Talk:Fukushima nuclear accident

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

Fission underway in Unit 2

In the day-by-day events we write (sourced) that there is proof that fission is underway. This must be because of the high (retracted?) levels iodine-134 (half life 50 minutes,not -131 we are talking about normally). We also know that within the reactor activity is about 30 Sv/h (see here, much higher than the 1 mSv/h. My question: does the news of 1 Sv/h indicate i) fission is underway within the cooling water, or ii) fission is underway in the reactor. I read "ii" in our text, but find it a bit of a weird conclusion as I would expect we'd know based on the 30 Sv/h whether fission is taking place or not within the reactor (and we know for a week now) and that the 1 Sv/h gives not much info on fission-status of the reactor... L.tak (talk) 19:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The high iodine-134 measurement has been retracted. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/27_24.html 199.106.103.249 (talk) 20:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Of course we know, and yes it has been obvious for some time now. But today was the first official confirmation (NISA), so whereas in the past it has been necessary to use qualifiers, we can now state it directly. HopelessGleek (talk) 22:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, you might be right... If we have reliable sources discussing this, I think we can make a point of this... L.tak (talk) 02:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

At what point do we stop considering TEPCO a reliable source? The fact that they accidentally reported iodine-134 readings when they now supposedly haven't even tested for it is yet another example of criminal fraud or profound incompetence. I know that we're not supposed to bring personal biases into our edits, but I think it can be stated pretty objectively that TEPCO is full of crap. A nuclear power company doesn't "accidentally" announce measurements for a specific radioisotope that implicitly confirms the presence of a fission reaction. That's something even TEPCO would double check. They've obviously decided to change their story (for whatever unfathomable reason) after the fact. As NHK reports, "The company said on Sunday evening that the data for iodine-134 announced earlier in the day was actually for another substance that has a longer half-life." To quote Sigourney Weaver, "They're pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain." They don't even bother to identify the other substance they were supposedly looking for. And on the off chance that another iodine-134 report was a genuine mixup, is it any less damaging to their credibility? We have been continually hampered from stating obvious facts apparent to anyone with even a high school level understanding of physics and nuclear energy. TEPCO has either withheld information or changed its story time and again. Should they not be held to the same standards of credibility required of any other source on Wikipedia? Obviously we cannot ignore them, but at what point can we call BS when they're obviously lying? ..END OF TIRADE. HopelessGleek (talk) 23:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The answer is simple (though not satifying maybe): when reuters, cnn, washington post, bbc etc are; it is not up to us! Until then, we have the (frustrating?) task to wait and assume the same level of faith they do. I must say that except for the fission story (which I simply don't understand, see my specific paragraph), I don't see them much obvious BS in this crisis however (but that may well be naive...)... L.tak (talk) 02:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This is not simply a question of whether they are a reliable source. They are at the centre of this and as the entity most involved, anything they say is relevant whether it is accurate or not. If they report inaccurately, that in itself is part of the story. So a simple report without comment that they have said something may be how to present it.Sandpiper (talk) 08:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I would have to agree that the facts are not being reliably reported. Obviously they (TEPCO and various governments) are trying to avoid a massive panic and the costs and problems that it would involve. For example: everyone trying to leave Tokyo at once would be really bad for the economy they are trying to stabilize through showing that everything is fine. There are competing interests at play here: economic, disaster recovery, nuclear, global financial markets etc... It does not help these other fronts if the true magnitude of the nuclear situation was revealed. We know there was a fission reaction-its a nuclear power plant, thats how it works. The important part would be what is the link between this specific isotope and something dangerous, which is presumably to do with how I134 is created, but I do not see an explanation of this.

I've been following the Fukushima I nuclear disaster pretty closely, and if one reads enough reports you become able to read between the lines and discover what is actually going on. The truth is hidden in the details but most don't have time to discover it. This is perhaps the most complicated disaster ever, with multiple fronts and global interests at play. Since TEPCO, not the Japanese government, is calling the shots here we must recognize that their vested interest is to make things look as good as possible to the public. I suspect what is actually happening on the ground is much worse than reported. TEPCO or Japan does not benefit from releasing the true nature of the situation and only benefit from keeping it vague. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatmonk (talk • contribs) 02:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget to reconsider your stance after it's all over. TEPCO has already been more accurate than the NRC. --85.78.197.19 (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I have yet to find something explaining the significance of I134, which is the point here, surely. The wiki article says virtually nothing about it. The news article says it was found. wow. and the significance is? Sandpiper (talk) 08:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sandpiper. The term "monoisotopic" means that only one form (I-127) of nucleid-composition is found within this element in natural surroundings. The finding of I-134 implies either the leakage of fuel or the massive irradiation of seawater (don`t know which, sorry). Also iodine is a micronutritient and therefore its radioactive isotopes are regarded as very dangerous when entering the body/food-chain. Regarding the mentioning of fission, i do not fully understand the question. Radioactive emission is a product of fission/fusion, therefore it is save to say that there is fission in progress within the core and unfortunately outside of its supposed containment. People may ask whether the emission comes from indirectly irradiated seawater which gives of small amounts of aquired radiation rapidly and "becomes clean" again somehow or whether the actual highly radioactive, long lasting substances in the cores have found their way out. This is just how i understand it of course. For a quotable form one would need a library and search for environmental analytics or such. Keep up the good work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.7.215.105 (talk) 12:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but your post is wrong on such a basic level that I have to correct it. I'm going to assume you actually meant [ionizing] radiation by "radioactive emanation", but either way, it's wrong. Radioactive decay and fission are NOT the same thing. The presence of large amounts of I-134 (which, as has already been pointed out, was never actually detected), would indeed have meant continuing fission, due to two things: 1) I-134 has a very short half-life - meaning that it has to be continually produced to be present in any major amount - and 2) it's not a daughter nuclide in any decay chain - meaning that it has to be produced through some other means than plain radioactive decay: i.e. fission and neutron irradiation. -- Kolbasz (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Kolbasz for your valueable correction. Let me try to save some dignity here: My physics professor (don`t start laughing now, i am a marine biologist, not an physics authority) got fired for claiming the find of radioactive isotopes near a nuclear power plant, so what national news agencies claim doesn`t mean much to me. But i do not care to propagate the (for me) obvious. So lets just rewrite the points i seem to have messed up: 1. Detectable radiation is a product of fission/fusion/radioactive decay... 2. I-134 is a known product of fission of heavy, fissible materials 3. induced fission is taking place in the core, spontaneous fission would be possible outside the core if particulate fuel would leak 4. Taking point 2 into regard, there is no need for my speculative "irradiated seawater hypothesis" (sorry :) If you would care to edit the page "Isotopes of iodine" in regard of I-134 i am sure it would help. Thanks again

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.7.215.105 (talk) 08:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC) 

As an industry expert, I say with extreme confidence that there is no significant fission (i.e. criticality) underway at any of the Fukushima units. There would be the expected very low-level residual/natural decay which would release neutrons (this would be the same level that would be there under normal shutdown conditions--i.e. source range neutron counts). I don't need or care about TEPCO press releases, or news articles to know this. A brief list of reasons:

1. The reactor trips were successful. This means that the control rods were fully inserted 3 seconds after the operators hit the manual reactor trip button. The control rods add so much negative reactivity, that even if the reactor coolant was pure water it wouldn't go critical.
2. Once the fuel rods began to melt, the control rods would melt along with them. They would bow, deform, and eventually form a solid mass (if left uncovered long enough). The control rod materials would be embedded within the damaged fuel. If you want a great analog of what the final state of the damaged reactor internals will be see: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tmi/video/
3. The water being used to fill the reactor coolant system is saturated with boric acid. This adds even more negative reactivity. If there ever was at a time when they were using just straight seawater (which is possible for the early days of the accident), they have surely since saturated the water with boron. If not, they would be scrambling to do so, and it would be all over the news.
4. If the fuel has melted into a solid mass, there is no water within it to moderate the reaction. By design, it is impossible to have criticality in an LWR without the moderator. As for water surrounding the solid mass--any neutrons would be traveling outwards, so it would not serve to moderate the reaction (once the neutron leaves the boundary of the outermost fuel assembly, it is "lost").
5. Fission would produce neutron flux which would be detectable by the Nuclear Instrumentation System (NIS). The NIS is Qualified to the IEEE 1E radiation harsh environment standard (I don't know the number off the top of my head). That's the highest pedigree of plant I&C equipment. Without getting into the details of I&C Equipment Qualification, that instrumentation has been TESTED and VERIFIED to be able to withstand the harshest post-accident conditions (which is what they are in now), and a "design basis earthquake" immediately under the equipment (I read somewhere that the design basis was 6.7 for this plant. I'd be interested to hear a geologist's take as to what the magnitude of shaking would be immediately under the plant for this earthquake.). As long as electrical power has been restored to the safety I&C system (which is the first thing they would do), the NIS is up and running. Guaranteed. If they were getting neutron flux readings outside of the normal source range, it would be THE news story, and they would be scrambling to stop it. There is no way they could keep quiet about this. The plant workers would be scared shitless and leak the information.
6. The way they determine which isotopes are causing contamination and at what concentration is a lot less scientific than you would expect. Basically, they're making educated guesses based on counts per second for the most part. You'd have to put samples into a mass spectrometer to get a better idea. I'm sure they have one in the rad chem lab at each unit, but they're specially set up in enclosures to protect the chem engineers. You probably wouldn't be able to get a sample of water from "outside" into the spectrometer. Also, the water we're talking about is so highly contaminated that you would literally have to handle the sample with a 50 ft. pole. I don't expect they have done detailed mass spec. analysis on more than a handful of samples.

That's my expert analysis of the situation. I'm not interested enough to dig up freely available public sources to support this (for some of it they may be hard/impossible to find). You can either take me at my word, or research it for yourself. Lwnf360 (talk) 06:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

"The way they determine which isotopes are causing contamination and at what concentration is a lot less scientific than you would expect. Basically, they're making educated guesses based on counts per second for the most part."

