Crisis in Japan - Page 106

On March 14 2011 12:54 kaisen wrote:
Japan's central bank boosts liquidity injection into money markets to $183.8 billion - AP

can someone tell me what this means?

South Korea will provide liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japanese power companies that have been forced to turn off nuclear power plants due to last week’s massive earthquake, the government said Sunday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said the state-run Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS) has decided to divert some LNG shipments that it planned to receive from abroad so they can go to Japan.

The shipments that will be diverted were due to arrive in South Korea this month and in April, the ministry said.

“The decision was made after Japanese power companies asked for a ‘swap arrangement’ so they can receive more LNG to be paid back at a later date,” the ministry said.

It said the amount of LNG to be diverted will not seriously affect South Korea’s demand for the fossil fuel resource.

South Korea currently has enough reserves that there should be no short-term problem in its energy sector.

South Korea, however, said that if Japan’s electric power shortage is not resolved in the near future, it could affect LNG prices down the road.

If Japan’s nuclear power stations, which provide roughly 30 percent of the country’s power needs, remain inoperable, the island nation will have to rely more on fossil fuel, which will raise international prices.

KOGAS has set up an emergency response team to examine possible repercussions in both the international and local markets. The government plans to push for expanding the storage capacity for LNG from 7.12 kiloliters as of last year to 15.36 kiloliters in 2024.

On March 14 2011 12:51 alffla wrote:


i think his post was about no new tsunamis, cuz there was a warning for another 3 metre tsunami

On March 14 2011 13:05 lexingtonsteel wrote:
Hi I have a question for subject matter experts:

With nuclear reactors, what actually causes the massive explosions? From what I saw in the footages, there was black smoke, and fire, so I am guessing it is not just steam.

My second question is, how the fuck can someone be saying that the containment is still intact? I honestly cannot see how if the core has produced such an explosion, and still be perfectly intact? I mean at least a massive hole at the top of the casing. Am I right? If i am wrong please let me know because i feel like the Japanese are lying.

On March 14 2011 13:05 lexingtonsteel wrote:
Hi I have a question for subject matter experts:

With nuclear reactors, what actually causes the massive explosions? From what I saw in the footages, there was black smoke, and fire, so I am guessing it is not just steam.

My second question is, how the fuck can someone be saying that the containment is still intact? I honestly cannot see how if the core has produced such an explosion, and still be perfectly intact? I mean at least a massive hole at the top of the casing. Am I right? If i am wrong please let me know because i feel like the Japanese are lying.

On March 13 2011 22:28 TimeOut wrote:
Remember that the reactor has been shut down a long time ago. They are only dealing with decay heat right now.

On March 14 2011 13:05 lexingtonsteel wrote:
Hi I have a question for subject matter experts:

With nuclear reactors, what actually causes the massive explosions? From what I saw in the footages, there was black smoke, and fire, so I am guessing it is not just steam.

My second question is, how the fuck can someone be saying that the containment is still intact? I honestly cannot see how if the core has produced such an explosion, and still be perfectly intact? I mean at least a massive hole at the top of the casing. Am I right? If i am wrong please let me know because i feel like the Japanese are lying.

On March 14 2011 13:15 Alshahin wrote:



A comment like this shows you have no idea what you are talking about or how a nuclear reactor works.

Blaming the media for blowing up the nuclear reactor stories is unjustified. The blog of the person saying he is not 'worried' is silly. Those people trying to manage those reactors right now are extremely worried.

Question is what you are worried about. Saying this will probably no environmental effect is silly. We already know radiation leaked. That's an effect. Cooling with seawater also means more radiation will leak. Yes, the general public doesn't know there is always radiation present. But radiation is not a harmless thing, even when quantities are low. Even everyday radiation has it's effects, and it isn't beneficial.

Any nuclear reactor that is no longer in control is a big issue. Fission reactions by definition have a risk of a chain reaction. A reactor is all about controlling this chain reaction, preventing it from going into a chain reaction when it goes out of control and containing whatever goes wrong from the outside world.
No nuclear explosion is needed for this to be a significant disaster.

As for nuclear scientists, they are well documented as serving politicians or managers who don't respect science. Nuclear scientists have a very bad record of warning the general public and cautioning the people they work for.
Right now we have Japanese scientists saying they are worried about the situation.

No one knows what is happening exactly right now, it seems. And no one knows what will happen next. And having a partial meltdown that stays perfectly contained is already a big problem.

You can blame the media for focusing too much on nuclear reactors when so many people have already died of natural forces. But there is an odd thing going on. People ask if it was really a good idea to build so many nuclear reactors in such an earthquake prone environment. The counter is that there is no protection against an earth quake and then a tsunami of the magnitude we saw. This is a bizarre argument and exactly the point. Humans don't build earthquakes. Humans do build nuclear reactors. A fission reactor is never 100% safe. You don't build it there were you know it can be destroyed no matter how many safety you try to build in.

Many countries that have no earthquakes at all are very reculant to build nuclear reactors. We know the nuclear energy lobby is very strong and backed by military and political motives. Several of these reactors were build by General Electric. We also know Japanese sovereignty is violated by the US. The Japanese people want US soldiers to leave Japan. Japan depends for protection on the US, a product of WWII.
Japanese people voted for a person who said he would make the US leave Japan. He was elected on that mandate. When he failed because it wasn't in his power to make the US leave, he had to resign.
It seems the nuclear lobby in Japan has been strong and this is the reason for why Japan has so many nuclear reactors. Now at work we see the nuclear energy lobby trying to do some damage control to the already bad image of fission power. I'd say fission nuclear energy rightly has such a bad image. It goes wrong every time. It is not safe. Humans make errors. Earth is beyond our power. And there is no solution for the waste no matter what people claim.

On March 14 2011 13:17 vek wrote:


I'm no expert but I believe it's to do with the design of the reactors.

There is quite a bit of information about all the different things that can go wrong in the Chernobyl wikipedia article. Not much of it will apply to the Fukushima power plant (which is much safer) but it is a very interesting read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

On March 14 2011 13:11 chocopan wrote:


There are articles which explain it better but in brief:

The explosion is a hydrogen explosion. Oxygen and hydrogen disassociate as a byproduct of the cooldown process going on. This kind of explosion is an undesired but predictable result.

The core itself is still well contained. The explosion in Daiichi and Daisan are in the outer building which houses the reactor core and systems themselves and protects them from weather and so on.

So an explosion on the "outside", provided the core is still contained (it is in 1 and seems to be in 3 (they can judge this by monitoring the pressure levels)), isn't such a big thing.

On March 14 2011 13:15 Alshahin wrote:
It seems the nuclear lobby in Japan has been strong and this is the reason for why Japan has so many nuclear reactors. Now at work we see the nuclear energy lobby trying to do some damage control to the already bad image of fission power. I'd say fission nuclear energy rightly has such a bad image. It goes wrong every time. It is not safe. Humans make errors. Earth is beyond our power. And there is no solution for the waste no matter what people claim.

Even everyday radiation has it's effects, and it isn't beneficial.

On March 14 2011 13:28 lexingtonsteel wrote:
Where is all this sea water going to anyway? I mean I would imaging its all radioactive water right? I can't imagine putting that water back into the sea, or letting it off as steam.

On March 14 2011 13:22 dump wrote:




Can you explain to me which part of this article is wrong and suggests that they're downplaying a potential disaster: https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

On March 14 2011 13:35 AntiLegend wrote:


this is a very good question.