Japan

[steve123]

I am not a rocket scientist at all ,,but i have to ask questions about why Japan built these nuclear power plants beside the sea next to a majer fault line and why didn't they build these reactors below sea level as a failsafe and just flood them using some type of diek method, it is easier to replace a power plant much harder to relocate a nation.
Every nation should learn right now of what can happen and shut them down.
Nature will only tolerate so much
If people think 9.0 is a big earthquake wait for what is to come because of the position of the solar systum ,,there is where the globle warming is coming from not fossel fuels.
sorry to go off in another direction but this is really a majer problem and all of you should let your pollition know your views.
Japan could quite easly be your country.
steve
God bless Japan

 

[NikkiA]

I am not a rocket scientist at all ,,but i have to ask questions about why Japan built these nuclear power plants beside the sea next to a majer fault line

The entire set of islands that comprise japan are perched on the meeting point of 3 major tectonic plates (The eurasia plate, the philipines plate and the pacific plate), there is literally nowhere they can build anything that is truely more than a few km from a fault-line. As it is, fukushima isn't ON a fault line, it's about 20km from one.

As for building it near the sea, well, that's cooling for you, you either build near the sea or near a river.

and why didn't they build these reactors below sea level as a failsafe and just flood them using some type of diek method,

That wouldn't possibly work. There are reactor designs that use passive cooling NOW, but there weren't 40 years ago when the Fukushima plants were built. Ironically, they were due to be replaced later this year with more modern designs that would have invariably had passive cooling.

Either way, you can't 'just open a gate and flood the reactor'.

it is easier to replace a power plant much harder to relocate a nation.
Every nation should learn right now of what can happen and shut them down.

Ah, anti-nuclear rhetoric.

No-one will be 'relocating an entire nation'. And I think you grossly underestimate the kind of cleanup that dumping hundreds of tonnes of salt water into a nuclear core 'as a precaution' would involve. Especially when minor earthquakes trigger auto-shutdown sequences every few months.

Nature will only tolerate so much
If people think 9.0 is a big earthquake wait for what is to come because of the position of the solar systum ,,there is where the globle warming is coming from not fossel fuels.

Rolls eyes, there's simply nothing I can say to this kind of lunacy, sorry.

sorry to go off in another direction but this is really a majer problem and all of you should let your pollition know your views.
Japan could quite easly be your country.
steve
God bless Japan

Not really, my country doesn't sit on 3 active tectonic plates, nor is it exposed fully to seismic tsunami-generating activity in the deepest ocean on earth - the atlantic cannot generate tsunamis of the size or danger that the pacific can.

The fact remains, of course, that Nuclear power is STILL the safest form of mass-scale power generation with high availability. Not withstanding the death tolls from Chernobyl, SL-1, Windscale, or the potential deaths from Fukushima (and no, 3 mile island doesn't count, not one person died as a result). The total death toll, so far, is about 4000 or so, spread over 60 years of active use of nuclear reactors, compared to the 30,000-300,000 estimated to die each year from direct effects of coal powered electrical generation - and that's excluding deaths caused due to the need to mine coal to provide stations with fuel, that's just from the particles released from burning coal.

Coal also outstrips nuclear by orders of magnitude in terms of radiological pollution - you DO realise that coal is radioactive, right?

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

this debate is already going on in the community area is there really a need for another
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=70075

 

[Euphod]

Basically; catastrophic threat is assessed by a panel of scientists and engineers and other professionals who decide the inherent danger of placing a certain facility in a certain location. Those decisions are based on many factors, including past history of the location. I believe the area in question was assessed for earthquake threats in the seven to seven point five range, similar to the coast of California. Obviously the actual earthquake that caused the tsunami was much stronger than that.
Your suggestion to build nuclear power plants below sea level is simplistic and not very well thought out. It's not just a matter of immersing the nuclear fuel in seawater (as a last resort), and then the fuel cools and all is well. Think of it like the radiator in the family car, the water must be circulated, the absorbed heat removed, and it must be a constant process, else the water will just flash to steam, boil off, and potentially release even more radioactivity into the air.
You don't seem to be considering the need for pumps to move the water, and the fact that pumps primarily run on electricity from the power grid, (dedicated circuit, sure ), and secondarily from emergency generators (usually diesel powered). Having all this gear is a position to be underwater is not a good idea.

 

[steve123]

every planet in our solar systum i heating up ,,,is our burning fossel fuels causing that ???
the pulling of the milkyway centre black hole and our sun is causing friction within this solar systum we all learnt about friction at school ,which causes heat, in this case within a planets core, causing earthquake and eroptions
all the valcanos that have blown up in the last 3 years have cause more polution than man has made in the past 3 thousand years
is this lunacy or the truth
i am not anti nuclear
the world sits and rotates around and has a north and a south pole ,,,so does a battery have + - the earth it self generates electricity by rotating ,,free elictricity,,,has any one found a way to tape into that ??????? or has it been hidden.
if the earth didn't have free electricitl there would not be a north and a south pole with a magnetic field would there
and once more if you talk of anti nuclear as if i am crazy please dont say that to the people of Japan
you seem to have the ,,im all right jack approach
just my view
steve

 

[steve123]

put the reactors below sea level not the plant,
if they were below sea level they would not be having this problem now
would they
steve

 

[NikkiA]

put the reactors below sea level not the plant,
if they were below sea level they would not be having this problem now
would they
steve

All it would achieve would be making this situation we're in, even easier to happen.

