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IAEA Says "There Might Be Re-Criticality At Fukushima"
Remember Fukushima?
- IAEA SAYS `THERE MIGHT BE RE-CRITICALITY' AT FUKUSHIMA
- IAEA COMMENTS AT PRESS CONFERENCE IN VIENNA
- IAEA DIRECTOR GENERAL YUKIYA AMANO SPEAKS AT BRIEFING IN VIENNA
- IAEA HAS NO INFORMATION FROM TEPCO ON NEUTRON DETECTORS
If indeed the reactor has gone critical again, the whole concrete dome idea may have to be promptly scrapped.
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More great news for the Sh!t & P[ss
Report form yesterday -
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1301489625P.pdf
Of course, without an engineering degree those numbers and the units they're in are just going to look like more Japanese script to the average layman ...
Extract of the above document showing just the 'pressures':
http://oi51.tinypic.com/2v7ukgi.jpg
Summarizing : The only reactor showing any positive 'pressure' (and not presumably leaking) are #1 Reactor vessel and #1 Containment vessel ...
#2 and #3 both show close to atmospheric pressure for their Reactor and Containment vessels ...
Reactor pressure excerpt, bigger image:
http://oi54.tinypic.com/358o3yr.jpg
Like the Negative (-) water levels. Bone dry core pools.
Is that a negative pressure on #2?
Negative pressure on part of #3 also ...
Ya, like those eggs aren't busted ...
They report, we decide - could be bad reading, could be within the tolerance of whatever back-up instrument they are using ... also note they are showing both 'Guage' (relative to atmoshphere at .101 MPaAbs) and 'Absolute' readings ...
The water levels should be positive numbers, at least 1000+.
Look at the pressure for #1.
#2 & #3 pressure should be comparable.
Some people still think the #2  pressures are normal ... absolute BS !
#2 and 3 have been screwed for weeks now, judging by the numbers in the reports that these guys have been posting:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/index.php
Yes you are correct.
This flyover video got yanked from most websites right after posting(Yomiori Daily copyright), check out especially at 3:00 and on of #3, these things are toast. Very high quality stabilized video.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8ac_1301263689
Excellent footage. There still exists a considerably steady flow of steam emanating from these reactors.
At 3:05 what appears to be the RPV cockedup against the wall(bottom half maybe) at least from the building schematics that are online.
Unit 4 reactor head. Unit 4 was defueled for maintenance at the time of the earthquake/tsunami. The reactor head sits on a stand on the refueling floor when removed. Not a significant aspect.
What is significant is that it appears that the containment dome blew out of the Unit 3 reactor and little appears to be left of the refueling floor, its equipment and the spent fuel pool.
Look closer,that blown out dome and head are in the same building-#3,also notice a lapse of 1 minute in the footage that was cut out.Other that that you are right CC
Good find -- this is one of the clearest videos I have seen.
Minor & not unexpected detail, in the grand scheme of things -- but unusual for IAEA to admit to problems:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ggEDd3a7F7myZHkDkvyogDMF3Jcg?docId=CNG.05699daf45628fa5b4755fac509ba9e5.2e1
Thanks for the link! Yomiuri apparently asserted copyright, but that video was taken directly from the Self Defense Force's Youtube channel.
My guess: Yomiuri did it for TEPCO. Why? TEPCO is their big advert customer.
Check out my post on Japan's Advertising Council and how many utility companies sit on the board.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/03/7-electric-power-companies-sit-on-boa...
Dunno for sure what re-criticality is, but sounds bullish for Netflix to me
absolutely bullish, all those new people signing up with netflix to rent the china syndrome and silkwood.
i believe we knew of re-criticality last thursday when neutron beams were reported on site.
. friggin captcha, ask what 64 plus 65 is, and then says it cannot be 3 digits? wtf
81 hexadecimal ?
