Reply With QuoteWas more in response to the Chernobyl fake-biking trip thing listed.Originally Posted by Tankero
Great article, thanks.
Is it too soon/paranoid to start worrying about Tokyo? This is probably a ridiculous suggestion, but what about just airlifting mass amounts of concrete and plugging the reactors / hotspots?
edit: apparently it's not too soon to start worrying about Tokyo based on what Lorini just said. What the hell can they do if the radiation reaches Tokyo? It's not like they can evacuate 13 million people in a day.
Was more in response to the Chernobyl fake-biking trip thing listed.
I'd start building giant fans in Tokyo.
I feel like the Godzilla origin story somehow ties into all of this...
Fire's out, btw.
It had better be, you unfunny ugly prick.
You're a fuckin' asshole. Shut the fuck up. You are about as funny as bone cancer in children. Here's a ticket to Japan, go jump your fat ugly self into a reactor and do humanity a favor.
Now we're getting into radiation sickness territory. 400 mSv is 20,000 transcontinental flights, or 4,000 chest x-rays. This is well into the range that we would consider hazardous to human health.
Oh, whew! I was worried there for a moment.
Wait! You mean everything on the internet isn't true? :-)
Well, it was a fun read anyway.
The news is reporting that there are still hospitals with no drugs to help chronically ill elderly patients.
If containment is broken then they'll need to figure out a new way to contain it. Building a concrete bunker is certainly a possibility but that takes time and would endanger unprotected workers. Depending on the size of the containment failure it may be possible to patch it temporarily and re-contain it. Either way cooling is still the priority.
Nope, you certainly can't. First Tokyo is not next door, it's 160 miles and 400 is the reading at the source. However though we don't know about the nature of the fire, it's possible it's ash could carry some radiation. Radiation reaching Tokyo has been a nightmare scenario and we've taken a step in that direction, but it's only a first step. I would think that the situation would have to deteriorate much much more and the weather to act atypically before Tokyo comes under threat. But it's a very remote possibility.What the hell can they do if the radiation reaches Tokyo? It's not like they can evacuate 13 million people in a day.
The NHK translator sounds so sad.
That was a serious problem following Katrina and during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The international community took it as one of their big "lessons learned" after Bosnia, when responders showed up with malaria medication and no blood pressure medication. Most relief efforts, up to that point, were focused on developing countries with entirely different medical profiles. There's still a lot of room for improvement, evidently. The irony is that when I was in Haiti last Spring, the field hospital where I worked had an overabundance of drugs for dealing with problems common in the elderly, yet most of the children hadn't even been vaccinated against measles, which is an enormous risk in the close quarters of an IDP camp.
NHK World fed shows Nikkei down 1250 today so far, which is 15% from yesterday, which is 6% below the day before. Not as severe as the mass death but some disturbing implications.
way to double down on the tone deaf and stupid
BBC Live Blog
Also China has cancelled flights to Tokyo.0337: A low level radioactive wind could reach Tokyo in 10 hours, Reuters is quoting the French embassy in the Japanese capital as saying.
How low?
From the same live blog
The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says that Japan's nuclear safety agency says it suspects the explosion may have damaged the vessel that holds the number two reactor. That would make it a more serious incident than the two previous explosions at Fukushima that were thought just to have damaged the buildings that housed the reactors.
I can't believe I'm watching a real-time update of radiation levels. This is like a 1980s nuclear war movie.
Edit: market halts trading.
I was thinking the same thing.
The reactor 4 did not have a containment vessel so thank god they got that fire under control.
Well it looks like AFLAC may be changing their commercials in the near future...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...3D83.DTL&tsp=1
--- Alan
That's way the building itself is part of containment. Fortunately #2 is reportedly still intact.That would make it a more serious incident than the two previous explosions at Fukushima that were thought just to have damaged the buildings that housed the reactors.
Yeah, that's meaningless without any guess numbers. However Tokyo is already reporting minute rises in background radiation from the earlier incidents.
But there's also a difference between getting exposure and getting sick. The Reagan carrier group reported that some of it's crew were exposed during helicopter flights but that it has been easy to clean off.
NPR was interviewing a financial analyst author* living in a town 50 km north of Tokyo, and he said that an evacuation of Tokyo simply wasn't feasible, given the sheer number of people in the area. He did say, however, that the roads into & out of his town were all useable, so the roads around Tokyo were too, presumably. But they're all shut down by the government in order to keep them clear so that needed supplies and personnel can be transported around the country.
* He was being interviewed for his eyewitness account, not for his professional opinion.
Tokyo is like NYC, it's just too big to evacuate it. There's no way you move 13 million people.
Actually it was not the reactor, but the spent fuel pool that was the issue. Spent fuel is still dangerous and still needs passive cooling. One of the design issues with these plants is that the spent fuel is stored in the upper level of the containment building. I've been wondering about that with the earlier explosions but I guess it wasn't a severe issue?
Well I'm out. They are just repeating themselves (completely understandably) on the Japanese TV News station feed. I am glad that the immediate crisis has passed with the dousing of the fire from reactor 4. They are evacuating evacuation centers to other places, but I was unable to discern exactly which cities were involved. These evacuation centers that they mentioned did not have sufficient food/water.
Yeah it's pretty chilling when you hear radiation levels being read off for various parts of the country like temperatures on a weather report.
I learned a lot more about radiation during my training for my current Scientist position. I don't work with the stuff personally, but we do have some materials on site.
Is this all Gamma radiation?
My biggest take-away from the radiation safety training is how weak radiation can be, in small amounts, nitrile gloves and a lab coat are fairly protective. I used to believe that the stuff was like killer x-rays that would stop only at lead. That being said, like you mentioned before, it all has to do with the intensity and type. And the fact that it can "infect" materials, turning them radioactive. (i.e. disposal of gloves/coat as nuclear waste)
Gamma, is the bad shit. We don't have any gamma emitting materials where, cause that shit sucks.
I am going to assume that this is all Gamma radiation right?
Wonder what he said?
Favorite part:
The kindler, gentler aflac duck.Gottfried is not the voice of the duck in Japan. Aflac's mascot has a softer, sweeter voice in Japanese commercials.
What?
Alpha radiation is also highly toxic. It's deflected by your skin, but if you ingest or breathe in any particles that are emitting alpha radiation, it will do a number on your internal organs.
And beta particles are responsible for radiation burns, while gamma radiation is the primary cause of radiation sickness & higher cancer rates. So Alpha, beta, and gamma are all dangerous, just in different ways.
No offense, but you didn't learn as much about radiation as you thought you did.
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