MAN! Only if we could log on ff when the disasters were happening and stop it using our charecters, wouldnt that be nice? a video game based in real life... its the future of gaming!!
Twitter Stream with updates from Japan
Printable View
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03-23-2011, 01:16 PMKits
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03-23-2011, 10:12 PMDeadlyscorpion
Wow. A lot has happened while I was at work. No blackouts sounds to me like people were conserving energy. Now I worry about the effects that will have once everyone is back to normal. I still stand by my belief that I will get home from work that night and the servers will be turned off : (
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03-23-2011, 10:43 PMRAISThttp://www.voanews.com/english/news/...118493084.htmlQuote:
VOA: #Japan businesses re-start production but problems remain
Quote:
On Wednesday, Panasonic, Fujitsu and NEC restarted electronics factories. But, as they were doing so, other companies were halting production, because of difficulty getting parts.
Sony stopped work at five factories, including those making television and cameras, because it cannot get raw materials or electronic components.
Toyota and Honda both say they will not resume car production until at least next week and the delay could be longer. Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco explains why.
"We are having trouble setting up a smooth flowing and solid supply chain for electronics parts, for rubber parts and for plastic parts," Nolasco said.
Japan's big manufacturers have complex supply chains and disruption at any point can cause the entire system to stop.
Although quake or tsunami damage has directly hit some parts makers, others have been unable to distribute goods because of road closures in the quake-hit area and a shortage of gasoline across east Japan.
Those problems are showing signs of improvement.
The major Tohoku expressway, that runs from Tokyo through northern Japan, is now open to all trucks and the Petroleum Association of Japan says production of gasoline should be at 90 percent of normal levels by the end of this week.
The cost to businesses and the national economy is still difficult to gauge. The government says the direct cost of destruction of housing, businesses and infrastructure could be as high as $309 billion.
That figure does not include secondary losses, such as those caused by power shortages.
Tokyo Electric Power warned Wednesday that east Japan's current electricity problems could continue for months.
Peak demand for electricity on a hot day in the capital is 60 percent higher than the company can currently generate. The blackouts that have hit areas around Tokyo could extend to residential areas of the city itself.
The utility is short of electricity because 13 power stations remain offline ,and Fukushima Number 1, is likely never to come back online.
On Wednesday, Tokyo Electric asked seven banks for $25 billion to repair the damaged power plants.
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03-23-2011, 10:52 PMRAIST
power demand peaked about @32/33MW last night (8-10pm JST) with the blackout in effect...really wish they would at least try to run without them for a full 24 hours. Peak supply available was 37.5MW on Tuesday, and they managed to keep it limited to @33MW during the morning rush without any blackouts (8-10am JST) yesterday. Seems like there is a lack of trust on TEPCO's end that people won't ration power at night for some reason.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/forecast/html/index-e.html -
03-23-2011, 10:59 PMRAIST
got newsletter from SE...gave me a good laugh:
http://na.square-enix.com/newsletter/tr_trilogy_110322/
I know SE can use all the revenue it can muster after having FFXI down for @ 2 weeks.. but REALLY? TOMB RAIDER?
....the game that just refuses to die... -
03-23-2011, 11:02 PMNightDagger
>< My mother in-law is done work after this week. They are going to close the Ontario Toyota plants cause they have no parts & they only come from Japan.
This is not good for Toyota in is self after everything they have been going through before this.
I hope that they are able to inspect & turn on those 2 power plants that were down for maintenance when the quake hit. Would be nice to know that people can have power 24/7 especially with the cold weather >< -
03-23-2011, 11:04 PMNightDaggerI LOVE the Tomb Raider series ^^. Played them all multiple times. Must be something about a big chested chick jumping around with two guns >.>Quote:
Originally Posted by RAIST
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03-23-2011, 11:13 PMRAISTlol.. yeah. They tried to use the same formula to sell FFX-2. Everyone went nuts when they showed the trailer of Yuna flipping around shooting her guns. Then half the players probly shut it off after the Charlie's Angels YRP moment....Quote:
Originally Posted by NightDagger
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03-23-2011, 11:22 PMRAIST
gamma levels didn't change a whole lot with this morning's figures (7:30PM JST). Slight slope down in Ibaraki though, about a 4-5% drop. Guess that's a good sign. Poking around some to see if there's any good news in a press conference or something. NHK showing the night time footage of the firefighters again.
