Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[eyeno]

Man you can tell that the radiation coming in changed the mainstream news cycle. They went spooky quiet. Brought obama out to talk about Libya. Getting the scripts and ballgame ready. Be interesting to see what they come up with and see how much it changes.

on edit, brent bear on fox just told me that in some certain year wind power killed more americans than nuclear fuel power did. i am so damn relieved...

[Jeff]

Is this really only being reported now?

Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools

March 18, 2011, Associated Press

The fuel rods at all six reactors at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi complex contain plutonium — better known as fuel for nuclear weapons. While plutonium is more toxic than uranium, other radioactive elements leaking out are likely to be of greater danger to the general public.

Only six percent of the fuel rods at the plant's Unit 3 were a mixture of plutonium-239 and uranium-235 when first put into operation. The fuel in other reactors is only uranium, but even there, plutonium is created during the fission process.

...

Ed Lyman, a physicist at the activist group Union of Concerned Scientists, estimates the fuel in Unit 3 is 5 percent to 10 percent more dangerous than the fuel in the other crippled reactors.

Still, it is very unlikely to become packed tightly enough to reach what is known as critical mass and start a chain reaction. The plutonium would qualify as weapons grade only if a large quantity was packed together.

...

The Fukushima Dai-ichi site has a considerable number of fuel rods on hand, according to information provided Thursday by Toyko Electric Power Co., which owns the atomic complex: There are 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools within the six-reactor plant, including one joint pool storing very old fuel from units 3 and 4. There are 877 tons in five of the reactor cores. Officials have said that the fuel in Unit 4's reactor vessel was transferred to its spent fuel pool when the unit was temporarily shut in November.

If plutonium did get out, it wouldn't disappear quickly. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 25,000 years, meaning it takes that long to lose half of its radioactive potency. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years. And cesium, which tends to go airborne much more easily, has a half-life of 30 years.

...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/18 ... uel-pools/

[StarmanSkye]

^^^^^
This info has been available pretty-readily for at least a week. altho some news agencies have been careless either in not reporting it or claiming MOX fuel (containing up to 7 percent P235/234) is much more prevalent than it is. ONLY reactor 3 has MOX fuel, for which a special waiver had to be obtained since the MARK I reactors are not designed to use Plutonium, and which was loaded last October. None of the storage pools contain MOX. BUT, reactor #3 (along w/ #2) are highly suspected or confirmed (depends who ya read) to have pressure vessel breach-cracks -- caused by fuel overheating. Its very notable that MOX fuel has a lower melting temp, I guess because the plutonium is a hotter, denser isotope, reducing the zircalloy cladding's structual integrity and resistance to oxidation. Ziralloy readily oxidizes under heat, which explains the liberated hydrogen from water (H20) that concentrated at the reactor's roofline and exploded in #1 and 3, and blew out the walls (from pool fires?) in # 2 & 4.

A real mess alright.

[Laodicean]

A real mess alright.

May it be conjectured that those "hotter denser" plutonium particles are coming to North America? Or the rest of the world for that matter?

[23]

I'm not able to cut and paste the map here, so you'll have to see it at the linked website.

https://cdxnode64.epa.gov/radnet-public/showMap.do

Notice how many, and where, the temporarily out of service and undergoing review Radnet monitors are.

[eyeno]

I'm not able to cut and paste the map here, so you'll have to see it at the linked website.

https://cdxnode64.epa.gov/radnet-public/showMap.do

Notice how many, and where, the temporarily out of service and undergoing review Radnet monitors are.

Did you look at it in the last couple of days? Were most of them online until just recently?

[23]

I'm not able to cut and paste the map here, so you'll have to see it at the linked website.

https://cdxnode64.epa.gov/radnet-public/showMap.do

Notice how many, and where, the temporarily out of service and undergoing review Radnet monitors are.

Did you look at it in the last couple of days? Were most of them online until just recently?

My eyes have gazed at so much stuff, the past few days, that I can't recall. Sorry about that.

[23]

Massive storm heading for the west coast:

http://www.weather.com/maps/maptype/sat ... mated.html



Probably an offshoot of this mega one:

[freemason9]

Is this really only being reported now?

Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools

The fuel in other reactors is only uranium, but even there, plutonium is created during the fission process.

...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/18 ... uel-pools/

tell me again how it happens that plutonium is created during the uranium fission process

[jingofever]

tell me again how it happens that plutonium is created during the uranium fission process

Source.

[freemason9]

tell me again how it happens that plutonium is created during the uranium fission process

Source.

but it takes irradiation from plutonium to breed fissionable material from uranium,

and wouldn't creation of plutonium from uranium infer fusion?

[jingofever]

but it takes irradiation from plutonium to breed fissionable material from uranium,

and wouldn't creation of plutonium from uranium infer fusion?

To get fissionable uranium (U-235) you enrich U-238. Uranium capturing a neutron isn't considered fusion. I believe it would need to capture at least one proton to be fusion. What is happening in the diagram is U-238 captures a neutron to become U-239, an isotope of uranium, and through two beta decays two neutrons become protons, forming Pu-239.

[StarmanSkye]

^^^^^
Yes -- Plutonium-238 is synthesized via fusion, ie. bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons. In this process, a deuteron hitting uranium-238 produces two neutrons and neptunium-238, which spontaneously decays by emitting negative beta particles to form plutonium-238.

BTW:
Wikileaks is of the opinion that plutonium radiation poisoning is relatively rare, far less of a hazard than widely stated.

--quote--
Plutonium is more dangerous when inhaled than when ingested. The risk of lung cancer increases once the total dose equivalent of inhaled radiation exceeds 400 mSv.[89] The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the lifetime cancer risk for inhaling 5,000 plutonium particles, each about 3 microns wide, to be 1% over the background U.S. average.[90] Ingestion or inhalation of large amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death; no human is known to have died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium, and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.[76]

The "hot particle" theory in which a particle of plutonium dust radiates a localized spot of lung tissue has been tested and found false – such particles are more mobile than originally thought and toxicity is not measurably increased due to particulate form.[87]

However, when inhaled, plutonium can pass into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation and thus may cause cancer. [91]

Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Hiroshima survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed.

These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results.[87] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during the 1940's; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."[92][93]


--unquote--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

[eyeno]

Been sitting here think about the fact that 'they' told us radiation hit the coast but none of the geiger counters on the sites showed a spike. Wonder if they tricked us.

edit: the counters on the independent network owned by the geiger companies.

[anothershamus]

Breathing, Kate Bush lyrics.....timely and appropriate.

Outside gets inside, Through her skin,
I`ve been out before
But this time it`s much safer in.
Last night, in the sky,
Such a bright light.
My radar send me danger
But my instincts tell me to
Keep Breathing

Chorus
Breathing
Breathing my mother in,
Breathing, my beloved in,
Breathing, Breathing her nicotine, breathing
Breathing the fall out-in, out-in, out-in, out-in, out-in.

We`ve lost our chance, we`re the first and last,
After the blast,
Chips of Plutonium are twinkling in every lung.
I love my beloved.
All and everywhere,
Only the fools blew it,
You and me knew life itself is breathing.

Chorus

What are we going to do without
Ooh, please, let me breathe,
Quick, breath in deep,
Leave us something to breathe,
Ooh, Life is-
Breathing.