This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Summary Update Of Japan's Nuclear Crisis - Last Ditch Attempt To Cool Reactor 4 Involves Police And A Water Cannon
- A helicopter was unable to drop water to cool the No.3 reactor at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan probably because of the high radiation, Kyodo news agency said, quoting the defence minister.
- Police will attempt to cool No.4 reactor's spent nuclear fuel pool using a water cannon, TV says.
- Japan's top government spokesman says radiation levels around the complex are not at levels to cause an immediate health risk.
- There is no evidence of a significant spread of radiation from Japan's crippled nuclear plants, the World Health Organisation says.
- Operator says it is unable to resume work cooling the reactors due to radiation risk. Workers ordered to leave the plant were allowed back in after radiation levels fall. Operator says there were 180 workers on site as of 0230 GMT.
- Operator of the nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan recorded the site's highest levels of radiation at the No.3 reactor on Wednesday.
- Water is being poured into reactors No.5 and No.6 at the plant, the operating company says. Those two reactors had been shut down for scheduled maintenance.
- Fire breaks out at reactor No.4 a day after a blast blew a hole in the building housing spent fuel rods. White smoke seen from No.3 reactor most likely to be steam from the water that is being poured to cool the rods.
- No plan yet to extend evacuation zone near the facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
- Australia urges its citizens with non-essential roles to consider leaving Tokyo and the most damaged prefectures, and Turkey warns citizens against travelling to Japan. France urges nationals living in Tokyo to leave country or move south.
- Radiation levels in Tokyo were 10 times normal at one point, but not a threat to human health, officials said.
- Radiation levels in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, 300 times normal level but well below hazardous levels, Kyodo says.
- Fuel rods in the No.1 reactor were 70 percent damaged and rods in No.2 reactor were 33 percent damaged, Kyodo says.
- Japan's benchmark Nikkei average closes 4.5 percent up on Wednesday after suffering its worst two-day rout since 1987. The index surged over 6 percent at one point.
- Tens of thousands of people are still missing since Friday's quake and tsunami. About 850,000 households in the north without electricity in near-freezing weather. Death toll is expected to exceed 10,000.
And this is what desperation looks like:
Japanese police will attempt to cool the spent
nuclear fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant using a water cannon truck as early as Wednesday night,
NHK television said. Japanese military failed in its bid to pour
water from a helicopter on the No. 3 reactor in the same power plant,
whose high radiation levels have made it the top priority for the
operator of the battered nuclear power complex.
Bold indicates recent change, from Reuters
»
- 6853 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Rosewood and cherry blossoms.
send in the "Liquidators"
You mean "Keystone Kops" and the Liquidators.
Radiation level live feed updates....
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/03/16/nhk-adds-video-in-english/
Nice story from Germany… as you might know, Merkel let switch off some pre-1980 nuclear power plants for 3 months… the reason for this ‘brave action’ are the forthcoming Baden-Württemberg-elections. Ba-Wü. is the heart of Germany’s mega-conservative industrial Mittelstand. Losing it would be a disaster for Merkel. According to legislation, nuclear plants may only be switched off if there is an emergency HERE – which is not. In this case, government has to pay significant indemnities to the energy firms. One more attempt to buy votes by stealing from voters. No limits, nowhere.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,751227,00.html
lets hope the voters see through the shameless electioneering
lol
If only somebody had built Thunderbird 2, this could be sorted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfIAKj3Gl1E
"Japan's top government spokesman says radiation levels around the complex are not at levels to cause an immediate health risk."
The key words here are "government spokesman" and "immediate".
Gotta remember Fat Man and Little Boy.
These were bombs, designed to kill.
There were people under those exploding bombs and a significant number of those people survived and died of peaceful old age. One man survived both bombs.
I do not wish to diminish the risk presented by Fukushima-Daiichi or minimize the suffering of Hiroshima or Nagasaki but a little perspective is in order.
More people will die in a year from automobile accidents than the likely total death toll from the Tsunami and the deaths from the water will significantly outnumber those who suffer a radiological exposure.
But enough about our tap water and how they are messing with our "precious bodily fluids", what about Japan's water?
News Headline: Bahrain to sent team of experts to Japan. Bahrain will share expertise in operating water cannons.
