Edit:22 Update 2: Experts warned Fukushima of tsunami threat 2 years ago.

[Ichinisan]

"Edit:21 Update 21: "The thought of a tsunami never crossed my mind."

Can't you at least give this thread a title to indicate that it's about the evolving nuclear threat?

It's actually YOUR fault so many people created unnecessary threads about it.

Sheesh.

 

[sdifox]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707


ohoh


Japan nuclear: Workers evacuated as radiation soars

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The BBC's Mark Worthington said many people in Japan are becoming increasingly concerned about what is going to happen in the future

Continue reading the main story Japan quake

• Japan quake: Aid worker's diary
• Unity in ravaged regions
• Analysis: A fortnight in Fukushima
• Will Fukushima be Tepco's doom?

Radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant has reached 10 million times the usual level, company officials say.
Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated.
Earlier, Japan's nuclear agency said that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant had risen to 1,850 times the usual level.
The UN's nuclear agency has warned the crisis could go on for months.
It is believed the radiation at Fukushima is coming from one of the reactors, but a specific leak has not been identified.
Leaking water at reactor 2 has been measured at 1,000 millisieverts/hour - 10 million times higher than when the plant is operating normally.
"We are examining the cause of this, but no work is being done there because of the high level of radiation," said a spokesman for the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).
Continue reading the main story

• Q&A: Health effects of radiation
• A new way to look at radiation

"High levels of caesium and other substances are being detected, which usually should not be found in reactor water. There is a high possibility that fuel rods are being damaged," the spokesman added.
Tepco has been criticised for a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly.
The nation's nuclear agency said the operator of the Fukushima plant had made a number of mistakes, including worker clothing.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government said that airbone radiation around the plant was decreasing.
The plant was damaged in the deadly 11 March earthquake and tsunami.
The death toll has now passed 10,000, and more than 17,440 people are missing.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has now sent extra teams to the Japanese nuclear plant.
The radiation found in the sea will no longer be a risk after eight days because of iodine's half-life, officials say.
Fresh water Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said on Saturday that Tepco had to be more transparent in the wake of an incident this week in which three workers were exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than normal, suffering burns.
"We strongly urge Tepco to provide information to the government more promptly," Mr Edano said.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa), said two injured workers were wearing boots that only came up to their ankles and afforded little protection.
"Regardless of whether there was an awareness of high radioactivity in the stagnant water, there were problems in the way work was conducted," Mr Nishiyama said.
He said Tepco also knew of high air radiation at one reactor several days before the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 240km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Mass burials have been held, including here at Yamamoto
He said Tepco had been warned and measures to improve safety had been put in place.
He said that leakage from reactors had probably caused the high levels of radiation found in water at the Fukushima plant.
Emergency workers are continuing to cool the reactors in an effort to prevent a meltdown. They have now switched to using more favoured fresh water as a coolant, rather than sea water.
There had been fears the salt in sea water could further corrode machinery. The fresh water is being pumped in so that contaminated radioactive water can be extracted.
The team of more than 700 engineers has found radioactive water in three of the six reactors.
Four of the reactors are still considered volatile.
The US 7th Fleet is sending barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of fresh water.
Mr Edano said: "We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse. But we still cannot be optimistic."
Iodine Mr Amano told the New York Times that Japan was "still far from the end of the accident".
Although he saw some "positive signs", particularly the restoration of electric power, he said: "More efforts should be done to put an end to the accident."
His main fears were that the lack of coolant would mean spent fuel rods would remain exposed to the air, and then heat up, releasing radioactive material.
China, Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asian importers have banned some imports of vegetables, seafood and milk products for fear of contamination.
Australia, the European Union, the United States and Russia have followed suit.
Meanwhile in Japan's tsunami disaster zone, the military has helped supply food and water and has continued clearing areas to try to recover more bodies.
There has been a need for mass burials in some areas along the coast.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are still housed in temporary shelters such as gymnasiums.
The Japanese government has put the rebuilding cost at $309bn (£191.8bn).

