ENENEWS Update 12-17-13

[DeSwiss]

Japan (Fukushima)

08:05 AM EST on December 17th, 2013
Radiation in Fukushima groundwater skyrockets 3,500+ times over weekend — Just 5 meters from Pacific Ocean — No steps being taken to stop flow into sea (PHOTO)

12:59 AM EST on December 17th, 2013
Hot particle found 400 kilometers from Fukushima with radioactivity over 40 billion Bq/kg — Large black puddles of fallout along roadsides might well be from inside failed fuel rods (VIDEOS)

08:54 PM EST on December 16th, 2013
Gundersen: All of Japan is contaminated, gov’t covering up enormous exposures to public; Epidemic is just beginning — Evacuee: We are in fact dying in Fukushima; What happened to us will soon affect all Japanese people (VIDEOS)

04:33 PM EST on December 16th, 2013
Jiji: No solution seen for Fukushima’s radioactive water — Kyodo: Toxic ocean leakage to go on into 2020s — Experts: “High potential for marine life and human health effects through ingestion over generations”

02:30 PM EST on December 16th, 2013
Officials Worried: Radiation levels rise sharply in soil outside Fukushima — Cesium quadruples during past year

11:21 AM EST on December 16th, 2013
Releasing Fukushima radioactive water into Pacific ‘inevitable’ — Reports: Japan very aware of danger posed by past releases; Contaminants are concentrated thousands of times in food chain; At end of chain are humans “who may suffer genetic damage, cancer, other health problems and even death”

09:29 AM EST on December 16th, 2013
Japan Professor: Damage from Fukushima is unprecedented, a disaster never before experienced in human history; Some say it could affect whole northern hemisphere — Experts: “Very likely the largest nuclear accident which mankind experienced”


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US/Canada

01:43 AM EST on December 16th, 2013
Gov’t Report: CNN, Huffington Post listed as ‘external stakeholders’ in NRC, alongside nuclear industry and pro-nuclear blogs — Both outlets help NRC to increase online influence, as CNN produces pro-nuclear infomercial

11:31 PM EST on December 15th, 2013
Michael Moore: Thank you so much for making pro-nuclear movie — What a risky, brave idea — France doesn’t seem to have problems with it — I hear ‘Solar and wind are not going to save us’ — I’m concerned about statements by environmental groups against nuclear power (VIDEO)

- WTF Mike? Anti-gun, but pro-nuke? And clearly doesn't know WTH he's talking about.

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[RobertEarl]

1. The Good News is.....

The place has not blown itself to smithereens.... yet.

Other than that, nothing good, eh?

Japan is in crisis management mode. Fukushima however is unmanageable. Sure they can jump on evident problems and find a quick solution like dumping water or concrete on a hot spot, but in the long run the radiation will win and the whole area will become a hot spot too big to control.

That is the worst case scenario unless it blows itself to smithereens. It will remain, forevermore, a festering radioactive boil. Kind of like a volcano, only instead of spewing natural products, man made isotopes will be its daily offering.

[DeSwiss]

2. I'm not sure......

...I can't think of a logical way to use the words ''good news'' and ''Japan'' in the same sentence. Hmmm. Let me think about it for a minute......

- Okay, here goes: ''Japan has not had any more nuclear melt-downs since March 11, 2011.'' This concludes the good news portion of this post.

Published on Feb 8, 2013

This is a 10 year timelapse of the radiation from Fukushima, Japan, contaminating the Pacific Ocean

A sequence of global ocean circulation models, with horizontal mesh sizes of 0.5°, 0.25° and 0.1°, are used to estimate the long-term dispersion by ocean currents and mesoscale eddies of a slowly decaying tracer (half-life of 30 years, comparable to that of 137Cs) from the local waters off the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plants. The tracer was continuously injected into the coastal waters over some weeks; its subsequent spreading and dilution in the Pacific Ocean was then simulated for 10 years. The simulations do not include any data assimilation, and thus, do not account for the actual state of the local ocean currents during the release of highly contaminated water from the damaged plants in March--April 2011. An ensemble differing in initial current distributions illustrates their importance for the tracer patterns evolving during the first months, but suggests a minor relevance for the large-scale tracer distributions after 2--3 years. By then the tracer cloud has penetrated to depths of more than 400 m, spanning the western and central North Pacific between 25°N and 55°N, leading to a rapid dilution of concentrations. The rate of dilution declines in the following years, while the main tracer patch propagates eastward across the Pacific Ocean, reaching the coastal waters of North America after about 5--6 years. Tentatively assuming a value of 10 PBq for the net 137Cs input during the first weeks after the Fukushima incident, the simulation suggests a rapid dilution of peak radioactivity values to about 10 Bq m−3 during the first two years, followed by a gradual decline to 1--2 Bq m−3 over the next 4--7 years. The total peak radioactivity levels would then still be about twice the pre-Fukushima values.

LINKS:
http://oceanrep.geomar.de/14788/
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/50176
http://enenews.com/about

[RobertEarl]

3. There ya go, you're getting the hang of it

''Japan has not had any more nuclear melt-downs since March 11, 2011.'' This concludes the good news portion of this post.

Can you imagine what the situation would be like had these plants continued to explode? Sure, you could say the plants are exploding but just a bit at a time.

But at least we have some time with just a bit of pollution exiting the site everyday. Had it kept exploding, we'd never have had the time to tell our loved ones how much we love them and to try and make some Peace in the world.

And maybe save a few million people via protective and medical measures. We still have some time. C'mon, lets show some optimism.

[DeSwiss]

4. Well, my need for optimism was superceded by an unexpected OBE in February 2009.

The result of which I discovered that hopes and optimism is what we use when we're not sure what's coming, but would really, really like to have. However I've found that dying (even ever so briefly, because time ain't real) and coming back to life has a way of clarifying things for one, that would not otherwise be the case.

- What I know is, it's not over when the plug is pulled. But anyway, here ya go:

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Fukushima, Fukushima.
La-La-La.
{It's hard to find words that rhyme with Bahhhh}[/center]

[DeSwiss]

5. Update: Update

Japan (Fukushima)

05:39 PM EST on December 17th, 2013
Tokyo Press Conference: Cancer is clearly increasing in Fukushima children, many experts starting to get concerned — Tepco has committed a crime; We’re going to the police tomorrow (VIDEO)

01:54 PM EST on December 17th, 2013
AP: ‘Tritium rain’ to result from disposal of Fukushima contaminated water? Expert: You may be interested to know radioactive rainfall occurs around nuclear plants during normal operations (VIDEO)

10:18 AM EST on December 17th, 2013
Official: Fukushima fuel melted “on unprecedented scale” — French Gov’t: Parts of the coriums have been dispersed — AP: It’s location and condition are unknown

[center]''Tepco has committed a crime; We’re going to the police tomorrow....'' [/center]

- After they fill-out the complaint forms, I wonder if the police come under the jurisdiction of their new ''secrecy laws'' since they are government employees -- who may leak state secrets. Which is easy to do without even knowing it, since the Japanese government won't say exactly what is secret.

Stay quiet and die, open your mouth and go to jail. Decision, decisions......

[RobertEarl]

6. See? Just little explosions

Sure, the tiny nuclear explosions happen 24/7 and are a constant source of new contamination adding to that already in the atmosphere, but that means we still have time to call in the cops.

We ain't dead yet!!
(Someone else on DU actually wrote that... just repeating it for giggles)