Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Dempsey

Is there any live feeds watching the plant at the moment??

3ndahalfof6

aligator_am wrote: »

Not trying to be funny but in outbreak of nuclear leak sealing up the house the 1st thing I'd do is have a cup of coffee with 1.5 spoons of sugar to calm the nerves! Where did you find that pic?

Its on the bottom left corner of the pic,, ya never know who might get something out of it,

I would of taught sealing up would make very little difference but someone put the information together

gbee

Dempsey wrote: »

Is there any live feeds watching the plant at the moment??

Not that I can find and worryingly, they are not giving out the radiation levels like they had been doing.

uncleoswald

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

I know nothing about Nuclear reactors but I am really horrified by how difficult they seem to be to control if something goes wrong :eek:

Strangely I feel the opposite watching all this unfold. I had presumed that after all the hits the plants have taken that we'd be seeing mushroom clouds over Japan by now. Wonderful work by all the engineers who designed and built it and the workers fighting to keep everything under control at the moment.

Thrill

NHK - Fire at Unit 4 inaccessible due to radiation level in area.

Run_to_da_hills

Helicopters ruled out.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hgrwdZNmyqJnlLmWx51makuvGlKA?docId=6257781

hmmm

Thrill wrote: »

NHK - Fire at Unit 4 inaccessible due to radiation level in area.

What's the point of having all these superstrong containment vessels around the reactors if the "spent" nuclear fuel is left lying outside? If there is a fire or a failure of the cooling, the spent nuclear fuel is just as dangerous. What am I missing?

yoganmahew

andrew wrote: »

If they're gonna remove panels from 5 and 6, that means they fear that there might be a Hydrogen build up there...which means they fear that those reactors have at least partially melted down, or will partially melt down also. This is at odds with information provided earlier today here which says that those reactors are perfectly fine.

I'd say it's the spent fuel pools like at reactor 4...

edit: oops, sorry, that point was already made...

maquiladora

Just been watching the coverage on NHK. They say they dont think they can approach the fire from the ground to put it out because the radiation level is too high and they cannot use helicopter to drop water because the cracks in the roof are on the far side of the building to where the fire is.

yoganmahew

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

Here is a diagram of the type of reactor which is causing the present dilemma :-

The spent fuel pool is on the third floor just below the orange crane.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhzb23MSpu1qbnrqd.jpg

(PS. Is posting pics impossible on this thread ? )

Which surely means that the explosions in 1 & 3 have damaged the spent fuel pool? So the helicopters are to deal with this?

Donal Og O Baelach

Thrill wrote: »

NHK - Fire at Unit 4 inaccessible due to radiation level in area.

So, its effectively game over for any effort to keep control over the problem - and who can blame them? Why would any sane engineer sacrifice his/her life for the company? Get the CEO down there with a fire extinguisher.

Anyone have any thoughts on what will happen if the plant is completely abandoned to its own devices?

hmmm

maquiladora wrote: »

Just been watching the coverage on NHK. They say they dont think they can approach the fire from the ground to put it out because the radiation level is too high and they cannot use helicopter to drop water because the cracks in the roof are on the far side of the building to where the fire is.

Plus all (I believe several hundred) of the helicopter pilots who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup took lethal doses of radiation in doing so.

Dempsey

Donal Og O Baelach wrote: »

So, its effectively game over for any effort to keep control over the problem - and who can blame them? Why would any sane engineer sacrifice his/her life for the company? Get the CEO down there with a fire extinguisher.

Anyone have any thoughts on what will happen if the plant is completely abandoned to its own devices?

You are looking at a Level 7 on the INES, probably not like Chernobyl but a major accident all the same as 6 shut down reactors are in trouble compared Chernobyl's active one.

andrew

If that's the spent fuel rods (and not what was on fire earlier, which apparently was just oil lubricant) then that's really bad. If it's not controlled, then you've got there a mechanism by which radioactive particles could spread over a large area.

maquiladora

yoganmahew wrote: »

Which surely means that the explosions in 1 & 3 have damaged the spent fuel pool? So the helicopters are to deal with this?

Havent heard any problems with the spent fuel pool in 1 or 3. The fire is at No.4, the roof is still on that building, there are cracks but they are on the far side and not above the pool so any water dropped wouldnt reach the right area. From what they are saying on NHK, helicopters are ruled out at the moment.

maquiladora

andrew wrote: »

If that's the spent fuel rods (and not what was on fire earlier, which apparently was just oil lubricant) then that's really bad. If it's not controlled, then you've got there a mechanism by which radioactive particles could spread over a large area.

