Japanese Nuclear Plant Continues Its Radioactive Spill Into Ocean - LATimes

[WillyT]

Can you say... "Junk Shot" ???

Japanese nuclear plant continues its radioactive spill into ocean
By Julie Makinen and Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times
April 3, 2011, 7:51 a.m.

<snip>

Reporting from Tokyo and Los Angeles— Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failed for a second day to stem the flow of radioactive water into the ocean as plastic injected into the leak Sunday failed to form a plug.

Workers had discovered an 8-inch crack in a concrete channel at the lower levels of reactor No. 2 where radioactive water had been accumulating after it had been sprayed onto the reactor to cool it. The crack was spewing the contaminated water into the ocean, which may explain the high levels of radioactivity detected offshore near the plant.

On Saturday, workers attempted to pump concrete into the crack to seal it, but the concrete would not set before it was washed away by the flow of seawater.

On Sunday, engineers attempted to plug the leak with a mixture of sawdust, shredded paper and a polymer or plastic that expanded to 500 times its normal size when exposed to water. They had then hoped to pour concrete on top of the polymer to form a permanent seal, but the polymer did not form a plug either, and as of Sunday night, water was continuing to flow into the ocean.

Radiation levels in the water are an estimated 1,000 millisieverts per hour, a high but not immediately lethal dose.

<snip>

Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-reactor-damage-20110403,0,1606193.story?track=rss

:kick:

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[fascisthunter]

2. Right Wingers believe the Radiation in the Ocean will Cause all sea life to grow in size

yielding larger more abundant amounts of fish for its industry. They claim they know this from watching the Incredible Hulk a few years ago.

[WillyT]

3. LOL !!!

Talk about your giant prawns...

:hi:

[flamingdem]

9. +1 dang, those things are fugly!

[BeFree]

4. Crack in the concrete?

But the experts here claimed it survived the earthquake just fine.
Did the Tsunami cause the concrete to crack?

Hopefully, the experts will finally agree to listen to common sense and begin closing all nuke plants, asap. We can't afford another problem like this. We can't even afford this one!

[grahamhgreen]

5. K&R. End the nuclear nightmare.

[angstlessk]

6. So, basically a business has the right to destroy the planet?

I know they are doing it piecemeal, but this one might be in one fell swoop?

[Lorien]

7. We already learned that from the BP disaster in the Gulf. And whenever I hear

someone say that we shouldn't worry about climate change because "science will figure out a way to fix it" I remind them; we can't plug a leaking pipe under the ocean, and now stopping radioactive sea water from entering the ocean seems to be too big of a challenge, so what hope do we have of combating runaway climate change? Better to curb greenhouse gasses NOW by switching to clean green renewables as swiftly as possible. Make it an Apollo project. Had we followed Carter's advice years ago neither the gusher nor the reactor would have been an issue.

[enough]

8. I think as the world is now, the answer to that question is yes. Can that be changed?

I don't know.

[WillyT]

10. Kick !!!

:kick: