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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 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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
I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it!
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On March 16 2011 04:57 VanGarde wrote:Show nested quote +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. Actually I have to strongly object here to this line of reasoning. I donated money to the relief effort in Japan yesterday after reading about how 12 million dollars of relief money had been donated to Japan in 4 days, in the same timespan 150 million had been donated to Haiti. This is to me absolutely outrageous.
Because its pride. Japan does not expect donations from foreign countries when smaller earthquakes happen. Its just messy and political in a region that isnt on the best of terms together and foreign aid always has strings attached. Just look at the boxing day tsunami and Australia who pledged a good amount of money to many pacific islands but expects all the reconstruction to be done by its companies.
Japan is a strong country and sees the need for charity for its people but as a nation I dont think they will want or expect foreign countries to be involved in rebuilding the country. So far all we have seen is token donations from China, Vietnam and Thailand because anything more is kind of rude unless its from private charity or ngos.
Its kind of the opposite with disasters in the 3rd world where the amount of aid your country donates kind of shows off their influence and economic strength.
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"22:23 Von den letzten 50 Arbeitern, die im AKW verblieben sind um die Kernschmelze zu stoppen, werden zwei vermisst. Reuters berichtet, die Männer hätten sich in dem Turbinenraum des vierten Reaktors befunden. Ihre Namen wurden bislang nicht veröffentlicht. "
"Out of the last 50 workers on site who try to stop the meltdown, 2 are missing. Reuters reports, that those men was at the turbine room of the 4th reactor. No names were published yet"
http://kurier.at/nachrichten/2081574.php
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On March 16 2011 06:14 CyberPitz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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 I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it!
The reason they use water in trying to cool the rods down now is that they need stupendous amounts of cooling. Water is the only thing with decent heat capacity that is availabe in the amounts needed i would think.
However the reason you use water in the normal operation of the plant is that it works well as a moderator (slowing the neutrons to the right speed to react with the fuel rods).
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On March 16 2011 06:19 T0fuuu wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 04:57 VanGarde wrote: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. Actually I have to strongly object here to this line of reasoning. I donated money to the relief effort in Japan yesterday after reading about how 12 million dollars of relief money had been donated to Japan in 4 days, in the same timespan 150 million had been donated to Haiti. This is to me absolutely outrageous. Because its pride. Japan does not expect donations from foreign countries when smaller earthquakes happen. Its just messy and political in a region that isnt on the best of terms together and foreign aid always has strings attached. Just look at the boxing day tsunami and Australia who pledged a good amount of money to many pacific islands but expects all the reconstruction to be done by its companies. Japan is a strong country and sees the need for charity for its people but as a nation I dont think they will want or expect foreign countries to be involved in rebuilding the country. So far all we have seen is token donations from China, Vietnam and Thailand because anything more is kind of rude unless its from private charity or ngos. Its kind of the opposite with disasters in the 3rd world where the amount of aid your country donates kind of shows off their influence and economic strength.
You are talking about national political aid. I am talking about donations from individuals and organisations.
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I don't think anyone would argue that if you see a millionaire trips and falls over, the decent thing to do as a human being is to rush over and offer help. No one would say, he's fucking rich, let he's got money to hire servants to get him up.
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On March 16 2011 06:30 aqui wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 06:14 CyberPitz wrote:On March 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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 I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it! The reason they use water in trying to cool the rods down now is that they need stupendous amounts of cooling. Water is the only thing with decent heat capacity that is availabe in the amounts needed i would think. However the reason you use water in the normal operation of the plant is that it works well as a moderator (slowing the neutrons to the right speed to react with the fuel rods).
Yes if I'm not mistaken the water they normally use in nuclear reactors is heavy water, that is to say deuterium due to the fact that it works well as a moderator, it's not just normal 1 proton hydrogen.
And you're right about having a very high heat capacity (*might be the right word in English) compared to most abundant liquids.
edit: high high =/= high heat
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So after reading the SA post I am having a hard time figuring out why they do not just flood the reactor?
