Fukushima

[organic io]

Well... As nobody has responded to my ramble, I apologize for its length and off-topicness. I should really start writing a book soon instead of spewing here.

[Airmann]

Already fallout from this has reached California's shores. They say about the amount that a person would receive in a chest X-ray

bad enough. California has more than 6000 KM distance to Japan !
X-ray in the chest ... nice. Not healthy !

And this is just the first load of fall out. More and more will arrive during the next weeks.

I get my Geiger tube hopefully this week. And then I can measure by myself.

BTW: sea, drink water and food seems to be heavily contaminated in Japan.

@Ramble: I just didn't find the time Scott, sorry .

[organic io]

I get my Geiger tube hopefully this week. And then I can measure by myself.

Awesome Dude.... I didn't want to say anything yet, lest ye all think I'm crazy, but I got one last week.

Some old guy was selling one of these on craigslist:



I got to go to his house and test it out to make sure it works. Indeed it does. I got it for $30, vs the several hundred people are paying on ebay.

I've been taking readings every night. So far nothing significant... But I understand that it's not as sensitive as some of the newer equipment.

You know what my favorite part of it is?

It says "OCD ITEM"

[Airmann]

... well, regarding that low price you should first check if the device itself is contaminated .

But this is really a great bargain.
Good for crosschecking the "official" measurements

[organic io]

:-D ... well, regarding that low price you should first check if the device itself is contaminated .

But this is really a great bargain.
Good for crosschecking the "official" measurements

Yes, of course I checked the device with itself when I went to buy it from this guy. If the needle had pegged out I would have run out of there as fast as I could

The cool thing about these devices is embedded in the side of them is a small amount of slightly radioactive material (safe levels) that is used as a check source to make sure the counter still works. So when I put the sensor wand up to the check source, it reads about 1mr/hour. Which from the reading I've done is less than the occupational levels for workers who are exposed to radiation (Medical X-ray technicians for example. Someone could be exposed to this level constantly 8 hours a day for an entire year and it would still be under the limit).
I've waved the wand all over the rest of the box and the dosimeter pens/charger which were included, and none of the rest registered anything.

But I got a little background info about it from the guy before I bought it from him. He said he got it at an electrician's supply auction. Apparently electricians need geiger counters occasionally. That's what he said anyway...

So I'm guessing it's pretty safe -- Not likely that an electrician would be walking around a nuclear disaster. I hope

[organic io]

I think I ran chunter off completely ...

[Airmann]

interesting read - I mean the atomic inside off the geiger counter.

Mine will arrive tomorrow, but I don't expect - at least I hope - to measure anything. Those devices are sold out in the meanwhile here in Germany and I was lucky to order early.

Yeah, but the nuclear topic is no easy topic.
Yesterday there was an anti-atomar power demonstration in Japan.
Guess how many people took part ? 100 !!!!!!

I can't believe it. Guess they are totally misinformed, or just are not able to see the truth. Even some elder people returned to their houses in the restricted area. It's a real desaster.

[organic io]

and only getting worse.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201103280145.html

What is being described as "highly radioactive water" has now leaked out of one of the plants and is in a trench outside the building, measuring radiation levels of 1000msv/hour. (1sv/hour).

An exposure of 8 sieverts of radiation kills 95-100% of people exposed. So if you stood in that trench for 8 hours, you would die.

It is only going to get worse from here...

I think it's about time they bumped this up to at least a 6 on the international nuclear event scale

[organic io]

[fbjon]

pics

That's a bit weird. I've been thinking that the situation would be tense near the reactors, but there's someones car there that looks undamaged, some guys casually strolling towards the number 4... somehow anticlimactic.

Anyways, regarding my earlier post, here's a writeup from a week ago or so:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archiv ... tock_3.php

A sarcophag wouldn't have been a very good solution, because it would mean losing control of the cores. Now, since over 2 weeks have passed since the control rods were first inserted, the residual reactivity would have gone way down, with the exception of the damaged parts of the rods. Cooling them down when they're still putting out several MW of heat is critical, but it gets much easier as time passes.

I think the critical issue now is not bungling up again and getting more workers exposed to the nasty stuff that's already out, like the overflow from the fuel pools. Though the three that were are supposedly ok. Gotta wonder about that though..

Seems the most interesting bit will be a soil survey of the whole region, and what they eventually decide to do with the reactors (hopefully dismantle), but all that will probably take quite a while.

Oh, and the dramatized documentaries detailing the exact sequence of events, of course.

[organic io]

My girlfriend's sister works in renewable energy, and her website has updates from Dr. Saji- former Secretariat of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission. It is in the form of emails sent to the scientific community about current conditions at the plant and steps they are taking towards mitigating the disaster.

http://www.ambersharick.com/fukushima.html

Very useful and interesting. It looks to be updated frequently.

[organic io]

This poor old man has been stranded alone since the Tsunami hit. He is right within the 12 mile evacuation zone of Fukushima dai-ichi. He lost his wife and can barely walk so has not been able to do anything except listen to his battery powered radio and survive....

[organic io]

Fukushima has now been upgraded to a level 7 on the INES. At least by Japan anyway.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85020.html

ironic that ines is also the name of an emulator of NES, a Japanese system.

....

Really nothing funny about this though

[organic io]

Topic changed to Fukushima.

Also noticed on Amber's blog which has the updates from Dr. Saji- former Secretariat of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission

He said:

Although the sampling was more biased towards the highly contaminated regions around the radius of 20-30 km region, the new restriction is certainly conservative. However, I am worried about impacting too large areas. In the paddy fields, the Cs-137 may be washed down by irrigation, gradually washed down to the sea. This difference in the climate may reveal much difference between Fukushima and Ukraine.

In any case, this decision should induce a serious impact for future prospect for resettlement of local residents living within 20km region, as well as those voluntarily evacuated from 20-30 km region. It may results in asking most of the people within the evacuated region to permanently relocate away from the near field of the Fukushima Daiichi Station.