# Disasters in Japan



## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

Poor people.

I was not expecting a nuclear disaster when I woke up this morning. One reactor has exploded, and there are six others there, some with failed cooling systems.


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## The_Banker (12 Mar 2011)

The news seems to be getting worse with each report with regard to the nuclear position. If radiation has leaked then the implications will spread further than Japan.

Worrying times.


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## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

It's looking more and more like Japan's Chernobyl.
At least they didn't wait three days to evacuate.

I wonder what the implications of another tsunami hitting the reactor would be? It looks quite close the the coast. (not to mention Tokyo)


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## Marion (12 Mar 2011)

It is fantastic to watch the footage of the pre-school children being rescued. Apparently, there were 48 of them on a military boat. 

Marion


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## WicklowMan (12 Mar 2011)

The_Banker said:


> The news seems to be getting worse with each report with regard to the nuclear position. If radiation has leaked then the implications will spread further than Japan.
> 
> Worrying times.



It certainly puts the "totally safe energy" arguement back in it's box (again). There should be some system which relies on hard data as opposed to political posturing in the case of nuclear disasters. 

I think in the case of Chernobyl it was only when high levels were reported in Norway(?) that they finally owned up to it. Thankfully the cloud system went around Ireland on that day in '86. 

According to the reports yesterday they'd managed to cool the reactors in a controlled way in Japan, but these latest reports don't seem to tally with that ... I'm no expert but I'd have assumed that the cooling rods would automatically drop into the reactors if there was a power failure. 

Sounds to me more like it got hit before the power failed, possibly damaging the mechanism?


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## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

What I've learned over the last few hours, reading often conflicting reports, is that the reactor automatically shut down when the earthquake happened.
The control rods automatically go into the core.

However, the core still needs to be cooled with water and there needs to be electricity to run the pumps. Normally this is done off the mains. There are two 'failsafes' to power the pumps. (Diesel generators and battery)
The earthquake destroyed the mains option, so we were left with the Diesel generators. These failed because (I think) the tsunami, or earthquake. We are left with the batteries, but these only run for eight hours.

So water (coolant) isn't circulating and is being boiled off. The outer containment has just exploded off  (Steam explosion?) exposing the inner reactor containment.

I don't know how they're going to keep the reactor cool now.


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## WicklowMan (12 Mar 2011)

Oh hell, sounds like Helicopters and sandbags again. The stuff of nightmares.


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## WicklowMan (12 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> What I've learned over the last few hours, reading often conflicting reports, is that the reactor automatically shut down when the earthquake happened.
> The control rods automatically go into the core.
> 
> However, the core still needs to be cooled with water and there needs to be electricity to run the pumps. Normally this is done off the mains. There are two 'failsafes' to power the pumps. (Diesel generators and battery)
> ...



Ah right, so it's not producing any new energy but they have to ensure that what's already there doesn't get to a meltdown situation - which afaik is unstoppable - and blow the thing apart. Scary stuff. The latest idea seems to be releasing radioactive steam ... probably the lesser of two evils ...


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## horusd (12 Mar 2011)

I had a look at the Japanese embassy website this am. I thought there might be some info on making a small donation or whatever.  There was nothing.  I know Japan is rich, but I'm sure they will need help? I've never seen anything like the destruction and shudder to think of the numbers of dead. Anyone know if there is some relevant site ?


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## WicklowMan (12 Mar 2011)

Pretty decent overall coverage on the beeb: http://cdnedge.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/462743.stm


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## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

> I had a look at the Japanese embassy website this am. I thought there might be some info on making a small donation or whatever. There was nothing. I know Japan is rich, but I'm sure they will need help? I've never seen anything like the destruction and shudder to think of the numbers of dead. Anyone know if there is some relevant site ?


I was wondering how Japan would financially recover from this, especially if we do end up with worst case nuclear scenario.
I remember reading that Chernobyl cost something like $200billion to clean up - and they still haven't replaced the crumbling containment structure.


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## Pique318 (12 Mar 2011)

Japan has moved!!!
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html?hpt=T2


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## Teatime (12 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I was wondering how Japan would financially recover from this, especially if we do end up with worst case nuclear scenario.
> I remember reading that Chernobyl cost something like $200billion to clean up - and they still haven't replaced the crumbling containment structure.


 
Lets not overreact or speculate on this until we know the facts. It is not a Chernobyl yet by any means.


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## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

I don't believe I'm overreacting.
The last I heard was that they were going to pump seawater and boron in. This really is a drastic measure. Haven't heard any other reports since, which is ominous.

The control rods are in, so hopefully it wont get too much worse.


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## bullbars (12 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I don't believe I'm overreacting.
> The last I heard was that they were going to pump seawater and* boron* in.


 
Boric Acid - an absorbatant.

It's looking more like a "Three Mile Island" than a Chernobyl at the moment.

Edit: Have any reactors actually exploded?


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## z107 (12 Mar 2011)

No reports I've seen of the reactor core exploding.


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## Howitzer (13 Mar 2011)

The latest images are pretty bad. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.


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## csirl (14 Mar 2011)

Teatime said:


> Lets not overreact or speculate on this until we know the facts. It is not a Chernobyl yet by any means.


 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article563041.ece

The effects of the Chernobyl disaster are way overstated for a variety of reasons. The truth is that even if there is a Chernobyl style disaster in Japan, the death toll will be insignificant when compared with that of the earthquake/tsunami. The word 'nuclear' seeks to evoke irrational fear that is way out of proportion to the effects.


