Tweet
Reactor Containment & Fuel Storage from UCS; (h/t commenter lobster)
It’s 9:30 a.m. EDT, which is 10:30 p.m. on Friday evening in Japan. [Updates below.]
[Update II, 11:00 a.m. EDT]: Kyodo News reports workers have begun to inject fresh water into the reactors at Units 1 and 3 (Unit 2 is next) to help flush sea water and salt buildup out of the reactor and cooling water systems. That’s a good step, because salt buildup can lock the valves and inhibit water flows within the reactor. (They’re still spraying sea water into the spent fuel storage pools.) They’re also finding more radioactive water leaks and standing water in other units. ]
Concerns on Friday focused on (1) the continuing spread of radiation in Fukushima and surrounding prefectures, with local citizens anxious to evacuate areas beyond the mandated 20 kilometer radius and (2) the inability of the government either to gain control of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactors or to explain the exact source and nature of the continuing radiation leaks.
The latter concern increased yesterday when authorities reported that three workers suffered radiation exposure while standing in water, trying to lay cables to connect an outside electrical power cable to Unit 3. (Power cables are already connected at Units 1 and 2; see previous updates.)
Two of those workers had to be hospitalized for possible radiation burns on their feet. [A late medical report claims that two of the three exposed workers do not appear to have skin damage but have suffered from "internal exposure."] Initial reports jumped at the claim that the workers had walked through puddled water (with no protective boots) outside the reactor building and that the exposure levels were “10,000 times normal exposure levels.”
Since normal levels are extremely small, the “10,000 times normal” figure was not the only point. Rather, the concern quickly shifted to where the exposure occurred, where the water was coming from and how it became contaminated. I originally thought the source might be runoff from the sea water spraying, but that assumed the water was outside. It was inside.
It now appears the workers were inside a part of the turbine/generator building, which is separate from but connected to the reactor building. The connections with the reactor include a series of pipes that carry pressurized steam from the reactor to the turbines, which then drives the generators to produce electricity. Other pipes then carry the cooler condensed water back to the reactor. There are various valves along the way.
[Update I]: as the NYT reports, there are pipes from the reactor carrying away corrosive materials from the reactor to a filtering system inside the turbine-generator building.
But Michael Friedlander, a former nuclear power plant operator for 13 years in the United States, said that the presence of radioactive cobalt and molybdenum in water samples taken from the basement of the turbine building of reactor No. 3 raised the possibility of a very different leak.
Both materials typically occur not because of fission but because of routine corrosion in a reactor and its associated piping over the course of many years of use, he said.
These materials are continuously removed from the reactor’s water system as it circulates through a piece of equipment called a condensate polisher, which is located outside the reactor vessel. The discovery of both materials in the basement suggests damage to that equipment or its associated piping, as opposed to a breach of the reactor vessel itself, Mr. Friedlander said.]
Did the excess irradiated water on the floor of the turbine/generator building come from leaks in these pipes or valves coming from/returning to the reactor building? That would indicate the source of the irradiated water was inside the reactor itself, not the spent fuel storage pool. And the type of irradiation would be another sign, if they needed one, of likely breakdown, possibly continuing, of fuel inside the reactor core [or corrosion in the reactor]. But as of Friday night, they apparently had not found the “leak” inside the turbine/generator building, so they’re haven’t confirmed this scenario.
Regarding the other units, a Defense Forces helicopter made an overhead video of the four reactor buildings. It’s shown periodically on the NHK TV feed and gives a better perspective on the damage to each reactor.
At Unit 1, where a hydrogn explosion a week ago destroyed the upper walls and roof of the reactor, we can now see that the roof was not blown off; it collapsed down, effectively covering the reactor components and spent fuel storage pool below. Commentators explaining the video did not know how much that complicates the ability to spray water into the storage pool from above, so it’s not clear how they’re maintaining cooling water levels in the storage pool.
At Unit 2, the earlier hydrogen explosion caused minimal damage to the exterior of the reactor building, but it is suspected of causing damage at least to the pressure suppression pool at the bottom of the reactor. In an emergency, if pressure builds up inside the reactor, it can inject steam into the suppression pools to relieve the pressure and cool the reactor down, while cooler water is, one hopes, injected back in. We so much damage from the top, we can’t see that lower structure in this video. The emergency crews punched out two holes in the building exterior, one in the upper levels on one side, another in the roof. They did this to allow venting of steam to prevent another hydrogen explosion, and you can see steam escaping from both holes.
At Units 3 and 4, explosions at each caused massive damage to the external building and likely serious damage to some components inside. For example, among the twisted steel rubble at Unit 4, you can make out a green structure that might have been the massive crane that operates above the reactor vessel and that is used for moving fuel rods in and out of the building and between the reactor vessel and the spent fuel storage pool. If that fallen structure we see is the crane, the question is, what did it damage on the way down? It’s usually above the reactor vessel, the containment structure, the spent fuel storage fuel and lots of critical coolding/steam pipes and valves, etc.
The inability of authorities to get these events under control, and continuing reports of worker exposure, unsafe tap water and produce is naturally increasing the alarm among residents. TV interviews are showing more and more folks saying they want to leave, just get out, but not getting answers they believe from the Japanese Government. Government officials are now saying it’s okay for folks within the 30 kilometer radius to leave voluntarily, but as of Friday, they hadn’t ordered that evacuation. Instead, the Times reports they are quietly encouraging folks to move away. And it’s all complicated by the fact the quakes and tsunami left tens of thousands homeless and requiring massive relief efforts on water, food, shelter medical care.
They need a break, some good news, if the gods are listening.
Helpful Sources:
Kyodo News: Japan Nuclear Crisis
Picture of Unit 1 control room, via Kyodo News
Nuclear Power Plant Primer — good expert video
You can also find Unit by Unit status updates (pdf) at the IAEA site
167 Comments
I’m going to guess the source of the radiation in the water is a busted fuel rod lying somewhere on the floor.
If I get a second guess, it’s saltwater runoff from the cooling operation that has washed over a busted fuel rod.
In either case, they should have also tested positive for Plutonium and Uranium. Which is not mentioned one way or another in the articles I’ve read.
Boxturtle (What is not said is as important as what’s being said)
This is a slow-moving nightmare. I don`t pray very often, but this is one of the cases where on wishes one could help simply by wishing. Those poor people living within 50 km of the site. What will they do? Will they become permanent refugees?
Yes.
I don’t have anything new to say about this awful mess. Left with just my jaw still hanging open & appalled.
My old thing to say is: The only thing you know for sure is that what you are being told is a lie.
Last link didn’t work for me.
I haven’t heard that any of the fuel rods had left the Containment Building. And the floor in question is the Turbine Building, so I don’t think the contamination came directly from a fuel rod in the TB.
Me neither.
Morning evacuation comments and so forth EPUd on previous thread.
It is yet another lesson in how FUBAR and how the media and the government are completely incompetent and will screw the people at every turn.. sometimes intentionally.
It was all gonna be “too cheap to meter.”
All
Governments
Lie
Wait the cost per KW provided since start up including design, construction, sea walls etc. for Fukushima is yet to be produced.
