Japan hit with 9.0 Earthquake and 45 ft Tsunami

[Gatorubet]

2011-03-15
Reactor Status Update 3 - NPPs in Fukushima as of 13:00 March 15 (Estimated by J・・・

(57KB)

Just found this news source from the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum site. Good stuff.

 

[Gatorubet]

Japanese public has every right to be concerned, but there's no credible likelihood of serious radiation hazard to the public outside of the immediate area of the affected reactors.

The Japanese have many, many tragedies to cope with here; the reactor issues fall way down the list.

But - separate from the cooling issues and the release of radioactive material - when you pump sea water into these things you are ending their useful life, We aren't talking about patching some of these back up and putting them on line again. What we have are Nukes at the end of their functioning life that will likely be decommissioned. So the areas will lose the power generated from that site for - what? A decade? What is Japan going to do? Go back to Nukes without a ground up design review? Go to coal or petroleum plants with that additional operating cost and uncertainty of oil supplies (or coal and its dirty releases?)

This will make it difficult for the grid to recover. Worries over radiation aside, this is very, very bad for the area recovery.

 

[Tonyank]

URGENT: Fuel rods damage at Fukushima's 2 reactors estimated at 70%, 33%
TOKYO, March 16, Kyodo

An estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the troubled No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and 33 percent at the No. 2 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.

The reactors' cores are believed to have partially melted with their cooling functions lost after Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Fukushima Prefecture and other areas in northeastern and eastern Japan.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78387.html

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

The Japanese are a strong and noble people. If they survived Curtis LeMay, they'll manage to get through this.

 

[OCBucksFan]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...QAON-g?docId=7e3dd7128b804f5d965554ff69375e76

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) — 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.

Not good.

 

[Gatorubet]

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) - 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

 

[sharkonwheels]

worrisome situation, for sure.

Good question - at this point, what does the future hold?
The plant is contaminated, so how do you fix it without endangering lives?

It's a chicken-and-egg thing - you can't get in to fix it, because there's radiation.
But it's not going to fix itself, either.

Scary, scary situation.

 

[OCBuckWife]

I feel really bad for the people within the 18km radius that didn't evacuate, only stayed indoors without ventilation, on the advice of their government, that now CAN'T LEAVE because their outside air is so contaminated they will get sick and die.

Dead if you do, dead if you don't.....

 

[Gatorubet]

Change in reported status:

new

2011-03-16
Reactor Status Update 6 - NPPs in Fukushima as of 12:30 March 16 (Estimated by J・・・

(39KB)

old

2011-03-15
Reactor Status Update 3 - NPPs in Fukushima as of 13:00 March 15 (Estimated by J・・・

(57KB)

As you can see, containment integrity at unit #3 went from a low significance "not damaged" to a high significance "damage suspected", and the fuel integrity at unit #2 went from "unknown" high significance, to a high significance "damaged", or confirmed damage.

None of this units will ever run again, and the only question is whether the structural integrity of the containment vessels will be sufficient to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the surrounding countryside.

 

[Gatorubet]

There is a lot of bad information floating around.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukus...-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287

This has the good of praising the workers fighting this disaster. People do need to understand that they are exhausted and have not slept for days. When I would go in the containment vessel I would wear my heavy coveralls, with plastic booties on my footwear and several pair of rubber gloves on my hands - it was always about 120 degrees ambient temp in that environment (granted, I have to idea if they even have access to the reactor containment vessel considering). These guys and gals are carrying flashlights, as they have no power, and whatever tools they need, and if they are still bothering, alarming dosimeters and their personal dosimeters to see how much they are getting cooked.

The info on that page is like most reporting. They use the terms "reactor" "reactor containment vessel" and "reactor containment building" interchangeably, even though it is a grossly unprofessional to due so. The reactors have not "blown up", although the reactor containment buildings have suffered explosions from hydrogen accumulations caused by intentional venting or unintentional Hydrogen venting. They say the fuel rods were/are exposed When the fuel rods are not being cooled, the zirconium fuel cladding is going to react to the water and strip the O2 and create hydrogen. I have no doubt that increasing pressure in the reactor due to the lack of cooling resulted in large amounts of H2 being vented from the reactor - to the reactor containment vessel, then from the containment to the reactor building. BOOM! But it was NOT the "reactor" that exploded, it was the reactor building, the structure surrounding the reactor containment (the Mark I containment vessel you hear spoken off).

The "Reactor" at the site is not a Mark I - Unit 1 is a BWR-3, Units 2 - 6 are BWR-4. Units 1 - 5 have Mark I containments.

Unit 6 has a Mark II containment.

There is a reason to be very concerned about this, but having the Press speak of "Exploding Reactors" is not doing anyone any damn good, and it [censored]es me off.

 

[Dryden]

French/EU authorities have been saying all along that Japanese officials have not been honest with the media and the situtation is already dire.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5782239/european-officials-japan-nuclear-situation-is-out-of-control

The debate all along has been whether the containment vessel at Fukushima was breached. The containment vessel is the difference between Three Mile Island (had one) and Chernobyl (didn't have one).

Developments this morning seem to indicate that the integrity of the containment vessel at Fukushima was catastrophically compromised.

 

[Muck]

Yesterday I posted a youtube video showing the various major Japanese networks & what they were broadcasting as the quake happened. I also added explanations as to what each network was and a timeline showing exactly what was shown by whom & when.

That was all lost in the server transition.

I'm not typing it all up again.

So here's just the video...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOrAwvJLKxo"]YouTube - ??????????????????????????[/ame]

 

[jwinslow]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4dD6tbLBsc"]YouTube - Dashboard camera catches tsunami as it hits the car[/ame]

 

[Saw31]

YouTube - Dashboard camera catches tsunami as it hits the car

I'm gonna have nightmares about this video. Scary...

 

[Gatorubet]

Didn't want to watch it until I read that the driver lived.