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Is that right? I thought Chernobyl was 1.8 Million terabequrals and Fukushima is way under that still.

not calculated is the airborne radiation.

That is only I-131 which is important as it decays quickly so it can do damage quickly. But there is no red forest around Fukushima which means it ha big problems, but not like Chernobyl.

TEPCO says safety measures, such as wearing protective clothing and masks, may have been inadequate just after the accident. It says it wants to conduct detailed tests on about 150 workers who were involved in similar operations.

Friday, June 03, 2011 20:16 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

Good grief.

NISA...

More findings in my quest on hardened vents (listen up Elaine)! The National Geographic Daily News published an informative article by Josie Garthwaite with the title "Would a New Nuclear Plant Fare Better than Fukushima?" online on Mar. 23, 2011 ( news.nationalgeographic.com ), which tells us about recent developments in nuclear reactor design to improve the ability of preventing a fuel core meltdown after a LOCA. The author interviewed Adrian Heymer, executive director of strategic programs for the the Nuclear Energy Institute, a U.S. industry trade group. I quote from the article:
“For example, all boiling-water reactors in the United States that use a similar design to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors have been outfitted since the 1990s with what's called a hardened vent, said Heymer. This allows the reactor to vent steam and pressure "straight to the atmosphere," with a filter intended to remove radioactivity. In older designs, the vent ran from the reactor and into the reactor building, where hydrogen can build up.
At this point, the NEI has "struggled" to get a firm answer from Japanese officials about whether the troubled Fukushima reactors have hardened vents, Heymer said. "They have so many things going on, they may not be able to get information out to us." But explosions at four of the Fukishima's six reactors indicate that hydrogen did in fact build up in the reactor buildings, he said.” In harmony, asahi reports in a post with the title "No. 1 blast, causing regurgitation of the hydrogen exhaust TEPCO or 'design flaws' " published online Jun. 4, 2011 (Elaine's find: www.asahi.com ), that the hydrogen accumulation that destroyed the building of reactor 1 on Mar. 14 originated from backflow in the exhaust hardened vent piping passing through a faulty valve into the building. We must conclude that the retrofit of reactor 1 with a hardened vent was deeply flawed.

It didn't look like fog, it was centered around unit #4, and then has spread.

Evening all. Interesting Darrien. I like to think of things that way too.

@elainekirk , I see a criminal investigation gradually taking shape: Tepco already conceded that design flaws may have contributed to the damage to the reactors by the quake the strength of which at Fukushima, they say, was within the scope of design parameters. The story below seems to show that the company was negligent in retrofitting the hardened vents properly. Furthermore, misinformed simulations on LOCA recovery provided a faulty sense of security which may have led to the next misstep, in which an operator following flawed guidelines disengaged the ECCS of reactor 1, precipitating the meltdown of its core. Perhaps the headman of the company at the time should go to jail!

@elainekirk , you may be surprised. I saw those flat impact-friendly roofs on pics of plants in the US. So much for homeland security and the terrorist attack hype.

@elainekirk , raising fear and pandering to patriotism co-opt citizens into tolerating policies they would never approve otherwise.

@elainekirk , one of the deepest arguments against nuclear power in West Germany at the time was not that the technology was flawed and would inevitably lead into disaster. Rather, it was the angst of the Atomstaat. That is, the security needs of nuclear installations would infringe upon and curb the freedoms of the common (wo)man in ways that nobody wished for
.

we germans also refuse nuclear weapons for the same reasons, though the americans still have some nuke heads in germany.

@elainekirk today the german government reached a definitive agreement with the red-green opposition on the abolishing of nuke power. it will take part in 5 shutdown steps: 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022. the dates and the reactors are fixed now.