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Watch The Attempt To Refill The Spent Fuel Bed At Reactor 3 Live - Webcast
As was reported earlier, nuclear workers had been preparing to spray water on Reactor 3 whose spent-fuel bed is overheating and releasing radioactive steam. The idea is to refill as much of the bed and contain the release for as long as possible. NHK is following the operation in real time. Readers can follow along with the following live webcast.
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Most of the water seems to miss the reactor.....
How many years will they have to keep dropping water? 10, 100, 1,000,000?
They just said 100-200 trips which roughly matches the estimate I was doing. I guess they are going to move in with trucks after that.
9:20 PM EDT the helicopter drops have been suspended after 4 passes each. Looks like they couldn't hit the broad side of the reactor. To be fair it looks like the winds are high.
NHK is saying radiation was too high. I noticed the first helicopter came in low and hit the target. I bet the pilot looked at his dosimeter after the pass and had a heart attack. So now they are bringing in the ground trucks. I assume the trucks will set up up wind. How they expect to refill the pool using a fire hose from hundreds of feet below is beyond me.
water drop = FAIL
"In a desperate effort, a Self-Defense Forces chopper tried to carry a bag of water to dump on one overheating location, but had to abort."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110317a4.html
Their training was sub-standard....They were not trained by the best...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6FtU28tPBs
The spent fuel tank holds about 2000 tons of water in reactor #3. Taking into consideration wind, heat evaporation, pilot error, and other factors helicopter dousing should fill the tank by December 2017.
Ok, I'm not a nuclear scientist so can someone please explain why we don't just build these things on the coast behind a concrete dam and below sea level. This was a suggestion previously posted on ZH.
Should this happen again they would blow the dam and wait for a year to rebuild it. Instant cooling. No need for electricity, just a little bit of C4.
Wtf - is Harry Wanger in charge?
Well, of course the winds are high. They're right on the edge of the ocean. Watching the helos dropping water on the reactor, I thought 2 things:
1. The spent fuel rods must be exposed directly to the environment.
2. These people are fucked.
They did 4 and now they are suspended. Sounds bad. Radiation too high??
Even if it did hit, how much could a bambi bucket really help?
Makes you wonder if this is really a show before the inevitable so as not to cause panic.....
edit: or to prepare for the trucks that will do the same.
Could not get the table to format, you'll have to visit the (extremely pro-nuclear) site to see the output rate decay tables.
A very optimistic table from
http://mitnse.com/
The bad news is they are trying to cool 16 or so MW of residual heat output (just from the reactors) with teensy buckets from chinooks.
if you recall, helicopters tried to drop neutron packages into Chernobyl to limit the chainreaction, they all missed the target and most died within the next couple of years.
that was a miss, I wonder if they could not get a concrete-type pump like they used for parking structures - like a boom?
Good thing Rx3 got "most" of that water that was dumped on it. Or rather near it. Good god, is this all they have?
in a word: doomed.
Why does this "Attempt" remind me of Tonka Toys and Erector Sets?
Good Luck with that
Thanks TD
Yes, thank you Tyler.
It's been awhile so I should say it again..ZH is EPIC...
ZH rules in a total and complete fashion...thanks again Tyler!
Immediate steam at those temperatures. What's the fucking point?
Desperation.
Operations from the air are desperation.
MELTDOWN OF AT LEAST 3 REACTORS.
Like I said three days ago; fuel the Chinooks and ready the cement and stone barriers.
God bless the poor people in there trying to stop it.
Exactly. +++++
What the fuck is this? A Marx Brothers movie?
I applaud their brave efforts at doing something but if this is all that's left...
This is like pissing on a forrest fire. Seriously, don't even waste these poor souls lives.
This is mega fucking desperation and, frankly, pointless.
Tell everyone in Tokyo to GO SOUTH. Period. Walk, ride a bike, run, jog...what the fuck ever.
My jaw dropped. They can't even hover over the reactor. Total desperation.
Oh no, there goes Tokyo,
And it ain't Godzilla.
Turd gets the award for most appropriate description of the, uh, situation...
Marx Brother's movie...yes...sadly...
"Duck Soup" doesn't quite fit.
How about that title with an "F"?
I pity them; it's not like they screwed up, we are NOT ready for a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the U.S. - it would be Katrina X10 - would they blame Obummer? Boehner? Duh.
