Published: May 13th, 2011 at 7:04 pm ET
|
Robot finds high radiation at No. 3 reactor bldg, The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 14, 2011:
A robot has detected highly dangerous levels of radiation in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 3 reactor building, it has been learned [...]
According to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., the remote-controlled PackBot robot on Tuesday found radiation levels in the northwestern section of the building of 49 to 120 millisieverts per hour, which would pose a threat to human workers. [...]
When similar measurements were conducted around doors in the southern section of the building on April 17, the radiation levels were 28 to 57 millisieverts per hour. [...]
The company currently has no plans to send workers into the No. 3 reactor building, the employee said. [...]
Published: May 13th, 2011 at 7:04 pm ET
|
sending...
TEPCO Installing Giant Tents over Radiation-Leaking Reactors
Sam Biddle — With radiation still seeping from Fukushima, TEPCO is taking an odd step: installing enormous polyester tents around the cores. Each steel-framed tent will be “will be 55 meters high, 47 meters long and 42 meters wide,” Dow Jones reports.
We’re not sure if this is silly, desperate or effective. While it will probably aid in the containment of particulate matter and radioactive steam, were there to be another reactor explosion, a polyester tent would probably wind up floating somewhere in the Pacific. [via WSJ]
http://gizmodo.com/5801547/tepco-installing-giant-tents-over-radiation+leaking-reactors
Report Comment
old news, it was already known on 12.05.2011:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/7122/mbs20110512.jpg (original site is no longer available)
Report Comment
and as you can read – the “tent” will be completed by the end of July
Report Comment
What needs to be covered, see the fire engine to the right street level.
http://www.asianweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/unit3-rpv-top-arrow-1024×757.png
Report Comment
Unless there is some type of vent that purifies that captures the radioactive air and purifies it, I don’t understand the purpose of tents other than it being out of sight, out of mind. It just seems like another desperate attempt to keep the public in the dark. IMHO
Report Comment
The tent is to include ventilation and filtering. It obviously won’t withstand an explosion, but it should help reduce what gets into the air from the steaming mess in the basement. Those reactors seriously need some fresh diapers.
Hopefully if they do enough of these things, the school yards where they’re scrapping away or burying top soil won’t get coated again. It should also help reduce what lands on leafy vegetables.
Report Comment
I agree with you. Given that radiation can travel through our bodies, through concrete etc – I think the tents are more cosmetic than scientific….
Report Comment
Maybe it is to hide from view the steps they will be taking.
Report Comment
Radiation fears spur more tests
“We have been told on the West Coast we are experiencing 10 times the level they are experiencing in France,” he said, worried we should have had a similar warning.
“There seems to be a government cover up going on.”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/121743059.html
Report Comment
Not exactly relevant to the posted article.. The link contains a poorly written and researched story which serves to show how completely ignorant average officials are about radiation.
Report Comment
If you are from the west coast or Canada you will want to read this article I believe.
Report Comment
A new troll perhaps?
I have looked at the research on low-levels of ionizing radiation very closely. Low-dose ionzing radiation disrupts/kills NK cells, particularly NK 56. Look that up if you access to technical journals.
More generally, low-doses of ionzing radiation, particularly if consumed or inhaled, cause DNA transcription errors.
I am enraged by the thought that my children are going to be subjected to months and perhaps years of accumulating radiation contamination in food and water from Fukushima. I would move if I could.
I am enraged that our “local” plant routinely spews radiation.
Nuclear energy is going to kill us. What happens if the cresting Mississippi floods a nuclear plant here in the U.S.?
Report Comment
I assume you call everyone who challenges your myopic view of the world a troll, so no offense taken.
Anywhoo.. the linked article has been edited. It had previously included a dubious explanation of internal emitters, and equally dubious and unreferenced radiation numbers from the gov’t official. I even checked her claims that the numbers were on the CFIA website.. did you???
Report Comment
Not sure why my world view is myopic given I’ve researched the subject very thoroughly using my university library’s technical data bases. As an academic, I have good research skills.
Internal emitters are the biggest risk from radiation. This subject has been discussed in great length on this blog.
Calling the risk of internal emitters “dubious” raises red flags about motivations
Report Comment
Your critical reading skills need work. I said the explanation was dubious, not the risk. You’re trying to spin the discussion by misrepresenting my words.. who’s the troll now?
Anyway, the bclocal article still sucks. The only numbers thrown around were the “official” numbers, which have no references (the claims of numbers on the CFIA website are, so far, false. If you can find them, great). No independent testing data in the article. That must not bother you.
My point, if you would bother to read more carefully, supports your arguments, assface.
Report Comment
Jaskal my bad if you intended to critique the officials’ under-statements of radiation risks.
My apologies.
There is a war of ideas being waged in which every stated concern in mainstream media about radiation risks is ridiculed and marginalized.
I have found the same response from the public authorities in my state, who I’ve met with and called.
I am tired of hearing spurious X-ray and banana equivalents.
I am tired of reading industry troll attacks against all those commentars who express concerns about nuclear power and radiation on sites that do continue to run stories on Fukushima (e.g., like the Guardian).
I have tried to combat the dis-information with rebuttals because I have the access to research the general public does not.
I apologize if you were pointing out the dismissive attitude toward radiation so often taken by uneducated or insincere public officials.
It is true I skimmed the story but what captured my attention in it was the commentary by the Greenpeace co-founder who is moving out of BC because of radiation.
Report Comment
Back at ya. Peace to you broseph. I’m grumpy as shit today.
You said:
“…radiation risks is ridiculed and marginalized.”
I agree, and part of the problem with a story like the bclocal is that it creates a dichotomy of gov’t officials on one side, and Greenpeace on the other.
The general public perception of Greenpeace is that they are extremist hippie evironmentalists.
