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Reactor meltdown possible in Japan.


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0433: France is now urging its nationals in Tokyo to leave Japan or head to the south of the country, Reuters reports. It says Paris has asked the Air France carrier to provide planes for the evacuation.

Didnt see I double posted with Art, sorry. This thread goes too fast sometimes.

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Well goodnight. I just cannot imagine what these 50 or so people are going through. Against all odds they're still fighting probably at cost to their own health.

On one hand time is ticking down slowly as the potential energy of the rods/etc gradually diminishes in a normal situation....on the other hand this is far from normal. I think each day we can go without a total calamity is a big bonus and probably increases the odds this stays a "bad" situation but not catastrophic like Cherynobl.

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Now that sounds fishy to me.

They've been trying to keep eyes from there the last couple days. Why? I have no idea. I mean if the government wants to control the flow of information I can see that, but if TEPCO somehow thinks they're going to survive this they are just being delusional.

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Unofficial from Reuters but still:

TEPCO has removed public access to a webcam showing the Fukoshima reactors. Now a password is needed in order to observe the complex.

Now that sounds fishy to me.

Maybe they don't want media seeing plumes of smoke and causing panic. Even through whatever bad event happens the next 24 hours will happen, and will eventually be known to the media and people of Japan and the world.

I think any buisness would likely do the same thing. Not to be sneaky, or fishy, but would you want to feed free to everyone the desctruction of your assets?

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Umm, you're crazy and need to calm down.

Am quite calm. Am also a designer, and one of our favorite early techniques when brainstorming is to turn things upside down and look at it from inside out, including logic. I remember that in some rare types of disasters (some chem leaks, IIRC) one option is to try and burn it off or use an explosion. The idea is to vaporize and burn off as much as possible.

Now obviously radiation is a different matter that may make such an approach completely infeasible. But as I don't know and am musing, why not throw it out and ask? Occassionally when playing around with crazy ideas we come up with a legit one. For example, most people are surprised the first time they learn that injecting small doses of an allergen is one strategy for overcoming allergies.

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Am quite calm. Am also a designer, and one of our favorite early techniques when brainstorming is to turn things upside down and look at it from inside out, including logic. I remember that in some rare types of disasters (some chem leaks, IIRC) one option is to try and burn it off or use an explosion. The idea is to vaporize and burn off as much as possible.

Now obviously radiation is a different matter that may make such an approach completely infeasible. But as I don't know and am musing, why not throw it out and ask? Occassionally when playing around with crazy ideas we come up with a legit one. For example, most people are surprised the first time they learn that injecting small doses of an allergen is one strategy for overcoming allergies.

This would be more appropriate for a biological outbreak/leak. They need to bury it or contain it by smothering it with concrete or sand if a full blow meltdown and release is occurring. Blowing it up wont help it'll just eject the radiation much higher into the atmosphere.

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This would be more appropriate for a biological outbreak/leak. They need to bury it or contain it by smothering it with concrete or sand if a full blow meltdown and release is occurring. Blowing it up wont help it'll just eject the radiation much higher into the atmosphere.

Not sure if this was answered earlier in the thread, but if these reactors won't be viable in the future anyway, why not just go ahead and sand/concrete right now?

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This would be more appropriate for a biological outbreak/leak. They need to bury it or contain it by smothering it with concrete or sand if a full blow meltdown and release is occurring. Blowing it up wont help it'll just eject the radiation much higher into the atmosphere.

This is what they did at Chernobyl. Sand, Concrete, Boron, and other neutron absorbent chemicals were used on the reactor. What they didn't realize at the time was that using helicopters to bomb the reactor with neutron absorbers was actually a bad idea -- for one, all the helicopter pilots died from acute radiation poisoning within a couple days-- second, the act of dropping things on the reactor could damage the core in such a way that it causes the nuclear fuel to go critical, thus leading to a second much worse explosion that would launch the rods into the open environment.

The BEST way to smother it without risking criticality and human life would be to use radio controlled bulldozers and cranes to do the manual work. This however is not full-proof either.

When driving a radio controlled vehicle into a highly radioactive zone you can short circuit the vehicle and then you lost it permanently. This ALSO happened at Chernobyl.

When their radio controlled vehicles stopped working, they used Soviet Soldiers to manually do the work (back to square one scenario). The soldiers were trained and rotated. Many of them received yearly doses of radiation within 2 to 5 minutes of work. Even though they were timed, many of them died within 1 to 2 years.

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Not sure if this was answered earlier in the thread, but if these reactors won't be viable in the future anyway, why not just go ahead and sand/concrete right now?

Really I have no idea, maybe by closing off from above the heat is forced down into the soil/water table and that is a concern (really venting some to the atm vs. forcing it into their own soil is going to be a more attractive option until levels get to high and major cities are in danger), or the resources/equipment and safety is too great a hurdle or the electric company is still telling the government they have a chance at cooling the reactors, at this point the flow of information is horrible.

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