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Fukushima Radioactive Fallout Nears Chernobyl Levels
0WaitState writes "The cumulative releases from Fukushima of iodine-131 and cesium-137 have reached 73% and 60% respectively of the amounts released from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. These numbers were reached independently from a monitoring station in Sacramento, CA, and Takasaki, Japan. The iodine and cesium releases are due to the cooking off of the more volatile elements in damaged fuel rods."
More sensationalist bullshit. Get this off slashdot, please.
I don't doubt the claim, I do doubt the presentation. Have some respect.
glad to see that slashdot is 100% on board with the media's general nuclear hysteria
[I don't think I need to explain why "nearing chernobyl levels" is a ridiculous description...]
OMG, we're all gonna die! Again!
From TFA:
That's a really important difference. It means the total release of radioactive material is far smaller. And the iodine, at least, is a lot less scary than the sort of stuff you get from fuel particles -- it has a half-life of only 8 days, so there's no real long-term environmental threat from that. (The cesium is rather worse -- half life of ~30 years.)
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Like all other moments in life, there is a Simpsons quote that sums it up:
"turning a possible Chernobyl into a mere Three Mile Island"
Monstar L
Full translated interview:
17/03/2011 Rafael Poch, Berlin Correspondent
Andreyev: "In the nuclear industry there are no independent bodies" "The most dangerous reactor in Fukushima is 3, because it uses a fuel of uranium and plutonium," said Yuli
He spent five years at Chernobyl. Spetsatom was deputy director of the anti-Soviet body nuclear accidents and knows very well how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) works.
Yuri Andreyev (1938) is one of the most knowledgeable in this area. To Fukushima includes four scenarios of varying severity, from mild to very severe.
"In Fukushima, the most dangerous reactor is three, because it uses MOX fuel more plutonium uranium that France is being used experimentally in two Japanese plants," says this expert.
In 1991 everything fell apart in Moscow. The salary of deputy minister of atomic energy, the position he was offered Andreyev, not enough for anything. The Academy of Sciences of Austria was invited to lecture and eventually settled in Vienna as adviser to the minister of environment, universities and the IAEA itself.
Chernoby is still surrounded by lies, says. The accident was not the responsibility of plant operators, as stated, but a clear design flaw in the RBMK reactors result of cost savings. Proper design of those Soviet reactors required a large amount of zirconium, a rare metal, and a maze of pipes, special techniques for welding of zirconium, stainless steel and huge amounts of concrete. It was a fortune, so they decided to save money, said Andreyev.
One of the resources of savings was to feed the reactor with relatively low enriched uranium, since uranium enrichment is a complicated and expensive. This increased the risks and was contrary to the rules of safety, but supervision in the USSR nuclear part of the Ministry of Atomic Energy. Something similar is happening today with the IAEA, as the UN agency "depends on the nuclear industry," said Andreyev, under which lies and secrets of Chernobyl are now fully present in Fukushima.
Security, money, irresponsibility
"Those who design nuclear power plants are pending on two things: safety and cost. The problem is that security costs money. If you spend too much on nuclear power plant it is not competitive. The accident at Three Mile Island is the perfect example. After the accident was to improve security in a convincing way to avoid repetition of the accident both plants more expensive, they lost all meaning. For thirty years in America was not built a single reactor. Chernobyl was all very complicated but also had to do with economics. Academician Rumyantsev showed that we had to close all RBMK reactors. Simply ignored. There are always people interested in hiding something ... "
What are they hiding?
They lend themselves to compromise on security in exchange for selfish considerations. In the USSR for the cost of uranium enrichment in Japan simply for money. The location of central Japan, near the sea is the cheapest. Emergency generators are not buried and, of course, were flooded instantly .... Behind all this there is corruption. I have no proof, but will not take long to appear. How can I design a nuclear power plant in an area of ââhigh seismic risk, near the ocean, with emergency generators at the surface?. Wave arrived and everything was out of service. There is no error, this is a crime.
What problems do you see wi
For those who don't know, the University of Washington has one of the best nuclear physics programs in the US.
