Safety of Nuclear Power Plants

[Asuras]

No. The radiation shouldn't reach Tokyo.
Fukushima Plant? It's in Okuma on the East Coast.

[yezhanquan]

If anything, the quake is a reminder that lest we forget, we are living at Nature's pleasure, and She takes that pleasure back at a whim.

[Asuras]

We like to think our nuclear arsenal is powerful, but we're nowhere near the power nature possesses.

[yezhanquan]

Tell me about it. I think it will only be a matter of time before verification that this quake is more powerful than the world's nuclear arsenal combined in terms of raw energy output.

[Dist]

Well I don't know anything about Japan geographically so that's why I asked if it would reach Tokyo. If not, then good .. And that's about the only '' good '' thing about this whole situation .. I really hope it won't go that far, though.

[Kuroi Hadou]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Tell me about it. I think it will only be a matter of time before verification that this quake is more powerful than the world's nuclear arsenal combined in terms of raw energy output.

No. An 8.9 earthquake would be around 380-420 megatons-worth of TNT, rough estimate. The one Tsar bomb the Soviet Union built in the 50's had an estimated yield of 50 megatons; that's an 8.3 on the Richter scale. Nuclear weapons are... considerably more potent now. The total nuclear arsenal is far more powerful than an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, and it's still growing; it's terrifying when you think about it.

[yezhanquan]

Ok, maybe I should have said "more powerful than any single one nuclear weapon Man had ever produced".

Back on the nuclear plants, I read that they were using seawater to try to cool the thing, meaning that the reactor is toast. Back to the drawing board then.

[Ithekro]

Maybe this will help?

[Kuroi Hadou]

This one should help simplify things a bit.

[Master_Yoma]

Hell no there not safe at all not only they need a fresh water source but that water is warmer going out then coming it. Well the rods that take over 1000 year to become inert but a nightmare to place them some where off site.

[Ithekro]

Heat distribution is suppose to be like that though. You take the heat out of the reactor to keep it cool...the heat has to go someplace.

[Vexx]

Heh, now we need to give a basic thermodynamics lesson. Break out the Carnot cycle diagrams.

[Kuroi Hadou]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Heh, now we need to give a basic thermodynamics lesson. Break out the Carnot cycle diagrams.

Why must you overly complicate an already overly complicated concept?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

Tri-ring pointed out various times already that the tsunami and the earthquake of such magnitude is a once in a 1000 years occurrance. The plants were already designed to withstand earthquakes but nobody was expecting it to be this devastating simply because it never happened before since nuclear plants were created in Japan at the very least. I doubt such a Tsunami was in the mind of the people who put the plants there decades ago.

Once in a 1000 years? Have you even tried to google it?

In less than 1 minute search, take a look to this list :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...uakes_in_Japan

We can beter say once every decade.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Nuclear powerplants are built near the ocean to obtain a source of coolant. And in general you built them wherever you CAN build them, not where you would like to build them. Politics ensure you can't just put them anywhere you like.

Could you please take the time to read the question before even thinking in posting an answer? My question wasn't why they are located in the coast, my question was why are them located in the eastern coast, al major quakes will be located EVER in the eastern side of the islands, also the sea depth is obviously greather in the eastern side (see map, darker blue colours means deepener zones), and a greather depth means a potentially greather tsunami hitting those zones.

If to safety we refer the obvious solution would have been to locate all the nuclear power plants on the western side and distribute energy to the entire island through high voltage power transmission lines (after all, electrical power is pretty easy to transport).

Spoiler for map:

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Let me repeat; powerplants, nuclear or not, are never popular politically. So powerplants are only ever built in locations where they are allowed to be built, not where the engineers would LIKE to build. This isn't SimCity, where you can just jam a powerplant where-ever you feel like.

There is 101 reasons why they are mostly not on the west coast; but the most obvious one is that they couldn't find any local government there willing to let them build there. If you think like an engineer, you would never get anything done politically.

(It's like trying to build a new railway by simply drawing a straight line on the map across a town, then become perplexed when the people you are trying to displace forced your railroad construction into limbo.)

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Let me repeat; powerplants, nuclear or not, are never popular politically. So powerplants are only ever built in locations where they are allowed to be built, not where the engineers would LIKE to build. This isn't SimCity, where you can just jam a powerplant where-ever you feel like.