In the link to the Union Of Concerned Scientists above, it shows a chart that says there are 514 spent fuel assemblies in (or were) in the storage fuel pool. Has anyone said that all these spent fuel rods at #3 are MOX fuel, or are they mixed with the conventional type?
I haven’t heard that either. But I haven’t heard specifically that all the rods are accounted for, either. Those hydrogen explosions were violent enough to hurl a fuel assembly quite a distance and bust it into pieces. We don’t know if that happened, all we know is this is yet more proof of a containment breech.
If the source of the radiation in that water IS a fuel rod, there should be a lot more easily detected crap in that water. I’d love to see the detailed analysis. I’m sure TEMCO already has that.
Boxturtle (And I’m sure they won’t release it unless it’s basically benign)
Right on Q!
Every Friday TEPCO dumps all their bad news about their man made disaster.
Japan reactor nuclear core may have breached
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×4786739
“TOKYO (AP) – Japanese nuclear safety officials said Friday that they suspect that the reactor core at one unit of the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant may have breached, raising the possibility of more severe contamination to the environment.
“It is possible that somewhere at the reactor may have been damaged,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency. But he added that “our data suggest the reactor retains certain containment functions,” implying that the damage may have occurred in Unit 3′s reactor core but that it was limited.
Officials say the damage could instead have happened in other equipment, including piping or the spent fuel pool.
Operators have been struggling to keep cool water around radioactive fuel rods in the reactor’s core after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami cut off power supply to the plant and its cooling system.”
Me thinks next Friday it will be worse
Govt. By Corporations for Corporations is Anti Human Life
They’re mixed. I think somebody posted here the exact numbers.
Boxturtle (Don’t get hung up on MOX. It’s worse, but the regular is plenty bad enough)
Thanks. My optimism glass remains at the same level of the spent fuel pools.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill happened during a BIG hurricane. The GOP zealot in chief here (not in state government) refused to acknowledge the reality of the event, as in every other thing real that really happens, and the propaganda got out of control. The loss of life in Japan likely follows the very same course. Those who most do not want to change fear their destinies more than anything else, and refuse to believe the reality of death, of all varieties. There’s nothing wrong with being conservative, in many ways, but completely blocking progress undermines the entirety of nature’s plan. Eventually it must all balance out. [written by some pinhead who has nothing better to say]
Thanks. I’m familiar with the Friday night data dump, but I hadn’t yet thought of applying it to Japan.
Very good, very concise reporting, as alway. Thanks, Scarecrow. Your column is pretty much the go-to place for me.
What would Chef Ramsey about this totally Rube Goldburg nuclear industry if it was a kitchen in the middle of a service???
Shut it down, shut it down Now !!!!!!
The odds were never one in a thousand years of a meltdown and if this is what the “one” looks like, it’s too damn risky. It’s a money machine for the corporatists or the richest of the rich.
Too big to fail my ass !
From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26japan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&exprod=myyahoo
If we would just remove the regulatory shackles from American businesses, the power of the free market could take over and before you know it, we’d have nookyalur power so cheap that it couldn’t even be monitored.
My understanding is the workers DID have boots, but the water ran over their tops. More important, I think to have burns or other symptoms develop within min/hrs after exposure, you have to be talking about a heck of a lot of radiation in the water. On the order of a 100,000 – a million times over background.
“Govt. By Corporations for Corporations is Anti Life”
fixed it
So now our NRC is going to do a paper audit on the safety of our own doomsday power nuclear power sources. Gee, I wonder how that will go?
Against my better judgment, I am once again going to attempt to contribute to one of these Nihongo reactor threads by pointing out that there is some speculation about a possible core breach at one of the reactors, (I’m guessing in unit number 3, though the story doesn’t say).
“routine corrosion in a reactor and its associated piping over the course of many years of use, he said.”
So would it then be reasonable to suggest that an explosion (like the ones that were created by the hydrogen gas) would blast the piping, valves, etc apart even more easily? I’m most certainly not an engineer, but it would seem to me that such might be the case.
Just the shaking from a 9.0 earthquake could damage the pipes and valves, and valves leak at little bit all the time, even in normal operations. The explosions would presumably exacerbate the damage.
I just saw that on the NHK live feed too.
I heard that this morning. If officials are “speculating there might be a core breach,” my guess is that those on the scene are pretty confident about it.
Hey TEPCO and Japanese Government Jagoffs: Why don’t you give us the straight story? We’re gonna find out anyway. Dumbasses…
Good point.
Yep. I don’t think that tidbit would have ever gotten out unless they were pretty damned confident about it. They probably have known about it for days in fact.
All of this horror, just to boil water. These decisions are made by a corporate criminal cabal. Nuclear Power profiteering is the same as war profiteering.
That is why Michael Chertoff, Isreali Agent, wants to X-ray us and grope us, and force nukes on us. Skeletor says not to overreact to catastrophes. That would diminish the taxpayer subsidies to the dirty energy monopolies. After all, the War on Terror was created to protect Dirty Oil and Dirty Oil Dictators. Just say No Nukes.
MSNBC is reporting a possible core breach too but still no word on which unit. It must be unit 3 though.
I’m pretty sure that the “gods” are going to be about as helpful as calling in MacGyver to seal the breach with a Snickers bar.
I would think that a place like Nihon would have invested a lot more effort in geothermal energy. That’s probably the second best suited nation for it, after Iceland.
I would not be at all surprised. At the very least that explosion would have damaged the piping to it–not just the steam, but the reactor cooling. The concussion from that blast (and from #1′s) had to be way beyond the design parameters for the system. I’ve read that the buildings housing the reactors are designed to disintegrate in a blast. I don’t believe that at all–they didn’t foresee a hydrogen explosion inside those buildings because they never thought hydrogen would actually be released into them. Now we see the result of the “law of unforeseen consequences”.
I believe this is an announcement of a second breach, occurring at Unit 3. Unit 2 has already been thought since 16 March to have been breached (right?).
Kyodo News: More leaks at Units 1,2, 3. But they’ve begun to inject fresh cooling water into those reactors to flush out the sea water and salt buildup.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81116.html
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you all no longer need to risk your lives cooling down the reactor cores and spent fuel…..
Boxturtle (how about if we let Mac use duct tape?)
Gregg Levine has his regularly scheduled vlog post up: The Party Line – March 25, 1911
Yeah, sounds like they’re discovering more signs of different breaches, as they keep getting closer and stepping in puddles. They’re not even inside the reactor buildings yet.
Yup.
I’ve been saying for more than week now we need to hear about the worst outcome and what the people need to be doing and get that going.
I don’t see the point of keeping people hanging on that something less is going to be the final outcome. Is this about managing panic or what?
The reality is, we’re still sitting around the fire trying to warm ourselves. Now the fire is fueled by coal, natural gas and uranium, not just wood.
You say discovering. I say admitting.
Boxturtle (No way they could NOT know if there is a breech)
i assume the cobalt and molybdenum are appearing bcause they are a part of the amalgam of metals used to make the version of stainless steel used here.
what is being said then is that routine corrosion of stainless steel over time is not being filtered (“polished”) as normally would be the case.
but, is this normal (happening over time”) or corrosion accelerated by salt water heated to very hi temps?
or is it corrosion of stainless steel from, say, a breeched steel containment vessel?
