Metro Jacksonville

QuoteBy MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press â€" 4 mins ago
TOKYO â€" Japan was struck by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, unleashing a 13-foot (4-meter) tsunami that washed away cars and tore away buildings along the coast near the epicenter. There were reports of injuries in Tokyo.
In various locations along Japan's coast, TV footage showed massive damage from the tsunami, with dozens of cars, boats and even buildings being carried along by waters. A large ship swept away by the tsunami rammed directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma city in Miyagi prefecture, according to footage on public broadcaster NHK.
Officials were trying to assess damage, injuries and deaths from the quake but had no immediate details.
The quake that struck at 2:46 p.m. was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, including a 7.4-magnitude one about 30 minutes later. The U.S. Geological Survey upgraded the strength of the first quake to a magnitude 8.9, while Japan's meteorological agency measured it at 7.9.
The meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning for the entire Pacific coast of Japan. NHK was warning those near the coast to get to safer ground.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami warning was in effect for Japan, Russia, Marcus Island and the Northern Marianas. A tsunami watch has been issued for Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and the U.S. state of Hawaii.
The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
In downtown Tokyo, large buildings shook violently and workers poured into the street for safety. TV footage showed a large building on fire and bellowing smoke in the Odaiba district of Tokyo.
In central Tokyo, trains were stopped and passengers walked along the tracks to platforms.
The ceiling in Kudan Kaikan, a large hall in Tokyo, collapsed, injuring an unknown number of people, NHK said.
Footage on NHK from their Sendai office showed employees stumbling around and books and papers crashing from desks. It also showed a glass shelter at a bus stop in Tokyo completely smashed by the quake and a weeping woman nearby being comforted by another woman.
Several quakes had hit the same region in recent days, including a 7.3 magnitude one on Wednesday.
Thirty minutes after the quake, tall buildings were still swaying in Tokyo and mobile phone networks were not working. Japan's Coast Guard has set up task force and officials are standing by for emergency contingencies, Coast Guard official Yosuke Oi said.
"I'm afraid we'll soon find out about damages, since the quake was so strong," he said
/quote]


Very large and possibly catastrophic Earthquake has struck off the coast of Japan about an hour and half ago.  Luckily Japan is very well prepared for such an event.  This may affect many other Pacific countries as well.  Wish them the best.

No country is more prepared for earthquake and Tsunami than Japan.  My thoughts are with them... :'(

It doesn't matter how prepared you are for a Tsunami, a 20 foot one like the one that hit Japan will kill hundreds to even thousands of people. I expect the death toll to rise significantly. Our thoughts and prayers are with those caught in that nightmare.

The tsunami video is incredible... incredible destruction...

Live feed from Hawaii... 6-7 foot prediction....

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream2&hpt=T1

My heart goes out to them all...

watching live feed from Hawaii. Nothing major yet.

I saw that the town of Hilo (where one of my best friends lives) is expecting 12-14 foot waves.  Hilo is a town of over 40,000.  I hope they are able to reach shelter and that minimal, if any, damage occurs.
My friend was supposed to board a plane just as the earthquake happened, so I hope she is safely in the air headed for solid ground in CA.  Pray for all of those in the path of these waves.

That footage from Japan is absolutely amazing and frightening at the same time.  The raw power of these waves is imeasurable.

My thoughts and prayers are with those affected.

I would expect in the coming days to see footage similar to the Thailand tsunami videos...

Watching some clips on CNN now. Can't believe what I'm seeing.

I cant watch videos at work! dang it.

(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/interactive/2011/03/world/gallery.japan.quake/images/lg.hrzgal.13.gi.jpg)
(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/03/11/t1larg.japan.quake8.gi.jpg)

Damn it man. This sucks. Things of this magnitude is always a reminder to be grateful. Things could always be worse. I just hope there arent any other major tsunamis as a results of this.

Honshu Island Japan was devastated by an earthquake and the Stratovolcano "AKAGI" in 1938, and America came to the rescue.    

The similar magnitude Shakotan-oki, earthquake of Aug. 1, 1940, in Japan was followed by a massive American relief effort. 57 day's later Japan signed the Tripartite Pact considered a not so veiled warning to the USA. Tons of supplies went to the Japanese Islands and one year, 4 months and 7 days later, they gave some of it back to us as a different "AKAGI," launched death and destruction at Pearl Harbor.

We should help and pray for these people.  But by the grace of God, it could be us .

Good thing America is such a generous country with a great, far-reaching military to help countries like Japan (and SE Asia 6 years ago) with their earthquakes.

The earthquakes continue to rumble in Japan with at least a 6.0+ every hour.  It must be a nightmare over there.  11 nuclear reactors not functioning with one that was on the verge of a meltdown (and our very own Air Force saved the day by delivering extra coolant).

Looks like over 80,000 are still missing, including a few trains that have gone completely missing and a large ferry filled with people that is still completely missing.  One airport filled with thousands of almost-passengers was inundated and surrounded by the tsunami, and those people are still trapped in the airport.

Thailand offering $165,000.
Poland offering some firefighters.
Australia sending money (undisclosed) and equipment.
45 countries have initially offered aid.

I have to say it, but nobody's aid will even come close to what the US has already done just in the past 12 hours in helping Japan and its people.

Completely agree with you , Simms....and as far as I know, that is how it has always been....... I wonder, were the situation the other way around , how many countries we could count on to help us?


Still.....I cannot help but be extremely sympathetic to these people.  The horrific videos I have witnessed today, paint an extremely bleak picture in that region, and the quakes continue.

May God help them  :(

Here is a video of buildings swaying.

http://www.youtube.com/v/JhJzdtzl6KY?fs=1&hl=en_US

Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/v/4YPOK_3r8Dc?fs=1&hl=en_US

We're next; and if we're not, it's right around the corner!

"HU"

How did I miss this one? In my lifetime I have managed to get myself into The Sylmar Earthquake that hit the San Fernando Valley near Sylmar, California at 6:00:55 a.m. PST in 1971. The next show was the Landers Earthquake. TIME June 28, 1992 / 4:57:31 am PDT a magnitude 7.3 and it tore the shit out of my desert place with is about 2,000 feet west of the "extinct fault" and 30 miles south of the "extinct Amboy Volcanic Cone". I was on the north slope of Mt. Hood, in Oregon within plain sight of the Mount St. Helens (some wackos claimed it was a volcano) then it erupted on May 18, 1980 with an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale. Then your intrepid neighbor was back in Colombia when activity began at Nevado del Huila Volcano in February after being dormant for 450 years. The eruption was preceded by tornillo earthquakes, with 105 measured between March 2006 and February 2007, including an early morning temblor that knocked most of Medellin out of bed.

Then there were the storms... Hurricane Donna in 1960 a Category 4 storm that FLOODED JACKSONVILLE, and then in 1964 Jacksonville took a direct hit with Hurricane Dora, another Category 4 storm. Let me tell you youngsters that whatever we had going at the beaches, by the time Dora left town...IT WAS OVER. Then on August 17, 1969, I was traveling back to California and managed to get crosswise of CAMILE a full blown category 5 storm, I was hunkered down in a hotel in Mobile (smart move NE side of the storm) while she wiped out the gulf coast. OOPS 1992 and down by Lake Okeechobee we got slammed by Andrew and again I was just northeast of the monster category 4 storm. In 2004 I got an apartment in Heathrow as we moved back and forth from Colombia, just in time for Charlie, Francis and Jeanne...wet but not strong enough to get me. As soon as I got back to Jacksonville we had Tropical Storm Fay.

There was also that May 3, 1999 Tornado swarm in Oklahoma, and I got to assist Oklahoma Search and Rescue in the longest span of sleepless work in my life... about 42 hours straight, followed by a 2 hour nap, then another 24+.  But "Have you ever seen a category 5 on the  Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale?" YOUR DAMN STRAIGHT I HAVE, two of them!

As I keep saying, don't get too comfortable fellow Jaxson's.  Just because it hasn't happened on this scale doesn't mean we are immune, the fact that a fairly large fault line runs under St. Augustine, and another east coast fault ends near Jacksonville. We are in fact in the same range of likely earthquake activity as Central Oregon and Washington, Southern Nevada, Arizona, New England, and most of South Carolina, Missouri and Wyoming. SO SMILE, we're still here!

QuoteHistoric Earthquakes

Near St. Augustine, St. Johns County, Florida
1879 01 13 04:45 UTC (local Jan 12)
Intensity VI

Largest Earthquake in Florida

Plaster was shaken down and articles were thrown from shelves at St. Augustine and, to the south, at Daytona Beach. At Tampa, a trembling motion was preceded by a rumbling sound. Felt from a line joining Tallahassee, Florida, to Savannah, Georgia, on the north to a line joining Punta Rassa and Daytona Beach, Florida, on the south. Two shocks occurred, each lasting 30 seconds.
SOURCE:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1879_01_13.php

QuoteFlorida Earthquake Rocks State, Experts Baffled
By Robert Hernandez
Sep 12, 2006

A Florida earthquake seems an oddity.  But a strong 6.0 earthquake hit in the gulf just outside of Florida and rocked the state over the weekend.  The quake sent shockwaves from Louisiana to Florida on Sept. 10, but was not powerful enough to trigger a tsunami.

While offshore earthquakes often generate concern about the potential for tsunamis the relatively shallow water of the Gulf of Mexico is not conducive to the generation of such waves and the broad continental shelf along the U.S. Gulf Coast serves as a break for these long-period waves, reports the USGS.

