Fukushima Technical Discussion

[marekk]

I agree Hollus, it must be a matter of detective work, going on what they are able to actually determine.

Any ideas on how (or if!) they might actually contain this mess?

Presumably any containment structure would need to be:
- air-tight in order to ensure no future releases?
- yet allow for some air circulation, or some other means of shedding heat from within
- Earthquake proof (to prevent a collapse in the future which might send a cloud of radioactive dust into the air).
- Tsunami proof
- Designed to last and maintain integrity for at least 100 years

That is a pretty tall order by anyone's book I would have thought!

The only real solution i can think of, is to build completly new cooling and decontamination systems on site as soon as possible, for every price.
No idea what are they waiting for. They can't just poor tons of water a day for months (probably years).

One month worth of time is already lost.

Sarcophagus is not an option now, nucleides are alerady leaking into soil and ground waters.

[forty-two]

The Japanese authorities have finally admitted that this event is a grade 7, making it now the second level 7 event in history (Chernobyl being the other).

They state that the releases have been only 10 per cent of those at Chernobyl, but I think they know that Fukushima is still releasing, and will probably continue to for some time yet.

If in one month, 10 per cent of the Chernobyl "pollutant" has been released (and that's their OWN estimate which given their history is likely to be a conservative estimate), who is to say that this won't roll on for a further months, releasing another ten percent next month, another ten the following month et-cetera until the total amount released is higher than chernobyl?

As far as I have seen so far, the "authorities" don't seem to have too much of a clue on how to deal with this situation, and I for one am annoyed about this.

[autogyro]

+1
I think your comment is the main issue regarding nuclear power 42.
The promises made by the nuclear industry and its supporters is now plainly a tissue of lies amd half truths.
The statistics, safety regulations and plans to deal with nuclear accidents and disasters such as this one in Japan look very fine on paper and when explained by their so called nuclear experts.
However when something does happen it can very rapidly become completely beyond their estimates and leave them with no way to control the results.
This is partly because they have no experience of such levels of nuclear disaster to work from but it is mainly because both the nuclear industry and governments world wide have avoided the responsibility in their interests for cheap energy.
If this is not actual criminal iresponsibility (and I believe it is), it is at the very least grounds for major change in the people who are chosen to decide on the worlds energy systems.

[forty-two]

I think you are spot on there Autogyro, with one exception. Nuclear power has NEVER been a cheap form of energy despite having been sold to the public as being so.

The decommissioning costs alone are Gigantic, and that's when everything went to plan for the life of the plant.

I think we, the people were sold a pup (no offence Pup!) with Nuclear power, and I fear that the real reason for all the NPPs in the world was a way of providing Plutonium for the Nuclear Weapons industry during the Cold War, an aim which was by dint of it's very nature futile, because nobody could actually ever use their Nuclear weapons, because of M.A.D.

As I've said before, Nuclear power is like giving a child a box of matches to play with. Even the most sensible child might be ok for the first few times, but eventually they'll end up starting a fire, being unable to deal with the consequences and burn the house down. The only important difference is that "burning the house down" in Nuclear terms has an impact for every man woman and child on the face of this planet (not to mention all other, flora fauna and funghi).

[forty-two]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13034582

The BBC news website is running a story headlined "Worrying levels of iodine deficiency in the UK".

Are we being softened up for the possibilty of issuing iodine to the people, or am I going into conspiracy theory territory?

[WhiteBlue]

To sum it up:

• the accident was of INES level 7 which was the opinion of most critical observers right from the start
• three reactor cores had partial melt downs of between 70 and 50% of their core capacity.
• one of the melted cores concerns MOX fuel with a high plutonium content
• at least two spent fuel pools had melt downs of hundreds of tons of fuel stored in them
• at least one pool is so badly damaged that it is unlikely to hold significant amounts of water
• none of the fife molten fuel puddles can be cooled by recirculated water flow at this time
• the open loop water cooling produces 200 tons of radioactive contaminated water per day which currently cannot be extracted from the site and cannot be safely deposited or reprocessed
• at least two reactors and one fuel pool continue to vent radioactive steam into the atmosphere
• significant radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean has occurred with damage to the local fisheries and potential impact for more than local fishing in the future
• areas more than 40 km away from the reactors are contaminated and are poisoning the food chain
• 200,000 inhabitants are displaced from the contaminated lands and will have to be compensated
• there is still danger of further explosions as several fuel puddles with ongoing criticalities are out of control
• the evacuation zone is still unsafe and there is still risk to the Tokyo metropolitan area of fall out contamination
• the estimated time to decommissioning of the failed reactors is twelve years

The likely total cost to the Japanese tax payer is going to be €500bn-€1,000bn. This money will be lost and cannot be used to build a clean power supply with renewable energy resources. It sounds like a very messy situation and not like something I would want to have in my country. The message is very clear.

