Figured it would be nice to inject a little bit of good out of all this. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/15...ld-baby-70-year-old-woman-found-alive/?hpt=C2
Fresh news: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...lear-power-plant/story-e6freon6-1226022238503 According to some French nuclear authority (who the fuck listens to the French on nuclear matters? ...the Bikini Atoll nuking, cheese eating, surrender monkeys), Japan's situation now rates a 6 out 7 on the scale of nuclear accidents. That's one more than Three Mile Island and one less than Chernobyl. The Japanese are frantically trying to keep fuel rods under water, but fires are breaking out.
So people on the west coast are worried about radiation and contamination from the plant, fears which are not grounded in reality. I am literally as west as you can get, and right along the Jet Stream, so I figured I would check stuff out. I whipped out my Geiger Counter and have taken some readings here on the west coast. I'll post sample measurements in counts per minute of the Background Radiation a couple of times per day if people are interested. I took an average reading of my back patio, and got 20 counts per minute. This means that 20 random events were detected each minute over my 5 minute reading. We will use this as a baseline for the future, as winds would not have carried any thing here yet, if they are capable of doing this. As I said, if people are interested, let me know, and I will attempt to take a reading every 6-8 hours and post the results here. Edit: I realize I need to do 2 tests, one in the air, about 5 ft above the ground, and then one on the soft dirt/plant matter in my garden. I will go do the dirt/plant test now for a base line, as it seems a couple people are interested.
Kuhjäger, that would be awesome. Would certainly be interesting watching the numbers creep up, if they do that is.
Ok: 8:30 PDT 3.15.11 Air reading: 20 Counts per minute. Standard Background levels for most places in the world. Ground(possible future accumulation point) reading: 21 counts per minute. Again, falls in standard. Calibration reading of my instrument: 5 µ(micro) Curies of Cesium-137 at 12 inches =1 µ seivert/hr of exposure. 1µSv is ~100 counts per minute. Current reading at gates of plant: Allegedly 600 milli Sv/hr I am using Cs-137 as it is the longest half life check source I have, and is one of the most common forms of radioactive isotope created by a nuclear reactor.
Absolutely up-to-date information, translated in real time, by a Japanese blogger named Katz: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ustwrap.info/multi/nhk-gtv::yokosonews::tbstv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ustwrap.info/multi/nhk-gtv:: ... ews::tbstv</a> Simply the best source of information on the Japanese catastrophe there is, especially the nuclear incident. This is easily 4 to 6 hours ahead of US sources.
I've managed to generally keep it together, but as always it's the animal stories that do me in. This is a video about a dog who's been staying by his injured friend. I watched it and started crying and thinking TRUE LOVE REALLY DOES EXIST! SGEDIT: TISSUE ALERT!! YOU WILL CRY!!
This article is on the front page of the UK Daily Mail. The French are now trying to evacuate all French citizens from Japan. Claiming the Japanese are not being honest how dire the situation is over these reactors, and claiming they have lost all control. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Radiation-soars-Fukushima-nuclear-plant.html I know an airline pilot, and he was telling me about the situation over there (with the planes and airports) all the planes have been loaded with fuel, ready to go. Problems will occur with these planes when they do leave (if they can, assuming people will be there to run the jet bridge and the tower, and of course pilots are there to fly them), where do they go? Who will take a possibly contaminated plane? The Germans (Lufthansa) have already pulled out of the airports. Hopefully the situation isn't as bad as the French are predicting and I hope they are able to get this under control. As for the planes and people waiting for someone to give them a more definite answer before making a decision, I'd try to get out of Japan now.
I heard an interview with a professor from MIT (prof in nuclear something), last name started with a B, last night where he basically said the media was blowing this reactor business way out of proportion. In short he said that near as he had been told (I missed where he explained where he was getting his updates every ten to twenty minutes) the main container (thermos?) had not been breeched. The second layer was being intentionally vented because of a build up of steam pressure. This also builds up hydrogen (I'm not a scientist so I'm not sure why) and that is why there have been fires. Venting does release some radiation but this guys opinion was that an actual meltdown or massive containment failure was next to impossible and that the safty prcautions they were taking are more than what is probably needed. These precautions, in his opinion, make this look like its worse than it really is. One thing that stuck out was his use of a tea kettle example. Basically your burner can be hotter than the melting point of aluminum but as long as there is water in the kettle it will not melt. Same is true for the reactor. There is still water in it and they are pouring or trying to pour sea water in it. This will keep it from melting down but will ruin the reactor for future use. He also said it was the diesel generators that failed not the reactor, as of yet. If this guy is not completely full of shit, and I think we all hope that he is right, then maybe its not as bad as it sounds? Again I'm trying to pull from memory and I'm sure some of the details are incorrect but it sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
That I cannot answer. I tried to find a link on the Jason Lewis Show website but couldn't find one. I'm pretty sure his last name started with a B but if it is that guy it might not be accurate. I personally hope its not as bad as reports on the news make it sound.
