Official: Japan's nuclear situation nearing severity of Chernobyl

[jpak]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear/?hpt=T2

Official: Japan's nuclear situation nearing severity of Chernobyl

The explosion Tuesday at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has elevated the situation there to a "serious accident" on a level just below Chernobyl, a French nuclear official said, referring to an international scale that rates the severity of such incidents.

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale -- or INES -- goes from Level 1, which indicates very little danger to the general population, to Level 7, a "major accident" in which there's been a large release of radioactive material and there will be widespread health and environmental effects.

"It's clear we are at Level 6, that's to say we're at a level in between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," Andre-Claude Lacoste, president of France's nuclear safety authority, told reporters Tuesday.

Japanese nuclear authorities initially rated the incident at Level 4, according to Greg Webb of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Level 4 is characterized as a minor release of radioactive material that necessitates only measures to control food due to contamination. But in the latest information about the explosion, Japanese authorities did not give it a rating, Webb said, and the IAEA is not putting a number on it either.

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[ananda]

1. Link?

TIA

[meow mix]

2. time to go shopping, be back later

[xchrom]

3. Yeeesh - not good. Nt

[Lord Magus]

4. That's not "near Chernobyl" severity.

This scale is similar to that for earthquakes, meaning that a Level 7 is 10 times worse than a Level 6, which is 10 times worse than a Level 5, and so on. Given that their scale doesn't include decimal rankings like earthquake magnitudes do, though, it's more approximate and Chernobyl was more than just 100 times worse than Three Mile Island. It also means that while Fukushima Daiichi is worse than Three Mile Island, it might still be only a Level 5.

[roguevalley]

5. they aren't telling the whole truth or we would be running in circles

and killing each other. which i feel like doing right now.

[jpak]

6. 3 cores were exposed for significant periods of time & there were 3 hydrogen explosions

at least two spent fuel pools have lost cooling and 1 caught fire.

The plant has been evacuated due to excessive radiation doses.

and the official status is 6 - not 5

yup

[FBaggins]

8. The scale isn't driven by the number of issued that occur.

It's determined by the amount of radiation that is released and the number of people who are hurt.

The article says that this one group thinks it's a 6 (though they aren't in a position to determine that) and compares it to the only higher number (which was Chernobyl).

They (for some reason) fail to compare it to the only six on record. This isn't anywhere close (so far).

and the official status is 6 - not 5

That's interesting. When did it become "official"?

at least two spent fuel pools have lost cooling and 1 caught fire.

Three have lost cooling, but the fire does not appear to have occured in the fuel pool.

And TMI wasn't the only five. There was a fire within a reactor core in England in the 50s.

"Even" a five usually involves multiple deaths from radiation. We still haven't seen reported any absorbed dose even approaching a dangerous level.

[jpak]

15. The first fire was in the spent fuel pool

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/03/new-fire-reported-at-fukushima-reactor-no-4/1

Original report: Another fire has erupted at the crippled No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, NHK TV is reporting.

The fire was reported about an hour ago, at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday local time (4:45 p.m. ET Tuesday).

No other details yet.

The new blaze occurred following efforts to extinguish an earlier fire in the pool containing spent-fuel rods, which ignited after being exposed to air.

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[Lord Magus]

9. That's not "official status".

Level 6 is the opinion of a guy in France. The Japanese nuclear officials are waiting until the situation is over to officially rate it.

[jpak]

10. Yeah - everything's just hunky-dory and nuclear safety officials say its a 6

yup

[SlimJimmy]

7. Agreed. This *is* serious, but I'd have to say a 5 not a 6 at this point.

Level 5: Accident with wider consequences

Impact on People and Environment
Limited release of radioactive ­material likely to require i­mplementation of some planned­ countermeasures.
Several deaths from ­radiation.

Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control
Severe damage to reactor core.
Release of large quantities of radioactive material within an installation with a high probability of significant public exposure. This could arise from a major criticality accident or fire.

Examples:

* Windscale fire (United Kingdom), 10 October 1957. Annealing of graphite moderator at a military air-cooled reactor caused the graphite and the metallic uranium fuel to catch fire, releasing radioactive pile material as dust into the environment.
* Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, PA (United States), 28 March 1979. A combination of design and operator errors caused a gradual loss of coolant, leading to a partial meltdown. Radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere.
* First Chalk River Accident, Chalk River, Ontario (Canada), 12 December 1952. Reactor core damaged.
* Goiânia accident (Brazil), 13 September 1987. An unsecured caesium chloride radiation source left in an abandoned hospital was recovered by scavenger thieves unaware of its nature and sold at a scrapyard. 249 people were contaminated and 4 died.

[kristopher]

11. Really? You are in a position to know what is happening inside those reactor buildings?

Japan is rating it as significantly worse than TMI because at TMI they had a meltdown with all safety systems fully on hand to deal with it.

Here they have NO FUCKING ACTIVE SAFETY SYSTEMS. The are winging it.

[SlimJimmy]

12. And likewise, I say try to avoid full blown hysteria mode (Chernobyl) comparisons. (nt)

[kristopher]

13. Well that is certainly what the Nuclear Energy Institute's battle plan calls for.

All that strategy is doing, however, is making people who don't usually pay attention realize how pervasive the industry's grass roots PR machine has become.

[GliderGuider]

14. Are you really saying you want people to panic, kris?

What does that say about your agenda?

[kristopher]

20. Downplaying Chernobyl isn't to prevent panic, it's to protect an industry that lies to the public

Discussion of Chernobyl is natural and healthy under the circumstances. Stop defending the indefensible; you aren't a sleaze like that are you?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x279291
Chernobyl clean-up expert slams Japan, IAEA

VIENNA | Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:49pm EDT

VIENNA (Reuters) - Greed in the nuclear industry and corporate influence over the U.N. watchdog for atomic energy may doom Japan to a spreading nuclear disaster, one of the men brought in to clean up Chernobyl said on Tuesday.