 

[Udgnim]

seems like there was actually a core breach which is horrible news.

anyways, another tsunami video taken on the rooftop. the amount of water moving in is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOfy1CoxrMo

 

[futuristicmonkey]

With transmission line voltages pushing a million volts you really don't have very big I^2*R losses. Almost all long distance transmission lines use >750,000 volts.

Thermal limits only come into play for short distances. For long distance transmission, the power angle / stability is the ruling factor. Sure, using 765kV class transmission you can push 2GW 500km, however I suspect that transmission distances in Japan aren't quite what they are in North America. Nevermind the fact that half of their grid is 50Hz and the other half is 60Hz.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

The 80% of transmission losses occur in the last 5 miles (of which about 50% is in the last 1 mile).

I agree with your other points but can you back this up / point me toward a reference or two? Based on what I've learned in the past two years and my own intuition I don't understand where such a statement could be true.

 

[skyking]

Transmission loss include the losses at the stepdown transformers. Each time you go down in voltage there is loss. The voltage goes down, current increases, more loss in the wire itself, it all adds up quickly.

EDIT:

Transmission efficiency is hugely improved by devices that increase the voltage, and proportionately reduce the current in the conductors, thus keeping the power transmitted nearly equal to the power input. The reduced current flowing through the line reduces the losses in the conductors. According to Joule's Law, energy losses are directly proportional to the square of the current. Thus, reducing the current by a factor of 2 will lower the energy lost to conductor resistance by a factor of 4.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission

 

[Ichinisan]

anyways, another tsunami video taken on the rooftop. the amount of water moving in is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOfy1CoxrMo

Amazing video, but this is the wrong thread. (it's not your fault, techs has really botched the thread title most of the time)

Is there a higher-quality version of that video available anywhere?

 

[isekii]

seems like there was actually a core breach which is horrible news.

anyways, another tsunami video taken on the rooftop. the amount of water moving in is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOfy1CoxrMo

wow that is pretty amazing how fast the water rose.
there's no outrunning that thing that's for sure

 

[BoomerD]

seems like there was actually a core breach which is horrible news.

anyways, another tsunami video taken on the rooftop. the amount of water moving in is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOfy1CoxrMo

I've seen several of these taken from different vantage points. It's "exciting" in a morbid-sort of way...I can't imagine what it's like to actually be in a tsunami area like that, but being able to watch it happen without being in danger...

From the perspective of a viewer, seeing a large wall of water hit things would be more impressive...but even just continually rising and rising and rising...still does massive damage...and is interesting to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haV6k4sOpH8&feature=fvst

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Transmission loss include the losses at the stepdown transformers. Each time you go down in voltage there is loss. The voltage goes down, current increases, more loss in the wire itself, it all adds up quickly.

EDIT:



Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission

Conductor sizes on either "side" of a transformer are never the same. If you were trying to back up what Mark R said then I should say that by references I meant IEEE papers, not Wikipedia.

 

[BoomerD]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

"TOKYO – Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and inadequate storage tanks for huge amounts of contaminated water, stymied emergency workers Sunday as they struggled to nudge Japan's stricken nuclear complex back from the edge of disaster.

Workers are attempting to remove the radioactive water from the tsunami-ravaged nuclear compound and restart the regular cooling systems for the dangerously hot fuel.

The day began with company officials reporting that radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal, a spike that forced employees to flee the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.

"The number is not credible," said Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita. "We are very sorry."

A few hours later, TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said a new test had found radiation levels 100,000 times above normal — far better than the first results, though still very high.

But he ruled out having an independent monitor oversee the various checks despite the errors.

Officials acknowledged there was radioactive water in all four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex's most troubled reactors, and that airborne radiation in Unit 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour, four times the limit deemed safe by the government.

Those high airborne readings — if accurate — would make it very difficult for emergency workers to get inside to pump out the water.

Officials say they still don't know where the radioactive water is coming from, though government spokesman Yukio Edano earlier said some is "almost certainly" seeping from a damaged reactor core in one of the units.

