patrick.net

I think the radiation being disbursed in cubic miles of atmosphere between here and Japan will be almost unmeasurable. That being said, I also believe we will still receive substantial amounts of radiation via another route. We wil receive it shipload by shipload, container by container, box by box, in the dust shipped along with product we buy from japan. It will be undiscovered by authorities and travel everywhere Japanese products are shipped.

Very tiny amounts and almost unmeasurable - so far.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/18/ap/health/main20044734.shtml

Let's hope it stays that way.

terriDeaner says

We will rebuild from scratch says Japanese prime minister

I had NHK streaming on my laptop at my bedside and Kan's speech pattern woke me up.

I could follow it pretty easy since he was speaking slow and I'd heard most of the new vocabulary already this past week.

Serious shit.

As for going forward, I think the military has done all they can do with their crash response fire vehicles. Like a movie, the cavalry has come, the Tokyo Hyper Rescue Fire Brigade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1gBYaCZtCU

These guys train for chemical and petroleum mega-disasters, so if they can't put water into these buildings, the situation is pretty much screwed.

It may be already screwed if reactor 4's spent fuel pool's water integrity is compromised. The building itself looks like Al Qaida had a go at it with RPG-7s, but it's still unclear what's going on there. There seems to be some sort of off-gassing going on, I guess what I would expect to see from the 1500 fuel rods stored there, but I have zero idea how these materials are reacting should they have lost their water cover and cooling.

The pronunciation that there was still water in the pool on Thursday was pretty bizarre, since their evidence was just a glint from a video frame of the interior of what's left of the building and TEPCO knew on Monday that the temperature in the pool had risen from 30 to 85 in just two days.

Either they're in lala land or bullshitting people on this. I don't know which is worse.

The entire economy of Japan is going to have to reorganize itself. Tens of thousands of hard-working people just had their livelihoods utterly obliterated. Wealth is going to have to be drawn down and shared to help these people get back on their feet. The loss of electrical capacity means the economy is going to have to be scaled back.

This is a Kunstler wet dream.

Troy says

t may be already screwed if reactor 4’s spent fuel pool’s water integrity is compromised. The building itself looks like Al Qaida had a go at it with RPG-7s, but it’s still unclear what’s going on there. There seems to be some sort of off-gassing going on, I guess what I would expect to see from the 1500 fuel rods stored there, but I have zero idea how these materials are reacting should they have lost their water cover and cooling.

The pronunciation that there was still water in the pool on Thursday was pretty bizarre, since their evidence was just a glint from a video frame of the interior of what’s left of the building and TEPCO knew on Monday that the temperature in the pool had risen from 30 to 85 in just two days.

Either they’re in lala land or bullshitting people on this. I don’t know which is worse.

Probably a bit of both. From a PR perspective, what do THEY have to gain by alerting people in a conscientious or timely manner... Hysteria earlier rather than later? They are already the bad guys in this affair.

Troy says

The entire economy of Japan is going to have to reorganize itself. Tens of thousands of hard-working people just had their livelihoods utterly obliterated. Wealth is going to have to be drawn down and shared to help these people get back on their feet. The loss of electrical capacity means the economy is going to have to be scaled back.

This won't be easy.

I don't believe anything the US Government says about this nuclear accident since our government still hasn't owned up to the damage they caused from all of the nuclear tests in Nevada and in the Pacific. Also, of course, they don't even acknowledge the real danger that all nuclear power plants pose for US citizens in our own backyards.

I'm a child of a Downwinder. My Mom lived in Las Vegas in the late 40's and 50's. She remembers watching the mushroom clouds rising over the desert early in the wee hours of the morning.