Stocks Gain as Radiation rises Less Than Feared- AB
For anyone able to make sense of complicated calculations, there is an interesting perspective from researcher whom I gather to be a physicist - supporting the criticality thesis. Based on comments in article about obsessing with the Fukushima crisis, possibly a fellow ZH-er.
Linked from TIME blog:
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/03/30/has-fukushimas-reactor-no-1-gone-critical/
Original article:
http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/files/2011/03/Cause_of_the_high_Cl38_Radioactivity.pdf
From the blog posting:
On March 23 ... report by Kyodo news agency .... observed a neutron beam about 1.5 km away from the plant. Bursts of neutrons in large quantities can only come from fission
To nuclear workers, there are few events more fearful than a criticality accident.
In such a scenario, the fissile material in a reactor core--be it enriched uranium or plutonium--undergoes a spontaneous chain reaction, releasing a flash of aurora-blue light and a surge of neutron radiation; the gamma rays, neutrons and radioactive fission products emitted during criticality are highly dangerous to humans.
Criticality occurs so rapidly--within a few fractions of a second--and so unpredictably that it can suddenly kill workers without warning. There have been 60 criticality incidents worldwide since 1945. The most recent occurred in Japan in 1999, at an experimental reactor in Tokai, when a beam of neutrons killed two workers, hospitalized dozens of emergency workers and nearby residents, and forced hundreds of thousands to remain indoors for 24 hours.
was unaware of any Cl38 in the seawater...but the point remains.
Neutrons only come from fission and there isn't enough Pu240 to do this. Pellets + water = critical.
they are going to need a lot more borax.
random fission inside the reactor would be like normal operation of it; that portion of the article is erroneous. If the reactor vessel is breached and pellets are outside of containment (SFPs hint), then you will see neutrons.
I have to wonder if they were borating the water being sprayed onto the fuel ponds. These would seem to be the most likely source of stray neutrons.
Good find!
Numbers coming out of Fukushima are more massaged than a prize (slightly radioactive) Kobe steer. More bullish too, since this means the power shortages are solved as well, either via re-criticality or depopulation.
Jump! You Bankster Fuckers!
Oh man...and I've been doing my due diligence on companies that make blown up nuclear reactor hats. Tyler, you really messed me up on this one...right when I found one company that used tin foil instead of wool.
Shit! I simply cannot get a break!
"If indeed the reactor has gone critical again, the whole concrete dome idea may have to be promptly scrapped."
And do WHAT ?? Just haul ass out of there ?
Damn. I missed when it got uncritical.
Pull out and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
No, I never heard of collateral damage. Is that when your lien isn't filed properly?
Tyler, what's the source for that?
Bloomberg
IAEA hasn't updated their own news since yesterday.
money talks
Protip, bullet point list in all caps = Bloomberg.
I know. I was trying to find the 'source', not the repeater. But it doesn't matter. When it's substantiated, I'll know.
This goes from 'reactor melted out of the containment' to 'all is well, we got this' hour to hour.
They told us of radiation levels "10 million times normal.." and indicated massive amounts of Iodine 134 were the cause just a couple days ago.
That was very quickly "corrected" to a mere "100,000" times normal and "must have been some other isotope..." (without bothering to name it).
Something has been fissioning at least intermittently for days. Since so much of the extreme radiation seems to emanate from reactor 2, and reactor 2 is now rumoured to have dumped it's load into the drywell...I reckon we're forced to consider the possibility that there is a molten pile of core contents sitting there spitting out fission by products.
They run out to 'correct' the data, all the while saying 'So sorry, mistake, theres no problem here, please keep buying our food exports'. NAH theyre not lying or anything!
rock-a-bye-baby, on the treetop...
Good grief. So much song and dance when reality is staring us in the face.
I think lies and radioactivity are spewing at the same rate from in and around Fukushima. And both have loooong half lifes and tiney amounts can and will kill you.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/sex-unnatural-oxymoron-and-comment-streams-of-consciousness/
Screw the haters ORI, I totaly agree! I laugh at those who run to the lying spinners in govt and media for solace.
