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Seismologists warn gov't against restarting nuclear reactors

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Only now? This should have been done before they built them.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

No, they were say something similar for years. No cared to listen.

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Seismologists warn gov't against restarting nuclear reactors. While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen, Ishibashi said the magnitude 9 quake last year made it more likely “devastating” earthquakes would follow.

i hope the greedy, corrupt, money hungry and all cheer leaders will this time listen to experts rather than the ignorant politicians. Bottom line : nuclear reactors not good for earthquake prone Japan

10 ( +9 / -1 )

Do people still remember what happened last time somebody tried to warn J-gov? Because your children will.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Lunatic is in the driver seat.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Will they listen? Probably not. The Government is more concerned about monitoring net activity on your PC.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

just about every seismologist in the world has the same warning for the Japanese Government, but today's news about TEPCO and KEPCO shareholders voting in favor of restarting at least 11 reactors means the fat cats have spoken and these warnings fall onto deaf ears.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Experts hexberts! You get yours and we will get....... Hmmm No comment.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Do not count on "Tomodachi Operation" phase 2 from US..

0 ( +3 / -3 )

But but..the seismologists must be all wrong because the" know it all better super PM " personally" vouched for and guaranteed the reactor safety , right?

yes and if he is wrong, he will just quit his job to take responsibility (although i kinda doubt that he will be PM much long to begin with)!...and then take a nice paying amakudari position in the private sector. the problem is there is no personal responsibility, no one to say the buck stops here.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

TEPCO/KEPCO shareholders can just go jump into the Sea of Japan.

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"The expertise and neutrality of experts advising Japan’s Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency are highly questionable,"

Nothing much really to add to that is there. Except if you wanted to talk about the expertise and neutrality of other experts and officials.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Japan didn't learn after Tokaimura or after Monju. Why should it learn any lessons this time around? "Kimari" means "kimari."

1 ( +4 / -3 )

This warning from the experts should be heeded. The goverment surely cannot ignore their advice. To proceed with the restarting of the reactors may be utter folly.Hopefully common sense will prevail

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Fat chance.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The government didn't listen before, they clearly aren't listening now, and I seriously doubt that they'll ever listen in the future. If the world's second worst nuclear disaster didn't clue those bobble heads in Parliament in... nothing will. Sorry seismologists, though I support your efforts, aside from the general public who cares, your voices are lost in the abyssal pockets of politicians.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Ah, but they're just the ones with the knowledge of the dangers! We should only listen to those who profit monetarily from the restart!!

0 ( +4 / -4 )

What will they do when the electricity is shut off during a rolling blackout? It really doesn't matter. This office needs to be eliminated because the USGS provides more real time information about earthquakes world-wide than JMA. Check both sites the next time a significant quake occurs. Even if the office recorded a quake and a tsunami, the tsunami would hit before anyone could see the warning on the JMA site.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Seismic modelling by Japan’s nuclear regulator did not properly take into account active fault lines near the Oi plant, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist at Kobe University, told reporters.

There was a 7.3 in Fukui in 1948, they knew it when they built the plant. It's a little late to start thinking about it now...30 years ago would have been a lot better!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Kamikaze Japan. Need we say more?

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Wow this is the first time I've seen (total agreement), on any topic, 19 comments all (all together), awesome! Now we need to work at getting the laws changed to hold individual's accountable, for (not making) safety # one priority! The buck stops somewhere!

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

The buck stops somewhere!

Yep! It stops with a deep bow and public apology backed up with a couple of related suicides and everything starts again.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

The reason Japan has mountains is because of tectonic plate movement, and don't forget it is an island. Nuke plants need ocean water to cool them. There is no place that is 100% safe for a reactor. Make a decision public: Air conditioning, electric trains, industrial activity and employment or higher gas and diesel, food and every other daily necessity prices. If the reactors are left inactive, how many years will it take to provide any alternative method of electricity production? Probably, the best decision maker will be a hot summer and higher unemployment. A more simply solution would be to locate alternative gas or diesel generation in a remote place and bury the lines in order to provide electricity to the pumps in case of an earthquake. Don't forget, it was the tsunami and alternative electricity sources that caused the problem, not just the earthquake.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

