Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Meltdown

(5 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

UPDATE Sunday March 13, 2011

No official link-back can be found to the Japan fallout forecast map. Further research indicates that the graphic was a hoax. Nevertheless, the direction indicated on the map is consistent with the Pacific Ocean jet stream. Nothing suggests that the direction of the map was incorrect.

(h/t edger)The map below appears to have been scrubbed from most sites that had posted it, including from Beyond Nuclear…

Beyond Nuclear is unable to reach the Australian Radiation Service (as of 10 AM Sat Mar 12) who apparently released this map, to verify the radiation levels given or to understand how they are derived. This map shows an large-scale weather pattern which is verifiable by a weather site in Japan. This map below will not represent local or regional weather patterns for Japan itself. The weather site shows more local weather effects.

Is this map correct??

Blast at Fukushima compounds fears of Japanese nuclear disaster

Fears of a nuclear meltdown intensified in Japan after an explosion at Fukushima power plant, which was damaged by Friday’s earthquake in the northeast.

Officials claim the explosion at the plant was caused by a failure in the pumping facility that had been used for cooling purposes, not in the reactor itself.

The authorities have been able to release some of the pressure inside the reactor, because it is still very high. The needed to release steam to release pressure, and they managed to do that without affecting the radiation.

At the moment radiation levels are said to be decreasing.

Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog has dismissed fears that the reactor may have melted, saying the actual structure of the reactor remains intact.

However, there have been reports that three evacuees from the area have been exposed to radiation.

Japan’s Emergencies Ministry has ordered the evacuation zone to be expanded to 20km (12 miles) from the Fukushima plant.

Additionally, there are fears a leak could occur at another reactor – one of five which have been shut down in the country.

The cooling system failed in three reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima No.2 nuclear power plant Saturday, the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said.

Located just 160km (100 miles) north of Tokyo, radiation levels at Fukushima are said to have reached 1,000 times normal levels.

Japan’s government has convened an emergency meeting to discuss the quake-hit nuclear power plant.

there is much much more to the above article & many videos.

Explosion at Japan Nuke Plant, Disaster Toll Rises

The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.

Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.

The trouble began at the plant’s Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there, depriving it of its cooling system.

Power was knocked out by the quake in large areas of Japan, which gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. In response, Japan has requested increased energy supplies from Russia, Russia’s RIA Novosti agency reported.

The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the coastline where scores of villages, towns and cities were battered by the tsunami, packing 23-feet (7-meter) high waves.

snip

Japan declared states of emergency at two power plants after their units lost cooling ability.

Although the government spokesman played down fears of radiation leak, the Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown.

A “meltdown” is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant’s systems and its ability to manage temperatures.

Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.

“It’s not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl,” he said. “I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe.”

In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor – unlike the Fukushima one – was not housed in a sealed container, so there was no way to contain the radiation once the reactor exploded.

The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Before the explosion, operators had detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1’s control room.

Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant”

h/t edger

A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown.

The key piece of technology in a nuclear reactor is the control rods. Nuclear fuel generates neutrons; controlling the flow and production rate of these neutrons is what generates heat, and from the heat, electricity. Control rods absorb neutrons – the rods slide in and out of the fuel mass to regulate neutron emission, and with it, heat and electricity generation.

A meltdown occurs when the control rods fail to contain the neutron emission and the heat levels inside the reactor thus rise to a point that the fuel itself melts, generally temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing uncontrolled radiation-generating reactions and making approaching the reactor incredibly hazardous. A meltdown does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster. As long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the core breaches but the containment facility built around the core remains intact, the melted fuel can still be dealt with – typically entombed within specialized concrete – but the cost and difficulty of such containment increases exponentially.

However, the earthquake in Japan, in addition to damaging the ability of the control rods to regulate the fuel – and the reactor’s coolant system – appears to have damaged the containment facility, and the explosion almost certainly did. There have been reports of “white smoke,” perhaps burning concrete, coming from the scene of the explosion, indicating a containment breach and the almost certain escape of significant amounts of radiation.