The Fukushima Daiichi Disaster 2011 | Plainly Difficult Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- #Fukushima #Japan #nucleardisaster #atomic
We have covered many reactor incidents on this channel, however something that makes today's subject unique is that the damage to equipment and the environment is probably worse than anything I've covered on this channel.
Needless to say today we are going to dive into the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster which is a Chernobyl scale incident.
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![[UNCUT] “บอสณวัฒน์” ลากไส้!! ใครหนุนหลัง "แม่ตั๊ก ป๋าเบียร์" I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 30 ก.ย. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QlD7mU2KKRk/mqdefault.jpg)
Would you like me to do a video in more depth of the aftermath or even Fukushima Daini? let me know!
Oh, definitely. On your scale, Shit, Yeah!
Yes.
Yes, just make sure it's FACTUAL or you will be hearing from me.
Fuck yaaaaaaa
Yes please. You should bring up how an architect of another nearby NPP insisted on a super high seawall, which they called all these years a mistake or a folly. Until the tsumani. Then that NPP itself became a emergency shelter because it completely survived the disaster with no incidents, thanks to the super high seawall.
"Unit 1 exploded"
*suddenly cuts to an ad that starts with a big explosion, making me nearly jump out of my seat*
It didn't explode, it experienced an unplanned rapid disassembly.
Stormspark to be fair not all unplanned rapid disassembly is unplanned.
And this comment is the reason I justify paying a little more for TH-cam premium lol
@@TheFalseShepphard I really don't care about ads. Just startled me that an ad that started with a massive explosion played just at that moment.
If all ads would be placed so properly, I wouldn't mind them 🤣
In the event of an emergency, the control room that would prevent the plant from melting down was inside an elevated, earthquake-proof airtight vault. The generator needed to power the control room in such an emergency was placed in the basement below sea level about 25 meters from the most tsunami-prone water on the planet. That's "A Brief History of The Fukushima Daiichi Disaster"
Haha, amazing comment! Nailed it right there.
Sadly, that sort of thing happens more often than it should.
Emergency response planning always looks at the obvious and ensures it is robust, but fails to consider the simple but less obvious things...
If it was airtight the water wouldn't have been able to get in
@@bmxerqf882 the control room was air tight But the generator for the room, meaning the electricity, was in a different place beneath sea level and wasn't air tight.
So people could safely stay in the control room. They just would be in the dark with no electricity.
@@bmxerqf882 i would read the comment again.
Yeah, but... All they really needed were some batteries out of the cars in the parking lot, and the company didn't even have to buy those. That's how you meet tight margins in the highly competitive, man vs nature marketplace.
the most important thing i learned is that you can power literally anything with a stolen car battery
👀
true
Some say that stolen battery has more power than bought one
Well, if you have access to a lot of batteries, a soldering iron, solder, lots of wires, and some electronic components (can be salvaged from things if need be), you can indeed take the 12V DC and convert it into whatever you need. The big issue is that there is not a whole lot of power in a car battery. You will do better with marine batteries. Of course, this can be compensated for if you have a LOT of car batteries.
@@NotSoCrazyNinja r/whoosh plus you should do a little reading up before your next stint as a keyboard professional.
My Father was one of the GE engineering leads who was pushing for changes.
About a week before the tsunami he was on site planning more safety systems that would have mitigated the reliance on vulnerable active safety systems.
I remember him coming home that day fuming, which was a rare thing.
Did you remember to turn on the auxiliary cooling to prevent him from exploding???
*Just imagine designing this nuclear reactor, by the sea, and not locating a secondary backup diesel generator a couple miles away, on top of the large hills nearby.*
If there is only 1 backup generator, that's where it should be.
Cost over safety is still a primary problem with nuclear power plants, but it doesn't have to be.
We spend tons more on solar, which produces massively more expensive electricity for consumers.
Wannabe-Environmentalists are ruining our world.
They prevent reservoirs that mitigate droughts for HUGE population centers, because they care much more about 1 species of minnows than they do about tens of millions if people.
They prevent nuclear power installations because they're "scared of them".
They would rather have batteries and solar panels, pretending that neither have massively bad impacts on the environment (those rare metals have to be mined).
They pretend to care about the planet, but they are ignorant as to how to protect the planet.
Quasi-environmentalists need to go.
*Environmentalism NEEDS TO BE FACT-BASED INSTEAD OF BASED ON WHIMSICAL INTERPRETATIONS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO REJECT FACTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.*
*The Japanese govt spent $27bil.. if you compare this to other expenditures you'll realize this is a PALTRY amount.*
@@jonslg240 they threw lives at it.
Dear Plainly,
can you please make a video on Radiation Units. There are so many and I struggle to understand them. I know it's not your typical video content, but it is something featured in many of your videos.
Allso that topic is just plainly difficult, which fits very well.
Thank you for your great content.
Yes, I've had to stop this video, & several others on the same subject, to look up
radiation units. I'm familiar w/Roentgens(used in the US)..., but Sieverts, milli-Sieverts, and penta- Becquerels!?(also what is Grays????)
