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Nuclear Emergency Declared At 2 Plants In Japan
Hugh Pickens writes "CBC reports that Japan has declared a state of emergency and called for mass evacuations near two nuclear power plants following cooling systems failures that led to radiation escaping from a reactor at one location. The emergency declarations, which include five reactors at the two plants, followed Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the country's northeast coast. In a troubling announcement, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official Ryohei Shiomi said a monitoring device outside the plant detected radiation that is eight times higher than normal and an evacuation zone has been expanded from three kilometres around the plant to 10 kilometres."
But I was planning on going to Japan in a few months. I wonder how this will affect myself and Japans tourist undustry in general.
It's one of these annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.
We need to bulldoze the plant before it blows and build a new one!! Is fusion available yet?
Wonder how many of the usual "Nuclear Energy is cheap, safe, clean and does the dishes AND the laundry" posts we get today.
Face it: if the (unlikely) worst happens and a reactor does blow up in japan, the current recession is child's play.
Japan's population density is 377,873/Km^2-- this means millions of people need to get moving, & fast, & where the hell are they gonna go? Let's hope Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing take some refugees in case this shit goes down...
See: http://slashdot.org/submission/1496534/JapanCaesium-measured-melt-down-may-have-started
How did a nuclear reactor in an earthquake-prone industrialized country get approval of any sort if it could not resist a magnitude 8.9 earthquake? How did it get approval if it was not passively safe, or had functional containment that would not be completely bypassed by earth tremors? Are these reactors from the 1950s? It is absurd that people did not perform the due diligence to prevent a nuclear meltdown from an earthquake, and I can only hope they get tried for this negligence.
Keep those girlyman windmills that can only crush a tractor or chop up a couple of birds.
I want a MANLY power plant that can create a 30-100 km dead zone of mutants and a death plume that has a global reach.
Since most foreign media just use NHK news, here is the link to their english website:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/index.html
I am in japan and following this very closely
There's a lot of misinformation flying around.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12721498 [bbc.co.uk] (watch the movie)
Steam was released on purpose.
Based on just this discrepancy between the BBC and the CBC articles, /. might be a bit careful on it's reporting right now...
Everyone's getting excited over the nuclear plants, and ignoring the thousands that are still are dying due to just water. Why is radiation so much scarier? Water kills faster. /rant.
Fukushima 1, reactor 1: confirmed meltdown, 45,000 people evacuated.
They've lost control of pressure on at least two reactors.
According to this article (in Japanese), about 2 minutes ago an explosion was heard and "something smoke-like" can be seen at the number 1 reactor. :(
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110312/t10014627501000.html
According to this Japanese article, TEPCO (the power company that runs the reactor) reports that at about 3:30 pm local time (1 hour 40 minutes ago) an explosion was heard and white smoke could be seen coming from the number 1 reactor. A few workers have been reported to be injured. :(
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110312/t10014627881000.html
Japan ? Check.
Nuclear stuff ? Check.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla
'nuff said.
Floods are nasty but once they are done, they are done. They don't keep on killing for decades after. You don't rescue a drowning victim then have their hair fall out a year later.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nuclear Emergency Declared At 2 Plants i In Japan ,God bless http://www.cpinpai.com
If it's all reactor news over there, there's not a whole lot going on over here in Japan on the local networks. Oh, wait. I just saw Fukushima Dai-ichi explode. That can't be good. I really need to move back to California. Yes, I know. It's not very much fun over here and I'm 500 km away from this. I wish I was 5000.
Seems like a possible design flaw? I heard reports of them bringing in mobile power units via the IAEA to try and restart the cooling system but it must be complicated. If you are going to build a reactor in a seismic zone it better have a lot more redundancy and the ability to "plug-in" external power for cooling backing and quickly and scram the reactor.
Suddenly coal doesn't seem quite as bad.
The outer walls of the Reactor 1 building have partially blown off, leaving only what looks like a steel frame. NHK is saying that a sensor within 5km of the plant is detecting radiation levels approaching 1015 microsieverts - that is apparently a year's worth of radiation exposure each hour.
People in the danger zones are being told to cover faces with wet towels, avoid eating vegetables and other fresh foods, and refrain from drinking tap water. Things seem to be happening quickly.
The magnitudes of disasters like earthquakes follow a known distribution, so you know approximately how often they happen.
It just usually isn't worth the effort of doing so. (read that as unprofitable)
Deleted
Live updates including the status of the Daichi 1 reactor: http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2
I hope this disaster let some people come to their senses. I mean those who said in the last year that a equilibrated mix of energy production, including nuclear power“ is the way to go for the future. This technology is _not_ safe, nor is it clean. It's a threat to people and we need to push hard for renewable energy as soon as possible! I live in Germany. We had a sound exit strategy for nuclear power that would have allowed us to get nuclear-free in the foreseeable future. Conservative politicians, like Angela Merkel (CDU) and neo-liberals, like Guido Westerwelle (FDP), alike have recently diluted this sound strategy, because they thought it to be the work of crazy left-wing politicians and ecologists. It's not. We need to get out of nuclear power and we need to do it fast.
