Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[Chopperboy]

Too dangerous: Robotic unmanned drone aircraft are now being used to take photographs, amid fears that radiation levels are too high for a pilot to safely fly over the plant.

The Obama administration is sending a squad of robots to Japan to help efforts to regain control over the Fukushima nuclear plant, it has emerged.

"A shipment is being readied," Peter Lyons, who oversees nuclear power in the department of energy, told a Senate committee. "The government of Japan is very, very interested in the capabilities that could be brought to bear from this country."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371375/Japan-nuclear-suicide-squads-paid-huge-amounts-claims-battle-lost.html?ITO=1490

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/japan-nuclear-plant-us-robots

Edited March 30, 2011 by Chopperboy

[elcent]

Edano: Cover may be used to stop radiation

Japan's top government spokesman says the government and experts are considering whether to cover the reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant with a special material, to stop the spread of radioactive substances.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters on Wednesday the experts are also examining the use of a tanker to collect irradiated water at the plant.

Edano said a variety of options are being studied to minimize radioactive contamination in areas around the plant, and to prevent health hazards.

He said working-level discussions are underway on the new measures and a political decision will probably be sought at some stage.

He said the whole situation is not at a point where he can responsibly say when the reactors will be brought under control. He said it will likely take a considerable amount of time before the fuel rods in the reactors and spent fuel pools cool down and stabilize.

Edano said monitoring for plutonium contamination may be extended to areas outside the plant compound since trace amounts of the element were found in soil on the plant grounds.

Edano said consumption and shipping restrictions on farm products will be lifted once their safety is consistently confirmed.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:56 +0900 (JST) http://www3.nhk.or.j...lish/30_18.html

COVER: > That may give some air to breath, but at the end it will be just dealying, apart from being very expensive.

What about the ground water/sea water then?

The cores maybe melting through and the mass will be slipping down and down ...

Perhaps people should have to take a driving test before they are allowed to use a computer; the worry is that people might take posts such as the above seriously.

When I was a child, I worried about nuclear war and oil running out. Who would have thought that a more likely cause of the end of civilisation was the internet, and the uncontrolled spread of stupidity and ignorance?

Perhaps we should restrict the internet to harmless content such as pornography, and perhaps football scores...

SC

I really hope you got yours.

[elcent]

It doesn't matter what options are available or are going to be used, any and all options will have a major side-effect like as major disasters and/or catastrophies, not to forget to mention the price tag. - This is why they don't have any progress to show us.

Oh yeah,. we almost got a live broadcast of electricity re-installed. What can they do with the electric now? Nobody''s in the control rooms now. Allmost all the technical thingy's are damaged.

We're not talking of one reactor but four and we're not talking of used fuel rods but highly active ones in the thousands. People seem not be able to gasp that.

Believe me, I'm the first who wants to be wrong about that if possible, but I can't deny the things that unveal pretty clear and which is very stable in progress.

When they somehow succeed there will be a high number of Kamikaze death toll.

TEPCO chairman apologizes

The chairman of the Tokyo Electric Power Company has apologized for trouble and anxiety caused by radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Tsunehisa Katsumata on Wednesday was speaking to reporters in Tokyo for the first time since problems at the plant surfaced. The firm's president, Masataka Shimizu, was hospitalized for hypertension and dizziness on Tuesday night.

Katsumata said he feels particularly sorry for local residents who've had to evacuate or refrain from going outside while coping with the impact of the quake and aftershocks.

Katsumata admitted that the company has not been able to cool the reactors, and pledged maximum efforts to stabilize them. He added that the No.1 through 4 reactors would eventually have to be shut down for good.

Katsumata also said his company is preparing to compensate in accordance with the law for damage caused by the radiation leaks.

The chairman apologized for the inconvenience caused by the company's rolling blackouts to cope with chronic power shortages since the March 11th quake and tsunami.

He said the company will do its best and work closely with the government to minimize or even avoid rolling blackouts this summer.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 16:37 +0900 (JST) http://www3.nhk.or.j...lish/30_28.html

No doubt that they do it's best and so do the loaded fuel rods.

No doubt they try to shut it down, but how? They try that for about 2 weeks already.

[Chopperboy]

TEPCO plans to spray resin on the ground around the plant to keep radioactive particles from spreading or seeping into the ocean. The company will test the method Thursday in one section of the plant before using it elsewhere, Nishiyama said.