Oddly enough if I may enter in the world of surreality...
Remember the Gulf Of Mexico disaster? I recall they assembled a team of the top nuclear scientists in the world to assist in that.
Instead of sending in....police....it might behoove our world leaders to apply the same logic (or illogic?) to this crisis.
Other then that I have no concerns.
head of Bahrain police says: we are going to Fuck You Shima
Thinking of surreal, what's Palin saying about this? Surely she's got some suggestions to make.
I'm guessing here, but I'm sure they'll be along the lines of "Get Teddy Einstein - his great grandfather knew a lot about this, he must be able to help."
Nice try, but it's Negrobummer's responsibility, and he is useless as tits on a boar, as always.
.
I'm guessing Palin would have offered some assistance.
That's because she's crazy (or so I'm told almost daily).
Wonder if she had a basketball party last night?
kevin kostner says: have you tried dropping golf balls on the reactor?
Send in the "world leaders". Have the bankers and press as backup. They've done such a good job of "fixing" things, haven't they????
No you aren't. You are anal retentive. It's ok though. NASA and shit.
connecting the dots ;)
How bout a real cannon.... The longer they let this fester the worse the outcome
"Police will attempt to cool No.4 reactor's spent nuclear fuel pool using a water cannon, TV says"
Smells like the end
Pretty wild eh, Ras.
I think this is slowly descending into the GOM farcial top-hat, iron-lung, bigger top-hat circle jerk of mind melting non-sense.
Meanwhile, just like GOMers continue to suffer direct effects (I am in touch with one of the top authorities, a well respected doctor and activist, it's true, people are really really sick), imagine what the lies are doing to people's lives here, eh?
Oil at the bottom. Rads in the air.
We have a happy future.
My "third" eye tells me that.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/american-cross-nuclear-rumbles/
Pissing on the flames comes next.
Water cannons, is this from a list of ideas found on the internet?
I believe the Coyote used an Acme water cannon in episode 16 to get the Roadrunner.
Goldman sees so impact on GDP from the quake - unreal!
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/03/16/516596/goldman-sees-no-earthq...
Just watching NHK - seems they are admitting the spend fuel rods are the greatest concern. The expert says it will be ok, so long as they are able to keep the rods separated and immersed in water. Looking at the photos of unit 3, it is easy to imagine they are lying in a pile somewhere in the wreckage....
Or scattered around the plant.
With nobody (25 mile evacuation radius) there except TEPCO and Government employees who's to know.
I make be incorrect, but unlike Chernobyl which was "live" when melt down occurred, there hasn't been an explosion large enough to get radioactive particles sufficiently high into the atmosphere to be carried.
The spent rods could be lying on the ground slowy deteriorating.
They won't "blow up".
And you think Chernobyl 4's blast went higher than units 1, 2 and 3 (especially 3 - wasn't that thrilling?). If unit 3's containment is intact, then I'll go drink from its spent fuel pool.
"And you think Chernobyl 4's blast went higher than units 1, 2 and 3 (especially 3 - wasn't that thrilling?)"
Yes I do. The reactor was live.
You must be seen to be doing something.
They have lost control. Nothing electrical is connected to any PLC on top of any valve.
Its all manual work now.
Tokyo Electric is finished the clean up would make sure of that.
They are dear in Headlights.
There is nothing in the summary that would give any hope of a solution. They Failed because they failed to plan. No one will want to touch this with a barge pole and help is going to be hard to find at a threat level of 6.
My First Junk - since a very long time ago
To the Junker chew on this
Foreign bankers flee Tokyo as nuclear crisis deepens
Rats Just seem to know it over
That is the real problem here. The backup generators are probably full of saltwater along with all of the low lying electrical control equipment. The brave folks attempting to deal with multiple reactor issues with nothing more than blueprints, radios and large brass ones deserve much more respect than what is coming from the idiots on this site.
A water canon may be the only way to get any amount of water into or around the site as the infrastructure is most probably non-working.
There is no electrical power to units 1-4, which is why units 1-3 melted down and all four spent fuel pools will catch fire and burn. Shooting, dropping and pumping water into them is a last-ditch desperation move that has little chance of success.
They will need to spill the Fluids into the sea.
