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Thread is about the various issues surrounding Japan in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. Don't bring the shit side of the internet to the thread, and post with the realization that this thread is very important, and very real, to your fellow members.
Do not post speculative and unconfirmed news you saw on TV or anywhere else. Generally the more dramatic it sounds the less likely it's true. |
On March 28 2011 16:28 Sanctimonius wrote:
Does anyone have good links for news on the disaster? I check Reuters, BBC and Kyodo regularly but after Libya kicked off the international media has moved on and there simply isn't as much news and frequent updates as there was when the international media was staring down the necks of TEPCO and the govt here.
sadly, i can't find any news unless it's in japanese.
you could try this facebook link from asahi shimbun:
https://www.facebook.com/AJW.Asahi
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On March 28 2011 16:28 Sanctimonius wrote:
Does anyone have good links for news on the disaster? I check Reuters, BBC and Kyodo regularly but after Libya kicked off the international media has moved on and there simply isn't as much news and frequent updates as there was when the international media was staring down the necks of TEPCO and the govt here.
I think the IAEA has pretty clear and easy to understand news. It is updated regularly and has a tab for each day of the crisis, so you can look at the state of things a few days back. It is the same link all the time, so that is a plus as well. They even state what the workers are doing now to repair the damage to the plant and the state of radiation across the land.
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
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Thanks guys
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On March 29 2011 15:26 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2011 16:28 Sanctimonius wrote:
Does anyone have good links for news on the disaster? I check Reuters, BBC and Kyodo regularly but after Libya kicked off the international media has moved on and there simply isn't as much news and frequent updates as there was when the international media was staring down the necks of TEPCO and the govt here. I think the IAEA has pretty clear and easy to understand news. It is updated regularly and has a tab for each day of the crisis, so you can look at the state of things a few days back. It is the same link all the time, so that is a plus as well. They even state what the workers are doing now to repair the damage to the plant and the state of radiation across the land. http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html Indeed, I've been using them as my primary source as well. None of the fear spreading of the American and Canadian news organizations and they tell you info in pretty good detail, while explaining everything in a way that makes sense.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Some interesting info from the IAEA site:
As of 28 March information on radioactivity in drinking water collected mainly from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare indicates that recommendations for restrictions based on I-131 concentration remain in place only in four locations in the prefecture of Fukushima. To date, no recommendations for restrictions have been made based on Cs-137. The Japanese limits for the ingestion of drinking water by infants is 100 becquerel per litre.
As far as food contamination is concerned, 63 samples taken from 24 - 29 March, and reported on from 27 - 29 March, for various vegetables, fruit (strawberries), mushrooms, eggs, seafood and pasteurized milk in eight prefectures (Chiba, Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Tochigi and Yamagata), stated that results for iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137 were either not detected or were below the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities.
No new results from the marine monitoring stations 30 km off-shore were reported for 27 or 28 March. However, new analyses in seawater 330 m east to the discharges point of NPP Units 1 - 4 were made available for 27 March. These concentrations show a significant decrease from 74 000 Becquerel per litre of iodine-131, 12 000 Becquerel per litre of cesium-137, and 12 000 Becquerel per litre of cesium-134 on 26 March to 11 000 Becquerel per litre of iodine-131 and 1 900 Becquerel per litre of cesium-137 on 27 March.
Sea water samples were also collected daily at a location 30 m from the common discharge point for Units 5 - 6. These results also show an increase in the radionuclide concentrations on 26 March. The sea water samples collected on March 27 show as well a decrease of the radionuclide concentration.
Fig. 1 and 2
It can be expected that the data will be quite variable in the near future depending on the discharge levels. In general, dilutions by ocean currents and into deeper waters as well decay of short lived radionuclides e.g. I-131 or I-132 will soon lead to lower values.
First analyses were reported in fish carried out by the National Research Institute of Fishery Research. 5 samples of fish were collected from the port of Choshi (Chiba prefecture) and 4 of 5 samples showed Cs-137 concentrations below limit of detection. In one sample Cs-137 was found with 3 Bq/kg (fresh weight) and it was reported that it was slightly above the limit of detection. This concentration is far below any concern for fish consumption.
It is still too early to draw conclusions for expected concentrations on marine food, because the situation may change rapidly, however, it is expected that the detected initial concentrations of seawater will soon drop to lower values by dilution and the levels in marine food will most likely not reach levels above given limits for consumption, (presuming that discharges of contaminated seawater from the reactor will not continue). It is not expected that fish or other marine food will be collected in a close area to the NPP Fukushima at the present situation. Some marine algae are known to accumulate in particular I-131 and Tc-99m. However, these values will soon be of no concern due to the short half-lives of the radionuclides mentioned.
