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But, but "China took the leadership on climate change many years ago" !

And I think its precisely because of twits like the woman from the UN in the video why Trump is saying fuck the Paris agreement because fuck all these twits.

So in order to get that resolution in an OTA broadcast, do you start using several channels worth of bandwidth, or do you compress the living daylights out of it

You definitely use HEVC/H.265 encoding to get the best compression, but to go over-the-air you need Ultra-multilevel OFDM (4096 constellation points), Dual-polarized MIMO (using horizontal and vertical polarizations simultaneously to transmit twice as much information as single-input single-output), and Large-sized FFT (reduces the ratio of guard intervals that eliminate delay waves by reflection, quadruple sized FFT can drop guard interval from 1/8 to 1/32).

NHK has done tests receiving a 91 Mbps signal over 27 km. Details here.

The news reports are that the 8K signals starting up today are on the BS broadcast satellite system. DVB-S2 can provide 91 Mbps with 8PSK or 16APSK modulations.

I watched this on NHK this weekend and was very impressed. A bit dramatic but very informative technically

88 Hours - The Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld...

There's a guy in Japan who probably has the parts. He has unused replacement parts over 100 years old that his grandfather had imported. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/special/index1_2.html

Doubt smartwatch makers will have replacement parts 3 years from now.

If you define failure as "meltdown" then yeah, only three. If you define it as "leaking some significant amount of radioactive material into the environment" then every single plant in the UK has failed to some degree, and I'm sure things are not much better elsewhere.

The Japanese nuclear regulator just released a damning statement pointing out that even there nuclear operators have failed to learn the lessons or take action to prevent similar failures in the future. Screw-ups are the norm in the nuclear industry because there is so much money involved everyone is ultimately thinking about the bottom line more than safety.

The SFPs are vulnerable. Here too. They are by far the riskiest aspect of the whole show. Not some little bit that some idiot might try and steal. 20,000 Hiroshioma, ready to burn baby. In everyone's backyard, everywhere. And many more people know about them, due to Fuku. Stanford fellow isn't going to broadcast this, but the men doing the dance know, and they better sweat about it.

US plants need to get that stuff into cask storage. Yesterday.

They won't, just like we still don't have some form of On Star in airplanes. One would have logically thought that would have been the first step after 9/11? Nah.

18 children already have thyroid cancer, 25 more waiting to be confirmed. For reference the usual incidence rate is one is a few hundred thousand, and these children are from a group of about 300,000 being monitored so the normal rate would be about 2-3 a year.

It's pretty bad.

I wish I had seen this to add it to the submission: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130821_06.html

(18 children found to have thyroid cancer, 25 more suspected)

I'm sure people will argue that there is no proof it has anything to do with Fukushima, but the statistics speak for themselves.

oooh, cranky. i like it.

i've basically given up on network tv, myself.

my 'default' tv stream is now NHK World - japanese tv in english - available on-line:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/w/movie/

mostly very low-key and soothing but with enough off-the-wall japanese wackiness to keep things interesting...

The regulators acted after finding the operator had missed checkups on about 10,000 pieces of equipment. The Nuclear Regulation Authority requested that Japan's science ministry urge the operator to comply.

If you read anything different, a link would be appreciated.

To be fair TFA does actually say they are planning to drop nuclear by the 2030s, and other sources agree. The guy is a wanker but unfortunately he was the first one to get this story voted onto the front page, so let's get on with the debate.

The NHK effort called Super Hi-Vision is 8K x 4K video with 22.2 channel audio.

Actually they have just had to ban fishing due to high levels of radiation in the animals.

"Chernobyl was a much worse disaster than Fukushima,"
You are missing your authoritative source stating such (and the Fukushima event is still ongoing . . .).

"estimate current death-toll at below 200"
It must be nice to feel so confident about speculated results of an event that is so notorious for lacking good, reliable data. You must be a TRUE BELIEVER. The LNT model seems far more realistic, and it looks like Fukushima may serve as the "great experiment" to provide the additional supportive data it needs. However, I believe that no models are "conclusive" at this point. It takes a true shill to claim differently. (FYI, the estimate for deaths from tobacco and asbestos was once "0" until proven otherwise . . .).

