14 ms·

Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

374 points by Libertatea 13y ago

veidr 13y ago
I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, with no meaningful oversight nor repercussions. Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. TEPCO should have been nationalized, or at least put into a decade of receivership, within a few days of the fail, when it became clear that they were completely unequipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude and their president checked himself into a hospital for stress/mental issues.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Yes, it's not about public/private. At a certain "screw-up" level, it doesn't matter anymore. This is a Japanese problem, but it's close to becoming a worldwide problem The containment has failed, as the leaks show, now what's the solution for that? Can we just pour tons and tons of sand on top so it melts and becomes a glass cocoon? (I don't know) Or it has breached the soil?
  - justatdotin 13y ago
    it is certainly not just a Japanese problem. Japanese uranium mines didn't fuel the reactors, and the radiological contamination does not recognise national borders. The mismanagement of this disaster is not solely the responsibility of the Japanese government, but has been enabled by the hopeful silence of other nations. Why didn't all our governments stand up and denounce the misinformation around declaration of a 20msv 'acceptable' public dose limit, up from 1msv? Hoping to continue on with business as usual, international authorities stayed silent while their Japanese counterparts misled their people about what was 'safe'.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- lmm 13y ago
  >Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. Really? Everyone is terrified of the radiation bogeyman, but I'd bet there were more injuries and deaths as a result of New Horizon.
  - Turbots 13y ago
    That's because the effects of radioactive contaminated ocean water is much, much harder to measure. We still don't know what that much of radiation will cause the plankton, fish, bigger fish, and ultimately, us humans...
  - veidr 13y ago
    Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it. Radioactive contamination of the food supply, the oceans, and tens of thousands of people exiled from their hometown for the rest of their lives. 17 injured and 11 dead rig workers is easily comprehended and instant. Doesn't really mean that disaster was worse, though. Just easier to contemplate.
    - benihana 13y ago
      >Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it. Is that why you lead off with a fine example of it when you said that Fukushima was "about 100 times worse" than New Horizon?
      - chronic25 13y ago
        Didn't you read his post? Yes.
    - berntb 13y ago
      >>hundreds of years after we are all dead >>Radioactive contamination of [...] the oceans Sigh... bad scare mongering. How many percent has the background radiation in the Pacific ocean increased by Fukushima? (Hint: radioactive water is very, very diluted after much less than one century. :-) )
- rwmj 13y ago
  You've not been paying much attention to the Japanese nuclear industry. This is the industry that allowed junior staff to mix nuclear materials together unsupervised, causing a chain reaction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident#In_1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident#In_...
  - iyulaev 13y ago
    And engineers in Europe or the US have never had criticality incidents ;)
    - AsymetricCom 13y ago
      Lets try to stay on topic here. We should be doing everything we can to help Japan, not poking fun of them or trying to start some kind of competition of incompetence.
- zsombor 13y ago
  By what standard do you see Fukushima as being worse? Number of casualties? Number of people who had their livelihood directly affected? The effect on the biosphere?
  - lispm 13y ago
    Let's just say that hundreds of people will work in extreme conditions (high radiation, damaged nuclear material, damaged buildings) for the next 20 years to keep this thing from collapsing/... before the next heavy earth quake hits.
    - snogglethorpe 13y ago
      ... and the region around the plant has been quite severely affected: long term evacuation of inhabitants in some areas, kids can't play outside in others (and must take constant "precautions"), large scale decontamination needed (removal of top-soil, etc), fishermen not allowed to fish (it depends on the species and their feeding habits etc, some have shown no contamination, others are way, way, over the limits), many problems caused by loss of confidence (obvious huge drop in tourism, a very hard time selling farm produce, etc). So sure, the number of people that started glowing green and exploded is small (:-), but the financial and social repercussions of the Fukushima incident are not small at all. "Number of people that died" isn't the only statistic to look at when evaluating such things...
  - veidr 13y ago
    Personally, my weighting factors are: 1. Number of people who died, or will die, weighted by how they die -- painful slow death by internal organ cancers being pretty far up there on my chart. 2. Number of people who have traumatic long term health episodes, like cancer, that degrade their quality of life. Even if it isn't until much later. 3. Number of people who have to leave long-established hometown territory and give up their homes, to live in crappy housing (way better than an American FEMA trailer, but still sad) until they die. 4. Number of children who get thyroid cancer caused by radioactive contamination that would not have otherwise -- even though Japan has arguably the best health care system in the world, and virtually all of these kids will live. Still sucks to have cancer and surgery when you're 8. 5. Incidental casualties (including cleanup workers). The actual local Fukushima plant boss became something of a hero after telling Tokyo (as in Tokyo Electric Power Company) to fuck off and calling his own shots during the worst of it. He died of cancer[1] last year, and also had a brain hemorrhage last year, ostensibly none of which was related. But there were a lot of young workers that went in there and like, did manual labor. They might be alive, but a lot of them aren't all gonna be fine. 6. Degradation of the best food on earth. I read in a Seattle newspaper (I'm pretty sure) that effectively all tuna now commercially caught have higher levels of cesium than before Fukushima. First the mercury, now this? NO FUCK YUO!! And here in Japan it's like spinach, potatoes, meat, fish... they can only test like 0.1% of it (which is bullshit but that is another post). 7. And, since I am me, my personal standard of how fucked it was accrues bonus points for: each of the 17 times I was forced to choose between not bathing or bathing in cesium water (we did Perrier sponge baths at first but then bottled water became too scarce to use other than for drinking), the 1 time my local supermarket (high-end rich-people supermarket btw) had to hand me a letter apologizing for selling me beef with illegally high cesium levels, and the 50 hours I spent roaming Tokyo in search of clean bottled water in the aftermath. I just can't see any reality where Fukushima isn't worse than New Horizon, on balance. Not that New Horizon wasn't bad. It just wasn't one of the worst disasters since I have been alive, where Fukushima was. [1]: ht NO tp NO NO SORRY ://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/09/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-masao-yoshida-dead-cancer_n_3568293.html [2]: Man I really thought I was linking to NY Times, which I will now: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/asia/masao-yoshida-nuclear-engineer-and-chief-at-fukushima-plant-dies-at-58.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/asia/masao-yoshida-n... At least that accidental huffington link explains why my computer had been audibly churning out all sorts of sad (but unrelated) human interest stories while I typed that post....
- pnathan 13y ago
  I agree that TEPCO is not earning itself any medals, and the Japanese government is not earning medals in terms of checking TEPCO's foolery.
frank_boyd 13y ago
> 'much worse than we were led to believe' We've heard this one before, from the same people. We're too slow to learn. Too slow compared to the ever increasing amplitude of the technology we create.
- josephcooney 13y ago
  Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times. - Sigmund Freud
- chiph 13y ago
  A rule of thumb I use for dealing with pronouncements from the government: If it's bad news, it's actually twice as bad as they say it is. If it's good news, it's actually half as good as they said. Thus far, it's proven reasonably accurate.
hkmurakami 13y ago
Honestly, this is just business as usual for Japanese govt/bureaucracy here. The only difference is that it's the first time in a while that its bullshittery has been thrust onto the international stage. If you're living in Japan or are any how strongly affiliated with it, you'd have to be a moron or just hopelessly incurably optimistic to believe anything the government or these pseudo governmental organizations say about anything remotely controversial. I've never trusted any statements or numbers issued by any Japanese entity since day 1. Since I can't trust anything, I just largely stay out of the country. Of course, its waste waters are being dumped into the ocean all the time so I'm getting owned anyways across the ocean.
- adrianwaj 13y ago
  repeat of my last comment: "Who's the real terrorists in 2013?" Comfort-maximizing system-lickers.
throwaway1979 13y ago
Any HNer knowledgeable on the matter shed light into how bad this can get?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - veidr 13y ago
    That's true, but these containment tanks are right next to the ocean. So pretty much everything that leaks is going into the ocean. And they aren't going to be gone by the time the next tsunami hits, so I think it is roughly (and with their level of ineptitude and deceit, roughly is as good as we are gonna get) reasonable to think that it's all (300,000 tons of radioactive water and counting) going into the Pacific at some point...
