Published: May 26th, 2011 at 2:55 pm ET
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Large scale melt predicted at units 2 and 3, World Nuclear News, May 26, 2011:
Computer analysis of reactor damage at Fukushima Daiichi has indicated more serious fuel melt has probably occurred than previously thought at units 2 and 3. [...]
For unit 2, the [...] second scenario has only about 12% of the core remaining on the support plate, with the rest having fallen into the water in the the lower part of the reactor pressure vessel. This may have happened by 15 March. [...]
For unit 3 the story is similar. [...] In the second case, some 94% of the fuel is assumed to have dropped into the water below by the morning of 14 March. [...]
Analysis of unit 1 suggested the entire core had fallen into water in the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel [...]
Published: May 26th, 2011 at 2:55 pm ET
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We are reliving what has happened at Chernobyl. Thanks to an earlier post we know about this excellent paper below. Read the Forward and the first chapter. AWESOME and TERRIBLE.
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
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Yes – I have it open – 349 pages very comprehensive, scientific info resource. A VERY good link shared for sure and thanks!
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94%
not 93%
not 95%
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Ah – such a precision by TEPCO
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How many decimal places?
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Depends if they used float, double, or integer data types into the computer program. Easy.
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may as well be 194%
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I wonder if this 94% meltdown means the worst is behind us in reality or if the rough and scary part is now or straight ahead of us?
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did you buy water yet?
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Not yet… will do next week
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The worst has yet to come…
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tacomagroove this is for you…I found it on the zero hedge website in the comments section following a fukushima update story. I include it here because it is such an interesting and thoughtful and helpful technical scientific post, yet also clear, understandable, and readable for the layman:
“by Element
…I noticed that several MSM outlets are still trying to fly the idea that only part of the fuel has melted and exited the PVs.
That is nonsense, and here’s why.
The fuel has ABLATED – not merely melted through – it VAPORIZED through ~6-inches of toughened stainless steel in a matter of hours, and almost all of that time it was still bathed in boiling water and steam.
People still don’t get that the actual melting occurs extremely quickly, and that it can quickly become much hotter than any blast furnace. This actual molten phase in the PV probably lasted no more than a couple of minutes, or even a few tens of seconds, before the vessel wall/base was simply gone.
Not merely heated and deformed, but converted to VAPOR – a gas creating froth in a white hot roiling froth of high-pressure partially fissionable metal.
There were many tones of liquid metal-froth when it finally jetted out, and probably did so near supersonic speed, downward, with incredible mechanical shock and thermal energy and it WILL have without a doubt have blown much of the drywell floor to gravel, in under a second.
i.e. a molten jet instantly dug itself into a pit of shattered concrete, like a high mass and high kinetic energy malleable slug that instantly created out-gassing and consumed a large areas of the concrete foundation.
This is TONNES of heavy incandescent metal, a dense froth is accelerated out under both extreme pressure, and also gravity.
Are we expected to believe some fuel-rods survived and remain in the PV?
Or that at least part of the concrete floor of the secondary containment was not pulverized to gravel and dust on impact of the molten jet’s escape?
I’m…
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Is it over yet?
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Well ahead of us.
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So, we all know that this has melted down. but does that mean that is melting beyond containment?
Based on this info it should have gone beyond all barriers and into the ground. Besides spraying boron and water all over the spew what else can be done to stop it?
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what is stopping the molten corium from reaching the water table at this point?
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If it hasn’t already, its uncontained fuel contaminates are still being released into the atmosphere, land and Pacific ocean. Whether a thickness of 2-6 feet of concrete below the breeched vessels is holding some, after two months, either lined with steel or PVC or unlined – the corium isn’t centralized in one place in any of the reactors or subfloors that we know of. So, we could likely have varying masses of it in various locations and stages.
If it were a centralized mass, remediation containment, control and human intervention would be easier – but it’s not.
My largest concern is the reactor 3 fuel corium proximity to the large shared fuel pool which accounts for the greatest tonnage on site, yet we hear so little of. The contaminated water is flooded everywhere and the shared spent fuel pool is less sheltered than the reactor fuel. Also, we don’t know what’s in the subfloor (possibly a dual use weapons facility) meaning 1,900 tons is a possible understatement.
We just don’t know without disclosure, but so many scenarios can be and are theorized based on very little. Most are conservative considering. I really feel it’s less likely that we’d witness another nuclear explosion, but whether it’s an explosive release or not – that fuel will at least chronically, long term, low dose emit in a manner that rarely rises to intervention levels via multiple pathways until it’s spent.
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“If it were a centralized mass, remediation containment, control and human intervention would be easier – but it’s not.”
Please explain why you believe this to be true. It isn’t like putting out a fire, you know.
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They can’t entomb it unless it’s centralized mass per Ukrainian solution. The spread of corium renders human intervention unworkable.
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It only means 94% is uncontained. In reactor 3, the Mox is capable of breeding it’s own fuel beyond the original mass. It means 94% potential release or greater via atmosphere or ocean in reactor 3 alone.
It means Fukushima is not confirmed equal to 3 separate class 9 global nuclear events.
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Correction: “now confirmed” instead of ” not confirmed.
By NRC’s own criteria here:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/policy/45fr40101.pdf
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Mothra, Thank you for all your valuable comments to help us all understand the scope and horror of this event.
Whatever happens, it is always good to approach the situation with eyes wide open.
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Thanks. I wish we were sharing cookie recipes instead…
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You wrote:
“the Mox is capable of breeding it’s own fuel beyond the original mass”
Can you tell me the name of the process by which this happens, I’d like to read about it.
