CNN An 8.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Japan

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is this melts down through the containment building foundation, it will be magnitudes worse than Chernobyl

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is this melts down through the containment building foundation, it will be magnitudes worse than Chernobyl

Hardly.  If that happens it'll be worse than TMI and a lot worse than I thought it would be from the original reports, but it still won't be anywhere near as bad Chernobyl was.

how so? Did Chernobyl melt through the bottom of the containment building?  I don't think it did, rather I think there was an explosion that penetrated the top of the reactor.  That's why they were able to pour cement on top of it.

But if a reactor melts down through the bottom and penetrates the base of the containment building, it is hot enough to burn through solid rock all the way down to the water table, which then creates a radioactive steam cloud until enough radioactive material has been belched off into the air that it starts to cool.  Once it breaches the bottom of containment building, it can no longer be contained no matter how much cement you put on top of the building.  If such an event were to occur in Japan, much of the Western states of the  US would have to be evacuated, because the jet stream runs from Japan to the West Coast.

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Also, if I were the Japanese I'd just start dumping seawater and boron into all of the cores now, there's no point in risking more failures.

sea water is the last resort because any reactor having sea water dumped into it will never be started up again.

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Beet, they are already saying no risk in the US:  http://www.komonews.com/news/local/117860469.html

but that's no risk based on what has happened so far, not what could happen.  I wouldn't discount the map beet posted

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Also, if I were the Japanese I'd just start dumping seawater and boron into all of the cores now, there's no point in risking more failures.

sea water is the last resort because any reactor having sea water dumped into it will never be started up again.

A small price to pay for the reactors that are in emergency mode right now, wouldn't you think?

you're assuming sea water is the most effective way, it may actually not be as efficient but simply the last resort if the other more efficient ways become inoperable

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Beet, they are already saying no risk in the US:  http://www.komonews.com/news/local/117860469.html

but that's no risk based on what has happened so far, not what could happen.  I wouldn't discount the map beet posted

You should.

discount it based on what, exactly, shua's blog link?  I used to write software for nuclear plants back in 94-95, and it was my understanding that a meltdown through the containment floor would send lethal doses of radiation 1000's of miles away.  I'm not sure the radiation levels of the map are correct, but the west coast would have to be evacuated

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Beet, they are already saying no risk in the US:  http://www.komonews.com/news/local/117860469.html

but that's no risk based on what has happened so far, not what could happen.  I wouldn't discount the map beet posted

You should.

discount it based on what, exactly, shua's blog link?  I used to write software for nuclear plants back in 94-95, and it was my understanding that a meltdown through the containment floor would send lethal doses of radiation 1000's of miles away.  I'm not sure the radiation levels of the map are correct, but the west coast would have to be evacuated

Why would an underground steam explosion send more radioactive material (thousands of times more, according to you) in the air than an open reactor fire? Could you give some source to confirm these rather outlandish claim?

The Russia explosion only spread 3% of the nuke fissionable material and the available byproducts into the environment.   Explosions aren’t very efficient of spreading nuclear material because youre basically blowing the reactor apart and stopping the fission process.

A meltdown through the containment floor, on the other hand, is a continuation of an uncontrolled fission process, WITH ALL ITS NASTY BYPRODUCTS.  Once it hits the water table, the steam will provide a path to the surface and the atmosphere.   

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Alarmist much Beet and jmfsct?

I'm simply relaying my training when I worked in nuke power plants in '94-95...which is probably more training than sum total of the rest of you yahoos, aside from muon.

the only action I have taken is to inform my wife back in Houston to keep the Excursion's fuel tank at least 3/4 full for the next week until this plays out

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Alarmist much Beet and jmfsct?

I'm simply relaying my training when I worked in nuke power plants in '94-95...which is probably more training than sum total of the rest of you yahoos, aside from muon.

the only action I have taken is to inform my wife back in Houston to keep the Excursion's fuel tank at least 3/4 full for the next week until this plays out

You would be better received if you actually gave some confirmation this supposed effects of a meltdown. I'm sorry, but your claims simply do not seem plausible

First, let it be noted that earlier in this thread I made no claim to the resulting radiation levels in the US.  Rather I simply said at least portions of the West Coast would have to evacuate in a worst case scenario.

If you listen closely, you can hear the officials allude to the possibility:  “at this time there is no threat to the US, but we are monitoring the situation carefully”…”there is no threat, right now, of this getting into the jet stream”.

The capability of the jet stream over Japan to carry things over the western US has been know from decades, for it is what Japan used to send balloon bombs to the US during WWII.

 But I am still a HUGE proponent of nuclear power.  The plant in question is old and the newer designs would not have had this problem.

