The Real Problem …
The fact that the Fukushima reactors have been leaking huge amounts of radioactive water ever since the 2011 earthquake is certainly newsworthy. As are the facts that:
Meh. It does not seem like the worse case is worse than Chernobyl. Now while that was pretty bad, it was hardly the end of life as we know it - except for those living nearby.
In fact the 'Exclusion Zone' around Chernobyl has become a wildlife refuge. It doesn't seem that the wildlife is being effected by the radiation. There have been some studies of the wolves there and comparing litter size and mutations seen to those in other areas and no problems.
Well what was on TV said there weren't, it seems more study is needed
@Grieves, I wondered if the title could be modified to reflect the content more... so it comes up on search engines? It seems pretty serious to me. I think a good supply of Potassium Iodide would be a really good investment for those who may be affected.
Personally, I think there is a strong link in the amount of radiation released from nuclear explosions/accidents and the use of DU munitions and the rapid rise of cancers. Whilst I do not advocate smoking, I think it was necessary to demonise smoking, (which had been practiced for centuries), to cover the much more likely cause of the rapid escalation of cancer incidences... radiation.
Meh. It does not seem like the worse case is worse than Chernobyl. Now while that was pretty bad, it was hardly the end of life as we know it - except for those living nearby.
Ehhhh, that's not what's being said that I can see.
[Mycle Schneider, nuclear consultant:] The situation could still get a lot worse. A massive spent fuel fire would likely dwarf the current dimensions of the catastrophe and could exceed the radioactivity releases of Chernobyl dozens of times. First, the pool walls could leak beyond the capacity to deliver cooling water or a reactor building could collapse following one of the hundred of aftershocks. Then, the fuel cladding could ignite spontaneously releasing its entire radioactive inventory.
Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013: “Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date.”
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
and consider the difference in locations.
Chernobyl was more or less land-locked. Radiation found its way into the Baltic, but it had a fair bit of land to cover to do so. Compare that to Fukushima, directly on the coast of the pacific ocean. For well over 2 years, 300 tons of highly radioactive waste-water have been dumped into the pacific ocean DAILY. That, in and of itself, could pan out to be an environmental disaster to dwarf that of Chernobyl, once we've come to understand what effect it's had. Consider what could happen if they botched this job terribly, or another earthquake struck before they could complete the work? If the event were Chernobyl-scale, it could do massive damage to the pacific and everything that lives in it/off of it. If it were worse, which the experts seem to suggest it could well be should it happen, to a considerable scale in fact, it could send the whole kit and caboodle, Pacific, Atlantic, and everything in between into a downward spiral that makes the current frightening decline seem like the good old days of plenty. Not to mention it could literally empty the Island of Japan, or a fair portion of it at least.
I'm not saying it would be a good thing. However the dilution provided by the ocean would be vast. Your 300 tons of radioactive water was only a few times above legal limits. By the time it gets a few miles out it's thousands of times below that.
Now raw fuel from a fire or explosion would be another thing, very serious locally. But less so on a global scale.
Unquestionably, but I think we're well past the point of believing that vast dilution means such dumps are harmless. Especially given that the water is still flowing, and will continue doing so presumably for as much a decade if not significantly longer than that, the damage it does to the pacific can't be quantified. It might be slight, but it could just as easily be extreme.
The 300 Tons figure seems a little misleading there was a single leak of 300 tons of highly contaminated water, and separately there are estimates of 300 tons a day of much less contaminated water, which is what I was referring to.
Frantic efforts to contain radioactive leaks at the wrecked FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant have been dealt another blow after its operator said about 300 tonnes of highly contaminated water had seeped out of a storage tank at the site.
The leak is the worst such incident since the March 2011 meltdown and is separate from the contaminated water leaks, also of about 300 tonnes a day, reported recently.
Tepco’s Sept. 5 announcement said merely that water in the newly dug well – sampled on the 4th — showed 650 becquerels of beta radiation per liter (a becquerel is a measure of how much radioactive energy is released per second; beta radiation is relatively weaker and travels shorter distances than gamma). That level has been falling: to 330 Bq per liter on the 5th and 180 Bq per liter on the 6th, Tepco said over the weekend.
