Wall Street fecha semana sem rumo. Grandes tecnológicas pressionam

[EuroVerde]

Um pedaço de Urânio do tamanho de uma bola de golf liberta tanta energia e calor como o estádio do Benfica a arder cheio de carvão até acima!!!!

Queda de cabelo, tonturas, lesões internas, queimaduras e irritação na pele, variação e danificação de cromossomas.

[tava3]

O pior dos cenários eles nunca o vão anticipar por causa do pânico, é impraticavél uma evacuação em massa em tempo util. Mas vamos supor um dos piores cenários, imaginem que o nucleo do reator 3, cujo o edificio é o que está em pior estado e o que tem o plutónio, explode e lança para atmosfera uma nuvem de radiação com valores do tipo chernobyl, na casa das centenas de sieverts. Com ventos favoráveis de 15km/h,nada de especial, chega a Tóquio em 16 horas. A zona metropolitana de Tóquio tem à volta de 40 milhões de habitantes, ou seja, se for preciso evacuar e metendo 40 pessoas em cada autocarro, são precisas um milhão de viagens. Com 1000 aurocarros a fazer 10 viagens/dia cada um dá 400 mil pessoas evacuadas por dia. Seriam precisos mais de 3 meses para evacuar toda a gente, já nem falo da situação de panico instalado, com filas enormes e gente a atropelar-se, ou seja, haveriam milhões de pessoas expostas a altissimos niveis de radioatividade durante tempo de mais,(Este "tempo de mais" pode querer dizer centenas de milhar ou milhões de mortes em meses). Ainda não aconteceu o pior mas foi suficiente para que alguns estados questionassem a seguranças das suas centrais. O pior cenário poderia levar as pessoas às ruas contra o nuclear, porque o apoio a este tipo de energia é quase inversamente proporcional aos efeitos de um acidente. Depois temos os nervosisnhos que acabam sempre por fazer porcaria nas concentrações, o que pode ir desde bloquearem o acesso a centrais até à sabotagem das mesmas. Resumindo, com o fecho de algumas centrais por razões de segurança, outras por bloqueios, etc., poderemos ver a especulação a atacar o petróleo, os 200 dolares podem vir a ser só uma paragem na viagem.
Isto é um dos piores cenários, tudo o que não acontecer é bonus.




P.S. Nem falei dos prejuizos envolvidos mas seriam elevadissimos, é que já se me acabaram os zeros.

[MarcoAntonio]

Resumo dos últimos desenvolvimentos (Reuters):

- Engineers successfully attach a power cable to the outside of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in a first step to help cool reactors and stop the spread of radiation.

- Further cabling inside under way before an attempt to restart water pumps to cool overheated fuel rods. Once power is restored, the next stage will be to check equipment is working and not damaged before trying to crank up the coolers at reactor No. 2, followed by 1, 3 and 4.

- Japan government spokesman says some stabilization at the stricken No.3 reactor. Engineers meanwhile are using diesel generators for less critical reactors No. 5 and No.6 reactors.

- Tests detect radiation above the national safety level in spinach and milk produced near the Fukushima plant

- The U.N. atomic agency says conditions at the plant are grave but not deteriorating badly.

- If engineers are unable to cool the reactor, the last option would be entombing the plant with concrete and sand to prevent a catastrophic radiation leak, the method used at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

- Severity rating of the nuclear crisis raised to level 5 from 4 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Chernobyl was a 7 on that scale.

- A report about a man pulled alive from the rubble of a house eight days after the quake turns out to be false. The man had been in an evacuation center and returned to his ruined house when he was discovered by rescue workers.

- Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the quake and tsunami. Another 10,700 people are missing with many feared dead.

- Japanese PM Kan plans to sound out the opposition on joining a grand coalition to handle reconstruction policy following the earthquake and tsunami.

- The Japanese government plans to dedicate up to 10 trillion yen ($127 billion) in crisis lending to businesses to help them finance day-to-day operations and repair damage, Nikkei said.

[sombrio]

Exhausted engineers at the Fukushima have now successfully attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's stricken nuclear plant, Reuters reports, in a first step towards helping cool reactors and stop the spread of radiation.

If engineers are unable to cool the reactor, Reuters says, the last option would be entombing the plant with concrete and sand to prevent a catastrophic radiation leak, the method used at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

[sombrio]

o reactor 5 e 6 tb nao parecem estar muito controlados...

