Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[brellium]

Before/After photos of devastation in Japan, including nuclear plant: roll your mouse over the pic to reveal.

Those are depressing.

[Jeff Kelly]

There are whole towns completely gone, no way the death toll is just 1000 people.

According to Gerrman sources they have only partial cooling in 6 blocks of Fukujima and lost emergency cooling in blocks 1 and 3 with 'partial meltdown' happening in both.

If they cool Fukujima with Sea water the plant is basically a complete write-off.  How they get enough boric acid to mix to the sea water and how they'll mix is so that the boric acid is distributed homogenuously throughout is anybody's guess.

[Chimpy]

Saw on the BBC news ticker that one prefecture police spokesman said the death toll was likely at least 10,000 just in his jurisdiction alone.

[Arthur_Parker]

Got any sources other than fringe lunatics who've made a career from scaremongering about nuclear energy?

, if you don't believe that fuel rods have to be cooled for years after use, that's fine with me.  Physics is hard.

[UnSub]

Some of those areas hit were obviously rice fields. Any indication about what this event has done to Japan's crop production? Tonnes of seawater over arable land is a bad thing.

[Sheepherder]

?  I'm not suggesting anything I was quoting from the bio-robots bit of the horizon documentary.

Is joke, tovarich, you laugh, yes?

Yeah, I guess the current design in Japan is just bad, only not ridiculously so.

It is.  As Jeff Kelly correctly pointed out, most if not all of the fucked reactors are of the BWR variety.  Which I has assumed had been phased out because it's so hilaribad. :Whelp:

Yeah, pretty much.  It's coal, damns and Windmills from here on out.

Better damnation that dam nation?

You have a Japanese PM who was running sub 20% approval ratings and admitted to accepting campaign contributions from a foreign national (against Japanese law) running things. Perfect reason to expect "Heck of a job, Brownie!" type stuff to be coming out of official channels.

I wouldn't presume to judge Japanese politics by comparing it to the US.

How they get enough boric acid to mix to the sea water and how they'll mix is so that the boric acid is distributed homogenuously throughout is anybody's guess.

It's not hard.  Go research firefighting foam induction systems if you really want the details, but it's not even that technically complicated.

[Mosesandstick]

The earlier news reports said that the Americans were providing coolant, no? My guess is that they would've helped in providing the boric acid then.

[Jeff Kelly]

Yeah, I agree, coolant was probably misleading. You can't just put Water on the reactor because that would increase the nuclear reaction. It has to be combined with boric acid.

[Merusk]

Yeah, pretty much.  It's coal, damns and Windmills from here on out.

Better damnation that dam nation?

Whoops, Freudian slip.

author=Chimpy link=topic=20572.msg908288#msg908288 date=1299985674]
You have a Japanese PM who was running sub 20% approval ratings and admitted to accepting campaign contributions from a foreign national (against Japanese law) running things. Perfect reason to expect "Heck of a job, Brownie!" type stuff to be coming out of official channels.

I wouldn't presume to judge Japanese politics by comparing it to the US.

Agreed.  However, I do wonder how much of the silence is about the "Saving face" part of the culture.

[Lantyssa]

Triforcer was in Japan, wasn't he?

I'm not sure if he was still in Japan or if they had made it over.  I know they were working on the paperwork for his fiancée way-back-when and I think a Spring wedding.  Nor do I remember what area he was in.

Someone else was over in Japan, too, though I never remember until they bring it up.

[Trouble]

Heh, so much for any more nuclear reactors in the US ever. Hope you all enjoy fly ash from coal-burning plants, because the not-in-my-backyard crowd literally has won forever now.

Yeah, pretty much.  It's coal, damns and Windmills from here on out.

Yeah the US is dumb, and flat out retarded when it comes to nuclear. I have hope though because the rest of the world has been carrying the torch well at least and maybe one day we can buy the tech when we realize we have no other way to generate energy.

