Japan rocked with 8.9 earthquake.

[Karen]

I don't understand why they don't dump sand on the fuel rods. The heat from the rods would melt the sand, vitrifying it into glass. This is how spent fuel is treated already; this would be in effect "abandoning it in place". Maybe the little water that is there would pressurize and now you'd have radioactive glass going sky high? I dunno.

the problem with nuke plants is that sooner or later the small probability but severe risk profile will catch up with you.

The problem is, getting close enough to do that with the radiation that they are emitting. Eventually they will probably encase it all in concrete, like they did with Chernobyl, I hope they can rig some cranes and chutes and start doing that soon. This is Japan, where they make amazing robots - I am surprised they don't have robots they can send in, instead of human workers.

The whole area needn't be a dead zone - people moved back to Hiroshima 6 months after the bombing, and that has been highly studied of course. But before anything, they need to control those reactors, which is looking less and less likely.

[sasvermont]

I heard one report that they were going to try to put sand on one of the reactors. I don't know if they've started it.

Chernobyl was major in size, compared to this mess and it was a total meltdown, without containment at all. I know that they can entomb the reactors in Japan and deal with the removal of radioactive material much later. Of course, this will prolong and delay the total correction by years and years. I don't know what it would do to the area. I think there would be a zone totally off limits to life as we know it. I said early on that I thought they should have loaded up the concrete trucks and poured the concrete in and over the mess, to avoid anymore uncontrolled leaks.

I wonder if they were trying to save the reactors for later use, early on? Once they went to the salt water, the reactors were toast. They seem like the Keystone Cops at this point. It isn't funny, for sure.

We don't know how much or if at all, they conferred with other companies etc. about the problems they were and are having. We only know what some of these half wits have been telling us, however true or false. I want to believe the government people more than the private industry people, but not sure that reasoning is sound either.

Why didn't they bring power into the site before now? Aren't there huge portable generators that could be brought in? As I have heard said for some days now, there is no book on how to deal with this situation. I wonder why not? Such a mess and growing mistrust.

Difficult to watch, isn't it? I hope these jokers get their acts together and come up with more backup plans for future use.

[ChrisH]

Cable reaches Japan nuclear plant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12779512

[pomtzu]

Supposedly they are attempting to run in electricity and get the pumps working again, and if their pumps don't work, the U.S. has pumps on the way. But is it already too late??? - who knows, since we know only what they care to reveal to the public. I also heard early on, of the plan to dump in sand, and then concrete on top to that. Wonder why that never happened before it got so out of control?
I seriously don't know how ANY nuclear plant is allowed to start up and go on line, without a backup for the backup for the backup, and on and on, when each one fails. Isn't there some agency that takes into consideration ALL of the worst case scenarios?

[kokopup]

pomtzu

Supposedly they are attempting to run in electricity and get the pumps working again, and if their pumps don't work, the U.S. has pumps on the way. But is it already too late??? - who knows, since we know only what they care to reveal to the public. I also heard early on, of the plan to dump in sand, and then concrete on top to that. Wonder why that never happened before it got so out of control?
I seriously don't know how ANY nuclear plant is allowed to start up and go on line, without a backup for the backup for the backup, and on and on, when each one fails. Isn't there some agency that takes into consideration ALL of the worst case scenarios?

Backup plans, yes these are the same people that wrote the plans for deep oil drilling. There is someone looking the other way, so someone can make the big bucks.

Karen

The whole area needn't be a dead zone - people moved back to Hiroshima 6 months after the bombing, and that has been highly studied of course. But before anything, they need to control those reactors, which is looking less and less likely.

There is a major difference in an atom bomb and a reactor that melts down. The bomb gives off radiation only at the source of the blast and then it is over.
The radiation from this source will diminish very rapidly. Most of the people that were injured or died were injured from the intense flash of xray and neutrons given off by the bomb. With these reactors we have an active source of radiation with a half life of 700 million years. Even the spent fuel is still an active radiation source and it has a half life of 159,200 years. I think
that japan has a problem that will last much more than 6 months.

I spent 3 months at a neutron reactor in Georgia when I qualified the Saturn
telemetry for the Apollo project. There is a dead zone around this reactor that
will really get your attention. Every living thing for as far as you can see is dead. It looks like a forest fire consumed every thing. I'm talking about trees that only had a charred stump sticking out. The reactor is in a pool of heavy water when it is not running and when it is raised out of the heavy water it gives off neutrons that kills everything in sight. We tested in lead lined underground bunkers or we would have died instantly from the neutrons.