Japanese Earthquake

[autogyro]

Well pup dont you think you should explain the difference between exposure to low levels of radiation and inhaling a radioactive particle that ends up lodged in the lungs.
Is this why the aircraft from the American 7th fleet are being washed?

[WhiteBlue]

Still wondering, why take the risk of explosion, why not just let the core melt and catch it in this secondary concrete containment ?

I think cleanup cost is the main reason. Though, you'd wouldn't want to risk having the containment fail, however unlikely. Also, prior to damage of the core, they'd want to save it was well. And not necessarily because of the replacement expense - Japan needs these power plants back on line as soon as possible. Though this plant and it's neighbor are likely to be out of commission for some time.

Yep, I partially agree with Pup there. The need to stick to the multi levelled defense strategy which means you keep the zirkalloy tubes as much intact as you can. If that fails you try to conain a partial melt doen in the pressure vessel. Only if both defense layers fail you rely on the outer catch pool in the containment. The damage cost going from one level to the next is rather excessive why you do not want to deviate.

The current procedure is actually irregular as boron acid or dirty (Sea) water is not supposed to be used outside the catch pool. Due to the loss of all internal pumping arrangements they had to flood the containment with seas water and boric acid which automatically includes the reactor vessel and the catch pool.

The consequence of this will be massive corrosion to all installations and 10,000 tons of radioactive water with activated salts and boron. That is not going to be a small job to remove and clean up. Reactor #1 has finished his life time anyway. They are not going to reactivate that one. The #2 and #3 will need massive upgrades beside the clean up and and refit with new internal machinery to replace those which are corroded. On top comes the bill for new safety upgrades which will be required to prevent future tsunami flooding of vital safety equipment.

Experts have estimated the time for is to be as much as 5 years. Perhaps they will do it for #4-#6 which have not been flooded and "only" lost their periphery in the tsunami.

Tepco is also in the process to build #7 and #8 with different technology at the Fukushima Daiichi site. This will probably be more economical than reviving #2 and #3.

[marekk]

Also, since some people are describing the release of radioactive cesium and iodine as 'significant' -

I suppose one could call any release significant, but again to put things in perspective, I just checked the TEPCO website and they say that the radiation level just outside the reactor buildings is 20µSv/hour. With that in mind, I provide the following advice for anyone in the area who'd like to get a free chest x-ray:

1) Lie down on top of some x-ray film next to one of the reactor buildings.
2) Remain motionless for 50 hours - hold your breath!
3) All done! Now go get your film developed.

Don't know for cesium, but living 900km from Chernobyl and young at this time, i know something about iodine. The problem is, if you get it in your thyroid, you have it for months/years, and even small amounts of radiation over long time do the damage. I don't think radiation level in vicinity will be a problem, until there is sort of explosion, blasting long living (radiating) particles in the air, and wind turns to Tokyo for example.

[marekk]

The current procedure is actually irregular as boron acid or dirty (Sea) water is not supposed to be used outside the catch pool. Due to the loss of all internal pumping arrangements they had to flood the containment with seas water and boric acid which automatically includes the reactor vessel and the catch pool.

Yeah. Once flooded, they'll have no more choice, just add some boron/water and pray.

[Pup]

Don't know for cesium, but living 900km from Chernobyl and young at this time, i know something about iodine. The problem is, if you get it in your thyroid, you have it for months/years, and even small amounts of radiation over long time do the damage. I don't think radiation level in vicinity will be a problem, until there is sort of explosion, blasting long living (radiating) particles in the air, and wind turns to Tokyo for example.

Absolutely, which is why I say that you could call any release significant. Exposure risk is a matter of statistical chance rather than degree. My point is that the way it's described, it could sound like there are giant mutated animals all over the place. Whereas we know those are all outside Tokyo.

Not to repeat myself too often, but it isn't that nuclear supporters are ignorant of the dangers of radiation. It's just that we think that nuclear opponents greatly overstate the danger, magnify nuclear incidents beyond credulity, and fail to admit that the only practical alternative we have at the moment is far more dangerous.

We all hope for the day when we have tiny, cheap solar collectors to collect energy and cheap, lightweight, and environmentally safe batteries to store it. In the meantime we work with what we've got.

I'll close with a quiz, then I've got to go get some work done...

