Fukushima goes Chernobyl.

[MadHound]

Despite the assurances of the nuclear lobby, TEPCO, the Japanese government and swarms of pro-nuclear lobbyists, Fukushima has indeed matched Chernobyl in severity, and could quite possibly grow worse.

"Japan's nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis at a stricken nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

An official with the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, speaking on national television, said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 — the highest level on the international scale."
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake>

As radioactive material is spewed across the Japanese landscape, Japanese officials are now talking about having to cordon off hundreds of square miles surrounding the plant, essentially turning it into another dead zone. Meanwhile, across the world, levels of various radioactive isotopes are turning up in the water, soil, milk and plant matter, raising concerns that the fallout from Fukushima could have a devastating effect not just in Japan, but world wide.

Meanwhile, TEPCO, the ones responsible for this disaster, are still trying to hang on to the remaining plants and assets at the Fukushima site, and rather than opting to end this crisis by using the Chernobyl solution(concrete mixed with boric acid), they are continuing their futile fight by pumping in water, trying to cool the fuel and spent rods, sacrificing personnel and endangering Japan and the rest of the world. This is the insanity you get when you put a corporation in charge of disaster cleanup, an effort that is directed at saving corporate assets first, with saving lives and solving the problem coming in a distant second.

Immediately, what needs to be done is that the IAEA needs to step in and take control of this madness. The Japanese on the site have proven that they are either unable or unwilling to solve this disaster, so an outside agency needs to step in.

In the long run, nuclear power plants across the world need to be decommissioned and shut down. There is no longer a need to use nuclear power, and to continue to do so will only continue to endanger every single person on this planet. Nuclear power is not only dangerous and polluting, but it is more expensive than using green renewables such as solar and wind.

It is time to bring the nuclear era to an end, give it up as a bad experiment and move on. If that doesn't happen, then we can expect another such disaster approximately every generation until we finally wake up to the madness that mankind has spawned.

[gateley]

1. BS -- We were told no way could this be as bad as Chernobyl!

:eyes:

Yes, way past time for the nuclear era to end. I just get angry even thinking that with all the other alternatives (or fuck, invent some) we're still dicking around with this poison.

[franzia99]

4. They'll keep downplaying the risks in order to reduce the PR damage and avoid paying for the damage

Not the last of their dishonesty. Makes me pretty angry too.

[Lost-in-FL]

2. In other news, H2O is still wet and can become solid! nt

[RegieRocker]

15. Other news: People still say some dumb things.

[franzia99]

3. I feel so bad for the workers who are having to go into the plant. They've told reporters they

know it's a suicide mission. So many of the Chernobyl cleanup workers died from exposure to the radiation or had serious long term health problems. I bet you won't see any TEPCO or GE execs going into the plant.

[AndyTiedye]

5. They Can't Bury It Yet, It's Still Cooking

[FourScore]

8. Exactly.

But I share your grave concerns MadHound! Thank you for your vigilance on this issue!

:hug:

[MadHound]

11. Actually they could,

In fact Chernobyl was still "cooking" ie the graphite rods were still on fire, radiation was still being released and the fuel was still in meltdown when they started dropping a mixture of clay, sand, lead, boron and boric acid laden concrete, while also injecting liquid nitrogen into Reactor 4. In fact it is that action that actually stopped the disaster at Chernobyl.

The folks at TEPCO could also follow this procedure, now. Instead, they are trying to save the facility and the assets that are still salvageable, which is why we're seeing this dangerous farce of pumping in water, etc.

[AndyTiedye]

13. Nothing in those Smoking Piles of Radioactive Rubble is Salvageable

and millions of acres surrounding the plants are now contaminated forever.

It is not clear how they could get such a mixture into these reactors,
and they would not moderate the reaction if merely dumped on top of the reactor vessel.

[MadHound]

14. Again, follow the Soviet model,

Dump from helicopters.

You keep on insisting that this solution couldn't work, when it has already worked. I suggest that you go educate yourself on the matter.

[AndyTiedye]

17. How do the Lead and Boron Get to Where They Can Do Some Good?

If the corium is melting through the bottom of the reactor vessel, or if it is still in the reactor vessel,
how will the boron and lead get there when you are dumping it from helicopters?
The meltdown would continue, perhaps accelerated by heat buildup since the cooling water is being replaced
by insulating cement, and the pressure would build up under the cement. You might even get enough pressure
for a full-on nuclear explosion instead of the transient criticalities we have been getting.
:nuke:

[MadHound]

19. Lead, boron and boric acid will absorb the neutrons,

Thus interrupting the critical mass cycle. Sand and clay will put out the fires. There are large boom type concrete pumps on site, to pump the mixture into the containment vessel. Then you entomb the whole thing in concrete. The meltdown wouldn't continue, since the critical mass cycle is interrupted. No big boom.

