Another Fukushima disaster on the way? Hell if I know

[Phrossack]

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/

We have endless releases into the Pacific Ocean that will be ongoing for not only our lifetimes, but our children’s' lifetimes. We have 40 million people living in the Tokyo area nearby. We have continued releases from the underground corium that reminds us it is there occasionally with steam events and huge increases in radiation levels. Across the Pacific, we have at least two peer-reviewed scientific studies so far that have already provided evidence of increased mortality in North America, and thyroid problems in infants on the west coast states from our initial exposures.

We have increasing contamination of the food chain, through bioaccumulation and biomagnification. And a newly stated concern is the proximity of melted fuel in relation to the Tokyo aquifer that extends under the plant. If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people from the greater metropolitan area. As impossible as this sounds, you cannot live in an area which does not have access to safe water.

The operation to begin removing fuel from such a severely damaged pool has never been attempted before. The rods are unwieldy and very heavy, each one weighing two-thirds of a ton. But it has to be done, unless there is some way to encase the entire building in concrete with the pool as it is. I don't know of anyone discussing that option, but it would seem much 'safer' than what they are about to attempt...but not without its own set of risks.

And all this collateral damage will continue for decades, if not centuries, even if things stay exactly the way they are now. But that is unlikely, as bad things happen like natural disasters and deterioration with time...earthquakes, subsidence, and corrosion, to name a few. Every day that goes by, the statistical risk increases for this apocalyptic scenario. No one can say or know how this will play out, except that millions of people will probably die even if things stay exactly as they are, and billions could die if things get any worse.

Is this possible? It seems unbelievable to me that a few nuclear reactors could possibly kill hundreds of millions and dangerously pollute the whole Pacific. Now, the source is RT, which seems to like to play up these sorts of things, and the person they interviewed, Christina Consolo, is a "fallout researcher" and "founder of Nuked Radio", not a scientist or engineer on-site or involved with Fukushima. All this plus the lack of coverage elsewhere makes me pretty suspicious. Now, Consolo claims that the other media merely picked up the claims of TEPCO, which operated the reactors, and she says that TEPCO has been downplaying and lying about the severity of the threat because it's in their interest. While it makes sense that those responsible for the disaster will try to make their mistake seem less damaging than it really is, the whole "mainstream media aren't reporting this because lies and conspiracy" shtick is pretty heavily used by those who spout nonsense.

On the other hand, I'm totally ignorant of nuclear physics and reactors, and I know vanishingly little about the Fukushima disaster. Can anyone clear this up for me? Maybe Science and Tech is a better forum for this, but it's very slow and quiet.

 

[Rashiminos]

The effects of Fukushima are being exaggerated. Keep in mind the hundreds of nuclear tests that have already been conducted.

 

[CavLancer]

RT does suck, they are an obvious propaganda outlet.

Who knows however what is possible? Can the Fukushima reactors contaminate the Pacific? Last I looked its pretty big... I guess it depends on luck. If two people are eating tuna sandwiches one gets a mouthful of plutonium and the other doesn't.

Tokyo and the groundwater, moving all those people, its never going to happen. They would all need new land, Japan ran out of that a long time ago. Who will take in 40 million refugees? Homes and businesses, trillions of dollars in improvements. Nope, no way. The government would simply do as they've already done, raise the minimum safe levels of exposure as high as they need to go. People would have a significantly higher chance of dying of cancer.

Pregnant women...I just don't know. Its an impossible situation that gets worse every single day.

I lived on the Oregon Coast for more than 20 years. Most beautiful place I've ever seen. Took my dogs to the endless empty beaches and let them run free. For this Jersey boy it was paradise, beaches became my church, a place to leave the past behind. Becoming irradiated by the tide. The US will fare better than Tokyo, but still it won't be pretty.

Pretty hard for RT to play this up.

 

[FriendlyFire]

The effects of Fukushima are being exaggerated. Keep in mind the hundreds of nuclear tests that have already been conducted.

210MT was the estimated tonnage nuclear tests, that was a massive amount though in a remote area.

Chernobyl was only 5 MT explosion.

