Okay... I'm throwing the BS flag on this. Anyone disagree? [by R. Cromack]
Now, I don't know beans about beans, and I'd probably confuse a nuclear reactor with an E-Z Bake Oven if given half the chance, but I think I know BS when I hear it. I've sure been around it, consumer of it, and in fact an occasional producer of it, for long enough. And this sure sounds like it to me.
Anyone care to contribute their thinking? 'Cause I'd sure love to believe this guy -- and smart people have told me, repeatedly, that I should -- but this just makes my tail quiver:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85046.html
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Nuclear accident in Fukushima 'very different' from Chernobyl: IAEA
VIENNA, April 12, Kyodo
The nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan is ''very different'' from the world's worst nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl, a senior International Atomic Energy Agency official said Tuesday.
''The Fukushima accident and Chernobyl are very different...Mechanics are totally different,'' Denis Flory, IAEA's deputy director general and head of its department on nuclear safety and security, said at a press briefing.
He noted that in Chernobyl the reactor was in operation when the accident occurred, releasing high levels of radiation and causing wide spread of radioactive particles, while in Fukushima the reactor was stopped immediately after the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami on March 11.
Japan raised the severity level of the ongoing crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from 5 to the maximum 7 on Tuesday, the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the release of radioactive materials from the Fukushima plant is about 10 percent of that from the former Soviet nuclear plant.
==Kyodo
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...Am I wrong? What, exactly, is the man saying, here? Is this just another example of a happy-happy-joy-joy sound bite that is specifically engineered to SOUND reassuring and comforting, but actually either MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL, or is just a smokescreen for a DEEPER, UGLIER TRUTH?
...I wish these guys were half as good at nuclear crisis management, as they are at public relations. You know?
(I'm trying to find the full text of the press briefing, btw, to see if I can get some context... Anyone finds it before me and wants to pitch in, please, by all means, do so below. Cheers.)
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
Reply to Rick
Arnie Gundersen (former nuclear exec turned whistle blower) has a delightful series of presentations about Fukushima. Really, the presentations ARE delightful if the topic is not. Go to
http://www.fairewinds.com/updates
He may have an ax to grind, philosophically, but his presentations are quite lucid and data driven. He has called Fukushima "Chernobyl on steroids".
Fuku official #s allow equivalence with Chernobyl official #s
The NYT on the Chernobyl/Fukushima comparison - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html
Japanese Officials on Defensive as Nuclear Alert Level Rises
It seems to me that if there is reason to doubt the official reports on Chernobyl, there's reason to doubt the official Japanese/TEPCO reports on Fukushima. We should be comparing official to official, not official TEPCO to unofficial Russian.
In any case, Japan admits there's a THREEFOLD margin of error to their estimates. Meaning total releases could be as low as 6 percent or as high as 51 percent "OF THE UNOFFICIAL TOTALS from Chernobyl." [emphasis added]. That means that even according to Japan's official emissions numbers, the Fukushima emissions to date could be as high as the official Chernobyl releases. This is almost certainly why they finally raised the level to 7.
" Japanese officials struggled through the day on Tuesday to explain why it had taken them a month to disclose large-scale releases of radioactive material in mid-March at a crippled nuclear power plant, as the government and an electric utility disagreed on the extent of continuing problems there.
...
Even so, some people involved in the energy industry have been hearing about the results of the Speedi calculations for days. A senior executive said in a telephone interview on April 4 that he had been told that the Speedi model suggested that radioactive materials escaping the Daiichi complex were much higher than Japanese officials had publicly acknowledged, and perhaps as high as half of the releases from Chernobyl.
Mr. Nishiyama and Mr. Shiroya said separately on Tuesday that that estimate had been wrong. But their two government agencies also released different figures for the level of emissions so far, and there appeared to be a degree of supposition embedded in the numbers.
Mr. Nishiyama’s agency said that emissions totaled 370,000 terabecquerels; a terabecquerel is a trillion becquerels. The agency’s figure is 20 percent of the former Soviet Union’s official estimate of emissions from Chernobyl.
