Massive quake hits Japan 9.0 Magnitude

[Sydde]

As for the divine wind bit...

It was a historical allusion.

 

[takao]

well looks like reactor 4 now has a fire problem which started from falling debris after nr3 exploded ...

but it's only an ordinary fire .. as ridiculous that sounds when talking about a nuclear plant

 

[EricNau]

An excellent article detailing the media's exaggeration of Japan's nuclear situation. It's bad, but no where near as bad as many seem to think.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/14/the-japanese-nuclear-reactor-overreaction/

 

[Don't panic]

authorities just expanded evacuation steps, reflecting worsening situations/new leaks

 

[EricNau]

Another helpful article (MSNBC):

Amid dire reports of melting fuel rods and sickened workers at Japan’s beleaguered Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor, the public health risk from radiation exposure remains very low in that country — or abroad, experts say.

“In general, right now, the citizens of Japan have far more other things to worry about than nuclear power,” said Richard L. Morin, a professor of radiologic physics at the Mayo Clinic and chair of the safety committee of the American College of Radiology.

“There’s not a significant risk to anybody in the United States, including Hawaii,” he added.

Though talk of a nuclear “meltdown” raises specters of acute radiation sickness and long-term cancers, such as those seen after the 1986 Chernobyl accident in which the reactor blew up, the radiation levels detected outside the Japan plant remain within legal limits, Japanese officials told reporters.

American experts monitoring the situation agreed, saying that reported radiation exposure remains far lower than normal exposure from background radiation in the environment, from medical procedures such as CT scans, or even from transatlantic air flights.

“I haven’t seen anything so far that seems to indicate that people are being exposed to levels of radiation that are acutely dangerous,” said G. Donald Frey, a professor of radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina.

[. . .] A one-time CT scan can expose a person to between 5 and 10 millisieverts. An X-ray of the spine might expose a patient to an estimated 1.5 millisieverts. A long, cross-country air flight might expose someone to about .03 millisieverts. A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day is exposed to 53 millisieverts each year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

So far, Japanese officials have reported possible top exposures at the plant of .5 millisieverts per hour, a level that has dropped to perhaps .04 millisieverts per hour, Frey said. While that level is concerning to plant workers, residents who heeded a 12-mile evacuation zone would not be affected, said Dr. James H. Thrall, chief radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“That would only expose nuclear plant workers,” he said. “If you’re even 100 feet away, or 1,000 feet away, the exposure drops dramatically.”

Even if the workers at the nuclear plant in Japan were exposed continuously to .5 millisieverts per hour, it would take about 40 hours before them to reach the yearly limit for exposure. Now that the level has fallen, so has the risk, Thrall said. [. . .]

In the meantime, the U.S. experts cautioned observers, especially those in the U.S., to keep the situation in perspective.

“There’s very little likelihood of any concern,” said Thrall. “Instead, I would advise people to look both ways before crossing the street.”

As I suggested earlier, the fear-mongering regarding this issue doesn't appear to be warranted. Unless the situation changes drastically, there's no need for dire claims and accusations.

Even allowing for the possibility of a complete core meltdown (an unlikely event given the current situation, though not impossible), the structures were designed to contain such an event. The release of dangerous levels of radiation is extremely improbable, even given a situation significantly worse than that currently faced by Japan. Link

 

[rasmasyean]

Oh well...Japan is history...

Time to start relocating the population and all their assets to Afghanistan. Didn't we find some ancient Buddhas there which the Taliban blew up? Well, we now declare that The Holy Buddha Land of the Japs! That MUST be were they originated from! They can even rebuild the nuclear reactors there too since no one gives a crap about that environment evidently.

 

[Apple OC]

Even allowing for the possibility of a complete core meltdown (an unlikely event given the current situation, though not impossible), the structures were designed to contain such an event. The release of dangerous levels of radiation is extremely improbable, even given a situation significantly worse than that currently faced by Japan. Link

very informative link ... this is likely another 3 Mile situation and will get under control. The expanded evacuation seems to be added precaution and not an indication of Radiation sweeping the area.

I feel for the people that have been displaced and wish them well

 

[awmazz]

.

 

[joepunk]

Someone has a Geiger Counter reading set up in Tokyo (I assume that is the location). If someone can explain this that would be wonderful.

LINK

 

[EricNau]

The problem with your attempts to downplay this situation, like all the other attempts in this thread so far, is that every time you get hammered by actual events on the ground. To wit:

So rather than fear-mongering appearing to be unwarranted, it's actually the other way around. The fear-mongers have yet to be proved wrong while the down-players' positive predictions have been proved wrong every step of the way. It's almost like the down-players are having as much difficulty staying on top of this situation as the plant owners/workers themselves. Here's a hint - it's out of control and has been all along. Everything we've been seeing the last three days is simply trying to regain control, not actually control it. To wit:

All workers not drectly involved in the actual pumping have now been evacuated from Fukushima nuclear plant. They're running. So everybody else should too.

