Tsunami?

[the dude]

This is incredible.....

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

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

Now I know that thousands of people are dead, scores more missing, and that this is a horrible tragedy...however, this image cracks me up....

[Tex]

I still cant put url's up on this site...I'm a dumb@ss but this link has footage of the wave itself. Have to admit I imagined carving some huge fast turns on that face.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... shore.html

[the dude]

...what a right AND left! a little mushy, though

.
Heres an interesting take on the situation Also at the bottom is a compilation video of the tsunami. About minute 4:11 gives you a glimpse of an initial hit at one beach.

"The USS Ronald Reagan said it detected and was exposed to radiation 100 miles off the coast of the Fukushima Reactor Emergency. However the government said the crew was only exposed to a months worth of sunlight in radiation. This is the common way the US government lies to people about exposure. Basically it down plays the effects by using extended time constants. Here is the actual comparison The sun over a period of a year of direct sunlight puts out 1,000,000 mR a year. Divided by 12 thats 83,000 mR the USS Ronald Reagan was detecting. 83,000 mR = 83 REM of radiation. A typical exposure of normal background radiation for a human is 200 mR per year. When something is wrong the government throws the time excuse in like sunlight over a period of a month. Concentrate a months worth of sunlight on your arm for a few hours and it will burn a hole. Now 1 REM = 1 RAD of Radiation, the crew was exposed to 84 REM or 84 RAD of radiation.

As you can see from the chart below 84 REMS is not as sweet sounding as a month of sunshine.

30 to 70 R From 6-12 hours: none to slight incidence of transient headache and nausea;
vomiting in up to 5 percent of personnel in upper part of dose range. Mild
lymphocyte depression within 24 hours. Full recovery expected.

70 to 150 R From 2-20 hours: transient mild nausea and vomiting in 5 to 30 percent of
personnel. Potential for delayed traumatic and surgical wound healing,
minimal clinical effect. Moderate drop in lymphocycte, platelet, and
granulocyte counts. Increased susceptibility to opportunistic pathogens.
Full recovery expected.

150 to 300 R From 2 hours to three days: transient to moderate nausea and vomiting in
20 to 70 percent; mild to moderate fatigability and weakness in 25 to 60
percent of personnel. At 3 to 5 weeks: medical care required for 10 to 50%.
At high end of range, death may occur to maximum 10%. Anticipated medical
problems include infection, bleeding, and fever. Wounding or burns will
geometrically increase morbidity and mortality.

300 to 530 R From 2 hours to three days: transient to moderate nausea and vomiting in 50
to 90 percent; mild to moderate fatigability in 50 to 90 percent of personnel.
At 2 to 5 weeks: medical care required for 10 to 80%. At low end of range,
less than 10% deaths; at high end, death may occur for more than 50%.
Anticipated medical problems include frequent diarrheal stools, anorexia,
increased fluid loss, ulceration. Increased infection susceptibility during
immunocompromised time-frame. Moderate to severe loss of lymphocytes.
Hair loss after 14 days.

530 to 830 R From 2 hours to two days: moderate to severe nausea and vomiting in 80 to
100 percent of personnel; From 2 hours to six weeks: moderate to severe
fatigability and weakness in 90 to 100 percent of personnel. At 10 days to
5 weeks: medical care required for 50 to 100%. At low end of range, death
may occur for more than 50% at six weeks. At high end, death may occur
for 99% of personnel. Anticipated medical problems include developing
pathogenic and opportunistic infections, bleeding, fever, loss of appetite,
GI ulcerations, bloody diarrhea, severe fluid and electrolyte shifts, capillary
leak, hypotension. Combined with any significant physical trauma, survival
rates will approach zero.

830 R Plus From 30 minutes to 2 days: severe nausea, vomiting, fatigability, weakness,
dizziness, and disorientation; moderate to severe fluid imbalance and headache.
Bone marrow total depletion within days. CNS symptoms are predominant at
higher radiation levels. Few, if any, survivors even with aggressive and
immediate medical attention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAE7GLE_cOc&feature=player_embedded

[Quad Head]

[the dude]

Ah, nice Quad Head. That looks comforting . Looks like that puts us in the:

530 to 830 R From 2 hours to two days: moderate to severe nausea and vomiting in 80 to
100 percent of personnel; From 2 hours to six weeks: moderate to severe
fatigability and weakness in 90 to 100 percent of personnel. At 10 days to
5 weeks: medical care required for 50 to 100%. At low end of range, death
may occur for more than 50% at six weeks. At high end, death may occur
for 99% of personnel. Anticipated medical problems include developing
pathogenic and opportunistic infections, bleeding, fever, loss of appetite,
GI ulcerations, bloody diarrhea, severe fluid and electrolyte shifts, capillary
leak, hypotension. Combined with any significant physical trauma, survival
rates will approach zero.

