7 ms·

Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit

30 points by jdp23 16y ago

phlux 16y ago
Look at this presentation/PDF from stanford which shows what happened within the reactors. Look at THE LAST slide in which is says that the entire core of reactor 4 was outside the containment vessel at the time of the disaster for inspection and was housed in the cooling pond. It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh air The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the atmosphere, and that we are really really not hearing the truth from japan. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.pdf http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.p...
- Luc 16y ago
  > It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh air.The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the atmosphere [...] You COULD read it that way, but the bottom of the slide says in big bold red letters that 'It is currently unclear if release from fuel pool already happened'. To me it seems most of the bullet points on this slide are conjectures, not statements of fact (though note I haven't been keeping up to date on other news sources about the situation in Fukushima).
  - phlux 16y ago
    Well, considering that this was from 3/21 and since then there have been further revelations that things have only gotten worse. Look at these pictures and tell me if you think it is possible that a reactor core outside the containment would not have release material. http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm Sure, we can speculate that it has not yet released 100% - and given the fact that refugees are being turned away for fear of contamination at hospitals, bodies from the Tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable, and reports are stating levels that are just freaking scary - I prefer to err on the side of caution. I think that in such cases its bettr to assume the worst case as opposed to saying "its probably less than we think".
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I really haven't been following this too much. I've been using HN as my news source -- but last I recall from some threads a week or so ago was that everything was overblown and you'd get more radiation from eating a banana? Is it still the case and this is overblown or have things actually gotten bad enough that if you lived near the power plant moving further away might be recommended?
      - jdp23 16y ago
        The Union of Concerned Scientists' recent 3-week update is at http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear You might consider getting news from other sources as well. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has dailyish updates at http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/tatsujiro-suzuki/daily-update-japan http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/tatsujiro-... ...
    - lutorm 16y ago
      Those pictures show the outer roof blown off by the hydrogen explosions. If you'd watched that Stanford presentation, you'd know that it's just a superstructure that essentially provides weather shielding. The fuel pools are deep in concrete in the actual containment structure. Sure, it looks bad, but you really can't tell at all from those pictures what's going on below. And where did you hear that "bodies from the tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable"? That's such a fantastic claim that it definitely requires a citation. (Unless you refer to the plant workers that were killed. They may very well be contaminated, but that's inside the plant. We've known the radiation levels inside the plant have been high since it happened, no news there.) I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but I don't like such obvious speculation however way it goes.
      - phlux 16y ago
        http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=1000+bodies+recover+radioactive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&#3... Also, we are seeing reports, such as this thread of extremely high radiation - we already know that Japan was slow to report actual numbers and each report that comes out is something along the lines of "XXX times [whatever] levels" Look again at the last slide where is specifically says "into fresh air" I am not saying the pools are like backyard swimming pools with open exposure to the sky - but I would believe that if pretty every other report is claiming that radiation is very high there is clear evidence to show that being the case. EDIT: Try clicking the link and reading it, there are multiple articles that clearly state "Up to 1,000 bodies of victims of Japan's quake and tsunami remain uncollected in the exclusion zone around a stricken nuclear plant because of radiation fears." EDIT 2: please make an attempt to google fantastic claims if you don't believe them, and others should make it a point to link to sources when posting something that seems fantastical/really alarming.
  - natch 16y ago
    You don't need to question a statement that is already couched in terms like "it believes" and "appear to." Or were you meaning to question whether they believe what they say they believe?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- lutorm 16y ago
  That's fear mongering. The presentation says nothing of the sort. It says that if the reactor 4 pool went dry, there would be fuel meltdown and release of fission products directly into the air. It then boldly says that it's unclear what the water level was. Also note that what's dispersed is the fission products, i.e. noble gases, iodine, cesium, etc. The fuel itself will not leave in any significant quantity.
