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Thread is about the various issues surrounding Japan in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. Don't bring the shit side of the internet to the thread, and post with the realization that this thread is very important, and very real, to your fellow members.
Do not post speculative and unconfirmed news you saw on TV or anywhere else. Generally the more dramatic it sounds the less likely it's true. |
On March 14 2011 18:10 Alshahin wrote: I'd take Michio Kaku, who also speaks Japanese and may have connections, over that economics propaganda guy trying to do damage control for the nuclear energy industry.
Chernobyl didn't have aftershocks. Yes, Chernobyl design was different. But meltdown means heat means pressure. The core can melt through the containment and the pressure may be too great for the (damaged) containment. Also, they have to juggle at least 3 reactors while they are still suffering from the aftermath of a huge quake&tsunami. It is on a knife edge.
This event is already worse than TMI as there are several people with acute radiation illness. Also, TMI wasn't the third worst.
You're over reacting on the issue. Melt down will never happen as they will sacrifice the reactor by pumping in sea water, unless all of sudden they run out of sea water.
Everything happened so far is all within procedures, it just looks slightly dangerious due to serveral safety already failed, but they hasn't run out of the steps.
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On March 14 2011 18:14 Nightfall.589 wrote: When that happens, the anti-nuke rhetoric can start. Unfortunately, "Core may melt through containment, and pressure may may be too much for containment, and they may not keep the situation under control." is not a particularly convincing basis for an argument.
Remember, the longer the situation is stable, the more energy dissipates... And the lower is the likelihood of complications.
Well, if we go by death counts, there's occasionally handfuls of operators that get irradiated. Also, oil rigs explode, to loss of human life.
Well, if it is economists vs scientists, I know what side I am on. Don't call it anti-nuke rhetoric.
May, yes. I can't predict the future. So? There is still a risk of an escalation and a risk of even larger amounts of radioactive material to escape. The last 2 days it hasn't really gotten better, has it.
Also, while the rate of atom decay is reducing, that doesn't mean the heat build up decreases, Temperatures may still be rising while less and less nuclear reactions occur. They still do occur until the neutron rate has dropped.
You started talking about death tolls, not me. And the difference with an oil rig is that you can just let it burn out.
Michio Kaku said this is a second Chernobyl, not me. Don't attack me for it. Chernobyl didn't have a containment and like 25% of the core was blown up. But these reactors aren't immune to the containment breaking.
As for WWII bombs, you realize an aftershock is probably going to have a bigger efffect than a WWII bomb?
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On March 14 2011 18:10 Alshahin wrote: I'd take Michio Kaku, who also speaks Japanese and may have connections, over that economics propaganda guy trying to do damage control for the nuclear energy industry.
Chernobyl didn't have aftershocks. Yes, Chernobyl design was different. But meltdown means heat means pressure. The core can melt through the containment and the pressure may be too great for the (damaged) containment. Also, they have to juggle at least 3 reactors while they are still suffering from the aftermath of a huge quake&tsunami. It is on a knife edge.
The containment isn't damaged, the concrete walls aren't part of the containment whatsoever. Furthermore, the containment is designed to contain the core even in the event of a meltdown, even in the event of a much more dramatical meltdown than what could possibly happen now! It's designed to handle a meltdown in operation, even if the reactor couldn't be shut down.
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On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 18:14 Nightfall.589 wrote: When that happens, the anti-nuke rhetoric can start. Unfortunately, "Core may melt through containment, and pressure may may be too much for containment, and they may not keep the situation under control." is not a particularly convincing basis for an argument.
Remember, the longer the situation is stable, the more energy dissipates... And the lower is the likelihood of complications.
Well, if we go by death counts, there's occasionally handfuls of operators that get irradiated. Also, oil rigs explode, to loss of human life. Michio Kaku said this is a second Chernobyl, not me. Don't attack me for it. Chernobyl didn't have a containment and like 25% of the core was blown up. But these reactors aren't immune to the containment breaking. Michio Kaku is a clown. The list of stupid stuff he says is endless. Comparing this to Chernobyl makes you look like a fool. Do you even know what happened there?
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On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 18:14 Nightfall.589 wrote: When that happens, the anti-nuke rhetoric can start. Unfortunately, "Core may melt through containment, and pressure may may be too much for containment, and they may not keep the situation under control." is not a particularly convincing basis for an argument.
Remember, the longer the situation is stable, the more energy dissipates... And the lower is the likelihood of complications.
