Talking Earthquakes & Fission in Japan

This would be one of the more unusual presentations I have every given. It was to Japanese students learning English, and it was with my daughter and a class she works with as a JET in Sapporo in Japan. The brief was - as you can see - Nuclear Power, earthquakes, New Zealand and Japan. Managed to weave into this a YouTube clip with the All Blacks haka before they played Japan....

There is a tall poppy thing that goes on in the classroom. No matter how hard you try it's quite hard to get a student to say anything - or even ask anything - though one student did ask me what my hobbies were and how old I was. My daughter had encouraged me to bring some chocolate rewards. In fact I found some chocolate coins wrapped in All Black silver paper from the Warehouse. Very popular.

This is a little extract from my presentation. After explaining nuclear power (and that our very own Sir Ernest Rutherford was the first to split the atom), my job was to explain that water cooling is a critical part of a nuclear power station, and that when tsunami knock that out, you rapidly go into a nuclear melt-down. It was interesting. Believe me... And afterwards the students wrote their reactions - in English - and I thought you would enjoy them as much as I did: - I could know how to make power from an atom. Also, I could know about New Zealand and Auckland! I want to go there someday! - Tatsuki Eto - When I heard that Scarlet's father comes, I didn't expect what kind of father comes. In this class, he teached us very simply, so we understood easily. I didn't know that he was a teacher, so I didn't know why a ordinary father knew a lot of things about scients. I enjoyed very much! - The video of athletes dancing a strange dance was very interesting. I could learn about nuclear energy - Yusuke Sawada. - This class was interesting for me. The pictures of Scarlet were cool. I was suprised at height of nuclear power plant. I guess it was difficult to cool down its reactor because it was too big. New Zealand is nice country because they use clean energy. We have to learn from New Zealand but it is difficult for us to clean energy because our population is too large. - Thank you for speeching. I didn't know about system of nuclear power plant well honestly, but I could understand it very much. I wish I had more opportunity to study interesting subject such as this lecture. - Masato Tanaka - Today, I could understand what nuclear power is. I don't agree to use nuclear power generation so I think New Zealand is very nice country. I'd like to stop it in Japan too. - The lecture was very interesting for me. At first, I could see a lot of pictures of city and region in NZ. These picture were unique, so I had more interest in NZ. Next topic was nuclear power. I have examined about the accident in Tohoku area, so I had much information, but your explanation was easier to understand than the internet. Thank you very much! - I felt interesting this class. I learned more earthquack and nuclear. Also this teacher teaches very well. Japanese teacher should learn his teaching style. - I can learned about New Zealand and electric power. Especially I was interested in that hydraulic power is main power generation in New Zealand. I thought that Japanese had to try saving electric power more. I think I missed my calling.

Japan - Media and Plates and Earthquakes

On my flight back to New Zealand from Narita, sat next to a Japanese gentleman who was reading a Japanese newspaper. Apparently the Asahi Shimburn International version. Mostly Japanese characters as far as I could make out, but it did have quite a bit of stuff about Fukishima and the earthquake...

It has this graphic of one of the Fukishima powerstations. It's a very good graphic because it's simple. And it shows the whole thing's operation. The reactor itself is the closed cylinder within the containment vessel on the left of the graphic. It shows the fuel rods at the bottom. It also shows the cold water flowing in, getting hot, turning to steam, and then being piped to the turbine wheel. You can see that this turbine while then turns the generator, which creates electricity, which is then sent on pylon cables for use. The steam then passes for further cooling (condensation back to water), and you can see a further network of pipes at the bottom of the graphic. These will almost certainly be bringing cold seawater in to do this cooling, and the warm seawater is then discharged back into the sea. The water circulating back through the reactor - going in the bottom cold - will be fresh water. The accident at Fukishima primarily relates to the circulating freshwater escaping - as steam - and being released. Because that water passes through the reactor it will be exposed to radioactive fission materials (such as Caesium 137 and Iodine 131), and can be contaminated with those materials which pose a danger to health if the water is released into the environment. Some of that ahs happened. (see blog postings "What the F is happening at Fukishima for more")

Anyway, what was interesting was the way the newspaper also had some neat little graphics about the earthquake and about the tectonic plate movements that caused the quake. The bottom image is a graphic depiction of the fact that the tectonic plate (part of the earth's crust) upon which sit the islands of Japan (including the main island of Honshu, the northern island of Hokkaido etc, shifted or scraped across the Pacific plate, which slid beneath.

What was also interesting was the way the computer map of my plane trip showed this fault, or place where the plates are interacting. I took this photo which shows the plane I was in heading out of Tokyo. The dark chasm to the right is the Pacific faultline which was the epicentre of the magnitude 9.0 quake which hit Japan. It is interesting because all these images and signs suggest that the Japanese people are generally given a good understanding of what has caused the earthquake.

I found these next two images on Google. This one gives the names of the various plates, or sections of the earth's crust, in the vicinity of the earthquake.

And this is a great picture which further illustrates what is happening. The Pacific plate is moving westward and being subducted beneath the northern part of Japan, which is on the Okhotsk Plate. The obvious trench to the east and the mountains and volcanoes of the Japanese islands indicate that this is a place where plates converge. The Southern Alps in the South Island are also caused by upthrusts from plates converging. The epicenter of Japan's earthquake is on the offshore shelf, and not in the trench, as shown in this graphic. Earthquakes are caused by breaking and movement of rocks along the faultline where the two plates collide and slide. The earthquake moved Honshu 2.4 m (7.9 ft) east.