Is the world actually ending? Japan hit by quake and tsunami

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Another thing to consider about nuclear power is the radioactive waste.

[EddieColeslaw]

Not that I'm aware of, but terrorism can affect anything at anytime, it's not a reason to not do something!

 

You may aswell never build another skyscraper and destroy all airplanes!

 

Actually I remember now, there was a campaign here which went along the lines of "if terrorists decide to blow up Sellafield, Ireland is screwed via the wind blowing everything towards us". Also people get mad about radioactive waste being dumped into the Irish Sea.

 

It's a tragedy when a skyscraper is knocked down by terrorists, but a nuclear power plant rendering most of another country nuclear wasteland is slightly worse

[Serebii]

Actually I remember now, there was a campaign here which went along the lines of "if terrorists decide to blow up Sellafield, Ireland is screwed via the wind blowing everything towards us". Also people get mad about radioactive waste being dumped into the Irish Sea.

 

It's a tragedy when a skyscraper is knocked down by terrorists, but a nuclear power plant rendering most of another country nuclear wasteland is slightly worse

More sensationalisation

[EddieColeslaw]

I've already tried to prune as much sensationalism as possible You should've seen the pictures used in the campaign...they photoshopped pics of greenery and turned trees purple, etc.!

[Serebii]

I've already tried to prune as much sensationalism as possible You should've seen the pictures used in the campaign...they photoshopped pics of greenery and turned trees purple, etc.!

The fact is, the public is scared of nuclear. Most of it is due to media sensationalisation. There are countless safeguards to protect meltdowns, especially after Chernobyl. However, as mentioned earlier, the only reason Fukushima's is screwing up is becuase it withstood a 8.9 earthquake and then, just 15 minutes later, got hit by a 10 metre high tidal wave.

 

After all that, it has cooling issues, which unfortunately are escalating. However, if the worst happens, it's going to be nowhere near as cataclysmic as people think. Fukushima may be a bit radioactive for a while, and some may be dispersed by the wind across some larger areas but it wont be deadly

[heroicjanitor]

It's just getting out of hand. The media is scaremongering. Nuclear power IS safe. However, it, like everything else, fucks up when it has a 10 metre high tidal wave hit it.

 

I agree nuclear power is fine, but it does fuck up that bit more than other power sources when it fails :p

 

 

More sensationalisation

 

Are you trying to lump sellafield in with properly run nuclear plants? Sellafield has been very poorly run for decades and has a big list of leaks into the irish sea turning it into one of the most heavily contaminated seas in the world.

[Raining_again]

Fukushima may be a bit radioactive for a while, and some may be dispersed by the wind across some larger areas but it wont be deadly

 

I would even stretch to say the general pollution of cars and suchlike does a lot worse to the human body than this is ever likely to! Especially in a very very populated place like Japan.

 

People are more worried about the tidal waves, the earthquake and the fact that thousands of their fellow japanese are most likely already dead.

[Dante]

Japan abandons stricken nuke plant over radiation

Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility.

 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw.

 

Earlier officials said 70 percent of fuel rods at one of the six reactors at the plant were significantly damaged in the aftermath of Friday’s calamitous earthquake and tsunami.

 

News reports said 33 percent of fuel rods were also damaged at another reactor. Officials said they would use helicopters and fire trucks to spray water in a desperate effort to prevent further radiation leaks and to cool down the reactors.

 

The nuclear crisis has triggered international alarm and partly overshadowed the human tragedy caused by Friday’s double disaster, which pulverized Japan’s north-eastern coastline, killing an estimated 10,000 people.

 

Authorities have tried frantically since last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami to avert an environmental catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in northeastern Japan, 170 miles (270 kilometers) north Tokyo.

 

The government has ordered some 140,000 people in the vicinity to stay indoors. A little radiation was also detected in Tokyo, 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the south and triggered panic buying of food and water.

 

There are six reactors at the plant, and three that were operating at the time have been rocked by explosions. The one still on fire was offline at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake, Japan’s most powerful on record.

 

The Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency estimated that 70 percent of the rods have been damaged at the No. 1 reactor.

 

Japan’s national news agency, Kyodo, said that 33 percent of the fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor were damaged and that the cores of both reactors were believed to have partially melted.

 

“We don’t know the nature of the damage,” said Minoru Ohgoda, spokesman for the country’s Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency. “It could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them.”

