Posted on 03/23/2011 1:09:44 PM PDT by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at english.kyodonews.jp ...
Who reading this forum is going to die from someone saying this stuff is incredibly bad? Anyone that weak?
And how? Suicide? Get over it. Nobody is saying it’s the end of the world. It is possibly the end of that area of Japan though.
The spent rod pools are another matter since they are not contained under pressure. I still cannot figure out how you regain temperature control of an overheated core due to a total lack of cooling water? My industrial experience calls for the boiler fuel source to be locked out until the boiler is less than 100 degrees above ambient facility temperature. That can mean having to wait 24 hours to refire.
So I'm guessing that instead of cooling water pumps as reported, superheated steam has to be injected into the cooling system slowly. Then once the flow of superheated steam is able to peak at a manageable pressure, heat exchangers and makeup steam at incrementally reduced temperatures needs to happen. Something like no less than a few degree drop per six hours. I would thin once cooling steam reached condensate levels, you could introduce cooler makeup water and then really get thing cooled down. That whole proces would take months.
That is true - the reactor vessel is where they're injecting sea water. The steam is vented into the large torus which is filled with cooler water. This reduces pressure by at least partially condensing the steam back down to water. The Torus is inside the containment structure as well. They have had to "burp" the containment structure on 1, 2, and 3 a couple of times because the pressure inside the containment was too high as a result of the torus not being adequate to cool the steam coming out of the reactor.
3. The spent fuel pools, stainless steel lined concrete, which are outside the primary containment and which are probably now exposed have been the target of the helicopter water drops and the water from the fire engine deck guns.
They also have one of those concrete booms up now to spray water into unit 4's pond since access to the spent fuel pond apparently is limited to using a hole in the side of the building. BTW, units 5 and 6 are using their normal cooling process to cool the spent fuel pools as well as the main reactor cores. They may be salvageable.
Stainles steel becomes very brittle after temperature cycling in excesses. That is why rewelding cracked stainless welds is very difficult if you want anything more than cosmetic repairs.
I dont usually rely much on Wiki but if you do some reading about light water reactors in general and Fukushima in particular it may help, give your mechanical background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents#Cooling_requirements
then come back here and explain it to us!
You are a danger to all around you.
Isn't it frickin amazing? I was always taught that radiation is a disaster for living things and it would be around forEVER.
Now we learn that it's a little thing that's not really important and it'll only be here for a little while. Hmmmmph. Whodathunkit?
If it's such a little problem, I don't get (even more!) why we can't have nukes in this country.
More robots sent in to tackle crisis at Fukushima
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/03/more-robots-to-be-sent-in-to-t.html
Thanks, better to be feared than loved I guess. lol
What coolants do not expand under high temperature? (they would have to also be mighty plentiful)
Those without survival fear, soon perish. Think about it.
DUCK AND COVER!
Feared? Only if that fear is like the fear of a nut who would light a match to check the level in a gas rank.
It's the concern over the fuel rods themselves that are of concern. If the reactor vessel is 300 C, then the fuel within is certainly hotter. The heat, as I understand it, damages and can break down the plating on the rods in such a way that at some point, a nuclear reaction can occur which would produce an enormous amount of heat.
The idea is to cool the fuel down to prevent it from going "critical".
Ideally, the entire fuel assembly should be covered with water (normally, circulating through a heat exchanger of some sort as part of its circulation, to remove excess heat). They're trying to achieve that with sea water, and they're adding boron or boric acid (not sure which) to further reduce and block neutron flow so that the fuel is much less likely to go critical.
Think about what? Panic is not a survival skill, nor is fear mongering, nor is second-guessing and bad mouthing those at the situation and dealing with it.
The reason they can do that is because they are continuously venting.
I also believe they are doing more than venting. Remember the report yesterday about how they increased the amount of sea water by 9 times in reactor core 1(I believe) in order to cool it down.
Now it does not take much understanding to figure out that the coolant outlet is therefore wide open with the water running onto the land and into the sea. I believe that there no longer is a coolant loop. They are simply blasting water in and letting it run out into the environment. A continuing last effort attempt to prevent total meltdown. This prevents steam pressure buildup.
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