Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

[laptop]

1315 - With more countries reconsidering their nuclear plans, investors are thinking twice about nuclear stocks. In Europe, shares in nuclear power producer EdF eased 3.7 per cent, while French reactor maker Areva saw its shares fall 7.9 per cent. Japan accounted for 7 per cent of Areva’s revenue last year, a spokewoman told news agencies.

http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/

 

[ska invita]

but you're right,the news has lost interest, so, so did the rest of the world. Same thing will happen here, within a week or 2, this will not be in the news anymore. And we'll all but forget about it. Sad, but true.

if that core melts down and the whole of japan (and beyond) becomes radioactive I think it would be a 'story' that will last for years. If ever there was a time to pray its now...
-

by the way, talking of financial markets etc. i read in city am today that bankers are selling up assets to buy up all the yen they can, so that when insurers come to having to pay people back (billions) the bankscum will cash in on the demand for yen. string the fuckers up

 

[girasol]

Read the comments section on this - hard to know who to believe isn't it? Is the Japanese gvnmt covering up the seriousness of the situation, or is the media being hysterical?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...nuclear-alert-live-coverage#start-of-comments

user mjhollamby, Chemistry PhD, making some interesting points:

If you look at the radiaition levels outside the plant, there's no way the reactor could've burst.
Its still not good though.
Maybe the following could explain why its not like Chernobyl:

1. We are not in a soviet communist state, i.e. there is not a major cover-up going on. In Chernobyl the government did not tell anyone there had been an accident. The rest of Europe only knew about the accident when scientists detected a radiation cloud moving over them!

2. The japanese reactors are very modern - there is no graphite in the system. The reason that chernobyl was so bad was because there was so much combustible graphite that caught light and caused a fire.

3. The japanese reactors were shut down immediately during the quake, i.e. they're still hot but they're very very much less active than when they are running normally. Chernobyl was on full power when the accident occurred

4. The explosion that happened was just due to a hydrogen build up and only damaged the outer building. The central core where the nuclear fuel is kept is still sealed. In Chernobyl, they did not have this multi-level containment system.

5. The levels of radiation being measured at the fukushima plant are still not much higher than a normal person would expect to receive in a year just by walking about the streets. The reason that the news service are reporting levels in the control room of 1000* higher is that the nuclear industry is rigorous and have very low limit for their normal plant levels. These sites normally keep ambient radiation much lower than you would get out on the street as a safety precaution for the staff.

and

"However the situation with the nuclear reactors appears to be going from bad to worse."

No, the situation with the actual disaster that has happened in Japan (you may have heard of it, it's called the "tsunami") is going from bad to worse, with thousands upon thousands of bodies now washing up along the coast, hundreds of thousands of people in homeless misery, and entire towns filled with dead people who will be revealed once the water finally drains away. And all anyone here can talk about is the nuclear catastrophe that hasn't actually happened.

Meanwhile, the press indulges itself in lurid headlines (like the one in the NZ Herald yesterday - JAPAN ON THE BRINK OF A NUCLEAR MELTDOWN) and, far, far down in the body text, buries the information that nothing particularly alarming has, in fact, happened. Ciffers indulge themselves in lurid fantasies about "radioactive plumes" and ships sailing through "mysterious clouds" (Jesus wept!). The Japanese have suffered a terrible disaster, and all anyone can talk about is this nuclear reactor bullshit.

It's true that the people now sitting in the rubble of their former homes and contemplating the fate of their vanished relatives are never going to read these vapid threads about the non-existent nuclear apocalypse that, bewilderingly, has overshadowed the real catastrophe. But I still can't help feeling that they deserve better.

 

[krtek a houby]

if that core melts down and the whole of japan (and beyond) becomes radioactive I think it would be a 'story' that will last for years. If ever there was a time to pray its now...
-

by the way, talking of financial markets etc. i read in city am today that bankers are selling up assets to buy up all the yen they can, so that when insurers come to having to pay people back (billions) the bankscum will cash in on the demand for yen. string the fuckers up

 

[scooter]

According to the BBC, fears of a radiation leak in Japan have sparked a run on iodine tablets in Finland. Huh?