Since then she, her brother and sister, and we the next generation who are the progeny are suffering from various auto-immune conditions that were never in the family before the nuclear tests. Mom and I suffer from Fibromyalgia. I had Lymphomatoid Papulosis when I was in high school (I had 90 golf ball sized lesions that bled and oozed all over my body). LP is now being considered a low grade large cell lymphoma (cancer) that could be a precursor to more serious forms of lymphoma. So far, my annual cancer checkups have not revealed any cancer and my LP hasn't produced any lesions since I was 21 (that's 20 years ago). I had a few lesions that would appear and disappear on my body after the initial massive outbreak from 15-21. It wasn't exactly a good thing for body image for an adolescent.

Mom has been diagnosed with degenerating disc disease (her body is eating up her discs in her spine) and she's been diagnosed with some demyelination on her nerves throughout her body. She's been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis for quite a while but now they think "it's just Fibromyalgia." She also has a host of other symptoms that point to auto-immune responses.

Mom's sister sister had Grave's Disease and has Degenerative Disc Disease. Her sister's daughter has Rheumatoid Arthritis (she's only 41).

Mom's brother has Degenerative Disc Disease. One of his daughters had a wheat allergy (that had never been seen in the family before). Another daughter has possible Fibromyalgia and other strange symptoms.

None of this existed in the family prior to them having been exposed to the nuclear testing in Nevada. Mom remembers days where they weren't allowed to go to school or go outside because the winds blew the fallout from some of the tests over Las Vegas sometimes.

There is a lot that the US Government will never admit because they want to be in control of all information and citizens. And they don't want panic. They also don't want the thousands (perhaps millions) of US citizens to sue the US Government for real damage that THEY caused.

The Japanese government is trying to "save face." If you look at current maps of radiation levels in Japan you will see that the radiation levels in Fukushima and another neighboring Prefecture called Miyagi where Sendai is located are censored, or as the Japanese goverment calls it "under survey." They don't want to panic their citizens by admitting the truth. They don't want their people to know (yet) that many of them are among the "walking dead" from massive radiation exposure and exposure to fission materials that have leaked from the cores of the Fukushima reactors.

Here in California we are being told now that sensors in Sacramento have picked up "low levels" of increased radiation. Yesterday, someone on the news "messed up" and reported that the health effects are "minimal" from the cloud that is just starting to roll in over California. Now all media are saying that there are "no health effects" to these "low levels" of radiation over California.

I wouldn't suggest running out to get potassium iodide tablets since they can be more damaging than the radiation that is likely to be here from Japan especially if you are taking too much.

Basically, Northern Japan is screwed. Parts of the Pacific will carry radioactive materials into fish stocks that we use and they use for food. The Japanese Government doesn't want their citizens to know that it's a wrap in Northern Japan. They don't want their people to panic with the knowledge that they won't be able to eat any food that is grown or produced in any of the Prefectures that are affected. They also don't want them to know that one of the reactors is releasing Plutonium because most people understand that Plutonium is highly toxic and sticks around for over 10,000 years.

Our US and Japanese Governments are in bed together. Both Governments have massive interests in keeping the information flowing out of the disaster zone to a minimum. They don't want mass panic and they don't want to face the economic consequences of this disaster.

Also they want to protect multi-national Corporate interests. Neither government really cares about their citizens. They are much more interested in pleasing their Corporate Masters than they are in protecting their citizens.

That's pretty fucked up simchaland.

Here's a non-governmental, grassroots website for tracking the oncoming radiation:

http://www.radiationnetwork.com/

and another:

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html

and Pacific air and ocean current patterns

http://www.stormsurf.com/

I think the simple fact is that the Japan Government is not hiding anything, but they
simply don't know what is going on either. You can buy a Geiger
counter anywhere in Japan. If there is unsafe level of radiation at
the evacuation site, the journalists will make a stink about it.
After all, mass media feeds on sensationalism. Remember mass
hysteria and panic sell. If the media is not making a big deal by now,
I think it is not big deal.

Or did I miss any news? Otherwise, I will not be a part of mass hysteria.

Nobody says

If there is unsafe level of radiation at
the evacuation site, the journalists will make a stink about it.

