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Guardian Reports Core At Reactor 2 May Have Melted To Concrete Floor, Radioactive Lava Next?
And another update from Fukushima on its route to the concrete dome, irradiated ground water, and a 100 km "no live zone" from the Guardian:
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The good news is that the next step will not be a Chernobyl type explosion, or so the GE expert believes, but a far more "benign" radioactive lava escalation.
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.
So you see: there is no reason to worry, and it is everyone's patriotic duty to BTFD as the "QE3 on - QE3 off" daily speculation reaches a schizophrenic crescendo.
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Occupation: Leather entrepreneur.
If this radioactive lava hits water, it will probably lead to another hydrogen explosion blowing this stuff everywhere.
Another great reason to buy stocks. BUY NOW
Here's thermite, hits around 2000oC to 2500oc and what it does to water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHR4cMXiyM (go to 5 min)
Epic video..I love Thermite.
KafuckingBOOM!!!!
No ice in the basement of #2, so everything should be fine. Definitely. Or at least temporarily.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-28/fukushima-farmers-might-abandon-rice-planting-in-soil-tainted-by-radiation.html
I've been wondering about the rice. Looks like the rice farmers have been too. 15% of production at stake more or less.
Could have implications for the rice commodity inflation Tyler and folks have been wondering about...
My wife tells me the buzz in China is the rice farmers are hoarding in attempt to squeeze the market. I'm not sure what effects it would have, but who knows.
Lower protein content notwithstanding, I've been loading up on my brown and wild rice purchases. It's still available at around $1.00 a pound if you buy in bulk.
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
yes, globs can be so messy...and, geez, this is great, the superhot radioactive stuff is finally out in the open where we can pour water on it.... Mr. Lahey is warming the cockles of my heart.. he's a cockeyed optimist, isn't he? cockeyed?
Lahey... "that is good because it is easier to cool? What kind of bung hole statement is that?
My thought exactly!
Good corelation between radiation readings increasing and stock market increasing. Bring on the apocalypse and Dow 50,000. Insane.
The market went up as soon as Foxnews.com released this as their headline story today.
25 miles northwest of the facility, radiation of up to 10 mSv/h (microsieverts per hour) had been confirmed by Greenpeace experts http://newstabulous.com/extremely-radioactive-water-leaks-into-surrounding-tunnels/6804/
mSv is millisieverts
uSv is microsieverts
Knowing the difference could save your life one day. Or a bunch of hassle and fear.
The article says microsieverts. This is no big deal. You could easily live in a place with that reading and not have a higher cancer risk than anyone else.
If it IS milliseiverts, then that is trouble, as that area is going to need to be depopulated for at least a while, as you will get a fatal dose in a little over a month.
Yep, TnX for correcting:
n (nano) 10-9 - µ (micro) 10-6 - m (milli) 10-3 http://www.telecomabc.com/p/prefix.html
THE NETHERLANDS: 29 March 2011: Measurements / 30 days T-GAMMA 96966 nSv/h (nanosieverts - 10-9 ) EXTERNAL RADIATION http://eurdep.jrc.ec.europa.eu/map3/NetworkDataTypesSummary.aspx
Still trying to get some grip on what this means "30 days"?
It looks like that is the number of measurements taken that month, not the numerical value of the measurement. I don't see a field for the actual measurement. Weird.
If those were real measurements with nSv/hr as the units, the site that had the highest number(245,000) is pushing into dangerous territory, with a "deadly" dose of 8 Sv coming within 4 years (in reality, such a dose level is unlikely to kill you over that long of an exposure time, though you will probably get cancer in your lifetime, and the area will likely have a below average life expectancy).
"the site" are actual countries AT=Austria NL=The Netherlands http://www.greenbuilder.com/general/countries.html
would strongly depend upon the type of radiation...if alpha, harmless unless injested/inhaled. Beta a little worse, gamma at those levels bad. Highest rad level in world is like 200x normal, which would be 40uSv/hr, but there are no increased frequencies of cancers there. It's radium 226, so alpha. Given the gaseous nature, one would expect highly increased cancer levels.
People need to understand that ambient radiation levels are functionally irrelevant except for gamma emitters (unless beta is ridiculously high). Beta can be stopped by clothing. What gets people is biouptake of contaminants like Cs137/I131/Sr90.