Please remind me to invest in atomic clock manufacturers.
Why to the Japanese always get the short end of the shit stick when it comes to nuclear power? Also - earthquakes and tsunamis courtesy of underwater nuclear detonations along fault lines. Reconstruction courtesy of Halliburton and subsidaries with special guest Disaster Capitalism(tm).
Do Fukushima I or II have containment domes? The LA Times makes it sound like it doesn't.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-japan-quake-nuclear-20110312,0,2627198.story
See here the hull exploding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4uogOEUrU#t=43s
1266953+17
Even if the fission reaction is stopped immediately (all reactors can do that almost instantly) the accumulated fission products are going to release tremendous amounts of heat by decay over the next hours and days.
I've read here on Slashdot from numerous experts over the years how modern nuclear power plants can't have meltdowns and events like Chernobyl only happened because of substandard Soviet reactor design. Hey, I don't mind evacuating my home along with 100+ square miles of my neighbors once in awhile in these cases because God knows it's less often than the mass evacuations we have to do with these solar and natural gas power plants.
As for that being the worst that can happen, no. More than one reactor meltdown, breach of the concrete containment, and onshore winds would be the worst that can happen. I believe they are losing control of several reactors at three plants presently. A meltdown at one reactor would naturally prevent gaining control of another reactor at the same plant. But the wind is blowing out to sea at the moment.
And cesium isn't going to be helping the fishing offshore either.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The successful effort by the left to derail nuclear power through much of the 1980s and 1990s
Why is it that people are such blinkered assholes when it comes to politics?
You say "The left" - but an accurate accusation would be "nuclear opponents".
I'm what you would label a "lefty" but I'm all for Nuclear technology.
I expect better from the Slashdot crowd.
If humans used Thorium reactors instead of Uranium reactors, we would not have problems like these.
Wait... what happened to all the self-proclaimed experts on here posting only a few hours ago about how there wasn't much to worry about, everything is fine, and that the media was sensationalizing this?? You guys want to revise your above posts? Oh wait, they just saw that the Fukushima had an explosion and "The walls of a building at nuclear power station crumbled Saturday as smoke poured out and Japanese officials said they feared the reactor could melt down following the failure of its cooling system in a powerful earthquake and tsunami." Where have you guys gone? Idiots.
Cool, Stalker in Japan!
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4uogOEUrU&feature=player_detailpage#t=43s
You insensitive cold!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Great, now the anti nuclear-crowd has fresh ammo to use. :/
How would a thorium/pebble bed reactor cope under this sort of situation? Much better? Or much the same?
What's the danger of solar or wind power?
(Not claiming there isn't any. If there's a danger I'd like to be aware of it)
I'm in Tokyo, and my Geiger counter is showing just background radiation.
Hopefully it will stay that way (160 miles away).
When they've burst out with the 88.000 (eighty-eight-thousand) people missing in Japan, which they've supposedly picked up from Kyodo news agency.
Which then got copy/pasted all over the internet by every damn blogger and news agency out there. So now, it gets parroted around like it is a fact.
It turns out... it was a typo. Or a mistranslation. Or a googling error considering that some reports mention it as 110.000 missing.
BREAKING NEWS: Death toll from Japan quake rises to 110, 350 missing: police Note ... 200-300 bodies found in Sendai after quake, 88 others killed ...
See? Right there. "110, 350 missing"!
*headdesk*
And here I thought that one would actually have to know how to read if one wanted to be a BBC journalist.
FFS... 88000 people can't go "missing" in such a short time. It's technically impossible. Why?!
Well, besides the fact that 88000 people take up quite a lot of space and someone would pretty fucking soon notice them and proclaim them dead or found (identified or not) - you can't really know that there are 88000 people missing unless you can actually account for 88000 names. Or at least 88000 bodies.
And it takes a bit longer than 24 hours to compile a list of 88000 actual humans.
Let's say that it takes 5 minutes for a person to fill out a "missing persons" form, and for someone else to input that into a database.
If the reports were coming in non-stop from 100 locations that would make it 4400 minutes just to gather all the reports ( 88000 reports divided by 100 locations times 5 minutes i.e. (88000/100)*5 ).
That comes out to about 3 days of non-stop report gathering alone.
It would actually take about 10 times that, at least.
There simply was not enough time yet to gather that kind of actual data.
And again... If you know of 88000 actual people (Name, date of birth, address etc.) that are missing - just look for a really big pile of people somewhere.
Pretty sure you'll find a lot of them there.
Well... unless there were aliens involved. Then all bets are off.
Except the one with the time it would take to compile a list of 88000 names and addresses.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Here's video of the reactor exploding.
Folks, I undersand it's not the same kind or reactor design but... ... I saw the footage of the explosion: fireball, shockwave, debris & plume.
Having heard that the core pressure was 2.5 times over design limits, to me it looks the core tore itself apart :(
beeb footage
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Yah, post doesn't make sense doesn't it? well, hasty editing... Point is: this looks like Chernobyl to me. Do you think the core vessel has blown apart exposing all it's fuel and radioactive material?
