Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fight them, without becoming them!

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

We still have time to mess this up!

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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177Comments

  1. 1.

    Svensker

    You said you were going Galt and only one post in the last 4 hours? Piker.

    God, that stuff in Japan is scarier than hell.

  3. 3.

    schrodinger's cat

    It should also have daily Tunch updates with a weekly Tunch photo at the very least.
    I can’t seem to contact my childhood friend who now lives in the Tokyo suburbs with his family. I just hope they are OK.

  6. 6.

    Martin

    It’s two plants, actually. One has 2 reactors. The other, 7 miles down the coast, has 3 reactors.

    They’ve lost the ability to control the containment pressure at one reactor at the former plant, and cooling is compromised at both reactors there. There’s a 10km evacuation order covering 45,000 people.

    They’ve lost cooling (or at least reliable cooling) at the latter plant on all 3 reactors. Just declared a state of emergency but no evac order there yet.

    I believe this is the former plant on google maps and if you scroll down there’s a 2nd one. There’s another plant 7ish miles north of the link, but I don’t know if that’s a 3rd plant, something else, or if that’s the former and I instead linked to the latter.

    My Japanese is a bit rusty, which is to say, I don’t recognize a single character of it. Maybe someone can correct or verify which plant that is.

    Both plants face the epicenter. Employees were injured at both plants and both were overrun by the tsunami. The backup generators to run the cooling systems are diesel and they were knocked at at both locations. There’s an emergency system, which probably involves flooding with seawater that they can employ as a last resort that is apparently working if they need to resort to it.

    But yeah, some bad shit on top of a fuckton of already bad shit.

  9. 9.

    General Stuck

    Jeebus, I had thought they were constructed to immediately shut down with an earthquake, or something like that. When they tell you that temperatures are rising and out of control, that is very very bad, and there is not a lot that can be done but evacuate and watch the westerly winds blow it over this way.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    And the 3km evac order just went out around the 3-reactor plant. That overlaps somewhat with the 10km order at the 2-reactor plant.

  11. 11.

    cathyx

    I always thought that it is insane to build nuclear reactors in very well-known earthquake areas. How many does southern California have?

  12. 12.

    Comrade Mary

    Not necessarily horribly wrong: maybe just pretty wrong. IANANE (although one of my friends is married to one) but apparently if the vapour release is controlled, and if the radioactive element released isn’t one that really likes to bind to the body, we are not looking at Chernobyl here.

    Staring from about here in this long discussion thread, you’ll find some fairly knowledgeable people discussing what might and might not happen, just how much 1000x background radiation in the control room really is, and related topics.

    This may still be really bad, but there is a lot of thinly sourced speculation going on. But if anyone has any solid sources saying things really are going to shit, please post them here!

  13. 13.

    Calouste

    166 earthquakes M4.5+ in or near Japan in the last week according to the USGS, and they are still coming in at 5 or 6 every hour.

  14. 14.

    M-Pop

    @Martin: Talk about bad shit this week! This is just the topper for the weekend – hope it goes downhill from here, but I’m kind of doubting it. My state is trying to push through lege that would tax teachers, first responders, and prison workers.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    @General Stuck: They do shut down automatically, and in fact they did shut down. That’s part of the problem – they have no power at a power plant.

    But when you shut down a power plant you merely shut down the mechanics of the steam generation and reduce the reaction rate in the core. You don’t eliminate the reaction rate altogether. There’s still some need to cool the reactor, though it’s much less, but with a broken cooling system or no power whatsoever, the heat will still build up, just more slowly than in a running reactor. As the heat builds, so does the pressure. They can vent the reactor, but that’s, um, bad.

  16. 16.

    General Stuck

    At least they won’t have far to go for a China Syndrome, or I it could be America Syndrome

  17. 17.

    AhabTRuler

    @Comrade Mary: Which will be a great point, if things don’t get any worse. Which isn’t entirely clear at this point. The issue is in doubt.

    No matter how you slice it, it is a very serious incident.

  18. 18.

    Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)

    I hope this doesn’t ruin March Madness.

    BJ should really have a bracket challenge/pool

  19. 19.

    Comrade Mary

    This could still turn out really badly. But I also know there has been a lot of FUD in various news sources about OMG THIS IS JAPAN’S CHERNOBYL RIGHT NOW! THYE RADIOACTIVITY LEVEL IS 8 TIMES THE BACKGROUND RIGHT NOW AT THE GATE OF ONE OF THE PLANTS!

    Maybe it’s just because I have a thing for science and engineers (Mmmmm … engineeeeers!), but I’d rather have some real data to panic over than the frothing of headline writers several thousand miles away.

    So: any solid leads, people?

  20. 20.

    Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)

    According to multiple sources they’re sending snake plissken in to cool down the reactor.

  21. 21.

    schrodinger's cat

    OK I have a question for long time commenters, why do so many of the commenters handles start with Comrade So and so. Is there some story behind it.

  22. 22.

    Martin

    @Comrade Mary: No, it’s unlikely that either of these reactors will fully go to shit. For one, they’re quite well designed, with lots of backups and it doesn’t sound as though things are truly dire. Worst case is they employ the fail-safe cooling measures, they vent the containment vessel, there’s a small to moderate radiation leak (think Three Mile Island or a bit worst, but vastly, vastly less than Chernobyl) and they wind up with two plants that are unusable for some number of months/years, at a time when they really fucking need those 5 reactors online.

    Chernobyl was a whole other category of bad shit, due to bad design and bad operation. There’s virtually no chance this will wind up anywhere near that bad.

    And let’s be brutally honest here – Japan has unique experience dealing with moderate radiation. They’ll weather this. It makes things much, much harder though, at a time when they desperately need something to be easier.