Really, I see our use of DU munitions in Iraq as far worse a radiological catastrophe than Fukushima because we have sprayed an alpha emitter all over major portions of the country. We use DU not just for its density but pyrophoric properties, IOW, it burns and becomes aerosol upon impact. Its biouptake characteristics are similar to Pu and other heavy metals.
We shot gazillions of DU rounds, both kinetic penetrators and 30mm cannon shells, throughout GW1, 2, and Kosovo. In fact, some vehicles contaminated with DU were buried in a nuclear waste dump and nuclear decontamination procedures had to be enacted on equipment sullied with DU.
"We" haven't sprayed nor shot anything.
Nor do "we" have DU munitions.
Plural possessive pronoun fouls.
Interesting contradiction there Trav. Pointing out the humungous evil of DU weaponry use, while by your 'we' identifying yourself with the culprits - the US government.
Anyway, proof there is no God, or Karma or anything like it. The one place in the world that deserves to become a radioactive wasteland - Washington - and nada. Instead Japan gets it. The one place in the world that _least_ deserves it.
And anyone that says 'Pearl Harbor' needs to go read some history, and understand that was NOT anything like the advertised surprise attack, but rather a desperate act of national self defence against deliberate American provovation, and was completely known about beforehand by the US administration of the time. They'd tracked the Japanese fleet the entire time, and the attack was exactly what they had worked to goad the Japanese into doing.
http://everist.org/archives/links/!_Pearl_Harbor_links.txt
mSv is millisievert, µSv is microsievert.
Below is the quote from the article. For reference, I'm reading .09 µSv/h here in London right now.
25 miles northwest of the facility, radiation of up to 10 microsieverts per hour had been confirmed by Greenpeace experts
More on microsieverts and millisieverts:
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Oh...greenpeace has experts now??? that s a joke...
This is Bullish. The bigger the mess, the bigger the clean-up costs and the amount of money running through the world economy. Deal with it Bitches.
Hey truthiness, i work for the SEC, my favorite color is purple/pink, and i love to surf the internet all day...
This is the kind of lava they use in lava lamps.
So it's safe.
Isn't it amazing, brother Truth?
I only now can claim to have been amazed.
This was the headline news on Foxnews.com well before the close of the market. In fact, the market seemed to accelerate upwards after this news hit the wire.
And silver is down .... I love how much sense this fucking market makes.
Disaster is bullish for fiat.
According to the msm the us stockmarket is the best house in a bad neighborhood. this is y the thing is bullet proof.
It's Opex time. Don't worry about down moves, unless they should continue on past this week.
From the Guardian:
"In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority."
REALLY? This is helpful. I guess Chenobyl and Three Mile Island were not bad enough for someone to come up with and implement this idea before?
Trust me in another 20 years we'll have another disaster and some brainiac will suggest "swat teams" of experts to advise how to deal with another melt down!
Clearly mankind is not intellegent enough to wield the awesome power of nuclear energy.
Gee; he's only like a week late.
I would suggest at this point like I did last week, that the government needs to ensure that backup generation capacity can be airlifted within a 6-hour window. PERIOD.
When we read nuke plant workers talking here about US diesel backups getting basically forged inspections and snapping their effing crankshafts when they go to a power test, wtf?
I mean we seem to do panic responses OK over here, but wtf if the power was torn out from a US plant? Same shit as FD1. They'd go to diesel, cranks snap in half, go to batteries, twiddle thumbs, 6 hours later boom.
There is no room for cronyism and cost-cutting where nuclear power is concerned because the tail risks are immense. Anyone caught bullshitting through a safety inspection should be beaten and then shot.
Amen.
this is why all disasters get given over to the military.
they are the only organizations that don't do consensus building.
Imagine if you were in an organization and you were shouting do this or else, your boss would feel threatened, try to build consensus, take a vote of other morons and try to get rid of you.
hell I would not be surprised to find that TEPCO called the gov't for generators and was told someone is on vacation or shit like that. Rather than say listen bitch gimme this mfer NOW they just kinda sign off. And the engineer asking has to go to his boss who doesn't want to offend anyone or have to lose face so he says "you need to figure out how to make this work." He won't press the issue with his peers over where they have the generators and he can't get HIS boss to do it either. Nobody can. Or nobody will. And if you jump chain and send an email to the president saying "do this or else BOOM," it's your ass. Your boss and his boss and his boss will all fuck you up for making trouble for them and making them look bad, nevermind your correctness.
