Earthquake off Japan

[His Divine Shadow]

NHK is also reporting they are adding boric acid to the water going over the reactor to slow neutrons as well - I presume that is to really make sure things remain under control. Although other sources mention "borax" or "boron" so I'm not sure which are mangled up translations or misunderstandings on the part of reporters.

Slowing the neutrons doesn't sound good from my understanding of a reactor. I mean slowing neutrons, thats what a moderator does in order to get the fuel rods to achieve fission. So they're trying to make the sea water into an even better moderator, leading to the fission reaction speeding up?

EDIT: Ah a quick googling shows that boric acid absorbs neutrons, not slowing them. So it'll reduce the rate of fission then.

[Sea Skimmer]

Eh, it was not really any different than a boiler explosion. It ultimately wasn't a chemical reaction, just a pressure difference, and thus my use of the term. That it was still violent is indubitable.

Did you watch that video at all? You can clearly see fire and smoke from a combustion based explosion at the end as the steam blows away. Clearly a lot of steam was inside the plant already but something did burn and explode. Plus you know, I think the Japanese are smart enough to have started a mass release of steam before the pressure got that high, its not like everyone at the plant was killed.

[Geodd]

I really doubt it's 1015 millisieverts/hour, that's shit-your-pants, Chernobyl firefighters numbers that you just wouldn't see without significant damage to the reactor core.

[FSTargetDrone]

Japan Today story about the second incident:

Emergency at second nuclear reactor in Fukushima reported
Sunday 13th March, 06:15 AM JST

TOKYO —
Japan’s nuclear safety agency is reporting an emergency at a second reactor in the same complex where an explosion had occurred earlier.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said early Sunday that the cooling system malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The agency said it was informed of the emergency by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the utility which runs the plant.

No further details of the troubles at Unit 3 were immediately available.

Meanwhile, authorities have confirmed there was an explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant Saturday afternoon but said it did not occur at its troubled No. 1 reactor, brushing off concerns that the quake-triggered problem could develop into a catastrophe.

Chief Cabinet secretary Yukio Edano told an urgent press conference that the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, has confirmed there is no damage to the steel container housing the reactor, although the 3:36 p.m. explosion resulted in the roof and the walls of the building housing the reactor’s container being blown away.

The top government spokesman said TEPCO has begun new cooling operations to fill the reactor with sea water and pour in boric acid to prevent an occurrence of criticality, noting it may take several hours to inject water into the reactor.

In addition, it will take about 10 days to fill the container with sea water, he said. There is a great possibility that the reactor will be decommissioned as the injection of sea water containing salt and impure substances will make it difficult to operate it safely again, experts say.

TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants have lost their cooling functions after the area was jolted by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake Friday.

Due to failure to cool down the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, radioactive cesium and iodine were detected near the facility Saturday.

The detection of the materials, which are created following atomic fission, led Japan’s nuclear safety agency to admit the reactor had partially melted—the first such case in Japan.

Following the blast that occurred as vapor from the container of the No. 1 reactor turned into hydrogen and mixed with outside oxygen, Edano said the authorities expanded from 10 kilometers to 20 km the radius of the area to be evacuated by residents living in the vicinity of the Fukushima plants as a precaution.

Three people had their clothes contaminated with radioactive substances while fleeing from the No. 1 nuclear plant Saturday afternoon, according to the Fukushima prefectural government.

The nuclear safety agency said no decontamination work is needed for them, but asked the Self-Defense Forces to check whether 87 others who were vacating the area with the three have been exposed to radiation.

Officials of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said new cooling operations have so far been proceeding smoothly, and the melting of the core has not been aggravated.

The melting temperature for pellets containing cesium, a nuclear fissile material, is around 2,800 degrees Celsius and the release of celsium indicates that the reactor has heated up significantly.

A partial core meltdown occurred in a major nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979. About 45 percent of nuclear fuels melted in the incident, causing radioactive materials to be released.

The Fukushima prefectural government said the hourly radiation from the No. 1 plant reached 1,015 micro sievert before the explosion, an amount equivalent to that permissible for a person in one year.

Four workers—two from the company and two others from another firm—were injured in the explosion, TEPCO said. The four were working to deal with problems caused by the powerful quake, but their injuries are not life-threatening and they are conscious, it added.

TEPCO also reported the detection of high radiation levels to the state as required by a domestic law.

The nuclear agency officials said the severity of the radioactive leak this time is around the same level as a 1999 accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant run by JCO Co. in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, in which a nuclear fission chain reaction could not be contained for nearly a full day.

The two incidents are less severe than the accidents at atomic power reactors in Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in 1986 and on Three Mile Island, they said.

