Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster! The total non-story of the Fukushima nuclear powerplant "disaster" – which has seen and will see no deaths or measurable health consequences for anyone anywhere – has received a shot in the arm today with the news that Japanese authorities have upgraded the incident to a Level 7 on the nuclear accident scale. This was reported …
... but not for the reason you seem to imply. The mass evacuation of at least some of those cities some of them was probably unnecessary, and may well have caused more death and injury than has actually occurred due to the reactors' problems. The real story is the willingness of the government to add to the misery of people already affected by a real catastrophe - y'know, the earthquake and tsunami that caused lots of death and destruction.
What I find most scary in the debate on here is how people with such a supposedly solid grasp of the science have such utter contempt for those expressing natural human fears.
This contempt seems to be a macho thing: Hey, I understand everything, and therefore fear nothing. Oh, and look at my huge dick.
Those who do dangerous things know it’s often fear which keeps them alive. Brave people finding leaks in reactors fear. But they also know more about the job in hand than anyone spouting their macho garbage on here.
Fanning the flames of fear and panic, or trying to spread some calm and level headed assessment of risk?
Which does more harm? Which does more good?
For me, the only contempt I hold is for fear mongering panic merchants who don't know one jot about the science, but feel free to repeat the most ludicrous fearful doom laden stories as absolute fact, or the ones that buy into the fear mongering and get offended by someone trying to be calmer and more level headed.
Fear is an important part of self preservation, but when you allow fear to drive you and your decisions, you are no longer exercising sound judgement. You'll also find that those with the most knowledge of things tend to have a healthy respect for the things that cause fear. Their fear threshold, though, is based on knowledge, and not the Daily Mail's reporting.
I've seen no one contemptuous of those expressing normal human fears. But I have seen some people trying in the face of the shrill anti-nuclear fear mongers to calm fears, dispense perspective and knowledge, and offer factual and science/engineering based assessments. I've also seen people reacting with anger because their apparently dearly held fears are being challenged by fact.
So, what's more scary, the fear monger driving panic, or the one trying to calm people's fears with reason and fact?
I think it's more along the lines of dealing with the 'I don't understand how it works, and i've a feeling it's bad, so it must be bad, and if it wasn't bad, why else are there all these limits, and so it's so bad, we have to ban it because it's clearly a disaster."
I understand now, what it must have been like 100 years ago, when aircraft were new. "that can't work, I'm not going in one of them, you'll get half way up and then it'll stop and kill us all, you'll see"
Same reaction, just differnt technology.
More propaganda form the nuclear lobby..
Seriously its getting funny now, the way that some of this BS is being put across (other than that of a child who simply resorts to name calling) is almost like there saying "nuclear radiation is GOOD for you" and very loud voices all of a sudden appearing that we need to build MORE nuclear plants as if its the ONLY logical step.
Its just like the fracking bankers, they totally screw up and what do we do, I know lets give them more opportunity to frack us over some more.. And this is exactly what they are saying..
Hey I know we used weapons grade material in our power plants (a gram of which is usually enough to kill anyone in a matter of minutes - why do you think it was used in weapons?) and that this happened to get damaged in an earth quake (not to meantion that alot of these types of plants are bulit on fault lines) and then it leaked. But can we build some more? I'm sure all of you are just dying to move in next to your nearest nuclear power plant being that radiation is suddenly 'good' for you. Here gargle some fukushima seawater. hmmm tasty!
Lewis, you're going through the motions of flogging a dead horse.
They themselves have admitted this is a very serious situation. It has always been a serious situation but they've been covering themselves since the start and they have been falsifying safety records there for decades. And all this without even getting into the whole loss of face thing on top.
Just give up, in the name of reason. And stop pretending to be any kind of a nuclear expert.
Better still, go there. I'm sure the Reg will be happy to fly you there first class (they seem happy enough to give you all this exposure after all) -- where you can then give us the total benefit of an on-the-spot story with quotes from the industry's experts. You know, the people who actually are putting their lives at clear and present risk trying to contain, in their words, the seepage of highly irradiated cooling water into the environment? I'm sure they'll tell you there nothing to worry about.
