Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami in pictures...

Watched on news, ruddy terrifying. Mother nature at her most noticable. Probably this is what caused the Austalian floods and NZ tremors. They were prewarnings of what ws happening under the ring of fire basin.

Waitng to hear if my friends over there are ok.

Makes you think that maybe the Mayans are onto to something with their prediction of the world ending in 2012. Wonder if all these disasters are building up to something really big?

TK Trooper wrote:

Makes you think that maybe the Mayans are onto to something with their prediction of the world ending in 2012. Wonder if all these disasters are building up to something really big?

Nah..
There's this sort of thing every year mate..

2004 Tsunami wiped 250,000 people of the face of the earth, we were meant to be no more in 1999 and 2001 ( just off the top of me head)

Mind you those dead birds and fish still haven't been explained..
https://maddogz.forumotion.co.uk/t2021-mystery-of-105000-dead-fish-found-on-riverbank-and-5000-blackbirds-falling-dead-from-the-skies

I may start carrying this round on a sandwich board..

I know what your saying Gaz. The things is, with a lot of these biblical predictions, what may be written as if to appear as happening over the course of one day, is actually over a period of weeks, month or even years. So these past disasters could very well be a build up to the final event.

I don't personally believe it will all end on the 21/12/2012 as the mayans predict, but it still does make you wonder how accurate they could be.........

Gaznandi wrote:

TK Trooper wrote:

Makes you think that maybe the Mayans are onto to something with their prediction of the world ending in 2012. Wonder if all these disasters are building up to something really big?

Nah..
There's this sort of thing every year mate..

2004 Tsunami wiped 250,000 people of the face of the earth, we were meant to be no more in 1999 and 2001 ( just off the top of me head)

Mind you those dead birds and fish still haven't been explained..
https://maddogz.forumotion.co.uk/t2021-mystery-of-105000-dead-fish-found-on-riverbank-and-5000-blackbirds-falling-dead-from-the-skies

I may start carrying this round on a sandwich board..

The birds were, it was a pestcide. The fish was either lack of oxygen in water or a chemical insectcide was dumped in. Something like that.


As for the Mayans, they recoreded event like this occuring over cycles. After each cycle things went on again as normal.

It's the earth resetting its natural cycle. All recorded but its the bandwagoners who like to lay blame somewhere in order to force through changes of human habits.

Many quakes are overdue, as are some Volcanoes. They plates are just adjusting there postions and again its recorded as aa known fact the plates move closer or further depending on where they are in the world. Weather conditions again are recorded as natural cycles of predictable weather and periods of dramtatic change spells.

It'll settle down soon enough.

Some bad news, plutonium has been found in the soil

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Posted: Tuesday, 29 March 2011 4:31AM


Japan finds plutonium in soil near plant


TOKYO (Reuters) - Plutonium found in soil at the Fukushima nuclear complex heightened alarm on Tuesday over Japan's battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years, as pressure mounted on the prime minister to widen an evacuation zone around the plant.

Some opposition lawmakers blasted Naoto Kan in parliament for his handling of the disaster and for not widening the exclusion zone. Kan said he was seeking advice on such a step, which would force 130,000 people to move in addition to 70,000 already displaced.

The drama at the six-reactor facility has compounded Japan's agony after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 left more than 28,000 people dead or missing in the devastated northeast.

In a gesture of support, France said it had sent two nuclear experts to Japan to help contain the accident and Japan's foreign ministry said French President Nicolas Sarkozy will visit on Thursday for a meeting with Kan.

France relies heavily on nuclear power generation and Sarkozy will be the first foreign leader to visit since the earthquake.

In the latest blow to hopes authorities were gradually getting the plant under control, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said plutonium was found at low-risk levels in two out of five soil samples at the facility.

A by-product of atomic reactions and also used in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.

They believe some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said while the plutonium levels were not harmful to human health, the discovery could mean the reactor's containment mechanism had been breached.

"Plutonium is a substance that's emitted when the temperature is high, and it's also heavy and so does not leak out easily," agency deputy director Hidehiko Nishiyama told a news conference.

