Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

bradlente

bradlente wrote: »

Fair dues to the lads updating this thread,it's been better than any news coverage I've been watching.

Have to agree.

mandrake04

Overheal wrote: »

Some reports say that 3 workers already display clear symptoms of radiation sickness.

That 50 mSV reading, where was it taken from?

about 1 Sv would give you noticble ARS.

I work in the business and my annual limit is 20mSv and over the last 5 years have copped about a total of 34mSv

Overheal

So I don't need iodine then?

uprising2

No.2 Reactor losing or has lost ALL coolant, another explosion expected soon at No.2 as pressure builds up inside.

This is breaking news AFTER the 2nd explosion at No.3 reactor a few hours ago, and No.1 a couple of days ago, aftershocks/earthquakes continue, and another tsunami "could" happen in the coming days, it just gets worse by the minute.

Snow and rain on it's way to affected area's, WTF will be falling on the people, it just gets worse and worse, so possibly 3 meltdowns could occur.

Also worth noting, seawater has NEVER been used as it is now to cool reactors, so whats happening there is an "experiment" in cooling nuclear reactors, not very reassuring is it.

mgmt

uprising2 wrote: »

No.2 Reactor losing or has lost ALL coolant, another explosion expected soon at No.2 as pressure builds up inside.

This is breaking news AFTER the 2nd explosion at No.3 reactor a few hours ago, and No.1 a couple of days ago, aftershocks/earthquakes continue, and another tsunami "could" happen in the coming days, it just gets worse by the minute.

Snow and rain on it's way to affected area's, WTF will be falling on the people, it just gets worse and worse, so possibly 3 meltdowns could occur.

Also worth noting, seawater has NEVER been used as it is now to cool reactors, so whats happening there is an "experiment" in cooling nuclear reactors, not very reassuring is it.

OMG:eek:

I was just thinking with all the wrong hands being dealt at the moment, that the volcano eruption might cause a no fly zone around Japan like in Iceland.

shedweller

he current weather there:http://weather.weatherbug.co.uk/Japan/Fukushima-weather.html?zcode=z6286&lang_id=en-gb
This is shocking. God love them all.

uprising2

shedweller wrote: »

he current weather there:http://weather.weatherbug.co.uk/Japan/Fukushima-weather.html?zcode=z6286&lang_id=en-gb
This is shocking. God love them all.

http://weather.weatherbug.co.uk/Japan/Fukushima-weather/local-forecast/7-day-forecast.html?zcode=z6286&lang_id=en-gb

7 day forecast

mandrake04

Overheal wrote: »

So I don't need iodine then?

Depends on your exposure, I wouldnt take 131I unless I was advised by the RPII or HPA (UK)


140 mSv will give you a 0.023% increase in Natural cancer death incidence.
500 mSv Earliest detecteable blood change
1000 mSv Possible RS (I would say definitely)
2500 mSv ARS
4500 mSv LD50
10 Sv Death within 30 Days

Anything over 0.5 Sv and I would be shitting myself, anything over 6 Sv and you are instantly f*cked.

Chest X-Ray is about 0.08 mSv
Spinal X-Ray is about 3.5 mSv
Abdominal CT scan 6 mSv

and a flight from Dublin to Sydney is 0.1 mSv

Background is variable but in Ireland its about 4 mSv annual average where as in Australia is about 2 mSv

maquiladora

U.S. Seventh Fleet moves ships, planes away from quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant after discovering low-level radioactive contamination - AP

NEWS ADVISORY: U.S. chopper detects radiation, aircraft carrier suspends aid activity - Kyodo

Mister men

Don't want to be a drama queen but is'nt it time the Irish government started advising our citizens to leave Japan unless they are involved in the relief effort. It's becoming clear the Japanese government are'nt being truthful with what has happened at it's nuclear plants.

daelight

They will boar a hole to release pressure in No.2 so as not to have an explosion as has happened with 1 & 3. THe media is whipping this up nicely, most of you are lapping it up.

Fear of Nuclear Meltdown is RTE's sensationalism this morning, nice.

The authorities are updating the public every moment and explaining the data well. The radiation levels are under control. COntainment is under control - the reactor cores are immensely strong, more than most of seem to comprehend. Like I said before, they have taken a M9 earthquake, tsunami and 100's of aftershocks. They still are there and there are people there repairing them - amazing. Heros.

