Earthquake/Tsunami Thread - FG Members Check In.

If that is so, that's either a failure of the pumps on the storage pool or the last explosions knocked some of the fuel rods into each other (they're kept spaced far enough apart in the pool to keep them from going and boiling the water normally, see that French storage pool pic I used as an example of Cherenkov radiation) they're going to have to send people and machinery in there to separate them out. On the other hand, the fuel storage pool isn't a reactor and it's not under pressure. We'll see - that's one of the things I'm trying to sort out the reports of.

I also have a sick kitty here, so I have to pay attention to dosing him as well. :(
 
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I didn't mention before that the reactor from which the large leak came and where the fire happened was actually shut down at the time of the quake and was storing spent fuel. I know it's been covered but I forget which reactor is which so I guess others here do also.

Spectre, I understand changing units, in this case it pretty unavoidable as they went from 8,000microS/hr to 400,000microS/hr - it wasn't the change in units, it was the 50x jump in about 2hrs from a level that was already many times higher than anything previously reported plus the admission of a leak when all previous spikes were attributed to venting. At that time there was no telling exactly what would happen.

To add to that, around that time I came across this site run by a doctor in Tokyo that gives updated readings every 10 minutes, you can see the spike that happened around the same time.

http://park18.wakwak.com/~weather/geiger_index.html

But I'm not panicking (yet), in fact I find it ironic that I'm the one trying to calm down alarmist posters (on other forums) from halfway around the world when I'm only a couple of hundred kilometres away! I guess there is some difference in the media coverage we are getting and how much we're willing to read up on the subject. The in-laws are staying put as they don't want to leave the rest of the family.

As a side note, when I got to the train station today there were hundreds of people lining up to get into the station, only to be crammed onto overcrowded trains to get to work. Most other places in the world people would be calling in saying they couldn't make it but no-one here gives it a second thought. I'll post a pic later.
 
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If the Japanese could find a way to make resilience an export, they'd have more than enough money to repair all the quake and tsunami damage in a heartbeat.

One commentator on German TV was asked about the Japanese economy, public debt in particular. His reply was that Japanese bonds were held mostly by the Japanese people, which is a rare situation, and that these investors simply didn't panic.
 
I didn't mention before that the reactor from which the large leak came and where the fire happened was actually shut down at the time of the quake and was storing spent fuel.

Spectre, I understand changing units, in this case it pretty unavoidable as they went from 8,000microS/hr to 400,000microS/hr - it wasn't the change in units, it was the 50x jump in about 2hrs from a level that was already many times higher than anything previously reported plus the admission of a leak when all previous spikes were attributed to venting. At that time there was no telling exactly what would happen.

But I'm not panicking (yet), in fact I find it ironic that I'm the one trying to calm down alarmist posters (on other forums) from halfway around the world when I'm only a couple of hundred kilometres away! I guess there is some difference in the media coverage we are getting and how much we're willing to read up on the subject. The in-laws are staying put as they don't want to leave the rest of the family.

I figure you would understand that; I was actually trying to make sure other people also understood it, so we'd all be on the same page.

And yeah, it's amazing how much some people only listen to the media and don't go investigate for themselves - and therefore don't have a mental filter to try to weed out the BS.

Latest USGS:
MAP 5.2 2011/03/15 10:50:00 35.593 141.889 24.9 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.0 2011/03/15 09:49:54 37.348 142.406 15.3 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.3 2011/03/15 08:48:25 37.500 143.642 35.3 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.2 2011/03/15 08:01:47 40.436 143.240 29.5 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/15 07:08:29 38.336 142.211 30.1 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/15 05:31:25 36.162 142.232 25.2 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/15 03:25:20 1.781 31.298 10.1 LAKE ALBERT REGION, UGANDA
MAP 5.1 2011/03/15 03:21:35 37.680 143.941 25.0 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/14 23:23:14 40.050 142.636 24.5 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/14 22:04:08 35.735 141.065 15.3 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/14 20:41:25 50.995 156.495 133.9 KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 5.2 2011/03/14 19:28:28 38.684 141.965 26.2 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.5 2011/03/14 18:41:01 36.594 141.894 22.8 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.7 2011/03/14 17:59:41 37.212 142.413 18.9 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Nothing new from NISA. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, they're probably very busy. Expecting to see something in the morning, Tokyo time.

TEPCO seems to be playing the "Look! A distraction!" game with their press release site now. All of a sudden, they're posting a lot of bulletins (which are all the same) about the Fukushima Daini plant - this is the one down the coast a ways that had a few problems but seemed to be powering down fine and doing well after the initial drama. Most of them are more or less identical to this one.
No Latest Developments since 12:00
110315_05.gif

While it is nice to know that we only have the one reactor complex to be concerned with (and boy, that one is enough!), they sure are giving us 'non-update' updates on the thing. A lot of them.

This is the last TEPCO release that mentions the Fukushima Dai-ichi installation:
At approximately 6:00am, a loud explosion was heard from within the
power station. Afterwards, it was confirmed that the 4th floor rooftop
area of the Unit 4 Nuclear Reactor Building had sustained damage.

