Restoration at nuke plant disrupted, radiation fears spread to Tokyo

Kyodo News Japan ^ | 24 March 2011

[AwesomePossum]

...black smoke was seen rising at the No. 3 reactor building...surface temperatures...have topped the maximum levels...high-level radiation amounting to at least 500 millisieverts per hour was detected...

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You can be pro-nuclear power and be terrified of this

Yep.

[Balding_Eagle]

News report today is that tap water in Tokyo is unsafe for infants. Thats pretty good evidence that the situation is not in control.

Come on. So the water is unsafe. How many people are drinking it?

You didn't say, but I'll wager you that no infants are drinking it.

That would mean it is under control.

You need to be more discerning, and in the case of the news media, read between the lines, and 'read' what they don't report.

You can be sure that if infants WERE drinking the water it would have been part of their report.

[StAnDeliver]

"You can drive 100 MPH on a windy road if you have no fear. Of course you are likely to end up dead from that."

Check it. I did that this morning. The only good thing about living here...

[Errant]

Thanks, facts are what we need along with respectful discourse. That said, I wish the tests had been more successful ... Is that all we have?

Fuel Meltdown Tests: 1956-1959

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Tennessee) and elsewhere, the Atomic Energy Commission contracted varous private companies to conduct fuel meltdown tests. Meltdown studies with zirconium-uranium assemblies in a steam atmosphere were conducted by MSA Research corporation to provide data on fission product release, melt characteristics, and hydrogen formation. Some of the major results were:

the major fission products released are xenon and iodine with as much as 60% and 25% escpaing, respectively,
actual fission product release was greatly reduced by condensation in the reactor vessel,
core meltdown in a steam atmosphere results in considerable production of hydrogen gas, but that the possibility of a hydrogen explosion is small due, in part, to the lack of oxygen.
In another test at INEL in 1958, a series of meltdown studies with field releases of fission products were conducted to determine release quantities, airborne activity, and ground deposition of fission products.

In the TREAT experiments (Transient Reactor Test Facility) of 1959, a special reactorwas built to study nuclear fuel melting in thermal reactors. Although primarily suited to fast-reactor studies, the facility was also used for general meltdown research. FLECHT: 1970 - 1985

Performed by GE and Westinghouse, to assess the ability of emergency core cooling systems to cool the fuel pins and cladding during emergency conditions. It was demonstrated that the ECCS is designed to provide sufficient coolant to the core under most emergency conditions.

[glock rocks]

Do you mean the ones that exploded and were blown to bits?

No. The containment is what meatloaf posted. There is a shack built around and above the containment to keep leaves and bird droppings out. This outer building is only there to keep out the weather, and not to contain pressure. It is just a building with siding that blew up due to hydrogen being vented from the containment. The buildings are blown to bits, but the containments are intact.

[meatloaf]

Revel. look at the containment building size versus the reactor in the picture I posted. If you actually filled the building up to the reactor, you'd end up still cooling the reactor. Neither the primary containment nor the reactor at any of the Japanese plants have been breached. The news went apesh!t over the damage of something which is somewhat like a pole building built on top of the primary containment. If you had any idea of the wall thickness of the piping in a nuke plant, you'd understand. Here's another photo to show how massive a containment building is compared to the size of the reactor. A containment building is designed to withstand an airliner crashing into it without being breached. It is also designed to shrug off a tornado.

[Errant]

and the “Sky is Falling’ crowd, of which you are one

I'm done discussing this with you. You obviously base your opinions on something other than facts or calm reasoning...

Have a great life FRiend!

[NRG1973]

Come on. So the water is unsafe. How many people are drinking it?

You didn't say, but I'll wager you that no infants are drinking it.

That would mean it is under control.

If tap water is not now safe for babies in Tokyo, how long before it will be? The radiation thats in the ground water isn't going to go away any time soon. Also, with the situation at Fukushima still out of copntrol, tap water in Tokyo is going to be continually radiated for a while.

[GonzoGOP]

Just as with the Gulf oil spill, the damage done by Big Press and the “Sky is Falling’ crowd, of which you are one, will drawf, DRAWF, actual damages from the nuke plants in Japan.

That is true so far as the radiological damage is concerned, but the financial impact is going to be high. Three Mile Island cost over 2.5 Billion when adjusted for inflation, and at a minimum they have four Three Mile Islands on their hands. So that is probably close to 10 Billion that they are going to have to come up with just to pay for the disposal of the damaged cores from reactors 1-4. Probably quite a bit more than those windmill accidents cost to clean up, even though the windmills actually killed more people.

