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Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

lopsidedbunny said:
Minnie if you ever watch one of the many Manga Cartoon in one way or another a reference is mention they are very sensitive about Nuclear power/weapons and that's why they don't have Nuclear weapons in their military arsenal. They still think they done no wrong in the last war and view the U.S. a cruel race to nuked them. I could go on... :)
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I'm quite aware of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 
bi0boy said:
crucial bit missing there
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Chernobyl disaster only one blew then... I still admire the Russian workers having nothing more than a spade to fill it in, in about two minutes and their time was up for someone else to take over. The two minutes includes the running up and down the stairs to fill in the hole in the roof and that's it they ended up very ill and violently sick. Hopefully the "Japanese" :) will be better equipped if the need to be.
 
lopsidedbunny said:
Minnie if you ever watch one of the many Manga Cartoon in one way or another a reference is mention they are very sensitive about Nuclear power/weapons and that's why they don't have Nuclear weapons in their military arsenal. They still think they done no wrong in the last war and view the U.S. a cruel race to nuked them. I could go on... :)
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Whatever they did wrong themselves they're not wrong in saying nuking two cities was cruel.

I wouldn't have a very high opinion of anyone who nuked me, frankly.
 
Guardian:
An AP news alert:

Japan says radiation levels surged outside nuclear plant, expands area subject to evacuation.
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Sky reporting Japanese Government reporting "possiblity of a leak"

If they don't know if there is a leak, they really do have a serious problem....
 
It sounds like they have had problems with cooling of at least 2 other reactors at that plant, and problems at another plant in that region too. But as far as I know its reactor number 1 thats causing the most woe. This isnt a sudden thing either, this detail has been lurking for some hours on the net at least, forget where I read it, probably at the following site, although the article may have been updated since I last read it:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Massive_earthquake_hits_Japan_1103111.html
 
Oh dear...It would appear that a large dose news management has been going on for some time here until they could (perhaps understandably?) get their ducks in order...

The damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor has already been leaking radiation outside the plant, confirms Japan's nuclear safety agency.

Compared with the government briefing last night that everything was fine, that's a turn around.

According to AP, the continued loss of electricity has delayed the planned release of radioactive vapor from inside the reactor to ease pressure. Pressure inside one of the reactors had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
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elbows said:
It sounds like they have had problems with cooling of at least 2 other reactors at that plant, and problems at another plant in that region too. But as far as I know its reactor number 1 thats causing the most woe. This isnt a sudden thing either, this detail has been lurking for some hours on the net at least, forget where I read it, probably at the following site, although the article may have been updated since I last read it:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Massive_earthquake_hits_Japan_1103111.html
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Yes Kyodo news reporting that 2nd plant is losing cooling function.
 
From Guardian CiF, not verifiable but interesting if true.

1000 times normal is maybe not as bad as it sounds.

The dose from "normal" background is 2.4mSv (milisieverts) per year.

You don't see acute effects until around 2000mSv (2 Sieverts).

So you would need "1000 times normal" levels for almost a year to reach an acute dose.

On the other hand, the dose limit for public exposure is only 1mSv from artifical sources per year, so if you stayed in the "1000 times normal" area for about 3-4 hours you would exceed the limit. 1mSv presents a cancer risk of about 0.005%.
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Barking_Mad said:
From Guardian CiF, not verifiable but interesting if true.
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1000 times normal is maybe not as bad as it sounds.

The dose from "normal" background is 2.4mSv (milisieverts) per year.

You don't see acute effects until around 2000mSv (2 Sieverts).

So you would need "1000 times normal" levels for almost a year to reach an acute dose.

On the other hand, the dose limit for public exposure is only 1mSv from artifical sources per year, so if you stayed in the "1000 times normal" area for about 3-4 hours you would exceed the limit. 1mSv presents a cancer risk of about 0.005%.

----

Dam Media... :)
 
Dunno....an expert on Sky just saying he doesn't think from the info he has heard that there is any due cause for concern. Althoigh i got the impression he was talking about a leak inside the plant and not outside it...wasn't entirely clear though.
 
