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Fukushima: "China Syndrome Is Inevitable" ... "Huge Steam Explosions", or "Nuclear Bomb-Type Explosions" May Occur
I've repeatedly noted that we may experience a "China syndrome" type of accident at Fukushima.
For example, I pointed out in September:
Mainichi Dailly News notes:
As a radiation meteorology and nuclear safety expert at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, Hiroaki Koide [says]:
The nuclear disaster is ongoing.
***
At present, I believe that there is a possibility that massive amounts of radioactive materials will be released into the environment again.
At the No. 1 reactor, there's a chance that melted fuel has burned through the bottom of the pressure vessel, the containment vessel and the floor of the reactor building, and has sunk into the ground. From there, radioactive materials may be seeping into the ocean and groundwater.
***
The government and plant operator TEPCO are trumpeting the operation of the circulation cooling system, as if it marks a successful resolution to the disaster. However, radiation continues to leak from the reactors. The longer the circulation cooling system keeps running, the more radioactive waste it will accumulate. It isn't really leading us in the direction we need to go.
It's doubtful that there's even a need to keep pouring water into the No.1 reactor, where nuclear fuel is suspected to have burned through the pressure vessel. Meanwhile, it is necessary to keep cooling the No. 2 and 3 reactors, which are believed to still contain some fuel, but the cooling system itself is unstable. If the fuel were to become overheated again and melt, coming into contact with water and trigger a steam explosion, more radioactive materials will be released.
***
We are now head to head with a situation that mankind has never faced before.
Mainichi also reports:
The Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and residents of the zone between 20 and 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant held an emergency evacuation drill on Sept. 12 ... in preparation for any further large-scale emission of radioactive materials from the plant.
***
The scenario for the drill presupposed further meltdown of the Fukushima plant’s No. 3 reactor core, and a local accumulation of radioactive materials emitting 20 millisieverts of radiation within the next four days. ...
And nuclear expert Paul Gunter says that we face a "China Syndrome", where the fuel from the reactor cores at Fukushima have melted through the container vessels, into the ground, and are hitting groundwater and creating highly-radioactive steam:
Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said recently that a new built up of hydrogen may cause the reactors to explode again:
Hydrogen buildup at Fukushima? What does it mean & why does it happen? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Nuclear expert Dr. Ian Fairlie - former scientific secretary to the United Kingdom government’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters, who advises the European Parliament as well as local and national authorities in several countries - told Dr. Helen Caldicott:
Really it’s just a matter of time before it [the corium] goes through and into the bottom of the actual station itself. And if it ever hits ground, well… there’s a lot of water sloshing around there, if molten fuel gets into that water it will immediately flash to steam and you will have huge steam explosions going on.
***
I’m not ruling out a nuclear bomb-type explosion”.
And the architect who actually designed Fukushima Reactor No. 3 - Uehara Haruo, former president of Saga University - told popular Japanese news source Live Door on November 17th that (translation courtesy of Fukushima Diary):
In this interview, [Haruo] admitted Tepco’s explanation does not make sense, and that the China syndrome is inevitable.
He stated that considering 8 months have passed since [the March 11th earthquake] without any improvement, it is inevitable that melted fuel went out of the container vessel and sank underground, which is called China syndrome.
He added, if fuel has reaches a underground water vein, it will cause contamination of underground water, soil contamination and sea contamination. Moreover, if the underground water vein keeps being heated for long time, a massive hydrovolcanic explosion will be caused.
(Or see this Google translation or this Babelfish translation).
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That would be a huge improvement.
So if there is a hydorvolcanic blast what are projected estimates of radiation dispersal? Anyone? TIA
Good one. Thanks for the laugh.
A better multiple choice question may be:
How quickly will 1 blast become 3?
1) 5 milliseconds
2) 8 milliseconds
3) 6 milliseconds
In Chernobyl the Russians have feared an 3 to 5 megaton blast if the molten metal breaks the barrier to the groundwater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiCXb1Nhd1o#t=33m55s
That's why they put miners at work to dig out a huge underground chamber below the reactor area. Firstly they wanted to install a refrigerator, but then filled up the hole with yet more concrete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiCXb1Nhd1o#t=41m05s
wow new tourist destination, the Japanese old faithfull. I bet it will be beautiful.
Yeah the japs have been coving this thing up from day one, thank god the folks there are ery good and bending over and taking it. But hey we are doing it was well with the banks
Carraway Gardens
Corzine is there right now fixing it, and people think he is in hiding..
doing gods work.
That's right, otherwise he'd have already taken up his new position in the cabinet.
He'll have to settle for being a czar. They just get appointed and do not need Senatorial approval.
By the way - has he got his truck out of the ditch yet?
nuclear power was intentionally constructed by these so called globalists to poison the planet. they have the technology to stop the leakage, but why would they. levels of tolerable levels have been increased by all governments. notice how many nuclear plants are built near, or on fault lines! this is no accident people!
Gotta gets dat global population down, one way or tother...
