9.0 Magnitude Earthquake, Followed by Tsunami Strikes Japan

My prayers go out to the families and victims to Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami.

For those who are in the Pacific Rim, Please note the following at this point in time:

The Tsunami Warning continues in effect for the coastal areas of California and Oregon from Point Concepcion, California to the Oregon-Washington border.

The Tsunami Warning continues in effect for the coastal areas of Alaska from Amchitka Pass, Alaska (125 miles W of Adak) to Attu, Alaska.

The Tsunami Advisory continues in effect for the coastal areas of California from the California-Mexico border to Point Concepcion, California.

The Tsunami Advisory continues in effect for the coastal areas of Washington, British Columbia and Alaska from the Oregon-Washington border to Amchitka Pass, Alaska (125 miles W of Adak).

 

Do you have another recommended power source they should tap into?

 

At least they have different reactors than the ones at Chernobyl. In spite of all the problems they're having now, they're more likely to contain the radioactivity.

There are no good power supplies. Everything either takes up too much space (which is at a premium on an island like Japan) or pollutes in some way. I suspect that they thought their redundant systems would be enough (which they would have been if it had been either a tsunami without the bad earthquake or a lesser earthquake without the horrible tsunamis.)

My prayers are going out to them too!

 

The newest reports say that it was actually a 9.0 Richter earthquake. Huge!

 

That and three nuclear reactor cores, if not possibly four, are about to go critical.... and one is still on fire. SIGH

 

Miracles in Japan: Four-Month Old Baby, 70-Year Old Woman Found Alive


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/201103...y70yearoldwomanfoundalivexidrssfullworldyahoo

 

I believe when the plant was built it was up to standards. However these standards are now 40 years old and now nuclear power plants are much better designed.

Sadly this disaster has caused many Australians to fall back to saying "nuclear power is bad!" but it's cool to sell the uranium to other countries. Just like the idiot Julia and her carbon tax...

 

The plants in Japan are designed pretty much the same way as the ones in the United States. They are all built in the same timeframe and with the same technology in the same exact era.

 

The US plants may have been built in the same timeframe and technology, initially, but most of the US ones have been retrofitted with new technology. (I saw a list a couple of days ago of which ones were slated for retrofitting and which had been retrofitted.)

 

Wouldn't Japan's stuff be just as equally retrofitted though?

 

According to what I've read, they hadn't retrofitted as much as they should have.

 

So it kinda begs the question... why would Japan not retrofit as much as the US then? Cause I'd think they'd be more retrofitted than the US ones, especially since they are touted as some of the world's foremost experts on Nuclear Energy

 

I don't know why they wouldn't retrofit unless they felt it wasn't necessary because they had enough backup systems. I got the feeling that they felt they weren't as vulnerable as the US.

 

I find that somewhat hard to believe.... I've never know the Japanese to become entirely complacent about all their stuff, especially when it comes to earthquake and tsunami stuff. I know a few villages were complacent about the tsunami and thought the tsunami barriers erected would keep them safe.

 

This was just so much bigger than they had expected that it took them by surprise. However, I suspect that they will do more "worst case" calculations in the future.

I read an article yesterday talking about how the US evaluated their response to the tsunami warnings. One thing that seemed to have worked most poorly is keeping away the lookilous who wanted to see what was happening and got stupidly close. Hopefully people in the future here in the US won't be so complacent about tsunamis. (But it doesn't help that the news sends reporters to look at things too. I was amazed at some of the foolishness of reporters with regard to the tsunami, but also the reporters who have gone to Egypt or Libya.)