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Fukushima March 18 evening update, Barry Brook on the future of nuclear energy

The following is not a  significant new update on the situation at Fukushima (see here for the 18 March morning update), because so little information has emerged since my last update this morning. But there is some new information.

Below I summarise what news and data I’ve gathered today, and then provide a 25 minute video of me, recorded just a few days ago, talking about the potential impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident on the future of nuclear power deployment, and the prospects of new technologies.

First to Fukushima News. Here is what I’ve gathered so far today:

1. There have been no new updates from World Nuclear News or NEI updates. The IAEA provided an ‘update’ on Temperature of Spent Fuel Pools at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which didn’t really say anything new. The latest TEPCO news release doesn’t add much.

2. NHK news shows some footage of the fire trucks of the self defence forces and Tokyo fire department (including some borrowed trucks from the locally deployed US military), in the act of hosing down units 3 and 4 with the aim of raising the water levels in the open-topped spent fuel storage ponds (see here for more details) — they are doing this in serial rather than parallel, due to the difficulty in site access because of debris. They think this will be just as effective anyway. There was clearly steam rising as a result of this addition of some 50 tonnes of water, and a measured drop in on-site radioactivity as a result, so it does seem to be having some effect. I can’t say much more than this.

3. The external power line is now stretched to the site and they hope to have AC power connected by early Saturday (JST). The goal is to allow operators to restart Emergency Core Cooling System and Residual Heat Removal pumps for the reactor. TEPCO continues to install cables, transformers and distribution equipment to restore offsite grid power to Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 and 2. Reactor 1 has now been included in the power restoration plan. Radiation around the reactor buildings are still around 20 mSv/hr, which although much lower than previously, is still hampering operations.

4. Kyodo News reports the following (extract)

The Tokyo Fire Department is slated to join in the operation at the Fukushima plant with 30 trucks capable of discharging massive amounts of water to high places and some 140 firefighters of its ”hyper rescue” team, who are specialists in rescue operations in large-scale disasters.

But a Tokyo police water cannon truck, whose contribution Thursday was revised Friday to 44 tons from the initially reported 4 tons, and the SDF choppers were not mobilized Friday.

Radiation readings at the troubled nuclear plant have consistently followed a downward path through Friday morning, according to data taken roughly 1 kilometer west of the plant’s No. 2 reactor, but plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. stopped short of calling the move a trend.

The radiation level at 11 a.m. dropped to 265.0 microsievert per hour from 351.4 microsievert per hour at 12:30 a.m. Thursday. It measured 292.2 microsievert per hour at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, shortly after SDF trucks sprayed water at the No. 3 reactor pool as part of efforts to avert any massive emission of radioactive materials into the air from the facility.

The the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum has provided their 12th reactor-by-reactor status update (16:00 March 18). It doesn’t really say anything new:

Here is the latest FEPC status report:

———————-

• Radiation Levels

o At 9:20AM (JST) on March 17, radiation level at elevation of 1,000ft above Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: 4,130 micro sievert.

o At 9:20AM on March 17, radiation level at elevation of 300ft above Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: 87,700 micro sievert.

o At 11:10AM on March 17, radiation level at main gate (approximately 3,281 feet from Unit 2 reactor building) of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: 646.2 micro sievert.

o At 7:50PM on March 17, radiation level outside main office building (approximately 1,640 feet from Unit 2 reactor building) of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: 3,599 micro sievert.

o For comparison, a human receives 2,400 micro sievert per year from natural radiation in the form of sunlight, radon, and other sources. One chest CT scan generates 6,900 micro sievert per scan.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor

o Since 10:30AM on March 14, the pressure within the primary containment vessel cannot be measured.

o At 12:50PM on March 17, pressure inside the reactor core: 0.185MPa.

o At 12:50PM on March 17, water level inside the reactor core: 1.7 meters below the top of the fuel rods.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 reactor

o At 12:25PM on March 16, pressure inside the primary containment vessel: 0.40MPaabs.

o At 12:50PM on March 17, pressure inside the reactor core: -0.027MPa.

o At 12:50PM on March 17, water level inside the reactor core: 1.8 meters below the top of the fuel rods.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 reactor

o At 12:40PM on March 16, pressure inside the primary containment vessel: 0.23MPaabs.

o At 6:15AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber was observed to fluctuate.

o At 7:00AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.22MPa.

o At 7:05AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.44MPa.

o At 7:10AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.26MPa.

o At 7:15AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.52MPa.

o At 7:20AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.13MPa.

o At 7:25AM on March 17, pressure inside the suppression chamber: 0.57MPa.

o At 9:48AM on March 17, a Self Defense Forces helicopter made four water drops aimed for the spent fuel pool.

o At 4:35PM on March 17, pressure inside the reactor core: 0.005MPa.

o At 4:35PM on March 17, water level inside the reactor core: 1.95 meters below the top of the fuel rods.

o At 7:05PM on March 17, a police water cannon began to shoot water aimed at the spent fuel pool until 7:22PM.

o At 7:35PM on March 17, five Self Defense Forces emergency fire vehicles shot water aimed at the spent fuel pool, until 8:09PM.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 reactor

o No official updates to the information in our March 16 update have been provided.

o Through visual surveys from the helicopter flying above the Unit 4 reactor secondary containment building on March 16, it was observed that water remained in the spent fuel pool. The helicopter was measuring radiation levels above Unit 4 reactor secondary containment building in preparation for water drops. This report has not been officially confirmed.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 5 reactor

o At 12:00PM on March 17, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 147.56 degrees Fahrenheit.

o At 5:00PM on March 17, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 148.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 6 reactor

o At 12:00PM on March 17, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 144.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

o At 5:00PM on March 17, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 147.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

———————-

This PDF of compiled radiation measurements indicates a range of spot values taken at areas >20 km distant from the Daiichi plant, from 1.7 to 170 μSv/hr; the average is hardly above background levels, which is good to see.

Finally, if you want to know my thoughts on the future of nuclear power, and why I consider it fundamental to eliminating fossil fuels, watch this — I hope you find my perspective persuasive! It comes courtesy of The Climate Show. My interview is from 29 — 56 min in the 1 hour 20 min show, if you want to skip straight to it.


By Barry Brook

Barry Brook is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Chair of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He researches global change, ecology and energy.

384 replies on “Fukushima March 18 evening update, Barry Brook on the future of nuclear energy”

This morning I read that they probably will try – if everything else fails – to cover up the whole thing with sand and concrete.