Well, if we go by death counts, there's occasionally handfuls of operators that get irradiated. Also, oil rigs explode, to loss of human life. Well, if it is economists vs scientists, I know what side I am on. Don't call it anti-nuke rhetoric. May, yes. I can't predict the future. So? There is still a risk of an escalation and a risk of even larger amounts of radioactive material to escape. The last 2 days it hasn't really gotten better, has it.
Sure it has. Core heat emissions have gone down. Radiation emissions are low. The longer this goes on, the better the prospects of... Nothing happening is.
Also, while the rate of atom decay is reducing, that doesn't mean the heat build up decreases, Temperatures may still be rising while less and less nuclear reactions occur. They still do occur until the neutron rate has dropped.
Only if the heat loss through coolant is getting reduced. Unless they stop pumping water, that will not be the case.
Michio Kaku said this is a second Chernobyl, not me. Don't attack me for it.
So, you don't believe that this is a second Chernobyl? That's a good place to start.
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The containment is not designed to hold a melt down. Just as this reactor was not designed to withstand this earthquake. As for damage, no one inspected the containment after the earthquake so no one knows if it is damaged or not.
As for running out of seawater, I assume that was sarcastic and that shows exactly the wrong attitude. The whole intricate safety and backup systems failed. How is this improved system for pumping around seawater immune to failure? The reactor suffered an earthquake, a tsunami and then several aftershocks and explosions. Just one tube or valve has to fail and they may be unable to pump around seawater.
People need to get real. We don't know if this will become a real disaster in itself yet. Anyone that claims to know the future is full of shit. Saying it can't go wrong when in fact so far everything has gone wrong is pure arrogance.
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yeah but that chernobyl stuff is bullshit is stupid because you need something to blow the radioactiv stuff in the air. An aftershoc may affect the plant but it won't blow everything in the air. One of the big problem of chernobyl was it was build on top of the cooling water reservoir. So when the meltdown happend the I-Dont-Know-How-Hot-stuff dropped in that water and EVERYTHING vaporized within seconds. THAT was the big problem of chernobyl because everything was blown in the air and was able to travel through the air.
Even if we got a meltdown in Japan, there's no waterreservoir underneath that might explode, so the meltdown material will never get out somehow, just the gases.
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On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote:
Well, if it is economists vs scientists, I know what side I am on. Don't call it anti-nuke rhetoric.
May, yes. I can't predict the future. So? There is still a risk of an escalation and a risk of even larger amounts of radioactive material to escape. The last 2 days it hasn't really gotten better, has it.
Also, while the rate of atom decay is reducing, that doesn't mean the heat build up decreases, Temperatures may still be rising while less and less nuclear reactions occur. They still do occur until the neutron rate has dropped.
They already pumped sea water into the 2 reactors, such scenario is already impossible, unless sea dries up.
On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote:
You started talking about death tolls, not me. And the difference with an oil rig is that you can just let it burn out.
Don't want to derail the topic here, but your suggesting that Deepwater Horizon incident isn't as bad this?
On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote:
Michio Kaku said this is a second Chernobyl, not me. Don't attack me for it. Chernobyl didn't have a containment and like 25% of the core was blown up. But these reactors aren't immune to the containment breaking.
You're trying to link a reference to support your stance, suddenly your immune to criticism because the words didn't come out of your mouth?
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On March 14 2011 18:26 Nightfall.589 wrote:
Only if the heat loss through coolant is getting reduced. Unless they stop pumping water, that will not be the case.
Last thing we heard is that they tried to pump seawater into reactor 2 but failed and that water was several meters above the reactor core but dropping. Stop pumping water?
We have 2 reactors with partial meltdown coooled with seawater and stable for now and another one seemingly going towards uncovery. If the seawater fails, there's no backup plan.
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On March 14 2011 18:32 furymonkey wrote: They already pumped sea water into the 2 reactors, such scenario is already impossible, unless sea dries up.
Shows incredible ignorance. The water will heat up and turn into steam. They need to keep cycling the cooling water until the decay rate has become manageable.
On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote: Don't want to derail the topic here, but your suggesting that Deepwater Horizon incident isn't as bad this?
You don't understand the nature of severely radioactive materials? It's like saying Deepwater Horizon wasn't a disaster just before it blew. The odds of a serious amount of radiative material being expelled is low. But when it happens it has long term effects.
You're trying to link a reference to support your stance, suddenly your immune to criticism because the words didn't come out of your mouth?
This is an idiotic statement. People quote news sources and authorities. But I can't. You don't know who he is, do you? Also, I don't believe this is another Chernobyl. The reason is that I don't have the expertise. But it seems that this is no contain to people vastly more ignorant of the physics.