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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
It’s a breeder reactor fuel – highly efficient at it’s job manufacturing plutonium, less stable and these Fukushima reactors weren’t designed to safely capacitate it. None are.
http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/mox/mox.htm
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So in effect we have a dirty uncontained breeder over 90% outside of it’s control blanket. I’d expect it to be less efficient and controlled, but active in process flipping it’s own switch on/off depending on its fertile material ratio which is likely fluctuating since I doubt the corium mass is centralized, having leaked in progression under all that water with all those paths to flow into.
I suppose an examPle visualization is my oven with an ove-rfilled hot caramel apple pie whose filling escaped the pastry upon baking, but my catch pan wasn’t large enough – it’s a deep dish. I’m still finding filling in the broiler section below and the oven interior steams and smokes when I try to clean it off or douse the fire – hot. I open the window to disperse the smoke, turn off the oven and smoke alarm and wait for it to cool or burn out before I can peek inside or clean it, but I can see some outside the oven on the floor now too. That water I tried and that filling goes to every low point on the floor it can. If it were hot enough it would melt the floor and greet the neighbors downstairs. If my pie had Mox it would use those apples to make more caramel filling until the apples were depleted and more neighbors would be affected. I sound silly, but I hope that helps.
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I agree with Mothra, it is a Plutonium Poison Factory, uncontrolled and uncontrollable for thousands and thousands of years effective immediately.
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Me too Mothra.
But thank you for the other.
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I wish it were more like Chernobyl. Fukushima has tones more nuclear material on site compounding the danger. It’s one steam explosion or short-lived excursion away from being a catastrophe worse than Chernobyl. The lack of planning and scientific inquiry is astounding. Say what you will about the Soviets, but at least they had a plan, no matter how flawed, and were implementing by this phase in the disaster. The Japanese response is to blame it all on a clueless company and scratch their heads. Ours in the U.S. is to quit monitoring the situation and pretend its not happening. Doing nothing besides just pouring water on it isn’t much of a plan, but I guess that’s all they’ve got.
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The Soviets very obviously had nothing which could come close to a plan – in their horrifying regime they only used 100thousands of people who weren´t allowed to say no.
And remember – no webcams, no internet, no data, no media in sight.
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watch the documentaries about chernobyl – the workers there were true heroes – listen to what the Liquidators say in their own words. If only there were heroes around now in Japan instead of old men and homeless day workers hired like mercenaries to do a sloppy minimal job of stopping this disaster.
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I agree – they were / are heroes. Luckily most of them had no clue what was ahead of them. Workers in Japan know what´s coming next.
Will be interesting to see which heroes will clean up the mess after a nuke exploded in the U.S. or Europe….will be again scratching heads and pointing at the neighbour.
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The japanese seem to have become a very soft people and not the stoic selfless nationalistic heroes I expected them to be in this crisis. If they can’t rally themselves to protect thier precious island and its people/culture, what are they?
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The workers in Japan are watering blobs and handling waste-waters aren’t they? Nothing in comparison to the videos I saw of the workers at Chernobyl. No comparison!
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complete rubbish…
the leading russians experts set up shop in the town next to chernobyl.meaning the scientists received dangerous levels of radiation.
it was a massive heroic effort as the military leaders said it was a battle we could not lose.
with a fraction of the technology the japs have they stopped and covered the site.
look at the piss poor jap effort.
comotosed bozo’s probably playing computer games.
that fukishima site is a low key low action site.
what we needed was this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cScJZqKpMq4
what we got was this
http://www.japannewstoday.com/?p=3766
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You are so right – estimated 1700 tons of fuel potentially involved.
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That’s the part that scares me the most. Every kilo more of core material means more chances that it can configure itself into a critical mass. Fission out in the open, outside of containment, is not my idea of a good outcome. Need a plan to contain what is essentially uncontainable.
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An audit March 2010 reported over 1,700 tons. TEPCo and MSNBC reported over 1,900 tons in March 2011.
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JFC, the Soviets kicked ass, to put it crudely.
They had their mess cleaned up and contained by now.
Granted they didn’t have to deal with a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami right before Chernobs blew.
I dislike the misinformation and lies being told by TEPCO just as much as the next guy, but once in a while we need to step back and look at the big picture.
The entire region was rocked beyond belief…imagine trying to repair the furnace in your basement without electricity, without tools, in the dark while the house is on fire.
Not a good situation.
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You illustrate a good point in your example of the furnace, but even if the furnace started the fire shouldn’t you put more priority to PUTTING THE FIRE OUT than fixing the furnace?
My point – Fukushima is the house on fire, not the furnace.
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The Russians put their asses into the effort and the result, while not *perfect* is much better than leaving it as it was.
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At least based on the information provided in the article, nothing in the simulation is based on a new fact just discovered, nothing new. These kind of simulations has been surely done thousands of time by engineers over the years, and if not, it was really easy to conduct it right after the 11 of March. TEPCO releases it now, WTF, why so late? It was their duty to consider worst-case scenarii, these simulations show a worst situation than they expected at first! Nothing appears to make sense in the actions they perform, based on their declarations. Surely this is because what they are telling us is far enough from reality, since the beginning, to be consider through logic.
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Calibrated computer software for doing simulations are standard issue if you purchased one of these reactors. Like this you can run any failure sequence you want with good results. The inner circle in this industry knows this – that is why it came out almost immediately after the disaster on 3/11 as posted in the following on 24 March 2011.
A Worst Case Scenario…
24 March 2011
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1413890/pg13#23292628
Re: I AM A FRENCH JOURNALIST, I HAVE EXTREMELY GRAVE THINGS TO TELL YOU ABOUT FUKUSHIMA
“Here’s the scenario, folks.
You have a nuclear disaster in Japan, the US military has evacuated 20,000 people, and is considering a forced evacuation of another 100,000. The only reason they haven’t left is because of the strategic value.
There have been many reports in the past week (17-24 March 2011) of a meltdown. It doesn’t matter which reactor, only one needs to go that way. If they could have entombed it, they would have. They have known since the beginning it was a lost cause.
Radiation is up in Japan, the crops and water are already tainted as evidenced by the growing list of countries banning their imports.
Even if you could evacuate everyone, where would you put them? Who would feed and house them? Who would pay for the transportation? No one wants 100 million scared, panicked and potentially sick people on their shores, especially when the Japanese government is in collapse.
Which ones do you evacuate and which ones do you sentence to death?
It’s obvious what is happening, even if no one else wants to connect the dots. There is a reason why the Internet has been shut down and why only happy news is coming from the Japanese government. The only doom news we are getting is from other countries. There is no way to evacuate those people, and no where to evacuate them to. The world’s governments are not revealing this information because it is likely that their own people will…
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…demand that “something” be done.
Nothing can be done.
The area surrounding the planet is fried. Now that containment has been breached, it will be a short time before all the water, and all the food is contaminated. Never mind the huge amount of devastation from the earthquake and tsunami.
All those people are going to die — either from the radiation, or the subsequent starvation. Japan imports the vast majority of their food. Without buyers for their [now toxic] goods, their economy will collapse. With no economy, they have no way of buying from other countries.
It’s over. Japan will be a wasteland within a year.”
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I think you have a laser perspective on the ugly reality of the situation. You points are solid and realistic as sequential chain of events to unfold for sure. I thought Japan was a big enough island for everyone to *stage left* if necessary and start over away from the toxins?
I’m getting to same conclusion with hope fading by the day. The hope for me fades when I see us fighting for the Japanese people amongst ourselves more than I see Japanese fighting for themselves. Yes it is a painful situation for humanity but it IS up to the Japanese to write the Story of Japan and her People. If they are not worried about themselves then they sure aint worried about us. Not being cruel but just forthright. So I feel my shift is concern about our future as IF they do perish, we will be left holding the bag, especially us west coasters.
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This should prove very interesting for the US economy. Japan has about $886 Billion in US Gov’t bonds, bills and treasuries. FED purchased about 85% of all US treasuries, bills and bonds sold two months ago.
If Japan is smart, they’ll convert these funds into the various commodities (food, construction materials, etc.) needed to survive and rebuild their country.
The flood of US paper on the international scene is going to wallop the dollar and put even more pressure on the FED to print more money so they can buy all the Japanese holdings flooding the market. . .which might trigger even larger sell offs by China and other countries dumping their US debt.
The rest of 2011 and 2012 are going to be interesting!
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As I’m French, I would be very curious to know who’s this journalist, and where he’s working in particular, since we don’t hear anything anymore in the national media here.
Yes, surely this simulations are known, dedicated softwares exist. There is even an experimental reactor in France for this kind of thing, called phebus.
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If you read the link I provided for a few pages I believe they were able to identify him – a man in his fifties as I recall.
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Reading the first pages, I found some link to a previous topic started buy the same guy (same user ID as this “french journalist”). If you look at this post of him:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1350558/pg1
the guy loses all credibility to me…
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Yes, I know what you mean. I saw that too. And yet… his comments have proven to be the looming disaster he suggested. He knew something it seems to me.
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this scenario seems likely.
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Is there ANY of all those experts (Arnie, etc.)out there who could give an analysis / outlook based on the actual info of over 90% melted fuel? There should be somebody who knows the thickness of concrete foundations and who has a rough idea of the geological situation at Fuku, height of ground water table, etc. Why can´t anybody tell how long it COULD possibly take for the fuel to melt through? And how long it COULD take until fuel´s temperature might be under critical?
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Neutron absorption is the main factor preventing re-criticality. TEPCO has been using boron in the emergency cooling water; the effect should be like that of soot particles making smoke clouds black instead of white. Also the corium itself may (or may not) include neutron-absorbing material from the control rods.
Without moderator or reflector the neutrons simply keep on going and leave the neighborhood. They can eventually emit an electron and so become a hydrogen nucleus(proton).
To have fission one needs to have a significant fraction of the emitted neutrons slowed down and scattered back to the fissile material. If the fuel is immersed in a large amount of moderator, and there is no absorption, every neutron that leaves it will eventually be scattered back to it, by “drunkard’s walk” statistics. (This is the same effect that makes sunlit clouds look white.)
Not every neutron will make it back, some of the ‘staggering drunks’ fall by the wayside. It takes maybe a dozen collisions with a light nucleus like hydrogen to slow a neutron to the energy favorable for fission, maybe forty with something heavier like sodium. Remember energy in elastic collisions divides in some proportion to masses involved. Each collision stands a chance of inelastic absorbtion without fission so there’s some loss by absorbtion.
You need to have about half the neutrons survive moderation to get critical.
If the corium contains melted control rods it’s probably safe. The addition of melted steel reactor parts could make it safe. The seawater salt is mildly absorbtive.
But its still kind of like Russian Roulette.
Esp. with so few meters and readings.
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There’s very high 1-131 widespread as of May 22,, so there’s signifigant and recent fission.
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Doesn’t the salt in the sea water keep the chain reaction going on ad infinitum?