@@xtremenortherner i recommend looking different types of radiation exposure , sieverts are the unit of measurement of ionizing radiation on the human body i know that for sureee i know the rest of them but the definitions are quite vague 😅😅😅 hopefully he makes one but i doubt such as its been a year since this comment was posted aha 😅
@@xtremenortherner rads measure the same as grays or roentgen. Basically, it says how spicy the air is when it’s given as unit/hour or as an absorbed dose. rem measures the same a sieverts, which says how fast you’re going to die. basically it looks at how much you absorbed and where. Becquerels measures basically how much spicy got released, and I believe curies do the same. And I think I’m forgetting one but I’m not sure. I may have grays and sieverts confused, it’s so convoluted
@@vthegoose No, those units are not "the same"
*Just imagine designing this nuclear reactor, by the sea, and not locating a secondary backup diesel generator a couple miles away, on top of the large hills nearby.*
If there is only 1 backup generator, that's where it should be.
Cost over safety is still a primary problem with nuclear power plants, but it doesn't have to be.
We spend tons more on solar, which produces massively more expensive electricity for consumers.
Wannabe-Environmentalists are ruining our world.
They prevent reservoirs that mitigate droughts for HUGE population centers, because they care much more about 1 species of minnows than they do about tens of millions if people.
They prevent nuclear power installations because they're "scared of them".
They would rather have batteries and solar panels, pretending that neither have massively bad impacts on the environment (those rare metals have to be mined).
They pretend to care about the planet, but they are ignorant as to how to protect the planet.
Quasi-environmentalists need to go.
*Environmentalism NEEDS TO BE FACT-BASED INSTEAD OF BASED ON WHIMSICAL INTERPRETATIONS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO REJECT FACTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.*
"Unintentional containment pressure relief"......now THAT is how a rear USSR aparatchik would describe a total explosion of a reactor to its superior. This can only be topped by an "unrequested fission surplus".
Followed by an "unscheduled waste disposal"
Unscheduled rapid disassembly
Official Incident Report: "The reactor got a little bit wet in a slightly bad way".
Don't forget about the crow that flew into the emergency warning system
Seperation of the forward structure from the rear
ward structure
You know the episode is going to be interesting when it gets put on level sh?t on the plainly difficult disaster scale.
When the scale of 1 to 10 goes to 11, and 11 goes to 11 itself.
I doubt the designers of the original INES scale considered the option of having multiple reactors melting down at the same time all the while dealing with exploding buildings, earthquakes, tsunamis, power failures and inept company management. On the other hand, the PD scale is designed to perfectly capture the moment when you realize that you are knee-deep in radioactive poo.
@Andy Wehrle pretty sure Chernobyl will rank as Sh?t! level as well. Hopefully we won't have to go past that..
I think the rating was pretty excessive to be fair, the event was contained with no direct fatalities and the radiological situation has been under control since.
This is not worse than the Seveso disaster which was only a 7 and it had health effects on a huge area itself... not that it matters, since the scale is a bit for fun, but I wish it was consistent :')
*Just imagine designing this nuclear reactor, by the sea, and not locating a secondary backup diesel generator a couple miles away, on top of the large hills nearby.*
If there is only 1 backup generator, that's where it should be.
Cost over safety is still a primary problem with nuclear power plants, but it doesn't have to be.
We spend tons more on solar, which produces massively more expensive electricity for consumers.
Wannabe-Environmentalists are ruining our world.
They prevent reservoirs that mitigate droughts for HUGE population centers, because they care much more about 1 species of minnows than they do about tens of millions if people.
They prevent nuclear power installations because they're "scared of them".
They would rather have batteries and solar panels, pretending that neither have massively bad impacts on the environment (those rare metals have to be mined).
They pretend to care about the planet, but they are ignorant as to how to protect the planet.
Quasi-environmentalists need to go.
*Environmentalism NEEDS TO BE FACT-BASED INSTEAD OF BASED ON WHIMSICAL INTERPRETATIONS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO REJECT FACTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.*
This incident really underscores the importance of passive reactor safety. Active safety systems cannot be relied upon when they need a constant source of power (or worse, need constant operator intervention). Passive systems need to be in place to control reactor pressure, as well as provide natural (convection-driven) coolant circulation.
This, and better protection for active safety systems as well. Other nuclear plants in Japan struck by the tsunami survived as they had better locations for active safety equipment and higher sea walls.
These GE BWRs with Mark 1 containment design have passive reactor safety. It should have assured passive cooling for 24-36 hours. For reasons still unknown or unspecified, it failed after just a couple of hours in the units that ended up melting.
@zolikoff The reasons aren’t unknown. The convection powered cooling systems were inadvertently thwarted by operator actions. Those had never been tested by the staff on hand so they did not recognize the inadequacy of cooling. For example, each of the two Isolation Steam Condensers on Unit 1 had more than ample cooling capacity. Too much in fact and shock cooling damage was feared. So per procedure, the operators were manually cycling the system. When the tsunami hit, taking out the power, the control handle had just been moved from “shut” to “open”. Lucky right? Not so. The man on the control suspected the actual valve had not had time to open. (And he was correct.) But how to know? To verify they sent someone outside to see if steam was coming from the exhaust port. And it was. But because nobody had ever seen that system in operation, they did not know the volume of steam was far too little. Confident the passive system was operating, they were baffled when the core overheated, blew a gasket, (probably at the PCV head) and then the building exploded.
