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Toshiaki Shimizu / AFP - Getty Images
Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment minister, shows reporters the fuel rod pool at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor on Saturday.
FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Amid concerns of a new disaster should a quake destroy the pool cooling off radioactive nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima's Reactor No. 4, Japan on Saturday arranged a tour for journalists and declared the situation manageable -- but also very long term.
"I don't think the situation is unstable," said Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment minister and the man in charge of the cleanup. He was speaking to reporters after his first tour of the twisted and partly destroyed building that houses the reactor.
Hosono said he expected workers to begin removing fuel from the reactor's storage pool next year.
Work began last month to raise what amounts to a giant tent over the building to keep radioactive dust from scattering during the transport of the fuel rods, which now are under just a tarp at the top of the building.
Senator Ron Wyden was the first U.S. Senator to get a look inside Japan's Fukushima nuclear energy plant. Wyden discusses what he saw inside the plant and whether or not imported food from Japan is safe to eat.
Hosono said his biggest concern was ensuring Japan could secure the labor and talent to finish the decommissioning of the Fukushima reactors over the coming decades.
"This may take 30 or even 40 years to complete and extremely difficult work is still ahead of us," he said.
Tokyo Electric Power, the utility that operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, says its analysis shows the No. 4 reactor building would hold up in a strong earthquake even after being badly damaged by a hydrogen explosion when three nearby reactors suffered meltdowns in March 2011.
Japanese safety regulators on Friday ordered Tepco to recheck its findings after measurements showed the west wall of the reactor building was buckling out by about 1.2 inches.
Some experts believe the fuel in the pool is now too weak to generate much radioactivity, but others are still worried.
"The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool," Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, told the New York Times. "Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment."
Hosono said the government accepted Tepco's estimate that the No. 4 reactor could withstand an earthquake measuring a "strong 6" on the Japanese scale.
The magnitude 9 quake last March that triggered a tsunami and overran Fukushima's backup power systems was measured at 7 on the Japanese scale.
Some environmental critics charge the No. 4 reactor presents a particular risk of a knock-on disaster if a subsequent earthquake were to topple it or puncture its fuel storage pool and allow the 65 feet of water now covering and cooling 1,535 uranium fuel assemblies to drain away.
Such an accident, they say, could release far more radiation than the leaks of radioactive water Tepco has battled since improvising a system for cooling reactor cores last year.
Hosono climbed a narrow and dark staircase built with scaffolding to take reporters to the top of the No. 4 building where the fuel pool has been covered with a tarp.
Tepco has taken steps to shore up support for the pool, which measures 30 feet by 60 feet across, by adding a cement column underneath.
Officials from the utility demonstrated how they were using water in the pool as a kind of level to confirm the building was not tipping. They also showed a grid of floats holding up the tarp they said could support a person if a worker fell in.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
I bet there are a lot of 3-eyed fish around Fukushima.
mmmmm a xtra eye to eat in the sushi !
the experts are saying 30 to 40 years to shut it down and clean it all up.I have a great idea,Freeze the entire pool , put the entire block in a insulated container and sell it on ebay.
Translation: A strong gust of wind will trigger an unstoppabe meltdown.
Hey, MSNBC writers...what the heck is a "knock-on" disaster?
Even better translation of "I DONT HINK ITS UNSTABLE" Means exactly 'YES' its unstable and a sall wind will knock it over..That answer is not reassuring..Then when a government says something, usually is the opposite. Do you trust the government? DUH
The nuclear fuel rod pool is under control! Believe it or not! Japan, Land of The Setting Sun and Endless Lies! Another 9 plus megaquake awaits, no doubt, to release the truth. I dont want to see the fallout of this fish tale!
It took them a year to admit that there had been a "meltdown". Why don't I have any confidence in their current assessement?
"I don't think the situation is unstable," said Goshi Hosono.
But that doesn't mean he's not keeping an open airline ticket to flee out of the area!
If you see a halo around someone's neck, don't think it's the second coming of the Christ finally, it's just radiation.
Either way, the human race reaches a milestone.
manageable???
Its already too late. If I were a reporter invited to tour the ongoing radiation leak called Fukushima I would decline the offer. I suspect, and also worry that those who did go should keep a close watch out for cancer.
The Japanese Government has already lied several times about this ongoing uncontrolled incident. I will never Trust the Japanese Government again. All they are worried about is loosing the almighty tourist dollars.
