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Japan's turn

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What we can say with certainty (based on the videos etc) is that the outer structure, that is the building the reactor is in, has been effectively destroyed.

What we don't know is exactly what has happened inside. It could simply be a steam explosion that has destroyed the building. Or it could be an actual nuclear release. Or both. Either way though, things certainly aren't good in any situation where you end up unintentionally blowing up a building regardless of how it actually happened.

One certainty is that the reactor can be considered destroyed in terms of normal operation - I very much doubt it will ever be repaired and put back into service and it's certainly not going to be up and running anytime soon.

Whatever happens now, this is already a significant incident. The reactor is effectively destroyed as a working power plant, people were almost certainly killed in the explosion, and at least some radiation is known to have been released. An actual melt down would make things far worse, but it is already a bad situation as it stands now.

All that said, to keep things in perspective if there is no major nuclear material release then it ends up being nothing more than a power plant destroyed following an earthquake. If that is the end result then it is no worse than a boiler explosion at a coal power plant. Not good, but not a catastrophy. Let's hope that is the end result, though to be honest I'm not overly confident.

If there has been a steam explosion and the outer structure is blown to pieces then that in itself isn't going to help with cooling the reactor on an ongoing basis. Even if an explosion like that happened somewhere else, for example at a department store, office building or a workshop, once you've destroyed the structure etc it becomes rather difficult to maintain any sort of order inside when everything is surronded by rubble. If they were having trouble cooling the reactor previously, then having had that explosion is not likely to help the situation that's for sure.
 

It certainly does not look good.

gg
 
the nuclear disaster is only in its infancy, there are many combined reactors all at various stages of extreme.. with no site power still for fukushima daiichi, the first 3 units are at critical levels, with one already experiencing an explosion. the death toll and injuries, physical and radiation from the explosions are increasing





Fukushima Daiichi

Unit 1
- 439 MWe BWR, 1971
- Automatically shut down
- Water level decreasing
- Pressure release implemented
- Explosion observed

- Containment believed intact
- Seawater injection has started
- Radiation levels unchanged after
explosionUnit 2
- 760 MWe BWR, 1974
- Automatically shut down
- Water level lower but steady
- Preparations for pressure release
Unit 3
- 760 MWe BWR, 1976
- Automatically shut down
- Preparations for pressure release
Unit 4
- 760 MWe BWR, 1978
- Shut for periodic inspection

Unit 5
- 760 MWe BWR, 1978
- Shut for periodic inspection
Unit 6
- 1067 MWe BWR, 1979
- Shut for periodic inspection

Fukushima Daini
Unit 1
- 1067 MWe BWR, 1982
- Automatically shut down
- Offsite power available
- Water level stable
- Preparations for pressure release
Unit 2
- 1067 MWe BWR, 1984
- Automatically shut down
- Offsite power available
- Water level stable
- Preparations for pressure release
Unit 3
- 1067 MWe BWR, 1985
- Automatically shut down
- Offsite power available
- Water level stable
- Preparations for pressure release
Unit 4
- 1067 MWe BWR, 1987
- Automatically shut down
- Offsite power available
- Water level stable
- Preparations for pressure release
From World Nuclear News.
Attention is focused on the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants as Japan struggles to cope in the aftermath of its worst earthquake in recorded history. An explosion has been seen at the site and seawater is now being injected to the plant.
Three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors were in operation when yesterday's quake hit, at which point they shut down automatically and commenced removal of residual heat with the help of emergency diesel generators. These suddenly stopped about an hour later, and this has been put down to tsunami flooding by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The loss of the diesels led the plant owners Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to immediately notify the government of a technical emergency situation, which allows officials to take additional precautionary measures.

For many hours the primary focus of work at the site was to connect enough portable power modules to fully replace the diesels and enable the full operation of cooling systems.

