Japan to burn radioactive material until at least 2014

And they gonna do it in Tokyo, where about 30-40 million people live...

But don't worry! It's all good!

Rubble from quake- and tsunami-hit areas to be disposed in Tokyo

Tokyo decided to process rubble from disaster-hit areas after detecting only 133 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of ash generated after rubble was incinerated, far below the upper limit of 8,000 becquerels set by the national government.

See? It's all good. Low radiation! Notice that it was detected AFTER it was burned... they didn't look before. The way they measured that radiation too is very important but I guess we'll never know how they really measured it, which of course would impact a lot the results.

The metropolitan government intends to transport approximately 500,000 metric tons of rubble to facilities in the capital and dispose of them over a 2 1/2-year period from this coming October to March 2014.

Ya. For almost 3 years they gonna spew radioactive ash in the atmosphere. All good.

The waste will be separate into burnable and unburnable items. Burnable waste will be incinerated while unburnable waste will be buried in a garbage landfill area in the Tokyo Bay area.

And I bet none of it will ever leak in the water below the ground... right? I mean, garbage landfill are MADE to contain radioactive stuff right? (oh wait, they are not)

To ensure safety, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will regularly measure the amount of radiation in the incinerated ash and atmosphere around the disposable facilities where the rubble is processed.

You can TOTALLY trust them. I mean, it's not like they would lie about radiation... they NEVER did that... EVER.

The prefectural government is set to begin sample surveys on rubble for radiation as early as next month.

As early as next month? Well good then... since they start burning radioactive stuff early next month! I mean, they wouldn't burn something they haven't surveyed right?

Good job, government of Japan, once again, you outdone yourself in the deadly lies and stupidity department.

When there are huge risks of contaminating the rest of the world in such an exercise, there should be international laws in place that prevent it. Completely ridiculous. I once thought Japan was a forward looking, progressive country but my, hasn't the veil dropped to reveal the dark, imperialist, pre WW2 underbelly.

Shocking!

IRM

I will try not to fearmonger in this post.

I will try to put some logic in to this post, by reading the article provided, by my understanding of it.
I am no expert, just a thinker.

They propably did a testburn in a place far away from civilization, knowing the radioactivty of the rubble before the inciniration. They mesured the ash after the burn to see how much radioactivity was left.
It was not done in Tokyo.
the ash is not spewed in to the atmosphere, but kept inside the inciniration chamber, the smoke is filtered and contained.

I don't know much about radio activity levels, other than common knowledge.
But a little guess is not illigal.

As it says in the article the ammount of radioactivity, is far below the allowed ammount, so that should mean it is not creating any danger to residents of Tokyo by inciniration.

It sounds dangerous, but it's kept under control.

This is not facts in anyway, but maybe someone could teach me a lesson, by explaning it in a more knowleged way.
This is after all just my opinion, by trying to use some common sense.

reply to post by Mianeye

I hope you are right. But considering the government history on lying. incompetence and ignoring safety rules, I'm not quite optimistic.

But like you, I hope competent people, who care for the health and safety of their fellow humans will do what is necessary for it to be safe.

Must read investigation : US nuke regulators weaken safety rules!

I don't think it's much different in Japan.

reply to post by Mianeye


Bud its too late i think....They have been burning this stuff for a while from what ive heard.
They can beqquerel each other to death, but they only speak of ONE type of contamination here.....thats rather strange to me, and a lie by ommission already......
There is a hundred different harmful types or maybe more...!
I know myself of Cessium, Plutonium,Strontium etc...
These have several forms and are differentiated by numbers such as C137-St90 and so on.
Half life means the time it takes for a radioactive material to degrade itself(by emitting particles/radiation)
Half lives differ between materials depending on how" Hot" they are....
Half lives can be measured in nanno seconds up to billions of years.
A PLTHORA of DIFFERENT materials leaked
As they degrade they become other radioactive substances which dont seem to get mentioned.
Half life of Depleted Uranium is in the 500,000,000 year range.
Stupidity is playing with this poison at all!
Look for a very serious amount of repurcussions over this and other nuke problemsworld wide.....
This is actually a for real emergency that nobody seems to care about because it the futures problem and its forever so they simply shut down and forget about it.
Ive nearly lost several friends lately trying to tell them whats happenning.They dont want to know!

Me too don't know what to think,
already on the big one on 03/11 there was very big damage in the Landfill areas

and now they want to use this as a "Resting Place"?

I think the Burning Facilitys here in Tokyo are okay,
i never ever saw anything coming out of the chimney,
this mean nothing but is a good sign

Originally posted by Mianeye
the ash is not spewed in to the atmosphere, but kept inside the inciniration chamber, the smoke is filtered and contained.

Yes and no.

Here is what the article says:

To ensure safety, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will regularly measure the amount of radiation in the incinerated ash and atmosphere around the disposable facilities where the rubble is processed.

There is certainly going to be some amount of radiation released in the atmosphere around the incinerator, that's what they are going to measure!

The ash can mostly stay in the combustion chamber, but the exhaust gases from incineration will escape, and even if filtered, no filtering process is 100% effective. Not only that but they then have the filters contaminated with radioactivity as more radioactive waste to dispose of.

Without more details on the filtering and the levels they expect to monitor when they monitor the burning, we can only guess.

But I will say this, that it doesn't make sense to me to burn it so close to a populated area, in Tokyo. Many of the incineration facilities in the US are purposely located at some distance from populated areas. When there are sure to be radioactive emissions I'd think there is even more incentive to burn it somewhere besides tokyo, like in a relatively uninhabited or less densely populated area. That's the problem I see with it, why burn it in Tokyo? That makes no sense to me. I think they need to have some serious questions answered about why they don't burn it in an area with less population density.

