Fukushima, Japan Nuclear Facility Declares State Of Emergency

A nuclear power plant in the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan is under a state of emergency following the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that shook the nation today.

Located in northern Japan, the Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 2 million and lies in an area heavily impacted by the earthquake. A dam broke nearby, washing away homes, Reuters reported.

Residents near the facility have been asked to evacuate as a precaution. The nuclear power plant's cooling system was malfunctioning after the quake, causing concerns, per the Guardian.

You can read more about the scramble to avert a radiation leak here.

See where Fukishima is located in Japan in the map below. Read more on the nuclear emergency from the Associated Press here.

Comments

[sheilamba]

06:54 PM on 03/12/2011

Tragedy, I wrote an article on it here: Fukushima nuclear power plant explodes, 9,500 missing (photos, videos) http://exm.nr/fX2byS

[Trout007]

01:10 AM on 03/12/2011

One thing to remember is these are still First Gen reactors. If development was allowed to continue we would be well past this and on to safer systems like Pebble Bed that are inherently safe. This design allows for a total loss of coolant flow and the only thing that happens is the reactor gets hot since the fuel is embedded in graphite and ceramic spheres. The reactor never gets hot enough to melt the graphite and ceramic so it can't melt down.

Also I don't know if this plant has it but many plants have a backup coolant that can be used to stop the reaction dead by poisoning the fuel. This ruins the fuel and shuts the reactor down for a year or so.

[Nerdiac]

06:32 PM on 03/11/2011

Wow, now HuffPo is aggregating their OWN stories? You know you're a major site when you gotta do that!

[Pema]

06:28 PM on 03/11/2011

on msnbc on cenk. the expert has said they have lost control of one reactor and another is venting steam which has small amounts of radioactivity.
too many people in the green section have actually champoined nuclear power they tore at me for warning against it. acted like i was an old fuddy duddy. the arrogance of youth.

[Genders]

06:17 PM on 03/11/2011

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13111521
Radiation Levels Surge Outside Japan Nuke

[tleb]

05:04 PM on 03/11/2011

This certainly raises questions about public safety with respect to nuclear energy.

[Lunamoth]

05:11 PM on 03/11/2011

Yes, and the name of this place is questionable. Sorry, that is a horribly bad joke. And not funny...well, sorta...

[Pema]

06:29 PM on 03/11/2011

over 30 years ago i protested against the palo verde nuclear plant in az. we have know since day one, did you know one pound of plutonium blown into the air the right way, can kill every living thing on earth?

[tleb]

04:57 PM on 03/12/2011

Nothing but God could kill every living thing on Earth. Your comments are extremist, and your attempt to "let me in" on your "knowledge" is laughable.

[Genders]

04:50 PM on 03/11/2011

Don't worry, these only happen about 5 times every 100 years, so once all our electricity comes from nuclear power we will get only 5 nuclear disasters causing events per hundred years. Of course they leave the world radioactive for 100 to thousand of years. With so many more nukes, almost every big quake will break one of the, so in 1000 years, before the land irradiated by the first nuclear disaster is safe, we will have had 50 more nuclear disasters.

But don't worry, big business never cuts comers till things break, they promise.

[QuantProgrammer]

04:56 PM on 03/11/2011

Well, western nukes have smaller exclusion zones than Chernobyl, but even if we had a nuclear meltdown every 20 years that took 1000 square miles off the map for 500, nuclear would generate less toxic waste and materials and take up less land than solar. I think that's a pretty good record.

[Lunamoth]

05:12 PM on 03/11/2011

Hmmm... I'm thinking you made all that up...

[Jambala99]

05:48 PM on 03/11/2011

You Trolls are out in force on this topic and are spreading "Disinformation" and tainting the collective unconscious......FAIL.....

[ritamary]

06:46 PM on 03/11/2011

Yes Genders, the most important thing is that those profits keep on flowing to our corporate masters. Its much easier to make profit from centralized generation of electricity by nuclear power plants. Solar energy on rooftops of homes is decentralized. At times when a home owner's solar panels generate more energy than the home owner uses, the home owner will have no energy bill to pay. We cannot have such a thing.

[horsey]

04:19 PM on 03/11/2011

what does it mean that the air force had to deliver coolant to them and how significant is that?

[QuantProgrammer]

04:29 PM on 03/11/2011

Methinks Hillary misspoke and was referring to coolant equipment- perhaps a generator or some pumps.

[QuantProgrammer]

04:30 PM on 03/11/2011

Boiling Water Reactors like Fukushima are cooled by water. In the event of an emergency, you can cool them using swamp water as a last ditch method.

[Libleet]

03:54 PM on 03/11/2011

For those of you who don't know. When someone says a reactor is critical, it doesn't mean it is dangerous. It means it is able to sustain power without control rod movement. It means it is ready to produce power. If they said it is supercritical then there may be a problem, or it may just mean power is going up. If they use the word uncontrolable it means there is an issue.

All reactor plants have pressure in them. In order to protect workers and the public from radiation they use two water systems. One cools the reactor and heats the steam generators, the other generates steam and turns the turbines. The one cooling the reactor has to be at high pressure otherwise it would boil at atmospheric boiling temperature. Pressurizing it allows it to get to much higher temperature which means it is able to heat the other system above boiling.

