Earthquake in Japan

Brandon

Brandon

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Wow, the destruction as a result of this earthquake is just horrible... my prayers go out to those in Japan! This is such an awful disaster.
 
On the English Facebook page of the Asahi Shimbun, I found a link to an article by World Nuclear News that describes what really happened at the reactor site since the incidents:

UPDATE 14: 23.44 pm GMT
Attention remains focused on the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants as Japan struggles to cope in the aftermath of its worst earthquake in recorded history. A dramatic explosion did not damage containment and sea water injection continues through the night.

Three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors were in operation when yesterday's quake hit, at which point they shut down automatically and commenced removal of residual heat with the help of emergency diesel generators. These suddenly stopped about an hour later, and this has been put down to tsunami flooding by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The loss of the diesels led the plant owners Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to immediately notify the government of a technical emergency situation, which allows officials to take additional precautionary measures.

For many hours the primary focus of work at the site was to connect enough portable power modules to fully replace the diesels and enable the full operation of cooling systems.
Click to expand...


The article proceeds to explain the measures taken and the state of all reactor cores.


I hope Japan will be spared from exposure to radiation. If there's any core meltdown taking place, things could still get further out of control if cooling is not maintained. Today I heard nuclear experts say that if a meltdown occurs, you can try to limit effects, but that normally, all you can do is sit an wait and watch havoc unfold. It's obvious that the Japanese are doing everything they can to try and prevent further damage. I hope they'll be able to stop any further escalation of the situation.
 
tagesschau.de has a live stream of NHK coverage ... they said that around the Fukushima #1 plant, radiation doses of up to 400 mSv/h were measured (normal would be around 0.000047 mSv/h or so). People in the 20-30 km range from the plant have been advised to stay indoors and take various precautions against radioactivity exposure (the 0-20 km range has already been evacuated). Radioactive iodine and cesium leaks have been confirmed.

NHK English home page

---------- Post added at 05:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 AM ----------

The reactor block 4 of Fukushima #1 plant has been burning earlier (or is still burning), probably b/c spent fuel rods caught fire from radiation exposure.

The 400 mSv / h radiation dose measured near block 3 of the plant can cause nausea and radiation burns after about 2 hours of exposure.
 
The water in reactor blocks 5 and 6 have been said to be heating up earlier today.

I figure that radiation from the surrounding blocks is heating up the water (and fuel rods) in the other blocks.

To correct my other post, the normal radiation would be around 0.003 mSv/h (probably rounded up), but the measured 400 mSv/h at one point near plant 2 was about 133,000 times that high. Currently, the media doesn't mention this. Often they say "it's 200 x the yearly normal dose". A year with 365.25 days has 8766 hours. 200 times that would be 1,753,200 hours worth of radiation.

So, lots of disinformation is being passed around to keep people from freaking out. The same thing essentially occurred in 1986 with reports about the Tchernobyl incident. There was lots of confusion about radiation doses measured in Bequerel (in total) and Bequerel per hour.

If all six reactor blocks would experience a core or fuel rod meltdown, some serious radiation levels could occur. Assuming that 400 mSv/h was a maximum in one core, 2,400 mSv/h could occur, or even much much more. Tchernobyl workers were exposed to 5,500 mSv in total, not per hour.

I'm not sure if a combination of incidents could reach a critical mass and cause a nuclear explosion.

Here in Germany, after plenty of demonstrations against nuclear power (one was a 60,000 people chain from Stuttgart to Neckar-Westheim power plant, which had been planned for months), politicians have now decided to put the decision about our own reactors on hold for a couple of months, during which the safety of reactors is to be analyzed. Some reactors will possibly be shut down. One politician suggested stress-testing the reactors (which in itself could cause nuclear incidents if something goes wrong).

We have a number of reactors that are just as old as those at Fukushima #1 (daiichi) plant. Corruption has apparently caused our reactors to stay on-line, despite various security flaws and concerns.

Our Phillipsburg power plant (which I live pretty close to, just a couple of miles), is one of the oldest, and most unprotected. It's right near the Rhine river in the Rhine valley. If there ever was a major flood or earthquake, we'd probably suffer a similar problem to that of Fukushima Daiichi. Plus, there's a nuclear research facility in Karlsruhe, which is handling a lot of dangerous materials, and is probably unsafe as well. I knew a former employee of that facility who said that safety there would be a joke, and that employees (and areas surrounding the facility) would be routinely exposed to radiation.
 
