Tweet
Reactor Containment & Fuel Storage from UCS
Early Wednesday morning, Ma
rch 16, in Japan; 5:30 p.m. EDT.
Japanese authorities are reporting a new fire and explosion coming from the area of the spent fuel storage pond of Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
That’s the same site at which fires were reported on Tuesday and an explosion that released very high levels of radiation. Wednesday’s blast and fire also resulted in increased radiation readings at the site, and according to one [unconfirmed] other report, at least two workers are missing.
About 5:40 a.m. Wednesday morning, their time, officials reported a fire and explosion that blew a hole about 8 meters wide in the walls of the Unit 4 building. The location corresponds to the 4th floor area where the spent fuel storage pools are located. (In the diagram, the storage pool area is near the top of the reactor vessel, to facilitate easier loading and removal of fuel rods.)
The spent fuel storage pools must be continuously cooled to prevent excessive heat building up from the residual radioactive decay of materials in the irradiated fuel and fuel cladding, even though most fission has ceased. Without the cooling, the fuel/cladding can continue to heat up, boiling away the cooling water and exposing the fuel rods. (By Monday, those temperatures had already doubled normal levels, reaching 84 degrees Celsius.) Melting can then release hydrogen and lead to an explosion and fire.
Plant operators have been struggling to get cooling water into the pools, but it’s not clear how that can be done. The normal cooling system is disabled. Attempts to inject water have been frustrated by high radiation levels and limited access.
There is reportedly a hole in the building roof, as a result of yesterday’s explosion and fire, and authorities considered using helicopters to dump or inject water from the roof. However the hole is apparently not near enough to the fuel rod pools to make an aerial drop effective. Radiation levels may also be complicating efforts to extinguish the fire or add water.
At this point, we’ve seen no reports the new fire has been extinguished, and reports of high radiation levels vary. We’ll try to get more details.
I should add that Units 5 and 6, which you don’t see in the usual pictures because they’re a little further away, also have cooling ponds with spent fuel rods that have been heating up. TEPCO is trying to keep those pools cooled down, too, and that fact tells you normal cooling systems are not operating — presumably because of loss of power.
We’ll add edits and more details as we get them.
Update from Govt. press conference :
Since about 8:30 a.m. JST, there has been white smoke, steam or “vapor” billowing from around Unit 3, which suggests there may be a breach in the containment structure. Radiation levels temporarily spiked at about 10:00 a.m., forcing a further, temporary evacuation at the site.
[The live tv feed periodically shows aerial views of the white smoke taken from a helicopter, but it's not clear which site is the source of the smoke/vapor.]
At unit 4, the radiation levels are currently too high to allow firefighters to continue efforts to fight the fire.
The official was ambiguous about whether and how TEPCO might be using US military or others to assist.
In a further briefing by Nuclear Energy Institute officials. . . TEPCO didn’t notify them until about 10:30, indicating reactor #3 was emitting smoke.
Readings at the Gate at that time, about 800 micro-sv. By 10:54, it was 2.9 mili-sv. and further “ups and downs.” Increase attributed to reactor damage at Unit 3, but they’re uncertain of exact cause. [Kyodo News: Radiation briefly topped 10 milisievert, but see more complete details posted by commenter powwow here.]
wrt Unit 2, the suppression structure has been damaged, so it too in contributing, but they don’t have measurements specific to it.
Kyodo News: An estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the plant’s No.1 reactor and 33 percent at the No.2 reactor, the firm said. The cores of both reactors are believed to have partially melted with their cooling functions lost in the wake of Friday’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
236 Comments
“The spent fuel pools must be continuously cooled to prevent excessive heat building up from the residual radioactive decay of materials in the irradiated fuel and fuel cladding, even though fission is not occurring”
I believe that the spent fuel rods are still undergoing fission, which is synonymous with radioactive decay. This is part of the reason that nuclear power is so dangerous. The rate of fission can be reduced by introducing the control rods, but even spent fuel produces enough heat by nuclear fission to require active cooling. Any interruption in cooling can cause serious problems. How long can we expect cooling to continue uninterrupted? How long must it? These are crucial questions fundamental to the viability of nuclear power.
All of these diaries, with updated information, are extremely useful. But, I’ve been thinking, how much more helpful it would be to have a status board where key information about the emergency are posted and regularly updated. Not sure if Firedoglake could do that, but maybe link to an external page? It would include information like the current protective actions, status of reactors (fire, containment breaches, etc.), met data, etc. (i.e., the kind of data recommended by NRC/FEMA guidance for US radiological emergencies). Whatcha think?
Hi John,
Way to go keeping on top of this ongoing catastrophe. The workers on site doing everything they can to prevent fire from reigniting in building 4 must be extremely discouraged by this turn of events.
With no way to refill the cooling pool, resubmerge the spent rods, and circulate the water, it looks like the #4 reactor is a goner. Sad.
What about 5, 6, & 7? Any problems with the spent rods in their cooling pools? I assume the water is evaporating in them as well, so it’s only a matter of time before they ignite and cause a fire.
There are 7 reactors aren’t there? Or is it only 6?
Almost forgot. Recommended.
NHK: loction of fire inaccessible due to radiation levels
Hey, Masoninblue, thank you back for your continuing vigil.
Only 6, but that’s 6 too many for these folks now. I should have added that the cooling ponds of reactor Unis 5 and 6 are also heating up — I’ll look for a link — but since neither has been damaged like 1-4, it may be easier to get access. When you see pictures of Fukushima Daiichi, you see four buildings in a line; Units 5 and 6 and nearby, but not in that line, so you don’t see their pics except from high aerial/satellite views.
AP: Utility says new fire at Japan nuclear reactor erupted because first one was not extinguished
“The spent fuel pools must be continuously cooled to prevent excessive heat building up from the residual radioactive decay of materials in the irradiated fuel and fuel cladding, even though fission is not occurring. Without the cooling, the fuel/cladding can continue to heat up, boiling away the cooling water and exposing the fuel rods. Melting can then release hydrogen and lead to an explosion and fire.”
Are you sure about that? Remember there are spent fuel rods. I don’t think they are stored as you would find them in the core.
The rods at Unit 4 are the rods from the reactor. They were pulled for maintenance and were not spent. And as hard as it is believe they can actually melt from the residual heat, generate hydrogen and cause a fire.
Thanks so much, Scarecrow and Mason–and all commenters sharing expertise.
I’ve been dreading today’s news and it looks as though that was justified.
Cooling ponds at #5 & #6, or the spent-fuel storage pools?
Not sure but I still don’t think they are stored that way even if they are not spent.
Same thing in this design. The Japanese reprocess their fuel so when it is cool they move it to be reprocessed. Unlike the US that buries it (or at least wants to).
Oh, that’s a wrinkle I hadn’t picked up on yet. Thanks very much.
Spent rods, iirc, are still quite radioactive, but the type/rate of decay is no longer productive enough to generate heat, and then electricity, efficiently.
Did you look at the graphic? Up in the right hand top there is a orange trough. That is where they are stored or cooled when they are removed from the reactor. It is a big trough with boron spiked water. It is on the forth floor of all the reactors.
Ah. thanks for the clarification. Sorry I forgot to thank you by name above. It really means a lot to have facts and educated inferences available!
Chu sez U.S. will push ahead with U.S. nukes. Nothing to worry about since U.S. nukes will be safe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42097170/ns/politics-more_politics/
That is true, sort of. After three years or so they are “burnt out” and are taken out of the reactor to be replaced. They still stay very hot for about six months and need circulating water to keep it from evaporating the way that Scarecrow described.
If you lose that, as it looks like they did at Daiichi, then you might have a problem. The rods from Unit 4 were the most recently removed and are not spent, but rods that were just being stored while maintenance was going on.
TEPCO reported 783 rods in that pool.
Thanks Scarecrow, Bill Egnor, and all the knowledgeable folks posting these threads and comments. I’m too uneducated to ask questions about this topic, but I sure appreciate your staying on top of things.
…as an off-topic aside, the FDL time stamp appears that it wasn’t reset for DST
Can you say “tone deaf” boys and girls? Sure, I knew you could.
Never let facts get in the way of a good boondoggle. Taxpayers still have a few pennies they can be shaken down for!
