Speculative Radiation Numbers from HAARP/Stuxnet Quake/Nuke False Flag in Japan

[grapecrusher1]

So you guys don't believe the media when they say there is nothing to worry about but you do believe it when they say that radiation has been detected?

This is paranoid cherry picking and nuclear Bible Thumping. I'm outta here. If high levels are ever detected I will gladly eat crow. Until then I'll go elsewhere.

no shortage of responses but...
cheerio

[rubicondecision]

By virtue of the fact that there are numerous reports by MSM of radiation from Japan hitting the west coast.  Sure it is in "miniscule" amounts now.  But it did make it here and that is only a week into this.  Do you dispute that?

magic fairy dust. Honestly why bother arguing. We had this same discussion days ago, where I presented an academic article that showed radioactive fallout from Chernobyl in the USA. I guess it swam here, then crawled across mountain ranges and dug itself into the dirt.

Worse grapecrusher, the Xenon isotope that was reported got here two days ago, and they just now released it. It actually got here faster than anyone suspected, and this was with a minor explosion. Imagine a critical situation. Instead of wasting time discussing the physics of it, let's put out the information as fast as we can from credible sources until the crisis is past. Then after the dust settles, an ugly pun, we can worry about the mechanism of dispersal. God I hope I am wrong. Said a ton of prayers in the last few days.

[Dig]

You know, rather than waste my breath, as we have already discussed this here, I'll keep posting from authoritative sources. You do the same, okay. Good luck with that. In fact, don't even bother since all is well. Get some more sleep.

Could you please stop ridiculing anyone who does not agree with you?

Also, could you please stop adding the FEAR FEAR FEAR tag lines like "no time" and "damn fools" without any explanation whatsoever?

That would really help out.

Thanks

[Dig]

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110318005145.htm
Damn fools!
Govt 'rejected U.S. offer to help cool damaged reactors'

Japanese government rejected the US offer? Was this offer tied to the debt do you know? And judging by CAIR and other CIA fronts, it is plausible that most countries do not trust Clinton's current state department's "help".

[Dig]

Chernobyl meltdown occured during military drill w/sabotaged industrial controls

What happened at Chernobyl?

Staff at the plant were running tests to find out how well they could cope with a temporary shutdown of the reactor's cooling system. The test went wrong and there was a power surge. The staff tried to shut the reactor down, but instead the nuclear reaction accelerated rapidly.

"For a few seconds it was generating thousands of times the normal power output," says Michael Bluck of Imperial College London. The extreme heat from the nuclear reaction triggered an explosion, which blew the roof off both the reactor vessel and the building containing it – exposing the reactor core to the outside world – and sending radioactive material hurtling into the atmosphere.

Fires then started. Most were put out within hours, but the one in the damaged reactor burned for many days, spreading radioactive material still further.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20257-why-fukushima-daiichi-wont-be-another-chernobyl.html?full=true

[Letsbereal]

The ICRP sets a standard for occupational exposure to radiation at

100 mSv over 5 years

with a maximum of 50 mSv in any one year.



FROM: http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/mox/puupdat4.txt

[Brocke]

Radioactivity heading towards North America

Last Updated: Mar 18, 2011

Low concentrations of radioactive particles from Japan's disaster-hit nuclear power plant have been heading eastwards and are expected to reach North America in days, a Swedish official said today.

Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Institute, a government agency, was quoting data from a network of international monitoring stations set up to detect signs of any nuclear weapons tests.

Stressing that the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would eventually also continue across the Atlantic and reach Europe.

"It is not high from any danger point of view."

The New York Times earlier said a forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume showed it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands today before hitting southern California late on Friday.

It said the projection was made by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, a Vienna-based independent body for monitoring possible breaches of the test ban.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday: "All the available information continues to indicate Hawaii, Alaska, the US Territories and the US west Ccast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity."

The New York Times said health and nuclear experts emphasised radiation would be diluted as it travelled and at worst would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States.

read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/asia-pacific/radioactivity-heading-towards-north-america

[Valerius]

While you were looking at Japan...Military strikes on Libya 'within hours'

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=203820.msg1217134;topicseen#msg1217134

What is the Congress looking at? That's the important question. If they let Obama start another war justified by sending Hillary to the UN for permission... that makes them truly an obsolete local debating society.

[Dig]

What is the Congress looking at? That's the important question. If they let Obama start another war justified by sending Hillary to the UN for permission... that makes them truly an obsolete local debating society.

And look how long they planned on invading Libya...with nukes...

written before Iraq war:

To 'employ strategic nuclear forces coercively' and strengthen 'national security'

In October 2001, when asked whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the caves where the Taliban were sheltering, suggested by Congressman Steve Buyer, was ruled out, Rumsfeld said, 'I don't rule out anything, but my answer very simply is, we are not having a problem in dealing with those tunnels in terms of the ordinance.' 83 This marked the major shift that was taking place in US policy from regarding nuclear weapons as a deterrent to nuclear attack by another state, hopefully never to be used, to treating them as one of a range of alternatives to be considered for battlefield use.

Rumsfeld had for some time been a supporter of the Center for Security Policy, which strongly advocated investing in the development of a National Missile Defense (NMD) system (widely known as 'Star Wars'), when he was appointed by Congress to chair a Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. By applying a worst case scenario, for instance the transfer of a complete ballistic missile to a nation such as North Korea by China, he reached the conclusion in 1998 that such an attack could happen in the next few years, a possibility previously ruled out by US intelligence. 84 NMD is part of a 'New Triad' to the development of which the Pentagon is now committed - offensive strike weapons (nuclear and non-nuclear), strategic defenses and a revitalised defence infrastructure. Billions of dollars are being spent on the research, production and infrastructure involved.

The Center for Security Policy was set up in 1988, and received funding from wealthy rightwingers such as the Coors family and Richard M Scaife as well as corporate donors such as Boeing, General Atomics, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and other weapons contractors. The election of George W Bush meant that the policies it had advocated now had a substantial chance of being put into practice. Over twenty of its close associates or advisory council members now held government positions, including Feith; JD Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security Policy; Robert Joseph, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs for Proliferation Strategy, Counter-Proliferation and Homeland Defense; Perle; Roche; and Zakheim. Several members of the Center's advisory council or board of directors were also on the board of directors of the National Institute of Public Policy. Its Chief Executive Officer, Keith Payne, had in 1980 co-authored with Colin S Gray an article entitled 'Victory is Possible', which urged the US military to make plans for fighting and winning a nuclear war: 'The West needs to devise ways in which it can employ strategic nuclear forces coercively , while minimizing the potentially paralyzing impact of self-deterrence.' In January 2001, the National Institute for Public Policy published a report, Rationale and Requirements for US Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, prepared by a study group including Stephen Cambone, now a special assistant to Rumsfeld; Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser, and Joseph. Several members, in government after Bush came to power, were involved in conducting a Nuclear Posture Review. 85

Its secret report, presented to Congress in January 2002, said that the Pentagon should be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria; . Such weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to sustain non-nuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or 'in the event of surprising military developments'. War between Arab nations and Israel or between China and Taiwan were among the scenarios where the USA should be prepared to launch a nuclear attack. While conventional nuclear weapons caused destruction on such a large scale that they were 'self-deterring', potential enemies of the USA would be more likely to believe that smaller, tactical nuclear weapons could be used against them 86 (sometimes known as 'mini-nukes'). The revelation in 2002 that the anthrax sent through the post was identical in its DNA sequence to a strain found at the Fort Detrick US military laboratory 87 caused some embarrassment and cast a spotlight on the government's biological weapons programme. It has been suggested that a rogue scientist who had worked for the US government or one of its contractors took some of the deadly bacteria and used it to mount a campaign of terror.