Turns out they do detect trace amounts of iodine-131 in the air, but nowhere near Chernobyl levels.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4853v1
And the "something" that just doesn't work is Slashdot fact-checking.
Reporting live from Tokyo (well, just on the outskirts, but def. part of the greater Tokyo area):
People here have bought up massive amounts of bottled water, though apparently the level of radioactive iodine has fallen below the maximum legal limit for infants (which is one third for that of adults). Milk is also in short supply. Two days ago, two supermarkets near me had no milk, or plain bottled water. (Haven't looked since then.)
On the subject of meltdowns, there is no "official" meaning to the term. But, I would say that at least a couple of the reactors have "melted down" (I haven't really been paying attention to the news, so I don't know if any of the others have or not). Anyway, fun facts, the "precautionary" safe limit of 80 KM set by the US government (and then the Australian government), for folks, was apparently worth setting. At least one village outside the 30 KM radius has had really high levels of radioactive iodine get into the water.
Me, I'm staying in Tokyo until things get really bad. But, I imagine, at least a couple of million of the other residents would also want to leave at that time too. So...
Appended to the end of comments you post. The maximum is 120 characters.
I believe the term is "partial meltdown", where the fuel rods get hot and unstable, but do not go goey like cheese under the grill. From the little I remember from university metallurgy is that essentially these rods are alloys, primarily U-238 but with other stuff entering the mix when the uranium undergoes fission, alloys are known change phase under heat and certain metals bubble out or condense depending on their chemical properties.
Total meltdown is where the rods turn into liquid and drip down into a super-critical pool at the bottom of the reactor. If that happened, you'd know about it, "Fortunate Island" would become more like "Wide Island" than Three Mile Island if you get my reference .
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
So does this mean the reactor has officially "melted down"?
No, but the press has.
This is only referring to the cesium and iodine. I find even those figures suspect considering that Chernobyl literally ejected it's core directly into the air. Especially given the rather unalarming radiation measurements all around the area.
There are immediately several posts expressing scepticism about this story. You people need to set that instinct aside for a moment. I am not an anti-nuke hysteric. Allow me the benefit of the doubt.
Recent reports from Japan are trending towards large amounts of contamination. Levels of Caesium and Iodine in the sea are very high. Soil samples are turning up large amounts of contamination. Tokyo tap water (200 km away) is contaminated. Vegetables in Hong Kong are accumulating Caesium that exceed limits. I have been monitoring Kyodo and NHK news and the degree of contamination being reported is disturbing.
Today's events include severe radiation burns on two workers, acknowledgement of containment failure in No.3 (MOX reactor,) an increase of the evacuation radius from 20 to 30 km and an order to greatly increase radiation monitoring at the site. Unexplained bursts of various gases have been forcing worker evacuations throughout the week. Fukushima didn't end when the news cycle cut over to Libya.
Fukushima has been releasing vapour directly into the atmosphere from reactor pressure vessels in which fuel damage has occurred. There is no precedent for that procedure in the history of nuclear technology, there has been no opportunity to directly measure the contamination of these releases, so there is no credible information on the actual amount of contamination being released from these vessels. There is no credible information on the amount of spent fuel that was lofted by the spent fuel pool fires. There is no accounting of the amount of contamination flowing off the site due to the use of water cannons.
DO NOT discount reports of contamination. DO NOT dismiss out of hand comparisons of Fukushima with Chernobyl.
I can't find a way to sugar coat that. Sorry.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
"We have a Pope" - sorry, couldn't resist.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Please don't spread crap and tell me I'm going to die because I'm deliberately refusing to "follow orders".
Additionally, don't spam it anonymously (so we can at least block you out if we so wish), and at least have the decency to do less advertising of your church in your post than linking to a "relevant" article - I mean, come on - keyword spamming?
The really *annoying* part of evangelism such as this is that if you'd just posted the link without all the crap attached to it (from the keyword spamming and double-links, to failing to link to your article directly), people would probably be more inclined to read it. For people who are trying to convince others to make huge changes to their life, evangelists are inherently terrible at actually convincing people and have zero knowledge of effective PR.
