From my town newspaper, in the story covering a young English teacher who was just now able to return home after being in Japan during the earthquake. She gets it, why can’t the media?
While saying the threat associated with the damaged nuclear power plants, about 140 miles from Koga, have been overstated by the media, she quipped, “I’m not glowing. I was supposed to be glowing.”
Full story here:
http://www.chicoer.com/fromthenewspaper/ci_17651319
The Register also mentioned something similar about the media yesterday in their online briefing:
Good news from Japan: Situation ‘fairly stable’, says IAEA
And, an online “wall of shame” has been established for logging media blunders in this affair:
http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame
“Hasn’t happened yet, thank you, Sen. Reid and others. This stuff sits right on the shore of Lake Michigan or over our groundwater, so a relatively simple storage pool accident could have serious consequences for the USA.”
I am halfway through my Masters in Nuclear Engineering and can assure you that there is no conceivable way that 40 year old fuel could cause a serious accident. The fact that after just five years the decay heat is so minimal that you can seal it up in a dry cask demonstrates that even if all the water drains from the pool, there is not enough heat to come close to melting the clad. Without damage to the clad, there is no way that any radioactive fission product gasses can be released just because the water is gone. And after 20 years there is basically no radioactive gases left; All the iodine, krypton and xenon have such short half lives (that is why they are so radioactive) that they have decayed to less than one millionth of their initial concentrations after 20 years.
The longer lived radioactive fission products are all solid and aren’t going anywhere. There is no significant release of fission products into the fuel pool, and most fission products are not soluble so even if it all goes into the Lake or groundwater, it would be undetectable. Even if you took a saw or cutting torch to the clad (and killed yourself in the process by being so close to the gamma radiation), the ceramic uranium dioxide fuel pellets are designed to trap the solid fission product so you would have to grind them to release much of the soluble nasties. Of course if you want to commit suicide with hazardous materials, there are much easier ways. It would take a team of suicide terrorists to remove spent fuel assemblies, remove the pellets from the clad, grind them and figure out a way to disperse the ceramic fuel pellets to make a “dirty bomb” that would be much less damaging than any number of persistent poisons.
There would be a hazard to anyone stupid enough to break into the facility after the earthquake and look into the empty fuel storage pit. Without water for shielding, there would be hazardous gamma ray emissions directed up into the sky, which would be about the same level as normal cosmic radiation on the ground near the pit. This is called “skyshine”, the 1 in a million gamma rays that go through multiple collisions and interactions in air to make a U-turn and reflect back to earth. Think of how strong the light is on the ground compared to the intensity of a searchlight shining up in the sky at night.
Don’t waste any sleep worrying about the fuel storage pools, if there is a tremendous disaster that empties the fuel pool, there will be much bigger contamination issues from everything else known to man that will be released into the environment.
Even though public sector broadcasters such as the BBC do not have to sell advertising space, they are still competing for viewers with broadcasters who do. As such they are just as likely to pump the BS as the rest of them.
So, you really believe “you can’t…rebuild and actually live on… or around the site of a nuclear ‘event'” like the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How anyone can think a nuclear power plant sitting there in smoking, steaming ruins and one of its reactors loaded with plutonium-spiked fuel is not BIG NEWS is just beyond me. The U.S. military did not ban its personnel from entering within a 50-mile (or was it klicks?) radius of the plant because they read hysterical things in the news media.
I think some of the respondents have lost all perspective in their knee-jerk responses to an event the “lefties” and “environmental crazies” might find convenient to their causes. The FACTS are that lots of radioactive fuel is being exposed to the atmosphere and the water table, the unshielded spent fuel pools are dangerously overheated, several of the fuel bundles in probably four reactors have at least partially melted down, at least one reactor containment vessel has probably been breached and men in radiation suits are spraying the whole mess down with the scale-equivalent of garden hoses.
Of course the news media gets half of what they are reporting wrong! They get half of everything they report wrong because they are sloppy-lazy. But in the final analysis, if what’s going on at Fukushima Daiichi isn’t cause for alarm then lots of money has been wasted over the years attempting to assure that exactly what has happened at Fukushima Daiichi COULD NOT HAPPEN because it would be so alarming.
