Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[Edelweiss]

It's abit early still to go down that road; this isn't a particularly good development though.

[GentaiShinigami]

Well to be fair they also said meltdown was impossible as was an explosion occurring. Not that I think it'll end up like Chernobyl (at least the far reaching parts, Japan may well be toast for years in that area).

New amazing pic of the plant burning:

http://i.imgur.com/yQGkS.jpg

Beginning of the explosion that wasn't in earlier video i posteD:

[Apelila]

Really, comparing an overheating, possibly breached reactor to a reactor which suffered a fire and breach is out of line?

Or are you saying that comparing a damaged, leaking nuclear reactor near such a dense population vs a relatively isolated plant is silly?

[Maguspk]

Amazing isn't the word you're looking for.

[Kuwait-cafe]

i hope the dolphins are ok >.<

[Korietsu]

Actually, meltdown isn't impossible. The only impossibility is a nuclear detonation. They dumped the control rods to stop any fission, but nuclear material can still rise to high temps. All of the hydro electric plants are down, and only one geothermal has gotten on line. There's a reason why we're scrambling supercarriers to dump extra coolant, and there's a reason why we scrambled every cargo jet we had with coolant to japan.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/as...ex.html?hpt=T1

[*Shinzon*]

What exactly is the coolant that is being used, or rather at this point can be used to cool the reactor down at this point? The explosion is being attributed to hydrogen that I assume was stored to cool.

[Korietsu]

What exactly is the coolant that is being used, or rather at this point can be used to cool the reactor down at this point? The explosion is being attributed to hydrogen that I assume was stored to cool.

Water is generally used as coolant because of it's thermodynamic properties. They have special mixtures that they can use, but the issue at hand is basically even with the dumped control rods they're having to scavenge batteries because there is no auxiliary power coming from generators and their main pump power is down due to tsunami and the earthquake. Right now, even with the dumped control rods and the amount of coolant they're trying to pump the temp is rising past boiling. That in a closed system means pressure, which means burst pipes and HVAC systems. Active nuclear material is quite hot in a reactor, even with the dumped control rods.

EDIT: CNN is reporting a melted control rod right now, which is bad fucking news.

[*Shinzon*]

Reuter's is reporting that the government has finally officially confirmed that there was an explosion and that there is radiation leakage occurring. Also reporting that winds are blowing to the north should the reactor itself explode.

[popsiclestix]

Just filmed some interesting stuff off of the television. I think this coastal area must of went below ocean level.

[GentaiShinigami]

Actually, meltdown isn't impossible. The only impossibility is a nuclear detonation. They dumped the control rods to stop any fission, but nuclear material can still rise to high temps. All of the hydro electric plants are down, and only one geothermal has gotten on line. There's a reason why we're scrambling supercarriers to dump extra coolant, and there's a reason why we scrambled every cargo jet we had with coolant to japan.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/as...ex.html?hpt=T1

I've thought this, and many scientist had try to say this earlier, only to be called hacks or nuclear energy haters. I understand people might like the idea of nuclear energy, but they need to call a spade a spade. The fuel still generates heat for days after shutdown from the decay process, and to totally shut down it has to keep cooled during this period. This is where they had the problem. They didn't get it cooled in the first hour, and from there it started burning coolant faster than they could put it in there (they even said this much on the news). Thankfully detonation is impossible due to the nature of the design. A lot of people mistakenly think that they can detonate like a bomb (if they could it'd be the worst f'ing idea ever to use a plant like that lol).

In the defense of that JP professor that claimed explosion was impossible he stipulated that it required proper ventilation for this to be the case, and that didn't happen obviously (they stopped venting due to unable to safely place workers there).

Oh, and the US never sent coolant (water) to Japan. It was scheduled, but Japan canceled the order as far as I'm aware. Hillary was mistaken when she spoke.

[Korietsu]

Reuter's is reporting that the government has finally officially confirmed that there was an explosion and that there is radiation leakage occurring. Also reporting that winds are blowing to the north should the reactor itself explode.

Reactor wont explode. With all of the blow off valves and pressure systems, we'll see something close to a melting through the reactor walls, especially with the control rods having been dumped. Right now worse case is that japan will have to have a sarcophagus built like Chernobyl at that particular reactor. With the US aid on the way, im expecting that we wont see anything too major.