My question is here:
If they do so, isn’t there a very huge chance that this coverage might just crack up with the next best strong enough earthquake? Is it possible to just cover up something in this area?

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Thanks for the update.

Could you comment the pressure values from FEPC? I don’t really understand why the value of the block 2 core is negative. So, to which pressure is it relative to?

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I read an article in Cosmos Mag some time ago about Thorium Reactors. At the time it seemed the only downside was initial set up costs. Why does no-one ever mention Thorium in the Nuclear debate?. Doesn’t Australia have some of the richest deposits? Why can’t Australia look at these reactors as a source of power when it seems so safe compared to uranium?

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This event will probable do more good for nuclear energy than harm in the long run. Dread of the unknown has always been part of the problem. Lacking reference, people tend to give more weight to worse case scenarios. Each time the truth fails to be as bad as what it was imagined it might be, rationality makes gains.

At any rate this will bring the debate to the front burner and that will give us a chance to argue before a larger audience than usual.

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@drew – where abouts are you located, mate?

My question, as a lay person is, in the worst case scenario where there is a full meltdown, what size will the affected area be?

By affected, I mean human health risk not related to food contamination.

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Much of the discussion has focussed on the probabilities of the current damage being containable before the worst case scenario plays out – fair enough and of great importance. However, I would value informed opinion on what the worst case could actually be (I’m thinking about the public and not plant workers)..

Suppose, for example (totally hypothetically), that all fuel rods in the 4 damaged reactors and their associated spent fuel transfer pools went dry and then melted. There would be evolution of hydrogen, but, as I understand it, no chance of recriticality. Levels of radioactivity would prevent access, but, unless explosions occurred due to non dispersed hydrogen, presumably the non volatile radioactive materials would stay put. Iodine 131 would no longer be being generated and that already present at the outset of the problem would have mainly decayed. If I am correct (probably not), it seems that one has to worry principally about caesium.

Given correct assumptions on my part, what is the worst that could be expected from volatile caesium distribution in terms of area affected and duration of danger period. It appears (in retrospect) that Chernobyl resulted in little radiation -associated damage to the local population (excluding economic and psychological effects that were largely unnecessary) and that the few effects that there were, were primarily associated with iodine 131. Can anyone enlighten me about the specific problems of caesium and its environmental persistence? I appreciate the 30 year half life and its lack of bioaccumulating ability. It would seem, therefore, at least in the short term, to come down to concentration and distance of spread (which I know would be vary with wind/dust etc).

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Douglas Wise, on 18 March 2011 at 10:07 PM said:
“Much of the discussion has focussed on the probabilities of the current damage being containable before the worst case scenario plays out – fair enough and of great importance. However, I would value informed opinion on what the worst case could actually be (I’m thinking about the public and not plant workers)”

Right now the main concern is the spent fuel pools of reactors 3 and 4 and maybe 1 and 2. Now that outside power is back at the site, reactors 5 & 6 SFPs should not be a problem. They will now be able to be cooled. The SFPs have no protection against release if they run dry and heat. Any volitile fission products will be released and maybe particles of less volitile components of the fuel. Very bad. That radiation levels are decreasing at the plant border and that anyone is left alive at the site means this is not happening and is hopefully improving.

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This morning I read that they probably will try – if everything else fails – to cover up the whole thing with sand and concrete.

My question is here:
If they do so, isn’t there a very huge chance that this coverage might just crack up with the next best strong enough earthquake? Is it possible to just cover up something in this area?

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sophia, you asked a good question, and I am pleased to share my thoughts. Discerning what ultimately may be done, presently is speculation. That being said, I think we will conclude that covering the area with sand and concrete is one of the poorer ideas. Fortunately, we should be able to take our time deciding the best course of action for ourselves and the generations to come.

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Scott, I live about 380km away from fukushima (in Shizuoka)… Pretty far away… I too am wondering about worse case situations and how far the nasties will spread if everything goes to poop… Latest press conference news is “we will deffinately get through this crisis” type news… I hope you do

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Before I comment, big thank you to Barry, firstly for a most informative site and secondly for the very honest admission of understimating the magnitude of the incident initially.

Also, that personally I want nuclear to remain an energy option for the future.

DV82XL and others here.

1) Any belief that this incident will help the nuclear cause is hopelessly off mark. The sight of buildings housing nuclear reactors exploding will very obviously have the opposite effect. To try to think otherwise is, I fear, a gross act of self-deception.

2) In the middle of the incident whilst workers are risking their lives to prevent matters getting still worse to continue to advocate further nuclear so strongly is tasteless. To have any chance of convincing the public you need to show humility and wait until this is over and lessons are learned.

3) To respond to this by redoubling efforts to push nuclear power will be counterproductive. We as a society need to take time to reflect if this tells us anything fundamental about the cost/benefit ratio of nuclear. For nuclear advocates to fail to do this and be seen to do this dooms nuclear to being dumped; you will be perceived as arrogant and close-minded.

4) There are very significant technical and disaster planning lessons to be learned and perhaps retrofitted to existing plants. To genuinely learn these lessons is vital. Why is there such a large inventory of fuel stored alongside reactors ? Why are so many reactors so close together as to cause knock ons in a disaster ? etc etc. In the short term learning these lessons needs to be the focus of the nuclear fraternity, not pushing new build.

5) The communication response of the Japanese authorities and others like yourselves more indirectly by reacting to play down the risks was wrong. It makes you appear to be propagandists rather than informers. Particularly, continuing to play down the seriousness after reactor #1 building exploded was, IMO at the time, totally misguided. And that was even before I knew of the cooling ponds existence. An absolute change in culture from closed and reassuring to open and totally honest is essential.

Personally before this incident I believed nuclear was an essential part of climate mitigation. Now, I want to reflect as to whether it is either politically possible or, indeed, justified by the risks.

Please, help keep nuclear as an option for the future by showing humility and learning, not unchanged advocacy of your prior positions.

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“Can anyone enlighten me about the specific problems of caesium and its environmental persistence?”

There is a fair amount of Cs-137 created as a fission product. It emits fairly energetic gamma radiation. Its half-life is 30 years, which puts it in an inconvenient “medium” half-life region. It’s not so short that it will all disappear quickly (like I-131) but it’s short enough that it’s highly radioactive (unlike very long-lived radionuclides, like U-235, or Pu-239, or I-129.)

