BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 14 - 07:14 AM

6.3 earthquake:

http://www.kdramastars.com/articles/17464/20140313/japan-earthquake-news-update.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jun 14 - 07:31 PM

Renewed fission activity in reactor 2:

radioactive xenon detected

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Jun 14 - 08:32 PM

"2 November 2011 Last updated at 06:30?"

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jun 14 - 08:38 PM

Oops. The BBC has a sidebar of current stories, but one of their criteria of currentness is how many readers the story has. That occasionally produces glitches where old news looks like hot news, and it did that here.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Sep 14 - 05:44 PM

Butterflies near Fukushima being poisoned by radiation:

Summaries:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140923090244.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/bc-fab091814.php

Full article:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/14/193

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 06:17 AM

6,000 workers on cleaning-up op - going to take 40 yrs!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/13/fukushima-11bn-cleanup-will-take-another-40-years

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 06:50 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 05:45 PM

But... how do the oceans get cleaned up? Ahhh, therein lies the scrub.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 03:08 PM

http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/12/kyodo-news-censored-finnish-doctors-criticism-fukushima-report-unscear-unscear-dissolved/

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 05:54 PM

Anybody here read this?

Helen Caldicott: Crisis without End

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 07:51 AM

A big part of the problem lies in the failure to design safety systems which themselves fail safe. Parking waste fuel rods on top of the reactors may have kept the problems local in a country desperate for space, but not removing them to be reprocessed at frequent intervals was an act of avarice amounting to criminal stupidity, found out when the tsunami killed the power keeping the coolant cool.
If there's one subject crying out for proper scientific study, it's examining error propagation, focusing on how the apparent chaos contains seeds for disaster nexuses, the pivot points where a stable problem becomes a disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 09:31 AM

Yes, this certainly is an on-going case study of disaster.

It's interesting to reading the initial reactions to this disaster in this thread: some thought posters were over-reacting. Some changed their minds as the dimensions of this disaster became more apparent. Some will never change their minds.

I know my concept of what a nuclear power disaster was radically upgraded. I hadn't thought about tsunamis as a threat, and I hadn't thought about how a disaster could be compounded with more than one reactor on site. The assumptions of the Japanese planners, and their American advisors, proved totally inadequate for dealing with the reality of this disaster.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jim Martin
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 07:44 AM

Even more delays:

http://fukushimaupdate.com/

Still, better that & get it right (hopefully)!

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 15 Aug 15 - 11:15 AM

Oh great. The damn thing was just restarted after several years.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 13 Feb 16 - 07:22 AM

Some long-term biological effects of the Chernobyl accident:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160210110632.htm

How many people are going to go blind and never realize why?

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 03 Apr 16 - 04:51 PM

Containment ice wall on. http://phys.org/news/2016-03-ice-wall-fukushima.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Apr 16 - 09:34 PM

Thanks for the link, gnu. The technology of all this is fascinating. I have to say that I don't know what to think. Although I know that there are many dangers connected with it, I still want to believe that nuclear power can be safe and clean.
So, I dunno.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Apr 16 - 08:36 AM

"Ice wall"? Sure, why not ry that. Nothing else seems to work very well and they are running out of space for more leaking storage tanks for radioactive contaminated cooling water.

This entire continuing disaster is a prime case study in "If anything can go wrong, it will, and well beyond anything planners imagined."

If you can't remember how this disaster began and what people thought about it at the time, use the Mudcat Wayback Machine, and check out the initial posts on this thread.

I believe, some thought my initial posts were "alarmist." Re-reading them now, I'm thinking I was too circumspect.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 16 - 11:33 AM

I have been watching Fukushima A Nuclear Story on Al Jazeera.
It is by an Italian Investigational Journalist who has lived in Japan for 30 years.

No punches are pulled.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Apr 16 - 02:23 PM

I still want to believe ...

Sayeth Fox Mulder.

that nuclear power can be safe and clean.

And, perhaps, that global warming is a myth? About an equal chance, Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 01:38 PM

Donuel, I can't find the programme you mentioned on Al-Jazeera. Got a link?

I still want to believe that nuclear power can be safe and clean.

