did anybody see that video they just played on CNN? wtf were those people doing down there? i would assume trying to carry unconscious bodies or something?

3/15/2011 11:04:35 PM

I thought maybe someone fell and they were trying to pick them up. Not sure though.

3/15/2011 11:05:20 PM

yeah maybe so...crazy video though...can't even imagine being where the cameraman was and watching that shit actually happen

3/15/2011 11:06:34 PM

i saw "seduction layer"

3/15/2011 11:07:12 PM

The thing that gets me is seeing the water coming and the filling in an area so quickly. That one ridge looked high enough until water started to flow into the little field next to it and then quickly water was filling up near the ridge.

3/15/2011 11:08:11 PM

I need my tsunami video fix. Is that a new video you were talking about? link?

3/15/2011 11:10:24 PM

do they have any helicopters dumping water on the various nuclear plants, fire or not, from above, or is everything pumped in from the ocean?

also, would it have been BETTER if the tsunamis had not only knocked out the power plants' generators, ie cooling systems, but had also flooded the plants, completely immersing all of the nuclear material with seawater?

[Edited on March 15, 2011 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

3/15/2011 11:11:11 PM

well since they evacuated the reactors I'm getting a little worried

I don't want 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6!) reactors to melt down 155 miles from me

3/15/2011 11:18:24 PM

CNN is reporting that the Prime Minister was cussing out the power company b/c they reported some problems over an hour after it happened.

3/15/2011 11:28:11 PM

Quote :

"Is that a new video you were talking about? link?"

they showed it on CNN on Anderson Cooper about a half hour ago...its footage of the initial tsunami, taken by someone from up on a hill, but its very close to a village with a bunch of houses and buildings getting washed away, but the craziest thing is that you could see other people down in lower altitudes and you just have to hope they were able to get to higher ground in time

AC360 just said they're talking about dumping water on the plants from helicopters...I was right!

[Edited on March 15, 2011 at 11:31 PM. Reason : .]

3/15/2011 11:30:59 PM

Quote :

"also, would it have been BETTER if the tsunamis had not only knocked out the power plants' generators, ie cooling systems, but had also flooded the plants, completely immersing all of the nuclear material with seawa"

[NO]

3/15/2011 11:41:08 PM

just hypothetically though, lets say the power plants weren't located anywhere near any cities, therefore the increased size of the tsunami that would flood the nuclear plant wouldn't have any adverse effect on any towns or villages

from the simple standpoint of being able to cool the fuel rods without any generators, would flooding the lower parts of the nuclear plants, effectively submerging every single fuel cell in water, since it needed cooling anyway, be a "good" thing, ignoring all other issues?

i don't have more than a very, very basic understanding of both how the nuclear plants work and how the earthquakes/tsunamis have affected them, but it seems like the problem right on on 3/15/2011 is cooling the fuel rods to avoid potential explosions, fires and meltdowns

granted flooding the plants would make producing power impossible from those plants, and there is already an electricity shortage in the country as it is, but i was looking at that hypothetical question from a compartmentalized view of "how it would effect cooling", since it seems like cooling the fuel rods are the relevant plants' top priorities

3/15/2011 11:46:47 PM

it would cool it
but it is my understanding that the water used to cool the fuel rods becomes hazardous

so I suppose it would be bad

3/15/2011 11:50:31 PM

I would think radioactive material being introduced into an uncontrollable body of water would be an extremely bad thing.

3/15/2011 11:52:13 PM

Yeah, I think the water used to cool the fuel rods is in a closed system, kinda like the cooling system in your car, so opening that system up would spread radiation.

3/15/2011 11:53:14 PM

I think the reactors would have boiled off that flood water in matter of minutes and been dry again.

3/15/2011 11:55:00 PM

^yeah thats probably a good point too

3/15/2011 11:57:19 PM

So any word yet on why they evacuated? Does this mean cooling operations have ceased Or are continuing on their own?

3/15/2011 11:58:48 PM

So radioactive steam then? That would be super fantastic.

