Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

Aepervius said:
Fission. Not Fusion. And I would rather wait for official news than hear speculation from people which seem to be saying "the end of the world is neigh" when most of the environmental damage hasn't been done by the local nuclear plant.
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You are correct on that last point (thus far), and it is a good one to keep in mind.

However, as other have pointed out, there is reason to be skeptical of "official news" because it is often limited, inaccurate, and/or biased in favor of political and corporate interests.

Reasoned speculation is a valid scientific endeavor. Many of the speculative questions and opinions raised have been borne out by subsequent events.

I haven't seen anyone here suggesting the end of the world is upon us. The Four Horses of the Apocalyse may be neighing, but they're far from nigh.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12875327

Japan nuclear crisis: Radiation spike report 'mistaken'

The operators of a stricken Japanese nuclear plant have apologised for a "mistake" in reporting a radiation spike 10 million times above normal.
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QUESTIONS:

How many 1st gen plants are in Japan?

Were all the plants now in trouble 1st gen?

How hard were the newer model plants hit by the Tsunami and the earthquake?

What would / could happen if the workers in Fukushima would all stop and just leave the plants on their own?
 
Kuko 4000 said:
How many 1st gen plants are in Japan?
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You can find a list of nuclear power plants here. Your question isn't quite right, though. It's not the generation of the plant you want, but the generation of the reactor. A single plant can have multiple reactors (as Fukushima does), which may be quite different in both age and design. Although I don't see a listing by generation, if you follow that link to individual plants, you can find out when each reactor was constructed, which will give you some idea about its modernity.

How hard were the newer model plants hit by the Tsunami and the earthquake?
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Well, the impact of a tsunami depends on a lot of factors including the shape of the ocean floor near the coast, but there was another nuclear plant (Onagawa) that got hit by the tsunami which was even closer to the epicenter than either Fukushima plant. Onagawa had three reactors, only one of which was operating at the time of the earthquake. It has been shut down, and so far doesn't appear to be having any serious issues. That reactor started operation in 2002.

There are also two Fukushima plants, Fukushima I (or Fukushima Dai-ichi) and Fukushima II (or Fukushima Dai-Ni). It's Fukushima I which has had the most problems, and is the closer of the two plants to the epicenter (though not by much). The reactors at Fukushima I came online in the late 60's/early 70's. The Fukushima-II reactors came online in the early to mid 80's.

So there does seem to be some correlation between the age of the reactor and how well it's managed this disaster, but you'd need to do a much more thorough investigation (like sorting out earthquake vs. tsunami damage, detailing tsunami size at each site, etc) than we can do here to really make that conclusion robust. I'm sure someone will do that, but it'll probably take a while.

And lastly there's also the Tokai nuclear plant, which had one reactor built in the early 70's plus Japan's oldest nuclear power reactor, built in 1961. This plant doesn't seem to be having any serious problems in terms of maintaining cooling or leaks, but it was also the furthest from the epicenter, so that doesn't tell us much.

What would / could happen if the workers in Fukushima would all stop and just leave the plants on their own?
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Well, the core could melt and rupture the containment vessel. And the spent fuel could evaporate all the cooling water, melt, catch the cladding on fire, and disperse spent fuel dust into the air. All of that is potentially much worse than what's going on now. So there's a good reason they're keeping people on the job.
 
Thanks for your answer Ziggurat, very helpful.

Ziggurat said:
Well, the core could melt and rupture the containment vessel. And the spent fuel could evaporate all the cooling water, melt, catch the cladding on fire, and disperse spent fuel dust into the air. All of that is potentially much worse than what's going on now. So there's a good reason they're keeping people on the job.
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Any guesstimates of the consequences to the environment and habitability if they would just stop everything now and the worst case scenario would happen?
 
a_unique_person said:
The problem is that nuclear power is, in theory, safe. I think it can be done. However, nuclear power is run by humans in a political context. That makes it less safe than it should be.
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What you have stated here applies to anything...cars are safe until people are put in them...etc...

I disagree that there is a political context to running them...what would be political about operating a reactor. There are very strict regulations which must be followed.

glenn
 
Ziggurat said:
Onagawa had three reactors, only one of which was operating at the time of the earthquake. It has been shut down, and so far doesn't appear to be having any serious issues. That reactor started operation in 2002.
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Aside from the two Fukushima plants, are the other reactors running ? Seems that several were not in operation, so I'd have thought they would've engaged them to compensate for the loss of the Fukushima reactors.

Also, is Fukushima II going to come back online, or was it also damaged too much ?
 
Kuko 4000 said:
Any guesstimates of the consequences to the environment and habitability if they would just stop everything now and the worst case scenario would happen?
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Worst case scenario? Well, if the spent fuel all caught fire, the evacuation area around the plant could become "uninhabitable" for a few decades. Of course, "uninhabitable" really doesn't mean people couldn't live there, it means that people wouldn't, because we're very cautious about radiation levels for the general public.
 
