Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

iguana

ectoraige wrote: »

Chinese whispers? Japanese whispers?

First somebody quoted a report the authorities had detected "195 to 330 microsieverts per hour in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Namie in radiation monitoring activities for about 10 minutes from 8:40 p.m. Tuesday (11:40 a.m. GMT)", presenting this as dangerously high.

I was looking at the report stating that 6600 times normal was being recorded 20kms from the plant. Does this mean that 0.03-0.05msv per hour are normal? I thought normal was much higher than that?

maquiladora

Reporter for military publication Stars and Stripes :

US military doctors now advising air crews flying from Atsugi to w/in 70 nautical mis. of Fukushima plant to take potassium iodide. (129 km)

Topper Harley01

I presume they have ruled out the Tokyo Fire Dept's Superpuma Helicopter which is specially equipped with a controllable nozzle for high rise firefighting?

http://oh1ninja.la.coocan.jp/details/PUMA/PUMA_e.html


Or the 4 Skycrane Helicopters in Korea which can dump 10,000 gallons at a time onto a fire?

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

andrew

maquiladora wrote: »

Reporter for military publication Stars and Stripes :

US military doctors now advising air crews flying from Atsugi to w/in 70 nautical mis. of Fukushima plant to take potassium iodide. (129 km)

This is confusing. That advice is completely at odds with the information we currently have, which indicates that Radiation couldn't possibly have spread/be currently spreading that far.

Overheal

Topper Harley01 wrote: »

I presume they have ruled out the Tokyo Fire Dept's Superpuma Helicopter which is specially equipped with a controllable nozzle for high rise firefighting?

http://oh1ninja.la.coocan.jp/details/PUMA/PUMA_e.html


Or the 4 Skycrane Helicopters in Korea which can dump 10,000 gallons at a time onto a fire?

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

I believe theyre concerned about the flying weather and also the steam plumes coming up from the plant. Theres always the chance levels could spike again and irradiate pilots.

Thrill

iguana wrote: »

I was looking at the report stating that 6600 times normal was being recorded 20kms from the plant. Does this mean that 0.03-0.05msv per hour are normal? I thought normal was much higher than that?

I dont know if this is what you're looking for but...........

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

Symptom benchmarks

Symptoms of acute radiation (within one day):[14]

• 0 – 0.25 Sv (0 - 250 mSv): None
• 0.25 – 1 Sv (250 - 1000 mSv): Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged.
• 1 – 3 Sv (1000 - 3000 mSv): Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow, lymph node, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.
• 3 – 6 Sv (3000 - 6000 mSv): Severe nausea, loss of appetite; hemorrhaging, infection, diarrhea, skin peels, sterility; death if untreated.
• 6 – 10 Sv (6000 - 10000 mSv): Above symptoms plus central nervous system impairment; death expected.
• Above 10 Sv (10000 mSv): Incapacitation and death.

maquiladora

Topper Harley01 wrote: »

I presume they have ruled out the Tokyo Fire Dept's Superpuma Helicopter which is specially equipped with a controllable nozzle for high rise firefighting?

Too dangerous :

The Self-Defense Forces will not conduct a planned operation Wednesday to drop water from helicopters on the troubled No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima nuclear power plant because of the high radiation level around the plant, Defense Ministry officials said.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78597.html

ectoraige

iguana wrote: »

I was looking at the report stating that 6600 times normal was being recorded 20kms from the plant. Does this mean that 0.03-0.05msv per hour are normal? I thought normal was much higher than that?

Well, if the report says readings of 195 to 330 microsieverts per hour were detected, and says this is 6600 times normal, that would suggest normal readings would be 0.5 microsievert per hour.

The average annual dose is about 3600 microsieverts according to PBS which would come to about 0.4 microsievert per hour.

geetar

iguana wrote: »

I don't know. Are children generally more susceptible to the effects of radiation than adults? The bullet points I quoted suggest that at 20 weeks gestation a fetus is no more at risk than the mother from the X-ray.