How big are nuclear fuel rods? How hot do they run?

3/15/2011 11:59:36 PM

^^even though the MIT guy on AC360 didn't seem to understand the translation of the Japanese press conference, it sounded to me like the 50 or so workers at THAT PARTICULAR REACTOR of that particular plant have left, I assume because of some radiation risk

but the guy from MIT somehow construed that as workers leaving every single nuclear plant with any issues

^might be wrong but i think the fuel rods are like 3 or 4 feet long

not sure the temperature, but the problem is they just keep emitting heat, they don't just cool down and settle

[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 12:01 AM. Reason : .]

3/16/2011 12:00:00 AM

Well I mean any element that's that dense and that large and reacting at the extreme temperatures they operate at is going to take a FUCKTON of energy to cool them down enough.

3/16/2011 12:12:07 AM

yeah i dunno the specifics, im sure someone will chime in

haha check out the timestamp of my last post

3/16/2011 12:13:52 AM

BALLLLLLERRRRR

3/16/2011 12:14:48 AM

I'm getting sick of these aftershocks

just had another one

they make me woozy

3/16/2011 12:16:19 AM

how cold is it in Tokyo Snewf? like in the F 20s?

be safe

3/16/2011 12:17:13 AM

So what's the long term solution for the nuclear plant?

3/16/2011 12:17:34 AM

concrete sarcophagus

3/16/2011 12:18:59 AM

it is 48 F here

3/16/2011 12:19:53 AM

Well, there's always that.

3/16/2011 12:20:16 AM

The fission reactions go on forever(not literally) and its a chain reaction so once your control fails it just goes on and on. Even after the rods are "spent" they still decay for millions of years.


Why can't they just dump all the concrete in the area on top of the reactor? bury it in a mountain of concrete.

3/16/2011 12:24:21 AM

I imagine they will do that.

3/16/2011 12:25:08 AM

dude on CNN was saying the newer reactors being built around the world have more advanced and more reliable cooling systems that, in the event of a disaster like an earthquake, would essentially use the heat from radiating fuel cells and convert it to create the electricity needed to cool those same fuel cells

pretty cool

3/16/2011 12:25:26 AM

A typical BWR fuel pin is on the order of 1cm x 4m and comes in zircaloy-clad assembly arrays. The typical core temp is around 250°C when properly cooled, but when the pumps break down and the fuel boils all the water leaving the fuel assemblies exposed the temp rockets upward...iirc the cladding fails around 1200°C and the fuel itself will melt around the lower 2k°C region

Flooding it with sea water creates a shit ton of steam which has to be vented to maintain the pressure hull integrity, the relatively minor radiation content thereof is a small price to pay to avoid exposing the environment to an unmitigated core.

So basically your idea that we might have been better off had the tsunami directly cooled the core would imply that all containment structures failed, and while the relatively infinite heat capacity of the pacific ocean would have certainly cooled the reactor and eventually disbursed/moderated the fuel, the environmental impact thereafter would be locally devastating and globally hazardous

[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 12:36 AM. Reason : ^ look up GE Hitachi's ABWR and ESBWR concepts, the latter being fully passive and much safer]

3/16/2011 12:35:52 AM

nice post, thanks for the knowledge

gonna read this in a little while http://www.powermag.com/issues/features/The-Evolution-of-the-ESBWR_3103.html

[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 12:42 AM. Reason : .]

3/16/2011 12:40:50 AM

Quote :

"How the hell do they know what's at the center of earth????"

There are two types of seismic waves let out in earthquakes. p waves and s waves. One can go through fluids and one can't. Based on this logic they can look at how certain waves travel through certain parts of the earth and bounce back at times to tell that we have a molten core. Also we have a magnetic field that gives us an idea of what the inside of the earth is like. All of this date together allows us to logically determine the inside of the Earth.

3/16/2011 12:50:35 AM

Quote :

"how cold is it in Tokyo Snewf? like in the F 20s?"

In Tokyo, it's like 50F or so. Not bad at all.
In Sendai/other damaged areas, it's like 40F or lower during the day time. But it gets to 32F or lower in those areas.

