EPA Halts Daily Reporting of Radiation Levels

know where to begin.

EPA = Evironmemtal PROTECTION agency

...it appears that the "protection" is for the polluters/poisoners.

... So what? They're not eliminating the normal data collection sites, just the additional ones they set up in response to the accident since the majority of fall out related issues appear to have passed. These machines aren't free, have to change the paper on the air samplers every once in a while and then control those samples as radwaste.

I don't recall hearing that they have..

Especially if they flooded the drywell, which at this point if they haven't done that then they're doin' it wrong. Also there is the whole, theory versus actuality thing going on. Can the existing nuclear pile produce enough heat to liquefy several feet of concrete to escape containment, while at the same time pumping heat into ambient (which should be filled with water, a good thermal conductor), followed by melting through the basement and however many feet or bedrock until it hits the local water table.

Only thing they need to prevent such an occurrence is to fill the dry well with water (any water, including untreated seawater), and then run chill water and containment recirculating ventilation fans.

And with some luck they are as competent at nuclear engineering as they are at honest and direct communications.

Why did you know that dihydrogen oxide can KILL YOU! It's everywhere, they add it to everything! Too much and you'll die a horrible death!

Same BS. I'm not really worried, they'll figure it out.

True story, I used to listen to Neal Boortz, a right wing radio talker that's also an engineer, he got the director of the Atlanta Water System live on the phone and got him to deny that there was even a trace of dihydrogen monoxide in the Atlanta water..

I had to pull over lest I lose control of the car..

in a thread the other day. He was describing the Fukushima situation and what he sees that could still happen:

"Ways they can lose the battle - 1) additional prompt criticals could lead to new explosions spreading radioactive material over a wide area possibly requiring a wider evacuation area (Tokyo is 75 miles away); 2) explosions or a collapse of U4 building could force the heroes to leave, which would put U5 and U6 at risk again... And it's fuel pool; 3) a storm like a tsunami or hurricane hitting the site would spread toxic material over a very wide area... Well beyond just Japan; just a windy day with the wind blowing anywhere but east could become a radiological event; 4) if a core is melting down into the ground, it could badly contaminate the water table for a large area... or the core material could explode when it hits water... that could create a plume of toxic debris; 5) additional earthquakes could destroy extremely weakened structures exposing additional radioactive material to the elements. Based on the progress made so far, I think the worst outcomes are the more likely ones. Basically, all is lost when the heroes have to pull back permanently... or die from radiation exposure. If I was Obama, I would order a mandatory evacuation from Japan of all personnel not involved with disaster response. He has pretty good technical support from the Dept of Energy, so I wouldn't be surprised by an announcement soon. They were right when they said a pool was empty and that scared them more than what was going on in the reactors... 50 miles was a good call. I am clueless why the global news isn't covering this to the degree it deserves... Why the Japanese stock market has held up so well... Why the Yen has been strong. I know I said we were safe here, but the radioactive material will spread over time... so the danger is low now, but rising... how bad it will get here depends on whether or not they can some how contain the material from spreading. There is enough radiological material there to poison all of Japan and a large area of the Pacific ocean... and more. The danger is only mitigated if they can contain the spread of it. At least 2 cores have no vessel or containment. At least one whole sent fuel pool is uncovered and basically destroyed. They haven't a clue how to contain the material... Or even know where it is."



How 'bout that, eh? He doesn't necessarily think they'll figure it out.




Just some more Extreme Enviroweenie Biased Claptrap, eh?


rdb

Some guys are more paranoid than others about this. That's fine. But lets talk about the points:
1) Renewed criticality is not necessarily a prompt critical, all it indicates is a super critical state, which isn't the same thing. sub critical = neutrons < self sustaining, critical = neutrons self sustaining, super critical = neutrons > self sustaining (this condition exists during plant start up and when increasing plant power outputs), prompt critical = enough prompt neutrons to create a self sustaining reaction (which is bad since it ignores source and delay neutrons). Prompt criticals are typically only seen in: nuclear weapons, cold water casualties, and rod withdrawal casualties. Considering the medias education on scientific matters I'd be quite surprised if they had accurate reports on the neutron counts from the spent fuel pool, let alone were actually able to calculate a startup rate (traditionally a prompt critical has a SUR of around 9DPM or better). Peak power and power turning from a prompt critical would be quite noticeable, which is why it's unlikely that one has actually occurred in any of these plants.
2) True, but the likelihood of further explosions is minimal at this point, and most of the building damage appears superficial rather than structural. In a screwed up way the explosions actually minimized the potential for further explosions by increasing ventilation and preventing the build up of hydrogen gas.
3) Yes a serious weather event could cause additional damage. However we also have weather satellites and can take additional steps to further secure the site prior to any such event striking. They likely have not done so yet because they're attempting to minimize their exposure levels performing other needed tasks. Given the recent mega earthquake, the likelihood of a subsequent earthquake event in the near term is incredibly low (since the stress on that fault has been relieved and will need to build up in order to release again).
4) The potential for this scenario is very low. I'd probably say that the only way for such an event to actually occur is if no human decided to intervene. And even then it probably wouldn't happen. That said, it's irrelevant now since the cores have been shutdown (minus a few seconds of renewed criticality) for over two months and there simply isn't enough decay heat being generated to cause such an event at this point in time. In my experience, one month after shutdown we were able to cease operation of the reactor coolant pumps because losses to ambient were sufficient to remove the produced decay heat.
5) True, but the likelihood of a future earthquake of sufficient magnitude to cause additional damage is very low now that the aftershock period has passed.

