Nuclear Meltdown Japan

[gtalum]

I read that only the #4 reactor was shutdown at the time of the quake...so, the other 3 reactors were at operational temperature. A retired sailor at work who happens to have been a reactor operator on subs told me that it takes a long time for the reactor to cool even with coolant flow. Without coolant flow the heat will continue to build in the reactor core even if the reactor had been SCRAMed. Fission continues all the time and a small amount of heat is generated over time until it reaches the melting point. I use to live right down the road from Waterford 3 nuke plant in Louisiana and read up on the worst case which was a core meltdown which will eventually melt the primary containment vessel, the concrete base and into the earth. Why will this not happen in this case?....MGC

Reactors 1-3 were running, but shut down as designed immediately when the quake occurred. Of course power went down on the grid, but coolant pumps ran as designed for nearly an hour before the tsunami hit and swamped the generators. After that the batteries kicked in and coolant pumps ran for another 8 hours until the batteries ran out. That is when the temperatures started to rise. In other words, the cores were not undergoing fission when they started to melt down. This limits the ultimate temperature that the cores can reach, and it also limits the types of radiation that will leak into the environment. What made Chernobyl so bad was that the cores were undergoing fission when the explosions and meltdown occurred, releasing gamma radiation into the environment as well as massive quantities of fission products which are generally more dangerous than uranium or plutonium fuel. The material is also much hotter when undergoing fission than when it's not, though it will heat up even when not undergoing fission.

In a nutshell this disaster is worse than Three Mile Island, but has absolutely no chance of even approaching the kind of damage done in the Chernobyl incident, which itself was only catastrophic in the immediate region, though there was measurable radiation released all over the world. As I noted above, there are different levels and types of radiation, and effects and severity of release are not all the same.

[somethingfunny]

Should this thread be merged with the thread in the Global Weather forum?

[RL3AO]

At this point, I think the thread should be in OT. Its become its own event and should be separate from the quake thread. Also, its more likely to be seen in OT then GW/A&G.

[SouthFloridawx]

Since California is over 5,000 miles away wouldn't the radiation that leaked into the atmosphere, mix enough to prove that the effect in California would be negligible? Think about the volume of the material being leaking into the volume of the space it's being leaked into.

I wasn't sure exactly how to put that. I hope I got my point across.

[SouthernMet]

I understand this may be a controversial statement but, I think a decent bit of radiation is imminently approaching the west coast of the nation; as above normal readings of radioactivity are already being recorded in California and Alaska. Pay attention to the jet stream aswell. I think the brunt of the more harmful radiation levels will be broken up over the pacific. Short term effects should be minimal, though cancer looks likely in the long term if this plays out.

[coriolis]

There's very informed discussion at theoildrum.com

[vbhoutex]

I understand this may be a controversial statement but, I think a decent bit of radiation is imminently approaching the west coast of the nation; as above normal readings of radioactivity are already being recorded in California and Alaska. Pay attention to the jet stream aswell. I think the brunt of the more harmful radiation levels will be broken up over the pacific. Short term effects should be minimal, though cancer looks likely in the long term if this plays out.

What information do you have that the professionals and experts addressing this question don't? That is a bold statement to make without any kind of back up.

[gtalum]

Short term effects should be minimal, though cancer looks likely in the long term if this plays out.

No, increased rates of cancer do not look "likely" in the US as a result of this disaster. There will likely be some measurable increase in radiation, but it won't be enough to affect health. In Japan, it's another story. They may have increased cancer rates near the site, but then they very well may not. It's far too early to tell.

[mf_dolphin]

At this point I've seen nothing that would suggest any fallout in the US that would imply an increased cancer risk.

[somethingfunny]

As a side note, doesn't it seem like every day on the news (the fluffy news) there's a story about studies showing that "this may give you cancer" or "that might cause cancer"? It doesn't matter if it's coffee, cell phones, microwave ovens, plastic bottles, trans-fat, vehicle exhaust, artificially colored cherries, Sweet-N-Low, airport body scanners, MSG, secondhand smoke, coal power plant emissions, electricity transmission lines, sunshine, lack of sunshine, or a leaking nuclear power plant in Japan....