If this is true:
From the very beginning, TEPCO has had the option to flood the reactor chambers with boron-enriched sea water, which would replace the normal cooling systems and allow the reactors to perform their normal cooldown. Unfortunately, this also destroys the reactors permanently due to the corrosive nature of sea water and other factors. Doing so would cost TEPCO and Japanese taxpayers billions of dollars, even though these reactors were due to be decommissioned shortly. More importantly, it would make those reactors unavailable for generating electricity during a nationwide disaster. The sea water method is a "last resort" in this sense, but it has always been an option.
...then really, this whole case is being blown up way more than it should be (there's never going to be a meltdown)? And why is all the coverage (especially the foreign coverage) about "we hope we can prevent a meltdown" instead of "WTH, extinguish that whole damn reactor right now as radioactive leaks start increasing!"?
*puzzled*
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Fire breaks out again at 5:45 a.m. at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor: NHK
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On March 16 2011 06:41 NPF wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 06:30 aqui wrote:On March 16 2011 06:14 CyberPitz wrote:On March 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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 I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it! The reason they use water in trying to cool the rods down now is that they need stupendous amounts of cooling. Water is the only thing with decent heat capacity that is availabe in the amounts needed i would think. However the reason you use water in the normal operation of the plant is that it works well as a moderator (slowing the neutrons to the right speed to react with the fuel rods). Yes if I'm not mistaken the water they normally use in nuclear reactors is heavy water, that is to say deuterium due to the fact that it works well as a moderator, it's not just normal 1 proton hydrogen. And you're right about having a very high heat capacity (*might be the right word in English) compared to most abundant liquids. edit: high high =/= high heat
I wonder what the reason is for not to releasing all of the water and accepting the meltdown. Is the molten uranium inside the vessels more dagerous than the hydrogen explosions which spew all kind of radioactive materials around and potentially damage the containers.
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On March 16 2011 06:53 fanta[Rn] wrote:
Fire breaks out again at 5:45 a.m. at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor: NHK
Are you sure this time is correct, I believe its 6.45 a.m. (correct me if im wrong).
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On March 16 2011 06:55 aqui wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 06:41 NPF wrote:On March 16 2011 06:30 aqui wrote:On March 16 2011 06:14 CyberPitz wrote:On March 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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 I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it! The reason they use water in trying to cool the rods down now is that they need stupendous amounts of cooling. Water is the only thing with decent heat capacity that is availabe in the amounts needed i would think. However the reason you use water in the normal operation of the plant is that it works well as a moderator (slowing the neutrons to the right speed to react with the fuel rods). Yes if I'm not mistaken the water they normally use in nuclear reactors is heavy water, that is to say deuterium due to the fact that it works well as a moderator, it's not just normal 1 proton hydrogen. And you're right about having a very high heat capacity (*might be the right word in English) compared to most abundant liquids. edit: high high =/= high heat I wonder what the reason is for not to releasing all of the water and accepting the meltdown. Is the molten uranium inside the vessels more dagerous than the hydrogen explosions which spew all kind of radioactive materials around and potentially damage the containers.
Ehh the containment vessel might melt in the end as well. Without a heatsink the pool will keep getting hotter for a long time. Basicly the pool can melt a hole to the center of the earth.
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On March 16 2011 06:57 Vaeila wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 06:53 fanta[Rn] wrote:
Fire breaks out again at 5:45 a.m. at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor: NHK Are you sure this time is correct, I believe its 6.45 a.m. (correct me if im wrong).
