A plume of radioactive particles extending into the stratosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex makes a mockery of claims that Japan’s nuclear crisis isn’t comparable to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
The stream of nuclear contaminants are being driven by an intense heat source consistent with exposed fuel rods burning in air, the process that inevitably leads to meltdown unless massive and prompt intervention is successful.
These radioactive clouds are now mixing with higher altitude air currents and being dispersed more widely across northern Asia and the north Pacific.
They are being tracked by the international Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London, which is authorised by the International Atomic Energy Agency to alert airlines and airports to accidental releases of nuclear contamination.
The VAAC this morning issued 10 nuclear emergency flight information regional advisories (FIRs) to enable airlines to route flights well clear of the hazard along air corridors across northern Asia, southern China including Hong Kong, all of Japan and Korea and the high latitude or sub-polar routes that are used to connect North America to dozens of Asia-Pacific cities.
Qantas either has or will soon re-route its Narita flights to achieve a minimum time turnaround at the main Tokyo airport and return via Hong Kong, where there will be a crew change.
This change will avoid overnight stops by crews in Japan for occupational health and logistical reasons, but the airline is closely monitoring the changing situation and all travellers (and on all airlines) are advised to check for late changes to the northern Asia flights.
There is a line of six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant, four of which have now experienced one or more large explosions with the remaining two that had been taken off line before the earthquake and tsunami of last Friday now heating up to levels so dangerous Tokyo Electric is considering breaking down the reactor block walls to allow a build-up of hydrogen gas to escape.
Exasperation with the quality of information coming out of the Japanese nuclear authority, the government and the Tokyo Electric company led to harsh words from the French nuclear authority this morning.
It said the Daiichi accident could be classed as a level 6 event on the scale of one to 7. The Chernobyl calamity in 1986 began as a level 6 event and was then elevated to level 7, which until now consist of the only level 6 and level 7 events recorded.
An official was quoted as saying “Tokyo has all but lost control over the situation”.
This morning the Japan nuclear authority insisted that level 4, an event with purely local effects, was the appropriate level, which is clearly not what the normally ultra-tactful International Atomic Energy Agency thought when it directed the VAAC to issue the warnings to airlines, and also to the airports at which any aircraft exposed to radiation must be thoroughly decontaminated under international conventions.
The major European and China flag carriers have variously cancelled services to Japan or re-routed flights to ensure that flight crew do not overnight in Tokyo, similar to the action that Qantas is about to take.
The quality of information from the Japanese has descended into farce, with simultaneous claims that radiation levels are harmful in the Chernobyl-sized exclusion zone but did not constitute a threat to health. This follows the patently dishonest misuse of radiation exposure metrics used for the first 3½ days of the crisis, which understated the real levels by 1000 or three orders of magnitude.
The US think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, said the situation at Daiichi had worsened considerably and was now closer to a level 6 event and “may unfortunately reach a level 7”.
231 thoughts on “Japan’s nuclear farce”
syzygium
March 18, 2011 at 5:13 pm“The Enlightenment and hubris” – I thought I might get some flak for that – old religions die hard. The enlightenment has brought many good things to the world, there is no question about that. I do not propose throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I do propose that not all technology is benign, and there are limits to what we can or should do. Life is about life, it’s not about progress (that’s an enlightenment idea by the way).
I can be reasoned with, Mark, in fact as I posted earlier, I was a convert to “nuclear power must be part of the mix to avoiding climate change”. This event has made it clear to me that we just shouldn’t play with it, because the world is uncertain, we can’t calculate all the risks, and the consequences are too grave. “Regardless of the outcome” – because I learn from near-misses as much as catastrophes. Is that irrational?
Mark Duffett
March 18, 2011 at 5:49 pm“learn from near-misses as much as catastrophes” yes, that’s perfectly reasonable. But this evaluation depends critically on how ‘near’, and just what did we ‘miss’.
I’ll go back to the comparison with aviation. I’ve previously drawn the analogy between the Hindenburg and Chernobyl – both catastrophes with obsolete technology. Rationally, Fukushima should be seen as nuclear’s de Havilland Comet – a failure from which lessons are learned to make improvements in the technology. Not to trash the entire enterprise. With respect to nuclear power, ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ is exactly what you’re proposing.
Mark Duffett
March 18, 2011 at 5:57 pmsorry, meant to include the following updates and perspectives:
bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/18/fukushima-radiation-tsunamis/
and
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/03/17/how-much-are-you-willing-pay-nuke-free/
Those reasons for ‘almost drinking the nuclear kool-aid’ haven’t gone away. For pointers as to what may well happen from here on, look which direction the share prices of fossil fuel suppliers Rio Tinto and Woodside have headed since Fukushima. This is the point also made by Monbiot in the Guardian, and Kohler today.
syzygium
March 18, 2011 at 6:07 pmWhat we missed was nuclear fallout raining down on one of the largest cities in the world. The argument I’m making is that atomic energy is so qualitatively different from airplanes and trains that the only sensible thing to do is walk away from the exercise, stop trying to make improvements and work on other, different technologies.
FalcoPilot
March 18, 2011 at 6:32 pmJOHN REEVES
Posted Wednesday, 16 March 2011 at 6:50 pm | Permalink
I read all your posts with great interest. I too have been following this disaster closely (plenty of time, on crutches with broken leg).
Your right on the money with everything you have said, an excellent summary.
I do suggest you look up the weather statistics for the prevailing wind directions this time of year.
I agree with leaving ASAP, and suggest a bullet train to an airfield far away from Tokyo, to avoid the crush (radiation?).