    - SuperChihuahua 13y ago
      I deleted it because I forgot the water leaking out, but here's the original comment because it might be interesting. "If I've understood everything correctly, it can't be as bad as the Chernobyl disaster. The only reason to why the radioactive material spread so far during the Chernobyl disaster was because the reactor core consisted of graphite, the graphite caught fire, and the dangerous material rose to the sky." @jjsz The text is the same. What happened was that I deleted the comment before I saw that someone replied to it, and then it looked stupid with a good reply to a deleted comment.
      - jjsz 13y ago
        Completely changing the parent comment like that and making this comment on a child doesn't make sense to me. You should have added another parent comment, or added an "edit: __" in the original comment.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
- 13y ago
lignuist 13y ago
Why is the japanese government letting TEPCO deal with the disaster on their own? Why is the rest of the world letting Japan deal with the disaster on it's own? Contaminating the Pacific Ocean constantly with radioactive water surely affects a lot of other states. This is something experts (TEPCO is obviously not in this position) should handle. The bill for handling the disaster could then be presented at a later time to TEPCO and Japan.
- toyg 13y ago
  The relationship between Japanese governments and corporations is much more incestuous than their Western counterparts'. In any case, I don't think Tepco is completely alone in the cleanup effort, otherwise you wouldn't have people like Schneider talking about it. In fact, the irritation here comes from the fact that Fukushima continues to be a clusterfuck and everybody knows it... except TEPCO's PR people, who keep interpreting their best Chemical Ali impersonations.
  - panacea 13y ago
    "The relationship between Japanese governments and corporations is much more incestuous than their Western counterparts" On a scale of 1 to [citation needed], guess where the answer lies.
    - rtpg 13y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)#Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)#Japan
      - toyg 13y ago
        Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu
  - caf 13y ago
    I think you mean Comical Ali (former Iraqi Information Minister) rather than Chemical Ali (former director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service).
loceng 13y ago
I believe the figure going around is that 200 tonnes of radioactive water, per day, is leaking. This will cause a lot of problems for everyone.
- gngeal 13y ago
  200 tonnes of radioactive water There is a (long) trillion of tons of radioactive water in all the world's oceans. C14, see? "Radioactive water" is a meaningless term.
  - loceng 13y ago
    Of course it would be based on concentrations - but no one is announcing what that is, nor do they seem to really be able to get a clear idea of it - because it's not contained and therefore not accurately measurable.
  - e12e 13y ago
    I think meaningless is a little strong. We talk about CO2 emissions, even though the air contains CO2. My understanding would be more radioactive than ambient radiation, or something along those lines. I do agree that seeing some actual numbers would be helpful (eg: types and amount (estimated) of isotopes).
    - saalweachter 13y ago
      The total increase in CO2 levels over the last couple hundred years is about 30%, from 280 PPM to around 400 PPM. By contrast, the total increase in the ocean's radioactivity from Fukushima is about 0.000002%, give or take a zero. While "trillions of Bq" sounds bad, and probably isn't good, the oceans contain something like 14,000 exaBq worth of Potassium-40 alone. The problem with radioactive releases is more about concentrating it. There's sort of an anti-goldilocks situation. If a radioactive release doesn't spread very well at all, that's kind of OK. The radioactivity at the point of release is extremely dangerous, but hey, it is well contained and you can clean it up. If the radioactivity spreads extremely well, that's kind of OK too. It freaks people out, but realistically if you dilute radioactive materials enough they stop being dangerous. You're pissing in the ocean. But if the radioactive material spreads JUST RIGHT, you can contaminate too large of an area to clean up while still leaving the radiation levels high enough to be dangerous.
brudgers 13y ago
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." -- I. F. Stone Though the disaster site is in Japan there is nothing particular to Japanese culture in the information flow.
jre 13y ago
I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the industry are towards minimizing costs / maximizing profits. This is fine for some other industries, but it seems to fail for areas where the impact of mismanagement is much more severe than a bankruptcy. We have to find a way to make those critical industries transparent and honest so that citizens can trust them again.
- justatdotin 13y ago
  I also see a similarity: both GMOs and the nuclear industry pose poorly-managed threats to genetic integrity of all forms of life.
- tonyedgecombe 13y ago
  I'm not sure the government would lie any less in this situation so that only leaves one option, no nuclear.
  - jre 13y ago
    I agree, I don't think a traditional government-controlled company is the answer. It's probably a mix of public and private entities, with a very strong and independent control authority that doesn't fear shutting things down if they find some wrongdoings (even if this means losing a lot of money in the short-term).
  - mbq 13y ago
    The gov can kill you equally well with nuclear power as with bad food/water supervision, wrong medical policy (like inoculation strategy), chemical plants, mining operations, waste management, insufficient or corrupted law enforcement, finally by causing some war or economic collapse.
- samatman 13y ago
walid 13y ago
The worst part is that everyone wants to present their situation as being in control and not admitting that control over the situation was lost when the floods initially happened. If Fukushima was left to political entities to handle it, we'll end up with radioactive materials in everything all around the globe. Considering that today we eat food grown all over the plant, the worst part is the amount of radiation that will slip into our food supply.
uptown 13y ago
Why are nuclear facilities frequently built near oceans and rivers? Is it due to the easy-access to water for cooling purposes? I've seen it in many places, and it just seems short-sighted in light of the potential to spread contamination when something goes wrong.
- kaybe 13y ago
  Yes, that's the reason. Without massive amounts of water for cooling it's not possible to use current technologies.
  - uptown 13y ago
    Interesting. The NSA facility is designed to use a massive amount of water daily (17 million gallons a day), and it is nowhere near an ocean. http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/massive-nsa-data-center-will-use-17-million-gallons-water-day.html http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/massive-nsa-data-...
    - samstave 13y ago
      ??? Yes, but that is not a reactor which will have catastrophic fallout if it stops getting cooling. In fact, it would do the world a great service if the cooling failed there :-)
- agumonkey 13y ago
  It's a double-edged sword obviously. How much flow does a plant need ? and is it unrealistic to build an isolated water pond/stream to cool one ?
- seren 13y ago
  And the one that are not closed to the sea, are closed to rivers, and so are also at risk of being flooded. Another risk is that after severe heat waves, the river's water can become to "hot" to efficiently cool the reactor... Not to mention severe drought where the river level can become too low... All in all, plenty of different ways to fail.
cygwin98 13y ago
I don't know why Japan can get away with this for so long. I remember when the Chernobyl disaster happened, Soviet Union was shamed to death by all western media for years. I had high respect for the Russians for their great efforts to contain the damage. A great many of red army soldiers died when building a concrete substrate underneath the ruined reactor, which prevented the underground water from being contaminated by radioactive pollution. In contrast, the Japan government hasn't been capable to do this for the past two years, which is apparently irresponsible and shockingly incompetent.
- yxhuvud 13y ago
  Japan is getting away with it because there is no radioactive rain impacting other countries.
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    I guess it helps that the winds blow from west to east (i.e. straight into the ocean where the next country is ~8000 miles away)
    - 205guy 13y ago
      3800 miles and the next country is ... USA (Hawaii). However, both winds and water currents tend to go north of Hawaii, so it is more like 5200 miles on the great circle to California.
  - reirob 13y ago
    This might be, but at the same time the problem is not resolved and contained as it was in Chernobyl. "We have three 100-ton melted fuel blobs underground, but where exactly they are located, no one knows. Whatever 'barriers' TEPCO has put in place so far have failed. Efforts to decontaminate radioactive water have failed. Robots have failed. Camera equipment and temperature gauges...failed. Decontamination of surrounding cities has failed. " [..] "If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people" Considering these future threats have not been resolved in any way I must say I respect for Soviet Unions reaction in Chernobyl case. EDIT: Quotes taken from article linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104
bengrunfeld 13y ago
Honestly, internet snarkiness and 2 minute rages aside, I wonder what this will mean for us in the future. I wonder how US crops, the Australia climate, and Chinese drinking water quality will be affected. Is this so bad that Japan has essentially damned the entire region? Or are we going to see a mass die-off of fish around the world? It's just a really scary situation, and totally not cool.