To all the cynics and critics about the whole Fukushima containment effort, what would you do in a situation resulting in one of the most serious industrial disasters in human history? Of course some complain and are shocked by this latest attempt to mitigate the damage. What else can be expected? As I have said before on other threads, this experience is where no man/woman has gone before. This is a new frontier. Nothing on this scale has been experienced by humanity, and I know some will mention Chernobyl. Yes, Chernobyl was similar, but they are two different animals. The reactors are different, the layout, and only one reactor was damaged at Chernobyl where as multiple reactors were damaged after the tsunami in Japan.

The affects of the disaster are still unknown and are only speculation at this point considering the disaster is still ongoing and rather fresh. It seems every effort and measure feasibly possible is being taken to mitigate and hopefully contain the damage. Still, this disaster will have long lasting affects on people for generations to come. Of course Tepco has some skeletons in the closet, the response by the Japanese government seem obsolete, and even the media is accused of shoddy reporting and lack of mainstream coverage.

Should people crawl into holes or click their heels together in hopes the radiation disappears and Fukushima returns to normal? Or should measures be taken to make every feasible effort to bring things under control to the best of mankind's ability at this present time? I tend to side with the latter. This a learning experience for all involved and there will be unpopular decisions fraught with many unknowns. All we can do is make every attempt through scientific, engineering, medical, and industrial capabilities to ensure this does not happen again, and to mitigate and contain the damage. At least efforts are being made. That ought to amount for something? This is the new frontier my friends.

reply to post by Jakes51


You are right with your Posting, this disaster set up a whole new Dimension
but this is also the main reason why all Groups need to sit on the same table.

Tepco need to share a flow of Information and Supervision with all forms
of Consulting Institutions, they need to bring for example the Russian Army with Greenpeace
on one Table!

I think also it is fair that Tokyo get their share of radioactive waste, no doubt
but to use this waste for "Landfills" is more than dangerous.

Have a look for Youtube, Ustream and/or daily motion and look for "Liquefaction",
the 03/11 Earthquake here in Tokyo was only in between 6 and 7 Mag.,
when we get the next "Big One" here we will see a Environmental Catastrophe
from really unknown standards!

The whole Tokyo Bay is full of Chemical- and Petro-Chemical Factories,
as well as one Reactor here in Kawasaki!
To add Nuclear Waste is, hmmmmm, mhmmmmm, not very helpful!

reply to post by Human0815


I agree with you. Anyone who has knowledge of this particular industry and situation should be involved in the mitigation and clean-up effort. Whether it be government institutions or the private sector. This is slowly becoming not only Japan's problem but the worlds' if we can not dispose of the waste properly, and stop the radiation leakage at the plant. The way I see it at least the Japanese government is making every viable attempt to remedy the situation.

I don't see any international response in the immediate future. Furthermore, Japan is a sovereign nation and would have make the request. Historically, the Japanese people are a very proud people and would rather rely on themselves than others to solve problems. However, there comes a time when if what is being done in Japan is not working it would be reasonable to seek outside assistance. Are they there yet? I have no idea, because as I have said earlier everyone is learning from this thing as it goes on. Thanks for the reply!

Build a giant levitator that keeps on going into dirty old outer space where
radiation belongs. Burned and buried radiation will just seep into the ground
water supply and join the plastic contamination in our bodies.
Let the ETs worry about the trash we don't need and wonder about our Tesla
ships. We need to do something that makes ultimate sense in our lifetime.

The problem with how Japan is handling this situation is money. Tepco is self regulating in their efforts and expenditures. They are in charge of their own mess. They resist international offers of help because they don't want any independent agency telling them to haul out their checkbook again and again to make it right. Tepco will decide when to pay and for what.

And their remedies so far are self compounding , in my opinion.
If you bring in a tractor to remove debris so as to get access to a building, then the new place you pile that debris spreads the contamination. A truck or trailer is then used to haul the debris to a different site to store it for "incineration"(really?). Now you have a tractor, truck, and incinerator that all have some level of contamination, let alone the atmosphere ( out of sight out of mind ). Then you have this "lo level" waste category generated by all this activity which includes workers clothing, boots, respirators, air filters, gloves, decontamination tents, showers, radiation detection equipment. And a few metric tons of white ash thats going into "landfill" (really?)

And it all began with a few dump trucks of "contaminated " soil on the ground outside of one of the containment buildings. The real tragedy here is the unbelievable "belief" among the Japanese that all this manipulation of radioactive contaminated stuff is becoming "less" of a problem by handling it, than it already was before they decided to "spread it around". That doing something/anything with it is better than leaving it there. And so, like the Japanese response to Godzilla wading ashore, they call up the Army and Air force and all the scientists to bomb and blast and electrocute Godzilla until he is so angry... The end result is both the Authorities and Godzilla destroy the city more thoroughly together.

The Japanese have kept this whole episode as quiet as possible, done as little as possible to contain the crisis and clean up afterwards. While at the same time putting on a big show for the world how they are doing everything they can while sweeping it all under the rug at the same time.

Shameful...

There was a melt through in at least 2 reactors i believe.

There was an earthquake that put cracks in the foundation of the plants.

The radioactive lava may have passed into the ground under the plants.

Covering the plant should not happen until all the radioactive material is dug out of the ground...

with equipment humans dont have (aliens help please)

extreme human engineering could be a solution but is not possible in a world where everyone is trying to save a penny or do everything as cheap as possible, as if this is a good practice.

They should be cleaning that crap up the way they build 5 star hotels, not like setting up a tent town.