My hope is that this incident will provide more impetus for the rest of the world to be more forward thinking. Instead of commissioning plants to run 20-40 years longer than they were supposed to with old much less safe tech (the current shit in Japan is very unlikely to have happened with a more recent nuke plant design) they will see that the chance of failure in extreme conditions really is too high on the older stuff. An even greater hope is this provides more impetus to push Thorium into the limelight where it belongs. With all the other benefits comes the fact that is completely impossible for a Thorium reactor to cause any kind of disaster or any kind of significant radiation leak.

[Merusk]

Triforcer was in Japan, wasn't he?

I'm not sure if he was still in Japan or if they had made it over.  I know they were working on the paperwork for his fiancée way-back-when and I think a Spring wedding.  Nor do I remember what area he was in.

Someone else was over in Japan, too, though I never remember until they bring it up.

Oban made frequent trips, as did someone else. Triforcer was in Columbus, OH once again the last time he mentioned being any place.

[Yoru]

So, as if an earthquake, tsunami and potential nuclear catastrophe weren't enough, apparently there's now also a volcano erupting.

While it does make geological sense, talk about kicking someone when they're down.

[Jeff Kelly]

The Japanese officials have now extended the nuclear emergency to blocks 1 through 3 of Fukushima (so we're now at three blocks) and declared a nuclear emergency for the Onagawa Plant in the Fukshjima prefecture because they have measured increased amounts of radiation there also.

[UnSub]

I wouldn't presume to judge Japanese politics by comparing it to the US.

Leadership positions in Japanese politics are a lot less stable than in the US.

Instead of commissioning plants to run 20-40 years longer than they were supposed to with old much less safe tech (the current shit in Japan is very unlikely to have happened with a more recent nuke plant design) they will see that the chance of failure in extreme conditions really is too high on the older stuff.

If I understand it correctly, thorium plants are only just coming online in the world. It's very new tech for mass power production, often with the term "prototype" attached to it.

Besides, most industries avoid the huge expense of replacing old (but functional and revenue generating) infrastructure until absolutely necessary. I'm not sure the process of retrofitting an existing reactor, but good luck in convincing nuclear reactors that are functioning perfectly well, thank you, that they really should completely update themselves. A refit probably means a shut down, which means huge expense while having no revenue.

Alternatively they can try to build new thorium nuclear power plants, but that's a political minefield in and of itself (all existing nuclear reactors in the US were started by 1974, apparently - there hasn't been a 'new' power plant approved since then).

My point, if I have one, is that these older nuclear power plants are going to be in the US for years, probably decades, to come. Just because thorium is seen as the safe option now doesn't mean the industry will move to it or that it will even be as safe as people say.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe the Ainu are related to the Mayans.

[Surlyboi]

That volcano is on Kyushu. About 950 miles south of Sendai. It may or may not be related to the earthquake. Either way...yeah, Proper fucked.

[Mosesandstick]

One of the problems with Thorium reactors is that so few people other than India have given them any time or thought (not saying it shouldn't be done). I've always thought a more natural progression would be for breeder reactors to be brought in to use.

[Arthur_Parker]

Is joke, tovarich, you laugh, yes?

I hoped it was but sometimes I seem to post something that's obvious to me and get a weird reaction.

[Jeff Kelly]

Germany had a lot of experience with "next-generation" designs, the only production-grade breeder reactor was built here and the pebble-bed reactor was designed in Germany, we also experimented with Thorium reactors.

All of the designs had unmanagable flaws, the breeder needed sodium as coolant/moderator, which is very volatile and as an oxydant taxes all of the piping and pump systems, the pebble bed reactor was abandoned after pebbles got stuck in the reactor bed and an analysis of the reactor bed showed that it was broken and cracked in some places due to handling of the pebbles and that there was a lot of nuclear material emitting alpha and beta radition on the bed of the reactor that got left over from the pebbles. Also that the residue was in the worst possible form, as dust.

[Arthur_Parker]

Problems still plague Fukushima nuclear plants

Cooling system problems continue to plague two nuclear plants in earthquake-hit Fukushima Prefecture.

The level of coolant water in the Number Three reactor at the Fukushima Number One power plant dropped on Sunday, leaving the fuel rods exposed by two meters. The situation continued for at least until 3pm, possibly causing a partial melting of the rods.