Radiation levels of 1 Sv/h (1,000 mSv/h) have been measured near the reactor some hours ago.

The Japanese Emperor has addressed the nation for the first time since 1945.

I feel very sad for the Japanese people. I hope they'll be able to avert the worst case scenario, but things are looking bad. :(
 
I wonder why they're still trying to get people to bring water to the reactor (in helicopters or fire engines). Why don't they use unmanned vehicles or robots?? I thought Japan was so advanced with robot technology. They could use a simple robot that can hold a water hose and anchor the hose somehow, or mount a water hose on a remote-controlled regular car, or use one of the many airborne drones that exist. I don't get it.
 
Interesting: I just read that the Fukushima Daiichi power plant was made by General Electric and that GE now has technical staff there to help with the situation.
 
The NHK apparently still can't tell mSv (millisievert) from µSv (microsievert). They probably read the "mSv" on their papers as "microsievert". Today they reported 384 "microsievert" (probably really millisievert, mSv, not µSv, b/c they said it's a dangerous level) in a distance of 1 km from the reactor.

Spokesman Edano said spinach and milk from the region are contaminated and that they'll be trying to prevent food exports from the area.

Meanwhile, the water spraying operation continues with unmanned fire engine vehicles (which have been moved there previously), and they're trying to restore electricity to the water pump systems.

Reactors 5 and 6 have apparently improved conditions using their own cooling systems (currently running on a diesel engine, soon by auxiliary power if electricity restoration is successful), and holes have apparently been drilled into the roofs as a steam vent (to prevent explosions).

Weather might blow the radiation towards Tokyo this weekend.
 
Apparently, many firefighters died from radiation during the water spraying operation. NHK showed their boss crying on TV.

I hope it was worth the 500 µSv/h in radiation decrease.

To make things worse, water spraying needs to continue to prevent a meltdown, or powering the water pumps, which they hope to achieve on Sunday.
 
Pressure in the reactor 3 core, the one which had been sprayed with 1200 tons of water to cool down the fuel rods in the storage pool and the core temperature, is rising again, and they plan to let off radioactive steam to prevent excess pressure. Reactor 3 is the most dangerous b/c it contains MOX fuel rods (mixed oxide) that contain plutonium in addition to uranium. Plutonium is among the most poisonous substances in the world. Radiation can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can cause hydrogen explosions. No word so far about the electricity restoration efforts.

A hydrogen explosion with all the water split into hydrogen and oxygen can cause massive damage, including to the containment chamber. A domino effect caused by additional radiation from a damaged containment chamber can lead the other reactors to react as well. Core meltdowns in all six blocks could occur, and further release of radiation could also affect the Daini plant.

Yesterday, they believed a worse case scenario would be highly unlikely now, but the opposite seems to be the case.

From the beginning, some nuclear experts from other countries called the efforts "helpless", "ineffective", "desperate" and of "last resort". A core meltdown leads to temperatures of 2,500 °C or more with the molten material eating its way thru the ground (if not spread around the sky by an explosion).

Some people criticize that generator power has not been restored in the first 8 hours after the quake and tsunami, when the pumps were running on battery power. During that time, a lot of things could have been done to prevent the disaster that is happening now and has been happening in the past days. There's also the question why the reactors' failure systems have not been modernized in the past decades. Most modern reactors have multiply redundant fallback systems (like multiple power generators, multiple battery systems and so on).

This is really really sad, and I hope there's still a way to prevent the worst.

---------- Post added at 08:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

The plan to let off steam from core 3 has been cancelled b/c the pressure was sinking, apparently.

---------- Post added at 09:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 AM ----------

Power restoration seems to have been partially successful. But it appears they don't know yet which machinery they'll be able to operate safely.

If there's any hydrogen gas around, one spark can ignite an explosion.

---------- Post added at 09:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 AM ----------

Slashdot writes that Japan still doesn't release US drone footage from the plant

---------- Post added at 10:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 AM ----------

In block 2 of Daiichi plant, power to the control room has been restored.

In Taiwan, radioactive beans from Kagoshima, in Southern Japan (!), have been found. This means radiation is far more wide spread than thought previously.

