2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami - News and Analysis

[chaanakya]

spent nuclear fuel rod pools/tanks
which need lots of new water... and are radioactive anyway

It is also suspected that in hydrogen explosion Fuel storage tanks have been ruptured and fragments of spent fuels are strewn around the NPP and the storage tanks are in very much damaged conditions. Spent fuel would not melt or reach criticality but possibility of another hydrogen explosion is not yet ruled out. That is why they are trying hard to get fresh water injected and are also injecting Nitrogen in the primary containment which lies below the Spent Fuel storage tank.

[Sanku]

spent nuclear fuel rod pools/tanks
which need lots of new water... and are radioactive anyway

It is also suspected .....

Confirmed Sir, GoTUS report based on Japanese official data which they shared. I had posted this a while back.

The hydrogen explosion had thrown up pieces as high a mile.

[Theo_Fidel]

Why? Where in the TEPCO fiasco has the supplier been found wanting?

The 'defects' are probably in terms of design. Putting the used fuel pool up top with just a simple roof over it was a bad idea. The design of a sheet metal venting duct, which leaked the Hydrogen and caused the explosions was another design issue. So much of the piping was placed underground where it broke during the earthquake. This was a significant problem during 'fire fighting'. Despite what people think about the plant 'surviving' the earthquake, quite a bit of the instrumentation was lost in the earthquake. This was a huge part why the operators were/are flying blind and actually made the situation worse in some instances. This is a glaring design deficiency IMO. I do earthquake design all the time and the sensors and electrical systems are the first things protected. No least because of the danger of fire.

I'm still scratching my head over these design 'features'.

- Radioactive coolant leaves the containment area. It was the venting of this steam that caused lots of the contamination & explosion. A heat transfer loop would have allowed the operators to vent uncontaminated & hydrogen free fluid.
- A simple flameproof flare port/tube would have allowed the hydrogen to be safely burned off. And they knew hydrogen would be produced.
- No independent cooling port to pump water into the containment vessel. This left the reactor prone to single point failures in the supply/return piping system.
- While it appears to take a 100 hours+ to safely stabilize the reactor, only 8 hours of battery back-up was provided. It would not have been hard to increase this. Cost minimal. This is criminal IMO. Also it appears the wiring for the Generator acted through the battery backup. This was a key problem in trying to hookup generators later as the lines were under water. In such a situation while it might seem that the Battery and Generator are backups to each other the plant has actually doubled its risk as the failure of either one will likely doom the plant.
- The lack of adequate emergency fresh water supply and gravity feed tanks above the reactors is another glaring flaw. This would be a code violation in Tokyo which requires gravity water feed for sprinkler systems esp. Yet it was acceptable at a nuclear power plant.
- The lack of a 'contamination trench' between the plant and the sea to intercept contaminated flow is shocking. Even chemical plants require this. A fire training simulator I'm working on requires this to prevent stream contamination. Though this may not have helped here where the storage pools are already full.

I'm sure an experienced investigator will find many more flaws. Modern accidents are almost always caused by design errors because our experience and engineering is so comprehensive. In terms of liability it is important to remember that the Tsunami was a natural phenomena while the nuclear accident was definitely a man made failure.

I have also been pondering Vina's point on the 'insurance risk' and what you design for. In the US many critical newer facilities are designed for a 1 in 500 year flood. Truly important facilities are designed for a 1 in 10,000 year flood event. Yes it is possible to design that way. We know that a thrust fault 9.0+ type event occurs every 200 years to 500 years at every thrust fault on the planet. We also know that a 100m-200m meteorite impact occurs every 2000 years or so. In which case there is a 1/2500 year probability one will hit the ocean somewhere on the planet generating a 20m or so Tsunami. Also every 2000-5000 years a volcanic island landslip occurs generating a Tsunami in the 100m or so height range.

So the crude risks for a 100 year lifespan coastal nuclear power plant are...

In areas near Thrust faults, All of Asia, Western North America and both West (Yes there is a Thrust fault directly to our West) and East India.

- 50% to 20% risk of a thrust fault Earthquake and Tsunami in the life of the plant. This is a risk to all plants from all such quakes.

The crude risk that such a thing will happen to a coastal plant somewhere on the planet. A major Thrust fault happens every 10 years or so. Of which 1/2 appear to have nuclear plants nearby. Using 100 year lifetime of plant.

- Roughly 500% (Madarassa Math!) chance. In less than 10 years three plants we know of have been clobbered by Tsunami's, Kalpakkam, Daiini and Daichi. Over the next hundred years at least 5 more nuclear coastal plants will face a thrust fault Tsunami.

WRT Meteorite Tsunami. Over hundred year lifespan,

- 4% chance that some ocean basin somewhere will generate a 20 m Tsunami. Of course when it does happen multiple plants will likely be affected or none at all.

WRT Landslip Tsunami. Over Hundred Year life span.

- 5%-2% chance of a 100 m Tsunami striking. Of course again either multiple plants will be affected or none at all.

What do you think of your insurance risk now, Vina.

[chaanakya]

Can a little math help? some?
Here is a headline:

7.5 mil. times legal limit of iodine in sea

The operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says 7.5 million times the legal limit of radioactive iodine 131 has been detected from samples of seawater near the plant.

With background that radioactive water discharged to sea, this looks serious.
Specially if the Iodine is found in sea, and if indeed 7.5 million times legal limit. The quotes inside the story looks even more ominous.

... 11:50 AM Saturday contained 300,000 becquerels of iodine 131 per cubic centimeter

Now this, 300,000 bq/cm^3 is same as 300,000,000 bq/l a very high amount and this is in the SEA...
(Will fish even survive in that high radioactive water? ).. if you even ate a 100 gram of the this sushi .. you will glow ityadi...)

This is stranger, since, IAEA site, mentions:

...highest concentrations were detected at the sampling point closest to the coast in the south with about 38 Bq/l ...

Now both can't be true? 38 Bq/l or 300,000,000 bq/l ? Can it?

Since Chaanakya already posted the above story, I will let him take a stab at it. See if he can tell us who is right, who is wrong... what could be the reason for this discrepency ....I will post what I think later after he gets his chance.

I will also like to see his estimate, how many mSV dose, one will get, if one eats 100 gm fish from 300,000,000 bq/l place?

Well since you con't seem to avoid mentioning me here is the link to the tepco report

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-co ... 405e32.pdf

there are many reports , daily issued by TEPCO and the site where this news item mentioned is Govt of Japan's Broadcasting Company. Obviously someone might be reporting wrong data if you say so afterall you are the resident physicist and banana expert.
Please go through their site

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-co ... dex-e.html

Japan Govt has least interest in giving such high estimates, let alone TEPCO. btw IAEA and NISA had a fall out. Did you read that?

I am quite sure ball park figure in mSV can be dished out by our resident Silencers here.You are yet to tell us how many mSv one would get if exposed to 3.84 mSv/hr for 11 days as detected outside the evacuation zone.. Figure fourth root of time ityadi ityadi and quoting wolfgang

Meanwhile no amount of jugglery and sniping can take away the seriousness of the issue at hand.. As you might have noticed that reviews are already on. I also agree with Sanku that no one has advocated eliminating NPP option. Just don't be blind. Think with open eyes. There are different sides to one issue. Your's is but one aspect.

