Radiation at Fukushima nuclear plant at unimaginable levels

a reply to: 5StarOracle

So I even flat out said its a disaster of immense proportions. So i'll cover that one. Im not saying its not an issue. What I'm saying is the concept that this radiation is going to leak out and give the world cancer is very very flawed. The range of the radiation being produced doesn't have some infinite distance to travel. The biggest problem right now is that there is highly contaminated water that is coming out because of the cooling methods that they're using. It's really just a matter of which evil is less awful at this point. That contamination will get into the bay and rest on the sea floor but you have to realize a lot of this contamination from fission products is heavy metals. They're very dense, so its going to sink before it spreads globally. You can defy physics.

When I said the core is stable, I meant that its not still critical. The core is shut down and heat that is being generated is caused by residual fission products and transuranic products of the reactor fissioning and becoming more stable. Thats going to happen, its just a thing. Theres a HUGE line between actively undergoing a nuclear chain reaction and decay heat though. So the core is going to continue to heat up, and as they cool it, its going to continue to leak some level of contamination to the environment, but as long as the core itself is inside of the containment structure and remains in the situation it's in, there is no threat for a catastrophic release that everyone is worried about.

The whole purpose of a containment structure is to do exactly what its doing, i.e., hold the products from a failure of the pressure vessel. Its designed to shield the radiation that is actually inside from the outside. So yes, is there an insane amount of radiation? Yes. Is that radiation inside the building going to get out and give the world cancer and destroy us? No, as long as the containment structure is intact.

Then finally on the whole ingesting contamination. Sure if you eat something contaminated with Cesium or Radioiodine then, yeah, youll get a dose. But in a vast majority of the time it won't be enough to actually have a really high probability of causing cancer. Youll just poop it out. Or it'll be excreted. As fate would have it the human body doesn't like foreign objects in it, and will do what it can to get rid of them. The only issue is radio iodine which likes to settle in the thyroid...but the core itself didnt actually explode into the atmosphere like chernobyl did, so you should be fine on that front. I hope that cleared something up. I know at the end of the day everyone hears nuclear and jumps to absolute worst case scenario, with chernobyl and how it happened, and the effects. But the thing to keep in mind is that this isn't that...not even close.

a reply to: RickinVa

And exactly how much man made radiation to you consider safe?

Man made radiation is no different from natural radiation. Both are a result of nuclear decay.

If you want to talk abut how much radiation you receive from a plane flight or eating a bag of potato chips....go for it.

That's what I'm talking about. Not so much the potato chips though.

Man made is an entirely different ballgame.

Can you explain how man made radiation differs from natural radiation?

a reply to: truttseeker

Ill just touch on ingestion...
While cesium would most likely pass through your body that does not mean it has done no harm to organs you will have received your dose...
But the even bigger concearn is strontium which is a bone seeking isotope... Its not going to be leaving your body...
Many would say this would be contained to local fisheries but its just not the case...

It is wrong also to believe that Fukushima is not even close to Chernobyl because Fukushima is not fully understood as to its true state... It has potential to still dwarf Chernobyl x3... You seem to have the belief that it is under control this is far from reality...

a reply to: loam

and people still think nuclear energy is clean and safe. These reactors and ticking bombs. Its not a question of it things will go wrong its a question on when..

But we have to have them so we can make nuclear bombs... if we wanted to be cleaner we would use thorium reactors...

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Sad, scary, and not a peep in the media.

Why?

Why? Well hell we are eating radiation and whatnot by the spoon full daily anyway! I mean this is the day and age where we take medication with 10 pages of how the sh*t might kill you so dont say we didn't warn you! LOL

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: DBCowboy

The problem really stems from not anticipating a tsunami quite as large as the one which occurred. The generators got inundated. After that it became a case of successive failures.

There was radiation detected outside of containment prior to the tsunami arriving at the plant:

Bloomberg reports that a radiation alarm inside Unit 1 went off before the tsunami even arrived, indicating coolant already had been lost and fuel melting had begun.

...

A radiation monitoring post on the perimeter of the Daiichi plant about 1.5 kilometers from the No. 1 reactor went off at 3:29 p.m., minutes before the station was overwhelmed by the tsunami that knocked out backup power that kept reactor cooling systems running, according to documents supplied by the company. The monitor was set to go off at high levels of radiation, an official said.