I've been wondering this myself. You know how the American media blows a minor snow storm all out of proportion, I can just imagine how they are exaggerating events in Japan. I'm not saying what is going on over there is not a tragedy and very serious, but I just wonder how bad it really is.
Don't the pictures and videos from Japans media answer this question? How about the 8,000 people still missing? Or the fires and exploding reactors we saw? Did you scroll over the before and after pics that WB posted earlier in the thread? See that video of that poor dog up there and the conditions that surround him and his hurt friend? We all know that yes American media does exactly like you said, I'm not denying that. The fact of the matter is everything I listed and the tons of other info out there proves this is a tragedy of epic proportions that will take decades to recover from, if they ever fully do. To me that says things over there are indeed really bad. Being the dog lover I am, I cried like a baby while watching that video. TISSUE ALERT! Jez.
CNN: This is about to get really messy... The white flag, last ditch option of seawater and Boron is apparently not enough to keep the spent fuel rods cool. This may end up as a dump massive amounts of concrete on it- Chernobyl style.
You will all be happy to know that the number of requests for potassium iodide in the pharmacy has spiked after this news. Someone came in trying to buy it for their friend on the west coast because they can't get it out there. Instead of investing in gold, invest in glamorous potassium iodide.
Of course those pictures and videos are incredible to say the least, and I'm aware of all the other stuff you pointed out too. I've been out of the loop for a few days because of lost internet connectivity so all I've been getting news from is Fox, MSN, etc. They have a tendency to show the worst of the worst, but at the same time were giving voice to others saying that, for instance, the radiation leakage is not as bad as it's being made out. Since my fellow idiots are usually on top of world events like this and generally have the latest news, I thought it was a valid question, and that maybe there was something I was missing. Unfortunately for the Japanese, apparently I haven't missed a thing.
Search that shit on Ebay. Selling for more than its weight in gold. Also, today's Geiger Counter readings: 2:45 PM PDT Ground sample: 14 counts per minute Air Sample: 17 counts per minute So you can pass this on to the customers, unless you are making a killing off of it.
Not quite. I've been reading up the past 45 minutes or so, and from what I can tell it is unconfirmed if the spent pool is actually empty. And if it is (or becomes) empty, we're not at Chernobyl style. Chernobyl was so bad because the reactor exploded, launching shit all over the place. What we're dealing with in Japan, is the spent fuel rods becoming exposed to the air. All the plants we're talking about in Japan have the reactor in a containment chamber. This chamber, the spent fuel pools, etc are in a secondary containment chamber. The "explosions" have damaged some of the roofing over the pools, and I believe one of the wetwells from a hydrogen explosion. As best I can tell, the primary focus the past few days has been ensuring the primary containment chambers/reactors stay cool, which I think is at an "ok" status. Recently, concern has risen over the spent fuel pools, especially from plant 4, which essentially has more decay heat due to all the rods being in the pools, nothing in the reactor. If the pool does empty/is empty, the heat rises, starts melting, and will eventually turn into a blob of radioactive shit, exposed to the air directly. This will have an immediate local danger, but not the widespread reach that Chernobyl did. I am not a nuclear engineer/read everything about this, so some of the points may be off. My info has come mostly from here: http://mitnse.com/ and following the stories/articles/comments on fark.
There's a big stink right now because there was a Dr from MIT, in SUPPLY CHAIN RISK MANAGEMENT, who made a whole bunch of "it's all fine, they're just blowing it out of proportion" comments on a web page that is being hosted at MIT, and it turns out he had a ton of shit wrong. He tried to come off as an expert in the field, and was called out by a lot of people that knew better. Since then, the page has been turned over to actual nuclear scientists at MIT, and cleaned up, and renamed. The site is here: <a class="postlink" href="http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/modified-version-of-original-post/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/modified-v ... inal-post/</a>
I was only refering to the reactor issue. I know and agree that this is a massive tragedy and that yes a lot of people died. The video with the dog was tough to watch as a dog lover. I didn't mean to minimize the entire tragedy and as others have pointed out the interview I heard could have been, and likely was, the guy posing as an expert. I do feel that the media sensationalizes most stories and in some areas this may be as well, that does not mean its not one of the biggest natural disasters we've seen. Hopefully this reactor coverage will turn out to be sensationalized as much as it seems the gulf oil spill was and the reactor can be safely cooled down without any major effects to the people or the planet. For the record I do realize we don't know the full extent of the damage from the oil spill but it seems mother nature did a good job of fixing herself up.