EDIT - I just re-read that BBC quote and realized it's even more staggeringly worse than when I first read it as '8 times the legal limit' - where in fact it's 8 TIMES the YEARLY legal limit in just 1 HOUR.

Here is the article to which you referred. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

It fails to mention that the statistic noted, "8,217 microsieverts an hour" was measured at the front door of the damaged power plant. Link As was said in the article I quoted above, radiation levels decrease drastically with distance.

Someone has a Geiger Counter reading set up in Tokyo (I assume that is the location). If someone can explain this that would be wonderful.

LINK

http://park18.wakwak.com/~weather/uploaddata/radiation.jpg

Based on every online source I could obtain, readings of <100 CPM are significantly LOWER than readings you'd get if you took a geiger counter on an airplane. Link

...And given the highly unknown nature of that graph (how sensitive/reliable the equipment is, who operates it, where it is, who compiled the information, etc.) it's a dubious source at best. Though there isn't anything suspicious about the data, I might add.

 

[luminosity]

Seems very serious to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

“It’s way past Three Mile Island already,” said Frank von Hippel, a physicist and professor at Princeton. “The biggest risk now is that the core really melts down and you have a steam explosion.”

 

[EricNau]

Seems very serious to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

It depends on who you want to believe. The situation is serious, yes, but is that quote truly representative of the situation? Professor Josef Oehmen, MIT:

There was and will not be any significant release of radioactivity. By 'significant,' I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on, say, a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.

Link

 

[rasmasyean]

Someone has a Geiger Counter reading set up in Tokyo (I assume that is the location). If someone can explain this that would be wonderful.

LINK

http://www.geigercounters.com/AboutGgr.htm

CPM
Counts per minute (cpm) is a measure of radioactivity. It is the number of atoms in a given quantity of radioactive material that are detected to have decayed in one minute.
https://forums.macrumors.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=12154991


As to why theres that peak thing? Maybe a was the wind change.

:::::

Come to think of it...it wouldn't be too bad if Japan had to mass evacuate because of contamination. I mean, that place might eventually like blow up and flood at some point in the future right? It looks like it's on the verge of happening actually.

That would be pretty cool if they evacuated now. I mean, where would they go you may ask? I think they would mostly come the the US. I mean, we sort of helped them build their country up after WWII and we've always had pretty strong ties. Our economy is similar too.

Hey, we'll take Toyota, and Sony, and Mitsubishi...and heck, whatever can fit on the barges. I think it would be pretty symbiotic too as we use a lot of their crap anyway so might as well bring it all home. They have like the best manufacturing in the world and the US can use some of that today. We have lots of barren land all over the place that can be used for industry and Japanese ppl have the money to build here, rather than in the expensive cramped up island of theirs. Jobs for all! woot!

 

[mac jones]

I would really like to know the worst case scenario. Everyone has a different idea about what this is, so in effect, there's no way to know. Imagination is not a comforting substitute for facts.

The way this is unfolding is not exactly confidence inspiring.

 

[takao]

Here is the article to which you referred. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

It fails to mention that the statistic noted, "8,217 microsieverts an hour" was measured at the front door of the damaged power plant. Link As was said in the article I quoted above, radiation levels decrease drastically with distance.

true but still it's way more than is acceptable for nuclear station personal.. or otherwise they wouldn't have evacuated wouldn't they ?

as you say this 8.000 microSievert were recorded at the gate. Did you hear how much the maximum value was they recorded on site around the hot points ? (don't know wether that was reactor 2 or the fire involving spent fuel in reactor 4) they actually mentioned it in one of the press conferences last night:
100 mSv ....that is 100.000 microSievert or 41,5 the average yearly dosis or _twice they yearly legal limit for nuclear powerplant workers_
i don't need a reporter telling me about Sievert values. i measured them myself while i wearing a thick rubber suit.

 

[puma1552]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I've largely given up on these threads and arguing about my field with people outside my field, but my god awmazz you need to just stop posting altogether...you haven't once had a clue what you are talking about. Sorry, but it's the truth.

All the fission stopped almost 72 hours ago.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

I think the worst-case scenario are winds blowing the plume inland.

And if the container degrades - fuel melts and "spills out" - does this not indicate loss of contact with the control rods? What's to stop things from there?

As for the comment earlier up about workers being there so things must be safe... You obviously don't remember what happened in the former USSR a quarter century back. Factor in the Japanese culture where self-sacrifice for the good of their people is looked highly upon. I'd say there's a damn good chance they know their killing themselves, but will continue to work to their ends.

 

[Sydde]

I've largely given up on these threads and arguing about my field with people outside my field, but my god awmazz you need to just stop posting altogether...you haven't once had a clue what you are talking about. Sorry, but it's the truth.

All the fission stopped almost 72 hours ago.

