Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[Chopperboy]

Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began

By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Michio Nakayama - Apr 27, 2011

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today. That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

“Tepco must figure out the source of high radiation,” said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University. “If it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called water tomb may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation in the building.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/tokyo-water-radiation-falls-to-zero-for-first-time-since-crisis.html

[geriatrickid]

I do not understand why there is even any discussion over whether or not inhabitants of the affected areas will become sick as a result of radiation exposure. It's an uncontestable fact that exposure to radiation at the levels around the immediate area of the plant will cause illness and death. The radiation leaks from the damaged plants may now have been reduced, but what mattered was the radiation in the first 72 hours after the catastrophe. During that time, the local residents and emergency workers were exposed to levels of radiation that impacted human health. That is a fact that is also uncontestable.

There is no point playing the numbers game guessing how many people will die within the next few months, since the radiation exposure will not necessarily manifest itself as a direct cause of death. Rather the radiation will inevitably be a contributing factor to human illness that will bring the death of the subject. This too is an accepted fact. If people say there is no evidence because the locals haven't dropped like flies, all I can say is be patient as illness is related to exposure over time.

[StreetCowboy]

I do not understand why there is even any discussion over whether or not inhabitants of the affected areas will become sick as a result of radiation exposure. It's an uncontestable fact that exposure to radiation at the levels around the immediate area of the plant will cause illness and death. The radiation leaks from the damaged plants may now have been reduced, but what mattered was the radiation in the first 72 hours after the catastrophe. During that time, the local residents and emergency workers were exposed to levels of radiation that impacted human health. That is a fact that is also uncontestable.

There is no point playing the numbers game guessing how many people will die within the next few months, since the radiation exposure will not necessarily manifest itself as a direct cause of death. Rather the radiation will inevitably be a contributing factor to human illness that will bring the death of the subject. This too is an accepted fact. If people say there is no evidence because the locals haven't dropped like flies, all I can say is be patient as illness is related to exposure over time.

Its almost certain that everyone close to the plant will die; just like the rest of us. Statistically, more than 20% will die of cancer, unless there is some bizarre side-effect of the incident that prevents cancer, or something else that kills them sooner... Unfortunately, the statistical variation is such that the increase due to the incident may be (and here, I am making up numbers for illustrative purposes) - the number might be 1 or 10 or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000. But unless it is 100,000 (say) it will not be statistically measurable. NOTE THESE ARE NOT ESTIMATES OF ACTUAL CASUALTIES! Nor a considered estimate of what is actually measurable...

And there is really very little point in praising or condemning a technology in hindsight. With respect to the remaining reactors in Japan, and elsewhere, only the customers can say "Is this a risk that justifies turning out the lights?" I would say ; 'No - keep the lights on...".

On the other hand, we did give up after the Hindenberg...

SC

[metisdead]

A post has been removed due to possible violation of copyright and non compliance of fair use. It is generally accepted, but not written into law, that quoting the first two or three sentences of an article and giving a link to the source is considered “fair use” and not a violation of copyright.

Please remember to include the link to the article when quoting a source.

[unblocktheplanet]

I like it! NO NUKES! Remember the Hindenburg!

[StreetCowboy]

I like it! NO NUKES! Remember the Hindenburg!

Nomrally, I would try to avoid being offensive and rude,

But Zeppelin gave up because they were beat, and the Hindenburg was the final nail in the coffin (so to speak). I am not sure that Fukushima represents the same epiphany for water-cooled reactor Of course my own preferrred technlogy is so \much safer!

[Puschl]

Oh dear, it's that naughty "Register" again, printing stuff that the anti-nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear:

http://www.theregist..._evac_measures/

Ah Jetset.... here is Dr. Helen Caldicott ( even though you said you didn' t know her - she does know a little more about how radiation affects the body - than the guys at the Register ) warning about stuff that the pro -nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear

" You've bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry.( Jetset has yes ) They say it's low-level radiation. That's absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it's an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that's true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It's imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it's not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days."

http://www.infiniteu...radnet-reports/

And the very next part of that "Infinite Unknown" ( ) web site report is:

- Dr. Rima Laibow:

"Plutonium is the deadliest substance on the planet since 1 molecule of Plutonium in your body guarantees the development of cancer, according to radiation medicine experts."

1 molecule??

