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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Fukushima Unit 3 Steam Explosion/Meltdown Explained - HHS Orders 14 Million doses of Potassium Iodide | Fairewinds Energy/West Wire/ENENews

Fukushima Unit 3 Meltdown Rumor Explained:

As originally posted on Madtown Preppers, the "Steam Explosion" at Fukushima Unit 3 has been greatly debated.  We have updated the original post with the latest info.

Reactor Unit #3 is Hot, but probably not in meltdown.

HHS orders 14 million units of Potassium Iodide.

Stories are Unrelated...

Editor's Note: This pic is from March, 2011 - via fukushimadiary.com: [Mochizuki Cheshire Iori's Photos A lot of people ask about the "steam"coming up from reactor3. As Fukushima Diary has reported, this "steam" has been observed almost everyday since this July". (http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/07/steaming-reactor3-thermography-shows-the-steaming-area-is-over-15%E2%84%83-hotter-than-atmosphere/) (http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/09/tepco-not-to-investigate-nor-take-countermeasures-for-reactor3-steam-anymore/)]

HHS Orders 14 Million Doses of Potassium Iodide

KI The west wire news
On December 6th the US Department of Health and Human Services put a solicitation notice on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website for 14 million 65 mg doses of Potassium Iodide, the standard treatment protocol for someone exposed to high levels of radiation. As a stipulation of this solicitation, which gets bid on by registered contractors, the HHS requires the 14 million doses to be delivered by the end of January. In other words, the HHS needs enough doses of Potassium Iodide to treat 14 million Americans by the end of January!

The Devil is in the details

The primary use for Potassium Iodide is used for treating, as well as minimizing damaging effects from, radiation poisoning. The area of the human body that are most-sensitive to radiation exposure are the thyroid gland. It absorbs the radiation like a wet sponge.
Potassium Iodide is a salt-stable form of Iodine that isn’t radioactive, but will still be absorbed by the thyroid
gland the same way that radioactive Iodine would be. Immediately after exposure, if given larger doses of Potassium Iodide, one can fill the thyroid gland up to the point that it is unable to absorb an damaging doses of radiation, or greatly reduced amounts anyway. While this offers some comfort, it still cannot prevent initial damage, or help in reducing damage to other areas of the body. So really, when one thinks of Potassium Iodide as being a “shield” against radiation poisoning, it’s really only a shield like one would imagine a dinner plate would be a shield against a shot-gun blast. Yeah, if you hold it over the important stuff, you might end up better than you would have without it but your still going to get rocked.
If bad metaphors haven’t helped you imagine all that Potassium Iodide can do for you, check out the official CDC website. Since Potassium Iodide is the official course of treatment for populations in danger zones of radiation the CDC has all sorts of information regarding it’s uses and the reasoning behind it. I think it’s right next to their zombie-preparedness page. So, if the government were, for whatever reason, expecting to treat a large number of people for radiation poisoning, they would be planning on doing it with Potassium Iodide.

Fukushima concerns “poison” the mainstream

For those of us that keep up with current events, when we hear radiation poisoning, many of our minds wander to recall what we’ve been hearing regarding the situation at Fukushima’s Daiichi reactor III. With recent reports of the crew aboard the USS Ronald Reagan suffering from horrible radiation poisoning symptoms, it seems reasonable to assume all is not as well as the Japanese Government would have the international community believe. The sailors are suffering from much more than “mild” poisoning; one woman describing her symptoms as a 6 month long menstrual-cycle accompanied by 60 pound weight swings on a monthly basis.
Reports of the situation at Daiichi 3 being much more grave, than publicly acknowledged by the Japanese Gov’t and TEPCO, have been rushing into the alternative news community since the reactor began to destabilize. As a whole however, few of the mainstream reports have straye away from the official narrative put out by the Japanese; Fukushima is under control.
However mainstream interests may have finally been piqued amidst recent reports of dead marine life covering 98% of the seafloor in some areas, elevated radiation levels on the US west coast, and China’s refusal to buy shellfish from US west coast bays suddenly. One might wonder why it took these reporters to require reports of US naval officers experiencing uterine bleeding before the official narrative given by the Japanese government was questioned. Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur, now contributer to The Young Turks, describes the resistance one meets within the press community when  expressing opinions that run counter to the narrative:
@2:15ish:
“I was on MSNBC at the time when this happened, I said, “Don’t trust what the Japanese government is saying, they’ll say trust what the electric power company is saying. Go, go, go, get outta there. Get as far away from that plant as you can. It’s literally a core meltdown.” And they always don’t want people to panic, so they were always like, “Oh it’s going to be okay.” [...] I’m like, “You’re crazy man, don’t be anywhere near that reactor.” And I remember at the time, of course not at The Young Turks, but on cable news, people were like, “Hey Cenk, you know, I don’t know that you want to say that, because the official government position is that it’s safe.” Oh, is that the official government position? Now go explain that to the people who served on the USS Ronald Reagan.”