“This fault is not likely to contain enough elastic strength to cause any problems along the Florida coast,” said Paul Wetmore, a professor of seismic geology at the University of South Florida. “It will never slip with enough energy to cause a tsunami.”

***

The quake has experts baffled.  The St. Petersburg Times reports that the quake generated from a fault nobody knew existed before it produced the strong earthquake Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico.

It doesn’t appear on any geological maps.

No seismic monitoring occurs in that part of the gulf, so scientists are uncertain where the fault is or where the quake took place.

***

This event was centered far offshore -- about 250 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, Fla. -- yet it was widely felt. From Texas to Florida, and as far north as North Carolina, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) received online reports from more than 5000 people representing nearly 1000 zip codes.

According to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. this is the largest of more than a dozen earthquakes that have been recorded from the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the past three decades, and it is the most widely felt. The previous significant earthquake in the region occurred on February 10, 2006 and had a magnitude of 5.2.

***

Experts say they will not look for the fault line.  “We knew of no causative faults in the Gulf of Mexico that could produce a quake of this magnitude. Now we know there is one down there somewhere, but it’s not a big deal.”
SOURCE:  http://www.nationalledger.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=4&num=8343

Quote

JUST LIKE JACKSONVILLE!

(http://inlinethumb33.webshots.com/45472/2881411550104969885S600x600Q85.jpg)

(http://inlinethumb57.webshots.com/45432/2658961110104969885S600x600Q85.jpg)
BET IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR BACKYARD

Charleston sits upon the Coastal Plains sediments, a region of sedimentary rocks reaching from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic coast. Reaching thicknesses upwards of 1 km, these sediments were deposited over the course of millions of years and are highly prone to liquefaction.

No surface faulting was observed after the 1886 quake, though several fissures were reported parallel to streams and canals in the epicentral area. There was widespread ground liquefaction and formation of sand craterlets, some more than 6.4 meters wide. Sand ejection and water spouts were also widely reported.

Scientists believe that the 1886 quake originated not in these sediments but in faults in the underlying basement rock. These faults do not extend to the surface, hampering efforts to characterize them via standard surface observations.
SOURCE:  http://blog.rehava.com/charlestons-1886-earthquake

QuoteFlorida

Earthquake History

Although Florida is not usually considered to be a state subject to earthquakes, several minor shocks have occurred there. Only one of these caused damage. Additional shocks of doubtful seismic origin also are listed in earthquake documents.

A shock occurred near St. Augustine, in the northeast part of the State, in January 1879. The Nation's oldest permanent settlement, founded by Spain in 1565, reported that heavy shaking knocked plaster from walls and articles from shelves. Similar effects were noted at Daytona Beach, 50 miles south. At Tampa, the southernmost point of the felt area, the trembling was preceded by a rumbling sound at 11:30 p.m. Two shocks were reported in other areas, at 11:45 p.m. and 11:55 p.m. The tremor was felt through north and central Florida, and at Savannah, Georgia.

In January 1880, Cuba was the center of two strong earthquakes that sent severe shock waves through the town of Key West, Florida. The tremors occurred at 11 p.m. on January 22 and at 4 a.m. on the 23rd. At Buelta Abajo and San Christobal, Cuba, many buildings were thrown down and some people were killed.

The next tremor to be felt by Floridians also centered outside the State. It was the famous Charleston, South Carolina, shock in August 1886. The shock was felt throughout northern Florida, ringing church bells at St. Augustine and severely jolting other towns along that section of Florida's east coast. Jacksonville residents felt many of the strong aftershocks that occurred in September, October, and November 1886.

On June 20, 1893, Jacksonville experienced another slight shock, apparently local, that lasted about 10 seconds. Another minor earthquake shook Jacksonville at 11:15 a.m., October 31, 1900. It caused no damage.

A sudden jar caused doors and windows to rattle at Captiva in November 1948. The apparent earthquake was accompanied by sounds like distant heavy explosions. Captiva is located on Captiva Island, in the Gulf west of Fort Myers.

On November 18, 1952, a slight tremor was felt by many at Quincy, a small town about 20 miles northwest of Tallahassee. Windows and doors rattled, but no serious effects were noted.
SOURCE:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/florida/history.php

OCKLAWAHA  ;D

http://www.stripes.com/news/at-misawa-cold-miserable-and-scared-people-1.137385

QuoteAt Misawa, 'cold, miserable and scared people'
By Patrick Dickson
Stars and Stripes
Published: March 11, 2011

For several hours after the first quake struck, Misawa Air Base on the Pacific coast of northern Japan was in a blackout.

Just a 30-minute drive from Hachinohe, where a 13-foot tsunami wave pushed boats and debris miles inland, Misawa personnel had scrambled for the high ground, but the water did not come.

Here is a firsthand report phoned in by Stars and Stripes web editor T.D. Flack:

“At 2:40, the buildings on the base began rocking and swaying. At the Torii building, the big building on base that’s home to the Red Cross, people fled to the parking lot.

“Kids were crying; it was a really long shaking â€" not a super rough ‘up and down’ but a constant swaying. Telephone poles and light poles were swaying and squeaking.

“Water poured out the front door of the pool building â€" it was bizarre. The quake was so strong that water rushed out of the pool, and out of the front door and down the steps, into the street.

“The base was in the middle of an exercise, and immediately switched to recovery efforts, using the loudspeaker system.

“All power was lost immediately, as were cell phones. No Internet, no cell phones, no communication at all.

“The off-base emergency system was launched, and emergency announcements were broadcast in English and Japanese.

“Off-base convenience stores, like the 7-Eleven, were jammed as people scrambled to buy water, food and batteries. It’s especially bad, as temperature dropped below freezing, with some snow flurries.

“As of 8 p.m., the base remained almost completely black, save for some buildings with generator back-up. All we can assume is people are hunkering down and bundling up because there’s no heat. It’s brutal.

“There were two big fears: one, that the tsunami would reach far enough inland â€" two miles â€" to swamp the base.

“The second was the nuclear power plant Rokkasho. (The Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing facility was being powered by emergency diesel generators. No other unusual events or radiation leaks have been reported.)

“There’s a bunch of cold, miserable and scared people, wrapped in blankets, and waiting for the next aftershock.

As we spoke, Flack was making sure his kids were warm enough; he had moved his whole family into his office for the night, which others in his building had also done.

Then, another wave of aftershocks.

“I gotta go.”

http://www.stripes.com/news/military-personnel-facilities-in-japan-survive-quake-tsunami-unscathed-1.137430

QuoteMilitary personnel, facilities in Japan survive quake, tsunami unscathed
Stars and Stripes
Published: March 11, 2011

Some 86,000 U.S. servicemembers, civilian defense employees and their family members in Japan are believed safe after a massive one-two punch from a historic earthquake and ensuing tsunami, Defense Department officials said Friday morning.

“All of the different forces in Japan and in the surrounding area are going through 100 percent accountability checks,” said Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. “So far everyone’s been accounted for, but those accountability checks are going on in those locations.”

There had been no significant damage to U.S. ships, aircraft, or facilities, either, Lapan said.

“While we can positively confirm right now the U.S. assets, we can’t forget the Japanese population,” Lapan said.

Witnesses have reported hundreds of bodies floating in water left behind by massive waves that hit eastern Japan after the magnitude-8.9 quake.

Eyewitness reports indicated that one of the hardest hit U.S. facilities appears to be one closest to the epicenter of the quake off the east coast Honshu: Misawa Air Base lost electricity and telecommunications after the massive quake, and technicians were still struggling to bring power back up many hours later.

Meanwhile at the Yokosuka Naval Base, personnel were barred from tall buildings that are feared to have sustained quake-related damage. The carrier USS George Washington is currently docked at Yokosuka undergoing maintenance, but the area felt little effects from the tsunami, officials said.

Sasebo Naval Base and Yokota Air Base are also believed to have escaped damage.

Yokota, located outside Tokyo, accepted civilian flights diverted from Narita Airport, which suffered damaged terminals. Airport officials were handing out water, crackers and blankets as evening arrived.

“Not leaving anytime soon,” one passenger told a Stars and Stripes editor.

Some 537 passengers aboard two Delta airliners were being housed overnight at Yokota’s community center until the planes could fly out Saturday, base spokeswoman Capt. Tania Bryan said. Another nine aircraft were expected to leave Yokota later Friday night, and no additional diverted planes were expected at Yokota, she said.

From Japan to Hawaii to the U.S. West Coast, personnel and equipment near coastlines were moved out of the way of tsunami waves. Their power was evident on Guam, where the submarines USS Houston and USS City of Corpus Christi broke free from their mooring lines. Tug boats from Naval Base Guam responded quickly, and both submarines are safe, a base official said.

Army sources reported that aviation assets in Pacific regions had been moved to higher ground. On Okinawa, Marine Corps Bases Japan announced that it had activated its Base Emergency Operations Center to monitor the situation and coordinate Marine Corps actions. Residents in low-lying areas on Camp Foster, lower Camp Lester and Camp Kinser have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.

Thousands of miles away, near San Diego, the U.S. Dubuque amphibious transport dock ship had set sail from Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station to avoid tsunami damage, officials said. Other ships at the facility were deemed safe.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-LsruxmeEBc?fs=1&hl=en_US"%20type=

Lord, have mercy.     

 Holy cow!  Those vidoes are astounding.