What I dont get is that if they care enough to warn the govt concerning the nuclear reactors-considering that saying there will be an erathquake doesnt make you a specialist-then ther must be some serious reason for them giving warning, or are their jobs just cushy jobs and allows them to research probability's. Why dont they give this warning to say the builders and city councils, and everybody and anybody else. Of course we hear it, but no more than usual, so is there anything unusual to the usual that the electric company's deserve a special treat? People it is up to you. While I agree there is much to be said foralternate enrgy sources, and I hate how govts support private enterprise, seismologists giving warnings is like p***ing in the air,electric companys and the average consumer alike dont heed it anymore or anyless than one another.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why do seismologists say that there was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake at Fukushima. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake would have devastated all the buildings around Fukushima, yet when you see all the videos, all houses are standing undamaged until the Tsunami overtook them. True records show that it was not a magnitude 9.0. I could direct people to the site which shows the charts, but Japan Today always deletes any links that I post. Kobe quake was around 7.0, so compare that to Fukushima. A magnitude 9.0 quake is many times more powerfull than a 7.0 quake.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Experts!, Experts!, don't need them, I know best the Hostess always praise my intelligence.

Thus the cycle continues.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen who says it is impossible to predict the earthquakes, In Israel they have the technology to predict the earthquakes exact location, time and power. I ve been trying to approach to Japanese government including the head of the Seismologists. and they just ignored me. Japan deservs 1 more major earthquake maybe then they will take me seriously.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@ VicMOsaka,

You're hella off topic but...The Tohuku earthquake had an epicenter which was not only 32 km deep, but was situated approximately 70 km off the coast in the ocean. 70 km is quite a fair way offshore and many buildings DID actually receive damage from the quakes. As a qualified builder I can also testify that many houses built after 1997 here are an extremely earthquake resistant masterpiece thanks to the stringent Japanese building standards made law after the Kobe quake, therefore not every building will crumble like in Christchurch, New Zealand. Think about it... Epicenter is 9 and in the immediate 20 km area after, magnitude 8.5 gradually reducing to around a 7 off the nearest coast in Fukushima.

Back on topic, unfortunately money is more of a concern for the politicians to take notice of the seismologists claims, and the general public too mild to uprise and take action to protest against such decisions.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Ishibashi himself stated that he only expects an M7 quake in that area... now he wants to convince people that the plants are unsafe because they were built for M8.5 quake, something 100-200 times more powerful than his estimates? I hardly think he should be talking if he made a mistake before and now revises his numbers up. Perhaps later he'll end up revising his numbers down again.

Interestingly, Watanabe's research focused mainly on Niigata to Sendai area, and even examined the fault that later produced hundreds of earthquakes in the aftermath of 3/11. He stated his models were in line with everyone else's, so that makes me wonder if he really knows more about fault lines than all of his peers who say that he's gone off the deep end? He also hasn't been publishing recently, so the most you can find is him going on TV

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

basroil: If all the plants were built to withstand such quakes, what happened at Fukushima? And if that quake was stronger than the plant was built to sustain, why couldn't such a strong one happen again? Remember, one of the biggest excuses provided (over and over) by TEPCO and the government (and a lot of posters on here who are pro-nuclear) is that this earthquake 'could not have been predicted' and was 'unprecedented', but we ALL know that that's a lot of bull. It was both predicted and the company warned several times, which they chose to ignore. The predictions were based on evidence that such quakes and subsequent tsunami have happened in the past.

So here we go again -- people with the brains and know-how about plates and earthquakes being ignored by people simply out for profit. It's going to be a very, very lousy day when the majority of the public will be able to say "I told you so", and the power companies make yet MORE excuses about how they could never have known, etc. etc. Imagine where we'd be if TEPCO had heeded the warnings of the past, but alas, seems people here are keen to repeat that mistake.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

smithinjapanJun. 28, 2012 - 12:06PM JST

If all the plants were built to withstand such quakes, what happened at Fukushima?

