Japan Trouble

[Egg]

Some decent news:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a pit near one of the reactors at its stricken nuclear station north of Tokyo, after five days of trying to stem the flow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-0 ... ation.html

Terrible news:

Fishermen in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan’s fifth-largest seafood producer, halted operations after tainted fish were detected south of Fukushima, where radioactive water from a stricken nuclear plant contaminated the sea.
About 96 percent of fishing off the coast of Ibaraki was suspended after sand lance contaminated with higher-than- acceptable levels of cesium were discovered yesterday, said Tomoki Mashiko, assistant director at the fishing policy division of the prefectural government. Fishing in Ibaraki had been suspended since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, restarted as early as March 28, and then suspended again today.
Sushi restaurants and hotels, including Shangri-La Asia’s luxury chain, dropped Japanese seafood from their menus because of radiation fears. Japan exported 565,295 metric tons of marine products worth 195 billion yen ($2.3 billion) last year. A fishing industry group in Fukushima asked Tokyo Electric Power Co. to stop dumping toxic water into the sea as the operator of the damaged nuclear plant struggles to stem radiation leakage.
“The action may be undermining the whole fishing industry in Japan,” Ikuhiro Hattori, chairman for the National Federation of Fisheries Co-Operative Associations, told a vice trade minister today, referring to Tepco dumping water.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-0 ... s-sea.html

Horrible news:

United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semimolten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.
…
The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, provides a more detailed technical assessment than Japanese officials have provided of the conundrum facing the Japanese as they struggle to prevent more fuel melting at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But it appears to rely largely on data shared with American experts by the Japanese.
Among other problems, the document raises new questions about whether pouring water on nuclear fuel in the absence of functioning cooling systems can be sustained indefinitely. Experts have said the Japanese need to continue to keep the fuel cool for many months until the plant can be stabilized, but there is growing awareness that the risks of pumping water on the fuel present a whole new category of challenges that the nuclear industry is only beginning to comprehend.
The document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world ... .html?_r=1

[Pigeon]

The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.

The BP of the Far East

Corporate spokesman = liar or deflection

[Egg]

The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.

The BP of the Far East

Corporate spokesman = liar or deflection

I also read somewhere that the first reactor may be far worse than we think.

[lkwalker]

The BP of the Far East

BP times a thousand.

[Egg]

think nuclear energy, like many of the technologies we have heedlessly developed and disseminated globally over the last century, is an extremely shortsighted proposition. The idea that we are going to be able to protect deposits of radioactive wastes for thousands of years is a bad bet, when we consider the rise and fall of past civilizations that left little trace behind them. We are trapped in this insane model of linear, exponential progress – in fact the capitalist system demands insatiable growth, as it cannot survive without finding more elements to transform into transactions. Genetically modified organisms, similiarly, in my humble opinion, are likely to prove disastrous, even catastrophic, over time. If we look back at the history of technological development, we can see that each new level of technology tends to lead to horrible unforeseen consequences: for instance, plastic once seemed like the greatest thing ever. A hundred years ago, we didn’t imagine vast plastic dumps would collect in the oceans and that its residues would seep through the food chain and collect in our tissues, leading to reproductive problems and cancers. At this point, we require a global movement of civil society to address the consequences of runaway technology, and change the direction of human civilization. We need to redesign our social and technological systems so they mesh with the biosphere, as visionaries like Buckminster Fuller proposed. This requires a planetary initiative toward self-limitation, down-scaling, conserving, and relocalizing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/2012-aut ... dow-2011-3

[Dr Exile]

This requires a planetary initiative toward self-limitation, down-scaling, conserving, and relocalizing.

And severe limits on procreating.

[Egg]

This requires a planetary initiative toward self-limitation, down-scaling, conserving, and relocalizing.

And severe limits on procreating.

I agree.

[Mur]

Amazing footage....

[Mur]

[MrPenny]

When they first starting dumping huge quantities of water on that plant, I asked my wife, "where do they think all that water that doesn't flash into steam is going?" Yup, I was right, it's flowing into the sea.