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On March 14 2011 18:34 Alshahin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 18:26 Nightfall.589 wrote:
Only if the heat loss through coolant is getting reduced. Unless they stop pumping water, that will not be the case.
Last thing we heard is that they tried to pump seawater into reactor 2 but failed and that water was several meters above the reactor core but dropping. Stop pumping water?
The water level dropped before they started pumping seawater in the second reactor.
We have 2 reactors with partial meltdown coooled with seawater and stable for now and another one seemingly going towards uncovery. If the seawater fails, there's no backup plan.
Thankfully, the sea won't go dry anytime soon.
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NHK just listed all the nations providing relief crews.
China, Russia, Korea, France etc are all there -- but Canada's missing. Why? Wtf is going on???
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You make it sound as if the original coolant water dried up or magically disappeared rather than that the coolant system failed.
If you can't understand the seriousness of the likelihood of a meltdown being determined by improvised efforts to pump in seawater, you are lost.
Look, all I am saying that these reactors are at risk. No system is immune to failure. Yet here we have people who somehow believe people have a delusional fear of nuclear energy and feel they need to argue against that by saying that this can't and won't go wrong. We don't know yet. A week ago you could have argued that nuclear energy is safe. You don't do that while we are in a INES 4 or 5 incident. Not to mention that the Japanese government was warned these reactors were not safe. They were lucky that the epicenter of this quake wasn't closer to the reactor itself.
There is still a risk of it going very wrong. It is not theoretically impossible and not completely improbable either, but no one knows for sure.
Show some humility.
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Osaka27151 Posts
On March 14 2011 18:42 dump wrote: NHK just listed all the nations providing relief crews.
China, Russia, Korea, France etc are all there -- but Canada's missing. Why? Wtf is going on???
Canada has been on standby for some time, but as of yet has not been requested. Normally people get flag-blind and take offense (as comments on the CBC web page will show). However there is a massive logistical operation happening, and it is no use bringing in more people until you have a plan for them.
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Thankfully, the sea won't go dry anytime soon.
The sea wont go dry but what makes you so sure the pumps will keep working considering there might be another heavy aftershock/tsunami/missing plug(!) which might cause the cooling mechanism to fail?
And if you cant keep the core cooled it _might_ still be active enough to produce enough heat to melt through the containment and then you have an open core with massive radioactivity leaking and below the core catcher consisting of graphite which was the material burning in tchernobyl (was used in a RBMK as a moderator though)
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On March 14 2011 18:44 dEphria wrote: The sea wont go dry but what makes you so sure the pumps will keep working considering there might be another heavy aftershock/tsunami/missing plug(!) which might cause the cooling mechanism to fail? It's entirely possible that there are no contingencies - (See: backup pumps, that could be activated before coolant levels drop too low, following an aftershock.) in place. That is unlikely to be the case, given that this is being treated so seriously that the government thought it prudent to evacuate 200,000 people.
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Osaka27151 Posts
On March 14 2011 18:40 Alshahin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 18:32 furymonkey wrote: They already pumped sea water into the 2 reactors, such scenario is already impossible, unless sea dries up.
Shows incredible ignorance. The water will heat up and turn into steam. They need to keep cycling the cooling water until the decay rate has become manageable. Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 18:23 Alshahin wrote: Don't want to derail the topic here, but your suggesting that Deepwater Horizon incident isn't as bad this?
You don't understand the nature of severely radioactive materials? It's like saying Deepwater Horizon wasn't a disaster just before it blew. The odds of a serious amount of radiative material being expelled is low. But when it happens it has long term effects. Show nested quote + You're trying to link a reference to support your stance, suddenly your immune to criticism because the words didn't come out of your mouth?
This is an idiotic statement. People quote news sources and authorities. But I can't. You don't know who he is, do you? Also, I don't believe this is another Chernobyl. The reason is that I don't have the expertise. But it seems that this is no contain to people vastly more ignorant of the physics.
Stop being so aggressive in this thread please.
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The core of reactor 2 is now partially exposed, according to BBC according to unmentioned local media. Apparently, the pluming/pipes of the reactor have leaks in them. The pacific ocean not drying up will fix that. Now considering that this reactor has been offline for like 2 days, it will melt far slower than no1.
Manifesto7, stop them being wrong. That will help. I will continue to be aggressive. Facts are on my side.
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On March 14 2011 18:50 Alshahin wrote: Manifesto7, stop them being wrong. That will help. I will continue to be aggressive. Facts are on my side.
I can't believe you are saying facts are on your side. At the moment, no one can say that. I'll repeat what you just said for you : show some humility. And calm down.
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