Japan Fukushima nuclear thread
Discussion
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/jap...
The core at reactor two of the Fukushima plant may have melted on to a concrete floor, according to experts, running the risk of radioactive gases being released into the surrounding area.
Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.
“The indications we have … suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” he told a newspaper.
“I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.”
Holy crap.
The core at reactor two of the Fukushima plant may have melted on to a concrete floor, according to experts, running the risk of radioactive gases being released into the surrounding area.
Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.
“The indications we have … suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” he told a newspaper.
“I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.”
Holy crap.
cuneus said:
Thanks how do you know that ?
I was wondering about how the Japanese react culturally in this situation.
Work in the nuclear industry. Its a fairly small community, so you get to know whats going on.I was wondering about how the Japanese react culturally in this situation.
The Japanese are very organised, and have fairly rigid management structures. This often doesn't work optimally under stress at first, until they have time to get re-organised.
lost in espace said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/jap...
The core at reactor two of the Fukushima plant may have melted on to a concrete floor, according to experts, running the risk of radioactive gases being released into the surrounding area.
Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.
“The indications we have … suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” he told a newspaper.
“I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.”
Holy crap.
Enlighten an idiot please - what are the consequences of a) 'Meltdown' (uncontrolled) b) The containment vessel being breached.The core at reactor two of the Fukushima plant may have melted on to a concrete floor, according to experts, running the risk of radioactive gases being released into the surrounding area.
Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.
“The indications we have … suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” he told a newspaper.
“I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.”
Holy crap.
I understand that large amounts of radioactivity will be released - but on what scale, is it manageable, will it continue burning for years, what is the effect on the other reactors....
Just in layidiots terms really...
andy_s said:
Enlighten an idiot please - what are the consequences of a) 'Meltdown' (uncontrolled) b) The containment vessel being breached.
I understand that large amounts of radioactivity will be released - but on what scale, is it manageable, will it continue burning for years, what is the effect on the other reactors....
Just in layidiots terms really...
It's manageable. 'Meltdown' means that it's sat in a lump somewhere in the containment - it's still cooling and isn't really much harder to deal with, it's just that clean up will be a pain in the arse. This also means that the cladding around the fuel is knackered so that fission products can escape. The gaseous ones, like Xenon, will escape and spread over a wide-ish distance but are unlikely to dose anyone significantly. The other stuff will also make it's way out if the containment is breached via steam/water releases. The only area likely to be contaminated to a significant degree (i.e. dangerous to health) is very close to the plant. I can't see that there'll be an effect on the other reactors, beyond decontamination of the area. I understand that large amounts of radioactivity will be released - but on what scale, is it manageable, will it continue burning for years, what is the effect on the other reactors....
Just in layidiots terms really...
Edit - while I say it's not much harder to deal with you can't cool it with the primary pumps because that cooling circuit will be buggered. I assume it's buggered anyway though as they have the power on now and it still melted (maybe).
Edited by hairykrishna on Tuesday 29th March 21:49
Globs said:
I was making the point that TheRegister was as wildly inaccurate as the rest of the media.
Globs said:
I suppose the register article is better than the average media one
hairykrishna said:
As llewop says - huge volumes of air I guess. 1 decay per ~100000 cubic meters of air is impressively low level!
"Extremely large volumes", according to SEPA.hairykrishna said:
It's manageable. 'Meltdown' means that it's sat in a lump somewhere in the containment - it's still cooling and isn't really much harder to deal with, it's just that clean up will be a pain in the arse. This also means that the cladding around the fuel is knackered so that fission products can escape. The gaseous ones, like Xenon, will escape and spread over a wide-ish distance but are unlikely to dose anyone significantly. The other stuff will also make it's way out if the containment is breached via steam/water releases. The only area likely to be contaminated to a significant degree (i.e. dangerous to health) is very close to the plant. I can't see that there'll be an effect on the other reactors, beyond decontamination of the area.
Edit - while I say it's not much harder to deal with you can't cool it with the primary pumps because that cooling circuit will be buggered. I assume it's buggered anyway though as they have the power on now and it still melted (maybe).
Yes, I think the main risks now are that it's going to take a very long time, and a very large amount of money.Edit - while I say it's not much harder to deal with you can't cool it with the primary pumps because that cooling circuit will be buggered. I assume it's buggered anyway though as they have the power on now and it still melted (maybe).
Cheers,
FT.
Edited by Fume troll on Wednesday 30th March 07:30
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903...
"Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says."
Does this mean entombing them ?
"Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says."
Does this mean entombing them ?
cuneus said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903...
"Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says."
Does this mean entombing them ?
decommissioning them doesn't come as a surprise, after using sea water to cool, let alone what actual damage has occured to the plant, means that they were unlikely ever to be able to use them again, so stating the obvious in some ways."Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says."
Does this mean entombing them ?
regarding what they will do: Entombment? not really a favoured option if there is still fuel there, especially as they currently seem to be having leakage. I'd imagine a (potentially drawn out) options study on how to resolve things in the long term, but they have to stabilise the short term issues first and stop any ongoing leaks/releases.