"nuclear is safer (as in causes less deaths) than oil, coal, gas, hydro by large margin"
Nice, more fact transcending ranting. Sources, please. Hearing the same talking points spewed over and over is not convincing.

"You run the risk of having no power if your supplier suddenly needs that power for himself"
This is absurd. Nuclear is not the only source of power, and other sources of power do not take decades to design and build (unlike nuclear). I am sure the combined intelligence of Germany and Belgium is a bit greater than your lone, little mind gives credit. I am sure they plan better than your straw-man argument implies.

"tightly confined waste"
Yes, until something unexpected happens to disrupt cooling, and it vaporizes into a lovely plume. I respect the Japanese for knowing their shit way more than some little shill like yourself and look how fucked things are over there. 8 months latter after their accident, and they still cannot fucking even turn things "off". Fukushima will become a monument with an eternal nuclear flame of the fucking risk of going that route.

"you must also prefer dispersed pollution in your lungs from coal and oil "
You see, that would actually be CHEAPER than nuclear. So your complaining that Russia will be able to demand high prices, and you will not have any recourse if Russia decides to cut you off, but you will have all the pollution from the CHEAPER sources. That is a clusterfuck of an argument you got there. Nuclear is just one option. There are alternatives. Some are more expensive, some are dirtier. The world is only using like 13% nuclear power, so don't fucking pretend that there are no alternatives or that nuclear is the undisputed best. The book is still out on that one, and the world is a much different place, post 311.

"still be living in Europe so you can still be affected"
Right, because living in Fukushima makes no difference from living in West Japan. Your arguments, though numerous, are not very well thought out. . . Better leave the shilling to the paid pro's . . .

When new estimates are constantly coming out. And, "available objective data?" You have never fucking heard of TEPCO, have you?

I think anyone seriously trying to do comparisons at this point is clueless, especially when radioactive particles are continuously spewing out from the Fukushima site at rates that can only be guesstimated.

Who else other than MS and Netflix, who's using silverlight?

Unfortunately NHK still does. But as a workaround, the news and some of the other programming is carried on livestation.com (flash to the desktop, h.264 to iOS)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/09_04.html

From Maglev project gets go-ahead:

Japan's transport ministry has ordered the construction of infrastructure for magnetically levitated trains, putting the country's project for next-generation high-speed rail service fully on track.

The ministry on Friday ordered the Central Japan Railway Company, or JR Tokai, to build maglev train tracks between Tokyo and Nagoya.

Maglev trains boast a maximum operating speed of 500 kilometers per hour, and could travel the 340 kilometers between the 2 cities in just 40 minutes.

The ministry told JR Tokai to build the tracks on an almost straight route, using underground tunnels to pass beneath a mountain range.

The firm plans to start an environmental assessment this year and begin construction in 3 years.

Maglev trains are to start operating between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 and between Tokyo and Osaka in 2045.

The project is expected to cost 9 trillion yen, or nearly 113 billion dollars.
Friday, May 27, 2011 17:04 +0900 (JST)

The first leg is specified at 340km, and the total appears to be roughly 500km. At nearly 9 trillion yen, that would be 18*10^9 yen/km, or about 350 million dollars a mile. That looks ridiculously expensive, though a significant part of that may be drilling through mountain ranges. Often the maglev components themselves are insignificant compared to the necessary ground work, or securing rights of way.

Still, I'm curious how much of that cost could be avoided by opting for an Inductrack based system instead. Inductrack is an elegant passive magnetic levitation system, which is vastly cheaper than conventional systems due to its profound simplicity. It also seems likely that they chose a nearly straight path, exactly because of the excessive track cost. If that is the case, the path flexibility afforded by using a cheaper technology, may have allowed for significantly less ground work and a more attractively priced system.

In a country like the US with large flat expanses, Inductrack would make for an excellent intercity transit network. The costs are very reasonable, even when compared with conventional high-speed rail.