 

Meanwhile, the outer housing of the containment vessel at the No. 4 unit erupted in flames early Wednesday, said Hajimi Motujuku, a spokesman for the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

 

Japan’s nuclear safety agency said fire and smoke could no longer be seen at Unit 4, but that it was unable to confirm that the blaze had been put out.

[Serebii]

Japan abandons stricken nuke plant over radiation

They've gone back in now that levels have reduced

[Cube]

Officials said they would use helicopters and fire trucks to spray wate

 

Why do I suddenly have the picture of fire trucks being carried by helicopters being used to do this in my head?

[S.C.G]

Why do I suddenly have the picture of fire trucks being carried by helicopters being used to do this in my head?

 

They should get Kirby on the case...

 

[Cube]

Is snow normal for Japan at this time of the year?

 

[Tales]

Should be in the northern part at least, it's March, and the country is not that far south.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Tales

[Dante]

news.yahoo.com

The video is a stark reminder that, as was the case when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, there will likely be thousands of pets orphaned or involuntarily abandoned due to the catastrophe in Japan. If you'd like to help efforts to help these animals, you can find info on doing so here.

 

UPDATE: CNN and the UK Telegraph have both reported that the dogs have been rescued since the footage aired, and are both receiving veterinary care; the more seriously wounded dog is at a clinic in the city of Mito, while the protective spaniel-type dog is receiving care at a shelter in the same town.

 

Here is an English translation of the voiceover exchange between the two reporters in the clip (translation courtesy of Toshiyuki Kitamura):

 

 

We are in Arahama area. Looks like there is a dog. There is a dog. He looks tired and dirty. He must have been caught in the tsunami. He looks very dirty.

 

 

He has a collar. He must be someone's pet. He has a silver collar. He is shaking. He seems very afraid.

 

 

Oh, there is another dog. I wonder if he is dead.

 

 

Where?

 

 

Right there. There is another dog right next to the one sitting down. He is not moving. I wonder. I wonder if he is alright.

 

 

The dog is protecting him.

 

 

Yes. He is protecting the dog. That is why he did not want us to approach them. He was trying to keep us at bay.

 

 

I can't watch this. This is a very difficult to watch.

 

 

Oh. Look. He is moving. He is alive. I am so happy to see that he is alive.

 

 

Yes! Yes! He is alive.

 

 

He looks to be weakened. We need to them to be rescued soon. We really want them rescued soon.

 

 

Oh good. He's getting up.

 

 

It is amazing how they survived the tremendous earthquake and tsunami. It's just amazing that they survived through this all.

[The fish]

However, as mentioned earlier, the only reason Fukushima's is screwing up is becuase it withstood a 8.9 earthquake and then, just 15 minutes later, got hit by a 10 metre high tidal wave.

 

As a civil engineer who's studied power plant construction, I can confirm (or in this case, state the bleeding obvious) that such events are indeed beyond the normal tolerances of construction standards.

 

The issue, as far as I can tell from what I've read, is not that there's any real risk of a meltdown (the control rods are inserted in all the reactors, IIRC), it's that the cooling systems have been fucked by said earthquake and tsunami, and the build up of pressure puts the whole damn thing at risk of blowing up, exposing the radioactive material to open air. On (I think) reactor 2, they tried to rent some of the steam, which was mildly radioactive but not too dangerous. Unfortunately, it caused the steam release system to blow up (hence the spectacular columns of smoke in the videos), releasing a shit load of aforementioned steam.

 

Right now they're trying to cool the reactors down anyway they can, mainly by pumping a shit load of water onto them. They've reconnected the power to the pumps, which is handy, but if they'll make enough difference, only time will tell...

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

http://www.bt.dk/udland/redningsfolk-accepterer-at-de-bliver-straalet-ihjel

 

The workers in charge of trying to cool down the powerplant have accepted the potentially suicidal nature of their job. (Sorry for the article being in Danish, I just thought I'd share the source.)

[jayseven]

Kamikaze lives on!

[Grazza]

The nuclear power workers risking their lives did remind me of the samurai, honourable to the end.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

They even wrote letters to their families. "Please continue living life. I can't return home for a while."

[Flaight]

I'll update the story since my last rumblings on the circumstance surrounding 6 nuclear reactors at Fukushima.

 

Some 4 days ago the spanner in the works came in the form of a nuclear fuel (so-called fuel rods) in the storage pool. The urgent one is in Unit 3 as the water has boiled off completely, then Unit 4 which still has some water left.