Water damage and old age. The quake itself did nothing, a completely unknown fault mechanism caused much more water to move than ever expected. Contrary to popular belief, the battery backups and all generators were not knocked out immediately. The batteries worked as intended, and three generators were working properly. If they had moved the power switches to a safer location, nothing would have happened, but there was no recommendation that it be done immediately (as with the extra batteries and generators) because the same seismologists above didn't consider it to be an issue. In fact, these two guys only consider ground motions, which has never been an issue for nuclear plants even with twice the design load.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

The quake itself did nothing,

Wrong.

http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kan/topics/201106/pdf/chapter_iii-2.pdf

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It will never happen. (if it does? Well WE all have to suffer...except those responsible) isn't that how it works?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

billyshearsJun. 28, 2012 - 01:19PM JST

Wrong.

http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kan/topics/201106/pdf/chapter_iii-2.pdf

Did you actually read this? It specifically says all damage to generators was by water. In fact, it even states one generator was fully operational (but didn't mention that it later failed for unknown reasons, and which is why these generators are always in triple redundancy). Everyone knows about the external power line issue, but that is actually in a substation nowhere near the station and so remote it took days to fix.

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Water damage and old age. The quake itself did nothing, a completely unknown fault mechanism caused much more water to move than ever expected.

Ugh, that's a complete bull typically made up by the nuclear advocates, Japanese government and TEPCO.

Of course... if it weren't for the tsunami, the nuclear plants wouldn't haven't been blown up to the point of being an unrecognizable mess! Yeah, right.

Contrary to popular belief, the battery backups and all generators were not knocked out immediately. The batteries worked as intended, and three generators were working properly. If they had moved the power switches to a safer location, nothing would have happened,

So? If the coolant pipelines etc were damaged due to the earthquake, then none of this would have helped.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

The people don't want them restarted, seismologists warn against it - but these are trivial things. Cross your fingers, pray to whoever you pray to and hope that a big one doesn't hit them. Black or red?

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Terry Tibbs, @ VicMOsaka, You're hella off topic but...

If there is anyone off topic, it has to be you talking about the construction of houses. Would it occur to you that most houses in the Fukushima area ( and Japan as a whole ) were built before 1997 ? There may have been some damage but they did not collapse as they did in Kobe which was a less powerful earthquake than at Fukushima. So what I am saying is that the experts claim that an earthquake was much more powerful than the one at Kobe yet caused hardly any damage. Quake at Fukushima was quoted as " massive " in this article. There was nothing massive about it at all. It was the Tsunami that was massive.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

So they have an opinion that a quake may knock out another nuclear plant. Ok granted. We had a catastrophe last year that caused a massive tsunami to damage the backup cooling system on a 40 year old power plant. But being a seismologist doesn't mean you are an engineer. Qualified nuclear engineers and physicians went out and did massive tests on all power plants and shut them down. Analyses have shown that 2 power plants were safe and could be restarted. What is the problem with that? I agree, this process should have been more transparent, but even if it was would any of you have a different opinion? We may not want nuclear power, but we definitely need it. Until every home in Japan has a solar panel on the roof and alternative power is utilized, Japan cannot afford to burn fossil fuels to generate power. I am not a fan of nuclear power, but it's clean, it's safe and it works! Only condition: no shortcuts this time. If plant is old, get rid of it. Build it like fortress. Technology is there, so use it!

2 ( +5 / -3 )

avimazaltoJun. 28, 2012 - 11:35AM JST While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen who says it is impossible to predict the earthquakes, In Israel they have the technology to predict the earthquakes exact location, time and power. I ve been trying to approach to Japanese government including the head of the Seismologists. and they just ignored me. Japan deservs 1 more major earthquake maybe then they will take me seriously.

