Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2456

Hey scribblers! I haven't been around much but still pop in from time to time to follow your fantastic work. This was in my local news today. Not sure if it was posted yet. www.thereporteronline.com Flaw found in safety mechanism to shut down nuclear plant in Limerick; may be affected by earthquakes. Limerick was ranked the third most likely to suffer a core event as the result of seismic activity. They are actively pushing to get their license renewed right now and recently held a public hearing. They also had 2 or 3 unplanned scrams around early June www.montgomerynews.com . Here's an article on the recent hearings: www.thereporteronline.com as Excelon seeks to renew the license 18 years before it expires. From that article: Limerick resident Dan Ely said he worked for Bechtel as a quality control engineer when the plant was built and said mistakes were made when the plant was under construction. Thomas Saporito, a former nuclear industry worker-turned activist opposing nuclear power, called from Florida on Thursday evening to testify that the early application was “a foot race” that the industry and NRC were engaged in to lock down license extensions before Congress acts to ask for more study in the wake of the disaster in Japan and possibly stricter regulation.

“What you’re going to see is a rubber-stamp of license extensions,” Saporito said.

In an email Thursday, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said “71 of the 104 operating power reactors in the U.S. have been approved for license renewal. There are currently license renewal applications for 13 reactors, including the two Limerick units, under review.” FWIW, Limerick is cooled by the Schuylkill, which recently turned up with the elevated iodine 131 in drinking water, which they've been trying to pin on patient excretion.
by momof3 10/5/2011 3:37:19 PM

ty momof
by dean 10/5/2011 3:41:21 PM

@momof3 wow.
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 3:42:18 PM

@Peter, having a hard time sorting the WBC info in the Strahlentelex document. The milliseivert table makes sense. The other tables talk about bq and other levels. I wasn't sure how to interpret that info?

The table on page 2, are those human surveys or something else? I was getting lost
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 3:47:18 PM

Hi@all, did you see this? I tried to translate a bit.
“A German news team went to Fukushima and interviewed a worker from the plant. He showed them the work contract that he had to sign. It says that he is not allowed to give interviews or talk to the press. He earns between 80 and 100 Euro each day. He said in order to get extra incentives for dangerous work, they made him sign that he won`t sue if he gets sick. He also said that they are not being told exactly where the no-go-zones are and there are no barricades or signs to warn them. He said he has a Geigermeter, but when he gets near the building 1 it shows ERROR the whole time.”
www.zdf.de
by Liz 10/5/2011 3:50:46 PM

good information @ LIz.. ty
by dean 10/5/2011 3:51:51 PM

Thanks Liz. So tragic.
by momof3 10/5/2011 3:52:37 PM

@Liz I saw something yesterday about improving worker safety at the plant and marking hot spots was one of the issues. Now it makes sense. It also makes me wonder more if the guy who died of acute radiation poisoning found a hot spot or was the guy taking readings near the tower.

Getting errors around unit 1 = WTH, that is just scary. How high IS it.
Did you do a manual translation on the video or did you find a transcript?
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 3:54:02 PM

@lilly.. good point,,, going close to the high spots and the error message probably means the instrument is pegged out hi
by dean 10/5/2011 3:55:54 PM

I speak a bit german and translated myself. @lillymunster
by Liz 10/5/2011 3:58:07 PM

@Liz ok, thanks. Can I use your translation?
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 3:58:24 PM

Yes @lillymunster
by Liz 10/5/2011 3:59:17 PM

Hello @Liz @lillymunster I just checked the first part of the zdf-documentary and concerning the dosimeters the worker told the journalists they only measure in the range of mykrosievert
by Andrea 10/5/2011 4:13:07 PM

@Andrea so if the meters only go up to a micro-sievert level I wonder what the top limit on those might be? I have photos of the dosimeters some of the workers are using but it is from the decontamination crew at Jvillage so they might have different ones?
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 4:14:33 PM

Success! I have one big central NRC document - will get it uploaded and some links ready for people to get at it.
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 4:15:08 PM

ty @lilly..
by dean 10/5/2011 4:32:26 PM

LMAO! Finger pointing guy has been hanging out at TEPCO press conferences and confronts TEPCO media team with questions they can't answer. :-) fukushima-diary.com
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 4:36:53 PM

CONCLUSIONS: The atmospheric atomic bomb test fallout affected the human sex odds at birth overall, and the Chernobyl fallout had a similar impact in Europe and parts of Asia. The birth sex odds near nuclear facilities are also distorted. The persistently disturbed secular human sex odds trends allow the estimation of the global deficit of births in the range of several millions. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
by Ian 10/5/2011 4:44:42 PM

I have the NRC file uploading, it will take a while. Going to take the dog to the dog park. It should be done by the time I return.
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 4:53:56 PM

@lillymunster the table of page 2 are whole body counter measurings of humans, left male, right female.
by Edano 10/5/2011 5:07:49 PM

@lillymunster , briefly, figure 2 shows means and and standard deviations of cesium-134 and cesium-137 whole body counts for men (left) and women (right) in Bq/kg body weight versus time (month). The dashed curves show the means for three consecutive months. The line of small numbers at 26 provides the number of persons measured in each month. I made a mistake earlier. The issue dates from 1987, that is 18 months after the accident. The graphs and tables cover these 18 months. The tables on page 5 list the mean counts [Bq] by isotope and gender for Berliners (male: Tab. 1; female: Tab. 2) and underage Berliner children (Tab. 3). Tab. 4 lists monthly mean effective absorbed doses [millirem] by region, gender and age group. Note that people in Bavaria took the biggest hit, because they were most affected by the plume from Chernobyl.
by Peter 10/5/2011 5:17:22 PM

