Earthquake off Japan

[Broomstick]

Where things get complicated (as if they weren't already), if my recent research is anywhere near accurate, is that the type of radiation is a factor. I know you said "gamma" but I don't see anything in that article indicating the radiation type. Gamma is quite penetrating, of course, but beta less so, and alpha emissions can be stopped with just a little shielding - although ingesting an alpha emitter can be a very bad thing. That's why, apparently, there are all sort of different units of radiation - bequerels and curies and rads for amounts of radiation, and things like grays and sieverts for measuring how much radiation impacts human beings.

So... what's emitting radiation, and what type, is important to know as well as which isotope, as the half-life will given an indication of how long very high rates of radiation will continue, and how quickly they'll diminish.

But yeah, when you're talking about "10 million times normal" it's not a good thing however you're measuring it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Okay the actual number is now being given via various sources as 1,000 millisieverts/hour, which is 100 rems an hour.

[Broomstick]

Well, OK, that's a little less hair-raising....

[AndroAsc]

It seems that I am not the only one who thinks that the Japanese has done a fucking poor job in disseminating information:

Lack of data from Japan distresses nuclear experts
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 0246.story

Reactor 3 (the one with a plutonium fuel) also breached a few days back. The shit is hitting the fan, and the Japanese still have no solution. Seriously what is it going to take to give those people a wake up call? I don't get it, this is supposed to be the most technologically advanced county in the fucking world... so what's wrong???

[AndroAsc]

You fucking ignoramus – do you think inhalation is the only danger from radiation? Your clothing, your own skin, will stop alpha radiation. Beta and gamma are much more penetrating than alpha, so they will affect you over a greater distance, and through more shielding.

Given a choice, it's a hell of a lot healther to stand next to or even touch an alpha-emitter than either a beta or gamma emitter. The only time an alpha-emitter is an equal or potentially greater hazard is when you either inhale or ingest it – through any other route of exposure other things are more hazardous.

Hey fucktard... do you know the difference between external vs internal radiation sources? Externally, gamma radiation is the worst since the penetrate the most. However, it does appear that the majority of gamma producers in this disaster are short-lived isotopes like Iodine-131, and coupled with their dispersion across the Pacific, the threat is minimal. Internally, alpha radiation causes the most damage. What do you think is going to set off a cascade of chain reactions in the body? A fucking measly photon or a huge charged alpha article? Go get your facts straight before you lash out like a idiot!!!

I'm simply amazed that you seem oblivious to the fact that nuclear testing in the American south west pumped quite a bit (relatively speaking) Cs-137 into the North American environment all on it's own. In other words – it's already here, and has been for decades. Sure, eventually a few atoms of Fukashima Cs-137 will arrive in North America – eventually it will travel the world – but far less than was dumped into the environment in the 20th Century.

Do you have the bloody figures to back this claim up?

How bad local contamination with Cs-137 in the prefecture will be remains to be seen. But, unlike the hysterical claims, the world will NOT be blanketed with this stuff even under the worst case scenario.

Really? Have you done a calculation and assume all the nuclear fuel gets blown into the air in a recriticality event along with all the spent fuel rods? That is the worst case scenario.

Good god you are such a fucking tool – a few seconds on Google or Wikipedia, two VERY low bar sources of information, will tell you that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few centimeters of air. A piece of paper stops it. Your own skin stops it. Can you at least be bothered to do that minimum level of research before you open your mouth? If you were in front of me in real life I'd slap you to break the hysteria and force you to turn off the news for a week, and stay in a quiet, dark room until you calmed the fuck down.

So what's your fucking point? Alpha radiation travels a few cm instead of a few miles. MY BAD. It doesn't change the point I was making that Plutonium being primarily an alpha emitter is hard to detect at low and potentially lethal concentrations.

Yes, it's an inhalation danger. Personally, I'm more afraid that Yellowstone is going to pop its cork than I am of inhaling plutonium from Fukushima – and I'm not expecting the Yellowstone thing to happen in my lifetime. Unless you're within close proximity to the plant in question you aren't in danger.

Never say never. Yellowstone has a probability of happening in our lifetime... just not a very large probability.