MagicSean

uprising2 wrote: »

No.2 Reactor losing or has lost ALL coolant, another explosion expected soon at No.2 as pressure builds up inside.

This is breaking news AFTER the 2nd explosion at No.3 reactor a few hours ago, and No.1 a couple of days ago, aftershocks/earthquakes continue, and another tsunami "could" happen in the coming days, it just gets worse by the minute.

Snow and rain on it's way to affected area's, WTF will be falling on the people, it just gets worse and worse, so possibly 3 meltdowns could occur.

Also worth noting, seawater has NEVER been used as it is now to cool reactors, so whats happening there is an "experiment" in cooling nuclear reactors, not very reassuring is it.

The reason sea water has never been used is because the salt would damage the reactor. But if the reactor is beyond salvage there's no problem in using it. It's not really an experiment.

MagicMarker

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/13/japan.miyagi.deaths/index.html?hpt=T2

Approximately 2,000 bodies were found Monday in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's northeast coast, the Kyodo news agency reported.

If confirmed, the discovery would be the largest yet of victims from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Roughly 1,000 bodies were found coming ashore on Miyagi's Ojika Peninsula, while another 1,000 were seen in the town of Minamisanriku, where some 10,000 people are unaccounted for, Kyodo reported.

Officials said earlier Monday that the official death toll from the disaster stands at 1,627, with more missing.

As of 10:00 a.m. Monday (9:00 p.m. Sunday ET), at least 1,720 people were missing and 1,962 injured, according to the National Police Agency Emergency Disaster Headquarters.

The number of dead is expected to go up as rescuers reach more hard-hit areas.

maquiladora

From the Washington Post :

At the 40-year-old Fukushima Daiichi unit 1, where an explosion Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, the spent fuel pool, in accordance with General Electric’s design, is placed above the reactor. Tokyo Electric said it was trying to figure out how to maintain water levels in the pools, indicating that the normal safety systems there had failed, too. Failure to keep adequate water levels in a pool would lead to a catastrophic fire, said nuclear experts, some of whom think that unit 1’s pool may now be outside.

“That would be like Chernobyl on steroids,” said Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds Associates and a member of the public oversight panel for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which is identical to the Fukushima Daiichi unit 1.

People familiar with the plant said there are seven spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi, many of them densely packed.

Gundersen said the unit 1 pool could have as much as 20 years of spent fuel rods, which are still radioactive.

At Fukushima Daiichi unit 3, the explosion was an indicator of serious problems inside the reactor core.

Victor Gilinsky, a former commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that to produce hydrogen, temperatures in the reactor core had to be well over 2,000 degrees and as high as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. He said a substantial amount of fuel had to be exposed at least at some point.

“That’s the significance of the hydrogen — it means there was serious fuel damage and probably melting,” said Gilinsky, who was at the NRC when Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor had a partial meltdown in 1979. “How much? We won’t know for a long time. At TMI we didn’t know for five years, until the vessels were opened. It was a shock.”

The Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 was built by Toshiba. Last year, the unit began using some reprocessed fuel known as “mox,” a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, produced from recycled material from nuclear weapons as part of a program known as “from megatons to megawatts.” Anti-nuclear activists have called mox more unsafe than enriched uranium. If it escapes the reactor, plutonium even in small quantities can have much graver consequences on human health and the local environment for countless years, much longer than other radioactive materials.

The Kyodo News Agency cited Tokyo Electric as saying that more than three yards of a mox nuclear-fuel rod had been left above the water level, raising concerns that bits of plutonium or its byproducts may already be mixed into vapors or molten material.

The Fukushima Daiichi unit 3, once capable of generating 784 megawatts of power, is substantially bigger than unit 1, which generated about 460 megawatts. As a result, lowering temperatures in its reactor core could prove a much tougher task, experts said.

Japanese officials were also trying to figure out whether Friday’s earthquake, or the subsequent high pressures and temperatures in the reactors, had caused other cracks or leaks in reactors in the region. So far officials have not said that they have found any, though they have noted still unexplained losses of water in some reactor vessels.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/at-two-reactors-a-race-to-contain-meltdowns/2011/03/13/ABtdVDU_story.html

uprising2

Overheating threatens third reactor at Japanese nuclear plant
A third reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has lost its cooling capacity, increasing the risk of overheating. Hydrogen explosions have already occurred at two other reactors after their cooling systems failed.