A Tepco spokesman said the bulk of that radiation is likely to be from two elements: tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen seen as one of the least harmful elements; and strontium-90, a much more dangerous element that accumulates in bone and has been linked to bone cancer. To give a sense of how different they are, nuclear plants in Japan are allowed to release water with up to 60,000 Bq per liter of tritium, but only 30 Bq per liter of strontium-90.But Tepco didn’t say how much came from which one.
Lots of details below on what the limits are, and where they come from. Seems reasonably consistent. The 30 Bq/L for strontium is the Japanese limit on what Nuclear power plants can release into the Ocean, and obviously assumes a lot of subsequent dilution. It is 100x the limit for drinking water in the US.
Part of Chernobyl's problem was that the radioactive particles entered the atmosphere where they traveled downwind to Europe. The atmosphere is a faster, "better" vehicle for spreading radiation than the ocean, which acts as a buffer. I remember some wild-eyed girl on Yahoo commenting that her dad died of lung cancer from Chernobyl, while living in Oklahoma! "Oh he never smoked", she said, not realizing that asbestos, radon, and several other factors cause lung cancer.
And yeah smoking is as terrible as it is made out to be. I hate the "truth" commercials, but I've had enough family members become sick or die from smoking. It is a terrible vice that should be tamped down as much as possible.
Strawman much? the theory of linear harm is pretty well no longer accepted - so if you are not "over" this then how about some actual science that says that actually vast dilution DOES mean such dumps are harmless?
Strawman much? the theory of linear harm is pretty well no longer accepted - so if you are not "over" this then how about some actual science that says that actually vast dilution DOES mean such dumps are harmless?
On 1 April 2005 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) became the owner of the site, with the UKAEA remaining as operator. Decommissioning of Dounreay is planned to bring the site to an interim care and surveillance state by 2036, and as a brownfield site by 2336, at a total cost of £2.9 billion.[citation needed]
Apart from decommissioning the reactors, reprocessing plant, and associated facilities, there are five main environmental issues to be dealt with:
A 65-metre deep shaft used for intermediate level nuclear waste disposal is contaminating some groundwater, and is threatened by coastal erosion in about 300 years time. The shaft was never designed as a waste depository, but was used as such on a very ad-hoc and poorly monitored basis, without reliable waste disposal records being kept. In origin it is a relic of a process by which a waste-discharge pipe was constructed. The pipe was designed to discharge waste into the sea. Historic use of the shaft as a waste depository has resulted in one hydrogen gas explosion[8] caused by sodium and potassium wastes reacting with water. At one time it was normal for workers to fire rifles into the shaft to sink polythene bags floating on water.[9]
Irradiated nuclear fuel particles on the seabed near the plant,[2] estimated about several hundreds of thousands in number.[10] The beach has been closed since 1983 due to this danger,[2] caused by old fuel rod fragments being pumped into the sea.[2] In 2008, a clean-up project using Geiger counter-fitted robot submarines will search out and retrieve each particle individually, a process that will take years.[2] The particles still wash ashore, including as at 2009 -137 less radioactive particles on the publicly accessible but privately owned close-by Sandside Bay beach and one at a popular tourist beach at Dunnet.[11]
18,000 cubic metres of radiologically contaminated land, and 28,000 cubic metres of chemically contaminated land.
1,350 cubic metres of high and medium active liquors and 2,550 cubic metres of unconditioned intermediate level nuclear waste in store.
1,500 tonnes of sodium, 900 tonnes of this radioactively contaminated from the Prototype Fast Reactor.
I believe it's an effort to counter MikeC's claim that it's a 'staw man argument' to suggest dumping large amounts of nuclear waste into the ocean is harmful.... because a single study on breast-cancer suggests that the LNT model might not be entirely accurate.
Part of Chernobyl's problem was that the radioactive particles entered the atmosphere where they traveled downwind to Europe. The atmosphere is a faster, "better" vehicle for spreading radiation than the ocean, which acts as a buffer.
