Quake3World

MKJ wrote:

xer0s wrote:Yeah I'm sure a water source is a major factor when choosing a site. But can't they use lakes or rivers?

because rivers are immune to earthquakes?

btw they did try flooding the place with seawater but that didnt quite work :/

I was referring to lakes and rivers which are farther inland, to get away from the tsunami factor...

This nuke stuff is going to be really really bad.

There's still a group of workers at the plant trying to keep shit from getting even worse.

From all the bad stuff going on over there, I seriously wouldn't be surprised at all if Godzilla rose up and stomped Tokyo for reals. What other kind of cock punch could Jesus have up his sleeve for that country?

xer0s wrote: I was referring to lakes and rivers which are farther inland, to get away from the tsunami factor...

Those prolly wouldn't supply enough water to sufficiently cool the reactors, I'm guessin.

Latest I heard is they pulled all the workers out... this is some crazy shit.

The first commercial nuclear power station in the world at Berkeley in Gloucestershire is on the bank of the river Severn. It's decommissioned now (again, a first), but there's another nuke a little further down the river at Oldbury.
Sure, the Severn's a big-assed river with the second highest tidal range in the world, but it's still a river.

Psyche911 wrote:There's still a group of workers at the plant trying to keep shit from getting even worse.

Poor bastards, as it sounds like a death sentence much like Chernobyl

Whiskey 7 wrote:

Psyche911 wrote:There's still a group of workers at the plant trying to keep shit from getting even worse.

Poor bastards, as it sounds like a death sentence much like Chernobyl

For what it's worth, this situation is completely different from Chernobyl and nowhere near as dangerous.

I think expressing an opinion either way on that is pretty fucking stupid until all the facts are in and this has played out.

It's not an opinion. It's a fact. The situation is completely different from Chernobyl.

No, it's an opinion, and stop trying to dodge your original post's meaning as you know I was responding to 'less dangerous' and not 'different' (which is a statement so obvious it's redundant).

Just one example of why you can't call the 'danger' here: If ground-water irradiation occurs (which is still possible) it could have profound, long-term consequences across an unknown geographic area.

If you look at the facts it's clear that the danger to the general public is far less than with Chernobyl. And this is not an opinion of my own, this is the general concensus of radiology and nuclear power experts.

Basic things like the amount of care and preparation Japan is taking just shows that in a worst-case scenario, the impact on the general public will be far less than it was for Chernobyl, where everyone was pretty much taken by surprise. Also, the reactor core in Chernobyl had little protection. Fukushima is a far more advanced plant which has far more protective systems in place than Chernobyl. Even if a meltdown would occur, it's not nearly as bad a situation as Chernobyl's meltdown.

Now I wasn't saying it is completely impossible for terrible things to happen over at Fukushima, but something on the scale of Chernobyl is, at this point in time, highly unlikely.

Scale geographic, or scale human cost?

I think I've mentioned "danger to the general public" twice already. So in your terms, scale of human cost.

I don't know what the impact on the environment will be in a worst case scenario, but I imagine that it will be less than with Chernobyl as well, considering that after the explosion in Chernobyl, the core was completely exposed to the outside world. A huge plume of radioactive material shot up high in the sky and spread a long way. Again, it is highly unlikely something similar will happen at Fukushima.

I am also not dismissing anything. It is true that we'll have to wait until this has passed to see the real impact it has on both man and nature. Things can still go terribly wrong yes, but as things are looking now, that is simply not very likely.

Assuming a Chernobyl-like disaster will occur is far more into the realm of speculation than reasoning it won't be as bad.

Fair enough, and I agree this isn't anything like Chernobyl. Airborne radiation vs ground-seep radiation is one big difference. Population density is another major variable.

Regardless, here's hoping they get it under control very soon.

Memphis wrote:

mrd wrote:
^ this
first i'm like whoa, it's like cars and vans weigh nothing, then the buildings shake, keel over and something like an entire fucking convenience store just floats on past

This, and also look how fast the water rises. The piece of land the filmer is standing on is probably 6 or 8 feet deep under water in five minutes. That's some scary shit

reports say the place was completely destroyed in approx 7mins, insanity

mrd wrote:

xer0s wrote: I was referring to lakes and rivers which are farther inland, to get away from the tsunami factor...

Those prolly wouldn't supply enough water to sufficiently cool the reactors, I'm guessin.

Latest I heard is they pulled all the workers out... this is some crazy shit.

I don't know about other countries, but the United States has many, many reactors which are far away from the coast. I know it would be kinda difficult to have a reactor far away from the coast in Japan (it's what, 200 miles wide at it's widest?), but they could put that shit a few miles off the beach at least...

Whiskey 7 wrote:

Psyche911 wrote:There's still a group of workers at the plant trying to keep shit from getting even worse.

Poor bastards, as it sounds like a death sentence much like Chernobyl

that was a great map

There are a number of differences between Chernobyl and Fukushima which limits it from being nearly as serious even in the worst case scenario. Fearmongering idiots in the media who compare the two don't really understand the core differences in both construction and situation. Fukushima is best compared to the Three Mile Island event, not Chernobyl. Worst case scenario, it's possible that Fukushima may end up being worse than Three Mile Island, but never nearly as bad as Chernobyl. Here's why:

Chernobyl was built without a containment vessel. When the fuel rods overheated and the facility blew up, the burning fuel rods were able to send ash directly into the atmosphere with a massive radius of fallout drifting down. That's why the entire region surrounding Prypiat is uninhabitable. Fukushima, like all modern reactors, have a containment vessel (two actually) which is designed to contain any melting fuel rods and debris. At this point in time, there may be partial damage to one of the secondary containment vessels by the hydrogen explosion (I think #2 reactor) but the primary vessel is still intact. If things get worse, the fuel rods may burn to molten metal and then eventually burn a hole out of the containment vessels. This will require sealing the facility with a concrete sarcophagus with no hope of a safer decommissioning. Regardless, even in worst case scenarios, there might be exposure to radioactive materials on site of the Fukushima facility, but it's not going to send fallout drifting for miles away as with Chernobyl.

Chernobyl used graphite moderator components, which is highly flammable and contributed to much of the fallout. Fukushima does not use graphite in the system.

When Chernobyl exploded, it was literally the core that had been blown. Bits of graphite and fuel was tossed all over the place. The explosion at Fukushima was different, it was not the core, but the surrounding structure holding the roof which protects the core from the elements. The explosion was caused by venting hydrogen gas. The hydrogen is a byproduct and it was being intentionally released in hopes of relieving some pressure from the system. They knew it was possible for an explosion, but not likely to damage the core.

Fukushima was automatically deactivated as designed during the earthquake and the control rods are fully in place to slow down the rate of reaction. So while the cores are still very hot, the rate of the chain reactions are slowing down. It's just a matter of bringing the temperature down enough so that fuel rods aren't melting. Chernobyl was on full power when the accident occurred so the reactor was actively creating new chain reactions which exponentially increased in heat. For this reason, Chernobyl was impossible to contain, temperatures kept climbing and the fuel rods burned through the facility sending out more fallout.

Whiskey 7 wrote:

dumbass...thats cod4...not chernobyl...

Double Dumbass on YOU!

obsidian wrote:Chernobyl was on full power when the accident occurred

Er that's not true. The reactor was actually shut down. The experiment they were running which caused the disaster created a closed-loop that led to the reactor effectively re-activating itself.

suffice to say it failed

suffice to not even make that comment

suffice to suffocate suffrage sufficiently