Could you describe the difference between evolution caused by increased radiation and evolution caused by what ever else? Evolution is just changes and nothing more. Stuff happens and sometimes it turns out to be something that changes things.
No, evolution is not just changes. Evolution is the effect of long term adaptation of a population to the environment through the combined effects of mutation, natural selection and reproduction. Mere mutation alone doesn't give you evolution.
The speed of evolution is not directly proportional to the mutation rate. If the mutation rate is too high, beneficial mutations are quickly swamped in harmful mutations, and unable to contribute to an increased chance of reproduction. What does speed up evolution is a change in environment. I bet Chernobyl will result in organisms in the area being more resistant to radiation and radioactive pollution.
Might help http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/radiation.html .." see web page for more
"The SI system uses the unit of becquerel (Bq) as its unit of radioactivity. One curie is 37 billion Bq. Since the Bq represents such a small amount, one is likely to see a prefix noting a large multiplier used with the Bq as follows
Then think about
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/summary-key-health-threats-fukushima-radioactive-substances
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This article is full of errors major errors, including the title/conclusion.
They're typically off by about a factor 10; they seem to have ignored the exponent when calculating the percentages they use to conclude Fukushima is nearing Tsjernobyl levels. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 70% more caesium-137 than Fukushima, it's actually 1700%. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 50% more Iodine-131 it's actually 1400%. These numbers are based on the readings provided by the article.
Apart from that the comparison simply makes no sense for a 1000 other reasons. Remote detectors for airborne radioactive particles cannot reliably provide an indication of what the reactor put out, especially given the fact that Tsjernobyl was a fire releasing all kinds of aerosols while Fukushima releases mostly gasses that probably get carried much futher by the wind and do not pollute the grounds in the perimeter of the reactor as much as Tsjernobyl.
Furthermore, Tsjernobyl started out with explosion that probably released a huge quantity of especially iodine in one big blast, not leaving quite that much for the "aftermath" (which this article makes a comparison with). Also, what they fail to mention is the deadly mix of compounds other than iodine and caesium released by Tsjernobyl.
This is nothing like Tsjernobyl and it will not become anything like it either. Stop the FUD please.
0x or or snor perron?!
Title says it all.
Chernobyl put out 8.5 10^16 Bqin total. The emissions lasted several days.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
Death toll from Earthquake and tsunami 10,000+
Death toll from the reactor accident so far 0.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To induce a supercritical chain reaction, you actually have to make a solid metal ball smaller. You know, it's a foot in diameter you make it 11.9975 inches in diameter. It takes 4500 pounds of C4 high explosive in an implosion shaped charge to do this to a softball-sized chunk of uranium. The risk of this happening spontaneously without the use of carefully placed high explosives around a carefully shaped (and relatively cool--these are hot) uranium core is similar to the risk of Schrodinger's Cat spontaneously detonating when Schrodinger reaches toward him intending to put him in the box.
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So, the daily average of releases of iodine-131 and cesium-137 are, according to certain measurements, comparable to Chernobyl. They base this on a 10 day total from Chernobyl. Basic Questions:
1. What 10 days did they pull the average from for Chernobyl and what day or days are they pulling from for Fukushima?
2. What are the totals over the entirety of each disaster (or at least the current estimated total at Fukushima vs Chernobyl)?
3. What other radioactive materials were released in Chernobyl and how do they compare to Fukushima?
4. How did the evacuation and response measures compare?
5. How do the long term containment and clean up processes compare?
6. How do the human exposure variables compare?
In the end though, even evaluating these two data points, they fail to indicate the overall meaning and affect of these values (ie: How does this apply to human health?).
how about a comparison of how much radiation a coal power plant is emitting compared to a nuclear power plant.
There is zero risk of supercriticality.
Look, I'm sure the risk is small; it may even be "infinitesimal" but it isn't zero. Consider for example a situation where the containment vessel is cracked (as has already happened) and that crack leads to the uranium going down into one particular area of the vessel. Consider also the situation where the bottom of the vessel has been filled in with other material (dried up salt from sea water?) forcing a change in configuration.