[Dig]

The main comparison to be made between the two is...

SABOTAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Chernobyl meltdown occured during military drill w/sabotaged industrial controls

What happened at Chernobyl?

Staff at the plant were running tests to find out how well they could cope with a temporary shutdown of the reactor's cooling system. The test went wrong and there was a power surge. The staff tried to shut the reactor down, but instead the nuclear reaction accelerated rapidly.

"For a few seconds it was generating thousands of times the normal power output," says Michael Bluck of Imperial College London. The extreme heat from the nuclear reaction triggered an explosion, which blew the roof off both the reactor vessel and the building containing it – exposing the reactor core to the outside world – and sending radioactive material hurtling into the atmosphere.

Fires then started. Most were put out within hours, but the one in the damaged reactor burned for many days, spreading radioactive material still further.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20257-why-fukushima-daiichi-wont-be-another-chernobyl.html?full=true

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html

A far more serious accident occurred seven years later at Chernobyl, in what was then still the Soviet Union. At the time of the accident--April 26, 1986--the Chernobyl nuclear power station consisted of four operating 1,000-megawatt power reactors sited along the banks of the Pripyat River, about sixty miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine, the fertile grain-producing region of the southwestern USSR. A fifth reactor was under construction.

All the Chernobyl reactors were of a design that the Russians call the RBMK--natural uranium-fueled, water-cooled, graphite-moderated--a design that American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe has called "fundamentally faulty, having a built-in instability." Because of the instability, an RBMK reactor that loses its coolant can under certain circumstances increase in reactivity and run progressively faster and hotter rather than shut itself down. Nor were the Chernobyl reactors protected by containment structures like those required for U.S. reactors, though they were shielded with heavy concrete covers.

Without question, the accident at Chernobyl was the result of a fatal combination of ignorance and complacency. "As members of a select scientific panel convened immediately after the...accident," writes Bethe, "my colleagues and I established that the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power."

The immediate cause of the Chernobyl accident was a mismanaged electrical-engineering experiment.

Engineers with no knowledge of reactor physics were interested to see if they could draw electricity from the turbine generator of the Number 4 reactor unit to run water pumps during an emergency when the turbine was no longer being driven by the reactor but was still spinning inertially. The engineers needed the reactor to wind up the turbine; then they planned to idle it to 2.5 percent power. Unexpected electrical demand on the afternoon of April 29 delayed the experiment until eleven o'clock that night. When the experimenters finally started, they felt pressed to make up for lost time, so they reduced the reactor's power level too rapidly. That mistake caused a rapid buildup of neutron-absorbing fission by products in the reactor core, which poisoned the reaction. To compensate, the operators withdrew a majority of the reactor's control rods, but even with the rods withdrawn, they were unable to increase the power level to more than 30 megawatts, a low level of operation at which the reactor's instability potential is at its worst and that the Chernobyl plant's own safety rules forbade.

At that point, writes Russian nuclear engineer Grigori Medvedev, "there were two options: increasing the power immediately, or waiting twenty-four hours for the poisons to dissipate. [Deputy chief engineer Dyatlov] should have waited...

But he [had an experiment to conduct and he] was unwilling to stop...

He ordered an immediate increase in the power of the reactor."

Reluctantly the operators complied. By 1 a.m. on April 26, they stabilized the reactor at 200 megawatts. It was still poisoned and increasingly difficult to control. More control rods came out. A minimum reserve for an RBMK reactor is supposed to be 30 control rods. At the end, the Number 4 unit was down to only six control rods, with 205 rods withdrawn.

The experimenters allowed this dangerous condition to develop even though they had deliberately bypassed and disconnected every important safety system, including the emergency core-cooling system. They had also disconnected every backup electrical system, down to and including diesel generators, that would have allowed them to operate the reactor controls in the event of an emergency.

At 1:23 in the morning, the engineers proceeded with their experiment by shutting down the turbine generator. That reduced the electrical supply to the reactor's water pumps, which in turn reduced the flow of cooling water through the reactor. In the coolant channels within the graphite-uranium fuel core, the water began to boil.

Graphite facilitates the fission chain reaction in a graphite reactor by slowing neutrons. Coolant water in such a reactor absorbs neutrons, thus acting as a poison. When the coolant water in the Number 4 Chernobyl unit began turning to steam, that change of phase reduced its density and made it a less effective neutron absorber. With more neutrons becoming available and few control rods inserted to absorb them, the chain reaction accelerated. The power level in the reactor began to rise.

The operators noticed the power surge and realized they needed to reduce reactivity quickly by inserting more control rods. They hit the red button of the emergency power-reduction system. Motors began driving all 205 control rods as well as the emergency protection rods into the reactor core.

But the control rods had a design flaw that now proved deadly: their tips were made of graphite. The graphite tips attached to a hollow segment one meter (3.28 feet long), which attached in turn to a five-meter absorbent segment. When the 205 control rods began driving into the surging Number 4 reactor, the graphite tip went in first. Rather than reduce the reaction, the graphite tips increased it. The control rods displaced water from the rod channels as well, increasing reactivity further. All hell broke loose--The reactor exploded.

The explosion was chemical, driven by gases and steam generated by the core runaway, not by nuclear reactions; no commercial nuclear reactor contains a high enough concentration of U-235 or plutonium to cause a nuclear explosion. Medvedev, who had once worked at Chernobyl and who was on the scene within days, describes the explosion from the testimony of eyewitnesses.

Flames, sparks, and chunks of burning material went flying into the air above the Number 4 unit. These were red-hot pieces of nuclear fuel and graphite, some of which fell onto the roof of the turbine hall where they started fires...About 50 tons of nuclear fuel evaporated and were released by the explosion into the atmosphere...In addition, about 70 tons were ejected sideways from the periphery of the core, mingling with a pile of structural debris, onto the roof...and also onto the grounds of the plant...

Some 50 tons of nuclear fuel and 800 tons of reactor graphite...remained in the reactor vault, where it formed a pit reminiscent of a volcanic crater. (The graphite still in the reactor burned up completely in the next few days.)

Coolant water in such a reactor absorbs neutrons, thus acting as a poison. When the coolant water in the Number 4 Chernobyl unit began turning to steam, that change of phase reduced its density and made it a less effective neutron absorber. With more neutrons becoming available and few control rods inserted to absorb them, the chain reaction accelerated. The power level in the reactor began to rise.

The resulting radioactive release, Medvedev estimates, was equivalent to ten Hiroshimas. In fact, since the Hiroshima bomb was an airburst--no part of the fireball touching the ground--the Chernobyl release polluted the countryside much more than ten Hiroshimas would have done.