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03-23-2011, 11:28 PMDeadlyscorpionI work at a local game store and we just got this game yesterday. We probably won't sell it for a long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by RAIST
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03-23-2011, 11:36 PMXethThe ONLY reason I would buy this, would be for all the trophies between the 3 games, but only if previously played :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Deadlyscorpion
I wont pay more than $20 for HD collections from PS2. I only paid $20 for Sly and $20 for God of War Collections :) -
03-23-2011, 11:43 PMDeadlyscorpion
I also want to mention that I picked up a NY Times and I read a story about a school having to move some evacuees to make room for them to be able to hold a graduation ceremony for elementary school students. Breaks my heart to see the images of kids crying ans everyone dressed in black mourning the death of so many. For every success in getting power back in the country, more suffering turns up revealing the harsh truth that the Japanese people must face every day for years to come.
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03-24-2011, 12:19 AMRAIST
bleh... latest TEPCO Press release looks to only cover activity up to about 5pm JST. They sent everyone out of the area b/c of the black smoke coming out of #3. Maybe after lunch some more information comes out.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...1032307-e.html
Gonna have temps below freezing tonight...hope they've got some kerosene heaters. At least they are ending the blackouts after midnight. -
03-24-2011, 04:29 AMRAIST
TEPCO is managing to get a little more power to the grid now--supply peaked at 38.5MW today, 1.5MW more than they've been able to get out in the last week or so. They aren't declaring for certain about running blackouts during the 5pm and 9pm peak JST times today--will evaluate and give at least 2 hour notice. Otherwise, no blackouts planned today.
Tweet from JapanTimes mentioned them detected a "neutron beam" (plutonium or uranium leak?), but unable to load the article. Having trouble getting to some Japan homed sites for info...timing out on page loads. Other sites are loading fine.
Just got an error message that Twitter.com is full to capacity... WTH?!! -
03-24-2011, 04:33 AMMacromOh no the world is gonna end lol TWITTER IS FULL!!!!!!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by RAIST
Rather odd, ive never seen that msg before -
03-24-2011, 04:37 AMRAIST
A few things from the blog at TheTokyoPost, can't get at JapanTimes for some reason:
http://www.thetokyopost.com/news-opi...tion-in-japan/
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Foreign Ministry: 25 nations have either closed their embassies in Tokyo or moved them elsewhere in the country.W7VOA
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(Reuters Life!) - The risk of radiationcontamination from Japan's damaged nuclear power stations hassparked food bans across the globe and more surprisingly, abuying frenzy from South
Quote:
6:55pm quake was 5+ in Iwaki, which is about 50kms from Fukushima 1 plant
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03-24-2011, 04:41 AMRAIST
Found the blurb about the neutron beam at JapanTimes finally:
Quote:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Tepco said the neutron beam measured about 1.5 km southwest of the plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour. This is not a dangerous level of radiation, it added.
The utility said it will also measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam.
In the 1999 criticality accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant run by JCO Co. in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, uranium broke apart continually in nuclear fission, causing a massive amount of neutron beams.
In the latest case at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, a criticality accident has yet to happen.
But the measured neutron beam may be evidence that uranium and plutonium leaked from the plant's nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel have discharged a small amount of neutron beams via fission.
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03-24-2011, 05:11 AMRAISTQuote:
Reactor5 @5pm yesterday, cooling pump stopped workin due 2 tripped electric fuse, temp was under 50c
various reports of supermartkets selling out of bottled water already due to contamination hysteria ginned up by the media--reports were that officials stated contamination likely too high for infants.Quote:
Dolphin tossed by tusnami was rescued in a rice paddy in Sendai. Where does it go?
http://translate.google.com/translat...103220507.html
Japan Times Article on Recent Bank System Failure:Quote:
japantimes: Disasters' cost may hit ¥25 trillion; economic impact expected to surpass that of Hurricane Katrina
Banks eye lending ¥2 trillion to Tepco by monthend
Quote:
Mizuho clears transaction backlog
Kyodo News
Mizuho Bank has resolved the majority of delays in money transfers caused by a recent computer system failure, sources said Wednesday.
But Mizuho was still working to restore a number of online services used by corporate clients, making it unlikely the bank would be able to normalize all operations by Thursday morning.
The large-scale glitch generated a backlog of up to 1.16 million unsettled transactions at one of Japan's biggest commercial banks with a nationwide presence.
Mizuho said Tuesday it had cleared the backlog but then found that tens of thousands of transactions remained unprocessed after receiving a raft of new complaints from account holders, the sources said.
Mizuho officials processed all remaining unsettled transactions later Tuesday night.
The retail banking arm of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. has launched a probe into the cause of the system failure. The breakdown forced Mizuho to suspend all ATM operations for three days from Saturday in a bid to repair its computer system.
Mizuho resumed almost all bank operations Wednesday, including over-the-counter services and transactions via ATMs. It also resumed operations at 2,175 ATMs at unmanned locations that had been suspended through Tuesday.