Never trust the government

Reports of deadly radiation are running rampant through the alternative community, and have even begin to show their face within the mainstream. Soon, you might even catch your elderly neighbors talking about picking up some Potassium Iodide after watching a report on Fox News. Regardless, it seems that a horrible situation has been allowed to become even worse through the reluctance, and most likely down-right refusal, of TEPCO and the Japanese government to allow the full scope of the deadly truth to get into view of the international community.
Governments usually respond to disasters very similarly; first move is to avoid panic. The Japanese didn’t want to panic the world, or tarnish their honor and now, as a consequence of their reluctance, Japanese citizens and international aid personal find themselves in a horrible state of being. Panic is usually avoided by keeping their citizens as blind to the truth as possible, until confrontation with the truth becomes inevitable.
The crucial question at this juncture; “would our government be reluctant about warning us of potential disaster, in an attempt to avoid panic?”
14 Million doses of Potassium Iodide say that might just be the case.

http://thetruthwins.com/archives/36-signs-the-media-is-lying-to-you-about-how-radiation-from-fukushima-is-affecting-the-west-coast 

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry

Gundersen: Very visible steam at Fukushima Unit 3 is from constant radioactive releases — Coming from hot rubble, not related to new explosion

Published: January 1st, 2014 at 4:21 pm ET
By
Fairewinds Energy Education, Jan. 1, 2014: [...] the Internet has been flooded with conjecture claiming that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is ready to explode. Fairewinds Energy Education has been inundated with questions about the very visible steam emanating from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. [...] Hot water vapor has been released daily by each of the four Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants since the accident. We believe that is one of the reasons TEPCO placed covers over Daiichi 4 and 1. [...] radioactive rubble (fission products) was left in each unit [...] heat from this ongoing decay of radioactive rubble is constantly releasing moisture (steam) and radioactive products into the environment. [...] [Unit 3] is still producing slightly less than 1 megawatt (one million watts) of decay heat [...] it is creating radioactive steam [...] hot radioactive releases [...] have occurring [sic] for the entire 33 months [...] The difference now is that the only time we visibly notice these ongoing releases is on the cold days [...]
The Ecologist reported on this unsubstantiated rumor which was then used as a source by ‘Gizmodo. The Ecologist has now changed their original report without any notice or explanation. Here’s the original ending: “The Turner Radio Network is advising people on the West Coast of North America to”prepare for the worst” in case a meltdown of the waste fuel is in fact commencing. No official warnings have been released on either side of the Pacific.”

Here’s how it ends now: “According to a Fairewinds Energy Education posting on Facebook, the reactor is currently producing about 1 MW of heat, equivalent to 1,000 1KW electric fires, so enough to produce plenty of steam. This would provide the least worrying explanation for the steam, in that as the radioactivity continues decline so will the heat production and the volume of steam produced. If this explanation is correct, there is no reason expect any catastrophic outcome. However the steam is carrying considerable amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and represents an ongoing radiation hazard.”

See also: Gizmodo Report Claims: “Fukushima could be in the middle of another meltdown” — 300th most popular website in U.S. publishes “unsubstantiated rumor”

Steam heat? What is happening at Fukushima Daiichi?

Beginning on Monday December 30, 2013, the Internet has been flooded with conjecture claiming that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is ready to explode. Fairewinds Energy Education has been inundated with questions about the very visible steam emanating from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Our research, and discussions with other scientists, confirms that what we are seeing is a phenomenon that has been occurring at the Daiichi site since the March 2011 accident.

It is winter and it is cold throughout much of the northern hemisphere. Hot water vapor has been released daily by each of the four Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants since the accident. We believe that is one of the reasons TEPCO placed covers over Daiichi 4 and 1. Sometimes the steam [hot water vapor] is visible and sometimes it is not. If you have been outside on a cold winter day, you have personally experienced that phenomenon when you see the breath you exhale form a cloud in the cold air. The technical explanation is that hot water vapor becomes visible when it comes in contact with cold air and condenses. During the winter months in the Fukushima Prefecture, the sea air is cold and moist, thus forming the ideal conditions to see the released steam.

Why is there still steam coming from the plants especially since TEPCO says that they are in cold shutdown? As we at Fairewinds have discussed in our many videos, podcasts, and reports, radioactive rubble (fission products) was left in each unit following the triple meltdowns. While the plants are shutdown in nuke speak, there is no method of achieving cold shut down in any nuclear reactor. While the reactor can stop generating the actual nuclear chain reaction, the atoms left over from the original nuclear chain reaction continue to give off heat that is called the decay of the radioactive rubble (fission products). The heat from this ongoing decay of radioactive rubble is constantly releasing moisture (steam) and radioactive products into the environment. The radioactive decay is gradually slowing down, as fission products decay away. The cold moist winter air at this time of year is making steam from the ongoing decay easily visible.

How much radiation is escaping? When Unit 3 was operating, it was producing more than 2,000 megawatts of heat from the nuclear fission process (chain reaction in the reactor). Immediately after the earthquake and tsunami, it shut down and the chain reaction stopped, but Unit 3 was still producing about 160 megawatts of decay heat. Now, 30 months later, it is still producing slightly less than 1 megawatt (one million watts) of decay heat.

What does that figure mean; is it an inconsequential amount? 1 megawatt of decay heat is a lot of heat even today, and it is creating radioactive steam, but it is not a new phenomenon. These hot radioactive releases [not physically hot, but radioactive hot – meaning they contain radioactive fission products] have occurring for the entire 33 months following the triple meltdown. The difference now is that the only time we visibly notice these ongoing releases is on the cold days with atmospheric conditions cold enough to condense hot vapor into steam.

Fairewinds Energy Education would like to thank our viewers and listeners for following our work and supporting our work and sending it important questions like this one. We will continue to keep you informed.








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