The operator of the Fukushima power plant says engineers have bored holes in the roofs of the buildings housing reactors 5 and 6 to avoid a potential gas explosion, reports AFP.

[sombrio]

esta ***** esta num ciclo vicioso...

Radiation levels near the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant rose very slightly on Friday morning following the spraying of water into one of the reactors.

Tokyo Fire Department units used 13 fire engines to discharge water into the No. 3 reactor's storage pool for spent fuel rods for about 40 minutes starting at 12:30 AM. This followed similar operations by the Self-Defense Forces and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plant, said the radiation level at a location about 500 meters northwest of the No. 3 reactor stood at 3,279 microsieverts per hour at 1:10 AM. The reading was up 60 microsieverts from 12:20 AM, before the operation began.

The company says the change is too small to be meaningful and that it will continue monitoring radiation levels for a detailed analysis.

Cooling systems for the fuel rod storage pools at the No. 3 and 4 reactors have failed, raising the possibility that a large amount of radiation could be released.

Tokyo Electric also revealed that an emergency diesel power generator at the No. 6 reactor has been restarted and that the pumping of water to the fuel rod storage pools at the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors has been resumed. Both reactors had lost their cooling capabilities.

Saturday, March 19, 2011 11:11 +0900 (JST)

[MarcoAntonio]

O Michio Kaku, convém assinalar, é um Físico Teórico, com alguma inclinação para a ficção por sinal e não um Engenheiro Nuclear. Ele tem formação teórica, não tem experiência nenhuma de terreno...

Por sinal, há dias, vi-o numa exposição na comunicação social em como ele apresentou a solução do "sarcófago" como uma solução rápida (e simples) sem mencionar as várias dificuldades específicas da solução naquele caso concreto (dadas as características da central e do local) como os "veradeiros especialistas" têm todos apontado. A solução é admitida, mas não é simples e rápido como ele apresentou (onde ele não mencionou nenhum dos problemas reais envolvidos).

[JMHP]

Michio Kaku: "A Meltdown is Forever"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHM-Y1-3L0


Emergency Workers Rush to the Reactor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7lz-jsu ... ure=relmfu


Inside a nuclear powerplant...same type like fukushima 1 japan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1QQR-xH0w

[MarcoAntonio]

Dois artigos interessantes...



"Even In Worst Case, Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Will Have Limited Reach"

Sete especialistas, engenheiros nucleares de topo, auscultados pelo ProPublica e o consenso aproximado sobre o efeito de longo-prazo no pior dos casos:

http://www.propublica.org/article/even- ... ited-reach




"Nuclear power: Why the panic?"

Um artigo essencialmente em torno da dificuldade das massas em termos de "risk assessment" onde inclusivamente é dado o mesmo exemplo que já dei varias vezes entre o risco rodoviário e o risco aeronáutico e onde o pânico e o medo leva a opções efectivamente mais arriscadas com consequências adicionais fatais:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editoria ... -the-panic




Nota: em relação ao caso que o artigo cita relativamente ao efeito 2001 podem consultar estas estatísticas, por exemplo

http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/fata ... stics.html

Traduzindo em números, o medo, o pânico, a desinformação e o desconhecimento levaram a que cerca de 5 mil americanos adicionais tenham morrido nas estradas nos 4 anos seguintes ao 11 de Setembro!

[sombrio]

Interview: Japan crisis is much worse than Three Mile Island

DETROIT (Reuters) – The man who became the face of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in 1979 says he had it easy compared to those trying to regain control of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant this week.

Harold Denton, a senior official with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time, was picked by then-President Jimmy Carter to take charge at the Pennsylvania plant as operators were working to regain control of a reactor going into partial meltdown.

He quickly became the face of the Three Mile Island crisis, holding daily news conferences and making regular appearances at the press center set up at the plant, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The incident terrified Americans and set back nuclear power plant developments in the United States for 30 years. Even so, Denton said conditions at the plant were far better than those at the plant at the center of the current crisis in Japan.

"This is certainly far worse than Three Mile Island," Denton said in a phone interview.

The Three Mile accident was a case of a valve malfunction compounded by human error, while Daiichi was the result a massive earthquake and tsunami. Possible missteps and what some nuclear engineers say are design faults may have compounded the situation.

