http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12721498

There has been an explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant that was hit by Friday's devastating earthquake.

Pictures show a blast at the Fukushima plant and initial reports say several workers were injured.

Nuclear expert, Malcolm Grimston told the BBC that nuclear materials may have been able to escape .

The main containment system seems to be intact.

As with the others on this forum, I can't stress enough that Japan is the single best "equipped" society on the planet, we can't compare here. Even a nuke plant explosion seems to be managed in an orderly fashion there.

From what I've seen this morning it seems northern Japan will become a nuclear contaminated wasteland. This is a terrible turn of events. The Reactor is now completly exposed and the reactor containment roof was completely destroyed i.e. more than a purely chemical explosion as occoured at Chernobyl.
Hopefully the solution which stopped the China Syndrome at Chernobyl can be replicated. The consequences if they cannot will be absolutley catastrophic.

So what we've got is some type of nuclear release incident at one of these nuclear power plants. Hopefully this type of radiation release is confined to just one plant, but since several nuclear reactors are involved ... we just don't know.

I'm having some trouble understanding exactly what the Government there is saying. Their press release says that only the outside structural building has exploded. But surely the force of the explosion has been generated by a high-pressure build-up of vapor or gas from within the coolant system. It seems very hard to believe that some significant radiation has not come out of the system.

At this point the Japanese Government can no longer keep playing their cards close to their vest. They are going to need to provide accurate info to the world on what is going on. They were very tight-lipped before the reactor explosion, and they kept giving assurances that it could not happen. But obviously the earthquake damage to these power plants has been extensive.

Looking at TV, it appears that a lot of the exploded containment structure went into a cloud of debris that landed within a few hundred yards of the plant. But very likely they have now got radioactive material in the ocean as well as on land. And they are probably venting some residual gases into the air as well.

They need to get some airplanes into the sky, and some boats onto the ocean, to check radioactivity levels. My guess is that the international community will put tremendous pressure on Japan to get this information collected and released as soon as possible.

I don't think that Japan will become a "nuclear wasteland". Remember that this small country actually recovered from two full-scale nuclear explosions in 1945. The Japanese have the will and the resources to clean up their country. But it will be expensive, and it will take time. This earthquake has been one of their worst nightmares.

I am watching these events from So. California, and imagining what would happen if we had a similar series of diasasters. We have a nuclear plant located on the ocean at San Onofre. It's a pretty good bet that we would have taken worse damage than Japan, and I doubt that we could have responded as well as they can. If there is any positive outcome from this Japanese diasaster, it's probably that the people in California are really going to have to get their act together and try hard to get ready.

other Pete

This news report:
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFTKZ00680620110312
says that they plan on filling the core with sea water, and that this will (through some unclear reaction with the sea water) ultimately shut it down.

there seems to be an important difference between the containment building, which was destroyed, and the nuclear reactor container itself, which, though leaking, is largely intact.

the article claims the explosion was caused by hydrogen gas leaking from the nuclear reactor container, which then mixed with oxygen and caused the explosion.

As I understand it, the concept of these things is that the containment building is to contain leaks etc. from the actual nuclear reactor container, so it appears the "safety" measure of the containment building is gone, and the reactor container itself is damaged and leaking, under great stress, but still largely intact and totally open to the environment.

I suspect that the workers trying to shut this thing down are pretty close, if not beyond, the fatal dose of radiation. I recall the soviet helicopter pilot who make repeated flights directly over the exposed Chernobyl core to drop sand etc. to help contain it. He quickly received the fatal dose, but kept going back again and again.

I totally agree the Japanese government owes everyone a detailed briefing on the amount of damage, the current status of and plans for the reactor.

From the various things that I've seen on the news - the idea of flooding the reactors with sea-water seems like a brilliant solution. It's actually such a good idea, that you almost wonder why the original design engineers for the power plants didn't include some sort of emergency sea water pump to perform that operation. But i do agree with you that the workers at the plants are at risk from radiation poisoning, and the news is now reporting that three of them have had exposure. I would think that they should have contamination suits as standard equipment at these power plants. But perhaps those suits are cumbersome or very hot to wear, and the workers can't use them for all their activities.

The Japanese Government doesn't seem to understand that they have fallen "behind the credibility gap" with their news relases. In general, politicians and the media never seem to really comprehend this. If you start issuing statements to the public saying that there is NOT a problem, and then subsequently your own nuclear power plant blows up - GUESS WHAT? You've got a major credibility gap. Once that happens, the general public is not going to put much faith in any subsequent statements that come out. Can you blame them?

The big thing that's missing here is some very simple data. What are the radiation levels in the vicinity of the damaged power plant? This is not rocket science. It's very easy data to gather, and they should be releasing the actual numbers. People will put much more faith in the data than they will in any general statements that risks have been contained.

Maybe part of what we are seeing here is that the Japanese people have a tradition of putting a lot of faith in their government to do the right thing. However, to me personally this incident has demonstrated that the government there is well behind the power curve - in terms of staying on top of the situation. OK, this was the biggest quake that Japan has ever experienced - so we should cut them some slack. But maybe the Japanese people also need to wake up and learn to be a bit more proactive about their own personal safety.

My own take-away from this ... is that I might actually purchase a personal radiation meter for my survival kit. In the past, I have avoided doing this because it just seemed like a waste of money. What are the chances that a "dirty bomb" incident would happen in my neighborhood. Vastly small. But the Japanese experience today has demonstrated that governments and politicians cannot be relied upon to release basic scientific data that is essential to the public good during an emergency. Since I live on the coastline, north of an operating nuclear reactor (in a major seismic zone), I can always just get a handheld device and measure my own data. Problem solved.

There's a really good argument that we need some sort of "Wikileaks Emergency" site on the Web that allows private citizens (who are located inside disaster zones) to rapidly publish information on what's actually happening in real-time.

other Pete

You need to keep in mind that the scale of the overall disaster is huge and unprecedented in recent years. Misinformation due to lack of details, comms, etc are to be expected. Also the news media itself is one of the biggest culprits of misinformation due to their rush to be first. Look at any other recent event for proof: Christchurch, Australia floods/fires, Haiti, recent shootings in Arizona et al. Even today while browsing the major websites, there is a lot of contradiction in reports.


Very easy to Saturday morning quarterback isn't it? I would rather put my faith in the Japan .gov in this type of situation then my own .gov (no I don't live in the USA). The overwhelming worldwide consensus is the Japanese .gov and citizens are the best prepared for an EQ. This new EQ is the 5th biggest on record, so yeah, cut them some slack.


There is no Wikileaks type of conspiracy...period.

This earthquake is unprecedented in private citizen reporting. and plenty of info on the net. Remember that the Japanese people are one of the most technologically connected people in the world and there is plenty of info out there at websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter to name a few.

Using sea water as additional coolant source isn't a new idea.
That's always been part of US Submarine nuclear reactor safety steps that could be taken in the direst situation. "Disposable, sinkable container" if necessary. (Hasn't been necessary)

You'd really rather not use seawater unless all the distilled water sources are gone. Injecting sea water into a formerly corrosion-controlled system will render the system unusable in future. (chloride cracking corrosion will occur and the piping can never be trusted for ops ever again)

The reason to use seawater, or any water, is to keep the core covered in order to dissipate decay heat so that the fuel remains in its original geometry near the control rods and remains sub-critical.

Molten fuel can puddle and and go critical/super critical and once again produce heat beyond control. (The so-called "china syndrome" where the hot fuel "melts its way to China".)

i don't think we need wikileaks. yesterday we were discussing whether the US alerts were overkill, today we're saying that the Japanese govn't isn't giving enough or acurate enough information. there's lots of information out there already, without fanning any conspiracy theory flames. i don't think it would helpful at all. that said, i wouldn't be surprised at allif such a site is aleady in production.

In the article bws48 linked to above, the spokesperson said: "At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radiation leakage outside (from before and after the explosion), so we'd like everyone to respond calmly...". They did report the level before the explosion (I'm not a physicist, so the number meant nothing to me--something like 1,000 mSv IIRC) and they're saying it hasn't changed, so we essentially know what it is after the explosion. They also reported that the containment vessel was not breached.

Besides the points Teshlinker raised which apply to all large chaotic events, let's also keep in mind the time difference and the additional time lag of the news cycle. While we're Monday morning quarterbacking during the day here in the US, it's the middle of the night in Japan. It's noon here in California and they still won't wake up for several more hours in Japan. By the time people do more work in the morning, arrange press conferences in Japan and finally report it here, it's already quite late. Maybe too late for many of us before we go to bed, so we won't hear new information until the following day.

In everyone's quest for instant information, we should also keep in mind that Japan's most pressing need right now is not really for processing outgoing information.

Sue

From this photo I think we can assume that the environmental shield is gone, and all the control systems, pumps, turbines etc used to remove the heat in the reactor core in a controlled fashion are gone as well (thrown hundreds of metres either side of the environmental concrete shield, which itself was basically turned to dust) and the reactor containment shield is breached with the reactor core is well alight.

So much for the vested interest commentary from the media news nuclear experts and the information from the Japanese Government pretending that what has happened today doesn't even warrant a more dangerous accident than the 3 mile island incident.

If the wind changes how do you evacuate 40 million from Greater Tokyo Yokohama urban area 120 miles away. I guess the answer is that you can't.

Agreed. they've got many much more important things to do right now.

Sorry to disappoint you. So far this reactor emergenecy is not quite as bad as Three Mile...yet.

Factbox: International nuclear event scale explained

he Japanese nuclear safety agency rated the damage at a nuclear power plant at Fukushima at a four on a scale of one to seven, which is not quite as bad as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979, which registered a five. But what does that mean?

The International Atomic Energy Agency -- an inter-governmental organization for scientific co-operation in the nuclear field -- said it uses the scale to communicate to the public in a consistent way the safety significance of nuclear and radiological events.

Wikipedia has a pretty good summary

Wikipedia article on Fukushima I Incident

Note that Wikipedia article itself is the "polished summary". The linked references go into much more detail, and the Article Discussion Page will provide more insight, as well.

As noted on the page, the Wikipedia article will evolve as news comes in.

I should have explained a couple of points I was trying to make.

* I don't believe that the authorities in Japan are deliberately trying to confuse people. I'm sure they are not. But I do think that they've got more info at their fingertips than what they are telling the public. You can be dead certain that the power plant operators MUST have some radiation level measurements already. They've got to. Likewise, I'd be very surprised if some Japanese Gov't scientists don't have some data too. So where is this data??? Nowhere to be found. They need to release the figures to their own public.

* I disagree with the idea that tons of info is out there. It's not that simple. What we've got is tons of scraps of information spread out over thousands of Web sites. That does absolutely no good. It needs to be coordinated to one Web site - where everyone can find it. No coordination means no useful information. No big picture.

