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Japan Prepares To "Bury The Problem" Following News Of Uncontrolled Reactor 1 Chain Reactions
And once again our prediction about Fukushima (namely the inevitable entombment of the entire facility in thousands of tons of concrete) is about to be realized. Bloomberg reports that Japan will consider pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant to reduce radiation and contain the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The reason for the admission of total defeat is the gradual comprehension that the worst case scenario has come to pass: "The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna." Not one to cover up the worst case outcome for a week, TEPCO only did so... for five days: "Radioactive chlorine found March 25 in the Unit 1 turbine building suggests chain reactions continued after the reactor shut down, physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, wrote in a March 28 paper." It's good thought" Radioactive chlorine has a half-life of 37 minutes, according to the report." It appears Japan is willing to give up, and write off a several hundred square kilometer area, as nobody in their right mind will ever agree to move in next to a territory that, contrary to lies, er, promises, will not seep radioactivity in the soil and in the water. This is an unprecedented admission of defeat by the Japanese which unfortunately may be the only solution, which will certainly have major implications for the Japanese economy.
The now much expected spin on this last ditch effort:
Tokyo Electric mixed boron, an element that absorbs neutrons and hinders nuclear fission, with emergency cooling water to prevent accidental chain reactions, Kathryn Higley, head of nuclear engineering and radiation health physics at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said in an e-mail.
Dismantling the plant and decontaminating the site may take 30 years and cost Tokyo Electric more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said. The government hasn’t ruled out pouring concrete over the whole facility as one way to shut it down, Edano said at a press conference.
Dumping concrete on the plant would serve a second purpose: it would trap contaminated water, said Tony Roulstone, an atomic engineer who directs the University of Cambridge’s masters program in nuclear energy.
How anyone could think the outcome would be anything but following a brief look at the latest overflight of Fukushima is beyond us.
As for what happens after a concrete tomb, which increases the surrounding pressure by orders of magnitude, is put over what now appears is still a live fision reaction, well, we won't make any predictions. Suffice to say if historical precedent of how TEPCO has handled this situation to date is any indication, expect the sarcophagus to crack, and a 100 km "No Live Zone" radius to be extended around Fukushima in perpetuity.
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As has been posted here recently, #3 will have 5 MW of energy a year from now ...
Unless there is some mechanism to stabilize & cool off #3, entombing is not feasible.
While you are entombing it, it heats up immediately, and heads for the water table. The lava is driven by gravity.
"I said two weeks ago that reactor 2's parameters showed that it had melted down and was holed at it's base - something that TEPCO have only recently got around to admitting."
Yes - you were among the first to make this call ... spot ON !
I can make a little guess- it stopped when the crap melted down out of the graphite moderator. Graphite was burning; that shit ain't gonna melt. 3500K or something?
Once they poured in lead and sand, that probably had the side effect of assisting in mobilizing the core as a viscous liquid. Once it got away from moderation, the chain reaction stops.
RBMK fuel was U238; it doesn't "go critical" like the fissile isotopes except when hit with monster neutrons like from a fusion reaction.
How's that bonus cheque looking?
All that knowledge used for distraction.
Sociopath is as sociopath does.
I actually found his comment informative and useful. Trav has pissed me off as much as others in the past, but he's gotten better since then and is just posting info. Give him a break.
I'd say the same to Tmosley, but that's a blood feud that'll never end. :)
I did not say that knowledge was not useful.
I said trav7777 is a Sociopath.
I'm sticking with that.
And? So?
And? So? What?
Fucking Trav has another fan.
I have a couple of comments in 2 days that got junked off...Chumba posts "nigger" repeatedly and can't get an audience. Too jaded...
I am like the pied fuckin piper with these stalkers eh? It's like paparazzi n'shit
I find it humorous.
.
Duh; Winning.
I'm a "fan" of anyone who can help me better understand what's going on in Fukushima and what the consequences will be. I'm a fan of truth, no matter the source.
I honestly, truly think that trav's gotten a bad rap here, but if you look at my earlier post history, I've spoken against him being a jerk many times.
But can we please stop with this psyop nonsense? As I said before, yes, there are probably such people here, but our ability to filter them out is little to nonexistent. Instead, it's making many people act like a bunch of paranoid nutjobs about any comment that doesn't fit in with their viewpoint, which is exactly why we all hate the MSM. Calling someone a "psyop" infiltrator is the ultimate ad hominem attack: an insult meant to end rational debate.
So stop it already.
A fan of truth? For a fan of truth, you grant face value depending on the poster apparently.
The poster you refered to is not at his first move at disinformation on the topic.
I've read Zero Hedge for over a year now and have seen many, many comments from Trav. Since Fukushima hit, I have not seen him state anything inaccurate about the tragedy. Ever. He hasn't lied, he hasn't said that it was "no big deal" as some claim, and so on. He did bust a testicle numerous times and get wildly worked up, but nothing he has ever said, from what I've seen, has in any way minimized the scope of the events.
I don't grant Trav any credit for any reason other than I've seen him post accurate information consistently. Again, this "psyops shill" nonsense really ought to stop. It does no one any good. Even assuming he is one of these people (which is hard to believe, given he's been here since before I was), it makes no difference on the truth or falsehood of his arguments.
By insinuating or explicitly stating that he has nefarious intentions, you are avoiding a discussion of the issues altogether. That, more than anything, is an act of psychological manipulation. A rational, unbiased person will assess what someone says based on its intrinsic value, and not upon who said it. The fact that numerous people junk Trav, no matter what he says, shows that many aren't taking that approach.
It's wholly right and proper to aim for calm rationality in contentious discussions, even if we all fall short sometimes. My problem with Trav in the past was that he wasn't doing that, but rather was getting a rise out of people and berating them. My problem with you is the same; you are attempting to discredit him by calling him names.
