Japan just hit by magnitude 8.9 earthquake

Nasr said:
A new warning was issued that a meltdown may have occured in two reactors.
Click to expand...

Am I the only one that hate the word 'meltdown', it just sounds so scary?

Trouble is it's not officially defined by the various nuclear authorities and people seem to jump to the worst possible conclusion, when in fact a meltdown is normally contained in the reactor's containment structure and doesn't present any great danger, the big exception was Chernobyl- and that was because of very poor construction standards.

In a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, should be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (assuming that no other major disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly radioactive material, a meltdown alone should not lead to significant radiation release or danger to the public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown
Click to expand...

At present it seems the containment structures in Japan are holding up, and we can only hope that continues.
 
Walter said:
If you live nearby Chernobyl or Fukushima you probably wouldn't say this sentence lightly.
Click to expand...

Well to be honest.. no one really knows what is going on. Someone could be covering it all and making things seem fine when they are not. Or it could just be that things are fine.. it's all speculation right now.

All I know is I would be getting the heck away from that reactor even if someone told me it was safe. Then again when I think about it.. where the heck do you go? Most of the roads are damaged, so unless your a good walker/runner/jogger carrying a backpack with food and all... it's just crazy.
 
FreshFroot said:
All I know is I would be getting the heck away from that reactor even if someone told me it was safe. Then again when I think about it.. where the heck do you go? Most of the roads are damaged, so unless your a good walker/runner/jogger carrying a backpack with food and all... it's just crazy.
Click to expand...

If your only option were to walk, it'd be much safer in most cases to just isolate in place, prolonged exposure during the time spent walking would far out weigh that of isolating yourself in a dwelling and waiting for emergency responders to help.
 
FreshFroot said:
Well to be honest.. no one really knows what is going on. Someone could be covering it all and making things seem fine when they are not. Or it could just be that things are fine.. it's all speculation right now.
Click to expand...

That's possible, but I think unlikely as I've seen loads of British nuclear experts on the BBC over the last few days explaining the design of these reactors, what is likely to be happening and how flooding the reactors with sea-water, as other methods have failed, will work - it's one of the last options as the reactors will never be fit for use again.

What appears to have been going on, is that they are working through various stages, or plans, to ensure the situation is contained, this quote from the Washington Post explains it well:

The nuclear power industry speaks of "defense in depth," a concept of multiple layers of containment and backup plans to ensure that, even if something goes wrong, catastrophe won't ensue. The failure of these systems in Japan carries an echo of the BP oil spill disaster, in which backup safety devices and redundancies turned out to be unequal to the unfolding blowout.

"The problem with the BP event is that they didn't have a Plan B," said Alex Marion, vice president of nuclear operations for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "We have, I would say, sufficient defense in depth. We have Plan B, C, D and possibly E."
Click to expand...

This is an interesting image, from what they are saying both the primary and secondary containment structures are intact, it was just the roof and walls of the service building above which were destroyed by the explosion caused by a planned & controlled release of steam from the core, done to reduce pressure before flooding with sea-water.
BoilingWaterReactorDesign_3.jpg
 
CurveGotti said:
If your only option were to walk, it'd be much safer in most cases to just isolate in place, prolonged exposure during the time spent walking would far out weigh that of isolating yourself in a dwelling and waiting for emergency responders to help.
Click to expand...

That might be true.. but then again where are you going to walk? And when it's night where do you sleep? I doubt you get to a safe place in walking distance even for a days walk.

DoctorWatsOn said:
That's possible, but I think unlikely as I've seen loads of British nuclear experts on the BBC over the last few days explaining the design of these reactors, what is likely to be happening and how flooding the reactors with sea-water, as other methods have failed, will work - it's one of the last options as the reactors will never be fit for use again.

What appears to have been going on, is that they are working through various stages, or plans, to ensure the situation is contained, this quote from the Washington Post explains it well:



This is an interesting image, from what they are saying both the primary and secondary containment structures are intact, it was just the roof and walls of the service building above which were destroyed by the explosion caused by a planned & controlled release of steam from the core, done to reduce pressure before flooding with sea-water.
Click to expand...

I like the diagram.. let's just hope things go well.
 
Walter said:
If you live nearby Chernobyl or Fukushima you probably wouldn't say this sentence lightly.
Click to expand...
I was a NBC Officer in the USArmy. NBC stands for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical. We were taught all the nasty ways that humans can kill each other with those weapons. After going thru those courses, I decided that if I lived near a power plant (and I have numerous times) that if something happened, I would rather just bend over and kiss my A$$ goodbye.

I wasn't saying it lightly at all, they DO learn from their failures, just as NASA learned from theirs. Doesn't mean the failures were any less of a disaster but we pushed forward and moved on.
 
DoctorWatsOn said:
... they are saying both the primary and secondary containment structures are intact, it was just the roof and walls of the service building above which were destroyed by the explosion caused by a planned & controlled release of steam from the core, done to reduce pressure before flooding with sea-water.
Click to expand...

If I remember reading correctly the controlled explosion was just hydrogen that was made when thousands of gallons of water flash boiled and not any part of the actual reactor exploding right?
 
EQnoble said:
If I remember reading correctly the controlled explosion was just hydrogen that was made when thousands of gallons of water flash boiled and not any part of the actual reactor exploding right?
Click to expand...

Correct.

mrGTB said:
I forgot to mention before, there are also fears of a second reactor blast happening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12724953
Click to expand...

There hasn't been any 'reactor blast', the reactors remain intact.

Nasr said:
Some people were tested positive with high levels of radiations.
Click to expand...

Do you have a link for this? Only the reports I've read & seen on the BBC are reporting a small number of people (IIRC 9) have been tested positive with LOW levels of radiations.
 
There hasn't been any 'reactor blast', the reactors remain intact.
Click to expand...

I never said there had been, I said there are fears one could happen as mentioned on the BBC News site.

BBC News said:
There is a risk of a second explosion at the quake-hit Fukushima power station, Japanese officials have said.
Click to expand...

That indicates there has been a first one.
 
But then you get a story like this, released by the Associated Press about 1 1/2 hours ago....

KORIYAMA, Japan – Japan's nuclear crisis intensified Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple reactor meltdowns and more than 180,000 people evacuated the quake- and tsunami-savaged northeastern coast where fears spread over possible radioactive contamination.

Nuclear plant operators were frantically trying to keep temperatures down in a series of nuclear reactors — including one where officials feared a partial meltdown could be happening Sunday — to prevent the disaster from growing worse.

But hours after officials announced the latest dangers to face the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, including the possibility of a second explosion in two days, there were few details about what was being done to bring the situation under control.
Click to expand...

Read more...

Makes you wonder what the real story is.
 
Back
Top Bottom