icarus: Snape by mysterious artist (Default)
TEPCO will not have a solution to the Fukushima disaster for another ten years, according to their scientists who spoke with Senator Wyden in his recent visit.

Ten years?

So how is TEPCO handling the hot reactors in the meantime?

Remember those news reports last year, where TEPCO workers had no solution but braved radiation so they could pour water onto the exposed fuel rods? No one knew what they'd do with the radioactive water afterward, of course, but they didn't know what else to do.

That's what they're doing. Still. For the last thirteen months. They're pouring water onto the spent fuel rods, it's boiling away into radioactive steam, and, in a brilliant solution, TEPCO just dumps the radioactive water into the ocean.

The reactors, like active volcanoes, meanwhile are spitting out hot particles of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. Those particles are getting caught up in car air filters from Japan all the way to the greater Seattle area. Sea kelp as far away as the west coast of the US has been contaminated with large amounts of radioactive iodine.

TEPCO plans to continue for the next ten years.

There is a solution, one that nuclear scientists recommended at the start. The Chernobyl solution. It will cost TEPCO four reactors, but those reactors are already gone.

Petition: Tell TEPCO we can't wait ten years: Take the Chernobyl Solution.
icarus: Snape by mysterious artist (Default)
The situation at Fukushima is really bad. Really, really bad. After thirteen months the reactors still aren't under control.

TEPCO's finally admitted that there were three separate meltdowns at Fukushima.

Remember all that "Well, this isn't Chernobyl" that we heard a year ago? Turns out, yes, it was. Yes, it is (and they knew it all along), it's been three Chernobyls, and it's been continuous for thirteen months.

TEPCO's just been pouring water over the fuel rods, letting that leak into the groundwater and steam off into the jetstream, and then pouring more water over it. Senator Wyden visited the site, found it much worse than the press reports, and learned TEPCO doesn't plan to move the spent fuel rods for another ten years. Which just shows that TEPCO has its collective head in the sand ... or somewhere darker and smellier.

The US west coast is affected, even my beautiful Seattle. Boulder, Colorado is affected. Hell, the pollen in California is radioactive right now. The sea kelp according to Scientific American has 40,000,000 bcq/kg of radioactive iodine.

I'd like to scream massive cover-up, but it seems more a case of the situation being so bad, so out of control, no one knows what to do. And no one in Japan wants to show the world the giant Homer Simpson sized hole in the image of "nuclear experts" (is there a Japanese Homer Simpson?).

What to do? First, get informed.

Second, I got ice cream, but that's my coping mechanism.

Third, the Hopi Indians say plant gardens, which is probably more practical than my ice cream plan.

Fourth, mobilize. Start Change.org petitions. Push for TEPCO to get help and cooperate with the international community. If TEPCO's planning to deal with this in ten years, they're not planning to deal with it: they're hoping to pass it on to future management. In the nuclear community early on recommended early on that we use a Chernobyl solution at the Fukushima reactors.

Fifth, protest the restart of the Oi Reactor. The Kansai Denryoku is arguing is needed to cover a predicted lack of electricity in western Japan. A lot of us here believe it's not necessary and would be willing to conserve our asses off if it means not having another potential Fukushima, 100 miles from Osaka-Kobe, 80 miles from Kyoto, and 35 miles from Lake Biwa.

Lastly, pray. For my Buddhist-inclined flisters, Green Tara prayers are recommended for natural disasters.


Buddhist Lama Yangthang Rinpoche recommends that we do 100,000 of the 21 Homage prayer to Tara. The benefits of reciting the praise are explained here.

I've got my ice cream, my links, my garden (well, it's just strawberries now), the prayer--now all I need are the petitions.
icarus: Snape by mysterious artist (Default)
Any of you translate Japanese?

SimplyInfo.org is tracking the ongoing Fukushima mess? disaster? mix of understated scientific facts and corporate obfuscation? They recently spotted an article by a scientist in a Japanese Playboy magazine (apparently sex rags are more willing to publish), who has data demonstrating that the reactors may have reached recriticality again in July and once more in August.

SimplyInfo, in their quiet, determined, detached way, has released photos of reactor underpinnings repaired with duct tape, plastic sheeting, and bailing wire before the accident last March. (The inescapable conclusion: Homer Simpson works at Fukushima.)

They could use more Japanese-to-English translators. You can do as much or as little as you like.

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icarus: Snape by mysterious artist (Default)
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