"So if plutonium has emerged from the reactor, that tells us something about the damage to the fuel. And if it has breached the original containment system, it underlines the gravity and seriousness of this accident."

Sakae Muto, a Tokyo Electric vice-president, said the traces of plutonium-238, 239 and 240 were in keeping with levels found in Japan in the past due to particles in the atmosphere from nuclear testing abroad.

"I apologize for making people worried," Muto said.

With towns on the northeast coast reduced to apocalyptic landscapes of mud and debris following the quake and tsunami, more than a quarter of a million people are homeless. The event may be the world's costliest natural disaster, with estimates of damage topping $300 billion.

PARTIAL MELTDOWN

Workers at Fukushima may have to struggle for weeks or months under extremely dangerous conditions to re-start cooling systems vital to control the reactors and avert total meltdown.

On Monday, highly contaminated water was found in concrete tunnels extending beyond one reactor, while at the weekend radiation hit 100,000 times over normal in water inside another.

That poses a major dilemma for Tokyo Electric, which wants to douse the reactors to cool them, but not worsen the radiation spread, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

"On the issue of pumping in water, we must avoid a situation in which the temperature (of fuel rods) rises and the water boils off. So this cooling is a priority. On the other hand, on the standing water, under the circumstances work must proceed to remove it as quickly as possible," he said.

Japan says a partial meltdown of fuel rods inside reactor No. 2 has contributed to the radiation levels.

The crisis, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, has contaminated vegetables and milk from the area, as well as the surrounding sea. U.S. experts said groundwater, reservoirs and the sea all faced "significant contamination."

A Tokyo Electric official told a Tuesday briefing he could not rule out the possibility that radioactive water could still be entering the sea, though there was no continuous flow.

Tokyo Electric has sought help from French companies including Electricite de France SA and Areva SA.

French Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said on Tuesday that experts from Areva and nuclear research body CEA had been sent to Japan "to share our experience on pumping and the treatment of radioactive water."

As well as seeking help from France, Japan is also consulting the United States.

The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, met Japanese officials in Tokyo on Monday and he later said the "unprecedented challenge" remained serious.

Experts have said the lack of information and some inconsistent data made it hard to understand what was happening at Fukushima, which appears to have moved from a core-meltdown phase to one in which management of released radioactivity is paramount.

EVACUATION ZONE DILEMMA

Another pressing concern has been the well-being of people living near the plant.

More than 70,000 people have been evacuated from within 20 km (12 miles) of the facility.

But opposition MP Yosuke Isozaki blasted Kan for not ordering people living between 20 km and 30 km (12-19 miles) from the plant to also leave.

"Is there anything as irresponsible as this?" Isozaki asked.

The 130,000 people living inside the wider zone have been encouraged -- but not ordered -- to leave.

Environmental group Greenpeace has urged an extension of the 20-km evacuation zone while the United States has recommended its citizens who live within 80 km (50 miles) of the plant to leave or shelter indoors.

Kan, leading Japan during its worst crisis since World War Two, was already deeply unpopular and under pressure to resign when the crisis began.

He repeatedly defended his decision to fly over the stricken nuclear site a day after the quake, saying it had been important to see it for himself. His top spokesman on Monday denied the visit had delayed operations to cool the reactors, as some media had reported.

The crisis has also put enormous pressure on Tokyo Electric, criticized for safety lapses and a slow disaster response. Its boss, Masataka Shimizu, has barely been seen.

The government might discuss nationalizing Tokyo Electric to deal with the crisis, National Strategy Minister Koichiro Gemba said. Its shares have tumbled more than 70 percent since the quake.

Beyond the evacuation zone, traces of radiation have been found in tap water in Tokyo and as far away as Iceland.

Japanese officials and international experts have generally said the levels away from the plant were not dangerous for human beings, who in any case face higher radiation doses on a daily basis from natural sources, X-rays or flying.