Answer, I guess if one could put a nuke down the bottom of the Japanese trench it would be quite possible to predict an earthquake. I think the Japanese government already knows what happened but can't say. Nice of you to say that Japan needs another major earthquake. Are you in Israel ? I guess you weren't happy about Japan's offer to enrich uranium for Iran. The only way that one could predict exact location, time and power is if someone could actually set one off.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Thomas AndersonJun. 28, 2012 - 01:47PM JST

Ugh, that's a complete bull typically made up by the nuclear advocates, Japanese government and TEPCO.

So when anti-nuclear advocates are in any way wrong they are simply miscalculating, but when neutral stances are taken it's purposely false? Typical signs of bias. You do know the same guys that now say nuclear is unsafe are the same guys that signed off on the tsunami calculations right? And that was after they attacked the plants for not meeting their shake criteria (but did fall perfectly in line with their tsunami calculations).

Of course... if it weren't for the tsunami, the nuclear plants wouldn't haven't been blown up to the point of being an unrecognizable mess! Yeah, right.

I doubt you or a regular seismologist could spot a nuclear reactor by buildings alone, so I can see why you may think it's unrecognizable. The fact of the matter is, the only part that was damaged was a thin sheet covering ontop of the reactor building itself. That sheet doesn't do much more than stop wind and water from getting in, and making the building look pretty. The reactor buildings themselves were "undamaged" by the quake and hydrogen explosions. Energy wise, the hydrogen explosions weren't that big, and due to the thin sheet design, it looked bigger than it actually was. Without the tsunami, the backup generators would have been fine, and they would have had very easy access to the electrical switch boards to reconnect power though reactors 5-6 which had been independent of 1-4.

So? If the coolant pipelines etc were damaged due to the earthquake, then none of this would have helped.

The point is that they weren't, and are not likely to ever be. In a BWR, there is no "coolant pipeline", rather several dozen separate systems that can be used. In most reactor design limits, you need an 8.0 quake in the immediate vicinity of the plant to exceed design specifications, and even so that doesn't mean it will actually break. For the case of Oi, which is now being restarted, it is designed for about 6 times more energy than an 8.0 quake, which is higher than any known quake in the region (including the 1923 Kanto earthquake). Additionally, it is PWR instead, so the reactor is entirely self contained and uses a heat exchanger that can be flooded with turbine water, emergency cooling reserve water, or even direct sea water if needed. For PWR primary coolant tank to fail would mean a quake strong enough to shake the plant foundation apart, which would mean far greater worries than a nuclear disaster (like 5 million deaths in metropolitan Tokyo alone level disaster).

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

avimazaltoJun. 28, 2012 - 11:35AM JST

While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen who says it is impossible to predict the earthquakes, In Israel they have the technology to predict the earthquakes exact location, time and power.

Yes, because they have so many earthquakes in Israel that they dedicate billions of yen on that topic. Nobody ever said prediction is impossible, simply that it's not currently possible with our limited understanding of rock mechanics and dynamics. It currently takes 15min to several hours to find out just how strong a quake actually was, so I can bet you Palistine that there is no such technology. Even the two seismologists here have been wrong on several occasions on the power possible, and they have been doing this for as long as Israel has been a country.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Seismologists are scientifically correct in warning the Government of Japan to avoid tghe restarting of the Nuclear reactors. This is a very serious warning to the ecologically illeterate Japanese Prime Minister and the anti-environmentalist nuclear lobby and Governsment officials and politicians who just merely want to use the cloak of nuclear reactors for making corruption of as much as possible for investment for the coming elections so that they can come back to power. The politicians and officials who promote nuclear power have to be classified as international environemntal criminals as their main objective is to use the nuclear reactors also to generate plutonium and enriched uranium byproducts so that they can use them to make nuclear weapons which can be sold at an exorbitant cost through the heads of underdeveloped countries by taking advantage of their highly corrupt government administration systems. In the process these nuclear plants located on the most destructive earthquake prone circumpacific belt are bound to experience small and medium scale accidents which may ultimately blow into nuclear explosions which spread poisonous nuclear pollutants to spread to even distant countries and poison their air, water and land resources and thereby inflict unimaginable economic and environmental damaging costs that pave the way to the economic bankruptcy of the countries which happen to be in the zone of influence of the radioactive fall out due to the reactor accident. If inspite of the agitation by the Japanese against the restart of the nuclear plants the japanese government plans to reopen the nuclear reactors and thereby create manmade disasters which effect other countries all over the world the common citizens of the world have no option except to exert pressure over their national governemnts to boycott the import of all Japanese goods so that Japan is bound to face the economic sanctions imposed by all the foreign countries. For more details on the realtions between the magnitude of an earthquake, its intensity, its focal depth and its damaging potential from a distance see the web http://tshivajirao.blogspot.in/2008/05/tehri-dam-is-time-bomb-act-even-now-to.html .T.Shivaji Rao, Director, Center for Environemntal Studies, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam-530045 Phone: 0891-2504902 Prof 2738211 Mobile: 9949319038 Mobile of Personal Assistant: 9885324013 email: shivajirao1932@hotmail.com shivajirao32@gmail.com for Biodata: <http://www.eoearth.org/ contributor/Shivaji.rao> <http://www.asktheexperts.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=105 > <http://www.varunyantra.org/ > (website on Inexpensive cloud seeding by farmers)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