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## z107 (14 Mar 2011)

I always thought that the after effects of Chernobyl were understated if anything. A huge area of land where people are not allowed to live, even today. Try viewing some youtube footage and see the cost in human terms as well as environmental and monetary.
According to official reports, only about 30 people died because of Chernobyl. This is of course nonsense.

Anyway, back to Japan. It seems things are getting worse. Two buildings have exploded with the fuel rods now exposed in the third.

USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier has suspended aid missions and changed course after radiation amounting to a month's worth in one hour was detected, 160km from the plant.


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## Chris (14 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I was wondering how Japan would financially recover from this, especially if we do end up with worst case nuclear scenario.
> I remember reading that Chernobyl cost something like $200billion to clean up - and they still haven't replaced the crumbling containment structure.



Japan has almost $900bn worth of US treasury bonds in foreign reserves, so the costs will not be a problem. Apart from the human costs the problem will be the effects on an already fragile economy and whether this will result in increased Keynesian policies.


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## The_Banker (14 Mar 2011)

A third explosion has occurred tonight at the nuclear plant in Japan.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I always thought that the after effects of Chernobyl were understated if anything. A huge area of land where people are not allowed to live, even today. Try viewing some youtube footage and see the cost in human terms as well as environmental and monetary.
> According to official reports, only about 30 people died because of Chernobyl. This is of course nonsense.


 
The death toll is simply factual on the basis of people who died as a direct result of the initial explosion and subsequent sickness. The problem then is how many other conditions are attributed to the explosion and that's where it gets tricky. But based on epidemiological studies, the actual cancer rate and birth defect rate isn't actually any (or significantly greater) than the average. 

As to the exclusion zone, it's still an exclusion zone because of the levels being significantly above recommended doses. However, the conflicting science is that even though the levels are so high, the area has effectively returned to nature and has an abundant wildlife. Even though when tested, the wildlife is massively radioactive, they still thrive seemingly without any significant illness, early death, birth defects etc. It's not conclusive, but the question is whether the science behind the permissable levels is 100% correct.

However, as with everything there's conflicting reports and my problem is that out of all the scientific reports very few are independent most are egregiously pro or anti nuclear power before they even begin. Chernobyl was bad, very bad, but it may not be as bad as it was first thought it could be. And that's about as much as you can say either way.

However, Japan will not have a Chernobyl explosion as it's a completely different type of station. It can't explode like Chernobyl and the explosions we are seeing is only to be expected but are hydrogen explosions. They are blowing off the shells of the buildings, but the reactor cores are well protected and are not being damaged (or so we're told). Besides, 3 Mile Island is the better analogy in this case.



umop3p!sdn said:


> Anyway, back to Japan. It seems things are getting worse. Two buildings have exploded with the fuel rods now exposed in the third.
> 
> USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier has suspended aid missions and changed course after radiation amounting to a month's worth in one hour was detected, 160km from the plant.


 
Splitting hairs, but the ship was a tad closer, more like 100km. However, to give persepctive to the dose they received, while it sounds high, Astronauts get doses 10 times that every time they pass through the Earth's radiation belt and in the entire history of the space programme not one has become ill or suffered any ill health. 

Any other nation and it's likely that the death toll would be in the hundreds of thousands rather than the thousands, Japan's committment to engineering in preparation has mitigated and much much worse disaster. Similarly, this nuclear powerstation is about 40 years old, the fact that there still hasn't been a meltdown after such an earth quake, tsunami and explosions is actually impressive and again shows the engineering that went on to make these stations as safe as is foreseeably possible.

While Sky News continue to look at each plume of smoke as if it were an atomic bomb and make wrong comparissons to Chernobyl, fear and panic will spread. No form of power generation is safe, look at what this thing has been hit with and it's still a more than good chance that the sea water cooling will work and the rods will cool safely.


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## Teatime (15 Mar 2011)

Latrade said:


> While Sky News continue to look at each plume of smoke as if it were an atomic bomb and make wrong comparissons to Chernobyl



Agreed, as a rule I don't watch Sky News. Its the reason I got rid of cable TV.


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## Chris (15 Mar 2011)

Great post Latrade, and some interesting points that I had only heard as snippets on various news reports. What I think will be interesting is how the nuclear power debate will be affected. If, and lets hope this will be the case, the reactors are safely contained, then this should be a very good argument for the expansion of nuclear power generation.
What baffles me is the comments from protest organisers in Germany who are protesting at the Neckarwestheim power plant. I heard one of the organisers on Euro News last night question what would happen if the same thing that happened in Japan were to happen at that power plant. This is a power plant that is 600km from the sea, is not in an earth quake zone and got one of the best safety and operational certificates by the IAEA in 2007.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

Some figures to try and make sense of the radiation levels:

After the second explosion the radiation levels went from 0.073 milliseverts(msv) to 11.9 msv in about 3 hours.

First thing to note is that many print media sources are quoting the figures in microseverts in order to make it look much greater (that'd be 73 micro sv going to 11,900 micro sv).

11.9 msv is still high enough to cause alarm, but not immediately for human health. The recommended annual maximum dose is 50 msv/year, but that doesn't mean if you're exposed to 51 msv you're doomed. That is based on those working daily in an environment where they will be exposed to ionising radiation, so effects can be cumulative. Therefore, a safe limit is given for day-to-day, repeated exposure.

