What actually has happened at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant number one:
The 'explosion' and fire was in a turbine hall, not a reactor or within a containment building or vessel.
Two employees and two subcontractors were injured at the time of the big Honshu Quake yesterday. One employee received a years 'safe' dose of radiation. Which was probably around the same figure as some Medical Tomography scans deliver (Around 1-2Rem, with 0.5Rem dose for a standard X-ray).
The backup diesel generators for the reactor circulation got swamped by the Tsunami and stopped working. At the time of writing, replacements are being installed.
Speculation in the lamestream is rampant about Meltdowns and 'Chernobyls', but the Japanese reactors are Boiling Water reactors, which once shut down begin the long slow process of cooling. They don't melt down.
Oh. No more panic there then. Hi ho, time for morning coffee.
Updated midnight PST 12th/13th March 2011.
Lots of speculation still about 'meltdowns', but as the reactors have been shut down, the slow cooling of reactor cores has begun. Yes, according to the press releases, there have been some problems with getting water into the reactors, but considering they've just had a massive tranche of seawater sloshing about after a Tsunami and major earthquake, I'd say the Engineers had everything at reactors one and two under at least some sort of control.
Update: H/T Depleted Cranium. Explosion at Number 3 reactor (Not in the containment structure) Possibly due to unvented Hydrogen. As an aside; to the commenter who told me I didn't know what a containment building looks like, I spent part of my early career working in and around Coal, Gas and Nuclear power stations on fire alarm / suppression systems. FYI; I do know the difference between a turbine hall and a containment building. Also between main breakers and transformers, smoke stacks and cooling towers. Funny how so many people don't, eh?
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4 comments:
ahh, but a safe explosion and no threat of nuclear disaster doesn't make an interesting news story anymore does it. A major earthquake and tsunami are just not attention grabbing enough on their own, we need a nuclear meltdown to really sell newspapers!
Don't forget the warble gloaming folk need to get a downer on nuclear if they are to get their wind turbine scam back on track.
Watched some footage on Russia today of a coastal oil refinery that yesterday was a blazing inferno.
Today the Japanese had rolled in fire engines on shore and three tugs fitted with water monitors off shore and had not only put the fire out but had cooled all the other plant to prevent further ignition.
Here in Blighty we had the story of police, medics and firemen who wouldn't wade into an less than waist deep boating lake to see if the body floating in it still had any life left. They stood around waiting for 40 minutes for a specialist team to turn up and wade out to recover the body.
In the meantime three ambulance had turned up one of which was a bloody helicopter!
What really grates is not one of the cops, medics and fireman thought 'fuck this I'm going to check anyway'. Spineless public servants shit scared of a elfin safety commissar, bastards.
I despair of my once great country I really, really do.
Rant over and apologies for the expletives please delete if offensive.
You are so wrong on this one it is unbelievable. You obviously don't know a turbine hall from a reactor building if you saw one.
Talkins me old china,
The first explosion (has there been another? I've not been watching) was steam from the turbine hall at Number One power plant, a BWR. There was also a (Minor) fireball from an oil filled transformer. All the informed insiders say so. Besides, had the containment building been breached as you suggest the smoke would have been dark grey with particulates. How could you tell from such a small picture so far away? This entry was based on primary source information, not some hyperventilating media type desperate to talk the situation into a major panic.
While there has been some possible damage in the reactor core of Number one, and possibly number two and three reactors due to circulation restrictions, the containment building has not been breached, nor, to the current best information I have available, has there been an explosion within the containment structures.
I think you need to be looking in the mirror when you use the 'W' word so readily. Nevertheless, If you'd like to be better informed, Depleted Cranium (On my blogroll) has good sources. Although I tend to cultivate my own.
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