What's the worst energy-related environmental disaster in history?

a) Exxon Valdez
b) BP gulf spill
c) Chernobyl
d) None of the above

Of course, it's D - it only happened a little over a year ago and I bet few if any of you are even aware of it. Coal just doesn't make good news.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... _ash_spill

As for other great disasters of our day, google for London's Great Smog (coal), Bhopal Gas Leak (pesticides), Intox Blowout (oil), Love Canal (chemical dumping), and the Minamata Poisoning (mercury).

We humans do weird things. Nuclear energy isn't one of them.

[WhiteBlue]

Also, since some people are describing the release of radioactive cesium and iodine as 'significant' -

I suppose one could call any release significant, but again to put things in perspective, I just checked the TEPCO website and they say that the radiation level just outside the reactor buildings is 20µSv/hour. With that in mind, I provide the following advice for anyone in the area who'd like to get a free chest x-ray:

1) Lie down on top of some x-ray film next to one of the reactor buildings.
2) Remain motionless for 50 hours - hold your breath!
3) All done! Now go get your film developed.

You cavalier attitude isn't very helpful to the discussion Pup. Naturally the radiation situation changes very dynamically depending of the actions taken. When they were venting the reactors people could be exposed to lethal doses of radiation by caesium fallout which wasn't diluted yet. Caesium - 137 has a half life time of 30 years and 0.3 g is considered a lethal dose when incorporated. Naturally the direct danger is much reduced as soon as the radioactivity is is diluted and falls out. The fall out that hits the land btw will have a good chance to get into the food chain as much of the land is used for agriculture. Similarly the sea is used for fishing. As long as we do not know the amount of fission products that have escaped I would be careful to joke about it.

[Pup]

The word you are looking for is "flippant". If I were cavalier, I'd be getting that chest x-ray myself.

I'm not - in fact much to my wife's chagrin I'm known for refusing x-rays and ct scans that I feel are unnecessary.

I also wear sunscreen.

[WhiteBlue]

The word you are looking for is "flippant". If I were cavalier, I'd be getting that chest x-ray myself.

I'm not - in fact much to my wife's chagrin I'm known for refusing x-rays and ct scans that I feel are unnecessary.

I also wear sunscreen.

Well, flippant then. I bow to your superior language skills.

As a consequence of the Japanese accidents the Bavarian state government in Germany will terminally shut down the Isar I reactor which is just 80 km away from my home. It is an old boiling water reactor which is located in the wider landing zone of the Munich airport. I'm very happy about this decision. Munich has the second biggest landing frequency of wide body aircraft in Germany behind Frankfurt.

A second older reactor in southern Germany will also be decommissioned in the next three months. There is an ongoing discussion about seven other older units all over the federal republic which were scheduled to finish their life cycle in the coming months. After a government change last year they were all supposed to run longer than the original design life but it looks increasingly like that decision will be reversed. Some of those units run MOX fuel which has a higher radiation and causes machinery to become more brittle much quicker. Some have no independent mains connections and backup generator capacities. So one reactor accident in a first block can take the electricity of the second block out at the same time.

[marekk]

Looking at it, there is one more problem: they'll apparently went reactor vessels not directly to atmosphere, but inside reactor building. Which is by design leak proof and has no wents on the roof. As the core was reportedly exposed, temps were high enough to generate significant amounts of hydrogen on the zirconium/water interface. Hopefully they'll manage to went it in some way without third blast.

[autogyro]

As always with nuclear disasters there are people prepared to risk their lives to remain close to the reactor and do all these things that we casualy mention as steps to be taken to save the day.
I cannot imagine just what it takes to be on site directing sea water into a nuclear reactor.
I hope they all survive, we cannot praise their efforts enough IMO.

[Dragonfly]

As always with nuclear disasters ..........

+1

[forty-two]

So far, everything that has happened at these plants reads like a checklist of what could happen in a natural disaster and the appropriate response.

The inclusion of a nuclear reactor, or in this case, several could arguably be considered as an "un-natural" or rather man made disaster. Granted the trigger for this disaster was man-made, but what is now unfolding is as a result of the placement of a nuclear reactor (which didn't arrive there by natural processes) in both an Earthquake and Tsunami danger zone.

We will no doubt learn of mistakes that have been made, and of design flaws that have been uncovered - we are testing these facilities and people beyond any expected limits. But these will merely serve to educate for the future.

But at what cost to humanity?

