Radiation at Japan's Fukushima Reactor Is Now at 'Unimaginable' Levels

[Chantique]

The radiation levels at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant are now at "unimaginable" levels.

Adam Housley, who reported from the area in 2011 following the catastrophic triple-meltdown, said this morning that new fuel leaks have been discovered.
He said the radiation levels - as high as 530 sieverts per hour - are now the highest they've been since 2011 when a tsunami hit the coastal reactor. "To put this in very simple terms. Four sieverts can kill a handful of people," he explained.

He said that critics, including the U.S. military in 2011, have long questioned whether Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and officials have been providing accurate information on the severity of the radiation. TEPCO maintains that the radiation is confined to the site and not a risk to the public. It's expected to take at least $300 billion and four decades to fix it. Housley said small levels of radiation are still being detected off the coasts of California and Oregon and scientists fear it could get worse.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/02/0...ic-ocean-leaks





This was a horrific safety underestimation made by the Japanese Nuclear Power Industry. With a nation that's had a long history of numerous tsunamis in its past. To not prepare for this plant for the worst case scenario is downright criminal.

Maybe you guys don't know but Brazil have 2 nuclear power plants right at the ocean too and its building a third one. I know tsunamis aren't common in the atlantic but if something happens it would be catastrophic.

Brazilian Power Plants


Do you guys think that countries with nuclear powerplants should be inspected regularly and if responsible for a nuclear disaster severely accounted for?

[Deletedaccount1]

Japan, Chile and New Zealand are probably the three countries that shouldn't have nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy is fine otherwise. Germany got scared because of 3/11 and took their plants offline and replaced them with coal which is just moving backwards out of unnecessary fear.

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Maybe you guys don't know but Brazil have 2 nuclear power plants right at the ocean too and its building a third one. I know tsunamis aren't common in the atlantic but if something happens it would be catastrophic.

Tsunamis are more than uncommon in the Atlantic, they almost never happen. Brazil is fine.

[Danner]

Do you guys think that countries with nuclear powerplants should be inspected regularly and if responsible for a nuclear disaster severely accounted for?

What you are describing is the IAEA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern..._Energy_Agency). On paper, it already does just this in the form of providing guidelines on how to safely build and operate nuclear power plants, and provides expertise on how to increase safety. Problem with guidelines is that they are just that - guidelines. Members need not comply.

The IAEA also provides inspections. During the ghost hunt for WMDs prior to the Iraq invasion, these guys were the UN agency conducting these inspections. However, inspections cannot take place by force. Saddam Hussein invited the IAEA to do so, so that was easy enough back then.

In the case of Fukushima, TEPCO in Japan certainly did not heed IAEA's guidelines. In 2009, the IAEA had a major focus on evaluating seismic safety, leading to a serious evaluation of the robustness of all the japanese nuclear plants. TEPCO really fucked up in many ways by not heeding that evaluation.

Could Japan have used some better control systems? Hell yes. But I suspect Japan is just as proud-headed as the USA or any other country around. International nuclear inspections isn't really likely to happen. Advisory action is the only pragmatic approach.

IMO, nuclear power is amazing, until humans get involved in the equation. It takes a certain kind of stupidity to create a nuclear meltdown, one that only a human presence can really cause. And for that reason alone, nuclear power is a terrible terrible idea.

[LilSaihah]

Japan, Chile and New Zealand are probably the three countries that shouldn't have nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy is fine otherwise.

I would figure you'd want to add California to that list? Granted, it's not a country. yet

[Deleted]

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Are they not?

Not when dealing with navy reactors and civilian ones don't seem to be looked at enough either.

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire....pills-scotland

The U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) has disclosed that a series of serious safety breaches involving repeated leaks of radioactive waste, broken pipes, and waste tanks took place at a naval base on the Clyde. The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007, and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced. It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management.

https://stv.tv/news/politics/268219-...p-at-dounreay/

The Scottish Government will try to lift the exemption which prevents its environment officials from inspecting military nuclear facilities following what it described as a recent "cover-up" at Dounreay.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead has proposed to use the new Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 to remove the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) exemption from regulation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The MoD detected low levels of radioactivity emanating from a microscopic breach in a reactor at the Vulcan nuclear submarine test-bed at Dounreay, Caithness, in January 2012.

https://greens.scot/news/report-rais...nuclear-safety

The Scottish Greens are urging the Scottish Government to intervene in a review of safety at the Hunterston nuclear power plant in Ayrshire after a report revealed that operators EDF plan to allow for an increase in cracking in its reactor core.

The report, by energy consultant and Safe Energy Journal editor Pete Roche, says that despite it being probably illegal under international law, the Scottish public are being given no say in an imminent UK Government decision on whether Scotland’s oldest nuclear power station can keep running longer than planned.

Safety experts have warned that cracked graphite bricks within the reactor could lead to nuclear fuel overheating, potentially resulting in a radiological release.

[the game]

Yeah but lets just keep worrying about what bathroom people use

[Hashtronaut]

This is a bit scary mostly because this news will probably get largely ignored.
I'd be a bit cautious and definitely start making noise if I lived on the west coast.

[Vizardlorde]

Yeah but lets just keep worrying about what bathroom people use

NAh I'd rather worry about the superbowl cause handegg is the definition of life.

[Allatar]

Yeah but lets just keep worrying about what bathroom people use

If this results in mutations in the genome, that might actually be a very pertinent question in the future.

/jk, in case it wasn't obvious.

[TwoNineMarine]

Pretty shitty.

Radiation is an intense thing. Especially considering there is no definitive process to quickly remove it.

I'm a big fan of nuclear energy but god damn people. Build that shit somewhere where it's gonna be safe and not prone to shit like that.

[Redwyrm]

Japan, really desperate to make the definitive Godzilla movie.

[Deleted]

Japan, really desperate to make the definitive Godzilla movie.

This isnt realy funny dude its something serious

but lets rather discuss how many Genders we have .

[Medusa Cascade]

Radiation is high inside a reactor that contains solidified nuclear fuel, who'd've thunk it

[XDurionX]

Don't worry, tax payers will come up for the damages and the storage of nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years.

[Osmeric]

Yeah, they get the radiation sensor down near the blob of solidified reactor fuel, and they find high radiation levels.

Why exactly is this something to be scared about?

[Varitok]

See, This is the problem, Green peace will sit and whine about nuclear reactors all day every day, We will bow to their idiotic attempts at defunding and when we do our reactors get older and older without the proper funding to upgrade them and then one will have a meltdown and then Greenpeace will call nuclear power bad. Its a self fulfilling prophecy.


In Fukushima's case is was lack of foresight, an expert said years before that it wouldnt be able to withstand a tsunami because its break walls weren't high enough and its generators shouldnt be on stilts. People seem to ignore the other nuclear power plants that withstood the tsunami in Japan too.

[Pipebomb]

300 Billion... That's more than they stole from Gaddafi. Didn't they have a plan to freeze the entire ground underneath the plant? Did that ever happen?

[Deleted]

noooooooo japan :<

[Nengal]

Extremely misleading. The dose rates around the site are essentially background levels. The high rates they are describing exist only inside the containment buildings in the approximate area of the drywells. Also, the "small levels of radiation" detected off the west coast of the US aren't even detectable rates. They can just simply use spectroscopy to see that specific elements are present.

[Medusa Cascade]

Extremely misleading. The dose rates around the site are essentially background levels. The high rates they are describing exist only inside the containment buildings in the approximate area of the drywells. Also, the "small levels of radiation" detected off the west coast of the US aren't even detectable rates. They can just simply use spectroscopy to see that specific elements are present.

But that doesn't sell as much as fear