Of course the hype will still probably cost more money than the cleanup, and it certainly will make the cleanup more difficult. But the cleanup will not be a trivial matter either But saying it is going to be expensive is a whole lot different than saying it is the end of the world. This is an engineering problem now, and as such kind of interesting.

[JustSurrounded]

Well, if I read the chart right, 500 millisieverts an hour is not exactly trivial. Looks like 50 mSv is the maximum yearly dose permitted for US radiation workers. So, what, the equivalent of 6-minute cleanup shift? Do I have that right?

[AmericanInTokyo]

AMEN!!!

[flintsilver7]

It is my belief that the incidents at Fukushima Daiichi have brought to light a very grave danger to all of mankind. It’s not something that shows up immediately, but it will eventually lead to the fall of man. I’m not talking about radiation, mind you, but about the incredibly sad state of science education around the world. There appears to be essentially zero understanding of the difference between radiation and radioactive particles. There’s no understand whatsoever of the effects of radiation on the human body. There’s no understanding of radiation hormesis. There’s certainly no perspective of the relative scale of not only these events but other nuclear events in the past.

It’s sad, really. The public at large, possibly spurred by the irresponsible and uneducated media, has chosed to ignore common sense and scientific reality when presented and instead chooses fearmongering and hysteria. God help us all.

[Balding_Eagle]

LOL! You’ve reinforced my point that you are arguing from an emotional position.

[Revel]

“Neither the primary containment nor the reactor at any of the Japanese plants have been breached.”

Many of the original reports from Tepco stated that the primary containment on one or more reactors had appeared to have been breached. I believe that to be the case no mater what they say now. Otherwise you would have to believe that all the radiation is coming from the spend fuel pools or a small amount of venting. In the beginning the fool pools would have been emitting almost no radiation. Yet much was found. More than I believe can be explained by the venting. That is if you believe all the people here at the time that said the venting was harmless.

Thanks for your clarification on the outer containment’s. It does add another dimension to my thinking. Yet even with that there is no way to keep running water in without venting. Air pressure alone would prevent that. And there is still a limit to what that containment can hold. And they are really pouring it in.

[GonzoGOP]

Japan upped the maximum dose for employees from 100 mSv to 250 mSv per year for the duration of the emergency. And you don't show any symptoms until 1000 mSv per year. So you could be in 500 mSv for 30 minutes before you would be maxed out for the year. And you would still be only at a quarter of the dose where you would show symptoms. And they have already announced that they have sent some employees away when they hit their limit so it is being monitored.

Of course the 500 mSv is immediately adjacent to the reactor and that isn't where you would send a person. I mean lets give the guys some commons sense here if their counter spikes that high they are going to fall back to a safer area. They aren't going to stand there for two hours until they start puking their guts out. It makes the cleanup a lot harder, since they have to use trucks with long booms to put the water in, but they are still getting the water in.

Even at the lower doses they are getting based on the front gate numbers published this morning they are going to time out after around two weeks (depending on how many hours per week they work). As I said earlier they are going to need to rotate their crews often and that will complicate things. It takes a couple of days to get a guy up to speed on a construction site, and then after a few more days they are going to lose him for the rest of the year.

[HangnJudge]

500 millisieverts = 5 rads

lowest 1 year dose
associated with carcinogenesis = 10 rads

1 sievert = 100 rads

The units are hard to follow without a program...

[bvw]

The big one. One local guy was an official photographer at the Bikini Atoll test. He had prints of his original and other photos of the test. That kind of power scares me, the trailing darkness of the shockwave, the sheer knife-sharp brutality of that shock wave, the animals in cages on the decks of the ships. As I recollect the water behind the shock wave was perfectly flat. Eerie, nightmarish.

But look — Nevada and Utah are still populated today, right?

[Balding_Eagle]

If tap water is not now safe for babies in Tokyo, how long before it will be? The radiation thats in the ground water isn't going to go away any time soon. Also, with the situation at Fukushima still out of copntrol, tap water in Tokyo is going to be continually radiated for a while.

That may very well happen, but that hardly means that that Japan doesn't have it under control.

[Errant]

Whatever you think. Have a good one ...

[bvw]

That lack of education is something I am scared of, but not in Japan. In the US, yes.