Radioactivity rises in sea off Japan Nuclear plant (April 16)

[jpak]

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/radioactivity-rises-in-sea-off-japan-nuclear-plant-99345

Levels of radioactivity have risen sharply in seawater near a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant in northern Japan, signaling the possibility of new leaks at the facility, the government said Saturday.

<snip>

Since the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems, workers have been spraying massive amounts of water on the overheated reactors. Some of that water, contaminated with radiation, leaked into the Pacific. Plant officials said they plugged that leak on April 5 and radiation levels in the sea dropped.

But the government said Saturday that radioactivity in the seawater has risen again in recent days. The level of radioactive iodine-131 spiked to 6,500 times the legal limit, according to samples taken Friday, up from 1,100 times the limit in samples taken the day before. Levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 rose nearly fourfold. The increased levels are still far below those recorded earlier this month before the initial leak was plugged.

The new rise in radioactivity could have been caused by the installation Friday of steel panels intended to contain radiation that may have temporarily stirred up stagnant waste in the area, Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters. However, the increase in iodine-131, which has a relatively short eight-day half life, could signal the possibility of a new leak, he said.

<more>

[flamingdem]

1. Um, the rise might be related to 3 melting down nuke cores and open air SFP ! nt

[Fledermaus]

2. And this will probably go on for months.

They can't empty the water out of the trench or basment. They keep filling back up.

[flamingdem]

3. Waiting to hear - situationis stable and shouldn't be a Level 7!

[FBaggins]

5. They can't empty it until they have some place to put it.

It isn't like they can't pump that much. After all... they pumped it all IN there in the first place.

[flamingdem]

7. Are they doing anything about that? Latest was they have no solution nt

[FBaggins]

9. Reportedly, yes.

They're working on temporary storage options while moving a floating facility (russian?) that removes some of the contamination. There's also been talk of using something like a tanker to hold the waste. One report (I'll put it up in a sec) indicates that they're shooting for the end of May (I know).

[Fledermaus]

17. What does TEPCO have? 5 or 6 big cement pumps?

Chernobyl Equipment Graveyard
There is a reason why insurance companies will not insure nuclear power.


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=51%C2%B009%2716.16%22N+29%C2%B058%2757.41%22E&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=51.153751,29.981925&spn=0.010269,0.011458&z=16

[FBaggins]

18. There isn't a shortage of pumps.

There just isn't anywhere to pump the water TO yet.

For goodness sake... have you so blinded yourself that you're now not sure a first world nation can pump WATER? Time to wake up. If the "mad max" guys can drive a car up to the gate, Japan can send 100 fire trucks if they choose to.

There is a reason why insurance companies will not insure nuclear power.

And let me guess. Because both incidents had the same score on a seven-point scale, you think they're exactly the same... right?

[Fledermaus]

19. There appears to be a shortage of solutions. Like TEPCO doesn't have enough $ for a solution.

This disaster it will go on for months and months!

[FBaggins]

21. Sorry... did you think there was a magic fix available if...

...they just wrote a big enough check?

This disaster it will go on for months and months!

It'll be years and years before it's cleaned up... that doesn't mean that things aren't getting (generally) better. Radiation levels around Japan in generall never got very high and have been declining steadily.

[Fledermaus]

28. I don't think TEPCO has the $ to fix Fukushima. The radiation levels in the ocean are not better.

And they won't be getting better any time soon.

No utility has the money to fix a Fukushima and they can't get any insurance. The nuclear industry stands on the backs of poor people. Its like the Tobacco industry. They don't care if people will die of cancer from their product.

[FBaggins]

30. Do people live in the ocean?

Are they unable to measure any radiation coming from fish that they catch?

And yes, they will get better pretty fast.

No utility has the money to fix a Fukushima

And the rest of Japan will just sit back and say "darn... I guess it can't be fixed"???


And for the record... pumps and tanks aren't exactly expensive items. The problems with the cleanup don't include a lack of funds... it's an abundance of caution. A caution that has resulted in dramatically lower risk to the workers on site than the risk that the Chernobyl liquidators took.

[jpak]

36. No, they eat food from the ocean

pathetic

[FBaggins]

37. Blindly?

No checks or safety measures or anything?

Wow... Who knew that the Japanese were so primitive?

[bvar22]

4. Everybody RELAX!!!

They're just venting a little steam.
Nuclear Power is perfectly SAFE!
These plants are "engineered" to withstand Earthquakes, Natural Disasters, and Terrorist Attacks.

