Earthquake Japan

[cheap]

New Update on NISA website.

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/

Here is an extract from the NISA status report:

The white smoke like steam generated from Unit 3. (08:30 March 16th)
・ Because of the possibility that the Primary Containment Vessel (PCV) of Unit 3 was damaged, the operators evacuated from the central control room of Unit 3 and 4 ( a shared facility). (10:45 March 16th) Thereafter the operators returned to the room and restarted the operation for water injection. (11:30 March 16th)
・ The fire at Unit 4 occurred. (05:45 March 16th) TEPCO reported that no fire could be confirmed on the ground. (06:15 March 16th)

And here is how the media reports the situation:

OMINOUS new signs have emerged in Japan's nuclear crisis, with a surge in radiation, unexplained white smoke and new warnings about exposed fuel rods.

[shedcoupe]

It is difficult to understand what is happening when, for example, references to 'damaged fuel rods' may refer to rods in a reactor core or to rods in storage ponds, but it isn't made clear.
Hard numbers relating to radiation (ie. mSv / hour) at various locations aren't readily available either.
When a military helicopter flies away instead of dumping water into a rod pond because the radiation level is apparently too high it implies that a release of radiation is occurring, but how do we know ?
The USSR was dishonest and not candid when Chernobyl was on fire - hopefully Japan will be transparently honest but there is a strong requirement to not panic millions of people unnecessarily.
It might be the case that evacuation panics could kill more people than radiation effects.
In the meantime there are hundreds of thousands of people who are cold and hungry and scared.

[Cougar1999]

The updates that are coming out of Japan are just getting more and more sinister and whilst I think some of the Japanes sources are still trying to save face by playing down the magnitude of the problem, the fact that they are accepting aid from overseas (US and others) tells me they don't know quite what to do.
It doesn't help to ask the question now, but why would you build nuclear power plants on a known fault line anyway?
Given that a water supply is critical in preventing a melt down, wouldn't you want a water supply that DOESN'T rely on electricity to pump it? Gravity works well.
Still gotta feel for all those people who lost their lives and the survivors who are cold, hungry, homeless and exposed to goodness knows what.

[blueoval]

CNN are showing live footage of a helicopter dumping water in one of the reactors.

[shedcoupe]

Japan built nukes as they have very little coal or gas, and there's not much of Japan not near a fault line.
The designers at Fukushima designed used-rod storage ponds without back-up cooling systems, and placed most of these ponds near the roofs of the reactor buildings. D'oh.
Sure, all of Japan's electricity could come from solar power with compressed-air storage back-up power, but it would be so expensive to build that it might be unaffordable. But cleaning up this mess is going to be costly.

[XBROO]

I'm just glad we are nuclear free, but I do feel for the people of japan but not for their government. As they have done alot of bad things over the years to mother nature.

[barra265t]

Originally Posted by shedcoupe

Japan built nukes as they have very little coal or gas, and there's not much of Japan not near a fault line.
The designers at Fukushima designed used-rod storage ponds without back-up cooling systems, and placed most of these ponds near the roofs of the reactor buildings. D'oh.
Sure, all of Japan's electricity could come from solar power with compressed-air storage back-up power, but it would be so expensive to build that it might be unaffordable. But cleaning up this mess is going to be costly.

Is that right?.. looking at japanese engineering vs american engineering (automotive), this would have been something Ford would have done if they built a nuclear plant, rather than Honda for instance

[cheap]

Hopefully people will accept that the technicians and engineers who are on-site risking their lives are trying to stabalise the situation and minimising harm as quickly as is possible.

Reading some reports they have 180 people on-site, some of these people have probably worked non-stop for days and are exhausted. Accepting help from the US (who happened to design these reactors) might just mean they need fresh people to take over from the exhausted people. Again it depends on how the media whats to portray the accepting help story.

None of us are there, we're relying on reports from NISA, the media, IAEA and so forth. It is your choice who you want to use as a source of "truth" and your interpretation.