Pressure and releases

Without enough power for cooling systems, decay heat from the reactor cores of units 1, 2 and 3 has gradually reduced coolant water levels through evaporation. The consequent increase in pressure in the coolant circuit can be managed via pressure release valves. However, this leads to an increase in pressure within the reactor building containment. Tepco has said that the pressure within the containment of Fukushima Daiichi 1 has reached around 840 kPa, compared to reference levels of 400 kPa.

The company has decided to manage this "for those units that cannot confirm certain levels of water injection" by means of a controlled release of air and water vapour to the atmosphere. Because this water has been through the reactor core, this would inevitably mean a certain release of radiation. The IAEA said this would be filtered to retain radiation within the containment. Tepco has confirmed it was in the process of relieving pressure at unit 1 while preparing to do the same for units 2 and 3

Explosion

Television cameras trained on the plant captured a dramatic explosion surrounding unit 1 at around 6pm. Amid a visible pressure release and a cloud of dust it was not possible to know the extent of the damage. The external building structure does not act as the containment, which is an airtight engineered boundary within. Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano appeared on television to clarify that the explosion had damaged the walls and roof of the reactor building but had not compromised the containment.

Monitoring of Fukushima Daiichi 1 had previously shown an increase in radiation levels detected emerging from the plant via routes such as the exhaust stack and the discharge canal. Tepco have said that the amount of radioactive material such as iodine it is detecting have been increasing. The amount of radiation at the site boundary now exceeds a regulatory limit triggering another set of emergency precautions.

To protect the public from potential health effects of radioactive isotopes of iodine that could potentially be released, authorities are preparing to distribute tablets of non-radioactive potassium-iodide. This is quickly taken up by the body and its presence prevents the take-up of iodine should people be exposed to it.

The injection of seawater into the building started at 8.20pm and this will be followed by addition of boric acid, which is used to inhibit nuclear reactions.

Over the last several hours evacuation orders for local residents have been incrementally increased and now cover people living within 20 kilometres of the power plant.

Raised temperatures

Meanwhile at adjacent Fukushima Daini, where four reactors have been shut down safely since the earthquake hit, Tepco has notified government of another emergency status.

Unit 1's reactor core isolation cooling system had been operating normally, and this was later supplemented by
a separate make-up water condensate system. However, the latter was lost at 5.32am local time when its suppression chamber reached 100 ºC. This led Tepco to notify government of another technical emergency situation.

Tepco has announced it has decided to prepare for controlled releases to ease pressure in the containments of all four units at Fukushima Daini.

A three kilometre evacuation is in progress, with residents in a zone out to ten kilometres given notice of potential expansion.

Workers

A seriously injured worker was trapped within Fukushima Daiichi unit 1 in the crane operating console of the exhaust stack and is now confirmed to have died. Four workers were injured by the explosion at the same reactor and have been taken to hospital. A contractor was found unconscious and taken to hospital.

Two workers of a 'cooperative firm' were injured, said Tepco; one with a broken bone.

At Fukushima Daiini unit 3 one worker received a radiation dose of 106 mSv. This is comparable to levels deemed acceptable in emergency situations by some national nuclear safety regulators.
The whereabout of two Tepco workers remains unknown.
 
TEPCO generates 62% of its electricity from sources other than nuclear power. For Japan as a whole that figure is 70%.

Nowhere have I seen reports of any serious concern about Japanese coal, oil, gas or hydro power plants following the earthquake. But right here on ASF and in countless other places, the situation at a nuclear power station has become the main focus of concern following the earthquake. Millions homeless, vast areas destroyed and yet the main focus is on a power station.

That this situation should arise tells me all I need to know about the virtues of nuclear power. At best, it's a massive liability when something goes wrong. As I said, nobody's in a panic about thermal or hydro plants, indeed the hydro plants in particular are continuing to function as is quite a bit of the thermal (coal, oil, gas) generation whilst nuclear output has come to a standstill.

