{"id":35559,"date":"2011-03-12T14:07:56","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T19:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=35559"},"modified":"2011-03-13T05:38:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T10:38:10","slug":"u-s-west-coast-nuclear-fallout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/u-s-west-coast-nuclear-fallout\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. West Coast: Pay Attention to Japan Nuclear Situation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Map circulating on the Internet illustrates the potential of a full-scale meltdown. The map has gone viral and is causing some controversy. Fallout from nuclear reactors in northeastern Japan would presumably be carried by the jetstream to the West Coast of the United States. Wind trends illustrated by this map are said to be correct -- but note that the radiation levels are impossible based on what is publicly known about the situation. Also there is no time rate given for the dosage; usually rads would be per hour, but according to one source I trust those numbers per hour are more like what someone would have experienced at ground zero at Chernobyl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is no such thing as a local nuclear disaster. While we are waiting to hear the status of Fukushima 1 after Saturday’s explosion, and the status of the other four Japanese nuclear power plants that are in trouble after yesterday’s 8.9 quake, I suggest we get used to the possibility of a core meltdown. The fact that some element of the Fukushima 1 plant exploded this afternoon, likely the result of a hydrogen buildup, suggests efforts to mitigate damage might not be going so well.<\/p>\n

Surveys of the building after the explosion are inconclusive as to the extent of the damage to the containment structure.<\/p>\n

“This is still a serious situation,” said Michael Marriotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service<\/a> (NIRS), which has been tracking nuclear issues since 1978 — shortly after the Three Mile Island accident. “It’s not a full meltdown, but right now it could go either way,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The government is saying that the explosion Saturday afternoon did not breach containment,” he said. But he added that it’s possible that the containment structure could blow. He said that the General Electric Mark 1 plant, of which this is one, was designed to be cheap rather than safe. There are 23 of these plants currently operating in the United States, he said. His organization has posted a list of those plants on its website.<\/p>\n

In a statement released this afternoon<\/a>, Marriotte wrote, “There are indications that there has been some fuel melting, and there are reports that some radioactive cesium has been detected. Utility officials are reportedly now planning to pump in seawater directly, perhaps with boron added, in an effort to cool the reactor and avert further fuel melt. This may, if it works, also permanently disable the reactor (although at this point we believe this reactor could never operate again in any case).”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He said that plant engineers are also preparing to vent pressure from three reactors inside Fukushima 2, which indicates they are having difficulty keeping the cores of those reactors cool as well. “You don’t vent these things unless you have to,” he said, “so it’s hard to tell” how serious the situation is at Fukushima 2. <\/p>\n

Official reports are suggesting that the radiation levels are down, but the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) public radiation monitoring system went down at the time of the initial quake and has not come back online yet. Marriotte said that there are other monitoring systems that can be used by government and industry but the one generally available to the public is not working.<\/p>\n

As for the map above, which has been attributed to Australian Radiation Services, Mariotte said that the wind patterns are correct but the radiation figures given are way off. At the current levels he said there would be no increased radiation in the United States, however, these wind patterns and increased levels would come into play in the event that the core melts down. He said that the Pacific Northwest would get the most radiation, in that event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no such thing as a local nuclear disaster. While we are waiting to hear the status of Fukushima 1 after Saturday’s explosion, and the status of the other four Japanese nuclear power plants that are in trouble after yesterday’s 8.9 quake, I suggest we get used to the possibility of a core meltdown. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}