No commercial reactor in the United States is designed anything like the RBMK reactor. Cohen summarizes several of the differences:

1. A reactor which is unstable against a loss of water could not be licensed in the United States.

2. A reactor which is unstable against a temperature increase could not be licensed here.

3. A large power reactor without a containment [structure] could not be licensed here.

The absence of a containment structure is especially important. As Cohen point out about Chernobyl, "Post-accident analyses indicate that if there had been a U.S.-style containment, none of the radioactivity would have escaped, and there would have been no injuries or deaths."

But if the design of Russian and U.S. reactors is critically different, broad similarities between the two countries' management of nuclear-power development led both national programs into difficulty. In the U.S.S.R., writes Medvedev, "the ordinary citizen was made to believe that the peaceful atom was virtually a panacea and the ultimate in genuine safety, ecological cleanliness, and reliability." He quotes Soviet scientists and managers who waxed as enthusiastic in the heyday of nuclear power development as the U.S. AEC's Lewis Strauss. "Nuclear power stations are like stars that shine all day long!" academician M.A. Styrikovich claimed in 1980. "We shall sow them all over the land. They are perfectly safe!" The deputy head of the State Committee on the Utilization of Nuclear Energy, notes Medvedev, told the Soviet people that "nuclear reactors are regular furnaces, and the operators who run them are stokers"--an image corresponding to the glib coinage in the United States that nuclear power is "just another way to boil water."

Given such uninformed enthusiasm for technology, it isn't surprising that both the Soviet and U.S. nuclear power programs ran into difficulties, or that the difficulties in both cases were predominantly managerial. Nuclear power came to terrible disaster in the former Soviet Union because authority dominated there to the exclusion of informed technical discussion and judgment. "Accidents," writes Medvedev, "were hidden not only from the general public and the government but also from the people who worked at Soviet nuclear power stations. This latter fact posed a special danger, as failure to publicize mishaps always has unexpected consequences: it makes people careless and complacent."

Authority dominated in the early days of nuclear power in the United States as well. "The AEC and the JCAE," James Jasper notes, "placed themselves outside normal political accountability." Fortunately, both public and private sectors of the U.S. nuclear power industry learned the lessons of Three Mile Island and launched a major effort of improvement and regulation.

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl represent extreme instances of the problem that seems to trouble the American public more than any other about commercial nuclear power: its apparent danger. But risk is always relative. Friend and foe have estimated the relative risk of operating commercial nuclear power plants in the United States; their conclusions are instructive.

The most serious example of public exposure to radiation from a nuclear power plant is, of course, Chernobyl. The explosion at Chernobyl blew radioactive gas and dust high into the atmosphere, where winds dispersed it across Finland, Sweden, and central and southern Europe. "The sum if [Chernobyl] and exposures to people all over the world," writes Bernard Cohen, "will eventually, after about fifty years, reach 60 billion millirems, enough to cause about 16,000 deaths." (Millirem-mrem-is a measure of radioactivity; 1 mrem is estimated to increase one's risk of dying from cancer by about 1 in 4 million, corresponding to a reduction in life expectancy of about 2 minutes.) Cohen, a professor of physics and radiation health at the University of Pittsburgh, was responsible in the late 1980s for supervising the measurement of radon levels in some 350,000 U.S. homes. He puts Chernobyl's danger in context by pointing out that 16,000 deaths caused every year by air pollution from coal-burning power plants in the United States alone.

The rest of the world didn't choose to be irradiated by a badly designed and criminally misoperated Soviet nuclear power plant. Cohen's comparison is instructive but inappropriate. On the other hand, nuclear power serves useful purposes in the United States, and millions of Americans willingly buy the electricity that nuclear utilities generate. It ought to be appropriate to put nuclear-generated electricity in the context of other acceptable risks Americans take in the name of productivity, comfort, and convenience. Cohen does so, to startling effect:

Everything we do involves risk...There are dangers in every type of travel, but there are dangers in staying home--25 percent of all fatal accidents occur there. There are dangers in eating--food is one of the most important cause of cancer and of several other diseases--but most people eat more than is necessary. There are dangers in breathing--air pollution probably kills 100,000 Americans each year, inhaling radon and its decay products is estimated to kill 14,000 a year, and many diseases like influenza, measles, and whooping cough are contracted by inhaling germs...There are dangers in working--12,000 Americans are killed each year in job-related accidents, and probably ten times that number die from job-related illnesses--but most alternatives to working are even more dangerous. There are dangers in exercising and dangers in not getting enough exercise. Risk is an unavoidable part of our everyday lives.

[worcesteradam]

Japanese government rejected the US offer?

So much for the Trilaterals.

[Brocke]

Special Report: Radiation fears may be greatly exaggerated

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO | Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:08pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - As workers struggle to contain the fallout from the crippled nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, people as far away as Illinois are calling public health officials in a state of panic.

They are hoping to get their hands on potassium iodide pills to protect them from radiation -- despite warnings that, in the absence of a real nuclear threat, taking the medicine is riskier than doing nothing.

Sixty-six years after the first atomic bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, radiation spooks people everywhere. But the anxiety is largely disproportionate to the actual danger.

"People in general have an exaggerated fear of radiation. That is true in the United States, and it is probably even more so in Japan," said Jerrold Bushberg, director of health physics programs and clinical professor of radiology and radiation oncology at the University of California Davis.

[...]

In Tokyo, 150 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, people grew fearful when readings rose about 10 times above the normal reading. At that level, residents were exposed to 0.809 microsieverts per hour -- 1,000 times less than a millisievert, or about 10 times less than a chest X-ray.

"The levels of radiation experienced by the public at present should be no cause for concern," said Dr. Richard Wakeford, visiting professor of epidemiology at the Dalton Nuclear Institute at University of Manchester in Britain.

"To put radiation doses into context, many Japanese undergo CT scans for cancer screening purposes, and these scans produce radiation doses of about 10 millisieverts (10,000 microsieverts) -- much more than they are receiving from the Fukushima reactors."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/us-japan-quake-radiation-health-idUSTRE72H6IZ20110318

[Letsbereal]

Edano: Higher Than Normal Radiation Detected In Milk, Spinach
19 March 2011, Tokyo (Dow Jones - Nikkei)
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110319D19JF396.htm

Japan's chief government spokesman said Saturday that higher-than-normal levels of radiation were detected in milk produced in Fukushima Prefecture and spinach from neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture, raising concerns over possible contamination from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that the levels of radiation detected in both milk and spinach would not immediately affect human health. Edano said that the milk from Fukushima Prefecture came from more than 30 kilometers away from the Daiichi plant.

He said that the health ministry will collect more data to find out whether contaminated foodstuffs are limited to certain areas, and if it is necessary to restrict consumption or shipments of certain food products.

The ICRP sets a standard for occupational exposure to radiation at

100 mSv over 5 years

with a maximum of 50 mSv in any one year.



FROM: http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/mox/puupdat4.txt



Source: http://fleep.com/earthquake/

FACT SHEET ON FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
http://nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/Fukushimafactsheet.pdf

UPDATE, 5:00 pm, Thursday, March 17, 2011.

Efforts by TEPCO to cool reactors and fuel pools by using water cannons (in the past sometimes used to quell anti-nuclear demonstrators...) and water drops from helicopters appear to have had little effect.