On-site, I would assume they were using gamma spectroscopy to get a basic idea of what they're dealing with. -- Kolbasz (talk) 16:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Lwnf360. Since the existence of spontaneous fission is described, i felt save to say that there has to be fission, taking further into account the high readings in the cores. Regarding the situation at hand, my selfish argumentation seems misplaced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.7.215.105 (talk) 13:43, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Change article's name to Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Given the information that this disaster is far worse than Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster) and according to various internet sources: http://rt.com/news/japan-alert-maximum-plutonium/, http://rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-tsunami-earthquake/, http://www.innovationsinnewspapers.com/index.php/2011/03/12/first-pictures-from-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/, http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/nuclear/Fukushima-nuclear-disaster/. In chernobyl one reactor had a meltdown and radiation leak and it did not include plutonium as fuel. Regarding the events in fukushima I, four reactors are confirmed leaking nuclear waste and one of them contains plutonium as fuel, which has a half-life of 24100 years. I think this is a clear reason to rename the article as Fukushima Nuclear Disaster or Fukushima Disaster. Barbarbaron (talk) 14:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the name change. However, Chernobyl is still far worse than this.--RaptorHunter (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember one TV newsmagazine years later. No one was in Chernobyl. The visitors had a Geiger counter which was chattering away. Hopefully that won't be true in Japan.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with the name change and concur that Chernobyl (at the current moment) is a far worse event. Barbarbaron, you should read a little more about the Chernobyl disaster, the acute deaths and long-term deaths, to get a better perspsective. And other than the non-neutral Greenpeace source, do any of your references say Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl? MartinezMD (talk) 18:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

"do any of your references say Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl?" This source does: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1120218/1/.html Barbarbaron (talk) 10:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Appreciate the follow up, but the expert giving the opinion is somewhat biased ("a leading anti-nuclear activist") and speculative: "likely", "could be even higher" etc.MartinezMD (talk) 12:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with MartinezMD. If Fukushima is really as bad as Chernobyl, we should be able to find a source that is non-biased and backs up the claim with sensible numbers: compare the amount of material released, at the very least. Whether the half-life of the isotope is 30 or 24000 years is irrelevant. The number of reactors is irrelevant. The amount of radiation exposure to humans is the important thing. Spiel496 (talk) 16:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move JohnCD (talk) 09:16, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Following the same pattern as Chernobyl disaster, I suggest Fukushima nuclear disaster

Keep as Fukushima I nuclear accidents, this hasn't reached the point of Chernobyl. V7-sport (talk) 19:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Just because it's not quite at chernobyl yet, doesn't mean it's not a disaster. They have detected 3.7 million bequerels of cesium-137 per square meter over 40KM away from the plant (the standard at chernobyl for evacuation was 1.48 million becquerels). This means that the land will be uninhabitable for at least a century. [1] --RaptorHunter (talk) 20:06, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Move The land will be uninhabitable for over a century. Nuclear plants costing billions have been destroyed. They will cost billions more just to clean up. 25% of Japan's power generation has been knocked out which means the rolling blackouts will continue for over a year. Crops from several prefectures have been banned from sale and will end up being destroyed. That's a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 20:13, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree, one reactor meltdown in chernobyl costed around 300 bln dollars to fix (humanitarian, ecological and the cost of sarcophagus). The total impact of this disaster to the japanese economy and environment will be much bigger: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1120218/1/.html Barbarbaron (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Baloney. 172.163.104.223 (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)BG

Thank you for your insightful opinion. --RaptorHunter (talk) 17:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep: by changing the article name now, we will once again lose all the statistics of the accesses to this page. But I agree, it is a true nuclear disaster. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) now proposes a level 7 on the INES scale for the whole Fukushima site. I suggest to still wait a little bit to change the page name. Shinkolobwe (talk) 20:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep: Much of the long term damage from Chernobyl was preventable. One can find interviews of cleanup workers who were outright lied to concerning their radiation exposure and the dangers thereof. That will not happen in Japan, which is being continually monitored by the entire world. Furthermore, the majority of radioactive cesium was released in the first hours of the accident, and went out to sea. The hot spots outside the evacuation zone are long term problems, but can be cleaned using proven techniques. It is inconceivable that Japan would allow people to continue living there for years without taking action, as happened int he Soviet Union. Furthermore, the majority of the cleanup costs associated with Chernobyl were due to the construction of the sarcophagus, which will not be needed in this case since their containment systems are largely intact (though probably damaged and leaking). In Chernobyl they had to use remote controlled bulldozers and helicopters to approach the building. In Fukushima the workers are able to walk around the site freely, though only for short periods of time. This really cannot be called a disaster until either more people have died/been injured, or until reputable organizations predict severe large long term effects. Neither has happened yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.124.227.67 (talk) 22:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose did you forget about the tsunami and earthquake that hit Fukushima that started the nuclear mess??? That's also a disaster, and different from the nuclear disaster. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 22:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Note when I lodged this opinion, the target requested was "Fukushima disaster". 65.93.12.101 (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
• Comment since the press is referring to it as Fukushima Daiichi, why would you call it just "Fukushima"? 65.93.12.101 (talk) 22:41, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Note when I lodged this comment, the target requested was "Fukushima disaster". 65.93.12.101 (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
• Keep as Fukushima I nuclear accidents. So far, it's still an accident, not a disaster. This reminds me however, that the article may need to soon include a section on how anti-nuclear activist organizations like Greenpeace are trying to mine this accident to further their anti-nuclear power campaign. Cla68 (talk) 22:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I can see this vote won't pass, but in a few months after even more radiation has leaked out and a few hundred square kilometers of japan are declared a permanent exclusion zone and the town of Iitate becomes a ghost town like pripyat. Then this "accident" will finally be called a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly Support: My four main reasons to call this a disaster: 1) The 1331 highly radioactive spent fuel rods in reactor No.4 are fully exposed to air as the pool water that they were kept in has boiled and non-existent at the moment. The fuel rods are not kept in a steel containment vessel as in other reactors (they should be) and there's virtually no way to keep these rods cool now, a meltdown of these fuel rods cannot be prevented from now on and possibly has started. There have been various explosions and fires in the reactor No. 4 and the only containment vessel that can prevent a radiation leak (the concrete wall) has been breached. 2) It is known that one or more of the other reactors that have containment vessels are either known or suspected to have cracks that leak high doses of radiation to the atmosphere and the environment. One of the blown off reactors (reactor No.3) contains plutonium fuel and the containment vessel has been breached. 3) Considering the above information, economic and environment impact of this disaster will be far worse than chernobyl or any other nuclear disaster. The economic outcome is considered to be catastrophic to japanese people and economic crisis kills people too as radioactive contamination does. It is clear now that a wide area around the plant will be uninhabitable for a very long time considering the plutonium leak from reactor No. 3 4) Comparing the fukushima disaster to Chernobyl disaster in terms of governments' reaction to the events is misleading, the two events can't be compared according to this only according to the scale of the damage (both economy and environment) and fukushima disaster is clearly the biggest nuclear catastrophe in human history. One known fact is that whatever the situation is, these kind of problems in a nuclear power plant should not happen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWlDtqTU-tE&feature=fvst Barbarbaron (talk) 23:31, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Barbarbaron, you state "It is clear now that a wide area around the plant will be uninhabitable for a very long time". Presently, there is nothing in the article to back up this remark. If you have new information from a reliable source, you should add it to the article, or discuss it in a separate section on the talk page. This move-request is not a forum for your views on the situation. Spiel496 (talk) 05:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose at this time Why not wait a month or two? If it turns out to be the disaster that some of the above predict then go ahead and rename it. Disaster normally implies large loss of life (as in Titanic). Hasn't happened here yet. But it is a big big accident(s) and a frightful mess. These were old reactors near the end of their useful life, but the very high cleanup costs will nullify that. To put it in perspective, the economic damage related to the nuclear facilities is a small fraction of the other economic damage caused by the tsunami, and trivial compared to the US savings and loan bailout "disaster" a few years ago. Wait and see what has to be evacuated and abandoned. 172.129.52.161 (talk) 02:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC) BG
• Oppose at this time Why not wait a month or two. The earthquake and tsunami would qualify. The dimensions of the event will be getting clearer. Maybe the discussion should be what are the criteria for calling something a "disaster", as we will be revisiting this shortly.We have one death so far, the suicide of the spinach farmer.( Martin | talk • contribs 19:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC))

"Kyshtym Disaster" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster) didn't have huge economic and human health consequences, but its not called an accident. Only because a large area is still uninhabitable after the event. In fukushima we clearly have orders of magnitude more damage than this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWlDtqTU-tE&feature=fvst Barbarbaron (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

More baloney. At Fukushima we clearly have orders of magnitude less radioactive material released than Kyshtym. 172.163.104.223 (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Its only a matter of time before Fukushima Nuclear Disaster becomes the biggest nuclear catasthrope known to our beloved free world. A very large part of japan will be uninhabitable. Ghost towns and cities will emerge like mushrooms. Then we can make documentaries about the disaster and put some old teddybears on long abandoned beds, some rusty metal amusement park scenes, a sad music on the background and say "you see... everything began when TEPCO energy company and the japanese government didn't close a nuclear plant in its scheduled date". Barbarbaron (talk) 10:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• Comment this requested move appears invalid, the suggested target title changed between the initial request and currently, without notice. See this DIFF that shows that RaptorHunter (talk · contribs) changed the target from Fukushima disaster to Fukushima nuclear disaster without anything indicating such a change occurred. 65.93.12.101 (talk)

This is an open discussion not a binding vote. I read your comment above and agreed with you that Fukushima nuclear disaster made more sense than Fukushima disaster. Therefore, I modified my proposal.--RaptorHunter (talk) 05:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Since there's a tsunami and earthquake disaster in the area too and since corpses lay on the radioactive ground that couldn't be taken from the evacuation zone, I too insist on the name "Fukushima Nuclear Disaster". Barbarbaron (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Without indicating a change, one who previously commented may not notice that the request has changed. Further, the person who closes this will not necessarily understand the meaning of the comments present (such as mine). when they do not match the state of the request. It should be indicated when a request is changed so that previous opinions may be revised to the current state of the request, if necessary. Without making a statement saying the request has changed, it can make the course of opinions seem inchoate, thus making the closer ignore substanced and nuanced opinions as they no longer match the facts of the request. Whereas the people who lodged those opinions may wish to adjust their position to match the current state of affairs. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 12:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose move. It doesnt really matter what it is called for now and we can decided after its under control one way or another what it really is. For the present we have already had several page moves as people argued over what to call it and this should cease. See past discussions. This is not yet a national disaster. I dont know if it is one for tepco, but if they are insured maybe not even for them. I think we are still on a deaths score of Tsunami 25,000 reactor nil. Sandpiper (talk) 06:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

• Weakly Oppose. Both sides make good arguments. I'd say it is presently a disaster, and from everything I've seen and read (the opinions of scientists that I tend to trust) I fully expect it to get only worse. Perhaps just an emotional reaction on my part, but "accident" seems more of an on-going word, which it is, and "disaster" seems more final. Gandydancer (talk) 12:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose While the situation is still not under control, there has yet been no massive radioactive damage to the general population. That still could happen, but for the time being the real disaster is the tsunami and earthquake. ^walk victor falk ^talk 14:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose at this time. --Tenmei (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose at this time. The current title on Japanese Wikipedia is "Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident". —UncleDouggie (talk) 09:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Move accidents is an understatement. What is happening is already a nuclear disaster because of the huge amount of radiation leaks and billions of destroyed material. Correjon (talk) 00:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose at this time "Disaster" is a strongly value-laden term. It is not Wikipedia's job to make an assessment, but rather to describe and explain. Frankly, I would lean towards using "accident" for Chernobyl and Bhopal, too, even though those are clearly disasters. That's only a leaning because do see the argument that using a milder term might be interpreted as downplaying the severity, but we should at least wait for society's judgment on this one.Mark Foskey (talk) 17:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The local transmission grid, owned by Tomoku Power

It seems possibly that the grid at Fukushima Dai-ichi has been energized for some time, and possibly went down, if at all, only briefly. Therefore, please be careful not to state without reference that the grid was down, or that the diesel generators were the only potential sources of power, and that the failure of the generators due to the tsunami caused the failure of the pumps which caused the heat to accumulate. The Dai-ini plant, 7 miles away, was taking power from the same grid on March 12th. [2] Thanks. ( Martin | talk • contribs 19:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC))

More - Were there photos of pylons knocked over or wires down? There are 6 circuits into Dai-ichi. The connection to units 1&2 is high on a berm, and the wires are connected, even after the explosions. The grid connection is in the left half of the lower right quadrant. You can also see the the berm, with bushes planted along it. [3] ( Martin | talk • contribs 19:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC))

Not really. We know that outside (grid) power wasn't restored to the site until March 18 after they ran a kilometer of new line and the temporary water pumps for the reactors were only switched to grid power on April 3. The reactor pumps have not been restarted yet at the 4 damaged units. Rmhermen (talk) 23:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

"We know"? Do you have a reference for that? That is the story we think we hear, but I can't find a citation.

