Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[AhabsOtherLeg]

When the officials begin to set a pessimistic tone, and admit there may have been a core breach, imagine how bad it must actually be.

Then imagine how bad it's been all along. The refusal to admit the reality of (mainly quite localised, for the time being) danger to the public almost reminds me of... why, it almost reminds me of Chernobyl, Sellafield, and Three Mile Island! Using those examples would be scaremongering though, so best not.

Still don't get why people in the US or Finland are stockpiling iodine tablets, though. It only works if you know exactly when exposure is coming, and take it no more than a day in advance, and most people aren't going to be told in advance. Taking a lot of it over a longer period as a preventative measure probably isn't a good idea either.

[Maddy]

If you have an allergy to contrast, are you screwed with the iodine solution? If that's the case, I know I would be. Just sayin'. Its probably not for everyone.

[anothershamus]

[AhabsOtherLeg]

If you have an allergy to contrast, are you screwed with the iodine solution? If that's the case, I know I would be. Just sayin'. Its probably not for everyone.

I honestly don't know, Maddy, I'm just annoyed at people falling for the inevitable iodine scams (there are folk selling it on Ebay at hugely, ridiculously inflated prices and others marketting it with "Ideal For Kids!" suddenly plastered on the bottle). I worry there are people somewhere far, far away from Japan, facing no immediate health threat whatsoever, who are chomping all the potentially much-needed medicine and pumping their kids full of it to the point of doing them harm for no good reason.

Anothershamus, I'm going to send that pic to my pal in Tokyo. He'll love it. He's a bit of a Snake Plissken type himself. Well, a bit.

[23]

Still don't get why people in the US or Finland are stockpiling iodine tablets, though. It only works if you know exactly when exposure is coming, and take it no more than a day in advance, and most people aren't going to be told in advance. Taking a lot of it over a longer period as a preventative measure probably isn't a good idea either.

As one physician told me, it's better for a child to ingest 65 mg of potassium iodide (KI) than for his or her thyroid to absorb high levels of radioiodine (Iodine-131).

KI puts up the sign, "No Vacancy", at the inn of the thyroid.

It's a no-brainer for me.

[seemslikeadream]

Highly radioactive water found in Japan
March 26, 2011 - 1:12PM
Japan reactor may be leaking
Japanese officials unsure whether damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima is leaking.
Video feedbackVideo settings
Highly radioactive water at 10,000 times the normal level has seeped from a second stricken reactor building at Japan's quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says.

The water was found in the basement of the turbine building of reactor one - a day after similar readings in the reactor three turbine basement heightened fears that the reactor vessel or its valves and pipes were leaking.

The worst-case scenario at reactor three would be that the fuel inside the reactor core, a volatile uranium-plutonium mix, has gone critical and burnt its way through the bottom of its steel pressure vessel.

However, the nuclear safety agency has also said that other data suggested that the reactor vessel was still stable.

The seaside plant was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami which knocked out reactor cooling systems.

The reactors have since been doused with thousands of tons of water to cool them and keep spent fuel rods submerged in their pools, to stop them from being exposed to air and spewing out plumes of radioactive material.

The high radioactivity in the water was likely to slow efforts to stabilise the reactors, after three workers were contaminated when they sloshed through the puddle in the reactor three turbine room on Thursday.

The water in both cases contained iodine, caesium and cobalt 10,000 times the normal level, said a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

''We need to be careful that water contaminated with highly radioactive material will not leak outside,'' Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hideyuki Nishiyama said late on Friday.

Pools of water of up to one metre (three feet) were also found in the basement of the turbine buildings of reactors number two and four, he said, adding that their contents were being examined

Radioactive iodine 1,250 times limit in sea off Japan plant
OSAKA - THE operator of Japan's disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear plant has detected radioactive iodine 1,250 times the legal limit in Pacific Ocean waters nearby, the nuclear safety agency said on Saturday.

In a test by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, 'radioactive iodine-131 at 1250.8 times the legal limit was detected several hundred metres offshore near reactor number one,' the agency official told AFP.

The readings were taken about 300m offshore, public broadcaster NHK said.

The reading is sharply higher than several taken last week. Tepco said on Thursday that iodine-131 levels in the ocean near the plant were 145 times the legal level, Kyodo News reported.

Fire-engines and concrete trucks have poured thousands of tons of seawater onto the reactors and into fuel rod pools at the plant after cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 quake and tsunami. -- AFP

[eyeno]

March 25, 2009

9:08 p.m.




(For english information please go to the bottom of the page)



The CTBTO has 60 certified stations worldwide. These stations have been established for the verification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to measure radioactivity with unprecedented accuracy. However, this monitoring network was also compared to a much lower spatial density with the national radiation detection systems.A detection of a CTBTO station does not mean that health relevance exists. Until now, no measurement system in the CTBTO, detected the health-damaging levels of radionuclides.


