Chicken Little was the"sky is falling" chick rather than the Little Red Hen.

I can identify with that....

her bootstraps.

or the pie.

...or the one made of straw.
I forget.

and the animals in the higher levels of the pecking order wanted the fruits of her labor.

Three melted reactor cores are still not able to be accessed. Too hot, still. 3 years and 3 months later.

An underground frozen wall meant to stop groundwater flow is being attempted. So far the engineers have not been able to make the ground cold enough to freeze. Ya think the hot reactor cores in the ground may have something to do with that?

kick threads.

Fukushima is a disaster of the first magnitude.

Earthquake.
Tidal wave.
Meltdown.
Denial.
Denial.
Denial.
Cancer, sickness, loss of health, life and food.
More denial.

Denial is listed not once, not twice, not three times,
but FOUR.

good work

They need to make the whole place into a self-contained pool.

Build a wall in the ocean to stop water from flowing toward California, then recycle all that water back thru the cores and filter as best they can any excess water.

Instead water is still flowing into the ocean, adding up the amounts of polluted water escaping the area.

Then build a cover over the area with filters built into the roof that will collect some of the air emissions which are still filling the atmosphere with man made radiation.

These seem pretty simple and doable. So why is the place still an open furnace and cesspool?

are additive. They have to have clean water, and cannot clean enough, recycle it, to do what is needed. And they do not have a limitless capacity to store it once it is poisoned, so they must then poison the ocean.

You cannot cap it yet - it has not been contained and brought under control yet. Any dome is simply a place that could one day be pressurized and blown off the face of the planet. (Note - Chernobyl was capped, and they are having to build a new mausoleum over the old one since they deteriorate).

They are trying, one might say, though their attempt to build a wall has created the largest Dirt Slurpee the world has ever seen. No wall, though.

It's still a big clusterfuck, still a factory producing lie after lie, and still a source of death and destruction for a lot of people who really don't realize they are simply prey, because many people in power care more about politics and face-saving and personal profit than death and destruction for millions, as long as it is not them.

Kinda like here.

that is what I read sometime back, I think.

Any updates in the last 9 months?

Sid

The worst ever.

Sid

Associated Press, Nov. 26, 2013: Japan’s more powerful lower house of Parliament approved a state secrecy bill late Tuesday [...]

...state secrets act that critics say could curtail public access to information on a wide range of issues, including tensions with China and the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

from Reuters

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is planning a state secrets act that critics say could curtail public access to information on a wide range of issues, including tensions with China and the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

The new law would dramatically expand the definition of official secrets and journalists convicted under it could be jailed for up to five years.

Abe says the new law, a draft of which is expected to be approved by his cabinet on Friday, is vital to his plan to set up a U.S.-style National Security Council to oversee security policies and coordinate among ministries.

Legal and media experts say the law, which would impose harsh penalties on those who leak secrets or try to obtain them, is too broad and vague, making it impossible to predict what would come under its umbrella. The lack of an independent review process leaves wide latitude for abuse, they say.

"Basically, this bill raises the possibility that the kind of information about which the public should be informed is kept secret eternally," Tadaaki Muto, a lawyer and member of a task force on the bill at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, told Reuters.

"Under the bill, the administrative branch can set the range of information that is kept secret at its own discretion."

link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/24/us-japan-secrecy-idUSBRE99N1EC20131024

Hope it helps

9 months later...3 years, 3 months after the disaster, no improvement, no real solutions, and at this rate, the entire nation of Japan will be covered with tanks filled with radioactive water before anything substantive is accomplished.

The article from the OP is from October 2013.

On November 18, 2013, engineers began removing fuel rods from the damaged reactors.

As of June 16, 1078 of 1533 fuel rods had been safely removed from damaged Reactor 4.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommision/index-e.html

I'd call that an improvement, wouldn't you?

(and now all the conspiracy theorists can wail and moan about TEPCO not telling the truth about the amount of fuel removed, or some such other bullshit)

Why would the OP post an article from October, when significant clean-up activity began in November?

Sid

....they've still not figured out what to do with the contaminated water from cooling the damaged cores and fuel rods....and the quantity of contaminated water continues to grow...as we're arguing about this....every minute of every freaking day. For how long? Should we all be long on storage tanks?

