Thursday, December 29, 2011

News From Japan: How Bad Can Fukushima Get?


THE NEWS

Gov't wants to buy abandoned Fukushima land to store radioactive waste http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-wants-to-buy-abandoned-fukushima-land-to-store-radioactive-waste

 Japan starts operating new centrifuges for enriching uranium  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111229p2g00m0dm010000c.html

 NUCLEAR ACCIDENT INTERIM REPORT / Without water, reactor cores heated up http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T111229004103.htm

 Fukushima hospitals in financial strife / Services being cut as medical facilities' losses top 12 billion yen due to nuclear crisis http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T111229004020.htm

[Excerpted] "Hospitals in Fukushima Prefecture are facing financial strain--and cutting services--due to the ongoing impact of the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The prefecture's hospital association, to which about 90 percent of its hospitals belong, recently estimated that the hospitals' combined losses would reach at least 12.6 billion yen for the first year after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis in March.The hospitals demanded TEPCO pay compensation for the first six months." [end quote]

SPECULATION

There is considerable speculation at Enenews on the webcam discussion forum that fires are burning at the plant in the spent fuel pools of units 2 and 3.

Radnet readings for many areas of the US still reporting are extremely high, indicating rising levels of radiation in Japan http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/12/realtime-epa-radnet-japan-nuclear-radiation-monitoring-every-us-city-single-page-16511/

Yuma was just at 800 CPM beta 

Fresno was at 450 CPM beta

Bakersfield CA was off the charts (which reach 1000CPM) on Dec 11 and was recently (yesterday) at 850 CPM beta.

Burning spent fuel pools, or simply fissioning of melted coriums, could explain these high levels. Some commentators have suggested that what we have are open China syndrome pits of burning, fissioning corium.

How much fuel is at the plant? Bobby1 at Enenews posted this link:

[Excerpted] "The Daiichi complex had a total of 1760 metric tons of fresh and used nuclear fuel on site last year, according to a presentation by its owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The most damaged Daiichi reactor, number 3, contains about 90 tons of fuel, and the storage pool above reactor 4, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Gregory Jaczko reported yesterday had lost its cooling water, contains 135 tons of spent fuel. The amount of fuel lost in the core melt at Three Mile Island in 1979 was about 30 tons; the Chernobyl reactors had about 180 tons when the accident occurred in 1986…." http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/how-much-fuel-is-at-risk-at-fukushima.html?rss=1 

Majia Here: Commentators at Enenews are suggesting ELE if this disaster is not contained.

I don't know how accurate a description that is, but I am becoming very worried that no apparent, collective, collaborative response has been forthcoming for the largest nuclear disaster ever. 

I am worried that radiation levels are increasing in Japan and the US and I am worried that governments are doing nothing to protect their citizens.

 http://enenews.com/agencys-fukushima-report-total-release-amount-equal-chernobyl-nuclear-explosion#comment-177194

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