Japan plant rating raised to level 7

[Armistead]

" Japan's nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis at a stricken nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing the amount of radiation released in the accident.

The regulators said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 - the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, there was no sign of any significant change at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

The new ranking signifies a "major accident" with "wider consequences" than the previous level, according to the Vienna-based IAEA.

"We have upgraded the severity level to 7 as the impact of radiation leaks has been widespread from the air, vegetables, tap water and the ocean," said Minoru Oogoda of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, is still estimating the total amount of radioactive material that might be released by the accident, said company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto.

He acknowledged the amount of radioactivity released might even exceed the amount emitted by Chernobyl. "


Wonder how Tokyo will be effected by this..

[TorpX]

My impression was that the level 5 rating was exceeded some time ago. This seems like a formality to me. Perhaps they wanted to delay this because they were afraid of panic.

[GoldenRivet]

Like i said in that other thread a few weeks ago that i was basically laughed out of - a large chunk of the region will be uninhabitable for many years to come.

some years from now, we will likely be seeing images like this (http://englishrussia.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ghost-town-russia-moscow01.jpg)of that area coming out of Japan.

very disturbing.

[Matador.es]

In Holland a debate was rising about our only nuclear plant. We have a small one and dont have any natural hazards except flooding. What about in the states? Does the same question lives? How dependant are the states of nuclear energy?

[Castout]

7 from 5 when did they get to 6? You mean they skipped?:06:


Asians and saving faces :damn:. Give it a break I mean it was a NATURAL disaster that caused this. Or are they implying their authority had the power to stop the earthquake and the resulting tsunami?! Damn what a cocky. Stupid but cocky.

[Skybird]

Don't worry. The Japanese also said that the max rating now is only "temporary". :up:

The political hesitation do fully realise the dimension of the events and the full meaning of them for Japan, can only be explained by that slowly they become aware that for a nation sitting on a small island in one of the geologically most active regions of this planet, having almost 5 dozen nuclear reactors does not sound like a good idea.

Now that they have learned what the term "residual risk" means, many probably ask themselves if after Nagasaki and Hiroshima they have chosen the right path when making their economical rebirth depending on nuclear power so exclusively. Since the pro-nuke lobby is extremely powerful and has brainwashed the Japanese since decades (military nukes are bad, civilian nuke is great), they are slowly stumbling towards what later may show to be something not short of a full cultural revolution.

What amazes me is that Japan, land of the robots, so far does nto seem to have used robots of Japanese production at Fukushima. Special machinery from Germany, and robots from America, Canada and Germany were reported to have been the only ones being used so far. Where is the Sonybot when you need him?

[Penguin]

Like i said in that other thread a few weeks ago that i was basically laughed out of - a large chunk of the region will be uninhabitable for many years to come.

some years from now, we will likely be seeing images like this (http://englishrussia.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ghost-town-russia-moscow01.jpg)of that area coming out of Japan.

very disturbing.

There is one big difference between the Chernobyl region and Fukushima: the population density. It was relatively easy to make a no-go area around Pripjat, not to forget Volincy in Belarus http://www.science-connections.com/books/other/Paper_1821.pdf - since these areas consist mostly of forest and agricultural land.

This map gives a good overview:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6851/regionp.jpg

[DarkFish]

Glad I'm out of the country. The first and maybe the only time I'm in Japan, and immediately an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis hit the country:o Seems I attract disasters or something...

[Catfish]

Robots, especially when they are fitted with transistors, printed circuits and micro processors, are extremely vulnerable to radiation.
There was a reason why the Mig-29 partially used vacuum tubes for basic flight systems in case of an electromagnetic impulse, or radiation.
Two robots have been tried, and they stopped a hundred meters from the plant or so they said due to circuit failures.

Certainly, there are also special radiation suits made in the US that have been sent to Japan, but they never used them, i am sure the workers were never shown them at all. Plastic bags are so much better.
As well i saw at at least one photo the workers did not wear their oxygen masks right - it's all about "saving faces" :shifty:

Greetings,
Catfish

[Skybird]

Glad I'm out of the country. The first and maybe the only time I'm in Japan, and immediately an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis hit the country:o Seems I attract disasters or something...
Reminds me of a quote by Peter Falk in that famous crime parody movie, I just don't get the title right now, many famous detectives meet in a villa where their host is getting assassinated and demands them to solve the case. Falk tells his darling (translated from the German version):

"Trusting you...? Honey, last time I trusted a woman was in 1940, and one week later the Germans marched into Paris."

[Rilder]

Reminds me of a quote by Peter Falk in that famous crime parody movie, I just don't get the title right now, many famous detectives meet in a villa where their host is getting assassinated and demands them to solve the case. Falk tells his darling (translated from the German version):

"Trusting you...? Honey, last time I trusted a woman was in 1940, and one week later the Germans marched into Paris."