NRC chairman Greg Jazcko today reiterated his statement that the Unit 4 fuel pool has no water and is releasing radiation levels that are lethal in a short period of time.

Jazcko apparently is basing his statements on reports from NRC people who have gone to the site rather than on TEPCO, which is coming under increasing criticism for lack of substantive information.

Germany has moved its embassy operations from Tokyo to Osaka, which is further south from Fukushima.

There are reports that air travelers from Tokyo have been found with radioactive contamination upon arrival at U.S. airports.

At this point, the wind is a huge factor. So far, it is continuing to blow east away from the land and toward the Pacific Ocean. A shift in the wind could have severe consequences.

One positive sign: TEPCO says they are closer to installing a power line to at least one reactor at the site, which might enable use of cooling systems again.

In the U.S., New York Governor Cuomo has called for the shutdown of the Indian Point reactors, while Illinois Governor Quinn has ordered a new safety review of the state's four General Electric Mark I reactors.


Further Most Important from FACT SHEET ON FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

MULTIPLE MELTDOWNS IN PROGRESS

- NIRS believes there are now multiple meltdowns in progress along with significant releases from irradiated fuel pools

- Melting of reactor fuel – fuel melting and radioactive cesium has been detected

MASSIVE AMOUNT OF RADIATION

- Unit 2 primary containment is believed to be significantly breached

- Unit 4 fuel pool has no water and is releasing massive amounts of radiation

- Flames have appeared again at the northwest side of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4.

- It is impossible to go near the fire since the radiation is so high.

- Extremely high radiation levels onsite

- Numerous sources are reporting radiation levels at Fukushima to be 1,000 times higher

PLUTONIUM MOX RUNNING UNIT-3 FUEL & SPENT FUEL BLOWN ALL OVER THE PLACE - POOL SITS INSIDE CONTAINMENT ABOVE THE REACTOR CORE

- Unit-3 fuel’s integrity has been considerably compromised

- Unit-3 has been using PLUTONIUM-based MOX (mixed oxide) fuel since September 10, 2010.

- An accident at a MOX-powered reactor would be even more severe than at a more typical uranium-powered reactor.

- GENERAL ELECTRIC MARK I REACTOR, the containment building is fairly weak and is considered the secondary containment.

- The primary containment is a steel liner that surrounds the reactor core.

- SPENT FUEL POOL SITS INSIDE CONTAINMENT ABOVE THE REACTOR CORE.


TEPCO's Damage Cover-up and Data Falsification
http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit92/nit92articles/nit92coverupdata.html

[Letsbereal]

♦ Environmental Radioactivity Measurement Result (All Prefectures) http://eq.wide.ad.jp/files_en/110319radioactivity_1300_en.pdf

Source: http://eq.wide.ad.jp/index_en.html

Via NISA: http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/

and MEXT http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/1303717.htm

[Okinawa]

Thanks Letsbereal for the data.

Source: http://eq.wide.ad.jp/index_en.html

Great, it looks like they have revised the "250,000 Upper limit of radiation dose permitted for
people who engage in emergency work."

These revisionists are good. Classic "1984" in action.

[Letsbereal]

Great, it looks like they have revised the "250,000 Upper limit of radiation dose permitted for
people who engage in emergency work."

These revisionists are good. Classic "1984" in action.

50mSv (=50,000μSv) is the legal dose limit for worker from artificial radiation for 1 year. http://eq.wide.ad.jp/files_en/110315whatsmsv_en.pdf

Radiation in Daily-life http://eq.wide.ad.jp/files_en/110315houshasen_mext_en.pdf

Upper limit of radiation dose permitted for people who engage in emergency work: 250,000μSv/year (=250mSv)

Upper limit of radiation dose permitted for radiation workers, police , and firefighters who engage in disaster prevention: 50,000μSv/year (=50mSv)


News Release NIS: Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, March 19, 2011
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110319-4.pdf

Excerpt:

Waterlevels

Unit 1 -1,750(A) -1,750(B)

Unit 2 -1,400(A) Not available(B)

Unit 3 -1,200(A) - 2,300(B)

Unit 4 ?

Unit 5 2,008

Unit 6 1,902

Spent Fuel Pool Water Temperature [℃]

Unit 1 ?

Unit 2 ?

Unit 3

Unit 4 84

Unit 5 68.8

Unit 6 66.5

[rubicondecision]

Okinawa posted this on the citizen's radiation monitoring forum. It is graphically beautiful. It also is not a citizen's network per say, but a revamping of the SPEEDI data, I think, which the Japanese government has said is not functioning. They promised to share the radiological data in a recent IAEA document, so here it is for you to intepret.
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4870

[rubicondecision]

http://www.worldvillage.org/
If you look here, the latest data on radiological measurements in the Fukushima prefecture is compiled in pdf form. They are measuring the radiation in water, an issue that is emerging as radiation levels are elevated, and there are severe limits on the drinking water at that physical location. People have been restricting their water intake to bottled water, but since it is in short supply, there have been cases of elderly becoming dehydrated as a result.

As a prepper, the lack of availability of potable water is a major concern. People die after three days without water. Normally even if city water is not available, then natural sources of water can be utilized. In the case of radiation poisoning, the only safe water is that which has been previously stored.

[rubicondecision]

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110318005332.htm
Cooling operations continue / SDF sprays water on No. 3 reactor; Hyper Rescue squad sent

[rubicondecision]

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011031900349
Ibaraki Farmers Asked to Refrain from Shipping Spinach
Ibaraki is the next prefecture to the South from Fukushima. The radiation is spreading.

[rubicondecision]

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011031900291
Radiation Levels beyond Limits Detected from Milk, Spinach: Edano

As stated before, Strontium-90 concentrates in dairy. What has happened before at Chernobyl is playing out slowly again in Fukushima and the surrounding provinces.

[agentbluescreen]

Well actually prayers have been rewarded for the time being with the fuel rod situations, and the unmanned water cannon on #3's (plutonium MOX) fuel storage pool is a great relief. The rods can withstand 700º to 1100º but contain huge amounts of decay heat. There are 6 bundles of fuel in #3 storage the hottest (4 week old) of which is still dissipating approx. 700 Kw (700 thousand watts) of heat a figure which diminishes as time goes by to a lower longer term 15-25 thousand watts (on their own) over time. The #4 (5 loads plus a recent hot one) pool alone must continually deal with about a megawatt or more of fuel decay heat, the #2-3 pools about a quarter of that and #1 pool about an eighth.

They will replace this (smaller fire truck) with a more powerful and robust German remote-arm cement-pumper class truck shortly.

Still these are immense amounts of heat and irradiated sea water that has been in contact with them or evaporates poses a serious pollution threat, not to mention that salt deposits (an insulator) will reduce cooling efficiencies.

It does appear that the most (locally) dangerous plutonium MOX fuel rods in #3 did not get exposed enough nor heat up enough to cause self-destruction nor meltdowns though there is a serious question as to if the massive roof-rail-crane has fallen into the pool, which will raise a number of issues. All we are being told is that  
there is concern that it may have crushed rods or damaged the pool.

