Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

[Frank Newgent]

I hope they are well paid.

ETA: referring to Puppycow's post more than Ben Burch's

 

[AdMan]

I've now seen reports that workers are withdrawing from the Fukushima plant, suspending their operations due to radiation levels.

Anyone care to speculate what the implications of this are?

 

[BenBurch]

I've now seen reports that workers are withdrawing from the Fukushima plant, suspending their operations due to radiation levels.

Anyone care to speculate what the implications of this are?

Well, it means not much more is likely to be attempted for a week or so.

Basically they go into cleanup mode.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

I will pick up again tomorrow evening as it is late now and I must go sleep.

I am due to be at the plutonium factory early in the morning as we are just starting a refueling outage and I have premodification testing to perform.

When you pick up the thread can you explain what happens at a recently "shut down" power plant when the cooling is less than perfect? While your explanation of the normal operation and operating procedures at power plants was no doubt very useful I have a feeling the question was asked to get some information about the fluid situation at one specific nuclear power plant. (Read in a non-fear mongering tone. Currently, 13:21 JST water levels at the plant in question are still, let's say, "uncertain".)

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

Well, it means not much more is likely to be attempted for a week or so.

Basically they go into cleanup mode.

We're not quite there yet. You want to be taken seriously as a source of non-hyperbolic information about a situation that continues to interest people -regardless of you finding that odd and out of proportion to the scale of the other problems in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami- so answer in a realistic and accurate way.

 

[Dan O.]

Just to follow up on Dan O's claim the USGS doesn't post this stuff in real time, the new 6.0 is already up. And there was a 6.2 quake 2 hours earlier.

Never mind, I see I'm behind in the thread. So the 6.2 was the Tokyo quake and the new one, the 6.0 is north of the original quake.

Another 6.0 aftershock just occurred at 12:52 JST as reported live on NHK World. I watched the recent earthquake list until the event was finally posted by USGS about 20 minutes later.

Update time = Wed Mar 16 04:12:09 UTC 2011
MAP 6.0 2011/03/16 03:52:05 35.795 140.804 25.0 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN​

The web site itself seemed to be slow getting updates and was up to 10 minutes behind real time at one point. I may need to look into that.

 

[BenBurch]

We're not quite there yet. You want to be taken seriously as a source of non-hyperbolic information about a situation that continues to interest people -regardless of you finding that odd and out of proportion to the scale of the other problems in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami- so answer in a realistic and accurate way.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Options are very limited now.

 

[gumboot]

He does have a point in that we aren't all subject to the idiotic US news model. OTOH, there are plenty of real experts on the forum. It's just that any discussion of the actual hazards is being trounced on here as fear mongering and that's just bull.

To be honest, based on my observations anyone asking genuine up-front questions in this thread (and other related ones) are getting pretty clear and reasonable answers. (Whether you accept those answers or not is, I guess, up to you).

The only people I see being slammed here are DC (for obvious and understandable reasons) and "off-forum" media entities who are spouting drivel.

As for myself, based on my previous experiences I would probably trust the "expert" knowledge of posters on these forums over any media outlet 9 times out of 10.

The media don't actually have vested interest in the truth, and there's no one there to challenge them when they're spout nonsense. By contrast generally if someone says something questionable here on these forums they'll get slammed pretty quickly if they don't back up their argument with evidence.

Ultimately, the posters on these forums are as a rule as good as their transparent, easy to access sources.

 

[gumboot]

I've now seen reports that workers are withdrawing from the Fukushima plant, suspending their operations due to radiation levels.

Anyone care to speculate what the implications of this are?

Our media reported that this was due to a peak radation reading in the control room of 1Sv, at which level onset of radiation sickness begins. Since that peak levels have dropped back to around 0.8Sv.

Apparantly they were still going to attempt cooling using fire trucks and helicopters although I am not sure how that would work.

 

[truethat]

Can you imagine working there right now. The pressure must be insane.

 

[shuize]

Well, it means not much more is likely to be attempted for a week or so.

Basically they go into cleanup mode.

May I ask what you mean by "cleanup mode?" Is it the filling the buildings full of earth and concrete scenario I previously mentioned?

Also, I apologize if this has been addressed before, but is it not risky to the facility unmanned?

