Massive earthquake hits Japan

[Nobel Hobos]

Shifted the earth on its axis? Making me a tad nervous, I live near the San Andreas fault. Hearing about that on CNN made me wonder if it could trigger other quakes in other nations. Lets hope not.

Every major quake tilts the axis a bit, but actually this doesn't trigger quakes around the world.

Apparently there was a biggish quake in Samoa at the other end of the same fault, which is attributed to the Japan quake. A long way away, but on the edges of the same plate (pacific) ... so it isn't ridiculous to think this could increase risk marginally for the San Andreas fault.

[Risottia]

If the roof has collapsed, there aren't many other choices. Direct human intervention isn't an option. They could try pumping coolant (basically: water) but since the containment is breached,

wait a sec ... that metal-framed building with concrete panels on the outside surely isn't the last line of containment. There should be a much stronger containment vessel, and if the pipes are intact they should still be able to pump water through the core.

Falling concrete may have damaged the pipes of course, but it looked like a pretty comprehensive explosion. Most of the building seems to have been blown outward which is better than the roof falling on the ultimate containment.

Dunno, really. The issues are:
1.are the coolant pipes still accessible?
2.is the coolant circuit still closed?

Anyway, the release of Cs in the environment says that the reactor's containment (whatever it is) has been breached.

and the roof has collapsed, you can't have a closed circuit: this means that you'll have a huge radioactive leak both in water (sea), and in the atmosphere. I don't know if there's a way to inject cadmium, just to catch more neutrons. Maybe a solution of cadmium salts in water.

edit: CdS (cadmium sulfide) should be easily available, and it's better not to use CdO (oxygen tends to react violently).

Cadmium? Is that any good at absorbing neutrons?

It's the usual choice for neutron capture. Wiki it.

[Atlantian Empire]

Earthquakes usually ripple around a region as each causes pressure on various segments of the underlying geological structures to shift. Consequently, I would expect increased tectonic activity around the entire Pacific Rim for the next several days, especially after one this big.

Not sounding good. Best we can do is hope nobody has to go through this again for a while.

[Daircoill]

Kyodo is now reporting that the safety agency says serious damage to Fukushima's reactor container was unlikely. Professor Robin Grimes from the Imperial College London has told the BBC that this is good news, meaning the explosion was probably steam. He says close monitoring of radiation levels is crucial.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/

[Meowfoundland]

Kyodo is now reporting that the safety agency says serious damage to Fukushima's reactor container was unlikely. Professor Robin Grimes from the Imperial College London has told the BBC that this is good news, meaning the explosion was probably steam. He says close monitoring of radiation levels is crucial.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/

Thank you, this is great news.

[Daistallia 2104]

And the gallows humor for the day comes from an old Japan hand I know:

"It'll be all right. It'll also be easier to spot the Tohoku hookers in Roppongi with their nice glow...."

It will be, they are already starting to clean it up and Japan has come back from worse.

The image of glow-in-the-dark trollops was too good to pass up. (And reminded me of Tanda from Asprin's books...)

[NERVUN]

It will be, they are already starting to clean it up and Japan has come back from worse.

The image of glow-in-the-dark trollops was too good to pass up. (And reminded me of Tanda from Asprin's books...)

Given the amount of makeup and other stuff that those girls wear, I was under the impression that they already glowed in the dark, especially under blacklight.

[Daistallia 2104]

Kyodo is now reporting that the safety agency says serious damage to Fukushima's reactor container was unlikely. Professor Robin Grimes from the Imperial College London has told the BBC that this is good news, meaning the explosion was probably steam. He says close monitoring of radiation levels is crucial.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/

I'll remain skeptical for a while longer. The safety agencies in Japan have a bad record on releasing info like this.

[Alien Space Bats]

Since this is a BWR, any rupture in the duct system that runs from the reactor to the turbine would produce a release of radioactive steam; it's entirely possible that containment was not breached, but that the steam bleed-off system was.

