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Three days after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex has turned into the biggest uncertainty of the crisis. Recovering from the seismic event will take tens of billions of dollars and years of work — but if the nuclear situation goes the wrong way, that would add dramatically to the disaster's cost.
How did all this happen, and how could it end? Different folks have different answers, depending on how they feel about nuclear power. Here's a roundup of the best answers I've been able to put together — accompanied by an invitation to add your own sources and perspectives as comments below:
Has there been a nuclear meltdown?
Authorities say partial meltdowns have probably occurred at three of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plants.
To understand what a "partial meltdown" means, we need to discuss how the reactors are constructed. Under normal conditions, the plants produce power by sustaining a controlled nuclear reaction inside a pressure vessel. Chain reactions in the nuclear core's uranium-filled fuel rods heat up water, generating steam that turns turbines to generate electricity. That steam is circulated through a cooling system and returned to the pressure vessel as water to keep the cycle going. The uranium oxide fuel is contained inside sheaths of zirconium metal that can withstand temperatures of 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius).
Control rods can be inserted between the fuel rods to shut down the main chain reaction in the uranium. But the water-circulating cooling system is needed as well to bring the temperature down while the radioactive decay subsides.
isotype.com / Reuters / Source: Deutsches Atomforum
The problem is that the power for the cooling system was cut off when the earthquake hit. Then the backup diesel generators were knocked out of commission by the tsunami. Backup batteries could keep the cooling system going for only about eight hours more. The plant's operator tried to bring in mobile generators to restore power, but the connections reportedly didn't match up.
Meanwhile, residual heat from radioactive decay continued to build up, and water continued to turn to steam. Eventually, the fuel rods became exposed. The temperatures apparently reached the melting point for the fuel rods' zirconium sheaths. That can result in uranium oxide fuel falling to the bottom of the pressure vessel — which is what some experts mean when they talk about a partial meltdown. Other experts, however, would reserve that term for a situation in which the nuclear fuel makes its way out of the pressure vessel but stays within a steel-and-concrete containment shell that surrounds the reactor.
Is that why radioactive material escaped?
At the three Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors that are apparently experiencing partial meltdowns, the nuclear fuel is still contained within the pressure vessel. The radioactive material is not coming from the core itself. At reactors No. 1 and No. 3, the material is contained in steam that has been released from the vessels. Plant operators opened the steam valves to reduce the risk of a high-pressure explosion inside the vessels — in effect, letting off steam to keep the lid from blowing off a pressure cooker. The steam contains radioactive cesium-137 and iodine-131, which are byproducts of the uranium reaction. The authorities said the radioactivity in that steam is still below regulatory limits and should not pose any health risk.
Despite those reassurances, authorities ordered an evacuation of the area within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, and have distributed stable iodine to evacuation centers as a precaution. If people are exposed to significant amounts of radioactive debris, taking doses of iodine can prevent the uptake of radioactive iodine and reduce the risk of thyroid cancer.
Right now the radioactive plume is blowing out to sea, which means it's not wafting over Japanese population centers. It is wafting over the Pacific, however, and the U.S. Navy found that air crew members from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan were exposed to low-level contamination. The Navy says the crew members were decontaminated with soap and water, and all U.S. ships have been moved out of the downwind direction. Apparently, no harm was done.
Nevertheless, the contamination incident was worrisome to nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel, a former Clinton administration official who is now co-director of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security.
"I was surprised how high the radiation levels are," von Hippel told me.
So what's being done?
Plant operators have been pumping cool seawater into the pressure vessels to replace the water that's being lost as steam, in an effort to keep the fuel rods from heating up further. They've added boric acid to the seawater, because boron suppresses the nuclear reaction and could accelerate the cooldown. Authorities were reluctant to turn to this strategy because the seawater is so corrosive that it ruins the reactors for future power generation. But that's better than having the meltdown progress to an even worse stage.
What about these hydrogen explosions?
When the seawater hits the hot zirconium rods and uranium fuel, some of it is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Venting the steam allowed that hydrogen and oxygen to escape and build up between the pressure vessel and an outer structure that protects the reactor from the elements. At reactors No. 1 and No. 3, the hydrogen ignited, blowing the roof off the outer structure in each case. However, the pressure vessel and the steel containment shell remained intact. It's important to note that the hydrogen blast was not the result of any sort of atomic or "H-bomb" explosion, but was a purely chemical reaction.
