Huge 8.9 quake plus tsunami - Japan

Jan: Mar 10, 2011 - 10:49pm PT
Tom-

We haven't felt a thing in Okinawa although we may yet as we haven't had a really bad quake here in many years.

They are saying that the town of Kurihama, Japan has been totaly wiped out!

Being able to form a mental picture of what is going on in the Big Show, is to me the key to understanding the grand sweep... If I can't model this in my head, if I can't form a picture, all backed by solid science mind you, I can't wrap my brain around any of it... But once I form this picture, be it at the global view or locally along stretches... then it all clicks into place for me.

It seems a warning would have been appropriate, not sending the cops to rope off the beaches with crime scene tape.

f 21-foot waves are expected, of course you move people out of the way.

Here, waves weren't even expected to hit two feet - less than the average daily tidal fluctuation.

Look where the wet sand is in Santa Monica:

http://media.myfoxla.com/live/santamonica/

High tide is higher than that.

I've seen in news reports that Hillary Clinton said the US "delievered coolant", and have no idea what she is talking about, as coolant is water.

Elcapinyoazz... HOLY SHIZZLE!

Tacos is living in a special facility for handicapped people in Hiroshima.

In another disturbing development that could substantially raise the death toll, Kyodo news agency said rail operators lost contact with four trains running on coastal lines on Friday and still had not found them by Saturday afternoon

Don't get me wrong... It's a big frick'n problem they have on their hands, but there is WAY too much misinformation out there.

Time to go buy Potassium Iodine (KI) for Family and friends. All families should have this on hand anyway, for emergencies, terrorism etc.

If you live near that nuke, then yes, if you don't, then you are just buying into the "fear".

I agree. It's very unlikely to pose a problem to the West Coast of North America, but Japan may have an issue. Probably already does.

From what I understand, even if it melts down, they're built to contain themselves for the most part. Workers would have to approach it to seal it off though.

Of all these reports, the Al-Jazeera seems the most honest and the most detailed.

From looking at the shock wave that propagated from the explosion, it wasn't a steam explosion like you'd have with a pressure vessel breach. It was a hydrogen explosion in the building.

...NOT a flammable graphite moderated pile of crap like Chernobil.

A possible scenario - The Fukoshima #1 explosion might have been caused by the emergency venting of hydrogen gas from the Pressurizer in that reactors primary cooling system.

Any exposure to non-natural radiation (above and beyond natural background radiation) that you might injest, breath, or drink, is dangerous. There is no safe level. Once inside your body alpha, beta, and gamma radiation from radioactive decay occurs. You have to rid your body of it the best you can, ie KI.

It is due to charges particles traveling fatser than the speed of light in that medium, in this case with nuclear fuel, water.

While relativity holds that the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant (c), the speed at which light propagates in a material may be significantly less than c. For example, the speed of the propagation of light in water is only 0.75c. Matter can be accelerated beyond this speed during nuclear reactions and in particle accelerators. Cherenkov radiation results when a charged particle, most commonly an electron, travels through a dielectric (electrically polarizable) medium with a speed greater than that at which light would otherwise propagate in the same medium.

Any exposure to non-natural radiation (above and beyond natural background radiation) that you might ingest, breath, or drink, is dangerous. There is no safe level. Once inside your body alpha, beta, and gamma radiation from radioactive decay occurs. You have to rid your body of it the best you can, ie KI.

Oh, bruther...

1. Radiation is radiation, natural or not. I get less dose per year working at a nuke than most who live in New England, or people who fly 2-3 times per week, and they get it from 'natural' sources. Heck, even most isotopes of iodine are, in fact, radioactive. When I used to 'body count' in to plants, I would eat a bunch of bananas, so I'd get a potassium spike, joking that I wanted to leave with more radiation that I came with, when I body counted out.

2. KI doesn't 'rid' your body of radiation... It fills your throid, which can only hold so much, with KI, so there is no room for more energetic radioisotopes of iodine, allowing your body to rid it through normal means, in the event of an uptake. And KI only protects people from radioiodine, that's it. Not cesium, or any other fission product.

3. Not all radioisotopes emit alpha, beta, and gamma... In fact, rarely will any emmit all three of those. In fact, radioiodine (that KI protects against) is primarily a beta emitter, and that is what causes the damage. Its halflife is just over 8 days, which is why KI works.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

1. Radiation is radiation, natural or not. I get less dose per year working at a nuke than most who live in New England, or people who fly 2-3 times per week, and they get it from 'natural' sources. Heck, even most isotopes of iodine are, in fact, radioactive, as well as most isotopes of potassium... When I used to 'body count' in to plants, I would eat a bunch of bananas, so I'd get a potassium spike, joking that I wanted to leave with more radiation that I came with, when I body counted out.