- rtpg 13y ago
  Not to be rude but I think you're highly overestimating the effects this could have globally. The ocean is really big, and it's not like radioactivity is contagious. As for the local effects, who knows... EDIT: by who knows, I just mean I'm not aware of the scale, I could imagine it getting pretty bad. It's just that with all the sensationalism and non comprehension of basic statistics in some articles, I feel pretty misinformed on the subject.
  - bengrunfeld 13y ago
    I'm not overestimating, or indeed estimating, anything. I was interested in other people's opinions. Rudeness pardoned.
- lignuist 13y ago
  I would expect something between slightly higher levels of radiation in fish (which might sum up if you eat it and might "surprisingly" lead to cancer) and an apocalyptic disaster that affects every creature on earth if TEPCO fucks up anything with the large number of fuel rods, which are still stored at Fukushima.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    Um, let's try to keep things in perspective, please. This is very bad for the people that are near the plant, no question. But in global terms, the total amount of contaminated water that could potentially leak is miniscule. The Pacific Ocean is really, really big. The article says that 400 metric tons of contaminated water are being added every day. Let's say that leakage rate goes on for 5 years. That's about a million metric tons of contaminated water. The volume of the Pacific Ocean is about 660 million cubic kilometers. One cubic kilometer of water weighs about a billion metric tons; so the a million metric tons of radioactive water is one 660 billionth of the volume of the Pacific Ocean. Now let's talk about the fuel rods. An accident involving those could potentially have effects similar to Chernobyl in terms of spreading radiation; but since there are four reactors at risk at Fukushima, we would expect the global effects to be about four times the global effect of Chernobyl. While the global effects of Chernobyl were certainly measurable, they hardly amounted to "an apocalyptic disaster", or even one fourth of one.
Symmetry 13y ago
Have we gotten to the point where the Fukushima disaster has caused as many deaths as an equivalent megawattage of coal powerplants operating over Fukushima's lifetime would have?
- losvedir 13y ago
  Has it caused any?
- ori_b 13y ago
  We haven't gotten to 1 yet.
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Ok, so the lifetime output of the plant is 188 GW-years. Most estimates for the expected cancer deaths due to radiation are around 120. The evacuation itself caused 46 deaths due to disruption in medical care and suicide. That means that Fukushima had .88 deaths per GWyr. That's 1/3 the death rate of coal according to an EU study, but twice the death rate of coal according to another study that looked at a different set of countries. Which I guess makes sense, most coal related deaths are going to be due to mining safety and particulate emissions which rich countries can do a lot to combat by investing in technology for safer money and scrubbing coal emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
  - reirob 13y ago
    I guess this does not include all the radiation that we are still going to have, for decades and possible bigger damages yet to come: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    What a great answer to your own great question. So depending on the accuracy of the estimates - which may be drastically low, but also should be spread amongst the plants currently running without incident and their likelihood to continue that way - nuclear could end up being far more damaging to human health than coal for an equivalent amount of energy.
sampo 13y ago
It would be nice to see some numbers. "around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank on the site." Ok, 300 tonnes, but during which time period? Between 2011 and now? And how radioactive? What elements and how much does it contain?
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  another bbc article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 From that I think this is a one off discovery of 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water leaking, and in general 300 tonnes of 'not as radioactive' per day leak from the radioactive buildings. Odd that the numbers given are so similar.
DennisP 13y ago
Although it's possible this is really bad, I'm surprised by the lack of skepticism in this discussion so far. Mycle Snyder is described as an "independent consultant," with no mention of scientific or engineering credentials. There are quite a few people who make a living as consultants by exaggerating nuclear dangers. The article also didn't give any numbers at all. How much radioactivity are we talking about here? Talking about "tonnes of radioactive water" is meaningless. Presumably someone has measured actual radioactivity levels in the nearby ocean. Where are those numbers?
- api 13y ago
  Nearly every Fukushima mega-scare story I've encountered seems to go back to Arnie Gunderson, who is a professional anti-nuclear consultant. At the same time, I see a near information blackout from other authorities. There just doesn't seem to be much good information on this one way or the other. Radiation is very easy to detect. If there's a serious leak, people outside Japan could see it. Where is this data?
  - rangibaby 13y ago
    I take some reassurance that the anti-nuclear guys say we're fucked and pro-nuclear guys say nuclear is still the safest. That means the truth is probably somewhere in the middle ;-)
    - api 13y ago
      I think it proves Heisenberg was right. Reality is determined by the political slant of the observer. :)
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      Sorry if I downvoted sarcasm. Unless you meant "middle" literally as in anything exactly as written by the most extreme of either side, this is a bad way to reason about things. It's the kind of thinking that lets people say "well the anti-vaccine people are pretty strong about their views, but doctors disagree; it's probably somewhere in the middle" and slide about while being incorrect.
dharma1 13y ago
Can someone translate this to plain English? What is the worse case scenario, in terms of damage to the environment and people? What kind of radius will the effects be contained to - is it just the coast of Japan or much further out?
kevcampb 13y ago
can someone explain why they are accumulating so much extra water? surely they can just reuse the already contaminated water in the tanks? obviously there's good reason, just curious why.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Well if they're actually leaking that much water every day, then they'd probably not have a way to recapture it. If they did, it wouldn't be a leak.
Tichy 13y ago
I know what the deniers are going to say: the risk is just equivalent to dumping a banana into the ocean. Whatever.
- adam-f 13y ago
  76 million bananas, to be precise. http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/fukushima-radiation-leak-the-same-as-76-million-bananas http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/storie...
  - gus_massa 13y ago
    76 millons bananas are approximately between 220 and 500 TEUs (standard containers) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28volume+76+million+bananas%29+%2Fteu http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28volume+76+million+ba... Let's multiply that by 2 to account the overhead and space between bananas. A cargo ship can carry up to 16000 TEUs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship
iamshariq 13y ago
Why the heck is this on top? Is this site turning into reddit for world news?
pvaldes 13y ago
... as always since 2011 sadly nothing new, layers of lies over more lies with some crunchy lies in between. Bon appetit!.
Gravityloss 13y ago
Numbers would be good. How radioactive? Compared to background and something which we know to be dangerous?
niuzeta 13y ago
it's about time the three countries closest to Japan - Korea, China, and Russia, all of whom have great power and relation(trade and diplomatic) with Japan, to respond. I mean, they've already done but it's time to make the pressure more concrete... economic sanction, albeit partial? This is a globe-wide matter.
JonnieCache 13y ago
Anyone wishing to become more familiar with the murky process which led to the proliferation of the unsafe Boiling Water Reactors such as Fukushima should watch Adam Curtis' film A is for Atom, which details how the US government and General Electric conspired to ignore the warnings from the Atomic Energy Commission about the designs. He made it available in full on his (excellent) blog in the wake of the earthquake: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.... If those from outside the UK can't watch that one, it's also on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDrA7yUdFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDrA7yUdFc Those wary of Curtis and his psychedelic editing tricks should still give it a go - this one is from 1992, before he got so into Boards of Canada and flash cuts.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I can't say I'm a Lewis Page fan, but his coverage on the Register [1] added an interesting insight which was that contamination in the water was resulting in primarily beta radiation, not gamma radiation. I know the folks who are reporting this, the "World Nuclear Industry Status Report" [2] are not exactly unbiased. Read through other reports they have on their web site and they don't seem to be coming at the debate from a particularly balanced perspective. In general though I find it hard to read coverage of nuclear power, gun control, and civil liberties these days given the very strident positions. It feels to me like walking in a room of people screaming at each other. [1] "OMG! New 'CRISIS DISASTER' at Fukushima! Oh wait, it's nothing. Again" -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disaster_at_fukushima_oh_wait_its_nothing_again/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disas... [2] http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  The part that wasn't explained very well in these articles is the nature of the threat from water leaking into the ocean. I would think, perhaps naively, that once it entered the ocean, it would dissipate and be relatively harmless. It would also be a relatively benign place to contaminate the groundwater. The groundwater would be too salty to drink, anyway, and it would flow directly into the ocean.
