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Crisis in Japan - Page 148
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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. | ||
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naim
41 Posts
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:49 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: This is obviously a rather stupid question for someone who knows about this stuff, but why is water the only or best way to cool the reactors? Why not use something much colder like liquid nitrogen? The reactor works by boiling water. The steam drives turbines. The whole machinery is built to work with water. Look at this graphic: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-750773-191928.html | ||
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Weemoed
Netherlands741 Posts
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Ghad
Norway2551 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:45 Caphe wrote: Why you think that Japanese people werent prepared enough for EQ is beyond me. Japan is the most prepared country for EQ. If any other country suffer a EQ as great as this one, it would be a much large disaster. With 9.0 EQ and most building in nearby cities wasnt even destroyed, the true damage is from the tsunami which really we human being can't do nothing in short notice. You can't expect everything to stay in place in a EQ. Buildings themselves werent brough down in EQ is a great relief already. Quite right, when you see the images from right before the tsunami you see extremely little damage from the quake itself. | ||
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hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:49 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: This is obviously a rather stupid question for someone who knows about this stuff, but why is water the only or best way to cool the reactors? Why not use something much colder like liquid nitrogen? The temperature of coolant isn't the big deal, what matters is the heat capacity. Water has extremely high heat capacity, which means that it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature (water is a really remarkable substance, in so many ways.). Besides, liquid nitrogen isn't readily available in large quantities. | ||
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EchOne
United States2906 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:49 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: This is obviously a rather stupid question for someone who knows about this stuff, but why is water the only or best way to cool the reactors? Why not use something much colder like liquid nitrogen? Water has a much higher heat capacity and is more plentiful. The applications of liquid nitrogen as a coolant tend to be in low mass situations such as electronics, superconductors, biological samples, where the subject needs to be extremely cold. Nuclear reactors do not need to be extremely cold; they need to be not extremely hot, which is best accomplished by the high heat capacity of water. | ||
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Sorkoas
549 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:59 naim wrote: Dont know what exactly the banner reads. Minutes silence before each sport event in europe (Champions League here). + Show Spoiler + 「私たちは日本の皆さまと共にいます」 I'm not good at translating but it's basically "We are with you Japan". | ||
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VarmVaffel
Norway378 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:00 Weemoed wrote: Was posted on the front page of a Dutch newspaper: Seriously that breaks my heart so hard, I can't even begin to imagine | ||
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nekuodah
England2409 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:49 FlyingLigerz wrote: While we are in a helping mood, how about we also send some money to those kids in Africa. Japan will be fine on its own. They are an extremely efficient industrialized country. I mean, I bet they will be able to rebuild faster then New Orleans. Just because they are very developed doesn't mean that they dont require our help to recover, yes there are other problems in the world too but this is a very large natural disaster that has effected ALOT of people, it is naive to think they will be fine on their own. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On March 16 2011 04:49 FlyingLigerz wrote: While we are in a helping mood, how about we also send some money to those kids in Africa. Japan will be fine on its own. They are an extremely efficient industrialized country. I mean, I bet they will be able to rebuild faster then New Orleans. 1. The catastrophe isnt over yet ... the reactors will probably take at least a few days to get under control and until then there is ALWAYS the chance that something goes horribly wrong. If one of the reactors starts "spewing radioactivity" the area is probably too irradiated to work in and all people working on the other two critical reactors probably have to move out. Thats when shit really hits the fan and if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction .... If that happens it will take A LOT more than feeding a few people in Africa and a large part of the Japanese mainland might be declared uninhabitable. Cleaning up the damaged reactors wont come cheap anyways.  + Show Spoiler + 2. Africa (and any other place) could actually prosper much more by having less interference from us. The EU and their subsidised export of chicken wings which drive Kenias chicken farmers out of business is one example, but there are probably more where "western business interests" hurt african interests. | ||
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hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:08 Rabiator wrote: + Show Spoiler + 2. Africa (and any other place) could actually prosper much more by having less interference from us. The EU and their subsidised export of chicken wings which drive Kenias chicken farmers out of business is one example, but there are probably more where "western business interests" hurt african interests. Oh, there are many, many, many more. But as another aside, we shouldn't generalize all of Africa. It's done way too often, and I think it's demeaning. It's a continent, not a country. | ||
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monkh
United Kingdom568 Posts
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NarutO
Germany18839 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:06 VarmVaffel wrote: Seriously that breaks my heart so hard, I can't even begin to imagine At least she is alive... Ofcourse its terrible, but life is the greatest good. :/ still heartbreaking | ||
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InFiNitY[pG]
Germany3474 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: The reactor works by boiling water. The steam drives turbines. The whole machinery is built to work with water. Look at this graphic: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-750773-191928.html I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. | ||
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chaoser