Shameful!!!
And thats my opinion.
There is obviously a lot of nonsense written here by people that have no clue of what is going on but feel "qualified" to make stupid comments. Sad, it shows the ignorance one has to deal with in this undereducated country, America.
Here is something to watch in conjunction with the articles provided by a never correct or fair media that stirs up the pot without knowing what they are writing about. Ah well, see the above.
Watch the following and after you have done that, please re-evaluate a lot of the things you were told by the media and the standard green jerks. There is nothing more important than the safety of the public when you talk and work nuclear energy. But please, lets get real here and don't continue the established stupidity and ignorance.
http://youtu.be/2Ncm8KwxWNg
Mr. Subliminal,
Did you bother to check out the membership list that makes up the company that produced that video?
Do ya think there may be just a small (meaning large) dose of conflict of interest?
...move along...nothing to see here....we have everything under control.....all is well....
Under control, or just under a tarp?
Japan has lied to the public to an extreme level on Fukushima. I doubt nearly everything they say on this subject.
40 years cleanup ehh? Well, I'm 51 now so I doubt I'll be a tourist soon, especially when we have so many local waste sites here in the US, ohh, sure you may not read about them, but we occupants know more than the dead will ever tell you about, just ask.
U.S. Army General: The Whole Northern Hemisphere is at Risk of Becoming Largely Uninhabitable
Mac Slavo
May 25th, 2012
SHTFplan.com
Comments (318)
Read by 27,395 people
You may have entertained the idea of an improbable civilization ending events such as a ‘global killer’ asteroid, earth crust displacement or massive solar storms, but what if there existed a situation right now that was so serious that it literally threatened our very existence?
According to a host of scientists, nuclear experts and researchers, were are facing exactly such a scenario – and current efforts may not be able to stop it.
When the Fukushima nuclear plants sustained structural damage and a catastrophic failure of their spent fuel cooling systems in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, it left the government of Japan, Tokyo Power and nuclear regulatory agencies around the world powerless to contain the release of deadly radiation. A year on, the battle for control of Fukushima continues to no avail.
It’s estimated that tens of thousands of people in Japan and the whole of North America have been affected, with reports indicating that children in Japan and the U.S. are already being born with birth defects, as well as thousands who have already succumbed to radiation related illness. As we initially followed the breaking news during the first thirty days of the accident, we suggested the Fukushima disaster would be worse than Chernobyl. Not even we could have imagined how much worse it would be.
If current estimates are correct, Fukushima has already released as much radiation into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean as Chernobyl, and the potential for a disaster at least ten times worse is highly probable in the event of another earthquake or accident that leads to a collapse of the cooling structures which are above ground and have already suffered significant damage.
According to U.S. Army General Albert N. Stubblebine (ret.) of the Natural Solutions Foundation, the situation is extremely serious and poses a significant danger to our entire civilization. Since TEPCO and the Japanese government have refused the entombment option (as the Russians did with Chernobyl) the world is at the mercy of nature. A mistake here would cause the deaths of tens of millions of people across the globe.
If there ever existed a threat that could cause the end of the world as we know it, it’s the ongoing and unresolved nuclear saga in Japan:
We can play the denial game all day long and pretend that, because the mainstream media is not reporting on it, there is no threat, but the facts are quite clear.
This is, without a doubt, the most immediate threat faced by the world. It’s so serious, in fact, that the Japanese government has considered and put into place evacuation plans for the whole of Tokyo – some 40 million people. Reports are also emerging that suggest a collapse of the spent fuel pools would be so serious that the entire country of Japan may have to be evacuated. The entire country – that’s 125 million refugees that will cause an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
Before you argue that these are the ravings of just alternative media conspiracy theorists and fearmongers, consider the assessment put forth by Robert Alvarez , a senior policy adviser to the Secretary for National Security and the Environment for the US Department of Energy:
Regulatory agencies all over the world are warning of the potentiality of a further degradation of the Fukushima nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools, and the subsequent nuclear fallout that would follow.
If these reactors go – and they could at any moment for any number of reasons – we’re looking at a situation for which you simply cannot stock enough food, or water, or supplies. Radiation would spread across the entire northern hemisphere and would be impossible to contain.