3/16/2011 12:56:30 AM

woulda sucked if the water came in and froze. better hope alaska doesn't get a winter tsunami.

quake+darkness+ice water tsunami

[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 1:10 AM. Reason : i wonder how many people died of hypothermia]

3/16/2011 1:09:53 AM

bump?

I feel like people are starting to talk about these events less. Aside from the nuclear stuff.

3/16/2011 9:04:36 AM

^ what would you like to add?

the cbs morning show was dedicated exclusively to japan...of course, they pretty much just repeat themselves every 20 minutes

3/16/2011 9:25:39 AM

Quote :

"woulda sucked if the water came in and froze. better hope alaska doesn't get a winter tsunami. quake+darkness+ice water tsunami"

it would have to be really cold (like -2 to -6 degrees F) for seawater to freeze. Not saying it couldnt happen, just not likely

3/16/2011 11:08:50 AM

Miracles.

Quote :

"Amid the silent corpses a baby cried out—and Japan met its tiniest miracle. On March 14, soldiers from Japan's Self-Defense Forces went door to door in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Senda, pulling bodies from homes that had been flattened by the earthquake and tsunami. More accustomed to hearing the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of mud than sounds of life, they dismissed the baby's cry as a mistake. Until they heard it again. (More on TIME.com: See seven ways to help the victims in Japan.) They made their way to a pile of debris and carefully removed fragments of wood and slate, shattered glass and rock. And then they saw her: a 4-month-old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit. A tidal wave literally swept the baby from her parents' arms when it hit their home on March 11. Afterward, her parents — both of whom survived the disaster — took refuge in their wrecked house, worried that their little girl was dead. Soldiers managed to reunite the baby with her overjoyed father shortly after the rescue. "Her discovery has put a new energy into the search," a civil defense official told a local news crew. "We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this." Ahead of the baby's rescue, officials reported finding at least 2,000 bodies washed up on the shoreline of Miyagi prefecture. How the child survived drowning — or being crushed by fallen trees and houses — remains a mystery. (More on TIME.com: See pictures of Japan's calamitous earthquake.) In a nation short on good news, other rescues have buoyed morale too. In Iwate prefecture, a devastating tidal wave swept away an elderly woman along with her house — but it didn't extinguish her will to live. Rescuers found the 70-year-old alive inside her home on March 15, four days after the wave wiped out much of the region. Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani told the Associated Press that the woman is receiving treatment at a local hospital. She is conscious but suffering from hypothermia. Elsewhere, 60-year-old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived two days at sea by clinging to his floating rooftop. He was discovered 10 miles (16 km) off the Japanese coastline. "Several helicopters and ships passed, but none of them noticed me," he said after his March 13 rescue. "I thought that was going to be the last day of my life." (via Daily Mail) http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/15/miracles-in-japan-four-month-old-baby-70-year-old-woman-found-alive/ "

3/16/2011 12:27:05 PM

Quote :

"it would have to be really cold (like -2 to -6 degrees F) for seawater to freeze. Not saying it couldnt happen, just not likely"

You sure you don't mean °C ?

3/16/2011 1:51:08 PM

^^more like law of probability

3/16/2011 1:52:07 PM

Japan Utility Says New Power Line Could Ease Crisis
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42107252

3/16/2011 3:54:43 PM

Poor dogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TM9GL2iLI

3/16/2011 8:33:23 PM

Quote :

"You sure you don't mean °C ? "

I'm pretty sure he means Fahrenheit.

3/16/2011 9:04:44 PM

^^ damn, that's pretty sad

3/16/2011 10:25:35 PM

^^^


one of the comments said that both dogs had been rescued and receiving medical help.

so thats good

3/16/2011 10:43:05 PM

Quote :

"I'm pretty sure he means Fahrenheit."

actually normal isotonic saline solution freezes at -.052 °C......so i would think that it would be celsius.
but i could be wrong.

3/16/2011 10:47:00 PM

3/16/2011 11:30:13 PM