The Japanese event is not a bunch of idiots, it is a tragic act of nature. TMI here in the US was nearly as bad.
I know. I was 50 miles downwind of TMI when it lit up. Some years later I lived 7 miles North of TMI for a year. No one there at the time believe the government or the plant owners.
the Japanese usually are good on engineering but not in this case. The generators were below sea level. A nearby city had a 30 ft. tall tsunami wall built for a much smaller tsunami was useless.
They (*****) seem more worried about losing face (& $$$) than admitting errors or actual readings. I hope the government does nationalize Tepko, restore it to an accountable entity and then sell it to power utilities in open bidding.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
I just read that it appears the radiation has stopped leaking into the ocean. I hope they are not lying, because in 8 days, we are taking a cruise from LA to Hawaii and back, and surely don't want to glow when I return.
TOKYO - Japan's nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis at a stricken nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing the amount of radiation released in the accident.
The regulators said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 - the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, there was no sign of any significant change at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
The new ranking signifies a "major accident" with "wider consequences" than the previous level, according to the Vienna-based IAEA.
"We have upgraded the severity level to 7 as the impact of radiation leaks has been widespread from the air, vegetables, tap water and the ocean," said Minoru Oogoda of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
NISA officials said one of the factors behind the decision was that the cumulative amount of radioactive particles released into the atmosphere since the incident had reached levels that apply to a Level 7 incident.
The revision was based on cross-checking and assessments of data on leaks of radioactive iodine-131 and cesium-137, said NISA spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.
"We have refrained from making announcements until we have reliable data," Nishiyama said.
"The announcement is being made now because it became possible to look at and check the accumulated data assessed in two different ways," he said, referring to measurements from NISA and the Nuclear Security Council.
Nishiyama noted that unlike in Chernobyl there have been no explosions of reactor cores at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, although there were hydrogen explosions.
"In that sense, this situation is totally different from Chernobyl," he said.
He said the amount of radiation leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was around 10 percent of the Chernobyl accident.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, is still estimating the total amount of radioactive material that might be released by the accident, said company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto.
He acknowledged the amount of radioactivity released might even exceed the amount emitted by Chernobyl.
The company, under fire for its handling of the accident and its disaster preparedness before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, issued yet another apology Tuesday.
The US power companies that operate nuclear power plants are studying this developing issue and are taking lessons learned into consideration and I think we may see changes made to our nuclear facilities soon, if they haven't already begun, as more facts come out from Fukushima.
Oregon deactivated a reactor in the flood plain for tsunamis. The problem is Yucca Mountain was not there to acccept the spent fuel. Now the fuel lies where it could easily be covered by the Columbia river.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
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