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Posted by feww on April 26, 2011
LITTLE ROCK, AR
URGENT: One More Round of Severe Thunderstorms and Flooding
Major Flooding/Severe Weather Likely on April 23-27, 2011
Click image to enter NWS portal.
Posted in environment | Tagged: Arkansas weather warnings, drought and deluge, Severe Thunderstorms and Flooding, severe weather warnings, Tennessee flood warning, US Flood Map | Leave a Comment »
Posted by feww on April 26, 2011
On 26 April 1986 Reactor 4 at Chernobyl NPP in Ukraine, then in the Soviet Union, exploded releasing about one hundred times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Ukrainian city of Chernobyl had managed to live for 793 years… that is until the Chernobyl nuclear power plant underwent a core meltdown on April 26, 1986 at about 1:00am local time. This image was taken by authorities in the former Soviet Union
The sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is seen behind a building decorated with a graffiti in the abandoned city of Prypiat April 4, 2011. Belarus, Ukraine and Russia will mark the 25th anniversary of the nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl, the place where the world’s worst civil nuclear accident took place, on April 26. Engineers are still struggling to regain control of damaged reactors at the Fuskushima plant after last month’s earthquake and tsunami, in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, with the government urging the operator of the plant to act faster to stop radiation spreading. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich. Image may be subject to copyright. Reuters images …
Birth defects and cancer were the norm for many years following the Chernobyl disaster. By the time residents of Pripyat, a town located near the plant, were ordered to evacuate, about two days after the Chernobyl core meltdown had occurred, many had already been exposed to varying doses of radiation poisoning.
The Incident: A meltdown of the reactor’s core in the Chernobyl power plant killed thirty people in 1986. About 135,000 people were evacuated. It is believed that about one hundred times more radiation was released in the accident than by the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Legacy: More than 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed among children and adolescents between 1992 to 2002 in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Victims under 14 years were most severely affected by the elevated concentrations of radioiodine found in milk.
Incidents of skin lesions, respiratory ailments, infertility and birth defects were readily found among the more than five million people who inhabit the affected areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine for many years following the accident.
The Poisoned land. Up to 5 million people continue to live on radioactive contaminated land. About 85% of the children who live in contaminated areas of Belarus today are ill, a near 6-fold increase compared to the time before the explosion (15%), according to The Belarusian National Academy of Sciences.
Disputed Facts: The above facts, however, have been disputed by a number of individuals including the author of a recent WHO report, and the retired “nukophile” British academic, James Lovelack. Local and international experts, however, have dismissed the WHO report findings. A UN report released in 2005 estimated the number of victims at just 4,000. Their figure is hotly disputed by NGOs and independent experts.
“A report by Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko which appeared in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science showed that by 2004, there were 985,000 additional deaths worldwide caused by the nuclear disaster, including 212,000 of them within Western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.”
Consequences of the Catastrophe. Authors Alexey Yablokov (Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow), Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko ( Institute of Radiation Safety, Minsk, Belarus) studies about 5,000 reports and scientific papers mostly published in Slavic languages and compiled their finding in the book “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” which was published last year on the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl reactor core meltdown.
“For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” They wrote.
“No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe,” the authors said. “Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere.”
According to the book, a total of about 830,000 people, referred to as the “liquidators,” were responsible for various emergency works at the Chernobyl site including fire extinguishing, decontamination and cleanup.
The authors say between 112,000 and 125,000 of the liquidators had died by 2005. The authors also estimate that between 1986 and 2004 some 985,000 people died as a result of Chernobyl fallout {2011 estimates are well over a million deaths.]
“Official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations’ agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.” The authors said last year.
Chernobyl and Other Nuclear Stats
Fukushima NPP is said to contain about 4,277 tons of nuclear fuel, about 24 times as much as Chernobyl (~ 180 tons).
“The Fukushima Dai-ichi site has a considerable number of fuel rods on hand, according to information provided Thursday by Toyko Electric Power Co., which owns the atomic complex: There are 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools within the six-reactor plant, including one joint pool storing very old fuel from units 3 and 4. There are 877 tons in five of the reactor cores. Officials have said that the fuel in Unit 4′s reactor vessel was transferred to its spent fuel pool when the unit was temporarily shut in November.” AP reported.
