Some details of radiological consequences, including detailed figures on exposures of the affected workers, who were released from medical care.

http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/technical-briefing-march-28

The contamination of the water in the basement and tunnel is now the major concern. They have asked for help from the French Nuclear authorities.

Let's hope they don't bring in the French Military though

I just have bad memories of the French Military's approach to an ammonia leak from a refrigerant tank near Dakar, Senegal. They decided to blow it up. Consequently over 250 people were killed. A similar incident that happened in metropolitan Brisbane resulted in no casualties. There they slowly released the contents over a week.

muso wrote on Mar 29^th, 2011 at 9:25am:



Thanks for the link, Muso - I don't understand why they are dealing with 1-2 day old data in some instances...

Surely, it is imperative that yesterday's data be released ASAP!?

Meantime, this other info was on the same site: -

http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/japan-monday28final

http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/summary-of-reactor-unit-status-at-28-march-0500-u...

muso wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2011 at 8:22am:



That is absolutely the crux question facing us, and yet we see the overwhelming majority of people agreeing that we must choose one or the other, and any who promote that we make any serious attempt to reduce our energy consumption are openly vilified as extremists trying to destroy society.

Funny old things, people are.

LOL - touché. Probably fossil fuels will win hands down. Now if you drive a conventional internal combustion vehicle, how does it feel contributing towards all those future deaths?  

- and how many of those deaths could we avoid by switching to options like nuclear power, which have the lowest injury and fatality rates of all conventional power generation methods?

muso wrote on Mar 29^th, 2011 at 1:25pm:


just over 23,000 Australian die every year from alcohol related diseases and abuse.

muso,

If you were relatively close to a breached nuclear reactor core, what sort of radiation levels would your Geiger COunter be measuring?

WOuld 10 million times the background level be a ball park reading depending on how close you got? Something like what TEPCO released to the public and had to withdraw when the Japanese Government considered it too ALARMING for the public to handle emotionaly?

cheers

Foolosophy wrote on Mar 29^th, 2011 at 3:26pm:


It depends what you mean by breached. If it was just cracked (and after all the RPV's seem to be holding water for the most part) then the radiation dose would be coming from the water. If it was totally breached (as in Chernobyl) there is no way that anybody could have stepped anywhere near it. An exposed reactor core would be putting out around 300- 1000 Sieverts per hour. (300,000- 1,000,000 mSv/hr). Now the two workers whose feet was exposed to radiation received localised (feet) exposures of 2000- 3000 mSv. If they were exposed to the reactor core, they would be dead after about 10 minutes.  

Given that there has been some damage to the fuel rods, I would expect readings of around 500uSv/hr to 1000uSv/hr in the water, because it would be very high in Cesium hydroxide, which is extremely soluble.  

My point is that the basement would be totally flooded out and there would be no way of keeping water in the reactor if the core was grossly exposed.  Apart from that, steam would not be able to build up pressure, and several independant bodies have talked about steam pressures in each of the reactors.  

Reading between the lines, I suspect that the leak is somewhere between a few drops per second and a trickle.  

Here is the NISA release on the radioactivity of the water:

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110325-6.pdf

Regarding the result of concentration measurement in the stagnant water on the basement floor of the turbine building of Unit 1 of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station


Radioactive Nuclide  Concentration (Bq/cm3)
Cl-38                          1.6×10^6
As-74                          3.9×10^2
Y-91                            5.2×10^4
I-131                           2.1×10^5
Cs-134                        1.6×10^5
Cs136                         1.7×10^4
Cs-137                        1.8×10^6
La-140                         3.4×10^2

It's interesting to note that Uranium was not detected. Chlorine -38 has a half life measured in minutes.

perceptions_now wrote on Mar 29^th, 2011 at 3:28pm:


TEPCO is not exactly strapped for funds.

muso wrote on Mar 29^th, 2011 at 4:05pm:


I wonder why?

Funny how even though these big Corporations are pulling in enormous profits they still feel its valid to falsify safety reports to the international and Japanese Atomic regulatory bodies.

In the corporate world, the worker is an expense item - a consumable, an item that needs to be minimised on the annula balance sheet.

The CEOS however are corporate assets and must be funded and fondled to the very limit.

This is the Corpocracy that we are enslaved by.

And the corporation also externalises its detrimental effects on humans, society and the environment. In fact these are referred to as "externatlities" on their balance sheet.

The worse that can happen to a corporation is that it is consumed by another or ti disolves onto receivership so as to avoid paying its shareholders the money they invested.

The corpocracy continues