Here is a another good video: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1605260179420

sad.. :(  there just are no other words :(..

QuoteWhy is there no looting in Japan?
The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.

And solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan’s technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I’m not the only one curious about this.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100079703/why-is-there-no-looting-in-japan/

I was thinking about this watching the vid shot by the guy on the bike. Not a single person carrying a TV.

I think the Japanese people have much more important fears and concerns at present. I would imagine looking for missing , possibly and probably deceased loved ones, and basic necessities would be their priority.  I feel extremely sympathetic for these people.  This is one of those times where I truly wish the entire world could unite and help each other, because these folks need every bit of help the world can offer.  Their situation is horrible.  I cannot even fathom the amount of terror they have witnessed...at least, those who survived.

Different cultures, they even stand in long lines patiently for water.


Most of the looters in New Orleans were people accustomed to getting hand outs from the government and society.

Most of the looting after the floods in Britain were by normal people. Breaking into cars, stealing free water, etc.

In Chile, the army had to be called in due to looting.

In Japan, they wait patiently. Its amazing.

It is a true testament to the Japanese people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LPGzzaSsbU

I found something about this video to be absolutely terrifying, almost nauseating- seeing the ground undulate like that along with the liquefaction while everything else seems so calm. It's so creepy.

That is one freaky video especially the end.

Okay, so now there's supposedly a huge fire at reactor 4. #4 was totally offline for inspection before the earthquake but there's something very wrong because radiation levels are getting very high around it. If the facility was damaged by one of the previous explosions, TEPCO made absolutely no mention of it. I can't honestly judge what's going on at the moment but up until several hours ago TEPCO was saying that everything's basically under control and all of a sudden a supposedly totally inactive reactor building is on fire spewing radiation? I don't buy it.

Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Quote from: Timkin on March 14, 2011, 11:20:04 PM
Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west. :(

good thing they didnt build those reactors on reclaimed land. Liquifaction is one of the most interesting phenomena of an earthquake.

Quote from: peestandingup on March 15, 2011, 11:56:44 AM

Quote from: Timkin on March 14, 2011, 11:20:04 PM
Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west. :(

Maybe a little more research was necessary before handing out the crown for ‘daddy’ of all nuclear accidents… I believe the rumors about the 'walking dead' are just that. Any links to support?

QuoteQ: What about the radiation released? Is it dangerous?


A: It would appear that some of the nuclear fuel in FD1 has melted and released gaseous fission products to the interior of the reactor. These would include xenon, krypton, and iodine. There are about seven isotopes of xenon that are radioactive and would be released in such an incident, with atomic masses of 133, 135, 137, and 138, along with three isomers, 131m, 133m, and 135m. With the exception of the isomers, each of these xenon atoms will decay into cesium and some into other elements past cesium. There is also krypton but its radioactivity and decay products are of less concern.

Xenon itself is not particularly dangerous. It is a noble gas and is not concentrated in the body. Cesium is more of a concern. Here are the seven decay sequences:

Xenon-131m will decay to stable xenon-131.
Xenon-133m will decay to radioactive xenon-133.
Xenon-133 will decay to stable cesium-133.
Xenon-135m will decay to radioactive xenon-135.
Xenon-135 will decay to very mildly radioactive cesium-135.
Xenon-137 will decay to radioactive cesium-137.
Xenon-138 will decay to radioactive cesium-138 and then quickly to stable barium-138.

Of all of these, the decay of xenon-137 to cesium-137 is probably responsible for the most risk, but xenon-137 decays so quickly that the mobility of cesium-137 is limited. I do not think this poses much risk because it can’t get far. The xenon-135 has a longer half-life (9 hours) but decays to a nearly harmless form of cesium (135). I think this poses almost no risk due to the very long half life of cesium-135.

QuoteQ: Is this like the Chernobyl disaster? Could it be?

A: No, absolutely not. The Chernobyl disaster was a combination of a bad reactor design coupled with a bad operational sequence. It led to a steam explosion, a burning reactor, and no containment building so radioactive byproducts were spread far and wide. Fundamentally, Chernobyl was driven by fission energy (95% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor) not by decay heat energy (5% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor).

The circumstances at Fukushima-Daiichi are very different. The reactors shut down successfully and their heat generated from the decay of fission products began to drop rapidly. Take a look at this graph:

(http://energyfromthorium.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/decay_heat_post_shutdown-500x375.jpg)

QuoteIt has been several days since the reactors were shut down and they are now generating only about 0.5% of the thermal power they were generating before. Assuming that they were generating about 1500 thermal megawatts of power, now they’re only generating about 7 megawatts of thermal power. Nevertheless, that heat needed to be removed through cooling systems, but there’s not nearly enough power there to cause a Chernobyl-type incident.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/)

QuoteIt's just as bad as it sounds'
“It’s just as bad as it sounds,” he said. “What they have not been able to do is restore cooling of the radioactive core to prevent overheating and that’s causing a variety of problems, including a rise in temperature and pressure with the containment (buildings).
“What’s critical is, are they able to restore cooling and prevent fuel damage? If the fuel starts to get damaged, eventually it will melt through the reactor vessel and drop to the floor of the containment building,” raising the odds that highly radioactive materials could be released into the environment.
But Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the U.S.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, said that while the situation was serious, a meltdown remains unlikely and, even if it occurred would not necessarily pose a threat to public health and safety.
“Obviously that wouldn’t be a good thing, but at Three Mile Island about half the core melted and, at the end of the day … there were no adverse impacts to the public,” he said.

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 12:16:37 PM
Maybe a little more research was necessary before handing out the crown for ‘daddy’ of all nuclear accidents…

And maybe you should read a bit more thoroughly before responding?? Lemme help you:

QuoteYeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west.

I never "crowned" anything, as this is still playing out. Save your graphs & "safety" jargon for a couple days & lets see where we're at. Or better yet, show the people of Japan & see what they think about it right now.

Well graphs and oh I don't know 'facts' seem to be the most important part in detailing a catastrophe. Not rumors / hearsay "I read the news and shit and people are like zombies all dead & stuff".

The scenes of destruction did resemble the scenery in the epic cinematic triumph know in intellectual circles as Zombieland.

How do you even begin to clean up?  Thousands of destroyed houses and buildings... thousands of destroyed cars... literally mountains of debris.  Entire towns... gone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366395/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-Haunting-images-450-Britons-feared-missing.html

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/15/article-0-0B2D561B00000578-484_470x600.jpg)

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 12:50:08 PM
Well graphs and oh I don't know 'facts' seem to be the most important part in detailing a catastrophe. Not rumors / hearsay "I read the news and shit and people are like zombies all dead & stuff".

Well, you never linked to any source for that little Q&A session you quoted (which looks to be days old & obviously doesn't take into account recent developments). So are those the "facts" you're talking about??

To be fair, I didn't link to anything either, but I figured you (and anyone else here) would be smart enough to use Google & see for themselves. This stuff isn't a secret. But I guess you were too busy posting away & doing damage control all day to be bothered with any of that nonsense.

I guess I'll help you out again (seems you have a real problem with this):

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42083048

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html?hp

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304677

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-nuclear-france-idUSTRE72E3UB20110315

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/japan-quake-iodine-idUSLDE72D1XF20110314

How's that??

Oh, and about the workers. That's pretty much anyone's guess, as they're not releasing much info about that right now (imagine that). I also made it clear that that was pure speculation on my part & just what I've read & heard. But judging from the explosions, the radiation levels around the area & all hell breaking loose, you can probably put 2 & 2 together & figure it out that it's very likely a grim situation for them. Or hell, maybe you can't. But here's something:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110315/ts_yblog_thelookout/japanese-nuclear-plant-workers-emerging-as-heroic-figures-in-tragedy

Anything else, or any other seriously potential catastrophes you'd like to downplay today?? Lemme know dude.

You may consider facts & expert opinion as 'downplaying'... and ummm how do you 'google' rambling speculation? Maybe you should pinch off that pee, sit down and read the articles you linked above... even if 3 of the 5 links are identical in content... or just look into the problem more objectively by seeking further understanding.

Here is my link to above mentioned expert / facts.
http://energyfromthorium.com/ (http://energyfromthorium.com/)


Regarding the pools:

QuoteThe good news is that the Japanese have a relatively long time to deal with the problem. Nuclear experts estimate the timeline for serious problems that could lead to a reactor meltdown as minutes to hours, and put the comparable time for cooling pools at days to weeks.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42083048 (http://www.cnbc.com/id/42083048)

Just a little more research and you would've found (at worst case scenario) this would not be as bad as the Chernobyl disaster or as you so intellectually speculated "the daddy of all nuclear disasters".

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 02:38:47 PM
You may consider facts & expert opinion as 'downplaying'... and ummm how do you 'google' rambling speculation? Maybe you should pinch off that pee, sit down and read the articles you linked above... even if 3 of the 5 links are identical in content... or just look into the problem more objectively by seeking further understanding.

Here is my link to above mentioned expert / facts.
http://energyfromthorium.com/ (http://energyfromthorium.com/)

LOL, good freakin' God. You mean the link (that doesnt seem to be fully working ATM) that leads to a shoddy looking (and what looks to be a personal) WordPress blog who's author has a major hard-on for nuclear power? That one?? Yeah, I'll get right on that, chief. I can't wait for whatever Kirk Sorensen (whoever the F that is) has to say on the subject.

Oh, and I see we've jumped the shark & have now resorted to making fun of user names. Yeah, that's usually the last step. So looks like we're about done here.