So if he's wrong, correct him. If not, then don't be a dick about it. Whether he's a corporate shill has no bearing on it.
I am Chumbawumba. :) Not really. But I bet he agrees.
I agree as well.
Dont forget to sign it Trav's Mom....jk.
He questions presumptions, when presented with facts, he will acknowledge. Otherwise, he is no more a dick than anyone else.
Discussion about what? Attempt at manipulation? Really? Assessing people's on their speech?
Your request is nice but a waste of time, digging for posts to sustain an argumentation. Nothing to gain by doing that. No incentive at all.
Just an observation though: you said you've been reading the guy for one year now. And you stated this:
[quote]
was getting a rise out of people and berating them.
[/quote]
Is it a new behaviour or has he displayed before the nuclear plant event?
How many times has he gone under a spell of junking before this event?
It appears that people started to act irrationally all of a sudden in your narrative, unconnected to the fact this poster flipflopped on this topic, which triggered a spell of junks that did not happen before.
Sociopath?....perhaps
PsyOps Dis-Jockey?........absofuckinglutly!
you have absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever; and your attacks on another poster merely indicate childish emotionalism, or simple idiocy.
Hey Trav777, watch this video and ask yourself how many of these people where told everything is just fine?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LA_PnAQONo&NR=1&feature=fvwp
"RBMK fuel was U238; it doesn't "go critical" like the fissile isotopes except when hit with monster neutrons like from a fusion reaction."
So, does that imply that this means the Fukushima reactors have a more dangerous fuel as it is easier to self-sustain (slower neutrons emitted?) ? This is what worries me about this situation, as the fuel rods can melt, and it is highly uncertain how they will behave. The Chernobyl reactor split open, thereby allowing them to dump sand and lead directly into the mess. What I understood was that most of the boric acid and most of the lead was vaporized, owing to the heat. In Japan, they don't have this option.
The idea of encasing molten radioactive fuel and thousands of tons of radioactive water in concrete seems crazy - concrete does not stay impermeable forever. But the guys on the ground know far more than I do, I just worry they are telling the public things because they need to show they have a plan, whereas in reality, they are barely even able to keep it stable, let alone get control.
The chain reaction in Chernobyl was killed when all the boron and sand mixed with the uranium slag to create a glass-like substance that flowed several floors underneath the reactor. As the uranium lava/slag was diluted with the sand and boron it became a hot glass that eventually cooled two levels/floors below the reactor vessel. Essentially, all the sand had the effect of spreading the uranium concentration out and thus reducing the level of chain reactions created by the uranium. It finally cooled in one room in a shape they came to call "the elephants foot". They actually drilled a hole into this room and took pictures and I have seen them and it does look like an big elephants foot.
"This was not a boating accident"
Correct. There's an excellent documentary on youtube called "Inside Chernobyl's Sarcophagus" showing Soviet Nuclear Physicists going... into the sarcophagus. Without a lot of safety gear, it must be added, with them knowing full well what the risks were.
The main theme is: what happened to all the fuel? A large amount of it was unaccounted for. Was it in danger of going critical again? As part of their investigations, they drilled into the reactor itself and were flabbergasted to discover it was almost completely empty. They eventually worked out what happened. When the reactor exploded, it blew its huge lid straight up, which then fell back down onto the reactor vessel, pushing it a several meters downward through its base. Sand that was in surrounding walls flowed down, along with the molten fuel and graphite from the reactor itself, and melted, forming a kind of vitreous, radioactive lava that flowed through various nooks and crannies downwards into the various basement rooms, where it set. It's intensely hot, literally and radioactively, but seems stable.
It's an excellent film.
And for something almost as alarming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwRt74nzRmY&feature=related
One could say, perhaps with little risk of debate, is that the events at my grandchilds birthday party do not correspond in any meaningful way to the events at the Fuku. reactors. Amazingly it is very difficult for ignorant civilians to grasp that the events at Chernobyl, whatever they may have been, do not correspond in any way to the events in Fuku. Get a grip, people. The media, including zero hedge, make money by garnering page clicks; there's nothing exciting going on here, sorry about that.
Really? You think that is the point of all of this? I would consider that more a perfect by-product. Perhaps an anathema to many, that profit is often not the primary motive power--saying something like that only ensures that a gullible, casual observer might doubt the earnestness of ZH. I never have.
IQ -45 is just a troll, and not an even remotely interesting one at that.
He's a perfect candidate for an ignore button...
@IQ 145--
I pretty much NEVER 'junk'..
You I junked...
Whoa, after watching that Chernobyl Sarcophagus series you really realize what a bunch of real badass men those Russians are and what a bunch of pansy fuckups the Japanese are. Shame on them for letting this go on as long as it has.
The terrifying thing is they still don't know exactly why the chain reaction stopped at Chernobyl.
Actually they do. Blast blew bottom out of the reactor, molten core mixed with sand radiation barrier around reactor resulting in lava-like mixture which flowed into tunnels and rooms below the reactor diluting and dispersing it below criticality.
When they eventually bored an inspection hole in the side of the reactor and ran a camera in they were shocked to find the reactor virtually empty. That's when they started looking in areas below the reactor and found their missing fuel in solidified lava form, most notably the 200 ton "elephant's foot" formation at about 10,000 rems as I recall, lethal if they got near it. It had melted several feet into the concrete before cooling enough to solidify.
drill baby drill.... if we dont do it the russions and venezualans will destroy the planet with their greedy little energy sucking mouths!
.
the US england and japan proved it
.
THE RACE IS ON BITCHEZ
bullish...markets already counting armageddon in
buy calls on everything
Rail line from Tokyo to Sendai seems to have a problem that entombing the reactors won't solve. Most of the line is scheduled to be back in service by the end of April... except for the part that passes by the reactors. Engineers can't even get in to survey the damage due to... radiation.
