Earthquake/Tsunami Thread - FG Members Check In.

article on the spent fuel rod problem:
On that basis, I've now got a different idea about the hydrogen explosions. So far I had believed them to be caused by hydrogen (from radiolysis) from the reactor pressure vessels. But that doesn't make a lot of sense because: AFAIK, the steam released from the reactor vessel is directed into a large pool of water where it condenses, trapping the radioactive contaminants it carries. Any hydrogen mixed with the gas would of course not be condensed, but escape and might then explode once oxygen is present.
Also AFAIK, the mentioned pool of water is located at the bottom of the containment building inside the torus shown on diagrams of the reactor. So that's also where the hydrogen would escape from that water - at the bottom of the containment. However, the explosions occured at the top. I don't think anyone would have built a reactor where escaping explosive gases are routed from the bottom to the top of the building and into the very superstructure that was blown away by the explosions.

As we now know, there was another source of radiolytic hydrogen at the top of those buildings: the pools containing the spent fuel. They may have been intended for temporary storage only, but as is often the way with these storage facilities, "temporary" is a very flexible term. There must be hundreds of tons of spent fuel inside the reactor buildings, stored right where the explosions occured, with a huge potential for unwanted hydrogen production under circumstances where the necessary cooling and monitoring aren't working. Couldn't it be that this was the source of the hydrogen?

On the first sentence... the structure that blew up was the outer weather proofing, not the containment structure.
I think they might mean the outer shell with the term "building" and the containment building with the word "vessel", i.e. "containment vessel".
 
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Mainly from what correspondents and people who lived in Japan, report here on TV. I'm only quoting, you know. We are all flying blind, trying to interpret the bits and pieces of information that get out.

Fair enough, just keep in mind that when one person gives their opinion it's just one person's opinion.

Here's an example of Australian media; an article about the reactors with a picture of the refinery fire. I guess the images from the reactors aren't dramatic enough. :rolleyes:

https://pic.armedcats.net/h/ha/hansvonaxion/2011/03/15/Screen_shot_2011-03-16_at_9.15.04_AM.png

I just read, that the accident is now rated 6 instead of 4 on the INES scale? Can somebody confirm that?

I read that with no link to any official source. I don't know how it jumped the step with wider implications and what those would be except influencing foreign countries' policies on nuclear energy. :)
 
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Also AFAIK, the mentioned pool of water is located at the bottom of the containment building inside the torus shown on diagrams of the reactor. So that's also where the hydrogen would escape from that water - at the bottom of the containment. However, the explosions occured at the top. I don't think anyone would have built a reactor where escaping explosive gases are routed from the bottom to the top of the building and into the very superstructure that was blown away by the explosions.

I think I mentioned before that they were talking about the filter for the gasses, they showed a pipe running from that pool at the bottom to the top with a filter halfway up so I would say the gasses are routed and released at the top.
 
That's what I'm reading too.

Accident isn't really the right word for it. I think the term "unprecedented and unforeseeable natural disaster" is more accurate.

And even if it reaches a Chernobyl matching 7 it will be down to that rather than flawed design, bad management and blatant human stupidity.
 
That's what I'm reading too.

No need to rely on other people's reporting, just gather your own data :)

Tokyo levels (south)
Onagawa levels (north)
Niigata levels (west)

And even if it reaches a Chernobyl matching 7 it will be down to that rather than flawed design, bad management and blatant human stupidity.

Any other type of facility would have failed long ago, see the burning refinery/oil tanks at Tokyo Bay.

That's scary. Have any of the experts or designers been asked about the storage pools of reactors 1,2 and 3?
These obviously would have been launched some distance in the explosions (If they were still stored here) Especially with reactor 3 and its MOX fuels.

The storage pools of running reactors would be empty.



Maybe it's just me and my non-Japanese views, but it sort of feels wrong to use emoticons to denote reactor states.

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2011/03/15/emoticons.png

First row is Fukushima I with reactors #1-#3 broken, #4-#6 off, second row is Fukushima II with reactors #1-#4 off. Third row is Kashiwazaki-Kariwa with apparently 4 of 7 up and running.
 
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More info on stuff like this? Was nuclear weapons testing really this harmful? I expected some impact, but not that large level, especially compared to Chernobyl.

Inhaling Radon is said to be 1.1mSv/a around here.


An addendum about nuke tests, the Soviets did 138 atmospheric tests in 1961/62, among them the five largest nukes ever detonated. Those triple figures are largely to blame for the massive spike in the early sixties. Also, much closer to Finland than to Germany.
Even more so, you can see the temporary halt to nuke tests in 1959/60 as the massive drop within the spike.


 
Workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.

Just hours earlier another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled plant, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering both fear in the capital and international alarm.

The workers were allowed back into the plant after almost an hour when the radiation levels had fallen.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/wl_nm/us_japan_quake
 
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[video=youtube;xylDxj6-9dY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xylDxj6-9dY&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Video showing all those earthquake readings Spectre was posting. That is a shit-ton of earthquakes.
 
CNN had a report on a couple of days ago that showed a list of how many and what scale the aftershocks would be. There will be more than 10,000 aftershocks, with only a few of them over 6.0.

And the radiation is not going away quickly, it will dilute in the atmosphere, but that will take time.
 
Video showing all those earthquake readings Spectre was posting. That is a shit-ton of earthquakes.

And I'm only posting the 5+ richter ones. The one just below 5, were they to read out in real time would just be scrolling endlessly.


Unless Fukushima suddenly becomes a nuclear volcano and spews tons and tons of purely radioactive particles into the sky, CA has very little to worry about. Not just saying that, my parents live there.

Also, given the crap that is California air, how the hell would you be able to tell? :p


Another (TV) report had all non-absolutely-urgent crew pulling back with the control crew remaining behind, then everyone returned after the radiation surge.
 
