Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Raskolnikov

I wonder how lethal the plume from the burning of the spent nuclear fuel is.

Mister men

uncleoswald wrote: »

Eh yes I do. It was a turn of phrase, while I was also admitting to my ignorance on these matters. I have however learned a lot from some of those posters here who are more in-the-know then myself. Maybe you and your "doomsday" posts could take note.

It did'nt seem like a turn of phrase tbh.

gbee

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I wonder how lethal the plume from the burning of the spent nuclear fuel is.

Last known readings. 0.4Sv = Mild radiation sickness, headaches risk of infection.

They have stopped updates hourly. So this figure is hours old and before the new fire.

Topper Harley01

Flames no longer visible in no.4 reactor according to NHK.

Mister men

Is there any independent readings coming out of Japan regarding the radiation levels? I would'nt trust a word the Japenese government are telling it's people at this stage.

maquiladora

Topper Harley01 wrote: »

Flames no longer visible in no.4 reactor according to NHK.

Good news for a change. Flames no longer seen 30 mins after first spotted.

uncleoswald

Overheal wrote: »

Its a really bad turn of phrase.

Mister men wrote: »

It did'nt seem like a turn of phrase tbh.

Jesus, I'll edit it of you guys really want. All I was saying is that I have learned a hell of a lot about how much damage these constructions can take, such as a plane crashing into them or a massive earthquake followed by numerous explosions. To my ignorant self I would have presumed that a Chernobyl type scenario days ago and it puts my mind at ease that they are so well designed and have so many safe guards.

maquiladora

Mister men wrote: »

Is there any independent readings coming out of Japan regarding the radiation levels? I would'nt trust a word the Japenese government are telling it's people at this stage.

IAEA are sending a team.

jwt

2303 Sky news reporters relocating upwind of nuclear plants, china has cancelled flights into Japan and Austria is relocating their embassy all due to radiation worries



http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-nuclear-chernobyl-idUSTRE72E5MV20110315

"The Japanese were very greedy and they used every square inch of the space. But when you have a dense placing of spent fuel in the basin you have a high possibility of fire if the water is removed from the basin," Andreev said.

hmmm

maquiladora wrote: »

IAEA are sending a team.

Mod Edit:

hmmm is banned for this tasteless post as per mod warning in first post.

"Early on Wednesday, baffled Japanese officials queued at the airport to welcome the members of Liverpool football team, sent as goodwill ambassadors by the IAEA."

peasant

Mister men wrote: »

Is there any independent readings coming out of Japan regarding the radiation levels? I would'nt trust a word the Japenese government are telling it's people at this stage.

maquiladora wrote: »

IAEA are sending a team.

Yippee ... state sponsored liars to be replaced by liars sponsored by the nuclear industry :rolleyes:

I'd say at this stage it's fair to assume the worst and be glad you're not anywhere near Japan

Thrill

At least someone is keeping a level head..........


http://www.twitpic.com/49ultp

Dempsey

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I wonder how lethal the plume from the burning of the spent nuclear fuel is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel

About 1% of the mass is 239Pu and 240Pu resulting from conversion of 238U, which may be considered either as a useful byproduct, or as dangerous and inconvenient waste. One of the main concerns regarding nuclear proliferation is to prevent this plutonium from being used by states, other than those already established as nuclear weapons states, to produce nuclear weapons. If the reactor has been used normally, the plutonium is reactor-grade, not weapons-grade: it contains much 240Pu and less than 80% 239Pu, which makes it less suitable, but not impossible, to use in a weapon.[5] If the irradiation period has been short then the plutonium is weapons-grade (more than 80%, up to 93%).

The half life of 239Pu is 24,200 years & 240Pu is 6563 years :eek:

1ug of plutonium is enough to kill a person AFAIK, was watching a video on Chernobyl earlier and thats what an expert said

http://www.thenation.com/article/159234/fukushimas-spent-fuel-rods-pose-grave-danger

At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them. .

Potentially 0.6 tons of 239Pu & 240Pu in reactor 4 could be burned into the atmosphere

:eek:

thomasj

hmmm wrote: »

"Early on Wednesday, baffled Japanese officials queued at the airport to welcome the members of Liverpool football team, sent as goodwill ambassadors by the IAEA."

Tell me that's a very bad joke!
Remind me what the iaea do?

karltimber

Not sure if this has been posted

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

3 sets of pics of this disaster.

k

Mister men

maquiladora wrote: »

IAEA are sending a team.

So no independent results then. Great.

aligator_am

Thrill wrote: »

At least someone is keeping a level head..........


http://www.twitpic.com/49ultp

If ya wanna see a grand pair of tits, ya either look at The Sun newspaper or you look at Cowen and Lenihan.

dreamer_ire

With 3500 now confirmed dead (and still rising) more people have lost their lives in the quake/tsunami than on 9/11. I know a lot of people are looking at worst case senario but I'm hoping that only those exposed to the quake and the tsunami will make up the final death toll and that the nuclear threat becomes under control before any serious long term damage occurs.

Topper Harley01

Thrill wrote: »

At least someone is keeping a level head..........


http://www.twitpic.com/49ultp

Trust The Scum to come out with a headline like that. I often wonder if they have shares that rely on mass panic.

