EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Experts: Radiation at Fukushima Plant Far Worse Than Thought
Water at surprisingly low levels; damage "worse than expected"
Radiation levels inside Fukushima's reactor 2 have reached fatally high levels, and levels of water are far lower than previously thought, experts say today.
A radiation monitor indicates 131.00 microsieverts per hour near the No.4 and No.3 buildings at the tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture February 28, 2012. (REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayama/Pool) The current radiation levels are so high that even robots cannot enter. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says that new robots and equipment will need to be developed to deal with the lethal levels of radiation.
TEPCO spokesperson Junichi Matsumoto told the Associated Press, "We have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation" when locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning.
At ten times the lethal dose, the radiation levels are at their highest point yet.
At the current level of 73 sieverts, the data gathering robots can only stand two to three hours of exposure. But, Tsuyoshi Misawa, a reactor physics and engineering professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, told The Japan Times, "Two or three hours would be too short. At least five or six hours would be necessary." He added that "the shallowness of the water level is a surprise, and the radiation level is awfully high."
* * *
The Japan Times: Reactor 2 radiation too high for access
73 sieverts laid to low water; dose too high even for robots
Radiation inside the reactor 2 containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has reached a lethal 73 sieverts per hour and any attempt to send robots in will require them to have greater resistance than currently available, experts said Wednesday.
Exposure to 73 sieverts for a minute would cause nausea and seven minutes would cause death within a month , Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The experts said the high radiation level is due to the shallow level of coolant water — 60 cm — in the containment vessel, which Tepco said in January was believed to be 4 meters deep. Tepco has only peeked inside the reactor 2 containment vessel. It has few clues as to the status of reactors 1 and 3, which also suffered meltdowns, because there is no access to their insides.
The utility said the radiation level in the reactor 2 containment vessel is too high for robots, endoscopes and other devices to function properly.
* * *
BBC News: Probe finds high radiation in damaged Fukushima reactor
The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has said damage to one of the reactors is much worse than previously thought. [...]
On Tuesday workers managed to insert a probe into reactor number two for only the second time and found damage worse than expected.
Radiation was up to 10 times the fatal dose, the highest yet recorded at the plant. The level of water cooling the melted-down nuclear fuel was also far lower than expected.
The other two melted-down reactors, which are yet to be examined closely, could be in an even worse state, our correspondent adds.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
212 Comments so far
Show AllHarvey Wasserman and others have said this over and over for the last year, but the US and Japanese governments have lied over and over.
"The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has said damage to one of the reactors is much worse than previously thought."
Doh! Japan should gather up all of the members of their 1%, give them some rubber gloves, and make them and their children clean it up.
yes, thanks...very important to not lose sight of this...the entities running things are larger than nations...
this is another reason future oppression is of great concern...
Things are under control right? Their decommissioning schedule is right on track, as soon as they develop robots that can withstand the radiation!
What an irresponsible industry.
These clowns will trot out their cost per kilowatt hour - but of course they NEVER include cleanup costs or storage costs for spent rods etc.....
LYING by omission -
and never answer actual questions - but only deflect and divert - usually by starting a fight that takes the debate off into the netherlands where FACTS can be conveniently ignored. Hope they are paid well and not just ignorant.
This NRC map of US nuke plants shows we have zero reactors under 10 years old, 10 from 10-19 years old, 42 20-20 years old, and 52 30-39 years old. Nuclear industry folk want to keep these going another 50 to 70 years.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/map-power-reactors.html
As early as 1972, scientists warned against the Mark I reactor, but government and industry knew better:
"In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks. Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html
Then we had a new one here for a few day, ~HayDuke2000~,, The Duck quaked and quacked and they all had a few other brain damaged supporters.
Well the good news is, they managed to put the plant in a state of "cold shutdown" in mid December.... No problems.
And they are trying to pour cement into the ocean bay near the plantt to contain the deadly radiation pouring out from the three melted down reactor's cores..
And the beat goes on and it will continue to go on for at least 40 more years according to Tepco engineers.... How about a few thousand more years maybe?
I was *wondering* about Jake Newton the *other* day...
haven't *seen* him *around*, lately...
wonder if he's still *with* us...
perhaps this site no longer *warrants* his *interest*?
There has been at least one major release of nuclear or radioactive material EVERY SINGLE YEAR that humans have had this technology. Equipment failures and malfunctions at reactors and nuclear research facilities are so common as to not be reported to the public anymore UNLESS there is a catastrophic event.
