Posted on 03/15/2011 8:13:35 AM PDT by SE Mom
Latest news from Japan:
From the BBC-
1456: Tepco says it may start pouring water from a helicopter over Fukushima Daiichi's reactor four in the next few days, to cool the spent-fuel pool.
1439: A 30km (18 mile) no-fly zone is in place around Fukushima, says the IAEA.
1436: The IAEA says Monday's blast at Fukushima may have affected the integrity of the containment vessel - there are fears of more serious radioactive leaks if happen.
1435: Following earlier reports, it appears there has been more than one strong aftershock in Japan - AP reports two tremors measuring over 6.0 within three minutes of each other.
Twitter-
-US Geological Survey counts 451 aftershocks since the initial earthquake struck Japan Friday. 238 of them registered magnitude 5.0 or more.
-Despite situations in Japan & Libya, spksmn Jay Carney says Pres Obama's 5-day trip to Brazil, Chile & El Salvador starting Fri night is on.
-FLASH: More U.S. military personnel in Japan testing positive for low-levels of radiation, relief missions to continue - Navy 18 minutes ago via web
I remember US providing power via nuclear subs in the Indonesian situation. (I think I remember this)
I’m pretty sure that they did manage to get smaller generating units in, but had trouble getting that solution to work. Not big enough, couldn’t make the connections. It’s been a couple of days.
I’m sure the Japanese will handle the rubble piles in the most efficient way possible. They’re as good, or better at such things, as any country on the planet.
FYI- in case anyone has seen that insane radiation map (claiming it’s from the Austrailan Radiation Services) that’s been circulating around the internet- PLEASE know it is fake, false, zotworthy, debunked, wrong, inaccurate and just all around bad.
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/03/15/putting-a-radiation-rumor-to-rest/
His “Krakatoa” was an excellent book. Couldn’t put it down.
From a plate tectonics view, the North American Plate is moving west, due to the mid-Atlantic ridge which is always growing and splitting, the west gets pushed west, and so on. The South American Plate is moving north and west. The mid-Atlantic ridge is must further eastward than the one in the North Atlantic. The African plate is moving due north, into Europe. The Pacific plate is moving west because both the North and South American plates are pushing it in from the east. Japan is on the western edge of this, as is New Zealand. The eastern edge of the Pacific plate includes southwestern California and the Aleutians, but not the coast of southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington, Oregon and northern California, all of which are still part of the North American plate. The Ring of Fire is basically all the edges of the Pacific plate. It seems the other plates are all moving into it.
Anyway, if stress on the Pacific plate was relieved by Chile, New Zealand and now Japan, why should there be another major rupture? And if there is, why shouldn't it happen in Japan again? Perhaps that's still the weakest location on the entire plate.
I just don't see how it "has to be" another location, as if earthquakes have to be fair and spread their power around. I would think that as long as there is tremendous pressure on the plates, the relief would occur where the forces arrayed against the pressure are weakest.
Anyway, obviously I'm not a geologist.
1751: Daniel Kahl tweets: “Tokyo is a ghost town tonight. No people on the streets. Even the entertainment districts. Eerily quiet. But Tokyo is amazing. Even with blackouts, train problems, no rioting, no looting, no robberies
bfl
The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines, there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks of batteries to back that up, all were disabled.
It is a classic case of a common-mode failure and this will be the repercussion in the industry, try to enhance the availability of emergency power in cases where this kind of event can happen.
Here, we had two things happen from the same initiating event. Station blackout and loss of emergency diesel electricity. Station blackout from loss of offsite power is one of the most troublesome events nuclear plant operators have to deal with. Then you are totally reliant on emergency power. That means diesel generators and, for a short period, batteries. All indications at this point are that all the safety systems were working up to the point of the loss of diesel power. The plant shutdown safely when the seismic event was detected. Cooling systems were operable on backup power when offsite power was lost. When the diesels quit when the tsunami came ashore, things went south.
If you lose AC power on the plant safety buses, there really isn't much you can do other than work your darndest to get power back on. This is what they did. But the accident had evolved at that point to include other complications, as we've seen. So my guess is we'll see added emphasis on assuring that emergency power is available in this kind of common-mode failure scenario.
I guess my point is that they seem to not be acting so much as re-acting and coming up with half-baked solutions off the cuff as each new disaster rears its ugly head.
Or it could just be me ;)
Mark
corrected link
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-nuclear-health-idUSTRE72E2JF20110315
both links were bad
They actually had some discussion on Tokyo Broadcast the other evening about the specially built tsunami berms. As with most things they were built for a particular level of catastrophe. ‘Mother Nature’ in this case has exceeded all of those. They basically didn’t do much as the surge was so significant that it spilled over the top and just kept going (up to 1.5m inland in some places).
There was one older lady who said some people didn’t leave when the very short warning came because they thought the berm woud be able to handle it.
I couldn’t quite catch if the large steel doors to allow passthrough transit were able to be shut in time.
lol. The top picture in that link you provided shows that they still have M&M’s and Oreo’s on the shelves. THose would have been my first targets of opportunity! :)
That was a good update page from the Brits - I’m finding they are doing better work than our papers and even Al Jazeera has more info << hated to say that
ditto.... I agree. Nice to have a live thread for now.
The only comment I read about Sendai and Miyagi specifically, was that the tsunami plowed right through the sea walls that had been built.
They simply were not built for a tsunami this big.
Third lesson: LOTS of video cameras so people can actually SEE what’s happening!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.