  23. 23.

    General Stuck

    but I’d rather have some real data to panic over than the frothing of headline writers several thousand miles away.

    Fuck that, I’m going to panic.

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    @Corner Stone: Probably something about remodulating the main deflector grid. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that that won’t be of much use in this situation.

  27. 27.

    Carl Nyberg

    My elementary understanding is that the amount of nuclear material is important.

    It takes a “critical mass” to create an explosion.

    A nuclear reactor is engaging in fission constantly. Atoms split releasing neutrons that split more atoms.

    To generate energy efficiently nuclear power plants work on a large scale. There’s a bunch of fission happening.

    This is OK under normal conditions because the cooling loop removes heat and throttles the amount of neutrons.

    But if the cooling loop fails, then the reactor becomes rather dangerous. It can “meltdown”.

    Someone with a more advanced understanding of nuclear power can correct and expand on my explanation.

  29. 29.

    General Stuck

    @dmsilev:

    Probably something about remodulating the main deflector grid.

    It didn’t work for Captain Kirk that time in The Neutral Zone.

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    When I refresh a thread here it loads then scrolls back up the page multiple posts, instead of loading at the last comment before refresh. Just started today.
    Anyone else?

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Corner Stone:

    Scotty would of course give an estimate three hours longer than it would actually take, so he’d look like a miracle worker.

  32. 32.

    cathyx

    @Martin:

    And let’s be brutally honest here – Japan has unique experience dealing with moderate radiation. They’ll weather this. It makes things much, much harder though, at a time when they desperately need something to be easier.

    Are you saying they’ve genetically mastered overcoming radiation exposure from past exposures?

  33. 33.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: Well, venting the plasma coolant is coming up on their list of things to do. Next they’ll consider flying into a low-energy nebula and opening the external plasma intakes to flood the antimatter reactor. They’ve already moved everyone into the saucer section and separated, so things could be a whole lot worse.

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    In the sports world…

    The players voted to decertify the NFLPA, and Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees have filed an antitrust suit against the NFL.

  38. 38.

    PurpleGirl

    Diablo Canyon, owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric in Avila Beach, California.

    From Wikipedia:

    Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults.[1] Equipped with advanced seismic monitoring and safety systems, the plant is designed to shut down safely in the event of significant ground motion.

  41. 41.

    patrick II

    @Martin:

    “they have no power at a power plant”

    I was wondering about that earlier, but was too embarrassed to ask. But if a power plant is generating power, it seems to this totally ignorant nuclear power plant design person, that the capability to route it to itself in case of grid failure would be a good idea. I imagine there is a good reason why not, but does anyone know?

  43. 43.

    The Dangerman

    @cathyx:

    How many does southern California have?

    Only 2; San Onofre and Diablo Canyon (to be fair, DC is not really SoCal)

    Diablo is a brick shithouse in terms of nuke design (one of the last to come online).

  44. 44.

    Martin

    @cathyx: No, I’m saying they don’t go into a frothing pants-shitting panic like Americans do. They’re evacuating the area, if there’s a radiation leak then they’re going to have some cleanup to do, as they did 65 years ago, and they’re going to soldier on and rebuild bigger and better just as they did back then.

    What I don’t expect them to do is abandon the city in a fit of Galtian pride, declaring it a wasteland not worth recovering.

  46. 46.

    AhabTRuler

    @patrick II: The power generation is dependent on the coolant as the transfer medium, so the plants can’t generate the electricity to power the pumps to cool the reactor to make the steam to generate the electricity to run the pumps . . .

  47. 47.

    cathyx

    @Martin: I’m sure that’s true, but I think you are being unfair to Americans. We have never had to deal with a devastation this large. I think Americans would soldier through it too. It’s just human nature.

  49. 49.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Corner Stone:

    When I refresh a thread here it loads then scrolls back up the page multiple posts, instead of loading at the last comment before refresh. Just started today.

    The site’s code has been upgraded so as to refresh the page in a manner which reflects the ideological viewpoint of the individual commentator. Not being an centrist-Obot you must not believe in making incremental progress via tiny little steps, so back to the beginning you go, every single time. Oh well, at least you didn’t end up someplace in Brazil.

  50. 50.

    debit

    @dmsilev: Maybe he’ll bring Gamera with him. I heard that not only is Gamera really sweet, he’s also full of turtle meat.

  51. 51.

    AhabTRuler

    The power generation is dependent on the coolant as the transfer medium, so the plants can’t generate the electricity to power the pumps to cool the reactor to make the steam to generate the electricity to run the pumps . . .

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @patrick II: In case of grid failure, sure, but they need to shut the plant down because of potential damage to the various systems. Not until it’s inspected can they fire it back up again. And odds are that being on the coast, the grid to the plants is wrecked. Even if one of the plants was working, they probably couldn’t route power to the other one just a few miles away.

  54. 54.

    Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)

    MSNBC says they’re gonna vent/release radioactive steam built up. So, they’re fucked. They’re just trying to contain the zone.

  55. 55.

    Gravenstone

    @patrick II: Because the power needs of the plant would only require a fraction of the output of the plant. If they tried to loop onto themselves, they’d fry everything the moment they actually had to engage that loop.

  56. 56.

    Martin

    @Corner Stone: If your URL ends in /#comment-(7 digit number) then it’s always going to refresh to that comment. It’s always done that.

    If it’s just /#comments, then it seems to refresh to the top of the page. I don’t know how to make it go to the newest comment. It’s never done that for me.

  57. 57.

