If they can find a way to get the primary cooling system working, they should be able to substantially mitigate the problem. We can, however, look forward to some two-headed whales and really, really big sea urchins in the medium-term future.

FAX

Based off of this map from Chernobyl, some radiation would definitely spread. It would certainly decrease substantially over those 6-10 days.

http://qed.princeton.edu/getfile.php...l_accident.jpg

Um yeah, I think those RAD numbers are off... I guess it depends on how many of those reactors fail. Lets hope that map is a fake!

http://www.solarstorms.org/Sradiation.html

Effects of radiation:

0-50 rads - No obvious short-term effects
80-120 rads - You have a 10% chance of vomiting and experiencing nausia for a few days
130 -170 rads - You have a 25% chance of vomiting and contracting other symptoms
180-220 rads - You have a 50% chance of vomiting and having other severe physical effects
270-330 rads - 20% chance of death in 6 weeks, or you will recover in a few months.
400-500 rads - 50% chance of death
550-750 rads - Nausia within a few hours ; no survivors
> 1000 rads - immediate incapacitation and death within a week or less.

Let's put it this way:

The most dangerous particles are also those that are the most short-lived (in the event of civilian nuclear accidents).

However, let's apply the 7:10 rule.

Say that this is as bad as the Chernobyl meltdown. The reactor core was putting out 30,000 rads per hour after the explosion. Well, 7 hours later, said reactor would have been putting out 3,000.

49 hours later (two days roughly), it would have been putting out 300

343 hours later (two weeks), it would be putting out 30 rads/per hour.

So, about 392 hours after the initial meltdown, 17 days, the specific area that had the most radiation of all the spots on Chernobyl was putting out 30 rads/hour.

Now, this is still a very, very dangerous dose.

But let's look at the control room at the same time:

3-5 rads/hour after the explosion. .5 rads at 7 hours, .05 rads at two days, .005 rads/hour at 17 days.

Now, given that if this blows up it will be a much smaller "leak" and given the distance that it has to travel, are you really terribly worried about this?

I'm not sure why you'd look towards Chernobyl as a data point. I don't think anyone knowledgeable has predicted much more than a TMI type event.

[edit] @tee, not hamas

No not really worried about it... because it would get rid of all of Raider Nation if so, and we wouldn't be far behind.

Those numbers seemed really high to me. I'm not a radiation expert though, aside from the potassium iodide that I knew to have handy. lol.

Regardless, it's gonna suck for Japan... and they are our people, in the sense that we are all connected. I hate to see anyone go through this.

And to be frank, I'm not really scared of dying. When the time comes, it comes. It's all part of the process. I'd like to postpone it for several decades though. heh.

Ok. Just seemed like you were whipping yourself into a froth. DE-FROTH!!

I think someone BS'd that map based on a Tsunami warning... and photoshopped it up. Those RAD numbers are truly way out of whack, unless ALL of the reactors melted down and the wind carried it here in 36 hours or something, which is highly improbable.

Fear mongering from another site, apparently.

heh. I've been in Charlie Sheen battle troll mode this evening. lol. Operation DE FROTH complete. Too much doom for one day. :LOL:

Here is something you don't see everyday...

<div><embed width="320" height="240" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" name="main" id="main" src="http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayer.swf?f=http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayercfg.php?fid=c3e5f9c1c89a7b6611d" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/></embed></div>

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pg4uogOEUrU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

RT @skynewsbreak: Explosion heard and white smoke seen at quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan
1 minute ago

**** man. Apparently, that is the outer structure of building that houses reactor at Fukushima plant. Tepco says explosion may have been hydrogen used to cool the plant.

Reuters is reporting that Tepco's no.1 reactor ceiling has collapsed.

Great. So instead of a monster earthquake and tsunami, a nuclear plant has exploded tonight instead.

This is all bad news right now.

Holy crap. This is bad. Real, real bad.