At least I *have* a degree in physics but I never have claimed to be any kind of an expert on nuclear power or the assured statistical safety record. And I'm not in favour of wind farms, either.
The world needs more annoying skeptics, not less.
Don't you think, though, that "containing seepage" isn't quite in the same league as the dangers suggested by the majority of the reporting on this? There are honourable exceptions - the BBC's Richard Black, for example - but there are plenty of examples who are still trying to imply the plants are on the ragged edge of a full scale core melt.
I suspect most of the engineers on the plant would largely support Lewis - they're professionals, thoroughly grounded types, who'd be furious about the hyperbole. I know most of my former colleagues are.
Well, given that it's been a week since we heard anything from Lewis on this, I thought he was in hiding. It's not like the news has been any kinder to the situation.
First off, let's start with published data: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/radioactivity_level/detail/1304082.htm
These are readings around Fukushima, out to 40km. They have daily updates on the dosage levels.
Please note that the hightest rating is over 50 microsieverts/hr, not 1.6 as noted by the MIT guys. There's another site at 25, and several over 10, and many reading above 3.
Is 10 microsieverts/hr going to kill you? No, I'm not saying that is. 240uS/day is about 85 milisieverts a year, which is much higher than the background rate, but not immediately threatening, but the point here is that reporting the measured rates at only 1.6uS/hr is misinformation. Took me all of about a minute to find that data, too.
Lewis concentrates too much on iodine, as other have noted. Cesium-137 levels 1600x the normal rate have been found in Iitate village. This is the stuff with a 30 year half-life. This is what drives the creation of an evacuation zone.
Article here: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/23_28.html
Also, I notice that Lewis is completely ignoring the spent fuel pools, and the status of the "open to the atmosphere" fuel rods in them. In this case, we don't have to have a reactor breach to release serious sources of radiation, as the water in the fuel pools was gone at one point. I'd note that the spent fuel rods in 4 were active enough to:
1) boil off the water
2) react with the water vapor to generate H2
3) and blow the roof off of a unit where the reactor was even in operation.
That's with only 0.37% of the power (as Lewis notes) that the rods in the other 3 cores have going for them.
So where is the fuel from the spent fuel ponds? Unit 3 looks to be where it's supposed to, but Unit 4's fuel from the spent pool seem to be missing. The analysis here is interesting:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeandodge/5607209390/sizes/l/in/photostream/
followup here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeandodge/sets/72157626477240540/
If you want some real inside information, look at these numbers from NISA:
http://fukushimadatapage.com/viewDataPage.aspx?un=1
These are the operating numbers from the 3 reactors for temperature, pressure and radiation, probably from the normal monitoring units. I've pointed you at unit 1, because it's the most troubling. Yes, those units are Sieverts/hr, no mili or micro, full up, "put hair on your chest" sieverts. You know, the 1S that Lewis described as, "...probably won't kill you". Given that these reading are from just outside the reactor core and from the suppression ring (the torus), I would expect them to be high. But 100 Sieverts/hr near the core? 12 S/hr in the torus? Look at the numbers for the other active units. Neither unit's 2 nor 3 are anywhere near those levels.
What's telling is that NISA hasn't released any new data for the last 3 days.
This speaks of a core breach in unit 1. Perhaps not the concrete containment structure (fully 40 feet thick at the bottom), but it appears that the reactor in unit 1 has been breached. If that's the case, then prospects for further release of radiation have increased. Perhaps this is what is driving the higher classification.
I think the Reg might be better off putting Lewis' unending admiration for the nuclear industry aside, and let someone do some actual reporting. Just because I support the idea of nuclear power, doesn't mean that I need to be a cheerleader for the power companies, and the way things are run now.
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Right at the start of your post you started the cherry picking.
I've looked at the radiation data and with about three exceptions the radiation levels in Fukushima prefecture are far lower than the 50 microsieverts you mentioned. I know that you said that was the maximum, but the thrust of your post was that the levels were far higher than advertized - so to speak. The truth is rather more bland because of the listed radiation monitoring locations only the three hotspots in Fukushima prefecture and the plat itself (of course) show significant levels, and the highest, outside the plant itself, is the one you mentioned.