If you look at the images carefully, BTW, you'll see a shock wave traveling straight up; I don't know if part of what you're seeing is the roof, although I doubt it.

[Daircoill]

Just in case anybody is looking for people in the disaster zone Google is offering a nifty little person finder

http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en

[Kubrath]

I'm pretty sure that most Japanese people have been thought well on how to react to such events and I hope that there are as less taken lives as there can be.

[Nobel Hobos]

Could that even have been a controlled explosion? The

wait a sec ... that metal-framed building with concrete panels on the outside surely isn't the last line of containment. There should be a much stronger containment vessel, and if the pipes are intact they should still be able to pump water through the core.

Falling concrete may have damaged the pipes of course, but it looked like a pretty comprehensive explosion. Most of the building seems to have been blown outward which is better than the roof falling on the ultimate containment.

Dunno, really. The issues are:
1.are the coolant pipes still accessible?
2.is the coolant circuit still closed?

Yeah, I guess we'll know some day. Or not, if the specialists who deal with it consider it commercial-in-confidence and that's not stipped away by a proper government enquiry. Japan isn't the most open of societies.

Anyway, the release of Cs in the environment says that the reactor's containment (whatever it is) has been breached.

Cadmium? Is that any good at absorbing neutrons?

It's the usual choice for neutron capture. Wiki it.

Yeah OK. It's a little weird (only absorbs slow neutrons) but as you say it's common. Hafnium, gadolinium or samarium might work better (they all behave differently at high temperature apparently) but cadmium is far more common.

U-238 might work too! Pretty desperate measures, but perhaps in case of a containment breach and meltdown a military helicopter could hover nearby and pump the whole mess full of DU bullets.

[Nobel Hobos]

I'm pretty sure that most Japanese people have been thought well on how to react to such events and I hope that there are as less taken lives as there can be.

Tsunami is their word after all.

Usually a tsunami is one set of waves travelling away from the epicentre, but apparently it's more complicated than that for a huge quake. Ocean keeps slopping around and relatively minor aftershocks can potentiate that so waves up to 3 metres can occur without warning up to a day later even when you'd think the tsunami would be thousands of kilometres away. While just a kilometre or so along the coast nothing happens at all.

The primary wave was 40 cm apparently when it hit Australia. That wouldn't overturn a rubber ducky.

[Alien Space Bats]

In a BWR system, you can add borax to the inflow of water. That's the preferred system for accelerating the shutdown, although doing it here might be tricky.

[DaWoad]

I'm pretty sure that most Japanese people have been thought well on how to react to such events and I hope that there are as less taken lives as there can be.

Tsunami is their word after all.

Usually a tsunami is one set of waves travelling away from the epicentre, but apparently it's more complicated than that for a huge quake. Ocean keeps slopping around and relatively minor aftershocks can potentiate that so waves up to 3 metres can occur without warning up to a day later even when you'd think the tsunami would be thousands of kilometres away. While just a kilometre or so along the coast nothing happens at all.

The primary wave was 40 cm apparently when it hit Australia. That wouldn't overturn a rubber ducky.

yah but those rubber duckies are serious engineering man, the best bathtub specialists that money can buy put tens. . . maybe even hundreds, of dollars into developing those things!

[Nobel Hobos]

Since this is a BWR, any rupture in the duct system that runs from the reactor to the turbine would produce a release of radioactive steam; it's entirely possible that containment was not breached, but that the steam bleed-off system was.

If you look at the images carefully, BTW, you'll see a shock wave traveling straight up; I don't know if part of what you're seeing is the roof, although I doubt it.

I notice that the first time I saw it yes. I think it's vapor from the shockwave of escaping gas (breaking the sound barrier?). "Part of the roof" would require that it's a wide object travelling upwards so fast it is caught in only one frame of the video, which seems less likely.

Have you seen any statement on where in the plant the reactor cores are? It seems a little odd to have six reactors in four buildings.

[Sibirsky]

Just as an aside, apparently the quake was powerful enough to jolt Honshu 8 feet to the East.