We still build our homes out of sticks and mud. People still rely on Shamans to improve their lives. We have a long way to go….
And in the meantime, DEAD silence from our own government about being downwind from this disaster.
I share a piece from yesterday at truthout:
http://www.truth-out.org/radiation-nothing-see-here68711
and follow it up with a polar satellite map from two days ago of the jetstream and prevailing winds:
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif
Low background radiation from this mess creates indirect long-term problems for us all, but inhaling particulates, such as vaporized plutonium, iodine, cesium, strontium isotopes, are direct threats.
Not running around with my arms flapping, just saying that we need to recognize what the threats are, and actually monitor for them. And then TELL the public what is happening.
All I’ve heard is deafening silence, and I don’t think that is a good thing from this government.
I say admitting too. They are only doing it because radiation levels have gotten so high they can no longer hide it.
Japan is pretty much screwed all the way around when it comes to energy production. Earthquake prone and fossil fuel free makes everything difficult. As an aside, a friend of mine worked on a geothermal plant here in the U.S. That was 20 years ago, but his opinion was, at least at their location, that it wasn’t very practical. They had problems with corrosion of the piping system because of the mineral and chemical content of the water. Sort of like the geothermal pools in Yellowstone, I think.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201103250204.html
This article was very informative as it explained that the level of a nuclear accident is a function (largely) of how much radioactive material escapes into the environment. According to the calculations reported in this article the Fukushima event has released between 30,000 and 110,000 terabecquerels. Chernobyl by comparison released 1.8 million terabecquerels.
If you believe the commercials on tv, if you seal the breach with Snickers bars, the sharks will eat the reactors. We’ve tried everything else.
Yep, there are engineering challenges and inherent risks but one of them isn’t melting through the crust and taking out large swaths of the population while doing so. Iceland’s geothermal sources provide 66 percent of it’s energy needs with renewable hydroelectric providing an additional 15 percent. By my math that’s 81 percent renewable energy. It’s doable.
Only if it’s the peanut butter Snickers bar….
There have been official government statements (no threat to North America from currently dispersed materials in short term OR long term) and the USG/NRC has released plume calculations. Also, we have linked to unofficial but high quality measurements from other sources around the world.
The direct health risks are in Japan. Health risks in the US that can be guessed now are in food, and that can be measured and mitigated. With respect to that, you are right that we do need to know that this is happening in the US; other countries have taken steps but I have heard nothing from the US/FDA about this.
In this case, I think they’re right about the source of the cobalt and moly being the pipes. That’s an old reactor, so over time is possible. But I think boiling saltwater has accellerated the process dramatically.
Boxturtle (That, plus all the boric acid)
Kyodo news reports they’re finding water puddles 40-150 cm deep near all four Units. Irradiated? Same content and location as at Unit 3 turbine building? Unsaid.
In looking at the photos of the workers helping injured workers out, they seem to be using duct/packing tape wrapped around their pants legs to, well, what exactly? Stop incursion of liquids? Keep their clothes close to their bodies?
Is duct/packing tape a standard sort of nuclear protective gear?
On this subject, I clicked onto a yahoo report about cruiser contamination this morning – the commander of that operation sounded very smug about keeping his crew from panicking. Worth a read for the attitude expressed about information and the power to dispense same.
On the subject of Friday news flow, I would be climbing the walls were it not for the ongoing weekend news threads here. They are hugely important in this three day work week world of the upper class, who have already taken leave of this planet’s realities. REmember Comet Kahoutek? All we are left to contemplate from the uberrich are their pink sneakers left behind, tidily arranged in a row and only distinguishable one from the other by size.
Thank you, FDL. Information is sanity, even when the news is bad.
It would simply be too much to expect for a disaster of this magnitude to result in only a single leak. There are probably numerous points of failure. Many of them will need to be repaired before you can get the cooling systems running.
I’m glad to hear they are injecting fresh water now. As to flushing, that would mean that they were running liquid water out somewhere, to carry out the accumulated salts. Where? And what are they doing with it? This may be a matter of injecting fresh water so that the salt buildup does not get worse, but all the salt is remaining inside for now.
A bit like eating out and having just finished a nice dinner, the chef comes out to apologize that anti-freeze was accidentally used in the ingredients…gulp..
It’s turning into a nightmare waterworld. Apparently flooded electrical room adjacent and part of turbine room where access is by door situated couple meters above floor level with stairs either side. (construction assumes water present at times on the turbine rm side)
Electrical room flooded 1.5 meters water (likely not reactor water possibly tsunami water) whereas otherside of the door/wall is the 15cm (now receding?) hot nuclear mix water.
Characterization of this as “puddle” is not all that accurate as it would span the floor.
There’s more water below in basement levels possibly of different origin. This from presently suddenly interrupted Tepco presser.
I wouldn’t trust the nuclear safety agency pronouncement however, as they are not on site in any meaningful way.
One would think though that in a closed steel container of some strength, pressure build up will blow out seals and connected pipes and not crack the main part of such structure.
One of three had boots. He did not have direct skin contact with water. The other two had ankle high shoes of some sort.
Check out this site for interesting comment and discussion on Fukushima.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7706
Right. We don’t know the answers to those questions.
I did find some Nuclear Duct Tape on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/3M-8979N-Performance-Nuclear-Slate/dp/B000NG3ZKI
Maybe they can use it to repair the containment vessel;)
careful. thanks for both wide-ranging and detailed info that allows us non-scientists to learn as much as we can or care to.
LOL! it is pretty butch on these threads ain’t it?
This morning on the physics arxiv was a paper on airborne fission products and what their nuclide composition tells us.
The conclusion is that they detect short-lived Te and I that would come from core rods rather than spent rods; but do not detect various other nuclides. They suspect this means that the airborne releases they detect are mostly from steam eruptions.
Duct tape is really handy stuff when it comes to sealing gaps and joints in protective suits, as long as you’re not worried about the duct tape contaminating something.
Boxturtle (Duct tape is not always a kludge)
If we had functioning pressure and temperature measurements for the three reactors, temperature and water levels for the four SFPs, another 20 radiation monitoring stations spaced around the perimeter of the plant, wind direction and speed measurements (we have at least some of these), official logs of visible emissions (location, density, color), and periodic air sample analysis, we could have a pretty good idea of what exactly is going on. We have only a fraction of that, so we’re groping in the dark.
In the meantime, there’s a half-million or so people who should probably evacuate, but are being told to stay put because they have no way to accommodate them.
Kyodo
Which I would interpret as “if you have a place to go, get the heck out of there, otherwise stay inside, try not to breathe, eat, or drink”.
As for the burns that have been mentioned, this report from Kyodo says the workers suffered the burns the day before stepping in the radioactive water:
“The three workers were transferred to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba Prefecture on Friday afternoon, and two of them, who were hospitalized the day before for possible burns…”
So radioactive water is not responsible for their burns; prseumably their burns from the day before were of the garden variety “from hot things” burns.
