The loss of power is actually one of the aspects of the situation that I find especially tragic.
The USS Ronald Reagan is only 100 miles offshore and has its own nuclear power plant that could be tied into the local grid to provide emergency power to things like the water treatment plants, hospitals, and even the cooling system at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility.
I know the details of parking an aircraft carrier outside a devastated port city and plugging it into the grid aren't trivial, but I wonder if it's something that's been considered?
The problem would be that of matching frequency and phase with the mainland grid. The Kantou, Touhoku, and Hokkaidou area grids run at 50hz, unlike the North American standard of 60hz - so if the ship is using 60hz they'd have to convert to DC and back to AC; this conversion equipment may not be easily available immediately. Even if the frequency matches, you'd need to match phase with the grid as a whole (or intentionally isolate the segment of the grid you're powering). It's safe to say the reactors in an aircraft carrier aren't designed with phase adjustment in mind.
You'd also need some very heavy duty cables to link to the ship's internal grid. And there's no guarantee that the ship would have enough sheer power to do something like that. Moreover, if the local grid itself is devastated, you have nothing to plug into in the first place...
Yeah, it's no small task, but definitely possible. Japan's electrical grid actually operates at both 50hz some places and 60hz in other places, so it's likely that they have the equipment somewhere that could be flown in by helicopter to make it happen.
The electrical engineer in me is fascinated by this stuff, so I submitted a new topic. Maybe people more knowledgeable will comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2327908
They do indeed have some conversion stations, but these stations are already working at full capacity trying to support the kantou area grid (which is having rolling blackouts due to power plant shutdowns). They're also probably not very portable.
This sounds good in theory, but I doubt there's even a functioning grid to plug into. If the grid was ok, they surely would have been able to bring in at least some amount of power from unharmed areas.
The USS Ronald Reagan is only 100 miles offshore and has its own nuclear power plant that could be tied into the local grid to provide emergency power to things like the water treatment plants, hospitals, and even the cooling system at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility.
I know the details of parking an aircraft carrier outside a devastated port city and plugging it into the grid aren't trivial, but I wonder if it's something that's been considered?
FWIW: some great discussion here: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=52136