It's like dumping golf balls and garbage down a blown out oil well.
...for example.
You guys really need to chill out w/ the fear mongering....
"First, the situation is clearly (but slowly) stabilising. As each day passes, the amount of thermal heat (caused by radioactive decay of the fission products) that remains in the reactor fuel assemblies decreases exponentially."
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-16-march-summary/
LOL, WHAT? Where the fuck did you get your Engineering Degree? Send it the fuck back and ask for a refund.
No kidding
@ MM:
At some point a person like you passes a certain point from being a sh!tty person to just being a piece of sh!t.
Methinks you passed that milemarker a ways back. One man's opinion...
Viva -- Sager
Yeah, this troll and the other 1/2 dozen to dozen accounts he has has worn out the welcome. Time to hit the ignore button.
"Time to hit the ignore button."
Oh man, if only....
Are you really that fucking stupid? Your cited website seems to be working off of data from Saturday BTW.
Hi. Welcome to Zerohedge, the home of the worlds largest collection of 'doomers'
If you do not religously agree with our end of the world theme and/or try to interject some sanity in to our end of the world thesis, we will call you stupid between our trips to the backyard to bury our silver.
I'm not even going to bother arguing with someone who calls themselves "Math Man" and doesn't even understand what "Exponentially" means. Fucktard.
Radioactive elements are subject to exponential decay dipshit... that means there is less every day. Go bury some silver....
unfortunately, the half-lives are sometimes in centuries
Seriously? You're a returd.
The half-life of the plutonium used in the MOX reactor (#4) is over 20,000 years. But it's cool, you said everything is going to be OKAY.
... the situation is clearly (but slowly) stabilising.
Math Man - that statement was made with regard to the situation inside the nuclear reactors - and it was pretty much a true statment when it was made. The longer they could keep pumping water into the reactors, the less likely the mass was to melt through the bottom of the container in the event of a total melt-down. This sentiment has been expressed several times on ZH.
But the nuclear reactors are not what is causing the problems. The problem is with the 600,000 spent fuel rods on location that cannot be kept cool. The article you linked to was talking about the reactors (non-issue), not the numerous spent fuel rods (the issue). That is why you are being blasted.
Fukushimatard
and you're posting, why?
Wow you are stupid. Maybe you have not been following along for the last few days. Go back and read the ZH coverage for the last 3 days.
This is quickly moving past the point of 'worse than Chernobyl'.
judy,i wish the japanese government would use you as a human geiger counter. would be the first time you provided any value to humanity.
+1
This is quickly moving past the point of 'worse than Chernobyl'.
Wow. You really have no idea what you are talking about...
Chernobyl didn't even have a containment structure... making it far worse than anything that has or will happen here. Please stop making shit up.
All of you "I read it on ZEROHEDGE. It must be true!" monkeys can get back to burying silver in your backyards now.
it has not, yet, moved past that severity.
The reason they are dumping water from choppers, which seems insane, is to cool the rods in the SFP. This is precisely what I have said they should do. They are focused on fire suppression.
It's obviously moved to a desperate situation and the measures they are taking are consistent with the threat posed. So long as nothing catches fire, yes there will be substantial radioactive steam emitted, as there has been, but no worse than that.
Chernobyl was as bad as it was because of the graphite fire, which is a harder fire to extinguish than zircaloy, because it is at double the temperature. But in any event, a fire is what will cause the catastrophic release of the heavier radionuclides.
Thank god we have a bona fide boiling water nuclear reactor Chief Engineer posting at ZH. Phew.
as opposed to you, who knows utterly JACK SHIT about any of these things, right?
You moron, just STFU and go bury some fucking canned ham in your backyard.
Refute anything I have said or fuck off
Meth Boy, if that situation was stable, people would not be risking their lives dumping water on it...
"..reactor fuel assemblies decreases exponentially" yea negative exponentially. half life of I-131 in 8 days...quarter life in 16 days...16th life in 24 days..etc. hence the reason used fuel rods have to be kept in cooling pools. If the decay rate was exponential then radioactive waste wouldn't be an issue...they we degrade to inert rapidly.
yes, it IS exponential decay. However the rate on fission byproducts other than I-131 is significantly longer, but still exponentially decreasing.
They are bringing in water cannons now...I was calling for this yesterday at the latest. The chopper operation is in order to cool the SFP containing the MOX, bldg #3.
