Japanese Earthquake

[Shrieker]

and there speaks the authentic voice of the gaia-worshipper.

Would rather see all nuclear plants shut down, and no newer ones built. There are clearer ways for generating energy for those who are willing to use their head. I will not leave a fallout legacy.

[feynman]

Are you kidding Giblet? Removal of personal attacks, nothing left?

Pacific ocean isn't Japanese property to use it as dump just to save themselves...

... and there speaks the authentic voice of the gaia-worshipper.
Would rather see millions of people killed to save some seaweed.

Where's the personal attack, if someone says something so offensive to basic common human decency they deserve called out on it, always.

Never has a username seemed more appropriate.

OK, I'll give you that one.

Twitter-twats #1 trending topic all day yesterday, "prayers to Japan", yeah that worked out well didn't it. Cheers.

Where is the personal attack, why the deletion?

Curious exactly how far off topic for an F1 board, this thread is gonna end up.

Where is the personal attack, why the deletion?



You have posters on an F1 board with overblown signatures linking to political and ideological activist sites, and no problem; someone says that maybe in the aftermath of a disaster, as people are fighting for their lives, that this perhaps isn't the time for crass and facile point scoring, and they get deleted.

Standards have slipped.

[Giblet]

Yours was the first post that was about a poster, and not about the people of Japan and what is going on which is the focus of this thread.

We are talking about the biggest disaster on the planet in ages, and you are worried about people's sensibilities and personal opinions. The whole post was not deeded and useless to the discussion, only meant to incite or argue as far as I could see.

Any opinion is important, but keep it out of the personal arena please.

Also, please don't argue about posts in the threads. If you disagree with my moderation fine, but airing dirty laundry is not a good thing, so please bring it to my attention in a PM. If Manchild's post and sig are no good for you, use the report button.

[Pup]

The wiki page on BWR safety systems is worth a read, as the timeline of event follows the safety procedures fairly well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_Wa ... ty_Systems

I don't think they are dumping anything into the ocean. They're using the sea water as an emergency coolant to flood the containment. That coolant, contaminated or not, wouldn't be recirculated - it would remain.

As for nuclear safety - that's a big argument. But it's worth pointing out that these types of reactors are the oldest and least safe. Unfortunately, they are also the most common. However, I believe nuclear energy can be extrememly safe and good for the environment if properly designed.

[Dragonfly]

Actually, isn't it the backup/emergency system which failed? Not the reactors and their safety systems as such. Hard to imagine that all diesel power plants could fail, unless there's a common weak point in the system.

[manchild]

Haven't got to read the deleted stuff apart from quoted bits.

I was writing concerned for the welfare of the whole planet. Pacific isn't just Japanese backyard and "some sea weed", and if they run ocean water as they plan to cool reactor down that will inevitably end up in ocean again destroying the life in it.

Oceans and rain forests enable life on this planet, and I can't see how it is more "humane" to pollute the ocean that gives life to whole planet than to evacuate the bigger area around the reactor, seal it like the one in Chernobyl and forget about that piece of land for several thousand years.

Why should all people in the world including animals and plants suffer from something that is Japanese internal matter? They've decided to built power plants, so now they should live with consequences of their own actions.

I'm sorry for the common people of Japan, they are victims, but Japanese nuclear officials are not:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/ ... B420110312

SINGAPORE | Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:22am EST

Japan's nuclear power operator has checkered past

(Reuters) - The company at the center of a nuclear reactor crisis following the biggest earthquake in Japan's recorded history has had a rocky past in an industry plagued by scandal.

The Japanese government said on Saturday that there had been radiation leakage at Tokyo Electric Power's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi plant following an explosion there.

The blast came as TEPCO was working desperately to reduce pressures in the core of a reactor at the 40-year-old plant, which lies 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

In 2002, the president of the country's largest power utility was forced to resign along with four other senior executives, taking responsibility for suspected falsification of nuclear plant safety records.

The company was suspected of 29 cases involving falsified repair records at nuclear reactors. It had to stop operations at five reactors, including the two damaged in the latest tremor, for safety inspections.

A few years later it ran into trouble again over accusations of falsifying data.

In late 2006, the government ordered TEPCO to check past data after it reported that it had found falsification of coolant water temperatures at its Fukushima Daiichi plant in 1985 and 1988, and that the tweaked data was used in mandatory inspections at the plant, which were completed in October 2005.

And in 2007, TEPCO reported that it had found more past data falsifications, though this time it did not have to close any of its plants.

(Writing by Jonathan Thatcher; Editing by John Chalmers)

Regarding my avatar and sig. they are not political, but informal people movements, representing no country, regime or political idea, just promote humanism, peace and freedom for all (unlike Ronald Reagan avatar of certain member that you don't seam to have problem with).

[Pup]

...if they run ocean water as they plan to cool reactor down that will inevitably end up in ocean again destroying the life in it.

Inevitably?

Actually, isn't it the backup/emergency system which failed? Not the reactors and their safety systems as such. Hard to imagine that all diesel power plants could fail, unless there's a common weak point in the system.