Belz... said:
Aside from the two Fukushima plants, are the other reactors running ? Seems that several were not in operation, so I'd have thought they would've engaged them to compensate for the loss of the Fukushima reactors.
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I don't think the other reactors I mentioned are running. Even if they're not currently having problems handling residual cooling, they may still have damage to the plants (particularly Onagawa) which could make it unsafe to return to operation at this point. For example, the cooling requirements while shut down are much less than during operation, so having enough cooling power to handle a shutdown doesn't mean you can handle operating conditions. Because they haven't been having problems while shut down, we're not getting much news out of them, so I don't know what the extent of that damage is. But I do know that they're not going to turn them back on until they're absolutely sure that there isn't any hidden damage, and that all the damage that was done has been fixed. That might even require the approval of their regulatory agencies, and those agencies might be a little... busy, right about now.

Also, is Fukushima II going to come back online, or was it also damaged too much ?
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That I couldn't tell you. They may not know that themselves yet.
 
Hindmost said:
What you have stated here applies to anything...cars are safe until people are put in them...etc...

I disagree that there is a political context to running them...what would be political about operating a reactor. There are very strict regulations which must be followed.

glenn
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The inability of successive governments to bring TEPCO to heel. They seem to be incapable of dictating to a large business with connections.
 
a_unique_person said:
The inability of successive governments to bring TEPCO to heel. They seem to be incapable of dictating to a large business with connections.
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All the facts are not in but I'm not sure in which way they were not 'brought to heel' or even that 'bringing them to heel' would have made any difference in the outcome. There seem to have been some reporting issues but nothing that would have affected this.

We have one of the worst natural disasters to hit the area in centuries with a highly unfavorable mixture of events. We can learn from this and fix things better, but unless further evidence appears, I don't think the 'heel' is the immediate problem.
 
jayh said:
All the facts are not in but I'm not sure in which way they were not 'brought to heel' or even that 'bringing them to heel' would have made any difference in the outcome. There seem to have been some reporting issues but nothing that would have affected this.

We have one of the worst natural disasters to hit the area in centuries with a highly unfavorable mixture of events. We can learn from this and fix things better, but unless further evidence appears, I don't think the 'heel' is the immediate problem.
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Their insular and myopic view of matters has made a huge difference. After the first hydrogen explosion would have indicated the venting of the out shell of the buildings was essential to help disperse the hydrogen safely. This was not done for a week at least, and only the last two buildings benefited from this act, which don't appear to be at major risk anyway.

The use of sea water has been excessive, when large fresh water barges were available to provide fresh water. The use of sea water has introduced it's own problems.

The flow of information to it's own government has been inadequate, with the Japanese PM having to demand that they keep him fully informed.

TEPCO has assured it's own government that measures to prevent such an event occurring were in place. There have been gaps in the backups. The use of plutonium in a nuclear reactor in Japan is also something that is suspect. It adds a whole new dimension of risks.

There is probably other help and advice that was available that has not been used. TEPCO has been for too long a law unto itself.
 
After two weeks, they finally as the French for help.
TOKYO Electric Power (TEPCO), operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, is seeking help from France to tackle the "critical" situation, Industry Minister Eric Besson said today. "TEPCO, for the first time, I'm pleased to say... has asked for help from French industrial concerns," the minister told RTL radio, specifying French energy giant EDF, nuclear group Areva and CEA, the atomic energy commission.
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...ch-help-minister/story-fn3dxity-1226029677655

They should have been doing this the moment the lost all power. At that point, they were in desperate trouble, and in need of all the help they could get. The global nuclear industry would be very keen to help, because the last thing they want is the current situation. In Germany, there has already been an election won due to the nuclear issue. The conservative, pro nuclear party has lost power in a traditionally conservative state.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42294324/ns/world_news-europe/
 
a_unique_person said:
... In Germany, there has already been an election won due to the nuclear issue. The conservative, pro nuclear party has lost power in a traditionally conservative state.
...
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In case anyone is still naively wondering what is political about operating a nuclear reactor....
 
If it wasn't for the nuclear crisis, CNN wouldn't be covering Japan at all right now.
 
r-j said:
If it wasn't for the nuclear crisis, CNN wouldn't be covering Japan at all right now.
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Yeah, well, the problem is that CNN (and most other mainstream media outlets) are like the dog Dug from "Up". Instead of shouting "Squirrel!", though, they cry "Dragon!" whenever there's some noise.

The problem is that there's really a dragon sleeping nearby, and we know exactly where its lair is. But our media dogs can't distinguish between dragons, dragon sneezes, or the little critters that may come out of its lair, which are a lot less dangerous (they may only maim a couple of peasants, or kill one if they're lucky, while the dragon may destroy the whole village).

For the Plutonium finds, are they just itty-bitty old and stale dragon poop stains near the lair, or fresh steamy heaps away from it, meaning the dragon is awake? Our dog can't distinguish, for him it's all "Dragon!".
 
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