That's all I can think of. Mostly because my son and grandson we raised have every single Godzilla movie ever made, and we had to watch them endlessly through the years. I even admit a certain fondness for old Flubberlips myself, from when many of those movies first came out - I too as a child once.
Five reactors are in serious trouble after a truly monstrous earthquake followed by tsunamis enough to wash entire towns away in Japan. One has already blown its secondary containment to smithereens. It's like Godzilla (who is not happy), Gigan, Mothra, Rodan and Gidora all at the same f*cking time. I feel so sorry for them. This is a huge tragedy all around.
I have seen a lot of interest here, and of course all over the world if the media is any gage, in what's happening at the nukes. I've seen comparisons and allusions aplenty to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In this particular event's discussions, I am sort of uniquely qualified. I was a health physics technician during the initial recovery operation at Three Mile Island when Unit-2 melted. I was in charge of reading and recording the doses every day in Dosimetry. My husband was for a few weeks the senior surveillance technician in charge of monitoring releases. We had another friend to help with surveys in the aux building per conditions, and several other friends in vital positions inside the plant.
We went there on purpose. We lived in an area between the Peach Bottom nuke in Delta, PA and TMI upriver. My husband, my brother and our investigative partner at TMI had all put their time in at The Peach. And many other plants all over the country. We worked for a subcontractor. Sort of "Rent-a-Techs" to the industry. Peach Bottom was a BWR [Boiling Water Reactor], much like the Fukushima-1 reactor. TMI-2 was a pressurized water reactor. Each type has advantages and disadvantages, but they are quite different in their peripheral systems. A BWR has only one coolant loop. while a PWR has two. A PWR keeps its containment at a negative atmospheric pressure to contain possible explosions, workers must enter through an air lock. A BWR does not have an air lock containment, nor is its containment anywhere near the size or strength of a PWR's containment dome.
Our job at TMI-2, beginning just 5 days after the accident, was to document conditions and try to figure out what went wrong. Thus we were forced to do a lot of homework on the systems and piping. Luckily our partner came to TMI-2 from Rancho Seco in California, which was TMI-2's "sister plant." He brought the books of schematics and specs with him so we'd have them, along with the NRC notifications (to all other nukes) during the first days of the accident, and plume maps of the plume of radioactive contamination that was going out. We have been watching the events in Japan with great interest over the last few days, and have seen a lot of misinformation being broadcast both by ignorant media people, and by self-designated "experts" here at DKos. So I'm writing this diary to hopefully supply some real information about what's happening with (now six) reactors in Japan, and what that means for the people there and anyone else downwind.
Health physics is the science of radiation and what it does to biological tissues. HPs are required to be present at all nuclear power facilities (and other kinds of facilities) to provide protection to the workers so they don't get overexposed while they're doing their jobs. HPs also monitor the releases of radiation from the facility, and are ultimately responsible for protecting the general public from problems like accidents and emergency releases. HPs have the regulatory power to "Stop the Job" if proper radiological conditions aren't met. But in a radiological disaster they just do the best they can to protect everybody affected. You can't call radiation back when it's released. And once it's past the plant gate, the NRC considers it "natural background." No matter how dangerous it is, or how big the dose. TMI-2 presented some very extreme conditions. But none of us were at Chernobyl when it blew, nor are we now in Japan where there are multiple natural and unnatural disasters going on as we speak.
The Japanese people do not appear to be panicking, running screaming through the countryside about whatever nature or human stupidity throws at them next. They're just trying to survive unthinkable conditions all around. Those who have survived thus far really don't need more crap dumped on them. They must be moved south and west asap. All of them in the affected regions. I'm pretty sure their countrymen will take them in and help them survive.
That picture of Japanese people running panicked through the streets and countryside is what we get from Godzilla movies. Which have long been sort of a psychological outlet for the cognitive dissonance caused when a people who were nuked in war came to accept "Atoms for Peace" as a way to boil water for steam following WW-II. Angst writ large in the form of a giant mutated dinosaur who eats nuclear reactors for lunch. It's rather easy to look at the damage and think of Godzilla. Not only does he eat reactors, he stomps all over towns and villages (and Tokyo, always) on his way to the plant.
