Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Turtwig

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

But much safer. I am sure then can have insulation underground too.

Far from it. Building the containment structure underground would throw a tonne more engineering headaches. As well as the standard requirements it would now also have to be able to withstand all the increased pressure exerted on it from the soil around it. Then there's the added problem of radioactivity material from a meltdown ending up directly in the soil. Clean up attempts would be an even worse disaster!

Wolfe Tone

Malty_T wrote: »

Far from it. Building the containment structure underground would throw a tonne more engineering headaches. As well as the standard requirements it would now also have to be able to withstand all the increased pressure exerted on it from the soil around it. Then there's the added problem of radioactivity material from a meltdown ending up directly in the soil. Clean up attempts would be an even worse disaster!

But i thought they test nukes underground as it does less damage?

Rob A. Bank

A lucid explanation of partial meltdown...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/science/earth/14meltdown.html

Raskolnikov

MagicMarker wrote: »

How much would it cost to build a nuclear power plant a mile underground?

Seriously people.

I never said it was a viable solution! Obviously the cost of putting something the size of a small house that deep into the ground is going to cost ridiculous money.

Raskolnikov

OSI wrote: »

Of course it would. You think the damage thats been done to the power station is bad now? Encase it in all that rock that was moving and violently shaking during the earthquake and the entire structure would be destroyed instantly, rupturing and leaking radioactive material.

Nonsense. Ionizing gamma radiation cannot penetrate a mile of solid rock, even when it isn't encased in steel and concrete. One of the solutions to the worlds growing nuclear waste problem is actually burial as the risks of above ground storage are deemed to be high.

Wolfe Tone

OSI wrote: »

Nuclear bomb does not equal nuclear reactor

But fallout and that no?

davyjose

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Why aren't reactors buried underground, say at the bottom of a mine?

On top of everest FTW.

Or the moon we could put them on the moon and hook up a few wires.

Joking aside, the logistics are impossible. To get them deep enough so they are below the water table is next to impossible, and not financially viable at all.

Turtwig

Raskolnikov wrote: »

A reactor encased in concrete and steel a mile underground will never get nowhere near to spread radiation into the topsoil.

In a earthquake stricken environment and liquefaction present it would indeed spread radiation to the top soil.

Wolfe Tone

davyjose wrote: »

On top of everest FTW.

Or the moon we could put them on the moon and hook up a few wires.

Joking aside, the logistics are impossible. To get them deep enough so they are below the water table is next to impossible, and not financially viable at all.

Well if you have a disused mine already like those in england, why not?

Akrasia

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I never said it was a viable solution! Obviously the cost of putting something the size of a small house that deep into the ground is going to cost ridiculous money.

Not if they borrowed the technodrome....

Nuclear power is highly safe, the chances of an accident are very remote. the problem is that the more plants you build, the more likely you are to have an improbably unlikely event conspire to cause a catestrophic failure.

The safety measures are always going to be a compromise between what is technically feasable, and what is economically affordable. We should be engineering our plants to survive the worst case scenario, but it's always possible to concieve something even worse than the worst case scenario.

The earthquake was almost 9 on the richter scale.
Extremely powerful, but it is conceivable that the earthquake could have been 9.5 or even 10 on the richter scale (10 times more powerful than the one that struck) or the epicentre could have been closer to the reactor or the tsunami could have been bigger or faster...


Is it worth the risk of having a technology that is 99.9% safe but the .1% chance of disaster would render large parts of the country uninhabitable for generations?

PeakOutput

there is a wasteless nuclear reactor design that is ready to be built and uses existing nuclear waste as fuel the people pushing it cant get anywhere to build the first one

there is a ted talk somewhere about it if your interested

Overheal

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

But i thought they test nukes underground as it does less damage?

yes but nukes dont have to live and operate down there, they just have to explode and theyre done.

you arent even thinking about the massive tetonic forces that a reactor would face underground. or what would happen to workers the first time there was a cave-in. and of course what would happen in the event of a tsunami.

for all the extra what-if, nuclear would be far too expensive to build and maintain to be economically viable energy.

anyway think about the big picture these reactors are 30 and 40 years old and have done very well in the last week withstanding tsunamis and earthquakes up to magnitude 8.9 and JMA level 7. The reactors have more or less exceeded the limits of their design and operators have prevented the worst case scenario. And newer plants can only improve from there.

yoganmahew

mike65 wrote: »

When talking of a 1000/1000000/100000000 to 1 event or whatever one is refering to the specific location of such an event. A bit like being hit by lightening. You can rest easy that the NE coast of Japan will not suffer another 9 magnitude quake/tsunami event for a very long time.

I suggest you read more on probability. The chance of a 1000 year event happening in two successive years is not related. It is equally unlikely to happen in either of those years, therefore equally likely. The two events are not related - just because one has happened, it doesn't preclude the next one for the next thousand years.

Saadyst

Overheal wrote: »

anyway think about the big picture these reactors are 30 and 40 years old and have done very well in the last week withstanding tsunamis and earthquakes up to magnitude 8.9 and JMA level 7. The reactors have more or less exceeded the limits of their design and operators have prevented the worst case scenario. And newer plants can only improve from there.

I think this is something that a lot of people are missing out here, and only focusing on the "what if.." worst case outcomes. Totally neglecting how well the power plant, staff, engineers etc have come through this.

Tens of thousands of people dead, tens of billions worth of damage, entire parts of cities and towns vanishing overnight... the entire country shifted a few metres.. even the planet moved off it's axis slightly, such was the scale of this.

Yet the power plants all automatically shutdown and switched straight into their emergency mode.


Those guys are geniuses.

