Explosion At Nuclear Powerplant in Fukushima

[ProgressiveTokyo]

There has just been reported on the news. There has been a massive explosion at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima (about 3 hours north of Tokyo). This is one of the plants that after the quake yesterday lost its cooling ability. They had been trying to cool it with external coolants. More updates as I find out.

They are warning that possibly the reactor has melted down, it is unconfirmed at the moment.

Tokyo will be under supervised rolling blackouts.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...?section=world

An explosion has been heard and white smoke can been seen at the quake-hit Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant in Japan's north, according to local media reports.

Footage on Japanese television showed smoke billowing from plant.

According to public broadcaster NHK, several workers have been injured by the blast.

Local media also reports that radioactivity at the plant is now 20 times the normal level.

The cooling system of the Fukushima plant was damaged when a massive 8.9-magnitude quake struck the region on Friday.

More than 45,000 residents within a 10-kilometre radius of the plant have been evacuated.

Thousands more have been evacuated from near a second plant, Fukushima No 2, which also suffered damage to its cooling system.

More to come.

[Wile E]

Oh man, I really hope that the smoke is not the reactors themselves. The last thing Japan needs is a meltdown on top of earthquakes and tsunamis.

This is one of those things you just don't consider happening as a result of a natural disaster.

How near are you to it, PT?

[de.das.dude]

watch out for...

ZOMBIES

[DaMulta]

Glad your OK PT or Alive or Both....One way or another I'm glad you stopped by to tell us how you were.


BTW
It's sad you've been gones....how is the web site going?

[Bundy]

I read some where that the explosion was unrelated to core heat but there are considerable concerns about the cores anyway.

I hope this comes out ok and if anyone can prevail, it's the Japanese.

[entropy13]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

[MoonPig]

Get out of here, Stalker.



Sorry, had to.




They said Stalker 2 had a new story line... maybe they predicted this...

[FordGT90Concept]

Shit, shit, shit, shit! Cherobyl NPP, take two. Japan is in deep shit if that thing meltsdown (explosion is indicitive that it has already happened). Most likely, no one will be able to go within 100 miles of it once a coffin is built and thousands will die making the coffin.

PT, you might want to start making plans to get out of Japan. The thyroid problems will be there for generations as it is in the children of Pripyat.

I wouldn't wish a meltdown on my worst enemy.

[_JP_]

An explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday.
The next step for workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be to flood the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor's temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days.
Radiation levels have fallen since the explosion and there is no immediate danger, Edano said. But authorities were nevertheless expanding the evacuation to include a radius of 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) around the plant. The evacuation previously reached out to 10 kilometers.

The explosion about 3:30 p.m. Saturday sent white smoke rising above the plant a day after a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled cooling systems at the plant in northeastern Japan. Four workers were injured in the blast.
The exact circumstances of the explosion remained unclear. Kyodo News Agency, citing Tokyo Electric Power Company, reported that the roof of a reactor at the plant collapsed after the explosion.

Before Edano's announcement, Malcolm Grimston, associate fellow for energy, environment and development at London's Chatham House, said the explosion indicated that "it's clearly a serious situation, but that in itself does not necessarily mean major (nuclear) contamination."
Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the injured workers were in the process of cooling a nuclear reactor at the plant by injecting water into its core.
The Fukushima prefecture government said hourly radiation levels at the plant had reached levels allowable for ordinary people over the course of a year, Kyodo reported.

Earlier Saturday, Japan's nuclear agency said workers were continuing efforts to cool fuel rods at the plant after a small amount of radioactive material escaped into the air.
The agency said there was a strong possibility that the radioactive cesium monitors detected was from the melting of a fuel rod at the plant, adding that engineers were continuing to cool the fuel rods by pumping water around them.
Cesium is a byproduct of the nuclear fission process that occurs in nuclear plants.
A spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Agency earlier said atomic material had seeped out of one of the five nuclear reactors at the Daiichi plant, located about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Authorities evacuated people living near the reactor after the earthquake and tsunami crippled cooling systems there, as well as at another Tokyo Electric Power Company nuclear plant in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture.
"This is a situation that has the potential for a nuclear catastrophe. It's basically a race against time, because what has happened is that plant operators have not been able to cool down the core of at least two reactors," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

By late Saturday, authorities had extended the evacuation area to 20 kilometers around the Daiichi plant, Kyodo reported.
The evacuations notwithstanding, the nuclear safety agency asserted Saturday that the radiation at the plants did not pose an immediate threat to nearby residents' health, the Kyodo News Agency said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday on its website that the quake and tsunami knocked out a Daiichi reactor's off-site power source, which is used to cool down the radioactive material inside. Then, the tsunami waves disabled the backup source -- diesel generators -- and authorities were working to get these operating.
On Saturday, Japanese nuclear authorities said the cooling system had also failed at three of the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant -- located in another town in northeaster Japan's Fukushima Prefecture.

Authorities also ordered the release of valves at affected reactors at the two plants Saturday -- a move that experts said was likely done to release growing pressure inside as high temperatures caused water to boil and produce excess steam.

Janie Eudy told CNN that her 52-year-old husband, Joe, was working at the Daiichi plant and was injured by falling and shattering glass when the quake struck. As he and others were planning to evacuate, at their managers' orders, the tsunami waves struck and washed buildings from the nearby town past the plant.
"To me, it sounded like hell on earth," she said, adding her husband -- a native of Pineville, Louisiana -- ultimately escaped.