One off doses of ionising radiation can obviously be fatal, but they would need to be at much higher levels than even 50 msv. So the comparissions to "month's dose" or "annual dose" give perspective, but don't mean you're about to die. 

Some comparissons though at around the msv level:

Modern Chest Xray - 0.04 msv
Terrestrial background radiation - 0.28 msv/yr
Human Body - 0.4 msv/yr
Radon Gas - 2 msv/yr
Smoking (20 a day) - 13 msv/yr.

So the closest analogy to where the levels rose to after the second explosion is that while high, it was still less ionising radiation than someone who smokes 20 a day receives in a year. But then that analogy probably wouldn't cripple us with fear.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

Chris said:


> What baffles me is the comments from protest organisers in Germany who are protesting at the Neckarwestheim power plant. I heard one of the organisers on Euro News last night question what would happen if the same thing that happened in Japan were to happen at that power plant. This is a power plant that is 600km from the sea, is not in an earth quake zone and got one of the best safety and operational certificates by the IAEA in 2007.


 
Even John Snow made the comment about how this "ends the Nuclear debate". I really like John, but that made me cringe (as did the BBC's ignorance of plate techtonics and asking whether global warming means more of these events). 

Given how active the region is in Japan, given just how huge this event was and we still haven't had a meltdown shows how good engineering can be. 

Even so this whole event could have been avoided, but that's with the benefit of hindsight. They expected to get more time out of the generators before any tsunami would hit. In fact they focussed too much on earthquake protection (as they happen a lot) and didn't really give enough attention to diesel generators working while swamped by a tsunami. The battery back ups weren't adequate (due to relying on other means) and when they did get additional generators in as the last fail safe, they had the wrong connections. 

But then my memory is hazy of the last huge earthquake and tsunami to hit these shores.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> However, Japan will not have a Chernobyl explosion as it's a completely different type of station. It can't explode like Chernobyl and the explosions we are seeing is only to be expected but are hydrogen explosions. They are blowing off the shells of the buildings, but the reactor cores are well protected and are not being damaged (or so we're told). Besides, 3 Mile Island is the better analogy in this case.


Please explain how this is not going the way of Chernobyl? We're way beyond TMI as this stage.

With Chernobyl, the main explosion happened when they were try to insert the control rods, and they didn't have much in the way of containment.

Here we now have a fire in a spent fuel rods pool and multiple reactors in various degrees of meltdown. According to NHK, a rupture may have occurred inside the containment vessel at Fukushima's number two reactor. As the situation gets worse, it gets more difficult to deal with.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> Please explain how this is not going the way of Chernobyl? We're way beyond TMI as this stage.
> 
> With Chernobyl, the main explosion happened when they were try to insert the control rods, and they didn't have much in the way of containment.
> 
> Here we now have a fire in a spent fuel rods pool and multiple reactors in various degrees of meltdown. According to NHK, a rupture may have occurred inside the containment vessel at Fukushima's number two reactor. As the situation gets worse, it gets more difficult to deal with.


 
It won't be a Chernobyl for a few reasons, but mainly the design and build of the plant here means it won't get to the Chernobyl explosion. 

I'm not saying the worst case scenario isn't serious, but it won't be an event like Chernobyl that's just how it is.

It looks like the some rods have lost their protective coating and if the sea water doesn't work, they'll overheat, the fuel will melt and could then melt through the floor and contaminate the ground. That's a meltdown, that's why it's comparable to 3 Mile Island. It will be serious ground contamination, but it won't lead to a massive radioactive cloud affecting  spreading over a vast distance.

Chernobyl was a plant built on the cheap by USSR, it did not have the levels of protection put into this plant or 3 Mile Island, that's why Chernobyl went boom very quickly and 3 Mile Island had only a minor leak with no illness or injury and why several days into this event there is no meltdown (yet), only one employee with minor radiation sickness and only one fatality (which was caused by a crane and not the radiation) in Japan.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> It won't be a Chernobyl for a few reasons, but mainly the design and build of the plant here means it won't get to the Chernobyl explosion.
> 
> I'm not saying the worst case scenario isn't serious, but it won't be an event like Chernobyl that's just how it is.


I understand that the reactors have different designs (negative void Vs positive void being the main one). However, you're not explaining how this can not turn into a Chernobyl type scenario. What is in the design that will make this different? I also understand one of the reactors in Japan was fuelled by MOX.



> It looks like the some rods have lost their protective coating and if the sea water doesn't work, they'll overheat, the fuel will melt and could then melt through the floor and contaminate the ground. That's a meltdown, that's why it's comparable to 3 Mile Island. It will be serious ground contamination, but it won't lead to a massive radioactive cloud affecting spreading over a vast distance.


I didn't realise they had a full meltdown in TMI. They didn't even have a full meltdown (to the earth) in Chernobyl. See 'elephant's foot' footage to see how close they got.



> Chernobyl was a plant built on the cheap by USSR, it did not have the levels of protection put into this plant or 3 Mile Island, that's why Chernobyl went boom very quickly and 3 Mile Island had only a minor leak with no illness or injury and why several days into this event there is no meltdown (yet), only one employee with minor radiation sickness and only one fatality (which was caused by a crane and not the radiation) in Japan.


Most of the immediate deaths in Chernobyl were not attributed to radiation, but the force of the explosion. It'll take at least a month before we see the death toll from acute radiation sickness in this case. 