Thanks for the link, this was very helpful to trying to understand:
I think I can answer this if I am correct that the Japanese reactors use conventional zirconium ( Zircaloy) fuel cladding with ceramic uranium oxide fuel pellets inside. I understand that Unit 3 has a mixed oxide pellet including plutonium oxide.
In 1956, my first job as a materials scientist was at the AEC’s Hanford Laboratory in Washington State, operated by General Electric. Over 8 years I conducted many laboratory scale high-pressure autoclave experiments on the properties of zirconium alloys in high temperature and pressure water and steam. These tests were classified “secret” back then to prevent our technology from being obtained by the Soviets. Sometimes I fear that even though all this science is now declassified, this early science has not made into the education of today’s engineers. I retired in 1995 and have followed TOD for 3 years now, having also worked on natural gas pipeline and geothermal system corrosion, but now feel I have expertise to share on this topic.
The source is the hydrogen is a chemical reaction between the uncovered, overheated fuel assemblies and steam.
Zr + 2 H2O (steam) = ZrO2+2 H2
Zirconium is an extremely reactive metal and has even been used in flash bulbs filled with oxygen. There have been fatal explosions handling zirconium powers. So how is it possible to use zirconium safely in a nuclear reactor?
Like aluminum, zirconium and its alloys (Zircaloy-2) oxidize instantly in air. A thin film of ZrO2 is so impervious to oxygen diffusion that the reaction stops. Even in 300 C (572F) water or steam at over 1000 psi, the oxidation rate is extremely slow and corrosion properties of Zircaloy fuel cladding are outstanding and safe, AS LONG as they are not overheated and cooling water flow is maintained. In fact, it is standard practice to autoclave fuel rods in hot-pressured water or steam to precoat these rods with the optimum coating of ZrO2.
But these fuel rods must NEVER be overheated. That is why multiple redundant cooling systems are required. All these backup-cooling systems failed in Japan. Even after reactor shutdown, if the fuel rods are uncovered cladding temperatures can rapidly rise to 800C or higher, due to fission product decay heat. As in any chemical reaction, the rate accelerates rapidly with temperature, but in the case of zirconium, the protective character of a thin ZrO2 film is destroyed by this high temperature and catastrophic oxidation occurs. However this catastrophic oxidation occurs below the melting point, so I object to the media using the common term “meltdown” which is misleading.
This loss of the last battery-powered cooling, led to the fuel rods becoming uncovered in a manner similar to that in the Three Mile Island accident (although due to different reasons). When overheated in steam, the oxidation reaction above accelerates exponentially. As the zirconium oxidizes, the coating thickens, cracks, and turns white from internal fractures that increase the diffusion rate of steam to the metal. It then has the look and mechanical properties of eggshells. Hydrogen from this process is released, but is also absorbed by the underlying metal cladding, which causes embrittlement and metal fracture. Soon cracks form in the cladding, releasing the trapped fission products inside. This is not “melting’, but rather catastrophic disintegration of the cladding structural integrity and containment of fission products. If the process continues, the cladding can fracture away, exposing the fuel pellets, which in the worst-case scenario can drop out and collect on the bottom of the reactor vessel. It is the worse case scenario that I believe is causing the Japanese to inject boric acid. Boron is a neutron absorber and will prevent any possibility of a pile of fuel pellets on the bottom of the vessel from going critical and restarting the chain reaction.
These reactors are now a total loss, but I am still disturbed by their inability to bring in portable diesel generators and restart the back-up cooling. I guess the chaos of the catastrophe is the cause.
I do question the use of seawater cooling. I hope the Japanese have considered the danger they have created by introducing oxygenated seawater into this stainless steel piping and pressure vessel at boiling temperatures. These stainless steels are extremely susceptible to chloride stress corrosion cracking:
http://www.tpub.com/content/doe/h1015v1/css/h1015v1_134.htm
Since residual weld stresses and tensile stress in piping, valves, control tubing, etc. are always present, Standard Operating Reactor water quality standards require keeping chlorides at parts per billion levels. Seawater has about 3.5% or 35 grams per liter of salinity!!!
I have no way of knowing how many days they have before a stainless steel component suddenly cracks, but if it were me, I would be advocating an emergency program to get pure deionzied cooling water back into this stainless steel system ASAP. In laboratory tests in boiling chlorides, cracking of stainless in tensile stress can occur within days- they have at most a few months if they keep boiling sea water in this system and yet another disaster occurs. I am sure there are competent scientists in Japan’s nuclear industry and government regulators. I hope they are on top of this threat!
You say kludge like it’s a bad thing, as someone who lives his life by the the art of the kludge, and uses way too much duct tape, I say don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the kludge;)
The duct tape would be somewhat good for some quick sealing off on the suits, but mostly I just thought it was funny how 3M makes a duct tape for every conceivable industry, even if there really isn’t much different about this tape.
http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?s&sid=dedbf54978d225a205f7db4ee264eb6c99759f06&next=true&cp=0&pcnt=undefined&cid=dc73d2703ae1e6202f89f68f5fa77778e82dac0d
On the other hand, if San Onofre or Diablo Canyon ruptures you can’t just move to Nevada if you present a health risk factor in your history. You’ll likely suffer an exclusion and be forced
to go naked. That’s actually still worse than the premium death spiral you are very most likely
otherwise destined for.
This is certainly not to capitalize on the tragedy. The U.S. faces its own related issues.
The U.S. military is doing tremendously humanitarian work in one place just now; but, Japanese economists are saying the military should utilize more local distribution expertise input.
Trucks of excessive weight for the roads
they’re traveling on are distributing goods of excessive weight for the school gym floors they’re being deposited on.
Instead, the military should distribute to local professional, commercial distribution centers. (Japan Broadcasting Corporation (by way of the U.K.’s http://www.LiveStation.com) only cited one professor’s name once, which name
I missed (can’t win ‘em all.)
(not presenting my own site’s URL again–did it once earlier today)
EverNewEcoN
Thank you for this!
In a diary I wrote two days ago, I suggest a voluntary evacuation for similar reasons cited in the official recommendation issued today.
http://my.firedoglake.com/deepharm/2011/03/23/japan-and-u-s-differ-on-protective-actions/
Not sure. I think the men who stepped in water in the buildings, three workers being injured, and the reports on possible burns are all the same story. There’s possible confusion in a later story because this happened late Thursday or early Friday their time.
See this Kyodo News story, which says it’s all one event.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81122.html
Thanks so much!
So disintegration occurs at temperatures below melting. Very interesting. How much time at elevated temperatures would be required for disintegration to the point of fuel pellets escaping? Minutes? Days?
Also, would you be able to remove partially disintegrated fuel rod assemblies?
Are the frames of assemblies holding the rods also made of vanadium, or of some other material that might still have integrity?
I’ve given up following the official reports because, as with this one, there was a “3 workers (with overdoses of radiation)” a while back, and now “3 workers with burns”, with reports of workers getting a years worth of radiation in a day, then reports that radiation spiked to 10,000 times normal but went back down -
I can usually make guesses to fill in the missing info and come to a conclusion that is only a guess but at least possible – but there is too much info missing – and my background is not strong enough.