Timescales: At Chernobyl the sarcophagus was built within a year, so completed by the end of 1986, they continued to operate the other reactors until 2000 when unit 3 (the one twined with unit 4 that exploded) was shut down. As for a 'replacement' for the sarcophagus...we're working on it
So it is not impossible that they will look to restart units 5 and 6 at Fukushima after the immediate response phase has passed.
llewop said:
Timescales: At Chernobyl the sarcophagus was built within a year, so completed by the end of 1986, they continued to operate the other reactors until 2000 when unit 3 (the one twined with unit 4 that exploded) was shut down. As for a 'replacement' for the sarcophagus...we're working on it
That was a stunning feat of engineering, given the huge size and rather hostile environment, the Japanese case would be rather easier to entomb I suspect.That replacement sarcophagus for Chernobyl was supposed to have cost $5bn but they never seemed to have the money. It's immensely irritating that so much radioactive dust is contained by a rusty, leaky structure and so many times the cost of doing it properly have been blown on the stupid religion of AGW.
Globs said:
It's immensely irritating that so much radioactive dust is contained by a rusty, leaky structure ....
And I don't think you've yet mentioned the submarine fleet."MOSCOW: Russia plans to dismantle all of its decommissioned nuclear submarines by 2010 with the help of international aid, an official with the federal nuclear energy agency said Monday. “We hope to regulate the problem of dismantling the nuclear submarines by 2010 with the help of our international partners,†a spokesman for the agency told AFP. Russia has about 100 decommissioned nuclear subs waiting to be dismantled and 70 of these still have nuclear reactors aboard, the spokesman said. The agency estimates it will need nearly four billion dollars to dismantle the subs, which pose an environmental threat to seas around the vast country. Some 192 Soviet-era and Russian submarines are thought to have been decommissioned since the 1980s, of which 89 have been dismantled. AFP"
The catch is that this was written in 2004...
Ozzie Osmond said:
Globs said:
It's immensely irritating that so much radioactive dust is contained by a rusty, leaky structure ....
And I don't think you've yet mentioned the submarine fleet."MOSCOW: Russia plans to dismantle all of its decommissioned nuclear submarines by 2010 with the help of international aid, an official with the federal nuclear energy agency said Monday. “We hope to regulate the problem of dismantling the nuclear submarines by 2010 with the help of our international partners,†a spokesman for the agency told AFP. Russia has about 100 decommissioned nuclear subs waiting to be dismantled and 70 of these still have nuclear reactors aboard, the spokesman said. The agency estimates it will need nearly four billion dollars to dismantle the subs, which pose an environmental threat to seas around the vast country. Some 192 Soviet-era and Russian submarines are thought to have been decommissioned since the 1980s, of which 89 have been dismantled. AFP"
The catch is that this was written in 2004...
Half the thrillers I've read lately have had stolen/salvaged reactors from decommisioned (parked floating oop in t'arctic some place, lots of different places) being hived off to the usual terrorist organisations as booty so they can blow up the world
Pick your terrorist .org of choice for this tale
magpie215 said:
decommissioned submarine reactor sections in storage.
Are those the American ones? For Russian submarines "Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom will work on cleaning up Murmansk region's Andreyeva Bay radioactive waste and SNF storage site. The condition of SNF and other radioactive materials at this site is atrocious and will require special engineering measures. Physical protection must be made a priority. A similar situation exists at Gremikha, also on the Kola Peninsula, where solid radioactive waste was buried in several locations not designated for such materials. No one has completed a full radiation and engineering survey of the area, in order to learn exactly what materials are located where.
"Together, the four storage sites contain SNF from 156 reactor cores, some 23,600 m3 of solid radioactive waste, and 5,300 m3 of liquid radioactive waste, with a total activity of 7.0 x 107Ci, roughly comparable to the estimated amount of radioactivity released during the 1986 Chernobyl accident."
Globs said:
That replacement sarcophagus for Chernobyl was supposed to have cost $5bn but they never seemed to have the money. It's immensely irritating that so much radioactive dust is contained by a rusty, leaky structure and so many times the cost of doing it properly have been blown on the stupid religion of AGW.
I'm being thick: AGW?Not sure where you got your cost estimate from, not that it matters, but somewhat out from the figures I've seen.
I'm not really convinced 'entombment' will be the option selected for the Fukushima site - first priority must be to stabilise each unit. Then get instrumentation in there somehow to assess the state of things, before considering what is the best medium/long term solution for the place. But I'd hope and expect the timescale would be better than for Chernobyl.
llewop said:
I'm being thick: AGW?
Not sure where you got your cost estimate from, not that it matters, but somewhat out from the figures I've seen.
AGW = Anthropogenic Global WarmingNot sure where you got your cost estimate from, not that it matters, but somewhat out from the figures I've seen.
That cost estimate was from some website or video I watched a while ago, it was one figure of many though.
It's not going to be cheap as it's fecking huge and dangerous - have you any estimates?
I think they patched it up not so long ago:
Looking again at the Chernobyl pictures it does seem that we have nothing to fear from the Japanese ones, a meltdown almost seems small potatoes compared to this:
It is striking however that we have lived through a long period where a reactor goes 'pop' or 'fizz' often enough to keep the widespread adoption of nuclear power a matter of concern. This leads me to think that most of the 'bad press' is generated by the operators themselves in mis-handling or mis-designing those plants. For instance if the RMBK didn't have such a huge positive void coefficient (a defect 'ignored'/operated around until the disaster) and if TEPCO has not put their (backup) generators of the beach we'd be much better placed for power.
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