8.9 Earthquake hits Japan

[101lifts2]

Originally Posted by Trip

Unit 1 at bellefonte is due to begin construction in 2013. After watts bar 2 is complete.

Tva is only building as we need the power. We got in a lot of debt by building too many sites a few decades ago.

Are all nuclear powerplant facilities built in the same fashion with the levels of security needed in case of a "meltdown" or whatever else can happen? Or is it specific to the level of money the country/company has put into it. I guess I'm asking if there is some standardization that all plants try to conform to.

[fasternyou929]

Originally Posted by Trip

First, you need to understand what the Media is calling a "meltdown."

This is what was taken from one of the articles. We don't use the term "meltdown" in the nuclear industry for what they are referring to.



I think this is going to be a successful failure. They have mitigating worst case scenarios and in one unit they have resorted to calling the unit a loss and dumping sea water in it. That pretty much assures it will never be used again. The explosion, while bad, was not in the containment building. The containment building is still intact. It's nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl.

You got to understand there are several "buildings" inside of "buildings" in the overall reactor building. Where the explosion happened was in the concrete reactor building because they released gases with hydrogen from the containment building to relieve pressure. Those gases reacted badly and took down the concrete reactor building. There is also a very thick steel containment building thats inside the concrete building, which is still intact. This steel building has all the primary cooling systems and reactor vessel protected inside it. The vessel is the protection for the actual core.

Unit 3 to my knowledge is still salvageable, if they start dumping sea water in it as well, you know they have given up on it.

What was the difference, technically, between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Two completely unique scenarios or was the fallout from TMI contained because the surrounding structures were more robust? Which of the two is Japan's scenario more similar to?

The media doesn't know enough to give any usable details, and they refuse to educate themselves to the point they can speak about their news stories. No different than when they "report" on motorcycle accidents or anything else.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by 101lifts2

Are all nuclear powerplant facilities built in the same fashion with the levels of security needed in case of a "meltdown" or whatever else can happen? Or is it specific to the level of money the country/company has put into it. I guess I'm asking if there is some standardization that all plants try to conform to.

Each plant is built to a unique standard. It's based on a ton of different factors such as proximity to fault lines, what natural disasters are common around it, and such. For meltdown, all plants I know about are built around 3 levels of protection. The fuel cladding, cooling system, and containment building.

Originally Posted by fasternyou929

What was the difference, technically, between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Two completely unique scenarios or was the fallout from TMI contained because the surrounding structures were more robust? Which of the two is Japan's scenario more similar to?

The media doesn't know enough to give any usable details, and they refuse to educate themselves to the point they can speak about their news stories. No different than when they "report" on motorcycle accidents or anything else.

Two completely unique scenarios.

Three mile island had poor indications and thought they had too much coolant instead of no coolant. They melted the fuel in the vessel and released solid radioactive products out of containment, but without any visible damage to the environment. It had little to no effect on the public. Just scared the shit out of them and ruined a reactor.

Chernobyl was running a bunch of tests that aren't normally run and they did it poorly. They blew the reactor and fuel all over the countryside.

[azoomm]

Trip, thanks for some awesome info. My father worked for GE to install the The Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant. He and I were talking about what was going on. It's all amazing.

Some of the pictures:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...sunami.html?hp

Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet, shifted Earth's axis:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...iref=allsearch

[goof2]

A few news outlets are reporting another huge explosion, this one at Fukushima's reactor 3.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by goof2

A few news outlets are reporting another huge explosion, this one at Fukushima's reactor 3.

Probably hydrogen in the reactor building again.

[tallywacker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx6IS0vrZOk

[CasterTroy]

Freaky ass video right here!!

http://www.wxii12.com/video/27185323/detail.html

[Particle Man]

Originally Posted by CasterTroy

Freaky ass video right here!!

http://www.wxii12.com/video/27185323/detail.html

I don't know about you but I wouldn't be standing around fliming cracks opening up in the ground and moving like that

[CasterTroy]

S'what I JUST said after posting it on FB