There only option may be to cover the entire site with concrete soon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ill-people.html

Im not meaning to put a wet blanket on this thread, but Im praying for the people who have these tasks going fwd and those that wont ever get to fish again. They are going to need all the help they can get now.

There are some real heros over there giving their all for everyone else. Imagine working really long hours, in the dark, in the cold, against an enemy that is silently killing you.

i heard today on CNN/foxx i think, that all of us walking this earth has chernoble radiation in us. guess we'll have to make room for some fresh japan radiation too.

Or maybe it will trigger the rise of X-men super heroes.

What's even worse is that TEPCO tried to abandon their responsibility and dump it on the Japanese and US military to take over. The PM told them too bad...the country's more important than your company(something the USA would say?). Unfortunately who gets to crawl around in the dark and radiation? The workers... not the company execs safe in Tokyo . This is the same company that was contracted to build 2 nuke plants in Texas...not to mention the taxpayers were paying $8 billion to subsidize them..but maybe not anymore...

...and new studies by 3 Russian scientists published in NY Academy of Science estimate 900000+ premature deaths from Chernobyl....and still going....and going....

Taking all my fishing weights to build a lead-walled shelter!

While this is a BIG issue, expect to see mainstream media exploit every angle of this event until the next big catastrophic event takes place (US troops in Libya, Donald Trump for Prez, Paris Hilton pregnancy)

Don't believe what the Daily Mail and all the other UK ragsheets print. They're in the business of selling papers/sensationalism. The page 3 girl is worth a look although.

Paris is pregnant?

I would like to believe that working out at Hanford, and picking up Zoomies has made me the poster that I am today, here on PP.

Team FEAR NO ZOOMIES.

Mf

BS (intended), you might want to read up on the aftermath of the book you're mentioning....

http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/09/chernobyl-consequences-myths-and-fables.html

Not exactly reeking of "peer reviewed science". Especially in a region of the world (former soviet bloc) experiencing what seems like a systemwide breakdown in public health regardless of proximity to Chernobyl...

there is no safe level of radiation....repeat...there is no safe level of radiation...repeat...

yeah ...i've read the counter arguments and have also read the supporting arguments as well.. the NY academy didn't say that they disagree with his conclusions did they?

the National Academy of Sciences stated in 2005 that there is no safe level of radiation......it's all cumulative..some people have higher resistance than others to it...

now plutonium is being released from fukushima....the same stuff they want to use at hanford now...the most poisonous substance known...

Yablokov is coming to UW on monday the 28th...should be interesting to see...

oh.. btw isn't the ted rockwell guy the same one that doesn't believe in global warming but believes in parapsychology? good reply to him at climate and capitalism.......

who says there's no compassion for the workers or japan? don't you understand that the situation was made worse than it should have been because of the lack of planning and openness by the head of TEPCO...?
the CEOs sacrifice the workers and firemen....why aren't they there dying alongside them?
this was reported in japanese newspapers.....

Radioactive seaweed has been washing up on Vancouver Island this week. It arrived much sooner than scientists from noaa expected. This is going to be an ecological disaster. Its in the food chain and will remain there. Herring, candlefish,birds, etc. are already being contaminated. Nuclear Energy is not safe. We still cannot contain it effectively. The future is in Wind and Solar. Right now in Hawaii, First Wind is trying to put up a wind farm on Molokai to provide power to oahu and molokai. 10 turbines will provide for honolulu, 3 will provide for all of Molokai's 6000 people, as well as provide 500 supporting jobs. Clean, containable energy. We need to move on this technology now. The costs up front are small compared to the 300 billion to clean up Japan to pre disaster condition (which will never happen with contaminated ground water). say a prayer for Japan.....

Oh come on. 99.9% of that gazillion dollars to clean up Japan to pre-disaster conditions has nothing to do with the reactors, it's because the f'n place was leveled by a 9.0 earthquake and a 27' high tsunami.

Yes, the reactor cleanup over there is a disaster in its own right, and yes, the nuclear industry in Japan was plagued with poor maintenance and a face-saving, "nothing bad can happen here" culture. But do the math on wind and solar power and they don't compare with nuclear for cost-benefit. The move we need to make is to implement small modular intrinsically safe reactors as the older reactors reach the end of their designed lifecycle.