VicMOsakaJun. 28, 2012 - 10:55AM JST

Why do seismologists say that there was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake at Fukushima. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake would have devastated all the buildings around Fukushima, yet when you see all the videos, all houses are standing undamaged until the Tsunami overtook them.

Very simple, it was an M9.0 at the epicenter, but that epicenter is both very far away from Fukushima (300km I think? haven't looked it up in a long time) and not that close to the surface (relative to what it can be, it was quite close to the surface as a M9.0). If the earthquake is assumed to have a circular shock pattern (actually more complex than that, and possible resonance issues due to the long length of the quake), you can expect the shake energy to decrease exponentially. Most nuclear reactors don't even stop for an M7 quake that far away, since the operational limits for some reactors are generally about 0.2g and M7 shaking is rarely above 0.15g from that distance.

However, you never actually saw the cracks in the buildings, signs of liquefaction, fallen power lines, and cracked gas mains due to the distance from which those cameras took video. The total energy released at the earthquake was indeed M9, and in fact was more devastating than a normal M9 due to the duration. If that had struck any other country (exception of probably Chile), it would have flattened cities and killed millions.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Idiots!! So we learned nothing from Fukushima???????

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Nisejin, Good post !

It is very doubtful than an earthquake would knock out a nuclear power plant. If there had been no Tsunami and other very strange anomalies. Fukushima power plant would have survived no problem. From information that I have read, the engineers were unable to open or close the electrically operated valves for the coolant systems. ( stuxnet anyone? )

These GE power plants have a safety backup cooling system run by the steam produced which would drive steam turbines driving cooling pumps. However, if valves could not be controlled to let cooling water circulate, then this system would fail.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

There may have been some damage but they did not collapse as they did in Kobe which was a less powerful earthquake than at Fukushima. So what I am saying is that the experts claim that an earthquake was much more powerful than the one at Kobe yet caused hardly any damage. Quake at Fukushima was quoted as " massive " in this article. There was nothing massive about it at all. It was the Tsunami that was massive.*

Three buildings near me collapsed, and that was just in my neighborhood, and it definitely was massive.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

An interesting debate

lets have just as a little reminder of the risks. A short time ago at 14:56 today we had a 5.2 close to the Fukushima plant.

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20120628145648391-281452.html

Not big this time but..................

0 ( +0 / -0 )

My gut feeling's telling me it's not gonna end good - the restart of the reactors.....

But you know, if looking at fro manother angle: Japan is an island, nuclear energy is the cheapest here, but it's still not cheap at all (just look at your energy bills at home). If they choose a hydro-power plant it might do serious harm to nature and Japan doesn't have that many rivers to begin with.

But then again, nuclear plants are probably one of the most dangerous things.

So it kind of depends on how you look at it.