How hot was the woman, and was she in Paris? Not the first time a beautiful woman has been cause for war. :rotfl2:

[Platapus]

How hot was the woman, and was she in Paris? Not the first time a beautiful woman has been cause for war. :rotfl2:

It was Murder by Death

The line is "The last time that I trusted a dame was in Paris in 1940. She said she was going out to get a bottle of wine. Two hours later, the Germans marched into France."

One of my favourite lines!

[Ducimus]

Obligatory

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/5/11/128865098484851893.jpg

[Oberon]

Well...damn...

That's about all I can say really. I hoped that they would have been able to get it all under control but it seems they've still got a lot of work ahead of them. It's a different kind of disaster to Chernobyl. There's no big reactor explosion, but it would seem that it's knocking on the Chernobyl level of seriousness.

Looks like we're going to have a new Zone of Alienation.

Does this mean that the next STALKER game will be set in Fukushima? I can already foresee half a dozen animes based around an alien invasion in Fukushima or something like that. Still...at least the people around the NPP were a bit more clued up on what was happening and got out a bit earlier than Chernobyl, there was no repeats of the Rainbow bridge.

[tater]

This is a purely political move.

Technically, even to be a level 4 on INES, one person must have died from radiation.
Impact on people and environment
Minor release of radioactive material unlikely to result in implementation of planned countermeasures other than local food controls.
At least one death from radiation.


ZERO people have died from radiation. No one has received a dose that will show a statistically detectable increase in cancer, even (some might, but there are so few exposed at that level that it cannot be proved to be beyond random cancers (basically the "50" (really 180))).

A 5 requires several deaths.

Technically it's not even a 4. I think minus arbitrary death counts (meaning completely abandoning the standard resulting in the "7" they claim), it's probably a 5-6.

Meanwhile, there are still 28,000 dead—most all from the tsunami.

If all 28,000 dead were wrongly attributed to Fukushima (over 4X Chernobyl), nuclear would still be safer than solar, lol.

[tater]

BTW, as a reality check, as bad as Chernobyl was, most deaths were not the fault of the reactor accident, per se—they were the fault of incompetence (not in design, though that was a contributor to the accident) in the response. That US Airways flight that ditched in the Hudson was a "disaster" where no one was killed. As an analogy to what they are doing with this "level" hype, it's like saying Flight 1549 was a disaster of the same level as the flight that crashed in Isparta, Turkey that killed 155 people—USAir Flight 1549 held 155, too, after all! They could have died.

Meaning that while the reactor clearly killed people, people died almost entirely because of the stunning incompetence of the management of the disaster. Workers were simply thrown away. People were not properly evacuated, then afterwards, no one controlled what people ate, etc. Virtually every step of the Chernobyl response was handled more than a little wrong. Handled properly (or even merely if it had not been handled with gross incompetence), Chernobyl would have had a death toll well under an order of magnitude lower than it did—and the situation was far worse than Fukushima.

[Sledgehammer427]

Obligatory

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/5/11/128865098484851893.jpg

:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:
Just started playing Shadow of Chernobyl last night with the complete 2009 mod going. I missed it sooo much.

And good points Tater, The way the USSR handled Chernobyl was a trainwreck at best. I don't see that kind of response at the Japanese NPP, I think its been well-handled, given the situation.

[Platapus]

This is a purely political move.

Technically, even to be a level 4 on INES, one person must have died from radiation.



Well technically... no. There is no requirement for anyone to have died for a rating of 4 to be applied. It only has to be determined that a level of radiation that could have killed someone was present. No actual deaths are required.

INES Users Manual 2008 Edition

On Page 2, it does say that if a person dies of radiation exposure the incident is, at a minimum, a level 4.

But on Page 19 it states

Level 4 is the minimum level for events that result in:
(1)“The occurrence of a lethal deterministic effect;
or
(2)The likely occurrence of a lethal deterministic effect as a result of whole body exposure, leading to an absorbed dose5 of the order of a few Gy”.

This is why Three Mile Island could be classified as a level 5, but no one died.

[tater]

Interesting.

How do they determine "could have?" Strikes me that at any particular rate above a certain level you can get a lethal dose by simply spending enough time. Conversely, you can avoid a lethal dose (or even a dangerous one) by limiting the time spent.

Regardless, apparently there have been 28 workers who got a dose (total) between 100 and 250 (none exceeded that) spread over weeks. There are potentially lethal doses in the plant someplace, but no one has gotten close, obviously.

[Platapus]

Interesting.

How do they determine "could have?" Strikes me that at any particular rate above a certain level you can get a lethal dose by simply spending enough time. Conversely, you can avoid a lethal dose (or even a dangerous one) by limiting the time spent.



That is absolutely correct and what makes calculations about lethal doses of radiation difficult for the "sound byte" public to understand.