The bank hopes to process an estimated 1.9 million paychecks Friday.
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03-24-2011, 07:15 AMRAIST
The IAEA.org site has started doing recaps of the situation in Japan. The latest one gives an overview of the status as of last night (JST). Aside from the detail about issues with one of #5's pumps (think it's one for the core system, not the spent fuel pool), at a glance it looked to be a pretty good report on the situation:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html
From TEPCO press release at 21:00 JST, on 3/32/11
( http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...1032308-e.html )
Quote:
At around 5:24 pm on March 23rd, when we switched the temporary Residual
Heat Removal System Seawater Pump, it automatically stopped. We will
repair the pump and maintain the reactor water level and the temperature
in the reactor properly.
from midnight to 6am JST, power has been maintained to at/under a 30MW peak, of the 38.5 peak supply that TEPCO has been able to provide so far--with no blackouts going since @11PM last night. Hope they can continue to keep the power just under the limit and maybe drop another block of blackouts soon. <crossing fingers>
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/forecast/html/index-e.html
**they've added a CSV file (Excel may automatically open browser when you click Download) where you can see the actual numeric peak value of demand per hour now, if you are interested in seeing the figures--Download button is at bottom of the graph at the link above.
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kenmogi: Tap Water scare in Tokyo. It is psychological more than factual at this stage. Bottled waters completely sold out
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W7VOA Latest radiation data for Ibaraki-ken seems to show levels holdings steady at 25x above what they were on Mar. 15
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03-24-2011, 08:10 AMRAIST
8am NHK news break:
white smoke still from #1-4--speculation it is just vapor--no dark smoke from #3 like yesterday.
No significant changes in radiation levels noted as yet
Two reactors showing surface temp drops: #3 @ 57C, #4 @ 22C
All buildings reading surface temps below 40C
Nurseries having difficulty finding bottled water for infant care--even tried getting it over the internet.
Only enough water delivery earmarked for infants up to ~12 months old.
TEPCO reporting no more black smoke visiable at #3 as of 6am JST -
03-24-2011, 09:00 AMChrisstreb
good news to hear regarding the temps and the lack of black smoke at the #3 Reactor
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03-24-2011, 11:49 AMRAIST
From TEPCO's morning press release:
Quote:
Today's work for cooling the spent fuel pools
-At approximately 5:35 am, we started injecting seawater into the fuel
spent pool of Unit 3, using Fuel Pool Cooling and Filtering(clean up)
system (FPC).
-We are considering further spraying at other units and others subject
to the conditions of spent fuel pools.
As of 11:00 AM JST today, TEPCO graph showing no blackout block in effect--power demand holding at just over 3700 at peak during the 8am-11am rush, compared to 3400's yesterday. Wonder if they can ramp up the conservation tonight and avoid a blackout during the 4:00-10:00 peak hours too? Tepco still holding to potentially doing blackouts during those evening hours with a 2 hour notice.
Radiation levels for the most part continuing a gentle slope downward again today. No big movers--but areas close and to the south of Fukushima seemed to be slightly bigger movers at roughly a 4% move again.
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Japan finding it has lots of friends. Latest donors: Sudan ($100k), Gabon ($1m) and Botswana ($150k)
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First we got news Gwen Stefani sending $1 mil. aid to quake-stricken Japan. Now Kim Jong-il (per KCNA) donating $500k
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DailyYomiuri Intl Institute of Education says it will give $5000 scholarships to Japanese studying in the US whose families were victims of the disaster
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stevenagata Tokyo to begin distributing water for use in baby formula to parents of children under 1 year
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Saitama reports level excessive for infants also detected in its water supply
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Tokyo government asks people to refrain from panic buying mineral water
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13 days after the earthquake & tsunami, in Yamagata city, cars still standing in 500m line to get gas.
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03-24-2011, 11:53 AMNightDagger
I do not mean to come across dis-respectful, but do you think that when the servers come back online that the JP player base will cause blackouts to happen again? I mean with the t.v. & console's running plus the increase of bandwidth will be sure to draw a huge amount of power.
Just hope this does not cause more problems. -
03-24-2011, 11:59 AMRAIST
That is the big question...if TEPCO would just let the system do it's job and stop with the @#$@#$ blackouts....
The hydro plants and such ramp up their output when demand gets within a certain range of the supply--we saw that happen yesterday. For the longest time they've been saying potential supply is 36/37 MW... yet, last night, they managed to pull 38.5MW out of their @$$ somehow.