The discovery late last week of pools of radioactive water has been a major setback in the mission to get the crucial cooling systems operating more than two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami.

The magnitude-9 quake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11 triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima plant, complicating a humanitarian disaster that is thought to have killed about 18,000 people.

A top TEPCO official acknowledged it could take a long time to clean up the complex.

"We cannot say at this time how many months or years it will take," Muto said, insisting the main goal now is to keep the reactors cool.

Workers have been scrambling to remove the radioactive water from the four units and find a place to safely store it. Each unit may hold tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water, said Minoru Ogoda of Japan's nuclear safety agency.

Safety agency officials had been hoping to pump the water into huge, partly empty tanks inside the reactor that are designed to hold condensed water.

Those tanks, though, turned out to be completely full, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Meanwhile, plans to use regular power to restart the cooling system hit a roadblock when it turned out that cables had to be laid through turbine buildings flooded with the contaminated water.

"The problem is that right now nobody can reach the turbine houses where key electrical work must be done," Nishiyama said. "There is a possibility that we may have to give up on that plan."

Despite Sunday's troubles, officials continued to insist the situation had at least partially stabilized.

"We have somewhat prevented the situation from turning worse," Edano told reporters Sunday evening. "But the prospects are not improving in a straight line and we've expected twists and turns. The contaminated water is one of them and we'll continue to repair the damage."

The protracted nuclear crisis has spurred concerns about the safety of food and water in Japan, which is a prime source of seafood for some countries. Radiation has been found in food, seawater and even tap water supplies in Tokyo.

Just outside the coastal Fukushima nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week — but that number had climbed to 1,850 times normal by the weekend.

Nishiyama said the increase was a concern, but also said the area is not a source of seafood and that the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

Up to 600 people are working inside the plant in shifts. Nuclear safety officials say workers' time inside the crippled units is closely monitored to minimize their exposure to radioactivity, but two workers were hospitalized Thursday when they suffered burns after stepping into contaminated water. They were to be released from the hospital Monday.

A poll, meanwhile, showed that support for Japan's prime minister had risen amid the disasters.

The poll conducted over the weekend by Kyodo News agency found that approval of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Cabinet rose to 28.3 percent after sinking below 20 percent in February, before the earthquake.

Last month's low approval led to speculation that Kan's days were numbered. While the latest figure is still low, it suggests he is making some gains with voters.

About 58 percent of respondents in the nationwide telephone survey of 1,011 people said they approved of the government's handling of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but a similar number criticized its handling of the nuclear crisis.

The death toll from the disasters stood at 10,668 Sunday with 16,574 people missing, police said. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless."


I definitely take my hat off out of sheer awe for the brave men and women who continue working in horrible conditions, trying desperately to get things under control.

 

[zanejohnson]

so whats going on now, is there a core breach or not?

 

[Ichinisan]

so whats going on now, is there a core breach or not?

Man...I don't even know what's goin' on. -Towelie

 

[zanejohnson]

Man...I don't even know what's goin' on. -Towelie

"maybe if i just got a little high"

 

[techs]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/japan.nuclear.disaster/?hpt=Sbin

Expert: Japan nuclear plant owner warned of tsunami threat

Tokyo (CNN) -- A seismic researcher told CNN Sunday that he warned the owner of the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant two years ago that the facility could be vulnerable to a tsunami.

The owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, appeared to ignore the warning, said seismologist Yukinobu Okamura.

TEPCO has not responded to Okamura's allegation

Okamura heads Japan's Active Fault & Earthquake Center. He said he told members of a TEPCO safety committee two years ago that data collected from layers of earth show that in the year 869 a massive tsunami devastated where the plant now is. The six-unit Fukushima Daiichi plant is located about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Without adequate safety measures, a repeat of the first millennium disaster at the site of a nuclear power plant could be far worse, Okamura said he told the committee then. He said he raised the issue because no one else did.

"I found that odd so I really wanted to speak out and let people know about it," Okamura said. "No one reacted in any way."