* The Japanese Gov't doesn't owe me anything. I totally agree on that one. They don't owe me diddly squat. But they SHOULD be getting the data out to their own citizens.

* I'm not trying to do Monday Morning quarterbacking on the Japanese response. I'm trying to learn what i can - so we can apply it to where I live. My neighborhood is in So. California. We could have the same disaster happen to our coastline at any time in the future. It would be nice to learn some important lessons. Personally, I have learned a LOT by watching what happened in Japan.

* The name "Wikileaks" seems to conjure up conspiracy ideas for some people. So let me scrap that name. We need some sort of place on the Web where real-time disaster reports can be filed. Esp. reports from people inside the disaster zone. That would be truly helpful. I do see a tendency for governments to try to monopolize information so they can "decide" how best to respond. I suggest that the best way for any free society to respond is for governments to give the data directly to their citizens. Let people on the street also have a chance to evaluate the information and decide their own responses.

I did notice today that many local teams of Japanese responders are already hard at work - rescuing people and digging out survivors. So the Japanese people are doing an awesome job at the local level.

Finally ... let me be humble. I doubt that we are anywhere near as ready in So. California as the people of Japan are - for a major disaster like this. This would be a very tough experience for us. I hope that we are learning something positive ... there are only so many chances before the real test comes.

other Pete

The IAEA is publishing updates. I would trust them more then conventional news sources. Beside most news organizations don't have nuclear engineers on staff.
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

Note that the reactor #1, the one that is crises, is a GE designed boiling water reactor. The GE power website has cutaways views of both the reactor core and the plant construction.

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/new_reactors/abwr.htm

This is probably what they're dealing with.

Actually the only thing I can assume from that photo is that something is burning. There is absolutely no way to know if it is the core of a nuclear reactor, the electrical transformers or the diesel tank farm at the site for the stand by generators. There is no detail in the photo to determine if or how much of the facility is intact.

Alarmist assumptions from limited data don't help anyone. Spreading misinformation and preying on the over hyped fears about dangers of nuclear power and radiation seems more like grinding a personal axe. I haven't been able to keep a very close eye on this but the facts that are being reported so far indicate that the local residents have more to worry about from the loss of power or their next airplane trip than the "fallout" (pun intended) from this incident. Of course things can and will change or I may be behind the news cycle again.

- Eric

China syndrome is a misleading term in several ways and part of the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt surrounding nuclear power.

If you assume a runway reaction where the molten reactor fuel actually makes it down to the mantle (not really all that deep compared to the center of the planet) the actual environmental effect would be pretty low. The radioactive material would disperse by convection throughout the mantle, which is in any case kept liquid by natural nuclear decay.

It is more likely that the melted core would not get much past 30-50 feet of depth before stopping. The ground beneath and around the reactor would absorb the heat and transfer it conductivity to the surrounding area so the ground under it wouldn't get hot enough for it to burn through. Wikipedia has a decent writeup on this.

- Eric

PS - I do not work for the nuclear power industry or have any vested interest in nuclear power.

there is probably some confusion in the media concerning the need for heat exchange... the only way to put out a fission fire is to absorb the neutrons (typically with boron or cadmium) and stop the chain reaction...if the nuclear vessel is still intact you need to cool the reactor core and control rods to keep them in position so the control rods are between the fuel bundles... if they have in fact been scrammed (dropped to stop the neutron flux)....the steam or hydrogen (some of which would be H3 the radioactive isotope -tritium) explosion probably caused damage to the containment building (I've been away from the news)...the most dangerous of the radioactive fission products are the radioisotopes of strontium, cesium, and iodine that replace the less reactive elements (above them on the left side of the periodic table...calcium, potassium-sodium-lithium... and iodine used by the thyroid gland) in the body as well as the bone seeker and soft tissue isotopes of uranium and its decay daughters...

I'm sure the carrier task group has sniffers

Please listen to the 4th video down in the group entitled 'Japans nuclear worries'

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.nuclear/index.html?hpt=T1

Let alone the Breaking News Headline.




Please listen to the video entitled WMA Spokesman Ian Hore-Lacy on Nuclear Plant about how it is impossible for the environmental containment shield to be blown off the reactor building.

Also it would appear that the larger reactor Number 3 has also had a coolant system failure and may well be going the same way as Number 1

I've been talking with folks who are certified nuke engs. This event has been rated a 4 on the 7 point scale (TMI was a 3 (correction - 5), Chernobyl a 7)

Backup gens are on site, and are running for reactors 2,3,4

No1 they are pumping seawater and boron in, which will "posion" the reactor.

The explosion was from them venting the gasses - because there IS at least some melting of the rods in No1, there was a mix of hydrogen and oxygen vented - it went "bang" - outside the containment

In the machine spaces (aka where the generators and the like are) the rad levels WERE up to .67 Rem/hr - not great (fairly normal is .007)

Remember, "western' design reactors all have a negative 'radioactivitiy defecit' - basically, they way they are designed and built, the hotter they get, the less well they react - aka they tend to be self slowing (in fact, it is possible to build a reactor that is fail SAFE - turn off the cooling, when the heat gets high enough, it turns off - basically it stabilizes at a very HIGH temp, but a temp that is safe for the design - see the idea of PBRs). Anyway, chernobyl (and that whole series of graphite moderated reactors) had a POSITIVE defecit in certain operating ranges - aka, when they got hot, they got more radioactive, so they got hotter, so they got more radioactive, etc - so you can guess what happened

Graphite reactors have one HUGE advantage (well, two) - fairly cheap, and if you're looking to make plutonium for weapons, it's a great design.....

Nothing in the links I hadn't run into earlier. My point remains unchanged.

From the information available, the core may be (heck I'll play pessimist), is probably melting inside the primary reactor containment vessel. The outer building structure has been blown off, most likely due to the vented steam having a high concentration of hydrogen which ignited. The outer structure for this facility was not designed as a pressure containment vessel so the wall got blown off while the steel structure remains (clearly visible in some BBC photos).

At this time there is no indication of a nuclear burn through of the primary reactor containment vessel and if the local team working on it can keep cooling water (sea water at last report) flowing around the RCV this mess will be mostly contained. It sounds like a similar chain of events is playing out at the other reactor.

Radiation releases so far have been very small, due mainly to planned venting of pressure from the RCV. NHK is saying that a sensor within 5km of the plant is detecting radiation levels approaching 1015 microsieverts. For perspective that is about the same as eating 30 bananas or having 10% of a CT Scan. Nothing to ignore but not the end of all life in the neighborhood either.

I'm not saying this isn't serious but I am asking for a bit of perspective. Japan has just suffered one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. Thousands are homeless. Despite this the hysteria is over a power plant that is still contained.

-Eric

My sources say TMI was rated a 5 on the INES. That makes TMI worse than Fukushima (so far). Lets all hope it stays that way.

-Eric

You're correct - I meant to say 5

People don't realize exactly HOW bad things were inside containment at TMI

From circa 1982 to 1992, the company I worked for was a customer of a lab that also tested a LOT of 'stuff' for nuke plants, so I got to see a LOT of what was going on, plus I got to read a LOT of the trade magazines and NRC reports (the testing process often goes 24x7, and you have to be there, with nothing to do for 4-6 hours at a time). The core at TMI was slagged - about 70% of it was 'rubble' down at the bottom. Now here is the fun. The building was hot as heck inside, with radioactive water inside, and now you have to very carefully defuel the reactor, but it's not nice and ordinary, and electronices wouldn't last do to the radiation levels

Before digging deeper the video I saw seemed to be a chemical explosion. Certainly doesn't look nuclear, no flash, and it doesn't look like a diesel tank going up, which would produce a rich red flame and thick black smoke. The later thick black smoke may be indeed coming from diesel tanks afire but they don't seem to be the point of origin, or of immediate concern.

Knowing a little about reactors, I'll have to refresh my memory and knowledge base, much of it from researching TMI, I'm leaning toward a hydrogen buildup and explosion in the containment as the cause. Which would cause the surrounding building, but not necessarily the reactor vessel or plumbing, to disintegrate.

A large volume of hydrogen and air going up would look like that, a colorless blast with a moderately soft brissance. Looking at the video I note that the ability to see materials near the blast center moving makes me think neither conventional or nuclear explosive are involved. both them move so fast that the human eye, even most cameras, can't catch the action. Going off you see it as things being there, then not. Not like in the movies, which tend to be the special effects fallback, small charges under bottles of naphtha.

The question is; how much damage was done to the reactor vessel, plumbing, pumps? The reactor itself isn't capable of creating a true nuclear explosion but a meltdown isn't impossible and, based on TMI and several other explosions at nuclear plants, a hydrogen explosion, isn't improbable.

Given the Japanese engineers at the site were talking about releasing 'vapor' I don't think it is unlikely that the vapor was, at least in part, hydrogen gas and that they released it, hoping to limit the spread, into the surrounding building, which isn't designed to absorb the abuse of an explosion, where it was sparked by some unknown source. The frame of the building remaining supports this and is, to my way of thinking, a good sign.

In these cases it is always better to get information from credible sources, even outside my own brilliant analysis, and avoid pronouncements that are not clearly backed up by evidence.

I'll go back to my main point ...

Why are they not simply telling people the truth - or at least the facts as they have them? We have gone through the progression" "No problem" ... "Some radiation release but OK" ... "Outside wall has been broken by chemical explosion but reactor OK" ... "Plant on fire but no meltdown" ... "Maybe a partial meltdown". Along the way we first hear that background radiation has increased, but is not serious. Now we hear that maybe some cesium contamination has escaped the plant (but this is unconfirmed).

I really don't mind if this incident is 1 on a scale of 7, or 7 on a scale of 7. It would just be nice if someone would give the actual FACTS as they know them. It now seems obvious that people have been measuring radiation levels for a long time and have that data, and quite possibly they even have chemical species breakdowns for some of the atomic species in the released material.

This whole incident has been handled a lot like the initial steps of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Layers and layers of denial. It's just not a good way to handle information related to a public safety hazard.

other Pete

To be geeky...It wouldn't end up in China. Japan's antipode is off the coast of Chile and Peru. So, that would make it an "Off the coast of Chile and Peru Syndrome".

(I couldn't help myself)

Just a head's up for those of you who might be in the path of wind-borne radioactive particles, normally blue spiderwort flowers will turn pink when exposed to radiation. Spiderwort is a very common, easy to identify, and edible weed.


Dayflower1 by merriwether, on Flickr


Dayflower2 by merriwether, on Flickr

-Blast

Thanks Blast ....

<< hoping that's the only blast I deal with!

Any information on what level of radiation exposure causes this change? Are we talking in the range of an Xray, CT scan or higher.