Except that: Concrete, in the presence of this much radiation, turns into sponge in about 30 years, if Chernobyl is any guide. So you have to rebuild the cement coffin every 30 years to the tune of 100 billion dollars which is the present cost of the massive replacement shield being built to put over Chernobyl right now. It's like a superdome stadium from the pictures I've seen. And not one article about it behind the Iron Curtain in the USSA, since GE owns the media there. They never mention this cost when they tell you nuke power is "too cheap to meter".
I think we're going to have to switch to giant granite slabs like the Egyptians used and we will have to inscribe a curse at the sealed entrance door: "ALL WHO ENTER HERE ARE CURSED AND SO IS THE DNA OF THEIR DESCENDANTS FOREVER."
Tomb raiders a thousand years from now, will scoff at the curse saying it is just superstition and start mysteriously dying like Carter's team did when they breathed the deadly spores of King Tut's burial chamber.
Will the Concrete sarcophagus last 240,000 years? (Pu-239's safe level?) No, it won't even last 10 years if the dishonest Tepco is involved. The Japanese government will steal the containment funds and take it to their new headquarters in India. Oh Yes, the Gov of Japan is planning to move to India along with the One Percent into a new region they are buying from the Indian Government. They know how dangerous this triple-plus meltdown is, and they're getting the hell out of Tokyo.
There is no way to "decommission" a nuclear meltdown. Those deceptive words really mean hiring the mob to dump it all over asia, which they have already been photographed doing: dumping it in Tokyo Harbor which caused a dead Whale to surface belly up soon after they started doing it, if the photo and reports I've read are true. Tepco has been ordered by the Japan National Police to quit it's relationship with the Japanese mafia the Yakuza.
I just hope a courageous American patriot with means will see this and alert the American people to the fact that radiation is going to shower their children for the rest of their lives since Tepco owns the Japanese government which is BURNING nuclear waste, which floats up into the jet stream and falls out in the United States just like Mt. Pinitubo's ash did when that volcano exploded in 1991. Fukushima's 12,000 sizzling Plutonium-laced fuel rods (up to 10 years of nuke waste) constantly catching on fire due to Earthquakes cracking the cooling water systems apart is the greatest human catastrophe in our history according to a ex-IAEA official (who was fired for the remark.)
We now know the melt down and melt through on at least Daiichi Reactor number one happened within about 16 hours after the earthquake that caused it (not the tsunami as reported by the Mainstream media.) Tepco lied for months about it, then claimed the spaghetti lava blob on the foundation floor was in "Cold Shutdown" and the gov pronounced the accident over.
100 percent PFL (Pure Fucking Lies). They were just buying time to dump their stock and get the hell out of Dodge.
End all Nuke Power Now, before it ends us.
TJ
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har...
1) Either at the next earthquake, when all the miles of cooling jerry rigging, which barely holds together now, gets shook up, and/or
2) Metal fatigue and corrosion cracks the containment some more and/or
3) Fuel hits the water table, which to my understanding would cause a major hydrogen explosion. Just a matter of time.
Somebody correct me but I was under the impression Sievert is a dose. The Japan Times got it right in the first sentence but i guess they lost it further down.
tic tic tic tic tic tic tictic tic.....
But I'll have you all know that ONE INCH is not the same thing as 2.54 CENTIMETERS! They are completely different! If you use Centimeters the whole measurement and thus the whole article is invalid! (Sarcasm Off)
What the Pro-Nuke Lizard doesn't want anyone to know is that a Sievert is about the same thing as a REM in radiation. When I hauled radioactive isotopes for DOD (Department of Defense), I was allowed ONE REM/Sievert per year, if I recall correctly. This means the radiation in one hour at Fukushima is more than you are allowed in 161 years if that is the reading in CPM being recorded. If so, the hand holding up that radiation detector belongs to a dead man walking. The trolls claim that since time is not specified on an instant CPM reading, that the reading is invalid.
But simple math, or taking several readings over the course of an hour (if you live through it) will give you an rough ballpark measurement that shows that the Fukushima reactor IS NOT in cold shutdown. It never was anyway after the meltdown since industry guidelines require that the most conservative definition of Cold Shutdown be used.
Massive fission product emissions being detected by numerous groups and institutions all over the world confirm the nuke fuel is loose on the world. It's probably falling out on your family right now. It is already in your food supply from the MOX (Plutonium Oxide) fuel explosion from Reactor Number 3, a year ago.
Dear Readers, How long are you going to let this go on? Why haven't you printed this article out, including the comments, and left it on every coffee table and bulletin board you can find?
TJ
'What the Pro-Nuke Lizard doesn't want anyone to know is that a Sievert is about the same thing as a REM in radiation....'
