will japan's fall out make it to hawaii?

[missydog1]

Oh well, the Anderson Cooper broadcast that I saw had "Live in Tokyo" stamped all over the front of him ... so I kind of assumed he was indeed in Tokyo.

"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back." — Dylan

[missydog1]

Paul,
it wasn't my son talking about cesium. It was CNN after the report of the head of the NRC. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not some fringe group.

"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back." — Dylan

[missydog1]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16...plant.html

This is a long article. For those with dial-up I excerpted parts about the spent fuel rods. Better to read it all though. I bolded the paragraph mentioning cesium.
__________

"Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant is releasing “extremely high” levels of radiation that could be life-threatening, the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told lawmakers as hundreds of Japanese fled south of areas hit by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

All the water in one of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant’s spent-fuel cooling pools has drained, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko told a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel in Washington. “Radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures,” he said.

Japanese officials denied that the water from the cooling pools was gone, the Associated Press reported.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers are struggling to prevent a nuclear meltdown at the complex, which has six reactors, 135 miles (217 kilometers) north of Tokyo. With his nation still reeling from strongest earthquake to hit it on record and a resulting tsunami, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on March 15 the danger of further radiation leaks has increased.

The United Nations’ nuclear agency plans an emergency meeting on the crisis. Japan faces a “serious situation,” Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Vienna before departing for talks with authorities in Tokyo today.

Amano said fuel stored in units 4, 5 and 6 at the Tepco facility is exposed and releasing radiation. Separately, Tepco official Masahisa Otsuku said the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel may have been breached.

The failure of backup generators used to pump cooling water caused explosions in at least three of structures surrounding the station’s reactors, as well as a fire in a pond containing spent fuel rods.

Spent-Fuel Pools

Temperatures in the spent-fuel-rod cooling pools of the shuttered No. 5 and No. 6 reactors were rising to as high as 63 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Fahrenheit) at 2 p.m. yesterday, said Tsuyoshi Makigami, head of nuclear maintenance at Tepco. Water levels at spent fuel pools at the three inactive reactors, Nos. 4, 5 and 6, dropped by about 2 meters, exposing the fuel rods, Amano said.

Exposed to air, the fuel bundles could chemically react with moisture, catch fire and spread radiation into the atmosphere, said Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Spent fuel is pretty hot and so it is stored under water to keep it cool,” said Kelley, who worked for 30 years at the U.S. Energy Department. “If the water leaks or boils away, then the fuel is exposed,” then after burning, the uranium corrodes and releases cesium, contaminating the area, he said.

Peak-Level Threat

The NRC’s Jaczko said radiation at the Japanese site is fluctuating and at peak levels “would be lethal within a fairly short period of time.”

He told reporters later that the information came from NRC staff that were dispatched to Japan to help with the response and have been in contact with industry officials there."



"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back." — Dylan

[Rob Tucker]

A rather alarming report on ABC this evening. Tokyo airport is jammed with people leaving the country. They are describing the 50 nuclear workers heading in to fight the fires as being on a suicide mission. Brave men.

[missydog1]

Yep, people are jamming.
I was in Waikiki yesterday and so many Japanese there right now. I bet they don't want to go home if they can help it.

Orchidlandguy, not that it matters much, but Anderson Cooper is indeed in Tokyo right now. He is tweeting from his hotel there. If you want to see his tweets, he is in the thick of a very concerned metropolis.

http://www.celebritytwits.com/show/525/andersoncooper

"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back." — Dylan

[mella l]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kapohocat

Geothermal is looking a lot better eh?

Does any one remember the old book and movie "on the beach"?

---

Oh yes I remember that movie, my dad was teaching nuclear decontamination at the time! LOL seriously. I was in the seventh grade and the dynamite plant close to my school exploded and scared the hell out of everyone. My friends all had bomb shelters in their back yards and my dad said we didn't need one!

Now when I think of that movie it seems to me it was a purposeful prelude to the Arms Race and fear mongering for dollars for defense and cold war years with Russia.



mella l

Art and Science Our Future

bytheseasoap.com

[missydog1]

this article on the spent fuel rod situation is being reprinted across the media right now:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...459D32.DTL&ao=2

pick your link if you search "japan spent fuel rods NRC"

This article is from a site that is without question alarmist:
http://www.infowars.com/water-in-pool-st...oactivity/
I would be curious to know how many of its statements are off base, as judged by those of you who follow such things.

"let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by ~ Before the Deluge, Jackson Browne

[DaVinci]

After reading this thread I am convinced! Yes people, there is no longer any doubt in my mind that consuming news (or even inhaling too much of it) is hazardous to one's health.

[missydog1]

All this about Japan's nuclear power plants has brought back a disturbing memory from 13 years ago. In the summer of 1997, I lived in Mito, Japan for a month. Mito is a coastal city north of Tokyo that was hit hard by the quake, not by the tsunami. Very few Westerners live there, so it was a real immersion to live there.

At the end of July every year, there is a huge fireworks display throughout Japan. We were watching this from afar, and someone said to us -- the real fireworks waiting to happen is in this nuclear plant 25 miles from here ... there's some **** going on there that could keep a person from sleeping at night. We didn't have any idea we were near a nuclear plant.

That was the Tokai nuclear plant. Two years later, it did indeed have a major accident. You probably never heard of it. There had been a disregard of safety procedures.
http://www.n-base.org.uk/public/report_l...ident.html
It turns out there was a prelude in the form of an event that had happened only two weeks before I got there (but my husband was there). We never heard anything about it at the time. It was covered up.

That plant was shut down, decommissioned.

Fukushima is about 100 miles north of where I lived. I found a blog entry yesterday from two Americans in Mito. They think everything at Fukushima is being well handled and they are in no danger.

Point being, the Japanese government has been in the business of keeping the lid on nuclear mishaps for years, and I really have no trust in their reports. Also, it is so important to save face in Japan. That does not lend itself to officials admitting when they are out of their depth.

Anyhow, you can read about the prior incident if you google Tokai nuclear accident.
I'm just saying, it's not like their industry was in perfect shape and the earthquake plus tsunami just happened to create a situation. More likely they were already doing things in a sloppy fashion, that were not very safe, and now all those acts of slop are going to have consequences.

I too am full of admiration for the brave workers who are going to die trying to fix this.

[macuu222]

Kathy .......I agree with you entirely with your post. You hit the nail with the hammer.