1. A kilometer is not enough to get off the plant property. But that's quibbling.
2. There are 6 circuits into and out of Dai-ichi (cant post link to Google maps) . Were all six down? Did towers (pylons) fall down? A fallen tower would be a front page photo.
3. I have looked and I have found nothing, except men working on site - probably behind units 1&2. I will go find the best citation I can. I am not talking about pumps however, only the electricity, the power, and I don't see anything that says the grid was down, especially at the plant boundary. Did you look at the photo referred to above? Link 2? BRB ( Martin | talk • contribs 01:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC))

Here is an article that shows that the plant's connection to the grid was down. ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC))

I think I saw a photo of men working on one of the pylons at the power station and it seemd to have cables strung. I agree 1 km of cable is not much, especially if it is being laid in several parallel pieces. I have seen nothing explaining exactly what happened. Power was connected first to 5&6 via the transmission line behind that block, tepco reported connecting to the line by name. They probably said via its existing transformers. I do not know where the switching equipment would be and how it is operated or whether damaged. Before this, tepco reported working on connecting to the transformers sited behind 2 but this was not completed until after 5&6 got power. Logically this was from the transmission line coming to that unit, which incidentally is lower voltage than that to 5&6. Possibly the laying of cable was to repair the pylon line. Or possibly laying a ground cable from another switch point at a distance. Or possibly they meant cables inside the plant to connect from the transformer station. It appears they did have to do this. Somehow the transformers still functioned but had to have new cables connected taking power to a new distribution point in an office nearby. Perhaps the connection down from the pylon to the transformer was damaged. It is clear electrical distribution equipment inside the plants was trashed. It seems highly probable equipment was in the basement and was flooded and therefore made useless. It might be that the transformers were totally unharmed, but the existing low voltage cables were underwater within the reactor building, so had to be disconnected at the transformer end and new cables run to a new distribution point. I agree it looks in the photo as though the transformers are relatively high up. It might be the case that the plant was not set up to take power from the pylon line behind it, only to transmit power from its main generators. Some connections might be at lower voltage and underground, connecting to the local town supply, etc.

It was stated that diesels started and were running after the earthquake, and I think it was stated that some external power had been lost. This is not clear, because I dont know how many possible external links there are. Even if there are 6 circuits, they may not all be connectable to run the plant. The official line seems to be that the failure of the diesels (they did all fail, but I saw one suggestion this was because fuel tanks were washed away) caused the loss of power. However, it seems probable the company did manage to bring further portable generators to the plant which could not be connected for some reason. Most likely, because the basement where they might be connected was full of water. It seems that only the generators on 5&6 have been repaired, which was completed before grid power was restored and they started running cooling from these first. I do not know where the generators are located, whether they are in separate buildings or again in basements. At a different plant one generator was 'in the open' and washed away, whereas another had recently had protective walls built around it and thus survived. Building work was ongoing to improve the plant.

Connecting power to the plant is spoken of loosely. I also have seen nothing which definitely says the grid failed totally, but it is not unreasonable that it would. This might have been relatively temporary with overload equipment cutting power, which could be switched back on once faults were cleared, which again might simply be to switch out shorted connections. Though getting through acres of flooded wreckage to do this might be tricky. The company is being more forthcoming now about details of what is currently happening, but I havnt seen a retrospective burst of information. I understand Japan has secrecy laws to prevent information release in emergency situations, and I read they were invoked. Generally information has not been of the quality one might have expected. Sandpiper (talk) 07:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The IAEA refers to Units 5 & 6 running on "emergency diesel generator" while 1, 2 and 3 were on "temporary mobile power supply". Even the unexploded or unburned Units 5 and 6 didn't get these emergency generators working until March 17 and 19 and didn't get grid power until March 21 (at which point 240,000 other customers still didn't have power, but down from 5.5 million immediately after the quake). Oshima Island didn't get power back until March 27 after the US Marines used landing craft to bring power company trucks to the island. Rmhermen (talk) 14:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Sandpiper - not all that is relevant to the transmission lines, but thanks. any references?

Rmhermen - Yes some generation was lost. Yes local distribution may have failed. Yes the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was a mess. The question is - what about the Tohoku transmission system? It is being implicated, and I'd like a Reference.( Martin | talk • contribs 17:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC))

read the tepco and nisa press releases one by one. They tend to say things as they happen and then quietly drop the details. Sandpiper (talk) 19:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a lot of reading. I didn't see anything that was conclusive. Maybe you could post what convinced you (that the grid was down, rather than the plant's connection to the grid)? Just the reference, please. ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC))

Here is a citation - Scietific American article, paragraph 3 written on the 12th that flatly says "station blackout" ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC))

This link shows a map of the transmission lines in the fukushima area. There is a substation that is shared with Dai-ni. Dai-ni took power from the grid on the 12th? Why didn't Dai-ichi? There is only one line to Da-ini and it was up. There are 3 lines to Da-ichi. Were all three down on the 12th? I say "let's see a reference". Especially since "we know" that there was a lot of work on site, stinging connections, behind units 3&4. So if the connection from the plant to the grid was washed out, isn't it a remarkable coincidence that the grid would also be down? ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC))

I think this discussion is getting to the reality of the situation. It would be very good to have clarification on exactly when the substation had power and if that power was accessible at the boundary of the plant sites. As a reminder, the site is 3.5 square km, so the laying of a 1 km line is obviously a strictly site action. For an example, here is an image. We all agree that the issues are with the power delivery systems at the site, although it is probably the case that the backup generators were non-functional, but this could be due to flooding of other switching equipment that supports it, or just due to the fact it didn't have fuel. If they flew in other generators it seems that the fuel wouldn't have been the problem, or at least not the only problem. Some generators were damaged, but it remains unclear to me if this mattered, or if just other stuff going wrong with electrical equipment was the real cause. The main root causes of this accident remain elusive to me and I would still like to know a lot more. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Electrical Line Images for Reproduction

I think there are some images out there that could be reproduced for reasonable effort. I'll throw out these two for now. I might come back and look into doing it later.

• [4]
• [5] -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Reactor status summary

Pressure vessel, pressure: Would somebody check the figures in this section - they don't make a lot of sense (e.,g 0.456 MPa (0.836 MPa absolute)????). Also changing the scale to kPa would make things easier to read. 223.205.204.221 (talk) 05:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)mja

I believe that they are confusing the two different readings (from different instruments) to absolute/relative pressure. If you have a look at this reference http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1968 it states "Instrumentation ‘B’ for Reactor Pressure indicates that the pressure in the RPV is increasing and instrumentation ‘A’ indicates that it has stabilized. NISA has indicated that some instruments in the reactor vessel may not be working properly" - indicating that there are at least two independant instrument trains. Unfortunately, people are reading these values wrong. MWadwell (talk) 15:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The reactor status summary table is missing from the displayed page, but the bulk of the content still exists in the edit view. Did the display code get messed up somehow? I'm going to try to figure it out, but I'm not good with table formating. Leopd (talk) 19:27, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind. I see the show/hide links now. Leopd (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I wish the cooling status for each reactor and pool was simply stated. If they are having a problem getting active cooling, why can't they just simply de-pressurize the reactors and let them boil? Water could be added as needed. Core temperatures would be only slightly higher than 100 degrees C. Steam could be vented from several points. The low pressure steam could go to water separators and filters, and the purified water could be dumped in the ocean or possibly even returned to the reactors. 151.202.6.223 (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC) BG

There are many news stories about bringing in super size modified concrete pumps, but nothing about how the radioactive waste water is being treated. The radioactive waste water must or should be treated to protect ground water and reduce ocean contamination. And now they are apparently going to widen the evacuation zone. 172.163.49.171 (talk) 01:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG

They are going to treat the contaminated water onsite using Landysh - it's mentioned in the article. MWadwell (talk) 10:59, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding [citation needed] in the role of the transmission lines in the chain of causes of damage to the plant

Regarding my notation of in the text:

Location of the Transmission lines and the substation that serves the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants

Fukushima 2 (Daini) was taking power from the substation for cooling pumps by midnight of the 11th.
Fukushima 1 (Daiichi) is served by the same substation, by three tower chains, each with two circuits. However Daiichi was not taking power from the substation for well over a week.

Although it has often been repeated that the grid was down at Daiichi, there has been no evidence released to support that assertion, and the implication that this was one of the factors in the nuclear accident. A few towers were washed away, farther north, by the tsunami. But the towers serving Daiichi are back from the coast and up a cliff. There were no reports of towers being re-constructed near Daiichi, whereas there were reports and pictures of line work being done on the plant property itself. Line work on the plant site does not constitute a grid failure or what is normally called station blackout. That is, this type of failure, that requires on-site line work, would be a failure of the plant, not of the grid. ( Martin | talk • contribs 00:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC))

Do you mean 'earthquake caused major damage to the power grid'? No. There were reports of power suppply disruption caused by the disaster, you found a ref saying daini had grid power by midnight? its there If so, then it did not have grid power before midnight? No info It is not necessary to physically destroy the towers for power to fail, because something has to generate that power and something uses it. If the load becomes too great then circuits will disconnect automatically. I cannot say what happened her, but buildings being washed away sound like potentially shorted supplies increasing load and a lot of power stations shut down reducing supply. Power therefore failed, but I have no information on exactly what and whether critical routes or grids would be protected. Logically an area normally supplied by both daini and daiichi, both of which shut down, would be badly hit as regards maintaining any supply. My guess is that everything switched off automatically and then engineers had to come back and switch it back on where it was undamaged. This might be easier said than done in the middle of a disaster. these wires go only to the plants

I agree that power is spoken of very loosely in reports without explaining exactly what happened. It seems probable that the company did manage to get emergency generators to the plant fast - and could have obtained more with greater capacity - but that these could not be used once they were on site. Virtually nothing of the original equipment in 1-4 seems to be operating even now. It should be noted that 5 and 6 were already shut down before the accident and had been for some time, so most of the residual heating had stopped, but they still nearly got out of control when power failed. 5 and 6 seem to be built on higher ground and so fared better and some equipment is now operating, but this is just judging from the aerial photos. They started operating again on their own generators, not on external grid power, which must still have been faulty for some reason. You may be correct that the grid supply to 1-4 was undamaged and power lines still ran into the buildings, but that the switch rooms they arrived in were under water. The transformers seem to be on high ground again, so might not have been flooded. I am uncertain about this though because the water seems to have been pretty high and arriving on shore with full force would possibly tend to run up embankments and be forced higher running between them.

