustrative of the failings of corporate greed rather than nuclear science. It was corporate greed that led the Toyko power company to neglect all safety recommends. It is corporate greed that is leading them to try to salvage the situation with pussy attempts when what they should do now is to encase the entire place with boric acid, sand and concrete.

The ground-level pool . . . no danger. You don't have to shoot water 150 feet up in the air to reach it. Dry storage. No danger. It's cooled to the point where they've probably converted it into glass blocks.

Ground level fuel pool are the "old ones" yes? Are they just are ground level or buried many meters underneath the surface? What happens if a ranging fire starts eating at these fuel rods?

Reactors #5 and #6 have been offline for a while, and their fuel pools have remained well behaved.

And yet we have reports that reactor #5 and #6 temperature has risen to about 50-60 C. That was a few days ago... WTF is happening now?

Reactors #1 - #3 spent fuel pools only contain exhausted fuel rods, since they were in active operation at the time of the quake. The 100 tons of fuel in the reactor cores . . . they're not going anywhere since neither the quake nor the tsunami breached the containment vessels, and the reactors themselves have been thoroughly killed with seawater.

Fair enough assuming it doesn't breach.

That leaves Reactor #4's fuel pool, which contains live fuel rods, since #4 was down for maintenance at the time. Which means the rest of your post is completely lacking in credibility.

One of the reactors from #1 to #4 contains plutonium. Did you consider that? Also the fires are still raging.

It's actually a gross overstatement based on some very pessimistic assumptions.

Ya right... you don't know that. The source did not state the methodology. I could easily claim it based on some very optimistic assumptions.

Even if 2.2 tons of radioactive iodine was pumped into the atmosphere (which there won't, since your 2.2 tons is based on an estimate that bears no passing resemblance to reality whatsoever,) the public health hazard here is going to be insignificant. Why? Well, there's the entire Pacific Ocean in the way, for one. For another, if we assume it all went straight to Los Angeles, there'd be nearly fifty-two million tons of air over the urban sprawl of Los Angeles (to an altitude of about 10,000 meters) to mix that iodine in. Assuming it stayed in an LA-sized blob. Which it wouldn't.

[/quote]

Issues of the calculation aside, the simulation I assume already accounts for decay across the Pacific Ocean and dilution across a large area, but some parts of CA are still going to receive 10% of the radiation intensity according to their simulation.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The lack of information does not mean that there is no danger. Because of the Japanese information blackout, I am inclined to believe that the situation is much more seriously fucked that the mainstream media is reporting.

You don't think the media is being alarmist enough? What should the media be reporting in your opinion?

No, it is hardly alarmist. Nobody is talking about the 1000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods that in all likelihood are having a burn fest because the Japanese can't cool their reactors down. That's the accumulation of 20 fucking years of radioactive waste... why isn't anyone making a fuss about their safety protocols?

So, not only are you an idiot, but you're a fucking idiot. Nobody is talking about the 1000+ tons of spent nuclear fuel because the only nuclear fuel that's in any real danger is the stuff sitting in #4's cooling pond.

Not to forget that one of the reactors has nuclear fuel rods that are plutonium based that have a half life of 10,000+ years.

Look up coal fly ash sometime. That shit has thorium and uranium, which will be around for millions of years. Fukushima Daiichi may increase the overall radioactivity on Earth . . . but that will be because the Chinese will burn tons and tons more coal during the three or so years of delay they've imposed (on account of Fukushima Daiichi) on the process of constructing new nuclear powerplants.

Only today did they admit that they might need to bombard the area with concrete and boric acid to seal off the entire place like what the Russians did in Chernobyl... BUT they said they wanted to try to get their water pumps working first to see if they can salvage the situation.

Getting the water pumps working would solve the situation good and proper. The spent fuel can't catch fire if it's sitting underwater.

Seriously... WTF!?! This is no time to be a pussy to try things out, it's time to take definite actions that have been proven to work in the past.

Fukushima != Chernobyl. Chernobyl had the reactor containment vessel fail. Chernobyl suffered a complete and total meltdown. Fukushima has just demonstrated that hydrogen is flammable and fuel rods are hot.

The way the Japanese government and the Tokyo power company are acting are seriously selfish and self-centered... and the latest report indicate that they are refusing US help. I hope the Pacific winds change and blow the shit back out to them.

Wow. You might want to consider retracting that statement . . .

[AndroAsc]

Fair enough, there may be a lot of technical errors from my posting. However, I am not a nuclear scientist so I do appreciate the clarifications.

Nevertheless, I am still suspicious of the Japanese government and the Toyko power companies. If there is indeed nothing wrong, why are they not releasing more information? They could include statement and references about MOX. They could release information that most of the nuclear fuel rods have the short-lived radioisotopes decayed to nothingness. They could a worst-case scenario projection and share it with everyone. The presence of more data convinces people. The lack of data makes people assumes the worst.

For e.g. it was only after much search did I find out that it would take about 2000C to reignite a nuclear fission reaction. One of my concerns was that the fires might restart the nuclear reaction, but after learning about the threshold temp required, the possibility seems remote. But why is it that they must hide all these information or choose not to report it? These are obvious question that the layman asks when reading about the news.

[PeZook]

How do you think me and Terwyn know about all of that? I'm not a nuclear scientist either. That #3 was fuelled with MOX had been known for a while, anyway, so your criticism is rather...moot.

You won't get details unless you search for them because the media doesn't give two shits about details.

[Simon_Jester]

No, it is hardly alarmist. Nobody is talking about the 1000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods that in all likelihood are having a burn fest because the Japanese can't cool their reactors down.

You know why nobody's talking about the thousand tons of burning spent fuel rods?

Because there aren't a thousand tons of burning spent fuel rods.

See, from where I'm standing your line of argument looks like:
1) There are a thousand tons of spent fuel rods physically located at the site.
2) The Japanese media isn't telling everyone that this is a superdisaster which will kill thousands.
3) But as we know, it must be.
4) Therefore, the disaster must be far, far worse than anyone is reporting.
5) How bad could it be?
6) Oh! I know! All the thousand tons of spent fuel rods could catch fire and be impossible to put out!
7) That would be as bad as I can think of, so it must be true! Therefore, that's what's happening.

Things start going wrong at (3). When you start assuming that the fuel rods must be on fire purely because no one is saying they're on fire. This is a poor reason to assume things are on fire.

The obvious problem with this is that there are enormous numbers of people independently monitoring the situation at Fukushima. There are Geiger counters all over the place. You cannot keep a Chernobyl-scale release of radioisotopes secret. Nor would you wish to do so. Remember, the Japanese themselves are the ones who stand to suffer the most from this release being kept a secret. Why would they deliberately cripple their own disaster response by pretending nothing is wrong so as to conceal the truth from random foreigners in other countries?