1 molecule decays giving off 1 alpha particle. The guy is saying that 1 alpha particle is guaranteed to give you cancer "according to radiation medicine experts".

Now, why couldn't he have said something like: "Alpha particles may give you cancer if they damage a cell."

And why didn't he say: "Since the half life of Plutonium-238 is 87.7 years, of Plutonium-239 is 24,100 years, and of Plutonium-240 is 6,560 years, it may take a little while for that one single alpha particle to zoom out of the Plutonium molecule and give you cancer."

So, as it would take anywhere from zero time (if you were really unlucky!) to 24,000 years for that alpha particle to be emitted, how about trying to work out what the good doctor Caldicott was talking about:

"If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose."

A mole is 6 x 10^23 atoms and a mole of Pu-239 weighs 239 grams.

So one gram of Pu-239 is 6 x 10^23 / 239 = 2.5 x 10^21 atoms.

So a millionth of a gram of Pu-239 is 2.5 x 10^15 atoms.

Half of these atoms will decay in 24,000 years.

So 1.25*10^15 alpha particles will be emitted over 24,000 years = 24,000*365*24*60*60 seconds = 7.5 * 10^11 seconds

So the rate of alpha emission will be 1.25*10^15 / 7.5 * 10^11 particles per second = 1,666 alphas per second = 1,666 Becquerels.

So how many Becquerels does it take to give you cancer?

According to The Bruce Centre for Energy Research and Information:

"Using risk estimates from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the World Health Organization, and the assumption of a linear dose response curve (i.e. the total lifetime dose is the sum of annual doses), lifelong exposure (70 years) to 7,000 Bq/L [in drinking water] would result in approximately 340 excess fatal cancers per million people exposed, or just under 1 in 3,000. This estimate does not include non-fatal cancers or potential hereditary defects."

So one millionth of a gram of Pu-239 gives about a quarter less chance - about 1 in 12,000 - of getting cancer than drinking water that contains 7,000 Bq/L for 70 years.

So, do we still believe everything the good doctor Caldicott says?

http://engineerzero....from-fukushima/

Great job. Countering Bull-Sh_t with Bovine Secretions!

The one molecule of plutonium (whatever that is) statement is indeed ridiculous. But the fact that someone put two quotes from two different persons on one web page should not serve as an argument to ridicule Dr. Caldicott. It may serve as an argument to undermine the credibility of sources quoted by midas, but then again, he might trust Dr. Caldicott and might not have found a different source for that quote. I don't know her and have no opinion pertaining her qualifications.

To decompose engineerzero's blog entry, let's look at what he compares: tritium (H-3) versus Pu-239. A beta-emitter that will distribute evenly all over the body versus a slow-moving alpha emitter that will stay in the lungs, or if making it past the alveolar-capillary barrier, will deposit in bones (waving hands on the last part). Furthermore, he picks Pu-239 which has a 3.6 times bigger half-life than Pu-240, and a 275 times bigger half-life than Pu-238 (all of which decay by emitting an alpha particle of about 5MeV). The roughly 20% due to assuming constant decay rate rather than exponential decay shall be forgiven.

Now to verify or disprove the 'unit 3 went up in a nuclear explosion' hypothesis, has anybody seen Xenon isotope ratios from Japan or a gas sampler in the pacific?

[eyeofskye]

Christopher Busby also thinks that TEPCO has concealed the fact that one of the explosions at Fukushima was not a gas blast, but a nuclear reaction.

"The nuclear industry has a history of duplicity and cover-up. I believe it probably was a nuclear explosion, not in the reactor, but in the tanks that contains the spent fuel. It seems almost certain now that there was some kind of nuclear explosion in the tank that contained the plutonium fuel rods. Anyone who saw that enormous explosion on the video would not have believed that it was a hydrogen explosion," says Busby.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Care to make a comparison to the shuttle Challenger explosion which was HUGELY bigger and quite definitely a hydrogen explosion?

[eyeofskye]

Behind the Hydrogen Explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant

by Karl Grossman

The explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is being described as caused by a "hydrogen build-up" The situation harks back to the "hydrogen bubble" that was feared would explode when the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 underwent a partial meltdown.

The hydrogen explosion problem at nuclear power plants involves a story as crazy as can be. As nuts as using nuclear fission to boil water to generate electricity is, the hydrogen problem and its cause cap the lunacy.

