Be glad you don't live in Japan Friday

[Cleo]

Can't believe that no one has started a morning thread yet...

Woke up around 6 this morning due to my leg bothering me. Didn't want to wake Christy up by turning on the TV so started surfing the boards and found out about Japan's monster earthquake over on GFY.

Did Foxy's updates this morning and then finished up my sports blog after doing a quick TGP gallery. Getting ready to take care of today's linkspun trades and then doing a free site in addition to the rest of today's mundane tasks.

[RedCherry]

I was thinking the same thing. (as far as starting the morning thread)

I saw my sister post on FB about the earthquake, I just can't imagine what that was like.

Just building my second free site and getting ready to submit it while my cat wanders over and sits on my mouse while I type this, lol.

Have a good one all, and stay earthquake/Tsumani free.

[JustRobert]

Good Morning
Watched live coverage of the earthquake/tsunami while working to about 1am. It was impressive to say the least. When I went to bed predictions were not good for Hawaii so glad to see they are OK.

Took care of taxes yesterday. Worse then I thought it was going to be, oh joy. Need to work, work, work to cover those taxes. Later will be a movie with wife.

[ArtWilliams]

I often start the morning thread but I am getting ready for Hawaii. Apparently, it is still there. I will be visiting the boards but later in the day (EST) due to the five hour time difference. Time to talk to the house sitter.

Have a great day!

[pc]

Good afternoon everyone
I started working on something different for me, little wb resource, mostly around porn industry. I don't know what I'm doing yet but I'm doing something

Originally Posted by Cleo

Can't believe that no one has started a morning thread yet...

....

everyone is working, too busy, busy, busy, busy

[Bill]

The nuclear power plants are particularly interesting - not sure if I read right, but it seemed like every one of them is damaged and leaking radioactivity.

[terry]

Happy Friday Everyone. ugh whats this world coming to???!!!!!

[The Epic]

Late posting for me, but hope everyones Friday was very productive. I was able to get a load of work done as it was my day off.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Bill

The nuclear power plants are particularly interesting - not sure if I read right, but it seemed like every one of them is damaged and leaking radioactivity.

That is what I'm hearing too.

Naturally the anti nuclear people are already using this as an example of why no more should be built... because burning fossil fuels are so much better I guess.

[dunc]

Yeah - the one thing I noticed is how much more "Stuff" (debris I suppose) was in the Tsunami wave - in the 2006 Indonesian Tsunami, images and video didn't have as much stuff.

Did any one see the whirlpool vid?

Dodgy stuff though, thoughts go out for anyone involved.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Cleo

Naturally the anti nuclear people are already using this as an example of why no more should be built... because burning fossil fuels are so much better I guess.

Chances are good that many if not all of them are nearing the end of their projected lifespan, and may have to be decomissioned after this.

We should be replacing that style of reactor/generator with newer models anyway.

But yeah you are right, the unthoughtful greens will be all "NO NUKES" about this, unwilling to face the fact that the "no nukes" path requires a massive dieback, just as much as the "burn all the fossil carbon" path.

Not that the nuclear path is all roses. There are no great options left to us after wasting the last 40 years in an amnesiac consumption frenzy.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Bill

Chances are good that many if not all of them are nearing the end of their projected lifespan, and may have to be decomissioned after this.

We should be replacing that style of reactor/generator with newer models anyway.

But yeah you are right, the unthoughtful greens will be all "NO NUKES" about this, unwilling to face the fact that the "no nukes" path requires a massive dieback, just as much as the "burn all the fossil carbon" path.

Not that the nuclear path is all roses. There are no great options left to us after wasting the last 40 years in an amnesiac consumption frenzy.

If I read right those are the Canadian reactors, which are somewhat safer than the American fast-breeder types! |tomato|

Not that a lot of things would stand up to an earthquake which was 8,000 times stronger than the one that just leveled Christchurch!

