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Nuclear emergency declared at quake-damaged reactor
USA TODAY | World
Japanese authorities are venting radioactive steam into the air
after the earthquake on Friday critically damaged a nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi plant... ...The government ordered thousands of people living within 6 miles of the plant to evacuate. Early Saturday, it declared a nuclear emergency at a second power plant where a cooling system had also failed.
"It has the potential to be catastrophic," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington...
more
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• : not good! spending my day with concern for the welfare of the earthquake and tsunami survivors, i can't help but think of the long term consequences of events like this (remembering the gulf oil "spill" and reflecting upon Katrina); and so i jump to this: chemical and nuclear contamination coming through various natural disasters around the world, not to mention war, will become a major and overwhelming concern "before we know it" - something that we may, or may not, be able to do anything about.
• for updates: GO TO: All Things Nuclear | RSS FEED
A project of the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
HUFFINGTON POST: TOKYO — Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.
Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 scrambled ferociously to tamp down heat and pressure inside the reactor after the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system.
Some 3,000 people within two miles (three kilometers) of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room... Officials at the Daiichi facility began venting radioactive vapors from the unit to relieve pressure inside the reactor case. The loss of electricity had delayed that effort for several hours.
Plant workers there labored to cool down the reactor core, but there was no prospect for immediate success. They were temporarily cooling the reactor with a secondary system, but it wasn't working as well as the primary one, according to Yuji Kakizaki, an official at the Japanese nuclear safety agency.
Even once a reactor is shut down, radioactive byproducts give off heat that can ultimately produce volatile hydrogen gas, melt radioactive fuel, or even breach the containment building in a full meltdown belching radioactivity into the surroundings, according to technical and government authorities... more
All Things Nuclear
Insights on Science and Security
MARCH 11, 2011
Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima
As of 2:30 pm EST Friday 3/11/11:
The massive earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan has caused a potentially catastrophic situation at one of Japan’s nuclear power plants. The situation is still evolving, but here is a preliminary assessment based on the facts as we currently understand them...
...This power failure resulted in one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant—a “station blackout”—during which off-site power and on-site emergency alternating current (AC) power is lost. Nuclear plants generally need AC power to operate the motors, valves and instruments that control the systems that provide cooling water to the radioactive core. If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited.
The boiling water reactors at Fukushima are protected by a Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system, which can operate without AC power because it is steam-driven and therefore does not require electric pumps. However, it does require DC power from batteries for its valves and controls to function.
If battery power is depleted before AC power is restored, however, the RCIC will stop supplying water to the core and the water level in the reactor core could drop. If it drops far enough, the core would overheat and the fuel would become damaged. Ultimately, a “meltdown” could occur: The core could become so hot that it forms a molten mass that melts through the steel reactor vessel. This would release a large amount of radioactivity from the vessel into the containment building that surrounds the vessel... more
All Things Nuclear
Insights on Science and Security
MARCH 11, 2011
Containment at Fukushima
Update at 6pm EST Friday 3/11/11:
The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency is now saying the containment pressure at Unit 1—not Unit 2, whose core cooling was said to have failed—has risen to about double its normal value.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced it will “implement measures to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessel for those units that cannot confirm certain level of water injection by the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System, in order to fully secure safety.” It is not clear if this refers just to Unit 1, or to the other two effected unit as well.
The increase in containment pressure resulted from the loss of alternating-current (AC) power to the reactors, which stopped the containment cooling system. There are large water-cooled air conditioning units inside containment. Motor-driven pumps send cool water to the units. Motor-driven fans blow air inside the containment across the metal tubes containing the cool water. But without AC power, the pumps and fans don’t work and can’t provide cooling. The heat radiating off the hot reactor vessel (over 500F) and the hot piping heats up the air in the containment building very rapidly, which causes an increase in pressure... more
• for updates: GO TO: All Things Nuclear | RSS FEED
A project of the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
SEE FOLLOWING UPDATES:
• Japan nuclear power plant - blast, partial meltdown (3/12/11)
• Problems plague Fukushima nuclear plants
• SECOND Fukushima Explosion: Japan Nuclear Plant Rocked By Hydrogen Explosion (SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2011)
• EXPLOSION AT THIRD REACTOR, RADIATION LEVELS RISE (Fukushima updates 3/14/11)
• MARCH ARCHIVE
See also:
• Nuclear Power Kills; here's how
• fallout alert - includes info on POTASSIUM IODIDE radiation treatment
• Japan’s Nuclear Crisis: Lessons for the U.S.
• All Things Nuclear - UCS Factsheet: “Nuclear Accident ABCs”
• ring of fire
GO TO TOP OF WHATS UP FOR CRISIS UPDATES | MARCH ARCHIVE
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