Quote: Kamps is a specialist in nuclear waste at Beyond Nuclear. Last year he was in Japan assessing the state of nuclear facilities there. He said today: “The electrical grid is down. The emergency diesel generators have been damaged. The multi-reactor Fukushima atomic power plant is now relying on battery power, which will only last around eight hours. The danger is, the very thermally hot reactor cores at the plant must be continuously cooled for 24 to 48 hours. Without any electricity, the pumps won’t be able to pump water through the hot reactor cores to cool them. Once electricity is lost, the irradiated nuclear fuel could begin to melt down. If the containment systems fail, a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment could occur.

“In addition to the reactor cores, the storage pool for highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel is also at risk. The pool cooling water must be continuously circulated. Without circulation, the still thermally hot irradiated nuclear fuel in the storage pools will begin to boil off the cooling water. Within a day or two, the pool’s water could completely boil away. Without cooling water, the irradiated nuclear fuel could spontaneously combust in an exothermic reaction. Since the storage pools are not located within containment, a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment could occur. Up to 100 percent of the volatile radioactive Cesium-137 content of the pools could go up in flames and smoke, to blow downwind over large distances. Given the large quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel in the pool, the radioactivity release could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe of 25 years ago.”

Quote:Over the decades, the Japanese public has been reassured by the Tokyo Electric Power Company that its nuclear reactors are prepared for any eventuality. Yet the mystery in Fukushima is not the first unreported problem with nuclear power, only the most recent. Back in 1996, amid a reactor accident in Ibaraki province, the government never admitted that radioactive fallout had drifted over the northeastern suburbs of Tokyo. Reporters obtained confirmation from monitoring stations, but the press was under a blanket order not to run any alarming news, facts be damned. For a nation that has lived under the atomic cloud of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, total denial becomes possible because the finger on the button is our own.

Quote:The company said it was preparing back-up generators to pump water and cool the reactor.

(03-12-2011 03:31 AM)Cynicalabsurdance Wrote:  




I quote here Father Malachi Martin on the 3rd Fatima Secret

Quote: " You will see it in the Sky"

End Quote

Quote:Thursday night's massive earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami warnings that have alarmed U.S. coasts, seem likely to ignite a debate over a previously little-discussed subsection of the spending bills currently being debated in Congress.

Tucked into the House Republican continuing resolution are provisions cutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service,

Quote:The House full-year continuing resolution, which has not passed the Senate, would indeed make steep cuts to several programs and functions that would serve in a response to natural disasters (not just tsunamis) home and abroad. According to Sobien, the bill cuts $126 million from the budget of the NWS. Since, however, the cuts are being enacted over a six-month period (the length of the continuing resolution) as opposed to over the course of a full year, the effect would be roughly double.

As for NOAA, the House GOP cuts are even deeper. The House spending bill is roughly $450 million below the president's 2011 budget requests. The Senate Democratic bill would be $110 million below that request. The White House-allied Center for American Progress, argued that the House spending bill would actually cut $1.2 billion from the president's budget requests, likely by taking into account that the bill does not provide NOAA the funding increase requested for the Joint Polar Satellite System.

such cuts "could result in the closure of up to 12 forecast offices that safeguard American lives and property. Each forecast office issues forecasts and warnings to an average population of 2.5 million people."

The proposed cut to the Operation, Research, and Facilities account would also result in a 21 day furlough of NOAA's employees.

The ramifications of spending cuts would potentially extend beyond tsunami or natural disaster preparedness to the post-catastrophe operations as well. In late February, a wide coalition of aid groups wrote Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to warn against the major cuts that the House bill made with respect to global disaster aid (67 percent cut relative to 2010 levels), refugee assistance (45 percent) and global food relief (41 percent).

(03-12-2011 04:17 AM)Prometheus Wrote:  On Japanese NHK news, said that nuclear plant will let the air through a vent and filters, which will apparently make the toxic air, not toxic.

Quote:Isn't that what they did at Three Mile Island? Vent radioactive steam from the the reactor? Cesium is already being detected as well? This, unfortunately, is pointing to the beginning stages of core meltdown!