I am curious as to what made Chernobyl so much worse then the nuclear testing in the pacific given that Tonnages of nuclear bombs being exploded ?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Here is a much better article regarding the current situation:

BBC: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

The Japanese nuclear energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale that measures the severity of atomic accidents.

This was an acknowledgement that the power station was in its greatest crisis since the reactors melted down after the tsunami in 2011.

But some nuclear experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than either Tepco or the Japanese government are willing to admit.

They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site.Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added.

"The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic," said Mycle Schneider, who has consulted widely for a variety of organisations and countries on nuclear issues.

"What is the worse is the water leakage everywhere else - not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.

"It is not over yet by a long shot, Chernobyl was in many ways a one week fire-explosive event, nothing with the potential of this right on the ocean."

"We've been saying since 2011 that the reactor site is still leaking whether that's the buildings and the ground water or these new tank releases. There's no way to really contain all of this radioactive water on site."

"Once it gets into the ground water, like a river flowing to the sea, you can't really stop a ground water flow. You can pump out water, but how many tanks can you keep putting on site?"

The storage problems are compounded by the ingress of ground water, running down from the surrounding hills. It mixes with radioactive water leaking out of the basements of the reactors and then some of it leaches into the sea, despite the best efforts of Tepco to stem the flow.

Some of the radioactive elements like caesium that are contained in the water can be filtered by the earth. Others are managing to get through and this worries watching experts.

"Our biggest concern right now is if some of the other isotopes such as strontium 90 which tend to be more mobile, get through these sediments in the ground water," said Dr Buesseler.

"They are entering the oceans at levels that then will accumulate in seafood and will cause new health concerns."

There are also worries about the spent nuclear fuel rods that are being cooled and stored in water pools on site. Mycle Schneider says these contain far more radioactive caesium than was emitted during the explosion at Chernobyl.

"There is absolutely no guarantee that there isn't a crack in the walls of the spent fuel pools. If salt water gets in, the steel bars would be corroded. It would basically explode the walls, and you cannot see that; you can't get close enough to the pools," he said.

The "worsening situation" at Fukushima has prompted a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland to call for the withdrawal of Tokyo's Olympic bid.

In a letter to the UN secretary general, Mitsuhei Murata says the official radiation figures published by Tepco cannot be trusted. He says he is extremely worried about the lack of a sense of crisis in Japan and abroad.

This view is shared by Mycle Schneider, who is calling for an international taskforce for Fukushima.

"The Japanese have a problem asking for help. It is a big mistake; they badly need it."

 

[BvBPL]

I am amused at how half the news sites state it is not an issue and half are saying the sky is falling.

Aerosol distribution of radiation following the disasters was 1000 times less in the United States than it was in Japan, which makes me think it isn't much to worry about.

This picture, while having nothing to do with radiation spread, is very pretty.

 

[Cutlass]

210MT was the estimated tonnage nuclear tests, that was a massive amount though in a remote area.

Chernobyl was only 5 MT explosion.

I am curious as to what made Chernobyl so much worse then the nuclear testing in the pacific given that Tonnages of nuclear bombs being exploded ?

Because it has nothing to do with the explosive force. It's about the quantity of fissionable materials and unstable isotopes left in the environment. A nuclear weapon just doesn't leave behind really huge quantities of that, comparatively. A meltdown leaves far more. A weapon has pounds of uranium or plutonium. A reactor has tons of it.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Compared to climate change I'll take my chances with nuclear power.

 

[Farm Boy]

Chernobyl also had its fuel exposed to open air. The explosion dispersed highly radioactive material over a populated city without warning. The temporary fixes used to seal the reactor were weak for a long time, since it's really pretty hard to lay a good concrete wall over a gap on zero notice and when your workers have to take 15 minute shifts since they become too weak and too busy dying to keep shoveling after that amount of time.

