URGENT plant operator says radioactivity in water at reactor No. 2 10 million times usual level

A quick update:

URGENT: High-level radiation detected in trench outside Fukushima reactor building TOKYO, March 28, Kyodo High levels of radiation exceeding 1,000 millisieverts per hour were found in water in a trench outside the No. 2 reactor's turbine building at the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima on Sunday afternoon, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday. Similarly high levels of radioactivity have been found in a pool of water in the basement of the turbine building at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, raising concerns that radioactive substances may have seeped into the environment, including the sea nearby. ==Kyodo

Kyodo news

And from BBC News:

Radiation measurements from a pool of water inside Fukushima's reactor No 2 suggested its fuel rods had suffered a partial meltdown, Mr Edano said. "The radiation seems to have come from fuel rods that temporarily melted down and came in contact with the water used to cool the reactor. "Steam may have condensed... carrying water from within the containment vessel," he said That water is the most contaminated to be found at the plant so far.

BBC News

From Greenpeace experts measuring radioactivity around Fukushima (the only independent experts so far in Japan):

Fukushima, March 27, 2011: Greenpeace radiation experts have confirmed radiation levels of up to ten micro Sieverts per hour (1) in Iitate village, 40km northwest of the crisis-stricken Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear plant, and 20km (2) beyond the official evacuation zone. These levels are high enough to require evacuation.

“It is clearly not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum allowed annual dose of radiation in only a few days. When further contamination from possible ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles is factored in, the risks are even higher.”

Greenpeace

reply to post by Hundroid

“It is clearly not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum allowed annual dose of radiation in only a few days. When further contamination from possible ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles is factored in, the risks are even higher.”

Typical Greenpeace hysteria.

These people have been through a devastating Earthquake and tsunami and all the idiots in the MSM and the back to the cave mentality activists like Greenpeace can focus on is the opportunity to frighten the masses into poverty and ultimately AGENDA 21.

I AM ASHAMED OF YOU!


Here is what the guys LIVING in THERE says:

John Tofflemire says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Kevin in Koriyama,

Thanks for your post and best to you for hanging in there up in Koriyama. Here in Tokyo today the streets are full with people walking and on bikes and few people are wearing masks. Those that are wearing masks are for the most part doing so because of allergies (it’s pollen season here).

I read today that some shipping companies are refusing to sail into Tokyo Bay because of radiation fears and are instead delivering cargo destined for Tokyo and Yokohama in the ports of Osaka and Kobe.

This is the kind of behavior, if it goes on much longer, threatens to create a massive, unnecessary humanitarian crisis, behavior spawned and fanned by the irresponsible western press. I can tell you that Japanese people aware of the fear mongering over the Fukushima nuclear plants in the western media are very angry at this coverage.

SOURCE

John Tofflemire says:
March 27, 2011 at 5:25 am

I posted the following, with minor noted corrections and additions, on Climate Progress a short time ago:

Current radiation levels in Tokyo are .115 microsieverts per hour. This works out to about 1mSv per year if this unusually high amount of background radiation persists. You may be surprised to know that this [elevated level of radiation] is about one third of the average amount of background radiation Americans receive in a year. In other words, the elevated radiation we are currently receiving in central Tokyo is far less than the average American receives in the US. Those of you who are frightened about the situation here should get on a plane and fly here so that you can reduce your exposure to natural background radiation.

The situation at the Fukushima reactors is not optimal and the appropriate accounting for mistakes and adjusting will need to be done when the crisis ends. Start pointing your fingers then.

As for Lewis’ criticisms [note: a previous poster on Climate Progress] about taking two weeks to get freshwater to the Fukushima site, does he have the faintest idea as to what happened here? More than 20,000 people are dead and more than 500,000 are homeless and dealing with that disaster was the first priority and this problem at the Fukushima plant was secondary in comparison. Should the government have ignored all of the human suffering in order to respond to the situation at Fukushima [to satisfy your concerns]?