But most experts say that the true emissions from Chernobyl were 1.5 to 2.5 times as high as the Soviet Union acknowledged. Mr. Nishiyama’s agency appears to have assumed that true emissions from Chernobyl were twice the official figure, and so calculated that the current nuclear accident had released 10 percent as much as Chernobyl.
Mr. Nishiyama’s agency is part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which promotes the use of nuclear power. Mr. Shiroya’s commission, which is independent from nuclear power operators and their equipment providers, issued an estimate that emissions totaled 630,000 terabecquerels.
Although Mr. Shiroya did not provide a comparison to Chernobyl, that works out to 34 percent of the official Soviet estimate of emissions and 17 percent of the unofficial higher estimate.
Mr. Shiroya also said there was a threefold margin for error involved. The outside estimates of total releases would range from as low as 6 percent to as high as 51 percent of the unofficial totals from Chernobyl."
Scary [nt]
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
i saw TWO massive explosions
i saw TWO massive explosions followed by several days of fire at fukushima. what is this official talking about? rule of thumb for catastrophe data...multiply by 10.
I don't really like that thumb...What's the other one say? [nt]
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
Still trying to run this down...
...But, for the moment, here's something from the UN News Centre, which offers a few more details. I won't bother cutting-and-pasting it, here's the link so you can go look at it yourself if you like. I come up with anything more, I'll post it here.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38090&Cr=nuclear&Cr1=
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
Okay.
...I've been all through the UN Website, and I can't find the full text of that Denis Flory-attended press briefing. It's not listed under "recent press briefings", multimedia, whatever. Nothing. The only article I can find is the one I referenced above.
So -- here's some excerpts from the above piece:
"NISA [The Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency] estimates that the release of radioactive material to the atmosphere is approximately 10 per cent of the Chernobyl accident..." And, like I've said before: Relying on NISA for information like this is like asking the fox to report on the number of chickens in the henhouse.
"...[T]he Fukushima accident and Chernobyl are very different." Duh. One occurred in the middle of a continent, the other basically dockside to the open sea.
"Chernobyl happened at a reactor at power. It was a huge explosion… then you had a huge graphite fire for a number of days." Fair point on the graphite fire, but, exactly, HOW DO WE KNOW whether Reactor 4's Spent Fuel Pool, for example, ISN'T CONTINUING TO SMOLDER? ...To say nothing of Reactor 2, which sounds increasingly like it's halfway out of the barn and enjoying some spa time in the Pacific, or Reactor 1, which might be five hundred degrees Fahrenheit for all we know, or any of the OTHER Spent Fuel Pools, or the Common pool, or anything else, for that matter. ...Or am I wrong?
"Also [Chernobyl had] the power to move all this radioactivity in the high atmosphere and then spread it all around the Earth.” Okay... There's some unequivocal truth in there. Chernobyl blew, literally, SKY-high. But it's not like the crap being vented indiscriminately (and immeasurably, btw) into the air from Fuke, ISN'T being "spread...all around the Earth", is it? I mean, sure, Australia may be untouched so far, but if you live ANYWHERE in the northern hemisphere, you're right now probably enjoying a nice little taste of northern Japan.
...I'll close with this little optimistic gem, that has appeared on every single IAEA and JAIF report for the last week-plus: "...[O]verall, the situation at the plant remains 'very serious,' but there are early signs of recovery in some functions such as electrical power and instrumentation." Translation from the cleverly-worded Japanese: We now have some ability to see at night and to read some instrumentation. Progress, I suppose, and certainly essential to current and future efforts... But not really all THAT encouraging. They're no closer to bringing this under control, folks... All they're doing is playing for time, while continuing to watch a barely restrained nuclear reaction, or two, or three, or even four-plus, if you count the SFPs, and while trying to more or less ignore all the crap that's being pumped into the air, the sea, and every single one of us.
...Or am I wrong?
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
...And what about THIS?:
(From NHK)
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http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_03.html
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TEPCO: 1% of radioactive iodine released outside
Tokyo Electric Power Company estimates that about one percent of the radioactive iodine at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been released since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility.