CH
REPLY: “The FACTS are that lots of radioactive fuel is being exposed to the atmosphere and the water table,”
Prove it, or you are no better than the “sloppy-lazy” MSM – Anthony
You can rebuild and actually live on earthquake/tsunami sites. You can’t
on or around the site of a nuclear “event”.
Are you certain of that? I could have sworn that Harrisburg, PA was still an operating concern!
In fact easily the greatest example of devastation in the US has been New Orleans, which was much more like a tsunami.
Interestingly, Kiev (capital of the Ukraine) is about 100 km from Chernobyl. While quite accidental the result of that event, which is as serious as it is likely to get, has been a delightful return of native flora and fauna. Which have shown little signs of mutation (though most live shorter lives than humans, of course).
D. Patterson says:
March 19, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Single point, single exposure, small atomic weapon air burst detonations
such as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki involve devices designed to do their damage
utilizing air pressure blast waves and plasma fireball flash burns, with a
whopping dose of X-rays tossed in as the fireball forms and rises.
The residual uranium/plutonium and their daughter products in air burst atomic
weapons were designed to be minimal and intended to be carried off by the winds
aloft compared to ground level discharges of atomic or hydrogen bombs which are
much “dirtier”.
There didn’t have to be a huge decontamination effort in the aftermath of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
Releases from the Chernobyl RBMK reactor, beginning 26 April 1986, running for 10
consecutive days involved a plumes of burned irradiated graphite, burned and
irradiated components of concrete and steel, burned zinc compounds, uranium oxide,
iodine, cesium, and “hot” noble gasses.
An appreciable area around the Chernobyl site still isn’t habitable… although
opportunities to report any problems there are still minimized by the government.
The difference between reactor “events” and air burst weapons is massive
and not applicable to this situation.
R.S.Brown says:
March 19, 2011 at 12:52 pm
One is tempted to cut the media a bit of slack. Unlike the 23 year old
English teacher above, many reporters (or their editors) were around
for the Three Mile Island “event” here in the U.S.
Three Mile Island is in Pennsylvania. I was born and raised in PA and still have relatives there, but I was not there for the “event”, as you describe it. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. Could you elaborate. Perhaps, list the names, occupations, and cause of death or injury caused by this event.
Thanks.
Sorry, I missed a tag in my comment. Last is mine, not RSB’s.
Claude Harvey says:
March 19, 2011 at 2:35 pm
“How anyone can think a nuclear power plant sitting there in smoking, steaming ruins and one of its reactors loaded with plutonium-spiked fuel is not BIG NEWS is just beyond me.”
I tell you how can think that this just propaganda or bad journalism: Most of the time the “news” miss NUMBERS and they talk about what MIGHT happen instead of reporting what really happened. There is a great difference between microsieverts, milliSieverts and sieverts. No one will die of radiation in this accident because the doses are so small.
Especially you should notice these old nuclear plants contained the radioactive substances better than expected. Amounts of leaks are so small that there is no real harm for the general public.
I see Three Mile Island mentioned again above. Is it true that the exposure of the public from the ‘massive’ (as some would have it) release of radiation from TMI was the equal of eating a banana?
Chernobyl was unique and is hardly an example of what happens in the countries with reactors. I am weary of the innumerate anti-nuclear alarmist nonsense about uninhabitable zones. Scores of nuclear weapons were set off well within the US borders: ground bursts, atomic cannon shells and whopping great air bursts. Is the US uninhabitable?
John F. Hultquist says:
March 19, 2011 at 3:09 pm
John, if you read my note at March 19, 2011 at 12:52 pm you’ll see
I used Three Mile sIsland as an example in the media’s unfounded,
absolute reliance on the controlled news releases the went out as the
event unfolded.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Moderators:
Can you fix the I seem to have missed just after
“airburst” in my March 19, 2011 at 3:04 pm entry?
It seems to be italicizing all the following folk’s material.
Many thanks.