"The idea is to glue them to the ground," he said. But it would be too sticky to use inside buildings or on sensitive equipment.

The government also is considering covering some reactors with cloth tenting, TEPCO said. If successful, that could allow workers to spend longer periods of time in other areas of the plant.

http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=6897797086780

[elcent]

TEPCO halts work to remove radioactive water

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suspended work to move highly radioactive water from the basement of the turbine building into the turbine condenser at the No. 1 reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Company suspended the operation on Tuesday morning after the condenser became full of water.

The work began on Thursday after water in the basement of the turbine building was found to contain radiation about 10,000 times higher than would normally be found inside an operating nuclear reactor.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the water is now about 20 centimeters deep, half the initial level.

TEPCO is studying a plan to move water from a tunnel outside the turbine building into an on-site waste disposal facility with a capacity of more than 25,000 tons.

The water contains radioactive substances, and its level is only 10 centimeters below the top of the tunnel.

TEPCO also planned to move highly radioactive water from the basements of the turbine buildings of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors into turbine condensers with a capacity of 3,000 tons each. But both condensers turned out to be full.

Plant workers are now using pumps that can draw 10 to 25 tons of water per hour to move water from the condensers' storage tanks into other tanks. They then hope to move water inside the condensers into the storage tanks and fill the condensers with the highly radioactive water from the basements.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 16:37 +0900 (JST) http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_26.html

[powderpuff]

Who knew Obama had a squadron of robots at his beck & call? The guy is a miracle worker.

[atsiii]

http://www.abc.net.a...11/s3178005.htm

The expert, Richard Lahey, says he believes the reactor core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel and at least some of it is down on the concrete floor beneath. This would mean that in simple terms the accident is no longer a matter of melting fuel rods, but of meltdown.

The New York Times quotes Hiroto Sakashita, a nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics professor at Hokkaido University, as saying other reactors and cooling ponds will take years to cool. He told the paper "They will just have to keep on pouring and pouring but contaminated water will keep leaking out."

It's already doing so. Japan's Nuclear Safety Agency confirmed radioactive iodine in the sea near Fukushima at 3,355 times the normal level.

MARK WILLACY: We understand that there was a news conference but it might have been before this announcement. So maybe we're waiting for another one. But as you mentioned, when they did have the press conference, they did announce that levels of radioactive iodine 131 were, again as you mentioned, 3,355 times the legal limit in the sea near Fukushima plant. So it is the highest reading that we've had yet.

MARK COLVIN: But he's (Richard Lahey) coming to that conclusion through indirect means. I mean there's no reason to doubt his expertise, as you say, he was the nuclear safety expert at GE when they installed these reactors. But he's not actually there and I suppose I'm asking why hasn't the Nuclear Safety Agency, the government, or TEPCO said anything about this, confirmed it or denied it?

MARK WILLACY: I have to say that TEPCO, according to many people here, the Japanese public, hasn't really been very open in terms of explaining what the processes are.

MARK COLVIN: If a nuclear meltdown is in progress or has happened at reactor number two, it's safe to say, isn't it, that that will make it even more difficult to get things under control at the other reactors?

MARK WILLACY: That's right, but we have to also stress that Richard Lahey is saying there is no danger of a Chernobyl style catastrophe here because he said that was a case where it exploded with a big fire and steam explosion which was not good obviously.

Edited March 30, 2011 by atsiii

[atsiii]

And just when we think it couldn't get worse... we are reminded there are four more reactors only 10 miles away!!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.daini/

Tokyo (CNN) -- Smoke was spotted at another nuclear plant in northeastern Japan on Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. The company said smoke was detected in the turbine building of reactor No. 1 at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant around 6 p.m. (5 a.m. ET). Smoke could no longer be seen by around 7 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), a company spokesman told reporters.

The Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where workers are scrambling to stave off a meltdown. Tokyo Electric Power Co. owns both plants. After the dual disasters, Japanese authorities also detected cooling-system problems at the Fukushima Daini plant, and those living within a 10-kilometer radius (6 miles) of Fukushima Daini were ordered to evacuate as a precaution.