Attempts to contain radioactive run off with the ice wall have so far not been successful. No surprise there, since it's probably technically impossible to do on this scale, with existing technology, but what other alternatives are there for controlling run off / ground water seepage? And even if it is successful, they're going to have to keep the ice wall frozen for how long? Months? Years? Centuries? Millenia? What?

Face it, it's a colossal cluster fuck, with no practical end in sight. So they've extracted some fuel rods......oh, that's good! Now what F do we do?! Keep the damn things cool of course! More water and more storage tanks!

I'm no conspiracy nut and have no illusions of this disaster directly affecting the continental US in any appreciable way today or 100 years from now, but the fact remains they're no closer to improving this situation in any appreciable way than they were 9 months ago.

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/6/18/fukushima-ice-walllookingmorelikeadirtslurpee.html

Really?



Sid

...#4 was the easier one, relatively speaking. Now what are they going to do with the partially melted cores in units 1, 2 and 3? Any ideas there, Sid?

While we're waiting on your superior intellect,... ...keep buying storage tanks, damn it!

Ice wall? Could this be a job for Frozone?! Why didn't Tepco or Sid think of this?




Hey, it's an idea, isn't it?

Sid

Nine months ago this was supposedly the riskiest endeavor in human history. Getting that spent fuel out of (supposedly) near-collapse unit #4 would be almost impossible and represented the highest priority...

,.. but of course it's no improvement at all now that the job is almost done.

that's going to begin work on cleaning reactor #2 in advance of the decommissioning.

http://news360.com/article/243225434

But no, there's no progress at all being made.

Sid

The author of the OP assures me that robots that get sent into unit #2 just melt.

Of course... he's also making up nonsense that attempts to set up a frozen wall around the site have already failed (when they've barely gotten started and have not run into snags so far).

3 years and three months and they have removed a few fuel rods and they have a robot that maybe, might start cleaning the toilets at the least damaged reactor? Pitiful progress, indeed.

Hey, they are doing it on the cheap so what should we expect? Eh?

that progress is being made. Remember when they began removing fuel and we were told to be veeeeerrry affraaaaid?

Heck... they think that it's still getting worse.

because the rods there are mostly intact and the damage isn't as severe as in other units. There was a hydrogen explosion at #4, but no meldown because it was offline at the time of the disaster. In contrast, units 1-3 underwent meltdowns, and Unit 3 was using MOX fuel to boot.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/removal-of-fuel-rods-begins-at-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant-1.2430403

Look back to last Fall and they were telling us that:

* it was "Humankind's Most Dangerous Moment" that could "destroy the world environment and our civilization" (untrue)
* the fuel was badly damaged/bent/brittle to the point of crumbling (untrue)
* without computer control they would almost certainly drop one or more bundles (untrue)
* dropping one or more fuel assemblies could lead to an uncontrollable criticality accident (untrue)
* if the fuel rods were exposed to air they would burst into flame (untrue)
* the building was close to collapse (untrue)
* it could "spew" thousands of times as much radiation as Hiroshima (untrue)
* Japan and Tepco do not have the resources or know-how to accomplish it (untrue)

because the rods there are mostly intact

The rods in all of the fuel pools are mostly intact (if not entirely intact)... and there were more at #4's pool than the other reactors

There was a hydrogen explosion at #4, but no meltdown

You might want to tell that to the author of the thread. He never believed it. He's more likely to believe the conspiracy theory that none of what we're seeing is at Unit 4... it's all being filmed at either unit 5 or 6.

Unit 3 was using MOX fuel to boot

There was no spent MOX in the fuel pool... plus all spent fuel has plutonium in it. The attention paid to MOX at Fukushima was always misplaced.

Really... the fact that made #4 the easiest was the lack of a core meltdown. This is not because the meltdowns damaged the fuel in the pools (other than falling debris, there's no reason to believe that it did), but because they had room to put the removal canister into the larger pool area created by a refeuling state (that is... with the reactor open). They either need to mock something up for the other units, or wait until they patch the leaks so that the reactor well can be flooded.

Now, anyone who doesn't believe in Climate Change is "outed" - but really, where were all these people when Green Peace folks were being arrested and needed bail $$ in 1994 or '95?

I suspect that some eight to ten years from now, we will all be thinking about this issue of glowing in the dark all the time. But by then, the entire 55 billions of Federal Dollars the nuke industry has had pledged to them per Obama's wishes, will have been spent, and probably more nuke plants will have gone online here in The Good Ol' USA.

