Fukushima Reactor #4 - Is the Worst Yet to Come?

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Fukushima Reactor #4 - Is the Worst Yet to Come?

posted to the public at 5:43 PM on Saturday May 5, 2012

As you may have heard last March, the tsunami that struck the Fukushima nuclear plant was said to have knocked out the main power and caused quite a nuclear problem, but TEPCO reassured us they had everything under control.
Right.

Where are we now?
Senator Wyden D-Oregon (my home state) is a senior member of U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources who has experience with nuclear waste storage said the spent fuel rods are contained in unsound structures (he went to the Fukushima plant in person) and the situation is worse than is being reported. He believes the Fukushima crisis has become a national threat.

Nuclear waste expert Robert Alverez warns that if there is another large earthquake or event that causes this pool to drain of water, which keeps the fuel rods from overheating and igniting, it could cause a catastrophic fire releasing 10 times more cesium-137 than was released at Chernobyl.
Yes, that is ten Chernobyls... a better image may be the radioactive waste from 800 nuclear bombs that hit an area all at once.

This is a scenario that would not just decimate Japan and evacuate Tokyo, but would be a major disaster for the entire world.

What's Being Done?
So far the plan is to sit reactor #4 in an unsound structure 100 feet above the ground exposed to the atmosphere near the ocean... in a high-consequence earthquake zone.

Even if TEPCO wanted to move it, they can't, supposedly the equipment to do so, such as the crane support infrastructure, was destroyed during the initial disaster.

But I've heard no plans of moving it even if proper equipment were given to them. Instead TEPCO is taking some vacation time.

And after the vacation, what's the plan? What, another vacation?

Well, isn't that odd, right after receiving almost $13 BILLION dollars you would think they would have some resources to get to work protecting Japan and the rest of the world from nuclear doom. But, no, they decide to run off and leave the plant complete evacuated.
Pretty sure they're investing in underground bunkers stocked with provisions with that $13 billion.

My Outlook
Keep in mind there's no major catastrophe right now, and there very well never could be. But with things like this I like to keep the mindset of better being prepared than sorry.
To be frank about it, I think things are bad... real bad, and it just feels like nobody is doing anything right to fix what could be a nightmare scenario.
Experts are calling Fukushima a ticking time bomb yet we're not going to hear anything about this on the evening news, instead we will be fed more about the threat of climate change and how Ron Paul doesn't exist.

There have been 13 earthquakes in the area between 5 and 6 magnitude in just April alone. One good shake could potentially spell a major global catastrophe. The odds really don't look too favorable, so I'm doing my part to spread some news to people -- I implore you to take care of yourself, do some research on radioactive iodine and cesium and what you can do to heal yourself from it. I've written a couple blogs on treating radiation poisoning since last year, feel free to check back on those.