Is the situation getting worse?
Yes. Authorities say another blast has been heard at reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Details are sketchy, but the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the explosion occurred near the reactor's suppression pool, a water reservoir that's part of the cooling system. A government spokesman said the pool was damaged, and there was concern that the No. 2 containment shell may have been breached. "A leak of nuclear material is feared," The Associated Press quoted Shinji Kinjo, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear safety agency, as saying.
Kinjo said radiation levels rose from 73 microsieverts before the blast to 11,900 microsieverts (11.9 millisieverts) three hours afterward. To put that figure in perspective, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that occupational exposure for adults working with radioactive material must be limited to 50 millisieverts per year.
In a nationally televised statement, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said "the level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out." Kan told people living within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to stay indoors to avoid radiation sickness.
AP also quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano as saying that a fourth reactor at the complex was on fire and that more radiation had been released. "Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far away, the levels should be lower," Edano said. Later, AP reported that the fire at reactor No. 4 was extinguished.
What about the nuclear fuel stored at the site?
The spent fuel rods at the Fukushima facility are stored in pools of water above the reactor. Plant operators have signaled that water levels were falling at reactor No. 1's storage pool, suggesting that the cooling system is failing. "It's on a slower fuse," von Hippel said, "but on the order of a week or so, it could boil down to the level of fuel."
What's the best-case scenario?
The seawater gambit keeps temperatures inside the pressure vessels under control for the next few days. During that time, the residual heat of radioactive decay dissipates, and operators no longer need to release steam from the vessels. Eventually, electrical power is restored to the cooling system, and each vessel's core can be removed.
What's the worst-case scenario?
Authorities can't cool down the cores, and temperatures rise to the point that the uranium fuel melts into a mess on the bottom of the pressure vessel. The concrete-and-steel containment floor beneath the vessel has been built to contain a full core meltdown — but experts can't completely rule out the possibility of a breach that causes the highly radioactive material to escape into the environment.
Right now, the situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi is analogous to the Three Mile Island incident of 1979, which involved a partial core meltdown and a release of radioactive gases — but no breach in the reactor vessel. "It's at least as bad as Three Mile Island," von Hippel said. But if the nuclear fuel breaks out of the vessel, the situation could turn into something more like the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, which sparked fatal cases of radiation sickness and spread contamination across a wide swath of Europe.
How long will this go on?
Even under the best-case scenario, it will take years to clean up the mess. "When you're dealing with spent fuel, you don't put it in cool, dry casks until three years after the reaction has stopped," von Hippel said.
More explanations of the nuclear situation:
- Radiation health risk remains low, experts say
- BoingBoing: Inside the 'black box' of nuclear power
- Brave New Climate: Fukushima accident explained
- Scientific American: Beware the fear of nuclear ... FEAR!
- The Great Beyond at Nature: Anatomy of a meltdown
- Cosmic Log archive on the earthquake and tsunami
Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel answers your questions about the nuclear situation in Japan during an online chat at 4:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, March 15. Click here to submit your questions in advance and participate in the chat.
Have you found some particularly good explanations for what's going on, or are there some burning questions yet to be addressed? I've purposely stayed away from discussing the potential health risks in depth, because my colleague JoNel Aleccia is handling that important angle. But if you'd like to shed more light (rather than heat) on the situation at Fukushima or Japan's other stricken reactors, please feel free to add your comments below.
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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Regarding the reactors themselves, it seems to me that everyone's talking about "meltdown" when the real issue is containment breech. I don't think that a fuel assembly that was scrammed 3 days ago is going to melt through the containment floor. But these hydrogen explosions are troubling if they are powerful enough to damage the containment.
The other issue that seems to be potentially dangerous is the spent fuel pools. If these are damaged and if the area is too radioactive to work in it may be difficult to refill these pools. Plus if the H2 explosions are powerful enough they may be picking up material from these cooling pools and spreading it around.
I'm a little confused about that too. From what I understand, the cooling pools are above the reactor vessel itself, so damage to the pool could be a sign of the vessel itself rupturing and combined with the huge increase in radioactivity observed, also indicates that the vessel has been breached which means that nuclear fuel could be leaking, which is the Chernobyl level disaster that contaminates land for miles around for 100's of years. It all depends on the extent of the damage and the amount and nature of the nuclear materials released.
