Japan rocked and rolled and then got Waved

[Thunderfoot]

Wow; lots of bad things in Japan and now waiting on the Tsunami to hit the US... The pictures of the damage and the Tsunami hitting in Japan are Amazing!

[flyboy71]

Our one facility is in Kawasaki Japan and they reported to us that its mass devastation but all are ok there. Our folks in China told us they felt it in Beijing. Let us know about the tsunami. The news said Hawaii was slammed with a wave but every story I read said it was a few feet. Slammed is a bit over the top. I feel for the people in Japan.

[1972hiboy]

Yeah I got woke up at about one this morning. went and tanked up the pickup and packed some water.canned fod and what not. Watched the news for abit since our whole state of Cali went on tsunami warning. got a couple hours sleep and watched some more news. when I heard the Hawaii didnt get the super monster waves I decided to head out to our amusment park on the beach and hang out on the train tressel that goes over our large river. so i watched the "tsunami" roll into town this morning. Wasnt huge but you could tell the water went out then came back in. You know typical friday morning...watch the sunrise go for a walk watch the tsunami roll in....but Japan really got rocked.....HARD and I wish them the best and hope they recover quikly...

[ford4x4fun]

My Wife's cousin is stationed over there. They have checked in but their oldest daughter was away at a baseball game and is now unable to get back home. But they are all safe and sound where they are at!

[7DF250]

FUZZ Said

Some one here said Chernobyl in regards to Nukes, but Chernobyl was a crappy Russian designed and operated Nuke that was bound to blow as it did. He is trying to say that our technology isn't better besides that was almost 30 years ago so I think we have surpased even our own technology from 30+ years ago. The French (the ONLY thing I will give the French credit for) produce 80% of the electrical needs from Nukes. They have basically cookie cuttered them across their country and by golly they aren't glowing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01452.html

[robroy]

Good morning Shayne, Jeff, Rich, Ford4x4Fun, and 7DF250,

I'm a contractor at Hitachi Data Systems, which is a part of the massive Hitachi Ltd., which has over 100,000 employees in Japan. None of the Japanese guys I work with here in San Jose were directly impacted by this, but my ex-boss who returned from San Jose to Japan a few months ago sent us an e-mail.

His e-mail said that he and his family were OK, but since all the trains had stopped, he had to walk home that night. And it was a four hour walk! It's a good thing he's physically fit (not uncommon for Japanese people).

It's a wonderful thing that when something like this happens, other countries make serious investments towards helping with their recovery--especially the US.

Robroy

[cdeal28078]

Nowhere near over over there. Looks like one nuclear reactor is in meltdown and two others in the same plant in close to the same condition with loss of coolant. Prevailing winds usually runs from that area to Kalifornia so people out there might want to get some Iodine tablets, like that will help.
clint

[7DF250]

It is getting ugly!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... risis.html

[novaboy009]

I work for Westinghouse Electric (second largest nuclear provider in the world), and we've been having a lot of discussions on the situation and have been providing technical assistance to our friends at TEPCO in Japan. This is a General Electric style Boiling Water Reactor plant (a 40 year old design), but all nuclear plants essentially operate on the same principals and modern safety systems. Westinghouse is primarily a Pressure Water Reactor provider.

Some take homes:
1) The situation appears to be under control. The reactors flooded with boron and salt water are ruined. They will likely decommission the reactors the same way that Three Mile Island was put under. Just need to let the decay heat die down before pulling it down.
2) The plant was designed for 18 foot waves and got a 24 foot wave, so the generators flooded. More importantly, the reactor containment building managed the shock of the wave and quake. This is the #1 most important thing. If the containment building stays together, there is almost no chance of harmful radioactive levels reaching the john q public.
3) This is not Chenobyl. That Russian design was a disaster. It used graphic instead of water to cool (flamable) and has no containment building. There are no reactors with that design operating in the world, as far as I know.
4) Hydrogen gas release/explosion is fairly common when venting a BWR reactor. It looks bad, it sounds bad, it is bad, but no one is going to die from a controlled hydrogen release.
5) Yes, the fuel is probably melting. That doesn't really mean much other than the plant is ruined. Melting fuel just means it got hot enough to stick to the floor of the reactor building. It would have to penetrate the 40 inches of reinforced steel/concrete to be harmful to the general public. The nuclear chain reaction that drives the steam creation/turbine spin in a nuke plant was controlled earlier.