Good point, but how many members of the media are near the plant? Within 50 miles? Probably not many.

Immediately offfshore sampling the plume? Probably none.

Incidentally, my goal is to stay informed and thereby not succumb to mass hysteria IF it arrives.

Nobody says

Or did I miss any news? Otherwise, I will not be a part of mass hysteria.

No, the news has been oddly quiet today on the nuclear disaster in Japan, at least on KGO radio. I listen while I work. They've been giving much more air time to Libya, which is important too. However, I find the silence in the media chilling since we were hearing that this disaster hasn't been contained as of this morning.

Why would it be that main stream news media is suddenly silent about this disaster when we would get hourly reports even up to early this morning? Could it be that main stream news in our country is all Corporately Controlled and therefore completely manipulated by Special Interests including the Government Hacks who are owned by the Corporations?

I wonder.

In this case no news ISN'T good news.

terri,

Don't worry that there are a few journalists with death wish within
a radius of 20 miles. Don't underestimate their insatiable thirst for
sensationalism. I just watched the media interviewing people
who evacuated to the radius of 20 miles.

How can you stay informed, when we don't even get the info?

So you believe everything media said about Toyota, too?

simchaland,

So there is a conspiracy, if there is no info coming out?

It simply means that there is no new info. better or worse.
Why read into it more than what it is? I am in California,
and we are probably getting radiation from Japan. But
what can we do? Evacuate to New York? It is happening
more than 5000 miles away. You honestly think
there is an immediate danger, because our government is
less trustworthy than our media?

Nobody says

How can you stay informed, when we don’t even get the info?

This is a big problem. It seems like the last time the info stream from the Japanese governement tapered off (around Wednesday afternoon here) there was a growing sense of calm because the few reports released indicated that the crisis was stabilizing. Then this morning we got hit with a whopper - it's actually MUCH worse than the Japanese government was letting on. No government conspiracy needed, just good old fashioned politics. Keep everything quiet until the last possible minute when no other options exist.

I'd like to hear from some of the crazy reporters you mentioned that are inside the evacuation zone. Especially if they are actually downwind of the plant, where most of the radioactives are being dumped. Also, are you sure that interview you watched was recent and not recorded earlier?

Nobody says

So you believe everything media said about Toyota, too?

I don't follow...why would you think that?

simchaland says

KGO radio.

KGO is the biggest corporate joke around. I'm not a raging communist or anything, but damn if the happy pro-corporate line ABC spews through this station doesn't piss me off.

I still remember that fucker Wattenburg saying on the air in mid-2003 that WMDs had been found in Iraq.

Anyhoo, I'm 100% with you on the governments bullshitting everyone simcha.

People learned a new word this week -- microsieverts -- and now it is the tracking of it that's got everyone interested.

I don't give a shit about microsieverts but I do care not to get radioactive shit in my lungs or ingest them and have them migrate into my muscle tissue, since radioactive crap INSIDE your body works on the microscopic scale, and all this microsievert crap is talking about macro scale.

Now, I don't know shit about radiological exposure but I do know those who run GE and the media don't give a shit about us.

I looked up the government ministry charged with monitoring radiation and I did find their efforts to be a total joke.

In the few charts they have they are happy pronouncing that radiation is going down, but that's only because the wind has been steadily blowing the plumes to the east, towards us.

Even TEPCO's latest:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/betu11_j/images/110318d.pdf

is this bullshit, giving measurements at the WEST gate when the wind is COMING from the WEST!

Older reports listed readings in the middle of the plant but those were in the millisievert range so they stopped that now.

While overall I suspect there's no cause to panic here in the US -- there are a lot of atoms in the world and if you get a few bad ones inside you they probably won't kill you -- this event still has the potential to be a totally colossal fuck up for Japan.

All it takes is spent fuel rods to start smoking and the wind to blow to the SW. They say Tokyo is too far but that's bullshit.

