Japan Fukushima nuclear thread

[Globs]

Intrigued by TF2's issues about nuclear safety I found this interesting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SruTxZJyMkA

He also does some calculations too which are instructive, and the fact that nuclear fuel melts at 2800 C whereas the steel containment melts at 1400 C. This is why the corium in the three Fukushima reactors left the building.

For instance #1 reactor (the smallest) is at 460 MW, which means it needs about 3x that in heat (these things are only 33% efficient) so that's 1380 MW, so when it's switched 'off' (no neutron reactions) it has 7% power or 96.6 MW of heat to get rid off. So when you leave the cooling off for a few hours or even days that 96.600 kW of heat (imagine nearly a hundred thousand 1kw electric bar heaters) causes the fuel to melt and form the corium melt at the bottom. Once it's melting through the containment it's a big blob that's impossible to cool and carries on downward through everything.

Incidentally there are a lot of 'shallow' earthquakes now coming from directly under the plant, so it's either coincidence or the melt causing steam explosions.

In other news I think there was a big explosion at #4, so that would have been the spent fuel pool, no containment there, so lets hope that not too much radiation got out. If only 3% of the material at Chernobyl caused the amount of radiation seen after that incident I suspect Fukushima will become a much bigger problem than that was. Also more people are dying and more coverups are happening about these deaths. It's interesting comparing the USSR's response to Chernobyl to that of Fukushima, in a way #3 is very similar with fuel lying about and deadly levels of radiation abound, but I think we had more visibility of the soviet operation (ironically) and I think they knew what they were doing, I'm not convinced the Japanese have any plan at all.

Still most news comes from the fringe: http://enenews.com/japan-official-fukushima-seriou...
http://enenews.com/report-journalist-gets-inside-f...

although the WSJ has reported some issues.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/01/13/for-...
http://enenews.com/wsj-latest-food-scare-hits-japa...
Worrying that radiation levels are going up everywhere, this is getting worse, not better.

Still efforts are decontamination prove futile: http://enenews.com/report-radiation-levels-double-...

so we'd better hope it's all harmless after all, because otherwise Japan is going to lose an awful lot of prime land usage.
So it looks like #3 was the worse short term contaminant, then #4 (as none of the fuel was in the containment), then #1 - damaged very early on and the first to leave the building, then #2 as the safest meltdown at the plant.

[Globs]

hairykrishna said:

96600kW not 96.6kW. Best to keep your decimal points in check.

Doh - that was supposed to be a comma!

hairykrishna said:

This is heat immediately after shutdown. After a day, it's <0.5% down from 6.5%. By now it's down to hundreds of kW. I doubt it's causing steam explosions.

I think re-criticality is the main source of heat now - would a large blob of corium do that of would it require a moderator?

hairykrishna said:

Nice tool for visualising decay post shutdown; http://www.energyfromthorium.com/javaws/DecayChain...
One for playing with decay heat; http://www.energyfromthorium.com/javaws/SpentFuelE...

Where's your evidence for these 'covered up' radiation deaths?

Cheers for the tools I'll check them out

The deaths are in the Enenews links. Is there a 3rd party monitoring health (and numbers!) of staff at the plant? I read that the Fukushima hospital was losing funding but can't see anyway to verify the deaths or health by official means, and TEPCO have lied too often to be trusted. All the rumours, hearsay and tweeting are of deaths at the plant.

[Globs]

Three Mile Island: The Inside Story:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi09.htm



Fascinating stuff, amazing how hard the set corium was too. And how much melted in such a short time.
I guess we are comparing the US second worst disaster of a overheating 'blip' in a fully functional plant to a plant with ruptured pipes and a week long blackout, containing three melting reactors and many fractured and boiling fuel pools.

The NYTimes reports: Panel Challenges Japan’s Account of Nuclear Disaster
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/business/global/...

article said:

Several investigations — including inquiries by the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, and the government — have blamed the scale of the tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern coast in March, knocking out vital cooling systems at the plant.