-Eric

"The China Syndrome" as portrayed in popular writing is a joke

Let's say, god forbid, the containment vessel melts through (remember, it IS designed to try and prevent that - again, see TMI), MOST of the slag pours out - critical here is that SOME - even say a few ounces is left behind. You now have less mass. Some of the mass will now evaporate, and condense on the walls of the containment building (from what I understand, it's actually designed that MOST/all will do so, but...), so now you have LESS melting into the earth - now, the earth itslef say starts to melt - what happens? Yep, more heat and more radioactive mass is pulled away, evaporates, coats inside of building, again, diluting and cooling the slag - fairly quicky, the slag gets below the temp it CAN melt earth, and it stops. HOW quickly is this is the question?

One real example - let's look at Chernobyl - folks, the core totally slagged, and there was NO containment vessel, or containment building. How far did the core go? Answer, it's in the basement of the building, and yes, it's been seen by humans (ooops - the guy realized once he turned the corner and ended up looking at it he was dead), but there was no 'China Syndrome'.

This is a picture of part of the core - there was a TV show that showed more

I actually think this falls more to Hanlon's Razor "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

My guess is that the guys that know what is really happening are way too busy to give good status reports that have been boiled down to a level that laymen can understand. On top of that the pressure to say/do something (brought on by our continuos live news reporting) is resulting in a lot of vague / halfway accurate information being presented by the spokespersons for the company and government.

Press reports in my field (not nuke power) are always filled with a lot of misinformation and factual mistakes. None of it intentional (I hope) but it is understandable since it takes a long time to develop the skills and domain knowledge for my field. Similarly, early disaster reports focus on getting something out, not necessarily getting confirmations. These factors combined lead to a lot of vague speculative and even doom and gloom types of reporting since "if it bleeds it leads" is the general mantra of our press.

- Eric

Eric ... you're probably right. The guys who really know what's going on are way too busy to talk to us. It would be nice if we could give them a way to communicate to the outside world - in a calm and rationale manner. Unfortunately, they are probably sworn to some sot of secrecy agreement and can't make their own press releases.

Bob ... I was thinking the same thing as you. Yeah - we know that reactors with meltdowns can't really go through the Earth. But assuming this one ever did, this scenario should be called "The Peru Syndrome".

other Pete

Part of the problem has to do with language. All the reports are coming out in Japanese and being translated into english. Communicating nuances across languages is very difficult.

There is also the general imprecision of the terminology independent of the language used. I've seen 'meltdown' used to describe everything from small parts of the core overheating because they were immersed in water, to the entirely theoretical and never seen China Syndrome. There are clearly melt downs and meltdowns. One is an accident that might be recovered from with an overhaul. The other is an OMG ... feet-don't-fail-me-now event.

The best reports seem to be that the hydrogen explosion at unit one blew the weather cladding off the upper, unarmored, non-containment, portion of the building. It didn't rip open the containment or catastrophically tear apart the controls or piping. It may have caused or made small leaks worse. Certainly didn't do anyone any good. At least one man, the gantry crane operator who remained at his duty station, died.

Last word I heard was unit one and three were having problems cooling the reactor cores, the core/s have been damaged because water levels dropped and portions of the cores were exposed but any damage happened after the reactor control rods were driven home to shut down the reaction. The problem is that the reactors are still hot and require active circulation of water to prevent boiling off the water and exposing the cores. This was lost when the diesel generators were damaged by the tsunami.

The Japanese engineers have started injecting seawater and intend to add boric acid to further moderate any nuclear reaction.

Several sources are claiming, and this is the part subject to revision, that core temperatures are still abnormally high but moderating or coming down.

Chances are that the nuclear engineers on site don't know what level of meltdown has occurred in the reactor and the inspection and measurement sensors will have been destroyed. The series of events need to be published especially when the timing if the addition of the sea water/boron salts were added, presumably before the hydrogen explosion as this may have triggered the reactor to start producing hydrogen which then migrated its way through the reactor pressure vessel by the process of of hydrogen embrittlement. The sea water when cooling down the nuclear reaction may have caused the uranium hydride to start liberating the hydrogen at these lower temperatures only for the reactor to then heat up again.

As the reactor geometry has become distorted (due to heat and pressure) and the zirconium cans seem to have burst this may have led to puddles of enriched uranium forming on the bottom of the reactor which is then subject to some very complex phase/chemical/nuclear/neutron interactions. i.e. a lack of a moderator maybe keeping things cooler i.e. stopping fast neutrons from becoming slower thermal neutrons with high degrees of neutron radiation passing through the reactor pressure vessel making it very difficult for any human beings to be able to get near the reactor. Poisoning the reactor with the boron salts may indeed have the reverse effect to the desired one simply because no one knows the extent of the reactor fuel puddling and the extent of the partial melt leading to an uncontrollable reactor pile. No one will know the extent of the reactor fuel can alignment geometries. This is why they are using words such as 'assuming a melt down has occurred'

The reality is that the engineers at this plant are not in control simply because they cannot even determine what they are meant to be controlling yet alone have the assets in place to control the reactor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UZuNI7Yk2k

They might be lucky with this one but I wouldn't count on it. It should also be remembered that these nuclear engineers had the bright idea of building chains of nuclear reactors on the sea shore (historically subject to Tsunamis) next to a major fault line (historically subject to earthquakes). I think you could say that they lacked some foresight of what could go wrong in the very first place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12729138

Fukushima Nuclear Reactor No 3 goes bang.

Even more worrying is that Reactor is a larger mixed fuel reactor MOX mixed oxide (Uranium/Plutonium) rather than just a Uranium type reactor as used in No 1 reactor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel

OMG, just seen the video of the No 3 reactor totally disintegrate. Looks like the pressure reactor vessel was thrown 1500 ft into the air in large pieces. All that appears to be left is the steel building framework with a missing reactor pressure vessel.

"Chances are that the nuclear engineers on site don't know what level of meltdown has occurred in the reactor ..."

My thoughts too.
I don't know how they can keep coming out with such affirmative statements that these reactors are intact, and their containment systems are in good shape. It appears to be hopeful speculation. It is encouraging if they are pumping seawater onto the reactors, and also adding boric acid. But this requires workers to be in close proximity. It would certainly imply that these workers are at substantial risk of exposure to radiation themselves. Meanwhile, they are now reporting that 21 people living in the vicinity of these reactors have had exposure to radiation - but they are not saying how much.

It appears that the news statements have consistently played down the real seriousness of this problem - ever since it started.

Over here in the USA I am not particularly worried. But i do think it would be prudent for the USA to get some aircraft into the air and to monitor radiation levels in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean - downwind of these reactors. I'm not sure we're ever going to get solid data from the Japanese.

other Pete

Pity the Spiderwort doesn't bloom for another three months...

I think you're making this up. Things are very bad as they are, without any need for scaremongering.

Can you link to the video?

When you say "looks like..." do you mean "It is a fact that..." or "I am speculating that..."?

I don't know what you thought you saw but it was not the reactor vessel. Based on the latest reports on radiation levels there is no way the damage was even close to the level you are indicating. Frankly if the explosion left the steel framework it wasn't anywhere near powerful enough to lift or damage the reactor vessel.

Right now the few facts that we have are consistent with a cooling system problem in the reactors with at least some damage to the reactor cores. The explosions were all most likely vented hydrogen gas which further indicates at least some of core material is getting too hot. They aren't talking much about radiation levels but it sounds like things have dropped off quite a bit. Yesterday there were credible reports of monitors reading 1000 mSv and today they are reporting reading around 50 mSv. That is a pretty clear indication that the reactor vessels are intact and matches the statements from TEPCO and the government.

The press hypes things enough, we don't need to help them with selling fear.

-Eric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_N-wNFSGyQ

The video of the No3 explosion appears to be a little difficult to find i.e. you would think that it would be the main news video link on CNN and BBC etc but yet is conspicuously absent.

No2 and No4 reactors will mostly likely go the same way.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110314D14JF802.htm

Basically the Japanese authorities are taking incredulity to new levels.



In the photo about 2/3 up the column slightly to the left is a darker solid object which would approximate to the size of part of the pressure vessel.

Too put the photo into perspective and also the size of the explosion the height of the explosive column would be higher than the WTC1 tower. Nuclear reactor buildings are re-inforced concrete heavyweight structures weighing many thousands of tonnes. I have a major problem believing the hydrogen explosion hypothesis put forward by the Japanese Government, to which they were so quick to put forward.

As the mass confusion goes on ...

I am now seeing reports that fuel rods are exposed, at least on one of these reactors. IF that's true, and who knows any more, it tends to shoot down the idea that we've still got containment around all of these reactors. So you've got to at least factor in the possibility that there is a serious radiation leak over there.

If we add in the fact that seawater has been pumped onto the reactors, that could imply that some radioactive material is making it into the ocean. Hopefully the Japanese navy is monitoring radiation levels near the coast in that area. Despite this - I still think that using the seawater was a very good idea.

other Pete

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/downloads/abwr_plant.pdf

20. Spent Fuel Storage Pool

I suppose the Japanese authorities would have us all believe that highly radioactive spent fuel rods in the Spent Fuel Storage Pool have also been unaffected by huge explosion which has disintegrated the reactor building (throwing it 1500 feet into the air) as well. Well there is only minor radiation problems on the site according to the Japanese authorities so the pool must still be intact.

No, and no.

"exposed fuel rods" probably means that they are not fully covered in water inside the reactor vessel. Probably does NOT mean that they are seeing the sky.
What it actually means is probably unknown to the talking heads that are reading from their scripts hastily written by people who don't understand either. (even if the translation from nuke-operator-Japanese to nuke-operator-English was perfect)

Pumping sea water IN does not imply leaking sea water out.
They are using an available source of water to continue replacing water that is being boiled off by the fuel. They have a problem that there's not a turbine they can dump the steam to because everything is broken, nor is there likely to be an approved steam dump because they don't have condenser function. So they are probably just venting steam and replenishing liquid as best they can.

Keeping the core covered is the prime directive.

As time goes on the decay heat output will diminish as the fission products finish they job of decaying.

The confusion is massive in the media and among lay people. Add to the fact that these are boiling water reactors rather than pressurized water reactors and even we ex-nukes have to work to understand the differences.

Feel free to panic because it is certainly a serious situation but I won't jump up and down with you because I think there is far too much misinformation to draw real conclusions. Besides, there's not a thing either of us can do about it.

A couple of questions about BWR systems in this crisis mode. You said:



So, basically, what you're implying here is that the formerly closed loop of a BWR system, which is now lacking a condenser system, is operating as an open loop system (sea water in and steam out) which, while bad, is far less bad than an exposed core and the possibility of a 4,000 degree core temp that would drop through the bottom until it stalls X feet (50? 70?) below the reactor building, and likely making a big mess of things as it goes. The boric acid they are also dumping in is to deliver boron to help damp the reaction, correct?




I know that the decay heat output will diminish, but I was of the opinion that the lifetime of the fission products is quite long - but are you implying that the highly uncontrolled fission reaction is, by simple fact that it's highly uncontrolled, consuming fissile materials so that there will be less material to react, and thus less time spent reacting?