That’s basically the only reason why Cs-137 is a chief source of concern in a disaster such as Chernobyl involving dispersal of fission products.

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@sophia:

I doubt anyone considers that a good solution and I think you’re right there would be ongoing worries about future earthquakes in that scenario.

But for now, I think the focus is rightly still on bringing this under control to the point it can be cleaned up eventually.

If they can succeed in hooking up external power and getting the emergency cooling systems working in unit 2 soon, I’d consider that the first really significant progress in that direction (as opposed to staving off worse problems, which has been the main concern up to now.) I’m tentatively optimistic about that happening.

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Sophia, I’m not in any way qualified to answer your question, but let’s try:

– The situation seems to be very far from where one would just try to cover it all up in sand and concrete. That would be something to think of if one of the worst case scenarios speculated about would happen.

– If this worst case scenario were to happen (total meltdowns, containment vessel breaches, explosive or otherwise), and it was decided to just shuffle a mountain of sand and concrete over it all, further earthquakes would probably not be very problematic because a) you could always just pour more sand/concrete into the cracks, and b) the activity that you would want to cover up will be decreasing rather fast – remember no sustained reaction going on creating new emitters.

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@ sophia

Even with significant dismantling and fuel removal, It would be hundreds of years before it is possible to simply “cover” the remains.

At sea level, and in a quake zone, there would be no option but to de-construct the entire plant.

The decommissioning contractor will need a supercomputer to calculate this one.

@ dv82xl

“At any rate this will bring the debate to the front burner and that will give us a chance to argue before a larger audience than usual.”

That’s joke, right? It will mean increased costs, early phase out of crappy designs/plans and uninsurable plant. The political resistance is the least of the problems; explaining why the “unsinkable” occurred will require PR expertise beyond the nuclear industry.

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sophia, I’m far from qualified to answer your question, however for comparison, Chernobyl was encased in concrete, so it can be used in a last ditch effort to contain contamination if necessary.

As I understand it, the containment buildings are likely to prevent any significant release from the reactor cores in the event of a meltdown. As mentioned above by William Fairholm, the spent fuel pools are the biggest risk at present.

Being open-topped, I guess it would be possible to fill them with concrete via a boom-type concrete pumping truck. However, that would probably only be a last-ditch effort, and may cause it’s own problems (concrete being much heavier than water, would the supporting structure for the spent fuel pools hold that much weight?).

It’s much better to restore cooling water to the SFPs, and continue to cool them that way. A study referenced on the previous thread suggested that even letting them boil dry may not result in catastrophic release of contamination, as air would continue to cool the fuel rods (although nowhere as effectively as water, which also acts as radiation shielding).

Would someone more knowledgeable like to comment?

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That’s some pretty wild fluctuation of pressure in the unit 3 suppression chamber … several 4-atmospheres plus swings in a matter of minutes.

Anybody have any insight as to what’s going on there and whether it’s a big concern?

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I see others have already answered sophia’s question – well done!

I have a question, too, which I posed on one of the earlier threads.

Is there some reason why, on the day after the tsunami, they couldn’t have flown in diesel-powered generator skids to provide a few MW of power? I know that the relevant pumps would need to be checked before being energised, but surely having a small generator running one cooling water pump would be preferable to letting things run dry?

It seems they should have been able to get electricians in to the site to jury rig power to the important pumps, even if they had to be manually-controlled, and it doesn’t make sense to me that such steps weren’t taken when it was clear all other power was going to be off for at least days, if not a week or more.

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@ Bern, I watched yesterday at the ( http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Choose&Hearing_id=bb6c78e6-802a-23ad-4c7b-9aa7a3bb0c31 ) the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works’s Full Committee Briefing on Nuclear Plant Crisis in Japan and Implications for the United States in which they stated that all U.S. nuclear power plants have mobile pumps/generators that are for such a purpose as to provide emergency cooling in case something happens.

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Bern, despite all the paeans to radiation from contributors to this site, the problem for getting anything done at Fukushima is radiation. If TEPCO can’t even get power lines installed to *near* the reactors in a week, you know something extraordinary is going on . As one Japanese industry flak said on NHK-TV: “We don’t know what the conditions are because we can’t get close enough to find out what the conditions are.”

–bks

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I see the firefighters have brought in snorkel trucks. I still think a concrete pump (70 m reach) would be a better choice because the firetrucks are not designed for lateral extension and precise targeting.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPIT5xg5hE-6AA7vbRTgmrGCtHY0vtGAp0XXLFiMjzkzYBPyIF
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcREDSbQaiCI8a4jD-t1QMZpbWJal4uTFCiUhn9hKnF8IPBeo3Ro4g

They’ might have to rig some higher capacity pump at the base to acheive the required multi cubic meter flow. At least it could cantilever in a hose.

Disclaimer: I live in a community where Putzmeister has paid lots of municipal taxes.

I’d also like to hear why remotes to pull hose and carry cameras are still not used. The only reason I’ve heard is that electronics don’t like radiation.

From Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening
“While normal commercial-grade chips can withstand between 50 and 100 gray(5 and 10 krad), space-grade SOI and SOS chips can survive doses many orders of magnitude greater. At one time many 4000 series chips were available in radiation-hardened versions (RadHard).[3]”

This looks several orders greater than that measured at the plant and even a couple orders greater than levels rapidly lethal to humans.
Maybe we’re just not hearing about it?

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It is my understanding that they _did_ get in extra diesel generators, but weren’t able to hook them up – presumably because of tsunami damage to central electric components (ie the big problems wasn’t that the on-site generators were destroyed, it was that the distribution equipment for the juice from those generators was destroyed).

@bks, I’d like some hard quotes as to your assertion that the delay in getting grid-power to Daiichi was due to radiation. General infrastructure damage seems way more likely.

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“According to Tokyo Electric, 32 of the 514 fuel rod assemblies in the storage pond at Reactor No. 3 contain mox.” – NY Times

Note; each rod contains aprox 389 lbs of fuel

“Engineers had said on Thursday that a rip in the stainless steel lining of the pool at Reactor No. 4 and the concrete base underneath it was possible as a result of earthquake damage. The steel gates at either end of the storage pool are also vulnerable to damage during an earthquake and could leak water if they no longer close tightly.

The senior executive, who asked not to be identified because his comments could damage business relationships, said Friday that a leak had not been located but that engineers had concluded that it must exist because water sprayed on the storage pool has been disappearing much more quickly than would be consistent with evaporation.”

