Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

andrew

Solnskaya wrote: »

Hmmm, bit strange how an unfolding nuclear disaster does not warrant one single mention in the Irish media lately. Would the fact that GE built the plant and GE have huge media influence have anything to do with it, or do the powers that be just not want to scare the horses?

Maybe it's because the queen's over. She could take a shite and it'd be on the 6.1

Coles

The economic impact starts to bite. Japan slides into recession.

Wall Street Journal

Much as radiation from the Japanese atomic power crisis was detected across the globe (mostly at safe-for-human levels), economic effects from the natural and nuclear disasters are starting to be detected, most acutely in Japan, where the economy shrank for the second quarter in a row.

Anyone interested in finding out what's happening at Fukushima, check out the links on page 332 of this thread, particularly the Fairewinds link.

Overheal

Coles wrote: »

Anyone interested in finding out what's happening at Fukushima, check out the links on page 332 of this thread, particularly the Fairewinds link.

you can also create a signature if you want to place those links in each post you make, to save people searching for what links youre talking about. Also keep in mind not everyone has their settings to view the same posts per page as you: for example this thread when viewed 40 posts per page is only 125 pages long.

andrew

Latest IAEA Briefing

Statistician

New video up here now:
http://www.fairewinds.com/updates

Partial meltdowns for units 2 and 3:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13497656

gargleblaster

It was just reported on BBC that Tokyo Electric finally admitted that there were actually three meltdowns, and that the admission came just before UN inspectors were due to arrive.

Also GE built it how many years ago? And how many safety checks were fake? Somehow I doubt GE is worried about culpability.

gbee

How far back in this thread had some of us said the meltdown was in progress and that No1 reactor had not in fact shut down fully.

By Monday evening after the earthquake one meltdown was in full swing.

It's like this: Tepco issue a press release in which they state they found certain isotopes: "Then your reactor is still working and is not obviously shut down!"
Tepco: "No it doesn't, if it says this we are wrong and we will change the press release to take out anything that will indicate a meltdown, sorry for the mistake!"

But of course, we did have a melt down and almost from the very beginning of the event too.

Jimmy Garlic

Nuke fuel meltdown confirmed at three Fukushima reactors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTLzglT4DOI

Coles

It sure is interesting to read over this thread (with hindsight, of course:rolleyes:)

Malty_T wrote: »

Thus far Tepco have been extremely rational accurate and forth coming in my view.

Coles

vibe666 wrote: »

its already been explained in several links as to exactly why a [radioactive release of MOX] can't happen, but short of someone causing a meltdown to prove that it can't happen, nothing is going to convince the scaremongers that its not possible.

long after this whole sorry mess is all done and dusted and nothing happens they'll still be harping on about how it 'almost' happened and how close we came to armageddon etc. etc.

the only joke is that everyone is focused on this BS instead of the real tragedies that are still ongoing in japan.

18th March -Classic!

Coles

andrew wrote: »

[The radiation] is in the sea, doesn't matter how long the halflife is, it'll be diluted before it can do any harm.

26th March - Brilliant stuff! I love it!

Overheal

Coles wrote: »

26th March - Brilliant stuff! I love it!

Hmm but you missed this, derp:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=71370831&postcount=4324


Should we all just cherry-pick old posts from this thread now or are you done being bored?

Coles

Overheal wrote: »

Should we all just cherry-pick old posts from this thread now or are you done being bored?

Eh? I'm not bored yet. I'm just getting to the good stuff.

Chnandler Bong

^^^Damn you I wanted the 5,000th post

Overheal

Coles wrote: »

Eh? I'm not bored yet. I'm just getting to the good stuff.

By dragging up posts that are out of context and 2 months old when they relate to a current and lively event? I just don't see what you hope to gain, other than "I told you so" type-posts, but you didn't even do that, because I'm at least somewhat sure you were not a participant in this thread at the time, hence your going back to read 2 months worth of a conversation.