I know a core breach would be exceedingly bad, not so much for the fact that the core itself is melting, but from the influx of water into the hole that would result and the explosive reaction that would happen as cooling water, metals and so on mixed with the ultra-high temperature slag. That's the Bad Thing that I think we're talking about here, right?

And even a meltdown with a large "eruption" of steam and other particulates would eventually stabilize, right?

Since the reactors were shut down when the earthquake hit, the generation of heat through the fission of Uranium has basically stopped. Fission creates by products which continue to break down and generate heat. Nominal rule of thumb for most commercial reactors is it takes about 8-10 days for this to drop to a level where external cooling is no longer critical to maintaining core integrity.

Core integrity will basically start to fail about 45 minutes after loss of cooling water (air isn't a good enough conductor). Note this means exposing the rods to air, not loss of pumps. This initial failure will be the casing for the fuel rods which will start to melt around 2,000 degrees. If the temperature continues to climb the ceramic fuel pellets will be compromised around 3,000 degrees. As the temperatures reach these levels parts of the core will melt and may drop to the bottom of the reactor vessel, typically several inches of steel. If hot core parts hit unpressurized water on their way to the bottom they will create a lot of steam and some nuclear material can be carried along with the steam. If pressure is vented to maintain the reactor integrity, some radiation can escape with the steam. Mostly this will be very short lived particles. The makeup of the radiation is a big clue to the state of the core.

Sea water could be used in two ways within these BWRs. Most likely is they are pumping sea water directly into the reactor vessel. As long as this is possible it is the best way to minimize the release of radioactive materials since it will keep the rods immersed in a good conductor (water). They could also be circulating seawater around the outside of the reactor vessel to help manage the temperature inside the vessel and to keep the steel from melting even if a significant portion of the core were to slag at the bottom of reactor vessel.

Even worst case - complete loss of reactor vessel cooling water would be unlikely to result in the core material escaping through the bottom of the building. The final containment structure is very very thick and designed to disperse the core material to both contain and cool it. Of course with earthquakes and tsunamis this final measure may also be compromised so the game plan seems to be keep the cores as cool as possible within the primary containment system (the reactor vessels).

Here is a reference with a lot more information: Link

- Eric

Old fashion public statement approach seems to be based on these axioms.
1) We (the corporation/government/whatever) can control the information flow.
2) Bad news will inevitable cause massive panic.

Both axioms are wrong. No nonsense "we're not delaying or hiding bad news here" - kind of information creates confidence. You may not like how people responds (such as voluntarily evacuating outside the 10km radius), but such reaction isn't really irrational, given the circumstances.


On the flip side, hiding or delaying bad news (or make people have that impression) will make your credibility and confidence evaporate faster than water in a run away nuclear reactor.


Just as Eric, I don't think anyone is really seriously trying to hide anything. What we're seeing is just a mix of several things:
- events happening too fast
- wishful thinking and denial
- public spokesmen giving only the "best possible" version of events
- the real knowledgeable people are up to their necks trying to cope with the situation.

But I would not be surprised if there is a little component of the old fashioned "too much information will cause mass panic"-attitude in this, too.

MartinFocazio-A couple of questions about BWR systems in this crisis mode.

M-So, basically, what you're implying here is that the formerly closed loop of a BWR system, which is now lacking a condenser system, is operating as an open loop system (sea water in and steam out) which, while bad, is far less bad than an exposed core and the possibility of a 4,000 degree core temp that would drop through the bottom until it stalls X feet (50? 70?) below the reactor building, and likely making a big mess of things as it goes. The boric acid they are also dumping in is to deliver boron to help damp the reaction, correct?

U- Right. I don't know where the "steam out" is going for sure. It may be going to atmosphere thru an overpressure relief valve. Or it's going to an overpressure relief catch tank with only gasses going to atmosphere. Hopefully that's intact. Boron is a neutron absorber they are using to ensure the reaction is really shut down. Control rods may not supply sufficient negative reactivity to be d*mn sure or the design required boron injection for shutdown maintenance activities.
BTW- since it's a boiling water reactor, boiling the water in the core isn't automatically a big problem. Better a BWR having this problem than a PWR. The temperature of the fuel pellets is the important factor. Boiling in a PWR is automatically a Bad Thing. Then again, the boiling occurring now is perhaps not removing sufficient heat to keep the fuel pellets intact because there's no circulation under pressure like for normal ops.

M-I know that the decay heat output will diminish, but I was of the opinion that the lifetime of the fission products is quite long - but are you implying that the highly uncontrolled fission reaction is, by simple fact that it's highly uncontrolled, consuming fissile materials so that there will be less material to react, and thus less time spent reacting?

U- There are the prompt decay products which have half-lives of minutes to hours and the long term decay products which make spent fuel rods radioactive for years to millenia. The initial decay products decay to other radioactive elements which themselves decay further some of which are radioactive and they decay further and so on. At reactor scram the prompt decay products are numerous and produce nearly 10% of the reactor power that was steady-state just before the scram. This 10% drops off quickly (exponential decay) to something like 1% after a week (I probably have this figure wrong) Handling this overshoot reaction heating is what has to be done to prevent melting. It's a significant factor in a normal shutdown plan because it takes time and attention to deal with it.

M-I know a core breach would be exceedingly bad, not so much for the fact that the core itself is melting, but from the influx of water into the hole that would result and the explosive reaction that would happen as cooling water, metals and so on mixed with the ultra-high temperature slag. That's the Bad Thing that I think we're talking about here, right?

M-And even a meltdown with a large "eruption" of steam and other particulates would eventually stabilize, right?

U- "core breach" might mean different things to different people. Influx of water into the hole.... doesn't exactly match here.
The potential problem here is- loss of coolant sufficient to allow rods to uncover, rods uncover then the zirc fuel cladding "corrodes" (at a high rate btw creating H2 gas as the zirc oxidizes), exposing uranium pellets. This alone will release radioactive gasses to the area above the reactor which I think is venting to atmosphere. Erosion/corrosion of the pellets will release stuff into the liquid/steam AND if the fuel pellets melt, then their geometry wants to change. If the zirc cladding ruptures from the heat (probably will) the u-slag can escape the cladding and drain downwards.

U-At this point it's still only airborne gas (albeit radioactive) release from pellet, thru breached cladding, to relief valve venting.

U- But once the u-slag collects in a pool, there is the chance that the new geometry (of a puddle of hot fissionable slag) can go to criticality then supercriticality creating uncontrolled heat and radiation and fission products. Of course eventually the active badness has to stop as fuel is consumed or splattered about to where it no longer has the geometry to remain critical. Even Chernobyl stopped thrashing about.



I may not have these things quite right. Just thinking thru what I know to a new situation.

unimogbert ... thanks. That's an important distinction. Does "exposed fuel rods" mean that the rods are simply not covered by coolant, or that they are seeing the sky.

You can see how the language in these statements could be misinterpreted by people - especially those on the outside. Most of us do not have a clear understanding of the construction of the reactor - or any understanding at all. So it is not easy for us to interpret correctly what the plant managers are saying. I would argue that it's not OUR responsibility to try to make these educated guesses about the situation. Surely the agency running the nuclear power plant can do a much better job of providing essential information. What is to stop them taking one of their senior engineers and staging a daily press conference for one hour - so everybody gets a clear set of facts about the current situation?

I did notice that there are somewhat clearer remarks now coming from the Govt over there - including statements that they cannot verify the exact condition of the reactors and possibly some melting may have taken place. I also noticed the following statement ...

"Japan's meteorological agency did report one good sign. It said the prevailing wind in the area of the stricken plant was heading east into the Pacific, which experts said would help carry away any radiation. "

This may be helpful to Japan, but those of us on the west coast of the USA will be wondering a little bit. I am not really all that bothered, because the Pacific Ocean is a big place (!). Radiation can disperse over a wide area. But I have noticed that we are NOT getting a lot of info from our own government on possible radiation levels. Surely by this time the President has authorized airborne and shipborne sensors to check radiation levels - even if it's just a routine precaution. But no apparent statements from our Gov't either.

Even if the seawater on the reactors has caused some problems, I'm not sure that cooling them down wasn't the best idea. I don't necessarily think that was a mistake. However, the explosions are posing a serious risk to workers at the power plant.

other Pete

OK, so that confirms what I was thinking, which was we might have any number of outcomes, starting with Very Extremely Bad - which is where we are now, and moving on through a series of events, with multiple scenarios ending in many ways, one of which is a supercritical event, which would, I'd imagine, be worst of the worst case scenarios. I hadn't even thought a supercritical event would be on the scenario list, it must be an extreme outlier, owing to the fact that there's all kinds of issues with the mass of the fissionable material and the speed of the reaction.

Finding a great deal of good data out there on this. Scary, but it sounds like they are doing all they can.

I don't know what the newsies mean when they say things because they are usually so horribly (and willfully) misinformed. A plant engineer's definition would be that the rods are not covered with water.

Seawater is acceptable if there's no distilled or potable or fresh water available.
Even urine would be better than letting the rods be uncovered.

Well ... at this stage my frustration is aimed primarily at the world media. It now appears that they are deliberately milking this nuclear crisis in Japan to extract every ounce of fear that can be generated. The most recent statements about "catastrophic amounts of radiation leaking from the power plant" seem over the top.

It does appear that radiation levels have gone up ...

NEWS: In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that radiation has spread from four reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima province that was one of the hardest-hit in Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami ... He urged anyone within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the plant to stay indoors or risk getting radiation sickness. ... "The level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out," Kan said.

But this news seems inconsistent with the nuclear facts issued by the professor from MIT. Maybe one of the inner containment vessels has developed a leak. But surely we are not at a "catastrophic" disaster level??

other Pete

I agree that it's a difficult situation to decipher. However, now that a shelter-in-place order has gone out to anyone in the 30km zone, it seems we have finally crossed that threshold between something that the engineers have been struggling with, to something that is now affecting the greater public outside the plant.

My American friend who works in Tokyo just emailed me that they are leaving Japan with the kids before things get any worse. Heaven help the Japanese, they've been through enough already!

Just an update.

It looks like radiation levels are dropping again. They peaked at around 12,000 mSv yesterday and have dropped back to around 600 mSv and falling as of about 6:10 ET. One article this morning, suggests the increase in radiation was due to a fire in the spent fuel pond for reactor #4, which makes sense.

Rapid drop in levels is a (relatively) good sign that most of the escaping radiation is due to shorter lived isotopes.

-Eric

I've been parked on this page, which seems to be rather well moderated and has good information:

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2

There are quite a few nuclear engineers in there, and the main thing that has them talking at the moment is the cooling pool in #4, which, they say, is a far greater concern than anything else right now.