[vina]

. Figure fourth root of time ityadi ityadi and quoting wolfgang..

Indeed..
"Our tests indicate that kids who drank Fukushima water fell ill just a 10th of the times the kids who drank normal water!"

"Fukushima water has 99.999% less germs, bacteria and viruses than the purest himalayan glacier waters!" .. Ref my earlier post for details.

There are different sides to one issue. Your's is but one aspect.

BRRRRRRRR..

[Theo_Fidel]

Vina,

You shouldn't call it Fukushima water. That is bad YumBeeYaa teaching.

Call it something like, 'Nipponese Vital Water', filled with the vitality of the planet. Concentrated to a fine glow for your benefit. From the still sterilized streams of Nippon.

[chaanakya]

Nuclear crisis man-made, not 'an act of god': experts

It's not uncommon for nuclear reactors to be located near the sea, where seawater can easily be used to cool the water that then cools the reactors.

In all there are 14 reactors at the four facilities along the Pacific coast, where the tsunami triggered by the March 11 quake killed thousands of people. All shut down automatically after the quake and their emergency diesel generators kicked in. But at the Fukushima No. 1 plant the subsequent tsunami knocked out all the power that was supposed to keep critical safety systems running to cool the reactors' fuel rods until external power could be restored.

In contrast, two of the three emergency diesel generators at the Tokai nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture withstood the tsunami thanks to 3.3-meter walls put up by operator Japan Atomic Power Co around the two seawater pumps. The pumps are critically important because they send water to cool the emergency generators, which in turn power the cooling systems for the reactors.

The walls were built specifically to defend against tsunami, while the one for the third pump had not been completed yet, spokesman Koji Otake said.

At the Fukushima No. 1 plant, the seawater pumps were exposed to the environment.

The seawater pumps at the Fukushima No. 2 plant are housed in buildings and therefore remained intact. Tepco was able to bring the reactors there under control once external power was restored.

Still, Otake of the Japan Atomic Power Co. admitted the three pumps might have been severely damaged if the tsunami had been as high as in Fukushima, where it is believed to have been at least 10 meters.

The Tokai plant is located 6.11 meters above sea level, which means the tops of the walls protecting the pumps are 9.41 meters above sea level.

The emergency diesel generators at the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture were not submerged because the plant is 14.8 meters above sea level, Tohoku Electric Power Co. spokesman Sota Notsu said, adding that the company took tsunami into account when building the plant.

The exact heights of the tsunami that hit the four nuclear plants aren't known.

While Irikura pointed to Tepco's unpreparedness at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, Takeda of Chubu University said the government, which promotes nuclear power as a clean source of energy to the world, is responsible for checking the safety of nuclear plants.

Quake guidelines for nuclear plants, revised by the Nuclear Safety Commission in September 2006, essentially order power companies to design plants without compromising safety in case of earthquakes "that can be expected no matter how rare."

In the only place in the guidelines where tsunami are mentioned — the last sentence of the 14-page document — it stipulates that plants must be designed "not to have their safety greatly compromised by tsunami, which can be expected no matter how rare."

[Lalmohan]

why to worry - almost all fruit and veg imports into the US and EU are gamma irradiated to kill bugs and shugs no?

[chaanakya]

. Figure fourth root of time ityadi ityadi and quoting wolfgang..

Indeed..
"Our tests indicate that kids who drank Fukushima water fell ill just a 10th of the times the kids who drank normal water!"

"Fukushima water has 99.999% less germs, bacteria and viruses than the purest himalayan glacier waters!" .. Ref my earlier post for details.

There are different sides to one issue. Your's is but one aspect.

BRRRRRRRR..

Well Vina, you are not far off the mark with all your yumbeeyai gyan

Here is what Time Magazine reported

Eben MacBurney Byers, 51, popular Pittsburgh sportsman and ironmaster, fell out of an upper berth five years ago returning from a Yale-Harvard football game. He hurt his arm. His Pittsburgh physiotherapist, Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar, prescribed a patented drink called ''Radithor." It was distilled water containing traces of radium and mesothorium (another radioactive substance). The dope eased the arm pain, braced Byers up. He enthusiastically recommended it to friends, sent them cases of it, even gave some to one of his horses. .......................

Do read rest of it.

And some more banana products

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/of ... -used/1388

[Amber G.]

Can a little math help? some?
Here is a headline:

7.5 mil. times legal limit of iodine in sea
>>>The operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says 7.5 million times the legal limit of radioactive iodine 131 has been detected from samples of seawater near the plant.
>>>
With background that radioactive water discharged to sea, this looks serious.
Specially if the Iodine is found in sea, and if indeed 7.5 million times legal limit. The quotes inside the story looks even more ominous.>>>... 11:50 AM Saturday contained 300,000 becquerels of iodine 131 per cubic centimeter <<<
Now this, 300,000 bq/cm^3 is same as 300,000,000 bq/l a very high amount and this is in the SEA...
(Will fish even survive in that high radioactive water? ).. if you even ate a 100 gram of the this sushi .. you will glow ityadi...)

This is stranger, since, IAEA site, mentions:
>>>...highest concentrations were detected at the sampling point closest to the coast in the south with about 38 Bq/l ...
>>>>
Now both can't be true? 38 Bq/l or 300,000,000 bq/l ? Can it?

Since Chaanakya already posted the above story, I will let him take a stab at it. See if he can tell us who is right, who is wrong...what could be the reason for this discrepency....I will post what I think later after he gets his chance.

I will also like to see his estimate, how many mSV dose, one will get, if one eats 100 gm fish from 300,000,000 bq/l place?

Well since you con't seem to avoid mentioning me here is the link to the tepco report

<Outright insults and diatribe is snipped>

**** Quote ends ***

Chaanakya's name was mentioned, because he was the first to put that story here, so I wanted to give him credit.

Of course, it did not stop him to throw more insults at me.

I did not expect anything less than that from him, after all he has shown himself (proven beyond any reasonable doubt) to be so scientifically-challenged that he will plug numbers in Q=mct to get internal energy, in-spite of people gently try to teach him the most basic math. His responses endless insults eg "so called 30 year teaching experience", "banana expert"

Yes, as they say

लोचानाभ्यम विहीनस्य , दर्पणं किम करिसियती

So if he wants to live in darkness, all the time cursing me, so be it.

For others:
My question was:

what could be the reason for this discrepancy

This is, how come, both values (Both seemingly from the same source) be consistent?


As in: (let me repost the critical part of the message again (please see whole in previous posts and links)

Specially if the Iodine is found in sea, and if indeed 7.5 million times legal limit. The quotes inside the story looks even more ominous.

... 11:50 AM Saturday contained 300,000 becquerels of iodine 131 per cubic centimeter

Now this, 300,000 bq/cm^3 is same as 300,000,000 bq/l a very high amount and this is in the SEA...
(Will fish even survive in that high radioactive water? ).. if you even ate a 100 gram of the this sushi .. you will glow ityadi...)

This is stranger, since, IAEA site, mentions:

...highest concentrations were detected at the sampling point closest to the coast in the south with about 38 Bq/l ...