There are various reports that Unit 1's isolation condenser was damaged before the tsunami hit and the workers had to manually shut it off, because it was cooling down the reactor too quickly. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_04.html
Also, the pressure in the reaction chamber fluctuated wildly and a radiation monitoring post on the perimeter of the plant went off.
All this happened *before* the tsunami struck.

Kan to announce new energy program at G8
"Under the program, the cost of solar power generation will be slashed to one-third of the current level by 2020 and one-sixth by 2030. Japan hopes to install solar panels on virtually all rooftops. The plan also envisions the construction of large-scale offshore wind farms and the full-scale introduction of next-generation biomass fuels in the 2020s."

From the cooling pond which they've been pouring water all over. And from the small amounts that were airborne in the hydrogen when it detonated.

If you have *airborne* plutonium, you have *huge* problems. The boiling point of plutonium is nearly 6000 degrees Fahrenheit. And even if you're getting plutonium from water, it inherently means that the zirconium cladding has melted off the rods. Arguing that that this happened in the cooling ponds isn't exactly going to win you any brownie points in the "Nuclear power is safe" front.

And all of that said? Your claim is simply wrong. Again. Again.. Why on Earth do you think they reduced the rate of water flow into the core? Whatever they inject ends up in the basement after getting a hefty load of radionuclides. Not only is the water from the core, the evidence shows that it's from a core which has had re-criticality (multiple spikes in iodine production; iodine is a short-lived radionuclide)

Though, the only reason I'm defending this nuclear plant at all - despite the fact that everyone knew beforehand was a horribly outdated design and was due to be decommissioned

No -- only one reactor was (#1), and as usual with aging nuclear power plants (including our own), they got an extension to for ten years.

When what we really need to do is put the NIMBY and enviroweenies together on an island and let them starve because nothing ever gets done.

Right, because anyone who disagrees with you is someone who's only good as a target for name calling and has no proposed solutions of their own, correct? You realize you're talking about the same people who were accurately describing how serious this situation was while people like you were out there describing the plant's reaction to the earthquake and tsunami as a triumph of nuclear safety engineering.

NHK (the Japanese broadcaster) has been working on the next generation of HD for 5 years now. 7680 x 4320 resolution, 22.2 channel audio. They already have cameras and have done live broadcasts. http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/technical/02_super.html

Of course, it took over 10 years for HD to make it from being developed until it was a common consumer product, so don't hold your breath. (NHK developed 1080i around about 1980, first commercial broadcasts in Japan 1994, first in USA 1998).

I love how they put "meltdown" in quotes

NHK article.

update:
more radiation than they hoped in unit 1, 700 ms/hr on the first floor. It won't be easy to work in there unless they can bring that down somehow.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/08_18.html

the unit 4 fuel pond is less damaged than expected, so some good news.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/08_18.html

Diablo Canyon Unit 2 is shut down for refueling and maintenance. Since it was shut down about a month ago and they didn't decide to start refueling then, I suspect there is more to this. They're likely giving it some extra attention. They recently had a motor with the rotor slipping on the shaft. I wondered if they could have had a control system issue (PLC?) instead of mis-calibrated micro-switches and shaft tolerance issues as given for the reason the backup cooling was down for 18 months. Any modifications or even rebooting of a critical control system are potentially dangerous, so those things are best not done with a plant running. It's probably not totally risk free even when shut down since cooling is still essential, but no-doubt they have extra people that know exactly what to watch for and have prepared. It's important that all plants be completely on top of any software vulnerabilities as well as normal issues. There may be a few hot-headed people in some other places about now.

Some huge military helicopters were seen headed the general direction of Diablo Canyon late last week.. The same type were seen when boric acid was picked up for use in Japan. Foreign news sources had also mentioned Japan dealing with France and South Korea as sources of boric acid.
They must be going through quite a bit of it and will until they can recycle coolant. Hopefully the 20 mule-team people or whoever are keeping adequate supplies available...