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Biggest Japanese earthquake in 1400 years just happened too, its not like nuclear reactors are running around killing people yearly.
Actually, yes they are. The reason they are is that once a radioactive isotope is released into the environment it bio-concentrates in the food chain. If it is eventually eaten by a human it will continue to be a radiation emitter inside the body. Where it ends up inside the body depend on the element it analogues. For example, caesium (138 - I think) looks like iodine to the body - so the body deposits it in the thyroid gland. As the radionuclide emits radiation in that part of the body cancer begins to gestate expressing itself as full blown cancer at the end of the incubation period.
DOn't forget it's not just reactors that release radioactive isotopes, but the whole process. Chernobyl, Windscale and TMI are still killing people today and will go one killing people whenever a radioactive isotope from those accidents is ingested. Once the person dies and decays (or worse is cremated) the isotope is freed from the body and the process begins all over again until the radionuclide decays into it's daughter product.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Just announced on the NHK channel.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
Two are known dead.
Nuclear power may be completely safe if done correctly. Near the shore of an island formed by volcanic activity may not be the correct place. That may be a better place for geothermal power. But I haven't got the heart for the argument today. Today my heart goes out to the families of the lost, to those suffering now, and to those who may be soon.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I would like to say this is a good example of bad reporting on the part of our news organizations. I'm stationed in Yokosuka and the news is not nearly as bad as CNN is saying. The cores were retracted so there is no chance of a major catastrophe. By law they have to declare a state of emergency if the cooling fails and have to evacuate the area. The worst case would be the equivalent of three mile island but very unlikely to be anything like that.
Thanks for your update about the Japan situation going on about the earth quake so many people are very sad thanks for the update news about it.
http://www.vinyldecals.com
Tokyo Electric Power Company is providing regular updates with real information:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html
It appears the news services are reporting from a parallel universe where things are completely different.
As I said in some other posts, two are known dead. Five reactors at two plants may be losing containment. You can see the explosion at 1:22 in this video. That's the outer containment being blown off a nuclear reactor, so if the inner steel containment is breached, the worst will happen. And it looks like that's going to happen, though it's not reported to have happened yet.
There's a time for blame assessment, for dispassionate analysis of the costs and benefits, for discussion of how modern technologies are better than the technologies afforded these plants from the dark ages of fission. Today is not that time. Today is for expressing regret for the loss of life, the pain and suffering of those affected, to rally what support we may. Today would be a good day to express hope that all five reactors don't go up.
Also, some backup planning would be good. Prevailing winds and ocean currents take the output from this particular location in Japan past Hawaii and then curve back for another tour of Southeast Asia. On a bad day for the US though, the winds and currents tend a bit further north, and deposit their gifts on the West coast of the US, falling as rain in the Sierra Nevada range and the Rockies. If you're downwind of this thing now would be a good time to review your knowledge of the physical effects of radiation exposure. On a bad day I'm downwind from this thing and that matters to me personally, no matter what my opinion of nuclear energy is. Generally I'm for it, but today would be a bad day to hit me up for support for it because this event could, in the worst case, decrease the lifespan of my children.
Now, do you really want to argue about this here and now, or maybe wait a bit and see if the worst case didn't happen?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It will take the media and Japan a while to circle around to what caused the explosion, so I'll explain it now.
The explosion you see in the videos aligns perfectly with the Fukushima Daiichi No.1 reactor building seen here (forth square building from the left.)
The BBC has provided this incredible before/after photo where you can actually see the reactor building structure with the walls removed by the explosion: the metal framework is still intact.
The exact same thing happened with TMI-2 in 1979. The hydrogen burn occurred inside the containment dome. The Fukushima reactor doesn't have such a dome, so the hydrogen accumulated in the reactor building.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
The spare diesel generators had to be placed 2 -3 kilometers inland, on a hill, not on the shore near the nuclear plant. And connected to the plant by 3 kilometers electrical cable. This way the generators would not be damaged by a tsunami.
Am I the only engineer who realizes it? Am I that talented?
they knew they had a problem before they lost colling. why didnt they shut down long before this happond.
One thing about wind power. In the event of an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a greedy company cutting corners like BP, incompetence or human error nobody needs to worry about the breeze getting out.
Stupid people overreacting. Don't they realize that nothing bad can ever happen with nuclear power plants? Just ask slashdot.
I can only hope this will help put an end to any new water/water nuclear power plants being planned or built, and get people thinking of de-commisioning the existing ones. This isn't 1955. We know better, We have alternatives. It's time to bury ALL of these dinosaurs.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It was most likely a steam exposion: the core melted because of lack of coolant, the temperature of the reactor vessel walls increased. The vessel failed and the molten core fell in the water pool below the reactor. The instantaneous and violent vaporization (steam explosion) created a shock wave which failed the containment.... this really sucks... :(
If people as disciplined and conscientious as the Japanese can't do nuclear power safely, what chance do we have. Would you want a company like BP running a nuclear power plant or building one?
