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Published on Thursday, March 17, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Entombing Fukushima?
Last Defense Not Being Used as Possible Meltdown Approaches
As all other methods fail to stop the tragic slide toward full meltdown, physicist Dr. Michio Kaku emphatically exclaimed in an interview on ABC News that the "Chernobyl option" must now be employed. This was the use of military helicopters to "entomb" and seal the reactor by dropping massive amounts of sand and concrete. Here is a brief two minute clip of Kaku explaining why the time has come to utilize this last ditch maneuver.
Kaku describes this as the last "ace card" we can play in the desperate fight to fend off catastrophe. Yet the Japanese government and power company continue to flail with irrational strategies such as dumping water from helicopters, most of which - by their own admission - is being diverted off target by cross winds. Due to multiple reactors, it would be a huge logistical challenge to get the sand and concrete dropped in time. But the sooner the decision is made to mobilize, the greater the chance of success. Precious time to avert disaster is slipping away while the last best preventative step is not even being utilized.
What must be acknowledged by all parties is that those supervising the battle against meltdown are not only physically exhausted human beings but also very likely reeling and emotionally drained from the earthquake and massive tsunami. It does not appear that rational decisions are being made. It is a time when other parties not subject to such duress need to step in and offer more clear strategies. Citizens everywhere should be LOUDLY INSISTING that the Japanese government act responsibly and employ the last ditch Chernobyl option. NOW is the only chance to act preventatively and prevent what could become a massive cesium and strontium poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people and a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.
Dr. Marvin Resnikoff is a career specialist in the management of nuclear waste who worked for the state of Nevada in estimating radiation levels involved in the storage of radioactive material at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. In his piece published on Huffington Post, he uses the concept of "Hiroshima equivalents" to make the immense levels of radiation more comprehensible to the public: "If Unit 4 operated for 35 years and produced 30 tons of irradiated fuel per year and each ton is equivalent to 24 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, then each fuel pool could contain on the order of 24,000 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, if all the produced irradiated fuel remains in the fuel pool." (emphasis mine)
It will be claimed that any publication of such numbers is the act of an irresponsible alarmist. In fact the opposite is true. In order to take the appropriate step with the greatest chance of preventing a harm from manifesting, one first needs to have a clear view of the level of danger. From this clarity, wiser decisions can be made.
In a global emergency like this, many feel powerless - as if the scale is simply too large to even try to do anything to prevent the worst from happening. But it is essential to break through that sense of passivity. We must empower ourselves to call out to our own public officials to act responsibly and intervene in a positive way in the Japanese situation before it is too late.
Children would be the most vulnerable to the terrible impact of the radiation. Elevated and potentially massive rates of cancer would infect their youthful years, bring much suffering, and cut short their lives. Do we not owe it to these untold numbers of children to be able to say that we at least tried everything in our power to prevent this horrific tragedy from occurring ? As of this moment in time - with the Japanese authorities flailing and squandering precious time by pursuing inadequate and irrational strategies - such a statement cannot be accurately made.
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29 Comments so far
Show AllProfessor Kaku is correct. Time for the concrete solution. Governor Cuomo of NY has called for one of that state's reactors to be shut down. Governor Brown of California should show some similar leadership,( as should other governors with 40 plus year-old reactors in their states), and order San Onofre and Diablo Canyon reactors shut down...before it's too late. We need to take a long hard look at how this nation wastes vast amounts of electric energy and cut down our consumption while we are still a viable society capable of making rational decisions.
When it warms up a bit more where I live, I will plant some carrots, onions and tomatoes, and watch the sun set.
I think it is time, and long past time, to abandon this sad charade we call Modern Life'. It's killing us, killing the only place we can exist. We do not cars. Or computers.
But we do need an environment that can sustain life.
At the very least the Japanese should start immediately to move in heavy equipment, sand, etc. to prepare for this (inevitable) eventuallity. There's probably no shortage of earthquake debris in the area that could be used to bury the site. Perhaps some materials could be moved in by barge, since the plant is on the seashore.
One would hope that such things are already on hand because of the quake relief effort.
Everybody should send cooling thoughts in the direction of Fukushima.
Other than that, we better hope like hell that the folks actually in a position to do anything can -somewhat- salvage the situation.
What is not mentioned here is the unavoidable cost in human life that entombment entails, which is why it will be adopted only as a last resort.
Nevertheless, the arguments for its use are compelling.
Hoping for the best possible outcome for the Japanese people at this time.
The best possible outcome is death.
The author puts forward the words of Kaku an American and probably a corporate grunt speaking on ABC. Then goes on to dis the Japanese in their fight to control and end the nightmare. Kaku you are not there and know nothing of what is going on in those reactor buildings. Sit down and shut up. No one wants to hear from the Americans that built the nightmare and screw the rest of the world in country after country.
America's cure for everything is to drop something from the air.
How do you know Kaku that sand and cement will not trap water under it and cause a steam explosion or drive the molten radioactive mass to burn down to a water pocket or the sea and do the same. Your Chernobyl solution worked in Russia with an already buried reactor not one with fuel rods tens of feet over the reactor.
