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Earthquake (8.9magnitude) & Tsunami hits Tokyo
Comments
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ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »Correct re three mile island
There was a T-shirt doing the rounds at the time.
The quote on it was something along the lines of
"more people have died in Teddy Kennedy's car than at Three mile Island"
Goodness knows what is really going on. Possibility.....
Reactor shut down at quake time - OK
Latent heat remaining in the core gets hotter
Water level in core drops, due to coolant failure
All the backups fail to start (well actually all you need would be a misalignment in the emergency generator's shaft line up due to the quake shifting things and it would nay rotate.)
Standing emergency water tanks destroyed
Core becomes uncovered due to water loss and water remaining starts to flash over into steam and decomposes into hydrogen and oxygen
Spark Boom
Top of contaiment (ie the load floor) shifts...ooops
Now have live steam and whatever in the main building outside the containment.
I know enough about the subject to know that I don't really know enough to comment wisely!
We need a nuclear expert - but they are probably bound by contract and security clearance not to talk on public forums.
IF any radioactive particles do escape in any serious quantity then things like the prevailing wind directions at various altitiudes and whether or not it is going to rain will be critial factors in determing what happens to the radioactivity.
Agreed that TMI was not too bad in outcome.
I thought the hydrogen gets released because the very hot steam reacts with the metal of the fuel rod casings (or any other metal around). So, the metal gets oxidised and the hydrogen gets released. If that's then vented, as seems to have happened, it can explode when it gets into contact with air outside the reactor. I'm pretty sure that's what the big explosion was. Not at all serious in comparison with what's going on inside the reactor.
If they are pumping sea water in, that should cool things off nicely. The real question is what was vented at the same time as the hydrogen, and what was/is being vented?
IAEA DG video response just issued : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g82a36LWtcU He talks for 4 minutes plus, and says nothing at all really.No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?0 -
PasturesNew wrote: »The whole of Japan moved 8 feet to the left at some point, can't have done the connections a lot of good.
Apparently, the backup diesel generators worked for an hour after the quake and then packed up. Bent drive shafts? Eventually, someone will tell us I guess, but don't hold your breath.No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?0 -
Regarding the nuclear reactor, they're apparently flooding it with sea water to cool it down. Apparently this means that they do not expect it to blow. It also means that it is no longer viable, so the sole focus is to make it safe.
According to the beeb, Japan have the most stringent safety designs when it comes to nuclear technology.It's getting harder & harder to keep the government in the manner to which they have become accustomed.0 -
ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »It may well be that the concrete containment dome is secure but the pipes connecting the inner vessel to the turbines were damaged. That would enable them to claim the containment is OK - while missing out the other bit.
If by "concrete containment dome" you mean the secondary containment building, which is a concrete dome on some reactor designs, then it's history - that's the thing that blew up.
It is conceivable that it could have been blown apart by an explosion of built-up gases, leaving the primary containment relatively intact. The primary containment - the reactor vessel itself containing all the really nasty stuff - is a steel can set into concrete in the floor of that building. Reports saying that radiation levels are moderate and many people are still present at the site support this. If the core was exposed, anyone near it would not live long.
At Chernobyl it was the primary containment which blew it's top, spreading the reactor contents around the site. There was no secondary containment building.
I think it become a write-off quite some time ago.6pm BBC now reporting that they are pumping sea water into the core to cool it.
That will totally trash the whole core (Contamination)
So they have clearly decided to stop it at all costs and wreck the core into the bargain.
It will never generate electric power again
It is scrap.0 -
Watching this in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and apart from the horrific reports and pictures I have to say that Al Jazeera's coverage is streets ahead of the BBC. They're letting the experts talk and not injecting misplaced speculation. It doesn't detract one iota from the drama.
"Al Jazeera's coverage is streets ahead of the BBC".
:wall:30 Year Challenge : To be 30 years older. Equity : Don't know, don't care much. Savings : That's asking for ridicule.0 -
The Japanese are such lovely, well-behaved people aren't they. Mega crisis and they queue quietly and wait their turn for assistance.
Bless them all.0 -
Degenerate wrote: »If by "concrete containment dome" you mean the secondary containment building, which is a concrete dome on some reactor designs, then it's history - that's the thing that blew up.
No, I think what's blown up was a fairly lightweight shedlike structure that kept the rain off. There's the reactor vessel. That's inside the ferroconcrete containment vessel, and that's inside the shed.No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?0 -
PasturesNew wrote: »The Japanese are such lovely, well-behaved people aren't they. Mega crisis and they queue quietly and wait their turn for assistance.
Bless them all.
My neighbour, when I was a child, had been a Japanese POW. He was not quite so keen on them.No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?0 -
lemonjelly wrote: »Regarding the nuclear reactor, they're apparently flooding it with sea water to cool it down.
Dont forget the sea water will be contaminated & full of sediment (and cars, bricks, aeroplanes etc etc etc) making its temperature & thermal conductivity potential different.Not Again0 -
No, I think what's blown up was a fairly lightweight shedlike structure that kept the rain off. There's the reactor vessel. That's inside the ferroconcrete containment vessel, and that's inside the shed.
I'd love you to be correct, but I don't think so.
Firstly, I've never heard of a lightweight structure being built around the secondary containment to keep the rain off. There is no point, The secondary containment by it's nature is a robust concrete building that needs no protection from the elements.
Secondly, The footage of the explosion appears to show what it quite obviously a concrete building exploding:
A lightweight building would blow apart and reveal the flames of the actual explosion. The scene above looks more like the cloud of grey dust one would expect from a heavy concrete building being blown to smithereens.0
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