 

[elbows]

According to the BBC, fears of a radiation leak in Japan have sparked a run on iodine tablets in Finland. Huh?

Finland was badly affected by Chernobyl so there will be bad memories of that, which cause excessive responses to new nuclear disasters even if they are in a completely different part of the world.

 

[scooter]

We were badly hit by Chernobyl too. Didn't make us stupid though

 

[bi0boy]

Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant's builders, Toshiba, knew this. He say that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, plutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.

 

[elbows]

News about 15 minutes ago suggests that the fuel rods at reactor 2 have been fully exposed again.

 

[elbows]

Also sounds like they are consiering removing part of the wall at number 2 to try to stop hydrogen explosion as happened at 1 and 3.

From reports such as the one below, it sounds like they only managed to get the fuel rods at 2 covered up a little bit after the initial complete exposure. And although the latest news lacks detail, and are too recent to be in this report, it sounds like even this partial covering could not be sustained.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/77870.html

This article also makes it sound a bit like the cooling at 1 and 3 may still not be all that sturdy. And that the explosion at 3 may have caused the extreme problems with 2.

 

[holteman]

Sky have said that officials no state there seems to be eveidence of melting fuel rods in all 3 reactors

 

[Barking_Mad]

From the BBC

The latest hydrogen blast injured 11 people, one of them seriously. It was felt 40km (25 miles) away and sent a huge column of smoke into the air.

Im no expert, but that is by all standards a massive explosion - can the casing really survive such a blast? The bloke who designed it thinks not....

 

[elbows]

@arclight, who was touted by the Guardian as some great source of info, and was interviewed by the likes of CNN, but who didnt really tell me much I couldnt already find elsewhere on the web, is now ceasing twitter communications on this subject. It was bizarre seeing them try to tweet about how open the industry is whilst at the same time expressing concern about their own job prospects as a result of speaking about current events, and it seems that after meeting management their job is safe but 'communication will be handled by professionals from now on'.

 

[elbows]

From the BBC



Im no expert, but that must be a massive explosion - can the caing really survive such a blast? The bloke who designed it thinks not....

As I understand it the key is whether the blast happened inside or outside the casing. Officials have stated that these explosions occurred outside, which if true gives the containment stuff a fair chance of surviving. But Im far from convinced we are being given the full story at this stage.

Another question is what else was damaged by the blast, its not exactly helping their quest to keep all these reactors cool. And there are the spent fuel pools to consider.

 

[elbows]

Sky have said that officials no state there seems to be eveidence of melting fuel rods in all 3 reactors

Well they had previously admitted to some damage to fuel rods in 1 and 3, and the news about 2's rods being completely exposed makes it exceedingly likely that there has been damage to those too. The big question is how much melting has taken place, and whether the containment systems of all these reactors are in as good a shape as has been claimed.

 

[Barking_Mad]

BBC running some new footage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

 

[Barking_Mad]

WTF? My italics and bold.

Japanese broadcaster NHK is saying that pressure inside reactor 2 at Fukushima rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was "accidentally" turned off. That blocked the flow of water into the reactor leading to full exposure of the rods, it says. That report has not been confirmed.

 

[bi0boy]

WTF? My italics and bold.

Probably a translation error. "accidentally" could mean "because of an accident" rather than "someone pressing the wrong button"

 

[peterkro]

The New York Times has a different explanation of why the mobile generators couldn't be used

Yes I caught that the explanation in the other article just didn't make sense.

 

[g force]

Probably a translation error. "accidentally" could mean "because of an accident" rather than "someone pressing the wrong button"

More likely this

 

[peterkro]

@arclight, who was touted by the Guardian as some great source of info, and was interviewed by the likes of CNN, but who didnt really tell me much I couldnt already find elsewhere on the web, is now ceasing twitter communications on this subject. It was bizarre seeing them try to tweet about how open the industry is whilst at the same time expressing concern about their own job prospects as a result of speaking about current events, and it seems that after meeting management their job is safe but 'communication will be handled by professionals from now on'.

Nuclear industry trying to close ranks and leave it to the PR knobs.I'm surprised they are letting the retired designer Goto have a say.

 

[Barking_Mad]

...