Authorities are still mum about the seriously ever-decaying conditions of the three still fully armed reactors themselves. As long as there is water over the stored fuel however (reasonably low temperatures are maintained) it is not any more immediate danger, including hydrogen gas, from them.

[rubicondecision]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110319x1.html
Special firetruck hoses No. 3
MOX, reactor perpetually deluged as Tepco works to restore power

By KANAKO TAKAHARA and KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writers

Battling to avert an atomic catastrophe, firefighting teams at the Fukushima No. 1 power station sprayed tons of seawater Saturday at its crippled No. 3 reactor in a seven-hour operation aimed at keeping its spent nuclear fuel rods from combusting.

[rubicondecision]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/19_15.html
Cooling function operable at 2 reactors

The government says parts of the cooling systems at 2 of the 6 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been confirmed to be operable.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference on Saturday that an emergency diesel generator at the No. 6 reactor has resumed operation.

The agency also said that a cooling pump, at the No. 5 reactor, has been confirmed to be usable, and that workers started cooling the spent fuel storage pool there at 5 AM on Saturday.

The agency said the radiation level at the west gate of the plant, located about 1.1 kilometers west of the No. 3 reactor, was relatively high at 830.8 microsieverts per hour at 8:10 AM. But it said the figure fell to 364.5 microsieverts at 9:00 AM.

Saturday, March 19, 2011 14:07 +0900 (JST)

[rubicondecision]

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79568.html
Efforts to restore cooling function continue at nuke plant

TOKYO, March 19, Kyodo

Japan on Saturday continued efforts to contain the quake-triggered crisis at a nuclear power plant, with Tokyo Electric Power Co. trying to bring electricity back to its crippled nuclear reactors in the hope of restoring their cooling functions, while firefighters again threw water to cool down overheating spent fuel pools.

Connecting a power line to the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is expected to be completed during the day.

Restoring a stable source of electricity is a key step to prevent further deterioration of the situation by cooling down the reactor cores or water in the spent fuel tanks.

After smoke was detected from the No. 3 reactor building on Wednesday, Self-Defense Forces, fire fighters and others have engaged in an unprecedented mission to spray massive amounts of water at the damaged building so that the spent fuel pool located inside would fill with water, which is vital to prevent radioactive release.

The Tokyo Fire Department, including disaster relief specialists of its ''hyper rescue'' team, discharged 60 tons of water early Saturday and resumed the work in the afternoon and continued shooting water for seven hours. But the firefighters are believed to have left the water cannon truck unmanned apparently out of concerns over the radiation level in the area.

The Tokyo Fire Department said the dose that workers were exposed to so far was not ''at a level that would affect health.''

Meanwhile, a Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter flew over the troubled Daiichi plant Saturday morning to check the changes in temperatures at its reactors using thermography, the Defense Ministry said.

The CH47 chopper also examined what effect the water sprayed on the reactor had in cooling the spent fuel pool, it said.

In the afternoon, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa told a press conference that the examination found the surface temperatures at the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors remained at 100 C or lower and that their conditions remain stable than expected.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan instructed Kitazawa to keep monitoring around the plant.

Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a separate press conference that the condition of the No. 3 reactor has become relatively stable following the water discharge and that the SDF is now preparing to spray water into the No. 4 reactor to cool its spent fuel pool.

''We are trying to get things under control, but we are still in an unpredictable situation,'' he said.

A rise in water temperature, usually to 40 C, causes the water level to fall, thus exposing the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could then heat up further, melt and discharge highly radioactive materials in the worst-case scenario, experts say.

According to the plant operator Tokyo Electric, the maximum earthquake intensity measured at the nuclear power plant was 507 gals at the No. 3 reactor building, smaller than 600 gals the nuclear plant is required to withstand. The data is a provisional figure.

The Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency has raised the severity level of the crisis-hit reactors to 5 from 4 on an international scale Friday, the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.

Among the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, the only ones operating at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake, halted automatically, but the cores are believed to have partially melted as the reactors lost cooling function after the quake.

The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been severely damaged, leaving fuel pools there uncovered, and the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel suffered damage to its pressure-suppression chamber below.

The government has set an exclusion zone covering areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant and has urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.

The No. 5 and No. 6 reactors were under maintenance at the time of the quake. It is now possible for these reactors to cool spent fuel by circulating water in the storage pools.

==Kyodo

[rubicondecision]

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79609.html
Tainted foodstuffs but also some good signs found in Japan nuke crisis

TOKYO, March 19, Kyodo

Excessive radiation was found Saturday in milk and spinach in Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures, while officials spoke of some stability and lower-than-anticipated temperatures at crisis-hit reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as anticrisis efforts continued.

The radiation was above Japan's regulated standards but does not immediately pose a risk to human health, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in a press conference.

Edano said, however, that conditions at the plant's most dangerous No. 3 reactor unit have likely become relatively stable after firefighters threw some 60 tons of water at a boiling spent fuel pool there shortly after midnight from outside the damaged building housing it.

Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa separately said the surface temperatures at the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors were found in the morning at 100 C or lower by a Self-Defense Force helicopter, adding their conditions remain more stable than expected.

''We're trying to get things under control, but we're still in an unpredictable situation,'' Edano said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan instructed the Defense Ministry to keep monitoring around the plant, Kitazawa said.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., meanwhile, managed to connect power cables to the No. 1 and No. 2 reactor buildings, paving the way for checks of their equipment as early as Sunday to see if they can work.

Restoring a stable source of electricity to reactivate lost cooling systems is a key step to prevent further deterioration of the situation, particularly as the No. 2 reactor has suffered a rupture at its containment vessel's pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.

At the No. 3 reactor, the Tokyo Fire Department's ''hyper rescue'' team began in the afternoon an unmanned operation of having its heavy fire trucks continue shooting a total of 1,260 tons of water at its spent fuel pool for seven hours, the department said.

After massive smoke was detected from the No. 3 reactor building on Wednesday, the Self-Defense Forces, firefighters and others have been engaged in an unprecedented mission to spray tons of water in an attempt to fill its pool with water, which is vital to prevent a release of radioactive substances.

A rise in water temperature, usually to 40 C, causes the water level to fall, thus exposing the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could then heat up further, melt and discharge highly radioactive materials in a worst-case scenario, experts say.

The SDF is now preparing to spray water into the No. 4 reactor to help cool its spent fuel pool as well, Edano said.

At the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, it has become possible to cool spent fuel by circulating water in the storage pools, as one of emergency generators was restored early Saturday, leading the temperature to fall to 67.6 C from 68.8 C in four hours, said Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO.

Japan raised the severity level of the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors to 5 on an international scale Friday, the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979, and the worst in the country where a 1999 criticality accident was given level 3.

The three reactors were the only ones operating among the plant's six reactors at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake, and halted automatically, but their cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost cooling function after the quake and tsunami.

According to TEPCO, the maximum earthquake intensity measured at the No. 3 reactor building was 507 gals, smaller than 600 gals the nuclear plant is required to withstand, on a provisional basis. But the ensuing tsunami is believed to have damaged the cooling functions.

The No. 4 to No. 6 reactors were under maintenance at the time of the quake but their cooling functions also suffered, affecting their spent fuel pools.

