Japanese N-Plant Explosion

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

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I was only saying it depends on the situation. If you want to say the situations are different then that my point.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
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  3. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    You could say that about any soldier in any war..but a soldier mentality in the face of adversity might be just what's needed right now. There'll be plenty of time for the post-mortem when things have stabilised. Just do your duty. It's the way of Bushido after all..
     
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  5. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    This isn't a war.
     
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  7. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    War, fight, struggle..semantic nonsense.
     
  8. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Hm... maybe it was the Akula-II then... I can't recall for certain - I'll have to see if I can find the reference (been a while) - all I can remember for certain was that one of the newer (at the time) Soviet subs ran with a highly enriched reactor that, if containment was lost and a scram unable to be performed, was potentially able to go explosive.
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    No.
    What I actually said was that the explosion was caused by deliberate venting, and that they had a saftey device that under ordinary circumstances would ignite the hydrogen before it built up to is LEL, however in this instance it hadn't happened.

    Your efforts at trying to paint me as promulgating pro nuclear disinformation are frankly as laughable as your blatant mischaracterizations of my comments.

    [sup][Citation Needed][/sup]

    Strawman.

    You at least understand that this occured because the Earthquake, and specifically the Tsunami exceeded design parameters?

    The anticipated reccurence interval for a M5.5 earthquake in Minnesota is 266 years. I don't think there's a great likelyhood that an M8 earthquake is going to strike these plants, let alone Quake + Tsunami (again, it was the Tsunami exceeding deign parameters that caused the initial fault that caused all of this.

    As opposed to where I live where I'm likely to see a M8.1-M8.3 earthquake resulting in 2 minutes of shaking and an 18m displacement along a 400km long rupture in my lifetime.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  10. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    *nods* The compact size of the reactor almost necessitates (I believe) the use of a more enriched isotope as well. US Nuclear Reactors rely on heavy(ish) shielding and a multi-redundant system to prevent accidents, which is why for a long time our SSN's (like the Los Angeles classes) had to be as big as they were... comparatively, some SSN's were tiny, but used thinner/lighter shielding, fewer backups, and what have you... the Akula Class was slightly smaller and more maneuverable than the LA class, but was vastly outmatches in terms of acoustics, both stealth and acquisition.

    however, the Akula-II is supposedly up to spec with our Seawolf class... so I'm curious to know how it stacks with the BSY-3 system used in the new Virignia class attack subs

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  11. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    Ok, I've found some real hysteria. Wire services report mass mobilisation of citizens in Germany to call for immediate shut-down of all N-plant sites to take place imminently.
     
  12. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I think Ice is just anti-nuclear...

    Let's be honest... Nuclear Power, if given sufficient priority in terms of funding and research, is currently our BEST OPTION for large-scale, compact, long-term, and stable (eg, not reliant on environmental or weather related effects) energy production.

    The current systems are, sadly, archaic, in need of updating... but nuclear energy is still our single greatest ace in the hole as more "natural" methods of power generation begin to deplete...
     
  13. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Precisely the sort of thing I was talking about.

    When you get an "Expert" on a news channel making comments like "It's much worse than the Japanese are letting on, the IAEA is just covering up the truth" it's bound to happen.
     
  14. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    As am I.
    I'm anti nuclear (well, anti fission anyway). However, I do realize that we lack viable alternatives (especially if we admit the peak oil hypothesis) - but I still would not advocate having one in the country I live in for a number of reasons.
    I also live in a country with no nuclear reactors (there was one, once, a subcritical research reactor gifted to a university by the US), and a law that explicitly forbids vessels powered by nuclear reactors, or (potentially) carrying nuclear weapons into our 12mi limit - as well as banning the dumping of nuclear waste in our land, sea, or airspace.
     
  15. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all.

    You're the one making stuff up.

    There is no evidence of any damage to the containment structures and these GE BW Reactors are designed to contain a complete core meltdown.

    And now that they have flooded the vessel the chance of a meltdown is gone.

    If you have any interest in what is really happening:

    http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/

    Arthur
     
  16. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    erm .... that's being honest?

    IMHO you deserve to be attacked with a pool noodle
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Uh, yeah, that was kind of the point.

    ? Not from me. Direct reply to a misguided and mistaken post.
    I did not mischaracterize your comment. You were in fact deliberately minimizing the significance of the explosion, and attempting to characterize it as nothing to worry about.

    And I paraphrased the comment to include it among the many here engaged in minimizing and dissembling the event, in contrast to the very few if any who are panic mongering. I've seen nothing since to sway that assessment - can you point to the panic mongering of sufficient volume to balance out the set of quotes posted?
    So what odds do sane people accept on losing the upper Mississippi River?
    Remove the quote marks, and see if you still have a case with the actual original comments, how 'bout.
    The chance of a meltdown is not gone - merely smaller. The capability of that design of containment vessel to handle an actual meltdown has never been realistically tested. There's a chance it would breach.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  19. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Yes, you did mischaracterize my post, and your still doing it.

    I simply stated the facts without any hysterical palava.

    If you think that stating facts is minimalizing the issue...

    You don't consider accusing the the IAEA of understating the issue, and actively covering it up panic mongering?

    Take a look at Germany.

    I've already told you where to go to find some of the stuff - Canada TV. If you're actually that interested, you'd go look for yourself, and you'd probably understand why linking to the comments isn't as straightforward as you would like.