Ray
REPLY: Please learn how to use the italics or please don’t use them at all. I have to fix problems like this several times a week and frankly I’m growing tired of it – Anthony
REPLY: “The FACTS are that lots of radioactive fuel is being exposed to the atmosphere and the water table,”
Prove it, or you are no better than the “sloppy-lazy” MSM – Anthony
I believe the government and company reported radiation levels in the vicinity of the plant, government reported elevated radiation levels in vegetables grown in neighboring fields, recorded but minor traces detected as far away as the west coast of the U.S. and video recordings of smoking, spent fuel pools that have gone dry with fire hoses are ample evidence for what I’ve stated. The press did not make up the story of a possible breach in one of the reactor vessels. The Japanese government and the plant owner cited a sudden drop in vessel pressure as probable evidence of such a breach.
Since neither the Japanese government nor the plant owner would be expected to overstate the seriousness of the events in progress and have both reported releases, including radioactive particles to the environment, I’m unclear on exactly what further proof you might require, Anthony.
REPLY: Cite your sources. That’s what I’m talking about links, URLs, PDF’s DOCs etc. showing that the containment vessel is fully breached and active fuel rods are in the open air. Otherwise it’s just talk. I’m not concerned about other gas emissions to release pressure for example, or the fuel rod pool. – A
Toronto Star, Friday, March 18. Front page headline (article by Rosie Dimanno).
On their website, the headline is now “No rest for Japan quake victims.”
But here’s the photo of their original headline:
“On the edge of a nuclear winter.”
Really. “On the edge of a nuclear winter.”
Of course, they’re just talking about the fact that winter is coming on in Japan, but the term “nuclear winter” — I’m sorry. That’s beyond irresponsible.
Ironically, the headline below it (concerning a completely different topic) is, “How many of these people are lying?”
Elizabeth says:
March 19, 2011 at 9:43 am
I sincerely wish the entire world would make the best possible decision for their collective ability to think: turn off the TV! Read a book, surf the net, have sex… there is so much to do!
Crispin in Waterloo says:
March 19, 2011 at 3:41 pm
There’s still no one living on our nuclear test ranges.
The difference between reactor “events” and designed nuclear
weapons detonations is massive and not applicable to this
situation.
No italics except for the “blockquote”.
Don’t put all the blame on TV. Which book would you have them read? An Inconvenient Truth? Which website should they surf to? Real Climate? Which sex should they … Well, okay — that one seems harmless enough.
REPLY: Cite your sources. That’s what I’m talking about links, URLs, PDF’s DOCs etc. showing that the containment vessel is fully breached and active fuel rods are in the open air. Otherwise it’s just talk. I’m not concerned about other gas emissions to release pressure for example, or the fuel rod pool. – A
If you have no interest in spent fuel pools that rely on water for shielding and cooling and which are reported by the plant owner to be at least partially “drained”, you have no appreciation for the fact that “spent fuel” is more radioactively hazardous than “fresh” fuel. Left uncovered and without circulating water cooling, those rods will eventually catch fire and you do not want to be downwind of the smoke and debris when that happens. That’s why they’re so busy out there with the fire hoses. The hazard from any nuclear plant accident is not some big thermonuclear explosion. The hazard is contamination of air, land and water by radioactive particle release.
The official company and Japanese news releases are out there for the taking as you very well know. I’d be pleased to do your leg work for you if it were not clear that you have staked out a position that this is no big deal. If that is your position in spite of all that is out there in the public domain, I’ll not likely change your mind no matter what I drag onto the field. During the 1970’s I helped design both BWR and PWR power plants for the Tennessee Valley Authority. I’m very familiar with the GE design used at Fukushima Daiichi. I’m not some voice in the wilderness screaming “wolf”.
We’ll be very lucky if this thing doesn’t get much worse before it gets better. Since it now appears that, to some, anything short of a monstrous reactor vessel explosion at
Fukushima Daiichi can be interpreted as “victory” for nuclear power proponents and “vindication” of nuclear plant safety design, I’ll pray for “victory”.
R.S.Brown,
I note that in your initial statement you mention “Duke Power” as being involved with TMI. In the later thing that you cut and pasted for me to read I do not see Duke mentioned. WUWT?