  - phlux 16y ago
    Fair enough, I am not trying to fear monger though, I think multiple reactor meltdowns, lack of clear information and continuous reports of radiation levels XXX times [some factor] are doing a good enough job. Now, even though my Grandfather was a nuclear engineer for GE for 50 years and worked on Hanford and many other plant designs during his career -- I really am quite naive to the matter. However, that doesn't preclude me from taking a cautionary stance simply because I don't know the empirical truth of the matter directly.
- kwis 16y ago
  http://www.houshasen-pref-ibaraki.jp/present/result01.html http://www.houshasen-pref-ibaraki.jp/present/result01.html This is a site with real-time radiation levels . The readings from this, and several other sites, have been verified as accurate. I see a disaster, but not a coverup. edit: http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kankyo/saigai/ http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kankyo/saigai/ is the radiation report from Yokohama.
- uvdiv 16y ago
  Actually, that presentation comes from an Areva engineer, not from Stanford. Here's the original (internal?) version: http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentation/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentatio... Some interesting intrigue here. Apparently the version you linked redacts the author's name from the second page (Matthias Braun), and removes the signature with his name and the Areva logo from every following page. There's a NYT article that confirms this much: Stanford, where Dr. Hanson is a visiting scholar, posted the slides online after the March presentation. At that time, each of the roughly 30 slides was marked with the Areva symbol or name, and each also gave the name of their author, Matthias Braun. The posted document was later changed to remove all references to Areva, and Dr. Braun and Areva did not reply to questions about what simulation code or codes the company may have used to arrive at its analysis of the Fukushima disaster. “We cannot comment on that,” Jarret Adams, a spokesman for Areva, said of the slide presentation. The reason, he added, was “because it was not an officially released document.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/science/03meltdown.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/science/03meltdown.html?pa...
mcantelon 16y ago
[Waits for XKCD to revise his cute infographic.]
agentultra 16y ago
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html It would appear that this article is exhaggerating more than a little. The coverage of Fukushima by the mainstream press has only gone to show just how far they are willing to stretch the truth for a headline. Had this article been written on the basis of actual data from IAEA readings, it probably would have been more moderate.
- paganel 16y ago
  IAEA is the nuclear industry's main lobby agency. Is like asking OPEC what do they they think about the Gulf oil spill. So no, coming with data provided by them is no better than what you see in the newspapers.
  - cas 16y ago
    So we trust no-one? There is a healthy level of scepticism but I think you are taking it a bit far. The data is what has been actually recorded by Tepco and others and is certainly reported in good detail without being fudged or sensationalised like the mainstream media is doing.
    - phlux 16y ago
      It would seem that to trust no-one but be cautious of all reports is the correct stance. We know there IS radiation and we know that pretty much ANY radiation coming from any plant that has the words "disaster" "chernobyl" "meltdown" "breach" or any other range of descriptors is certainly BAD. So, take-aways == radiation escapes, radiation bad, don't know truth == stay very far away.
- jaspa 16y ago
  http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/20114219250664111.html http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/201142... As well.
  - 16y ago
aphexairlines 16y ago
I don't know how to consume news about Fukushima anymore. 100 times the legal limit, 1000 times, a million times. What are we going to do? Evacuate the entire North? A billion times. Evacuate all of Tokyo? A trillion times. Evacuate all of Japan? That's obviously not going to happen.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- tybris 16y ago
  I just have patience and ignore people telling me they know that the full scale of one in only a handful of major nuclear disasters is going to be relatively harmless/harmful.
guscost 16y ago
Did this high radiation persist in the time between the two cited measurements? That is very important information, especially considering how other anomalous measurements have been reported in the media.
jergason 16y ago
I dislike all the trumpeting of the levels of radiation compared to some "legal limit". I wish it was in terms of effect on humans. I guess that is a conversion I could do, but many people will not do that, and will just be horrified by the 7.5 million figure without knowing how bad things actually are.
- cas 16y ago
  This is especially true if the government requires zero radioactive material to appear in the sea water. So any accidental discharge is going to have some scary multiplier over the near zero levels. The media also seem to also like the Becquerel scale along with cm³ instead of m³ to make the numbers extra scary. I found an interesting article that describes some safe levels and also the calculation of Becquerel to Sieverts. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c.html http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c...

