Fukushima

[SquidInk]

There has been a tsunami of terrible news regarding this incident, every day ther is more. This one stood out for me:

Japan's former prime minister Naoto Kan has revealed he contemplated evacuating as many as 30 million people from Tokyo and surrounding areas during the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Speaking to Japan's Kyodo News, Mr Kan, who was prime minister during the nuclear crisis, said evacuations on such a scale may have led to Japan being unable to function.

Mr Kan has since resigned from the prime ministership and can now speak more openly about the crisis. He said he asked experts for "simulations of the worst case scenario" at the Fukushima nuclear plant. He said the experts explained that people living 200 to 250 kilometres from the plant would have to be evacuated. He said he contemplated the chaos that would have ensued if such a measure had been taken.

''It was a crucial moment when I wasn't sure whether Japan could continue to function as a state,'' he said. ''I felt that the risk was at its highest during the first 10 days [after the disaster struck].''

Mr Kan also said there were no effective safeguards in place because ''we had never foreseen a situation in which a quake, tsunami and a nuclear plant accident would occur at the same time."

He also delivered a less-than-flattering assessment of TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The former primer minister accuses the company of wanting to abandon the stricken nuclear plant at the height of the crisis and let its workers walk offsite for the reactors to bubble away.

Mr Kan says such a situation was "impossible" and he rejected TEPCO's request.

He also accused the firm of failing to communicate properly with both him and its head office.

Mr Kan says TEPCO could not explain to him what was happening with the venting process at Fukushima to release radioactive steam.

''Even TEPCO officials [who were with me] at the prime minister's office were unable to fully explain why they were not doing the venting so I wasn't sure whether there was good communication between the TEPCO head office and the Fukushima plant,'' he said. - source

Who's writing this stuff? Step away from the 'he said' button.

Anyway...

Here's my list :

• an evacuation of 250 km would have included all of greater Tokyo - 30 + million people
• ultimately the state decided to do what was best for preservation of the state, not the people - this is the global default among all nation-states
• the corporation involved was a rat-hearted criminal organization
• the corporation involved had direct access to & influence among the government's decision makers
• since earthquakes and tsunamis often coincide, and since the nukes were on the beach -- I have a hard time believing nobody had modeled this event

Any thoughts?

[Bobbi Snow]

I'm having a hard time understanding why ANY nuclear plants are being built after Japan's dilemma. Can't our leaders, all over the world, SEE the future if we continue to go up this road to extinction?

[voguy]

To me, a nuke plant on the shore of an ocean is asking for trouble. Not only from the standpoint of disaster recovery, but also the corrosion factor.

But I also think the money, and riches made by the owners and those connected with the plants trumped the safety concerns.

As a side note, it's interesting how many Japanese men and women are advertising on dating sites, just looking for someone to get them the hell out of the country. An interesting sign on the faith of people to restore their homeland.

[Diogenes]

Just a side note relative to the Japan disaster and AFLAC insurance.




http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-l ... 1064.story

PS sorry probably should not have posted here-

[voguy]

And Gilbert (their old VO guy) took a drubbing for some wise cracks about overseas as well.

[Dale O Sea]

No worries..too big to fail.

[SquidInk]

Related: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 0812.story

Concern over the safety of the San Onofre nuclear power plant is growing among Orange County cities closest to the facility, which has been shut down since January because of system failures.

Officials in nearby San Clemente and Laguna Beach — both within 20 miles of the San Onofre facility — have registered their fears after significant wear was found on hundreds of tubes carrying radioactive water inside the plant's generators.

[SquidInk]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi ... story.html

Particles from melted fuel have probably sent radiation levels up to dangerously high 70 sieverts per hour inside the container, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co.

“It’s extremely high,” he said, adding that an endoscope would last only 14 hours in that condition. “We have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation” when locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning.

It's quite comforting to know the nuclear industry has yet to develop the tools necessary to monitor every possible situation within the nuclear industry. But I understand - we've got profit margins to protect.

I bet a large tsunami proof sea wall would have been 'hella cheap' compared to the costs of this horrific mess, and the tools needed to monitor it.

[Fan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi ... story.html



It's quite comforting the the nuclear industry has yet to develop the tolls necessary to monitor every possible situation within the nuclear industry. But I understand - we've got profit margins to protect.

I bet a large tsunami proof sea wall would have been 'hella cheap' compared to the costs of this horrific mess.

That reactor that they managed to get the probe into is the only one that even has an access system. The others (which even Japan says have higher radiation) don't even have a place to insert a probe.

There is more to this story... check these out http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/frontview.jpg and http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/fukushimatoptext.jpg

I tend to agree that those concrete walls were not blown out by hydrogen. Look at the thickness of them.

