8.9 Earthquake has struck Japan

[Jeff Snyder]

Isn't the whole purpose of a containment chamber to, well, contain most of the radiation in the case of a meltdown? If this is correct, then, even if we are seeing a meltdown, the consequences will be nothing like Chernobyl as long as the containment system does its job.

(emphasis added)

Well, perhaps the assumption that the containment systems will work properly is no longer valid... Sigh.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

LOL, well I am tired, it is obvious in what is being rumored, denied and then popping up in video tonight that things have went South something fierce. At this point I figure we won't get the full story until it's become 100% out of their control obvious.

Also notice the cloud went upland and not out to sea. That's just that much more terror for those poor people.

 

[Dan Robinson]

About 0:47 into this video, you can see the actual explosion and shock wave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPQ9qgry9C8

Trying to look at Google Maps to verify which part of the complex that happened in.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Looks like it is the northernmost of the two box-shaped structures near the northern of the two tall freestanding metal towers (or the second building north of the Google maps marker):

http://bit.ly/hrtpfL

 

[Jim Saueressig]

I didnt quite make it too bed yet, I think that was not the reactor itself but the pumping building maybe? That being the case that was probably the end of getting any cooling water in the reactor either way....

Nice catch Dan, hell of a pop there.

Edit, reports are saying that actually was the reactors outer structure which could suggest the containment building had already been breached.???

 

[MClarkson]

I think this is the building that exploded. I don't see what else in the reactor is causing that. What else combines so much and so much heat to get that kind of pressure but the core?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.42299,141.033227&spn=0.001097,0.002473&t=h&z=19

 

[Dan Robinson]

Appears to be the #1 reactor:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/46503912

 

[Jim Saueressig]

I think a containment breach is a done deal. Reports are saying that the steam release also likely meant that the remaining water was reduced dramatically and there are now reports radiation is rising rapidly. The temps are rising and the remaining coolant will burn off in a short time.

RT seems to be covering it better than the normal outlets at this time.

The radius for the evacuation has been expanded to 20 - 25 KM.

 

[B Ozanne]

Re nuclear reactor: Have any of the failsafe systems worked so far? Why would you continue to trust that the containment dome will do its job after so much has already failed?

I don't mind being the first person to do it since the media is not capable. Sure, they find experts on everything, except somebody who can give a reasonable estimate of the death toll. It obviously doesn't matter, but it is clearly more productive then the ridiculous figures the media releases that are obviously wrong.

Initially I said 5,000 to 10,000 based on the Kobe quake and this being offshore and giving Japan a lot of credit for their technology. But, after digesting the news for a day I think 50,000 to 100,000 is reasonable. Mostly based on the tsunami videos of towns wiped cleaned. And if it wasn't for Japans' technology it would be far higher.

 

[Chris Hayes]

How much lee time was there between the quake and the tsunami? Japan is very well versed in evacuations for tsunami. If there was enough lee time to evacuate then many thousands of lives may have been spared. However, with the quake so relatively close to shore, there might not have been time.

 

[B Ozanne]

I've heard ten to thirty minutes, the exact answer makes all the difference. From the videos I've seen for every ten cars driving away (they don't all make it) there is one car driving toward the water (who definitely doesn't make it). Which means the system is not as good as we think. And again, you can't move cities of 70,000 in ten or even thirty minutes.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

While I'm no expert, I'm pretty sure this is a massive containment breach, i.e. a meltdown with worst-case-scenario dispersal explosion. From the BBC:

"But Walt Patterson, of the London research institute Chatham House, said "this is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl".

He said it was too early to tell if the explosion's aftermath would result in the same extreme level of radioactive contamination that occurred at Chernobyl."

That cloud you see in the video should be highly radioactive. The fact that you see it means that all containment is lost; bot the boiler and, inexplicably, somehow the inner bomb-proof airliner-crashing-into-it-proof last-ditch final-failsafe emergency containment building.

It also means that if the boiler blown the hell, no more water to cool the rods can be introduced. In that case, by now it should have already melted down.

Details are sketchy and perhaps it's not as bad as it seems, but if I lived anywhere near that thing I'd be seriously worried.

 

[Wes Carter]

What worries me is that if it blew out the control rods but the fuel is still all close together, it's just sitting there cooking while creating more contamination and fallout and there is nothing anyone can do until it's done, however long that may be. I feel sorry for those guys. I'm sure many of them will stay there to keep things stable, no matter what the cost. Just like those did in Chernobyl 20 some years ago.

Edit: Well, some of the experts think this is not as big of a deal as I thought it might be: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110312/ts_nm/us_japan_quake_experts

 

[Chris Hayes]

That plant was built in the 1960s. It was affected by a magnitude 8.9 quake. Nuclear power is still a safe and clean source of electricity. And, importantly, its cheaper than wind and solar power are, and don't require subsidies to survive. I'm still for building dozens more nuclear plants across the country. Planes crash every year, killing more people than were killed in Chernobyl. I don't hear calls to stop flying or building planes.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

W/o getting too political, this must be a stake through the heart for Nuclear Power.
A thorium-breeder economy could have powered the US for centuries....

Since we're in B&G, I think it's okay to diverge a bit.

This is actually a huge fear I have right now. I'm hoping we can look at the areas of failure (noting that plant was near the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan) and use it to improve current designs. It's just hard to say right now since we don't even entirely know WHAT happened to cause the explosion, nor do we know for sure what was damaged in the explosion. However, consider that the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people, and many more die each year in other petroleum-related incidents (either in drilling, transportation, or other aspects of production). Heck, if the oil didn't spill into the GoM for months, I doubt the Deepwater Horizon explosion would have been in the news for more than a few days. We certainly don't have all of the info regarding this Japan incident, but, at least officially with what I've read, there have not been 11 deaths associated with this event. I fear that folks will react to this nuclear event much differently than events associated with the production of energy from other source (oil, coal, etc.). Heck, if you consider indirect impacts (pollution, etc.), I wonder how many people are directly detrimentally affected by coal power plants each year.... Putting a nuclear plant in one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world is quite a bit different than putting them in the central U.S..

I just wonder why there wasn't a backup to he diesel power generators -- you'd think that there'd be concern that they may be damaged in a massive quake (which appears to be exactly what happened), and that there'd be a third power backup (even though I understand that the steam produced would act to serve as a power source).

Latest:

An explosion at an earthquake-struck 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.

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have begun flooding 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.

--> Japanese official says pumping system caused nuclear plant blast (CNN)