Japan Fukushima nuclear thread

[DamienB]

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.

Globs said:

...exposing the northern hemisphere to extreme danger of long term radionuclide contamination.

Ooh scary. All a bit Daily Mail for me I'm afraid.

[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

[DamienB]

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?

[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!

[hairykrishna]

Globs said:

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.

I doubt it. At most the self heating will be ~tens of kW per tonne. They have power, people and massive pumping capacity on site. Even if it totally collapsed, which seems unlikely, they won't let it melt or heat itself to the point where the zircalloy catches fire.

[Globs]

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

[hairykrishna]

Globs said:

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

Hydrogen from unit 3 making it's way though shared vents. That was the reasonable sounding theory a while back anyway, not sure if it's been updated.

[lost in espace]

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...

[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...

[Busa_Rush]

Globs said:

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...

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

You're not keen on nuclear power are you

[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.

[hairykrishna]

Globs said:

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.

A PWR needs ~15 tons of fuel replacing every year. That's not that much in the grand scheme of things. The 'wasted' energy from decay heat is not actually that large in the context of a power plant, ~10kW per ton after a year. So maybe 7 houses worth of energy usage in the form of heat per refuelling cycle. For a bit - down to about 10% after a decade. If there was a huge amount of it they'd use it, it's just not worth faffing around with.

I do think it's madness that we throw away 'waste' after using about 1% of its potential. We should at least store it in a form where we can get back at it when the price of uranium starts to rise.

[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.

[hairykrishna]

Dunno what the average burnup is in an RBMK. Worse than a PWR but the refuelling will be similar within an order of magnitude. A quick google suggest Leningrad's plant's 4000MW, so of the order of 60 tons a year. Got a reference for the assembly stacking? I'd be curious to see what they're doing.

[supersingle]

Has any country actually got long term storage for high level waste yet? Last I heard Finland had started but wouldn't actually be able to use it for decades. Britain was trying to persuade the people of Cumbria that they should have it and the US was getting nowhere.

The waste must be really stating to mount up now. How long can they realistically keep it all in reactor buildings.

I've heard of a few US plants storing it on site in dry casks but that's only really intermediate storage. The industry needs to sort it out and fast!

[Mobile Chicane]

Mr GrimNasty said:

frosted said:

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

Responsibly and with great bravery.

Whose bravery, exactly?

I toured Estonia in 1992 with my (now) late father. We visited the old homestead (my family were all disposessed in WW2) and had tea with a neighbouring farmers' family.

'Chief' was a youngish bloke, clearly very ill. Leukaemia.

Apparently, the deal with these men was, you 'volunteer' to clean up at Chernobyl. If not, we'll send your entire family to the Gulag. Now what's it to be?

Sickening.

ETA: spelling

Edited by Mobile Chicane on Thursday 16th February 23:16

[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

[Mobile Chicane]

Globs said:

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.

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

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

[Bing o]

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?

[thinfourth2]

I think we should shutdown all power station until they can be made 100% risk free

Coal, gas and oil is even more dangerous then nukes so we should shut them down too