Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Killer Pigeon

LighterGuy wrote: »

Ok guys. Clearly since you both know it all. What should they do in japan? ... straight up. Tell me. Tell us. Tell the world. Dont reply side-tracking, evading from my question. Be honest. Enlighten us.


Agonist,
Im sorry if my post was rude. I dont mean to be rude to you. I just got worked up by other users posts.

Bring in more coolant obviously -- they might have some left over for you too.

Killer Pigeon

davyjose wrote: »

It's not really -- it isn't 05.30am where he is.

I've seen Overheal post on this thread all day.

Seaneh

darkman2 wrote: »

A meltdown has already happened IMO. This is fluff. The explosion earlier was not down to an aftershock. I think most sensible people know what has already happened. Just waiting for official confirmation.

Nobody said the explosion was from an aftershock... There was a buildup of hydrogen in a containment chamber and it blew. That in itself doesn't mean the reactor was damaged though.

You're begin more than just a tad sensationalist about this...

Agonist

Does anyone know if those iReport guys on CNN and the others sending in footage get paid for their contributions or hold a copyright?

Third reactor failed at Daiichi. Official bulletin

darkman2

Seaneh wrote: »

Nobody said the explosion was from an aftershock... There was a buildup of hydrogen in a containment chamber and it blew. That in itself doesn't mean the reactor was damaged though.

You're begin more than just a tad sensationalist about this...

You would want to be incredibly naieve to not realise what has happened. A nuclear disaster has already happened. That's my view anyway.

The exclusion zone has been extended time and time again. It has already happened.

LighterGuy

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Bring in more coolant obviously.

Yesterday the US Government was aiding in delivering coolant as was reported by BBC news. So you are officially standing by "bring in more coolant" - not like the japanese government, and other nations (US as I mentioned) are doing such. Your response is "just bring in more coolant"


Problem solved I guess.

Overheal

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Honestly, do you really care so much to stay up all day and night and post countless news updates to a thread that has only a handful of viewers at this time? It's like continuously updating a twitter status that has only two followers who you never met in your life.

Yes, I know this is ironic.

No I don't actually, but it's 12:30am, not an unusual hour for me to be awake and its not as if ive been completely glued to the thread. I've slept, ate, watched porn (who doesnt), showered, been to a job interview (it went well thanks), baked brownies, fried up some trout, prepared a beef brisket for sunday supper and watched an episode of Bait Car and a fascinating documentary about Dogs. Among other things. But I do happen to enjoy coming in here and steering the conversation away from repentance and sandwich-boards. Just as importantly I've actively enjoyed looking up the information available to me about the Fukushima situation for my own personal benefit and interest.

Also I've received a solid handful of personal gratitude via post and pm for my contributions here. What can I say other than it's motivated me to give a little more of my spare time to this issue than I might have otherwise.

As for bringing in more coolant it doesnt sound like the issue. They refused coolant from the US. The problem seems to stem from the fact that they cant get the coolant into the reactor, not that there is no coolant available. If the backup systems were working they would presumably be able to cycle out the coolant properly. I have no report on what method they're using to pump sea water in but I imagine it's more of a bilge pump-and-dump system and not a Cycle like the regular coolant process. I have no evidence of this though: only a hypothesis.

Killer Pigeon

LighterGuy wrote: »

Yesterday the US Government was aiding in delivering coolant as was reported by BBC news. So you are officially standing by "bring in more coolant" - not like the japanese government, and other nations (US as I mentioned) are doing such. Your response is "just bring in more coolant"


Problem solved I guess.

There really isn't much else they can go except put a big concrete dome on top of the power plant which is logistically impossible.

Star Bingo

i am looking at al jazeera now, no real changes new but at least they're covering it - at least none other than government saying "under control / not a health threat". maybe this thread title should have been up days ago; its debatable but - will catch up in the morning, need sleep.

it got merged! thread title need sleep. cheers for the info you scientific types

andyseadog

i've been following this thread constantly with interest since i stumbled upon it through google around 2.00am, just want to say thats to all who are contributing, particularly Overheal.

its a very useful, and for the most part reassuring, level headed thread. its late/ early now, people are bound to be ratty but please don't let it descend into a squabbling mess just drop it guys.

I wish you all a good night, and lets hope the sitiuation doesn't worsen while we sleep.

all the best and thanks again.

Andy.

Seaneh

darkman2 wrote: »

You would want to be incredibly naieve to not realise what has happened. A nuclear disaster has already happened. That's my view anyway.

The exclusion zone has been extended time and time again. It has already happened.

Than tell us, what has happened?
Because as far as I can tell, a core potentially is in partial meltdown and is being treated as such, 5 other reactors have cooling issues but are less unstable and another reactor at another site has failed.

If you know anything more than that, please share...

