Earthquake in Japan....9.0...ouch!

PiKe said:
It's a shame something doesn't exist to neutralise the reaction :(
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Well one question to pose is, did it need stopping?

What would have happened if the plants didn't shut down, would power of continued uninterupted, the turbines and the cooling powered by the reactor continued going? I don't know, I guess what if power lines went down somewhere and the reactor was outputting power with no where to go, dangerous build up of power somewhere?

I don't know, but would anything have happened if the safety feature of shutting the cores down, not happened?
 
drunkenmaster said:
The problem being that people often can't predict the stupid things people will do, IIRC the Three Mile accident was partially down to a stick/label hanging over a required warning light, I mean, it sounds so stupid, you wouldn't think of that when designing every last thing in the plant.

As I was getting at though, in principle, the choice between life without power, or life with a decent risk of even a pretty bad nuclear situation, its NOT an easy choice and not really leaning towards the no power side, I'd be the nuclear power side of that choice.

THeres lots of pro/con arguments, I just really dislike the "but it won't go wrong" argument because, its a bit daft. Things go wrong, they always do, every person thinks they've come up with a new infalible version of some old system, and then, someone breaks it, thats life.



New quake, "only" a 6.0 south west of Tokyo.
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Indeed you can't, things go wrong stuff brakes, people will always try and cut corners, at somepoint a big accident will happen, par for the course if you ask me, i think it's an acceptable level of risk given the rewards, but everyone is different.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Well one question to pose is, did it need stopping?

What would have happened if the plants didn't shut down, would power of continued uninterupted, the turbines and the cooling powered by the reactor continued going? I don't know, I guess what if power lines went down somewhere and the reactor was outputting power with no where to go, dangerous build up of power somewhere?
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The cooling water is supplied and returned to the sea at obviously two seperate points to ensure cool fresh water. I'd be interested to hear how they were effected by the Tsunami in terms of water loading, the backing up of pressure in the system and of course debris potentially blocking/bending pipeworks.

Of course if the grid when down Im not sure how they can dump heat load in the typical fashion of providing turbine shaft torque.
 
cant see anything reported yet, talking with a freind out in Japan at the moment on fb - Shizuoka just had a big tremor;
 
Jonnycoupe said:
fission1.gif
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Nucelar fission in a reactor (and in almost all other scenarios including atom bombs) is triggered by neutron strike not decay, so why do you keep going on about decay? Your diagram is insufficient as it ignores the stage after which the neutron is absorbed and before fission occurs.

If this helps you to understand it by simplification, then fine, just don't say that U235 doesn't become U236 before it splits...because it does.

Jonnycoupe said:
You didnt even understand the ball analogy, the ball net was the nucleus, why are you suggesting that I stated the football gets absorbed by another football? Neutrons do no absorb neutrons.
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Your analogy still ignores the fact that the collection of balls before you kick a ball at the net, is not the same collection of balls as afterwards.
 
Otherthan the MrLOL school of nuclear physics. ie wiki. Where is you nuclear physic education from Robbie?

I dont even know why you have micro quoted my post and pulled such an irrelevant point out which simply sits on your definition of what you think happens as you have read the word absorbtion.

I was actually quite impressed by my ball analogy for its simplicity, I didnt actually expect you to 'find' a flaw in that :confused:

We know the net isnt the same after, you cant lose a neutron, just grasp what happens as the cluster fragments.

Nucelar fission in a reactor (and in almost all other scenarios including atom bombs) is triggered by neutron strike not decay, so why do you keep going on about decay?
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Becuase Robbie decay is contributing to issue in Japan, not solely reaction of uranium.

Something unstable emitting radiation particles is decay.

Something splitting is fission and this is cause by neutron strike. The strike word even suggest the speed of the process.

I think we are going round in circles on what is essentially common point only influenced on how you use words. At no point on a nuclear reaction would a spectrum analysis of the compound show the presence of U236 other than the % that is waste buildup. Hence U236 is not created.
 
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Most businesses, will operate knowing about risks if something goes wrong.

Depending on the substances used (i.e. nuclear) then they may go one step further and have an action plan that is initiate when something goes wrong.

In European H&S, there are COMAH regulations (control of major accident hazards) that must be put in place and monitored by enforcing authorities. I can't speak for Japan, but it would be madness if they didn't have something along these lines. It appears they do, but this is no ordinary accident, and perhaps the tsunami has altered some of these procedures due to the damage caused.

I agree a safety review is a good idea for any country with a nuclear power supply, but outright shutting down plants because of this accident is a bit OTT. IMO, of course.
 
mmj_uk said:
If one reactor goes into meltdown can they still safely tend to the others? or is it a case of if one goes they all go?
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If the containment buildings are completely and utterly intact its supposed to well, contain it, I don't know if any radiation can get out at all. However, they are venting radiation and it would seem that if there were any real leak with localised very high radiation it could make the site stupidly dangerous, at which point its more a case of getting people in to connect fire pumps and fix problematic valves and refuel the pumps and so on, in which case yes, one serious leak could cause huge problems for the others being dealth with effectively.

Its still completely unclear where the radiation is coming from, broken reactor 2, containment building leak somewhere, reactor 4 fire from spent fuel rods, is the fire just heat from the top bit of the building or are the spent fuel rods somewhat exposed now, maybe they don't want to say, or don't know.
 
mmj_uk said:
If one reactor goes into meltdown can they still safely tend to the others? or is it a case of if one goes they all go?
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I think this is purely based on how well the containment works, which to be honest is anyones guess. The meltdown has the potential to release massive amounts of radiation but im not sure if anything will effect the adjacent plants, we've already had a number of large hydrogen explosions.... can it get anyworse if the RPV split/melted?
 
Stovies said:
Would you still say that if you lived close to one?
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The captain of a Royal Navy Submarine has no issues with living so close. Infact I think their exposure is less than soil walkers as the water blocks background radiator.

Of course there is always NIMBY of people which to be honest is far from irrational. :)
 
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