Showing posts with label Pacific Ocean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pacific Ocean. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2013

New nuclear accident in Western Japan as typhoon batters the country

While the destroyed Fukushima Daichi Nuclear plant braces for a likely direct hit of a powerful typhoon, known as number 18, that has already caused major radioactive water overflow to the ocean, another nuclear accident threatens Japan: Monju nuclear power plant's fast breeder has suddenly stopped and crews can't access the site because of landslides blocking the only road. This nuclear plant is located at Tsuruga, near Kyoto.

Consequences are unknown at the moment.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Fukushima radiation continues climbing: x30 in just a week!

I already mentioned how this Tuesday water radioactivity in the collapsed nuclear power plant had spiked x15 in three days, well now, after six days, it is x30!

→ EneNews (citing NHK).

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Fukushima can't be fixed, let us be honest about it

There is an overly optimistic new blog in town about the Fukushima catastrophe. Fix Fukushima+ blog has the positive attitude of "hey, there is a problem, let's fix it". At the very least it does not try to hide the head in the sand as do the Japanese and North American authorities with the usual police state motto of "nothing to see here, move along". 

But it is totally unrealistic, sadly enough. The plan has several flaws but mostly just imagines that:
Since the US has battlefield atomic bombs in its inventory, it is likely that the defense department has developed radiation hardened battle robots.

Well, not quite. At least nobody ever heard of them and they seem most unlikely to exist, because robots like everything else fails against radioactivity. Radiation is not a mere poison, which only affects organic or certain materials and can be usually neutralized with an antidote: radiation is the destruction of matter itself. No material is radiation-proof, they may be more or less sensible but all them will collapse at some point, also the same as humans can't go around with thick lead armors to protect themselves from radiation (and only up to a point), the same happens to robots. It's mostly material density what acts as shield from radiation and that's why nuclear refuges are built deep underground (deep enough?) but neither humans nor robots can go around with such kind of massive weight, much less be able to work with it (they need joints, refrigeration, etc.)

Now, prove me wrong of course. I would be the first one happy about such a brutal catastrophe being able to be fixed. But being realistic that's not possible. It'd be easier, so to say, to use time-traveling technology and thwart nuclear energy development... but of course that's as much science fiction as radiation-proof robots able to act in extreme radiation environments. Nope. 

The reality is that Fukushima is impossible to fix. The only thing we can do is to be honest about it: evacuate North Honsu (at the very least the children) and probably other Pacific Ocean areas as soon as radiation levels become dangerous. That probably implies evacuating large metropolis like Tokyo (now), Los Angeles (soon quite reasonably), etc.

But they are not going to do that: there are too many business at stake and human life is meaningless to them in comparison to profit. Also within capitalist parameters, the huge amounts of resources needed to relocate so many people and reorganize their productive lives elsewhere are simply impossible to manage because there's no central planning authority, much less one which cares about the lives of children or people in general.

So they do the only thing conceivable to their mindset: extend and pretend until death catches them and the problem is transferred to someone else.

But that is simply not acceptable. It is not just not acceptable for the millions of Japanese who have already been declared expendable and told to smile in face of certain and painful death for themselves and their children, it is not acceptable for Humankind, very especially those who live around the North Pacific Ocean, whose waters are already being polluted with an endless flow of long-lived radioactive elements. 

But let's not forget that water is an open system: the waters of the Pacific are still not contained: they evaporate as mist and rain down who knows where, the fish captured over there goes to the tables all over the World without any effective radiation control system of any sort.

The reality is that Fukushima is here to stay, that it will keep polluting the World with an almost endless flow of radiation and that we can't do much about it other than, first of all acknowledge the extreme severity of the problem, and, then, evacuate the most damaged areas and stop treating human beings, notably the children, as expendable guinea pigs for the most macabre test ever!

Fukushima: radioactivity spikes x15 in just two days

In TEPCO's own words:
... tritium levels in water taken from a well close to a number of storage tanks holding irradiated water rose to 64,000 becquerels per liter on Tuesday from 4,200 becquerels/liter at the same location on Sunday.

Source: Reuters (via EneNews).

Friday, September 6, 2013

Fukushima: reactors lose all water as soon as it goes in

This is just one of the many news I read daily on that brutal nuclear catastrophe of global implications which is Fukushima. I just can't keep up with all but the situation seems to be seriously deteriorating by the moment (or more likely it was all the time that way, just that we were not informed). 

A robot camera descending to Hell... I mean: one of the reactors of the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site, found barely "inches" of water where there should have been at least 4.5 meters. 