I believe it's an effort to counter MikeC's claim that it's a 'staw man argument' to suggest dumping large amounts of nuclear waste into the ocean is harmful.... because a single study on breast-cancer suggests that the LNT model might not be entirely accurate.
I believe it's an effort to counter MikeC's claim that it's a 'staw man argument' to suggest dumping large amounts of nuclear waste into the ocean is harmful.... because a single study on breast-cancer suggests that the LNT model might not be entirely accurate.
No - ther are 2 matters - the LN says low doses are harmless because it is a linear model hence 1/10th dose = 1/10th the harm. The study linked to suggests that LNT might be erring on the side of to much harm being caused by low doses - that e harm is even LESS than the linear model suggests.
There is no science any more that I know of that suggests that all levels of radiation are always harmful.
Fukushima leaks: Japan pledges $470m for 'ice wall'
Japan is to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building a frozen wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant to stop leaks of radioactive water.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said an estimated 47bn yen ($473m, £304m) would be allocated.
The leaks were getting worse and the government "felt it was essential to become involved to the greatest extent possible", Mr Suga said.
The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The disaster knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down.
Water is now being pumped in to cool the reactors, but storing the resultant large quantities of radioactive water has proved a challenge for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).
'Closely watching'
Under the government plan, a wall of frozen earth will be created around the reactors using pipes filled with coolant to prevent groundwater coming into contact with contaminated water being used to cool fuel rods.
Water treatment systems will also be upgraded to tackle the build-up of contaminated water, officials said.
Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, told the BBC that the situation at the nuclear power plant was an "unprecedented crisis" and that it was "getting worse".
He said the plan to freeze the ground around the site was "challenging", and a permanent solution was needed.
The technique has only been used on a small scale to control pollution before but not with radioactive contamination, he added.
The damage to the plant has necessitated the constant pumping of water to cool the reactors - a process which creates an extra 400 tonnes of contaminated water every day.
That water is being stored in temporary tanks at the site. Last month Tepco said that 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of the tanks, in the most serious incident to date.
Satellite images show how the number of water storage tanks has increased in the past two years. The tanks store contaminated water that has been used to cool the reactors.
But in recent months there have also been leaks from pipes and there are concerns that water is seeping from damaged reactor buildings into the ground.
Last month, Japan's nuclear regulator classified the severity level of radioactive water leak issues at Fukushima as a three on the seven-point International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (Ines).
The triple meltdown at Fukushima two years ago was classed as a level seven incident, one of only two nuclear events ever rated that highly - along with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union.
"The world is closely watching whether we can dismantle the (Fukushima) plant, including the issue of contaminated water," said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"The government is determined to work hard to resolve the issue."
The funding pledge comes days before a decision is due on the host nation for the 2020 summer Olympic Games, for which Tokyo is a candidate.
Having initially reported high levels of radiation - of about 100 milliSieverts per hour near the leaked water within the moat - officials had to concede later that the equipment used to take the readings had an inadequate scale. When newer equipment was brought in, it was established that the levels of beta radiation had actually been 18 times higher. Subsequent readings have been up to as much as 2,200mSv per hour. While still extremely high, experts say that, properly protected, workers can still operate in such an environment.
"What is vital is whether this is beta or gamma radiation; the Japanese nuclear watchdog has said the radiation is beta," says Prof Paddy Regan, at the University of Surrey, UK. "Workers can get close to the source of beta radiation without a significant radiological hazard, because the beta particles lose their energy in the air (radioactivity lost after about 10cm) and assuming the source is not airborne. As long as the radioactive particles are not deposited on the skin, inhaled or ingested, the hazard is much smaller than if the radiation had been for a whole body gamma ray exposure of the same dose."
And although the public understandably finds any talk of radioactivity alarming, the overall emissions at Fukushima need to be kept in some perspective. According to Dr Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US, the release of the radioactive element caesium from Fukushima, for example, is between a 10th and a third of what was released from the accident in Chernobyl, and perhaps one fortieth of what was released by the hundreds atmospheric nuclear bomb tests in the last century.