I have seen shit like this ALL the time...some system fails, I can identify the point of failure by clairvoyance and I tell them exactly what the problem is but the manager doesn't want to offend underlings on the team responsible for that failure and sure as hell won't let anyone near enough that team in order to prove the failure point. And then meeting after meeting, other processes suffering similar failure symptoms, similar latencies, similar hiccups, all pointing to one forensic deductive conclusion. No dice. Make do. Figure out how, make it work.
All to avoid even stepping on toes of UNDERLINGS. Our organizations are utterly paralyzed with downing effect incompetence and peter principle idiots.
Must admit you're making alot of sense this evening. Gorbachev in battle of chernobyl: "If we needed something, we took it". The military can make shit happen, as they dont give a fuck, the dont need to give a fuck. Thats we the are the only ones who can organize a operation of the needed magnitude. Because it is a war like situation. After all they are organizationally structured to BE IN WAR. It's time to let the grown ups in the room, the children have made a big mess. The books that will be written on the misshandling of this situation... wow. At least I hope so. Time to take a reeeeeeaaaaaally fucking long and painfully hard look at the cultural factors in play. Have been getting alot of really messed up face-saving vibes from all the press conferences. The only one who seems to tell the truth is the governor of Fukushima. He is more like mad as hell, and he cannot take it anymore.
Yes, agree with you and Trav, it appears nuclear power and the Japanese culture of face saving and consensus decision making are fundamentally incompatible. Yes, this needs to be handled by a military command structure. Question is, are the Japanese military now as ineffectual as the Japanese government? Maybe it should be the Russian military? (Not the American military, please, no.)
Perhaps Japan should say "Ok, ok, you can *have* the Kuril Islands, if you can fix this."
Generators - I recently had the sad experience of watching three Caterpillar 3516 generator sets very like these: http://www.cat.com/cda/files/842582/7/35161750ekwStandbyLowBSFC_SR5.pdf get destroyed in a building demolition.
Roughly 2MW each. The weight is listed as 9072 kg 20,000 lb, and that's not a portable pack. Is that within the lift capability of helicopters the Japanese would have? Remember the roads were impassable.
A C130 could lift a few in her hold for long distance and a CH-47 could lift one at a time locally.
The chinook is below:
Capacity:
Yup just about sums it up. Not to mention that the bigger the organization, the more complex and inefficient the beaurocracy. Totally agree that it should be handed off to the military + some sort of independent "nuclear incident SWAT team". People who understand the significance of the situation, can cut through bullshit, and backed up by a strong command and control structure should be the ones in charge of an operation like that.
+ 100
I'd like to just add a quick, 'fuckin A' to that. +++
You got it. Shot. At least in knee.
Coming to think about it, we had a really serious accident i Sweden 2006 at a plant called Forsmark. They lost back-up power during a black out. Two (!!!!!) of the four diesel generators failed. Fortunatly they got the power back in time, otherwise a fukushima scenario would have happened. That, for me, puts an end to the whole blame-it-on-tsunami-discussion. After some assurances that from now on the safety standards will be taken seriously, the whole thing was forgotten. Around that time they also found some of the employees where boozing at the plant, on-site. They.Where. DRUNK. No debate, the whole thing was "unfortunate" etc etc "new culture of safety enforced" etc etc
Thats worth alot. However:
Sweden priding itself on being the only nation that dares to run the reactors at experimentaly high effeciency rates at above 80%.
Well, thats fucking priceless.
Swedish (actual) expression: "If it works, then it works".
a few days ago dark smoke was seen but I don't know which reactor. Maybe the fuel was burning through the concrete. A Dutch expert (also politician) said that black smoke was no danger, it was something else burning
It happened in chernobyl and it was not part of the fuel but the motherload of it. Together with the molten concrete and sand it formed a glass-like mass that spreaded through the chambers underneath the reactor and then became solid, still heavily radio-active. Contact with water can give a new reaction/explosion.
Fukushima reactors and building have been drowned with water, I wonder what is going to be the next problem but I hope all turns out getting stable
You Bitches are too negative. Recommendation for tonight:
1. Buy bottle of wine.
2. Find yourself a Mexican Lady.
3. Buy ES futures.
4. Sell ES futures tomorrow morning for fat profit.
5. Repeat.
This is working great for me. Off to the wine store. Adios Bitches.
