Fukushima warning: danger level at nuclear plant jumps to 'serious'
Source: Guardian
The new warning, expected on Wednesday, comes only a day after the nuclear watchdog assigned a much lower ranking when the plant's operator, Tepco, admitted about 300 tonnes of highly toxic water had leaked from a storage tank at the site.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority has now said it will dramatically raise the incident's severity level from one to three on the eight-point scale used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for radiation releases. Each single-digit increase in the scale actually represents a tenfold increase in the severity of a radiological release, according to the IAEA.
...The leak is the single most dangerous failure at the plant since the 2011 meltdown, which warranted the maximum level of seven on the severity scale, putting it on a par with the Chernobyl disaster 25 years earlier.
"Judging from the amount and the density of the radiation in the contaminated water that leaked ... a level three assessment is appropriate", the NRA said in a document posted on its website on Wednesday.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/21/leap-fukushima-danger-ranking
The article states that (contrary to some claims on DU) they still do not know the cause of this leak.
TexasTowelie
(111,315 posts)Mysterysouppe
(68 posts)Well, that's just adorable.
TexasTowelie
(111,315 posts)because it was a prediction that the Japanese government would revise the threat level. FWIW, my prediction was correct and the threat level became more severe.
Whether anyone else approved of the comment isn't within my control. One of the approving remarks occurred before this OP thread started while the other approving remark appeared as a response afterwards. Unless you think that an "I told you so" comment is meant to be "adorable", there wasn't any intention on my part to be "adorable".
However, I'll take the high road and apologize if I offended your sensibilities. However, I'll make another prediction to state that if you are so easily offended and call out DUers that have been here for years, then you probably aren't going to last long at DU.
BTW, welcome to DU.
Mysterysouppe
(68 posts)Cordially,
Mysterysouppe
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)[img][/img]
That's the way we roll ...
TexasTowelie
(111,315 posts)You are the first person that I've ever put on my ignore list.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)Haven't we met before?
4bucksagallon
(975 posts)Just eat fish 2 times a week. Remember it's good for your thyroid, and all those essential fish oils are good for you, mmmmmmm.
Supersedeas
(20,630 posts)quadrature
(2,049 posts)bucolic_frolic
(42,679 posts)what the outcome of this reaction will be?
Is it some kind of uncontrolled fission burrowing into the
rock and earth at this point? or is it still inside the building?
Do they know?
I'm not a scientist obviously, so do they know when this will
stop? Or could it continue for years? Deeper and deeper?
Baffling. Boggling.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Then the resulting steam explosion will hurl thousands of pounds of radioactive steam in to the air.
OR if they make it to November (Coin toss now)
When they plan on removing the Rods MANUALLY from a wrecked core. (HAhahaha)
When removing rods from the core. They use computer guided arms JUST to remove rods from active cores when replacing or exchanging rods.
That is because a manual removal is WAY to dangerous.
That is from a working, laser-precise bundle where everything was as perfect as could be made (funny)
In this situation, they will be removing the rods from BURNT,MELTED,BROKEN, RADIOACTIVE, HOT, ALMOST MOLTEN HOT, WRECKED core.
It's an environment like those old disaster movies, out of control.
It's a fatal move.
What does need to be done, is Fire the TEPCO company, line the executives up and shoot them after letting them know their entire family just got carted off to FUkishima to work in the reactor cleanup till they melt.
And by shooting them let them also know they are getting an easier death than the hundreds of thousands if not countless millions, they themselves have killed.
Then hire a team of the BEST physicists and pray they can come up with something
Moostache
(9,895 posts)Its a situation that is beyond our technology and there is simply no way the powers that be can admit that, ever.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)castrophe
eggplant
(3,893 posts)Send them in to clean it up.
The Stranger
(11,297 posts)I saw it in the movies.
Then he died at the end and said "Live Long and Prosper."
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)As for "Live Long and Prosper" It might be more like...
"DEAR GOD MY FACE HAS SWOLLEN TO THE SIZE OF A WATERMELLON...JUST SHOOT ME...."
-Tickling The Dragon
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Essentially Radioactive self-heating Lava
From Chernobyl:
The Stranger
(11,297 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)The situation is nothing as you describe. Potential contamination of groundwater and marine food supply is very serious and has significant potential long term implications that make plenty bad. Your comments should be deleted unless you know something the rest of the world doesn't.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Here is one of many many papers on Fukishima...
There was an estimated 50 tons of reactor fuel and 800 tons of graphite left in the reactor at Chernobyl after the explosion there.
Fukushima has an estimated 70 tons of fuel in unit 1 and 90 tons of fuel in units 2 and 3. It is not known how much was ejected in the explosions at Fukushima.
For a grand total of 250 tons of fuel at Fukushima, dwarfing Chernobyl.
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/corium/corium.html
Corium Lava can melt a foot of concrete per hour Cooling with water may not stop ...
Researchers at the Argonne National Lab created corium in the laboratory
They found that corium lava can melt upwards of 30 cm (12″ of concrete in 1 hour
This is why it is so important to know if a nuclear reactor accident has gone into true meltdown as the corium lava will rapidly melt its way through the inner containment vessels (or more) in a matter of hours unless it can be cooled again. However, results from these CCI (core-concrete interaction) experiments, suggest that cooling with water may not be sufficient to stop corium from melting the concrete.