Eruption of hydrogen gas as a first reaction in a loss-of-coolant accident has been discussed with great worry in U.S. government and nuclear industry literature for decades.

That is because a highly volatile substance called zirconium was chosen back in the 1940's and 50's, when plans were first developed to build nuclear power plants, as the material to be used to make the rods into which radioactive fuel would be loaded.

There are 30,000 to 40,000 rods—composed of twenty tons of zirconium—in an average nuclear power plant. Many other substances were tried, particularly stainless steel, but only zirconium worked well. That's because zirconium, it was found, allows neutrons from the fuel pellets in the rods to pass freely between the rods and thus a nuclear chain reaction to be sustained.

But there's a huge problem with zirconium—it is highly volatile and when hot will explode spontaneously upon contact with air, water or steam.

The only other major commercial use of zirconium through the years has been in flashbulbs used in photography. A speck of it, on a flashbulb, ignites to provide a flash of light.

But in a nuclear plant, we're not talking about specks—but tons and tons of zirconium, put together as a compound called "zircaloy" that clads tens of thousands of fuel rods.

Heat, a great deal of heat, builds up in a very short time with any interruption of coolant flow in a nuclear power plant—the problem at Fukushima after the earthquake that struck Japan.

Zirconium, with the explosive power, pound for pound, of nitroglycerine, will catch fire and explode at a temperature of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, well below the 5,000 degree temperature of a meltdown.

Before then, however, zirconium reacts to the heat by drawing oxygen from water and steam and letting off hydrogen, which itself can explode—and is said to have done so at Fukushima.

As a result of such a hydrogen explosion, there is additional heat—bringing the zirconium itself closer and closer to its explosive level.

Using tons of a material otherwise used as the speck that explodes in a flashbulb in nuclear power plants —yes, absolutely crazy.

Moreover, in the spent fuel pools usually situated next to nuclear power plants, there are large numbers of additional fuel rods, used ones, disposed of as waste. There must be constant water circulation in the spent fuel pools. In what is labeled a "loss-of-water' accident in a spent fuel pool, the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods is projected as exploding—sending into the environment the lethal nuclear poisons in a spent fuel pool.

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).

A wonderful 'Professor' this. Zirconium isn't highly volatile, it's highly reactive. Rather more than a speck is used in a flashbulb which is quite well stuffed with finely divided wire in pure oxygen. Zirconium won't 'explode' at a certain temperature, it will however burn rather well but not of course without a very, very large amount of oxygen for a reactor full. All you are ever going to get is a long lasting and serious fire from zirconium.

[katana]

Christopher Busby also thinks that TEPCO has concealed the fact that one of the explosions at Fukushima was not a gas blast, but a nuclear reaction.

"The nuclear industry has a history of duplicity and cover-up. I believe it probably was a nuclear explosion, not in the reactor, but in the tanks that contains the spent fuel. It seems almost certain now that there was some kind of nuclear explosion in the tank that contained the plutonium fuel rods. Anyone who saw that enormous explosion on the video would not have believed that it was a hydrogen explosion," says Busby.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Care to make a comparison to the shuttle Challenger explosion which was HUGELY bigger and quite definitely a hydrogen explosion?

Not quite the same because the shuttle had liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen combusting which is not quite the same as the gaseous phase. Also things burn much more fiercely in pure oxygen.

[eyeofskye]

Christopher Busby also thinks that TEPCO has concealed the fact that one of the explosions at Fukushima was not a gas blast, but a nuclear reaction.

"The nuclear industry has a history of duplicity and cover-up. I believe it probably was a nuclear explosion, not in the reactor, but in the tanks that contains the spent fuel. It seems almost certain now that there was some kind of nuclear explosion in the tank that contained the plutonium fuel rods. Anyone who saw that enormous explosion on the video would not have believed that it was a hydrogen explosion," says Busby.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Care to make a comparison to the shuttle Challenger explosion which was HUGELY bigger and quite definitely a hydrogen explosion?

Not quite the same because the shuttle had liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen combusting which is not quite the same as the gaseous phase. Also things burn much more fiercely in pure oxygen.