While we’ve argued in the past that there is no place we’d rather be than in the United States of America in the event of a socio-economic collapse or global conflict, if these spent fuel pools collapse, then an international exit strategy may be the only option.
Because details are sparse and research limited, it is difficult to predict what nuclear fall out from Japan may look like. The following map may be of some help, as it details the estimated fallout pattern resulting from a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. You’ll note that, while most of the world would be irradiated, the southern hemisphere would be your best bet to avoid the brunt of it:
Let me just say... Wow.
Wherever you got your misinformation is completely wrong. Uranium is not explosive when exposed to air.
Spent fuel rods are just that. Spent, therefore having less nuclear capability, therefore less radiation.
Tens of thousands of deaths due to fukushima? Haven't heard that. The media would be all over that. What were the causes of death? Radiation poisoning? No. Too far away. Cancer? Too soon. Drowning from the tsunami? Didn't think that the tsunami made it to the US.
You may want to get better sources or go live in antartica.
Sorry, actual physics/chemistry/biology disagrees with this assessment.
Mitchell
@blazen
So basically you finish your post by admitting there is no actual research to back up everything you start out claiming. As is often the case with fear mongers.
Sounds like someone scared and VERY un-informed of nuclear power.
Do people still really think that a nuclear plant blows up in a giant mushroom cloud? Only weapons do that, hahaha!
Also suggest people look into Arnie Gundersens website, Faireweather.com. And yes, it is spelled that way.
"The media would be all over this." Non mainstream medias have been, and I suspect that's why Japan is reacting as they are. But hey, you listen to whoever makes you feel best.
Chemistry teaches us that, "dilution is the solution." And this should not be different for the issues that continue to plague Fukushima, and the affected zone of exclusion. However.....
There is one glaring problem with the Fukushima reactors. A problem that, heretofore, hasn't had need to address at any nuclear site. One of the Fukushima reactors was fueled with plutonium. Plutonium is a weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Much of the dismantled Soviet nuclear arms have had their plutonium sold to reactors about the globe.
So, I'll submit a limited agreement to your post. It all balances upon how the Fukushima disaster is handled both now, and into the foreseeable future. Is it past the tipping point? We don't know. And it will be years before we know. Japan's TEPCO was secretive from the onset of the disaster, and I suppose that information is being withheld, even still.
Hey, blazen (or should I say dingbat?)! If you want people to give any thought to your post, then include citations from reputable sources from which you got your information. If you don't include respected references for your statements, then they are nothing but more pointless rambling by another kook who reads too much science fiction from his room down in his parents' basement.
You post looked interesting but I fell a sleep 5 times trying to read it. Make your post short and sweet if you want people to read it. I learned more about what you said by reading the replies.
blazen - Chad took the words right out of my mouth. I voted to collapse your post simply because it is too long and, therefore, doesn't belong here. You fall into the same category as posters who italicize their comments, or use boldface (or worse, use boldface and italics), or skip two spaces after each sentence, etc. You are just annoying.
I would suggest that the nay sayers check out the increased rate of fasciation that is occuring in this country, it is happening at an alarming rate, or would you say that our plants are leaking? The Japanese won't admit that Sumo is rigged, do you think they would admit they may have killed millions, though unintentionaly?
So, you think that fasciationand nuclear power plant disasters are related? Interesting. Do you even know what "fasciation" means? According to The Free Dictionary by Farlex, the definition of "fasciation" is as follows.
fas·ci·a·tion (n ):
1. The act of binding up or fastening, as with bandages.
2. The manner in which something is bound up or fastened.
3. Botany An abnormal flattening or coalescence of stems, as in broccoli.
The problem here is almost everybody thinks distance is safety. Wrong! In WWII Japan launched balloon bombs on to prevailing winds that came to the US. It was thought that none of these balloons ever made it here until recently. A young man was killed in Oregon by one that was found in the woods. Yes radiation can travel those same winds. When I was in Germany you could wash your car and whenit rained your car was covered with fine dirt, almost like it rained mud. I found later that it was from the sand storm that came from Saudi, Iran,Iraq area. Is was carried there by upper atmosphere winds. Needless to say knowing this I didn't want to be there if any of those countries had a nuclear explosion. Distance means nothing.
The West Coast of the United States suffered several million dollars worth of damage from the tsunami.
I can see that the Japanese Government Plumbers are out enforce this evening.
Amazing.