There is partial meltdown. The fuel rods have melted in at least one reactor.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I understand that the reactors have different designs. However, you're not explaining how this can not turn into a Chernobyl type scenario. What is in the design that will make this different? One of the reactors was fuelled by MOX.
> 
> 
> I didn't realise they had a full meltdown in TMI. They didn't even have a full meltdown (to the earth) in Chernobyl. See 'elephant's foot' footage to see how close they got.
> ...


 
The simplest design difference is the containment of the core. TMI and Fshima has them, Chernobyl didn't. At Chernobyl the core exploded before the full meltdown occurred. Given that this has been ongoing for a while, if we were to have a Chernobyl, it would have happened already.

TMI wasn't full meltdown, you're right, that's because, yet again, of the design of the plant which helped prevent this.

The levels of radiation released during Chernobyl at its peak was enough to kill you in 45 seconds of exposure. Radiation sickness is acute and so the effects are within a short space of time. A number of years ago there was amuch greater leak at a Japanese plant and several employees died within days of radiation sickness. 

This situation could go very bad and into full meltdown, so saying it won't be a Chernobyl isn't downplaying the seriousness of it, it's just that the conditions and precautions at Chernobyl were a disgrace. Even though this plant is 40 years old, the designs (though not perfect seeing as generators failed) have mitigated against or at least hopefully delayed long enough to take action to mitigate against a full meltdown.

Also Chernobyl was complete and utter human failure and poor management of the plant. Here we're faced with one major natural disaster and we still have radiation levels significantly below safety limits.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> The simplest design difference is the containment of the core. TMI and Fshima has them, Chernobyl didn't. At Chernobyl the core exploded before the full meltdown occurred. Given that this has been ongoing for a while, if we were to have a Chernobyl, it would have happened already.



Main design difference is positive/negative void coefficient. This is now largely irrelevant as we've past that stage when the whole cooling system broke down. As for the containment, well reactor two's containment is said to be breached. This is inner containment, not the outer building. Even more worrying is the spent fuel rods.

If someone was to stand next to reactor two right now, they would of course die pretty quickly, from extreme exposure. If you are interested in how low death from ARS takes, check Johnstons archive. For Chernobyl, it was up to about a month. 

There wasn't a full meltdown in Chernobyl. Many people sacrificed themselves to stop this from happening. This was the main thing they were worried about - the core hitting groundwater. That could still happen here.


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## WicklowMan (15 Mar 2011)

Hopefully the lack of core explosion will help to (relatively) contain the problem. Over the years I took an interest in the whole Chernobyl disaster as it was just one of those 'bane of childhood' type stories. In that instance the question was more "how could it *not* happen?" than "how could it happen?" I do think it's most impressive that the Japanese have kept the disaster at the level they have.

It does, however, prove once again that planning against all eventualities is something of a moot exercise. When you plan against the possible something 'impossible' happens.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> Over the years I took an interest in the whole Chernobyl disaster as it was just one of those 'bane of childhood' type stories.


I have too. A morbid fascination. Mayak also has some terrible stories.

Throughout this, every time I went to bed I would think that they would have it all under control by the morning. It seems to be getting worse each day. I really wish it were a TMI, when I think of the workers and their families.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> Main design difference is positive/negative void coefficient. This is now largely irrelevant as we've past that stage when the whole cooling system broke down. As for the containment, well reactor two's containment is said to be breached. This is inner containment, not the outer building. Even more worrying is the spent fuel rods.


 
I'm not entirely sure what this whole debate is about other than arguing for the sake of it. This situation is likely to be a much worse TMI and not a Chernobyl, that will mean some serious local harm, but not a radioactive gas cloud. The media report a Chernobyl like situation is a deliberate scare tactic and one coming from a position of ignorance. That is all that is being pointed out, not that the worstcase scenario isn't going to be serious or harmful, just that it will not be on the scale of Chernobyl.

At Chernobyl you had no containment, and a large reactor made out of graphite. For a number of days (maybe even weeks) the graphite was on fire pumping out as part of the smoke the radioactive isotopes that had built up during operation and the explosion. So, lack of containment, completely different construction, completely different operations such that the core just cannot burn like at Chernobyl mean it is extremely improbable that a Chernobyl-like explosion and radioactive gas cloud will occur to the extent that you can say we will not have an explosion like Chernobyl. 

Instead we have a serious incident, where the longer it goes on without incident the better as the fuel will also be cooling naturally. 

There are failures that need to be addressed, but it is a 40 year old design. The fact that it's even still standing after such a huge eathquake (it was designed to withstand many many magnitudes less) is a marvel in itself. The fact that even with the failures it could still turn out


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> This situation is likely to be a much worse TMI and not a Chernobyl, that will mean some serious local harm, but not a radioactive gas cloud.


Why do you keep coming out with statements like this?
No one is going to know where this ends up. We'll know in a couple of months time maybe, but this is an on-going event.

What we do know is that it's already worse than TMI. Radiation levels are rising in Tokyo (that in itself would indicate some kind of radioactive cloud), and we have spent fuel rods on fire.

This is what is currently being reported.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> Why do you keep coming out with statements like this?


 
Mainly because that's how it is. It'd be nice for the sake of controversy to ignore physics. Unfortunately it's a pesky bit of science that frequently gets in the way of fantasy and delusion.