But critics in Japan and overseas have called for a fuller accounting of whether Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, sufficiently considered historically documented tsunami risks, and whether it could have done more to minimize the damage once waves hit the plant.

Questions also linger as to the extent of damage to the plant caused by the earthquake even before the tsunami hit. Any evidence of serious quake damage at the plant would cast new doubt on the safety of other reactors in quake-prone Japan. Tsunamis are far less frequent.

I'm glad someone is finally going to say what we've all been saying: Running ancient (1971+) nuclear power stations on major fault lines in tsunami zones with back-up generators on the beach was stupid and avoidable.

[Globs]

It looks very cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgNwtepP-6M

Shows the shielding effect of the water too!

[Globs]

Yes, not going well out there .

Rumours of underground explosions and widespread fallout too, the story has still a long way to run. They haven't even located the corium that remained or left the building either yet - it's all gone a bit Pete Tong. Still spewing out radiation into the air and water too, Chernobyl was very very bad (the radiation killed trees there) but this will end up being worse IMO because the USSR dealt with the problem, whereas TEPCO is IMO 'fking useless'.

The birds seem to be disappearing ( HERE ) but could be due to the inundations I guess. Many deformaties are reported however - something is playing hell with their DNA: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/3094958

The fallout is spreading too:
http://www.infowars.com/fukushima-radiation-spread...

article said:

California, Finland, Canada, Australia Hit By Radiation
The University of California at Berkeley detected cesium levels in San Francisco area milk above over EPA limits … and even higher than they were 6 months ago.

Finnish public television says that cesium from Fukushima has been detected in lichens, fungi and elk and reindeer meat in Finland.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency confirmed a radiation cloud over the East Coast of Australia.
The West Coast of Canada is getting hit by debris from Japan … and at least some of it is likely radioactive.

There is still too much I131 over europe too IIRC. From http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/fuku... I have also seen for some time that TEPCO are not telling us anything and that the problems with the plant are not getting solved. At least #4 fuel pond hasn't collapsed yet.
Nothing on TV here, the Baftas are what we see, not the yesterday's news unfolding nuclear disaster overseen by a bunch of paranoid incompetent morons.

That has to be countered by the explosions in #1, #2, #3 and #4 reactor buildings though - it would not have been so bad if they had just melted down but the explosions have made containment impossible (although the bulk of the material in the used fuel pools was never contained) and meant that it's a real guessing game.

The Mayor doesn't seem very well either: http://enenews.com/mayor-fukushima-ive-lost-almost... (with hair loss and chronic nosebleeds). Not understood the nosebleeds thing but it seems widely reported ( http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fukushima+noseble...), it could be stress I guess.

Still if I was in New York I'd be more worried about Indian Point, an ageing reactor of the same design that Entergy ( http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Entergy+nuclear+l...) wants to run for a few extra decades beyond its design life.

Reminds me of a not-so-funny story I heard about solar flares - if we had a big enough one to knock out the grid for a while it's possible that many of the nuclear plants could not cool themselves and end up like #1 Daiichi.

[Globs]

frosted said:

How did the USSR deal with anything, you even know what your talking about ?

Your grammar almost as bad as your ignorance.

The USSR made great sacrifice to put out the fire at Chernobyl/Pripyat, the made further sacrifices to bury the worst of the radioactive material, they made great sacrifice in emptying the water pooled below the water (a man knowingly died opening that valve), and more sacrifice protecting the ground below the reactor by excavating it and filling it with concrete.

They had a regrettable accident but they grasped the nettle and many people died to ensure our safety. The emissions were stopped as soon as humanly possible and they made sure they knew the melt was contained and in a safe state.

Maybe you should watch some of the documentaries on youtube to educate yourself before insulting those who died for your safety?

[Globs]

hidetheelephants said:

I'm not really impressed by those links

Thanks for sharing.