Sodium Reactor Experiment
Compared to water (or steam), sodium has a relatively low vapor pressure at the operating temperatures of the Sodium Reactor Experiment. High temperature water or steam operates at a much higher pressure than sodium does. The Sodium Reactor Experiment design utilized sodium as a coolant so that high pressure water systems would not be required.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment
See also video History Channel – ROCKETDYNE at
Governments Have Been Covering Up Nuclear Meltdowns for Fifty Years to Protect the Nuclear Power Industry, Santa Susana
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/governments-have-been-covering-up.html
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Anne. Thank you for the excellent post. I would also like to add that one of the factors that is seldom taken into account is the separation of the elements with time due to there mass. If you could run the experiment it would look as follows plutonium on bottom, next uranium and then slag. In a molten form this separation will take place but rather slowly but eventually unless the corium spreads out and thus can cool by convection it will eventually form a mass that will probably go critical, not atom bomb critical just enough absorption of neutrons to be greater then one on reemission in some cases. The total can remain very small at least by human measure but the heat released will be continuous and considerable.
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These are heavy water reactors. They’d require boron. Greenpeace tested and found the contamination isn’t dissipating as they’d stated and expected. Sea water renders some limited isotopes inert. They used it because that’s what they had available, but the salt and particulate matter in the sea water posed new problems as the water evaporated.
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Great 2006 documentary on Chernobyl in your post – hope all watch it.
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he would probably get in an unfortunate accident
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Looking on the bright side, 6% is still contained for MOX #3. A little bit of levity is needed at this point after contemplating the implications of this disclosure. Our worst fears has been proven correct with the most dangerous of Fukushima’s reactors.
MOX fuel renewing itself, as mothra says above, is not a solvable problem.
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We are in every way collectively living a science fiction storyline. I wonder how it ends?
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it ends when one dies and you can’t follow the horror story any longer.
It’s like a nightmare that you cannot awake from.
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they need to be pulling the rods out of all the reactors in japan,,now
before no ones left to pull them
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With 94% they will still be able to mention “PARTIAL meltdown”. They are mocking us and the world is silent.
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it could be 99.99_out to 1 million places % and they could technically still say partial or some or even incomplete
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this gives new meaning to those old b/w aec movies of the ping pong balls and mouse traps
sorry TG,,ha ha
wow its gonna go bad
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Wait. Headline of the article says “TEPCO analysis says…”. The simulation has not been made by TEPCO but from WNN.
Based on which data??
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now i know why there are dark clouds the significant other bitch slapped the staggering drunk
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just when you think ,it cant get any better
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Please see the excellent general discussion about corium at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)
Also, so we are all on the same page about the geometry of the Fukushima reactors, please see this:
http://chong.zxq.net/misc/events/Daichii_BWR_Design.htm
Let’s assume that the full core melted, and then melted through the steel reactor pressure vessel (RPV). The corium blob then most likely went to the bottom of the concrete containment (labeled “concrete embedment” in the black and white drawing). All this happened in the first day or so of the disaster, and apparently in all three running reactors.
Beneath the concrete embedment is about 10 meters of concrete, then bedrock. To the sides of the corium blob, are the portions of the “bio shield”, the meter-thick concrete structure which supports the RPV. To escape, the corium would have to eat its way down through 10 m of concrete, or out the sides, unless there are cracks due to the earthquake and/or hydrogen explosions. If some of the corium made its way out to the sides, then it could possibly find its way to the suppression chamber, the big concrete torus at the bottom of the reactor. Then it’s only a few more meters of concrete to bedrock.
What happened depends critically (no pun intended) on whether the corium went “recritical” or not, and fission reactions started back up in the corium. For criticality, the fissile material must be gathered together in space, somehow, otherwise the neutrons from fission just escape without inducing more fissions. So as corium spreads out, it naturally goes sub-critical, and only the decay heat is left. To stay critical the mass of corium has to stay together.
I do not think that sub-critical corium would be able to eat its way down through 10 meters of concrete, but this is my best guess as a physicist. Probably it would cool and solidify as did the corium from Chernobyl (see the “Elephant’s Foot” at the…
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Yes, but we all thought you physicists had a clue too.
I do not think that sub-critical corium would be able to eat its way down through 10 meters of concrete, but this is my best guess as a physicist. Probably it would cool and solidify as did the corium from Chernobyl (see the “Elephant’s Foot” at the…
Gee thanks doc
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I agree with almost every thing you have posted. But what is the total footprint of the corium. Is it greater then the hole into which it poured. Also if the corium landed in the middle of the space and was slowly spreading out I would think it at least at first was at temperatures approaching 3000 degrees C. At those temperatures it would have started to eat away the concrete. It does not have to go very far to form a bowl. If it does it will become more concentrated and the temperatures will rise. The ablated concrete would re-solidify on top of the corium thus insulating it from any cooling form above once more increasing the temperature at the base. To sum up we all hope that the corium spreads out but we can just as easily make an argument that it will not. When planning in a disaster you do not plan for the best case you try to envision the worst case. That is what the Russians did at Chernobyl in order to get there problem under control. That is precisely what the NRC IAEA and TEPCO did not.
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These have 2-6 ft. of concrete below them, if they were constructed to spec.
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“by Element
…I noticed that several MSM outlets are still trying to fly the idea that only part of the fuel has melted and exited the PVs.
That is nonsense, and here’s why.
The fuel has ABLATED – not merely melted through – it VAPORIZED through ~6-inches of toughened stainless steel in a matter of hours, and almost all of that time it was still bathed in boiling water and steam.
People still don’t get that the actual melting occurs extremely quickly, and that it can quickly become much hotter than any blast furnace. This actual molten phase in the PV probably lasted no more than a couple of minutes, or even a few tens of seconds, before the vessel wall/base was simply gone.
Not merely heated and deformed, but converted to VAPOR – a gas creating froth in a white hot roiling froth of high-pressure partially fissionable metal.
There were many tones of liquid metal-froth when it finally jetted out, and probably did so near supersonic speed, downward, with incredible mechanical shock and thermal energy and it WILL have without a doubt have blown much of the drywell floor to gravel, in under a second.
i.e. a molten jet instantly dug itself into a pit of shattered concrete, like a high mass and high kinetic energy malleable slug that instantly created out-gassing and consumed a large areas of the concrete foundation.