And YES, we can detect plutonium. As I said, it's not some magical, stealth-element shat out of the asshole of Satan to personally seek you out and kill you – it's just physics.

At what fucking concentration? Is the threshold detection of plutonium based radiation above or below the lethal dosage? And I'm not talking dying tomorrow but dying from cancer 20 years from now due to the few micrograms of plutonium you inhaled. Has any studies been done? I doubt so...

NO ONE is saying anything is “fine”. The Japanese media, government, and TEPCO have been very clear and explicit that this recent finding is serious, there have been people injured, and no one is pretending it's all happiness and roses.

Really? What about the reports of the TEPCO dickhead CEO making a sob show on TV admitting that they FUCKED UP. And again another NYT recently published condemning the Japanese inability to disseminate information up till today.

And yes, you CAN protect again plutonium poisoning – don't inhale the shit. Again, this is one of the reasons nuclear plant workers will wear self-contained breathing units in some areas of even a normal condition nuclear power plant. This applies even more so when cleaning up a problem in one.

So we should all wear EVA suits now?

As for the rest of us... unless you're in Japan, and more specifically on Honshu, and even more specifically a limited area of Honshu, this is not an issue for you. Period. Even in Japan the risk is almost entirely limited to people working at the plant – which I'm positive you are not – and possibly, maybe, perhaps, the immediate area around the affected plant.

You clearly demonstrate continuing ignorance on the subject(s) being discussed, you fail to distinguish relative risks, and you ARE overreacting.

You don't get it do you? Without no fucking data from the Japanese, we cannot properly ascertain the situation. So we have to assume the worst. Oh yeah, Reactor 3 the one with the Plutonium fuel may have BREACHED. Didn't I just say something about this like a week ago? Now it appears to have happened. And they only changed to freshwater at the request of the US govt recently... seriously pumping 2 weeks of seawater and they never thought to think what may be the side effects? Sure, I can excuse the first few days since it was an emergency, but after that why did it take 2 weeks for them to realize (with the prompting from non-Jap experts) that NaCl might be lining and insulating layer on the reactor's surface? If anything, this entire incident reeks of sheer incompetence.

[Zixinus]

Reactor 3 (the one with a plutonium fuel) also breached a few days back. The shit is hitting the fan, and the Japanese still have no solution. Seriously what is it going to take to give those people a wake up call? I don't get it, this is supposed to be the most technologically advanced county in the fucking world... so what's wrong???

A big fucking earthquake and a tsunami is sort of distracting them?

Also, you do realise that the situation is still developing and like it has been said before, the people who are responsible have better things to do than inform sensational-hungry foreign journalist on the details of what they are doing, because they are too busy actually doing it.
Japan has it's own nuclear experts. It has called for help when it needed it.
They apparently feel that they have better things to do than to give detailed information to the public to chew on. Why? Because they're busy. They'll be busy for months, even if the nuclear crisis will be over within a week.

[PeZook]

Oh boy the horror experts pointed out a problem and the Japanese took measures to correct it SUCH INCOMPETENT FOOLS they can't travel into the future!

Jesus man...

On the point about plutonium, did you perhaps ignore Magis where he said how plutonium is detected? Oh yes! Yes you did!

And for the last fucking time, MOX is not "plutonium fuel"!

[AndroAsc]

A big fucking earthquake and a tsunami is sort of distracting them?

People don't die from radiation poisoning due to earthquake or tsunami. The people who are dead are already dead. Those that are alive are already alive. If the Japanese govt is prepared (which they should be considering that they are living in an Earthquake prone region), it should not be nothing new. Radiation poisoning however can linger for years and have effects 10-20 years down the road. Almost a million have died from the Chernobyl incident (counting those that died immediately and the side effects decades later)... how many people are dead from the tsunami?

Also, you do realise that the situation is still developing and like it has been said before, the people who are responsible have better things to do than inform sensational-hungry foreign journalist on the details of what they are doing, because they are too busy actually doing it.
Japan has it's own nuclear experts. It has called for help when it needed it.
They apparently feel that they have better things to do than to give detailed information to the public to chew on. Why? Because they're busy. They'll be busy for months, even if the nuclear crisis will be over within a week.