After usage, fuel is stored in a pool designated for spent fuel.

Plant conditions as well as potential outside radiation effects are
currently under investigation.

TEPCO, along with other involved organizations, is doing its best to
contain the situation. Simultaneously, the surrounding environment is
being kept under constant surveillance.
 
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One commentator on German TV was asked about the Japanese economy, public debt in particular. His reply was that Japanese bonds were held mostly by the Japanese people, which is a rare situation, and that these investors simply didn't panic.

I believe that's basically because household savings are high and banks invest those savings in Gov bonds. Japan has massive debt but it's mostly held internally, true.

TEPCO seems to be playing the "Look! A distraction!" game

Cool, as for the press releases I think it was mentioned on the news too and it's information they are most likely required by law to relay to NISA and are releasing the info on their site at the same time. The plants are officially cold and stable.

The readings seem to be dropping all over so I assume things are starting to come back under control... I hope.

I asked you about the difference between BWR's and PWR's in terms of safety and cost, you may have missed it in all those posts... if you have time later to answer I'd appreciate it.

Here's the line at the train station this morning...

station_Panorama1.jpg
 
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This bloke is interesting:


The Government has an 'interest' in lying to its people - how unusual.


 
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The Hiroshima Peace Institute is not a scientific institution or university. It is a politically-oriented entity set up by the City of Hiroshima with the express objective of banning nuclear weapons (and while not expressly stated, they have extended it to all nuclear power period.) This is a 'NO NUKES EVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NUKES BAD NUKES EVIL NO NUKES' entity. They have an agenda. As this is not a political thread, I cannot comment on my opinion of their 'basic plans and objectives' - but if you go read it for yourself, you can probably guess what I think of them.

"Doctor" Robert Jacobs is a historian. Not a scientist, not a science or physics professor. Not even a nuclear technician.

The US media have had him on several times. Unfortunately.

Also unfortunately for him, it is actually possible for outside personnel to verify government claims of radioactive releases. I assume Japan's government can be as perfidious as any other, the media coverage on this makes it all but impossible for them to cover up any off-site effects or radiation. They aren't dumb enough to try.

If nothing else, all it takes is for one of the US and other assorted foreign warships, warplanes and military cargo craft that are assisting to wander through the general vicinity. Many are equipped with radiation sensors (especially in this scenario) and personnel will be equipped with dosimeters even if they're not working near the evacuation zone. Word would get out in a hurry.

I would trust what a nuclear physics professor at MIT or Caltech or even Delhi Univeristy says over what this guy spews.
 
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One more thing, Spectre you mentioned that at least one of the reactors was due for decommission but I read elsewhere that they actually had their licence(?) extended for another 10 years, had you heard that?
 
One more thing, Spectre you mentioned that at least one of the reactors was due for decommission but I read elsewhere that they actually had their licence(?) extended for another 10 years, had you heard that?

Yeah, that was reactor 1, the first one to have problems. It was the oldest and lowest-producing of the six on site. Initially it was set to begin shut down in February with decommissioning to occur later this month, but they did get an extension for 10 more years, more recently than my little card file has been updated. (I have a little quick-reference card file I use as supporting evidence in debates and such about US produced and designed reactors around the world, and Fukushima's GE units are listed in it. This includes commissioning and decommissioning dates and I update it every few months.) I did read about the license renewal while looking for more information a few hours later, but somehow I don't think that license renewal is going to be needed now. The renewal was to be for ten years and was (supposedly) the only extension the unit would get. Edit: The remaining units are (or were) newer by a range of years and their fates had not been set as of this month.

I also think whoever was involved in the license renewal should prepare for a reaming. One's coming for them whether they did anything wrong or not. I also expect that there will be fewer license renewals for BWRs of this generation and design type in future around the world.
 
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OK, so it could have continued to be used for a maximum of 10 years but they would probably have been planning to get rid of it in the near future - it could go offline without any disruption to power supplies, but saving it was still a priority because a replacement wouldn't have been in place.
 
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OK, so it could have continued to be used for a maximum of 10 years but they would probably have been planning to get rid of it in the near future - it could go offline without any disruption to power supplies, but saving it was still a priority because a replacement wouldn't have been in place.

Yeah, I forgot to report it with all that happened since. Yes, trying to save the reactor would have been on their priority list, the more so since the power would be badly needed after the tsunami. I am just speculating here, but that may have led them to try other methods first, some that wouldn't have resulted in a dead and un-recertifiable reactor. There has been some talk on US forums by former operators of similar (and now decommissioned BWRs) here in the States about how the AEC (now NRC) would have told them to just kill the reactors significantly sooner than the Japanese did, in the name of public safety. Especially after Three Mile Island; this is something a lot of people will be looking at in the days to come.

I will be very interested in reading the 'post-mortems' of the incident when it comes out.

Spectre-man, I asked a good few pages back in this thread (it probably got lost XD ) about your thoughts on AGR's? You have anything to say about them? :)

Keep in mind that my opinion is that of a layman in the nuclear world.

