Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[bhodi]

Here are some horrible pictures.

[WayAbvPar]

Those are amazing. It is so hard to really feel the scope of it until you see wide angle aerial pics like some of those.

[Soln]

Video: Architecture Meant to Bend, Not Break

via NYT, admirable construction

Though the images are a bit unnerving, the buildings are doing they way they were designed to do - move and flex with the seismic motion rather than stiffly resist it, which would cause them to crack and topple.

[Merusk]

That's pretty cool, thanks. Never thought I'd get to see such things in reality. (Well, hoped to never, really.)

What's even more disturbing is if you consider just how far they're swaying for you to see them like that.  It looks like it's only 3-4 feet but it's probably more like 10.  (It'd be easier to tell if he'd put the camera on a tripod!)

[FatuousTwat]

Looks like nothing really hit Oregon.

[Ingmar]

About the worst that happened here was Crescent City got some significant damage to the harbor (docks smashed, etc., up at the Oregon/California border) and a bunch of boats got tossed around in Santa Cruz harbor.

[Trippy]

I'm very, very disappointed in all of you that I had to be the first one to post this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami&oldid=418259527

[HaemishM]

Oh Internet... is there nothing you can't be a complete cockmunch about?

[Chimpy]

Anonymity has some definite drawbacks, that is for sure.

[bhodi]

Some more photos, check out 6/18 for the 10m high wave hitting Natori

[Sand]

Im not a nuclear engineer so not sure how bad this might be?

Today 5:57 PM Losing Control

According to NBC Nightly News' Twitter feed, Tokyo Electric Power Company has lost control of their numbers one and two nuclear power reactors. Temperatures are rising.

This was some hours after they were already considering off gassing irradiated steam into the open to relieve pressure so Im pretty sure when they say they have "lost control" thats technical engineer speak for "we might all be really fucked now."

[Mosesandstick]

It's hard to say without knowing the particulars of the power plant. I did a quick google search and it says that water has reached boiling temperature within one of the reactors. This is one of the steps that can lead to a meltdown. Water loses it's ability to conduct heat as it turns in to steam, which leads to the fuel rods and other components overheating, etc.

Ninja edit: If I understand what is going on correctly, the plants have all been shut down. But because it's a nuclear plant you have to keep the cooling systems running whilst all of the isotopes sort themselves out.

All these plants are designed to have multiple, redundant safety systems. My guess is that if worse comes to worse they'll just SCRAM the whole thing and leave themselves a hopefully contained radioactive mess.

[Chimpy]

They talked to an Atomic Energy expert on Al Jazeera this afternoon that said that the reports from this morning about a plant losing cooling were mis-interpreted by the media because the media was not aware of how complex the systems in a nuclear plant are, nor do they fully understand the regulatory requirements nuclear plants are under. Apparently, the reports from this morning were in regards to the diesel genrators that are the initial failover power source at the plant did not immediately start which led to a mandatory report to the regulatory agency that there was an "incident" going on. The media read this as a "loss of cooling" when, in that instance, all that actually failed was one in a long series of systems did not failover properly.

[Lightstalker]

The fuel is still hot even when not generating electricity, and needs to be cooled to keep it from melting itself and the rest of the plant.  Normally that's done with water pumped using electricity generated at the plant, in an emergency plants have diesel generators on standby to keep the water circulating even if the nuke generator has powered down.

In this case, the nukes automatically powered down in response to detecting the earthquake.  That's expected and generally a good idea because you'd want to inspect the facilities to ensure it is safe to continue operation.  What isn't cool is that the cooling system isn't functional.  There could be hundreds of reasons for this, they could be full of sea-water from the tsunami, or washed away, or the fuel washed away, or the water circulating equipment could be broken, etc., there isn't any grid power available because all the local nuke plants have automatically gone dark and so forth.  The uncertainty on coolant - reports have gone back and forth on if the US airlifted coolant or not, suggests it isn't just a power or coolant problem.  They've probably got safety controls that prevent restarting fast enough to get the situation under control with local power even if it was just an access to power for the pumps problem (betting continued operation is less dangerous than melting down - they probably don't leave those decisions in the hands of gambling men).

Regardless, it'll take a few hours to boil down enough volume to expose the fuel and until then things are still dangerous but not critical (and until then the coolant temp will remain 100C).  Helpfully, we have no way of knowing what stage we're at or what the hold-up is in cooling it down.  A lot of recent reports have been unhelpful and somewhat alarmist.   http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco is posting regular updates/reports but has moved on to 5.64 M Households without power now, which suggests there isn't much hysteria about it locally.

