Talk:Fukushima nuclear accident

There are discussions related to the nuclear accident both here and at Talk:Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant

Acceleration

The article states that reactor 1 "was designed for a peak ground acceleration of 0.18 g (1.74 m/s2)" but then a few lines later that "The earthquake design basis for all units ranged from 0.42 g (4.12 m/s2) to 0.46 g (4.52 m/s2).". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.239.141 (talk) 13:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Article too long

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Q.: How do ILLITERATES get to EDIT an "ENCYCLOPEDIA"?

You said "SEEN AS the article is apparently too long ..."

However, correct 3rd-grade elementary school English is:

"SEEING AS the article is apparently too long ..."

In addition, the most important aspect of FUKUSHIMA is the amount and kind of radiation released, and which continues to be released, and the figures are not a tiny percentage of the Chernobyl disaster, but 10 to 30 times MORE; and perhaps 100's of percents more.

Currently, a "life extinction event" is threatened because the meltdowns are indeed well out of control, but keep a lid on it, you wouldn't want to alarm the poor inferior "laymen" who read your half-baked Wikibloodypedia.

Perhaps the superior slobs who deem to write and edit these pages for the benefit of us poor inferior "laymen" for whom trivia should be "sufficient", should consider hiring an expert on this life-threatening topic to edit it, and keep it up-to-date.

- - -

Seen as the article is apparently too long, one area that might be trimmed without much controversy is the earlier estimates on the amount of radioisotopes released, and the earlier speculation of the accident in general. For example, estimates are generally between 10% to 30% of a 'Chernobyl'- a bit of a dubious comparison, but good for laymen I suppose - So I can imagine we could trim all the times these estimates are mentioned and sum them all up with - The estimates have varied since 2011 to the present(2013), from 10-30%, with the most authoritative recent estimate being X% . We should naturally keep all the reliable references, but cut down on the number of repetitive sentences. What do you all think? If there are any replies, notify me please on my talk page. Much obliged! Boundarylayer (talk) 10:51, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

When it comes to estimations of the radiation-releases, you might look into: [1] this video gives some extra details, that are surely not seen here. Only some numbers are cited at wikipedia, but not the assumptions behind them... at 13.12m there are some details how those numbers were fabricated. Was there still water inside reactor nr.3 at this temperature. Where is all that cesium gone ?

The Japanese "authorities" (and many elsewhere) might have a "need" to minimize the extent of this "incident" (or "disaster" ?)

On Friday 5 March the cooling system of spent-pool nr. 3 broke down, see: [2]. The problems are far from resolved even far from "contained". Greetings 1947enkidu (talk) 08:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Fairewinds...you serious? Arnold Gundersen, why don't you just send me links to the much debunked Helen Caldicott while you're at it? Here, have a look at this, even this guy with an arts degree was able to spot Arnie as a scaremongering nobody - http://squeeze-box.ca/?p=892 Arnie is a person who has been making money off of being a pseudoscience anti-nuclear scaremonger for years. He gets paid for coming on TV to give people a good bed time scare story. He has become a very wealthy man because of this. I had my first encounter with this person years ago when I heard him on the tube in 2007, he was pushing the idea of, what I now know to be, the much debunked Hot particle hypothesis, which in case you're not familiar with it, has not been borne out in reality, as according to the hypothesis a lot of people who are still healthily kicking around should be well stone dead years ago, But that hasn't stopped Gundersen from continuing to push that pseudoscience and ladle out the nonsense, oh no in fact his well oiled machine has just been suckering more people in it seems, I honestly sympathize with you, I swallowed his nonsense hook line and sinker when I was in my early years too.

To be fair to you, as much as I like to see folks being skeptical of officialdom, all we have to go on is the authoritative estimates by various agencies, some of them well outside Japan without an interest to, as you put it - minimize the extent of this incident. Moreover you seemingly have jumped onto the hype bandwagon with the non-event of march 5th, this non-event has been blown out of proportion as, sadly, the understanding of how much cooling these pools actually need after 1 year is clearly not common knowledge. You see, depending on the length of time the fuel bundles have been out of the reactor, the fuel bundles don't even need much cooling at all. decay heat would be a good place for you to start to familiarize yourself with the cooling requirements, and looking at the amount of heat being produced per tonne of spent fuel after 1 year. In sum, due to the fuel in the pools being all at least a year old, the cooling system could actually have remained off for well over a week before it would even be considered news worthy in my book. In fact your source - [3] even acknowledges that. Not to mention had the spent fuel become entirely uncovered from evaporating the water after ~3 weeks of no topping up with water, it wouldn't be all that big deal either. As most of the really nasty fission products are not contained in spent fuel of this age(1 year old). For example Iodine-131 is completely absent in the spent fuel of this age due to its short 8 day half life. My best advice for you is to pick up a book instead of getting all your info from the media and in general people making money off of scaring you, go forth and educate yourself, oh and pick up a Geiger counter too, it'll help you no end.