    Gina

    I’m out of town, so for lulz I checked out the tee vee news for a change (I never watch it at home). I’ve learned that Obama is just messing up everything and that he should send troops to Libya AND Japan. No wait, he should have sent them to Libya 2 weeks ago, but that’s not as important as sending troops to Japan, and what an idiot, doesn’t he “realize we’re spread thin as it is?” Some bald loudmouth on CNBC. Tweety chirped about how all those DFHs will say nuke plants are still a bad move.

    I decided I’d be better informed if I turned to Cartoon Network.

  59. 59.

    The Dangerman

    @cathyx:

    That wouldn’t hold up with this Japanese earthquake.

    The scientists at Cal Tech say the BIG one in SoCal could be an 8.0 on the San Andreas (consult your neighborhood geologist for an explanation of subduction zones and slip faults; I’m fairly sure the San Andreas is a slip fault while Japan was a subduction). This is of some concern as there is evidence of the San Andreas fault a few hundred yards from where I am presently typing.

    Now, if you want a scary thrill, google Parkland Bulge and then map distance to Diablo; nonetheless, I’m frequently within a few miles of Diablo and have no concerns about it’s safety.

    Edit: ah, shit, brain cramp; Parkfield Bulge

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Bostondreams:

    thanks for the that link. Interesting story. Too many https in the URL though, here is (I hope) a one click version.

    http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/515607/awesome%3A_wisconsin_firefighters_shut_down_bank_that_funded_walker

    “Two firefighters with old school ideas about saving had over $600,000 between the two of them and they demanded cashier’s checks on the spot.”

    Edit: only problem is that I would suppose the bobbly heads will use the fact that two firemen could save 300K each as proof that public employees are all rich.

  62. 62.

    Jrod the Cookie Thief

    From the Red Cross site:

    Donations can also be made to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief by texting REDCROSS to 90999 for a $10 donation.

    Repost this on your Facebooks and whatnot, please.

  63. 63.

    PurpleGirl

    @cathyx: I thought naming that plant Diablo Canyon was both a bit crazy and somehow appropriate considering how close it was to several fault lines.

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JPL:

    I don’t know, but Christine Todd Whitman would say it’s perfectly safe, then leave the country.

  68. 68.

    Tax Analyst

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    OK I have a question for long time commenters, why do so many of the commenters handles start with Comrade So and so. Is there some story behind it.

    I believe at one point a few years back John Cole posted some sort of “we are all ____” some-thing-or-others, and posted it as “Comrade John Cole”. As many of the commenters temporarily added “Comrade” in front of their handles…I believe I might have even danced in that parade for a couple weeks or so.

    Or it could have been DougJ instead on John Cole, or I could be completely off base and just hallucinating.

    But I didn’t see any other comments answering your question so I thought I’d toss in a couple of pennies worth.

  69. 69.

    The Dangerman

    @PurpleGirl:

    I thought naming that plant Diablo Canyon was both a bit crazy and somehow appropriate considering how close it was to several fault lines.

    There are multiple canyons and creeks where the plant is located; one creek is Diablo and another is Pecho. Consider if it had been moved a bit and been Pecho Canyon (Pecho means breast in Spanish).

    I suppose you need to know that Diablo has a large, um, pair of containment domes.

  70. 70.

    WarMunchkin

    I flew out of Japan literally just a few hours before the earthquake hit. I’m back home now but dear god, some of the places I was just at last week are smoking/collapsed, I have no idea how to react.

  71. 71.

    Tax Analyst

    @dmsilev:

    So, we can expect Godzilla to surface in what, about 12 hours?

    Uh-uh, he’s dead, remember? Not so sure about Rodan, however, and there could always be a “Son/Daughter-of-Godzilla” lurking somewhere out there in the deep of Tokyo Harbor.

    Apropos nothing, I had a friend in High School who had memorized the entired spoken dialogue of the original “Godzilla” movie (American Version), including all the “Ay-hi’s” of the fleeing villagers.

    No, I don’t know why, nor whether he eventually had to be hospitalized or confined in some way.

  75. 75.

    Tax Analyst

    @PurpleGirl:

    Diablo Canyon, owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric in Avila Beach, California.

    From Wikipedia:
    Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults.[1] Equipped with advanced seismic monitoring and safety systems, the plant is designed to shut down safely in the event of significant ground motion.

    And we know how totally competent and whip-crackin’ sharp PG&E is at handling their shit. They’re the ones who owned that gas pipeline that blew up a good part of San Bruno, CA several months back.

    I’m not the panic-prone type, but somehow this information doesn’t really make me feel any safer than I did before I read it.

  76. 76.

    mrami

    Hey, anybody read Sully’s insightful commentary on the travesty that is Wisconsin’s legislature, and the fact that its power plants are going to be sold off to Wisconsin?

    Oh, Libya and Mr. Small? Huh.

  77. 77.

    Warren Terra

    @Tax Analyst:

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    OK I have a question for long time commenters, why do so many of the commenters handles start with Comrade So and so. Is there some story behind it.

    I believe at one point a few years back John Cole posted some sort of “we are all ” some-thing-or-others, and posted it as “Comrade John Cole”. As many of the commenters temporarily added “Comrade” in front of their handles…I believe I might have even danced in that parade for a couple weeks or so.
    __
    Or it could have been DougJ instead on John Cole, or I could be completely off base and just hallucinating.
    __
    But I didn’t see any other comments answering your question so I thought I’d toss in a couple of pennies worth.