I've lost about 12 teeth now and I want to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jim Martin
Date: 08 Feb 17 - 08:07 AM

Latest reports in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/31/possible-nuclear-fuel-find-fukushima-plant

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/03/fukushima-daiichi-radiation-levels-highest-since-2011-meltdown

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Apr 17 - 10:29 AM

A new estimate of the cost of the disaster:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/01/national/real-cost-fukushima-disaster-will-reach-%C2%A570-trillion-triple-governments-estimate-think-tank/

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: mg
Date: 13 Apr 17 - 04:05 PM

i probably posted this before but can't read 1800 messages to confirm. anyway, little song to tune of boys of killybegs/meeting of the waters

Fishing's in our blood but now our boats are filled with mud
And our docks are smashed and scattered far and wide
And our nets and floats and gear are taken far from here
And they drift upon the ocean and the tide

Island folk are we who make our living from the sea
But we know too well the shaking of the ground
I jumped into my boat though fear was in my throat
And I passed by many men I knew would drown

For the island to be saved I had to head into that wave
I just did what any fisherman would do
30 meters high and it blotted out the sky
And I had to just hold on and plough on through

You across the seas who gather our debris
Do you hear our cries above the ocean's roar
And as our boats wash in do you think of all those men
Who will have fishing in their hearts forevermore

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Apr 17 - 07:36 PM

The Fukushima disaster sends Toshiba down the drain:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/91546053/the-end-is-looming-for-toshiba

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Apr 17 - 08:26 AM

Report on the ever-accumulating mass of waste around the reactors:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 May 17 - 07:20 PM

The consequences of a US accident could be much worse than current official estimates:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170525141544.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 25 May 17 - 08:25 PM

Jack, all of these concerns are now in the strong capable (or rather 'culpable') hands of the 'man' myth and legend....Rick Perry.

Two weeks into his appointment to be the secretary of the DOE he famously said "I'm in charge of what?!"

- he didn't know he was in charge of everything nuclear including our nuclear arsenal -

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 25 May 17 - 08:50 PM

Jack's NYT link to the waste is monumental.




A Million tons of radioactive waste water song:

A million tons 'and what do you get
another day deeper
in poisonous death
ol' St Peter
don't cha call me
cuz I can't go
I owe my soul
to poisonous flow

song... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Jul 17 - 03:05 PM

TEPCO is planning to simply dump vast amounts of tritium-contaminated waste water into the ocean:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/07/14/Japan-utility-plans-to-dump-radioactive-Fukushima-water-into-Pacific/7651500055813/

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jul 17 - 05:54 PM

We're also getting our first videos of the melted down nuclear fuel in and around the reactor vessels, via robots with cams. Not a pretty sight.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Jul 17 - 07:48 PM

A scary picture of who's (not) in charge of the deadliest nuclear threats facing the US:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 17 - 07:30 AM

Our Lord of the Fries President continues the Bannon ideology of tearing down government without any knowledge of what it does or tries to do.

The Hanford site has had loss of containment recently.

Not to be too biblical, avoid the Washington apples from the orchards surrounding the site and those downstream.

The steel barrels of radioactive waste dumped in the salt water sea have already corroded. The barrels on land have reached their breaking point.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Jul 17 - 07:41 AM

The author of that article is Michael Lewis (of "The Big Short" and "Flash Boys") who is very good at this kind of techno-political reportage, pushing right to the edge of what he can find out and write without security clearance.

The sheer mindbogglingly headless-chicken indifference of the Trump administration confronted by (should-be) nonpartisan issues of sheer survival is nearly unbelievable. One major leak at Hanford and nobody will be able to get near the place to maintain any of it - and what happens then? They might as well bulldoze all of Fukushima into the sea because nobody will notice that little bit extra after Hanford lets go.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Jul 17 - 08:54 PM

More on disasters waiting to happen in the US:

http://thebulletin.org/predictable-nuclear-accident-hanford10774

It's hard to see how the US can avoid an unprecedented catastrophe unless somebody takes decisive action. Not going to happen with a cabinet of headless chickens running the show.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 17 - 12:19 PM

And something more to worry about over the Hurricane Harvey flooding:

https://newspunch.com/texas-nuclear-fukushima/

They may be overstating the problem (how near is that to areas that have suffered the really heavy flooding?) but any large industrial installation on the Texas coast has to be running on luck given the likely effects of climate change.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Aug 17 - 09:27 AM

Jack's links are best but here are locations


Arkem chemical plants have already failed by the same flooding scenarios as Fukashima. The generators shut down and the chemicals exploded.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Aug 17 - 09:33 AM

WE may not have an energy secretary right now but don't you think Rick Perry fixed this before he left?