Boundarylayer (talk)

Who are you, part of the "atomic priesthood" ? calling names like "the much debunked" "pseudoscience anti-nuclear scaremonger", why do you need this kind of words ?

I think you are a fraud yourself.

Besides I do not need to read some more books, worked for years with isotopes in a lab. Why do you need to intimidate me ?

Two tanks with radioactive water were confirmed leaking this week, who knows how long already. Now the Japanese government is tired of this kind of misfortunes.

see: Contaminated water likely leaked from second Fukushima tank

see: Fukushima reservoir tank may have leaked contaminated water

see: TEPCO ordered to address radioactive water leaks at Fukushima plant

This "incident" is far from "contained"

see: Ex-head of Diet panel probe say nuclear disaster still not under control

1947enkidu (talk) 17:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree you're right, 1947enkidu. Boundarylayer is a real big pronukeindustry POV-troublemaker here since too long... --Trofobi (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

@Boundarylayer: strong  Disagree to your cuttings + keep the discussion here, don't try to bait users to your talk page: what you "agree" there is irrelevant for this article, your dubious changes have to be disussed here. --Trofobi (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

(1) I didn't bait users to go anywhere, where's your evidence for this allegation? (2) Moreover where is your evidence that I'm pronukeindustry and POV-troublemaker (3)What in the world is the atomic priesthood? (4)Gundersen is a fringe scientists, not peer reviewed, not mainstream therefore he pushes psuedoscience, I use those words because that is the fact of the matter. (5) You attack me with saying I think you are a fraud, I ask, what 'fraud' have I committed for you to insult me? (6) Fukushima reservoir tank may have leaked contaminated water, but this water doesn't contain Cesium-137 and obviously not any short lived isotopes due to the age of the water, like the very dangerous Iodine 131, so why are you hyping this up?

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a lot more at hand while three underground storage-tanks of radioactive water are leaking. In Japanese newspapers this is quite an issue. But here you mention " not any short lived isotopes due to the age of the water" ? I cannot comprehend, what you mean by this. What do you think TEPCO should do with that water ? Dump it, because there are no short lived isotopes ?

1947enkidu (talk) 18:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

It's only a big deal in the Japanese newspapers because like all media organizations they make money by putting eyes to print, with people buying papers, this is easily done when you fill people full of dread and fear, people have to find out then, and will buy the paper. Now of course the leaks are a bad thing, and they should be stopped, but honestly no one is going to die if in the worst case scenario, all the tanks leaked, so why the hype? To sell newspapers that's why. To answer your question on what to do with the water, well I'm sure if you ask anyone working there you'll probably get an answer on what they intend to do with the water in the reservoir tanks. If I were to give a guess, they probably plan to purify it with the equipment Russia and France have provided - (using the run of the mill ion exchange decontamination systems), but personally, I think this is over-kill. That is, personally, they should just do what the Natural Gas industry has been doing with their radioactive waste for decades now with no one batting and eye, and just inject the mildly radioactive water deep underground into non porous rock structures. The gas industry, according to the EPA, generally inject into deep wells or, in the case of offshore production facilities, discharge into non-potable coastal waters.

So I recommend they don't just dump the radioactive water as the gas industry is permitted to do, but to inject it deep underground away from life.

However, I'm sure your newspapers would have a field day if TEPCO was even given approval to do this injection process that the gas industry does on a routine basis, so because of that, they'll have to go above and beyond and purify the water instead.

what the gas industry do with their radioactive waste.