 

[Kennigit]

*snip*

to be fair, RT reported TEPCO as reporting up to 4700 Bq/L (http://rt.com/news/fukushima-sea-radiation-highest-686/) due to the tritium contamination

I'll copy this from another forum talking about this, but anyone can quickly do this calculation:
"1 Bq is 1 count/second. A Sv is biologically absorbed energy. A Gy is energy absorbed by any material. For beta-particle emission, 1 Sv = 1 Gy. Basically.

The beta-particle released from Tritium decay has an average energy of 5.7 keV.

(5.7 * 10^3 eV) (1.6 * 10^-19 J/eV) (4700 Bq) (3600 seconds/hr) = 1.5 * 10^-8 J absorbed. [/hr]"

which though stopping power of beta particle at 5.7 keV in water is 34.78 MeV-cm^2/g with NIST data, all of the energy of the beta is going to be absorbed if the tritium undergoes decay. Without getting fancy, take maybe 1 kg of your body as absorbing the decay, you get 1.5*10^-8 J/kg or 0.015 μSv. eating bananna is 0.01 μSv.

adults produce about 1 L of urine a day, which is ~95% water. Each urination is about 1/4 L (I see about 8 ounces or 250 mL per urination googling), normal fluid intake is about 2 L/day (or suggested). So assuming a kind of normal intake of water you probably don't have any single bit of water in you for more than 4 hours.

I could be pretty wrong about stuff but drinking a liter of this directly from the source is maybe 10 banannas worth given the amount of exposure time before urination, etc.

actually googling a tiny bit DOE (department of energy) for tritium facilities use committed dose of 1.94*10^-4 * C_o rem/day, C_o being initial concentration of tritium (μCi/L). (http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm)

so [1.94*10^-4 * 4700 Bq/L * 1 Ci/(3.7*10^10 Bq) * 10^6 μCi/Ci] [rem/day]* .01 Sv/1 rem = 2.464*10^-7 Sv/day, or .2454 μSv/day if a litre is ingested. (I guess 20 banannas per day!).

annual allowable limit to public that can be added is 1 mSv/yr (note worker dose is 50 mSv in 1 year or 100 mSv in 5 year period from your occupation). .2454 μSv/day * 365 day/yr * 1 mSv/10^3 μSv = .089 mSv/year drinking 1 litre of the contaminated water every day.

Are you alive? Background radiation around the world is 1 mSv - 3 mSv per year (in US it's 3.1).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Chernobyl also had its fuel exposed to open air. The explosion dispersed highly radioactive material over a populated city without warning. The temporary fixes used to seal the reactor were weak for a long time, since it's really pretty hard to lay a good concrete wall over a gap on zero notice and when your workers have to take 15 minute shifts since they become too weak and too busy dying to keep shoveling after that amount of time.

All of these problems of course were compounded by the USSR's decision to try and cover the problem up and flat-out lie about it.

The Japanese haven't done that to nearly the same extent. While the continuing leaks at Fukushima are terrible and desperately need to be fixed, the sky isn't falling.

 

[kronic]

All of these problems of course were compounded by the USSR's decision to try and cover the problem up and flat-out lie about it.

The Japanese haven't done that to nearly the same extent. While the continuing leaks at Fukushima are terrible and desperately need to be fixed, the sky isn't falling.

What are you talking about? They didn't communicate the catastrophe early enough but the Soviet response was much more decisive than that of the Japanese. They committed more than half a million people to deal with the catastrophe in order to get the situation under control. By contrast, Tepco and Japan still haven't got a clue how to prevent the leakage of radioactive water, how to keep the groundwater safe and how to stabilise the shaky reactor buildings in which large numbers of spent fuel rods are stored. And they only give notice of their problems when they can't be denied anymore.

 

[warpus]

All of these problems of course were compounded by the USSR's decision to try and cover the problem up and flat-out lie about it.

I was in grade school in Poland at the time and we didn't hear anything about the disaster until weeks after it happened, at which point I had to swallow a small vial of iodine at school. Other measures were taken at this point to, such as the government instructing us not to pick any mushrooms for a while.