I’m assuming that the reprocessing isn’t 100% efficient, so what do they do with the waste products? Those are still radioactive, right?
Okay so Wikipedia is your friend sometimes. The skinny is that actually all the fuel can be reprocessed and used in different reactors. It goes from an all uranium fuel, to a MOX (mix of plutonium and uranium) and then it can all be processed to be used in a breeder reactor.
You can read the whole article here.
Of course! After all, we build our plants to a “considerably” higher earthquake safety margin according the the Secretary.
It’s not tone deafness. It’s up yours. O admin no longer gives a FF what any voter thinks as long as it can reward its campaign contributors, and he knows there’s nothing we can do about it so he just rubs our faces in it.
Weren’t there some Chu defenders at FDL?
In this context you mean thermally hot, right? With the same residual heat that’s causing such trouble at #’s 1-3?
Obviously, everything is also still radioactive or waste disposal wouldn’t be an issue.
Is it usual to store usable but out-of-service rods with the spent rods, or does the TEPCO number reflect the number of fuel rods in an active core/vessel?
Right now, as we sit here, and it is 7:10 ET, does anyone have an update on MilliSievert radiation levels around reactors #4, #3, #2, #1, what is being done at each, which reactor is the top priority (I assume it is #4)?
Information overload, so much is happening, I think I am looking at stuff that already happened, when in fact it is current, ongoing events.
Big lobby and big bucks at stake… They are going to push ahead come hell or high water. But perhaps now there will be more vocal opposition and cooler heads.
I can’t see how many states will re consider nukes now. When they go, they seem to go real bad.
I expect a fight, but perhaps we can win this one and honor those who gave their lives.
There were probably some who were optimistic about the appointment early on. Not sure about since. Seems even the reasonable appointments are very quickly either co-opted or marginalized.
FORK.
Right on both counts. It is still physically and radioactively hot. And if there is not lots of water to act as a thermal sink the residual heat evaporates that water.
Since it is still radioactive, if not fissioning it can heat up a lot without that heat sink and that can cause melting and hydrogen cracking.
Terrific coverage, SC, and all FDL/MyFDL pagers.
I’ve some questions I don’t see discussed much of anywher, so I toss it to Pups . . .
1) A day or two ago I was reading about the cooling ponds where fuel and control rods are kept once they are ‘used’ . . . I read that the ponds were ON TOP of the steel containment vessels. I read that there were explosions that blew reactor buildings wide open, but that containment vessels were sort of still ok . . . in terms of cracking from the explosions.
So, my question is, did them cooling ponds and their poisoned water and them control and fuel rods get blown up in the explosions? If they did, wouldn’t there be a HUGE releaser of radiation? Regardless of the age of the rods, etc.
2) Four explosions now, four reactors buildings blown one way or another. No power for cooling ponds OR containment vessels with ‘live’ control and fuel rods . . . it’s been since Friday to try and provide cooling one way or another including releasing steam (with radiation) and pumping in seawater.
And now most of the workers have been pulled from the site, only 50-70 left . . . cooling ponds (if they still exist) going dry, and apparently containment vessels going dry/dryer with temps rising.
My question: Don’t it seem rather impossible at this point to stop the rising heat? Don’t it seem rather inevitable there WILL be meltdowns?
And, won’t this all mean the steel containment vessels will fully breach, and all that radiation will go up into the air?
3) Initially I’d understood that at least SOME of these reactors at Daiichi were only two weeks away from decommissioning. And that ALL the reactors began to shut down when the quake hit.
My question: Of all reactors at Daiichi, how many of them were still going to be operational and WERE operating at the time of the quake?
Thanks again to all for the reporting and the comments . . . I’m eager for thoughts on my questions.
I’ve edited to make clear these are “storage” pools.
And big earthquakes like that one never happen in the U.S.
(heard something to that effect on CNN over the weekend…)
GE’s reactor design has the spent fuel rods (which are still highly energetic and extremely toxic, they’re simply no longer quite energetic enough to be worth using in the reactor as fuel) *stored above the reactor itself*.
Good God.
While I suppose that one might make the argument that “under normal circumstances” the reactor building is the safest place to keep them, this catastrophe clearly shows the failure of making world-sized bets on life always consisting of “normal circumstances.” (Mssrs. Bernanke, Blankfein and Dimon, white courtesy phone…)
The Japanese have for decades been playing “Deer Hunter” with nuclear power.
And this time they, and we, lost.
1. I’ve seen no reports that the storage ponds were literally “blown up.” The threat seems to be coming from the loss of power and related effects on cooling systems.
2. If you mean this could all end very badly, you’re right. It’s not clear how they can solve the cooling water problem and get on a different path.
3. Unit 1 is the oldest and was scheduled for decommissioning. At the time of the quake, I believe Units 1-3 were operating but immediately went into shut-down sequence as soon as the quake was detected.
Units 4-6 were not operating but down for routine[?] maintenance.
Unit 4′s fuel was stored in the storage pond, and I assume the same is true for the fuel at Units 5 and 6.
These are basically US (GE) designs, sold to them by the US nuclear industry. It’s not a uniquely Japanese characteristic.
I’m ready for some good news. We can deal with O. later. If they think this country will roll over and play ‘good doggy’ over nuclear now, he’s got another think coming.
Okay let me see if I can answer your questions:
1)Yes the cooling ponds are in the buildings. If you look at the graphic they are the orange trough up in the right hand corner. It appears that we all got lucky in that the sides of the buildings blew out and all the explosions energy did not go just upward.
2)If they had destroyed or put a hole in the troughs yes we would have known from a massive spike in radiation (if the rods ruptured) or if they lost water and started to melt.
It is impossible to know if this means that we’re going to inevitably have a melt down and breach. The rods at Unit 4 were rather new they were not spent. So they would be hotter and more likely to act like a core if they were exposed than spent rods.
3)If I recall correctly Daiichi 1-3 and 5-6 were operating at the time of the quake and tsunami. All shut down correctly but the loss of coolant circulation seems to have been worst in the first three. I could be wrong about 5-6.
Thanks! I meant to say to feel free to point me/us to wiki or other info links to do our own homework, so to speak. Though I wouldn’t be able to evaluate the accuracy or bias of any given source…
Thank you for your continued excellent reporting, Scarecrow.
Actually, I’d come across that, which was why I was wondering, since there’s the high-level and intermediate-level wastes, as well as the long-lived fission products. What does Japan do with the non-useful wastes and products? I mean, they’ve got a bunch of nuclear plants, and the islands in the archipelago are still islands, so limited space, so long-term storage in pools and casks seems unreasonable (to me).
So I should have qouted Mr Robinson’s neighborhood instead:
“Can you say ‘up yours!’ boys and girls? Sure! I knew you could!”
Thanks Bill . . . so in the explosions, sides blew but not roofs? In the first explosion reported, reports indicated the whole building was blown out . . . so I guess that was not accurate a few days ago? Forget which reactor had the first explosion . . .
Interesting the explosions have NOT taken out the cooling ponds, that would be just plain assed lucky, would it not?
Heard on DemocracyNow that the subject Fukushima power plant manufactured by GE is virtually the same design as the Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont and 22 other plants in the US.
Vermont Yankee is 40 years old and up for renewal. The governor wants it decommissioned, but the industry resists shutting it down.
see: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/15/vermont_gov_fights_to_close_vermont
Yes, Alaska was a state for six years when the Great Alaska Earthquake hit – and I was there… It was one of a handful of larger earthquakes in history (9.2). And there was a killer tsunami.
I have the strangest urge to run headfirst – screaming – into the outside wall of my house.
Well, sort of. The San Andreas fault is not the kind that will produce a 9.0 quake, even if it all ripped open at once, or at least that is what the USGS says.
Now in the Pacific NW and Alaska there are subduction zones like off of Japan that could product quakes this big. But we’ve never seen it. Just the aftermath of it.
I’m getting confused in my mind about the sequence of events that have transpired and am now unsure whether I’m seeing new or old news. Can anyone correct this timeline for me? These should all be days in Japan, not days in the US:
Sunday – Unit 3 explosion
Monday – Unit 1 explosion
Tuesday – Unit 2 explosion, Unit 4 fire possibly extinguished, possibly not, high levels of radioactivity recorded, staff at plant reduced, Units 5 and 6 heating up
Wednesday – Unit 4 fire, Unit 4 explosion, two workers missing
Does that look about right? Thanks!
