What They're Covering Up at Fukushima - Hirose Takashi

Yo: It will take 1300 tons of water to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods in reactors 3 and 4. This morning 30 tons. Then the Self Defense Forces are to hose in another 30 tons from five trucks. That’s nowhere near enough, they have to keep it up. Is this squirting of water from hoses going to change the situation?

Hirose: In principle, it can’t. Because even when a reactor is in good shape, it requires constant control to keep the temperature down to where it is barely safe. Now it’s a complete mess inside, and when I think of the 50 remaining operators, it brings tears to my eyes. I assume they have been exposed to very large amounts of radiation, and that they have accepted that they face death by staying there. And how long can they last? I mean, physically. That’s what the situation has come to now. When I see these accounts on television, I want to tell them, “If that’s what you say, then go there and do it yourself!” Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real.

http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html

More from Professor Hirose

http://enenews.com/comparisons-with-x-rays-and-ct-scans...

-- snip

Shigeo Hirose - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shigeo Hirose (広瀬 茂男, Hirose Shigeo) BEng, MEng, PhD (born 1947 in Tokyo)

Hirose: (snip)Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . .

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They're no more effective at the cover-up than they were at oversight of the plants.

He is an avid anti nuke person, he has an agenda. I am not saying being anti nuke immediately discounts someone to speak on this issue but this guy tried to sue Tepco to keep them from reopening the plant after an accident in 89.

This guy may be correct in his assumptions but you will have to excuse me if I prefer to get my information from someone with a little less bias.

he's making a good point tho? That radioactive particles INGESTED is very different from an x-ray.

The average person does not know this, and they should. It's pretty basic information. Not rocket science.

You typically figure out the curie count, figure out how much the body can hold onto, then you can get a dose rate over time.

Yeah, 'cause that would have had a HORRIBLE outcome.

Thanks for the second best laugh I've had all day.

Your evidence of his "bias" is that he has arrived at a conclusion with which you disagree.

If only he would split the difference between a Tepco press release and an anti-nuclear position, then he could be trusted!

who would you trust, specifically?

How so?

I calculated the water when the reporter on NHK said they needed 1000 tons, were putting in 60 tons in a half-day shift (before they went home), as being about the end of the 4th day.

The author describes the situtation of 48 hours ago, and it hasn't changed much, other than a bunch of reports of getting better, then smoke and an evacuation. Again.

The danger has been real since the earthquake struck, and it is not really better today. Significantly more dangerous in places, and it has been emitting radiation for 9 days now. A government spokesman last night said they do not know the extent of the damage to the reactors. After 9 days. And the plant spokesman said parts are on order.

Say WTF?

The safety of Japan and perhaps nearby countries, maybe even the U.S. should one of these reactors generate a short burst of uncontrolled power and explode or, more likely, blow radioactive smoke, not steam, into the sky for a number of days, is dependent on the shipping schedules of Grainger's Supply?

The person in charge needs to take charge and put enough resources into this to stop it now.

they are not doing everything they can now? I have no idea, but it boggles the mind that they wouldn't be doing everything humanly possible...

They seem to be treating this as a little industrial accident, trying hard to conserve their isntallation while they order new parts in to
fix things that have been damaged so they can get them back online. That's what they said. But as this has gone along I think they have discovered that it is not possible. Now they want to bring in concrete pumpers that can dribble more water on there. (I say dribble, but when you need 1200 tons and they are only putting on 40 to 60 tons a day. IMHO they have allowed the fuel to overheat and release a lot of radiation that has contaminated a large area by not putting enough resources on the task.

I guess that is one way to do it, but the steam and smoke that are venting out of these things is most likely radioactive, and I really rather doubt that this would be tolerated in the U.S. for 10 days. After watching managers sob on tv, have people interviewed saying "we weren't trained for this", watching one lone little pumper truck spray water while the announcer says they are pumping at a rate that will take 4 days - (if that stuff is dry it would explain why we are seeing brown smoke coming out of the reactors and hearing reports of rising radiation levels, and that is dangerous), food not being shipped or eaten, and a somewhat alarming "It is not unsafe now, you just might eat a year's extra radiation. But it might become dangerous..."

