Japan Reluctant To Disclose Drone Footage of Fukushima Plant

garymortimer writes with word that "footage taken from an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone was passed on to the Japanese government with permission for public release from the US Air Force. US military sources said that the decision to release the footage — or not — was up to the Japanese government." The Japanese government, though, has thus far chosen not to release the high-resolution footage of the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.

Comments

Not Good

[Nemyst]

By being secretive, they're letting rumors run rampant. It will surface at some point anyways, so they should just assume that and be more transparent about it.

As it is now, I've heard of everything from 5 deaths and 20 wounded with all reactors in meltdown to nothing going on whatsoever. Uncertainty breeds fear.

Re:Not Good

[93 Escort Wagon]

A nuclear power plant is at "stage 5" alert, where the worst is stage 7.

Three Mile Island was also a stage 5 (don't know if you're old enough to remember that one). Also, it's a logarithmic scale.

I'm not intending to play down the seriousness of the situation - it's definitely bad. But it's not "71% of the worst possible case scenario" bad.

Re:Not Good

[MachDelta]

Actually, the Wikipedia article does state that it is intended to be logarithmic.
And it makes sense, because the difference between a 1 and a 2 is "Bob dropped his coffee" and "Bob dropped his coffee in the storage pool, now we gotta drain it", but the difference between a 6 and a 7 is "Might want to consider moving a couple dozen miles down the road" and "Might want to consider moving to a different hemisphere" ;)

Re:Not Good

[DeadCatX2]

Being near sea level, the radiation levels in Tokyo are normally about 35 nanoSieverts per hour (nSv/h). This doesn't include dietary sources of radiation.

According to this chart, the radiation level for the past couple days has been 50 nSv/h. (the chart uses microGrays per hour (uGy/h), but 1 uGy = 1 uSv)

Mexico City, being about 2.2 km elevation, has a higher background radiation because the atmosphere is thinner. They average 90 nSv/h there, almost double what's in Tokyo for the past two days.

The real kicker? Each cigarette contains at least 1000 nSv, smoked directly into the lungs. Every cigarette someone smokes is like spending at least 20 hours standing in downtown Tokyo right now.

Re:they don't want the footage of godzilla to get

[ozmanjusri]

What are you, 10-years old. Come on, people...

There's been an enormous astroturf effort by the pro-nuclear brigade.

You'll find it next to impossible to have a sensible discussion without being swamped by godzilla jokes, comments that coal power emits more isotopes, that levels are lower than x,y,z or Chernoble (as though that was a good metric for personal safety).

The simple answer is that the authorities, as evidenced by this article, are not releasing enough information for individuals to make sensible decisions. That's probably resulting in more fear, panic and cost than releasing real data for open analysis would. Likewise, the dismissive astroturf comments and efforts to bury valuable discussion just show how little we can trust the nuclear power industry to manage events without open scrutiny.

Re:they don't want the footage of godzilla to get

[Technician]

I agree that we have seen poor reporting by experts on the issues.

Very early on when they had a Hydrogen bubble, I knew where it came from long before they announced it. Zirconium is flammable in water and steam. In short, it oxidizes. When lots of it oxidizes, a lot of Hydrogen is released. Simple chemistry. I find it PR that they say it "Oxidized" instead of burnt.

In a nutshell, I knew the cladding that holds the fuel pellets caught fire, both in the fueled reactors and in the pond on #4 which was recently de-fueled. Air is not required to burn Zirconium. Oxygen from Water, CO2, or other sources works fine to support combustion.

I have seen a Zirconium fire. It burns fine underwater.

You failed high school math

[DeadCatX2]

13mSv = 13,000 uSv = 13,000,000 nSv

547 packs * 20 cigs/pack = 10,940 cigarettes

13,000,000 nSv / 10,940 cigarettes = 1188.3 nSv / cigarette

Re:they don't want the footage of godzilla to get

[DeathSquid]

FWIW I am in Tokyo.

The "authorities" by which I suppose you mean TEPCO, NISA and the Cabinet have been releasing large volumes of information. TECPCO was reticent at first, becuase they had no clue what they were doing, but a personal visit from the PM and a frank exchange of views fixed that last Wednesday.

I have been graphing the TEPCO data: http://www.paddon.org/wiki/mwp/Fukushima

In any case, please don't make comments without educating yourself first (sigh, I know. this is slashdot).

Re:they don't want the footage of godzilla to get

[Compaqt]

The big solar thermal plant in Arizona is selling electricity at $.14/kWh .

That's more than the US average of 12 cents, but it's still a few cents, and not dollars. Going forward, it's going to be competitive.

And nuclear doesn't include the cost of waste disposal, and coal doesn't include other external costs.