But I'm personally against restarting any of the reactors. Well, maybe only in Shizuoka, since there can't be a tsunami there? But if putting safety first, then I'm totally against nucear stuff.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sorry, but I don't see how "Seismologists" are relevant to what is essentially a discussion about the economy. Japan needs these alternative energy plants to start running again to provide jobs and power for the economy. Nuclear power is the cheap, clean, environmentally friendly energy choice of the future.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Liberty Joe LoweJun. 28, 2012 - 03:52PM JST

lets have just as a little reminder of the risks. A short time ago at 14:56 today we had a 5.2 close to the Fukushima plant.

It's 10000 times smaller than 3/11, and actually not rare. If it weren't that Fukushima is off, it would have not even stopped for that level of shake. And Fukushima had a limit of just 0.12g compared to Oi's 0.4g.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

KanadeJun. 28, 2012 - 03:56PM JST

My gut feeling's telling me it's not gonna end good - the restart of the reactors.....

Could just be stress, Japan has a pretty high occurrence of gastrointestinal problems.

but it's still not cheap at all (just look at your energy bills at home).

Nuclear was used for nighttime power, and typical night-time power in Sapporo is just 8 yen/kWh, which is comparable to the USA in terms of cheap energy. It is cheaper than most European countries. The daytime costs are due to gas and oil turbines, which are quite expensive due to fuel.

But then again, nuclear plants are probably one of the most dangerous things.

Only about as dangerous as a gas or oil plant from an engineering standpoint, far less from loss of life standpoint (more likely to die from a gas tank explosion or gas mains leak).

But if putting safety first, then I'm totally against nucear stuff.

Your other option right now, and for the future in terms of economics, is coal. If anything will give you more cancer than nuclear, faster, and more deadly forms (lung cancer has an abysmally low 10 year survival rate, thyroid cancer is practically 100%), it's coal plants, especially the old ones mothballed decades ago when people realized nuclear was better for the environment than coal (before the advent of clean coal, CCS, and fine particulate filtering).

0 ( +3 / -3 )

2008: Seismic-concerns In addition to concerns from within Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also expressed concern about the ability of Japan's nuclear plants to withstand seismic activity. At a meeting of the G8's Nuclear Safety and Security Group, held in Tokyo in 2008, an IAEA expert warned that a strong earthquake with a magnitude above 7.0 could pose a "serious problem" for Japan's nuclear power stations.[63]

http://phys.org/news/2011-03-iaea-japan-nuclear-quake-wikileaks.html

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Regarding basroll`s assertion that the earthquake itself "did no damage at all" at Fukushima:

The Independent has spoken to several workers at the plant who recite the same story: serious damage, to piping and at least one of the reactors, occurred before the tsunami hit. All have requested anonymity because they are still working at or connected with the stricken plant. Worker A, a maintenance engineer who was at the Fukushima complex on the day of the disaster, recalls hissing, leaking pipes.

"I personally saw pipes that had come apart and I assume that there were many more that had been broken throughout the plant. There's no doubt that the earthquake did a lot of damage inside the plant... I also saw that part of the wall of the turbine building for reactor one had come away. That crack might have affected the reactor."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-explosive-truth-behind-fukushimas-meltdown-2338819.html

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@basroil Don't start your comment with mocking people. I wasn't blaming or laughing at anyone iny comment. I compare the price to my country's energy price and we pay a lot less. But we mostly use hydro power stations here.

About safety. from the engineer's point of view, yeah, all plants are equally dangerous. But I'm talking about the nation here. I'm not talkign about 10 people, I'm talking about millions of people. And radiation is scary because it's invisible, and you can't fight it. And cancer is one of the worst deseases possible.

You're saying a similar thing to what one guy said to me not long ago. He said that nuclear plants are not any more dangerous than riding a car, a plane or a train. I personally think such things can't be compared. And if choosing to save energy by blackouts or to use nuclear energy, I'd choose the former. But it's just my choice.