This guy has some wacky ideas, but who knows? Interesting read either way http://www.jimstonefreelance.com

[SquidInk]

Related:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world ... wanted=all

Hundreds of so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of Japan, silent testimony to the past destruction that these lethal waves have frequented upon this earthquake-prone nation. But modern Japan, confident that advanced technology and higher seawalls would protect vulnerable areas, came to forget or ignore these ancient warnings, dooming it to repeat bitter experiences when the recent tsunami struck.

“The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors,” said Itoko Kitahara, a specialist in the history of natural disasters at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. “Some places heeded these lessons of the past, but many didn’t.”

Yeah, well, pumps for cooling water cost money, and 'skew' the 'numbers'. Build it in the surf.

[SquidInk]

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/11 ... i-20120311

I am an engineer and a disaster researcher; I went to Japan after the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake to try to identify lessons there that could benefit future disaster-response operations.

[...]

After a long day of field work, my colleagues and I were chatting with a community leader, Koutaro Ogata, from a fishing village called Murohama. We asked what had happened to him in the moments after the earthquake. He told us that he and his neighbors were well aware that a large earthquake would generate a large tsunami and they knew, particularly, what to do because "a thousand years ago" a massive earthquake and tsunami had all but wiped out Murohama.

This is the story he told. A millennium ago, the residents of Murohama, knowing they were going to be inundated, had sought safety on the village's closest hill. But they had entered into a deadly trap. A second wave, which had reached the interior of the island through an inlet, was speeding over the rice paddies from the opposite direction. The waves collided at the hill and killed those who had taken refuge there. To signify their grief and to advise future generations, the survivors erected a shrine.

This story might not have captured my attention if it hadn't been for a fortuitous coincidence. The day before, an engineering colleague, Eiichi Taniguchi, had told me that researchers at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, had found sediments indicating that a huge tsunami had hit Miyatojima about 1,000 years ago. Intrigued by the possibility of a connection between oral history and geological evidence, I asked the community leader if "a thousand years ago" was a figure of speech or an estimate of time.

To my astonishment, he indicated that it was in no way a figure of speech. Village elders had reviewed the local temple's records and found reports pinpointing a large tsunami 1,142 years ago. It was most likely the result of the massive Jogan Jishin earthquake of 869, which devastated the Sanriku coast. Thirty years before the great Mayan cities were abandoned, at the height of the Muslim and Chinese empires, when Europe was in the midst of the Early Middle Ages (and 600 years before Columbus stumbled into the Americas), a community of unknown fishermen honored their dead and successfully sent a warning to future generations.

[...]

I have to admit that I have not been able to keep this story of survival out of my mind. I know that science and engineering save lives. But in this instance neither did much to help. A message sent into the future 1,000 years ago did. Reaching out from the distant past, long-gone ancestors — and a deeply embedded story — saved their children.

Human civilization survived without any major hiccups for at least 10,000 years. Then, it spawned the industrial revolution. 150 years later - it seems suddenly to be precariously balanced, like a thin skinned balloon, on the pointy end of a pin.

This is the world of homo economicus. The new fangled 'business model' will kill us. Collective memories be damned.

Related: showthread.php?threadid=46018&highlight=books

[voguy]

Like the sword, those who live by their technology and false security, shall die by it. History is not just a lesson.

Man is the only spices on the face of the earth that does not live by the laws of the earth, "survival of the fittest."

[Dale O Sea]

This guy has some wacky ideas, but who knows? Interesting read either way http://www.jimstonefreelance.com

Here is an interview of Jim Stone he has posted on his site:

Project-Camelot-032812-jim_stone-16-lq.mp3

Play with 4shareds player or download. I cleaned it up some, cut out about 20 minutes of commercial breaks and shrunk it. He has his agenda but raises a lot of good points..

Found this along the way and I had it playing while I was editing:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Russo

[SquidInk]

http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html

In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.

Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).

It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.

[...]

Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.

I am beginning to wonder about Fukushima. Where is the massive global mobilization to encase these reactors? Why is it only in obscure places that we find ongoing coverage of this situation?

While the destruction at Fukushima was likely an accident, I am beginning to think it is being used as an opportunity by a certain group of people.

More: http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/japans-near-miss/

Unfortunately the technology to safely remove the rods has not been invented. Because of extreme levels of radiation, workers can’t do the job, so we will first have to invent the robots to save the humans. The government has begun the process to decommission the wreckage at Fukushima. “Toshiba, Hitachi GE nuclear energy and Mitsubishi heavy industries are already supported by the government to develop the decommissioning technology” but are seeking help from smaller technology related companies. Mr. Koide is worried because the operation to remove fuel rods will not begin until December of 2013.

[voguy]

Seems to me the seriousness is being underrated.