That's a good idea. Red wine it should be, however, as sr85 > sr90.
MD 20/20 may be red, but it ain't no varietal, amigo.
Is that you, Cramer?
From RT
In a handout picture released by Greenpeace and taken on March 27, 2011 shows a Greenpeace team member holding a Geiger counter displaying radiation levels of 7.66 micro Sievert per hour in Iitate city, Fukushima. (AFP Photo / Christian Aslund)
Things that make you go, hmmmmm.
7.66 is not a big deal.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Well, things are going resoundingly well, I see.
I'm sure the floor will hold, also, and that honeycomb design will do its job, because, well, everything else has gone swimmingly.
Cheerio.
"It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
Good stuff indeed.
whole lotta lava love out of fuckyoushima
uhhh, all lava is radioactive bro.
1. Buy bottle of wine. Check
2. Find yourself a Mexican Lady. Not a lot around here, uncheck
3. Buy ES futures. Uncheck
4. Sell ES futures tomorrow morning for fat profit. Uncheck
5. Repeat. Check, another bottle tomorrow and some canned, not-glowing fish
'Chernobyl' is the Russian word for wormwood. (Bitter waters)
And it's what you SHOULD make absinthe out of, if you're not a pussy.
Kubler. mmm
Absinthe bomb --> Absinthe shot in a glass of red bull ....
Makes a jaegerbomb look like a kansas city faggot's drink.
Never had the opportunity to try absinthe. Sampled some of the opium-based liqueurs while in Southern Europe, such as Ouzo and Pastist 51. Good times!
As far as hallucinogenics go, I can appreciate the occasional patch of pylocybin cubenesis, which are a native fungi to my neck of the woods. ;-)
I almost went to Reed College, where you can learn to synthesize interesting new things AND get your reactor operating license....but I blew them off.
You're probably better off with the educational route you chose.
Not that I would know anything about this, as I am not a chemist, but I understand that the synthesis of lysergic acid diethylamide is a very lucrative industry. Of course, the 25 year to life sentences that are handed down for convictions are a bit of a buzz kill, but hey, what better way to put a double PhD in chemical engineering to use?
Maybe Obama will go for a swim at Fukushima beach too.
can all moonbats please jfc stop being all jfc hysterical.
jfc stfu jfc
don't you moonbats travel on delta jfc? eat bananas jfc? drive a car lately jfc? than just stfu
Stop.
I am so disappointed the TD was right...not that I thought he was wrong...but this is really bad...and this will not be restricted to Japan, bad for us all. Why didn't they just design this thing for a damn tsunami that had precedent in Japan's written history. No way a big pile of radioactivity should not be able to withstand a one in one thousand year earthquake/tsunami.
I wish someone would deliver the miracle anti-dote.
Stupidity of design and placement not limited to the Japanese.
Diablo Canyon in California located on/between at least two fault lines, on the ocean and subject to tsunami from fault line directly offshore and the Cascadian subduction zone to the north.
If you just read the wikipedia entry, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
I know, I'm well aware of Diablo's problems...and whent hey decided to seismically retrofit it, they got the plans backwards and had to do it twice...
But stupidest thing yet, who builds a Nuke plant in something named "Diablo". Really? Whose idea was that?
I am off to do my documentary film, 'Fukushima.'
See you bitchez later.
make it "Fukushima, mon amour"
Fukupalypse Now!
Fukurama!
Sarcophagus Now!
Face, meet Plant.
The "lava" comparison is misleading: lava comes out hot and cools and hardens in a cooler environment. It carried heat from its previous environment and when that heat is lost, it's rock.
Melted uranium also comes out hot but has it's own source of generating new heat: fission--so it stays hot. How many thousand (million, billion) tons of water into the sky in the process of "cooling" the molten fuel? I think this is the potential problem as it gets down to the water table and the continues heat source meets the infinite supply of water.
what is the geology under the plant, I'm assuming 100s of feet of sand and gravel, water table near surface?
"The core is chocolate' - Willy Wonka
I've got marshmallows and graham crackers, so we're all set.
If a company from the private sector had built this nuclear plant we wouldn't be in this mess. This is what you get when public workers are involved.
Yeah, like GE or Hitachi . . .
huh? TEPCO is private, they hired private company to design and build.
