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After a devastating 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan, a few nuclear power plants sustained damage and were having trouble with their cooling systems. The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant experienced an explosion that has been blamed on a failed pumping system.
The extent of the damage and severity of the explosion is not yet known, but early reports are saying that the containment unit was not damaged. The evacuation radius has been increased to 20km.
The explosion at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant was not caused by the nuclear reactor but by “water vapor that was part of the cooling process,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday. He said no harmful gases had been emitted by the explosion.
Detail are still coming in and I’ll update the post as they do.
UPDATE 1: A failed pumping system has been blamed for the explosion. Workers were using the system in an attempt to bring the reactor’s temperature down. -CNN
UPDATE 2: The next attempt to cool the reactor will be to flood the reactor’s containment structure with seawater. That process is expected to take 2 days. -CNN
UPDATE 3: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that Japan is planning to distribute iodine, a radiation antidote.
UPDATE 4: A collection of statements from experts on what may have happened at Fukushima: Reuters Factbox – Experts on explosion at Japan nuclear plant
41 Comments
Looks like a nuclear explosion.Per BBC a “hydrogen or some sort of chemical” explosion. Wider evacuation area now. Meltdown possible? Conflicting tweets.
come on, twolf. Without facts, this ain’t much of a story. Sit on it.
What are you, the Fonz?
You are right. An explosion at a nuke plant is no story. Nothing to see here, move along.
LOL! :)
Really the story is if a meltdown occurs or not. No meltdown = no cleanup.
Banner story at Huffington Post this morning. But still getting conflicting info regarding potential danger from radiation.
Story now picked up by Siun, upstairs. This is a quote from Huffington Post:
“Adding to worries was the fate of nuclear power plants in the region. Japan has declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability.”
“The most troubled one is facing meltdown, officials have said.”
You don’t know anything about nuclear power, do you? Nor do you have any kind of compassion. “Ain’t much of a story”? Tell that to the people who died in the explosion. Oh wait, you can’t. Tell it to their families. Your profile’s got it right, except I would have used a stronger words than “jackass” to describe you.
You should have a “write post” link in the “toolbox” section in the right hand column of the MyFDL page. Feel free to write the diary you wanted to see.
This is bad, really bad. Now they aren’t going to be able to get any water into that particular reactor. This is going to make Chernobyl look like a campfire.
They are going to flood the containment structure with seawater. Updated above.
Good on you for reporting this, twolf. I sent it to my tweeps.
Recommended.
Front paged, twolf. That didn’t take long.
No, actually calling over to Japan to apologize to families would be a jackass move.
and I can get my point across without personal insults.
Ugh! Huge amount radioactive contamination or letting it melt through the Earth’s crust? This ought to discourage people from building more fission reactors.
Huffington Post:
Explosion at Japan nuke plant raises fears of meltdown http://huff.to/glc0XY
How does one “recommend” a post/diary/column (whatever) here? I see no button or anything. Thanks in advance for any help.
Nevermind. I see it thanks.
The nuclear expert on GMA this a.m at start of show…(I’ll look for link but I doubt it’s up yet), likened the scenario to the following: it’s like the brakes of your car failed, and you are careening out of control, and now, the radiator just blew up.
This is absolutely newsworthy. The point is that the reactor is “careening out of control”…that is heating up, and we can’t stop it. (we are having one failed scenario after another and very difficult challenges). This weakens the reactor…and puts it closer to melt down. And, the expert said it’s possible it has melted down but we don’t know it or they will not report it.
Lol…I don’t know why I used the pronoun “we” above…we as in the human race watching this unfold…I suppose.
We are all in this together. There.
al jazeera liveblog is good
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/live-blog-japan-earthquake#update-10751
Excellent comment. keep us posted.
Thanks, marinara, that is better. You see,people are interested in this…
Hashtagged, twolf, #fukushima
Scientific American also agrees w/ your Update 4, stating that people who know what they are talking about are quoted.
Did you catch the Naomi Klein tweet? But you beat her to it, this was not lost on us, Margaret!
Naomi Klein RT:
daphnewysham Daphne Wysham
by NaomiAKlein
NIRS is providing regular updates on the Fukushima reactor explosion: http://nirs.org/
No actual person is “on the ground” at Fukushima, right?
Seems an update and replace program for the IKE/Dulles Atoms for peace program/welfare check for GE/Westinghouse power plants of the 60′s and 70′s.
Plants like the heavy water Canadian CANDU can be very safe (fail safe via the physics is asserted) and less expensive to build than most reactors in use today – but they have a byproduct of weapons grade plutonium – but then they can use unenriched uranium.