The company on Tuesday announced the estimated radioactivity levels of all substances at the plant's 6 reactors and fuel storage pools at the time of the disaster.
The estimates are classified under radioactive noble gases, iodine or other materials.
81 million tera-becquerels of iodine-131 are believed to have existed at the plant.
The utility says the amount of iodine-131 released outside the plant is about one percent of the total with a margin of error included.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said earlier in the day that 130,000 tera-becquerels of iodine-131 have been released so far.
The company also says that, provided no leak occurred, the level of iodine-131 at the plant had fallen to less than one-hundredth of the pre-disaster level as of Monday.
The level declines naturally, as the radioactivity of iodine-131 falls by half in 8 days.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 03:18 +0900 (JST)
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Okay... So what do we think about this?
I have two questions for bigger brains than I:
[1] Is this plausible?
[2] ASSUMING we (you, really... There's no "me" anywhere near this) know what we THINK we know -- what sort of comparison(s) can then be made to Chernobyl?
Thanks,
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
First, I wouldn't expect
First, I wouldn't expect there to be any I-131 in the spent fuel pools. Only active fission produces it.
If the total of 81M TBq is true (the scale of which seems appropriate based on the total fuel onsite) and 1% escaped, that would be 810,000 TBq of I-131. This is in the realm of possibility. Remember that a lot of the I-131 went into the water, it's possible they are including this plus the steam releases.
Second, both Chernobyl and Fukushima released around 50% of the radiation as radioactive Xenon. This facet is overlooked by most counts because it is not biologically that active. But it's a hidden component. So they may play games with the numbers either to include this amount in totals or not. Looks like for this, it's just I-131.
Third, I-131 should be 12% of it's former capacity with decay. Unless unintended criticality is producing more, the levels should keep dropping.
Thanks for the response...
...That helps.
Two further questions, if you don't mind.
First, what about C-134, C-137, or other "exotic" emissions?
Second, and ASSUMING you pretty much agree with this appraisal... Is this "good" news? "Bad" news? Too soon to tell? (Sorry, asking for a subjective judgment there.)
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
I find it hard to believe
I find it hard to believe TEPCOs numbers - or even that they have any way of measuring how much has actually been released. I hope they do.
But the 10% claim seems totally implausible. Fukushima has now released for over 3 times as many days as Chernobyl (10 days). Back on March 24, Newscientist.com reported that for the first 4 days of the accident, Fukushima was releasing I-131 and Cs-137 at daily levels 60-75% of Chernobyl. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20285-fukushima-radioactive-fallou.... The numbers were calculated by researchers at Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (Vienna) using the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty worldwide network of air samplers that monitor and trace the origin of a dozen radionuclides - they were designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests but can also detect nuclear accidents - and information about wind observations. According to their calculations based on the monitoring data, Iodine-131 was being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after Chernobyl (Fukushima daily release: 1.3 × 10 to the 17th becquerels per day). The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi was around 60 per cent of the daily amount released from Chernobyl: 5 × 10 to the 15th becquerels. Most was claimed to be blown out over the sea.
If that's so, then in 2 days Fukushima would have emitted more than 10% of Chernobyl's emissions. After 4, that's about 25% of Chernobyl.
According to the Vienna Institute, Chernobyl emitted 1.76 x 10^18 Bq in total over 10 days, and 8.5 × 10^16 Bq of Cs-137. After 32 days, it would seem more than likely that Fukushima has surpassed these totals.
I do not know whether those emission levels have continued, and I do not know of any measurements taken by TEPCO or NISA (I do know for at least a period of time, the emissions went beyond the ability of their instrumentation to measure. Can try to dig up those links again if you can't find them/would like me to.) And I have not heard a logical argument that compels me to believe those emissions have ceased or even lessened massively. Certainly they cannot have lessened enough to start moving the numbers BACKWARD from 25%.
Then, there is the cesium and iodine dumped into the ocean. As of April 1, TEPCO claimed it doesn't know where the highly radioactive water was coming from, how it reached the sea or how it might be stopped. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/31/japan.nuclear.reactors/i.... This leads me to believe they also don't know how much was emitted.