Fossil Fuels on Demand
In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1871149/

We will have to see how this new gem plays out!
a) - [ ] Oil companies deep six it
b) - [ ] Gets wild & devours all carbon

[Bill]

I couldn't say, I haven't looked at all into the design of the japanese reactors.

It's a fascinating experiment tho - what happens to a nuclear plant in an earthquake. And how do you repair a reactor after an earthquake, lol.

An expensive experiment I bet

Seems an odd choice, putting reactors on the ring of fire. But we got em in california, also on the ring of fire.

---

Who knows about algal biodiesel. One hears this claim and that claim. But one sees no appreciable stream of algal biodeisel flowing.

Same with cellulosic ethanol.

$30 a barrel sounds real nice. Seems that is it were true, at $100 oil, somebody would be building some algal biodiesel plants.

I'm not holding my breath. Our energy supply system is crazy, and we humans have been fucking up on energy pretty consistently.

Three years ago we had an energy shock that should have started a real self-examination - but we did nothing but heave a sigh of relief when an economic collapse temporarily dropped the price of oil.

So here we are again, not really one step further down the road, except our economy lost trillions which it might have spent on developing alternatives to fossil carbons.

[Cleo]

Doesn't seem like building it so close to the ocean was a good idea.

Also it doesn't look like there is a containment dome over the reactor.

[Bill]

MSNBC says The Fukushima nuclear plants have 23 sisters in the US

The NRC database of nuclear power plants shows that 23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The U.S. reactors are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
In addition, 12 reactors in the U.S. have the later Mark II or Mark III containment system from GE. These 12 are in Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington state. See the full list below.

So I guess the japanese are running an experiment in stress testing that kind of plant for us.

[Cleo]

A quick search on Google images found this. Doesn't look like a dome to me. More like a factory building.

[Voltar]

and they now have upped the death count to over 10k and climbing with over a 100k already fled from Japan...what a horrible thing to happen! so many long term effects are going to be felt there for years to come...they are also now saying it's the worst thing to happen since WWII and the bomb dropped on them..looks like to me it could turn out to be worse than that for them if things keep going sideways at the reactors there...

[Cleo]

I found this site today with some good info on what is taking place.
http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/inf...n-that-region/

[Linkster]

In my "other life" I am in radiation protection - and first off - the info from NEI that Cleo posted is a good overview of what is really going on without the sensationalist journalism that unfortunately the media has been dipping in lately.(again???)

The dose rates that they list being double normal site levels are probably in the reactor building/containment and although a little higher than normal, not something that would have an effect on the outside world.(It just affects how you do your recovery inside the plant as you have to take extra protective measures)

The precautionary distrubution of Potassium Iodide is very conservative in my opinion, as there has been very little released during the hydrogen explosions - and is more than likely just a political move to calm fears. And for you hunters out there if you like your venison - you eat more cesium in your meat than anyone came close to inhaling at Three Mile Island

One statement in an earlier post kinda rubbed me the wrong way, as while there are a few plants in the US of the same design, they all have been changed since they were built because of the accident at TMI ages ago....the hydrogen buildup that occurred in Japan would not have happened in the US...all of the plants installed hydrogen recombiners that basically turn the excess hydrogen back into water vapor...as this was the same issue that TMI had when they had their explosion.
The US plants also revamped their core cooling systems to not require any type of power to inject water and "poison"(boron) that would keep the reactor covered and shut down till it was in cold shutdown (about 36 hours).

Cleo - in your picture you are correct - it is not a "dome" but the common term for the concrete layers just above and around the yellow colored spere in the center is called a dome since on other designs it is dome shaped. The rust red colored cylinder in the center is the reactor vessel which encloses the fuel and is where the water is boiled. The yellow cover above that is called the "drywell" head. That section is immersed in a pool of water which is the likely source of the creation of the hydrogen in these Japanese plants. When water gets irradiated it separates into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen forms pockets after it vents into the atmosphere of the upper building where they show a crane (orange and yellow at the top in your picture) Anything that can cause a spark (theres lots of electrical panels in there) will light off the hydrogen and blow the roof and walls off that building - which is what you are seeing in all of the explosion pics and vids you see on the net.

