Japanese Tsunami

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by 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

Just... wow...

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Just... wow...

Wow that is... just unspeakable Even if they were joking it is beyond inappropriate.

Someone should remind them that the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and nagasaki were already 1000 times more than a enough punshiment for pearl harbour, does anyone remember any Japanese praising 9/11 in a similar fashion? I think not.

But don't go hating Americans for this - doing so just brings you down to the same level as those select scumbags above.
Most Americans are way smarter than this, sadly every country has its share of ignorant vermin.
People like this should be caged birth (no matter where they come from), as they dont qualify as human beings in my opinion.

[joegrundman]

move on guys. do you want a thread about a tragedy to devolve into a standard internet bitching thread?

[papa_smurf]

Pictures showing the city of Natori before and after....

[breadcatcher101]

Don't hate USA because of the words of a few fools. Most of us are very caring people. I am ashamed of the postings of these airheads.

[Jimbuna]

The more graphical pictures I see the more I realise just how seriously bad the situation must be on the ground.

I tip my hat to the professional and effective post quake measures the authorities and people of japan are taking...other countries could learn a lot from them in these matters.

[moose1am]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

The USAF just flew in some extra coolant.

Boric acid is used to capture the neutrons and to moderate the fission of U235 and Plutonium in a reactor vessel.

The normal coolant that they use is plain pure water. This Daiichi Unit 1 is a boiling water type reactor vessel and the cooling water is in direct contact with the core material and is also in contact with the turbines from what I understand.

This is much different from the Pressurize Water System used in the newer reactors. Those used two diffent closed cooling systems with heat exchange so as not to let the radiated cooling water come into contact with the turbines that generate the electricity.

[moose1am]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The coolant system is still broken though, they're having to release some radioactive vapour (presumably steam) to ease the pressure on the reactor. It's still a bit dicey but I'm confident the Japanese will get it under control, they are quite good at this...although their reactors do leak from time to time and this is an old one...but I think the chances of a meltdown are slim.

Here's an interesting fact, the power of the earthquake has tilted the Earth on its axis by 25cm. Gives you an idea of the raw power behind this event and reminds you we are but little fleas on a very big dog.

I feel more like a tiny microbe ridding on the back of that fea that's ridding on the back of that big dog. Especially at times like this. Japan has been moved by 8 ft from what I read.

I wonder if my gps is now going to be off by 8 ft all the time?

[moose1am]

Are you thinking that the radio active material is the actual U235 or it's byproducts that are contained inside the steel 5" thick pressure reactor vessel as compared to the radioactive water steam that's vented out of the same pressure vessel?

It's my understanding that the reactor at Chernobyl was destroyed and that uranium was released in that explosion.

In this Japan incident the Daiichi unit 1 being a boiling water type reactor is still intact and that they vented some steam pressure out of the steel reactor vessel but the vessel itself is intact. But the steel and concrete building that surrounds the reactor vessel was destroyed when the hydrogen in the steam entered the building and exploded when it came into contact with oxygen and a spark or ignition source of some kind. This blew the top 1/3 of the containment building and the roof off. The explosion also must have spread the radiative steam into the atmosphere where the wind blew it downwind and contaminated people in it's path. Not sure what the radiation levels were. How many millirads or rad were measured in the air.

But they are reporting that Cesium 137 and radio active iodine of some kind has been measured.

Bill Nye the Science guy was on CNN last night and said that the control rods inside the reactor are made of Cesium and that's where the cesium 137 came from. So that tells me that the reactor is melting the control rods as there is not enough water inside the reactor to cover the fuel rod and control rods. Therefore they are melting where the water is not covering them. Water seeks its own level and I must assume that as the water level drops the top of the core heats up and boils the water into steam which is vented and thus there is less water inside the pressure vessel and this goes on and on unless they get the pumps started up and pump cooling water into the pressure vessel to cool it down.

Since the reactor was shut down automatically the control rods should be dropped down into place and absorbing neutrons to slow down the fission chain reactions. But that it still take days for the uranium to cool down and without water to cool it off the uranium 235 will get so hot that it melts the control rod and could melt the steel containment vessel and allow the U235 to drop out of the floor of the pressure vessel. That would be the worst case meltdown. Right now we have a partial meltdown from what I understand.

