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Nuclear events taking place in Japan.

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Proud Mary

Sat May 07 2011, 12:26AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Patrick wrote ...

these workers were contaminated with physical elemental radiation

Copious betas would have generated their own share of bremsstrahlung, most of it as hazardous low energy X-photons.

Patrick

Sat May 07 2011, 12:49AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Proud Mary wrote ...

Patrick wrote ...

these workers were contaminated with physical elemental radiation

Copious betas would have generated their own share of bremsstrahlung, most of it as hazardous low energy X-photons.

I was trying to imply that having radioactive elements in close contact to the body, is not the same as a high field of emitted photons, but complicate the matter much more then the simple benchmarks would indicate.

Proud Mary

Sat May 07 2011, 08:24AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Patrick wrote ...

Proud Mary wrote ...

Patrick wrote ...

these workers were contaminated with physical elemental radiation

Copious betas would have generated their own share of bremsstrahlung, most of it as hazardous low energy X-photons.

Oh yes, I'm sure you're right. Exposure tables setting maximum radiation limits allowable for each organ and body part are unlikely to have been based on human models in a real industrial environment.

quicksilver

Mon May 09 2011, 07:20PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Were there not a group of folks that went into that reactor very shortly after the trouble started mounting; KNOWING that they would be getting a serious dose? {- If not lethal immediately; causing serious health issues in the future?}

That's some SERIOUS love of country & fellow man.

Proud Mary

Fri May 13 2011, 12:38AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant
One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo,
The Telegraph
12 May 2011

Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core's 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down.

Previously, Tepco believed that the core of the reactor was submerged in enough water to keep it stable and that only 55 per cent of the core had been damaged.

Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

"We will have to revise our plans," said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. "We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak".

Tepco has not clarified what other barriers there are to stop radioactive fuel leaking if the steel containment vessel has been breached. Greenpeace said the situation could escalate rapidly if "the lava melts through the vessel".

However, an initial plan to flood the entire reactor core with water to keep its temperature from rising has now been abandoned because it might exacerbate the leak. Tepco said there was enough water at the bottom of the vessel to keep both the puddle of melted fuel and the remaining fuel rods cool.

Meanwhile, Tepco said on Wednesday that it had sealed a leak of radioactive water from the No.3 reactor after water was reportedly discovered to be flowing into the ocean. A similar leak had discharged radioactive water into the sea in April from the No.2 reactor.

Greenpeace said significant amounts of radioactive material had been released into the sea and that samples of seaweed taken from as far as 40 miles of the Fukushima plant had been found to contain radiation well above legal limits. Of the 22 samples tested, ten were contaminated with five times the legal limit of iodine 131 and 20 times of caesium 137.

Seaweed is a huge part of the Japanese diet and the average household almost 7lbs a year. Greenpeace's warning came as fishermen prepared to start the harvest of this season's seaweed on May 20.

Inland from the plant, there has been a huge cull of the livestock left inside the 18-mile mandatory exclusion zone with thousands of cows, horses and pigs being destroyed and some 260,000 chickens from the town of Minamisoma alone. The Environment ministry has announced, however, that it will attempt to rescue the thousands of pets that were left behind when residents were ordered to evacuate. At least 5,800 dogs were owned by the residents of the zone, although it is unclear how many remain alive, two months after the earthquake struck.

Patrick

Fri May 13 2011, 01:32AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Proud Mary wrote ...

One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel.

Well, without water they tend to do what we all feared, meltdown.

Proud Mary

Fri May 13 2011, 03:56AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

It's interesting to note how infrequently words like "disaster" and "catastrophe" have been used to characterize events at the power station. Someone should write a dissertation on news management in the Fukushima incident.

Patrick

Fri May 13 2011, 05:02AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Proud Mary wrote ...

It's interesting to note how infrequently words like "disaster" and "catastrophe" have been used to characterize events at the power station. Someone should write a dissertation on news management in the Fukushima incident.

I agree, the media coverage has been suspiciously timid.

(With the exception of the talking head idiots who were foaming at the mouth rabid, knew nothing, and contributed nothing towards advancing the story.)

jpsmith123

Fri May 13 2011, 08:43PM

Registered Member #1321 Joined: Sat Feb 16 2008, 03:22AM
Location:
Posts: 843

The latest Fukushima report from Arnie Gundersen:

Patrick

Fri May 13 2011, 08:57PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

I wonder if EE's (and perhaps Meca's) like me will have to invent entirely new form factor robots, just for this reactor site?

Phased deployment perhaps?

First the bots would be tasked with gaining positive control over the cores and stemming the tide of release to enviroment, this period would last about 1 or so decades.

Next, the bots would be tasked with long term validation, confirmation of entombment have been and remain succesful over several decades.

Perhaps a fleet of bots not yet even concieved of will be needed.

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