Comments

	whittysx wrote at 5:52 PM on May 5, 2012 : ;-;
	t0mmy wrote at 5:58 PM on May 5, 2012 : Arnie Gundersen puts to rest the nuclear industry led mantra of “safe shutdown”: \|HERE\| Just in case, I made a list of items to pick up at my local health store today: Kelp, Chlorella, Spirulina, Gingko Biloba, Calcium, Magnesium, Selenium, as well as Zeolites, Sodium Alginate, and Hesperidin.
	Italian Falcon wrote at 7:05 PM on May 5, 2012 : I actually did a history project on this. Nice read.
	indigestible wad wrote at 3:17 AM on May 6, 2012 : Speaking as a geologist with an understanding of subduction fault lines, the danger of another equrthquake event like the one last march will not happen for a very long time. Earthquakes like this happen because of built up strain, which the earthquake a year ago let go. Simply put the cascadia earthquake theorized to hit oregon/washington/BC will happen before another one in tokyo. What do you need zeolites for? Zeolites are for filtering liquids.
	t0mmy wrote at 3:17 PM on May 6, 2012 : I like the info you give about how earthquakes work. I'm wondering if it will take an earthquake of the same magnitude to cause a major problem for reactor #4 or if it wouldn't take much more than a solid shake. The structure the reactor is sitting on is unstable, it's already been weakened from the tsunami that hit it last year. I don't know what state it's in, but from the articles I've read it is described as "unsound"... considering Senator Wyden believe this to be a national security risk after he went to evaluate it I think it's best to keep up to date on things there and look into how to cope with radioactive fallout coming over to the west coast. Zeolites can be used to decontaminate liquids from radiation from what I've read. You can also ingest them to detox. Know any place where I can get it? I checked at my local grocery store and they didn't seem to have it.
	t1mmy wrote at 4:17 PM on May 6, 2012 : None of this sounds good. The scariest thing is how the mainstream media isn't saying anything about it, because that's when you know it's most serious. This is in the hands of experts and specialists. The only thing the rest of us can do is inform ourselves, inform others, and take whatever precautions we feel best.
	t0mmy wrote at 5:22 PM on May 6, 2012 : I am contemplating moving south of the equator if #4 goes down. Not sure how I'd do it though... but couldn't possibly be more difficult than busing around the country for Smash tourneys. lol
	indigestible wad wrote at 5:46 PM on May 6, 2012 : The earthquake in question is from the movement of two plates scraping past each other. I know someone told me the exact amount of movement over how long a distance a year ago. You can get an total enery equation by using those variables and calculating the overall strain, and from that energy you get the magnitude, but the specific numbers I've forgotten. I think it was a couple inches, a couple feet? Plates move only centimeters a year, and the strain needed for the magnitude in tokyo last year take decades or centuries to build up, depending on the speed at which the two plates are moving twoards each other and how ductile the rock is. Large magnitudes require very stiff rock, but when you get ductile rock, it's more of a slide, and less of a scrape, meaning that you get closer interval, smaller earthquakes. Japan does get a lot of earthquakes, about four times the amount calfornia does, but you can have varying ductility due to changing rock all the way up the japanese coast. The fact that we got a large magnitude out of tokyo says to me that we won't be seeing another one soon because that shows the rock is stiff. In terms of non geology, I have no idea what the rubble actally looks like, and that would be more of an engineering problem. I do know that rubble has less ability to channel earthquake waves due to being unrooted in the ground, but that does not mean that it is unsusceptible. I have no idea how much energy it would take to make it worse. You can get zeolites from the basalt we have in the coast range. It probably won't do that much good though because the zeolites you're referring to are man made and have specifically designed and varying atomic pore space. My first guess as to where you can find them commercially would be at a landscaping store, but I might be thinking of pumice for mulch.
	indigestible wad wrote at 5:50 PM on May 6, 2012 : Oh jeez. That first paragraph is probably hard to swallow.
	t0mmy wrote at 6:08 PM on May 6, 2012 : I usually give pretty good external links for my blogs (despite them just being opinion blogs and not really needing them) but I mentioned the 13 earthquakes of magnitudes 5 to 6 in the area for April. I've seen animations of pictographs that showed the number of earthquakes that have hit Japan and they have been in the hundreds (of varying magnitudes). Why is Japan continually getting rocked by earthquakes (albeit smaller than the one that supposedly caused the tsunami last year). Maybe I can dig up some interesting engineering data about the soundness of the structure that reactor #4 resides in. All I know at this time is it is elevated to about 100 feet off the ground and exposed to the elements.
	indigestible wad wrote at 9:44 PM on May 6, 2012 : Well I give part of an explanation as to why japan gets many earthquakes. It's because different parts of the country have different friction values. The smallest friction values get the most amount of earthquakes, but because of the small duration between them, they don't have time to build up strain and intensity. Keep in mind that the 13 earthquakes that occured in japan in april (this year or last year?) are spaced out along the whole of japan, and not in one location. As for why there is such a sheer volume of earthquakes in japan as compared to other major fault lines, I don't know. My first thought, and imo the most obvious and easy to think about, is the speed at which the pacific plate is being subducted. If it's going fast then there's more strain built up faster. However I don't think that's the case because then we'd see a similar amount of earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault, as both fault lines are of the same plate and moving in the same direction. I think it actually has something to do with the shape and angle of the pacific plate subducting under the Eurasian plate, which is really complex and not something I know much about.
	t0mmy wrote at 3:31 PM on May 7, 2012 : To clarify, that would be April of this year, specifically between April 14 and April 17. The 13 earthquakes happened off the northeast coast of Honshu (the main island), they were of magnitude 4.0 to 5.7 (East of Honshu is the area where the 9.0 earthquake hit last year). That's about all the info I found if it helps any. Thanks for the additional information.
	indigestible wad wrote at 9:46 PM on May 7, 2012 : That sounds like aftershocks to a main earthquake.
	t1mmy wrote at 1:25 PM on May 9, 2012 : How long does an area like Japan suffer aftershocks of that magnitude (4.0 to 5.7) after the initial 'main' earthquake? I'm just wondering because it's been a year, and from what I know aren't tremors suppose to get more calm more quickly after a big earthquake? My personal experience with earthquakes are pretty minimal, but all the quakes I've been in have had a larger magnitude tremor with maybe a few very minor ones and then everything is back to being calm very quickly which remains that way for a long time.
	indigestible wad wrote at 3:35 PM on May 9, 2012 : That's a different area, therefore a different earthquake. Aftershocks happen for up to the next couple of days after the main event, so it's safe to assume that those shocks had nothing to do with the march earthquake last year.
	t1mmy wrote at 3:34 PM on Jun 7, 2012 : Apparently Japan's plan for radioactive waste clean-up is to simply gather a bunch of contaminated debris and burn it. They figure that if they gather up non-contaminated debris on a 1,000-to-one ratio with the contaminated debris, that it will be A-OK to burn. O_O Pic, for reference.
	Kimidori wrote at 6:15 PM on Jun 7, 2012 : JAPAN D:
	t0mmy wrote at 7:05 PM on Jun 7, 2012 : Why is the area near Fukushima such an active place for earthquakes latley? Just in the last couple days (M is the magnitude of the quakes): 05:42 JST 06 Jun 2012 05:37 JST 06 Jun 2012 Fukushima-ken Oki M4.2 2 04:36 JST 06 Jun 2012 04:31 JST 06 Jun 2012 Chiba-ken Toho-oki M6.3 3 01:03 JST 06 Jun 2012 00:58 JST 06 Jun 2012 Miyagi-ken Oki M3.8 1 19:46 JST 05 Jun 2012 19:41 JST 05 Jun 2012 Chiba-ken Toho-oki M3.9 2 19:37 JST 05 Jun 2012 19:32 JST 05 Jun 2012 Chiba-ken Toho-oki M4.4 2 19:14 JST 05 Jun 2012 19:09 JST 05 Jun 2012 Chiba-ken Toho-oki M3.6 1 17:56 JST 05 Jun 2012 17:51 JST 05 Jun 2012 Miyagi-ken Oki M4.1 2 Aftershocks over a year later??