It seems to me that the English-speaking media is sleeping through all this. Somebody wake them up.

bodhisamaya Wrote:From what I have been reading, the likelihood of a meltdown is small, but the next 24 hours are critical.

Thanks. If you listen to the BBC (who I have been very unimpressed with throughout this - I may not know enough Japanese yet to follow this at all well, but I expect a news service *ought* to have more translators on the ground and at home) they're now struggling to prevent a meltdown, but I really don't trust them at all at this point, so it helps to hear a clearer view. The chief cabinet secretary looked so worried, of course, he's probably worried that people will panic as well as the (hopefully) less likely possibility of a meltdown. That could lead to utter chaos.

Not really.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03...tml?hpt=T1

Posted right about when you guys started talking about it.

Like the article I linked says, there is still lots of time to address this issue.

The guy who said the likelihood was small was a professor from MIT in a ten minute interview who claimed Japan is the best prepared in the world for a situation like this.
This was before that picture of that missing building though.

http://news24.jp/articles/2011/03/12/06178055.html#
video of the explosion

Seamoby Wrote:Okay, those of you showing the map, where are you getting this map? And please be responsible with information or non-information.

It was spread on that dropbox page's comment. Perhaps it's nonsense. Good that you pointed it out.

You can also look here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/1...7M20110312

or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I...ower_Plant

I wonder how much worse this would have been if it happened at 2am when most people were sleeping in their homes.

jettyke Wrote:

Seamoby Wrote:Okay, those of you showing the map, where are you getting this map? And please be responsible with information or non-information.

It was spread on that dropbox page's comment. Perhaps it's nonsense. Good that you pointed it out.

I second that - edited my post already due to unconfirmed source. Really not good in such a situation, sorry for that.

Thanks, Nagareboshi.

In case no one has posted it, this fellow has apparently been translating the news into English for many hours: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yokosonews

Also, comparing this disaster to Chernobyl is kind of a bad comparison.

In Chernobyl, when the disaster struck, the fuel rods were not dropped into the reactors, which caused immediate release of tons of radiation and heat.

From what I understand, in this situation the fuel rods have been dropped into the reactors and are being contained.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-p...22667.html

""No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the
reaction," he said.

"Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3 km radius."

Some people in this thread mentioned explosions--a meltdown at this reactor wouldn't cause an explosion. Light water reactors don't explode even in the event of a meltdown, but meltdowns can still be quite tragic because of radiation being released. We've had two nuclear meltdowns in the United States, at Fermi 1 and Three Mile Island. Neither are nearly as well-known as Chernobyl because Chernobyl was moderated by graphite, which ignited when an explosion exposed it to air, causing a big explosion and a huge release of fallout. That won't happen in Japan, but it could still be a major disaster.

Not that I'm an expert, but everything I've read seems to agree that the chance of an explosion is nada.

"Explosion" is the word being used by mainstream media, not us. Although the cause of the explosion does not seem to be clear right now.

Ah, I'm not talking about that little thing that already happened. I'm talking about what potentially could. Somebody talked about an explosion that could wipe out much of Japan. Not gonna happen.

Well, *something* blew the walls off of the reactor building, leaving only the scaffolding.

The problem here is the types of explosions we're talking about.

The explosion that blew up that reactor building was something we don't know about yet - but it's definitely NOT a fuel rod or reactor explosion. If it was, trust me, we'd know about it.

Tzadeck Wrote:Ah, I'm not talking about that little thing that already happened. I'm talking about what potentially could. Somebody talked about an explosion that could wipe out much of Japan. Not gonna happen.

I misunderstood, sorry.

nest0r Wrote:In case no one has posted it, this fellow has apparently been translating the news into English for many hours: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yokosonews

Thanks.

nest0r Wrote:In case no one has posted it, this fellow has apparently been translating the news into English for many hours: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yokosonews

Thank you, that link helps an awful lot.

If you guys want a possible explanation on what the little explosion was, it could be that the venting hydrogen ignited.

I'm not sure what that means for the cooling system, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean too much negatively - maybe I'm wrong.

I've read the wiki on a light water reactor failure, but so much of what is mentioned on it about dumping water into the lower compartment after the fuel breaches it's housing; I somehow doubt they can do since they have no power and are already struggling (so it seems) to deal with the cooling. Then the wiki also mentions to the effect "oh its ok because all modern western plants have an air tight outer containment building." Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what just blew off not but a few hours ago?

They are shipping over new generators on the ground, apparently, and have many hours of battery/cooling time I think.

Don't wanna sift through 8 pages.

Could someone please answer this question for me?


WHAT THE **** is a meltdown? Seriously? WTF does it mean?

ropsta Wrote:WHAT THE **** is a meltdown? Seriously? WTF does it mean?

The melting of a nuclear-reactor core