    Some extremely moderate aspect of social democracy was suddenly denounced in the most overheated tones from a seemingly unified chorus of the Right Wing as being the most tyrannical form of Communism; I think it was progressive taxation (possibly the Sam Wurzelbacher incident in late 2008) but it could have been Health Care or something else. So Cole decided to mock this by signing himself as Comrade John Cole, and assorted commenters did as well. The only problem is, if you change the commenting pseudonym associated with an email address, your comments get flagged for moderation …

    ETA Oh hey, a little bit of well-designed Googling, and I found the post in question!

  79. 79.

    losingtehplot

    @Martin: ‘And let’s be brutally honest here – Japan has unique experience dealing with moderate radiation. They’ll weather this.’ Yeah, like an atomic bomb explosion is just like a nuclear reactor leak – Hiroshima was NOT a moderate dose of radiation. Both are bad – one is sudden, horrible destruction; the other is something that corporations will try and cover up to placate their shareholders, saying it’s just a ‘moderate’ dose of radiation, you know, the kind that alters genetic structures in babies and young children but you have no basis, cause the gov’t won’t admit one, so you can’t sue the corporate bastards that own the nuclear plant.

  80. 80.

    patrick II

    @Martin:
    Thanks. I had read earlier that they shut it down because it lost its cooling capability, but it makes sense that they had to shut it down to inspect, which would make it impossible to keep power to the cooling system going.

  81. 81.

    The Dangerman

    @Tax Analyst:

    And we know how totally competent and whip-crackin’ sharp PG&E is at handling their shit. They’re the ones who owned that gas pipeline that blew up a good part of San Bruno, CA several months back.

    True, but, to be fair to PG&E, the error dates back to the 1950’s when the pipeline was installed. Now, flip side, if that error had been caught and the pressure tests had been changed and done “correctly” for the type of pipe installed, no San Bruno explosion.

    For those in the neighborhood, Diablo has tours once or twice a year; I highly recommend it.

  82. 82.

    mr. whipple

    And let’s be brutally honest here – Japan has unique experience dealing with moderate radiation.

    Yes. The forces of natural selection at work. Just as Republicans continue to evolve dumber and dumber.

  83. 83.

    Tax Analyst

    @cathyx:

    @Martin: I’m sure that’s true, but I think you are being unfair to Americans. We have never had to deal with a devastation this large. I think Americans would soldier through it too. It’s just human nature.

    Well, I’m not so sure. First of all, you’d probably have the GOP and especially the TeaParty people blaming Obama and the libs, disregarding the fact that any safety regulations that might have been too lax were probably that way due to Republican pressure and/or direct GOP-sponsored legislation.

    And then you’d have depend on the media not to make it into a breathless, hair-on-fire “Special Report” on a 24/7 basis.

  86. 86.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Tax Analyst: My memory is the same as yours. Pretty sure it was in the ’08 election during the primaries, though I can’t remember whether it was before or after Hilary finally threw in the towel. I never participated, as it was back when I just lurked here and did not comment.

  87. 87.

    WarMunchkin

    @Violet: I’ve got a couple, but I mostly stayed in the Tokyo area and the bulk of the loss-of-life was in the northeast area. So I’m pretty sure nobody I know was harmed.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Carl Nyberg:
    Note that “critical mass” is somewhat misleading. It depends not just on the total amount of fissible material but also on its configuration. Very importantly, it’s also temperature dependent and the amount of material needed goes up as the temperature goes up. This is because the neutrons that carry out the chain reaction are more easily absorbed when they travel slower. In a nuclear reactor, the neutrons generally have a chance to “thermalize”, i.e. to cool down so their average energy is similar to the average energy of any nucleus in the reactor. If the reactor is cooler, the neutrons go slower and are more easily absorbed.

    A well designed reactor is set up so that it moves from being slightly supercritical* at low temperatures to being slightly subcritical at high temperatures. That provides a built in feedback loop to keep things under control. The reaction can also be controlled using powerful neutron absorbers of some kind that will soak up enough neutrons to bring the reaction well below critical even at low temperature. That’s what the control rods that everyone talks about are for, but safe reactors also have some kind of “SCRAM” control that applies extra neutron absorbing capacity in an emergency.

    The problem in any reactor is twofold. One is that the control are generally fine enough that the reactor can continue to generate a lot of heat as the remaining nuclear reactions wind down. You still need to get rid of all that remaining heat. The second danger comes from the configuration issue. If you don’t get rid of the waste heat, the fuel might melt and pool at the bottom of the reactor. If that happens, you can potentially get a more favorable configuration for nuclear reactions than the carefully controlled setup of the reactor and the molten pile of fuel will turn supercritical. That’s the classic meltdown scenario, and it’s really nasty. The Japanese will presumably be willing to take drastic steps, like emergency cooling the reactors with seawater, to avoid a meltdown.

    *There’s a bit about “prompt” vs. “delayed” criticality, too. Some of the neutrons released in nuclear fission are actually released from one of the daughter isotopes a short time after the primary fission event. If a nuclear reaction is critical without considering those slowly released neutrons it is “promptly” critical is useful for nuclear bombs. If it is only critical when adding the effect of the extra neutrons from secondary reactions, it is a “delayed” critical reaction and will tend to melt down rather than blow up. Reactors are always designed so they are at delayed, not prompt, criticality.

  89. 89.

    Tax Analyst

    @Warren Terra:

    The only problem is, if you change the commenting pseudonym associated with an email address, your comments get flagged for moderation

    True dat, as I soon discover.

    Thanks for filling in the blanks for me. And hey, I was closer than I thought I’d be with my answer.

  93. 93.

    PeakVT

    @Tax Analyst: I think the comrade thing started during the financial crisis when there was a lot of talk about nationalizing banks. Krugman jokes about it here but it started before that. I think the first place I saw “Comrade Paulson” was in the comments at CR.