There are reasons to believe that a stable critical mass will not be reached; it's incredibly difficult to do and the uranium will tend to blow it's self apart immediately that happens meaning that no real nuclear explosion will happen. However, a little more humility and a whole bunch more circumspection would really help you maintain credibility for when you want to persuade people that the modern "safe" nuclear plants really are safe.
That's the trouble. Nuclear plants are held to a massively high standard of "safe" already.
Did you know, for example, that Coal kills 4,000 (not a typo) more people per wattHour than Nuclear does? But its a slow, boring kind of killed, like the 40,000+ who die every year in automobile accidents in the US alone, not the fun exciting kind of killed that you get every couple of years when an airliner crashes and kills 200 folk halfway around the globe, making national news.
To have a meaningful discussion you need to compare nuclear safety to other power-generation mechanisms (more people fall off roofs installing solar panels and die every year than have been killed by nuclear power generation disasters). And then scale them to account for the power generated. Once you do so, you realize just how unsafe many of the alternatives actually are.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
One done in USA and the other a day later in Japan AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INCIDENT - and then extrapolated that over 14 days until they had amounts close or over those in Chernobyl.
http://newsroom.ctbto.org/
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14938445,00.html
"The estimated source terms for iodine-131 are very constant, namely 1.3 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the first two days (US station) and 1.2 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the third day (Japan)," the institute said in a German-language statement posted on Wednesday on its website.
"For cesium-137 measurements, (the US station) measured 5 x 10^15 becquerels, close, while Japan had much more cesium in its air. On this day, we estimate a source term of about 4 x 10^16."
If they keep counting long enough they'll top Hiroshima as well. Then again, so will my room on the other side of the planet.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Only 3.5 ton of the fuel blew into the air. Now fukedupshima had 50x more fuel blown up.
You reckon that's bad? Wait 'till Oyster Creek goes up. That's the same design reactor as Fukushima, but has triple the waste lying around. Its containment is already corroded and leaking tritium like a sieve.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The scary contamination in Tokyo is between 0.3% and 1.5% of the radioactive exposure you get from smoking one cigarette. Scary, isn't it?
You didn't say why cigarettes are radioactive. As I recall, in WWII the government took the tobacco industry's usual fertilizer (urea) to make explosives. The tobacco industry switched to Rock Phosphate, which they liked better anyways because it could be mined with a caterpillar instead of collected with farm hands.
If you're going to smoke, it's always better to use organic tobacco than tobacco that was fertilized with Rock Phosphate:
My pet theory is that there was actually a combination of factors which led to the mid-20th century spike in lung cancer levels. The other factor, besides the irradiation of smokers' lungs, was the mass dietary switch from stable saturated fats (butter, lard) to unstable polyunsaturated fats (margarine). The lungs have a lot of fatty acids... Send me an email for a free report. :)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
The containment might crack, because the pressure inside is high and the hydrogen explosions might have damaged the structure. Also there are no special containment structures below the core a.k.a. core catcher, just the containment itself.
The only safe thing about the plants is that this is happening elsewhere, in Japan.
I would point you to a source, like the current TEPCO press release, but it fails to tell of the "smaller" explosions, which obviously did happen considering the damage to the outer structures of 1,3 and 4.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Hopefully (yeah right, by now it should be clear that used car salesmen have have an infinitely greater ethical superiority over the nuclear industry) .... Hopefully, engineers aren't covering up flaws in the containment like the Japanese engineers on reactor 4:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-says-he-covered-up-flaw-at-shut-reactor.html
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
It really is amazing that at a time of opportunity for nuclear power expansion, the industry seems to be doing everything it can to discredit itself. Decaying plants with faulty waste containment, cheaping out on maintenance and then applying for license extension concurrent with a bunch of accidents (see Vermont Yankee), etc. Now this. It's like they -want- to become "Nuclear Power: As Seen in 80s/90s Disaster Movies".