Fuk-u-shima seems most appropriate.
I shouldn't have, but I did lol.
....I now have 3 balls and have opened a pawn shop....all is well with me...
Do you have a guy in a chicken oufit w/sign "we buy gold and silver" or did he already die of some rare cancer?
William, never count your roentgens before they hatch -- it ain't over 'til it's over. This logo could end up enshrined in the pantheon of jumped shark logos, such as "Dow 10,000" baseball caps, the Pets.com sock puppet, and "Enron" tee-shirts.
THAT would be a great t-shirt, wb7!
This is the logo being displayed by users on FuckedGaijin.com, which menas Fucked Foreignors.com
Gaijin and proud of it, bitchez-san !
You can junk it, but the guys on that site are in Tokyo walking the walk.
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26341
I guess I am being (even more) sentimental today, but items like this (trivial though they may seem) remind me that there is more to life than a) eternal pessimism and b) pseudo-sentient robot algos and their demonic elitist overlords destroying our world one pixel a femtosecond...
+6...for WB7.
Someone check me on this. I'm happy to be corrected.
If the control rods are inserted, what is left is latent heat. The only way criticality could resume is if the fuel is now no-where near the control rods.
If the contents of the fuel rods are melted, there is no "control". Think about it for ten seconds -- several tons of molten goo are sitting at the bottom of the reactor, where do the heaviest metals like Pu239 and U235 go? That's right, they will fall to the bottom. What happens when you get enough PU or U together in one place at the same time?
It's not a Happy Meal.
Don't worry if the control rods weren't inserted at all. White collar workers never go to jail for criminal negligence.
Geometry and water is as important as the presence of the control rods. Without water and with rods melting into a new geometry the reactor is re-arranging itself. The only thing that can stop it is to be diluted with melt from the bottom of the containment i.e. concrete and steel.
You need a new hobby that doesn't involve typing. It's not very helpful to babble when you don't know anything.
Wonderful piece of advice, perhaps you should consider heeding...
by IQ 145
on Wed, 03/30/2011 - 12:02
#1117296
You need a new hobby that doesn't involve typing. It's not very helpful to babble when you don't know anything.
The control rods plus the fuel has a very specific geometry to prevent the criticality fission reactions (basically everything is very long skinny tubes/cylinders). The best analogy is a box of straws. Some of the straws have fuel. More are moderators.
During a reactor meltdown the fuel goes from a skinny rod surrounded by other moderating control rods to one lavalike / playdohlike lump of radioactive molten metal at the bottom of the reactor. Criticality starts up pretty quickly and then it proceeds to melt through the bottom of the reactor vessel.
The IAEA are universally regarded as asshats in the nuclear industry; they have no reason to be making remote controll guesses from Vienna; other than their political agenda; get some face time; etc. the usual crap. Nothing is going critical; we have temperature readings which are very moderate; alll the control rods are inserted as has been stated one-thousand nine hundred and thirty four times so far; starting on day one. Residual heat sources are decaying, temperatures are dropping, the excitement is over. With reference to trying to get people excited about the Iodine in the ocean; let's all try real hard to remember that radioactive iodine has a half life of 5 days; in a month it'll be all decayed; eg. no more radioactivity. The ocean is a great place for it to spend its last month; it's out of the way and it won't bother anybody.
Lewis?
edit: Forgot to say thanks for your info
@IQ145
OK minimal genius, how do you explain, two weeks after the "shutdown" and flooding, temperature readings in one reactor are still over 300C?
Nobody knows the real situation in those reactors. From what I've read it is far removed from normal or stable.