    ETA: Perhaps Buiter started it here.

  95. 95.

    schrodinger's cat

    @jeffreyw: Homer kitteh FTW! How is the relationship with Bea? I remember they had quite a few scuffles when Homer was a kitten.

  99. 99.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Roger Moore: Thank you for that, you at least sound like you know what you’re talking about, and until I find out otherwise, I’m going to assume that you do.

    This part I didn’t understand:

    The Japanese will presumably be willing to take drastic steps, like emergency cooling the reactors with seawater, to avoid a meltdown.

    How would seawater be any easier to get in there than any other water if the pumps aren’t working? Bucket brigade?

  101. 101.

    trollhattan

    @The Dangerman:

    Sorry to say there’s no reason to be fair to PG&E. The San Bruno investigation is showing them to be fuckups of the first degree and they already had a solid track record of cost and corner-cutting. Records are missing and in error and they don’t tend to err on the side of safety. They even misread the regulations under which they operate.

    Also, too, IIUC the Japanese nuke plants in question have double on-site diesel backup generation but they’ve failed. One proposal that makes sense to me for any new nuke plant construction is to have passive emergency cooling systems rather than ones relying on pumps. Makes sense to me, although it implies building them next to very tall hills and plopping reservoirs on top.

    Also, also, too. Just saw Sam Bee’s special edition of Cribs for teachers. God, she’s hilarious.

  102. 102.

    JPL

    @Roger Moore: Thanks for the lesson. Although the Chernobyl was caused by poorly designed plant, that’s my frame of reference for disaster.
    Is it true that there is no health risk when they radioactive vapors into the air like Tokyo Power is saying?

  103. 103.

    Martin

    @losingtehplot:

    Yeah, like an atomic bomb explosion is just like a nuclear reactor leak – Hiroshima was NOT a moderate dose of radiation.

    Well, Chernobyl redefined what a ‘lot’ of radiation is. Chernobyl released somewhere in the ballpark of 100x as much as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

    Realistic worst case scenario for this situation is something like Three Mile Island, which I have the honor of having been evacuated from. It’s more bad economically and emotionally than in terms of human suffering. Odds are that more people were injured/killed from that refinery fire we saw pictures of than will be from these two reactors.

  105. 105.

    Poopyman

    @Corner Stone: Yes, at work. But the Firefox update failed on my home laptop tonight and it hasn’t started doing that yet.

    OTOH this laptop is Windows XP, so I don’t know if it would work or not. And I still don’t know why it failed here.

  106. 106.

    MikeJ

    @Evolved Deep Southerner: As a wild ass guess, I’d assume he means dumping the secondary cooling[1] into the primary. Which sounds like a recipe for disaster, but IAMANRE.

    [1] The primary coolant, that which touches nuke stuff, is cooled by running the pipes near the secondary system, but the two never touch. The secondary is never radioactive, and is safely pumped out to the cooling tower before going out to the ocean/river/whatever. If the primary coolant boiled off, the closest source of liquid would be in the secondary cooling system, but since the two systems are isolated, you’d need to pump form one to the other, and then you’ve got backflow contamination into the ocean.

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    @losingtehplot:

    Both are bad – one is sudden, horrible destruction; the other is something that corporations will try and cover up to placate their shareholders, saying it’s just a ‘moderate’ dose of radiation, you know, the kind that alters genetic structures in babies and young children but you have no basis, cause the gov’t won’t admit one, so you can’t sue the corporate bastards that own the nuclear plant.

    Has that actually happened in Japan, or are you projecting what would happen here in the States onto Japan? IIRC, Japan keeps a much tighter regulator rein on their corporations than the US does, but I honestly don’t know what corporate scandals they’ve had.

  108. 108.

    Neutron Flux

    @JPL:

    Is it true that there is no health risk when they radioactive vapors into the air like Tokyo Power is saying?

    Depends on how long the release is and the amount of radioactivity at the source.

    But to say no danger, that is a stretch IMO.

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Corporations have one reason to exist, and one reason only, at least in the United States: to turn a profit. If safety has to be compromised to turn a profit (and to financially benefit the executives at the top) it will be compromised.

    I don’t trust anyone with an MBA on these things. They aren’t trained to deal with dynamic situations, except to call in the PR guys (trained in “journalism” schools”) to control the PR damage. The radiation and shit? Secondary.

    The BP oil disaster shows you how these maggots do it.

  111. 111.

    Neutron Flux

    @MikeJ: Not true with a BWR. Not sure where you got that sourced information about the secondary and the primary, but as I understand BWR’s it is incorrect

  112. 112.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @MikeJ: So seawater is already piped into the plant, just waiting to be turned on in an emergency? And the reason you don’t want to do that is because there’ll be radioactive water expelled out into the ocean if you do?

    Forgive me, but I’m just trying to understand.

  113. 113.

    Corner Stone

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: If I was a centrist-Obot I wouldn’t have said anything about it. I would have pragmatically understood that if it happened, then that was the only outcome possible. The scrolling backwards automatically was the best we could do, given the alternatives.

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    @Evolved Deep Southerner:
    The idea is that the reactor normally uses a two stage cooling system. The water inside the reactor is circulated in a closed loop and is cooled by being passed through a heat exchanger. That’s great for power generation, but it doesn’t provide a convenient way of cooling the reactor rapidly. Pumping seawater through the core wouldn’t be any easier than pumping through the regular coolant, but it’s available cold in essentially unlimited quantities.

  115. 115.

    Woodrowfan

    I have an old roommate in Kyoto, but it seems to be unaffected. Has Faux News blamed President Obama yet..