Basically, I think they're lying - best case, in a wishful-thinking type of way.
Oh - from what I can gather, the Fukushima plant has 10 times the nuclear fuel as Chernobyl (1760 vs. 180 tons). I have read that it was iodine and caesium that caused most of the health risk from Chernobyl – especially outside the immediate area of the Chernobyl plant. I am not sure how the other radionuclides emitted from Fukushima compare to Chernobyl.
Hope some of this is useful to you.
The Cesium is a different
The Cesium is a different story. The spent fuel pools and the active cores would both have had large quantities of radioactive Cesium. The fuel pools being run dry would tend to volatilize the Cesium and release that in the steam. The cores would also be emitting some.
But, as this is measured in becquerels (decay events), Cesium is less energetic than Iodine. Therefore, by chemistry, the Cesium emission is a fraction of Iodine and Xenon, probably comprising 5-10% of the Iodine emissions.
The information presented is in-line with other estimations of the scale of the disaster as some small percentage of Chernobyl. If that is good news to you, then take it as such.
HTH
If it can be believed...
...Then, yes, at this point I will certainly take "some small percentage of Chernobyl", to date at least, as "good" news. Though I am both horrified and disgusted by what I consider "good" news these days.
And I am also very much aware of how self-absorbed I am, living in (comparatively) safe, secure, sheltered America. When I think of Japan and its people... It's nearly overwhelming. And I feel like an asshole, frankly, for obsessing so much about so (again, comparatively) little, when they are having to deal with the REALITY, not the off-the-wall speculation, of so MUCH.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
NHK: TEPCO: 1% of radioactive iodine released outside
...That's nice. What about the Cesium?
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http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_03.html
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TEPCO: 1% of radioactive iodine released outside
Tokyo Electric Power Company estimates that about one percent of the radioactive iodine at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been released since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility.
The company on Tuesday announced the estimated radioactivity levels of all substances at the plant's 6 reactors and fuel storage pools at the time of the disaster.
The estimates are classified under radioactive noble gases, iodine or other materials.
81 million tera-becquerels of iodine-131 are believed to have existed at the plant.
The utility says the amount of iodine-131 released outside the plant is about one percent of the total with a margin of error included.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said earlier in the day that 130,000 tera-becquerels of iodine-131 have been released so far.
The company also says that, provided no leak occurred, the level of iodine-131 at the plant had fallen to less than one-hundredth of the pre-disaster level as of Monday.
The level declines naturally, as the radioactivity of iodine-131 falls by half in 8 days.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 03:18 +0900 (JST)
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...Clearly, this is their story, and they're sticking to it.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
I'm with you, it's BS. It
I'm with you, it's BS.
It *is* different than Chernobyl in the way that it is unfolding, but that shouldn't be used to minimize and dismiss the enormity of the situation.
yeah this is just more spin
yeah this is just more spin BS..
fact is a soon as the blast happened in Chernobyl the reaction stopped..all the material was blown apart...
Not the case in Japan ..it's still "reacting" there
Please, no. They actually
Please, no.
They actually were running the core after the explosion. A RBMK reactor is a bit differet design than the BWRs. They attempted to use the parts of the core still intact to cool the damaged parts. This ultimately failed after the second explosion when the UBS was blown clear off the top of the core.
I would suggest you all should watch "The battle of Chernobyl." It's a great film, and pretty good on facts without the UN viewpoint. You can catch it on Youtube.
Thanks, Anonymous...
...I'm going to try and look that up right now. Appreciate ya.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
My opinion is that this
My opinion is that this could be worse than anything we have ever seen before because it is still happening, so what is the worst case outcome(criticality?) and what is the probability of that event(15%?) and there also seems to be a vacuum of leadership in Japan. Why aren't they spraying concrete and entombing these reactors? Why isn't the government taking over? Are they trying to salvage the site to save operation on reactors 5 and 6? Why is a CEO saying I am so very sorry and comming to the site 30 days after it happened? Words won't help us now. Also I love how the media isn't even covering the story anymore. Didn't we all see Jurrassic Park - this is Chaos pure and simple. The way I look at it is this...it takes tremendous amounts of money/energy to make this highly enriched stuff which is super un-natural and too refined to ever be safe and unstable with all this potential energy etc. but a man designed this system and there it is...human error and murphy's law all wrapped in a 1000 year event. Daedalus part deux.