Thats the fear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html?_r=2&hp

3ndahalfof6

from TEPCO radiation near reactor 4 reached 400 millisieverts on Tuesday night

yoganmahew

hmmm wrote: »

Plus all (I believe several hundred) of the helicopter pilots who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup took lethal doses of radiation in doing so.

There was some bozo on the BBC news feed, supposedly an expert, saying that there would be no risks to the helicopter pilots as they are above and helicopter will whisk the contamination away and anyway they are pouring water on the spent fuel pools and not on the reactor itself so that is fine...

Also saying worst that could happen is the core meltdown. To me, a containment breach would be worse. The reactor chamber is supposed to be able to contain a meltdown, it appears that the spent fuel pool is an uncontained disaster waiting to happen?
(Olli Heinonen former deputy director of the IAEA).

It seems to me that the IAEA is captured by the industry...

WhatNowForUs?

Donal Og O Baelach wrote: »

So, its effectively game over for any effort to keep control over the problem - and who can blame them? Why would any sane engineer sacrifice his/her life for the company? Get the CEO down there with a fire extinguisher.

Anyone have any thoughts on what will happen if the plant is completely abandoned to its own devices?

This is a good question. This would be the worst case and I would like to hear what the experts answers to this would be.

Mister men

uncleoswald wrote: »

Strangely I feel the opposite watching all this unfold. I had presumed that after all the hits the plants have taken that we'd be seeing mushroom clouds over Japan by now. Wonderful work by all the engineers who designed and built it and the workers fighting to keep everything under control at the moment.

Why would we be seeing mushroom clouds. You do know the difference between nuclear power and a nuclear bomb?

gbee

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

from TEPCO radiation near reactor 4 reached 400 millisieverts on Tuesday night

0.4Sv = Mild radiation sickness, headaches risk of infection.

andrew

Spent fuel fire --> loads of radiation released --> workers can't continue to cool all the other reactors (unless they're willing to sacrifice themselves...which is possible) --> every other reactor melts down --> potential containment breach from one of the fully melted down reactors in the event that the containment is damaged, or in the event that the melted fuel interacts in some way to produce an explosion.

So, if they are on fire, then there's a clear mechanism by which this turns into quite a clusterfuck. I imagine they'd ask for volunteers willing to put out the fires, given the consequences of a major fire would involve more deaths than putting out the fire would. But that's a worst worst worst case scenario.

Mister men

andrew wrote: »

Spent fuel fire --> loads of radiation released --> workers can't continue to cool all the other reactors (unless they're willing to sacrifice themselves...which is possible) --> every other reactor melts down --> potential containment breach from one of the fully melted down reactors in the event that the containment is damaged, or in the event that the melted fuel interacts in some way to produce an explosion.

So, if they are on fire, then there's a clear mechanism by which this turns into quite a clusterfuck. I imagine they'd ask for volunteers willing to put out the fires, given the consequences of a major fire would involve more deaths than putting out the fire would. But that's a worst worst worst case scenario.

The worst worst worst case scenario seems to be getting more possible by the hour sadly.

uncleoswald

Mister men wrote: »

Why would we be seeing mushroom clouds. You do know the difference between nuclear power and a nuclear bomb?

Eh yes I do. It was a turn of phrase, while I was also admitting to my ignorance on these matters. I have however learned a lot from some of those posters here who are more in-the-know then myself. Maybe you and your "doomsday" posts could take note.

Overheal

uncleoswald wrote: »

Eh yes I do. It was a turn of phrase

Its a really bad turn of phrase.

Dempsey

2249: Officials at the plant say the new fire broke out because the initial blaze had not been extinguished, AP reports.

2246: Japanese news agency Kyodo reports that the storage pool in reactor four - where the spent fuel rods are kept - may be boiling. Tepco says readings are showing high levels of radiation in the building, so it is inaccessible. Radiation levels had fallen late on Tuesday but remained abnormal.

The credibility of the Japanese Government & TEPCO is becoming like the Soviet Union as time goes on

maquiladora

NHK saying TEPCO cant put out the fire at the moment and may wait and hope it dies down by itself....

AP is saying this fire is a result of the last fire not actually being extingushed.

I dont think its confirmed yet that the fire is coming directly from the fuel though?

Thrill

NHK: The possibility of a hydrogen explosion is high following the fire outbreak at reactor four

Dempsey

I think the headline

FUKUSHIMA: A CHERNOBYL IN SLOW MOTION

is becoming a very accurate description

Thrill

1. 2249: Officials at the plant say the new fire broke out because the initial blaze had not been extinguished, AP reports.