I believe I have read that the type of materials used in Fukushima could cause problems on a local scale, but were unlikely to present serious danger over long distances, i.e. Tokyo. Is this accurate?

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

May I ask what you mean by "cleanup mode?" Is it the filling the buildings full of earth and concrete scenario I previously mentioned?

Also, I apologize if this has been addressed before, but is it not risky to the facility unmanned?

I believe I have read that the type of materials used in Fukushima could cause problems on a local scale, but were unlikely to present serious danger over long distances, i.e. Tokyo. Is this accurate?

Based on the latest reports, currently the facility isn't unmanned. Based on these latest reports crews are continuing what they have been doing for the last few days but shifts are rotated more frequently.

(Evacuation of all crews was for one hour only in mid morning Japan time.)

 

[Aepervius]

Our media reported that this was due to a peak radation reading in the control room of 1Sv, at which level onset of radiation sickness begins. Since that peak levels have dropped back to around 0.8Sv.

Apparantly they were still going to attempt cooling using fire trucks and helicopters although I am not sure how that would work.

Do you have a link for that ? The one i read at world nuclear news was speaking of thousand of micro Sv , not millions. That would be 1 mSv / h, not 1 SV/h.

 

[DC]

They are now starting to haul water to Reactor 3 with Helicopters to cool it.
Reactor 2 has now stable temperatures and pressure went down a bit.
Reactor 4 is making trouble, but they gave no details to that.

source: Tepco

 

[gumboot]

After tsunami and quake, volcano erupts in Japan

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-sh...ation-threatens-devastated-japan/20110313.htm


This is really starting to look like a made for TV movie.

Shinmoedake has been erupting on and off since January. And it erupted three days ago, btw.

 

[gumboot]

Imperial Japan wasn't a very nice empire, even by the standards of empires.

Imperial Japan is still an Empire, unless they've ousted Akihito in the last couple of days.

 

[gumboot]

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting to watch them wallow in it. Sometimes it's like they're practically having feargasms over it.

I have been referring to them as Tragegasms. Seriously the last month or so the media has hit the jackpot big time. Uprisings in the Middle East - the latest threatening to turn into a blood bath complete with insane leader -, a devastating earthquake in a first world country (New Zealand) and then the motherlode; earthquake, tsunami, volcano and nuclear Armageddon all in another 1st world country, and one of the most media saturated countries in the world at that.

About the only thing that could make the media's month any better is if Obama burst out of his skin on live TV, revealing his true identity as a lizard-man, and immediately beamed into space, moments before DC got nuked from orbit.

 

[gumboot]

Do you have a link for that ? The one i read at world nuclear news was speaking of thousand of micro Sv , not millions. That would be 1 mSv / h, not 1 SV/h.

This was the article but it has been updated and there's no mention of radiation measurements now so it was probably a mistake on the media's part.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

Imperial Japan is still an Empire, unless they've ousted Akihito in the last couple of days.

He just gave a speech addressed the Empire on live TV and they announced him as the Emperor.

 

[gumboot]

I have been thinking, and was wondering if someone more knowledgeable could answer a question for me.

On first glance, one of the critical mistakes that seems to be made with this powerplant is to stick it right on the coast in an area that is Tsunami prone (the word itself is Japanese!).

But then it occurred to me; a nuclear powerplant needs water right, as a coolant. Without it, it seems meltdown is pretty much a certainty. Do they pull water from the mains, or do they have an isolated source on site that they just recycle or something?

Seems to me, if they use mains supply, there's a real danger in the event of a large earthquake of that supply being interrupted by damaged water systems. Even if the pipes to that particular plant did not fail, damage elsewhere in the system could drop water pressure to the point that it's unusable.

(I believe loss of water pressure has proved a major problem for firefighting efforts in multiple historic disasters including the Kobe quake, the Christchurch quake, and 9/11).

Wouldn't it therefore make sense to locate a nuclear power station in close vicinity to a large natural source of water, in the event of the unthinkable? Like, I don't know, the sea? And wouldn't the threat of having zero coolant due to water mains failure be worse than having to resort to dumping sea water on the plant because a Tsunami damaged the site?

Does this seem plausible, or have I missed something?