It's one thing for them to conceal the scope of the disaster when the disaster is confined to the plant- when the only people in danger of dying are plant workers, who know the full extent of the problem anyway. It's another matter entirely for them to conceal it when they should be telling everyone in Japan to take their potassium iodide tablets like good little boys and girls. I don't really believe they're doing the latter, because that would be colossally stupid.

That's the accumulation of 20 fucking years of radioactive waste... why isn't anyone making a fuss about their safety protocols?

Because most of it isn't burning, won't be burning, and probably wouldn't burn unless someone went far, far out of their way to (literally) pour gasoline on it and light a match. Some small fraction of it might burn: say, the accumulation of several weeks of radioactive waste.

As to why no one's making a fuss... well, the logical way to avoid this problem is to store the nuclear waste in a geologically stable location. You know, NOT in a major earthquake-and-tsunami danger zone? Where do you want it? Would Yucca Mountain do for your purposes?

Not to forget that one of the reactors has nuclear fuel rods that are plutonium based that have a half life of 10,000+ years. Iodine may go away in a few weeks, but plutonium is here to stay.

Are the plutonium fuel rods in actual danger of catching fire? Also note that long half-lives cut both ways: short lived isotopes are a far higher danger when it comes to short term exposure; long-lived isotopes are, by definition, going to release the vast majority of their radioactivity some time after next century.

Ok, so you claim there is two sets of spent nuclear fuel. One type are the "old ones" that have the short-lived radioisotopes decayed to nothingness and those are not spontaneously combustible. Fair enough. But what happens when it is heated up for prolonged periods of time like now?

Nothing much; they're not being heated to ignition temperatures, because they are physically located elsewhere. A long way away.

And before you make accusations of NIMBYs, I am in favor of nuclear power. In my opinion this incident is illustrative of the failings of corporate greed rather than nuclear science. It was corporate greed that led the Toyko power company to neglect all safety recommends. It is corporate greed that is leading them to try to salvage the situation with pussy attempts when what they should do now is to encase the entire place with boric acid, sand and concrete.

Aside from transportation to the site being difficult (which adds a layer of complexity to that problem which was not an issue at Chernobyl), I have yet to see any evidence for this aside from your own paranoia: the assumption that it must be worse than the (already nuclear-alarmist!) mainstream media says.

At this point, TEPCO has already written off the reactors. They did this as soon as they started pouring salt water into the damn things. They gain no financial benefit from trying to 'salvage' the fuel ponds. The Fukushima site is a constructive total loss.

They have nothing to gain from trying to minimize the extent of the damage, except the long-term blame if it becomes worse than they admit and that actually has consequences for anyone other than the plant workers.

Everyone involved already understands this... except you.

The ground-level pool . . . no danger. You don't have to shoot water 150 feet up in the air to reach it. Dry storage. No danger. It's cooled to the point where they've probably converted it into glass blocks.

Ground level fuel pool are the "old ones" yes? Are they just are ground level or buried many meters underneath the surface? What happens if a ranging fire starts eating at these fuel rods?

Keep pouring water on them. They won't burn.

Reactors #5 and #6 have been offline for a while, and their fuel pools have remained well behaved.

And yet we have reports that reactor #5 and #6 temperature has risen to about 50-60 C. That was a few days ago... WTF is happening now?

Perhaps they have cooled back down to room temperature? You're assuming from the absence of evidence that there must be hidden evidence of presence: that because people are telling you it's fine, it must actually be about to explode and kill you.

This is not a rational response.

That leaves Reactor #4's fuel pool, which contains live fuel rods, since #4 was down for maintenance at the time. Which means the rest of your post is completely lacking in credibility.

One of the reactors from #1 to #4 contains plutonium. Did you consider that? Also the fires are still raging.

OK, which reactor uses the MOX fuel? Is this one of the reactors in actual danger of fire? Why is it such a threat? Stop shouting "AAAAAH PLUTONIUM WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEE!" and give us some evidence on this.

It's actually a gross overstatement based on some very pessimistic assumptions.

Ya right... you don't know that. The source did not state the methodology. I could easily claim it based on some very optimistic assumptions.

You do realize that if the source did not state the methodology, the logical response is "they pulled it out of their ass and it means nothing," right? Not "Look! This is how bad it could be! But it's probably WORSE than this!"

See, this is exactly the mindset that we expect from antinuclear fanatics. If you tell them something is bad, they assume it's worse- then invent justifications for why it could be even worse than that. The object of their game is finding evidence to justify their reaction, not reacting to the evidence.

That's not a good way to deal with reality.

Issues of the calculation aside, the simulation I assume already accounts for decay across the Pacific Ocean and dilution across a large area, but some parts of CA are still going to receive 10% of the radiation intensity according to their simulation.

See, we don't even know what their definition of "10% of the radiation intensity" is. In real life, "intensity" means "amount per unit area."

Does it not strike you as unreasonable that, if X kilograms of radioactive material are dropped per square kilometer on the area around the plant, that 0.1*X kilograms will be dropped per square kilometer on a place thousands of kilometers away? I don't believe for a minute that that factors in decay and dilution. If it did, then you'd be saying that for every kilogram of waste dropped on the area immediately around Fukushima, hundreds or thousands of kilograms will be dropped on California.

So that can't be it. That would be idiotic.

Maybe when they say "intensity" they actually mean "total quantity:" 10% of the waste makes it across the Pacific and lands somewhere on the West Coast. Given that the West Coast has an area of a million square kilometers or more to dilute that radiation across, that's actually not such a big deal.

Fair enough, there may be a lot of technical errors from my posting. However, I am not a nuclear scientist so I do appreciate the clarifications.

Nevertheless, I am still suspicious of the Japanese government and the Toyko power companies. If there is indeed nothing wrong, why are they not releasing more information? They could include statement and references about MOX. They could release information that most of the nuclear fuel rods have the short-lived radioisotopes decayed to nothingness. They could a worst-case scenario projection and share it with everyone. The presence of more data convinces people. The lack of data makes people assumes the worst.

Yes, and the mainstream media is totally fine with this.

The problem with releasing a statement of the form you've desired is that it will predictably be cherrypicked for whatever in it sounds most ominous. A formal report that covers everything in enough detail to prevent people from panicking would take days to compose (at best) and be the size of a book... by the time it was compiled, the whole thing would be moot one way or the other. Moreover, most people wouldn't bother to read it, and would satisfy themselves with a reporter's one-minute summary, which would read:

"Government officials in Tokyo denied the existence of a deadly nuclear hazard from the PLUTONIUM and RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES at Fukushima..."

Yeah, that would be really helpful.

