Some scary **** going on right now over there.

 

Latest reports on the ***ushima reactor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ert?CMP=twt_gu
Damn, my friend's husband's family lives in Hukushima.

 

following this guy who seems to have a lot of info about what is going on over there....


Steve Herman - Twitter

 

The building that exploded is designed to explode when the design pressure is exceeded. the building is just there to protect the other components from the environment, that is all. Steam from the reactor is forced down into millions of gallons of water below the reactor in a torus to condense it in these type of events. Some of the radioactive steam is vented out of the containment building to the reactor building (exploded building). This vented steam is what exploded the top. This is designed to happen so no damage to the reactor vessel or containment building will occur. It released a minimal amount of radiation, though some people were exposed it seems and are being treated. The general public around the area will be fine.

In addition, if a full meltdown were to occur, the containment building would contain widespread radiation release. The immediate area would be useless, but the people in the area would not have anything to worry about.

I believe ***ushima was going to be decommissioned soon anyways, so they are just dumping sea water into the reactor, which should work.

I am not surprised this is happening with the Japanese plants, they lie all the time about safety issues to save face.

Also, the reports on the news about measured radiation levels being 1000 times higher than normal in areas surrounding the plant, even at 1000 times normal it is not too serious. No one really knows at what levels serious damage can occur (unless obviously high). The news never gave specific numbers, but I'll bet I've been exposed to more when visiting plants.

 

Wow, that was unexpected and quite informative. I assume you work in the field here in NorCal?

In your opinion, are we better off in the same situation?

 

We are better off because the USA nuclear industry is more highly regulated (Probably why I still had a job through the whole economic downturn). I work in norcal but travel to sites when needed. We have other people who do most of that legwork. TMI is the worst the USA had and that was very minimal. My only concern is the ***ushima design (Mark I) which is a first generation GE design. Safety factors back then were smaller, so the containment building and vessel walls are thinner than what they are now. If the quake did damage to those components then there could be leakage into the enviroment.

They did this back then as a result of WWII, which used up quite a bit of resources so things had to start being refined.

 

now that was super informative. I was just reading exactly this same thing, albeit not word for word.

 

Also, even though the reactor and containment walls are thinner, the reactor vessel is still probably 2" thick steel, and the containment walls like 10' thick reinforced concrete. Exact numbers are not known due to this info being proprietary to every plant.

 

but hey now, lets not take away everyones right to panic like a bunch of idiots at the slightest threat of any possible trouble. Just look at how many people thought the entire bay area would be under 10 feet of water yesterday. It became sort of a Facebook IQ test for me yesterday seeing everyones updates, idiots.

 

haha I agree. I hate the way the news exaggerates everything.

Also a correction, the reactor vessel wall is more in the area of 5" thick steel. there is another ~2" thick steel plate inside the vessel called the core shroud.

 

really extreme video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

 

some pretty startling before/after pics, scroll your mouse over

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/ja...eforeafter.htm

 

But isn't the meltdown happening because the backup plan failed? Backup plan being pumping H2O over the rods to keep them from overheating?

 

Gives me such a sick feeling seeing these

 

their desiel backup generators failed and their battery power ran out so they couldn't pump in more coolant. From what I have read, they've had backup generators delivered. They are pumping seawater into the reactor right now which is another redundancy system (Final redundancy). However this means the plant is pretty much done after this. Apparently they had a partial meltdown, which means the fuel rods were exposed for a short period of time or partially exposed.