Hopefully experts are correct in saying that the atmosphere would diffuse radiation amounts from a minimal to infinitesimal level.

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

Ah yes...we are now at that stage...now is the time for misinformation, hyperbole, and the general assesment that if it is written in a blog or elsewhere on the internet...it must be true....

[the dude]

we've been at that stage for a looooong time.

[the dude]

this is interesting:

What happened at Fukushima (as of March 12, 2011)

The following is a summary of the main facts. The earthquake that hit Japan was several times more powerful than the worst earthquake the nuclear power plant was built for (the Richter scale works logarithmically; for example the difference between an 8.2 and the 8.9 that happened is 5 times, not 0.7).

When the earthquake hit, the nuclear reactors all automatically shutdown. Within seconds after the earthquake started, the control rods had been inserted into the core and the nuclear chain reaction stopped. At this point, the cooling system has to carry away the residual heat, about 7% of the full power heat load under normal operating conditions.

The earthquake destroyed the external power supply of the nuclear reactor. This is a challenging accident for a nuclear power plant, and is referred to as a “loss of offsite power.” The reactor and its backup systems are designed to handle this type of accident by including backup power systems to keep the coolant pumps working. Furthermore, since the power plant had been shut down, it cannot produce any electricity by itself.

For the first hour, the first set of multiple emergency diesel power generators started and provided the electricity that was needed. However, when the tsunami arrived (a very rare and larger than anticipated tsunami) it flooded the diesel generators, causing them to fail.

One of the fundamental tenets of nuclear power plant design is “Defense in Depth.” This approach leads engineers to design a plant that can withstand severe catastrophes, even when several systems fail. A large tsunami that disables all the diesel generators at once is such a scenario, but the tsunami of March 11th was beyond all expectations. To mitigate such an event, engineers designed an extra line of defense by putting everything into the containment structure (see above), that is designed to contain everything inside the structure.

When the diesel generators failed after the tsunami, the reactor operators switched to emergency battery power. The batteries were designed as one of the backup systems to provide power for cooling the core for 8 hours. And they did.

After 8 hours, the batteries ran out, and the residual heat could not be carried away any more. At this point the plant operators begin to follow emergency procedures that are in place for a “loss of cooling event.” These are procedural steps following the “Depth in Defense” approach. All of this, however shocking it seems to us, is part of the day-to-day training you go through as an operator.

At this time people started talking about the possibility of core meltdown, because if cooling cannot be restored, the core will eventually melt (after several days), and will likely be contained in the containment. Note that the term “meltdown” has a vague definition. “Fuel failure” is a better term to describe the failure of the fuel rod barrier (Zircaloy). This will occur before the fuel melts, and results from mechanical, chemical, or thermal failures (too much pressure, too much oxidation, or too hot).

However, melting was a long ways from happening and at this time, the primary goal was to manage the core while it was heating up, while ensuring that the fuel cladding remain intact and operational for as long as possible.

Because cooling the core is a priority, the reactor has a number of independent and diverse cooling systems (the reactor water cleanup system, the decay heat removal, the reactor core isolating cooling, the standby liquid cooling system, and others that make up the emergency core cooling system). Which one(s) failed when or did not fail is not clear at this point in time.

Since the operators lost most of their cooling capabilities due to the loss of power, they had to use whatever cooling system capacity they had to get rid of as much heat as possible. But as long as the heat production exceeds the heat removal capacity, the pressure starts increasing as more water boils into steam. The priority now is to maintain the integrity of the fuel rods by keeping the temperature below 1200°C, as well as keeping the pressure at a manageable level. In order to maintain the pressure of the system at a manageable level, steam (and other gases present in the reactor) have to be released from time to time. This process is important during an accident so the pressure does not exceed what the components can handle, so the reactor pressure vessel and the containment structure are designed with several pressure relief valves. So to protect the integrity of the vessel and containment, the operators started venting steam from time to time to control the pressure.