As to the period between earthquake and tsunami specifically, the emergency generators started up and this would have been in response to a power failure, but I dont know how much of a power failure would be needed to do this. They might start up on partial loss of one supply, and simply shutting down on site generation might have been enough. Your map shows there is a single point where grid supplies come together and where it is presumably possible to switch supplies. Apart from overload, was this damaged? I think the red lines are higher voltage than the orange, so not immediately inter-operable without transformer connections. Sandpiper (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the question of obtaining a power supply was probably mostly irrelevant after the tsunami because there was nothing functional to power. Operators had no idea even what was happening to the reactors, which turned out to be not quite so bad as it might. Some things not needing electricity did work. What we need is some eye witness reports from those who were on duty. I expect they have been told to say nothing? Clearly Japanese officials by now know exactly what happened. It is possible that had the magnitude of the future problem been known immediately, then some action might have been taken even just after the tsunami which would have made matters better now, but we cant know that without a clear knowledge of what did happen. It seems possible there were no plans of just what to do in a situation this bad, because a situation this bad could not happen. Sandpiper (talk) 09:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Your discussion might be more appropriate a few paragraphs up, rather than here. This paragraph only explains the [citation needed] addition to the article where the claim was made that the transmission lines to Daiichi played a role in the causal chain of damage to the plant. I change the title to make that clearer. I apologize for the confusion. Any references to facts would be appreciated. ( Martin | talk • contribs 07:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC))

Article is way too big - let's remove "Summarised daily events"

This article is 220Kb, which is too big. The "Summarised daily events" events section is far too long, and consists of excessive detail already covered in even more detail in the timeline article. It needs to be removed and/or merged with Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents. --Pontificalibus (talk) 19:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that it should be removed to the timeline article. In its place there needs to be a two paragraph summary of the important events that occurred during the first three weeks of the crisis. Cla68 (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I would suggest that the "Summarised daily events" actually replace the timeline article content, which is not at all encyclopedic. Johnfos (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I hardly think so. The problem is that this is now stretched over 5 weeks involving 6 reactors plus fuel stores so there is an awful lot of material. The material here in the daily events section is itself a summary of main daily events.Sandpiper (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Move the relevant parts of the timeline into the relevant reactors - and highlight the link to the timeline article. MWadwell (talk) 12:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Per above. AnAnthro (talk) 12:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• As to the question put, i dont know. It can not simply be deleted. The daily events section is becoming ridiculous because of its length, and repetitious because the events are re-told in the separate sections for each reactor, fuel, whatever. Obviously, it has to stop some time before the incident is over, because it will not be resolved for months or years. So broadly I would support removing it. However...(and there is a big however..), it is currently the only place certain general and plant wide facts are mentioned. These need to be somewhere. The article also still needs some sort of summary. I would think something new following on from the initial events already mentioned in 'direct effect of the earthquake' needs to be written continuing the overview. 'direct effects' also has its problems (see discussion above). Any daily events affecting one reactor, etc, need to be checked off to see if they are already in the relevant reactor summary section. This needs some sort of coherent overviews written, eg a paragraph explaining the history of spraying at that unit, a para talking about the power supply restoration. This is a lot of work. As to the article length, I assume you have discounted the charts and references, which are not supposed to count towards article length arguments? we do have 400 refs, which sounds right there like an area which needs major cutting, I would think 200 could go without any problem as to verifiability, but I have concerns over the stability of refs long term. Anyone know anything about this? Sandpiper (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Don't know. I trust your judgement, except Sandpiper - too wordy ( Martin | talk • contribs 17:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC))

Now split to Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents. Johnfos (talk) 21:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It certainly looks better than it did before. Curious: both of those were net-negative edits, what were you removing to save space? -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:24, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents#Overblown daily diary for info regarding recent consolidation in that article. Johnfos (talk)

Your consolidation of that article has been rejected as inappropriate. Has the information here been reformatted elsewhere? I see you have also nominated the timeline article for deletion entirely. How does deleting all this material from here and then the entire alternative article improve coverage of this event? Sandpiper (talk) 08:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Peak Ground Acceleration of Tohoku Earthquake?

The Wikipedia article titled "2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami" shows the peak ground acceleration of the March 11 quake at 2.99 g on the right sidebar and has the statement "Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) calculated a peak ground acceleration of 2.99 g (29.33 m/s²)." under the heading "Energy". The Wikipedia article titled "Fukushima I nuclear accidents" has the statement "The 9.0 MW Tōhoku earthquake at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011 resulted in maximum ground accelerations of 0.56, 0.52, 0.56 g (5.50, 5.07 and 5.48 m/s2) at units 2, 3 and 5 respectively," under the heading "Direct effect of the earthquake and tsunami". Is this because the ground acceleration at units 2, 3, and 5 is a local ground accelration at the reactors while the 2.99 g mentioned in the Tohoku Eartqauke article was measured at the epicenter? The information indicated for peak ground acceleration between the two articles is somewhat confusing.Splice in Place (talk) 20:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, those are the acceleration values at the reactors, and no, the 2.99 g was not at the epicenter. The epicenter was out in the ocean. The 2.99 g is larger than any I've read, but I've read up to 2 g. This could come from a number of assumptions. It could be a maximum measured acceleration at any monitoring location, or it could be maximum calculated acceleration on the surface. The ground acceleration is very significantly impacted by the local geology as well as the building foundation and engineering. The acceleration at the reactor containment buildings (which are those 0.5 g numbers) is, and should be, smaller than surrounding areas, although the surrounding areas were less than the worst-hit areas that the 2.99 g applies to. I should go ahead and say it - these reactor buildings are some of the seismically strongest structures in the nation. The foundation plays a big role in softening the blow, and yes, I understand the confusion regarding the 6x difference in magnitudes, but it is exactly what we should expect for these specific conditions. Nonetheless, if someone is trying to accurately critical, it may be relevant that structures outside of the "nuclear island" itself will suffer much stronger acceleration since they are not on the same foundation, and pretty much the entire root cause of the accident in the first place is because of damage done to structures OTHER than the reactor building. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

But do we know if any significan damage was done by the earthquake as distinct from the tsunami? What i have read suggests the plant was undergoing shutdown under control after the earthquake but before the tsunami. Sandpiper (talk) 19:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The plant maintained the ability to shut down during the earthquake, but significant damage was still done. This earthquake damage has relevance today as Tepco had been searching for a leak that was allowing highly radioactive water out which eventually got to sea [6]. There is an image of a Tepco employee pointing out a massive fissure in a concrete structure. If that wasn't enough for you, consider the fact that the only 2 confirmed deaths are thought to have been caused by impacts that occurred from the earthquake. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have seen reports of leaks from seals in the reactor because of the overpressure which built up inside it. Indeed, that such was to be expected given the pressure and had been experienced during design testing. This damage may be permanent even though pressure is now lower. Then there was the mystery explosion in the basement of 2 believed at the time to have damaged containment. Internal pressure dropped when the explosion happened. I have not seen a report definitely saying any specific damage to containment was caused by the earthquake. Sandpiper (talk) 08:44, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

My suspicion is that the piping/torus has been damaged by the earthquake - witness the fact that they are pump in ~160 m3 of water/day into the reactors, but that the water level isn't rising (although a lot of the water would be lost to steam). Some of this water has become contaminated - and is (I believe) the source of the 1 Sv/h trench water. MWadwell (talk) 11:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

"Japanese power plant controls" photo is not

The photo titled "Japanese power plant controls" (currently the last photo in the article) is, if you read its own description, actually a shot of the controls of a substation, where the foreman is balancing electrical load. --Dustin (talk) 00:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Good catch. It might find a home in 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, but as it has nothing to do with the Fukushima accidents as such, I'm removing it from this article. -- Kolbasz (talk) 10:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Rename to disaster

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/japan-nuclear-crisis-chernobyl-severity-level1 --Athinker (talk) 06:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

With the increase to INES level 7 (on par with the Chernobyl disaster and Kyshtym disaster), on the BBC World and CNN International they now consistently are speaking of Fukushima disaster. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/12/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1 Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 07:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Here we go again... — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaptorHunter (talk • contribs) 07:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

They're calling it a 7 now, but at the same time hedging the call. "Nishiyama said the designation was made "provisionally," and that a final level won't be set until the disaster is over and a more detailed investigation has been conducted." The problem with the scale is that it's too narrow and an incident with many people killed or very few would could rate the same.MartinezMD (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

No one has yet died directly of radiation poisoning. It's to early to judge the extent of it. Let's make the decision when the accidents are over and an investigation about the radiation extent has been done. --Kslotte (talk) 09:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait 'till disaster is the common name. =) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 09:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Note the reactors didn't explode as they did in Chernobyl. According to http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html?_r=1 one source "suggests the total amount of radioactive materials released so far is equal to about 10 percent of that released at Chernobyl". Its unclear if this high figure was actually released mostly in the form radioactive liquid runoff, or is still in containment. The amount of released radioactive material on land must be a tiny fraction of Chernobyl. Oddly there is nothing in the news how radioactive waste water is being treated. The radioactive waste water should be treated to protect ground water and reduce ocean contamination. 172.163.36.90 (talk) 13:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Debating wether it is a disaster or not is one thing, (of course it is a disaster, how dare anybody suggest that it might not be or that the awful horrific outcome of the Chernobyl nuclear containment failure be acheived before considering an unintentional nuclear explosion to be a disaster) but, an accident is where something has been dropped or spilled or unintentionally guided in the wrong direction. I don't care what the dictionary says on this one, an *accident* involves a mistake or an error and besides the inadequate height of the sea wall, or the building of a (dangerous) nuclear reactor at all, I find it unfair to say that the major factor in this, disaster, is plain error. I would like to mull over it and suggest an alternative to both the words disaster and accident but I find it a ridiculous insult to even suggest the incident might not be some sort of disaster. Somewhere in the world a place has been destroyed and rendered worse than uninhabitable for as long as any person can truly perceive. Beside that, I googled for "nuclear disaster" and the first two hits were Wikipedias Chernobyl Disaster and Nuclear and radiation accidents followed by a page full of hits concerning Japan, not one of which mentions an accident. National Geographic is asking How is Japans nuclear disaster different? and we have New York Times, the British Telegraph, Fox News, Greenpeace, Time, Business Weekly, Discovery's pre-Fukushima run down of the worlds 5 worst nuclear disasters says that the worst rating of nuclear incident (7, which presently represents Fukushima) is an accident but includes the Tokaimura disaster "Japan's most disastrous nuclear accident took place over a decade ago just outside Tokyo.", I would like to note an answer for answers.com "What is a nuclear disaster?" answer: "The most obvious would be a melt down at a nuclear plant.", Forbes suggests that Japan has an "..other nuclear disaster." We have New York Daily News, Bloomberg, Nature magazine, CNN, EuroNews's deplorable "Japan far from a huge nuclear disaster." followed by a more recent release supporting the disaster idea, the Irish Independant, Speigel, Infowars is asking us "When does a nuclear disaster end?", United Press International, Financial Times, the Christian Post, The Wall Street Journal, Popular Mechanics, Economist magazine, CNS, France 24, San Francisco Chronicle, the BBC posts a QnA about Fukushima which doesn't ask if it is a disaster or not but rather puts big letters on a picture saying Fukushima: Dealing with disaster, the Daily Mail, Asia Times, ABC, Minnesota Post, Channel 4, Washington Independant, Ecomomic Times, etc, etc, ad infinitum. I usually like to argue that just because the press is using a word doesn't mean they are right but I find the word accident in this case to be misleading and would like it's fixing to be matter-of-course. Yes this nightmare occurence is a disaster, maybe not directly for you or for me, but nonetheless a true disaster. I do not know who or what lives near Fukushima but I shouldn't like to see them fobbed off by anybody. I am going to spend a little while listening to Japans Formula 1 theme tune until I can get a little concentration back [7]. I think I will buy a copy after this. There may be reasons to move this article or leave it where it is (I would like it to move) but as to the debate on wether it *is* a disaster or not, a waste of hard drive. Yes it is a disaster and your comparison to epic proportions is both rude and invalid. ~ R.T.G 13:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster has 220 news stories on google right now.

