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Reactor Containment & Fuel Storage from UCS; (h/t commenter lobster)
It’s Thursday morning here and Thursday evening in Japan. It’s been a frustrating day for crews trying to contain the radiation dangers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Station.
Update I, 1:30 pm EDT: Watching NHK TV English feed indicates the coverage has shifted strongly from containment activities at the plant sites (it’s 2:30 a.m. Friday there) and to increasing public and official concern about the dispersion of radiation and its possible health effects. Lots of stories of citizens worried about the tap water, about their children, with many parents having already used tap water for bathing and cooking before they got the warnings.
Maps showing locations of higher readings go well outside the 30 km stay indoors radius and as far south at Tokyo, 140 miles away. Key point: increased radiation doesn’t spread uniformly out from the plant. Rather it is driven by wind direction and speed and weather. So we get increased readings south of the plant on one day, which falls the next day, but increased readings east and northeast the next day, as wind direction changes. Further, rain in one area can increase radiation readings there by bringing more of the airborne radiation to earth, even though it’s further away from the site than areas with lower readings nearer the plant. So the patterns of dispersion are highly variable and difficult to model for predictive purposes. But they’re now dealing with increased radiation in the air, on the ground and produce, in water supplies at many locations and in the ocean, while trying to prevent panic. [It appears the Tokyo tap water warnings ended on Thursday.]
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Earlier hopes that restoring offsite power to the control rooms at Units 1-2 and 3-4 would allow quick reactivation of normal cooling systems were dashed with discovery, anticipated in our coverage, that critical pumps, valves and pressure sensors might be damaged and need repair or replacement. With radioactive smoke still coming from Unit 3, three more workers (laying electrical cables) at the site were exposed to dangerous levels in excess water outside, two of them hospitalized.
And as radiation continued to spread from the reactors, officials found unacceptable levels of radiation in tap water as far as Toyko and continuing unacceptable levels in produce and milk in the prefectures surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. It’s now clear that the evacuation and stay indoors areas should be expanded from the current 20 and 30 kilometer circles respectively, and they’re losing time to carry that out.
But if you want a flavor of the nightmare they’re still facing, consider yesterday’s New York Times story about the the salt buildup, stuck valves and the man on the ladder. First, a little history.
More than 30 years ago, I was a counsel at the California Energy Commission assigned the task of drafting the Commission’s first decisional document, a preliminary assessment of critical safety features at a proposed nuclear plant that was applying for a state construction license in California. Much of the assignment was just learning about and explaining how a nuke functions and how its safety features should work during normal and emergency conditions.
So I got emersed in reading reports and testimony on “defense in depth,” the nuclear industry’s talking point invented to assure the public that no matter what happened, there was always another backup safety mechanism that would avoid a catastrophe. I vaguely remember the witnesses talking about the cladding, and the boron-filled control rods (to absorb neutrons and stop/slow the reaction), and the integrity of the reactor vessel, the multiple containment structures, emergency cooling systems, back-up generation and so on. But I’m quite certain the one thing the witnesses never mentioned was the poor guy on the ladder. My report never mentioned him.
Yesterday, the New York Times described the situation inside the crippled Daiichi Units, even after they restored power to the control rooms and could start testing gauges and controls. Debris and damaged equipment from the explosion could be everywhere. And before they could even attempt to restart the cooling pumps, they had to know water levels and be certain all the valves on the water cooling system were in the correct open/closed position.
But much of the equipment could have been rendered inoperable from salt corrosion and build up, coming from 10 days of injecting sea water into the emergency cooling systems. Since some of the valves might be stuck, or the power to them inoperable, a plant worker might have to manually close or open the stuck valves. Now, it’s not unusual for plant workers to manually open/close valves. They just normally don’t do this under such dangerous conditions. From the Times: (my bold)
The emergency cooling system pump and motor for a boiling-water reactor are roughly the size and height of a compact hatchback car standing on its back bumper. The powerful system has the capacity to propel thousands of gallons of water a minute throughout a reactor pressure vessel and storage pool. But that very power can also be the system’s Achilles’ heel.
The pump and piping are designed to be kept full of water. But they tend to leak and develop alternating pockets of air and water, Mr. Friedlander said.
If the pump is turned on without venting the air and draining the water, the water from the pump would hit the alternating pockets with enough force to blow holes in the piping. Venting the air and draining the water requires a technician to reach a dozen valves, sometimes using a ladder. The water is removed through a hose to the nearest drain, usually in the floor, that leads to machinery designed to remove radiation from the water.
The process takes a full 12 hours in a reactor that is operating normally, Mr. Friedlander said. But even then, the water in the pipes tends to be radioactively contaminated because the valves that separate it from the reactor are not entirely tight.
So, some very brave soul, possibly one of the already exposed Fukushima Fifty, will have to walk around inside the reactor building, withstand the internal radiactivity, seek out the damaged valves, remove the debris, climb up a ladder and manually open or close the valves at just the right moment. Defense in depth.
That same article contains a better description of the damaging toll the use of sea water is likely having on safety equipment, possibly rendering much of it inoperable unless the salt buildup can be quickly and safely flushed from the cooling system using massive injections of purified fresh water. That pure water will come from . . . where? If they had enough of that already, they would have used it.
So if I’m ever in a position again (unlikely) to have to write a safety assessment, I need to remember to add to the list of “defense in depth” features the following items: Water flushing system, garden hoses, debris remover, extra strength hazmat suits, an undamaged ladder or two, and at least one very brave worker. Also, better boots for the guys laying the power lines outside. Oh, and millions of gallons of bottled water and relief food supplies for the neighbors in a 50 mile or so radius while they wait to see if this works. I’ll keep the list open.
We’ll add some actual details as updates come in. Thanks again to all commenters who have helped in this effort.
Ongoing sources:
NHK live tv feed
Kyodo News: Japan Nuclear Crisis
New York Times coverage has generally been very good, especially from Matt Wald, a 30-year veteran of nuclear/energy reporting, who was part of a media coverage panel I saw at Harvard’s Kennedy School yesterday. Bottom line: Mixed bag: lots of misinformation, some scaremongering and confusion (tv first showed harmless cooling towers instead of reactors); governments often don’t understand what’s happening, even if they’re honest, which they aren’t. Where have you gone, Harold Denton? The Harvard expert who’s co-principal investigator of nuclear studies isn’t sure what info the US had when they second guessed Japanese officials last week. Matt Wald’s latest is here.
Democracy Now video on radiation in food
Picture of Unit 1 control room, via Kyodo News
Nuclear Power Plant Primer — good expert video
167 Comments
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
Yeah, I brought that up and was treated like a moron for it.
Nice write up Scarecrow. Thanks for the new information but I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with nested comments this early.
Two workers trying to reconnect the power supply to the reactor were injured by Beta radiation and taken to a special hospital in Chiba for treatment.
Thanks. As you will note, I mentioned in my morning’s post the fact that in my state we already have a disaster in the air pollution allowed. And; sorry if it’s irreverent but the symbol for this effort should be a worker with a finger in a very large dike, holding back an angry sea.
Recommended and thank you, both for the continuing coverage and your history.