---------- Post added at 10:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:10 AM ----------

BTW, in Germany, we still have radioactive food from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster: Wild pigs and deer eating particular types of fungus become contaminated with radiation, mostly from radioactive cesium. Meat from such animals still has to be tested for radioactivity before being sold. Last week, they interviewed a hunter or merchant that's selling wild pig meat, and he said he still has to dump some meat which is radioactively contaminated. It was kept in large containers. No idea what they're doing with it, it probably has to go to a nuclear storage facility.

Probably already the disaster in Japan will have contaminated soil for decades to come.
 
Tepco said today that reactor blocks 1, 2, 5 and 6 have been reconnected to external power and are now being cooled. Blocks 3 and 4 are still being worked on.

Meanwhile, here in Germany, Phillipsburg block A, which has been shut down last week, will probably be shut down indefinitely, b/c it is of the same model as the Fukushima Daiichi plant reactors. But since a complete reactor shutdown can take years, it is still a danger in potential earthquakes or floods.

---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 PM ----------

NHK interviewed some workers from the Fukushima Daiichi plant anonymously, and they're saying that after the explosions last week, the radiation levels had already risen so high that on workers, 2.15 mSv of radiation dosage had been measured after 15-30 minutes of work.

---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:54 PM ----------

Rain has been forecast and it is raining in many regions of Japan, and hence more radiation will wash down into the soil and contaminate ground water.

---------- Post added at 05:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:56 PM ----------

XKCD, normally a humor site, released a chart comparing various Sv doses (via Slashdot ). Note however, that they sometimes talk about yearly doses. As I pointed out earlier, a year with 365.25 days has 8766 hours.

A comment to that linked to this chart.

---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:38 PM ----------

So, a dose with clear health hazard, for instance, is 100 mSv per year, which is equivalent to 11.4 µSv per hour accumulated over a year.

100 mSv per hour is equivalent to 1.67 mSv per minute, accumulated over an hour.

Near reactor 3 and 4 of Fukushima Daiichi plant, published radiation dosages have ranged between 200 and 400 mSv per hour emitted from the plants.

Since a dosage with certain death is 8 Sv, in a 400 mSv environment, this would be reached after exposure of 20 hours.

400 mSv per hour leads to radiation burns after 1 hour of exposure, or 4 x 15 min., or 10 x 6 minutes of exposure.

When in Tokyo, 30 µSv per hour are being measured, this means a daily dose of 720 µSv, and a weekly dose of 5 mSv.

The spokespeople often say that "there's no immediate health risk", but this means that effects will show later, especially if exposure continues.

As long as the situation doesn't escalate any further.

---------- Post added at 07:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:58 PM ----------

BTW, another published number was 1,000 mSv (=1 Sv) per hour in the vicinity of a reactor. This means that after 8 hours of that, death occurs, after roughly 25 minutes radiation burns, and after 10-15 minutes of exposure a definitive health risk.

I just found documentary Adventure Research: Residual Risk Nuclear Power (German), from March 16, which explains a lot about the catastrophe in Japan, the catastrophe in Chernobyl, nuclear technology in general and alternative technologies with both existing and planned projects. (There's also a schoolteacher-like footnote video that explains a bit of the science behind nuclear technology.)

---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:34 PM ----------

An interesting BBC article about the situation in Japan, in Tokyo and the devastated regions up north that have been affected by the tsunami.

---------- Post added at 09:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------

A CNN page with some interesting videos and information.
 
Updated information from IAEA.

Note that the media are currently prioritizing events in Lybia, so getting up-to-date reports about the tsunami and reactor catastrophes in Japan became difficult. Post links here if you have links with up-to-date information.

---------- Post added at 06:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:57 AM ----------

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) published detailed information about radioactivity level measurements.

---------- Post added at 06:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 AM ----------

NHK also continues to report about the disaster.

---------- Post added at 06:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 AM ----------

The Japanese Red Cross is accepting donations for the victims of the tsunami.

---------- Post added at 06:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:18 AM ----------

Updated report about the nuclear power plant efforts from March 21.
 
Yeah, Brandon, let's hope we'll all be spared from the worst case.

Here's a documentary Great Illusions of the Atomic Age, from Guido Knopp's History series (German; slightly updated for the Fukushima disaster). It goes from the invention of nuclear technology over the Cold War nuclear arms race on both sides of the pond to planned fusion reactors of present day.