It should be something more like:

http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://evertype.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On_Poster_Ireland3.png&imgrefurl=http://evertype.com/blog/blog/2010/11/18/keep-calm-and-carry-on-2/&h=3320&w=2333&sz=306&tbnid=3Xv8ML2q6E11rM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkeep%2Bcalm%2Band%2Bcarry%2Bon&zoom=1&q=keep+calm+and+carry+on&hl=en&usg=__uOfPPpSjkAex2Fw-LxXkaqoVmYU=&sa=X&ei=VvN_Td-fGpKJhQea_Yi1Bw&ved=0CDoQ9QEwBQ

jamesbrond

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

I know nothing about Nuclear reactors but I am really horrified by how difficult they seem to be to control if something goes wrong :eek:

Dont worry.
Its like everything else these days.
People read a few link and suddenly they are experts on the subject.
Must be an Irish disease.

First it was property.
Then everyone was an economist.
Now they are nuclear physicists.

You can find a link on the web to support any view. So whatever view you feel like, just go and find the links for it.

But really, the best source is the news.

Coles

uncleoswald wrote: »

Jesus, I'll edit it of you guys really want. All I was saying is that I have learned a hell of a lot about how much damage these constructions can take, such as a plane crashing into them or a massive earthquake followed by numerous explosions. To my ignorant self I would have presumed that a Chernobyl type scenario days ago and it puts my mind at ease that they are so well designed and have so many safe guards.

Your mind's at ease about what exactly?

Chad ghostal

Thrill wrote: »

At least someone is keeping a level head..........


http://www.twitpic.com/49ultp

Sweet Jesus :rolleyes:
Highly irresponsible of those f*cktards

hmmm

dreamer_ire wrote: »

With 3500 now confirmed dead (and still rising) more people have lost their lives in the quake/tsunami than on 9/11. I know a lot of people are looking at worst case senario but I'm hoping that only those exposed to the quake and the tsunami will make up the final death toll and that the nuclear threat becomes under control before any serious long term damage occurs.

Even in Chernobyl, the number of immediate deaths was relatively low and limited to the first responders. The deaths from radiation poisoning afterwards are disputed and harder to quantify.

dreamer_ire

hmmm wrote: »

Even in Chernobyl, the number of immediate deaths was relatively low and limited to the first responders. The deaths from radiation poisoning afterwards are disputed and harder to quantify.

A friend of mine does a lot of work with an orphanage in Belarus and the effects on children she has seen born long after the Chernobyl disaster is shocking. The first time I met a number of the kids (in Co. Clare on a respite visit) I volunteered to go back the following year. Then she told me that none of the kids I had just met would be still alive the following year because they all had advanced thyroid cancer, believed to be as a result of Chernobyl. But I take your point that the numbers start to blur and depending on the agenda of the "estimators" it can vary hugely.

Sierra Oscar

Seems they didn't actually put the fire out, instead it just went "out of its own accord".

2327: Minoru Ogoda, a spokesman for the Japanese nuclear safety agency, tells AFP: "We have received information from [the Tokyo Electric Power Company] that the fire and smoke is now invisible and it appears to have gone out of its own accord." An explosion on Tuesday morning damaged reactor 4's building and sparked a fire in its spent fuel storage pond. The reactor had been shut down before Friday's earthquake for maintenance, but its spent nuclear fuel rods were stored on the site.

One could hazard a guess that maybe the fire is smouldering and then re-igniting?

Hotblack Desiato

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

It became ridiculous when the US 7th fleet was scuttling away from a radioactive plume while they were still saying that there was no significant radioactive release.

The game was up once the wind blew onshore and the deception was exposed

Nonsense. The plume was insignificant but that is no reason to remain in its path if you can easily move out of its path. Less paperwork if nothing else...

The slightest increase in radiation is easily detected with the instrumentation available to the US Navy (who, after all, expected to be fighting nuclear wars in radiation fields thousands of times stronger than what is now happening) and no doubt they have decontamination procedures which must be followed to the letter once the slightest increase above natural background radiation is detected.

In this case the helicopter crews were exposed to absolutely tiny amounts of contamination, which was easily eliminated by washing clothes and showering, but with a ship's company of several thousand on a big carrier, it makes far more sense to just move out of the way especially as they had no particular reason to remain in that spot - rather than have to put the entire ship under decontamination procedures even though the contamination was minimal.

Turtwig

hmmm wrote: »

What's the point of having all these superstrong containment vessels around the reactors if the "spent" nuclear fuel is left lying outside? If there is a fire or a failure of the cooling, the spent nuclear fuel is just as dangerous. What am I missing?

Spent fuel pools are housed inside the secondary containment building. After they have been completely exhausted they are stored outside.

Mister men

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Seems they didn't actually put the fire out, instead it just went "out of its own accord".



One could hazard a guess that maybe the fire is smouldering and then re-igniting?

I'd say thats more than likely whats going on.

Coles

jamesbrond wrote: »

Dont worry.
Its like everything else these days.
People read a few link and suddenly they are experts on the subject.
Must be an Irish disease.

First it was property.
Then everyone was an economist.
Now they are nuclear physicists.

You can find a link on the web to support any view. So whatever view you feel like, just go and find the links for it.

But really, the best source is the news.

Particularly if you aren't capable of thinking for yourself.:rolleyes:

Donal Og O Baelach

The fear factor alone could be very dangerous. Tokyo has something like 13 million people.