Yet the way you phrase it, it sounds like it's all a big coverup and the entire place is actually drenched in 50 micro-sieverts/hour of radiation. That is precisely the problem with even the better reporting in the press. they latch onto the large numbers and talk exclusively about them making it see as if that level of radiation is common, when it's not.
Regarding unit 1 at Fukushima Daiichi. The radiation sensor for the drywell has actually failed, it's readings became unreliable and it is no longer offering data. the monitor in the supression chamger though continues to operate and shows a continuing and gradual decrease in dose rates.
http://dgr4quake.wordpress.com/fukushima-npp1-parameters/
You noted that these readings which are in full sieverts are for the drywell and suppression chamber. These areas have been flooded with the water and steam coming out of the reactor so that new fresh water can be pumped in - pump and dump. It's not exactly surprising therefore that they contain high levels of radiation at this time. I'm not entirely sure that the conclusions you are drawing from radiation inside the drywell and suppression chamber are valid. You'll also note that prior to the malfunction in the sensor, unit 1's radiation dose rates were declining inline with the other two reactors. A trend that continues in the data from the radiation sensor in the suppression chamber.
Your data series that you are drawing a conclusion from (an errant conclusion) ends on 4/9. the faulty sensor in the drywell of unit 1 failed on 4/9 after reading incorrectly for a day or so. The continuing readings from the suppression chamber bear out the picture of a reactor declining in activity.
The data at the link I provided is current - it extends past 4/9 through today.
I didn't know that the sensor in Unit 1's drywell had failed. The wordpress site is run by a Dr. Daniel Garcia, a Spanish Ph.D posted at JAEA. Thanks for another source of information and the link to current data- there was no mention on the other NISA site as why they hadn't updated anything for 3 days.
Looking at your spreadsheet, especially on the CAMS_DOSE sheet:
http://cid-0b14c7ab35e39ebd.office.live.com/view.aspx/QuakeInfo/FNPP1%5E_MainParametersEvol.xlsx
I notice that the levels that the drywell sensor in unit 1 (the dark blue line) have been reporting have been anything but a smooth descending curve, compared to either of the other units' drywell sensors or unit 1's own sensor in the suppression chamber. I'd disagree with your assessment that unit 1's drywell readings were declining, unless the sensor failed on 3/27. But that would be cherry-picking a data point , wouldn't it? In fact, it appears that all units are flattening out at their current levels of emission. The curves are not suggesting a further decline of significance.
I will note that the working suppression chamber sensor in unit 1 is still a good 10 S/hr higher than the same reading at the other 2 units. Interesting to see a 50% spike in that reading on 4/7, just proceeding the "errant" reading from the drywell sensor. From the notes, this corresponds with the start of the N2 injection.
Could the N2 injection have caused the sensor to fail?
Why are the radiation levels (as we know them) still so high in unit 1?
Given the updated information you pointed me at, it's hard to interpret the recent readings in unit 1 as a reactor breach. I'm happy to have data that conflicts with that possibility. I should not have suggested that conclusion without more corroborating evidence. I still think that unit 1 has severe issues, but I'm not sure what might be causing them.
As for cherry-picking data points, don't you know that it's bad form (when cherry picking) to point out both the high and low points of the plot, note where the median lies, and only use the median in your examples. And then to mention that high spot only once and that only when describing the range, well that's just inexcusable for narrative building. To actually provide a direct link to the full information defeats the while purpose. I guess that I'm not very good at it. :)
To sum up, I believe that you mentioned the figure "50 uS/hr" in your response more often than the single time I did in my original post. Perhaps I didn't say what you think I did.
I was noting that the figure of 1.6 uS/hr was inaccurate for the entire area when used to measure human safety, not claiming that 50 uS/hr was a more accurate number.
I mentioned the 50uS/hr figure multiple times because I was relating it to an annual dose based on that rate, as well as the lower 17uS/hr rates observed at two other hotspots in Fukushima. The point I made in my original post, and was trying (badly) to make in my reply to you is that the general level in the Fukushima prefecture is far lower than the hotspots at 17 uS/hr and 50 uS/hr, and that even at the lower 17uS/hr rate, the annual dose will would be below the point at which medical concern is normally warranted (I say that based on the information I have researched on medical use of radiation and what is/is not safe for professionals in fields such as the airline industry).