I had to laugh at your references to Edano, he came across as a super cool dude under pressure. But now realize that he was selected as the most suitable media robot to reassure everyone. Worked him out! He gives reams and reams of detailed useless data to confuse (reassure?) everyone, but does not really say anything. There is absolutely no proper assessment of the big picture, and/or info regarding all the possible and/or likely outcomes! In short, HE IS USELESS!
Bottom line, to use the American vernacular, basically FUBAR! (look it up).
With four separate units, all without proper cooling, it is one big mess. Similarity to Chernobyl is very valid. Just like WW1 and WW2 are comparable, they both involved death, misery and destruction. Meltdowns (not fully contained) and overheated storage rods all result in escaping radioactive particulates and gases. The mechanism, whether it involves a burning graphite moderator or not just effects the possible severity. So we are just left with a range of possible outcomes of varying degrees of badness. So, bad, very bad, ultra bad………………………. all bad!
Perhaps the best scenario would be slowly smoldering radioactive piles of molten/burning cr?p slowly contaminating everything for miles around for months or years to come. Or, perhaps an uncontrolled build up of heat setting anything and everything that is combustible into a raging infurno something like Chernobyl. We are in unknown territory here, one giant experiment so to speak. So watch this space.
Also suggest looking at the Chernobyl radiation no-live, no agriculture map. If overlaid onto Victoria, it would go from Melb to Albury……….hummmmm…..very sobering.
Begs the question, how big, and how many nuke disasters are required before those pro-nuke-right-wing-nuts start to see the light. They probably still think that asbestos is still not dangerous, and the earth is flat. Some people are slow learners.
freecountry
March 18, 2011 at 6:41 pmA few years ago, 1996 I think, a car bomb went off in Sydney, pretty much vaporising the man in the car, laying waste much of a block with shrapnel and shattered glass for a few hundred metres around. Only it wasn’t a car bomb; it was a leaking 9kg LPG bottle–such as you might use for barbecues on weekends–in a plumber’s van whose leaking gas mingled with the air before something sparked it.
Dangerous things with terrifying potential are all around you. You drive them, you sit in them reading the paper while someone else drives them, you flick them on and off as you enter and leave the room.
In the 1880s, Thomas Edison tried to convince America that Nikola Tesla’s alternating current electricity (which competed with his own direct current technology) was just as reckless and irresponsible as people today believe nuclear power to be. In 1887 he declared that AC had its uses after all–and demonstrated the world’s first electric chair on an unfortunate monkey which was strapped into it to fry. He expected it to shock society into rejecting the high voltage oscillating power source for all time. Today, without AC three quarters of the world would still be living in the dark, instead of the current figure which is about one quarter of the world.
FalcoPilot
March 18, 2011 at 6:50 pmFREECOUNTRY
Posted Friday, 18 March 2011 at 6:41 pm | Permalink
And your point is ??????
Captain Planet
March 18, 2011 at 7:30 pmHis point is that he believes nuclear power is a great thing, and all the critics are either ignorant superstitious fools or they have a financial interest in a competing technology.
FREECOUNTRY and Mark Duffet:
Yes, the amount of energy the sun deposits upon the earth each day is limited.
It is 120,000 TeraWatts.
Considering the entire world’s total energy needs right now are between 15 and 20 TeraWatts, I think we can safely say, that energy from the sun totalling nearly 10,000 times the world’s energy needs, should be adequate for some time to come.
If we collected solar energy over only 1 % of the world’s surface, and converted the energy at 1 % thermal efficiency, that still equals the whole world’s power needs.
If you are attempting to suggest that there isnt enough renewable energy available to supply our needs, what an embarassing attempt it was.
Flower
March 18, 2011 at 7:32 pmMark Duffett – you and the nuclear proponents suffer from selective sight and hearing. When participants allude to the shoddy practices in the nuclear industry, you lot perform the side-step shuffle. Failure to acknowledge the grim realities is a sure way of the facts being quickly interred while you lot busily bob and weave and distract participants with more palatable information. It’s some pity that you can’t run nuclear plants as well as you can lobby.
Anthropologist, Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University. His expertise is in nuclear culture, international security, and the anthropology of science. He writes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
“The US government, including its regulatory agencies, has been largely captured by the corporate sector, which, by means of campaign donations, is able to secure compliant politicians and regulators. (In this context it is not entirely irrelevant that employees of the nuclear operator Exelon Corporation have been among Barack Obama’s biggest campaign donors, and that Obama appointed Exelon’s CEO to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Energy Future.)”
Illinois’ Braidwood reactor leaked so many millions of gallons of tritium-laced water that Exelon was forced to buy a new municipal water system for a whole town. In 2008, at New Jersey’s Oyster Creek reactor, tritium was reported leaking a second time shortly after Exelon got it a 20-year licence extension. The leak was spilling about 7,200 gallons a day and contained 500 times the acceptable level of radiation for drinking water.
Undeterred, the cavalier Exelon volunteered to truncate its licence and allow the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to operate until 2019. This was simply a ruse to avoid investing in cooling towers to prevent the reactor sucking up millions/billions of fish and marine organisms every year. The rusting, belching Oyster Creek unit is the oldest operating reactor in the US.
So what do those guys say before they detonate a nuclear device? “Standby?”
freecountry
March 18, 2011 at 7:45 pmMy point is further to Mark Duffett’s point at 5:19 pm. If we abandoned every technology that ever had a setback … either from the Soviets designing a power station that never could have been built in the west and then trampling even their own atrocious safety standards; or from the Japanese running out of disposal options because of NIMBYism everywhere that a waste dump is proposed (such as Australia), and then putting it in the too hard basket until a once-in-a-century tsunami hits it … if the first tamer of fire had been written off as a madman after someone lost control and burned his whole clan to death … we’d all still be living in the dark.