j-malotky Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I heard from a freind who was outdoors when the quake hit. The best analogy he gave was he saw the ground moving just like waves in the ocean. Those tokyo buildings are a masterpiece of engineering. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBL4645 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I heard from a freind who was outdoors when the quake hit. The best analogy he gave was he saw the ground moving just like waves in the ocean. Those tokyo buildings are a masterpiece of engineering. JM Kinder like when going fishing on boat, yeah! Make house of cards on boat it will fall down time and time again. The waves seismic wave must be busting water drainage and (gas pipes) up buckling twisting and bend them up! Billions of yen to fix all that over the years! And theyll still get the odd smaller earthquake thats going to mess up there work! SIGH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBL4645 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I just looked at the news. [] That plant is condemned for the wreaking-ball its unsafe now! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I heard from a freind who was outdoors when the quake hit. The best analogy he gave was he saw the ground moving just like waves in the ocean. Those tokyo buildings are a masterpiece of engineering. JM Amen. I still haven't heard from friends in Japan. Hope they are ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I heard from a freind who was outdoors when the quake hit. The best analogy he gave was he saw the ground moving just like waves in the ocean. Those tokyo buildings are a masterpiece of engineering. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 It’s a good thing the nuclear reactors shut-down otherwise it would be a total disaster with radiation fall out. don't speak too soon. just saw this: LATEST UPDATE: Japan issues a state of emergency at a second nuclear power plant after its cooling system failed as thousands evacuate from the area near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant with radiation levels surging to 1,000 times their normal levels. There in lies the problem..... 1000 times their normal levels is still less than what you will get with a transcontinental flight. The limits imposed on nuclear facilities are less than many buildings. Grand Central Station in New York City would fail if they applied for a nuclear permit because the building emits too much radiation (Granite) How was I to know? Is there a higher power at work here? Haven’t they already gone though a enough! Isn’t anyone thinking this Nostradamus 2012 might just come true now? I surely hope not. I have no idea what else is in store maybe California would sink into the ocean after 10.0 on the Richter scale hits lasting 5mins? Get out of California now why you can save yourselves I have strong gut feeling the BIG ONE IS COMING! A Nuclear Engineer describes what is happening After scram (complete shutdown), about 5% is still there and that level reduces in half every 15 minutes. So for a 3000MW thermal reactor (like this one), 600MW is still there after immediate shutdown, 300MW 15 minutes later, 150MW 30 minutes later, and so forth. In a Boiling water reactor of that model, there are 3 cooling pumps in series (one for the cold feed and two after each hot feed loop). During a scram, those pumps must be shut off so that you don't get vibrational feedback (which could break a pipe). However, in the core is designed such that there are jet pumps (16 in parallel on the standard design) on the wet stream loop. This jet pump has no moving parts but can circulate the some water regardless of what the pumps are doing. Further, there is an single emergency main pump on the main loop that can push the full coolant load. This pump can be driven by any one of several diesel systems or a battery backup. If all of this fails, you then start to depend on the cold water back up re-condenser. In a BWR, underneath the first reactor containment, there is a large torus shaped area that is filled with a large amount of water. You can drop the steam from the reactor into this ring. The steam recondenses and reduces pressure. With the jet pumps, you can push the cold water into the reactor. This system can prevent first containment failure but doesn't prevent core damage. Then there is a second level containment. The design based accident for this reactor is assume a main coolant pipe dissappears (double guillotine break), all of the coolant flushes out and there is no way to cool down the reactor. In this case, 600MW post scram level will melt the reactor and possibly damage first containment, but second containment can hold the total heat produced post scram. You also have a coreium (term for molten core) catcher that catch the core, mix in a huge amount of radiation shield, and reduce the temperature. What is happening: Earthquake happens, core is scrammed because something might break. When the scram happens, main pumps turned off, emergency main pump turned on. However, the diesel generator doesn't work, maybe damage in earthquake, maybe something else. They turn on the battery system. It can last 4 hours, which is enough to reduce core power to 10kW. However, it is hot in there and 10kW is still enough to continue to make steam. So the water level (which tells you how much steam has been made) is dropping. They can go to the recondenser if they need to, but the recondenser doesn't rule out core damage (not melting, but material warping and oxidation) which would be expensive or impossible to repair. So for now, they are bringing in new coolant so they can prevent expensive core damage. They are NOWHERE close to the design based accident, and there is very little worry about containment failures. They are doing the evacuation because there isn't the safety factor they want, not because they are anywhere close to a radiation leak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBL4645 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 ^^^Wow that was detailed very thorough post. So no need for alarm is what youre saying. Management has it contained and under control. I hope so for their sakes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Management has it contained and under control.Well, maybe not...Bad day in Japan. Sounds like they had a bit of a hydrogen cloud problem -- that ignited. Sorry to see it happened. Time to update their plants? Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkles Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Bad day indeed. When you start measuring Cesium outside the power plant, this is not a good sign. Cesium is a byproduct of fission. Usually it stays within the fuel bundles. Extreme heat will cause the cladding around the fuel bundles to melt away releasing the Cesium and other radioactive particles (kinda like TMI). It will be reported exactly how much damage actually occurred in a few days. Kinda hard to keep a radioactive release mum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBL4645 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Management has it contained and under control.Well, maybe not...Bad day in Japan. Sounds like they had a bit of a hydrogen cloud problem -- that ignited. Sorry to see it happened. Time to update their plants? Chris I guess it would take a while to examine the buildings for breaks after 8.9. So the wreaking-ball might be used. Yes its going to cost Japan a lot to get the mess sorted out. Its not like they where asking for it to happen it just unexpectedly happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Some people can tell by the smell if fission has been happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBL4645 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Some people can tell by the smell if fission has been happening. It has smell? Care to enlighten us what it smells like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkles Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Uh don't think so. Maybe you meant fishing? That makes more sense. I can usually tell when someone near me has been fishin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 http://www.enviralment.ca/2011/03/09/terrapower-eyes-a-new-kind-of-nuclear-power/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=beware-the-fear-of-nuclearfear-2011-03-12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Interactive before-and-after satellite photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 some important link to some photos and stuff that is really very interesting and terribly revelant to the discussion and proves my point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivernuggets Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Can't imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 As a teen I had the luxury of spending a lot of time in the ocean (during summer, of course). Occasionally there would be high surf from some distant storm. The red flags would go out on the lifeguard towers and you entered the surf at your own peril. No biggy for me. I'd had my own lifeguard training and was a strong swimmer. Still the periodic giant wave would catch you by surprise. There was no getting out of its way. The best you could do was to get close enough to dive under the bugger before it broke. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. The power of the water was enormous and the bigger the wave the more energetic the event. I came out of the ocean bleeding on more than a single occasion. I watched while others came out of the ocean in much worse shape. I think the term tidal wave is a misnomer. The term 'wave' implies something temporary and commonly thought of as quickly passing, however large it might be. These tsunamis are more like thoroughly breeched dams with huge volumes of water emptying across the land. They are not short term events and the uncontrolled water just keeps going on and on until the dam is finally emptied. And then there is all that debris churning among the boiling current. Incredible. Just incredible. Very, very sad. That's a rotten way to die. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Live stream from NHK TV: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nhk-world-livestream Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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