Et pendant ce temps dans la communauté internationale 3

Je viens de recevoir un message d'offre de logement de la chambre de commerce de Hong-Kong

Elle accompagne a merveille l'offre de scolarisation temporaire des eleves du LFJT au Lycee de Hong-Kong.

Je suis personnellement tres touchee par leur proposition et les en remercie vivement,

Ines Cobee,
Moderatrice de TPA

La communauté d'affaires française de Hong Kong représentée par la Chambre de Commerce souhaite apporter toute son aide à la communauté d'affaire française du Japon et leurs familles, qui arrivent à Hong Kong pour un séjour temporaire. Une aide d'hebergement et de business :
Nos membres se sont mobilisés pour mettre à disposition de ces familles une quarantaine de chambres chez l'habitant.
Au niveau Business, nous sommes heureux de mettre à disposition notre Business Center et nos membres peuvent offrir une quarantaine d'espaces de travail dans leurs bureaux, pour les femmes et hommes d'affaires temporairement stationnes a Hong Kong et qui souhaitent pouvoir maintenir et poursuivre dans les meilleures conditions, pour eux-mêmes et leurs partenaires japonais, leurs affaires

Nous leur réitérons à nouveau tout notre soutien et transmettons par leur intermédiaire toute notre sympathie à toute la communauté japonaise.
Pour utiliser de ces offres, merci de contacter Vicky Chan sur frencham@fccihk.com.

Maryse Kraatz
Executive Director
French Chamber in Hong Kong

J'adore....aidons nous mais seulement les businessmen first.

A toutes les personnes qui doivent rester a Tokyo, je me permet de vous transmettre un message qui circule dans la communaute anglophone.

Comme chacun d'entre nous, je ne sais quelle position prendre. La pression des familles est forte de rentrer et chacun doit agir avec les informations contradictoires qui nous arrives. Mais si vous n'avez pas le choix, ce message pourra peut etre vous rassurer... j'espere a raison,

Ines Cobee
Moderatrice depuis Osaka


Subject: FW: Information on the Nuclear Reactor

Good morning/ afternoon/ evening. I sincerely hope that you and you family are coping well with this unprecedented disaster. At this point it appears from the local news that any future tsunami threats have been downgraded or eliminated at this time. Now what is on my mind and perhaps yours is the situation at the nuclear power plants. I would like to share with you that I spent the first 7 years of my career working in the nuclear industry. I was a field engineer who spent many hours on top of, along side of, and underneath the actual reactor pressure vessel. In the late 1990s I project managed the fabrication of replacement parts that are currently inside of Fukushima 3 and 5. So I would like to share my opinion in the hopes that it may alleviate some of your concerns.

What has happened at Fukushima site is of course not a good thing. But I get concerned with how the media, particularly the English speaking networks, are portraying things. For example, words like "meltdown" should not be used so casually. Lets start with the overall construction of the reactor (see attached). The fuel is placed inside a heavy wall steel vessel called the pressure vessel. Surrounding the pressure vessel in very thick concrete. This is called the primary containment. Then surrounding this is more concrete which is called the secondary containment. Covering all of this is the reactor building which is steel. This reactor building on Fukushima 1 is what we have seen on TV blow up the other day. Again, not a good thing but there are still potentially two layers of concrete and one thick layer of steel protecting the fuel.

From what I have gathered from a few different sources, some of the fuel may have melted inside the pressure vessel but the vessel has not been compromised. There have been reports from TEPCO of increased radiation exposure at the plant boundary. The largest spike that I heard about was two days ago at a level of 500 microSievert/ hour. A microSievert if a measurement of a dose of radiation. So at 500 microSievert/ hour, if you stood at the boundary for 1 hour you would receive a total dose measuring 500 microSieverts. Now the intensity of radiation dissipates rapidly as you get further away form the source. Imagine standing in the center of a dark room next to a single light bulb. As you walk further away from the light it would get more and more difficult to see by it. If we assume that the plant boundary is at 1 km from the source, then at 20 km the level would be at 1.25 microSievert/ hour. In Tokyo approximately 200 km away, the level would have been .0125 microSievert/ hour. So even if you were standing at the 20 km exclusion zone boundary for an entire month and the spiked level maintained the entire time, the total dose received would still be lower than the Japanese government allowable rate of 1000 microSievert/ year. As far as radiation exposure, I wanted to let you know we all receive radiation in very small doses in our everyday lives. For example, if you take a 10 hour flight; say Tokyo to Auckland, Chicago, or Munich, you will receive approximately 50 microSieverts of radiation.