[*Shinzon*]

I believe at one point they said radiation levels were 90x the normal levels inside the control room for the reactor. I don't know what exactly that means but I assume that if to restore venting they need to enter or work in that area it would be impossible to repair. Also because the outer walls have fallen they could not layer another barrier around the reactor without repairing the secondary barrier first and it would require a process used when Chernobyl melted down.

@kori I see. But is that report accurate in describing that they would first need to repair what was the outer wall of the structure before they can contain it with that extra barrier?

[Kaylia]

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

They have (had?) a decent explanation on nuclear stuf on their live feed.
[edit]
over

[Korietsu]

I believe at one point they said radiation levels were 90x the normal levels inside the control room for the reactor. I don't know what exactly that means but I assume that if to restore venting they need to enter or work in that area it would be impossible to repair. Also because the outer walls have fallen they could not layer another barrier around the reactor without repairing the secondary barrier first and it would require a process used when Chernobyl melted down.

Control room levels are at 1000x nominal radiation. Meaning anyone with a CBRN suit or gear died trying to keep it under control. Anyone walking towards the red forest outside of the Chernobyl would experience the same, and be irreversibly poisoned, that kind of radiation makes plants and trees glow red/green. People don't survive that.

[Mojo]

The reactor in that plant was a BWR. The water used to drive the turbines is the same water that's used to cool the reactors. The pumps that failed were responsible for circulating this water through through the turbines (to generate power) and also through heat exchangers (to cool the water so that it can go back into the reactor vessel and absorb more heat coming off the fuel rods.) These types of reactors take time to come to a 'full stop', meaning that simply lowering control rods into the reactor won't immediately halt heat production. If the reactor water isn't able to circulate and properly exchange heat with the cooling water, then it continues to heat up. I can't think of any other single thing that would cause the roof of the building to be blown away in such a fashion other than a pressure explosion. I'm almost completely certain that this is what must have happened. It probably occurred outside of the reactor vessel, which is hopefully undamaged at this point. I would guess that the best possible scenario is elevated levels of radiation escaping (since part of the system that contains it is now destroyed) and an intact reactor vessel. Worst case scenario is a reactor vessel breach, which could happen in a variety of ways (damaged by explosion, fuel rods continue to heat up and melt through the bottom, etc.)

[GentaiShinigami]

The reactor in that plant was a BWR. The water used to drive the turbines is the same water that's used to cool the reactors. The pumps that failed were responsible for circulating this water through through the turbines (to generate power) and also through heat exchangers (to cool the water so that it can go back into the reactor vessel and absorb more heat coming off the fuel rods.) These types of reactors take time to come to a 'full stop', meaning that simply lowering control rods into the reactor won't immediately halt heat production. If the reactor water isn't able to circulate and properly exchange heat with the cooling water, then it continues to heat up. I can't think of any other single thing that would cause the roof of the building to be blown away in such a fashion other than a pressure explosion. I'm almost completely certain that this is what must have happened. It probably occurred outside of the reactor vessel, which is hopefully undamaged at this point. I would guess that the best possible scenario is elevated levels of radiation escaping (since part of the system that contains it is now destroyed) and an intact reactor vessel. Worst case scenario is a reactor vessel breach, which could happen in a variety of ways (damaged by explosion, fuel rods continue to heat up and melt through the bottom, etc.)

If you look at that GIF I posted you can see the seams at the top between the roof and walls be where the explosions breaches. You are likely right it was a steam pressure explosion. Wasn't able to be seen in the video, but the GIF shows it clearly. It burned for quite a while after and released quite a lot of black smoke though.

[GentaiShinigami]

Control room levels are at 1000x nominal radiation. Meaning anyone with a CBRN suit or gear died trying to keep it under control. Anyone walking towards the red forest outside of the Chernobyl would experience the same, and be irreversibly poisoned, that kind of radiation makes plants and trees glow red/green. People don't survive that.

Long before shit hit the fan the temps in the control room were over boiling lol. Everyone had been evacuated at that point.

[Mojo]

Also, no more explosions can really occur regarding that reactor at this point. Nuclear detonations require something called critical mass. It's difficult to achieve and requires a lot of control. It doesn't happen spontaneously. Right now I'm sure they're trying to assess the situation of the reactor vessel to see what measures need to be taken to best control the aftermath.

[Deadgye]

Ignoring the severity of the situation and everything.. a glowing red forest sounds kinda fucking cool. <.<;