Japan Nuclear Meltdown Confirmed

Originally posted by m0r1arty
It's really amazingwhat happens when children listen to propaganda.

Really.

The plant will continue on - no one will die because of an explosion or radiation leak and we will all stand and point (and the hegemonic collective) at you and laugh.

Calm down.

I was under the assumption that pumping sea water + boron into a reactor essentially renders the entire reactor, and possibly the plant itself, as useless. So how will the plant continue on?

And the MM everywhere has been already closing down the case as a "level 4" threat... while the meltdown was occurring???

My god! These people are either liars beyond anything imaginable, or simply a bunch of completely incompetent morons! And this came the damn IAEA! Obviously they seem to be very eager to fall back to their secret underground bases.

NEVER, EVER TRUST THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AGAIN, if you care about your life and your health! They have proven they aren't even worth DOG POO. Be paranoid... that's your last remaining resort!

reply to post by Gorman91



"They called the tsunami warning hours before the main quake."


How exactly could they do this ?

reply to post by jamie23


Because there were several foreshocks before the main quake, some measuring over 6 mag, which on their own would have been enough to trigger a tsunami........hence the warnings.

reply to post by Argyll


ahh , thank you i see now

reply to post by pepsi78


You do realize what it would be like had the reactor melted down right?

If it's not Chernobyl, then clearly the reactor is in tact.

This is called indirect observation.


reply to post by jamie23


There were 6.0 to 4.0 quakes a whole day before the main one. It did not all happen at once.

Try spraying the reactors with Liquid Nitrogen!!

Liquid nitrogen is colder then water!!

reply to post by Gorman91


im reading on yahoo to that 10,000 is the death toll so far .

reply to post by Gorman91


Meltdown threat: Japan 'preparing for worst'
www.youtube.com...

You do realize what it would be like had the reactor melted down right?

If it's not Chernobyl, then clearly the reactor is in tact.

They are saying it may have melted inside to some extent, there is radiation leak, that means also that the casing of the reactor has been compromised and it is not in tact.

Originally posted by GodIsPissed
Try spraying the reactors with Liquid Nitrogen!!

Liquid nitrogen is colder then water!!

That would make the containment vessel brittle as its an effect of liquid nitrogen, making it easier for the rising pressures in the vessel to cause a catastrophic breach of radioactive material.

reply to post by GodIsPissed


i read a reason why they can't last night but my brain has been going so crazy the past 24 hours i cant seem to remember the exact reason.. sorry for a semi useless post..

What about liquid helium?

It's the coldest substance on earth.

Can't they just shut the reactors down?

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE TOMORROW !!!!!!

reply to post by GodIsPissed


Same thing. The metal on the containment vessel will cool so fast that it will become brittle and will not be able to withstand high pressures. Ist not the substance but the massive temperature change that you are implementing.

Originally posted by GodIsPissed
What about liquid helium?

It's the coldest substance on earth.

Can't they just shut the reactors down?

so far as i know all the reactors have been "shut down"
however the core remains super hot for a long time afterwards, hence the need for cooling .
if the core is not cooled sufficiently and it "boils" off the coolant to expose the rods then this will be the meltdown that everyone fears . I'm no nuclear expert but i think this is the laymans explanation.
please correct me if i'm wrong.

Originally posted by artistpoet
It has the potential to be 1000 greater than the Chernbyl disaster.

Absolute rubbish!

Chernobyl's reactor *core* exploded. The Chernobyl reactor also contained large quantities of graphite which caught fire spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere. The containment vessel was also constructed badly, allowing the concrete cover of the containment to blow off.

Also the reactors in Japan were successfully shut down shortly after the quake.

How many times do we have to keep repeating it. A disaster on the scale of Chernobyl is NOT possible with this kind of reactor in this situation.

It works like this. The core of these reactors needs to be covered in water at all times. We know that this wasn't happening (and may still not be happening) due to the power problems at the plant from the earthquake and tsunami.

The extreme heat in the reactor due to the lack of cooling causes the uranium/plutonium core to melt. This is called a meltdown. The fuel (which is metalic) literally melts. The release of hydrogen, cesium and iodine confirms that a partial meltdown has occurred. Of course more water has been pumped into the core and there is a continuous battle to keep the core cool so that the situation doesn't become worse.

The nuclear fuel rods are clad in zirconium (a kind of metal sheath). At very high temperature, zirconium reacts with water and causes the zirconium to oxidize (the oxygen from the water attaches to the zirconium metal) releasing hydrogen gas from the water (recall water is H20, i.e. hydrogen and oxygen).