Sides and roof but it means the energy did not all go in the one direction.
You got it!
Yeah, but, see, Alaska and Hawaii aren’t REALLY part of the US, dontchaknow? Just ask Tahd!
Thanks SC . . . you and BIll offer a great deal of clarity I couldn’t put together from all I’ve been reading . . .
Yeah, early on the first explosion and second one, some reports had entire buildings leveled . . . and that would mean the cooling ponds were gone . . . apparently that’s not the case . . . if we assume the info at hand being reported is accurate (I’m assuming there’s a HUGE amount of filtering being done by TEPCO, Japanese Govt., media sources and our govt.).
I’m not looking to raise panic levels . . . but given what we know, they can’t control the rising heat, they’ve pulled personnel to a skeleton staff (ok for operations but not this disaster) and well, what MORE could one infer about them giving up and letting nature take its course?
I believe they have breeder reactors too. If nothing else you use it for research and to use up that final step in the fuel.
Reuters twitter feed:
So cooling ponds did not vaporize but they and their contents were totally exposed to the outside now?
It is probably immaterial, but that “orange trough” is not the fuel storage container–it is a graphic depiction of the bridge crane used to pull and place the rods. The storage container is below the yellow strongback beneath the crane and adjacent to the reactor containment itself. That pool has none of the protection that the reactor has, it is more like a swimming pool (I’m now assuming you haven’t actually seen one, and don’t mean to be either condescending or snarky).
We were referring to the spent-fuel cooling pools that, as Lobster pointed out on another thread, are located above and adjacent to the steel-alloy containment structure that encloses the reactor core.
Look at the diagram above and you’ll see a device that slides on two rails on the top floor of the building. It can be operated remotely to position it above the metal structure, where it can function like a crane and lift out spent fuel rods. Then it slides over to the pool and lowers them into the water and places them in a stainless steel cage where they remain for an extended period of time until they are removed and placed in a much larger more permanent pool located at ground level outside the different reactor buildings.
The tops of the spent fuel rods that are kept in the cooling pools in each of the reactor buildings are ten feet below the water surface and still hot, so they have to be kept submerged and cooled by circulating water to prevent them from heating up and burning off the zirconium cladding in which they are enveloped. If the water ceases to circulate and be refreshed, it heats up, and eventually evaporates exposing the rods. Without the water, the rods quickly increase in temperature burning away the cladding and ignite and burn like 4th of July sparklers, at which point, all hell breaks loose as the hydrogen gas explodes.
Having lost the ability to add water to the pool and recirculate it with pumps, the reactor building is pretty much doomed because there isn’t any way to prevent the spent rods from melting down. I’ve actually been more concerned about what was going on with the spent rods than the rods inside the reactors, which I regarded as less likely to melt down and escape the steel-alloy containment structure where they would cause substantial havoc. The rods in the cooling pools are not kept inside a similar steel containment structure so their potential to cause damage is immensely greater, if they overheat and begin to melt, which is happening in the building housing reactor 4.
The steel containment structure in reactor 2 has been breached apparently.
Don’t know about the rods in the cooling pools in the buildings that house reactors 1, 2, and 3.
I can’t remember but I think they had more than 100 rods in the cooling pool in reactor-building 4.
Why does this seem to me to be nucking phutz? I’m not a nuke savvy person by any means, but isn’t this nutz?
What are the levels of radiation above the reactor? With fully exposed cooling ponds likely out of water?
I’m fully boggled . . . I admit it . . .
Go, Irish!
Would you like the cigar or the coconut as your prize?
Fuel rods damage at Fukushima’s 2 reactors estimated at 70%, 33%
Boron soaks up the neutrons that are part of the radioactivity issue. It basically “poisons” the fission reaction, slowing it way down. The seawater they’re using as a last resort is also boronated, iirc, for the same reason.
Crane, I know what you mean. I’m finding myself suffering from info OL and OPSOL (Other People’s Stupidity Over Load), as well as the new baseline stress of thinking about people in Japan. I’m going to go outside, lay down in the grass and think calming thoughts for a while.
More like reality-challenged
Wonder what they mean by “damaged” and how they made the estimate.
At first glance it doesn’t appear to correlate with what I’ve seen about how far the water levels dropped in the respective cores…
Hence me leading with the phrase “GE’s reactor design.” ;-)
But while the design was GE’s, the Japanese were the ones who selected it.
One could well say the world in general is playing the same deadly game with nuclear power.
But in this case, harsh as it might sound in the midst of this tragedy, the final responsibility rests with those who made the final choice to implement this design and nuclear power on such a large scale – the Japanese.
It’s like the responsibility a meth user must take for their fate. Difficult, but the only path to change. “Nukes. Not Even Once”
Let’s all hope this ends soon, and well.
The plants outer walls seem to be a good bit more flimsy than the remainder of the plants.
Oh! Thanks! That’s why the cooling ponds are full of boron I think? . . . but the impact on those doing the deployment of said boron?
See my answer above @ 3:46 pm in response to Funny Diva.
Thanks, I was wondering about the same thing.
Not sure what the trough is for but that’s not the spent fuel pool. The pool is just below it and not exposed like that.
Again, I must disagree, at least partly with the characterization of the hydrogen explosion at MU3. Yes, the sides of the building blew outward, but the blast was strong enough to throw huge chunks upward for what appears to be at least many hundreds of feet (I’m sure you have watched the video). The upward force also is exerted downwards, and since the concentration of hydrogen must have been highest nearest the roof of the building there was a serious shockwave directed directly downwards at the storage pool and reactor. I’m really hoping that there were no fuel rods stored in unit 3 and am somewhat encouraged that there has been no mention of any leak from unit 3.
In the US, we’ve got 16 GE BWR reactors just like the troubled ones in Japan.
Ours are just as old(1971-1976) and we’ve renewed thier lisences for an additional 20 years(2030′s).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boiling_water_reactors
Yes, that’s why the ponds are full of boronated water.
The impact on those doing the deployment…well, yeah. Like the brave and self-sacrificing souls on the ground fighting to the bitter end, they’re taking a significant risk of a big exposure. Though if it’s an aerial assault, their exposure time will be much lower, which lowers the total dose they’d get.
Desperate measures at a desperate time. I’m not nearly as brave as these people. Their sacrifice and commitment to the greater good are boggling my mind.
I believe the orange structure is a crane for moving the fuel rods when received and between storage and reactor vessel. It would be above the storage pool.
So, the most problematic reactor at the moment is one that was in cold shutdown, non-operational, and the problem is not with full, working rods. The problem is with the waste, is that right? In fact, I suppose one could say that ALL of the problems and danger right now are with the waste, from all four (and I heard earlier that 5 and 6 were heating up). If true, and if nothing else would give one pause about nuclear power, might it be waste storage and disposal?
The Guardian is reporting that the fire is out now, and that in fact this fire ignited because the previous fire wasn’t put out:
But it’s really hard to know, given that there were all the assurances that the fire was out yesterday.
And then there’s Japan’s “Article 15″:
Yup, here’s a list of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boiling_water_reactors
16 are just as old(1971-1976) as the Japanese ones. And we’ve relicensed ours into the 2030′s.
1) Are control rods rotated out like fuel rods? Are they also stored in the cooling ponds?
2) Are they toxic, and how much so?
3) Are the cooling ponds (where there have been explosions of buildings) now exposed to open air? If so, what’s the ongoing radiation level being released?
(I’m reposting here my comment from above because for some reason it was posted as a reply up there, which wasn’t my intention.)
The Guardian is reporting that the fire is out now, and that in fact this fire ignited because the previous fire wasn’t put out:
But it’s really hard to know, given that there were all the assurances that the fire was out yesterday.
And then there’s “Article 15″:
Well, I guess from the US perspective, it’s an argument to bury the waste after a single use as fuel, rather than re-processing and re-using. From an FDL perspective, obviously, that’s no solution at all.
IOW, yes, the spent fuel/waste issue should be really giving everyone pause. So should the (probable) partial meltdowns at 1-3.