United States5541 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. The reactors have already been emerged in seawater to cool them so they can't be used again unless lots of money (which probably won't happen) is put towards restoring them. Water is THE most efficient way to cool these nuclear reactors which are called Light Water Reactors. There are other types of reactors that use different coolants but LWR are the most widely used because they are simple/easier to take care of and cheap to build | ||
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Myrdin
United Kingdom47 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. The main problem with liquid nitrogen is that you can't get enough for it to work properly. The second problem is that the energy required to heat it is actually quite low compared to water, so it won't take much heat from the reactor. The third problem is it will only take a tiny tiny amount of energy before it will become a gas again, which means it is either less dense (and takes even less energy from the reactor) or it builds up a huge amount of pressure. The fourth problem is the reactor isn't designed to take in liquid nitrogen, the last thing you want to do is risk the containment being breached at this point. | ||
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toasti
United States2 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. There are probably many things more efficient than water, however there are many more considerations than raw efficiency taken into account when choosing a coolant. I'm sure construction of the reactor next to a large ocean of cold water played a large part. Anyways this thread, specifically the OP has some great info on the current situation of the reactors. Click | ||
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Integra
Sweden5626 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. When it comes to cooling and efficiency water is one of the most efficient ways that currently exists. Please note that it wasn't the water that failed, it was the system controlling the water that failed. If we would use something else, like liquid nitrogen, it would take a much more complicated system to make it work. The more complex a system is the more fragile it is to changes, it's also gets much much more complicated to fix when a problem occurs. The water cooling system is extremely simple and stable to use. | ||
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hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: I know how it works. But wouldn't you agree that avoiding a meltdown is a little more important atm than keeping the output intact? Anyways thanks for the explanations. I had just thought that there should be SOMETHING more efficient for cooling these than water, at least temporarily. but apparently that's not the case. Water is very efficient, it's just that the heat build up is tremendous, and the ability to pump the water in there appears to be limited (since they're not succeeding). If the fuel rods had been covered in water they would've been fine. The problem is not the ability of the water to cool them, it's to get them submerged in the first place. | ||
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Frigo
Hungary1023 Posts
dump Some dumbass analyst on NHK was telling people to stock up on food and essentials a couple days ago. I couldn't believe my ears. I hope this won't be the replay of the Katrina aftermath where official retards forbade shops selling products (ie food) above price, completely ignoring basic supply & demand. It was a real fucking smooth move to introduce artifical scarcity by preventing any goods and sellers from entering the market. REDBLUEGREEN The plant is Kernkraftwerk Krümmel near Hamburg. As a source for it being the area with the highest rate of leukemia in the world it was in the "Hamburger Abendblatt" today and you can read about it on: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukämiecluster_Elbmarsch Here is also a ZDF 30 min docu on it: http://www.videogold.de/und-keiner-weiss-warum-leukaemietod-in-der-elbmarsch/ I suspect there is some coal plant or chemical processing plant nearby or up that river that's causing all these cases, try to look into the matter. A leaking nuclear reactor is quickly discovered, especially in paranoid Germany, unless there is a coverup, which I highly doubt. Leaking chemicals on the other hand can remain undetected for very long, depending on their immediate effects, and coverups are much more common in these cases, due to the lack of worldwide paranoia, laxer safety measures and corruption. Hungary had quite a few cases of river poisoning, including one where an austrian leather processing company released cyanide (?) into one of our rivers, killing almost all wildlife in it. I can't possible believe it hadn't caused any health problems in people. Of course due to corruption, coverup and other factors, our government couldn't touch the company in question. There was some slovakian crap as well, though I can not remember any specifics. + Show Spoiler [kinda offtopic] + JoelB just if some people are interested ... because of the happenings in japan 3 reactors in germany will be shut down till friday ... probably up to 7 (the 7th oldest plants) won't be operating for 3 months atleast (probably most of them will never come back online after this) ... demonstrants are crying and partying because of this news German Weekly Newspaper (Spiegel) heralded the end of the nuclear era yesterday ... for me and my familie who have been living in the shadows of the oldest power plant (that came close to a meltdown in 88 or something) and fighting against it since my childhood this brings atleast some relief in these dark times ... A shameless example of political opportunism if you ask me. It is quite possible to retrofit existing plants with new safety measures, like they did in other countries. Unless the reactor design is inherently flawed, like those two or three plants in the baltic states they had to shut down due to EU regulations. If this is the case, they should have been shut down a loooong ago. I hope you do realize Germany needs to replace this lost energy generating capacity with something else: global warming inducing oil plants, government sanctioned cancer machine coal plants releasing radioactive smoke 24/7, import nuclear energy from other countries, infeasible and expensive as fuck hydroelectric- solar- and wind power, rainforest destroying starvation inducing biofuels, import oil from Russia or Iran - choose one. + Show Spoiler [offtopic] + summerloud really awesome economic system we have, it benefits from lots of shit getting destroyed so it can rebuild it doesnt something about this strike you as inherently wrong? In this case you are rebuilding infrastructure that was lost to a natural disaster, not deliberately wrecking stuff or wasting stimulus money on unnecessary infrastructure. Big difference! The former is a necessity, the latter is a waste of money and resources and the quickest way to debt. Also, a message to Paul Watson, Shintaro Ishihara, Alec Sulkin and all the other idiots claiming this was some kind of divine punishment or karma due to Pearl Harbor, WW2, whaling, youth deliquency or anything else: FUCK YOU RETARDS YOU ALL SUCK DONKEY ASS User was warned for this post | ||
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