Tydy... There's nothing wrong with clean, renewable energy. Nothing. I'm 100% in favor of it.

But there are a number of problems -- which you can ignore if you like -- but they mean that we need MORE than just wind and solar. The two largest problems are:

a) the dark. It's half the day, and batteries SUCK.
b) places where there's not much wind.

There are solutions to those, like a high capacity, modernized power grid. You'll have no trouble getting ME to support this sort of infrastructure investment. But I believe it's politically impossible to do this at the present time.

Nuclear may not be politically possible either, but I for one would HAPPILY trade our dependence on foreign oil, for a dependence on stuff like the NuScale design for reactors. You tell me what makes us more secure as a nation? If you don't know about NuScale, here's a killer piece from that bastion of scorched earth GOP propaganda machines, the Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arch...acing-it/72422/

the nuke disaster was made worse because of poor planning and a cavalier attitude toward nuke catastrophe ..why did they have an 18' seawall when tsunamis there have been much higher historically ? why put the generators where they could get swamped?...whistleblowers from the daiichi plant have already said that there were many safety problems.. and as a recent study also revealed the USA's nuke plants also have a record of installing equipment backward or being ignorant of the fact that backup generators didn't work etc...even a racoon killed power to a nuke plants cooling system....

3 GE engineers resigned in protest over the design of the GE mark 1 plant at Daichi calling it a catastrophe waiting to happen...

people seem to want to ignore the fact that
Germany was quite successful with their solar program...why? again...it's a false choice to say that it gets dark...or sometimes the wind doesn't blow....solar and wind don't have to replace all power 24hrs a day...just nuke power and decrease fossil fuel consumption during daylight or high wind periods...
we're always promised a safe nuke plant....keep waiting...
if renewables had as much corporate welfare as fossil fuels and nukes like Germany did then they'd be cheaper.......and less toxic for everyone...

now it seems that reactor 2 has melted through containment ...according to GE's ex-head of nuke safety richard lahey...the race seems lost...there will be at least three level 7s and uncontrolled fuel fires....this is just the beginning of the catastrophe......if it hits ground water and creates a steam explosion...????!!!

i also have to chuckle about the drill baby drill attitude....doesn't using up your reserves of oil actually make you MORE dependent on foreign oil in a crisis? if you've depleted your own reserves then what happens when OPEC cuts you off? it's all sold on the global market any ways so how does that make you more secure?

It would be nice if we could not only focus on our energy sources, but on cutting consumption. As a society we seem to have been bred into an era of convenience versus one of personal sacrifice. Previous generations were willing to sacrifice personal consumption for the better of our nation with respect to oil and gas rationing during war, and even during the oil crisis of the 70’s. The national speed limit being reduced to 55 in the 70’s would be an example.

I have to ask myself why are we so spoiled and why are our politicians on both sides of the aisle afraid of asking us to cut back on our own energy needs. Could it be their political contributors would toss them out in the next election. Not in a democracy!

Perhaps a committed national campaign with a duration of more than a quarter of a year, and education on the subject would help us all. Less focus in the media on the greedy, celebrities, and rich athletes, and more focus on folks with creative ideas on energy, and conservation would go a long way in everyone feeling they are part of the solution and can make a difference.

Not clear we can wait for WA DC to get this started. It may have to start as a grass roots campaign.

Over on the Dark Side exposure is welcomed. Especially on Thursdays.

I'm wondering if the term Sushi will still apply. "When I was your age we caught our fish raw".

The overall downside of Nukes is:

An accident can render the land permanently poisoned.
An accident will manifest itself for many generations in cancers and birth defects like mental retardation. Luckily, unlike other countries, we have a place for the latter called Pullman.

yes, i have read about nuscale. nuscale is great if we find uranium sources to last beyond 50-60 years. Technology is there, but is the support? The great thing about nuscale is no pumps to fail and totally self contained and linkable i believe. batterry technology is improving rapidly (ie lithium ion) and you can have passive solar in cloudier climes (skylights, sunrooms ,hot water enclosed pre heaters, etc) active systems (panels, photovoltaics where aplicable) in sunny climates.