This is TONNES of heavy incandescent metal, a dense froth is accelerated out under both extreme pressure, and also gravity.
Are we expected to believe some fuel-rods survived and remain in the PV?
Or that at least part of the concrete floor of the secondary containment was not pulverized to gravel and dust on impact of the molten jet’s escape?
I’m sure some of you understand that modern Main Batle Tank’s armor is penetrated via hitting it with a high-speed dense molten jet of metal froma shaped-charge.
That’s basically what is getting shot out the base of the PV (many tonnes of it), only its more like a hose than a single explosive…
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It wouldn’t even have to go through 6 inch steel because:
1.) Reactor 2 bessel was thinner than that – it’s older too.
2.) There are alloy plugs below that melt at a lower temp than steel. It was designed that way – with “holes” for rod removal from below.
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…bottom of the Chernobyl building).
By the way, putting boron in the cooling water (which they did) would have no effect on whether the fuel went recritical or not: the molten corium, with several percent of fissile uranium and (in the case of Unit 3) plutonium, can start up its own sustained nuclear fission reactions at a power level which is typically lower than the normal operating power of the reactor, according to the simulations I am aware of.
How likely is it that recriticality happened? The reports of “neutron beams” from the early days seem to suggest that it did. The fact that there is still I-131 being detected also suggest this. So let’s assume that it did, and that the corium blobs are eating their way straight down. The rate at which this happens is dependent on the thermal power of the corium, since the concrete reaction is endothermic – it takes energy to destroy the concrete.
And, as I said, the thermal power of the (recritical) corium depends on how dense the fissile material is. If there is substantial molten iron in the mix, it could reduce the density of fissile material, for example.
I think there are a lot of unknowns here. The worst case is that the blobs remains a big blobs, and are still fissioning. The very fist thing I’d try to understand there is if this is happening, by putting all the neutron detectors I can as close to the bottom as possible, and get an idea of whether fission is underway. For all we know this was done early on, and we are not being told the result. We need to “get used to the idea”, apparently, before the Japanese tell us anything.
Yes, in the worst case scenario, these fissioning blobs eats their way under the reactors into the earth. I cannot find any information on how far beneath the reactors the water table (if any) is. Anyone know?
But if the blobs spread out, or are not fissioning, they will almost certainly cool and solidify, and then the entombment option makes…
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Water table as posted on enenews many times = 60 ft.
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Thanks, is there a digram of the subsurface geology anywhere? Does the water table connect to inland fresh aquifers? Or to the ocean?
The bottoms of the Fukushima reactor buildings are very deep under the surface. Is this 60 ft measured from the surface or from the bottom of the reactor buildings?
Sorry if all this has been posted before, it’s pretty hard to search for it.
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I have seen the water table depth posted as being 15 feet underneath the reactor building.
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Some of us have been trying to locate a geology map, and to my knowledge, we have not been successful.
Distance to the water table has not been verified.
Types of rock surrounding the water table not known.
To complicate matters, some are reporting that the reactors were built on back filled marsh, which means the subsurface may contain all kinds of material, concrete, etc. Not sure if this would be shown on subsurface map or not. But would affect coring.
I stand corrected if others have updated or more accurate verified data.
Cassie
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I’ve spoken with 3 geologists, its anywhere between 6 and 35 ft. But in all reality, the lower elevation is an indicator its more closer to ten
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http://riodb02.ibase.aist.go.jp/db084/shosai/southernTohokuNorthernKanto_e.xml
This is a zoomable map, you will need to identify the Dai-ichi site, which I believe is situated just where the coast turns west of south from east of south, see quadrangle map 5641 at http://www.aist.go.jp/GSJ/PSV/Map/gmi/RioDB/htm_files/5641.htm and the neighbouring maps.
The legend for the zoomable map is at http://riodb02.ibase.aist.go.jp/db084/legend_shosai_e.html
I have also located the power plants on google maps using the search key Fukushima and ticking the boxes for nuclear power plants and satellite imagery, this pinpoints the location exactly; more below.
What it appears to show is that there is a narrow coastal strip some 5 km wide and inland of this, separated by an easily seen fault line, is a north-south trending line of mountains. These are composed of fault separated blocks of harder rocks: granite & diorite and limestone. East of the fault, which from its path looks somewhat near vertical, is the coastal zone. This is basically composed of Tertiary and Quarternary, that is young and relatively soft sediments, including raised terraces, marine and non marine sediments, and MADE GROUND on which the nuclear power station is located.
It is a long time since I practised geology but I did go to quite a good “school” and am confident that this is the surface picture.
There is no way of seeing under the surface without boreholes and remote sensing. I note in passing that this was going to be done in 2007-8, see http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu07_e/images/070817e2.pdf
It will be revealing to find out if this took place and what the results were.
But we can note immediately that a structural survey of the geology local to Fukushima Dai-ichi should have been in place and would have answered questions that have been raised (and ongoing, unanswered) about groundwater contamination.
My GUESS is that any groundwater contamination would…
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… continued …
My GUESS is that any groundwater contamination would be contained on the west by the granite etc mountain range and would likely follow routes towards the ocean and/or northwards and southwards first.
The strata in this are fairly young, poorly consolidated, sands, clays, probably pebble beds and lacustrine. Groundwater will percolate these material except for clays. Clays form barriers and direct the flow in the overlying porous materials.
You can say with a reasonable level of safety that there are going to be water supply, crop growing, and seashore contamination issues.
You can also ask quite seriously on what the foundations of these great big buildings rest. It seems to me, again without knowledge of borehole drilling here, that the foundations might even have been grossly unfit for purpose. Now, THAT is a research well worthy of taking in hand.