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@Chris Warren:

I wouldn’t read too much into the increase in level from 4 to 5. They’ve been behind the curve on classifying this event – it’s clearly been a 5 for days. Some argument can be made for calling it a 6, although the spotty reporting we’ve had so far of radiation outside the perimeter makes that a marginal argument so far.

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Douglas and luke – the other problem with cesium is that it is chemically similar to potassium, meaning it is 100% absorbed from the gut, and gets incorporated in every cell. So not as bad as iodine, where the entire dose accumulates in 1 tissue, but not as good as the others that are less absorbed (like yytrium)

Anyone able to answer this:
Is there any info as to whether the highest level (300ft above) is particulates like cesium or all gammas? Would put a totally different complexion on population risk from the current situation

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2 Bern

“Is there some reason why, on the day after the tsunami, they couldn’t have flown in diesel-powered generator skids to provide a few MW of power? I know that the relevant pumps would need to be checked before being energised, but surely having a small generator running one cooling water pump would be preferable to letting things run dry? ”

1 reason – underestimation of the problem and TEPCO didn’t want to lose extra money. No other explanation why they needed 5 days to get firebrigades there. And they used only 50 men for fighting with major malfunctioning of 3 reactors and 6 pools with fuel …
Hell, one blast was due to pump failing for lack of fuel or oil, I don’t remember.
The people on the site were too few in numbers and resources.
For 5 days these diesel generators which tsunami had flooded could’ve been fixed already

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There is now talk of burying the reactors in sand and concrete using the Russian model.

I understand how that will contain radiation from leaking into the air, but if there is no water in the containment pools, how will that stop them from melting down into the water table and causing a steam explosion that will blow up the entire complex including the new sand / concrete tomb?

In other words, the Russians entombed their reactor after it had exploded. They merely entombed the radioactive debris. The Japanese will be entombing theirs before they meltdown and explode. It seems to me that will not work. At best that is just going to prolong the eventual meltdown and explosion.

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@Aspsusa, I’d like some hard quotes, too, but unfortunately all we get from TEPCO is reports about what they’re going to do “later today” or “tomorrow”.

If you look up the comments column you’ll see that the Pollyannas have shifted from “no chance of serious problems” to “no chance of recriticality”.

Can you point to one thing that has improved in the past 48 hours? I believe Japan just raised the severity of the crisis.

–bks

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chavv, I understand at least one of the diesel standy-by generators *has* been fixed, and is powering cooling systems for Units 5 & 6.

Don’t underestimate the potential damage to a diesel engine of submersion under 5m+ of dirty seawater…

Regarding the wiring issues – yes, I can understand that initially they didn’t want to rip things apart, but surely after a day or two they’d bite the bullet and start bypassing damaged / non-functional control circuits?
As I mentioned above, even a small fire pump on manual control would have helped, let alone providing manually-controlled power to one of the main cooling pumps (assuming they have sealed motors that would survive immersion).

Thinking about it, though, there are obviously other issues with the cooling system, relating most likely to damaged control systems. The fact that they were able to pump sea water into the containment buildings suggests that actually pumping water wasn’t the problem – it may have been issues with opening & closing valves on the right pipes, or even dealing with leaks caused by the fourth largest earthquake ever measured, followed by a frikkin’ 10m tsunami…

I guess we’ll have to wait for the engineering reports to come out in a few months, to find out what really happened.

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bks – it’s another 48 hours down the decay curve, meaning that the decay heat from the fuel has reduced further;

Water cannon are spraying water into the SFPs in #3 & #4 reactor buildings;

The backup diesel gen has been brought online for #6, and is being used to provide cooling for #5 as well;

The replacement power line to the plant has been completed, and they’re now presumably frantically busy getting ready to re-energise power & control circuits.

Those are all positive developments. Upgrading the incident to a level everyone knew it had reached days ago is hard a negative development.

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This may be tricky, but i think its wise to give yes-or-no answers whenever possible. So here i go.

@Sophia
Is encasing the whole place an option?
Yes, provided the financial basis is there.

Will that work to contain emmission of potentially dangerous radioactive particles?
Yes.

Will it bring back on site radiation to acceptable (margin) levels?
Yes.

Will it be able to survive future tsunamis or quakes?
As a technology, Yes.
This option requires continuous monitoring and if needed, maintenance, but provided this is done it will confine the problem indefinitely.

Is this a good solution as in should this be seen as a preferred  solution in future cases?
No.
Four  reasons:
1. It presents a theoreticly infinite cost which is not desireable in a commercial society.
2. It renders a tiny piece of mother earth useless.
3. It has a Damocles’ sword effect on people. It supports fear. This fear may decay fast, but so does the human tendency to stay allert on watching the gras grow over this site i.e. to pay infinite attention to it.   
4. It blocks any conclusive solution until a technology is invented that can do so.

(Please delete where needed without mercy)

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Luke Weston, on 18 March 2011 at 10:47 PM said:
“Cs-137 … emits fairly energetic gamma radiation …. That’s basically the only reason why Cs-137 is a chief source of concern….”

Please start citing sources for what you believe, Luke.

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Drd , you are correct about the concrete pumps. There is no law that says you cant use them to pump water and they are much better designed for this purpose than any fire truck. The only problem might be getting them close enough to deploy. This is an idea worth passing on, since nuclear experts being specialists tend to be less interested in the practical perks of concrete pouring technology. Does anyone know if the japanese are scanning the net for geek-factor-solutions? Or if there’s a moderated channel?

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Bern, are you sure that water cannon are spraying water? I think they tried a few salvoes and stopped.
15 tons is what NHK-TV just said. 1,000 tons are needed to fill it half way. News reports say both 3 and 4 are dry and the level in 1 is falling. TEPCO says the radiation reading at the distribution panel (outside the reactors) is 20 millisieverts/hour. The pressure in the 3 containment is fluctuating. I’m glad they won’t need to deal with 5 & 6. Can you explain the JAIF report on 2? Last I heard the suppression pool was breached, then silence. Please correct anything wrong in the summary.

–bks

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We need to remember that there are surges of radiation. Often lethal surges. Just because the radiation goes down (this could even be effected by strong winds) the danger of a lethal radiation spike is always present. I suspect this has hampered the work of engineers, causing them to have to retreat from their work positions, and will increasingly be a problem as the spent fuel rods become more and more radioactive. Spent fuel rods that are completely exposed can give off a close proximity lethal does of radiation in 16 seconds. Eventually, this could become so much a problem that workers cannot do any work at the site and the spent fuel ponds will meltdown.