- I don't trust anything that uses graphite rods as a moderator. Graphite will actually accelerate the reaction briefly before moderating it (which is what happened at Chernobyl - the already hot and redlined plant had the graphite rods go in, went beyond redline, and we all know what happened next.)
- The use of gases for cooling is also not comforting to me, as liquid leaks are easily spotted, even visually, and gas leaks aren't. The normal operating temperatures of the coolant gas leaving the reactor core (around 650C, as I recall) makes me nervous just from a materials science standpoint; high operating temperatures were part of why the US atomic energy program rejected cores cooled by liquid lead or sodium, for example.
- Finally, as far as I know, the AGRs still do not have a tertiary shutdown system (last I looked, they were 'contemplating' a system by which balls of boron would be dumped en masse into the core's cooling spaces, normally occupied by the cooling gases, but had not implemented it yet).

I believe there was also a recent expos? in the British press that pointed out that AGRs also had woefully inadequate core monitoring systems as well as fuel cracking problems that nobody knew how to prevent.

The whole thing is basically set up as a weird and pointlessly unique nuclear reactor designed to power a conventional coal plant's boiler system in order avoid having to design and build a new genset - or buy one in from outside the Empire.

Bottom line: I don't want to live anywhere near one. Apparently nobody else does either because there have been exactly zero sales of the design outside the UK, despite some pretty hard lobbying around the world.

Edit: By the way, I'm not being mindlessly rah-rah-US-nukes-rule either. There are good designs and bad from around the world. The AGR happens to be, IMHO, one of the bad ones.
- The French, whom I have no love for, licensed Westinghouse designs way back when and have built themselves an advanced, reliable and safe family of reactors since.
- The Germans, who have some of the worst designs actually installed, actually have originated some very interesting and revolutionary designs. They seem to have gotten around the issues with gas cooling, graphite moderators, and turned them to advantages; in fact, they appear to be melt-down proof.
- The Japanese themselves have gone on to produce some very interesting and (at least on paper) extremely safe designs of their own, like the Toshiba 4S 'nuclear battery' which also get around the objections to liquid metal coolants.
 
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Unfortunately, I don't read Japanese - would you mind keeping an eye on that second link?

Re Teddy bear: Sheesh. Japanese and their graphic artists...
 
Actually it only runs till 6pm on the 11th to 12noon on the 12th so it isn't up to date. Sorry about that.

Also got woken up by 2-3 earthquake alarms last night and just felt another shake now.

Edit: oh the alarm just went off and it's shaking a bit more now. The world is broken.

Possibly a 6.2

A 6.1 according to USGS (it was supposedly 6.2 then 6.0 according to NHK - I was watching the Simpsons)

MAP 6.1 2011/03/15 13:31:46 35.322 138.552 1.0 EASTERN HONSHU, JAPAN

This bloke is interesting:

Just watched it, actually he was pretty reasonable, better than a lot of the news which is saying something.
 
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Actually it only runs till 6pm on the 11th to 12noon on the 12th so it isn't up to date. Sorry about that.

Also got woken up by 2-3 earthquake alarms last night and just felt another shake now.

Edit: oh the alarm just went off and it's shaking a bit more now. The world is broken.

Possibly a 6.2

USGS says that one was on shore. Latest run:
MAP 6.1 2011/03/15 13:31:46 35.322 138.552 1.0 EASTERN HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.8 2011/03/15 13:27:54 37.626 142.320 1.0 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.2 2011/03/15 11:46:20 40.530 142.689 13.7 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/15 11:43:48 37.819 145.118 18.2 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.2 2011/03/15 11:06:16 37.145 142.375 22.3 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Google Maps says it's under the mountains just west of Fujinomiya. Only about a kilometer down, too.
 
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Yeah there were 2 within 5 minutes of each other, I guess that's why I felt one then the other. Yeah in Shizuoka, not far from Mt. Fuji.

I'm off to bed. I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that this is the 3rd (? 4th?) time I've left the discussion at this point and not that much has changed. I'll wake up tomorrow and check the condition of the reactors and the radiation levels etc and hopefully things will be stable... still. So long as we can access food and water for my daughter and she is safe from harmful levels of radiation I'm happy (as can be expected). Can't help but feel for the poor folk up north who aren't so lucky.
 
That's about the same magnitude of insensitivity, as when a local radio station here was bringing news about hurricane Katrina and then the next song was "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves.

You can't top 1Live for accidentally playing this after the "first" big Tsunami (2004)






Anyways, I hope they get their reactors under control, I think the people working there are the true heroes, they probably lost everything they own & relatives and get radiation poisoning but still keep working.
 


I don't want to get into politics too much, but:

GeniusNow.com said:
[This blog entry] was a repost from something called The Energy Collective. http://theenergycollective.com/barr...lear-accident-simple-and-accurate-explanation . This ONE instance of the article has been shared over 5000 times on facebook, and over 32k times in total.

The Energy Collective is a Siemens AG lobbying/influence/astroturf organization ? it says Powered by Siemens right up front.
http://geniusnow.com/2011/03/15/the-strange-case-of-josef-oehmen/

I'm not saying that GeniusNow is right, i'm just saying that one should look out for whose informations he or she trusts.
 
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