From my uninformed view, it would appear the earthquake followed by tsunami and the pursuant state of the infrastructure has overwhelming their "by-the-book" recovery plans and they're having to develop strategies on an hour-by-hour basis.

Reading the NISA reports it appears that 5 of the 6 reactors containment buildings have integrity, reactor 2 containment is slightly damaged. The hydrogen explosion from a couple of days ago probably damaged this building. Radiation levels are literally all over the place, sometimes high, sometimes low, the source of this radiation isn't easy to identify, it takes time for the people on-site to suit up and track down where the radiation is coming from.

The reported "expose nuclear material" and "exposed reactor" seems to be "spent nuclear rods" which were sitting in cooling water, this water had either leaked or evaporated but the rods are now being saturated in water. There is significant mention of keeping the nuclear material cool, this may indicated that they're near to stabalising the site (hopefully). Maybe using a helicopter to do this is the easiest/safest approach? Maybe the helicopter flying overhead is taking readings?

Any notion of trying to restore these reactors has long since passed, their target is to stabilise and dispose of the nuclear material/reactors (which will not be easy either). There is a risk that new unexpected events occur and they're literally fighting the next fire.

In someways this is similar to what happened with last years Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and it took 3 months to finally resolve Deepwater. Everyone expects this to be fixed yesterday, but sometimes it will take as long as it takes, there is no prescribed timeline. How is Deepwater, I havent heard much (actually haven't heard anything) about it for some time...

[shedcoupe]

" .... this would have been something Ford would have done if they built a nuclear plant ..."

Maybe the reactors were really designed by the British Motor Corporation with electrics by the Italian division of Lucas Industries.

And if you want to see where the surf is today -
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

[ThaFlash]

not having a heartless dig at a people clearly suffering......

I hope it hasn't been posted yet, as I can't be stuffed reading all the posts...


but i wouldn't be buying any jap imports in a hurry, and, I wonder if customs or whoever will scan the cars for radiation?

[xy500]

yeah, cos the whole nation is irradiated right?

[blueoval]

not that many will care, but while the subject of earthquakes are fresh in peoples minds, there was a 6.4 earthquake off Vanuatu. No threat of a Tsunami has been issued. Seems as though the earth is not happy at the moment.

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5....php?id=571606

[cheap]

Originally Posted by ThaFlash

not having a heartless dig at a people clearly suffering......

I hope it hasn't been posted yet, as I can't be stuffed reading all the posts...


but i wouldn't be buying any jap imports in a hurry, and, I wonder if customs or whoever will scan the cars for radiation?

It is highly likely that given all the hundreds of above ground A-Bomb tests + Chernobyl + all the other nuclear incidents (some we know about, some which we don't) that most things have low levels of radiation now. No doubt a new government department will be established to test everything coming out of Japan.

Radiation comes in many forms and is naturally occurring too. There was a scare campaign about kitchen granite tops being radioactive - how's your food taste?

My pool builder (who you've got to meet to believe) claims granite from China is highly radioactive too (but if I bought his 3 times more expensive South African Granite) everything would be fine.

[shedcoupe]

Radiation is everywhere.
Those camping gas lights use a woven cotton mantle for illumination.
It glows because of the high thorium content - the heated thorium releases electrons / photons. Such mantles have been used as a source of radiation in at least one university.
CT scans are worth about 10 mSv apparently. Granite releases radon gas.

[Jim Goose]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...17/3166838.htm

Choppers dump water on stricken nuclear plant

Posted 55 minutes ago


Japanese military helicopters are dumping water onto the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, in a bid to douse fuel rods and prevent a disastrous radiation release.

Four twin-rotor CH-47 Chinooks of the Japan Self-Defence Forces ran the first mission to empty tonnes of water onto the facility damaged by last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami, which have already claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people.

The operation aims to keep the fuel rods inside reactors and containment pools submerged under water to prevent any more radiation from leaking.

The helicopter mission started this morning under a clear sky after a similar effort yesterday was called off shortly before darkness fell by officials citing strong radiation and high winds.