And thats my Opinion.
Nuclear gets all the attention when something goes wrong but what no one pays attention to is the environmental disaster that is coal mining even when things go as planned. 40 years is nothing comapared to coal seam fires that have been burning for 100 years or more. Unchecked coal seam fires around the world account for 1% of greenhouse gases but you've never even seen a story about it in the mainstream media. Nuclear is by far our most viable option for cheap clean energy especially considering the improvements in technology and safety that have been made over the last 40 years.
And thousands of years for the half-lives of many of the radionuclides makes 100 years of coal seam fires look like peanuts. Nuclear is not a viable option, nor is it cost effective Mr. Backcountry NRC poster boy. End the subsidies of nuclear plants, for example, require them to be fully insured in case of catastrophic failure, and nuclear will be a bad dream. The effects of Chernobyl and now Fukushima have, are, and will destroy the lives of many thousands of people, not to mention make a massive amount of land area uninhabitable for thousands of years. With all of the land that has become uninhabitable thus far, we could have used solar panels to meet the world's energy needs.
Any of you people out there that support nuclear should be required to live in the exclusion zones designed in case of catastrophic failure. You should be canaries in the coal mine; then we will all see how much you love nuclear power. You want it, you take the risk, period. I would rather pay higher prices for energy and use conservation strategies.
i will take any coal fires over a nuke meltdown anyday ,damm valcanos spew out much more pollution then either
Adding to Lindsey1028's comment:
No one has found a save way to store spent nuclear fuel for as long as it takes to let it decay.
For two years solar has been cheaper than nuclear. It was true even before the Japan disaster. Solar prices have continued to drop thanks to China turning them into a commodity. Even Saudi Arabia will invest $109 billion in solar, (though they will also build nuclear plants).
China has brought prices down so radically solar is now competitive with coal. Cheaper, if you DIY your install, and that's without federal subsidies.
Between solar electric, solar thermal, wind, and nat gas, there is no excuse for nuclear.
@Lindsey1028
Your post is long on rhetoric but short on facts.
Coal is the primary source of energy currently and the land destroyed by coal mining makes the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones look like a drop in the bucket.
ROTFLMAO!!! The Chernobyl exclusion zone is approx 2,600 sq km, the Fukushima exclusion zone is about the same. The sq km need to supply the worlds energy needs is 496,805 sq km (http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127) Kind of hard to take anything you say seriously when you clearly do not base your statements on anything that is even remotely realistic let alone factual.
@Valhalla Phil
The number one problem with solar energy is transfer and storage. Sure you can put solar panels on your roof but they are certainly not cheaper when you exclude all subsidies. The only states that have heavy usage of solar are the one that heavily subsidize its use. If it were cost effective without those subsidies everyone would be using it. And of course there are some parts of the country where it will never be viable, when the sun isn't shining you've got to get your energy from some other source.
Solar thermal does offer some solutions in the area of storage but those techs are still a long way from becoming viable.
Al - why would you ever take the word of anyone posting on Newsvine? Do you not understand that the vast majority of people posting comments don't have a clue? Always research topics on your own. BTW, that should be "safe", not "save".
Backcountry164: Actually, you can cut nearly 40% of land needed for solar and increase solar's dependability by just paying people to reroof with solar shingles. And that assumes a 20% efficiency rate or today's level of technology. Double the efficiency (very doable) and we can wipe out 70% of our home energy need by having the grid powered by homes instead of homes powered by the grid.
Much better solution than nuclear.
UMGator: You're sounding like a schoolyard bully. Maybe you would like to enlighten us with original thoughts instead of grammar?
Monkey - UMGator has a point. What would be the use of trying to enlighten people who can't read or write correctly? If they can't do that, do they really have the extra brain cells needed to absorb new thoughts? For example, is someone doesn't know the difference between "safe" and "save", how is he/she going to be able to correctly interpret anything that is written?
I wish Nuclear energy was a safe source of energy but here in the U.S. our plants are leaking radioactive fluids everyday and our government sweeps it under the rug.
If no one believes what I am saying all you have to do is start reading it online. I have read stories about home owners that live close to these plants and even though they have proof they are not taken seriously and nothing gets done most of the time. It comes down to our plants aging and pipes that are corroding from the inside. Its not hidden from the population but most people just don't look into it because it isn't on there door step type of attitude.