Boundarylayer (talk) 19:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

As for the original idea of trimming initial estimates, I think the various estimates over time is one of the main reasons this subject is important and should be a focal point. 99% of the readers here don't really care about wrecked industrial equipment/buildings - they care about the estimates of radiation. Telling that unfolding story should remain a key part of the article.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:06, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Can't really improve on what Boundarylayer has said. Will reiterate that "leak" and "disaster" or even "important" in many cases, is not always true with nuclear reactors. Metal containers leak. That is, alas, normal for all industrial work. I'm not inviting applause for nuclear management. But neither should others automatically sound the klaxon. Student7 (talk) 23:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe this article is not too long. This article contains most of the information about the disaster. All I think we should do is for the longer sections, we should use more of a timeline like interface , and bold the times that the event happened. This will allow most of us to read the article comfortably. This removes 1 problem. About the introduction problem, I think there is no problem since the article is quite long and that is a good summary. Mattsung (talk) 05:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Translation request for picture banner text with invitement of japanese from fukushima area

Does the following picture really show an anti atom rally inside fukushima desaster article ? Request for translation of japanese banners inside the picture with no anti atom signs just children balloons at Meiji Shrine side. Maybe correcting yourself inside eWP or answering here.

Anti-nuclear power plant rally on 19 September 2011 at the Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo.

New photo?

The photo in the infobox is really blurry and small. Any chance a new photo can be used? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.190.45.23 (talk) 15:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Interview "Diplomat: We are facing global catastrophe over next 40-100 years because of Fukushima"

• I don't have time at this instant to listen but wanted to put the link here for other editors, the "mp3 audio" link at http://fairewinds.org/podcast/fighting-a-dragon-i-cannot-see

• Link to the above was found at http://enenews.com/japanese-diplomat-we-are-facing-global-catastrophe-over-next-40-100-years-because-of-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-video which states that a partial transcript it:

"Nathaniel White-Joyal, Host: It’s clear that the west coast of the United States will be affected by the radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

"Akio Matsumura, Diplomat: Let me clarify. We are facing global disaster — catastrophe — occurring. From that perspective, over 40 years, 50 years, or maybe 100 years. We cannot escape from this fact. For that we have to keep in mind. […] This radioactive material, or contaminated water, any cases, reach out to your west coast as well. If you are counting on Japan, I can assure you now they do not take serious action."

Again, until time allows me, I leave it to other editors to listen and evaluate (the first of the above two) I do know that the chief engineer at fairewinds.org does have significant expertise and background, being a former nuclear power industry executive (see Arnold Gundersen) Harel (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

It suffices to read any of the reliable reports referenced in the Wikipedia article under "casualties" to see that the above citations are based on a serious misunderstanding of the effects of highly diluted radioactive material. As far as scientists can tell, there won't be any serious effects due to radioactivity, as opposed to the massive damage caused by the tsunami itself.Gautier lebon (talk) 08:10, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Gautier. Furthermore, the article documents with WP:RS that even nearby Japanese themselves will experience little long-term damage. The initial media response agreed with the torrid remarks above, largely forgotten today, the media having moved along to other "catastrophes," real or imagined. Student7 (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Problems with the Safety History Section

There are a few problems with the Safety History section of the Causes section namely the following sub-sections:

2006: Court order opposed and 2008: Tsunami study ignored

The piece on the Court Order has no relevance at all, as on following the link referred to it is revealed that the case does not concern the Fukushima plant or even TEPCO: it concerns the Hokuriku Electric Power Company's Shika Nuclear Power Plant, which resides in a different area of Japan. As it is of no relevance to the article I think it should be cut.

The piece on the Tsunami study does not provide any scientific background to the study, or the general scientific understanding of what kind of earthquakes and tsunamis were possible in the area. There are a few scientific pieces on the failure to predict the tsunami, and a clarification piece from TEPCO that I think should be summarised and added to this section.

If there are no objections, I hope to make the changes laid out in the next few weeks.--Starviking (talk) 02:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

The first court-order showed, the unwillingness to follow the conclusions of that court. The whole nuclear industry in Japan did not like or want the implications of these court-orders at all.

As far as the study on tsunami's... this plant was built on certain place. It happened that there were some 40 meter high cliffs. The American company that built the plant, they took away the cliff, until it was 10 meters high, and the plant was built there. The disaster was Made in American. Those Americans did not comprehend in no way the risk's that tsunami's incorporate in them. If you would like to know some more about this, you might study the website of Gunderson, let there be faire-winds on earth.

I'm opposed all you would like to do.

Best wishes 1947enkidu (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the issue raised by Starviking are a good reason to remove those sections. Especially in the way it is now mentioned in the article there is not enough supported by the sources to keep that text in the article 'Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster'. - Robotje (talk) 05:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Given the feedback I intend to remove the Court Order sub-section, and expand the Tsunami sub-section to include academic and TEPCO reports. I hope this will give a more balanced feel to the sub-section.