This post paints a very clear picture of just what is likely to be happening at Daiichi. And maybe to a nuclear reactor near any one of us. Here in Austin I live about 150 miles from the two aging reactors known as the South Texas Project. The city of Houston is about 100 miles from the reactors.
We get increasingly stronger and stronger hurricanes on our Gulf Coast.
Before this nuclear disaster in Japan started unfolding, there was a proposal to build two more nuclear reactors at the same site. There was also an additional proposal to build two more nuclear reactors in Victoria, TX by the company Excelon which donates to President Obama. Victoria is 50 miles from the South Texas Project and about 115 miles from Austin.
IMO, it’s time to shift our fight against new nuclear to shutting down the nuclear we have now. Not only don’t we want new nuclear, we don’t want the old nuclear either.
Margaret,
I left you a note next thread down #61.
Can someone with more knowledge about this than me answer a few questions?
All four appear to be severely damaged, leaking, poisoning beyond 100 miles. Why can’t they be shut down and concrete poured on and around them?
Why are they taking so long in realizing that those things have to be shut down completely to assess the real damages all around?
I’m just not getting this stuff about trying to start them again, make it work, or whatever they are wasting time on.
So, some very brave soul … will have to walk around inside the reactor building, withstand the internal radioactivity, seek out the damaged valves… ”
The President of the company should do it. He’s the one making the big bucks, he should take the risk.
Injured by ‘beta radiation’? Wonder how, those suits should offer full protection against all but the most energetic of beta particles.
Boxturtle (I’d bet it’s replace rather than repair for the pumps at this point)
I’m sorry for not explaining that. They were standing in about 30cm of water when detection alarms sounded.
They ARE shut down. But if you got close enough to pour concrete, you’d aquire a fatal dose in seconds. It’d take thousands of truckloads and once a turck got too close, that truck could never leave because of radiation. But eventually, that’s what they’ll have to do.
I think they have a MUCH better assessment of the damage than they’ve released. They HAVE to have, given all the government level sensors that have been trained on that location.
There’s no intention of ever reactivating anything at that plant. The decision to “retire” that site was made as sooon as they started pumping salt water.
Boxturtle (The turth would likely cause panic among those endangered)
They’ve already started moving earth in anticipation of building the two new units at STP.
Agree. The plants are shut down, but not yet safely so. Continuous cooling is necessary to reach a “safe” cold shut down, and all they have is ad hoc cooling by spraying or injecting sea water, which itself has become an obstacle to restarting the normal cooling system, assuming it works now that they have power. When they achieve a safe shut down status with reduced radiation, they can start to think about long-term entombment, dismantling, whatever, but not yet.
Then why do they keep trying to reconnect electric and put those workers in more danger?
CPS has pulled out of that project due to the disaster in Nihon. Could others be far behind?
Most of the reactors in use today have been adapted from military applications and are therefore not necessarily the best designs that are available. Not defending nuke, just a tidbit.
Thanks. I guess that makes sense.
Call out the ICE trucks! Dump it all in now!
Flooding metal pipes & valves with salt water in a broken nuke power plant. What could possibly go wrong.
Thanks for your coverage Scarecrow.
They’re trying to get power to the water pumps that are supposed to be cooling the reactor.
The fire trucks and helicopters were a poor, last ditch effort, substitute for the safety injection pumps.
Even after fixing the pumps they have a reactor full of salt deposits to flush out.
Where is all that radioactive salt going to end up?
Good idea, which will never ever happen.
On your dinner table?? Not snark.
Hmm..not my understanding. Military reactors use much more highly enriched Urainium, a completely different fuel pellet alloy (more zirconium) and are designed for lots of power in a small space. Also, their cores are designed to last twice as long as a civilian reactor and only require refuleing about half as often.
And the military reactors seem to operate with fewer incidents. Dunno if this is because they have better trained operators, better equiptment. Or perhaps they’ve done a good job of keeping such incidents out of the public eye.
Boxturtle (Or maybe my perception is fouled)
Hell no! That kind of thing can be tough on the manicure.
Eventually, yes, no extra charge.
I believe the Fukushima Fifty is a foreign media concocted myth that started with the fifty or so skeletal number that were at site immediately following one of the explosions. The numbers at site at any given moment are in the hundreds and they are not the same people everyday. If the so called fifty were still hanging around, they’d be dead or very sick.
The two (three) that got burned today, of them two were burned in the ankles in water. The water apparently was 30cm or 15cm deep (depending on whether you believe the first reports or the on the fly correction to the depth). It would appear that the water contained material that actually got between their shoes (not boots!) and skin. I couldn’t get too excited about one of the reporters pointing out what electrical work was being done with feet in water, as I would suspect the wires were truly dead. In fact the darkness of the turbine room probably explains how the report about the incident isn’t as clear as it could be. The source of water is unknown.
What would appear to be clear is that the absence of water drainage system which also entail plumbing and pumps for the facilities is one the reasons why the men would be working with feet in water. From the explanations it would appear very unlikely that the water is sourced from the spraying they are doing elsewhere.
The press is pursuing the identity of the injured but have not even been able to get their employer details let alone names.
There is an army contractors and subcontractors working for not much at great risk. In the meantime the firefighters have managed to turn the event into a incredible exercise in self-promotion. It does reinforce the stereotype character and tradition of Japanese fire fighters, to a comical extent.
Right now, I think the plan is to wash everything into the Pacific. Because that’s where it seems to be going anyway.
Boxturtle (This will give the overfished areas near Japan a chance to recover, at least)
It’s already making it’s way back to the sea. Lots of water being continuously sprayed onto/into the reactor buildings to try to keep the spent fuel storage pools filled, and some of it is running off the site. Heightened radioactive levels measured in waters just off the site, with the usual official caveat, “not yet a hazard to public health.”
Mickey D’s pro’ly has a bid in already.
Well, at the time, they didn’t have a better option. It was either sea water or no water, and they needed water, lots of it.
I’m no expert, but I have read quite a bit about the issue you address. The problem lies in the ground beneath the reactors. It is contaminated with radiation and will likely leach into the ground water. Encasing the reactors in concrete will not prevent this.
In Chernobyl sarcophaguses made of concrete and iron were erected around the reactors. Today, 95% of the radiation remains. These structures have broken down over time and developed cracks that leak radiation. In 2008 a proposal was made to erect steel coffins to replace the concrete and iron structures. This project was to be financed by the EBRD and completed by 2012.
Flooding from the tsunami is another factor as it tends to raise the surface of the ground water. The soil content also plays a role. Silica provides a barrier so the more silica, the less leaching. And, it makes a difference if the water flow is more toward land than sea.
I said they were “adapted” not that they were military hardware. This is where I read about it. I’m going to quit commenting on these threads now since women are obviously incapable of doing so intelligently.
Two sources of water: it’s been raining and there is runoff from the continuing spraying of sea water.
