Japan´s Tsunami

[John_C]

Except that the reaction has stopped, it's just residual heat that's still there, so it's not like there's new heat being generated...

This isn't true unfortunately. The fuel rods (which are the problem in reactor building 4) are still generating very large quantities of heat and without effective cooling will get hot enough to release large quantities of radioactive material in to the air in the plant. If the temperature continues to rise past that point then there is a danger of a chain reaction, which would release even more radioactive material.

a good article with some half-decent science in it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

 

[Mago]

Since my studies revolve about managing natural ressources and natural energy I'm pretty biased regarding nuclear power.
Even if you stop it NOW you still have issues with the junk...also the fact that "shutting down" a nuclear power plant isn't exactly easy or quick.
but anyway:

I'm still having no TV set, so I try to stay informent via the internet, and it just makes me sick to not be able to get straight facts that don't aim at enlarging panic or play the situation down.
The last thing I know of is that they tried to cool down the core(s) with sea water, and that they couldnt get enough water in to get the rods covered, so the core meltdown continues.
I think the higher radiation is because of those tries to put the seawater in there + of letting off steam because if the containment would leak the radiation would be a LOT higher.

Sadly that means that Japan is still fucked, even if it's not as bad as it could be...like another earquake, containment leaks for examble.
I just hope they somehow manage to let that damn thing not explode (not like a bomb, but still, its a big thing with a lot of pressure) because of too much pressure buildup.

Talked to a colleague today, and he said that some expert (sorry, dont know who or where/when) said that another thing to think about is that (as it seems) Japan is having troubles to also cool the old/used rods in the final disposals...

 

[Notuern]

This isn't true unfortunately. The fuel rods (which are the problem in reactor building 4) are still generating very large quantities of heat and without effective cooling will get hot enough to release large quantities of radioactive material in to the air in the plant. If the temperature continues to rise past that point then there is a danger of a chain reaction, which would release even more radioactive material.

a good article with some half-decent science in it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

The biggest danger is that while its still producing, its releasing hydrogen gas, which then might detonate due to the heat of the fuel.
Hopefully they will find a solution to cooling it before they have yet another release of radioactive contaminants.

 

[Notuern]

Talked to a colleague today, and he said that some expert (sorry, dont know who or where/when) said that another thing to think about is that (as it seems) Japan is having troubles to also cool the old/used rods in the final disposals...

There is a chance of a criticality event.
My uncle is involved in the project of storing nuclear waste safely, and what they basically do is contain the fuel within pools of cooled water to decrease the activity within the spent fuel, and what a criticality event is in this case would suggest that a sudden surge of radiation might come from these fuel rods.
However, as far as i know the fuel rods cant explode/ignite(Could be wrong though.), but they rather send a surge of high radioactive dosages that will kill anyone in the vicinity of the fuel.

Oh, btw.. im going to bed now, hyperposting is bad for my health and the thread.

 

[SimonSez]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Just-48-hours-to-avoid-another-Chernobyl.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXqiw6EJUk&feature=youtu.be

 

[drew_drummer]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Just-48-hours-to-avoid-another-Chernobyl.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXqiw6EJUk&feature=youtu.be

The Torygraph is not a good source of information.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Newspapers are not a good source of scientific information.

 

[DeclanWhite]

i got a bit emotional when i first read about all this stuff happening.. fuck the world.

 

[drew_drummer]

True dat homez.

 

[Notuern]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Just-48-hours-to-avoid-another-Chernobyl.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXqiw6EJUk&feature=youtu.be

And my name is Britney Spears and i live in a floating castle made out of rainbows and butterflies.

If Fukushima gets worse then Chernobyl, i promise that i will wear the same underwear for 2 months and when the 2 months have passed, i will suck the flavor out of them.. im not joking, im super serial.

 

[sprack]

I know this will sound glib, but seriously. That's the last thing the world needs at the moment.

i got a bit emotional when i first read about all this stuff happening.. fuck the world.

Here's some worst case scenario info:
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/17/scientist-who-studie.html

The worst of the worst could come if Japan can't come up with a way to sufficiently cool down the reactor fuel cores. That has reportedly become increasingly difficult with workers evacuating the sites -- at least temporarily -- because of high radiation fields.

"These things play out over a long period of time, longer than people would think," Allen said. "You have an earthquake that lasts maybe a minute, a tsunami that lasts maybe 15 minutes. But these things could go on for months. You could lose all six of the reactors."

If workers are unable to get additional cooling water into the reactor vessel, the molten fuel core will collapse into the water in bottom of the vessel. Eventually the heat from the decaying fuel would boil away the water that's left, leaving the core sitting on the vessel's lower head made of steel.

Should that happen, "It'll melt through it like butter," Allen said.

That, in turn, would cause a "high-pressure melt injection" into the water-filled concrete cavity below the reactor. Because the concrete would likely be unheated, the reaction created by the sudden injection of the reactor's ultra-hot content would be immense, he said.

"It'll be like somebody dropped a bomb, and there'll be a big cloud of very, very radioactive material above the ground," Allen said, noting that it would contain uranium and plutonium, as well as the fission products.

Should these events happen, the best outcome would be if the winds are blowing east and push the radioactive plume over the Pacific Ocean, he said. "It (the radioactivity) will fall out in the ocean and everything will be fine," he said.

The worst case, Allen said, would be if winds pushed a radioactive cloud south toward Tokyo and Japan's highly populated cities. If that were to happen, he said, the consequences would likely be greater than the 1986 accident at Chernobyl, where an entire area of Ukraine had to be evacuated because of the radioactive conditions that increased the risk of developing cancer.