The Nuclear Plant is not under control.
Then once the Flows are in the sea with Special Clean Tankers that water will be treated.
(Russia,China,Kurils Islands, and Russia Affect in the short term by Rad)
Have they considered a massive BUKKAKE?
I'm just thinking....you know...'out of the box'.
i junked you, for thinking outside of the box†
You are correct - unless seafood comes from the ocean...
At this point, maybe it won't hurt to have a little change of pace with cesium rather than gulf oil.
The cesium breaks down the corexit. It's all part of the chemical food chain.
SDF gives up on dousing No.3 reactor
Japan's Self-Defense Forces have postponed a mission to dump water by helicopter on the No.3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, because radiation above the facility has climbed too high for such work.
White plumes started rising from the reactor on Wednesday morning. Tokyo Electric Power Company says the vapor was steam caused by water evaporating from the reactor's storage pool for spent fuel rods, which is heating up.
In an effort to avert the fuel rods' exposure, a Self Defense Force CH47 helicopter took off from the Sendai base hauling a large container of water on Wednesday afternoon.
But the plan was aborted after radiation levels above the plant were found to have largely exceeded 50 millisieverts -- the maximum permissible for SDF personnel on a mission.
The Self-Defense Forces say it is ready to recommence work when radiation levels and other conditions allow.
SOURCE : http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_41.html
That BOLD type looks very dangerous.
But 50 millisieverts is an exposure level 50% less than an exposure which produces any affect at all.
Hmm......gold plated uranium bars!
US futures gaining strength! 'Investors' just luvin' this shit! Mouse-clincking on E*Trade accounts across the USA. I can see the mid-level Accountant sitting at the breakfast table pushing down some Cheerios and thinking..."Jesus, this is the buying opportunity of a lifetime. Let's get our tiny nest egg invested into the stock market".
This is a fucking sickening joke.
Buy the fucking disaster.
Please tell me: if the helicopter crew doesn't fly in there to dump water because they say it is not safe, does that make it safer to POLICE with water cannons?
There is no plan. They do not know what to do.
At all.
Sad, but they were warned 2 years ago (wikileaks doc out this a.m.) The ones responsible haven't been confronted with this but when they do the swan dive the Nikkei took on Monday will look like a minor pull back compared to whats coming....no food, freakin freezin cold, lost everything, a couple more 7's and 8's to come and the people will come unglued. No wonder these idiots don't know what to say. They've told so many lies they think they're telling the truth. Let justice have its way and without mercy for these bastards.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8384059/Japan-earthq...
Sounds like the JDF have better union work rules than the police. Bet that comes up in the next negotiation.
Police are sheeple; sheeple will do anything asked by their gvt.
Oh, I forgot they told the truck driver he would be a national hero, and will get an aluminum "made in China" medal.
Finally, you should know that police is the job with the biggest number of divorced. Nothing to loose when you drive around with an already busted ass...
Yes, well police do as the are told. Pilots, not so much.
Some readers may find the following "trading lesson" relevant in a general way, to the above crisis. Many years ago (30 actually, and yes, we are showing our age), we learned a valuable lesson about being caught or locked in a bad, adverse position. These are the stages of what we learned about bad trades (and situations like above). They all start off with a justification of something like this, as one determines it is adverse:
(1) It's BAD, but don't worry, we can work out of this.
(2) No, it's REALLY Bad.
(3) It's DISASTEROUS.
(4) Get the hell OUT - Now !!!
(5) To late...we are Bankrupt.
The MORAL: Every human being goes through similar stages of capitulation when facing disaster. The key to survival, is knowing when to cut your losses. Experience, and many years of feeling pain in such situations, helps contour one's response time. However, generally, everyone knows deep down in their gut when something is really BAD. Lesson...learn to cut your losses very quickly. You can always start over (or in trading, reinitiate your position). Learn to act quick, and don't second guess yourself. Develop a keen sense of survival, in life, and in trading. Good luck everyone.
Good trading lesson, but it doesn't apply to nuclear disasters.
Problem: In a nuclear disaster everybody loses, because the game ends prematurely.
A water cannon, huh? Reminds me of the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. The entire neigborhood ended up burning down. The problem there was, they used the water cannons before the fire actually started.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing
Oh man, you sure know where to dig em up.