Fukushima Nuclear Accident has 114 new stories.

Support We have reached the tipping point, now that japan has upgraded this to level 7. I think it's safe to called it a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Strongly Support changing the name of the article to Fukushima disaster. It is very arbitrary in my opinion to use the term disaster for one INES 7 event, while using nuclear accidents for another. Counteraction (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A label such as accident or disaster is less important than how the the situation is handled now. The nuclear human mortality is small so far. It is yet to be determined how much land will have to be off-limits and for how long. But I'm concerned some radioactivity has been spread around that might not be acknowledged. The radioactive contamination on land and how it needs to be dealt with should become apparent in the near future (perhaps a month). Disaster is just an English word defined in the dictionary. This might help: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/12/us-nuclear-japan-idUSTRE73B7UC20110412 link172.165.160.66 (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG172.162.2.115 (talk) 01:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)BG

It also seems a bit like fear-mongering to be honest. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 22:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose -- We are still in the midst of the "accident sequence". --Tenmei (talk) 23:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I'd say we crossed the tipping point where this is just another nuclear accident quite a while ago. Dragons flight (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Clearly a disaster comparable with Chernobyl, which the experts say will take years or decades to clean up. Johnfos (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose at this time "Though both the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima nuclear accident are now both rated at the highest level of the 7-step INES scale, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Japanese accident is far less severe than the Soviet nuclear disaster." from: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1632562.php/Japan-starts-removing-highly-radioactive-water-at-stricken-plant I in no way want to minimize the severity of the situation, but am concerned that some want to politicize the article with labels. Charlie Sheen's last performance was universally labeled a disaster by the media. Eventually the truth will come out about where and how much radioactive material was released. As of now its not clear. There is a lot of cause for concern about this obviously very bad situation. 172.162.232.208 (talk) 03:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

• Support. Wikipedia's definition on "disaster" is as follows: "A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition[citation needed], resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event with great loss stemming from events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions.

In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. These risks are the product of hazards and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability are not considered a disaster, as is the case in uninhabited regions.[1]"

Here at Fukushima Daiichi we have the full menu in the definition: earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, explosions plus massive radioactive material release and no clear and easy way to recover from the event. By definition it is absolutely a disaster. We must be guided not by opinion, nor feeling, but by definitions of terms previously defined by experts of our language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatmonk (talk • contribs) 03:50, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I think that either "accident" or "disaster" have denotations which accurately describe this situation. The question is which word has a connotation more appropriate to the scale of what is happening. From what I can see, the consequences so far have been:

• several deaths at the plant during earthquake/tsunami (radiation not involved)
• a few injuries to workers from acute radiation exposure (nonlethal)
• moderate, prolonged radiation exposure to the rest of the 400 or so workers (levels uncertain, but below legal daily limits)
• very low daily exposure to people outside the mandatory evacuation zone
• ground contamination in and outside the evacuation zone that will require eventual cleanup or permanent evacuation (costs/size of area unknown)
• seawater contamination (long term effects unknown, short term effects small)
• psychological trauma and diversion of resources from Tsunami relief efforts
• definite closing of four reactor units, possible closing of remaining two units at site

It seems like a high end estimate of the long term consequences would be around 100 worker deaths, several hundred civilian cancer cases with around 1/10 as many deaths, permanent evacuation of two or three towns (around 100,000 people), tens of billions of dollars in cleanup costs, plus economic disruption of farming/fishing of surrounding area to the tune of one or two billion dollars.

A low end estimate might be for one or two additional worker deaths, ten or twenty survivable cancer cases among the workers, minimal health impact outside evacuation area, cleanup costs paid for entirely by TEPCO, evacuation area phased out within a few months, farming/fishing ban partially lifted within a few months with small economic disruption.

Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty, even with where to set the best/worst case examples. I think this decision should be postponed until more is known about the long term health effects and economic effects. The known effects of this event have been minor so far, and I don't think this should be labeled a disaster based only on conjecture. One large question is how to quantify the psychological impact of this event on the people of Japan, and how relevant that should be to this discussion. Fear without cause can be harmful, but the War of the Worlds broadcast was hardly a disaster in the same way as an earthquake. Though it's not yet clear whether the Japanese people's fear *is* without cause...

I personally think that much of the media coverage has been alarmist, and woefully ignorant as to the relative levels of natural vs. Fukushima-released radiation. Setting low regulatory limits for radiation levels in food/water is a good idea, but appears to be causing panic when the levels are exceeded, even if the amount is not dangerous unless ingested for years. Probably they need separate regulatory limits for short-term vs. long-term doses. -IDK112 — Preceding unsigned comment added by IDK112 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose. Really, as this event is still unfolding, we don't know how much radiation has been release to the enviroment, nor what the dose the workers at the plant have recieved (or what effect this will have on their lifespan). Wait a few weeks and then see what the evidence (verse sensationalist stories from the media) has to say on this topic.MWadwell (talk) 07:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of striking out the vote here, because MWadwell subsequently posted a "support" comment below. Dragons flight (talk) 02:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The japanese government acepts this is now a level 7 'Major release of radio­active ­material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended ­countermeasures'. In other words they accept there are widespread health and environmental effects. So who is left to dispute this?

Comment heading towards Support. I have never liked 'accident', because I do not consider this was an accident. It was not a human mistake which caused this, but a deliberate acceptance of this risk. Incident is neutral and simply means something which happened. Disaster generally means something pretty big affecting many people. Many people have been affected. Statistically, some will die.Sandpiper (talk) 10:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

My opposition was based on the fact that we didn't know how much radioactive material had been released - however I've since found a document from NISA - INES (the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale) Rating on the Events in Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station by the Tohoku District - off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake which lists the amount of Caesium/Iodine already released to the environment. As it is getting to the ball park of requiring "extended counter-measures" (from the INES level 7 definition) I'd now support changing the name. MWadwell (talk) 11:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support "The Japan Atomic Energy Agency raises the severity of the Fukushima I nuclear "accidents" to level 7, the highest on the International Nuclear Event Scale" (from Wikipedia, in the news section). Therefore the article's name does not reflect the true severity of this event. Also the evacuation zone has been expanded. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/apr/11/japan-expands-nuclear-evacuation-zone-video) Barbarbaron (talk) 18:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's still an accident. Cla68 (talk) 01:39, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support In view of International Nuclear Event Scale. Quote from the article - "Compared to earthquakes... ...the level of severity of a man-made disaster, such as a nuclear accident, is more subject to interpretation." It seems relevant to note. As previously defined by this standing Wikipedia article, by which a previous standard may be loosely defined, there is instruction that it has not applied values to non "man-made" circumstances and cites this category in particular, earthquake, as an example of what it is not a scale of. I think it could be important to acknowledge that. I think I appreciate a *wait and see* attitude, but this was not exactly a man-made accident in the first place and the media, who are most likely going to be the collective name givers to this incident, seem to suggest Disaster. So petty to debate it right now, but it is currently inaccurate. ~ R.T.G 02:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

And note that on the scale above, Chernobyl is an accident, mans fault, which it is fair to say. If the place I live were to fall during an earthquake I would find it rather odd to tell people that I had an accident. An accidental earthquake may make for a bit of a joke to some people... ~ R.T.G 02:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Too soon. The INES level 7 is provisional. User:IDK112 makes a very good appraisal of the worst case/best case scenarios, and it will probably take months before we know for certain which is it. ^walk victor falk ^talk 15:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support Actually when I did a Google News search for the name I found that disaster is the most common term for it over accident. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 19:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose. User:IDK112 states very good reasons.1exec1 (talk) 15:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The earthquake and tsunami were disasters, causing enormous death and devastation. The Fukushima accidents have not, so far (see: IDK112's well-reasoned post). As well, the IAEA still refers to it as the Fukushima nuclear accident. -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Fukushima Daiichi timeline

FYI, the timeline article, Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, was pruned of 100k of content recently with this edit. As this is a related article, it may impact on this one. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 10:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The edit was reverted in a context clarified by a talk-page thread here. No one misunderstood or disagreed with the reasonable goals of this edit goals; however, arguable process questions were raised. --Tenmei (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The editor (johnfos) who pruned it has now proposed it for deletion. Sandpiper (talk) 08:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The AfD suggests that I misunderstood what Johnfos was trying to do. I struck out some of my words above. In an AGF context, the massive copy-edit was construed as a mere mis-step in a plausibly constructive direction and the AfD is an arguable faux pas. --Tenmei (talk) 13:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Overview section redundant?

Hi there. First off, this article looks really good. Everyone contributing to it is doing an excellent job keeping up with constantly changing sources and sometimes complex information about nuclear power.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I wanted to ask if I was the only one who thinks that having an 'Overview' section is redundant, especially directly below the lead, which, per WP:LEAD, serves "as a summary of [an article's] most important aspects." The whole overview section then becomes moot because it simply repeats what was in the lead, but in significantly fewer words. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 12:11, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

This is a good point. Yes, your observation is on-point. The overview is redundant. Steps towards a better-focused introduction are here and here. --Tenmei (talk) 00:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It is not possible to write a lead which summarises events in any kind of detail. The initial events are already covered in 'direct effects of earthquake'. The overview needs to continue the description from after what is covered in that section already. Sandpiper (talk) 09:01, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

cooling fukushima nuclear power plants

Why can't liquid nitrogen be pumped into the power plants to cool the rods as well as prevent fire,as the nitrogen flashes off it would create an inert space around said plant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.152.15.54 (talk) 12:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC) Interesting. Liquid nitrogen is very cold, but it would require a huge amount. I don't understand why the reactors aren't depressurized and flooded with water, and vented at the top. The vented low pressure steam and water could probably safely go to an offshore bubbler. This could be tried on one reactor first, just by continuously adding water to the reactor and venting the reactor top thru a bubbler into a nearby tank. An outside source of fresh water of under 1000 gallons per minute should be enough to keep all the reactors and spent-fuel pools filled and cooled. [Special:Contributions/172.163.36.90|172.163.36.90]] (talk) 13:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG172.129.114.201 (talk) 16:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)BG172.162.232.208 (talk) 03:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

As a worker in a nuclear research reactor, this idea has got be absolutely astounded by how little people understand about a BWR.... Both the RPV and drywell are full of radioactive gases that are the results of previous venting of the RPV. Insertion of liquid nitrogen (and just to point out, the insertion of which would be difficult to do, due to the aforementioned radioactive gases) would mean that these gases have to be vented - increasing the radioactive gases being put into the environment. A much better alternative is to do what they are currently doing - slowly decreasing the temperature of the RPV (to reduce temperature based pressure fluctuations) while simultaneously allowing the previously released radioactive gases currently in the drywell to decay away while still safely trapped behind concrete. MWadwell (talk) 07:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

