Possible reactor meltdown in Japan

Status
Not open for further replies.
The US Navy just pulled their ships back or out of Japan on that aid deal, the reactor they think just had another explosion. Japan maybe closed down for many years and their food supply contaminated, not to mention the cancers that now will be in abundance plus THE PANIC OVER FOOD.
 
Originally Posted By: CourierDriver
The US Navy just pulled their ships back or out of Japan on that aid deal, the reactor they think just had another explosion. Japan maybe closed down for many years and their food supply contaminated, not to mention the cancers that now will be in abundance plus THE PANIC OVER FOOD.


No need to fuel speculation.........

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/14/japan.us.navy.radiation/index.html?hpt=T1
 
A quote from Pablo's link =

'One ship was operating about 100 miles northeast of the power plant when "airborne radioactivity" was detected, the Navy said.'


Sorry, but if they detected airborne radioactivity 100 miles away from the site, then levels of radiation at ground-zero must me many many times higher than is being admitted to - in which case our people, relief or not, have no business being there.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Well it didn't take Greenpeace too long to seize the "opportunity" from this unfortunate event...


"How many more warnings do we need before we finally grasp that nuclear reactors are inherently hazardous? The nuclear industry always tells us that situation like this cannot happen with modern reactors, yet Japan is currently in the middle of a potentially devastating nuclear crisis,"

"Once again, we are reminded of the inherent risks of nuclear power, which will always be vulnerable to the potentially deadly combination of human error, design failure and natural disaster."
-Jan Beranek, Greenpeace

I tend to agree with the spirit of Greenpeace's work. Fatuous comments like this, and the facile thinking they reflect, are among the many reasons I refuse to support them.
 
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
I think it'll all be straightened out by the end of the year. This isn't Haiti. They have a real government and an economy that needs things to be normal. In a month or less, there will be a solid plan and path for getting everything back on track and in order. They'll throw up a few memorials, get the reactors either scrapped or repaired, and everything will be cool. Unless there is a breach or other major malfunction in one of the reactors, it'll be better from here. If there is a containment problem, however, things might be a little worse - maybe two years to get back on track and some land made unusable for awhile..


I am similarly optimistic about Japan's ability to pull themselves out of this disaster.
 
Originally Posted By: Volvo_ST1
Yeah, sure, if containment is breached and uranium and plutonium escape into the atmosphere it's just a little snag.

Yea really. Unless somehow the bloob of fuel fuel rods, control rods, reactor vesselo bott om somehow explodes that won't happen.

What will happen is that the containment structure (s) will become the new reactor vessel. Water will flood the building and the water will continue to boil off. I don't think its gonna be possible to cool this water internal to the building.

We'll have to see how much radionuclides carry over with the steam that spews out the containment structure.
 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
I think it'll all be straightened out by the end of the year. This isn't Haiti. They have a real government and an economy that needs things to be normal. In a month or less, there will be a solid plan and path for getting everything back on track and in order. They'll throw up a few memorials, get the reactors either scrapped or repaired, and everything will be cool. Unless there is a breach or other major malfunction in one of the reactors, it'll be better from here. If there is a containment problem, however, things might be a little worse - maybe two years to get back on track and some land made unusable for awhile..


That may be one of the most short sighted, myopic comments I've ever seen.

Japan is in big trouble. Not only from the quake and resulting nuclear disaster, but the financial recovery alone may take years.

This morning Moody's warned that the damages could bring forward the moment of a potential financial meltdown, which would be the moment when investors lose confidence in Japan's ability to repay its debts.

Another huge financial risk for Japan is in its bond market, because Japan has the largest national debt relative to its economic output of any of the major developed economies together with a large and unsustainable fiscal deficit.

The amount of money that Japan has to raise to recover from the quake/tsunami/nuclear issue and continue to finance the maturing debt and deficit is staggering. It should be clear to even someone with little foresight that the costs will be far beyond a few "tossed up memorials" and capped nuclear reactors.



I'm not going to insult your opinion like you did mine, I'll just say that time will bear out who is right.
 
It is very likely that the economy will slip into recession (at least in Japan) for a good 2-5 years. Scraping a reactor or two isn't the biggest issue, and they may not rebuild that part of the country due to fear of radiation, and due to the largely old population around the area.

Greenpeace's statement is partially correct, but everything has risk (power plant with oil, solar, hydro, coal, etc). So let's just go back to live in the wilderness.

It'll be nice if they can get Gen 4 reactor design ready. Active backup safety system doesn't seems to be the way to the future.
 
Or can be the opposite. The reconstruction effort may boost the economy.

It all depends on how it's handled and whether Japan is able to obtain (borrow internally or from other countries) and spend that money.
 
Tsunami breached the wall by a foot or so.

It took away the diesel fuel tanks and messed up the switchgear. Messed up a lot of emergency pumps also. They are using portable pumps to keep water supplied to the core. They have no normal core cooling. Just flooding the core and allowing the steam to vent off. They need to get switchgear repaired to be able to use emergency core cooling components.That is both unit 1 and 3.

