hyten1 Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 folks what does people as the worst case senario? is it all the reactors blow up or some of it blow up? If that did happen how many miles from the center will radiation be at a level that is detrimental to people? Are we talking 50% of japan being radioactive? just wondering. my knowledge of nuclear reactor is sooooo limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Worst case scenario...you have contamination and high levels of radiation through Tokyo with mass panic, health issues and enormous business disruption. At the very least, you are going to have elevated levels of contamination through the existing area around the reactors and all of the money and effort it will take to clean-it up. But if you get a full scale meltdown...watch out! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyten1 Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 parsad, i hear ya, what i was trying to understand and get is, if that does happen are we talking about half of japan being contaminated? or X miles radius around the center? what would that X be? hy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuecfa Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Worst case scenario...you have contamination and high levels of radiation through Tokyo with mass panic, health issues and enormous business disruption. At the very least, you are going to have elevated levels of contamination through the existing area around the reactors and all of the money and effort it will take to clean-it up. But if you get a full scale meltdown...watch out! Cheers! I've read a bit on the subject, and it seems a more permanent affected area would not stretch near as far as Tokyo, but there can be temporary particles blown in all around the area which if are at dangerous levels may effect the people, animals, ground, farms and crops, water of the surrounding areas in which people may consume over time without knowing of what they are consuming is safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I would think X mile radius. No idea how far, because it would depend on air and water currents. While radiation levels would be elevated...the major problem would be the fear, not just whether the elevated levels ACTUALLY pose any long-term risk. Panic would force the Japanese stock market, financial institutions, factories, etc to close. It would create a massive supply-chain problem and hit a country very hard, whose debt to GDP is already at crazy levels. If that happens, you will see the Nikkei fall 40-50%! Fear of the unknown is much scarier than fear of what is known...and that is what you have happening already. No amount of expert advice will quell that fear, if we see a full blown meltdown with contamination spreading to a metropolis of Tokyo's size. From my chair here, it's a buying opportunity under the worst of sad circumstances. But for the Japanese, it is a complete nightmare...one that wasn't really their fault, but a God-awful act of nature. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuecfa Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Who really knows what to believe. Even if the Japanese do know how dire a situation it might be, they certainly don't want to instill panic. Zero hedge reports on an interesting AP news article suggesting Japan has raised the legal radiation does for nuke workers. The Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare raised the maximum allowable exposure for nuclear workers to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts. It described the move as "unavoidable due to the circumstances." Safe to assume that at the time of the article the exposure there was above the previously safe version of 100 millisieverts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoodlum Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 And then there is conflicting information. I would side more with the US who have people on site, considering TEPCO's track record of lying and deceiving over the last 10 years. US says plant's spent fuel rods dry; Japan says no U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in Washington on Wednesday that all the water was gone from the spent fuel pools at Unit 4 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, but Japanese officials denied it. Hajime Motojuku, spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the "condition is stable" at Unit 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 This reminds me of the oil spill. So much speculation. My prediction is this will all be contained and radiation spread will be minor. It is also, like everyone here, my hope. Easy to say when you are in the US. Some times shit sucks. Haiti was pretty bad. This looks pretty bad. I shrug most things off and believe people are overreacting but I wouldnt go to Tokyo right now or in the next year or so, and I am going to Nigeria for work in April. Trust me I dont spook easy, but the Government has no incentive to level with its folks and the US "Experts" are telling everyone its pretty bad. You guys are hopeful, crazy, or both. This isnt a small deal that will be gone next month or the month after. It isnt some cracker jack economy run by some despot. Its the third largest economy in the world facing god knows what. Parsad has correctly outlined whats going on, and if the Japanese loose faith in their government and begin to scramble then ..... What would you do in if you were in Tokyo or within 100 miles? What would a rational person do? What do you think millions in Tokyo want to do after day after day of worsen news? What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? This too shall pass (only because everything does eventually), but its a big deal. I wouldnt buy something cause its down 5% considering the situation, but thats me. Right now we are down about 10% and I think we were due that anyway before here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldfinger Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? Say welcome to QE3! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? Say welcome to QE3! Republicans? Must Read: Nassim Taleb On The Earth-Quake In Japan http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=126331 The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: ” The mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure resultant from an accident of a nuclear installation to individuals of the public, who live in the vicinity of the site boundary of the nuclear installation, should not exceed the probability of about 1×10^6 per year (that is , at least 1 per million years)”. That policy was designed only 8 years ago. Their one in a million-year accident occurred about 8 year later. We are clearly in the Fourth Quadrant there. ----- Warren Buffett - The important qualities you need are intelligence, patience, and interest, but the biggest thing is to be rational. In ‘97-8, people weren’t rational. People got caught up with what other people were doing. Don’t get caught up with what other people are doing. Being a contrarian isn’t the key, but being a crowd follower isn’t either. You need to detach yourself emotionally. You need to think about what is going on around you. A rationale person realizes that this is a big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? Say welcome to QE3! And because things are in such bad shape that there needs to be a QE3 this will be a great reason for a rise in equity markets. Would be funny if it wasnt true. just watch. It reminds me of musical chairs or something.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alertmeipp Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Yen's uprising may cause ppl to close carry trade. Plus Jap is a big buyer of Treasury, now they will be out for a while. This won't be pretty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldfinger Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Quote What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? Say welcome to QE3! Republicans? Few will say no to QE3 when the shit hits the fan (even republicans)! This said I agree that it smells fishy and that this is a serious problem. I have lots of cash and I have resisted buying massively up to now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Quote What happens to the World Wide Economy when the third largest economy is cut off at the knees? An economy which was being held together by tape and glue, with a healthy dose of steroids? China slowing and facing inflation, oil prices at $100, the US the US, and chaos in the Middle East? Say welcome to QE3! Republicans? Few will say no to QE3 when the shit hits the fan (even republicans)! This said I agree that it smells fishy and that this is a serious problem. I have lots of cash and I have resisted buying massively up to now. I agree, its foxhole time, and there are no Freemarket guys when shit hits the fan. Let the easing begin. Oil and other commodities will rally just based off perception crashing the economy. There is no free lunch. Yen's uprising may cause ppl to close carry trade. Plus Jap is a big buyer of Treasury, now they will be out for a while. This won't be pretty. This is a good point and something I didnt consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Yen's uprising may cause ppl to close carry trade. Plus Jap is a big buyer of Treasury, now they will be out for a while. This won't be pretty. Double wammy for the US$? And dont forget those cute Euros Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alertmeipp Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 but having said that - some stuffs in Japan are cheap. ;D Very tempted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bronco Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 http://mitnse.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zarley Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Despite the ongoing problems at the Fukashima plant (no sign that the situation is getting better), I did find this transcript from the British Embassy in Tokyo somewhat reassuring (from March 16): http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=566811882 It's an interesting read in whole because it appears to be the current opinion of the UK and what they're telling their people in Tokyo. I think this snippet succinctly sums up their position. Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario. If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level' data-ipsquote-timestamp=' you can get this, you know, the dramatic word “meltdown”. But what does that actually mean? What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials … that is likely… remember this is the reasonable worst case, we don’t think anything worse is going to happen. In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres. If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor. And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500 metres but to 30,000 feet. It was lasting not for the odd hour or so but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time. But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30 kilometres. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the problems came from. That’s not going to be the case here. So what I would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it’s really not an issue for health.[/quote'] This is largely consistent with most everything I've read so far (worse than TMI, but not nearly as bad as Chernobyl). The new and interesting part for me is the conviction they have that the serious problems are very likely to be contained within the site or at the very least within the current evacuation area. They seem pretty sure that Tokyo is not really in harms way, even if strong winds in that direction were to develop. They did not discuss the issue of the spent fuel storage that appears to be a significant problem in at least one reactor. That seems to be a big caveat as many fear the fire/release from those relatively unprotected sources is a serious potential threat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uccmal Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Zarley, That's my read on the situation so far. The US is way over-reacting which is very irresponsible. It just foments panic in Tokyo, and tends to discredit the Japanese Government which isn't fair. This is not Chernobyl yet. Chernobyl's one reactor had been in complete meltdown for days before the Soviets even admitted there was a problem. Dumb f--ks in Toronto are buying up potassium iodide tablets to protect themselves from thyroid cancer in the event one of the reactors they have been living beside for 30 years suddenly melts down. By the time they need to use the tablets they will be buried in a landfill somewhere for 75 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Dumb f--ks in Toronto are buying up potassium iodide tablets to protect themselves from thyroid cancer in the event one of the reactors they have