THREE MELTDOWNS AT FUKUSHIMA; EVIDENCE OF SEVERE DAMAGE BEFORE TSUNAMI HIT REACTORS (direct .pdf link)

They knew within moments what was released and where:

Magna’s head, Haim Siboni, said the thermal cameras also have the ability to detect the presence of radioactive clouds in the air. “Using these special cameras, we can also identify radioactive clouds, due to the spectrum that our cameras can sense,” Siboni said.

Israeli Firm’s Surveillance Cameras Watch Damaged Nuclear Core

With the graft and corruption in the Japanese nuclear power industry and lax enforcement of regulations, the cooling pipes were a mess of patch jobs and ill fitting band-aids that the shaking of the quake was enough to damage the cooling system sufficiently for a meltdown or 2 to have occurred without the tsunami.

I will grant that placing the backup generators at grade rather than having them elevated was a bad idea, but Turdco was originally told by early engineers that the spot they were choosing was bad due to the possibility of a tsunami but Turdco decided to ignore them and build where they did anyway. There were older warnings, too, so how far back do you want to go in the series of decisions that lead to us having 3 level 7 meltdowns at one power plant?

We can also toss in there that they weren't expecting that particular spot to let loose with a quake of such magnitude; that was (and still is) expected in the Tokyo Bay area.

How long do you think it will take us to develop the technology to deal with these 3 molten blobs (that have to be continually cooled) of radioactive slag that used to be nuclear reactors? You know anything with circuits is toast within hours even in somewhat close proximity to these things, much less being able to get close enough to extract it from the mess it's made of itself and it's housing.

Could we go steampunk and analog/mechanical rather then electrical?

Ya know, low tech rather than high. This situation is a serious question that needs serious answers.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical
That's concerning. However, so is this:

Bloomberg reports that a radiation alarm inside Unit 1 went off before the tsunami even arrived, indicating coolant already had been lost and fuel melting had begun.

Is there any followup on that?

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical

Bloomberg reports that a radiation alarm inside Unit 1 went off before the tsunami even arrived, indicating coolant already had been lost and fuel melting had begun.

While that's pretty sensational and I understand why Bloomberg embraced that explanation - death sells - it's not exactly accurate. What it indicates is that there was enough radiation to trigger the alarm.

The answer to 'why', that's a lot more complex than 'it must indicate that fuel melting had begun'. I'd relegate "fuel melting" from "must" to "a tertiary possibility", possibly less. Mainly because you didn't have enough time for that to really get underway.

MORE likely by far is - a pipe broke and you're venting some primary loop steam OR some tritium. Setting off external alarms with a tritium emission is probably the #1 cause. That alarm is pretty hair triggered.

Now, if it was more "every freaking alarm inside and outside the containment was going off non-stop", you might upgrade that to 'yep, it's likely you were getting exposed core'. But a single alarm, it's more probable you had popped a seal or opened a sampling line or the like.

a reply to: Bedlam

MORE likely by far is - a pipe broke and you're venting some primary loop steam OR some tritium. Setting off external alarms with a tritium emission is probably the #1 cause. That alarm is pretty hair triggered.

A leak of primary loop stream makes sense, I'm sure you're aware that there is only one loop in the Mk1 rectors and the same water that flows over the rods is then turned into steam to power the generators rather than using a heat excharge system.

Tritium is also a possibility. Without access to the data, we'll never know for sure.

There was another source reporting this too back then; when I get the chance, I'll dig through the newly revived mega thread and if I can find it.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Single loop reactors are bad designs. Sort of goes with other decisions in this site's engineering.

a reply to: 5StarOracle
So again I'm not brushing this off as not a big deal. What I'm saying is that there's an intact containment structure and a cooling method available to keep the core remnants cooled. The reason I say Chernobyl was far worse is because when Chernobyl exploded, it blew the containment structure up with it, along with going prompt critical it instantly vaporized all of the steam and literally trashed the entire containment structure. This led to burning core chunks laying around the site. Compared to a molten-down core that is actively being cooled and inside of a containment structure Chernobyl was a lot worse.

Also 70-80% of ingested strontium will be excreted. Yes the remainder will be in bone marrow, but by the time it decays, gets into the food chain, decays within the food chain and has ~70% excreted, get processed and shipped away to actually be eaten you're looking at 70% of 70% of the original amount being excreted out. Granted yes you'll get your dose of radiation, I'm still saying in the quantities you're going to see, it's not a cataclysmic situation that will give everyone cancer.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: RickinVa

And exactly how much man made radiation to you consider safe?

Man made radiation is no different from natural radiation. Both are a result of nuclear decay.

If you want to talk abut how much radiation you receive from a plane flight or eating a bag of potato chips....go for it.