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Just for a heads up, BBC and CH4 has a brief documentary about this. Some speculations and scientific analysis, its not in depth stuff but interesting nonetheless. Im sure you can grab it off demonoid or tPB... D:
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Al Jazeera reporting that radiation levels in sea water have now exceeded 3,300 times the normal amount.
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On March 30 2011 15:04 Aurocaido wrote:
Al Jazeera reporting that radiation levels in sea water have now exceeded 3,300 times the normal amount.
And that was measured where? If it was measured 100m from the plant out to the sea I would not worry, if the measurement comes from 30 km out in the sea and in several locations (they seem to be doing measurements in regular intervals around the plant) I would think that is not good. Sea water contamination is not something to worry about because it will be diluted eventually (even if it takes a year or two it is dispersed to acceptable levels), but any contamination of the land will stay for a while long ... much longer.
EDIT 2:
IAEA, March 29
However, new analyses in seawater 330 m east to the discharges point of NPP Units 1 - 4 were made available for 27 March. These concentrations show a significant decrease from 74 000 Becquerel per litre of iodine-131, 12 000 Becquerel per litre of cesium-137, and 12 000 Becquerel per litre of cesium-134 on 26 March to 11 000 Becquerel per litre of iodine-131 and 1 900 Becquerel per litre of cesium-137 on 27 March.
So the radiaton has actually decreased by A LOT close to the plant (which hopefully means they are not releasing as much contaminated water as they did a few days back and are probably getting things under control?) .
The IAEA lists radiation levels for several provinces (becquerel per square metre) for their measurements of radiation in the provinces. There seem to be separate maximal permissible values for each element and they seem to be significantly different. I am a bit confused on this, so if anyone has some decent information on this I would appreciate it.
P.S.: EU 
While looking for some maximal permissible value for becquerel in certain things I came across an interesting tidbit of information: There levels of radiation which are allowed in food are higher for the EU than they are for Japan, so things which are "contaminated" in Japan are "safe" in Europe ... and apparently the limits were raised AFTER the catastrophe ...
EDIT:
As I understand it becquerel is the number of radioactive decays per second. So it makes sense to measure different values for each element to measure the "contamination with radioactive materials" that way.
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Al Jazeera reporting that Japan is being urged by the UN nuclear watchdog to extend the exclusion zone around the nuclear plants to 40km. The IAEA's suggestion came as the opposition criticised Naoto Kan, the prime minister, for failing to expand the evacuation zone.
Greenpeace this week said it had confirmed radiation levels in Iitate village high enough to evacuate, but Japan's nuclear safety agency has rebuffed the environmental group's call.
Also radiation levels in sea water surrounding the damaged Fukushima plant has risen to 4,385 times normal levels.
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Hmmm..
There have been a lot of posts here that slamed the media for fear mongering and oversensationalizing the story.
Am I the only one thats starting to get this feeling that the Japanese Gov or Tepco is letting / has let this get unnecessarily out of hand?
It's been almost 3 weeks, and if I'm not mistaken, they just recently accepted American and French supply aid like robots if i heard correctly.
Why didin't they do this sooner?
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On March 31 2011 16:32 don_kyuhote wrote:
Hmmm..
There have been a lot of posts here that slamed the media for fear mongering and oversensationalizing the story.
Am I the only one thats starting to get this feeling that the Japanese Gov or Tepco is letting / has let this get unnecessarily out of hand?
It's been almost 3 weeks, and if I'm not mistaken, they just recently accepted American and French supply aid like robots if i heard correctly.
Why didin't they do this sooner?
My feeling on the topic of the media is that they are criticizing politicians too much for not giving precise estimates and stating things exactly. Maybe the "people in charge" don't know these things because nobody knows them? Things like "what is the state of the reactors?" are questions which no one can answer precisely yet because it is too dangerous to check the pressure vessels thoroughly for leaks. Media usually act as if people have to know it when a bit of knowledge and a lot of common sense should tell you that its not possible to know ... YET. Politicians fail in not explaining this to the media and the larger the audience the better.
First they have to cool down the radioactive material (thats what they are doing now), then they need to remove the stuff (and maybe need to install some new cranes above due to the explosions) after adding a new "outer containment" due to the partially destroyed buildings and only then can they really check the pressure vessel for leaks.
Today I looked up the half-life for the three isotopes mentioned by the IAEA in their "blog" when they talk about radiation monitoring in the surrounding area.
Cs 137: 30 years
Cs 134: 2 years
I 131: 8 days
All of them have stable elements as the next step in their decay chain, but only Iodine is going to "go away soon".