  116. 116.

    soonergrunt

    @patrick II: The plants aren’t generating power. they still need to be cooled from the residual heat left over from when they were generating power. Since the reactor core is a sealed unit, it requires the coolant to be pumped in and out.
    The plant on the seashore apparently had two seperate cooling systems. One of those was powered by the plant and was used in normal operation, and it’s offline since the earthquake and the resultant automatic reactor SCRAM.
    The other cooling system is pumps powered by diesel generators drawing from underground fuel tanks, and this system was apparently destroyed or severely damaged by the tsunami.
    This information was on MSNBC and explained to me by my father in law, who is a retired nuclear submarine officer.
    I got probably about 50% of what he said, after he dumbed it down for me, so maybe there’s space aliens involved for all I missed.

  117. 117.

    soonergrunt

    @Roger Moore: You can’t let cold seawater directly into the core. For one thing, then you’re venting contaminated water out to sea, and for another thing, the temperature inside the reactor containment is very high, and cold water would flash into steam. Huge pressure increase in a short time, and that would risk destroying the containment building and possibly uncovering the core, which would be a Chernobyl-type accident.
    This information was on MSNBC and explained to me by my father in law, who is a retired nuclear submarine officer.

  118. 118.

    virag

    this is clearly a godzilla incursion in japan. the earthquake and nuclear scare is just a cover. cable news coverage of a godzilla rampagae would be a public relations and tourism disaster for japan.

  119. 119.

    schrodinger's cat

    @ellie: You are welcome! Maru always brings a smile to my lips. I am glad that he and his human are OK.

  120. 120.

    eemom

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    The site’s code has been upgraded so as to refresh the page in a manner which reflects the ideological viewpoint of the individual commentator. Not being an centrist-Obot you must not believe in making incremental progress via tiny little steps, so back to the beginning you go, every single time. Oh well, at least you didn’t end up someplace in Brazil.

    splendiforous

  121. 121.

    eemom

    I don’t understand (1) what Godzilla has to do with this OR (2) who this Maru is.

    I’d think it’s because I’m old, except I’m pretty sure Godzilla is even older than I am.

  122. 122.

    Roger Moore

    @Neutron Flux:
    Even a BWR is still a heat engine and needs a cold side in addition to the hot side to produce work. They don’t have a complete secondary water system turning the turbines, but they do have a water cooled- presumably sea water cooled in this case- condenser downstream of the turbine.

    @Evolved Deep Southerner:
    It’s not just that you’re worried about radiation leaking. Emergency cooling is likely to do a lot of damage to the core, which means the plant will be off line for a long time- possibly forever- afterward. It’s bad enough that you’ll only do it if you know the alternative is worse.

  125. 125.

    schrodinger's cat

    @eemom: Maru is a cat. He likes boxes and has a blog and has world wide fan following.
    He lives in Japan.
    I can’t help you with Q1.

  126. 126.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: Well, it might be easier. Depends on what’s damaged and has power. If you can’t pump coolant into the condenser because those pumps are broken or lack power, you might still have functioning and powered pumps in a backup system that can dump the primary cycle water and pump in seawater. It’d be a completely different system, after all.

    And for everyone else – dumping radioactive light water into the ocean isn’t as environmental horrifying as it sounds. Water doesn’t retain radioactivity for very long (half life of seconds) so compared to an out-of-control reactor, it’s a rather not-horrible solution.

  127. 127.

    soonergrunt

    @Roger Moore: I see what you’re saying there. I misunderstood you earlier. I’m out of my depth, and my father in law can only dumb this stuff down to a certain level.

  128. 128.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: Ashamed of myself for smiling at blog riffs on Godzilla at a time like this. Other than that, about like usual. You OK?

  129. 129.

    Neutron Flux

    @Roger Moore: You are correct in that there is a condenser. They do not have steam generators like PWR’sw do. The coolant is boiled in the reactor and then the steam is used to turn the turbine. The steam is condensed and then pumped back into the reactor by the boiler feed pumps. This talk of using the secondary to supply water to the primary is just factually wrong.

  130. 130.

    Chefmarty

    Alright, I gotta bitch about this to someone…maybe you all have better insight into this than I. My sones & I have allergies, requiring year-round doses of Fexofenadine, aka Allegra. When it was prescription, my cost for 90 days worth for all three of us was $39. (Insurance paid $348) Now that Brand-name Allegra is OTC, a 90 day supply is $162 (all mine). So the total cost goes down by $225, but my cost goes up $123. I should get a prescription for something different that might not even work as well, which will cost the system more, but costs me less. And we can’t figure out how to “bend the cost curve?!?!” We’re fucked!

  131. 131.

    The Dangerman

    @trollhattan:

    Sorry to say there’s no reason to be fair to PG&E. The San Bruno investigation is showing them to be fuckups of the first degree and they already had a solid track record of cost and corner-cutting. Records are missing and in error and they don’t tend to err on the side of safety.

    Can’t argue with much of that; yes, PG&E had a series of fuckups during the event itself that were unforgivable…

    …nonetheless, the root cause appears to be in the placement of substandard pipe during original construction. PG&E could have discovered that error and San Bruno could have been prevented, but root cause doesn’t appear to fall to PG&E.

  133. 133.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Well, Chernobyl redefined what a ‘lot’ of radiation is. Chernobyl released somewhere in the ballpark of 100x as much as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

    Chernobyl was a liquid metal (sodium) cooled “breeder reactor” (to ‘breed’ material for nuclear weapons) with an inert gas in the air spaces inside it. When the cooling system failed, pressure built and ruptured the protective dome, releasing the inert gas. When the sodium (which is radioactive due to direct contact with the nuclear material it’s cooling) is exposed to oxygen and atmospheric moisture, it reacts very explosively. Water cooled reactors, while still dangerous when the cooling systems fail, will not violently explode like the one at Chernobyl. If a water cooled reactor system fails, pressure builds and if not released it can rupture the vessel but there is no violence to it like the liquid metal cooled systems. They will melt down though and can burn through the lower containment vessel, making for a real nightmare to deal with.