I'm also unsure of the risk at these levels to the ovaries of all women and girls of child-bearing age and below. But that's only because I don't know why I've always had to wear a radiation shield across my reproductive area whenever I've had an X-Ray, even when I couldn't possibly have been pregnant. I don't know if it's "just-in-case" precautionary or "there-is-some-risk" precautionary.

children are much more susecptible to absorbing radiation. i think its something to do with how they are growing, and their glands absorb more (thyroid etc..)

as for the lead, i think its precautionary form hospitals just incase they sterilised someone or something. men wear them to, so its more likely to do with reproductive organs, then unborn babies

ectoraige

andrew wrote: »

This is confusing. That advice is completely at odds with the information we currently have, which indicates that Radiation couldn't possibly have spread/be currently spreading that far.

maquiladora wrote: »

Reporter for military publication Stars and Stripes :

US military doctors now advising air crews flying from Atsugi to w/in 70 nautical mis. of Fukushima plant to take potassium iodide. (129 km)

This would be precautionary. The US military is well drilled in operating in potentially radioactive environments and the appropriate protective measures to take. It should not be taken to mean there are lethal levels of radiation where they are operating, but that there is a risk that they may have to operate in areas with high levels of radioactivity. Doubtless they advised their pilots to take anti-malarial pills before deploying to the Far East too.

maquiladora

ectoraige wrote: »

Doubtless they advised their pilots to take anti-malarial pills before deploying to the Far East too.

I dunno about comparing potassium iodide pills and anti-malarial pills....

Potassium iodide should only be used in a radiation emergency, not in advance of an emergency to prevent sickness.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/35.html

Thrill

1. 1720: Kyodo reports that the US military is to fly an unmanned plane over Fukushima, equipped with infrared sensors, to give an aerial view of what is going on.
   
   

ectoraige

maquiladora wrote: »

I dunno about comparing potassium iodide pills and anti-malarial pills....

Potassium iodide should only be used in a radiation emergency, not in advance of an emergency to prevent sickness.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/35.html

It's my understanding that this counts as a radiation emergency. I don't think you wait to receive a high dose before downing the pills. What it means is you shouldn't take one daily just because you live beside a nuclear power plant, but if the alarms start going off, that's when you start taking them.

Thrill

Latest official figures show 4,314 people are now known to have died in the disaster.

The figures show 8,606 people are missing and 2,282 have been injured. AFP reports.

whatstherush

There is 40 years worth of nuclear waste in the 7 SFP's (Spent Fuel Pool) located at that site totaling 1760 tons as of 16th Nov 2010 Source. 6 of these pools are located over the 6 reactors on site. 3 of the reactors have problems, while a 4th reactor building has had a fire in it. The tops of these pools are open to the air, what happens if they boil off the water and catch fire. Game over me thinks.

Turtwig

Latest Update (Well, actually it was fifty five minutes ago but I never spotted it:o) :

Unit IV.
Water level in the spent fuel pools is low and damage to the pools is expected. The reactor itself is empty of fuel with over 100 days and does not pose any sort of risk. The problem is, is that the spent fuel pool contains almost all the fuel that was kept in the reactor. Meaning there is a larger body of heat inside a smaller area that is receiving inadequate cooling due to problems with the circulatory system.
This is the reason why Unit IV's spent fuel pool has been warming faster than Unit's V and VI whose reactors were only partially emptied.

Unit I, II, III.
Seawater injection is ongoing whenever possible as determined by radiation levels. The water level is not adequate though. Somewhere between 1 to 2 metres of the fuel rods are being exposed at times. There will be some conduction between the bottom of the rods and the top that will help cool the top but it means the cooling process is far from as efficient as it should be. Estimates are 70% of Unit's I and 30% of Unit's II fuel cores have been damaged. Unit's III primary containment appears to be holding and it appears that the blast was indeed in the suppression pool.

geetar

whatstherush wrote: »

There is 40 years worth of nuclear waste in the 7 SFP's (Spent Fuel Pool) located at that site totaling 1760 tons as of 16th Nov 2010 Source. 6 of these pools are located over the 6 reactors on site. 3 of the reactors have problems, while a 4th reactor building has had a fire in it. The tops of these pools are open to the air, what happens if they boil off the water and catch fire. Game over me thinks.

i dont think the spent fuel rods are as hot as everyone thinks.

i heard on the news that they are around 60C, enough to cause a decent amount of vapourisation, but not boiling.

maquiladora

Uk nationals in Tokyo and north of Tokyo are now being told to consider leaving the area.