That's what I'm talking about. Not so much the potato chips though.

Man made is an entirely different ballgame.

Can you explain how man made radiation differs from natural radiation?

"Man made radiation is no different from natural radiation. Both are a result of nuclear decay."

BS..the human body has had millions of years of development.......man kind introduced radioactivity that has only been around 70 years...it never existed until nuclear testing started in the 40's.

There is a huge difference between man made radiation and natural radiation which has been around for eons.

originally posted by: RickinVa
There is a huge difference between man made radiation and natural radiation which has been around for eons.

No, Rick, there simply isn't. It's like saying there's a difference between natural carbon, and deliberately making it. Carbon is carbon, and radiation is radiation.

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: RickinVa
There is a huge difference between man made radiation and natural radiation which has been around for eons.

No, Rick, there simply isn't. It's like saying there's a difference between natural carbon, and deliberately making it. Carbon is carbon, and radiation is radiation.

Certain types of radiation never existed prior to 1940. Mankind introduced them into the environment. They have existed since and are steadily climbing. They can't drop it, so they keep raising the minimal levels to coincide with the environment, like the EPA did a few months back.

Not going to respond, all of this was discussed back in the day when Fukushima first blew.. quite a few threads with hundreds of posts..... no need to rehash all that over and over again.

You have your opinion and I have mine. I haven't any Pacific seafood since 2011. Enjoy your Alaskan King Crab...thats the one I miss the most.

Fun fact: the job with the most radiation exposure every year is congress. This is because the material that the building is made out of is naturally radioactive. We haven't created new types of radiation. We've created new radiation sources by enrichment, etc. with that said there is an insane amount of naturally occuring radiation. People have had to evacuate their houses due to radon. Iran a thing, and the dose you get every year based off of nuclear power is laughable in comparison.

a reply to: truttseeker

What I'm saying is that there's an intact containment structure and a cooling method available to keep the core remnants cooled

And I'm saying this is wishful thinking combined with a prayer.

GE workers resigned over reactor flaws

Just over 40 years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues resigned from their jobs at GE, due to their increasing concerns about the Mark 1 nuclear reactor. They were growing more and more convinced that the design was so flawed that it could inevitably lead to a “devastating accident.”

In a 2011 interview with ABC News, Bridenbaugh explained, “The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant.”

“The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release,” he added.

Questions about the safety of the Mark 1 and its ability to handle the immense pressures that would result if cooling power was lost continued to persist for decades. (RELATED: Follow more news on Fukushima at FukushimaWatch.com)

COVER-UP: GE Handled Fukushima’s Nuclear Reactor Design, Knew It Was Faulty … “So Flawed It Could Lead To A Devastating Accident”

Incompetence, earthquake, tsunami and new pictures from a molten pressure vessel. None of that matters, the containment has to be intact. Right? Frankly, which is it now? Damage control or blind optimism?

Let me explain this in layman's terms.
This event is 33K times greater than that of Chernobyl.
I did security on a research team that went there several years ago. ( Chernobyl )

I strongly urge you Gentleman and Ladies to keep these threads active on this subject.
And provide as much solid scientific information as possible.

Buck

originally posted by: flatbush71
This event is 33K times greater than that of Chernobyl.

By what measurement?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

I agree, but I'm saying that there was a loss of cooling. There were hydrogen explosions; I understand that. We've also done extensive casualty analysis of Fukushima and their reactor design as a lessons learned sort of training. I'm telling you that the containment is intact, the fuel and reactor complex isn't in open air, or else it would be much worse.

My job is literally operating nuclear power plants for the us navy. On top of that I'm an instructor in the training pipeline. I know exactly what happened here, and we took it and put it forward for future training and design. I don't have blind optimism I have almost 10 years of operational experience and theory to back me up.

a reply to: truttseeker

Now I dont know how much of this post is untruthful but I can comfortably say atleast some of it is...
Because a cold shutdown was never achieved 100%core meltdown occurred x3 none of the fuel has ever been located along with the fact that damaged grating below the vessels has been visuallized through images it is believed by experts that the fuel is in the ground...
It is just not admitted to nor confirmed because they have the convenient excuse of they dont know...
You have no position to make the claim the fuel has been contained if in fact if this was true it would be proclaimed as a reality...
The fact is they can't make such a claim...

It is also believed that unit 3 was a much more serious event in the form of a criticality excursion and a steam explosion ejecting the entire mox fuel core into the atmosphere...

The real truths are not being adimited to here...