300 C is a very moderate temperature; the residual heat is from fission products that are decaying; this is a well understood subject; you can find out about it from Google. Notice this is not a temperature that weakens or melts any of the structural metals involved; including Zirconium. The Zirconium did react with high-temperature steam at one time; this is where the hydrogen came from. At the same time the Zirconium was "burned"; ie. badly damaged and weakened; some part of the core, inside the reactor vessel, "melted"; (drooped, slumped, whatever). This high temperature event was stopped by venting steam. "soon" after shutdown, there was enough residual heat, not from a fission chain reaction, to "light" this zirconium in dry steam reaction; since then the available heat has steadily decreased, as it must due to the on-going decay of the fission products. The very moderate temperatures now available are not in any way due to a fission chain reaction. It's important to remember that Three Mile Island was a partial core melt-down, it was also a public health non-event. It was a media event. These reactors here have realeased "some" radioactivity along with vented steam; Chernoble is usually creditted with releasing about 50millioin Curies in a high temperature plume that rose very high and fast into the atmosphere, due to the very hot fire, and "felll out" on surrounding countries; and to some extent, world wide. This is a very very small event compared to that. There will be no further melting; no criticality. It is not as hard to understand the condition of the reactor as you imagine.
It's the Cresium that is the problem not the iodone or the heavy particles. The damn Cesium disolves and has bonds similar to potassium (behaves like a salt) and a half life of 30 years.
I'm pretty sure the half-life of Iodine-131 is just over 8 days. Hopefully all of your vast, infallible "knowledge" does not have a built in 60% error rate.
With a high enough IQ there is no need to check your facts. ;-)
TPOG
Anytime I read a post that refers to their IQ or wealth, I immediatly assume it is an inverse relationship. eg 1/145 giggles... 0.0
I think it is just a typo - as in 045 ...
I used to get re-criticality after my fuel rods were spent, but the old reactor is getting on in years.
I'll guess that after numrous explosions and searing heat the configuration of the fuel rods is such that they can never be re-inserted. And TEPCO knew this some time ago.
Dr. P, it happens to the best of us once we´re in our 50s...
LOL
+1
Dealing with half-lives now? Maybe TEPCO needs to dump some Viagra on this puppy to get their rods straight, get proper insertion going, and their pumps flowing....
This will be great news for NFLX shareholders.
No worries, fake market going higher...gives us a P, give us an O, give us a N, give us a Z and give us an I, what does it spell :
PONZI, PONZI, PONZI.....
Cramer or Lies-man must be trolling the site today junking anyone who speaks the truth about the big PONZI...
Recritical where? SFPs? Reactor vessel? Which one?
Piles of fuel pellets + non borated water = critical
Exactly my concern. But there is nothing but the bloomberg bullets on it nor is there anything on the IAEA site. "Recriticality" implies a core, but it seems #4's SFP may be empty of water. It's status is "unmeasurable".
It may be empty, or they may not have gotten any borated water in it.
We could have an SFP turn into a fast reactor. There's plenty of fuel to do it.
must put on "junk me" T-shirt and say i appreciate the thinking, here, Z's. few days past, i came across a piece online saying no one ever expected the core and the store of "spent rods" to ever go ape-shit at the same time. who on earth coulda planned for such an event?
this is for nuclear reactors which seem much like a vehicle designed with the gas tank almost directly above the engine.
when GE was designing these little bull-shit fuking toys, 2 of the design team RESIGNED due to the dangers that stemmed from the fact that the "treatment of the spent fuel problem" was inherently unsafe under certain scenarios. i believe this was just about the time that GE stole all those freaking pensions from their people, too! strange that i would remember that while writing this...
Trav?.....what's your view on the fact that there's another plant with 4 more reactors located within 10 Kms of this shit-storm. Is the unexpected loss of 10 nuclear reactors a bullish sign for the Japanese economy?
I haven't heard any problems with fukushima dai 2
Smoke was rising from one of the turbines at Daiini briefly earlier.
... from an AC 'switchboard' at Daini (Fuku - II) ... coulda been a large rat exiting the board ... fried and toasted now ...
smoke was rising from a penn plant the other day.
and smoke was also seen rising from a cigarette I lit a few minutes ago. Not EVERY sighting of smoke is a full on nuclear meltdown.
