CNN An 8.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Japan

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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". 

[J. J.]

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". 

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

[Beet]

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

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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.  

[exopolitician]

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

Source?

[Beet]

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

Source?

I'm on Reuters.com following the feed.

Separately, Tepco reports that 8,200 microsieverts have been measured at the site. That will expose to 3 years' worth of radiation in 1 hour.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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

[Beet]

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

Here is a link

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/us-japan-quake-wind-idUSTRE72D8DA20110314

[J. J.]

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

Here is a link

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/us-japan-quake-wind-idUSTRE72D8DA20110314

Japanese government reports that area around has high enough radiation to damage health.  - Fox

[J. J.]

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.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Another explosion.

It's over, they're out of pumps. Total meltdown of all 3 reactors is now all but guaranteed.

where are you getting this?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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

[Beet]

Well, this is good news that I'm piecing together from two different sources and basically inventing myself-- in NPR, an expert said that rain tends to drop some of the radioactive material into the ground; the forecast for Fukushima calls for rain Tuesday and Wednesday. The more drops into the ground around Fukushima, the less reaches population centers.

Also, if the fuel ponds exploded just before the shift in wind, then the immediate release from them blew out over the sea.

UPDATE:

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.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Yeah they are totally screwed. Hopefully the entire Tokyo metro won't have to be evacuated, that is the largest city in the world. They literally have nowhere to go. I think this is a bigger event than 9/11 or the Egyptian revolution, even.

I would really like to know what happened though, because we really have no clue, TEPCO wasn't really telling us the truth. It's concrete block time.

Yeah, this will be an interesting thing to study.  Clearly many things have gone wrong here, and failsafe after failsafe hasn't worked.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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.

[Beet]

A couple of points.

1. The country is essentially in a state of war. Kan better start thinking that way, like, right now. It also means if he can't perform his duties due to incompetence, he should be removed from power by a vote of Diet.

2. This means they need to triage rescue efforts to the north. As tragic as it is, 100% of resources just can't be devoted to the north right now. That means opening up the main roads so that food and gasoline and get through to the major metropolitan centers. If food can't get through you could see chaos.

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.

3. With the way the winds are going, Tokyo is going to get it. This is going to affect Japan for decades.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

You need to relax.

The information is still very sketchy and analysis is incomplete.

Caution? yes - Precaution? yes... but panic will be utterly counter-productive.

[Beet]

I didn't hear anyone characterise the events after 9/11 as "panic" -- even though it was broadly recognized that it put America in a state of war. The same applies here. Society needs to mobilize on a mass level to respond to radiation, food, logistics, moving people, etc. etc. etc. Not just sitting around watching TV... Everyone in action, everyone contributing, will do more than anything else to stem the panic.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I didn't hear anyone characterise the events after 9/11 as "panic" -- even though it was broadly recognized that it put America in a state of war. The same applies here. Society needs to mobilize on a mass level to respond to radiation, food, logistics, moving people, etc. etc. etc. Not just sitting around watching TV... Everyone in action, everyone contributing, will do more than anything else to stem the panic.

Running claiming 'the end is nigh' - which is what a lot of people are doing on this front is a HUGE risk.

This is not 'the end of days' - some areas immediately around Fukushima will have issues for some time, but this is not some cataclysmic event. The fact that these have been small scale explosions and ruptures is a good thing.

Move people at risk, obtain human support supplies, but suggestions like evacuating Tokyo or shutting down the market are panic-driven. There are small trace elements being detected in Tokyo, but trace elements will not harm people.

Have plans, be prepared, but this is not going to help. 

[Beet]

Um, you really think the Nikkei falling 13% in a few hours inspires confidence? What do you think that inspires? Confidence? Or panic?

Shutting down the stock market would inspire confidence and stem panic because it would show that the authorities are taking the whole thing seriously. Stock markets are shut down all the time -- US after 9/11, Egypt during the Tahrir protests. And really, there's a moral reason to do it because the nation's energies should not be expended on stock trading at the moment.

Your comments about "there are only trace elements" do not inspire confidence. The reason it does not inspire confidence is because authorities have been making such reassuring statements for days but there is no faith that things will not get worse. Large amounts of radiation is leaking and the wind is blowing towards Tokyo, people are not that dumb, they can put 2 and 2 together.

What inspires confidence is belief that the authorities are grappling with the full difficulty of the situation-- that they have taken it in, they have accepted it, and they are now responding to it. Not empty reassurances.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This thread has become unreadable.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

You really think evacuating one of the largest cities in the world inspires confidence?

I agree that trading should be halted until panic subsides, but that 13% drop is being inspired by panic.

[exopolitician]

This thread has become unreadable.

Please, grace us with your presence more often so that the thread can once again be readable for all.

The level of pretentiousness in this thread and everywhere else these last few days is ridiculous, and the fact everyone thinks their an expert on Nuclear Energy all of a sudden just makes it all worse. Plus suddenly it has become a topic of debate AGAIN whether nuclear energy is safe or not in America or any other place on Earth, when that's not what any of this is about.

On topic: Honestly, I agree and disagree with what Polnut said. Such an event like that can have massive repercussions, even if this can't be comparable on a level of Chernobyl. I think it's somewhat silly to treat it so casually, when it definitely is not something you can brush off. The entire country of Japan is in a state of shambles, and a nuclear crisis now a potential threat doesn't help the situation either. There isn't going to be a massive explosion no, but still radiation is leaking and has seeped into the atmosphere. That alone is cause for concern, especially since the proximity to Tokyo is dangerously close. No, Tokyo isn't going to turn into a toxic ghost town, but a threat still lingers that something could be swept towards the city. It's never a bad thing to be prepared for the worse, and since Japan has suffered through so much these past few days, its not a bad idea to think about it and be as fully prepared as possible. +Nobody said we should evacuate one of the largest cities in the world, that would be almost impossible.

[Beet]

Polnut, note that I did not call for the evacuation of Tokyo. Where you got that I don't know. The reason I did not call for it is because it is physically impossible. What I said is that "it's going to get it", which it probably is, because the wind is moving at 14 km/h. That means it will be there in less than a day.