Hydrogen burn isn't a very energetic event, which is why the Reactor Building framework is still intact. This means the Reactor Vessel is still intact and bolted upright to the floor with the damaged core inside. The RV and the steel containment around it is a very robust container, much stronger than the framework of the building.
All cooling apparatus is gone. If the detonation didn't disable it the fire will. So total core melt is almost certain.
TMI-2 melted 50% of the core which pooled at the bottom of the RV. The RV did not rupture despite the intense heat. It is possible this RV may also not rupture, especially if any cooling can be applied to the outer surface. If so then widespread intense contamination may be avoided.
If the RV does rupture then we'll have molten corium pooling on the concrete floor uncovered before God and everyone. All bets are off at that point.
FYI the reactor is a GE Mark I BWR with steel containment. Details here(PDF). A very old, before-mandatory-concrete-containment-dome system.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I've seen a lot of pro-nuclear advocacy on this site, and I feel that people need to have a perspective on what that choice represents. It's opportunity cost. That's a term for when you give up your chances on one side in the pursuit of another. If your choices are poor your loss includes what you did not pursue when you had the chance.
Right now we have gotten wind down to where it has much to offer and very little drawback. Laddermills can provide power 24-7. Offshore windfarms have been heavily studied and show little impact. A better grid could distribute the uneven power effectively. Ribbon generators and windbelts can, in arrays, compete with solar panels.
Where heat is needed we can concentrate solar thermal energy, whether through passive solar buildings, solar towers and troughs which heat molten salts to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit for storage in insulated tanks to drive turbines 24/7. You can even get hot water from running hoses through a compost pile - several compositions yield a proven 140 degree internal temperature and you're getting fertile soil too.
If you do in fact need electricity, solar panels on a microgrid close to their point of demand circumvent our hugely wasteful grid with its losses due to resistance and the unnecessary surplus generated by redundancy of huge, centralized powerplants.
These are not perfect, but when you consider the subsidies fossil fuels and nuclear plants require, the wars being waged to control their supply, and the costs of pollution whether we're paying them now or ignoring it at the peril of future generations, we are being very foolish to waver in the pursuit of a resilient, safe energy supply.
In the words of Bill Maher on offshore wind turbines: "You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash."
Supporting links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laddermill
http://www.truth-out.org/wind-energy-can-power-much-east-coast-study-says63637
http://inhabitat.com/windbelt-innovative-generator-to-bring-cheap-wind-power-to-third-world/
http://gliving.com/power-tower-wind-turbines-a-brilliant-idea-in-this-issue-of-metropolis-magazine-may-2009/
http://www.solarreserve.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trough
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-microgrids.html
Why does the world still continue to operate (and even build) BWRs? They're a very poor, cheap design. I believe a new one is being built in the USA just now.
There is no secondary cooling circuit, so active steam goes through the turbines. That means that the turbine halls are radioactive to begin with.
The problem we are seeing here is failure of post-trip cooling. This implies a lot of things wrong with the design and possibly maintenance and operation, and I'm sure the full details of what went wrong will be made available to the public after the investigation.
I feel very sorry for the Japanese and everyone else in Japan just now. The best we can hope now is that the lessons learned from this disaster will give the world better and safer nuclear power stations. We need them to survive and prosper as a species.
Stick Men
Here is one Japan guy translating the news: http://www.ustwrap.info/multi/foxtokimekitonight::tbstv::yokosonews::nhk-gtv
if, after a natural disaster, an energy technology has the possibility of redoubling on that disaster, that technology is NOT safe.
quake devastated japan. but meltdown can make any percentage of it, a desolate wasteland. this may be a high percentage.
Read radical news here
Just saw an official press conference on Japanese TV. The containment vessel is intact. The concrete shell was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. Boric acid is being used as a neutron poison. It's not pretty, but it looks still to be under control.
You have to put this in perspective. We just survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. tens of thousands are homeless in winter conditions. And yet the hysteria in the western media is over a power plant that is still contained. A bit of perspective please.
The cabinet secretary just confirmed that the explosion did not damage the fuel chamber itself. The radiation level in the surrounding area is steadily declining and they plan to fill the reactor with sea water to speed the cooling. (Source: NHK live press conference)
Jeez. Just look at this journalist. He reports an explosion at a power plant, and rushes to assure his audience that it wasn't a nuclear blast. I'm just speechless. It is utterly and completely impossible for a nuclear power plant to explode like a nuclear bomb, but this guy evidently has no idea. "NPR's Jon Hamilton tells us was NOT a nuclear explosion." Thanks, moron. Nuclear plant trouble is scary enough without intentionally lying to the public.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Thanks. Are you serious? Do you really have a geiger counter? Do you have a website I can check for updates?
http://yokosonews.com/live
Civilian Nuclear Power
Born: June 27, 1954
Died: March 11, 2011
Though desirable, Thorium isn't even necessary; most any modern reactor design is passively safe. Read up on the Molten Salt Reactor for one example: the reactors run at atmospheric pressure, with no active cooling necessary. The reaction naturally stops if it gets too hot, and you can literally walk away at any time. As an added benefit, they can consume other reactors waste as fuel, obviating any further mining for the next century, and the waste they produce is much smaller it quantity and far shorter lived.