How many more times though do I have to say that the situation is a concern? It is, the fire at plant 4 is a concern (seeing as it was supposed to not be operating), but then the misrepresentation from the media is frustrating.

Radiation levels are spiking at certain times (following planned steam release, explosions, leaks), but drop very quickly. That short life of the isotopes is a good thing, not just from the point of view of long term damage, but from the point of view of the source of the radiation.

Trying to get through the scant information is hard enough without inaccurate media reporting. I don't get how people can slam the media reporting of swime flu and/or global warming as being deliberately inaccurate and panic-based yet expect this set of circumstances to be any different or that the media has suddenly turned to accurate reporting of science.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> Mainly because that's how it is. It'd be nice for the sake of controversy to ignore physics. Unfortunately it's a pesky bit of science that frequently gets in the way of fantasy and delusion.



We've heard so many times since Chernobyl that such accidents could never happen again, because of different design. Now, here we are with this, but this time with four potential meltdowns and burning fuel rods. That to me, that is the result of people 'ignoring physics', or letting 'pesky science' (or money) get in the way.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> We've heard so many times since Chernobyl that such accidents could never happen again, because of different design. Now, here we are with this, but this time with four potential meltdowns and burning fuel rods. That to me, that is the result of people 'ignoring physics', or letting 'pesky science' (or money) get in the way.


 
How? It was a plant designed and built 40 years ago. It wasn't designed to cope with both a scale 9.0 earthquake and size of tsunami (in terms of probability both together would be considered a 1 in 1000 year event). No plant anywhere, nuclear or otherwise is designed to survive in that scale of event largely because to insist on such would mean just no building anything. 

But again, this is plant built before the chernobyl disaster and it has currently survived with limited release an earthquake many many times its design spec. If that's what could be done 40 years ago, imagine how well engineered modern plants are. 

If it had been a chemical plant at that location, we'd have a different disaster to deal with and possibly greater disaster. If it had been an oil refinery, ditto. It just happens to be a nuclear power plant.

We have a handful of nuclear power "big" events. Three attributed to human failure (Windscale, TMI, Chernobyl). TMI shows how engineering actually averted a disaster. Chernobyl shows how lack of engineering and short cuts creates a disaster. Windscale shows how you just change the name of the plant to pretend it never happened.

This event was as a result of the 5th worse earthquake ever recorded on the planet. The biggest failure is the failure to plan for the unprecedented and unforeseeable.


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## Betsy Og (15 Mar 2011)

Latrade said:


> It wasn't designed to cope with both a scale 9.0 earthquake and size of tsunami (in terms of probability both together would be considered a 1 in 1000 year event).


 
But dont earthquakes and tsunami go hand in hand - especially in the Pacific where the fault lines are mainly under the sea. Wouldnt building it on high ground protect from tsunami (as opposed to practically on the beach). Ok you'd have to move stuff up the hill from the ships but worth the hassle.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

Betsy Og said:


> But dont earthquakes and tsunami go hand in hand - especially in the Pacific where the fault lines are mainly under the sea. Wouldnt building it on high ground protect from tsunami (as opposed to practically on the beach). Ok you'd have to move stuff up the hill from the ships but worth the hassle.


 
Yes and yes. But other issues play a part in the location of the plant. Again though, the extent and scale of the disaster is huge, really huge. It's difficult to build anything that would withstand that. Is that an argument against nuclear power? Maybe in areas of such a high risk of tectonic activity, but not against the whole industry.

There are refineries further inland that are on fire, still. There are chemical plants (a lead acid battery manufacturer) that have suffered massive structural damage and now have huge health and environmental concerns. All of these plants were designed to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis, just not one this big. But we don't hear for calls to have all refineries closed of chemical plants.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

> Wouldnt building it on high ground protect from tsunami (as opposed to practically on the beach). Ok you'd have to move stuff up the hill from the ships but worth the hassle.


I believe that such nuclear power stations need access to water.

Of course, it should never have been built.


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

Latrade - I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of nuclear power in this thread. I didn't realise about the graphite core being flammable and causing such problems in Chernobyl - so that's a bonus here.

Let's just see what happens and hope (pray if you're a believer) that they get some kind of break.


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## Latrade (15 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> Latrade - I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of nuclear power in this thread. I didn't realise about the graphite core being flammable and causing such problems in Chernobyl - so that's a bonus here.
> 
> Let's just see what happens and hope (pray if you're a believer) that they get some kind of break.



I don't expect you to and I don't mean to either. We have a huge disaster (last I heard over a 1000 bodies have washed up on the shore), total deaths likely to be in the 10s of thousands and the media is fixated with one plant that is in trouble but in all likelihood is only now likely to harm those working there. No mentionof the 4 other plants affected by the quake that are under control and where safety design worked, no mentionof the sister plant that managed to get all four reactors under control today, no mention of the other industries that are currently causing huge environmental damage and illness. 

Why should they bother with that and the grim realities of a natural disaster when there's panic to cause?


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## z107 (15 Mar 2011)

I understand what you're saying. I believe the reason is two fold:
- The outcome could effect everyone else in the world, so people are scared.
- The unknown. Radiation is misunderstood and also feared by many people. (Which is easy for the media to work on)

I can't think of any other accident that has the potential to effect the globe. That's how it's different. Bhopal, for example, was a huge accident, but it had limited scope.


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## ringledman (15 Mar 2011)

Latrade, two things I cant seem to hear in the media are: 

1) The type of radiation and its half life currently being emitted? 
2) The length of time it will stay in the environment?