The video published by TEPCO shows that the 400 tons of water injected to reactor 1 go down the drain into the ground as soon as they are poured in. As the Japan Times explains:
The water used to cool the fuel eventually flows into the turbine building, where it is believed to mingle with water intruding from outside. The turbine building is also connected to an underground trench that runs toward the coast. Highly radioactive water from the trench is believed to be mixing with separate groundwater flows before entering the sea.

This does not just happen in reactor 1 but it is probably the case of the three reactors which were active when the catastrophe happened. The storage of "spent" fuel (actually more toxic than "unspent" one) in the reactors themselves, two of which violently exploded, while another collapsed almost completely because of radioactive erosion and seismic movements, only adds to the severity of the problem.

The water flow from the mountains and the tides seems to be entering freely inside the destroyed reactors, incorporating all kind or radionuclides before it goes to the sea. Then it travels quickly across the Pacific Ocean with only limited dilution to the coasts of Canada and the USA. While the Pacific Ocean is really big, it seems not to be big enough to face a single nuclear catastrophe.

Sources: Fukushima Emergency..., Energy News.


Also for sushi-lovers, Simply Info mentions that South Korea is banning more and more fish and seafood imports from Japan because this country does not control the radiation levels of its produce. 

Friday, August 23, 2013

Fukushima: water reservoir under plant is much bigger, much more contaminated

From ABC (via EneNews):

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The looming crisis is potentially far greater than the discovery earlier this week of a leak from a tank that stores contaminated water used to cool the reactor cores. That 300-ton (80,000-gallon) leak is the fifth and most serious from a tank since the March 2011 disaster, when three of the plant's reactors melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling functions.

But experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

(... continues).


Regardless. What is clear is that you can't put gates to the sea, or in general to the flow of water (and air) through the planet. Each time a nuclear plant is built a huge danger is created because, among other reasons, there's always water nearby (they need it in huge amounts for the plant to work) and while in inland waters this is a huge problem hard to control, at the seaside it is simply total madness because the water table is in direct contact with the sea and almost indistinct from it. 

There's no good solution for Fukushima, which is totally unmanageable and off the scale - other than evacuating all North Honsu (and probably also all the Pacific coast of North America, where the vast majority of all radiation goes to). What we can still do is to struggle to close all other nuclear plants and impede that new ones are opened.

However we face the annoying issue of nuclear weapons (the real reason behind nuclear energy) being too desirable for every power-mongerer. So we have to work even further and harder into subverting the social relations of power radically if we really expect to ever solve this suicidal process of nukes and their terrible and long term consequences.

Note: I'm in general letting the media to speak out on Fukushima for a change. You will excuse me for partly ignoring the stream of news that is almost drowning us these days, however, except minor details, this is about the same I (and even more so specialist bloggers) have been telling since March 2011. So I'd suggest that if you're interested in the detail of the latest developments to follow now (as before) the specialized Fukushima blogs. Here the info will be (sadly) rather sparse because, you know, the World is so big and I'm so small in comparison... that I can't dedicate my time to every single piece of news.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Suddenly the media awakens to the harsh reality of unsolvability and perpetual contamination from Fukushima

Suddenly all the major media seem to awaken to the dramatic importance that this accident and in particular its unbound radioactive water flow into the Pacific Ocean means. CNN, BBC and The Wall Street Journal (among others) are reporting seriously on the matter for the first time since the catastrophe began more than two years ago and reporting even if not in full detail how extremely radioactive water is just flowing uncontrolled to the sea.

Interestingly the WSJ video mentions that TEPCO is now considering to isolate the destroyed utility from underground waters from the mountains, after realizing that the wall built to isolate the plant from the sea was actually worsening the problem by rising the water level. 

Can they dig deep enough? Fast enough? What about rain? What about all the radioactive water that will have already polluted the ocean by then? What about the water they continuously pump in just to keep the corium cool and semi-stable?

Nukes are a nightmare.

Via Enenews.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Fukushima nuclear catastrophe: nuclear fire (video)

What seems to be the remains of reactor 3 developed a fire yesterday or the day before (unsure), as it is very apparent in this security camera video:




Visually it would seem to be reactor number 3 but the automatic translation of a Japanese news site provided by Fukushima Emergency... reads:

According to the leak of TEPCO officials, current, Unit 4 and Unit 3 and Unit 2 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, further, is that the site and its surrounding facilities, nuclear fuel and are beginning to burn.