A different tack, but has anyone else noticed that KI pills are sold out everywhere here in the US? I mentioned last night that my friend in Tokyo is bugging out of Japan for her children's sake. Earlier in the day, though, my friend had said it is sold out everywhere over there and was asking if I could get any over here and send it. I thought it would be easy to find it somewhere but it appears to be sold out all over, which surprised me.

Either the normal supply is rather small, or else demand over here is much higher than I anticipated. I'm curious if Americans are buying KI because of fears of radiation drifting from Japan, or if they're primarily worried about their local nuclear power plants?

I ran across this article about the situation.

It's interesting that you posted this... I was literally JUST looking online at ordering some for my kits! For me, it's not a fear that radiation will drift over here. Rather, it's a reminder that anything can happen at any time, and maybe I shouldn't put off buying them any longer!

Yes Arney you are right about the pills becoming scarce. I have a friend of mine who has been stationed over there for quite awhile and is under 200 miles from the site. Fortunately the military has adequate supply of Potassium Iodide and he has said the detector on the ship has went off several times but the Rads was so low that it is not a concern at this time. They are monitoring the levels but for now it is small at his location. I was curious to see if the pills were still available out of curiosity and you were right they are about non existent. I think people in Cali are getting a little paranoid and have been consuming up the surplus as well as the military. I hope all will go well for the Japanese people over there and my prayers go out to them, I lived over there for a year and they are a really good bunch of people.

I may be speaking as an "old guy" here, but one thing worth remembering is that the USA conducted a lot of nuclear tests in the 1950's. A number of nuclear weapons were exploded above ground during that time, though the public was never properly informed. So the USA has actually gone through the release of radiation from real atomic bombs. It's obviously not a desirable thing to do. But we have been through it. Life goes on. We did not turn into Zombie Land.

I mention this to counteract the state of confusion & fear that is sometimes perpetuated by the media. I don't believe that long-term readers of this blog are getting caught up in fear, but members of the public may be taking it too seriously. Even if the Japanese nuclear plants were to become a high-magnitude crisis, which I seriously doubt, could that outcome possibly be more serious then several nuclear weapons being detonated in Nevada? Obviously not.

other Pete

My frustration with mainstream media is growing. That is also an important lesson to be learned - In a major (or even a minor) SHTF scenario, don't expect much useful info from the media. Expect a distorted and highly aggravated view.

The situation is grave - but exactly how grave? Hard to tell. The japanese statements indicate that those who know are too busy to tell anyone, and those who are in contact with the media haven't got a clue.

According to the Japanese government, this is a level 4 accident where Tsjernobyl was 7. According to media, Andre-Claude Lacoste from the French Atomic commision (ASN) says this clearly is a level 6 accident. I'm not very good at french, but that statement does not seem to be backed up by the official ANS web site. Lacoste says the last barrier of one reactor is breached, which the Japanese supposedly denies.

All sort of speculations flourish in the media, and all sort of facts are taken out of context and blown way out of proportion. One example: One airline will measure its long distance planes from Tokyo to Europe for radiation. Now measuring is a sensible thing to do, but it isn't in any way significant, and clearly does not justify a major headline in the news.

Who has the correct info? Who to believe?

The latest reports contain these words ...

"The crisis appeared to escalate late in the day when the operators of the facility said one of two blasts had blown a hole in the building housing a reactor, which meant spent nuclear fuel was exposed to the atmosphere."

If these reports are true - and we really have no idea these days - then spent nuclear fuel could be exposed to the sky. This could mean the release of some radioactive species (cesium, iodine) into the environment. While this is not a good development, I doubt that it's the catastrophe that the media are proclaiming.

The bottom line here ... is that giving the public the real facts is a lot better than being held hostage by the paranoia of the world media.

I notice, by the way, that the US Gov't has been completely tight-lipped throughout this scenario. So I'll ask again ... where is our OWN data on radiation levels? Can't we put a few ships and airplanes over the Pacific? It seems like an obvious move to calm peoples' concerns.

other Pete

There have been reports that helo aircrew from US ships have returned from flights with slight radioactive contamination.
So there IS monitoring going on. But compared to everything else, reporting on it is pretty insignificant.

Spent fuel exposed to the sky has variable possibilities.

OLD fuel would be no big deal. Yes, it's radiactive, yes it probably has some contamination on it, no, it won't kill all who gaze upon it.

Freshly removed fuel from the week before the earthquake would have significant decay heat left so the fuel could be a localized problem. (I'm not sure what the problem would be exactly.Probably both a dosage/exposure over time issue plus transferrable surface contamination. Don't pick up any stray fuel rods and take them home.)

When I was nine, I met a man raised by Japanese parents. I learned a lot from him. These are good people.

Jeanette Isabelle

"When I was nine, I met a man raised by Japanese parents. I learned a lot from him. These are good people."

Yes ... they are. I have never been to Japan, but I was tremendously impressed by the fact that there was no looting after that huge quake. I also think we all owe a great debt of gratitude to the workers at the nuclear plant - who have probably suffered significant radiation exposure and have also risked their lives to help their country and to try to fix this problem.


Meanwhile, we take a step closer to the real truth with the latest press realease ...

The Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency estimated that 70 percent of the rods have been damaged at the No. 1 reactor.

Japan's national news agency, Kyodo, said that 33 percent of the fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor were damaged and that the cores of both reactors were believed to have partially melted.

"We don't know the nature of the damage," said Minoru Ohgoda, spokesman for the country's Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency. "It could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them."

I assume they are talking about the fuel rods in the reactors. And so couldn't it be possible that the moderator rods that were put in to stop the reaction might be partially ineffective ... if the fuel rods themselves are damaged or broken. That might explain the continued heat generation. And further, I now note that they are saying that they may have a hole in the reactor containment.

None of this makes me freaked out - even slightly. But I am glad that after 4 or 5 days we are getting a glimpse of the truth.

other Pete

Reports are coming in that they've just pulled out ALL remaining workers from Fukushima. So who's minding the store?

Yeah, seems like we're heading toward 'really nasty territory.'

Knowing the dedication I see in industrial facilities here, I'm guessing they had to more-or-less arrest and detain these guys to get them out.

One of the few articles I've seen about the workers is this New York Times article. Among other factoids, it turns out that not all of the 50 skeleton crew are TEPCO employees, but include some soldiers, police, and fire fighters, too.

Doug, it seems you are correct about the comraderie and dedication of these utility workers. I guess some things transcend all cultures.

I certainly hope that the pull back is a short one, just to give radiation levels time to subside before they go back in. Because if the levels don't drop and they can't get back to manual cooling operations...

From all the available reports the control rods were deployed to stop the reactions as part of the initial quake response. The challenge with nuclear fission is that stopping the splitting of Uranium does not immediately stop the production of heat. In very simple terms, as Uranium atoms split (fission) unstable isotopes are created that will slowly degrade to stable atoms. This degrading process generates heat and ionizing radiation. Normal shutdown procedure for a BWR like Fukushima takes about 10 days, most of which is monitoring the cooling system.

The damage to the fuel rods occurred after the primary reaction (Uranium Fission) was stopped. Since the reactor core is damaged it is possible that the reactor geometry has changed in a way to permit some of the Uranium to begin to fission again. Without thermal information from the cooling system (temperature rise vs coolant volume) this would be difficult to determine and is not very critical to the efforts currently underway. Reactor geometry is very carefully planned and it is at least equally if not more likely that the damage will actually make it harder to sustain Uranium Fission within the core.

The longer they can hold things together and keep the cooling water flowing, the better, for everyone.

-Eric

I've been reading some Twitter feeds from people in Japan who are talking with 'Nuclear and Industrial Safety Administration' and making general comments. They are saying that Fukushima has not been abandoned. They have told the people outside to get inside.

The following Twitter feed is pretty consistent with info updates.
http://twitter.com/#!/HirokoTabuchi

Not moderator rods. Control rods. It's an important technical difference. Control rods are neutron absorbers to end the fission reaction. They were fully inserted into the core within moments of the earthquake ("reactor scram") and have remained there.

One of the things that's driving me crazy about the reports is that "radiation" comes in different flavors. Knowing what flavor radiation has spiked would explain more about what is happening. Instead we just get breathless reports about more badness happening. Some radiation would indicate containment breach. Other radiation would indicate uncontrolled fission. So which is it? Can't tell from the reports reaching/being issued by the press.

I feel as if I should just change channels for 5 years until a real accident analysis by real nuclear engineers has been published with lessons learned.

At least Charlie Sheen has disappeared from the headlines.....

unimog - I agree. My language was loose and I meant to say control rods. It's not clear that they are fully effective, and it seems as though there is still some percentage of operating power being developed by these reactors. So perhaps the control rods were damaged, or did not insert properly because the fuel rods were damaged?

And this comment in the news says it quite neatly ...

-----------------------
Given the reported radiation levels, John Price, an Australian-based nuclear safety expert, said he saw few health risks for the general public so far. He was concerned for the workers, who he said were almost certainly working in full body suits and breathing through respirators. The workers at the forefront of the fight — a core team of about 180 — had been regularly rotated in and out of the danger zone to minimize their radiation exposure.

Price said he was surprised by how little information the Japanese were sharing.

"We don't know even the fundamentals of what's happening, what's wrong, what isn't working. We're all guessing," he said. "I would have thought they would put on a panel of experts every two hours."
----------------

MY THOUGHTS: The surroundings of the reactor are too complex for a robot to operate, and I don't think that a military standoff weapon will solve the problem here. So the final solution seems to come down to someone volunteering to go in there to add coolant and try to seal off the radiation leakage. This could well involve loss of life for some of the power plant workers i.e. it is essentially a suicide mission. As I recall from Chernobyl, there was a very brave helicopter pilot who flew over that reactor and lowered a concrete plug - in order to seal it. He died within a few days from radiation poisoning. I wonder if we've got the same final outcome here??

other Pete

Since they are admitting that significant percentages of the fuel rods at at least two reactors have melted and are presumably pooling at the bottom of the cores, I was wondering what happens to the material from the control rods or the boric acid. Would they mix in with the molten fuel and continue to suppress fission, or would they tend to separate out and not be so effective?

Is boric acid stable under the heat generated once the rods are uncovered? If so, you would think that the neutron dampening capacity would be increasing as they pumped in more and more sea water mixed with boric acid.

I was also reading that they are running out of boric acid. South Korean is sending a ship with more.

Under considerations for exposure control the workers would be being rotated in and then removed when their dose limit has been reached. Then they are no longer available to be exposed. Other workers would have to be found (and trained and briefed and sent up to the job). You can only send them back in if they can recover. Recovery from exertion or heat is pretty quick. Recovery from radiation exposure.... longer time if trying to maintain worker health and stay within regulatory guidelines.

If there are tasks that must be performed by specifically skilled people who aren't available or have already reached their exposure limit then the existing people who can do those tasks may wind up with radiation poising or dead because the guidelines no longer apply (This is war against catastrophe). Realistically this is probably the case. I'm sure there are heroic stories from this disaster that we don't know yet.