Initially on Friday evening I heard from some expert on the bbc that the radiation was nitrogen 16 and had a half life of 5 seconds. ie. pretty harmless in a pretty short period of time. 

However now we hear of new radiation leaking, but it is not clear if this is a different type, ie more harmful? or how long it will stay in the environment for? Can the core emit differing types of radiation, some of which are more dangerous than others, or is radiation of only one type? 

The media reporting is pretty poor, which may or may not be a reflection of the information being fed from the Japanese government. 

I get the sense that the newspapers and news channels are loving the attention to pull in the viewers or newspaper buyers over the reporting of real factual information. 

Likewise the time for discussing the rights or wrongs of nuclear is once the situation is resolved (hope so much this this will be soon). Far too many experts of either side of the argument trying to spin their view. Likewise a media trying to spin the story as much as they can. 

Where can you get the real facts from???


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## Latrade (16 Mar 2011)

ringledman said:


> Latrade, two things I cant seem to hear in the media are:
> 
> 1) The type of radiation and its half life currently being emitted?
> 2) The length of time it will stay in the environment?
> ...


 
I don't blame the media for not getting into too much detail on the isotopes. But essentially the steam venting that has to take place would release relatively short lived isotopes. That means that even though they may travel some distance, because they decay quite quickly, the immediate danger from exposure to radiation is in the surrounding area of the plant. By the time the particles reach outside the exclusion zone, the amount of radiation drops.

We also see that the peaks in radiation levels are relativley short lived. Again, the media doesn't really clarify this, it will report the high levels (harmful levels) in the immediate area of the plant and then also state an increase in detecting radiation in Tokyo or elsewhere. The difference is the levels in Tokyo, while increasing aren't at a concerning level.

The isotopes and their half life vary, the Nitrogen-16 isotope is very short lived. I was taught at college that by the time you've typed R-A-D-I-O-A-C-T-I-V-E-D-E-C-A-Y it's gone. So that's not a huge concern, 
but tritium, iodine-133, cesium-137 and strontium-90, among others, all have much longer half-lives and health risks. Even so the significance of the health risks varies as some don't survive as long in the body as others to do much harm. Iodine is the biggest concern at elevated levels as it collects in the thyroid, the quicker stuff gets out the body the better. 

The only realy picture we can get is from monitoring the isotopes. It's likely that the containment vessel in #2 plant has been breached, but we can't be 100% sure as people can't get in to check. We know something is occuring as we know what isotopes there should be from the steam release, but they're also getting isotopes that would indicate exposure of the fuel rods.

Best case scenario with that at this point is that #2 has been breached, worst case scenario (and given the difficulty in getting information could be a reality) is that it's related to the fire at #4 plant and the spent fuel rods. 

Sources of good information are diffuclt about the best is the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). Unfortunately their website is down, but they tend to only put up a daily press release there. However, their facebook page is updated very frequently and is the best source I've come across. 

As the website is down I can't link to it, so you'll have to do the old google.


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## z107 (16 Mar 2011)

I'm getting seriously worried about what's happening in that nuclear power plant at the moment. Apparently there are 600 rods of spent fuel in tanks at the top of the reactors. (WTF were they thinking doing this). These aren't in any containment. Mayak had a huge disaster with a nuclear waste tank in the '50s.

On top of these we have the potential meltdowns.


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## shnaek (16 Mar 2011)

Very interesting article on the possible future of power generation in Japan:
http://www.cringely.com/2011/03/is-anything-nuclear-ever-really-super-safe-small-and-simple/


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## PMU (16 Mar 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> I understand what you're saying. I believe the reason is two fold:
> - The outcome could effect everyone else in the world, so people are scared.
> - The unknown. Radiation is misunderstood and also feared by many people.
> I can't think of any other accident that has the potential to effect the globe. That's how it's different. .


 You are right to be concerned with unforeseen circumstances.  For example, continued radiation leaks could give rise to radioactive spiders, with a consequential risk of Japanese Spidermen or possibly, if there were an explosion, Japanese Incredible Hulks.  A plague of Godzillas can’t be ruled out either.


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## z107 (17 Mar 2011)

PMU said:


> You are right to be concerned with unforeseen circumstances.  For example, continued radiation leaks could give rise to radioactive spiders, with a consequential risk of Japanese Spidermen or possibly, if there were an explosion, Japanese Incredible Hulks.  A plague of Godzillas can’t be ruled out either.



I was more concerned about a local increase in cancers, especially thyroid cancer, birth defects, still births, contaminated land, and a possibility of radioactive rain on Tokyo.
Global impact is a plume of radioactive particles being released into both the ocean and atmosphere. There's also the financial impact as well as environmental.

I don't find any of this remotely humorous. Godzilla - how original


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## z107 (6 Apr 2011)

Does anyone have any ideas why Fukushima no longer seems to be covered by the mainstream media?
The BP oil leak got loads of media attention for weeks.

At the moment, thousands of tonnes of radioactive water is being deliberately dumped in the Pacific to make room for more highly radioactive water in the storage tanks.
This water seems to be leaking into the sea as well

India has banned all food imports from Japan.

School playgrounds in Japan are being monitored for radiation.

These updates don't sound too promising:
http://www.fairewinds.com/updates

Yet, we hear nothing?


