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8.9 Earthquake has struck Japan

Robert Rohloff said:
With the fuel rods exposed to the outside it is doubtful they can stop the release that is occurring.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/exposed...ve-plume-will-reach-britain-in-two-weeks.html
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You don't have to read very far into that article to see why that site is not a reliable source of information:
These pictures show overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.
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. If you you were reading the more reliable sources of information (linked up-thread) you would have seen that same picture (around 24 hours ago) showing that the item in question is the crane that moves spent fuel rods to the pool, and that the pool itself is just out of sight. However, that explanation is not quite as sensational as saying that you are looking at exposed fuel rods and then drawing a conclusion based upon that. You are, of course, certainly free to enjoy inaccurate news sources, but please keep them out of a thread that has tried to be largely accurate and informative to Stormtrack members.
 
Good post explaining that hooking up the electricity and turning cooling back on is not all that straightforward, especially since they've been doing nothing but dumping water on things:
http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com/2011/03/recovery-of-water-damaged-electrical.html

At units 1 and 2, external power has been restored. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said it would restore functions in the central control room shared by the units so that accurate readings could again be taken from the reactor system. Next, workers will check the condition of the water supply systems to the reactor and the used fuel pond. With luck these will be able to go back into operation as they had been immediately after the earthquake on 11 March.
External power for units 3 and 4 should be in place ‘in a few days’ time’, said Tepco.
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- source

So, other than restoring cooling (the ultimate goal) it will be nice to not rely on guesstimates regarding what is happening with the reactor cores of Unit 1 and 2.
 
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Up until reading Darren's post, I didn't fully appreciate that the control room and instrumentation was also down due to loss of power. Yea, restoring those functions just might help!
 
Nicholas_Scherber said:
Watch video > I dont buy it but...
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Well, his beaching scenario is pretty factual but his windows have been wrong quite a few times but at those times he wasn't so keen on following what animals would tell us. To me it's pretty simple, you have all of this action on one side of the ring and it has to react to others. In the case of California all of the small ones do keep things moving and helps avoid the bigger ones. The Cascadia scenario though might be more likely. There have been more events in the last year near the Cascadia are that would seem like stress is building but??? As far as fish kills and beachings... There have been a bunch more in the last week that he didn't speak of.
 
Anyone know if the radiation levels and doses that they must be monitoring closer to the reactor are being made public, except for those brief press releases?
 
New close-ups of the reactors from 3/23:



Also you have probably heard of three injured yesterday working on No. 3 unit "emergency" yesterday, including radiation burns. 3 is the one that uses "mixed oxide fuel" (MOX) containing plutonium.

Also passing along this blog of interest. The author of the blog is a PhD candidate in Geology and Geophysics at M.I.T. She has a series of audio interviews there with her dad, who is Commander Mark L. Mervine (retired), a nuclear engineer. This is to preface the series of interviews:
My dad does not usually swear. He’s usually a reserved man of few words. When my dad starts swearing and talking on and on about something, you know that he’s upset. All day yesterday, my dad kept saying “Ohhhh s&*t” when he heard the news about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant being hit by an earthquake and then a tsunami.When I interviewed my dad earlier today, he had much to say.


My dad- Commander Mark L. Mervine, US Navy– is a nuclear expert who has worked on both nuclear submarines and nuclear power plants. I wanted to find out why my dad is so concerned about the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, so I called him up just a few minutes ago and recorded the call. I asked my dad all of the questions I had about the nuclear disaster. I hope this phone interview answers some of the questions you have. If you are at all concerned about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, you MUST listen to this conversation.
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There have now been 11 interviews with him. Yes, it's one man's opinion - but it's one man who should know what he's talking about and how to interpret the information that is coming out. The blog: http://georneys.blogspot.com/


A-MAZING video. The driver apparently survived. Guessing law enforcement, since he had a cam running. Maybe he is part of next season's Discovery Channel's Tsunami Chasers!

 
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I have largely stopped posting because the news we get now is old and delayed. It was obvious the containment('s) were breached long before now, that radiation levels were very high and that they were polluting the air and water long before they ever admit it. Radioactive iodine is 1260 times higher than safe / legal limits in the water near the coast of the Fukushima Fukup. The list goes on and on.

Days after the low level radiation arrived here, the US EPA admitted that 20% of the nations 114 radiation monitoring stations were offline for unknown reasons or possibly maintenance.

Take a read of this: IEER
 
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Here is a New Scientist article with headline similar to Jeff's links: http://www.newscientist.com/article...dioactive-fallout-nears-chernobyl-levels.html

Austrian researchers have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors – designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests – to show that iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl.
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