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As Market Surges On Latest Deux Ex Machina Straw Man, Kyodo Warns "Chain Reaction Could Restart"
While the future of the free market now hinges on some power cord which according to the AP "may solve the crisis", yet which we are a little skeptical is merely the latest deux ex machina that the prevaricating Japanese authorities are pulling out of their collective derrieres (remember the water and boron baths that were supposed to fix everything), a far more troubling report has emerged from the New Scientist (citing Kyodo) which may explain why TEPCO and Japanese authorities have been so tight lipped about the actual truth of what is happening at Fukushima. To wit: "The situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has
become extremely unnerving. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has now
admitted that the spent fuel rods could go critical - that is, a nuclear
chain reaction could restart." This would be an absolute worst case disaster which would make Chernobyl look like a dress rehearsal. Incidentally while hope and pray (to Ben Bernanke) may have been a viable strategy for stocks over the past two years, it will fail disastrously when dealing with a nuclear catastrophe.
From the report:
We have known since yesterday that the reactors themselves were
coming under control, and that the biggest threat came from the spent
fuel ponds, where the water level has fallen and temperatures have
risen. That could lead to the stored fuel rods breaking open, releasing
their radioactive contents.
Kyodo News reports:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it is considering
spraying boric acid by helicopter to prevent spent nuclear fuel rods
from reaching criticality again, restarting a chain reaction, at the
troubled No. 4 reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power
plant. "The possibility of recriticality is not zero," TEPCO said as it
announced the envisaged step against a possible fall in water levels in a
pool storing the rods that would leave them exposed.
This is a real surprise. These ponds are a standard feature of
nuclear reactors, and are typically designed to ensure that nuclear
reactions cannot restart in the fuel rods. Among other things, the rods
should be widely spaced in the pond.
The BBC explains that the company is now "caught between a rock and a hard place":
If the fuel rods are dry and hot, there could be damage to
the cladding and the release of light radioactive nuclei. To prevent
that, you would want to inject water. But water on its own is a neutron
moderator and would enhance the chances, however small, of
criticality... [water] reduces the speed of the neutrons, meaning they
can be captured by uranium nuclei in the fuel rods, inducing them to
split. Without water, the neutrons travel too fast, and are not
captured.
Hence the company's proposal to add boric acid, which would mop up
the neutrons and hopefully stave off the reactivation of a nuclear
reaction. If this did happen, it does not mean there would be a
nuclear explosion, but the rods would heat up, the zirconium cladding
would probably split, and the likely release of radioactive material
into the atmosphere would be significantly higher.
In the longer term, questions will be asked about how the ponds wound
up in this condition, when it should have been completely avoidable.
We can only hope this is completely wrong as the alterantive would be total devastation beyond anything seen so far.
h/t Themos Mitsos
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I couldn't agree more
-AIG Quant
Yes, the situation appears to be contained.
-Ben Bernanke
Should I bring my fucking tools?
-Frank Rizzo
"I'll see you tomorrow with my tools FUCKFACE!" -Frank Rizzo
Continuation of biological life is no longer required for continued trading among us.
-The Den of HFT Quants
Ignition...full thrust.
- HAL9000
UNlike Chernobile we get the news real time.
At least it won't be as damaging as chernobil' was.
Are you sure about that? Really?
Yup, i am sure, at least this time poeple can run. We in russia had no idea for 3 weeks, till Finland complained.
this is an important point.
If anything can be done, it'd better happen quick. Perish the thought, but one more earthquake within the next days and Japan (and the world) will be royally fucked beyond belief.
We already are, my friend. The train has already run off the end of the bridge...we're in free fall now...its the sudden bring up that we haven't yet experienced.
Japan yes, world, no.
Huge liquidations...everywhere...across the entire market. Straight down now into the close.
Sell All This Shit algo taking advantage of the last hour Bernanke Buck Bump. Every last hedge fund manager everywhere is looking at just how much Apple he has in inventory...and wondering why the algo did not fix that.
Market credibility now expressed in negative numbers.
The possibly gigantic Irony that all these Yen may in fact have no `home` to be repatriated to is becoming ................frightening.
I see your point, yet the yen is strengthening. Why?
Vix intraday price suppression scheme attempt complete...failed...Vix will now proceed higher.
Tomorrow, when it is breaking above 33, I'm sure E. Burnett will have a very simple explanation of that anomaly...something about how dumb we are for following headlines about radioactive isotopes leaking from cooling ponds...and not listening to headlines about miraculous Japanese government extension cords that save the world.
Also, as per Burnett, we should be careful about wishing China shouldn't put lead in kids toys or poison in our food. My God if they stopped prices at Wal-Mart would go up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t67Goh__MI
I'd love to shove a 400 oz. bar of gold into the mouth of that dumb, smug bimbo and gloat "See, you can eat it, BITCH!"