On April 12, Japanese authorities raised the measure of severity of the Fukushima NPP disaster to the maximum level of 7 on INES. (See below for details.)
The INES, a logarithmic scale, which was introduced in 1990 by the IAEA to enable prompt communication, classifies the intensity of nuclear incidents as follows:
7 – Major Accident [Chernobyl disaster, criticality accident, April 1986]
6 – Serious Accident [e.g., Kyshtym incident, Mayak, former Soviet Union, steam explosion released up to 80 tons of highly radioactive material into the atmosphere, September 1957. ]
5 – Accident With Wider Consequences [e.g., Three Mile Island accident Pen State, U.S., partial meltdown release radioactive gases into the environment, March 1979.]
4 – Accident With Local Consequences [e.g., Sellafield, UK, at least 5 incidents reported between 1955 to 1979]
3 – Serious Incident [e.g., Vandellos NPP, Spain, fire destroyed control systems; the reactor was shut down, July1989]
2 – Incident [e.g., Forsmark NPP, Sweden, a backup generator failed, July 2006]
1 – Anomaly [e.g., TNPC, France, 1,600 gallons of water containing 75 kilograms (170 lb) of uranium leaked into the environment, July 2008]
0 – Deviation (No Safety Significance) — [e.g., Atucha, Argentina – Reactor shutdown caused by tritium increase in reactor encasement, December 2006.]
Studies of the 1945 atomic bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki show that 100 percent of victims whose bodies were exposed to 600,000 millirems (6,000 mSv) died from radiation. About 50 percent of victims who received 450,000 millirems (4,500 mSv) of radiation also died.
(Note: Rem is a unit of ionizing radiation equal to the amount that produces the same damage to humans as one roentgen of high-voltage x-rays. Source: MIT)
1 rem = 10 mSv (1 Sv = 100 rem)
Limits above natural background radiation levels (average 300 millirems per year) and medical radiation:
[Note: Lifetime cumulative exposure should be limited to a person’s age multiplied by 1,000 millirems, e.g., a 70-year-old person, 70,000 millirems.]
Adults
Under 18
Fetal Exposure
Medical
Air Travel
*Note: Radiation dose of about 2,000 millisieverts (200,000 millirems) cause serious illness.
[NOTE: Half-life is the time taken for a radioactive substance to decay by half.]
Posted in safety at nuclear plants | Tagged: Alexey Nesterenko, Alexey Yablokov, Chernobyl nuclear disaster, chernobyl victims, fukushima NPP, ghost town, Grohnde nuclear protest, Prypyat, Vassily Nesterenko | 1 Comment »
Posted by feww on April 26, 2011
A colleague who designed the concept for the first ever tablet about 16 years ago, submitted the idea to Apple and Sony.
Later, he personally met with Sony’s Howard Stringer and left him details of the design.
Needless to say, the two companies never contacted him again.
EdEn: The original concept design for tablet PCs devices. Copyright 1995-2011. All rights reserved.
Posted in iPad | Tagged: Apple Tablet, Howard Stringer, Samsung Galaxy, Sony, Sony Dash, Tablet devices, Tablet PC | Leave a Comment »
Posted by feww on April 26, 2011
A deadly tornado touched sown in Vilonia, Arkansas (population3,200), north of Little Rock, killing at least one person, destroying up to 100 homes and leaving a half-mile wide path of destruction.
Elsewhere in the state up to five other people have reportedly been killed from drowning or flood related incidents.
About a dozen vehicles were blown off the road on Interstate 40, Arkansas State Police said.
Another tornado reportedly struck Little Rock Air Force Base, destroying/damaging at least four homes on the base, reports said.
A total of 389 reports including 38 tornadoes were received at SPC for Monday, as of posting.
County officials evacuated more than thousands of people in the city of Poplar Bluff and the town of Qulin, as water topped the Black River levee at multiple points.
At least 1,000 people have been evacuated in the states of Indiana, Kentucky and elsewhere in Missouri, as local rivers crested above the flood stage.
Continued rain threatens to worsen the flooding in the region throughout the week.
Click images to enlarge.
Post updated on April 26, 2011 @ 12:09UTC
Posted in environment | Tagged: Deadly tornadoes, Indiana flooding, Kentucky flooding, Missouri flooding, Tornado, Tornado Alley, Vilonia tornado | 1 Comment »
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