Seriously, do yourself a favor & just don't respond back. You clearly have an agenda & don't know WTF you're talking about, quoting some random pro-nuclear blog like it's fact. I mean, you can if you want, but I'm done with this waste of time just so you know. Have at it!

Quote from: peestandingup on March 15, 2011, 04:02:09 PM

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 02:38:47 PM
You may consider facts & expert opinion as 'downplaying'... and ummm how do you 'google' rambling speculation? Maybe you should pinch off that pee, sit down and read the articles you linked above... even if 3 of the 5 links are identical in content... or just look into the problem more objectively by seeking further understanding.

Here is my link to above mentioned expert / facts.
http://energyfromthorium.com/ (http://energyfromthorium.com/)

LOL, good freakin' God. You mean the link (that doesnt seem to be fully working ATM) that leads to a shoddy looking (and what looks to be a personal) WordPress blog who's author has a major hard-on for nuclear power? That one?? Yeah, I'll get right on that, chief. I can't wait for whatever Kirk Sorensen (whoever the F that is) has to say on the subject.

Oh, and I see we've jumped the shark & have now resorted to making fun of user names. Yeah, that's usually the last step. So looks like we're about done here.

Seriously, do yourself a favor & just don't respond back. You clearly have an agenda & don't know WTF you're talking about, quoting some random pro-nuclear blog like it's fact. I mean, you can if you want, but I'm done with this waste of time just so you know. Have at it!

Aww man, dont give up so fast, keep wring him done. He will give in....just keep up the debate.

Quote from: peestandingup on March 15, 2011, 04:02:09 PM

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 02:38:47 PM
You may consider facts & expert opinion as 'downplaying'... and ummm how do you 'google' rambling speculation? Maybe you should pinch off that pee, sit down and read the articles you linked above... even if 3 of the 5 links are identical in content... or just look into the problem more objectively by seeking further understanding.

Here is my link to above mentioned expert / facts.
http://energyfromthorium.com/ (http://energyfromthorium.com/)

LOL, good freakin' God. You mean the link (that doesnt seem to be fully working ATM) that leads to a shoddy looking (and what looks to be a personal) WordPress blog who's author has a major hard-on for nuclear power? That one?? Yeah, I'll get right on that, chief. I can't wait for whatever Kirk Sorensen (whoever the F that is) has to say on the subject.

Oh, and I see we've jumped the shark & have now resorted to making fun of user names. Yeah, that's usually the last step. So looks like we're about done here.

Seriously, do yourself a favor & just don't respond back. You clearly have an agenda & don't know WTF you're talking about, quoting some random pro-nuclear blog like it's fact. I mean, you can if you want, but I'm done with this waste of time just so you know. Have at it!

Check your dial up connection... the link is working just fine... and try actually reading some. The content does pertain to nuclear energy. However it mostly focuses on using Thorium as a means for safer, environmentally friendly fuel in smaller reactors with zero chance for melt down. Kirk Sorensen is only an aerospace engineer at NASA with an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. I would say that his life's work - pushing for a 'Nuclear Renaissance' and away from current methods makes him unbiased. But you’re right, the page I linked is to his blog… here’s a more in depth look at him and his ideas from Wired Magazine.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/ (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/)

I’m not claiming to be an expert in the field of nuclear energy… that’s why I read objectively and don’t beg others not to post opposing views & theories.  ;)

It appears charitable donations are trending low in comparison to Katrina / Haiti. Yesterday on NPR I caught a piece on how monetary donations are the most effective concerning the quake / tsunami relief effort. Japan is much better suited to accept and allocate money quickly with their current infrastructure vs. Haiti who weren’t prepared for the huge dollar amount that poured in. As always beware of scams  >:(

http://blogs.reuters.com/prism-money/2011/03/15/7-safe-ways-to-donate-to-japan/ (http://blogs.reuters.com/prism-money/2011/03/15/7-safe-ways-to-donate-to-japan/)

Quote from: buckethead on March 14, 2011, 07:31:23 PM

QuoteWhy is there no looting in Japan?
The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.

And solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan’s technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I’m not the only one curious about this.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100079703/why-is-there-no-looting-in-japan/

I was thinking about this watching the vid shot by the guy on the bike. Not a single person carrying a TV.

Japanese people seem to be more civil though they don't claim to be a "christian" nation. All of us would agree that if this were in the U.S. there would be rioting, looting, anarchy, martial law, the whole bit and then some, vids and pics of people toting off TV's, DVD's, and other appliance and the such. I was thinking the same thing of how civil, calm, and pristine the conduct of the people are.

"HU"

Seems like the world could take lesson from this .

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/15/article-1366395-0B2E8A7A00000578-6_470x499.jpg)

I choose this picture.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703899704576204230382157122.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

QuoteFishing Town Suffers, Caught in Waves' Wake

By ERIC BELLMAN

SAKANAMACHI, Japanâ€"As fat wet snowflakes started to fall Tuesday on Sakanamachi, Japanese for Fish Town, one of the few sounds in the area was the cackling of crows converging to feast on the thousands of fish spread along miles of its muddy streets.

Sakanamachi, once a long line of sea-facing houses, factories and warehouses, is now a tangle of steel, boats and nets. Friday's tsunami waves destroyed thousands of homes and swept away hundreds of cars full of people trying to flee. Waves chewed up the buildings of the area's main industries, fishing and shipbuilding, leaving most beyond recognition or repair.

The reminder of all that has gone bad here is ever-present and visceral: Rotting tuna, squid, bonito and breamâ€"some whole or cleaned, some filleted and wrapped in plastic by the town's plantsâ€"dot the landscape. Freezing temperatures have slowed but haven't quelled the rising stench.

The devastation in Sakanamachi, a neighborhood of the city of Ishinomaki, offers a window into the broader problems Japan will face in rebuilding. Though the economic impact of suspended production at big outfits like Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. gets the bulk of attention, much of the destruction was borne by smaller businesses, including this community's fish traders and processors. While they aren't Japan's greatest concern today, in the long run the government will be judged on whether it can help these companies bounce back.

Analysts at Barclays Capital say the towns and cities damaged by the earthquake and tsunami account for about 6% to 7% of the overall Japanese economy and about 7% of its businesses. An early estimate by National Australia Bank put the total damage cost as high as $200 billionâ€"compared with about $10 billion in economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people across 13 countries.

Back in the Sakanamachi for the first time since the tsunami, Yoshi Kameya, 43 years old, stood next to his cherry-red station wagon and stared down a lumpy lane of industrial rubble, seemingly stretching to the horizon, beneath which once ran the road to the frozen-food processor where he worked.

Japan's emergency-warning system sounded tsunami alarms in many locations, but with power knocked out in areas such as this, residents didn't recall hearing it. The 30 employees in Mr. Kameya's office, knowing a tsunami was likely to follow such a massive earthquake, all left to move inland immediately after the shaking stopped.

Their cars joined hundreds of others fleeing the factories of other small and midsize companies here, all headed for the same tunnel about a mile from shore. Traffic stopped.

Mr. Kameya tried to find his way around it. When he realized his escape time could be running short, he drove up a hill and pulled his car into a parking lot. At that elevation he was safe, and had a front-row seat to the churning carnage below.

"When the first wave hit, it lifted all the cars up and dragged them out," he said, before pulling out his iPhone to show photos of the sludge, stones and lumber the waves left as they retreated. "The waves kept coming until there were no more cars."

It took two days for the water to recede and the military to clear the tunnel. During that time, Mr. Kameya and more than 100 others lived in the parking lot, eating food they took from a convenience store he said they had broken into. Of his firm's 30 employees, he said, five still haven't been heard from.

Halfway between the industry row and the tunnel is the home of Sadayuki Abe, 32. He sleeps in a small upstairs room with his nephew, niece and sister, because there is a truck in his living room.

Mr. Abe had run home from his job at a nearby shipbuilding company after the earthquake hit. He watched from his balcony as a massive refrigerated truck floated toward him, sheared off much of the front of his house and came to rest against the ground floor.

He has been drinking water from bags of ice from fish-packing facilities, but he is struggling to feed his family. The fish that have washed out of local plants have been exposed to gasoline and oil, he says. Tuesday he tried to make rice, but the wood fire didn't generate enough heat to boil water.

The factory that employed Mr. Abe has been destroyed and he doubts it can be rebuilt. "I'm not thinking about the future yet," he said. "I am just trying to survive right now."

Nearby is a lane of crooked old pine trees that survived the wave and now form a break of plastic boxes, fishing buoys, a small car. Walking past with his girlfriend, Hokuto Suzuka, 21, toted home bags of groceriesâ€"soft drinks and snacks, all they could find at the last functioning store in the area.

Mr. Suzuka said the shipbuilder where he was working at the time of the quake and tsunami was destroyed. He said he had been working on a high floor when waves rushed beneath. The big container ship that was under construction at the company's drydock washed out to sea, he said, along with what he said were 100 people working on it.

"I don't know whether we can rebuild," he said. "Without government help, it will be impossible."

Back at Mr. Kameya's car, some colleagues who had made the long trek to their former office returned, shaking their heads. They had found no evidence that the five missing employees were alive.

"This has taught me to feel happy to be alive," said Mr. Kameya, whose family all survived. He looked toward a big fishing boat balanced on the manmade sea wall that was supposed to protect the harbor. "It has also taught me that life is painful."