It is clear to me that whatever book that is supposed to be used in emergency has been exhausted and now everyone is beginning to feel the first pangs of insanity as they giggle and delude themselves that a bit of power to the plant will make everything A-ok.
So many cooks forced to gather in the Coatroom now because the damn kitchen is too radioactive to work in.
Sure looks like the Peter Principle to me, manifesting in a world-threatening Japanese multi-reactor meltdown, the workers, the experts, the authorities and the media all having reached their level of incompetance ?
And I'm at my level of incompetance trying to sort out the hard, new, news in a sea of disinformation, obfuscation, outright lying, lipsticking happy talk.
Thanks TD, and keep up the only post news anywhere near to late-breaking reality.
She's really smoking now.
easily weaponizable spent fuel rods -stacks of em
Yeah, why don't you go pick up a couple and put them in your "chairman mao" european shoulder bag. You can hock them on the black market for some good money.
again, why would ANYONE hold their dip buys overnight?
Makes no sense...unless its Brian Sack
(again)
OPM
-
Definitely time for shorts to start attacking the last 30 min of the sessions. These false rallies during the day have to be thwarted and end the BTFD fantasy.
You first.
If you look at a cut-away diagram of a GE design nuke plant (which this is), and see that the spent fuel pool (SFP) is located sort of like a shelf above the reactor containment building...and then you note that there was an explosion at Reactor #4 which apparently blew holes in the side of the reactor building itself, AND that explosion originated in the SFP - then riddle me this, Batmen: could the explosion blow away part of the building wall without also blowing a hole in the side of the SFP itself? And would that explain why the SFP is dry? And no matter how much water you pour in the thing, it's just going to run out? I'm not really getting anywhere reading the MSM on this. Clues?
Things keep going the way they have, and we won't need cut-away diagrams.
and the best part is..people keep saying there is panic.
WHERE? Most indexes I see are barely off 5% from their highs. Look at the XLE, its down 6% after a near 50% run
Thats not panic.
The panic will start to show up in the next 20 minutes, it will continue through the AH session tonight, and in the morning, long only managers will commence vomitting shares of Apple as the truth about Japan breaks out into the light.
Anyone know if NHK Heli is still filming life?
"...questions will be asked about how the ponds wound up in this condition"
You gotta be shi++in me. Did these guys take a hard look at theDigitalGlobe satillite images today? No. 3 and No. 4 are burnt to the ground. I imagine the spend feul rods are laying in a pile at the bottom of what used to be the building.
http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloads/featured_images/japan_earthquakets...
Obama asked congress to give Tokyo Electric $4 billion to build reactors in Texas!
http://www.gregpalast.com/no-bs-info-on-japan-nuclearobama-invites-tokyo...
Out of topic
http://www.businessinsider.com/jp-morgan-testing-5-atm-fees-increases-dodd-frank-2011-3
fuck the jopamites.
Interview with Nicole Foss( starts at 40:00) by Jay Taylor about Japan and Reactor types
http://www.voiceamerica.com/Show/1501
Article:
These ponds are a standard feature of nuclear reactors, and are typically designed to ensure that nuclear reactions cannot restart in the fuel rods. Among other things, the rods should be widely spaced in the pond.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And cooled - and don't forget, water acts as a moderator ... remove the water and you have two strikes against you (NO cooling and NO moderator) ... criticality may follow ...
.
well, Shep Smith just referred to 'reports' that a pool was dry. Not sure which one(s) were being referred to.
Hope it's not the 'big pool' referred to here:
http://resources.nei.org/documents/japan/Used_Fuel_Pools_Key_Facts.pdf
Exceprt:
Key Facts
o Used nuclear fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is stored in
- seven pools (one at each of the six reactors,
- plus a shared pool) and
- in a dry container storage facility (containing nine casks).
Wrong.
By definition a moderator slows down fast neutrons, turning them into thermal neutrons, by stealing kinetic energy away from these more energetic neutrons as they collide with the water molecules (heating them). Thermal neutrons are those neutrons moving at the right speed necessary to allow for neutron capture and a resulting fission event (when they come into contact with the fuel atoms). Remove the moderator and you increase the relative number of fast neutrons (incapable of supporting a critical chain reaction) and reduce the relative number of thermal neutrons, upsetting the neutron balance necessary to sustain a nuclear reaction.
Water is a very good moderator. If all the water were to boil away the chances of the spent rods going critical would go down, not up, as the total reactivity of the system would plummet.
