Radiation Threat

I know, I hear this, it is terrible and could affect them for many years to come i.e causing deformities in children born years later. Its just awful. I want to know though why when they knew that the place was basically sitting on a ticking time bomb they built a nuclear power plant there? Obviously they could not forsee the tsunami but they were aware that this bad earthuake could happen.
You are right, there does seem to be more questions than answers at the minute and I am amazed to see how well these people seem to be coping with it, they are very relaxed people and it is just so, so sad. My heart really goes out to them , it really does.We really need to pray for a miracle.x

I know there must be a lot like this, I did hear on the news today that other countries are going to re-think their nuclear situations. I think this is a huge lesson to be learned just unfortunate that so many people could be terribly affected by this in future years to come after the terrible tragedy that they have already suffered.x

Supposedly they figured the plants could withstand a major earthquake or a tsunami, but not a "double-whammy".
U.S. Nuclear Plants Have Same Risks, and Backups, as Japan Counterparts
Reactor Design in Japan Has Long Been Questioned
Nuclear power plants shut down in Germany

As somebody who was unlucky enough to be downwind of both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl ( the surgeons were really freaked out by the "weird growths" on my thyroid), I'm heartsick over what the people of Japan are now facing. Can you imagine what it must be like for those who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

It's so depressing. I'm just SO glad we have our stance on being Nuclear free.

Southern California is not at the same risk as Japan. A quake of that magnitude there is very unlikely, because there is no fault lines like the one that broke in Japan. However, northern California and up the coast to Washington state is a different story. They have a fault line very similar to the one that broke in Japan and a 9.0 quake can happen there. The nuclear power plants in the USA are built better than the ones in Japan. The cores being protected by multiple layers of concrete (4 feet thick) and steel (8 inches thick). Nuclear facilities in tsunami prone areas have sea walls 8 feet high. The probelm in Japan isn't that the reactor itself was damaged. The cooling system was damaged and failed. But without this cooling system, they are at risk for a meltdown. The explosions were not the reactor exploding and it was not a nuclear explosion. They have been using sea water to cool the reactor. The high heat of the reactor was causing hydrogen to be released from the water. When the operators attempted to release some of this built of hydrogen and pressure, the hydrogen combined with the oxygen, a very explosive combination. I am not sure if the reactors have been shut down or not or if they are able to.
An incident like the one at Chernobyl is very unlikely. In the case of Chernobyl, the reactor was not encased in any protective vessel. The building itself was the only thing shielding the reactor. In the USA and the ones in Japan, the reactor is housed in a protective vessel. So even if the building is damaged, the reactor itself is still protected. However, during a complete meltdown, the nuclear core can melt through the protective vessel. This is why in Japan, they are doing everything they can to keep the reactor cool. I live not very far from a nuclear facility in my state. I have no worries about it, but then again, I do not live in an earthquake prone area. I think the largest we have had was a 5.4 magnitude.

I wish we were the same way in the US
It just scares me sooo much, I've seen too many documentaries on Chernobyl and the children still being born with the most awful of disabilities, one of the worst examples was a little girl who had her brain outside of her cranium Thinking this could happen again anywhere in the world makes me skin crawl, and the fact that it actually IS happening is like the worst fear coming true

I still don't understand why it was built right by the ocean and not at a higher elevation. :?

Oh, I remembered incorrectly. I thought a containment dome existed but when Chernobyl exploded and there was a subsequent fire the encasement burned without control, launching radioactive materials miles in the air. Another difference is that most people became sick from eating contaminated food, crops, milk and water etc in the region for years afterward, as no attempt was made to measure radioactivity levels in the food supply at that time or warn people of the dangers. The secrecy over the Chernobyl explosion is in contrast to the very public coverage of the Fukushima crisis.

At the least, if Japan can go through this crisis with minimal escaping radiation and containment vessel intact, it will show that nuclear power can withstand everything that could be thrown at (the biggest earthquake imaginable, followed by a tsunami and interruption of power). Furthermore, all the mistakes will be a learning lesson to make future plants as safe as possible.

Reactors can be shut down but the fission process doesn't stop right away.