They're going to have to lay in some huge detours around the contaminated zone.
Nope. Just a 20 mile lead lined tunnel through the contaminated area. It will be a modern day version of space mountain.
Or maybe upgrade to the bullet train. They go so fast that frankly speaking how bad can it really be when you're only there a few minutes? Like Charlie Munger says, just suck it up and hold your breath. Zoom zoom zoom and we're through.
you need a hobby that doesn't involve typing; you have absolutely no idea what reality looks like.
Concur.
Junk away CD groupies.
Do you have a link for that?
It would rather prove that the Japanese Government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth.
But Trav7777 said everything was under control and you are only a bunch of scaremongers!
Trav7777 holds a nobel prize in physics from the trailertrash academy of wrestling, sure he knows more than any and all of you combined!
Wait til he gets back here from carrying Obama's golfsticks, and he'll bring reason and sanity back to ZH.
Naw, he's in Chile with that old fuck Rockefeller, polishing his club no doubt.
He's watching the University of Phoenix Online game...he should pop in during halftime to straighten us all out....
It's douchebaggery like this that causes threads to blow up to 700 comments. No, I never said shit was under control, moron. I just told you morons to STOP PANICKING over everything.
No. You did not.
You called everybody an idiot.
Now you're saying
"I just told you morons to STOP PANICKING over everything."
As I have previously pointed out to you there were some excitable reactions.
But the vast majority of comments were concerened with the lack of control by TEPCO and the Japanese Government.
You choose to interpret them as inferior to your knowledge.
Sociopath does as sociopath is.
I wish this site had am "agree" button... I was thinking he's a complete and utter sociopath too! A well paid one, no doubt. Lurking for so long allowed me to get a good read on the people I chose to pay attention to.
If by sociopath you mean asshole, then I agree too.
If not though, he's a bought and paid for disinformation agent without any shame or self-respect. End of.
By Sociopath I mean one entirely lacking in empathy for fellow humans.
Don't let them near you cat.
trav7777 has the same personality as the bankers of Wall Street and London.
The only thing they "get" is Self.
trav7777 would have you convinced that if "only" 1,000 people had their skin burnt off by radiation it's not a bad thing.
After all there's 7,000,000,000 humans left.
That's what I mean by Sociopath.
"a bought and paid for disinformation agent without any shame or self-respect"
Yes I believe he is that also.
Cass Sunstein wasn't joking when he said.
"The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be." They go on to propose that, "the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups"
Oh. And one more thing.
Cass Sunstein is a Sociopath.
You need to tend to your woody.
Oh, yes. A well paid sociopath. Boy, it's a lucky thing you will never have the opportunity to decide anything that will make any difference to anybody. "The people you choose to pay attention to"--- female logic; It feels good so I re-inforce it with more propaganda. you are the problem.
Actually, how old are you? Go to bed. It's late. Yessssss, I know timezones an shit. But seriously, your intelligence has apparently made you stupid.
Go to bed now.
Trav's primary mistake was to think that the initial situation could/would be handled fairly easily, by dumping in Borax or flowing a river through the reactor. This was clearly off base, and anyone who thought about it would realize that such a task would be impossible so soon after the tsunami.
I myself grabbed onto the meme that he was preaching that "all was well", as anyone who read the last few of these threads noted. But then I went back and read a bunch of his posts, and found that that was not the case. The main problem was him trying to play "papa bear" and try to keep everyone from "panicking" (how one panics on a message board, I still don't understand--like any of us are digging nuclear bunkers because of this) by berating anyone who disagreed with him, or who posted something he didn't like, whether they got their numbers wrong or whatever. This polarized the entire community.
Looking objectively at his posts, they have actually proven well informed and accurate in all but his extreme and continuing overestimation of the Japanese government and TEPCO's transparency/competence. Perhaps that in and of itself is an unforgivable sin.
"Looking objectively at his posts, they have actually proven well informed and accuratein all but his extreme and continuing overestimation of the Japanese government and TEPCO's transparency/competence."
Is that not the entire point of trav7777.
Internet damage limitation as effective as TEPCO's disaster management.
Hence the possibility of said sin being unforgivable.
As it is, the only thing we can really trust is the CYA instinct native to the bureaucrats at TEPCO and in their government and ours. We can probably rely on their incompetence as well, but that isn't an absolute.
I knew you would come around.
but a slight quibble...I didn't call people idiots who had numbers wrong, I just asked for some evidence to support claims.
After people started strawmanning or committing other fallacies, along with calling me a shill or stupid, THEN I called them idiots. I mean look upthread- I am being called a sociopath AND a psyop. I'm supposedly getting paid by TEPCO to astroturf here. Nevermind that I have been vocal here long before this accident. Somehow I am on TEPCO's payroll. Well, listen, I hope people grasp that I can be a HELL of a lot more persuasive and astroturfy than this, sheeit.
I also didn't overestimate TEPCO I don't think; I just recognize that this is a big deal disaster and everyone's expectation that it can even possibly be solved quickly is foolish.
There IS NO QUICK FIX. Even if we, as some call for, get "all the Ph.D.s in a room to 'come up with something'". This is a very good illustration as to why I am frustrated with your position on the oil peak- you make the same expectation of the Potent Directors as people here. Sometimes shit happens and it can't just be put back together quickly.
Chernobyl is not a good case study on rapid action either...listen to Gorby talk about how the central politburo knew jackshit and how they DID send top physicists and even they had nothing to say. Days went by and people failed to act.
This may shock everybody but you CAN'T put faith in human beings, because human beings are unreliable things. I have been increasingly disconcerted with TEPCO, Japan, and the US simply because there has been so little real data.