A close friend and colleague buried three relatives today, all young children and victims of the tsunami. This is what people here are focused on and they are angry that people like you are focused on this. Continue to focus on a problem that will be of little long term consequence here and absolutely none there (if you wish).

SOURCE

And here is Kevin's comment. He lives a bit further away.

Kevin Cave says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:04 pm

I live in the eastern outskirts of Koriyama city, Fukushima prefecture. My house is 33 miles due west of the Fukushima nuclear plant(s), in a New Town area which is elevated from Koriyama city “ground level”, and the house sits on top of a steep slope at the rear, which eventually goes down to a steep wall and below are rice fields. SO it’s a nice view all round and a nice birds-eye view of the city itself.

Basically, since the big quake 2 weeks ago, we’ve been “bugging in” at home, apart from that Friday night, where we stayed the night at the local community center because of a large crack in the ground all long the ground at the rear of the house and we were afraid the slope would give way and the house would end up in the rice fields down below. The house turned out to be okay thanks to 12 meter deep foundations embedding to rock below. The ground around the house, however, has compacted and sunk about 5cm, and there are interesting “tide marks” all around the house where the soil and concrete parking area just be be up to.

As I’m a bit of a weather nerd I’ve been keeping tabs on the synoptic charts and wind directions for the last 2 weeks, and luckilly, the prevailing wind direction has been from the north and north-west, blowing any nuclear material away from the house/area – thanks to the usual winter pressure patterns around Japan at this time of the year.

So I’ve been calculating that staying where I am has been inherently safer than bailing out to Tokyo, and so far this has been proven true – iodine-131 levels have been higher in the water supply south of the power plants than they have been where me and my wife are.

But even though the iodine levels in Tokyo have been higher in tap water, they levels still aren’t particularly hazardous to health – I’d receive a much higher dose of radiation flying back to my native Scotland than I am staying put!

Indeed, the western media have been in their usual Moronic Frenzy, all in the name of scaring everyone witless and selling more dead tree. It also seems that western governments are using the events in Japan to further some anti-nuclear cause, and of course media outlets such as the BBC are helping them along the way.

I’ve had very a very good friend in the UK whom I consider to be very intelligent email me saying stuff like “Mate that’s not what the news sources here are telling me! Get your ass out of Japan now!!111!oneone”, which of course is ridiculous, and it appears even he is being taken in by the media frenzy.

The UK and US governments aren’t helping by recommending any British or US citizen within 80km (I’m 54km away) of the power plant should leave the area or stay indoors. The 20km evacuation zone and the 20-30km “stay indoors” zones are perfectly adequate for this type of nuclear incident.

Sure, I’m keeping an eye on how the containment process is progressing. And if – and only if – there’s a massive ejection of radioactive material from the plant due to some kind of fire or explosion, only then will we bail out of the house and head away from the area.

For, it’s bugging in at home. Gasoline supply is not optimal at the moment – I have to wake up real early in the morning and head down to my usual gas station and collect a ticket at 6:30am, then return to the station later that day from 4-6pm, and we’re rationed to 3000 Yen worth of regular gas (works out at roughly 19.5 liters).

So yes, it is tough here, has been pretty tough for the past 2 weeks, but not as tough as the coastal areas hit by the tsunami, and not as tough as some of your friends who lived in the nearby Tamura area who had to evacuate town.

It is nice though to be able to read sane, concise, and honest reporting from the likes of The Register. At least there are some non-dumb people out there who get the real picture.

Regards

Kevin.
SOURCE

reply to post by crimvelvet


There is no doubt that the International Atomic Energy Agency has shills planted all over the internet.

It's also true that the anti-nuclear activists are jumping all over this one. And so they should.

Sure, it may be difficult to separate the truth from the PR - but it always is. That's why we're here. ...Well, some of us anyway.