We're all going to get cancer anyway, why worry???

[RL3AO]

What happens is studies show 50,000 people (just made that up, don't know what the real number is) died of cancer in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but you have to remember that people get cancer anyway. If 20% of people get cancer, and the cancer rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is 22%, then only that 2% can be "credited" to the bombs.

Naturally anyone of those 22% and their families blame the bombs for their cancer though.

[Sanibel]

Fukushima has gone to a 7 out of 7 scale disaster.

They said Fukushima has only released 1/10th of Chernobyl's radiation but that it was now high enough to qualify for the maximum rating. The Japanese nuclear authorities are saying they are worried it could be worse than Chernobyl in the long run.

[Stephanie]

Fukushima has gone to a 7 out of 7 scale disaster.

They said Fukushima has only released 1/10th of Chernobyl's radiation but that it was now high enough to qualify for the maximum rating. The Japanese nuclear authorities are saying they are worried it could be worse than Chernobyl in the long run.

Who said they only released 1/10th of Chernobyl's radiation? The government? I'll bet you that in one month it'll be more. They are slowing figuring out the true damage and slowly releasing their findings.

[MGC]

Go to the EPA website. There are trace amounts of radiation being detected in water and milk at a couple of sampleing sites across America. The levels are way down at this time but, the radioactive particles are hitching a ride on the wind......MGC

[Sanibel]

With respect to the Japanese dead, the Google satellite shows incredible destruction up and down the Japanese coast. The zoom shots are incredible with total destruction worse than post category 5 damage.

[Sanibel]

FUKUSHIMA REACTOR 1: FULL MELTDOWN, REACTOR VESSEL BREACHED

May 13th, 2011

Via: Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...74B1H520110512

One of the reactors at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has a hole in its main vessel following a meltdown of fuel rods, leading to a leakage of radioactive water, its operator said on Thursday.

The disclosure by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is the latest indication that the disaster was worse than previously disclosed, making it more difficult to stabilize the plant.
…
Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

The finding makes it likely that at one point in the immediate wake of the disaster the 4-meter-high stack of uranium-rich rods at the core of the reactor had been entirely exposed to the air, he said. Boiling water reactors like those at Fukushima rely on water as both a coolant and a barrier to radiation.

U.S. nuclear experts said that the company may have to build a concrete wall around the unit because of the breach, and that this could now take years.
“If it is assumed the fuel did melt through the reactor, then the most likely solution is to encapsulate the entire unit. This may include constructing a concrete wall around the unit and building a protective cover over it,” W. Gene Corley, senior vice president of CTL Group in Skokie, Illinois, said on Thursday.
“Because of the high radiation that would be present if this has happened, the construction will take many months and may stretch into years,” Corley said.
TEPCO should consider digging a trench around reactors 1-3 all the way down to the bedrock, which is about 50 feet below the surface, said Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates Inc of Burlington, Vermont, who once worked on reactors of similar design to the Fukushima plant.

He said this should be filled with zeolite, which can absorb radioactive cesium to stop more poisons from leaking into the groundwater around the plant.

“TEPCO seems to be going backwards in getting the situation under control and things may well be slowly eroding with all the units having problems,” said Tom Clements with Friends of the Earth, a U.S.-based environmental group.

“At this point, TEPCO still finds itself in unchartered waters and is not able to carry out any plan to get the situation under control,” he said.

[vbhoutex]

Sounds to me like TEPCO needs to be shutdown and replaced. What else have they lied about over the years?? We will probably never know.

[Sanibel]

I read on another board that there are hundreds of Chernobyls in those melted-down Japanese reactors only they had the luck of it not exploding. He said it needs to be entombed fast and that it was the only solution. The cores went to 2800c the day after the tsunami.