Considering the fact that Japan is one of the most technological advanced nations on this planet, they still got whipped by the power of the Mother Nature. It's a battle between the complex and simple. This should be a lesson taken by every human on this planet including myself of how things can be taken away.

Remember the Lost City of Atlantis...

-Josh

Dog in Japan stays by the side of its ailing friend in the rubble  :(

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/dog-in-japan-stays-by-the-side-of-its-ailing-friend-in-the-rubble (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/dog-in-japan-stays-by-the-side-of-its-ailing-friend-in-the-rubble)

Here is what a professor of Nuclear and Radiological engineering at my alma mater has to say about why the current nuclear disaster would not have happened in a modern day reactor.  It's an interesting read.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/16/sjoden.nuclear.japan/?hpt=Sbin#

And here is an app created by students from the same school that has apparently been downloaded by 500,000 Japanese since Friday to assist with the efforts to rescue people.  It uses the iPhone's camera/flash as a flashlight that can also signal in Morse Code.

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=183034&catid=3

I am disappointed that no giant robots have appeared and come to Japan's aid. If giant robots from space were going to help anybody, it would be the Japanese. Where are the giant robots? (Sorry, folks, I'm retreating into flippant nerdiness to keep from crying.)

http://www.youtube.com/v/B01vktb2bj4?fs=1&hl=en_US

I wonder how far inland a Tsunami like this would go ,if it came up at Jax Beach  :(

It would likely follow the St Johns... the port would be wiped out and downtown would flood...

I cannot imagine the devastation. I am in Arlington just West of the Inter coastal .  Im sure it would easily get to my location.. of course in this City , a 9.0 Earthquake and subsequent aftershocks would probably level much of the City .

Our coast is quite different.  The continental shelf extends well offshore here, where in Japan the deep water comes right up to the coast.  The sixty or so miles of shallow water would take quite a bit out of such a wave.  Just another advantage of Jacksonville's unique location.

But at the same time, we are more vulnerable due to the river system we have.

If a Cat 5 hurricane hit the mouth of the st johns, you would need to evacuate quite a bit of NE Florida due to the surge. Drs Lake would flood, so would areas in Palatka.

yup...seems much of Florida is not that much higher than Sea Level.  Seems like a good bit of the area would flood in either event.  Lets hope we never have to find out . :)

The Tsunami from a fishing boat at sea... long before it reached land...

http://www.youtube.com/v/3fqyOpqnJyw

Just broke.

QuoteTOKYO â€" Reports: Japan decides to raise nuclear crisis alert level to 7, highest, equal to Chernobyl.

Washington Post (not much there at the moment): http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/reports-japan-decides-to-raise-nuclear-crisis-alert-level-to-7-highest-equal-to-chernobyl/2011/04/11/AF1220MD_story.html

QuoteJapan is to raise the nuclear alert level at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to a maximum seven, putting the emergency on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Nuclear safety officials had insisted they had no plans to raise the severity of the crisis from five â€" the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 â€" according to the international nuclear and radiological event scale.

But the government came under pressure to raise the level at the plant after Japan's nuclear safety commission estimated the amount of radioactive material released from its stricken reactors reached 10,000 terabecquerels per hour for several hours following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeast coast on 11 March. That level of radiation constitutes a major accident, according to the INES scale.

The scale, devised by the international atomic energy agency, ranks nuclear and radiological accidents and incidents by their severity from one to seven.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/japan-nuclear-alert-level-seven

All the "this'll NEVER be like Chernobyl blah blah" doubters posting here a month ago should probably report immediately to this thread for your horse-whipping. ;D But if you still have a doubt, wait a few years when the birth defects start popping up over there, then it'll probably be a bit more clearer to you. These things take time to get the full effect.

Well let's start from the beginning...

Quote from: RiversideGator on December 18, 2008, 11:54:37 AM

Quote from: stephendare on December 18, 2008, 12:55:01 AM
So you think Greenpeace is wrong about something?

Yes.  They intentionally overstate the dangers of nuclear power for their own radical political ends.

Quote
And ever heard of three Mile Island?

You mean the incident which resulted in no adverse health consequences for the public?  Here is a clip from the report of the President's Council on the accident:

QuoteJust how serious was the accident? Based on our investigation of the health effects of the accident, we conclude that in spite of serious damage to the plant, most of the radiation was contained and the actual release will have a negligible effect on the physical health of individuals. The major health effect of the accident was found to be mental stress.

The amount of radiation received by any one individual outside the plant was very low. However, even low levels of radiation may result in the later development of cancer, genetic defects, or birth defects among children who are exposed in the womb. Since there is no direct way of measuring the danger of low-level radiation to health, the degree of danger must be estimated indirectly. Different scientists make different assumptions about how this estimate should be made and, therefore, estimates vary. Fortunately, in this case the radiation doses were so low that we conclude that the overall health effects will be minimal. There will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them. The same conclusion applies to the other possible health effects.

http://www.pddoc.com/tmi2/kemeny/severity_of_the_accident.htm

Quote
Is it important that Chernobyl happened in Russia?

Yes.  The accident happened in a communist run nuclear power plant which had outdated equipment and was run with customary Soviet inefficiency and incompetence.  So, such an accident was FAR more likely to have occurred there and at that time than anywhere else now.  BTW, do you find it significant that there have been no major nuclear incidents in France even though the country derives most of its power from nuclear generators?  We have also had no incidents since Three Mile Island almost 30 years ago and, as stated above, Three Mile Island was not a health hazard and was blown out of proportion by the leftist media types and the green crowd who hate nuclear power for irrational reasons.

Well all you really had to see was "Riverside Gator" to know the inevitable result.

NotAgain is doing his best to pick up where RG left off...

So ... this is nothing to be concerned about?

No of course it is, it's horrible. Even more horrible because it was avoidable. But this is the result of profits over people.

I have intently watched that situation, and it was looking like a Chernobyl situation several weeks ago.. Of course the Japanese officials probably did not want wide-spread panic and maybe did not realize the severity....the recent 7.1 aftershock did not help matters..  and I still think this is just the "tip" of the iceberg.

How the hell to contain that mess??  Is there any way at all ?  obviously not so far :(

Quote from: Timkin on April 11, 2011, 10:38:37 PM
So ... this is nothing to be concerned about?

Nope, everything's cool & our energy warlords are handling it (just like BP did. The oil all disappeared, right??).

My local news told me that I should be concentrating on Dems vs Rep budget battle & Dancing With The Stars, so by God that's what I'm doing. ;)

LOL@ PS up.... silly man.   Nope that dad gum oil sheen is back out there.

Seriously.. this is not good... Now , go back to watching your soap operas  ;) errrr  Dancin with dem starz  ( has been stars )  ;)

Quote from: Timkin on April 11, 2011, 10:49:38 PM
How the hell to contain that mess??  Is there any way at all ?  obviously not so far :(

How long did it take BP to stop the oil spill?  Give or take a few months, probably about that long to contain it.  

By the way, did any of you guys stop eating seafood since the oil spill?  

After I saw that they officially OKed giving seafood from the area the "smell test" & nothing else, that's when I stopped.

These events are similar in that you can't see them. The oil lurks at the bottom of the sea, the radiation invisible in the air & in the soil. Typically & historically, things of this magnitude usually take a while to understand the full effect. Not to mention the mound of money (and bullshit) these super-industries try to pile on to make things seem not so bad. It's always been like that.

People like to think that the chernobyl disaster is ancient history & it's all good now. Yeah, that's not the case at all: http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl I imagine we'll see similar stories from Japan in the years ahead. And God knows what's in our own seafood chain now, so it's anyone's guess how that'll play out.

So should a sushi joint switch over to hamburgers really quick like?

I suppose you guys heard about the latest 7.1 aftershock.

http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-san-francisco/japan-tsunami-warning-after-7-1-magnitude-aftershock-hits

Isn't Fukushima older than Chernobyl?

You know, I still don't mind nuclear power.  I don't mind them drilling oil off the coast of Florida either.  Very bad accidents happen, it's a part of life.  For the most part, I believe we can keep these things to a minimum. 

What I do mind is the reasons we do it.  I prefer when we do these big industrial high risk projects, we do it because we have to not because we're too lazy or greedy to think up alternatives.   I also don't like it when companies cut corners when they don't have too. 

I bet we can reduce a gigantic amount of our oil consumption if we just gave up the idea of using our cars everywhere!  Walkable streets, high dentistry urban areas, mass transit everywhere.  Sure, we have to share a seat with our neighbor on the train and be more polite to each other but isn't that a better price to pay then having barrels of oil spilling down your coast because you don't want to ride a train with someone else? 

Somehow though, this is still a hard argument to make.  I spend all day hearing people compare their cars and why so and so has a better car than me.  How do you convince someone to ride the train when their dream and purpose in life is to buy a more luxurious car?  This is Keeping Up with the Jones by destroying the planet. 

I want to say build more nukes, drill more oil, we need them to keep our society running.  At the same time, I want to say, STOP, what in the world are we using this energy for?  We aren't using this energy to make to the world a better place.  We're just using it for, well, vanity. 

^And sex.


Mostly, we do it for sex.

Quote from: cityimrov on April 11, 2011, 11:54:06 PM
You know, I still don't mind nuclear power.  I don't mind them drilling oil off the coast of Florida either.  Very bad accidents happen, it's a part of life.  For the most part, I believe we can keep these things to a minimum. 

