Posted on 05/13/2011 11:29:26 PM PDT by ransomnote
As fuel rods melt, they form an extremely hot molten pool at the bottom of the reactor that can melt through even the toughest of containment barriers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365781/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-All-3-Fukushima-nuclear-plant-reactors-meltdown.html
Again,
““TEPCO officials have also not denied the possibility that melted fuel has leaked out of the pressure container. That would mean the volume of contaminated water will likely increase, making work in the reactor buildings much more difficult. “”
But realise that you have also not denied the possibility that you are actually a computer program randomly posting to the internet.
I would put more credence to the statement if there was a press conference, a real news reporter asked the question, and they actually answered "We do not discount the possibility".
Again, without a definition, I don't know what you think is meant by "full meltdown". I don't know if you have the image of a "china syndrome", or an image of the melted slag at Chernobyl. I therefore don't know what your concern is regarding a "full meltdown". It's not a technical term.
Why would they stop the water? It doesn't matter whether the fuel is in a rod, or in a slag heap at the bottom of the containment. What matters is whether the fissile material is proximate enough to create a fission reaction.
When they first pumped water into containment, they used saltwater laced with boron. Both salt and boron are moderating agents; if the slag was impregnated, it could well be a mass of material that is "inert" from a fission reaction perspective. If so, it's not much different than having fuel rods, which also need to be kept under water.
On the other hand, if it is fissile, it would likely be so even if they were covered with water -- the problem with a molten mass is that you can't inject water and other material within the lattice to moderate the fission.
But the mass is cool; that suggest that it is acting much like a set of fuel rods submerged in water. And just like those rods, if you let the water out of the spent fuel, you'd have a big release of radiation, but if you keep the water covering, the water itself doesn't get too irradiated, and the radiation doesn't escape.
Realise also the leak, if there is one, could well be in one of the normal ports in and out of the containment vessel; maybe one of the pipes burst. IF so, the reason the water is leaking is they are trying to keep the level up where the rods are -- but now they know they don't have to bother, they might not have a leak problem at all. And if they do, they just need to collect the water in containment and send it through the diffusers, until they can determina way to get the slag out and drop it in a spent fuel pool.
I don't mean to minimize the problems -- they have serious difficulties, and some hard problems to solve. But they won't solve it by squeezing their heads with their hands really hard, and running around screeming "OOOH NOES". They will do so by continuing to collect information, by getting their measurement devices working, and by putting their heads together.
and all is not okay with Reactor 1.
I don't think anybody believes anything is "well" with Reactor 1, or reactors 2 or 3. TEPCO has told us from early on that they lost cooling and the rods melted. The explosion also was a clue.
You have to realise that there is a lot of ground between "all is well" and "nuclear material is melting down to china", and we will all be dead soon". Since I don't know what your statement is about what the end will be, I don't know how we'll know you were "right". I could have told you a month ago that reactor 1 had real problems. TEPCO is talking about taking months to YEARS to get this solved; so if in a month we are still discussing what will be done about Reactor 1, TEPCO will have been "right".
As to they claim it is cool right now -- I don't know how you know when to use the word "claim" and when to use the word "admit". Why didn't they just "admit" that it was cool? because being cool doesn't sound like a bad thing? So they "claim" it? But if they said the radiation was high, that would be "admitting" not "claiming"?
So far as I can tell, they SAY the temperature is low, because they are measuring the temperature and the guages say the temperature is low; we have a record of those temperatures. Sure, the gauges could be wrong, but it's not like TEPCO purposely broke the gauges so they would give low temperature readings -- again, they NEED accurate readings to know what to do, and there would be NO VALUE in them getting the temperature wrong.
Yes, the sites I reference aren't sensationalistic. They appear to be realistic, and I like that they don't do a lot of speculation or histrionics. I trust them at least as much as I would trust internet bloggers.
Rats! It took 2 hours for them to get the guy who collapsed to a hospital. The doctor is only on site 6 hours per day because of radiation exposure and this guy collapsed when the doctor was gone for the day - then a slow car drive in a company car to a staging area followed etc.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-on-workers-death-it-took-2-hours.html
I have NEVER....NOT ONCE..mentioned the words CHINA Syndrome.
Look just stop posting to me until 30 days have past.
I have no desire to go through your posts and argue points.
You don’t have to believe this is a DISASTER WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL in ALL of it’s ramifications and TEPCO is lying corporation that hasn’t been honest about the severity all along.
BUT YOU WILL SEE I AM RIGHT.