The anti-nuclear comments on that site are truly depressing, as are the ignorant responses to your own post. Coal has, and continues to kill far more people than Nuclear, both from mining, as well as respiratory diseases and cancer. Coal is not clean by any measure; it has put an immense amount of radioactivity and heavy metals into our environment--far more than nuclear.
Criticizing nuclear != promoting coal
You mean like this molten salt reactor?
http://www.wikileaks.ch/wiki/Monju_nuclear_accident_video_3
Monju nuclear reactor sodium leak accident footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiSqW6pFuR8
I realize we are all supposed to be nuclear power fans and that there are puppies and kittens happily dancing around the shattered reactor building as we speak but I still remember being told decades ago that a nuclear plant disaster would happen once in a thousand years. After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now Japan are we covered for the next three thousand years? FYI I'm ignoring various releases and spills that have occurred at other sites not to mention all the contaminated processing sites. There's always talk of "safe" nuclear power plants like Thorium Reactors but that's up there with clean coal. Everyone loves chanting clean coal and I'd bet most Americans think that a percentage of coal plants are "clean coal" when in fact there isn't a single commercial clean coal plant and there currently aren't even plans to build one. Great Thorium Reactors, ah exactly how many of the hundreds of current reactors are Thorium? Roughly as many as there are clean coal plants.
As I'm writing this CNN interviewed an expert that referred to the Japanese reactors as a race against time to avoid a major disaster. This is matching the stories I heard during Chernobyl. First they started off stories of a small release of radioactive gas, then an explosion, then talk of if they can't get it under control it could turn into a disaster. I'm not saying it will be a match of what happened at Chernobyl but I'd like to point out that a major disaster with photovoltaic solar cells involves a broom and a dustpan to sweep up the broken cells. Photovoltaic cells are just as high tech as nuclear so why the geek obsession with nuclear? Yes I know cheap, clean yada yadah. I'm still waiting for the cheap and clean part. I want some one to explain Hanover Washington to me?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
This is just one of hundreds of sites it's simply one of the worst in the United States and it's cost us billions with no end in sight. Some Washington suit ape suggested naming such sites as National Sacrifice sites back in 1989. Great that chunk of ground gave it's life for it's country! Makes me proud to be an American! Can we try something that is actually clean and safe for a change. Hey it's just a silly thought.
I was reading reports all of yesterday saying that the reactors were low on coolant, Clinton said we were airlifting coolant, etc. So, if they knew there was a cooling problem, why didn't they just shut down the reactor? Why wasn't the standard procedure to shut down after an earthquake and inspect the plant for damage, regardless of the coolant situation? TMI happened because they misinterpreted what was going on. Chernobyl happened because they were doing an unauthorized experiment. Don't get me wrong -- I'm pro-nuke and was studying nuclear engineering before I switched to EE. I'm just curious what the problem was here? Was there pressure to keep the plant going to provide service? Entire cities must be off the grid from a combination of quake, flooding, and fire, so the demand may have been less than normal.
They only become so because they are staffed with a lot of people that know how incredibly dangerous they are and work hard to prevent accidents.
It's actually idiots like the above that push the fluffy "safe" "clean" image of nuclear power that are counterproductive and holding the entire civilian nuclear industry back. Heavy industry of all kinds is full of incredibly dangerous shit and none of it becomes any less dangerous by pretending the problem has gone away - in fact the opposite happens and people die. Why do these idiots think nuclear is different and run by magic puppies or something?
All of the current leading edge advances in civilian nuclear power are due to knowing how dangerous everything is and taking big steps to reduce that danger. That's a hell of a lot better than the total idiocy of trying to pretend there never was a problem in the first place.
In this story it's about some incredibly dangerous technology being treated with the respect and preparation it deserves resulting in the successful completion of a disaster plan. If the "nuclear is totally safe" idiocy was applied then there would be no disaster plan and most likely another element to the disaster.
The Moorlocks have to work incredibly fucking hard for the stupid Eloi to keep their stupid mindset of a "safe" world.
This could be very dangerous needless to say. I suspect that we have the next Chernobyl on our hands. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
The Swedish government has asked all citizens to leave Japan as soon as possible.
FIVE BILLION YEARS!!!
every SINGLE one of these takes away the liveability on the planet FOREVER!!!!!
