Well, we're certainly not going to die There's no nuclear apocalypse now, at least not because of Fukushima. The local area and perhaps a significant part of Japan might be seriously affected though.

Sadly the accident hit the worst possible place - Fukushima is one of the oldest running nuclear power plants in the world. The vessel is still the original one from 1967, a Mark 1 from GE. Not the best case scenario to start off with.

Edit: Aaaand I just heard a reactor has caught fire again, this time spreading radioactive material outside. Great.

Quote from BBC Website :

Officials have warned people within 20-30km of the site to either leave the area or stay indoors.

At least someone is keeping a sense of healthy irony throughout this...

That makes good sense..

While gamma rays will pass through walls etc, radioactive particles in the air will be quite limited compared to outside.

Irony in the sense that, in the area 30km around the plant there ain't a lot of 'indoors' left.

Quote from Sueycide_FD :

I cant believe some of you buying into natural disasters happen because of over population. The shit happens because mother nature is on her period. If you going to go with that opinion then you minds well support the nazi genocide...

I admit to only having quick read this thread but I didn't see anyone post that. I think what was trying to be said was not that over population causes natural disasters but it is over population that causes the death toll to be so high when a natural disaster happens.

There is some scary videos that people have recorded from the airport of from the roof tops of buildings of the tsunami. It is nigh on impossible to imagine what it is like there now. Read the whole thread on driftworks as there are people in Japan, they are having so many quakes and aftershocks all the time.

Thoughts go out to anyone who has been affected by all of this.

Most of the media seem to forgot the minor detail that Fukushima unit3 reactor is running on Mox fuel. Which means it contains Plutonium. And if this core melts its much much worse then Tschernobyl.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28211

Simply containing MOX will not make it worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl's fuel literally exploded in a criticality event, the closest you'll get to a nuclear bomb in a power plant. This spread the entire reactor contents out everywhere.

A meltdown in a reactor containing MOX will, as long as the vessel OR primary containment OR secondary containment (just one) is intact, release basically no radioactive material.
There is practically 0 risk of any Japanese plant going critical. An actual core explosion won't happen.

Quote from RasmusL :

Simply containing MOX will not make it worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl's fuel literally exploded in a criticality event, the closest you'll get to a nuclear bomb in a power plant. This spread the entire reactor contents out everywhere.

A meltdown in a reactor containing MOX will, as long as the vessel OR primary containment OR secondary containment (just one) is intact, release basically no radioactive material.
There is practically 0 risk of any Japanese plant going critical. An actual core explosion won't happen.

Well, it'd better not happen in the next 4 hours and 49 minutes at least.

Quote from RasmusL :

Chernobyl's fuel literally exploded in a criticality event, the closest you'll get to a nuclear bomb in a power plant. This spread the entire reactor contents out everywhere.

What you mean is refered to as the 'dirty bomb'. It has nothing to to with an atomic bomb which is designed to dissipate most of the radioactive material during the nuclear fission to release vast quantities of energy.

You should not expect the best case senario. Of course as long as no radiation is released then Plutonium is not more dangerous then Uranium. But what kind of argument is that?

the worse case scenario has to be reevaluated - again.

the 2nd reactor had an explosion and it is from a counter balancing water tank under the main reactor, I don't know the exactly implications but it seems a even bigger problem than the other two reactors.

Apparently there are also the 5th and 6th reactor also experiencing cooling system failure just as the 1st and 3rd one.......

I can't imagine the situation in the plant now, only 50 engineer is left to deal with the situation with no electricity and minimal communications, they have to manually open the pressure release valves from time to time and are exposed to a notable amount of radiation, I don't know how long can they hold up, mentally and physically, somebody is going to die.

Quote from RasmusL :

Simply containing MOX will not make it worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl's fuel literally exploded in a criticality event, the closest you'll get to a nuclear bomb in a power plant. This spread the entire reactor contents out everywhere.

A meltdown in a reactor containing MOX will, as long as the vessel OR primary containment OR secondary containment (just one) is intact, release basically no radioactive material.
There is practically 0 risk of any Japanese plant going critical. An actual core explosion won't happen.

