Japan Radiation Issue

[-EnVus-]

Well ive been following this since day one and all i have to say is.....If we continue to let Japan, Dump and release the Radioactive water just so they can save their precious Nuclear plant. What in the hell is gonna happen to the ocean water and if it doesn't affect the wildlife is it gonna affect the world and us ?
It would seem to me that the News from today of the Dumping the water in the Pacific ocean is just a bit far and well are we gonna end up with Deformed,HUGE or messed up fish ???


Japan Nuke Plant Dumps Millions of Gallons of Radioactive Water Into Pacific

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/04/japan-nuke-plant-dumps-millions-of-gallons-of-radioactive-water/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk1|54126

[blaknoize]

Well... America vented its radioactive gas to the atmosphere and used the same method to keep its core from total meltdown (Three Mile Island) and Russia just did everything wrong by experimenting. If they let the core meltdown it will be even worse. We'll then have radioactive water AND dust among other things. They're in a very tight spot and so are we as a planet. If that thing goes boom then what?

They have to keep it under control somehow, cuz its going down.

[BanginJimmy]

damned if you do, damned if you dont. I understand the reasoning, but at the same time, it cannot continue for an unspecified time. If they cannot get the reactors under control in a very short time, I dont know if any of this will really matter though. If there is a way to let them melt down while minimizing the damage they need to do that.


BTW, from my understanding, even a full scale, catastrophic meltdown of these plants will not be very serious outside of a limited radius, about what it is now. Maybe the best thing to do would be to let it melt down, then just rebuild.

[-EnVus-]

damned if you do, damned if you dont. I understand the reasoning, but at the same time, it cannot continue for an unspecified time. If they cannot get the reactors under control in a very short time, I dont know if any of this will really matter though. If there is a way to let them melt down while minimizing the damage they need to do that.


BTW, from my understanding, even a full scale, catastrophic meltdown of these plants will not be very serious outside of a limited radius, about what it is now. Maybe the best thing to do would be to let it melt down, then just rebuild.
This is my thought Exactly !!

They are are using up resources and $$ trying to fight what even their own country had determined is the inevitable...Why waste time,lives etc.... I just don't know why they have to Dump the water in the ocean when thats what they are trying to stop it from doing right ow it don't make sense.....I know they don't want to deal with a melt down and have a Chernobyl mishap on their hands but damn this is a cost and chance we all take when dealing with Nuclear power and it just bit them in the but from an unfortunate accident. The country can and will rebuild but they can not ruin the earth and ocean hell if not all of us world wide trying to sponge over the issue.

[BanginJimmy]

Well... America vented its radioactive gas to the atmosphere and used the same method to keep its core from total meltdown (Three Mile Island) and Russia just did everything wrong by experimenting. If they let the core meltdown it will be even worse. We'll then have radioactive water AND dust among other things. They're in a very tight spot and so are we as a planet. If that thing goes boom then what?

They have to keep it under control somehow, cuz its going down.


Some info on Chernobyl and 3 mile Island. A lot of what we are hearing on the news is vastly over dramatized.

Chernobyl:
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/index.htm


Basicly, outside of a limited area immediately around the reactor, there is no evidence of any lasting effects for the people living there. Almost all of the deaths, which vary from about 4000 to about 750,000, were first responders and people living in the immediate area. There is only a slightly higher rate of certain cancers in the area over the average.


3 Mile Island was more of an issue for the press than anything else. It did lead to a lot of safety changes in the US concerning nuke power though.

NRC Report spells it out in the first couple of sentences.


The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI‑2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa., on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. But it brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. Resultant changes in the nuclear power industry and at the NRC had the effect of enhancing safety.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html

[BanginJimmy]

I know they don't want to deal with a melt down and have a Chernobyl mishap on their hands


Even in an absolute worst case this cannot become a Chernobyl.

[Browning151]

This will never become as bad as Chernobyl, the Fukushima plant was built to withstand much more than Chernobyl, and a nuclear reactor cannot create an explosion in a sense of a nuclear bomb, the enrichment levels as well as reaction process prevent that. Also, from what I've been able to find is that the water that is being released into the pacific is contaminated with Iodine-131, whats not being discussed much though is that the half life of Iodine-131 is about 8 days. The media has been having somewhat of a field day dramatizing the whole situation.

Iodine-131 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131)


Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Tepco says the low-radioactive water it is deliberately releasing into the sea has iodine-131 levels that are about 100 times the legal limit.

But it stressed in a news conference on Monday that if people ate fish and seaweed caught near the plant every day for a year, their radiation exposure would still be just 0.6 millisieverts. Normal background radiation levels are on the order of 2 millisieverts per year.

Getting the mildly contaminated water off-site would permit the emergency staff to then start pumping out the turbine building and the much more radioactive liquid in its basement.

BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12954664)

In the whole scheme of things, releasing some contaminated water in order to do repairs and prevent a complete meltdown is about the most responsible and logical way to handle the situation as it currently stands.

[ISAtlanta300]

Maybe the best thing to do would be to let it melt down, then just rebuild.

You're kidding right? Chernobyl melted down and they still cannot rebuild there....... not for the next.. oh.. 600 years or so.....