Being sick is one of the scariest things. Thyroid cancer can also be the result of radiation. Like after Chernobyl disaster, 60-70% of kids born nearby had thyroid cancer for the next 10 years or so. Coal plants have never been an option for me.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Basroll: here we go again, (the truth is where you find it) you continue to dismiss everything that doesn't support your narrow views, and use the word (bias) when anyone has something else to say! Please read, Billyshears: June 28, 04:22pm You are good at putting a spin on numbers, either for(seismic concerns) or radiation readings, your neutrality is questionable. Building nuclear power plants on top of, or next to fault lines is dangerous, and yes tsunami are dangerous and 10,300 millisievert an hour is dangerous, which is the readings comming from one of the damaged reactors up north!

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

caffeinebuzz, Three buildings near me collapsed, and that was just in my neighborhood, and it definitely was massive.

Kobe was massive. Are you telling me that it was like Kobe? There are so many videos of the Tsunami around Fukushima and I didn't see fallen down buildings until after the Tsunami. Hardly massive. Mind you, so many houses are poorly constructed in Japan and would collapse quite easily.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Kanade, If they choose a hydro-power plant it might do serious harm to nature and Japan doesn't have that many rivers to begin with.

Kanade, There are rivers all over Japan. Also, there are well over two hundred hydro dams of various capacities all over Japan.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@VicMOsaka

Hm, well, I'm a complete amateur here, but at least Russia hydro-power plants are in majority, so we don't really pay much for electricity, so that's why I was proposing them. But I know some people that work in that industry and they say that hydro-power plants are harmful for nature in long-term, but I still think they're the least dangerous.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

basroil: "So when anti-nuclear advocates are in any way wrong they are simply miscalculating, but when neutral stances are taken it's purposely false?"

'Neutral stance', eh? This from the guy that says the evacuations of areas around the Fukushima plant have 'NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FAILED PLANT', despite the fact that if the plant had not failed they would not have been evacuated? Hahaha

"Typical signs of bias."

Ahem.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Basroil. Would you please back up your statement that the quake did no damage.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Basroil said-- Very simple, it was an M9.0 at the epicenter, but that epicenter is both very far away from Fukushima (300km I think? haven't looked it up in a long time) and not that close to the surface (relative to what it can be, it was quite close to the surface as a M9.0).

Sorry, could not have been a M9.0. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake is 1,000 times stronger than a M5.0 and would have an effect over 1000 kms. Figure that out and see what your conclusion comes to. We have all been told it was a M9.0- we are told all sorts of things these days that don't seem to add up.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

KanadeJun. 28, 2012 - 04:32PM JST

But I'm talking about the nation here. I'm not talkign about 10 people, I'm talking about millions of people. And radiation is scary because it's invisible, and you can't fight it. And cancer is one of the worst deseases possible.

And you think that mercury poisoning is not scary? Or coal particulate related lung cancer? What about smoking related cancer? Coal plants are estimated to cause 40k cases of lung cancer each year, and smoking several times that. Yet somehow a 1% increase in cancer rates (which you already have 40% of getting before you die) from radiation is worse than a 20%+ chance from smoking? Sadly, as most of the famous thinkers in the past have said, common people are not fit to rule. Why bother with what a million people with no knowledge of the subject say if the 7 of the ten people with knowledge say something different?

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Open MindedJun. 28, 2012 - 08:11PM JST

Would you please back up your statement that the quake did no damage.

"undamaged", not undamaged. Preliminary official reports state non-structural damage, a few articles say major damage, but I have yet to see anyone actually calculate any damage, simply guess. Until either sides has reasonable report, I'll skeptically state the official reports. The quake damage known is to parts other than the nuclear reactors and pools, the known damage to reactor buildings and spent fuel pool are due mainly to the tsunami and hydrogen explosion (non-structural damage).

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The Kobe quake and the Fukushima quake were different. The force of the Kobe quake was concentrated in a very narrow area and it tore through Kobe up to the mountains. However, Osaka, Himeji and other towns in the vicinity were not damaged at all. We could go from Kobe with no electricity, gas or water (depending on where you were) and go to Osaka and go to open shopping centers and restaurants, life as usual.

That isn't the case for the Tohoku area at all.