consultant23522 13y ago
I can't imagine why anyone is surprised by this. The people in the know will never tell us the true depth of the problems with the economy right now, the floor of the gulf is absolutely destroyed from being covered in oil, etc. A conspiracy theorist sized dose of cynicism when reading the news is about the only way to get any sort of reality out of it.
hardwaresofton 13y ago
As a person who was in japan during the touhoku earthquake, and I'd like to point out that most of the japanese people probably have no idea what is happening in regards to this. If it's on the news, they are probably airing it BECAUSE of the global shitstorm tha has emerged. The only news I trusted while I was there was the BBC (Japanese news told you nothing, American news were sensationalizing every thing, slow at best, wrong at worst)
fossuser 13y ago
I remember reading an article around the time of the Fukushima leak where a Chernobyl clean up crew survivor was interviewed. One of the key points was to get out as quickly as possible, that it'll be much worse than the government/industry initially says it is. I made a mental note to see if that ended up being true - looks like it unfortunately may be. Here's the article: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/?a_dgi=aolshare_facebook http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivor...
mcantelon 13y ago
Let's remember the post-Fukishima gloating by pundits such as George Monbiot that naively deemed Fukishima a validation of nuclear power. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuc...
ajarmst 13y ago
This "story" is simply a press release from Mycle Scneider, who has a clear and consistent record as being anti-nuclear power and a probable agenda to elevate concern about it. I'd like to see a real "independent" report which cites multiple views and has real measurements, not meaningless twaddle like "tons of radioactive water."
orblivion 13y ago
"They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site. Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added." Are they still cooling down the reactors?
- mpyne 13y ago
  Probably they are still cooling down the reactors, as least somewhat. The effect is called "decay heat" and does take quite some time to completely dissipate for reactors of that scale. However there is also a lot of groundwater leaking into the basement/reactor complex apparently, which then needs to be pumped back out.
beefman 13y ago
It's really sad and frightening for me to see such hysteria in the media and even in the comments here. I want to address all of it, but it's not possible even to make a dent. But I can offer the following numbers: Fukushima release to groundwater TEPCO estimate, August 2013 0.024 PBq (< 5g Sr-90) in 300 m^3 water Fukushima releases to the sea TEPCO estimate, May 2012 11 PBq I-131 3.5 PBq Cs-134 3.6 PBq Cs-137 Fukushima releases to air TEPCO estimate, May 2012 500 PBq I-131 10 PBq Cs-137 10 PBq Cs-134 NISA estimate, June 2011 160 PBq I-131 15 PBq Cs-137 Chernobyl releases to air Wikipedia, retrieved Aug 2012 1760 PBq I-131 85 PBq Cs-137 And here's a picture of the leak http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20130820/14/noraneko-okayama/4f/0a/j/o0640048012654876903.jpg http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20130820/14/noraneko-okayam... The highest seawater activity level I've ever seen reported is 650 Bq/L Cs-137. If it weren't for the salt, I'd drink it all week long. Edit: Ongoing Fukushima coverage can't really be made interesting, but Leslie Corrice[1] and Will Davis[2] do a good job. [1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com [2] http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com
- KVFinn 13y ago
  You're quoting a bunch of year or more old stats... there's been a flurry of recent news coverage because recent measurements have either exceeded past limits, or past measurements are now considered to have been underestimates, with respect to ocean release. Example: http://japandailypress.com/fukushima-bay-radiation-levels-highest-since-measurements-began-2034175/ http://japandailypress.com/fukushima-bay-radiation-levels-hi... >Reports from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, say that measurements of radioactive tritium in seawater – seeping out of the nuclear complex via groundwater into the sea – show levels at 4700 becquerels per liter, the highest tritium level in the measurement history. The highest tritium levels have come in the past 15 days, the same reports show. It is very very strange to be seeing such Tritium levels this late, it dilutes so quickly. It's so strange it's to even figure out probably causes.
  - beefman 13y ago
    No, I'm not missing recent events. Year-old stats are still valid because almost all the release occurred during the accident sequence in 2011. I'll drink the 4700 Bq/L tritium water too. That level doesn't even exceed the WHO limit for drinking water (10,000) let alone the Finnish one (30,000) or Australian one (76,103). The 4.7kBq measurement was made in the quay in front of the plant, not the open sea. Rising tritium levels there may be a result of leaks of cesium-stripped water from the onsite treatment system, or simply natural variation in groundwater drainage from the site. I don't want to get personal, but the way your post is written as if it comes from a place of knowledge, is a worthwhile example of a larger phenomenon.
Snowda 13y ago
I remember back when the earthquake hit we were in the engineering lab at university and we were gathered around one of the workstations watching YouTube video's of the even half way around the world. We were shocked but we were fairly confident that their government had a handle on the situation. They are an earthquake prone country after all, they surely planned for this. My roommate was a transfer studying English and had a few friends from South Korea and Japan. They were going to a pub and I came along for the ride. I will never forget that night. 1. One of his friends got a phone call telling him his best friend was missing. He left and I never saw the guy again, I don't know what happened to his friend. This made the situation really feel real to me. Not just something just happening on TV. 2. While talking to a Japanese guy there (who I knew well and had a history of being BRUTALLY honest about his own country) said straight up: "This is worse than the government is admitting". Even before problems with Fukushima were announced he said this. I was dumbstruck by how the people could truly not believe their own government in any of the slightest and how despite this the Government perpetually wants to pretend everything is fine to keep the populous calm. As time has gone on I only further believe him on this fact. And I believe that it is still worse than they are currently admitting.
nateabele 13y ago
I was in Tokyo recently and had a chance to speak to some friends about this. Many of false claims and lack of transparency by the Japanese government are driven by the fact that affected areas around Fukushima are heavy tourist areas. Combined with lack of growth in exports, over which their economy is already expected to be heading into a crisis in the next few years, the impact of a long-term reduction in tourism has potentially serious national implications.
ericdykstra 13y ago
Here is an interesting video describing a model of the spread of radiation from the Fukushima plant over the next 10 years. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's an interesting watch nonetheless (and under 3 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU00aL-_ic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU00aL-_ic
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
  Here's the paper behind that: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/3/034004/article http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/3/034004/article Lest the logarithmic scale confuse anyone, the concentrations over most of the ocean are tiny. The scale has a 5 order-of-magnitude range. As a reference point, Cs-137 background from atmospheric testing is a median 3 Bq/m^3 [1] in the Pacific. (Total weapons fallout was 25 MCi = 925 PBq of Cs-137 [2], about 30x Fukushima's 36 PBq [3]). Both are dwarfed by natural radioactivity, which includes 11 kBq/m^3 of K-40 [4]. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15245845 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15245845 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=JLFX6EMPqBkC&pg=PA34 http://books.google.com/books?id=JLFX6EMPqBkC&pg=PA34 [3] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5984.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5984.full [4] http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm
NN88 13y ago
/r/Conspiracy was right. Hot damn.
PaulHoule 13y ago
This is very bad news for the nuclear industry although I think the threat to the global environment is overblown. For instance, they speak as if going into the ocean was the worst place the leakage could go. But face it, the ocean is a huge place and spread out that thin, it's an infinitesimal part of the natural background radiation. Sure, radiation puts stress on life forms, but so does SO2, CO2, POPs and all the other pollution we create and in the big picture Fukushima has far less impact than, say, rice farming, has in Japan.
davvid 13y ago
Californians should be up in arms about this (where do you think the radiation is going?) Just the other day there was that story about how 80% (?) of our pollution in CA comes from China. The earth is one giant network. </saddened>

