Michael

It is starting to appear real serious now with the evacuation of personal from the plants. However, it hasn't been stated which reactor is causing the problem.

There was a lot of confusion today on the tv about reactor 4. Again it was reported that reactor 4 is on fire for the third time. Some nuclear experts stated that the fire in reactor 4 could not have been in the spent fuel pool because a fire like that could not extinguish itself. He also stated that a fire in the pool would be a very grave situation since the gama rays emitted would make it impossible to work at the plant due to no containment vessel and large amounts of radiation would be released. Other experts claimed the fire was in the pool.

Then today the Japanese government reversed itself again indicating that the fire was an oil/grease fire in the spent fuel area. Initially it was an oil fire, then a fire in the fuel rods, and then again an oil fire. Hard to know what is really happening.

Steerpike

Portable, high capacity generators aren't that uncommon, are they? Could they not have airlifted some portable generators in and placed them elsewhere?

Steerpike

What's the latest on the Tea Party nuts who want to cut spending on things like Tsunami warning systems in the US ... are we hearing any 'oops' comments yet? Or do they simply assume that God will somehow protect us because we (*) are His Chosen Ones?

(*) only white-folk may apply

Michael

From the following link, it appears that each plant needs at least 2 generators and each appear to be at least 500 HP (probably much bigger) generators. I suspect they could get by with one since the others appear to be backups incase the others fail.

http://www.nucleartourist.com/areas/diesel.htm

Now that I look at them, I wonder if they could have airlifted new ones to the site. I thought they were about the size of ones that I worked with in the Navy to keep communications sites running during a power failure which were about 100 HP generators and weighed about 1,000 lbs. These look much bigger.

From another article, a company in Russia was supplying three emergency diesel generators to a nuclear power plant in Russia and each was rated at 7900 KVA.

Steerpike

Anyone who can drive through a wind-farm and not be appalled at the visual blight on the environment has to be blind. This past couple of years I've been driving back and forth between CA and AZ, and I often pass through the wind farms east of Livermore (Altamont Pass) and also close to Palm Springs. I truly hope they don't build too many more ... I also see some pretty massive solar energy 'fields' as I explore the region, but at least they are relatively flat on the ground.

We really need to start focusing more on efficiency ...

Michael

I think that is what they have been using (or portable water pumps) since they lost battery power. I suspect they initially tried to pump cooling water from the ocean through the condenser but couldn't pump enough to keep the reactor cool. There is so much water that has to be pumped to cool a reactor that environmentalists claim that that nuclear plants are damaging the environment since the returned water to the ocean is heating up the water along the coast.

After doing that for 1-2 days and after explosions occurred, I suspect they then connected the pumps from the ocean directly to the reactor core circulation pipes but instead of circulating the water, they were just trying to keep the rods covered as the the water in the pool boiled away.

I suspect they are just biding time waiting for land line power or generators to supply power. According to the news last night, the Japanese are now trying to build a road to the plant.

It would seem they could have gotten heavy equipment and generators to the plant via the ocean. However they would also have needed a landing craft (similar to the WWII landing crafts that brought the marines ashore) and maybe they don't have any available. They would need a crane on the barge that can transfer the equipment to the landing craft.

robin1234

We have a couple of windparks just a few miles to the east of us, so we drive through them quite often on the way to Lake Champlain & Vermont. I think they look great! I think the aesthetics of it are rather akin to the debate in the UK, 1930s-1960s, about electric grid transmission lines. At first people were appalled, then they eventually accepted them. The same with railways in the nineteenth century and motorways in the 60s & 70s. The landscape around here is pretty boring (lots of trees and the occasional dilapidated farmstead) so the wind turbines add some grandeur, to me. However if I had to live with them everyday I might feel differently.

Yes, we need to focus on efficiency. There are plenty of places in the US where high-speed rail would work well. And families that have two or more vehicles; shouldn't one of them be a fuel efficient small car? The fact that it is a political football is just pathetic.

SultanOfSwing

Don't ask me, mate - I'm still trying to keep any reference to 'tea parties' in my daily life as something my daughter likes to have with her dolls and the cat

I wonder have the teabaggers done much reading into 'free will' or 'reap what you so' though? No God worth his salt is going to protect that lot

Bluegrass Lass

Another good quote from the Bible that I sorta remember from my Sunday School days "God helps those who help themselves." So we have the tech to predict a tsunami, but we don't want to use it cause it's too pricey?!? Yet wouldn't the potential loss of life when one does hit make it worth it?!?

SultanOfSwing

One would have thought so, yes, but I suppose that makes way too much sense. Remember, these are political types we are dealing with here.

Who the fluck decided technology was so bad anyway? Annoys me no end that but I won't get into another 'bring back Concorde' rant here

Weeze

Live coverage on the BBC news website just said that partial meltdown in one reactor confirmed and loss of containment in two others confirmed. What brave people working there. I would rather the quotes from groups like Greenpeace focussed on commending the people doing all they can and saved their feelings on nuclear power until later.

sime303

With the amount of rediation exposure that those people must surely be recieving, they must know that this is a virtual suicide mission. Very courageous.

SultanOfSwing

I couldn't agree more. Good post!

I wonder if they are rotating teams in order to limit exposure to any one individual to within 'safe' levels (I put safe in inverted commas there to highlight it as a relative term . . .).

I certainly hope they are, but whatever way you slice it, these people deserve all the recognition and credit we can give them for all the work they are doing trying to bring this situation under control.

sime303

From what I have seen it's only a core group of people and it's not that many. So I am assuming. because of the scale of this, that they are all active in working on all of the reactors at the same time. Rotating or not that takes some balls.

SultanOfSwing

Without a doubt. Honestly, the way Japan is handling this whole thing, including the bravery of the power plant teams is an example many other countries might want to think about following.

IMHO, of course