30 points by jdp23 16y ago

phlux 16y ago

Look at this presentation/PDF from stanford which shows what happened within the reactors. Look at THE LAST slide in which is says that the entire core of reactor 4 was outside the containment vessel at the time of the disaster for inspection and was housed in the cooling pond. It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh air The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the atmosphere, and that we are really really not hearing the truth from japan. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.pdf http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.p...

Luc 16y ago
> It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh air.The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the atmosphere [...] You COULD read it that way, but the bottom of the slide says in big bold red letters that 'It is currently unclear if release from fuel pool already happened'. To me it seems most of the bullet points on this slide are conjectures, not statements of fact (though note I haven't been keeping up to date on other news sources about the situation in Fukushima).
- phlux 16y ago
  Well, considering that this was from 3/21 and since then there have been further revelations that things have only gotten worse. Look at these pictures and tell me if you think it is possible that a reactor core outside the containment would not have release material. http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm Sure, we can speculate that it has not yet released 100% - and given the fact that refugees are being turned away for fear of contamination at hospitals, bodies from the Tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable, and reports are stating levels that are just freaking scary - I prefer to err on the side of caution. I think that in such cases its bettr to assume the worst case as opposed to saying "its probably less than we think".
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I really haven't been following this too much. I've been using HN as my news source -- but last I recall from some threads a week or so ago was that everything was overblown and you'd get more radiation from eating a banana? Is it still the case and this is overblown or have things actually gotten bad enough that if you lived near the power plant moving further away might be recommended?
    - jdp23 16y ago
      The Union of Concerned Scientists' recent 3-week update is at http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear You might consider getting news from other sources as well. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has dailyish updates at http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/tatsujiro-suzuki/daily-update-japan http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/tatsujiro-... ...
  - lutorm 16y ago
    Those pictures show the outer roof blown off by the hydrogen explosions. If you'd watched that Stanford presentation, you'd know that it's just a superstructure that essentially provides weather shielding. The fuel pools are deep in concrete in the actual containment structure. Sure, it looks bad, but you really can't tell at all from those pictures what's going on below. And where did you hear that "bodies from the tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable"? That's such a fantastic claim that it definitely requires a citation. (Unless you refer to the plant workers that were killed. They may very well be contaminated, but that's inside the plant. We've known the radiation levels inside the plant have been high since it happened, no news there.) I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but I don't like such obvious speculation however way it goes.
    - phlux 16y ago
      http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=1000+bodies+recover+radioactive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&#3... Also, we are seeing reports, such as this thread of extremely high radiation - we already know that Japan was slow to report actual numbers and each report that comes out is something along the lines of "XXX times [whatever] levels" Look again at the last slide where is specifically says "into fresh air" I am not saying the pools are like backyard swimming pools with open exposure to the sky - but I would believe that if pretty every other report is claiming that radiation is very high there is clear evidence to show that being the case. EDIT: Try clicking the link and reading it, there are multiple articles that clearly state "Up to 1,000 bodies of victims of Japan's quake and tsunami remain uncollected in the exclusion zone around a stricken nuclear plant because of radiation fears." EDIT 2: please make an attempt to google fantastic claims if you don't believe them, and others should make it a point to link to sources when posting something that seems fantastical/really alarming.
- natch 16y ago
  You don't need to question a statement that is already couched in terms like "it believes" and "appear to." Or were you meaning to question whether they believe what they say they believe?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lutorm 16y ago
That's fear mongering. The presentation says nothing of the sort. It says that if the reactor 4 pool went dry, there would be fuel meltdown and release of fission products directly into the air. It then boldly says that it's unclear what the water level was. Also note that what's dispersed is the fission products, i.e. noble gases, iodine, cesium, etc. The fuel itself will not leave in any significant quantity.
- phlux 16y ago
  Fair enough, I am not trying to fear monger though, I think multiple reactor meltdowns, lack of clear information and continuous reports of radiation levels XXX times [some factor] are doing a good enough job. Now, even though my Grandfather was a nuclear engineer for GE for 50 years and worked on Hanford and many other plant designs during his career -- I really am quite naive to the matter. However, that doesn't preclude me from taking a cautionary stance simply because I don't know the empirical truth of the matter directly.
kwis 16y ago
http://www.houshasen-pref-ibaraki.jp/present/result01.html http://www.houshasen-pref-ibaraki.jp/present/result01.html This is a site with real-time radiation levels . The readings from this, and several other sites, have been verified as accurate. I see a disaster, but not a coverup. edit: http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kankyo/saigai/ http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kankyo/saigai/ is the radiation report from Yokohama.
uvdiv 16y ago
Actually, that presentation comes from an Areva engineer, not from Stanford. Here's the original (internal?) version: http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentation/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentatio... Some interesting intrigue here. Apparently the version you linked redacts the author's name from the second page (Matthias Braun), and removes the signature with his name and the Areva logo from every following page. There's a NYT article that confirms this much: Stanford, where Dr. Hanson is a visiting scholar, posted the slides online after the March presentation. At that time, each of the roughly 30 slides was marked with the Areva symbol or name, and each also gave the name of their author, Matthias Braun. The posted document was later changed to remove all references to Areva, and Dr. Braun and Areva did not reply to questions about what simulation code or codes the company may have used to arrive at its analysis of the Fukushima disaster. “We cannot comment on that,” Jarret Adams, a spokesman for Areva, said of the slide presentation. The reason, he added, was “because it was not an officially released document.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/science/03meltdown.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/science/03meltdown.html?pa...