I suspect there’s still much trouble from the reactor cores at #2 and 1&3, but the situation at #4 is now so out of hand and new that it’s getting the most attention at the moment.
The rods stored at #4 were not spent/waste, but had been pulled for maintenance and stored for re-installation (see Bill E’s comments early in the thread). This might be why the storage pool at #4 was first to become a huge problem. But without enough cooling capacity to take care of everything, 5&6 have started to heat up as well, and will probably also become more of a problem over time.
Good questions . . . I’m still trying to figure out what happens if the cooling ponds and their products fully melt down. Will that breach the containment vessels of the reactors, and if so, what happens then?
THis is so different from Chernobyl (which did not have containment vessels I think) it’s hard for me to get the big picture from all the myriad info (much of which has to be filtered IMHO).
Thanks again to SC and Bill and Pups in comments.
Some misunderstanding about where the spent fuel pool is. I only know cause I just googled it. The spent fuel pool is below the orange trough not the actual orange trough.
So when the hydrogen explosion happened it did not blow up the spent fule pool. It happened above it.
The spent fuel pool has a water capacity of 400,000 gallons (1.51 million liters).
(various sources on the internet)
OH. SHIT.
Now the Japanese Gov’t has really gone off the deep end.
If I were a high-information person in Japan, I’d now be extremely panicked.
I’d have said that, after yesterday’s presser, it’s waaaaaay too late to contain the peoples’ panic by constraining the flow of information–there’s too much info out there already, and it’s already too scary.
Thanks for looking it over!
Nice mini summary there FDiva . . . well done. Thanks.
As to US nuke waste policies, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been a boiling point for almost a decade now.
Much of the issue is not only Yucca Mountain becoming compromised short term or over time, but also the point of TRANSPORTING the nuke waste over distances TO Yucca Mountain . . . insane to think about truck, train transport of nuke waste over public roads and rails.
“What could go wrong?” “Who could have known . . ?”
Thank you!
Reactors 1 and three are still without cooling power, and I believe 1 is subject to sea water injection (of questionable efficacy). Unless I missed something both are still in danger of melting down completely.
If this were an airplane…The airplane is still in the air, but the engines stopped, and caught fire. And the fuel fell out of a big hole in the plane. And the windows are gone and the roof peeled off…..but it still hasn’t hit the ground yet. Best analogy I could come up with on short notice.
If this were an ‘airplane’ MOVIE, Leslie Nielson would save the day. (Shirley, you jest)
Wow, not good . . . thanks Sybille . . . I wonder if US policy and pressure had anything to do with this . . .
Larue; good to hear your voice. :o)
And, I know that the wind has swung around to the SE, which would move any plume out to sea, but now that the Austrians have bailed and moved their embassy to Osaka, I wonder if any other countries are severing diplomatic relations with Tokyo?
Without an update on radiation levels at reactor 4, we really don’t know.
Based on earlier reports, I’d think that this isn’t the most dangerous(highest exposure) job currently being undertaken at the site.
How big are these things, the spent fuel rods, I mean. Couldn’t we load up a space shuttle with them every 5 years or so and fly them into the sun?
I’m sure there must be very practical reasons why this won’t work, but it would seem that we could remove them permanently from our environment and could divide the cost among all the utilities who produce waste.
Probably the risk of a take-off accident makes it impractical.
FWIW, I think the “article 15″ situation started Monday, so not in response to today’s events. At any rate, it seems that it was reported to be in effect on Monday by the source I linked.
Thanks! I had thought the orange thing was a crane like device to lift out spent fuel rods INTO a cooling pool (maybe deploy new rods into reactor). It moves (in the diagram) left to right over and away from the reactor vessel.
Uh, in order to take out spent fuel rods, wouldn’t the containment vessel have to be ‘opened up’ and then closed somehow?
Which would likely involve shutting down the reactor, inserting control rods, enabling some cooling . . . before the removal and replacement could take place?
Now, given the diagram above, just where is this pool as there is no area shown indicating cooling pond . . . and I gotta ask, if the building walls were blown out . . . how did the cooling pond not take that hit?
I know, I got a lot of questions, but you Pups got lots of answers and I thank all of you for them!
The building housing reactor 1 blew-up first blowing out the walls and the roof pancaked down on the floor below it where the cooling pool is located.
The explosion in the building housing reactor 3 was much stronger and blew the roof off the building as well damaging the walls.
According to the authorities, the steel-alloy structure housing reactors 1 and 3 remain intact and will contain a meltdown of the core, if it happens.
This is not true of reactor 2 where the steel-alloy containment structure was breached by an explosion, apparently from inside the steel-alloy containment structure.
The reactor 4 was already shut down when the earthquake hit. The explosion there apparently was caused by the loss of water in the cooling pool that exposed the rods, which then overheated and caught fire. I imagine the steel-alloy structure remains intact and will not play a role in this catastrophe because the rods were removed before the quake. i think the same is true of reactors 5 and 6. Don’t know about the status of the rods in their cooling pools, but they will likely follow the same course as the rods in the cooling ponds in reactor building 4 unless they can keep the water level up and recirculating.
Don’t know what happened to the rods in the pools in buildings 1, 2, and 3. I don’t believe the authorities have mentioned them and no one appears to know enough to ask.
Hey, wassup Tan hoss! Good to see your fonts likewise!
Good questions . . . I wouldn’t think severing dip relations is at hand, but I can CERTAINLY understand evacuating embassies . . . is there a political thang there I’m missing?
Think you mean Mr. Rogers, but still funny!
if the building walls were blown out . . . how did the cooling pond not take that hit?
Same question, here…
Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s not like they have a reactor camera.
Maybe they’re basing in on how far off the behavior of the given system is from the expected performance of an intact system. Assuming they have pressure, heat and water level data… just a guess.
Don’t call me Shirley!
You made me think of something my dad liked to say: “ran outta airspeed, altitude and ideas all at the same time.”
Anyway, yeah, the pilots are trying not to crash into the middle of a highly populated area, and trying to set the bird down as gently as possible–which is still going to be one hell of a bump.
Not, the orange thing is a crane !!!
EPU’ed earlier about Chu’s comment:
———-
San Onofre is not built “considerably above that”. It’s just barely at the level that can be predicted. I read two articles about the plant in the last 24 hrs, and both claim that they designed it to fit the projected possibilities of the local off-shore faults. But wait…according to an LA Times article Monday, (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tsunami-california-20110315,0,7384994.story)
Steven Day, a seismology expert at San Diego State, said the highest magnitudes believed to be possible at the nearest significant fault lines to the two Central and Southern California plants — the Hosgri fault in the case of Diablo Canyon and the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault in the case of San Onofre — would be in the low 7s.
So it ISN’T built “considerably above that” is it? Again, the LA Times:
Southern California Edison officials acknowledged that the San Onofre nuclear power plant was built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 quake — not the 9.0 temblor that hit Japan. But quake experts said the chance of a similar-sized quake —and a tsunami — occurring in the southern half of California were highly unlikely.
The chance of a 9.0 quake on the fault off the Northern Japanese coast, in the Japanese Trench (meeting point of the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate) was considered remote as well, which is why the nuclear plants were not designed for a quake that substantial. And they didn’t plan on a 10m tidal surge either. (Cool science article here: http://www.livescience.com/13177-japan-deadly-earthquake-tsunami.html)
Plus the San Onofre plant is about 60 miles away from the San Andreas fault, a section that’s been “locked up” since a huge quake in SoCal in 1857, which literature identifies as about the same magnitude as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, 8.3.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/earthq3/safaultgip.html
That’s 8.3, 60 miles away.
So I’m calling bullshit on this claim.
And don’t get me started on the supposed “30-foot-high, reinforced concrete tsunami wall,” it’s a joke. I’ve surfed that beach. There are better walls keeping the riff-raff off Malibu beaches.
Seriously considering watching John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness again, because it would be more calming than watching this horror unfold. (“Do you read Sutter Cane?” -movie line.)
Huh, no reply button on nested comments at times so:
captjjyossarian March 15th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Regarding most dangerous job at this time in your comment, yeah, it’s not like Chernobyl, where they were all sent in and died by the thousands . . . even while pouring cement for the burial of the reactor.