The time for public education is later, after the disaster, not now. Now is the time for the Japanese government to not give a shit about anyone but their own people, tell everyone not to worry about Fukushima (with reason), and above all clean up after the tsunami that has killed many thousands of people, while this whole bizarre nuclear sideshow goes on in the background.

[Broomstick]

Phongn, I don't like hearing about the elderly suffering either, but it's brutal fact that in any disaster the very young and the very old suffer more than the adult and able-bodied. The elderly couldn't run away as easily, they aren't as resilient, and are more likely to suffer chronic conditions requiring daily medication. It offends our sensibilities, but the universe doesn't care, it's not a moral agent. What would be unconscionable in ordinary circumstances is something that becomes all too commonplace in disaster of this magnitude. Any prior preparation must take into account humans limitations – not just physical but moral as well.

I heard from someone that there are Japanese vending machines that are designed so that in an emergency they can be opened by the average person to access the food and beverages inside – now that's good design. Now, we need to come up with something that will compensate for people who run in fear for their lives, abandoning the elderly in their care. In some cases, hospital patients could not be moved in time and the medical personnel had two choices: either stay and die with them, or run to survive and perhaps help other survivors. It may be that the people you mention fled thinking they were in the situation, and either didn't know those in their care had survived, or were unable to return, or had wound up (ironically) perishing themselves while those they thought doomed lived through the initial disaster.

But, no matter what, in this sort of disaster you're going to hear about debilitated people dying in their beds because they simply couldn't care for themselves. People with chronic conditions will die for lack of medicine. People can and do freeze to death, suffer injuries that in other circumstances would be survivable but not in a disaster zone, and so forth. That is part of what separates disaster from ordinary life. We don't have to be happy about it, but we do need to recognize it happens.

Actually Katrina messed up just as long as stretch of coastline, around 300 miles of heavy damage in both cases, and it had effects deep inland that blocked roads. The damage in Biloxi is directly comparable to the tsunami, though of course the US had evacuation time and so only about 1,900 people were killed in total. Japan is worse for certain, but Katrina was pretty damn big. We just got lucky a big lake was a lot of the inland area.

That, and the US has the resources of a continent to call upon – Japan is a much smaller nation in some respects. That is why it was vital that other nations step up immediately to lend assistance. The US also has enormous military assets that can be brought to bear on such a situation. Japan's military is deliberately stunted.

Fuel is a problem but clearly not impossible to get, take it from the Tokyo airports if you have too; no one seems to be having any problems gassing up airliners to move people out, and anyone who wants to flee the radiation can go to a more southerly airport.

It's possible for airplanes to arrive in Japan with sufficient fuel to depart again without needing to “gas up” while in Japan. For inter-continental trips that may require an intermediate stop outside Japan to take on sufficient fuel for the long leg of the journey. Are they doing this? I don't know. Haven't heard about it. Airlines may be reluctant to announce that they aren't taking on fuel while in Tokyo, even if it is a safe practice when done properly. People are nervous and jumpy enough.

If only food was carried and not water or other supplies you could provide daily rations to a million plus people.

No, actually water is more important. You must bring in clean water, or else you're going to have cholera. Cholera is not treatable without massive amounts of fluid, that is, water, and if you don't have it you could have thousands more dead.

Yes, being hungry sucks. So does being thirsty. Worse than either is shitting 10-20 liters of diarrhea a day, which is what cholera does to you, and which is rapidly fatal without replacement fluids. Cholera always shows up where you have poor sanitation and a lack of clean water, which describes the quake+tsunami zone right now.

I was forced to go a week without eating once. It was not a happy time, but I survived it. If I had to I could do it again. Three days without water, however, is frequently fatal. They need to get water to the survivors more than food right now. Especially as the survivors are, in many cases, managing to scavenge some food. It's clean water that's desperately needed.

Really now, Japan renounces a formal military and deliberately limits defense spending (its huge but it doesn’t buy much!) in ordered to keep the SDF to minimal standards. That’s simply hurting them right now because they do not have the depth of capability we would expect out of such a wealthy nation. The US is obligated to defend Japan as part of that renunciation; this is exactly when that should be put into effect.

Yes, the Japanese SDF is kept artificially small for such a prosperous nation – and the US pledged to protect Japan under circumstances where that force is insufficient. Which we are doing so. (Yay, a nation keeping its commitments) There's no clause in there distinguishing natural disasters from man-made threats. Those US forces already on location, such as in Okinawa, were, according to a couple of spouses of service people I know on line, told to report for duty as soon as the islands stopped shaking as it was expected that they would be called upon to aid in relief efforts. Since the first day the US has offered assistance to Japan and has been sending over all manner of needed things and people.

Part of the problem, of course, is that things are a mess – chaos follows disasters. It's hard to know where to send people and stuff if you aren't sure what's happening on the ground, or even whether or not this or that village (or even city) is still in existence. Any people you do put on the ground will need sufficient supplies to take care of themselves at the very least, and ideally enough to share with survivors.

The lack of information does not mean that there is no danger. Because of the Japanese information blackout, I am inclined to believe that the situation is much more seriously fucked that the mainstream media is reporting.

I'm more inclined, at this point, to think it's not so much an “information blackout” as “we don't know for sure what's happening inside building dangerous to enter at the moment”.

Let's try to do some calculations. There is about 1100 tons of nuclear fuel in the entire nuclear complex, thanks to those Japanese idiots who decided to store their spent fuel rods in the nuclear power plant (doesn't protocol dictate that these radioactive waste be transported to some remote and safe location for long term storage)?

No, actually, it's standard procedure to store used fuel rods on-site for a few years until they “cool down” radioactively, THEN transport them to another location. We do exactly that in the US. So if the Japanese are “idiots” for doing that so are the rest of us.

What might have been a bad choice is not locating the fuel rod storage at a low point in the plant. Really, maybe the back up diesel generators should have been located where the fuel pools are and the fuel pools where the generators were. If the pools were at a low point then adding more water would likely be easier – if you couldn't directly get to the pools just flood the whole damn building and the water will flow downward. Just a crazy idea, that, I'm sure the details would be somewhat complicated.

Now, assume all of them are the benign Iodine-131 isotope

I wouldn't describe iodine-131 as “benign”, personally, but whatever....

(note that one of the plants have the long lasting PLUTONIUM isotope but we shall ignore that fact in this discussion)

No need to shout “plutonium”, we all know it's Bad Stuff. There's actually Bad Stuff besides just plutonium and iodine, and some of the other stuff might actually be taken up more easily into the human body but I'll admit my knowledge is fuzzy on that point.

So now can anyone offer to convert what levels of radioactivity we would get if exposed to 16793 mol of Iodine-131? That's about 2.2 tons of pure Iodine-131 isotopes if you'd like that in mass.