Hmmm... I bet radioactive coolant with boric acid in it would work great for getting rid of termites... or would they mutate? Someone should make more 50's style movies. Mutants from the sea raising sunken fishing boats...

update:
more radiation than they hoped in unit 1, 700 ms/hr on the first floor. It won't be easy to work in there unless they can bring that down somehow.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/08_18.html

the unit 4 fuel pond is less damaged than expected, so some good news.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/08_18.html

Diablo Canyon Unit 2 is shut down for refueling and maintenance. Since it was shut down about a month ago and they didn't decide to start refueling then, I suspect there is more to this. They're likely giving it some extra attention. They recently had a motor with the rotor slipping on the shaft. I wondered if they could have had a control system issue (PLC?) instead of mis-calibrated micro-switches and shaft tolerance issues as given for the reason the backup cooling was down for 18 months. Any modifications or even rebooting of a critical control system are potentially dangerous, so those things are best not done with a plant running. It's probably not totally risk free even when shut down since cooling is still essential, but no-doubt they have extra people that know exactly what to watch for and have prepared. It's important that all plants be completely on top of any software vulnerabilities as well as normal issues. There may be a few hot-headed people in some other places about now.

Some huge military helicopters were seen headed the general direction of Diablo Canyon late last week.. The same type were seen when boric acid was picked up for use in Japan. Foreign news sources had also mentioned Japan dealing with France and South Korea as sources of boric acid.
They must be going through quite a bit of it and will until they can recycle coolant. Hopefully the 20 mule-team people or whoever are keeping adequate supplies available...

Hmmm... I bet radioactive coolant with boric acid in it would work great for getting rid of termites... or would they mutate? Someone should make more 50's style movies. Mutants from the sea raising sunken fishing boats...

Excuse me for interrupting, but I think the "too much brain" threads are just down the hall :)

It seems like most of the people have been kept pretty well out of the way of very high-dose radiation and short term effects. But there will be some with long term effects, developing breast or thyroid conditions, appearing in 10 or 20 years or more. Those hit will mostly be among those that are children now, females especially, that drank milk with Iodine 131 in it. The U.S. has had these things happen as a result of above-ground testing in Nevada long ago. It looks like the U.S. is now showing some impact from Chernobyl.

See the curves on pages 18 and 46 of report (listed as 25 and 53 of pdf) to follow increases in Breast and Thyroid cancer in the California central valley. Studies for other regions look much the same. Most other cancers except for melanoma are declining.

http://www.ccrcal.org/PDF/Regional_Registries/Reg2AnnualReport.pdf

A good paper on Chernobyl (pdf)
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf

Here's a calculator that estimates the added risk Americans born before 1972 face from the testing in Nevada (does not include other more recent sources)
Try being a woman born in 1956 drinking lots of milk and living in South Dakota.

https://ntsi131.nci.nih.gov/default.asp

These links relate to the relatively brief Iodine 131 exposure that has already happened. The effects of the longer life isotopes are harder to see but will be with us for a very very long time, The alpha emitters from thing like CS 137 aren't even picked up by the common crowdsourced equipment, but are a problem when inside the body.

Hmmm, they're telling fishermen in Japan it is safe to fish 30 km out, but the exposure in an hour goes slightly beyond the normal limit for a whole year.
That seems a bit much.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/09_03.html

The Japan Earthquake thread in the nuclear engineering forum at physicsforums.com has become a more reliable and timely source of information on the stricken reactors at Fukushima than mainstream news sources, according to commenters posting from Japan. The latest news:Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says air may be leaking from theNo 2 and No 3 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.Another example, as of March 30, 11 AM JST: Radioactive iodine 3,355 times legal limit found in seawater near plant. Another from March 30: IAEA Confirms Very High Levels of Radiation Far From Reactors.

April 11, 2011. The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has decided to raise the crisis level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident from 5 to 7, the worst on the international scale. Also, see this post from the physics forum. In each case, the news was available on physicsforums.com before publication in the mainstream press.

Let's hope that the Japanese government does not suppress this essential source of information.