Or did that claim of yours not quite come to pass?

You have nothing to add but slander? Show us the evidence that I said the whole N. Hemisphere would be dead by now. Put up, or....

You were wrong from the very beginning of this situation and if you had any integrity you would be begging for forgiveness.

But what we do know is that animal life all along the coast is suffering deaths. The animals live in it 24/7 unlike humans who can go indoors, wash themselves and see a doctor. I guess if someone is oblivious to science and the way the world works, they'd post much the same as you?

I claimed: "There were several explosions at Fukushima. One was said to have been carrying plutonium in its cloud since rods were vaporized. Traces of plutonium from Fukushima were found in Europe. "

You claimed: "So we're all already dead, right?

Because your statement seems to say that explosions would distribute the plutonium all over the world. Those explosions happened, so we must all be dead.

OR, it might not work the way you're saying."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=633478

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The rest of the thread is illuminating for anyone wishing to read on DU about this situation.

The "excerpt" button really makes it much clearer when you are quoting someone.

For example, your post:

I think one thing is clear: You are in favor of nukes and will do or say anything to protect the industry.

I hope they read the whole thread.

My only "in favor of nukes" position is we shouldn't have turned away from nukes in the 1970s. We traded a very unlikely local disaster for a guaranteed global disaster (climate change). Btw, that position also lead to Fukushima. Japan was unable to replace the old plant in the 1980s due to anti-nuclear opinion.

But time moves on. It isn't the 1970s anymore, and switching to renewables is feasible. Unfortunately, too late to avert that global disaster we chose in the 1970s.

Blaming anti-nukes for Fukushima blowing up:

""Japan was unable to replace the old plant in the 1980s due to anti-nuclear opinion.""

Like I say, you will say anything to protect the industry. You proved me correct. Hilarious. Sickening, too.

I'll mark that little fact double-plus ungood and throw it in the memory hole.

Like, say, this article.

However, good luck.

Many of us here have tried to put science against hair-on-fire conspiracies. It almost never succeeds. That's what happens when ideologies are put against science facts. Cultural memes are stronger than the facts. And there are always those who will support the former by discarding the latter.

This thread is an exemplar of such a thing.

The bottom line is, the only people who should flee to the Southern Hemisphere are those who see Fukushima as an end of the world, or present it as such. At least we'd be rid of those loonies. (Poor Australia. However, I suspect that the Australian Skeptics will make fast work of them -- just like they did for Australia's anti-vaccination lunacy.)

In other words, to the OPer, "Have at it, Hoss!" Build your impregnable fortress. Or move to Australia where they will drink your milkshake. In the meantime, there are those here on DU who will do the same.

Fukushima is a horrible disaster. But running around with ones hair on fire never solves anything. Science does. Plus, making shit up does not help ones case, let alone citing sources which do the same. Made up shit is always exposed when the predictions do not pan out. Fortunately, there are those who know the difference between fact and made up shit.

We who exposed this situation from the beginning were called all kinds of names just like you are doing here. You should be ashamed of yourself.

All the while the made up bullshit has been coming from the nuke lovers and TEPCO. Lie after lie after lie from the nucleoapes. But what do you two do? Attack innocent posters who just care for the environment while giving a pass to the polluters. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

You mouth science but the science is that what has happened with Fukushima has unknown impacts being as that it is unprecedented in scope. But you sit there and mouth off like you know all about it. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Be Free to post bullshit.
Are you now saying starfish aren't dying because is Fukushima?

The science is what the science is.

There are some people who stand back away from this situation who are willing to make their opinions known, not based on reality, but merely on their opinions. Of course, they all cite any and all sources which predict doom and gloom, regardless of the provenance. (Cough! Arnie Gunderson!)

Others are willing to connect data which is totally unconnected to the Fukushima. (Sigh! Sea star melting!)

Yup! Robert, Fukushima is a clusterfuck, as The Japanese undoubtedly all know. Including their government -- which has changed a bit since the earthquake/tsunami. Meanwhile, there are idiots here in the USA who make ignorant claims about how the reactors all melted down (they didn't), how the radioactivity released is the greatest ever (it isn't), how we're all gonna die because of it (nope!).

The question is... Why would anybody want Fukushima to be worse than it actually is? Maybe it's because some people are just afraid of everything. Or, maybe it's an ideological issue -- in order to be against nuclear power I have to make shit up to prop up my position.

