Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

MattusMaximus said:
So. as I have suspected all along, the likely worst case scenario is a long & expensive cleanup, NOT THIS...

[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_7747482915cf00ff4.jpg[/URL]

... which is the fearmongering the media seems to be playing into. Hmmm, I wonder which one sells more newspapers & airtime on TV/cable? :rolleyes:
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The link you provided in a previous post unfortunately confirms what I though...hydrogen explosion blew the secondary shield causing the big cloud seen on the videos. The loss of shielding is will make approaching the plant more difficult.

glenn

http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2011/03/11/media-updates-on-nuclear-power-stations-in-japan/
 
Paraphrasing Bill Nye: The dust in the explosion indicates concrete was expended. If in fact cesium has been detected, combined with the previous statement, both containment vessels are ruptured.
 
quadraginta said:
Gunter says...

"There are six reactors there. If one of them goes it could cause a chain reaction with the others, from the radiation spreading to the other control rooms."

:boggled:
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Wow, this Gunter character really knows how to scare people. Note how he plays on the connection between nuclear power, "chain reaction", and how a chain reaction leads to a nuclear explosion. I think his words are calculated for maximum effect...

... and part of me really wants to punch that moron in the head :mad:
 
manofthesea said:
Paraphrasing Bill Nye: The dust in the explosion indicates concrete was expended. If in fact cesium has been detected, combined with the previous statement, both containment vessels are ruptured.
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This appears to be at odds with everything being said by all the nuclear experts involved, since the primary containment vessel is still intact (note that glenn only stated the shielding was blown off). Do you have an actual link on Nye's comments?
 
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MattusMaximus said:
This appears to be at odds with everything being said by all the nuclear experts involved, since the primary containment vessel is still intact (note that glenn only stated the shielding was blown off). Do you have an actual link on Nye's comments?
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He was just on CNN. They will bring him back in awhile.
 
MattusMaximus said:
The important parts of the nuclear plants, such as the containment vessels, are still intact. The front offices where the snack machines are located? Probably not so much. Can you point out a situation here where the containment vessel is broken?

I also noticed that you have dodged my previous question, so I shall ask it again: what would constitute, for you, a "worst case" scenario in terms of an earthquake hitting?
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I said reasonable worst case. That is, what is the worst case you can reasonably expect. The current quake would be covered by that, as would the recent one in NZ. I can't imagine why it would not be possible to do so, but it would expensive. In the case of nuclear power, I think that is justified. I support nuclear power, but I also expect it to be held to a very high standard as well. In this case, something clearly went very wrong, especially when you consider that less essential buildings withstood the shock comfortably. I would imagine in this case, it was the economic benefits of the investors in the power company that took precedence over public safety, that such an old plant was still going, and that if a safety audit had been performed, it would have failed.
 
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MattusMaximus said:
Got a link to that statement? I can't find it.
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It isn't on the web yet. It was emailed to myself and all other CNS-Alberta members. Hence why I posted it in its entirety.

I searched the CNS website, and I found this news update page.
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The first link is to the Canadian Nuclear Society site. The Canadian Nuclear Society is a private education and outreach group. Your second link is to a CNSC site, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is the Canadian Governments nuclear regulatory body.

The similarity in the acronyms often causes confusion.
 
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There has to be some leakage from the containment shell since containmination is getting out. The question is how much and from where. With a BWR, there are depressurization valves that relief to a torus of water under the vessel. This is a safety system designed to lower pressure in the plant by blowing contaminated water into the suppression pool. If emergency cooling is available, which it isn't since the diesels were down, then you can feed the cold water into the reactor and bleed steam. Now, no cooling and the core heats enough to crumble and also zirc water reaction produces hydrogen. All bad stuff. Now, the hydrogen escapes into the shield buidling and explodes...big cloud of dust video. There can be some damage to containment isolation components because there is contamination getting out....but I really can't make a full assessment. I have less knowledge of BWR safety systems than PWR. If there were a major breach in the containment shell, then the radiation levels would be much higher than normal around the area and it would be a bigger problem--and possibly a plume of steam would be visible. The containment shell would more likely fail with a small crack in the weakest point and not any type of catastrophic failure.