2. KI doesn't 'rid' your body of radiation... It fills your throid, which can only hold so much, with KI, so there is no room for more energetic radioisotopes of iodine (I.e., radioiodine), allowing your body to rid it through normal means, in the event of an uptake. And KI only protects people from radioiodine, that's it. Not cesium, or any other fission product.

3. Not all radioisotopes emit alpha, beta, and gamma... In fact, rarely will any emmit all three of those. In fact, radioiodine (that KI protects against) is primarily a beta emitter, and that is what causes the damage. Its halflife is just over 8 days, which is why KI works.

Never said all radioactive isotopes emitted alpha, beta, and gamma. Depends on the radioactive isotope.

All emergency back-up systems for energy to continue to be supplied to the cooling process failed, and Japan is a very technologically savvy country.

It's apparent that you spent some time researching topics in the last hour enough to compose a reply, hoping to look like you already knew all this stuff, but it is still apparent that you do not really know what you are talking about.

I am disappointed, even dismayed, that you are a science teacher, given that I am mainly a self educated high-school drop out... Yet the disparity between our understanding of science is pretty apparent.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110312D12JFF03.htm

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.

Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.

An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.

At a news conference Saturday night, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano discounted the possibility of a significant leak of radioactive material from the accident. "The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode," Edano said.

The amount of radiation detected inside the plant after 4:00 p.m. slightly exceeded the dose people can safely receive in a year, according to information obtained by the Fukushima prefectural government.

The No. 1 reactor shut down automatically soon after a massive earthquake hit the area Friday, but its emergency core cooling system failed to cool the reactor's core sufficiently.

NISA is affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

(The Nikkei March 13 edition)

it illustrates that all of us who may live near natural disaster prone areas rally should think about it

Once a bundle is "spent" (after 12-18 months in the reactor), it is highly
radioactive. The 1978 "Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power
Planning" (aka: "Porter Commission") stated, "The extreme lethality of a
freshly removed spent fuel bundle is such that a (unprotected) person
standing within a metre of it would die within an hour."

They would likely die within seconds.

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

"The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode,"

People need to remember that this quake was of such magnitide that it may have exceeded the Design Basis Event for the reactors.

Brandon,

Relax. Loosen up. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Bottom line: In any public discourse like this sooner or later what comes around is a wingnut packing bullsh#t. Is it better not to call the bullshit when you see it or read it? No. So there it is. The reason for impugning bullshit if not the bullshitter when you see it. It's justifiable. Sure, it is a dirty job but somebody has to do it. Else the bullshit might stand. Not good.

If it's too much to deal with, go elsewhere.

That wall of water was the killer.

Start one for THAT then if you would like.

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

Again, this is incorrect... It has already been reported that the explosion was caused by a pump, and that the reactor vessel was not involved in this explosion.

Even this, from the same article you posted shows that:

"The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode,"


And, AGAIN, a meltdown is next to impossible unless the reactor is critical, and with all rods in, it is not. 'All rods in' has been verified to be the case.

Core of quake-damaged reactor partially melts - 170,000 being evacuated from area

Source: MSNBC

Core of quake-damaged reactor partially melts
Seawater being poured into reactor to cool it; 170,000 being evacuated from area

The core of a nuclear reactor damaged by Friday’s massive earthquake has partially melted, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said Saturday, and the company that runs the plant is pouring seawater into the reactor in an attempt to cool it and prevent it from going critical.

Early Sunday, Japan's nuclear safety agency reported an emergency at a second reactor in the same complex.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the cooling system malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant No. 1. The agency said it was informed of the emergency by Tokyo Electric Co., or TEPCO, the utility that runs the plant.

No further details of the troubles at Unit 3 were immediately available.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42044156/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/?GT1=43001

This certainly is an economic catastrophe for Tokyo Power, but other than perhaps a few Luis Slotins at the plant it will have no effect on human, plant or animal life outside the fence.


Go find us some extraterrestrials Klimmer.

...it will have no effect on human, plant or animal life outside the fence.

That being said, there is a big low plain from the harbor area to about the century freeway.

Klimmer, you were on the grassy knoll, weren't you?