Hey all you goddamn skeptics. It has happened. They found plutonium in the soil but it does not form a threat to human health, OF COURSE it forms a threat! It is the worst poison! There are 4 nuclear powerplants out of control !!! Not one... 4! The whole world should be right on top of this! What is happening man.

news.smh.com.au...

Listen this # in Lybia is nothing but a distraction. They dont want us to look at it or think about it. The situation has gone out of hand and it is grave.

How do I make a new article?

Hey all you goddamn skeptics. It has happened. They found plutonium in the soil and it does form a threat to human health, OF COURSE it forms a threat.From now on its gonna be just a spiral downwards.

Listen this # in Lybia is nothing but a distraction. They dont want us to look at it or think about it. The situation has gone out of hand and it is grave.

How do I make a new article?

news.smh.com.au...

reply to post by crimvelvet


Listen you, i dont care about the policy right now but you need to get the # out of here. This situation is terribly grave. They have now found plutonium in the soil! Another explosion took place today. There are 4 reactors out of hand! not 1 but 4!! Dont you understand you idiot that this is seriously grave?!?!

Greenpeace is doing the right thing by warning people. It is not fear mongering. It is facing the reality. i dont understand people like you. you are polluting the human intelligence. Why are you here on atm? piss off

reply to post by Sanjur0


Sadly, this goes back to what I said in another thread... These skeptics won't believe it until the melting rods are sitting on their laps.

reply to post by HunterKiller


seriously this guy must be insane. Or maybe and I have a strong feeling he is an employed dis-informer. You know big companies invest billions in these matters. It's staggering. They hire people to infiltrate websites like this and to distort the reality of occurring issues. These are the same people who work on spreading false information on the current climate crisis. So called Think Tanks. I can't believe people let themselves commit such actions. They are the prostitutes of deceit.

rainwater link

Radioiodine found in rainwater in Mass.
This is scary. Wish I could get my water tested.

Originally posted by shortnround76
rainwater link

Radioiodine found in rainwater in Mass.
This is scary. Wish I could get my water tested.

It was just a matter of time.

I figured I would share a bit of my knowledge here.
I have worked in a US based plant(Oyster Creek)
that is also a GE Mark 1 reactor. I have in my time at the plant,
worked doing lead shielding in the drywell, and worked checking for
wear and tear on the reactor vessel. yes, Oyster Creek is also renewing their license
past their 42 yr run.

Here is what I suspect they were trying to do in the beginning:

1) Nobody, and I mean nobody, has said they EVER attempted to use the boron/poison control system built into this design. Nobody in the news has asked, any one other than me curious?

2) the only reason I can figure TAPCO pumping sea water in, was they thought they could possibly salvage the reactor vessel by doing that, instead of making a definate planter out of it by using the poison control system.

no sense splitting hairs about the BS press releases. Simple common sense is needed to look at the situation.
4 reactors lost cooling and containment. Yes, containment was lost, fuel pool and reactor core was exposed
to the air. One of those is a plutonium based reactor. So lemme see, 3 uranium reactors venting to the outside
1 plutonium reactor venting to the air. Radiation following the jet stream and winding up in Boston and everywhere inbetween.

Do we in the USA have an immediate problem? NO, but I wouldn't be raising my kids without health insurance
in the Northern part of this country. Either that, or hope cancer is cured sometime in the next 20 yrs.

reply to post by xracer09


Is it bad enough to take Iodide Pills yet? 0r when should they be taken?

Originally posted by xracer09
I figured I would share a bit of my knowledge here.

Here is what I suspect they were trying to do in the beginning:

1) Nobody, and I mean nobody, has said they EVER attempted to use the boron/poison control system built into this design. Nobody in the news has asked, any one other than me curious?

2) the only reason I can figure TAPCO pumping sea water in, was they thought they could possibly salvage the reactor vessel by doing that, instead of making a definate planter out of it by using the poison control system.

Good Quote xracer.