STOP NUCLEAR FISSION ON THIS PLANET NOW!!!!!!!
all you nuke engineer geeks that are gonna rationalize your silly heads off cause you are afraid of losing your jobs relax, there will be plenty of work decomissioning these extinguishers of all life on this planet.....
the dome on chernobyl meltdown needs to be replaced, already, and there is no money for it.
nuclear power is a suicide cult
pax et bonum
cannante
I just heard a news reporter saying that this could be "another Three Mile Island". So I googled "Three Mile Island deaths". NRC says there were no deaths. Wiki says: "Based on these low emission figures, early scientific publications on the health effects of the fallout estimated one or two additional cancer deaths in the 10 mi (16 km) area around TMI.[38][unreliable source?] Disease rates in areas further than 10 miles from the plant were never examined.[38] Local activism in the 1980s, based on anecdotal reports of negative health effects, led to scientific studies being commissioned. A variety of studies have been unable to conclude that the accident had substantial health effects." Compared to deaths from drowning in the tsunami and the fumes from a burning oil refinery, another Three Mile Island is nothing.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
A 40 year old reactor that was poorly maintained/upgraded fails in mag 9.2 earthquake and has probably ended any possibility of new plants being built in the united states for at least 20 years. Not only could this kill or injure a large amount of people but it's a setback for the only realistic option we had to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and global CO2 reduction. Sadly this will be reported as a failure of the technology and not the people that maintain it.
Nothing is perfectly safe, life is just like that. The reactor will make the headlines, but it represents a tiny bit of the total damage done by the earthquake.
The greenies yammer about how much safer wind power or hydro power would be, but they have no concept that it would take literally millions of wind generators to replace these reactors, spread across zillions of square kilometers - or massive dams flooding just as much land - all of which the greenies would protest against. The result would in any case be unreliable, expensive power. And just how many of those wind generators and/or dams would survive an 8.9 earthquake?
Nuclear power is, in fact, incredibly safe. Look at Chernobyl - a far worse accident than what has happened in Japan. After the accident, the news was full of how tens of thousands of people were going to die of cancer. This was revised down to thousands, then to hundreds. In the final analysis, fewer than 100 deaths can be clearly attributed to the accident. It will turn out the same in Japan - fewer deaths that those cause by a typical major dam breach - which happen every couple of years.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
and modded informative.
1 We don't know if the cooling system has completely failed (and you're accusing the power company of blatant lies)
2 We don't know if the explosion happened in the core power production (but they're saying it was a hydrogen explosion in the cooling system)
3 The same pictures would be seen if this is pressure release valves operating normally within the core unit.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
"The reactors won't impact the global economy appreciably - it's *highly* unlikely that anything is going to blow up, anyhow. It's sounding like they had a partial scram, with primary coolant system failure afterwards."
Now that the containment building has exploded, I was wondering if you'd like to revise your statement?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Spared me explaining that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I think this is how Godzilla started. Radiated Turtles Rule!
...or am i the only one that came here in search of witty Godzilla comments? Come on /., how many opportunities like this do you expect to get??
Build more nuclear: http://goodfuckingidea.com/253
Most reactor designs I've seen feature a system where if there's a scam, graphite rods slide in (the moderator) and stop the pile reaction. The rod slide is done by gravity - it doesn't rely on external power, so (in theory) it can't fail.
Is that not the case with this reactor?
We are far enough away as not to worry horribly personally, but this is happening in the country I live in. My question to those familiar with such things on here is how effective is the technique they will use over the next two days of flooding the core with sea water? That is as much as we know technically at this point so I can't go into more details, not being an expert on nuclear power myself, but I would to here any info from the slashdot crowd on how this works and how effective it might be.
And to quickly summarize from this perspective for those outside the country trying to piece together news. All the reactors here (I believe) shut down properly when the quake struck, as designed. However Fukushima Dai-1 (No. 1) was also hit hard by the tsunamis which took out it's main and back-up generators which were used to pump cooling water into the cores. Late last night they were frantically trying to fly in generators but apparently they did not get there soon enough or did not work well enough and you have what we see now, a meltdown which has probably already begun (nobody here knows either). A lack of power to get cooling fluid into the core causing a possible meltdown, to simplify even more...
If you've got a question, son, just go ahead and ask it. There's no need to be a snarky little jackass.
Now, more folks know a large amount about nuclear power without being a D.O.P.E. (Doctor Of Pile Engineering), but apparently you can't fathom such a thing. I'll try to help you out.
The comment about not being a nuclear physicist relates to not being certain about nuclear power generation in a disorganized pile of uranium in the bottom of a reactor vessel.
What I do know, however, is that for a nuclear chain reaction to occur, you need neutrons splitting off of uranium, and then those neutrons need to cause fission of other uranium atoms.
However, these neutrons from a fission event are traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and at such speeds, they are unlikely to cause fission of another uranium atom. These neutrons need to be slowed to a 'thermal' state (near the kinetic energy of, say, water in an operating reactor) in order to cause the next fission event.
This is where the water comes in. The neutrons are slowed by the water to a thermal state, and in such a state, they are likely to cause the fission of another uranium atom, creating power and continuing the nuclear chain reaction.
When you've got a mass of molten uranium in the bottom of a pressure vessel, you don't have water in between the uranium atoms, so you can't slow down the neutrons to cause the next chain event.