[AndyTiedye]

20. Weight Might be a Problem

They are concerned about the weight with filling the containment with water.
Lead and concrete would weigh far more. The containment might burst before
the concrete could harden.

[MadHound]

22. Well gee, you pump concrete under the containment vessel,

Easy answer to a simple support problem.

Oh, and frankly I wouldn't be terribly concerned about the containment vessels right now, they're cracked and leaking right now.

[sir pball]

27. Your post summarizes the lack of knowledge re nuclear processes so well

That I'm not only commenting for the first time in years but doing it from my phone. I'm not trying to be a dick, just to clear up some critical misunderstandings I've seen repeatedly that would help quite a bit to differentiate Fukushima and Chernobyl - they're vastly different ctastrophes and the processes for dealing need to be vastly different. I'm not a nuclear physicist but I did get enoght 400-level classes involving nuclear processes to have a fair idea of what I'm talking about.

Fisrt; neither reactor was critical (there is no such thing as a" critical mass cycle", criticality is a yes/no condition, like a light being on or off) during the aftermath. Fukushima hasn't been critical at all, the reactors were immediately shut down after the quake and before the tsunami. Chernobyl's major explosion was a criticality accident but that's beside the point...the smoking pile of rubble wasn't critical during cleanup. The heat at% ukushima is "decay heat", generated by the unstoppable natural degradation of fission products in the core. Even if you could get moderators onto the core, the decay would continue. Moderating materials were used at Chernobyl because the containment was vaporized, they weren't dumped to stop any reactions but rather to entomb the intensely radioactive exposed core material. Fukushima has no naked live fuel so dumping moderators on top of the containment would just insulate and worsen the situation (ditto somehow injecting them into containment). The radiation at Fukushima is coming from both smaller containment breaches and open-circuit emergency cooling...they're spraying it down to keep it cool but they haven't figured out what to do with the water. Unfortunately there's not much choice in the matter, without the water the unstoppable decay heat will melt everything.

Secnd, and somewhat redundant, most of the containment at fukushima is intact. The bare core is not exposed; Chernobyl's was literally blown to bits, the reactor vessel vaporized. Five to ten times more radiation than is even precicted to be released here, spewed out in a fraction of a second. Control and cleanup needed to be vastly different, just like putting out a fire is different than repairing a burst water main; the principles of one cannot be applied to the other. IMO Fukushima probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad if TEPCO had admitted the magnitude upfront and been more aggressive in handling it but that's just me.

Again, I'm not being a prick, i just want to educate so that you can argue your points more effectively. Read the wikipedia articles on criticality, radioactive decay, and Chernobyl for much more useful info. Cheers!

[DCKit]

6. In the meantime, industry shills managed to delay, deride and discredit nuclear naysayers...

until the majority of the public lost interest. Funny how that works.

That kind of damage control is only available via the efforts a large, effective PR or lobbying firm.

Though it's somewhat satisfying to be vindicated, I wonder how many lives could have been saved if they'd been honest and gotten the people the hell out of the danger zone in time. The legacy of cancers, birth defects and other diseases is going to rival that of Chernobyl.

[PufPuf23]

7. Nuclear power (nor weapons) are not rational because

of the anthromorphic ability to poison and cause major changes and toxins in the environment that Mankind cannot control in time or space.

[Renew Deal]

9. Every day this story gets a little bit worse

and another lie is exposed.

[grahamhgreen]

10. To the top.

[marions ghost]

12. "live normally" plea

He's trying....

In his televised address, Kan gave the nation a pep talk, telling people to focus on recovering from the disasters that are believed to have killed 25,000 people.

"Let's live normally without falling into excessive self-restraint," he said. "We should eat and drink products from the quake-hit areas as a form of support."

---I guess the Japanese have more reason to trust food inspection than we do here?

[hayu_lol]

16. Massive effort here to continue falsely...to link the Japanese...

disaster with Chernobyl. They are not the same nor could they be.

Chernobyl was caused by the operating crew performing an experiment that they were told not to do. Chernobyl had no containment vessels and was a graphite reactor(very old technology).

The situation in Japan is a much more modern plant which included all safeguards in place unlike the Chernobyl plant. The tsunami did the damage and could not be guarded against...much as a meteorite strike could not be guarded against. Woulda, coulda, shoulda concerns now are rather unimportant. A wall of water some 50 feet high did the damage...the earthquake itself did not keep the reactor from operating properly. Note the fact that the reactor buildings were not destroyed despite the fact that the buildings were under 15 feet of water during the height of the water surge. For proof, look at the total destruction of the area around the plants and up and down the coast.

At this point, the experts are much like the pilots of aircraft in trouble--they try A, if that doesn't work they try B, failing again they try C and continue to try next best until they either recover the aircraft or hit the ground. Offhand, much of the misinformation is coming to us via journalists that for the most part do not understand the material spread before them.

