Pick a number, and that reactor is described as being near a meltdown. The news coverage coming out of Japan is even more confused when American media deciphers it. Hopefully hard facts come in soon…
Meltdown occurred according to Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
URGENT: March 12 00:00 PST: Explosion at Nuclear Facility
VIDEO of explosion at nuke plant.
Reuters Live Earthquake News Feed
Several people appear to be injured at Fukushima nuclear plant – NHK
Walls and roof of a building at site destroyed by blast – NHK via Sky News
UPDATE: 22:50 PST: BREAKING NEWS: Pressure successfully released from Fukushima No. 1 reactor: agency
UPDATE: 21:47 PST: Meltdown underway at Reactor #1? http://twitter.com/#!/dicklp
Fukushima fuel cores are melting at 2000C and dropping onto steel floor. Steel melts at 1500C. Could still be brought under control, but Four other Fukushima nuke reactors are struggling with similar problem. If multiple meltdown begins, it will be uncontrollable.
Nuclear reactor coolant systems are running on batteries, and the coolant has reached the boiling point. Extremely critical situation currently at several earthquake affected nuclear reactors. Officials are concerned that a Three Mile Island 1979 meltdown could happen here. Reuters Link
From the LA Times:
Conditions appear to be worsening at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan, according to local media.
The Kyodo news agency reported that the cooling system has failed at three reactors of Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant. The coolant water’s temperature had reached boiling temperature, the agency reported, citing the power plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power.
The cooling system failure at the No. 2 power plant came after officials were already troubled by the failure of the emergency cooling system at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which officials feared could cause a meltdown.
Before I continue today to discuss what happened to date at 1F1 nuclear plant, I would like to express some disappointment.
I would like to emphasize the surprising lack of perspective of WUWT commenters who suggest the nuclear emergency situations of TEPCo’s Fukushima Daiichi (1F) site and Fukushima Daini (2F) site will have overall negative impact on the global future of nuclear power.
The global nuclear community and governments will descend on the Fukushima nuclear sites en mass and will study in excruciating detail all situations that occurred. Findings will provide the knowledge of what must be done for all operating nuclear plants of every kind and what must be incorporated into new plant designs. From that new knowledge will be created new reviews of all the currently operating plants of every kind. From that there will be the detailing the essential modifications needed and the timely plans to implement needed changes. Operating crews will be retrained. New plant maintenance routines will be implemented. New government guidelines will be implemented.
The global nuclear program will emerge more strong in confidence based on what will be learned from the Fukushima nuclear site’s experiences. Just like the global nuclear industry learned from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and other major incidences. After the incidences the nuclear industry expanded and it did so based on a new higher confidence level of what make plants safer.
The only group, I fear, that will not learn from the Fukushima nuclear sites experiences is the global news media. Almost universally I found the accuracy of their reporting very low and their exaggeration very high; a bad combination.
John
Re: pwl says:
March 12, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I listened to your interview with your dad. His summary of the Japanese plant situation and its implications was “spot on” from my perspective and I have considerable experience in the industry. His succinct and dispassionate delivery of facts as reported in the media and their probable implications reflected a refreshing economy of words that military training encourages and which is a characteristic most folks would do well to cultivate. Unfortunately, our news media folks are apparently “paid by the word” and many of the self-proclaimed nuclear experts who have commented on the Japanese situation cover their ignorance with a blizzard of words.
I applaud your initiative and, again, your dad’s summary was downright refreshing. Let us all hope that the last ditch, “John Wayne” effort now underway at those distressed plants is ultimately successful in containing the damage to the plants themselves.
Wouldn’t it be cool if weather stations all reported on radiation levels too…?
If you have $900 to spare, with this professional Geiger Counter from Edmund Scientific you could measure yourself what governments prefer to conceal in situations like this:
http://www.scientificsonline.com/professional-geiger-counter.html
Or this one for just $270:
http://www.scientificsonline.com/portable-geiger-counter.html
Anyhow, hopefully all the reactors’ cores can be cooled somehow…
Here’s a couple more links about radiation, worth a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning#Exposure_levels
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/ionizing.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/550889.html
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/env_rpt/aser95/tb-a-2.pdf
One of the better articles describing that aspect of the disaster in Japan I found was this from the UK Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9543298
– MVB
@kbray in california says:
Another question, if the H is from H2O where does the Oxygen go?
Answer:
Zr + 2H2O ==> ZrO2 + 2H2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircaloy
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14908229,00.html?maca=en-TWITTER-EN-2004-xml-mrss
Quote;
Japanese news reports say that the cooling water levels in the reactor have dropped so much that up to 3 meters of the fuel rods were exposed, making overheating a real threat.