If you know the mark one, then you know the machining for a Boron or Cad drop system is second to none. Apparently the drop was completed and I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't seat properly. The problem is MOX is in 1 and 3, and uranium is in 2 and 4 so they are acting as decay conduits.

TAPCO is pumping sea water in because it would be the last step on the emergency checklist. There is a picture on this site where you can see that most of the at least one reactor's primary containment pool is completely missing. Expecting to regain control in those circumstances seems futile. Water forces radioactive dust particles into the upper atmosphere, powdered steel transmits tremendous heat without offgassing.

scary stuff! i thought back on an old track that fits this sick decay:
www.youtube.com...

someone ought to make a RAD decay video to go with that music..

dunno how to embedd utube song here though

This crisis is good for Japan, their long term economic prosperity is now virtually assured. When Japan was nuked twice at the end of WWII it changed the psyche of all surviving Japanese for the better, no one can deny the huge advances in technology and the subsequent economic prosperity the Japanese have accomplished after WWII. In fact, their tremendous success was unprecedented in all their history. Today we have multiple nuclear reactors at risk of full blown meltdown, I admit amidst the current circumstances and tragic loss of life this seems bad at first glance, but an objective analysis of the situation will reveal that once this crisis is solved the Japanese best and brightest will step forward leading the country into a renaissance the likes of which we have never seen before. It has happened before and it will happen again, history repeats itself.

Godspeed Japan.

reply to post by JohnnyWarbucks


Are you out of your mind?

The reactors are breached, they've had to cut back on cooling water because there's nowhere for the contaminated water to go...it won't be long before the site will be abandoned to an unknowable, but certainly beyond terrible fate.

www3.nhk.or.jp...

On Monday, The power company scaled back its operation to cool the No. 2 reactor, injecting 7 tons per hour, reduced from 16. The reactor's temperature rose by more than 20 degrees Celsius.

Very large areas of Japan are going to be no-go areas for decades to come...Japan might recover someday, but it will be a very long time from now.

Japanese stocks fell as the nation struggled to contain a nuclear crisis following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its forecast for Japan’s economic growth almost in half.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the stricken nuclear plant, was set to fall for a fifth day, as sell orders outnumbered buys. Kandenko Co., the engineering company affiliated with Tokyo Electric, dropped 7.1 percent. Potentially fatal levels of radiation were detected near the Fukushima Dai- Ichi power station crippled by the tsunami.

“The situation at the nuclear plant isn’t getting better,” said Yoshinori Nagano, a senior strategist in Tokyo at Daiwa Asset Management Co., which oversees about $104 billion. “We still don’t know how much of a negative effect it’ll have on the economy. The uncertainty is very negative for stocks.”

www.bloomberg.com... /news/2011-03-29/japanese-stocks-decline-on-concern-over-struggle-to-contain-nuclear-crisis.html

Strikes me that those who respond to factual reports with cries of "stop fearmongering" are pretty scared to start with. What they are really saying is "quit telling me stuff that scares me worse than I already am."

I know looking reality in the eye is tough, but do try to steel yourselves and look, acknowledge, and act.

For a deeply knowledgeable discussion go here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

he though he saw extra 0000's in his pay check too.

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by crimvelvet

 

There is no doubt that the International Atomic Energy Agency has shills planted all over the internet.

It's also true that the anti-nuclear activists are jumping all over this one. And so they should.

Sure, it may be difficult to separate the truth from the PR - but it always is. That's why we're here. ...Well, some of us anyway.

Well said, kind sir, well said!

___________________

Capitalism at it's worst, . . .
this human made catastrophe could have been avoided :
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette
whistle blower speaks

Nonetheless, like many countries around the world -- where General Electric and Westinghouse designs are used in 85 percent of all
commercial reactors , guess what >
G.E. paid no taxes on $5.1 billion in profits
source >yet the health of
future generations will be paying the price

_________________