Posted on 03/15/2011 8:13:35 AM PDT by SE Mom
Grabbed some commercial time there huh.
In other news, Al Gore still has not located the key to his lockbox.
From the long post and perhaps the single most key to remember:
Now as to meltdowns, etc. Here is the latest information from Dr. James Mahaffey, author of “Atomic Awakening.” He has worked as a senior research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute for 25 years. His past employers include the Defense Nuclear Agency, and the National Ground Intelligence Center. He’s a nuclear physicist. In other words, he knows what he speaks of. You will find his book on Amazon.com.
My question to him via email: “Are the reactor vessel and concrete containment building able to handle a meltdown given they were scrammed before the explosion? Or does that matter if the rods have been exposed to air and reheated?”
Answer: “Let’s get straight what “meltdown” means. What we have here is core meltdowns, not fuel meltdowns. The core structure, made of metal (zirconium) has collapsed because the temperature exceeded the melting point of the metal. But, the fuel is ceramic. There’s not enough heat from fission product decay to melt the fuel pellets, and not enough to melt through the 6-inch stainless steel reactor vessel. It’s very bad, but not quite that bad.”
But what’s “fission product decay” you ask? After the quake, the reactor shut down. The control rods were scrammed to stop the uranium fuel chain reaction. However, there is still a little bit of residual activity that causes heat. You still need cooling for that heat. Left uncooled, the heat build up will start melting the surrounding metal of the fuel rods. Now revisit Dr. Mahaffey’s answer above.
So, when you review the news, keep the “reactor vessel” in mind as that holds all the nasty stuff. That’s the key to look for. As long as that stays intact, it is a “very bad but not quite that bad.”
As I read it ...they ingect Hydrogen as part of the process to control corrison ...newer designs have an automated way to handle that with noble metals....somehow.
need to read thru all of that again.
Amen, like the firemen and cops that went into the WTC... must be a lost tribe of Irish living in Nippon.
Prayers for their souls.
They also see a slight lower water level in reactor 5.
From NHK website
They’re facing a similar problem as with the reactor fuel rods in 1, 2, 3. they fear another hydrogen explosion.
the current most serious situation is with the used fuel rod containment at reactor 4 of No. 1 Fukushima
that was on the NHK TV news
It takes days to get the core down to a cold state. The longer they can keep cooling the cores, the better. The problem was getting enough seawater to the cores in a consistent way.
Hence the need for auxiliary cooling in the event of a SCRAM.
This is looking like the BP Gulf Maconda Oil well Explosion all over again!
Now how does that sound? Dangerous? Can’t blame you for thinking that.
Here is where perspective comes in:
A medical xray is about 600 microsieverts per hour. So if you are in bad shape at the hospital and require multiple xrays...
Oh, come on. That's PER HOUR according to your statistics.
Saying a medical X-Ray is "600 microsieverts per hour" and so therefore trying to SUGGEST that 3,130 microsieverts would be like "5 X-rays" is wrong. An X-ray might last a second. So, instead, it would be like standing in front of 6 x-ray machines running full blast - the equivalent of 6 xrays a second, 360 per minute, 21,600 per hour, 518,400 X-rays per day for EVERY day one is exposed.
THAT'S what I got from your statistics. Either you explained it wrong, or it is much more serious than you suggest.
From the Ticker Forum thread, and Karl is banning anyone posting sheer speculation, it is an excellent place for news/rational comments:
http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=182121&page=71
Morning/evening folks. Latest update on Reactor status from Kyodo News. (Items in parenthesis added by me from other sources)
The following is the known status as of Tuesday evening of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
— Reactor No. 1 - Cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, hydrogen explosion, seawater pumped in.
— Reactor No. 2 - Cooling failure, seawater pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, damage to containment system, potential meltdown feared.
— Reactor No. 3 - Cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater pumped in, hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby.
— Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, fire caused possibly by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, pool water level feared receding. (Outer containment building perforated by explosion from No.3-Reuters, Crack in roof of outer containment building-Reuters, 4 Workers missing after explosion, last seen near Reactor 4-Reuters)
— Reactor No. 5 - Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature slightly rising at spent fuel pool.
— Reactor No. 6 - Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature slightly rising at spent fuel pool.
Gaahhhh! And remember those cicadas? When those things came out, the huge concrete sumps filled with water for firefighting (and covered with chain link fence, which we jumped up and down on like they were trampolines!) got filled by the thousands with those green caterpillars...disgusting.
A typo. A medical xray is 600 microsieverts. Long day.
OK, FRiend.
In a moment of sanity- someone decided against the whole chopper idea:
2126: Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has just announced it is abandoning the plan to use helicopters to drop water as it would be too impractical, AP reports. It said other options were being considered, including using fire engines. Our correspondent said there had been concerns over the proposal, not least because of the possible health impact for the helicopter pilots.
Well don't expect to hear that from the Global media...They are loving this.
The Japanese are going to wonder which was the biggest battle....dueling with the Reactors or the international Media.....
They sure can't say just yet that the problems are decreasing!
Jay Carney says Pres Obama’s 5-day trip to Brazil, Chile & El Salvador starting Fri night is on.
____________________________________________
Let the partay begin...
I think he may have got it wrong...I did the same thing by misinterpreting the data in an article. If you are not careful, it is easy to do.
You can measure actual exposure to a person’s body or hands with a dosimetry device that records how much they have accumulated during the time they were in contact with ionizing radiation. Film badges, TLD’s, that type of thing. This is usually in rems, millirems, rads or millirads, totaled.
Or, you can measure the exposure rate. This is in rem/hr; mrem/hr;rad/hr or mrad/hr typically. You get this reading from a detector that measures constantly.
If the context is wrong, you can completely misread it.
That’s what I thought. With all the other things one person was mentioning, I knew had to be some kooky crap.
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