1947enkidu, the Fukushima Dai-ichi Plant was built by TEPCO and its contractors to a US design. It was not built by Americans. The Tsunami threat to the Pacific coastline of Tohoku was first studied in the early 2000s, but concerned the Jogan Tsunami of 869AD which struck a different area of Tohoku. See the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_Sanriku_earthquake_and_tsunami for more information.Starviking (talk) 05:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Wo were those contractors ? Practically ALL design is of American origin, no way that TEPCO had the expertise to built a nuclear power plant. MARK-I containments (like that of nr.1) are quite abundant in the USA, your statement is only in some juridical way correct. 1947enkidu (talk) 06:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Come on, 1947enkidu, on 28 June 2013 you wrote on this page [4]

“ It happened that there were some 40 meter high cliffs. The American company that built the plant, they took away the cliff, until it was 10 meters high, and the plant was built there. The disaster was Made in American. ”

and that is simply not true. The plant was built by Kajima Corporation, which is a Japanese company. What source you have that an American company took away the cliff, until it was 10 meters high? - Robotje (talk) 11:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Since mister Robotje obviously has taken it to his task to make anything especially hard for me on this site, and to imply (?)... I leave it here. The reactors were all designed by General Electric, Ebasco another American firm was involved too. How to deny this ? 1947enkidu (talk) 12:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of GE boiling water reactors. There is nothing wrong with the design, nor is there any implied by the disaster. The problem was placement. The cooler was placed too low, as we can now see clearly from hindsight.

A second "problem," to arise, is following procedure which is to shut down the reactor when an accident of this nature occurs. Following that procedure resulted in more problems (excess polluted water) than would have occurred otherwise. Again, more easily seen in hindsight. Student7 (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with the design ? The cooler would not have worked at all, because even when it had been situated at the fifth floor, that diesel-engine could not be cooled, because the water-pumps for cooling the diesel were damaged by the tsunami.....

there was a lot more wrong with the design...

greetings 1947enkidu (talk) 12:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Interesting information. ".. even when it had been situated at the fifth floor, that diesel-engine could not be cooled, because the water-pumps for cooling the diesel were damaged by the tsunami....." Where can I read more about the problem at Fukushima Daiichi for cooling the diesel? - Robotje (talk) 12:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The placement of the diesel... would it have been high up... that discussion is highly speculative. I rather follow the reality. And some discussions like this have been done in the years gone by, so please look into the archives before you restart this pure nonsense.

It has also nothing to do with the question this discussion started...

1947enkidu (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I've read quite a lot about this disaster, but never read something like ".. The American company that built the plant, they took away the cliff, until it was 10 meters high, and the plant was built there. The disaster was Made in American. " and now ".. even when it had been situated at the fifth floor, that diesel-engine could not be cooled, because the water-pumps for cooling the diesel were damaged by the tsunami....." so I'm surprised about those things. For the first issue I already asked you for some source, but so far nothing. For the second issue, same. Only the suggestion to read the archives, without specifying what archives. So once again I ask you, where can I read more about the problem at Fukushima Daiichi for cooling the diesel? - Robotje (talk) 21:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not paid for this, there's no index on the archives... and I have better things to do. je kan me de bout haggelen 1947enkidu (talk) 04:19, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not paid either and I think others in this discussion also not. If you come up in this discussion with totaly new 'facts' you can not or are not willing to give a source for, then it seems to it is now about time to end the discussion and do the changes Starviking proposed. Oh, and please do realise, this is a talk page linked to an article on the English Wikipedia, so please only write in English on this page. I don't know what the last part of your edit means, but it is clearly not English. - Robotje (talk) 09:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

It's all hypothetical, that important can't it be. litle robot. But if you would like to, you might look around at www.fairewinds.org. Arnie is pretty good in his explanations, I do not have time for you. 1947enkidu (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

On the site you recommend I couldn't find anything about that mysterious American company that built the plant, took away the cliff, until it was 10 meters high, and built the plant there. Also about the cooling problem of the diesel/diesel-engine I could not find anything at that site. If you don't have time, that is OK with me, but making fun of the (user)name of your colleague (as you did here) doesn't help to convince others in a discussion. - Robotje (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Converting all Becquerel units to TBq (or PBq)

As I was reading through this article I noticed that the way the radiation numbers are presented made it more difficult for my brain to compare numbers and process the information. Specifically, radiation given in becquerels is given in two different formats: TBq (terabecquerels) and scientific notation, ex. 1.3 × 10¹⁷ Bq. Scientific notation in this instance tends to hide the difference in numbers from the casual reader, I believe. Take the following text from the article:

On 24 August 2011, the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) of Japan published the results of the recalculation of the total amount of radioactive materials released into the air during the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The total amounts released between 11 March and 5 April were revised downwards to 1.3 × 10¹⁷ Bq for iodine-131 and 1.1 × 10¹⁶ Bq for caesium-137, which is about 11% of Chernobyl emissions. Earlier estimations were 1.5 × 10¹⁷ Bq and 1.2 × 10¹⁶ Bq.