The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have since been severely damaged by apparent hydrogen blasts, leaving fuel pools there no longer covered by roofs.

The government has set an exclusion zone covering areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant and has urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.

==Kyodo

[rubicondecision]

http://www.iaea.or.at/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
Japan Earthquake Update (17 March 2011, 16:55 UTC) - Clarified

Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that engineers were able have begun to lay an external grid power line cable to Unit 2. The operation was completed at 08:30 UTC. The operation was continuing as of 20:30 UTC, Tokyo Electric Power Company officials told the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

They plan to reconnect power to Unit 2 once the spraying of water on the Unit 3 reactor building is completed.

The spraying of water on the Unit 3 reactor building was temporarily stopped at 11:09 UTC (20:09 local time) of 17 March.

The IAEA continues to liaise with the Japanese authorities and is monitoring the situation as it evolves.

[rubicondecision]

http://www.iaea.or.at/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
Japan Earthquake Update (18 March 2011, 06:10 UTC)

Temperature of Spent Fuel Pools at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant - Updated

Spent fuel removed from a nuclear reactor is highly radioactive and generates intense heat. Nuclear plant operators typically store this material in pools of water that cool the fuel and shield the radioactivity. Water in a spent fuel pool is continuously cooled to remove heat produced by spent fuel assemblies. According to IAEA experts, a typical spent fuel pool temperature is kept below 25 °C under normal operating conditions. The temperature of a spent fuel pool is maintained by constant cooling, which requires a constant power source.

Given the intense heat and radiation that spent fuel assemblies can generate, spent fuel pools must be constantly checked for water level and temperature. If fuel is no longer covered by water or temperatures reach a boiling point, fuel can become exposed and create a risk of radioactive release. The concern about the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi is that sources of power to cool the pools have been compromised.

Concern about spent fuel storage conditions has led Japanese officials to drop and spray water from helicopters and trucks onto Unit 3 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (See earlier update).

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has reported increasing temperatures in the spent fuel ponds at Units 5 and 6 since 14 March. An emergency diesel generator at Unit 6 is now powering water injection into the ponds at those Units, according to NISA.

The IAEA can confirm the following new information regarding the temperatures of the spent nuclear fuel pools at Units 4, 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:
Unit 4
13 March, 19:08 UTC:    84 °C
Unit 5
17 March, 03:00 UTC:    64.2 °C
17 March, 18:00 UTC:    65.5 °C
Unit 6
17 March, 03:00 UTC:    62.5 °C
17 March, 18:00 UTC:    62.0 °C

The IAEA is continuing to seek further information about the water levels, temperature and condition of all spent fuel pool facilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

[rubicondecision]

http://www.iaea.or.at/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
Japan Earthquake Update (18 March 2011, 10:15 UTC)

Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that new INES ratings have been issued for some of the events relating to the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants.

Japanese authorities have assessed that the core damage at the Fukushima Daiichi 2 and 3 reactor Units caused by loss of all cooling function has been rated as 5 on the INES scale.

Japanese authorities have assessed that the loss of cooling and water supplying functions in the spent fuel pool of the Unit 4 reactor has been rated as 3.

Japanese authorities have assessed that the loss of cooling functions in the reactor Units 1, 2 and 4 of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant has also been rated as 3. All reactor Units at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant are now in a cold shut down condition.

Addition of 12:45 UTC

Japanese authorities have assessed that the core damage at the Fukushima Daiichi 1 reactor unit caused by the loss of all cooling function has been rated as 5 on the INES scale.

This is an upgrade from a previous rating of 12 March as 4 on the INES scale, which was based on an abnormal rise of radioactive dose rate at the site boundary.

http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp

[rubicondecision]

http://www.iaea.or.at/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
apan Earthquake Update (19 March 2011, 4:30 UTC)

Summary of conditions at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

Located on the Eastern coast of Japan, the six nuclear power reactors at Daiichi are boiling water reactors (BWRs). A massive earthquake on 11 March severed off-site power to the plant and triggered the automatic shutdown of the three operating reactors - Units 1, 2, and 3. The control rods in those units were successfully inserted into the reactor cores, ending the fission chain reaction. The remaining reactors - Units 4, 5, and 6 -- had previously been shut down for routine maintenance purposes. Backup diesel generators, designed to start up after losing off-site power, began providing electricity to pumps circulating coolant to the six reactors.

Soon after the earthquake, a large tsunami washed over the reactor site, knocking out the backup generators. While some batteries remained operable, the entire site lost the ability to maintain proper reactor cooling and water circulation functions.

Here is the current status of the six reactors, based on documents and confirmed by Japanese officials (new information in bold):

Unit 1

Coolant within Unit 1 is covering about half of the fuel rods in the reactor, leading to fuel damage. High pressure within the reactor's containment led operators to vent gas from the containment. Later, an explosion destroyed the outer shell of the reactor building above the containment on 12 March.

There are no indications of problems with either the reactor pressure vessel or the primary containment vessel.

Efforts to pump seawater into the reactor core are continuing.

On 18 March, Japan assigned an INES rating of 5 to this unit. Further information on the ratings and the INES scale.

Unit 2

Coolant within Unit 2 is covering about half of the fuel rods in the reactor, leading to fuel damage. Following an explosion on 15 March, Japanese officials expressed concerns that the reactor's containment may not be fully intact. NISA officials reported on 18 March that white smoke continues to emerge from the building.

Efforts to pump seawater into the reactor core are continuing.

On 18 March, Japan assigned an INES rating of 5 to this unit.

Unit 3

Coolant within Unit 3 is covering about half of the fuel rods in the reactor, leading to fuel damage. High pressure within the reactor's containment led operators to vent gas from the containment. Later, an explosion destroyed the outer shell of the reactor building above the containment on 14 March.

Following the explosion, Japanese officials expressed concerns that the reactor's containment may not be fully intact. NISA officials reported on 18 March that white smoke continues to emerge from the building.

Efforts to pump seawater into the reactor core are continuing.

Of additional concern at Unit 3 is the condition of the spent fuel pool in the building. There are indications that there is an inadequate cooling water level in the pool, and Japanese authorities have addressed the problem by dropping water from helicopters into the building and spraying water from trucks. On 18 March, Japanese Self Defence Forces used seven fire trucks to continue spraying efforts. There is no data on the temperature of the water in the pool.

On 18 March, Japan assigned an INES rating of 5 to this unit.

Unit 4

All fuel had been removed from the reactor core for routine maintenance before the earthquake and placed into the spent fuel pool. A portion of the building's outer shell was damaged by the explosion at Unit 3 on 14 March, and there have been two reported fires - possibly including one in the spent fuel pool on 15 March -- that extinguished spontaneously, although smoke remained visible on 18 March.

Authorities remain concerned about the condition of the spent fuel pool.

On 18 March, Japan assigned an INES rating of 4 to this site.

Unit 5 and 6

Shut down before the earthquake, there are no immediate concerns about these reactors' cores or containment. Instrumentation from both spent fuel pools, however, has shown gradually increasing temperatures. Officials have configured two diesel generators at Unit 6 to power water circulation in the spent fuel pools and cores of Units 5 and 6.

