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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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an ex-girlfriend of mine put sea water in her cars radiator when it overheated at the beach...that didn't work out all that well.
My wife saw a hot water light flashing on her 2 year old Toyota dashboard and drove faster to get home only to have the car seize up and stop minutes later.
She later asked, "what are those flashing lights called? I mentioned they're called idiot lights and was promptly cut off from my marital advantages... (groan)
at least she put water in it...
My wife noticed her car had a radiator leak, but when the vapor stopped steaming out, she figured IT FIXED ITSELF AND SHE KEPT ON DRIVING FOR ANOTHER 100 MILES UNTILL THE ENGINE JAMED AND ALL THE PISTONS BROKE AND BROKE THE ENGINE.
It was clearly my fault because I never told her things like that could happen...
That's over a year now...
Well if it was her car, and not your car, where's the problem?
Isn't it always your fault?
"honey, I forgot to tell you about that light on the dashboard, walking from the car into the house. I didn't think it meant much. You may in the past said that you said those lights were bad, but I forgot that too."
And where was she from?
ROTFL
I think what you need to know is that the build up of salt (from the water being removed as steam) will act as an insulator as it begins to build as a stalagmite would. The specific heat of salt is much lower than any metal so in the long run it might actually hinder the effort.
I have always hated the lack of engineers on this site, specifcally GW's: BS simmons 120,000 psi oil well volcano bullshit.
Maybe they wanted to cool it in any manner possible and used what they had. What about boric acid build up? Maybe they will change to fresh water or is there any close? Could be they wanted to buy time in any way they could. What is obvious is that the back up systems and contingency plans were not of military standards/not life and death standards.
A backup system for a nuke plant… It ain’t there.
You poor gas in a car, you don’t “connecting rods” -because of that.
"You poor gas in a car, you don’t “connecting rods” -because of that."
What does that mean?
as a mechanic i assume it means he is to poor to put gas in his car so he sold the connecting rods
er sumthin...
Thanks. That is a very plausible interpretation. I do a lot of my own wrenching too (mostly tractors/farm equipment/pickups), and I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say.
I suspect ESL translation issues.
He means that people trained to operate a nuke aren't trained to fix it when it melts down. He's probably right. Hell, is anyone at all trained to do that?
"He means that people trained to operate a nuke aren't trained to fix it when it melts down."
After careful reflection - I tend to agree with you. When we run through our simulator scenarios, we are trained to prevent accidents first, and then deal with them before they become severe. When you get to the point where these poor guys are, the instructor stops the simulation and starts showing you where you went wrong. Where these guys are is way beyond where the Emergency Operating Procedures can help. In fact, I suspect that even the Severe Accident Mitigation Guidelines (SAMG's) aren't much use either. I fell very sorry for their operators. They are doing the best they can with equipment that has been taken to more than 150% of its maximum design specifications. Really scary stuff if you think like an operator.
It's not just that salt water will damage the reactor equipment - its the fact that overtime it won't actually cool the fuel rods - and will actually make the whole facility (spent fuel storage pools and reactor cores) more difficult to cool. Why? Because the quantities of salt deposited as the water evaporates becomes large in volume and plugs the flow paths through the fuel, degrading heat removal. This would happen within days.
We know the helicopter drops were using scooped sea water. And I assume the firetrucks are also getting water directly from the ocean given the much publicised difficulty in getting an operational fresh water supply.
More here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/17/fukushima-17-march-summary/
And the Hudson is getting more saline at the Indian Point reactor.
from the above, Brave New Climate Q&A:
Worst case is that a fire breaks out and is not controlled due to high radiation levels and is left to burn for weeks, spreading to one reactor unit to the next, ultimately reaching the external spent fuel pool building and the separate dry storage, releasing the maximum estimated 70% of the activity remaining in the fuel rods at the site (4000 tons). Compare this to Chernobyl where 150 tons were at stake and 4% was released. (emphasis mine)
So the absolute worst case, that is only realizable if all efforts to control the situation are stopped not reconstituted for weeks, is much worse than Chernobyl.