But most all the radiative U235 is still contained inside the 5" thick steel pressure reactor vessel. But how hot is the U235 and has it reached a critical mass where it can't be cooled down to prevent it from melting the steel pressure vessel?

Originally Posted by CCIP

1000x normal radiation level is actually a small number. I'm too lazy to do the exact math here, but you would easily need the radiation level to be hundreds of thousands of times higher than normal background radiation that we all experience daily to even begin to get sick. It SOUNDS like a lot, but it's not.

Then you also have to keep in mind that this is confined to a very small space. 1000x in a closed control room, even assuming it escapes, would mean that anywhere outside that the numbers are even smaller.

Sounds like there is still quite a battle ahead to contain the radioactive steam though. It sounds like they may end up venting some of it out, which is of course a PR fiasco. Again, there is only a minute chance that it would pose a danger to anyone or anything before it flies away and dilutes in the atmosphere, but the prospect is scary. Still, I don't think we should sensationalized. The comparisons to Chernobyl are not terribly appropriate here since unless something goes so awry that the steam blows out the currently-airtight reactor container while the reactor melts down, there is zero chance of any actual nuclear material escaping. And for that to happen right now, they would have to screw up really, really badly. It doesn't sound like they will.

The Chernobyl comparisons aren't really appropriate here. On the other hand comparisons to Three Mile Island may be. But there is a big difference between escaping coolant and escaping reactor material.

[edit]

And I just saw on BBC that Tokyo Electric Power has now confirmed that they 'released a small amount of vapor' from one of the reactors to ease the pressure.

[XabbaRus]

I know this is going OT a little bit but it seems this kind of ignorance gets me.

Written by the environmental correspondent for the BBC
"And at Chernobyl - a reactor design regarded in the West as inherently unsafe, and which would not have been sanctioned in any non-Soviet bloc nation - the environmental impacts occurred through explosive release of material into the air, not from a melting reactor core."

I have highlighted the part I have issue with, and having read a lot about the design and design philosophy I disagree with it. He has provided no references to back his statement up. Does anyone here have anything that backs that up, ie specific statement.

[moose1am]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Saw this on another forum, dunno if its accurate at all but heh.

Now that's scary. I didn't think about that. Good god man. Those are measurements in RAD not mill-rads or the other unit which is smaller than a mill rad. siemens or something

700 rad is terrible high radiation and can be very dangerous as that's a very high DOSE of radiation in a short period of time.

Let's hope they cool the reactor vessel down before it's melts down or explodes.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Little smile for a serious topic.....

I know you're just being silly, Gargamel. Still, although I am certainly not of the opinion that pattern predicted in the graph is anywhere remotely accurate, take Japan's band-aid on his face and have it spewing nuclear fallout and the people at SATW might understand the global community's concern.

[breadcatcher101]

This makes interesting reading as to the map posted earlier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning

Further down it gives an example of exposure to 400 rads in one hour.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

The more graphical pictures I see the more I realise just how seriously bad the situation must be on the ground.

I tip my hat to the professional and effective post quake measures the authorities and people of japan are taking...other countries could learn a lot from them in these matters.

ditto,
there were so many images, where I thought: this event alone would usually be a headline in the news, now it's only one of many other desasters.

I have the biggest respect for the Japanese people, who seem to handle this catastrophes relatively calm and rational. Of course they are trained for situations like this, but I am deeply inpressed that there are no reports of homo homini lupus. I leave it to everyone's own imagination how a situation like this would be like in your own hometowns...

Also do the professional helpers seem to do an amazing job: imagine alone an evac of 200000 people under normal circumstances and now we are talking about massively destroyed infrastructure and a situation where the evac is only one of many other operations.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by moose1am

Bill Nye the Science guy was on CNN last night and said that the control rods inside the reactor are made of Cesium and that's where the cesium 137 came from.

I was not aware that any reactor would use Cesium as a control rod material.

Cesium is a gamma emitter, not especially known for its neutron absorbing capabilities, is highly reactive (violently) to water and with oxygen (produces Hydrogen), and most importantly, melts at about 85 degrees F (at normal pressure). All of these would make it not a good material for a control rod.

Not to question Bill Nye, but I am. He is very entertaining but he still only has a BS in science. His honorary doctorate does not count.

137 Cesium is a common byproduct of the fission process.

The fact that CNN would use Bill Nye as a SME raises many concerns.