If fuel temperature was reduced to about 100 degrees C, shouldn't that minimize gas production? What do you mean by slowly decreasing the temperature of the RPV? Its been a month. A few degrees/minute should be acceptable to avoid thermal shock. 172.132.70.107 (talk) 16:34, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Limiting the fuel temperature won't result in minimal gas production - as steam production is dependant on both temperature and pressure. If the pressure is kept high enough, the water won't boil. And as to dropping the temperature quickly - you are right, you can drop the tmperature by a few degrees per minute - but this would require a LOT of water, and produce a LOT of radioactive steam (resulting in a pressure spike in a potentially earthquake damaged reactor). I believe that they are deliberately dropping the temperature slowly so that they can draw out the time before venting - as this would allow the radioactive gases to decay away (befoer the vent), as well as give them time to design and construct some way of filtering the releases (such as carbon filters). MWadwell (talk) 06:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd thinking dumping the radioactive material in the sea rather than over Japan is a good idea. Whether it would have been possible to have vented gases into the sea is quite another. Someone would have to build a pipe. Maybe a thought for future designs. Liquid nitrogen, no. where would you get it? how would you handle it? if you managed to get it in, it would immediately turn to gas and there would be nothing cooling the core. Sandpiper (talk) 08:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, what went into the atmosphere is only a portion of what was vented - a majority of the radionuclides vented from the RPV were trapped in the water in the wetwell. And so if this was instead vented straight into the ocean, the amount of radionuclides released would have been a lot larger than what it currently is..... And so I'm very happy with the current venting method. MWadwell (talk) 11:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

How do you know that?Sandpiper (talk) 01:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

An educated guess. A majority of the radioactive gases are trapped in the fuel assemblies, and it is only the damaged fuel assemblies that have release the (previously) trapped fission products. In the OPAL reactor (where I work), the fission products are trapped behind the aluminium fuel cladding, and if that is damaged, it is then slowly released through the open pool, before reaching the filter banks on the stack. Looking at the BWR design, you see that they vent to the drywell via the wetwell (i.e. bubbling the releases through the water in the wetwell) - which would trap a majority of the particulates (having the the same effect as the HEPA filters at OPAL), and I've seen schematics that show the presence of charcoal filters in the vent to the stack (again, the same as at OPAL). So they use the same principles in a BWR design as we use at OPAL. MWadwell (talk) 06:24, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I've found this image from the Nuclear Tourist website - which shows that they can vent either one of two ways. IF they have power available (to drive an extraction fan), they run the vented air through two HEPA and a charcoal filter (which captures the Iodine and aerosols/particulate - leaving only the noble gases to be released). Otherwise it has to be vented into the building. drywell, major equipment, and ventilation support systems. MWadwell (talk) 11:12, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

A lot of people are not happy with the current cooling/venting method. That's whats led to this trouble. Radionuclides wouldn't have been released if the fuel was covered with unpressurized water. And its been a month and the situation is still not described as unconditionally stable. Depressurized cooling using a reliable on-site (or off-site) fresh water source would have been stable from the beginning and would have resulted in no core damage. Running a pipe is no big deal. The existing design/method is inadequate. There should never have been fuel melting or a hydrogen explosion. After Three Mile Island they even tried to blame the operators instead of the engineering design. 172.132.70.107 (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

I would guess that it was illegal to vent anything, and this may have been a consideration at the start. They avoided saying they were venting for some time after gas was escaping. Fresh water onsite only became available after some US tankers brought some, weeks after the start. (Any pools of water would have been flooded by the sea) There were no operable pumps and water has been added via this mystery fire main. When they got a proper water injection system running weeks later they suddenly increased the rate of adding water. I interpret this as meaning it was not possible to add water fast enough via the fire main. Electrically operated valves could not be operated. It is unclear how much of the instrumentation was working during the first 12 hours. Some of it definitely was not and I think they honestly had no idea what was happening inside the reactor, even for sure if the control rods were home. Anyone know for sure whether the emergency batteries were also in the basement and as such under water? After the first 12 hours it is to be presumed the batteries failed and matters became even worse. So how would you have run a pipe? Where to get the pipe? tools? How hot and how pressurised does superheated water have to be before releasing the pressure would simply cause all of it to boil away at once? Sandpiper (talk) 01:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The current cooling method has nothing to do with the generation of the radionuclides. When (in the first few days) the cores were uncovered and the fuel was damaged (releasing the radionuclides from the fuel assemblies), there was little that could be done that wasn't being done. The core damage resulted in the radionuclides being dispersed in the RPV water, which has since leaked out of the reactor(s) and into the seawater. Increasing the amount of water currently being added to the reactors(s) simply means that more (contaminated) water leaks from the RPV's and into the bottom of the reactor buildings (and via the trench, into the sea - however, with the trench leak stopped, the water is now going to pool in the bottom of the reactors, and (hopefully, be pumped) into storage vessels). Increasing the cooling flow also has the problem of increasing the pressure in the RPV - resulting in more venting needing to take place, and more radionuclides being released into the enviroment (for more details on this, see my comments above for more details). MWadwell (talk) 09:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Illegal? LOL. We apparently haven't been getting the full story anyway. Within a few days the locals were saying not to eat the fish. Maybe the tsunami was a religious experience and they decided to be vegetarians. Its illogical there wasn't a reliable large source of fresh water available, but its also illogical to build a nuclear plant in an area with a history of tsunamis. And maybe they never considered passive cooling by non-pressurized boiling. The control rods were certainly in the reactors. The batteries worked but had very limited capability. Sure, if the plant wasn't designed with reliable fresh water sources or the venting I described, it could have been added a week later. But you can't have just 50 people adequately servicing multiple reactors and fuel pools, particularly when everything is covered with debris and radioactive. Hot water boils if depressurized. Just add more cold water to cover the fuel and cool things down. Well, I suppose the hydrogen explosions provided some form of venting. Its karma. 172.129.204.185 (talk) 03:23, 14 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Most radionuclides had better been vented in the ocean. I can't believe the figure that 10% of the radioactivity of Chernobyl was released, but regardless you wouldn't want it on land. 172.162.199.170 (talk) 20:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

?at chernobyl the thing was literally an open bonfire. But im not sure if you think the figure too big or too small. Sandpiper (talk) 01:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Whoa! I thought the 10% figure was way too high, but now it turns out 10% might be about right. Shocking. The fish-eating Japanese better try vegetarianism. And now the news says they still don't have a master plan for cold shutdown and clean-up. Someone better consider alternative cooling and clean-up methods like the above for the plant. This is going to be a bigger financial mess (some call it a disaster) than necessary unless its dealt with intelligently now. Contaminated soil outside the plant could be easier to deal with than people think, but thats a separate subject. Somehow I see Karma working. 172.162.243.45 (talk) 01:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC) BG

You are correct, 10% is shocking - I'm incredibly surprised that it isn't higher! Think about it - Chernobyl 4 was 1000 MWe, and the 4 Fukushima reactors had a combined total power output of over 2500 MWe. So to only have 10% of the radiation released means that the Fukushima 50 have done damn well..... MWadwell (talk) 09:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Experts agree the reactor design here is better than at chernobyl. (if memory serves, at the time of Chernobyl all the water reactor people were going round tut tutting saying how much better their designs are.) A graphite reactor burns nicely! Also, things have been better under control throughout. I am unclear as to what they are currently trying to do, but I would think the plant is still not wholly written off despite comments. Cooling now seems to be under control and the passing of time makes matters better as they cool naturally.I dont know what has happened to the fuel rods, but it seems likely they are still largely intact. At Chernobyl it melted its way into the basement. I think they are still unable to reconnect normal systems because the basement areas are full of radioactive water, and this is what they are trying to deal with. It is far far better they try to get back control of ordinary systems than any of these wild ideas of entombing the place or whatever. The fuel ponds are a separate issue and I dont know if there has been fuel melting there too. This is open to the air so might be responsible for much more dangerous radioactive escapes. Sandpiper (talk) 11:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, entombing sounds like a poor solution, and probably causes more long term problems because it hinders long term clean-up. Is a decent 1000 gpm fresh water source available like a municipal supply or well, or do they have to use barges? 172.164.11.135 (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC) 172.162.150.253 (talk) 14:16, 16 April 2011 (UTC)BG

Normally they'd make the demineralised water on site (it's not hard - that's what we do at the OPAL Reactor. However, with all of the damage/electrical supply issues I'm not sure if it would be available. MWadwell (talk) 11:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC) ***** Having a significant working fresh water source available should be very doable. Also most water from unpressurized boiling could optionally be retained with a condenser. The stored fuel should of course always have been under water. 172.162.150.253 (talk) 14:16, 16 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Broken references

There are presently four broken references here and I don't have time to fix them. Can someone please have a look? -- ke4roh (talk) 15:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Often a bot will come along and fix these orphaned refs, so maybe give it a few days... Johnfos (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

INES Level 7

Does this need to be mentioned in the acticle - that the reason the INES rating was raised to 7 (from 5), is that rather then treating each reactor as a seperate accident, the 6 reactors a Fukushima I have been grouped into a single INES classification - see: IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Accident (12 April 2011, 14:30 UTC). MWadwell (talk) 11:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Look like in 23 march they know this accident are lv 7 but they keep hide the fact and throwing the responsibility to others.

"On the same day, Seiji Shiroya of the nuclear commission said in a news conference that he was aware as of March 23 that the crisis might be elevated to level 7, but left the decision to the agency because the assessment was the agency's responsibility." http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85205.html

"Seiji Shiroya, a commissioner of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent government panel that oversees the country’s nuclear industry, said that the government had delayed issuing data on the extent of the radiation releases because of concern that the margins of error had been large in initial computer models. But he also suggested a public policy reason for having kept quiet.

“Some foreigners fled the country even when there appeared to be little risk,” he said. “If we immediately decided to label the situation as Level 7, we could have triggered a panicked reaction.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html Daimond (talk) 14:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Article needs to be re-written

As the article was a "living document" back when new occurances were happening on a daily basis, the sections for Reactors Units 1 to 6 were written in almost a diary-like way (with the most recent information added to the bottom of the relevant section). However, I've noticed that since the end of March, not much has been added to the "Reactor Unit" sections of the article - making these sections quite out-dated. Obviously these sections need to be re-written, either taking into account eveything that has happened since the end of march (as this was the style up to then), or the march information needs to be trimmed down (removing a lot of minor events, to match the style since early april). Comments? What would people prefer? MWadwell (talk) 11:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

We are still in the midst of the "accident sequence". It bears repeating that, according to experts, Fukushima is not the worst nuclear accident ever but it is the most complicated. IMO, it is not too early to begin to grapple with copy-editing issues like the ones you propose, but we must take great care not to throw out the baby with the bathwater -- compare Talk:Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents#Overblown daily diary --Tenmei (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the situation is still evolving, but there is a big difference in the way the March events have been written (i.e. they are quite detailed, describing all of what was happening), when compared to the April events (where little details that were previously reported are now not reported - such as spraying the SFP's). MWadwell (talk) 11:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

well, someone just deleted the daily events section without transferring across the relevant information for these sections. People had been placing the information in that section rather then in the unit sections. The sections are not quite so outdated as might seem, because little major has happened since the rather dramatic early events. They keep sparaying water and trying to figure out what to do with the resulting waste, and this is somewhat covered in the section on contamination of basements. Sandpiper (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Please consider Talk:Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents#Fukushima nuclear accident log during March 2011. Constructive comments about Fukushima nuclear accident log, March 2011 will be welcomed.

