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State of emergency declared at Japan Nuclear Plant

Kinda looks like one of the five has melted. :(


Sunday, March 13, 2011

Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.

Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.

An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.
At a news conference Saturday night, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano discounted the possibility of a significant leak of radioactive material from the accident. "The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode," Edano said.

The amount of radiation detected inside the plant after 4:00 p.m. slightly exceeded the dose people can safely receive in a year, according to information obtained by the Fukushima prefectural government.

The No. 1 reactor shut down automatically soon after a massive earthquake hit the area Friday, but its emergency core cooling system failed to cool the reactor's core sufficiently.

NISA is affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

2011/03/13 01:04 - Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body
 
Excerpted from “Explosion did not occur at reactor, new cooling operation begins,” Kyodo News, March 13, 2011
[SIZE="+2"]T[/SIZE]he top government spokesman said TEPCO has begun new cooling operations to fill the reactor with sea water and pour in boric acid to prevent an occurrence of criticality, noting it may take several hours to inject water into the reactor.

In addition, it will take about 10 days to fill the container with sea water, he said. There is a great possibility that the reactor will be decommissioned as the injection of sea water containing salt and impure substances will make it difficult to operate it safely again, experts say.
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So it appears that the best that can be hoped for is that the partial meltdown in Fukushima No. 1 can be contained and cooled with sea water but that the reactor itself will never operate again and will be a total loss.
 
Chappy said:
So it appears that the best that can be hoped for is that the partial meltdown in Fukushima No. 1 can be contained and cooled with sea water but that the reactor itself will never operate again and will be a total loss.
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We had better start getting serious on cleaning coal up, solar, wind and instead of corn for ethanol, Cannabis genus.
 
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donc said:
We had better start getting serious on cleaning coal up, solar, wind and instead of corn for ethanol, Cannabis genus.
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I wonder if cannabis makes good feed stock for ethanol? Has anybody tried it? or is it too valuable a recreation crop?

Coal can be made cleaner, but it will never be CLEAN.
 
According to BBC,
Reuters: The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the Fukushima No. 3 reactor, an official from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has told journalists.
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DiAnna said:
According to BBC,
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Excerpted from “Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant faces new reactor problem | Reuters,” Reuters, Sat Mar 12, 2011 4:17pm EST
[SIZE="+2"]T[/SIZE]he emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference.
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I would say that we've seen very disappointing performance on these units.
 
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UtahBill said:
I wonder if cannabis makes good feed stock for ethanol? Has anybody tried it? or is it too valuable a recreation crop?

Coal can be made cleaner, but it will never be CLEAN.
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Cannabis that would be grown for hemp/ethanol, to used it for recreational purposes; you would have to roll a joint the size of a telephone poll to get a decent buzz…so I’ve been told by experts on the subject. :roll:

As for a clean coal,well we better start scrubbing it down at the stack then. I do Believe after this incident the bloom on the nuke rose will start to welt.If you trade in stocks Bill check out Peabody Energy(coal) Monday,i believe it will go thru the roof.
 
UtahBill said:
I wonder if cannabis makes good feed stock for ethanol? Has anybody tried it? or is it too valuable a recreation crop?

Coal can be made cleaner, but it will never be CLEAN.
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It takes 3 acres of hemp to produce 1 barrel of fuel. You do the math.
 
apdst said:
It takes 3 acres of hemp to produce 1 barrel of fuel. You do the math.
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more info is needed to do the math. how much fuel does it take to cultivate three acres of hemp?
 
apdst said:
Hell, that makes it even more unproductive! :rofl
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the point is your mathematical equation is meaningless without knowing how much energy is required to cultivate 3 acres of hemp.
 
ARealConservative said:
the point is your mathematical equation is meaningless without knowing how much energy is required to cultivate 3 acres of hemp.
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My original point, was that it takes 3 acres of hemp to produce 1 barrel of fuel. There are approx 60 million acres of available farm land in the United States. That equates to 20,000,000 barrels of fuel. We would have to plant it all in hemp to meet our annual demand. Starting to make sense, or do I have to ask how we're going to eat, if 100% of our farm land is dedicated to hemp production?
 
The situation in Japan, horrible as it is...Godzilla may become a reality
 
Re: 3 nuclear reactors in trouble after Japan quake

MaggieD said:
If it's true that plastic milk cartons take 450 years to decompose, then surely we can build something "on purpose" out of the same material that will last 2,000. ;)

Edit: Anybody else shocked to learn that they have 55 nuclear reactors in Japan??
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Only because they protested us putting nuclear powered carriers in their harbor because we had to decom our last non-nuke carrier.
 
Chappy said:
“At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility.” — Toshihiro Bannai, director of the Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency international affairs office​

The Cesium already detected indicates at least a partial meltdown has occurred; but, comments like this suggest that what's happening at Fukushima Daiichi may become far worse.
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The thing that scares me...there was talk on CNN that the Japanese Government is attempting to save face, or something similar, and that there has already been a meltdown, which they're covering up.

Anyone else hear about that, and could someone please tell me it not true?
 
Chappy said:
I would say that we've seen very disappointing performance on these units.
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No power plant is completely safe. If that is what you want, be prepared to freeze in the dark...
 
ric27 said:
The situation in Japan, horrible as it is...Godzilla may become a reality
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Godzilla has been posting here, hasn't he? Radiation induced mutations stand just as good a chance of being a good thing as a bad thing...likewise marrying your first cousin...as long as you don't allow the bad results to procreate.
 
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Note how no one is looting in Japan.

If this was LA, there wouldn't be a flatscreen left on the shelves.
 
apdst said:
My original point, was that it takes 3 acres of hemp to produce 1 barrel of fuel. There are approx 60 million acres of available farm land in the United States. That equates to 20,000,000 barrels of fuel. We would have to plant it all in hemp to meet our annual demand. Starting to make sense, or do I have to ask how we're going to eat, if 100% of our farm land is dedicated to hemp production?
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who says we have to switch 100% to hemp oil? how about 20% hemp oil, 10% wind, 10% sun, 5% hydro, and the remainder fossil fuels?

so again, you didn't provide enough of an equation to see if it makes sense to pursue this type of energy source.
 
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