This is a really good question. I don't know the answer. If the boron is getting boiled out with seawater it definitely needs to be replaced. If it's just getting plated out as sediment replacing it might not be so important. But it's still a really good idea to keep injecting it.

I'm not at all surprised by the lack of information flow and there is nothing nefarious or suspicious about it. The guys and gals working on this are mostly highly technical types - i.e. stereotypically nerds/geeks - working in a very stressful environment. They are very very aware of how critical things are and are wearing themselves out trying to pick out the best choices from a series of bad answers.

Even if some of them were good at communicating to non-technical people before this, they are not going to "waste" the time/effort required for this non-critical task when they could be working on resolving the problem (or sleeping). I work with a large group of engineers in a safety critical field (not nuclear power) and the thought of taking them out of a high stress situation and dropping them into a press conference every couple of hours only brings really bad images to mind (as in english major vs engineer discussion of higher level math ).

The concept of a panel is straight out of how NASA handles things and yes NASA hires, plans and trains for that expectation to the point that the talking heads (i.e. the panel) usually aren't actually working the problem just translating techno speak into something approaching everyday language. To layer that expectation on other high tech tasks, especially during a "crisis" is unrealistic, though I would love additional real data just like everyone else.

- Eric

It would appear that the authorities are now scrapping the bottom of the barrel for solutions to control the situation (if they were ever in control), much like the Chernobyl response. The differences at the Fukushima installation are of course much more dire than even for the Chernobyl accident.

i) There are six reactors at the Fukushima installation all with on site storage of spent hot fuel rods. The Fukushima Reactor No 4 boiled dry spent fuel pond fire has completely destroyed the reactor containment building exposing the environment to these radionuclide fission products.

ii) It would appear that all six reactors have on site spent fuel reactor ponds.

iii) I suspect that the explosion in reactor number 3 which completely destroyed the environmental containment building along with most of reactor building, was subject to a Plutonium fizzle (yellow flash) within the reactor (reported Neutron radiation was reported prior to the explosion) rather than a hydrogen explosion, which sent the stored reactor spent fuel storage pond 1500 feet into the air.

iv) Using water cannon as a method of cooling down the reactors and storage ponds is a desperate last measure.

v) A Greenpeace Nuclear consultant stated last night on the BBC has stated that about 1800 metric tonnes of reactor fuel and hot spent fuel is on site at Fukushima distributed among the 6 reactors although he did say that only a few percent of this amount will most likely become airborne aerosols, much as the case in Chernobyl.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/japan-quake-russia-nuclear-idUSLDE72E1TJ20110315

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/uk-japan-nuclear-chernobyl-idUSTRE72E69P20110315

They may have to change the Nuclear Accident scale and expand it to an 8.

Here is a good news article that discusses radiation levels at the Japanese plant, and how they compare to safe levels.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/what-you-should-know-about-radiation/?hpt=Sbin

I suspect that at this stage the power plant operator is trying to maintain safe radiation dosage levels for its employees. But I still wonder if political pressure in Japan will build up to the level where some employees are asked to sacrfice their own safety to solve this reactor problem.

When is a nuclear problem a real "catastrophe", and when is it just a "political and corporate catastrophe"?

other Pete

Has anyone read about the availability of grid power at Fukushima? That was first thing that was knocked out, when the quake struck, but I haven't heard a thing about that since then.

Maybe I'm just a happy ending kind of guy but what if grid power was suddenly restored, and that allowed the operators to start up some systems that have been idle all this time and save the day? Any shred of possibility in that?

Of course, there does seem to be various instances of physical damage, too, so restarting the normal cooling systems is not necessarily the silver bullet that it might seem to be. But anyway, just wondering about the grid power.

Edit:
I just ran across this article and it seems that maybe I wasn't that far off in my earlier conjecture. They are going to restore grid power to Fukushima soon, it sounds like.

Yet another conflicting story. The NRC chairman says things are much worse than are being reported. From the NYTimes.

Attempt has failed due to severe damage to electric infrastructure within the plant...in short, hooking up the electric to a blown-up building does not make blown-up and flooded equipment start working again.

Imagine: Huge thunderstorm, your basement floods, a tree falls, lands on your house, your house partly collapses into the basement, and the electric feed is pulled off the side of the house by the falling tree. Storm passes, now you're cold, so you jury-rig a cable to generator connect to the power lines that were connected to your house. Your oil burner won't function, no matter how much electric is there...
Now add high radiation at the site of pumps, increase the size of the cables needed to connect electricity to the point that you need heavy equipment just to MOVE the wire into place...now add the fact that there are no roads to drive the heavy equipment and the beach where you can park a generator is covered in 40' of smashed houses and dead bodies and it's 500 yards of water between the plant and the generator...

I haven't seen this news or the US Embassy evacuation order on CNN yet. Looks like things are still sliding downhill.

The thing is--and I'm sure the Japanese are facing the same quandry--how do you actually move these people? Probably one reason why the Japanese haven't increased their evacuation zone is because the people are having trouble moving without gasoline, and with all the destruction, they're already backed up against a wall as far as where these people can go in an island nation.

I've heard these interviews with Americans and many are stuck where they are and wouldn't be able to evacuate even if they wanted to without gasoline for cars. In these rural areas, there are usually not that many buses available since so many people drive in those places.

Earlier quote on this thread: "Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the commission, said in Congressional testimony that the commission believed that all the water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station had boiled dry, leaving fuel rods stored there completely exposed. As a result, he said, “We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures.”

There has to be a good reason why they are saying this. I really seriously doubt that the chairman of the NRC would say something like this - without having some hard data. Such data might come from careful studies of satellite photo's, for example. But notice that they are still only saying that a safe exclusion zone is about 50 miles around the reactor.

I also saw a report this afternoon that implied that thre is a small group of nuclear planty engineers in Japan who may have received radiation doses that are much higher than most of the other workers. But no firm confirmation yet.

UPDATE: With these latest comments from US officials ...

"The water served to both cool the uranium fuel and shield it. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, its zirconium cladding that encases the fuel rods heated, generating hydrogen, said Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official with the Department of Energy. That caught fire, resulting in a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN. He said the next solution may involve nuclear plant workers having to take heroic acts. Asked to be more specific, he said, "This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. ... It's very difficult for me to contemplate that but it's, it may have reached that point."

Which gets to the point of what I was saying earlier.
In odrer to fix this situation - it could involve a suicide mission.
I bet there's some earnest and heartfelt pondering going on with those power plant workers now.



other Pete

Luftansa and Alitalia flights to or from Tokyo are being diverted elsewhere, such as Osaka. Fortunately, so far, no radiation has been found on their planes.

The bulk of the foreigners in Japan are closest to Tokyo, so if the situation deteriorates and other carriers do the same and more foreigners want to leave the country, that is going to be a massive headache.

The Tokyo domestic airport (Haneda) is already full of Japanese trying to escape to western parts of Japan, so adding an extra influx of foeigners at Haneda trying to also go to those same cities will result in a huge bottleneck.

Trains are certainly an option to Osaka and elsewhere, but due to the electricity cutbacks, I believe that trains heading west are alredy running on reduced schedules. Just getting to the airport can be a challenge due to the rotating blackouts and reduced train schedules.

This is the type of situation where advanced remotely controlled robots and aerial vehicles would come in handy. I guess there is no such technology that has been built and tested for this scenario.

I talked to my friend in Japan and he said traces of radioactivity is getting into the drinking water and asked me if I have anything to solve this problem. I have desalinization equipment, carbon and UV filters but I do not have a clue how to clean up (if it is even possible) radio contaminated water. Collecting rain water and the ocean from where he is at is too dangerous, does anyone have any ideas how to clean up radioactive contaminated water? Right now the traces are so small it's within a safe range but the fears are it will get worse.
Thanks

I've wondered the same thing and have read a couple things. Robots apparently aren't nimble enough to navigate the interiors of the reactor, with all the hatches, crawlspaces, piping, ladders, etc. They also don't do well in radiation.

I did read something early this morning about the DoD using a Predator drone to get some closer aerial shots but I haven't heard anything else. It's possible that those shots are what the NRC used to conclude that the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 had run dry. Either that, or maybe one of our billion dollar spy satellites is being used.

I'm not an expert, but based on what I've read the water itself cannot be radioactive, rather it's suspended particles that emit radiation. Remove the particles and the water becomes safe, or at the very least a whole lot more safe than it was.

Distillation might be the safest bet.

One of my thoughts is flocculating might be helpful. I've been researching it lately, and from what I read of some backpackers it can possibly be as simple as getting some alum from the store, stirring and letting it settle correctly, and then pouring the water off. It seems like it'd remove stuff that normal filters don't, as I've been researching it with regards to expedient fluoride filtration--carbon does not remove fluoride from water, but flocculants do. I'm not familiar with all the reasoning behind this but it might be something to look in to with regards to removing radioactive ions.

I'd still probably want to distill it if at all possible. I'm eager to hear others' thoughts on this matter.

Thanks Ann, I'll look in to that as well, I have read anything from nano filtration to bacteria to take the ions out but no solutions, only promised upcoming technologies. I had gotten help from Sue at Cone Instruments to help get dosimeters to them over there and they have KI (Potassium iodide)finally over there now. It is kinda of ironic that I live within 100 miles of a nuclear power plant in Fla. and have a lot of equipment from floods to winter, etc.. but absolutely nothing for radiation. I figured if something went that bad, I probably wouldn't be alive to worry about it anyway. I may have to look in to KI pills down the road and a dosimeter after this matter. Our Crystal River plant is not the most kept up plant.

Arney said ... "I did read something early this morning about the DoD using a Predator drone to get some closer aerial shots"

Ahhhh - suddenly the light dawns. Good job, Arney. I couldn't figure out what the Japanese were asking for when they requested US military help. Now it all makes sense. But this also means that the statements by the NRC chairman are indeed based on factual observations of the site. It cannot be a good thing if the coolant pool at Reactor #4 has completely dried up. The Japanese need to replace this water.

other Pete

falcon5000 -- Themarox might be what your friend needs.
A lot of the links on the web are in Japanese, such as Adya Clarity Minerals (Themarox) YouTube.

Ann, you are absolutely right about distillation and somewhat right about flocculation. Flocculation will cause suspended solids to clump together and fall out to the bottom of your water container. However, it generally won't remove ions. Ions "bind" to liquid water molecules in a manner much like static cling. This makes it very hard to remove them from liquid water. If you convert the water to steam the ions can no longer cling to the water molecules.

Note that you'll be concentrating radioactive particles in the boiler part of your still, so treat that with caution.

-Blast

Thanks Russ and some insights on boiling Blast. I am also having difficulties getting gear over to him with the focus on aircraft delivering humanitarian and evacuation needs. This is a normal thing we are use to in hurricane disasters.