As a result, masses of hydrogen gas have accumulated in the inside top of the reactor building. The gas may cause an explosion similar to that which occurred at the Number One reactor on Saturday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, also known as TEPCO, is considering ways to remove the hydrogen from the structure.
The Number One reactor and its containment structure are being pumped with seawater in an effort to secure cooling.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the amount of seawater should entirely fill the reactor structure, and that the building should be safe as long as the water flow continues.

At the Number Two reactor, the amount of coolant continues to be lower than usual, and the pressure within the containment vessel is above normal.

TEPCO attempted to restore the functioning of an electrical pressure-relief device by connecting a generator, but has not succeeded.

The company is considering other means to relieve the reactor pressure, such as releasing air from the containment vessel.
Inadequate cooling is also occurring at the Fukushima Number Two power plant, where the pumps to send seawater to cool the Number One, Two and Four reactors have failed due to the tsunami.

TEPCO says it will try to restore the cooling systems by replacing the pump motors overnight.

6 reactors having trouble at the minute but hopefully the three at No 2 plant will be brought under control with new pump motors.

Edit, Reactor 3 at no 1 plant is using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel as well, so it would be nice if they fix it.

[Arthur_Parker]

Meltdowns may have occurred in two reactors: Japan

Japan's top government spokesman Yukio Edano said Sunday that radioactive meltdowns may have occurred in two reactors of the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant.

Asked in a press conference whether meltdowns had occurred, Edano said "we are acting on the assumption that there is a high possibility that one has occurred" in the plant's number-one reactor.

"As for the number-three reactor, we are acting on the assumption that it is possible," he said.

Well that seems like a safe bet at this point.

Officials Stall Reports on Reactors, Chinese Team Tackles Meltdown

Following a high-level meeting called by lame-duck Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Japanese government agencies are no longer releasing independent reports on the state of the nuclear reactor facilities damaged by the Tohoku earthquake, newly upgraded to 9.0 on the seismic scale, and devesatting tsunami without prior approval from the top.

Official silencing of bad news is one way of reassuring the public.
...
A specialist medical team from the National Radiology Health Institute, flown by helicopter from Chiba to a field center five kilometers (About three miles) from the No.1 Nuclear Plant, found radiation illness in three residents out of a sample group of 90. Overnight that number of civilian-nuclear "hibakusha" shot up to 160.
...
Firefighters are pumping seawater into the three overheated Fukushima 1 reactors. The mandatory freshwater supply is missing, presumably due to tsunami contamination from surging ocean waves. An American nuclear expert has called this desperation measure the equivalent of a "Hail Mary pass."
...
In an unprecedented move, China has sent in an emergency team into Japan. Unbeknownst to most, China has world-leading expertise in extinguishing nuclear meltdowns and blocking radiation leaks at their uranium mines and military nuclear plants. This was discovered on a 2003 visit to a geological research center in the uranium-rich Altai mountain region of Xinjiang, where a scientist disclosed "off the record" China's development of mineral blends that block radiation "much more than 90 percent, nearly totally." When asked why the institute doesn't commercialize their formulas, he responded: "We've never thought about that." That's too bad, because if one of China's exports was ever needed now, it's their radiation blanket.

Not sure how reliable newamericamedia.org is, anyone know?  The sea water being pumped into three reactors I haven't seen anywhere else but the China stuff seems real specific to be made up.

[Trouble]

Instead of commissioning plants to run 20-40 years longer than they were supposed to with old much less safe tech (the current shit in Japan is very unlikely to have happened with a more recent nuke plant design) they will see that the chance of failure in extreme conditions really is too high on the older stuff.

If I understand it correctly, thorium plants are only just coming online in the world. It's very new tech for mass power production, often with the term "prototype" attached to it.

Besides, most industries avoid the huge expense of replacing old (but functional and revenue generating) infrastructure until absolutely necessary. I'm not sure the process of retrofitting an existing reactor, but good luck in convincing nuclear reactors that are functioning perfectly well, thank you, that they really should completely update themselves. A refit probably means a shut down, which means huge expense while having no revenue.