FAX

Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the earth's axis had shifted 25 cm as a result of the quake and the U.S. Geological Survey said the main island of Japan had actually shifted 2.4 metres.

Jesus.

FAX

May have already been posted...but holy shit http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...its_japan.html

47 pictures from the earthquake/tsunami.

http://inapcache.boston.com/universa...uake1/bp18.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universa...uake1/bp16.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universa...quake1/bp1.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universa...uake1/bp28.jpg

This situation is making me physically ill.

People have been drowned, burned, smashed, gassed, homes destroyed, cars gone, pets dead, and now irradiated and nuked.

The suck is strong in this deal.

FAX

video of the something exploding at the Fukushima plant

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8IwBPHKi0vM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Japanese just notified the press that the explosion at that nuclear plant did, in fact, release radiation. They now expect a full meltdown at that plant.

This is not good.

I suppose that their best nuclear power specialists were working at that plant when it exploded, too.

FAX

<div><embed width="320" height="240" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" name="main" id="main" src="http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayer.swf?f=http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayercfg.php?fid=c3e5f9c1c89a7b6611d" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/></embed></div>

REPOST :evil:

Tokyo Electric earlier said it had lost control of pressure building up in three reactors at the Dai-Ichi power plant. Temperatures in the control room rose to higher than 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit), said Naoki Tsunoda, a company spokesman.

FAX

Oh **** here we go.......

URGENT: Japanese Gov't Confirms Radiation Leak at Nuclear Plant


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...ible-meltdown/

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/0...-levels-surge/

Damn.

I gotta go proctor the SATs right now. I want this all cleaned up by the time I get back. You hear me, mister?

Are we dead yet?

I don't know what that was, but it wasn't a containment dome.

Yes, zombies!

http://www.treehugger.com/human-zomb...scientists.jpg

We have a while as they walk across the ocean floor to get here...

LMAO

Hey, where's my Belize travel info you promised?

:hmmm:

Shoot me your email address and I will start getting stuff ready. I was going to wait until closer to your departure date. (So you didn't lose it :evil:)

Are you getting fired up?

Damn right I am.

I'll PM you my email addy.

Got it.....

Ok, now back to the thread.....BOOM!

If given the choice, I wonder if most people would rather drown, combust, suffocate, starve, or get irradiated to death.

This would make a great Easter poll.

FAX

I feel sorry for the people that have to interact with you on a daily basis.

Jesus.

Fukushima got ****ed

Found my brother he's on Okinawa not in Tokyo, he says business as usual on Okinawa. .

Glad to hear it, Warrior.

---

I find this peculiar.

http://www.icjt.org/npp/podrobnosti....4&lokacija=818


Connected plants
Name: FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI-1
Type BWR
Power Thermal 439 MWh
Last known 439 MWh
Dates Operating 17 Nov 70
Commercial 26 Mar 71
Shutdown 26 Mar 11
Operating years 32

That nuclear plant was scheduled to shut down this month.

Heh.

Even FEMA is getting Sesame Street in on the deal.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/s_ajF3r1jmY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you aren't prepared for shit, that's on you. lol. A couple bags of Doritos and a six pack probably won't cut it.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7VfTe4c3tEE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

FEMA is letting us know that shit is about to go down... for those paying attention. For those who don't pay attention, they laugh. Again, I don't care if you aren't prepared... but it doesn't cost much to get together a few supplies, in case shit happens.

ari, you've been saying this FEMA "it's going down" shit for 4 years.

BUT THIS IS THE YEAR, THE SIGNS ARE ALL AROUND US.

Is it really so strange the the FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY actually wants and shows Americans how to be prepared in the event of, you know, an emergency?

wow that is sad

Yeap. Terrible. We're talking about the single best natural-disaster-prepared country in the world getting walloped by Mother Nature. Just goes to show how vulnerable we, as humans, really are.

Sounds like they are attempting to flood the core with sea water.

Aren't they using acid as well?