The data from the drywell sensor in unit 1 has been a little flaky, but the suppression chamber sensor does show more consistent data with a pattern of declining readings inline with the other units. Unit 1 is, and has been the hottest of the three units since the data series began. The injection of the nitrogen has certainly raised pressure inside the drywell, the flooding of the drywell with steam and water in addition to all the other things going on could have caused the sensor to fail, but obviously, I don't know.
The increasing pressure in the reactor pressure vessel of unit 1 is due to the injection of Nitrogen. and it's temperatures are on a declining path again. There was a significant spike in temperatures in unit one on the 28/29th of March not long after the switch to fresh water. Some of the better analysis I've read suggested that the use of saltwater may have resulted in salt being deposited inside the reactor possibly hampering the flow of cooling water. Switching to fresh water would allow that salt to gradually dissolve away, and once the cooling water could flow properly again, it may have encountered elements within the core that were not being as well cooled, raising the temperatures and pressures accordingly. I'd love for some analysis of that spike to be done, but I suspect we'll have to wait for a post accident inquiry for that kind of detail. The more recent spike in pressure and temporary increase in temperature inside unit 1 seems to coincide with the injection of nitrogen gas, If you look at the data today, there is still a cooling trend at unit 1, and radiation does seem to be continuing to decline in line with the other units (although at a higher level)
to me, trust is the point.
the reactors were built in an area that has earthquakes and tsunamies.
reactors can be dangerous things,
we all know that,
so if there was a chance of a level 9 earth quake, why wasn't it built to with stand that ?
I'd have assumed the had built in a safty margine, like design for a 10 or 11.
as for the tsunami,
they new one would happen, an built a wall to protect them,.
they obviously got that wrong, and lost the backup generators on site.
so why were there not back up generators available, ready to be rolled in to site, if the other generators failed.
I guess they assumed if one gen failed, then the others could cope,
but what about the 1001 other reasons that all the gens could have failed,
The safety engineers should be thinking what could go wrong and how to handle that problem,
not how to handle a size X quake or a size tsunami.
I bet they are going to run out of safety suits or such like soon.
In no particular order...
On the thermograph, I see one hotspot, of 56C. Somewhere around where you'd expect the containment top to be - which seems entirely consistent with the reported containment temperatures.
If there were a breach, you'd expect temperatures in the hundreds of C.
Here's todays reactor status report. I'm not sure why NISA's not publishing them - they seem to have got a bit sidetracked reporting on the later seismic issues, but these are still coming out every few hours from JAIF and the other sources.
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1302606192P.pdf
Note that the "breached" reactor 1 is somehow miraculously maintaining about 3 atmospheres gauge, and the containment about 0.7. That's hard to do when there's a hole.....
As to the supression chamber levels, we know that R1 suffered more fuel damage, and earlier than the other reactors - and there's nothing inconsistent there. It's also a smaller volume containment.
As to the drywell levels, that's also unsurprising, since the tactic being run at the moment is to vent steam into the drywell (plus, since the dominant contaminant, iodine, is a gas, it's not likely to remain in the supression pool, but migrate upward). I'll bet you like reading horror stories...
Oh, one thing to think of. As noted, heat production has declined by a very large factor since the early days. And to cause a breach, you're reliant on molten fuel hitting the bottom head of the vessel while having enough heat alreacy contained, plus heat production, to melt into the steel.
Broadly, it's a phenomenon that's going to happen in the first few minutes/hours after shutdown, not some weeks later.
Thanks for taking the time to bring up these points and do some research.
I'm not sure what about you're referring to in the thermograph- it's a picture of reactors 3 & 4, not unit 1. The hot spot you see is in unit 3, on the right, which corresponds to the location of the spent fuel pool in unit 3, which is visible through the debris of the roof.
My point (and the poster's) is that there is no corresponding "hotspot" for unit 4. Where is that spent fuel?
As for the suggested breach in unit 1, I was going by the release of radiation on the 8th, not the containment pressure. You bring up a good point in noting that the unit is still holding pressure, so any breach of the steel walls of the reactor is unlikely. If the current tactic to vent steam into drywells has been going on since the beginning of April, I'm willing to listen to any explanation of why the radiation levels more than doubled on the 8th.