Now, as to the heat conduction angle, normally the ratio of surface area to mass is high in normal geometry. A fuel pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser, a fuel rod is a stack of these in zircaloy cladding, and a fuel assembly is a cluster of these rods with space in between them (for the water to slow down the neutrons and carry heat away for power production.)
Now if you've got a molten pool of this stuff, the surface area vs the mass ratio is much lower. This means that heat removal (which is done with surface area) is degraded. As a consequence, the fuel heats up incredibly (until the decay heat falls off), but relatively little sensible heat is transferred to the steel reactor vessel- which can conduct heat away from the uranium pool at the bottom rapidly, especially if they flood the primary containment structure.
I have not, however, ran sophisticated computer simulations to these ends, nor am I qualified to perform a back of the envelope calculations to the same effect.
I am, however, intimately familiar with the normal and emergency operating parameters of a certain pressurized water reactor, and many of the physical principles are similar to that of the boiling water reactor in question. As such, I can compare the likely conditions in this reactor with the normal and emergency operating conditions in the reactor that I am familiar with, and make reasonably credible predictions- certainly moreso than you, or 95% of the stuff you've read so far.
But hey, there's no PHD in nuclear physics after my name. How could I possibly know anything relevant?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This calamity shows Mother Nature can still really kick ass...
And that's why we should cooperate more globally and not worry so much about fighting each other with all the advanced technology we have been creating. While this tragedy is horrible, just horrible, something like an asteroid strike on the Earth, a supervolcano eruption like in Yellostone, or a massive plague could kill billions. So, this should be a warning to our global society that we should cooperate more to prepare together for what Mother Nature can still dish out at random times.
See also:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/main
And by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
Like with Hurricane Katrina where the USA lost a city, this event will be a test of the Japanese character. The good news is, you can see in Japan aspects of what a healthy society looks like (unlike the USA during Katrina or before). Japan prepared a lot for this (good building codes, to begin with). Their leadership has responded immediately. People are helping each other. News is being posted right away through their advanced social networks. (Many individuals wanted to help with Katrina, and were turned back, and parts of the New Orleans area descended into violence and fear...) You can be sure, as a society, Japan will come through this even stronger and healthier and better prepared for the next event. I wish I could say stuff like that about the USA these days? I don't know, even as I have a lot of faith in US individuals in a crisis. But in the USA, government is painted as the enemy. We don't know what good government would feel like anymore, sadly -- government that is accountable, or plans well, or prioritizes human needs over short-term profits to a few.
With that said, more money put into solar energy research in Japan is probably a good idea... And if you are going to have nuclear power plants, designs like Hyperion power might make more sense (ignoring how you still need reprocessing facilities that might be at earthquake risk). That plant design was 40 years old. This book explains why old nuclear power plant designs are riskier:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html
"The nuclear power plants in service today were conceptually designed and developed during the 1960s. At that time, it was deemed necessary to achieve maximum efficiency and minimum cost in order to compete successfully with coal- or oil-burning plants. The latter were priced at 15% of their present cost and used fuel that was very cheap by current standards. In order to maximize efficiencies in the nuclear plants, temperatures, pressures, and power densities were pushed up to their highest practical limits. Safety features were exemplary for that era, and even for current safety practices in other industries. But they were not up to present-day demands for super-super safety in the nuclear industry.
As the public became more concerned with nuclear safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required that new safety equipment and procedures be added on, in the process discussed in Chapter 9 as "regulatory ratcheting." The amount of labor and materials for these add-ons exceeded that for the plant as originally conceived. With this added complexity, the plants became difficult and expensive to construct, operate, and maintain. Moreover, the level of safety was still limited by the original conceptual design.
By the early 1980s it became apparent that a new conceptual design of nuclear reactors was called for. The cost of electricity from coal- and oil-burning plants had escalated to the point where their competition did not require maximum efficiency from nuclear plants. Furthermore, the added efficiency achieved by pushing temp
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
According to the article you linked it is 10000 bananas per hour.
According to this site:
http://www.icjt.org/npp/podrobnosti.php?drzava=14&lokacija=818
the affected reactor would have been shut down on March 26.
Just to put this all into perspective for those claiming doom and gloom regarding nuclear power --
How many oil disasters have there been in the past decade? (Spills, refinery fires, etc.)
How many people died?
How many in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many coal disasters have there been in the last decade?
How many people died?
How many in coal disasters in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many nuclear disasters were there? How old were the facilities?
Right... so when we look at nuclear power, it's still the safest. They're built with the most oversight, foresight, and regulation AND it took the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history to damage the 40 year old reactor-- which still likely won't go into meltdown. And there's been plenty of time to evacuate everyone just in case it does.
Do we get ANY of that luxury with oil or coal?
(Note: I use oil, coal, and nuclear energy in this comparison because they are the energy sources that can be created just about anywhere. Geothermal, wind, water, and solar require very specific placements.)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110313/t10014635191000.html
The water cooling system of the plant itself cannot produce enough cool water because of the power loss or something.
Anyway, this means that they decided to basically trash the plant after everything is (hopefully) contained even though the reactor vessel is intact: The inside of the reactor will be contaminated by I-dont-know-what from the sea water and it will be almost impossible to reuse.