IMO, these corollary articles are arguably useful in the slow process of the copy-editing Fukushima I nuclear accidents. --Tenmei (talk) 19:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Use of regulatory limits in release data is confusing

Why are all the environmental effects listed in relation to local regulatory limits? Shouldn't they be listed by actual amounts (or actual readings). Something like "7.5 million times regulatory limits" doesn't mean anything, because it's not clear what the regulatory agency is, what the time frame for the regulations are (are peaks generally allowed? Is the regulation in question intended to be a worse case scenario, or to cover normal day to day operations?) In short, I think they should be using actual readings, with the comparison as an afterthought. Granite26 (talk) 17:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Because the media today want to shock and awe rather than produce the facts. You see the same thing when they talk about the radiation fields around the Fukushima Reactors, and then compare them to the low dose limit of 1 mSv/year (when the average person recieves 2 mSv/year from natural radiation). I agree that it would be best to report the raw figures (and limits) - but I'm sceptical that you'll be able to find them. MWadwell (talk) 09:54, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, nothing 7.5 million times the limit was ever released. Those numbers typically come from an unfiltered stream than then are passed through a big pile of rocks and sand type stuff and leave into the ocean at lower levels, although still on the order of 10s of 1000s, which depends on the specific species and all other sorts of things. Still not anything great, but the common line repeated in the press is either misleading or a lie. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

clean clothes

I see one of the refs states that people working in the plant sleep in the hallways, have no hot meals, inadequate protective clothing and indeed inadequate ordinary clothes. Something about one blanket each, and I hardly suppose the heating is working. This is dated 5 April.[8] Any further info? Sandpiper (talk) 10:52, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

tsunami

supposedly a 50 ft tsunami arrived at the plant. How high are the buildings? On the face of it, this isnt just basements being flooded but everything. Since no one drowned, surely the water could not have been this deep? Sandpiper (talk) 11:14, 14 April 2011 (UTC) It has been reported by several media outlets including the Wahsington Post that two workers drowned in one of the turbine halls. Also, if you look at before and after photos of some of the facilities that were washed away, such as very large fuel tanks, it is entirely believable that a very large tsunami hit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.231.104.238 (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

There are a large number of metric to identify the height or impact of the tsunami, and none of them are fully representative. I've been digging through some Tepco sources about this, and it would appear that the area around the reactors was flooded to a height of 5 meters. This doesn't sound very high, but that area itself was elevated to 10 meters above baseline. I believe the "baseline" refers to a certain objective metric for sea level. Sea level itself is not a constant value (tides, obviously) so it gets very hairy in interpreting this. But the way that they get the number that you're referring to is by 10+5=15 m which is about 50 feet, but this doesn't translate to a true tsunami "height", but NO metrics do this job. So stop trying to find a height for the tsunami in general. It doesn't exist. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to let you know, there is a (poor) video on youtube capturing the wave hitting the reactors (or the breakwall outside, I'm not sure) - Japan tsunami wave smashes into nuclear plant. MWadwell (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Always the case that someone captures something which later turns out very important but misses half of it. Big flume of water thrown up in the air by the breakwaters, but hard to tell how high the flooding was compared to the buildings. So the next question is do we know what parts of the reactor buildings were therefore underwater? People have talked about basements, but that level would seem to be ground floor working up to second floor. Sandpiper (talk) 09:46, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

All the reactors are involved???

I find it not correct to state that all the reactors at Fukushima I Power Plant were involved in the disaster. In fact, reactors 5 and 6 were did not sustain significant damages from the tsunami as far as I know. Therefore, in the first paragraph, I would clarify that only the reactors from 1 to 4 were serverely damaged, while the other two are in a stable condition after having been much less involved. --Vitaltrust (talk) 19:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

This is not correct too: also reactor 4 itself did not experience any damage; reactors 4, 5 and 6 were all shutted down days before for normal maintenance operations, and were not operating at the time of the earthquake. Only the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 experienced a INES level 3 incident, losing some radiations and possibly exposing the spent rods for a while, because of cooling system problems in the days following the tsunami. I am going to correct it. Filippo83 (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Reactors 5 and 6 were wholly without electrical power and suffered cooling failures. When this started they were safely shut down. As events proceeded they started to overheat and so did their fuel pools. Had electricity not been restored they too would have overheated and started emitting radiation. If the only thing that happened had been this, it would have been regarded as a serious incident. Damage to any reactor building which wholly knocks out its electricity supply for a week is 'extremely serious damage'. Reactor 4 has suffered considerable damage - its building exploded and was on fire! Sandpiper (talk) 09:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

INES level

I added some detail, as well as IAEA and NISA updates, on the current INES level rating, which is provisional, here. It was raised because they are now considering the event in the whole, and not by separate incidents: which are rated, level 5 for reactors 1, 2 and 3; level 3 for the spent fuel pool at reactor 4. Filippo83 (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

as mentioned above, what would be the INES rating for the incident at 5&6? Sandpiper (talk) 09:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

My reading would be that they are INES Level 2 events - as they were "Significant failures in safety ­provisions but with no actual ­consequences". But that's just my opinion. MWadwell (talk) 11:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Criticality in a spent fuel pool

Criticality in a spent fuel pool is not possible, so I corrected the paragraph here, adding of course a source (I have a master in nuclear engineering, but I have anyway to respect the common rules). The fact is that there is not an enrichment level high enough to self-sustain the chain reaction, out of the accurate disposal of the spent fuel; and when the rods get dry, there is also no moderator for that reaction (water). Filippo83 (talk) 23:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Criticality is theoretically possible, but only is the fuel pellets from the FA's fell out of the damage zircalloy cladding, and then clustered in the bottom of the pool. Having said that, while it is theoretically possible, if it occurred we'd still be seeing it now (especially as the pools cooled). MWadwell (talk) 00:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

It was TEPCO that raised the possibility of criticality in the spent fuel pool. It seems pretty crazy to me too, but they are the experts for what might be possible in their systems (however unlikely). Dragons flight (talk) 03:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional information added - as TEPCO have conducted analysis of the SFP from unit 4 - indicating that a majority of the fuel assemblies were undamaged - Most fuel in Fukushima 4 pool undamaged. MWadwell (talk) 03:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Really. Thats like being nearly a virgin? If any of them are damaged that means they got hot enough to melt sitting in this pool. I queried this point at the time but the company was asked at a press conference and said they could not rule it out. You would have thought that probably having some nuclear engineers of their own they could give a definitive answer.Sandpiper (talk) 09:52, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

VBG - "almost a virgin". Very droll. I don't have the reference here (I'm currently at home), but a I've found an article on how the fuel assemblies are made. A series of fuel pellets are stacked in a zircalloy tube, which is then sealed at both ends and placed with ~200 other tubes in ~15 by 15 array. That is then protected by a shroud, and has a clamping machanism placed on the bottom, and a handle placed on the top. The entire assembly is ~4 meters long. To damage a fuel assembly, you don't need to melt anything - all you need to do is to damage/split one of the zircalloy tubes. The moment the tube is fractured (even if the pellets aren't dislodged), the radionuclides from all of the pellets in that tube are released. (FYI - to cause a criticality accident, you would need enough of the pellets to fall out of the tubes, and collect in a big enough pile in the bottom of the pool to form a critical mass.) As you can see, it is possible for a single tube (of over 200 in a single fuel assembly) to be damaged, in addition to the fuel assembly being physically damaged (although the storage rack should have protected the assembly) - releasing radionuclides, without the fuel assembly getting hot enough to melt. MWadwell 203.213.66.195 (talk) 10:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

EDIT - found one of the documents that I've got at work - it was in the BWR External links on wikipedia - Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Systems. (I'll keep looking for another one I have, as it shows the fuel assemblies in more details.) It's a 3.3 meg pdf which describes the basic systems (including the core cooling systems and emergency DG generators) - and has a picture (on page 5) of a fuel assembly, showing the pellets, zircalloy tube, shroud and control rods. One important point, is that Fukushima I-1 has less tubes then -2 to -4 (which is one reason that they have higher power). MWadwell (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

" The moment the tube is fractured (even if the pellets aren't dislodged), the radionuclides from all of the pellets in that tube are released."

That is just plain incorrect. If the rod is fractured, then the pellets are directly exposed to water - which means that, yes, any trapped gasses will be released and radionuclides in the pellet can now start leeching into the water. It does NOT mean a sudden release of all the radionuclides in the rod. I realize that this might be a simple nomenclature mix-up, but still - the word "release" carries very specific connotations in the field of radiation protection. -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:25, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I am sincerely glad of other contributions. As written by MWadwell, criticality is a theoratical possibility: it is more than just it for highly-enriched fuel or for warheads, but it is still to be seen for lowly-enriched fuel, above all when it is spent and thus even less enriched; more, calculations are made in the most conservative way. Answering to Dragons flight, I will not modify the statement if there is an agreement about, but I did not find any Tepco communicate about, just media quotes. Answering to Sandpiper, melting damaged spent fuel is a real chance: but it is for thermal reasons (spent fuel is still "very hot") and not for nuclear ones; criticality is not involved in it. Finally, I have a master in nuclear engineering, if it can counts. Filipp o83 (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I dont believe this is mentioned in any of the series of press releases, but it was a question asked and answered at a press conference. The spokesman probably answered honestly, and he might have been talking about a very remote possibility, but then again, as a company spokesman who was not apparently contradicted afterwards, maybe he did know something we did (do) not. Personally I thought it unlikely, but hey. Yes, the criticality issue is after fuel rods have melted into a lump in the bottom of the concrete ponds. I myself do not know what the state of fuel pond rods actually is. It should be noted that at least unit 4 did contain fresh fuel. There are numbers somewhere about how many new and old rods are in each pool. (article says 200 new and 1300 old). I have seen suggestions this total is more than the pools were originally designed to hold. Personally I am very pleased we have some people contributing here who understand the subject, but as you ave also understood, while we try to write things which are physically sensible, it was TEPCO who started this particular issue. I remember being unhappy about it because I thought it suggested unrealistic dangers, which is why I was much happier also having the quote from the BBC which somewhat plays down what the company had said. Sandpiper (talk) 21:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the BBC did a very good work in covering the disaster (also considering the several earthquakes and the great tsunami) and gave a good and balanced view, also interviewing technical experts, on the nuclear accidents; the same for the CNN. You have no idea how Italian media badly reported the news, I think that the only thing they forgot to mention has been Godzilla. Thus I cannot tell you something against BBC, but I cannot trust as well a press communicate without any other evidence. The problem is, not that spokesmen know something we are not aware of, but they do cannot know every aspect of the nuclear industry: they are men as you and me, and they often cannot listen to all the technical voices they would need to. Furthermore, minimizing the events would have put their company, and then them, under fire; while, giving a theoretical minimum possibility could not be properly understood by public opinion and could spread unmotivated panic. It is the same problem of the China Syndrome: it never happened, neither at TMI or Chernobyl, it is likely impossible "in the real world" (because the molten core would form an external solid layer, stopping to penetrate the basement and so on) but that remote theory was put out once more immediately after Fukushima. -- Filippo83 (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The BBC did a better job than most, but still not a very good one - their reporting was also full of unfounded, unwarranted speculation. Like this egregious example in an article about the possibility of a criticality in fuel pool 4:

Or, did technicians at some point take water from the pond for use in reactor 4's cooling system? There is nothing to say they did; but during the chaos of the weekend, with power systems and options disappearing before their eyes, it might have seemed like a good idea.