What I do mind is the reasons we do it.  I prefer when we do these big industrial high risk projects, we do it because we have to not because we're too lazy or greedy to think up alternatives.   I also don't like it when companies cut corners when they don't have too. 

I bet we can reduce a gigantic amount of our oil consumption if we just gave up the idea of using our cars everywhere!  Walkable streets, high dentistry urban areas, mass transit everywhere.  Sure, we have to share a seat with our neighbor on the train and be more polite to each other but isn't that a better price to pay then having barrels of oil spilling down your coast because you don't want to ride a train with someone else? 

Somehow though, this is still a hard argument to make.  I spend all day hearing people compare their cars and why so and so has a better car than me.  How do you convince someone to ride the train when their dream and purpose in life is to buy a more luxurious car?  This is Keeping Up with the Jones by destroying the planet. 

I want to say build more nukes, drill more oil, we need them to keep our society running.  At the same time, I want to say, STOP, what in the world are we using this energy for?  We aren't using this energy to make to the world a better place.  We're just using it for, well, vanity. 

  And well.... Drilling and Nukes are going to eventually contibute to the demise of our occupation of this planet if these disasters continue as they are.. And yes I did hear about the 7.1 aftershock.. Truth of the matter be known, The damage was done initially with the first earthquake... it was that the magnitude of the problem was initially not identified, and was probably covered up as much as possible..  Sadly... the after-effects of this will likely, as does the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, be with us for decades if not centuries to come...  I am not predicting the future,but simply putting out an opinion...which I don't see how I could be far off , from.

Well, I don't really like to toot my own horn, but thanks Stephen. :) I wonder if he'd like to get anymore of those neato graphs from his little pro-nuke buddy's blog & post them now. I'm doubting it.

But remember, this is NO Chernobyl. Nope, no way!

Quote from: stephendare on April 11, 2011, 10:57:34 PM

Quote from: cityimrov on April 11, 2011, 10:55:53 PM

Quote from: Timkin on April 11, 2011, 10:49:38 PM
How the hell to contain that mess??  Is there any way at all ?  obviously not so far :(

How long did it take BP to stop the oil spill?  Give or take a few months, probably about that long to contain it.   

By the way, did any of you guys stop eating seafood since the oil spill? 

Actually, I have stopped eating any shrimp whatsoever.

And the spill is still leaking.

Noooooooooooo...

They SWEAR every time a new sheen shows up, it's riverbottom sediment or a different well, BP wouldn't lie!

Quote from: stephendare on April 12, 2011, 01:35:17 AM

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 12:16:37 PM

Quote from: peestandingup on March 15, 2011, 11:56:44 AM

Quote from: Timkin on March 14, 2011, 11:20:04 PM
Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west. :(

Maybe a little more research was necessary before handing out the crown for ‘daddy’ of all nuclear accidents… I believe the rumors about the 'walking dead' are just that. Any links to support?

QuoteQ: What about the radiation released? Is it dangerous?


A: It would appear that some of the nuclear fuel in FD1 has melted and released gaseous fission products to the interior of the reactor. These would include xenon, krypton, and iodine. There are about seven isotopes of xenon that are radioactive and would be released in such an incident, with atomic masses of 133, 135, 137, and 138, along with three isomers, 131m, 133m, and 135m. With the exception of the isomers, each of these xenon atoms will decay into cesium and some into other elements past cesium. There is also krypton but its radioactivity and decay products are of less concern.

Xenon itself is not particularly dangerous. It is a noble gas and is not concentrated in the body. Cesium is more of a concern. Here are the seven decay sequences:

Xenon-131m will decay to stable xenon-131.
Xenon-133m will decay to radioactive xenon-133.
Xenon-133 will decay to stable cesium-133.
Xenon-135m will decay to radioactive xenon-135.
Xenon-135 will decay to very mildly radioactive cesium-135.
Xenon-137 will decay to radioactive cesium-137.
Xenon-138 will decay to radioactive cesium-138 and then quickly to stable barium-138.

Of all of these, the decay of xenon-137 to cesium-137 is probably responsible for the most risk, but xenon-137 decays so quickly that the mobility of cesium-137 is limited. I do not think this poses much risk because it can’t get far. The xenon-135 has a longer half-life (9 hours) but decays to a nearly harmless form of cesium (135). I think this poses almost no risk due to the very long half life of cesium-135.

QuoteQ: Is this like the Chernobyl disaster? Could it be?

A: No, absolutely not. The Chernobyl disaster was a combination of a bad reactor design coupled with a bad operational sequence. It led to a steam explosion, a burning reactor, and no containment building so radioactive byproducts were spread far and wide. Fundamentally, Chernobyl was driven by fission energy (95% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor) not by decay heat energy (5% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor).

The circumstances at Fukushima-Daiichi are very different. The reactors shut down successfully and their heat generated from the decay of fission products began to drop rapidly. Take a look at this graph:

(http://energyfromthorium.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/decay_heat_post_shutdown-500x375.jpg)

QuoteIt has been several days since the reactors were shut down and they are now generating only about 0.5% of the thermal power they were generating before. Assuming that they were generating about 1500 thermal megawatts of power, now they’re only generating about 7 megawatts of thermal power. Nevertheless, that heat needed to be removed through cooling systems, but there’s not nearly enough power there to cause a Chernobyl-type incident.

Quote from: Shwaz on March 15, 2011, 12:50:08 PM
Well graphs and oh I don't know 'facts' seem to be the most important part in detailing a catastrophe. Not rumors / hearsay "I read the news and shit and people are like zombies all dead & stuff".

Wow Schwaz, thanks for that awesome condescending lecture on 'facts'!

Of course you (naturally) turned out to be completely wrong, maybe you should focus your energy on 'sources' next time.

The thing is, he KNEW what he was posting was bogus & just pulled outta some random blogger's ass (or else he was just a complete idiot, which I don't think was the case). You have to wonder what goes through people's heads when they do stuff like that. I guess anyone can find these "facts" to backup their arguments these days with the internet, 24 hour news channels & all. It sorta makes us smarter & dumber at the same time.

Anyways, none of that stuff I posted was exactly a secret (which I commented on later). It's just looking past the headlines, the typical MSM garbage & looking back at history. And regarding the "fukushima 50" workers he so politely made fun of, we pretty much know now they're dying. They've even commented themselves early on that they know they've been exposed to fatal levels & are ready to make the sacrifice. Hell, for all we know, the original fukushima 50 are dead now & they're pumping in more workers to take their places. That's what happened with chernobyl. They'd work until they got sick then die a couple weeks later. There were countless workers who did that. And that was a different country. The Japanese TRULY don't give a fuck & will gladly die at the drop of a hat for the greater good.

But they're obviously not gonna tell you that right now, at least not flat out. Like I said, reading between the lines, looking past headlines & paying attention does wonders.

Thanks for a great design, GE!

We bring good things to life.....except Nuclear power plants

Quote from: Timkin on May 14, 2011, 02:01:48 PM
We bring good things to life.....except Nuclear power plants

"We make things glow green!"

Time to call in the Russians, those boys volunteered to go right in and pour the cement into their own disastrous experience with Nukes...

Weird thing is, had these been OFFSHORE POWER SYSTEMS generators, NOTHING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED! The Naval ships in the area didn't even feel it as long as they weren't tied to the pier.

Oops I almost forgot, they did that then they all died!  My highest respect for giving their lives (knowing full well they wouldn't return) to save their fellow countrymen.

OCKLAWAHA

And of course they are still dumping water in the ocean.

Guess you just cannot fix stupid.

Quote from: stephendare on June 08, 2011, 11:16:28 AM
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/and-then-there-were-three-three-full-

wow.  it turns out that all three reactors had 100% meltdowns.  They came very close to losing all of northern Japan.

Since whatever they've told us about the Fukushima plant has only been part of the story, I wonder if this means No. 4 (the one that's leaning -- remember, the cat's on the roof!) is melting down as we speak:

 

QuoteTokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

    The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

    The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

I feel compelled to bring some nagging points up that this disaster has put on my mind.
Number of deaths from Tsunami, earthquake   12,000+ with about 10,000 still missing.
number of deaths from nuclear disaster at Fukushima plant   1 (a worker was struck and killed by a crane.
Do we have definitive numbers on the radioactivity in the surrounding water of the plant?
I recall all experts declaring the radioactivity that passed over the US from the disaster as insignificant.
China announced recently that they will continue with the aim of 150 nuke plants by 2030s.
In terms of replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power, should we reconsider it as a distinct possibility, especially after this tragedy, where all the faults have been pointed out and remedied in 2011?

Not encouraging.

Not encouraging...but should be studied.  Mutations are regular occurences.  This one could be related to the nuclear accident, or it may have occurred naturally anyway and be totally unrelated.

In response to the nuclear disaster in Japan... Germany is shutting down ALL of its reactors...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,767900,00.html

Quote06/10/2011

Higher Prices, Higher Emissions

The Downside of Germany's Nuclear Phaseout

Most Germans support Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to phaseout nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. But not all the consequences will be welcome. A new study shows that the country's emissions reduction targets may not be met -- and electricity bills may rise as well.

It was hardly an inspired performance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel took to the podium on Thursday in the Bundestag, the federal parliament, to give a keynote speech on her government's plans to permanently phase out nuclear energy in Germany. But her exhaustion -- the product of having just flown in from a three-day visit to Washington -- was impossible to ignore.