A fleet of firetrucks and police water cannon are moving in to spray the reactors from the ground.

Defence minister Toshimi Kitazawa said an additional 11 military vehicles would be deployed for efforts to help cool the reactors, while pumps supplied by the US armed forces were also being transferred.

The Japanese government does not yet know if the operation has succeeded.

Tokyo has denied claims that the spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor are totally exposed, with cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano says there's still water inside.

The plant's operators are desperately trying to restore electricity supply so the cooling system can restart

Australians have been told to leave the capital and other areas affected by the ongoing crisis.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has now widened its recommended exclusion zone for Australians around the Fukushima plant to 80 kilometres.

Japanese authorities had ordered people within 30 kilometres of the plant to evacuate or stay indoors.

This afternoon the Federal Government said the number of Australians unaccounted for in Japan had fallen to 21.

'Top priority'

The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has said the top priority should be pouring water into the fuel-rod pools at reactors three and four, which may be boiling and are not fully covered by roofs that would reduce radiation leaks.

An official at plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) says the pool at the No. 4 reactor "seemed to have water" on Wednesday, based on aerial observation carried out by the military helicopters.

Another TEPCO spokesman said: "We have not confirmed how much water was left inside but we have not had information that spent fuel rods are exposed".

TEPCO said earlier it was concentrating on restoring the power supply to reactivate its crippled cooling systems, which were knocked out in the dual calamity that hit Japan.

"We cannot tell when, but we want to restore the power source as soon as possible," TEPCO spokesman Naohiro Omura told AFP.

Employees of TEPCO and other industry firms have volunteered to join efforts to control the escalating crisis, local media said.

TEPCO put out a call for about 20 volunteers to join the battle to bring the situation under control at the Fukushima No.1 plant, where last week's quake and tsunami knocked out the reactor cooling systems, Jiji Press reported.

Offers came in from TEPCO employees and others, including a 59-year-old man with four decades of experience working at nuclear power stations for a regional power company and was due to retire in six months, the report said.

Officials at TEPCO were not immediately available to confirm the reports.

TEPCO was preparing to restore outside power lines from Tohoku Electric Power Co., which serves the region, and connect its damaged electric transmission system with unaffected lines.

"At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on this work," he said.

"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel."

The 9.0-magnitude quake, the biggest on record to strike Japan, knocked down electricity pylons which Tohoku had used to supply power to the TEPCO plant.

Some 70 workers have been using pumps to pour seawater to cool reactors at the plant, according to media reports, using electricity from borrowed mobile generators.

- ABC/AFP

The Americans and French are asking Japan in a nice way to increase the evacuation zone to 70km....

[GasoLane]

Just getting away from the China Syndrome and we'll all glow in the dark soon topic, has anyone else noticed something different from other worldwide disasters in the pictures coming from the worst hit areas?

There's no Looting.
There are no Riots.
They are not shouting that the Gov/Rescue teams were too slow.
People standing in line for water and food with no pushing or fighting.
They seem to accept what has happened and that Gov/Rescue teams are flat out and will get to everyone eventually.

There are a lot of so called Civilised countries in the world that could watch Japan and learn what 'Civilised' really means.

[blueoval]

Well Said GasOLane. I spotted that as well. While it is devastating to see and I can only imagine what these poor people are going through, they are dealing with the shortage of supplies in a humane and civilized way. It could also be due to most still in a state of shock and the freezing temperatures not helping.

[cheap]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Just getting away from the China Syndrome and we'll all glow in the dark soon topic, has anyone else noticed something different from other worldwide disasters in the pictures coming from the worst hit areas?

There's no Looting.
There are no Riots.
They are not shouting that the Gov/Rescue teams were too slow.
People standing in line for water and food with no pushing or fighting.
They seem to accept what has happened and that Gov/Rescue teams are flat out and will get to everyone eventually.

There are a lot of so called Civilised countries in the world that could watch Japan and learn what 'Civilised' really means.