Interesting: Although fusion reactors are relatively safe, their walls will be exposed to high levels of radioactivity, so it's not significantly cleaner than present day fission reactors (b/c the walls need to be stored somewhere after use). Dang! Only hours ago I thought that fusion might be a better alternative, but nope! At least, there'll be plans here in Germany to abandon nuclear technology in the foreseeable future, b/c we can do without it (in theory, would be possible as early as 2015 some experts say). Large intercontinental energy networks might also be a possibility.

Anyhow, any nuclear catastrophe in the world can have a large impact on the entire planet ... it's a technology best left unused until we're capable of handling it in a truly safe manner. We're like monkeys playing with explosives.

---------- Post added at 02:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 AM ----------

There's been lots more info on the whole situation from NHK. At 10:30 AM JST, a press conference will be held and broadcast live about the reactor situation.

The smoke that was seen on Monday on reactor 3 was black, so it must've contained carbon in some form. It might have been burning metal of some form (in the worst case it was concrete... caused by a meltdown and the glowing mass would eat its way through the ground; however, the US did some temperature screening of the area, and didn't show any alarm).

BTW, I recently learnt that the Sievert is a pretty imprecise unit of measurement, b/c it contains a (possibly arbitrarily) chosen weighting factor (see article for more info), and the weighting factors used to determine the values have not been specified or published. So the actual radiation could be far higher than people are made to believe.

Tonight I also learnt a bit about how world economy will be affected by the current disaster.

The economy is already suffering some impact here in Germany: Manufacturers that depend on Japanese parts (especially for circuitry, b/c those chips often cannot be exchanged with others, but also parts for cars), and production has been held until Japan can deliver. In the Asian markets, it appears that many countries are also waiting for Japanese production to resume.

Nevertheless, bankers seem to estimate that Japan will be affected only by 1% of its GDP, despite the $300 billion dollar damage, and industry is of course anticipating contracts for reconstruction work.

---------- Post added at 02:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 AM ----------

p.s.: In some charts that were displayed on TV, 1 Sv was set equal to 1 Gy, which would mean a weighting factor of 1, which applies to electrons, for instance, but not to neutrons etc. (which have a weighting factor of 5-20). This could indicate that the effort to compute a weighted sum as the multiplicator was not done (especially when the formula wasn't disclosed). Also it is often unclear which radioactive isotopes are involved. Today, there was a chart of sea water measurements, and for the first time, isotopes were specified (this time with factors of normal radiation instead of doses).
 
In comment #2 to this article (German), there's an alarming news item (loosely translated):

what do you think about the interview that Sebastian Pflugbeil (president of the Society for Radiation Protection) gave this morning in Deutschlandradio that doesn't seem to fit your reassuring article in this here blog? Is this only panic mongering?

Quote:
"Perhaps what's interesting to mention: The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which isn't very well known for exaggerations, published on March 21st that they measured in an area 16 to 58 kilometers away from the power plant, which is relatively far away now, and they have found a ground contamination with beta and gamma rays of 200,000 to 900,000 Becquerel per square meter; That is an order of magnitude, well, just for comparison: In the Chernobyl exclusion zone, so-called hot spots were discovered that had been defined as greater than 555,000 Becquerel. So, we're in the league of Chernobyl, as far as the area around Fukushima is concerned, and it's urgent to ..."
Click to expand...

Well, if this is true, then the Fukushima disaster is already worse than that of Chernobyl, in some aspects, at least.

Today, media also reported that the tap water of all Tokyo is now irradiated with twice the permitted radiation limit, and that it'd be ill-advised to give it to infants. Furthermore, traces of radiation, still well below critical concentration, have been discovered in the air above Europe. Also, radiation limits in the air have been exceeded outside of the 20 km zone around the plant, for the first time. And the "fun" continues ...

---------- Post added 03-24-2011 at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was 03-23-2011 at 11:55 PM ----------

In addition to that ( from this article ), there's been 500 mSv/h measured in block 2 of the reactor, after which repairs had to be suspended, and block 1 had a temperature of 400 °C, and 360 °C after cooling, however the technical design of the reactor is only for 300 °C max.

I still remember that last week, after the explosions in the reactors, experts already suggested that a meltdown or similar situation in all of the blocks 1-4 could've begun.
 
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