The TV broadcast just mentioned that the Japanese government does not have any direct observers at Fukushima Daiichi, but apparently the NRC does?! So the NRC is getting better, more direct info than the prime minister, who must rely on TEPCO to tell him what's going on!

I'm not sure if that means the NRC has someone literally inside the plant, but that doesn't sound like a good situation for the Japanese government as far as information gathering.

falcon5000: -- I've used that stuff (marketed as Adja) and have seen the "flocculation" although we've used the term precipitation. Lots of stuff comes out of solution.

Blast: "Ions "bind" to liquid water molecules" -- why not to the solid particles suspended in solution?

Hydrogen Bonding occurs between the charged ions and the polar (having both positive and negative parts) water molecules. Positive ions (cations) will associate with quasi-negatively charged oxygen atom of multiple water molecules and negative (anions) will associate with the quasi-positive charged hydrogens of water molecules. This is what allows things like salt (NaCl) to dissolve in water. The salt disassociates into Na+ and Cl- ions. The Na+ ions attracts a shell of water molecules around due to the attraction between it and the oxygen atoms on the water molecules. Cl- does the same but with the hydrogen atoms. Solid particles already have their + and - parts already neutralized and so don't have any charges to attract the ions.

When you turn the water to steam you are increasing the rate of movement (speed) of the water molecules. They end up moving so fast that they break away from the ions. Imagine tying a magnet to a string, attaching (but not tying) a second magnet to the first and then spinning this over your head. Eventually the second magnet will be flung off the first. Same thing with ion-water bonds. The "flung" ions then begin re-bonding to their original counter ions and these resulting molecules are too big/heavy to evaporate like water does so they are left behind while the water distills away.

-Blast

I knew it. Y'all just had to keep asking questions until Blast pulled out his lab coat and made me remember I am not that bright.

I did like the magnet part. It made the whole thing visual for me. Where were you when I was trying to be interested in Junior High, and High School. Once I was in college, I was paying for it, so I damn well paid attention.

And took a lot of remedial classes to make up for the stuff in High School.....

I've been searching for KI most of the day without success. Those who still have it are price gouging, in one case raising the price almost 4,000% ($395 for a 14-tablet supply! Really, BP Medical Supplies?). But most everyone I've contacted is quote 4 to 8 week delivery.

And no, it's not for me. The company I work for has over 10,000 employees in Japan, and my group deals with several dozen regularly. When we heard they were not available in Japan we were going to put together a fedex, but so far no luck in finding them in-stock.

Thank's Blast, that is an explanation even I can understand.

Maybe someone noted this earlier, but I just realized that the spent fuel cooling ponds in reactors 4,5,6 may not actually be holding "spent fuel" as in depeleted fuel rods. Reactors 4,5,6 were already shut down and emptied for inspections when the quake hit, not for refueling, so to me, that that raises the possibility that those fuel rods were intended to be reloaded into the core and are still hot enough to restart fission (outside the protection of a containment vessel!) in the worst case scenario. Or maybe they are being inspected at a natural refueling point, I don't know.

Does anyone else know what's in 4,5,6?

Mark -- KI and other forms of iodine have sold out as far as I can tell. However, Brown Seaweed ( Fucus Vesiculosus) aka Fucoidan is rich in iodine and they should be able to find that in Japan.

I just took a SupaFuco tablet (chewable) -- don't chew it, tastes like a beach-covered-in-brown-rotting-seaweed smells. . . Okay, chew it, follow it up with something to wash down the taste.

Russ, is that product a dietary supplement? I don't know the nutritional content of that particular product, but unfortunately, one tablet is almost certainly far too low in iodine to max out your thyroid if it's just a run-of-the-mill supplement. Honestly, I doubt that much would make any difference in terms of protecting your thyroid.

I can't believe the price gouging on these KI pills--and people are presumably paying those prices!

Yeah, I'd consider it a dietary supplement. Unfortunately, the stuff I have is marketed as a food because it's essentially just brown seaweed. The bottle I have doesn't break it down to mg of Iodine per tablet. However, from the wiki link above "The main use of bladder wrack (and other types of seaweed) in herbal medicine is as a source of iodine, an essential nutrient for the thyroid gland."

There are more concentrated forms of iodine; I started taking these and a more concentrated form called Iosol the day after the tsunami. Unfortunately, those are what have suddenly become out of stock. The peeps that really need KI are in Japan, buying it for use here in the US for this incident is a waste IMO. We don't have any KI here. If I did I'd donate it.

Amazing, isn't it? I believe the term is hysterical overreaction..

Blast thanks so much for that excellent explanation.

Edit: I have a question for you, I'm reading that coagulants work by neutralizing the charge, does that mean, then, that it would also work to break the cling between the radioactive ions and the water?

But then again, if it's like salt, and coagulants/flocculants don't remove salt from water, then I must be missing something. (My apologies for bringing this thread a little off topic.)

I would suggest that "gouging" can actually be a very good thing in the midst a disaster. It helps discourage people who don't really need something from buying up the entire limited supply.

Some people may consider it to be taking advantage of people, but what's better - Very expensive AA batteries that you can buy if you absolutely need them, of no AA batteries no matter how much you need them?

No surprise. Remember the supposed "rice shortage" a couple of years ago? People who probably never eat rice, much less cook it, were cleaning out 50lb. bags from the big box stores. We seem to have 2 speeds here, boredom and panic.

By "ions", Blast means "dissolved solids". Technically "salt" does not exist in salt water, just sodium and chlorine ions. Practically, when the water evaporates or boils away, the solid salt is left behind.

An engineer and a scientist were challenged to a race. The prize was a beautiful woman for the first one to reach here. The scientist explained that there was no point in trying, because to reach her he would first have to cross half the distance. Then he would have to cross half the remaining distance, and so on.

The engineer said "You may be right that I can never actually reach her, but I think I can get close enough for any practical purpose."

All in all, I would agree that "market dynamics" does have its benefits, even in these situations. Actually, we never really point the finger at the panic buying (or put another way, everyone suddenly buying something at the same time that is not needed), which is really the root of the issue with KI here. We don't need KI over here right now, so I wish people would refrain from depleting the supply that could be sent to Japan instead.

That said, I haven't heard of any cases of price gouging in the disaster area, although I have seen reports of merchants giving things away or at a discount. According to market theory, that's the wrong thing to do to ensure future supplies, but as a human being, isn't that what we all wished would happen, at least in the short term?

I had read the other day that Tokyo does not have a plan to distribute KI pills. It's not clear if the article was simply referring to the need to distribute it given current conditions, or was referring to an actual lack of any KI distribution plan at all. The latter would be very surprising to me.

If the latter is the case, then all the more reason why I was searching for KI pills online here to send to my friend in Tokyo, although she eventually decided to bug out of Japan.

Arney: "Maybe someone noted this earlier, but I just realized that the spent fuel cooling ponds in reactors 4,5,6 may not actually be holding "spent fuel" as in depeleted fuel rods. Reactors 4,5,6 were already shut down and emptied for inspections when the quake hit, not for refueling, so to me, that that raises the possibility that those fuel rods were intended to be reloaded into the core and are still hot enough to restart fission (outside the protection of a containment vessel!) in the worst case scenario. Or maybe they are being inspected at a natural refueling point, I don't know. "

Arney ... I've got a co-worker who used to be a nuclear engineer, and actually he did some of the analysis of the reactor core that came out of Three Mile Island. I had a fairly long talk with him this morning. A few things came out of that discussion:

1. The general consensus amongst nuclear engineers who reviewed the Three Mile Island incident is that you don't want fuel rods to get uncovered by water (doesn't matter what kind, reactor rods or spent fuel rods). And IF it does happen, you want to get water back on them as soon as possible. So this leads to the conclusion that the Japanese need to get a lot of seawater back onto those exposed rods as fast as possible. This is not to say that the process will be straightforward, or without a lot of risks and complications, just that it's probably the best option going forwards.

2. When fuel rods get hot (as in several hundred degrees), they can start developing exothermic chemical reactions if water or oxygen is present. These reactions are "oxidation" reactions. But they create extra heat. So it's possible that some of the events from Japan that have been called "on fire" in the news reports are really oxidation reactions taking place in the fuel rods. Both the zirconium and the uranium in the rods can oxidize and liberate heat.

cheers,
other Pete

I've just read a claim that the power company fairly recently re-stacked the storage pools so they could cram more fuel rods in there. It appears that the entire core of reactor 4 was put in the pool 3 months ago.


I don't know what that means, or if the claim is reliable or not. The claim is based on this presentation (pdf). I've skimmed through it, but haven't the background to draw any conclusions from it.


Caveat: The above conclusions are from an environmental organization that is firmly opposed to nuclear power, but generally regarded as reliable and fact based.

Hmmmmmm.
This is the first news report that I've seen where the Japanese authorities have admitted that one possible outcome is that their nuclear fuel could go critical. They have still not explained the exact mechanism that is causing concern, but it appears that we cannot rule out a nuclear reaction that increases in rate.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Video---Japan-Global-Energy-Authorities-Voice-Concerns-Over-Situation-At-Fukushima-Nuclear-Plant/Article/201103315953955?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15953955_Video_-_Japan%3A_Global_Energy_Authorities_Voice_Concerns_Over_Situation_At_Fukushima_Nuclear_Plant

Meanwhile, both the US and the UK are pulling out their rescue teams from Japan. And there are unconfirmed reports that the US aircraft carrier(s) has been told to leave Japanese waters.

other Pete

Pete, do you have a citation or source for the allegation that "the US and the UK are pulling out their rescue teams from Japan"? I can't find anything saying that is true. And its known that the USS Ronald Reagan has repositioned itself a couple times to avoid the worst effects of radiation from the plants - yes, it may have left Japanese waters, which only run 12-200 miles depending on your political ruler, but the carrier is still actively engaged in rescue and assistance work in Japan regardless of the location.

Can your firm up your sources, or perhaps admit that this is just rumor, and incorrect rumor at that?

Firefighters searching for tsunami survivors to leave Japan.

http://www.stourbridgenews.co.uk/news/89...to_leave_Japan/

There are a number of British references to their team pulling out, like this BBC article.

Sky doesn't say which American team is leaving and I never saw any articles about it, but last night, CNN did a piece on Fairfax County's team that I watched and they said they'd only be there one more day. Maybe even LA County Fire Rescue is also pulling out at the same time.

As I understand it, they are leaving not because they have given up all hope or because of radiation, but it's more a bureacratic thing about Japan not requesting their help beyond this point.

Wow, I hope the scale on the lower right hand side is incorrect.

Forecast for Fukushima Reactor Plume's Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather simulation by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/...s&emc=thab1


Another interesting story;

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17...-post-says.html

I have this article (actually coming from a popular economics blog) that quotes news sources as saying that the UK and USA are pulling their search teams out of Japan. The blog article does quote further news sources, and an informal email source, so feel free to track down the public info.