I accept that some countries such as Japan may well need to use nuclear power, but there is an undeniable downside to these plants no matter how well they are built. The earthquake could have been stronger, and it could have been right under the power plant...
 
(CNN) -- The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.


"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html?hpt=T1
 
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said March 12 that the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core, Japanese daily Nikkei reported. This statement seemed somewhat at odds with Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano’s comments earlier March 12, in which he said “the walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode.”
NISA’s statement is significant because it is the government agency that reports to the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy within the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. NISA works in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Commission. Its role is to provide oversight to the industry and is responsible for signing off construction of new plants, among other things. It has been criticized for approving nuclear plants on geological fault lines and for an alleged conflict of interest in regulating the nuclear sector. It was NISA that issued the order for the opening of the valve to release pressure ”” and thus allegedly some radiation ”” from the Fukushima power plant.
NISA has also overseen the entire government response to the nuclear reactor problems following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. It is difficult to determine at this point whether the NISA statement is accurate, as the Nikkei report has not been corroborated by others. It is also not clear from the context whether NISA is stating the conclusions of an official assessment or simply making a statement. However, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, also said that although it had relieved pressure, nevertheless some nuclear fuel had melted and further action was necessary to contain the pressure.
If this report is accurate, it would not be the first time statements by NISA and Edano have diverged. When Edano earlier claimed that radiation levels had fallen at the site after the depressurization efforts, NISA claimed they had risen due to the release of radioactive vapors.
 
just be aware that the number 3 reactor, has mox in it

its nasty stuff, real real nasty..

mox contains this:

Mixed oxide, or MOX fuel, is nuclear fuel containing more than one oxide of fissile or fertile materials. Specifically, it usually refers to a blend of oxides of plutonium and natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium which behaves similarly (though not identically) to the low-enriched uranium oxide fuel for which most nuclear reactors were designed. MOX fuel is an alternative to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel used in the light water reactors that predominate nuclear power generation.
One attraction of MOX fuel is that it is a way of disposing of surplus weapons-grade plutonium, which otherwise would have to be disposed as nuclear waste, and would remain a nuclear proliferation risk.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#cite_note-0 However, there have been fears that normalising the global commercial use of MOX fuel and the associated expansion of reprocessing will itself lead to greater proliferation risk.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#cite_note-2




in light of that. should the reactor do what is feared, the situation for northern japan in its entirely is dire.. as well as many countries near by..

imho your have to consider that the bigger players on this planet are thinking, in terms of bigger picture and a possibility of evacuations not seen in history before..

reading between the lines, the denial of meltdowns, and the reluctance to be accurate in terms of radiation levels.. its entirely possible that what may happen next is maybe more on the side of probable than just an outside possibility.. there is no reason logic to keeping the populace in the dark imho..

just putting a 20k evacuation zone on a mox meltdown may be far too small a zone

if it was me, and i had a place to go.. a good 500 hundred clicks anywhere south would be plan A... and there is no other plan than plan A..
 

Thankyou for the informative post Agentm

This is a scary situation. I hope this catastrophe will not get progressively worse.
If it does it could have far reaching consequences for the world.

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/dieda/socio/chernobyl.htm

Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster on Sámi Life

By Melanie Blackwell
December 2, 2003

The night of April 26, 1986 scarred the way of life for the Sámi living in Sweden and Norway. The event would alter life especially for the Sámi reindeer herder, both economically and culturally. When one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine exploded, its effects were felt in countries thousands of kilometers away. For the Sámi of Scandinavia, the result was contaminated food supplies, cultural and economic losses and health risks, striking a blow at an already embattled society.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor was built to produce nuclear power. In 1986, an experiment was conducted to test the reactor’s functionality in a power outage, to see whether it could produce electricity from residual energy after shutting off the steam supply. With the steam supply stifled, the operators proceeded manually with the system at low power, assuming incorrectly that it would remain at low power and would not come to a halt. They closed the emergency regulation valve and began the experiment. What the operators did not realize was that the steam pressure rose gradually and the cooling water nearly came to a boil, all the while increasing the power. The power increased from a doubling time under one second, working its way up to a one-millisecond doubling time (www.bellona.no). A belated attempt was made to activate the emergency regulation system, but the water exploded into steam. The experiment resulted in an explosion of the reactor and a radioactive fire that burned uncontrollably for days until extinguished by some 5 million kilograms of stone and lead, dropped by helicopter. Radioactive elements were carried 1000 meters up into the atmosphere and spread over Western Europe and Russia.