The more one hears about this the clearer that the facility is nothing but a ridiculously complicated heat exchange facility involving motors, (electricity) pumps, tanks and pipes. Most of their pumps for picking up seawater for heat exchange are out of commission because they were damaged by seawater (tsunami). There’s tons of fresh water in tanks which can’t be used yet because the pumps and electricity got destroyed by seawater (tsunami).
scarecrow-
this is a fine post, very engaging to read because ypu dard include your persobal experiences.
thanks for ypor’s (and fdl’s) continuing coverage.
the nytimes’ and wapos’ reports on the japan disaster, post libya, have been shameful.
they add a little new info from time-to-time, but seem to be doing quite a bit of recycling of old info in their new stories – news scavanging, i guess.
so, to my surprise, FDL has become the news site i go to each day for in-depth evaluation and fresh insights on the japan nuclear plant issue.
“citizen journalism” has proven a competent, engrossing, reliable form of journalism.
my thanks to you and your colleagues.
Ah, so. I misunderstood you. Todays military reactors are very different, but the design bsisi for todays civilian reactors are based on the original designs the military came up with out of the Manhatten project and Rickover’s nuclear navy. Wonder why the military reactors have got better while the civil units are still the old design.
Boxturtle (And I apoligize if I’ve given offense. There was no offense intended)
Thank you all for the efforts to cover this, reading FDL has been infinitely more informative and constructive than anything else out there. Unfortunately, those in charge of this crisis appear to be a few steps behind day after day. One hopes that the health results of this are not as bad as they could be.
The guy that appears to be wisest of the bunch that takes press questions seems to doubt that it was spray water despite the hole in the one part of the roof of the turbine facility as the area in question is one floor below. Almost suggesting more likely to be tsunami sourced, but then it is irradiated with stuff. So there would be nice questions about leaks in the turbine side of plumbing or maybe in the pump they are trying to get running. But the apparent obvious one of the spraying of the spent fuel tanks did not seem to be the answer they hopped to. So it is strange.
Here’s an experiment for the guys around here: Go to space.com or any other science and/or engineering site and register with an obviously [male] pseudonym and comment for a week. Then wait a bit and register again with an obvious female user name and don’t change your commenting style or the content, (except as it relates to the topic), and I think you’ll be astonished. Maybe then you’ll understand why the patronizing of women in science and engineering is just such an ingrained part of the culture we share that sometimes you don’t realize you’re doing it.
Obviously “male” user name. (Blast no edit function anyway!)
The shouldn’t there be drains that at least Gravity feed down to the sea, should the pumps fail, although I know that can’t happen ?
Are the reactor floors below sea level ?
And in hindsight, didn’t they have a fresh water backup of sufficient quantity that any extraordinary cooling wouldn’t destroy the plant with saltwater ?
The media coverage have been good, bad and gadawful. But I think Matthew Wald’s reporting at the NYT has been worth reading, and they’ve had a useful daily status report/timeline on each Unit — a decent summary for those who want to recall which Unit exploded when. See my added writeup on Wald, bottom of post, on his presentation (along with ABC Science reporter and others) yesterday at the Kennedy School. I may have more on that later.
Gravity does not seem to be a friend here as it appears all the fresh water reserves are intact (and about a kilometer away) but require pumping.
It would actually make sense to have the entire complex be submerged in the ocean rather than to build on shore. At least below sea surface wave action is not as destructive and water proofing more or less becomes so critical as to not allow the occasional lapse of having exposed diesels.
There are drains inside the reactor building, that assume the water may be slightly contaminate. I believe, but don’t remember, that there’s filtration/treatment system. There is a quantity of replacement cooling water on site, as they lose steam; they likely blew through that quickly, or that system became inoperable with the loss of power. haven’t seen stories on that.
The design idea was to keep everything OUT of the ocean and inside the containment in the event of an accident.
Dunno about the reactor floors, but they’re obviously close enough to sea level that a large wave is all that’s needed.
They have plenty of freshwater capacity. As long as the desalinization plants were working or they were hooked up to public water. Not sure I’d blame the saltwater for destroying the plant. Hydrogen explosions and radioactive contamination probably did that, saltwater was simply icing on the cake and an offical acknowledgement that we were screwed.
Boxturtle (They might have recovered if the generators were above sea level)
Where are you finding descriptions of the location and quantities of replacement cooling water? That’s worth noting.
Try our NEW Glow-in-the-Dark Salt.
Limited time offer.
Assume a plant under the sea, then assume a containment breach. Scary thought, no?
Boxturtle (But since we couldn’t clean it up, there’d be no cleanup costs)
Jar Jar Binks would not approve.
Here’s a job for robotics.
Margaret,
No doubt what you say is true, about condescension and dismissal based on your gender. I, and I think a bunch of us here, read what you write with great interest, as it conveys a depth of understanding and an emerging, unique viewpoint–what WAS your MOS, back in the day? Weapons?
Keep on sluggin’. We’re with ya!
Doesn’t even have to be male/female, Margaret. I get different responses using this name than another, more generic one. It’ hilarious when Starbuck gets slammed as ignorant while another, real name isn’t. Same, exact subject (computers) same thread. Not here, but I often wonder what would happen if I could do it here.
Yes, someone will sell it as special Japanese “tsunami salt” and get some Wall st. rating agency to confirm it’s 100% safe.
The Oil Drum and the Automatic Earth are an excellent sites for energy related discussions. Both have females who are prominently featured.
If they cannot continuously cool the reactor cores for an extended period of time, then they will heat up to very high temperatures and melt. Then things get much worse — especially if they have been encased in concrete, which would seriously impede the effort to cool them off. You would likely get a very big explosion if you tried to entomb now.
They are not completely stupid over there. This is a disaster that could still become a catastrophe.
Today’s stories (NYT, Kyodo) describe initial efforts to move people out of the shelter in place zone (btw 20 and 30 km from the plant). We anticipated that order, too.
It is very likely that the evacuation orders will continue to evolve over the next few weeks to include a somewhat wider area. The problems will be when the circles contemplated include the larger towns and cities in the area.
Notes about the lack of detection of alpha radiation have to do with Pu and U dispersal; ditto for the “neutron beam” reports from yesterday — 13 findings of neutron radiation? I do not understand the full significance of these findings. I would be interested to know if anyone else knows that this is all about. Clearly there are decay chains that involve neutron emission, but I have not found a table that presents the fraction of such events that we should expect from dispersed fuel assemblies. If the fraction is very small (as I expect) then 13 findings probably means a larger amount of melting and escape (presumably from unit 2 or from the roof of unit 4) than has been reported. If the fraction is larger, then I would like to see the data on that.
Scarecrow, do you have a public email address?
The current airborne radiation monitors from central Fukushima City (pop 300,000) are reporting approx 40 mSv / year.
This is still a long-term issue of significance. Fukushima City is approx 70 km from the NPP.
Scarecrow: I’m late to this party, but I wanted to say that your distillations/recaps of this horrifying situation have been about the best thing I’ve seen on the subject. That includes TV Box, Radio Waves and the Interweb Machine. As a general statement, there has been (what I would consider to be) a relative dearth of information floating around out there. Pulling together what does exist cannot be easy.
Not by me, certainly.
By contrast, monitors 10 km from the Daiichi NPP (all data from fleep.com/earthquake, which is in turn from public (government operated) monitors all around Japan) show an annual rate of 80 mSv / year.
Depending on your point of view, the evacuation zone is either too big or too small… my point is that the current evacuation orders are inconsistent and will be forced to evolve.
