This very old survey says only one thing: that in one case an institution, seriously biased in favor of all things nuclear, has maybe found out that in a 0.8 to 1.5km zone downwind of the unfiltered coal plant, radiation may or may not be higher than that around a normally operating nuclear power station. Given that nuclear power stations aren't supposed to emit radiation at all during normal operation, this isn't a big surprise.
What the article fails to mention is that a lot of measures were taken in the past 40 years to filter the smoke, which measures have largely dealt with the issues in the report you quote. By the way, the measures were not implemented in response to the survey, but to the green movement, which is so sneered upon here on Slashdot. Now the main issue that remains with coal in the developed world is CO2 and its link to the risk of global warming.
Yes. And you can dig a bit deeper and conclude that cleanup is more efficient and more likely to happen if the value of the materials you recycle is high relative to the cost of the recycling process.
I have a small property in a city in a small, ex-communist country that had a large (4 boilers, 4 turbines) coal plant in operation until about 1992. Since I go there from time to time, I can tell you pretty well how things went year by year.
When operation stopped (for various reasons, mostly lack of money and lack of cheap fuel after the collapse of COMECON), the plant was left to the elements. Until about 2002, the plant became a scrap iron mine -- the gypsies from the neighboring villages would come in, break shit up, cut out the metal and move it away. When iron became scarcer, they started to break up the buildings, piece by piece, extract window frames, nails, etc. Around 2002, the only thing that remained was a pile of rubble, mostly broken bricks, and a smokestack.
Surprisingly, the rubble started to disappear about 2003. I have no idea what has happened to it, but the mountain of broken bricks has halved by 2004, and almost gone by 2005. In 2006, the smokestack was pronounced a hazard, and a demolition grant was obtained from the government to destroy it. It became a small brick peak where the mountain used to be, but in another year those bricks were gone too.
In the end, the city government got an EU grant for "eco tourism area", spent a small amount of money (in the one to two million euros range) on removing the few remaining concrete blocks and , had some Dutch organization test the soil. Since they got a certification that allowed them to cultivate organic vegetables on part of the territory, I assume it wasn't very polluted.
So, in less than 20 years, the plant was gone completely.
No, what is being said is that this most likely indicates holes in the reactor containers. Those same containers that TEPCO has been saying are safe since the week when we had daily explosions. In another week, they'll finally come around to say, one by one, that they've had meltdowns in 1, 2 and 3, and that there is significant leakage from the spent fuel in 4.
Then, maybe, we can start learning the truth of what really is happening in Fukushima.
Thanks, smartypants, but what is your point? All information I already put above was in modern units - and that happened before you read them up on the Wikipedia.
The plans to "rewire" the power plants were from yesterday and, at the moment, they are just that, plans. This morning Toden announced that the construction of the electric cable that was supposed to be complete yesterday will be delayed until at least tomorrow. At the very end, they said also, in a markedly small voice, that they hope restoring the electricity will go smoothly, but there are worries that the equipment on the ground - pumps and transformers - may be out of order (maybe - after those explosions and all that water dumped on them from the air?), and that could probably hamper the effort.
In reality, there is no staff (except the firefighters, Chernobyl style) on the ground since Saturday - a relative and a former colleague worked at the plant and are already in Osaka since Tuesday - all measurements are taking place from the helos and from an observation points 30km away, and radiation in excess of 150 microgreys is being reported 30-40 km away upwind from the reactor by the local authorities.
So, there is only stalling, spinning, and no information.
Incidentally, here are the radiation reports by the ministry of science and bullshit (japanese, sorry, all data is in microsieverts, and if the last column is without dates, it has the long-term averages) : http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/saigaijohou/syousai/1303723.htm
Doesn't sound like blaming someone - sounds more like they're desperate. The lack of adequate reaction from the government is absolutely disheartening, though. Most likely, they are desperate, trying shit and failing. Maybe they need a break, too bad they can't afford it.
The theory TEPCO is peddling is that the employee who was in charge of the pump that supplied water to the reactor allegedly left the pump while on inspection. During that time, the pump used up its fuel and stopped.
In the same sentence, the Minister of the economy, trade and industry said, that there is a serious chance of a partial meltdown of the active zone.
JUST NOW FROM THE TV (0:00 AM) : Currently, the water has again lowered and the core is again uncovered (and not cooling).
The conditions that are being created in reactor #2 at the moment are exactly the same that caused the explosion in #3 today. There is a hot bare core, probably partially molten, there is water on top of it, there is enough temperature to dissociate it into hydrogen and oxygen. What makes you think there is no risk of explosion tomorrow?
There is no explosion. There will be one tomorrow though.