Their effort is to get core cooling back instead of steaming off the reactor and venting steam.
 
Quote:
Or can be the opposite. The reconstruction effort may boost the economy.

Guess again:


Quote:
It all depends on how it's handled and whether Japan is able to obtain (borrow internally or from other countries) and spend that money.

Japan already has debt @ 200% of GDP, and they had 10 stimulus bills in 8 years, with no economic effect.

Still, the numbers I've heard for this quake is around 1% of GDP loss. We will have to see.

I hope they can better control this reactor but I don't anticipate Chernobyl II.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Al,
I direct this to you, since you seem quite knowledgeable on the topic at hand.
It seems to me that the fission generating plants in question performed admirably in a temblor that exceeded their structural design specs.
It was the backup systems that failed.
Had the backup systems been more robust and deeper in their own backups, could the loss of these facilities have been avoided?
I direct a further comment to all.
What will Japanese economic losses entail?
Most of the economic losses, maybe including the lost nuclear generating stations, will have been insured risks.
This will therefore not be a catastrophe for Japan alone, but will seriously test the world's reinsurers, as well as the financial system of the world as a whole.
This will be the most costly natural disaster in recorded history.
It will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Most of the economic losses, maybe including the lost nuclear generating stations, will have been insured risks.
This will therefore not be a catastrophe for Japan alone, but will seriously test the world's reinsurers, as well as the financial system of the world as a whole.
This will be the most costly natural disaster in recorded history.
It will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.


This is going to be the biggest loss, from the insurance industry across the globe. The policy usually exclude war, but do they exclude damage in the hundred of billions or do they have the ability to pay out instead of folding?
 
In insuring a large commercial or industrial entity, it doesn't matter.
The contract of insurance is negotiated between insurer and insured, and both have competent lawyers.
What is covered at what rate will depend upon insurer's willingness to accept the risk, as well as their ability to reinsure that risk, and insured's willingness to pay a premium that is in accord with the risk insured.
I don't know how personal lines property and casualty insurance is written in Japan, but I do know that commercial lines represent a whole different animal either here or in Japan.
Therefore, the distiction between "earthquake" and "flooding" has little meaning for a lot of the risk insured.
Even if there is no coverage for many or most personal losses, the commercial losses are huge.
Also, the life insurers are going to be paying out heavily, and they too have often reinsured their excess risk, particularly on term life.
 
pray, pray,pray, pray. i for one am all for the U.S.A. sending as much help as we can, YES spend my tax money on it. who knows some day WE may need help. if you havent helped people, with your life, what good has your life been?
 
Amen, brother.
We should help those in need.
We too may someday need help.
I would love to see us spend more of our resources helping those in the impoverished parts of the world.
We should also extend our help to the poor among us.
We are rich, and we will be judged by how we treat those who are not, both in our own land and abroad.
We who are fortunate owe a debt to those who are not.
We could as easily have had our situations reversed, but by an accident of birth.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Guess again:



This theory make some sense.

It also makes reference to the futility of governments trying to boost the economy in down times with spending, and how this is a waste of money. This is referred to by some as "Keynesian" economics after the British economist John Maynard Keynes. The people who criticise Keynesian economics make one fatal mistake. They never actually have read the work of Keynes. He did propose that governments could help the economy during down times by increases spending. (lets use the USA for an example) Keynes also proposed that during good times Governments need to run budget surpluses so that when the inevitable downturn comes, they are able to run deficits and stimulate spending and growth. That has never happened to the best of my knowledge. Governments like to borrow and spend in good times and bad.

(sorry for hijacking the nuke thread)
 
Quote:
Yeah, sure, if containment is breached and uranium and plutonium escape into the atmosphere it's just a little snag.


I seriously doubt the containment system(s) will be breached. TMI had a core meltdown and the containment system functioned as designed. These Japanese reactors are of a much later design.

One has to relize that the atmosphere disperses the gases as they move away from the facility. What this means is that there is less material per cubic meter as it spreads away from the site.

Again, we have to keep this event in perspective: the plant was designed for a certain expected earthquake intensity and a certain level of Tsunami. The quake was greater than anything that had ever occurred before with a resulting Tsunami greater than anything expected.

I think we owe it to the brave souls near the containment area who are trying to cool things down and trying to keep any more more radiactive material from escaping a great deal of respect and thanks, and less of this nuclear hysteria and doomsday reporting by the press.
 
Last edited:
Quote:
What will Japanese economic losses entail?
Most of the economic losses, maybe including the lost nuclear generating stations, will have been insured risks.
This will therefore not be a catastrophe for Japan alone, but will seriously test the world's reinsurers, as well as the financial system of the world as a whole.
This will be the most costly natural disaster in recorded history.
It will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.


This is called, "Risk Assessment." The insurance companies acumulate billions of dollars and then hedge that their accumulated stash will not be saturated by any one event.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom