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Saltwater May Further Damage Nuclear Reactors
Yesterday, I noted that a top physicist says:
What [the Japanese] are doing is basically using squirt guns
against a raging forest fire.
He says the Japanese should instead use the
Chernobyl style approach of entombing the reactors in boric acid, sand
and concrete.
Today, nuclear expert Robert Alvarez - a senior U.S. Department of Energy official during the Clinton administration - pointed out to Kyodo News that dumping seawater on the reactors might actually further damage them:
When combined with the high heat at the reactor site, the seawater currently being poured on the facilities could
destroy their cooling pumps or even corrode the containment vessels
holding the plant's nuclear fuel, increasing the difficulty of
containing the radioactive material.
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Wouldn't matter if they were using saltwater or freshwater at the end of the day.
Freshwater is loaded with a plethora of salts and dissolved solids too.
Calcium carbonate
magneisum carbonate
calcium sulfite
magneisum sulfite
just because something doesn't "taste salty" doesn't mean the salt isn't there.
I really needed a nuclear expert to tell me that there must have been a reason they didn't use seawater for cooling during the previous decades.
However, on what damage occurs exactly how fast, his guess is as good a mine...
A good write up at the survival blog.
http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/03/letter_re_nuclear_incidents_in.html
The saltwater is a temporary solution until the fresh water supply can be restored. During that time, saltwater will not be able to significantly corrode the metal containers or cladding.
If saltwater corroded metal quickly, no steel ship would ever be put to sea.
The corrosive effects double for every 6C increase in temperature. Ship hulls don't float in 250C pressurized water.
Saltwater at 70F is a small problem, but extremely concentrated NaCl (due to evaporation) at 300C+ is big problem. Molten (or dissociated) NaCl at 700C+ is a HUGE problem. What will that do to zircaloy cladding and steel?
Disclaimer... I'm not a chemist so I have no clue what I'm talking about. However, as soon as pumping raw seawater was mentioned, I had a bad gut feeling that forensic analysis will show this was a catastrophic decision. In TEPCO's defence, they really had no other option at the time.
Yea, at the moment they first started dumping
ocean water - unfilterd, salt water,
containing impurities such as
live fish, plankton, rubber duckies, trash
one could pretty much assume that
the professonals had abadononed all hope
of ever shutting it down
and had turned disaster management
to the first idiot that raised his hand.
I figure they will drag this out for as long as they can until people start dying of radiation sickness and they are forced to come clean. Until then they'll pretend like there is still a chance to "fix" the reactors. And yes they will likely cause more death and sickness while they procrastinate and deny that they have several Cherynobles on their island. I don't know anything about nuclear power but this seems exactly like what are leaders will do. One day they will just matter of factly say: "OK. Time to seal up Fukishima in a tomb." This way they ease it to us. If they were to come out on day 2 and say it there would be mass panick and market collapse. They want to ease us into reality. Same with with the dollar becoming worthless. They are easing us into this to complete revolt and repudiation.
Geo Wash,
you may have an interest in this information on the Iodine supplementation. This fellow has it pretty much correct. He presents it in a way that even a Matt Simmons enthusiast can understand.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller37.1.html
Japan will kick this can doWn the road till they can't
""Japan will kick this can doWn the road till they can't""
...Five Reasons Why Canada's Four Western Provinces is the Safest Quadrant on this Planet...
http://seenoevilspeaknoevilhearnoevil.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-canadas-four-western-provinces-is.html
Ssh don't go telling everybody.
We the people should reflect on the wisdom of TPTB....
Katrina, Haiti, Fukushima, Libya and many more.
TPTB obfuscate the truth and we the people are ill-informed to respond collectively.
TPTB afterwards say "At the end of the day..." and "we will do better next time."
BS - We the people should always have their heads. Cull the herd, natural selection, resignations, harakiri or anything to prevent TPTB perps to epic fail again.
Case study:
TEPCO managing director Akio Komori should fall on his sword.
We the people demand it.