[MahrinSkel]

It's hard picking through it, but it seems like the emergency cooling systems operated properly (dumped a shitload of water on it) but the backup generators didn't keep operating (tsunami damage).  That means the active cooling is operating on battery power (really big batteries), and they've brought in spares (big USAF cargo choppers).  In addition to that, one of the plants the cooling system isn't keeping up, and they had steam bubbles.  If the steam bubbles get big enough one of two bad things can happen: The steam reaches the level of the fuel, and isn't nearly as efficient at cooling it, or; Containment is breached and the steam vents (probably through the emergency valves there for the purpose, as in Three Mile Island).

A Chernobyl-style explosive meltdown is extremely unlikely, because the containment structures are a lot tougher and the cooling systems a lot more redundant.  Worst-case scenario is uncontrolled venting of steam carrying radioactive material as they dump water in to keep the fuel cool.  Bad in a "increased cancer rates and you can't eat fish from that part of the Pacific" sort of way, but not a major event in and of itself when compared to the earthquake and tsunami.

--Dave

[Merusk]

Local Fox (because it's 10pm and Friday Nights are shitty TV) reported that "several reactors are in danger, one nearing critical on its coolant" and "another is leaking over 1,000 times normal radiation."

 

[Goumindong]

That is going to be Seattle someday soon. We are well overdue for a massive offshore quake. Hopefully it will hold off until I have long since shuffled off this mortal coil.

Nah, an offshore quake is not what Seattle has to worry about, it is the pyroclastic flow coming off Ranier when it finally blows. 

Nope, Ranier's mud flow(its pyroclastic flow will stop long before it hits a major city) is going to flow through Tacoma not Seattle unless the pyroclasic flow from Ranier decides to run north through the Cascade range before following the gradient of the land west. It is not in the way of historic or predicted flows from known active volcano's. The south side might be considered to be in danger but you would have to have a very liberal view of "South Seattle". To the point where you could almost not see the city proper. Tacoma though, right fucked. Worse case scenario pretty much kills everyone

Seattle doesn't have to worry as much about offshore quakes because there is a fucking mountain between it and the Ocean. In order for a Tsunami to hit Seattle it would have to flow trough the straight of Juan de Fuca and then go through the San Juan Islands. On either side of Juan de Fuca are mountain ranges about 5000 feet tall (higher in some places). A Tsunami going over that would be like a wave going over the Appalachian range

Besides the things that kill everyone in the world, Seattle only really has to worry about volcanic ash and a local earthquake.

[MahrinSkel]

Local Fox (because it's 10pm and Friday Nights are shitty TV) reported that "several reactors are in danger, one nearing critical on its coolant" and "another is leaking over 1,000 times normal radiation."

 

1000 times normal sounds scary, but it's considerably less than a medical X-ray.  Not someplace you'd want to live, but not enough to require lead overalls.

--Dave

[brellium]

Local Fox (because it's 10pm and Friday Nights are shitty TV) reported that "several reactors are in danger, one nearing critical on its coolant" and "another is leaking over 1,000 times normal radiation."

 

1000 times normal sounds scary, but it's considerably less than a medical X-ray.  Not someplace you'd want to live, but not enough to require lead overalls.

--Dave

It's Five reactors at two different plants.

Niigata got hit at about noon pacific with a 6.7, which is on the other side of Honshu. On the 2004/5? quake it knocked out the power facility there, however that was a 7.2, that one is the worlds largest nuke facility with six 900-1100mw plants.

[MahrinSkel]

I knew about Fukushima Daiichi, where the two I was talking about are.  Now apparently there's trouble at Fukushima Daini, which is nearby (3 of 4 reactors there having unspecified problems).  I'm not seeing anything about Niigata, except for historical references to the problems the last time around.

They're doing a crash cooling cycle on Fukushima Daiichi's two problem children, if they succeed they'll be harmless in a day or so.  I expect they will, this isn't Chernobyl.

--Dave

[Sand]

As of 15 mins ago.
Seems they have opened the valves, are allowing radioactive steam out, in order to keep the core from exploding from pressure.

(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear authorities said on Saturday that radioactive pressure was successfully relieved at the No.1 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi plant by opening valves.

Edit- Again my laymen's understanding of it is, that they are now worried that without additional water the core becomes exposed, over heats and melts.

2nd edit- I cant believe they have the death count so low. Some reports are saying a bullet train, four commuter trains and a cruise ship full of people were all swept out to sea during the tsunami. Are they simply declaring all those people "missing"?