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http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110317/full/news.2011.168.html

“Nature has also learned that initial CTBTO data suggest that a large meltdown at the Fukushima power plant has not yet occurred”

This is a very useful source of information, and it would be good to see this information widely distributed and made accessible.

The CTBTO instruments are incredibly sensitive, distributed across the globe, and provide extremely good, useful information.

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Thanks for linking that, Luke. Useful to know!

Shelby – the fuel rods are already radioactive – they’re decaying, meaning they’re becoming *less* radioactive as time goes by.
The problem is in the shielding, not the source.

bks – even 15 tonnes is worthwhile – at 5MW (which is at the high end of some of the estimates I’ve seen here for the heat produced by the fuel rods) it’ll take somewhere north of 10 hours to evaporate 15 tonnes of water, which gives that much longer to get other cooling options up & running.

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More from that Nature article, context for Luke’s quote:

“Nature has also learned that initial CTBTO data suggest that a large meltdown at the Fukushima power plant has not yet occurred, although that assessment may change as more data flow in during the coming days. … the data show high amounts of volatile radioactive isotopes, such as iodine and caesium, as well the noble gas xenon. But so far, the data show no high levels of the less volatile elements such as zirconium and barium that would signal that a large meltdown had taken place — elements that were released during the 1986 reactor explosion in Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

See also:
http://newsroom.ctbto.org/

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Those who recall the kerfuffle about availability of climate data files may appreciate the complaints about unaviailability of the CTBTO confidential data, also from the same Nature article:

“De Geer and other scientists are keenly awaiting the fresh data that they will receive from CTBTO over the next few days. Initial data from a station near Tokyo were corrupted because the collection filters used in the sensors were contaminated earlier this week during handling when a plume of radioactivity fanned over the station building, according to Gerhard Wotawa, a researcher at Austria’s weather service, the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna. That situation has now been resolved and better data are expected from tomorrow, he says…..”
and
“… “The CTBTO is a complicated organization; certain member states want all data to be classified, so they are not allowed to be given out, ” says De Geer, who was formerly head of the CTBTO’s Radionuclide Development Unit. Even freeing the tsunami-relevant data “took years of discussion”, he says.

He believes that the national laws of Sweden, a CTBTO member state, give it the right legally to “do what we want with the data”, adding that the issue of the confidentiality of the data is nonetheless still a “grey zone”. Wotawa likewise believes that Austria has the right to use the data, and says that his centre will be publishing CTBTO data in the daily updates of the Fukushima fallout that it is providing on its website. [http://www.zamg.ac.at/]

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@Bern
The probability of being able to start diesel engines after being sfully ubmerged is very high. I have seen it happen myself in Germany. Key turn start, no problem. The worry is the generator part, but that too can be helped. Running it dry for a while does miracles. I had such a problem with a 67kVA rent-a-genny at a concert in holland once myself. These things can take serious beating.

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@Brian

“Any belief that this incident will help the nuclear cause is hopelessly off mark”

I disagree completely. I am quite impressed at how a nuclear reactor was able to withstand an earthquake. But for that tsunami wall not being 4 feet higher, this would have been a complete non-issue nuclear wise. If the battery backups were extended, and the Japanese having mobile pumps and generators, as the U.S. appears to have, then again this would have been less.

How many deaths has nuclear power caused?

“Deaths per TWh for all energy sources: Rooftop solar power is actually more dangerous than Chernobyl”:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

“Reacting to play down the risks was wrong”

I don’t think anyone was downplaying the risks. However, it was clear that the reactors have multiple containment units, and the worst case is that it would have leaked to the bottom of the concrete containment unit?

One thing is that more safety devices seem to be need for cooling ponds, but again in an article I posed a couple of times, the heat of spent fuel rods in totally drained pools only would get to around 1000C, not enough to cause fires or melting, and only localized radiation in the pool.

A local professor has suggested in the past where I live about nuclear, I’m going to be seeing him at a speech he’s going to give, and speak to him about educating the public on nuclear power and its risks/benefits as well as how the campaign is going to perhaps get a plant for our city.

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Bern, all the water evaporated between squirts. The actual figure from NHK-TV is 50 tons, but we need to calculate what percentage of that got to the pool. From watching the video, I’d say 50% would be optimistic. I know all the water evaporated because steam stopped rising between squirts and then started again after a new squirt.

–bks

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http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1414

“Japanese Earthquake Update (18 March 12:25 UTC)
Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that, prior to the earthquake of 12 March, the entire fuel core of reactor unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had been unloaded from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pond located in the reactor’s building.”

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Shelby,

Puzzled on your comment:

“Radiation spikes are more important than either lows or averages. If there is a spike every few hours or every time the wind changes directions, and it goes down when the wind carries it away, or when they put a few tons of water over it, just because the average does has been lowered does not mean the situation is any less critical or the radiation level is any less lethal. Basically, the radiation spikes are more important than the average or lows. They tell us more about where the true baseline radiation level is.”

Why would wind affect direct radiation readings assuming the primary source would be exposed or unshielded damaged fuel? Please educate me.

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http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Spraying_continues_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_1803111.html

Central [pond] and dry fuel storage

Tokyo Electric Power Company has released the conclusions of a visual inspection of the power plant’s central used fuel storage pond, where 60% of the total amount of used fuel is kept. Water levels there are ‘secured’. A separate storage area where older fuel has been stored in dry casks since 1995 showed ‘no signs of abnormal situation’. Detailed checks of both facilities are being prepared.

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Does anyone here know where the “cover it with sand and concrete” -idea originated?
I just saw it reported on AlJazeera, but completely with out context. Who is floating this idea?

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Luke,

Thank your for your comment and link:

“Nature has also learned that initial CTBTO data suggest that a large meltdown at the Fukushima power plant has not yet occurred”

Maybe some people were too young to remember the cold war and associated nuclear testing, but I would venture to guess that the monitoring sites for detecting above ground nuclear testing are still active, and represent a good source of data.

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> But for that tsunami wall not being 4 feet higher,
> this would have been a complete non-issue

Have you even looked at the site pictures? Do you see a perimeter wall all the way around the plant? With gates that would have kept water out from the inland side?

