Report: Radioactive material may have leaked from Japanese reactor

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/japan-quake-nuclear-coolant-idUSN1125270120110311

One of the best things Zero & Co. could do is bench Hillary!

Tommorrow... probably.

LLS

I wonder how much of this is xenon-135 (half-life 9.2 hours), and therefore quite a low risk, especially if the wind is blowing offshore.

It's pretty clear that the only heat sink two or three of these units have is the suppression pool. We have reports of a sustained loss of AC at one of the units. This would explain their coolant situation but the other two appear to have power yet still no heat sink as evidenced by the high suppression pool temperature. I believe they need some out of the box thinking to buy time. They could sluice some condensate storage tank water into the suppression pool at the expense of overall containment free volume and get some additional heat storage capacity. They could use portable pumps to get some cooling water flowing. Any heat removal avenue would help. I am more concerned about the other two plants that have power but no cooling flow. I find it unlikely that the quake would have damaged all the cooling systems to the point that none remain due to physical failure. I wonder if the systems were filled with debris from the quake and wave action. Still, you could isolate the Residual Heat Removal System (RHR) heat exchangers (Hxs), pull the man ways and install flanges with multiple fire hose connections supplied from temporary pumps. That would get you some cooling water flow. You could use temporary pumps on the reactor side also by pulling check valve internals and covers in the RHR system, replacing the cover with a flange fitted with hose connections. Jumpering around the RHR pump that is not running with a temporary pump that can run. Also there is the spent fuel pool that has a lot of water with significant static head that connects to the RHR system. The resulting flow path would be from the suppression pool, through the temporary pump(s), through the RHR Hxs, into the reactor, into a steam line, through a relief valve, and back to the suppression pool. Circulation through the reactor is established. The heat sink was established to the RHR Hx using a temporary pump(s). These are just some ideas. There are other ways available. Wish I was there.

We don't know why the cooling systems failed on the plants with power but the one without power is self explanatory...no power to run the pumps. There are many backup systems on a BWR. There is a common mode failure here perhaps debris clogging of the systems? Regardless there are many ways to buy time to get designed systems on line. Creativity is the key here.