Things that are certain...the fuel has failed and in a crumpled heap in the bottom of the reactor vessel.

glenn
 
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Sword_Of_Truth said:
It isn't on the web yet. It was emailed to myself and all other CNS-Alberta members. Hence why I posted it in its entirety.

The first link is to the Canadian Nuclear Society site. The Canadian Nuclear Society is a private education and outreach group. Your second link is to a CNSC site, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is the Canadian Governments nuclear regulatory body.

The similarity in the acronyms often causes confusion.
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Ah, thanks for the clarification.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Cripes, I hope that's not true, because we need nuclear energy now more than ever.

ETA: As the "go to physics guy" at my school, I'm going to make sure that I'm as informed as possible of what's going on so as to counter the inevitable nonsense that some folks are going to be spewing.
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I'm afraid most people will take no account of what anybody tells them. They will remember the pictures and the evacuations. "Sensible precautions" will rank with "our banking system is well-regulated" in common perception, and why not? From their point of view?

We aren't like most people, otherwise we wouldn't be here :). The corollary is that most people aren't like us.
 
In an effort to educate people about radiation, since everyone's attention is focused on it now, I suggest you all take some time to calculate your own personal radiation dose. Once you go through that calculation and see all of the sources (both natural & artificial) that you're exposed to all the time, then you will see how much the media is hyping this stuff.

Knowledge is power, folks. Learn about radiation, and it will cease to be as scary as the media is making it sound. As I like to say: "Know nukes!" :)
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
Another possibility is if we see a repeat of the 2003 Northeast Blackout or the 2000 California brownouts/rolling blackouts nuclear will come rolling in like gangbusters.
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I didn't see those myself (I live in another country), but neither nor both actually brought on a nuclear renaissance. Wasn't the California thing more about deregulation than anything else? "Enron" springs to mind, but I'm pretty vague on the matter.

I did see the oil crises of the 70's and the post-Three-Mile-Island nuclear renaissance which didn't quite materialise before Chernobyl.

if it happens more than twice in ten years, terrorists would have to nuke a major city to derail it.
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I'm speculating about the latest incident, obviously, and we shall see just how visceral a response it evokes. I doubt it will have much effect in China, but in the more Westernised world I expect it will.
 
"All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No. 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant,'' operator TEPCO said, adding that pressure was rising slightly.
Kyodo reported that the fuel rods at one reactor were now three metres above the water, and that a radiation leak believed to be from the reactor itself had now reached levels above the legal limit.
Japan's ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki told CNN: ``There was a partial melt of a fuel rod, melting of fuel rod. There was a part of that ... but it was nothing like a whole reactor melting down.''
Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the incident at four on the international scale of zero to seven. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five, while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 200,000 people had so far been evacuated from the area around the two Fukushima plants. There are a total of 10 reactors at the two plants.
Media reports said three residents - bedridden patients evacuated from a hospital near the No. 1 plant - had been found to be exposed to radiation after spending a long time outdoors awaiting rescue.
US nuclear experts warned that pumping sea water to cool the reactor was an ``act of desperation'' that, in the worst-case scenario, may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.
Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome of the atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/sp...-huge-earthquake/story-fn7zkbgs-1226020058265


The nuclear industry needs to get it's act together if it wants to be taken seriously. I think the nuclear is one of the main options we have for reducing CO2 emissions, but a situation like this is going to put it back years when we need it the most. That the backup cooling sysem was vulnerable to a Tsunami is unforgivable. It would have to be one of the first weaknesses that would be taken into consideration. That it was not addressed after the Indonesian disaster makes this even worse. To provide a Tsunami safe sytem would not have cost that much.
 
Since the start of the troubles at the Fukushima I-1 reactor, coal fired power plants have caused or contributed to the deaths of nearly 800 people.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
Since the start of the troubles at the Fukushima I-1 reactor, coal fired power plants have caused or contributed to the deaths of nearly 800 people.
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This was avoidable. I would love to see reliance on coal reduced, for more than one reason, but having a backup system that failed because it was open to inundation from a Tsunami in a major earthquake zone is sheer incompetence or negligence.

Put it this way, I bet all the nuclear plants in Japan are now checked to ensure that backup systems are not vulnerable to a Tsunami, and if they are they are fixed.
 
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