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When I go outside in the winter with say a temperature at say 0C, I see my breath. Is that steam coming from my mouth? Maybe there is a better word for what I see but I don’t know what it is. I tend to think of steam as water boiling at 100C, but maybe that is not so. If the pool water is at 100C it will evaporate much quicker than it it is at 60%. Can we interpret anything about the temperature of the pool by looking a the vapor coming off the pool?

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ParetoJ,

I have to disagree, this will do tremendous damage to the nuclear power industry going forward. The damage is to the fear and psychology of the general population. “Not in my backyard!” will be the result. As someone who is agnostic to nuclear power, I myself have grown deeply troubled by the cost cutting mistakes as well as the downplaying of potential risks involved. We knew as far back as the 1970s that this type of reactor was dangerous for a number of reasons from poorly designed containment vessels to the stockpiling of tens of thousands of fuel rods on site. There are some 30 plus GE MK1 reactors operating in the United States alone. Many more around the world. On top of that, we have done nothing to address the massive stockpiling of fuel rods at all of our plants including the modern ones.

[unsubstantiated personal opinion deleted. Please supply references and re-post]

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bks:

What you saw is also consistent with the rods being half uncovered. Some of each squirt (which hit the rods) would vaporize immediately while the remainder would go into the pool.

Seems to me from the color of the smoke, it looks like steam (water) indicating there is still some water in the pools. If the rods were burning I would expect darker or black smoke.

By my calculations, they need about 25 salvos of 30 ton water injections to raise the pool level about 5m assuming all the water from each injection gets into the pool. I would not assume any more than 50% injection success so that means about 50 salvos (of 30 tons) for each pool.

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Hank,

Re; “Tokyo Electric Power Company has released the conclusions of a visual inspection of the power plant’s central used fuel storage pond, where 60% of the total amount of used fuel is kept. Water levels there are ‘secured’. A separate storage area where older fuel has been stored in dry casks since 1995 showed ‘no signs of abnormal situation’. Detailed checks of both facilities are being prepared.”

This is all fine and good.

But if there is a meltdown and steam explosion at any one of the critical reactors or containment ponds the resulting explosion could be powerful to destroy much if not all of the entire complex. There is simply no way to calculate how intense that explosion could be or how much destruction and nuclear debris fallout it could produce.

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> Martin Burkle …
> with say a temperature at say 0C,
> I see my breath.

Yeah, I mentioned that issue a while back in another thread. What’s observed depends on both the outside air temperature and the relative humidity. Those let you calculate the “dew point”

“When the temperature drops below the dew-point temperature, there is a net condensation and a cloud forms” ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclecondensation.html

Certainly the white cloud above the buildings contains condensing moisture and is caused by warm damp air hitting colder air, but it’s hard to know _how_ warm the source is.

With snow falling at the site off and on, it’s certainly an issue.

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ParetoJ

Firstly, politically, put yourself in the shoes of a voter. You have little or no scientific education. You have been told again and again that nuclear power is safe. You see a nuclear power plant spectacularly explode on TV. Nuclear experts continue to tell you that it’s safe.

Would you believe the experts ? I very much doubt it

Secondly. in engineering terms, I would not say that this was an acceptable once in 50 year accident for the nuclear industry, even as it stands now, let alone if it worsens. Would you ?

We need to accept that the engineering design was wrong, then understand why it was wrong.

There are profound questions to answer:

Did we misjudge what the design case should be (clearly yes)?

What should design cases be in the future ?

Should we retrofit existing installations at high cost or continue with unacceptably unsafe installations ?

And many more.

Massive humility needs to be shown, to get the right engineering response and if you want any chance politically with nuclear.

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> ParetoJ
> not enough to cause fires

Repeating this doesn’t make it any more correct; what’s your source and why do you consider it more reliable than the estimates from the nuclear engineers in the published literature?

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Michael J. Strickland, I understand what you’re saying about the water. It’s not very convincing, but I accept the possibility. I don’t know enough about the thermal conductivity of fuel rods to dismiss it.

–bks

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I just wanted to say, this blog is the only source of logical discussion, of both the pro and con, that I have found in a week of reading *hundreds* of reports and blogs. It helps me to digest and process the information and the emotions. Thanks to all here.

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Thanks for this site. I’ve been passing it around at my work.

Even as a nuclear worker, all of the different units in use are frustrating (Rem, millisievert and microsievert). It takes some effort to ensure that I’m using the proper conversions to put things in perspective, and it must be significantly more confusing. Reading this blog has certainly clarified a lot for me, and it is now my primary source of information for the events unfolding.

Do you know of any good sites that speak to the humanitarian efforts (evacuations, personnel exposure and such) that don’t over-sensationalize?

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PS for Shelby, just paste your ideas into Google Scholar and you’ll get information from the journals.

Examples using your statement above:

An assessment of steam-explosion-induced containment failure
1989 – osti.gov… Description/Abstract, A variety of probabilistic models to quantify the likelihood of steam explosion induced… containment failure from core melt accidents in commercial light water reactors have been proposed in the past. …Cited by 19

An assessment of steam-explosion-induced containment failure. Part IV: Impact mechanics, dissipation, and vessel head failure. 1987 – osti.gov
… Abstract, Energy dissipation mechanisms and associated energy partition during the energy delivery stage from a steam-explosion-generated slug upon the upper internal structures and reactor vessel head are considered. … Cited by 6

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Hank,

did you see the hydrogen explosion caused by the puny amount of hydrogen in the containment buildings? When a white hot core melts down to the water table and explodes, this is something that has simply never happened before, and therefor cannot be accurately calculated. That is especially true because you have 6 reactors side by side, at least 3 of them capable of recritality (fission) and meltdown. This situation is unique and therefor calculating the cascading effect is impossible.

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@Martin Burkle
Yes it is possible to tell something. The dampy gas coming from breathing out in cold air is not steam itself in the boiling sense and it is you breathing out that makes it visible. Steam due yo boiling is different because it causes its own pressure. Damp rising from water at say 50C would dissepate, but it doesn’t blow out. Dumping water on material of over 100 degrees instantly changes it into steam, until the sheer volume of the water can significantly reduce the temperature of the material. So if a squirt results in a cloud of steam that stops after a while, but a second squirt induces another cloud of steam, one can conclude that at least some material is still over 100 degrees i.e. not submerged in water. If a second squirt results in no significant increase in damp release, it means the material is flooded.

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I saw you on TV briefly and heard you talking about how you saw nuclear energy as a more viable option to power Australia rather than using renewables. Obviously I could turn this into a huge debate or even give you a call, because this sort of stuff is exciting to talk about and I could be on the phone for hours but my intent is to try and keep it simple and short.