I have a Japanese friend who was just in Tokyo. He reports a great deal more anger toward TEPCO than the media is reporting, and the situation with bottled water (as of two days ago) was completely wacky.
In this context, it is not credible to assume that the government will start moving people back into the evacuated zones. It is therefore pretty much an inescapable conclusion that further evacuations are coming.
Neutron “beam”? That implies some sort of focused source of the neutrons, which seems unlikely from a pile of molten metal.
A Linac bombarding a target with protons can do it but not a pile of molten metal.
I suppose statistically that might be possible but….
If you’re getting significant neutron emissions, it implies that one or more of the cores has gone critical again. Yes, PU and U can decay by spontainous fission, which emits 1-4 neutrons per event, but the primary decay mode is via alpha particles.
If you have a link to the neutron report, I can probably tell if it’s indicating recriticality.
Boxturtle (IMO, that would be the worst possible thing to happen)
matthew wald has been good.
i was particularly interested in his article on yucca because i had had a discussion about that last saturday (with a carpenter working for me; we weren’t arguing, just both musing about what is going to happen here).
without looking things up, i thought yucca mtn was designed for “low-level” waste. would that include spent elec genrtn fuel rods?
i also seem to recall one argument used against going ahead with the project involved
it’s sitting on an earthquake fault (which may or may not have been true).
one upshot of japan’s misfortune is that we are beginning again here in the u.s. to talk about nuke power and this time industry p.r. has been placed at a disadvantage (at least temporarily).
reuters.com is still pumping out a lot of information and live commentary on the Japanese situation. BBC stopped their live feed when the bombs started falling in Libya. As far as the rest of the media that Fukushima situation has almost entirely fallen off the radar.
http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2
We’re still doing a good job of keeping attention focused. Thanks everyone for good information and comments!
Good to see this from today’s IAEA update (it means there is at least one less thing to worry about and is the first clear reporting I’ve seen in a long time on the common use spent fuel pool):
It took me a while to figure that out. This is a translation issue. They are not talking about beams as we would mean; they just mean neutron radiation was detected.
It was the word “beam’ that caught my attention. I understand (basically!) the cycle that produces a nuclear reaction and the ratios of neutrons to fission event.
That’s good! Not even hot enough to make good coffee!
Sorta. I’ll contact you.
Link here. The reporting has evolved since I last read it.
Could be that this is evidence of recriticality at some level back in the early days of the accident. Very confusing reporting.
That is confusing. Correct me if I am wrong, but the neutrons themselves are not harmful but the by-products are.
The energy level would also have to be known. Reactors produce neutrons at the thermal energy levels somewhere around 2×10^5 EV.
Good news that it’s okay for the moment, but . . . interesting that with restored power to other sites, they still can’t use normal cooling/pumping systems at another building, apart from the damaged reactors, that hasn’t even exploded yet. What’s with that?
Thanks for all this great information and reporting….scarecrow, i think you are too modest. This situation, a horrifying as it is, could have a greater positive impact if more media outlets were treating it the way FDL is.
That said, and given the ongoing intensity of focus on Fukushima. I wonder about the other nuke plants in Japan, Weren’t there a few to the North that were also damaged from the East Japan quake and tsunami?
Also, when I heard the US Navy was moving personnel and large expensive metal ships out of Yokohama and Yokosuka i figured this disaster was worse than the corporate media was letting on.
Hi Margaret! We need you in on this discussion.
Neutron radiation is ionizing radiation and is harmful to life. It is not often discussed because it is relatively rare.
As much as I distrust official statements, it’s almost inconceivable that there are other plants in anything close to these conditions, but they’re not telling us. There are enough independent radiation monitors that would pick up the signs.
In the early days, we got some reports about other plants, and particularly about units at Fukushima Daini (Station II), several miles south, but nothing for the last week. The official statements claim all other units outside the Daiichi Units are in “safe” cold shutdown which suggests normal cooling functions.
The Navy had to move their fleet near the site. These are multibillion dollar assets, and they can’t just sit there and risk becoming exposed, making them potentially unusuable. Made sense to move them out aways.
I did see a couple of NHK tv reports showing a carrier being used as a helicopter platform miles out, to allow ferrying and distribution of relief supplies. The film showed lots of grateful Japanese bowing in thanks to the pilots. Same is true of US army bases on the island. There’s apparently a lot of US military assistance going on, how much is unclear, but it’s not getting a lot of publicity here for some reason.
I think total power to site is still limited and they are prioritizing. It is easy to enough keep this pool cool as long as they keep it in focus. This report basically gives us a baseline temperature for the CSFP if there are further calamities that force evacuation of the site itself.
They may have to be purged as in the part about the man on the ladder. However, I would assume that the radioactivity is much lower in that plant, making it easier to get it up and running.
Here is an interesting idea for small scale reactors. Looks like they did not particularly follow the military path for their concepts. The reactor is entirely under ground.
http://www.nuscalepower.com/
It’s an extremely unclear report, alas. Neutrons from a nuclear reaction will be emitted randomly in all directions, more like sunlight then a flashlight.
Assuming more than I probably should, I’m going to say that the detected neutron radiation is likely from decay of fission byproducts, rather than the fission itself.
Boxturtle (Above opinion worth exactly what you paid for it)
Thank you Scarecrow for the continuing coverage. Lobster, BoxTurtle, Margaret, Starbuck, and others who have lent information and opinion to the conversation.
I just read the entire article and the discussion that has followed and have a couple questions.
At this point it would appear that catastrophic meltdown and explosion have been averted. What we’re dealing with now is a slow-seep of radioactivity that will accumulate in the surrounding environment. How dangerous is this compared to Chernobyl, where material was explosively propelled outward from the site?
Also, I recall reading last week (or earlier) that at the current rate of reaction about 3000 tonnes of water per minute are required to affect a change in temperature, and begin a cooling trend with the material in the spent fuel pool at Unit 4. Is this a consistent number at this point, and is the number the same foracr all sources of contamination or fuel? And if so, what hope do the Japanese have of delivering that amount of water before it’s too late to reverse the reactions and stop fission?
It’s my (limited) understanding that there is an event horizon with the types of fuel being used, that at a certain point there is no sufficient cooling to stop or reverse fission, and that the reaction will spin out of control and “superheat”, causing explosions. Are we still at risk for that?
Lastly, if there is still a risk for uncontrolled fission, what is the time frame we’re looking at? I saw in the initial reports 10 days ago that there was some 140 hour window, which is already passed. Obviously this was inaccurate. What time, realistically, is left to try to get this under control?
Any answers to any of my questions would be helpful to my understanding of the situation.
Thanks again to all for the incredibly intelligent level of discussion and the invaluable sources of information. The Fukushima Daiichi coverage alone is worth the cost of a membership here.
Neutrons are VERY harmful, arguably the worst form of radiation for a human. The neutron bomb killed by creating a massive blast of neutrons.
Quibble: Reactors produce fast neutrons, energy around 1.0×10^6 EV that are then moderated by the water to slow neutrons. There are fast neutron reactors, but I don’t think these are.