As mentioned previously, steam and other gases are vented. Some of these gases are radioactive fission products, but they exist in small quantities. Therefore, when the operators started venting the system, some radioactive gases were released to the environment in a controlled manner (ie in small quantities through filters and scrubbers). While some of these gases are radioactive, they did not pose a significant risk to public safety to even the workers on site. This procedure is justified as its consequences are very low, especially when compared to the potential consequences of not venting and risking the containment structures’ integrity.

During this time, mobile generators were transported to the site and some power was restored. However, more water was boiling off and being vented than was being added to the reactor, thus decreasing the cooling ability of the remaining cooling systems. At some stage during this venting process, the water level may have dropped below the top of the fuel rods. Regardless, the temperature of some of the fuel rod cladding exceeded 1200 °C, initiating a reaction between the Zircaloy and water. This oxidizing reaction produces hydrogen gas, which mixes with the gas-steam mixture being vented. This is a known and anticipated process, but the amount of hydrogen gas produced was unknown because the operators didn’t know the exact temperature of the fuel rods or the water level. Since hydrogen gas is extremely combustible, when enough hydrogen gas is mixed with air, it reacts with oxygen. If there is enough hydrogen gas, it will react rapidly, producing an explosion. At some point during the venting process enough hydrogen gas built up inside the containment (there is no air in the containment), so when it was vented to the air an explosion occurred. The explosion took place outside of the containment, but inside and around the reactor building (which has no safety function). Note that a subsequent and similar explosion occurred at the Unit 3 reactor. This explosion destroyed the top and some of the sides of the reactor building, but did not damage the containment structure or the pressure vessel. While this was not an anticipated event, it happened outside the containment and did not pose a risk to the plant’s safety structures.

Since some of the fuel rod cladding exceeded 1200 °C, some fuel damage occurred. The nuclear material itself was still intact, but the surrounding Zircaloy shell had started failing. At this time, some of the radioactive fission products (cesium, iodine, etc.) started to mix with the water and steam. It was reported that a small amount of cesium and iodine was measured in the steam that was released into the atmosphere.

Since the reactor’s cooling capability was limited, and the water inventory in the reactor was decreasing, engineers decided to inject sea water (mixed with boric acid – a neutron absorber) to ensure the rods remain covered with water. Although the reactor had been shut down, boric acid is added as a conservative measure to ensure the reactor stays shut down. Boric acid is also capable of trapping some of the remaining iodine in the water so that it cannot escape, however this trapping is not the primary function of the boric acid.

The water used in the cooling system is purified, demineralized water. The reason to use pure water is to limit the corrosion potential of the coolant water during normal operation. Injecting seawater will require more cleanup after the event, but provided cooling at the time.

This process decreased the temperature of the fuel rods to a non-damaging level. Because the reactor had been shut down a long time ago, the decay heat had decreased to a significantly lower level, so the pressure in the plant stabilized, and venting was no longer required.

***UPDATE – 3/14 8:15 pm EST***

Units 1 and 3 are currently in a stable condition according to TEPCO press releases, but the extent of the fuel damage is unknown. That said, radiation levels at the Fukushima plant have fallen to 231 micro sieverts (23.1 millirem) as of 2:30 pm March 14th (local time).

***UPDATE – 3/14 10:55 pm EST***

The details about what happened at the Unit 2 reactor are still being determined. The post on what is happening at the Unit 2 reactor contains more up-to-date information. Radiation levels have increased, but to what level remains unknown.

[Betty]

My immediate concern was and remains to be all the little children orphaned or seperated from parents.

http://www.savethechildren.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=8rKLIXMGIpI4E&b=6478593&ct=9170883&notoc=1

My company has been involved with this organization for a while and have seen great things come from them. Just wanted to give them a plug. I think it's a great place to put your donations.

[the dude]

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/ten-days-after-earthquake-japanese-surfers-are-still-reeling_53579/

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

Fake....



This is not from Japan...that's Smithers in his front yard after a Pikey bender....

[erzats]

Also fake.

[Betty]

Duh Wilbur, everyone knows Smidgey drives a red convertible VW Bug.