Meanhwhile, back in Fukushima... cracks open up in the ground, venting radioactive steam by SignyM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Meanhwhile, back in Fukushima... cracks open up in the ground, venting radioactive steam

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, October 14, 2011 02:49
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VIEWED: 3046
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Saturday, August 20, 2011 6:49 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
It was early August, around 9PM. A worker at Fukushima I Nuke Plant sent an email to his local contact, saying “Steam gushing out of cracks on the ground. The area is foggy with steam, and the workers evacuated temporarily. Some kind of reaction may be occurring underground. Watch out for radiation level depending on the wind direction”.

From the information source within the government, “I’ve heard about the steam coming out from the ground, and I am concerned”.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/08/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-worker-no-st
eam.html
---------------

Quote:
Host: “Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground underneath the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the cracks” [...]

Dr. Robert Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute: “It’s a very serious and alarming development because this started to happen specifically after two large earthquakes in the last few weeks, there was a 6.4 on the 31 of July 31 and a 6.0 on August 12 ... This will make it much more difficult to work there... It’s an indication that radioactive material is moving under the ground”

But not to worry... all the food from Japan is fine according to Hillary, the NRC thinks nuclear power is safe, and everything is under control!

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 8:20 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I fear that the Japanese themselves are our canary in the mine. People will worry when Japanese people start dying wholesale.

Disturbingly, I think that nobody has any idea how to stop what is happening. It seems to me that this meltdown will simply continue until it exhausts itself.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 10:16 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I agree with Anthony; scary stuff.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 10:20 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

I was so hoping this was a PN post.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 11:02 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I think if it was a Pirate post, the title would have been along the lines of, "Obama nukes Japan" or some such.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 9:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Fukusima is the most important item happening anywhere on the entire planet, and we are hearing nothing in the news.

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Saturday, August 20, 2011 10:06 PM

DMAANLILEILTT

If it was Pirate I think there would have been at least one reference to Nazi Jews in there somewhere.

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

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Sunday, August 21, 2011 4:29 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Okay... Nazi Jews avoid Fukushima. "Let them eat (radioactive) beef!" they chant!

-------------------

I think "the plan" is to keep pumping radioactive water from the groundwater there, treating it and recirculating generically over the mess hoping will reach the corium (wherever it is). Also, constructing some kind of fabric tent that lets air and water through, but not particles.

What they should also be doing is building a deep barrier around the site... at least to bedrock... to contain the radioactive groundwater so it doesn't flow off site.

-----------------

Do you recall, early on , that I said that with all of our satellites and spy planes, that our government KNEW what was going on?

Quote:
... according to a new book... written by Kevin Maher, former Japan Desk director at the US State Department.... if the plan to evacuate 90,000 Americans had been carried out, it could have triggered reactions from other foreign governments, and caused panic among the Japanese.

Maher's book recounts the inside information that Maher obtained as he was part of the special task force within the State Department right after the March 11 disaster, communicating with the Japanese side.

... {by March 16} The US had already knew about the unusually high temperature of the reactors from the Global Hawk data, and determined that "the fuel has already melted". The US thought the Kan administration was simply leaving the disaster response to TEPCO, and "distrust [in the administration] was intense". The US high-ranking officials wanted to evacuate the US citizens [from Tokyo] but the local officials including Maher objected, as "it would severely undermine the US-Japan alliance". The plan was never implemented.

It's very heart-warming to know they left 90,000 US citizens in Tokyo under the radioactive plume, which literally rained on them on March 15, 16 and 21, for the sake of "alliance", isn't it?

At the same time, the British and French nuclear operators and their government agencies went on high alert... not to check their plants but to manage the news.

The PNish part of me is saying.... all nuclear operators and their dependent government agencies and the militaries which receive the produced plutonium have a common interest: The FIRST thing that is controlled in the event of a nuclear emergency is THE NEWS.

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Monday, August 22, 2011 8:26 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Scary stuff Signe, thanks for being the one to report back periotically on this issue.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, October 10, 2011 5:05 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/10/09/general-us-nuclear-plants-ge
nerators_8725148.html

4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants
By RAY HENRY , 10.09.11, 01:11 PM EDT

ATLANTA --

Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans.

None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant's hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. That worst-case scenario happened this year when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan lost all backup power for its cooling systems after an earthquake and tsunami.

Three diesel generators failed after tornadoes ripped across Alabama and knocked out electric lines serving the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant in April. Two failed because of mechanical problems and one was unavailable because of planned maintenance.

Another generator failed at the North Anna plant in Virginia following an August earthquake. Generators have not worked when needed in at least a dozen other instances since 1997 because of mechanical failures or because they were offline for maintenance, according to an Associated Press review of reports compiled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, October 10, 2011 6:04 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Good to know MSNBC is good for something...manufacturing radiactive cracks in the ground at taxslave expense.