This is why Thorium reactors are a good idea. They are always a hairs breadth from shutting down. IE you have to actively and constantly fiddle with them to keep them going.
@@JoeMoross Thanks for that info I was not aware the operators messed with the IC.
However the buildings exploding weren't caused by the meltdowns or RPV failure, they occurred much later. They tried venting the generated hydrogen from somewhere around the wetwells to outside the building. However somehow some of the hydrogen got trapped in the superstructure where the machinery and spent fuel pools are. The hydrogen explosions blew apart the superstructure, but that part of the building is designed to give way to an explosion deliberately. This protected the primary reactor containment from rupturing.
The sad thing is that at the dawn of the nuclear age we had fail-safe reactors. It was the industry that decided to go the route of _faster better cheaper assuming all goes well - fingers crossed_ instead.
Make that the Military and you have it right. BWR reactors are indeed very safe when you only plan to put them on ships that float in their coolant. Not so much when you try to adapt that tech to dry land though.
After watching all of Plainly's disaster videos, I'm not so sure calling the early days 'fail-safe' is the right term to use.
@@FlyingSavannahs - I mean the EBR-1, which never had a failure, despite being pushed to the point of ruining the fuel rods.
Ahhhh "better faster cheaper" the theme song of kapitan krazy! We were taught in the "ol days" you could only pick 2 of the 3
It is important to remember how much of our nuclear tech was designed for it's military benefits first, then they tried to cram it into a non military roll.
What shocked me is that there are stone markers on the hill well above the plant that say essentially don't build below this level. It's pretty obvious that prior generations suffered tremendous loss during a tsunami and were so shaken by the events that they bothered to lay down a large number of these markers. The hubris to ignore those warnings and think that a few meter high sea wall would be sufficient is IMHO the root cause of the disaster, coming well before any technical shortcomings of the plant design.
Right? That's humans for you. Ignore close to a thousand yrs. worth of high water markers, and trust in a breakwall.
well, i'd say that putting the emergency generators and their pumps in the basement, which is going to *definitely flood* and then stay flooded in the event of a tsunami that might top any such seawall is really the big issue.
japan like you said has had a lot of major tsunamis, and if they simply built above the waterline for the worst of them, you'd be left with half the usable land in japan designated a flood zone : do not build here. it's fine to build below those markers, just make the absolute fuck sure that it's gonna survive the tsunami when it does happen.
@@wyattroncin941 Yeah. Literally the biggest issue here was the sea wall. "Hey guys, we have some of the worst tsunamis in the world, how are we going to protect the nuclear plant?" "Eh. 5 meters of concrete is more than enough." *_literally has larger tsunamis frequently_* "Perfect!"
Also yeah, the generators and pumps not being waterproofed was fucking stupid, even outside of a tsunami zone. If you put something on the coast, fucking waterproof it.
@@wyattroncin941 even if you have no choice but to put the generators there they make water tight engines that can run underwater plain lack of caring went into the design of these plants
@Non,Player, Adeptus coastal lowering is known and common in subduction zone earthquakes and it was already know that the coast would slip by that amount before the earthquake, though it was believed it woul be a gradual process and not in one event. GE themselves raised concerns over the location of the generators when the reactor was built at a lower elevation than originally intended, but the constructors ignored the concern and went ahead with the original plans, now at an elevation that put the reactor at risk.
seawalls are supposed to stop a tsunami. if japan ignored the ground beneath their feet when building the sea wall, that's japan's fuckup. and it's not like nobody was telling them, the nuclear industry from around the world has long been critical of corruption and lack of safety in japan's nuclear endeavors.
When collecting car batteries like MacGyver to pump water because criticality is going to Roentgen your DAY! You BETTER look good in a Mullet or RUN 😳!!!
The batteries weren't used to pump water. The batteries were used to power the instrumentation used to monitor the reactor condition.
@@daryllect6659 Pass they Air max plus😳!! An you look good in a Mullet!!
What the hell does this mean?
@@astoraan6071
What? Don't you speak Gibberish?
*(sees comment before video)*
"What is this gibberish?"
*(18 minutes later)*
"NANI?!"
Moral of the story: don't let your nuke plant get flooded.
moral of the story don't build Nuclear reactors in Earthquake and Tsunami prone regions...
Look on the bright side. Free instant cooling!
Don't design a bad power plant........
Esp the gennies
@@Strothy2 There are designs which can be used in these type areas. The Fukushima reactors are 1960s designed reactors. In the New Orleans' Charity Hospital disaster during Katrina, the backup generators and power systems failed in the basement when it flooded. The city is mostly below sea level. Who could have foreseen a failure here? Why do architects and engineers put this equipment in the most vulnerable places? It is a lot cheaper. Putting heavy vibrating equipment on top of the buildings means a lot more reenforcing to the top and at the top, and sound dampening materials. I think they think if water starts gushing in, it will be able to be pumped out faster than it comes in. Storing a lot of water on top of a building also weighs a lot. Don't worry, all that needs to be done is to pump the water, no need to have expensive gravity drop water systems. Do these concepts seem to be working? No-one is going to build 1960s designed reactors anymore.
