Unlimited Japan Tsunami and Godzilla Rising thread

[Elder Iptuous]

damn.
they fixed that fast.

[Phox]

damn.
they fixed that fast.

Wow.

[Da6s]

Well...fuck...

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81163.html

Levels of radioactive materials are skyrocketing in the sea near the crisis-hit nuclear power station in Fukushima Prefecture, the government's nuclear safety agency said Saturday, while the plant's operator has started injecting fresh water into the No. 2 reactor core to enhance cooling efficiency.

According to the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,250.8 times the legal limit was detected Friday morning in a seawater sample taken around 330 meters south of the plant, near the drain outlets of its troubled four reactors.

The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week, after staying around levels 100 times over the legal limit. It is highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has disembogued into the sea, Tokyo Electric Power Co said.

[Da6s]

Shit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26japan.html?_r=2

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences said that the radioactivity of the water that the three injured workers had stepped into was 10,000 times the level normally seen in coolant water at the plant. It said that the amount of radiation the workers were thought to have been exposed to in the water was two to six sieverts.

Even two sieverts is eight times the new 250-millisievert annual exposure limit set for workers at Daiichi in the days after the disaster; the previous limit was 100. Tokyo Electric officials said that water with an equally high radiation level had been found in the Reactor No. 1 building, The Associated Press reported.

Skin exposures of two to six sieverts will cause severe burns, according to Dr. David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. But if those doses reach the whole body and not just the skin "you're at a very high risk of dying," he said.

[Triple Zero]

Anyone know happens when the I₁₃₁ gets in the ocean? Does it get diluted enough, or perhaps get absorbed by something or other, or will it kill off aquatic life by the megatons?

[The Commander]

Anyone know happens when the I₁₃₁ gets in the ocean? Does it get diluted enough, or perhaps get absorbed by something or other, or will it kill off aquatic life by the megatons?

According to the NPR piece I heard last night it should get absorbed and dispersed in the ocean in about 8 days.  But there was another isotope that was more worrisome...I think it was cesium?

[Requia ☣]

8 days is the half life, takes longer for it to be gone.

Cesium is a worry in sufficiently large leaks because its half life is 30 years, but in the small concentrations we're seeing so far iodine (which is concentrated by biological activity) is a bigger risk, since you don't need a big does of radiation to get cancer when its all in your thyroid gland.

I'm not really sure how iodine behaves in nonhumans though, is this stuff gonna kill the fish, just the dolphins?  At the very least fishing in the area is gonna have to shut down for months.

[Dysnomia]

So in terms of perspective, are 'we' (meant as the whole world, and also meaning individual countries too, if that made sense outside my head) more fucked recently (past 10-15 yrs or so) or does 'global collapse' (i.e. us fucking it'self, economy down, japan getting screwed, tsunamis here, earthquakes there, insane gas prices everywhere, etc etc) happen more as a cyclical thing?

[Requia ☣]

Its a cyclical thing.

Except for the bit where the economy is built on perpetual growth now, and growth is a cyclical thing too.  So we're probably screwed for a while.

[Triple Zero]

I'm not really sure how iodine behaves in nonhumans though, is this stuff gonna kill the fish, just the dolphins?  At the very least fishing in the area is gonna have to shut down for months.

Especially considering the whole food-chain concentration at the top thing.

BTW, I thought Cesium explodes violently when it comes into contact with water?

[Elder Iptuous]

that's sodium

ETA: oh, and cesium, too, it seems. 

[Triple Zero]

CESIUM EVEN MORE SO IN FACT!!!

cause it's in the periodic table column of splodey stuff, and the further down, the moar it splodes.

[Phox]

CESIUM EVEN MORE SO IN FACT!!!

cause it's in the periodic table column of splodey stuff, and the further down, the moar it splodes.

[P3nT4gR4m]

CESIUM EVEN MORE SO IN FACT!!!

cause it's in the periodic table column of splodey stuff, and the further down, the moar it splodes.

ITT Trip finally explains how to correctly use the Periodic Table 

[Golden Applesauce]

Cesium is more explodey per atom, but less explodey per gram than sodium.

Only reason I know this is because of that "science" show (was it Brainiac?) that dropped some cesium into a bathtub, and then set off a bunch of dynamite underneath of it because actual cesium doesn't explode enough to look cool.

ETA: the explosion is from the hydrogen gas given off as the cesium/sodium/whatever replaces the hydrogen atoms in the water molecules.  So the radioactive cesium would still be in the ocean as a salt, if it isn't in salt form already.