A fire broke out again early Wednesday at the troubled No. 4 reactor of the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
Around 5:45 a.m., a worker at the plant saw a fire at the reactor's building, where an apparent hydrogen explosion caused a fire Tuesday morning in the wake of last Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
==Kyodo
Not sure why this was reported an hour later
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On March 16 2011 06:41 NPF wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 06:30 aqui wrote:On March 16 2011 06:14 CyberPitz wrote:On March 16 2011 05:41 toasti wrote:On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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 I sent the SA thread to the OP a while ago, and he's got that put into the OP here now. Hopefully more people read it! The reason they use water in trying to cool the rods down now is that they need stupendous amounts of cooling. Water is the only thing with decent heat capacity that is availabe in the amounts needed i would think. However the reason you use water in the normal operation of the plant is that it works well as a moderator (slowing the neutrons to the right speed to react with the fuel rods). Yes if I'm not mistaken the water they normally use in nuclear reactors is heavy water, that is to say deuterium due to the fact that it works well as a moderator, it's not just normal 1 proton hydrogen. And you're right about having a very high heat capacity (*might be the right word in English) compared to most abundant liquids. edit: high high =/= high heat
These are Light Water Reactors, they use normal water as both the coolant and moderator. Heavy Water Reactors that use heavy water also exist.
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Though it is quite accurate there are small mistakes. If the fuel rods melt to the bottem there can't be a critical mass. Essential in the nuclear fission plants is the composition of the fuel rods. They are U235 3 procent and 97% U238 if i remember correctly. Only a almost pure U235 mass can reach criticall mass. U238 absorbs too many fast neutrons for a chain reaction to occur. What they do in a nuclear fission plant is use a moderator to slow down the neutrons. These slowed down neutrons allow you to control the rate of reaction and thus create a stable operating point. Basicly if it melts to a litle pool at the bottem the real threat is the pool melting through the containment vessel and slowly melting to the center of the earth passing gorundwater on the way.
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Water-level in reactor #5 unusually low, they're keeping an eye on it.
Rly hope for them that one won't mess up too.
Source : NHK World.
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On March 16 2011 05:19 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 05:00 Ropid wrote: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 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.
As was said above water is an excellent material for coolant, and is actually used as the coolant in almost every kind of power plant that there is, not just nuclear reactors. However in a nuclear reactor water is used very often because it serves two purposes. Not only does liquid water cool the core material, but water is a very strong neutron absorber. Thus the water surrounding the core dramatically reduces the spread of radioactvity from the core, and even the fuel rods that are not currently in a core (from reactors 4-6) are kept underwater both for cooling and to diminish the irradiation of the nearby area.
This gets into the more technical aspects but the water moderation effect makes a light water reactor is actually less likely to meltdown under adverse conditions than say for example a graphite moderated core, such as was used in Chernobyl.
My thesis advisor has spent 30 years on just these safety issues, and he says Tepco(?) is underplaying the situation and that it is almost certain likely all three active reactors have already experienced partial meltdown and will soon lose containment. Yesterday morning, he predicted the explosion at reactor 2 well ahead of time, so I'm becoming very inclined to accept his pretty negative outlook on the situation.
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On March 14 2011 20:46 fanta[Rn] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2011 20:44 samaNo4 wrote:Received this tweet: How you can #SupportJapan - http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K. Feel free to retweet it. Bing already apologized for this stupid marketing action and donated 100k to Japan right away.
Haven't realized it until now. It sounds dumb, but when I saw the tweet I only thought on retweeting it, now I realize it's a pretty despicable strategy. I apologise for spreading it.
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On March 16 2011 05:58 Frigo wrote:+ Show Spoiler +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. 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. 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
Ah yeah the sources have been in german...
The leukemia cases don't come from the accident in the last couple of years. They started in the early 90s. There is also a nuclear research laboratory nearby where a fire broke out in 86 so that is the primary suspect. All other possibilities besides radiation have been ruled out and they found plutonium, thorium and other elements in the soil. Actually there are tiny little balls with metal casing and an atominc filling just laying around in the soil there. When the people that are living there asked research labs to analyse the soil they all backed off and the government does it's best to hinder research attempts. It's obvious that it's a coverup.
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EPT