Killer Pigeon

Overheal wrote: »

No I don't actually, but it's 12:30am, not an unusual hour for me to be awake and its not as if ive been completely glued to the thread. I've slept, ate, watched porn, showered, been to a job interview (it went well thanks), baked brownies, fried up some trout, prepared a beef brisket for sunday supper and watched an episode of Bait Car and a fascinating documentary about Dogs. Among other things. But I do happen to enjoy coming in here and steering the conversation away from repentance and sandwich-boards. Just as importantly I've actively enjoyed looking up the information available to me about the Fukushima situation for my own personal benefit and interest.

So you're comparing the self-gratification you get from watching porn to some sort of sick self-gratification you get from watching the nuclear disaster unfold in Japan. Sick man, sick.

You should apologise to the people of Japan.

Inappropriate on every level imaginable.

darkman2

Seaneh wrote: »

Than tell us, what has happened?
Because as far as I can tell, a core potentially is in partial meltdown and is being treated as such, 5 other reactors have cooling issues but are less unstable and another reactor at another site has failed.

If you know anything more than that, please share...

My take is that the first reactor has had a complete meltdown before the explosion. I think the other 5 are completely unstable and sea water as coolant won't prevent the inevitable. Jesus Christ take your heads out of your arses - a nuclear disaster is underway. No Government would be honest in this situation. They don't want panic (understandable).

I could be wrong but I doubt it. Wait for confirmation which will come. They are already talking "partial meltdown".

Seaneh

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

So you're comparing the self-gratification you get from watching porn to some sort of sick self-gratification you get from watching the nuclear disaster unfold in Japan. Sick man, sick.

You should apologise to the people of Japan.

Grow up FFS.
You are in 2nd year, so you are what, 20?

Act your ****ing age.

Seaneh

darkman2 wrote: »

My take is that the first reactor has had a complete meltdown before the explosion. I think the other 5 are completely unstable and sea water as coolant won't prevent the inevitable. Jesus Christ take your heads out of your arses - a nuclear disaster is underway. No Government would be honest in this situation. They don't want panic (understandable).

I could be wrong but I doubt it. Wait for confirmation which will come. They are already talking "partial meltdown".

You are wrong.

If meltdown occurred before the explosion, there would already be a lot of damage, people wouldn't be anywhere near the area and we'd have something like chernobyl or worse.
Stop scaremongering and take your head out of your arse.

darkman2

Seaneh wrote: »

You are wrong.

If meltdown occurred before the explosion, there would already be a lot of damage, people wouldn't be anywhere near the area and we'd have something like chernobyl or worse.
Stop scaremongering and take your head out of your arse.

I gaurantee I am right and you are wrong. I hope not of course.

Killer Pigeon

Seaneh wrote: »

Grow up FFS.
You are in 2nd year, so you are what, 20?

Act your ****ing age.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Soz, I just stooped to LighterGuy's level. Oh the shame.

Overheal

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

There really isn't much else they can go except put a big concrete dome on top of the power plant which is logistically impossible.

A Physics major would know that if they put a cap on now it would only be a repeat of what happened yesterday at the No.1 Reactor: even if it were logistically possible the dome would breach from over-pressure. The Coolant is boiling over because the pumps arent cycling it through the system properly.

Sealing the reactors is a step that would in any event only take place after cooling was complete. There's no Superman scenario here: Fukushima is having to grin and bear the fact that it will have to continue releasing nuclear material into atmosphere to stop things from getting further devolved. Fortunately the vast majority should blow off-shore. Later we can worry about what impact that will have on the Pacific and on North American eco-systems.

3ndahalfof6

Well I'm hitting the hay, thank you for the informed information over the duration of this disaster,

I hope the thread is not locked when I surface in a couple of hours,

reading some of the posts in the last few hours makes me think some of us are forgetting why the thread was started,

its not about us its about the people of Japan, we are very lucky, look around you where you are sitting, now strip it all away plus some family members and close friends,

does some of the stuff going on in this thread seem petty or is it just me.

davyjose

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

So you're comparing the self-gratification you get from watching porn to some sort of sick self-gratification you get from watching the nuclear disaster unfold in Japan. Sick man, sick.

You should apologise to the people of Japan.

Inappropriate on every level imaginable.

I'm cringing for you, man. Cringing!

Overheal

darkman2 wrote: »

My take is that the first reactor has had a complete meltdown before the explosion. I think the other 5 are completely unstable and sea water as coolant won't prevent the inevitable. Jesus Christ take your heads out of your arses - a nuclear disaster is underway. No Government would be honest in this situation. They don't want panic (understandable).

I could be wrong but I doubt it. Wait for confirmation which will come. They are already talking "partial meltdown".

Please base your worries on facts. I understand you're concerned and you have a mistrust of the government(s) or whatever but please. If you believe you are correct than please cite yourself and explain how.