But since then, officials have not expressed any concerns about possible meltdowns there.Earlier Wednesday, the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum, a trade group, said cooling functions were recovered and all the plant's four reactors were in cold shutdown.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/30/idUSTKB00740920110330

(Reuters) - Smoke seen at a second power plant in Fukushima was from a so-called electrical distribution board and has dispersed, Japan's nuclear safety body said on Wednesday.

Edited March 30, 2011 by atsiii

[elcent]

Fighting the Nuclear Shutdown

German Reactor Operators Weigh Legal Action

REUTERS

Germany's temporary reactor shutdowns may soon become permanent. Here, a thermal camera image of the Biblis nuclear power plant.

Following the center-right election debacle in state votes on Sunday, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is moving to make the temporary shutdown of seven aging nuclear reactors permanent. But she may encounter stiff resistance from plant operators. --- For the rest of the story click http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,753903,00.html

[atsiii]

Who knew Obama had a squadron of robots at his beck & call? The guy is a miracle worker.

5555! Yea, and if Obama can do it, maybe Fox News could send a Legion of mindless robots to help out, too? They might even be able to "part the seas" with their religious purity and fervor; keeping the Pacific ocean from becoming contaminated in the process.

Sorry, that was uncalled for. But you made me laugh, and I succumb to the humor of the moment.

[atsiii]

http://floridaindependent.com/25090/groups-demand-u-s-data-on-fukushima-radiation

Friends of the Earth, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Physicians for Social Responsibility have filed a Freedom of Information Act demanding U.S. government data on radiation releases from the Fukushima nuclear complex.

On March 16, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Gregory B. Jazcko told Congress that he was recommending the 50-mile evacuation radius but did not give an explicit explanation of how he had determined that this was necessary. The three groups called the scope of this recommended evacuation "highly unusual" and suggestive of extraordinarily high radiation levels in excess of those reported to the public in Japan and the U.S. They noted that the U.S. only requires reactor operators to plan for evacuations out to ten miles.

"We think the American and Japanese public have a right to see the complete details of the Fukushima radiation data and, therefore, we have requested the NRC and the DOE to release the information under the Freedom of Information Act," said attorney Diane Curran who filed the FOIA request for the groups. "If necessary, we are prepared to go to federal court to get the uncensored set of measurements.

Edited March 30, 2011 by atsiii

[elcent]

another good read ...

Tokyo's Fatalism

Courage in the Face of Disaster

By Walter Mayr

Photo Gallery: 12 Photos REUTERSMany foreigners have fled Tokyo. But the Japanese are facing the ongoing threat posed by the Fukushima nuclear power plant with a mixture of concern and equanimity. Their faith in the country's ability to overcome is unfazed. http://www.spiegel.d...,753688,00.html

Edited March 30, 2011 by elcent

[Chopperboy]

NGO finds high levels beyond no-go zone

Radiology experts from Greenpeace urged the government Wednesday to expand the evacuation zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant after they found high levels of radiation outside the 20-km mandatory no-go zone.

Jan van de Putte, the radioactivity safety adviser of the NGO, said the survey, taken on a road between the villages of Iitate and Tsushima in Fukushima Prefecture, saw a radiation level of 100 microsieverts per hour, despite being outside of the evacuation area.

One would reach the annual legal limit of 1,000 microsieverts — or 1 millisievert — of radiation in about 10 hours in such an environment, van de Putte said, adding that it is likely the people living in Iitate, about 9 km outside the no-go zone, "have surpassed that level" of exposure already.

The team of experts at Greenpeace said they conducted their monitoring Saturday and Sunday, and found proof radioactivity hasn't spread evenly from the reactors.

Some locations farther away from the damaged nuclear plant showed higher levels of radiation than closer areas "due to geographical characteristics," van de Putte said.

An official of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said high radioactivity levels detected by the NGO around the town of Iitate "could not be considered reliable," adding that most people have already voluntarily left the town.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20110330x2.html

[atsiii]

http://www.guardian....fukushima-plant

Japanese officials have conceded they are no closer to resolving the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as new readings showed a dramatic increase in radioactive contamination in the sea. The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said radioactive iodine-131 at 3,355 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea about 300 yards south of the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there.

The government's acceptance of help from the US and France has strengthened the belief that the battle to save the stricken reactors, now well into its third week, is lost.

On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.

Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, said recent higher readings of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137 should be of greater concern than reports earlier this week of tiny quantities of plutonium found in soil samples. He added: "It's obviously alarming when you talk about radiation, but if you have radiation in non-gas form I would say dump it in the ocean." "The dilutional factor could not be better – there's no better place. If you deposit it on earth or in places where people live there is no dilutional effect. From a safety point of view the ocean is the safest place."

Analysts said a prolonged crisis at the Fukushima plant could place intolerable pressure on the economy. "The worst-case scenario is that this drags on not one month or two months or six months, but for two years, or indefinitely," said Jesper Koll of JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo. "Japan will be bypassed. That is the real nightmare scenario."

Tepco shares plunged by almost 18% again on Wednesday morning and have lost 75% of their value since 11 March. Reports on Tuesday said the government was considering nationalising the beleaguered utility.

So... when all the engineering and safety systems have failed, what does the Japanese Government's leading medical consultant (from the U.S.) propose?

..."Just dump the radiation in the ocean."

Edited March 30, 2011 by atsiii

[midas]

http://www.guardian....fukushima-plant

Japanese officials have conceded they are no closer to resolving the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as new readings showed a dramatic increase in radioactive contamination in the sea. The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said radioactive iodine-131 at 3,355 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea about 300 yards south of the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there.

The government's acceptance of help from the US and France has strengthened the belief that the battle to save the stricken reactors, now well into its third week, is lost.

On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.

Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, said recent higher readings of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137 should be of greater concern than reports earlier this week of tiny quantities of plutonium found in soil samples. He added: "It's obviously alarming when you talk about radiation, but if you have radiation in non-gas form I would say dump it in the ocean." "The dilutional factor could not be better – there's no better place. If you deposit it on earth or in places where people live there is no dilutional effect. From a safety point of view the ocean is the safest place."

Analysts said a prolonged crisis at the Fukushima plant could place intolerable pressure on the economy. "The worst-case scenario is that this drags on not one month or two months or six months, but for two years, or indefinitely," said Jesper Koll of JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo. "Japan will be bypassed. That is the real nightmare scenario."

Tepco shares plunged by almost 18% again on Wednesday morning and have lost 75% of their value since 11 March. Reports on Tuesday said the government was considering nationalising the beleaguered utility.

So... when all the engineering and safety systems have failed, what does the Japanese Government's leading medical consultant (from the U.S.) propose?

..."Just dump the radiation in the ocean."

And if it reaches around towards the Gulf in USA it will blend perfectly with all the Corexit

BP used to hide the oil spill.....sureal !

[midas]

Who knew Obama had a squadron of robots at his beck & call? The guy is a miracle worker.

[atsiii]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/03/30/bloomberg1376-LIT5E61A1I4H01-6KIILQMGKMLJKJOBQ5U13C50LS.DTL

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may take three decades to decommission and cost operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said.

The damaged reactors need to be demolished after they have cooled and radioactive materials are removed and stored, said Tomoko Murakami, a nuclear researcher at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. The process will take longer than the 12 years needed to decommission the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania following a partial meltdown, said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University.

At Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979, one reactor partially melted in the worst U.S. accident, earning a 5 rating. Its $973 million repair and cleanup took almost 12 years to complete, according to a report on the World Nuclear Association's website. More than 1,000 workers were involved in designing and conducting the cleanup operation, the report said. Fukushima has six reactors.

Ukraine is unable to fund alone the cost of a new sarcophagus to cover the burned out reactor at Chernobyl, due to be in place by 2014. The 110 meter-high arched containment structure has a 1.55 billion euro ($2.2 billion) total price tag and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has so far raised only about 65 percent of that.

The Fukushima reactors may take about three decades to decommission, based on Japan's sole attempt to dismantle a commercial reactor, said Murakami of the Institute of Energy Economics. Japan Atomic Power Co. began decommissioning a 166-megawatt reactor at Tokai in Ibaraki Prefecture near Tokyo in 1998 after the unit had completed 32 years of operations, according to documents posted on the company's website. The project will be completed by March 2021, or after 23 years of work, and cost 88.5 billion yen, the documents show. Japan Atomic took three years through June 2001 just to stabilize and remove nuclear fuels from the reactor core.

"It looks indisputable that Tepco will go ahead and dismantle the four reactors, and costs may exceed 1 trillion yen," said Murakami, who worked at Japan Atomic for 13 years and was involved in the decommissioning of the Tokai plant. "Removing damaged fuels from the reactors may take more than two years, and any delays would further increase the cost."