As for material present, we could dump it in the Pacific Mariana trench and likely never see it again. This is what we used to do in the 1950's (except we used the Atlantic). Considering the current regulation limits, I don't expect any serious issues from this here on the West Coast or anywhere else in the US.

No kidding. Why do you think I pasted it?

Thanks for lending your two cents on these points. It makes for a much better discussion than "You're just an Extreme Enviroweenie with Biased Claptrap," usual response by professionals in the trade. I also would like to read what you might respond to in this person's other posts in a thread here at DU found now on about page 11.

You and he could get into a real cage-match type of discussion, but I don't thinke you guys would. You all do seem to have an abiding faith that is not shared by him in all of these areas, but your two differences matter not to me as much as those points you both appear to be more in agreement than not. That is what I am interested in.

I can cut and paste more from that most informative thread, but you should go there and report back. That is probably more ethical and orderly, not to say, courteous. I don't know what or why the guy did what he did on that thread but for me it was great reading. He seems to be down-to-earth about it all, with references to his naval experience sprinkled in. No one knows it all, and those that are in the profession and are knowledgeable about the nomenclature are informative to read, as they are more informed and like to tell us all that. You all do tend to defend your turf, but that is expected as well. The norm is to have engineer types be conceited and act like no one else could possibly grasp what it is all about. Such is not necessarily the case. Today, access to information and data is like never before. I, for one feel lucky to be able to hash things out with folks that are knowledgeable and cordial, not snarky and conceited. That posture only polarizes further.

I'll PM the link to his thread and see what you think, eh?





"Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore..."

Jagger/Richard


rdb

I'll chime in occasionally, but I just don't have the time to spend knocking out every single thing that gets posted on this subject, plus others typically do a better job than I do. But I am good at explaining the science, since I used to do that back at power school when I was tutoring the weaker students in my class.

is your assertion here:

"...5) True, but the likelihood of a future earthquake of sufficient magnitude to cause additional damage is very low now that the aftershock period has passed..."

I do not share your opinion here, and thankfully for them, neither do the Japanese. None of us want to see any recurrence of March 11 any time soon, but truth be known, no one can predict. What the experts in Japan that have been studying this longer than anyone else in the world have these things to say about the biggest pending quake, which to some is now overdue:

"The Tokai earthquakes are major earthquakes that have occurred regularly with an interval of 100 to 150 years in the Tōkai region of Japan. The Tokai segment has been struck by earthquakes in 1498, 1605, 1707 and 1854.<1> Given the historic regularity of these earthquakes, another is expected in the near future, as was first predicted by Kiyoo Mogi in 1969.<2>

Given the magnitude of the last two earthquakes, the next is expected to be at least a magnitude 8, with large areas shaken at an intensity of 7, the highest level in the Japanese intensity scale. Emergency planners are anticipating and preparing for potential scenarios after such an earthquake, including the possibility of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries, millions of damaged buildings, and cities that include Nagoya and Shizuoka devastated. Concern has been expressed over the presence of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant which has been built close to the centre of the expected earthquake...

...The pattern of historical seismicity reveals that the megathrust surface is segmented, with five separate zones of rupturing identified, conventionally labeled A–E, from west to east.<3> Earthquakes involving the A+B segments are generally referred to as Nankai (literally South Sea) earthquakes, C+D Tonankai (literally Southeast Sea) earthquakes and E Tokai (literally East Sea) earthquakes. The earthquake repeat intervals are generally in the range 90–200 years.

On all but one occasion, rupture of segment C (±­D ±E) has been followed by rupture of segments A+B within a few years. This behavior has been reproduced by modeling the viscoelastic response of the megathrust fault plane with lateral variations in both convergence rate and frictional properties..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokai_earthquakes



"...On all but one occasion, rupture of segment C (±­D ±E) has been followed by rupture of segments A+B within a few years..."

I just wanted to point that out from the above for emphasis.