Coles

Overheal wrote: »

By dragging up posts that are out of context and 2 months old when they relate to a current and lively event? I just don't see what you hope to gain, other than "I told you so" type-posts, but you didn't even do that, because I'm at least somewhat sure you were not a participant in this thread at the time, hence your going back to read 2 months worth of a conversation.

All quality stuff too. In fairness, it's actually very interesting to read over. It's interesting to see how people try to defend their prejudices on a topic regardless of the facts that are presented, or how glaringly out of touch with reality they are. Of course I'm guilty of that too... NOT! :pac:

Some very insightful posts too, particularly by 'peasant'.


Bye!

Micky Dolenz

Coles wrote: »

It sure is interesting to read over this thread (with hindsight, of course:rolleyes:)

Coles wrote: »

18th March -Classic!

Coles wrote: »

26th March - Brilliant stuff! I love it!

Coles wrote: »

Eh? I'm not bored yet. I'm just getting to the good stuff.

Coles wrote: »

All quality stuff too. In fairness, it's actually very interesting to read over. It's interesting to see how people try to defend their prejudices on a topic regardless of the facts that are presented, or how glaringly out of touch with reality they are. Of course I'm guilty of that too... NOT! :pac:

Some very insightful posts too, particularly by 'peasant'.

While some of your points were interesting, you seem determined to derail this thread.

If you post on this thread again, you will be banned for a long time.

Fair warning.

gargleblaster

Switzerland Decides on Nuclear Phase-Out
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/business/global/26nuclear.html


Japanese Parents Assail Government Over Radiation
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/world/asia/26japan.html

Iwannahurl

I've just found out serendipitously that Fukushima means "good-fortune island" in Japanese.

daelight

Just if anyone is interested.. Japan is recovering amazingly well all things considered. Typhoons are the next to try and destroy the country,, never a dull moment...

up for anything

http://www.infowars.com/land-around-fukushima-now-resembles-target-struck-by-atomic-bomb/

Land around Fukushima now resembles target struck by atomic bomb

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
May 31, 2011

It is nothing short of astonishing that the nuclear catastrophe we’ve all been told was “no big deal” has now escalated into the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization. It’s so bad now that soil samples taken from outside the 12-mile exclusion zone (the zone considered safe enough by the Japanese government for schoolchildren to attend school there) are higher than the 1.48 million becquerels a square meter limit that triggered evacuations outside Chernobyl in 1986.

In other words, the radiation level of the soil 12 miles from Fukushima is now higher than the levels considered too dangerous to live in near Chernobyl. This is all coming out in a new research report authored by Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan. That same report also reveals that radiation from Fukushima has spread over 230 square miles.
What we’re facing here, folks, is a Fukushima dead zone where life will never return to its pre-Fukushima norms.

Radiation levels similar to nuclear bomb test site
Bloomberg is now reporting, “Tetsuya Terasawa said the radiation levels are in line with those found after a nuclear bomb test, which disperses plutonium. He declined to comment further.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-…)
One soil sample taking 25 kilometers away from Fukushima showed Cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per square meter. This level, of course, makes it uninhabitable by humans, yet both the Japanese and U.S. governments continue to downplay the whole event, assuring their sheeple that there’s nothing to worry about. By their logic, since all the people are sheeple anyway, as long as the area is safe enough for sheep, it’s also safe enough for the human population.

Both Japan and the U.S. have made huge efforts to raise the limits of allowed radiation exposure in foods and beverages. This was, of course, a deceitful tactic to try to reclassify radiation contamination as somehow magically being “safe” by redefining it.

The outright lying and tactics of deception that have been used to try to downplay the severity of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima are nothing less than despicable. In a time when radiation threatens the safety and food supply of hundreds of millions of people, we are getting nothing but a Fukushima whitewash.