On the evening of March 12th, I met some friends in Umeda to see a movie. Outside JR Osaka Station, newspaper criers were handing out emergency edition newspapers announcing the meltdown. Very scary times. Especially since my Japanese textbook had not yet covered vocabulary for nuclear physicists!
During this happening I remember my dad watching it live on TV here in the UK and at one point saying that the person speaking (in interview) is his equivalent, as he works in emergency planning & safety at one of the Nuclear Power stations here.
Another thing I know is that since this event, the sea defences at the UK stations have been raised to counter a supposedly impossible event here too.
Good to hear other nations taking all steps to prevent this happening, regardless of how likely it may be
One hopes they are also training and testing for the worst case, if the defences fail for whatever reason.
@@onastick2411and store some 12v car batteries for backup of backup systems
Well done, mate. I'd love to hear more about the aftermath, especially since it's basically still ongoing.
Just the story of how many robots have been destroyed trying to get into the damaged areas is interesting enough.
Wait wait, it’s still ongoing?
And yet no one died of radiation exposure.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Lol
@@darksu6947 Show a Fukushima radiation death. LOL
I, too, think your rating scale is far better!
Thank you!
@@PlainlyDifficult Does the highest risk level roughly translate to: "OH GOD RUN" ?
That coffee though, needed work.
@@binkycatfish Pretty sure the highest is instant death. No time to run. Just silence.
@@binkycatfish No. That rating would be just before 'Bollocks', which in turn is second only to "My god, it's full of stars!"
I geuss it be about that time you go over the other level 7 incidents ( soviet anthem intensifies)
Chernobyl is the only other Level 7 incident, there have only ever been 2
Chernobyl is the only other one
We need to pump up those numbers. Release the glow! Bathe in Atom's majesty!
CleanerBen or be divided in Atom’s sight
Alex V thanks for that I stand corrected
I remember watching this live. Seems like it was only last year.
I'm glad its not just me. I remember this so clearly and I'm stunned at how long ago it was.
GOD, yeah. It really doesn't feel like all of this was a decade ago.
The main goal of building nuclear reactors is to provide future content for the "Plainly Difficult" TH-cam channel.
@@DD-zh4by spoken like someone that doesn't understand a joke
NOT TO! The main goal is NOT TO provide future content for "Plainly Difficult"!
They are also used to detect fault lines
😂🤣🤫😂🤣🤫
@@toymachine2328 "Ooops. Might have missed a few words when we typed that contract."
We don´t talk about "The Event"
Please remain indoors.
Haha Hillary said that
It's all fine here.
THE EVENT!?
Now let's play the quiz! (I am so disappointed that only one other person got this.)
Hey, could You put circles determining evacuation radius on map next time?
Sure!
25:25 I also call many ex girlfriends "The difficult to return zone"
😂😂
talk about venting to atmosphere ...
I don't know why, but seeing the picture of the "adequate sea wall" made me lose my shit. 😂😂😂
Same. Given the amount of mass & momentum water has, it's like pissing on an oil-rig fire.
Futile and foredoomed to failure.
"...suck my piston" is the best robot epithet I've ever heard, thanks for that.
oh, and here I was wondering what to do with myself this weekend. well, this solves 1/96th of that problem.
Busted out the ti graphing calculator for this one I bet
@@floodstreet2961 got my TI 84+ Silver Edition. Ballin'
Quick maffs
000
009
I remember following the ongoing daily updates while heading to work after this disaster. Must have been so devastating for residents, cataclysmic destruction and death from the tsunami AND this incident getting worse by the day.
The worst part of the nuclear accident was the absurdly large evacuation… which seems to have killed around 2000 people needlessly.
I cant imagine working in such a stressful situation, like you go to work for a normal day and suddenly its life or death. massive respect to everyone involved
Slight error in the video: You said "the site is managed by TEPCO" but it really should read "the site is MISmanaged by TEPCO" ;-)
So happy you covered this! I remember the night this happened, when the news suddenly switched over to covering the Sendai earthquake. News concerning the happenings of the power plant and the actual safety zone weren’t as straightforward there after. Keep doing what you do!
When I received the earthquake notification that day, I tuned in NHK World. They had a helicopter shot showing the tsunami live rolling inland. Then they swung by the power plant to show the reactor buildings surrounded by water.
The major narrative of showing those things : If you haven't done so already, run.
I can only imagine sitting (probably standing) in the control room there, seeing the non essential workers leave, hearing the explosions.. I bet some real acts of bravery happens those days.
Me too - I was imagining the tension, and the endless brainstorming and attempts at troubleshooting... It was turning into something of a mental J-horror film - very weird and psychological, and you know everyone is screwed.
Some great acts of cowardice were also made that day. I'm suprised he didn't cover them since he must have read some of the interviews given after the event.