Thanks to you and FDiva for the replies.
Uh, does this refer to the rods in the reactor or in the cooling ponds?
Dispersing boric acid from helicopters might also have the side benefit of killing any cockroaches left around the area, which are notoriously resistant to radiation.
The paper bag I’m breathing into is starting to wear from the expansion and contraction cycle. I need a new strategy for calming myself.
Huge summary comment Mason and thanks again for all the clarity from all about the orange crane, etc. I especially appreciate reddog’s descrip about the diagram at top of page . . . very kewl info sharing here folks . . .
See my response @ 3:46 pm to Funny Diva and @ 4:28 pm response to you.
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords!
It’s pretty arrogant of us to presume we know the limits of how much force could be produced in an earthquake. We have at most decades of data points to work from against a range of tectonic behavior that spans billions of years. Pure hubris.
The following document has some facts about the spent fuel pool and the spent fuel stored there (posted in a comment on http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary ).
http://resources.nei.org/documents/japan/Used_Fuel_Pools_Key_Facts.pdf
I don’t know where this fire is supposed to be but it’s highly unlikely that it’s the spent fule burning. Must be something else.
comfort food from the drive-thru? That’d get you a new bag, at least!
Thanks, konst!
appreciate your efforts to track down and share more info!
I’ll see you pups later–time to catch a bus home from work…
Three Mile Island is a bit better to look back on. It was also a loss of cooling event. Granted, they were at full power and half the core ended up as molten corium at the bottom of the reactor vessel.
My expanding ass regrets the very suggestion. *heh*
Bong hits at my house.
btcaltech March 14th, 2011 at 5:30 pm «
Apparently there is also a stand-alone building on site that has spent fuel “stored” as well. If any of the spent fuel goes critical, the reactor core fuel becomes irrelevant and isn’t even close to the damage potential of the spent fuel. Why do you think #1 and #3 oxy-hydrogen explosions looked different? What was the additional debris seen in #3? My premise is, you seem to be barking up the wrong tree. It’ like putting the gas tank of your car above the engine and worrying about the engine blowing up. The spent fuel rod enclosure DOES NOT have the containment structure the reactor has.
It’s a misnomer to think of the fuel rods from nuclear plants as being either spent or waste. Far from it. We only use something like 5% of the energy content of the fuel. With 95% remaining, those rods are an energy resource. Already mined, already partially enriched.
There are reactor designs being developed that would extract substantially all of the energy content that would help solve both our energy and storage problems at the same time. The Traveling Wave Reactor design being one of them.
This diagram has some parts labeled so you know where things are when they discuss it on reports
http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/environment/japan-quake-reactors
To much incorrect info floating around here. Appreciate the effort, not so much the execution.
Probably different amounts of hydrogen and I think in #3 (not sure though) that there was a stuck valve so maybe more hydrogen was present but not sure.
If you wear a dosimeter to work, very much interested in what you would have to say further.
“There are better walls keeping the riff-raff off Malibu beaches.”
Should win snark of the day, easily.
Well played!
*G*
I’d assume the pilots are overhead for a few minutes max. The 50+ folks on the ground are there 24/7.
And yeah…. everything about Chernobyl was grim. Liquidators… Human Robots…
Reuters reporting that smoke is once again coming from Fukushima Daiichi No.4
btcaltech, why don’t you tell us what you think about the situation in Japan? All information is helpful and even guesses lead to knowledge.
Thanks.
Sorry, I don’t meet your “qualifications.” I said it the last couple of days here, as the old comment I just reposted. If you’re “very much interested” look at what I already said, that might be a good start.
Ahh. Just a mere assertion of opinion. Thanks for your admission.
Thanks . . . all I’m lacking is an accurate picture of placement and depth and size of the cooling ponds.
And I’ll repeat, I don’t see how the explosions did NOT expose them to open air . . . . not yet I don’t see it.
Until I can resolve this, I have to think we ain’t getting the full details from Daiichi by any means . . .
This explanation of the spent fuel pools helped me understand it better. I found it in today’s transcript of the Union for Concerned Scientists’ telepresser:
The spent fuel pool is approximately 45-foot deep. The spent fuel is stored in the lower 15 feet of that 45-foot deep pool. The spent fuel is stored in metal racks that are approximately six inches off the bottom of the floor. They have little legs on them that hold the bottom of the rack, about six inches off the bottom. That allows water to circulate up through the bottom of the racks, past the fuel assemblies to cool them, and then that water is removed, cooled, and returned to the pool, when things are working right.
If the water boils away or drains away such that it drops down to about the lower — the lower regions of the pool, what happens is you don’t get enough water flow. You don’t have water flow removing heat anymore, and the steam that’s being boiled away from the surface of the pool isn’t enough to cool the top portions of the exposed fuel bundles. So, they heat up, heat, and as they heat up, at some point, there is actually — they reach the ignition temperature or the point at which the metal cladding catches on fire. When that occurs, the contents of the fuel rods are released into the airspace that’s going around there.
The spent fuel pools, as I mentioned earlier, are located in secondary containment buildings that aren’t as robust and aren’t as effective at containing that radioactivity, so a lot of it does get to the environment.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/nuclear-crisis-japan-telepress-transcript-03-15-11.html
Someone on TV said that exact phrase this AM.
Which leads to at least one near term constructive action to take away from this incident. For those reactors using this GE/BWR design with the storage pools housed above the reactor we should be building new, properly contained pools for storing the residual fuel.
A second action to take would be to either repackage the fuel pellets in something other than zircaloy rods or repackage the fuel rods themselves. The object being to reduce or eliminate the ability of the pellets or rods igniting in the event of a coolant loss.
Looks like the smoke may be coming from #1, not #4.
The spent fuel is NOW the focus because it does not have the containment the reactor core has. A meltdown in RC is one thing, a meltdown of spent fuel is a whole nother ball game. Game over much sooner because of containment issues.
See my post below from the UCS. It might help. It certainly gave me a clearer picture of the pools.
Does anyone know why the secondary containment buildings are not as robust as they should be? Seems like a no-brainer to me – if the things are dangerous in one place, they are going to be equally dangerous in another place. Does that make sense?
Exactly. And it certainly seems the secondary containment at #4 was breached yesterday, anyway.
Make sense? Also, spent fuel radiation/radioactivity also can be much worse than that active or pre-active. Double whammy, eh?
Key facts of cooling ponds:
http://resources.nei.org/documents/japan/Used_Fuel_Pools_Key_Facts.pdf
—-
Dimensions of cooling ponds:
the “reference” BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) is approcimately
35 feet wide x 40 feet long x 39 feet deep
Capacity: 400,000 gallons
The water level is 16 feet above the pent fuel rods
Don’t worry. You’ll be a nuclear engineer in no time.
Agreed. If the spent fuel is so dangerous, why is it not housed in a containment vessel to prevent leakage?
It makes sense to me. Maybe they figure that if things have broken down to the point where the primary containment has failed, reproducing that level of containment in the construction of the building itself won’t help. Sort of like game over.
I meant “reference” cooling pond dimensions
Thanks for the answer. I’m learning a whole lot more than I ever wanted to know about nuclear power. Poor Japan.
You know, I really needed that laugh. Thanks
Spent fuel is “stored” both in same building of RC and in seperate stand-alone building.
It has become the media focus since the fire in 4, but it has been the primary concern of people who understand the design flaw since the quake knocked out the power and the tsunami knocked out the diesel pumps. They didn’t want to admit it or bring up the subject.
See: new diary by Kirk James Murphy, M.D.: Why Fukushima’s “spent” fuel rods will continue to catch fire.
The risk for anyone not on the site is the radioactive material moving off the site. The primary way this can happen, the only way if you do not include the sea, is by fire or stream putting it into the air. Fire being the most likely. (There is also it being carried by people or vehicles that were on the site but this is very secondary)
Fire involving fuel at a boiling water reactor like this or the other main commercial design the world over, the pressurized water reactor, is almost impossible. Strangely the biggest risk is the fuel pools. They are high in the building and expect for the one with the roof blown off there is no easy way to get water to it if all systems have failed. if the reactors have total melt down and the fuel melts right through the bottom of the reactor vessel then all that material is below ground and pouring water anywhere will find it’s way down to it to suppress fire.