If we spray corexit on that shiz it should disperse the danger.
http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/bp-s-gulf-oil-second-wa...
Official Trailer for "The Big Fix".
Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg_fpr6XBFM
Don't want to be a doomer, but wouldn't the Uranium part of the molten blob slowly sink to the bottom, eventually making a blob of U concentrated enough to start fission over again? Once you get a big enough blob.....critical mass.
Uranium has several different isotopes.
U-238, by itself, can not support a fission chain reaction (due to the way its scatters its radiation), but U-235 can support a fission chain reaction.
For a fission-type nuclear explosion, the concentation of U-235 needs to be about 20%. To create a uranium blend with that much U-235 requires a very special centrifuge (or some other special technology).
Nuclear reactors for steam/electric power generation use a fuel mixture which is only about 3% U-235 with the rest being mostly U-238.
No. The radiation pressure/heat from the various pieces would keep the new ones from getting close. The major difficulty in building a bomb is getting the fissionable material together quickly enough to cause it to explode.
It can do that. It ('They') is doing it now.
All your base are belong to us.
Core(s) already critical. Next step is mildly super-critical (check) then super-critical to the point where the fuel reconfigures itself (emits flux of neutrons/radiation then the fissile atoms repel each other).
If the fuel cannot move away -- because it is in a hole in the ground -- and the chain reaction continues there is explosion. The 1000+ tons of fissile material, the reactor buildings and anything else on the site becomes 'fallout'.
The difference between a bomb criticality and an ordinary runaway is purity of the fuel, critical mass and neutron saturation. In a bomb, all of these are rendered as efficiently as possible so the explosive force can be delivered as a missile warhead or inside an airplane.
With 150 ton fuel cores per reactor, efficiency is unnecessary.
Thanks for piping in- I was thinking along similar lines. While I have not tried to analyze this in detail, the knee-jerk naysayers sound to me like they are just spouting what they learned in school. Military research to make nukes focused on yield, weight, portability, etc. It is, in fact, very difficult to make nukes because one has to force all the intended chain reaction fission to occur before the massive energy release disperses the material.
In fairness, most of us have not really analyzed situations involving such massive amounts of uncontrolled, relatively enriched material. But frankly, I don't think it matters so much anyway. There is enough contaminating material already to cause whatever horrible damage you can imagine if it is dispersed. It doesn't need to be generated by a nuclear blast, and I don't think that's where to put attention. The problem is where the existing material ends up.
I highly doubt a "nuclear explosion" is even possible here - Mother of all dirty bombs - sure. That's exactly what this has been for a while now, however. If/when a melted core hits ground water is an event everyone downwind should be thinking about.
The media blackout on this is palpable.
I heard they let international reporters take a bus 'tour' of the plant, but the reporters weren't allowed off of the bus. Is that true? How bad do you think conditions are for those pour souls working there? I get a heavy feeling in my chest thinking about it.
Party on, Garth!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/post-correspondent-vis...
Someone needs to post the pic of the feral ostrich frolicking in the radiation zone. Serious, this is reality?????????
"I heard they let international reporters take a bus 'tour' of the plant, but the reporters weren't allowed off of the bus."
.................
The reporters couldn't get off the bus. The door seals melted and the doors wouldn't open... Plus, the bus passed the site at 120 miles per hour and no reporter had the nads to jump out a window.
The reporters following Buffett are simply glowing.
Jack Lemmon would have sorted this out with Michael Douglas doing the camera work. Should have sent them over to fix it.
Send all of the Fed boards and chairmen, the unjustice dept, homeland security (they need it more than we do), the administrative branch, FEMA, little Timmy, Lloyd, Jamie, and a copy of the Unpatriot Act.
If all of these azz hats can't make the Fukashima situation worse then we know it's stable.
Make sure Sean Penn, Jeanine Garafallo, and Alec Baldwin go as well.
You forgot Jane Fonda.
You could counter her well with Hanoi John McCain.
+1
I always prefer to think of Jane Fonda as Barbarella. Yowza.
dup
and Obummer
How about the Entire Bush clan - especially Jeb Bush - (when he runs we know the repubs want to win)
You have to have a good point/counterpoint exchange of disinformation. Send Hannity and Limbaugh to provide a little yin/yang.
How bout O'Reilly- no psycho left behind.
Affirmative action...FTW!
Thanks GW for keeping the issue in public view, while enenews.com has kept up with sometimes hourly update, most of the public lack the will to find important information themselves.
Regarding "china syndrome," some of the data seems to indicate there has indeed been a breach of containment and corium(the radioactive molten pool of stuff that used to form the reactor core) appears to be melting down through the ground(to china if starting in US, hence the name).
Nuclear bomb type explosion? Unlikely, reactor fuel is well below the minimum purity needed for super-critical behavior. That does not mean the fuel can't sustain criticality, but it won't explode by the force of fission.
Hydrogen which initially caused the explosion in march was due to oxidation of super-heated zircalloy used to encased the fuel pellets into fuel rods. It will keep oxidizing if there's any left.