Nuclear shit, meet fan

[golden_boy]

YouTube - YouTube Has Been Restricted In Japan. A Last Message Sent Out From Man In Japan.(favorite)

^ Warning, video harsh and nsfw.

Unit 3 - 32 of the 514 fuel rod assemblies in the storage pond at reactor No. 3 contain mox.

... Reactor No. 3 is the left smoking building in above pic... the storage pond was in the top part - where the explosion occurred. Mox means some percentage of good old plutonium.

The one behind that is #4, which also has a storage pool with a lot of uranium fuel rods inside, also under the roof without any shielding. Hmm.

That's not counting the 3 half-molten reactor cores. Nor the radiation getting pretty high at the site which might soon prevent further attempts at cooling all that stuff.

That spent fuel is pretty nasty, and if it burns for real, all of us will have a problem.

Screw that, all of us have a problem already. It's just most visible in Japan.

''The possibility of recriticality is not zero,'' TEPCO said

Recriticality meaning a bunch of those fuel rods re-starting a nuclear chain reaction by themselves. Tepco is the company running the plant.

[metchsteekle]

prepare your thyroids...

[Phenom]

Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband and hide your thyroid cause there's about to be a buncha radiation on erry body out here.

Metch started it.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

I highly recommend everyone start playing Fallout so that you understand what to expect.I personally recommed New Vegas over Fallout 3, as it was nothing but a crashy peice of shit in windows7.

or refer to Chernobyl, and then take its severity and divide by TWO or SO, right???

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...th&id=8019921\

Thats what the article says, isn't nearly as bad,but still bad none the less.

FOK. Back to studying....

[Baker]

There is a lot of hearsay and bad reporting in the media.

So I'm not really quite sure of scope of the problems. I know I myself am going to sit back and wait and see what they do ... besides, what else can you do?

I feel bad for all the death and human tragedy Japan has had to face.

I do know that some people grant radioactive materials "magical" properties, like some sort of irrational fear, I think this bring irrationality into the news media which results in them not really being trustworthy [none of these reporters, for example, are nuclear experts so they are just repeating what they've been told, without substantive understanding of what is going on.]

We do know that Japan is one of the most competent and scientific minded countries on the planet. So that is a positive. And we'll just have to see how they handle the really rotten situation the earthquake dealt them.

In some ways, even in a worst case scenario radioactive materials are one of the most easily confronted "threats" because equipment can easily detect radioactivity. It's not like dioxin or some sort of super-toxic material you have no practical way of detecting.

[dfsp_spirit]

In some ways, even in a worst case scenario radioactive materials are one of the most easily confronted "threats" because equipment can easily detect radioactivity. It's not like dioxin or some sort of super-toxic material you have no practical way of detecting.

I think the opposite is true. You can detect radiation, that's true. But you can do absolutely nothing about it. Look at Chernobyl, all they did till this day is seal it off and evacuate the whole area, leaving behind everything that got near the reactor.

My impression is that the only use of the detection equipment is that you know when to run and what places to avoid tbh (and they don't even have equipment to detect what's going on in the reactor there it seems).

I hope the best for the people in Japan.

[gdiddy62]

I believe Baker is right here guys. I don't think anyone knows the full scope of the problems yet. It is serious, but I don't feel the need for the panic on my part personally. I am watching with concern and will continue to think of the people in Japan as they are truly having to deal with multiple issues all at once. I'm grateful for my health and general well-being right now and that of my children. I think I worry about their future more in the way of finances and the environment here than I do the other disater in Japan at the moment.

[golden_boy]

Here's info at a pretty high level of knowledge:

The Oil Drum | Fukushima Dai-ichi status and potential outcomes

Personally I think a lot of people, especially people who don't remember Chernobyl, are being extremely naive about this.

From day 1 of the disaster, proponents of nuclear have said that "it's nothing to worry about" while the Western media have said "OMFG ITS CHERNOBYL 2".

Knowledgeable people have said pretty soon after they started cooling those things with sea water (absolute last ditch measure, rendering the reactors unusable) that the situation is really bad, with a potential to become worse.

Read theoildrum.com. The maneuver with the helicopters dropping water has been described as "a PR stunt" there since it was largely useless.

Main problem is that no one can get close enough to really do anything about the spent fuel pools for example, since the radiation is pretty high. How high, only Tepco (if even) and probably the US know (and the US moved its ships out of the way and said the 20 km evacuation radius was laughable / suggested 50 miles, IIRC).

There is information about the amount of spent fuel rods stored above (next to) each reactor (but outside the containment vessels). Look at what the explosions / fire did to the buildings and put 2 and 2 together.

How to cool a spent fuel pond that is damaged and doesn't hold water, for example?

Chloride from salt water (salt is NaCl) can corrode stainless steel (reactor pressure vessels for example) very quickly under certain circumstances, allowing it to crack etc. Sea water is not what's usually used as a coolant.

Two containment vessels are likely damaged.

Japanese society is geared towards slowly finding compromises, not losing face etc, while this situation required fast, unconventional action.

People also make the mistake to assume that if it doesn't rain down next to them, they're unaffected. That's wrong. Everyone who uses nuclear power on some level is affected.