Recriticality is highly unlikely
The probability of recriticality with borated water injection is on the order 1E-6 or one in a million or less not 15%. Secondly there was only one major event, the hydrogen explosions that caused a significant release in radiation. There is no realistic chance of another significant release occurring. The reason the plant isn't being entombed is because that would increase both the long term clean up costs and the risks of site contamination.
Nuclear power in gereral has been proven to be safer for the general population than any other source of baseload power generation and will continue to be even after the this incident. European commission report on external costs of power generation. Also the cost of enriched fuel is still orders of magnitude less than the cost per kilowatt hour of any other non-renewable energy source and 5% is not highly enriched. Finally modern reactor designs are passively safe(they rely on natural circulation to cool the reactor) and are one of the viable solutions to the worlds future energy needs.
I'm thinking another
I'm thinking another powerful aftershock, 8.2ish, and all bets are off....
Rich, I am very much
Rich,
I am very much concerned that this IS potentially worse than Chernobyl simply due to the massive release of nuclear material into the world's oceans via the Pacific (as you've said before "That Horse isn't going Back in the Barn." Secondly, the cloud of crap released into the troposphere and jet stream means that it's anybody's guess as to where the greatest concentrations will settle, will it be in America's bread basket where our largest agricultural production areas are? Will it concentrate and soii the air most where the jet stream is not whisking it away? How much radioactive particulate are we breathing, bathing and ingesting? These are all concerning and yes, I am aware that every human being does have a few molecules of Plutonium that are detectable using only sophisticated equipment but any extra is cumulative and geez, I wonder if I am not a living example of such exposure and I'd hate to have anything more serious occur as a result of projected events from Fukushima over the next 5 to 10 years of cleanup. They need to smother Fukushima Daiichi in concrete and bury the proverbial hatchet. Here is my case in point and note that there is nobody in my immediate family who ever had this problem:
In 1986 I lived in Contra Costa County, CA (it's across the bay from San Francisco and currently receiving the same levels of I-131 and Cs-137) when Chernobyl had its disaster. I was 22 at the time and while I minimized my time out doors, I still had to go to work while Berkeley and others were reporting the detection levels of that release. Eight years later I was diagnosed with low thyroid requiring replacement hormone of the lowest prescription available on the dosage made by the company that manufactures Levothyroxine, it's called Levoxyl.
The year of my diagnosis I noticed a few 20 to 30 year olds at my bank and at work with thyroid problems that were diagnosed either the same year or a year to 3 years before me, one had cancer with the scar to prove it, the others were like me, low thyroid but not requiring a very strong replacement of thyroxine.
I think we are all examples of what was reported as 'mild exposure' from Chernobyl because we were all long term residents in our area. What do you think?
It's hard to say...
...First, let me say this: I'm sorry to hear about your medical problems. That little "cluster" you described sounds suspicious, and your reasoning is acceptable. I just don't know... The problem with cancer, or thyroid problems, or pretty much ANY disease, is that it's so widespread, and there are so many variables, that causality is more divination and guesswork than ever it could be science. But the scenario you lay out sounds more than plausible.
It would be interesting to compare / contrast estimated Chernobyl-era exposures on the U.S. population, versus our (estimated) total exposure to this. I STILL don't know why there aren't crane-mounted detectors being lowered into the roofs of those shattered buildings, so there's at least SOME idea of what's continuing to spew out of there (a lot of it, perhaps an overwhelming majority of it, headed straight across the sea to North America).
I get this funny feeling that the folks in Tokyo, food chain perhaps -- for now -- excepted, are better off than we are.
My gut tells me that this is going to be bigger and more impactful than ANYBODY imagines. But, you know: The problem with thinking with my gut, is that it's got crap for brains.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com