Before the explosion, TEPCO successfully released pressure in the container of the No. 1 reactor to prevent a nuclear meltdown.

The depressurizing work involved the release of steam that includes radioactive materials. It is aimed at preventing the reactor containers from sustaining damage and losing their critical containment function. The government issued an unprecedented order for this to be carried out at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants.

The nuclear agency said as a result of reducing the container’s pressure at the No. 1 plant, radioactive levels at the plant briefly went up.

It denied that the radiation amount will pose an immediate threat to the health of nearby residents, as the wind was blowing toward the sea in the Pacific coast town in northeastern Japan.

[Broomstick]

I really doubt it's 1015 millisieverts/hour, that's shit-your-pants, Chernobyl firefighters numbers that you just wouldn't see without significant damage to the reactor core.

Actually... Chernobyl was worse, in large part because it went on for days before they got it under control. Chernobyl also spewed reactor core pieces all over the neighborhood, in this case the radiation source is still very localized. I'm sure the peak reading at the Fukushima plant was a factor in the seawater dump into the reactor, but it was a peak reading - it wasn't that high before, nor as high after. Unlike Chernobyl, which required days of firefighting, this one was put down pretty much as soon as they went to seawater cooling.

But yes, you are correct - those are serious readings which, no doubt, is a reason for the current expansion of the evacuation to 20 km around the plant. With prompt and proper action no one is likely to die from a brief exposure to such levels, but neglect of the situation could be tragic.

It is also pretty certain there WAS damage to the Fukushima #1 reactor core with even the limited data available at present indicating core temperatures in excess of 2,000 C. At least a partial meltdown did occur according to official statement by the Japanese government. Well, that also happened at TMI, a partial meltdown. The thing is, both Fukushima and TMI are very different reactors than Chernobyl was, and the Fukushima and TMI varieties are not as prone to blowing radioactive graphite through the roof when the cooling system breaks down.

I think we also need to keep in mind that the situation in Japan is still quite chaotic. We don't know exactly what's going on there, what prior and subsequent radiation readings were, or a great deal of other information that would be relevant to the situation. We're dealing with limited information filtered in many cases through the media.

Perhaps, with other reactors in Japan also having difficulties, they might be more inclined to use the seawater dump sooner if other reactors show similar signs of impending meltdown. Yes, it trashes the power plant, but at this point preserving human health and reassuring the public might be worth a couple more power plants if it gives the population confidence that even in extreme circumstances nuclear power can be managed. For darn sure, after this week Japan will become the world authority on dealing with earthquake and tsunami damaged nuclear power plants. The experience will have been costly, but going forward having the knowledge may save other lives in the future.

[Terralthra]

The seawater/boric acid mix is essentially poisoning the reactor. The seawater will cool and submerge the reactor core, while the salt and boric acid absorb neutrons that the seawater might otherwise slow, preventing any criticality excursion. Even if the damage from the early overheating is reparable, it is doubtful that the poisoning can be undone. This is an admission that the reactor is too risky to salvage.

Also, Broomstick, a light-water reactor has control rods, not cooling rods. The control rods have neutron absorbing material in them to control the neutron flux inside a reactor. When an emergency shutdown is initiated (a SCRAM), the rods (suspended above the reactor, spring-loaded to be fully engaged, and held out of the reactor by an electric motor so as to be fail-safe even in the event of complete electrical failure) are fully inserted, killing the neutron flux completely.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Eh, it was not really any different than a boiler explosion. It ultimately wasn't a chemical reaction, just a pressure difference, and thus my use of the term. That it was still violent is indubitable.

Did you watch that video at all? You can clearly see fire and smoke from a combustion based explosion at the end as the steam blows away. Clearly a lot of steam was inside the plant already but something did burn and explode. Plus you know, I think the Japanese are smart enough to have started a mass release of steam before the pressure got that high, its not like everyone at the plant was killed.

No, I was going off the various official reports. If that's the case then there may have been a sympathetic detonation or some kind of unrelated explosion from the turbines.

[cosmicalstorm]

Video Shows Tsunami Hitting City of Kamaishi
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ddf_1299959424

[Broomstick]

Also, Broomstick, a light-water reactor has control rods, not cooling rods. The control rods have neutron absorbing material in them to control the neutron flux inside a reactor. When an emergency shutdown is initiated (a SCRAM), the rods (suspended above the reactor, spring-loaded to be fully engaged, and held out of the reactor by an electric motor so as to be fail-safe even in the event of complete electrical failure) are fully inserted, killing the neutron flux completely.

According to the diagrams of the reactor I've seen, including those on NHK, the control rods are underneath the reactor core. If that is the case, I hope it's either an error or an outmoded design as what you described sounds much more sensible.