"Banri Kaieda spoke to reporters on Sunday shortly after Tokyo Electric Power Company presented a road map to cool down the reactors and significantly reduce radiation leaks in 6 to 9 months" http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_16.html It's only 6 to 9 months no big deal right? "Radiation levels measured between the double doors of those reactor buildings was 270 millisieverts in the Number One reactor, 12 in Number 2, and 10 in Number 3. The radiation level detected at the Number One reactor exceeds the national exposure limit of 250 millisieverts for nuclear contract workers." http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_03.html Three reactors melting down and at least one breached , plus several tons of waste fuels rods that have melted or blown away and are still currently boiling off, plutonium found around the plant on the ground , not to mention the dumping of highly radioactive water into the ocean for over a month but no big deal right? http://www.vgb.org/vgbmultimedia/News/Fukushimav15VGB.pdf If you have a mind to look behind the curtain http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread672665/pg739

"Banri Kaieda spoke to reporters on Sunday shortly after Tokyo Electric Power Company presented a road map to cool down the reactors and significantly reduce radiation leaks in 6 to 9 months" http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_16.html It's only 6 to 9 months no big deal right? "Radiation levels measured between the double doors of those reactor buildings was 270 millisieverts in the Number One reactor, 12 in Number 2, and 10 in Number 3. The radiation level detected at the Number One reactor exceeds the national exposure limit of 250 millisieverts for nuclear contract workers." http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_03.html Three reactors melting down and at least one breached , plus several tons of waste fuels rods that have melted or blown away and are still currently boiling off, plutonium found around the plant on the ground , not to mention the dumping of highly radioactive water into the ocean for over a month but no big deal right? http://www.vgb.org/vgbmultimedia/News/Fukushimav15VGB.pdf If you have a mind to look behind the curtain http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread672665/pg739

Looks to me like they were right, the damage was to stuff outside the reactor which was mostly superficial.

From Wikipedia:

"An explosion was heard after 06:14 JST on 15 March in unit 2, possibly damaging the pressure-suppression system, which is at the bottom part of the containment vessel."

"On 30 March, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (JNISA) reiterated concerns about a possible unit 2 breach at either the suppression pool, or the reactor vessel."

"On 27 March, TEPCO reported measurements of very high radiation levels of over 1000 mSv/h in the basement of the unit 2 turbine building"

And the money quote: (source)

"On April 11, the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency officially raised the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi to Level 7 on the INES scale. This makes Fukushima the second Level 7 "major accident" in the history of the nuclear industry."

No injuries reported, according to NHK. This was in the vicinity of the 9.0 quake, 40 km below the sea bed off Sendai.

Uh, no. Actually, according to NHK, there were a number of people injured by falls, a number of them with broken bones, and some hit by things that fell.

There were also some significant power outages, one power plant lost two of three incoming grid feeds providing power for cooling, another is on emergency diesel. They're stable with no radiation leaks. No obvious changes at the troubled Fukushima units, which suffered serious complications after loss of power to the control systems and pure water circulating pumps, and had the secondary loop (salt water to cool the heat exchangers) pumps totally washed away by the March 11th Tsunami.

I was watch NHK when the 7.4 quake hit shortly before midnight there (morning on the U.S. west coast), with the tsunami alert going out quickly afterwards. The warnings were saying possible 1 meter height. For people to have to get out at midnight perhaps with no power, run for higher ground must have been very traumatic. Fortunately there wasn't a significant tsunami. Reports say they quake started with vertical jolts, followed by a long period of intense horizontal shaking.

For those that don't watch live feeds on the http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ website which uses Silverlight for streaming, there is a Flash feed on livestation.com and a livestation iOS app.

Compared to the U.S. coverage, NHK reveals far more about the numerous aspects of what's going on there. The text articles on their website give current but brief info on things going on (nitrogen injection etc.).