I cannot stress enough that fire is the mechanism by which widespread contamination will occur. No matter how vast the radiation is if it is in one spot then it is only a danger to those within literally yards of it, as long as it is not undergoing chain reaction.
If every one of those reactors melted down and all the material stayed there, eventually buried under concrete or whatever, except what leaches or flows into the sea, then the public a mile away is safe.
I haven’t found the mainstream media sites to be particularly useful, esp. in comparison to what I find here, but I did think this one bit from a CNN article was really interesting and something to pull out when people start telling you how safe nuclear power is:
Whatever happens, the incident will greatly affect the calculation of probabilities associated with nuclear power risk, he said.
The probability of a core melt had been estimated at about one chance in 10,000 reactor years of operation, he said. “We’ve had now three core melts in 30 years in less than 500 reactors, he said, referring to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and, now, Japan. “So the probability of a partial core melt is one chance in several hundred instead of one chance in 10,000. So, it’s not a good statistic.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear/index.html?hpt=T1
Fits regardless of where it originated, I actually made the comment here yesterday but I stole it because it was a perfect anology.
And, really, it’s probably 5 melts now. Aren’t they thinking 3 units have suffered partial melts? That makes the statistics even more dismal.
Anyone familiar with this? Not sure whether to trust the source, but someone shared the link:
“Exclusive: Nuclear test ban agency has valuable radiation monitoring data from Japan nuclear accident — but can’t share them – March 14, 2011″
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/03/exclusive_governments_withhold.html
“The only problem right now (in reactor #4) is in the spent fuel.”
NHK World TV.
Also NHK, smoke billowing…
Still going on? Update?
Too funneh . . . *G* Thanks for the info.
Just heard a dude on local community radio, a nuke specialist, say there’s a million gallons in the cooling ponds at Daiichi . . .
I didn’t hear the full telephone interview, but he said one reactor has likely melted down and one of the more recent explosions was a steam explosion, hence the diffference from the others hydrogen based.
N he said, a steam explosion is likely from a melted reactor core and blown containment vessel.
He discussed the boiling water plant design versus a fully contained system.
In the GE plants, the actual core or containment vessel (not sure which) have multitudes of holes in the bottom to allow the control rods to go into the core.
That unto itself means much faster and greater loss of cooling water when power fails.
Whereas on other more closed system cooling designs, fewer holes by far, less fear of meltdown if loss of power.
Not sure I got it all right, but that’s close.
He thinks one reactor has melted . . . containment vessel blown open . . . I didn’t catch which one.
That’s pretty heavy info . . . let’s see if it comes up later tonite or tomorrow, given Article 15 has been imposed by Japanese government controlling ALL the info flow (n again I wonder if USA is somehow pulling puppet strings to reduce nuke bashing backlash).
Thanks, helps to fill in the pic some more, for sure!
Good stuff, thanks . . . still, we don’t know if any of the cooling ponds were or were not blown out in any of the 4 explosions so far . . . it’s all conjecture as to their structural integrity at this point, at least it seems to me.
What’s your take on spent fuel rods heating up and either blowing up or igniting, and creating an explosion that would damage the containment vessels of the reactor cores in this GE plant design?
Follow up Q: Ya think any of the cooling ponds and their products have BEEN blown up? If so, would that impact the containment vessel?
Most people have a difficult time understanding the concept of contamination. It’s all confused with the atom bombs I suppose.
At Hiroshima the thing that killed people besides the blast and besides the intense heat was for those outside the immediate blast zone the powerful radiation created by the uncontrolled fission reaction. The main part of that the neutrons produced by the fission. A neutrons power is like a giant 15″ navel gun while the alpha, beta and gamma radiation from inert radioactive material is like a tiny tiny spitball.
The Hiroshima bomb left little contamination. Much of the radioactive material was sent high into the atmosphere where it dispersed.
1000 pounds of nuclear fuel in a ‘cool’ assembly presents an exposure danger to anyone of about zero a mile away. One gram of that fuel in your lung increases your chance of cancer hugely. It is all those little grams sent out over large areas that is the concern.
Got it?
Dang, I should have said what’s yer take on either spent fuel pools OR the pool(s) that were storing hot fuel rods in the reactors that were undergoing maintenance?
Most amusing.
Nope. The first one, about tone-deafness was Mr Rogers.
Mr Robinson’s neighborhood was a very non-PC parody on, I think, SNL. Or maybe SCTV, but I think SNL.
I’m furious with Chu and the great disgusting piece of biology called Obama. I don’t even have words for how they’re ignoring the dangers to us of nuclear power. Some of our unillustrious city council members are considering buying power purchase agreements that would help enable STP in south Texas to add two more nuclear reactors to the two existing ones.
We should be doing what Germany’s doing and starting to shut down our reactors.
Hard to wrap my head around this . . . aside from containment vessel components, Chernobyl was widespread, incredibly so. Lethally so.
How would (vessels aside) this sitch be so different if reactors went, melted vessels and exposed that radiation to open air? With or without fire?
There’s NO WAY the containment vessel containing the core blew up. That would require HUGE pressures to blow that thick steel case. (Not that I’m an expert)
He might have meant the capacity of the ponds in liters which is 1.5 million liters.
I am going to go on.
If millions of those little bits of radioactive material fall on the ground over several square miles then the radiation in the area as measured by a Geiger counter might be so high that a person might get what is considered their safe annual dose in say a week. So you wouldn’t want to live there. In Toykio and other places today the reports were that radiation above normal but ‘safe’ was reported.
Sure it is safe as long as whatever those little bits of radio active material making the reading high don’t end up inside of you.
Don’t understand Hiroshima killing a lot of folks with radiation further away from blast area and then Hiroshima radiation going upwards and not contaminating as much as . . . as Nagasaki, I’ll assume.
My understanding of history is both were exploded above ground in order to DOWNWARD propel blast effect, which would mean radiation is propelled down and out, too.
?
Despite me posting on FDL I do support nuclear power cause I understand it and therefore am not afraid of it. I don’t think the billions of people in the world will survive without it.
At one time people were afraid of flying but now it’s routine.
Not likely on Q1, the RC containment is built to withstand a direct hit from a plane, for obvious reasons. On Q2, I think it’s possible the explosion at #3 damaged the spent fuel rod enclosure on #4, considering (I think) it’s problems came after #3 explosion. Second part of Q2 see answer to 1.
Fully agreed with your entire comment GW . . . best to you and Texas Betsy and the other Texan proggies in yer region.
Any word on the assets now available to fight this?
All I’ve heard of is 1 fire truck and some kind of help from the US Military.
I’d hoped that the time bought to date would allow for more pumps, generators etc to be brought on site.
I completely agree that without some form of sustainable, safe and waste efficient energy supply we are doomed, be it sooner or later.
I don’t buy into nuke as is . . . way too many short comings as we are seeing.
And the existing plants of the 60′s designs and 70′s builds are disasters waiting to happen, not to mention their waste products.
So, do the French have any improved models of nuke gen that are safer to operate and have a means to deal with toxic and deadly waste products?
I’m just not up on this industry, by any means . . . but you and a few others have certainly brought me MORE up to date than I was!
I’m in CA, VERY nearby is Rancho Seco.
*G*
Yeah, info on details about US assets and such are quite muted, other n Obama’s general presser or two.
Funny about that.
One other question I’ve not seen posed . . .
Can this sitch go fissionable and explode somehow? 6 reactors, fresh and spent fuel, etc.?
They test/monitor for nuke test explosions. A nuke explosion is not what is occuring. Whether or not that would skew their data collection and/or it’s interpretation/analysis would be my first thought. Why they don’t release it? Ah, your guess is as good as mine.
Nope. We Americans have the improved designs that are safer. But we also developed a type of nuclear power plant that is not only safer but 300 times more efficient and creates much much less waste and doesn’t have any of these problems. In fact all the energy you’ll use in your entire lifetime will fit in a little ball of “thorium” in the palm of your hand.
Well I think you can probably guess what happened. Yep the government and lobbyists killed the program.
There’s a recent interesting interview with a scientist that is promoting it.