To be sure, GE says the design used at Daiichi has performed well for over 40 years and meets all regulatory requirements. The design has no faults, it says.

What's certain is a series of blasts wrecked parts of the Daiichi plant, while Three Mile remained fully intact.

"In Japan, it's clearly the problem caused by the double whammy of having an earthquake and then the tsunami," said Denton.

Now 75 and retired in Knoxville, Tennessee, Denton reels off the other differences:

--At Three Mile Island there were no injuries and only minor amounts of radiation released into the atmosphere. At Daiichi, at least two workers are missing and many other workers are risking heavy doses of radiation.

--There was only one troubled reactor at Three Mile; in Daiichi there are six.

--His team could work close to the reactor. In Japan it may well be too dangerous to do so because of high levels of radiation.

--The power was working at Three Mile. In Japan, it was knocked out by the earthquake and tsunami.

"Power is the lifeblood for a power plant," Denton said. "If you've got power you can do a lot, but if you don't have any power, the water in the reactor vessels heats up and boils away and fuel begins to melt and that's a problem they've gotten into now."

NO PHONES

In Three Mile Island, "there was no interruption of infrastructure. The biggest problem was the telephone communications because there was such an overload of the system."

In fact, poor communications was one of the biggest headaches at Three Mile Island.

There were no mobile phones in 1979, so Carter ordered a hot line with a drop cord to Denton's work trailer, allowing Denton to provide the President with regular updates.

"I called the president twice a day using the red telephone," Denton said.

"At the time, the computers were not as fast and didn't have the storage that they do now," said Denton. "The data flow at Three Mile Island exceeded the capacity of the printer to print the data."

Using computer printouts was the only way for Denton and his team to get a proper readout from the big and bulky computers in the power plant -- but having a printer go "clickity-click" as it slowly rolled over wasn't very helpful in such a new kind of crisis.

EVERYONE'S A CRITIC

Having coped with such events himself, Denton declined to join those piling on to criticize the Japanese plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

"I'm reluctant to criticize other people. During Three Mile Island, there were always pundits from a thousand miles away saying what we should be doing, and it used to upset me that the farther away people were from the site, the more authoritatively they came across."

Still, he did say that a freer flow of information would have helped as scientists outside the plant could have offered more assistance. Clearly those on the site had gotten too busy fighting fires, he said.

The extent of the damage at the two plants is clearly one of the most noticeable differences.

Three Mile Island suffered no structural damage. Operators didn't even know for two days after a hydrogen explosion in the primary containment on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, that a blast had even occurred.

They "realized they had heard a thud ... the day of the accident," he said. "They attributed it to a valve closing, not unlike other occasional noises in a power plant. By Friday, they realized they had heard an explosion the result of a hydrogen explosion," he said.

By contrast, the Daiichi reactor suffered numerous hydrogen explosions that partially destroyed the roof and walls, cracked the primary containment vessels on at least two of its six reactors, and damaged pools holding spent fuel.

THE LONG RETURN

A year after the accident, Denton went inside the reactor containment vessel after it had been vented.

"There was surprisingly little damage from the hydrogen explosion visible on the operating floor of the plant," he said. "The things that were visible were a telephone in that area seemed to have some melting on the plastic cover and perhaps a barrel that had caved in a little but it wasn't the scene of destruction by any means."

One of the biggest signs of how the Japanese crisis is so much worse than the U.S. incident 32 years ago is that Denton was able to take President Carter on a tour of the plant's control room on the fourth and final day of the Three Mile Island accident.

It is doubtful whether it will ever be safe for Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to go to Daiichi.

Indeed, Japanese engineers conceded on Friday they may have to bury the plant in sand and concrete as a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_japan_quake_threemileisland

[sombrio]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/2011 ... fefforts_1[/quote]

[JMHP]

Japan Quake Map

http://www.japanquakemap.com/

[sombrio]

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Cpt0WKZI9D8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[MarcoAntonio]

No debate da dimensão - nomeadamente no que diz respeito ao nível na escala INES - do desastre nuclear que decorre no Japão, ainda sem desfecho, a generalidade dos sites e em especial as notícias, praticamente só fazem referência a Chernobyl e Three Miles, os dois mais significativos acidentes em centrais nucleares.