I remember reading that older employees and retired nuclear plant workers, as well as other skilled retirees, volunteered to work there after the disaster so that younger employees could be spared.
yES. but this video portrays none of that, its very bland
@@EFCasualI wish you were willing to give me any useful information here, who was cowardly? What actions? Give me a name, or action. I’m sure someone was scared and ran but I can’t research vagueposting.
"Situation was coming back under control" :D lol, well atleast they're not exploding anymore, everyone pat yourselves on the back xD Great video!
You are literally the ONLY TH-camr who gets me to shout “yes!” When I’ve seen you upload.
I know you’re just doing your thing but it really makes my day. I didn’t have a great time with school but I genuinely love to learn. So you making these videos helps a lot. I salute you and others who spend their time educating people.
So glad I found your channel!! I’ve been devouring all the info I can about radiation since I learned about Chernobyl years back when I was at school. It’s fascinating!!
I hope you enjoy all the videos here!
Within 23 hours almost 33k views. For a niche subject. Which means the host is amazing. Thank you for all the effort you put in to the videos. And to all of you out there spending your time here!
The sad thing about this is that those brave workers who put their lives on the line to try and stabilize this disaster face the same hostility that their company faces among the public.
Thanks for covering this! There's a lot of hysteria and misunderstanding about what actually happened and how bad it was.
By 'how bad it was' are you referring to the fact that it was actually a worse disaster than Chernobyl?
No, it was no where near as bad as Chernobyl!
@@slateslavens Chernobyl caused an entire town to become uninhabitable for *thousands* of years, and Fukushima is partially cleaned already, expected to be done in the 2030s or 2040s. No comparison, Chernobyl was worse. Unless you count the deaths caused by the tsunami and earthquake, of course.
@@specialopsdave I guess there's a couple of ways of looking at it. Using the metric of 'when can we move back in', Chernobyl is definitely worse.
By the metric of.... Hmm. Nope. That doesn't work. Even though three reactors melted down vs. one exploding, Chernobyl was still worse. There was absolutely no containment of the explosion. The reactor building _wasn't_ a containment-type building.
I guess the only metric left is how much total radiation was leaked. We know fairly well how much radiation contaminates the CHNPP Exclusion Zone. With Fukushima Daiichi we have a very good grasp on how much contamination is in the surrounding land environment, but we're kind of clueless on how much has ended up offshore.
So even with that one unknown, I think I'm going to have to agree with you. CHNPP was the worse of the two disasters, based on our current understanding of both.
How is it that this video doesn't have more likes? This is the most comprehensive explanation of the Fukushima event I have ever seen. And I've been following it for years.
Well, you probably already know the answer. He has alluded to it in various videos: "if you're watching this channel, you probably already know that [...]"
We are his audience, so it seems peculiar to us that anyone wouldn't be captivated by these videos. But most people don't hunger for in-depth (relatively speaking) videos about nuclear disasters. 😂
@@bsadewitz that's a good point
@@VoreAxalon Maybe people do not like all the misinformation and anti-nuke agenda the video espouses.
I just found your channel, and I am addicted. You do a fantastic job, and I am so impressed with the accessibility you provide with such specific detail. I'm binge watching them!
Thank you so much!
I love how detailed you are in your descriptions of these events. It's highly educational.
Now we're eagerly waiting for the Chernobyl documentary
Big facts
What Chernobyl documentary, you are mistaken there was no graphite. RMBK reactors don't explode. But in seriousness I really want that video lol.
MrCP merely an explosion of the hydrogen tank, now I need fresh fucking water flowing in to the core.
Your choking my reactor!
You didn't see Chernobyl documentarys, just like the Graphite on the ground.
I’ve watched dozens of videos about this and this by far had the most details about how the reactors functioned and failed. This is great!
When unit 1 exploded and the hazmat-suit people said "balls", I cracked up so hard. That was comedic as frick!
"4 hours is a long time"
"Shut up and drink"
😂😄😂
Unit 3: open the valve pls im boiling as heck 😖
I guess you can say. you are a REACTION channel
😂😂
thats awful...... that's not the desired REACTION you expected
ELECTRO HALO8 Hey now. It was just a joke. Don’t have a MELTDOWN.
It would appear we’ve found our CORE audience
What a MASSIVE WAVE of puns
It's so easy to let these disasters slip out of memory after the initial panic wears off. You forget that people are still dealing with the aftermath 10 years later. Thanks for the video.
I remember being in high school when this happened. Several students got together and started collecting donations to send to Japan. I spread like wildfire through the school as we have a fairly large Asian community and did exchange programs in Japan. I can't remember the exact amount but believe it was several thousand dollars in the end sent to relief funds.
Once the chain of events is known for the Beirut explosion, you'll do a video on that, right?
wow i've been waiting for this one
i wish all your vids were this long
Thank you!
Yes, please consider doing a follow up video on the continued aftermath - this thing's not done yet, for sure!