You also have to account for the radioactive decay that occurs during transit time, so “2.2 tons” released at the plant will not remain 2.2 tons of iodine-131. During the few days it takes to cross the ocean you'll lose some of that. If fact, if it takes 8 days to cross the Pacific you'll only have 1.1 tons to worry about because its half life is 8 days.

Now, also consider that anything airborne is going to be diluted by the atmosphere itself. Airborne particles do not travel in discrete masses, they disperse, so not all of it will be going the same direction. Yes, this gets complicated very rapidly, doesn't it?

Reduce 2.2 tons of iodine to molecules and disperse evenly on the US Coast from Oregon to the Mexican border. How much iodine per unit of coast line is that? I'd expect very little. Now, reduce the amount of that dust by the appropriate calculation of transit time and half life decay.

[Broomstick]

You know, that's not an entirely irrational attitude - why SHOULD they drive near a damaged reactor in a heavily quake and tsunami-damaged region without sufficient fuel for a round trip? For that matter, why not have round-trip fuel even without radiation being a threat?

Logistical considerations sometimes call for something critical to be delivered. If it will take two trucks to do so, and you only have fuel to fill up one,you split the fuel and have the trucks wait at the destination for a bit to be refuelled. Or you do that when there's two places that need supplies and you only have fuel for one round trip etc.

Basically if it's deemed more important to deliver certain supplies RIGHT THE FUCK NOW than losing use of two trucks for a bit, you can see such a scheme. It's probably happening a lot with stuff like clean water, where people can't exactly wait until you get enough fuel.

Yes, I can see your reasoning. I'm just pointing out that the truck driver's response is not irrational. It's a valid concern that they, personally, don't what to wind up stranded in a disaster zone. You are also correct that there are times when, for the greater good, such a sacrifice is necessary. Being concerned about being stranded doesn't make the truck drivers jerks, it means they're thinking (and perhaps afraid, which whether rational or not is a typical emotion under the circumstance). You get past their concerns by explaining why sacrifice may be called upon in this case, appealing to their altruism, attempting to provide reassurance for their well being, and so on. People shouldn't be stranding themselves in the disaster zone without good reason.

If it's a situation where people must be ordered to go into such areas then military or police might be more appropriate than civilian truck drivers. Then civilian volunteers. Then you start ordering civilians.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

And here, you immediately betray your ignorance. What happens is that spent nuclear fuel goes into onsite cooling ponds until the short-lived radionuclides decay and the spent fuel cools below "spontaneously combust" temperature. Then you cast the spent fuel into blocks of glass for dry storage. Since NIMBYs like you won't let anyone construct deep storage for spent nuclear fuel, the dry storage also ends up at the nuclear plant. Also, little of that fuel is in danger.

Ok, so you claim there is two sets of spent nuclear fuel. One type are the "old ones" that have the short-lived radioisotopes decayed to nothingness and those are not spontaneously combustible. Fair enough. But what happens when it is heated up for prolonged periods of time like now? The second type are the "new ones" that are in the cooling ponds. Well... the US has claimed that the water is now gone from the cooling ponds and so these fuel rods may be spontaneously burning (never mind the ongoing fires).

The cooling ponds for reactors 5 and 6 are reasonably well-behaved. The one sitting on the ground is in no danger at all. The problem children are the ones sitting on reactor #4 (because it has the hottest fuel, and was the fuel pool that caught fire a couple of times,) and the one sitting on reactor #3 due to it using MOX fuel.

And before you make accusations of NIMBYs, I am in favor of nuclear power.

Your histrionics sure don't make it look that way.

The ground-level pool . . . no danger. You don't have to shoot water 150 feet up in the air to reach it. Dry storage. No danger. It's cooled to the point where they've probably converted it into glass blocks.

Ground level fuel pool are the "old ones" yes? Are they just are ground level or buried many meters underneath the surface? What happens if a ranging fire starts eating at these fuel rods?

You = failure at reading comprehension. I've bolded the relevant part of my statement, because you obviously missed it.

Reactors #5 and #6 have been offline for a while, and their fuel pools have remained well behaved.

And yet we have reports that reactor #5 and #6 temperature has risen to about 50-60 C. That was a few days ago... WTF is happening now?

50C - 60C . . . that's less than the boiling point of water, much less than the auto-ignition temperature of a hydrogen fuel-air mixture, and nothing at all compared to the ignition temperature of the fuel rods themselves. Because the fuel is less-hot, the structures are intact, and plant workers are actually checking on the water levels, no news is really good news. Oh yeah, and from earlier in the thread:

Okay.

It LOOKS like they have the Aux diesel generator in reactor #6 active now. And they are using that to power the cooling systems on #6 and #5's fuel ponds, so THAT situation that was starting to build is hopefully under control now.

There's your answer.

That leaves Reactor #4's fuel pool, which contains live fuel rods, since #4 was down for maintenance at the time. Which means the rest of your post is completely lacking in credibility.

One of the reactors from #1 to #4 contains plutonium. Did you consider that? Also the fires are still raging.

Fires are not still raging, you tool. As I understand it; what's being produced is steam as they hit the hot fuel with oversized water guns. If they get the pumps working, the spent-fuel pools will stop being a problem as the spent-fuel will again be completely, and reliably, under water.

Simon_Jester has the rest well-covered.

[Broomstick]

No, it is hardly alarmist. Nobody is talking about the 1000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods that in all likelihood are having a burn fest because the Japanese can't cool their reactors down.

No, there won't be a “burn fest” of a kiloton of nuclear fuel rods because, as already mentioned by others, only a subset of that total is in any danger of burning right now.

That's the accumulation of 20 fucking years of radioactive waste... why isn't anyone making a fuss about their safety protocols?

Maybe there wouldn't be “20 fucking years of radioactive waste” if the NIMBY's weren't so fucking opposed to building proper long term storage facilities. Really, where do you think every other nuclear power plant's radioactive waste has gone, hmm?

I do know some of the nuclear waste in my area is trucked elsewhere – I've seen the trucks, which move under significant security escort – but where it goes I'm not certain, and not all of it leaves the plant grounds.

Making a fuss over their safety protocols means fessing up that in regards to the nuclear waste no one else does any better. What we should do is use this accident as an object lesson and get our shit together and make proper long term storage facilities, but I doubt that will happen.

Not to forget that one of the reactors has nuclear fuel rods that are plutonium based that have a half life of 10,000+ years.

>sigh< You'd be more credible if your facts were better. The MOX fuel rods are not “plutonium based”, they contain more plutonium oxide than usual. All current nuclear power reactors produce some plutonium as part of normal operations.

Also, the half life of plutonium-239 (the type used in weapons and reactors) is 24,100 years. You can find this easily with either Google or Wikipedia. (There are other isotopes, but they're present in trace quantities in the fuel rods in Fukushima so I won't bother with them here)

Iodine may go away in a few weeks

Half life is 8 days, actually.

