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”
FalcoPilot
March 18, 2011 at 9:00 pmCAPTAIN PLANET
Posted Friday, 18 March 2011 at 7:30 pm | Permalink
His 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.
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1. I think that nuke power is currently stupid based on simple cost benefit, risk benefit basis.
2. The risk is exacerbated by the simple fact that they are designed by imperfect men, built by imperfect men operated by imperfect men, and maintained by imperfect men, and manufactured with imperfect materials, with imperfect safety procedures, and subject to cost cutting by imperfect accountants, and located in unsuitable/imperfect locations by imperfect bureaucrats and imperfect politicians. And decisions for life extensions of old unreliable worn out nuclear plants are made by imperfect (and totally ignorant) politicians (the later, whose sum scientific and engineering knowledge could be written on the back of a postage stamp with room to spare).
3. There are some 450 power reactors world wide, with three major events (Three Mile Island, although contained, was a close shave, more good luck than anything else, and with radioactive, noble gases, steam vented that sent the radiation meters right off the scale). It’s a miracle that the Three Mile Island build up of radioactive hydrogen gas didn’t explode. That is one meltdown per 150 reactors so far. A pretty sh!tty safety record. And that does not include all the other close shaves that are covered up and not reported.
4. If we had had 4,500 power plants instead of 450, that would have meant 30 major accidents including 10 Chenobyls with ten radioactive exclusion zones. If you lived near several of these nukes, you would feel like you are in a game of russian roulette, and you would have to ask yourself, like in the Dirty Harry movie, do you feel lucky, Punk?
5. If there is a radioactive plume from Fukushima anything like Chernobyl, and the wind happens to be blowing towards Tokyo (with, what about ten million residents?), just imagine turning it into a permanent ghost town just like Pripyat. Just overlay the Chernobyl radiation no-live zone map over Fukushima and Tokyo! Doesn’t that put a shiver up your spine! See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1996.svg
6. Nukes are not economic, they need massive Government subsidies. Plus government insurance guarantees.
Insurance companies/actuators know their stuff, why won’t they touch them with a ten foot barge pole? Duh!!!
7. Pu 239 has a half life of 24,100 years, and won’t be safe several times that. You cannot just store and forget this stuff. Each kilogram of Pu 239 is probably mixed up with 100 Kg of depleted (ie still radioactive) uranium. So let’s say storage costs of only a hundred dollars per year per kilogram of any of this stuff. Plus factor in the multi billion dollar cost of decommissioning a Nuke Plant. Bingo! No way is any Nuke Power station economic to run over it’s lifetime.
8. I could keep going, but if you have not got the point by now, you would have to be deaf dumb and blind.
9. Yes, I AM a critic of Nuke Power. However, I have an open mind, and I am perfectly open to reconsider, provided the technology and humane factors evolve to such a degree, so as to negate all the above issues. But I am extremely doubtful.
10. By now you should have realized that I am definitelly not “ignorant”!
11. Not superstitious.
12. Not a fool.
13. Nor do I have a financial interest in a competing technology.
14. I think that the judgemental generalization about “all the critics”, simply reflects self evidently on the accuser.
Mark Duffett
March 18, 2011 at 11:52 pmFlower, I ignore your catalogues of shoddy practices in the (yesterday mining, today nuclear, tomorrow, what, forestry?) industry because they’re irrelevant to the issue at hand. There are shoddy practices in the finance industry, does that mean you never use a bank? There are shoddy practices in the building industry, does that mean you don’t live in a house? There is bribery and corruption in the pharmaceuticals industry…you get the idea. Identification of these shortcomings is useful if it helps get them fixed, not as a rationale for trashing the entire enterprise.
FalcoPilot
March 19, 2011 at 12:52 amJust re-reading some of the previous posts that I must admit, I had read originally in quite some haste.
Some of the arguments presented, appeared quite strange, and struck me as rather delusional.
It inspired me to have a poke around on the web, and I found this quote together with a rather obvious explanation, which I thought rather appropriate:
“None so blind as those who will not see………………. Meaning: Nobody is more blind than the person who decides he does not want to see. Often used in reference to prejudice and intolerance.”
http://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Sayings/Quizzes/Will/None_so_blind_as_those_who_will_not_see_959.htm
Hummmmmm!