Asked in a news conference whether meltdowns had occurred, Edano said “we are acting on the assumption that there is a high possibility that one has occurred” in the plant’s number-one reactor.
“As for the number-three reactor, we are acting on the assumption that it is possible,” he said.
pwl says:
March 12, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I called him up just a few minutes ago and recorded the call.
I listened and it answered many things I’ve been wondering. Thank you!
It is very easy to upload this interview to YouTube. That would make it easy access to it. And you could link the video here and at your web site.
I don’t know if you would want to do that or not. But if you do want it on YouTube and don’t know how to do it I can do it quite easily. It would just take minutes. And I’d be happy to do it. I know many people want to know more, especially more about the comparison to Chernobyl. I could put the photo of you and your dad from your web site on the video if you wanted it done.
This might be the Geiger Counter winner (It is for my online search): http://www.gammascout.com/
pwl, bless you for that effort and thank your dad again (and again) for some very pertinent info.
Something I’ve just noticed while following the nuclear plant problems in Japan. None of the reactor sites has windmills or solar power as a backup to keep the cooling pumps going. I wonder why that would be. /sarc
From the BBC pages for the middle east that’s providing continuing updates:
#
0349: CNN presenter Piers Morgan tweets: “Nuclear expert Bill Nye just said situation at Japan plants sounds ‘way more serious’ than authorities saying. Deeply worrying.
=8-)
[ryanm: oh goodness gracious WTF do we care Bill Nye thinks or says about anything? WTF = Win the Future.]
CCTV News is the best news channel I have found so far. They interview japanese nuclear experst, not Greenpeace……
dp,
Just think, if they’d built a tidal power system by the Fuku plant, they could have generated more power off the tsunami to keep the nuclear reactors going more safely! ba-da-bing!
In other news, the earthquake shortened the length of the day on Earth by 1.8 milliseconds (see, I knew there was a reason I have been feeling so tired lately!). The earthquake moved the main island of Japan by a total of 8 feet. The earthquake also shifted Earth’s figure axis by about 6 1/2 inches (17 centimeters), Gross added. The figure axis is different from the rotational axis of the north and south poles and instead describes the amount of wobble off the rotational axis due to uneven distribution of mass, but don’t blame that for any vertigo you have been feeling.
Not unlike an ill wind …
Re pwl on March 12, 2011 at 7:45 pm:
I’m waiting for the people giving thanks to pwl for the interview with their dad, to notice the quote marks and that the section comes from the second link posted, which is different from the site pwl’s handle links to. In other words, I doubt that’s pwl’s dad.
At that second link, transcript is now posted.
John Whitman, I think this will have a negative affect on the future of nuclear power because its future is probably driven less by the expertise in the nuclear industry than it is by the opinions of Madonna, Susan Sarandon, and the girls on “The View.”
As for the world’s experts examining the events in excruciating detail and coming up with safety improvements, I think they’ll conclude that
1) Diesel generators should have snorkels.
2) An extra diesel generator should be conveniently close by.
3) 1960’s designs could be improved, leading to the designs of the 1970’s and beyond.
The Japanese government announcements are interesting, earlier they were downplaying it and now they are saying possible partial meltdowns in both and possible explosion in 3 like there was in 1. It makes me wonder if they are getting conflicting evidence from the electricity company who have been more reassuring in their statements. I think the comments above about it not being known for many months the full extent of the damage most likely accurate and that there would be twist and turns to come over the next few days.
I am puzzled by the comments above this might be nuclear’s finest hour? Up to 170 000 people have had to be evacuated, peiple have been injured and it looks like both reactors are likely write offs. You’d have to compare to other sources of energy and how they fared. I would say that given the age and the circumstances the engineering has done pretty well to be honest, best of a bad lot rather than finest hour.
It will be interesting to see what the UK government will do now, they had been planning new nuclear plants after a long period of being cool to them, ironically due to CO2. Will they flip flop back again?
Andy
There are people who are very angry at others who are concerned about global warming venting here during this tradgedy.They link up their emotions without
first considering what it might be like in Japan right now.
This forum is a good example of how lacking in critical thinking skills some people can be.Quite calloos under the circumstaces.
May the people of Japan be coforted by the outpouring of international concern
Headline from most agencies: “End of the world!”
Sub Headline: “A reactor may have exploded, but as usual we don’t have any facts yet. Thanks for clicking the headline and generating ad revenue for us though :-). PS, as soon as a major celebrity farts we will be covering that and you will hear no follow ups to this sensational headline.”