These reactors have 50 to 100 times more atomic material than Chernobyl had and this is uncharted territory. Perhaps Kaku you can suggest solutions for your own country that is so in debt that if it could not print paper money it would be bankrupt and has created chaos in 56 million people lacking healthcare, jobs and any sign of a bright future.
Gary Houser might spend his time doing some research about nukes in stead of rehashing a corporate ABC news story. America really needs to get over itself.
Why are you jumping to conclusions if you have'nt a clue who Michio Kaku is!!!!!
Prof of Theoretical Physics, CCNY.....and world-reknowned author............How can your monkeywrench be velvet.?.........
I have heard Mr. Kaku speak many times and I have NEVER heard him spin things for political purposes. He's a physicist who is seriously grounded in reality and incredibly smart in many areas. He is one of a VERY FEW people I see on M$M that I take seriously. He can be counted on to be a voice of truth in what has sadly become a sea of lies.
By the way what would YOU recommend they do to fix the problem with the reactors?
Kaku is a well known physicist who is a backseat driver. Japan has many excellent physicists as well. They are there and have a much better idea of the reality that confronts them and they are and will be dealing with the consequences of their behavior both before and after.
What business is it of our physicists to be telling others what they should do? Oh that's right we know everything and never would make their mistakes except we (GE) built them and they are known to be a bad design.
I, having little knowledge of the facts on the ground, have absolutely nothing to say about any solutions.
"Kaku is a well known physicist who is a backseat driver. Japan has many excellent physicists as well. They are there and have a much better idea of the reality that confronts them and they are and will be dealing with the consequences of their behavior both before and after."
Sure. Japan has many excellent physicist. But, even Yukiya Amano, the Japanese head of the IAEA has complained about the information supplied by the Japanese government (to the IAEA)
Furthermore, while the people on the ground obviously have a better idea of the actual reality, it isn't as if they have lots of experience dealing with nuclear disasters of these sort, few people do (Kaku obviously does not either, but Kaku is referring to a previous disaster to suggest a solution.
Not only that the people on the ground while they might have much more intimate knowledge of the problem, might still be somehow mistakenly trying to salvage the plant.
Lastly, even the Japanese government appears to be pissed off at how TEPCO handled the situation initially.
Kaku is a television star. The purpose for his existence and efforts is to sell stuff for his sponsors.
velvetmonkeywrench does have a relevant point though: Kaku, while an expert physicist, isn't there, and AFAICT, does not appear to have any first hand information about the problem. (I say this as someone who basically agrees with him here, and someone who's been wondering why they haven't appeared to consider just entombing the site and writing it off.)
Maybe Kaku should volunteer his expertise to the Japanese government (not that they lack expert advice anyway, the head of the IAEA is Japanese)?
I think it also highlights the fact that people that run goverments are employed through cronyism and mostly incompetent....
That's what happens when you rig elections over the years and keep employing the liars...
They are pathetic...
TEPCO owns the Fukishima #1 and #2 nuclear power plants One has 6 reactors and the meltdown and fuel rod problems. No one has said anything about the other one only about 12 km away and on the coast as well. Why not?
Does anybody know what is going on with #2 (which has 4 reactors instead of six)?
And about entombing a nuclear power plant. The idea is to prevent FURTHER contamination of air and ground. What has ALREADY been contaminated must be abandoned like near Chernobyl or cleaned up if it is not too big an area. In Spain some farmers are STILL WAITING for the US government to finish cleaning the contaminated ground for the nuke a B52 accidentally dropped on them several decades ago.
Every day that goes by there is more contamination. There is a bean counting dance going on right now to see how much the public will shoulder versus what TEPCO will shoulder. Also, several related negative economic effects are being considered by the Japanese government. They may be somewhat corrupt, but they think logically. When they come to the conclusion that it isn't worth the aggravation and misery to try to salvage the plant(s), they'll entomb it (them) within a few days. Count on it.
Nuclear power plants that have never had an accident have been entombed. A faulty containment structure in a nuclear power plant built decades ago on the west coast of Puerto Rico provoked entombment. It's still there. It was never operated.
Entombment is the only rational answer to this tragedy.
I wanted to mention this to you folks here to show you that there appears to be some hope for the deep sixing of all things nuclear.
On another forum where investors chasing the dollar congregate (The Daily Reckoning) they are talking about having to dump their Uranium mine and refining shares because they see that the "nuclear renaissance" is dead (AFTER they sold their shares, of course - they even bragged about the ROI they made in the last two years). All the posturing coming from the nuclear lobby is "risk management". You are going to see a massive push to make sure we the people swallow all the decomissioning costs while they tell us what a great investment nuclear power was and what an ungrateful bunch of traitorous "librals" we are (They will, of course, ignore minor details like the fact that nuclear medicine never needed massive reactors to obtain radioactive tracers and material for irradiation of body parts). That's all smoke to realign the asset ducks for the "never give a sucker an even break" crowd.
