Los Alamos Fire: Why Nuclear Waste Is Probably Safe
Labels: nuclear radiation, spent nuclear fuel
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posted by profmarcus at
6/30/2011
Japan's nuclear safety agency raised the severity rating of the country's nuclear crisis Friday from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.
Ryohei Shiomi, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency, said Friday that the agency raised the rating of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The scale defines a Level 4 incident as having local consequences and a Level 5 incident as having wider consequences.
The hallmarks of a Level 5 emergency are severe damage to a reactor core, release of large quantities of radiation with a high probability of "significant" public exposure or several deaths from radiation.
A partial meltdown at Three Mile Island also was ranked a Level 5. The Chernobyl accident of 1986, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates, and spewed radiation for hundreds of miles (kilometers), was ranked a Level 7.
France's Nuclear Safety Authority has been saying since Tuesday that the crisis in northeastern Japan should be ranked Level 6 on the scale.
Japan weighs need to bury nuclear plant
Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.
Radiation levels recorded in areas near the plant did not pose an immediate risk to human health, said Michael O'Leary, the World Health Organisation's representative in China.
"At this point, there is still no evidence that there's been significant radiation spread beyond the immediate zone of the reactors themselves," O'Leary told reporters in Beijing.
Japan's nuclear disaster has triggered global alarm and reviews of safety at atomic power plants around the world.
President Barack Obama, who stressed the United States did not expect harmful radiation to reach its shores, said he had ordered a comprehensive review of domestic nuclear plants and pledged Washington's support for Japan.
Labels: Cher, Chernobyl, earthquake tsunami, earthquakes, elites, fear-mongering, Fukushima, Japan, news, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/18/2011
The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal on Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government had offered. He said American officials believed that the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities.
The announcement opened a new and ominous chapter in the five-day-long effort by Japanese engineers to bring the six side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and a tsunami last Friday.
Labels: earthquake tsunami, earthquakes, elites, fear-mongering, Fukushima, Japan, news, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation, super-rich
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/17/2011
Japan ordered emergency workers to withdraw from its stricken nuclear complex Wednesday amid a surge in radiation, temporarily suspending efforts to cool the overheating reactors. Hours later, officials said they were preparing to send the team back in.
[...]
[A]n official with Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the plant, said the team had withdrawn about 500 yards (meters) from the complex, but were getting ready to go back in.
[...]
The workers at the forefront of the fight — a core team of about 180 — had been regularly rotated in and out of the danger zone to minimize their radiation exposure.
Meanwhile, officials in Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late morning. While those levels are unhealthy for prolonged periods, they are far from fatal.
Labels: earthquakes, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/16/2011
Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant
Japan suspended operations to keep its stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after surging radiation made it too dangerous to stay.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers dousing the reactors in a frantic effort to cool them needed to withdraw.
"The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now," Edano said. "Because of the radiation risk we are on standby."
[...]
"It's more of a surrender," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who now heads the nuclear safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group. "It's not like you wait 10 days and the radiation goes away. In that 10 days things are going to get worse."
"It's basically a sign that there's nothing left to do but throw in the towel," Lochbaum said.
Labels: earthquakes, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/15/2011
Japan has told the UN nuclear watchdog a spent fuel storage pond was on fire at an earthquake-stricken reactor and radioactivity was being released "directly" into the atmosphere, the Vienna-based agency said.
[...]
Closer to the Japan's capital, radiation levels in the city of Maebashi, 100 km (60 miles) north Tokyo, were up to 10 times normal on Tuesday, Kyodo news agency said, quoting the city government.
Japan's prime minister warned on Tuesday that radioactive levels had become high around an earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant after explosions at two reactors, adding that the risk of more radioactive leakage was rising.
Labels: earthquake tsunami, fuel rods, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation, spent nuclear fuel
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/15/2011
Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday, after an explosion at one crippled reactor damaged its crucial steel containment structure and a fire at another reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.
After an emergency cabinet meeting, the Japanese government told people living within 30 kilometers, about 18 miles, of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to stay indoors, keep their windows closed and stop using air-conditioning.
Officials said emergency efforts to pump seawater into three stricken reactors at the plant were continuing, but that most of the 800 workers at the Daiichi facility had been told to leave to avoid exposure to unhealthy levels of radiation at the plant. They said 50 workers would remain at the plant to pump seawater into three reactors and fight the fire at the fourth reactor.
Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog later said that the fire at the No. 4 reactor had been extinguished, The Associated Press reported.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan briefly addressed the nation on television at 11 a.m., pleading for calm as engineers struggled to bring the damaged reactors under control.
Mr. Kan said that radiation had spread from the crippled reactors and there was “a very high risk” of further leakages.
Labels: Afghanistan, Bahrain, earthquakes, Fukushima, Libya, nuclear meltdown, nuclear power, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/14/2011
Japanese nuclear authorities said that there was a high possibility that nuclear fuel rods at a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power's Dai-ichi plant may be melting or have melted, Jiji news agency reported.
Experts have said that if the fuel rods have been damaged, it means that it could develop into a breach of the nuclear reactor vessel and the question then becomes one of how strong the containment structure around the vessel is and whether it has been undermined by the earthquake.
Labels: earthquake tsunami, fuel rods, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear emergency, nuclear meltdown, nuclear radiation
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/14/2011
Fuel rods are entirely exposed at Fukushima Daiichi No.2 reactor; cannot rule out fuel meltdown
Labels: Fukushima, Japan, nuclear emergency, nuclear power, nuclear radiation
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/14/2011
The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding six workers. It was not immediately clear how much — if any — radiation had been released.
The explosion at the plant's Unit 3, which authorities have been frantically trying to cool following a system failure in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami, triggered an order for hundreds of people to stay indoors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.
The blast follows a similar explosion Saturday that took place at the plant's Unit 1, which injured four workers and caused mass-evacuations.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said six workers were injured in Monday's explosion but it was not immediately clear how, or whether they were exposed to radiation. They were all conscious, said the agency's Ryohei Shomi.
Labels: earthquakes, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/13/2011
Labels: BBC, earthquakes, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/13/2011
Japan's fears mount with nuclear plant blast
The Fukushima power plant's cooling system failed after Friday's massive earthquake. Residents flee the area. Nationwide, the death toll from the quake and tsunami could top 1,600.
Labels: disaster response, earthquakes, Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power, nuclear radiation, tsunami
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
3/12/2011
NUCLEAR EXAGGERATION
Is Atomic Radiation as Dangerous as We Thought?
By Matthias Schulz
A mounting number of studies are coming to some surprising conclusions about the dangers of nuclear radiation. It might not be as deadly as is widely believed.
Labels: Hiroshima, nuclear arms race, nuclear radiation, nuclear weapons, Russia, tactical nuclear weapons
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
11/22/2007
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