7.9 and 8.8 Earthquakes in Japan

Any kids who took this on board would be terrified if they ever passed a fertilizer plant or sewage farm in the future, sayin.

can't believe it's been a week already, feels like only a few days for some reason

maybe its because the whole nuclear plant issue only became apparent this week

The nuclear accident underway in Japan does not raise doubts about the safety of nuclear power, and calls to abandon it altogether are just another example of the strange irrationality that surrounds the issue. [...]

It appears that the 10-metre tsunami that followed is what brought the reactors to the brink of meltdown, as back-up diesel generators for the facility's coolant pumps failed, and the cores began to heat up. Attempts to cool the cores were unsuccessful, and containment buildings blew up as the pressure built.

When a 20 km exclusion zone was declared – a standard emergency protocol – the global news coverage frothed with “NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE”, “ATOMIC CRISIS” and “MELTDOWN ALERT”. And how did they deal with the 9.0 magnitude quake? “TSUNAMI CARNAGE” and “NATURE'S TERROR”.

These are just the headlines. The actual coverage has often been nonsensical, contradictory, overdramatic and occasionally hysterical. No wonder the public often react with fear when they see the word ‘nuclear’.

To say - as some news outlets have - that the Fukushima accident was now worse than the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, just shows how bad the coverage can get, and why people get anxious. Chernobyl was a Russian design without a containment vessel and the reactor core was exposed, on fire, and large quantities of the fuel itself released into the air.

The Japanese reactors are designed to prevent this ever happening; fuel is inside a thick steel vessel, itself within a containment structure that is specifically designed to prevent release of core materials even during an accident such as this. Also, boiling water reactors like the ones in Fukushima are cooled by water which, unlike the graphite core at Chernobyl, cannot burn.

Even if the 50 brave nuclear engineers and reactor staff, mostly volunteers, do lose their long battle and a meltdown occurs, this is not necessarily catastrophic. The reactor’s containment structure is designed to prevent the spread of radioactivity and - even if these are breached - it is still likely that much of the radioactive material would be contained at the site.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/4149/full

even if these are breached - it is still likely that much of the radioactive material would be contained at the site.

if u keep moving the bar, eventually someone will be overreacting

I picked up on that too--he's definitely downplaying the worst case scenario, but that doesn't negate the rest of his points.

um aren't all those guy's points wrong? the containment structure ruptured, there's no water in one of the reactors at all etc

for someone who drops EQ shit on his readership, he's really good at coming across as autistic.

d-40 otm

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/18/article-1367524-0B3B46E800000578-690_964x641.jpg
Exposed: this shots shows a gaping hole in the building of reactor number four. The green crane, circled, is normally used to move spent fuel rods into a 45ft deep storage pond, just out of shot. But the pool has now boiled dry and the spent rods are heating up and releasing radiation

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html#ixzz1H11vsNVc

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/18/article-1367524-0B3B932E00000578-109_964x581.jpg

xp Shakey:

No one knows with any certainty if containment vessels have been breached. For reactors 1, 2, & 3 the pressure vessel status is unknown. As for the surrounding reinforced concrete containment, reactor 1 is known to be undamaged, reactor 2 damaged, and reactor 3 "might be not damaged". So far, the amount and type of radiation is consistent with partial melting of fuel pellets (exposing the U203 under the zirconium sheathing), venting of coolant light water with hydrogen and some dissolved short-lived fission products (which wouldn't be present if the fuel was undamaged), and the subsequent hydrogen explosions in enclosures 1 & 3 where the steam was condensing.

Best updated sites I've found for Japanese radiation surveys:

• Japan-wide dynamic map of daily surveys (except in Fukushima prefecture) highest level all week has been Horiguchi Hitachinaka 110 km south of the plant, peaking Wednesday at 3.3 µSv / hr, now at 0.75 µSv / hr.

• Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science survey of the exclusion zone and environs in Fukushima prefecture. Highest level outside 30km radius is 30 µSv / hr, highest level inside exclusion zone is 150 µSv / hr.

• Reactor status updates at the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum. Radiation at the Fukushima power plants east gate peaked at 1937 µSv / hr immediately after the second explosion, but has fallen gradually since to 304 μSv / hr.

japanese politicians weeping in public feels terrifyingly like a sign of the apocalypse to me

john boehner weeping in public just seemed pathetic

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.

Officials: Pressure rises again in Japan reactor
By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press
Saturday, March 19, 2011
More...
(03-19) 21:34 PDT TOKYO, Japan (AP) --

Japan's nuclear safety agency says pressure is again rising in one of reactors at the country's tsunami-damaged nuclear complex — a setback that means operators will have to vent more radioactive gas into the environment.

Safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said Sunday that efforts to put water in the Unit 3 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex might not have been working.