2nd nuclear plant has cooling system malfunction... not good. The rods could get bent and unable to shut off the nuclear fusion...

“10.45pm GMT: Now there are reports from nuclear plant operator Tepco that the Fukushima No 2 plant has lost cooling to three of its reactors.
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I suspect that while the plant it's self might be fairly earthquake proof, and thus not directly leak as a result of a quake, the problems come from the fact that the plant is on the coast, and the following tidal wave has taken out much of the supporting and backup kit - generators etc.
See here

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&s...2185,141.034069&spn=0.01273,0.027874&t=h&z=16

And that it might have been 'bad' for a while, just they've not said much all day.


As someone else has pointed out the media jumping on the "x1000" bandwagon is meaningless really.
 
11pm GMT: The Kyodo news agency is reporting that the Japanese government is ordering Tepco to open valves on the Fukushima No 1 reactor to release pressure.

10.45pm GMT: Now there are reports from nuclear plant operator Tepco that the Fukushima No 2 plant has lost cooling to three of its reactors.

It was one reactor in the Fukushima No 1 plant that had been the cause for concern earlier – so this news is certainly unwelcome.

10.34pm GMT: The damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor has already been leaking radiation outside the plant, confirms Japan's nuclear safety agency and the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power company.

Compared with the government briefing last night that everything was fine, that's a turn around.

According to AP, the continued loss of electricity has delayed the planned release of radioactive vapor from inside the reactor to ease pressure. Pressure inside one of the reactors had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
 
Some dude (Fed of US Scientists) on BBC saying that they are some way from serious radiation leakage but there were some warning signs and its a worry it has been reported for so long and no progress appears to have been made.
 
11.10pm GMT: The Fukushima Daini plant has now been added to the government's emergency list.

Earlier, Tepco – the Tokyo Power company – had reported:

A seriously injured worker is still trapped in the crane operating console of the exhaust stack and his breathing and pulse cannot be confirmed.
 
8.50pm GMT: Experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists are raising safety concerns about the shutdown of the damaged nuclear plant, writes the Guardian's US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg:

UCS notes that the company has evacuated surrounding areas in a 3 km radius from the plant while they try to restore downed coolant system.

The campaign group quotes Tepco as saying the shutdowns were caused by the loss of two off-site power systems.

The shutdown triggered emergency diesel power supply. But that system failed when the tsunami hit about an hou later. According to UCS:

"This power failure resulted in one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant – a "station blackout" – during which off-site power and on-site emergency alternating current (AC) power is lost. Nuclear plants generally need AC power to operate the motors, valves and instruments that control the systems that provide cooling water to the radioactive core. If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited."

The plant reactors have a steam driven cooling system which does not need electricity - but it does need batteries.

If those run down before mains power is restored the water level in the reactor will drop.

The UCS warns:

"If it drops far enough, the core would overheat and the fuel would become damaged. Ultimately, a 'meltdown' could occur: The core could become so hot that it forms a molten mass that melts through the steel reactor vessel. This would release a large amount of radioactivity from the vessel into the containment building that surrounds the vessel.

"The containment building's main purpose is to keep radioactivity from being released into the environment. A meltdown would build up pressure in the containment building. At this point we do not know if the earthquake damaged the containment building enough to undermine its ability to contain the pressure and allow radioactivity to leak out.

"According to technical documents translated by Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action in Japan, if the coolant level dropped to the top of the active fuel rods in the core, damage to the core would begin about 40 minutes later, and damage to the reactor vessel would occur 90 minutes after that."
 
Nuclear accident news does generally tend to lag, for a couple of reasons including the old 'dont panic' stuff.
 
11.29pm GMT: This is more chilling news from Kyodo:

The cooling system failed at three reactors of the quake-hit Fukushima No. 2 [Daini] nuclear power plant Saturday, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The company, which has already scrambled to deal with radiation leaks at its Fukushima [Daiichi] No. 1 plant, notified the industry ministry that the failsafe system at the No. 2 plant stopped functioning as the temperature of coolant water has topped 100 C.
 
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