The reactor vessel in the center (again the red cylinder) is more than likely still intact on these plants containing the fuel even if there were damage to the fuel. Even at TMI the fuel was in the bottom of that vessel - and while the news loves the term "meltdown" - the damaged fuel just piles up at the bottom of that vessel and stays there - hopefully one of these days we can educate the media to let them know that the fuel isnt going to go anywhere else like it does in the movies.

For those of you wondering about radiation dose if you have any questions Ill check in here and will be glad to answer anything - however I may disappoint if you are looking for sensationalism as even at TMI - the dose to the press corps who wanted to stay right at the fence to film what was going on was 1/10th of what they would have gotten getting one side of a dental xray. They got more radiation dose flying to the site in a plane from cosmic rays than they did sitting outside the plant for weeks on end misinforming the public

[Cleo]

I do find it somewhat amusing how the US has gone from dropping two atomic bombs on Japan that killed over 100,000 people almost instantly to complete hysteria over a small amount of radiation.

Doesn't Japan still have high levels of radiation where the A-bombs were dropped and people are living in these cities now?

I remember getting my brand new Datsun 240Z in 1973 and seeing that it was made in Hiroshima.

[Cleo]

Did a bit of Goggling... seems that radiation at the bomb sites quickly dissipated.

"Today, the background radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the same as the average amount of natural radiation present anywhere on Earth. It is not enough to affect human health."
http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/kid...uestion12.html

And in other news mining and burning coal kills hundreds each year.

[Linkster]

Cleo - thats correct - the radiation (actually what we call contamination) dissipates very quickly - the primary nuclides released during an atom bomb explosion last a few hours with some small amounts lasting longer and getting deposited worldwide - thats why I mentioned the deer hunters earlier - they are still eating cesium left over from the atomic tests of the 1950s in the soil/plants

The news media (and hence the people that are listening seem to confuse things as well)

Contamination is the actual material that gets blown airborne - radiation is the energy that comes from it - the way I use to explain to my students was that if you step in a pile of dog poop - the poop on your shoe is the contamination and the smell is the radiation emitted from that material.

You will hear stories where people are showered after being contaminated (although the news will say they washed radiation off of them which is actually totally impossible - it would be like taking a shower to wash off light after youve been outside)

[Bill]

Ahhh, I didn't know this, tho could have guessed.

Turns out using seawater (doped with boron) to cool those reactors ruins them.

So, a very expensive experiment indeed.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_DD_20110316

As the situation at Japan's 40-year-old Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant goes from bad to worse—four of the plant's six boiling-water reactors have been damaged by explosions or fire, and radiation has begun leaking into the atmosphere—officials there continue to pump seawater into the reactors in a desperate attempt to cool down fuel rods and avoid a complete meltdown that could release radioactive fallout across much of the country and beyond. The move by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates Daiichi, to use seawater doped with neutron-absorbing boron in the reactors' pressure vessels all but ensures that they will never function properly again, permanently damaging one of the world's 25 largest nuclear power stations.

40 years old - I thought so - which means they were likely close to their projected useful life already.

So what we are seeing is the beginning of the largest decommisioning project on the planet.

[Cleo]

Have you seen the close-up pics released today? Sea water would seem to be a least of the worries as they looked more like a big pile of rubble than a power plant.

Not sure how much of the news is spin but listening to the news today things it sure seems like Japan is just totally fucked.

[Bill]

Imagining the conditions that the "faceless 50" must be working in is an exercise in science fiction, for sure.

Ironic that two energy-related disasters - the gulf spill and now a nuclear plant meltdown - should happen in consecutive years. A reminder of what can happen to complex systems under stress.

The photos look pretty disastery, but I can't say what they are really showing us. The outer shells of the buildings are beat to shit - but it's what we can't see that is the interesting part.

Here's where we all start making godzilla jokes.