Japanese N-Plant Explosion

Discussion in 'World Events' started by ULTRA, Mar 12, 2011.

  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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  3. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Not exactly true.
    We can predict temps and pressures in a melt down situation, so we can design the containment dome to, well contain it, as it did in 3 Mile Island.
    Venting they are doing now has to do with protecting the reactor vessel itself and what they are trying to do was save the Reactor because if they can do that then eventually the fuel rods can be removed and the long term issues become much easier and cheaper to manage. But if they fail that and the vessel is destroyed there is still the containment dome that was designed to handle the heat and prevent radiation from escaping.

    It goes without saying that they are very strong.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

    Arthur
     
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  5. Saquist Banned Banned

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    That means the core could be as much as 10x as large than a sub reactor vessel. that's very useful Kitt.
     
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  7. Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    Okay, now I've heard of the catastrophic testing of one nuclear rocket engine of 15% the power of the Fukushima reactor. It was not the same design/materials/etc, nor did they "break it" the same way.
    With emphasis on "predict".

    Look, I'm not anti-nuke, and in fact, I wish we had more nuclear power plants. I have visited on board a nuke sub.

    I'm just saying no one really knows for sure. So when people say that a crippled nuclear power plant *can* do this or *can't* do that, they don't know with a reasonable certainty because no one has done such testing outside of computer simulations. My guess is that the current situation is not "in the play books" and that they have also trained less frequently on such extreme conditions as compared with "typical" anomalous conditions. What will happen will happen, and to me, it's just a matter of wait and see.
     
  8. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    The plan was always that if the worst happened, you could bury the whole containment cell, core and all, under tons of barium enriched concrete. Then deal with it at a later date, if ever.
     
  9. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Its certainly something similar, tell me I can't crash test a car in all possible scenarios can I? so how can a I be certain it safe? :shrug: You can't ask for a impossible level of safety from nuclear power simply out of "uncertainty". Tell me should we blow up dams just to see how many people they will kill and how many towns they will sweep away?

    I don't know what the play books are, but the current situation is certianly not outside the realm of predictable or even exceptional. These reactors were 4 years old, reliant on active safety mechanism and have containment domes for problems like these.
     
  10. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Once the fuel starts to melt it isn't a question of training anymore because you can no longer control what is going on in the reactor, then it's simply a question of the ability of the containment domes to physically contain the resultant meltdown that you get when you have a loss of coolant accident.
    But that is exactly what it was designed for, so Yes, containment of radiation due to a core meltdown is supposedly "in the play book" for these second generation Nuclear plants.

    Arthur
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You can ask for a level commensurate with the potential harm.

    If that is impossible, you can prudently not build the damn things.
     
  12. Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    1. That's just it ... when dealing with such catastrophes, we can't run lots of different scenarios (because we wouldn't have much of a planet left). The serious consequences dictate testing more scenarios than trivial consequences; yet, the serious consequences limits the amount of testing precisely because of the serious consequences.
    2. So far, they've uncovered a couple of design flaws.
    3. We don't blow up dams to see how many people they will kill for the same reason that we don't let nuclear power plants melt down to see how many people they will kill. (See answer #1.)
    1. So, "not exceptional" means ordinary or average.
    2. Apparently thinking that this is much worse than an ordinary or average situation, Japanese officials have evacuated more than 200,000 people from the area around the Fukushima reactors due to the possibility of core damage.
    3. Do I think that the media is over-hyping the actual situation? Yes.
     
  13. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    The media can't win.
    Too much hype = alarmist
    Not enough hype = negligent
     
  14. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    and that exactly what has been done. So no reason to not ask for them to be built.

    Cifo,

    Nothing wrong with evacuating those people, that not exception when a nuclear reactor has been damaged, not any more exception then evacuating people when a dam is damaged.

    Now here the part I argue, nuclear power is not as unsafe as hydroelectric power or Coal power, even when taking into account actual nuclear disasters like Chernobyl which was a bad as its gets spewing radioactive material over thousands of miles over the wind. The actual death toll is lower then coal power cause lung disease or hydroelectric dams blowing and washing whole towns away, its an acceptable risk and hysterical exaggerated illogical fear of radiation is the real problem.
     