How does Fukushima's location exacerbate the water problems?
There are steep hills behind the Fukushima plant. Rainwater runs down from those hills, through the ground on which the plant is built and out into the ocean. Radioactivity readings offshore have not fallen in the way many experts say they should have, indicating that this groundwater is picking up radioactive elements on its journey. Tepco is working on a series of plans to stop more radioactive water getting into the ocean, including erecting steel barriers and injecting chemicals into the earth to create an impermeable layer.
What is the eventual solution to the stored water issue?
Tepco has changed its inspection protocols for the storage tanks and claims this should pick up any future problems much earlier. But given the huge volumes of water being handled at the site, it is likely that Tepco will have to introduce bigger, more robust storage tanks at some point - similar in scale to the crude oil depot tanks for which there is good local technology in Japan. The water itself needs to be filtered, to take out the most radioactive elements. This "cleaned" water is likely then to go into the Pacific. Even before then, such is the volume of contaminated cooling water coming out of the reactors that Tepco may be forced simply to release some water unfiltered into the ocean.
TEPCO has confirmed that a reading of 2,200 millisieverts per hour would be enough to kill a person in a matter of hours.
But experts point out that this reading is taken very close to the source of the radiation. It drops dramatically -- to 40 millisieverts per hour -- just 50 centimeters (20 inches) away.
Junk has been floating up to the west coast of Canada and the United States from the tsunami in Japan 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ins-reach-North-America-4-000-miles-away.html
This means if it was really bad radiation that killed people it would be too late for us. But if your kid finds a glowing / warm rock on a west coast beach any time in the next few years you might wanna pass it by.
(Unless of course its a green sphere which tells you its name is Loc-Nar and you plan on changing your name to Den)
Fukushima leaks: Japan pledges $470m for 'ice wall'
Japan is to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building a frozen wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant to stop leaks of radioactive water.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said an estimated 47bn yen ($473m, £304m) would be allocated.
The leaks were getting worse and the government "felt it was essential to become involved to the greatest extent possible", Mr Suga said.
The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The disaster knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down.
Water is now being pumped in to cool the reactors, but storing the resultant large quantities of radioactive water has proved a challenge for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).
'Closely watching'
Under the government plan, a wall of frozen earth will be created around the reactors using pipes filled with coolant to prevent groundwater coming into contact with contaminated water being used to cool fuel rods.
Water treatment systems will also be upgraded to tackle the build-up of contaminated water, officials said.
Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, told the BBC that the situation at the nuclear power plant was an "unprecedented crisis" and that it was "getting worse".
He said the plan to freeze the ground around the site was "challenging", and a permanent solution was needed.
The technique has only been used on a small scale to control pollution before but not with radioactive contamination, he added.
The damage to the plant has necessitated the constant pumping of water to cool the reactors - a process which creates an extra 400 tonnes of contaminated water every day.
That water is being stored in temporary tanks at the site. Last month Tepco said that 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of the tanks, in the most serious incident to date.
Satellite images show how the number of water storage tanks has increased in the past two years. The tanks store contaminated water that has been used to cool the reactors.
But in recent months there have also been leaks from pipes and there are concerns that water is seeping from damaged reactor buildings into the ground.
Last month, Japan's nuclear regulator classified the severity level of radioactive water leak issues at Fukushima as a three on the seven-point International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (Ines).
The triple meltdown at Fukushima two years ago was classed as a level seven incident, one of only two nuclear events ever rated that highly - along with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union.
"The world is closely watching whether we can dismantle the (Fukushima) plant, including the issue of contaminated water," said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"The government is determined to work hard to resolve the issue."
The funding pledge comes days before a decision is due on the host nation for the 2020 summer Olympic Games, for which Tokyo is a candidate.
The Ice-wall is just an effort, and one many experts suggest to be harebrained in nature, to contain the constant leaking. It's not a solution to the fuel-pool dilemma they face, which is what threatens an extremely major crisis.
I find this infographic from XKCD helpful in visualizing radiation dosages:
Also, I know the study focuses on the health risk with regards to consuming seafood, but if this is what they're finding 2 years later then what are the chances it's going to get worse? Can we conclusively demonstrate that things are indeed getting worse?