Chernobyl Nuclear Plant

Fallout from the Chernobyl explosion included radioactive cesium, strontium, plutonium and iodine. Of particular consequence to the Sámi was the large amount of the cesium 137 isotope released, which has a half-life of 30 years, meaning it loses half its radioactivity through decay every 30 years. Cesium 137 was carried by wind and spring rain patterns in high concentrations to central Sweden and Norway while the north received lower levels, and Finland and areas of southern and western Scandinavia were spared. Within days, Swedish and Norwegian scientists measured dangerous levels of cesium in the atmosphere.

Cesium 137 intruded into Sámi life foremost by contaminating their food supplies.
 
The scaremongering greenies are having a ball. Any country which has our unlimited supplies of cheap fossil fuels does not have to resort to nuclear power. It is very easy for us sitting on a coal mine and free of earthquakes, to sit in judgment of nuclear policies of countries like Japan. Japan needs our help, not denigration.

Japan of all countries knows the dangers of uncontrolled nuclear fission. They built nuclear power stations after careful consideration.

And of course Brown thinks we have to share the blame because we export uranium to Japan.
 
Calliope said:
And of course Brown thinks we have to share the blame because we export uranium to Japan.
Click to expand...
Brown reminds me of a University drop-out. His wandering, vacuous eyes give it away.
 
Calliope said:
And of course Brown thinks we have to share the blame because we export uranium to Japan.
Click to expand...

Brown didn't say that; it was someone from the ACF. Bit of truth please.

It doesn't really relate to building a nucleur power station in Australia as we are very geologically safe.
 
Totally agreed.

I would regard myself as strongly anti-nuclear in the context of places like Tasmania or New Zealand because they simply don't need it. Nobody in their right mind would choose a reactor over hydro, wind, geothermal etc. At the very least, a nuclear power plant comes with all sorts of security and other risks that these places just aren't equipped to deal with.

I am moderately against it for mainland Australia unless (1) CO2 is proven to be a problem and (2) both hot dry rocks and underground coal gasification are proven to be duds. Given the present state of research into the latter, it seems to be a goer thus removing any need for nuclear power in Australia even if CO2 turns out to be a major problem.

But for the likes of Japan, they don't exactly have a lot of options...
 
Knobby22 said:
It doesn't really relate to building a nucleur power station in Australia as we are very geologically safe.
Click to expand...
Earthquakes are, of course, not the only means by which a nuclear accident can occur.
 
So there will be a widespread panic and scaremongering about nuclear power.
Given the considerable use of nuclear in Europe, e.g. France is about 70% dependent on nuclear power, are they all going to shut down these plants?

The Greens must be thanking whomever their gods are for this amazing opportunity to rubbish anything nuclear.
 

Here's a great link to google books

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Sami radiation&f=false


Children and the politics of culture
By Sharon Stephens

Here's an excerpt chapter 11
The Cultural Fallout of Chernobyl Radiation in Norwegian Sami Religions:
Implications for Children
 
10% chance of radiation hitting Taiwan: AEC

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2011/03/13/294458/10-chance.htm

The chances of radioactive fallout from two Japanese nuclear power plants crippled by Friday's massive earthquake are not high, the Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council said yesterday in a statement.

If two plants in Japan's Fukushima prefecture release large amounts of radiation, the probability of it reaching Taiwan is only 10 percent, the council predicted.
 
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