I do note that the NISA data shows a steady increase in pressure for the reactor vessel in unit 1 and that at 904 kPA, that unit is currently at 10x the pressure of the other 2 units. The unit is smaller, with about 2/3 the generating capacity of units 2-6. That might expand some pressure difference, but not an order of magnitude, and not a 50% increase since the initial event.
Please note that the information provided in your link is not the same as the NISA status page, as this information does not have the specific radiation/temp/pressure readings per reactor, just a summary of the beliefs of the JAIF. They are an industry body, not a regulatory agency. Let's stipulate that I trust NISA information more than JAIF.
And no, I don't read horror novels, and I don't secretly long for the status at Fukushima to become any worse than it is. I do, however, have a degree in engineering, and I run supercomputers for a living. When something breaks, we try to discover the cause of the failure. We don't run around waving our arms in the air crying "The sky is falling!", nor do we stick our heads in the sand and proclaim, "nothing to see hear, move along".
I'd like some explanation as to why the pressure and released radiation for that unit keep climbing, weeks after the event. Increased pressure alone would seem to imply increased heat production in that reactor.
I'd also like to see the data updates restart from NISA.
the picture (on flikr) that you linked to - one that's photographed in infra red, and uses false colour to shoe temperatues.
The reason there's no hot spor over the containment at r4 is simple. R4 was defuelled at the time of the accident.
"hot spot you see is in unit 3, on the right, which corresponds to the location of the spent fuel pool in unit 3, "
Not according to what I understand of the layout.
I don't see a "doubling" - i see a transient spike, which is that you'd see if the reading happened to coincide with a vent into the containment.
"I do note that the NISA data shows a steady increase in pressure for the reactor vessel in unit 1 and that at 904 kPA, that unit is currently at 10x the pressure of the other 2 units. The unit is smaller, with about 2/3 the generating capacity of units 2-6. That might expand some pressure difference, but not an order of magnitude, and not a 50% increase since the initial event."
R1's been running consistently hotter than the others - the NRC analysis that emerged last week suggests that it's more likely have problems with flow restrictions, from salt build-up (it's to do with the clearance below the core plate and the "shroud"). No great suprise, and also worth recalling 8 bar gauge is about 1/10th of normal operating pressure.
"They are an industry body, not a regulatory agency. Let's stipulate that I trust NISA information more than JAIF."
they're the source of the NISA data (or more strictly, both are supplied by TEPCO).
"I'd like some explanation as to why the pressure and released radiation for that unit keep climbing, weeks after the event. Increased pressure alone would seem to imply increased heat production in that reactor."
The plant operators are playing a balancing game - they can reduce temperatures by increasing coolant flow and pressure, but that means that they will eventually have to deal with greater quantities of contaminated water. Add to that the flow restriction issue, and you'll have a greater challenge. So, it's simplistic to assume that pressure/temperature are solely a function of heat production - they reflect heat production and removal.
It's also rather questionable to portray the pressures/temperatures as "consistently" climbing. They've varied, with the R1 temperature running as high as 300C+.
Looking at NRC document, the strategy is to vent steam to the containment, and allow the condensate to gradually flood the drywell. Part of the reason for that is that it appears that the shaft seals on the recirculation pumps (located in the containment) have failed. That imposes a limit on the water levels maintainable in the RPVs, until the containment is flooded to that level (the drywells are designed to be flooded, btw - that's how the system is shielded/cooled during shutdown and refuelling)
As and when those levels are reached, water levels will rise in the reactors, and we'll be at cold-shutdown. My expectation would be, at that point, the levels will just be held steady for some months, to allow iodine decay, and then the water will be circulated for treatment to remove caesium, etc.
"The re-evaluation of the Fukushima Daiichi provisional INES rating resulted from an estimate of the total amount of radioactivity released to the environment from the nuclear plant. NISA estimates that the amount of radioactive material released to the atmosphere is approximately 10% of the 1986 Chernobyl accident, which is the only other nuclear accident to have been rated a Level 7 event.