There is a really nice article in the Wall Street Journal about the personal situation of the workers at Fukushima.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/03/28/letters-from-fukushima-tepco-worker-emails/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Greenpeace has added a nice Google map with their own measurements of radiation from a few days back. Not quite as "dry" as the simple writing of the IAEA and they even give comparative estimates of severity.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=216097317933419817421.00049f79dd8efb50bf317&ll=37.62946,140.581055&spn=0.761327,1.647949&z=9&source=embed
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This is disturbing:
The IAEA is reporting that measured soil concentrations of Cs-137 as far away as Iitate Village, 40 kilometers northwest of Fukushima-Dai-Ichi, correspond to deposition levels of up to 3.7 megabecquerels per square meter (MBq/sq. m). This is far higher than previous IAEA reports of values of Cs-137 deposition, and comparable to the total beta-gamma measurements reported previously by IAEA and mentioned on this blog.
(emphasis mine) Link.
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On March 31 2011 16:32 don_kyuhote wrote:
Hmmm..
There have been a lot of posts here that slamed the media for fear mongering and oversensationalizing the story.
Am I the only one thats starting to get this feeling that the Japanese Gov or Tepco is letting / has let this get unnecessarily out of hand?
It's been almost 3 weeks, and if I'm not mistaken, they just recently accepted American and French supply aid like robots if i heard correctly.
Why didin't they do this sooner?
Yes the media is fear mongering (because this isn't going to become another Chernobyl) and yes the government is slow to react /Tepco is just incompetent.
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On April 01 2011 04:04 Ryo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 16:32 don_kyuhote wrote:
Hmmm..
There have been a lot of posts here that slamed the media for fear mongering and oversensationalizing the story.
Am I the only one thats starting to get this feeling that the Japanese Gov or Tepco is letting / has let this get unnecessarily out of hand?
It's been almost 3 weeks, and if I'm not mistaken, they just recently accepted American and French supply aid like robots if i heard correctly.
Why didin't they do this sooner? Yes the media is fear mongering (because this isn't going to become another Chernobyl) and yes the government is slow to react /Tepco is just incompetent.
Hmmm ... I don't know, that entirely depends on what you define as "another Chernobyl". There is an exclusion zone around the power plant and there are already places outside of that which have radiation levels too high to live in. So, sure it isnt another Chernobyl because there is no radioactive cloud covering Asia, but it is another Chernobyl because large parts of the land are unsafe to live in ...
As I said in a previous post ... better count your chicken after they hatch and these arent going to hatch for weeks.
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A quote from the IAEA blog ...
The Russian Federation, Ireland and Switzerland reported the detection of very small amounts of iodine-131 and cesium-137 in air. Highest levels found are in the order of a few millibecquerel per cubic meter. The levels are not of any radiological concern.
No reason to panic, but it is just interesting from a scientific point of view ...
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Mayor of one of the cities in the evacuation zone expresses his frustration and requests help.
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Leaking into the ocean
I have learned in this crisis to not believe anything when it is first published but I don't think it's possible this is fake.
How much of this water can leak into the ocean before world wide consequences are a result?
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On April 03 2011 03:57 AttackZerg wrote:Leaking into the oceanI have learned in this crisis to not believe anything when it is first published but I don't think it's possible this is fake. How much of this water can leak into the ocean before world wide consequences are a result?
Oh, I don't know but I'd venture to guess a lot because they stated that the water only contained iodine 137 which has a half-life of about 8 days. So before it reaches the shore of any other county it's probably dissipated to a very large degree.
Maybe You shouldn't buy fish from the region for a while but otherwise you don't have any reason to panic until there's plutonium in the water
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Canada766 Posts
On April 03 2011 04:15 Bigpet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2011 03:57 AttackZerg wrote:Leaking into the oceanI have learned in this crisis to not believe anything when it is first published but I don't think it's possible this is fake. How much of this water can leak into the ocean before world wide consequences are a result? Oh, I don't know but I'd venture to guess a lot because they stated that the water only contained iodine 137 which has a half-life of about 8 days. So before it reaches the shore of any other county it's probably dissipated to a very large degree. Maybe You shouldn't buy fish from the region for a while but otherwise you don't have any reason to panic until there's plutonium in the water
Not to mention that the ocean is... A very, very big place. It's really nothing to be concerned about.
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On April 03 2011 06:07 Nightfall.589 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2011 04:15 Bigpet wrote:On April 03 2011 03:57 AttackZerg wrote:Leaking into the oceanI have learned in this crisis to not believe anything when it is first published but I don't think it's possible this is fake. How much of this water can leak into the ocean before world wide consequences are a result? Oh, I don't know but I'd venture to guess a lot because they stated that the water only contained iodine 137 which has a half-life of about 8 days. So before it reaches the shore of any other county it's probably dissipated to a very large degree. Maybe You shouldn't buy fish from the region for a while but otherwise you don't have any reason to panic until there's plutonium in the water Not to mention that the ocean is... A very, very big place. It's really nothing to be concerned about.
I understand that the ocean is huge .... I am just curious how much radiation or whatever the compounds entering the water are called , how much before it becomes a full global problem. I'm not asking because its been scared into me that that is what is gong to happen, it is idle curiosity.
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EPT