The failure of the cooling system of a third reactor at Japan's quake-stricken Fukushima nuclear power facility on Monday has introduced a new threat of overheating and a possible meltdown at the plant. Two other reactors at the plant have experienced similar cooling failures.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14909396,00.html

Threat to third Fukushima nuke reactor

The Japanese authorites are pumping seawater through two ailing reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima No. 1) nuclear plant in an attempt to cool the fuel rods, while simultaneously attempting to prevent an explosion in a third.
Water cooling of the reactors was disrupted by Friday's 9.0 earthquake, and on Saturday, an explosion in the No. 1 reactor destroyed the surrounding structure but left the steel containment vessel intact.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushima_update/

Here's the official Japanese broadcaster site with a news feed, although being official I expect them to play down events as best they can.
They are saying there is no danger, or very little chance although the US has pulled it's ships sent to help in relief and rescue efforts out of the area.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html

gbee

Malty_T wrote: »

two of the big problems with the Kobe earthquake was that buildings weren't exactly that "earthquake proof" .

Not quite, Kobe suffered from liquefaction, back then a little understood phenomenon, but very well studied since Kobe.

Up to Kobe there was some debate as to the actual existence of liquefraction.

littlefriend

daelight wrote: »

They still are there and there are people there repairing them - amazing. Heros.

Totally agree. What extraordinary people.

maquiladora

Is the 20km zone around the plant wide enough?

USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier has suspended aid missions and changed course after radiation amounting to a months worth in one hour was detected, 160km from the plant.

Mr Benevolent

Update

TEPCO said at around 08:30 GMT that No. 1 and No. 2 reactors had "pulled out of emergency".

That's good news anyway.

gman2k

Confab wrote: »

That's good news anyway.

Tepco have being playing down the situation from the beginning, which is to be expected naturally, given the amount of people needed to be evacuated without causing a major panic.
TBH, it's now impossible to get any true indication of the actual situation on the ground, and how things will play out.

hmmm

littlefriend wrote: »

Totally agree. What extraordinary people.

+1 . The reports are that they are jerry rigging fire hoses to pump the sea water into the reactors, I'm assuming it was people doing jobs like that who have been injured in the second explosion. That's real bravery.

andrew

Regarding spent fuel rods: Given they're spent, and have been cooling for years, they're a lot cooler than the fuel rods in the reactor, so even without coolant it's much less likely that they'll go on fire.

geetar

im a little more concerned about this seocnd explosion.

there semmed to be flames in this one, which suggest a little bit more then the first one which was deemed to be caused by gas pressure

expectationlost

some of whom think that unit 1’s pool may now be outside

Brenireland

We're safe at the moment,its getting the temps down first then it should be okay.

Only hope we don't get another hard hitting Earthquake,it is not just Japan in danger now,humanity is.

maquiladora

Confab wrote: »

That's good news anyway.

Good news yes, but this news relates to the Daini plant, not the stricken Daiichi plant where the explosions have been.

Also, Kyodo reported that the pumping of seawater to No. 3 was ceased after the explosion. I haven't heard if that has started again.

maquiladora

Brenireland wrote: »

Only hope we don't get another hard hitting Earthquake,it is not just Japan in danger now,humanity is.

I don't think things are quite that bad.

Mr Benevolent

maquiladora wrote: »

Good news yes, but this news relates to the Daini plant, not the stricken Daiichi plant where the explosions have been.

Oops, didn't see that. There's also a 70% chance of a 7+ magnitude quake in the vicinity of Sendai between now and Wednesday.

Garseys

Seen the footage of the second explosion. :eek!:

maquiladora

Here we go again....

(From Kyodo) BREAKING NEWS: Fuel rods at No. 2 reactor of Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant partially exposed

This is a repeat of what happened at No 1 and No 3. Up until now the water temp was rising but the fuel was still submerged. This will now probably lead to the same kind of situation that caused the last two explosions, however I read somewhere they might try to drill a hole to release any hydrogen to try to stop that happening.

The good news though is the last two explosions didn't cause any critical damage, from what they are telling us.

Edit...
Now its been updated : FLASH: Fuel rods at No. 2 reactor of Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant fully exposed