I hope this helps you sleep a little better during these trying times.

I look forward to seeing you all back at school soon.

Regards,

Eric
PTA Chair

Subject: Follow up to Nuclear situation: Questions answered/crisis support

From the guy who actually worked at Fukushima plant as a nuclear engineer:
Subject: Follow up to Nuclear situation: Questions answered/ crisis support

Class parents,

Thank you for forwarding my last message so quickly. I have received many responses and questions and thus will try to answer those questions to the best of my ability in one e-mail. Please forward this message as well.

Best Regards,
Eric

BST Parents,

I have received several questions back from you today that I will try to answer. Plus I will provide the links that I have been following for your perusal.

Q: What happens if the radiation gets into the atmosphere and ( in my lay terms knowledge) gets into the rain clouds? For example the rain then drops onto Tokyo.

A: If contaminated material gets into the atmosphere, what dictates where it will go is the weather; specifically which way the wind blows. But I still feel that the venting of steam that has occurred and may continue to occur is not releasing anything that is that serious on a relative scale. Additionally, the amounts that are being released are relatively small. It still appears, and I still believe, that the reactor vessel and primary containment are still well in tact. Thus, the really bad stuff should not see the light of day.

Q: We have read that Plutonium and Uranium have been used in these plants. Are anyone of these materials more or less to worry about in the long term?

A: Plutonium and uranium isotopes are the "really bad stuff" that I mentioned above. They stay in the core where they belong. I am pretty sure that none of us will see any of them.

Q: I gather that the problems at Fukushima have not yet ended, but are you able to compare the Fukushima incident with Chernobyl. I gather there is an internationally agreed scale of danger from nuclear accidents.

A: Yes, the troubles at Fukushima have not ended. And the troubles for Tepco are just beginning. It has been over 72 hours and they have been able to continually get water (albeit sea water which is not the norm) in there to cool things down. Eventually the latent heat (that is what is causing the problem since the reactor has been shut down) will eventually be reduced to comfortable (i.e- safe) levels. Imagine that you have a red hot frying pan on the stove. You turn off the stove and put the pan in the sink, but it is still to hot to handle. As you run water over it, the water takes some heat away. They are still running water over their frying pan in the sink right now.

Q: There is an international scale to rate nuclear incidents. I believe this one has a score of 4 now.

A: Sorry, I don't have the exact definition of what that means but a quick Google search could tell you.

A: As far as comparing to Chernobyl- night and day. With Chernobyl, as I understood it, the operators were conducting experiments and bypassed the safety systems that were put in place to prevent such a disaster from occurring. With deliberate excessive high pressure inside the reactor vessel plus a hydrogen explosion INSIDE THE VESSEL (very important difference than with Fuku), you had the catastrophe that occurred. I also think that the reactor was operational (critical; meaning that you had a sustainable nuclear reaction) when the explosion occurred. I feel very very strongly that this will not be another Chernobyl.

Q: Do you know how long will it take for the nuclear rods to cool down? I assume that as each day goes by the amount of radiation that can be released drops?

A: I do not know how long it will take to cool the core down to a comfortable (safe) level. As far as radiation, that depends on which type we are talking about. The "really bad stuff" that I mentioned earlier will not decrease because of cooling the core. It will still be there and be there inside the reactor vessel where it belongs. Some of the not so bad stuff that is most likely what you are hearing about on the news and that is being released when the steam is vented has a very short half life. Meaning, it is not radioactive for long and thus is only a very small concern for a very short time.

These links may be hard to get to due to the number of hits that they are most likely getting:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Explosion_rocks_third_Fukushima_reactor_1402111.html
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Explosion_rocks_third_Fukushima_reactor_1402111.html
http://www.iaea.org/
http://www.iaea.org/
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html

This last link has been sent to me a few times today. It is very lengthy and very detailed, but it does explain pretty well what I believe to be an accurate assessment of the situation as well as provide more detailed answers to the above questions.

http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/
http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/