Story & Photos Copyright 2011 Reuters

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Wiki Facts About Plutonium
•Plutonium, which has the symbol 'Pu' in the periodic table, was discovered way back in the year 1934, although it was first produced and isolated only in 1940 and then, identified in 1941 by the scientists Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl. The plutonium that is seen nowadays is mostly man-made and is synthesized from pre-existing Uranium.
•Plutonium when it was being discovered, it was the same time there was speculation of a new planet being discovered back then, which was Pluto. Hence, Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg decided to call the element 'plutonium'.
•One of the plutonium facts for kids is that plutonium has an atomic number of 94, atomic weight of 244, a density of 19.816 g/cm3, a melting point of 640 ºC and a boiling point of 3230 ºC.
•This element can exhibit six allotropes and has a total of four oxidation states, making it capable of reacting with carbon, halogens, nitrogen and silicon. In fact, when plutonium is in an aqueous solution, it is capable of showing different colors depending on its stage of oxidation; these colors range from blue and lavender to yellow and brown.
•One of the facts about plutonium is that, it has different isotopes and one of its isotopes, plutonium-239 has a half life of a whooping 24,100 years! This is the reason why plutonium was favored while making atom bombs.
•One of the interesting plutonium facts is that this element, when exposed to moist air, forms oxides and hydrides, which make it expand in volume by more than half, and then, flake off in a powdery form. This powder has the property of spontaneously igniting if left as it is, and so metallic plutonium is highly flammable. Its flammability increases if it is finely divided and then exposed to moisture, as there is more surface area available.
•You may be shocked to know that the bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki, in Japan in August 1945, known as 'Fat Man', had a core entirely made of the radioactive isotope, plutonium-239, that is how lethal this chemical element is! Plutonium-239 is a major fissile element, that is, it can sustain a chain reaction of nuclear fission reactions in nuclear bombs.
•Coming to some plutonium facts regarding its dangers. This is, as mentioned earlier, radioactive in nature and tends to accumulate in the bone marrow, making the person susceptible to bone cancers due to its radioactivity.
•The plutonium-238 isotope has a half-life of only eighty-eight years. However, when it decays, it tends to give out a lot of thermal energy and so, has been used in generating power in spacecrafts that have been launched by NASA.
•There are very few good, non-destructive uses of plutonium. These include it being used to power artificial heart pacemakers and for electrical power generation in some devices. As mentioned earlier, its use also includes in spacecrafts that are to be sent out of the earth's orbit.
•One of the dangerous plutonium element facts is that plutonium is highly toxic in nature and its effects on the human body are far worse when it is inhaled as against it being ingested.
So, these were some plutonium facts that must have definitely increased your knowledge about this dangerous element of chemistry. These facts about plutonium make us realize how man can create structures that can wreak havoc on himself and nature. Let us hope that in the future, plutonium is only used in the interest of humanity and mankind, and not otherwise.

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[68] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[69]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[68] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[69]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.[68]

The episode is now considered to be a serious breach of medical ethics and of the Hippocratic Oath. More sympathetic commentators have noted that while it was definitely a breach in trust and ethics, "the effects of the plutonium injections were not as damaging to the subjects as the early news stories painted, nor were they so inconsequential as many scientists, then and now, believe."
Spent nuclear fuel from normal light water reactors contains Plutonium, but it is a mixture of Plutonium-242, 240, 239 and 238. The mixture is not sufficiently enriched for efficient nuclear weapons, but can be used once as MOX fuel. Accidental neutron capture causes the amount of Plutonium-242 and 240 to grow each time the Plutonium is irradiated in a reactor with low-speed "thermal" neutrons, so that after the second cycle, the Plutonium can only be consumed by fast neutron reactors. If fast neutron reactors are not available (the normal case), excess Plutonium is usually discarded, and forms the longest-lived component of nuclear waste. The desire to consume this Plutonium and other transuranic fuels and reduce the radiotoxicity of the waste is the usual reason nuclear engineers give to make fast neutron reactors.

The most common chemical process, PUREX (Plutonium–URanium EXtraction) reprocesses spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium and uranium to form a mixed oxide "MOX fuel" for reuse in nuclear reactors. Weapons grade plutonium can be added to the fuel mix. MOX fuel is used in light water reactors and consists of 60 kg of plutonium per tonne of fuel; after four years, three-quarters of the plutonium is burned (turned into other elements).[32] Breeder reactors are specifically designed to create more fissionable material than they consume.