Methinks the power company is just holding out on everyone for fear of the grid going down I guess, which I can understand... but you need to test the limits somehow gdi. -
03-24-2011, 12:16 PMRAIST
powered up control center to #1's control center about 11:30 JST--looking foward to getting cooling systems going once they can get a fair assesment of the plant's systems/gauges. Unclear of just what their expectations for #1 are today until they know more of the plant's status.
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03-24-2011, 12:24 PMRAIST
WOW--they actually updated the blackout schedule for today already:
Group 5 (3:20pm to 7:00pm) and group 1 (6:20 to 10:00pm) were still in question earlier--now they are only planning to do it during the evening prime time from 6:20pm to 10:00pm.Quote:
The planned rolling blackouts on 24 March (Wed) will not be implemented for Group 2 (6:20am to 10:00am, 1:50pm to 5:30pm), Group 3 (9:20am to 1:00pm, 4:50pm to 8:30pm), Group 4 (0:20pm to 4:00pm) and Group 5(3:20pm to 7:00pm). Rolling blackout will be implemented for Group 1(6:20pm to 10:00pm) .
Now.. if we could just get rid of that last one..... DOOOO EEEET!!!!!
Just got an update on some radiation sensors... gamma radiation detected in Ibaraki down almost 7% in the last 16 hours. Been maintaining a drop of close to 9-10% a day the last 2 days.Quote:
marcysensei: Tokai-mura in Ibaraki Pref. distribute water bottls. to infants up to 3yrs old. 2Lt p/pers until exhausting stock
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03-24-2011, 01:40 PMRAIST
grr... was about to go to bed, but TEPCO started a press conference... but can't find an english stream...NHK is still looping recorded content. Here's a JP stream if anyone can follow it:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwakamiyasumi -
03-24-2011, 01:44 PMRAIST
this shouldn't have amused me like it did, but....
my light blue car is turning green from all the pollen here....Quote:
DailyYomiuri: The govt says it's been flooded with calls about "yellow radioactivity" falling from the sky. It's actually just pollen
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03-24-2011, 02:15 PMAltheav
I downloaded the latest earthquake data and did another pivot, this time looking at March 2011 quakes by date. The # of quakes is definitely going down. On the other hand, they've had a few fairly strong quakes (6.3, 6.4, 6.6) in the last 24 hours.
March 2011 Earthquakes through 23rd by Althea Valara, on Flickr -
03-24-2011, 02:58 PMNightDaggerImagine if they saw the smog we have in the major cities of Ontario. O.oQuote:
Originally Posted by RAIST
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03-24-2011, 11:49 PMRAIST
TEPCO released an updated report on repairs at Kashiwazaki plant--hard to read. Only thing I noticed that changed was they resumed seismic reinforcemnts to unit 2 on 3/23, and on unit 4 on 3/22. I guess they are also continuing with closure of Unit 3 as well (started 3/03/2011), though it doesn't specifically state it. It doesn't project any date for when repairs to #2 and #4 are expected to be completed, much less when either reactor may come back online. That site has 3 of 7 reactors that have beeen offline since the quake in 2007. Would surely help a lot if they could get 2 and 4 up soon.
Looks like they are going to try to run pretty much all day with no blackouts again today--the prime time evening block is still in doubt though:
Gotta love the advice they add towards the end of their blackout plan:Quote:
The planned rolling blackouts on 25 March (Fri) will not be implemented for Group 3 (6:20am to 10:00am, 1:50pm to 5:30pm), Group 4 (9:20am to 1:00pm, 4:50pm to 8:30pm), Group 5 (0:20pm to 4:00pm) and Group 1(3:20pm to 7:00pm). As for Group 2 (6:20pm to 10:00pm), we will notice by 2 hours ahead of the starting time.
. . .Quote:
●In order to prevent fires, please make sure to switch off electric
appliances such as hair driers when you leaving home.
●Please carefully pay attention to the traffic at the crossings in
case the traffic lights are suddenly turned off.
●As for the building and apartment, please be aware that equipment
and facility such as elevator, automatic door, automatic lock, and
multilevel parking lot will not function. In particular, please avoid
using elevators not to be trapped during the blackout.
This morning's data dump of radiation levels seem to be showing the same trends as the last 48 hours...gentle slopes downward for the most part. Still a few sensors closer to the Dia Ichi site that are showing some variances, tending to creep up a little still. hopefully they will turn around also once they get more control of the cooling systems. -
03-25-2011, 12:05 AMRAISThttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...wsj_india_mainQuote:
W7VOA RT @wsjindia: High Radiation Levels Seen Outside #Japan Safe Zone
That tweet is a little misleading though... the article actually talks a bit about how levels have actually been seeing some decreases (particularly, the water supply being declared for infants in some areas after further testing).