374 points by Libertatea 13y ago

veidr 13y ago

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, with no meaningful oversight nor repercussions. Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. TEPCO should have been nationalized, or at least put into a decade of receivership, within a few days of the fail, when it became clear that they were completely unequipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude and their president checked himself into a hospital for stress/mental issues.

raverbashing 13y ago
Yes, it's not about public/private. At a certain "screw-up" level, it doesn't matter anymore. This is a Japanese problem, but it's close to becoming a worldwide problem The containment has failed, as the leaks show, now what's the solution for that? Can we just pour tons and tons of sand on top so it melts and becomes a glass cocoon? (I don't know) Or it has breached the soil?
- justatdotin 13y ago
  it is certainly not just a Japanese problem. Japanese uranium mines didn't fuel the reactors, and the radiological contamination does not recognise national borders. The mismanagement of this disaster is not solely the responsibility of the Japanese government, but has been enabled by the hopeful silence of other nations. Why didn't all our governments stand up and denounce the misinformation around declaration of a 20msv 'acceptable' public dose limit, up from 1msv? Hoping to continue on with business as usual, international authorities stayed silent while their Japanese counterparts misled their people about what was 'safe'.
deleted 13y ago
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lmm 13y ago
>Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. Really? Everyone is terrified of the radiation bogeyman, but I'd bet there were more injuries and deaths as a result of New Horizon.
- Turbots 13y ago
  That's because the effects of radioactive contaminated ocean water is much, much harder to measure. We still don't know what that much of radiation will cause the plankton, fish, bigger fish, and ultimately, us humans...
- veidr 13y ago
  Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it. Radioactive contamination of the food supply, the oceans, and tens of thousands of people exiled from their hometown for the rest of their lives. 17 injured and 11 dead rig workers is easily comprehended and instant. Doesn't really mean that disaster was worse, though. Just easier to contemplate.
  - benihana 13y ago
    >Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it. Is that why you lead off with a fine example of it when you said that Fukushima was "about 100 times worse" than New Horizon?
    - chronic25 13y ago
      Didn't you read his post? Yes.
  - berntb 13y ago
    >>hundreds of years after we are all dead >>Radioactive contamination of [...] the oceans Sigh... bad scare mongering. How many percent has the background radiation in the Pacific ocean increased by Fukushima? (Hint: radioactive water is very, very diluted after much less than one century. :-) )
rwmj 13y ago
You've not been paying much attention to the Japanese nuclear industry. This is the industry that allowed junior staff to mix nuclear materials together unsupervised, causing a chain reaction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident#In_1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident#In_...
- iyulaev 13y ago
  And engineers in Europe or the US have never had criticality incidents ;)
  - AsymetricCom 13y ago
    Lets try to stay on topic here. We should be doing everything we can to help Japan, not poking fun of them or trying to start some kind of competition of incompetence.
zsombor 13y ago
By what standard do you see Fukushima as being worse? Number of casualties? Number of people who had their livelihood directly affected? The effect on the biosphere?
- lispm 13y ago
  Let's just say that hundreds of people will work in extreme conditions (high radiation, damaged nuclear material, damaged buildings) for the next 20 years to keep this thing from collapsing/... before the next heavy earth quake hits.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    ... and the region around the plant has been quite severely affected: long term evacuation of inhabitants in some areas, kids can't play outside in others (and must take constant "precautions"), large scale decontamination needed (removal of top-soil, etc), fishermen not allowed to fish (it depends on the species and their feeding habits etc, some have shown no contamination, others are way, way, over the limits), many problems caused by loss of confidence (obvious huge drop in tourism, a very hard time selling farm produce, etc). So sure, the number of people that started glowing green and exploded is small (:-), but the financial and social repercussions of the Fukushima incident are not small at all. "Number of people that died" isn't the only statistic to look at when evaluating such things...
- veidr 13y ago
  Personally, my weighting factors are: 1. Number of people who died, or will die, weighted by how they die -- painful slow death by internal organ cancers being pretty far up there on my chart. 2. Number of people who have traumatic long term health episodes, like cancer, that degrade their quality of life. Even if it isn't until much later. 3. Number of people who have to leave long-established hometown territory and give up their homes, to live in crappy housing (way better than an American FEMA trailer, but still sad) until they die. 4. Number of children who get thyroid cancer caused by radioactive contamination that would not have otherwise -- even though Japan has arguably the best health care system in the world, and virtually all of these kids will live. Still sucks to have cancer and surgery when you're 8. 5. Incidental casualties (including cleanup workers). The actual local Fukushima plant boss became something of a hero after telling Tokyo (as in Tokyo Electric Power Company) to fuck off and calling his own shots during the worst of it. He died of cancer[1] last year, and also had a brain hemorrhage last year, ostensibly none of which was related. But there were a lot of young workers that went in there and like, did manual labor. They might be alive, but a lot of them aren't all gonna be fine. 6. Degradation of the best food on earth. I read in a Seattle newspaper (I'm pretty sure) that effectively all tuna now commercially caught have higher levels of cesium than before Fukushima. First the mercury, now this? NO FUCK YUO!! And here in Japan it's like spinach, potatoes, meat, fish... they can only test like 0.1% of it (which is bullshit but that is another post). 7. And, since I am me, my personal standard of how fucked it was accrues bonus points for: each of the 17 times I was forced to choose between not bathing or bathing in cesium water (we did Perrier sponge baths at first but then bottled water became too scarce to use other than for drinking), the 1 time my local supermarket (high-end rich-people supermarket btw) had to hand me a letter apologizing for selling me beef with illegally high cesium levels, and the 50 hours I spent roaming Tokyo in search of clean bottled water in the aftermath. I just can't see any reality where Fukushima isn't worse than New Horizon, on balance. Not that New Horizon wasn't bad. It just wasn't one of the worst disasters since I have been alive, where Fukushima was. [1]: ht NO tp NO NO SORRY ://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/09/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-masao-yoshida-dead-cancer_n_3568293.html [2]: Man I really thought I was linking to NY Times, which I will now: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/asia/masao-yoshida-nuclear-engineer-and-chief-at-fukushima-plant-dies-at-58.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/asia/masao-yoshida-n... At least that accidental huffington link explains why my computer had been audibly churning out all sorts of sad (but unrelated) human interest stories while I typed that post....
pnathan 13y ago
I agree that TEPCO is not earning itself any medals, and the Japanese government is not earning medals in terms of checking TEPCO's foolery.

frank_boyd 13y ago

> 'much worse than we were led to believe' We've heard this one before, from the same people. We're too slow to learn. Too slow compared to the ever increasing amplitude of the technology we create.

josephcooney 13y ago
Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times. - Sigmund Freud
chiph 13y ago
A rule of thumb I use for dealing with pronouncements from the government: If it's bad news, it's actually twice as bad as they say it is. If it's good news, it's actually half as good as they said. Thus far, it's proven reasonably accurate.

hkmurakami 13y ago

Honestly, this is just business as usual for Japanese govt/bureaucracy here. The only difference is that it's the first time in a while that its bullshittery has been thrust onto the international stage. If you're living in Japan or are any how strongly affiliated with it, you'd have to be a moron or just hopelessly incurably optimistic to believe anything the government or these pseudo governmental organizations say about anything remotely controversial. I've never trusted any statements or numbers issued by any Japanese entity since day 1. Since I can't trust anything, I just largely stay out of the country. Of course, its waste waters are being dumped into the ocean all the time so I'm getting owned anyways across the ocean.

adrianwaj 13y ago
repeat of my last comment: "Who's the real terrorists in 2013?" Comfort-maximizing system-lickers.