The Associated Press is quoting a Japanese government official as saying the possibility of damage to one of the nuclear containment vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi plant cannot be ruled out:

"It's impossible to say whether there has or has not been damage" to the vessels, nuclear agency official Naoki Kumagai said.

meanwhile BBC report

Yukiya Amano, head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, says Fukushima's reactor vessels "have held and radioactive release is limited" despite the effects of the earthquake and tsunami.

 

[elbows]

This story put the recent quotes from officials regarding the nuclear stuff into context, and highlights the various questions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...e-nuclear-plant/2011/03/14/ABaosCV_story.html

There has been a headline floating around that radiation levels reached twice the level of the previous high, but I've seen no more detail about this yet.

 

[laptop]

FWIW, I've just been pointed to the official regulatory agency releases: http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/

You practically have to learn Japanese to read through their ultra-cautious English

 

[Giles]

Sadly the full death toll from this will not become even approximately apparent for days yet.

I remember the 2004 tsunami, where for the first few days they were talking about a few thousand casualties, then the real figures began to emerge a week or so later.

Still, Japan is a pretty organised country, and people there seem to "pull together" and co-operate to sort things out. I'll bet you won't get problems with looting and violence there.

Giles..

 

[Corax]

Sky have said that officials no state there seems to be eveidence of melting fuel rods in all 3 reactors

Bit of clarity needed from someone who knows more than me:

My understanding is that the fuel rods melting is NOT the same thing as a 'meltdown' - a meltdown being a runaway nuclear reaction. A meltdown was prevented very early on by inserting the control rods, which absorb the stray neutrons. Is this right?

 

[elbows]

Bit of clarity needed from someone who knows more than me:

My understanding is that the fuel rods melting is NOT the same thing as a 'meltdown' - a meltdown being a runaway nuclear reaction. A meltdown was prevented very early on by inserting the control rods, which absorb the stray neutrons. Is this right?

I've only been learning about this stuff for a few days, but according to what I've read so far...

Meltdown is not an official term, so its precise meaning is open to some interpretation. Fuel rods melting would likely be described as a partial meltdown. Full meltdown may be reserved for the melted fuel & other bits from the core leaving the primary containment structure.

It can take years to discover the full extent of core & fuel damage. The term meltdown has particular significance in the mind of the public, but is likely associated with a level of contamination that in fact should not be considered a forgone conclusion. We cant take the term meltdown to mean 'as bad as chernobyl' since the devil is in the detail.

At this stage all I can do is try to keep up with info as its released, and look at the bits of data on levels at various monitoring points around this plant. In general they have gone up and down quite a lot in recent days, often building up as a particular reactor gets into severe trouble, and then falling after hydrogen explosions. The most recent data from press releases is already a bit old, and was slightly hard to compare as not all of the sites that reported previously had new data available. But in some other points levels had fallen again. However there is a bit of more recent data thats emerged which said:

Prior to the second full exposure of the rods around 11 p.m. Monday, radiation was detected at 9:37 p.m. at a level twice the maximum seen so far -- 3,130 micro sievert per hour -- near the main gate of the No. 1 plant, according to TEPCO.

The radiation amount is equivalent to reach by 20 minutes the permissible level for a person in one year.

Taken from http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/77959.html

Those are Japanese times. That number is loads higher than all other published data for monitoring at that plant over the prior 24 hours, data that I had just been reading before seeing this news. Havent seen any more recent numbers since then, last news I heard was that as of the early hours in Japan, they have managed to reopen to valve/vent at reactor 2 and resume the injection of sea-water.

 

[Barking_Mad]

from the BBC

A senior nuclear industry executive has told the New York Times that Japanese nuclear power industry managers are "basically in a full-scale panic". The executive is not involved in managing the response to the reactors' difficulties but has many contacts in Japan. "They're in total disarray, they don't know what to do," the executive added.

 

[two sheds]

from the BBC

That's Plan E that claphamboy quoted above, what's behind the final barrier of the defense-in-depth principle.

 

[Barking_Mad]

There's a general shift in what the end result might be by the so called experts. They scoffed at the idea of there being any danger to the public, but a guy on BBC radio was saying this evening that any contamination would be confined to 60kms of the plant and nothing like Chernobyl.