They have pressure relief valves which lift to prevent pressure from getting dangerously high. The problem is if they lift there is no shutting them. They want to manually relieve pressure before they lift so they can limit contamination.

There are radioactive elements in coolant, though most of them have a very short half life(on the scale of seconds), or the time it take to decay to half its raditation level. Five half lives is considered safe. There are a few really nasty ones that can last for years.

[Genders]

04:12 PM on 03/11/2011

This proves nukes are too dangerous. We do you continue to defend it? How many close calls will it take? Or do we need to lose a city? rooftop pv solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels are safe, ready ,forever, clean, cheaper for many, and getting cheaper all the time.

[QuantProgrammer]

04:15 PM on 03/11/2011

A magnitude 8.9 Earthquake happens five times every 100 years if you count underwater events. We had an unprecedented 11 nuclear plants all get hit by the earthquake- and *if* they turn the ECCS back on on this last reactor- all of them will come out of this fine.

[QuantProgrammer]

04:41 PM on 03/11/2011

Shrug. Japan experienced an 8.9 richter earthquake. That is greater than anything ever measured in the continental US. Things at Reactor I seem to be "improving" and we will finally have a good analysis of what happens to nuclear plants during a once-every-500-years-in-the-48-states earthquake. 11 experienced quakes; 10 got through without incident; one had an issue with its ECCS power supply.

[Mali Inomata]

02:52 PM on 03/11/2011

I don't know much about nuclear power plants....what can happen if they do not get it under control?

[blackwind]

03:32 PM on 03/11/2011

Possibly melt down and spew radioactive crud into the air and all over the surrounding area.

[Lunamoth]

05:15 PM on 03/11/2011

And then, of course, if it's a breezy day...

[GuyRC]

03:46 PM on 03/11/2011

If you dont keep the fuel rods cool they melt down through the floor of the reactor and or explode. The heat destroys the containment and radiation is released to the atmosphere. If there is groundwater under the reactor it gets into that too. If the groundwater aquifer outcrops then you get radioactive surface water, and eventually radioactive coastal ocean water.....

[Kenz300]

02:26 PM on 03/11/2011

Chernobyl........ google it.....

It is time to move to safe, clean alternative energy sources.

[Libleet]

03:39 PM on 03/11/2011

I believe part of the problem with Chernobyl is that they were using graphite moderator components. It ignited and started carrying nuclear waste products in its smoke, which made the casualty much worse than it would have been on say a US reactor plant. US plants use halfnium which is a material used in microprocessors. It was also a power surge issue where this is a pressure issue, likely causes by coolant stagnating in the core and turning to steam during a power outage. Most US plants are designed to automatically have the control rods shutdown the reactor in such a power outage. I would assume they have shutdown the reactor, which would mean that pressure should no long be going up. the worst that would happen if that is the case is that a pressure relief valve would lift which would mean they won't be able to control coolant loss to tthe atmosphere. They would like to manually release coolant bringing down pressure. This isn't great, but it is no where near Chernobyl.

[Rich Phitzwell]

03:52 PM on 03/11/2011

pressure would increase even after shutdown for sometime if no coolant was being circulated. Chernobyl had no containment dome and is a design that is no longer made and western countries never used which had a high positive void coefficient that was known to spike when during shutdown. Their is really no comparison to Chernobyl and any western plant. 3 mile island is what should be compared to and is exactly what is happening here except this was caused by an earthquake beyond design limits while 3 mile was caused by lack of training.

[QuantProgrammer]

04:32 PM on 03/11/2011

Chernobyl had two problems:

1.) Lack of combined coolant-moderator.
2.) Lack of 6 ft thick concrete secondary containment.

Fukushima has both of these. That's why we did not see a steam explosion spewing radioactive material over 1000 square miles during the earthquake, and also why the public is a lot safer right now than they'd be without the containment dome. It's making an above ground breach ala Chernobyl a lot less likely.

[Brutus76]

02:19 PM on 03/11/2011

I have said it a thousand times, probably close to a million. Nuclear energy IS NOT green or clean energy!

[Nerdiac]

06:38 PM on 03/11/2011

Aw cmon, it's green! You glow green once you're thoroughly irradiated XD

[FogBelter]

02:07 PM on 03/11/2011

"The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (福島第一原子力発電所, Fukushima dai-ichi genshiryoku hatsudensho?, Fukushima I NPP, 1F) is a nuclear power plant located in the town of Okuma in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture. With 8 separate units located on site, Fukushima I is one of the largest nuclear plants in the world. Fukushima I is the first nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely by The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)."

These are Boiled Water Reactors. They require water to keep circulating to prevent meltdown. Let's hope they get the cooling system working fast.

[Kenz300]

01:50 PM on 03/11/2011

It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy. Wind, solar, wave energy,
geothermal and second generation biofuels from algae and cellulose are the future.

Nuclear has safety and disposal issues.

Coal --- The Massey coal mine disaster.....

Oil -- BP and the spin in the Gulf.......

Let's move to safe clean alternative energy.