throwaway1979 13y ago

Any HNer knowledgeable on the matter shed light into how bad this can get?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- veidr 13y ago
  That's true, but these containment tanks are right next to the ocean. So pretty much everything that leaks is going into the ocean. And they aren't going to be gone by the time the next tsunami hits, so I think it is roughly (and with their level of ineptitude and deceit, roughly is as good as we are gonna get) reasonable to think that it's all (300,000 tons of radioactive water and counting) going into the Pacific at some point...
  - SuperChihuahua 13y ago
    I deleted it because I forgot the water leaking out, but here's the original comment because it might be interesting. "If I've understood everything correctly, it can't be as bad as the Chernobyl disaster. The only reason to why the radioactive material spread so far during the Chernobyl disaster was because the reactor core consisted of graphite, the graphite caught fire, and the dangerous material rose to the sky." @jjsz The text is the same. What happened was that I deleted the comment before I saw that someone replied to it, and then it looked stupid with a good reply to a deleted comment.
    - jjsz 13y ago
      Completely changing the parent comment like that and making this comment on a child doesn't make sense to me. You should have added another parent comment, or added an "edit: __" in the original comment.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
13y ago

lignuist 13y ago

Why is the japanese government letting TEPCO deal with the disaster on their own? Why is the rest of the world letting Japan deal with the disaster on it's own? Contaminating the Pacific Ocean constantly with radioactive water surely affects a lot of other states. This is something experts (TEPCO is obviously not in this position) should handle. The bill for handling the disaster could then be presented at a later time to TEPCO and Japan.

toyg 13y ago
The relationship between Japanese governments and corporations is much more incestuous than their Western counterparts'. In any case, I don't think Tepco is completely alone in the cleanup effort, otherwise you wouldn't have people like Schneider talking about it. In fact, the irritation here comes from the fact that Fukushima continues to be a clusterfuck and everybody knows it... except TEPCO's PR people, who keep interpreting their best Chemical Ali impersonations.
- panacea 13y ago
  "The relationship between Japanese governments and corporations is much more incestuous than their Western counterparts" On a scale of 1 to [citation needed], guess where the answer lies.
  - rtpg 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)#Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)#Japan
    - toyg 13y ago
      Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu
- caf 13y ago
  I think you mean Comical Ali (former Iraqi Information Minister) rather than Chemical Ali (former director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service).

loceng 13y ago

I believe the figure going around is that 200 tonnes of radioactive water, per day, is leaking. This will cause a lot of problems for everyone.

gngeal 13y ago
200 tonnes of radioactive water There is a (long) trillion of tons of radioactive water in all the world's oceans. C14, see? "Radioactive water" is a meaningless term.
- loceng 13y ago
  Of course it would be based on concentrations - but no one is announcing what that is, nor do they seem to really be able to get a clear idea of it - because it's not contained and therefore not accurately measurable.
- e12e 13y ago
  I think meaningless is a little strong. We talk about CO2 emissions, even though the air contains CO2. My understanding would be more radioactive than ambient radiation, or something along those lines. I do agree that seeing some actual numbers would be helpful (eg: types and amount (estimated) of isotopes).
  - saalweachter 13y ago
    The total increase in CO2 levels over the last couple hundred years is about 30%, from 280 PPM to around 400 PPM. By contrast, the total increase in the ocean's radioactivity from Fukushima is about 0.000002%, give or take a zero. While "trillions of Bq" sounds bad, and probably isn't good, the oceans contain something like 14,000 exaBq worth of Potassium-40 alone. The problem with radioactive releases is more about concentrating it. There's sort of an anti-goldilocks situation. If a radioactive release doesn't spread very well at all, that's kind of OK. The radioactivity at the point of release is extremely dangerous, but hey, it is well contained and you can clean it up. If the radioactivity spreads extremely well, that's kind of OK too. It freaks people out, but realistically if you dilute radioactive materials enough they stop being dangerous. You're pissing in the ocean. But if the radioactive material spreads JUST RIGHT, you can contaminate too large of an area to clean up while still leaving the radiation levels high enough to be dangerous.

brudgers 13y ago

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." -- I. F. Stone Though the disaster site is in Japan there is nothing particular to Japanese culture in the information flow.

jre 13y ago

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the industry are towards minimizing costs / maximizing profits. This is fine for some other industries, but it seems to fail for areas where the impact of mismanagement is much more severe than a bankruptcy. We have to find a way to make those critical industries transparent and honest so that citizens can trust them again.

justatdotin 13y ago
I also see a similarity: both GMOs and the nuclear industry pose poorly-managed threats to genetic integrity of all forms of life.
tonyedgecombe 13y ago
I'm not sure the government would lie any less in this situation so that only leaves one option, no nuclear.
- jre 13y ago
  I agree, I don't think a traditional government-controlled company is the answer. It's probably a mix of public and private entities, with a very strong and independent control authority that doesn't fear shutting things down if they find some wrongdoings (even if this means losing a lot of money in the short-term).
- mbq 13y ago
  The gov can kill you equally well with nuclear power as with bad food/water supervision, wrong medical policy (like inoculation strategy), chemical plants, mining operations, waste management, insufficient or corrupted law enforcement, finally by causing some war or economic collapse.
samatman 13y ago

walid 13y ago

The worst part is that everyone wants to present their situation as being in control and not admitting that control over the situation was lost when the floods initially happened. If Fukushima was left to political entities to handle it, we'll end up with radioactive materials in everything all around the globe. Considering that today we eat food grown all over the plant, the worst part is the amount of radiation that will slip into our food supply.

uptown 13y ago

Why are nuclear facilities frequently built near oceans and rivers? Is it due to the easy-access to water for cooling purposes? I've seen it in many places, and it just seems short-sighted in light of the potential to spread contamination when something goes wrong.

kaybe 13y ago
Yes, that's the reason. Without massive amounts of water for cooling it's not possible to use current technologies.
- uptown 13y ago
  Interesting. The NSA facility is designed to use a massive amount of water daily (17 million gallons a day), and it is nowhere near an ocean. http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/massive-nsa-data-center-will-use-17-million-gallons-water-day.html http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/massive-nsa-data-...
  - samstave 13y ago
    ??? Yes, but that is not a reactor which will have catastrophic fallout if it stops getting cooling. In fact, it would do the world a great service if the cooling failed there :-)
agumonkey 13y ago
It's a double-edged sword obviously. How much flow does a plant need ? and is it unrealistic to build an isolated water pond/stream to cool one ?
seren 13y ago
And the one that are not closed to the sea, are closed to rivers, and so are also at risk of being flooded. Another risk is that after severe heat waves, the river's water can become to "hot" to efficiently cool the reactor... Not to mention severe drought where the river level can become too low... All in all, plenty of different ways to fail.

cygwin98 13y ago

I don't know why Japan can get away with this for so long. I remember when the Chernobyl disaster happened, Soviet Union was shamed to death by all western media for years. I had high respect for the Russians for their great efforts to contain the damage. A great many of red army soldiers died when building a concrete substrate underneath the ruined reactor, which prevented the underground water from being contaminated by radioactive pollution. In contrast, the Japan government hasn't been capable to do this for the past two years, which is apparently irresponsible and shockingly incompetent.

yxhuvud 13y ago
Japan is getting away with it because there is no radioactive rain impacting other countries.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  I guess it helps that the winds blow from west to east (i.e. straight into the ocean where the next country is ~8000 miles away)
  - 205guy 13y ago
    3800 miles and the next country is ... USA (Hawaii). However, both winds and water currents tend to go north of Hawaii, so it is more like 5200 miles on the great circle to California.
- reirob 13y ago
  This might be, but at the same time the problem is not resolved and contained as it was in Chernobyl. "We have three 100-ton melted fuel blobs underground, but where exactly they are located, no one knows. Whatever 'barriers' TEPCO has put in place so far have failed. Efforts to decontaminate radioactive water have failed. Robots have failed. Camera equipment and temperature gauges...failed. Decontamination of surrounding cities has failed. " [..] "If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people" Considering these future threats have not been resolved in any way I must say I respect for Soviet Unions reaction in Chernobyl case. EDIT: Quotes taken from article linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104

bengrunfeld 13y ago

Honestly, internet snarkiness and 2 minute rages aside, I wonder what this will mean for us in the future. I wonder how US crops, the Australia climate, and Chinese drinking water quality will be affected. Is this so bad that Japan has essentially damned the entire region? Or are we going to see a mass die-off of fish around the world? It's just a really scary situation, and totally not cool.