Flower
March 19, 2011 at 2:29 amMark Duffett – I’ve met a few artful dodgers who throw in the the red herrings when they’re cornered but let’s get back on topic, shall we? So to which catastrophe would you attribute the following article excerpts?:
In the days that followed a dangerous cloud of ‘fallout’ was carried in a south easterly direction towards cities in the North of the country. The scientists were unsure how to deal with the raging fire. They tried to pump in carbon dioxide gas to try and smother the flames, but the heat was such that oxygen was produced from the gas and thus fed the flames higher.
They then had to gamble on flooding the reactor with cooling water. The risk they were aware of was that explosive hydrogen and or acetylene gas could be created and then flash over into an explosion. As this critical decision was being taken the temperatures were climbing by 20 degrees a minute.
The fire in the core continued for 24 hours. During this time the wind blew the fallout south-easterly over England and Europe.
It is thought that the fire led to the release of between 600 and 1000 Tera bequerals of iodine-131, 444-596 TBq of tellurium-132, 45.5 TBq of caesium-137 and 0.2 TBq of strontium-90, plus an estimated 1369 TBq of polonium-210.
The NRPB has since calculated that the catastrophe had caused 32 deaths and 260 extra cancers in the population, but independent experts put the total death toll at more than 1000 lives. (Atomic “incident” – Windscale (Sellafield) 1957 – 54 years ago.) Sound familiar?
In addition, the United States has two dozen reactors of the same GE design as the damaged ones in Fukushima. The US has built reactors on earthquake faults and Japanese earthquakes are no different to American earthquakes. The US NRC has increased the earthquake risk of the top ten most vulnerable reactors to between 33% and 420% (minus any tsunami). But you suggest my posts are irrelevant? Or do you mean they’re “an inconvenient truth?” (for you that is). Very tricky Mark.
freecountry
March 19, 2011 at 12:22 pmFlower, you’re the artful dodger. If I had the time, I could adapt your method of reciting a litany of appalling accidents, crimes, frauds, cover-ups, and time bombs, all relating to medical treatment in hospitals, to show that the invention of the hospital was the most disastrous mistake humanity has ever made.
From infections acquired in hospitals that are estimated to kill up to 100,000 people in America every year, to the Australian surgeon Graeme Reeves who whispered to a patient “I’m going to take your clitoris too” just as she was fading into anaesthesia for a minor lesion removal … hospitals are dungeons of horror that have killed orders of magnitude more people than the nuclear and coal industries ever will. But the vast profits in hospitals just will not let governments face up to what monstrous institutions they are, giant networks of organized mass murder and mutilation, all masquerading behind the imagined benefits of science for humanity.
Flower
March 19, 2011 at 1:40 pmFree Country – The topic here is nuclear energy. You are under the illusion that you can get away with wilfully suppressing and obscuring vital information on the shenanigans in the nuclear industry, to which the public are entitled. However, you are not entitled to gag citizens who supply relevant information that has the potential to knee cap an opponent’s political agenda. In a democracy the public are entitled to digest information from both sides thereby forming their own opinions, so suck it up pal:
Japan’s documented record of nuclear mismanagement (and only the Gods alone would know what else):
December 1995
Eight tonnes of sodium coolant leak from a pipe at the Monju experimental fast-breeder reactor, run by the now-defunct Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (Donen). Monju’s managers tell the Japan Science and Technology Agency that the leak was discovered 8 hours later than was actually the case, and supply a doctored video excluding the worst of the spill. The attempted cover-up causes public outrage.
March 1997
An explosion rocks the Tokaimura waste reprocessing facility, triggered by a fires in a building where waste is mixed with asphalt for storage in drums. Donen officials initially report radiation levels 20 per cent above normal outside the building, but later admit that the true level of contamination was at least 10 times higher. Seven maintenance staff are later found to have been out playing golf.
May 1998
The Japanese parliament passes a bill to reconstitute the discredited Donen as the Japan Nuclear Fuel Cycle Development Institute, monitored by an independent panel of experts. This in turn became part of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in 2005.
July 1999
Twenty tonnes of radioactive water leaks from a cracked pipe at the Tsuruga power station, run by the Japan Atomic Power Company. Although the leak was contained within the plant, elevated radiation levels mean that clean-up workers can spend only 3 hours a day in the area.