It may look stupid, but ANYTHING they can do to prevent a fire is warranted at this point.
What's thermal heat?
Thermal heat is very hot, whereas non thermal heat is cool to the touch...
First belly laugh of the morning and I haven't even showered yet. :>)
Hulk be making shit up...
Giant shrimp....for dummies.
If they don't keep the temps. down the nuclear reactions that were shut down when the quake hit could restart (go critical).
This is not an explosion, but would release a massive amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere - worse than Chernobyl potentially:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/nuclear-crisis-radioactive-fue.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
I agree with you..if by stabilizing you mean the release of radioactive materials to the environment.Nature hates big gradients and wants to level everything....like spreading the radiation around.That way the fuel rods and the local area can be one.
What do you think the neutron flux in the bottom of the pool is like when say 40% or so has fallen in a pile?You think 5 or more reactor loads equivalent in a heap will not achieve criticality?
Get lost clueless wonder.The short lived stuff dies quickly, true enough.If you cannot appreciate the truly EPIC NUCLEAR FAIL that awaits after a fuel pile does this, you need to go away.
Or you could recommend placing the spent fuel in a huge beryllium sphere......which is about as smart as what you have posted.
criticality of melted down core elements is HIGHLY unlikely.
It didn't happen in Chernobyl, it didn't happen at TMI. The core will melt and flow like water into piping and wherever, until it freezes.
Depending upon the enrichment of fuel in question, U238 doppler broadening in the absence of water moderation should preclude criticality even in the fuel rods. I would assume SPF water is borated otherwise water would moderate.
The threat here is of a fire.
Fire is very much the ultra fail...as it is efficient at broadcasting the material.
I still think 5 reactor loads could in a pile get extra "hot".I would be concerned not only about the Uranium, but the small amount of Plutonium in the burned fuel.The Soviets had a fission "fart" in a waste pit..(this is what I heard from a bogus source years ago..it is wrong It was a chemical explosion which spread intense radioactivity).but I have no idea how much fissile material was in that pit.
I see what you mean by the elevated temps slowing the reaction...I guess how "hot" it got would depend on what is in the burned up fuel.I generally think huge piles of fissionable material is a very poor idea.But most of the horror stories I have read concerned very high enrichment materials(bomb metal).Scary stuff to store...if one is to avoid the festive blue flash!
here is a rate of decay table.
it will still be hot 1 year from now. very slow fall-off.
Tabulation of approximate decay heat for the Fukushima reactors from 1 second after the scram caused by the earthquake until 1 year after the event.
Date/Time (Fukushima Time) Fukushima Daiichi-1 Decay Heat (MW) Fukushima Daiichi-2 & 3 Decay Heat (MW) Percent of Full Reactor Power 3/11/11 2:46 PM 92.0 156.8 6.60% 3/11/11 2:47 PM 44.7 76.2 3.21% 3/11/11 2:48 PM 36.9 62.8 2.64% 3/11/11 2:50 PM 31.4 53.5 2.25% 3/11/11 3:00 PM 24.1 41.0 1.73% 3/11/11 3:30 PM 19.1 32.5 1.37% 3/11/11 8:00 PM 12.8 21.9 0.92% 3/12/11 8:00 AM 10.1 17.3 0.73% 3/12/11 8:00 PM 9.1 15.5 0.65% 3/13/11 8.5 14.5 0.61% 3/14/11 7.8 13.2 0.56% 3/16/11 6.9 11.8 0.50% 3/20/11 6.1 10.5 0.44% 4/1/11 5.2 8.8 0.37% 7/1/11 3.7 6.3 0.26% 10/1/11 3.3 5.6 0.23% 3/11/12 2.9 5.0 0.21%Math Man = extreme dumbass version of Harry Wanger
Is that even technically feasible?
Holy shit that was a near total miss on Rx 3 again!
1/4 direct hits so far that I've seen since the link went up.
-stupid comment-
"The idea is to refill as much of the bed and contain the release for as long as possible."
Extend and pretend... They better start evacuations before the wind shifts....
The wind DID shift.
Ah so it did... But still off shore for now... If they delay a major release long enough for it to shift back around to the Northeast they're screwed. Hell of a hail mary bet on getting power restored and pumps running. Seriously doubt those cores/pools are in a coolable configuration now anyway. Time to leave!
Doesn't look like much of the water is hitting the target.
dude completely missed on dropped...and missed again
No correction for windage ...