It's a little sobering to think that, right now, I am 8 feet closer to the US than I was yesterday morning without changing my position.

[Esternial]

Just as an aside, apparently the quake was powerful enough to jolt Honshu 8 feet to the East.

It's a little sobering to think that, right now, I am 8 feet closer to the US than I was yesterday morning without changing my position.

So...he's been sitting at his computer since yesterday morning?

Eventually, the earth's tectonic plates are bound to shift. Continents will break apart, new ones will be creates.

[Sibirsky]

So...he's been sitting at his computer since yesterday morning?

Eventually, the earth's tectonic plates are bound to shift. Continents will break apart, new ones will be creates.

8 feet is quite a bit of distance to move almost instantly.

[Nobel Hobos]

In a BWR system, you can add borax to the inflow of water. That's the preferred system for accelerating the shutdown, although doing it here might be tricky.

Yes, for the boron which is a moderating element. But you have to get that stuff in amongst the fuel (to intercept neutrons before they hit other fuel) and that won't work after meltdown.

It's a really bad sign that things seem to be getting worse, more than a day after the problem started. Hopefully they ARE getting it under control, but there is a natural mechanism of secrecy about these things, which we've seen in all kinds of industrial disasters (Deepwater Horizon for a recent example). The first crew on the scene (usually the local facility management) feel best qualified to handle it, they'll admit government emergency services if they have to but they'll strongly resist making the details of the ongoing disaster public. The relatively ignorant public demand "do something, anything!" and politicians live or die politically by how they respond to that and while I hate to be kept in the dark while the experts deal with the problem, it does make a certain amount of sense.

If you think a surgeon is incompetent, you don't barge into the operating theatre and wrestle them away from the patient. You stop them before or you punish them after, but in these emergency circumstances you let them get on with it because ultimately however incompetent they are they almost certainly know better than the general public does.

Evacuation zone around Fukushima Daiichi now widened to 20 km.

[Alien Space Bats]

I'll be interested in knowing why the pumping system failed. There are supposed to be four diesel generators for each reactor, twice as many as are actually needed. Then, too, with half the reactors down for maintenance, there should have been enough spare generation power on site to divert (from the reactors that were offline) to make up for massive damage to the diesel plant.

Of course, if they lost their fuel supply, that would do it. Or, if the intake ducts got clogged with debris, but we haven't heard anything about that.

Sadly, this reactor was - as I said earlier - two weeks from retirement. The ABWR's being built at Daiichi are even more fault tolerant that the BWR's now in service, and the other five reactors here are of a later and more advanced design than the one that suffered the explosion.

As for the next generation of BWR's, those should actually be able to go untended without any power or pumps for 48 hours after being scrammed, which suggests that future fission plants should be even more capable of surviving this kind of nightmare than existing designs.

[Esternial]

So...he's been sitting at his computer since yesterday morning?

Eventually, the earth's tectonic plates are bound to shift. Continents will break apart, new ones will be creates.

8 feet is quite a bit of distance to move almost instantly.

Mother nature is a fickle being.

[Daistallia 2104]

-snip-

Also, if you look over the official statements that have been made here or incidents like Tokaimura, there's been a pattern of officially announcing that things aren't as bad as they actually are, hence my wait and see skepticism.

[Daistallia 2104]

Of course, if they lost their fuel supply, that would do it. Or, if the intake ducts got clogged with debris, but we haven't heard anything about that.

Haven't really heard anything about the causes other than it happened around the time the tsunami hit. Either would make sense except that I'd expect if it were just the former they'd be bringing in more fuel.

As for the next generation of BWR's, those should actually be able to go untended without any power or pumps for 48 hours after being scrammed, which suggests that future fission plants should be even more capable of surviving this kind of nightmare than existing designs.

Even if this turns out roses and all, it will still have put people in a fear that will have long term consequences.

[Alevuss]

I hope Japan is okay. I wonder how the NSers and Mods in Japan are doing. I actually forgot that Japan got a lot of earthquakes.