September 1999
In what is billed as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, three reprocessing workers at Tokaimura inadvertently create a critical mass of uranium, severely irradiating themselves and triggering chain reactions that continue for several hours.
International safety experts are flabbergasted to learn that the workers were pouring a solution of uranium oxide in nitric acid into a sedimentation tank by hand, using buckets. JCO, the company that now runs the facility, and the Japanese government are criticised both for allowing such a dangerous procedure and for a sluggish response to the incident.
Contd…………
Flower
March 19, 2011 at 2:01 pmBrought forward………
To: Free Country
From: Flower
Japan’s documented record of nuclear mismanagement (and only the Gods alone would know what else):
December 1999
Hisashi Ouchi, one of the workers irradiated in the Tokaimura criticality accident, dies after three months in intensive care; his colleague Masato Shinohara perishes four months later.
October 2000
Six managers from JCO are arrested and charged with professional negligence for failing to prevent the dangerous procedures that triggered the chain reaction at Tokaimura.
September 2002
Freshly revealed reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), dating from the 1990s, describe safety precautions at Japanese nuclear reactors as dangerously weak. IAEA inspectors visited four reactors in 1992 and 1995, finding 90 deficiencies in safety procedures.
The revelation follows the confession by four companies – Tepco, Chubu Electric Power, Japan Atomic Power and Tohoku Electric Power – that they concealed flaws in their reactors from government regulators.
August 2004
In the deadliest workplace incident for Japan’s nuclear industry, a steam leak from a power turbine at the Mihama plant kills four people and injures seven. There is no radiation leak, but the Kansai Electric Power Company is criticised for failing to inspect the failed pipe.
March 2006
A diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Tokyo, later released by WikiLeaks, discusses a case in which a court orders the Hokuriku Electric Power Company to shut down a reactor at its Shika nuclear plant because of concerns over its ability to withstand powerful earthquakes.
Both the company and the Japanese government oppose the ruling. The cable states: “Though not legally obligated to cease operations in this case since this is a civil suit, [the company] will face an uphill battle to regain the support of local citizens for operating a nuclear facility in their backyards.”
A court did indeed order the plant to be shut down, but a higher court reversed the decision, and the plant resumed operation in 2009.
July 2007
Three reactors at the world’s largest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, shut down after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake. A fire briefly breaks out in one of the units. Tepco initially says that the quake caused no radiation leaks, but days later admits that 1200 litres of radioactive water had washed into the sea and several drums containing nuclear waste lost their lids after falling over.
In the wake of the incident, experts debate whether Japan’s nuclear plants are engineered to standards high enough to cope with major quakes – the country’s Nuclear Safety Commission stipulates that all new plants must be built to withstand only a magnitude-6.5 event. Worldwide, there are about 150 earthquakes above magnitude 6 per year.
December 2008
According to a diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Tokyo, an IAEA representative has said that guides for seismic safety have been revised only three times in the past 35 years, and that the IAEA is now re-examining them. The cable continues: “Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have exceeded the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving seismic safety work.”
(Source – New Scientist – 18 March 2011)
May I again suggest that the IAEA are an impotent “force” and that the nuclear industry is predominantly controlled by avaricious and ecocidal tyrants?
freecountry
March 19, 2011 at 2:17 pmThe only covering up here is Flower pushing everyone else’s posts off the screen with sheer volume. I used to read you, but now I know it’s no more informative than listening to airport announcements stuck endlessly on auto-repeat.
freecountry
March 19, 2011 at 2:34 pmThe problem with internet blogs that don’t ban spammers is that, unlike old-style public conversations, there’s not much way for an audience to turn its backs on those who simply shout over others without listening. Flower, you have never made one attempt to answer a single anyone has made against you; you merely fill up screen after screen with spam and denounce anyone for their motive in presenting any counter-argument at all. It’s an admission that you cannot sustain your argument, so instead you protest that you shouldn’t have to. It’s spam.
Gavin Moodie
March 19, 2011 at 2:48 pmOne could unsubscribe to this thread. By Thursday morning I started contemplating asking Crikey to introduce a function that would allow one to filter out posts by specified handles.