Earlier ratings of the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi were assessed as follows:
On 18 March, Japanese authorities rated the core damage at the Fukushima Daiichi 1, 2 and 3 reactor Units caused by loss of all cooling function to have been at Level 5 on the INES scale. They further assessed that the loss of cooling and water supplying functions in the spent fuel pool of the Unit 4 reactor to have been rated at Level 3.
Japanese authorities may revise the INES rating at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as further information becomes available."
(Source: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html)
So the first thing the IAEA states in this small paragraph is that the accident at Fukushima has been re-evaluated by NISA. I won't speculate on the reasons; however it appears as though they are now offering a 'combined' rating for all damages and their effects instead of 'split' ones for every single reactor. Seems somewhat odd, because a. it makes one wonder why that wasn't done earlier and b. why it should be more convenient now that some of the countermeasures appear to have worked. And yeah, I know, there have been more earthquakes, but they haven't made the situation a lot worse, or did they?
Secondly, again according to NISA estimates, the "amount of radioactive material released to the environment is approximately 10% of [...] Chernobyl". Still, it gets a level 7 rating. That could either mean the whole INES concept is sh**, as it allows you to lump Chernobyl and Fukushima into one category, despite obvious differences. The trouble with that is twofold: number one, neither the pro- nor the no-nukers get sufficient, reliable data/ratings to back up their respective position -- they do not seem to exist. Number two, the INES was put together/initiated by the IAEA and the OECD/NEA; so the question arises whether the scientific work that allegedly went into it was worth a whole lot. In the context of this discussion, I find it a little strange that doubts about the rating are often expressed by members of the pro-nuclear faction, who are otherwise referring to the IAEA as a central authority on the subject at hand. -- Alternatively, it's also possible to consider the INES ratings the best we have; but in that case, one might ask if Chernobyl was probably underrated.
Thirdly, it is stated that NISA's INES rating may be revised "as further information becomes available". That seems to indicate that these ratings are performed on a provisional or interim basis; more bluntly put, they're made up as the authorities and TEPCO go along. That doesn't look particularly trustworthy, and it likely will not inspire confidence among those who have been evacuated -- even if you accept the fact that it's far too early to make any final judgments from a scientific angle.
Quote:
"The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was developed in 1990 by international experts convened by the IAEA and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA) with the aim of communicating the safety significance of events at nuclear installations."
Source:
INES -- The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale: User's Manual, 2008 Edition. Co-sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and OECD/Nuclear Energy Agency. Vienna 2009. Available online under: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/INES-2009_web.pdf (4-13-2011)
That might suggest the scale is indeed a measuring stick, even if it only covers the "safety significance of events at nuclear installations" (relative to what?) and not the "relative severity of two accidents", as you call it.
Another quote:
"Scope of the Scale
INES applies to any event associated with the transport, storage and use of radioactive material and radiation sources, whether or not the event occurs at a facility. It covers a wide spectrum of practices, including industrial use such as radiography, use of radiation sources in hospitals, activity at nuclear facilities, and transport of radioactive material.
It also includes the loss or theft of radioactive sources or packages and the discovery of orphan sources, such as sources inadvertently transferred into the scrap metal trade. When a device is used for medical purposes (e.g., radiodiagnosis or radiotherapy), INES is used for the rating of events resulting in actual
exposure of workers and the public, or involving degradation of the device or deficiencies in the safety provisions. Currently, the scale does not cover the actual or potential consequences for patients exposed as part of a medical procedure.
The scale is only intended for use in civil (non-military) applications and only relates to the safety aspects of an event. INES is not intended for use in rating security-related events or malicious acts to deliberately expose people to radiation.
What the Scale is Not For
It is not appropriate to use INES to compare safety performance between facilities, organizations or countries. The statistically small numbers of events at Level 2 and above and the differences between countries for reporting more minor events to the public make it inappropriate to draw international comparisons."
Source:
INES -- The International Nuclear and Radiological event Scale: Fact Sheet, published by the IAEA and the OECD/NEA. Available online under: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/ines.pdf (04-13-2011)
So the last chapter from the fact sheet says the scale is not fit "to compare safety performance between facilities, organizations or countries." Okay, let's accept that. The question remains why IAEA, NISA and others have recently used it for the exact purpose of comparison. First to underscore that the accident wasn't as bad as Chernobyl, now to say 'it's still not as severe, but much worse than we initially thought'. And next to say what?