Now both can't be true? 38 Bq/l or 300,000,000 bq/l ? Can it?

From what can I see Chaanakya has no clue (I gave Chaanakya to take the first stab), other than throwing insults at me. Aare baba I wasn't questioning the link(s) and sources. (I actually gave the links in the message).. just trying to see if people can think and figure out how do you resolve that discrepancy. (Hint: Neither of the values, is outright lie.)


As to

I will also like to see his estimate, how many mSV dose, one will get, if one eats 100 gm fish from 300,000,000 bq/l place

Will like to see people's estimate. ( Hint: plugging values in q=mct, and cursing me will not be helpful)

Finally the gem:

..You are yet to tell us how many mSv one would get if exposed to 3.84 mSv/hr for 11 days as detected outside the evacuation zone...

Huh? Really? Who are "us"? No I have also not told what is 8 times 9 to sooosidebumer..? I have "no need" to teach multiplication or similar higher math to mathematically-challenged-insult-spewing person who has proved beyond a shadow of doubt his understanding in posts after posts). I am sure anyone, except you of course, can figure out the math. (Hint: Just don't plug in q=mct, and then throw insults at me)

If you want me to answer a serious question for you, at least put it in sensible and respectful way. (You, sir, up till now, has not asked any sensible question and has shown no class except to throw cheap insults at me )

peace.

(

[Amber G.]

why to worry - almost all fruit and veg imports into the US and EU are gamma irradiated to kill bugs and shugs no?

Yes. Also, if you do get Thyroid cancer from that I-131, guess what is the treatment ?

Heavy dose of I-131 laced NaI to kill the cancer.
(see for example: http://www.medicinenet.com/sodium_iodide_i_131/article.

Things you learn from brf..Now let us see how these EB's go wild.

[chaanakya]

Huh? Really? Who are "us"? No I have also not told what is 8 times 9 to sooosidebumer..? I have "no need" to teach multiplication or similar higher math to mathematically-challenged-insult-spewing person who has proved beyond a shadow of doubt his understanding in posts after posts). I am sure anyone, except you of course, can figure out the math. (Hint: Just don't plug in q=mct, and then throw insults at me)

If you want me to answer a serious question for you, at least put it in sensible and respectful way. (You, sir, up till now, has not asked any sensible question and has shown no class except to throw cheap insults at me )

peace.

(

Getting upset Amber, don't be so. Nuclear accident is not a quiz game which experts can play with. The way you like to throw Insults at others shows your class , not mine. I had no desire to interact with you anyway. But you seem to be unable to do that.

[Amber G.]

can the radioactive waste water be put back into the spent fuel tanks?

Lalmohan - Normally water circulates and is cooled by heat-exchangers. Eventually it will get treated (many years process) .. getting rid of any possible nasty stuff like Cs (which gets final resting place in Yucca type facility).

Here, pumps did not work, nuclear core was cooled by directly pumping sea-water and let it steam away. Spent fuel tanks have more radioactivity (because of fire, hot fuel rods etc) and they ran out of water storage. (Remember thousands of tons of water was sprayed by fire-trucks etc). They let the low-activity water out to keep the more radioactive water (which will eventually get treated etc).

[Amber G.]

. I had no desire to interact with you anyway.

Brilliant idea. But didn't you have already said that before?

Sorry, I tried to answer some of your questions. Guess I was wrong in assuming that you had some decency.
(I also assumed you did understand the difference between internal energy, thermal capacity, or between rate and accumulation, but as you have shown clearly, I was wrong)

[Bade]

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot.

"It takes about three generations for people to forget. Those that experience the disaster themselves pass it to their children and their grandchildren, but then the memory fades," he said.

[Bade]

Japan quake moved Pacific ocean floor 24 metres: Coastguard

Sensors found that one part of the ocean floor had been stretched to a point 24 metres east-southeast of its position before the 9.0 undersea quake, which triggered a massive tsunami that engulfed large areas of Japan's northeast coast.

[Amber G.]

. The purest natural water anywhere. Has 99.999% less harmful germs, bacteria and viruses "

Vinaji I think you highly underestimate those MBA Types... The idea is of course not new:

Here you see:


Seriously, "radium" part may be a little hype (radium being very expensive) ..Such jars were lined with Uranium or Polonium.... (There were even radium-spas)

Just like some, (even here in brf) are ignorant about about radiation in one direction, other "experts" , not unlike some neem-hakims we still see now, believed radioactivity had a curative nature. Things are out lawed in US now but one has to be very careful because these things still pop-up at antique dealers. .(Not unlike that New Delhi episode). ... And some are still very highly radioactive..unlike I-131 found at Tokyo water.

Sad part is there is so much ignorance here...and people would rather curse professors, rather than learning some science and math.

Also:

(Radium Chocolate manufactured by Burk & Braun was sold in Germany from 1931 to 1936, advertised for its powers of rejuvenation)

Or:

[Bade]

Canada is already on the job

"Health Canada will continue to work closely with Canadian and international partners including the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to monitor the situation related to the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan, as it evolves," he added. "As a precautionary measure, Health Canada is activating an additional nine monitoring stations on Canada's West Coast to bolster its existing network of monitoring stations."

Average speed of ocean currents is in the 1m/s range, the larger ones like the Kurushio can cover 40-120km/day. So it will take a few hundred days to reach in faraway shores. So a lot of the short lived isotopes should have decayed by then, not mention further diluted during the process of transport itself. It is doubtful the levels measured will be higher than what was measured by air-borne transport, which is much faster and hence even less diluted perhaps as it covers large distances.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/Eug ... ikov.shtml
http://www.irbs.com/bowditch/pdf/chapt32.pdf (for a quick ocean currents primer)

[Amber G.]

Ironically, since homeopathic dilutions are pure water, this could have been safe.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quac ... opath2.jpg

[Mort Walker]

Nuclear accident is not a quiz game which experts can play with. The way you like to throw Insults at others shows your class , not mine. I had no desire to interact with you anyway. But you seem to be unable to do that.

The purpose of this this thread is to do an analysis on the news and what is going on. Chaanyaka, Sanku and Theo are losing perspective in to what is actually happening and won't bother trying to understand physical fact or wrong/false reporting. It needs to be put in to perspective and it appears that has become lost in the rants about nuclear power. All of us deal with radiation EVERY day by that big bright star in the sky which warms us up, but too much sun is bad too.

[Amber G.]

Thank you, Mort.

My point was to see, if people are reading, really reading the reports and can see the "cleverness" or the reporting.

Although the headline carried the word "at sea", if you read the report, it says something like "...water taken near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor.. "

Other value was actually of a sample taken out of sea...

No one was lying, but first report should have mentioned that the reading is not from the sea water in the sea.

One could further check with simple calculation how much mSv/hr that water will radiate.. (I actually asked that question).. and one will see that that high value was actually reported.

That's why for many it made sense to let the low radioactive water go in the sea, so to make room for and pay attention to real high radioactive water.

Hth.

[Mort Walker]

^^^I think all the reports should normalize absorbed radiation for Banana Equivalent Dose (BED).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

[Amber G.]

Mort, brf may be the first (or one of the first) to use bed in reaction to Fukushima, it is quite popular of course, and it does give non-experts some perspective. Google cache for this term in the news produces 100's of hits.