I think the company is taking the route that makes sense, even if that's because there's no other choice or whatever.
I really, really hope it's not too late.
Radiation is not an easy thing to attribute damage to and there is plenty of incentive to downplay the results. Results are expensive and difficult to find as well as easily diffused by skeptics since its not clear cut (which often is easy to mischaracterize even when its obvious.)
Russia has had a lot of medical problems go up in huge amounts over a long period of time which are reasonably attributed to the disaster. I saw a report long ago about this defect where children are born with holes in their hearts which was almost non existent before the disaster. They may live but the connection isn't reported upon-- if they die young it also likely isn't counted.
Others could try to attribute other things but unfortunately the impact is so small a margin of error is too high-- which doesn't mean it isn't a factor but we don't have the quality of data or big enough of an impact to attribute it; not a whole lot of motivation to resolve such things either...
Some think the global cancer rates are higher because of all those years of open nuclear bomb testing sending tiny particles around the world which would remain active for a long time. (Although we have other factors too - but say this is a 90% factor - its still a situation such that proof is impossible and nobody will admit it; just imagine the lawsuits... 1 molecule of high radiation in my body for a short period of time isn't something that is going to be detected. Plus you have all the people who don't get cancer or whose bodies defend against it which also make it an extremely difficult question to resolve.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It's nice they had generators as a first backup. BUT, if batteries are your second backup, having 24 hours worth only delays the explosion for a day. Buy 3x-4x the batteries and have enough power to safely power it down.
Does anyone know what flow rate is required for the cooling system? What about a tertiary backup of human powered pumps. If it were feasible, I'm sure you could easily get thousands of people to man pumps for three days if it would avert a major disaster.
"an utterly predictable environmental insult"? I assume you're referring to the 8.9 quake, the strongest quake in Japan's recorded history? A once-in-10,000-years event? Yeah, really fucking predictable.
The real problem is that the reactor was an old design that was near the end of its service lifetime. We know how to build much safer reactors now, but we need the money and willpower to actually do it so that we can decomission the older, less safe designs.
Like what?
What can possibly replace the capacity we get from nuclear generation? Coal? Hydro? Give me a break. There's nothing safer or less environmentally destructive that can replace nuclear power.
"A proper reactor like the ones typically employed in the US, will shut down automatically when power is lost to the core."
As someone else said, nuclear reactors don't have an "off switch". The control rods dampen the reaction. On a shutdown, reactivity drops by over an order of magnitude, but it takes minutes or hours to then ramp down to idle levels, and idle still does not mean none.
More significantly, even if you could wave a magic wand and kill all atomic reaction instantly, the core remains at operating temperature until coolant can remove all that thermal energy. And at the risk of stating the obvious, there is a *lot* of thermal energy in the core of a operating nuclear reactor. Most reports are saying their cooling system went offline in under an hour. Even with the magic wand, it would still be hot enough to melt.
All reports say the reactor scramed as soon as the quake hit, *before* the tsunami even arrived. The problem then became residual heat and lack of power for cooling. Coolant boiled off, pressure rose, the rods became uncovered, water starts turning into hydrogen...
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I haven't heard many reports of the dam break due to the earthquake:
Dam breaks in northeast Japan, washes away homes: Kyodo
The dam already caused serious damage, and we are all worried about what could happen with the reactor? At least they have a plan A, B, C with a reactor. How do you stop a dam break? I would rather have a reactor in my back yard than a dam.
The GP's post is incredible informative but neglects consideration of where the fuel comes from. Like coal, uranium must be mined, and it takes quite a bit of mining and processing to produce the little bit of enriched uranium for the generators.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Eating 30 bananas in an hour seems quite likely to be fatal, I had no idea 1015us were that dangerous.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
For those who want an article with things like numbers and cutaway diagrams of the reactor, please see this article, from World Nuclear News.
On a side note, the fallout from the meltdowns is expected to travel the jet stream, naturally from East to West. Finally, something to get rid of all this frickin' snow, right!?
No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
Has anyone in Japan ever considered the consequences radiation can have upon local wildlife, such as lizards? Oh, I guess they have.
Have you seen the terrible videos of looting and raping in Japan, like in New Orleans and Haiti?
Oh, wait...
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
Well, What do you expect when you name nuclear plants with names starting with 'Fuku'
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Vent gas? King Size Homer anyone?
To all of you on Slashdot that keep harping that Nuclear is safe. Here ya go. The Earth rattles a bit and there goes the neighborhood for a few thousand years.
Safe.... You know for you all to be so smart you can be rather stupid.
Saved me some time there.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's a part of his secrete identity. You might call it his "type 0" identity.*
*If you're not picking up on all the intentional typos by now, all I can say is "Whooosh!".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Meh, I think it's purple anyway. That's all I can think of but I'm sure there's something else.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The fans of nuclear power have been giving very interesting accounts of how this incident is just a paper cut. Right before the news keeps getting steadily worse and worse.