8.9 earthquake in Japan: tsunami warnings

jhae2.718

From what I've read, anything that happens would be more on the scale of Three Mile Island than Chernobyl.

According to Stratfor: "Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said March 12 that the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core, Japanese daily Nikkei reported."

Ivan Seeking

Blitzer is interviewing a Japanese Ambassador who is downplaying that statement. Apparently there is conflicting information. The announcment came from an official at the Nuclear Safety Agency.

Ivan Seeking

So far no other specifics have been offered.

One person described the efforts to save the core from melting down a "Hail Mary pass". I didn't catch the source of that statement.

jhae2.718

The Japanese government does seems to be releasing contradictory statements; I hope any confusion is limited to press releases and not rescue/recovery efforts.

turbo

I don't trust CNN's coverage given the lack of accurate information and the tendency to fear-monger for ratings. I was watching CNN this afternoon and had to turn it off after an hour or so of speculation, worst-case scenarios, etc. Their "experts" had no apparent contact with the plant operators, nor descriptions of current conditions at the plant, yet they were making claims that this was the third-worst nuclear accident in history.

"News" has degenerated into an exercise in rounding up "authoritative" figures with opinions that they want to express (not just in this case, but more obviously in the political sphere) and letting them pontificate. This is far too sensitive a matter to take that "wild swing" approach. It would be better to concentrate on the human suffering, lack of response, lack of food, water, etc, and the need for more portable medical facilities, IMO. Nuclear "catastrophe" will sell a lot more ads due to view-ratings, but it's irresponsible to make pronouncements based on what little solid information available to us.

rootX

I agree with jhae2.718, I heard it on the news. There wouldn't be anything like chernobyl style disaster.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219

Jimmy Snyder

I haven't read all the posts in this thread so please be patient with me if this question has already been asked. Soon after the tsunami hit, I started hearing reports that the cooling system and all of its backups in one of the nuclear reactors had failed. In the following hours the situation grew worse. My question is, why can't they just pull all of the rods out of the reactor and separate them so that the nuclear fissioning dies out?

Ivan Seeking

I think there is far too much fear mongering towards CNN. They no sooner announced the "official release" from the Nuclear Agency than they had Japan's ambassador in front of the camera, who was downplaying the report. So let's stop the anti-cnn hype please. If you didn't watch the report then you have no business commenting.

Borek

From what I understand that's not the source of the problem. Reactor has been shut down, but there is enough short living isotopes in it to create excess heat that has to be dealt with. That's expected and not surprising, just their backup cooling systems failed.

turbo

The CNN "experts" apparently had no data on core temperatures, core cooling levels, flows, etc. I'm not saying that there is not a threat, just that reporting and grading threats with NO specifics is dangerous. The US needs to have nuclear power on-deck (IMO) in order to supply our energy needs, and we need to have relative risks and strengths of that industry presented fairly.

Ivan Seeking

Just stay on topic please, for a change! It was an official report from Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Agency. This is not a thread about CNN.

Jimmy Snyder

But now they're talking about a partial meltdown. That would mean the fuel rods are still in there wouldn't it?

OmCheeto

Readers Digest version of how reactors work:

1. The rods being pulled out increase reactor power
2. The rods were all inserted during the earthquake, shutting down the reactor
3. The by-products of splitting Uranium are radioactive, ie, decay over time, releasing energy
4. These radionuclides are what are keeping the reactor hot.
5. It will take several days before these radionuclides have decayed to the point where forced cooling in not required to keep everything from melting.

My solution to the problem would have been to start up one of the other 3 reactors to provide power to the damaged ones. Unless of course, independence was not designed into the plant.

lisab

That was exactly what I was wondering. I read that they had successfully achieved a SCRAM, but I've been reading about this from so many sources I can't remember exactly where I read that.

OmCheeto

Eek!

Yes. The fuel rods are still in there. I read "rods" as control rods.

But the entire system is under tremendous pressure. To remove anything would depressurize the entire system. Doing this would ensure meltdown.

Jimmy Snyder

Sorry, my knowledge of nuclear reactors and the vocabulary is not all that good. I meant pull the fuel out of the reactor so that they would stop reacting. Then separate them from each other or put them in lead envelopes so they can't react with each other.

Lacy33

Is this all coming from the Large Print Version of Readers Digest because I can't see well when I am screaming and crying?