Of course, math-challenged-clueless EB's are still cursing and throwing insults at 'banana experts'; not knowing that it is just a unit. At least one is still pondering what "kind" of banana?
(Even after someone has given the analogy that there there is no relation between grass and 'horse-power')
Even on this page alone this person is fixated with banana (used the term multiple times to throw insults).

But hey, as said before: "लोचानाभ्यम विहीनस्य , दर्पणं किम करिसियती"

[abhishek_sharma]

Water leak stops at Fukushima, but big problems remain - April 06, 2011

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbe ... but_b.html

A bit of good news from Fukushima Daiichi this morning: the extremely radioactive water that was spilling into the sea appears to have stopped flowing. But the situation at the plant remains grim, and could get far worse, according to a new assessment published in the New York Times.

First, the good news: For several days, extremely radioactive water has been flowing from the unit 2 reactor into the sea. The levels of activity have been staggering high, and have already begun affecting marine life in the area. Earlier today, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that it had successfully injected some 5,000 litres of "coagulant" into the pool. I'm not sure what this coagulant is, but it's been reported as some sort of hardening agent other than concrete.

That doesn't mean there aren't other leaks. In a press conference this afternoon, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that there could be other leaks from unit 2 or the other nearby reactors. TEPCO says it is investigating the possibility further. Meanwhile, the company is dumping tonnes of low-level waste water into the ocean in order to make room in storage vessels for high-level waste that must be cleared from the reactor buildings and the adjacent turbine halls, which have become radioactive cesspits. The decision to dump has angered locals and other nations like South Korea, who feel that they were not adequately consulted. Edano apologized and promised a more open discussion in the future.

The bad news is that new evidence suggests the situation inside the reactors themselves could be far more grim than what the Japanese have so far let on. The New York Times article this morning cites a confidential US Nuclear Regulatory Commission assessment that the reactors are really in terrible shape. It suggests that the fuel inside the cores is so melted down that cooling water has not been able to adequately circulate. The continued leaking of highly-radioactive water is also complicating the situation and raises questions about how long the current emergency cooling can continue. Adding to the problems is the revelation that old fuel from the spent fuel pools in units 1-3 may have spread as far as a mile after hydrogen explosions rocked the reactors. Buldozers were apparently used to at least temporarily cover hot fuel between two of the reactor buildings, but the discharge will make cleanup much more difficult.

The NRC remains extremely concerned about events that could further destabilize the reactors. For one thing, the extra mass of the water flooding the containment vessels could make them more vulnerable to an aftershock. Hydrogen build-up, caused by steam reacting with fuel rods, could also cause another catastrophic explosion. And apparently the threat of the reactors accidentally restarting remains real, as we discussed in our piece from yesterday.

To mitigate these dangers the NRC has made some recommendations, such as purging the containment vessels using unreactive nitrogen gas, and pouring more boric acid onto the reactor cores to stop a further meltdown. TEPCO's latest statement on the reactors suggests that it is considering nitrogen injection.

US radiation study sparks debate

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110406/ ... 2015a.html

Japan's ongoing nuclear emergency has intensified discussion on a simmering issue: the potential cancer risk from living near a reactor that is operating normally.

Last year, long before the crisis in Japan, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to examine this cancer question, prompted in part by long-standing public unease. The NAS is now consulting with experts about how to design a study, with the next public meetings on the effort scheduled for 18–19 April in Chicago, Illinois. Already, however, some researchers have questioned the study's feasibility and expressed doubt over whether it will produce meaningful results.

According to the NRC, less than 1% of a person's total annual background-radiation exposure comes from living near nuclear power plants. Much more comes from natural sources in the earth and air, and from some medical exams. Even so, "there are recurrent concerns among the public about increased cancer risks", says Terry Brock, the NRC's project manager for the Analysis of Cancer Risk in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities study. "We want the most current and most scientifically valid information to respond."

The last US-wide study, which found no evidence of a problem, was published by the National Cancer Institute in 1990. Now the NRC aims to update this effort by taking advantage of two decades of improvements in data and technology. For example, whereas the 1990 study considered only cancer deaths, better record-keeping means that researchers can now look for suspect patterns in cancer diagnoses. The previous study also lumped people by county, regardless of their actual distance from a nuclear plant. Global positioning systems, which can pinpoint where people live in relation to a reactor, should now help provide more meaningful results. A further step would be including estimates of radiation doses and looking for correlations with cancer incidence.

But Edward Maher, president of the US-based Health Physics Society, says that even if the study takes all of those factors into account, its statistical power will be too low.

“They may make the public feel better, but they're not going to see very low-dose effects.”
"We feel that those studies don't have a lot of value," says Maher. "They may make the public feel better, but they're not going to see very low-dose effects." The money would be better spent on more laboratory research, he adds, where confounding factors such as the presence of other carcinogens can be effectively controlled.

Other experts say that the NAS should build on and improve a 2008 German study (C. Spix et al. Eur. J. Cancer 44, 275–284; 2008), which found a roughly 1.5-fold increase in cancers in children younger than 5 living within 5 kilometres of nuclear power plants. The authors concluded that plant emissions were too low to explain the effect, and similar studies done later in France and Britain failed to show any cancer increase, but some researchers have challenged their interpretation of the data.

Nevertheless, Steve Wing, an epidemiologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that if there is an effect, it will be easiest to see in children and fetuses. Their rapidly dividing cells make them more sensitive to radiation than adults, and they haven't been exposed to as many possible carcinogens. Wing and his colleagues wrote an article on how best to design the NAS study in the 1 April issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (S. Wing et al. Environ. Health Perspect. doi:10.1289/ehp.1002853; 2011). Among other things, they emphasize the need to obtain radiation-dose estimates for the populations under study.

In the upcoming April meetings, the NAS committee will discuss nuclear power plant emission monitoring and hear study design suggestions. After a series of additional meetings, the committee aims to complete recommendations by the end of 2011, after which they will be posted online for public comment. If the committee decides to move forward with the study, another committee will be appointed next year to carry it out.

Some experts think that there is no effect for the study to find. Antone Brooks, a radiation toxicologist at Washington State University Tri-cities in Richland, says that DNA repair mechanisms and selective suicide of damaged cells are adequate to handle DNA damage below a certain dose threshold.

"We've lived in a sea of radiation throughout evolution," says Brooks. "The body knows how to handle low doses."

Others believe that the risk never vanishes. DNA repair mechanisms don't work perfectly 100% of the time, and even small amounts of radiation confer some risk, says Bill Morgan, the director of radiation biology and biophysics at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. "It's a tremendous debate," he says.

Some will argue that if no effect is found, there isn't a problem, says David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York. "But the fact that you can't measure a risk in an epidemiological study doesn't mean that the risk isn't there."

[abhishek_sharma]

Fukushima update: Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb experts outline health research needs after Fukushima - April 05, 2011

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbe ... a_and.html

The Radiation Effects Research Foundation was created as a joint US-Japan research centre in 1975 with campuses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to study the effects of radiation among the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb blasts. Roy Shore, its chief of research, and Kotaro Ozasa, chief of its epidemiology department, replied by email to my questions about the potential health effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and what research might be needed to monitor these effects.

