Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

Kumar - go play in your own goofball thread and stop pestering people who have a far better grasp of the issues than you. :garfield:


meanwhile in the real world...

Anti- to Pro-Nuclear, Pro- to Anti-, who’s changed their mind?
Posted on 15 April 2011 by Barry Brook

Today I was speaking to a colleague about Fukushima and its implications on public attitudes to nuclear as a way to mitigate climate change. After I mentioned George Monbiot’s recent investigative journalism on anti-nuclear claims, he responded by asking: Okay, sure, that’s one person, but conversely, how many pro-nuclear environmentalists have turned anti-nuclear as a result of Fukushima?
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more

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/04/15/who-has-changed-their-mind/
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13374153

Setbacks at Japan nuclear plant

A reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear plant has been more badly damaged than originally thought, operator Tepco has said.

...

Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has said that it may take up to nine months to achieve a cold shut-down at the plant.

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"As for a meltdown, it is certain that it has crumbled and the fuel is located at the bottom (of the vessel)," he added.

...

Experts said the announcement from Tepco did not mean that the situation at the plant had worsened because it was likely that the fuel had dropped to the bottom of the core soon after the 11 March earthquake.

But they said further evaluation was needed to see how this affected plans to stabilise the reactor.

...

Sea samples taken in the area had contained concentrations of caesium-134 at 18,000 times the permitted level, it said.

...

Total compensation claims are not yet known, but analysts say they may be more than $100bn (£61bn).
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Sword_Of_Truth said:
Again, the reactors survived both the quake and the tsunami. What hurt them was the loss of the back up generators.

You could rebuild the entire Fukushima complex exactly the same right down to the last nut and bolt and the only difference being you put the back up generators on the roof, or add ten feet to the sea wall or put them into watertight steel bunkers with 50 foot snorkels on top and the situation we are seeing now would never happen again.
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"Data taken at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the night of March 11 showing a high level of radiation at a reactor building suggest the possibility that key facilities there may have been damaged by the quake itself that day rather than tsunami-caused power loss that failed the reactor’s cooling function, a utility source said Sunday."
http://www.japantoday.com/category/...cilities-may-have-been-damaged-before-tsunami

Maybe some early assessments -like the one- you made above -and to which I may have conceded prematurely- need to be re-evaluated if this news report -quoted from Japan Today above for easy linkage- is accurate.
 
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/24_16.html

from the article

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says findings show that fuel meltdowns may have occurred at the No.2 and No.3 reactors within days of the March 11th earthquake. But it says both reactors are now stable at relatively low temperatures.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said earlier this month that fuel rods at the plant's No.1 reactor had melted.

The utility says a cooling system failure at the No.2 reactor 3 days after the quake led to a sharp drop in its water level.

Workers tried pumping in water from a fire engine, but the injection wasn't enough and the fuel rods likely became exposed.

Most of the fuel is thought to have melted down and collected at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel by 8 PM on March 15th. That's about 101 hours, or 4 days, after the earthquake.

At the No.3 reactor, TEPCO says the fuel could have reached a state of meltdown at around 3 AM on March 14th, about 60 hours after the quake.

However, TEPCO says there is still a chance the damage to the fuel rods is limited.

It says if the water gauges inside the 2 reactors are accurate, their readings show there were sufficient levels of water in the pressure vessels to prevent a total meltdown.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:38 +0900 (JST)
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Puppycow said:
It's a disgrace. It's incredible how much harm these people have caused to Japan.
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Or are the real culprits the seismologists who predicted that a 7.5 or 8 quake was the largest that might ever be seen in the area? For example ...

http://www.metrolic.com/seismologists-often-caught-by-surprise-164944/

The seismologists have stated that the ones who planned the nuclear reactor in that area, did well, as it was one of the best locations they could have chosen. They have analyzed the records from the last 300 years, and they reached to the conclusion that in the area which was hit by the earthquake, 7.5, or 8 magnitude earthquakes took place once every few decades. The magnitudes seem pretty high, but the reality is that the country is prepared for these sorts of disasters. Usually these types of earthquakes are not too damaging for the country, but would most likely cause lots of damage in other countries from the world. Shinji Toda, a professor of geology at Kyoto University in Japan, said that it was known that an earthquake will take place in the area. However, it was believed that the earthquake will have a 7.5 magnitude the most, no one expected for the earthquake to have a magnitude of 9.
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And note that they tested the reactor complex for a 7.9 quake. And it did fine. And in a feat of engineering, the six backup generators and a facility initially survived the 9.0 magnitude quake. But of course there is a factor of 10 difference in energy between a 8 and a 9 quake. And that translates into a much larger tsunami than what they anticipated. And it's the tsunami that led to the tragedy. So is it really fair to place all the blame on the designers or even the owners of the plant? I don't think so. I'm not even sure it's even fair to blame the seismologists. It was just an act of God.
 
t's a disgrace. It's incredible how much harm these people have caused to Japan.
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and how many thousands of people would have died yearly if the same power was supplied by coal plants.

This was a once in a 1,000 year event - no one designs or should design for that.
There is risk in all technology and for all users of technology.

Move on, get mad about coal.

a) it kills people and the planetary biome- big time

b) it's not necessary
 
Tell the evacuees to move on and get over it.

Tell the parents of children in Fukushima who are worried sick to move on.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=794371

Why wasn't there a mobile backup power generator on a truck available?

Why were existing safety standards repeatedly violated and the violations not handled more severely by the regulator.

And don't tell me that nuclear power operators don't have to be responsible for reasonable safety precautions because coal isn't safe.

And don't tell me that major earthquakes on the Pacific Rim only happen once in 1000 years.
 
