Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

peasant

123balltv wrote: »

Germany has no earthquakes or Tsumanis
Germany is propably the safest place on earth to build reactors.

Germany also has a long standing, fairly large and wide-spread anti nuclear movement and it isn't just a bunch of "hippies" either

Insect Overlord

Axe Rake wrote: »

Chernobyl, Ukraine.

A man-made error, not an act of nature. Germany's not too likely to be hit by a tsunami any time soon...

Axe Rake

Insect Overlord wrote: »

A man-made error, not an act of nature. Germany's not too likely to be hit by a tsunami any time soon...

So you are implying that the Ukraine has a higher risk of earthquakes and tsunami's than Germany? I think you missed the point i tried to make.

123balltv's statement is just plain stupid.

ilovesleep

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Germany's not too likely to be hit by a tsunami any time soon...

Unfortunately! A tsunami might actually wash merkels mouth out a bit.

Thrill

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Jaczko says the radiation levels near the reactor are dangerously high and estimates 50 mile evacuation. I guess the US team are taking their own readings on the ground

The U.S. and Japan have different ideas on what the safe distance is. The U.S. has told its citizens to observe an 80km exclusion zone from the plant.

The WHO......

http://www.who.int/hac/crises/jpn/faqs/en/index.html

• The actions proposed by the Government of Japan are in line with the existing recommendations based on public health expertise. The government is asking people living within 20 km of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to evacuate and those between 20 km and 30 km away from the plant are asked to stay indoors in unventilated rooms. People living farther away are at lower risk than those who live nearby.

• This assessment can change if there are further incidents at these plants and WHO is following the situation closely. However, radiation-related health consequences will depend on exposure. Exposure in turn is dependent on the amount of radiation released from the reactor, weather conditions such as wind and rain at the time of the explosion, the distance someone is from the plant, and the amount of time someone is in irradiated areas.

Rabies

Birroc wrote: »

Has Godzilla been spotted yet?

Infracted.

dsmythy

Axe Rake wrote: »

So you are implying that the Ukraine has a higher risk of earthquakes and tsunami's than Germany? I think you missed the point i tried to make.

123balltv's statement is just plain stupid.

But the accident in Ukraine was man made, nothing to do with nature. With regards problems caused by natural causes both Ukraine and Germany are safer than Japan.

Raskolnikov

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

Harry in Nagoya, Japan writes: "There is fear spreading among the Japanese and foreigners, as day by day the supermarkets empty. I am angry at the lack of proper information. The local media and people persist in their idea that there is no need for panic while the western media and foreign embassies insist that their citizens should go back to their respective countries."

Turtwig

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

Anyone with half a brain could see they were being economical with the truth. They have destroyed their own credibility and that of the nuclear industry by not being truthful.

Well, they reported their grave concerns for waters levels in Unit IV spent fuel pool being low at 4 am GMT this morning and that there was a possibility of re-criticality.
Something the latest Nuclear Energy Institute Release (A US Organisation) disagreed with in its latest release at 16:30 EDT.

Even if the water level in the pools was to decrease sufficiently so that the fuel were exposed to air,
the same level of overheating that can occur in a reactor accident would not occur in the used fuel
pool because the used fuel assemblies in the pool are cooler than the assemblies in the reactor. It is
highly unlikely that used fuel temperatures could reach the point where melting could occur, although
some damage to the cladding cannot be ruled out. The likelihood of cladding damage, as with
hydrogen generation, decreases substantially with temperature and cooling time

Tepco, disagrees. Why would they disagree if they were intent on covering something up?

Ardent

Raskolnikov wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12765859

Has anyone seen this video - it looks like authorities have abandoned survivors inside the evacuation zone.

My god, that portrays a very dark side to things inside the exclusion zone..

Trevor451

Any news on the power line they were building?

th3 s1aught3r

Thrill wrote: »

The U.S. and Japan have different ideas on what the safe distance is. The U.S. has told its citizens to observe an 80km exclusion zone from the plant.

Thats odd that there would be different ideas of whats safe. Its either safe or it isnt

maquiladora

Malty_T wrote: »

But if the yanks don't reveal how they know the water levels of Unit IV spent fuel pools why should we trust them?

Thrill wrote: »

But he still would not say how he knew. Yes, they have people there but how do they know there is no water? What did they do that led them to determine that the reactor has no water? Jaczko wouldn't say, which I find odd.

We know they are going to fly a global hawk over the plant tomorrow, we dont know what other intelligence assets they may have already used.

We also don't know if the Japanese would prefer to keep a lid on certain details to avoid panic while they are still in the thick of trying of resolve this.

Either way, I see no logical reason why the US Government would want to make this out to be worse than it actually is. That would make no sense.

Just because its not the information we want to hear doesn't mean its not true.....

Turtwig

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Thats odd that there would be different ideas of whats safe. Its either safe or it isnt

Well, the difference lies in regulatory laws. Each country sets their own permitted legal radiation limit for a person in year.Iirc, the US's one is 50mSv. Japan's is higher (100mSv I think?).
In reality, these levels are ridiculously strict, a more rational figure would be about .1 Sv (100mSv) per month.

Rob A. Bank

Im old enough to remember Chernobil and it was said then that meltdowns could not happen in our superior western reactors. A bunch of dopey commies, with no safety culture, playing around with something they knew little about etc etc

Fukushima has disproved that !