Instead, committee members discussed a 1938 earthquake in the region that killed only one person. Okamura said that is understandable because there was far more data available about that event. However, the power company should have considered the 869 tsunami, he said.



The mass delusion that nuclear plant operators really care about safety first is widespread. It's profits first.

Unfortunately, this is why nuclear plants will never be safe under the current system. You can't trust the owners, nor the government, to be honest nor can you trust them to make a safety decision that will cost them money.

 

[Printer Bandit]

New 6.5 earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture.

tsunami height was expected to be about 0.5 meters, or 1.6 feet, tall

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/japan.tsunami.advisory/index.html?hpt=T2

 

[TecHNooB]

can we move this thread to P&N?

 

[alkemyst]

They get earthquakes/seismic activity a lot. Baka Gaijins now reporting it as something special for profit.

 

[alkemyst]

can we move this thread to P&N?

why? the thread is more off-topic than news or politics.

if UMAD then skip it brah.

 

[sdifox]

humm, apparently the 10million times level is wrong...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12875327

The operators of a stricken Japanese nuclear plant have apologised for a "mistake" in reporting a radiation spike 10 million times above normal. Tokyo Electric Power Company, which has previously been criticised by officials for its handling of the crisis at the plant, said it got the readings wrong.
Despite the mistake, the radiation spike at reactor 2 was still very high and enough to evacuate workers.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged in the 11 March quake and tsunami.
The death toll from the quake and tsunami has now passed 10,000, and more than 17,000 people are missing.
'Extremely high' The apology by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) related to water readings at reactor 2 at the plant, 240km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
It had said radiation levels reached 10 million times higher than normal in the cooling system but because the level was so high the worker taking the reading had to evacuate before confirming it with a second reading.
"The number is not credible. We are very sorry," said Tepco spokesman Takashi Kurita.
A spokesman for Japan's nuclear watchdog, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said the level of radiation in puddles near reactor 2 was confirmed at 1,000 millisieverts an hour.
"It is an extremely high figure," Mr Nishiyama said.
The radiation levels are so high, that emergency workers near the contaminated water would have received four times their maximum annual dose of radiation in just one hour.
The BBC's Mark Worthington in Tokyo says the erroneous report has created more confusion around a crisis that is already causing widespread unease in the country.
On Sunday, anti-nuclear protesters held a large rally in Tokyo, calling for change in Japan's nuclear industry.
Meanwhile, efforts are continuing to locate the exact source of the radioactive water leak, amid concerns that the water is leaking directly from the reactor itself.
Earlier, Japan's nuclear agency said that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant had risen to 1,850 times the usual level.
The emergency workers are also trying to cool the reactors in an effort to prevent a meltdown. They have now switched to using fresh water as a coolant, rather than sea water.
There had been fears the salt in sea water could further corrode machinery. The fresh water is being pumped in so that contaminated radioactive water can be extracted.
The UN's nuclear agency International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned the crisis could go on for months.
However, the government in Tokyo has said that airborne radiation around the plant is decreasing, so there is no need to extend the evacuation zone.
Tepco has been criticised for a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly and for making a number of mistakes, including worker

 

[sao123]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/japan.nuclear.disaster/?hpt=Sbin

Expert: Japan nuclear plant owner warned of tsunami threat

Tokyo (CNN) -- A seismic researcher told CNN Sunday that he warned the owner of the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant two years ago that the facility could be vulnerable to a tsunami.

The owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, appeared to ignore the warning, said seismologist Yukinobu Okamura.

TEPCO has not responded to Okamura's allegation

Okamura heads Japan's Active Fault & Earthquake Center. He said he told members of a TEPCO safety committee two years ago that data collected from layers of earth show that in the year 869 a massive tsunami devastated where the plant now is. The six-unit Fukushima Daiichi plant is located about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Without adequate safety measures, a repeat of the first millennium disaster at the site of a nuclear power plant could be far worse, Okamura said he told the committee then. He said he raised the issue because no one else did.