I remember watching one of them blow up live on a 24 hour news feed, the one that really went boom and blew huge concrete panels 100's of feet into the air 😳 quite the thing to watch when you live half a hours drive away from a nuclear station that's also situated right on the coast 👀
Agreed. Drive by it every week thinking exactly the same thing.
For funsies; the sister station to the one near me has just been shuttered thanks to large cracks in its graphite core that are apparently unfixable
No idea if the one near me has the same problem, the owners claim its a slightly different design, but then they also claimed the cracks in the graphite at the other one were not growing and not a problem 👀😳
Lol we lived near avila beach and this was some shit that made you keep an eye on the tower outside your kitchen window
@@mor4y what country?
@@mor4y (there’s no graphite moderated commercial power facilities in the US)
Just a recommendation, please do a video on the Port Hope radium contamination. The way I know it, the story goes: A uranium and radium refinement plant (after extraction of minerals) gave away the leftover contaminated soil as “free filler“. Thus that soil has spread far and wide contaminating the entire town of Port Hope Ontario. I’ll sometimes go scouting over there for hot rocks with my geiger counter. I think it’s a very good video idea.
sounds like it! I want that video too!
As a suggestion for a future, non-nuclear industrial disaster, what about the often-forgotten Piper Alpha disaster?
😉
I absolutely love how much sass you give inanimate objects such as at 18:36 and 28:18
Like the object show but no show 😅
You are one of the best if not the best educational channel for those kind of topics,
I absolutely love your videos
Keep the good work up
Me too! I never knew i would be as fascinated by radioactive events as i am. I started with your windscale video and was on the edge of my seat with my jaw on the floor. LOL... seriously though, the way you lay everything out is really good for the not so atomically educated. Its very easy to follow and understand more about how this stuff works... Thanks for all of them; I finished all your nuclear videos in 1 day! lolz. PS: Please do Chernobyl or Fukishima Danai soon! I really want to hear more about those three guys at chernobyl that got the right valve opened and stopped a much worse outcome.
Lol "not so short" nice.
Byford Dolphin explosive decompression accident would be an interesting topic, btw.
That IS a good one, as far as industrial accidents go. I'm wondering if a "perfect" shipwreck, like the Edmund Fitzgerald, would fit on here...
Thanks for posting it. I didn't know of it and looked it up. This would be among the reasons as much as can be done should be done with remotely operated vehicles.
"Where are you?" " Over there, over there, and up there."
Wow I just posted a link to your channel on twitter. Now I’ll have to share this awesome video too. Good job Plainly_D
Plainly big D*
This is some absolutely fantastic work my friend! I have to say thank you for all of your hard work! If you can dig in more to this and the Chernobyl disasters, I for one would be grateful to you! You do a wonderful job and once again, Thank you!
I wish America could just hire British people to teach in schools and universities. Their humor, and sarcasm is entertaining enough to always pay attention. Plus I think we’ve just been conditioned to listen and learn from all the documentaries and now TH-cam videos they make. 😂
FYI your disaster scale is hilarious. It should be official.
I’m glad they don’t, I can’t stand a British accent even if it’s a funny individual. It’s something I have to look past to pay attention to what they’re saying.
It would be interesting to see the comparison of how much money was generated by nuclear power in Japan compared to the cost of building and then cleanup of just one meltdown. Basically cost benefit analysis would be interesting.
Neoliberalism has corrupted you lots minds so much that you think there is a point to be made in calculating the worth of human lives
@@MajorLeagueBassboost it is a worthwhile calculation. Fossil fuels and green house gases are going to render our planet uninhabitable, just because their effects aren't seen within days or weeks like a nuclear meltdown doesn't mean they aren't extremely dangerous. An analysis as suggested is a way to determine the risk of nuclear power versus other alternatives to fossil fuels. He wasn't being callous and suggesting that meltdowns weren't terrible events, he was suggesting a look into wether it's a worthwhile while risk. While this channel does explore nuclear incidents, on a large scale, they happen rather infrequently and nuclear is considered a safe source of energy.
@@nicholasbrassard3512 yeah until you have to get rid of the fuel... Nukeheads have been claiming that molten salt nuclear waste reactors would be coming any Minute now for the last 50 years or so
Technology does not exist to "clean it up" it's an ele.
@@MajorLeagueBassboost there are methods suggested to store the spent fuel, such methods as used in the Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository in Finland. It isn't ideal, but eventually technology will progress to allow us better alternatives to such disposal. Until then, i'd rather have deep pits of nuclear waste than to see the planet heat up to the point droughts and famine will exterminate our species by the time my daughters are my age in 2050.
It’s amazing how crafty they were in their attempts to cool the reactors
Why are there so many different types of radiation units I never know how much it is
Trust me I had to look it up. Radioactivity is measured by becquerels/curies. Absorbed dose in gray/rad. Dose equivalent in Sieverts/rems. Exposure in coulomb/kilogram/Roentgen. I also had to lookup petabecquerels and found that its 10 to the fifteenth power so when he says 500+ petabecquerels he's talking about 500 quadrillion becquerels. Some crazy shit.
Agreed, I work in medicine so I realize there are multiple units of measure/dose but this is very confusing
jinto1980 Damn boy, Thanks for the info!