[Terralthra]

Also, Broomstick, a light-water reactor has control rods, not cooling rods. The control rods have neutron absorbing material in them to control the neutron flux inside a reactor. When an emergency shutdown is initiated (a SCRAM), the rods (suspended above the reactor, spring-loaded to be fully engaged, and held out of the reactor by an electric motor so as to be fail-safe even in the event of complete electrical failure) are fully inserted, killing the neutron flux completely.

According to the diagrams of the reactor I've seen, including those on NHK, the control rods are underneath the reactor core. If that is the case, I hope it's either an error or an outmoded design as what you described sounds much more sensible.

Outmoded design. BWRs are an older design than PWRs, and necessitate a steam dryer above the reactor (since the water boils inside the core). Since the dryer must be above, the control rods have to be inserted from below. When SCRAMed, a high-pressure hydraulic system shoves the rods into the core and locks them in place.

In a PWR, the primary loop is kept under much higher pressure, forcing the water to remain liquid at all times. No steam, no steam dryer, no reason not to have a gravity-assisted SCRAM.

[Broomstick]

Pulling away from malfunctioning nuclear reactors, this is a link to an interactive map at the New York Times which may be helpful for those unclear on Japanese geography.

I think one of the most heart-rending scenes I've seen was a city - I don't know which one, the narration on the video I saw was in Japanese - where many residents had made it to higher ground, then turned around and watched the water flood and crush their homes. It was such a horrible wail that went up from them, the children screaming and crying, the adults trying to comfort and reassure the children even as they themselves were clearly terrified. You just know that not everyone made it up to that hill and safety, and the people watching the water roll in knew it, too, of course. I don't know who among them had the camera that recorded it all, but it brought it down to a personal level with the people so close to the camera.

Then you realize that this is just one small spot, and this same sort of scene was repeated up and down that coastline...

[Sea Skimmer]

No, I was going off the various official reports. If that's the case then there may have been a sympathetic detonation or some kind of unrelated explosion from the turbines.

The turbines are in the turbine hall in a nuclear plant, not inside the primary containment structure, and in any case were not in operation or else they wouldn't have been in such a crisis.

The containment structure was blown up by a conventional explosion, it could not be anything else given the flames being the first thing to burst out. That almost certainly means hydrogen, the only other possible sources would be paint vapor or lube oil vapor neither of which is very plausible as the cause fuel air explosive inside a structure that big filled with a cloud of steam. I suspect while open air venting steam they steadily lowered the inert atmosphere content in the reactor until it auto ignited. This is really not surprising at all, such explosions have occurred before and have been a serious risk at every one of the major nuclear reactor incidents, Three Mile Island, Windscale ect.

In other news Reactor No.3 at the same plant is now blowing radioactive steam in the air and supposedly is actually creating worse contamination then reactor No.1 is. But this is the Japanese government speaking and I wouldn't trust them at all right now.

[FSTargetDrone]

Apologies if this information has been mentioned elsewhere, but in any case...

The quake shifted the island of Honshu about 8 feet and wobbled the planet's axis enough to affect rotation:

Earth’s axis wobbles, your day’s shorter

Subodh Varma, TNN | Mar 13, 2011, 01.21am IST

The earthquake-cum-tsunami packed such fury that it has moved Japan's main island, Honshu, by about 8 feet. It's also caused the Earth's axis to wobble by about 4 inches – something that experts say will lead to the shortening of the day by 1.6 microseconds, or just over a millionth of a second.

These very tiny changes happen because of changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth as surface mass gets shifted around in earthquakes, says Patrick Dasgupta, professor of astrophysics in Delhi University.

As portions of the Earth's surface shift, there is a bit of an extra wobble in the planet's rotation around its axis. This causes an increase in the speed of spinning, resulting in shortening of the day, said Dasgupta. This, however, will have no impact on life on Earth, he added.

The 2004 Asian tsunami had clipped the Earth's day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 3 inches. The Chilean quake of 2010 too shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds and changed the axis by 3 inches.

The shifting of islands was observed in the 2004 tsunami too. The southern Nicobar group of islands saw permanent subsidence of about 15 feet while the northern Andaman Islands rose by up to five feet.

After the 2004 quake which caused the Asian tsunami, some of the smaller islands off the coast of Sumatra moved by as much as 20 metres and its north-western tip shifted to the southwest by 36 metres. That temblor was considered more powerful than the recent Japanese one, measuring 9.1 in magnitude.

The Japanese quake caused a 400-km-long and 160-km-wide rupture in the Earth's crust as one tectonic plate dove under another off the coast of northern Japan. This led to an upheaval in the sea above it sending a 30-foot wall of water racing up to 10km inland in Japan and reaching California across the Pacific Ocean 10 hours later. Several small island states in the Pacific experienced 2-3 feet high waves, which were ripples of the Japanese tsunami as it went bouncing across the ocean.