    Releasing the pressure is about the safest thing they can do when there are no other options.

    IANANE, nor do I know one. It’s just a topic that interests me.

  134. 134.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Martin: See, that’s what I was thinking: “God damn, all that oil and muck and shit ran into the Gulf of Mexico. Would this be better than that or worse than that?” If you’re talking half-life of seconds, about how long would it take that particular water to lose its radioactivity?

  136. 136.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: IANANE but my master’s thesis was on ionization (mostly in the X-ray region) following beta decay. I know plenty about nuclear reactions but not enough about how reactors actually work, their cooling mechanisms etc. I just know we don’t want the reactor to go boom, that would be very bad.

  137. 137.

    PeakVT

    I hate YouTube at times like this. All the attention-seekers re-up the same video over and over, which makes finding anything new and worthwhile impossible.

  138. 138.

    schrodinger's cat

    @eemom: Apparently Maru also means round in Japanese. I can think we all know of another cat for whom this name would be apt.

  139. 139.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: You know, it’s fucked up, but I was reading some story on Yahoo about a guy – not a scientist, but an astrologer, basically – who was talking about a “supermoon” or some such that’s coming, the moon will pass closer to the earth than it has in 18 years. He was saying that really heavy-duty gravitational pull was going to wreak havoc on the planet – not only did the guy talk about tides, but he also mentioned “earth tides,” and how there was a slightly greater probability of earthquakes because of it. They interviewed some other sure-enough scientists, and they called “astrology bullshit” on it. But now the fucker’s looking like a prophet.

  140. 140.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    Excuse me, that’s the “extreme supermoon.”

    Bullshit coincidence? Hell, I don’t know. We’ve still got almost exactly a week until the 19th. If worse shit than this is going to happen, I don’t know if I really want to be alive to have to see it.

  144. 144.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @MikeJ:

    It was doubly bad for Chernobyl because the pressure built when the secondary (water cooled) section failed and the liquid metal was exposed, not only did it explode but the explosion destroyed the rods and carried much of that into the atmosphere. Since the metal is heavier than air, as it cooled it quickly dropped to ground level.

    The two reactor designs, while similar, are not even close in the disaster potential. Hyping it up as something that could be on the level of Chernobyl is a disservice to the public because while it’s still a disaster, when all is said and done, when the public sees what actually happens they may think ‘Oh, that wasn’t too bad’, leaving them with the impression that maybe the anti-nuke people were deliberately misleading them about the disaster potential.

    You know how Americans love to see disasters. Let them down at your own risk…lol

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I just know we don’t want the reactor to go boom, that would be very bad.

    Boom = BAD!

    Agreed.

  145. 145.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: Well astrologer-dude is the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, then. Hell, I’m un-writing off the Mayan 2012 prophecy after this shit. I want to be somewhere real special doing something I love on December 21 of that year.

  146. 146.

    scav

    For complete geektitude, shouldn’t someone try to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow? After that, I don’t know, we’re back to reader suggestions and something resembling the junk shot.

    Didn’t the CR comrade X phase evolve into a ,rad X thing?

    I’m rather enjoying the sheer number of intellectual levels this thread is simultaneously working on. I’m feeling a little punch-drunk on the strength of it.

  148. 148.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @PeakVT:

    See, IANANE and got my reactor types confused (good thing I’m not running one!). You are correct that Chernobyl was a graphite moderated and water cooled reactor. It’s been many years since I studied this and I got my disaster and potential disasters (think Hanford) crossed up.

    Thanks!

  149. 149.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @scav:

    I’m rather enjoying the sheer number of intellectual levels this thread is simultaneously working on. I’m feeling a little punch-drunk on the strength of it.

    Yes, we’ve got nuclear reactor technology, Godzilla, “Where did all these ‘Comrades’ come from?” and the “extreme supermoon” all chugging along parallel to one another in one place. I’d feel a little punch-drunk over it, too, if I wasn’t just a little regular-drunk and unsure of where one type of intoxication stopped and the other type began.

  152. 152.

    The Dangerman

    @Evolved Deep Southerner:

    I want to be somewhere real special doing something I love on December 21 of that year.

    Party at Cole’s House!

    Earthquakes, Egypt, Iran, Libya; all manageable.

    If Saudi Arabia starts falling/failing, we’re all fucked. If that happens in 2012, Cole has to post directions on this blog.

  153. 153.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @The Dangerman: Nah. Big ol’ asteroid right on the God damn equator. And ten minutes before the fucker hits, there’ll be people on here saying “Fucking Republicans defunded fucking NASA!”

  154. 154.

    Southern Beale

    Yeah my Senator Lamar Alexander has been a big nuclear booster for years. Someone should ask him if he still thinks nuclear power is cheap and reliable.

  157. 157.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    A quick google search reveals that I’m not the only one wondering when Pat Robertson will get on the air and explain why bad earthquakes happen to good countries.

    But I am the only one who thinks he’ll blame it on tentacle porn.

  159. 159.

    Roger Moore

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Chernobyl was a liquid metal (sodium) cooled “breeder reactor” (to ‘breed’ material for nuclear weapons) with an inert gas in the air spaces inside it.

