New assessments of the explosion at unit 2 of Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Tuesday heightened fears that it will begin spewing large amounts of radiation.
Radiation readings from troubles throughout the plant spiked so high that the remaining skeleton crew of workers was at least temporarily ordered to abandon their posts, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference Wednesday.
The draw-down of the plant’s workers “is a sign to me that they have given up trying to prevent a disaster and gone into the mode of trying to clean up afterward,” said nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen.
Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw.
The level of radiation at the plant surged to 1,000 millisieverts early Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts. Still, that was far more than the average
"So the workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now," Edano said. "Because of the radiation risk, we are on standby."
after a week of constantly hearing people talk about how the media is sensationalizing all of this, when is the time to start worrying?
after a week of constantly hearing people talk about how the media is sensationalizing all of this, when is the time to start worrying?
Now what? They watch it catch on fire? There has to be some kind of procedure to stop these fucking things.
We need to worry because the lifetime odds from dying of radiation is zero. RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFES!
http://danger.mongabay.com/injury_odds.htm
I remember reading that when the Russians had their little accident, the workers were standing on the roof pouring shit in basically: They knew they'd be goners but did it anyways because it needed to be done.
I wonder if it's going to come to that for Japan...ask for some volunteers to go back in, knowing what the consequences will be....
Chuck
Fossil fuels burn and turn into CO2 and other combustion gases, and minerals. No radiation.
after a week of constantly hearing people talk about how the media is sensationalizing all of this, when is the time to start worrying?
Hopefully in 50 years we'll have Gen IV reactors which aren't capable of this kind of failure mode.Maybe in fifty years we'll have robots we can send in there that are shielded from the radiation and can be quietly buried later, but right now there isn't a damn thing we can do. If they do meltdown about all we can do for awhile is dump water on them from helicopters. They knew when they built the damn things better designs were available that were practically foolproof and chose to go cheap.
Good luck with that. Every day this goes on is another nail in the coffin of nuclear power in this country.Hopefully in 50 years we'll have Gen IV reactors which aren't capable of this kind of failure mode.
(Or rather, hopefully in 20 years we'll have Gen IV reactors, and in 50 years we'll have fusion reactors.)
Good luck with that. Every day this goes on is another nail in the coffin of nuclear power in this country.
Good luck with that. Every day this goes on is another nail in the coffin of nuclear power in this country.
There have been no helicopter flyovers are far as I know.Helicopters...
Those pilots are being exposed to very high doses. It reminds me of Chernobyl in so many ways...and most if not all of those pilots died within weeks/months due to radiation poisoning.
Those pilots are well aware of this and are doing it anyway. Respect.
~4.5 Sv (450 rem) is the LD50/30. Last I heard last night, the Japanese government had increased the occupational limit from 0.1 Sv (10 rem) to 0.25 Sv (25 rem) so that the workers could address the Unit 4 SNF pool situation.Now is the time to start worrying, this is a full nuclear release.
1 sievert per hour is fatal. (1 sievert is a fatal dose)
They really fucked this up to let it get this bad.
Nothing is gone. Radioactive readings would be so much higher if the fuel pool or reactor was laying in pieces on the ground. Don't make shit up.That is #3 on the left.The fuel pool is gone. Reactor probably now also.
I remember reading that when the Russians had their little accident, the workers were standing on the roof pouring shit in basically: They knew they'd be goners but did it anyways because it needed to be done.
I wonder if it's going to come to that for Japan...ask for some volunteers to go back in, knowing what the consequences will be....
Chuck
I welcome any critique or corrections of the following..
I would think it would be hard to resubmerge the spent fuel rods. If they are hot enough to burn, then you would have to add water at a high rate or it would just turn to steam. And if you could add water fast enough to exceed the rate at which it becomes steam, the water would take quite a while to cool the spent fuel below the boiling point, so you would have to replenish the pool somehow for quite a while.
I doubt helicopters could add water fast enough to accomplish anything. Maybe knock a hole in the building and create a manmade tsunami using very large dump trucks to add lots of water as quickly as possible.