What seems to imply that all three southern units are burning, although I cannot confirm this yet. 

Source: Fukushima Emergency... (link 1, link 2).

Sunday, July 14, 2013

The absolutely mad radiation figures of Fukushima's ongoing 'China syndrome' - growing extremely fast!

William Boardman at Dissident Voice explains that we do not need to know what exactly is a measure such as Bequerel/liter (Bq/l), we just need to know that the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) considers 10 Bq/l the highest safe limit in regular drinking water (60 Bq/l for nuclear plants' drinking water).

Probably because the corium has reached the water table under the collapsed Fukushima Daiichi NPP, the radiation levels are spiking like crazy these days:

On July 5, radiation levels at Fukushima were what passes for “normal,” which means elevated and dangerous, but stable, according to measurements by the owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
On July 8, radiation levels had jumped about 90 times higher, as typically reported. TEPCO had no explanation for the increase.
On July 9, radiation levels were up again from the previous day, but at a slower rate, about 22 per cent. TEPCO still had no explanation.
On July 10, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a statement saying that the NRA strongly suspects the radioactive water is coming from Fukushima’s Reactor #1 and is going into the Pacific.

Then he provides some truly scary TEPCO (official) figures for July 8th:

9,000 becquerels per liter — On July 8, according to TEPCO, the company measured radioactive Cesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per liter. Since TEPCO characterized this as 90 times higher than on July 5, the implication is that the earlier reading (about 100) was less than twice as toxic as the allowable limit and only 10 times more toxic than drinking water for civilians.

11,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-134 on July 9.
18,000 becquerels per liter — TEPCO measurement of Cesium-137 on July 8.
22,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-137 on July 9.
900,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of the total radioactivity in the water leaking from Reactor #1. This radiation load includes both Cesium isotopes, as well as Tritium, Strontium and other beta emitters. There are more that 60 radioactive substances that have been identified at the Fukushima site. 

So, from almost safe levels (with many question marks because of the usual TEPCO obscurantism) on July 5th, the radiation being leaked to the Pacific Ocean had jumped a week ago (Jul 8-9) to 90,000 times the safe level. In just few days!

The latest official figure (from July 11th) is mirrored at Fukushima Diary, and is much worse (of course): 150,000,000 Bq/l, i.e. 15 million times the safe level!!!

Let's chew on these amazingly horrifying figures:
  1. July 5th: ~100 Bq/l (x10 safe level)
  2. July 8th: 900,000 Bq/l (x90,000 safe level: grew an average of almost 30,000 Bq/l per day)
  3. July 11th: 150 million Bq/l (x15,000,000 safe level: grew an average of almost 50 million Bq/l per day)
  4. If this explosive rhythm continues, today it should be like what?!

I honestly have no idea if and when this "spike" will reach its limit and what will happen afterwards (not declining surely), what I know is that this situation is totally out of control and is absolutely unprecedented. Humankind and all Earth is suffering the most ridiculously crazy radioactive pollution ever. 

And I also know that this is not in the first page of all newspapers as it should. Just by not looking at it the problem is not going to be solved at all! It may not even have any solution but whatever the case it must be talked about because, at the very least, the survivors (if there are any, an I'm beginning to doubt it) must learn from this cruel lesson. 

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Fukushima: corium hitting the water table

I guess it was inevitable as the process of China syndrome goes on that the  corium (amorphous mass of nuclear-reacting material from the destroyed reactors) would eventually reach the water table, which is not far under the foundations of the seaside destroyed facility.

China syndrome process, from Roundtree7 (good article)

Unlike what happened in Chernobyl, where this process was at least delayed by means of the construction of a new underground floor at the risk of the lives of many workers, in Fukushima that has not been attempted at all, plausibly because the water table was simply too shallow. The whole consequences of the interaction of this extreme heat source with the water table are not yet known (will it explode?) but one thing is clear: the radiation levels are climbing fast, especially in the water:

Water sampled from the well Monday contained 9,000 becquerels of cesium-134 per liter and 18,000 becquerels of cesium-137, both about 90 times the levels found Friday, Tepco said. The well is near the turbine building for reactor 2 and about 25 meters from the plant’s harbor.

TEPCO is dissimulating these developments by means of not updating their English language site, although the scary data is anyhow available in Japanese (still not really reliable, as Mochizuki points out). 

Whatever they admit to, what is clear is that two years after the initial catastrophe the situation is not under control and looks like it will never be, releasing more and more radiation to the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere in a destruction spiral that threatens all Humankind.