Edited March 30, 2011 by atsiii

[brahmburgers]

this link is a graphic peek at the

radiation plume - as it spreads worldwide - taken from a few days ago. The amounts are probably miniscule, but it's a sobering graphic.

I had to grin (pardonne moi) while watching it, as I'm from California, and I know there are millions there who are extremely health conscious. Examples: I know one gal who used to run out of her house every time someone turned on the microwave oven in the kitchen. I know a woman there who religiously dry sponges the skin of her entire body - every morning and evening, in order to dispel bad vibes. So, for people like that to get wind of (pun intented) a nuclear plume spreading over the Pacific to where they live - is anathema - even if the actual amounts are miniscule.

Edited March 30, 2011 by brahmburgers

[brahmburgers]

Awhile ago, there was an article in Discovery mag which mentioned the following scenario: Take a bottle of wine and pour it in to the ocean - anywhere.

Years later, after the wine had diluted - if you were to take a wine bottle's amount of water from any spot at any ocean - what were the odds of getting at least one molecule of that original wine bottle mixed with the water?

Answer: 100%

The answer had something to do with the fact that; there are many more molecules in a bottle of water than the number of bottles of liquid it would take to fill the world's oceans. I tried googling the original article, but to no avail.

Still, sobering in lieu of the recent news of extremely radioactive water about to be (or some having already have been) dumped in the sea. How long does water stay radioactive?

[Scott]

I am going to go out on a limb, but I remember studying something about this years ago in school. I think that radioactive material is quite heavy and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. That, of course, doesn't preclude it doing a great deal of harm on it's journey downward nor does it prevent it from getting into the food chain.

We may have some science gurus who are more up-to-date on this issue.

[elcent]

finally they found a drone and used it to take images. What took them so long? It was also revealed that TEPCO was talking of revitalizing the damaged reactors.

[midas]

This is being shown as news :-

" IAEA Says "There Might Be Re-Criticality At Fukushima"

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iaea-says-there-might-be-re-criticality-at-fukushima-2011-3#ixzz1I6J7OxiR

The more melting going on, the closer the mass of uranium clumps together. Criticality is when there is critical mass in a confined space causing an explosive chain reaction

Edited March 30, 2011 by midas

[elcent]

Handbook on Nuclear Law: Implementing Legislation

A practical aid to legislative drafting.

[midas]

Are The Nuclear Experts Wrong? We May Have Everything To Worry About Fukushima Radiation

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deconstructing-nuclear-experts-2011-3#ixzz1I6NOzSQt

[elcent]

Are The Nuclear Experts Wrong? We May Have Everything To Worry About Fukushima Radiation

Read more: http://www.businessi...3#ixzz1I6NOzSQt

When we look closer it's pretty clear, money is Gawd. Reminds me on one nuclear scientist who said: "With the help of Hell we were trying to play God.' This is even more real now than ever before.

First, they tried until today to reinstall the dead reactors.

Second, surveillence was neglected. That it exists and that it works was just relaesed today. 3 weeks after the beginning of the desaster they have found a drone to make images

Third, very active sooth-sayers were active as a part to protect the business interests of some certain industries and to play down the real desaster.

[JulianLS]

I am going to go out on a limb, but I remember studying something about this years ago in school. I think that radioactive material is quite heavy and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. That, of course, doesn't preclude it doing a great deal of harm on it's journey downward nor does it prevent it from getting into the food chain.

We may have some science gurus who are more up-to-date on this issue.

Yep, you are a tad out on a limb.... but there is nothing wrong with that. Better to go out on a limb than not to go out at all

What you are probably remembering is that naturally radioactive elements such as uranium and plutonium come from a group that was (previously) referred to as "the heavy metals" (they now have more specific terms for the various series). But its more complicated than that. Under the conditions in the reactor, or during meltdown, many of these metals will form salts, which will dissolve in the sea not sink to the bottom of it. They may also form complexes with other minerals etc and then sink. But there's more. Inside the reactor, radioactive isotopes of lighter elements are produced in large amounts. You have probably heard mention of iodine-131 and caesium-137 which are both produced in large quantities in a nuclear reactor. These are both much lighter than the heavy metals. Iodine can form as a gas even at room temperature (which is why it is travelling so far), and both isotopes will form soluble salts in the sea. Iodine-131 has a half life of about 8 days - bad news if you are near it right now, good news if you are not near it for the next month or two. Caesium-137 on the other hand has a half life of 30 years - which is good news if you are near to it right now (most likely it wont decay), but bad news if you are gonna stay near it for a long time (eventually it will decay).