Likewise we find the Chinese doing the interesting work, with folks at Beijing’s Tsinghua University actually building a new nuclear power facility: a pebble-bed reactor (PBR) – sometimes also known as a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) that is small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts, cheap enough for emerging economies (like the US is becoming), and is safe because of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete – meltdown-proof. Here the fuel is not conventional fuel rods made of enriched uranium, but rather pyrolytic graphite coated pebbles with uranium cores that are subject to decreased effectiveness as heat rises (the Doppler Broadening effect). This built-in negative feedback places a temperature limit (with – and without – helium gas for cooling) on the fuel without operator intervention that is less than the melt down temperature of the pebbles’ shell.
emphasis matters.
I’m done making critical statements but allow me to point out:
“Reactor being filled with seawater over next 48 hours”
“Nuclear Plant explodes”
see the two headlines have a different “feel” or emphasis to them.
no?
Seems an update and replace program for the IKE/Dulles Atoms for peace program/welfare check for GE/Westinghouse power plants of the 60′s and 70′s is needed.
Plants like the heavy water Canadian CANDU can be very safe (fail safe via the physics is asserted) and less expensive to build than most reactors in use today – but they have a byproduct of weapons grade plutonium – but then they can use unenriched uranium.
Likewise we find the Chinese doing the interesting work, with folks at Beijing’s Tsinghua University actually building a new nuclear power facility: a pebble-bed reactor (PBR) – sometimes also known as a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) that is small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts, cheap enough for emerging economies (like the US is becoming), and is safe because of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete – meltdown-proof. Here the fuel is not conventional fuel rods made of enriched uranium, but rather pyrolytic graphite coated pebbles with uranium cores that are subject to decreased effectiveness as heat rises (the Doppler Broadening effect). This built-in negative feedback places a temperature limit (with – and without – helium gas for cooling) on the fuel without operator intervention that is less than the melt down temperature of the pebbles’ shell.
What are you trying to say?
ask me that before i get flamed
So you are the victim?
We are in the game and can’t get out that easily – but we can do an update and replace program for the IKE/Dulles Atoms for peace program/welfare check for GE/Westinghouse power plants of the 60′s and 70′s.
Plants like the heavy water Canadian CANDU can be very safe (fail safe via the physics is asserted) and less expensive to build than most reactors in use today – but they have a byproduct of weapons grade plutonium – but then they can use unenriched uranium.
Likewise we find the Chinese doing the interesting work, with folks at Beijing’s Tsinghua University actually building a new nuclear power facility: a pebble-bed reactor (PBR) – sometimes also known as a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) that is small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts, cheap enough for emerging economies (like the US is becoming), and is safe because of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete – meltdown-proof. Here the fuel is not conventional fuel rods made of enriched uranium, but rather pyrolytic graphite coated pebbles with uranium cores that are subject to decreased effectiveness as heat rises (the Doppler Broadening effect). This built-in negative feedback places a temperature limit (with – and without – helium gas for cooling) on the fuel without operator intervention that is less than the melt down temperature of the pebbles’ shell.
If we’re getting “conflicting stories” about radiation danger, guess which side the engineers supplying most of the information are erring on.
I mean, the operative plan is to call it trivial, until proved otherwise.
Kinda like the U.S. Coast Guard honcho in the GOM, low-balling like a maniac, 24 hours after the platform exploded and sank:
“No oil is escaping from the well-head.”
Thank you, papau
I do not think anything the Japanese gov’t says is true right now… regarding how bad this disaster is.
Yeah, let’s load the third-world down with small, cheap reactors built from mass-produced parts … what could possibly go wrong?
When they built these reactors (you know, the ones currently blowing up), you know what all the scientists were saying? They were saying those control rods make a runaway reaction impossible … because of physics. And for skeptics, a discussion of increased heat lowering water density and reducing the number of neutrons available to the reaction (resulting in reduced effectiveness as heat rises). Virtually meltdown-proof those light water reactors dontchaknow.
Nuclear physicists will flat-out mislead an audience. For money. You should of seen some of the “science” they pulled out of their asses trying to ram through Yucca. They are angling for $200 billion on this (at least that’s the number I heard batted around).
Nuclear Power is an absurd thing to substantially base meeting our future energy needs on. It’s a siren song for intelligent fools. The responsible place for nuclear in our future energy plans is to replace a few key aging facilities as we transition to legitimately green renewables and perhaps a few thorium salt based reactors to burn off some of the high level waste pro-nuke morons currently have piling up around our eyeballs with no safe way to dispose of it.
‘no oil escaping from the well-head”
Oops, CNN breaking. Major problems. Confirm?