"I found that odd so I really wanted to speak out and let people know about it," Okamura said. "No one reacted in any way."

Instead, committee members discussed a 1938 earthquake in the region that killed only one person. Okamura said that is understandable because there was far more data available about that event. However, the power company should have considered the 869 tsunami, he said.



The mass delusion that nuclear plant operators really care about safety first is widespread. It's profits first.

Unfortunately, this is why nuclear plants will never be safe under the current system. You can't trust the owners, nor the government, to be honest nor can you trust them to make a safety decision that will cost them money.

you just keep spouting your anti-nuclear propooganda... well just keep shooting down the garbage.


Lets look at the facts... Again...


FACT: Moderate earthquakes happen in the region frequently.
FACT: They had an earthquake response plan in place.
FACT: They have engineering designs in place to withstand tsunami's of up to 7M
FACT: They followed everything. it would have worked...
IF NOT FOR: the TSUNAMI size being larger than planned for... Over 12M.


They study this stuff...
Probability of having a tsunami of 5-6M is < 41% in a given 10 year period... they were prepared for that above and beyond.


You cant say...well we just had the strongest earthquake ever recorded, and the largest tsunami ever recorded and say... well why werent you prepared for that??

It doesnt make financial sense to prepare for "once in a millenium" size events...

 

[sao123]

A new way to look at radiation

finally some sensible journalism.

 

[BoomerD]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110328/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

More radioactive water spills at Japan nuke plant

"TOKYO &#8211; Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.

Officials believe the contaminated water has sent radioactivity levels soaring at the coastal complex and caused more radiation to seep into soil and seawater. Crews also found traces of plutonium in the soil outside of the complex on Monday, but officials insisted there was no threat to public health.

Plutonium &#8212; a key ingredient in nuclear weapons &#8212; is present in the fuel at the complex, which has been leaking radiation for over two weeks, so experts had expected some to be found once crews began searching for evidence of it this week.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. official Jun Tsuruoka said only two of the plutonium samples taken Monday were from the leaking reactors. The other three were from earlier nuclear tests. Years of weapons testing in the atmosphere left trace amounts of plutonium in many places around the world."

 

[NikolaeVarius]

This thread must be a part of


"WHAT DID WE DO WRONG"

"You should have built a really tall wall that would block almost every tsunami ever"
"I believe we did that"
"Hmm, well you should have built an even TALLER wall to block almost ever tsunami you could ever expect!"
"BRILLIANT, what else?!"

"You should have put the generators on high ground so that they wouldn't get wet"
"We also did that"
"Well you should have put them on eve HIGHER ground so they wouldn't get wet"
"ALSO BRILLIANT"

MY WORK HERE IS DONE

"THANK YOU CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT. GOD BLESS YOU."

 

[Mark R]

I agree with your other points but can you back this up / point me toward a reference or two? Based on what I've learned in the past two years and my own intuition I don't understand where such a statement could be true.

It varies a bit from country to country. But my figures are based on government reports in Europe. However, I have checked reports from elsewhere, and certainly in the US, the figures are fairly similar, with total losses of around 7&#37;, and high-voltage losses of around 1.5-2%.

Using the UK as an example, the high-voltage transmission network (run by National Grid) has total losses of about 1.5-1.6% (this is the 400/275/132 kV network, and the exit transformer). Source - national grid regulatory reports.

Losses in the distribution networks, are 0.5% by the beginning of the 33 kV networks. Giving a total loss of about 2% to this point. (33 kV infrasturcture is located roughly 5 miles, on average from customers - this distribution is highly skewed because most people live in urban areas, and rural customers may live a large distance away. Sorry no reference for this, I estimated this from network schematics and maps, which the government accidentally published online - these maps/schematics have now been redacted from the documents in which they were published. Probably for good reason).

There is a further 2.5% loss in the 33 and 11 kV networks. Finally, there are a further 4% losses in the 240 V distribution network (very roughly, the last mile).

The source for the distribution network loss figures is from the UK electricity markets regulator. (Link)