Boxturtle (“I don’t think a bomb that doesn’t destroy buildings will be much fun” – Mike Peters)
As may already have been noted, SS piping will have been heavily damaged in at least two of these buildings. (It’s also being corroded by hot saltwater/steam.) Replacing that piping will be hard, dangerous, time-consuming work. Welding, of course, in a potentially hydrogen-rich environment prevents its own problems.
Our hearts go out to those sickened workers and their families. They are still working for all of us.
You mean, Margaret, that Larry Summers wasn’t right about something after all? *g*
The 140 hour window wasn’t necessarily inaccurate. Here’s a post from another thread last week:
http://my.firedoglake.com/scarecrow/2011/03/18/japan-nuke-watch-fri-nite-jst-minimal-progress-lots-of-questions/
Professor Foland March 18th, 2011 at 5:49 pm «
Trying to respond to uneasyone, I thought I would try my hand at a very stripped down version of how to look at the situation.
Overall, in each reactor, you must remove roughly 10 Megajoules per second. Each second you fail to do so, the clock ticks down. The clock starts out with about 36000 seconds on it. You do not want to hit zero.
In each fuel pond, you must remove roughly 3 Megajoules per second. Each second you fail to do so, the clock ticks down. The clock starts out with about 500,000 seconds on it. You do not want to hit zero.
If at any point the radiation gets high enough that nobody can stay on site, you will, I expect, in short order find yourself unable to provide any cooling anywhere. All the clocks will wind down to zero.
If at any point you have to abandon the site, in short order one could expect all the clocks to wind down to zero.
What happens when any clock hits zero? You will release a lot of radiation, though exactly how much, where, and how depends on many completely random factors.
Fundamentally, the race is to establish steady-state (not bursty) cooling before the radiation forces a retreat and all the clocks tick down to zero.
He followed this post immediately with this:
“And to the inevitable question of “how many ticks are left”, it’s very hard to judge from the outside, and from the information we have. A lot of seconds have gone by on both clocks.”
Precisely. As I recall, the Japanese and one or two others are famously fond of seafood, which doesn’t adapt all too well to high levels of radiation. One needn’t be a fan of 1950′s bad scifi films to realize that.
The meltdown could still happen, but our odds are getting better. Early on, there were at least partial melts in at least two of the reactors.
Insufficient data to compare to Chernobyl. Right now, the REPORTED radiation levels and contaminated zones are nowhere near that bad. And in Chernoblys case, there was a graphite fire that spread the contamination much father. That won’t happen here. But it is unclear to me if all the spent fuel rods are still in the pools, the hydrogen explosions could have scattered them or dropped them to the basement.
I can’t comment on the amount of water needed, as that depends on the conditions of the pools and exactly what’s in them and how old.
On your event horizon, you’re talking about recriticality. Right now, whatever geometery the cores are in is NOT critical. But if the cores melt, the liquid mess might well go critical and we’d get an incursion. As long as we avoid more melting, we should be okay with this.
The time frame for recriticality is as long as there is danger of a melt.
Boxturtle (IMO, the situtation is still quite, ah, unstable)
This is perhaps a little OT but I thought it might interest some:
Kennel at Misawa AFB prepares to help with pets of evacuating military families
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=59282
Also here is the Navy’s “official’ Flickr stream, there are several interesting photo groups of Navy personnel assisting with the relief effort.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/
Full disclosure, I am USN enlisted-retired and I know the Flickr stream is at least in part the Navy’s shameless self promotion but the regular sailors on the ground helping cleanup debris and deliver bottled water are trying to make difference. Hope this wasn’t to OT.
Hi Kris. I’ll take a swing or two:
“At this point it would appear that catastrophic meltdown and explosion have been averted.”
Not totally, but the risk is likely steadily declining. It is impossible to quantify this risk without inside information, which may not yet be available in principle.
“What we’re dealing with now is a slow-seep of radioactivity that will accumulate in the surrounding environment. How dangerous is this compared to Chernobyl, where material was explosively propelled outward from the site?”
There are still a lot of people in the general area of this accident. I suspect we will continue to learn surprising things about the level of radiation in the environment there for another week at least. There have not yet been public statements about the levels of cesium, strontium, uranium or plutonium released. Each of these will be important and will get attention. The dispersal will have been uneven in all likelihood. My prediction is that when all is said and done, this accident will be rated a 7 on the INES scale (it is currently a 5). I could be wrong. Chernobyl was an obvious 7. This one is still developing. It will very likely never be as obviously catastrophic as Chernobyl, but there are still serious known problems with the containment of the reactor core at Unit 2 and with the spent fuel at Unit 4, and we do not yet know how much radiation has already been dispersed or how much continues to be dispersed. The neutron reports, for example could turn out to be the tip of an iceberg. We do not know yet. It is very unlikely that this accident will directly affect countries other than Japan, which is quite different from Chernobyl. The only direct route that appears to be significant beyond Japan itself is through contamination of the food chain, but this can (in principle) be monitored and mitigated.
“It’s my (limited) understanding that there is an event horizon with the types of fuel being used, that at a certain point there is no sufficient cooling to stop or reverse fission, and that the reaction will spin out of control and “superheat”, causing explosions. Are we still at risk for that?”
In principle, this is still a possibility. The precise risk is unknown but will be known to be much closer to zero in a period of days to weeks.
The 140-hour window referred to the time that it would take the spent fuel ponds to heat up and become dangerous. That has occurred, more or less on schedule. Unit 4 had a LOT of fuel in the spent fuel pond and is very likely the main risk from this kind of accident. The problem is that the immediate environment of the pool is presumably very radioactive. They need robots and instrumentation in there to find out what is going on.
Now the neutron “beams” first reported yesterday would indicate melting is or was continuing at some rate within a breached reactor containment vessel, correct?
Yucca Mtn was supposed to a high-level waste repository.
Lobster, thanks.
What I’m gathering from the responses here is that without more accurate and timely information from TEPCO or the Japanese government there is no real way to determine exactly how bad things still are, or how close things are to being contained, slowed, cooled, or corrected.
We do not know enough to answer this question. It is definitely an interesting topic. You should read the Kyodo report to see how confusing the situation is. When were the neutrons detected? How many? Etc.
Scarecrow, we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to you and the whole FDL crew contributing to the Fukushima coverage.
QUESTION: could you give a fast and dirty explanation of what would probably happen if these reactors were ‘entombed’ in sand and concrete without first being put into cold shutdown?
BTW, to my mind, comment nesting is essential. It allows for dialogue and clear reading of the comment flow — the conversational back-and-forth among commenters. In fact, it’s such standard operating procedure elsewhere that I’d be lost without it here. i.e.
I found the Prof’s response last week to be informative.
As we all know, if the material in question is not cooling, it’s heating. Since the situation is so fluid and changing, on a daily basis, I was hoping for more current clarification. As I said in my response to lobster below, it’s becomming clear to me that without more information from TEPCO or the Japanese Government, there is no real way to determine the true state of affairs in any of the units.
Frusterating. And terrifying for the people in and around Japan, I’m sure.
I agree with that assessment. It is likely that TEPCO and the JG also do not know enough yet. They are probably still trying to assess many important facts.