Fukushima is now far worse than Chernobyl ever was and yet we’re all being told it’s no problem and that the government has it all under control. I ask: How is 5 million becquerels per square meter not a problem? It’s amazing that we even got this information, considering how frequently TEPCO claims its sensors and meters aren’t working (basically any time they get a reading that’s “too high”).
The Japanese government can’t wait to corral the sheeple back onto the radioactive soil, by the way. “Basically, the way in which the current zones have been drawn up aren’t a concern in terms of the impact on health,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. “Using Mr. Kawata’s report as a guide, we want to do what we can to improve the soil, so people can return as soon as possible.”

Barely two weeks ago, TEPCO finally admitted Fukushima suffered multiple core meltdowns in the hours following the tsunami strike (http://www.naturalnews.com/032378_n…) (http://www.naturalnews.com/032437_F…). This was the first time TEPCO openly admitted to something the alternative media had been reporting for months.

What has become perfectly clear in the reporting on Fukushima is that:
• Governments lie to the people
• Mainstream media lies to the people
• Only the alternative media was correct in reporting the severity of the core meltdowns and the release of radioactive material into the environment.
That’s why more and more people are turning away from traditional sources of (mis)information and instead relying on the alternative media to get accurate information about world events.

vibe666

that could almost pass for a legitimate news article until you get halfway through it and read this:

One soil sample taking 25 kilometers away from Fukushima showed Cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per square meter. This level, of course, makes it uninhabitable by humans, yet both the Japanese and U.S. governments continue to downplay the whole event, assuring their sheeple that there’s nothing to worry about. By their logic, since all the people are sheeple anyway, as long as the area is safe enough for sheep, it’s also safe enough for the human population.

and then all of a sudden it starts to read like a tinfoil hat piece, regardless of whether or not the statistics within it are actually factually accurate or not.

vibe666

there's a good piece on the BBC news site on retired elderly Japanese engineers (and others) campaigning for their government to let them take the place of younger nuclear plant workers.

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station.

The Skilled Veterans Corps, as they call themselves, is made up of retired engineers and other professionals, all over the age of 60.

They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.

It was while watching the television news that Yasuteru Yamada decided it was time for his generation to stand up.

No longer could he be just an observer of the struggle to stabilise the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The retired engineer is reporting back for duty at the age of 72, and he is organising a team of pensioners to go with him.

For weeks now Mr Yamada has been getting back in touch with old friends, sending out e-mails and even messages on Twitter.

Volunteering to take the place of younger workers at the power station is not brave, Mr Yamada says, but logical.

Mr Yamada has been getting back in touch with old friends via e-mail and even messages on Twitter
"I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live," he says.

"Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer."

andrew

This is pretty good. It's about the risks of nuclear power in general.

I wish this was in the news a bit more, kinda hard to find out exactly what's going on now.

up for anything

vibe666 wrote: »

that could almost pass for a legitimate news article until you get halfway through it and read this:
and then all of a sudden it starts to read like a tinfoil hat piece, regardless of whether or not the statistics within it are actually factually accurate or not.

Feck, I didn't read that far down. Serves me right. :D

vibe666

up for anything wrote: »

Feck, I didn't read that far down. Serves me right. :D

it's known as shootius footius.

the thing is with those kinds of things, they could be telling you something completely legit but with such an obvious agenda in the text, it's hard to take seriously which i think is something we've learnt in this thread over time.

whatever a message is, it's hard for people to take it seriously or to have any hope of it changing their minds if it's constantly putting them down for believing something different to begin with.

i guess it's just one of those things though, when people feel strongly about something they get emotive and not always constructively, something i'm sure we've all been guilty of at some point.

take everything

vibe666 wrote: »

there's a good piece on the BBC news site on retired elderly Japanese engineers (and others) campaigning for their government to let them take the place of younger nuclear plant workers.

Jaysus.
Couldn't imagine something like this happening in Ireland.
Gotta love the Japanese.