Just to get this out of the way: pressure from the public and the media exists, no question. So the PR guys at those organizations as well as those from the Japanese government have to respond to it. Still you'd expect them not to dish out safety significance ratings that seem to be of limited value at best, considering how they've been going up over the past month and how they may be going down again in a few weeks from now. This strategy is actually the worst you can apply here; it's been used after Chernobyl as well and has cost politicians and the nuclear industry more credibility than the disaster itself. Of course, that was a "Soviet" reactor, so much of the downplaying that happened back then can be attributed to an information policy created at the Kremlin. The problem is that lately we had to learn that the information policy in Western/G7 countries isn't so different after all.
One last thing: I do understand that the Fukushima accident was triggered by a giant earthquake, an ensuing tsunami, and a number of severe aftershocks. I also understand that these aren't regular operating conditions, and that the facility has done better than you would expect under these circumstances (and please note that this argument was first introduced by the pros). I even understand that in a relatively small country like Japan you'd built the facilities 'on the coastline', in hopes that *if* an accident occurs most of the waste gets washed away by the sea. Just as I understand the logic of 'it can't happen here' (simply because I trust my fellow countrymen more than some 'bloody Ivan') and that -- statistically speaking -- accidents that deserve an INES Level 4 rating and above are only likely to happen every few thousand years. But I also know that by official IAEA accounts six of those accidents have occurred since 1957. And they have a tendency to happen 'here and now', to an unsuspecting public and to politicians, scientists, engineers and journalists that seem largely unprepared.
Not that you could/would do much to prepare for an accident deemed so unlikely to happen. Or could you? If so, what?
The rather easy demonstration of this is the comparison of Fukushima and Chernobyl which are both classified as level 7 events and yet are very different from each other both in terms of the events that have occurred and the consequences, environmentally, in terms of lives and health effects and to the reactors themselves. I say that the scale is not a measuring stick because it clearly fails to offer any differentiation between Fukushima dna Chernobyl despite glaring differences in the events. Even the IAEA have stated that raising the INES level to 7 does not indicate that Fukushima is by any means on par with Chernobyl.
I rather suspect that part of the problem is that the INES levels are designed for professionals in the nuclear energy field as a shorthand method of assessing the scale of an accident in purely technical and radiological terms. the 'scale' was never designed or meant for consumption by the general media or public because it doesn't really communicate the kind of information they want. the media and public want a measuring stick of danger, but what they get is a fairly abstract measure of scale.
However in the absence of decent analysis and another scale, as well as the atmosphere of fear and panic , people will cling to nice, easy labels for things they don't really understand. So INES Level 7 suddenly get's latched onto, and used as a scale to measure danger, rather than a scale to measure scale.
It's rather like the Richter scale. Clearly everyone knows that a 9 is worse than an 8, which is worse than a 7 and so on. Far fewer people are aware though of the actual difference the scale represents - though more are aware of that now than once were.... Of course you may know that a magnitude 9 quake is 1000 times stronger than a magnitude 7.
What I did not know until just now researching this quake is how much energy was involved with this earthquake.
Apparently the total energy release by the quake has been calculated by the USGS to be 3.9×10^22 joules, slightly less than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake. This is equivalent to 9,320 gigatons of TNT, or approximately 600 million times the energy of the first Atomic bomb.
Holy crap! Anyone who says this earthquake was predictable, simply isn't playing with a full deck.
Google any major industrial accident and tell me what they usually use as a top of the page giving an idea how serious and accident was?
"Three killed, 21 poisoned in chemical plant accident"
"One killed in sand mining accident"
"Factory Accident Killed Two"
"5 Romanian coal miners killed in explosion"
“Over 15000 persons killed in Bhopal gas tragedy”
Is that enough?
will not detect alpha beta and gamma in the same manner.
First alpha will not reach the detector if it is more than 1cm away-ish :-)
Beta and Gamma will be detected differently and will certainly not read the same.
The danger is consumption of alpha and beta and close porximity to beta and (possibly) gamma.
Its apples and oranges and banana's :-)
if another quake / flood would strike at the same location soon? Statistically... unlikely? But why gamble on it at all?