The US found that the Norton bomb site worked really well year ago. Maybe that would help.
At some point, wouldn't a small neutron bomb aimed to blow the reactor cores out into the ocean be better than a meltdown of six reactors intact on land?
I thought that also. Perhaps, yes perhaps, bombers could bomb around the reactors and throw debris ontop of it. It's less of a long shot than this effort. I have no idea if it would work, of course, but we have a god damn carrier off the coast.
Maybe shell the piss out of the immediately surrounding area with artillery?
Shit...I don't know. This is massively desperate.
At this point its time to admit failure and go with what did work at Chernobyl. Sarcophogate that bitch now.
you guys are kidding right? you don't think high explosives would disperse the radiation? why do you think chernobyl was so bad? the xplosions from graphite pushed the radioactive material 30k ft high. entombnment is the only option.
Option Z, bro. Way, way, way past reasonableness.
as long as you can admit its unreasonable...
bomb the reactors?
are you fucking STUPID?
Why the fuck are you posting if your suggestion is to BOMB the fucking reactors? This is easily the most retarded suggestion anyone has ever made.
Yes, that's what was said...directly bomb the reactor....you are a shit-eating-stump-jumping moron that, evidently, can't even fucking read and comprehend a simple passage.
Go eat a big bag of shit.
At some point, wouldn't a small neutron bomb
- - - - - - - - - -
Oh yeah, you definitely need more cowbell (Neutrons) in a case like this!
I'm telling you it's like the hitler paradox in internet discussions... Eventually someone says "couldn't we just drop a nuke on it?"
Same thing with the gulf oil well thing. Too much hollywood.
If the rods aren't cooled, the reaction starts up again and releases more radiation.
Bury in concrete or push into the ocean or bury with soil.
It seems more "cooling" than helicopters, and if the rods go critical in open air, nothing will slow the spread of radiation in the air.
I like the dolphins and all but it's the people on land I'm thinking about.
Exactly what I said. You need 10,000 shovels and 10,000 soldiers and 10,000 folded flags.
This is probably the dumbest suggestion I have ever heard
Thanks for that unsolicited 'expert' opinion on shit you literally know nothing about.
If there's one thing that has been pretty clearly established, fuckface, it is that I know substantially more about nuclear power than you will ever get your shitty little brain around.
Your solution is to BOMB a fucking reactor...that is the STUPIDEST thing I have ever heard.
That means that YOU are a moron and that YOU should STFU. The opinions of people actually STUPID enough to think bombing a reactor is a GOOD idea are not useful and they are of no more worth than if we let a random monkey past the captcha to bang a keyboard.
If you can even look up something like Doppler Broadening and understand its relevance to the topic at hand, feel free to get back in touch with me, otherwise STFU with your idiotic "suggestions" or proposals...I don't know what is more laughable, your ideas or the fact that you actually felt bold enough to voice them.
LOL...god, I love the internet and all the self-professed and self-degreed experts available.
sight - Norton Bomb sight ...
The Norden version worked better
Norton gets no cut of the contract then ...
I get bomb sights confused with the Honeymooners. It's the black-and-white thing...it fucks my thinking up.
well that was dumb; dumping a barrel of water over the thing... now what??
aa sea of water was not enough... i thought japs are smart
You wouldn't have that impression if have done business with them.
So approx 7500 litres of water per dump, I wonder when the choppers get too 'hot' and have to be switched out.
It was about time the Samurai blood and Kamikaze DNA kicked into these brave people.
I hope it's not too little much too late.
This looks weak :(
TWO Helicopters. 6 days after the quake? Don't they have like airborne forest fire equipment... easy to say from California, but you would hope there were more than 2 helicopters?
Lets bless those pilots for the bravery as the radiation dose has to be high.
Lethal, this is a suicide mission.
Gawd, there's so much radiation in the air that they can't even stay there long enough to aim.
There is so much disinformation, it's difficult to wade through the BS. To a very lay person ot appears this is very much a Hail Mary attempt.
A Hail Mary being down by 4 touchdowns with 4 seconds on the clock in the 4th quarter.