That little mess riled the whole east coast at the time.
And little water cannon aint shit.
A fire boat would be better. But still shit.
I still say we drop a Nuke into that place as I said yesterday.
But no, I get to sit and watch lemmings scatter and run about under the blazing sun trying to get away from a hawk and UPS trucks line up in every home in the area packing 40 dollar bottles of pills to be resold on ebay for 2000 damn dollars each.
Fukushima indeed.
I think to get DVD of old Jap Disaster movies and watch large monsters destroy cities yes? Or even Ultraman or something about a flying robot too. Always exhausting non lethal means before bringing out the big guns.
Just watching NHK. The analysts are being highly critical of the government and TEPCO for lack of information on the isotopes being detected. They seem to be preparing people for the worst.
The US government would like to offer more assistance, but all their best scientists are busy trying to game S&P futures higher.
http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/6810.htm
Actually the best scientists are too busy working on algorithms to pick their March Madness brackets.
March Madness, indeed.
Oh the food chain, who is measuring the radiation in the water, the fish, the soil, the ground water????
Japanese cows will vacumn up the radiation and give you a good dose with your cherios.
Who needs Vitamins when your the Hulk.
Its good to be in the southern hemishere
Does the US or Japanese military have anything that could possibly be used?!?
Sure they have, Ben can fly an army of helicopters there and swamp the melted material with fresh 100 USD bills.
Or we could loan them some dark pools. Little more potent than the $100's.
CNBC sets up another Kool Aid stand about the growing bubble in Gold & Silver.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42104279
another buy signal
It's pretty bad when police with water cannons are used. Sushii chefs with tuna rolls will be next.
I feel bad for the Japanese and their increasingly futile efforts. Thousands are homeless and it's freezing cold with little electricity. They need a victory badly.
Nothing wrong with water cannons. I've used them to knock down structures. Flatten your house in under 30 seconds.
They will put out a significant volume of water and they have great reach (200 feet or more depending on pressure). What they need here is lots of coolant. Big volumes delivered from a safe stand-off distance.
Anyone else see the parallels with Chernobyl? I'm sure some "I know my nuclear physics" guy is going to step in and claim that this is "no Chernobyl, they don't use graphite" or something. But you've got to see the parallels: 1) Government initially claims "small" problem 2) Problem worsens (sky on fire in Chernobyl, multiple reactor containment domes explode in Japan) 3) "Emergency" workers resort to firefighters in Chernobyl, but police water cannons in Japan. 4) Government of the world continues to downplay danger, claiming it wont spread beyond small radius (spread to France in Chernobyl, could easily hit US west coast in 6 days) 5) Resort to helicopters in order to "cool" reactor, but unable due to high radiation exposure 6) ???
The list goes on I'm sure.
water cannons and oven mits!!! lets do this people
Mutant oven mitts FTW!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5S0WXuJUw
Another day with no mention of us sending experts - I seriously hope that we are helping at that level and it's just not being reported.
Anything else is too fucked up to think about.
I found this interesting post by someone on Gonzalo's blog:
"The question is whether Japan’s leadership will use this crisis to modernize.
Japan’s nuclear establishment is using 1970s technology. Light water reactors are not robust enough to use in active earthquake zones. They are accidents waiting to happen. The high pressures and temperatures generated require active cooling when the control rods are inoperable. This was the cause of the recent explosions in Japan which allowed radiation to escape. This is a defect of using obsolete technology; not enough fail-safes are built in.
Two nuclear technologies could ride out a 10.0 earthquake, because they don’t use high pressures. The reactors are small and decentralized, so that damage in one location does not deprive the whole country of electrical power.
Both technologies are small enough that they could reside in the basements of high rise towers. Both are inherently safe, because they can be shut down instantly and don’t require weeks of inspection and testing to come back on line. They don’t easily break and can quickly go off line. They can fire up again as soon as down power lines are removed from the grid.
The technologies, which I refer to, are Pebble Bed and Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Both use high temperature gas to drive turbines. They could have breaks in lines to turbines and be safely shut down.
Pebble bed Reactors are designed to withstand high temperatures without flow. They can’t melt down. A longer term solution is to remove the uranium pebbles until a nuclear reaction no longer takes place.