A serious situation--absolutely--but it is not the end of the world as some would have everyone believe. And, there are major differences between Chernobyl and that plant in Japan.

It was once believed in geology that an earthquake of 8.0 was total destruction. This quake had twice the force of an 8.0. Don't see very many of these.

Japan, as a major manufacturing country cannot exist without nuclear power. Their endless train of supertankers between Japan and the middle east makes that pretty obvious. As a nation that is relatively power-starved, they must rely as best they can. They can do better than what happened following the tsunami...so can we.

[AndyTiedye]

18. TEPCO: Radiation From Fukushima May Be Worse Than Chernobyl

Apr. 12 2011 - 10:04 am | 390 views | 0 recommendations | 0 comments
By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON
Radiation hotspots of Cesium-137 in 1996 resul...

An official of Fukushima nuclear power plant operator TEPCO concedes that “the amount of (radioactive) leakage could eventually reach that of Chernobyl or exceed it.”

The statement followed an announcement yesterday by the Japanese government that it was raising the “significance level” of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDI) to a 7 on the International Nuclear Events Scale — a classification previously only assigned to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

In its announcement, the Japanese government had stressed that the total amount of radiation released from FDI was just 1/10 the amount produced by Chernobyl. The increase from 5 to 7 was made, the government said, because of other factors, including the amount of physical damage at FDI (which as six nuclear reactors — four of which were heavily damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami).

The statement by TEPCO underscores that the fact that the situation at FDI is still in flux; radiation is still entering the environment from some of the reactors, and more explosions with even greater releases of radioactivity are possible. A complete resolution to the crisis is likely several months away.

http://blogs.forbes.com/oshadavidson/2011/04/12/tepco-radiation-from-fukushima-may-be-worse-than-chernobyl/

[MadHound]

21. Wow, way to misstate what I'm trying to say here.

Nobody is trying to state that Chernobyl and Fukushima are the same, except in one crucial area, namely the severity of the nuclear disaster. And it isn't just journalists or alarmists or anti-nuke people who are making this comparison concerning the magnitude of the disaster, but the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission who raised the condition to Level 7 on the INES scale. The INES scale doesn't just measure the short term, "big bang" damage, but also considers the long term magnitude of damage.

Thus, what is being said in this instance, by the Japanese Government, joined by the IAEA and other international bodies, is that the magnitude of damage caused by the Fukushima disaster is on par with Chernobyl.

Oh, and yes, the effects of a tsunami could have been guarded against. It's simple, put the damn reactor either inland, or on the western coast of Japan, you know, out of the tsunami danger zone in an area that has experienced tsunamis throughout history, both ancient and modern. D'uh! That simple human error is the root of this disaster, and no matter the design, no matter the safety measures taken, human error cannot be eliminated, and so far it has resulted in four major incidents over the past sixty five years, along with numerous leaks, releases, etc.

Oh, and your assumption that the people who are being hysterical simply don't know what they're talking about and are being mislead by overamped journalists, that doesn't fly either. I worked in a nuke plant for years as an HP. I know what goes on, I know what is being talked about in intimate detail. I can also tell you that those plans A, B, etc. that you're talking about? Their gone, and to continue your analogy, the plane has crashed, and the time has come to clean up the mess, not try and put the plane back together, which is what TEPCO is still trying to do.

Psst, little hint so as not to look terribly foolish in the future, a 9.0 earthquake is far more than twice the force of an 8.0. Go look it up, educate yourself before you speak about matters you have little knowledge of.

And also stop trying to present only two energy options, nuclear or fossil fuels. There are green renewables that can now pick up the load, cheaper than nuclear can. And guess what, a goodly part of the power being supplied to Japan right now after Fukushima went up comes from Japan's offshore wind farms, turbines that *gasp* did something the nuclear plant couldn't, survive an earthquake and tsunami.

[marions ghost]

24. +++

good reply

Apologists for nuclear use any BS to try to fuzz the truth. It's not even believable BS.

Hysteria? The only hysteria I see if from pro-nukers in a big hurry to suppress and scrub the truth.

[MadHound]

25. It's almost getting to the point where it is laughable,

Except for the fact that these apologists are actually able to dominate the national conversation on nuclear power.

[marions ghost]

26. the minority dominates

--so they know they have the upper hand and they just keep hammering nonsense in the face of the logical, rational conclusion that maybe this Nuclear Power "Renaissance" is just:

1. wrong
2. tragic
3. loser
4. fail
5. epic fail
6. insane

*(you already made the salient arguments, so I just put in the "Duh" conclusions)

[Raschel]

23. You gotta be kidding about "all safeguards in place". TEPCO disregarded

and minimized tsunami and quake risk, they admitted faking repair records, and failed to thoroughly inspect the area in which three of their workers were burned before sending them in.