So in this case, Ma and Pa Kettle are going to believe the Gov’t official.
We need credible scientists with good data to be way more vocal, and writers like this should be seeking them out to give TRUE balance to the story, rather than the perception of it.
I took out some frustration on this poor writer for the probelms with the whole media, for sure, but she was a bit lazy IMO.
Report Comment
Moving isn’t easy, but it won’t get any easier later. It might help to change your thinking from “I would move if I could” to “What do I need to do now, so that I _can_ move my family to a safer place”
Report Comment
I can`t even imagine going through this experience with kids… my best friend has a two ear old granddaughter, and the things we share and learn here breaks my heart if they truly manifest. For me the stand out points of the article is the potential for high west coast accumulation and Canada`s response or lack thereof. Besides my expressed concerns my friend here has *heard* nothing to warn her to stop giving her grandbaby milk, like she did today at lunch.
Report Comment
What’s happened on the west coast is no where severe enough to move, and even if it were, what’s happened there can happen over a very very wide area. Unless you want to move to the southern hemisphere, material likely blew over at one point.
If you search and find files showing airborne concentration, besides seeing changes over time, you’ll note the initial peak level wasn’t that terribly much lower when it made it pretty much all the way around the world to get to Russia.
So with it having blown over vast areas, the main variation in determining hot spots and milder exposure areas was rainfall.
Avoiding milk now isn’t likely to make much difference. It’s what already happened after rain, mostly near the end of March that matters most. If someone is already exposed you can’t change it now. Hopefully the exposure was low enough and hit few enough people that the percentage affected in the future will be small. Any internal damage from Iodine 131 is done already, but cancers are slow to grow so it may be 10 or 20 years before the statistical changes may it clear how much impact there has been.
If you look at the chart, the vertical is concertration and it is logarithmic. Each major divison (numbered at left) is ten times the level of that below. So you can seen when the levels spiked, and when they came down hundreds or thousands of times. (Note that ground measurements change less because neither fallout nor background go away when toxic air does)
search for this for the longer term material
ctbto_aktivitaetskonzentrationen_caesium.gif
I don’t have the name/link for the one for iodine handy, but levels went up and down at the same time. You’ll find it on the same sites, and several posts on this site link to it.
Some got much more in milk from atomic tests years ago and didn’t even know it. The percentage affected is small, but still adds up to many people.
Report Comment
Dbug – you make good points again. I guess where I am coming from about milk and kids is that if there is evidence that kids are especially vulnerable and the milk is a risk then I find it hard to reconcile feeding milk to kids. Of course, it is a devilish catch 22 in the first place. Glad we can talk out and explore our concerns here. Not sure where else one can turn to these days to talk in plain truths?
Report Comment
Mainstream scientists are afraid to touch the radiation issue.
They fear reprisal if not tenured. If they are in the physical sciences they will not get grants if they dare question the status quo, natural security mantra that “nuclear energy is green.”
Industry-funded scientists produce “doubt” as their product, calling into question every study that links radiation or chemicals to human harm.
Science never has been value free, but now the only value that matters for most of the institution is the financial calculus.
Report Comment
Good points. I wonder if the Industry still maintains their industry has `green`status even now?
Report Comment
Partial quotation from this article, “Radiation fears spur more tests”:
“Dale Dewar, executive director for the Physicians for Global Survival, and a family physician in rural Saskatchewan for 32 years, said her organization is calling for a moratorium on new nuclear power plants.
“The amount of radiation humans are exposed to when flying in a plane or getting an X-ray is fleeting, she said, meaning we only get the radiation for the duration of the activity. The radiation from nuclear power plants is a different kind of radiation, she said, and accumulates…..
“She said governments can measure the amount of radiation in the air but not the internal level of radiation people are getting. Currently the way we know things are bad for us is by people getting cancer, she said.
“’Do we have to wait until we have an epidemic of cancers in 30 years to say “Hey we really do have a problem’?’”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/121743059.html
Report Comment
Radiation found in seaweed near crippled Japan plant
‘Pakistan Times’ Monitoring Desk
TOKYO (Japan): Seaweed collected from the coast near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant and sewage in Tokyo have shown elevated levels of radiation, according to data released by an environmental group and government officials on Friday.
http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=21563
Report Comment
I’ve been trying to focus on some of the good news. Since Fukushima, Uranium prices have fallen off a cliff. They stabilized a bit, and then tumbled a bit in the last few days.
The current spot price is around $59. According to the VP of Uranium One Inc. They need a price of $85 for a new uranium mine to be economically viable. Haha! FU! Your mines are “not economically viable.”
Let’s hope the price of uranium drops further and stays there.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-13/uranium-may-rise-to-75-a-pound-next-year-on-japan-boost-uranium-one-says.html
Report Comment
May 13, 2011 – COSTA RICA – A deep 6.0magnitude earthquake struck in the middle of Costa Rica at a depth of 70km. A 6.0 magnitude earthquake shook the capital city of Costa Rica on Friday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was felt strongly in San Jose but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, said Juan de Dios Castillo, spokesman for Seismological and Volcanic Institute. The quake’s epicenter was in Santiago de Puriscal, a province west of San Jose. It struck about 4:48 p.m. local time and had a depth of about 44 miles. -NPR
The earthquake was quickly followed by 6.2 earthquake at 35 km off the east coast of Honshu Japan.
http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/
Report Comment
I`m starting to get a funny feeling about this weekend. How long can you hang onto the edge of a cliff by your fingernails?
Report Comment
We may find out soon.
Report Comment
scroll down…. check the weather modification.. to be politically correct..geo-engineering
Report Comment
Polyester at 200 some odd degrees…sure..
Report Comment
phd polyester shorts (homer style)can withstand the full conflageration of the sun iself
Report Comment