    No, Chernobyl was a water cooled, graphite moderated reactor. They had a steam explosion that cracked open the reactor, which didn’t have the kind of containment structure that all Western nuclear plants have. When the reactor broke open, the hot graphite was exposed to the air and started burning, essentially like a gigantic barbeque. A graphite fire that size simply can’t be put out with conventional fire fighting techniques; it was only put out when they smothered it with boron laced sand.

  160. 160.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Southern Beale: Now, see, I was having the opposite reaction. Hell, I consider nuclear power a lot safer than I did before all this happened. I heard that a dam in Japan had collapsed and really, really fucked things up downstream. Presumably that dam was providing hydroelectric power. Would you call THAT safer than nuclear?

  162. 162.

    PeakVT

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: NP. It is an important point, though, because the key problem with the RBMK reactor design is that it does not have a containment building. Both BWRs and PWRs do (and CANDUs, though neither the US nor Japan operates that design). (FYI: The Hanford production reactors were actually quite similar to the RBMKs but operated at much lower power levels so were less likely to catch fire. But the US government made up for that by dumping waste everywhere.)

  163. 163.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @PeakVT:

    When I lived in Spokane (with the ever present fear of Hanford and the winds) they did a huge write-up in the local papers about the varieties of reactor design (this was back in the 80’s after Chernobyl) and the different potentials of disaster of each design.

    It was a good series of articles that got a lot of attention then but since it’s slipped from the minds of most people, including me.

    Nothing like a good refresher course though!

    regardless, reactor boom = BAD!

    Thanks! :)

  164. 164.

    Calouste

    @Evolved Deep Southerner:

    So did any journalist check what happened 18 years ago on the natural disasters front? No? Blimey, call me suprised.

    Well, I can tell you what happened, nothing out of the ordinary at all, the worst earthquake in 1993 was about 7.2.

  165. 165.

    Roger Moore

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Are you on 56K still? ;)

    No, I just have the habit of wanting to check my facts before correcting others. It’s left over from the more leisurely days of USENET, when people might not see your posts for a day or two and would be more likely to notice a factual error than a slow response. It’s quite antiquated in the blog era.

  166. 166.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Calouste: God damn. You’re telling me that 1993 was eighteen fucking years ago? It’s even worse than I thought.

  168. 168.

    PanAmerican

    I would think they could truck or chopper in generators and fuel in short order. It’s suggestive that the cooling systems are compromised beyond power requirements.

  169. 169.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @PanAmerican: There are experts elsewhere on the thread, and I’m sure not one, but I’m thinking these cooling systems may require a little more than a bunch of Honda pull-rope jobs running in tandem.

  170. 170.

    Suffern ACE

    @Gina

    : I’m out of town, so for lulz I checked out the tee vee news for a change (I never watch it at home). I’ve learned that Obama is just messing up everything and that he should send troops to Libya AND Japan.

    By any chance did you catch the name of that pantswetter?

  172. 172.

    Martin

    @Evolved Deep Southerner: Ok, I just dug up some info sent to me by one of our guys a few years back.

    The primary cooling systems do need a notable amount of power to operate. The situation these plants are running under is called LOOP – Loss Of Offsite Power. That rules out one entire set of solutions, but reactors are designed for this and have other solutions.

    The first set of emergency cooling systems don’t have external power needs. They’re steam powered by the reactor itself. There’s to components to this – 1) there’s an emergency steam ventilation system to keep the pressure in check 2) there’s a emergency pumping system that can pump additional coolant into the reactor.

    If the control rods have been extended, this should be adequate to cool down the reactor. If the control rods could not be fully extended, this may not be adequate. This system may have also been damaged due to the quake. The former is a significant problem and a main design issue with this type of reactor – control rods are extended from below, so power must be applied to get to safe state. In modern designs, rods are extended from above and are held by electromagnets. Power goes out or the big red button is pushed, the magnets turn off and gravity pulls the control rods into safe state. But nobody has suggested that this is the problem. More likely the emergency system isn’t working, or isn’t working at full capacity.

    There’s typically another similar backup coolant system, which may also be damaged.

    The final remedy is to dump neutron absorbing liquid into the reactor. This is stored in a large tank and can be manually deployed with no power. This pours into the reactor and fills the reactor vessel completely and can totally shut down a reactor even with control rods not extended. This is likely going to ruin the reactor though and will require a full rebuild. Worst case, this should still be working and could be deployed, but Japan would be without 5 of their reactors for years. That’d be devastating.

    These reactors are designed in a way that a complete break in the cooling pipe (the outer thermodynamic loop), combined with a break in the feedwater line (the inner thermodynamic loop, so that if radiated steam had to be boiled off that no new water could be injected in the normal manner) and a loss of outside power would still lead to an orderly shutdown of the reactor. That sounds exactly like what they were dealt. Unfortunately, that orderly shutdown isn’t happening. From the sound of it, the emergency systems aren’t fully working, they’re trying to get the primary system repaired and/or powered, and they believe they have the last resort system in good working order, but they don’t want to deploy it and wreck the reactors unless they have to.

  175. 175.

    Steeplejack

    @Corner Stone:

    I’m not experiencing this. Firefox 3.6.14 on Windows XP. When I refresh the page, the “focus” goes to the last comment whose “Link” button I clicked. I think this dates from the last site upgrade. Before that, I seem to remember, the focus would remain where you actually were, regardless of the last “Link” button clicked. But I could be wrong.

    I am experiencing what you describe on my Droid, but it has been that way since the site upgrade, not just today.

  177. 177.

    soonergrunt

    @Steeplejack: I don’t have this problem under either Firefox 3.6.15 or IE 9.0.8080 under Win7 x64.
    The site was acting screwy for a couple of days but that was an fywp issue.

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