Besides, Airplane Crashes kill more people.
(I NEVER understood how THAT was supposed to make me feel better about Nuclear Power.)

[flamingdem]

6. Also, RELAX the cancer won't appear for several more years, enjoy life!

Eat contaminated vegetables and fish cuz it's below the safety limits we just raised!

[FBaggins]

8. I can help you with that last one.

"Safe" is used as an absolute term only by anti-nuke activists when they refer to nuclear power. They can't see past their paranoia to apply the SAME standard to ANYTHING else in life. So that's just an example.

Are cars "safe"? Sure... and much safer than they used to be. But that doesn't mean that you aren't taking a risk by getting into one. It's just a risk that you accept because walking to work would take too long (and it might rain) and you can't afford to live down the street from your office.

Is hydro power safe? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that nothing bad can ever happen (or even that tens of thousands of people won't someday die from one failing).

Is it "safe" to live in southern California? Yep. But someday a lot of people are going to die in an earthquake there.

Are bridges safe? Airplanes? Living anywhere in the U.S. west of the Mississippi?

The list goes on and on and on. For everything EXECPT nuclear reactors, "safe" does not mean "zero possibility of anyone EVER dying from this thing".

[flamingdem]

10. Do you have any concept of what it means to lose the Japanese fishing industry? nt

[FBaggins]

11. Did they lose it?

Goodness... that would be bad news.

But it hasn't happened and isn't going to.

It's going to HURT the LOCAL fishing for awhile... but in case you missed it, many of their fishing boats are sitting on top of what was once their living room.

[jpak]

12. You have no info to back up that ridiculous statement

137-Cs is in the coastal food web at concentrations above "safe" levels.

Releases of volatile radioisotopes are on-going.

There is no end in sight.

revise that remark

yup

[flamingdem]

13. Perception will also kill it, can't blame folks for wanting to avoid cesium in their meal nt

[FBaggins]

15. Of course I do.

Fukushima is hardly the only spot around Japan where fishing occurs and the levels of cesium will necessarily fall over time. This isn't going to destroy all Japanese fishing.

Fish from Ibaraki province is already back on the market.

[jpak]

20. BS - you have no data and the half-life of 137-Cs is 30 years

which means it's going to be around for decades

Just like Bikini Atoll

yup

[FBaggins]

22. Is the ocean off of Fukushima magically still?

Half lives aren't the only way for radiation levels to drop.

Just like Bikini Atoll

Would just kindly take a look at the amount (and type) of material released at Bikini and compare it honestly? You would give up this point rapidly if you tried.

[jpak]

25. It's in the sediments in the biota - it's called biogeochemistry - learn some

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110412/full/472145a.html

A team led by Dominique Boust, director of the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) in Cherbourg, is now predicting the level of contamination in marine organisms and sediments using estimates of the quantity of radioisotopes released from Fukushima, and the ratios of those isotopes calculated from available seawater measurements.

The team calculates that about 50 radio isotopes contribute to an overall concentration of roughly 10,000 becquerels per litre in the sea water within 300 metres of Fukushima. Before the accident, caesium-137 concentrations there were about 0.003 becquerels per litre, and iodine-131 was not detectable. On the basis of these figures, the IRSN researchers suggest that sediments in the region could now contain 10,000–10 million becquerels per kilogram; fish could carry 10,000–100,000?becquerels per kilogram; and algae, some of which are particularly susceptible to iodine uptake, could contain up to 100 million becquerels per kilogram. Japan has legal limits of radioactivity in fish for human consumption of 500 becquerels per kilogram for caesium-137, and 2,000 becquerels per kilogram for iodine-131.

"Doses will decrease very quickly with time and distance from the facility, if no further leaks occur, but there could remain a persistent low-dose component in the local marine environment for many years," says Thomas Hinton, deputy director of the IRSN's Laboratory of Radioecology, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Modelling in Cadarache, France. "The impacts are best addressed through an international long-term assessment."

Ward Whicker, an environmental and radiological health expert at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, agrees that a survey would be worthwhile. "It would require a great deal of sampling effort, near the discharge point as well as at locations farther away," he says. "Concentrations of radionuclides in water, sediments, plankton, molluscs, crustaceans, seaweed and fish would need to be measured, and the health of the ecosystem monitored."

<more>

[FBaggins]

27. So you dodged the post entirely?

What a shocker :sarcasm:

And strangely missing from your linked article is any indication that fishing off Japan will not be possible for decades.