If their "experts" are so good, why is the situation not improving? If you ask me, the entire incident stems from the Asian/Japanese pride mentality in thinking that it is their problem and they want to handle it on their own. FINE. If it was just a tsunami and they want to live on their pride that's ok. But radiation damage knows no boundaries. It's nothing but irresponsible in not informing the global community of experts when it's clear that they have lost control of the situation. And if you read the article, it was the scientific experts who were complaining about the lack of information, not the general public.

[AndroAsc]

On the point about plutonium, did you perhaps ignore Magis where he said how plutonium is detected? Oh yes! Yes you did!

And for the last fucking time, MOX is not "plutonium fuel"!

You want to argue semantics? MOX has plutonium inside it does it not? What do you want to call it them? Plutonium-containing fuel? Plutonium-enriched fuel?

[AndroAsc]

Again another piece to show why TEPCO and other involved corporations should clearly not be the one leading this operation:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-2 ... actor.html

Mitsuhiko Tanaka says he helped conceal a manufacturing defect in the $250 million steel vessel installed at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4 reactor while working for a unit of Hitachi Ltd. (6501) in 1974. The reactor, which Tanaka has called a “time bomb,” was shut for maintenance when the March 11 earthquake triggered a 7-meter (23-foot) tsunami that disabled cooling systems at the plant, leading to explosions and radiation leaks.

Two years later Tanaka says he went to the Trade Ministry to report the cover-up he’d been involved in more than a decade earlier. The government refused to investigate and Hitachi denied his accusations, he said.

“They said, if Hitachi says they didn’t do it, then there’s no problem,” Tanaka said. “Companies don’t always tell the truth.”

[Teebs]

A big fucking earthquake and a tsunami is sort of distracting them?

People don't die from radiation poisoning due to earthquake or tsunami. The people who are dead are already dead. Those that are alive are already alive. If the Japanese govt is prepared (which they should be considering that they are living in an Earthquake prone region), it should not be nothing new.

People who know far more about the subject than I do are taking you up on the nuclear issue, but that's incredibly ignorant and a really fucking unpleasant attitude too. Have you not read the reports of hundreds of thousands left homeless, food problems, electricity shortages, water problems etc?

Not having the death toll increase because all the survivors start dying is a huge issue. As for preparedness, please tell us exactly what the Japanese government could have done to improve its readiness for a disaster of such unprecedented magnitude?

[Zixinus]

You know what annoys me about people like AndroSC (or whatever)? It's the sheer fucking arrogance. That THEY need to know what's happening, that the "international community has to be informed" as if the Japanese are bunch of cross-eyed morons trying to put out a metal fire. That "overreacting is better than underreacting", oh Jesus, ever heard of "appropriate" reaction? Overreacting can be just as bad as under reacting? As if THEY know what should be done, even though they are mixing up the very basics of nuclear energy and point to a bunch of local newspapers panicing as "proof" that they need to get involved.

They are single-mindedly focusing on a single issue in a literary a wasteland worth of clusterfuck that are the tsunami-affected area?

If the Japanese govt is prepared (which they should be considering that they are living in an Earthquake prone region), it should not be nothing new.

They were prepared for it: the plant itself was meant to withstand a 7.5 earthquake with a five meter high tsunami.

Guess what, what they got wasn't some regular earthquake, but one of the biggest ones: one raging at 8.3 with a ten meter high tsunami.

Almost a million have died from the Chernobyl incident (counting those that died immediately and the side effects decades later)... how many people are dead from the tsunami?

Source this. I have heard some pretty scary deathtolls on Chernobly, but a million is a scretch.

If their "experts" are so good, why is the situation not improving?

Because Japanese are severly lacking fairy dust that they just need to sprinkle on the reactor buildings to make everything magically better.

More seriously because this is an unprecedented situation and logistics are already streched to near braking point by the tsunami and earthquake alone.

But radiation damage knows no boundaries.

Radiation is not some evil, magical plaque that if escaped, will spread as far and wide to kill everyone. Physically, it is dust that has limits on how it's spread. As of right now, there is no reason to believe that radiation has spread beyond Japan.

It's nothing but irresponsible in not informing the global community of experts when it's clear that they have lost control of the situation

The IAEA has people on the ground already, so yeah, they have already contacted international experts. They are talking to them.
What they are doing is not releaseing the information to the public. For all we know, it is too early to do so.