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Satellite images taken in the last few hours.
japan_earthquaketsu_fukushima_daiichi2_march16_2011_dg.jpg


http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalglobe-imagery/with/5530841143/

The building on the far left is the building that was shutdown before the tsunami and was inactive.
This is the building full of stored fuel rods (Not sure on how many, lots of mixed numbers some say 200 some say 30,000) which are completely unprotected and exposed.
They were stored in large pools on the upper levels, which have now collapsed.
Not sure what type of fuel is stored here. (I don't know whether MOX/plutonium fuels were here. Anyone?)

http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloa...aketsu_fukushima_daiichi3_march16_2011_dg.jpg
http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloa...aketsu_fukushima_daiichi2_march16_2011_dg.jpg
http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloa...aketsu_fukushima_daiichi1_march16_2011_dg.jpg
 
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Looks like #3 is either bleeding off steam or something is still smoldering.

If that's in the correct order, that should be #1 off to the right there (with the weather cap missing). #2 (center right) looks pretty much untouched, but the weather shell is missing off the top there, too - not even the framework left. 3 and 4 look pretty dire. I bet the hydrogen cloud from 2 had drifted over away from 2 towards 3 and 4 before it ignited.

4 was powered down long before the earthquake arrived, so the reactor in that building wouldn't be why that'd happened. It wouldn't have been bleeding off steam and/or hydrogen. While 4's 'temporary storage pool' as it were is part of the containment building, it's relatively close to the surfaces of the 'cube' so it's not as well protected as the reactor proper. Someone posted this quick sketch of a GE Mk. 1 BWR/3 to Wikipedia which gives a good idea of the general placement of the spent fuel pool as well as the relative thicknesses of the walls and bulkheads.
BWR_Mark_I_Containment_sketch_with_downcomers.png

* DW = Drywell
* WW = Wetwell
* SF = Spent fuel pool

The 30,000 fuel rods would not fit in that building's spent fuel pool (AFAIK). There are probably 30,000+ spent rods on the complex site, but they're not in reactor building 4.

Unit 3 is the only one we know of that has plutonium fuel; none of the others at the complex use MOX and wouldn't have any in their spent fuel pools. The (at the time) three operational reactors would have had empty spent fuel pools - those pools are there so you can reload the reactor and they are emptied when you have finished. Prior to restarting the reactor, you unload the fuel pool and take the spent rods to the safe long term storage facility elsewhere on the reactor reservation.

That building 4 must have gotten directly nailed by the overpressure (shock) wave and then hit again by air rushing back in to fill the vacuum. Looks like it might have been airburst (i.e., the H2 cloud body must have drifted right over it.) No wonder they're having problems with the pool on that one! Not seeing main containment breach levels of damage - but 4 is probably toast now too. Well, the building it's in, at least. The reactor core's probably just fine, but they're going to have to completely raze and rebuild that building before they can restart it.

Note that the auxiliary buildings around seem to be pretty much intact.

Edit: For size comparisons and clarification, here's some PWR fuel assemblies or bundles being inspected prior to irradiation. (Yes, it's safe for the technicians to do this with only that gear on.)

Nuclear-Fuel.jpg


BWR fuel is the same except they have an external can or 'shell' around them. Technically, these are made of bundles of little bitty rods filled with uranium pellets, but most people refer to each one of those bundle structures as a 'rod' - and I'm sure that the 'bundle' is what you were thinking they meant by a 'rod' in the media. Technically, it's correct, but saying it's '30,000 rods' is akin to me saying I have an enormous 933 engine in my Ford. Technically, yes, the 4.6 is 933 tablespoons, but it's deliberate verbal overinflation of the figures in a manner calculated to bring about a reaction by converting to a unit that people aren't thinking of.

You're not going to have 30,000 bundles in a reactor's transient spent fuel pool. Aside from not physically fitting, nobody'd be that dumb.

BWR bundles each contain about 91-96 rods, with between 368 to 800 bundles being used in each reactor depending on size with the larger and newer reactors using more. The BWR/3 is on the smaller end of that size scale, I'm guessing it's about 400 or so. Which explains where someone got the '30,000 RODZ OF DEATH' number. Please note the uranium pellet picture I linked above for the size of each pellet and the resulting diameter of the rod they live in. (They're single stacked.)
 
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Just coming home now, getting off the train there was an announcement of an impending quake so everyone got off and waited on the platform for the OK.

Long lines at the supermarket (of course when I reach the check out they open 2 more lanes!).

The shopping centre is very quiet with half the shops closed, half the lights out, escalators/elevators shut down to save power.

Heavy snowfall in the north, poor bastards.

Strong off-shore winds in Tokyo and Fukushima.

Helicopters being used to drop water and/or acid on #3.

Nuclear plant operator says possible that No.2 reactor is being cooled but pressure reader may be faulty

Nuclear plant operator says situation at Daiichi No.4 reactor is not really so good (Reuters update :lol:)

Nuclear plant operator says Daiichi Reactor No.2 temperatures have stabilised

Nuclear plant operator says pressure in Daiichi reactor No. 2 container vessel and nuclear core has fallen

This is the message I get from my brother nearly a week after the quake...

So how are things going over there? Can you get food? Are things open? Have you started glowing from the radiation? There must be some rich people over there, I saw one guy with 5 cars, 2 boats and a plane out the front of his house
 
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Unless Fukushima suddenly becomes a nuclear volcano and spews tons and tons of purely radioactive particles into the sky, CA has very little to worry about. Not just saying that, my parents live there.

Also, given the crap that is California air, how the hell would you be able to tell?

Oh definitely, I only linked to that to show the absurdity of panic that seems to be going on. Guess I forgot to put in the requisite sarcasm emoticon.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL
 
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