He says the plant operator will release some radioactive gas from the reactor into the environment and that this may slow work on restoring power and cooling systems to the unit.

Nishiyama says that means radiation levels around the plant will rise again.

christ

Nishiyama says that means radiation levels around the plant will rise again.

― taco al pastorius (Steve Shasta), Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark]

misread as 'around the planet'

you didn't misread that.

I am not much of an xkcd guy, but this chart seems pretty cool:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png

Too small - just check the link:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

HirokoTabuchi Hiroko Tabuchi
"Going forward, govt is committed to disclosure," Fukuyama says. Foreign media will now be invited to prime minister's office for briefings.
12 minutes ago

HirokoTabuchi Hiroko Tabuchi
"There may have been inadequecies in our disclosure of information." Japan Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama
18 minutes ago

inadequacies were made

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12798579

'food ban mulled' is a joke right

"The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that."

Just read that quote youve already covered in the NY Times. This is why I hate my 401k and might yet head for Tibet.

you should take ollie perez with you

who? gone baby gone

Spent some time this weekend reading about tsunamis, in particular the history of the Sanriku coast hit by this disaster.

Here's an article giving an overview of the recent history (comparably huge tsunami in 1896 similarly wiped out the coast, smaller waves in 1933 and 1968 caused significant death and destruction): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8380614/Sanriku-Japans-Tsunami-Coast.html .

Many of the towns destroyed by the tsunami (and similarly destroyed on earlier occasions) sit in narrow valleys at the end of shallow inlets/bays, which tend to multiply the height of the incoming tsunami. One town, Taro, which was completely washed away in 1896, built a 10m high tsunami wall as defense. Here's the ground level view.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/5535903668_4817e66829_b.jpg

Didn't work. The wall is still there but the wave overtopped it by meters and destroyed everything beyond it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBKtw9JMba4

Found a earth sciences textbook called Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard that explains the physics of waves developing and propagating, and how local geography influences the height of the tsunami. Most of chapter 5, earthqake-caused tsunami is available in the free preview.

Someone on metafilter linked to a series of powerpoint presentations given at a tsunami safety briefing given at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, just a few months ago (Fukushima also had tsunami walls that failed). "Tsunamis -- Disasters and Countermeasures" (huge pdf: http://www.jnes.go.jp/seismic-symposium10/presentationdata/3_sessionB/B-02.pdf ) is full of astonishing photos and interesting details.

Aw geez that clip about the seawall made me so sad. They were so proud of it and it did nothing :(

so the tsunami was basically mother nature's way of saying "stop hitting yourself"

At least the wall survived (trying to look on the bright side and finding it impossible).

From my side: parents just arrived in London. Will be here around late afternoon. I suspect they will return to Japan quite quickly. As soon as reactors are in control, I think they will just head back. I respect and understand their decision: their heart is in Japan.

I am exhausted from worrying. Yesterday I was in bed all day. I suspect it's a million times worse for my parents. :-(

I decided to go in October with my kids.

One of the "stabilized reactors" is spewing a plume of smoke right now. This is day 10 right?

perhaps a question that has already been answered elsewhere: this and the 2004 tsunami are the first that have really been "captured" as events and are also the first such catastrophic tsunamis in a very long time, right?

also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatsunami

Death toll looking to surpass 20k.

More radiation found in food in the areas around the reactors, seafood now undergoing testing...

You gotta hand it to Edano here on day 11, 2 reactors smoking, insisting there is absolutely no danger.

More 5-6+ aftershocks rocking metro Tokyo. All baseball games were cancelled tonight.

a ground ball getting past the infield because of an earthquake aftershock would make for a decent buffalo wild wings commercial imo

....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/Novale/shrug.gif

feel kinda bad lolling in this thread but j0rdan got me there :?

lol j0r

what does a regular buffalo wild wings commercial look like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snehqve-l3M

I lol'd :/

wtf with aftershocks still happening 11 days later, is that a normal thing?? i thought they just went on for a day or two.

Aftershocks go on in general for a long, long time.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_35.gif
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/Legends/legend.gif

The location of the original 9.0 hasn't had an aftershock in its immediate vicinity for a week, but the stresses are still relieving themselves towards the margins of the slip plane. No advance of the aftershock "front" towards Tokyo in 3 days.

On the meltdown front, today is the first day I've observed falling trends in environmental radiation in all the reports I follow (at the plant, near the exclusion zone, and Japan-wide) - links posted above.

heh I thought it was kind of convenient that as soon as the UN approved the resolution to enforce the no-fly zone in libya, all japan nuke reactor news immediately became 2nd page material.

this columnist at the telegraph goes to bat for a different kind of nuclear reactor

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

no idea who he is or how credible this is. his sign-off is p hilarious

i supposed that's a better fit for the energy thread

theres been some thorium discussion in the energy thread iirc