Alternatively they can try to build new thorium nuclear power plants, but that's a political minefield in and of itself (all existing nuclear reactors in the US were started by 1974, apparently - there hasn't been a 'new' power plant approved since then).

My point, if I have one, is that these older nuclear power plants are going to be in the US for years, probably decades, to come. Just because thorium is seen as the safe option now doesn't mean the industry will move to it or that it will even be as safe as people say.

Yeah I don't have any expectation that the US is going to do shit for any nuclear, whether they be upgrade old plants or put money into researching or building new ones. I'm talking about the set of countries already heavily invested in nuclear (the upgrade thing was primarily shot at Germany) and countries like India (is there another one? China?) that recognize how important it is to secure their energy future and are playing catch up.

Speaking about India specifically, it's important to not underestimate them now and in the near future. They've obviously quickly slingshotted their internal expertise (and technology) in the last couple decades over all fields of science and technology. They still have plenty of poor starving people, but they also have very forward looking policy and programs in regards to research into education, technology, and research.

[Fordel]

We have like 20 Reactors in Ontario alone or something like that, but I have no idea on their specifics of operation.

[Arthur_Parker]

US panel: Fuel pool attack could trigger zirconium fire

partial or complete draining of a plant’s spent fuel pool might be capable of starting a high-temperature fuel cladding fire that could lead to the “release of large quantities of radioactive material into the environment
...
fuel newly removed from the reactor needs about five years cooling time in a water pool before it can be loaded into casks.

Interesting that the media is going along with the idea that reactor 1 building blowing up is no big thing, but the fuel storage pool is on an upper level.  Thankfully the water levels must ok, otherwise the place would be flooded with radiation, but I have to wonder at the wisdom of putting a water tank that's liable to catch fire in a building designed with blow out panels.

[WindupAtheist]

The main problem with Thorium reactors are economic. Stockpiles, procurement, mining, market costs.

I mean, nobody has been farming that shit since BC came out. 

[MahrinSkel]

Something to remember is that this *is* a "worst case scenario", you had a roughly 9.0 earthquake centered a hundred miles away (an earthquake that moved the entire Home Islands 8 feet), followed by a 30-foot tsunami (with the plant right on the water), and a complete loss of all electrical power beyond battery backups.  And the result, so far, has been fairly minor (compared to the direct impacts of the earthquake and tsunami).

--Dave

EDIT: And an older design without the negative-feedback fail-safe features of newer designs.  If they weren't actively managing it, it would get a lot worse, fast, but newer designs would (and are, elsewhere in Japan) just quietly not do anything.

[Tale]

(all existing nuclear reactors in the US were started by 1974, apparently - there hasn't been a 'new' power plant approved since then).

That may be incorrect. The US ones I'm reading about on Wikipedia say "commissioned 1985", etc.

Here's a worrying sentence about California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant: "Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults."

And California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant was "built to withstand a 7.0 magnitude earthquake directly under the plant".

Bigger earthquakes will happen. This photo shows how unprotected the San Onofre plant would be from a tsunami.

CNN has a story on concerns over these plants in the wake of the Japan crisis.

In the United States, perhaps the most vulnerable plants are the two in California built on the Pacific coast near the San Andreas fault.

Those plants were built to withstand a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, said Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert at the Institute for Policy studies and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The San Francisco quake of 1906 measured 8.3, said Alvarez, while Friday's Japanese quake was a massive 8.9.

"I don't think we should renew those operating licenses," he said.

[Chimpy]

The 1974 number was the year the approval of the plans. "Commissioning" of nuclear plants usually means them being certified and put into operation.

[Fordel]

Building them in a place called Diablo Canyon is just asking for it!



What, was the Hellmouth already taken?

[Trouble]

A little bit of a rant incoming, not directed at anyone here.

This event sort of drives home an important real point though. This clearly is not a one in a million event but it seems hubris is an innate quality in people. When the plant was built I'm sure there was armies of scientists and engineers saying "it would take a one in a million event to cause a disaster level event that overwhelmed our triple levels of backups and our failsafe reactor design blah blah blah" and I'm sure they 100% believed it. Sometimes there really are completely unforeseen, unknown unknowns and there's no way to help that but learn and adapt when it happens the first time. This isn't really one of those cases.

