Japanese Earthquake! 8.9 - 24km* deep

[Ngati_Grim]

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

Sobering.

[brucewillis2]

what's the deal with nuclear reactors anyway? how long does it take to turn one of those things off when the shit hits the fan?

[Growler]

One does not simply walk into Mordor a reactor and flick the switch

[Pitchey]

IIRC you need to drop carbon(?) rods into the reactor to slow the reactions, doing this produces heat, thus it needs more cooling until the reactions stop.

But I'm not a nuke tech so might be wrong.

EDIT: Ahhhh yeah, close. handy link Jonty well done!

[Speakman]

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/12/nuclear-energy-insid.html

very good article about nuclear power and the shutdown process. good analagies and explanations

[brucewillis2]

One does not simply walk into Mordor a reactor and flick the switch

ok so how does one 'hit the switch'? say I'm like bored of my nuclear reactor and I want to turn it off and close up shop. How long does it take for it to stop workign and be completely harmless?

cheers jonty - reading that article now

[vedds]

Depends how they are designed & whether its even physically possible to turn it off.

Older Chernobyl style reactors have to have control rods _added_ to stop them, so if you cant physically insert the rod, it will just continue to meltdown. I understand newer reactors are designed to be "on by exception" so they stop unless a control is activated regularly to keep them running.

[genienz]

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/12/nuclear-energy-insid.html

very good article about nuclear power and the shutdown process. good analagies and explanations

Great article. Thanks Jonty.

[brucewillis2]

read all the comments - I quite liked the post about explaining the process with pingpong balls/mousetraps.

[camy205]

God this makes me glad we don't fuck around with nuclear power. If there was a massive explosion could NZ be affected?

[Donkey]

God this makes me glad we don't fuck around with nuclear power. If there was a massive explosion could NZ be affected?

Modern reactors can't explode. At least the "nuclear" part of it can't. At the worst you will get a hydrogen explosion (not a hydrogen bomb type explosion) but the nuclear part will be mostly ok if they've done the job properly.

[Bell]

Does anyone else think the media is doing a terrible job at reporting on the nuclear situation?

[frankytanky]

Does anyone else think the media is doing a terrible job at reporting on the nuclear situation?

YES! hell yes, just blatent scare mongering! Its what you come to exect though.
rumor to bandwagon in no time.

[Growler]

Modern reactors can't explode. At least the "nuclear" part of it can't. At the worst you will get a hydrogen explosion (not a hydrogen bomb type explosion) but the nuclear part will be mostly ok if they've done the job properly.

I think that's the issue, the reactor in question was comissioned in 1970 I believe, It may not have the fall back safety basics the more modern have?

[varkk]

It won't go critical and explode like a nuclear bomb, the biggest danger is it the core is breached and the fuel rods etc catch fire then you end up with a nasty toxic/radioactive smoke belching out in to our atmosphere and spreading wherever the winds take them. There is a very remote chance of that happening. What is more likely from what I have heard is there is a partial meltdown within the reactor itself without the containment being compromised. There would then need to be a controlled release of some radioactive steam to release pressure and then once things had cooled down etc the whole plant would probably be sealed up then carefully disassembled and buried in a desert somewhere.
But yeah, reliable reports are very hard to come by. It is all speculation and minimal updates from the officials.

[brucewillis2]

I was reading the herald at lunch today and this potentially (or already is) one of the worst nuclear power plant disasters. But one of them in russian the reactor had some kind of explosion and lift the containment roof off. (the roof weighed 160 tons) you don't want to be under it when it landed.

[.osiRiS]

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2CQXVj/www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

Not sure if posted already.

[GhostOfGallipoli]

[SteddieEddie]

An idea of the power of the tsunami, astonishing

[kookynic]

 
YES!!!
Fuck i lol'd, fucking americans

[Spigalau]

also found this

The 480-megawatt Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a hundred times more powerful than the ill-fated reactor at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. On April 26, 1986, the Soviet reactor exploded after a power surge. Four hundred times more radioactive material was released from the crippled nuclear power plant than had been by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The fallout was detected across Europe.

link http://www.infowars.com/japanese-nuclear-meltdown-would-be-hundreds-of-times-worse-than-chernobyl/

Reactor 4 @ Chernobyl was rated at 1000MW
Reactor 1 @ Fukushima was rated at 460MW

I would contend that your article was wriiten by an idiot. 1000 > 460.

[Emrico1]

There is another Tsunami about to hit! FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
"
Tsunami observed off Fukushima Prefecture - Kyodo News
"
They are evacuating
"
More on Hachinohe: City says tide has receded 2 meters; residents urged to go to higher ground
"
Source: Twitter
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=Hachinohe%3A+City+tsunami&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q=Hachinohe&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=KLy&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=ivnsum&tbs=mbl:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=6Xx9Tf3IN4qKvQOokJzoBw&ved=0CDgQ5QU&fp=8df913107c6fa54c

[Clin]

Reactor 4 @ Chernobyl was rated at 1000MW
Reactor 1 @ Fukushima was rated at 460MW

I would contend that your article was wriiten by an idiot. 1000 > 460.

Did Chernobyl contain mixed oxide fuel? Could that make the difference?

[Emrico1]

" [3/14 12:45] Hachinohe-City:At 12:30 PM the Evacuation Order issued at 11:16 was lifted"

Sounds to me like it was the first time they had noticed low tide.

[BerG]

also found this

The 480-megawatt Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a hundred times more powerful than the ill-fated reactor at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. On April 26, 1986, the Soviet reactor exploded after a power surge. Four hundred times more radioactive material was released from the crippled nuclear power plant than had been by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The fallout was detected across Europe.

link http://www.infowars.com/japanese-nuclear-meltdown-would-be-hundreds-of-times-worse-than-chernobyl/

The 480-megawatt Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a hundred times more powerful than the ill-fated reactor at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. The earthquake was 1,000 times more powerful than the one that struck Christchurch in New Zealand recently. It was also a thousand times more powerful than the quake that hit Haiti last year.

My God.

Thats magnitude 6.3 thousand.