Also, one of the reasons Tjernobyl was so bad, was because the material around the core catched fire when it exploded, which resultet in the nuclear waste to be spread into the atmosphere. The same won't happend here, since what's sourrounding the core is not in same material (I think).

Well, Chernobyl had no primary containment, just the vessel and secondary containment..

Also I didn't say Chernobyl was like a nuclear bomb. Obviously it wasn't designed to be a bomb, the enrichment is quite low compared to weapons-grade.
The mechanism is the same. Chernobyl achieved prompt criticality, raising the core temperature by thousands of degrees in milliseconds.
Bombs strive to achieve prompt criticality really fast. That's how they explode.

Again, Fukushima will never attain prompt criticality. Worst-case scenario IMO is fire in the spent fuel store. Which is what has now happened TWICE in reactor 4.

Battle of Chernobyl - for those who don't know what realy happend in Chernobyl

Quote from tikshow :

Battle of Chernobyl - for those who don't know what realy happend in Chernobyl

Ooo I've seen that before, interesting viewing

Holy shit, sitting and watching it now, and there is some disturbing stuff.
For example, if there had been an second explosion in Tjernobyl, it would be 10 times the power of Hiroshima, and would whipe out much of Europe.

WTF! O_o

Completely new info to me, better watch on.

Thanks for sharing this.

Quote from The Very End :

And all the naiv people will jump the ban train and everything goes shit ..
Bah.. Sometimes I wish people just could be friends, and that we did not need to hear the damn whine of the politicans all the time

But maybe it's for the better to not have nuclear power plants, they can produce so much harm, but at same time we need them with the current ussage of electricity

Finally somebody decent who thinks of the actual circle we've got here. It's not just simple logics.

Quote from The Very End :

Holy shit, sitting and watching it now, and there is some disturbing stuff.
For example, if there had been an second explosion in Tjernobyl, it would be 10 times the power of Hiroshima, and would whipe out much of Europe.

WTF! O_o

Completely new info to me, better watch on.

Thanks for sharing this.

Please stop writing "Tjernobyl". Its "Chernobyl".

Thanks.

Quote from baSh0r :

Finally somebody decent who thinks of the actual circle we've got here. It's not just simple logics.

True, as I and other wants, there just is no easy sollution for the energy question. At the time we lack power scources that gives as much as nuclear. Hopefully new technology within the next years will be aviable, so we're one day in the future can get ridd of the use of nuclear technology.

Then again, it takes decades to remove what we allready have used, some of it might even never gets removed by the nature itself.

Quote from DevilDare :

Please stop writing "Tjernobyl". Its "Chernobyl".

Thanks.

Sorry
I'll blow you anyday as an excuse for me incompleteness.

Quote from The Very End :

Sorry
I'll blow you anyday as an excuse for me incompleteness.

Well how nice of you.

But I think I'm alright, thanks.

New Satellite pictures. http://www.digitalglobe.com/do ... ichi1_march16_2011_dg.jpg


There are also used rods outside the Containment in fukushima #1,2,3. They are stored between the 4th and 5th floor in holding basins. These rods are most likly exposed, and require cooling for several years before the can be put in e.g. a castor. And according to Japanese news agency Kyodo water in one basin is allready cooking

Some interesting pics from Japan (before and after):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/eve ... uake-2011/beforeafter.htm

Quote from -NightFly- :

Some interesting pics from Japan (before and after):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/eve ... uake-2011/beforeafter.htm

Scary..

Sloshing in Sognefjorden, virtually on the opposite end of the earth. Seismologists assume this is forces from the 9.0 creating some resonance in the fjord.

http://www.vgtv.no/?id=38567

It seems situation is really bad now.. Workers will probably be exposed to deadly radiations if they tend to stop it from becoming even worse.. but how long can they do it like that, there has to be some better way to all this.

Quote from -NightFly- :

Some interesting pics from Japan (before and after):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/eve ... uake-2011/beforeafter.htm

Hey, at least it built them a new railway at the airport