About 2 hours ago Tokyo Electric Co reported that they've decided to flood reactor #2 after its cooling died earlier during the day. It is not clear when and why it died. Anyway, since it died, flooding procedure was begun. However, they are so far failing to cover the whole active zone with water. TEPCO's official said that that is suggesting the reactor core has melted to some extent.
Just 10 minutes ago it was confirmed that water is flowing in slowly, and about half of the fuel is covered.
There have been some issues with the announcements already:) My area (Setagaya district) wasn't on the list yesterday, but now they are saying rationing is possible here as well, from 1 to 5pm Japanese time. Trains are quite bad -- I live relatively near the city center, and now my station (Kyodo) is the last one a train goes to. People are walking from areas as far as 10 or 15 km to get on the local trains to Shinjuku.
No one seems to be complaining for the moment -- people went out to get to work as early as 5:30AM this morning. Maybe some will start to grumble if the rationing doesn't affect the center of Tokyo where the politicians live, though.
A large portion. There is probably more than enough capacity in the West to compensate for the offline power stations in the East, but there is no transfer capacity beyond about an order or two of magnitude below what is needed. The whole system has been operating on the assumption that at least some of the power stations in the North will remain running. As it is, both those on the South and the North coast in the Eastern part are down, and the capacity is insufficient.
Where it was planned to have transfer possible (e.g. The Shinkansen trains, for example, which can take power from both grids), there is less disruption. It is a sad example of bad planning due to historical accident. Japan uses two systems because back in the day, the Kansai electric company (Western Japan) got their generators from AEG in Germany, and Touden (TEPCO) in the East - from GE.
then replace them... with more capable people - PLEASE.
Actually, me, you (and the damned journalists) have to give these people some leeway, you know? They've been working round the clock since Friday, in conditions that are harsh. It is reasonable to expect they are exhausted and nervous, they are engineers, not PR people. The journalists owed them as much as a serious try to understand the explanations. Instead, most went for the "OMG THE CORE IS MELTING". Still are, in fact.
Bugger off, what is this independent information do you need? Radiation measurements from inside the core by a third party? Care to don a suit and walk the inside of the reactor buildings, Einstein?
There is no lack of information in Japan. There has been 6 or 7 press conferences on the topic by the management of the power station today, both before and after every development that happened at the station during the day. All the conferences had a pretty reasonable technical explanation of the steps, and report upon execution. All conferences were broadcast fully on several TV channels.
There are three problems with the coverage. First, western media have been extremely sensationalist in their coverage. Second, journalists, both in Japan and in elsewhere ignore the presentation (e.g. one journalist complained that she doesn't understand the explanations, and that there isn't "enough information" in the same breath on live TV), and press with "hard" questions, which end up to be only one: "When is this shit going to explode?". Three, which is a failure of Tepco, they put forward people who cannot explain shit eloquently. The explanations make sense if one listens patiently and makes sense of a ton of stuttering, stammering, repeating, verbal mistakes. Of course it ain't working when every journalist has to tweet within 25 seconds of the start of the explanation.
Finally, the big problem in Japan now is getting help to the people in the affected areas, not the meltdowns in Fukushima that may, or may not be happening.
But I guess some journalists have to make a living.
Death toll is now close to a 100, with 2-300 bodies reported found in a street in Sendai city. It was reported that the most police and fire departments in the affected areas are in touch with the emergency response team.
It is very unlikely that total death toll will exceed a few thousands IMHO. Currently, the death toll is 55, the missing people are reported as 42. Even if the death toll doesn't match your expectations and is closer to what I think it will be, today's quake is a huge disaster, and a lot of people are having a hard time.
There were a number of aftershocks felt in Tokyo, not as bad as the first one, but still strong. I stopped counting at the 5th, and the last one was just minutes ago. After the Awaji earthquake in Kobe 15 years ago there were rather strong aftershocks for 6 or 7 months after the earthquake.
22 deaths reported so far, but it is still very early to tell. Still, since it happened during daytime, and in a region that is a bit less sparsely populated (http://www.chizuyainoue.jp/j_population/pop_density/1.pdf) than average, the fatalities will probably not be as high as the Awaji/Kobe earthquake of 1995 (when over 6000 people died, most of them in fires).
But it was a rather scary affair - I was in Tokyo, in the street, and having trouble keeping my balance. Can't imagine what it felt like in a high rise, or closer to the epicenter.
Slashdot Mirror
This very old survey says only one thing: that in one case an institution, seriously biased in favor of all things nuclear, has maybe found out that in a 0.8 to 1.5km zone downwind of the unfiltered coal plant, radiation may or may not be higher than that around a normally operating nuclear power station. Given that nuclear power stations aren't supposed to emit radiation at all during normal operation, this isn't a big surprise.