A good bit of the confusion/hysteria has come from inconsistencies in how sensor data is being collected by TEPCO (reading locations vary)--but the government reports coming out now are using stationary sensors provided by groups that have been monitoring readings in areas since before the incident, so you get a more accurate picture of the progression. Media outlets are starting to follow suit finally and are starting to report changes in these stationary sensors as well. Hopefully as more reliable estimates come down the pipe it will put more people at ease. However, things like this have started cropping up:
As mentioned in the above linked WSJ article, JP officials are declining to comment on US findings of higher radiation levels in outlying areas from methods independant of JP gov. data collections.Quote:
ASAHI: US Navy aerial measurement & MEXT computational model show > 125μSv/high radiation areas NW of reactor and outside of 20km evac line
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03-25-2011, 12:24 AMRAIST
as power supply demand data over the last few days is being reviewed...a trend has been noticed during the off-peak times between when blackouts were/weren't in effect: seems to be roughly a 1-1.5% variance in demand. There is potential based on last nights demand ratings, that the primetime block MIGHT be able to stay within the limit of the 38.5MW peak supply TEPCO has recently been able to provide.
The big question now is whether TEPCO comes to that assessment as well, and just how much faith they put in the conservation efforts to let things go a full 24 hours with no blackouts soon. -
03-25-2011, 12:35 AMRAIST
Japan Times Article:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0110324x2.htmlQuote:
No. 3 cooling pump test-run readied
Smoke rises from reactors 1-4; two workers hospitalized with suspected radiation burns
They were working to setup a test run of cooling pump in #3 today. While workers were running cables, they received radiation burns from concentrated radiation in the standing water inside the plant. TEPCO later issued evacuation of unit 3.
Quote:
Efforts are currently under way to reactivate the cooling pumps in reactors 3 and 4, and engineers will also be checking whether the same could be done with reactors 1 and 2.
Tepco said a test-run of the cooling pump in reactor 3 would be conducted once it can be determined whether there was any water left in the water storage tank, as an empty tank would risk damaging the pump.
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03-25-2011, 12:39 AMNightDagger
Raist,
I think it is awesome how well you keep us informed. You have helped everyone realize the problems & progress in Japan. This is like your own personal blog, I think you should create one now & we can read everything you want to talk about. ^^ -
03-25-2011, 12:45 AMRAIST
bah.. actually thought about it. Once the game goes back online, I'll probly be too focused on it again though. 10 jobs leveled up and none of them have their AF3 +1's completed yet. Too much to do...not enough time--or maybe I'm too much of a freaking FFXI addict.
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03-25-2011, 12:48 AMRAIST
oh boy... just caught a local news blurb. Some radiation fears on the US west coast have kicked off a run on Geiger Counters. One company sold 500 units in 5 days and is having to restock warehouses...
here we go...someone keep the loonies on the path -
03-25-2011, 07:00 AMRAIST
Apparently, today's IAEA breifing covered a LOT of topics on the Japan situation. A nice write-up was done on their Fukushima log:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html
Right out the gate, they gave a good report on what's going on with the reactors, followed by details on the radiation exposure. Here's the first few paragraphs on the reactor statuses:
Quote:
With AC power connected, instrumentation continues to be recovered in Units 1, 2 and 4. Workers returned after being evacuated from Units 3 and 4 on March 23, following confirmation that black smoke emissions from Unit 3 had ceased.
Reactor pressure is increasing in Unit 1, pressure readings are unreliable in Unit 2, and stable in Unit 3 as water continues to be injected through their feed-water pipes. The temperature at the feed-water nozzle of the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) is decreasing at Units 1 (243 ºC) and 3 (about 185 ºC), and stable at Unit 2 (about 102 ºC).
Units 5 and 6 are still under cold shutdown, they are undergoing maintenance using off-site AC power and existing plant equipment.
Dose rates in the containment vessels and suppression chambers of Units 1 and 2 have decreased slightly.
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03-25-2011, 07:19 AMannewandering
When we are all back up this place is going to seem like a ghost town compared to lately. You have done a great job keeping us up to date on all the power problems in Japan. Thank you, Raist.
While I wouldnt wish the situation on any one it has been very educational. -
03-25-2011, 08:01 AMRAIST
some car production to resume soon, some are going to be down longer:
Nissan planning to resume parts and auto production next week, but...Quote:
Toyota Motor Corp. will resume production of three hybrid models in Japan on March 28....
...Honda "will extend closures at its two car assembly factories until April 3, spokesman Tomohiro Okada said today.
Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...tends-shutdownQuote:
it may be several months before inventories and other elements of the country's auto industry return to normal