These threads on FDL by those with better backgrounds are a real help – albeit the Korean/US governments are doing the corporate protection/BP oil thing of letting the corporation do the reporting and then releasing only part of what they are told.
The new permits in the Gulf are based on new regulatory oversight coming from what we learned from the BP blowout – at least that is what Obama says – but of course one of the permit applications – that was approved – is unchanged from the original submission and is dated 2009.
Obama is a con-job
in everything
lol if you can laugh while crying
oops … zirconium, not vanadium …
The CNN update from Saturday says
Reactor No. 5 appears safe, with its capability to cool the fuel rods in the spent fuel pool working again, according to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (as with units Nos. 4 and 6, this reactor was off on a scheduled outage when the quake hit and there are no major issues with the reactor and core itself). The nuclear spent fuel pool is thought to be functioning. Reactor No. 6 also appears safe, with its capability to cool the fuel rods in the spent fuel pool is working again. The nuclear spent fuel pool is thought to be functioning.
Reactor No. 1 has pressure and temperature levels that continue to fluctuate, but were described by Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency as “rather stable.” Fresh water, rather than seawater, is to be put in the spent nuclear fuel pool. The No. 1 unit’s reactor core has been damaged, but its containment vessel was not. As of Friday, the reactor’s cooling systems were still not operational. Lighting has been restored for this and the No. 2 reactors.
Reactor No. 2 has high radiation levels in spots in and around the No. 2 reactor. Fresh water (rather than the prior seawater) is being injected into the reactor’s core and spent nuclear fuel pool. Damage is “suspected” in this unit’s containment vessel — the only such vessel so compromised, according to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, with the reactor’s core thought to be damaged. The containment vessel pressure is considered “stable.”
Reactor No. 3 had the three men step in water in the basement that had 10,000 times the amount of radiation typical for that location, the contamination likely came from the reactor’s core and possibility “some sort of leakage” such as a crack in the reactor core (but there is evidence that pressure is somehow being maintained in the vessel, making it less likely there is a big gash). Authorities are considering “other routes” to address issues at the reactor without exposing workers to excess radiation but there is no firm plan on workarounds as its core reactor is damaged, and its fuel rods are either partly or fully exposed. The nuclear spent fuel pool was “possibly damaged” and the water level has been low.
Also a major problem is Reactor No. 4 where despite the reactor’s water level and pressure being safe, its nuclear spent fuel pool was “possibly damaged,” with water levels are low and efforts continuing to fill it up with seawater.
The above is a rewrite of info in the CNN report – and not a copy of that report.
x2
A deafening silence because General Electric was involved in the design of thise reactors,and Jeff Immelt is a BFFE of Obama.
Were those nuclear jobs that O was thinking of when he anointed Immelt to the jobs creation commission–BEFORE- the Japanese quake?
Oh,and GE owns NBC,btw.
Hello Scarecrow. I have to come back later to read all of this but I just wanted to say how much I really appreciate all of your hard work in creating these threads. This is very nice of you. Also, all of the commenters- this is the best discussion I can find on the internet about this ongoing tragic situation. Thank you, recommended.
For reference, here’s the source for the speculation about a big “gash” in Unit 3′s reactor vessel. From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26japan.html?exprod=myyahoo
Thanks. Yes, our commenters have made a huge difference. Much appreciated.
The obvious question is “how would he know?”. We can infer some sort of compromised containment based on continuous leakages and the isotopes therein, but without being able to inspect the vessel itself, I don’t see how you could know what the shape and size of any break might be.
Also, if you have a basketball-sized breach in containment, the pressure will drop to atmospheric. Whereas with something like periodic leaks through the O-ring, you would have building pressure with occasional substantial leaks. None of which precludes additional cracks in and around valves and such.
That’s the problem with cracks. For some reason that made me laugh. Sorry
Margaret, as you probably know, Japan’s wind farms came through the earthquake and tsunami with flying colors.
Perhaps you’ve already seen this HuffPo story from March 17, 2011, Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan’s Trial by Fire:
Expanding this established, and thoroughly battle-tested, wind farm technology would appear to me a more prudent, and economically feasible, option than starting up geothermal in Japan.
Although I don’t consider it likely to be the source of the water on the floor of the turbine room, one issue that I haven’t seen much discussion of at all is the cause of of the continuing problems with leaking of the spent fuel pools. I can’t count the number of stories full of quotes from puzzled sources scratching their heads trying to guess what could have happened to cause them to lose water and catch fire, and TEPCO sure isn’t saying. It’s a mystery!
That’s probably because it’s almost certainly due to a (20/20 hindsight is awesome) bleedingly obvious design defect: relying on rubber seals similar to bicycle inner tubes that must be continuously inflated by electrically operated air pumps. And no, those electric motors aren’t backed up by diesel or batteries, and no, I don’t believe this is some magical type of rubber that withstands extreme temperatures or explosions. At this point I must apologize to Dave Barry and note that as stupefying as this sounds I am not making this up. These seals rim the concrete sliding doors that connect the spent fuel cooling pool (which contain fuel assemblies that have caught fire and burned in more than one unit by now, recall) from the reactor containment vessel.
There’s a very clear explanation at All Things Nuclear (note: not exactly a bunch of tree-hugging hippies). A failure of a very similar system at a nuclear plant in Georgia (US) 25 years ago almost led to disaster here in America.
Yes, that theory’s worth remembering; we linked to the UCS’s possible explanation of the leak last Saturday.
http://my.firedoglake.com/scarecrow/2011/03/19/japan-nuke-watch-sat-nite-jst-power-to-site-radiation-in-food/
The most worrisome report is that radiation is appearing in tap water. The media seems to just report this fact without asking questioning how this radiation is contaminating the water supply. I’m no nuclear expert, but could contaminated water be an indication that a full meltdown has occurred and is already contaminating ground water?
The extent of the damage to the reactors is most unlikely unknown by even the operators working at the power plant. They won’t know the true extent of the damage until they send cameras into the reactors to examine the vessel and the interior of the core.
Contamination of the drinking water is almost certainly — 99.999999% certain — coming from dispersal of radioactive elements into the atmosphere followed by settling onto the ground and then into the water supplies.
It could mean that. But more likely it means that the radioactives have floated through the air to the water treatment plant. And that’s basically just a series of open air pools.
I doubt there’s been a full meltdown to the water table at this point. The radiation readings just aren’t high enough.
Boxturtle (If Japan uses desalinization plants, the water could have come from the Pacific, too)
Indeed you did. I’d like to add myself to those commending you for the thoroughness and sanity of your summary posts on this topic, I have been following them avidly whenever I am not drinking to make my despair for humanity recede temporarily.
yes
These reports of radioactive iodine in the tap water are also notable as another great example of how when news stories are summarized for clarity, extremely important details often get glossed over or omitted:
According to the EPA, “Iodine-129 and iodine-131 are gaseous fission products that form within fuel rods as they fission. Iodine-129 has a half-life of 15.7 million years; iodine-131 has a half-life of about 8 days.”
If you were a mother of an infant in Japan, wouldn’t you feel that many of these stories seem to be missing an important number (129 or 131) which would indicate the best way to respond to the information?