Nevertheless it was a hydrogen explosion but that aside the explosions at Fukushima were quite small. The clouds above the buildings were a few hundreds of feet high not thousands. It was the strong containment that made the explosions so violent, creating the visible shock waves. The IRA bomb in Manchester was probably a bigger bang and that was fertiliser and diesel.

Do hydrogen and oxygen react when both are in liquid phase and at those low temperatures? I would need some expert opinion on that. I would expect they would have to be volatilised and thoroughly mixed before you would get a good bang.

[geriatrickid]

Nevertheless it was a hydrogen explosion but that aside the explosions at Fukushima were quite small. The clouds above the buildings were a few hundreds of feet high not thousands. It was the strong containment that made the explosions so violent, creating the visible shock waves. The IRA bomb in Manchester was probably a bigger bang and that was fertiliser and diesel.

Do hydrogen and oxygen react when both are in liquid phase and at those low temperatures? I would need some expert opinion on that. I would expect they would have to be volatilised and thoroughly mixed before you would get a good bang.

Uhh, isn't the space shuttle launchrocket powered by a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen?

[electau]

Here is a good site for those interested in nuclear power.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html

[Chopperboy]

I guess I should stop eating my favourite bananas then:

Well bananas are radioactive.

I know the experts were just trying to put the invisible menace of radiation into perspective. But it did feel like a Wizard-of-Oz effort to distract the audience from the real questions: Pay no attention to those fuel rods behind the curtain!

My husband,took a banana to school and tested it with one of the Geiger counters he keeps in his classroom. He put the probe near the banana, then against the skin, then poked into the fruit — two five-minute runs at each spot. He did multiple runs to test the background radiation in the classroom. For good measure, he even tested an apple, an orange and a granola bar. The banana was not so hot. Not hot at all, in fact, no more counts per minute than the other stuff, or the background. He ate the banana.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/health/12essay.html?scp=37&sq=fukushima&st=nyt

[Chopperboy]

Now to verify or disprove the 'unit 3 went up in a nuclear explosion' hypothesis, has anybody seen Xenon isotope ratios from Japan or a gas sampler in the pacific?

The readings from the blast have not been forthcoming from Tepco or the Japanese government. There are only hints, such as the high levels of radiation recorded INSIDE the Fukushima nuclear harden bunker control room at the time.

[Chopperboy]

Gundersen Postulates Unit 3 Explosion May Have Been Prompt Criticality in Fuel Pool

Nuclear expert discusses explanations for the much larger explosion at Fukushima Unit 3, compared to the other units. Also, how unit 3 blew large pieces of fuel rods from the fuel pool over two miles and aerosolized plutonium as far as New England.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNUpeODOEU

[unblocktheplanet]

Behind the Hydrogen Explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant

by Karl Grossman

Zirconium won't 'explode' at a certain temperature, it will however burn rather well but not of course without a very, very large amount of oxygen for a reactor full. All you are ever going to get is a long lasting and serious fire from zirconium.

Ah, that's okay then!?!

Here's hoping Fukushima is the Hindenburg for the nuclear industry.

[Chopperboy]

Tepco woman took three times radiation limit

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that one of its female employees at the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was exposed to radiation exceeding three times the legal limit of 5 millisieverts in a three-month period.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a news conference the situation was "extremely deplorable," but added that all female employees had left the radiation-leaking plant on March 23.

According to Tepco and the agency, 19 female employees were working at the six-reactor complex following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and one was exposed to a total of 17.55 millisieverts of radiation.

The woman was found to have suffered more internal than external radiation exposure, with the internal exposure reaching 13.6 millisieverts.

Another agency official said Tepco needs to explain why the worker suffered so much internal exposure.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20110428a3.html

[Chopperboy]

Fukushima cancer risk calculation

417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061

Based on the different ways in which different radionuclides behave in biological systems. This predicts 191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring. Probably half of these will be expressed in the first ten years and the remainder between 10 and 50 years.

Assuming permanent residence and no evacuation the total predicted yield according to the second method will be 416,619 of which 208,310 will appear in the first ten years.

http://www.llrc.org/

[elcent]

Tepco woman took three times radiation limit

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that one of its female employees at the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was exposed to radiation exceeding three times the legal limit of 5 millisieverts in a three-month period.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a news conference the situation was "extremely deplorable," but added that all female employees had left the radiation-leaking plant on March 23.