Uranium enrichment for the production of electrical energy only needs to be enriched by something like 3% for it to used as fuel in a nuclear reactor. By contrast, weapons-grade uranium is encriched by 97% or 98%. Because the uranium is only enriched by such a small percentage for use as reactor fuel is why nuclear reactors won't explode like a nuclear bomb.

I'm a supporter of nuclear energy. The disaster in Japan caused by the earthquake and tsunami can teach valuable lessons to further enhance the safety of nuclear reactor systems. Nuclear power isn't perfect, there are some social costs attached to its use, but it is really the only viable alternative we have for large scale energy production when it comes to replacing coal burning power plants (which also have their downsides besides being grossly inefficient).

The biggest difference between Chernobyl and what is happening in Japan is that Chernobyl was an entirely man made disaster. It wouldn't have happened if the operator wasn't ordered to shut down five levels of safeguards.

New reactors utilize various passive safety designs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety

And I think people need to be reminded that each scale of 1 means 10x as powerful. The particular plant was quite old (47 years from what I've read), but it was designed to be earthquake proof, but only to a point. 8.9 was just unprecedented, and I don't think most can relate to how extreme of an earthquake that really is. A 10.0 earthquake has never been recorded, but is estimated would cause planetwide devastation for example.

The most powerful earthquake in Japan's history before this was in 1923, and that was a 7.9. Ten times weaker than this one.

Nuclear waste can also be very effectively recycled as is seen in France (which gets the overwhelming majority of her power from nuclear plants) rather than coal like in the US.

Heart goes out to the Japanese, and I hope that the fear mongering media doesn't exploit this and try to give nuclear power a black eye for ratings.

All forms of energy production has its risks. Thousands of people die prematurely every year after being exposed to coal mining. Oil drilling can cause spills (like the recent Gulf spill), and look at all the wars triggered because of oil.

If we as a species want to avoid these risks, we need to cut our energy consumption and develop safe ways to supplement our energy needs (such as wind or solar).

It is a total shame that people have to suffer through this tragedy after going through a major earthquake then tsunami. What a horrible triple whammy!

The TÅ¡ernobyl case was indeed different because they didn't tell about it to no one. It was noticed a day after it happened 1000km away, in Sweden, and here in Finland people thought the radiation measuring gear was showing wrong readings because no one knew what had happened. After the truth came out, it was already too late to do much. They started evacuating people 36h after the explosion. We still have too high amounts of radiation (mostly caesium-137) in mushrooms and some other things, specially near the eastern border (next to Russia)..

I read in the Japanese press that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, is desisting from a planned water spray into the Reactor 3 building through a gaping hole in the wall blasted open by an earlier explosion as the hole or holes in the roof caused by that blast was apparently not large enough. This wasn't in the English language editions but besides a concern that the maximum specified amount of radiation received by the Marines that would fly over has already been greatly exceeded. ??? Not sure if that was a last ditch effort, although at least the fire appears to have been put out.


http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78242.html

Anyone see this?

Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukush...ry?id=13141287

Yes, all forms of energy production have their risks - but with nuclear, when things go wrong, they can have an impact so far beyond any potential coal or oil disaster.

Violet, thanks for that link. Very interesting.

New York Times is reporting, "The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a significantly bleaker appraisal of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government, saying on Wednesday that the damage at one crippled reactor was much more serious than Japanese officials had acknowledged and advising Americans to evacuate a wider area around the plant than the perimeter established by Japan. " http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/wo...uclear.html?hp

The U.S. believes all the water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of Fukushima has boiled dry.

The American Embassy in Japan has told U.S. citizens to evacuate a radius of approximately 50 miles from the Fukushima plant (the Japanese have only evacuated within 20km (12 miles) of the plant).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/...pan_earthquake

Isn't this something that should have been done as a matter of course ? There is no question that the Japanese government is hiding a lot of safety information from their own people considering that the same government is still considering whether to accept offers of expert help from other countries.

Meanwhile it's the people paying as usual. Shipping companies are reluctant to even send supplies through safe areas of the prefecture, evacuation conditions worsen along with the weather, and centers do not have enough hot meals and basic necessities.

The situation seems to be changing by the day (or by the hour?), and it appears that a lot of people are spending so much time keeping up with the latest Fukushima developments that they don't feel inclined to talk about them afterwards.