I read about it. They said it was a peice of switchgear in the turbine building.
You should know better. Of course it's bullish. EVERYTHING is bullish. This includes falling markets, because "people" will just BTFD.
One question, if all of the pluming is gone or damaged how is it possible that reactors contain any water? Delivered by hoses?
Will the reactor blend ?
Who the fuck cares. BTFD and Rally On!
You're disgusting.
BTFD.
Yeah, asshole, this is a humanitarian crisis!
WTF!!!!
BTFD
I'm wallstreet doing gods work. Ridding the world of more useless eaters.
BTFD
More Critical = More to rebuild = More Bullish.
rally on....
Agreed! Game on.
Time to start making some serious money.
I just can't take the pressure anymore! It seems the world is crashing around us. I have to relax, maybe it's time to see the doc and get something to calm my nerves, maybe something to help the fear and depression. Today, I'll just take some Bayer to get by...
Crack cocaine is always an option.
Winning!
For us white trash folk, we just eat fluoride on crackers.
Dont worry, theyre already putting Lithium in the drinking water.
Take two xanax pills and a few jaeger bombs and call me in the morning.
That´ll do it.
IF you wake up.....
Do NOT take xanax with Jaeger.
Take it with Absolut.
And BTFD.
Absinthe. It was all the rage in the cafes a few years back. Of course it takes a man secure in his person to readily admit to favoring the green fairy.
Substitute absinthe for jaeger in a JaegerBomb .... that shit will BLOW your mind.
Green fairy juice is GOOD.
Of course, eventually you'll go nuts but then that might be a coping mechanism in today's world.
- 2 oz absinthe
- 2 oz Kiwi Flavored Italian Soda (Syrup)
- 1 Sugar Cube
- 3 ice cubes
- Splash lemon juice
- 4 oz tonic water
InstructionsMix absinthe and italian soda in a cup, stirr. Add sugar cube, lemon juice, then Ice, stirr until sugar is completely dissolved. Last add tonic water, enjoy!
VERY IMPORTANT: I gave it the name "nuclear reactor" because the tonic water reacts to the drink. Add it last, and make sure the glass is no more than 1/3 full. The tonic water reacts like a shaken soda, bubbling up until it is completely flat, but mixing the drink automatically, and giving you a cool visual effect.
I'd be more than happy to buy them a drink. Red wine would be more helpful though.
Before Absinthe was banned around 1912, you could drink your favorite brand from a green Uranium glass!
I guess putting the reactors on ebay won't happen for awhile.
would be a bad day if another tsunami hit, pushing all that radioactive seawater far inland!
Since this melodrama may be going on for months, who knows what mother nature might do. But the longer this remains out of control the more likely that mother nature will play a trick on us.
It's all over but the crying.
Owing to previous statements from these Nuclear experts, shouldn't "there might be" be read as "there already is"?
*Someone check me on this. I'm happy to be corrected.*
Also, the "spent" fuel rods can "re-criticalize" if nestled up next to each other, and not protected from the open environment?
Oy vey; if the mounting brackets/boxes that hold and separate the fuel rods are mounted in collapsed ... if the spacing distances have been violated ...
Scoreboard Update: Team Nature/Physics: 3 Puny Humans: 0
It's becoming clearer that the puny humans starter has lost his stuff. They have no relievers. Gonna be a long day at the ballpark.
On the contrary, the bull-pen seems to be in there pitching real hard.
CNBS will come out with someone who will tell you the 10 run rule is in effect so you should BTFD
Oh no, there goes Tokyo, GO, GO, Godzilla.
Since the lies don't seem to be working to calm the soon-to-be-glowing sheeple, we'll use jargon we make up on the spot. WTF does Re-Criticality mean anyway? A sustained nuclear reaction is achieved with a critical mass of radioactives depending on conditions--the fission reaction is self-sustaining. In other words, stuff heats up. Hasn't that been the problem all along (besides the radioactivity)?
