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Further Updates On Post-Tsumami Japan
DarkStarZumaBeach points out a frequently updated page from the International Atomic Energy Agency with updates on the situation at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, which reports in terse but readable form details of the dangers and progress there. The most recent update says that the plant's Unit 2 has been re-wired for power, and engineers 'plan to reconnect power to unit 2 once the spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building is completed.' Read on for more on the tsunami aftermath.
Reader srwellman writes "A large plume of radioactive smoke is heading from Japan to the West Coast of the US. Officials claim the plume is not dangerous."
dooms13 suggests (by way of The Register) that the disaster in Fukushima is nonetheless a demonstrated triumph for nuclear safety: "If nuclear powerplants were merely as safe as they are advertised to be, there should have been a major failure right then. As the hot cores ceased to be cooled by the water which is used to extract power from them, control rods would have remained withdrawn and a runaway chain reaction could have ensued – probably resulting in the worst thing that can happen to a properly designed nuclear reactor: a core meltdown in which the superhot fuel rods actually melt and slag down the whole core into a blob of molten metal. In this case the only thing to do is seal up the containment and wait: no radiation disaster will take place, but the reactor is a total writeoff and cooling the core off will be difficult and take a long time. Eventual cleanup will be protracted and expensive."
Something to contemplate while the rescue effort continues: imscarr writes "The coastline of Japan has drastically changed since the earthquake & tsunami. New bays have formed and many areas are completely flooded. These interactive before-and-after images show you the magnitude of devastation. Other photos here."
Adds reader madcarrots: "The Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB), a unit of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), directed by Professor Michel Andre, has recorded the sound of the earthquake that shook Japan on Friday, March 11. The recording, now available online, was provided by a network of underwater observatories belonging to the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and located on either side of the earthquake epicenter, close to the Japanese island of Hatsushima."
dooms13 suggests (by way of The Register) that the disaster in Fukushima is nonetheless a demonstrated triumph for nuclear safety: "If nuclear powerplants were merely as safe as they are advertised to be, there should have been a major failure right then. As the hot cores ceased to be cooled by the water which is used to extract power from them, control rods would have remained withdrawn and a runaway chain reaction could have ensued – probably resulting in the worst thing that can happen to a properly designed nuclear reactor: a core meltdown in which the superhot fuel rods actually melt and slag down the whole core into a blob of molten metal. In this case the only thing to do is seal up the containment and wait: no radiation disaster will take place, but the reactor is a total writeoff and cooling the core off will be difficult and take a long time. Eventual cleanup will be protracted and expensive."
Something to contemplate while the rescue effort continues: imscarr writes "The coastline of Japan has drastically changed since the earthquake & tsunami. New bays have formed and many areas are completely flooded. These interactive before-and-after images show you the magnitude of devastation. Other photos here."
Adds reader madcarrots: "The Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB), a unit of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), directed by Professor Michel Andre, has recorded the sound of the earthquake that shook Japan on Friday, March 11. The recording, now available online, was provided by a network of underwater observatories belonging to the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and located on either side of the earthquake epicenter, close to the Japanese island of Hatsushima."
Reader srwellman writes "A large plume of radioactive smoke is heading from Japan to the West Coast of the US. Officials claim the plume is not dangerous."
The linked source does NOT validate that assertion whatsoever. The 'plume' is a forecast of the way a plume would take shape across the pacific, if it were to exist. No-one is saying that there is a radioactive smoke plume of any magnitude, including undetectable. It is a weather forecast, meant for internal consumption by various national nuclear agencies for contingency planning and leaked to the NYT, nothing more.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
They've learned that fear can be converted directly into money, by way of voters. Who do you think is going to be selling you that coal?
cogito ergo dubito
I know enough not to build a nuclear plant on a tsunami prone coast that can't be protected by walls.
If only you were there 40 years ago when this reactor was installed to warn them of the dangers... maybe you could have told them to use a more modern design that doesn't require active cooling to remain safe. Maybe you already have a map showing them exactly where to site the reactors? Or do you have a viable alternative to nuclear in your back pocket?
Lots of people can use hindsight to show exactly what went wrong in *this* particular incident, but who can tell where the next natural disaster will strike and how it will manifest itself? Did you already tell California to shut down its two coastal nukes? And it's not like nukes are the only power generating hazard out there - TVA was lucky that the billions of gallons of fly ash discharge didn't kill anyone.
USA officials seem to have a lot of criticism for the Japanese and how they handled this incident, but truth be told, this reactor survived a quake 30 times larger than it was designed for and so far hasn't spun out of control into a large scale disaster. If they hadn't lost power it's likely that this would have been a very minor incident. If the USA wants to criticize, then they need look no further than their own backyard. In California their 2 coastal nuclear plants are designed for a 7.0 or 7.5 earthquake but there's a very good chance that California will have a larger quake in the next 30 years. Oh, and at one of them, they installed the seismic reinforcements backwards and at the other, the entire reactor was installed backwards. Oops.
Your entire spiel on Banqiao is an elaborate straw man. China has been subject to catastrophic floods for millennia. It has a lot to do with geography, but basically China is flat as a pancake and its major rivers have enormous watersheds. The dam is only part of the problem.
Meanwhile. devastating as the floods were, the waters receeded(Floods do not make regions uninhabitable). The dam was rebuilt and people's homes can also be rebuilt. Chernobyl on the other hand is a write off for up to 100 years. The Fukushima plant disaster now risks making a 30km radius semicircle of land uninhabitable for decades in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Only nuclear power can inflict that kind of long term, irrecoverable damage in the event of an accident; Can and has, on more than one occasion.
Would you build one of these plants within 30km of a major city like Tokyo, London or New York? Will you take the risk that the plant will operate smoothly and without incident for 100 years? Will you take the risk with 100-200 such plants near major cities worldwide? Are you prepared to write off one major metropolitan area every thirty years or so?
I'm not.
Nuclear energy lost its gloss for me after this incident. Nuclear engineers and particularly private companies cannot be relied upon to keep hot rods cool in an emergency. When the chips are down, they are too likely to fail, and the potential long term damage is simply too much to risk.
May the Maths Be with you!