Yesterday I published the below article at Elephant on why a scientist from MIT is NOT worried.
Today James found this site to have reliable (not-getting-you-crazy-panicked) site. This is an excerpt:
Shikata added that radiation levels near the reactors had reached levels that would affect human health. It is thought that the fire had been the major source of radiation
The bolding is mine, notice it says "NEAR THE REACTOR". Not thorughout all of Japan.
This time I refuse to buy into the media frenzy, I understand the situation is delicate but there is no need to call it something it is not.
If I was you I would stay away from Fox News today and instead go to this site for reliable info.
It is a slow site, it is nuclear and not really used to so much traffic, but it has more reliable info.
(*) I used the word Asteya instead of Satya in the title when I first published, I got confused. Asteya means "stay away from what does not belong to you", Satya is what actually means truth. Oops!
(*) I used the word Asteya instead of Satya in the title when I first published, I got confused. Asteya means "stay away from what does not belong to you", Satya is what actually means truth. Oops!
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Here is the article from Elephant with the Scientist that is NOT worried.
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I learned yesterday from an MIT Scientist the Reasons why he is NOT worried about the power plant situation in Japan. Here are my five reasons to be at peace...
I posted that at Elephant and you can read the five questions.
1.- Are tsunamis and earthquakes taken into consideration when building nuclear plants?
"When designing a nuclear power plant, engineers follow a philosophy called "Defense of Depth". That means that you first build everything to withstand the worst catastrophe you can imagine, and then design the plant in such a way that it can still handle one system failure, that you thought could never happen, after the other"
Should everything go wrong, power plants have a way to go into "Third Containment", a very high level, not invoked yet, but that would prevent further problems
"The third containment is a hermetically (air tight) sealed, very thick bubble of the strongest steel and concrete. The third containment is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown"
2.- But wasn't the Third Containment damaged in the explosion?
A part of the third containment WAS damaged in the explosion BUT..it happened outside the pressure vessel (as opposed to what happened in Chernobyl), which was not intended but a possible scenario and OK because it did not pose a risk for the containemnt.
"The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down....Also boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid is "liquid control rod". Whatever decay is still going on, the Boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core"
3.- What about the radiation that already escaped?
Some radiation was released when the pressure vessel was vented....If you were sitting on top of the plant's chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy"
4.- Will Power Plants emergency plans be revisited after this?
Japanese plants will be upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami (or worse)
5.- So, what IS the challenge then? Is there something that should worry us?
I believe the most significant problem will be a prolonged power shortage. 11 of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors were shut down and will have to be inspected directly reducing the nation's nuclear power generating capacity by 20% with nuclear power accounting for 30% of the national total power generation capacity.
Emergency response has to deal with shelter, drinking water, food and medical care, transportation and communication infrastructure as well as electricity supply.
Yes, the earthquake+tsunami was a catastrophe and there have been deaths. Yes it is bad and prayer and donations are welcome and a good thing to do. Yes we can accompany, chant mantras, be in spirit with the people of Japan going through the aftermath of the earthquake of Tsunami. Yet, the nuclear power plant issue is not as bad as the media would have us believe.
I know that people feel very strongly about nuclear power plants. My point here was to share a different view.
Maybe more silence, more accurate information, and challenging energy in an efficient /yogic/ way could help a bit more than panicking. Wish the media learned how to tighten its anus and channel energy efficiently.
Dear Claudia
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I don't feel the NYT is exaggerating about the dangers of radiation exposure in Japan. The BBC is alerting countries in Asia that rain could carry radiation across the oceans to places far from Japan.
Cheers,
Arturo
Yes Arturo, that is exactly the type of news that cause wide spread panic. What the BBC is doing. The truth is nobody really knows exactly what is happening, and to make a statement like that causes wide-spread pannic.
ReplyDeletedarn, the BBC thing was a hoax. i was hoaxed. i'll blog it on mine.
ReplyDeleteGuess nobody really knows for sure what is happening, and panic sells newspapers. I really hope all that is at stake is contained, and that people get to safety. I am just refusing to buy into the panic... Will look at your blog Arturo, hugs
ReplyDeleteI'm sort of with Arturo on this one! The Times seems to be passing along what the Japanese media is saying, and THAT may be understated. In any case, there was a line in one article that struck me. I can't remember it verbatim, but it said something along the lines of... the fear that a radiation threat can generate in a country that endured such horror in WW2 cannot be over stated.
ReplyDeleteThey might be stoic about it, but...
Anyway, whether or not there's a full meltdown with all the consequences, people are suffering wildly. For some reason I feel extra empathy & connection. Why I'm not sure. I've got a very close friend who is Japanese but it can't be just that....
Boodbia, even Arturo noticed that that article was a hoax... I guess I agree with you people are suffering, they are probably going through remembering what it was like for them to go trough the horrors of the bombings, I cannot even imagine, it is a psyhological wound yes. But to make stories bigger just to sell newspapers, or rather profit by their pain by making people panic, that is what I disagree with. I feel staing calm is key, we do not really know what is going on. Nobody does, not the NY Times, not the BBC, not WSJ, only the engineers at the plan, those dealing with it directly...
ReplyDeleteI pray that this will pass and that people will return to safety, I pray for those gone... I know we all feel the same, we want them to be well...
:-)
The problem with much of this is that producing panic in the short term is just adding to the suffering already occurring. It does nothing to address the issues at hand.
ReplyDeleteIt may be that what ends up happening in the next week or two isn't as terrible as the media is reporting. But with radiation, it's what happens in the next 20, 30, 40 years that really matters. People who have great financial interest in nuclear have routinely downplayed and even denied the causal links between chronic illness and death spikes that occur years after these kind of disasters.
And I for one think the truth on those issues must be put front and center. Furthermore, the truth of the completely out of whack consumption patterns of those of us in industrial/post industrial nations that leads to heavy investment in dangerous energy sources also should be front and center.
So yes, the short term panic isn't helpful, and certainly keeps people buying papers and consuming media. But I'm greatly concerned that too few of us will connect the dots between our greed driven, excessive lifestyles and the "need" for heavy reliance on destructive energy sources.
Yes that article he read. I actually think the Times is stating things pretty calmly. It's already traveling... I mean a US military ship passed through a cloud & the crew got something like... I forget what it was, a couple days' radiation in an hour? But it was said for what it was, not, "THEY'RE GOING TO DIE RIGHT AWAY!"
ReplyDeleteOne interesting note is that that plant is 110 miles from the epicenter of the quake, and we've got a plant in SF that's less than 100 miles from the San Andreas fault, which they say is overdue to produce an 8. The plant is only designed to withstand a 7. I like that Germany just closed seven older plants for safety review. I wish I'd see some articles about a proactive response for the US...
That US ship, Boodiba, got a month's worth of radiation in 1 hour.
ReplyDeleteThanks! :)
ReplyDeleteNathan I agree with you that keeping an eye on our consumtion is a good way to approach it, the truth is we do consume energy, lots of it.. And there are not that many ways of producing it...
ReplyDeleteB I do not nearly know enouGpgh to comment on that , I am sure or I hope the San Francisco plant gets upgraded. This scentst is saying that Japanese plants will now be upgraded for tsunamis or earthquakes of higher levels...