Seriously...just get the copters out of there if they haven't already recieved a lethal dose.
bloomberg already saying how great the place will be now.. who cares if everything is a disaster, they are already banking on growth!!!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/japan-post-quake-rebuilding-holds-promise-for-northeast-region-left-behind.html
"This is all such arrant nonsense that you should banish from your consideration, henceforth and forever, all of the jejune scribblings of the fool whom you once catch propounding it!"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sean-corrigans-letter-all-idiots-who-be...
I saw this earlier... fucking disgusting.
God Bless those pilots.
In all seriousness, this is the same pointless shit like the kamikaze schemes. This is typical Japanese idiocy. There's no point in killing more people in a hopeless effort.
What the fuck are you talking about? Whoever is flying those planes are god damn heros...
That is incredible and nec.
I agree it's completely brave. I don't agree that sacrificing people for absolutely zero chance of success is worthy.
The only way to contain this is through human death.
Robots can't even operate in that enviroment.
They are doing their best to contain as much of the radioactivity as possible. At some point humans will need to go in there and die while trying to contain this.
It will be the only way...if it's even possible. The radioactivity in that area is incredible....to the point it's not even reported.
I agree with that. Time to march in 10,000 soldiers with shovels and give their wives folded flags. Yes, it's that real.
Christ, you people are freakin maggots.
trav, please, as a personal favor, take it easy. We need your expertise (obviously) not how pissed off you are.
It almost looks like the are dumping at random like to coat the whole area
unless....this is footage from yesterday that ended up failing?
I don't think the pilot wants to spend alot of time hovering around to line things up. Makes no difference - this is completely irrelevant.
Where are the robots?
If the rods in the spent fuel "pond" burn, melt, and the fuel accumulates outside the reactor vessel, this has the potential to be Chernobyl lite - no graphite to burn, but completely exposed critical reactions.
Robots can't function properly with the level of radioctivity present.
...even hardwired.
Wow. This says it all. Complete desperation.
I don't think this is going to end well! If this desperate attempt is all they have...Jesus! I see nothing but a meltdown, poor people over there, not enough with this catastropy they also have to deal with massive incommpetence! WOW!
seems futile. :( I still see one of the reactors smoking
I would think that is steam coming out of Rx3, it wasn't there before the water was being dumped.
true
Thanks for the link, Tyler
This whole operation has a sad look to it. My hat's off to courage of the pilots & crew, but...*damn*!...
This is scary and seems like a last ditch effort. I pray for the crews of those helicopters and for the Japanese people.
US futures climbing...
This shit is going to completely asinine.
What happened to the long power cord solution?
Three prongs and they only had a two prong outlet. It happens.
Since those guys don't have any more ideas left from what I see I have one for them: clouds seeding NOW?
can't they dial up HAARP for another tsunami to bring in more water???
With the price of diesel (need to feed the six diesel gens there at the H. complex) and ice on the roads there in Alaska - you're lucky you got the quake and Tsunami you did when you did ...
/sarc
So what happens if the wind picks up.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday... The radiation at ground level must be massive or something? This reminds me of when my son peed while I was changing his diaper.
does Yahoo! weather have a radiation icon yet?
http://weather.yahoo.com/japan/tokyo-prefecture/tokyo-1118370/
no sign of bad shit
http://weather.yahoo.com/japan/miyagi-prefecture/sendai-shi-1118129/
This is the equivalent of spitting on a forest fire.
This looks pretty weak. Is there any rationale behind this operation or just a government order to cast the appearance of doing something, anything?
This situation calls for a Martin Mars
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznVg1nbZtY
I bet that service isn't cheap. Some may say that it is priceless.
Their home base is on Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island, BC (near Port Alberni).
They are impressive but very old water bombers. Built around WW II. Only a couple of them left.
Slow speed, high volume - a track over 2,3 or 4 reactors will dump a considerable amount of water but alas maybe not enough.
But they should have ferried across the Pacific days ago.
What we are witnessing here is merely the management of expectations. Edward Bernays is alive and well and living in Japan.
bernays + saving face
So what I just heard is that the pools the expended rods are held in are 15m x 25m x 1m. And they stated that there were "several" of these pools. But even if there is only 1 pool it will take them 50 loads per pool (at 7500 litres per dump). Why did it take them this long to take this simple step? Any words on the mSievert readings where they are dumping?
Can they just connect a garden hose with a sprinkler on it and let'er rip.
They might have a better chance that this idiocy.
All we are watching is pilots on a suicide mission.
seriously.. my pool pisses me off when it evaporates but i just throw a hose in there for the evening..