Workers have opened holes in the roofs of both buildings to prevent the possible accumulation of hydrogen, which is suspected of causing explosions at other units.

Restoration of Grid

Progress has been achieved in restoring external power to the nuclear power plant, although it remains uncertain when full power will be available.

Evacuation

Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that the evacuation of the population from the 20-kilometre zone around Fukushima Daiichi has been successfully completed. Japanese authorities have also advised people living within 30 kilometres of the plant to remain inside.

Iodine

On 16 March, Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission recommended local authorities to instruct evacuees leaving the 20-kilometre area to ingest stable (not radioactive) iodine. The pills and syrup (for children) had been prepositioned at evacuation centers. The order recommended taking a single dose, with an amount dependent on age:
Baby    12.5 mg
1 mo.-3 yrs.    25mg
3-13 yrs.    38mg
13-40 yrs.    76mg
40+ yrs.    Not necessary

Radiation Measurements

Radiation levels near Fukushima Daiichi and beyond have elevated since the reactor damage began. However, dose rates in Tokyo and other areas outside the 30-kilometre zone remain far from levels which would require any protective action. In other words they are not dangerous to human health.

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, radiation levels spiked three times since the earthquake, but have stabilized since 16 March at levels which are, although significantly higher than the normal levels, within the range that allows workers to continue onsite recovery measures.

[Letsbereal]

Important Vid Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vhuVUt5l_k

[rubicondecision]

For Digital Millennium copyright reasons, I have not reproduced whole articles most of the time. You should follow the links to get all of the information. In some cases, particularly at the IAEA, tables, presentations, and videos are included which might help you to assimulate the information better.

[rubicondecision]

Probably one of the best articles I have read concerning the lack of disclosure by the US government. They've now got good intel, they're just not sharing it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608504576208840531837916-search.html
WASHINGTON—U.S. government officials, in private sessions on Capitol Hill Friday, repeatedly declined to give details of radiation measurements at the stricken Japanese nuclear complex, saying the situation is shrouded in a "fog of war."

Separately, the Obama administration said Friday "miniscule quantities" of radiation from the Japanese nuclear accident were detected Friday at a monitoring station in Sacramento, Calif., a day after similar traces of radiation were detected in Washington state. The administration said the levels of the radioactive isotope xenon 133 were approximately equivalent to one-millionth the dose received from the sun, rocks or other natural sources.

The Obama administration's reluctance to detail in public what it is learning from radiation-detection operations around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi complex in Japan highlights a broader sensitivity in the U.S.'s posture toward a stricken ally. The shift comes after statements Wednesday by the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that painted a grimmer picture of the nuclear crisis than Japanese officials had offered, and suggested that the U.S. didn't trust the information coming from the Japanese government.

[rubicondecision]

http://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse#p/u/12/moTrfQhhU70
A guy like me, he's publishing a theory about the radioactive fallout.

[agentbluescreen]

Just a mistake: the #3 has hotter plutonium MOX rods in storage and a smaller heat dissipation issue. It is the #4 pool that contains the HUGE 5 loads of rods and the 6th most-recently-hottest ones. They are not doing anything about the #4 pool yet with the megawatt of evaporation going on.

The #3 (and 2) pool have only three loads of rods in each the #1 pool has one spare load. The rods in #3 however are the hottest plutonium MOX sort that melt at the lowest temperatures as does it's still-armed reactor's load. The heat they were concerned with at #3 is about third of that in the #4 pool or a third of a megawatt.

Lets hope they get on to #4 pool soon, and pray for them all.

[bigron]

Full Core Meltdown in Japan?

by Stephen Lendman


http://uruknet.com/?p=m75976&hd=&size=1&l=e

March 18, 2011

Possibly it's ongoing and concealed. All along, Japanese and Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) officials downplayed or lied about the severity of the crisis. Virtually nothing they say can be believed.

Nor from the Obama administration, budgeting loan guarantees for new reactor construction instead of decommissioning all 104 nuclear plants because operating them risks full core meltdowns.

Partial or full ones gravely harm earth, air, water and food. Three hazardous Fukushima radioactive isotopes are especially problematic. University of Rochester Professor Jacqueline Williams, a radiation expert, says ingesting radioactive iodine-131 causes thyroid and other cancers. So does hazardous beta and gamma radiation from Cesium-137. Released Strontium 90 also causes leukemia and other cancers. Large amounts of all three are spewing daily.

Under a worst case scenario, millions of Japanese, Pacific rim and northern hemisphere people will be harmed, many gravely. Millions of deaths may result. The dangers of nuclear power can't be overstated. Potentially, all planetary life is threatened. What better reason to end all commercial and military use now.

Wikipedia calls a nuclear meltdown "an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating." Partial or full meltdowns result, releasing toxic atmospheric radiation.

Through nuclear fission, reactors generate high heat to produce electricity - essentially boiling water to create steam, used to run turbines and generate power. Unless controlled, dangerously high heat results.

Core meltdowns occur when heat generated exceeds what cooling systems remove, causing uranium and plutonium fuel to melt. At fault may be coolant problems, including accidents, fires, loss of coolant pressure, low coolant flow, or none at all from high heat causing evaporation. In other words, insufficient cooling elevates temperatures high enough to trigger melting and toxic atmospheric radiation releases.

Measured in rems (roentgen equivalent in man or mammal), it represents the amount needed to damage living tissue. All radiation is harmful, cumulative, permanent, and unforgiving. The more gotten, the greater the danger, especially doses over 100 rems, producing radiation sickness, including nausea, vomiting, headaches, white blood cell loss, and susceptibility to infection.

Doses above 200 rems cause hair loss and other harm. Above 300, significant internal harm, including damaged nerve cells, others lining the digestive track, the reproductive system, DNA and RNA. Severe white blood cell loss also results, the body's main defense against infection, causing vulnerability to cancer and other diseases.

Moreover, radiation reduces blood platelets production, making hemorrhaging more likely. Doses above 450 rems kill half of those exposed. Above 800 assures death in days, weeks, or longer-term after painful illnesses, including leukemia and other cancers.

High atmospheric radiation levels threaten life over the short or longer-term. The more ingested, absorbed or inhaled, the greater the risk. Fukushima is spreading large amounts. If unstoppable, all bets are off.

On March 17, New York Times writers Norimitsu Onishi, David Sanger and Matthew Wald headlined, "High Radiation Severely Hinders Emergency Work to Cool Japanese Plant," saying:

"Amid widening (global alarm), military fire trucks began spraying cooling water on (Fukushima's) spent fuel rods." Earlier, high radiation levels forced back police water cannon trucks. Japan's Self-Defense Forces dumped tons of seawater on Unit 3, saying later it was ineffective. Unknown is whether anything can work. In day six, everything tried failed, raising grave doubts, a frightening prospect if true.

Panic throughout Japan is increasing. Some Toyko residents are fleeing. Everyone is scared. Radiation levels are spreading and rising. People are jamming airports to leave. Some embassies and companies are evacuating their personnel. Inbound flights are being cancelled.

An anonymous nuclear industry official told The Times of India that TEPCO management is "in a full-scale panic, (not) know(ing) what to do." On March 16, European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told an EU parliamentary committee:

Fukushima "is effectively out of control. In the coming hours, there could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island," and beyond.