been living beside for 30 years suddenly melts down. By the time they need to use the tablets they will be buried in a landfill somewhere for 75 years. I heard we are doing the same in the US, but to protect against airflow pushing debris down here to Cali. Not really sure why. Bill Maher when the Typhoon didnt hit Cali - he joked we would have a hard time making this about us. He was wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmitz Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Easy to say when you are in the US. Some times shit sucks. Haiti was pretty bad. This looks pretty bad. I shrug most things off and believe people are overreacting but I wouldnt go to Tokyo right now or in the next year or so, and I am going to Nigeria for work in April. Trust me I dont spook easy, but the Government has no incentive to level with its folks and the US "Experts" are telling everyone its pretty bad. Reports are very mixed. I know some people over there (including someone who just went back after the quake) and mostly I'm hearing that things are fine, though they are different from normal. A lot of news reports seem to be sensationalized. I am more worried about the new reports we're getting from our government that feel the situation is worse than the Japanese are claiming, and actual numbers seem to steadily be getting worse. Personally I'm taking it as a time to pause and reflect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 That's my read on the situation so far. The US is way over-reacting which is very irresponsible. It just foments panic in Tokyo, and tends to discredit the Japanese Government which isn't fair. If it was just the U.S., then maybe, but it's also Great Britain, Australia, Germany, South Korea and Canada. This is the last ditch effort with the water and attempt to reconnect power. The helicopters and firetrucks with shielding can't get close enough because radiation levels are so damn high. If they can't keep it cool enough until the power can be reconnected, or if they can't reconnect the power at all, then it's over...meltdown. So I think those country's have a responsibility to their citizens to get them out for their safety, before the possibility of a mass exodus at which point it will be very difficult to get out with millions leaving at the same time. If it ends well and they get control of the reactors, the worst that would have happened is that people left and had to come back...but at least they are safe. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoodlum Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 It is very difficult to predict which way it will go. Seems like the laying of electrical cable, pouring of water and frequent monitoring of radiation cannot be done at the same time so they are constantly switch back and forth between these activities. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110317/wl_nm/us_japan_quake Japanese engineers worked through the night to lay a 1.5 km (one mile) electricity cable to a crippled nuclear power plant in the hope of restarting pumps desperately needed to pour cold water on overheating fuel rods and avert a catastrophe. Officials could not say when the cable might be connected, but said work would stop on Friday morning to allow helicopters and fire trucks to resume pouring water on the Daiichi plant, about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. "Preparatory work has so far not progressed as fast as we had hoped," an official of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) told a news briefing, adding that a cold snap was hampering the effort. Yukiya Amano, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was due back in his homeland later on Friday with an international team of experts after earlier complaining about a lack of information from Japanese authorities on the crisis. Even if TEPCO manages to connect the power, it is not clear the pumps will work as they may have been damaged by the natural disaster or subsequent explosions. Work has been slowed by the need to frequently monitor radiation levels to protect workers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Easy to say when you are in the US. Some times shit sucks. Haiti was pretty bad. This looks pretty bad. I shrug most things off and believe people are overreacting but I wouldnt go to Tokyo right now or in the next year or so, and I am going to Nigeria for work in April. Trust me I dont spook easy, but the Government has no incentive to level with its folks and the US "Experts" are telling everyone its pretty bad. Reports are very mixed. I know some people over there (including someone who just went back after the quake) and mostly I'm hearing that things are fine, though they are different from normal. A lot of news reports seem to be sensationalized. I am more worried about the new reports we're getting from our government that feel the situation is worse than the Japanese are claiming, and actual numbers seem to steadily be getting worse. Personally I'm taking it as a time to pause and reflect. Like I said I think you guys are blowing off something that could be pretty bad. Its radiation. You may feel fine and get cancer 5 years later. Reactors melting down in your city / country / hemisphere / world is not something to take lightly in my opinion. Every major Western country is telling their citizen to leave. The sky isnt falling, but this isnt planes hitting buildings or a bombing in London. Its the 5th highest recorded quake, causing a massive Typhoon, followed by a potential nuclear meltdown which involves 6 reactors. The world isnt ending, but this aint a typical 2 week news melodrama is all im saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I agree Myth. There is no middle ground in this...you either stop it or you contain it...that's it. And you can't build a new building on there, or have 10,000 workers walk the beach picking up globules of oil. No one can live on there for years! You'll have to monitor the radiation levels in the food supply...be it on land or water. The displacement, job loss, business interruption, etc would be pretty big. Already you've got announced delays on vehicles, electronics, etc since parts will be short for the next little while. I'm glad I bought a big screen on Boxing Day, since that huge oversupply on LCD and plasma screens was short-lived! This is not a short-term problem. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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