rtpg 13y ago
Not to be rude but I think you're highly overestimating the effects this could have globally. The ocean is really big, and it's not like radioactivity is contagious. As for the local effects, who knows... EDIT: by who knows, I just mean I'm not aware of the scale, I could imagine it getting pretty bad. It's just that with all the sensationalism and non comprehension of basic statistics in some articles, I feel pretty misinformed on the subject.
- bengrunfeld 13y ago
  I'm not overestimating, or indeed estimating, anything. I was interested in other people's opinions. Rudeness pardoned.
lignuist 13y ago
I would expect something between slightly higher levels of radiation in fish (which might sum up if you eat it and might "surprisingly" lead to cancer) and an apocalyptic disaster that affects every creature on earth if TEPCO fucks up anything with the large number of fuel rods, which are still stored at Fukushima.
- pdonis 13y ago
  Um, let's try to keep things in perspective, please. This is very bad for the people that are near the plant, no question. But in global terms, the total amount of contaminated water that could potentially leak is miniscule. The Pacific Ocean is really, really big. The article says that 400 metric tons of contaminated water are being added every day. Let's say that leakage rate goes on for 5 years. That's about a million metric tons of contaminated water. The volume of the Pacific Ocean is about 660 million cubic kilometers. One cubic kilometer of water weighs about a billion metric tons; so the a million metric tons of radioactive water is one 660 billionth of the volume of the Pacific Ocean. Now let's talk about the fuel rods. An accident involving those could potentially have effects similar to Chernobyl in terms of spreading radiation; but since there are four reactors at risk at Fukushima, we would expect the global effects to be about four times the global effect of Chernobyl. While the global effects of Chernobyl were certainly measurable, they hardly amounted to "an apocalyptic disaster", or even one fourth of one.

Symmetry 13y ago

Have we gotten to the point where the Fukushima disaster has caused as many deaths as an equivalent megawattage of coal powerplants operating over Fukushima's lifetime would have?

losvedir 13y ago
Has it caused any?
ori_b 13y ago
We haven't gotten to 1 yet.
Symmetry 13y ago
Ok, so the lifetime output of the plant is 188 GW-years. Most estimates for the expected cancer deaths due to radiation are around 120. The evacuation itself caused 46 deaths due to disruption in medical care and suicide. That means that Fukushima had .88 deaths per GWyr. That's 1/3 the death rate of coal according to an EU study, but twice the death rate of coal according to another study that looked at a different set of countries. Which I guess makes sense, most coal related deaths are going to be due to mining safety and particulate emissions which rich countries can do a lot to combat by investing in technology for safer money and scrubbing coal emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
- reirob 13y ago
  I guess this does not include all the radiation that we are still going to have, for decades and possible bigger damages yet to come: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104
- pessimizer 13y ago
  What a great answer to your own great question. So depending on the accuracy of the estimates - which may be drastically low, but also should be spread amongst the plants currently running without incident and their likelihood to continue that way - nuclear could end up being far more damaging to human health than coal for an equivalent amount of energy.

sampo 13y ago

It would be nice to see some numbers. "around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank on the site." Ok, 300 tonnes, but during which time period? Between 2011 and now? And how radioactive? What elements and how much does it contain?

eliasmacpherson 13y ago
another bbc article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 From that I think this is a one off discovery of 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water leaking, and in general 300 tonnes of 'not as radioactive' per day leak from the radioactive buildings. Odd that the numbers given are so similar.

DennisP 13y ago

Although it's possible this is really bad, I'm surprised by the lack of skepticism in this discussion so far. Mycle Snyder is described as an "independent consultant," with no mention of scientific or engineering credentials. There are quite a few people who make a living as consultants by exaggerating nuclear dangers. The article also didn't give any numbers at all. How much radioactivity are we talking about here? Talking about "tonnes of radioactive water" is meaningless. Presumably someone has measured actual radioactivity levels in the nearby ocean. Where are those numbers?

api 13y ago
Nearly every Fukushima mega-scare story I've encountered seems to go back to Arnie Gunderson, who is a professional anti-nuclear consultant. At the same time, I see a near information blackout from other authorities. There just doesn't seem to be much good information on this one way or the other. Radiation is very easy to detect. If there's a serious leak, people outside Japan could see it. Where is this data?
- rangibaby 13y ago
  I take some reassurance that the anti-nuclear guys say we're fucked and pro-nuclear guys say nuclear is still the safest. That means the truth is probably somewhere in the middle ;-)
  - api 13y ago
    I think it proves Heisenberg was right. Reality is determined by the political slant of the observer. :)
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    Sorry if I downvoted sarcasm. Unless you meant "middle" literally as in anything exactly as written by the most extreme of either side, this is a bad way to reason about things. It's the kind of thinking that lets people say "well the anti-vaccine people are pretty strong about their views, but doctors disagree; it's probably somewhere in the middle" and slide about while being incorrect.

dharma1 13y ago

Can someone translate this to plain English? What is the worse case scenario, in terms of damage to the environment and people? What kind of radius will the effects be contained to - is it just the coast of Japan or much further out?

kevcampb 13y ago

can someone explain why they are accumulating so much extra water? surely they can just reuse the already contaminated water in the tanks? obviously there's good reason, just curious why.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Well if they're actually leaking that much water every day, then they'd probably not have a way to recapture it. If they did, it wouldn't be a leak.

Tichy 13y ago

I know what the deniers are going to say: the risk is just equivalent to dumping a banana into the ocean. Whatever.

adam-f 13y ago
76 million bananas, to be precise. http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/fukushima-radiation-leak-the-same-as-76-million-bananas http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/storie...
- gus_massa 13y ago
  76 millons bananas are approximately between 220 and 500 TEUs (standard containers) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28volume+76+million+bananas%29+%2Fteu http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28volume+76+million+ba... Let's multiply that by 2 to account the overhead and space between bananas. A cargo ship can carry up to 16000 TEUs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship

iamshariq 13y ago

Why the heck is this on top? Is this site turning into reddit for world news?

pvaldes 13y ago

... as always since 2011 sadly nothing new, layers of lies over more lies with some crunchy lies in between. Bon appetit!.

Gravityloss 13y ago

Numbers would be good. How radioactive? Compared to background and something which we know to be dangerous?

niuzeta 13y ago

it's about time the three countries closest to Japan - Korea, China, and Russia, all of whom have great power and relation(trade and diplomatic) with Japan, to respond. I mean, they've already done but it's time to make the pressure more concrete... economic sanction, albeit partial? This is a globe-wide matter.

JonnieCache 13y ago

Anyone wishing to become more familiar with the murky process which led to the proliferation of the unsafe Boiling Water Reactors such as Fukushima should watch Adam Curtis' film A is for Atom, which details how the US government and General Electric conspired to ignore the warnings from the Atomic Energy Commission about the designs. He made it available in full on his (excellent) blog in the wake of the earthquake: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.... If those from outside the UK can't watch that one, it's also on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDrA7yUdFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDrA7yUdFc Those wary of Curtis and his psychedelic editing tricks should still give it a go - this one is from 1992, before he got so into Boards of Canada and flash cuts.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I can't say I'm a Lewis Page fan, but his coverage on the Register [1] added an interesting insight which was that contamination in the water was resulting in primarily beta radiation, not gamma radiation. I know the folks who are reporting this, the "World Nuclear Industry Status Report" [2] are not exactly unbiased. Read through other reports they have on their web site and they don't seem to be coming at the debate from a particularly balanced perspective. In general though I find it hard to read coverage of nuclear power, gun control, and civil liberties these days given the very strident positions. It feels to me like walking in a room of people screaming at each other. [1] "OMG! New 'CRISIS DISASTER' at Fukushima! Oh wait, it's nothing. Again" -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disaster_at_fukushima_oh_wait_its_nothing_again/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disas... [2] http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/

mtdewcmu 13y ago
The part that wasn't explained very well in these articles is the nature of the threat from water leaking into the ocean. I would think, perhaps naively, that once it entered the ocean, it would dissipate and be relatively harmless. It would also be a relatively benign place to contaminate the groundwater. The groundwater would be too salty to drink, anyway, and it would flow directly into the ocean.