And by the way, surely you aren't assigning the reactor operators, designers and owners the bulk of the responsibility for the harm that has been done in the area? Afterall, even without any reactors along the coast, there would still be over 15,000 dead and total destruction of the area. So maybe you should focus your anger on the politicians that allowed THAT tragedy to occur. Afterall, I heard that at least one politician managed (over the objections of many) to get a wall built that was some 10 meters high that actually saved his community from destruction. And perhaps the people who chose to live in the area also share some of the responsibility. Afterall, they must have known they lived near the coast, that their coast periodically sees tsunamis, that they live in a large earthquake zone, and that earthquakes can produce large tsunamis. (Now just for the record, I'm not really blaming the people, since they had no reason to expect tsunamis of that magnitude either.)
 
And don't tell me that nuclear power operators don't have to be responsible for reasonable safety precautions because coal isn't safe.
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and they did - for a quake that was in the 7-8 range

It is UNREASONABLE to design beyond that.

You just can't get by your anti-nuke nonsense.

ALL technology carries risk....nuclear power is exceedingly safe. It's not going away despite your wailing and gnashing of teeth.....save it for the coal barons.
 
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The people who are still trying to sell the world on how safe it all is, I don't think anything would ever convince them otherwise.

The problem is, excuses and hand waving won't change reality. Oh maybe before the worst nuclear disaster in history they might have had a chance, but it's over. They just don't get it.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_30.html

The real problem is, if they don't know what happened, and they certainly don't yet, they can't know if the other "earthquake proof" nuclear reactors might not also fail after a large earthquake.

The risk of having more reactors meltdown and contaminate Japan is too great to take now. It's actually quite sensible of course. If you can't be sure 4 or 5 or 6 reactors might melt down due to a quake, it's not prudent to run them until you can be sure.
 
r-j said:
The real problem is, if they don't know what happened, and they certainly don't yet, they can't know if the other "earthquake proof" nuclear reactors might not also fail after a large earthquake.
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You are wrong. They do know what happened. A reactor that was reasonably designed for a 7.5 to 8.0 was subjected to a 9.0. Just do the math.

Meanwhile, you essentially ignore what happened to the more than 15,000 who died from something that had nothing to do with the reactors. Go figure.
 
BeAChooser said:
Meanwhile, you essentially ignore what happened to the more than 15,000 who died from something that had nothing to do with the reactors. Go figure.
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Or, to put it another way:

Number of deaths caused by the tsunami: 15,000.
Number of deaths caused by the reactor meltdown: 0.
 
Puppycow said:
Tell the evacuees to move on and get over it.

Tell the parents of children in Fukushima who are worried sick to move on.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=794371

Why wasn't there a mobile backup power generator on a truck available?

Why were existing safety standards repeatedly violated and the violations not handled more severely by the regulator.

And don't tell me that nuclear power operators don't have to be responsible for reasonable safety precautions because coal isn't safe.

And don't tell me that major earthquakes on the Pacific Rim only happen once in 1000 years.
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Bold appeal to emotion.
Underlined : Appeal to bad geography (pacific ring of fire and pacific rim is an enormous area) and bad history (such earthquake are extremely rare in that area)
Italic : Strawman building notice. Nobody said that. What was said is that all thing counted, even with the 2 big cata on nuclear , coal kills more per year world wide, even discounting mining practice of China.

The emotion are so loaded on the thematic, that I think nuclear will be dead, NOT because of any security concern, but because politician will not want to jeopardy election.

Human race are fearful **** in a group.
 
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_30.html

Quake may have damaged key piping at No.3 reactor

Tokyo Electric Power Company has released data which suggests the March 11th earthquake damaged a critical piping system in the No. 3 reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The utility said that analysis of pressure and temperature data from the days after the quake shows that the No.3 reactor lost its cooling system on March 13th. Much of its nuclear fuel likely melted down and collected at the bottom of the pressure vessel over the next 24 hours.

The analysis also shows that piping in an emergency cooling mechanism, known as a high-pressure coolant injection system, may have been damaged by the earthquake. The system is designed to maintain the water level inside the reactor vessel during an emergency.

The system is known to have automatically switched on shortly after noon on March 12th.

Pressure inside the reactor, which was 75 atmospheric pressure, plunged to about 10 atmospheric pressure over the next six hours.


Tokyo Electric says the drop in pressure is consistent with analysis which assumes the piping system had been damaged.

The piping system is one of the plant's most important structures in terms of safety, and must be damage-proof.

Tokyo Electric refuses to confirm, however, that the key piping system was damaged by the quake, and suggests that it is possible a gauge malfunction may be to blame for the data fluctuation.

Experts note that extensive investigation is needed to examine whether the massive earthquake damaged the cooling system.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 18:46 +0900 (JST)
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I've been following this disaster.
Before Fukushima, I was an ardent anti-nuclear proponent.
Post Fukushima, I'm pro nuclear.
And pro relearning energy habits and consumption.
And pro upgrading and enforcing the nuclear energy industry's safety regulations.
I spend an hour each day reading the incredible range of reactions to what has happened.
And learning. So much to learn!
Conclusions?
None yet, except Japan was most fortunate in the direction of the wind during this disaster.
 
macdoc said:
and they did - for a quake that was in the 7-8 range

It is UNREASONABLE to design beyond that.

You just can't get by your anti-nuke nonsense.

ALL technology carries risk....nuclear power is exceedingly safe. It's not going away despite your wailing and gnashing of teeth.....save it for the coal barons.
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See, I'm not even anti-nuke. I'm pro-nuke, but I'm for nuclear operators being responsible to ensure safety. They didn't do it.

BTW, even TEPCO themselves have admitted that their safety precautions weren't adequate.
 
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