(emphasis mine)
Now, Fisher, Baumann and colleagues at Stanford and the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) report in a paper entitled " Evaluation of Radiation Doses and Associated Risk from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident to Marine Biota and Human Consumers of Seafood," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, that the likely doses of radioactivity ingested by humans consuming the contaminated fish, even in large quantities, is comparable to, or less than, the radiological dosages associated with other commonly consumed foods, many medical treatments, air travel and other background sources. The authors also conclude that contamination of Pacific bluefin tuna and other marine animals from Fukushima poses little risk to these animals.
...
"For American and Japanese seafood consumers, the doses attributable to Fukushima-derived radiation were typically 600 and 40 times lower, respectively, than the dose from polonium," said Professor Fisher. "In estimating human doses of the Fukushima-derived radioactive cesium in Bluefin tuna, we found that heavy seafood consumers – those who ingest 124 kg/year, or 273 lbs., which is five times the US national average – even if they ate nothing but the Cs-contaminated bluefin tuna off California, would receive radiation doses approximately equivalent to that from one dental x-ray and about half that received by the average person over the course of a normal day from a variety of natural and human sources. The resulting increased incidence of cancers would be expected to be essentially undetectable."
Meh. It does not seem like the worse case is worse than Chernobyl. Now while that was pretty bad, it was hardly the end of life as we know it - except for those living nearby.
Oh, I don't know about that. Chernobyl wasn't located right next to the Pacific Ocean, in the path of the Pacific Current. Nor was it located in the midst of area prone to earthquakes. They were able to bury Chernobyl in concrete with an ease that doesn't seem applicable in this instance.
A Japanese fishing vessel swept away by the March 2011 tsunami has been spotted adrift off the west coast of Canada.
***
It is believed to be the first large item from the millions of tonnes of tsunami debris to cross the Pacific.
....
Note 1: In terms of the debris, people should not worry that all of the debris is radioactive. I am sure that a much smaller percentage is.
However, if even one-half of one percent of the debris is radioactive, that could still bring substantial amounts of radiation to some shore areas on the West Coast of North America. In other words, people should keep their kids away from picking up debris on the beach unless it has first been tested with a geiger counter.
I wonder why the concrete dock didn't count? Also, the debris from the tsunami is not radioactive. It was out at sea for several days before the plants started melting down.
I wonder why the concrete dock didn't count? Also, the debris from the tsunami is not radioactive. It was out at sea for several days before the plants started melting down.
I would need to see actual proof of that before I believed it. The debris field, by its nature, had to be moving slower than the water it was in, which was being contaminated. There was also a radiation plume which forced a US aircraft carrier, stationed 100 miles off the coast, to move north and out of its reach after radiation had been detected on board.
The levels of radiation may turn out to be small, but to state that the debris is not radioactive without any proof seems to be the other side of the same coin that the CTers spend on chemtrails.
Radiation experts agree that it is highly unlikely that any tsunami generated marine debris will hold harmful levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear emergency.
Some debris in West Coast has been tested by the states, including items known to be from the tsunami, and no radioactive contamination above normal was found. Marine debris in Hawaii has been monitored since April 2011, and no radioactive contamination above normal levels has been found.
NOAA is not involved in any radiation testing or tracking. For further general information on radiation, please contact EPA. The combined controls in place by the Japanese government and the FDA have prevented contaminated seafood from Japan entering the United States. For more information please call the FDA at 888-SAFEFOOD.
Here's a list for you Cairenn if you're feeling up to trawling through 28 reasons someone wants people to be scared.
Many seem to be redundant and they're all based on speculation. http://www.activistpost.com/2013/10/28-signs-that-west-coast-is-being.html
The title is blatant fear-mongering.
I do think it wise to be informed on possible areas of danger, but many out there have a compulsive need to hype any danger to apocalyptic proportions, it sells.
Satellite images show how the number of water storage tanks has increased in the past two years. The tanks store contaminated water that has been used to cool the reactors.
