*Miss Daisy*
Suck a Big Hairy....
THink chernobyl
Oh gosh...Fingers crossed they sort it out
THink chernobyl
Worst case is a well designed reactor should be a big ugly puddle of liquid metal on the floor of the reactor room and perhaps some venting of radioactive material.what'll happen if it overheats and melts down??
Worst case is a well designed reactor should be a big ugly puddle of liquid metal on the floor of the reactor room and perhaps some venting of radioactive material.
BBC: Gov declares emergency situation with one of the reactors - the cooling system has now failed!
Accoring to posts on another forum, who are relaying what they're hearing on TV/radio, the reactors have been shut down, and there will bo no "Chernobal" type event.
i hope it's true, but I have nothing to back this up.
fuck me, whose idea was it to build a nuclear power plant on the cross section of three tectonic plates?
From the BBC again - good
"Meanwhile, the World Nuclear Association has said it understands the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is "under control", and that water is now being pumped into its cooling system. The Japanese government earlier declared an emergency as a precaution and evacuated people living nearby, after there was a malfunction and the water level began to fall. A WNA analyst said the back-up battery power system was now online."
1708: Nuclear physicist Dr Walt Patterson tells the BBC it sounds like there is a "serious problem" at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant. "It's the sort of thing that nuclear engineers have nightmares about," he says. "If it is not resolved in the next few hours it will get serious. If the core is uncovered, then those rods at the top may get hot enough to melt themselves."
1706: The Tokyo Electric Power Company has said the pressure inside the No. 1 reactor at its Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant has been rising, with the risk of a radiation leak, according to the Jiji Press news agency. Tepco planned to take measures to release the pressure, the report added. The reactor's cooling system began to malfunction after the earthquake. People living close to the plant were later evacuated as a precaution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
Japanese authorities are now warning that the pressure is still rising at the Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant after its cooling system failed, with 3,000 residents being moved out of the area after the government issued a state of emergency.
Japan's nuclear safety agency says pressure inside the reactor has risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal. To reduce the pressure, slightly radioactive vapor may be released – but the agency said the radioactive element in the vapor would not affect the environment or human health.
The agency says staff are trying to restore cooling water supply at the plant but "there is no prospect for an immediate success," according to AP.
The Associated Press reports:
After the quake triggered a power outage, a backup generator also failed and the cooling system was unable to supply water to cool the 460-megawatt No. 1 reactor, though at least one backup cooling system is being used. The reactor core remains hot even after a shutdown.
The agency said plant workers are scrambling to restore cooling water supply at the plant but there is no prospect for immediate success.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation. The plant is in Onahama city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
If the outage in the cooling system persists, eventually radiation could leak out into the environment, and, in the worst case, could cause a reactor meltdown, a nuclear safety agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing sensitivity of the issue.
Another official at the nuclear safety agency, Yuji Kakizaki, said that plant workers were cooling the reactor with a secondary cooling system, which is not as effective as the regular cooling method.
Kakizaki said officials have confirmed that the emergency cooling system — the last-ditch cooling measure to prevent the reactor from the meltdown — is intact and could kick in if needed.
"That's as a last resort, and we have not reached that stage yet," Kakizaki added.
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear reactor's cooling system, triggering evacuation orders for about 3,000 residents as the government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear plant.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal. To reduce the pressure, slightly radioactive vapor may be released. The agency said the radioactive element in the vapor would not affect the environment or human health.
After the quake triggered a power outage, a backup generator also failed and the cooling system was unable to supply water to cool the 460-megawatt No. 1 reactor, though at least one backup cooling system is being used. The reactor core remains hot even after a shutdown.
The agency said plant workers are scrambling to restore cooling water supply at the plant but there is no prospect for immediate success.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation. The plant is in Onahama city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
If the outage in the cooling system persists, eventually radiation could leak out into the environment, and, in the worst case, could cause a reactor meltdown, a nuclear safety agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing sensitivity of the issue. Another official at the nuclear safety agency, Yuji Kakizaki, said that plant workers were cooling the reactor with a secondary cooling system, which is not as effective as the regular cooling method.
Kakizaki said officials have confirmed that the emergency cooling system - the last-ditch cooling measure to prevent the reactor from the meltdown - is intact and could kick in if needed.
"That's as a last resort, and we have not reached that stage yet," Kakizaki added.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said the evacuation, ordered by the local government of Fukushima, affects at least 2,800 people. Edano said residents were told to stay at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant and to stay inside buildings.
He said both the state of emergency and evacuation order are meant to be a precaution.
"We launched the measure so we can be fully prepared for the worst scenario," he said. "We are using all our might to deal with the situation."
Defense Ministry official Ippo Maeyama said the ministry has dispatched dozens of troops trained for chemical disasters to the Fukushima plant in case of a radiation leak, along with four vehicles designed for use in atomic, biological and chemical warfare.
High-pressure pumps can temporarily cool a reactor in this state with battery power, even when electricity is down, according to Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who used to work in the U.S. nuclear industry. Batteries would go dead within hours but could be replaced.
It was not immediately clear how many of the site's six reactors were affected by the cooling problem.
Speaking at the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said U.S. Air Force planes were carrying "some really important coolant" to the site. She said "one of their plants came under a lot of stress with the earthquake and didn't have enough coolant."
Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said staff were trying to collect more information on what was happening.
At the Fukushima Daiichi site, "They are busy trying to get coolant to the core area," Sheehan said. "The big thing is trying to get power to the cooling systems."
Meanwhile, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a statement that closures of the plants in the quake-hit region could result in less power generation.
The plant is just south of the worst-hit Miyagi prefecture, where a fire broke out at another nuclear plant. The blaze was in a turbine building at one of the Onagawa power plants; smoke could be seen coming out of the building, which is separate from the plant's reactor, Tohoku Electric Power Co. said. It has since been extinguished.
Another reactor at Onagawa was experiencing a water leak.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s.
A tsunami warning was issued for a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations.
At the two-reactor Diablo Canyon plant at Avila Beach, Calif., an "unusual event" - the lowest level of alert - was declared in connection with a West Coast tsunami warning. The plant remained stable, though, and kept running, according to the NRC
More unsettling news from the Fukushima No 1 nuclear power reactor in Onahama: the plant's operator Tepco says that radiation "could have already been released" from the damaged reactor, while Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan is saying that residents within 10km of the plant must leave the area.
Previously, the area of three kilometres around the reactor had been evacuated, while those within 10km were told to stay indoors.
Nuclear level are a 1000 times it normal level at the nuclear plant
so it's leaking? Or not?
More details on the planned release of radioactive vapour to reduce pressure on the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure in one of six boiling water reactors had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
"It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small and the wind blowing towards the sea will be considered," Chief Cabinet Yukio Edano told a news conference.
"Residents are safe after those within a 3km radius were evacuated and those within a 10km radius are staying indoors, so we want people to be calm," he added.
More unsettling news from the Fukushima No 1 nuclear power reactor in Onahama: the plant's operator Tepco says that radiation "could have already been released" from the damaged reactor, while Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan is saying that residents within 10km of the plant must leave the area.
The level of radiation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is "1,000 times higher than normal," according to a report by a Japanese safety panel visiting the site.
A six mile of nuclear plant must be evacuated... I could see the current Government fall because of this... the only country ever to be nuked...
The Kyodo news agency is now citing a safety panel as saying that the radiation level inside one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is 1,000 times higher than normal.
It's rising just how I remember in the Chernobyl disaster... it did go up very quickly people working in Chernobyl had one life of trying to fill in a hole that blew the roof off. I suspect the Japs know more than they are letting on...