Best to all.
Misitu,
Peru
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Reading your post makes me think they SHOULD have had full scientific rationale (especially geographical justifications etc) on the plant site and that info should be publicly accessible, no? Like what if the truth is the water table is 150 ft – then they could be pushed to tunnel now to contain etc. It would be a clowns circus if push comes to shove now and TEPCO reveals they do not have nor ever compiled relevant geographical data and study before building the plant there.
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Thinking about this a bit more, we should consider both the geology of the power station itself and also the groundwater conditions. I think we can derive from this a reasonable guess as to some unreported detail of the event’s history and then as to what might/not happen from now.
Geology:
The power station is built on made ground, reclaiming land in this case from either the sea or marshland. The same applies to Fukushima Dai-ini and to other projects around Japan (it’s a favourite site selection method all over the East).
What is made ground?
It is stuff dumped into the sea, lake, etc, and compacted and allowed to settle (repeat and rinse), until tested as stable to take the weight of the proposed building. If you build a patio you will put down hardcore (broken bricks, concrete rubble etc.) tamped down, filled in with a clay and sand binder, and topped with a layer of sand to yield a smooth layer on which to set the paving. Made ground is a bit bigger, deeper, and more scientific. Or so I thought until I found these dictionary definitons:
“Dictionary of Architectural and Building Technology, Fourth edition
made ground or made-up ground
Ground built-up with excavated material or refuse, as distinct from the natural, undisturbed soil. Its load-bearing capacity is often very low.”
Seaside land reclamation often uses dredged sand from the adjacent seabed. A lagoon is formed and the sand and silt pumped in, the heavier material settles first. Used all over the world for cities next to the sea with long term stable results.
The problem arises in a high risk earthquake zone when the reclamation includes quantities of clay materials because they hold water, and ever since the Great 1906 San Francisco earthquake it has been known that the vibrational effects of earthquakes turn this into a slurry which in turn makes it easy to topple buildings. Here’s a reminder of the more recent event’s effects: “Tokyo Disneyland’s Parking Lot Shows Risk of Reclaimed…
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The problem arises in a high risk earthquake zone when the reclamation includes quantities of clay materials because they hold water, and ever since the Great 1906 San Francisco earthquake it has been known that the vibrational effects of earthquakes turn this into a slurry which in turn makes it easy to topple buildings. Here’s a reminder of the more recent event’s effects: “Tokyo Disneyland’s Parking Lot Shows Risk of Reclaimed Land – Bloomberg: The district surrounding Tokyo Disneyland may have to reinforce reclaimed land housing 96000 people after last week’s magnitude-9 earthquake turned the ground to mud, snapping utility pipes and tipping buildings.”.
Please see the Summary.
Groundwater:
This close to the sea it is going to be largely saline topped with fresh water. If the made ground is mainly sand then it will incline gently upwards going west from the shore and in general follow the profile of the ground surface above.
My earlier comments about contamination should be altered to say that the groundwater contamination will flow directly eastwards into the sea.
Summary:
The power station site is on made ground, probably well-compacted sand a few feet or metres above the water table which here will be not much above sea level.
Classically, the earthquake will have liquefied the sand/groundwater system shaking the plant and causing damage to the installation allowing the circulating water to drain out and stop the cooling of the fuel rods. They will have melted in a very short while (please see other posts and sources). I would infer that the explosions we saw were the immediate consequences of these meltdowns because of the reported times of containment damage, and I would stick my neck out a bit and say that the reaction involved groundwater at that exact time.
If that is correct, then the probability of groundwater-corium reactions from the meltdowns is low or zero and no further effects from this particular source can be expected.
I hope…
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I hope that someone can pick this up and take it a bit further.
Sincerely,
Misitu.
Just like to note that anyone who builds a NPS on sandy made ground next to the sea has omitted some due diligence let alone in a highly seismically active area on a continental plate margin… and there must be a lot more where this one came from!
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Thanks, Misitu–very interesting and helpful!!!
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Misitu
What bothers me about your post is that I remember reading how the fuel rods already created a chlorine liquid byproduct(and probably a gas?) in reaction to salt water used for cooling as they heated up out of control. If I may theorize with you then the blob has potential to create a super poisonous cloud (or radioactive geyser) of chlorine gasses if (when) it explodes at groundwater contact?
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Hi Anthony
I remember the first hi res overflight snaps and a comment from I think Zero Hedge about the green glow after the explosion in Unit 3, I thought that was indicative of Cl, but probably radiocative. Also I believe the half life of the Cl as a decay product is quite short, hence at the time it was being produced continuously.
My limited knowledge stops here but I would say as above the explosive phase might well be over. And now follows the mitigation work which is considerable.
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to crzy: thanks for the thanks. Best wishes.
to Cassie: thanks for your feedback. It was a bit of work but I had the time and hope this is useful to you and many others.
I am glad you agree about needing to analyse and resource the healthcare issues that are likely to arise on a very large scale. Especially, health management for genetic defects and for cancer are very expensive items both for the state and for private finance. Maybe this will be the way to raise the profile and if so before it’s too late and focus is lost on the prime cause.
I would very much like to see some interest from the Consulting Soil Engineering field to pick up on a risk analysis to all such sites because Fuku so far is the only such occurrence but there is clear cause for others in future.
I see from today’s news that a huge stretch of the ocean offshore of Fuku has been heavily contaminated and regard this as another piece of evidence for my suggested drainage model. I suggest that this contamination will continue to spread geographically and deepen in intensity.
Best wishes, and thanks for hugs,
Misitu
Footnote: Misitu is a character in a novel by Jose Maria Arguedas. I do not imagine sharing in any way his character or the events of the story. But I salute the viewpoint provided by the novelist.