I'm sure Rachael Mancow will take full credit.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2011 4:14 AM

BYTEMITE

Agree with Sig and Anthony, either they have no idea how to stop the meltdown, or their only plan of operation is to let the radioactive material dilute itself and they don't care how far the contamination spreads.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2011 9:03 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Me, too. It's been pretty obvious from the start that the government was only interested in minimizing the PERCEPTION of the contamination, not actually protecting their citizens. That makes them, lessee...about like every other government on Earth?

I also agree about the canary thing...we get to watch in real time what will eventually happen all over the world if we don't take action. Trusting a company running a nuclear reactor to keep people out of harm's way is kinda like trusting BP to follow all the rules to prevent a blowout.

p.s. If it had been a PN post, it would be titled something like "Dictator Barack Hussein Obama..." something. And don't you love, with all his hatred, that radioactive cracks in Japan are viewed by him as a conspiracy by...what, MSNBC?

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Tuesday, October 11, 2011 5:37 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Fukushima makes the Russian government look like shining heroes. Within hours they had rigged specially shielded helicopters to dump sand, lead and boron on Chernobyl. (And despite the shielding the pilots took large radiation doses.) Within days they had the entire area evacuated.

I wonder about corium. How far will it tunnel if you just let it go?

After repeatedly going critical and blowing fuel and other radionuclides into the atmosphere, and hitting the water table and steam-cleaning the lighter radionuclides out of the corium and into the air, and washing it out to sea - will the corium tunnel so deep it just kind of - buries itself?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 3:54 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I continue to follow this, but the news worse than before. Japan is discovering that the contamination has spread mush farther and is much more serious than they originally measured.

Plutonium, is the longest-lived and most toxic of the major radionuclides. It is virtually undetectable without sophisticated equipment.

There was an experiment called the Baker experiment (Operation Crossroads 1946) "the world's first nuclear disaster". Baker was an underwater detonation, one of three planned (Able, Baker, Charlie). In the Baker experiment, about 12 pounds of plutonium were used, of which roughly 2 pounds fissioned and 10 pounds were vaporized.

The plan was to use the radioactive elements and a geiger counter as a quick check for plutonium (while sampling in parallel), and to use the radioactive elements to guide decontamination. This was to determine whether ships/ tanks etc could be cleaned and returned to service. They got about a week into the decontamination, but when they got the plutonium results back, they immediately stopped work, scuttled the ships and aborted the last detonation. Pressure-washing didn't work.

Now, compare this to Fukushima. Unit number 3 used MOX (mixed uranium-plutonium oxide); the fuel is roughly 4-8% plutonium, and the spent fuel pool (SFP) contained roughly 90 tons of fuel. (That's just the SFP of one unit. I leave it to you to look up the entire fuel load at the complex) This translates to roughly 7,000 - 14,000 pounds of plutonium: 700 to 1400 TIMES more than the Baker experiment.

Unit No. 3 SFP appears to be destroyed and empty of fuel. Fuel pellets and bits of rod in recognizable form were found 2 miles from the plant. Where did all of the rest of the spent fuel go? How much was vaporized?

That's why I howled with... laughter?... when PN posted a picture of Unit 3 exploding, with the comment Oh. Look at the pretty MOX missiles. An entire horrific tragedy encapsulated in one trenchant caption. Sometimes thinking the unthinkable is necessary.

As a result of finding plutonium in all kinds of unexpected places, the Japanese government has decided to stop monitoring for it.

In the Chernobyl area, they have found that ditches, gullies and valleys are especially dangerous, as rainwater and snowmelt leach radionuclides downward. The same is happening in Itate and Fukushima; they can decontaminate all they want, but the surrounding forests and hills have been quickly recontaminating their villages.

In Chernobyl, heart and brain defects in children are common. That is because the heart and brain both stop developing early and can't repair themselves if damaged by radiation. The Pacific northwest and much of northern north America has already become contaminated with Fukushima fallout... milk in the Bay area recently exceeded limits on cesium... and because the complex CONTINUES to emit radioactive contaminants the fallout will continue to accumulate. It will continue to be an oozing pustule on the face of the earth. Eventually, people will fear the rain as well as welcome it, knowing that it brings a fresh batch of fallout.