The Daiichi #3 reactor runs on MOX [Mixed OXide] fuel - meaning they have a significant amount of plutonium in their fuel rods. More than the #1 reactor, though it also had quite a bit of plutonium in the rods due to neutron capture by uranium-238 to become plutonium-239. Meltdowns and subsequent releases from these plants is a big deal. Cesium is not the worst of their problems. The third Daiichi reactor in trouble may be contained. Let's hope so. The three in trouble at the plant down the road may have their melts contained too. Let's hope so, lots of immediate help is geared toward that effort.
The #1 reactor was 40 years old and filthy, likely suffering all sorts of metal fatigue and neutron activation issues. It was scheduled to be decommissioned next month. Its explosion and meltdown are releasing some nasty, nasty isotopes. The #3 reactor will spew much of the same, with much more plutonium in the mix once the fuel is loose in the system and the aux building explodes. The best anyone can hope for in those cases is that the wind stays off-shore rather than blowing inland. Since humans don't control the wind, mass evacuation is warranted.
On Friday the 'officials' kept to the standard script, saying a lot of superfluous mumbo-jumbo about people just staying indoors with the windows shut and the AC off. They couldn't think fast enough on their feet to even begin to modify the recommendations based on the fact that lots of houses were flat gone, hardly anybody had any windows if they did still have a house, and the power was off to most of the northern part of the island. That's just plain old sad and didn't do anybody any good. They have people being hospitalized for acute radiation sickness. The public safety response is way, way beyond inadequate.
Game's up. These reactors are all lost to the Japanese, they will never come back on line. They're just trying to minimize the damage at this point, and it's a sure bet the Japanese people will be paying close attention to health effects despite the fact that they've lost so many people outright to the quake and its tsunamis. The world nuclear industry isn't going to get out of this one as easily as it got out of TMI-2 or Chernobyl. Or maybe they will. So long as they control the flow of information, and make themselves the only means of interpreting the techno-speak, then they can pretty much play it as they like. It will only be those who know better who aren't fooled.
So. My experience and training tells me they should be seriously evacuating everyone who is still alive within 30 miles, and allow those farther out to move as their hearts dictate. Predominant winds are west to east, the southern end of the island is fairly free of earthquake and tsunami problems. They'll do what they have to do with the nukes themselves, likely flood them and let them finish destroying themselves. The rest of the world will just have to absorb the gnarly releases, won't be worse than it was in the '50s during the height of atmospheric bomb testing. i.e., would kill a great many, but not so many as would be missed in the normal course of life and death on planet earth. It was the death toll that led to the atmospheric test ban treaty in 1962. It should be the death toll now that informs us that nukes must not be seriously considered as an answer to our energy problems in 2011.
I really don't know what to write here about anything other than the above "qualifications" to talk about it. Our experience was 30+ years ago, though we've kept up through the years on certain issues. This isn't about us, it's about what's happening in Japan. That's what I'm hoping to address.
If y'all have questions about terminology or conditions or reports or ways to protect yourself from harm, I'll try to answer them. That's the best I can do about what's happening in Japan, because my heart is broken for them and I wish Godzilla weren't tromping across the countryside to wreak havoc on them. That's all for now…
UPDATE: Media are reporting a second hydrogen explosion at the Daiichi-3 reactor, again destroying the secondary containment. NPR reported just minutes ago that the core of Daiichi-2 is completely uncovered. This means it is melting, venting of gases from it will likely cause a third explosion sometime this afternoon. Also, it was reported that the bulb-shaped containment vessel at the #1 plant had suffered partial collapse, and officials suspect the same situation at #3. That leaves just the vessels to contain the molten remnants of core, and those will fail at some point. Seawater and boron are being pumped into all three reactors and radiation is being detected up to 100 miles away to the north. The U.S. Navy has moved its ships away from the Fukushima plant after personnel were exposed to radiation.
As yet, no one is talking about the spent fuel in these buildings, which was kept in pools on the upper story. Which is no longer intact in either of the buildings that suffered hydrogen explosions. Presume that this serious additional danger (exposed fuel elements, or blown all over the place fuel elements) is being kept quiet for a reason. And that reason is NOT benign.
While officials are careful to minimize the danger and the releases of radiation/contamination, no one should put any faith in those self serving pronouncements. 500 residents still have not been moved from the 20km evac zone, have been told to stay in their severely damaged homes. As if that's going to do them any good...