Me and the other types with the knowledge could have put 2 & 2 together and given a fair recitation of the severity based upon the circumstantial presence of Cl26 in wastewater, Zr95 in turbine buildings, stray neutrons, Cs137 downwind, etc.
I had hoped that facts would come out, but they have been divulged piecemeal, either by intent or just because nobody has them. Then when we do get them it is 10Mx retracted to 100k times, Pu in the soil but no more Pu than is otherwise there...etc.
In the absence of evidence I remain agnostic; I simply cannot leap to a conclusion.
But...when I saw 1ATM or negative pressure in a reactor vessel, I SAID this is evidence of primary containment breach. Not dispositive, but evidence. When I see short-lived Chlorine isotopes in outflow water, not just I, but others can say wtf, these are fission byproducts. Zirconium in this water can only come from one place.
Would I be downwind of this plant? Hell no.
From the start I was almost positive this would take a gargantuan effort to even try to contain. I've been waiting for the 'experts' to present their outline ideas of WTF to do. That way a dialouge could be started as to pitfalls and workability of this design and it can be modified to the most effective method. Brain storming (without ego) so a consensus can be reached on how to act and the probabilites of success estimated.
The outline and modifications of this design should be made public as there may be people outside this circle of people that would have ideas on things overlooked and/or projected incorrectly.
I haven't understood why they haven't been building a second larger containment facility around the whole site since the first week. It's what's happened at Chernobyl. It seems clear that it would be called for.
Nothing is clear when you're in denial. The Japanese "authorities" are/were too busy practicing corporate denial to actually start planning for worse case scenarios. That's been pretty clear to everyone on the outside other than the apologists?
I mean when we were told about Operation Extension Cord (thank you Tyler, that phrase will live for the ages) who here other than the apologists thought TEPCO and the Japanese Govt were dealing with reality. I saw smoking hulks. Exactly what were they going to power up?
Dumping salt water from helicopters was the Hail Mary pass. Now they are just going through the motions of preparing the Japanese (and world's) people emotionally for what was known by the US Navy/government almost two weeks ago.
dude...they COULDN'T build a concrete sarcophagus from day one; the area remains too radioactively hot and physically hot for concrete to work at this juncture.
Stop acting like there is a two-minute fix for everything; life is not instant coffee and when you don't get your immediate fix, it is not a sign of vast sinister conspiracy.
Their first priority is to cool the reactors; the helo drop was the first attempt to get any water in there. Without data, we don't know how critical that operation was at that time- it may have been absolutely essential. Then they started with targeted water.
Once the physical heat has diminished, THEN they can think about a permanent seal. Chernobyl melted into the floor, likely a solution of fuel elements in lead and possibly sand too. It flowed because they liquified it (perhaps inadvertantly).
Once they can properly borate whatever fuel remains, they can fix the thing in concrete or whatever and the radiation hazard going forward will be contained. After that, a proper cleanup of the area and surrounding contamination will proceed.
It is going to take time and it does nobody any good to stamp their feet like a petulant child.
Who is calling who petulant?
Why do you hate humanity?
Trav7777 has no empathy for anyone. Sadly not even for himself. Think of it as betrayal of the most hideous kind.
it's just people like you I hate. Because you are worthless.
"Because you are worthless."
Posit, a childhood wound that is suppressed to the furthest corner of your mind. Shame has driven you to fill that hole.
You say more about how you feel about yourself, in your projections, than any assessment of my value.
and not the least of which is because I WASN'T REPLYING TO YOU.
The rest of this internet psychobabble is just...ludicrous.
Hi Trav7777
wzup nigga
Funny, you berated me the other day for saying that the area around the reactors was too hot (radioactive) for workers to proceed with entombment.
And CYA is not the same as a conspiracy. CYA is always, in any bureaucratic system.
I did?? Really? If I did, I would certainly apologize for saying such a thing as it would have clearly been untrue. Do you have a link bc I can't imagine having claimed that the reactor was not too hot to approach. Now, if you said "rods all over the parking lot" were why the plant complex was too hot, then yeah I would have jumped all over that one.
I have been pretty consistently calling BS on the notion that Chernobyl was "solved" by entombment. To even GET to CH4 entombment, they had to mobilize the core, melt it down into lava, flow it out of the moderator, send liquidators up onto the roof to shovel core components off into the pit while receiving a full sievert if not more in about 45 seconds, and only then could they think about the construction project. All those things had to happen as conditions precedent to sarcophagus construction. It wasn't like they "tried" other solutions like lead bar drops and then "tried" a sarcophagus and went "presto! that solved it."
As the other guy said upthread, there is no tomb until they deal with the SFPs. As I said from like day 3 of this, those remain the primary risk.
I actually expect that most stray criticalities, Cs137 downrange, and all the rest of the neutron beams and shit came from these.
Criticality inside a reactor vessel isn't threatening bc that's what reactor vessels are supposed to be doing. Criticality in a SFP kills people.
What if the 'larger containment' is not a sarcophagus? What if it's just a big frame building to capture the airflow and filter it? Hell you could just jettison the contaminated filters right back into it in a nice pile...get it? Pile? Anyway, the goddamn cesium has to get intercepted or there's not much fucking point in doing anything.
And by the way, why the fuck did they name it cesium? It shows no sign of ceasing any time soon...at Chernobyl it just kept coming, overwhelming all other radioisotopes...here too.
Planning a little cesium contamination analysis myself, but the good folk at ZAMG (Austria) who have about the only decent source estimate appear to have transposed their iodine and cesium emission discussions. I let them know and they wrote me back for the details, so hopefully they'll correct that in the next English update. That'll spare a couple orders of magnitude in confusion about those estimates.
Keep on burnin' em
Maybe because it causes Caezures...
If this is what is blowing downwind, everything is well and truly fucked. This has to elevate to Level 7 and if the other numbers are Bq from Cs, Level 8.