It was known when these plants were built that it was one of the most geographically active places in the world, tsunamis even bigger than the one that hit have been recorded multiple times throughout human history, and specifically Japan's history. Wikipedia lists four tsunamis in the 20th century alone prior to the plant's construction, at least one of which had a greater height. Prior to the building of the reactor there was four recorded earthquakes about equal or bigger in the 20th century in the world.

So they built these reactors on the Ring of Fire, knowing the possible worst case earthquake scenario, knowing that huge tsunamis are likely to accompany such a worst case earthquake, knowing that in such a case there would be no external power. When I first read about what was happening a couple days ago, and where it was, my first reaction was "what the fuck were they thinking building nuke plants there?!" And that would have been my reaction before the earthquake too, except without the ?! and with a "they are so going to be fucked when the big one inevitably hits."

There is an infinite number of examples in history of human ignorance and hubris leading to poor decisions which ended very poorly, so this is not without precedent, but I had thought that even in 1966 there was a great respect for the power and danger inherent with nuclear plants. I would have assumed that they understood that you can't build a nuke plant at a 99.999% confidence rate. There's no possible safe nuclear plant that could be built in that location, except for something like Thorium where it is physically impossible for there to be a large radiation leak even in the worst case scenario. Maybe I'm armchair nuclearengineering here, but it seems to me like that should have been discernible even 50 years ago when this plant was planned and built.


Edit: what Tale said is the exact same thing. What level of hubris is required to build a plant to a 7.0 Richter scale spec when it is very much known a bigger one is possible and even somewhat likely in the nuke plant's lifetime?


Edit 2:

And an older design without the negative-feedback fail-safe features of newer designs.  If they weren't actively managing it, it would get a lot worse, fast, but newer designs would (and are, elsewhere in Japan) just quietly not do anything.

This current disaster also made obvious to me another issue I hadn't thought of and apparently a lot of other people didn't too. Not only are they fighting the issues with the reactors, but they also have onsite spent nuclear fuel which ALSO needs to be cooled. So maybe the new generations of reactors are worst case scenario proof (I'll take your word for the moment but I am somewhat skeptical that there isn't a scenario with a greater than 0.0001% probability that would prove it wrong) but unless we're not storing spent fuel on site at reactors you're going to run into issues there. It doesn't take a meltdown with spent nuclear fuel to cause significant radiation issues in the surrounding area if there's no way to cool it.

[Merusk]

In the case of US plants it's not hubris, it's cost:benefit analysis.  Human life doesn't get a big number in those calcs.

[Sand]

That volcano is on Kyushu. About 950 miles south of Sendai. It may or may not be related to the earthquake.

Yeah I dont get this either. Scientists in Japan are saying the same thing, "It may or may not be related."
Wow way to take a position there scientist guy. (not directed at you but the waffling Japanese scientists)

The volcano had been inactive for 52 years, then started becoming active in January up through about 2 weeks ago when it went silent again. They all lie along the same fault area.
To think there isnt some kid of correlation is kinda  to me, but then maybe Im oversimplifying geology?

Also nearly simultaneous to the Japan earthquake volcanoes in the Philippines and Russia started erupting. I bet they are saying these all "may or may not" be related as well.

[Fordel]

Umm, if they don't know that is or isn't related to the earthquake, how can they 'take a position'?

[MahrinSkel]

We don't know that much about what's happening under the crust.  All we know for certain is that there is a correlation in time between the events, but volcanoes stop and start erupting all the time around the Ring of Fire.  If Mt. Hood or Rainier blew anytime this year, you'd have plenty of people willing to swear it couldn't be a coincidence, but it almost certainly would be.

Once you get past the lithosphere, we have only the vaguest crayon-chart understanding of geology.  Our "seismic maps" of the magma currents have a resolution measured in tens (or even hundreds) of miles.

--Dave

EDIT: Kilauea in Hawaii just had an eruption.  Coincidence?  Yes.  Or maybe, no.  We don't have the slightest idea.