... but plutonium is here to stay. So why hasn't the mainstream media talked about it yet?

Don't know about YOUR mainstream media, but mine has mentioned it. But then, I don't think you'd find my local media alarmist enough.

Why hasn't anyone done a calculation of the worst case scenario?

How do you know they aren't? Do you think the US asked their citizens to evacuate a larger zone than the Japanese did just to piss Japan off? The International Atomic Energy Agency is also running their own simulations. Did you think France has been saying this is worse than the Japanese are admitting from day one based on something pulled out of their ass?

Plenty of groups with FAR more knowledge and expertise than any of us here are working on the problem. They may be getting different answers, or they may have different sets of data, or different levels of risk tolerance.

And this is the same company that is still trying to "save the situation" when they have completely lost fucking control over the situation.

Well, what do you expect them to do? Go home and leave a burning power plant behind? Whether they're in control or not at the moment they are expected to keep trying.

Only today did they admit that they might need to bombard the area with concrete and boric acid to seal off the entire place like what the Russians did in Chernobyl... BUT they said they wanted to try to get their water pumps working first to see if they can salvage the situation. Seriously... WTF!?! This is no time to be a pussy to try things out, it's time to take definite actions that have been proven to work in the past.

Except the Chernobyl “solution” is far from ideal – they had to build yet another structure over the first dump of boron and concrete, and due to the improvised and unplanned natures of the place it's in constant danger of collapse and releasing more radioactive shit into the environment. If they can get working water pumps to fill up the water levels that is, in fact, an arguably better solution that will allow for a much more controlled clean up and decontamination.

Meanwhile, even if boron-and-concrete becomes the way to go (which I seriously doubt) they still must keep trying to cool the place down as much as possible so as to prevent things from getting worse. This isn't Star Trek, we can't simply beam concrete into the plant. Long term, after cleaning up and decontaminating what can be there might be a decision to entomb what can't be salvaged, but that's not at all the same situation as Chernobyl.

The way the Japanese government and the Tokyo power company are acting are seriously selfish and self-centered... and the latest report indicate that they are refusing US help.

Please provide a link to that report that the Japanese are refusing help.

[Broomstick]

Amazing video - what it looks like when your car gets hit with a tsunami, from the inside of the car. The driver did survive (very lucky).

[AndroAsc]

No, there won't be a “burn fest” of a kiloton of nuclear fuel rods because, as already mentioned by others, only a subset of that total is in any danger of burning right now.

We know that the newer fuel rods are burning in at least one reactor since all the water is gone, and these are the type that combust when exposed to air. After reading prior posts, I agree that the risk associated with the older rods are probably remote.

Maybe there wouldn't be “20 fucking years of radioactive waste” if the NIMBY's weren't so fucking opposed to building proper long term storage facilities. Really, where do you think every other nuclear power plant's radioactive waste has gone, hmm?

I do know some of the nuclear waste in my area is trucked elsewhere – I've seen the trucks, which move under significant security escort – but where it goes I'm not certain, and not all of it leaves the plant grounds.

Making a fuss over their safety protocols means fessing up that in regards to the nuclear waste no one else does any better. What we should do is use this accident as an object lesson and get our shit together and make proper long term storage facilities, but I doubt that will happen.

I always thought that the radioactive waste was stored underground in some desert area which is seismically stable. I guess for Japan that would be hard to find, but leaving radioactive waste in a nuclear reactor is plain stupidity.

Yes unfortunately, greenpeace and the tree huggers are using this as an excuse that OMG NUKLAR poison, when in reality what we should do is start evaluating our safety protocols and start spending money to install proper backups before shit like Fukishima happens. In my opinion, it is probably a preventable accident, but they just did not plan for the possibility of "what if our water pumps go offline?"

>sigh< You'd be more credible if your facts were better. The MOX fuel rods are not “plutonium based”, they contain more plutonium oxide than usual. All current nuclear power reactors produce some plutonium as part of normal operations.

Also, the half life of plutonium-239 (the type used in weapons and reactors) is 24,100 years. You can find this easily with either Google or Wikipedia. (There are other isotopes, but they're present in trace quantities in the fuel rods in Fukushima so I won't bother with them here)

I'm probably missing something, but who cares if it is plutonium or plutonium oxide? Radioactivity does not depends on whether it is in the elemental or oxide form.

Half life is 8 days, actually.

Yes, but it needs a few weeks to drop to acceptable levels. If I want it to drop to about 5% of the original level, I would need to wait for about one month.

Don't know about YOUR mainstream media, but mine has mentioned it. But then, I don't think you'd find my local media alarmist enough.

Yes, it was only mentioned after that reactor got into trouble. From last Fri to Mon, there was always something new that comes out. Initially, there was one reactor, then we realized there was four with problems, and now there's six. Initially, there was no fuel rods mentioned, then later it was mentioned, and now we are told some of them are MOX fuel rods. This kind of drips and drabbles only make people suspect that the Japanese govt and power companies are covering up stuff. What else is there that they failed to conveniently mentioned to the rest of the world?

How do you know they aren't? Do you think the US asked their citizens to evacuate a larger zone than the Japanese did just to piss Japan off? The International Atomic Energy Agency is also running their own simulations. Did you think France has been saying this is worse than the Japanese are admitting from day one based on something pulled out of their ass?

Plenty of groups with FAR more knowledge and expertise than any of us here are working on the problem. They may be getting different answers, or they may have different sets of data, or different levels of risk tolerance.

Yes, and they are not sharing it with the mainstream media or anyone else... and I believe that many external organizations are having problem simply because the Japanese government is not sharing enough data. Not to mention that the Japanese govt and power companies have been downplaying the entire event. Claiming that there is water in the fuel rods pool when there is none (as claimed by the US govt). Evacuating only 20 miles when the US recommends 50 miles. What happens to those left in the 20+ miles region? They are left to die:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8225127

Denying the problem exists does not solve things. In such situations it is better to over-react than the under-react. I used to had a high opinion of the Japanese govt, now I am not sure anymore.

Except the Chernobyl “solution” is far from ideal – they had to build yet another structure over the first dump of boron and concrete, and due to the improvised and unplanned natures of the place it's in constant danger of collapse and releasing more radioactive shit into the environment. If they can get working water pumps to fill up the water levels that is, in fact, an arguably better solution that will allow for a much more controlled clean up and decontamination.

Meanwhile, even if boron-and-concrete becomes the way to go (which I seriously doubt) they still must keep trying to cool the place down as much as possible so as to prevent things from getting worse. This isn't Star Trek, we can't simply beam concrete into the plant. Long term, after cleaning up and decontaminating what can be there might be a decision to entomb what can't be salvaged, but that's not at all the same situation as Chernobyl.