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## ringledman (7 Apr 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> Does anyone have any ideas why Fukushima no longer seems to be covered by the mainstream media?
> The BP oil leak got loads of media attention for weeks.
> 
> At the moment, thousands of tonnes of radioactive water is being deliberately dumped in the Pacific to make room for more highly radioactive water in the storage tanks.
> ...


 
Because the mainstream press like to big up a story out of all proportions and then dump it once people get bored of hearing about it until the next story can be made. 

Churn and burn, get people watching your channel or buying your paper. 

The UK government were talling Brits to leave as the 3-4 mSv level in Tokyo was just too high. They forget to tell the residents of Cornwall who are exposed to similar natural levels on a daily basis from the granite in the rock. Likewise getting in a plane exposes you to radiation.

The scaremongering and lack of knowledge over nuclear is the problem. Of course it is dangerous to those in the vicinity but you need seriously large doses. The water will wash and spread the radiation over such a level that the effects will be small. 

Radiation at low levels is a natural phenomenom.


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## z107 (7 Apr 2011)

Before this happened, the pro-nuclear power crowd were telling us that meltdowns could never happen again. Power stations were now safe, had better technology etc, etc... Now that this has happened, we seem to be hearing that radiation isn't that bad afterall! WTF?

Yes, I'm aware of background radiation. I'm also aware of restrictions placed on livestock in Scotland and Wales after Chernobyl.

This is a major incident. The pro-nuclear luddites seem to want to stop renewable progress. Is this why we're getting a news blackout? We need to develop new technology, and stop wasting time on unsafe, uneconomic nuclear power. 

We have to end our dependence on oil, coal and uranium ore.


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## ringledman (7 Apr 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> We have to end our dependence on oil, coal and uranium ore.


 
Good luck! 


I'm not saying nuclear isnt dangerous, of course it is. And likewise I agree with going renewable. 

However the tree hugers out there need to realise that there is no quick fix to non reliance on oil, coal and nuclear.

Unless you want everyone to go back to tending one's own 1/2 acre of land and never leaving ones village, then these three energy sources are here to stay in the modern world. 

Even getting to 25% renewable is a huge task.

Likewise it takes a magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami to cause local damage (albeit substancial) to a 40 year old nuclear plant. I think that says something about nuclear power. 

This sort of incident will never happen in Europe so it is a bad argument to say look at this incident, stop all european nuclear plants. 

What meaningful alternative is there for all our power needs? None.


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## Pique318 (7 Apr 2011)

A little bit of balance to the FUKUSHIMA = CHERNOBYL Part II stories.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/fukushima_panic_breaks_completely_free_of_facts/


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## z107 (7 Apr 2011)

From the opening sentence of that report:


> As the situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant slowly winds down, the salient facts remain the same as they have been throughout: nobody has suffered or will suffer any radiological health consequences.


It's accepted fact that the reactors will take months to cool down. We are far from 'slowly winding down'. We wont know the health consequences of this disaster for many years. Radioactive contamination (unless in extreme amounts) doesn't work like that. It reminds me of the cigarette companies.



> Even getting to 25% renewable is a huge task.


Yes, 100% renewable is a huge task. We have to start somewhere though, and we can't keep diverting billions into a failed nuclear industry, or spending billions on wars for oil.

A huge task, but not insurmountable.


> Likewise it takes a magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami to cause local damage (albeit substancial) to a 40 year old nuclear plant. I think that says something about nuclear power.
> 
> This sort of incident will never happen in Europe so it is a bad argument to say look at this incident, stop all european nuclear plants.
> 
> What meaningful alternative is there for all our power needs? None.


This tells me that we shouldn't be using nuclear power. We can't predict the next act of God. We can't predict the next case of human error.

To say that this sort of incident will never happen in Europe shows terrible risk analysis. Isn't it more common to say things like '1000 year event' etc... Although we seem to be having a major accident every twenty or so years at the moment. The more NPPs, the more likely an accident.

A meaningful alternative will be renewables.


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## Pique318 (8 Apr 2011)

http://www.withouthotair.com
To remove Oil from the supply line for the UK (transport included), you'd have to cover every inch of land in PV cells at better-than-current-maximum efficiencies, and include wind / wave / hydro generation ... and you still don't come close !

Unfortunately, renewables just dont cut it...


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## z107 (8 Apr 2011)

Pique318 said:


> http://www.withouthotair.com
> To remove Oil from the supply line for the UK (transport included), you'd have to cover every inch of land in PV cells at better-than-current-maximum efficiencies, and include wind / wave / hydro generation ... and you still don't come close !
> 
> Unfortunately, renewables just dont cut it...



They will have to cut it, we don't have any other choice. Everything else gets depleted (it isn't renewable)

There will have to be a a two-pronged approach of reducing energy consumption and accelerating research into renewables. We can use all that money wasted on wars and nuclear power to do this.

People use far too much energy at the moment. How did we survive before the industrial revolution?


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## Latrade (11 Apr 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> *This is a major incident. The pro-nuclear luddites seem to want to stop renewable progress.* Is this why we're getting a news blackout? We need to develop new technology, and stop wasting time on unsafe, uneconomic nuclear power.
> 
> We have to end our dependence on oil, coal and uranium ore.


 
Yes a major incident, but nowhere near the scale the media tried to suggest it could get to. That's why they're quiet because it didn't live up to their doomsday expectations.