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@Physicist
Thanks for you “analysis” of the corium movement possibilities.
Given the two months that have passed it would seem it had plenty of time to eat its way into the water table. It would be interesting if any radiation sampling of the wells in the area are taking place.
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After doing my bit of armchair geology I have more or less come to the same conclusion as yourselves.
So:
i. There may be further sporadic criticalities in the corium under 1,2,and 3.
ii. There may be consequential further damage to the spent fuel pools in 1,2, and 3.
iii. There may be further issues with the SFP in 4 both structurally and from radioactivity events.
iv. The major pollution risk to remote countries has probably ceased. Be careful. I just mean probably no more will be added. I also mean it is a bloody good time to take stock and organise healthcare for the future, e.g. in North America, and Europe to a lesser extent.
v. Japan’s fallout damage has been limited to the “immediate” vicinity of the Dai-ichi plant. But as the typhoon season begins, any further emissions will add to the pollution south and west. That probably means Tokyo, and to a lesser extent the rest of Honshu. Adjacent countries will receive some pollution.
I wonder why they are in such a hurry to put up the big tent!
Misitu
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Misitu:
If you are correct, then we are on to the next stage.
Experts in decontamination, medical treatment for radiation poisoning, preventative measures. Change in lifestyle, even perhaps our culture and world view.
Things may never be the same here in the states.
We will need an overhaul of or health care system here in the states. Insurance companies will never treat all the sick people, they won’t make their $billions.
Your scenario filled in the missing pieces for me.
Fits the data. I just knew a geologist would sort out the coring issues.
Thanks ago Misitu
Cassie
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Misitu:
(I am reposting this because the original was
downthread in the wrong place, and I want to
make sure you see it!)
Thank you so much.
I agree totally with what you are saying.
All the data fits with your scenario.
And coincides with my gut feel for all of it.
We at least have a fighting chance.
Hugs to you my friend!
Cassie
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By the way, Physicist, a Google site search works much better on this site (and practically any other site) than the site’s regular search engine.
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Arnie Gunderson at Fairewinds reported that the site subsided about 1 ft…
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Now I remember that. Pipes breaking would be a bit of a no brainer, especially if the nature of the subsoil is as it looks on the maps – liquefaction would be a worse enemy than just shaking in a bedrock foundation.
What is needed I think is to get hold of the site records including foundation tests and reports. That might be difficult! Failing that, someone in soil or civil engineering could provide a valid opinion.
My interest is in the ongoing safety risks at other nuclear power plants built on similar sites.
Maybe also Arnie Gunderson could locate some relevant expertise. I will see if I can ask him.
Best wishes,
Misitu
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To think it DIDN’T go 60 feet in two months defies every fear I ever had about nuclear disasters. And I am not making light of this situation but find this fact provocative and contrary.
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Yeah, the corium is like my attire post prom… All over the place and FUBAR.
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Misitu:
Thank you so much.
I agree totally with what you are saying.
All the data fits with your scenario.
And coincides with my gut feel for all of it.
We at least have a fighting chance.
Hugs to you my friend!
Cassie
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…sense.
Somehow, though, I don’t get the sense that the blobs are cooling off yet, though. There is still a definite sense of urgency bordering on panic over there.
Also: if a big earthquake aftershock happens and Unit 4′s spent fuel pool spills out, we are in big trouble.
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Thank you SO much for all the detailed information.
I´ll go to bed now, it´s 10:30 PM over here…
PEACE. UNPLUG. NO MORE FUKU. NEVER AGAIN.
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Radnet data posted for Phoenix was very high again today. Beta was at 160, which is near high levels posted (during the worst days of the crisis no data were available).
It is possible of course our local plant is spewing.
However, what are the implications if this from Fukushima?
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I wonder if its because the radiation spiked.
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Thank you psysicist! I read that the seawater flowing back from the reactor has quite the concentration of Cl-38 (half life about 38min.). This was quickly retracted, but I find it hard to believe that fission HASN’T occurred after the initial scram; too much evidence to ignore. The question now is: has fission stopped? Can it begin again?
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It is in a state of constant criticality.
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If it was in a state of constant criticality it would have burned into the ground water table a long time ago. Who knows – maybe it has. I have read a foot an hour can be penetrated by such a hot item.
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Darth. It can be in a constant state of criticality at a very low level since it could be spread out thus the slow progresion downward. Just because you have localized criticality does not mean that the whole mass does. Otherwise I am in total agreement.
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Perpetual fission…accented with the occasional explosion..remix and rebuild..
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They’d reported cracks – some rather large in the concrete below. “Sieve-like was the term used for the site. Liquid glass, concrete and polymer were tried with limited or no success. No word on that situation since April.
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Is time travel possible? Is Time Linear? What is Time! One thing I do know is that this is our “TIME”
Question 1. How did one of the most successful bands in the world “The Killers” write and release a song about the Tiger Woods saga well over a year before the story broke???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBDncB-AGuc
Question 2. How did the biggest band in the world, “U2″ write a song over 20 years ago about Tokyo Electric Co?
“Earthquake 4. Nice and Slow. Useless scenes in old Tokyo. Useless scenes near Tokyo”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrlPoiv8TrU
After the Rain the Sun comes out!!!!
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Holy shit, not again.
Enough with the stupid time travel paste in every thread already. Yeah, we get it.
If you ever find out if time travel is possible, please go back in your time machine, and erase yourself from history.
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So funny!!!!!!!
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There’s a lot of extremely interesting information in this thread.
A big thanks to the physicist and misitu for their contributions!
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You took the words right out of my mouth!
Please don’t take things out of my mouth.
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Thanks, hoping it helps move the big buggers out of their cots.
