BREAKING NEWS: NUCLEAR ACCIDENT JUST UPGRADED TO LEVEL 6, out of 7.

benwm · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from GTS:

I think the comparison between the current situation and Chernobyl are laughable.
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are you not concerned about the used fuel rods? I think the quantites of uranium here are much greater...so even if current radiation levels are not high, it has the potential to be much worse, no??

I hope you are right that the media is blowing this story out of proportion...

GTS · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from benwm:

are you not concerned about the used fuel rods? I think the quantites of uranium here are much greater...so even if current radiations are not high, it has the potential to be much worse, no??

I hope you are right that the media is blowing this story out of proportion...
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Yes, it has the potential to be equal or worse....but we are not there yet .

Things seemed to have calmed down with reactors 1-3 (no new explosions) and the spent fuel rod pools just need to be kept full of water which doesn't seem like a very tall order.

Obviously the tin foil hat crowd is already claiming that the worst has happened and the gov't is just covering it up. That's nonsense.

AK100 · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from benwm:

I hope you are right that the media is blowing this story out of proportion... [/B]
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He is, when does the media never blow things out of proportion. Bad news sells especially when there's the potential for the whole world to die.

It's not nice if you live near the area I'll admit but the thought of the Western USA being at risk is laughable but it does make a great story and one that is guaranteed to get the drama queens jerking off.

benwm · Mar 17, 2011

it is the fact that it has potential to be much worse than Chernobyl in a dense population that has everyone scared

agree that for now, it is not as bad...radiation levels not too high 100km away

BlackBison · Mar 17, 2011

What's the status on the new power line? Hopefully they can get something sorted soon and get this under control.

GTS · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from BlackBison:

What's the status on the new power line? Hopefully they can get something sorted soon and get this under control.
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Yea I was wondering about that too - when I went to bed last night they made it sound like getting the new power line functioning was about to happen, then when I got up I didn't see anything about it.

I am wondering how much help that will be since the explosions may have damaged so much equipment already - but any help they can get has to be an improvement.

Edit: just found this in the latest AP report

Japanese officials raised hopes of easing the crisis early Thursday, saying they may be close to bringing power back to the plant. The new power line would revive electric-powered pumps, making it easier for workers to control the high temperatures.

Tokyo Electric officials said they hoped to have the new power line working later Thursday, and had electricians standing by to connect the power plant.
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Of course it is late Thursday there already....hmmm

bearice · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from GTS:

I think the comparison between the current situation and Chernobyl are laughable. I guess that goes to show you the difference between an event that had no media coverage ( 24/7 by the media. Chernobyl exploded and spewed radioactive particles over a huge area ( as well as the atmosphere).Please before anyone else makes the Chernobyl reference - take the time to read at least a summary of what happened at Chernobyl.
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If I remember correctly, a man was fishing some 100 meters outside Chernobyl when the nuclear explosion took place. He survived to tell his story.

What spewed radioactive particles over a huge area, are you talking about?

benwm · Mar 17, 2011

# NEWS ADVISORY: Fukushima plant likely to be connected to external power line Thursday: TEPCO (21:24)
# NEWS ADVISORY: TEPCO says water shots effective in cooling fuel pool as steam rose (21:21)

Kyodo news

So I guess that means external power within two to three hours

It seems the power cable is the best hope now

benwm · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from bearice:

What spewed radioactive particles over a huge area, are you talking about?
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Put it this way - the sheep in Wales were contaminated by the rain cloud after Chernobyl and you couldn't eat welsh lamb for a few years after the event. Wales is a long way away from Chernobyl.

GTS · Mar 17, 2011

Quote from bearice:
What spewed radioactive particles over a huge area, are you talking about?
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You're right - it didn't happen. It was just a western hoax to discredit Russia. My mistake.

There are enough articles that document what happened at Chernobyl. Do we really need to waste time discussing what clearly happened?

The explosion and fire threw hot particles of the nuclear fuel and also far more dangerous fission products, radioactive isotopes such as caesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 and other radionuclides, into the air: the residents of the surrounding area observed the radioactive cloud on the night of the explosion.
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Four hundred times more radioactive material was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. However, compared to the total amount released by nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s and 1960s, the Chernobyl disaster released 1/100 to 1/1000 the radioactivity. The fallout was detected over all of Europe except for the Iberian Peninsula.

The initial evidence that a major release of radioactive material was affecting other countries came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden, where on the morning of 28 April workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1,100 km (680 mi) from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes. It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity, after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant, that at noon on April 28 led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the western Soviet Union. Hence the evacuation of Pripyat on April 27, 36 hours after the initial explosions, was silently completed before the disaster became known outside the Soviet Union. The rise in radiation levels had at that time already been measured in Finland, but a civil service strike delayed the response and publication.

Contamination from the Chernobyl accident was scattered irregularly depending on weather conditions. Reports from Soviet and Western scientists indicate that Belarus received about 60% of the contamination that fell on the former Soviet Union. However, the 2006 TORCH report stated that half of the volatile particles had landed outside Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. A large area in Russia south of Bryansk was also contaminated, as were parts of northwestern Ukraine. Studies in surrounding countries indicate that over one million people could have been affected by radiation.
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Quote from bearice:
If I remember correctly, a man was fishing some 100 meters outside Chernobyl when the nuclear explosion took place. He survived to tell his story.
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That fisherman sure must have been lucky:

The radiation levels in the worst-hit areas of the reactor building have been estimated to be 5.6 roentgens per second (R/s) (1.4 milliamperes per kilogram), equivalent to more than 20,000 roentgens per hour. A lethal dose is around 500 roentgens (0.13 coulombs per kilogram) over 5 hours, so in some areas, unprotected workers received fatal doses within minutes. However, a dosimeter capable of measuring up to 1,000 R/s (0.3 A/kg) was inaccessible because of the explosion, and another one failed when turned on. All remaining dosimeters had limits of 0.001 R/s (0.3 ÂµA/kg) and therefore read "off scale." Thus, the reactor crew could ascertain only that the radiation levels were somewhere above 0.001 R/s (3.6 R/h, or 0.3 ÂµA/kg), while the true levels were much, much higher in some areas.
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