Not really. 1 rem = 100 sieverts.
'...When I hauled radioactive isotopes for DOD (Department of Defense), I was allowed ONE REM/Sievert per year, if I recall correctly. This means the radiation in one hour at Fukushima is more than you are allowed in 161 years if that is the reading in CPM being recorded. If so, the hand holding up that radiation detector belongs to a dead man walking....'
I suspect that you were allowed 1 rem/year in addition to background (which in mainland US is about a third of that). The caption on the photo (which is unrelated to the article) says 131 microsievert/hour (13.1 millirem/hour). A couple of hours at that dose-equivalent rate would increase one's annual rate by less than 10%.
John
Somebody here just tried to float a most ridiculous notion: and I quote:
TJ says:No. You are wrong. If 1 rem = 100 seiverts, as you say, I would not be here. The correct relationship is: 1 Sv = 100 rem, You must have just typed it in backwards, huh?
Do you see why we should not be fooling around with dangerous nuke power? Man is fallible and always prone to Murphy's Law. Or, more likely, the calculation error was intentional, just like with disposable Fukushima plant workers, to make it appear there is no danger from nuke power plants.
What I meant by the comparison of the two rulers is that they are both about absorbed radiation doses. Unless, of course, there is something I don't understand. Rads, Greys, Rems, Sv, all can be converted back and forth with a calculator provided we know the source (Fukushima) and don't have Tepco or it's captured Japanese government do the readings. But, It would have been more correct for me to say: 1 rem equals 10 mSv. I stand corrected. Thank you, oh king troll of the tiny hair-splitters.
TJ
p.s. That's what I get from trying to go on memory alone. Remember, I used to fly this chit over your rooftops at 2AM in the morning for a living. I can't tell you how many times I fell asleep at the wheel. My memory has faded. Let's hope the supervisors of the 750 reactors world wide never make mathematical or memory mistakes like the Korean Manager fired last Month. Let's hope they don't ever fall asleep at the switch at 2 in the morning. That nuke plant in South Korea last month lost all power, the generators did not pick up the load correctly, and almost melted down. Then there was the Castle Bravo nuke bomb test that got away from the military and nuked Australia, India and most of the western pacific: All from a minor bomb yield mathematics error. The yield was many times what they intended to light off. The islanders downwind are still having "squid" babies I hear, that have no bones in their bodies. And those bombs only contain a few pounds of plutonium, unlike Fukushima which has many TONS catching on fire. Nuke power generation is not the Disneyland they tell you about.
'Somebody here just tried to float a most ridiculous notion: and I quote:
' Not really. 1 rem = 100 sieverts.
'TJ says:
No. You are wrong. If 1 rem = 100 seiverts, as you say, I would not be here. The correct relationship is: 1 Sv = 100 rem, You must have just typed it in backwards, huh?'
Yes, 1 sievert does indeed = 100 rem. I typed that in incorrectly. I apologize.
'Do you see why we should not be fooling around with dangerous nuke power? Man is fallible and always prone to Murphy's Law. Or, more likely, the calculation error was intentional, just like with disposable Fukushima plant workers, to make it appear there is no danger from nuke power plants.
'What I meant by the comparison of the two rulers is that they are both about absorbed radiation doses. Unless, of course, there is something I don't understand. Rads, Greys, Rems, Sv, all can be converted back and forth with a calculator provided we know the source (Fukushima) and don't have Tepco or it's captured Japanese government do the readings. But, It would have been more correct for me to say: 1 rem equals 10 mSv. I stand corrected. Thank you, oh king troll of the tiny hair-splitters.'
No, rads and rems can't be converted to grays and sieverts, unless the type of radiation is known. For example, 1rad = 1 rem of beta rays. But 1 rad = 20 rem of alpha rays.
John
Hey ~johnny I~ , where ya been, we missed you?
You forgot to tell ~TJ~ that there really is no serious worries about the cesium 137 and plutonium in the air.
Please tell us all again ~John Iannetta~, why inhaled isotopes of cesium or plutonium isn't really so bad for one's health and how we get more radiation from the potasium which is in our bodies all of our lives.... Thank you Johnny I.
And now let the games begin,, fun, fun, fun!
Am I the only one here that thinks this whole thing is REALLY, and I mean REALLY not going to end well?
Glad you are not ~Thoma Jefferson~ here,, who signs off with ~TJ~.
IMBd description: "In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth's plant life being kept in a greenhouse on board a spacecraft." Not a great movie, but a prescient theme. (Also, George Lucas stole R2D2 from this movie).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/