Might be time to stop the French surrender jibes.

Captain_Generic

maquiladora wrote: »

Might be time to stop the French surrender jibes.

That would be surrender, you're not French are you?

iguana

ectoraige wrote: »

Well, if the report says readings of 195 to 330 microsieverts per hour were detected, and says this is 6600 times normal, that would suggest normal readings would be 0.5 microsievert per hour.

6600 times .5 is 3300. 6600 times 195-330 is roughly 0.03-0.05.

iguana

ectoraige wrote: »

Well, if the report says readings of 195 to 330 microsieverts per hour were detected, and says this is 6600 times normal, that would suggest normal readings would be 0.5 microsievert per hour.

6600 times .5 is 3300. 6600 times roughly 0.03-0.05 is 195-330.

Rob A. Bank

geetar wrote: »

i dont think the spent fuel rods are as hot as everyone thinks.

i heard on the news that they are around 60C, enough to cause a decent amount of vapourisation, but not boiling.

I think that may refer to the ponds in reactors 5 and 6.

According to the BBC the company feels that there may be enough to form a critical mass in at least one of the damaged ponds...

"So why is it that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has warned: "The possibility of re-criticality is not zero"?

If you are in any doubt as to what this means, it is that in the company's view, it is possible that enough fissile uranium is present in enough density to form a critical mass in the cooling pond - meaning that a nuclear fission reaction could start in the building, outside the containment shield that surrounds the actual reactor.

If it happened, this would lead to the enhanced and sustained release of radioactive materials - though not a nuclear explosion."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

Turtwig

geetar wrote: »

i dont think the spent fuel rods are as hot as everyone thinks.

i heard on the news that they are around 60C, enough to cause a decent amount of vapourisation, but not boiling.

Yep, you are correct spent fuel pools in V and VI are around the 60ºC mark. The spent fuel pool in unit IV is 84ºC.

Rob A. Bank

maquiladora wrote: »

Uk nationals in Tokyo and north of Tokyo are now being told to consider leaving the area.

Might be time to stop the French surrender jibes.

And the advice of brit aristocrats too ;-))

th3 s1aught3r

So much for the 'everything is ok' brigade
It gets better then the next thing its worse

I think this is the end of nuclear power, its just too dangerous to mess with
Clean energy my ass

old hippy

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

So much for the 'everything is ok' brigade
It gets better then the next thing its worse

I think this is the end of nuclear power, its just too dangerous to mess with
Clean energy my ass

In the wake of this awful disaster, there's been a few articles in the meeja here (London) promoting nuclear power. Saying it has a good track record and it would never happen here. Particularly unpleasant and repellent to wave the nuclear flag at this moment in time, yesterday's ES for starters

Didnt see this posted, but thought it worth a mention in light of the current sit.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/03/16/pickering-nuclear-leak.html

maquiladora

@CNBCbrk: US Embassy in Tokyo advising Americans within 50 miles of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant to evacuate the area or take shelter indoors (80km)

Thats 60 km wider than the Japanese own evacuation zone and 50 km wider than the zone the Japanese advise people to stay indoors.