Ficheall

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13678627

Japan doubles Fukushima radiation leak estimate

Japan has more than doubled its estimate of radiation that escaped from the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in the first week after the disaster.
Japan's nuclear safety agency also said meltdowns took place in three reactors more quickly than earlier believed.
The assessment comes as an expert panel begins an inquiry into the crisis.
The plant's operator is hoping to shut down the facility by January, although there is concern it may take longer - the plant is still leaking radiation.
More than 80,000 local residents living within a 20km (12 mile) radius of the plant have been evacuated from their homes. A voluntary evacuation policy is operating in the area 20-30km from the plant.
Some towns further away have also been affected.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says more evacuations are being considered. Monitoring shows the lie of the land and wind patterns may be causing a build-up of radiation in other areas.
Brace for criticism Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa) now says 770,000 terabecquerels escaped into the atmosphere following the 11 March disaster - more than double its earlier estimate of 370,000 terabecquerels.
Although the amount is just 15% of the total released at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 - the world's worst nuclear disaster - it suggests the contamination of the area around the plant is worse than first thought, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo.
The safety agency also says that in reactor No 1, molten nuclear fuel dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel within five hours of the earthquake - 10 hours earlier than initially estimated by operator Tepco.
Nisa also says a meltdown damaged the No 2 reactor after 80 hours, and the No 3 reactor 79 hours after the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems.
The revision, nearly three months into the crisis, is likely to increase criticism in Japan that the plant's operator and the government were too slow to release information, our correspondent says.
The findings were released as an independent 10-member expert panel begins an investigation into the causes of the nuclear accident.
An investigation by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has already pointed out a key failure - admitted by Japan - to plan for the risk of waves crashing over the sea wall and knocking out the plant's back-up generators.
Even though a major faultline lies just offshore, the sea wall at Fukushima was less than 6m (20ft) high. The height of the tsunami wave was about 14m.
In its draft report, the IAEA said continued monitoring of the health and safety of the nuclear workers and the general public was necessary.
The report also emphasised the importance of independent regulators in the nuclear industry.
In Japan, the nuclear safety agency is part of the industry ministry, which promotes nuclear power.
A draft report obtained by Japanese broadcaster NHK - to be submitted to the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety later this month - outlines plans to split the two bodies.

gbee

The safety agency also says that in reactor No 1, molten nuclear fuel dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel within five hours of the earthquake -

.

I think this vindicates those who said from the beginning that they had a meltdown and a runaway reaction.

I'd like an apology fro those who commented about us 'Being better experts than .." It's obvious we were.

Google doesn't lie you know, if we take the official report of substances found and Google them we get a lot of information, from the beginning the reported isotopes clearly Googles as a meltdown in progress ~ it was, OK some call it by a slightly different name 'criticality' but this was just being pedantic TBH.

Another six months before they think they will have the plant contained. And it was the earthquake that caused the damage and the tSunami took out the back up diesel systems and batteries only latest to their design specifications.

Overheal

gbee wrote: »

.

I think this vindicates those who said from the beginning that they had a meltdown and a runaway reaction.

I'd like an apology fro those who commented about us 'Being better experts than .." It's obvious we were.

Google doesn't lie you know, if we take the official report of substances found and Google them we get a lot of information, from the beginning the reported isotopes clearly Googles as a meltdown in progress ~ it was, OK some call it by a slightly different name 'criticality' but this was just being pedantic TBH.

Another six months before they think they will have the plant contained. And it was the earthquake that caused the damage and the tSunami took out the back up diesel systems and batteries only latest to their design specifications.

Indeed. You're owed it. Somewhat. I had my own doubts several times but would have wanted to be 100% certain of anything before I promoted worry, grief or radiaphobic panic. We have that certainty now. At the time we had some good hypotheses and still again some other impassioned "Read the writing on the walls" type arguments which had no substance other than gut feeling.

For yourselves though just monitor radiation levels. But I do think they are nothing life threatening. Not more so life threatening that anything else, really. It's out of your hands at this point, aside from opposing nuclear policies. You can choose not to eat sodium nitrates, but it's hard to avoid a trace increase in background radiation, so I find it hard to imagine losing sleep over it. Up next: more oil-related conflicts around the world, with millions killed directly. And people still get into mass panic about radiation-related complications, birth defects and cancers. I guess because it's happening in your backyard, not Abdul's.

Jon