BEFORE
AFTER
The plant was hit by the Tsunami. The diesel tanks at the port terminal washed away. The information was posted here before. It was drowned out by all of the static.
Posted on 03/18/2011 11:13:39 AM PDT by brityank
Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA
Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subside
By Lewis Page • Posted in Physics, 18th March 2011 12:56 GMTThe situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ snip ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Main killer in all this? The panic
Analysis
The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours despite the fact that it was five times stronger than they had been built to withstand. Only with the following tsunami – again, bigger than the design allowed for – did problems develop, and these problems seem likely to end in insignificant consequences. The Nos 1, 2 and 3 reactors at Daiichi may never produce power again – though this is not certain – but the likelihood is that Nos 4, 5 and 6 will return to service behind a bigger tsunami barrier.
The lesson to learn here is that if your country is hit by a monster earthquake and tsunami, one of the safest places to be is at the local nuclear powerplant. Other Japanese nuclear powerplants in the quake-stricken area, in fact, are sheltering homeless refugees in their buildings – which are some of the few in the region left standing at all, let alone with heating, water and other amenities.
Nothing else in the quake-stricken area has come through anything like as well as the nuclear power stations, or with so little harm to the population. All other forms of infrastructure – transport, housing, industries – have failed the people in and around them comprehensively, leading to deaths most probably in the tens of thousands. Fires, explosions and tank/pipeline ruptures all across the region will have done incalculably more environmental damage, distributed hugely greater amounts of carcinogens than Fukushima Daiichi – which has so far emitted almost nothing but radioactive steam (which becomes non-radioactive within minutes of being generated).
And yet nobody will say after this: "don't build roads; don't build towns; don't build ships or chemical plants or oil refineries or railways". That would be ridiculous, of course, even though having all those things has actually led to terrible loss of life, destruction and pollution in the quake's wake.
But far and away more ridiculously, a lot of people are already saying that Fukushima with its probable zero consequences means that no new nuclear powerplants should ever be built again. ®
Personal bootnote
As one who earns his living in the media these days, I can only apologise on behalf of my profession for the unbelievable levels of fear and misinformation purveyed this week. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist.
Hit the Register Link to read it all.
You got that right! bttt
Just the usual "Ready, Fire, Aim".
This incident may turn out to be the best thing that's ever happened for the nuclear industry.
What do you mean? There is no need to cool the core down?
The state run “media” does go overboard with these things. They try to turn the whole thing into a movie. It helps their sagging ratings. That, joined with their orders to exploit the situation from the rich, white boys down at the DNC, can turn anything into mass hysteria.
[ CANDU reactors if they run out of water will simply shut down.
What do you mean? There is no need to cool the core down? ]
In order for the core of a CANDU reactor to activate you need the core to be filled with Heavy Water. If you remove the heavy water the reaction STOPS dead in it’s tracks. So if you lose the water the reactor shuts down. So losing water in a CANDU reactor instead of leading to meltdown will be the equivalent to removed the fuel from the core.
The heavy water that the reactor uses can be poured out in the street and is very much non toxic, i just wouldn’t drink more than 1 gallon of it a day for more than a week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
India and Canada are using this tech.... We aren’t because we are scared spitless over anything with the word “Nuclear” in it. No doubt the EPA and the NRC is doing all they can to stop this reactor in the states.
All in all, this could have lead to the deaths of more than 10,000 people, but disaster was averted and everything is just like it was two weeks ago.
That's what the news has told me anyway.
I agree with your statements wholeheartedly.
Is not the above sentence a lie? The plant came through the disasters of quake and tsunami fine. Something just took the backup diesel generators off-line and I don't know that they've got a reasoning for that yet. Not that I've seen at least.
A-bleeping-men.
This is an excellent piece- thanks for posting. Unfortunate as it may be, and as unacceptable as it is for leftists, life isn’t fair, accidents happen, nothing is foolproof and there’s no such thing as complete safety or security.
It may get worse before it gets better- or it may just get better. But still- as bad as this is, there’s hundreds of nuclear power plants around the globe that function day in and day out without causing danger to the public.
It’s taken two years for me to think Obama did something right (regardless of his true motives). While many other world leaders have said they’re closing plants or going to stop building new ones and are having various knee-jerk reactions etc.- he ordered a saftey review- which seems reasonable, but hasn’t gone overboard and hasn’t added to the panic.
The News media has the public scarred to death. This is not like we never weathered fallout before. we dropped many Nuclear bombs before and there never was this hysteria before. We set off A-bombs in Nevada and H-bombs in the Pacific! We are all still here! I have three eyes but ok!
Amen to both!
bttt
Maggot MediaThat's good. That's as good as "drive-by media".
Did you coin it?
So does anyone want me to go through all the threads of the past week and create a “Chicken-Little-Freepers” ping list so those of us who were insulted for urging calm can rub their noses in it?
So we went from Chernobyl in a matter of hours all week to it’s stable. I’m sure the MSM will get right on on reporting this.
Instead of using water, with all of its problems like corrosion and disassociation to H & O gasses, I 'd rather see the Thorium-Flouride reactors go on line. It has a freeze plug that needs the reactor's power to keep it frozen in place, and retaining the salt fluids and nuclear fuel in the core. No fluid and the core shuts down and cools itself off.
Uhh, I think you may be misreading the Obama-code, in which “safety review” means “complete shutdown.” The guy is a liar from the marrow of his bones.
The only hope is that he will allow enough to be done to guarantee his re-election.
So do PWR's and BWR's. CANDU's have the same decay heat issues and same spent fuel issues. The problem with all reactors is not getting shut down (which was THE problem at Chernobyl) but having cooling to remove waste heat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.