To be fair, the information that has resulted in the new opinion of the guy who wrote the article appears to have not been known two days ago. At the time nothing was known about the cooling pond, and the authorities had only said there had been a release of the steam (which had the salt and short lived isotopes in it).
j_me - MemberThe attempts at dropping water from chinooks looks particularly futile and worryingly desperate!
Whilst I know what you mean, for me it was the suggestion yesterday that a police water cannon might be used to cool down an out of control nuclear reactor, which sounded particularly futile and worryingly desperate.
But I don't know about these things, maybe using water cannons is the internationally recognised protocol for dealing with these situations. Has Britain even got any water cannons ? Probably only to deal with potential nuclear meltdowns eh ?
Has Britain even got any water cannons
No, I think we sold them all to Bahrain.
To be fair, the information that has resulted in the new opinion of the guy who wrote the article appears to have not been known two days ago.
Absolutely, that's why they said it "seemed certain" ..........or was it "definite", I can't remember now.
Interesting article relating to nuclear vs other means and the effects on loss of life:
[url= http://www.livescience.com/13271-containment-breach-fukushima-implications.html ]http://www.livescience.com/13271-containment-breach-fukushima-implications.html[/url]
BBC news headline says:
Japan is stepping up efforts to cool overheating fuel at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, amid growing US alarm at radiation leaks
Only now they are stepping up? what exactly were they doing before?
[url= http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/ ]A bit more detailed info than the usual tabloid BBC scaremonger stuff[/url]
So is the Nuclear Energy Institute a source of neutral unbiased information Dibbs ?
"[i]NEI is the policy organization for the nuclear technologies industry. Read about our leadership, our member companies and how your company can join.[/i]"
Is the "nuclear technologies industry" noted for it honesty, openness, and keen commitment to self-criticism ?
The Nuclear Energy Institute has no axe to grind ? .......unlike the BBC which obviously has - presumably because the BBC has a lot of money invested in carbon/oil energy production.
Has Britain even got any water cannons
Apparently so. This subject came up after the little student knees-up in London last year.
We do have water cannon but they're all in Northern Ireland. Who knows why? Perhaps they'll be shipping them back to the mainland. Under the guise of protecting Sellafield, obviously. But with a sly eye on the Cities erupting in violence again in the summer like they did in the eighties. Yay!
So is the Nuclear Energy Institute a source of neutral unbiased information Dibbs
It actually adds nice balance to the moronic Greenpeace-led 'experts' most people have wheeled out.
Pretty clear and reasonably impartial information from the Government's Chief Scientific Officer Professor John Beddington here:
http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=566811882
If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor.
Does anyone really believe any government source as being the truth? Both Japan and UK have a long history of covering up and / or minimising the releases of radioactivity
Is it fair to say that the energy company has done a good job keeping it all together for a week considering the catastrophic events?
What would be success now? Complete cooling then tidy up, is complete cooling likely or even possible? I can't imagine the tidy up will be easy.
Does anyone really believe any government source as being the truth? Both Japan and UK have a long history of covering up and / or minimising the releases of radioactivity
Tin (lead) foil hats at the ready....
[url= http://www.ustream.tv/channel/geiger-counter-tokyo ]As I type, this is currently reading 13.97 cpm[/url] - This is about the same as it was last time I used a Geiger in Bangor, North Wales, about 9 months ago. Either Wylfa had recently melted down and we'd not noticed, or that's pretty much normal radiation.
Zokes - you know that government sources have been very unreliable in the past on this sort of issue
So is the Nuclear Energy Institute a source of neutral unbiased information Dibbs ?
I don't think I mentioned bias, I mentioned scaremongering, the BBC and others are very keen to put out eye catching headlines but when it comes to supporting the headlines with figures maybe they think the general public are too thick to understand so they try and dumb everything down.
