This is so fucked. So completely fucked.

It's a big deal. This event could be this decade's 9/11 - other disaster's have of course killed more people, but as Japan is one of the worlds great economies this will impact the whole world. We still don't know how bad the nuclear disaster is going to be. Nuclear Energy's name is radioactive mud right now - just as we are looking for ways to reduce emissions. This event will have far reaching consequences.

I can't help but feel that it should have far reaching consequences. I admit I'm already a bit biased against nuclear power, but it's exactly because of events like this. Nuclear power truly has incredible potential, it's true, but it dances on the edge of a razor all the while. Humans cannot possibly predict and counter everything that can happen; Surely this event is evidence enough of that.

The 50 workers being called out is what worried me...are we going to see these just go off...and if there's a bigger fire or explosion or even if the winds pick up in a certain way, apparently this can really spread fast and contaminate even more of Japan, and to what degree isn't even certain.

Very scary stuff...and coming off the heels of all those revolutions in the Middle East, Libya's revolution seems to be hitting hard times, it's getting crushed...at least Egypt was successful and she's won her freedom, but what she does with that now is a bit of a concern.

2011 is NOT off to a good start... :/

If radiation does go into the air in massive quantities, you're going to have way more than Japan to worry about. The winds from Asia would hit the U.S. west coast in a few days.

Oh good, that's where I live. Awesome.

hey hey some people like me live right on the coast..woo hoo

@obiwan don't forget about the flooding in Australia.

The world is changing.

The world's going to hell...

Now CNN's said the Japanese PM was heard shouting porfanity during a phone call with the company. THAT can't be good, they're JAPANESE, it has to be something bad to breach that respect...

And this comany sounds horrible--delayed reports, poor conditions that have lead to this, poor cooperation...HEADS WILL ROLL, MARK MY WORDS.

The Mayan's were right - the end is nigh :O

More seriously, its quite worrying to see just how little people care here in the UK. If you asked people on the street what major things had happened in the last week I doubt they'd even mention it :/

The same here, figlesquide...my father was making JOKES about it!

How terrible does that have to be? I'd want to punch someone in their face if they dared laugh off another 9/11 in the US...it's no laughing matter, especially if this tanks the economy even more.

Their economy had basically just finished recovering. Part of some work I did for a professor last year I had to read federal bank press releases from a few countries. Japan was one of them. It was kind of depressing at first but then as I read through them chronologically it got better and better. By the time I was reading almost current ones they were targetting a rate above zero, as opposed to just a net amount in circulation.

http://www.insideline.com/toyota/auto-industry-shuts-down-in-post-quake-japan.html

Toyota's at a stand-still already...this is REALLY going to be a nightmare...

On an international level, what will North Korea do? Could they take advantage of this situation...are they at risk themselves?

Fuck the economy. People are going to die. Worst of all, they'll die slow cancerous deaths, some not even getting symptoms for years, making it even harder for people to point at this event as the primary cause. Good times.

I am wondering if we have people in this community from Japan. I was there over the summer. Made some good friends. This shit is really scary.

I lived in Japan for about six months, mostly in Hikone.

Yes, nuclear power is clearly too dangerous to be used. I mean, the plant got hit by a 8.9 earthquake, a tidal wave, and then had an internal hydrogen detonation without the primary being breached.

Clearly a terrible design and we should get rid of all of them.

I agree with Jack_Klein's sarcasm...

Safety regulations must be improved...but as I'm hearing these plants in Japan were built in the 10970s adn ahven't been upgraded and the company, by all accounts, sounds pretty shoddy overall...

No reason to pull the entire nuclear plug overnight just because of one disaster (albeit a potentially horrific disaster in terms of lives and dollars around the world, but still, that's a OLD system, placed SIX REACTORS TOGETHER--even an idiot-on-physics like me can sense that's a bad idea, having that much volatile material that close together--with NO CONTAINMENT FIELD, and it took a 9.0 to set this off. Yes, that happens all the time! We MUST pull the pulg on all ncuelar power platns immediately!)

Oh my...http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/15/2011-03-15_japan_nuclear_crisis_workers_halt_desperate_struggle_to_stop_meltdown_at_fukushi.html

It's official--the last 50 workers are out. No one's inside anymore trying to cool the reactors.

NOW what? Can they do nothing but wait and hope for the best?

@Klein:

I heard a politician on the radio today say that modern nuclear reactors are designed such that they can't melt down, as these older Japanese plants are on the verge of doing. Something about the control rods being spaced farther apart or something. True or false?

This blog might be of interest. http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=beware-the-fear-of-nuclearfear-2011-03-12

Tolstoy the new ones use convection to keep the water circulating no pumps needed.

I just hope this doesn't derail the nuclear industry completely. I still think it has a lot of potential, as yes safety will continue to improve. And it is true that the learnings from this disaster will lead to greater safety.

The issue isn't a meltdown or lack thereof. Its if the containment vessel breaches or not.

If you don't understand, the fact that they are dumping boron into the reactor and cooling it with seawater means they've written off the reactors as operational ever again. So the main thrust of the engineering problem is to make sure the primary remains contained. So all they have to do is take care of decay heat (the fission products continue to decay, and that creates heat).

Just seeing people talking about this being another Chernobyl just irritates me. The RBMK reactor at Chernobyl was probably the worst reactor design I've ever heard of (it was the subject of a "this is why we do X Y and Z" in the reactor safety tech manual in the Navy). On top of that, it was poorly run, poorly maintained, and they conducted a really stupid test that set of a massive power excursion.

None of these things are a concern in Japan. They just have to keep the fucking thing cool to avoid a messy cleanup. A bit of safety, and a lot of money ponied up by the company and the government. Its just a matter of how much of a mess they have to clean up, at this point.

Warspite: Natural circ plants do exist, but the issue is the decay heat causing a steam bubble to form over the reactor. That would cut off the natural circulation.

The pebble bed reactors look interesting, but I have no operational knowledge of those. I'm strictly a PWR light reactor man. :)

Thank you, newspapers here are flooded with people crying over the armageddon nuclear power will bring. Also, as you seem to know a bit about this Jack Klein, how viable is thorium as an alternative to uranium?

If a steam bubble did form could controled venting solve the problem? I think S Africa was going to build a pebble reactor but ran out of funding before starting a build.

@ obi - "but as I'm hearing these plants in Japan were built in the 10970s" - wow. Nuclear reactors built 8960 years in the future. Japan really does get the latest technology before us. = P

P.S. for those of you who think I'm making fun of this disaster, I'm not. I'm making fun of obiwan

I know, right? Nearly 9000 years of advanced technology, and you'd think the company would know how to maintain it better! ;)

P.S. for those of you who think I'm making fun of the disaster, I'm not. I', making fun of Mafi as he first made fun of me and now it's a contest between his demented smiley and my winky. ;)

Klein: I've read several years ago of a proposal for a varation of the breeder reactor that could keep using the old fuel without the need for extracting the plutonium. Thus avoiding the cost and risk. Have you heard anything of this?