I think they are focusing on reactor 3 instead of 4 because 3 has ~5200 new MOX fuel rods. Not something you want to have start overheating 150 mile upwind of Tokyo.

http://www.hattori-ryoichi.gr.jp/blog/福島第一原発概況%2310.pdf

if you can read Japanese.

Nobody says

simchaland,
So there is a conspiracy, if there is no info coming out?
It simply means that there is no new info. better or worse.
Why read into it more than what it is? I am in California,
and we are probably getting radiation from Japan. But
what can we do? Evacuate to New York? It is happening
more than 5000 miles away. You honestly think
there is an immediate danger, because our government is
less trustworthy than our media?

OK, no, I don't believe that there is a conspiracy. I do believe that our government and corporate media selectively choose the information that gets out to the people. We won't know if there will be a true complete meltdown until after it happens. They won't warn the Japanese or the world.

We're already picking up readings of fission products at UC Berkeley that indicate that some of the material is making it 5000 miles. Allegedly it's not enough to affect anyone's health. 5000 miles sounds like its far away but It's not in this case. If there is an explosion and that material gets high into the Jet Stream, we're all screwed.

I think that both our government and our media aren't to be trusted. The media is always trying to sell itself and is beholden to the Corporations. The Government is owned by Corporations.

And our government doesn't have a great track record when it comes to informing its citizens of nuclear incidents. We still don't have any real acknowedgement of the damage caused by decades of nuclear testing in Nevada and the Pacific. We still don't know the full extent of Three Mile Island.

Do I think that we are all going to die of exposure to whatever comes out of Japan here in California? No, I don't. Do I think that the health and environmental consequences are more than nil? Yes. (By the way, I'm in Oakland, CA.)

Do I think we can do anything to "get out of the way" if the stuff that actually makes it here is horribly harmful to us? No. I don't. I'd at least like to know the truth so that I'd know how to take care of myself as best as I can under the circumstances. I don't think that the people of Japan are getting enough truthful information to take care of themselves and I highly doubt that if this ends up being serious for us that we will get enough information to actually take care of ourselves well.

I'm much more concerned about the people of Japan who probably won't know what is happening until it's too late (I believe it's already too late for them.).

Nobody says

So there is a conspiracy, if there is no info coming out?

You don't need a conspiracy when everyone's buying the bullshit.

On other sites I've seen so many engineering types doing their best to defend the pro-nuke line it's sickening.

"No worries, all the bad stuff you're worrying your pretty head about is contained in five levels -- the zirconium casing, the primary pressure vessel, the suppression vessel, and reactor itself, and the secondary containment building!"

Then we have reactors exploding like they were hit with cruise missiles, and we find out that reactor 4's spent fuel pool has 150,000 spent fuel rods in it, uncooled for a week and at 86 degrees on Tuesday, they shut up about that and instead start talking about how a little Cesium 137 won't hurt you.

LOL, TBS and NHK have stopped streaming on ustream now.

Great. I was mainlining that for a week. Now I'm going to go into info withdrawal.

I should just work on my stuff and ignore this I guess.

Troy says

LOL, TBS and NHK have stopped streaming on ustream now.
Great. I was mainlining that for a week. Now I’m going to go into info withdrawal.
I should just work on my stuff and ignore this I guess.

That's not a good sign...

Troy says

I don’t give a shit about microsieverts but I do care not to get radioactive shit in my lungs or ingest them and have them migrate into my muscle tissue, since radioactive crap INSIDE your body works on the microscopic scale, and all this microsievert crap is talking about macro scale.

EXACTLY. Cancer risk goes up with increased exposure to radiation, period. And if these tiny particulate amounts we're getting hit with now continue to accumulate, so will the long-term risks. But by the time those risk-related problems manifest they will belong to another set of politicians...

Troy says

All it takes is spent fuel rods to start smoking and the wind to blow to the SW. They say Tokyo is too far but that’s bullshit.