It all comes down to the $$$$ factor and although these power companies make huge bucks they are to cheap to keep the systems going safely and when a huge disaster finally hits the U.S then it will hit the fan and everyone will make a big issue of it then instead of now when something could be done to fix the issues.
Property owners cannot drink there well water, the ground itself has radiation contamination as well, some people have said they can't even sell there homes if they wanted to. I really feel for all these people because they were told the the nuclear plants were 100% safe.
I'm posting this here now because it needs to be said to show that U.S isn't doing the job as they should be. (Our Government of course)
I'm all for nuclear energy when it can done with the 100% safety and full accountability and transparency to the people.
If you see a halo around someone's neck, don't think it's the second coming of the Christ finally, it's just radiation.
Either way, the human race reaches a milestone.
@Monkey@Keyboard
My house is heavily shaded in the summer so I'd only be producing electricity 1/3 of the year. Honestly we'd be better off if everyones house was. I only run my air conditioner 10-15 days a year, if it's below 90 degrees I don't need it. Removing the shade trees and installing solar shingles would be a net loss for me. So how would that work? How would it make sense to put the shigles on my house when they're only going to be 33% effective?
Backcountry164: Good for you. Sounds like you're part of the solution.
However, most people don't have that luxury. Solar may not be the only solution. But it should be a variable in the equation.
Over 15,000 deaths resulting from the earthquake disaster. Not ONE death from radiation. And this is the big news. The what-if factor rules.
How do you know, not one death wiseguy? It's pretty hard to pin somebodies death on the results of nuclear contamination, when one is not even looking for it! It's not just cancer you have to worry about, consider heart disease, genetic defects that will affect the rest of the genetic line for a human being. Just do some google searches to get an idea of some of the impacts and effects of nuclear contamination - real fun stuff. I think the world should volunteer you to live in the Fukushima exclusion zone.
Because Lindsey, for anybody to die within a year from exposure, they will have to have died by radiation poisoning which is a very distinctive and discernible way to go. Everything else takes a lot more time.
Mitchell
Lindsey - that should be "somebody's", not "somebodies". Yet another reason for Al or anyone else reading your posts not to give them many points for accuracy.
go to youtube and search Chernobyl mutations and cancer then please shut your mouth about things you know nothing of. Oh and by the way I am trained to respond to and rescue from such and event. Everyone is being poisoned from this event. Particles from this catrostophie have been detected across north america by an unquestionable number universities, security entities, and private individuals. How many eyes,arms, and tumors do you want your child to have? People like you disgust me.
It would help if you could name your specific sources for these "particles". I am assuming your training has yet to pay off.
zazen- do you really think they'd tell us about radiation deaths? I doubt all the people that worked at the site right afterwards are still alive.
*sigh*
zazen
It was widely published what was released from Chernobyl. Irradiated graphite, strontium, uranium, beryllium and many other radioactive particles. Russia has monuments to the thousands of soldiers that died to cap Chernobyl. Your assumptions make an ass of you. I own my own company. Bark at someone smaller bitch
I work construction and I can assure you that plastic tarps dont hold up for s**t when the wind starts blowing. That's pretty squirly.
Hmm, I haven't worked in 7 months... with 10+ years of nuclear experience, 2 of those various decon jobs, I may need to relocate and america with all it's corrupt politicians can kiss my ass. Wouldn't be a problem if we would just start building more nuke plants already, there would be tens of thousands of long term construction and operating jobs here in the US.
Sorry you're out of work but with your attitude we'd still be building buggy whips. Nuclear is a dying technology, solar and wind are surpassing it and will continue to do so. According to the DOE, solar has been cheaper than nuclear for two years now and prices keep falling. Meanwhile nuclear costs keep going up.
Also, you can start building out solar tomorrow, it takes a nuke plant a decade to come on line.
Finally, solar is the ONLY power source that pays you, when it's on your roof. Wind, nat gas, nuclear, etc. all raise your electric bill, solar reduces it.
Be Accountable - As they say, don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out. It will be interesting to see how much you like living in any foreign country. People like you enjoy denigrating the good old USA, but you don't have a clue as to how good we have it compared to other nations.
scales67: I would guess that you, too, "don't have a clue as to how good we [sic] have it compared to [sic] other nations": that's the kind of comment Americans who have never lived outside the US continually make; those who've actually lived in other industrialized countries often conclude that life in the US is for the majority pretty poor by most of the usual criteria (standard of living, education, cultural resources, health care, crime, etc.).