Close, just think several orders of magnitude more heat.
Re-criticality is the same as "double dip" recession...it just means it never happened that everything is in recovery.
A guess. It is critical when it is normally operating and turning turbines. Then the rods are inserted that shut down the reaction. One criticality on and off. Now the situation is not under control and things are exposed and touching things that should not be exposed and touching. The reaction starts again. Re-criticality.
Larry Kudlow just said while people will be critically maimed by Fukushima, we can only hope and pray to Baby Jesus that Japan's NAND sector will not be.
Larry is worried about how this will affect the poor rich people. Boy he fights the good fight doesn't he?
Based on this we should be revising Japan's GDP upward shortly...excellent news.
Darn Keynsians......
If the control rods are inserted, what is left is latent heat. The only way criticality could resume is if the fuel is now no-where near the control rods.
I think the problem here is that at least part of the rods (and control rods) have melted into a pile of goo, but maybe the control rods could have burnt also? The more melting going on, the closer the mass of uranium clumps together. Criticality is when there is critical mass in a confined space causing an explosive chain reaction. *That* would be very bad.
I'm not sure how likely it would be though! Given that the blobs have not been deliberately engineered to form a critical mass.
I think you are confusing "criticality" and "supercriticality" The rods were designed for the first, ICBM warheads are designed for the second.
Yes you're right.. sorry. V unlikely to get the latter.
Is there such a thing as "double-dog supercriticality"?
No and there is no such thing as supercriticality either. The differenc between a weapon and a reactor is primarilly the fuel composition and the initiaton / retardation devices. In short the rectors can't 'explode" like a weapon as the fuel mix is all wrong but they can sure as hell sit there and smolder (if slowly reacting at 3000 C is smoldering) for a long time.
Paul, I'm sorry but I don't think you actually completely understand what you are talking about. Please define "Supercritical mass" for the class. I am absolutely positive these reactors have already done a number of things that a bunch of really bright engineers said they "can't" possibly do. BTW, wasn't me who junked you.
He probably means critical vs prompt critical.
Dogspeed criticality!
"not sure how likely it would be "
we haven't been getting many lucky bounces lately.
Looks like the only way out now is continued waterboarding and get some answers out of those damned reactors.
Now how come no enterprising fellow has got the T-shirt franchise on that yet?
WilliamBanzai7?
Shit.
Does "Re-Criticality" mean the same thing as "Post-Pre-Criticality X2"? If so, is this the same as "Post-Pre-Post-Pre-Criticality"?
Or, is this just a simple case of "Un-De-Criticalization" as I suspect it might?
Thanks.
by george! i think you've got it!
i was against re-criticality before i was for it, just as i was against "moving the scale of amount of radiation harmful to humans" before i was for it.
call me a flip-flopper if you will, but one must always adjust to the "new normal" if one is to be an effective leader of sheep!!!
couldn't find the re-criticality article on Bloomy (may be on deep, remote, back page), but they did have this
The plant “continues to further stabilize,” Bill Borchardt, the executive director for operations at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said during a briefing for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in Washington.
An interesting physics/chemistry problem and possible experiment. I suspect no one has the 'nads to try it though. One correction, the presence of a "critical mass" doesn't necessarily mean there will be a nuclear explosion. Explosions require careful design and engineering. French scientists built a gizmo to study overheated fuel rods, but AFAIK nobody has ever tried to simulate what might be sitting at the bottom of those steel vessels in Fukushima. They are flying blind.
It could mean lethal blasts of Gamma and a meltdown through the floor tho.
let me speak some truth here. every reactor in japan and america could blow up and would not keep the dow from powering up. we have supernatural powers working our financial markets. if you're not long... you're wrong.
Correct you are.
If loving the Ponzi Dow long is right, lord let me be wrong and accept me as I am (w/ all my faults and PM's).
BTW - anybody notice we are now in about the 3rd innings of Wiemar German style hyperinflation??? This is the good part...enjoy.