MOX fuel has been in use since the 1980s and is widely used in Europe.[73] In September 2000, the United States and the Russian Federation signed a Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement by which each agreed to dispose of 34 tonnes of weapon grade plutonium.[74] The U.S. Department of Energy plans to dispose of 34 tonnes of weapon grade plutonium in the United States before the end of 2019 by converting the plutonium to a MOX fuel to be used in commercial nuclear power reactors.[74]

MOX fuel improves total burnup. A fuel rod is reprocessed after three years of use to remove waste products, which by then account for 3% of the total weight of the rods.[32] Any uranium or plutonium isotopes produced during those three years are left and the rod goes back into production.[note 10] The presence of up to 1% gallium per mass in weapon grade plutonium alloy has the potential to interfere with long-term operation of a light water reactor.[75]

Plutonium recovered from spent reactor fuel is not a significant proliferation hazard, because of excessive contamination with non-fissile plutonium-240 and plutonium-242. Separation of the isotopes is not feasible. A dedicated reactor operating on very low burnup is generally required to produce material suitable for use in nuclear weapons.[76] 241Am has recently been suggested for use as a denaturing agent in plutonium reactor fuel rods to further limit its proliferation potential.[77]

[edit] Power and heat source
A glowing pellet of 238PuO2The isotope plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years.[78] It emits a large amount of thermal energy with low levels of both gamma rays/particles and spontaneous neutron rays/particles.[79] Being an alpha emitter, it combines high energy radiation with low penetration and thereby requires minimal shielding. A sheet of paper can be used to shield against the alpha particles emitted by plutonium-238 while one kilogram of the isotope can generate about 570 watts of heat energy.[7][79]

These characteristics make it well-suited for electrical power generation for devices which must function without direct maintenance for timescales approximating a human lifetime. It is therefore used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units such as those in the Cassini, Voyager and New Horizons space probes.

The twin Voyager spacecrafts were launched in 1977 with each containing a 500 watt plutonium power source. Over 30 years later each source is still producing about 300 watts which allows limited operation of each spacecraft.[80] Earlier versions of the same technology powered the ALSEP and EASEP systems including seismic experiments on the Apollo 14 Moon mission.[32]

Plutonium-238 has also been used successfully to power artificial heart pacemakers, to reduce the risk of repeated surgery.[81][82] It has been largely replaced by lithium-based primary cells, but as of 2003 there were somewhere between 50 and 100 plutonium-powered pacemakers still implanted and functioning in living patients.[83] Plutonium-238 was studied as way to provide supplemental heat to scuba diving.[84] Plutonium-238 mixed with beryllium is used to generate neutrons for research purposes.[32]

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ToxicityIsotopes and compounds of plutonium are radioactive poisons that accumulate in bone marrow. Contamination by plutonium oxide (spontaneously oxidized plutonium) has resulted from a number of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents including military nuclear accidents where nuclear weapons have burned.[85] Studies of the effects of these smaller releases, as well as of the widespread radiation poisoning sickness and death following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have provided considerable information regarding the dangers, symptoms and prognosis of radioactive poisoning. PMID 19454804

During the decay of plutonium, three types of radiation are released-alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha particles can travel only a short distance and cannot travel through human skin. Beta particles can penetrate human skin, but they cannot go all the way through the body. Gamma radiation can go all the way through the body.[86] Alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma radiation all expose the body to ionizing radiation. Either acute or longer-term exposure carries a danger of unfavorable health outcomes including radiation sickness, cancer and death. The danger increases with the amount of exposure.