Normally I would not quote an article from an economics blog on this forum. But to be honest - these guys at ZeroHedge do a great job of picking up lead stories from the media across the world. So I actually check them as a news source these days. I'm not sure how they do it - but they do pick up stories quickly. For example, I heard about the first riots in Cairo on this blog - and that was long before mainstream media had any journalists in Egypt covering the event. Go figure.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-uk-pull-search-teams-out-japan-tepco-admits-situation-severe

other Pete

Search health food stores for KI nutritional supplements.
Example.

-Blast

More on using the robots in nuclear accidents: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...the-robots.html

You mean the logrithmic one labeled "Arbitrary units"?

Interesting article in the WSJ -- I took special note of the GE retirees being called back to work the Japan disaster. There's much to be said for institutional knowledge that only comes with experience.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424..._LEFTTopStories

MARCH 18, 2011
GE Steps Up Aid in Reactor Crisis


Last weekend GE activated a command center in Wilmington, N.C., staffed with 70 engineers and technical experts working full time on the crisis. In addition, GE said it has tapped a network of more than 1,000 current and retired engineers. Retirees have been providing necessary historical information on the reactors, including walking through in detail the modifications made to the containment designs decades ago.

"A lot of our pensioners and longer career employees have had familiarity with that," Mr. Klapproth said.

Yep thats the one,

I was expecting the Log scale to go down the 1 part per million not 1 part per thousand.

To have some parts of California getting between 1 part per 10 and 100 of the radiation compared to a few hundred miles downwind from eastern Japan came as a bit of a surprise especially considering the distances involved and also considering the following link and the Estonian coal ship sample I mentioned earlier which was about 900 miles away from Chernobyl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Radiation_levels_2

I'd be curious to see that model with readings that do down to 1 part per million. I'd be even more curious to see what 1 was, and I'd rent out a couple of body parts to get reading from the San Onofre sensors.

incidently, check out the chart refernced in "Needed scale and context for Fukushima" for reading at the front gate to the complex


Also, watch the EPA radnet reports. They don't give public access for realtime readings, but publish quarterly reports. It'll be good for an afteraction evaluation w/o the newsies histeronics.
http://www.epa.gov/narel/radnet/erdonline.html
pCi = PicoCurie

Actually I think you will find that its a matter of search and rescue teams discontinuing SAR operations, meaning search for living victims of the disasters - it has moved into the recovery phase, meaning corpse recovery. Frankly some SAR units don't do recovery (as well), and it is not a task I would wish upon my worse enemy. Add to this, resources such as food, equipment and gasoline to power that equipment are still extremely scarce in these areas affected by the disasters.

Rescue teams have to make this difficult decision - if they can't rescue, is their presence to perform recovery in a disaster zone outweighed by the literal cost of being in the disaster area? Japanese authorities may also put corpse recovery at a lower priority than other efforts, I dont know. But in no case that I'm aware of is any rescue team being pulled at all because of the risk of radiation, which I think is the premise of Pete's post.

Looks like it was less a failure of imagination than a dearth of responsible regulation and ineffectual oversight.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17...-accidents.html


Japan Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports

By Jason Clenfield - Mar 18, 2011 4:52 AM ET

The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japan’s atomic power industry.

Unfortunately the attitude toward safety regulations and precautions discussed in the article is not unique to either Japan or the nuclear power industry. Example: Despite all kinds of studies and solid statistics, you will still find people talking on their cell phones while driving without seat belts.

It's hard to believe that these Japanese disasters have only been going on for one week. Psychologically it seems longer - at least it does to me.

Lono: That's one hang-up from using news sources that come from blogs that have a different emphasis. The people at ZeroHedge have a good understanding of economics, and they can pick up fast-moving stories, but they don't always have the background to interpret why things are happening. So the underlying reason behind events may be somewhat different than is stated in the stories.

Pete #2

WOW ... this is getting deep.

Check the following news article, again coming from the economics blog Zerohedge (quoting the Daily Mail), now showing the director of TEPCO crying openly about the situation.


http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tepco-d...ushima-disaster


And the start of the story says ...

"The Daily Mail has released a dramatic picture showing the emotional exhaustion of TEPCO managing director Akio Komori who is openly weeping as he leaves a conference to brief journalists on the true situation at Fukushima, following his acknowledgment that the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens. "A senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis. He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans." This is precisely as Zero Hedge had expected would happen all along, following our recurring allegations of a massive cover up by the Japanese government. And furthermore as we predicted a week ago when we said that continued government lies and subversions would make the situation untenable once the population loses faith in the government, this is precisely what has happened."

I guess there's also an issue about whether people living in the vicinity of the plant received radiation doses that were much higher than they were being told.

So if I read between the lines - what they now appear to be acknowledging is that some of the employees at this nuclear power plant may have received lethal (or near-lethal) doses of radiation. That conclusion is backed up by a second comment in the media (sorry I don't have the link) where a Japanese official with their own nuke safety agency was quoted as being near-to-tears about the sacrifices being made by some of the workers at the power plant.

Clearly, there must be inside knowledge about the health effects on these workers that is not being told to the public right now.

Pete #2

Time to get your Geiger counters out, if you own one.



http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/18/jap...diation/?hpt=T2


Although it would appear the CTBTO has not yet released the recorded amount of radiation levels.

It would be useful to find out the actual Counts per Minute from the Geiger Muller tube and counter they are actually reading compared to normal background of 4-5 CPM when I was a school boy at nuclear physics class when at school.

The amount must have been somewhat reasonable considering that the CTBTO is able to determine the atomic species and ionizing radiation type to be able to say the sensor at Sacramento was actually detecting the Fukushima radiation release and wasn't from some other local naturally or man made occurring source.

Not much of any way to prepare for this one (if radiation levels increase--I'm not currently worried about it). I don't own a fallout shelter. Taking KI pills for as many months as the plant may be spewing doesn't sound like a viable solution either, assuming you could find some. I guess sometimes we've just got to suck it up and take what we're dealt.

I put a battery in my old Geiger counter just to see if I could get the needle to move -- it only moves when I select circuit check. That's fine with me

California Task Force 2 of LA County Fire's Urban Search and Rescue team has arrived home today.

"We've done some recovery, and at this point, the government of Japan has determined that they don't have any more missions,'' said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. John Lenhian in an interview with CNN.

I just ran across an interesting article that interviews one of the clean up workers (aka "liquidators") from the Chernobyl clean up operation. This woman was a 35 year old nuclear engineer from another nuclear plant who was ordered to Chernobyl for clean up duty. Unlike many of her colleagues, she is still alive.

Anyway, an interesting perspective on that incident, and possible clues to what might await Japanese workers and the Japanese population in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

Arney ... great post with that last article. I can't believe the woman wasn't told her own radiation does levels. The story of the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant will probably be very similar - or maybe even worse. Who knows what will happen at residential neighborhoods around the plant. I wonder how Japan will find volunteers to do the cleanup?

Today the NRC came out with a preliminary statement saying that the San Onofre nuclear reactor in California is not susecptible to the same problems as Japan. For residents out here, that statement seems like it came out way too early. Where is the detailed indpendent study to evaluate risks from this plant??

Pete #2

Here's a really interesting link from a Ukrainian woman named "Elena". She likes to ride her sports bike (motorcycle) through the Chernobyl nuclear fallout zone. I kid you not. She carries a radiation meter with her, and she's pretty good at using it! You can read all about her travels, and along the way you'll learn a lot about what a safe level of radiation really is. She still uses the old units for radiation - roentgens. So I guess that makes her an "old fashioned kinda girl". Ha! Ha! :-)

You may also find, as I did, that there's a lot about Chernobyl that you didn't really know. She does a good, good job about talking about it's impact on human life.

BTW, I was surprised to learn that the Soviets only succeeded in containing the burned-out reactor at Chernobyl by tunneling under it and making a new containment structure. Apparently a lot of miners died in those efforts. But the problem is that the new containment structure was only given a life of 30 years. Chernobyl was 25 years ago. So what do they plan to do in 5 years time? I don't think they will be able to conscript any more volunteers for that kind of work.

OK, rev up your engine and here we go with Elena ...

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

cheers,
Pete #2

This item also posted on the thread about radiation measurements.

Yet another twist on the Fukushima story. Now there's a guy in Japan saying that one of the reactors may have serious construction flaws.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fukushi...n-time-bomb-exp

Pete #2

The situation is looking worse now ... with possible evidence pointing to a breach of reactor containment (or perhaps that the cladding of fuel rods has broken down - not clear if this is spent fuel rods, or rods in the working reactor).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

I was wondering over the last day or two how it was possible for tap water from Tokyo, which is quite distant from Fukushima, to have enough radioactivity to be a concern for infants. That seems to imply that some quite serious radiation is getting into the atmosphere, and coming down in local rain. There was also a report that seawater located 16 km from the reactor had radioactive iodine levels that were more than 10 times above normal. That also implies a serious leak. Now we have a situation where plant workers actually have skin burns from radioactivity - which is really not good. This tends to confirm the suspicion that some of these workers may have received very serious radiation exposure.

UPDATE: Situation at Fukushima moved to Level-6. The implication is that radiation leaks - and their consequences - may be more serious than the Gov't of Japan in letting on.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fukushi...s-3-mile-island

Pete #2

I've wondered the same thing, although I have no idea how much iodine-131 is necessary to raise the radiation level to that 200 Bq level we saw the other day. It may not take that much at all, but I have no idea.

The other worrying thing was the discovery of vegetables grown in Tokyo being found with cesium-137 above the legal limits. If the vegetables grown in your own city are becoming contaminated with unhealthy levels of radiation, I'm sure it's making the people wonder about the safety of their own bodies more and more.

Considering that sea based veggies such as seaweed have naturally very high levels of iodine and that the iodine may now be radioactive, this is seriously not good for the food supply.

Er, a MOX (Uranium/Plutonium fuel) reactor disintegrated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3tVy01Xi7M (I don't believe the hydrogen explosion explanation)

And they are still calling the destruction of 4 nuclear reactors at Fukushima a level 6 incident. Even Chernobyl didn't have 1000+ tonnes of spent fuel sitting above the reactor when it blew up.

Chernobyl had the same yellow rain and they had the same 'its pollen' cover story.

http://dailybruin.detroitsoftworks.com/index.php/article/2006/04/remembering-chernobyl

Now they are admitting that the reactor vessel in No3 may have been breached.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26japan.html?_r=1

It would seem there is an intentional 7-10 day delay before the Japanese authorities will fess up and admit the obvious. Considering that this nuclear disaster has been ongoing for around 2 weeks now the information provided by the Japanese authorities is quite scandalous.

The Future of Northern Japan it would seem is based on the vagaries of where the wind blows.