    Mississippi River is a tautology.
    It's "The Mississippi".
    Mississippi means 'Big river'
    Calling it Mississippi River is only slightly less meaningless than talking about quad bikes.
    According to the USGS the recurrence interval for earthquakes with M>6.0 or M>6.5 in Minnesotta is on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of years.
    Two points.
    First point. Why are you waisting my time by citing Arthur at me?
    Did I endorse his comments? No. Did I cite his comments? No. Or do you perhaps think he's an expert? The only thing that he has said that I have explicitly agreed with is that a melt down doesn't lead to a nuclear explosion.

    This delusion that your under, that my comment was directed at the posters of this isn't even a reasonable inference, especially not when I have subsequently stated or implied that my objection is directed at the general timbre of the media coverage of this issue.

    Actually, Arthur might be right here - and here's why. If you'd bothered looking through the NEI site I linked to earlier, you'd understand that it's not just sea water that's being injected into the reaction vessel, it's sea water mixed with Boric acid. This is an important thing to note, because as well as the cooling effect of the water, the boron has a well documented quenching effect on nuclear reactors. They're not just cooling it, they're suffocating it.

    All of which is beside the point, because your argument is a strawman.

    Show me, just once, claiming that a meltdown is impossible?
    Oh that's right, you can't. Because it's not an argument I'm going to make, and beyond what I've just said regarding boric acid, it's not a point I've discussed.

    This is where you fall over, by "paraphras[ing] [my] comment to include it among the many here engaged in minimizing and dissembling the event" you actully assign to me stance that I'm not taking.

    QED your argument is based on a strawman, and a mischaracterization of my posts.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  20. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    A lot of the scare mongering has come through an interview with a Masahi Goto, allegedly a former Power Plant engineer.
    I don't know what his qualifications are, and for all I know he may never have done anything more demanding at a power plant than pushing a broom, but here's what he said:

    ‘The problem was with the cooling system,’ said Goto, a former Toshiba employee specializing in containment vessel design. ‘Because this didn’t work, the temperature began to rise, and the water level began to drop. This exposed the upper parts of fuel rods and they started to melt.

    ‘The pressure in the containment vessel rose to about 1.5 times the level it was designed to withstand. The temperature in the pressure pool began to rise to over 100 degrees Celsius and pure water couldn’t be used to cool the system. People there tried to bring in (sea) water to cool the system.’

    Goto said this was a difficult decision for officials as using sea water means there’s no guarantee the reactor can be used again, and, due to aftershocks, there is no guarantee that sea water can settle the reactor.

    ‘You need water, a pump and electricity to pump in water,’ he said. ‘Yet the entire site had no access to electricity, and two emergency diesel generators didn’t start up at the No. 1 reactor.

    ‘The build-up of pressure meant there was a real possibility of an explosion, which is why officials released a vent. By releasing radioactive materials into the air, you are defeating the purpose, but they had no choice.’

    Goto believes the worst case scenario would be a steam explosion.

    ‘If water pumped into the system mixes with waste products, a steam explosion can occur,’ he said. ‘This is a physical explosion similar to magma from a volcano falling into water. This is very dangerous...This power plant has several reactors and if one goes off it could affect the others.’

    http://the-diplomat.com/tokyo-notes/xmlrpc.php
     
  21. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    I've also found this out about him. His opinion is certainly worth listening to.

    Members of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), an anti-nuclear public interest group and Masahi Goto, former Toshiba nuclear power plant designer who gave a briefing on the earthquakes impact and damage to the nuclear facility in Fukushima on Sunday, will be returning to the Club tonight, to give an update on events unfolding in Fukushima following news of another explosion this morning.
    http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/6481


    Added Later.
    The manufacturer of the plants affected by the earthquake is Tokyo Electric Power Co.

    Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia’s biggest power generator battling to avoid a meltdown at its Fukushima nuclear plant, plummeted 24 percent. Toshiba Corp., a maker of nuclear reactors, tumbled 16 percent. Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., the nation’s largest property and casualty insurer by market value, plunged 12 percent. Automakers retreated after Japan’s three-largest carmakers said thousands of new vehicles were damaged. Construction companies climbed.

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...t-most-in-two-years-on-earthquake-damage.html
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2011
  22. Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    685
    I agree.
    And when I see the media simply changing their "banners" (aka "headlines") and thereby re-injecting a new look to the same/old news, I can't tell if the situation is serious but stable/controllable, or if the Japanese authorities are failing to report current events.

    In a way, did the Japanese mentality learn from the Kobe quake, where they downplayed the disaster. If I remember correctly, Russia had the same problem with Chernobyl, where the world learned of its seriousness when scientists in Scandinavia detected radioactivity.

    Own up to the magnitude of the disaster (especially when it has the potential to be an international disaster) and forget about "saving face".
     
  23. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,738
    Yes, the 24 hour news people are desperate for any new fact or problem to keep people watching.
    And there are mixed messages coming out of Japan.
    Everything from "All is Well" to "Nuclear Volcano".

    Living on the opposite side of the World, and having some sense, I'm not personally worried.
    If there is a big release of radioactive material, I will top up on iodide with a cheap multimineral supplement, and also advise other people to do so.
    (Sea salt is no good by by the way)

    If that is panic-mongering, sobeit.
    If I was in Japan and had the option of clearing out of it for a while, I would do so.

    I may sound a little paranoid, talking about cover ups and misinformation, but that is what happened at Chernobyl.
     

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