From 7th Fleet:

Good move. I think the USN should be conscious of getting caught up in more than they bargained for. Although I bet you anything that the crew of a CVN knows better how to deal with the threat of reactor incidents than most of anyone :)

More shocking images showing the before and after of the Tsunami:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/ja...eforeafter.htm

Third core is left completely uncooled, and enters meltdown phase.

Turning winds in the coming 72 hours are expected to bring fallkout to Tokyo's 30+ million population.

These days, the belittling term "residual risk of nuclear technology" certainly gets a face. One can only hope it will never be belittled again.

Meanwhile, first assessements of the costs of the disasters have been published. For the damage directly caused by the first earthquake alone, numbers approach 40 billion Euro. By experience we know that floodiungs after earthquakes cause even greater damages and destructions than the earthquakes that caused them - these costs currently cannot be calculated. Nor do they have calculations on the damage done by the second follow-up quake. And the Nuclear disaster - currently is beyond estimation. In a country that is a small island and as densely populated like Japan, the contamination of huge areas maybe even cannot be expressed in numbers at all. The already present contamination seems tzo be greater and more widespread than the authoritiesa admit. If the winds turns into directions from south to west, then the real disaster will start.

German experts say the mixture of substances measured in the environment clearly indicate that the question whether or not the first two cores already have had meltdowns, is answered. What is to be seen in radioactive substances you do not get from simple blowout, thy say, but only from complete open meltdowns.

Residual risk.

Watch and learn what the term means.

Info from the NYT via ID

http://www.informationdissemination....elicopter.html

http://qpawn.beardedfool.com/forum/i...s/facepalm.gif

Indeed. Idiots. :nope:

So, living in Virginia, I should stop encasing my house in plastic wrap and duct tapping the doors and windows?

^No, keep wrapping it up in lots of plastic...and don't forget to buy a suit like this:
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3...114112wall.jpg

*Assault rifle not included*

on a more serious note:

Damn, it's just heartbreaking to see these survivors going back to their town/village to find....nothing but rubble wondering if their family and friends made it out alive and if so where they are.

HunterICX

I can't imagine (and honestly don't want to) what it must be like to lose everything you owned. Everything gone like that. :nope:

In some cases not only are their homes gone, but the land where their home used to be on is gone.

I think what he was suggesting is that if the Cesium 137 was getting outside the steel pressure vessel then that's suggestive of a meltdown of the core material and it's daughter materials. And if the core U235 is melting then the inside of the unit got pretty hot and probably melted other things inside the reactor vessel.

They are not telling us what the temperature readings are inside the pressure vessel but I am reading that temperatures in the 4000 to 5000 deg F range will occur if the reactor fuel melts down and is not covered by cooling water that's flowing though the reactor and carrying away the heat. And this can happen even if the graphite control rods are in place?

Can anyone tell us what the temperatures are inside these nuclear power plant reactor vessels when they lose all cooling water flow?

I was told that the water was so hot that it was dissassociating into pure hydrogen and pure oxygen and that the oxygen was attacking the metals inside the pressure vessel and oxidizing the metals at a very fast rate. This left excessive hydrogen bubbles inside the pressure vessel and this is where the hydrogen came from and why it had to be vented out. This only occurs when there is air bubbles inside the reactor vessel and no cooling water is flowing to carry away the heat. If the core U235 is uncovered then it overheats and melts the casing holding the fuel. I read that they use zicronium (SP?) to hold the fuel in the fuel rods?

But I did read today that the US Navy is finding radioactive in the air out at sea and has moved the US Ronald Reagan away from the coast of Japan to avoid the radiation plume.

An update.

The Reactors at Fukushima plant 2 (Fukushima Daini) are now shutting down safely. Cooling operations have been restored at units 1 and 2, unit 3 has been successfully shut down, and unit 4 is still being restored to begin cooling.

As for Fukushima No. 1 (Fukushima Dai-ichi), things aren't going well. Following the hydrogen explosion in containment building #3, a radiation level of 20μSv/h (Microsiverts per hour) was detected outside of the plant (at 11:44am local time). For comparison, 20μSv/h is approximately equivalent to the radiation absorbed by eating about 200 bananas every hour. :)

At 12:30pm local time, the radiation level had dropped to 4μSv/h. Radiation levels were also measured 10km away at Fukushima plant 2, and are about 4μSv/h there as well.

Plans are now being considered to vent containment building number 2 in an effort to prevent any more explosions at the facility.

No word on the progress of cooling operations at Fukushima plant 1.


http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...1031405-e.html

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...1031404-e.html

That's actually pretty good news. Looks like the Japanese are working this problem rather well. :yeah:

If anyone can handle an event like this, the Japanese can.

I would have to agree 100%.