Again another piece to show why TEPCO and other involved corporations should clearly not be the one leading this operation:

Thanas already pointed out this story several pages ago. You have told nothing new.

[Sea Skimmer]

Okay so good news after I return from sleep, the 10 million times normal radiation reading is now being reported as false; I was hoping so but the fact simply was and is such water leaking is entirely credible at the moment. You just wouldn't really expect it in the turbine hall which is around 100ft and a number of concrete walls away from the reactor housing. The false reading was so high they simply evacuated the plant without checking it again, very reasonable all things considered when they know they have at least a small core leak.

[Broomstick]

You fucking ignoramus – do you think inhalation is the only danger from radiation? Your clothing, your own skin, will stop alpha radiation. Beta and gamma are much more penetrating than alpha, so they will affect you over a greater distance, and through more shielding.

Given a choice, it's a hell of a lot healther to stand next to or even touch an alpha-emitter than either a beta or gamma emitter. The only time an alpha-emitter is an equal or potentially greater hazard is when you either inhale or ingest it – through any other route of exposure other things are more hazardous.

Hey fucktard... do you know the difference between external vs internal radiation sources?

Yes, I do – how about yourself?

Externally, gamma radiation is the worst since the penetrate the most. However, it does appear that the majority of gamma producers in this disaster are short-lived isotopes like Iodine-131, and coupled with their dispersion across the Pacific, the threat is minimal. Internally, alpha radiation causes the most damage. What do you think is going to set off a cascade of chain reactions in the body? A fucking measly photon or a huge charged alpha article? Go get your facts straight before you lash out like a idiot!!!

Yes, that's why nuclear workers wear those “bunny suits” in certain parts of the plant, to protect against alpha-emitters. Those suits not only block alpha particles, the prevent inhalation/ingestion as well. For the workers in the plant the other types of radiation are much more hazardous.

Really, you're reaction is like seeing a beaker of acid on a table – OMIGOD! ACID! IT COULD BURN YOUR HAND OFF! Well, yeah – so don't stick your hand in it!. It's a manageable danger once you know what you're dealing with.

So, yes, inhaling an alpha-emitter is a bad thing, but workers can guard against that – MUCH more dangerous for them are things like beta and gamma, which are much harder to block and there's really no practical way to build a suit to guard against gamma rays.

If you have a big mess of radiation-emitting stuff what kind of radiation is an important fact to know before proceeding with clean-up. With an alpha-emitter it might be possible to send a suited up work crew in with buckets and shovels with reasonable risk to their health. With a gamma emitter that's not so straightforward and you have to figure out ways to dealing with the problem remotely.

I'm simply amazed that you seem oblivious to the fact that nuclear testing in the American south west pumped quite a bit (relatively speaking) Cs-137 into the North American environment all on it's own. In other words – it's already here, and has been for decades. Sure, eventually a few atoms of Fukashima Cs-137 will arrive in North America – eventually it will travel the world – but far less than was dumped into the environment in the 20th Century.

Do you have the bloody figures to back this claim up?

Are you shitting me? You're that ignorant?

You DO know that several nations conducts numerous above ground atomic tests, right?

The US has conducted 1,054 nuclear tests, the Soviets 715, France 210, the UK 45, China 45. India, Pakistan, and North Korea conducted all their testing underground, so less contamination of the environment. The rest of them moved to underground testing only in the second half of the 20th Century. That's the official count, there may be more. Around 2,000 deliberate atomic explosions since the 1940's.

As a result, a lot of radioactive shit got put into the global environment. You have seen pictures of nuclear detonations, yes? They throw all sorts of shit into the air, which is then distributed globally by the weather. The amount of radiation received from all that peaked in 1963 or thereabouts at 0.15 mSv. Obviously, those immediately downwind were more affected. “Downwind” in the US including not only parts of Nevada but also sites in Colorado, Alaska, New Mexico, and Mississippi. And lets ignore that atomic pile and associated waste products buried in Red Gate Woods, a portion of the Chicago parks and forest district. (Thank you, Enrico Fermi, I guess). On the bright side, since the world moved to underground testing that amount has diminished significantly. If I recall correctly the physics class I took in the late 1970's (and do keep in mind that was over 30 year ago now) the rate was down to around 12 mSv at the time. I don't know what it is down to right now.