The way I see it is that in the near future most houses will be able to supply there own power needs through solar technologies, and today these technologies exist. The reality is, we choose not to use these technologies to that extent and of course many reasons can lead to this choice, mainly government laws and setup/ongoing costs.

I think this would be a great step towards reducing our usage of coal, since were never going to get rid of our reliance on coal in the next decade. Current nuclear technologies have drawbacks just like coal. Our goal should be to go forward, using power efficiently and effectively and generating it in a self-sustaining way.

All this global discussion on energy generation and usage needs to turn into common sense and maybe well get somewhere greener and cleaner in the world :)

Oh and I thought I might add something about the nuclear disaster occurring in Japan and not to be an insensitive SOB, but what are they waiting for, in fact what is the world waiting for, we use technology that has risks we need to be ready for the consequences. Someone needs to step in and resolve the situation now. There might be a loss of life, but at the moment if they don’t cool down those reactors it might lead to a greater loss of life that will affect many more people and no one wants to see a repeat of the past, it would be a huge tragedy to the say least.

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Shelby, that assumes that the core would actually melt down to the water table.

Don’t forget that *all* of the cores are in full shutdown, with control rods fully inserted. The heat they’re giving off now is decay heat, which is a (very) small fraction of full power.

On that basis, I would think that full core meltdown is fairly improbable. Damage to fuel rods, yes, particularly with the tops of them still a metre or two out of the water. But not complete meltdown.

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“Does anyone here know where the “cover it with sand and concrete” -idea originated?”

I doubt anyone can put a finger on one particular person, but Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, has been beating the drum on this plan on multiple network news outlets, twitter, and the “Big Think” website:

http://news.yahoo.com/video/tech-15749651/how-likely-is-full-scale-meltdown-24532243

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31617

The anti-nuclear groups jumped on this accident from day one, http://finance.alphatrade.com/story/2011-03-12/PRN/201103121513PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC64123.html

Click to access japan-earthquakenuclear.pdf

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Bern

I tend to agree with you about the reactor cores.

[unsubstantiated personal opinion deleted. Please cite source and re-post.]

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No, Shelby, there’s not a chance that the fuel cores could “go critical” (as in prompt criticality, look it up). And there’s not a chance for a facility-destroying steam explosion in an open pool of water. Look up “steam boiler explosion” or “pressure cooker precautions” — see how they differ from an open boiling pool?

Look at Yellowstone. Lots of boiling pools. But while the site does have catastrophic explosions every few million years, that’s from a _confined_ high pressure blowout.

Please, look stuff up. Don’t just post opinions second-hand when you can’t do the math — and don’t claim that because you don’t know the answer, nobody possibly could.

Seriously — Google Scholar. Read first, think — then post if you have learned something you consider reliable and say where you got the information.

There is enough pain out there without adding speculative gossip that’s easy to debunk.

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@Shelby
Please note that steam does not explode in the chemical reaction sense of the word. This means that all ‘exploding’ has to take place at the surface of the hot material. At a certain point it is the steam itself that keeps the water from reaching the material that could turn it into steam. That is why the squirting does not result in explosions.

When the core melts and reaches water by sinking through its containment, it will cause it to turn into steam, but as long as that steam can get out, the pressure will remain in limits that would definitely not be able to destroy the entire complex.

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Shelby

There seems to be a problem with your logic.
You say that the fuel in the pool could melt down, causing new fissions, which would then lead to meltdown?

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Shelby, an example — point being people _do_ know a lot about this, and it _is_ possible to figure it out:
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=97348

“an ongoing investigation of the consequences of taking fuel burnup into account in the design of spent fuel transportation packages. A series of experiments, collectively called the Spent Fuel Safety Experiment (SFSX), has been devised to provide integral benchmarks for testing computer-generated predictions of spent fuel behavior. A set of experiments is planned in which sections of unirradiated fuel rods are interchanged with similar sections of spent PWR fuel rods in a critical assembly. By determining the critical size of the arrays, one can obtain benchmark data for comparison with criticality safety calculations.”

Now that’s from http://dx.doi.org/10.2172/102184 from 1995, not the last word — it’s an example from a major program to figure out how close used fuel assemblies can be packed safely.

OK? You and I don’t know what’s going on, that’s true. This does not mean nobody knows.

Who should know? The people who _have_ the inventories, know what’s stored in each pool and how old each fuel assembly package is and how they’re arranged.

Yes, they’ve ordered a lot of borate from South Korea, and yes, they’re pumping what they can now to cool off the pools.

We don’t know more. Please don’t post as though you knew more than anyone about what can happen. Particularly, please don’t go posting those notions elsewhere, where nobody’s checking facts.

Time will tell.

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Those that think the public will panic over nuclear energy because of this event should consider the lessons of history. Far from making people more afraid, events like this seem to help putting things in perspective. Elsewhere, I wrote at length about the early jet age, and how the impact on the traveling public after each major accident became measurably less each time. The same phenomena will happen here.

What we all dread is the unknown. Without reference points, imagination takes over, and we are all in a highly suggestible state – ripe for manipulation by propaganda. However, familiarity does breed contempt, and like fear of flying, fear of nuclear will seem quaint in the rapidly approaching future.

Oh demagogues will pontificate, and the noisy greens will prevaricate, but they will just not be able to raise the fear factor to the levels they could before. And this time they will have an active opposition, armed with proof that things are not that bad.

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Oh and Hank, [unsubstantiated personal opinion deleted. Please supply references and re-post]and there is plenty of it around to make that happen. Its to my understanding as unlikely as winning several lotteries in sequense, but (all within the limits of my knowledge) not entirely impossible. You are absolutely right to stress the importance of fact value, but that knife cuts in all directions.

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Thanks for the link, bks. So it seems that the “bury it in sand and concrete” -idea comes from the answer to a specific question put to some tepco official at a pressbriefing.

And just a general point to several posts upthread: I think we tend to underestimate the damage from the tsunami to the infrastructure (including normal communications) around the plant.

One thought that occurred to me very late into this: Do we know anything about key personnel who happened to be _off duty_ when the earthquake and the tsunami hit? Or families?
Are they also dealing with a chain of command/expertise that has been punched full of holes due to the earthquake&tsunami?

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I’m not presenting myself as an expert.

I have read by experts including the concerned scientists [ unsubstantiated personal technical comments. Please supply references and re-post]Pure water (without boron) in fact aids this process. They have been pumping tons of seawater into these pools.