The Tokai Earthquake of 20xx

"The great Tokai Earthquake of the 21st century has not happened yet, but Japan has been getting ready for it for over 25 years.

All of Japan is earthquake country, but its most dangerous part is on the Pacific coast of the main island Honshu, just southwest of Tokyo. Here the Philippine plate is moving under the Eurasian plate in an extensive subduction zone. From studying centuries of earthquake records, Japanese geologists have mapped out segments of the subduction zone that seem to rupture regularly and repeatedly. The part southwest of Tokyo, underlying the coast around Suruga Bay, is called the Tokai segment...

...The Tokai segment last ruptured in 1854, and before that in 1707. Both events were great earthquakes of magnitude 8.4. The segment ruptured in comparable events in 1605 and in 1498. The pattern is pretty stark: a Tokai earthquake has happened about every 110 years, plus or minus 33 years. As of 2005, it has been 151 years and counting...

...Professor Ishibashi is now at the University of Kobe, and perhaps that name rings a bell: Kobe was the site of a devastating quake in 1995 that the Japanese know as the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. In Kobe alone, 4571 persons died and more than 200,000 were housed in shelters; in total, 6430 people were killed. More than 100,000 houses collapsed. Millions of homes lost water, power or both. Some $150 billion in damage was recorded. The other benchmark Japanese quake was the Kanto earthquake of 1923. That event killed more than 120,000 people. The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake was magnitude 7.3. Kanto was 7.9. But at 8.4, the Tokai Earthquake will be substantially larger..."

http://geology.about.com/od/eq_prediction/a/aa_tokaiquake.htm




They had the Hamaoka nuke plant shut for this reason, I believe, fears of a pending Tokai quake, now somewhat due:



More than 60% of voters support Hamaoka nuclear plant shutdown
2011/05/17

"...Forty-three percent of respondents said they supported nuclear power generation. Of those, 59 percent said they "positively evaluated" Kan's request to shut down all reactors at the Hamaoka plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, which lies in the projected focal region of the long-expected Tokai earthquake. Thirty percent said they did not "positively evaluate" it.

Chubu Electric Power Co. acceded to Kan's request and shut down all reactors at the Hamaoka plant by May 14.

Sixty-four percent of respondents living in the area served by the utility "positively evaluated" Kan's request, while 25 percent did not. That was roughly in line with the national trend.

Kan did not ask other nuclear power plants to shut down because they were not considered to pose the same risks as the Hamaoka plant. Forty-nine percent of respondents supported that policy, and 26 percent were opposed..."

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105160093.html




I prefer to consider the occurrence of another quake in one of the other subduction zones in the region as a distinct possiblity sooner rather than later. Sorry.


rdb

Given the recent mega earthquake, the likelihood of a subsequent earthquake event in the near term is incredibly low (since the stress on that fault has been relieved and will need to build up in order to release again).

And that statement shows a lack of understanding of Global Warming which will bring increasing

numbers of earthquakes -- and increasing severity of quakes --

and Japanese scientists have also been long reporting the increasing seismic activity --

which was part of the reasoning for the push to close down these reactors during the past

5 years or so ago -- because the reactors were only built to withstand 7.0 earthquakes!


Further, not only was this a 9.0 earthquake -- followed by a tsunami! -- but it has been

followed by more than 350 aftershocks so far -- many of them still in the range of 8.0!!

In fact, many of the aftershocks have been as strong as the earthquake in Christ Church !!


:eyes:

TEPCO didn't follow Fukushima emergency manual

"...But the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, did not start the operation until 6 and a half hours before the explosion, and the operation was carried out just one and a half hours before the blast because it was hampered by high-level radioactivity.

A former nuclear plant engineer, Masashi Goto, says the utility should have released air when the pressure rose close to twice the operating limit.

Goto says if the company had done this, the amount of hydrogen leaked from the reactor core to the container vessel would have been smaller, reducing the risk of an explosion.

Tokyo Electric declined to comment, saying it is evaluating its decision to release the air.

Sunday, May 22, 2011 23:18 +0900 (JST)



"Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore..."

Jagger/Richard




rdb

Thanks for the additional info --

:hi:

"...On March 30 2011, the BBC World News reported that radioactive iodine fallout from the Fukushima Japan nuclear disaster had now been definitely identified across the entire globe, having spread Eastward on winds from Japan and now having made it all the way around the world again back to Asia.

The situation in Fukushima continues to deteriorate. The most recent revelation being that extensive Plutonium spread has occurred, and that there may be a possible meltdown in one reactor. The Japanese government and the utility company running the Fukushima nuclear plant (TEPCO) continue to stonewall on providing information to the public, often issuing contradictory statements or simply appearing to be baffled themselves by the situation...