That said, the sea is a huge place (roughly 1.3 x 10 ¹⁸ tonnes, or "1.3 billion billion tonnes" if you want to say it like that). The radiation levels may be thousands of times (ie of the order of 10 ³⁾ higher than normal very near the plant at this moment. But give it a while to disperse, and to dilute by billions and billions of times, then the level becomes "normal". Far from ideal because of high, localised concentrations prior to and during dispersion, I know, but perhaps better than it leaking into the soil..... Or attempting to store large volumes of water safely for hundreds of years (just look at the state the Chernobyl sarcophagus is in already....)

Don't get me wrong, I am not part of the pro nuclear lobby. I think there have got to be cheaper (when including decommissioning costs) and safer ways to make electricity. I am just trying to keep a rational view of the actual situation we face right now.

Edited March 30, 2011 by JulianLS

[James3212]

this link is a graphic peek at the

radiation plume - as it spreads worldwide - taken from a few days ago. The amounts are probably miniscule, but it's a sobering graphic.

I had to grin (pardonne moi) while watching it, as I'm from California, and I know there are millions there who are extremely health conscious. Examples: I know one gal who used to run out of her house every time someone turned on the microwave oven in the kitchen. I know a woman there who religiously dry sponges the skin of her entire body - every morning and evening, in order to dispel bad vibes. So, for people like that to get wind of (pun intented) a nuclear plume spreading over the Pacific to where they live - is anathema - even if the actual amounts are miniscule.

whoa, seems like the whole world is covered with this... that being said, put the tin foil on the reactors (lol) and stop it from releasing more stuff... i think making a new sarcophagus immediately is way better than polluting the ocean, the soil or anything... eventually they might come up with a way to clean the sarcophagus or move it to waste repository or somehow remove it from there... well this seems pretty expensive way of generating electricity, especially that they will have to pay the farmers and others for their damages. If someone actually started to cleanup then we would see the real costs i guess, not to mention the possible health implications... I k

I know that amounts are miniscule but it looks grim to see that entire earth is covered even with small particles... and I'm sure that citizens of the all countries didn't want radioactive Iodine in their air... speaking of which, does someone have a model of the whole world and not just the model up to France? It would be interesting to see if Thailand and Bangkok are actually covered... along with middle east and other countries like India etc...

[atsiii]

...I am just trying to keep a rational view of the actual situation we face right now.

Julian, thanks for the science--that's great and helps a lot!! Keep it up.

[atsiii]

http://www.bloomberg...ar-reactor.html

Japan is considering pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant as the United Nations's nuclear watchdog agency warned that a potential uncontrolled chain reaction could cause further radiation leaks.

The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna. Nuclear experts call these reactions "localized criticality," which will increase radiation and hamper the ability to shut down the plant. The reactions consist of a burst of heat, radiation and sometimes an "ethereal blue flash," according to the U.S. Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory web site.

Edited March 31, 2011 by atsiii

[brahmburgers]

Meanwhile, Thailand's EGAT is planning to continue their campaign to make Thailand go nuclear......

Until they declare publicly that they do not intend to do so, we can assume they plan to go ahead with their five N plants - four on the coasts, and one inland.

Too bad for future generations of SE Asians and their visitors, as the odds are better than even that a catastrophe will befall one or more of the N plants. The ensuing environmental, human and economic costs will be huge, it that happens. Unlike Japan, where there's ocean downwind of their stricken reactors, all Thai reactors will have tens of millions of people and animals and wildlife downwind.

If you think Japan is bad, wait until the sh*t hits the fan in Thailand. Japan has the world's 3rd strongest economy and they're tops technically (and in terms of professional responsibility), yet they still have major challenges dealing with the disaster. How does Thailand rank in those parameters? Heck, every time there's an armory explosion or guns & ammo go missing from a military arsenal in Thailand, essentially no one gets disciplined. It's swept under the table. And Thailand wants five N plants? Yikes!