Meanwhile...the meltdown HAPPENED BEFORE THE EXPLOSION
JUST COGITATE ON THAT!
Yes, the data was telling a story that TEPCO wouldn’t admit
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/05/91207.html
oh and btw, this complete meltdown of rods would have happened BEFORE the venting of the vapor..
perhaps the info that is starting to trickle out is why the admission has finally come that the damage to the site happened before the Tsunami.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110515x1.html
The information was there for TEPCO..they had the readings
and wouldn’t NISA have had them, too..
I guess they didn’t want to admit it ,either
“The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has so far said the reactor withstood the shaking and that the unexpectedly large tsunami caused a station blackout, which led to explosions.”
So what conclusion can you draw...
They better start wondering about TEPCO’s history of lying and falsifying records. An engineer, SteveHarvey who posts here... who was familiar with the GE scandal felt like their history of malfeasance couldn’t have had anything to do with the problem since the Tsunami created the situation.
Perhaps he should rethink that position.
TEPCO has had a clampdown on information and the Government has clamped down on the media.
New info is starting to come out.
Given what I have seen in the past...this is a precursor to more bad news..we just don’t know it yet - at least not officially ;-)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110515x1.html
The poor Japanese people are just waiting for the next shoe to drop...
IN other words, I'm telling you that I have no idea what you mean -- others who use the word "full meltdown" think about the two things I mentioned, but I "don't know" whether that is what you meant.
Interestingly, while you scream that you never mentioned the words "CHINA Syndomr", you never actually said that you WEREN'T thinking it. All you had to do, instead of screaming, was to say "No, that's not what I think when I say "full meltdown", I mean ---" and then actually explain technically what you think "full meltdown" means.
Again though, I had quite a few things I said in my post in response to stuff you posted. If you "have no desire to go through your posts and argue points", why bother posting stuff? I can assure you that when you post things that need to be discussed, or need to be argued, I or someone else WILL be arguing them, no matter how angry it makes you or how much you beg us not to.
If you don't want people to discuss your opinions, your best bet is to keep your opinions to yourself. Sharing opinions here means people will discuss them with you.
You also haven't explained what advantage TEPCO gets from not being honest about the severity, and why you think their statements are a sign of deliberate malfeasance rather than being typical japanese culture (which most americans simply don't understand and mistake for being to deferential and obtuse).
"BUT YOU WILL SEE I AM RIGHT"
Make an actual prediction for what we will know in a month, and present the actual evidence you used to make that conclusion. But you have to actually make a prediction, not just say "Things will be bad in a month"; because I believe things will be bad in a month.
But I also believe that the exclusion zone in one year from this accident will be smaller than that of Chernobyl, and the total number of people who die from radiation from this accident will be less than half that of Chernobyl. Those are the two clearest measurements I can think of which would refute your prediction that this is worse than Chernobyl.
So, explain the measurements that will prove this is "worse than chernobyl".
Without agreeing to your premise, I will point out that the explosion is the result of hydrogen gas, gas which is generated by a meltdown of the reactor fuel, and which was in the upper building reportedly because they had to relieve pressure in the vessel.
So it is no surprise that the explosion happened "after the meltdown", the shock would be if the explosion happened BEFORE the meltdown.
That is an inaccurate statement of the article you linked to. This is why people will continue to post responses to your comments. You state: "the damage to the site".
There is a LOT of damage to the site. A lot of different things are broken. What the article says is that there is SOME evidence that there was SOME damage to the ONE reactor from the initial earthquake. From the actual article:
A source at Tepco admitted it was possible that key facilities were compromised before the tsunami.Damage to the pipes would not itself have lead to a complete loss of coolant; nothing in the article contraindicates that the loss of cooling from the loss of power is what caused the meltdown and explosiion."The quake's tremors may have caused damage to the pressure vessel or pipes," the official said.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has so far said the reactor withstood the shaking and that the unexpectedly large tsunami caused a station blackout, which led to explosions.
All this report tells us is that there was some radiation leakage the meltdown. BTW, the tsunami was an hour after the initial earthquake. They lost power an hour after that, and the high readings weren't until later that evening, AFTER the tsunami and loss of power, but before the loss of coolant and the explosion.
Also, this isn't a new admission -- we knew people went into the plant, and had to leave that evening because the dosimeters went off. IT may be that we didn't know what the dosimeter limit settings were.
Also note that the readings they are now announcing, 300 ms/hour, is lower than the amount they were detecting today -- which again shows that whatever the problems were that led to the initial high radiation, they weren't the problems they are dealing with now.
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