This is reactor 4:


We must have all collectively missed the media reporting on the explosion that tore that apart, which was an odd thing to happen considering the reactor vessel was empty at the time. Maybe TEPCO don't want to worry us about what may happen if it collapses. A real risk with continuing earthquakes - one only this morning in fact.

Dr. Arnie Gundersen warns they need to go further than 450km if it does collapse:


So if you choose to choose denial as your coping mechanism that's great, but the laws of physics and the weather patterns and building stresses will continue along just the same. You may want to cross your fingers if that makes it easier.

What would actually help would be to attack and expose TEPCO and thus get some responsible international effort to solve some of the issues, this will never happen while we all apologize for TEPCOs insane trick of managing the PR while exposing the northern hemisphere to extreme danger of long term radionuclide contamination.

[Globs]

DamienB said:

Globs said:

This is reactor 4:
...

We must have all collectively missed the media reporting on the explosion that tore that apart, which was an odd thing to happen considering the reactor vessel was empty at the time.

Well I didn't miss it. This is TEPCO's initial press release:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/1...

They released a photo of the damaged building the next day. The media reported it.

Thanks for digging that out, great work!!
It's still a little ambiguous but it seems that Unit 4 had it's own explosion, and a pretty big one too.
Most of the force of Unit 3's explosion appears to have gone upwards (and also therefore downwards) blowing that SFP (spent fuel pool) to bits, I guess that would not have helped Unit 4 either.

Unit4 is completely wrecked and subject to some lean and danger of falling down. TEPCO has reported increasing leakage of the SFP4 recently too as the cracks grow. It's easy to be casual about these things and pretend it's just the Daily Mail hysteria but if that pool does collapse it will mean many reactors worth of spent fuel (some of it fairly freshly radioactive) melting down and bursting into flames, no one will be able to get near them (as the shielding water will have gone) and we could see far greater pollution that we have up to now.

BTW it affects the northern hemisphere not because of hysteria, but due to the rotation of the planet and the prevailing winds - it's really just basic stuff - no mystery here. The initial leaks covered the Pacific, the US (west coast and central states) and can be detected as far as Finland, and there is still an unexplained I-131 signature in europe. I don't expect a much bigger leak would behave very differently - so I don't know why you do Damien - care to explain?

ETA: Found a graph of Unit2 sensors on the grapevine:

Edited by Globs on Tuesday 14th February 18:17

[Globs]

DamienB said:

Your definition of "extreme danger" clearly differs from mine.

Something *might* happen that *might* result in the release of some radioactive crap that *might* get all the way to Blighty and if it does so will be of an insignificant level. That's not "extreme danger" really, is it?

You're also repeatedly accusing Tepco of not telling us anything and not doing enough, while not bothering to read their press releases, or apparently keep up with media reports. The "la la I'm not listening" tactic of informing oneself is going to leave one looking a little ignorant, no?

Thanks for your input Damien, good to have you onboard!

[Globs]

Hairy, do you know why Unit4 exploded?
The reason for the explosion is puzzling me..

[Globs]

lost in espace said:

Daily Mail (I know) reports that scientists are warning that a fault under the power plant is due to move in a big way soon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-210...

article said:

Dapeng Zhao, geophysics professor at Japan's Tohoku University, said: 'There are a few active faults in the nuclear power plant area

FFS they've operating this plant on top of known fault lines (in possibly the world's most active earthquake region) for how many decades? The word 'Idiots' doesn't seem to go far enough...

[Globs]

Busa_Rush said:

The whole region is on fault lines, not much they can do about it.

You're not keen on nuclear power are you

I am keen on it if it can be intrinsically safe, and the waste can be used.

It bugs me that spent fuel pools are cooled - such a waste of energy and fuel, and that there is no solution to the waste. All these spent fuel pools in Fukushima - that's just one symptom on the lack of a solution. For every reactor there are huge amounts of waste piled up - so we get 50 years of power and a waste management issue for the next 500,000 years. It's all a bit short sighted.

