Originally Posted by alnorth (Post 7493297)

quickly looked into it, and not sure what there is to say? This plant was designed to withstand an earthquake 10 times stronger than any earthquake that has ever been recorded in that region. Above and beyond even that, a similar plant built elsewhere was able to withstand a quake that was over *ONE HUNDRED* time stronger than any quake this plant would ever face, according to the experts.

This plant is also apparently able to withstand a direct impact from a jet, which is just amazing to me.

Even freaking greenpeace, which is normally an irrationally insane organization regarding nuclear power, is fine with indian point.

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 7493546)

Containment vessel of No.3 reactor may have been breached.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 7493573)

So...we're all gonna die?

Originally Posted by Amnorix (Post 7493564)

Terminology here is so damn important. So containment lingo -- is there a difference between "core" and vessel".

I know you have the thing in which the reactor materials sit, and in which the control rods are inserted, and you can ahve a partial meltdown wholly contained within that . . . thing. That's what happened at Three Mile Island.

Then you've got the larger containment thingy, which I think is called the "core", which is the very big steel and concrete casing that surrounds the entire thing.

In Donger's picture they refer to the first as the "Reactor vessel" and the second as the "containment structure" (see link to his post): http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showpost.php?p=7491684&postcount=468

So is "containment vessel" the "reactor vessel" or the "containment structure". If it's the first, bad but not horrible. If it's the second, then that's really not good. I've also seen "containment core" thrown around here by someone(s) -- is that "vessel" or the larger "structure"??

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 7493585)

I would imagine that they are referring to the containment dome/vessel/structure, not the actual "thing" surrounding the core.

Originally Posted by alnorth (Post 7493243)

Lets not lose sight of the fact that a chernobyl-like explosion within the middle of a reactor has been rendered virtually impossible today.

All these downside risks and long-term catastrophes I'm downplaying? I'm downplaying something that wont ever fucking happen!

We, collectively as humans, are so god damn stupid that we easily accept huge health impacts from coal power but demand absolute zero-risk perfection from nuclear, without the slightest regard for common sense or logic, and when the least little accident happens we point to something decades ago from the infancy of our understanding of nuclear power safety, as if that would ever happen again.

Chernobyl: "woops, we did something dumb and now we have a problem" to total disaster within a few hours.

Japan, one in a f**king hundred year 9.0 earthquake and 30-foot tsunami, in a place where the plant probably should not have been built, still using old technology, and several days later a disaster still has not happened and they still might get away with no one ever actually dying from the incident.

Regardless, we might use this event to stop the building of nuclear plants in freaking Iowa, far from any fault or ocean. But coal power plants? Feel free to spew away without the slightest question about health impacts. Are we just god-damn stupid, or what?

Originally Posted by rrl308 (Post 7493383)

by Kerry Sheridan – Tue Mar 15, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The western United States is overdue for a huge earthquake and tsunami much like the one that devastated Japan last week, and is nowhere near ready to cope with the disaster, experts say.

A volatile, horseshoe-shaped area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire has recently erupted with quakes in Chile, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand, and seismologists say it is just a matter of time before the next big one hits.

Twin fault lines place the US west at risk: the San Andreas fault that scars the length of California and the lesser-known but more potent Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Coast.

A 9.0 quake in this underwater fault that stretches from the northern tip of California all the way to Canada's British Columbia could simultaneously rattle major port cities of Vancouver, Portland and Seattle, unleash a massive tsunami and kill thousands of people.

"From the geological standpoint, this earthquake occurs very regularly," said geotechnical engineer Yumei Wang, who is the geohazards team leader at the Oregon Department of Geology.

"With the Cascadia fault, we have records of 41 earthquakes in the last 10,000 years with an average of 240 years apart. Our last one was 311 years ago so we are overdue," she said.


Rest of Article
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315...20110315193603

Originally Posted by Amnorix (Post 7493631)

Yeah, I think so too.

The word "containment" seems limited to the structure/building, and not to the thing that holds the core. That is more typically referred to as the reactor vessel.

So now we have two fully exposed to the atmosphere sources of radiation, it seems -- Reactor 3 and the spent fuel pool. :shake:

Originally Posted by teedubya (Post 7493644)

3 has the MOX fuel, which is plutonium, 2,000,000 times more potent than uranium.

Originally Posted by teedubya (Post 7493644)

3 has the MOX fuel, which is plutonium, 2,000,000 times more potent than uranium.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 7493573)

So...we're all gonna die?

Originally Posted by loochy (Post 7493581)

The prophecy of googlegoogle has come to fruition