mcantelon 16y ago

[Waits for XKCD to revise his cute infographic.]

agentultra 16y ago

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html It would appear that this article is exhaggerating more than a little. The coverage of Fukushima by the mainstream press has only gone to show just how far they are willing to stretch the truth for a headline. Had this article been written on the basis of actual data from IAEA readings, it probably would have been more moderate.

paganel 16y ago
IAEA is the nuclear industry's main lobby agency. Is like asking OPEC what do they they think about the Gulf oil spill. So no, coming with data provided by them is no better than what you see in the newspapers.
- cas 16y ago
  So we trust no-one? There is a healthy level of scepticism but I think you are taking it a bit far. The data is what has been actually recorded by Tepco and others and is certainly reported in good detail without being fudged or sensationalised like the mainstream media is doing.
  - phlux 16y ago
    It would seem that to trust no-one but be cautious of all reports is the correct stance. We know there IS radiation and we know that pretty much ANY radiation coming from any plant that has the words "disaster" "chernobyl" "meltdown" "breach" or any other range of descriptors is certainly BAD. So, take-aways == radiation escapes, radiation bad, don't know truth == stay very far away.
jaspa 16y ago
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/20114219250664111.html http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/201142... As well.
- 16y ago

aphexairlines 16y ago

I don't know how to consume news about Fukushima anymore. 100 times the legal limit, 1000 times, a million times. What are we going to do? Evacuate the entire North? A billion times. Evacuate all of Tokyo? A trillion times. Evacuate all of Japan? That's obviously not going to happen.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tybris 16y ago
I just have patience and ignore people telling me they know that the full scale of one in only a handful of major nuclear disasters is going to be relatively harmless/harmful.

guscost 16y ago

Did this high radiation persist in the time between the two cited measurements? That is very important information, especially considering how other anomalous measurements have been reported in the media.

jergason 16y ago

I dislike all the trumpeting of the levels of radiation compared to some "legal limit". I wish it was in terms of effect on humans. I guess that is a conversion I could do, but many people will not do that, and will just be horrified by the 7.5 million figure without knowing how bad things actually are.

cas 16y ago
This is especially true if the government requires zero radioactive material to appear in the sea water. So any accidental discharge is going to have some scary multiplier over the near zero levels. The media also seem to also like the Becquerel scale along with cm³ instead of m³ to make the numbers extra scary. I found an interesting article that describes some safe levels and also the calculation of Becquerel to Sieverts. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c.html http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c...