Youtube video: “Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour 84: The Nuclear Alternative”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd-jbw
Only as individual piles or individual reactor units. The reactor units are too far apart from each other for everything to pool together into any sort of mega-mass, which I think is what you’re trying to get at.
Not that 6 reactor cores plus the spent-fuel storage pools is trivial! But each is going to fail at its own rate, unaffected by its neighbors. The trouble is that the power and cooling failures have affected all 6 units simultaneously. It’s still a mess. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing the iconic “mushroom cloud” from this. That’s different physics for a different application.
O.K. Thanks for the info. Unfortunately you’re wrong. Radiations of different types have different levels of penetration. Radioactive substances emit radio particles. Highly energetic atomic “scraps”. Some of these have low penetrations, others can go through miles of rock. Radio iodine and cesium do have to be taken up by the body. All the concern is over these materials becoming aerosolized and spreading. I think the term most used here is “containment” of the radiation. But beleive it, a good burst of gamma will ruin your hair, and you don’t have to ingest a thing.
Breaking news. Smoke is billowing from Fukushima Daiichi #3 plant.
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
“All workers have suspended operations there. Even minimum ones. Asked them to evacuate to safe area.” -Edano #Fukushima
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
“…Possible that evaporation is coming out and that is the cause of the white smoke. Irradiated vapor.” -Edano #Fukushima
Hiroshima bomb was a “controlled event”…bomb explodes, heat and radiation released. Event over, but just because it is “dispersed” doesn’t render it harmless. I wish it did, but it don’t.
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
“Report of smoke from No. 3 at 8:34am this morning, but no report of blast.” -Edano #Fukushima
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
“Part of the containment vessel is broken, and vapor appears to be coming out from there. High probability.” -Edano #Fukushima
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
Q: Any chance to evac instructions? “Unless we witness rapid rise in radiation, no need to change that.” -Edano #Fukushima
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
Q: Condition of No.4 reactor? “Has spent fuel pool. We’re preparing to pump water. No. 3 is believed to be causing the rise in radiation.”
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
“Temp. seems to be rising in No 4, 5 & 6 reactors.” -Edano #Fukushima
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
NHK has now cut away Edano’s presser on smoke at Unit 3. Will summarize shortly right here: http://bit.ly/f6t4XA #Fukushima
Thanks, Mason!
I’m still following along…but the live feed stutters so badly I’m depending on the kindness and liveblogging skills of fellow FDL-ers.
donnabrazile Donna Brazile
by Valerie0714
Good Lord! RT @thinkprogress RT @W7VOA: Edano: Rad levels too high to continue fire-fighting at Fukushima-1 — all workers evacuated now.
Is this EPU world?
Smoke or (more likely) steam spewing from Unit 3. I see no source of steam or smoke other than fissile materials. Appears bad to me.
DemocraticNewsS DemocraticNewsSource
by Valerie0714
#p2 #dems #tlot #gop: Japan abandons stricken nuke plant over radiation http://bit.ly/ho204r
Ok, sorry, I just got to the computer. I see you guys are already on top of this.
BreakingNews Breaking News
by Valerie0714
White smoke seen rising from around No. 3 reactor; fuel pool may have heated and produced steam – Reuters http://bit.ly/fqHuWU
Now the announcer is saying that the smoke/steam may not be coming from unit 3. “cannot tell”
CNN reporting that the 50 workers have been removed from the site.
Maybe.
Thanks, Mason.
Welcome back, lobster.
I think folks might be taking a breather, though it’s also getting late on the East coast.
Yeah, it sounds very bad to me, too. Especially if the remaining crew has evacuated.
I’ve update the post wrt to the smoke and a press conference by Special Minister Edano
mcrispinmiller Mark Crispin Miller
NewsFromUnderground: Fukushima: Mark 1 nuke reactor design caused GE scientist to quit in protest http://bit.ly/eA5wVj
Not a good sign, if they all leave Rad levels will only increase eventually and if that is the reason they pulled them, what would be the rationale for re-entering? Maybe air-drop water instead?
KatrinaNation Katrina vandenHeuvel
by Valerie0714
It is Apocalypse Now.Far worse than Three Mile Island,soon to exceed Chernobyl’s disaster. If not now when–do we understand lessons?
Information conveyed by Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano at his 11:15 a.m. (Japan time) news conference Wednesday, 3/15, about the F. Daiichi plant (which followed a news conference, not translated, by TEPCo, which was quite uninformative, apparently, concerning the live video taken, from 30 kilometers away, by an NHK TV helicopter, showing white steam/smoke billowing from the plant for some time during the previous hour):
- The steam/smoke is evidently coming from Unit 3, not Unit 4, and began at 8:34 a.m. today (Wednesday, in Japan). No evidence of a blast or explosion was reported with the steam/smoke.
- The cause is as yet unknown, and needs to be investigated. Edano says that a high probability, however, is that the concrete “Primary Containment Vessel” (PCV) – which is not the steel reactor core containing the fuel/control rods – of Unit 3 may have developed a form of the same problem that Unit 2 developed. That is, some sort of crack to the outside environment in the lower, torus/circular, pressure suppression chamber/room/pool part of the PCV strucuture. If true, it’s mostly steam being released, and somewhat radioactive steam that has had contact with the interior of the reactor vessel core.
- Since about 10 a.m. Wednesday (two hours ago), radiation levels rose high enough (back into millisieverts) for TEPCo to temporarily pull the remaining workers off-site for their protection. Levels were “rapidly dropping” again, however, as of 10:54 a.m. Japan time (no number given).
- Overnight last night, plant front gate radiation readings were “fluctuating by the hour” in the microsievert (originally misspoken as milli) range – from 1000 microsievert, to 800, to 600.
- Preparations are underway to get a firetruck or firetrucks capable of adding water (gradually, to avoid damage) to the fuel pool in Unit 4. That effort is suspended while the employees are off-site, but when it proceeds, the media will be notified. [The U.S. military has offered to provide "pump cars" to help with the movement of water at the plant.]
One fact learned from the earlier TEPCo news conference Wednesday morning: There are 514 spent fuel rods in Unit 4′s pool, and they have been in the spent fuel pool for nine months.
Note: There is no doubt that all of the workers were evacuated, but there is a possibility that they may have returned because radiation levels apparently dropped several hours later. I can’t say for sure whether they returned or not.
Will advise.
MSNBC now reporting they’re back 45 minutes later, due to a rad spkie, possibly from Reactor 3.
CNN 50 now reporting that 50 workers were only gone for 45 minutes, and have returned.
sciam Scientific American
Here’s an @AP story on why Japan has evacuated workers from Fukushima Daiichi plant http://yhoo.it/htnxrF
nytjim Jim Roberts
by kate_sheppard
Amazing story on “faceless 50″ workers making “perhaps existential” sacrifices to avert nuclear disaster. http://nyti.ms/erBKe2
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
I’ve now UPDATED my report on the smoke seen at #Fukushima Unit 3 following Edano’s presser. Latest details now here: http://bit.ly/f6t4XA
Sorry, that was MSNBC reporting that 50 had not completely left site. The confused/conflicted info coming from both govt. and Tepco is just amazing.
Good summary. Thanks.
From brad Friedman’s summary of what Edano said at the presser regarding the workers. Read more at his website: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8396
“Earlier today there were reports of rising radiation levels near the gate of the facility, leading to the evacuation of all workers at the plant, leaving no one to fight the fire. Last night, all but 50 workers had been evacuated after an explosion at Unit 2 and a fire at Unit 4 (which had been off-line for maintenance prior to last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, and storing spent fuel rods in a pool which may have caught fire.)
While workers had suspended operations, radiation levels had begun to decrease, Edano said. It was not clear whether workers had yet returned to the plant.
* * * *
“The plant’s 800 man crew was evacuated last night, leaving just 50 behind to manage the crisis at four, and now possibly all six, reactors at the Daiichi facility. That crew of 50 has, according to our best understanding of Edano’s press conference tonight, has currently suspended all operation at the plant until radiation measurements return to an acceptable level.”
TheBradBlog Brad Friedman
Brad retweets Hiroko Tabuchi
RT @HirokoTabuchi: Contrary to some reports, a core group of workers remain at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. It is not abandoned.