But, now doubt, you want more recent information. Very well, on March 19 quoted in regards to the Fukushima radiation detected in California:

The DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a joint statement that the doses of radiation people generally get from the surrounding environment are 100,000 times greater than dose rates detected at the two monitoring sites.

That assessment confirmed statements from diplomats and officials in Vienna earlier in the day.

As all of those people actually know what the hell they're talking about, as opposed to those of us debate on a messageboard. While there are disagreements among actual experts, absolutely NONE of them feels what is drifting across the Pacific right now represents a threat to human health. Statements from European experts are quite telling, as it is becoming clear the Europeans as a whole have a much lower risk tolerance in regards to nuclear energy than the US or Japan.

How bad local contamination with Cs-137 in the prefecture will be remains to be seen. But, unlike the hysterical claims, the world will NOT be blanketed with this stuff even under the worst case scenario.

Really? Have you done a calculation and assume all the nuclear fuel gets blown into the air in a recriticality event along with all the spent fuel rods? That is the worst case scenario.

No, I have not done such a calculation because I am not qualified to do so and it would be an exercise in GIGO. I strongly suspect you do not have the capability either, although you are welcome to prove me wrong by posting your calculation along with explanations of same, to be reviewed by those here with better math skills than I have.

Though, really, what possible mechanism could blow all the nuclear fuel into the air? What the fuck could explode with enough force to do that? Hydrogen explosion? Check – had a couple of those, but they didn't launch any fuel rods into the air. Possible breach of the reactor vessel – possible, but that just has to crack the steel and concrete, doesn't have to blow it to smithereens.

A “criticality event” is just a spike in radiation – it doesn't involve anything “blowing up”. Here, take a look at Wikipedia's article on criticality events for a beginnner level explanation on what they are and why they are NOT a nuclear explosion even if they are very bad for your health.

So what's your fucking point? Alpha radiation travels a few cm instead of a few miles. MY BAD.

Yes, your bad. Orders of magnitude bad. Seriously, you said “a few miles” for an effect that only has effects over a few centimeters. Overreact much?

It doesn't change the point I was making that Plutonium being primarily an alpha emitter is hard to detect at low and potentially lethal concentrations.

Plus post information as to the limit of detection of Pu with modern equipment vs. lethal dose. Oh wait – someone already did that. Did you bother to fucking read the post?

Yes, it's an inhalation danger. Personally, I'm more afraid that Yellowstone is going to pop its cork than I am of inhaling plutonium from Fukushima – and I'm not expecting the Yellowstone thing to happen in my lifetime. Unless you're within close proximity to the plant in question you aren't in danger.

Never say never. Yellowstone has a probability of happening in our lifetime... just not a very large probability.

Yellowstone is also on the same continent I am, as opposed to Fukushima, which is literally on the other side of the planet. Do you have any concept at all of risk evaluation?

And YES, we can detect plutonium. As I said, it's not some magical, stealth-element shat out of the asshole of Satan to personally seek you out and kill you – it's just physics.

At what fucking concentration? Is the threshold detection of plutonium based radiation above or below the lethal dosage?

Answered in a prior post. Go back and read it.

And I'm not talking dying tomorrow but dying from cancer 20 years from now due to the few micrograms of plutonium you inhaled. Has any studies been done? I doubt so...

There are lots of survivors of Hiroshmia, Nagasaki, and various nuclear tests still around, so clearly people near uncontrolled radioactivity is not Certain Death. In particular, the Nagasaki bomb “Fat Man” used a core of Pu, so without question the Nagasaki survivors were exposed to Pu and yet some of them are still alive. Poor Mr. Tsutomu_Yamaguchi survived BOTH bombings, was undoubtedly exposed to all sorts of unhealthy things, and yes he died of stomach cancer (perhaps he ingested some Pu contaminated food rather than inhaling Pu) – at the age of 93. Given that his lifespan exceed that of the average man I have to question whether his radiation exposure actually shortened his life much, if at all.

Can radiation kill you? Certainly. Will it? Outside of massive doses that is not so certain.

