from the storage tanks in order to make room for highly radioactive water. Headline only. I'm looking for more info.
A bit more from Asahi (4:23PM JST 4/4/2011) [it's not a literal translation, but you get the gist]:
TEPCO will release about 11,500 tons of water with low radiation (relatively speaking) from the processing facility and Reactors 5 and 6 into the ocean. They will start as soon as they are ready, and will release the water over several days.
Fish and seaweeds in the ocean nearby will be affected, but even if you eat them every day you would only get about 1/4 of radiation that you will naturally get anyway.
Soooo, what's with that idea of a silt curtain, if they are dumping the contaminated water in great quantity?
TEPCO just ended the press conference, which they started early today at 4:00PM JST instead of 5 or 5:30PM. And this was not carried by any TV. Only on the internet. The viewers were furious, twittering as the presser progressed.
The last question was about the safety of fish and seaweed. "Is it safe to eat then?" TEPCO answered "Let us check that and get back to you."
Some of the viewers' comments:
Why isn't TV covering this?
There will be no Christmas or Shogatsu (new year's celebration).
I'm so sorry and I apologize to fish.
Shouldn't the PM apologize?
We're screwed.
I'm crying.
This is a case of the citizens not realizing that the government is a terrorist organization.
30-Day free trial by following the link.
Tokyo Time
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3 comments:
I kind of figured this was coming the whole fiasco has been one long extension of the agreed upon radiation safety standards. I thought waste barges were going to be used for waste storage? First they raised the "safe" exposure levels for workers 2.5 times. This will allow them to use this number as a "normal" baseline of exposure even though it is woefully obvious they can't accurately catalog every workers true dose rate. In the official history nobody will be exposed to over 25 rem so any illnesses won't be attributed to radiation because everybody's dose will be officially too low to cause harm. Of course this doesn't include the three over exposed basement workers they will be held in a special class but since they are anonymous there is a good chance their stories will never never go public unless they get superpowers from their brush with the atom.
I like how they categorize their massive release as low level but they neglect to say exactly how many curies of activity they are dumping or at what rate. They obviously know the level since they are going to "control" the release instead of just letting her rip. It seems the ocean is going to be asked to take one for the team over and over again I hope they don't awaken Gojira with all the ruckus.
On a serious note the lack of critical global coverage is very disheartening. The nuclear club is showing the lessons they learned from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl make sure you control all the major news outlets and you get to chose how important a story gets to be. TEPCO is well known for it's large advertising budgets that it lavishes on compliant broadcasters. NHK doesn't call fukushima an accident on their US broadcasts anymore now it is an incident of serious concern when they mention it at all. It only took them a couple of weeks to turn a crisis into a non-event with sporadic blips notoriety. Check out this graph comparing the media coverage of the tsunami verses the nuclear accident.
http://www.mediatenor.com/charts.php
Rent/Buy a tanker to offload the contaminated water into so that it can be properly filtered. Order some high capacity filtration systems and have them delivered to the site, since they will be needed for several months to deal with all of the contaminated water.
I think one of the problems is they have to radiation hardened the areas of the boat where the crew need access during normal operations. They also have to survey the hulls before they put 1000's of tons of highly radioactive water into them. Remember in the real world all of this waste would be sealed in "indestructible" radiation hardened transport casks. You don't want your toxic waste dump popping like a bag full of garbage two weeks after you fill it. There is also the coming Typhoon season to think about along with the very shallow nature of the anchorage. One good storm could drive the vessel aground in front of the plant.
As for the high capacity filtration systems the nuclear facility had them until the main power went down and most of the "nonessential" buildings exploded. Operation extension cord doesn't carry enough power to get them back up not to mention the multiple explosions and subsequent leaks have dangerously contaminated the entire facility. The French are bringing a water filtration system but it is going to take time (weeks months)for it to get up to speed. Filtration systems take time to set up and their operation speed depends on how pure you want your water and how dirty it is. I seriously doubt the French have a portable filtration system that can deal with the magnitude of the problem in a timely fashion.
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