Wait and see.

Edit: Good info by Union of Concerned Scientists is here:

http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear

Edit:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ll-people.html

[StatiC]

the thing that gets me worried the most, is that one reactor that houses and uses plutonium.. its the only one that does so, and it could be of the nastiest radiological fallout.

since nobody here is paying much attention to this critical situation, thanks for bringing this to light golden_boy.... ppL need to know...

im just wondering what do the japanese ppL in that region do now for electricity?, will the fallout really kill 120million ppL ? waht will ppL in that region do after for their electrical needs, if everything hopefully turns out to be okay, and it doesnt get worse than this moment? (i hope)....
i mean wikipedia shows that Fukushima was planning to add another 2 reactors, contruction was to begin in April 2012, so the population needed more electrical power...
im an optimist, but im also a realist, and this shit is going downhill fast, think about 1 year from now... smh

im just so thankful i live in southern BC, and we rely on hydroelectric dams for our juice, i would be against any nuke plant around me, and i bet most would be as well...
but at the same time, population is increasing RAPIDLY in my hometown, and the highways, bridges, sidestreets and so on were never designed to handle such an influx of people.. those in vancouver know what im talking about, so im sure the hydro dams werent designed to either, and F*** burning coal. They want a resource that makes energy from nothing, like the nuclear cycle... i fear this.
AAA EZJack Rabbit ? what do u think ? you're all from the area, what would u think about nuke power here after all this ?

[golden_boy]

No, the fallout will not kill millions of people, don't believe everything you hear on the media. Japan has rotating power outages, help is getting to most affected areas by now.

Area around nuke plant might become uninhabitable in the worst case / certain products like milk might become contaminated in affected areas.

Atm it is not known 100% how bad the nuke plant situation is. Workers are still on site trying to cool things but radiation/debris is a problem.

Wikipedia has a relatively good page on it that's continuously updated.

Fukushima I nuclear accidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panic is unneeded, but there are some problems and it appears japanese authorities have been downplaying problems/ were overwhelmed by problems for the last week. Understandably so.

Don't panic, but this will affect a couple things not just in japan.

[StatiC]

im still just like "wow"...

[gdiddy62]

Golden_boy,
I agree that this is a very serious matter, but I still maintain that there is not a need for the "fear-mongering" tactics that simply scare the populace with unsubstantiated facts. I've read many of the facts you were kind enough to post links to and still feel that there is no need for a panic here in the USA. We as a global community do need to pay attention to this and start making changes for a better future which includes clean, safe alternative energy sources which cannot harm the environment. In Oklahoma we can harness the wind for power, but do NOT do it on a large scale. WHY? The hybrid cars when they first come out are not within the budgets of most and I refuse to believe that there needs to be such high prices for this "new" technology. Yes, we do need to be aware that this WILL affect all of us, but let's approach the issue with intellect and not fear. I appreciate that this discussion is happening on this forum and with its members which I'm growing to respect more each day.
Regards,
Jeff

[foq]

I do know that some people grant radioactive materials "magical" properties, like some sort of irrational fear, I think this bring irrationality into the news media which results in them not really being trustworthy [none of these reporters, for example, are nuclear experts so they are just repeating what they've been told, without substantive understanding of what is going on.]

Hm. Fear of being exposed to radiation is irrational. Gotcha.

[LambentHammerBurst]

I'm 50/50 on it.
I do believe they should know about it, however don't go and make the whole "worse case scenerio" widely known.
It's bad, but think of the population. With THAT many people in a panic - it would cause more deaths.
Back when I lived in BC (Vernon) there were HUGE forest fires - the biggest started in Salmon Arm. Towns were evacuated and all, and in TOWNS when people were rushing out there were various car accidents and injuries. People panic and rush. Now take a population of millions instead of a couple hundred/thousand.

[golden_boy]

Migration out of Tokio is happening, with or without official statements on this. A reasonable address to the public might actually help to keep things calm. What happens now is that rich and informed people are leaving the country, leaving the rest of the population in the dark.

What stands out among this whole disaster is that a high-tech society just met its limits in a harsh way when trying to control a nuke plant, pretty much because the people in charge were not prepared, although they could have been.

There was actually work done in Japan to create radiation proof robots; remote controlled bulldozers etc. do exist, but these resources weren't put into place to prepare for disasters because nuke companies said "our plants are safe" and officials could not imagine a disaster of this scale.

The fact that your leaders can't imagine something doesn't mean it won't happen.

The inundation-prone backup generators apparently were never noticed by anyone important? Hard to believe. Another case of "I can't imagine...".

The information flow is as bad as in 1986. If a prime minister has to ask a company "what the fuck is happening" during a nuclear incident, something is very wrong. Lack of information of the public is largely due not to panic prevention measures, but to lack of actual data and bad communication between the people in charge (and everyone trying to save their face).

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this. I doubt they will be learned though.

I highly doubt the information I posted counts as fearmongering. I was just awestruck that most people aren't interested in this clusterfuck even after a week. There are more ominous things going on besides computer games.

Sending your army and returning to business isn't a good way to go about things.