Meltdown: What would it take for you to flee Tokyo?

[CrankyBastard]

!?...

A junk is Chinese junk rigged sailing boat dating back to 2nd century.In spite of excellent seaworthiness, these vessels are often the subject of derision among seafarers.
A rope man is a sailor who works at the Docks, handling the ropes to the bollards to make the ship fast alongside, a very lowly deck job.

The "Airedale":toothy: was implying, probably correctly, that it might be the only position I would be able to secure on board.


A junkman on the other hand secures a rope from his bumboat to a ship at anchor or underway in a channel in order to board and trade for "junk".
On a sailing ships, old cable or rope were referred to as junk. It made little sense to throw away useful material since considerable time might pass before one could get new supplies. Old cable was used in a variety of ways, for example, to make fenders, that is, material hung over the side of the ship to protect it from scraping other ships or wharves. Junk came to refer to this old cable as well. On board ship, junk is generally sold by one of the bosun's mates to a land person who deals in second hand goods. This second hand merchant is known as a 'JUNK MAN'.

[Great Thing]

Yep, the Aeon Shopping Center in Gushikawa. Not to far from the Katsuren Castle Ruins. Nice area that's been gutted, like a lot of nice areas...

I used to live there. I wouldn't exactly call a hollowed-out shopping mall a tourist attraction, but it's a nice quiet area. Okinawa only works as one of the best-kept secrets on Earth. That place is too tiny to get overrun with the crap in Tokyo that everyone wants to get away from.

[Greji]

Think it's an air force v. navy thing...

Greji cut his teeth as a boy apprentice to the Wright Bros., and Cranky as a cabin boy on board with Adm. Jellicoe.

Mike, believe it or not, Cranky is older than me (such people do exist).
If you read his explanations, you find can plainly see that he is as he states, a bona fide paper carrying squid that was actually cabin boy on the Ark (He may have been first mate as he was a year older than Noah.)

[Mike Oxlong]

I stand corrected. I was gonna say he served with Admiral Lord Nelson, but then I would have to reveal that you in turn flew with the Montgolfier brothers...

[Samurai_Jerk]

We might get a chance to find out sooner than later. I don't if any of you have been paying attention but temp at the Daiichi's No. 2 reactor has been rising for the past week.

English

Japanese

[Yokohammer]

[damn name]

A reactor is designed to have an efficient heat transfer, which you could crudely compare to your car radiator, having lots of surface area for the coolant to circulate against to absorb heat. Think of all the fins on a radiator. They create more surface area.

The internal metal structure that supported the fuel rods melted and it all fell into a glob at the bottom of the reactor. Water can't circulate through that glob, so there's going to be many places where heat can't be transferred to the water flowing thorough the reactor.

That has extended the time it will take to reduce the temperature in the reactor. It's highly unlikely that any heat is being generated from a reaction. Water and boron in the reactor absorbs neutrons required to sustain a reaction and it's highly unlikely fuel would coagulate with a density to form a "critical mass," the amount of fuel in a confined place to being a reaction.

Exposed or scattered fuel rods could more likely be a source of any radiation being generated now.

This is still waste heat not being extracted efficiently from the reactor core.

It looks, SJ, like you think there is some danger of Fukushima exploding like a nuclear bomb. There's no possibility of that at all. Not because someone says so, it's because the laws of physics say so. The simple explanation is this:

A power reactor doesn't have the enriched uranium or plutonium for an uncontrolled fission reaction - a bomb. A bomb requires a way to compress a reaction until the reaction continues enough to explode. That's done by using shaped high explosive "lenses" and neutron reflectors (and some other ways) that are manufactured to extraordinarily tight tolerances and have a specific geometric shape, all set off with complex electronics to fire them at cascading millisecond pulses.

So, there is no fuel for that type of reaction and no process to set it off. It's impossible.

The contamination in and around the plant is still high. Think of it as like smoke, it's attached to surfaces and particles. Winds will continue to carry contaminated dust away from the plant. A goal is to try to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain some of the contamination, but that does nothing about the contamination in the area around the plant.

I think that disposal and containment of contaminated water around the plant is a bigger problem.

Of course, contamination away from the plant is proportional to distance from the plant, and influenced by prevailing winds. The contaminated spots in the Tokyo area are pretty localized, small hot spots. As they are discovered and cleaned up, there will be less and less of them.

There is no new event or situation at Fukushima that could newly contaminate any wide area or should cause anyone to "bug out" of Tokyo. As I've said before, I think the future of the economy is a greater danger.

[Samurai_Jerk]

It looks, SJ, like you think there is some danger of Fukushima exploding like a nuclear bomb.

That was hyperbole on my part. I was really just more curious to hear what people's limit would be.

[IparryU]

Having been in Roppongi on 311 and seen how much that fucker rocked I'm not sure I want to be there when the really big one comes, and everyone is trying to flee from Urayasu to Hachioji in all directions.

I was bartending in Roppongi that night... The most sympathy I saw was from FG... a few Japanese girls were watching the TV and were laughing about the tsunami

I yelled at them from behind the bar and told them it was Japan and don't be so disrespectful about your own cuntry... let alone all the kids that must have died.

they though I was making shit up so the salary men that they were with stood right up and sat at my counter... first comment was "kuso gaki" and second comment was "cheku betsu betsu puri-zu" (it was cash bar... but they just wanted to say fuck off in a more significant way)

And yes... being in roppongi when an earth quake hits central tokyo would be fucked... would not want to be there at all.

[Samurai_Jerk]

And yes... being in roppongi when an earth quake hits central tokyo would be fucked... would not want to be there at all.

I don't think I want to be anywhere within a several hundred mile radius of any place that gets hit by a massive earthquake.