Valhalla Phil
That some sort of ill informed joke? Yes solar energy is cheaper and greener, absolutely can't deny that. but ahhhhhh, solar energy positively does not produce the amount of power we need. You would need thousands and thousands of acres of land to produce the power a single nuclear reactor makes.
As for the other nuts making useless comments about going to Japan, no I have not been to Japan. But I know plenty about it as my father was in the Marines growing up and was stationed in Okinawa for a year. Tons of pictures and stories, and then many more stories once I was older, hehe.
Be Accountable-1433376: Sorry, but knowing someone who was stationed in Okinawa for one year does not really seem like a sound credential. Not only was Okinawa under US jurisdiction until 40 years (and about a month) ago, but US bases in Japan are entirely different legally and culturally from Japan proper. Bases in Okinawa are particularly cut off from the surrounding geographic areas, given how widely vilified the bases are in Okinawa. (I do not touch here on Okinawa's having long been culturally, linguistically, and legally distinct from Japan and that Okinawa is thousands of kilometers from Fukushima.)
Is that 40 year as in the Gulf oil spill would devastate the area for decades...LOL
According to Obama, crisis averted, the fish are safe to eat! :<)
PO'd in MN - you actually think that Gulf oil spill is funny?
We see an improved amount of news. Let's put the hard lessons of human experience to work. Atomic accidents can wipe us out and cause enormous suffering Three Mile Island, Fukushima- 40 years minimum, Chernobyl - radioactive for 100,000 years. It is time to say "too bad" to owners of uranium and plutonium mines in the 1%, and the atomic plant industry. The world cannot yet deal even with the mountains of waste rods. Where are they going? Transport them through our neighborhoods on trucks and trains? Build more water pools everywhere on earth and hope they always have water pumped around them and no leaks from earthquakes and hurricanes or tornados?
Sadly true the people in Japan are the 'walking dead'.
Recent soil samples from an American Nuclear Engineer
tested...results: "Tokyo soil is equivalent to what we would in America
refer to as NUCLEAR WASTE."
It's been over a year since the 3 nuclear reactors totally exploded!!!
This is the first coverage in over a year by news media WITH 3 nuclear reactors in
total meltdown.
The mainstream media is ridiculous. You pathetic excuses for journalists and newspeople need to grow a couple and stop being corporate slaves.
BUT being corporate slaves is in their job description. lol
HawkEyes-3154890: Just because you have not been paying attention does not mean this is "the first coverage in over a year": the story has been and usually is front-page or leading story news in all media in Japan for all of that time.
Even though you haven't got an iota of truth coming out of Japan since the original earthquake, there is no need to worry. They erected a canopy over the wrecked reactor pool, what more do you want? I suppose you want to eat food that isn't contaminated with radiation too? From this point forward, the governments and mega corporations will never lie to you. Relax and go back to watching the Kardashians.
2 weeks ago a nuclear fuel storage facility explodes
totally destroying the facility AND beneath the building.
NO U. S NEWS media CHANNEL COVERED THIS explosion!!!
So, HawkEyes, how do you know about it, Einstein? Are you so special that you have insider information?
"I don't think the situation is unstable,"-funny
Goes to show you we need to stop using Nuclear power plants, they are too dangerous and we still don't know how and where to really store the spent fuel rods safely!!!!
who wants to take a dip into Homer Simpson's nuke pool !!!!
The American News Media has proven itsself to be an unreliable
or trustworthy source of crucial news.
Who owns them?
Notice that they waited until a holiday weekend to release this because everybody is thinking "Memorial Day" and nothing else.
This never would have happened if we had listened to Nikola Tesla but "big business" was only interested in money, not public safety, the environment or anything else. Just money.
To those of you who don't know, Tesla had the technology to extract energy out of the athmosphere (for free.) JP Morgan said he would not support anything he couldn't put a meter on and Wardenclyffe Tower was dismantled for "public safety." Check it out.
Before it's over the United Nations will have to be called in to address the Fukushima situation. It's not just going to go away and it's not over.
Sorry, that's totally absurd. China isn't owned by JP Morgan nor was the Soviet Union. If they could have gotten a leg up on the US they would have. Free anything is the old "something for nothing" scam, yet suckers fall for it every time. This sits up there with the 100MPG carburetor, running your car on water, and the magnetic generator.
Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Right, Ramon. I suppose Tesla also developed plans for a perpetual motion machine.
Wow, the loonies are out in full force today. I guess they have been drinking too much water from the spent rod pools.
If you design your emergency electrical circuits and generators so they don't get flooded out, this disaster probably wouldn't have happened in the first place and the cooling pumps could have kept operating with limited interuption.
Were there plans to vent hydrogen gas buildup??? Valves and pumps wear out and fail, either open or closed. Electric circuits and sensors and pressure gauges also fail, either open or closed. Apparently, the Japanese tried to hook up portable emergency generators but could not because the connections were different. If you cannot immediately know of a failure and put in an emergency or bypass measure, all you can do is call 911 and say HELP! or LOOKOUT!
Ted,
If the sky were pink and water tasted like fish then probably nuclear reactors would be safe!
There is no such thing as a fail safe system, it's just a matter of odds. Even if the odds were a zillion to one, that one could be tomorrow, that's how statistics work.
The problem is we don't need to do this, there are a bevy of cheaper options. Solar is already cheaper and wind should continue to get less expensive as volume continues to build. If we built out enough solar, we could not only totally eliminate nuclear but coal as well. Wind, solar, and natural gas can handle all our needs.
Face it. Any claim to an "earthquake proof" reactor is just about as valid as the numerous bridges claimed "earthquake proof" that have collapsed during a major quake.
Earthquakes in one place after another.
Just shows that Japan should not be permitted to have Nuclear Power, killing 25,000 untenable. The UN needs to step in and correct the situation. clearly Japan cannot be trusted.
Wow...the whole country can't be trusted??? The government isn't telling the whole story? Okay..sound familiar? No government does...lol. But you just want Japan taken over?
News Flash, Nuclear power is foolish. Dangerous and not very cost effective. Hover dam produces enough electricity for all of Nevada and part of California. there are so many miles of rivers , water falls and streams in the world. duh. We didn't learn the lesson in Chernobyl. we have not learned the lesson in Japan or even three mile island in america, WHERE NEXT?
Hydro power has killed more people than every other power source (except coal) combined.
Here in the US, nuclear power generation has only killed 3 people (steam explosion from an Army experimental reactor in the 60's, so it wasn't even due to radiation exposure). That's a better safety record than both solar and wind.
Mitchell
Hydro and solar are cheaper than nuclear, as is nat gas. Only wind is now more expensive and that is coming down as well. Hydro is localized death it does not spread around the world, radiation does. You have no way of knowing how many have died from radiation exposure, just radiation sickness.
Again, we don't need to do this, there are cheaper greener alternatives.
Radiation exposure is Radiation exposure (being exposed to Radiation....which you are every second of your life) The difference is "Acute" (The only possible form of "Radiation sickness") and "Chronic" (over a long time)...........fatal exposure from "Acute" is around 500 REM (which is A LOT of Radiation). Fatal exposures from "Chronic" have never been proven, but Radiation Protection (My job) is based on the idea that any exposure to Radiation increases the chances of cancer.......how ever minuscule they may be. FYI.....bananas are RADIOACTIVE (K-40) and this means YOU are RADIOACTIVE. You are exposed to "natural Radiation" (natural Radiation is no different than man made Radiation) everyday......actually the average individual is exposed to ~600 mrem every year from natural Radioactive isotopes. Your fine dinner plates are most likely more Radiactive than anything we would allow out of my Plant. For Nuclear Worker the NRC has established a annual dose limit of 5 REM (or 5000 mrem) Im quite sure every worker at Fukushima will suffer no effects from their Radiation exposure.
Now.....back to the EPIC earthquake and tsunami that ACTUALLY killed 20,000 people.....unlike the Fukushima NUCLEAR accident (which has killed ZERO people)
No offense, but I guess if your brain dead, you'd believe this crap and go right on living your life as though everything is ok. MSN prints this stuff too. Gee, weren't reactors 1,2,&3 perfectly stable before 3-11-11? "If isotopes were flames...in hell we'd be" lyric from one of my tunes. Sorry to be so blunt, but the human race (morally bereft) are getting all they deserve. Just sad that we take down all other living things environment. Even Frank Zappa was wrong...the meek shall inherit everything (left).