As far as “corrected” goes: that will very likely be years, speaking only of the onsite needs. There are a lot of tough problems to solve, all in a small space. The fact that there are four reactor buildings close together makes it all much harder.
In the US, the reactor buildings are generally even more tightly packed (AFAIK — would be useful to find some documentation of this meme).
Judging from a couple of hours of watching the NHK feed, I would say that nerves are frazzling rapidly in Japan. The uncertainty is beginning to weigh very heavily, especially on the 200,000+ people who are living in temporary housing (high school gyms, etc).
I have to believe that the word “beams” is a translation artifact. You just don’t get beams (like flashlight or laser) of neutrons outside of a particle accellerator.
As lobster said, there’s not enough data public to know for sure, but if the cores went recritical we’d see a LOT besides neutrons. Gamma radiation would be off the scale at the plant.
I’m still gonna guess that the neutrons they are detecting are from radioactive waste, rather than fission.
Boxturtle (Prepared to eat my words if more data becomes public)
My worst-case scenario is an explosive catastrophic failure, or an ongoing high-heat fire fuelled by nuclear material, with weather pushing the fallout towards the south.
I can’t imagine what it’s like in Tokyo right now.
As for the 200,000+ people still living in temporary emergency housing, I’d guess they’ll become restless soon. The pressure for better information will mount.
I gathered from the initial Kyodo report I read yesterday that the readings were recent and on 13 different occassions. Other than that there was very little information as to quantity, location, frequency, specific date or time, etc.
My impression from my research after first hearing of this(because I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. WTF’s a neutron beam?!) was that neutrons would only be emitted in the case of partial melt of exposed fuel. Hence my assumption that melt was continuing. I see now that without information on the times and dates of these readings that my assumption is just that, an assumption.
I’m betting that our government knows darn near exactly what the actual situtation. I’m watching what they do with our soldiers in Japan, because they seem to be operating on reality rather then the data publically released.
And they’re advocating a much wider evac zone. And looking at making it wider still.
Boxturtle (If you see that task force suddenly shipped to Libya, it might not be becuase they’re needed there)
Foolishness is my middle name, but I keep returning to the idea of containing and entombing, even though I understand that can’t be done successfully if the cores (plural, ugh!)are continuing to melt. Going back to the book I was reading about the seige of Malta, somehow throwing up a massive shield around the plant in order to ‘attack’ it – I know, then that gets irradiated and where are you.
One difference from the Chernobyl situation is that here the ocean is available and has been used so far to prevent catastrophe. So, what about a gigantic reservoir high enough to cover the buildings and flooding that? The pumping mechanisms could be assembled offsite, something like the pumps they have at Lake Champlain, kept outside the reservoir which would be gradually filled with sea water.
As to the salt, I am remembering that in New Mexico we have nuclear waste stored in salt caverns.
Well, it’s no doubt hokey and impractical. I just wish it would work.
thanks, lobster.
and thanks for your many comments over the last couple of weeks. they’ve added a lot of depth to this discussion.
lobster points out above that information on certain radioactive isotopes is yet to be released. I was unaware of this and it concerns me even more. If the JG is witholding information on cesium, plutonium, etc., in my mind it can only mean one thing. There’s a lot more of it than they’re comfortable telling us about.
I think you’re right; seeing what the USG does with our soldiers will be the strongest indicator of the true situation. The JG seems bent on concealing the truth from it’s people.
thanks, SRRob for the additional source.
it has been frustrating for an ordinary citizen to follow along day-to-day and want wider and deeper coverage but find it often missing, or should i say, hit and miss.
I read your thoughts on this upthread and have to agree with you. From my limited research on neutron emissions I can’t see how they would be focused in anything like a “beam”. Gotta be lost in translation.
You’re absolutely right Margaret about the gender-biased response to gendered user names.
And no Starbuck, a gender-biased putdown is not the SAME as the put-downs you say you get because of your user name.
Being put down for having a female-sounding name is sexism; being put down for have a black-sounding name is racism.
I don’t know what you’d call being put down for having a user name that sounds like a coffe shop. Starbuck or Starbuck’s is fine by me.
As a parent, I can only imagine what parents there are going through, wrestling with decisions like “Do I stay or take my family and go?” and, if they chose to stay and then learned their water was too radioactive to give their children, they have to start wondering about it every time they give their children a drink, and worry about all the other times they already gave their children drinks. And that’s just one small set of doubts and questions. Do they let their children play outside? How far away is safe if they go? And just how much are their government and TEPCO hiding?
I think the JG is hiding the extent of the problem for practical reasons. I don’t think they could evac the ipmacted area even if they wanted to. They’d need to move hundreds of thousands of people with no roads, no public transport, no airports and no place to put them.
They’ll gradually increase the evac zone as their transportation and housing resources increase.
FWIW, the presence of cesium absolutely indicates containment break, as the only place that would be present is inside the fuel rods.
Boxturtle (They should never have mentioned cesium at all)
You would stop the cooling.
The metals that comprise the fuel assemblies in the reactor cores would then reach very high temperatures. These temperatures would defeat the attempt to contain the fuel assemblies. Instead of warm and dangerous materials, you would have created hot and dangerous materials.
Exactly what the high temperatures would lead to depends on a lot of unknowns, but none of the outcomes are very good — they all involve containment failure and continuing environmental poisoning.
Right now the fuel assemblies remain exothermic. They are producing heat at the rate of megawatts. You have to stop that heating before you bottle everything up.
I see the massive logistical problem of evacuations on a large scale. There is still tsunami debris everywhere. Roadways and rail lines have been destroyed. Fuel is in short supply. A large scale evacuation presents multiple problems that are too great to overcome at this point.
I agree with your idea that the JG is keeping the information under wraps because there is nothing they can do about it at this point.
Which in turn begs the question, how bad has it already gotten? Are we looking at an uninhabitable zone beyond the current evacuation perimeters for years to come?
Per BBC News, two magnitude-7 earthquakes rock Burma. Let’s hope there produce no new tsunamis.
YYSyd, you think it would “make sense” to build nuclear plants so that they are entirely “submerged in the ocean”. Wow.
Have you forgotten how much more difficult it was to ‘fix’ the BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico — precisely because it was 5000 feet UNDERWATER?
When people talk about “cooling” the reactors after shutdown, there is a tendency to think that there is a bunch of hot stuff somewhere that no longer is being heated and just needs to cool off.
That is not the case.
Nuclear energy is still being released in the reactor cores of units 1-3 (albeit at a greatly reduced rate compared to when the reactors were running at full power before the earthquake) and in the spent fuel ponds of units 1-6.
It is necessary to continue to remove that heat for now.
Update for 1:30 pm. EDT now at top. Just summary of general focus of local media on radiation concerns.
Kris: I see no potential for an ongoing high-heat fire fuelled by nuclear material vis a vis Chernobyl and the graphite. I believe your other scenario is still on the table, but getting less likely with time (assuming the onsite team is continuing to understand and diagnose the situation and to take appropriate actions. The seawater-with-firefighter’s-pumps idea was pretty amazing fast thinking.)
