very true, scary thing is that this could all have been worse...
very true, scary thing is that this could all have been worse...I see. Well, better to use sea-water to prevent an explosion even though it does render it unusable, than just give up and let it blow.
very true, scary thing is that this could all have been worse...
very true, scary thing is that this could all have been worse...
It still can be.
1507: Nuclear fuel rods have been exposed again at the Fukushima plant, Kyodo news is reporting. More on this as we get it.
BBC breaking news.
---------- Post added at 08:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 PM ----------
<LI class=type-9999>1513: Water level in reactor 2 at Fukushima has fallen again, AFP now reporting citing Japanese media.
<LI class=type-9999>1521: Fears of a partial meltdown at the Fukushima plant would appear to be growing, as Kyodo news agency reports that fuel rods in number 2 reactor are again "fully exposed".
^^
Thought rods 1 and 3 had exploded and another one was looking like it was going to explode? Can someone clarify for me?
The rods were fully exposed in reactor 2 (not sure if still fully-hearing conflicting stories), so they started pumping in sea water. But basically, the problems are getting worse from what I'm hearing
^^
Thought rods 1 and 3 had exploded and another one was looking like it was going to explode? Can someone clarify for me?
No the outer buildings which house reactors 1 and 3 were destroyed by an explosion. The reactors and their containment vessels are currently stable.
The explosion was caused because the cooling systems failed again and caused a build of of hydrogen, which needed to be vented to prevent a majot incident, hydrogen when mixed with a material used to house nuclear reacotrs becomes highly explosive, hence the 2 explosions.
The rods in reactors 1,2 and 3 have all been fully exposed due to a lack of coolant at various points as far as i can tell, meaning all three of them will have at least partially melted, but it's very unlikely that they will physically explode. The risk comes if they melt and then sit in the bottom of the conatinment vessel and begin a secondary nuclear reaction, which will reheat everything and begin melting everything around the radioactive material. The radioactive will then bore a hole through everything in its path, eventually findng its way into the outside environment.
Reactor 4 is offline and safe AFAIK.
Thought there would be protests. Thing is I would rather take nuclear power any day compared to natural resources. If I'm not mistaken, nuclear power can outlast the longitivity of fossil fuels by a mile. And it's cleaner
The thing is, this isn't a result of nuclear power being inherently unsafe, it's due to the fact an 8.9 earthquake just hit, followed by an extremely powerful tsunami. We might as well stop living in houses, I mean, the earthquake destroyed them too!
There is research into methods of re-processing nuclear waste so that it can be used again, which would turn hundreds of years of supply of Uranium into thousands. It doesn't release air pollutants and it has an extremely high energy density yield. Considering the intense amount of research and safety that has been put into this, it would be insane for country's away from any earthquake danger to stop its use, it is a massive solution to our energy problems. And these are still methods just by fission, there's research and experimentation into creating fusion reactor's. It'd be nice if people would think where they expect energy to come from if they want to get rid of nuclear. there may well be a nobel prize in it for them.
Is it at all possible to turn nuclear weapons into a source of energy? Instead of getting rid of the weapons and dumping them somewhere, surely it could be turned into an energy source?
Nuclear weapons are effectively just the uranium we use for energy that has been souped up. So yes it could.
I see. That's crossed my find couple times over years, but didn't think it would be possible as I thought there was some sort of process with weapons grade materials, that would make it unusable to power stations.
Is it at all possible to turn nuclear weapons into a source of energy? Instead of getting rid of the weapons and dumping them somewhere, surely it could be turned into an energy source?