Posted on 07/21/2017 11:24:31 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“From the pictures taken today, it is obvious that some melted objects came out of the reactor. This means something of high temperature melted some structural objects and came out. So it is natural to think that melted fuel rods are mixed with them,” said Takahiro Kimoto, a Tepco spokesman.
“In that sense, it is possible that the melted objects found this time are melted fuel debris or probably around it,” he said, saying the utility will think about how they can be analyzed to determine if they are the former fuel rods.
This is the first time Tepco has found something likely to be melted fuel. When the utility sent a different robot into reactor 2 in January, it found black lumps sticking to the grating in the primary containment vessel but said they were difficult to identify.
...
Tepco will continue the probe on Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at japantimes.co.jp ...
Distant historians will not be kind to this era.
FAKE NEWS.....anybody with any sense knew fuel melted from day 2.
At Chernobyl, workers dug into the room below the reactor, where the uranium melted into, and found black fungus growing. Apparently some fungus can use radiation as an energy source and feed on it.
Those fuel rods are so horribly dangerous! :-(
Get enough of them in one place and things get mighty HOT!
BTW: The workings of a fission reactor are very, very simple, anyone can understand the concepts when they are explained to them.
The trick with fission reactors is making them safe to operate....some old designs were poorly thought out :-/
Yes. Nuke apologists on FR were blasting anyone who suggested melted fuel as “hysterics” and “fear mongers”. Took a few years for TEPCO to admit to it. But, their tactics seem to work. They deny/lie when everyone is clamoring for information (news anchors said that without help from the company or Japan, they just had to look at the exploding containment videos and describe what they saw without any basis). They wait for the clamoring to die down, and then they quietly admit what many knew - melted fuel. With nuke industry - it’s rinse and repeat. Lie now - and if they HAVE to, then quietly admit later. When confronted they say BUT WE DID tell the public! Just 3 years AFTER THE FACT!
bfl
It’s good to know the melted material was retained within the containment building.
-—the melted material was retained within the containment building.-—
What translate to is that the containment vessel engineering was or rather is a success
Yes but I still think the concept of a pebble bed reactor is safer.
Thinking of you...
Nice post. Whether we like it or not...we will need nuclear energy. Glad to hear the containment vessels kept the rods inside. Melted.. wow.
We need to make use of current tech and build nuclear plants.. we should use some of the pipe dream funds to make this a safe technology.
We had a solution to this in the 1960’s when the DOE, Oak Ridge Labs and Weinberg’s team produced the first prototypes of molten salt reactors using Thorium (LFTR).
If such a reactor were at Fukushima it would of simply vacated its liquid fuel into an emergency drain tank. This drain tank incorporates passive cooling measures while possessing no active initiators.
Since Thorium needs a constant initiator to fission off (Thorium is fertile not fissile) the molten salt material (FLIBE + U233) would immediately start to cool off in the drain take and solidify. Once the crisis was over the drain take could be disconnected and its contents safely sent to a secure location for storage.
However, for a variety of political/corporate/military reasons, LFTRs were quietly killed off in favor of Light Water Reactors and the exotic Fast Breeder Reactors (which failed and got shelved).
As a historical side note: some of the founding members of India’s nuclear power industry have stated that if given a second chance, they would of seriously looked at LFTRs instead of LWRs.
LFTR Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk
Like we werent positivly aware of this.
The dome for the reactor vessel is still in orbit !!
That’s true. The article does indicate that the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) was penetrated with the melted components found on the pedestal that supports the RPV. The floor of the containment is below that.
“...theutility will think about how they can be analyzed to determine if they are the former fuel rods.”
You’d think with the world’s experience in analyzing rocks on Mars and the moon that we’d have already developed methods of analysis at a distance using laser or maser excitation and spectroanalysis. Maybe even just firing a bullet at it and analyzing the dust cloud.
Where’s my check from TEPCO for this million-dollar idea?
I understand that both China and India have harvested as much of the LFTR type information from Oak Ridge and elsewhere that they can lay their hands on. India has significant Thorium resources. Much of the Thorium in the world is not recognized though since it has no significant market at this time because its use is limited.
LFTR should be a national policy program on the same scale and importance as going to the moon was in the 60s. Unlike that program this could actually accomplish something useful that would place the US in a position of preeminence and global leadership for decades. Done right it might actually result in cheap clean electricity and near freedom from fossil fuels for all but the most demanding transportation activities.
The problem with LFTR as I understand it is to develop a process whereby contaminants can be removed and new fuel can be added to the liquid salt in a process stream instead of a batch operation as was done in the Oak Ridge demonstration plant.
I have wondered if LFTR is just another over hyped panacea like atomic energy in general was in the 40s and 50s before reality set in. Back then everything was going to be atomic and electricity was going to be to cheap to measure. Never happened.
I continue to be astonished at how many otherwise very knowledgable people are totally ignorant of LFTR.
Thank you your most honorable Nullness. Here is early work on melanized fungi and radioactivity: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000457&type=printable
Here’s the big difference...LFTR’s actually existed. They weren’t some theoretical dream locked up in someone’s file cabinet or a Gov’t funded scam.
As to the tech spec issues, Weinberg’s fellow scientists were interviewed years latter by Kirk Sorensen (TEAC founding member) and all said that any major post-op concerns were fixable. Some issues were fixed on-the-fly at Oak Ridge while others had solutions inserted into their final reports. Any other remaining issues were to be worked out in “Phase 2”.
As to the waste removal and fuel production, batch processing was done to simplify the testing process. In many ways the first few years were a “proof of concept” experiment. Micro testing of certain key processes, not fully worked on in the 1965-1969 series, would of been done before “Phase two” was to commence (1976...but this time with full DOE/NRC/Corporate support).
Weinberg’s crew were confident, based upon their calculations and previous experiences, that any post 1969 issues were solvable.
The NRC/DOE were so confident in LFTR’s potential they were making the necessary preparations for regulatory standards and protocols (a vital milestone for LFTRs acceptance). However, by 1972 the whole LFTR project was summarily shut down. The reasons were many but the chief ones were that since WW2, Uranium was “the standard” and darling of the world’s militaries, corporations, academia and gov’ts. Thorium just didn’t have the clout.
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