Goddamn Soviets. I was very young when this happened, but we weren't that far from the Chernobyl, and I remember my parents and their friends being annoyed at the soviets yet again, this time for not informing the Polish people of this disaster until a couple weeks after the fact.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What are you talking about? They didn't communicate the catastrophe early enough but the Soviet response was much more decisive than that of the Japanese. They committed more than half a million people to deal with the catastrophe in order to get the situation under control. By contrast, Tepco and Japan still haven't got a clue how to prevent the leakage of radioactive water, how to keep the groundwater safe and how to stabilise the shaky reactor buildings in which large numbers of spent fuel rods are stored. And they only give notice of their problems when they can't be denied anymore.

They actively covered it up and just because they threw people at the problem doesn't mean they solved it faster than the Japanese. They just threw people at it and denied it was even happening until radiation sensors in Europe proved incontrovertibly that something really terrible had happened. They didn't ask for help, even though they needed it and they didn't tell anyone it was going on, which harmed a lot of people outside the USSR because they had no way of preparing for something they didn't know was going on.

I was in grade school in Poland at the time and we didn't hear anything about the disaster until weeks after it happened, at which point I had to swallow a small vial of iodine at school. Other measures were taken at this point to, such as the government instructing us not to pick any mushrooms for a while.

Goddamn Soviets

But according to kronic the soviet's decisively fixed the problem so you're a liar.

 

[Kennigit]

well what TEPCO is doing is trying to say no problem exists at all when in fact, a small problem does exist. (edit: well nah this is a poor characterization)

they're dancing around and procrastinating.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Are they?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Chernobyl also had its fuel exposed to open air. The explosion dispersed highly radioactive material over a populated city without warning. The temporary fixes used to seal the reactor were weak for a long time, since it's really pretty hard to lay a good concrete wall over a gap on zero notice and when your workers have to take 15 minute shifts since they become too weak and too busy dying to keep shoveling after that amount of time.

Speaking of Chernobyl, look at what they are now building over 25 years later to confine the reactor.


Link to video.

to be fair, RT reported TEPCO as reporting up to 4700 Bq/L (http://rt.com/news/fukushima-sea-radiation-highest-686/) due to the tritium contamination

"To be fair", what does some other article have to do with what I posted?

I could be pretty wrong about stuff but drinking a liter of this directly from the source is maybe 10 banannas worth given the amount of exposure time before urination, etc.

Exposure to tritium isn't the only issue here. It is just one way of determining how much nuclear decay continues to occur. That the levels are rising near the reactors instead of falling as one would presume they would.

I seriously doubt they would be engaging in this expensive practice of confining this amount of contaminated water and worrying about the leaks if there was no reason to be concerned. That it is in any way similar to eating 10 bananas per day.

 

[Kennigit]

"To be fair", what does some other article have to do with what I posted?

did you read it? It's about leaks to bay water, which is more directly tied to the OP (i.e. leaks off site).

Exposure to tritium isn't the only issue here. It is just one way of determining how much nuclear decay continues to occur. That the levels are rising near the reactors instead of falling as one would presume they would.

I seriously doubt they would be engaging in this expensive practice of confining this amount of contaminated water and worrying about the leaks if there was no reason to be concerned. That it is in any way similar to eating 10 bananas per day.

the concern is that a leak exists at all. I'm saying that currently the bay water isn't contaminated with heavier nuclides (or at least it doesn't seem to be reported yet), and leaks are talking about the wells on site with cesium-134, sr-90, etc etc.

there's the important distinction between tank leak, groundwater, and bay water (and if contamination to pacific beyond the bay). My post is on current bay levels, the confining contaminated water is worrying about future contamination.

I'm pretty surprised you would display shock at someone providing another news link though.

 

[Formaldehyde]

did you read it? It's about leaks to bay water, which is more directly tied to the OP (i.e. leaks off site).

What difference does it make? "To be fair", I merely provided what I think is a far better and more balanced article discussing the same matters as the one in the OP. Nothing more and nothing less.

I'm pretty surprised you would display shock at someone providing another news link though.

I'm "pretty surprised" that you would jump to such an absurd conclusion.

 

[Leoreth]

Compared to climate change I'll take my chances with nuclear power.

Compared to cancer I'll take my chances of dying in a car accident.