The CTBTO system does not measure dose rates, but instead the concentrations of individual isotopes such as iodine-131 and cesium-137. Therefore, it can also prove substances the dose rate is an infinitesimal fraction of the dose rate of natural radioactivity (one hundred-millionth). This is because these substances are normally present in the atmosphere.


As of today, Fukushima radiation was recorded at 24 different stations of the Authority. New detections relate to the station in Stockholm, Sweden as well as stations in the European part of Russia, in extremely dilute form - -

The radiation cloud is already running almost around the entire northern hemisphere. in extremely dilute form - - Simulations of the ZAMG show very clearly the spread of the last two weeks. The model has worked generally very satisfactory.



At the bottom of the visible graphics a different scale was used as our operational simulations. The graphics were optimized to show even the smallest activity concentrations of iodine-131, as can also be measured in the CTBTO network.

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/ ... exMVButv1Q

[seemslikeadream]

3 Raging Nuclear Meltdowns In Progress' Dr. Michio Kaku - 25 March 2011



"The Nuclear Crisis in Japan and the Upcoming 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster" News Briefing PETE/CH. 7 ROBO VJ HD Speakers: Dr. Alexey Yablokov is a member of the Russian Academy of Science and served as the Chair of the Russian National Security Council's Interagency Commission for Ecology under President Boris Yeltsin. In 2009 he co-authored "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," There will be consecutive translation with Dr. Alexey Yablokov. It is possible that he will provide English-language remarks during the Q&A. Cindy Folkers, a specialist on radiation and health at Beyond Nuclear Moderator: Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth



Nuclear Crisis In Japan & The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

[Canadian_watcher]

Just a quick note - I'm on thyroid hormone replacement therapy as I'm hypothyroid. When I take Kelp I get a swollen and very sore (lumpy type sore) throat. So.. be careful.

[seemslikeadream]

Just a quick note - I'm on thyroid hormone replacement therapy as I'm hypothyroid. When I take Kelp I get a swollen and very sore (lumpy type sore) throat. So.. be careful.

Isn't everyone?

[Avalon]

My having potassium iodide on hand (as I have had for a few years) is based on the possibility that if there is an appropriate time to begin taking it, I don't want to assume that the authorities who would give it out will actually have it available, or have a foolproof way of making sure people know where and how they can get some. I know my county can't even get it together to inform people that certain bridges are cut off by floodwaters and we'll have to make a 30 mile detour to get to the other side.

[Iamwhomiam]

Avalon, be sure it has not expired as it does lose potency.

Not known by many is the fact that more than 10,000 American deaths from thyroid cancer were attributed to the fallout from Chernobyl. Don't have the study handy but will try to locate it.

[Peachtree Pam]

This really makes you wonder how people could allow this to be built near such heavily populated areas.

Oldest US nuclear reactor: a ‘disaster’ in waiting?

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, March 25th, 2011 -- 8:55 am

LACEY, New Jersey — A sleepy New Jersey town has popped onto people's radar screens because it has the oldest running nuclear power plant in the United States -- and, some say, the most dangerous.

Named for a Revolutionary War general, Lacey is the kind of American town that few from outside the seaside settlement knew much about before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan triggered a nuclear crisis.

Down the road from the 1950s-style diner and across from the bridge that locals use as a fishing pier stands the Oyster Creek nuclear plant.

It uses a GE Mark I Boiling Water reactor identical to those that lost power at Japan's Fukushima plant in the March 11 earthquake and then was struck by a tsunami that knocked out its backup generators, causing reactor cooling functions to fail.

US anti-nuclear activists and many residents of Lacey and surrounding Jersey shore townships worry that a similar nuclear disaster could happen at Oyster Creek, and it wouldn't need an earthquake or tsunami to trigger it.

Oyster Creek has been dogged by problems including a corroding liner in the carbon steel containment unit; leaks that allow radioactive tritium to seep into drinking water; and huge volumes of stocked spent fuel rods.

"We have 40 years of radiation on site -- two-and-a-half to three times more than in Japan," anti-nuclear activist Jeff Brown told AFP.

"You also have that tremendously stupid design to start with where the spent fuel rods are sitting on top of the reactor," he said, raising a fear among residents that the reactor could be an easy target for a terrorist attack.

"At the very least, we need a no-fly zone over Oyster Creek. We have a no-fly zone over Disney World but not here," said Peggi Sturmfels, a program organizer at the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Oyster Creek is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation, which employs 700 people at the plant. The company disputes the charges by activists, insisting the reactor is safe.

"Nuclear power stations in general are the most hardened and well-protected industrial facilities in existence. Oyster Creek is no exception," Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbitt told AFP.

Half a million people live within what would be the evacuation zone if Oyster Creek were ever to have a radiation accident. In the summer, the population swells with beach-goers heading to the Jersey shore.

The town is 85 miles (137 kilometers) south of New York and 55 miles (88 kilometers) east of Philadelphia.