What sort of health studies could or should be done in Japan to follow any health effects of the radiation release from Fukushima, and to obtain information both of scientific value, and of importance to radiation protection? I'm thinking in terms of such studies as those laid out in the EU Agenda for Research on Chernobyl Health (ARCH) project, although the levels of radiation, and the size of the affected areas following the Fukushima accident, are of course very different.

A follow-up of the workers at the Fukushima plant is the most important in terms of its scientific and radiation-protection value, since they sustained exposure levels far greater than the general population. A second important thing is to assemble a database of harmonized information on exposure levels in different areas within the fallout area. Based on that, one can rationalize which areas may merit population studies with follow-up of individuals or other study designs. Although one cannot prejudge, it is possible that a follow up of the general population in those areas may yield limited information of scientific value owing to the generally low exposure levels, but may nevertheless be very important to provide assurance of safety and to ameliorate public health concerns. With regard to the ARCH plans, parallels to those studies might be considered several years from now, but it is too early for specific planning about most such studies (e.g., most cancers resulting from radiation arise 10 or more years after exposure).

Are studies already been planned/done?

A study of nuclear power workers has been ongoing for some years, conducted by the REA [Radiation Effects Association], including the workers at Fukushima, so their current work experience & doses will be added to that continuing study. A consortium of radiation research organizations/groups is in the initial stages of planning potential studies of the population. It is too early in the planning stage to identify what direct international scientific involvement may be needed, but it is expected that international agencies such as the IAEA, UNSCEAR and WHO will be kept fully informed and play important roles.

Which data and samples need to be taken immediately to support such studies? How important is it to collect data quickly? Is this happening?

The pollution of air, water, etc by radioactive substances in relevant sites is being recorded and would be utilized for the studies. The challenge will be to compile and evaluate the data on levels of radioactivity that are being gathered by various agencies over the range of areas involved. A high degree of cooperation among agencies and organizations will be required for this, as to our knowledge the data are scattered and uncoordinated. Behaviors of the people who were exposed to the pollution may need to be recorded to evaluate how much they were exposed to the radiation externally and internally. That would entail a widely administered questionnaire to persons in the regions to identify their whereabouts, time spent outdoors, food and water sources, etc. Obviously, it is important to obtain those data sooner rather than later, but at this point, coping with the huge effects of the earthquake and tsunami has to take precedence.

What are the radiation monitoring data needs for both radiation protection in the current situation, and for longer-term research. What aspects of current radiation monitoring need to be improved?

Since it is impossible to have measurements of external doses (i.e., vs. internally deposited radionuclides) for all individuals in a general population, it is valuable to have in place a dense set of radiation monitoring sites so as to be able to estimate exposure levels to a reasonable approximation and perhaps to have follow-up measurements of levels of cesium-137 or other radionuclides in soil samples from a systematic set of locations. Variations in exposure levels in areas between monitoring sites, variation in individual behaviors that may alter exposure levels, and inaccuracies in recall of those behaviors will all be limiting factors in the precision of individual exposure estimates.

How can such research, and research needs, be informed by experiences gained from research in both the Chernobyl accident, and other studies on the effects of low-level radiation.

The experiences of Chernobyl and others have been useful for considering countermeasures to this accident and anticipated studies. All the nuclear accidents have highlighted how important it is to develop exposure information as quickly and thoroughly (e.g., individualized) as possible, or else crude or absent exposure information may be the "Achilles heel" of the epidemiologic research activities. It is also highly desirable to have individual information on lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking), since those factors may alter health risks as much or more than the relatively low levels of radiation exposure, and such variations might create biases in the radiation risk estimates.

For full coverage of the Fukushima disaster, go to Nature's news special.

Fukushima update: Data, data, everywhere ... - April 05, 2011

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbe ... a_eve.html

Academic researchers worldwide, including veterans of research on the Chernobyl accident, are poring over releases of data on population exposure rates to radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But they are finding that making any sense of the data is proving very difficult.

One problem is that data are strewn across many individual web pages on several websites, for example, those of Japan's science ministry, here and here, the health ministry, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency,and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, the data are often in different units, with few descriptive details of, for example, sampling techniques used.

The Japanese government does appear to be making efforts to be open about data, though. Summary maps (provided by the US Department of Energy) of aerial radiation monitoring have also been extremely useful, researchers say, though no geographical information system data of the maps is available from the website.

"The problem is that it is very difficult to get a real picture of the exposure of the population," says Elisabeth Cardis, a radiation epidemiologist at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, Spain, "I've been poring through many reports from many different bodies, and the information is very confusing." Measures for the same zone sometimes differ greatly between reports, and it's not made clear how measurements were made, she says. There's a need for a critical review of all the available data, she says.

With Japan preoccupied with efforts to deal with the huge aftermaths of the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, and now having a nuclear disaster on its hands, researchers are loathe to criticize the accessibility of the data to outside academic researchers. "I don't think we can be too critical about demanding data" under the circumstances, says Richard Wakeford, an epidemiologist at the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. Far more data are available to academics outside the country than in the days immediately following the earthquake on 11 March, he adds. Most importantly, the people who need it most -- the Japanese and other radiation protection officials on the front line -- will likely be getting much fuller data (much in Japanese) than is contained in the English summaries being posted on websites, he says. But he agrees that "it's not easy to find your way around the data".

Scientists say that what is also frustrating is that much of the data are being published in 1990's-style static pdfs -- whereas we are now in an Internet-era of web services and machine-readable data -- making the computation of data from the hundreds of pdf files -- next to impossible without huge manual efforts to extract the numbers. Providing even simple spreadsheets, or csv files, would make analysis of the multiple releases of data much easier to compute and provide a fuller picture of all the data, they say. Metadata, such as the latitude and longitude of the sites sampled, is also lacking or absent. ""There is all this data being produced, but you can do nothing with it, you can't get any meaning out of it," says Keith Baverstock, a radiobiologist at the University of Eastern Finland's Kuopio Campus. What's needed, he says, is for an independent group to "harmonize and process the data, and put out as quickly as possible an evidence-based risk assessment to the public and government."

Researchers say that they largely trust the Japanese government data, but are more sceptical of that produced by TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant. TEPCO has also been criticized for reporting erroneous data during the current crisis - see here. TEPCO should do more to provide accurate data more openly and in a more timely fashion, says Shunichi Yamashita, head of the Atomic Bomb Disease Institute at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University. He adds that he would like to see the government send its own teams to the Fukushima plant to get independent data on the reactor status, and environmental and health impacts at the site.

For full coverage of the Fukushima disaster, go to Nature's news special.

Primer: Will Radiation Lay Waste to Japan's Fish?

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsid ... waste.html

Although radioactive leaks in the Fukushima plant are now plugged, Japan's coastal waters have taken a beating. Authorities dumped some of the waste seawater used to cool the reactors back into the sea, where it joined contaminated water leaking from cracks in the plant and nuclear fallout from the air. Almost as soon as the reactor broke, contamination of Japanese food exports became a concern. Now the Japanese are screening all fish products, some of which do indeed have high levels of radioactivity, and health officials there have set a radiation safety limit on seafood consumption. It's unclear whether the contaminated fish were caught in or out of the 20-kilometer no-go zone around Fukushima, where radiation in the water is 3555 times the legal limit.