Yeah, but now that it's bankrupt, it's debt is public...
The latest news is that the Obamaha team is sending robots to Fukushima.
Does the robot read from a teleprompter and play golf? If so, what do we need Obummer for?
Inspiration!
Hopium Dispenser
What's the "half life" on HOPIUM?
No matter, it's toxic.
Its name is Ann and it talks like a man.
which one geithner or clinton?
As entrepeneur I'm going to build a webshop with multifunctional carrots.
You can use them as flashlights while they also can be cooked or eaten raw like the radiated rabits do. I must get a better sales-talk but I am on right track
Or maybe; these fresh catched fish have the same properties as deep-sea fish that have evolved in millions of years to glow in the dark. With our high level of education and knowledge we managed to take this proces down to a matter of days and have taken position to make this superb offer to you right now. Do not ask us how we do it but take this chance while it lasts.
Insane
World: Get out of the problem and into the solution.
An energy company is NOT equipped or trained for MAJOR nuclear accidents. Its like asking your carpenter to put out the fire that started, because the wood is burning that he installed.
18 days and I'm waiting for a nuclear disaster team to be assembled.
Tepco just delivers the energy from systems OTHER people/firms design. They are not in the nuclear disaster response business. If they participated in short cuts during construction then they are liable for damages, but they are not in the business of responding to nuclear crisis.
Get to the experts where-ever they are.
BP fixed the oil leak. Same thing, sort of.
B-P is a much larger company dealing with a more defined problem that was caused by their equipment failing. A company is given the opportunity to fix their problems in order to stay in business/minimize the cost. Human life was not as directgly threaten and no natural disaster occured. B-P had/has plenty of money to do the fixes that the seemed sensible to regulators and the wordwide community; although they dragged their feet.
Tepco is facing a multi-deminsional, immediately life threatening crisis which is clearly above their range of expertise. It may be above anyone's range of expertise. They are a small company by world standards and to our knowledge have NOT sought out the necessary experts to implement tangible solutions to the crisis. 50 to 150 people with fire hoses is NOT AN ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE......NOT EVEN CLOSE. Who the FUCK are they answering to? The Japanese nuclear regulation agency/Japanese government should have replaced them day one UNLESS they are in ca-hoots with the head in the sand, hope it didn't meltdown down mentality.
Way, way, way past time for action. Japan burns.
yeah probably true.
Their C&C management chain appears face-focused and paralyzed.
I fully expect that when truth outs it will have been the United States military, having sensored the radionuclide excursion that essentially redphoned the jap gov't to make anything happen.
Utility company management is NOT equipped, qualified, or of the appropriate mental or personality attributes to deal with disasters.
and to think.....i junked travs 1st post on this thread.....he's definitely 'off his game' if he agrees with me
most of the big arguments started when I asked people to support their claims with some evidence...
They're out on the oil rig trying to get Harry Stamper to join the team...
The experts moved to South America and turned off the fvkin newz.
agreed, it is hard to make an effective scientific and construction/military operation in a crisis like this, but its all you got...US govt intervened lamely in BP oil spill but coast guard did help and it was a govt oversight scientist guy that sent pressure data on final capping method to another govt scientist who used his fluid calcing methods to confirm pressure was okay and cap should stay on even while many wanted it lifted as they fear whole geology being messed up and bigger problem about to happen.
Get international military guys, people who worked on Chernobyl and TMI, leading nuke scientists, disaster specialists, geology guys, construction guys, material scientists, robot and equipment guys, put someone in charge, give them any resource or personnel they ask for and GO!
Grlz 2.
nah, men messed it up, men should get irradiated fixing it
women can go forward charging their iCrap and powering their hair irons with unicorn juice.
I do not use hair irons or ianything. Don't even have a cell phone. But I do benefit from the power so I think women should take risks too.
oh relax trav, I'm all for women going into combat as much men...and guys have just as many toys as women
I'm not...men should do this and men should do combat.
Women just shouldn't say that "men did this," yeah, ok we did...but we kept women's icrap on and made those buildings so women can put a pantsuit on and pretend to work all day in almost zero risk.
watch the new coal miners reality show or the axe men or deadliest catch...or when the power goes out in a huge storm, go look at who's in the bucket. The world owes men and especially white men a huge debt for all that has been done.