Due to the buildup of hydrogen gas, the reactor containment vessel had to be vented. Dangerous quantities of hydrogen built up which then exploded, blowing the top off the reactor building, but did not blow up the primary containment vessel, which is where the nuclear reactor core is.

Since that time sea water has been pumped into the reactor containment vessel in a desperate bid to keep the core cool.

Even though the reactor is shut down (the control rods were fully inserted into the nuclear pile to stop the nuclear reaction that normally occurs when the plant is generating electricity) the previously decayed uranium (which is not uranium any more but other things that uranium has decayed into, such as cesium, iodine and others) is still radioactive. It takes days or even weeks for these decay products to finish their decay into stabler less radioactive isotopes. Whilst this process continues heat is still generated by the core.

The fear is that if the reactor cannot be sufficiently cooled for long enough that the core will melt entirely and eventually melt through the containment vessel itself, resulting in a massive release of radioactive material into the surrounding environment. However, an explosion of the kind that occurred at Chernobyl is NOT possible.

No radioactive clouds over the US. No massive worldwide extinction level event.

How many threads are we gonna have on ATS about something which is NOT possible. It's like claiming you found a 15kg steel ball in your cereal packet. It just can't happen.

Originally posted by XtraTL

Originally posted by artistpoet
It has the potential to be 1000 greater than the Chernbyl disaster.

Absolute rubbish!

Chernobyl's reactor *core* exploded. The Chernobyl reactor also contained large quantities of graphite which caught fire spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere. The containment vessel was also constructed badly, allowing the concrete cover of the containment to blow off.

Also the reactors in Japan were successfully shut down shortly after the quake.

How many times do we have to keep repeating it. A disaster on the scale of Chernobyl is NOT possible with this kind of reactor in this situation.

It works like this. The core of these reactors needs to be covered in water at all times. We know that this wasn't happening (and may still not be happening) due to the power problems at the plant from the earthquake and tsunami.

The extreme heat in the reactor due to the lack of cooling causes the uranium/plutonium core to melt. This is called a meltdown. The fuel (which is metalic) literally melts. The release of hydrogen, cesium and iodine confirms that a partial meltdown has occurred. Of course more water has been pumped into the core and there is a continuous battle to keep the core cool so that the situation doesn't become worse.

The nuclear fuel rods are clad in zirconium (a kind of metal sheath). At very high temperature, zirconium reacts with water and causes the zirconium to oxidize (the oxygen from the water attaches to the zirconium metal) releasing hydrogen gas from the water (recall water is H20, i.e. hydrogen and oxygen).

Due to the buildup of hydrogen gas, the reactor containment vessel had to be vented. Dangerous quantities of hydrogen built up which then exploded, blowing the top off the reactor building, but did not blow up the primary containment vessel, which is where the nuclear reactor core is.

Since that time sea water has been pumped into the reactor containment vessel in a desperate bid to keep the core cool.

Even though the reactor is shut down (the control rods were fully inserted into the nuclear pile to stop the nuclear reaction that normally occurs when the plant is generating electricity) the previously decayed uranium (which is not uranium any more but other things that uranium has decayed into, such as cesium, iodine and others) is still radioactive. It takes days or even weeks for these decay products to finish their decay into stabler less radioactive isotopes. Whilst this process continues heat is still generated by the core.

The fear is that if the reactor cannot be sufficiently cooled for long enough that the core will melt entirely and eventually melt through the containment vessel itself, resulting in a massive release of radioactive material into the surrounding environment. However, an explosion of the kind that occurred at Chernobyl is NOT possible.

No radioactive clouds over the US. No massive worldwide extinction level event.

How many threads are we gonna have on ATS about something which is NOT possible. It's like claiming you found a 15kg steel ball in your cereal packet. It just can't happen.

that's what i was trying to say !

Originally posted by GodIsPissed
What about liquid helium?

It's the coldest substance on earth.

Can't they just shut the reactors down?

I don't have a reference for this, but I did hear that something along these lines was in fact being discussed. It's not "shut down" that we need. That's already happened, shortly after the quake. It's cooling that's needed, to prevent the core getting so hot that it melts through into the environment.

Meltdown is still a very serious risk. They've been sticking boric acid and seawater into the reactor. The boric acid captures neutrons, which otherwise fly around in the reactor causing more fission. The seawater is for cooling.