Still, analysts don't believe that any of the fish have high enough levels of radioactivity to harm human health. For instance, because it takes only 8 days for the radioactive isotope iodine-131 to decay away to half its original level of radioactivity, simply waiting should be a fix. Cesium-137, however, can accumulate in muscles and is a bigger concern with a half-life of 30 years; scientists plan to track it more carefully.

In the meantime, some marine ecologists are curious about how these levels of radiation could be harming marine life itself, but most aren't terribly worried; the vastness of the ocean dilutes radiation quickly.

Additionally, crustaceans and insects that live in the ocean are extremely hardy and resistant to radiation, according to marine radioecologist Bruno Fievet of IRSN, the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. The level of radiation necessary to kill marine species—or even damage them—is orders of magnitude higher than the level that would harm a human, says Fievet, who studies the effects of nuclear plants on developing shellfish larvae. When researchers bring samples of marine species into the lab to study whether radiation can cause mutations, they expose them to gamma rays, the same kind of radiation used to sterilize equipment and food. The level of radiation Fievet uses in his lab is many times higher than the radiation in the water around Fukushima.

But marine life in the coastal area, however, is being exposed to radiation through a more direct route. Rather than just external gamma rays, plants and animals are absorbing and ingesting particles of radioactive cesium and iodine, putting these isotopes directly into their tissues. With irradiation from the inside as well as out, it may take much less to cause genetic changes and impair growth and reproduction, even if it's still not enough to kill the species. But scientists just don't know what the effects will be, Fievet says, because handling these radionuclides is just too hard to do safely and efficiently in the lab.

Radioecologists at IRSN, in U.S. national labs, at the International Atomic Energy Agency, and at universities around the world are beginning to plan long-term studies-once the situation stabilizes-on how radiation moves through food chains and builds up in organisms: a process called bioaccumulation. If marine species take up these radioactive particles faster than they break them down, the radiation can concentrate and affect larger animals that eat them. Some species, such as brown seaweed are extremely efficient at bioaccumulation. Dominique Boust, another marine radioecologist at IRSN, says that the seaweed can store iodine-137 in its tissues at 100,000 times the concentration that it exists in the water. (In fact, planting brown seaweed off the coast of Fukushima has even been proposed as a way to clean up the water, although most scientists don't believe this is a good fix.) The best cleaner, Fievet says, is dilution in the massive Pacific Ocean.

[arnab]

The 'defects' are probably in terms of design. <>

Well I'm no designer but here is what the NEI (Nuclear energy institute) says in its white paper. What do you think of these?

* Coincident long-term loss of both on-site and off-site power for an extended period of time is a beyond-design-basis event for the primary containment on any operating nuclear power plant.

* The Mark I containment vessels appeared to have held pressure to well above the design pressure.

* The response of the reactor pressure vessel and reactor in general agree with severe accident management studies performed in the 1980s and early 1990s.

http://www.nei.org/filefolder/Report_-_ ... 2011_2.pdf

This is what GE says:

http://www.gereports.com/deconstructing ... ork-times/

The story contains errors and distorts the facts about the technology with misleading comparisons of the BWR design and that of the pressurized water reactor (PWR).

The story claims that the BWR design is a “simpler containment.” The language suggests that simpler means weaker, which is not the case. In fact, there are containment design requirement differences. A PWR operates at over 2,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Conversely, a BWR operates at about half that – around 1,000 psi

The Times also compares Three Mile Island and Fukushima, saying that the PWR reactor at Three Mile Island withstood a hydrogen blast. In fact, the hydrogen blast at Three Mile Island occurred within the primary containment. The hydrogen blast at Fukushima occurred in the reactor building – which is the secondary and not the primary containment. The indirect comparison between the blast at Three Mile Island and the blast at Fukushima is misleading.

Also:

http://www.gereports.com/the-mark-i-con ... -reactors/

The modifications made to Mark I containments include:

•“Quenchers” were installed to distribute the steam bubbles in order to produce rapid condensation and to reduce loads on the unit. In a reactor, exhaust steam is piped into a suppression chamber, which is known as the torus and is a large, rounded suppression pool that sits next to the reactor core. It is used to remove heat when large quantities of steam are released from the reactor. In the torus, the steam bubbles go under water. With the modification to the Mark I, the quenchers, which are also underwater, make steam bubbles smaller by breaking up the larger bubbles. This in turn reduces pressure.


•Another modification is the installation of deflectors inside the torus. When that steam goes in, the water level rises. The deflectors that were added break up the pressure wave that is produced and help relieve pressure on the torus.


•A further modification was made to the “saddles” on which the torus sits — basically the series of leg-like structures that support it. The construction was fortified, as was the steel, to accommodate the loads that are generated.

[Theo_Fidel]

Arnab,

No one has questioned the workmanship or the physical ability of the containment structure. Neither have I. Though there are 'features' that could have been added or better thought through.

As far the loss of power, they did not technically lose on-site power. The batteries worked. But when the generator failed there wasn't enough charge to safely stabilize the system down. This smells of 'value engineering' to me. Battery technology has advanced enough that even a 100 hour+ output should be relatively inexpensive. We are talking in the millions of dollars range.

Meanwhile Japan continues to wait on the Tokai earthquake a massive 8.0+ on the South West. And attention has now moved south to a region off Tokyo as possibly under strain.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/201 ... 0000c.html

Analysis by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) suggests the focus of the Jogan quake that struck in 869 is situated in a 200-kilometer-long, 100-kilometer-wide area off the coast of a line between Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture, and that the temblor registered magnitude 8.4.

Furumura pointed to the possibility that the March 11 quake could trigger a major inland earthquake. An inland earthquake struck in Aichi Prefecture in 1945 -- between the previous Tonankai earthquake in 1944 and Nankai quake in 1946.

Back at Fukushima, the costs continue to mount... ..Why are we building Nuclear again, because its cheap?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 1011.story

Now, that improvised solution to one nuclear nightmare is spawning another: what to do with the millions of gallons of water that has become highly radioactive as it washes through the plant.

The water being used to try to cool the reactors and the dangerous spent fuel rods is leaking through fissures inside the plant, seeping down through tunnels and passageways to the lowest levels, where it is accumulating into a sea of lethal waste.

The Department of Energy is decommissioning eight reactors at Hanford and plans to process about 58 million gallons of radioactive sludge now in leaky underground tanks, all at an estimated cost of $100 billion to $130 billion, according to outside estimates. But unlike Fukushima Daiichi, none of the Hanford reactors melted down and virtually all of the site is accessible to workers without risking exposure to dangerous levels of radioactivity.

Even with a pond, it could take up to 10 years before the radioactivity would decay enough for the material to be handled, Morse said. Building a storage pond "buys you time," he said.

But other experts sharply disagree, saying exposing the material to open air could allow radioactive iodine and other volatile substances to blow off the site, adding to the remote contamination that is already spreading dozens of miles from the plant.

At some point, however, Japan will have to add facilities to existing treatment plants in order to vitrify the radioactive material into glass logs or other dry forms that could be stored in alloy canisters. Those logs or canisters would have to be buried somewhere.