...The Fallout concentration is very low in most areas outside of Japan (but extremely dangerous in Japan.) Extreme measures are not needed currently in North America. However be aware that official statements that there is “no risk” from low level nuclear fallout is not true. There is no “safe dose” of highly radioactive particles breathed into the lungs or ingested with food.

From my experience as a Marine Corps Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Instructor, and my subsequent twelve years of studying government policies in earning my Doctorate in International Studies, I can tell you that it is standard policy for many governments not to inform their citizens about potential radiation hazards unless forced to by the media. This is done in the name of “preventing panic” and “assuring governability” of the population. For many governments, it is simply standard policy to tell the public “there is no risk to human health” from even the most severe nuclear fallout situations (as we are still seeing pursued by the Japanese government, despite mounting evidence of high level radiation outside the “exclusion zone” around the Fukushima plant). It is up to independent citizens and organizations to stay informed..."


http://www.vesica.org/main/holistic-health/articles/1160-update-on-the-worldwide-nuclear-fallout-situation



Hmmmm. I suppose he is just an Extreme Enviroweenie spouting Biased Claptrap, eh?


rdb

Otherwise we'd all be dead right now since we pull 300mRem from background every year. An additional 1mRem won't cause any noticeable effect when it raises your risk for cancer by 1 in a billion. Considering the established limits for water are designed that if you drank 2Liters per day at the limit for an entire year you'd only see a 4mRem rise in your yearly total, and we have been consistently UNDER that limit, no I'm not worried.

"There is no “safe dose” of highly radioactive particles breathed into the lungs or ingested with food."

This statement is, quite simply, bullshit. Curie count matters, and the dose limits as set by the EPA are so conservative that for the general public you will not see a noticeable increase in local cancer rates at those limits, let alone radiation poisoning which would require 25000 times what the limits are set at to even begin to appear. Even for trained nuclear operators and their higher limits the increase in rates is only 0.04%, which is lower than the probability of slipping and dieing in the shower. If we compare that to the chance a person will die from heart disease 33%, well... That and cancer is in fact treatable. If you're really interested in saving life, you'd be much better off fighting for a good healthcare system than worrying about radiation risks from Fukushima.

And finally. Chernobyl happened, and it has released more radioactivity than Fukushima has at this moment. We're still here, and nobody in the US has noticed.

Our service members must remember that quite well from the tests they

were exposed to -- !!

And death doesn't come quickly from radiation exposure --

it comes slowly which gives more time for lies and deception.

While it's quite possible that some of those workers might screw up and get fried by radiation, if they're taking the proper steps and have sufficient monitoring there isn't any reason they won't all walk out of there when this is all over. Yes, some of them will get cancer from this, and that sucks, but they know this and they're willing to do the job to get the thing under control. Thankfully they also have a decent healthcare system in their country, I know I wouldn't be jumping up to help out if one of our plants melted down, just to get abandoned after the fact.

This is a worthwhile topic.

This corruption has made me skeptical as hell.

Unless you don't want people to realize there are multiple meltdowns in progress and that this disaster is worse than Chernobyl.

...yet...

Radioactive debris hampers efforts to cool reactor

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is facing the new challenge of removal of highly radioactive debris in order to proceed with efforts to stabilize the Number 3 reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Company on Friday found debris releasing 1,000 millisieverts per hour in an area south of the Number 3 reactor building. It is the highest level of radiation found in debris left outside.

Materials emitting 900 millisieverts of radiation per hour have also been found in the plant's compound. These materials are believed to be part of the large amount of debris contaminated with radioactive substances that had been blown off in hydrogen explosions...

...The situation is hampering work to install devices to stably cool the reactor...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/22_07.html



Glitch halts nitrogen gas injection to reactor

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says injection of nitrogen gas into the Number 1 reactor came to a halt for more than 3 hours on Saturday due to mechanical trouble.

Tokyo Electric Power Company continues to inject nitrogen gas into the reactor's containment vessel to prevent the recurrence of a hydrogen explosion that took place in March.

On Saturday afternoon, a TEPCO worker found that the device to inject nitrogen, installed outside the reactor building, was not working. Injection later resumed using backup equipment.

The utility says data indicate that nitrogen gas had not been fed into the reactor for over 3 hours...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/22_10.html



"Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore..."

Jagger/Richard

Come up with new tactic to make it seem like you're doing something.

Discover new problem which interferes with ability to follow through on new tactic.

Come up with new tactic to deal with problem interfering with ability to follow through on previous tactic.

Continue iterating through press releases, making it appear that you're actually doing something, when you're really just letting this heap sit with absolutely no clue as to how to handle it.

She worked there for 6 months and not once was the environment ever mentioned. Not once.