There is 101 reasons why they are mostly not on the west coast; but the most obvious one is that they couldn't find any local government there willing to let them build there. If you think like an engineer, you would never get anything done politically.

(It's like trying to build a new railway by simply drawing a straight line on the map across a town, then become perplexed when the people you are trying to displace forced your railroad construction into limbo.)

Erm...

Most of the nuclear power plants are already built in the wester coast, as I said, please take the time to really take a look to my first post, the map is there. And I was just pointing that in safety terms all of them should be there.

BTW, I'm not an engineer so I'm not thinking as an engineer, just using something called common sense.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Erm...

Most of the nuclear power plants are already built in the wester coast, as I said, please take the time to really take a look to my first post, the map is there. And I was just pointing that in safety terms all of them should be there.

BTW, I'm not an engineer so I'm not thinking as an engineer, just using something called common sense.

Just because there are some in the West Coast doesn't mean they could all be in the West Coast. You still don't understand? The government can't just point at a piece of land and say "here is where the powerplant is going to be". It's not a Tyranny.

Land in Japan in general is at a premium. So let me repeat; you say you want to move all the Powerplants to the West Coast, so what would you do when you realise you don't have enough Plants even after you built them on all available land on that side?

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Once in a 1000 years? Have you even tried to google it?

In less than 1 minute search, take a look to this list :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...uakes_in_Japan

We can beter say once every decade.

Earthquakes are quite common in Japan, nobody's denying that. What they weren't prepared for was the magnitude of the quake coupled with the largest tsunami they've yet experienced. Looking at that list you showed, the last time Japan had a quake that came even close to the one now was in 2006, and the number of times a quake exceeded 8 on the richter scale since 684 was just over 10 times. In around 1500 years, their earthquakes exceed 8 little more than 10 times, so quakes of a magnitude closer to 9 have never even happened, and the tsunami added icing to the cake, so to speak. If it was just the earthquake, I doubt Japan would be experiencing even have the difficulties they're having now.

[Malkuth]

4th largest earthquake, plus a 10 meter wave... dunno, you don't modify your energy policy for something like this... let me give an analogy, does anyone not exit his house because something might fall to his head and kill him

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Once in a 1000 years? Have you even tried to google it?

In less than 1 minute search, take a look to this list :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...uakes_in_Japan

We can beter say once every decade.

Nope and your chart says itself.
If you examine carefully, the reporting prior to 1946 is using the Richter magnitude scale while Nankaido Earthquake occurring in Dec.1946 onwards uses the moment magnitude scale. The reason for this is because the Richter scale is only able to evaluate at a point while the moment scale focuses the amount of energy on a two dimensional plain to evaluate the total amount of energy.
So even if you have an equivalent 7.0, since it may differ at point to point you can't really compare this on the same scale.
This is because earthquake does not originate at a point but a fault line and the amount of energy release is based on how much of the fault line was involved and how much did it move.(The word epicenter is misleading since there is actually no center it is a plain)
Now the ones relevant in comparison through location within the list you linked are the Jogan Sanriku Jishin in 869, Meji Sanriku jishin in 1896 and Showa Sanriku in 1933. The difference between the latter two and this one is the extended length of the fault that caused the earthquakes.
We know that there are roughly three~four major faults in the area and usually it is one of these faults that causes an earthquake in the past. This time all three of them moved resulting to this major earthquake. (That is why this is said to be once in a thousand year event.)

We have scientific recordings of the latter two and know how high the tsunami were in the Fukushima area approx.400Km away and used those figures as reference when designing the plant.

I been living in Tokyo for quite sometime and while I remember the many major earthquakes that hit Japan including the Miyagi-ken Oki Jishin of 2005, I simplely cannot recall any earthquake that shook Tokyo as violently as this one.

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Could you please take the time to read the question before even thinking in posting an answer? My question wasn't why they are located in the coast, my question was why are them located in the eastern coast, al major quakes will be located EVER in the eastern side of the islands, also the sea depth is obviously greather in the eastern side (see map, darker blue colours means deepener zones), and a greather depth means a potentially greather tsunami hitting those zones.

If to safety we refer the obvious solution would have been to locate all the nuclear power plants on the western side and distribute energy to the entire island through high voltage power transmission lines (after all, electrical power is pretty easy to transport).

Spoiler for map:

Here is map of atomic plants located within Japan.

If you map out the list of major earthquakes you'll find that the most populated points like the shoreline of Kyoto is the least active.