According to this Austrian website that may happen by Sunday (GMT?). If the winds continue, the whole of the country could get a nasty dusting afterwards.

http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?seite=1&artikel=ZAMG_2011-03-18GMT09:52

simchaland says

Troy says

LOL, TBS and NHK have stopped streaming on ustream now.

Great. I was mainlining that for a week. Now I’m going to go into info withdrawal.

I should just work on my stuff and ignore this I guess.

That’s not a good sign…

Oh yeah... isn't it Saturday morning in Japan? Prime time for getting repairs done. I thought they were reconnecting the power today...

simchaland says

Do I think we can do anything to “get out of the way” if the stuff that actually makes it here is horribly harmful to us? No. I don’t. I’d at least like to know the truth so that I’d know how to take care of myself as best as I can under the circumstances. I don’t think that the people of Japan are getting enough truthful information to take care of themselves and I highly doubt that if this ends up being serious for us that we will get enough information to actually take care of ourselves well.

Agreed. Although being east of the Rockies might help psychologically.

terriDeaner says

I thought they were reconnecting the power today…

What they're reconnecting power TO remains to be determined.

Power is good in that you can deploy replacement stuff, but I was watching on Japanese TV some author guy who wrote anti-nuke books in the 80s go on about how everything's completely fucked in the plants now --eg. they've been evaporating sea water in them for a week now, every unit has had a hydrogen explosion, not to mention they admit all three active reactors have had core damage due to losing coolant due to inability to circulate new coolant.

Here's the guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37sStCJjH14#t=1m50s

"you can't just throw water on it, you've got to circulate water through it"

"those college guys on TV don't know anything, only the engineers do"

I really hope this guy is a paid shill for the oil industry and not telling the truth . . .

simchaland says

That’s not a good sign…

Actually I guess it's because TBS and NHK-G went back to their regular programming.

Live NHK-G programming will be streamed 6PM - 8PM, 8:45PM - 11PM JST

I was really getting into TBS' News Bird, I thought it was a dedicated internet channel, but guess not.

HOTT

Troy says

I was really getting into TBS’ News Bird, I thought it was a dedicated internet channel, but guess not.

Helps to have something to take your mind off this mess!

Chief Cabinet Secretary now announcing spinach and milk from Fukushima and Ibaraki failing radiation limits.

Tries to spin it that if you eat it for your life you only get one cat scan worth of radiation.

Problem with this is gamma radiation obeys the inverse square law so a cesium 137 atom attached to a potassium receptor in your body that turns itself into Barium and then pops off a gamma ray is zillions times stronger than a cat scan.

When asked about WSJ report about slow response to crisis, he said yes it can be said there have been mistakes, but now we've got to focus 100% on now. I agree with that, even though BP should have been educational maybe.

Press conference with the Tokyo Hyper Rescue team leader that got the pump truck and ladder truck connected and throwing tons of water into Unit 3.

They had difficulty finding a good spot to put the pump truck near the ocean with all the tsunami damage. They had to run 800m of hose back to the ladder truck. It took 40 people with like 3 vehicles to get it all set up.

The leader broke down when asked about the most difficult part -- he thought about it and said 'taiin' -- 'my men'. Everyone on twitter is just really moved by that.

Team members had a limit of 30 mSv of radiation in this operation, and one member hit 27 mSv.

Anyway, they're going to run the trucks unmanned for 7+ hours to get 2000 tons of water into the pool.

This pool has 3328 new MOX fuel rods -- 6% plutonium -- that the authorities do not want to get any hotter than they are now.

If this is where the corner is turned this is going to make a great disaster movie.

@Troy

You know a lot about nuclear physics...
I majored in at for a time at university, so I understand what you are talking about anyway. I thought it was one of the toughest majors there. The gamma radiation is strong and penetrates more than alpha and beta particles can- even externally.

I may be able to find some NHK stuff for you.