In fact, global contamination is threatened. Obama said radioactivity wouldn't reach America. He lied. It will reach California by weekend and spread east across the entire country and North America. The industry-controlled World Nuclear News warned of a "dramatic escalation in Japan."

Compounding the threat, around 600,000 exposed Fukushima spent fuel rods are stored unprotected near the top of reactors, making them extremely vulnerable to melting. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen said if they catch fire, it "would be like Chernobyl on steroids."

Several fires, in fact, erupted. Others could ignite any time. If one or more containment vessels ruptures, all bets are off. Fears are it already happened, making a bad situation far worse. Fukushima is an unprecedented disaster, in unchartered territory. Understating the potential catastrophic risk is irresponsible and criminal.

On Wednesday, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman, Gregory Jaczko, told a congressional committee that thousands of Unit 4 spent fuel rods have little or no protective water, meaning they're exposed, melting, and spreading toxic atmospheric radiation. He added:

"We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

Fukushima has six reactors. All risk meltdown. Experts believe a full plant evacuation may be necessary, leaving reactor and spent fuel rods to melt down, a potential worst case unstoppable "China syndrome."

Late Wednesday night, the US State Department announced a "voluntary" evacuation of government personnel dependents and other US citizens from northeastern Japan down to Tokyo and Yokohama. Charter flights will be provided. Numerous other nations are urging their nationals to leave.

Nuclear Power in America: How Safe?

On March 16, New York Times writer Matthew Wald headlined, "Nuclear Agency Tells a Concerned Congress That US Industry Remains Safe," saying:

NRC chairman Jaczko "told two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees:

"We will continue to work to maintain (a high) level of protection." Reactors are designed to withstand "the most severe natural phenomena historically reported," perhaps forgetting his comments about Fukushima's unprecedented disaster and its unpreparedness to cope.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu claimed:

"The American people should have full confidence that the United States has rigorous safety regulations in place to ensure that our nuclear power is generated safely and responsibly. The administration is committed to learning from Japan's experience as we work to continue to strengthen America's nuclear industry."

Chu, in fact, is deeply compromised, a shill for nuclear interests since his days as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), originally called the UC Radiation Lab. Today, the Energy Department runs it, continuing its radiation research, what it's done since the 1940s with little regard for public safety or environmental concerns, as true under Chu. In fact, he was picked as Energy Secretary for his commitment to military and commercial nuclear power, mindless of the risks.

When asked in 2005 if fission-based plants should be part of the energy-producing portfolio, he responded:

"Absolutely," displaying a cavalier attitude about its dangers in advocating for "recycling" waste, when independent experts say doing it spreads poisons causing cancer, genetic damage, and premature deaths.

Chu also has longstanding ties to BP and Big Oil that funded UC Berkeley's Energy Biosciences Institute he founded a year before becoming Energy Secretary. On matters of oil, nuclear power, and other sources of energy, nothing Chu says is credible.

Obama also has longstanding nuclear industry ties, including with Chicago-based Exelon. On March 14, Bloomberg said it operates "17 reactors at 10 stations in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, provid(ing) 20% of US nuclear capacity," according to its web site. His former top political aide, David Axelrod, once lobbied for Exelon, and Rahm Emanuel, his former White House chief of staff, profited handsomely as an investment banker arranging mergers that created the company.

In his proposed budget, Obama includes $36 billion in industry loan guarantees for new facilities, free money. He's committed to jump-start new construction, halted since Three Mile Island in 1979. Already takers are lining up, 20 or more applications pending before the NRC.

He and Chu downplay Fukushima, mindless of industry hazards, including 23 US nuclear plants at 16 locations using the same failed GE-designed Mark 1 containment vessels. Earlier the NRC called it susceptible to explosion and failure because of cost-cutting design failures. Its 1985 study warned that failure within the first few hours after a core meltdown was very likely. Its top safety official at the time said it had a 90% probability of failing if an accident caused overheating and melting. When reactor cooling is compromised, the containment vessel is the last line of defense. However, GE's design is hazardous and unsafe.

No matter. In January 2011, Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt, GE's CEO, head of his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing Paul Volcker. He'll also provide administration energy policy input. For him, Obama, Chu and other administration officials, public health, safety, and environmental protection are secondary to bottom line priorities. Unless popular outrage resists, America faces an inevitable nuclear nightmare, replicating or exceeding Fukushima.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
 
http://uruknet.com/?p=m75976&hd=&size=1&l=e

[agentbluescreen]

We still have a long, long way to go here, but progress is being made perhaps far too slowly.

The real issues here are:

A) suppressing radiation leakage from #3 fuel rod storage pool (good so far - seems ok)
B) suppressing radiation leakage from #4 fuel rod storage pool (attempt now at maybe some progress) ?
C) assess/regain control of leaking uncontained #2 reactor now melting down  ??
D) suppressing radiation leakage/regain control from/of #1 fuel rod storage pool ? (perhaps with power)
E) assess/regain control of possibly leaking #3 reactor now melting down  ??
F) assess/regain control of #1 reactor now melting down ?

G) All three reactors need continual water injection as well and sea water with salt is very poor solution.

H) SCRAM all three reactors to prevent/reduce fuel rod melt-down bad geometries from restarting criticality (#2 and 3 serious)

So this is a big list of conflicting and complicated priorities, good news is the roads are open and a cement pumper is on the way.

[Dig]

Special Report: Radiation fears may be greatly exaggerated

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO | Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:08pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - As workers struggle to contain the fallout from the crippled nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, people as far away as Illinois are calling public health officials in a state of panic.

They are hoping to get their hands on potassium iodide pills to protect them from radiation -- despite warnings that, in the absence of a real nuclear threat, taking the medicine is riskier than doing nothing.

Sixty-six years after the first atomic bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, radiation spooks people everywhere. But the anxiety is largely disproportionate to the actual danger.

"People in general have an exaggerated fear of radiation. That is true in the United States, and it is probably even more so in Japan," said Jerrold Bushberg, director of health physics programs and clinical professor of radiology and radiation oncology at the University of California Davis.

[...]

In Tokyo, 150 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, people grew fearful when readings rose about 10 times above the normal reading. At that level, residents were exposed to 0.809 microsieverts per hour -- 1,000 times less than a millisievert, or about 10 times less than a chest X-ray.

"The levels of radiation experienced by the public at present should be no cause for concern," said Dr. Richard Wakeford, visiting professor of epidemiology at the Dalton Nuclear Institute at University of Manchester in Britain.

"To put radiation doses into context, many Japanese undergo CT scans for cancer screening purposes, and these scans produce radiation doses of about 10 millisieverts (10,000 microsieverts) -- much more than they are receiving from the Fukushima reactors."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/us-japan-quake-radiation-health-idUSTRE72H6IZ20110318

[Dig]

The pro-nuke power LaRouchies are saying the worse reactors have been stabilized for 3 days now and that the neo-feudalist eco-fascist media is lying WTF?!?!?!?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeT1STNlOQ

[Dig]

The pro-nuke power LaRouchies are saying the worse reactors have been stabilized for 3 days now and that the neo-feudalist eco-fascist media is lying WTF?!?!?!?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeT1STNlOQ