As it was, it wasn't the earthquake that caused this problem, but the 10m high tsunami.

Putting the reactors below sea-level? That'd just mean *any* tsunami would achieve the same result. With the added fun of the possibility of the earthquake crushing the reactor housing and exposing the fuel rods to the atmosphere even before the reactor can scram.

 

[Gandalf0444]

It indeed would be smart to put them below sea level. So if something like this did occur and as a last resort you open a flood gate and the water will rush in to reclaim the area, thus flooding the core and keeping an unlimited amount of water over and around it..

Now the environmental impact of the reactor being open directly to the sea is another question...but you could fix that to, but flooding it then close the flood gates again, creating a sort of seal so you now have in essence a man made lake.

Of course a tsunami would bust right through it. However it would have insured the cores would not have had any chance of seeing air.

 

[Euphod]

put the reactors below sea level not the plant,
if they were below sea level they would not be having this problem now
would they
steve

Yes, and it may be worse. With the reactors and plant above sea level the cooling system still got hosed, with either one below sea level, do you believe that wouldn't have happened? If the reactors were below sea level, and now presumably under water now, do you believe the brave specialists working to cool them could do their jobs easy wearing scuba gear? Did you fail to note that the water must circulate to remove the heat? Are you assuming the tidal actions of the sea would provide that circulation?

 

[steve123]

sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ,,im not saying it would have worked 100% but you have a far better chance of cooling it down being below than above sea level,of cause there would be some worry about contaminating the sea that also could have had some fail safe as well.
the simple fact is the reactors are above ground and are on the verge of a melt down if they were built below the sea level right beside the sea would this be happening now ?
steve

 

[aardvark1]

Will the fish glow in the dark?

Fish are a major food source for the world population. We can not risk damaging this food source.

Regards,

 

[Euphod]

if they were built below the sea level right beside the sea would this be happening now ?
steve

Probably, even more so.

 

[steve123]

i would imagine there would be a lot of fish dead with the earthquake and the tsunami alone without nuclear crap
steve

 

[steve123]

it doesn't get much worse than a melt down does it ,and how could it be worse Euphod than the nations people being poisoned or if it spread across the world into other countries ,so how would it be worse being below the sea level Euphod ??????
steve

 

[Gandalf0444]

it doesn't get much worse than a melt down does it ,and how could it be worse Euphod than the nations people being poisoned or if it spread across the world into other countries ,so how would it be worse being below the sea level Euphod ??????
steve

There is only a slim chance the radiation would be enough to substantially effect other nations worldwide. The radiation will be very much "diluted" by the time it reaches the west coast of the U.S. The fact that California is selling out of Iodine is simply because people do not understand and aren't "properly" educated in the matter, or simply do not understand what a meltdown is.
A meltdown is not by any means an explosion, thus radiation is not thrown high up into the atmosphere allowing it to travel great distances. Since there is no explosions during a meltdown other then the hydrogen one, the radiation stays relatively local, fair to say 50 miles is hardly local, however it is more so then crossing oceans.

 

[Euphod]

it doesn't get much worse than a melt down does it ,and how could it be worse Euphod than the nations people being poisoned or if it spread across the world into other countries ,so how would it be worse being below the sea level Euphod ??????
steve

It would be worse because the reactors would be underwater, hindering the technicians trying to prevent the "meltdown". Just because the reactors could be covered by seawater, that still does not permit the circulation needed to carry the heat away from the reaction. Because of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the power failed, and the emergency power failed. Would that not have occurred if the reactors were under sea level? Does placing the reactors under sea level somehow magically prevent the power from failing? If the reactors are immersed in water that is not circulating does that solve the threat of a melt down? Does it increase the threat of contamination to the sea?

In short; I find your idea to be not very well though out, and not likely to be embraced by environmentalists or engineers. Since you seem fixated on my opinions on the subject, and on defending your own I shall take leave of this thread, secure in the knowledge that the reactors are not underwater at this time, and arguing a hypothetical theory infinitely on a forum is not a productive use of my time. Carry on then...

 

[steve123]

As i said im no rocket scientist never clam to be one ,i just asked Euphod how it would be worse having the reactor under sea level and cooling the rodes with the sea rather than being open to the air.
Yes it opens new dangers to the ocean whoever if the proper mass structure had been put in place without trying to cut corners ,and before anyone states the tsunami would destroy it the power plants are still there aren't they it all could have been under controll through sea water,yes it may have destroyed the reactor small price to pay looking at it all now .

what will be interesting is to see if these power plants are all shut down in Japan or repaired
steve

 

[steve123]

and the crap that is coming from them now is ok by the environmentalists or engineers
steve

 

[steve123]

at the end of the day if these reactors were not built we wouldn't need to worry about them would we above or below sea level
steve

 

[sparky15]

Their nuclear plants are over 35 years old. They just had a 9.0 quake and Tsunami on top of it. Still no major release but problems are escalating. Seems to me they did a great job years ago and are doing one right now.
I know there is fear of nuclear power but for all the years it has been in use it has proven to be relatively safe. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl (a whole new set of problems worthy of an article in itself) and now Japan.
Add it all up, it's not so unsafe. Chernobyl melted down because so many mistakes. Japan's is holding because of fail safes and planning. Despite a 9.0 quake, it's still there and holding.
The news is wrapped up in political talking points. Media is swayed towards one or the other, all of them. With so many standard environmental complaints against accepted power production compared to nuclear, nuclear still wins. It took a major natural disaster above those concerns to even think about what hasn't happened yet.
Think about it.