The president of TEPCO hasn't been seen for a long time. Probably some worthless 天くだり "amakudari" guy.

I wonder if lots of the soy milk comes from Ibaraki too. I've been getting that.

If anyone interested here is website that is not government operated that displayes radiation levels: http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html
If anyone know of other independent sources please share.

Troy says

Chief Cabinet Secretary now announcing spinach and milk from Fukushima and Ibaraki failing radiation limits.

Tries to spin it that if you eat it for your life you only get one cat scan worth of radiation.

I still can't believe that the govn't agencies are so cavalier about this. It's like they don't understand the difference between a THEORETICAL acute dose of radiation while the food passes through a person, and the ACTUAL case where ingested radioactive isotopes are absorbed, processed and accumulated by the body, leading to increased risk of cancer later in life. Or they simply want to ignore the inconvenient latter case.

From bbc asia-pacific:

1211: The UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA says Japan has ordered a halt to all sales of food products from Fukushima prefecture, Reuters reports. It comes after the chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said radiation levels in milk and spinach from the region of Fukushima nuclear plant exceeded safety standards - though the radiation levels recorded still pose no serious risk to human health.

So why the fuck have the safety standards and a food sale stoppage in the first place if they "pose no serious risk to human health"? It seems like the Japanese government is talking out of both sides of its mouth at the same time. They could be MUCH more explicit about what type of contamination has occurred, at least...

and:

1646: Officials are keen to put the amount of radiation present in tap water in perspective. Drinking one litre of watre with iodine at Thursday's levels [when levels were highest] is the equivalent of receiving 1/88th of the radiation from a chest x-ray, Kazuma Yokota, a spokesman for the Fukushima prefecture disaster response is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

1300: More on that IAEA statement confirming the presence of radioactive iodine in food products from Fukushima prefecture. The statement says: "There is a short-term risk to human health if radioactive iodine in food is absorbed into the human body... Children and young people are particularly at risk of thyroid damage." But the IAEA stresses that radioactive iodine decays naturally within a matter of weeks, and the Japanese authorities have taken steps to counter any risks. You can find more here.

What fucking spin is this??? Iodine is preferentially absorbed and concentrated in the thyroid even when present in low amounts in food and water. This is why iodine can be supplemented in very small amounts in salt, but provide a useful source for normal metabolism. And what about the milk cows that have been drinking this water all week?

Part of the reason that I-131 is dangerous in the short term is because it has such a short half-life... once it is concentrated in the thyroid, it cooks it with intense beta and gamma radiation from rapid radioactive decay. And why is there no mention of the LONG-TERM elevated risk of thyroid cancer??? This is a serious concern for exposed children!

American in Japan says

I wonder if lots of the soy milk comes from Ibaraki too. I’ve been getting that.

Soy milk *may* be safer since it is coming from a lower level of the food chain, and since the beans have grown to maturity mostly in the absence of radioactivity. I guess it depends on how well the contamination has been cleaned off the crops and the processing machinery.

simchaland,

Yup, I guess you have to take what media says or government says
with a grain of salt. I see media as the boy in the "boy who cried wolf."
I am one of those who is tired of their sensationalism and their tendency
to stir mass hysteria. But you know it sells.

Sure, less and infrequent information can strike fear. But I am not sure
if we would even get new news every hour in the situation like this.
I would be skeptical if there is a new development every hour or so. On the
note, the radiation level went down at the plant.

I hope that would be the end of this. For your info. when you fly from Los Angeles
to Tokyo, you will be exposed to 5.5mrem (55uSv), so whatever we get from Japan
which is 5000 miles away will have no impact at all.

You can always buy a Geiger counter, if you are so concerned. By the way,
the radiation you get from Japan is so minute, a Geiger counter won't even detect
it. You need to sample the air for the sign of radioisotope like, Xe or He. I doubt
iodine or cesium radioisotope will actually get to US or even Hawaii.
Especially now the reactors seem to be under control.

