Short uranium?

I just bought a few packets of potassium iodide from ki4u.com.

You guys might want to get some while it lasts.

According atomicarchive.com site, there are at least seven harmful effects human body when exposed to radioactive leaks from nuclear power plants.
1. Hair: Hair will disappear quickly when exposed to radiation at 200 Rems or more. Rems is a unit of radioactive strength.
2. Brain: brain cells will not be damaged directly unless exposed to radiation measuring Rems 5000 or more. Like the heart, radiation kills nerve cells and blood vessels and can cause seizures and sudden death.
3. Mumps glands: the thyroid gland is very susceptible to radioactive iodine. In certain amount, radioactive iodine can destroy part or all of the thyroid.
4. Circulatory system: when a person is exposed to radiation of about 100 Rems, blood lymphocyte count would be reduced, so that victims are more susceptible to infection. The initial symptoms are flu-like illness. According to the data when Nagasaki and Hiroshima explosions, showed symptoms can last for 10 years and may have long-term risks such as leukemia and lymphoma.
5. Heart: when exposed to radiation measuring Rems 1000 to 5000 will result in direct damage to blood vessels and can lead to heart failure and sudden death.
6. Gastrointestinal: radiation with a strength of 200 Rems will cause damage to the lining of the intestinal tract and can cause nausea, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.
7. Channels Reproduction: the reproductive tract will damage the reproductive tract with enough power under 200 Rems. In the long term, radiation victims will experience infertility.

"short uranium"

If I have to see just one more stupid ****ing comment like this....

There are millions of lives at stake for God's sake. An entire ****ing COUNTRY of PEOPLE is devastated. This is no joking matter.

Grow the **** up.,

Long iodine

Grid

thanks for the cheer me up this Sat a.m.

Sorry , but good to know if symptoms increase and levels to match.

Unfortunately this picture does not offer much to be positive about....

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/2011031....

Form Grid's Stratfor link:

Quote:

At this point, events in Japan bear many similarities to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Reports indicate that up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) of the reactor fuel was exposed. The reactor fuel appears to have at least partially melted, and the subsequent explosion has shattered the walls and roof of the containment vessel — and likely the remaining useful parts of the control and coolant systems.

And so now the question is simple: Did the floor of the containment vessel crack? If not, the situation can still be salvaged by somehow re-containing the nuclear core. But if the floor has cracked, it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through the floor of the containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before but has always been the nightmare scenario for a nuclear power event — in this scenario, containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible.

Radiation exposure for the average individual is 620 millirems per year, split about evenly between manmade and natural sources. The firefighters who served at the Chernobyl plant were exposed to between 80,000 and 1.6 million millirems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that exposure to 375,000 to 500,000 millirems would be sufficient to cause death within three months for half of those exposed. A 30-kilometer-radius (19 miles) no-go zone remains at Chernobyl to this day. Japan’s troubled reactor site is about 300 kilometers from Tokyo.

The latest report from the damaged power plant indicated that exposure rates outside the plant were at about 620 millirems per hour, though it is not clear whether that report came before or after the reactor’s containment structure exploded.

Read more: Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant | STRATFOR

4.9 ft exposed is about 1/3 of the rods?

"If accurate, these would be positive developments for the attempt to avert a meltdown in the reactor core. A number of nuclear engineers and experts interviewed in the press have also suggested that the explosion at the nuclear plant was not caused by a breach of the reactor itself, but rather involved the sudden release of hydrogen, which Edano confirmed, saying the hydrogen had been trapped between the reactor core and the surrounding containment structure, and exploded when released and mixed with oxygen. The government did not call for an expansion of the evacuation area of 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) around the two plants, and the fact that the evacuation zone has not been expanded is a positive sign.

It is too early to say, however, that a catastrophe has been averted. The nuclear safety agency said the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the nuclear plant, had succeeded in relieving pressure, but confirmed that some of the nuclear fuel had melted and that further depressurizing was necessary to continue to contain the reactor heat and pressure. TEPCO claims it is continuing to pump sea water and boric acid into the reactor container in order to substitute for the failed cooling process. Edano estimated it would take five to 10 hours to fill the container and 10 days to complete the process of cooling.

A number of questions remain. For instance, Edano claimed radiation levels were decreasing around the area, whereas the nuclear safety agency pointed to the fact that the release of steam to depressurize the reactor resulted in increased radiation levels. Other questions include the nature of the earlier explosion and whether it is true that the container was not damaged; whether radiation levels are as negligible as the government says; whether pressure in the reactor is indeed dropping; the sustainability of the cooling effort which is using batteries due to the lack of electricity; and the status of the Fukushima Daini reactors that were also reported to have had cooling malfunctions (water levels and radiation levels there last appeared to show no cause for worry). Thus while the official statements suggest some progress, potentially making this incident more similar to Three Mile Island than Chernobyl, nevertheless details are sparse and the situation remains precarious."



Read more: Officials Claim Positive Signs on Japanese Reactor | STRATFOR

A little less dramatic view by nuclear engineers over at Energy From Thorium: http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/v....