In fact... it actually says just the opposite:

Although radioisotope concentrations in fish, shellfish and seaweed could exceed limits for human consumption for weeks, Whicker thinks that it is unlikely that scientists would be able to detect any genetic effects on marine life. Any affected creatures would probably disperse into the Pacific, or die more quickly, he says. Moreover, teasing out radiological effects from other stresses, such as conventional water pollution and the damage caused by the tsunami, would be extremely difficult.

[madokie]

14. And cars, boy do they ever kill so many

devastate whole towns and counties too.
just in case :sarcasm:

edit to add: they render whole sections of the country uninhabital too when that happens. should outlaw them on that alone, wouldn't ya think?

[FBaggins]

16. ~40,000 people die in them every year in just the US

How many people have died so far from radiation from Fukushima?

[bvar22]

23. Fukushima has PROVED...

...that it CAN & WILL happen again.
Fukushima has PROVED that the proponents for this industry can't be trusted to tell the TRUTH.

What are you going to be hyping Next Time?
.
.
.
and the time after that?:shrug:

[FBaggins]

24. Who ever said that it CAN'T happen???

Fukushima has PROVED

All it proved that in the worst earthquake in their history... combined with an historic tsunami... 40 year old reactors STILL kept the general public from catastrophy. While thousands upon thousands died from earthquake and water and many thousands more are ill or injured.

What are you going to do when there ISN'T an historic earthquake/tsunami and we're talking about modern reactors that don't rely on backup generators to keep the core cool and don't have fuel pools sitting outside of containment on the roof?

Of course the question is rhetorical... because we all know that your answer is "a reactor is a reactor... they're all Chernobyl in disguise!"

[jpak]

26. Lots of folks have proclaimed another Chernobyl could never happen again

They proclaimed this could not be another Chernobyl

they were wrong

yup

[FBaggins]

29. And Chernobyl HASN'T "happened again"

So no... if someone said that they wouldn't be wrong.

This event has THREE reactors all failing massively... and combined it STILL isn't anywhere CLOSE to Chernobyl.

[jpak]

31. Is it over? Nope

Scream a little louder

:rofl:

[FBaggins]

32. Getting closer to "over" every day.

Less and less activity in those cores... less water needed to keep them cool (thus less water leaking out and less activity IN that water).

The impact on land is rapidly declining (and was never very high).

A few agonizing weeks while they cobble together some place to store the water they collect and they can dramatically reduce any additional damage to the ocean.

Their friends Oyoshio and Kuroshio (along with half-lives) will take it from there.


Some fish caught in parts of eastern Europe STILL have activity levels higher than fish a few miles of Japan will have three or four months from now.

As for screaming... cut me some slack. It's a pain to tag with the iphone (and you can't do it in the title anyway). :)

[bvar22]

33. "Who ever said that it CAN'T happen"

Were you HERE after March 11th.
DU was covered with folks telling us ALL about what "Can't Happen."
Some who doubted or questioned the ProNuke claims were hounded off of DU.

This ongoing and escalating nuclear disaster has seriously damaged the credibility of some posters at DU.

[FBaggins]

34. Yes... I was here.

And it didn't happen.

It has been a truly MASSIVE disaster... but it doesn't rival Chernobyl. It really doesn't come close.

And the reason that it didn't come close is just what we were told on 3/11. The things that made Chernobyl particularly deadly (reactor design, lack of containment, massive core fire, and incompetant administration at all levels) simply don't exist in this case.

What we've seen is just about as bad as it's possible for these reactors to get... but it simply isn't Chernobyl.

But that has nothing at all to do with claims that reactors can't fail or nuclear disasters can't happen.

We can all take comfort that while they ARE possible, the scenario that was necessary to cause it was itself exceedingly unlikely/rare and even a very old design held up pretty well.

If you want to talk about claims that damage credibility... you could start with your "escalating" nonsense. There are still things that can go wrong, but things have been improving for some time now.

[madokie]

35. Yup sure was and still is in some cases

kinda like who you are replying too.
I've been saying from day one here that its only a matter of time while emphasizing that the pro nukies can't be trusted and sure enough I've been proven right on both counts. What will they say when one of our aging nuclear power plants take a shit and go belly up and take out a large section of our country with the possibility of taking many lives as many of them are sited near large population area

[CJvR]

38. Oh oh! I Know!

Zero.