The No.1 Reactor, a simple diagram:

http://images.dailykos.com/i/user/40885/BoilingWaterReactor1.jpg

The Reactor Vessel is Intact.

What happened here was the coolant stopped pumping. Coolant in the reactor housing then started boiling. Overnight this pressurized the Containment Structure to greater than 2x the normal PSI. A few hours later, the roof blew. We saw this on television.

The Vessel itself did not blow. The situation would be analogous to your electric kettle: if it had an airtight lid it would blow off if you boiled your water, meanwhile the heating element inside your kettle would not be damaged.

Furthermore look up a Meltdown. Three Mile Island Melted down. Its a scary sounding term but it means the rods will have melted into a goo inside the reactor core/vessel. This doesnt mean it's necessarily breached. This is the diagram of TMI-2, recovered after the Three Mile Island incident:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Graphic_TMI-2_Core_End-State_Configuration.jpg/427px-Graphic_TMI-2_Core_End-State_Configuration.jpg

The core material became molten and went into meltdown state; the container itself can handled extreme heat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown

Hopefully you're wrong about a full meltdown. a Partial meltdown is definitely believed to have occured and it's responsible for some of the higher radiation levels being seen but I havent done a direct comparison to the radiation levels at Chernobyl which was a full meltdown indeed.

Turtwig

Overheal wrote: »

The core material became molten and went into meltdown state; the container itself can handled extreme heat.

Em this is assuming that container's structure is not compromised.:( In my view, they badly need to keep all the core submerged in water but the longer they do that in sea water the more the salt will corrode the steel structure. So does anyone here know how quickly salt corrodes the steel?

Einhard

darkman2 wrote: »

My take is that the first reactor has had a complete meltdown before the explosion. I think the other 5 are completely unstable and sea water as coolant won't prevent the inevitable. Jesus Christ take your heads out of your arses - a nuclear disaster is underway. No Government would be honest in this situation. They don't want panic (understandable).

I could be wrong but I doubt it. Wait for confirmation which will come. They are already talking "partial meltdown".

What's your basis for this speculation? There seems to be alot of Chicken Littles on this thread today; people who don't seem to know much about nuclear energy, and yet are running around pronouncing the worst in a frankly hysterical fashion. The entire rationale behind your thesis that a meltdown has occurred, is the fact that the Japanese government denied it.

Star Bingo

government now says cooling sytem at second reactor has failed. not enough cooling water

- are to proceed with vapour release..

Overheal

Reported 822 Micro-Seiverts Per Hour earlier today.

Converting to Rontgens used to measure chernobyl gives 6.88836000002521E-05 Rontgens Per hour.

http://www.asknumbers.com/RadiationExposureConversion.aspx

Thats low, right? In contrast wikipedia cites the 5-6 Rontgens per second occured in some parts of the Chernobyl plant immediately after the blast. Some cleanup vehicles still on site to this day give of anywhere from 10 to 20 rontgens per hour. 300 mSV is the average dose from a Dental X-Ray. So they are dealing with uncomfortably high radiation levels but it's far away from the lethal dose.

822 micro-seiverts is far away from lethal dose territory. at 2 full integer seiverts and above the risk of death is quite high but that is still [math] 243309x more radiation than is being talked about at Fukushima right now. at that rate per hour you would be exposed to lethal limits in.... 27.775 years. If my math isn't wonky.

Demonstratably the reactor steam is far less radioactive than the core material. If they need to vent they need to vent.

@ Star Bingo they ran out of coolant or the pumps stopped working?

Turtwig

Overheal wrote: »

Reported 822 Micro-Seiverts Per Hour earlier today.

Gotta ask where though, just outside the plant?

Overheal

Malty_T wrote: »

Em this is assuming that container's structure is not compromised.:( In my view, they badly need to keep all the core submerged in water but the longer they do that in sea water the more the salt will corrode the steel structure. So does anyone here know how quickly salt corrodes the steel?

A long time to corrode steel. You might see the first signs of rust in - i dont know, not before a few days and probably not before a couple weeks. Long enough for the vessels to cool and be secured properly I reckon.

Overheal

Malty_T wrote: »

Gotta ask where though, just outside the plant?

At the site,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/13/japan-second-nuclear-reactor-threat-fukushima

Star Bingo

Overheal wrote: »

@ Star Bingo they ran out of coolant or the pumps stopped working?

yeah they said failure. sorry for the delay

will catch up in a few hours.
cheers

Turtwig

Three Mile Island was .8 mSv so it has surpassed that, still though no where near anything lethal. Though I expect some media outlets in the US will be like radiation dosage at plant 16 times that of permitted limits in the US for a year (50 mSv). Nah something tells me they'll stick to the old 1000 times unknown quantity figure.:(