 

Usually, on maintenance, the fuel rods are taken out of the reactor and placed in a pool because the fuel rods continue to build up heat after use. Water cooling is provided to counter this heat, but power for the cooling got knocked out. Both pools supposedly passed the initial test, but something caused the water to reduce thereafter, probably hydrogen explosions and fires they had earlier in the week (they don't know this for sure). These rods built up heat and added to the existing radiation, which explains the leap of radiation to 400mSv some days ago.

 

Ironically, the earlier hydrogen explosion had ruptured the outer concrete building, and they can use that hole to feed water into the pool. Otherwise they'd have to send a man into the building to put a hose by the pool (and get fried). The first line up was the helicopters, then they gathered an army of fire trucks which can accurately shoot from far away. It worked, so they will continue to do so on Saturday.

 

In the meantime, they managed to get power from the nearest working grid 6 km away using what is apparently the world's longest extension cable. They have now hooked it up to Unit 2, but they plan on yet another 1.5 km extension from Unit 2, going through 2 transformers, to power all 6 units.

 

All this has been completely out of the whack, but it's working. Unit 1 and 3 have "leveled out" for now, so are Unit 5 and 6 with a mobile generator. Unit 1 had low enough pressure to even close the overflow valve (i.e. stop the deliberate release of radiation). Unit 4 would be stable enough if they could finish filling the pool with water. Unit 2 is the dodgy one. Some of its gauges don't work and they think the suppression chamber has some issues, but they have enough intermittent data to know that they are stable for now. Unit 2 is the priority - the reason why they connected the power line to it first.

 

There are still challenges ahead. On-site radiation apparently reads around 20mSv, which means about 5 hours of work per man (in a rotation). More watering from the fire brigade might improve that, and the safety officers have raised the allowed radiation limit so technically the engineers are allowed to work for about 7 hours in that radiation. The company doesn't like that so they've so far stuck to the usual limit.

 

Restoring power is no easy task especially after the earthquake, tsunami and explosion, so they'll be tempted to zap their 180 engineers longer in the radiation. Once that's done they need to bring the coolant system back up and stabilize all units for real, because they're still being pumped with sea water.

 

Fail any of these steps and the reactors in Unit 1, 2 and 3 can build up pressure again, although it won't be anywhere near as bad as it was in the first few days as after this week the decay heat becomes considerably lower. So the question is whether they can start working on the reactors in timely fashion.

 

The funny thing about all this - except for the fuel rod pool problems they've got, they're almost there. In other words, this hasn't really been about nuclear reactors, but more about the spent fuel rods and the way they're stored while off duty. If they could stabilize the reactor in Unit 1 and 3 (and maybe 2) sufficiently enough to buy this much time to deal with the fuel rods, without the fuel rod problems I can't see why they couldn't stabilize the whole plant by now. I think they would have done.

 

Make no mistake though, these used fuel rods are dangerous because there's a big hole in the containment building, so if they don't get to grips with the pooling issues, they'll have more headaches dealing with the radionuclides. That'd be harder to deal with than the radiation. Radiation alone has been hard enough; they couldn't even come near it to hook up the power cable till recently.

 

Incidentally, in light of detailed briefing from the government and company yesterday, the World Health Organization has made a public statement that the exclusion zone of 20km as set by the government is correct and there is at least no scientific reason why the health hazard would extend further. Interestingly some of the media has considerably toned down the "nuclear Armageddon" hyperbole and focussed more on the heroic workers and tsunami victims. Oh a coincidence

 

To be continued.

[Supergrunch]

In addition, Randall Munroe of xkcd made the following chart to help people with perspective. And he linked to a slightly more scientific (but still simple) explanation here.

[EddieColeslaw]

Woman who was 2.2 miles from the atom bomb when it blew up:

 

"People seem to be much too sensitive, though of course it's not really for me to say, and heavy radiation exposure is a serious thing. But I was 3.6 km (2.2 miles) from the bomb, and they've evacuated for 20 km (around the stricken nuclear plant). I really don't understand this kind of feeling.

[..]

I don't think this is anything to turn pale over,"

 

Article here.

[Dog-amoto]

Another quake

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13005110

[Debug Mode]

Lol.. I'm supposed to be out there for a year starting September. Although it's quite bad that it's struck near enough the same area, this will minimise the damage. Sort of an assholish response, but the only people around there considering the exclusion zone and the already relocated civilians are rescue workers, so if they can successfully evacuate on time it will help minimise the damage by this new quake.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Debug Mode

[Serebii]

Another quake

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13005110

To be fair, Japan has been hammered by quakes every day for the last month. This quake is just slightly bigger.