I wonder what concentrations of radiation they’re detecting outside the evacuation zone. Any specific measurements in the NHK broadcast?
uh, oh!
now i KNOW the gods are angry.
on the bright side,
this offers an opportunity for sacrafice, many several.
candidates?
Were the quakes centered in Burma or offshore in the Bay of Bengal? I can’t seem to find information through the google on the epicenter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Burma_earthquake
NM, on land.
USGS is always a good source
If you watch the repeating reports, you get lot’s of measurements, but I wasn’t writing them down. Enough to tell people, don’t drink the milk, or eat or export the veggies, avoid ingesting tap water. Stay indoors and definitely out of the rain.
I wonder what KIND of radiation they’re detecting. And I wonder what isotopes they’re detecting.
And am I the only one who notices that the MSM seems to play up when the radiation drops, without mentioning that the levels are very dependent on wind patterns and by inference radiation levels are going to go up elsewhere?
Boxturtle (And then they don’t report on elsewhere)
Most of the NHK reporting was focused on Iodine and concern for kids.
My question is during those 2 major explosions, could the rods in storage be lifted and shaken in a way that they didn’t settle back down in there usual nice neat array ? Therefore leaving a top of a bundle of rods exposed. This would assume the water level is down due to heat and evaporation.
Most of the radiation being detected is I-131..has a half life of 8 days. Would I be alarmed?? NO
The estimate covered the 12 days since Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami spurred fires, explosions and spikes in radioactivity levels at the complex.
The estimate suggested that most areas with radiation that exceeded government thresholds fell within the 20-kilometer evacuation zone.
But the model showed that areas where cumulative exposure over 12 days reached 100 millisieverts—the government’s maximum for infants—extended beyond the evacuation zone.
Tokyo’s air Thursday showed radiation lingered at nearly four times the normal level, though the hourly exposure is still about one-thousandth of the dose from a typical chest X-ray.
Our biggest enemy: RUMORS
In a word, yes. I’ve been looking for a photo of reactor #2(?) that showed the top of the core, the crane used to move fuel rods and a huge hole in the floor where one of the cooling pools would be based on the above diagram. I think it’s behind the NYT paywall. But if I read that photo right, the best we can hope for is that whatever was in that pool is in the basement.
Boxturtle (Disclaimer: It’s really tough for me to interpret the photos through that much damage)
Our biggest enemy: Lack of accurate information. That’s the source of all rumors.
Boxturtle (And you assume that the JG is giving complete and accurate information. I wouldn’t)
The Tepco reactor has been shut down so no nuclear reaction is taking place. What you have to worry about is the decay heat that is still in the core that will last for days. To keep the decay heat in the uranium from melting the core, you have to keep water on it. High temperatures can cause “high speed rusting” by the water around the tube. This would convert zirconium into zirconium oxide and release hydrogen. Hydrogen is a flammable.
An explosion Saturday that blew off the roof and walls of a secondary-containment structure around the reactor could have been caused by a buildup of hydrogen.
And you are assuming that you are not getting accurate information.
I am an optimist..and assume that I am receiving accurate information. I have no reason to doubt.
Welcome to last week.
Actually, I’m assuming the information released is accurate, but not complete. And I’m assuming that the information is very carefully parsed, so what isn’t said is as important as what is said. For example, they aren’t saying anything about Plutonium or Urainium detection, but you know it must be there because they detected cesium.
Boxturtle (I do not dispute your point about the dangers of rumors)
I find the media focus on Iodine levels, to the exclusion of other radiation levels, suspicious. Especially since media (especially US media) is also giving the public the impression that the effects of Iodine radiation can be completely prevented by taking Potassium Iodide tablets.
I wouldn’t say it’s been a deliberate disinformation campaign, but the outcome is the same nonetheless. Witness the fact that the product is completely sold out and on back-order throughout the US.
I’ve seen too many comments (elsewhere) from too many people who have an astounding sense of false security based on the misconception that the only form of radiation coming from the reactors is Iodine and they think people can be inoculated from it with a pill — both here and in Japan.
I’m still amazed by the New York Post photo from last week that showed a bright green glow around (what I assume would be) the location of the top of the spent fuel pond in Unit 4.
Clearly shows that fuel is exposed.
I agree, in my on-line nuclear engeneering 101 (mostly earned here) I have learned to pay close attention to reports looking for some mention of Cessium. Today I saw it for the first time in a reuters.com report. Obvioulsy that means that some how, bad stuff is escaping the containment vessel. Bad news indeed.
How are you gonna keep the water level high after the stainless steel welds start popping from the salt water?
What about the plutonium in the MOX fuel?
This is about socializing losses/risk onto the taxpayers.
Nuclear risk ‘socialized,’ nuclear profit ‘privatized,’ report says
read again..NO NUCLEAR REACTIONS ARE TAKING PLACE”..so the containment vessels will cool down within a couple of weeks..
all risks are socialized onto the taxpayer..floods, hurricanes, tornados, draughts, etc..the list goes on and on..that is what corporate subsidy is all about
You said: I am an optimist..and assume that I am receiving accurate information. I have no reason to doubt.
Did you also believe NOAA and BP and the Coast Guard and the Obama Administration last April, 2010 — when they initially said there was no oil being spilled after the explosion of the BP/Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico?
Of course, within a few days of the explosion, they had to admit there was an oil spill, since everybody could see it – from their own backyard and from space. Did you believe BP and the Coast Gurard, et al, when they then turned around and said “OK there’s a spill” but the flow rate is only 1000 BOPD (barrels per day)? As we know, independent scientists soon questioned those figures and estimated that the flow rate was more like 50,000-140,000 BOPD. A few weeks later, government agencies changed their official estimate from 1000 BOPD to 50,000 BOPD. At the end of the three-month long spill, the government and BP claimed that there had been a flow rate of 62,000 BOPD. However, internal BP documents, released by Congress, estimated the flow could be as much as 100,000 BOPD.
Consider this: the government and their corporate benefactors have told you demonstrably false stories time and again. You can call yourself an “optimist” if you want; but if If you “see no reason to doubt”, you are simply not amenable to reason and there is no hope for you.
The “spent” fuel rods are NOT going to “cool down within a couple of weeks.”
From Wikipedia:
After about 5 years in a spent fuel pool the spent fuel is radioactively and thermally cool enough to handle, and it can be moved to dry storage casks or reprocessed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
I wonder if you’d be so casual and unconcerned if this was near your own backyard?
No nuclear reactions are CURRENTLY taking place. If a core melts any further, that could change.
Where do you get that couple weeks number? Has anybody ever timed how long it takes for a reactor with a partially melted core to cool?
And the problem isn’t the containment vessel staying cool, it’s the reactor core. The concrete under the core would melt before the steel containment vessel.
Boxturtle (We’re writing the manual for this as we go)
Having left Japan a few months ago (after five years), I think the biggest hurdle the public has is knowing how bad the situation might be. Even the scientists really don’t know.
They tell people not to worry, but then the elites of the country are putting themselves and their families at safe distances and avoiding the spinach.
This is very typical of Japan. It was a fascist country, but unlike Germany, there was never any attempt at even a half-hearted de-Nazification. As a result, that sort of ethos, where whatever the Big Corporation says is Truth, still lives on.
