[quote=cmartenson][quote=Travlin]
I would appreciate any thoughts the CM team, or members, may have on the likelihood of Fukushima creating more total contamination.
[/quote]
<Excerpt>
The potential amount of Cesium is 100x what got released at Chernobyl. That’s the maximum and a far, far smaller fraction than that will be eventually released, but that gives us an idea of the scale involved.
[/quote]
Thanks for the helpful response Chris. This confirms my thoughts that Fukushima has the potential to exceed Chernobyl in total contamination. Even though news reports still picture it as not nearly so bad, it is rapidly approaching that measure. The effects on a dense population confined to a largely mountainous island would be even more severe.
Travlin
Very informative Chris - great pics and great commentary.
What I see missing even from reports like yours is any mention of what happens if there is another quake here, even if it’s smaller. It seems everyone is ignoring this as an issue and speculatiing on how long it will take to repair the present damage. Another quake and resulting wave would completely destroy what’s left.
In additon, it seems that ESA has just released a report that shows a large portion of the eastern part of Japan sliding eastward towards a 20,000’ drop off. Some reports already suggest that one more big quake in the area would damage the already unstable and weakened land mass sending at least the area with the power plants into the Japan Trench which runs for almost 500 miles along the eastern side of the island.
Wikipedia has the following statement that is sobering:
Continuing movement on the subduction zone associated with the Japan Trench is one of the main causes of tsunamis and earthquakes in northern Japan, including the megathrust Tōhoku earthquake and resulting tsunami that occurred on 11 March 2011.[2]
The upside to such an event? The extreme depths would probably allow the ocean to subdue the radioactivity enough to prevent it from poisoning the air above Japan and the water around it for 1,000 of years.
Let’s hope the 9.0 quake quieted Mother Nature for awhile.
Excellent job as always Chris. So good, in fact, that somehow you seem to have got the attention of the normally oblivious (or willfully ignorant) MSM. I was flipping through the news channels, and I stopped on Fox news when I saw satellite photos of the nuclear plant site. They looked awfully familiar, and sure enough they were using your first photo above, citing PeakProsperity.com and digital globe. From what little I caught I didn’t hear them cite or paraphrase any of this or previous blog posts (they mostly were talking about possibilities of entombment), but they had the photo up for the majority of the segment. So far I haven’t seen the same on their website though, only on their cable channel. (edit: it looks like they’re also showing photo#5 a lot, the close up photo of the hole, as well and citing this site)
So on the plus side, this means that apparently some MSM is following your work. On the bad side, so far I’ve seen no discussion of ANY of the broader implications that you have been pointing out these last few weeks, which pushes me to more to the conclusion that their under-reporting is intentional.
I wonder how their editors in charge are even able to sleep at night.
- Nickbert
Courtesy of Cryptome.org again we have this littel gem of a presentation by Dr. Matthias Braun
Link to PDF presentation
For those into the details, it’s really very nice.
The PDF is well worth your time, even if you are not into the details. It’s really cool to scroll through it quickly and watch the picture of the plant change … it really gives you a perspective on what may have been happening and how it progressed.
Hugs … dons
Everything that I have read about this situation just resounds with the most astounding incompetence, again and again.
We hear these lame stories about how a team is reconnecting the power, 10 days after the first outage. We hear stories about Tepco ordering spare parts for the damaged pumps two weeks after the accident.
Any kind of basic management seems to be totally lacking. The first thing that anyone would think of, day one, after such an accident is reconnecting the power and ordering in spare pumps in case the ones onsite are damaged. Its just incredible the lax efforts that were made in the days after the accident.
What is also worse is this Asian problem of “saving face”. OK the same thing went on to some extent with the BP disaster, but at one point, they just came clean and gave everyone the info. The Japanese have been terrible in this regard, and any respect I have for the nation has evaporated. I think even the Chinese with all the politics and communism, would have been more upfront about a disaster of this scale. Its really sickening, the dicking about that has gone on on the japanese side. This disaster effects the whole world and they have not responded properly, sent in low grade workers without proper protection and not thought of things that anyone on the internet reading the story can clearly comprehend as being the first most important steps to take.
Its almost like they want this thing to fail and leak more.
[quote=technet]Another waffling perma bear that can think of only worst case scenarios.
How about this :
Fukashima is not the next chernobyl, far from it, chernobyl blew up over night with no warning, Fukasima is only a small leakage problem, far from a meltdown and will be contained with only minor real leakage.
Japan is not yet suffering power outages, and will survive ok, no developed country like Japan can rely on 100% capacity for its power generation. It will be ok, and the japanese of all cultures are very resiliant and resourceful.
The markets breath a sy of relief as Libya is contained and other gulf states trouble calms down.
Gold comes off in price as its already doing.
Oil comes off in price as its already doing.
Life goes on and the perma bears that are constantly predicting the end of the world get to look pretty daft hiding away in the woods with the depreciating gold and hords of firearms… .
see ya guys…
[Moderator’s note: While the viewpoint is welcome, the strident tone is not appropriate. Comments must be phrased in a fact-based, informative, and constructive manner. Corrective action with the user has been undertaken.]