Wish I had data to know either way.
You have done your job very well Trav.....very well indeed. You could have used your significant nuclear knowledge as early support for the extreme common sense position of many Hedgers - that the explosions that we all witnessed were violent enough to permanently fuck any and all cooling systems contained within those blown-out walls, and that melt-down was inevitable. Instead you chose to use nuclear techno-speak as a means to call common sense arguments into question, support the "official" bullshit that was being spouted by the Japanese gov, and divide the ZH community by attacking those that dared disagree with your now discredited opinion that "all is well".
I truly hope that no English speaking Japanese found comfort in your treachery, and stayed too long in any of the affected areas.
It's humility time Trav! Either eat the crow-pie that you so rightly deserve, or shut your Dis-Jockey spinning pie-hole!!!
T.E.I.N. everyone!
"I truly hope that no English speaking Japanese found comfort in your treachery, and stayed too long in any of the affected areas."
Pretty much the point there.
trav7777 really doesn't care whether "humans" live or die.
He is a Sociopath.
... by attacking those that dared disagree with your now discredited opinion that "all is well".
Please provide a link to where Trav said all is well. I've been reading since Day 1 and I don't recall him ever saying that all was well. He said the opposite about the destroyed power plants. Saying settle down, the sky is not falling is not the same as saying all is well. Saying that Tokyo is OK is not the same as saying all is well everywhere.
Now I'm going to do Trav-lite: stop being stupid.
You are arguing semantics idiot! Perhaps I shouldn't have used quotation marks....but "all is well" was the central theme of his arguments. So let's use your languange: "The sky is not falling"....if this was his argument, he was dead wrong and should apologize.....the sky is certainly falling in a very large part of Japan, and we simply don't know yet how devasting it will be to their population; their economy; and the world economy! To try to be reassuring and comforting about an unprecedented disaster of this magnitude that has yet to play itself out in Japan and around the world, is either hubrous laced idiocy....or strategic in nature!
Why don't you let Trav defend himself next time douchebag.....or is that in your job description?
T.E.I.N. everyone!
my first junk ever.
We know that the Fukushima 50 isn't going to pull it off, not now, not ever. They won't be around for the "entombment", much like the initial site responders at Chernobyl. Since the Japanese Govt isn't going to order thousands of people on site like the Russians did (at 100 rubles a pop for the miners - or retirement and pension after 4.5 years of Pripyat liquidation for the nuke workers), do they even have the massive "volunteers" for Chernobyl x4?
Surely the Japan Securities Clearing Corporation could help locate the owners of record as of 14:40 JST 11 March 2011. =)
No. Wrong. The seawater injection operation had been going on from as early as 2-days after the quake.
The helicopter lifts were a failed and aborted attempt to get water into SFP ponds - clearly hopelessly ineffective.
But yes, they then started to 'target' with fire appliances, which resulted in them spraying the west SIDE of No.3, rather than the top of it, and thsi was another tokenistic almost complete failure, to get bulk water in the No.3 SFP.
The thing that seems to have made some difference was using a concrete pumping rig to get water to the roof level of No.4.
It is still not clear they got water into No.3 in this same way.
A video image of the reactor refuelling service trench in the SPF of No.3, taken on the March 27th, suggests they have failed so far to re-fill No.3. It was visibly low on water.
And then there's No.2's spent fuel pool ... inaccessible ... and no one knows how hot it is and how deep it is, or how to get water in it.
Frankly, it is far too early to even think of droping concrete on this thing, they need to get the radiation down, via irrigating the reactor cores, and spraying immobilizer on the dust and debris, and then send people onto those roofs, to lift ALL of that hot fuel out of ALL the SFP pools.
Even if they need to use scuba divers and helicopters to do it.
They MUST do this - that fuel can NOT be left there.
They need to get going on that at 5 and 6 right now.
Get your head around that.
Well said. Quite right. But anyone who goes on the roof of #2 is a dead man. Probably not safe for aircraft to hover over it. My solution is to blow the roof off, then airdrop boron, shredded tin, water. Lots of it.
Nah, the SFP just needs to be full of water, and cool enough to get divers in there (but yes, they will need to get the roof out of the way, with a shaped charges, to get the roof panels off).
The reactor of No.2 is the problem re radiation dosage, not the SFP. Spraying epoxy over the roof will immobilize the dust.
And yes, there's a good chance people are going to kark in the following weeks or months.
They need a helicopter-mobile water sheath apparatus, so they can pull the spent fuel rods out of the SFP (with a crane, lifted up to the roof, via chopper), so the choppers can then carry the water-filled sheaths with a fuel rod rack in them, to another storage pool facility.
Rinse and repeat.
Thus when all the spent fuel rods are out, and off-site, THEN, and only then, do you deal with the porked reactors and entomb the fuel in them.
Leaving the fuel rods on top of those reactors is NOT viable for long-term immobilization and containment - they MUST be removed first. But even if they can get them out of No.2 SFP, No.3 and No.4 will be a nightmare.
Lots of people are going to die from doing this, an enormous number more will die if they don't.
Important and timely. Thanks.
The logistics are astronomical. I can't get my head around it.
I've been saying this from day one everywhere I go. The Japanese have simply not come to grips with the fact that they are GOING to be sending thousands of young men to their deaths to clean this mess up - Russian style. There is no choice in the matter. Until they do come to grips with this fact then they are continuuing to put their country and the surrounding world in jeopardy for their inaction. I have lost a lot of respect for the Japanese due to the way that they have handled this tragedy. It is almost epic on the FAIL scale. The Russians took immediate action and got the job done. The Japanese - not even close. It's shameful in fact.