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Alarmist much Beet and jmfsct?

I'm simply relaying my training when I worked in nuke power plants in '94-95...which is probably more training than sum total of the rest of you yahoos, aside from muon.

the only action I have taken is to inform my wife back in Houston to keep the Excursion's fuel tank at least 3/4 full for the next week until this plays out

You would be better received if you actually gave some confirmation this supposed effects of a meltdown. I'm sorry, but your claims simply do not seem plausible

 But I am still a HUGE proponent of nuclear power.  The plant in question is old and the newer designs would not have had this problem.

Could you explain why?

they have differrent cooling designs and requirements

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Japan, March 2011:  earthquake...tsunami...multiple nuclear meltdowns...volcano...

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So, Tepco is really good at covering up the "accident" (everything's under control) ...

yo, you do realize that is a cooling tower in your sig, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with nuclear power generation?

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No idea, none of the so-called experts on TV even here have been really explaning what a worst-case scenario would look like in detail. They have all been dancing around it.

they've been dancing around it since Friday.

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you couldn't transport enough liquid he or n in time. basically, it needed vast amount of liquid coolant continuously flowing through it.  since they were down to one pump, they've simply been switching back and forth between the 3 reactors to try to end up with a partial meltdown of all three instead of a full meltdown of one or more.

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There is with a breached containment unit.  If there is a meltdown, the temperature will start dropping as the core is exposed to the atmosphere, it the reaction stops.

wouldn't a blob of melted fuel rods be of higher overall fuel density than fuel rods separate by control rods?   i.e. if enough fuel melts into a blob, there is nothing to stop the reaction, and even if you pour liquid n2 over it to freeze the blob, it will simply reheat and remelt due to it's internal continuous fission reaction....at that point, the only way to stop it is to dissipate it (spread it out)....in other words, heat is only a issue in keeping the rods from melting away from the control rods and forming a puddle absent of control rod "control". 

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Maybe not.  That configuration will change and will no longer be optimatal.  It will also be mixed with impurities from melting.

i can 100% assure you that, by design, the fuel has the lowest melting point of anything within the reactor, including the reactor walls.  

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The winds are blowing WSW inland/towards Tokyo for the next 2-3 days. Jezus, they can't catch a break.

blowing to the WSW or blowing from (normally how wind direction is given) the WSW?

i do remember a low pressure system was going to be east of Tokyo the next couple of days, which would bring NE winds (winds from NE) and would blow radiation to the SW

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Maybe not.  That configuration will change and will no longer be optimatal.  It will also be mixed with impurities from melting.

i can 100% assure you that, by design, the fuel has the lowest melting point of anything within the reactor, including the reactor walls.  

And that tell me nothing, because the fuel would have to be hot enough to melt the vessel or you don't have a containment leak.

It tells you that with only the fuel melting, it’s not going to be full of impurities when it pools at the bottom of the vessel

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And more bad news... the spent fuel is now exploding at #4. Was there no way to evacuate this spent fuel to a more safe location? After this spent fuel, there is the spent fuel at #5 and #6.

these spent fuel assemblies are huge and it is a very slow and careful job to move.  they stay in a separate tank of cold water apart from the reactor.  the loss of power meant they could no longer keep the water cold and spent fuel immediately began to heat the water.

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3. Kan needs to suspend the stock market. This is no time to be thinking about trading! For anyone. After 9/11, the stock market was suspended for a week, and this is more serious than that.

yo, do you know where Wall Street is in relation to the WTC?  they stopped trading for a week because they were UNABLE to trade.

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It's essentially been taken over entirely by J.J., Jmfcst, and Beet, the last two being completely out of their minds panicking over the situation.

jmfcst is panicing?!  dude...I'm sitting here munching on raw carrots dipped in ranch dressing and watching music videos of the 60's 70's and 80's.

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when is this nightmare going to end for these people?!  talk about having a Job complex!!!

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I agree with Beet, for what it's worth, regarding the stock exchange. The Nikkei has fallen something like 16% in the last two days and there's no reason for it to rebound in the short term. They need to close it until next week.

so, sure, halting liquidity is the proper response 

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good to hear

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...Japs...

Ethnic slurs are very not okay here, unless I missed some change to the rules.

yank = yankee
jap = japanese

both were acceptable and non-offensive terms before WWII.  The only reason Jap became offensive to the Japanese is because of the stigma of starting and losing WWII.   If the US had lost WWII, yank would seem offensive to Americas today.  As it is, Americans are proud to be called yanks.

I chose Japs because it fit into the era of my WWII analogies of nuclear bombs and Kamikazes...but my hopes and prayers are will them in this difficult time.