It would not be a surprise if TEPCO shorted themselves while this disaster happened and evolved. It is all about inside info. Let's get Ernst&Young to look into this, or not
Jacob Andrews was not the least bit surprised when the lying talking heads on the main stream media finally admitting, after months of denials, that yes there was a “bit” of inflation in the Consumer Price Index, but to “not be alarmed by raising prices.” The seemingly bullet proof stock market was once again testing record highs in the face of 6 dollars per gallon gasoline, multiple nation’s citizens rioting against puppet dictators, warring over depleting oil fields, destroyed oceans, nuclear disasters leaving countries dead, dying and abandoned with what appeared to Jacob as Mother Earth herself exclaiming “I’ve enough of you parasites, so fuck off- eh!”
http://tshtf.blogspot.com/
That's why Goldman ordered its staff to stay. To find and milk all possible short potentials.
no doubt
Not to be a doomparty pooper here, but there isn't any new news in this article. All the readings could be explained by a leaking containment scenario as opposed to a full breach.
I still think we're looking at pellet piles immersed in water in the core vessels, with partially intact rods sticking up out of the water. And cracks or blown seals in the vessels.
Just sayin'.
and so, what's the damage, how difficult, long to fix?
A few slabs of drywall, a new paintjob, and it should be online in a week. Dow will be 1,000,000 a few days later.
They're already slapping up the drywall ... things that make you go hmmmm ... at 1:00 minute, and other places also ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8DdBsXji4
Still FUBAR, just a different flavor of FUBAR.
Need to stop dicking around with water sprays and design a new structure--an emissions-free radwaste cooling plant. The cores and pools stay where they are and a whole lot of water needs to get circulated in and out.
Others here have been sketching some methods.
It's that or direct entombment with 13 hot spots. I think we need to combine entombment and a stable cooling flow. Somehow.
Degree of difficulty, 9.9 out of 10.
Timeline, 1-250,000 years, depending on things.
Jim,
So what you are really saying is that there is still plenty of time to get long S&Ps.
As for difficulty, I am confident that this TEPCO crew can handle 9.9 out of 10 on the difficulty scale. They have done such a stellar job so far.
In fact, just hire the Ministry of Truth [CNBC], and they will simply write the entire problem out of existence.
Done.
TEPCO is going to need more volunteers. The turnover rate is likely at an elevated status.
Either that, or regulatory decrees are announced that raise the dose limit on emergency workers.
Or TEPCO could just write new policy language that says that their employees cannot die of radiation until the hole in the containment thingy is patched up. There.
After that, the Ministry of Truth could write stories about how accelerated the tree growth is from all the radioactive snow...and also stories about how snow men made at Fukushima are actually just like Frosty the Snowman, and how much the children love them.
Done and done. Radioactive lava fears are sooooo overrated.
I've been awaiting ideas.....the variables here, the knowledge required and the consequences if wrong make it a tough task. It will take a team to design this...one persons ideas are just a piece of the puzzle.
Yes. It is almost an Apollo or Manhattan in scope. But a bunch of chickenshit assholes running it. And I don't just mean TEPCO or the Japanese when I say that.
I blame the culture of the global elite for the whole fucking mess. Sadly, we are all to blame for tolerating the global elite.
agreed, regular folks are actually surprisingly willing to take a hit to make sure their country is a good safe place to live long-term but us regular folks who can't easily flee what ever they latest mess is, we don't get to call the shots
+11
http://seenoevilspeaknoevilhearnoevil.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-canadas-four-western-provinces-is.html
hey Franz, stay outta Seryjevo. I think SA is looking much safer than NA.
That's soooo true
should have put this here.
anybody hear of this guy?
http://benjaminfulford.typepad.com/benjaminfulford/2011/03/weekly-geopolitical-news-and-analysis20110328-planned-nuclear-and-tsunami-attack-against-japan-is-just-the-beginning.html
Here we call it the 'China Syndrome'. In Asia they call it the 'American Syndrome'.
( Please pardon me: I posted this earlier on another thread, but the thread was kind of stale...)
OK, so now it's my turn to make a Serious Suggestion. I would sure like to hear any feedback....
I propose a concept that I will call Large Sarcophagus.
Instead of permanently entombing the reactors in a concrete-and-moderator rectangular solid that is just big enough to enclose the buildings, you instead temporarily enclose them in a very large hollow structure, such as a large geodesic dome. Covered with mylar, or something thin and cheap. And not-very-permeable.
