Japan Earthquake/Tsunami

At Fukushima? I think 3 of the Reactors are are now going to have to be decommissioned, they were nearing the end of their productive life anyway from what I've heard. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 should still be fine, 4 was undergoing maintenance at the time of the Quake/Tsunami, and from what I've heard, 5 and 6 functioned as intended during the disaster. I might be mixing Reactor numbers up a little though.

not all is lost then, good to hear.

Hope they get the power back up and running so they can move on with more relief effort and reconstruction. How much longer is winter there?

The plant was probably ruined the very moment they decided to pump sea water into the rod chamber. Some European engineers were expressing great concirn over it.
If I recall right, reactors 4, 5 and 6 had been shut down for maintenance. Reactor 4 started building pressure and temperature after the 1st 3 started overheating and exploding due to the massive build up in hydrogen inside the sealed chambers.

The problem with nuclear reactors is that even when "shut down" they still need cooling for several years, so when the water pumps began to malfunction the team there had to do whatever possible to try keep the rods under water.
They were also facing partial meltdown of the core and radiations so high the technicians can't even get near the plant.

The weather somewhat came to their rescue as the lower temperatures outside and winds blowing towards the ocean (3 eyed Simpson fish otw to your nearest fish store!) helped disperse and drop the radiation, allowing them to get the water cannons in place and running.
Still, I'd say it's pretty close to a new Chernobyl area.

I doubt they will be able to get near the plant for some time.

Doubt they'll be able to get near the Plant? They still have Workers inside far as I know.

yeah, and I don't recall reading any credible report of there being a partial meltdown.

The radiation levels over there now are deadly. The 50 engineers who decided to stay near the plant did it for the better good, but as far as I know, up until yesterday the levels in the control rooms were too high for humans to get near and are still rising.
I don't know how the media in the US are reporting the story, but the technicians over there are pretty much sacrificing their lives

Nuclear engineers typically don't use the term "meltdown" because it's incredibly ambiguous.

Technically, any melting of any component in the core is a "meltdown," even if it doesn't release any form of dangerous, long-lived radiation.

Unfortunately, the public associates "meltdown" with a catastrophic nuclear apocalypse. This makes it difficult to report, because folks do think at least part of the core, perhaps part of the zirconium cladding on some of the rods, indeed melted during some of the periods where they couldn't get water in to cool them.

I haven't heard anything of the like, and I've been following it since day 1. I've heard of "Spikes" and one evacuation, around the time of the Fire at Number4 but nothing else. Link plox.

Highest Radiation reading so far appears to be 400Millisieverts/HR. Even at that dosage, it takes hours of expose to become ill.

They are not. The amount of radiation is potentially as high as 100-400 milliSv/hr close to the reactor, which isn't enough to kill you or even do serious damage unless you camp out there for 10+ hours. It's likely much higher inside the reactor containment itself, but that's expected, and nobody's going in there.

They are voluntarily undergoing several hours of exposure at this rate, which is equivalent to several years worth of base back ground radiation. There are potential health risks, and we should give them much kudos. But they're also cycling them out in shifts so nobody gets too much exposure.

Not every story needs to have the high drama coefficient of a heroic Bruce Willis movie.

Conservative news outlets (see: Berlusconi, Silvio and Drudge, Matthew) are pretty much reporting this as the apocalypse because they desperately need something to distract from all the outrage aimed at conservatives from January through March.

I heard the whole reactor floor is covered in broken glass, and none of the workers can afford shoes ; ;

Heh... the problem is it's not just the conservative side of the news outlets here that are giving this situation a much greater wait than Japan.

Experts from all Europe were claiming Japan was giving this situation a gravity code that was too low.

I think Japan was classifying it as a code 4 (the max is code 7 and refers to catastrphies such as Cernobyl) whereas Europe has been insisting this is much closer to a code 5-6

Obama just spoke. Nothing new. Major kudos to Japan. US shouldn't panic. Etc.

If Three Mile Island was a 5, and Chernobyl was a 7, Fukushima is definitely a 6, but remember, early on Japan was dealing with the Earthquake, it's aftershocks and the Tsunami, as far as I'm concerned, playing the Nuclear situation at Fukushima as close to the chest as possible, was the smart thing to do.

Now that the Tsunami and Earthquake situations are, more or less calmed (But certainly not dealt with), it's reasonable for focus to start to shift, and prepare for what ~could~ happen, but certainly hasn't, in regards to Fukushima Daiichi.

Japan and the IAEA originally classified it as a 4. When fires broke out there was a lot of (quite honest) discussion in public about whether or not it should be upgraded, but detected radiation levels hadn't seemed to have climbed much, and the situation was too nebulous to really know.

The question is, if nobody really has enough info to go on yet, do you raise it anyway just in case? The number attached doesn't really change the evacuation area or how the workers would respond. Or do you leave it at the previous level until you know for sure, to prevent an overreaction? I can see both sides of that debate.

I lol'd

I'd raise the level just to get the civilians as far away as possible. I think it was on Monday when the Government had actually told the people residing at over 30 miles from the pant to close themselves shut in their homes.
The decision of evacuating the population would probably bring a lot more trouble, but honestly I'd still go for it just in case things were to turn worse and left the civilians with even less time and chances to leave the place.

As Jaerik said, raising the level wouldn't accomplish anything. I'm on the side that it would just create more panic.

Why panic a crapton of ppl if you aren't 100% sure. I agree with Jman/Krizz.

Why risk killing them all if something turns for the worse and there is not enough time left to move people to safer ground?

They've just been hit by an earthquake, a tsunami, are facing a nuclear danger ad cold weather with no roofs.. idk

Several people here in California have reportedly gotten extremely sick due to allergic reactions from overdoses of potassium iodine tablets.

Natural selection in action

Jae, Krizz, with all this talk, and how the situation is with the reactors... do both of you forsee maybe a upgrade to the facilites now, as we mentioned way back in maybe thread page 13-18, regarding the New Gen 4 upgrades?( that would be the new ones that would be built in 2014-2020?

I know there is still alot of work, and b/c of the seriousness, would this be the time to upgrade? Would the IEPA force them to go into this direction?

I'm not qualified to speculate on build-outs of new reactors. I'll leave that to the nuke engineers here. =)

That being said, it seems they've completed a new power line to the site with pretty jaw-dropping speed, and are in the process of hooking the pumps back up. If true, we're in pretty good shape.

It's because the world is supposed to end may 21st.

Flipped around and on CNN they described the situation with reactor 3 (I think) as apocalyptic >_> Way to cause more panic

Naw, never said or even implied you were a nuclear expert, Boss...LOL, I was just wondering what your thoughts were.. as I was probably gonna make a guess and say that they would, considering that they are were a 2nd gen plant with possible 3rd gen modifications...


I'm just happy that these workers are considered to be heroes, in my opinion. Well Done Japan!