@ Edano... hope the day is going well
by dean 10/5/2011 5:24:22 PM

the worker in the german documentary says that they all signed an additional agreement that they will not sue the contractor for health damages. in return they earn 10 € additional per hour.
the tepco speaker says they don't know the contracts because the contracts are made with subcontractors.
and there is a speech of yamashita (smile).
by Edano 10/5/2011 5:24:46 PM

@dean mas o menos, and you ?
by Edano 10/5/2011 5:25:06 PM

rainy day.. waiting for word to go do a treadmill stress test
by dean 10/5/2011 5:29:04 PM

@dean , edano, hi everybody!
by Peter 10/5/2011 5:30:18 PM

@Peter moin.
by Edano 10/5/2011 5:31:48 PM

@Peter welcome
by dean 10/5/2011 5:34:33 PM

and now: Gov't panel eyes higher interim radiation exposure limit

TOKYO, Oct. 6, Kyodo english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 10/5/2011 5:35:45 PM

I ran into the following statement on one of the mailing in the FOIA....From: Mitchell, Matthew iýý
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2011 9:13 AM
Upon further review, it sounds like that probably had a hydrogen leak from the turbine-genertor's cooling system which allowed hydrogen to build up in the secondary containment building and be set off by a spark.
by dean 10/5/2011 5:35:47 PM

lunch time. be back in a bit
by dean 10/5/2011 5:43:30 PM

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "For several decades, the United States has been without an ongoing program measuring levels of fission products in the body. Strontium-90 (Sr-90) concentrations in 2089 deciduous (baby) teeth, mostly from persons living near nuclear power reactors, reveal that average levels rose 48.5% for persons born in the late 1990s compared to those born in the late 1980s. This trend represents the first sustained increase since the early 1960s, before atmospheric weapons tests were banned. The trend was consistent for each of the five states for which at least 130 teeth are available. The highest averages were found in southeastern Pennsylvania, and the lowest in California (San Francisco and Sacramento), neither of which is near an operating nuclear reactor. In each state studied, the average Sr-90 concentration is highest in counties situated closest to nuclear reactors. It is likely that, 40 years after large-scale atmospheric atomic bomb tests ended, much of the current in-body radioactivity represents nuclear reactor emissions."
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:30:15 PM

Another study www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "These results strongly support a major role of nuclear reactor releases in the increase of cancer and other immune-system-related disorders in young American children since the early 1980s."
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:38:41 PM

Another study www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "Radioactive strontium-90 concentrations in baby teeth obtained from Suffolk County, New York, rose steadily during the 1980s. Recent levels of strontium-90 are similar to those reported for babies born in the late 1950s-at the height of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. Strontium-90 concentrations increased concomitantly with increases in cancer incidence among Suffolk children under the age of 5 y, a result that mimicked parallel trends observed in the 1950s and early 1960s. Given that effects of strontium-90 on developing cells are most pronounced during the fetal and infant periods, escalating levels should be viewed as a factor in the recent decline in various child health status measures."
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:40:16 PM

Another study, in this case re nuclear weapons Sr90 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "Risks to health from large-scale atmospheric nuclear weapons testing are still relatively unknown. A sample of 85,000 deciduous teeth collected from Americans born during the bomb-testing years assessed risk by in vivo measurement of residual strontium-90 (Sr-90) concentrations, using liquid scintillation spectrometry. The authors' analysis included 97 deciduous teeth from persons born between 1959 and 1961 who were diagrosed with cancer, and 194 teeth of matched controls. Average Sr-90 in teeth of persons who died of cancer was significantly greater than for controls (OR = 2.22; p < 0.04). This discovery suggests that many thousands have died or will die of cancer due to exposure to fallout, far more than previously believed."
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:44:13 PM

Cypress comes up with a solar power station that also desalinates water www.cyprus-mail.com
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 6:48:15 PM

One study Sr90-from-reactors I posted below is free online : www.rachel.org
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:50:44 PM

@Ian do you have enough of these to string together into an article?
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 6:55:07 PM

Really high radiation pockets in Fukushima City, up 4x what some were in June. ex-skf.blogspot.com
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 6:56:51 PM

@lillymunster I thought the readings I posted earlier looked high I even checked the date
by elainekirk 10/5/2011 6:59:11 PM

@lillymunster, maybe. I'm at the library now, was doing reseach on weapons-testing fallout and stumbled across those. I'd not heard of their findings. Amazing what's out there if you look. 8^o
by Ian 10/5/2011 6:59:21 PM

@Ian ooo not good news but good to have some solid evidence
by elainekirk 10/5/2011 7:00:24 PM

@Ian first I have seen those too. Good find
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 7:09:49 PM

@elainekirk Did you post them this morning or were they in yesterday's?
by lillymunster 10/5/2011 7:10:13 PM

@lillymunster @elainekirk, thanks. I've heard may pro-safety advocates cite leukemia links to nomrally-operating NPPs, but never these data. In the one that's free online (below) notice indeed the sharp increase in Sr90 post-testing during the 90s. The only apparent source would be NPPs.
by Ian 10/5/2011 7:26:42 PM