I've heard more discussions about the future of nuclear energy than specifically about the radiation in Japan. It might be because Japan is so far away (>9,000 km from here), or because older people remember Chernobyl (much, much closer, with fallout here) and/or Three Mile Island.

Baden-Württemberg (SW Germany) had elections yesterday, and for the first time, a German state will have a Green premier/governor. The party made terrific gains in yesterday's elections in Rhineland-Palatinate, too, so people are obviously very concerned.

This is from our local tv station (it's all over the news on every tv and radio station)

Low levels of radiation found in Mass. rainwater

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/l...ly-from-japan/

The government should have declared a nationwide nuclear state of emergency directly after the hydrogen blast that would have opened the way to enforce an externally monitored response. It's clear that while there is no easy and/or reasonable to implement solutions, Tepco is not being open, and seems to have little idea of a plan or way forward.

Plutonium in soil, water and air was inevitable from the very beginning. If it is at a similar level seen in soil in a regular environment why didn't they allay suspicion by coming forward with baseline specifications from Day 2 ? Little surprise the utility network has now flatly refused offers of independent measures or oversight with regard to its operations.

This really needs to be declared a disaster by the UN or something now, and needs international help. I read in a report earlier that the French and Germans have a legion of specially developed radiation resistant robots that they, thank goodness, have never had to use. With these in conjunction with a collection of brilliant minds from around the world and some greater "what the f### is going on?" questions from Japan's friends and neighbors, no doubt somewhat better headway could be made - at least a plan of campaign. I fully appreciate that there is no simple or overnight solution but TEPCO seem to be devoid of any ideas whatsoever.

Naturally the Japanese people are concerned watching what appears to be a bunch of temp workers trying to clean up the Fukushima mess who have no idea even what sort of clothing they should even be wearing while the president of the company comes down sick and conveniently deserts his post during the crisis. The latest polls show 58% disapprove of the way Tepco is handling the operation. The situation is grim in the North, everyone understands that, not so much in Tokyo (but for how long ?), and locals are looking for what anyone would - analysis to rely on that is handed down in a timely manner so people can react. It took the company a week to report the plutonium, and even then the information given out is too little to determine the severity. Once emergency workers and nearby civilians start to get sick it will for sure be changed to a level 7 accident.


Just some impressions keeping up with Japan TV, news radio, friends, etc. I left the country two days after and may not be back for months.

Yes it has been detected in rain water, in Ohio too. But, from what I read, this radiation is FAR FAR less than what you normally receive from nature every day. Should we here in the states worry? No, except for maybe people in Hawaii. People in Japan? Yes, but not in the mainland US. I am not worried and I live pretty close to a nuclear plant and get most of my power from there. When you come to think about it. More people have died from coal fired power plants than nuclear. If you go back lets say 30 or so years, think of how many people died in coal mines and how many people may have died from lung cancer who live close to a coal burning power plant. I have a friend who lives near a coal fired plant and every day, his car is covered with a very fine layer of soot. And that plant has scrubbers to clean the smoke before being released into the air. Acid rain destroys forests. Acid rain is a huge problem caused by the burning of coal. Sadly, Japan was NOT prepared to handle this disaster. The nuclear plants where I live can "scram" their reactors. Scramming means they can shut down the reactor in 8 seconds. Had Japan been able to do this, they would not be faced with the problem they have now. They are having a meltdown, because they can not and did not shut down the reactors when they lost power.

Fukushima shows that nothing is fail-safe. Japan has often been praised for being extremely well-prepared for major earthquakes and tsunamis, but obviously they weren't ready for natural disasters of this magnitude. You really have to wonder how prepared the U.S. and other countries that use nuclear power are or could be.
Japan rethinks tsunami safety
Older nuclear reactors in Germany have been taken offline for the time being till "security checks" have been carried out, and a few will probably be closed permanently. That has reassured a lot of people, but what difference does it really make when France has 58 of them, many right near the Franco-German border? We couldn't eat mushrooms or game for years and years following Chernobyl, and that's still the case in much of Bavaria. So yeah, I'd be worried about the food chain in Asian countries, at least, despite claims that the radiation will be so diluted in the ocean that it won't present a threat.
Anxiety grows over Japan’s food and water supply