Trav7777 never commented on any of your posts. Most appeared to be within reasonable bounds, such as this one . A few over the edge but I'm sure some of mine have been the same. I don't consider my sole rationale in life as being here to please anyone in particular--hey take it or leave it. That why it's called opinion. Say what the f--k you want--good for the soul and cleans out the spleen. Milestones
He's not a "dude". He';s a pussy philosophy major who likes to kiss the bosses ass. Give up. The idiots will have to find something else to winge on about in a month when it becomes clear that the Fuku. reactors will fulfill their dream of destroying civilization.
He's not a "dude". He';s a pussy philosophy major who likes to kiss the bosses ass. Give up. The idiots will have to find something else to winge on about in a month when it becomes clear that the Fuku. reactors will fulfill their dream of destroying civilization.
He's not a "dude". He';s a pussy philosophy major who likes to kiss the bosses ass. Give up. The idiots will have to find something else to winge on about in a month when it becomes clear that the Fuku. reactors will fulfill their dream of destroying civilization.
He's not a "dude". He';s a pussy philosophy major who likes to kiss the bosses ass. Give up. The idiots will have to find something else to winge on about in a month when it becomes clear that the Fuku. reactors will fulfill their dream of destroying civilization.
No offense, brother. But can't someone with an IQ of 145 figure out why they are doing double posts the first time they do it?
I hope this means you stroked out while typing this dazzylingly witty reply.
I think he was stroking his other head....
I think he (Trav) just may be dyslexic. His response to CD's post was just so off base that I think he didn't understand it or didn't read it properly.
If a threat to mankind is ignored by the worlds elite, what does that suggest? We've been using DU since 1991.
This is just like watching the levy break in New Orleans and waiting three days for some one to plug the goddam hole......
I was admonished not to use the possessive pronoun.
but you are right, the US military has sprayed DU all over several countries and it is used not solely for its density but because Uranium has some interesting self-sharpening and pyrophoric properties. That last attribute is sciencespeak for saying the shit aerosols and burns like a mfer. Useful for an anti-tank round because it will cut a hole in and then spray inside and burn to all hell at a high temperature. The side effect is when the target combusts all that Uranium goes airborne. DU has similar biouptake and toxicity characteristics to Plutonium. Another nice alpha emitter.
Yes, but hardly comparable to plutonium (which is what might be concluded from your comment). You don't have masses of people working at uranium mines (where uranium oxide is literally on effing everything), dropping dead of cancer.
Plutonium is not remotely comparable to U238 in hazard terms. I'm sure you know that, but you should make that clearer, ... if you don't want people to panic ... over nothing significant.
Re uranium mining - you don't exactly send miners down pits with shovels to dig it out....
well you did before there were significant miner safety efforts. Coal miners don't fare well either. Hasn't been anyone dropping dead from Pu inhalation either, though there is relatively little data.
U miner cancer rates are like 5x baseline even today. On a gram for gram basis, Pu pumps more Bq due to its shorter half-life but the sheer quantities of DU shot over the years overwhelms this.
entombment won't work until the cores are shut down. Chernyoble had blown apart and was shut down. If these units are still critical (and these are unanalyzed core configurations, nor can they be analyzed in detail) see e.g.:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/iaea-says-there-might-be-re-criticality...
then entombment is not yet an option. Need to insert lotsa' poison to shut the puppies down for good. That will mean some additional containment around each core. Will require forced cooling to assist in getting to shutdown.
Major issue right now, (guessing) is vessel fracture with too much cooling water applied. Vessel == thick wall.
- Ned
Chernyoble had blown apart and was shut down.
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Remember the video on Chernobyl where they found that 'plastic' flow of the radioactive 'lava' downward through the building a few years later? That was a trek designed to determine if criticality was going to be a problem with the fuel that remained ...
ya-launch into "unanalyzed core configuration" and here we go. :-(
I'm worried about entombment and following that, leak into basalt (?--my geo really sucks) and into the ocean. Primary point is that a) pooled metal likely, b) makes shutdown of this "reactor" difficult, with c) decay/primary heat keeps metals in liquid state. That will get closer to "China Syndrome" than anyone would wish.
more research. Into ACRS Class 9 accidents.
- Ned
If the fuel pyle isn't fully sequestered and encased, you are risking leakage inot the ground, the frech water table and the sea.
Don't let them just dump concrete on it! AAARRRRRGGHHHHFUK!
cha'
dp-dang
Futures damn near went red. Phew, that was close. Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled ass raping.
Phewwww - am I glad that's solved!
Just in time for tonights episode of American Idol...
Free chemotherapy
A cancer such as yourself shouldn't give us any ideas.
oes anyone have an idea of how long entombment will take? Let's say they started today; when would it be completed? In the "Battle of Chernobyl" docu, they were still shoveling radioactive waste off the roof in September, 5 1/2 months after the accident.
It would also be great if someone (maybe Aristarchan or Trav, anyone with expertise) could make a rough model of expected contamination levels. I know it would be almost entirely speculative, but it's better than nothing and would give us an idea of the scope of the disaster. I'd do it myself, but I'm woefully ignorant when it comes to this stuff.
We have data estimates of fallout patterns, we know the basics of wind patterns in Japan, and we know this will go on for months. So with all that, shouldn't we be able to say, roughly, that at least this or that area will be too contaminated with Cesium (etc.) to be inhabited? I, and I'm sure many, many others, would very much like to know what the actual "no-go zone" will be after all this, as I've heard speculation ranging from a 20km area around the plant all the way to 200km.
Please, if anyone can help do this, I'd give you a high five.
That is a tough order, since there is a lack of reliable data, and many unknowns about what might happen - including what they decide to do with the things. If they keep on fighting them and can provide enough water to keep the rods in the reactors cool (aprox. 2000 GPM), and do not get any mass fission events (meaning proximity fissioning of rods melted in the vessels or penetrating the vessels), the radiation output might go down. But, it will take a long time to get those reactors in a situation where the physics packages can be removed. Of course, at any time a loss of control could highly elevate radiation/contamination levels.