NO ONE is saying anything is “fine”. The Japanese media, government, and TEPCO have been very clear and explicit that this recent finding is serious, there have been people injured, and no one is pretending it's all happiness and roses.

Really? What about the reports of the TEPCO dickhead CEO making a sob show on TV admitting that they FUCKED UP.

You won't even consider the possibility that the man was experiencing genuine regret? I am not familiar with the nuances of Japanese culture, but I don't think men crying in public is particularly well accepted. “Sob show” implies you think it was an act. Everything I've seen on it leads me to believe his tears were genuine. Please indicate what leads you to conclude he was faking.

Which, of course, doesn't excuse any wrong doing on his part, or that of his company, but it is possible to fuck up and to truly regret doing so. As it is TEPCO workers getting burned wading through contaminated water and not you or me I'd say at least some of them are atoning for past sins by putting themselves at risk to clean up the mess.

And again another NYT recently published condemning the Japanese inability to disseminate information up till today.

Link to the damn article. You do know how to link, right?

And yes, you CAN protect again plutonium poisoning – don't inhale the shit. Again, this is one of the reasons nuclear plant workers will wear self-contained breathing units in some areas of even a normal condition nuclear power plant. This applies even more so when cleaning up a problem in one.

So we should all wear EVA suits now?

Are you cleaning up a nuclear accident? No? Then no, you don't need an EVA suit. What sort of an idiot question is that?

You don't get it do you? Without no fucking data from the Japanese, we cannot properly ascertain the situation. So we have to assume the worst.

It isn't just the Japanese on the ground there. The US military is monitoring the situation, and given how many nuclear powered vessels the US Navy uses I'd say they have some expertise in the matter. There's a whole slew of other agencies from outside Japan that are also observing and monitoring.

Google “Fukushima radiation dispersal” and have fun searching the 674,000 results. Of course, you will have to sift out the batshit crazies, but there are plenty of authoritative sources for this information. Clearly, people are watching this situation. How fucking much do you think they can hide with that many eyes on them?

Oh yeah, Reactor 3 the one with the Plutonium fuel may have BREACHED.

Does not contain “plutonium fuel”, convered previously, give it a rest. Typing it in caps does not make it correct.

Now it appears to have happened. And they only changed to freshwater at the request of the US govt recently... seriously pumping 2 weeks of seawater and they never thought to think what may be the side effects?

Seriously, you don't think a 9.0 earthquake and 10 meter tsunami affected their plumbing?

I have to wonder if that fresh water being shipped in is coming from the USS Ronald Reagan, which if I recall correctly can make fresh water from sea water. You know where they get the power to do that? A nuclear reactor.

They used sea water because that was the water they had, not because of incompetence or malice.

[Sky Captain]

AndroAsc stop freaking out. There are gazillion other things you are far more likely to get cancer from than some barely detectable radiaoactive particles from Japan. If your house has basement you already inhale alpha emiting radon gas every time you go to basement.
There are areas on Earth where exposure from natural radiation sources can reach 260 mSv per year, that is more than maximum allowed dose for workers in Fukushima nuclear plant. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Ma ... ioactivity

Guess what - people are living there just fine and no incresed levels of cancer are dtected. There are even some evidence indicating people in those areas actually are healthier and live longer.

[Pendleton]

Interesting article on better ways to deal with power issues in future now nuclear has been tainted politically and socially again. I have to say, it seems terribly silly to go and fork out money for producing energy we're already getting access to, but literally flushing away daily.

Additionally, it seems the radiation level is "only" 100,000 times above normal, according to AP.

If we knew the exposure duration of those hospitalised workers from a few days ago, we can see whether the range is 1 Sv/hr or up to 6 Sv/hr.

[Pendleton]

Sorry to post again, couldn't edit my last post it seems. Evidence found of TEPCO ignoring geologists regarding the tsunami and magnitude of the quake that produced it. http://apne.ws/fVZkFU

Also, there's just been an advisory warning regarding a new tsunami approx. 50 cm in height. Quake origin is the Miyagi prefecture.

My friends in Tokyo also are concerned about radiation levels spiking there again as meteorological data says winds will blow from Fulushima back inland again. This is a growing concern for them, I'm informed.