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So I’ve got a few questions…I’ve seen people saying to only drink bottled water, but what type or brand do we know is safe? I am on a well (in Colorado foothills) and have been filtering through a Berkey filter (black filters)…is that OK? Also, as far as dairy products, I am stocking up on pre-Fukushima butter and cheese, and Ghee…I have contacted a dairy (Kalona Supernatural) that uses only Midwest farms and they told me they are testing their products (every batch) and have found no radioactive contamination…are they lying or is that possible? I am drinking black coffee right now for the first time in my life and I hate it…I really want some cream!
For everything else milk-wise, I’m using Pacific Natural Foods Almond Milk, which has a shelf-life of a year, so as long as the date stamped on it is pre-March 2012, it is safe. (I have been contacting all these companies for information on shelf-life). Does anyone but me feel like they’re living on a different planet than almost everyone else? No one I talk to seems to have any concern about this fiasco at all…I am feeling very alienated. Good luck to everyone!
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I’m still drinking milk. Generally speaking, if you want accurate, truthful information about milk – including hopefully radiation testing – you should get in touch with Organic Valley and see what they’re doing, if anything. They’re a co-op, not a corporation, and have a good ethical reputation.
However you can expect to pay twice as much for their products.
Personally I don’t think the levels are high enough in the US to freak out yet, but other people here disagree.
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I emailed Organic Valley (I use their products more than any others) and they sent me a link to the EPA tests. Here’s exactly what they said, copied from the email:
We are monitoring our milk supply for radiation. As with all of our monitoring program components, we do not release individual results to the public due to confidentiality commitments. Please visit the US Environmental Protection Agency web site, http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/rert/radnet-sampling-data.html#milk, for updated radiation monitoring results.
You may view our formal statement on the issue here: http://www.organicvalley.coop/newsroom/japanese-radiation-events/.
They compare the levels detected by the EPA to background radiation levels, which we all know is a Trojan Horse, because the two are completely different in their effects on the body. I went one day without half and half in my coffee and broke down…I bought the Organic Valley…stocked up so if there’s any I-131, some of it will dissipate before I get to it…;-) I guess we have to pick our poison at this point, as it will be impossible to avoid entirely, and I’m picking half and half for mine.
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get some powdered milk or condensed milk and store it, or give up milk. Or take up cesium/cancer.
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I think that might depend on ‘where’ in the US (or Canada). You may be living in an area that hasn’t seen as much detected radiation, but it doesn’t mean the milk is from a local dairy. I read labels a lot more than I use to.
When I go to the grocery store, I avoid the California Strawberries ( http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2525 ), and if I see another shopper inspecting them, I tell them why it’s a bad bet to take them home. This usually results in receiving strange looks. Oh the irony.
Bought some nice fresh corn on the cob to go with supper tonight. Fresh from the USA ….where in the USA? No idea. I’ll tell you what though, if I don’t know exactly where certain foods are coming from, I’ll test them with my Geiger counter when I get home. Yes, I know, the levels may be low enough in food that they can’t readily be picked up by most Geiger counters, but having established baseline readings, I can at least pick up on anything out of the ordinary, and have some peace of mind.
Obviously, it will vary from region to region, depending on where any plumes may have unloaded and fallen out over North America, but here’s my take on milk. Again this depends on where you are. We all know you should not be drinking milk from Hawaii. BTW, I live in Niagara Falls Canada.
First, back to the time this all started, the March explosions are likely to have generated the greatest release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The Jet Stream, is very efficient, and free transportation for those itty bitty particles. The worst potential fallout over North America is likely to have occurred within a couple of weeks of the explosions. Anyone who had been monitoring radiation data at the time, will have noticed the peaks in levels around the end of March. Now, I don’t know where you are, but here, we’ve still got snow at that time, so the cows are still inside for the most part, and certainly not grazing on any freshly irradiated fallout. There’s no…
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…cont’d
There’s no grass yet that early. Plus we had a late start to Spring this year. They’re still eating stored winter food, hay, whatever. Yes, there still has been radioactive steam escaping daily since then, but I don’t think that after religiously monitoring radiation data since mid-March, that levels of detected radiation since the end of that March spike, have been anywhere near as high as the period after the immediate explosions. Not to say there haven’t been occasional exceptions, particularly in areas just East of the Rockies. Here at home, I’ve seen consistently low levels, and over the last 2 months have been able start educating myself about radioactive isotopes, various molecular doom, and things you can do to avoid them, the weather, how the Jet Stream works. Just like I’m sure many of us have.
For now, I’m still drinking milk. I can’t drink my coffee without cream. It’s just not the same. Plus, it gives me energy to go Troll hunting
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Excellent post…thanks for all the info! I am located in the foothills west of Boulder, CO. Not sure exactly where the Organic Valley comes from around here, I guess that would be my next line of investigation, if I had accurate information so I could make an informed decision. I feel much better knowing that someone else who knows what’s going on is still drinking coffee with cream…do you test the cream with the Geiger counter, and if so, what is the result? Perhaps you should bring it to the grocery store with you and see just how much the strawberries are glowing…I am foregoing strawberries myself, as much as I hate to do it…they look so delicious too.
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organic valley? I am afraid that with radioactive fallout across the northern hemisphere, “organic” is now a defunct historic adjective.
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You are probably right, charlie…I guess if I have a choice of radioactive milk with or without pesticides and hormones, I’ll take it without, but it may not make any difference. My feeling is, if it’s really as bad as we think it is, we’re probably doomed anyway, because it’s in the air, the water, the food, etc…and if it’s not as bad as we think it is, then we’ll probably be OK, milk or no milk. That being said, I have stocked up on all the dairy products I could which are still available in a pre-Fuked-up-shima incarnation…butter, ghee and aged cheese, etc.
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