Posted on 03/15/2011 4:45:22 PM PDT by library user
A fire which broke out early Wednesday at a quake-hit Japanese nuclear power plant is under control, the government said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I have confidence that geographically, the Japanese won’t lose much more. As for the site? It’s toast, done, no mas. Now its only a matter of just how far out the containment fences are erected.
Nope about two hours. By 0200 15 Mar 2011 UTC it was all said and done.
Which is about right in that the time-date stamp of the lead-article for this thread is 0700 hrs.
I am in disbelief at the amount of Freepers that think everything is under control and the “no biggie” attitude of some. I wonder if it is false bravado or just simple stupidity. These “50” brave souls still at that plant are simply playing Whack a Mole at this point - they’ll tire and/or succumb to the workload/exposure. I wonder, then what?
And that’s not all:
Latest from Kyodo News @ http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/ ...
URGENT: Fuel rods damage at Fukushima’s 2 reactors estimated at 70%, 33%
TOKYO, March 16, Kyodo
An estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the troubled No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and 33 percent at the No. 2 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.
The reactors’ cores are believed to have partially melted with their cooling functions lost after Friday’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Fukushima Prefecture and other areas in northeastern and eastern Japan.
Concur. Here it is Tuesday night 9pm Mountain time and I am watching NHK online where they are announcing that all six reactors are being abandoned because radiation levels are so high that they are becoming lethal.
I wonder how many fools are going to insist that everything is ‘just fine’ now? How many of these idiots are going to be telling people tomorrow that they ‘knew all along’ that it was going to be bad?
It’s a crying shame to see some FReepers putting politics ahead of common sense.
Moving on, we may well be seeing the end of Japan as an economic superpower. On Saturday the winds are forecast to start blowing from Fukushima towards Tokyo and if all six reactors are venting and the #4 storage pile is burning and venting lethal amounts of Cesium - which is what’s suspected *right now* - then Tokyo may end up being uninhabitable by this time Sunday night.
32 million people may need to evacuate...and go where?
The unthinkable has happened and it is time to start thinking about it.
Now will the reaction stop at that point, or will the fission increase?
IAEA just released status update for Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant operations indicating that fire was visually observed at the Unit #4 reactor at 20:45. The fire there could no longer be visually observed at 21:15 UTC 15 Mar 2011.
Good news.
Just the facts were reported. Didn’t say it might be, could have been, or something possibly could have or will happen.
That’s the difference between a partial core meltdown, which appears to have happened, and a fuel meltdown, which hasn’t.
BTW, they haven’t given up. They were back on the job within an hour.
You’ve got it. What the world is seeing in this one is pure gallantry, I just hope all present and past residents of New Orleans are watching...
Here is a link from AOL News this evening that does not sound so good. There are also 500 photos, a video, and several thousand comments.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/15/japan-nuclear-reactor-storage-pool-may-be-boiling/?ncid=webmail
Here is an updated Google Map of Japan that they are trying to keep current with satellites for use by emergency and govt. workers.
I was listening to a Nightline report this evening. A man/expert? was discussing this potential problem versus Chernoble. He said since the rods had been partially inserted, this reduced the level of danger. Since there was not a major fire this reduced the level of dispersal of radiation. On the other hand he said stupid mistakes had been made, such as generators were brought in to pump water, but they had the wrong electrical connections. Tsunami walls had not been built high enough, etc.
Before we get happy with our nuclear situation, we really need to check everything that can go wrong, and then have triple redundencies. Human error is everywhere. We don’t trust our government, but we are going to trust our nuclear regulators??? Think, think, think!! And cut out the wishful thinking.
Increase. That's the definition of melt-down, the uncontrolled increase in fission due to the lack of control rods (or any other means of control) of the uranium. But I have seen nothing to indicate there is a melt-down, the highest temperature reading I have heard is 550C which would have to at least double for a meltdown.
Thank You for all of your *pings* and updates.
The absolute worst-case-scenarios I've seen anywhere talk about a 30 km dead zone around the plant. What's the basis for these projections?
A super heated plume of radioactive material will contaminate a local area and then cool and be deposited in yet another. If you look at Chernobyl affected area maps you’ll see this demonstrated where the immediate area was highly contaminated and then areas 10-100 miles downwind had lower levels of contamination. But then areas 100-200 miles downwind had high levels of contamination. If that pattern repeats then Tokyo has a target on it. As it is, even with prevailing winds blowing out to sea there are elevated levels of radiation in Tokyo.
You were very specific: 32,000,000 evacuated, Toyko an uninhabitable wasteland by Sunday night. That’s the single most incredible claim I’ve seen made by anyone anywhere. Is there a source, or are you doing these calculations on your own? If so, is this your field of expertise?
There seems to be no good news coming out as yet.
I hope you don’t mind if I’d prefer to be wrong on this.
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