I am still dizzy from the shake (living in yokohama), plenty of blurry images right now in http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

There is an estimated 50,000 tons of water still on site that will need to be disposed of one way or the other. About 500 tons are pumped into reactor pressure vessels for cooling every day. Some recent information on this is reported here by NHK: Workers face challenge of water storage

To put 50,000 tons of water in perspective, a super tanker will carry about 172,000,000 gallons of oil. 50,000 tons of water is ~12,000,000 gallons. One super tanker could carry all the water on site plus and also receive all new water pumped into the reactors for the next 1332 days. No, I don't need the plausibility of this explained to me; this is an attempt to provide some scale to the problem.

From NHK:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/03_11.html

Tokyo Electric Power Company has said two employees who had gone missing since the March 11th disaster were found dead at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The bodies of Kazuhiko Kokubo and Yoshiki Terashima, both in their 20s, were found in the basement of the turbine building for the Number 4 reactor on Wednesday.

They had been carrying out a regular check-up at the plant.

The chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company, Tsunehisa Katsumata, said in a statement that the company is extremely sorry about losing two young employees who had tried to maintain the plant's safety in the midst of disaster.
Sunday, April 03, 2011 13:02 +0900 (JST)

Rest in peace.

Crack In Fukushima Structure May Be Leaking Radiation

I skimmed TFA and it seems the "may" was introduced by /. editors and not the evil "mainstream media". There is a leak and it is radioactive water that it is leaking. No maybe. Actually they already planned how to fix it , tried to do so and failed at it.

Crack In Fukushima Structure May Be Leaking Radiation

I skimmed TFA and it seems the "may" was introduced by /. editors and not the evil "mainstream media". There is a leak and it is radioactive water that it is leaking. No maybe. Actually they already planned how to fix it , tried to do so and failed at it.

If you had been watching the Japanese news you would know what you are reporting is both old news and garbled. There were many highly inaccurate reports in the Western media. IMO the Western media is completely unreliable re Fukushima.

I'm in Japan and I _only_ watch (or more specifically read) the Japanese news. The figures I gave were reported in Asahi newspaper yesterday. I admit though that I confused that report with the report about water leaking into the sea. They were separate issues. So my apologies.

Literally thousands of tons of highly radioactive water have gotten past containment already. They are planning to pump it into barges and ships with a total capacity of 15,000 tons. A lot of the radioactive water is 100,000 times more radioactive than water found in a functioning nuclear reactor.

That implies that the water that has got past containment is 100,000x more radioactive. Following your advice I checked out NHK. They say that the water found inside the turbine building of the second reactor is 100,000x more reactive (not the water leaking out). The water found in "the pit" the facility outside containment where the crack was found was 10,000x more radioactive. Further, that implies that they're going to use barges to remove the water that has escaped containment. From what I've heard the barges are for water that is in the turbine buildings which are inside the containment (Correct me if I'm wrong but that is what was reported). In regards to the water in the pit they're trying to close the holes. They were unable to cement it so they're going to try some other "chemical substance"

The authorities don't know how the water is leaking out and don't know the upper bound on the total amount of radioactivity released. The lower bound is already rather staggering. In addition, radioactive materials have already leaked into the ocean and the ground water. TEPCO said the level they measured in the ground water was the similar to the high levels found in the turbine buildings and the tunnels outside the plants. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said those readings were way too high so they asked TEPCO to measure again more carefully.

Here's where the Asahi article comes in. Those figures (ground water) were measured from a pumping-station (not the turbine building) used to remove underground water to stabilize the reactor. Following the Asahi news article (just reporting what the nuclear safety agency said) the current explanation is that that got there through dust carried on the rain and isn't indicative of a leak.

The only specific theory I've heard of how the thousands of tons of highly radioactive water got out of the containment vessel is that it got out via graphite seals in the bottom of the vessel. There are holes there for control rods and the holes are blocked with graphite seals. The seals will fail at high temperatures and melted fuel rods falling to the bottom of the vessel would provide more than enough heat to cause the seals to fail. If it is any solace, reactors that don't contain melted fuel rods probably don't have leaks all over the bottom of the containment vessel.