Stupidity is universal and nothing can be make foolproof, since fools are so ingenious.

To illustrate... 'the Brown's Ferry' incident reads like an episode of the Simpsons... where a candle nearly caused a meltdown in a shiny new 2.2 million kilowatt nuclear plant in the USA.

http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html

Unbelievable stuff !

th3 s1aught3r

maquiladora wrote: »

Either way, I see no logical reason why the US Government would want to make this out to be worse than it actually is. That would make no sense.

...

I agree. If anything, the US would want to support the Japanese authorities and let them resolve the situation. They obviously felt compelled to make these statements

Adamantium

How many times do we have to irradiate large portions of land (for centuries)and leave populations with huge birth abnormalities to realise nuclear fission isn't worth it? Fusion, thats what we should aspire to, not fission!

.1% chance of something wrong is still wrong!

And i was a fan of nuclear power up until last week because we were all assured that another Chernobyl could never happen again!

Its only when something goes wrong do we realise the huge (totally avoidable) suffering thats caused!

I'd gladly burn fossil fuels 24/7 in order to avoid such a scourge.

Prayers to Japan

daelight

In the media;s eyes - no one tells the truth. They swamp you with rumor and speculation in the extreme negative. There slim pickings of truth amongst the garbage thrown at you. To hear the disappointment in a Ch4 reporters voice yesterday while listening to Pat Kenny. He was in Tokyo where panic, fear and mass hysteria was lacking. He was told by the editor to go North were 'many more bad stories are yet to be told' As if the images and news coming from Japan thus far are not enough to appease the insatiable appetite for misery of the masses tuning in.

People in the north of Japan who have lived through 3 massive disasters in short space of time are strong and unbelievably calm. People on the ground at the nuclear plant are working night & day to ensure the damage is limited as much as is possible. The word Hero does not describe adequately enough the character of these people.

Dozo ,, sorry to take your precious time. Go back to your idle speculation.

maquiladora

Malty_T wrote: »

I just read their press release statements on their websites and these were as it turns out a rather reliable source of information.Certainly better than Sky, Reuters and NHK were.

Hopefully they have changed their ways.......

"On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents. All seventeen of its boiling-water reactors were shut down for inspection as a result. TEPCO's chairman Hiroshi Araki, President Nobuya Minami, Vice-President Toshiaki Enomoto, as well as the advisers Shō Nasu and Gaishi Hiraiwa stepped-down by September 30, 2002.[6] The utility "eventually admitted to two hundred occasions over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities". "

Turtwig

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

Fukushima has disproved that !
!

If the reactor design at Fukushima was just as inadequate as Chernobyl there would three reactors on fire, the rate of reaction in each of those reactors would be continuously increasing and there would have huge primary containment explosion and core exposure by now. Chernobyl was really a sh1it piece of engineering and should NOT be compared to this situation.

Raskolnikov

maquiladora wrote: »

Hopefully they have changed their ways.......

"On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents. All seventeen of its boiling-water reactors were shut down for inspection as a result. TEPCO's chairman Hiroshi Araki, President Nobuya Minami, Vice-President Toshiaki Enomoto, as well as the advisers Shō Nasu and Gaishi Hiraiwa stepped-down by September 30, 2002.[6] The utility "eventually admitted to two hundred occasions over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities". "

TEPCO are a public company with shareholders, their motive is survival, not necessarily the interests of the public at large.

maringo

To err is human

Jimmy Garlic

Raskolnikov wrote: »

TEPCO are a public company with shareholders, their motive is survival, not necessarily the interests of the public at large.

In that case the Japanese government should have used its emergency powers to take control of TEPCO. In a situation like this shareholders are and TEPCOs survival are secondary.

maquiladora

I think we can all agree on one thing anyway, those guys still working at the plant are absolute heroes.

Hank Scorpio

Seems like there hasnt been any solid updates for a while, anyone got any news on the state of each reactor?

Turtwig

Raskolnikov wrote: »

TEPCO are a public company with shareholders, their motive is survival, not necessarily the interests of the public at large.

Yeah, but whatever about the rap they take for this incident Japans Nuclear Safety Agency deserves a huge slice of it too. The oversight of no one objecting to the location the Emergency Diesel Generators at sea level is, well, startling.

Raskolnikov

Malty_T wrote: »

Chernobyl was really a sh1it piece of engineering and should NOT be compared to this situation.

The Chernobyl reactor had design flaws but the reason it exploded was because technicians threw out the operation manual, ignoring all warnings and disabling safety checks and backups.

Ickle Magoo

The Guardian reports that Greg Jaczko, the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was pressed on his assertion in Congress earlier that there was no water remaining in reactor 4's spent fuel storage pool, which was subsequently denied by Japanese officials. He told reporters: "The information I have is coming from staff people in Tokyo who are interfacing with their Japanese counterparts. I've confirmed that their information is reliable." Mr Jaczko nevertheless added: "It is my great hope that the information is not accurate."

th3 s1aught3r

maquiladora wrote: »

I think we can all agree on one thing anyway, those guys still working at the plant are absolute heroes.

Cant imagine what its like for them. Possibly a suicide mission

andrew

And this is what happens to your stock when your company has a nuclear accident. Fell by the max amount allowable by the exchange 3 days in a row.