Sorry went to bed. I’m on Australia time and viewing live feeds from the press room at Tepco of their press briefings.
This is the original source of news items with the exception of journalists generating own information from independent interviews. The press sessions are in Japanese and held about three times a day (at least two) and go on for about an hour each. The times that they are held are not scheduled. There’s an independent journalist that has a video camera in the press room. Every now and then he points his camera to the reams of paper handouts.
http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/live/all is the URL for the feeds that are current, but TEPCO typically would be the one showing three guys in blue work jackets sitting at the table (when live) or a white board and room with waiting reporters when not live. I don’t know if the page shows up with the feed choices the same if the page is opened with a browser that is not in the Japanese language.
well, maybe not 5000 feet under.
Or you might try http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwakamiyasumi, but you have to be lucky to get the timing right.
On the 30-40km thing. It appears they’ve created a ring of people not serviced by shops and delivery. That’s the issue.
Since the stuff is carried by air and currents, and what hydrogen based explosions to scatter stuff is more or less over
(not because of energy but because roofs blown off no longer trap the hydrogen) distance from site become more a political/psychological/logistical thing.
I’m just catching up and watching a recorded 4AM Japan Time press briefing.
Analysis of water in the accident appears to indicate levels of radiation and material content more consistent with reactor water. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13536902
About two minutes in the camera guy will flash chart showing analysis of content of water.
I remember your comment last week and looked at the NYP photo closely as it appeared on my computer monitor. This is my first time looking at the innards of a reactor and you may be right. Yet I was struck by how the green glow in the photo corresponded accurately with the turquoise spent fuel pool sketched in the Mark I Containment diagram at the top of this article and many others on FDL’s recent threads. I wondered if the diagram’s artist chose this turquoise to accurately represent the pool, or was this shade chosen to make the diagram easier to read? If the pool really is turquoise, then the NYP photo may be showing it highlighted against surrounding darker debris, but not necessarily glowing from radioactivity.
Zirconium found in sea, so bits of fuel got either blown or washed in. Prime Minister apparently has the flu. CEO of TEPCO still not visible.
In the meantime rolling blackouts have so far killed more than the nuke accident. Two deaths from darkened traffic lights causing accidents and one death from carbon monoxide poisoning by person running a portable generator indoors. The initial earthquake also apparently killed 4 workers falling from exhaust stacks at a conventional power plant. There are a few fossil fuel based power plants still out along with the nukes.
Water on the floor with high concentration of fuel. (Could be either from spent pool or from reactor) But apparently very very high concentration.
Margaret should be considered an expert on how differely one is treated being perceived as male vs. being perceived as female.
SFRob, et al,
What other news agencies are still LIVE-BLOGGING about Fukushima? I’m not digging that Reuters site — too much twitting and twatting and tweeting relative to the Reuters updates.
I was closely following BBC, HuffPo, and Aljazeera, but they all stopped their live feeds — cold — a few days ago. Those three had the most user-friendly formats, imo. I can’t find anything else that compares favorably at this point. And I CAN’T get the hang of Nikkei!
So, if not 5000 feet, how low would you go?
I do not see how this accident will avoid finally being recognized as an INES level 7 accident. For example, the UCS briefing today has a startling statement. Read the transcript for the transcript, but this is clearly the money quote from Lyman:
Oops, missed the tag after the word “Lyman”. Moderator help please?
let me know if i fixed it the way you wanted lobster
yes, thank you!
There is a worldwide network of radiation monitors designed to detect nuclear weapon detonations. This network can see trace amounts of fission products such as I-131 and Cs-137. These are produced in civilian reactors in the process of fission but are normally contained.
The figures mentioned above for Cs-137 released from Fukushima (and compared to the amount released from Chernobyl, which was measured by other means) come from this network of monitoring stations. The radiation from Fukushima will spread around the globe — right now, it has made it to Europe via North America. It is early days for getting a handle on the total amount of radiation released.
With that background, the UCS scientists (Lyman mainly) also stated the following (same link as before):
Note that even these large releases are not likely to be directly harmful to inhabitants of North America because of the size of the Pacific Ocean and the fact that the Fukushima plant is not on fire as Chernobyl was, meaning (as has been noted here several times) that the radioactive particles are staying pretty close to the ground for the most part.
This is all bad for Japan of course.
UCS also says that the standard for long-term evacuation at Chernobyl was to evacuate people from areas with 10 uSv / hour (10 micro-Sieverts per hour = 1 millirem per hour).
Right now those rates are being recorded well outside the 20 km evacuation zone, including in downtown Fukushima city @ 70 km distance from the plant (see fleep.com/earthquake). Much of that radiation is presumably from iodine-131 which will decay quickly. The big question is how much cesium and strontium contamination there is in any given place. It will take a while to distinguish these. I.e., I doubt anyone knows the answer yet.
Still, permanent evacuations seem likely, as noted in previous threads. This has not been widely understood yet in Japan or anywhere else. It is likely that many of the evacuees will never return to their homes and that more will have to leave from outside the 20 km zone. Wow.
6 feet?
correctioin, that’s 20-30km
Lobster, et al,
You have a gift for putting this stuff in really accessible, down-to-earth terms. Your sense of urgency is fitting and palpable and is well-communicated in your posts. Your attention to radiation data and the matter of evacuation is especially valuable.
The ENTIRE developed world should be throwing every conceivable resource at this three-headed monster. Considering what’s at stake, the priorities are inexplicably misplaced — to me at least.
x2
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11032503-e.html
This is TEPCO’s release on the content of the hot water.
Morning news: Further evacuations are “voluntary”. If that were happening in the US, it would clearly be a way to shift costs and responsibility to the evacuees. In the current circumstances, this strikes me as terrible policy. How can people make the informed decisions that have to made without the technical means and background required?
Disgraceful.
Also this AM: NPR reporting was very addled. They were reporting “no breach of containment” which is not (even) what TEPCO is saying. What they should have reported this AM was “TEPCO says unit 3 has no conclusive evidence of the reactor vessel.” My translation of that is: unit 3 likely has breach but we haven’t seen the holes yet. In any case, a breach of unit 2 containment is already generally known.
Finally: Professor Foland found a paper on the arXiV (technical document) describing the measurement of Fukushima radiation by the Univ of Washington physics department (Seattle). The authors argue that their measurements indicate that core fuel and spent fuel is being released into the atmosphere, primarily as a component of steam releases. The levels of radiation they measure are not above background in North American; what is interesting is the mix of isotopes and elements. I recommend this paper to anyone who is comfortable with technical reports.
Correction:
“conclusive evidence of breach of the reactor vessel”.
I see I wasn’t clear. NPR was addled because their reporting completely ignored the fact that some level of breach of containment at unit 2 has already occurred.
They talked about “no breach” which might have been appropriate for unit 3 (marginally) but certainly not for the Fukushima plant in general. They therefore greatly underreported the gravity of the situation.
I suppose Libya (zap! pow!) has their attention…
To put a point on the question of evacuations and other protective actions:
The population of Fukushima City is > 300,000 and if this were in the US, the doses received there since the accident would require the USG to pursue protective actions.
No such actions have yet been taken there.