consultant23522 13y ago

I can't imagine why anyone is surprised by this. The people in the know will never tell us the true depth of the problems with the economy right now, the floor of the gulf is absolutely destroyed from being covered in oil, etc. A conspiracy theorist sized dose of cynicism when reading the news is about the only way to get any sort of reality out of it.

hardwaresofton 13y ago

As a person who was in japan during the touhoku earthquake, and I'd like to point out that most of the japanese people probably have no idea what is happening in regards to this. If it's on the news, they are probably airing it BECAUSE of the global shitstorm tha has emerged. The only news I trusted while I was there was the BBC (Japanese news told you nothing, American news were sensationalizing every thing, slow at best, wrong at worst)

fossuser 13y ago

I remember reading an article around the time of the Fukushima leak where a Chernobyl clean up crew survivor was interviewed. One of the key points was to get out as quickly as possible, that it'll be much worse than the government/industry initially says it is. I made a mental note to see if that ended up being true - looks like it unfortunately may be. Here's the article: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/?a_dgi=aolshare_facebook http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivor...

mcantelon 13y ago

Let's remember the post-Fukishima gloating by pundits such as George Monbiot that naively deemed Fukishima a validation of nuclear power. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuc...

ajarmst 13y ago

This "story" is simply a press release from Mycle Scneider, who has a clear and consistent record as being anti-nuclear power and a probable agenda to elevate concern about it. I'd like to see a real "independent" report which cites multiple views and has real measurements, not meaningless twaddle like "tons of radioactive water."

orblivion 13y ago

"They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site. Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added." Are they still cooling down the reactors?

mpyne 13y ago
Probably they are still cooling down the reactors, as least somewhat. The effect is called "decay heat" and does take quite some time to completely dissipate for reactors of that scale. However there is also a lot of groundwater leaking into the basement/reactor complex apparently, which then needs to be pumped back out.

beefman 13y ago

It's really sad and frightening for me to see such hysteria in the media and even in the comments here. I want to address all of it, but it's not possible even to make a dent. But I can offer the following numbers: Fukushima release to groundwater TEPCO estimate, August 2013 0.024 PBq (< 5g Sr-90) in 300 m^3 water Fukushima releases to the sea TEPCO estimate, May 2012 11 PBq I-131 3.5 PBq Cs-134 3.6 PBq Cs-137 Fukushima releases to air TEPCO estimate, May 2012 500 PBq I-131 10 PBq Cs-137 10 PBq Cs-134 NISA estimate, June 2011 160 PBq I-131 15 PBq Cs-137 Chernobyl releases to air Wikipedia, retrieved Aug 2012 1760 PBq I-131 85 PBq Cs-137 And here's a picture of the leak http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20130820/14/noraneko-okayama/4f/0a/j/o0640048012654876903.jpg http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20130820/14/noraneko-okayam... The highest seawater activity level I've ever seen reported is 650 Bq/L Cs-137. If it weren't for the salt, I'd drink it all week long. Edit: Ongoing Fukushima coverage can't really be made interesting, but Leslie Corrice[1] and Will Davis[2] do a good job. [1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com [2] http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com

KVFinn 13y ago
You're quoting a bunch of year or more old stats... there's been a flurry of recent news coverage because recent measurements have either exceeded past limits, or past measurements are now considered to have been underestimates, with respect to ocean release. Example: http://japandailypress.com/fukushima-bay-radiation-levels-highest-since-measurements-began-2034175/ http://japandailypress.com/fukushima-bay-radiation-levels-hi... >Reports from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, say that measurements of radioactive tritium in seawater – seeping out of the nuclear complex via groundwater into the sea – show levels at 4700 becquerels per liter, the highest tritium level in the measurement history. The highest tritium levels have come in the past 15 days, the same reports show. It is very very strange to be seeing such Tritium levels this late, it dilutes so quickly. It's so strange it's to even figure out probably causes.
- beefman 13y ago
  No, I'm not missing recent events. Year-old stats are still valid because almost all the release occurred during the accident sequence in 2011. I'll drink the 4700 Bq/L tritium water too. That level doesn't even exceed the WHO limit for drinking water (10,000) let alone the Finnish one (30,000) or Australian one (76,103). The 4.7kBq measurement was made in the quay in front of the plant, not the open sea. Rising tritium levels there may be a result of leaks of cesium-stripped water from the onsite treatment system, or simply natural variation in groundwater drainage from the site. I don't want to get personal, but the way your post is written as if it comes from a place of knowledge, is a worthwhile example of a larger phenomenon.

Snowda 13y ago

I remember back when the earthquake hit we were in the engineering lab at university and we were gathered around one of the workstations watching YouTube video's of the even half way around the world. We were shocked but we were fairly confident that their government had a handle on the situation. They are an earthquake prone country after all, they surely planned for this. My roommate was a transfer studying English and had a few friends from South Korea and Japan. They were going to a pub and I came along for the ride. I will never forget that night. 1. One of his friends got a phone call telling him his best friend was missing. He left and I never saw the guy again, I don't know what happened to his friend. This made the situation really feel real to me. Not just something just happening on TV. 2. While talking to a Japanese guy there (who I knew well and had a history of being BRUTALLY honest about his own country) said straight up: "This is worse than the government is admitting". Even before problems with Fukushima were announced he said this. I was dumbstruck by how the people could truly not believe their own government in any of the slightest and how despite this the Government perpetually wants to pretend everything is fine to keep the populous calm. As time has gone on I only further believe him on this fact. And I believe that it is still worse than they are currently admitting.

nateabele 13y ago

I was in Tokyo recently and had a chance to speak to some friends about this. Many of false claims and lack of transparency by the Japanese government are driven by the fact that affected areas around Fukushima are heavy tourist areas. Combined with lack of growth in exports, over which their economy is already expected to be heading into a crisis in the next few years, the impact of a long-term reduction in tourism has potentially serious national implications.

ericdykstra 13y ago

Here is an interesting video describing a model of the spread of radiation from the Fukushima plant over the next 10 years. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's an interesting watch nonetheless (and under 3 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU00aL-_ic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU00aL-_ic

throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
Here's the paper behind that: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/3/034004/article http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/3/034004/article Lest the logarithmic scale confuse anyone, the concentrations over most of the ocean are tiny. The scale has a 5 order-of-magnitude range. As a reference point, Cs-137 background from atmospheric testing is a median 3 Bq/m^3 [1] in the Pacific. (Total weapons fallout was 25 MCi = 925 PBq of Cs-137 [2], about 30x Fukushima's 36 PBq [3]). Both are dwarfed by natural radioactivity, which includes 11 kBq/m^3 of K-40 [4]. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15245845 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15245845 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=JLFX6EMPqBkC&pg=PA34 http://books.google.com/books?id=JLFX6EMPqBkC&pg=PA34 [3] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5984.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5984.full [4] http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

NN88 13y ago

/r/Conspiracy was right. Hot damn.

PaulHoule 13y ago

This is very bad news for the nuclear industry although I think the threat to the global environment is overblown. For instance, they speak as if going into the ocean was the worst place the leakage could go. But face it, the ocean is a huge place and spread out that thin, it's an infinitesimal part of the natural background radiation. Sure, radiation puts stress on life forms, but so does SO2, CO2, POPs and all the other pollution we create and in the big picture Fukushima has far less impact than, say, rice farming, has in Japan.

davvid 13y ago

Californians should be up in arms about this (where do you think the radiation is going?) Just the other day there was that story about how 80% (?) of our pollution in CA comes from China. The earth is one giant network. </saddened>