Anyway, the usual nonsense in the article. They're still at least 5GW short for the summer demands, meaning they're barely winging it now, and the financial burden for the nuclear accident alone consists of trillions of yen which is way higher than other energy plants would have cost in repair and clean-up in whatever scenario.
Lewis arguments read like the Black Knight scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail (also radiating!) : "it's just a scratch"!
The following paragraph (I quote) has some discrepancies, it's misleading at least:
"Almost all other infrastructure hit by the natural disaster failed catastrophically. Housing, transport and industry across the region collapsed with deadly consequences, killing people by the tens of thousands."
The housing, etc., didn't collapse, it was washed away by the tsunami.
This incident did the most damage to peoples' perception of nuclear power. It showed that even though the Japanese knew historically about tsunamis as bad as this one (in 869 and 1896), they failed to design the barriers to block waves the height of those historic tsunamis. They chose to save money and as a consequence the plant was damaged by their cost cutting measures, instead of by mother nature.
After that, can you convince anyone in their right mind, especially insurance companies, to allow or insure a design that is potentially flawed? I think not.
Well done AGAIN, Lewis! Of course Japan has to comply with externally 'enforced,' outdated, alarmist protection policies, exacerbated by Media, Greenies and Environmentalist misinformation paranoia. Sadly, no-one worries about the radiation problem already introduced by the use of, "Classified-"SAFE,"" depleted uranium ammo, do they?
Well, we know that protium oxide is found in very high concentrations in reactor cores. We also know that gaseous protium from the cores strongly contributed to the hydrogen explosions in the reactor buildings. So this can only mean one thing - it's leaking from the reactors! Must be!
Protium oxide is highly toxic - if inhaled in large enough doses it will stop your respiratory system from functioning in seconds. If ingested, it will affect the electrolyte balance with stroke and heart failure being the likely result. In smaller doses it causes drowsiness, confusion, weakness, disorientation, fatigue, cramps in the muscles, assorted aches and pains in the body, and numbness in the limbs.
We also know that radiolysis inside the reactor vessels would also produce protium peroxide and that's the really nasty staff - it will make your blood congeal!
"This is the problem that everyone faces, who describes nuclear incidents as they really are – that is, insignificant. You are accused of being heartless, of failing to care about or empathise with people who are terribly frightened. You have committed the same sin as bracingly telling a toddler that there is no monster under his bed and that he should go back to sleep."
Perhaps it's the way you present your argument. I would argue that you don't just describe things the way they are, but go too far in trying to show how little impact there has been.
If you could stick to the facts and explain their meaning without adding opinion then you could probably produce a decent article on the subject. Granted that would be difficult to fit into one article.
Telling a toddler that there is no monster can be done a number of ways, not all of which will reinforce the argument that there is no monster. "Bracingly telling a toddler that there is no monster under his bed" isn't the best way to go about it...
Here's someone reporting his efforts to protect his garden and compost heap from radioactive fallout from Fukushima:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7794#comment-792308
After the expected snowfall, his hand burned when he wiped some water off the plastic sheeting but soap and water dealt with the contamination and he's now wearing rubber gloves when handling the polluted water.
He lives in northern Arizona. In the USA.
If anything Lewis is understating the amount of crazy stupid that is running around screaming "The world is ending! The world is ending!"
The highest estmate I've seen for a Fukushima clean-up is $12Bn - comparing with established costs for decommissioning, they might run as low as a $2-3Bn. There are even competing bidders for the work!
By contrast Japanese insurers are estimating the total cost of the Tsunami and quake in the $250-320Bn range.
You do know the problems at Fukushima were caused by the quake and tsunami, rather than vice-versa, don't you?
I think you've just rather made Lewis' point.
Thats because they are having problems supplying power to the eastern half of the country because half their powerplants are not operating. If they can't get roughly an additional roughly 20% of normal supply onstream in the next two months before summer kicks in, half of Japan will be back into rolling blackouts, including Tokyo. Hence the lawyers will have a field day with compensation claims.
This has nothing to do with the raidiation leaks at one plant by the way. Its the other dozen affected reactors and coal/gas plants that are causing the issue.
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