And yet, suddenly, just as Merkel pledged that the last reactor in Germany would be shut down by 2022, applause erupted in the plenary hall. Not, though, from her own party. Rather, it was the opposition Greens who stood up clapping and cheering.

It was a moment which perfectly highlighted the difficult political about-face that Merkel and her conservative governing coalition has recently completed -- from supporting nuclear energy last autumn to rejecting it this spring. And the repercussions of her decision have yet to make themselves fully apparent.

That not all of them are good for Merkel's government has already become clear. Stephan Kohler, head of the German Energy Agency, told SPIEGEL that one significant side-effect of the phase out could be that the country will fail to reach its emission reduction goals. "Large energy companies are now turning more to cheap lignite (brown coal) to replace atomic energy and less to natural gas, which is more efficient but also more expensive," Kohler said.

Lower Emissions Reduction

Germany hopes to reduce its emissions of CO2 by 40 percent by 2020 relative to 1990. But a study from Germany's Federal Environment Agency indicates that current measures "will only result in an emissions reduction of 30 to 33 percent."

In addition, the removal of atomic energy from Germany's power mix and the resulting need to invest billions in the development of alternative energies and a new power grid could result in higher energy bills. "The phase out of nuclear energy is not going to be free," Rainer Brüderle, Merkel's economics minister until recently, told SPIEGEL. Brüderle, who is now floor leader for the Free Democrats, Merkel's junior coalition partner, added that "we have to be honest with the people. We will all have to pay, the power customers, the taxpayers."

Merkel's change of course on nuclear energy came about, as she said once again in her Thursday speech, as a result of the atomic catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami there. It calls for eight of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors to be shut down immediately and the remaining nine to be taken successively offline by 2022. In addition, her plan calls for measures to boost the growth of alternative energies in an effort to fill the gap.

It is, in essence, a plan remarkably similar to one passed by her Social Democratic predecessor Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. And it is one which has put Merkel on a collision course with some of Germany's largest energy companies.

The Deindustrialization of Germany

One of her most vocal critics has been Jürgen Grossmann, head of energy giant RWE. At the end of May, he complained publicly of an "eco-dictatorship" before writing a letter directly to Merkel earlier this week blasting details of her plans.

On Friday, he took the battle a step further, warning in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung that Merkel's phase out plan could result in large companies turning their backs on the country as a result of climbing energy prices. "The de-industrialization (of Germany) won't come all at once. It will be a gradual process," Grossmann said. "Soon we will have to do without entire industrial sectors: companies like BASF and Thyssen-Krupp won't be here anymore."

There has even been growing criticism from within her own party. Indeed, many within her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) now want her to call a party convention to focus solely on the issue of atomic energy.

"It would be good were the party to discuss such a fundamental change as the nuclear question at a special party convention," Peter Hauk, CDU floor leader in Baden-Württemberg state parliament, told SPIEGEL. "Such a discussion would be good for the party." Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, head of the CDU in the state of Saarland, agrees. "Given the effort to find broad societal consensus on the issue," she told SPIEGEL, "a discussion within the party would certainly seem appropriate."

Merkel made no indication on Thursday that she was intending to acquiesce to such demands. "The dramatic events in Japan were a turning point for the world and a turning point for me personally," she said. "I have revised my views."

With reporting by Veit Medick

Wonder if there are consequences of Shutting down Reactors?

It is unfortunate that the reactors have all melted down.  Since Chernobyl has never been occupied since, I have to assume a similar situation is in place in Japan. Because of the potential for recurring earthquakes , I have to wonder how this could ever be fully contained.... presume the earthquake activity directly relates to the condition of the containment vessels... and it seems to me the potential for leaking radiation into the soil and surrounding ocean will be ever present.

Quote from: Timkin on June 11, 2011, 10:47:30 PM
Wonder if there are consequences of Shutting down Reactors?

It is unfortunate that the reactors have all melted down.  Since Chernobyl has never been occupied since, I have to assume a similar situation is in place in Japan. Because of the potential for recurring earthquakes , I have to wonder how this could ever be fully contained.... presume the earthquake activity directly relates to the condition of the containment vessels... and it seems to me the potential for leaking radiation into the soil and surrounding ocean will be ever present.

Funny you should ask...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,768201,00.html

Quote
06/13/2011
  Germany's Nuclear Phaseout
Irate Power Companies to Sue Berlin For Damages

By Frank Dohmen and Alexander Neubacher

Germany's power companies are preparing to take legal action against the government's decision to shut down their nuclear power plants. They say the new closure plan is too rigid and will prove more costly to them than the previous nuclear phaseout agreed by a center-left government in 2000.

In the Krümmel nuclear power plant near Hamburg, located on the bank of the Elbe river, Germany's nuclear exit is already a reality. The plant hasn't produced a single kilowatt-hour of electricity for almost two years, after being shut down following various incidents, such as a fire that broke out at the site and a problem with a transformer. Even the owners, E.on and Vattenfall, were doubtful that the plant would ever go back into operation.

But the reactor, which has essentially been shut down, is of considerable value, at least at the moment, and the companies have decided to defend their property. The power company bosses are threatening to sue for billions of euros in compensation, arguing that the decision by the center-right coalition to phase out nuclear energy is even more costly for them than the original closure plan agreed by a previous center-left government in 2000. They stand a good chance of getting the money they claim they are entitled to.

The dispute centers around how the reactors are to be shut down. The government wants to provide each power plant with a fixed expiration date. The plan is based on a proposal by Horst Seehofer, the chairman of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party, who prevailed against the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) in negotiations over the phaseout. The CSU and FDP are junior coalition partners to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.

The FDP would have preferred a more flexible handling of the plants' remaining life spans, and its chairman, Philipp Rösler, is dissatisfied with the outcome of the negotiations.

Fierce Reaction

For the plant operators, the current plan is the worst of all closure methods debated to date. In the past, they calculated the profitability of their nuclear power plants on the basis of their remaining power output, not in terms of their remaining life spans of weeks and months. The companies are now accusing the government of wiping out these remaining nuclear power production rights with a stroke of the pen.

Consequently, their reaction has been fierce. Jürgen Grossmann, the head of power company RWE, wrote that the phaseout decision constitutes a gross breach of their property rights. E.on CEO Johannes Teyssen says that the companies will incur substantial financial losses. Vattenfall CEO Oystein Loseth is demanding "fair compensation for our losses as a result of the government's decision."

The nuclear plant operators are citing agreements they made with the government of Social Democrats and Greens in 2000 under then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in which each nuclear power plant was allotted a specific amount of electricity that it could feed into the grid until it was shut down. The German Environment Ministry is keeping track of the relevant figures for each plant. According to the plan, as of early January, the 17 German nuclear power plants still had a remaining entitlement to produce about 981,000 gigawatt hours.

Old reactors also have such accounts. For instance, the Krümmel plant near Hamburg, which has already effectively been shut down, still has a contingent of about 88,000 gigawatt hours. The plant operators can sell this amount of electricity and transfer it to other power plants. In other words, the Krümmel contingent is worth a lot of money -- or at least it was, until the government came up with the idea of expiration dates.

The timetable the government has established for the nuclear phaseout is so tight that the utilities will be unable to fully utilize their remaining contingents. As a result, the executives argue, they no longer have the option of transferring electricity contingents. The market, they say, is dead.

'Poorly Drafted Law'

Officials at the companies' headquarters in Essen and Düsseldorf say they will probably file a constitutional complaint as soon as German President Christian Wulff has signed the phaseout law. Specifically, they will invoke Article 14 of the German constitution, which addresses the question of whether the companies' assets are being expropriated, and if they are therefore entitled to compensation. After that, the amount of compensation would be negotiated in civil courts. According to internal calculations, the industry envisions a potential sum of â,¬20 billion ($29 billion). The burden would ultimately fall on taxpayers.

Some experts expect that the nuclear industry could very well win its legal battle against the government's phaseout plan. "I have rarely seen such a poorly drafted law," says Wolfgang Renneberg, who used to be responsible for reactor safety at the Environment Ministry.

The FDP also has its misgivings. General Secretary Christian Lindner says that he is following the energy companies' legal intentions with concern. "We warned against this and would like to have taken precautions against this risk," says Lindner. FDP leader Rösler has said privately that he sympathizes with the industry's criticism. As economics minister, the issue is doubly unpleasant for Rösler.

It is also complicated by the fact that the energy companies are filing legal action against the fuel element tax, which is supported by the FDP. The first lawsuit is ready to be filed. RWE has just replaced the fuel elements in his Gundremmingen nuclear power plant. Under the law, this would make the company liable for a tax in the double-digit millions, payable within four weeks. And that, says an RWE spokesman, is something the company will not "accept without complaint."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

“They lied to us”: Radiation release comparable to Chernobyl â€" Total core meltdown in all 3 reactors â€" Worst industrial catastrophe in world history (CNN VIDEO)

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/06/21/exp.arena.michio.kaku.fukushima.cnn

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 14, 2011, 01:39:24 PM

Quote from: Timkin on June 11, 2011, 10:47:30 PM
Wonder if there are consequences of Shutting down Reactors?

It is unfortunate that the reactors have all melted down.  Since Chernobyl has never been occupied since, I have to assume a similar situation is in place in Japan. Because of the potential for recurring earthquakes , I have to wonder how this could ever be fully contained.... presume the earthquake activity directly relates to the condition of the containment vessels... and it seems to me the potential for leaking radiation into the soil and surrounding ocean will be ever present.