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@DV82XL:

So I guess that explains why we had a boom in nuclear power plant construction after Three Mile Island, right?

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> I have read by experts including the
> concerned scientists

If you have a source, cite your source.

You read someone on some blog saying some scientist says so-and-so — don’t believe second-hand information, and don’t keep reposting it. It does not help anyone. People make shit up to screw around. If you don’t know from your own personal knowledge — like most of us don’t know — all we can do is try to filter what we read and give good attribution to primary sources.

Otherwise copypasting just makes things worse.

Please. Cite sources. Say why you trust the source if it’s not a first-hand source.

This is not simple.

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Brian, on 19 March 2011 at 2:15 AM said:

>Should we retrofit existing installations at high cost
>or continue with unacceptably unsafe installations

Some of the backup generating systems in the US were retrofitted after 9/11. (Atomic Rod has an interview with a former US NRC member posted.)

Part of design basis is how long a plant would remain without external resources in a disaster. In ‘normal’ circumstances it wouldn’t have taken more then a day or two to restring cable from the nearest functioning power source. It’s taken more then a week.

In normal circumstances hundreds of fire trucks would have shown up within an hour.

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I am not sure who said this (looks like someone form TEPCO), but recriticality is being considered. At least this is what NYT reports (6th papragraph of the story):

“Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plant, said earlier this week that there was a possibility of “recriticality,” in which fission would resume if fuel rods melted and the uranium pellets slumped into a jumble together on the floor of a storage pool or reactor core. Spraying pure water on the uranium under these conditions can actually accelerate fission, said Robert Albrecht, a longtime nuclear engineer.”

Link:

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Shelby

It is true that there will still be a lot of U-235 left in the fuel rods in the “spent” fuel pool. However, most fissions in U-235 are caused by neutrons that have been significantly slowed down (moderated) after the fission process. This slowing is mostly caused by the water in the reactor. If the fuel was melting or melted (2000 C or so?), there will not be much water around to slow the neutrons enough to sustain the fissioning process.

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Hank, I appreciate your passion for the industry.

I don’t have the time or the inclination to prove all my sources to you.

I read a direct quote from the union of concerned scientists.

If you don’t believe me, or the scientists, okay.

I’m not here to attack your passion.

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@jan R – No that is the reason why after years of seeing traffic drop to very low levels, and stay there for months, after each major air disaster, people ignore them now and keep flying.

I was employed in the industry most of my life, and I can even tell you the moment it happened: On March 3, 1974, a cargo door blow-out caused Turkish Airlines Flight 981 to crash into a forest near the town of Ermenonville, France shortly after leaving Paris. 346 people were killed in one of the deadliest air crashes to date. Everyone in the business held their breath preparing for the worst. My girlfriend at the time was a reservation agent, and she was called in to work an extra shift in anticipation of the wave of cancelations that were expected. But nothing happened. Nothing.

A few years later American Airlines Flight 191 lost its number one (left wing) engine after taking off from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, USA and the plane rapidly rolled to the left and crashed before the flight crew could recover. All 271 people on board, plus two on the ground, were killed. It was the worst single plane crash in America, but again there was no real impact on bookings.

Somehow despite the fact the media was foaming at the mouth over these incidents, the public had come to the conclusion that this was not a reason to stop flying. Since then there have been several crashes where all souls were lost, yet beyond a quick item in the news, it just doesn’t generate the same interest, and life and aviation go on.

I believe we are getting very close to the same point with nuclear energy. The public (and I mean the real public, not the yammering antinukes that claim to speak for them) have had time to digest TMI and Chernobyl, and recognize that these were not the end of the world. Opposition to nuclear power has dropped of late, mostly without any real effort on the part of those that support it, or the industry itself. Obviously the public has managed to somehow sort out the risks in their own minds, and many have come to the conclusion that things like climate forcing and pollution are worse. I suspect that they will see straight through the rhetoric that will come from the media, and they will see that this was a very special event of unprecedented magnitude, and that a nuclear disaster was not the upshot of the problems with the plants in Japan.

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nkinnear,

it is my understanding that the main function of water is to stop the release of gamma radiation.

Pure water actually aids the neutron smashing process.

Boron mixed with water slows it down.

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Look up what criticality means. It doesn’t mean a nuclear explosion. It means heat from gamma radiation. Fuel surrounded by water heats up and the water boils away. Look at a real accident with enriched fuel — much more highly concentrated fissionable material than reactor fuel used here:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf37.html
“The significance of it being a wet process was that the water in the solution provided neutron moderation, expediting the reaction. (Most fuel preparation plants use dry processes.)
The criticality continued intermittently for about 20 hours. It appears that as the solution boiled vigorously, voids formed and criticality ceased, but as it cooled and voids disappeared, the reaction resumed. The reaction was stopped when cooling water surrounding the precipitation tank was drained away, since this water provided a neutron reflector….”

Get it? The worry about widespread contamination spreading over a large area from overheating the fuel rod assemblies is fire, not new fission events.

The worry about _working_ with the rooftop tanks _locally_ probably — we don’t know — includes direct radiation (neutrons, gamma rays) as well as from fission products (cesium, iodine, xenon) in the steam and smoke. But that’s local to the site.

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Aspsusa – “Does anyone here know where the “cover it with sand and concrete” -idea originated?”

I think it would impossible to nail down the origination point, byt Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and solar energy proponent, has been beating the drum on this idea:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/michiokaku

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/michiokaku

Good Morning America: http://news.yahoo.com/video/tech-15749651/how-likely-is-full-scale-meltdown-24532243

Big Think: http://bigthink.com/ideas/31617

He was on GMA again this morning, which has then been linked to by websites as opposite as Crooks & Liars and Continental News.

Also, Arnold Gunderson has stated that this accident is “Chernobyl-on-steroids”: http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-is-example-of-why-people-who-lie.html

I think very early on the anti-nuclear groups realized that this accident was a golden opportunity to scare a lot of people. See these from 3/12: http://finance.alphatrade.com/story/2011-03-12/PRN/201103121513PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC64123.html and this pdf created on 3/11, 4:14 pm EST: http://www.psr.org/nuclear-bailout/japan-earthquakenuclear.pdf .

ABC News is using him and Joe Cirincione http://www.ploughshares.org/expert/103 as “experts”.

It reminds me of the Don Henley song, “Dirty Laundry”.

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