alibabba

EARTHQUAKE WARNING FROM RUSSIAN INSTITUTE of PHYSICS of the EARTH
Posted by Real News Reporter on March 12th, 2011
A new report released today in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, in Moscow, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next fortnight (14 days) with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.
This report further warns that catastrophic earthquakes in Asia and the sub-continent are, also, “more than likely to occur” with the 7.3 magnitude quake in Japan today being “one of at least 4 of this intensity” to occur during this same time period.
Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.
Important to note are that Russian and British scientists are at the forefront of predicting earthquakes based on these subtle electromagnetic signals and have joined in an effort to put satellites in space to detect more of them.
More ominously in this report are Russian scientists confirming the independent analysis of New Zealand mathematician and long-range weather forecaster, Ken Ring, who predicted the deadly Christchurch quake and this week issued another warning of a quake to hit on or about March 20th.*
Ring explains his methodology for predicting earthquakes as follows:
“The planets very much affect the earth, indirectly, by having an effect on the Sun. Some planets are very large. If the Sun was a basketball the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn would be the size of grapefruits, and the Earth would be, on that scale, the size of a peppercorn.
Jupiter and Saturn cause extra tides on the Sun when they get on either side of the Sun (as with Moon – Earth-Sun when the moon is full) and when these gas giants get on the same side as the Sun, (as with Earth -Moon – Sun when the moon is new). These greater solar tides become sunspot activity and solar flares and can be understood as akin to the increase in tides caused by the Moon when it too gets alongside Earth or opposite Earth.
At the moment we have Jupiter and Saturn on either side of the Sun and creating a tug of war with Earth in the middle. That started last September and will continue until about May. In September the Earth was right in line with Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun too.
That’s why there were several 7+ earthquakes around, it wasn’t just us. For instance there was one in Pakistan on the same day as Christchurch. This Jupiter/Saturn alignment continues until about May, and the Earth comes back into line as well in March. It is why there may be an extreme event, perhaps a large earthquake, around 20 March, which is when the Moon may be again in a trigger position.”
According to this report, however, where Ring is correct in assessing blame for our Earth’s earthquakes on the Sun and Planets, his substituting of Perigean Spring Tides (also known as King Tides) for the low pressure systems associated with them may be incorrect.
The mention in this report of massive low pressure systems being associated with catastrophic earthquakes is especially dire to the United States Midwestern region, which even today is continuing to be pounded by horrific rainfall amounts, and most especially impacting the New Madrid Fault Zone State of Arkansas which has suffered over 800 earthquakes in the past 6 months alone.
Equally in danger, this report continues, is the South American Nation of Bolivia which has, likewise, suffered catastrophic low pressure system storms that in the past week have killed over 52 people.
Most ominous in this report, though, is its warning that the fault-riddled State of California may be about to suffer its most catastrophic earthquake in decades as new reports for this region show the mass death of millions of fish [photo bottom left] is now occurring, and just like the mass stranding of whales on New Zealand beaches days prior to the February 22nd destruction of Christchurch.
Making the situation for our Planet even grimmer are the reports that our Sun is continuing to spew forth massive solar flares, the latest warned to hit our Earth today or tomorrow thus prompting the Hermanus Space Weather Warning Centre (SWWC) to issue a Solar Flare warning for the Southern Hemisphere.
Interesting to note in all of these events is the United States Army announcing this week that it is holding a rare training event involving the US Military, the CIA, Canadian officers, US Treasury and State departments, the US Agency for International Development, the Defense Threat Readiness Agency and the International Red Cross between March 21-25 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and which should the worst happen they will certainly be prepared for it.
As this report concludes, that as of yet, “no firmly reliable” method for predicting earthquakes has been scientifically recognized, it is well worth noting the too many to be ignored anomalous coincidences leading up to catastrophic mega-quakes are breaking out all over the World and should only be ignored at ones peril.
In other words, it is always best to be prepared should disaster strike, wherever the warning comes from.”
Someone I know channels Archangel Metatron who told him recently that there could be a major earthquake in Southern California on the 19th of March. I tell you this not to alarm you but to make you aware to be prepared. As you know predictions are only that and are subject to many other variables. We can alter potentialities by prayers, meditation, and our consciousness.....BY GROUND CREW!

Turtwig

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

So much for the 'everything is ok' brigade
It gets better then the next thing its worse

I think this is the end of nuclear power, its just too dangerous to mess with
Clean energy my ass

In all honesty not a whole lot has actually changed. Everything was never ok, but the thing is over sensationalising a problem isn't ok either. This a serious situation, nobody would disagree with that. The nuclear industry will have to take a serious look at its safety procedures and design of BWRs - The hydrogen explosions should never have happened, let alone the suppression pools ones. Having said all that, this plant's emergency back up generators had a huge oversight vulnerability to a tsunami. Had they been built on higher ground, or even behind the reactor building with reference to the sea this wouldn't be happening. Four other nuclear power plants survived the quake and tsunami with little to no problem. This plant was built before Chernobyl, has had a much more robust design but one critical oversight (the EDGS location) could cost it everything.

Edit : Oh and that post above me ^ is bullsh1t.