Como a generalidade das pessoas já saberá, Chernobyl está classificado com o nível 7 ao passo que Three Miles está classificado com o nível 5, numa escala logarítmica que partilha algumas semelhanças com a escala utilizada para a medição de terramotos, dado que se trata de uma escala de magnitude. Isto quer dizer que existe um fosso enorme entre a dimensão destes dois casos!

Existe contudo um acidente nuclear que não tem sido referido e que está classificado com o nível 6 e é o único na história da energia nuclear para já que se encontra classificado nesse nível (ignorando naturalmente o presente caso no Japão, ainda sujeito a debate e revisões).

O acidente em causa, que não ocorreu numa central nuclear mas em instalações de reprocessamento de combustível nuclear para fins militares, é conhecido por "Kyshtym disaster" e ocorreu em Mayak, na altura parte da União Soviética, em 1957. Este acidente, algo ignorado pelos mídia, constitui assim o segundo maior acidente nuclear, a seguir a Chernobyl.


Alguma informação sobre esta ocorrência pode ser encontrada aqui:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster

[atomez]

Radiation hampers efforts to restore power to nuclear plant in Japan

Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worked all day Friday attempting to connect a newly restored power line to reactors No. 1 and 2, but their task was repeatedly interrupted by the need to withdraw workers because of high radiation levels. The team said they hoped the task would be completed sometime Friday evening or in the early morning hours Saturday.

It is not clear yet, however, whether restoring power to the two damaged reactors will help with cooling. Some engineers believe the cooling pumps were irretrievably damaged by the hydrogen explosions that wracked the reactor buildings in the first four days after the March 10 magnitude 9 Tohoku quake, or by corrosion from the seawater that has been pumped into the reactor. At the very least, however, restoring power should restore many of the control functions at the reactor.

Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the facility 140 miles north of Tokyo, said they hoped to have power connected to reactors No. 3 and 4 by Sunday.

Reactor building No. 4 is now the source of the biggest concern at the site because it contains spent fuel rods that may have boiled dry and are releasing large amounts of radiation into the environment.

The spent-fuel pool does not have a containment vessel, so if the fuel rods heat up and start burning, the radioactive ash will be released directly into the environment.

Workers made a second series of attempts Friday to cool the fuel rods, dumping water from helicopters and using water cannons operated by Japan's Self-Defense Forces to spray water into the pool, which sits in the upper level of the building housing reactor No. 4. The reactor itself had been shut down for maintenance before the earthquake, so it does not pose a problem.

But photographs taken by helicopters and a Global Hawk drone operated by the U.S. Air Force indicate the water is not lasting very long in the pool, suggesting that there is a major breach in the walls of the vessel holding the fuel rods, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors radiation globally, said Friday that minute amounts of radiation from Fukushima had reached the West Coast of the United States, but only at barely detectable levels that were insignificant to health.

On Sunday, meteorologists predict a heavy rainstorm for the Fukushima area, with the prevailing winds changing toward the direction of Tokyo.

[nelsonfilipe]

Marco estás a prestar um serviço publico espectacular a nós todos. Muita dedicação. Obrigado e também obrigado aos outros que percebem minimamente do assunto e tentam explicar aos outros ignorantes no assunto como eu.

[MarcoAntonio]

Aqui ficam medidas de radiação em diferentes pontos, disponibilizadas pelo Governo Japonês há pouco:

http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/ ... 7_1716.pdf

As medidas, conforme se pode ver no pdf têm origem em várias entidades diferentes conforme os postos.



Para (ajudar a) interpretar estes dados, chamo a atenção para os posts das últimas páginas onde foi dedicada bastante atenção a isso, nomeadamente os colocados por mim e a tabela colocada pelo zundy.

[MarcoAntonio]

Pelo que percebo e no que se refere á ameaça radiotiva, as previsões catastróficas não se verificaram.

Marco, não queres fazer um update dos trabalhos? A situação está agora sobre controlo, ou precisamos de mais dias para ter a certeza?

Valete, tive de me ausentar nos últimas horas e só agora me é possivel responder.


A situação não se pode considerar verdadeiramente controlada. A generalidade da informação vai no entanto no sentido de considerar que não tem existido nas últimas horas uma degradação da situação, que se encontra assim "razoavelmente estável".