The journalist is throwing around wild speculations - and worse, wild speculations about blame - without bothering to look up his facts (that reactor 4 didn't hold any fuel at the time of the earthquake). -- Kolbasz (talk) 12:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I am a nuclear engineer as job, I have a master in nuclear engineering, but of course I cannot know everything as well: I discussed about criticality issue first of all with some colleague, nuclear physician. -- Filippo83 (talk) 23:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

G'Day Filippo83 - I'm a shift manager at a research reactor, and so part of my job is calculating such things as excess reactivity/SDM-1 prior to refuellings/fuel movements/startups. Fun stuff..... MWadwell (talk) 11:27, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Reactors 5&6

I think that Sandpiper deserves an answer about them. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 were not working at the day of the earthquake, for maintenance operations, as known. This means that no incident/accident could ever have happened inside them, since the loaded fuel never went critical, even if it was of course enriched, and so there was no need for emergency cooling. The question is different for the pools, annexed to reactors, containing the spent fuel: it is less enriched, but it has also the heat of radioactive decay to be removed, having been involved in a nuclear fission reaction. We know about the incident at the pool of reactor 4. For the pools at reactor 5 and 6, you can check here: by then (27th of March) there was no problem report; so I would record the INES level for those reactors to 0, at most. Filippo83 (talk) 10:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The relevant wiki article defines the ines levels and gives examples. Level 2 says 'Significant failures in safety ­provisions but with no actual ­consequences.'. Level 3 says 'Near accident at a nuclear power plant with no safety provisions remaining'. So i suspect 5 and 6 are actually level 3 incidents themselves? I am not sure if there were no actual consequences from 5 and 6, but unquestionably there was a significant failure of the equipment designed to safeguard the reactor - none of it was working! If you look at the NISA bulletins they list reactor parameters and you can see that whether or not 5 and 6 started in cold shutdown, they did not stay that way. Reactors are always producing heat and it has to be continuosly removed. TEPCO reported when they once again had the reactors under control after restoring power.Sandpiper (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Please, you have to give me the date (and the source): from IAEA bulletins, which take their data from NISA ones and from Tepco infos, reactors 5 and 6 have experienced no harmful incident at all as long as they told us. The only problem you can find after 17th March is: Units 5 and 6 remain in comparatively good condition. Temperatures at both, which had risen when the cooling pumps were briefly shut down in order to switch to off-site power, temperatures have since been restored to lower levels, and both units are still in cold shutdown. For the same reasons, a brief rise in temperature also occurred at the Common Spent Fuel Pool on 24 March. Between 11th and 17th March, the water temperature at spent fuel pools of reactors 5 and 6 rose up to 58-60°C, from usual <25°C, but then was safely put down to normal levels; there was no radiation leak nor other danger. I repeat, reactors 5 and 6 theirselves were not operating on that day and in the weeks before, the fuel inside them was never used before, and so there was no possible problem with them. Also, the IAEA bulletins clearly states on 18th March that Another positive development is that diesel generators are providing power for cooling for both Units 5 and 6. You can then check INES levels here: you can easily see that the situation at units 5 and 6 cannot be worse than INES level 1, since no one was harmed nor there was any release of radioactivity (neither internally to the plant buildings). I would then say that reactors 5 and 6 are 0 level, while spent fuel pools 5 and 6 are 1 level (breach of operating limits, with no consequences). I think that the disaster is serious and big enough even without looking for never-happened incidents to those two reactors; but, we know, for someone even a car hitting outer NPP gate is a "nuclear incident", as a professor of mine once told me. -- Filippo83 (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

They lost there deisel generators. Each reactor must have 3 working deisel generators. They are one of the layers (at ANSTO, they would be the 3rd of 5 layers) of defense in depth. To me, this fall under the "Significant failures in safety ­provisions but with no actual ­consequences" part of the "Impact on defence-in-depth" section of the INES level 2. For comparison, have a look at what happened at Fukushima II - the reactors there were damaged by the Tsunami as well, and that was classed as a INES Level 3. MWadwell (talk) 11:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Radiation in other countries section - "man made" vs "natural" radiation

"An important distinction that many experts are not making between natural radiation sources, and man made isotopes like Iodine 131, Cesium 134, Cesium 137 is that natural radiation has been around for the whole evolution of life on earth and is an instrumental part of that evolution, whilst Iodine 131, Cesium 134 and Cesium 137 are man made and have been around for only a few decades.[269][270] Therefore, it should not be expected that our bodies could have developed any mechanisms to cope with them.[271]"

The citations in this section do not support the argument it is making. [269] points at http://www.seafriends.org.nz/books/periodi.htm which is just general information about the elements. [270] and [271] both point to a paper about ionizing radiation and children's health at http://iicph.org/files/actaradiation.pdf. Now, that paper does NOT say that our bodies can't have evolved mechanisms against "man made" versus "natural" radiation. It does mention that we are now exposed to evolutionarily novel isotopes, and it also mentions that there are difficulties in assessing the effective dose from internal exposure, but it doesn't support the idea that there is a qualitative difference between "natural" and "man made" radiation.

The idea it's pushing seems very unlikely. There are natural ionising radiation emitters, like Potassium 40, inside the body already. There are multiple redundant DNA repair mechanisms which look for damage of different kinds and fix it. It's hard to see how it would matter if a DNA strand was damaged by a beta particle emitted from "natural" Potassium 40 or from "man made" Iodine 131 - the body's capability to repair the damage would be the same.

So the statement is unsupported by the references provided, and seems like it is original research. I think it should be removed unless some research can be found to support it.

Amuchmoreexotic (talk) 16:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that section is utter bullshit. And bullshit that isn't even supported by its references. I'm deleting it. -- Kolbasz (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, lower down: "The reason these radioisotopes are more concerning is their extended half life, for instance Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years,[284][285][286] meaning that it will bio-accumulate in the food chain and stay there for the long term.[287] This effect together with the fact that internal emitters can proportionally cause more damage than external ones[288] makes any comparison with natural and external sources of radiation invalid.[289] If the release of Cesium 137 and other long lived radioisotopes would have stopped already,[290] their long term biological effect on target cells once absorbed into the organism would still be very concerning,[291][292][293][294] since the radiation would last for 300 years or ten half times of 30 years.[295][296]"

Again, this assumes that there are no naturally occurring long-lived, internal radioisotopes, but that isn't true. Potassium 40 has a half life of 1.2 billion years.

It is correct to say that Cesium 137 is more concerning because of its long half-life, but it is not correct to say that it can't be compared to "natural and external sources of radiation". It would be wrong to compare it to external radiation sources on a like for like basis, but it can be compared to natural, internal Potassium 40 which is already in the food chain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amuchmoreexotic (talk • contribs) 17:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. The section is mostly on the mark about Cs-137 being an isotope of particular concern, but the whole bit about "natural" and "man-made" is just baloney. If you want an example of a natural radiological hazard, just take a look at the uranium series - radon is a killer. -- Kolbasz (talk) 19:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

... I just made the mistake of reading the second reference in this section:

This effect together with the fact that internal emitters can proportionally cause more damage than external ones makes any comparison with natural and external sources of radiation invalid.

Jesus. All that's missing is a section on how Big Nuclear is covering up the invention of the water-driven internal combustion engine. -- Kolbasz (talk) 20:06, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure which bit you are complaining about. Internal emitters are more dangerous than external ones seems to be true.Sandpiper (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree about internal versus external transmitters. The problem is the idea that "any comparison with natural and external sources of radiation" is "invalid". Comparison with external sources would be invalid, but comparison with natural internal sources is not, necessarily.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Amuchmoreexotic (talk • contribs) 22:01, 15 April 2011

Potassium-40 is both a natural and internal source of radiation. Also this, while entertaining, is not a reliable source.Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

What Suffusion of Yellow said. As I said, it was about the reference - which nobody who even glances at its first page can call a reliable source. It's basically just one long rant about how the nuclear industry is secretly controlling the world's radiation protection agencies, and how there's this big conspiracy to keep the dangers of radiation quiet. That internal radiation is worse than external is the one part of that sentence that's actually ok. -- Kolbasz (talk) 22:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, what was this doing in the section "Radiation in other countries"? Even if there were a difference between "man-made" and "natural" radiation, it would have no relevance to the U.S., China, etc. unless it were first established that amount of new radioactive material in these places not "tiny, tiny, tiny", as the sources indicate. This really seems like a bit of synthesis. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm removing the "makes any comparison with natural and external sources of radiation invalid" part for now. And then someone needs to go in and rewrite that entire section of the article. -- Kolbasz (talk) 20:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

And I removed the rest of User:Spine001's recent additions to that section. A long discussion of the dangers of some particular radioisotopes is misleading, given that the levels in the places discussed are so low. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I support your changes to the section. I do agree that there is no physical reason at all to distinguish between natural or artificial radiations: all them emit in the same way, alpha decay, beta +/- decay, or gamma rays, and this is the only thing that counts. It is instead true that radioactive isotopes are more dangerous inside human body that outside it, but the atoms theirselves behave in the same way wherever they are: so internal and external emitters do not exist, they are always the same elements behaving in the same ways. Also, it is important to point out:

• the type of decay;
• the time of half-life;
• the material itself;
• the quantity/concentration.

It gets no sense to say "there is X radioactive isotope" if we do not know how much of it is present, and how it is dangerous. I am making an example. Uranium and polonium are both two alpha emitters: it means that a tiny paper sheet or very few inches of air are enough to prevent any radiation to pass; but, when absorbed by the body (blood) uranium is virtually harmless being released through urines before getting dangerous, while polonium is deadly in very short time and in very low quantity; but, if one otherwise breath in uranium, it could cause lung cancer, behaving in the same way of any other "heavy metal". Why the difference, being both two alpha emitters? Polonium has a much, much shorter half-life, compared to the billions years of uranium, rudely meaning that its radioactivity is much higher. The same for other radioactive isotopes, like e.g. Pu-239 or I-131, which pose an health threat only above a certain measurable dose, and which danger is to be absorbed by the body and to fix inside it (respectively in the bones or in the thyroid) rather than spreading radioactive beams around them. Filippo83 (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Upgrades

Have the 'INES (individual)' ranks for reactors 1, 2, and 3 been upgraded to 7, or are they each still at level 5? -161 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.54.63 (talk) 05:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that individually they are still a 5, but collectively they are a 7. MWadwell (talk) 11:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The rating isn't that important. I wouldn't trade this situation for Chernobyl in a second. 172.162.150.253 (talk) 14:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC) BG