Just stumbled onto this piece.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/no-amount-of-radiation-released-from.html
For what it’s worth, most all of the reports I have seen so far refer specifically to detection of I-131, the less persistent of the two isotopes.
Unfortunately, there are also reports of Te-129, which according to the EPA (PDF, see Table A-1, p 202) decays through emission of a beta particle into… I-129.
4cdave,
Regarding the senior nuclear executive who has said (via The New york Times): “There is a definite, definite crack in the [reactor] vessel — it’s up and down and it’s large”, you wrote:
Respectfully, may I ask: is it not possible that they’ve been able to send in some super-duper CAMERA-robot thingy to inspect the vessel?
I’m also unsure about what you were referring to when you wrote:
Nobody cited in the New York Times story said anything about a basketball sized breach. Has that been reported someplace else.
Without taking a position either way (as I am utterly incompetent to judge on the subject), I will note that the relative safety of small doses of radiation is a subject of intense debate among knowledgeable people.
thirdpartyca,
Has TEPCO definitively stated that they HAVEN’T yet sent in any cameras, or other imaging equipment, to examine the reactor vessel?
Professor Foland, one could also put it this way:
FWIW, Washington’s Blog consistently produced well-researched, informed, critical analysis of the BP oil spill. Imo, they have been equally credible on a whole range of issues. I don’t know whether it is a small operation, personnel-wise, but qualitatively, I’ve found their reporting to be on par with FDL. I’m glad to see they’re putting some light on Fukushima.
And the settling is facilitated by the fact it’s been raining or snowing in Japan.
I really don’t see any way to put a camera inside without first reducing pressure to atmospheric, and that means getting to cold shutdown and temps below 100C.
Regarding the basketball, I’m referring to a big hole. Either a big round hole, or a long crack of significant dimension. Something that can vent a lot of pressure in a hurry. Since these things aren’t depressurized (which, even where we don’t have pressure readings, we can see water temps of 200+C, so there is pressure), there simply can’t be huge holes.
We also know that they keep injecting water, yet the reactor isn’t full, yet. They never mention flow rates. I suppose they could be injecting one gallon per day for 10 days, but that’s not the impression I’m getting. So water or steam is escaping, somewhere, at a slow enough rate that it does not depressurize the vessel.
This is acting like there are one or a number of small cracks, with perhaps occasional blow-throughs of the reactor O-ring resulting in the “white smoke” we keep seeing.
4cdave–where have you seen reference to 200C+ temps?
At least in the early days, even the unbreached reactors were at 3-4 ATM, which would not go up to 200. Have you seen anywhere that they re-pressurised them to design pressures?
I found Washington’s Blog from nakedcapitalism which is my third AM read after FDL and Glennzilla.
The blog has incredible analysis with ample evidentiary links.
IAEA
Kyodo
I don’t know what to make of “at the feedwater nozzle” versus “surface temperature of reactor vessel”.
Amen! I’ve started my day with Brother Greenwald, FDL and Washington’s Blog for the past several years.
I’ve always wished WB were more visible in the progosphere. I find that modest little blog to be far more intelligent (dare I say ‘scholarly’) than the dozens of high traffic blogs with high ‘production values’. I keep wondering what it would take to get a lot more eyes on the pithy product that gets posted there. I think I may have originally come across it via Corrente.
BTW, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when FDL and Greenwald started collaborating on WikiLeaks and the PFC Manning case.
Washington’s blog is reporting the position of numerous very respectable medical and scientific opinions. And plenty of evidence is marshalled there in favor of it. I’m not saying any of it’s wrong, because I don’t know. I’m just saying that, as far as I know, it is not a settled scientific question and probably shouldn’t be taken as one.
I might also say I’ve been working in radiation areas since I was a teenager, so this is not a theoretical matter to me, nor a matter with no personal consequences.
4cdave, why would they “have to reduce pressure to atmospheric” and get “temps below 100C” before they put cameras, or other imaging equipment, inside.
I’m out of my element here, but there are high temp, high pressure industrial video cameras that can operate in a temperature range of -35 to 260 Degrees C and a pressure of 10,000PSI.
I guess it’s still not clear to me that the bulk water/steam inside is actually at this temperature. But perhaps I’m being dense.
Seems to me that if the heat source is melted reactor core slag sitting on the bottom of the vessel, it could conceivably conduct heat around the surface of the whole steel vessel more efficiently than into the bulk water.
Nishiyama doing another press conference. I really wish that he would get himself replaced by someone who resembles a spokes person with enough knowledge to address questions posed by the press, who are not even expert. (so the questions aren’t difficult) Any point other than scripted just previous to his conference are simply not addressed properly. The Japanese press use these events to have video/headlines/quotes that is presented in the news, but not really for substance, which is clear when the press articles are read for detail. But because he is representing a government role, what he says gets reported around the world, but not necessarily with an understanding that he is in anyway authoritative source of real information. If he were sock puppet, I’d be happy, but it would just appear to be a case of a person caught in something way over his head and not being genuinely aware how clueless he is.
Tepco just started, much better.
Understood.
Okay, so I’ve been poking around after reading the comments on this thread and I’m really surprised by what TEPCO really is. Before the accident:
TEPCO’s total installed nuclear power = 17.3 GW @ 3 sites
TEPCO’s total installed geothermal power = 38.2 GW @ 25 sites
TEPCO’s total installed hydro power = 9.0 GW @ 160 sites
TEPCO’s total wind/solar power = 4 MW @ 2 sites
I assumed TEPCO was mostly a nuclear power plant operator, but they only have three (er, two) nuclear power plants.
I find this really discomforting; they probably have even less nuclear expertise than any of us thought.
If the half-life is millions of years, then it is not radioactive. Paradoxically, the concern is about isotopes with short half-lives (but not too short). I-131 lasts long enough after being produced to get out of a broken reactor, migrate to where people are, and then decay.
Think of it as a kind of hot potato or time bomb. If the fuse is set for 16 million years, you can forget about it.
I should have said: “not very radioactive soon after being produced”.
Isotopes of uranium half long half-lives and are radioactive. Billions of years ago, there was a lot more uranium on earth than there is now. There is not nearly as much I-129 being produced in nuclear reactors today.
If there is slag (or intact fuel pellets) at the bottom of the vessel, wouldn’t it be in contact with the water?
If the vessel is at 400C, wouldn’t it be heating the water and steam inside it?
I can see the vessel being a little cooler than the contents, since it will be radiating a bit of heat away, but I don’t see the contents being cooler than the vessel. Obviously there would be a hot spot near any lose pellets.
The “temperature at the feed-water nozzle” phrase is recent. I never understood where they were attached in order to inject water. Since they have a hard time getting into the reactor buildings, and injection has been going on since nearly the beginning, I assume it is at some distance from the reactor itself. I’m guessing that they added a temperature sensor at the location where they tapped in so that they would have some working sensor, when everything else was offline. So perhaps it is the exterior temperature of the pipe there, indicating the temperature of the coolant. But since the coolant is not circulating, what does that really tell us about the reactor temperature? Only that is certainly higher.
