Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[Mekong]

... so you think the control systems will work after the earthquake/tsunami/explosion/fire?

 

Of course they wont be working, and even if they were the safeguarding system would not allow the Reactor Cooling Pumps to start.

 

But that is a mute point, the temporary power will be connected direct to a RCP bypassing the plants Controls Systems and Sub Stations.

[Coss]

I do feel that there is mindless sensationalism from some media outposts because they no longer have real reporters on staff

 

I refer to LK's post, about the physics of all this and I too have spoken to a real Physicist, albeit a retired one.

 

There is very little chance of a real "MeltDown" sundry minor escapes of radioactive material are just that, minor.

 

It would appear that GreenPeace et al, are having a caring and sharing mass wank!

[shygye]

... well since all the backup systems failed, that doesn't give one confidence.

 

I'm sure he would have said there was little chance of having 3 hydrogen explosions at the plant.

[TheCorinthian]

As the designs of US plants go, one of which we are in charge of security oversight, the containment zone can take a hell of a hit. We test them by ramming jets into them at mach speeds.

 

In theory, even a massive quake should not really upset it. It is designed to detach and sort of bounce around like a bobber on rough water.

 

Now then, the whole thing inside it can melt but it just ends up as a puddle on the floor and not through the floor. That is what happened at 3-mile Island.

 

But that's a US plant. No idea what they have there that I can talk about. And I dont know how you really test something like that for a 9.0 quake with out building one then setting of a nuke nearby or something.

[shygye]

... as this plant shows, it is not only the reactor that can release radioactive particles. The storage pools holding fuel rods is another point of failure.

 

A 9.0 quake has 1000 times the energy of a 7.0. I don't know of any civilian structure designed to withstand that kind of quake.

[TheCorinthian]

A 9.0 quake has 1000 times the energy of a 7.0. I don't know of any civilian structure designed to withstand that kind of quake.

 

 

Me either. And no idea how you would really test one that was.

[Coss]

To all, "3 hydrogen explosions at the plant" a series of earthquakes and a grouping of Tsunami waves, are still not a massive catastrophic nuclear meltdown.

 

The best source of facts I've seen in English, is the satellite channel NHK World.

 

Today they are saying in translation, that at #2 there are levels of 10 and 15 microsieverts, they have workers there who are being limited to 100 microsieverts exposure. That's a 6~10 hour day.

 

The levels at the towns nearby are all very low.

 

Interesting facts about Chernobyl here .

 

We wouldn't want the media's ignorance of the facts to get in the way of a good panic !

[Hugh_Hoy]

Well, what I'd really like to see is another good SARS scare or redshirt occupation of BKK. Bring down the airfares and hotel rates again. This Japan thing ain't doin' nuttin' for lots of us.

 

HH

[shygye]

So was this guy counted as a Chernobyl death?

 

July 3, 1990

 

Soviet hero Anatoly Grishchenko died last night at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he had undergone a bone-marrow transplant April 27 for treatment of acute leukemia.

 

Grishchenko, 52, was a pilot on five flights over the damaged and radiation-leaking Chernobyl nuclear power plant for three days and was in the area for two months in 1986. He grew up in a nearby village.

 

[Flashermac]

 

 

The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people

 

 

 

The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens

 

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.

 

Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.

 

After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.

 

He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.

 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.

 

'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'

 

Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the crisis' severity.

 

It is now officially on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Only the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 has topped the scale.

 

Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.

 

He said: 'With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.'

 

But prime minister Naoto Kan insisted that his country would overcome the catastrophe

 

'We will rebuild Japan from scratch,' he said in a televised speech: 'In our history, this small island nation has made miraculous economic growth thanks to the efforts of all Japanese citizens. That is how Japan was built.'

 

[color:red]It comes after pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.[/color]

 

[color:red]Radiation is streaming into the atmosphere from the used uranium rods at reactor number four, after a 45ft-deep storage pool designed to keep them stable boiled dry in a fire.[/color]

 

And some of the radioactive material could reach Britain within a fortnight, according to experts.

 

However they say it will not be dangerous when it reaches our shores while low levels of radiation have already hit Southern California.

 

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