Thanks, I am constantly amazed that the details of accidents at site keep changing!!!! I would really like to see a long version of this.
I don’t know very much about many of the subjects covered in this video but it was very interesting and excellently presented in such a way that even I could grasp some of the scale and intensity of this utter disaster. Great work!
5360 mSv/hour!? The "hour of power zone" where you'll get 5 Sv WBD and die in at most an hour or so. Not that your dosimetry isnt gonna be exceeded for the year even as a worker in just a few minutes. All I can say is thank goodness that this site isnt just a "containment cardboard box" like in the USSR. I like lots of distance, time (and Boronated high-density concrete and steel liner) between me and that dose at all times.
72 Sv/hour isnt a dose rate, it's a zone of death. No safe time at exposure like that. Is the air made of criticality there? Normally a dose like that means you didnt read the meter right, hopefully. If not enjoy your next few seconds to minutes of life.
I'm reasonably certain those aren't seconds you're going to particularly enjoy.
If I recall 5Sv is the ld 50 i.e 50% death rate. 10 Sv is a death sentence in less than a month.
There are ways to mitigate the risk even at 5Sv an hour. Not all radiation is the same and the most damaging types is the most easily stopped by clothes or lead.
@@robincray116 1 Sv is 100 Rads, so 5 Sv is 500 Rads and 10 Sv is 1000 Rads. Yep, sounds about right.
If you ever get the time, can you possibly look up the West Valley Cleanup in New York? One of the major rivers that connected to Lake Erie had several toxic and radioactive chemicals buried right on the banks for "cooling" purposes. It was known to cause tumors in fish that swimmed in the part of the river[Cattaragus Creek].
The thumbnail says "Japans worst nuclear disaster." I disagree with that statement.
Well, if you consider strategic nuclear bombing a "disaster" and not just "war," then yes.
@@Horseshoecrabwarrior it was hardly strategic
@@mrcydesign It was literally strategic. What do you think it was?
cybae
It was hardly strategic? You think they dropped those bombs without a strategy?
I see your point. Although in some ways, the Fukushima disaster is worse, because of the damage done to the environment. There's a huge difference between the radiation half-life of a nuclear weapon compared with a nuclear meltdown.
You were slightly off on your plate tectonics. The quake did occur in a subduction zone but did not involve the North American Plate. Instead it was the Pacific Plate subducting under the Okhotsk Plate, one of the minor plates that before the mid 90s was thought to be part of the North American Plate.
Not complaining just thought you might want to know.
You know the poop has hit the fan when they have to raid the carpark for batteries.
"Bob, did you drive into work today? We're going to need you to pop down and fetch your car battery to power this thing"
Preparing myself for the inevitable video on Chernobyl
*russian hard bass intensifies*
3.6r/h not great not terrible
I remember sitting in my first one bedroom apartment watching this unfold through video streaming on various websites. Saw some pretty horrible things I'll probably never forget, bodies of people and pets and total destruction of everything in the floods way. Very sobering.
great job! finally ive been waiting on this. i expected you to talk more about TEPCO'S shady practices and dealings with the public after the disaster though.
There is no after the disaster. It's not like a bomb going off where it explodes n is done. Its gonna continue irradiating the planetfor the next 4 billion years
@@douglasd327 Wow, an idiot! Fukushima didn't explode and no one died from radiation.
@@douglasd327 you read way too far into my comment yo.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk actually, there are areas around Fukushima that won’t be habitable for about 100 years due to radiation. So yes, there will be radiation after effects. And he has the right to say “after the disaster” because there are still after effects. And 1 person was confirmed dead by radiation.
@@PalladlaChouette Nope, you fell for a fake news story, I debunked that one years ago with my video titled, "Origins of a fake Fukushima news story and the media that buys into it". As far as the "100 years" nonsense, you could have just read the report from British scientists, "For The First Time, World Learns Truth About Risk Of Nuclear" where they very clearly show "No one should have been evacuated due to Fukushima radiation".
Holy man, what simple and great video on a unbelievably complicated subject. Thanks Mr. Plainly!
Didn't anyone who designed the generator setup know that basements are known to flood? It's house building 101.
They thought it'll probably be ok and if it isn't then the Japanese government will pick up the bill
"Defense in depth? That's what the seawall is for! Lol." - TEPCO management.
If your japanese manager asks you to build it upside down, you build it upside down. Just do as you're told and don't ask silly questions.
But it's cheaper!! I'm sure they saved a few yen not having to build a big tower and install more powerful coolant and fuel pumps. You get what you pay for.
@@igotes cause towers are great during earthquakes, right?
16:36 "...unit 1 exploded..."
*Cue the upbeat music* Hershey's Cookies & Cream!
Would be really interested in seeing your take on the Bureit explosion. Might take a while before you have all the needed information ect.
Check out Ordinance Lab here on youtube, they had a very good video on their thoughts of the explosion. Done by a former EOD and current (and legal) explosives chemist.
@@codyblea3638 ahh ok ! Didnt get the notification then. Im subbed and have the bell on on their channel... 🤔
@@HRM.H glad to have been your notification then. It's a great video.
