Japanese Tsunami

[Sight Unseen]

Tsunami warning issued for at least 50 areas after quake - CNN.com
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

I don't have much to say about this, except that a lot of people died today.

[Human No More]

Terrible news...

[Aaron]

Very sad and very scary. We've certainly had what seems to be an uncommon amount of geological activity on the Pacific Rim these last few years. Some residents of the coast here in Washington have even been evacuated this morning out of concern for possible tsunami impact. I've seen the drills, but never the Real Thing.

[Tymian]

nothing more to add.

[iron_jones]

Quite sad.

[Grif]

It's terrible what's happening. I think the death toll is now up to 300...

[Isard]

On a positive note, allot more people are alive because Japan has very, very strict building codes.

[Fosus]

The power of -

[Aaron]

And now, apparently, a nuclear plant damaged and left without power by the quake may be headed for core meltdown. Wonderful!

[LOVEavatar]

Originally Posted by Eywa's Pet

And now, apparently, a nuclear plant damaged and left without power by the quake may be headed for core meltdown. Wonderful!

People within a radius of 10 miles has to be evacuated. The radiation is over 1000 times more powerful than in normal conditions. This is bad, very bad! And the radition will probably spread with the winds just like Chernobyl did! I can't even imagine the damage this will cause to the surrounding areas, let alone the tsunami itself

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by LOVEavatar

People within a radius of 10 miles has to be evacuated. The radiation is over 1000 times more powerful than in normal conditions. This is bad, very bad! And the radition will probably spread with the winds just like Chernobyl did! I can't even imagine the damage this will cause to the surrounding areas, let alone the tsunami itself

It's playing out a bit more like the Three Mile Island incident than Chernobyl. Let's hope it doesn't go that far, even!

[Loverofnature]

Originally Posted by LOVEavatar

People within a radius of 10 miles has to be evacuated. The radiation is over 1000 times more powerful than in normal conditions. This is bad, very bad! And the radition will probably spread with the winds just like Chernobyl did! I can't even imagine the damage this will cause to the surrounding areas, let alone the tsunami itself

sorry there, i have to correct you. it's not 10 miles but 10 km which they then changed to 20

it's not a 1000 times normal radiation, but 20 and dropping now

also on the wind thing, they have said that here in denmark, it is impossible for it to reach us. else yes

sorry, i just wanted people to have the right info


on another not, it is really, really sad

[Human No More]

About the nuclear shutdown - sorry, but that is pure scaremongering.
In the worst case scenario, they will need to perform a SCRAM and drop all the control rods in and shut down the chain reaction. Indeed, from a quick read of the article (which lacks any relevant detail other than stating they they were shut down, which could mean a SCRAM or scaling down operation and stopping producing power) that appears to be what has already been done - the reaction will not stop instantly, and reactors are designed to shut down safely in the event of coolant system failure.
Anyone making comparisons with Chernobyl is either scaremongering, has no practical knowledge of nuclear safety procedures, or both. Three Mile Island itself was vastly overhyped by a few people.

Either way though, this is terrible, and the news will probably get worse as things are accounted for

[txen]

Originally Posted by Human No More

About the nuclear shutdown - sorry, but that is pure scaremongering.
In the worst case scenario, they will need to perform a SCRAM and drop all the control rods in and shut down the chain reaction. Indeed, from a quick read of the article (which lacks any relevant detail other than stating they they were shut down, which could mean a SCRAM or scaling down operation and stopping producing power) that appears to be what has already been done - the reaction will not stop instantly, and reactors are designed to shut down safely in the event of coolant system failure.
Anyone making comparisons with Chernobyl is either scaremongering, has no practical knowledge of nuclear safety procedures, or both. Three Mile Island itself was vastly overhyped by a few people.

Either way though, this is terrible, and the news will probably get worse as things are accounted for

That's not understanding of the Japanese nuclear industry. Japan has a network of monitoring that communicate that a large earthquake has started. This gives a critical 15 to 30 seconds of warning. They were in work of installing these early warning systems where that warning initiates the SCRAM process. Indeed the latest moment for the SCRAM was when the shaking started at the power plant. That shutdown the chain reaction before the shaking even stopped.

Unfortunately that is not the end of situation. Yes, the chain reaction ended. However, there is still a lot of fission products that have short lifetimes. These continue to decay and generate a considerable amount of heat. It is this latent heat that is the danger. It's only a problem for about 48 hours as the short lifetime of the fission products mean that the heat production drops to a manageable level after 48 hours.

I agree that comparing this to Chernobyl is likely not a good comparison. Even in the worst case I doubt that it could be that bad. It may well be like Three Mile Island. I expect these plants to be damaged beyond repair, again like Three Mile Island.

Nuc plants have backup generators to run the pumps when a problem occurs. In this case the tsunami took those generators out causing the current crisis.

Any radiation release is not a good thing, but at this time it appears to be a rather small amount.

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by Human No More

About the nuclear shutdown - sorry, but that is pure scaremongering.
<snip>
Three Mile Island itself was vastly overhyped by a few people.

Not pure scaremongering. The U.S. hasn't built a new nuclear power plant since Three Mile Island, and the melted core of TMI took most of 20 years to clean up. Public hazard or not, both of those things are pretty darned scary! Yes, TMI was overhyped for the danger to the public. I mentioned it because the visit of the Japanese PM as well as the venting of gasses are mirror images of events surrounding the TMI incident. Chernobyl didn't even have a containment structure. It was in a class by itself as hazards go! (let's hope!)