Zokes - you know that government sources have been very unreliable in the past on this sort of issue
I also know that a lot of your information on nuclear comes from organisations who for whatever reason tacitly seem to think that nuclear power is much worse than global warming. There have been enough stats banded about on the three threads on here by now to demonstrate that peoples' paranoid perceptions of nuclear power are just that - paranoid perceptions. Yes, I accept that the situation at Fukushima is not good, but, [url= http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/japan-dam-failure-renews-focus-california-dams-9264 ]it appears that not all green energy is safe either. [/url]
I also know that the link I posted came from a friend in Tokyo, and I have used a geiger counter just a few times before...
You'd have many more counts in Cornwall.
Well I believe the geiger counter reading, Zokes. I don't know where it is though. I suspect somewhere south and west of the plant given the wind direction for the last week. French tsumani rescue workers (edit: working north of the plant) have been withdrawn because their geiger counter was over safe working limits (Europe 1).
Nuclear risks cause me more concern because I'd rather not die a slow miserable death. Getting wiped out by a failing dam would save me from growing old disgracefully but slowly disintegrating as a result of radiation poisoning does not appeal.
1245: Steve Herman, Voice of America Bureau Chief tweets: "Got rad tested in Koriyama: My body 1500cpm, my boots 3000 cpm. Another reporter: 10,000 cpm on her shoes."
That meter is uncommonly stable though, it's not budged since I connected whilst the geiger counter I used went up and down like a yoyo. Either it averages over periods of the order of an hour or it's bust.
Does anyone really believe any government source as being the truth? Both Japan and UK have a long history of covering up and / or minimising the releases of radioactivity
I'd not necessarily trust any source within the Japanese government any more than you or ernie, but I don't see why somebody from within the UK government should have any particular reason to be economical with the truth in these circumstances - it's not like we're even committed to new nuclear which might be affected by this. I'd certainly trust Professor John Beddington to have a better idea about the science than all the journos who probably don't even have a science A level between them (it would admittedly be preferable if his background was in something a bit harder than economics and stats).
Well, as the blanks I put through our scintillation counter regularly come back with about 30 dpm (cpm, but with background subtracted) simply due to natural radiation in potassium in one of the reagents we use, I'd not be worried.
I obviously can't vouch for that counter in the link personally (and i'd guess that since the page title mentions Tokyo, that's where it is), but we have more expensive counters that could be used to measure plant respiration to incredible levels of accuracy with only a tiny bit of 14C added. No bouncing around with them. The oldest monitor in the lab did a bit, but then it also didn't have 2dp precision either, which probably explains why it wasn't as precise.
Anyway, since logging back on, it's moved about between 13.96 and 14.87 cpm
But again, this is a stupid argument. The whole plant could blow sky high (which it won't) and there's still be a lot fewer deaths related to it than the actual disaster most of the media seem to ahve forgotten about.
Nuclear = BAD!!!!!!!!!! PANIC PANIC PANIC 🙄
Nuclear in the wrong hands or not used properly = BAD!!!!!!!!!! PANIC PANIC PANIC
HTH (Pre rolly eyes) 😆
HTH
Sorry, forgot the rolly eyes.
HTH
[url= http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article563041.ece ]Interesting article[/url] that says that the predicted deaths due to Chernobyl were wildly exaggerated. [url= http://lykkeandersen.dk/katastrof.htm ]Friend[/url] of mine has visited the area - looks fascinating !!!
More expert opinion, but don't let the facts get in the way of your blinkered paranoia....
[i]But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30km. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. [/i]
Sir John Beddington, you are a liar. Even in France an increase of 2000 thyroid cancers amongst children were ascribed to Tchernobyl.
[url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12938722 ]I dunno, but this ref seems to back him up...[/url]
Chernobyl fallout cannot explain the entire increase in thyroid cancers in France, and that it is improbable that an epidemiological study could demonstrate such an excess.
Again, don't let teh facts get in teh way of anything....
