New Radioactive Water Leak At Fukushima: 300 Tons and Growing 198
AmiMoJo tips this news from the BBC:
"Radioactive water has leaked from a storage tank into the ground at Japan's Fukushima plant, operator TEPCO says. Officials described the leak as a level-one incident — the lowest level — on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), which measures nuclear events. This is the first time that Japan has declared such an event since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. A puddle of the contaminated water was emitting 100 millisieverts an hour of radiation, equivalent to five year's maximum exposure for a site worker. In addition up to 300 tonnes a day of contaminated water is leaking from reactors buildings into the sea."
There was a significant leak back in April as well.
Re:useless article (Score:2, Informative)
"A puddle of the contaminated water was emitting 100 millisieverts an hour of radiation"
Wow! that's slightly more radiation than you'd get from a flight over the ocean! Let's all freak out!
"In addition up to 300 tonnes a day of contaminated water is leaking from reactors buildings into the sea"
You fail at conversions. 100millSiverts = ~2000 Sydney Australia to Los Angles flights (1 flight is around .05 milliSieverts or 50 microSieverts).
Re:useless article (Score:5, Informative)
Better check your arithmetic. It's giving off 100 mSv/hr = 876 Sv/yr (about 175x the fatal dose). If you flew in an airliner 24x7 you'd get 24 mSv/yr (a dose 36,500x smaller).
Re:useless article (Score:5, Informative)
In parts of the US background exposure is 1700 mrem or 17 mSv per year. So the 5 year background exposure is 85 mSv.
In the US the normal power plant exposure limit is 50 mSv per year, and under emergency conditions it can be raised to 250 mSv per year.
According to the news report 100 mSv/hr was right at the surface of the puddle.
So don't go there.
Re:useless article (Score:5, Informative)
Totally wrong on the puddle, not bothering with the rest.
http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.html [hps.org]
Nutshell:
"The corresponding annual effective dose, based on 700 hours of flight for subsonic aircraft and 300 hours for the Concorde, can be estimated at between 200 mrem for the least exposed routes and 500 mrem for the more exposed routes."
500 mrem is equal to 5 millisievert. So 100 msv is equal to 20 years of commercial airline employee exposure. In one hour.
Re:Radioactive ooze! (Score:4, Informative)
nice guess but no. Level 0 is called "deviation", an event with no safety concern. Something might break or leak or even trip the reactor offline but with no danger or threat to anyone's safety.
Re:I like fish (Score:5, Informative)
Things to consider:
A. How much radioactive water has actually leaked into the Pacific Ocean prior to the latest reports?
B. What is the true amount of radioactive water still leaking into the Pacific Ocean?
C. How long until the leaks are stopped?
D. Given A,B and C, what will be the total amount of radioactive water to be dispersed from the local site?
E. Given D, how may fish are likely to encounter this area, considering fish migrate thousands of miles?
F. Given E, How many predatory fish will each the contaminated fish, spreading radiation through the marine food chain?
G. What is the period of time the radiation will remain in the marine food chain?
I think I'll be testing my fish with a geiger counter for a while.
Re:I like fish (Score:4, Informative)
Things to consider: A. How much radioactive water has actually leaked into the Pacific Ocean prior to the latest reports? B. What is the true amount of radioactive water still leaking into the Pacific Ocean? C. How long until the leaks are stopped? D. Given A,B and C, what will be the total amount of radioactive water to be dispersed from the local site? E. Given D, how may fish are likely to encounter this area, considering fish migrate thousands of miles? F. Given E, How many predatory fish will each the contaminated fish, spreading radiation through the marine food chain? G. What is the period of time the radiation will remain in the marine food chain?
I think I'll be testing my fish with a geiger counter for a while.
H. Ignore A through G as you are probably more likely to win the lottery (even w/o every buying a ticket) than to suffer any ill effects from this unless you live in close proximity. And are more likely to get mercury poisoning than for this to affect you in any way.
Re:I like fish (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing you should have asked is: What kind of radiation from what type of source?
"While it had been treated to reduce radioactive caesium, tests of the leaked water found it was still highly contaminated with beta-ray emitting substances including strontium, which has a half-life of about 30 years and can cause bone cancers."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-20/toxic-puddles-discovered-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant/4899844 [abc.net.au]
Enjoy your fish and osteosarcomas.
Re:Radioactive ooze! (Score:5, Informative)
Level 0 is called "deviation", an event with no safety concern.
"TOKYO, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The storage tank breach of about 300 tonnes of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday.
The latest leak is so contaminated that a person standing half a metre (1 ft 8 inches) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers. After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.
"That is a huge amount of radiation. The situation is getting worse," said Michiaki Furukawa, who is professor emeritus at Nagoya University and a nuclear chemist."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/20/japan-fukushima-leak-idUSL4N0GL16I20130820 [reuters.com]
Re:The engineers responsible should be killed, slo (Score:4, Informative)
It's been upgraded to a Level 3 Event. (Score:5, Informative)
Each level is considered 10 times more severe than the level below, just like earthquake intensity scales.
I live less than 100 miles south the Fukushima plant.
On behalf of the people around me, I'd like to tell the Godzilla and Ninja Turtles-type of posters to go fuck yourselves. This isn't a fucking Internet meme to some of us.
Some of us who weren't killed or hurt in the earthquake or tsunami still have financial problems from the economic downturn in our businesses. We're not all in a position to just be able to pack up and move. We don't all live in trailers like some of you Godzilla-spouting fuckers.
Some of us have had to dig deeply into our savings.
To be honest, I'm more worried now than I was a year ago. We're back to trying to contain events instead of making any progress toward cleaning up and decontaminating.
I think a bigger problem is this:
How are they going to continue to find people willing to work at the plant? They quit after a while.
Would you work in a sealed decontamination suit and breathing gear outside in a heat index about 140F for about the same money the night shift kid-manager at Burger King makes? Just how smart and competent can someone like that be?
That's scary.
And the problem is not the engineers, it's the reckless, cost-cutting zealot-assholes from the accounting departments who become the presidents of utilities instead of engineers.