Not a unique occurrence, but still fascinating.

[Todeswind]

On a related note, fuck you Microsoft this is a human tragedy not a marketing opportunity.

http://gawker.com/#!5781347/bings-taste ... tters-rage

A social media genius at Bing decided the tsunami was a good way to boost their brand recognition on Twitter. This morning Bing tweeted: "How you can #SupportJapan -For every retweet, bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K."

Not how it works, Microsoft: You do something good, then you get good publicity from it. At least pretend to give a shit about the human suffering in Japan irrespective of the chance it gives you to promote your search engine.

Some Twitter users have played along. But many have reacted with admirable scorn. Comedian Michael Ian Black may have launched the #fuckyoubing movement when he tweeted: "Fuck you, @bing. For every RT, I'll donate one inch of my dick up to 100k inches. #fuckyoubing."

Our other favorites:

Peter Byrnes: "To be fair, @bing is seeing the Japan quake as a branding opportunity because they're both considered horrible disasters. #fuckyoubing."

Freneticfloetry: "For every RT, @bing will Google the meaning of "donation." #fuckyoubing."

convexmirror: "Hey, remember how Google set up a people finder to help Japanese find loved ones and didn't brag about it? #fuckyoubing"

You'd think social media consultants would have realized not to blatantly capitalize on serious current events after Kenneth Cole's Egypt fiasco. If you'd like to support survivors of the Japanese earthquake, we'd recommend donating directly to Mercy Corps—in honor of Google.

Update: Bing has apologized: "We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K."

[JME2]

Update: Bing has apologized: "We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K."

Good for you, assholes.

[MKSheppard]

Boom.

[hongi]

We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived.

Lol. They're saying we're at fault for negatively perceiving their dumbass move.

[Magis]

Outmoded design. BWRs are an older design than PWR.

Given that historically PWRs predate BWRs by three years, and given that they've both been built concurrently for nearly 60 years, I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Even the newest BWRs (such as the GE ESBWR) insert control rods from underneath.

There seems to be some confusion here regarding the nature of the explosion. It was almost certainly a hydrogen explosion, which is not unexpected given the steam venting that was occurring. In-core hydrogen accumulation is a well known phenomena when subjected to the kind of temperatures that were being achieved by the fuel sheath, which in all probability was composed of Zircaloy-2. What's important here is that according to the latest reports, the containment structure is still intact and in my opinion is unlikely to suffer any significant damage through the remainder of the event. The melting of the fuel, while important from a regulatory perspective, is not particularly relevant to public safety assuming a functioning containment structure.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If it melts throught he bottom of the containment unit, isn't it gonna just go until it hits groundwater and vaporizes in a BIG radioactive steam explosion?

[erik_t]

My somewhat limited understanding is that the available heat is unlikely to be sufficient for that to be a relevant failure mode.

[Sea Skimmer]

If it melts throught he bottom of the containment unit, isn't it gonna just go until it hits groundwater and vaporizes in a BIG radioactive steam explosion?

It would take a very serious meltdown to get past the floor and foundation of the plant; remember that stuff has to be thick as hell just to hold the place together in an earthquake. If it got past the floor in strength then melting through another 20-40ft of earth is feasible, which will hit the groundwater most places, but the stuff would not melt through arbitrary levels of dirt to reach water. One the fuel melts it only has finite heat to work with before it cools off too much to destroy stuff like that. It doesn’t keep generating a super high level of heat. Furthermore hitting water will not automatically cause a steam explosion because groundwater can only leak into the hole burned by the MOX fuel so quickly. Its more likely to be a jet of steam then an explosion in most situations. With a situation like this when the reactor has already been shutdown for hours its very unlikely to get past the concrete.

[Terralthra]

Outmoded design. BWRs are an older design than PWR.

Given that historically PWRs predate BWRs by three years, and given that they've both been built concurrently for nearly 60 years, I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Even the newest BWRs (such as the GE ESBWR) insert control rods from underneath.

You are correct, I had the timing of their development off. Mea culpa.

[Spyder]

Various businesses down here have been pulling similar stunts with the Christchurch earthquake. Using loss of life to promote your brand is always extremely poor taste.

On another note:
Facebook idiots having trouble letting go of Pearl Harbor.

This kind of shit stopped surprising me a long time ago, but somehow people find new ways to disappoint.

[Thanas]

"Those damm Krauts deserve to be hit by a Tusami-earhtquake for nuking Pearl harbor"

[Skgoa]

A couple of satelite images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlr_de/5520725980/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlr_de/5520133933/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... p?id=49630