Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1994

@Markfm @Edano Maybe the rain from the typhoon cooled the units down- it sure filled up thebaseements pretty well. :)
by M.I.A. 7/22/2011 2:25:06 PM

@M.I.A. : that would explain why #2 does not lose temperature, because it has a roof ;)
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:26:11 PM

the wind as well ;)
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:26:45 PM

@Edano Tepco execs wouldn't like losing their sauna, heh heh
by M.I.A. 7/22/2011 2:27:30 PM

@Peter Melzer It might not be much of a holiday, but Ukraine rehabilitation centres aim to host 100 children in September-October 2011 who suffered from the accident at the NPP Fukushima-1:
Original article: www.kyivpost.ua Google translation: translate.google.com
by es 7/22/2011 2:28:14 PM

@es : uuuuh, no thanks.
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:29:19 PM

@Edano , have you ever watched Kurosawa's Ikuru? The story gives a good idea why government actions may progress so slow. I would have great difficulty in accepting this snail's pace on the receiving end.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:30:26 PM

@es , any little bit helps, :)
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:31:11 PM

interesting stigma that ukraine has and will always have ...
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:32:39 PM

@Peter Melzer Absolutely :)
by es 7/22/2011 2:34:41 PM

@Markfm @Edano On radiation detetection, I assume from the article that they are talking about doing basic scintillation count on the cattle and beef, vs. the time consuming deep well counts. Will be much quicker, but accuracy and the Minimum Detectable Activity will be much less effective. If the beef is Highly radioactive, it will show up, but if the beef is radioactive around the limit of 500 Bq/kg, I don't think they will be able to see it. Have to do some counts of the same beef with both detection systems to get an idea of how close their detection level would be to the limit standard
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 2:35:10 PM

@Edano, as to the whole body counters, I suppose it may be more of a problem to find a properly shielded room than buying the equipment. But in the age of MRI scanners on eighteen-wheelers, it cannot be too hard to set up a fleet of truck-mounted whole body counters.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:36:46 PM

well, they had 4 months time to think about what they could need, hadn't they ?
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:39:16 PM

it is possible to borrough [rent?] equipment.
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:40:02 PM

@Edano , the approval process seems to hold things up.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:41:57 PM

Such equipment must be totally shielding otherwise it won't be of any good, particularly if you're going to use it in contaminated areas. Plus it must be tuned up after transport. It is not as easy as you would expect. That's why most researchers are sending the samples they collect to other labs around the world. There's a good read about that at WHOI website on the Fukushima Expedition article. Check it out (pinned above).
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 2:43:39 PM

shielding = shielded
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 2:44:25 PM

@Edano 4 mo and not smoothly funtioning on response is siply pathetic. It is a matter of Priorities and Committment. They basicly do not care about the concrerns or health of the people within 100 miles of the nuke. If Japan asked the world, I bet they could have 100 units lent and there in 4-5 days, another 4-5 days to set up. And the operators would probably be lent with the machines.
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 2:44:42 PM

@Pedro Jesus may that be, but there should be emergency plans facing the obvious problems.
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:45:14 PM

@Pedro Jesus true, not easy, but Japan is supposed to be a modern democracy. Shielding some railroad cars and sending near the evac zone would be simple. Setup time measured in datys, not weeks. How much do they care is the issue!
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 2:46:37 PM

i guess we in europe have a lot of this stuff due to the cold war. and we don't need it anymore (hopefully).
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:48:31 PM

Even if you could not mount the counters on trucks, most npps must be equipped with a whole body counter for their employees and Japan is not that large. The people who require the counts could be sent to these facilities.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:48:49 PM

@RBeaner , true, Japan possesses a well developed rail network which could be used to get people access to such services.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:51:04 PM

i think this discussion is important and we should ask our govms if they are prepared to protect the population. we can now see the importance of emergency plans.
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:51:51 PM

@RBeaner That is providing they have some of those portable labs working... if you read the article I mentioned, it is expected that most of such equipment in Japan was either destroyed or damaged by the earth quake. Those lab grade isotope detectors are not built to withstand earthquakes, let alone 9.0 ones. They can use portable counters but they're not accurate enough. If they want accurate readings they need lab grade systems. And as far as I know, there is none working at the moment in Japan. It's easier to ship samples to another country and have them tested there.
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 2:51:55 PM

@Edano Absolutely.
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 2:52:19 PM

the US might have labs on ships / planes ?
by Edano 7/22/2011 2:53:25 PM

@Edano I wouldn't expect so. Not lab grade ones. They are extremely sensitive. If there were such systems on ships I bet the guys from WHOI would have rented one, instead of the one they used. Those transportable labs must be fined tuned after transport and should always be located in areas with a steady background radiation, according to what I've read about them.
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 2:55:56 PM

@Pedro Jesus , I worked with scintillation counters many years, and even had to take one apart for shipment and put it back together on the other end. True they are not earthquake proof. But the earthquake did not reach all corners of Japan. The equipment is fairly conventional and may cost in the order of $40,000.-. Companies like Packard and Beckman would be more than happy to sell hundreds.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:57:45 PM