[Patrick Degan]

The Physorg.com website is displaying an AP report that Germany is getting set to accelerate the complete phase-out of nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima accident. Nuclear power has been unpopular in the country ever since Chernobyl and now the political climate has decisively shifted against it.

[D.Turtle]

Yes, we also just had two state elections that are being (probably mostly correctly) by all parties as clear signal for abandoning nuclear power. All signs point towards this no longer being a question of phasing out over decades (which was the previous line of the government), but doing it as quickly as possible. The government - and various leaders in their parties - have come out so strongly critical of nucler energy that any reverse would be political suicide. The fastest plan - changed by the current government when they got to power - was to abandon nuclear power by 2021. I would now expect the transition to happen a lot faster.

Now it will be seen if such a transition is possible - and how quickly it can happen. Either we will fla on our faces and be a warning to others, or it will work and will show other countries that it can be done.

[His Divine Shadow]

Once the electricity bills start racking up people will sing a different tune. Either that or Germany will burn coal, natural gas and oil (ahoy future bitches of russia) and the greensbrowns will celebrate this triumph of nature and show that yes we can get away from nuclear.

[Darth Tanner]

show that yes we can get away from nuclear

Even if Germany closes its own nuclear plants it still imports around 4-5 plants worth from France every year, if anything further degradation of Germanys domestic generation capacity will be great news for EDF as it will decrease the amount of wasted capacity they have in their system that cant scale to track demand quickly enough, now they can simply sell their excess capacity to Germans and then leave them to burn coal at peak periods when they want it themselves.

[PeZook]

You want to argue semantics? MOX has plutonium inside it does it not? What do you want to call it them? Plutonium-containing fuel? Plutonium-enriched fuel?

Okay, for the third and last time: All. Nuclear. Fuel. Has. Plutonium. Inside.

All of it. Get it? Every single spent fuel rod in all power plants running on enriched uranium will have plutonium. It is a normal fission product.

MOX just has more of it, 2-5 times more. That still translates to only 7% or so.

Reactor no. 3 holds about 88 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in the pool. If it all entered the atmosphere, which simply won't happen, there will be a grand total of 6,16 tonnes of plutonium in the atmosphere. If all of it made it across the Pacific (again, won't happen), and deposited itself evenly in California, the concentrations would be on the level of about 39,4 grams per square mile.

HOLY SHIT YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE, right?

WRONG.

Why? Because no possible event including AN ASTEROID STRIKE ON REACTOR NO.3 will ever turn the entirety of the spent fuel into fine dust carryable by wind. You would have to purposefully grind it up and release it into the jetstream.

The actually sane worst case scenario is about the level of Chernobyl, where only about 1.55% of core contents were released by the reactors exploding (actually it was the initial estimate ; Later estimates indicate more in the order of 0.5%)

Let's say...3% because apparently Fukushima is a time bomb two times worse than an old RMBK plant, despite having an actual containment building that would limit any release...okay, whatever. Let's say the spent fuel pool spontaneously exploderized in an identical fashion to the Chernobyl reactor core, or was struck by an asteroid or something.

3% of 88 tonnes is 2.64 tonnes. 184,8 kilograms of that is plutonium. That's 1,2 grams per square mile of California, or 1,2 million yearly doses per square mile IF ALL OF IT MADE IT ACROSS THE PACIFIC and CONCENTRATED ITSELF IN CALIFORNIA AND that ALL OF IT IS PLUTONIUM -239.

Now, Plutonium's heavy. Really heavy: the Chernobyl cloud did not deposit any measureable amount of plutonium in the US despite the Atlantic being much narrower than the goddamned Pacific Ocean. There were some elevated levels found in Sweden and Poland, but no uptick in cancer rates. It doesn't hang around in the atmosphere to be inhaled: it drops to the ground as fallout at the slightest provocation.

And to add insult to your injury: weapons testing in the 1960s deposited about 2 milicuries of Pu-239 per square kilometer of soil in the US, that corresponds to a whole 32 miligrams per square kilometer.

...

Holy shit, since the US is a depopulated wasteland, I guess that you are right! YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM FUKUSHIMA!!!