The best scenario is that
1) external power is connected in a couple hours, plant RHR and emergency core cooling pumps are restarted, there is no siginificant damage to them, 2) reactor containment breaches can be plugged or otherwise dealt with in the coming days,
3) spent fuel pools on top of the reactor buildings are first filled by the trucks to such levels that the water provides enough radiation protection to approach the reactor buildings to restart their makeup line and heat exchanger pumps and
4) effective containment and further treatment of the tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water already pumped to the reactor buildings is achieved during the coming weeks.
In the best scenario the worst radiation release is already over with only negligible releases to come and protection measures for most of the 20-30 km zone (except to the direction of Fukushima City) can be lifted wihin days and for areas about 5-20 km within a weeks."
lets hope and pray for the best case or something closer to it.
"Hope" in an of itself is not a strategy. What is needed now is a sound practical assistment of the situation with the appropriate action taken. It would appear at this point that the Japanese leadership is simply going thru the motions instead of actually mobilizing an real strategy to solve the problem.
Quote - 'He says the Japanese should instead use the Chernobyl style approach of entombing the reactors in boric acid, sand and concrete.' - if he did he's not a 'top' phycisist.
The chernobyl sarcophagus cost 100's of millions and is now falling apart and they want to build another for $600million.
These people are unbelievable. This place has 6 reactors not 1 ... build a casing for that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8392154/Japan-nucle...
its all there
maybe there is no better way to put the thing down
seriously
we dont exactly have tons of experience dealing with meltdowns
no cure means the prevention needs to be all that much better
and suppose everything goes hunky dory from here
fires out ,pools cool down
then what?
its a contaminated mess with tons of exposed rods in varying condition
whats the next step?
you certainly arent gonna just fix it and go back to work in contaminated hell are you?
at some point this thing is gonna have to get entombed in something
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-japan-quake-nuclear...
no solution to this problem
cant encase it in concrete
so whats the long term plan?
cross fingers
pray
ignore
select one or all
tainted spinach now found 65 miles from reactor
while no one wants taint in their food, at least its not irradiated
unabumma about to give speech in brazil......more taint expected
from the above, Brave New Climate Q&A:
Worst case is that a fire breaks out and is not controlled due to high radiation levels and is left to burn for weeks, spreading to one reactor unit to the next, ultimately reaching the external spent fuel pool building and the separate dry storage, releasing the maximum estimated 70% of the activity remaining in the fuel rods at the site (4000 tons). Compare this to Chernobyl where 150 tons were at stake and 4% was released. (emphasis mine)
So the absolute worst case, that is only realizable if all efforts to control the situation are stopped not reconstituted for weeks, is much worse than Chernobyl.
The best scenario is that
1) external power is connected in a couple hours, plant RHR and emergency core cooling pumps are restarted, there is no siginificant damage to them, 2) reactor containment breaches can be plugged or otherwise dealt with in the coming days,
3) spent fuel pools on top of the reactor buildings are first filled by the trucks to such levels that the water provides enough radiation protection to approach the reactor buildings to restart their makeup line and heat exchanger pumps and
4) effective containment and further treatment of the tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water already pumped to the reactor buildings is achieved during the coming weeks.
In the best scenario the worst radiation release is already over with only negligible releases to come and protection measures for most of the 20-30 km zone (except to the direction of Fukushima City) can be lifted wihin days and for areas about 5-20 km within a weeks."
lets hope and pray for the best case or something closer to it.
People who "pray" about issues dealing with physics and engineering probably shouldn't be commenting on these issues. "Let's bow our heads and implore God to allow a squared + b squared to = c squared, amen?" Jesusgod. :)
Physics says that walking on water is impossible. But Jesus did it.
prove it.
You got me. It's probably a big lie.
Kind of like that hopey changey message a few years ago.
I wonder if whoever junked you goes to a mechanic or a preacher to fix their broken down car.. Your post was hillarious...and correct.
I don't know why you got junked for that. It's a damn good point. This is science. Anyone who can't assimilate this reality can prove it to themselves by simply jumping off the roof of a tall building and praying for God to negate the laws of physics all the way down. Trust me, He won't.
When nuclear physicists, who are tasked to manage an epic clusterfuck like this one, begin to openly weep and call for prayer (as the Tepco director did last night), my sphincter tightens noticibly.
.
+1