New Jersey is not in a seismically active zone but meteorologists say the coastal state is long overdue for a Category Five hurricane.

"One good storm surge, and Oyster Creek's backup generators are swamped. It's Japan all over again," Sturmfels said.

Nesbitt rejects such assessments, saying the plant is five miles (eight kilometers) off the Atlantic coast, protected by barrier islands, and 23 feet (seven meters) above sea level, far higher than the largest recorded storm tide of seven feet, in 1962.

He also said Oyster Creek "is constantly evaluated and improved," and that more than $1 billion has been spent on plant upgrades since operations began in 1969.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended Oyster Creek's license for another 20 years in 2009.

The NRC not only gives out nuclear licenses but is the industry safety watchdog. That's a conflict of interest, say critics who liken the situation to the regulation of the oil industry prior to last year's devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Under pressure from state officials, Oyster Creek's license was rolled back to 10 years, and the plant is now due to close for good in 2019.

Even that's too late, say some residents.

"I don't like it. They should close it sooner," retiree Barbara Murrofsky told AFP as she shopped at a local hardware store.

"What's happening in Japan has made us more aware of the problems we have in our own backyard," she said. "There are so many people who live near here that an accident would be a major disaster. They should shut it down now."

But another local, Rick Gifford, looked philosophically at Oyster Creek.

"It's been running for 40 years with no problem, there's no reason it should start having problems now," he said.

Greg Auriemma, a lawyer for the Sierra Club environmental group, said Gifford's stance was not unusual in Lacey.

"There's a sense of complacency because while the plant has had a lot of negative publicity, no major disaster has occurred. So people look at it and say, 'It's been running for 40 years, what's the big deal?'"

But, Auriemma said, as Japan showed, one tragic event can dramatically change the situation. "There's a potential disaster that could happen right here in our backyard," he told AFP.

Last week, President Barack Obama ordered a "comprehensive review" of US nuclear safety and vowed to learn lessons from Japan's atomic accident.

The NRC on Wednesday launched its review of the nation's 24 US reactors, saying a full report and recommendations will be published in six months.

A federal court hearing a case brought in 2009 by environmental groups against the NRC on Monday asked the nuclear watchdog to advise if Japan's unfolding crisis impacted "the propriety" of renewing Oyster Creek's license.

On the same day, the NRC extended for 20 years the license of another Mark 1 reactor, in the state of Vermont.

The Vermont Yankee reactor has had tritium leaks, a cooling tower collapse and even a fire in the plant's transformer.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/25/o ... waiting-2/

[psynapz]

I appreciate everyone's work in keeping this thread up to date. I think I surpassed horror and am now into giddy denial and I'm finding myself avoiding facing the news any more. It seems easier to take coming from this forum, somehow.

^^^ This. Thanks for saying it.

You folks think there is any traction on the Stuxnet Virus being a factor in any of this? What Really Happened guys whatreallyhappened.com think there could be a link.

That seems kinda ridiculous in an assume-horses-before-zebras sort of way. I do suspect HAARP, but I'm still not quite cynical enough to think this was an intended outcome, so to imagine a one-two punch of HAARP + Stuxnet, for me, is to imagine a descent into conspiratard madness. Which isn't that hard to imagine.

Be lucky if we don't have an explosion ten times fat boy or little man, or bigger.

Hehe, I think you meant:


whereas:


and...



Sorry, just needed to inject a little more levity in this thread, before it drives us all start raving, vein-popping, impotent-fist-in-the-air, streaking-through-the-village-screaming-with-junk-adangling mad.

[vanlose kid]

GoogleEarth Based 3D Map Of Real-Time Radioactivity Distribution In Japan; Projected Global Radioactivity Dispersion

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/25/2011 20:24 -0400

Confirming that in a time of instantaneous crowdsourced information distribution and analysis, any attempt by a government to institute an information blackout of any nature is doomed to failure, is the following amazing Google Earth-based 3D interactive map of Geiger readings from Japan. And if that is not enough, the Pachube community has released an extensive selection of crowd-sourced realtime radiation monitoring tools and widgets, focusing on as many Japanese territories as possible. Shortly we are confident all geographical holes will be filled, and every square mile of the affected territories will be mapped out surpassed the government's "Under Survey" blackout attempts.


Make sure to have the GoogleEarth API set up in advance of checking out the plugin.

Additionally, here is the most recent updated global radioactive fallout per ZAMG.


And a complete list of all the available crowdsourced radiation maps, applications and tutorials


* #geigermaps by @haiyan

* javascript map by @motoishmz

* Instructions for connecting up a geiger counter to Pachube (in Japanese) by @kotobuki

* RDTN by @rdtnorg

* All feeds on Pachube, mapped by search 'radiation' by Pachube

* Hacking a Geiger Counter in Nuclear Tokyo by akiba

* 3D realtime radiation in Japan (below) by uh

h/t Themos Mitsos

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/google ... tion-japan

*