Japan crisis - the worlds economic outlook?

MikeJ74

Do you believe those who say only younger ones need to take iodine or do you believe those that say its a cover up and they just cant get enough iodine to go round?


Reporting Live From Tokyo _ Japan is in total panic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WigO9cTGDWk

ninky_2

fukushima has already released half the amount of radioactive cesium 137 (one of the nasties) as chernobyl.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Japan+nuclear+plant+released+half+many+radioactive+isotopes+Chernobyl/4486336/story.html

Over a four-day period last week, Japan's crippled reactors released about half as much radioactive Cesium-137 as Chernobyl had nearly 25 years ago, scientists say.

Data gathered by a UN agency's global network of detectors — including four in Canada — indicate the Fukushima power plant emitted "about 50 per cent" of the Cesium-137 as Chernobyl and 20 per cent of that disaster's total emissions of Iodine-131, says an Austrian team at the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna.

novazombie

Has there been a meltdown or not?

Its been 2 weeks now. What is happening there for the last 2 weeks, does anyone know? If they do know why are they not telling the public?

Generali

novazombie wrote: »

Has there been a meltdown or not?

Its been 2 weeks now. What is happening there for the last 2 weeks, does anyone know? If they do know why are they not telling the public?

AIUI (and I am certainly no expert) a 'meltdown' means that the fuel being used in the reactor hasn't been cooled sufficiently and so has partially or completely melted. Once cooled it will will return to a solid state again, rather like ice melting and freezing again. Depending on the fuel used, that melting temperature could be anywhere between 1,100-4,000C.

The container for the fuel is designed to be able to withstand that temperature for a period of time so if the fuel melts it isn't necessarily a problem as long as it can be cooled before sufficient damage has been done to the container for the fuel to start escaping. If that happens there is something called a 'core catcher' as a last resort.

As the fuel is potentially extremely hot, is hot by design and isn't the sort of stuff you want to mess around with, it's not simply a case of opening up a hatch and having a look to see what is going on in there. AIUI it took months before they could find out what happened inside the reactor at Three Mile Island and it'll probably be the same here.

The levels of contamination in areas where people are still living sound reassuringly low to me now I am starting (I think) to get a bit of a handle on how this stuff works. So the water is 'twice the safety level for infants'. Apparently the half life of the radioactive iodine is 8 days so in 8 days, problem is solved unless more radioactive iodine is added to the water.

Of course it may be that the Government is lying to the Japanese people systematically for whatever reason. If that is the case then anything could be going on. However, my state-run, rather dilapidated 6th Form college in the UK had a couple of Geiger counters and several physics teachers that knew full well how to use them. Add that to the power of the internet to disseminate information and a cover up would be very hard to maintain for hours let alone over a week.

novazombie

I thought a meltdown was when the container has melted and the nuclear rods are now not contained anymore, exposed to the atmosphere ?

michaels

Only thing I would say is that the fuel generates its heat via radioactive decay, this is 'turned off' by inserting inserting blocking control rods in between the fuel rods. If the fuel becomes molten i can then flow to the bottom of the container and form a large mass with no cooling rods and thus the radioactive decay chain reaction can restart with no mechanism to halt it. This obviously releases lots of radiation and also energy, potentially explosively hence the danger of the fuel rods 'melting down'?

tomterm8

Generali wrote: »

. Add that to the power of the internet to disseminate information and a cover up would be very hard to maintain for hours let alone over a week.

There are several 'crowdsourced' radiation measuring organizations in Japan... they are not reporting dangerous levels of radiation.

Generali

novazombie wrote: »

I thought a meltdown was when the container has melted and the nuclear rods are now not contained anymore, exposed to the atmosphere ?

AIUI, you have rods of uranium or uranium alloy. These become hot spontaneously as they decompose due to E = mc^2. As they decompose, mass is converted to energy hence the rods getting hot.

Normally, the rods are covered in water. The rods heat the water, the water turns to steam which turns a turbine to create electricity. The steam turns back to water which is then turned back into steam and so on. This process uses up the heat energy in the fuel rods.

However if the water isn't replaced onto the rods, for example because a massive tsunami hits the power plant and wrecks the cooling system, the rods are free to get hotter and hotter. At some point, depending on exactly what fuel is being used, the metal will get hot enough to melt. This is a meltdown. If it gets hot enough, that molten liquid can then damage whatever it is being contained in but that is a side effect of the meltdown, not the meltdown itself.

I think a film called China Syndrome (link) confused the term meltdown in the popular mind.

novazombie

tomterm8 wrote: »

There are several 'crowdsourced' radiation measuring organizations in Japan... they are not reporting dangerous levels of radiation.

Yes what does that tell you?

sellaconcepts

What does this new leak actually mean?

I thought it all has been leaking for weeks, why so serious now?

http://www.infowars.com/japanese-authorities-admit-deadly-mox-plutonium-reactor-is-leaking/

“Japan’s nuclear regulator said one reactor core at the quake-damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant may be cracked and leaking radiation,” reports Bloomberg.



Nicky if you had to guess what do you think Japan will be like in 6 months time? Millions dead?