Fair enough, but I wish this explanation had come out from the Japanese officials.

Anyway, my point is that the information blackout from the Japanese govt and Toyko power companies is not helping anyone. Refusing to believe the problem exists is the worst way to handle such stuff.

Just from today: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.

'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'

Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the crisis' severity.

[AndroAsc]

In any case, I stand by my opinion that the Japanese govt and power companies have still under-reacted to the disaster. Whether or not it was a deliberate attempt of misinformation I cannot be certain, but I personally am leaning towards the side that yes, it was deliberate. It's going to cause many unnecessary lives:

1) People in the 20-50 miles zone have effectively been abandoned. If they had acknowledged the problem, they would have evacuated a larger area.
See this: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8225127
See this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... doned.html

2) Repeated failed attempts to cool the reactor is not solving the problem. Meanwhile more and more workers will be exposed to non-normal levels of radiation. They even had to raise the radiation safety limit by 2.5X. Yes, there is a fair balance between trying to fix the problem and an imperfect solution like slamming it with boric acid and concrete (the Chernobyl option). Only history will be able to tell which one is right.

3) Not sharing information prevents others people from helping them.

4) Lastly, this was possibly a preventable accident that the Tokyo power company implemented the proper safeguards. I have no idea why that company is still running the rescue operation show, when it clear that they have demonstrated a history of not putting safety and lives before profit.
See this wikileaks: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/fukushi ... 6023073141
The Japanese government was also warned about this possibility and nothing was done:
See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... quake.html

I will admit I was probably wrong on the technical aspects of some of the stuff I said earlier on. I do appreciate those more familiar with the situation in clarifying it.

[Julhelm]

This isn't at all the same kind of situation like Chernobyl. The risk is greatly exaggerated,

[Broomstick]

No, there won't be a “burn fest” of a kiloton of nuclear fuel rods because, as already mentioned by others, only a subset of that total is in any danger of burning right now.

We know that the newer fuel rods are burning in at least one reactor since all the water is gone, and these are the type that combust when exposed to air. After reading prior posts, I agree that the risk associated with the older rods are probably remote.

The fuel for reactor #4 was all sitting in the pool because the reactor was undergoing scheduled maintenance. Yes, that one caught fire, there's probably been some melting, it's a hell of a mess. However, your information is a little off so let me clarify a few things that have already been mentioned in the prior 25 pages of this thread:

It is not exposure to air that causes the fuel rods to combust, it is high temperatures. The high temperatures are a result of insufficient cooling. If you had those fuel rods surrounded by pressurized water but with no heat exchange outside the contained system the temperatures would rise until water disassociates into hydrogen and oxygen, the hydrogen would form a gas, and the oxygen would form oxides with the various materials the fuel rods are made of, that is, the fuel rods would burn. That is, in fact, where the hydrogen that blew out the walls of reactor buildings came from. That's why there was so much concern with pressure and water from the very first. This is a situation where things can burn even under water. It's not enough to simply dump water on the mess, you have to either circulate the hot water out and bring cold water in, or dump sufficient quantity of water on it so the water can absorb all the heat without boiling off.

I always thought that the radioactive waste was stored underground in some desert area which is seismically stable.

Yes, that was the idea behind the Yucca Mountain storage facility. I think there's an idea floating around that we built something of the sort. We didn't, because the project was killed due to lobbying.

I guess for Japan that would be hard to find, but leaving radioactive waste in a nuclear reactor is plain stupidity.

Well, yes and no – clearly you're going to have some radioactive substances at a nuclear facility, and you won't constantly be taking out the garbage. But if there was a proper facility to send it to there would be much less, which would make control and containment that much easier.

Yes unfortunately, greenpeace and the tree huggers are using this as an excuse that OMG NUKLAR poison, when in reality what we should do is start evaluating our safety protocols and start spending money to install proper backups before shit like Fukishima happens. In my opinion, it is probably a preventable accident, but they just did not plan for the possibility of "what if our water pumps go offline?"

While I agree there were some foreseeable and preventable aspects to this, no, the Japanese did not anticipate a quake of that magnitude. That was based on the best science and history we have, which we had no way of knowing was insufficient information.

Most reactors of the same model as what is at Fukushima HAVE been upgraded and safety improvements made. In many respects, Fukushima is a worst case scenario equipment-wise. Even other Mark I's are supposed to be less prone to overheat and with higher capacity water cooling systems. I hope we never actually have to test that idea, of course, but if those safety upgrades weren't made then this responsibility lies at the feet of the power company owners.

They did, in fact, have triple redundancy on the cooling systems – backup diesel generators, battery power, and the final seawater-dump. Triple redundancy is usually considered sufficient paranoia for complex systems though there are exceptions (in hindsight, maybe this should have been one of them). In actual fact, the plant got through the earthquake just fine, even if that quake significantly exceeded design limits. The reactors shut down automatically without incident and the backup generators came on line. It was the tsunami that caused things to go pear-shaped, by taking out the diesel backups. Even then, the battery backups came on line, as intended. The problem was that the designers did not anticipate the power plant being without access to either outside power or being able to fix/replace on site power generators for the length of time that has actually occurred. Again, that's the fault of inadequate predictive science more than malice.

I view it as a positive that worldwide owners/operators of nuclear reactors are reviewing their safety procedures in light of what happened at Fukushima and discussing ways to make reactors ever more disaster resistant. Some rather simple ideas may make a great of difference in the future, from additional power backups for cooling systems and larger reservoirs for cooling water to locating generators at high spots and fuel pools at low spots.

I'm probably missing something, but who cares if it is plutonium or plutonium oxide? Radioactivity does not depends on whether it is in the elemental or oxide form.

What you're missing is that ALL nuclear fuel rods contain plutonium as it is produced during normal operations. The only difference between the fuel rods is that MOX rods contain a higher percentage of plutonium. Any melting/burning/destruction of any reactor fuel rod will liberate some plutonium.

However, one important difference is that pure plutonium is a silvery metal that tends, like most metals, to remain in a lump. Plutonium oxide is a flaky substance that is much more easily dispersed into the environment. It's the difference between a pristine piece of steel and one that's rusty and flaking rust and dust into the environment. Plutonium oxide is a lot more likely to get inside you because of that dispersement ability.

Half life is 8 days, actually.

Yes, but it needs a few weeks to drop to acceptable levels. If I want it to drop to about 5% of the original level, I would need to wait for about one month.

True. However, the exposure levels you'd see on the west coast are so small that, for purposes of human health, it makes no difference.

As a note, there are preliminary reports of airborne radiation showing up on the coast of California today. However, these are miniscule elevations from the normal background. No one (here at least) is claiming that Fukushima radiation can't reach North America, what is being asserted is that amount will be so small it poses no risk to human health. At this point, you get more radiation from flying across the Pacific in an airplane than you do standing on the beach in LA inhaling the wind from Fukushima.

