Japan hit by massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake

[Boxersix]

@1320-20V

Some really basic nuclear info.

You have yourself some uranium 238. That is the “fuel”. Now 238 is pretty stable and has a half life of 4.468 Billion years. So at that decay rate its pretty safe and does not get hot on its own.

Now if you add in some Neutrons, it will hit the 238 nucleus and convert it to 235 which is highly unstable with a half life of 700million years. This 235 conversion creates tons of heat, following E=mc^2. The conversion also releases 3 more neutrons causing exponential growth of the process.

to control this reaction, special rods called cooling rods are always inserted into the 238, and their purpose is to absorb the neutrons and keep things from growing exponentially. when they want more power from the reactor they pull the rods out slightly and the reaction takes off and things get really hot.

The purpose of “cooling water” in the reactor is dual purpose. Firstly the cooling water gets superheated from the reaction, and powers the steam turbine which makes electricity. that’s how the power plant works.

The second purpose is to keep the actual core from melting as the uranium gets way hotter than any metal can withstand. Without continuous flow of water you will melt down the metal control rods right out of the core, and the reaction will get WAY out of control. The heat and pressure will melt or explode the containment vessel, and then its Chernobyl. Once the vessel is breached you can’t get near it, and you can’t fix it. You pretty much would just write off the island of Japan.

This is why the Japanese have decided to ruin the entire reactor by pumping seawater through the entire vessel just to try to keep the temperature and pressure under control in a desperate attempt to prevent the control rods from melting.

when you saw that building explode in the videos, that was the result of pressure building up as the reaction continues to run even at idle without any cooling water.

Bingo and +1 :thumbup Plus, the fuel rods themselves can take years to cool down to disposal level temps, hence why you see them in chilled containment pools outside the reactor in buildings on site.

I’m on both sides of the fence with this issue. On one side bashing in the skulls of the anti-nuclear activists who are making this out like it’s chernobyl all over again and chanting the “I told you so” bullshit, while on the other side in disgust with the people passing it off as if it’s a cake walk here.

I am an advocate for nuclear power and would love to see more of it in this country. This is just a horrible natural disaster that leveled everything controlling multiple levels of sub systems and safeties set in place to prevent this type of incident. There isn’t a thing in the world that could have prevented this, aside from building the plant so far inland it wasn’t affected.

I guarantee over the next 2-3 years you are going to see massive substructures and even more backup failsafes to combat this from happening again. This kind of incident can happen ANYWHERE, whether it be a massive mainland earthquake or any other form of natural disaster.

Flooding the reactor site is the only logical solution at this point. The costs involved in repairing this facility are already astounding due to the site and reactors age to begin with that the entire site would need to be dismantled and inspected regardless of any flooding set forth to cool the reaction.