YYSyd,
Good to have you following the press conferences so closely.
QUESTION: Has anybody asked TEPCO whether they have sent in any cameras, or other imaging equipment, to examine the reactor vessel(s)? Or, has TEPCO volunteered any info on that point?
Time for some technical documents from the IAEA! You can use your Facebook or IM or other accounts to log in and download or view these presentations. They are generally very interesting.
Detailed data from Fukushima (pressures, plumes, releases; temperatures at various places within the RPVs)
Summary of radiological release (lame presentation IMO) includes plots that we’ve been linking to for several days.
First data I’ve seen on ocean impacts of radiation
Are you assuming there was a camera already in place in the reactor vessel or the containment? If so, why would you assume it was still functioning when the temperature and pressure sensors were knocked off-line?
The lid of the containment is a massive piece of concrete, and they can’t even get inside to get a visual of the SFP. I don’t think they’ve sneaked (snuck? snooken?) a crane in there while we weren’t looking.
As to the top of the reactor vessel, have you ever tried to remove your radiator cap when the engine was hot? They have to get down to atmospheric so superheated, contaminated steam doesn’t blow out when they open the lid to drop in a camera.
The anonymous senile nuclear executive was talking about a crack in the reactor vessel. You can’t get a visual on that without getting inside the containment.
Could there be a big crack? Sure! Maybe there is. But I would expect it to be leaking like a basketball-sized hole if it’s that big. He also mentions it being below water line, which would make it hard to maintain any amount of water, and if so where is that water leaking to? Maybe it has filled the whole containment. I haven’t heard anyone talking about such a situation.
Maybe there is a big vertical weld there and he is assuming that weld has cracked. Sounds like a good hypothesis, but that sounds more like “there might be a crack” than “there is a big crack”.
I think geo should be removed from the geothermal. They are a regional electrical utility.
Woohoo! Data!
So what happened in #1 on the 22nd, and how did they get it back under control?
I take it this is all psig – I’m seeing some zero readings in #2 and #3.
I wonder why this is not asked. I wonder why it hasn’t been done (because we see no evidence of it). Even a camera on a stick would give useful information.
The concrete machine, I would have expected to have a camera at the spout but do not see one. There are remote control helicopters used for crop spraying that would do a better job of getting closer images. There are cherry picker mounted cameras (used for golf and other sporting events) that could get close. I’m sure there are devices they could throw into the pools to transmit temperature information. It almost seems that we are stuck in 60′s 70′s technology with this event. I don’t think that it’s because they are secretive that this is the case. I get the distinct impression that because they are used to dealing with invisible stuff that matter of visual confirmation, recording, are not pursued.
Here is a link to NNSA overflight data.
(NNSA == National Nuclear Security Administration, the US agency that deals with nuclear incidents inter alia. NNSA has a special plane flying around Fukushima to look at actual radiation deposition patterns from Fukushima.)
And here is an attempt to embed the info in this comment: (I assume this will fail)
Radiation Monitoring Data from Fukushima Area 03/25/2011 View more presentations from US Department of Energy
Good question. I think this was when they got temperature readings and saw that they needed to step up the cooling by a factor of 9 but I’m not sure.
Good to see it came back down.
This data seems to say units 2 and 3 have been severely compromised.
OTOH, a lot of fuel rods have been uncovered now for days. What’s with that?
Also, note that the unit 4 spent fuel pond is indicated as compromised.
Altogether, nothing qualitatively new here, but interesting to see the data.
Blech. I won’t try embedding again. Sorry.
you can link but not embed in the comments section
I must have known that at some point, thx
Kyodo
Exactly. And high-temp, high-pressure cameras are readily available. I’m sure TEPCO’s got them.
TEPCO doesn’t have geothermal plants in Japan – it’s all thermal. Meaning, the plants don’t utilize hot water from volcanic hot springs — the plants heat water by burning fossil fuels.
VOA
This 2-page PDF from NISA gives “the result of concentration measurement in the stagnant water on the basement floor of the turbine building”. Just a bunch of numbers to me, but perhaps you clever peeps can make something out of it. Is that enough to fry someone’s ankles?
Radioactive Nuclide Concentration (Bq/cm3)
Cl-38 1.6×10^6
As-74 3.9×10^2
Y-91 5.2×10^4
I-131 2.1×10^5
Cs-134 1.6×10^5
Cs136 1.7×10^4
Cs-137 1.8×10^6
La-140 3.4×10^2
~~~partially repaired in moderation~~~
Well, that didn’t format worth crap. First concentration should read “one point six times ten to the sixth”, etc.
4cdave mentioned above in a comment at 2:25 p.m. that he hadn’t see any water flow rates for the reactor cooling, so I’ve spelled out below some of the data recently issued by NISA in this document, in case anyone overlooked it, and because it’s a good baseline of information to refer to while they investigate the source of the turbine building flooding:
As of mid-afternoon 3/25, reactor core water levels remain in the same range they’ve been in for days (somewhere around half the length of the fuel rods in all three reactors, with Unit 2′s water level the highest).
Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV)/Reactor Core pressures:
Reactor water temperatures are still unknown, but since the partial restoration of power the temperature of the Reactor Pressure Vessel itself can now be measured, and all three RPVs were below 200 degrees Celsius as of 4:30 p.m. JST 3/25 (Unit 1 just under 200 degrees, while Units 2 and 3 are close to 100 degrees C).
Thankfully, as with Unit 3 a couple of days ago, Unit 1′s Primary Containment Vessel (PCV)/Dry Well pressure has declined (since rising after the increased injection of seawater on 3/23 to cool the RPVessel – which didn’t noticeably raise the reactor core water level but did cool the vessel by 100-200 degrees – probably by enough to prevent the need for another manual PCV venting; the pressure’s a good bit below design limits as of Friday afternoon).
Primary Containment Vessel (PCV)/Dry Well & Suppression Chamber Pressures:
A “Containment Atmospheric Monitoring System” (CAMS) seems to have been restored by the return of power, and radiation readings are now available for the three concrete containment vessels surrounding the reactor cores:
Unit 2′s Spent Fuel Pool temperature was 52 degrees Celsius at 2:00 p.m. JST, March 25th (no direct measurements yet for Units 1, 3, and 4).
The Common Spent Fuel Pool temperature was 53 degrees Celsius at 3:20 p.m. JST, March 25th (power and the pool’s normal cooling mechanisms have been restored).
They’ve got the (internal) “Fuel Pool Cooling System” (FPC) functioning and in use now for the Spent Fuel Pools of Units 2, 3, and 4 – in lieu of or in addition to spraying water on the SFPs from the outside.
Finally, as 4cdave notes just above for anyone who can interpret the information, NISA has posted this preliminary analysis of the radioactive content of the water found in the basement of the turbine building of Unit 1 (it’s not the analysis of the Unit 3 water, where the workers were; water has been found in the turbine buildings of all four Units now, varying from a depth of 40 cm – a little over a foot – to 1.5 meters, according to Kyodo News). Kyodo also reports that freshwater is now being injected into Unit 2′s core, in place of seawater, as of about noontime on Saturday, March 26th in Japan.