New video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Tds5d-ApU&feature=player_embedded
Sea water for a week or two will not be a big deal. Salt encrustations will break off and flow away. Foaming is a bigger problem but presumably they know to dump in anti-foaming agents. All the plant components are stainless steel and won't be harmed. More important is keeping the cladding from overheating thereby causing a Zircalloy fire. The plants are all toast (politically) anyway. Entombing the place is not good. Better to clean it all up like Three Mile Island. Rains will wash all the radioactive particles into the ocean.
All BWR and PWR reactors need to be deep-sixed. We have pebble bed HTGR, Thorium fueled, modular, and recirculating reactors now. No reactor should ever be built that requires active safety measures.
Actually the type of electric pump motors used at the reactor site are probably TEFC (totally enclosed ferrous casing) and explosion proofed as well. These will survive immersion in salt water for prolonged periods and can be left outdoors as well (have you ever seen irrigation pumps for farming ?). We use these in the marine industry so it is entirely possible to get them hooked up and running , if you don't mind being irradiated while you are doing it.
Now that cables have been run in how is anything electrical like pumps supposed to work after being doused in salt water from the sky?
The pumps used in Emergency Core Cooling systems (ECCS) are usually located in their own rooms where they are shielded from spray or immersion from system leaks.
I wonder if any concrete companies are johnny on the spot and mixin up a ton of stuff right nnow to sell at an extreme profit. I totally would.
maybe I'll suggest that to my buddy at the local concrete contractor's
Anyone who has kept a boat moored in seawater knows what saltwater fouling looks like. Imagine trying to scrape the tubing in a nuclear cooling system.
As brain dead teenagers we were sold a small runabout whose previous owner had improved the fresh water cooling by simply connecting the water pump to the salt water inlet. You can't believe what that motor looked like after a while...
Not to mention the fact that as all that seawater boils away, there would be a crusty layer of salt on everything.
You mentioned it twice
Not to mention the fact that as all that seawater boils away, there would be a crusty layer of salt on everything.
They've already done so much damge to those reactors, that adding seawater is like gilding the lily. I've got it on good source that there is a high probability that Tokyo Electric Power Company are going to have to forfeit their security deposit when they move out. They are currently in violation of the terms of their lease and several workers have tracked mud accross the shag carpet and 2 of the lava lamps in the reception area are broken.
I think they may have trouble attracting renters, let alone buyers to that neighborhood for the next few decades.
Saltwater in the reactors, it was really the only thing handy, be glad they didn't have an oil refinery and a fluffy bunny farm next door or Tokyo would be being stampeded by radioactive flaming bunnies by now.
Liquid nitrogen you stupid fuckin pusssies.
Seriously how fuckin stupid is this planet??
I didn't realise the Internet had reached the moons of neptune yet. Liquid nitrogen may be more readily available on Triton but on my planet water is much more available and replenishable.
Ever enjoyed a sip of abasynth on ice? Let it ride and have fun.
I suggest people read the MIT updates here for a more balanced view. Things are actually improving.
http://mitnse.com/
See 3/18/2011 post. They are using water cannons from fire trucks used at the airports.
I suggest you read this Freddie:
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aFWC3RYALjeI
As you will read, the collusion between the Japanese Government & TEPCO goes back for years as they attempted to obfuscate & hide the safety problems of their reactors. As for "Things are actually improving," that's pure magical thinking on your part.
I suggest you stop trolling & read the facts regarding these issues. No amount of BS reports from MIT are going to convince people that the connection between gov't, industry & academia that puts us all at risk doesn't exist.
You need to get an education in truth....
Oh, a conspiracy. Where are the facts about that? I expect they will turn up on Wikileaks at some point.
Sorry but that source of apparent objectivity has already been denounced as a shill acting on behalf of the US atomic energy industry.
No, the leading authority on the situation is this site. And the most credible prognosis it's come up with so far is that Japan will turn into a nuclear wasteland populated by mutant creatures with special powers who battle each other. And we will call them Pokemon.
The "what is criticality?" posting at mitnse.com has this confusion section:
Based on this, spent fuel is best stored in boron tubes, or second best, open air. If loss of water prevents criticality in spent fuel storage, then why do fires keep starting? Why would anyone bother to store spent fuel in water? Is the idea that spent fuel is meant to be simmering for years (decades in practice) so that it becomes easier to dispose of?