VicMOsaka, what are you not getting about the official magnitude of a quake being that of the epicenter? The Kobe quake was 7.3-7.6 (depending on the source) on Awaji Island, but less in Kobe. Does that mean it wasn't a 7.3?

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Preliminary official reports state non-structural damage, a few articles say major damage, but I have yet to see anyone actually calculate any damage, simply guess. Until either sides has reasonable report, I'll skeptically state the official reports.

You just confirm my understanding that nobody knows what really the quake did and what has really happened at Fukushima NPP. And this will be until somebody can enter the building and make proper assessment. Thus let's come back on that topic in 10 years.

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@Basroil: BTW, structural damages are one thing, but piping damages can endanger enough an NPP to trigger a meltdown. That the key points the investigations will have to answer. No piping, no cooling, whatever backup diesel engines or available fresh water you have. If proven that the quake damaged the piping, then no NPP is reasonably safe in Japan. That is why I think before restarting any NPP, we should know what a big quake can cause. But again we will not know anything from Fukushima before 2020 at the earliest.

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@Basroll:

There are a few things you leave out. Blow up a gas tank, LNG plant, coal plant., oil refinery or whatever else and you get lots of dirt and rubble, which can be cleaned away in a few weeks. Blow up a nuclear plants - and your grandchildren will still be busy with cleaning. Normal accidents have bad short-term consequences, nuclear ones - well - short-term on geological scales.

Further, the plant had suffered a loss of external power supply throuhg the quake. This is something I would call damage.

Third, the diesel generators and batteries are completely irrelevant in this case. The tsunami destroyed the water pumps, which are located at the waterside. No pumps, no flow of coolant. Even if you have lots of electricity, without pumps, you'll have a meltdown. And water pumps must be located next to the water. They cannot be built at a safe distance from the water. The valves for the vent couldn't be operated because loss of external power supply wasn't assumed. This has nothing to do with external manipulation. These valves have nothing to do with the cooling cycle. They are valves which are part of the venting system.

Fourth, if the earthquake hadn't done any harm, there would be no reason to worry about the SFP of block 4 starting to leak, because the tsunami was only 14 m and the SFP is 30 m above ground. Therefore, if the pool is damaged (and everyone with more than superficial knowledge of the topic believes that), it can be only due to the quake (the deflagration above can be considered mostly irrelevant in that case, since it was dampened downwards by the pool's contents). However, the SFP issue is the real accident waiting to happen (even though some hydrogen explosions look admittedly more flashy and frightening than an open fire of a reactor core).

@VicMOsaka:

While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen who says it is impossible to predict the earthquakes, In Israel they have the technology to predict the earthquakes exact location, time and power.

You realise that you contradict yourself in one sentence. That's really amazing. No one (and by no means a country without strong seismic activity like Israel) has the means to predict anything about earthquakes except PROBABILITIES. The reason is that plate tectonics is an extremely diffcult subject, since it has an extremely large numbers of dofs, which cannot be taken into account by a decent model (yet). The only thing that can be done is a measurement of localised stresses and strains. If these excede certain thresholds, scientist can conclude that the occurence of an earthquake is increaded. This is done in the same way than the prediction of rain probabilities - by comparison with periods in the past which looked similar in configuration space. This is not a prediction. Stop claiming nonsense about what science can or cannot do and leave it to us scientists!

Btw, if the TOHOKU quake, which shifted the rotational axis of the planet and changed the length of daytime, wasn't massive, then I have no idea what seismologists should define as massive. Maybe some people consider it small since their location is far away from Sanriku.

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Btw, if the TOHOKU quake, which shifted the rotational axis of the planet and changed the length of daytime, wasn't massive, then I have no idea what seismologists should define as massive.

Hear, hear. Add in 'move the northern end of Honshu 8 feet'. Never, ever, have we in Kobe ever felt a quake that occurred that far away.

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Johannes Weber, I did not say In Israel they have the technology to predict the earthquakes exact location, time and power. I was quoting what someone else said.

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http://israel21c.org/environment/new-tool-could-predict-future-earthquakes/

This is most likely what was being discussed up thread. However, it isn't a sure thing yet.

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