On 8 September 2011 a group of Japanese scientists working for the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the Kyoto University and other institutes, published the results of a recalculation of the total amount of radioactive material released into the ocean: between late March through April they found a total of 15,000 TBq for the combined amount of iodine-131 and caesium-137. This was more than triple the figure of 4,720 TBq estimated by the plant-owner. TEPCO made only a calculation about the releases from the plant in April and May into the sea. The new calculations were needed because a large portion of the airborne radioactive substances would enter the seawater when it came down as rain.

In these two back-to-back paragraphs, both formats are used and it makes it harder to compare numbers for the casual reader. I believe that "1.3 × 10¹⁷ Bq for iodine-131 and 1.1 × 10¹⁶ Bq for caesium-137" would be easier to read if it were written as "130,000 TBq for iodine-131 and 11,000 TBq for caesium-137". Would anyone be opposed to me changing the numbers in this article to all use TBq?

Going a step further, what if all numbers were converted to PBq (petabecquerels)? The numbers in this article range from 4,720 TBq as the smallest to 900,000 TBq as the highest, with most numbers having three trailing zeros. If we did this then you would have numbers like 4.7 PBq, 11 PBq, 15 PBq, 130 PBq, and 900 PBq. —Megiddo1013 15:09, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, you are certainly right about scientific notation throwing off comparisons.

As to what it should be converted to, it would depend on the threshold of what is dangerous for humans. If we can absorb a million petbecquerels annually without ill effect, petabs seems too grainy, the numbers "too large." But then you might be forced to us .000001 millibecquerels, which is nearly as annoying as the scientific notation.

The unit chosen should not appear to exaggerate the danger by its "grainyness" IMO. That would seem WP:POV. Student7 (talk) 17:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I think part of the reason I was hesitant to use PBq is that I was afraid it would make the numbers look smaller, whereas TBq would keep an extra three zeros making the numbers look scarier. But like you said, for WP:NPOV PBq is probably better simply because it makes the numbers easier to digest. After all even as someone who has done several hours of reading on the subject, I still don't have much of a "feel" for the real-world difference between 1 PBq and 1 TBq. For that reason, its better to use the simpler numbers in my opinion. I'll go ahead and change everything to PBq. —Megiddo1013 19:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

FORMER NSA ANALYST, JIM STONE, ALLEGES ISRAEL SABOTAGED FUKUSHIMA

A major theory of the Fukushima disaster has been omitted from Wikibloodypedia:

Former NSA analyst says Fukushima was blown up from inside by MINI NUKES planted by an Israeli security firm, and the tsunami was triggered not by a quake, but by bombs planted undersea to punish Japan for processing Uranium for Iran:

http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/fukushima1.html

Henry Makow thinks former NSA man Jim Stone has made a good case:

http://henrymakow.com/theargumentfukushimasabotage.html#sthash.bZko7tDG.dpuf

In 1700, in Canada, the Cascadia subduction zone underwent a genuine 9-magnitude quake, which set off a tsunami that crossed the ocean and struck Japan:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1700_01_26.php

If a 9-magnitude quake had struck Fukushima, then where is the "return" tsunami that should have hit Canada? Where is the 600-mile minimum radius of damage?

I think this quake of 1700 lends credibility to Jim Stone's assertion that there was no earthquake at Fukushima, but it was blown up by nukes planted on the inside, and the tsunami triggered by bombs planted undersea.

Jim Stone calls Fukushima Japan's "9/11".

Reported Steam Sighting Report on Wikipedia

1. Japan begins a renewed effort to halt the leak of radioactive material from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (BBC) 07/26/13 16:17 -0400 Friday, July 26, 2013, 04:17:06 PM EDT. article cites visuals of steam rising from damaged rector(s).

Heat can come from trapped fuel rods parts or run-off from these, maybe. Also from any compromised (steam brearing) lines connected to other parts of the plant (plant routings are complicated), or even electrical problem heat, or more remotely possible, chemical heat.

Why does the article imply the steam may be fission related while also saying the source of steam is unkown? Is the source of steam really a mystery to plant operators? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.222.174 (talk) 20:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)