Institute for Science and International Security –

DigitalGlobe has released a new commercial satellite image of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site in Japan taken at 10:55AM local time on March 17, 2011.  Steam continues to vent out of the top of the Unit 3 reactor building.  Steam also appears to be continuing to vent out of the side of the Unit 2 reactor building.

This is a radiation map from Chernobyl from the web site, 14 HERTZ. It shows how much variation occurs through changes in wind direction.

James Pilant

One of my commentators  asked if there was a way to look at the wind patterns over the whole earth.

An excellent question.

So, I looked around and found WorldWind.  After playing with it for a while, and adding a plug in, it is showing me world cloud patterns.

Are these accurate to now?

I’m using data from NRL Monterey “Real Time” Weather v.1.1.

I chose the last two days of cloud in the Eastern Pacific. It gave me cloud patterns. Obviously this is not my field but it looks like if there was a meltdown you might very well be able to see a visible cloud. If the radiation was too dispersed to see it, you could still follow the cloud patterns.

If anybody knows more about this than I do or has better web sites for this kind of thing. Tell me. I’ll put them up.

James Pilant

Lauren Bloom writes on ethical issues. I follow her blog on a regular basis (you should too). I like the thoughts in this entry. They are certainly relevant when so many workers  are putting their lives on the line in Japan. Some have already died and many have been injured.

Here, she discusses the ethical criteria for decision makers to send people in harm’s way.

James Pilant

An excerpt from the post –

Of course, the world has always been full of dangerous jobs and, luckily for the rest of us, there have always been brave souls willing to do them. Still, if those of us who stay safe at home while heroes risk their lives are going to be able to look ourselves in the mirror, it’s critically important for a few things to happen. First, the folks who go into danger need to do so voluntarily – no coercion allowed. Second, they need to be told honestly in advance how serious the risks appear to be, not misled by falsely optimistic estimates. Third, they need to be given the necessary logistical support – safety equipment, medical attention, escape craft, you name it – to do the job and get out in one reasonably healthy piece.

(this is just a part of the post, you should click on the link and read the whole article – jp)

I posted 11 times yesterday and I have spent the last six days frantically trying to keep up with events. So, I am only going to post a few times tonight, so I can catch my breath. I will be in the middle of writing something and scanning the Internet at the same time, and what I am writing needs to be revised or dropped because of new events. Tomorrow, I’ll be back at full power.

I want to thank the many people who have commented in the past few days. You have made my work much easier because you have reassured me that what I am writing is informative and useful, you challenge me with your questions, test my knowledge and training regularly, and have been very polite and kind in your comments. Thank You!

James Pilant

I strongly suspect the United States government is fed up with the lack of accurate information being provided by the Japanese government. This will give the American government an independent source of information with a powerful radar capable of seeing through the smoke and dust of the reactor site. These drones can stay in the air for almost 24 hours on one mission.

James Pilant

From the New York Times –

United States Air Force officials announced Wednesday that a Global Hawk remotely piloted surveillance plane would be sent on missions over Japan to help the government assess damage from the earthquake and the tsunami. A Pentagon official said the drone was expected to fly over the stricken nuclear plant.

From Wikipedia –

In role and operational design, the Global Hawk is similar to the Lockheed U-2, the venerable 1950s spy plane. It is a theater commander’s asset to provide a broad overview and systematic target surveillance. For this purpose, the Global Hawk is able to provide high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)—that can penetrate cloud-cover and sandstorms— and Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imagery at long range with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of terrain a day.

Missions for the Global Hawk cover the spectrum of intelligence collection capability to support forces in worldwide peace, crisis, and wartime operations. According to the Air Force, the capabilities of the aircraft allow more precise targeting of weapons and better protection of forces through superior surveillance capabilities.

Spent fuel rods stored on top of the damaged reactors are using up the water meant to keep the cool. At least one pool is boiling.

Is it common practice to store spent fuel rods on top of a reactor? Apparently, there were some inside the buildings housing the containment chamber. Since two of these have exploded, it would appear they have been scattered about.

Does anybody else store spent nuclear fuel on top of reactors?

James Pilant

“It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.”

A spokesman for the Japanese company that runs the stricken reactors said in an interview on Monday that the spent fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants had been left uncooled since shortly after the quake.

The company, Tokyo Electric, has not been able to cool the spent fuel pools because power has been knocked out, said Johei Shiomi, the spokesman. “There may be some heating up,” he said.

From the article –

Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger.

The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been unable to take emergency steps because of the multiplying crises.

By late Tuesday, the water meant to cool spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor was boiling, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said. If the water evaporates and the rods run dry, they could overheat and catch fire, potentially spreading radioactive materials in dangerous clouds.

In small numbers under a hundred thousand perhaps even double that, local nations such as South Korea, China and Taiwan would probably be willing to bear the weight of a temporary evacuation.

The issue becomes more problematic as the numbers increase.

The Chinese and the Koreans have memories of Japanese occupation before and during the Second World War. It is unlikely they will allow any large numbers of refugees.

The Philippines are also unlikely to accept any large numbers for the same reason. Other Asian countries have an underdeveloped infrastructure unlikely to absorb any large numbers of foreigners.

The United States is the most logical nation for a large number of Japanese.

Why? First the United States already has 1,204,205 Japanese. And there is a fairly wide geographic distribution.

From Wikipedia –

In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702.

The United States is already a multicultural society open to new languages and new ideas. Unlike most countries there is a great deal of land resources available. Declines in population in the “rust belt” and in some Northeastern leave large areas with excess capacities – closed schools, factories and numerous other building, houses and businesses. An energetic and well educated population could radically change the nature of these parts of the United States.

Once there has been a series of meltdowns, these kinds of considerations will have to be taken into account

James Pilant

From the New York Times -(Article by William J. Broad)

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.

The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.

Forecast for Plume’s Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather

Here is a frame by frame set of picture in the following order 3/12, 3/13, 3/14, 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, and 3/18.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization shows how weather patterns this week might disperse radiation from a continuous source in Fukushima, Japan. The forecast does not show actual levels of radiation, but it does allow the organization to estimate when different monitoring stations, marked with small dots, might be able to detect extremely low levels of radiation.

Val Gand sent me this site he recommends called the Radiation Network.

This is the caption at the top of the page when you visit –

Welcome to RadiationNetwork.com, home of the National Radiation Map, depicting environmental radiation levels across the USA, updated in real time every minute.  This is the first web site where the average citizen (or anyone in the world) can see what radiation levels are anywhere in the USA at any time (see Disclaimer below).