Raskolnikov

OSI wrote: »

Plenty of water that far down that would make it's way through the rocks, bring with it the radiation. This then makes it to the soil and so on.

Waste is already being buried underground. Obviously you do not put a reactor anywhere near a water source.

Turtwig

Raskolnikov wrote: »

Waste is already being buried underground. Obviously you do not put a reactor anywhere near a water source.

Then you are depriving the plant of one its emergency cooling assets.

3ndahalfof6

that must be the longest it has gone with no after shocks since the initial earth quake

http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/

andrew

A cost benefit analysis:

Cost to building a reactor underground: billions more euro/yen/dollars in construction costs.
Benefit: a margin of safety only slightly above what is currently obtained, in the event that a 1 in 1,000 year event occurs.

There's no point in building a reactor underground.

davyjose

andrew wrote: »

A cost benefit analysis:

Cost to building a reactor underground: billions more euro/yen/dollars in construction costs.
Benefit: a margin of safety only slightly above what is currently obtained, in the event that a 1 in 1,000 year event occurs.

There's no point in building a reactor underground.

I personally think it'd be less safe, but agree otherwise.

andrew

davyjose wrote: »

I personally think it'd be less safe, but agree otherwise.

Well, a margin of safety at best slightly better then, potentially worse.

opinion guy

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Yeah but if something like this happens ye can just shut the mine.

And what about the people working in it ? Encase them as well ? Also if people were not able to come and go to the current plants then thing would be much much worse by now.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

But i thought they test nukes underground as it does less damage?

A nuke is a relatively small one time firing device. A power station is a continuously operating plant that needs staff, fuel, coolant, maintenance, and other things on an ongoing basis.

cherryghost

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

that must be the longest it has gone with no after shocks since the initial earth quake

http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/

Interesting. There was almost 50 preshocks in the region prior to the massive quake. There was a period of 7 hours between the last preshock and the earthquake itself, which is also interesting in its own right. For it to literally stop dead in its tracks instead of slowly dying out might indicate something.

3ndahalfof6

cherryghost wrote: »

Interesting. There was almost 50 preshocks in the region prior to the massive quake. There was a period of 7 hours between the last preshock and the earthquake itself, which is also interesting in its own right. For it to literally stop dead in its tracks instead of slowly dying out might indicate something.

not to bad there was just 1 @ 4.7

but I was thinking like you maybe it was the calm before the storm.

dreamer_ire

Some good news
BBCWorld BBC Global News



The UN atomic watchdog says it has no indication at the current time of a possible meltdown at nuclear reactors in #Japan - AFP

The engineers and employees of the reactors are doing a powerful job.... full credit to them.

maquiladora

New picture of the damage done after the explosions at No 1. and No 3.
Damage at No.3 looks a lot more extensive. The main focus at the moment though is on the No. 2 reactor building between both damaged buildings.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rrB-tNbUgIk/TX5ELCR_aSI/AAAAAAAAFQI/CJdTpLObyVs/s1600/fukushima_after_explosions.jpg

The Sparrow

Another update from Michio Kaku:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31609
This isn't the type of situation that otherwise has a step-by-step emergency plan. We are witnessing a gigantic science experiment, with the Japanese people as guinea pigs. With everything seemingly have a domino effect at this point, the utility is literally making this up as they go along. Problems continue to arise at nearly every turn and is clearly making it difficult to gain traction.

News & Developments:

* Three reactors (units 1,2,3) are now involved with partial meltdowns.
* Units 1 and 3 have had their outer containment wall blown off by huge hydrogen gas explosions. (The hydrogen gas comes from a chemical interaction between water and the zirconium cladding surrounding the rods.
* The gas explodes when it is vented and interacts with oxygen.)
* All three units have had some core damage. Units 2 and 3 apparently were almost totally uncovered at some point, without any cooling water. Sea water is apparently leaking out of Unit 3, so that seawater is escaping as soon as it is flushed into the core. Even fire hoses are being used to keep sea water in the core. This also means that the reactors will become permanent pieces of junk afterwards, unfit for commercial use.
* The water level gauge that measures how much water there is in the nuclear core is broken, and hence reliable figures are hard to get.
* Radiation levels have soared. Several workers have shown full blown symptoms of radiation sickness (probably indicating that they absorbed perhaps tens of thousands of X-ray equivalents).
* Unit 3 contains MOX fuel (mixed oxide fuel) which contains plutonium, which is one of the most toxic chemicals known to science. So a possible meltdown there might spread this deadly chemical as well.
* The state of the nuclear waste units is unclear so there is always the possibility that the huge nuclear waste contained in these storage units might escape.
* The utility states that the situation is, at present, stable. This might be true, but its the stability of hanging on a cliff by your fingernails.

opinion guy

This isn't the type of situation that otherwise has a step-by-step emergency plan. We are witnessing a gigantic science experiment, with the Japanese people as guinea pigs. With everything seemingly have a domino effect at this point, the utility is literally making this up as they go along. Problems continue to arise at nearly every turn and is clearly making it difficult to gain traction.

This is a stupid argument. This situation has never before arisen. What would he have them do once they find its not in the rule book. Go home and catch up on their sleep ?

The Sparrow

opinion guy wrote: »

This is a stupid argument. This situation has never before arisen. What would he have them do once they find its not in the rule book. Go home and catch up on their sleep ?

I think he is just pointing it out. It's for information purposes for readers not a message to the authorities.

andrew

Sea water is apparently leaking out of Unit 3, so that seawater is escaping as soon as it is flushed into the core.

Wouldn't this mean that the primary, inner containment has been breached? This is something they said hasn't happened.

maquiladora

NHK : Possibilty of a 7.0+ aftershock has gone down from 70% to 40%.