Where that burial ground is built is a question that the Japanese are only beginning to consider.

We still have a chance to turn away from this Raksha, (no offence to raksha's everywhere) if we proceed we should charge and set aside these sorts of sums for the decommission and potential accident scenario's. Preferably in a safe escrow account.

[abhishek_sharma]

A long shadow over Fukushima: One impact of Japan's nuclear crisis is a dim but definite echo of Chernobyl, says Jim Smith — decades of caesium-137

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110405/ ... 2007a.html

Three weeks after the Fukushima accident, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge of possible long-term environmental consequences. The US Department of Energy (DOE) aerial survey of radiation doses was a crucial development. A clear trace reaching out 30–40 kilometres northwest of the plant marked a zone of dose rate above 125 microsieverts per hour, a level at which immediate evacuation is often advised. Already, external doses are rapidly declining as a result of the decay of short-lived isotopes. But, as with the 1986 Chernobyl accident, it is caesium-137, with a half-life of 30.2 years, that will determine the long-term impact on the contaminated region and its residents.

The extent of caesium-137 contamination at Fukushima is not yet clear, but available data indicate very high levels in some areas. The 30 March press release from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports caesium-137 deposition ranging from 0.02 to 3.7 megabecquerels per square metre (MBq m–2) at sites 25–58 kilometres from the Fukushima plant. The higher values are consistent with Japanese soil data from Iitate village, 40 kilometres northwest of the plant. Perhaps surprisingly, there is still no clear information on caesium-137 contamination within 20 kilometres of the plant (the distance of the evacuation zone), although the DOE map implies that this could be of the order of megabecquerels per square metre if the isotopic composition of deposits near the plant is similar to that in the area farther to the northwest.

The implications of these data are far-reaching. If large areas are contaminated with 0.5 MBq m–2 or more, evacuation could be for the long term. After Chernobyl, long-term evacuation usually occurred in areas with radioactivity above 0.55 MBq m–2, although some believe that this limit could have been safely set much higher. Contamination of the food chain will depend on soil type: soils rich in clay bind radiocaesium strongly: bioavailability in organic upland and forest soils is generally significantly higher than in mineral soils. On the basis of the Fukushima data seen so far, it seems likely that in some areas, food restrictions could hold for decades (J. T. Smith et al. Nature 405, 141; 2000), particularly for wild foodstuffs such as mushrooms, berries and freshwater fish.

'Liquidators' could be brought in to decontaminate towns and villages in evacuated zones and reclaim farmland, although this approach met with varying success at Chernobyl. The UK Health Protection Agency's Recovery Handbook for Radiation Incidents details a range of measures for residential areas, including removal of top soil and resurfacing of roads. On farms, approaches to remediation include applying potassium fertilizers to crops to compete with radiocaesium uptake, and giving 'Prussian blue' boluses to grazing animals to reduce radio­caesium absorption.

Remediation has some drawbacks: huge economic cost, for example, and potentially massive quantities of contaminated waste. Consumers may refuse products grown in contaminated areas even when they meet regulations. Chernobyl has taught us that the social and psychological responses to radiation are of great, perhaps paramount, importance.

'Headline' estimates of Chernobyl's public-health impact are dramatic: one 2006 estimate led by the International Agency for Research on Cancer foresaw 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 other cancers resulting from the radiation, among "several hundred million cancer cases from other causes". But risks to the individual are low. As early as 1991, an IAEA study found psychological effects to be "wholly disproportionate to the biological significance of the radiation". This study placed a high priority on providing accurate information about radiation health risks to affected populations. But 15 years later, the UN Chernobyl Forum Report still concluded that Chernobyl's impact on mental health is "the largest public-health problem caused by the accident to date". Misperceptions, and inefficient compensation, have led to widespread fatalism and feelings of victimization among locals. Resulting rises in alcohol consumption and smoking may well have done more damage than radiation exposure (see Nature 471, 562–565; 2011). The failure to solve social and psychological problems relates not only to a lack of effort (at Chernobyl, vastly more has been spent on physical remediation than on public engagement), but also to the intractability of the problem.

The long-term response to Fukushima will have to be pragmatic. The Japanese authorities may have to rewrite the rule-book, as they have begun to do in allowing doses of 250 mSv for radiation workers. After an accident, it may be appropriate to set exposure limits for members of the public higher than the typical 1 mSv per year maximum. A limit of 5–10 mSv per year (perhaps with voluntary resettlement at doses above 1 mSv per year) may be appropriate, bearing in mind that millions of people in areas of high natural radioactivity worldwide are exposed to more than 10 mSv per year, and that occupational exposures (for example, to long-haul air crews) can be around 5 mSv per year.

A turning point in my understanding of Chernobyl's impacts came while studying lakes in Belarus during the mid-1990s. In an evacuated area, lake fish contained tens of thousands of becquerels per kilogram. A couple in their early seventies lived near the lake, eating the fish and growing vegetables. They were living off contaminated land, but leading the life they had chosen to lead. This wouldn't by any means be the right choice for everybody, but I am convinced they had made the right decision for them: they were Chernobyl survivors, not victims.

Jim Smith is co-editor and lead author of Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences (Springer, 2005). He is currently reader in environmental physics at the University of Portsmouth, UK. e-mail: [email protected]

[arnab]

We still have a chance to turn away from this Raksha, (no offence to raksha's everywhere) if we proceed we should charge and set aside these sorts of sums for the decommission and potential accident scenario's. Preferably in a safe escrow account.

Turn away to where? coal, fossil fuel? Less of these? How much less? On a per capita basis India has a very low carbon foot print but on an aggreegate basis it is the 4th largest polluter in the planet. So can we with a fair conscience deny power to the villages / schools and hospitals that are still needed to be built to help them benefit from the comforts of life we take for granted?

[GuruPrabhu]

Turn away to where? coal, fossil fuel?

I had the right answer and got sneered at: cowdung patties!

base load shase load, it is a sustainable technology even if not good in terms of carbon footprint.

[Sanku]

Well Mort, I dont know how posts; devoid of any intelligent content whose only desperate measure is to continuously mock at other posters to see if one of them takes the bait and reduces the thread to their level of personal mudslinging and inanity and childlike behavior (including standards of Maths) in place of real news; provide perspective?

So back to scheduled programing after the rants....

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_05.html

The commission now says an evacuation advisory should be issued to prevent residents from being exposed to a total of 20 millisieverts a year.
.............
Scientists say the limit allowed for an average person is 1 millisiervert a year. The Nuclear Safety Commission is suggesting revising the evacuation standard only for the current emergency

There are two main takeaways from this -- for evacuation.
1) The limit for individuals is being raised from 1mSv to 20mSv per year for the purposes of this incident
2) The zone is still being asked to be expanded to 30 Kms

Meaning? That 30 Km plus is already over 20mSv a year, and the regions further are probably only a little less than 20mSv a year.

So despite changing the rules because a large evacuation is not practical, people in so-called "safe areas" are already being exposed to radiation considered unsafe till Fukushima happened.