GET RID OF NUCLEAR POWER AS SOON AS FEASIBLE AND INVEST IN RENEWABLE POWER SOURCES AND EFFICIENCY TECHNOLOGY!!

[andrew]

I've been reading this thread for a while but have yet to comment and give my tuppence worth.

Looking at this in rational terms, the situation in Japan has not been caused by the failure of a nuclear plant but by a natural disaster which in turn has damaged (among other things) a nuclear power plant which was commishioned in the early 70's.

To apply the reasoning used by the panic brigade about Fukushima roads and buildings etc should be scrapped as they failed due to an eathquake.

Given my location and there not being much threat of an earthquake or tsunami, I would happily have a nucler power plant in the back garden (the other flat owners/occupiers might object, it would block out some light and the backie if only about 15m x 10m so it would be either really small or very tall) as they are safer than they have ever been.

But I digress. My point is had nuclear plants been constantly falling to bits and exploding then I would feel totally different but I do not see any reason to give up on nuclear power as it is safe barring unprecedented natural disasters.

Looking at this rationally, there is no reason to give-up on nuclear, however lessons neeed to be learned going forward, to improve safety, which is pretty good anyway.

[andrew]

^^^

Chilling.

Post apocalyptic doesn't really sum it up does it?

But the guys making the film, are they tired of living or something?

Chilling yes, but I have to question why the lack of radiation suits. Either these guys are stupid or they are, as you say, tired of living.

You should look at Chernobyl on Google maps. No streetview obviously but it is pretty bizzare.

[forty-two]

I've been reading this thread for a while but have yet to comment and give my tuppence worth.

Looking at this in rational terms, the situation in Japan has not been caused by the failure of a nuclear plant but by a natural disaster which in turn has damaged (among other things) a nuclear power plant which was commishioned in the early 70's.

To apply the reasoning used by the panic brigade about Fukushima roads and buildings etc should be scrapped as they failed due to an eathquake.

Given my location and there not being much threat of an earthquake or tsunami, I would happily have a nucler power plant in the back garden (the other flat owners/occupiers might object, it would block out some light and the backie if only about 15m x 10m so it would be either really small or very tall) as they are safer than they have ever been.

But I digress. My point is had nuclear plants been constantly falling to bits and exploding then I would feel totally different but I do not see any reason to give up on nuclear power as it is safe barring unprecedented natural disasters.

Looking at this rationally, there is no reason to give-up on nuclear, however lessons neeed to be learned going forward, to improve safety, which is pretty good anyway.

Thank you for your input Andrew, but I fear that perhaps you might be missing ... well my point at least if not the point of the other posters who are concerned about all this.

The ultimate problem is actually:
- Nuclear power, although still pushed as "safe", still has no long term solution for what to do with the waste. And that's when everything goes to plan!

- Marketed as a way of ensuring a country's energy security, every waste dump, reprocessing plant and power station presents a very significant target for terrorist organisations.

- Nuclear technology, in this case power stations have the potential to cause literally global fallout in the event of a serious incident, putting every man, woman and child (and their children, and their children's children and so on).

Agreed, this particular event was TRIGGERED by a terrible natural disaster, or more accurately several natural disasters. Not least because it stands in one of the most seismically active areas in the world, and RIGHT on the coast-line of the country which gave us the word Tsunami.

This was therefore in my opinion an "accident waiting to happen". You can argue that it was built a long time ago, but frankly that is no excuse. It shouldn't have been built there then, and it should have been dismantled and "made safe" as soon as this was realised, but it wasn't and neither were a number of similar plants also in areas frequented (in geological terms) by Tsunami and or earthquakes.

I see what you're saying when you talk about roads failing, and should that mean that roads should not be built either, but the fact is, if a road fails, it MIGHT kill or injure 200 people which would be a disaster. This "disaster" is on a scale of potential deaths/injury which is literally tens or hundreds of times higher, and that I fear is a conservative estimate.

To give you an example of what I mean. Let's imagine that the government decided to build an enormous drinking water reservoir up a mountain just above a massively populated city. Being near to the city is an advantage to the engineers because they don't need to lay miles of pipes, and being elevated from the city is also helpful because it means that no pumping is required. the only trouble is, the engineers decide to build it out of glass. Glass can be shown to be very strong, as anyone who's been to the top of the CN tower in Torronto can tell you, but as we all know, glass can shatter under the right circumstances. You say that you don't live in an earthquake zone, but your homeland USED to be an earthquake zone thousands of years ago, would you REALLY bank your life on there NEVER being an earthquake again in your lifetime or that ofyour children, or their children? Or worse, some nutter with a diamond cutter?

I apologise for rambling, but I hope that I have expressed my feelings properly.

I guess I could have summed all of the above up by saying, anything built in an earthquake/tsunami zone MIGHT fail in the event of a natural disaster, and that might kill or injure people, but the risk of death/injury from MOST things you might build would be limited to a VERY localised area, and that is NOT the case with a Nuclear Power Plant. Plus, when a Nuclear Power Plant is working to it's design and NO natural disaster happens, there is still the unsolved problem of what to do with the waste.