Funny you should ask...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,768201,00.html

Quote
06/13/2011
  Germany's Nuclear Phaseout
Irate Power Companies to Sue Berlin For Damages

By Frank Dohmen and Alexander Neubacher

Germany's power companies are preparing to take legal action against the government's decision to shut down their nuclear power plants. They say the new closure plan is too rigid and will prove more costly to them than the previous nuclear phaseout agreed by a center-left government in 2000.

In the Krümmel nuclear power plant near Hamburg, located on the bank of the Elbe river, Germany's nuclear exit is already a reality. The plant hasn't produced a single kilowatt-hour of electricity for almost two years, after being shut down following various incidents, such as a fire that broke out at the site and a problem with a transformer. Even the owners, E.on and Vattenfall, were doubtful that the plant would ever go back into operation.

But the reactor, which has essentially been shut down, is of considerable value, at least at the moment, and the companies have decided to defend their property. The power company bosses are threatening to sue for billions of euros in compensation, arguing that the decision by the center-right coalition to phase out nuclear energy is even more costly for them than the original closure plan agreed by a previous center-left government in 2000. They stand a good chance of getting the money they claim they are entitled to.

The dispute centers around how the reactors are to be shut down. The government wants to provide each power plant with a fixed expiration date. The plan is based on a proposal by Horst Seehofer, the chairman of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party, who prevailed against the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) in negotiations over the phaseout. The CSU and FDP are junior coalition partners to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.

The FDP would have preferred a more flexible handling of the plants' remaining life spans, and its chairman, Philipp Rösler, is dissatisfied with the outcome of the negotiations.

Fierce Reaction

For the plant operators, the current plan is the worst of all closure methods debated to date. In the past, they calculated the profitability of their nuclear power plants on the basis of their remaining power output, not in terms of their remaining life spans of weeks and months. The companies are now accusing the government of wiping out these remaining nuclear power production rights with a stroke of the pen.

Consequently, their reaction has been fierce. Jürgen Grossmann, the head of power company RWE, wrote that the phaseout decision constitutes a gross breach of their property rights. E.on CEO Johannes Teyssen says that the companies will incur substantial financial losses. Vattenfall CEO Oystein Loseth is demanding "fair compensation for our losses as a result of the government's decision."

The nuclear plant operators are citing agreements they made with the government of Social Democrats and Greens in 2000 under then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in which each nuclear power plant was allotted a specific amount of electricity that it could feed into the grid until it was shut down. The German Environment Ministry is keeping track of the relevant figures for each plant. According to the plan, as of early January, the 17 German nuclear power plants still had a remaining entitlement to produce about 981,000 gigawatt hours.

Old reactors also have such accounts. For instance, the Krümmel plant near Hamburg, which has already effectively been shut down, still has a contingent of about 88,000 gigawatt hours. The plant operators can sell this amount of electricity and transfer it to other power plants. In other words, the Krümmel contingent is worth a lot of money -- or at least it was, until the government came up with the idea of expiration dates.

The timetable the government has established for the nuclear phaseout is so tight that the utilities will be unable to fully utilize their remaining contingents. As a result, the executives argue, they no longer have the option of transferring electricity contingents. The market, they say, is dead.

'Poorly Drafted Law'

Officials at the companies' headquarters in Essen and Düsseldorf say they will probably file a constitutional complaint as soon as German President Christian Wulff has signed the phaseout law. Specifically, they will invoke Article 14 of the German constitution, which addresses the question of whether the companies' assets are being expropriated, and if they are therefore entitled to compensation. After that, the amount of compensation would be negotiated in civil courts. According to internal calculations, the industry envisions a potential sum of â,¬20 billion ($29 billion). The burden would ultimately fall on taxpayers.

Some experts expect that the nuclear industry could very well win its legal battle against the government's phaseout plan. "I have rarely seen such a poorly drafted law," says Wolfgang Renneberg, who used to be responsible for reactor safety at the Environment Ministry.

The FDP also has its misgivings. General Secretary Christian Lindner says that he is following the energy companies' legal intentions with concern. "We warned against this and would like to have taken precautions against this risk," says Lindner. FDP leader Rösler has said privately that he sympathizes with the industry's criticism. As economics minister, the issue is doubly unpleasant for Rösler.

It is also complicated by the fact that the energy companies are filing legal action against the fuel element tax, which is supported by the FDP. The first lawsuit is ready to be filed. RWE has just replaced the fuel elements in his Gundremmingen nuclear power plant. Under the law, this would make the company liable for a tax in the double-digit millions, payable within four weeks. And that, says an RWE spokesman, is something the company will not "accept without complaint."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

The plot thickens...

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/germanys_giant_green_reversal.html

QuoteJuly 14, 2011
Germany's Giant Green Reversal
Steve McCann

The theater of the absurd is not only in production on the banks of the Potomac, but also in Berlin.  Last spring the German Government made a monumental declaration with all the pomp and circumstance included: the country would phase out all its nuclear plants by 2022, shuttering 7 immediately in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and phasing out the rest of their 10 remaining plants as quickly as possible over the next ten years. It took only 3 months for reality to rear its ugly head.  Per Der Spiegel:

Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next.  Berlin is also using money earmarked for future energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired plants.

With concern rising that solar and wind power might not be sufficient on cold winter days, one of the older reactors will likely have to be switched back on.

Merkel and her government have celebrated the phase out of nuclear energy in Germany as an "energy revolution" and vowed to make up for the capacity lost through the reactor shutdowns through billions in investments in renewable energies and energy savings measures.  But according to a report in the daily Berliner Zeitung on Wednesday, some of that money has now been earmarked to subsidize the construction of new coal-fired plants.

Criticism from the Greens has been scathing, with parliamentarian Oliver Krischner telling the paper that "coal-fired plants are damaging to the climate and are not flexible enough to make up for fluctuations in supply from renewable resources.

[Natural gas-fired plants are another option] But it is expensive.  Whereas a megawatt hour of electricity produced by coal currently costs between 18 and 19 Euros [US$25-27], a megawatt of gas-electricity costs 40 Euros [US$57].  "In Germany at the moment, we don't see a price scenario that would allow for newly constructed natural gas-powered plants to become profitable," the German energy giant RWE recently said in a statement.

It should also be noted that the cost per megawatt hour of nuclear generated power is between 15 and 20 Euros (US$21-28) and the actual cost of renewable energy considering the infrastructure requirements cannot be measured as the initial investment is so massive and unaffordable. ()   Further virtually all of Germany's natural gas must be imported from Russia thus subjecting them to the whims of an historical foe.

The German government has essentially turned to coal-fired plants as a replacement for nuclear.  A spokesman for the German Federal Network Agency claimed that should a nuclear plant have to be switched back on for this winter or next, it is only a "temporary solution."  After that there should be enough coal fired plants to fill the gap.  This in a country that prides itself on being the world leader in "Green Awareness" as a majority of Germans believe in man's so-called devastating impact on "climate change."

One wonders what Mark Twain would have to say about the abject folly of the world leaders, headlined by Barack Obama, on stage today.  Perhaps the Marx Brothers would be an apt comparison except theirs was pre-meditated comedy; the current cast of characters does not realize how foolish they constantly appear.


   

It's getting worse. Multiple reports of the ground starting to crack around the plant & venting radioactive steam from the cracks. Bad. It means the cores have basically melted all the way through & are underground now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baya8-agPs4

The steam venting is very high radiation. The levels I heard were that the Rad levels per hour from the steam were 1000 times the yearly safe level.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/201181665921711896.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OjJ3ZQ5i1M

http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/p/japan-nuclear-information.html


Uranium Fuel Pellets lying in Fukushima Rubble.

Click and investigate. (Scroll down)

This is worse than I thought it was going to be.  And apparently no way to contain it.  Wow  :(

Rule #1 of life: things are always worse than they first appear, especially when it involves nuclear fuel.

It really would not be any problem at all if it wasn't poisonous (plutonium fissile by products) and emitting large quantities of deadly radiation with no known way to handle it.

Other than that, there is really no issue whatsoever, and it all would have had a fairy tale ending where the prince marries the beautiful princess and they all live happily ever after, had they been M & M's instead of enriched U-238 pellets.

Agree with you Midway, and early on, I knew this was bad.  I just had no idea at the time that it was THIS bad.   

As to containment... just throwing ideas out.... Why could they not pump these reactors full of concrete?  I guess keeping the fuel cooled is the major issue there.

Chernobyl was really bad..  as evidenced by the fact that the area is still and will probably (always) be non habitable.  This place seems like it is 100 times worse than even that.   (maybe I still do not have the scope of this, accurate)

This seems like it could wipe out half (at least) of the world's population?

Good Lord :(

I have good friends who live in Fukushima. Wish them all the best.

That's scary. There are a couple of articles about the plant in today's Wall Street Journal (first section, page 8); the recent release of tons of contaminated water into the ocean. I would love to know who were the real men of genius who chose that site for the plant. Earthquakes?? Damn! Why didn't we think of that?? Goofed again. Sorry.

SO.......no one really knows the eventual impact just this one incident (which is obviously monumental) will have on the whole planet.

Coupled with these ticking time-bombs all over the world... some on our own land.   

Scary at best.

Japan asks for world's help on Fukushima leaks
October 6, 2013 11:42AM ET
'My country needs your knowledge and expertise,' prime minister Abe says

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/6/japan-asks-for-worldshelponfukushimaleaks.html