I would love to be able to power the world with wind, water or sunlight. But right now - right now - that's simply impossible. In the meantime we work with what we've got - coal and nuclear. Of the two, coal is so much worse on any measurable scale that it just defies belief that we haven't long ago switched to nuclear power. And the only reason we haven't done so is ignorant fear. Each and every incident, illness, and death from nuclear power is held up and magnified as proof positive that the technology is inherently unsafe. Yet for every death or illness caused by nuclear power, we ignore thousands (tens of thousands?) caused by coal - the mining deaths, the emphysema, the cancer, the arsenic, the mercury, the *gasp* radiation - the numbers just don't lie.

We, as a planet have HUGE reserves of natural gas. It's extraction is arguably the safest of all fossil fuels, and it's characteristics are well understood, and an accident involving it would have only local ramifications.

Granted, gas has a CO2 impact, but spending money and time on countering this (carbon capture, planting more trees etc.) could in a geologically speaking short space of time, more than likely overcome this. Remember that using fossil fuels only releases carbon which has previously been "captured" from the atmosphere by plant life.

Granted it won't last forever, but perhaps long enough to work out a SAFE way of capturing more energy from the sun, whether that be by wind, solar, wave or (not directly sun driven) tidal.

I suspect that I, and others from the same standpoint will never succeed in convincing you, no more than I expect you would convince me otherwise, but it is worth trying, in my opinion for all our children's sake.

[forty-two]

The consequence of this will be massive corrosion to all installations and 10,000 tons of radioactive water with activated salts and boron. That is not going to be a small job to remove and clean up.

I wonder how much of this has already gone "to atmosphere" as a result of boil-off?

Great article WB, but whenever I read such a peice, I always question the motivation of the author.

The way I see it, and perhaps I'm badly informed is that ALL nuclear power, whether in a geological danger zone or not is akin to letting a child have a batch of nitro glycerin to play with, only the difference is, an accident might not only burn down the block of flats the child in question lives in, it could irradiate the world.

The fact is, if a coal, oil or gas installation has a disaster, it could cause a massive explosion, big enough perhaps to take out a town (look up the cost/benefit analysis of the village of Roscrowther in SW Wales before a huge oil refinery was built which concluded that the cost of a worst case total loss was less than the predicted benefits were calculated to be if you seek confirmation).

The environmental damage in such a case would be LOCALLY catastrophic, but would not have much of an impact to the rest of the country (sidelining carbon considerations for a moment), and would not have long-lasting implications.

A full scale "accident" at any nuclear plant will definitely have these implications, with of course a variance depending upon the particular situation, in the amount of direct and indirect human suffering caused

I suppose in a way I might come across as someone who 100 years ago might have been "horrified" at the use of the internal combustion engine, but the fact is that a single case of "IC engine" could not under any circumstances cause the immediate or worse protracted painful death of tens of thousands of people. This is not the case with nuclear reactors, and this case is an illustration of the fact that backups upon backups upon backups can prove to be as useless as a chocolate teapot when a real disaster strikes.

I must say though, that I have been reassured by the number of forum members who tend in my direction. Perhaps the people of the world are not as mad as I had given them credit for.

[forty-two]

As always with nuclear disasters there are people prepared to risk their lives to remain close to the reactor and do all these things that we casualy mention as steps to be taken to save the day.
I cannot imagine just what it takes to be on site directing sea water into a nuclear reactor.
I hope they all survive, we cannot praise their efforts enough IMO.

You see, I said you made very good points and you go ahead and make the best one you've ever made! And I'm being serious.

I found myself in eastern europe, Riga in Latvia to be precise (I live in Great Britain) a while back on the anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster a couple of years ago, and the local TV news was making headlines, telling much about the bravery of the "liquidators" whose job it was to pour concrete into the reactor core there, who died within a number of hours measured in hundreds. What was telling was the complete lack of coverage of this anniversary in the UK, not a single mention.

Whoever is dealing with this incident on the ground deserves the praise of the world quite literally, especially when one considers the natural disaster playing out all around them. For all we know, half of the people taking care of this problem have lost half of their families in the last days as a direct result of the earthquake/tsunami and probably didn't feel like going to work, but did because their efforts would save lives and it's the right thing to do. I take my hat off to them, and I'm not sure if I would have had the same courage.

[forty-two]

Looks like reactor 2 has now also suffered an explosion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843