Japanese culture V's Bogan culture

It doesn't say much when Qld Police had to dedicate extra resources to stop looters during the recent Brisbane floods - what is worse they catch this low life scum of humanity!

[ThaFlash]

awsome point gasoline.

persoanlly, i love japan, their history and culture and their FOOD!

apart from some of their not so high points, like experimenting on the chinese in late 30s and early 40s, their prisoners of war treatment, I really do admire them.

as always, they are the aristocrats of the asian world.

a place my family and I will (god willing) visit one day.

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Just getting away from the China Syndrome and we'll all glow in the dark soon topic, has anyone else noticed something different from other worldwide disasters in the pictures coming from the worst hit areas?

There's no Looting.
There are no Riots.
They are not shouting that the Gov/Rescue teams were too slow.
People standing in line for water and food with no pushing or fighting.
They seem to accept what has happened and that Gov/Rescue teams are flat out and will get to everyone eventually.

There are a lot of so called Civilised countries in the world that could watch Japan and learn what 'Civilised' really means.

+1 to you good sir, great post

[Polyal]

Sorry for the n00b nuke post but....why don't they just turn them off until it's sorted...or at least cooled down.

Are they 100% nuclear dependant? Surely hospitals etc have back up for a period.

/awaits obvious answer

[shedcoupe]

After thinking about it for years I've decided that all cultures' good and bad aspects add up to about the same really, with some cultures being more or less attractive (to me) than other cultures of course.
Conformity makes people see themselves as a part of a society rather than as individuals who just happen to have neighbours.
But it also means that a country's brightest and bravest might strap themselves into planes for a futile one-way trip.
Obviously sucking up your whinges when a disaster is happening is vital so that everyone can get the job done, but complaining about obvious prior-planning mistakes after 'normality' returns is necessary too, but most people are too pathetic to do it, because there's so much to be lost when people won't or can't back you up ......
There is a classic scene in "Fawlty Towers" where the guests' lunches are foul but when Basil asks them 'and how is lunch ?' they all crawl appropriately and say that lunch is great. Except for one diner who speaks the truth.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by DJM83

+1 to you good sir, great post

Thank you. Can I have Rep points too please

[Resurrection]

I've been to Japan twice and it is an interesting place. What is most apparent is the respect they show towards each other which is sadly lacking in many other countries. It pains me to see them suffering.

[shedcoupe]

"why don't they just turn them off until it's sorted"

A reactor with a brand new fuel load will be reasonably cool when switched 'off' by the control rods being inserted, but once some of the uranium fuel is 'burnt' to produce heat, the 'ash' (ie. nuclear waste) that results is hot and requires cooling, or else it melts the tubes that contain it and it starts to oxidise (ie. burns) when exposed to air.
The older the fuel load, the hotter the reactor.
Ship reactor fuel packages are now designed to last the life of the ship to avoid changing the fuel, and they achieve this by using very highly-enriched uranium instead of the less-enriched civil stuff. The problem is that it is the same stuff used in bombs and a ship reactor failure could be very bad indeed, although there are design strategies to deal with this.

[cheap]

"why don't they just turn them off until it's sorted"

Here is a brief summary:

The moment the eathquake hit the Japanese nuclear power stations (all 55 of them) went into shutdown mode. It would appear that 54 of the nuclear power stations completed the shutdown and are as far as we're being told 54 sites are all perfectly safe.

The one nuclear power station which did not complete the shutdown is Fukushima which had initiated its shutdown. But it isn't a simple matter of turning the thing off as it takes time to complete.

The shutdown requires electrical power and being a nuclear power station you'd think they'd have plenty of power. Unfortunately performing the shutdown also means shuting down their own power generating capability and relying on grid power.

The grid power supply failed (probably the transmission towers fell over during the earthquake - who knows for sure).

Fukushima then switched to their on-site emergency generators and UPS to continue the shutdown. It would seem all was going well until the Tsunami hit them and wipe out their generators. The Tsunami would appear to be what did all the damage.