Also, hotter water is less dense than cooler water. So the ability of the water to function as an efficient moderator decrease as the pool temperature rises. This is a good thing. Less thermal neutrons is always good when you want to stop/prevent the nuclear fission process from continuing in an uncontrolled fashion. In this sense, reactors (even run away reactors) eventually create the conditions necessary to ensure their own shutdown. Pretty cool, huh?
Straight from Wiki (which is all I have to go on ATTM):
Neutron moderator
In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving uranium-235.
Commonly used moderators include regular (light) water (roughly 75% of the world's reactors), solid graphite (20% of reactors) and heavy water (5% of reactors)
- - - - - - - - - - -
Recall too, that the distances can be greater between the rods in the pool too, meaning a longer path between rods ... whether this is part of the 'trick' in reducing nuclear reactions I would be tempted to say 'yes' but, IANAL or physicist.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, or if you're simply responding in agreement. I do not disagree with the statement you copied and pasted from Wiki; however, I do have many years of experience both studying the design, operation, and maintenance of nuclear plants as well as many, many years of safe operational, hands-on experience under my belt that I think help to provide my unique perspective in this situation.
Keep in mind as well, the reason those used fuel "rods" have been retired to the cooling pond is because they're spent. i.e. the concentration and absolute level of fissionable fuel loading contained with these rods is no longer great enough to allow for sustained, consistent energy production in a commercial reactor. Hence, their removal for storage (cool down and decay) in preparation for disposal (burial in a heavily shielded container).
IMHO, they are the least of concern. Japan's efforts should be focused on the fuel assemblies still present in the previously operating reactors where the relative fuel loading is much higher and still potentially capable of achieving criticality.
Hopefully they haven't lost sight of the big picture - the core(s) MUST be kept cool (which they have magnificiently failed to do, thus far).
Well, thank you for your perspective.
Question: Where would they hold new fuel rods, termporarily, before transferring to one of the reactor buildings?
On - site they also have 'dry-cask' storage ... would this be for the boxing up of spent fuel for eventual transportation of spent fuel (they have an off-site storage complex, the Mutsu Facility as well as the fuel reprocessing facility)?
Follow-on question: How is/how are new fuel rods received, roughly speaking? Dry cask method?
My exposure to systems like this is on the transmission and distibution end of the electrical, not so much the generation (more load balance btw gen centers) and even less so nuclear.
water also absorbs neutrons...that was its purpose in RBMKs, which used graphite as the moderator.
The positive part is that a SFP should have negative void coefficient. Heat and a big fire are still the biggest worries.
Cannot believe that you have not yet collected 300 + junks for being accurate.
I suspect they do not understand what you just stated.
In a BWR reactor of the types at Fukushima, the lack of water lowers the reactivitiy of the assemblies in the Spent Fuel Pool (SFP) i.e. lessens the potential for criticality.
But running the SFP dry exposes the fuel assemblies to the atmosphere and the cladding on the fuel bundles will oxidize and release H2 which has the potential to explode (we have already seen that happen) and raise temps resulting in further fire and release.
The problem is that this fire will loft radioactive combustion particulates into the air and these will travel downwind and eventually come to land.
The "landing zone" will become contaminated and will need to be evacuated. It the landing zone is Tokyo the question becomes where do you put 36 million people.
The further issue is that the primary means of decontamination in an urban area is to raze the structures, truck out all soil for disposal, introduce new soil and create a nice park.
only ben can create a life's work with a depressed computer key. exhausting maybe a few food calories in the process. (i thought the government said perpetual energy machines were impossible?)
may he fully realize his divinity and resurrect the dead from this catastrophe while conjuring radioprotective shields from his arse.
Are people going to be able to live in Japan??
How will the radiation effect people living in the US and the rest of the world??
When will people return to Pripyat after Chenobyl?
When did we all consider that TMI would irradiate the entire North East for 10,000 years?
When did we nuke cities in Japan during war and people built new cities.
What about the firestorms that cremated Germans Cities in war and they are bigger, stronger and better than ever?
No.
Us Humans are like ants. We constantly come out and rebuild.
shep right now
No more water in pool per US agency.
Shep has done good in the past, but Fox should send a jet, get him out of there and as many of others as they can too. It's finished for talking on TV, time to take concrete action.
"deux" = french for "two",
"Deus" = latin for "god"
Go LONG dry cask suppliers.
TOWN 100 miles NORTH of TOKYO is @ 300 TIMES regular radiation level, TOKYO Airport is @ 11 TIMES normal level
http://rt.com/news/japan-nuclear-standby/
The SMOKE DETECTOR on YOUR CEILING is @ 300 TIMES regular radiation level.
Better flee and raze the place. It's a dump anyway.
What does it mean that they are going to connect a power cable?
If all it needs to fix this problem is access to some AC power then haven't they heard of portable generators? Why do you need a connection from the grid? I hope there's something I'm not understanding here because it sounds very flaky to a mere physicist who doesn't understand electrical engineering.
