Posted on 03/13/2011 7:31:39 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Head line only so far.
Looks like reactor core possibly exploded, judging by the assemblies thrown up into the air, but hopefully it was not. Best possibility is that it was the turbine building. Will have to wait for confirmation.
Yeah, they’ve been hit with more than their share for sure. I have faith they will survive. I pray
The reason they need to vent from the metal vessel is the tremendous heat and pressure inside the vessel..........not venting could lead to an uncontrolled leak from the vessel.....
Since top government and nuclear officials in Japan have admitted to a partial meltdown in #3, there is the possibility that the hydrogen steam vented prior to the explosion contained some amounts of plutonium........
The problems with #3 are the most serious because of the fact that plutonium is in the fuel mix.......
As with #1, venting followed by an explosion, does tremendous damage to not only the exterior containment, but maybe also to the piping, etc., that is critical to monitoring and controlling aspects of the reactor.........also, since #3 does have plutonium inside the vessel, there is more of a possibility that it will be extremely difficult to do visual inspections, deliver sea water to the reactor, etc..........
I just hope that this was a planned explosion. Sorry if some get upset with this reply, but Free Republic is a forum for discussion and information.....
:}
I’m not a nuclear scientist, and all I know is what I’ve been able to pick up over the last few days being as picky and discriminate as I can about whose opinions I choose to listen to.
As I understand it, during an extreme emergency like they are experiencing right now, one of the necessary methods used to cool down the reactor vessel is to vent steam into the reactor building itself. That gives the short-lived radionuclides in the steam a chance to decay and dissipate, as opposed to just discharging the live steam directly to the atmosphere. (I suspect that is an option if necessary, but they ain’t there yet...)
As I understand it, during an extreme cooling loss emergency like they are experiencing now, due to the elevated temperatures inside the reactor, water molecules begin do “disassociate” into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. Some of it forms a bubble in the top of the system and it has to be removed quickly in order to prevent an explosion inside the vessel. It’s mixed in with the steam that they vent, and it does not take long to accumulate an explosive mixture inside the top of the weather housing, which is what that square building is.
If anyone needs a review of what happens when you mix pure hydrogen and oxygen, just review the main engine start sequence of your favorite space shuttle. The reaction is very vigorous, even in relatively dilute gaseous form, as opposed to the cryogenic liquids the shuttle burns.
These explosions of gas are serious, and they do release some radioactive products. Because there is some damage to the fuel rods, (no the uranium oxide fuel, at least not yet) there is radioactive cesium and iodine in the steam that is vented, and when the O2 and H let loose it all gets expelled into the atmosphere. Yes, it is a radioactive release, but the products are fairly short lived and in very small amounts.
As far as I can tell, the reactors all had control rods successfully inserted within seconds of the beginning of the quake. As time goes on the cooling resources improve as more emergency support arrives. Time is everyone’s friend right now, and a steady hand is what’s needed to bring these events to a conclusion.
And any discussion of core meltdowns is flat out irresponsible, nothing less than inflammatory, a bold faced lie in face of the ample credible evidence to the contrary, and deserves to be shouted down with as much scorn as can be mustered.
The level of hysteria being promoted in the American media is both shocking and near criminally irresponsible.
Just after the 30 second mark of the video you can see fire erupting at the upper part of the building.
A hydrogen + oxygen explosion?
Live press conference now . . .
“the container vessel has not been damaged”
“the internal pressure is stabilized”
20 to 50 uSv of radiation detected
“there is no massive radioactive leakage”
http://globaltravelerinternational.blogspot.com/2011/03/nhk-tokyo-japan-live-tv.html
There are several sites were you can get information from English Japanese news source. According to friends who have families in Japan 140K people have been evacuated in the area of the reactors because of possible radiation leaks. The biggest worries are the continued 6.0 and above after shocks and waiting for the follow up large after shock unusually only one point less than the original.
There are dozens of this particular meme sprinkled everywhere. The people who post it (probably got it from some stupid far left website when they were Googling) likely didn't realize that is exactly what that is saying, that we are all going to die.
I have been thoroughly impressed how calm , dispassionate, professional and matter-of-fact that the NHK news announcers have been.
As opposed to the melodramatic , rumor mongering, blathering goofs from the US MSM outlets.
Worse case scenario is that core exploded and we have nuclear fuel on fire now. Best case is we had a turbine building explosion of steam and/or hydrogen.
Good news, but why was this explosion larger ? Just more hydrogen gas ?
Thank you for posting that article. Great information!
Unfortunately, hysteria brings eyeballs to floundering old media TV and websites.
That’s really all that matters to them.
Wow
LOL! I stand corrected!
Cheers
It has been my experience dealing with crisis (on a much smaller scale, obviously) that people working the crisis rapidly get saturated and overwhelmed, and one of the contributing factors is people constantly pinging and interrupting them for information and updates.
Updates ARE vitally important in these types of things, and I fully expect that in any crisis they trained for, the dissemination of information and the pathways/infrastructure to do that is included.
But this crisis is so far out of any crisis, even those they likely trained for, that they are probably situation-saturated, in addition to being under stress for food and sleep, not to mention thoughts of their loved ones.
I simply can’t imagine those conditions.
Great book...:)
You said “Looks like reactor core possibly exploded, ...”.
I’m just wondering what experience you have with nuclear power plants and how many reactor cores you’ve seen explode :)
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