3rd Reactor of Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Plant Explodes(NHK)

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 03/14/11

[TigerLikesRooster]

Head line only so far.

[NicNacPattyWac]

“There are 30-40 similar GE reactors here in the United States by the way”

Actually there are 23 GE boiler reactors in the US. With that said, it wasn’t the quake that caused the problem it was the tsumani that caused the pumps to fail. The majority of the US plants aren’t in areas prone to tsumani.

[SE Mom]

I don’t know what to make of this- it seems unlikely in the extreme that the plant design wouldn’t have included earthquake/tsunami planning. But this guy says otherwise- not sure if I believe him

BBC- 1426: Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere. More to follow.

BBC- 1422: Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima’s reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant’s builders, Toshiba, knew this. More on Mr Goto’s remarks to follow.

[chimera]

I know in this country a plant builder has to show that in the event of an earthquake twice as powerful as the most powerful ever recorded for the region the plant is built you can still shutdown the plant safely. This is called the design basis earthquake. I assume this also must include subsequent events such as tsunami, aftershock, etc.

I do not know what the safety authorities in Japan require for plant licensing.

[SE Mom]

Thanks for the information. As you can tell, some of us are learning on the fly- trying to sort out hype/hysteria from facts and possibilities.

[SuziQ]

God Bless them all. They were brave people staying at their jobs to control a dangerous situation, in order to protect their fellow citizens.

[SuziQ]

Well, at least Anderson Cooper had the guts to admit that he doesn’t understand what’s going on, because he flunked science in school. ;o)

[SuziQ]

Since they did not see an increase in onsite or offsite rad levels following the explosion, that supports the hypothesis that containment is intact.

Which speaks to the strength of those reactors, to have weathered a 9.0 earthquake, a 10 meter tsunami, AND numerous 6.0 or worse aftershocks, and still be intact. The problems stemmed from a loss of coolant, which was caused by a loss of power to the coolant pumps. The newer generation of the reactors does not rely on electric power to run the coolant through, and around the reactor, so those will be extremely reliable.

It's my understanding that the Fukushima reactors, being the Generation II design, are some of the oldest active reactors in Japan, and were due to be 'retired' in the next few years, when the Gen. III, which doesn't have the coolant pump issue, come online.

[HamiltonJay]

A core meltdown is not the same thing as a containment breach.. Just as the outer building exploding from a hydrogen blast is not the same as a containment breach.

When you lose containment, you have a major major issue, until then you dont have a major event in terms of radiation. Even a full core melt down in a plant with this design, presuming it has not lost containment will not cause a major radioactive event.

Now what is going on on the ground? I don’t know, but everything I have read to this point, says that all radioative monitoring has not shown any elevated levels of radiation. Now they could be lying to the public, though in this day and age with the internet, I think if some joe schmoe had his own personal geiger counter and was reading high levels we’d see it on youtube etc.

So to date I am prone to believe that there has not been a core breach and while a meltdown may be imminent, it too should not pose a major threat to the population or environment.

Time will tell how this all plays out, but for now it seems to me like more mass hysteria being stirred up by the press than fact.

[chimera]

You need a pressure vessel failure and then a breach of containment to release significant quantities of fission products. There is no evidence of either failing at this point. What we have seen so far is a consequence of releasing vaporized coolant to keep pressure down, since evidently pressure reduction systems (e.g., containment or vessel sprays) are not operable for some reason.

[chimera]

My guess is that the event exceeded the design basis earthquake but they were still able to get those units shutdown safely (i.e., scam and initial cooldown). The trips on seismic event worked. The emergency diesels started and provided initial site emergency power in the station blackout event that followed the earthquake. It was the common-mode failure of the tsunami taking out the diesels that started the whole accident sequence. That will probably be the result for the rest of the industry, looks at post-seismic phenomena and take steps to mitigate the consequences of those.

[Windflier]

Well, at least Anderson Cooper had the guts to admit that he doesn’t understand what’s going on, because he flunked science in school. ;o)

Well, props to him for admitting that. More talking heads ought to be up front about their lack of general scientific knowledge.

What's more disconcerting, are the so-called "experts" the networks keep rolling out. I can't believe the amount of hype, scare-mongering, and outright falsehoods I've heard out their mouths since this situation first started.

[GOPJ]

five, four, three, two...

[TYVets]

Time will tell how this all plays out, but for now it seems to me like more mass hysteria being stirred up by the press than fact.

Someone here on FR Saturday posted the web site address of the Nuclear Energy Institute, along with the statement that NEI Updates didn't have an agenda.

I started checking their site for updates at that time. It appears to me that they only update information that is accurate based on the information available at that time.

NEI appears not to have a regular schedule for their updates.

They are the opposite of the embarrassing United States MSM.

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/