Nuclear crisis, the truth?

[Chucaro]

I guess that the majority of you are following up what it is going in Japan and trying to ascertain what is the real situation on the nuclear plants.
There is a great conflict of opinions between the international experts and what the Japanese are reporting to the media.
Today they are saying that there is not a melt down in one report and in another one are saying that in one reactor 70% of the rods are damaged, and 30% in another one.
International experts are saying that if is the case then there was or are a meltdown.
Are not Australia and the other countries not entitled to have the truth about the situation when many nationals are there?
Are not the tourist and international workers entitled to know if they are safe in Japan?
Just wonder where all this it is going to end

[bee utey]

Just wonder where all this it is going to end

After they admit "scientific whaling" is a lie.

[solmanic]

After they admit "scientific whaling" is a lie.

...yes but the scientific part is not related to how whales live, it's how best to extract the food content.

From what I've been reading the issue is not so much whether or not there will be melting of the fuel rods (most reports are now saying that that's a given now that the plant has been abandoned), just whether the meltdown is likely to breach the primary containment vessel.

[JDNSW]

The actual situation inside the reactors is almost certainly unknown, given the problems, so the varying descriptions of what is happening are all based on varying interpretations of inadequate data, some by people who are very familiar with the reactors, some by people who are not - the technicians in charge would probably love to know exactly what is going on even more than we would.

As I understand it, what happened was that the reactors automatically shut down when the quake occurred, but the necessary continued cooling of the reactors after shutdown was not able to happen because of failure of grid power (and possibly diesel backup) and water supply failure, all due to the earthquake and tsumami.

John

[Ferret]

Are not Australia and the other countries not entitled to have the truth about the situation when many nationals are there?
Are not the tourist and international workers entitled to know if they are safe in Japan?
Just wonder where all this it is going to end

One of the problems is, would you accept the 'truth' if you were told the 'truth'. In some cases the 'truth' is called 'lies' by those who's preconceived concepts of the 'facts' don't coincide with the reality of the 'facts'.

The other problem is situations like this are very fluid. What is 'true' at one point in time becomes 'not true' at a later point in time. Not because people lie but because events change.

Anyway, TEPCO plus IAEA updates are shown here, that is, if you believe them.

TEPCO : Press Room | Press Releases (http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html)

IAEA Update on Japan Earthquake (http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html)


And finally some explanation in simple terms of the significant day by day events.

Information about the incident at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants in Japan:: Maintained by the students of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT (http://mitnse.com/)

[juddy]

USS BLUE RIDGE (LCC 19) - At Sea (NNS) -- The U.S. 7th Fleet has temporarily repositioned its ships and aircraft away from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant after detecting low level contamination in the air and on its aircraft operating in the area. The source of this airborne radioactivity is a radioactive plume released from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant.

For perspective, the maximum potential radiation dose received by any ship's force personnel aboard the ship when it passed through the area was less than the radiation exposure received from about one month of exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil, and the sun.

The ship was operating at sea about 100 miles northeast of the power plant at the time.

Using sensitive instruments, precautionary measurements of three helicopter aircrews returning to USS Ronald Reagan after conducting disaster relief missions near Sendai identified low levels of radioactivity on 17 air crew members. The low level radioactivity was easily removed from affected personnel by washing with soap and water. They were subsequently surveyed, and no further contamination was detected.

As a precautionary measure, USS Ronald Reagan and other U.S. 7th Fleet ships conducting disaster response operations in the area have moved out of the downwind direction from the site to assess the situation and determine what appropriate mitigating actions are necessary.

And thats whats there saying....

[Blknight.aus]

At the moment they;re only leaking lightly contaminated steam and dust type debry.

the design of the reactor is doing what its supposed to do BUT they now face the problem of if they dont get it all shut down and cooled down right about nowishly its going to go chernobyl on them.

they've had reading spikes everytime the cooling system has "purged" but they're spikes not increases. This backs up that they're not loosing anything thats got hard radiation on it.

The hindsight is already flowing thick and fast and ATM their 2 most critisized error was that instead of dumping in bulk water and then dumping it to atmosphere while the winds were off shore they had attempted to minimise the impact by venting the steam through the buildings allowing the radiation levels to drop before venting. This is what is suspected to have caused the explosions that have destroyed buildings.

the second was not shutting it all down straight away but due to the lack of the emergancy power (which was all destroyed by the water also taking with it the ability to import power from off site) they had to keep generating power to keep the pumps running to keep the cooling systems working.

Most certainly the reactors have got damaged rods in them BUT ATM the primary reactor vessels appear to be intact and not leaking, in sweet irony, the reverse of chernobyl (where the reactor failed and took out the secondary containment) is occouring, the reactor itself has held together and everything else is collapsing around them threatening the integrity of the reactor itself.

[hook]

Gov. tell the truth.... lol :eek:

Wikileaks proves that....:twisted:

[big guy]

Everybody lies.:p:p

[Chucaro]

Anyway, TEPCO plus IAEA updates are shown here, that is, if you believe them.


TEPCO :eek: do you remember 2002 and 2007 ?
Google will help ;)
It would be interesting reading for those that support nuclear power in private hands ;)

[ramblingboy42]

Those that need to know the truth matter. You dont need to know and you dont matter. The whole situation is being closely monitored by satellites through imagery most of us couldnt conceive. No matter what Japan says in its news releases, the authorities that really need to know have access to the true situation.......which you are probably not going to to be told. Chernobyl is still being constantly monitored by geosynchronous(I think thats the correct term) orbiting satellites as is Japan.

[one_iota]

Nuclear accidents?

What about all those people who die in coal mining disasters?

Category:Coal mining disasters by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No one has ever suggested that we stop burning coal because of the great loss of life.

We accept that there are risks as long as we don't have to do the dirty work.

We expect to be able to come home at night and turn on the lights.