Evidence Surfaces of Prompt Criticality at Fukushima

By: James Burge
September 6th, 2011

For those of us fully aware of what was going on at Fukushima, this probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but there is no question this is very troubling.

Below is a recording made last night (timestamp: 2011-09-05 approx. 4:30am) of the live camera set up to monitor Fukushima. This video shows multiple flashes of light emanating from the crippled plant. This suggests some sort of prompt criticality occurring at the reactor. The question remains regarding the source, weather or not the flashes came from the melted fuel rods or, more likely, the spend fuel pool.

Some have already postulated that the ‘hydrogen explosion’ which occurred in the days following the earthquake and resulting tsunami may actually have been an explosion due to criticality in the spent fuel pool.

The concept of criticality was discovered back during the Manhattan project and was one of the few reasons the US beat the Germans to the Atom bomb. Criticality is the mass required of radioactive material, which will drive the atomic reaction to completion (although it is a bit more complicated than that but you get the gist), and any time you approach this mass you approach criticality.

There was a story, back in the 60s I believe ( May 21, 1946 actually), which was the second criticality accident in the US, this was of course before they had what little knowledge exists on nuclear power today (I believe this was actually the early stages of the Manhattan Project, Louis Slotin, I believe), and two large pieces of uranium (according to Wikipedia placing two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around a plutonium core). Then, human error resulted in the two plutonium pieces coming into contact with each other. If left this probably would have produced the runaway reaction we know as an atomic bomb. However, true criticality was averted when Louis separated the two pieces of plutonium halting the reaction. Of course this scientist lost his life 9 days later due to the high dose of radiation he received, but it is unknown how many lives he saved by his actions although he is credited with saving the lives of the other 7 scientists present at the time of the incident.

Today’s modern atomic bombs rely on this same principal. A mass of highly enriched radioactive compound just short of critical mass is present in the bomb. Another piece which would put the mass over criticality is forced into the other piece at detonation, creating criticality and the resulting explosion of energy.

So from what I understand, the spent fuel pool has had similar criticality incidents which were the likely source of the ‘hydrogen’ explosion. So it is my hypothesis that these flashes (which seem to be Air Ionization) seen in the video below are likely due to minor criticality reactions (called Prompt critical reactions). Although my guess is that due to the fact the radioactive compounds are likely in solution (in the spent fuel pool), then these prompt criticalities seem to create enough force to push other radioactive ions away reducing criticality at the source. Unfortunately, if this is the case, I think it may be only a matter of time before these minor criticalities, add up to a total criticality that would sustain the nuclear reaction and send what is left of Fukushima sky high, and of course any radioactive debris leftover, including any HIGHLY deadly plutonium, into the upper atmosphere to be distributed around the globe.

Let us just hope this doesn’t happen and I get to look like a crazy person; although the odds of that seem to be getting worse by the day.

Written by James Burge · Filed Under Rant, Video

Super Creepy Video!

By: James Burge
January 7th, 2011

So I was perusing the internet the other day and came across this video that describes a super creepy 1984-esque future where only the rich are allowed to eat meat, drive cars, and choose their own career. Its interesting how the same people telling us we aren’t competent to make our own decision regarding these practices, also feel that they should be above the same restrictions they are trying to get us to embrace. What’s good for the goose, doesn’t apply to the gander, cuz the gander is rich. So in order to fight global warming or some crap like that, we all have to give up our freedom to choose our life’s purpose and get “designated career announcements” from the government, if they didn’t control enough of our life already. The video also talks about rationing food, and how far people are allowed to travel. The creepiest part about the video are the companies involved in creating it, mostly banks and oil companies.

Some of its [Forum for the Future] financial backers include Bank of America, the City of London Corporation, PepsiCo UK, Time Warner, and crucially Royal Dutch Shell – which of course is one of the biggest emitters of CO2 on the planet.

But the creepiness doesn’t stop there, for those who aren’t willing to fit their lives inside the lines dictated to them by the elite, they will be able to live in floating prisons, I mean cities, yeah, cities, where you would be denied jobs, high speed transport, and the internet, because they can’t handle it anyway, right.

Super Creepy vid below. Is this the future you want your kids to live in? I know I don’t.

Written by James Burge · Filed Under Rant, Video

MIT Proff of Meteorology @ MIT, and Atmospheric Physicist talks of ‘Global Warming’

By: James Burge
November 26th, 2010

Ok I just realized I have been posting a lot of videos lately with almost no commentary on them so I wanted to talk quickly about a video I just came across of an interview with Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at MIT, an Atmospheric Physicist and one of the lead authors on the IPCC 3rd Assessment Report.

I wanted to bring some quotes to your attention, but you should catch them if you are going to watch the video.

On the climate change debate:

[They are] “trying to deal with global warming as though the issue was weather the climate ever changes, or weather there is a greenhouse effect or weather man could contribute something to it. None of that is actually in dispute; there is a greenhouse effect, climate always changes, and undoubtedly man can contribute something if the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings could contribute something. The question, as always in science, is how much. If man’s contribution is very little when compared to the normal variability people experience, then there’s not much point in trying to manipulate it because it won’t make much of a difference.”

On the use of Climate models:

“The issue of climate sensitivity is the primary question we are dealing with. […] There are numerous pieces of evidence, some of them quite rigorous, that the current models are greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity, that in reality it’s very modest. And what we are dealing with is the potential effect over the next century or so of ½ a degree, and there is no evidence whatever that this is associated with catastrophe”

“In general, […] using models, especially models that don’t test out very well to predict long into the future beyond the time scale which they function does not seem wise. […] What isn’t realized is, the models are quite similar to each other and their agreement on climate sensitivity within a broad range hardly proves anything. It depends on rather delicate feedbacks and primarily on feedbacks from clouds and even the IPCC acknowledges that we are virtually ignorant of clouds and the models do a very bad job of them. So if you understand how the feedbacks function, that statement is tantamount to the statement that the models cannot be used to predict climate.”

On the idea of a ‘tipping point’:

“It is almost unheard of to have a natural system that when you perturb it, it tries to make the perturbation worse. That would say the earth system was ‘sick’ from the origin, 4.5 billion years ago, and it doesn’t seem like it would have made it this long if that were true.”

On who is keeping the ‘crisis’ alive:

“[F]or a lot of people including the bureaucracy in government [...] the issue is power. It is hard to imagine a better leverage point than C02 to assume control over a society. [...] [I]t is essential to the production of energy, it is essential to breathing. It’s a point, if you demonize it and gain control of it, you so to speak control everything. That’s attractive to people.”

“There are those that are committed to it because they stand to profit from it”

Not sure I could have said it better myself. (video below)