 

[sprack]

Birds eye view of the power plant:

 

[Notuern]

Im still not agreeing about the overall consequences as radiation wont spread nearly as far as in the Chernobyl incident.
But in the end its true that more people will get harmed due to the dense population count of Japan.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Well it looks like one of the worst case scenarios has begun to take place.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/science/plume-graphic.html?ref=science

There is a radiation plume headed for the west coast. They are saying its not enough radiation to cause concern but if the radiation leaks do get worse then eventually it could.

 

[sprack]

Why'd they use the Arbitrary Unit Scale?

 

[AD Chaos]

If Fukushima gets worse then Chernobyl, i promise that i will wear the same underwear for 2 months and when the 2 months have passed, i will suck the flavor out of them.. im not joking, im super serial.

I don't think you realize how serious the situation is (as just about everyone else apparently).

As so many other threads start around here, I'm not trying to be a dick, but..

You have to understand that radiation is something that has to be contained under very special conditions, as it is by definition, unstable matter trying to become stable. Pouring water with student-riot trucks and helicopters throwing buckets of sea water that disperses into the air is just the latest in a chain of ridiculous attempts to save face, much more than adressing the problem.
SO many things could have been done.. Restoring the power was a priority ABOVE rescuing survivors, that's why I said some days ago why the hell aren't they using a submarine or a portable power plant or SOMETHING to get back the power ASAP. Then there's some reportedly successful research the russians that worked on Chernobyl and the experiments on nuclear submarines and carriers developed for fusion containtment.. why hasn't that been used?
Japanese use robots even for wiping their ass.. why then are they sending actual people to die? I said before the steel containtment could have exploded from pressure, but obviously it broke much before that. I guess I was giving them too much credit. TEPCO is a corrupt and irresponsible monopoly with big power on Japan (at least they were). Them and the lame ass goverment of Japan, is who we're all trusting in. Unfortunately America is starting a tradition in having idiots 'running' the oval office. At least the one before this one had BALLS and could have stepped in and attempted something I guess. If by any chance and after all this, you still think there's such a thing as a god, better PRAY to him/her that the generators are still functional. Or else how are they going to prevent a catastrophic meltdown?

The majority of the people are fleeing so no it's not like millions are going to burn in flames (I don't see why), but the islands might very well become inhabitable for decades, depending on how things progress. In order to contain the actual mess they would have to BURY the whole thing under a GIGANTIC sarcophagus like it was done in Chernobyl. Now there, the roof blew up, so they basically sealed it and covered it with massive amounts of concrete. The whole mess was contained inside a building.. how are they gonna go about Fukushima? Have you seen the state of those buildings lately? As I said before, once a reactor melts, the others will most likely follow. So yeah sure radiation won't affect Russia, China, the Koreas, Australia, or the US.. for now. If I'm not mistaken the wind generally speaking flows east there, but radiation spreads on a somewhat concentric circle from the source also. Fissile isotopes used inside reactors have a half-life of up to millions-billions of years, meaning, the problem won't go away so fast -or easy-.

I understand why you think I was trolling with the fallout map... but I wasn't. Not saying that's going to happen -let's hope not- but one thing is to be optimistic, and another one is ignoring science so blatantly.

 

[Ben Johnson]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7JvuUwpq40&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame]

 

[PhilR]

Japanese use robots even for wiping their ass.. why then are they sending actual people to die?.

I think you, like many others, are making assumptions due to a rather sterotypical set of views. The robots which you've seen on so many tech-industry videos are the property of private companies, nearly all of which of very specifically programmed to perform a very limited set of tasks. Little more than cybernetic performing animals in the case of the more humanoid variants. And none of them designed to operate reliably under the extreme conditions found in this case.

A robotic mechanism for this task would ideally be on a par with the kind of hardware used for extra-planetery exploration missions. Such as those sent to Mars. Machines that can negotiate hazards of landscape, and are hardened against extreme conditions and radiation. But such devices take a long time and a lot of money to build as they are very much designed to spec.

That's even before you get into the logistics of getting the hardware to the site. Ultimately it comes down to real men & women, risking their lives to undertake jobs that may result in severe injury to themselves. The kamikaze culture has been bred out of the Japanese cultural mindset, nobody could ever ask these people to sacrifice themselves. But that may be the only thing that will work.

Ultimately everyone on this forum is making blind speculation based on nothing more than the very, very thin data available to the news networks. The people on the ground know more than everyone here ever will about what is really happening and I don't doubt for one second that they are doing everything in their power short of walking into fire to solve this.

 

[midget donkeys]

I think you, like many others, are making assumptions due to a rather sterotypical set of views. The robots which you've seen on so many tech-industry videos are the property of private companies, nearly all of which of very specifically programmed to perform a very limited set of tasks. Little more than cybernetic performing animals in the case of the more humanoid variants. And none of them designed to operate reliably under the extreme conditions found in this case.

A robotic mechanism for this task would ideally be on a par with the kind of hardware used for extra-planetery exploration missions. Such as those sent to Mars. Machines that can negotiate hazards of landscape, and are hardened against extreme conditions and radiation. But such devices take a long time and a lot of money to build as they are very much designed to spec.

That's even before you get into the logistics of getting the hardware to the site. Ultimately it comes down to real men & women, risking their lives to undertake jobs that may result in severe injury to themselves. The kamikaze culture has been bred out of the Japanese cultural mindset, nobody could ever ask these people to sacrifice themselves. But that may be the only thing that will work.

Ultimately everyone on this forum is making blind speculation based on nothing more than the very, very thin data available to the news networks. The people on the ground know more than everyone here ever will about what is really happening and I don't doubt for one second that they are doing everything in their power short of walking into fire to solve this.

This is the most intelligent thing anyone has said in the last ten pages of this thread.

 

[AD Chaos]

I think you, like many others, are making assumptions due to a rather sterotypical set of views.

If you say so.