[D.Turtle]

Once the electricity bills start racking up people will sing a different tune. Either that or Germany will burn coal, natural gas and oil (ahoy future bitches of russia) and the greensbrowns will celebrate this triumph of nature and show that yes we can get away from nuclear.

Except that a lot of people already are willing to pay more for their electricity if it comes from renewable sources. For example, the article Patrick Degan linked to cites one supplier of green energy experiencing a tripling of the number of new customers since the ttrouble at Fukushima.

Even if Germany closes its own nuclear plants it still imports around 4-5 plants worth from France every year, if anything further degradation of Germanys domestic generation capacity will be great news for EDF as it will decrease the amount of wasted capacity they have in their system that cant scale to track demand quickly enough, now they can simply sell their excess capacity to Germans and then leave them to burn coal at peak periods when they want it themselves.

Yes, Germany imports electricity from France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, etc. However, Germany also exports electricity to Denmark, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, etc. Germany is a net exporter of electricity.

Nobody is saying that it is easy, but - in comparison to before the Tsunami - there is now the political will and the support from the electorate to make a transition away from nuclear energy to renewable sources happen.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

You want to argue semantics? MOX has plutonium inside it does it not? What do you want to call it them? Plutonium-containing fuel? Plutonium-enriched fuel?

Okay, for the third and last time: All. Nuclear. Fuel. Has. Plutonium. Inside.

All of it. Get it? Every single spent fuel rod in all power plants running on enriched uranium will have plutonium. It is a normal fission product.

MOX just has more of it, 2-5 times more. That still translates to only 7% or so.

Reactor no. 3 holds about 88 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in the pool. If it all entered the atmosphere, which simply won't happen, there will be a grand total of 6,16 tonnes of plutonium in the atmosphere. If all of it made it across the Pacific (again, won't happen), and deposited itself evenly in California, the concentrations would be on the level of about 39,4 grams per square mile.

HOLY SHIT YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE, right?

WRONG.

Why? Because no possible event including AN ASTEROID STRIKE ON REACTOR NO.3 will ever turn the entirety of the spent fuel into fine dust carryable by wind. You would have to purposefully grind it up and release it into the jetstream.

The actually sane worst case scenario is about the level of Chernobyl, where only about 1.55% of core contents were released by the reactors exploding (actually it was the initial estimate ; Later estimates indicate more in the order of 0.5%)

Let's say...3% because apparently Fukushima is a time bomb two times worse than an old RMBK plant, despite having an actual containment building that would limit any release...okay, whatever. Let's say the spent fuel pool spontaneously exploderized in an identical fashion to the Chernobyl reactor core, or was struck by an asteroid or something.

3% of 88 tonnes is 2.64 tonnes. 184,8 kilograms of that is plutonium. That's 1,2 grams per square mile of California, or 1,2 million yearly doses per square mile IF ALL OF IT MADE IT ACROSS THE PACIFIC and CONCENTRATED ITSELF IN CALIFORNIA AND that ALL OF IT IS PLUTONIUM -239.

Now, Plutonium's heavy. Really heavy: the Chernobyl cloud did not deposit any measureable amount of plutonium in the US despite the Atlantic being much narrower than the goddamned Pacific Ocean. There were some elevated levels found in Sweden and Poland, but no uptick in cancer rates. It doesn't hang around in the atmosphere to be inhaled: it drops to the ground as fallout at the slightest provocation.

And to add insult to your injury: weapons testing in the 1960s deposited about 2 milicuries of Pu-239 per square kilometer of soil in the US, that corresponds to a whole 32 miligrams per square kilometer.

...

Holy shit, since the US is a depopulated wasteland, I guess that you are right! YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM FUKUSHIMA!!!

Maybe someone should tell him that submarine fuel are highly enriched fuel with a high % of U-235.... and U-238 + 1n = Pu-239...

[His Divine Shadow]

Except that a lot of people already are willing to pay more for their electricity if it comes from renewable sources. For example, the article Patrick Degan linked to cites one supplier of green energy experiencing a tripling of the number of new customers since the ttrouble at Fukushima.

Most people though aren't willing todo that and once the increases truly hit home there will be words exchanged. Likewise the dumb sods reacting to this news is more likely a temporary rather than a permanent phenomenon that will fade as the memory of the disaster fades.