120 liters per minute is the first flow rate I’ve seen! It’s also enough, as I recall. To me “injection” is the only word I’ve heard, which has always sounded deliberately un-flowy.
Note as some are negative, the RPV gauge pressures are presumably relative to atmospheric rather than absolute, and are in line with my comments earlier that none of the units are running much more than 3-4 atmospheres.
Oops. I missed that. You are 100% correct.
(red-faced)
Prof. F,
What bearing does the new Unit #3 data have on the claims we heard yesterday from a senior nuclear executive who said (via The New york Times): “There is a definite, definite crack in the [#3 reactor] vessel — it’s up and down and it’s large”?
Of course one may reasonably assume there are also multiple small leaks and cracks around O-rings and valves. However, some commenters suggest that all of the leakage is coming from these sources and discount the possibility that there is a significant large crack in the reactor vessel.
My QUESTION is: can’t it be both? And does the new data point toward that conclusion?
Where is everybody?
Wow, just wow. From Kyodo News.
You will not believe this.
Quoting Okamura:
So the head of the Earthquake Lab says you need to have better plans in place in case of a large earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan and the company says “no problem”.
That is the problem with capitalism, ‘pups.
More criminal culpability?
Science, shmience! We know what we’re doing here! We’ve made billions of yen so you KNOW we are the MOTU!
Sorry, TEPCO, but reality has a way of being real. You can’t just wish it away.
From today’s IAEA briefing:
[me: 400 mSv / hour = 40 rem / hour. Very, very high. The damage to their skin is quite possibly not the main problem they will have in the coming days, as earlier reports had them in the water for a longish time. I'll try to find a statement of how long, but I recall hours. Could be wrong.]
IAEA report also continues to say that the containment for reactors 2 and 3 each have “suspected damage”.
Translation: The radiation releases will continue for the foreseeable future.
Evidently they stood in the water for 40 minutes.
Hi Lobster, thanks for posting about today’s IAEA briefing and the new stories from Kyodo. I hadn’t seen the story about the earthquake/tsunami warnings that Yukinobu Okamura (head of the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) made to TEPCO in 2009.
Did you see this prior report from AFP, on March 17, 2011, [In 2008] IAEA warned Japan over nuclear quake risk: [per documents released by] WikiLeaks:
And in case that isn’t damning enough:
The AFP also notes:
I wonder if IAEA’s 2008 warnings were informed by information they’d gotten from Yukinobu Okamura in advance of the subsequent warnings he made to TEPCO in 2009. At any rate, it was innerestin’ when IAEA Director Amano went out of his way earlier this week to publicly clarify that “IAEA is not a nuclear safety watchdog”; and the IAEA has no mandate to make IAEA member countries comply with any safety standards.
Still, one hopes that the IAEA might have some obligation to inform the public about an imminent, catastrophic nuclear event.
Lobster, did you notice the radiation levels in the article you just cited from the Guardian, Fukushima crisis: radiation fears grow for low-paid heroes battling disaster:
QUESTION: The above quoted exposure levels of two to six sieverts of radiation is equivalent to 2000-6000 mSv (millisieverts) — how does that comport with today’s IAEA briefing:
To clarify, I gather the water that the workers stood in was more radioactive than the air they were breathing.
Note that IAEA seriously underestimated the workers’ radiation dose in their initial account.
On March 24th, when IAEA first recounted the incident, they reported a much lower “radiation dose in the range of 170-180 millisieverts”; and exposure time of “three hours in contact with contaminated water”.
On March 27, (03:00 UTC) IAEA’s update indicates that medical examination revealed a much higher radiation dose with “local exposure to the workers’ legs estimated to be between 2 and 6 sieverts”. However, there no longer appears to be any mention as to how long the workers were exposed.
New reports are saying the workers have checked out fine and will be leaving the hospital on the 28th.
If they checked out fine and are leaving after a couple of days, they probably did not get 2-6 Sieverts.
I had not seen this piehole.
An interesting new phase now: the slowly evolving disaster at the plant + the gathering storm about how this came to happen. Usually the disaster and the argument about the coverup (or whatever) happen years apart. This is all going down simultaneously.
I can’t think of another case like this. Well okay, Iraq under GWB. Maybe there will be some kind of surge from the JG? The actual Hail Mary pass was two weeks ago (seawater injection). I don’t know what to call the next phase.
And even newer reports have them staying in the hospital for observation. Remains to be seen. A 2 Sievert local dose is survivable. I do not believe a 6 Sievert local dose is. OTOH, there are factors associated with going from Gy to Sv that may be in play when the exposure comes from radioactivity in water. I suspect that this kind of exposure has little precedent and that no matter what, those workers should be in the hospital for at least a couple of weeks.
Should have said,
I had not seen this, piehole.
heh
Update from TEPCO says freshwater injection has resumed with boric acid.
I assume this means that there has not been boric acid included in the injections for some time. This is a good news/bad news kind of thing. It is good to include it because it reduces the odds of a recriticality incident and it is good that they (evidently) have not needed this neutron absorber for a long period of time. (It is weak evidence that extensive fuel melting has not occurred).
But it is bad news that they are still compelled to include this neutron absorber in the mix whenever possible. It means there are still finite chances for catastrophic outcomes.
Professor Foland, et al, here is the full IAEA BRIEFING UPDATE on the workers: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident Update, (27 March, 03:00 UTC)
I don’t know what to make of the reported medical intervention relative to the radiation dose. But, there it is.
IAEA UPDATE — IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Accident (27 March 2011, 13:30 UTC):
Millie, I haven’t seen any news reports saying that the workers have checked out fine and will be leaving the hospital on March 28th. I’d like to be wrong though, if you could post the LINKS.
Egregious transcription error alert:
While comparing Friday’s CAMS readings to Saturday’s CAMS readings (to see what the radiation trendline is inside the Primary Containment Vessels of Units 1-3), I realized that I drastically increased the Sievert level in Unit 1′s PCV Dry Well (from 10 to the 1st power, as reported by NISA, to 10 to the 10th power), in my transcription above.
So for the record, this in my previous comment…:
…should have read:
In other words, Unit 1′s PCV Dry Well is not a dramatic outlier, but instead is in line with the radiation readings inside the PCVs of the other Units. I noticed that all the readings declined slightly from Friday to Saturday, in each Unit.
I’ve wondered if these CAMS readings might provide a clue about the source of the leaked water found in the turbine buildings of Units 1-3 – based on the level of radioactivity they’re registering inside the PCVs vs. the levels found in the turbine water – but I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions. For example, if the overall radiation levels of the leaked water were much higher than these PCV CAMS readings, maybe that would be an indication that water directly from the RPV/core(s) was somehow escaping without traveling through the PVC(s), which in turn might flag piping/valves as the source instead of Unit 2′s suspected PCV Suppression Chamber crack.
Here is a news report saying the 3 workers planned to be released this afternoon (28th here in Japan). It is being reported by every agency here.
http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye4685077.html
http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/articles/CONN00196152.html
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110327-00000521-san-soci
The workers were released around 1:30pm today (28th)
http://mainichi.jp/select/jiken/news/20110328k0000e040092000c.html