You will hear a lot of really negative things about the nuclear industry because of the sensational nature of the story. Just remember, 81 people died directly from Chenobyl, maybe 25,000 total from radiation related issues. No one died at Three Mile. That's it. Total. In the history of the industry. Start adding up accidents in chemical plants, oil rigs and coal fire plants, and you will find that they can not begin to touch the safety of a nuke plant. This is a worst case scenario, and a 40 year old plant with old generation II technology held down the fort.

[1972hiboy]

Thats very interesting thanks for letting us know! I had no idea...

[7DF250]

Looks like radioactive material has already been released at higher levels than would have been anticipated. This was measured in U.S. Helicopters. Consider the source.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/IAE ... 71924.html

[fordman]

Looks like radioactive material has already been released at higher levels than would have been anticipated. This was measured in U.S. Helicopters. Consider the source.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/IAE ... 71924.html

and just think . because of the jets streams and so forth. all of the northwest will be the first to get radiated.

[7DF250]

It is leaking.....

http://www.ajc.com/business/fire-exting ... 71546.html

[fordman]

good

[flyboy71]

I work for Westinghouse Electric (second largest nuclear provider in the world), and we've been having a lot of discussions on the situation and have been providing technical assistance to our friends at TEPCO in Japan. This is a General Electric style Boiling Water Reactor plant (a 40 year old design), but all nuclear plants essentially operate on the same principals and modern safety systems. Westinghouse is primarily a Pressure Water Reactor provider.

Some take homes:
1) The situation appears to be under control. The reactors flooded with boron and salt water are ruined. They will likely decommission the reactors the same way that Three Mile Island was put under. Just need to let the decay heat die down before pulling it down.
2) The plant was designed for 18 foot waves and got a 24 foot wave, so the generators flooded. More importantly, the reactor containment building managed the shock of the wave and quake. This is the #1 most important thing. If the containment building stays together, there is almost no chance of harmful radioactive levels reaching the john q public.
3) This is not Chenobyl. That Russian design was a disaster. It used graphic instead of water to cool (flamable) and has no containment building. There are no reactors with that design operating in the world, as far as I know.
4) Hydrogen gas release/explosion is fairly common when venting a BWR reactor. It looks bad, it sounds bad, it is bad, but no one is going to die from a controlled hydrogen release.
5) Yes, the fuel is probably melting. That doesn't really mean much other than the plant is ruined. Melting fuel just means it got hot enough to stick to the floor of the reactor building. It would have to penetrate the 40 inches of reinforced steel/concrete to be harmful to the general public. The nuclear chain reaction that drives the steam creation/turbine spin in a nuke plant was controlled earlier.

You will hear a lot of really negative things about the nuclear industry because of the sensational nature of the story. Just remember, 81 people died directly from Chenobyl, maybe 25,000 total from radiation related issues. No one died at Three Mile. That's it. Total. In the history of the industry. Start adding up accidents in chemical plants, oil rigs and coal fire plants, and you will find that they can not begin to touch the safety of a nuke plant. This is a worst case scenario, and a 40 year old plant with old generation II technology held down the fort.

Im sure whatever news reports are coming out are only small bits and pieces of whats actually going on. Considering everyone at the plant is working on getting the situation under control Im sure they don’t have time to entertain much of an exchange of info. I know back during TMI there was a lot of criticism on what info was released and how much but considering what was going on in the plant I know the priority wasn’t to hold a press conference. I mean really, how many times do you see a firefighter exit a burning building to have a press conference, and this is on a far larger scale. There was never proof of any radiation effects from TMI causing helath issues but there were many trying to do so. I live about 25 miles from TMI and have for most of my life and I cant say I know anyone that suffered from that incident. I also toured the decommissioned unit 2 facility during a high school field trip back when you were allowed to. Its hard to grasp whats going on until you’ve actually been in a facility and understand it from that perspective and understand the structure of the buildings and equipment.