What the article fails to mention is that a lot of measures were taken in the past 40 years to filter the smoke, which measures have largely dealt with the issues in the report you quote. By the way, the measures were not implemented in response to the survey, but to the green movement, which is so sneered upon here on Slashdot. Now the main issue that remains with coal in the developed world is CO2 and its link to the risk of global warming.
Yes. And you can dig a bit deeper and conclude that cleanup is more efficient and more likely to happen if the value of the materials you recycle is high relative to the cost of the recycling process.
I have a small property in a city in a small, ex-communist country that had a large (4 boilers, 4 turbines) coal plant in operation until about 1992. Since I go there from time to time, I can tell you pretty well how things went year by year.
When operation stopped (for various reasons, mostly lack of money and lack of cheap fuel after the collapse of COMECON), the plant was left to the elements. Until about 2002, the plant became a scrap iron mine -- the gypsies from the neighboring villages would come in, break shit up, cut out the metal and move it away. When iron became scarcer, they started to break up the buildings, piece by piece, extract window frames, nails, etc. Around 2002, the only thing that remained was a pile of rubble, mostly broken bricks, and a smokestack.
Surprisingly, the rubble started to disappear about 2003. I have no idea what has happened to it, but the mountain of broken bricks has halved by 2004, and almost gone by 2005. In 2006, the smokestack was pronounced a hazard, and a demolition grant was obtained from the government to destroy it. It became a small brick peak where the mountain used to be, but in another year those bricks were gone too.
In the end, the city government got an EU grant for "eco tourism area", spent a small amount of money (in the one to two million euros range) on removing the few remaining concrete blocks and , had some Dutch organization test the soil. Since they got a certification that allowed them to cultivate organic vegetables on part of the territory, I assume it wasn't very polluted.
So, in less than 20 years, the plant was gone completely.
Is this what you wanted to hear?
No, what is being said is that this most likely indicates holes in the reactor containers. Those same containers that TEPCO has been saying are safe since the week when we had daily explosions. In another week, they'll finally come around to say, one by one, that they've had meltdowns in 1, 2 and 3, and that there is significant leakage from the spent fuel in 4.
Then, maybe, we can start learning the truth of what really is happening in Fukushima.
Yeah, more or less. You're very smart for your age.
Yeah, I know, everybody on slashdot is a decorated military veteran.
Thanks, smartypants, but what is your point? All information I already put above was in modern units - and that happened before you read them up on the Wikipedia.
The news about the cable: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asahi.com%2Fnational%2Fupdate%2F0317%2FTKY201103170513.html
It is my understanding that not everybody here reads Japanese, asshole.
The plans to "rewire" the power plants were from yesterday and, at the moment, they are just that, plans. This morning Toden announced that the construction of the electric cable that was supposed to be complete yesterday will be delayed until at least tomorrow. At the very end, they said also, in a markedly small voice, that they hope restoring the electricity will go smoothly, but there are worries that the equipment on the ground - pumps and transformers - may be out of order (maybe - after those explosions and all that water dumped on them from the air?), and that could probably hamper the effort.
In reality, there is no staff (except the firefighters, Chernobyl style) on the ground since Saturday - a relative and a former colleague worked at the plant and are already in Osaka since Tuesday - all measurements are taking place from the helos and from an observation points 30km away, and radiation in excess of 150 microgreys is being reported 30-40 km away upwind from the reactor by the local authorities.
So, there is only stalling, spinning, and no information.
Incidentally, here are the radiation reports by the ministry of science and bullshit (japanese, sorry, all data is in microsieverts, and if the last column is without dates, it has the long-term averages) : http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/saigaijohou/syousai/1303723.htm
Doesn't sound like blaming someone - sounds more like they're desperate. The lack of adequate reaction from the government is absolutely disheartening, though. Most likely, they are desperate, trying shit and failing. Maybe they need a break, too bad they can't afford it.
The theory TEPCO is peddling is that the employee who was in charge of the pump that supplied water to the reactor allegedly left the pump while on inspection. During that time, the pump used up its fuel and stopped.
In the same sentence, the Minister of the economy, trade and industry said, that there is a serious chance of a partial meltdown of the active zone.
JUST NOW FROM THE TV (0:00 AM) : Currently, the water has again lowered and the core is again uncovered (and not cooling).
The conditions that are being created in reactor #2 at the moment are exactly the same that caused the explosion in #3 today. There is a hot bare core, probably partially molten, there is water on top of it, there is enough temperature to dissociate it into hydrogen and oxygen. What makes you think there is no risk of explosion tomorrow?