The power company reported Saturday that about 1 million households were without power, and that power shortages may occur due to damage at the company's facility.
"We kindly ask our customers to cooperate with us in reducing usage of power," the company said.

James Acton, a physicist who examined the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after a 2007 earthquake, told CNN that releasing the valves at the two power plants might spew a relatively small amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere.
"The big problem is if it can't cool and the (reactors') core starts to melt -- then you have the possibility of a greater release of radioactivity into the environment," Acton said. If that happens, "there's a possibility of cancer in the long term -- that's the main hazard here."

Source.

If this is true, than there's still a hope that this will not turn into a calamity like Chernobyl. Still, best of luck PT and to all of Japan. My best wishes to all of you.

[CyberDruid]

Thanks for the updates on that situation. I'd be wanting the hell off the island.

[twilyth]

I don't understand why they don't just lower the control rods in a situation like that. I think it's because restarting the reactor can take weeks, but wtf, it's catastrophe. So what's better, a few weeks of delays or a meltdown?

The only thing that makes sense is that even with the rods lowered, they don't absorb enough of the neutrons to prevent enough fission reactions to keep the temps low enough. But personally I would consider that a design flaw.

[WhiteLotus]

Originally Posted by twilyth

I don't understand why they don't just lower the control rods in a situation like that. I think it's because restarting the reactor can take weeks, but wtf, it's catastrophe. So what's better, a few weeks of delays or a meltdown?

The only thing that makes sense is that even with the rods lowered, they don't absorb enough of the neutrons to prevent enough fission reactions to keep the temps low enough. But personally I would consider that a design flaw.

Earthquake damage may have caused systems like that to fail. Who knows what the design and layout is in that reactor.

[CyberDruid]

I seriously doubt it's that easy...or they would have done it. Or it would be done automatically.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by twilyth

I don't understand why they don't just lower the control rods in a situation like that. I think it's because restarting the reactor can take weeks, but wtf, it's catastrophe. So what's better, a few weeks of delays or a meltdown?

Because the U-238/U-235 will melt it on contact. Once it is out of control (too hot), there is no stopping it. The event that is a meltdown occurs when the molten uranium (~2000F) finds water (either in the plant, or in the water table below the plant) creating a massive steam explosion.

[_JP_]

EDIT: I just hope that they can get as much iodine as possible to those who are still near the plant. That would help to save lives.

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

Earthquake damage may have caused systems like that to fail. Who knows what the design and layout is in that reactor.

It's a light water reactor and they can take a lot before failing. The exposion may have been a consequence of the operators starting the emergency procedures. They are indeed in serious trouble however if the only way out now is to flood the chamber.

[FordGT90Concept]

It may be too late to flood it though. Hell, that might have been what they tried which triggered the steam explosion. In nuclear power plants, explosive decompression (release of steam) is virtually the only way you can get a boom. That's why it is so concerning. I'm thinking it's extremely likely the reaction is already run away and they don't have the balls to admit it.

I've heard figures that the radioactivity levels inside the reactor are 1000 times above normal and the radioactivity outside the reactor is 20 times above normal. That's already indicative of a catastrophic failure on Chernobyl NPP scale.

If all the cooling pumps fail simutaneously, you got a meltdown on your hand, LWR or not.

[CyberDruid]

Link to the little bird?

[twilyth]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

Because the U-238/U-235 will melt it on contact. Once it is out of control (too hot), there is no stopping it. The event that is a meltdown occurs when the molten uranium (~2000F) finds water (either in the plant, or in the water table below the plant) creating a massive steam explosion.

There's no direct contact with the rods. U235 will stay at a stable temp unless you have free neutrons bouncing around. Control rods absorb neutrons.

[FreedomEclipse]

COOLBEANS my sister is working somewhere in Japan as an english teacher

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by twilyth

There's no direct contact with the rods. U235 will stay at a stable temp unless you have free neutrons bouncing around. Control rods absorb neutrons.

The rods are inserted into the uranium array. If the uranium array malformed (which an earthquake of that magnitude easily could do), the rods cannot insert. If the uranium melts at all, there's no way for the rods to insert. Even if they did, the graphite/lead will melt along with the uranium. Once the reaction runs away, there's little that can be done to stop it.

The detail that is missing that is very important is what is the water level in the reactor now. Is the reactor underwater and it is not circulating, is the reactor partially covered and the top portion is starting to melt down, or is the reactor completely void of water. Basically, the more water that is there, the more time you have to work but if it takes too long to get the water flowing, you basically got a steam powered dirty bomb sitting on your lap.

[mtosev]

Here's the problem:

ゴジラ

[mtosev]

On the serious side: I don't expect serious damage as this isn't the USSR and Chernobyl.I feel sorry for the affected ppl in the quake and the tidle wave

[skotosa]

Man I really hope they contain it.

Tokyo has been like the number one place I've wanted to go see along with Japanese chicks. Selfish reasons aside Japan doesn't need any more fallout

Perhaps I should start going to the places I've always wanted to go, before 2012 is underway.

[TheMailMan]

I'm very surprised anything is happening to these reactors to be honest. The Japanese are not stupid people and you would have thought they would have engineered it better then this. Now I'm not saying any structure could stand a direct hit. However this wasn't a direct hit. This was off shore. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was also off shore but only about 2 miles and it was directly next to SF. Building codes sucked too.

These plants AFAIK are much farther then that. I have a feeling ether an accepted theory didn't work or someone dropped the ball in their designs. Ether way you look at it someone is going to get fired. Backup to backup systems failing is complete BS IMO. There is no excuse for it. They better get this shit under control or someones doing a Hara-Kiri.