[-EnVus-]

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/05/japan-radiation-safety-level-set-for-seafood/

[BanginJimmy]

You're kidding right? Chernobyl melted down and they still cannot rebuild there....... not for the next.. oh.. 600 years or so.....

You might want to use some facts before speaking. People are currently living not far from Chernobyl. The only long term issue has been that you cannot farm the area or raise livestock.

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[blaknoize]

You might want to use some facts before speaking. People are currently living not far from Chernobyl. The only long term issue has been that you cannot farm the area or raise livestock.

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But no one can live there at all, 30kilos away or more but not within. Everything will continue to be restricted for at least 200+ years. Radioactivity is much to high, I mean the government still requires the visitors there to take a radiation screening upon completion of their visit. I'd believe at least one person posting in here has seen the special on History Channel or at least watched it via Youtube.

--Edit, well after a bit more research there are a few residents left (but I do not know how far they are from the accident), unless they count them as visitors, the buildings have above ground piping, kinda awesome.

[Bacon]

Radioactivity will continue for longer than 200 years. The down side about Fukushima is IF that radioactivity hits ground water, there can be a chemical reaction and who knows what will happen after that?


Like I've said before, I will be at deer camp in Talbot County when the zombies comes. However, I ain't prepared for the Japanese to become zombies.....short and really quick zombies don't work out for me.

[ISAtlanta300]

You might want to use some facts before speaking. People are currently living not far from Chernobyl. The only long term issue has been that you cannot farm the area or raise livestock.

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Not far still is not AT Chernobyl. The "Sarcophagus" is decaying and the major issue is how to rebuild it as the core (or whatever is left in the reactor) is still extremely radioactive...... If it were to collapse it will still release radioactive dust into the air, 25 years later. Yes people may be living close to the damaged plant, but if it were to collapse they would need to move again or die.

[BanginJimmy]

Not far still is not AT Chernobyl. The "Sarcophagus" is decaying and the major issue is how to rebuild it as the core (or whatever is left in the reactor) is still extremely radioactive...... If it were to collapse it will still release radioactive dust into the air, 25 years later. Yes people may be living close to the damaged plant, but if it were to collapse they would need to move again or die.


Well Obviously they are not living in the halls of the plant, but people are living in the same towns they did before the meltdown.

Yes, the containment is deteriorating, but from my quick reading funding is already being put together to build a new sarcophagus for it.



but if it were to collapse they would need to move again or die.

When another hurricane its NOLA, people will have to move or die there also.

[BanginJimmy]

But no one can live there at all, 30kilos away or more but not within. Everything will continue to be restricted for at least 200+ years. Radioactivity is much to high, I mean the government still requires the visitors there to take a radiation screening upon completion of their visit. I'd believe at least one person posting in here has seen the special on History Channel or at least watched it via Youtube.

--Edit, well after a bit more research there are a few residents left (but I do not know how far they are from the accident), unless they count them as visitors, the buildings have above ground piping, kinda awesome.


You already edited, but I figured I would throw up a story to go with it.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,412954,00.html

She has lived less than 15km (~9.32 mi) from the plant since about a year after the plant went up and has suffered no ill effects.

[ISAtlanta300]

When another hurricane its NOLA, people will have to move or die there also.

You're comparing a natural disaster to a nuclear meltdown? Plus, you can prepare for a hurricane DAYS in advance. Extreme radiation will kill you in a day.

[Theycall_Metue]

well, they just received another earth quake

[BanginJimmy]

You're comparing a natural disaster to a nuclear meltdown? Plus, you can prepare for a hurricane DAYS in advance. Extreme radiation will kill you in a day.

Whether you have days of notice or no notice doesn't matter. In the end its the same.

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[-EnVus-]

Japan Declares Nuclear Crisis at Level of Chernobyl...
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/11/fire-put-out-at-japans-damaged-nuke-plant-crisis-level-raised/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk1|55480

[03RCode]

Some interesting reading about Chernobyl, a little more informed than some of the posts in this thread.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Keep clicking Next Page for more info.

A few excerpts:
This old man lives in the Chernobyl area. He is one of 3.500 people that either refused to leave or returned to their villages after the meltdown in 1986. I admire those people, because each of them is a philosopher in their own way. When you ask if they are afraid, they say that they would rather die at home from radiation, than die in an unfamiliar place of home-sickness. They eat food from their own gardens, drink the milk of their cows and claim that they are healthy.....but the old man is one of only 400 that have survived this long. He may soon join his 3,100 neighbors that rest eternally in the earth of their beloved homes. It appears that the people with the most courage were the first to die here. Maybe that is true everywhere.
^-- That is 50km from the reactor

To begin our journey, we must learn a little something about radiation. It is really very simple, and the device we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour. In a typical city of Russia and America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour. In the center of many European cities are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone.

1,000 microroentgens equal one milliroentgen and 1,000 milliroentgens equal 1 roentgen. So one roentgen is 100,000 times the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. Interestingly, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and over 100 times that to kill a cockroach.

This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area - as long as we do not step off of the roadway.......
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/367img/map.jpg