Quote from one of the posts:

Quote:

Simpler would be Main Generator (many are cooled internally by H2 gas) gas leaks into enclosed spaces leading to an explosion.

But there is simply not enough information to even speculate with any degree of accuracy. We just don't know enough. And the talking heads stating speculation as fact just annoy the crap out of me.

There are now multiple sources that say that the explosion was indeed hydrogen explosion outside the containment. The high temperatures and pressures will cause hydrogen formation in the containment and apparently as the steam was vented out (or leaked out) it exploded when getting into contact with the oxygen in atmosphere. Of the possible reasons and location for explosion, that particular one is the least bad.

Also looks like the Japanese are getting the situation under control. They have gotten enough electricity back that they have started to pump borated sea water directly into the containment building. It will make a horrible mess in the containment building, but will take care of the overheating problem. And the plant was in any case already damaged beyond repair. There might be some core meltdown, but the containment building and primary loop seem to be intact. Unless things suddenly turn for worse, it looks like the results be very close to Three Mile Island accident.

Quillbill if my comment hit you in the wrong spot because you have friends/family immediately affected I apologize. It was a snarky remark that poorly expressed my disappointment in how this event could not have come at a worse time. Just as we really need to diversify our energy infrastructure, including use of nuclear power, this event will kill such efforts.

CNN had caption saying plant was using plutonium

Is there any chance of an actual nuclear detonation or is the worst case scenario that this would be the equivalent of a huge "dirty bomb?"

Dirty bomb.

Stratfor source

As the crisis continues with Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a variety of STRATFOR nuclear science and engineering sources said Japanese government statements that the troubled Unit 1 reactor container has not been breached are highly dubious. Reports of iodine and cesium outside of the plant indicate that the reactor’s containment structure has been breached.

Iodine is in the fuel pins and cesium is a particulate, meaning there are heavy particles in the air, which are basically radioactive dust. Selenium 137, which Yomiuri Shimbun reports has been discovered in the surrounding area, is probably a product of the nuclear fission process and a strong demonstration of severe damage to the nuclear reactor’s core. The fact that the government has prepared a series of iodine treatments for locals in the vicinity of the nuclear plants suggests it is anticipating the need to prevent iodine exposure.

Meanwhile 90 people were reported as possibly exposed to radiation, including 30 refugees from the area and 60 people on staff at Futaba hospital. Sources suspect that Japan has already undergone “clad failure” (when zirconium in the rods reacts with water) leading to a violent exothermic reaction. This produces large quantities of hydrogen. The March 12 blast was probably caused by a combined steam and hydrogen explosion. The explosion may have destroyed the containment structure in the reactor vessel. This raises the distinct possibility that the core will gain heat to the point that it will melt through the reactor at the bottom of the reactor vessel. While there remain too many uncertainties to make reliable forecasts, the disaster has clearly escalated to a high level. Critical questions will be whether the radiation count rises above 1000 millirems per hour and whether winds should change direction to blow radiation from the north into Tokyo.

Psquared: No chance of a nuclear explosion.

Worst case is that the fuel boils off all the water and becomes exposed to atmospheric oxygen if the containment is breached. That in turn causes it to oxidize ("burn" isn't quite the right word although it's a fire - the heat is from decay, not oxidation) and be taken up, almost entirely, by the atmosphere. That in turn would lead to the equivalent of a "dirty bomb" dispersing the entirety of the core downwind from the site.

It would be very bad, but it's not a nuclear bomb - it's a radioactive material "spreading" event rather than a blast. Still sucks, and the fact that they've detected Cesium means that it is basically a certainty that severe core damage has occurred.

Genesis wrote..

the fact that they've detected Cesium means that it is basically a certainty that severe core damage has occurred.

Iodine is a better indicator than cesium because trace amounts of cesium exist in the coolant even without a fuel element failure. Hydrogen is an even more certain.

Yeah well I'd say that the blast that tore the outer containment building up like toilet paper is pretty good evidence of hydrogen presence - in quantity

True abn, but iodine has been detected as well according to TEMCO

Quote:

After the shut down, the values of radioactive materials (iodine, etc)
measured by the monitoring car have been increasing. Increase in the
measured value has also been recognized in one of the monitoring posts.

Right. I'd say there's no doubt that there's been core damage. Only the extent is unknown (at least to us). They probably know on site how bad it is because the radiation levels can be used to estimate the percentage of fuel element failure.

We could be talking about a few cracks in the top of the fuel elements or we could be talking about partially or completely melted elements.

Genesis wrote..

Still sucks, and the fact that they've detected Cesium means that it is basically a certainty that severe core damage has occurred.

^^ This. It's what Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy) said when he was on Fox News earlier.

So do newer reactors guard against this happening?

It's a function of being able to keep the core controlled during an event.

The reactors in this case lost their onsite power backup systems. That's not supposed to happen, but it did. I suppose you can look at this and say they should have expected 10m tsunamis, but apparently that was not expected and their backup power systems were not engineered to withstand it.

Karl, I just don't understand how they can engineer their plant to withstand the actual shaking of the earthquake but not consider the fact a tsunami will flood/damage their equipment?