Don't know about YOUR mainstream media, but mine has mentioned it. But then, I don't think you'd find my local media alarmist enough.

Yes, it was only mentioned after that reactor got into trouble. From last Fri to Mon, there was always something new that comes out. Initially, there was one reactor, then we realized there was four with problems, and now there's six. Initially, there was no fuel rods mentioned, then later it was mentioned, and now we are told some of them are MOX fuel rods. This kind of drips and drabbles only make people suspect that the Japanese govt and power companies are covering up stuff. What else is there that they failed to conveniently mentioned to the rest of the world?

Actually the Wikipedia article – which as we all know usually isn't the most in depth – on the first day reactor trouble was reported clearly stated that there were 6 reactors, which were off-line for maintenance, and links to other sources of information. Just because you didn't know about this information, or the media didn't publicize it, doesn't mean it wasn't available to the public. You just had to look for it. Anyone who has researched how nuclear plants operate were aware of the existence of cooling ponds for spent fuel. There are even aerial photographs of the power complex freely avaialble on line. Not spoon-feeding basic and freely available information to the public is not the same as hiding it.

At least these days I can sit at home and research such things. Back when Three Mile Island was happening it would have required a trip to the library at the very least, and possible inter-library loans from universities, to do the research I can now do sitting in my own home. Back in those days I probably spent a month researching what I accomplished my first day on line this time around.

How do you know they aren't? Do you think the US asked their citizens to evacuate a larger zone than the Japanese did just to piss Japan off? The International Atomic Energy Agency is also running their own simulations. Did you think France has been saying this is worse than the Japanese are admitting from day one based on something pulled out of their ass?

Plenty of groups with FAR more knowledge and expertise than any of us here are working on the problem. They may be getting different answers, or they may have different sets of data, or different levels of risk tolerance.

Yes, and they are not sharing it with the mainstream media or anyone else

And why should they, when the media has already whipped up a panic? The media have demonstrated a deplorable lack of good judgment and objectivity when reporting on nuclear issues. The general public hasn't the training or understanding to compare conflicting reports from these agencies.

... and I believe that many external organizations are having problem simply because the Japanese government is not sharing enough data. Not to mention that the Japanese govt and power companies have been downplaying the entire event. Claiming that there is water in the fuel rods pool when there is none (as claimed by the US govt). Evacuating only 20 miles when the US recommends 50 miles. What happens to those left in the 20+ miles region? They are left to die:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8225127

Good god, what an overreaction.

It's not even certain that anyone at the power plant itself received a fatal dose (though there is troubling indications that might be so – we just don't know yet) – much less 20km away.

Yes, people outside of 20 km from the power plant are being told to stay indoors. Do you know why? Because it actually does offer some protection from any radiation that might be in the air – keeping in mind most of the past week the wind has been blowing out to sea and thus these people are likely receive NO “fallout” from the plant while that is the case.

What is this “staying indoors” advice based on? It's based on actual human experiments where the US government exposed military troops to atomic blasts and compared the radiation received by those in the open vs. those inside a structure (and structures of various types). Yes, human experimentation is deplorable, especially as those troops weren't volunteers for the experiments but ordered to do them, but lets at least make use of the data now that we have it. It's also based on the analysis of injuries from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's based on 70 years of various nuclear accidents and how even a small amount of material can make a significant difference in the amount of radiation a person receives.

In other words, the Japanese government is NOT blowing smoke up anyone's ass on this. Staying inside does make a difference. The US government has told its own citizens to evacuate out to 50 miles (I think that's 85 km) but isn't enforcing it, and has told anyone choosing to remain in the area to stay inside.

Denying the problem exists does not solve things. In such situations it is better to over-react than the under-react. I used to had a high opinion of the Japanese govt, now I am not sure anymore.

Over-reacting can kill, I'm sorry to say. Here in the US they're cautioning people NOT to take potassium iodide pills on their own because of the risk of fatal reactions to them in some cases. Would be a fucking shame if people take those pills in a panic when there is no objective reason to do so and some of them wind up dying due to adverse reactions, wouldn't it? Or attempting to move hospital patients in an unstable state out of fears of radiation, when in fact having them remain in their current location is less dangerous to their immediate health and actually exposes them to less radiation than taking them outside while transporting them to a new location – would be a damn shame if a few people died because they were moved when it was unnecessary, wouldn't it?

If the able bodied wish to leave the area by all means, let them do so – that leaves more resources for those who can't leave, or who are working on the problems there. But let's not get hysterical here. Radiation is not the bogeyman.

Fair enough, but I wish this explanation had come out from the Japanese officials.

I agree, they could have done a better job explaining it, but maybe the Japanese government puts a greater priority on dealing with the multiple national emergencies than lengthy explanations to laypeople in other countries. The first obligation of the Japanese government is to protect Japan, not satisfy our urge to know.

As for who knew what and when – I don't know yet. It's easy to make snap judgments, and I am as prone to that as anyone, but I'm trying to suppress the urge to lay blame until more information comes out. If some official is weeping in public because he acknowledges fuck ups, well, that's part of the accident aftermath. It's entirely possible to feel sincere regret for fuck ups that could cost lives. That doesn't make things all better, but it's part of moving forward. At least that man has come clean about his errors – far better than long term continued denial. Right now though none of us has all the information pertinent to this accident. Any conclusion must be tentative, and subject to change with more information.

Yes, it's scary shit. It's scary as all hell because radiation can kill you, or make you sick, and you can't see the damn shit while it's doing it. But the more educated you are the more you realize that it's not some distilled form of evil out to get you. It's physics. It's something that is around us all the time. Background radiation is like static electricity – it's everywhere, but it's not hurting us. A malfunctioning reactor is like a bolt of lightning – it's highly concentrated, but very, very localized. Don't stand near the thunderstorm and you won't get hit. Don't stand near the reactor you won't get irradiated.

[Zixinus]

Just a few thoughts:

People in the 20-50 miles zone have effectively been abandoned. If they had acknowledged the problem, they would have evacuated a larger area.

A brief skimming of the story you linked shows to me a mayor throwing a hissy fit while one of the country's greatest catastrophies, in what the Fukushima incident is only a small aspect, is going on and being handled.

I simply can't follow your logic: by pre-emtively evacuating an area of 20km around the plant, they are not acknowledging the problem because they didn't make the zone larger?

epeated failed attempts to cool the reactor is not solving the problem.

Incorrect: it is not solving the problem FAST ENOUGH.

As stated before, what we have here essentially is a reactor that under normal circumstances requires several days, if not weeks, to cool down.
The tsunami + earthquake thrown the regular cooling system into fuck. The workers and experts are doing whatever they can think of to compensate.