These dollar chasers are even discussing alternate technologies and potential high profits from geothermal infrastructure manufacturing as well as prime locations for power plants. It is comforting to me that they seem to agree that fossil fuels cannot be returned to and must be phased out.
I hope it's not too late.
Entombing Fukushima.
FUKU HOW????
Do we not owe it to these untold numbers of children to be able to say that we at least tried everything in our power to prevent this horrific tragedy from occurring ?
OF COURSE NOT. LET THE LITTLE BASTARDS FEND FOR THEMSELVES. AFTER ALL, WE'RE TALKIN' PROFITS HERE.
I wish this wasn't humorous.
The intent was for both cynicism and sarcasm all wrapped up into one neat package. The corporations DON'T care what happens to people. All costs and damages are socialized. All profits are privatized. That is the capitalist method. This quarter's profits are ALL that matter, profits are the ONLY matter. A few people are gonna die? Well, tough shit, because profits are UP.
I'd recommend entombment as a probable option at this point. I hope Tepco goes bankrupt for its failures and I hope the Japanese government gets voted out in a couple of years, but right this minute it's better to stop the long-term suffering of the people from getting worse.
Both Caesium-137 and Strontium-90, singled out as the isotopes with the biggest expected impact in this case, have a half-life of about 30 years. If the Fukushima complex can be entombed for 200 years, about 99% of the Caesium-137 will then have fissioned into relatively inert elements.
The other thing tons of sand does is cut the oxygen off from the fires. A very little air percolates through sand, so there won't be a hydrogen bubble building up in the sand.
This isolation is certainly better than thousands of people getting bone cancer from the stuff getting into the regional food chain. Releasing millions more curies of the worst stuff costs more thousands of innocent lives than we'd like to imagine.
In some cases it's worth sending brave soldiers or firefighters in to probably get cancer and then live less than five more years. However, if I were either the Japanese or the American government, I'd think about sending in remotely controlled vehicles and robotic arms to do the dangerous work whenever possible. Ten really slow telepresence robots are better onsite than one fast worker.
Every gravel pit in the wealthy world has a conveyer belt which can drop 1000 tons of sand or gravel onto the top of a big rock pile, or into a small hole. If possible, engineers should set these conveyer belts up onsite with robotic
assistance, then truck the sand in to within a mile and then dump it on target.
Right now everything at the site has holes in it. I'll take an educated wild guess that plugging the holes is a way of reducing the local nuclear contamination by a factor of 10. There's one or two factors of 10 more radioactive isotopes down in the holes than has gotten loose so far. If you have lived maybe 50 miles away from the plant and can't bear to leave your home, and some people are attached to their land, a factor of 10 reduction in cancers is significant.
As was mentioned, perhaps entombment is NOT practical. What is under the plants? Water aquifers, bed rock, sand, and what water is still around or near the rods? Enough to blow the cover after it is on and really spread the radioactivity? Maybe to the US? Or blowing it while it is being placed? It's easy to sit 6,000 miles away and say that they should do this or that, but, if you don't have personal contact with all of the situation, you are blowing steam...
Houser sez: "We must empower ourselves to call out to our own public officials to act responsibly ..."
***
So ... how much in campaign 'contributions' are we talking, here?
Guess I was still hoping it wasn't so depressingly catastrophic. Just makes you feel weak, helpless and sad.
I'm pushing 70 and lived a good life with very few want's but what about so may of the others who are young and full of life's desires?
Always amazes that we let the most extreme out of balance (maybe even schizophrenic) people lead us.
"Always amazes that we let the most extreme out of balance (maybe even schizophrenic) people lead us."
If we saw the sort of behaviour politicians and corporations exhibit in any other individual/body, it would be seen as dysfunctional at best, but most likely psychotic. Never trust those that want to order your life - they are not fit for the purpose.
No gods. No masters.
Response from author of "Entombing Fukushima":
It appears some commenters have missed my point. I do not question the courage of the workers, but do question the wisdom and the insular character of those running the operation. Open-ness brings in a wider perspective, and potentially more clarity re: strategic approaches. We owe it to those who would suffer to lay all cards on the table. Why is Kaku being faulted for bringing in a line of thought that may well achieve the best outcome the circumstances may allow? Everyone there is obviously under great duress.
There is no claim that the burial strategy is foolproof. But by opening up that option to serious consideration, perhaps the brainpower can be gathered to make it work. The headline story on Common Dreams today confirms that door is now being opened. Here is more in an excerpt from Reuters:
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Japan Weighs Need to Bury Nuclear Plant
By Shinichi Saoshiro and Mayumi Negishi Shinichi, Fri Mar 18
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986..... It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work....."
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I continue to believe this option should be explored. Maybe a conveyor belt operated by robots would minimize the human toll? Due to the race against time and logistics involved, the necessary equipment should be surveyed NOW.
Gary Houser
One thing we will probably see from Japan (but no other country) is suicide by plant executives and workers who =tried= to do the correct thing, correctly and rapidly, but failed their countrymen. Quarterbacking from other nations will contribute to this. My heart goes out to them. They are trying as hard as they can.
Trylon