[/quote]
Technet,
Sounds like you are coming our way!
Welcome.
John
Now it can no longer be accurately stated that MSM news is completely worthless.
And concrats to Dr. Martenson for being able to ‘scoop’ MSM from behind a computor monitor thousands of miles away from the scene. Awesome!
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7751#comment-787554
Two extracts from the pdf at http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl=/510336-qmwPBP/webviewable/
section 3.1: Configuration 1 - Hot Fuel in the Spent Fuel PoolIf I interpret that correctly, it means about 2% ( 7 months / 40 years) of the spent rods are likely to break down in a dry pool situation..."The end of Configuration 1 has been defined as the decay time that is necessary to ensure that the fuel rod cladding remains intact given a loss of all spent fuel pool water. The previous study7 defined 650°C as a maximum temperature for cladding integrity. The Workshop on Transportation Accident Scenarios 47 estimated incipient clad failure at 565°C with expected failure at 671"C, presumably based on expert opinion. Given that the large seismic event is the dominant contributor to the configuration 1initiator, it is likely that it would take a prolonged period of time to retrieve the fuel, repair the spent fuel pool or establish an alternate means of long-term spent fuel storage. Therefore, we presume there will be a significant period of time that the fuel will be exposed to air. On this basis, BNL has chosen a temperature of 565°C as the critical cladding temperature.
This results in critical decay times of about 17 months for the representative PWR and 7 months for the representative BWR "
"The core melt accident results are provided for two emergency protective actions:one in which a representative evacuation was modelled along with long term protective actions; and a no evacuation, no long term protective action case. The later case, while unrealistic, provides a very conservative bounding estimate of the consequences. A case with protective actions identical to this study was not reported. However, the results of such an analysis would have provided results intermediate to those reported (with the exception to condemned land which is not affected by emergency response).
Comparison with the results shown in Tables 4.1 and 4.2 clearly indicates that for worst case assumptions, i.e., full pool involvement and large source term, the postulated Configuration 1 spent fuel pool accident may have comparable consequences to a major core melt accident. "
[quote=cmartenson]Courtesy of Cryptome.org again we have this little gem of a presentation by Dr. Matthias Braun
[/quote]
A gem indeed, thanks for posting this Dr. Martenson. The graphics are especially helpful for nuclear novices like myself.
Since reactor #4 was offline with all the fuel rods in the pool on 3/11, does this present a greater risk of spreading contamination than a breached core in any of the other reactors?
Mike
Mike -
Short answer is It depends.
Generally speaking, a breached core is far worse because you have lost integrity of the primary coolant containment boundary and the ability to provide cooling water flow to the fuel power unit in the core. A partial meltdown or decomposition of the fuel within the core now has a path to the next level of containment, with the accompanying release of highly radioactive material.
Spent fuel is a different issue since the decay heat generation is likely lower than that of a recently shut down reactor. But you still need water in the spent fuel tanks for both shielding and convective heat removal. As we have seen several times in the Japan accident, the loss of water in the spent fuel pools has resulted in dangerously high radiation levels that have prevented damage control efforts at the other plants. If the water level drops low enough you risk the violent reaction of zircalloy and steam and the rapid oxidation and decomposition of the zirc cladding which will also release significant amounts of radioactive material. This has a potential for a higher impact since the spent fuel is stored outside the primary containment boundary.
Regarding unit #4, I read a report that stated 15% of the fuel assemblies had been removed from the reactor power unit, not all of the fuel. I haven’t been able to find corroborating information anywhere, nor a definitive answer on how much sent fuel was already in the storage pools. There have been several reports that said there were 600 tons of spent fuel stored on site, but I haven’t found any source that said this was 600 tons per plant or total across all 4.
[quote]Radiation dosage chart.[/quote]Thank you, Rocketgirl. I really wish these charts contained an important comparison point: the hourly radiation does from a mid-call cell phone near one’s ear.
Thank you, Rocketgirl. I really wish these charts contained an important comparison point: the hourly radiation does from a mid-call cell phone near one’s ear.
[/quote]
I found this chart yesterday and while I was looking it over I got a cell phone call from my husband. After talking for about 10 min I decided to switch to speaker and move the phone away from my ear. With the R chart right in front of me I couldn’t help but think of the same question. Where does the dose lie for cell phone use? I would love to see something for microwaves too and how about living within 2 miles of a cell phone tower as well as high voltage power lines?(which I think are more electromagnetic). I don’t know if they emmit radio activity but I’d like to know the risk. Maybe Dogs can help us. I know there is info on the net but it’s hard to know what is legit. Dogs?
“I don’t know what made this hole in the roof of the turbine building, but it was heavy.”