Let Nuclear Boy provide some reassurance! 😯
I read somewhere (BBC I think) that the water drops and cannons could be to try and get water into the 'holding pools' for reactor 4 which was shut down and had the fuel rods in the holding pools which sit above the reactor. These are alledgedly rapidly running out of water (if not already) and the fuel rods could potentially go critical and start a nuclear reaction which would not be good (no explosion clearly, but uncontained reaction = a lot of radiation floating around).
Here is the link actually:
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608 ]BBC Report - Possibility of stored rods going critical[/url]
One intriguing viewpoint about the disaster is how the most technologically advanced nation deals with natural disaster.
It would seem that the technology doesn't make a great deal of difference, I figure Hurricane Katrina is a similar parallel.
So it can't explain the whole increase - that means it can explain part of the increase.
I quote the French study because it's been argued over for years here with one government depatment fighting with another or with scientific institutes but in the end they can't deny an influence. In countries more heavily contaminated way beyond 30km other studies have demonstrated increases in radiation related dieases. Wiki (believe it or not)list a few under effects on human health.
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Assessing_the_disaster.27s_effects_on_human_health ]Wiki[/url]
Radio 4, Material World on this very subject. Check i-player...
I mentioned scaremongering, the BBC and others are very keen to put out eye catching headlines but when it comes to supporting the headlines with figures maybe they think the general public are too thick to understand so they try and dumb everything down.
It doesn't matter how much you repeat the claim that the BBC is guilty of "scaremongering" it still doesn't make it true.
The BBC doesn't need "eye catching headlines", there are plenty of stories going on in the world for them to report. Apart from Fukushima there are the earthquake and tsunami related stories, plus Libya and Bahrain, all very important stories. This has not been a slow news week, there has been no need to make stories up.
The BBC in line with other news providers has been covering Fukushima extensively because firstly, the second worst nuclear accident in history doesn't happen very often and secondly, because the public are interested and want to know about it.
Therefore the BBC has been reporting events as they happen, and have added to that some opinions and analyses provided by for example, Japanese officials and UN, EU, and US, nuclear specialists. I have seen no evidence of "scaremongering" - I'm certainly not scared, but I have seen the situation concerning the second worst nuclear accident in history being described as very serious......perhaps you call that "scaremongering" ?
Sure some of the media, like the Daily Mail for example, sensationalise [i]all[/i] stories, so it's hardly surprising if they sensationalise the Fukushima story. And why wouldn't they ? Is there some unwritten rule which states that they can sensationalise stories about scrounging foreigners and single mothers, but not sensationalise stories about nuclear accidents ? If it really bothers you that much then don't read the Daily Mail.
The real problem of course is that the nuclear energy cheerleaders are mortified at what has happened in Fukushima, did I mention that it is the second worst nuclear accident in history btw ? and are therefore trying to trivialise and dismiss it as a non-story.
And far from it being the BBC who treats people as if they are "too thick to understand" as you claim, it is the pro-nuclear lobby who are treating people as if they are stupid. I'm not particularly bright and I know absolutely nothing about nuclear physics, but don't treat me like a **** and tell me that everything is fine and under control at Fukushima.
On the basis of my extremely limited knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that something very serious has happened at Fukushima, but that there is no need panic as possible casualties are likely to be minimal. Perhaps I'm being naive, but that's the conclusion I've come to after reading the sort of stuff which the BBC provide.
BTW I am fully aware that the BBC can, on occasions, be highly biased, and almost always in connection with foreign news. But I can see no compelling evidence that is the case concerning the Fukushima story.
"is Nuclear Energy Institute a source of neutral unbiased information"
Unlike pundits, politicos and activists, they have the singular advantage of knowing what they talking about. But don't let that stop you discrediting them. 😉
Having just watched the nuclear expert on France 3 I don't think I'll accuse the BBC of scaremongering this time. The helicopters are failing miserably to hit the target as the gamma radiation is too high to fly low enough without killing the pilots.