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Aug 17 - 01:00 PM

If you look closely you can see the little tiny embankment that surrounds the cooling water reservoir.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/29/historic-flooding-grips-texas-groups-demand-nuclear-plant-be-shut-down

Jack Campin, This is too grim for people to hear about, don't you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Sep 17 - 07:32 AM

The radiation levels are too high for robots to get in and see what's happening:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/robots-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-dying-probe-clean-up-tepco-toshiba-reactor-nuclear-radiation-a7612396.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Oct 17 - 08:05 AM

Radiation has got to a completely unexpected place, beaches 60 miles away from the reactors:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171002161251.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Nov 17 - 08:38 AM

TEPCO want to dump thousands of tons of waste into the sea:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tritium-nuclear-plant-tokyo-electric-power-company-nuclear-regulation-authority-japan-a7842931.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Mar 18 - 07:22 AM

This is how bad the radiation inside the wrecked reactors is:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/radiation-fukushima-nuclear-plant-high-enough-kill-human-two-minutes-a7587646.html

Looks like they have much less chance of containing it than they did at Chernobyl.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 08:37 AM

How TEPCO shelved plans to tsunami-proof their nuclear plant:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180411/p2a/00m/0na/018000c

You can bet the same story is being re-enacted right now at hazard-prone industrial installations the world over.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 May 18 - 05:07 AM

Meanwhile in Antarctica...

Nukey poo

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 19 - 09:19 AM

Meanwhile nuclear waste doesn't just go away because Trump wants it to.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nuclear-waste-trump-radioactive-washington-state-hanford-atomic-bombs-a8719021.html

There is MUCH more crap stored there than in Fukushima.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 19 - 11:55 AM

How does this effect us? You should avoid apples grown in Washington State from orchards that surround Hanford.
Rick Perry does not know what to do since these materials* spilled their contents 2 years ago.
* It looks like collapsed tunnels.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 05:01 AM

Meanwhile, more bad news about Chernobyl:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/04/chernobyl-nuclear-power-climate-change-health-radioactivity

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 07:41 AM

Science fiction writers construct an imaginary future; historians attempt to reconstruct the past. Ultimately, both are seeking to understand the present.
Let's imagine a future historian and a mud core sample expert looking back 6,000 years to our present and (possible) future. The occasion is the tercentenary of the end of Western culture (1540 – 2073); the dilemma being addressed is how we – the children of the Enlightenment – failed to act on robust information about climate change and radioactivity with knowledge of the damaging events that were about to unfold.
Our future historian concludes that a second Dark Age had fallen on Western civilization, in which denial and self-deception, rooted in an ideological fixation on “free” markets, disabled the world's powerful nations in the face of tragedy. Moreover, the scientists who best understood the problem were hamstrung by their own cultural practices, which demanded an excessively stringent standard for accepting claims of any kind – even those involving imminent threats.
In my sci fi take on the future, our future historian, living in the Second People's Republic of China, recounts the events of the Period of the Penumbra (1988 – 2073) that led to the Great Collapse and Mass Migration (2074). The scientist studying core samples found a layer of trash and radiation thicker than any asteroid impact and mass extinction.
All language from that era was lost to the ages because digital data does not last as long as etched stone. The theories that accumulate are incredibly (laughably) far fetched compared to the knowledge that the reader who is currently living in this time prior to the collapse already happening in 2019.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 07:52 AM

6,000 years from now several small enclaves of enlightened humans still exist. Very few are overly curious about the past but the few who do, guess what it may have been with absurd theories of what 'we' did to Earth...