And, they may opt to entomb one of them, and not the others at a given time. I think with the bringing in of the outside experts, they are going to quickly evaluate the condition of each unit, and make a decision whether to try to get them under control or entomb them. If they can figure out the true condition of each vessel, drywell and suppression pool, that should tell them what is possible and what is not.
Entombment could take quite a while, and I am not sure how they would get concrete down in the spaces around the containments, in order not to leave large voids...and if they figure that out, they are going to displace a lot of water out of there which is highly contaminated, and it will have to run off somewhere.
Per contamination and livability - another hard one. It is not just a matter of knowing the quantities and half life and identity of the contaminating products, it also depends on how each reacts with soil/water/plants, and the impact that will have on the real effects of each one's biological half-life.
I know this has not been much help, but I am accumulating data and slowly working up some writing on the thing, trying to put it all together and modify it as new data comes to light. Not sure what good it will be, since it will probably be obsolete by the time this is over.
Ari, someone (topcallingtroll I think) mentioned nitrogen, and it got me thinking.
I'm sure there's a good reason why, but tell me why they haven't or couldn't resort to a liquid nitrogen or other refrigerant to cool the fuel rods?
Probably because liquid nitrogen, if not in a contained state, boils off into a gas very quickly, so it would take a tremendous amount to do any good. Plus, I am not sure what the effect of hitting very hot steel pipes/vessels/fuel rods with such a cold liquid would do, but I suspect the results might not be good.
Aristarchan,
I'm no geologist, but take note of the fixed camera position relative to the Fukushima Power Plant before and after quake ... between :25 and, well the rest of the video.
These images imply a major geological deformation of the area around Fukushima.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FobcdNqlcVw
That is a very interesting video. I am not seeing it yet, but will go through it again. It is likely that the foundations of the reactor units stayed intact...they tend to act like rafts. But, piping from the reactor to the turbine buildings....who knows. Thanks for the vid!
Okay, at :25 seconds you can see the condenser water discharge at sea level, immediately after the quake (at :30 seconds), either the camera position has subsided, or the power plant has subsided...or everything subsided and got scramble, because you can't see the water discharge after the quake ... toggle between 25 seconds and 35 seconds and it becomes apparent. This is images are from Tepcos own fixed camera. Most likely, most underground plumbing, well, everything got it.
I saved the video, and flicking back and forth around the frames where the shift occurs (tagged 2011-03-11 14.00 h, and 15.00 h) it's pretty clear that what happened is the camera shifted lower and panned slightly to the left.
Observe the foreground treetop line relative to that wooded point visible just to the right of the larger chimney. In 'before' shots there's a bit of sea visible between the point and the treeline. 'After', there isn't. The viewpoint shift is about the same as that which hides the cooling water outlet behind the treeline.
Simplest explanation is the best - the camera is on an extendable pole of some sort, and it moved lower. Probably just from being shaken, but maybe not. It's significant there is no tilt, so the camera mount isn't simply damaged by the quake. Knowing what TEPCO are like I'd bet the pole is manually extendable, so they can achieve just the right amount of 'obscured by trees' they want.
Whether the obscuring is deliberate or merely incompetent camera placement, it's really annoying. Why is the TEPCO 'Fukushima webcam' set up to see nothing much more than a treeline? It sure seems deliberate.
One of *many* such details for which specific people deserve to be shot.
I should go hunting for webcams of their other nuke plants. Are they *all* like this - 'can't see shit'?
Dbl.
Don't know if it's true in this case or not without doing a bit of research, but in some fission reactions decreasing the temp can cause criticality by increasing the density. Depends on the physical configuration of the material, which in this case I would say is "unknown."
Thanks for the info. *High five*
Big (real big) frame building for air interception while the cooling and close-in work proceeds.
We have to stop the cesium contamination. Otherwise might as well just walk away and let Japan invade anyplace they want.
You can't compare this to Chernobyl as this is much worse.
-Chernobyl was 1 reactor
-Fukushima is 6 in various levels of distress...at least 1 has already melted through containment and god only knows what it is doing right now
-Chernobyl also had about 100 tons of nuclear fuel
-Fukushima had over 1000 tons of nuclear fuel
Radioactive Iodine has already been detected in Washington state milk. Albeit it is a small amount but to me it's an unnerving development considering it has traveled over 5,000 miles and found it's way directly in our food.
No one is actively detecting plutonium fallout (at least not publicly) in the US
Bob, you left out one critically important word..."as this is potentially much worse", and for all the reasons you list. The actions of the bureaucrats to date, both corporate and governmental, certainly support an assumption of continued ennui, misdirection, and inaction in an extrapolation of a projected event horizon which will lead to this becoming an event worse than Chernobyl, but this does not seem consistent with the Japanese culture. Last night chindit pointed out that it takes relatively more time for the Japanese to regroup when an un-planned contingency transpires. That doesn't mean it won't happen.
The Japanese are unique in that they have experienced two nuclear reactions which took place in open air hundreds of feet above two of their major cities. The bulk of their people, all of their land, and their culture survived. However, both of those experiences were of a one time reaction with a subsiquent falloff in radiation. This may be an ongoing reaction with comparatively constant radiation. Once they wrap their arms around that difference, they should realize that this requires a different recovery strategy. When the boardrooms from Tokyo north realize that the radiation will not subside on its own within a reasonable time frame and decide that they want a third alternative besides leave or die, I bet we see a change of trend. The Russians may have beat the Japanese in lead time, but the Japanese still have more creative engineers. Until this happens, it will appear like they are muddling through. How is the muddle going for you today?
