Japanese Tsunami

[ASWnut101]

If they were releasing steam directly from the reactor itself would that contain trace elements of the internal elements of the reactor? I'm just pondering if they released steam and hydrogen from inside the reactor to prevent the buildup of a hydrogen bubble and it was the hydrogen released from the reactor that caused the explosion in the reactor hall.

Yeah, when the reactor pressure vessel gets above about 1100 bar, they have to open the safety relief valve or the pressure vessel will rupture. The steam loop in the reactor does contain trace, highly reactive BUT very short-lived (< ~3 minutes) radionuclides, so that would explain why they're talking about distributing KI pills to the local area.

A full-scale radioactive release of material on the scale of Chernobyl is not going to happen as long as the reactor core is submerged in water and pressure is released when needed. As far as I know, the Fukushima plant is an older design without all the safety features of modern BWRs, hence they are pumping s-tons of seawater into the core. Modern BWRs are designed to absolutely deluge the core (we're talking millions of gallons per hour) with water via a gravity-fed system.

Now, to my untrained eye, the explosion was 'shaped'. It clearly has an upward blast, with some lateral blasts. But not a lot of diagonal blast. My uneducated guess there is that it was an air-mix explosion, contained within the rectangular building. That would explain the shape and resultant destruction of the building. If it had been a core explosion, I would expect a more uniform shape? (Reactors are domes usually?). You can see the panels of the building flying off in specific directions.

Yeah, it was an explosion of the released hydrogen. From what I heard, it obliterated a building (the containment building, if I recall correctly), but the core is (as designed) unscathed inside the pressure vessel.

I always wondered if it really is a good idea to have around 60 nuclear plants in the one place on earth that tectonically is more active than any other region the world. Four continental plates meet below Japan.

It was just a question of time, I think.

I agree, but from what I can remember, the Fukushima plant was designed to withstand a Magnitude 8.0 earthquake. This 8.9 quake was nearly ten times as powerful as that, so the fact that the plant still stands [EDIT: Well, most of it anyway] is quite amazing I think. Also, all of the other plants in the area have safely scrammed their reactors and are operating without faults, so I would wager that the problems at Fukushima reflect the age of it's design.

Also, having a NPP near a huge body of water such as the ocean is actually a rather good idea, as you have a nearly inexhaustible supply of emergency coolant (as we are witnessing now) on hand.

I wonder how this will afect reactor designs in the fututre.... if this allows for a future for Nuclear reactors at all.

Probably will result in more redundant and reliable emergency cooling systems. Modern BWR designs are already nearly impossible to meltdown except under absurd circumstances (i.e. meteorite impact, direct nuclear strike, etc.) that would cause more problems than just a radiation leak.

Also, most supporting buildings and subsystems will be improved to help withstand large earthquakes and potential inundation by seawater.

[tater]

Yeah, pebble bed reactors FTW.

I'd suspect this whole event will cause the next excuse in raiseing Gas prices.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by privateer

Google Maps says your near Manila!

LOL it does, but if you take out the ' 's it fixes it.

[Gargamel]

Looks like they're losing a second one too.

A second nuclear reactor is experiencing serious problems at Japan's earthquake-damaged Fukushima power station in northern Japan, which was hit by a big explosion on Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12724953

[Gargamel]

This is why I hate the US some days.... the ignorance of some people....

http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/...arborjapan.jpg

[Growler]

The stupidity of small people in large herds cannot be underestimated.

[I-25]

just reading that make me want to punch someone in the face

[CCIP]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/ja...eforeafter.htm

The same type of satellite before-and-after footage was used by ABC to show the damage from the Australian floods a couple of months ago, and is now sadly again very relevant here...

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by CCIP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/ja...eforeafter.htm

The same type of satellite before-and-after footage was used by ABC to show the damage from the Australian floods a couple of months ago, and is now sadly again very relevant here...

Whoa... those are impressive.... and scary!

I can see why the nuc plant is having their issues now. Place may have been designed to take a quake, but I I don't think they designed it for a quake and a tsunami. Most of the outer support facilities seem to have washed away.

[joegrundman]

Originally Posted by I-25

just reading that make me want to punch someone in the face

it's not nice, i grant you, but those are the filtered out facebook postings of maybe a hundred million people.

It's a tough fact, but out of 6 billion people and rising, a substantial percentage are going to be idiots, just as another percentage are going to be psychopaths and so on. It's just that in the modern world the half witted thoughts of the idiotic are there to be read by everyone if you can search for them.

[Gargamel]

Little smile for a serious topic.....

[XabbaRus]

And that is why I don't do facebook or any other of the social retardation sites.

Also concerning the journalists reporting on the situation I would have thought that they would have some decent researchers.

I'll give the BBC their due they did get a couple of guys on who knew what they were on about and were very calm and thoughtful about the whole thing, but still some of the questions were stupid.

However what got me after all this was stated they were still mentioning "meltdown" "Chernobyl"

BTW my father in law is a nuclear specialist and he told my wife that it looked like a steam explosion and that they were venting too.

[Skybird]

The Japanese owning corporation of that reactor is Tepco, and one can read that since many years they have been involved in a long chain of scandals, lies, forged documents and lacking maintenance. The respectability of Japanese reactors' technical standards is in doubt. And they plan to build even more. As I said above: in a place with such an instabile tectonic basis like Japan, it is nogood idea to have nuclear reactors.

German experts said that German reactors, at least some of them, are even worse, allowing much faster processes leading to the core melting.

It is like it always have been and probably always will be: it is a highly risky technology that can only reduce risks, but not rule them out. And in case of disaster striking, it strikes really hard.

On another level: money. Japan has stellar debt levels of more than twice it'S GDP, and it's spociety is overaged with both the social and econom ic system somewhat stagnating. Now they need to financially invest into dealing with the aftermath of the Earthquake, the Tsunami, and the core meltdown(s), and maybe even a complete overhaul and rethinking about Japan's uncrtiical dependency on nuclear reactors.

Forget Japan dealing with its fincial debts. In the coming decades they will be unable to do so.

It is difficult to assess what the consequences will be for global economy, on this day I think only one thing is sure: they will be felt.

[Catfish]

Hello,

Originally Posted by Skybird

The Japanese owning corporation of that reactor is Tepco, and one can read that since many years they have been involved in a long chain of scandals, lies, forged documents and lacking maintenance.

Sounds familiar, like in Germany for sure
The private companies who built (by tax payer's money) and run the reactors are being "controlled" by the german TUV, a non-governmental company doing all kinds of tests - and now guess to which companies the TUV belongs to ? Right: the companies who own and run the reactors : RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON and EnBW.
They have such a bad record that they all try to change their name into a different one, to cloud their past.

And with the politicians having almost become obsolete while those companies can do what they want it is no wonder that the expertise has somehow wandered into the hands that own all the stuff.
Our politicians tell us there is no tectonic activity in Germany, especially along the "Rheintalgraben"

But it is even worse, german nuclear plants are over 40 years old, inititially built for 20. Austrian plants of that type had to be wrecked before even starting to work, since the then-independent austrian control commission regarded them as highly unstable, using unsecure reactor vessels and lacking redundant backup systems for electricity and cooling.

I say it again, throw out all politicians and elect the company heads directly, saves a lot of money.

Greetings,
Catfish