However let's be clear that "criticality" here doesn't mean ka-boom. It's just a statement that there could be an self-sustaining reaction as there's enough neutrons circulating. That would be bad as there'd be a pool of very hot goo, but there's absolutely no prospect of a nuclear explosion.
Dont worry about the power cable. From the recent pictures off the Satellite, you can build any size cables you want. But that bubbling and roasting plant is not worth a damn anymore.
Have you noticed even the very red and white painted towers have been burned off to bare metal? The little Antenna towers. They were red and white last week. Now they look like heated metal ready to fail.
Guess that book (from over 15 years ago)
about the events (in chronological order)
at Chernoybl never got translated into
Japanese...
Two things that made no sense to me were 1. Where is the footage of the wave that hit the plant? 2. Even if the diesel backup gens(which they said ran for 1 hour) failed that they did not have portable units as a double redundancy. Like in a trailer as in Cat portable self contained units on site?
The Tusnami drowned the engines on site. Think engines almost large as a house.
It's a shame that the Japanese planned for the Quake but did not locate the engines high enough out of the way from the very waves that have saved them in the past in thier own history.
They would not be as big as a house, I work in a micro (7Meg) generating station and that plant would not need even that much to restore parisic load.
Switch gear room in basement, 20 feet underwater... cannot dewater, dry out and/or isolate, great fucken planning.....
Was not aware that the gear was located there! Hmmm... ponds overhead and gear below.
They should have had secondary tie ins along with portable gensets. But hey, I was only 7 when this was designed. Is that an excuse not to update and adapt to new technology?
Even after they dewater they will have salt caked systems which will need to be flushed and dried and retested. They have other pressing problems.
Those lucky enough to have tiger blood in their veins and Adonis DNA should worry not, for they shall inherit the earth.
And remember, all the truly bad news won't be dumped for mass consumption until sometime between 4 pm and 8:55 am EST (while markets in U.S. are closed).
All be fine again by 8:55 to 8:59 am EST tomorrow, when we'll hear more rumors of a ginormous, orange extension cord purchased from Ace Hardware, a half dozen Vornado fans, and blocks of ice.
Release from the spent fuel rods would be a much more serious problem, since they don't really have any strong containment. However, saying that the possibility of something is not zero doesn't necessarily mean that it is probable or even likely. The possibility of a meteorite causing total destruction of New York City is not zero either. Covering the rods in a borate solution would probably eliminate any possibility of recriticality.
Note that Obama defunded plans for a US long-term nuclear storage facility, so spent nuclear rods are currently being stored at reactor sites in the US and there are no longer any plans to move them to safer places. Hopefully, they are bathed in a strong borate solution.
While I agree that the Fukushima accident already several times worse than Three Mile Island, I still feel that the danger is being vastly overstated. I see articles with headlines comparing this to Chernobyl, and then within the article there are quotes from experts downplaying the similarities between the two.
I think that as radioactivity and heat output from the fuel rods in the reactor decreases, the cooling problem will get easier and easier, less and less steam will need to be vented, and so radioactivity releases will become smaller and smaller. (But they will probably be venting steam for months as they did at TMI). My best guess is that when the problem is finally resolved, the total radiation release will turn out to be several orders of magnitude less than at Chernobyl. However, everything that can go wrong seems to be actually happening at Fukushima, so we are certainly not out of the woods yet. I must confess that I hate to keep making these posts, because every time I make one, something else seems to go wrong.
don't worry, you'll get junked and the apocalyptics will accuse you of saying everything is fine
These events tend to run in two stages, the first, or the "fear" stage is where despite all the expert promises that "this will be never be as bad Chernobyl," when everyone knows that is a possibility. The second stage after "fear" has colored stage one, is the rebuiliding phase, and this is where the "negative" thoughts from the first stage carry over. Just as in the 2008 financial crisis, no one imagines the stock market can recover this quickly, because the "fear" used by Paulson and company did its job effectively. This gives the market participants a chance to BTFD. These things happen this way for a reason.
I am not sure how anyone could plan a more perfect clusterfuck...
So the bottom line is that the earthquake caused no damage to the plant. The real problem arose because of the water from the tsunami which took out the pumps. Are we saying that the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl is down to a bit of water damage?
I live in western Oregon. If things start glowing...I'll let ya know.
The Universe is about to cleanse a defective gene pool... 3 billion years of work down the drain, what's GE's corporate slogan, again...?
a powercord - sounds like someone has been watching godzilla reruns
it never worked then
who would have though the japanese would order a reactor from GE i won't even buy a washing machine from that conglomerate
so this makes two times
sorry, again
that's what happens when you buy a nuclear reactor from a hedge fund