Boric acid? I don't know. It's a neutron killer that's used in PWRs. I suppose they could do that mixed with the sea water.

Yeah, boric acid. I read that they were flooding it with water and boric acid.

Now there's another reactor that has lost emergency cooling at the same plant.

Kinda wild, they had electric power to the cooling system, a backup system in case the power failed, and a backup to the backup in case the backup system failed. The earthquake killed the power, the tsunami killed the backup, and now for 3 reactors, the backup to the backup is apparently not working as intended.

They may eventually resort to just hoping that the 8-foot concrete walls will hold long enough for the nuclear reaction to finally come to an end after the fuel melts out of the reactor, thus containing almost everything that they did not intentionally vent. If that happens, it will be a three mile island incident instead of a disaster.

The good news is that a lot of very brilliant people will study what happened here, learn what they did wrong when they assumed this was a earthquake-proof tsunami-proof system, and better reactors will be designed from what we learn about this.

heh, if it was scheduled to be shut down soon, then human nature being what is it, I wouldn't be surprised if we discover that everyone started getting lazy and slacked off on maintaining the backup power supplies. Why bother if everything is coming down soon anyway? Not like we'll have the biggest earthquake and tsunami in the nation's history within those next few months! I'd expect a lot of ritual suicides from some nuclear engineers.

Sounds like the Japanese are acknowledging that at least a partial melt occurred/is occurring in reactor 1. And, reactor 3 is facing the same.

The meltdown isn't the biggest worry, correct? It's the matter escaping the containment dome?

That would be worse, yes.

More in the link: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/as...ake/index.html

****

Doesn't look good. But it seems like they've struggled to control the situation from the beginning.

well, better them than us. Even in California, we only have to deal with one major fault. The island of Japan is in the middle of the horrifying dreaded "ring of fire" with 3 major active continental faults.

Even if Japan goes total Chernobyl with thousands exposed to high radiation, we'll learn a lot from their mistakes and design even safer reactors from this valuable experience. This should not discourage us ***at all*** from nuking up the entire United States, except maybe near the west coast and near the new madrid fault close to St. Louis.

Japan is a crappy place to build a nuclear reactor, but there are lots and lots of tectonically stable places far from any ocean in the US where nuclear reactors would be absolutely perfect and ideal.

Tsunami from almost ground level.

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Amazing use of Google Earth - Before and After images of the area hardest hit by the devastation of the Earthquake/Tsunami. Mother Nature was in beast mode. Unreal.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/ja...eforeafter.htm

Incredible.

Now if only we could get the Phelps clan to protest outside the plants with 'God hates Japan' signs.

Insane

Here's something for teedubya to freak out over :) My son posted this on Facebook...

Yeah. The Earthquake was on 3-11, though. OMG!!!

I'm looking for 7-11, so I can get a slurpee.

Too soon?

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bDQlSUjqsuo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

But seriously, what an awful thing. I'm not one that normally donates, but I'm going to toss $10 to the relief efforts and would suggest others to if they can afford it.

I'd say a bit too soon, bro.

The Nikkei dropped 500 points at open... this should be interesting to watch this evening. i wonder how many points the Japanese market will crash today.... 1000+ ?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^N225

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2721/nikkei.jpg

With shit like rolling black outs on the horizon and the upcoming bill for rebuilding, a 1000 point drop would probably be tame.

E: Quake warning issued for Tokyo.

Mother nature is not being kind to them right now. Jesus

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aaBDq-8YpA0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Lesson: Don't build a nation on a ****ing island.

Probably already posted, but I heard today that Friday's quake moved Japan 8ft, and shifted the Earths axis 10".

Japan nuclear safety agency confirms hydrogen explosion at Fukushima Daiichi plant No.3.


There are also conflicting reports about the possibility that another tsunami is on the way.

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2

CNN is reporting people are being told to move to higher ground in NE Japan. Live right now. Expecting up to 3 meter waves.

FYP

Good Christ! WTF did these people do to piss off the Gods to bad?