News Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, & Nuclear Disaster

[tblaxland]

Hmm, reactor 4 now on fire and a measurement of 0.400 Sv/h on the site. That doesn't sound good at all.

According to ABC, the fire is out (as at 14:07 UTC). That was about 2 hours from the initial report of the fire.

Some more incredible pictures:

And a second round of before/after sliders is up: http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter2.htm

 

[Jamesep3]

Seen news looks like total destruction increased radiation levels detected in NORHTER TOKYO! :uhh: The news is bad.

 

[Keatah]

Chuck Norris' Yacht..

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Reacently got back from school and looks like what I said to people at school came true. I thought they would not control it and if all this stuff here is up to date O Crap. This is very bad and the so called saftey of being in the sothern hemisphere does nothing to sudue my fears that this could be a terrible chatastrophe. This is bad hope all you orbinorts in Japan are ok.

I recently sold a bunch of space memorabilia to some Japanese. Suit fabric, some tiles, and insulation blankets, hub/rim bolts for shuttle tires, aerogel, that sort of thing. I wrote them back through ebay and have yet to get a reply.

 

[Belisarius]

Latest from IAEA

http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1248

Japanese authorities informed the IAEA that there has been an explosion at the Unit 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The explosion occurred at around 06:20 on 15 March local Japan time.

Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 04:50 CET that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere.

Dose rates of up to 400 millisievert per hour have been reported at the site. Japanese authorities are saying that there is a possibility that the fire was caused by a hydrogen explosion.

So the spent fuel rods are apparently on fire. That's very bad.
No data available so far on radioactivity in the atmosphere.

From the World Nuclear News Site
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Possible_damage_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2_1503111.html

Confirmation of loud sounds at unit 2 this morning came from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA). It noted that "the suppression chamber may be damaged." It is not clear that the sounds were explosions in the usual sense.

The pressure in the pool was seen to decrease from three atmospheres to one atmosphere after the noise, suggesting possible damage. Radiation levels on the edge of the plant compound briefly spiked at 8217 microsieverts per hour but later fell to about a third that.

The sounds could be the catastrophic rupture of the containment vessel.

---------- Post added at 08:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 AM ----------

Meanwhile the BBC correspondent Rachel Harvey is prowling around the post-disaster zone, living with the survivors

Spent this morning in a hillside village where survivors are organising themselves into teams, building fires outside to boil water, storing supplies and sharing information about friends and relatives.

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

Which other nations in the developed world would see spontaneous collaborative survival efforts like that? I'm full of admiration for the strength and spirit of the ordinary Japanese, in extreme contrast to the contempt I feel for the bumbling government there.

 

[Sky Captain]

Could there be a criticality event going on in spent fuel pool. If it evaporated or leaked and fuel rods melted then if enough nuclear material gathered together a criticality event might occour. There were some reports of spiking radiation levels which is consistent with criticality event.

If that is the case then it is Very Bad possibly worse than full meltdown of a reactor because fuel storage pool is outside the main containment barriers and new hydrogen explosion could easily spew the molten fuel all over the place.

 

[Belisarius]

BBC live interview on World Service with representative of the prefectural govt of Yamagata

He says there are 2 kg of iodine tablets, enough for prefectural emergency workers but not enough to provide doses to the population.

 

[Jamesep3]

More news sounds like the Japanese energy oficials are good at making cover ups!:thumbsdown: The news says how they falsified (ignore my spelling mistakes) documents about inspections!
This is serious espeacialy because it seems they might be understating the risks posed and lying about their ability to handle the situation.:thumbsdown:
Many news groups now ignor what they say and many belive the battle to control the reactors is lost

 

[Belisarius]

More news sounds like the Japanese energy oficials are good at making cover ups!:thumbsdown: The news says how they falsified (ignore my spelling mistakes) documents about inspections!

Sources?

 

[Wishbone]

Who ever wanted to learn more about BWRs: http://www.acme-nuclear.com/index.html

It is now without unlock code, which is pretty nice of the guys... BWR was one of the programs I considered buying this year. ^^

Thank you very much, Urwumpe, reactor sims was one topic I wanted to know but was afraid to ask in this thread 8-|

 

[Jamesep3]

Sources?

TVNZ ONE NEWS that is my sorce

 

[Belisarius]

Wind map from the surfer source

http://www.surf-forecast.com/maps/Japan/wind/12

This shows prevailing winds about 15 km/h west/south west

BBC log (reference above) says about the winds

0848: Amid reports that the wind direction at the Fukushima plant is turning inland, David Brenner, director of radiological research at Columbia University, tells the BBC World Service: "That would certainly impact on the amount of radiation exposure that individuals inland are getting. If one is thinking of Tokyo, it is a good distance away, and there's still going to be a great deal of dispersal of the radioactive plume before it gets that far... But this also depends on how much radioactivity is released from the reactors. " Those still working in the plant are now "at significant risk. In many ways they are already heroes... [they] are going to be suffering very high radiation exposures."

 

[Jamesep3]

Don't you think this thread should be renamed because realy we are now talking about the nuclear plant as well. Mabey it should be called " Japan: earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear threat" just a suggestion. Currently family is cheacking BBC world news, yes we get that in NZ, so I'll post any new dovlopments if I can, but it is late and I have school tomorrow.
Will cheack back tomorow to see what has happend.:shrug:

 

[Wishbone]

Fire at spent fuel storage has been put out, IAEA states

http://www.interfax.ru/society/txt.asp?id=181309

It seems the demand for dosimeters is on the rise in Kamchatka (and, of course, retailers are pumping up prices).

EDIT: IAEA Alert Log (http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1252)

Japanese Earthquake Update (15 March 07:35 UTC)
15 March 2011

Announcements, Featured

Japanese authorities have confirmed that the fire at the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was extinguished on 15 March at 02:00 UTC.

