nuclear melt down in japans future?

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

patriot and widower
5 reactors at two locations have insufficient cooling and radioactive gas may vent radioactive gases and meltdown if a means of cooling them is not found

the japanese government is keeping a close rein on news leaking out of the plants
 
wanderingbear said:
This is why nuclear energy is bad.Fukushima is a very apt name for a nuclear power plant.
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Lets just say that Japan had a huge number of wind turbines on the north east coast of Honshu, how many of those would still be working after the quake? There is nothing wrong with nuclear energy but it's never a good idea to put them on or near an active fault line.
 
tom prendergast said:
Lets just say that Japan had a huge number of wind turbines on the north east coast of Honshu, how many of those would still be working after the quake? There is nothing wrong with nuclear energy but it's never a good idea to put them on or near an active fault line.
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But wind turbines wont meltdown and spread poisonous clouds if there is a problem.
 
wanderingbear said:
But wind turbines wont meltdown and spread poisonous clouds if there is a problem.
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Wind turbines still need extensive backup for the times when there is no wind or indeed no turbines. This is something that a lot of people just don't understand. There is a huge amount of hysteria generated by scientifically illiterate people about nuclear power, I also suspect that you've never heard of containment vessels which are typically constructed of reinforced concrete at least a metre thick. If there had been people like you around in the 18th century then steam power would have never happened because some early boilers kept blowing up.
 
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wanderingbear said:
This is why nuclear energy is bad.Fukushima is a very apt name for a nuclear power plant.
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Now for logic and reason:
Reuters says that:

"A nuclear industry body official said on Saturday he believed a blast at a Japanese atomic power plant was due to hydrogen igniting, adding it may not necessarily have caused radiation leakage. 'It is obviously an hydrogen explosion ... due to hydrogen igniting,' Ian Hore-Lacy, communications director at the World Nuclear Association, a London-based industry body, told Reuters after reports of the explosion in Japan."

And the AP adds that: " 'meltdown' is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures. It is not immediately clear if a meltdown would cause serious radiation risk, and if it did how far the risk would extend. Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely. 'It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl,' he said. 'I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe.' "
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http://www.npr.org/2011/03/12/134481302/shaking-smoke-at-japanese-nuclear-plant

So the explosion was a ruptured hydrogen tank. Hydrogen is used to power fuel cells in electric vehicles.

The nuclear reactor itself may be damaged, but presents no threat to the environment.

This event simply proves the safety of nuclear energy.
 
Damn Yankee said:
Now for logic and reason:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/12/134481302/shaking-smoke-at-japanese-nuclear-plant

So the explosion was a ruptured hydrogen tank. Hydrogen is used to power fuel cells in electric vehicles.

The nuclear reactor itself may be damaged, but presents no threat to the environment.

This event simply proves the safety of nuclear energy.
Click to expand...

The Chernobyl reactor was a incredibly old almost antique design from the 1950s, it lacked virtually every safety feature taken for granted in Western reactors. It is ironic that the staff were trying to test a new safety feature when the reactor overheated. It also didn't have a concrete containment dome which mandatory in all Western designed reactors.

On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Safety measures were ignored, the uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. RBMK reactors do not have what is known as a containment structure, a concrete and steel dome over the reactor itself designed to keep radiation inside the plant in the event of such an accident. Consequently, radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered over a wide area. In addition, the graphite blocks used as a moderating material in the RBMK caught fire at high temperature as air entered the reactor core, which contributed to emission of radioactive materials into the environment.

http://www.iaea.or.at/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/cherno-faq.shtml
 
I believe in common sense nuclear power. Not nuke baby, nuke!


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tom prendergast said:
Lets just say that Japan had a huge number of wind turbines on the north east coast of Honshu, how many of those would still be working after the quake? There is nothing wrong with nuclear energy but it's never a good idea to put them on or near an active fault line.
Click to expand...

making the backup systems tsunami and earthquake proof would be a good thing for coastal locations
 
Damn Yankee said:
Now for logic and reason:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/12/134481302/shaking-smoke-at-japanese-nuclear-plant

So the explosion was a ruptured hydrogen tank. Hydrogen is used to power fuel cells in electric vehicles.

The nuclear reactor itself may be damaged, but presents no threat to the environment.

This event simply proves the safety of nuclear energy.
Click to expand...

the hydrogen in question is generated by the nuclear reaction - it and the steam must be vented to the atmosphere - both are radioactive

a major nuclear accident requires that the containment building fails - like chernobel
 
Schadenfreude said:
the hydrogen in question is generated by the nuclear reaction - it and the steam must be vented to the atmosphere - both are radioactive

a major nuclear accident requires that the containment building fails - like chernobel
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It does seem weird that those reactors were facing the Pacific where the fault line is located rather than the Sea of Japan on the other side of Honshu. They may have to consider having a backup diesel generator located inland with cables buried underground.
 
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looks like it is happening - in spades

but how bad will it be - a full meltdown or just partials

i do feel sorry for japan

first the earthquakes then the tsunamis and now meltdowns
 
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