Massive quake hits off the coast of japan, causing tsunamis accross the pacific

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[Iron Mike]

[Scott Campbell]

With momentum building over the last decade for increased nuclear power development here in the US, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. Lots of lessons to be learned.

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With momentum building over the last decade for increased nuclear power development here in the US, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. Lots of lessons to be learned.

well, this was a really massive earthquake, but i've also been wondering how this will affect the whole nuclear shift. this was a freak event. the massive quake didn't mess it up, it was the massive tsunami the fucked things up, which is something we usually don't have to worry about in most of the US

there's definitely things that can be taken away from this, like if you're going to build a new plant on the shore line in a tsunami prome area, then maybe you should build a big dike around it, or enclose it in a giant waterproof dome

[Little Whiskey]

With momentum building over the last decade for increased nuclear power development here in the US, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. Lots of lessons to be learned.

I was thinking the same thing. it was similar to when there was talk about increased drilling for domestic oil then the BP thing happened. you don't hear the talk anymore.

[Scott Campbell]

I was thinking the same thing. it was similar to when there was talk about increased drilling for domestic oil then the BP thing happened. you don't hear the talk anymore.

I'm oddly encouraged so far. If a 9.0 earthquake, a Tsunami and an explosion all happening close to simultaneously can't cause a catastrophic nuclear event, that bodes pretty well for the safety efforts of nuclear engineering.

[Jimx29]

ummm, thats from animal house

"was it over when the germans bombed pearl harbor? hell no"

good gawd.....i'm completely embarrassed for myself for over-thinking that line

Animal House is in my top 2 movies of all time.....yikes


There's also another collage of asshat posts, although i'm now suspecting that maybe people are creating/p-shopping these posts

[MJZiggy]

People are stupid sometimes. If this were revenge for Pearl Harbor, imagine the revenge for Hiroshima? No revenge for Hitler? Shall we go back further? Revenge for slavery, how 'bout for slaughtering Indians? I think it had more to do with two of the earth's plates getting hung up and then breaking free of each other. Call me crazy...

[wootah]

there's definitely things that can be taken away from this, like if you're going to build a new plant on the shore line in a tsunami prome area, then maybe you should build a big dike around it, or enclose it in a giant waterproof dome

The way I understood it, the problems aren't linked to a tsunami hitting the building, but rather to the tsunami messing up the water supply that was used for cooling. The fact that it's one a shoreline now is more an advantage than a disadvantage, since they can use the seawater for cooling purposes now as an alternative.

[pbmax]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/at-two-reactors-a-race-to-contain-meltdowns/2011/03/13/ABtdVDU_story.html

Reasonable rundown of current nuclear situation. My question: are they flooding the interior containment unit (the one closest to the nuclear fuel, the vessel surrounded by steel) with seawater or are they pumping seawater AROUND that vessel, in an outer containment vessel?

Because steam forming (causing pressure which need to be vented) means water is boiling away, and if the water boiling away is around the fuel rods and that water cannot be replaced, then it would seem a meltdown, even more than the partial meltdown that was reported, is very close to a reality.

[Scott Campbell]

Sounds like the spent fuel rods pool might be the graver risk than the reactor.

[pbmax]

Sounds like the spent fuel rods pool might be the graver risk than the reactor.

Yes, but that seems a theoretical risk right now. And if seawater can be continued to pump into the outside chamber, its sounds like those will be OK. What I would really like to know is if there are only a matter of hours before the water INSIDE the reactor chamber is boiled off.

One report I read said seawater used in the method they were employing would take ten days to bring temperatures down.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Sounds like the risk to the general public is being a bit overblown. Some by people that are opposed to nuclear energy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576198421680697248.html

None of this amounts to "another Chernobyl." The Chernobyl reactor had two crucial design flaws. First, it used graphite (carbon) instead of water to "moderate" the neutrons, which makes possible the nuclear reaction. The graphite caught fire in April 1986 and burned for four days. Water does not catch fire.

Second, Chernobyl had no containment structure. When the graphite caught fire, it spouted a plume of radioactive smoke that spread across the globe. A containment structure would have both smothered the fire and contained the radioactivity.

If a meltdown does occur in Japan, it will be a disaster for the Tokyo Electric Power Company but not for the general public. Whatever steam releases occur will have a negligible impact. Researchers have spent 30 years trying to find health effects from the steam releases at Three Mile Island and have come up with nothing. With all the death, devastation and disease now threatening tens of thousands in Japan, it is trivializing and almost obscene to spend so much time worrying about damage to a nuclear reactor.

What the Japanese earthquake has proved is that even the oldest containment structures can withstand the impact of one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Things could change obviously, but there are safeguards for the Japanese nuclear power plants that weren't there for Chernobyl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14health.html?_r=3&ref=science

Although several plant workers are ill from radioactive exposure in Japan, the radiation risk to the public appears low so far, experts said.

“At least as of now, what we’re looking at is rather more like Three Mile Island than Chernobyl,” said Dr. David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University.

The radiation release from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where the entire reactor blew up and vaporized its radioactive fuel, was about a million times the amount released from the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, he said. The Chernobyl accident led to an epidemic of thyroid cancer and increases in leukemia, he said.

But from Three Mile Island, Dr. Brenner said, “There is no evidence that anybody at all got sick, even decades later.”

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The way I understood it, the problems aren't linked to a tsunami hitting the building, but rather to the tsunami messing up the water supply that was used for cooling. The fact that it's one a shoreline now is more an advantage than a disadvantage, since they can use the seawater for cooling purposes now as an alternative.

i don't think it was the water supply, its the pumping system that recirculates the water and keeps it cool. the pumps run of the regular energy that the plant supplies, they shut that down after the quake. then they went to the backup diesel generators to run the pumps, those were knocked out by the tsunami. they had a 3rd backup, batteries, but those only had a life of 8 hours.

my thinking is that in the future they should put those diesel generators way the hell up in some tower, so they are far away from any flooding risk. if those diesel generators had survived none of this would have happened i think