According to Tepco and the agency, 19 female employees were working at the six-reactor complex following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and one was exposed to a total of 17.55 millisieverts of radiation.

The woman was found to have suffered more internal than external radiation exposure, with the internal exposure reaching 13.6 millisieverts.

Another agency official said Tepco needs to explain why the worker suffered so much internal exposure.

http://search.japant...20110428a3.html

The biological halftime of a radioactive substance is over three times higher than otherwise.

[Shurup]

The biological halftime of a radioactive substance is over three times higher than otherwise.

Is it so? And what does this statement have to do with anything?

I am pretty sure that biological half life is determined by the chemical properties of any element on the human body. Chemical properties would not change if you replace an element with its isotope.

[Puschl]

The biological halftime of a radioactive substance is over three times higher than otherwise.

If this statement makes any sense, then something was lost in translation, and although my mother-tongue is German, too, I couldn't figure out what.

Biological half-life has no direct relation with radioactive half-life, except for the mathematical formulas behind. It tells how long it takes for the metabolism to remove half of the amount of a given substance in your body. That concept can be applied if the removal rate is proportional to the concentration of the substance.

I guess it can be applied to most substances that your kidneys filter out of the blood. Let's say you find in the evening that you have 5 gram of examplium distributed evenly in your 5 liters of blood, for a concentration of 1g/l. When you go to the loo in the morning, you find that 2.5 gram of examplium went to the porcelain bowl, and now the concentration in your blood is only 0.5 g/l. When you go to the loo in the evening, you only excrete 1.25 gram of examplium. Because of the lower concentration, the kidneys would filter less out of your blood. The examplium concentration in your blood now is only 0.25 g/l. The next morning you will excrete 0.625 gram, and the concentration drops to 0.125 g/l. Exampliums biological half-life is 12 hours. After five days, 10 half-lives have passed and the examplium-concentration in your blood will have dropped to a 1024th (1/2^10) of the initial concentration. Examplium and two visits to the toilet per day were chosen for simplicity. In real wold cases, the numbers are less 'even' and half-lives will be rough approximations. Substances will not be confined to the blood only, but will be found in various body parts and the migrational paths may be complicated. Biological half-live is mainly governed by the chemical properties of atoms/molecules. From the metabolism point of view it makes no difference if you ingest a gram of Cs-137 or a gram of it's stable cousin Cs-133. After three month (approx. the biological half-life of cesium in the human body), there will be only half a gram of either in your body.

Well, not exactly. Cs-137 is radioactive, as you probably heard, with a radioactive half-life of 30 years. During three month, about 0.6% of Cs-137 will decay to Ba-137 by emitting a beta-ray (a very fast electron) and a gamma rays (a photon, the same stuff as x-rays or sunlight, but with shorter wave-length / higher energy). 72% of those decays will happen inside your body, while 28% of those decays will happen to atoms after you excreted them. So if you get an injection of one gram of Cs-133 and one gram of Cs-137, three month later there will be 0.5 gram of Cs-133 and 0.497 gram of Cs-137 in your body. Theoretically. You'll hardly live the full three month to get the tens of Mega-Sieverts dose. Don't inject a gram of Cs-137!

Radiological half-life is the same concept mathematically. Radioactive atoms don't know how old they are. Every moment they will decay with a certain probability. For a single atom, that probability doesn't change over time. It's a bit like a huge pool of coins that you flip every hour and remove all heads. After the first flip, half of the coins will be removed. After the next flip, again half of them will be removed, but because you flipped less coins, that half is less than before. If you start with a billion coins, after ten flips only about 976 562 coins will be left. For an individual coin it doesn't matter if you got tails 9 times. For the next round, odds will again be 50:50. Of course atoms aren't flipped once every half-life. They can decay any moment. Half-life is just a handy measure of that probability. If you initially have N0 atoms, after T seconds you will have N0/(2^(T/Th)) atoms, where Th is the half-life in seconds. Those numbers are not necessarily exact, but because of the huge number of atoms, the statistical error is small. A gram of Cs137 contains four billion times a trillion atoms (4*10^21). If you flip that many coins, a million heads less or more is negligible.

[JetsetBkk]

VIDEO SHOWING THE TWO EXPLOSIONS SIDE BY SIDE

Asks the question, was #3 a nuclear explosion?