[Lalmohan]

the effects of fukushima are already spreading
almost all governments have started an 'energy review' and most are expected to introduce higher levels of safety requirements and restrictions or even moratoriums on nuclear plants - and earler decomissioning of older plants. uk yesterday said that new plants would go ahead, however i am sure that older plants may come under greater scrutiny. all this means - higher costs to the utilities and more switching to gas in the short term and further reliance on coal. to the mango person, this means higher electricity bills and no reduction in carbon footprint for some time.
caught between the devil and deep blue (slightly irradiated) sea

[amit]

the effects of fukushima are already spreading
almost all governments have started an 'energy review' and most are expected to introduce higher levels of safety requirements and restrictions or even moratoriums on nuclear plants - and earler decomissioning of older plants. uk yesterday said that new plants would go ahead, however i am sure that older plants may come under greater scrutiny. all this means - higher costs to the utilities and more switching to gas in the short term and further reliance on coal. to the mango person, this means higher electricity bills and no reduction in carbon footprint for some time.
caught between the devil and deep blue (slightly irradiated) sea

The bolded portion should be read with the 80 supplier year liability clause that India's Nuclear liability bill comes along with.

[Sanku]

the effects of fukushima are already spreading
almost all governments have started an 'energy review'

Pity it took a Fukushima to do what should have been done in normal course of time. Still the open question is, is enough being done.

[Lalmohan]

actually i should have said further 'nuclear review'
energy reviews have been underway for the past decade, and significant progress has been made in terms of understanding both the carbon footprint and the supply side technologies
one of the conclusions was indeed more dependence on nuclear power - certainly the UK and Germany went through the process of coming 'back to nuclear'. india and china have already set out their nuclear stalls
the current round of reviews is mostly political knee jerks to calm voters ahead of the next round of elections, rather than genuine safety reviews
however i hope that in amongst the noise, the latter is also allowed to happen

[somnath]

^^^The carbon footprint of various power sources has been extensively studied...And pretty much all of them point out towards nuclear having the lowest, by some distance...

I had posted this before in the India nuclear thread, again...

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn268.pdf

[brihaspati]

actually i should have said further 'nuclear review'
energy reviews have been underway for the past decade, and significant progress has been made in terms of understanding both the carbon footprint and the supply side technologies
one of the conclusions was indeed more dependence on nuclear power - certainly the UK and Germany went through the process of coming 'back to nuclear'. india and china have already set out their nuclear stalls
the current round of reviews is mostly political knee jerks to calm voters ahead of the next round of elections, rather than genuine safety reviews
however i hope that in amongst the noise, the latter is also allowed to happen

What is the latest state of the "carbon debate"? If nuke reviews are dependent on two aspects : the carbon footprint and supply side costs, then there are two issues perhaps on which some light could be shed?

If Carbon footprint is a serious issue, then have we finally confirmed that in spite of the supposed data-doctoring at climate modellers of a certain group of "experts", the risks are still substantial in spite of possible doctoring? In spite of the brilliant climate models, practical weather forecasts still depend on some semi-empirical models that do not try to predict more than 3-6 days at most. Since willingness to invest or hedge in a financial instrument that covers "risks" is taken in some quarters to be the sole qualifier of importance, as far as I know - no such direct offerings exist that cover for long term [decadal or multi-decadal level] "bad" climate and weather effects of current carbon consumption. So excess "carbon footprint" is not that risky then? [there is trade in carbon units but not direct trade in long terms climate risks of carbon consumption].

Even if the consequence of "excess carbon" use is "bad", why cannot we also consider it as a risk and price it in some financial market into which people can invest? After all nuclear risks seem to be trivially compensated for by such financial arguments? Everything is price-able isnt it? If then such a market shows that prices for carbon risk become much higher on that market compared to nuclear risk - all the more lead in the pencil of nukonergy! Should be trivial - to push up the carbon risk relative to nukonergy, since nukonergy consortium will have much higher capital muscle behind themselves.

[chaanakya]

The purpose of this this thread is to do an analysis on the news and what is going on. Chaanyaka, Sanku and Theo are losing perspective in to what is actually happening and won't bother trying to understand physical fact or wrong/false reporting. It needs to be put in to perspective and it appears that has become lost in the rants about nuclear power. All of us deal with radiation EVERY day by that big bright star in the sky which warms us up, but too much sun is bad too.

Talking of perspective Mort, some experts here remind me of a parable of blind experts and the Elephant in the room .

[chaanakya]

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110406005883.htm

MITO--Radiation leaks into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has put the Ibaraki Prefecture fishing industry in a life-or-death situation.

Fishery associations in the prefecture said Wednesday they would voluntarily stop fishing kounago (young sand launce) after radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram was detected the previous day in samples of the small eellike fish caught recently off the prefecture.

Most of the prefecture's boats that fish for other species also decided not to go out Wednesday because prices of all fishery products from the region plummeted after radioactive water was discharged into the sea from the plant, robbing them of any chance of making a profit.

The fishery association of Otsu Port in Kita-Ibaraki announced Tuesday it had detected 510 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, above the provisional limit, in launce caught off the port Monday.

The fishery association of Hirakata Port also in Kita-Ibaraki reported 4,080 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive iodine had been detected in launce caught Friday. But launce caught off Otsu Port, south of Hirakata port, tested at only 1,700 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive iodine.

Well here comes Fukushima Fish. Now we need yumbeeyai to market them in US.

[Mort Walker]

Well Mort, I dont know how posts; devoid of any intelligent content whose only desperate measure is to continuously mock at other posters to see if one of them takes the bait and reduces the thread to their level of personal mudslinging and inanity and childlike behavior (including standards of Maths) in place of real news; provide perspective?

So back to scheduled programing after the rants....

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_05.html

The commission now says an evacuation advisory should be issued to prevent residents from being exposed to a total of 20 millisieverts a year.
.............
Scientists say the limit allowed for an average person is 1 millisiervert a year. The Nuclear Safety Commission is suggesting revising the evacuation standard only for the current emergency

There are two main takeaways from this -- for evacuation.
1) The limit for individuals is being raised from 1mSv to 20mSv per year for the purposes of this incident
2) The zone is still being asked to be expanded to 30 Kms

Meaning? That 30 Km plus is already over 20mSv a year, and the regions further are probably only a little less than 20mSv a year.

So despite changing the rules because a large evacuation is not practical, people in so-called "safe areas" are already being exposed to radiation considered unsafe till Fukushima happened.

As you said, the link clearly stated that the raise in exposure to 20 mSv/year was done for this accident, and it was done for good reason. By moving people out, when other parts of the country are also devastated, you expose them to other nasty things like water borne diseases and infections from poor hygiene. It would be better to keep them in their homes and monitor the exposure levels. To put it in context, most of us are already exposed to >5 mSv/year from normal living activities (more so if you eat potassium rich foods), and the threshold of 1 mSv/year isn't very practical. But who am I to say? I'm not a scientist or academic, just a person who eats bananas, potatoes, goes up to high elevations and takes international flights.

Ok, lets take a step back and understand what radiation is. There is non-ionizong radiation and ionizing radiation. It would be good to read these links.

The next step is to understand what are the units for ionizing radiation? There are absorbed dose and decays. This chart was posted on BRF some time back and needs to be posted again.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/