It will be interesting to learn the details. But the generators are just one element of a larger system of failsafes. If you want to talk about THE failsafe - that's where the sea water comes in.

[manchild]

Inevitably. It can either evaporate into atmosphere while cooling, end up in ocean or soil when it rains, or flow back to ocean. They don't need few thousand liters, amount that could be brought by trucks or helicopters, but enormous amount of water. I can't decide on what is worse, evaporation of radioactive steam into atmosphere or flow of radioactive water back into ocean.

[bhall]

We are talking about the biggest disaster on the planet in ages [...]

350,000 Haitians would beg to differ. If they could. How soon we forget.


If what's been posited turns out to be true (thanks for the article, WhiteBlue), and Japan loses up to 20% of its capability to generate electricity because of irreparable damage to a number of nuclear stations, the country could be in for a very long and torturous recovery. While I'm far from being a proponent of nuclear power, I do hope they can bring their plants back online, if only so the Japanese people can get back to some sense of normalcy as soon as possible. I think only then will a debate about the virtues, or lack thereof, of nuclear power be appropriate.

[manchild]

Please stick to the topic.

I have expressed my compassion to common people of Japan, but if I had to express my opinion about what became obvious cover up operation to save region around the plant, while resulting in pollution of whole planet, than I think that humane would be to say "I'm sorry Japan, I'm sorry for you common people, but the government and nuclear officials you have elected have screwed up as so many times over the years, so don't ask us to share the consequences. We had no benefit from your power plants, it was your free will to build them on such unreliable ground, they are your problem that should be solved on your soil."

If I had problems with someone having Reagan avatar for years, I'd complain to moderator. I've just mentioned it as an pure political avatar you have no problem with.

[Dragonfly]

Please stick to the topic.

I have expressed my compassion to common people of Japan, but if I had to express my opinion about what became obvious cover up operation to save region around the plant, while resulting in pollution of whole planet,
...........

Sorry, but if you really stand behind the above, you must be having a very distorted ideas.
You cannot save the surrounding area if there is a blast up into the stratosphere. But if you prevent the blast, you limit the damage to an incomparable level with the first option.

Does the word Chernobyl mean something to you?

[manchild]

It's difficult to comment as things change rapidly. My observation was about last night when they've claimed that things are under control and that when pressure is reduced, they'll cool the reactor down with some of standard emergency procedures (manually or remotely shut the reactor down).

Than it blew up and they started talking about ocean water cooling. That seams like typical "we've screwed up, and we don't know what to do" situation.

Now the meltdown begun and there is Cesium all around and in the atmosphere, and what will happen is unfortunately another Chernobyl (huge radioactive cloud).

The moment I've read that they started distributing iodine to people, I knew they have no control over events, and that they are ready to do anything - even to pollute pacific trying to cool down reactor with ocean water since territorially and legally ocean is everybody's = nobody's, so they've chosen it as better option that to have problems with some neighboring country their radiation could affect, and they haven't got good relations to none. N. Korea has nukes, China has nukes, Russia has nukes.

This is typical example of false human belief of superiority over nature. What is going on now with that NPP in Japan is up to chain of event that can't be controlled by humans anymore.

[strad]

Just to point out the obvious but you do realize that the American Navy and the at least the British if not the French and Italians regularly DUMP low level nuclear waste into the ocean almost daily?

[D'Leh]

Everyone using nuclear energy is dumping nuclear waste into the planet one way or another. No matter how you twist it, the waste is there after the process of fission and it wont go away for a few million years. Please don't be simple minded and blame it on a single nation, company or person. It's a consequence of the whole concept of nuclear energy.

Ultimately this is a question of using it or banning it all together. But discussing this here is probably not a good idea as the mod pointed out.

Anyways, the reactor blowing up like Chernobyl did is probably the worst thing to happen right now for both nature and mankind. Cooling it down with sea water is certainly better than that. Doesn't mean they have to dump the used water right into the ocean again. Having the reactor explode could potentially cause fallout across half the planet. They'll do anything they can to avoid that.

[WhiteBlue]

Now the meltdown begun and there is Cesium all around and in the atmosphere, and what will happen is unfortunately another Chernobyl (huge radioactive cloud).

another good technical report

I think you are too pessimistic. The venting which produced the explosive gas (probably hydrogen) and the caesium and iodium which caused the contamination must have been a very small amount of radioactive waste and fuel compared to what is left in the intact reactor vessel. According to reports the cooling is now done with sea water mixed with boric acid. The boric acid is working as a moderator so that it is now thought that the reactor can be killed without further escape of significant waste to the environment. Naturally there are no guarantees but considering the initial catastrophic potential one would think that the crisis management was rather well executed.

Something that still bugs me is the failure of the diesel backup generators. I think there must have been a major screw up for the generators to fail. Those are such basic pieces of kit that it is difficult to imagine they failed one hour into their operation without any other backup. It sounds very much like a cover up for another screw up. The reactor was due for scrapping this month. What if they were already in the process of shutting it down and crucial maintenance wasn't carried out, so that the units failed. I hope more about those diesel generators will become known in the near future.