No conjunto dos 6 reactores da central de daiichi, 3 estarão porém em situação considerada estável enquanto outros merecem maiores preocupações. Dos 6, 2 contam já com alimentação própria, outros dois tenta-se providenciar energia durante o dia de hoje (é incerto o resultado prático uma vez que se desconhece o estado dos equipamentos depois do terramoto, tsunami e explosões de hidrogénio) e os restantes dois está programdo serem providos de energia no dia de amanhã.


Discute-se a hipótese de se optar por uma solução identica à de Chernobyl, que consiste em encapsular/enterrar os reactores numa misturia à base de areia para barrar efeitos nefastos, a que tem sido dado o nome de "sarcáfago". No entanto, para além da solução ter de ser na prática diferente e mais complexas (por exemplo: são vários reactores e têm de ser muito mais resistentes a terramotos dado as características do local), a prioridade para já está no arrefecimento dos reactores.


Isto resume mais ou menos a situação e as perspectivas conforme são vistas hoje...




Já agora, deixo este resumo dos "últimos desenvolvimentos" colocado pela reuters há cerca de uma hora atrás:

Latest developments:

- Japan's nuclear safety agency says cannot say if the quake-damaged nuclear reactors are under control.

- Japanese engineers say entombing the Fukushima Daiichi plant with concrete and sand may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation leak, the method used at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

- Workers were dumping water to cool the most critical No.3 reactor and planned to run a power cable to reactors No.1 and 2 by Saturday to restart the water pumps needed to cool overheating fuel rods.

- Japan's nuclear agency says priority is to get water into spent fuel pools, particularly in reactor No. 3, which contains plutonium.

- The agency also raised the incident level at the stricken power plant to a 5 on a 1-7 scale. That would suggest a level of seriousness on par with the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States in 1979. But it said there was no need to expand the evacuation area beyond 30 km at this point.

- The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, says it could take weeks to cool the reactors. About 300 workers, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits are toiling in the radioactive wreckage.

[Opcard]

Cão japonês conduz socorristas até parceira ferida

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpZmZLTQ ... r_embedded

[sombrio]

Japan mulls burying reactor

Japanese engineers say that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.

[url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/us-japan-quake-idUSTRE72A0SS20110318"]http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/us-japan-quake-idUSTRE72A0SS20110318[/url]

[JMHP]

Japan's Nuclear Disaster Explained

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBvUtY0PfB8

[Valete]

Pelo que percebo e no que se refere á ameaça radiotiva, as previsões catastróficas não se verificaram.

Marco, não queres fazer um update dos trabalhos? A situação está agora sobre controlo, ou precisamos de mais dias para ter a certeza?

[Automech]

Um diagrama que ajuda a compreender melhor as dosagens, em μSv (microsievert)

Muito bom esse 'boneco' Zundy !

Já agora fica aqui uma infografia antiga do Sol sobre o arco de contenção de Chernobyl e a forma como é montado.

http://sol.sapo.pt/inicio/galerias/info ... nt_id=8419

[sombrio]

sera que ja morreu alguem por radiacao?

[tava3]

Reactor 1
Outer building is damaged and it is presumed that there was a partial meltdown. Small amounts of radioactivity have been vented. Reactor has 400 fuel assemblies, the spent fuel pool has 292.

Reactor 2
Partial meltdown is presumed to have occurred. The containment vessel may have been breached and some radioactivity has vented. Reactor has 548 fuel assemblies, the spent fuel pool has 587.

Reactor 3
The reactor used uranium and plutonium, which may produce more toxic radioactivity. The spent fuel pool may have become uncovered. Reactor has 548 fuel assemblies, the spent fuel pool has 514.

Reactor 4
Spent fuel rods in a water pool may have become exposed to air, emitting radioactive gases. An explosion and fire have damaged the building. No fuel assemblies in reactor; 548 were removed for maintenance and are part of 1,479 in spent fuel pools.

Reactor 5
The reactor is shut down and the building is not damaged. But there is concern that spent fuel in the building may become exposed to air. Reactor has 548 fuel assemblies, the spent fuel pool has 826.

Reactor 6
The reactor is shut down and the building is not damaged. But there is concern that spent fuel in the building may become exposed to air. Reactor has 764 fuel assemblies, and there are 1,136 in spent fuel pools.



Fonte: New York Times