  15. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    Flash Report@wireservices
    Reuters FLASH: TEPCO has reported a rise in radiation levels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to the Japanese government
    4 minutes ago via web

    May or may not be significant..waiting for analysis..
     
  16. Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    685
    This thought has crossed my mind: Do the Japanese have enough of a free-speech mentality to respond (pretty much) optimally to such a crisis? What I mean is, do real-time crises generally cause them to default to a boss-knows-best or never-question-the-boss mentality? Do they have a tendency to shout "Hai!", bow deeply and run off to their tasks realizing that the boss made a huge mistake? Or are they comfortable enough to openly discuss observations, data, opinions, etc? Compared to Americans, do they feel comfortable to question their bosses? What comes to mind is the Toyota sticking pedal situation, where someone decided to sit on the problem.
     
  17. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    I think, and this is just me, that under the circumstances the ability to do ones job, to the letter, without argueing or procrastinating is a good thing. Standing around argueing would not help much I think.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Bullshit.

    This Japanese reactor - at least one of the six at risk here, two of which have been flooded with salt water as the last resort before meltdown, a third of which is near that decision - was clearly not accident proofed at a level commensurate with the potential harm of its failure.

    We are now looking at reasonable - not very high, but not in the minuscule range the sensible would accept - odds on meltdown and breach of the containment structure.

    The misinformation and general misleading stuff around here is on the other side - false reassurances, irrelevancies about coal power, deflections into non-issues (at least we don't have to wade through a hundred detailed explanations about how it can't blow up like an atomic bomb - or is that still the case elsewhere?).

    So when we see this:
    why can't we treat it with the same disdain now routine for "panic mongering"?

    edit in: Just saw it happen again - Bill Nye on CNN was asked to use up his time explaining how the reactor could not blow up like a bomb, because (according to the questioner) that was a common fear people have when they hear about "meltdown". To his credit, he didn't bite - spent the whole time talking about what a meltdown was, etc, no time on "bomb".

    This has been going on for a generation now. When the money guys were talking Red Wing residents into hosting a nuke at Prairie Island, the town meetings were almost completely used up in reassuring people that the thing could not blow up like a bomb. It's a tactic.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2011
  19. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Now I think you are just making shit up.
    Base on WHAT information do you make this claim?
    Source please.


    We will continue to build them because Western style reactors have never killed anyone, and I'll predict right now that ultimately no one will be killed by any of these reactors either.

    If that happens Ice, will you finally admit that maybe they aren't so dangerous after all?

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2011
  20. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    What potential of harm? If they flood it with salt water and that is that and no one dies, for 40 years of clean power, I call that a success.

    More like we were before, now with what they are doing chances are unlikely its going to meltdown now. In fact its unlikely the reactor went uncontrollably critical or supercritical at all, and its likely all of this is simply a problem of decay heat.

    Depends on the situation, ultimately these type of behavior was very bad for Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. You know when the Japanese doctors were dissection people alive they were just doing ones job, to the letter, without arguing.
     
  21. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Pure nonsense.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Joke, right?

    I'll continue to invoke the Feynman Rebut.
    Try reading the supporting evidence - quotes from right here.

    IIRC you posted at one time somewhere around here that the "explosion" was just deliberate venting, no big deal, for another example. This slew of deflections and misleading "reassurances" is far more characteristic of the public info and this thread than any panic mongering.

    Here's another:
    We do all know that even if the flooding stops a complete meltdown, "that" isn't "that", right?

    Guys: none of this was supposed to happen. Go back a month, and read the reassurances about Japanese reactors, their chances of meltdown, etc. Now here we are on the brink of one.

    If something like this happens at Prairie Island or Monticello, and the containment vessel is breached as is possible now, the Mississippi River is all downhill from there. What safety measures have been taken commensurate with that risk?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  23. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    Hardly comparable! Since when were nuclear engineers Imperialist neo-fascists? :huh:
     

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