That's all that cooling a reactor is; is piping cool water in.They've been trying to cool things by pumping sea water into the reactors for a couple of days...
That's all that cooling a reactor is; is piping cool water in.
So, they are failing at piping water in?
Maybe they should bulldoze a trench and let the ocean in.
-John
People like this sicken me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UmotTE-VlY
this is what caused the quake, fires and tsunami
8.9 happenedDoes anyone know what exactly happened to these electric generators after the tsunami?
Things is, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a nuclear plant build right at the ocean front (is that really clever btw?) in one of the most earthquake/tsunami sensitive area's in the world cant keep a diesel power generator running (if that is what indeed happened).
Of all the problems building an earth quake resistant nuclear reactor, ensuring a backup electric generator survives a flooding, or gets fixed/replaced within 8 hours would seem fairly trivial to me . Especially since, well, I have no idea, but I would imagine those pumps would require just on the order of 10s of kilowatts (if that) when the reactor is shut down?
Or was it not the generators that failed but the pumps?
Anyway, building a plant that survives an earthquake of 9 on the scale of richter intact might be pretty hard and expensive, but building a flood resistant diesel electric group and ensuring you have at least the capability to pump water would seem, well, much less so. Im kinda surprised they failed so miserably here, at least if Im understanding what happened correctly.
8.9 happened
Yeah so? I dont see why you cant design a a diesel generator that survives a 10 or 15 quake. We are talking about a device that fits on a truck, not a skyscraper here. And we could submerge them in 200m of water like 70 years ago too.
Does anyone know what exactly happened to these electric generators after the tsunami?
Things is, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a nuclear plant build right at the ocean front (is that really clever btw?) in one of the most earthquake/tsunami prone area's in the world cant keep a diesel power generator running (if that is what indeed happened).
Of all the problems building an earth quake resistant nuclear reactor, ensuring a backup electric generator survives a flooding, or gets fixed/replaced within 8 hours would seem fairly trivial to me . Especially since, well, I have no idea, but I would imagine those pumps would require just on the order of 10s of kilowatts (if that) when the reactor is shut down?
Or was it not the generators that failed but the pumps?
Anyway, building a plant that survives an earthquake of 9 on the scale of richter intact might be pretty hard and expensive, but building a flood resistant diesel electric group and ensuring you have at least the capability to pump water would seem, well, much less so. Im kinda surprised they failed so miserably here, at least if Im understanding what happened correctly.
What is a good reliable source on keeping up to date on how things are going with the power plant? A very close friend of mine will be reaching Japan withen the next day or so... Kinda worried.
While they could probably get a trench large enough in a few days, how do you get the water INTO the reactor?
Watch this and you will understand
http://video.l3.fbcdn.net/cfs-l3-sn...8&l3e=20110315101648&lh=0a6cfa5eeaecd6dc12abf
WTF are you talking about?
Basically, the generators survived the earthquake...but not much survived the tsunami...and the only way a diesel generator is going to survive a 30 foot tall wall of saltwater is if it's not submerged in it. MAYBE if it was built into the super structure of the reactor building itself instead of outside at ground level...but it's for damned sure, in 1941, we didn't have diesel generators that could run while submerged...except for submarines, and they had to surface to run the engines.
So how hard is it to build a truck sized enclosure that resists 30 foot of water? Im serious, I dont get it. Even if the generators would shut down while submerged (as if a breather or oxygen supply would be that hard), I dont see any reason why it would be difficult to make a generator or generator housing that survives a tsunami. First of all there is no reason I can think of to place such an absolutely crucial backup device in harms way to begin with, just raise the bloody thing 20+m, its not like the plant has no buildings taller than that, or make a watertight bunker, or do both. Surely it cant be as hard as say, building a nuclear reactor?
First thing I find on google:
http://underseatechnology.com/mt/mtStories.aspx?ShowStrory=1006812079
Finally some good news it seems.
New Scientist RT @rowhoop: Amazing: 9,700 missing people from Minamisanriku are safe: evacuated before the tsunami http://s.nikkei.com/iiC9vj