Curiously.. or perhaps not so... news on the complex... the state of the reactors and spent fuel pools, the position of the corium, the amount of radioactive emissions, the functioning of the water decontamination system, cooling water leakage, and groundwater monitoring... is impossible to find. The corium is STILL locally fissioning... we can see that with fresh iodine emissions. But Japan wants this dead, dead, dead. And so does the nuclear power industry across the globe and... more importantly... the militaries which depend on commercial reactors to produce the plutonium that their weapons programs depend on.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 4:15 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ2011100813751

Hello,

I read this today. I found it disturbing that radioactive water was being sprinkled on the ground to prevent radioactive dust/dirt/soil from being blown around in the wind.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 4:21 AM

BYTEMITE

Well, it's not uncommon to damp down loose soil and dirt if there's a contamination concern, but yeah, using radioactive water is kind of exacerbating the situation a little.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 7:01 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thanx, Sig. I'm afraid I couldn't read the whole thing, it just got too depressing and too scary. I got down to the little "X" (something's not coming through) and thought to myself: "Yeah. Situation: bad. Situation: worse than bad" and had to quit. You're certainly right about Russia, tho'; who'da thunk Japan would be WORSE than them?

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 3:59 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

BRAWM Berkeley monitoring results

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling

which looks like it just monitors air, but they also monitor grass, milk, food, rainwater etc.

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 8:50 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

What can be done to fix it?

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, October 13, 2011 11:30 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

That's a good question.

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Friday, October 14, 2011 1:20 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I continue to follow this, but the news worse than before.

but the news worse than before

Anyone with a basic comprehension skills can clearly see what you're trying to say here, and that trivially leaving out one small word, is , doesn't in the least bit take away from the message as a whole.

The ONLY point I am trying to make here is that, in this format, folks routinely type things on the fly, and their mind races on faster than their fingers. Not every single word gets proof read, so the occasional typo or error can and does happen. To ANYONE. And yet, far too many of such incidents are selectively brought up by some, simply to avoid from dealing w/ the greater issues at hand.

A nuclear disaster, imo, is an extremely valid and worth while issue to be discussed, with out children pointing out the smallest, most irrelevant non issues and attempting to side track entire threads by belittling others.

Sig, by Kwickie's thinking, your omission of two letters clearly shows that you can't even write at a basic level, and therefore, your entire post, your entire point of even being here, is nullified ,and your opinions rendered moot.

That, I believe, is a way of thinking which most will admit is absurd and nonsensical.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

Nuke disasters = bad.

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Friday, October 14, 2011 2:23 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

If you'll notice, I tend not to follow the typo/ spelling faerie crowd. Not my thing, yanno? Especially since I tend to post quickly, most often at the ends of the day, and I suck at typing.

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Friday, October 14, 2011 2:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
What can be done to fix it?

There are a lot of "its" to fix. Stopping the source of radiation and then decontaminating the site would be a good idea, but at this point, I don't think anyone knows how.

What can they do? The corium is buried somewhere either in the concrete which holds up the reactor vessel, or in the ground below that. It is still burrowing its way to the water table, if it's not there already. They would literally have to build an underground wall down to bedrock to isolate the most highly-contaminated groundwater. Then remove all of the spent fuel from the reactor-building SFPs and dry-cask them, then dismantle each reactor building piece by piece... all of which is highly contaminated with vaporized uranium and plutonium... dry-cask them... remove the corium (somehow) and dry cask IT... and then keep it all safe for several tens of thousand of years. And then run the groundwater through a water-purifier for the foreseeable future... at least 100 years... re-injecting the cleared water back into the ground to help flush out the radionuclides.

AFA decontaminating the swath of Japan which runs from Fukushima northwest into Itate and southwest to Tokyo... I think this will be like Chernobyl. There will be certain NO GO zones which by all rights should include the swath from Fukushima to the northwest.

AFA the ocean... I have no idea how they will decontaminate the ocean.

------------------

OF course, Japan is doing very little of this. Their plan seems to be...

Eat contaminated food.

Burn the radioactively-contaminated debris and agricultural waste and loft it into the air; let the rest of the world deal with it

Ditto the oceans... our collective ultimate dumping ground

Put tents over the reactor buildings which will loft the emissions higher into the air (let the world deal with it), and either let the corium fizzle out or burrow its way so far down that it is no longer retrievable.

-------------------
This is not very different from decommissioning any nuclear power plant, except that the amount of debris is smaller, or course.

But each power plant has literally hundreds of tons of spent and active fuel, and there are about 800 such plants around the world, and we have no method for storing it for the radioactive life of the material, let along responding to nuclear disasters. To build a new sarcophagus over Chernobyl would cost $20 billion... peanuts, compared to what we spend on warfare, but too much money for the international community, it seems.

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Friday, October 14, 2011 2:49 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
If you'll notice, I tend not to follow the typo/ spelling faerie crowd. Not my thing, yanno? Especially since I tend to post quickly, most often at the ends of the day, and I suck at typing.

The issue being made with the thread is far more important, imo. We all got on this boat for different reasons, but I hear ya.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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