Even though alpha radiation does not penetrate the skin, it does irradiate internal organs if plutonium is inhaled or ingested.[32] The skeleton, where plutonium is absorbed by the bone surface, and the liver, where it collects and becomes concentrated, are at risk.[31] Plutonium is not absorbed into the body efficiently when ingested; only 0.04% of plutonium oxide is absorbed after ingestion.[32] What plutonium is absorbed into the body is excreted very slowly, with a biological half-life of 200 years.[87] Plutonium passes only slowly through cell membranes and intestinal boundaries, so absorption by ingestion and incorporation into bone structure proceeds very slowly.[88][89]

Plutonium is more dangerous when inhaled than when ingested. The risk of lung cancer increases once the total dose equivalent of inhaled radiation exceeds 400 mSv.[90] The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the lifetime cancer risk for inhaling 5,000 plutonium particles, each about 3 microns wide, to be 1% over the background U.S. average.[91] Ingestion or inhalation of large amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death; no human is known to have died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium, and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.[76]

The "hot particle" theory in which a particle of plutonium dust radiates a localized spot of lung tissue has been tested and found false – such particles are more mobile than originally thought and toxicity is not measurably increased due to particulate form.[88]

However, when inhaled, plutonium can pass into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation and thus may cause cancer.[92]

A commonly cited quote by Ralph Nader, states that a pound of plutonium dust spread into the atmosphere would be enough to kill 8 billion people. However, the math shows that only up to 2 million people can be killed by inhaling plutonium. This makes the toxicity of plutonium roughly equivalent with that of nerve gas. [93]

Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Hiroshima survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed.

These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results.[88] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during the 1940's; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."[94][95]

Plutonium has a metallic taste.[96]

[edit] Criticality potential
A sphere of simulated plutonium surrounded by neutron-reflecting tungsten carbide blocks in a re-enactment of Harry Daghlian's 1945 experimentToxicity issues aside, care must be taken to avoid the accumulation of amounts of plutonium which approach critical mass, particularly because plutonium's critical mass is only a third of that of uranium-235.[7] A critical mass of plutonium emits lethal amounts of neutrons and gamma rays.[97] Plutonium in solution is more likely to form a critical mass than the solid form due to moderation by the hydrogen in water.[13]

Criticality accidents have occurred in the past, some of them with lethal consequences. Careless handling of tungsten carbide bricks around a 6.2 kg plutonium sphere resulted in a fatal dose of radiation at Los Alamos on August 21, 1945, when scientist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. received a dose estimated to be 5.1 Sievert (510 rems) and died 28 days later.[98] Nine months later, another Los Alamos scientist, Louis Slotin, died from a similar accident involving a beryllium reflector and the same plutonium core (the so-called "demon core") that had previously claimed the life of Daghlian.[99] These incidents were fictionalized in the 1989 film Fat Man and Little Boy.

In December 1958, during a process of purifying plutonium at Los Alamos, a critical mass was formed in a mixing vessel, which resulted in the death of a crane operator named Cecil Kelley.[100] Other nuclear accidents have occurred in the Soviet Union, Japan, and many other countries.[100]

[edit] FlammabilityMetallic plutonium is a fire hazard, especially if the material is finely divided. In a moist environment, plutonium forms hydrides on its surface, which are pyrophoric and may ignite in air at room temperature. Plutonium expands up to 70% in volume as it oxidizes and thus may break its container.[101] The radioactivity of the burning material is an additional hazard. Magnesium oxide sand is probably the most effective material for extinguishing a plutonium fire. It cools the burning material, acting as a heat sink, and also blocks off oxygen. Special precautions are necessary to store or handle plutonium in any form; generally a dry inert gas atmosphere is required

Unfortunetly for Japans Nuclear plants they have had numerous leaks and safety level breaches over the years.

How much is safe or not, is still as controversial as ever. There are those who state any exposure to either weapon's grade or spent fuel is dangerous. Where as others state spend fuel is safe in small doses.

However Japan had already reported those working close to the leaking reactors were now suffering radisiiont sickness, which is going by where they were working is terminal. I would think that the contanimation is and will be widespread. The sea entered the lakes that the spend fuel rods sit until cool, all that water is radioactive in itself. The damage to the core and the water pollution from that will ony grade up that contanimation.

My own radiation level is far higher than most nautral people, taking away the Xray exposures my own personal radiation is still higher. Simple this report,one of them, may shed some light on why and the effects. They don't say 'we' glow in the dark for nothing you know.

Radiation exposure to locals.