"The Russians may have beat the Japanese in lead time, but the Japanese still have more creative engineers."
This has not been my experience. Trying to get the Japanese to be truly innovative when there is a crisis situation is very hard. Russians are weird, because when everything is going ok, they get depressed because they think it's bound to go wrong, but when things have gone wrong, they perk up, because it's happened and start fighting back. It means that they are great people in a crisis.
Article:
nobody in their right mind will ever agree to move in next to a territory that, contrary to lies, er, promises, will not seep radioactivity in the soil and in the water.
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Fortunately, this is by the sea ... and, with the undeniable fact that water flows down hill AND with a landmass to the east of the plant and with the water table actually being HIGHER than sea level in that landmass (otherwise water would flow INLAND from the sea) ... the underground flow will be seaward ...
Questions? We'll have to find and ask the on-duty staff hydrologist ...
Fortunately it never rains in Japan, nor do they ever have typhoons. Oh wait..
It truly is amazing how the "Divine wind" has spared the rest of Japan from this calamity.
I would like more data on the water table, please.
Me too.
Jesus fucking christ I get sick of people wondering about the 'water table'.
In case you didn't notice, it's not only 50 meters from the shore, but it has a network of below sea level cooling water tunnels right under the buildings. Presumably not directly under the reactor buildings, but they WILL be under the turbine halls.
Also, what's the bet the basement levels of the reactor buildings are below high tide level? And there are interconnecting pipes and tunnels between the turbine halls and reactor basement levels?
Sure, there are probably normally sealed doors, valves, etc. So what? Leave it for a few decades and see whether the reactor building lower levels become 'tidal'.
And the official response from stock market futures:
"Who gives a f**k, where is Japan anyway, didn't they used to make VCRs in the 80s or something. Oh, and i think the Karate Kid went there in part II to beat up some chinese guy."
Well, it's climbing a razor wire topped radioactive wall of worry. Or, apply your own cliche' bag-of-shit reason.
The last several trading sessions tell me one thing; they are fucked and simply can't stop pumping it more an more.
It's like having an affair on your wife and your mistress starts to blackmail you. Do you continue to pay or stop and have the bitch expose what you've done. Most men, in the possession of a printing press, would have that bitch paid and paid and paid.
nah, you hire a desperate guy whose DeVry degree in internet forensics didn't pay out to liquidate her...or both.
wait for it...
Honda dropping production in North America by 1/3. Currently production is halted in Japan. Toyota following suit... This will spread throughout many industries needing spare parts and materials processed in Japan.
In the back of my mind, I'm getting the thought that we shouldn't have had that 'cash for clunkers' program which required all those trade-ins had to have the engines destroyed ... it impacted the used car market, and, destroyed a lot of 'stock' the pick-u-parts used parts lots had to work with ...
Excellent observation.
Yet another example of unintended consequences. Thanks .gov!
GM was right on top of this announcing they would be scaling back production at the beginning. Never let a crisis go to waste when trying to cover up the fact your car lots are loaded with cars that are not selling. That was covered a month or so ago right here on ZH.
+1 Good point
The loss of life is tragic. A single life lost eclipses the "$12B USD over 30 years" to fix/cover this thing up.
But in other financial news: Isn't the average daily POMO $10B? Not including TARP,TALP, FDIC, etc?
12 Billion LOL that's a fucking joke - more like TRILLION(s)
well if money was real I might disagree with you. But they can just print up $12B.
Leave how much a life is worth to the actuaries and appeals courts
Why don't they just spray a bit of corexit on it and say everything's fine now...nothing to see here...move along...these aren't the droids you're looking for...like the US would.
From watching "The Battle of Chernobyl", I had the impression that the Russians built a concrete chamber beneath the reactor to stop the radioactive magma from burrowing down to the water table. The film claimed that such an outcome would have lead to a multi-megaton explosion that would have resulted in half of Europe becoming unihabitable. It wasn't enough just to build a sarcophagus over the reactor. So I would think that the Japanese should also try to insure that any radioactive magma does not come into contact with a water table or perhaps the sea itself. What is the difference between Fukushima and Chernobyl in this respect?
Chernobyl built those concrete containers at the last minute via tunneling.
IIRC, Fukushima already has those concrete containers.
However, most of the nuclear material at Chernobly went into the atmosphere so that cooling/shutting down the rest was possible.
Fukushima has far more fuel left to burn .. which means that the molten mass would probably melt through the (already existing) concrete casings.
JMHO
Its been speculated that they are already cracked. Entombment will entail tunneling under and putting the new containment system under the old one. Otherwise....i'll bet it ends up in the ground water. I've been waiting to see simplified designs of what materials will be used and where to entomb this bitch.
the radioactive underground water plume is almost to kiev, is what i've read. ~~80 klicks to go. hey! how about an "underground fence?"
nothing to see here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNOrp_83RU
Typhoon season beginning soon. What would a direct strike by a Cat 3-5 with 5-8 meter waves do to the still setting concrete containment dome, if they can even begin pouring by summer. When was the last Cat 3-5 on Japan's NE coast? How many in the past 10 years or so. In other words, what are the odds?
So many variables. They will have to do a temporary cap to allow workers near the site and then do the real deal over several years. Its going to be a bitch. Its going to cost a ton. $12 billion is chump change in the total cost and unfortunately...i fear many lives will be lost.
Anyone who believes anything that any government says at this point is certifiable.
So, anyonel who says they're considering an option, or not ruling it out, immediately confirms the prediction of Tyler Durden? Correct.? This is pitiful. The possibllity that rational engineers will decide to entomb this reactor is less than 5%. Why? Because they have knowledge, which Tyler Durden does not; and two, because they do not get paid for page views; (sensationalism). Are alll you people really incapable of thinking clearly and analysizing what you read? Probably so. What a tradgedy.