Keep 'em coming. I just discovered you today, and instantly knew I wanted to join as a supporter.
Imo the fact a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit the plant and it still was only a tenth of the Chernobyl disaster says to me the plant design, procedures and individual actions did a great job of minimizing harm to the population and environment.
Almost all was due to the containment vessels that Chernobyl was not built with.
The Fastest click in the west
Suppression Chamber: that's a chamber where Japanese go to suppress their emotions. However, at one point the pressure of the pent up emotions exceeds the design spec of their skull and an uncontrolled venting occurs.
That is the most disgusting coffee I've ever seen anyone make 😑 great video though lol
As my friend's dad stated, if you don't think of instant coffee as coffee, it is palatable.
@@buillioncubes good instant coffee can be as good as a regular cup. But it will never be as good as fresh ground from freshly roasted beans.
The real travesty is the creamer and sugar. Black or a bit of honey is the only way to go.
@@codyblea3638 "or a bit of honey"
*retching*
The greatest tragedy beside the tsunami victims is that units 5 & 6 of Daiichi as well as all units of Daini are permanently shut down instead of continuing operation. As well as most of the rest of Japan's reactors.
The greatest tragedy is that Germany shut down its nuclear power plants due to this. Germany became much more dependent on Russian gas. This gave Russia a large war chest + a permanent blackmail option towards Germany, which led to a weak reaction to the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and made Russia brave enough to invade again in 2022.
The sad thing about this disaster is that for once, it wasn't the operator's fault and yet they still had to deal with the mess
I've been watching a lot of your videos and have always wondered why there is no off-site backup control room to take over controls in the event like this.
So that the staff on site can properly evacuate if need be and not have to stay to monitor and get exposed.
That’s what I always wonder too. I also feel like there has to be a better way to observe the reactor other than having to step into the room and take a peek in person.
How about covering the events at Fukushima Daini (Number Two) as well?
Do note that the stress caused by the evacuation likely caused more deaths and injuries than could have happened if they weren't evacuated.
All deaths in the evacuation were due to the fear of radiation, not actual radiation. No one would have died if everyone stayed put either.
Thanks, two critical points were clearly described. One is Pressure Vessel circuit phenomena, the other is mSy criteria issue. Both are still not yet prevailed to share as common facts.
Fukushima 50 is a good movie, but it forgets to highlight that TEPCO executives ignored tsunami defense recommendations.
You explain all of this very good. After binging a ton of our videos, I feel pretty confident I could safely operate a large nuclear reactor and maybe even build one myself.
*the US government has entered the chat*
The atomic boyscout built a nuclear reactor from things he could get
@@southyorkshiretrainspotter8846 but it was small, it couldn’t power anything and could only contaminate a small neighborhood.
With all of my knowledge from this channel I could build and operate a big reactor safely, I know everything that could go wrong! (I was joking)
I know you was joking
Longest and best episode yet! Keep up the great work. And by the way, fantastic humor..."this reactor can suck my piston" 🤣
Still safer power production than coal and oil.
To me, this was an event where I remember exactly where I was when I heard it had happened. At the bus hub in middle school one frigid morning, waiting to transfer from the bus that picked me up to the one that would take me to school. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since this all happened.
I remember unit#3 I was crying, muttering this can't be happening, " and then the nuke mushroom cloud went up. All I could remember was Charlton Heston's line from "Planet of the Apes!"
"You bastards! Blew it up! You killed us all! You bastards!!!! " 😢😢😢😢 Over and Over! 🤬
Holy shit man. You outdid yourself on this one. Very informative. And your deep dive into the plant layout was phenomenal. Well done!
22:50 Thanks to Tepco we have a brand new international hazard symbol, this one for lethal incompetence.
3:32 Behold foreigners, the electric kettle!
It'd be nice to have a video explaining all of the measurements. Like, can we have 10 Rontogen's for every 2 milliSeverts kinda thing? How do they all compare with each other?
A sievert is an unit that depends on the areas of your body exposed, so a critical area being irradiated will mean more sieverts. There's tables on the internet. Grays would be the true absorbed dose, roentgens are background radiation. Radiation units are a bit fucky because they all mean slightly different things
@@waharadome I see. Well it'll be a fun explanation, especially with the plainly difficult scale!
@@burkezillar The higher it goes in exposure, the worse the insults. Pray you don't ever hear what he has for Chernobyl :-)
Nice to actually hear a time-line and not just a quick summary. Love the meltdown videos.
it’s frustrating that this design relied on external power sources for cooling, the reactors generate spectacular amounts of energy, ideally reactors would include a closed loop system in which the reactors own energy is harnessed to cool them.
Would 1000 millisieverts per hours be one sievert per hours? Asking för a friend. This gives me an idea though. Maybe make a video which describes the Units of measurement. I havnt a clue what any of them mean.
1000 millisieverts is about 2 African elephants worth or 1 London bus, or half a football field with a depth of up to about there,
@@gbarnewall1 and a beckerell is a Dolly multiplied by a comical divided by a funny.