[Ghambit]

They just had a Tsunami.  Isnt there enough fuckin water?

[brellium]

They just had a Tsunami.  Isnt there enough fuckin water?

It's worse than that.

Fukushima got hit with the earthquake, then the Tsunami, then a Dam break.  That whole reagion is a mess.


@Dave

I've been getting nothing from Niigata other than like last time it's a mess with landslides.  With all the trouble Japan is having on the east coast of Honshu, I doubt we'll hear anything about the trouble on the west.

[brellium]

Some of the reports I've been getting are pretty horrible.

One of them is that a city of 70,000+ people simply vanished, helicopters flew over the city, anything that wasn't concrete or stone washed away and no sign of life.

The Tsunami was something in the area of 9-10 meters (almost 30 feet) and went 10 kilometers inland.

Edit*

Japan also upgraded the quake to 9.1 based on the water displacement.

[Ratman_tf]

Jesus god christ. Imagine having a wall of cars pushed towards you by the wave. 

[schild]

Al-Jazeera JUST reported like right now that a Chernobyl Style meltdown is now a distinct possibility.

[MahrinSkel]

There are reports, some appearing to be official, that cesium has been detected from the vented steam, which would indicate that there has been some melting in the fuel rods.  That's not quite the same thing as a "meltdown", and it's a long way from a Chernobyl-like event (which should be impossible with this design, Chernobyl was a "first generation" design).

--Dave

[schild]

There are reports, some appearing to be official, that cesium has been detected from the vented steam, which would indicate that there has been some melting in the fuel rods.  That's not quite the same thing as a "meltdown", and it's a long way from a Chernobyl-like event (which should be impossible with this design, Chernobyl was a "first generation" design).

--Dave

You're refuting what I just heard reported by Al-Jazeera with the word "should." Don't do that.

[Mosesandstick]

A Chernobyl style reaction is practically impossible. Chernobyl required human operators to override their own safety systems. In addition the design of the Japanese reactors means that something will provide negative feedback before it could go supercritical in the way Chernobyl did.

[schild]

What's your point? I'm relaying information. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not even misrepresenting it. You're just replacing "should" with "practically."

[Mosesandstick]

And I'm just relaying information too! Anyone who says it's going to be a Chernobyl-style meltdown is talking out of their ass, those conditions simply don't exist anymore. If it's going to be a meltdown it's going to happen in a really fucked, complicated way. I use the word "practically" because there are always unforseen events that nobody's certain about.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, although I have gained quite a lot of respect for Al Jazeera as a news organization, I find it more likely that they are misinterpreting something, or giving the mike to someone ready to say something sensational, than that the nuclear engineers I've talked to are wrong or were lying to me.  I'm not an expert, I'm relying on the expertise of others, and that's the source of the "should".

The US Navy has people on site, and there is nobody better in the world at this kind of thing.  That's a pretty universal opinion.  Having not gone totally pear-shaped already, I'm pretty sure they'll manage to keep it under control.

--Dave

[schild]

Major radiation leak in Fukushima. Explosion 4 minutes ago. Now shut the fuck up and stop being an expert.

Edit: The ceiling on No.1 has collapsed. Explosion assumed to be the hydrogen that HAD been used to cool the reactor.

[MahrinSkel]

It would be hydrogen that was liberated from the water by the heat of the core, which is a bad sign.  An explosion could be that hydrogen, in which case although they probably still have containment, the ancillary systems (including cooling) probably took more damage.  Implies the problem is at least as bad as Three Mile Island, but with a hydrogen explosion (which never happened there).

I guess we're going to find out how good that containment structure is, after being shaken by a major earthquake.

--Dave

EDIT: It's bad for another reason, as well; If there was hydrogen in the steam, that probably means the uranium in the core was exposed to oxygen, so now that coolant water is contaminated with uranium oxide, *much* more dangerous than the trace amounts of cesium normally associated with coolant venting.  They may not have any choice left but to seal the containment and hope it holds.

[penfold]

Major radiation leak in Fukushima. Explosion 4 minutes ago. Now shut the fuck up and stop being an expert.

Edit: The ceiling on No.1 has collapsed. Explosion assumed to be the hydrogen that HAD been used to cool the reactor.

and by collapsed, you mean "blown into the fucking atmosphere"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4uogOEUrU#t=43s

At 47 seconds. I've read full meltdowns cant happen on LWRs but that doesn't look good.