Neither reactor type requires containment buildings and can reside safely in urban environments. This would also lower distribution costs. This is Turn Key technology providing between 100 to 500 Megawatts. There is no critical point problems.
The other technology is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Here the radioactive material is liquid at 1600 degrees F. If the reactor overheats for any reason, then the material gets dumped into a lower tray. The radioactive material spreads out and the reaction stops. Dumping is automatic when a freeze plug below the reactor melts. Once any problems are fixed (breaks in gas lines to turbines, down power lines to users and blown transformers, etc) then the reactor material can be heated up and pumped back into the reactor. It can take less than 10 minutes to dump and restart. A light water reactor can take weeks once it goes off line.
Both technologies would eventually lower the cost of generating electricity, but installing them requires a capital expenditure. The temptation is to make immediate repairs because capital will be scarce due to reconstruction in Japan’s north.
Japan’s nuclear power problems are solvable, but they require flexible minds among its leadership and bureaucracy. I am not sure whether they will utilize this opportunity to modernize. If they don’t then they are waiting on the next big earthquake, which will surely come."
There is a rational solution to every problem -- there is also an irrational one! Guess which way the Govt involved is gonna go...
Both of those technoloogies are available and will work. However it has been industry practice to try to build a facility with the maximum output capabilities on one site. And remember, these plants in Japan are using 40 year old technology. The nuclear generation methods described in your post are very feasible. It also reduces the demand for an upgrade to the power grid. Some of the smaller units will power 25,000 homes so there can be very distributed generation. Costs are pretty moderate, if they could get past the regulatory hurdles and delays with moderate cost.
So, we build extremely high-tech nukular reactors in a earthquake zone, replete with multiple redundant, independent layers of safety process, and when reactors get busted by a earthquake, our contingency plan is ... ... ... hosing them down with water?
No doubt we will "learn a lot" from this unforseeable disaster, and next year's nukular reactors will be much safer!
Makes u proud 2 b a Homo sapiens :)
This fellow has put together a very good explanation of the design and construction of a nuclear power plant. The nonsense being flacked in the MSM is so full of error about the dangers that it is approaching irresponsibility.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/fear-the-media-meltdown-not-the-nuclear-one/?singlepage=true
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/15/fuel-rod-fire-maybe-not/
6 billion people on the planet, the most sophisticated transportation, communication and logistical systems the world has known, militaries with personnel in the millions and we've got 50 people who are probably nearly exhausted and irradiated to death trying to contain this monster? This proves beyond a doubt that governments, corporations and militaries are inherently incompetent.
God bless the people working at the site. They are true heroes.
All those logging in secretly hoping for a mass explosion. Guess what? You are wrong. Not gonna happen.
Uranium miners are a buy.
Disclosure: long CCJ and DNN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-live
Uh, I just woke up, when did Unit 4 blow up? It looks worse than Unit 1 and Unit 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_zaPlWwQBs&feature=feedu
I'm waiting to see to 300 gallon water balloons next.
The answer to the problem is Godzilla.
If you really want to get the government's attention and plenty of additional personnel at the plant site, get a few "peaceful protesters" on site...
The water being introduced is not for "cooling purposes" as in putting out a forest fire. It is a solution with boron material that will stop the reaction and heat generation.
How about snow guns?
yeah that is a good idea. those guns have huge ejaculation potential. damn they are powerful water ejectioners. they probably have some sitting around this time of the year up north, near the snowy mountains.
Gee, why dont they just get all the workers drunk on Sake and try peeing on the stuff? It will have about the same effect.
Sad that they did not follow NASA and the CME of three days prior. That huge sun CME hit the earth's magnetic field and just like the one prior at Christ Church probably put pressure on the plate(s).
And professing themselves wise they look foolish to the world.
Tyler, I know this topic is not popular now. Japan may use power plants to hide/store weapon-grade Plutonium, a byproduct of old reactos. The amount of Pu they have now can make 4000 nuclear bombs, enough to destroy whole world. In a geo size similar to state of New Mexico, Japan built 53+ old-style reactors, talking about 100x North Korea. Congress shall investigate why they need so many Pu? To whom they are preparing for.