Posted on 03/15/2011 8:13:35 AM PDT by SE Mom
Latest news from Japan:
From the BBC-
1456: Tepco says it may start pouring water from a helicopter over Fukushima Daiichi's reactor four in the next few days, to cool the spent-fuel pool.
1439: A 30km (18 mile) no-fly zone is in place around Fukushima, says the IAEA.
1436: The IAEA says Monday's blast at Fukushima may have affected the integrity of the containment vessel - there are fears of more serious radioactive leaks if happen.
1435: Following earlier reports, it appears there has been more than one strong aftershock in Japan - AP reports two tremors measuring over 6.0 within three minutes of each other.
Twitter-
-US Geological Survey counts 451 aftershocks since the initial earthquake struck Japan Friday. 238 of them registered magnitude 5.0 or more.
-Despite situations in Japan & Libya, spksmn Jay Carney says Pres Obama's 5-day trip to Brazil, Chile & El Salvador starting Fri night is on.
-FLASH: More U.S. military personnel in Japan testing positive for low-levels of radiation, relief missions to continue - Navy 18 minutes ago via web
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-roof-idUSTRE72E8H920110315
TOKYO | Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:47pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-roof-idUSTRE72E8H920110315
(Reuters) - Two workers are missing after Tuesday’s explosion at one of the reactors at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant, the country’s nuclear safety agency said.
The agency did not identify the missing workers, but said they were in the turbine area of the No.4 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was damaged by last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.
Agency official also told a news conference there was a crack in the roof of the reactor building.
Authorities are desperately trying to prevent the water which is designed to cool the radioactive cores of the plant’s reactors from running dry, which would lead to overheating and the release of dangerous radioactive material into the atmosphere.
see #339
Seems I read hydrogen was generated when super hot fuel rod coatings oxidize, leaving behind the hydrogen.
When the pressure built to a level that required the container to be vented, the hydrogen collected inside the reactor building until it found a source of ignition.
One has to ask why wasn't the relief system vented to the outside of the building instead of inside the building?
2208: Lyn Francis, in the UK, told the BBC she received a text message from a friend who is trapped by floods on the fifth floor of a university building in Ishinomaki. “He and his colleagues have very little - or by now possibly no - food, no water and no heating. I received a text from him at 2100 GMT it read: ‘It’s bad. Love to you all’. It sounds like the last text someone would write if they were dying.”
2210: Tepco has confirmed that a fire broke out at reactor four in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Smoke is pouring from the reactor, a spokesman told reporters
Are you sure about the link?
By the way, reactor 4 doesn’t have any fuel in it:
“The IAEA can confirm the following information about the status of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:
Unit 4 was shut down for a routine, planned maintenance outage on 30 November 2010. After the outage, all fuel from the reactor was transferred to the spent fuel pool.
Units 5 and 6 were shut down at the time of the earthquake. Unit 5 was shut down as of 3 January 2011. Unit 6 was shut down as of 14 August 2010. Both reactors are currently loaded with fuel.”
Heartbreaking.
Taking a prayer break.
From everything I’ve read about #4, it has spent fuel rods stored in it. Which get very hot when not covered with water, which apparently they are not.
The reactor with control rods would be too cool.
CNN: Helicopter being readied to fight fire
2216: The BBC’s Matt Frei in Tokyo says spent fuel rods in reactors five and six are also now believed to be heating up.
2216: The BBC’s Matt Frei in Tokyo says spent fuel rods in reactors five and six are also now believed to be heating up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
Sorry wrong link.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-fire-idUSTRE72E95H20110315
I’m trying to remember the TMI situation, wasn’t that just a partial meltdown due to partially exposed fuel (or control rods, I don’t remember which.) A hydrogen explosion was a concern, but did that ever happen?
I’m just comparing this to TMI, and this is worse by at least a magnatude.
Any experts side-by-side this to TMI?
NHK is reporting that the fire is inaccessible because of radiation levels.
comment by Steven at 6:21 PM
Prayers..
What is "scrammed" you may ask? Why that's one step short of "scrambled."
How about "withdrawn," please ditch the insider lingo. Actually communicating is such a better idea.
Let us be clear. Compared to the real disaster at hand, the hypothetical threat from the nuclear stations is zero. The reactors in question were all shut down four days ago. The control rods have been inserted, and the cores have been salted with boron. It is physically impossible for them to sustain a fission reaction of any kind at this point, let alone cause another Chernobyl. Only the fission-byproduct decay heat remains, and it is fading fast as the short half-life material (which accounts for most of the radioactivity) performs its decay reactions and ceases to exist. At this point, the total heating power in the reactors is only about 0.3 percent of what it was when the reactors were operating. That means that a system previously capable of generating 1,300 megawatts of heat would now yield 4 megawatts thermal — about the same as that emitted by a dozen 100-horsepower automobile engines. The Japanese engineers can certainly deal with that with water cooling. And even if they were to stop, there just isn’t enough heating power in the system anymore to generate a dangerous plume of radioactive materials, which is doubly impossible at this point since all the more active short half-life stuff is already gone.
No, the threat does not come from the power plant, but from panic spread by press misinformation. After Three Mile Island, the press spread hysteria as well, but at least there conditions in the rest of society were normal, and so the only victim of the press campaign was the nuclear industry.
But there is a real emergency in Japan right now, of epic proportions, which has to be dealt with as effectively as possible. That emergency is not nuclear radiation, but the need to rescue the trapped and the injured, shield the homeless from the elements, and to prevent an epidemic. In this case, panic induced by press misinformation could cause the deaths of multitudes of people, both by inducing them to take unwise actions, as well by scaring away those who might otherwise try to rescue them.
By diverting people from the real emergency at hand, this radiation scare could kill thousands.
http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=182121&page=74
(Comments are from a poster there, not me.)
Status Update on Reactors, based on Kyodo News reports.(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 - (CURRENT: On Fire, possibly near Spent Fuel Rod containment pool-NHK) 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. (Low water level-NHK)
— Reactor No. 6 - Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature slightly rising at spent fuel pool.
Fire in building 4 + increasing radiation = Spent fuel is burning. NOT GOOD.
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