@Edano @Pedro Jesus I doubt the US is much more "prepared", I only hope we are more flexible, caring and quicker in developing and enacting a response to the particular disaster. Momentum needs to be built quicker. Different solutions for people vs samples. Whole Body Counters are not greatly needed. Chest (abdomen) counters are table mounted, quick to setup and can give good info on uptake of radioactivity. These could be used as "triage" to weed down the number of people requiring more detailed scans via whole body counters.
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 2:57:47 PM

@you , my comment pertains to multi-sample gamma and beta well counters that could be used for food testing.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 2:59:33 PM

either the countries provide protection to the population, or they admit that there is no help in case of a nuke accident. then we will see what happens.
by Edano 7/22/2011 3:00:27 PM

@Pedro Jesus nuclear powered ships have effective counting labs, but they aren't designed for high quantity of samples or people counting, but they don't have alot of downtime due to weather or background. This really isn't rocket science. Yes stable labs are required to get down to the levels they are looking for on the who team, but they are looking for fractions of the limits.
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 3:00:49 PM

as it seems, half-hearted "evacuation" is the only thing they had in their drawers.
by Edano 7/22/2011 3:01:37 PM

@Pedro Jesus @Peter Melzer @Edano If the people don't demand it, the gov (goj in this case) will NOT do it. Gov is in business for themselves, not the people. People only get scraps when they MAKE themselves and their concerns become necessary for the gov to Survive. The people need to grow a backbone and demand results forcefully.
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 3:04:02 PM

@Edano , in my mind it is an administrative problem. Probably, the counties and prefectures around Daiichi could not even arrange budget provisions for the expenses related to food and people testing yet and do not know what to expect. They are still waiting for guidance on dose limits from Tokyo, and Tokyo has changed its mind frequently.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 3:05:12 PM

@RBeaner Sure, but you can't park an aircraft carrier in the local harbour. And like you said, they are not prepared to handle a large quantity of samples so they would be of very little use.
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 3:06:30 PM

@all I blame the GOJ Less at this point than I blame the POJ (people of japan). First I lost respect for TEPCO and GOJ, now I am losing respect for the people of Japan. I would not sit by while my children were treated in this way. I'm not a violent person, but...
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 3:07:25 PM

@Pedro Jesus We had one guy in a trailer that counted several hubndred petri dishes per night down to less than 0.02 pCi/gram. This stuff is not rocket science.
by RBeaner 7/22/2011 3:09:40 PM

@Edano or some other MOD, could you update my link up there in the pin board? Thanks.

WHOI - Official Expedition to Measure Ocean Radiation Around Fukushima: www.whoi.edu
by Pedro Jesus 7/22/2011 3:10:48 PM

@RBeaner , agreed, any nuclear medicine department is capable to detect accumulation of gamma-emitters in organs. Distributed accumulation of very low amounts is more difficult to measure.
by Peter Melzer 7/22/2011 3:10:48 PM

@RBeaner They are not sitting idly by while their children are poisoned. The ones who have lost all faith in the GoJ are scrubbing down their houses and digging the topsoil off of their properties and taking it out to any park/forest/open area they can find and dumping it. I put that squarely on the GoJ, because if I were there, that's exactly what I would have done to protect my children assuming I couldn't leave.
by RadioGuy 7/22/2011 3:12:31 PM

There are a number of working labs that I know of, but keep in mind the sheer volume of samples we are talking about. Fukushima prefecture has a working lab to test for contamination. There is a citizen one now running there also. There is a functioning lab at Tokyo university as part of their radiation science/medical department. There are a number of others at various locations and agencies. I think the problem is sheer number of things vs existing facilities. They do need a citizen lab network and more labs would be a good idea. If a citizen group in Fukushima can set up a lab other groups or municipalities could also.

If anyone things this mess is totally unique to Japan, it really in many ways isn't. US emergency scenarios usually have an acceptable number of deaths that could be prevented, they just find it too inconvenient. Many plans in the US involve shelter in place. That usually means too bad for you, you get to die or otherwise suffer.
Whole body counters, they already grabbed as many as possible from other nuke facilities and moved them to safe locations to scan people. Instead of the US asking for an explanation for Kan's comment to de-nuclear Japan, maybe we could have offered them up some extra whole body scanners as a gift.

by lillymunster 7/22/2011 3:12:54 PM

No disposal plan but denial? Just dump it in denial, because that always works with nukes.
by RadioGuy 7/22/2011 3:13:38 PM

@RBeaner people are not sitting idly by. Parents are trying to protect their kids and frequently run into resistance from school staff or people who just don't fully understand what is going on. The exact same thing would happen in the US. I deal with that kind of mentality here all the time from people. Some people just won't pay attention to what is going on around them because it interrupts their little bubble.
People are decontaminating entire schools themselves, sending their kids to safer parts of the island, running around taking radiation readings to prove where the radiation really is. But people are fighting two things. Apathy and their government. The exact same thing would happen here. I see it every day, some people just won't care until it is to the point they are forced to pay attention. Our government moves at the speed of rock turning to sand and can't pass a bill without weeks of drama ridden nonsense. We would not fare better here.
by lillymunster 7/22/2011 3:17:03 PM