Suck the air out from the top, filter it, throw the dirty filters inside the dome. Pump clean air back in at the bottom.
Now you have a solution that greatly reduces airborne contamination, while still permitting physical access to the site, to permit implementation of a long-term solution.
I realize that this would be a very large structure indeed -- a hemisphere about 1/2 mile in diameter. But that's the nice thing about geodesics. They scale as far as you wish. ( You would need to anchor it, and make sure the air temperature does not get too high inside, or it would take off like a very large hot air balloon -- with an awful lot of lift. )
When you have the dome built, dig a trench around the dome to allow most groundwater contamination to be intercepted, and filter that likewise.
Then start building the rad-hardened robots & remotes that we need to be able to work inside the site.
A similar idea is now being considered--
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-latest-idea-is...
That looks more like a stop gap.
Yes, but that is exactly what is needed. Something quick to throw up, and airtight. But which can be quickly rebuilt if there are further big explosions.
There is no point trying to erect something 'solid' so soon, when there are three reactor cores and four spent fuel pools all burning and melting, all potentially able to reconfigure into criticalities, water-lava steam explosions, or even fizzler nuclear bombs.
The priorities are: seal the ongoing contamination leakage to atmosphere, find a way to access the various fissile materials, then get them into geometries that will be stable when left alone forever.
THEN think about entombment.
You know, one cool thing that might come of this. The IDEAL way to take apart those destroyed buildings, would be with a giant exoskeleton man-like machine. Mechwarrior, gundam, evangelion style. I've always said those things were a stupid fantasy for war-fighting, as they'd be far too vulnerable. But for this purpose, perfect. No matter whether the operator is in a heavily shielded capsule inside, or working remotely.
Who better to build it than the Japanese?
Unfortunately, robots do not exist to do the work that would have to be done inside, which will involve many skills and on-the-fly judgements, and robots do not do well working in variable-geometry debris. And, without the wind and open atmosphere to take the heat, radiation and water vapor away, very quickly humans would not be able to enter. But, a good general idea...keep thinking!
What I really want -- what I mean when I say a "remote" -- is a man-operated two-armed bipedal machine similar to a Raytheon exoskeleton -- except where the man is not inside it. Man operates it, using his own arms and legs with strapped-on motion sensors, remotely.
Not sure the operator would be able to keep it upright, though, without actually being inside it...
Can microprocessors and CCD sensors survive in that environment ?
And the idea requires really large air-conditioners, to keep air inside cooler than ambient, or a dome of that size would have tremendous lift.
And the air-conditioners are also the filters that remove Bad Stuff. The filters become hot, and must be replaced, maybe frequently. They will be permanently entombed later, when the permanent solution is ready.
I guess in my view, if you are going for a permanent solution that involves entombment, then you might as well go for it sooner rather than later. Going down that road, I see no realistic alternative to sand, lead (or spent uranium), boron and concrete. The potential problem with that solution is that un-reinforced concrete typically does not fare too well in an earthquake, so one would risk the sarcophagus cracking open at some future date. I suppose it would be possible to try to use entrained carbon fiber, fiberglass or metallic micro-strands in the concrete to reinforce it, but I am not sure how this would fare under extreme ground acceleration/lifting.
where you gonna drop the lead, tho? Chernobyl was wide open, just aim for the hot, bright thingie.
FD1 has the disadvantage of being buried in inconvenient rubble
Precisely why the only solution to this other than just to ignore it , is to send alot of worker ants to their death a la Chernobyl. Who is going to make that call? The one major factor that helped in the Chernobyl accident was that it happened in a communist and deeply proud and also propogandered country ( do not underestimate the advantage in that)
They had to clear rubble and whatnot before the containment shell could be built - logistically Fukushima seems to be more complex but at the end of the day nothing will be acheived without boots on the ground.
Of all democratic nations , i'd say Japan has as good a chance as any to order the lemmings in , they are afterall a very ordered , socialist society. If this happened in the West the only option would be ordering soldiers to their deaths to clean this up. Would that happen in our post-feminist , flacid , decadent , candy-cotton society?
God forbid this happens in the US or Eurozone. The repsonse would be as reticent , if not more so. We are good at blowing up OPPs but i have little faith we could deal with our own Chernobyl/Fukushima , not for lack of technology but for simple lack of political will and leadership.