Then there's the idiot factor - even good well run plants can be sold to cowboys like Entergy who will cause the next disaster I'm sure. Building on fault lines, back up generators in tsunami zones - all idiotic decisions for a technology that causes merry hell if the cooling stops for too long.

With the waste problem and the idiot factor (the force is strong with the idiot factor) I don't think people are competent to run nuclear power stations. Also look at the dangers of a nuclear success - what if you succeed and open another thousand nuclear power plants. Up goes the waste issue, up goes the chance of a fallout incident, and up goes the issues associated with mining uranium and the security issue. Look at the middle east - run by idiots, in a war zone, what's the last thing you want? - yup - a bunch of nuclear reactors.

As for doing something about building on fault lines, they could stop doing it. Western Japan is far safer so they should all be sited there (although prevailing winds would suck with a fallout event). Running 1970s reactors on known fault lines next to the sea was clearly insane, it just took until last year for TEPCO to prove it.

[Globs]

hairykrishna said:

A PWR needs ~15 tons of fuel replacing every year. That's not that much in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe a PWR is better but the Leningrad plant is resorting to desperate methods to pack out their failing buildings, with twice as many fuel assemblies as designed, using a crude method of stacking them in that makes them very difficult to monitor.

Many places must be running out of safe storage now.

[Globs]

hairykrishna said:

Got a reference for the assembly stacking? I'd be curious to see what they're doing.

http://www.bellona.org/filearchive/fil_lnpp.pdf

It's a long and sobering read and I haven't got to the end yet! Make you realise how much of a problem this waste is - getting rid of the damn stuff, storing it, caring for it, cooling it, monitoring it, more and more of the wretched stuff.

Fast forward to p39 for the diagram of their 'densification'. A stupid idea IMO, literally storing up problems for later.

ETA image.


Note how you can't check inside the FA with the new system.

Edited by Globs on Friday 17th February 22:23

[Globs]

Bing o said:

Mobile Chicane said:

one-off incident triggered by an earthquake. Hardly a reason to stop investing in nuclear power.

Limitless, clean energy. What's not to like?

If it's so clean, why was your neighbour dying of Lukemia?

And if it's so safe, how come not a single insurance company will insure any plant?

[Globs]

supersingle said:

I don't understand PH sometimes. Whenever the state supports an unviable business model people are (quite rightly) up in arms. But, for some reason nuclear power is a special case which warrants enormous government subsidy and guarantees should it go wrong.

Nuclear power would not exist without state and taxpayer support. That is a fact.

Inconvenient truths indeed.
In a free market economy nuclear for the west would have stopped with Three Mile Island.

[Globs]

DamienB said:

So what you're saying is, we should have either

(a) a world without nuclear power, where limited gas, coal & oil resources would be used up more quickly thus raising energy prices to all far beyond current prices

or

(b) a world with nuclear power where the consumers pay all of the bill to the power companies rather than paying part of the bill to the power companies and part of the bill as taxes to the government, but basically spend the same amount of money either way, yet probably less money than (a)?

No, those are your own narrow thoughts, not mine.
I think it should be left to the market to decide: I am small government minded, so all subsidies are out.

[Globs]

eldar said:

In the same way Jet travel should have stopped with the Comet?

Why would the market resist a faster cheaper and more reliable way to travel?
I'm not sure you've got the hang of this analogy thing...

In fact the UK jet scene was destroyed by the government giving away all the rights to the US IIRC.. more meddling.

[Globs]

I missed that but I think this is the iPlayer link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cpd2m/This...

Will watch it soon!

[Globs]

Yes it was reactor 2, 60cm of water:

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120327p2g00m...

fk knows where the core actually is, but some blobs of it are evidently still in the vessel or the radiation wouldn't be so high - so the high reading is a good thing IMO.