Hiroko Tabuchi is a Tokyo-based biz, econ & tech reporter for The New York Times.
“gradually, to avoid damage”..exactly; it should be noted that the spent rods need to maintain their distance from each other, if they are exposed (the integrity of their enclosure is breached) care has to be taken in ensuring that distance-apart relationship is not disturbed.
That makes sense. if true.
Kyodo News: Radiation briefly topped 10 mili-sievert at Fukushima
Some of the information provided at a NISA briefing given shortly after Edano’s news conference, at midday Wednesday, 3/15 (Japan time):
- TEPCo is still investigating the cause of the steam/smoke (when it can get employees back on-site, obviously).
- The official repeated that Edano misspoke about “millisievert” readings overnight. It was microsieverts that were measured overnight at the front gate.
- TEPCo reported that they evacuated the remaining employees at 10:40 a.m. (two hours ago) to wait until the radiation subsided.
- NISA provided the following radiation readings from F. Daiichi’s front gate Monitoring Post #6 this morning, Wednesday, 3/15, Japan time (all subsequent to the 8:34 a.m. beginning of the steam/smoke venting from Unit 3):
10:00 a.m., 810 microseiverts/hour
10:10 a.m., 908 microsieverts/hour
10:20 a.m., 2,399 microsieverts/hour (2.3 millisieverts)
10:30 a.m., 1,361 microsieverts/hour (1.3 millisieverts)
10:45 a.m., 6,400 microsieverts/hour (6.4 millisieverts) [Peak]
10:55 a.m., 2,900 microsieverts/hour (2.9 millisieverts)
11:00 a.m., 3,391 microsieverts/hour (3.3 millisieverts)
He also provided these “parameters” for Unit 3 as of 9:55 a.m. (about an hour and a half after steam/smoke started escaping from Unit 3):
- Reactor vessel water level: (A) minus 1900 mm; (B) minus 2300 mm
- Reactor vessel core pressure: (A) 0.088 MPa; (B) 0.095 MPa
- Summary: “low and stable”
- Primary Container Vessel (PCV) suppression chamber: “Downscale” (no data to provide)
Finally, TEPCo provided a photograph of Unit 4 this morning, which NHK TV showed on-air. Unit 4 was badly damaged by Tuesday morning’s explosion. A lot more than two “holes” were created in its reactor building’s walls/roof. It looks much more like Units 1 and 3 now, than the intact Unit 2. The NISA official noted that the metal cover over Unit 4′s spent fuel rod pool would melt at 1200 degrees, and at that point the spent fuel pool would be open to the air (if it isn’t already).
The spent fuel “pond” is directly below the orange thingy. The “fuel” is symbolized by the little blue squares.
I just posted a little diary about that feature (bug) of the design, working from the Nuclear Energy Institute fact sheet on same.
They have a reprocessing facility at Rokkasho, north of Fukushima. In an earlier thread, we were trying to figure out whether Rokkasho had been hit with the tsunami and concluded that it had not.
That would have been quite bad.
I guess maybe consuming (significantly) less energy would be out of the Q?
Kyodo: Government releasing rice stockpiles. Food shortages or fear of contamination or both b/c of hoarding?
Kyodo: Government is admitting that recriticality is not impossible.
That takes the situation into Chernobyl territory. I.e., “recriticality” is the restarting of the chain reaction, which would release MUCH more energy than we have seen yet.
There is a long way between “not impossible” and “likely”. At the existing enrichment levels of the fuel, a neutron moderator should be needed, even if the fuel clumps together somewhere (so that the control rods are useless). I suppose this could be groundwater if things go that far?
Thanks, I’ll link to this comment in the post.
Aren’t these high pressure readings?
After a day of my day job, I’ve lost control of the details. I’m going off to re-read the spec sheets we circulated earlier.
This makes sense to me with so much less transport possibilities, compounded by disaster relief efforts and the wreak of the disaster itself to offer rice from stockpiles where possible. Watching NHK live in the other thread 45,000 refugees in one town in temporary shelters and little or no heat, lack of medicines for elderly. If they could get rice to people, seems like a bonus.
I agree. The tsunami is still the immediate problem for most of the population.
Yeah, it is late here (east coast for me). I need to do some reading to catch up with the day’s events anyway.
‘neutron moderator’, yep, and *a lot* of it.
on second thought, wouldn’t it take successive layers of moderators?
I agree with Funnydiva2002. More detail:
We could still see more small hydrogen explosions. If there is a larger explosion, it will likely be a result of flash-heating a large amount of water — a steam explosion. That doesn’t sound bad, but it is the worst-case scenario right now because a lot of radioactive material could be widely dispersed and the other reactors at the plant (and their spent fuel) could all be involved.
There will not be a nuclear explosion. That is not physically possible.
Depends on the geometry of the corium mainly? I think it is unlikely. A steam explosion would be plenty bad and is relatively much more likely.
Captain J, is it not true that Diablo Canyon was first constructed backwards from the prints, then later turned around and built to spec. So, there is nothing to worry about; even the earthquake fault(s) that it is built upon cannot possibly produce near the destruction that is happening in Japan. So rest assured, Diablo Canyon is perfectly safe. You may now return to March Madness Basketball (but beware the ides of March).
There are control rods packed in there with the fuel rods. A boric acid helicopter drop is being contemplated so they must be worried about the change in geometry as the cladding burns. I’m confused, though. If the pool is hot enough for zirconium fires (or whatever else might be “burning”) then surely the water is boiled off? Doesn’t the lack of a moderator then help?
Has anyone reported whether the fuel assemblies on the top of Unit 4 are UO2 or MOX?
And restarting reaction–criticality–means sufficient meltdown to go critical. Which would bring us back to the vision of melting through the floor of the containment vessel and perhaps all the steel/concrete below.
While the spent rods burn in the empty pools above.
I’m trying to think of a worse scenario, but imagination fails me at this hour.
(It’ll be really interesting to see what possible positive spin the nuke apologists pull out of their midnight conferences for tomorrow morning.)
I think it’s time to try and sleep. Sheesh.
Shall we consider what next? They evacuated the workers. They can’t chopper in water because of winds, right now. Unit 2 has lost containment and the likely burning unit 4 , the boiling ‘cooling ponds’ with less and less water. Units 1, 3 are likely All I’m saying -and honestly I sure don’t know ‘end-game’ scenarios for collapsing cores and their containments – but it seems we’d want numerous ‘boundaries’ between melting cores and then containment of whatever kind – cement – etc as well as evacuation of people in outlying areas until, what , we hope it burns itself out.
I’m trying to be constructive here.
As of 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 14th, NISA had Unit 3′s reactor vessel core pressure listed as 0.183 MPa in its spec sheet [Unit 1 was at 0.047 MPa (A) or 0.270 MPa (B), and Unit 2 was at 0.65 MPa]. The core water levels for Unit 3 were identical to the ones from Wednesday morning, 3/16 (those measurements indicate the distance from the top fuel pellet of the surface of the cooling water – so minus 1900 millimeters means the water is a little over six feet below the top of the fuel rods, or covering about half their length). And Unit 3′s PCV “Suppression Pool Water Pressure” at that time was 500 KPa. So Wednesday morning’s reactor vessel pressure doesn’t jump out to me as an abnormal or high pressure reading (the “low” comment was referencing the water level, I think).
I thought I may have missed one radiation reading that NISA read out in their news conference, and it looks like I did, per Scarecrow’s comment just above mine. That was apparently the reading that triggered the order to evacuate the employees, and was the actual peak of that hour’s worth of measurements:
10:40 a.m., 10,000 microsieverts/hour (10 millisieverts) [PEAK]
I think only #3 has MOX fuel.
Although it’s always good when devices become more energy efficient, that doesn’t mean that overall energy usage will go down. The reason is economic and I think it’s called jevon’s paradox or something like that.
I linked to same GE designed reactors. Problems elsewhere? I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.
The Miami Herald answers a question that has been on my mind:
I would be shocked if they have already not gotten much more. If they haven’t they why are there not hundreds of people there or at least staged to enter the site so that work can go on continuously.
If they do not have the pumps hose piping and equipment to get water to the pools why not. Maybe those areas are simply too hot to go into now.