10 days in and the government reported this morning, again, that they are not sure of the extent of the damage.

Say what? I am pro nuke, but I wouldn't stand for this.

I highly suspect that if this were taking place at San Onofre or Indian Point (20 million people inside the 50 mile exclusion zone). At about day 3 or 4 of hearing that things are under control and then watching another explosion (sudden venting) and everyone being evacuated, while they fire department was putting in 4 or 6 hour shifts every day to drop a clearly insufficient amount of water into a hot reactor, the President would very likely nationalize the site and tell the Navy to get a handle on the thing. Now. Right damn now. And they would put sufficient water on the spent fuel to keep it from melting and burning and releasing hydrogen and then uncontrolled radiation any longer, get it the hell out of the secondary containment (out of the way of working with the cores) and put it in pools onsite. We would then have a great national conversation about putting reactors in man-made caves that are as secure as the missle control in Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD).


I have been watching NHK World: English and Yokosonews. They do not sound like a confident group - they sound like Fox News broadcasting a Dale Carnagie version of the news. But now is not the time to win friends and influence people. It is time for someone strong to step up and put the damn thing on ice.

I wish I had your confidence that in America we'd just call out the Navy to get a "handle on things."
But 9-11, Katrina, Deepwater Horizon, have made me deeply skeptical that without specific plans for dealing with such disasters, we would be more effective than the Japanese. I really don't think so.

I don't think we can blame the Japanese for fumbling in the face of this complex multiple reactor crisis. The biggest mistake was clustering them on a fault line. But I think you'd see the same mess going on in any country in the world that was trying to cope with the situations at 6 reactors.

technical force on earth to get a handle on it.

We float, and operate, nuclear reactors around the world. They are bobbing and submerging and taking part in battle.

They have standing orders if hit by a giant wave, battle-ready status, and lots of really, really, cool tools. They train as firemen. Anyone in the engine room has handled a hose and put out a fire. When they point a hose at something in a nuclear reactor, it's a good possiblity they know what they are aiming at.

When's the last time you heard about a 10 day uncontrolled release of Naval radiation?
(I know, they are secret. But readings of distant radiation is how Chernobyl was ratted out).

I'm home from work now and I hear their government is saying don't eat the leafy green things around Fukushima and ours is stopping their shipments. Before I left for work it was "yes, it's higher, but it won't hurt you even if you do eat it". They have 250,000 people in shelters that have cameras on them pleading for food, water, fuel. Not the best time to irradiate the crop, if there ever is.

They rotate in and out, don't work 24x7...

It still is too much, but it makes me wonder how much else he has gotten wrong...

The level of ordinary background radiation, as one would measure it with a geiger counter (which primarily reads gamma rays) is not extremely high except very close to the reactors. However, if the rods have indeed burned off their cladding, then particles of materials they come in contact with that are released in the air and water may become irradiated and become secondary emitters. Plutonium is an alpha emitter, but I don't see evidence that plutonium in #3, itself, has been vaporized. Vaporization of the MOX rods would result in an extreme spike in alpha particle readings and in general radiation that would be quickly detected.

It seems logical, however, that if someone breathes in or ingests radioactive ash or water molecules, that these may become fixed in the body - particularly particles inhaled into the lungs -- however, I am not sure that the body's processes necessarily work that way. Water molecules would probably pass through the body very quickly. Radioactive iodine would tend to concentrate in the thyroid. Cesium disperses throughout the soft tissues. I am not sure about zirconium, which is the primary cladding material.

It's an interesting question, and I don't think we've received a really satisfactory answer.

have answers to the question of what it does to us if we breathe the particles? After 50 years of the existence of nuclear power plants?

IF ...anyone really wanted the public to know. That is more the problem.

They've learned nothing about crisis management, except how to create sock puppets. Makes me sick.