[manchild]

One thing came on my mind when I was thinking about sarcophagus. To build it would take months, and to make it homogenous and resistant, the soil must be earthquake-free during that process which is hardly to happen in near future, since aftershoks of such massive earthquake will be happening for months if not years.

Chernobyl was in the better location for sanation - no river, sea or ocean nearby. No earthquakes, no aftershocks. Even if Japanse cover reactors and pools with concrete, they are on the beach, and underground leak into the sea can't be prevented. At the end, who can guarantee that some earthquake to come won't damage finished sarcophagus? The right thing to do would be to build sealed bunkers in the mainland and store radioactive material from Fukushima in there.

[forty-two]

One thing came on my mind when I was thinking about sarcophagus. To build it would take months, and to make it homogenous and resistant, the soil must be earthquake-free during that process which is hardly to happen in near future, since aftershoks of such massive earthquake will be happening for months if not years.

Chernobyl was in the better location for sanation - no river, sea or ocean nearby. No earthquakes, no aftershocks. Even if Japanse cover reactors and pools with concrete, they are on the beach, and underground leak into the sea can't be prevented. At the end, who can guarantee that some earthquake to come won't damage finished sarcophagus? The right thing to do would be to build sealed bunkers in the mainland and store radioactive material from Fukushima in there.

What poor soul would get the job of actually moving the mess that's left behind?

Not only would any containment structure require an earthquake and tsunami free period for construction, but surely would then need to be made airtight and earthquake and tsunami proof for potentially a few tens of thousands of years.

The mind boggles as to how such a structure could be made.

Agreed on the seepage through the floor issue, unless Fukushima happens to be built directly on bedrock, which given the leaking from the trench, I think is doubtful.

[manchild]

One thing came on my mind when I was thinking about sarcophagus. To build it would take months, and to make it homogenous and resistant, the soil must be earthquake-free during that process which is hardly to happen in near future, since aftershoks of such massive earthquake will be happening for months if not years.

Chernobyl was in the better location for sanation - no river, sea or ocean nearby. No earthquakes, no aftershocks. Even if Japanse cover reactors and pools with concrete, they are on the beach, and underground leak into the sea can't be prevented. At the end, who can guarantee that some earthquake to come won't damage finished sarcophagus? The right thing to do would be to build sealed bunkers in the mainland and store radioactive material from Fukushima in there.

What poor soul would get the job of actually moving the mess that's left behind?

Not only would any containment structure require an earthquake and tsunami free period for construction, but surely would then need to be made airtight and earthquake and tsunami proof for potentially a few tens of thousands of years.

The mind boggles as to how such a structure could be made.

Agreed on the seepage through the floor issue, unless Fukushima happens to be built directly on bedrock, which given the leaking from the trench, I think is doubtful.

My thoughts exactly. Now they must wish they were communist country with plenty of clueless "volunteers" to do liquidators work for a medal and tin coffin.

However, US is already working on luring some with big bucks.

"U.S. Firm Recruits For Possible Work At Fukushima"

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/130364/2 ... ushima.htm

[Dragonfly]

Deleted my post for being written in anger.

[WhiteBlue]

The best way to compare the potential impact of nuclear and natural accidents is the liability and compensation issue.

The tsunami and earth quake caused property damages to the northern Honshu territory will probably be in the magnitude of several billion Euros and that is no small amount of money. But the victims will not have any compensation claims against the entity that caused the tsunami and the earth quake because it is entirely force majeure.

The nuclear part of the disaster cannot claim force majeure because the equipment supplier and the utility have the duty to design and run the plants with sufficient safety measures and contingencies of all natural disasters including the magnitude of earth quakes and tsunamis which can be expected for the location of the NPP. As we know the magnitude was within the envelope of the latest forecasts. It would have been the duty of the utility and the national nuclear safety authority to decommission the NPPs at the moment when the safety deficiencies became known to them which was in 2009 latest. That did not happen. As a result of that negligence claiming force majeure is no option. The utility, the national nuclear safety authority and the government of Japan have the responsibility to compensate all people for property, health and capital damages that have occurred as a result of the nuclear accident. This includes all natural and legal persons that will suffer from air and sea contamination outside of Japan as well.

As I have already shown the damages will be ten or hundred times larger than the damages from the flooding and earth quakes.

[forty-two]

Forgive me Dragonfly, I could be wrong here, but I think that actually Manchild was speaking precisely in support of those poor souls who were sent to their deaths for the benefit of all mankind.

I think the point he was making was that under an opressive regime, it might be possible to hoodwink unknowing people into clearing up the mess.

It's a topic which I for one have trouble dealing with. On the one hand you have the health and safety of the globe, and on the other you have the lives of real people and the impact that their doubtless horrible demise upon their families and friends.