Curious. You are suggesting that the control rods are fully seated (we would hope), absorbing the entire natural neutron flux, thus completely dampening the fission process (apart from the normal spontaneous fission of the 235 in the fuel pellets). Yet, the cores are still producing significant heat, sea water is being pumped over them to cool them, a real danger appears to exist. Where is that heat coming from, why, if the fission process has been choked off, are they not simply losing heat (cooling down like a big hunk of metal)? What are we missing?

 

[takao]

Factor in the Japanese culture where self-sacrifice for the good of their people is looked highly upon. I'd say there's a damn good chance they know their killing themselves, but will continue to work to their ends.

while the situation is very,very serious i think it's still on the level of a controllable risk to health if the operators are rotated enough/monitored and depending on exposure are protected with equipment
especially if radiation leaks are limited to very short time frames

it's still a far cry from the stuff what some firefighters/engineers did in 1986 to prevent worse

Curious. You are suggesting that the control rods are fully seated (we would hope), absorbing the entire natural neutron flux, thus completely dampening the fission process (apart from the normal spontaneous fission of the 235 in the fuel pellets). Yet, the cores are still producing significant heat, sea water is being pumped over them to cool them, a real danger appears to exist. Where is that heat coming from, why, if the fission process has been choked off, are they not simply losing heat (cooling down like a big hunk of metal)? What are we missing?

that is somehow baffling me as well: the heat should be dropping at a logrithmical rate after an emergency shutdown and thus within 24 hours the heat should have dropped very fast

yet today is tuesday and still cooling problems it just doesn't sound correct. might there some design deficits at work ? like control rods not really adequate sized? or is it simply because of partial meltdowns/damages inside the reactor ?


edit: getting really serious now: according to a japanese news outlet a reactor control room has been evacuated because of radiation

 

[iJohnHenry]

true but still it's way more than is acceptable for nuclear station personal.. or otherwise they wouldn't have evacuated wouldn't they ?

These people are being sacrificed, as were the workers/fireman/army at Chernobyl.

If you knew the full extent, from the get go, would you have hung around to 'man the pumps'??

 

[rdowns]

Come to think of it...it wouldn't be too bad if Japan had to mass evacuate because of contamination. I mean, that place might eventually like blow up and flood at some point in the future right? It looks like it's on the verge of happening actually.

That would be pretty cool if they evacuated now. I mean, where would they go you may ask? I think they would mostly come the the US. I mean, we sort of helped them build their country up after WWII and we've always had pretty strong ties. Our economy is similar too.

Hey, we'll take Toyota, and Sony, and Mitsubishi...and heck, whatever can fit on the barges. I think it would be pretty symbiotic too as we use a lot of their crap anyway so might as well bring it all home. They have like the best manufacturing in the world and the US can use some of that today. We have lots of barren land all over the place that can be used for industry and Japanese ppl have the money to build here, rather than in the expensive cramped up island of theirs. Jobs for all! woot!

wtf?

 

[Don't panic]

Oh well...Japan is history...

Time to start relocating the population and all their assets to Afghanistan. Didn't we find some ancient Buddhas there which the Taliban blew up? Well, we now declare that The Holy Buddha Land of the Japs! That MUST be were they originated from! They can even rebuild the nuclear reactors there too since no one gives a crap about that environment evidently.

Come to think of it...it wouldn't be too bad if Japan had to mass evacuate because of contamination. I mean, that place might eventually like blow up and flood at some point in the future right? It looks like it's on the verge of happening actually.

That would be pretty cool if they evacuated now. I mean, where would they go you may ask? I think they would mostly come the the US. I mean, we sort of helped them build their country up after WWII and we've always had pretty strong ties. Our economy is similar too.

Hey, we'll take Toyota, and Sony, and Mitsubishi...and heck, whatever can fit on the barges. I think it would be pretty symbiotic too as we use a lot of their crap anyway so might as well bring it all home. They have like the best manufacturing in the world and the US can use some of that today. We have lots of barren land all over the place that can be used for industry and Japanese ppl have the money to build here, rather than in the expensive cramped up island of theirs. Jobs for all! woot!

are you trying to be funny?
because:
a) you are not
b) it seems quite inappropriate

and if you are not. wow.

 

[awmazz]

.

 

[rasmasyean]

are you trying to be funny?
because:
a) you are not
b) it seems quite inappropriate

and if you are not. wow.

I'm joking about Afghanistan. It's supposed to be an Isreal joke, but obviously you didn't get it. And I think it's funny!

Regarding the relocation, I think that would be pretty cool. Why not? If it boiled down to it, I think what I said would be pretty practical and beneficial.

 

[Don't panic]

I'm joking about Afghanistan. It's supposed to be an Isreal joke, but obviously you didn't get it. And I think it's funny!

Regarding the relocation, I think that would be pretty cool. Why not? If it boiled down to it, I think what I said would be pretty practical and beneficial.

you think it would be 'pretty cool' to relocate 130 million people to some 'barren area' in a foreign land when there is absolutely no reasons for it?
and you think it would be "practical"????