The Russians fought Chernonyl in the same manner they fought the Germans in WW2. Have to respect that.
Until next earthquake when the cooling of the radioactive dome fails, it takes of and crashes in the middle of Tokyo. Now that would be magical.
There would be reports of a giant glowing Chinese lantern floating towards Tokyo. I would direct my minions in the government to deny those reports and tell people instead that it was a UFO.
ari - please indulge me.
Why no excessive spalling smoke?
Maybe because the blob is immersed in water in the now "wet" drywell?
The leading edge of the lava is spalling the concrete, but the blob is underwater, which filters/ retards the effluence?
Well, I am yet to be convinced that the vessel has been compromised by melting fuel rods. It seems the pressures and temps in the vessel are nominal, which should not be the case if you have any kind of Corium event going on. Nothing I have seen per the data that I am aware of suggests a spalling reaction...I know that this "likely" possibility was reported in the Guardian, but I have no idea on what data they are basing it on. I am aware of the "slow melt" reaction that is theoretically cooled by water in the drywell...but I am reasonably certain that the introduction of compounded fissile material entering a water-filled drywell would spike the evaporation rate tremendously, sending out increased radioactive water vapor and causing localized system temps to spike. This does not seem to be happening unless there is something I have missed. Spalling smoke in a water envelope would most likely be emitted into the atmosphere as a combination of mixed smoke and vapor...a mixed-phase reaction where the smoke particles are entrained in the annular space between the vapor droplets.
Ok - didn't we just see all that condensation in the turbine floor - 5 feet in #3?
The "puddle" was 5 feet deep @ 1Sv ...
~~~~~~~~~
Please look at this relevant document in your leisure.
Browns-Ferry Failure Analysis - a year after TMI event
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/6192378-Yf5q1o/6192378.pdf
Pdf pages: 18-23 most relevant.
1980 doc. - best I could find.
.pdf page 20 ...
WATER LEVEL REACHES TAF is Top of Fuel (rods in core)
It goes downhill quickly from there ... especially page 21 & 22.
Page 21 bottom right - DOES H2 BURN? Sure did kaboom ! Except #2.
When H2 burns, 80% OF CORE MOLTEN
Remember this occurred 2 weeks ago now ...
Earthquake on the 11th -> power fails
#1 blows roof on 12th -> hydrogen explosion
#3 blows roof 14th -> hydrogen explosion
#2 internal explosion 15th -> Pressure Release Valve Fails -> blows into torus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I just quick-read the document, but if you note earlier in the sequence (maybe page 20) there is a hydrogen production phase in the early core heat-up. And, the Fukashima units were being vented heavily due to increased vessel pressure, and if you have low water levels in the vessels, that venting will contain hydrogen, and it can be ignited easily from many potential ignition sources. All US reactors now require hydrogen burners and vent systems to handle them, The Japanese units had sheet metal vents with no igniters, they relied on the upper wall panels on the reactor building to blow away...which they did. Finally, I have not read the document in detail, so cannot comment fully on its ramifications as they apply to the event in question.
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I base my thoughts on what I know about the circumstances, which I admit are rudimentary at best. I have no "position" beyond that, and I must admit I not aware of any details concerning your own position. Be that as it may, you may end up right and I may end up wrong, thus is life.
it was "most probably" a hydrogen explosion. there is a lot we don't know. they're so secretive about the types, tonnage, and lacations of the nuclear materials. at the time of the quake and tsunami. maybe i have some bloc about finding this in two weeks of looking. did i miss it when Tepco had the press conference about the basics, here?
a also saw that the nice, square "hole" in #2 is not in a "blowout/soft plug" location. it sure looks like such a place, but common sense and the japanese nuclear industry do not seem to coexist well in the same place and time.
Btw, who noticed that the neat hole in the wall of #2 got bigger sometime between the 23rd and 29th?
When first seen it was a 'portrait orientation' hole. Now in the latest heli shots it is a 'landscape orientation' hole, and bigger.
Someone decided they needed to knock out another panel. Not letting out enough hydrogen, or what?
Thank you very much - I am pretty sure you just validated my position 100% !!
But, you seem to have conveniently sidestepped the 5 foot deep puddle condensation in the turbine buildings.
In my opinion, your position on this catastrophe becomes more "transparent" with every post you make ... but I would be naive to expect anything else!