If something blew up from #3 reactor it would have come down into turbine hall roof, not up through it (two different locations). Normally only the turbines (and maybe control facilities) are in the hall above the top deck (large concrete massively thick floor to take up vibrations and inertia of normal operational forces). Yes the high pressure steam line could have blown up, or the turbine (having been jostled by the earthquake) could have had a seized bearing (they are only slip brearings anyway) and ejected through its housing (not likely). Maybe a valve ejected - but hole too big for that. The most probable thing is that something went Down through the roof from somewhere else (maybe an ejected concrete shield plug). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reaktor.svg
Maybe a boat was washed onto the roof during the tsunami and broke through the roof (they really are not anything but a “built-up” roof of sheet steel, insulation and tar/gravel).
Also if you are looking for something - on the drone aircraft series of pictures - there is a “shadow” of something out in the water just past the intake structure, but inside the breakwater. Looks like something square and about the right size for a reactor shield plug.
[quote=Dogs_In_A_Pile][quote=beggarman]
A gem indeed, thanks for posting this Dr. Martenson. The graphics are especially helpful for nuclear novices like myself.
Since reactor #4 was offline with all the fuel rods in the pool on 3/11, does this present a greater risk of spreading contamination than a breached core in any of the other reactors?
Mike
[/quote]
Mike -
Short answer is It depends.
Generally speaking, a breached core is far worse because you have lost integrity of the primary coolant containment boundary and the ability to provide cooling water flow to the fuel power unit in the core. A partial meltdown or decomposition of the fuel within the core now has a path to the next level of containment, with the accompanying release of highly radioactive material.
Spent fuel is a different issue since the decay heat generation is likely lower than that of a recently shut down reactor. But you still need water in the spent fuel tanks for both shielding and convective heat removal. As we have seen several times in the Japan accident, the loss of water in the spent fuel pools has resulted in dangerously high radiation levels that have prevented damage control efforts at the other plants. If the water level drops low enough you risk the violent reaction of zircalloy and steam and the rapid oxidation and decomposition of the zirc cladding which will also release significant amounts of radioactive material. This has a potential for a higher impact since the spent fuel is stored outside the primary containment boundary.
Regarding unit #4, I read a report that stated 15% of the fuel assemblies had been removed from the reactor power unit, not all of the fuel. I haven’t been able to find corroborating information anywhere, nor a definitive answer on how much sent fuel was already in the storage pools. There have been several reports that said there were 600 tons of spent fuel stored on site, but I haven’t found any source that said this was 600 tons per plant or total across all 4.
[/quote]
DIAP ~
Thanks so much for taking the time to pen such a thorough answer. I truly appreciate it.
Your statement “this has a potential for a higher impact since the spent fuel is stored outside the primary containment boundary” really helped clear my thinking on this. If I substitute open 5 gal. gas cans for the nuclear fuel rods it seems easy to imagine how much more dangerous they would be (both as an explosive force and as a vapor source) outside of the same containment boundary. (I hope that is a fair analogy.)
Page 30 of the Areva report Dr. Martenson posted has a statement, “due to maintenance in Unit 4 entire core stored in fuel pool”. This was my reference for assuming there was no fuel in the core. But I’m certainly no expert, so perhaps my interpretation is not correct.
Have you seen this video commentary by Arnie Gundersen on possible damage to the spend fuel pool at Reactor #4?
http://vimeo.com/21789121
I would be very interested in any comments you might have on his analysis.
Thanks again,
Mike
Mike -
In addition to all of unit #4’s fuel being in the pools, there is the question of how much (if any) spent fuel was also stored awaiting reprocessing. The report I read was over a week ago - the Areva data is probably correct.
I have read or watched everything Arnie Gunderson has put out. He is the best source of analysis and information out there IMO. The Fairewinds site is about the only place I go anymore to get my information although I will pulse the standard news sources every now and then - but most of what they are putting out is just a reassembly of other articles or a rehash of what we already know.
http://fairewinds.com/
He has a new video up with some great discussion of the periodic, localized criticalities we have been suspecting for some time now.
http://vimeo.com/21881702
[quote=Dogs_In_A_Pile]I have read or watched everything Arnie Gunderson has put out. He is the best source of analysis and information out there IMO. The Fairewinds site is about the only place I go anymore to get my information although I will pulse the standard news sources every now and then - but most of what they are putting out is just a reassembly of other articles or a rehash of what we already know.
http://fairewinds.com/
He has a new video up with some great discussion of the periodic, localized criticalities we have been suspecting for some time now.
http://vimeo.com/21881702
[/quote]
DIAP ~
Thanks for your candor. I had watched all of his previous videos posted on Vimeo and his explanations seemed very logical to me. So it’s nice to know another source we can trust.
Just watched the new video you mentioned. Wow, I sure hope decision makers in Japan are listening to his concerns and advice.
The situation at Fukushima is going to drag on for years.
Jct: Our Canadian general election gives us a chance to vote for someone competent to deal with the with the cancer-causing radioactivity to come for the next few years. This is a job for another lawyer. Don’t vote for The Engineer, vote yourselves another lawyer to lead us through these dangerous times.Har har har.