KD Knoebel said
“Re pwl on March 12, 2011 at 7:45 pm:
I’m waiting for the people giving thanks to pwl for the interview with their dad, to notice the quote marks and that the section comes from the second link posted, which is different from the site pwl’s handle links to. In other words, I doubt that’s pwl’s dad.”
Thats some damn fine detective work KD. PWL is defintley not the person doing the interview in the link. PWL stands for the poster’s initials, while the name of the person doing the interview is completley different. ( Not to mention a woman.) If you check the ” about” section of the linked site, it lists the contributors, and no PWL.
PWL
While we appreciate the link, why pass it off as your own? You could have simply said ” This is an interview with a Navy man whos also a nuclear expert.”
Passing it off as your own, if that was the intention, is not a smart idea.
Strangely, the otherwise well-equipped WeatherShop does not carry radioactivity measuring equipment like Geiger counters. Radiation shields, yes; radioactivity detectors, no.
Perhaps this is the wrong decade to want to know wind speed and direction, possibility of precipitation and amount when it happens, and how much radiation is emitted by the fallout brought to you by the wind and precipitation. Too bad, it might be handy to know when downwind of a coal-fired power plant.
I wonder if the respected management of the business will consider offering such detectors. If nothing else, they’ll be quite educational as people will be able to actually see how much background radiation they’re normally exposed to and how much is given off by common objects, like bananas.
Two comments from an old Health Physicist
1) Don’t stock up on iodine. I haven’t seen any reports of a major radioactive iodine release from the damaged plant. Even if there was a release, there would be dang little by the time it got halfway around the world (diffusion is our friend when it comes to radioactive material). The practice of giving iodine tablets to people near a powerplant is somewhat controversial as it hasn’t been proven to really work. However, the idea is to flood the thyroid with normal iodine PRIOR to exposure to the radioactive iodine. If the thyroid is saturated with normal iodine, then the theory is that no other iodine (radioactive or not) would likely enter the thyroid. The iodine tabs have to be taken before the exposure occurs. This is why they are handing out iodine tabs to the locals. It is a precautionary measure IF radioactive iodine is released. However, there is a very small percentage of people who do not react well to taking normal iodine in this quantity. You might want to think twice before taking it. If you want to take precautionary steps, without the potential problems inherent in putting a large amount of iodine in your system, you can wear a respirator with a charcoal cannister on it. DO NOT put a respirator on someone who has not been instructed in its proper use. I’ve been in radioactive iodine environments and charcoal filters do a great job of keeping you from inhaling radioactive iodine.
2) Please don’t buy a radiation detector unless you know how to use one or have someone who knows how to use it give you a decent training session. The cheap meters are pretty worthless for giving you any kind of useful information. They have needles that swing all over the place which you may likely interpret falsely and scare the beejeebers out of yourself for no reason. Also they are incapable of detecting the extremely small quantities of radioactive material that might come from a nuclear plant accident that is halfway around the world. Here in the US, I was able to detect radioactive material from Chernobyl – with a $30,000 radiation detector, but none of my less expensive detectors could do it. I never saw anything from TMI even with the expensive detector.
I watched Fox News and visited a few other channels. Fox had some good experts who were spot on and not particularly scary. However it was funny, in a sad way, to watch some of the announcers react when they didn’t hear death and destruction coming from the experts’ mouths. Some of the experts on other channels were awful and should be forced to go into containment without a respirator.
Talk about under reporting
I have just seen a report that has a preliminary figure of 88,000 persons missing.
Anybody else seen this.
The weatherspace.com
*ahem*
From J. Felton on March 13, 2011 at 2:01 am:
For The Record, I in no way was implying that pwl had “ripped off” that stuff. I saw the quote marks, I knew what was up. What I was doing, was noting how other people weren’t figuring it out.
The only thing pwl did wrong was not more clearly denoting they were quoting someone else, as with italics or by using the blockquote feature, if you wish to consider what was done as wrong. I’m willing to drop a large share of the blame for not realizing that section was quoted right on the readers who didn’t figure it out.
How does Bill Nye get away with being called a scientist? Is the dickie bow a testamount to his credentials?
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/13/japan.nuclear.reactors/
To the Moderator.
Did 1DandyTroll (March 12, 2011 at 5:57 pm) sneak one past you?
He writes: “[…]
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
I appreciate WUWT immensely. This doesn’t belong here.
[Reply: You’re right. Post snipped. ~dbs]