Also, you did not answer me about deaths and injuries. I do not seem to be able to find a report of such.
Perhaps, the Nation’s collective recollection of TMI as more to do with the movie mentioned in that pasted part than with actual facts! Just wondering as I did not see the movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078966/
The China Syndrome (1979)
Stars: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas
——————————————————————————
Mods: I apologized for an italics issue (above), then checked and found, begorra, it wasn’t my text wot done it. Does that mean I get a pass the next time I screw up? Top o’the day, to Ya!
John F. Hultquist says:
March 19, 2011 at 4:54 pm
John,
I never said there were deaths directly attributed to the
Three Mile Island event. I never implied there were
deaths directly attributed to the Three Mile Island event.
If you’ll read my text AND the links I provided, you’ll see the
health summaries in both the Wikipedia and NRC reports.
Duquesne Power is a holding and distribution company, not
necessarily the operator of the Three Mile Island facility.
Sorry for the confusion. Buy their stock.
My point, which you seem to be avoiding, is it took MONTHS
for the media to be given the facts on the Three Mile Island
partial meltdown “event”.
Given the cozy relationship between the nuclear industry regulators
and the regulated in Japan, media reporters and editors know they
are being handed same kind of rosy scenario news the media
was handed during the Three Mile Island episode.
Check it out http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2011/03/dear-news-media.html
“Dear news media:
Remember back in ’50s and early ’60s, when we set off something like 900 atomic bombs in Nevada? And how we just let the fallout blow wherever and it landed all over the eastern US? And how it wiped out life as we know it and all that was left from Colorado to the Atlantic were six-legged rats battling two-headed cockroaches in the glowing ruins?
Yeah. Exactly. So shut up with the panic already.”
and
“When I was working in Las Vegas, the old-timers would reminisce about the tailgate parties at the north end of town to watch the nuclear fireworks. ”
and
“My uncle worked on the Manhattan Project. He had a little problem and missed the shot. The little problem? Radiation poisoning. He died, 7 years ago at 86 of a heart attack. ”
If I were president, I would hold a live, televised news conference about the “immenent danger” of the aproaching nuclear cloud. I would use those words to attract the breathless ettention of the “news”hounds and stupid panicy people. Then I would explain with pictures (since they obviously are too stupid to be able to read) exactly why those nuclear plants are safe, exactly how much radiation it takes to actually hurt (much less kill) anyone, and how small a percentage of that anyone is exposed to, and how not one person so far had been so much as injured, let alone killed, from radiation anywhere in japan, even at the nuclear sites. And I would mention the multiple aboveground nuclear tests (with pictures of them behind me) and how no one died, and the USA did not turn into a nuclear wasteland, and show the comparison between that amount of radiation and the amount revieved in Japan (probably a small fraction of it). I would mention how as many as 10.000 people had died, not one of them from radiation. I would mention that thousands or millions were at risk of cold and exposure and hunger and thirst and disease and how they, the so called “news media” were ignoring all that to concentrate on breathless reporting on a complete non problem.
And then I would tell them about Banana Equivilent Dose, and explain exactly why a banana, and just about everything they eat, and flying in a plane, and not flying in a plane, and being out of doors, and being indoors, and pretty much everything they do and don’t do, exposes them to radiation. And I would mention that guy who worked with radiation, had radiation poisoning even, and died 7 years ago, at 86, of a heart attack. And then I would look at the banana, act scared, and drop it in panic. Then I would look up at the displayed pictures and charts, and say “oh wait”, look down at the banana, pick up the banana, peel that banana, and then, dare I say it, actually BITE that banana! Then I would carefully feel myself, you know, to see if I was still alive, and mention to the people that indeed, I was. And then I would hold out the banana, and tell people who want to show that they, at least, are not stupid, mindless sheep, that they should go out and get one, and proudly wave it about in peoples faces, and scare them with all that “dangerous radiation”, and mention that they just recieved more radiation than people in Japan did, and that they should panic, and run (laugh at them of they do). (I imagine that this will be very popular with young people, thats the idea) . And then I would hold out the banana to the camara and say that THIS is the symbol of your freedom (point to newshounds) from THEM.