Please note that all future communications from the IAEA regarding events in Japan will use the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard.

The IAEA continues to liaise with the Japanese authorities and is monitoring the situation as it evolves.

Brave firefighters. I bow low to their sense of duty and courage.

 

[Keatah]

Why aren't nuke plants made so that if there *is* a meltdown the core can just burn its way 50 miles deep? End of problem!

Or like uhmm, can't we just call in those big helicopters and put a big lead cover over the entire reactor? End of problem.

 

[Belisarius]

In the absence of further hard news, a piece of stupidity:

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

0914: Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has been forced to apologise for a remark he made on Monday, reports Kyodo News. He apparently told reporters the tsunami was "divine punishment" for Japanese "egoism".

This kind of idiotic nonsense is all over the web too.

---------- Post added at 10:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:13 AM ----------

Why aren't nuke plants made so that if there *is* a meltdown the core can just burn its way 50 miles deep? End of problem!

Or like uhmm, can't we just call in those big helicopters and put a big lead cover over the entire reactor? End of problem.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is... This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_kruger_effect"]Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Keatah]

Unfortunately firefox "crashed" before I could finish the posting. I was going to say that those and other similar brute-force solutions were things being tossed around in my niece's grade school science classes.

#3 was take it all apart and just drop it in the deep ocean.
#4 recycle it for other power plants and aircraft carriers.

I've been on tour at our local Zion reactor AND am quite familiar with what might or might not work as well as the scale and difficulty involved.

*I* say we nuke the whole thing from orbit! It's the only way to be sure..

 

[Belisarius]

Understood - dangers of using internet communications and incomplete posts. Please take the D-K Effect reference as not referring at all to yourself. Has direct applicability around the world of web comments, though...

 

[N_Molson]

Reactor 2 is breached.

IAEA just rose the level of the nuclear disaster to 6.

Evacuation zone widened to 30 kilometers.

Anormal radiation levels detected in Tokyo (10x the nominal figures), but that didn't lasted long, because winds are (thanks the Probe) blowing towards the Pacific again.

(source : local TV news)

 

[Wishbone]

Acceptable doses (taken from IAEA RS-G-1.1 Occupational Radiation Protection safety guide):

The occupational exposure of any worker shall be so controlled that the following
limits be not exceeded:
(a) an effective dose of 20 mSv per year averaged over five consecutive years;
(b) an effective dose of 50 mSv in any single year;
(c) an equivalent dose to the lens of the eye of 150 mSv in a year; and
(d) an equivalent dose to the extremities (hands and feet) or the skin of 500 mSv
in a year.

===
EDIT: Source for N.Molson's post: http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78230.html

===
EDIT #2: IAEA Alert Log (http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1261)

Japanese Earthquake Update (15 March 11:25 UTC)
15 March 2011

Announcements, Featured

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Update

Radiation Dose Rates Observed at the Site

The Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that the following radiation dose rates have been observed on site at the main gate of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

At 00:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 11.9 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed. Six hours later, at 06:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 0.6 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed.

These observations indicate that the level of radioactivity has been decreasing at the site.

As reported earlier, a 400 millisieverts (mSv) per hour radiation dose observed at Fukushima Daiichi occurred between units 3 and 4. This is a high dose-level value, but it is a local value at a single location and at a certain point in time. The IAEA continues to confirm the evolution and value of this dose rate. It should be noted that because of this detected value, non-indispensible staff was evacuated from the plant, in line with the Emergency Response Plan, and that the population around the plant is already evacuated.

About 150 persons from populations around the Daiichi site have received monitoring for radiation levels. The results of measurements on some of these people have been reported and measures to decontaminate 23 of them have been taken. The IAEA will continue to monitor these developments.

Evacuation of the population from the 20 kilometre zone is continuing. The Japanese have asked that residents out to a 30 km radius to take shelter indoors. Japanese authorities have distributed iodine tablets to the evacuation centres but no decision has yet been taken on their administration.

Background on Radiation

A person’s radiation exposure due to all natural sources amounts on average to about 2.4 millisievert (mSv) per year. A sievert (Sv) is a unit of effective dose of radiation. Depending on geographical location, this figure can vary by several hundred percent.

Since one sievert is a large quantity, radiation doses are typically expressed in millisievert (mSv) or microsievert (µSv), which is one-thousandth or one millionth of a sievert. For example, one chest X-ray will give about 0.1 mSv of radiation dose.

For further information on radiation: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/radlife.html

===
EDIT #3: WARNING, IMBECILE IMMATURE CONTENT:

http://www.itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=16046048&PageNum=0

НОВО-ОГАРЕВО, 15 марта. /ИТАР-ТАСС/. Даже худший вариант развития событий на атомных электростанциях в Японии не представляет угрозы российскому Дальнему Востоку. Об этом сообщил гендиректор госкорпорации "Росатом" Сергей Кириенко на совещании у премьер-министра Владимира Путина, где обсуждалось влияние аварий на японских АЭС на российский Дальний Восток.

Он также подчеркнул, что "угрозы ядерного взрыва на станции "Фукусима- 1" нет".

Translation:

Novo-Ogarevo {PM's favourite residence he did not yield to Medvedev}, March 15 (Itar-Tass)
Even the worst case developments in Japanese power plants are no threat to the Russian Far East. This was reported by CEO of state corporation "Rosatom" Sergey Kirienko at the conference with the PM Vladimir Putin, where the impact of accidents at Japanese NPPs on the Russian Far East was discussed.

He also emphasized that "there is no threat of nuclear explosion at Fukushima-I power plant"

:facepalm:

 

[N_Molson]

Nikita Khrushchev would not have said better