I thought of opening a Premières Cotes de Blaye to toast the suicide volunteers working at the Fukushima plant but settled for an Haut Médoc from vines with a fine view of the nuclear station. Tis delicious.
Unlike pundits, politicos and activists, they have the singular advantage of knowing what they talking about. But don't let that stop you discrediting them.
But of course the BBC isn't relying on "pundits, politicos, and activists" to provide information and analyses of the the situation in Fukushima.
Still, don't let that stop you from discrediting the BBC's coverage of the story.
A more Japanese perspective....(TV channel in English)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/r/movie/tp:/
I have come to the conclusion that something very serious has happened at Fukushima, but that there is no need panic as possible casualties are likely to be minimal
That's pretty much exactly how I'd describe it. Does that make you a nuclear energy cheerleader, because I thought that's what you had me pinned down as?
So it's not doom at all then? I'm sure those people who are worried about friends/colleagues/loved ones in Japan will be mightily relieved.
I also know that a lot of your information on nuclear comes from organisations who for whatever reason tacitly seem to think that nuclear power is much worse than global warming.
You bleat on about the other side but you are just as happy to be hysterical and misrepresent those that oppose your point of view whilst getting upset when your percieve people [BBC for example]to being doing this about nuclear views.
Who tacitly claims nuclear is worse than global warming - i expect you to use your caveat of[b] seems to think[/b] as an escape route without accepting that your perception of their view may be wrong.
There have been enough stats banded about on the three threads on here by now to demonstrate that peoples' paranoid perceptions of nuclear power are just that - paranoid perceptions.
It is odd to call people paranoid when reactors are on fire and no one can go near them because they will die. I would call that a healthy fear.
You generally argue your case well but dont call the other lot for paranoid nuclear hyesteria then engange in your own version as to why they oppose it.
That's pretty much exactly how I'd describe it.
No it isn't. Whilst I describe it as a very serious accident, in fact have I mentioned that it's the second worst nuclear accident in history ? you call it, quote : [i]"the techies having a bit of trouble sorting out their nuclear reactor"[/i]
It's not [i]"the techies having a bit of trouble sorting out their nuclear reactor"[/i] it's far more serious than that - it's a reactor out of control. We are not describing it the same at all.
And btw, why have I come to the conclusion that untold amounts of people are not going to die ? Because the BBC and the rest of the media which I rely on isn't suggesting that scenario at all. Despite your claims.
What gets me is this - the best case from here is the entire plant is scrap - it will never produce any more electricity, it will be an expensive liability for decades with clean up and monitoring costs. A few people will die immediately and an increase in cancer rates will occur of unknown size.
And thats the best case.
I know what you mean Qurrel - i seem obsessed with watching it too.
I do wonder though if they will keep the visitors centre at Sellafield open now?
By the way friend of mine got thrown out of Sellafield -as part of his job he carried a radiation detector. When it started going off and explained to the tour leader - was promptly escorted off the premises. In fairness though he did get a written apology back.
Strangely enough he also came into contact with medium level radioactive waste that hadn't been disposed of correctly - as a result he was quarantined for two weeks - and to this day still has to go for an annual screen, and yes he does have helath problem too.
A few people will die immediately
The 50 workers at the plant have some nickname name The "something" 50.
I read part of a translated blog from one of them.
A few people will die immediately and an increase in cancer rates will occur of unknown size.
Yeah maybe I should qualify what I meant by "untold amounts of people are not going to die". I of course mean immediately, eg there won't be 10,000 dead people this time next week because of Fukushima. I have no idea what the long term consequences will be in terms of increased cancers. I know it won't be as bad as Chernobyl, but I don't know what cancer specialist are forecasting, and they won't either, until all is done and dusted. BTW I hear they are still cleaning up after the Windscale fire of 1957. IIRC the latest clean-up operation for the old Windscale site was to be 2008 - 2013.