And then I would tell them that they were going to tell the american people exactly what I just told them, how not one person had died, or even been injured, anywhere in Japan, from radiation, how while they were breathlessly reporting on this complete non problem, thousands or millions were and still are in real danager from exposure in Japan in winter, and that they own those suffering people an apology for ignoring them to report on this non issue, and even making their plite worse by scaring them with these non existant threats. I would inform them that they had exactly 24 hours to make their apologies both to the American people and the people of Japan for their scare mongering, stupidity, or outright lying and to nuclear propaganda. failure to do so would result in them being banned from the white house, and ignored from then on in any press conferences if they want any questions asked (they would be insulted first, then “next!”). There would be shouted questions, I would inform them that I would only answer questions from real news reporters, sneer at them, and walk out on them.
24 hours later, I would have another news condference, I would bring my banana, and use it to point for emphasis and at the pictures and charts and videos behind me. I would point out that I made a utube video of that first conference, and immediatly released it, along with a transcript, to many people and blogs and such, because I didn’t trust the people in this room. I would then show videos and text from news organizations abput all this and show the people exactly how those differed from what was actually said 24 hours ago, showing the video from 24 hours ago to point out the exact differenct (with the banana, of course). I would then tell them exactly who was now persona non grata with the white house, and show the people the exact “news” reports of propaganda and lies to show them exactly why they were banned (there should be lots of hysterical reporting right after the first news conference). And yes, I am making another utube video of this conference, because I don’t trust anyone in this room anymore (point to camera with banana) “and neither should you”.
Meanwhile I would be arrainging with say, the tea party, and other such organizations, to have banana waving marches (scare them with the “radiation”), see about having protesters who protest nuclear plants and the like have counter protesters show up and shower them with bananas, banana billboards, newspapaer adds, just go whole hog on the banana thing untill the very ideas of the anti nuclear crowd, and the mainstream press that propagates it, is a laughingstock.
Meanwhile, Id see about sending a shipment of bananas to every american who had the guts to stick around in Japan after the earthquake and “nuclear catastrophy”, and I would, at every news conference from then on, mention “number of people who died in Japan from radiation poisoning, still zero”.
Yes, that what I would do. Instead, our cowardly president is running off to south america, probaly doesnt want to be around when that huge cloud of radiation sweeps over the USA. Doesn’t he know that there are BANANAS down there? Doesn’t he know what kind of DANGER he is putting himself in?? Maybe he should just stay down there, after all, if he comes back, he will probably be glowing, right?
Interesting.
I can remember back to the good old days during the Eisenhower
administration, when, as a kid here in Ohio, our parents were told
via official AEC and state health authorities to limit our milk
consumption for the next “four or five days” due to the strontium-90
gently wafting through the air after those atomic tests out west.
It seems the stuff got into the grass the milk cows ate and had a
special affinity for bonding to the calcium in milk.
No worries, right ?
Gary says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:46 am
Yes, it was sarcasm, but explain this
I would want to know if other apartment buildings had the same thing happening. I’d want to know the neighborhood where the apartment building is. I’d want to know what kinds of food the people that lived in those apartments, in general, ate. Not all groups of people eat as healthy as others. I’d want an analysis of the water at that apartment building. Those studies had to involve other apartment buildings and neighborhoods. In other words, there’s other factors involved. She said it herself before, she’s not a scientist. I think she didn’t make her point well, i.e., that small quantities are not harmful. It sounded like she was saying radiation is not harmful. The interviewer also seemed to try to point out about small and large quantities. As far as people going down into uranium shafts for health reasons, I have never read anything about that. So I can’t say.
Fred from Canuckistan says:
March 19, 2011 at 10:25 am
I put up with him (US ABC, both Good Morning America and Nightline) until he declared the only thing left to do was cover things with concrete and sand.
Apparently he’s coming out with a new book soon, that was on display a couple days ago. I didn’t see the whole segment, I’m changing the channel too now.