One thing to remember much of the melting of concrete during a meltdown occurs within minutes to hours, so keeping the core cool is vital for stopping the corium for breaching that containment vessel.
Now, this lava is, of course, very different than the lava that erupts from a volcano, compositionally.
The fuel pellets inside the fuel rods are almost entirely UO2 while the fuel rods in which the pellets are placed is made of zirconium alloys. As the fuel rods heat in an accident, they can get hot enough to start bending (close to 700°C) and if the pellets inside the casing touch, they can begin to melt if the temperature reaches ~1200ºC*. The heat can continue building as the fuel rods melt, eventually forming an entirely molten body that is a mix of the UO2 from the fuel pellets and the zirconium alloy of the casing.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)You are preaching to the choir when you say to me that nuclear is a problem. Please consider the point I'm I'm trying to share with you - your hyperbolic uninformed fear-mongering delegitimizes honest criticism.
If you are really concerned, as I have no doubt you are, then take the time to read what is actually happening at the reactors Now.
http://ajw.asahi.com/category/0311disaster/fukushima/
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)I salute you for trying to spread knowledge.
Also your point that the situation is plenty serious enough without having to invent hazard is EXTREMELY valid.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Katashi_itto is at least 90% correct. The cores have melted and they could have burned thru the concrete and into the ground. There have been quite a few days of steam events around the plants. Massive steam events.
The removal of the cores and melted spent fuel rods could very well cause new explosions.
Kristopher has downplayed the whole situation from day one, relying on Tepco's lies as the truth. He has refused to use info from other sources that have been proven over time to have been correct about what has transpired and which can no longer be hidden by Japan and its media.
There is massive contamination of the Pacific ocean which will only increase over time because the cores are now into the earth and groundwater is flowing past the cores carrying radioactive materials along with the flow.
I get that Kristopher wishes the best and that it will all just go away, but the truth is it is getting worse day by day.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)It is ongoing contamination from exposure of the melted (but now cooled) fuel to groundwater.
The article in the OP is about a tank holding highly contaminated water that is leaking and they don't know where, from the tank, it is leaking. This tank has been in use since the first days after the meltdown and is supposed to last about 5 years. They have several hundred tanks of this same design out of a total of about 1,000 tanks.
Total storage capacity available is 412,000 tons and 346,000 tons are filled. The amount keeps growing because groundwater is entering one of the reactors and becoming contaminated along with the cooling water they are circulating. They are expecting to increase storage to 800,000 tons by 2015 so they clearly have no way to actually fix the root problem.
If you don't know about this site I highly recommend it. Their archive back to the meltdown is a treasure and their ongoing coverage is the best available in English.
http://ajw.asahi.com/category/0311disaster/fukushima/
The information in this post is from there at this article: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201308210065
Response to kristopher (Original post)
Javaman This message was self-deleted by its author.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)It's just like that whole NSA/spying thing - nothing to worry about. Trust Obama. Stop reading international news sources! It's un-American. Or un-DLC anyway! As Dorothy Parker would say, "What fresh hell is this?"
US grass, hay and milk is contaminated with more than double the legal amount of radiation. 3 recent studies of milk purchased in San Francisco found all three batches contaminated with radio-isotopes. Scientists explained that milk will have a long-term contamination rate (2-30 years depending on specifics), because the nuclear fallout infects the grass and hay that dairy cows eat for years. (Energy News 4/16/12.)
Rainwater falling throughout the US has tested positive for radiation poisoning at 131 times the government recognized safe level. As scientists point out, the rainwater coats the grass that cows eat, thus infecting the cows milk with radiation poisoning. (BayCitizen.org.)
Americans can take heart however, the government is on the case.
Federal officials are already trying to change official guidelines governing radiation poisoning, raising the level of acceptable radiation.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/21/leap-fukushima-danger-ranking
heaven05
(18,124 posts)been seriously fubar since, wait! wait! wait! 2011!
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)in practice, it is totally fucked.
I wonder how bad this will get. It is already a mindboggling disaster.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Some things just defy the idea of being "fixed". This is one of them.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)probably stored right next to the beach front reactor
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)21 August 2013 Last updated at 12:26 ET
Japan nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level
<>
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo says it all adds to the impression that the clean-up operation is riddled with complacency and incompetence.
A puddle of the contaminated water was emitting 100 millisieverts an hour of radiation, Kyodo news agency said earlier this week.
Masayuki Ono, general manager of Tepco, told Reuters news agency: "One hundred millisieverts per hour is equivalent to the limit for accumulated exposure over five years for nuclear workers; so it can be said that we found a radiation level strong enough to give someone a five-year dose of radiation within one hour."
Teams of workers at the plant have surrounded the leaking tank with sandbags and have been attempting to suck up large puddles of radioactive water.
<>
daleo
(21,317 posts)Because that seems to be the company's level of competence.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)That is an important distinction. The Level 3 designation for the leak was suggested by Japan's nuclear regulators and confirmed by the IAEA.