Fukushima have been trying to restore cooling function to the nuclear reactors and nuclear materials ever since. But just like the homes in Brisbane which got flooded, you can't just turn on electricity equipment (your cooling pumps) after they've been drowned in water. You can't just go down to Japans equivalent of Bunnings to buy this stuff either. They have probably needed to transport pumps and generators onto the site but given the damage to roads, it probably took some time to do this.

The operators have been trying to keep the reactors from meltdown, fuel rods from igniting whilst trying to minimise contamination to themselves. Saturating the reactors and fuel rod with copious amounts of sea water is what they've been doing lately.

In my opinion based on what's known and considering what they have faced they have done an outstanding job so far - best of luck to them too.

[shedcoupe]

a bit of light relief perhaps (Chernobyl irradiated a fair bit of Europe but didn't get everywhere) - from another site:

"You can't know what you might find if you don't check.

When Chernobyl hit, living in SE Sweden with 3 kids, 10 ponies and a big garden, apparently located near the southern edge of the radioactive cloud, we were just a little worried. With warnings appearing of "hotspots", i.e. small particles with intensely high radiation, we beat the rush and bought a small hand-held radiation meter sort of thing. This was not designed to measure background radiation. We went over first the kids, their shoes & clothes, then everything in the fridge, and then anything else we saw that had been outdoors, then the garden. We only ever found one "hot" item, but that one put the meter off the scale - an old radium dial wristwatch my wife had been wearing. She ditched it immediately, oddly enough."

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Just getting away from the China Syndrome and we'll all glow in the dark soon topic, has anyone else noticed something different from other worldwide disasters in the pictures coming from the worst hit areas?

You must not forget that there are many countries who are assisting Japan with the clean up and associated problems and this does take some time to organise.

Originally Posted by GasOLane

There's no Looting.

The Northern Territory government has sent two bus loads of troubled centrelink clients over to assist with the looting.

Originally Posted by GasOLane

There are no Riots.

The governor of California has sent four of the "top ten" targeted street gangs over to assist with the rioting. These are the 18th Street Westside, La Mirada Locos, Canoga Park Alabama and the Black P-Stones.

Originally Posted by GasOLane

They are not shouting that the Gov/Rescue teams were too slow.

The West Australian government has sent 150 asylum seekers over to yell abuse at government officials

Originally Posted by GasOLane

People standing in line for water and food with no pushing or fighting.

The Melbourne city council has recruited and sent 100 sheilas who regularly attend the Myer stocktake sale to assist with pushing and shoving.

Originally Posted by GasOLane

They seem to accept what has happened and that Gov/Rescue teams are flat out and will get to everyone eventually.

Bob Brown and his Red Army are on their way over to explain that global warming was the true cause of this and that they must fix their power problems quickly as it hurts the stock market..


You must be fair as all of this takes time.

[fordomatic]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Just getting away from the China Syndrome and we'll all glow in the dark soon topic, has anyone else noticed something different from other worldwide disasters in the pictures coming from the worst hit areas?

There's no Looting.
There are no Riots.
They are not shouting that the Gov/Rescue teams were too slow.
People standing in line for water and food with no pushing or fighting.
They seem to accept what has happened and that Gov/Rescue teams are flat out and will get to everyone eventually.

There are a lot of so called Civilised countries in the world that could watch Japan and learn what 'Civilised' really means.

awesome post mate, if only Australians took note of this behavior

[Jim Goose]

Looting can be taken to extremes, such as stealing possesions for personal gain, however there was footage of people picking up tinned food in the wreckage and taking fuel from cars as there is no where to get fuel.

That kinda thing is survivial, as there is no help rediliy available and you have to take what you can to live.

some of the footage of people in the evacuation centers is heart breaking as you can see how much of a toll it has taken on them. A lot of people sitting quietly with tears in their eyes...

Yesterday it showed it was snowing in one area which is just going to make finding survivors even less as temperatures are dropping.