Slamming the Japanese response at Fukushima, Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev accused corporations and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of wilfully ignoring lessons from the world's worst nuclear accident 25 years ago to protect the industry's expansion.

"After Chernobyl all the force of the nuclear industry was directed to hide this event, for not creating damage to their reputation. The Chernobyl experience was not studied properly because who has money for studying? Only industry.

"But industry doesn't like it," he said in an interview in Vienna where the former director of the Soviet Spetsatom clean-up agency now teaches and advises on nuclear safety. Austria's environment ministry has used him as an adviser...



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=279291&mesg_id=279349

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health
Alexey B. Nesterenko1, Vassily B. Nesterenko1,†, Alexey V. Yablokov2
Article first published online: 30 NOV 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04822.x © 2009 New York Academy of Sciences

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181, Chernobyl Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment pages 31–220, November 2009

Abstract

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

Brought to you by the same folks you are now trying to defend GG.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Panic won't help.

I have an idea. Why don't we wait till the situation is resolved, one way or another, and THEN discuss power policy, based on actual facts.

[SlimJimmy]

19. OMG, the actual voice of reason. I knew you were here at DU.

[SlimJimmy]

18. Comparing this to Chernobyl is ludicrus and causing panic when none is warranted. That's not

to say that this isn't a very serious situation. But I've read numerous threads on DU over the last few days that are just short of full blown hysteria. It's time to bring it down a notch.

[kristopher]

21. There is no hysteria, just sober assessment of a cluster-fuck caused by those you defend.

[SlimJimmy]

22. Look at the threads here over the last few days and say that again with a straight face.

Sober assessment? :argh:

[kristopher]

24. It might look that way if you were dedicated to defending the nuclear industry

You aren't dedicated to defending the nuclear industry are you? Is that your reason for being?

[SlimJimmy]

26. You are delusional if you think I'm defending anything. I'm simply pointing out what a number of

other posters have already said in various threads. It's very simple and extremely straight forward. But with that said, it seems to me that *you're* the one with the agenda.

[kristopher]

28. You bet I've got an agenda.

I've been listening to an endless series of lies being force onto the public consciousness by a nuclear industry intent on pilfering the public purse and I'm not going to put up with their lies any longer.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. Really? No 'we're all gonna die' posts around here?

I've seen people describe themselves as physically sick and unable to move over this issue. In the *US*.

Yes, that is hysteria.

I freely admit the situation is a lot worse than I expected it could possibly become, but we aren't toast JUST yet, ok? We have a hundred and fifty reactors happily churning out the gigawatts all across the US right now.

You want to take away nuclear power subsidies? I'll support you.
You want to spike the renewal of leases of BWR Mark 1 designs like Vermont Yankee? I'll support you.
No nukes at all? Not in the foreseeable future. And Obama re-iterated that last night.

[kristopher]

25. Sure you have ...

...; stocked up on the BS, that is.

We have 104 reactors.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Pretty sure we have over 150 if you count those like the 14 reactors within 60 miles of Seattle.

You know, Ohio Power and Light. Lincoln Power and Light, when it's here, etc.

Plus the UW has a reactor.

Just because it's not hooked to the grid doesn't mean it isn't a nuclear reactor.

[SlimJimmy]

27. Shut the hell up. There you go with that voice of reason and recitation of facts again. (nt)

[kristopher]

29. Claims with no proof are the trademark of propagandists.

[SlimJimmy]

30. And words without merit are the trademark of fools.

[kristopher]

31. Claims without proof = words with no merit.

[SlimJimmy]

32. Words that are not true and do not reflect facts = fool. Bye. (nt)

[FBaggins]

33. Don't go Kris! The free entertainment is part of what keeps me here.

IOW... if you really believed that... you would never post again. :)

[kristopher]

34. I can and do back up all I say - remember all your whining about "spam"

Perhaps you have some evidence of the "panic and hysteria" that you are trying to overcome.

What I'm experiencing is extreme anger.

[FBaggins]

35. Lol... spam that equals "claims without proof".

Oh wait... I forgot. If it agrees with you it is authoritative proof from the experts... no matter how small the minority of scientific opinion they represent.

You ought to consider joining the climate deniers. You would fit right in.

What I'm experiencing is extreme anger.

Not uncommon. Irrational paranoi often ends up that way when others don't buy into the conspiracy theory.

Perhaps you have some evidence of the "panic and hysteria" that you are trying to overcome.

Hundreds upon hundreds of posts here (many with your name on them).

[kristopher]

36. Tell the NEI you need more training.

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Sure, nevermind medical production reactors, test reactors, and naval reactors.

There's 35 TRIGA reactors across the country just for teaching students how to work in the nuclear power field.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. TMI safety systems that humans actively fought and interfered with.

Fortunately, the reactor won.

[PamW]

37. Not a linear scale or even logarithmic

"It's clear we are at Level 6, that's to say we're at a level in between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," Andre-Claude Lacoste, president of France's nuclear safety authority, told reporters Tuesday.
==================================

About all you can say is that the Japanese episode is worse than Three Mile Island
( which was totally contained, with some intentional releases that were too small to
harm the populace ), but this is certainly less than Chernobyl in which there was
no containment and there was a large fire in the reactor.

Chernobyl released about a million times the radioactive inventory as has been
released in the Japanese event.

So the only thing that can be gleaned here is that the Japanese event at 6 is
worse than Three Mile Island (5) and less severe than Chernobyl (7).

PamW

[FBaggins]

38. Pam. Take a look at the other six.

Hard to call the two comparable - though it could still get that way.

Beginning to wonder how TMI was a five.