"Pro-nuclear luddites"? Erm i would think that the advances in nuclear technology is far from being a luddite. And there's the problem, the anti-nuclear voice is prohibiting or at least scaring off governments from investing in research to safer nuclear generation. There is some amazing progress being made in the labs and on a bigger scale. 

Pro-nuclear luddites would also include a fair portion of the world's scientists, the same scientists who would also be signed up for preventing global warming. So there is no right wing conspiracy here, just a huge dose of reality and reasoning and all this debate is doing is taking away from the Japan tragedy. 

Even if there are long term health problems related to this. It will only be limited to a very local area. That's not spin or pro-nuclear agenda (well some atomic spin is involved) that's just basic physics. At worst it may cause up to 1000 premature deaths. That's a lot, but on a scale of what has been lost through the quakes and tsunamis?

Here's the simple way it is. We need to end dependancy on oil and as you say urnanium. We can't just shut down the power stations. We can't just rely on renewables. There is no such thing as free energy, either in the law of physics sense nor in the sense of affecting man or the environment. Dams burst, people are killed in the construction of dams. Windmills kill more people in the US than have ever been killed by radiation in the US (including testing of the atomic bomb). Bio-fuels take food away from starving people and agriculture kills more workers than other industries in this country, agriculture has a huge environmental impact with surface water pollution.

Per KW produced and number of people affected there is no safer form of energy generation at the moment. That's just how it is. 

So we take one disaster that occurred as a result of an unprecidented natural event. A natural event of a scale limited to a select few known regions of the world. We take that and end any research or development of energy production that may provide answers to a reliance on oil? 

If people want to reduce oil consumption, we've a limited choice. Reliable, efficient renewable energy that gives consistent constinuous production of energy is possibly 20 years away. We need to keep up with the R&D in that area. But we need an interim, we need something to fill the gap in the meantime and we have it.


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## Latrade (11 Apr 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> They will have to cut it, we don't have any other choice. Everything else gets depleted (it isn't renewable)
> 
> There will have to be a a two-pronged approach of reducing energy consumption and accelerating research into renewables. We can use all that money wasted on wars and nuclear power to do this.
> 
> People use far too much energy at the moment. How did we survive before the industrial revolution?


 
There is a two-pronged approach. Most newer technology is infinitely more energy efficient, but that's outweighed by other nations developing and growing, but it is happening.  

There is huge research in renewables, but there also needs to be research into nuclear. You may not like it, but the energy demands of the world are just too great. There isn't enough land or coastline for renewable production. We need a big hitter for energy production and the only current viable alternative (until we master fusion) is fission.

And what happened before the industrial revolution? Simple: most people were serfs to a Lord, completed backbreaking work from sunrise to sunset, hardly had enough food to feed a family, lost 1 in 2 children to infant mortality, suffered high rates of death in childbirth and lived to a ripe old age of 35 at best, never saw the world from outside their small town, were never educated, never able to read or given the opportunity to do anything but be a serf as your father was, as his father was and so on. 

Ah the good old days.


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## Chris (11 Apr 2011)

umop3p!sdn said:


> People use far too much energy at the moment. How did we survive before the industrial revolution?



Simple answer: people died!

Latrade paints a much better picture though.


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## z107 (12 Apr 2011)

I had a long winded post about the dangers and expense of nuclear power, but there's plenty of that already out there on the internet. I'm not going to re-hash the obvious.

The disaster has been raised to level 7, so we are now in the same league as Chernobyl
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13045341


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## z107 (12 Apr 2011)

People should realise that there is a difference between ingesting radioactive particles and normal background radiation. I would also advise people read about bioaccumulation, and how contamination gets more concentrated as it goes up the food chain. Human breast milk is at the top of the food chain BTW.

[broken link removed]

It's up to individuals to make their own minds up on this, but it's easy to take precautions.


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## z107 (10 Jun 2011)

'Melt through' may occurred at Fukushima
http://www.naturalnews.com/032657_Fukushima_meltdown.html


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## Howitzer (10 Jun 2011)

Gonna have to dispute the veracity of that report.

One of the ads on the same page states "How to cure any Cancer at home for $5.15 a day". Does not engender confidence.


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## z107 (10 Jun 2011)

Here's another report
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...ima-may-have-leaked-through-yomiuri-says.html

(References are cited at the bottom of the previous report)


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## Latrade (10 Jun 2011)

Howitzer said:


> Gonna have to dispute the veracity of that report.
> 
> One of the ads on the same page states "How to cure any Cancer at home for $5.15 a day". Does not engender confidence.


 
As to the report, it's rumoured this will be part of the final report. But we'll have to wait and see. Many are just quoting the same source from the same newspaper.

As an aside that site is interesting in if it's promoting all that's natural, then it should be in favour of nuclear power, after all there'd be no life without it. In addition, the site owner may want to swot up on what's good for humans, since we controlled fire we've actually lost the ability to digest properly raw foods. We need food cooked to varying degrees to get the most out of them. 

I suppose it's not really natural, given it's technology interferring with life, but good luck trying to live off only raw foods.


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## Purple (10 Jun 2011)

Latrade said:


> In addition, the site owner may want to swot up on what's good for humans, since we controlled fire we've actually lost the ability to digest properly raw foods. We need food cooked to varying degrees to get the most out of them.



Yep, that's why we've got a smaller intestine than other primates.


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## z107 (27 Jul 2011)

Fukushima four months on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW3_N8fy8vw&feature=player_embedded

(It hasn't gone away)


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