There is no explosion. There will be one tomorrow though.
About 2 hours ago Tokyo Electric Co reported that they've decided to flood reactor #2 after its cooling died earlier during the day. It is not clear when and why it died. Anyway, since it died, flooding procedure was begun. However, they are so far failing to cover the whole active zone with water. TEPCO's official said that that is suggesting the reactor core has melted to some extent.
Just 10 minutes ago it was confirmed that water is flowing in slowly, and about half of the fuel is covered.
sure. i have some superior mercury seasoning for you too, troll. if you don`t like that, upgrade to pollonium is available for just a bit more.
There have been some issues with the announcements already :) My area (Setagaya district) wasn't on the list yesterday, but now they are saying rationing is possible here as well, from 1 to 5pm Japanese time. Trains are quite bad -- I live relatively near the city center, and now my station (Kyodo) is the last one a train goes to. People are walking from areas as far as 10 or 15 km to get on the local trains to Shinjuku.
No one seems to be complaining for the moment -- people went out to get to work as early as 5:30AM this morning. Maybe some will start to grumble if the rationing doesn't affect the center of Tokyo where the politicians live, though.
A large portion. There is probably more than enough capacity in the West to compensate for the offline power stations in the East, but there is no transfer capacity beyond about an order or two of magnitude below what is needed. The whole system has been operating on the assumption that at least some of the power stations in the North will remain running. As it is, both those on the South and the North coast in the Eastern part are down, and the capacity is insufficient.
Where it was planned to have transfer possible (e.g. The Shinkansen trains, for example, which can take power from both grids), there is less disruption. It is a sad example of bad planning due to historical accident. Japan uses two systems because back in the day, the Kansai electric company (Western Japan) got their generators from AEG in Germany, and Touden (TEPCO) in the East - from GE.
then replace them ... with more capable people - PLEASE.
Actually, me, you (and the damned journalists) have to give these people some leeway, you know? They've been working round the clock since Friday, in conditions that are harsh. It is reasonable to expect they are exhausted and nervous, they are engineers, not PR people. The journalists owed them as much as a serious try to understand the explanations. Instead, most went for the "OMG THE CORE IS MELTING". Still are, in fact.
Bugger off, what is this independent information do you need? Radiation measurements from inside the core by a third party? Care to don a suit and walk the inside of the reactor buildings, Einstein?
There is no lack of information in Japan. There has been 6 or 7 press conferences on the topic by the management of the power station today, both before and after every development that happened at the station during the day. All the conferences had a pretty reasonable technical explanation of the steps, and report upon execution. All conferences were broadcast fully on several TV channels.
There are three problems with the coverage. First, western media have been extremely sensationalist in their coverage. Second, journalists, both in Japan and in elsewhere ignore the presentation (e.g. one journalist complained that she doesn't understand the explanations, and that there isn't "enough information" in the same breath on live TV), and press with "hard" questions, which end up to be only one: "When is this shit going to explode?". Three, which is a failure of Tepco, they put forward people who cannot explain shit eloquently. The explanations make sense if one listens patiently and makes sense of a ton of stuttering, stammering, repeating, verbal mistakes. Of course it ain't working when every journalist has to tweet within 25 seconds of the start of the explanation.
Finally, the big problem in Japan now is getting help to the people in the affected areas, not the meltdowns in Fukushima that may, or may not be happening.
But I guess some journalists have to make a living.
Estimates are now up to over 1000 people dead or missing.
Death toll is now close to a 100, with 2-300 bodies reported found in a street in Sendai city. It was reported that the most police and fire departments in the affected areas are in touch with the emergency response team.
It is very unlikely that total death toll will exceed a few thousands IMHO. Currently, the death toll is 55, the missing people are reported as 42. Even if the death toll doesn't match your expectations and is closer to what I think it will be, today's quake is a huge disaster, and a lot of people are having a hard time.
There were a number of aftershocks felt in Tokyo, not as bad as the first one, but still strong. I stopped counting at the 5th, and the last one was just minutes ago. After the Awaji earthquake in Kobe 15 years ago there were rather strong aftershocks for 6 or 7 months after the earthquake.
22 deaths reported so far, but it is still very early to tell. Still, since it happened during daytime, and in a region that is a bit less sparsely populated (http://www.chizuyainoue.jp/j_population/pop_density/1.pdf) than average, the fatalities will probably not be as high as the Awaji/Kobe earthquake of 1995 (when over 6000 people died, most of them in fires).
But it was a rather scary affair - I was in Tokyo, in the street, and having trouble keeping my balance. Can't imagine what it felt like in a high rise, or closer to the epicenter.