Okay I haven't heard any reportage about the specific (or rough) tonnage of the amount of water that has escaped (at least not in the last 3 days news at http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/ which I just flicked through), but given a 20cm crack that would seem like a likely figure. So now we have to be clear what we're talking about. The contamination discovered at the pumping station (not the turbine building) in the underground water is believed to have been caused by radioactive materials carried on the rain. The contamination escaping into the sea water is from a 10-20cm crack in a facility called "the (/a) pit" (Japanese version) near the sluice gate for sea-water connected to the second reactor.

The only specific theory I've heard of how the thous

vlc 'mms://nhk-world.gekimedia.net/nhkw-highm'

What do you mean, out of options? They detail their options on a daily basis in every press conference they hold.

Currently they are trying to remove the radioactive water from the trench connecting the reactor building to the combine room, and once that is done they will continue with power restoration to get cooling systems back online. Removing the water will also help them determine what kind of additional damage they are facing, if there are water leaks, and whether any circuit boards need to be replaced.

They are also currently trying to decide on ways to minimize the spread of airborne radiation further, including a liquid material that will reduce dust in the area and a specialized tarp that will keep radiation from spreading from the damage reactor buildings.

Seriously. Just visit some reputable news sources once in a while:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/ http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

"the agency doesn't believe the reactor is cracked or broken. But it says it is highly possible that radioactive materials are leaking from somewhere in the reactor." Original: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_29.html Its not broken, but materials are leaking... WTF!!! Lies, Lies & more Lies.

How can this be rated 5? Ignorant technophile trolls? Reactor 3 is actually leaking. Essentially that's kind of like a nuke - cause it uses plutonium. Even the euros have higher radiation levels, not to speak of Silicon Valley. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_29.html "It said 3.9 million becquerels of radiation was detected from 1 cubic centimeter of water sampled from the floor of the building. The radiation level was about 10,000 times higher than the water inside a normally operating nuclear reactor. The agency said the water sample indicated it is highly likely the leak comes from the reactor itself, not from the pool storing spent nuclear fuel. According to the officials, pressure inside the reactor core is stable and the agency doesn't believe the reactor is cracked or broken. But it says it is highly possible that radioactive materials are leaking from somewhere in the reactor."

Afik, they've broadcast edited clips from both focusing on reactor 3 and 4. (e.g. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110318/k10014748951000.html and http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110319/t10014781441000.html ) They broadcast extended edits in their longer news programs - the two examples cited are from from their shorter news round-up style shows.

Afik, they've broadcast edited clips from both focusing on reactor 3 and 4. (e.g. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110318/k10014748951000.html and http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110319/t10014781441000.html ) They broadcast extended edits in their longer news programs - the two examples cited are from from their shorter news round-up style shows.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110315/t10014678161000.html [English live stream http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv ] [Note: The original slashdot headline above was wrong because *that* news was older -- re: the 2nd blast at the plant, occuring near reactor #3, at 11:15 PM JST, 14 March 2011.] *** But I'm writing to report to you that, just now, on NHK, it was announced that the 3rd blast had recently occured, and it was the first blast for reactor #2, at 6:14AM JST, 15 March 2011.

Postponed indeed according to NHK. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_10.html
Funny that in Kobe where I was nothing could be felt, while in Osaka a friend of mine did notice something.

B.

Try NHK World. As close as possible to the source of the news.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_46.html

The water cooling system of the plant itself cannot produce enough cool water because of the power loss or something.

Anyway, this means that they decided to basically trash the plant after everything is (hopefully) contained even though the reactor vessel is intact: The inside of the reactor will be contaminated by I-dont-know-what from the sea water and it will be almost impossible to reuse.

I think the company is taking the route that makes sense, even if that's because there's no other choice or whatever.

I really, really hope it's not too late.

Okay, 1015 microsieverts or 1.015 millisieverts (mSv) per hour. That's bad, but not too bad, because natural dose is variable but about ~2.4mSv/year. So you'd get close to an annual dose in about 2 hours. But what is scary is this small detail at the NHK website:

"The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the power station's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, observed the radiation level near a gate on the hillside of the plant at 3:29 PM on Saturday, before an explosion was reported at the nuclear plant."

That was the reading reported before the explosion!

Run for the hills. Seriously.