Call that a knife nuclear explosion?

This is a nuclear explosion:

[JetsetBkk]

Fukushima cancer risk calculation

417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061

Based on the different ways in which different radionuclides behave in biological systems. This predicts 191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring. Probably half of these will be expressed in the first ten years and the remainder between 10 and 50 years.

Assuming permanent residence and no evacuation the total predicted yield according to the second method will be 416,619 of which 208,310 will appear in the first ten years.

http://www.llrc.org/

Hmm. "LLRC dot org":

THE LOW LEVEL RADIATION CAMPAIGN

We research the health effects of ionising radiation

We demand a re-evaluation of the risks of radioactive pollution

OK. 'Nuff said.

By the way, I do like the way they are so precise with their calculations: "191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring."

[Puschl]

This is a nuclear explosion:

Well, one could say this is a hydrogen explosion. It appears to be the Tsar Bomb (Novaya Zsemlya, October 1961), a hydrogen (fusion) bomb. If there wouldn't be a conventional nuke needed to get the fusion started, this could almost be called a green weapon.

Fusion is the process going on in the sun. Hydrogen atoms combine to Helium atoms and because the Helium nucleus is energetically optimal, the excess energy is released (gross simplification). It's the big shame of the nuclear industry that after decades of research they still can't control fusion and keep on fissioning the extremely long-lived uranium (or horray, we're switching to thorium) isotopes into fission products with half-lives of seconds to tens of years (the hottest waste components. The long-lived fission and activation products are not so much of an acute problem).

[StreetCowboy]

Fukushima cancer risk calculation

417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061

Based on the different ways in which different radionuclides behave in biological systems. This predicts 191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring. Probably half of these will be expressed in the first ten years and the remainder between 10 and 50 years.

Assuming permanent residence and no evacuation the total predicted yield according to the second method will be 416,619 of which 208,310 will appear in the first ten years.

http://www.llrc.org/

Hmm. "LLRC dot org":

THE LOW LEVEL RADIATION CAMPAIGN

We research the health effects of ionising radiation

We demand a re-evaluation of the risks of radioactive pollution

OK. 'Nuff said.

By the way, I do like the way they are so precise with their calculations: "191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring."

Is 191,986 any more precise than 200,000? Why not 199,999 or 200,001?

Perhaps they should have put in their range of estimates, but that becomes unwieldy

SC

SC

[JetsetBkk]

Hmm. "LLRC dot org":

THE LOW LEVEL RADIATION CAMPAIGN

We research the health effects of ionising radiation

We demand a re-evaluation of the risks of radioactive pollution

OK. 'Nuff said.

By the way, I do like the way they are so precise with their calculations: "191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring."

Is 191,986 any more precise than 200,000? Why not 199,999 or 200,001?

Perhaps they should have put in their range of estimates, but that becomes unwieldy

SC

The problem when people claim ridiculous levels of accuracy is that it calls into question their general level of education.

Now, if they'd said 190,000 and 220,000 it would've implied two digits of accuracy which would probably not have triggered my questioning of their education level.

[Chopperboy]

This is a nuclear explosion:

Nuclear power stations aren't assembled to be high efficiency thermonuclear weapons, so they aren't going to blow up like one! The video is comparing Fukushima #3 explosion with 1) hydrogen only explosion and 2) mini nuke explosion.

The point raised by these scientists is that the explosion at unit 3 is certainly not a hydrogen ONLY explosion. That being the case, what else in a nuclear power station would explode like that? - in such a violent upward trajectory other than the nuclear contents of a 50 foot deep fuel rod pool?

The pool contained 514 fuel rods mixed uranium and plutonium.

[Chopperboy]

Leaked Fukushima reactor's blueprint may be on Internet

A blueprint believed to be of the crippled No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, considered to have leaked from Tokyo Electric Power Co., was posted on the Internet, an apparent violation of its regulations on protection of nuclear materials. TEPCO believes this blueprint is one of its confidential documents, but is unsure of how it was leaked to the public.

"Regarding these blueprints, up until now TEPCO refused to make them public, saying "they contain the know-how of the maker"

The blueprint consists of two elevated views of the No. 1 reactor building: one in a north-south direction; the other from east to west.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201104260122.html

Not the same drawing, but a new 3d version in the public domain.

[Chopperboy]