Radiation Readings Spike at Water Tank at Japan's Ruined Nuclear Plant

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

Radiation readings spike at water tank at Japan's ruined nuclear plant

Sun Sep 1, 2013 2:05am EDT

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Radiation near a tank holding highly contaminated water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has spiked 18-fold, the plant's operator said on Sunday, highlighting the struggle to bring the crisis under control after more than two years.

Radiation of 1,800 millisieverts per hour - enough to kill an exposed person in four hours - was detected near the bottom of one storage tank on Saturday, Tokyo Electric Power Co, also known as Tepco, said.

An August 22 readings measured radiation of 100 millisieverts per hour at the same tank. Japanese law has set an annual radiation exposure safety threshold of 50 millisieverts for nuclear plant workers during normal hours.

Last month, Tepco revealed that water from the tank was leaking. Japan's nuclear regulator later raised the severity of the leak from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level 3 "serious incident" on an international scale for radiation releases.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE98002520130901

[neverforget]

1. well, that sucks.

They need to get it under control and find a solution if there is one. I'm not optimistic.

[jtuck004]

2. LOL. They had been measuring using a meter that didn't go that high...

[From the link...

""We have not confirmed fresh leakage from the tank and water levels inside the tank has not changed," the Tepco spokesman said. "We are investigating the cause."

Tepco said the radiation measured was beta rays, which would be easier to protect against than gamma rays.

The Tepco spokesman also said the higher level of radiation from the latest reading was partly because investigators had used a measuring instrument capable of registering greater amounts of radiation.

Instruments used previously had only been capable of measuring radiation up to 100 millisieverts, but the new instruments were able to measure up to 10,000 millisieverts."

So all these tanks may have been doing this for some time, and they couldn't tell. Like a doctor that paints 98.6 on all the thermometers and then says he hasn't seen a patient with a fever in years...

[bananas]

4. "Instruments used previously had only been capable of measuring radiation up to 100 millisieverts"

[suffragette]

12. Similar to the water leaking

It's been doing that all along.

[DeSwiss]

3. That's all it can do is ''spike''

It's going to be spiking quite a bit and for quite a while too. Three melt-throughs and a spent fuel pool with thousands of rods in them that could come crashing down to the ground with the slightest wrongly-placed seismic tremor.

When the EPA’s inspector general found 20 percent of RadNet sensors were broken at the time of Fukushima, and had been for 130 days on average -- I got my own Geiger counter.

- I don't eat red meat, I eat a lot of fish. Or, did......

K&R

[chervilant]

5. Beyond voices of sanity,

we need acknowledgment of the unwillingness of Japan, TEPCO, and the corporate megalomaniacs to fund the clean-up. This disaster threatens to destabilize an already fragile global economy.

We are witnesses to the continued hubris of the handful of humans who own and control the vast majority of our planet's resources. The commodification of everything keeps our species moving inexorably toward our extinction event.

[Iliyah]

6. The chemical waste is floating

in the Pacific Ocean probably coming towards the USA besides other Pacific Ocean countries, damn.

[spin]

7. What happens if one of the damaged cores melts through its containment ...

and reaches ground water?

I would imagine there would be a steam explosion and consequently a TREMENDOUS release of radiation. However I am not a nuclear scientist.

[RobertEarl]

13. One or more may have melted thru

Tepco is on record as not being able to ascertain the exact locations of one or more cores.

Being as that this situation is a new experience, and that the cores are too dangerous to get any where near, all we can do is use common sense at to what reactions the cores may be causing.

If deep in the earth, a core reaction would be like a geyser... think of a 'Yellowstone' geyser, which burps steam on occasion. Well, we do seem to have witnessed the same effect at Fukushima as massive fog events have enveloped the plant for hours, even days, at a time.

[sybylla]

8. TEPCO has got to be the dumbest company running a nuclear plant ever.

Have they not one nuclear physicist on staff who could tell them that the radiation would settle to the bottom of the tanks, heat up and melt?

Not one automation engineer who would have made sure they had STEAM-POWERED PUMPS as fail-safes to prevent or at least reduce in magnitude this absurd disaster in the first place?

Jeezy Creezy.

What the hell is wrong with Japan that as a country they didn't take over control of this national disaster two years ago?

[NMDemDist2]

9. it didn't 'spike' they just got hold of some instruments that went above 100msv

they have no idea how long the levels have been that high it seems to me.

[silvershadow]

10. I could have gone all year without having thought of that. nt

[felix_numinous]

11. Excuse me but this is a bigger threat to US

than policing the Middle East, right? I wish every region would police themselves, I know this is not how the world works--but wow.

The list of ACTUAL threats to the US gets longer while the 1% fights to keep their riches-- our lands, the Pacific Ocean is at stake if people don't UNITE to help Japan to contain this.

Our military budget is taking money that could be used to take care of these more immediate problems--preparing for climate change and mitigating environment threats like Monsanto, XL pipeline and effects of Fukishima.

The big oil companies are the real threat to us--they are fking parasites.