Listen Robert, nobody has to make up shit to be against fission power. I don't object to your position of being against nukes -- I agree with it -- I just don't think made up shit is going to help support the cause. One doesn't need to make up shit to argue a position against nuclear power. Apparently some disagree (Cough! Arnie Gunderson!)

Nope! The sea star melting was not because of Fukushima Daiichi. And the Pacific is not being all poisoned by it either. The west coast of North America is safe from this issue. It is still a clusterfuck.

Regards.

There you go again, deciding the outcomes of this situation.

YOU: Absent of any science, hurling schoolkids names at renowned scientists and acting as fucking ignorant as a Tbagger.

The scientists, the ones you ignore and try to make fun of, and science in general, states that what will happen is unknown as nothing like this has ever occurred before.

But here you are telling us it's all 'safe'. Are you shameless or what?

Who said it was all safe? That would be a straw man (a common technique of ideologues). In fact, I am on record as stating that Fukushima Daiichi is a clusterfuck. But there is no credible evidence that it will have any bad effects on this continent (let alone sea star wasting).

I prefer science which is subject to peer review, not from some ideologue who inflates his resume and snipes from the sidelines by making shit up (Cough! Arnie Gunderson!).

One should always be skeptical of any scientific claims, especially when they look like they may be based on ideology.

And Robert, yes, Fukushima Daiichi is a clusterfuck. But one does not have to cite bad science to get that point across. The Pacific Ocean is doing just fine, at least with respect to the water released by Fukushima Daiichi. There are many other claims made about Fukushima Daiichi which just do not pass the smell test. If they were true they would be reported by major news orgs instead of just the ideological ones (e.g., Energy News). Of course, one could always respond to that with the grand conspiracy claim, but that would be against DU GD SOP. (And rightly so)

Best regards, my friend.

Yet you mouth a line about science.

You can spell it but you don't know what science is.

And there you go again: "If they were true they would be reported by major news orgs..."

You are just embarrassing yourself now.

It's always the ad hominem response, isn't it. Has anybody informed you that that does not work? Don't argue the person, argue the position.

Believing what you apparently do, maybe you ought to blockade yourself and stock up for the inevitable global meltdown.

I am sorry I have tried to argue rationally with you. That is apparently a fool's errand. That makes me a fool, I guess.

BTW, let's hear more about those sea stars.

So give me one link to a science report that backs up what you say... that there is no threat at all to the US from Fukushima. Good luck finding any real independent scientist that backs up your claims.

Here is an oceanographic institute that recognizes the threat:

http://www.ourradioactiveocean.org/

Here's one about radiation:

http://www.nirs.org/press/06-30-2005/1

Fire up that search engine, and get back to us with that ""all is safe in the US"" science report.

"that there is no threat at all to the US" <=== straw man.

Nobody is making this claim. The claim is that there is 5,000 miles of the world's largest ocean between Fukushima and the US. That is one helluva buffer, so the danger is relatively minimal.

I note that your citations are from Web sites with a possible bias.

Our radioactive ocean???? Really? Isn't that begging the question?

Nuclear Information and Resource Service???? Not sure about this one, but they do have an admitted anti-nuclear bias. That isn't bad, but I will look into it. Thanks for this one. I will check it out.

I often detect bias in your citations. Isn't that cherry picking? Where's the peer reviewed research?

That's why people do not take these pronouncements seriously. Nor should they.

And what the fuck good does this do for the very good cause of opposing nuclear power? (Which I also oppose). One does not need to make shit up to argue a case against nuclear power. Don't you understand that citing dodgy reports or unreliable sources (Cough! Arnie Gunderson!) undermines your position when one could easily make a very good case without them?

It is not your position that I object to. It is your doom and gloom conclusions which are not backed up by the data. Plus your record of citing poor sources.

With all due respect.
Regards.

Maybe we should all stock up for the collapse of modern society.


Fukushima is going to take many years to resolve. In the meantime, science and engineering will solve the problems. That's where my trust lies. And there's no doubt that Japan has top people on this (unless one thinks it's some grand conspiracy).

Hasn't any educated people learned that ad hominem arguments are fallacious? What one learns is that ad hominems are the inevitable technique of a person who has no other cogent argument, or no cogent argument at all.

Meanwhile science, and rational discourse, moves on.