Nobody says

On the note, the radiation level went down at the plant.

Minimally, and what TEPCO's measuring and releasing reports on is not the important thing.

For a while they were just releasing the dosage at the west gate, with the wind BLOWING FROM THE WEST.

Now at least they're doing a somewhat better job of releasing data, but the data they are releasing is still hand-picked.

Nobody AFAIK asked what the dosage is on the road in front of the reactors. TEPCO latest report focuses on the main office building location:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/monitoring/11032006.pdf

and gives 2.6mSv/hr but this is very far from Unit 4.

when you fly from Los Angeles
to Tokyo, you will be exposed to 5.5mrem (55uSv), so whatever we get from Japan
which is 5000 miles away will have no impact at all.

Goddamit this is the bullshit that they're telling you and I for one am not buying it. This is how they've hand-waved the nuclear test era such that we don't hunt down and kill the perpetrators who poisoned the shit out of this planet, and now who today defend the 60s and 70s nukes as a minimal risk that cannot ever ever create something as bad as Chernobyl.

Ingesting radioactive Cesium is totally different from the increased dosage up in the air!

Especially now the reactors seem to be under control.

Wikipedia has a good summary now I think:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents#Reactor_status_summary

5 & 6 apparently were never in great danger as they were off and didn't have the energy to overwhelm the cooling system (plus they were able to get one diesel generator working, powering the low-pressure pumps).

1 & 2 have suffered explosions and whatnot but the seawater injection has maintained some degree of control.

3 has had a bad time, with a real doozy of a hydrogen explosion. Complicating matters is the 52 new assemblies of MOX in the spent fuel pool. Each assembly has 18kg of Plutonium, probably a critical mass.

I think this is why the PTB focused on getting 3 out of trouble before tackling 4, plus given the rather constrained layout of the plant, to get to 4 you have to go by 3, and one does not casually saunter by a a building with 100 tonnes of reactor grade uranium and plutonium open to the sky ~80' above street-level.

Building 4 is the wildcard now. According to this report, there's 1535 assemblies in the spent fuel pool, including 548 that were pulled out of service late last year (and are still HOT). Total capacity of the pool is 1590, so you can see that they really loaded this reactor unit up with material -- 276 TONNES of uranium and 158 tonnes of Zircaloy, which auto-catalyzes when heated past 900 deg when oxygen is present.

Perhaps the Zircaloy is burned off already, or not, the Nuclear Safety spokesperson has been completely evasive about the state of Unit 4's spent fuel pool in the press conferences I've seen.

At any rate Unit 4 looks like it has gone through a war already, even without any reported explosions.

Wikipedia says Unit 4's spent pool is outputting heat at a 2 MW rate, the output of a ~3000HP diesel generator.

I don't know what's left to burn in the spent fuel pool, and what's going to happen to all that fuel, but it's not quite time yet to be saying things are "under control".

"I don’t know what’s left to burn in the spent fuel pool, and what’s going to happen to all that fuel, but it’s not quite time yet to be saying things are “under control”."

Translated to: " I have no idea what it means, therefore it surely can't be under control!"

Maybe what they're saying is it IS under control, and that is exactly what it should be doing.

But that wouldn't be dooms day enough for you though.

Nomograph says

pkennedy says

But that wouldn’t be dooms day enough for you though.

I think Troy used to live in Japan so perhaps he has more of a vested interest.
Terrideaner is just spreading histrionic paranoia.
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery — Jane Austen

Did your shrink recommend that you handle information that threatens you this way?

And does the unpredictable, unknowable nature of the real world frighten you so much that you have to try so hard to disparage the topic of this thread?

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - Emerson

According to Wunderground.com, gusts of wind are blowing from the SE to the NW. (Away from Tokyo, but keeping it in Fukushima or Miyagi Prefectures now.)