This crisis will likely last several days.

There are things to critize: the decision to extend the operational lifetime of the plant, the decision to try and "save" as many reactors as possible for future use, the skimping of essential upgrades to the cooling system where a similar situation has arrisen before.

I am sure that other mayor criticism can be said once a proper analysis can be made.

3) Not sharing information prevents others people from helping them.

A generality does not always apply for a specific situation. Your wording is also vague: sharing with who? International experts who are far away? The public who will be scared screaming-and-shitless no matter what the experts say?

Right now, the people managing the crisis have their hands full with, you know, managing the crisis at hand and have better things to do than make tweeting status updates.

Also, if the Japanese need help, they would have asked for it.

IIRC, it has been stated in several news articles regarding Fukushima that non-japanese experts and supplies are on their way.

So, what is your point again?

I have no idea why that company is still running the rescue operation show, when it clear that they have demonstrated a history of not putting safety and lives before profit.

Because they have people on-site, they have the equipment and training and a crisis is a bad time to start butting horns about who should do what.

Or think of it this way: how do you think it would look like to try and remove control from the company at the moment?
Last I checked, Japan has laws that requires the government to act in certain way. It can't just step in, shoot the head honcho of the company between the eyes and demand everyone to do as it says or they'll will follow their ex-boss.
That means legal, which means trial, which means arguing, which mean time and effort lost. In attempt to take control over, you are allowing the crisis to become worse. And even if you gain control, then what? You'll have to start from where the company started, but instead, you have to get everyone there in the first place and start everything all over again.

The Japanese government has its hands full with a catastrophe of a scale that dwindles the worst that Fukushima can do. Do you honest think it has time, energy, money and people to focus on this?

There are two other reasons why the company has control:
1. For the same reason you don't argue with firefighters about proper technique in the middle of a burning building
2. if this goes bad, then the blame rests on the company, not the government.

Also notice that the Japanese army (self-defense force?) already stepped in.

[Steel]

I'm not convinced by the "Nuclear is dangerous" arguments. Everything is dangerous. We live in a world where we need a certain level of power generation, and we should seek to achieve that power generation by whatever means we can to minimise human suffering and environmental damage. With this in perspective the relevant figures to look at would be these:

Wind: 0.15
Nuclear: 0.0009

Those are the figures for deaths caused per TW hr generated. The nuclear figure includes Chernobyl. If we were to generate all our nuclear energy by wind power we would have over 150 times the fatalities from that power generation.

Source? I want to throw these figures at the anti nuclear histrionic crowd.

Source for those numbers is:

“An Analysis of Electricity Generation Health Risks: A United Kingdom Perspective”
D.J. Ball, L.E.J. Roberts, and A.C.D. Simpson,
Centre for Environmental and Risk Management, School of Environmental Sciences,
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK (1994)

The lead author has published a number of papers on the subject (many more recent) if you want to look him up for more detailed info.

[Sea Skimmer]

You know, that's not an entirely irrational attitude - why SHOULD they drive near a damaged reactor in a heavily quake and tsunami-damaged region without sufficient fuel for a round trip? For that matter, why not have round-trip fuel even without radiation being a threat?

My understanding is they are all afraid of being caught in traffic, and so demanding far more fuel then would be required to make the basic trip.

Also, several of the massive fires post-quake were fuel storage facilities burning. So I have to ask, did part of the strategic fuel reserve burn? And if so, how much of it? Until you factor in that I'm not sure what to think about this part of your post. Is part of the fuel reserve burned, or is it a problem of transporting fuel reserves that are sufficient to where they are needed?

Strategic fuel reserves aren't in big above ground oil tanks usually, normally they are dug in underground, the US uses salt caves for example to store crude. Otherwise destruction by an armed attack would be far too easy. Japan is pretty secretive about the locations of its stockpiles; some may have been destroyed but I suspect its more likely that the refined fuel stocks were simply not very large because of the high costs involved. Crude can just sit, but refined fuel needs to be actively stirred and replaced.

If you look around Tokyo Bay BTW, its clear that for whatever burned they have a huge number of other facilities around.

Transportation always seems to be a major bottleneck post-disaster.

It is, that's why they clearly need more aircraft at work.

Actually, transporting clean water is more important than food right now, though everyone seems to emphasize the food. A healthy human being can function on little or even no food for a week or two. It's unpleasant, but human beings have sufficient caloric reserves to cope with that. The first few days you need to fly in rescue crews to pull survivors out of the rubble, clean water, and emergency medical supplies.

Food lets people do work; you can boil water given fuel and many parts of Japan are chopping up trees to do exactly that. Anyway food was just the easier example to work out the number on quickly. 1600+ tons moved a day can do a lot even if its just moving water and that's only a limited example of what the US could do, deploying one Chinook battalion. Almost no survivors are now being found. Many international teams did not find a single person.. pretty bleak but that all goes to show that the building codes held up to the quake really really damn well.

Of course, ideally the authorities would be able to get EVERYTHING into these areas, but the infrastructure is so fucked up that priorities must be assigned. Simply assigning more helicopters won't help that much if there's nowhere for them to either land or drop the supplies - food dropped onto broken up rubble will be hard for the survivors to retrieve, and perhaps result in more injuries.

On the other hand, there could be incompetence at work. I just don't know enough to make that conclusion at this point.

The idea that we should not aid people because they might be injured trying to pick up food is absurd. This is one of the most educated countries on earth, I think they can figure it out.

[General Zod]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-sc ... /?cid=news

LOS ANGELES — Government experts in the United States are keeping a close eye on any radioactive particles that could travel from Japan, and they may already be seeing trace amounts.

A diplomat who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told The Associated Press in Vienna that initial readings show tiny amounts of radiation have reached California. But it's not dangerous in any way — "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the organization does not make its findings public.

U.S. government experts also insist there's no threat to public health from the plume, but they are still closely monitoring the situation with detection monitors deployed along the West Coast.

The new California reading came from a measuring station of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and the monitor was apparently located in Sacramento.

"Radiation is one of those words that get everybody scared, like `plague,'" said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County. "But we're 5,000 miles away."

The amount of any fallout that wafts across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. coast will be so diluted that it will not pose any health risk, officials say. Wind, rain and salt spray will help clean the air over the vast ocean between Japan and the United States.

Nuclear experts say the main elements released are radioactive cesium and iodine. They can combine with the salt in sea water to become cesium chloride and sodium iodide, which are common and abundant elements and would readily dilute in the wide expanse of the Pacific, according to Steven Reese, director of the Radiation Center at Oregon State.

"It is certainly not a threat in terms of human health" added William H. Miller, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri.

Now let's watch as everyone blows this out of proportion.