I understand that the zircaloy sparkler-like burnout terrorist scenario by Alvarez was disputed by the NRC, but the particular report against such scenarios is mostly a list of why the NRC thinks intruders would not be able to drain and keep drained a spent fuel pool, not a dispute over the 30MJ/Kg exothermic reaction.
Water is used for cooling the spent rods and shielding radiation, not to control criticality. Criticality is controlled by the metal racks which position the rods so that neutron/nucleus collisions are statistically less likely and so the system remains subcritical. In open air the rods would overheat and burn off the zircaloy casing exposing the fuel cells. Boron tubes controls radiation but they don't provide cooling.
"Based on this, spent fuel is best stored in boron tubes"
True. That is why most (high density) fuel pool racks are BorAl (boron-aluminum alloy) and the water is usually heavily borated (2400 ppm or so).
"Why would anyone bother to store spent fuel in water?"
Shielding. At least 12' of water above the top of the fuel bundle will knock down the immediately life threatening dose rates to less than 1mr/hr in most cases. Once the used fuel bundles have sufficiently decayed, they can then be stored in the inerted dry casks (above ground).
Excellent source. Thanks!
x
So if not seawater, what was the alternative? I'm not thinking they have a gazillion cubic feet of concrete handy and the means to deliver it, given their power and transportaion network was just wiped out--do you drop it from helicopters or what? Suppose they didn't try the seawater and the spent fuel rods caught fire while they were waiting for concrete?
I'm certain the folks on site are doing their utmost to do the right thing, given their resources. And I bet they are going to make mistakes. Their lives are right out there on the line, their country in shambles, and we're posting on the internet about possible mistakes they made.
I sure wish they'd thought thru the earthquake/tsunami combination better--they had time for that.
How about bulldozing all 6 reactors into the sea, then covering that with dirt and cement?. It will work great until the next typhoon.
We try to make judgment of operating a welding machine the size of a Olympic swimming pool. Oops, sorry make that four… plus their waste fell right on top of it… any way…
Throwing saltwater at it from a helicopter (not a drone…) will be gassed off instantly, probably explode, before hitting target. Water isn't that great of a coolant. Things like salt buildup etc. have different workings operating on extreme temps.
I belief to have read somewhere that the Japanese and US markets are connected (ugh). So if you were looking for a black swan, Japan is a whole flock worth.
O-on…
I smell "fresh from the oven" bailout money…
...In anticipation to this I can predict that all these devastating events have NO impact the economy! (LOL)
considering the plum of radioactivity is casually drifting across the Pacific, I would think it be advisable to refrain from eating sea food from the pacific for what, the next five years, no?
the over-abundance and toxicity of our food is killing us today....one can only guess as to how bad our food situation of tomorrow will be.
It really doesnt matter at this point. They need to order up about a billion yards of portland cement and make themselves a giant grey monolith.
I have an engineering question:
If you seal up those buildings in cement, how much weight can that ground bear up under without shifting under the massive weight that would be imposed?
Im sure theyre sweating bullets over that one as well.
"If you seal up those buildings in cement how much weight can that ground bear up under without shifting under the massive weight that would be imposed? "
Since they are on top of one of the weakest areas of the earth's crust it's hard to say. It would probably last until the next earthquake.
Not sure the ground can take much weight at all...
Maybe this is why they aren't doing much, it'll be fine at the bottom of the sea...
(Get past the vid intro)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPm8NJK8SgA
Hmmm reminds of this almost:
http://www.drshoshany.com/user_images/herniated_disc.jpg
Look at the coastline as the spine, wall crumbling as vid suggests...ouch.
Right up my alley.
Concrete weighs 3500 lbs per sq. yard.
High rise buildings use much more then theses reactors would ever need.
You must mean a cubic Yd. Bob. I think your alley is blind
At Chernobyl they had to reinforced the ground under the plant. Chernobyl they are going to have to build another giant structure again.
And then write on said monolith:
Here lies Japan
Containment pools are 70 feet above ground level so you'd have to take the building structural load limits into consideration as well...
The salt will weaken the stainless steels due to chloride cracking...they must be very desperate to get salt on such critical stuff.
It is ominous.
The use of saltwater early on may have made things much, much worse.