My wife said the president of TEPCO was crying and apologizing on NHK yesterday. Did you see it, Troy? You are watching NHK even more than I am. (too busy checking multiple sources).

I read about that. And now they are reporting that radiation and fission isotopes have been found in milk and spinach from Fukushima Prefecture. Soon the horrible truth will be impossible to hide. He'll cry even more and maybe fall on his sword.

They've finally admitted that enough has been released that citizens near the plant will die.

pkennedy says

Translated to: ” I have no idea what it means, therefore it surely can’t be under control!”

I've been following this situation in the Japanese for hours every day. I understand it more than anyone (other than experts), and the experts differ about what's going to happen with Unit 4, eg "arclight" has said Kaku is wrong about being able to entomb the reactors immediately.

LA Times quotes chairman of NRC saying Unit 4 pool is empty, says there may be a breach, and quotes anti-nuke guy with UCS as there may be no solution.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/18/world/la-fg-japan-quake-wrapup-20110318

Pro-nuke guys are still saying there's no problem, there has not been a problem, death toll so far is microscopic compared to the tsunami up north, and coal pollutes more so don't worry we have this under control.

Here's a pic of Unit 4. The storage pool is in the upper left of what remains of this building. I can see why the chairman of the NRC said his information is that the storage pool is empty.

Here's what the Chief Cabinet Secretary last said about 3 and 4:

"There is immediate threat of radioactive nuclides release from the spent fuel pools of Unit 3 and 4, because of incapability of cooling these pools"

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300590001P.pdf

Complicating matters is that NHK is now reporting on the news that Unit 3's reactor vessel pressure is rising. They may need to vent that, and if they do they'll be venting who-knows-what since unit 3 has been running with the core only partially immersed for days.

Apparently the working environment now in front of units 3 and 4 is not as bad as Chernobyl. That was my main fear going into this week, that we would lose the ability to intervene (unless we got some robots in there).

What I don't know is what's going to happen with Unit 4. The experts differ about what will happen to the 276 tonnes of spent fuel as it continues to heat up. TEPCO has said recriticality is not off the table.

The storage pools in Fukushima had been re-racked:

Measures for increasing Storage Capacity

- Increase in the capacity of spent fuel pools by re-racking

http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/6-1_powerpoint.pdf

I don't know what's left to burn in Unit 4. Maybe the tonnes of fuel with its 2MW output will find a happy place and just cool down without venting or breaching the pool.

Whatever, the situation in Unit 4 and perhaps Unit 3 is not "under control" at the moment.

#3 and #4 both remain nasty question marks. And, as Troy pointed out earlier, the corroded pumps washed with seawater may or may not work when power is restored. I sincerely hope they will, but I have some doubts... but all is well, right???

From bbc asia-pacific:

2240: American investigative journalist and Japanese crime expert Jake Adelstein writes in his blog that: "the Japanese police are quietly beginning an investigation into TEPCO, the managing entity of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury." He says the investigation is still in its early stages and that nothing is official yet.

terriDeaner says

the corroded pumps washed with seawater may or may not work when power is restored

The pumps may not EXIST now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_N-wNFSGyQ

Just saw this on twitter feed on the NHK steam:

圧力さげないと「ただちに」言えなくなる

Here's your Japanese lesson for today:

圧 -- 'atsu' -- 'pressure'. This is the same root in 'shiatsu' -- 'finger pressure'
力 -- 'ryoku' -- 'strength'
さげ -- verb stem of the transitive verb 'to lower'
ない -- negatory verb ending conjugation
と -- grammatical particle meaning 'upon/unless'
「 ただちに」 -- "for now"
言え -- verb stem of the potential form of 'say'
なく -- connective conjugation of negatory verb ending
なる -- 'become'

"unless the pressure is lowered 'for now' won't be able to be said" [when referring to radiation not being harmful]

The joke is if they don't bleed the primary containment, 50 tons of plutonium is going to be violently ejected all over the site via steam explosion.