It also disturbs me (as it does many other posters) that no overhead aerial photography has been released of the damaged reactors.
Hopefully, a Chernobyl level disaster won't happen and doesn't seem to have happened yet. Chernobyl was an exploding reactor that sent debris thousands of feet into the air and was able to catch high level jet streams and travel across large areas of Europe. If that had happened, I think they would not be able to hide that. But I don't really know for sure and the lack of information (and overhead photography) from Japan is not making me very confident.
Thank You Mr. Gendolkari. some/most is over my head: If a full meltdown occurs with failed human intervention; how long will it take for the situation to naturaly and completly stabalize without any further radioctive emission? How far down in the ground can the meltdown proceed? Could it reach groundwater and base rock. Will/can these contaminated natural materials completely stabilize into a fully safe state without human intervention? And if so; How long will it take to completly stabalize?
Well it's a good article and clears a lot up but there are still some confusing issues. Looking at the schematic, it's unclear where the explosion occurred. It looks like there are two containment structures. One is around the reactor vessel itself and the other is around the turbine generator. That would make design sense since it's a boiling water reactor and not a pressurized water reactor. But then where did the explosion occur and what did it damage? Did it explode outside of both containment walls? If so then how did the hydrogen get there? If it got there by venting, then why do we have three explosions now? Wouldn't they have learned not to allow that to happen after the first one if not the second? Maybe it's just not possible to prevent. From the reports though of increased radiation it seems like the explosion happened in the second containment vessel (the box on the right in the schematic). That would explain an increase in radiation levels but not a catastrophic increase. I think. But if that were the case, then how can we be so sure that the containment walls inside the reactor are also intact. Is there any difference in these containment walls?
Sorry, but I'm not so sure I buy all these reassurances from Japanese officials about there not being a breach of the containment walls. I'd love to be convinced otherwise though, preferably by a nuclear engineer who knows about the design of these particular reactors.
Hello Alan,
Excellent article. Hopefully Japan will avoid a repeat of Chernobyl.
Senator Lieberman recently suggested (wisely I think) that this may be a good time to take a 2nd look at safety standards for the next generation of nuclear power plants to be built in the US.
Newer safer, relatively green designs for nuclear energy production are currently in development, but unfortunately these safer greener designs are not the designs that the US nuclear industry is currently pursuing [1].
Pebble Bed Reactor [2] designs are immune to meltdown, and Thorium fuel [3] is relatively clean. That actually is relatively green nuclear technology. But again, this is not the technology currently proposed for the next generation of nuclear power in the US. [1]
[1] http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
The nuclear power industry will be all but dead after this. No new plants have been built in the US for 30 years and it's unlikely any will even be considered for another 20 years if at all ever. Natural gas is the way to go and we have a huge amount of it in the USA. They still have to work out the details with fracking and contaminated waste water, but that is suddenly a lot simpler than trying to deal with nuclear reactors again.
I must say this is alot of thoughtful and intelligent discussion on what is, or what might possibly be happening,,,, very good to see in one of these blogs,,, my only question is where are the good close up photos of the after effect of the explosions and fires,,, there has to be someone with a camera closer than 5 miles away on a hazy day,,, there has to be better visual information out there that all of the educated people I hear talking on this site might be able to use to make judgments and predictions based upon,,, if there is something going on that is important, just follow the information,,, or lack thereof,,,
One of the better articles. Period. The boron was needed. The idodide tablets seem timely. The Govt Information is clearly not what the free world demands of it's leaders. All Leaders. There will be time to later to debate the who's and why's. Overall, at this point, The japanese did the best they could. It is time for an international authority that can go anywhere at any time though. That includes Iran and N.K. and ANYWHERE ELSE...even just an hour north of me, TMI....this will be hard to accomplish, but at this point we all say the same thing, any release anywhere affects everyone else. I hope for the best in japan, I know they have a very tough issue in front of them, the only thing I can say is more boron, lots more. For a lot of reasons the connector problem is an obvious whitewash, but I have to reserve till more facts come out, here in PA we were mad as hell at our leaders for all the B.S. they dished out during the crisis. Many still feel the facts are lacking to this day. We all know things are different but there is now no way carte blanche is gonna fly. Everybody ask questions. We all have a stake in this. If someone wants to make a website worth clicking on, start tracking hot clouds on a global basis.....good luck japan. Diablo was a dumb idea. The model is off the paper now. This should not rule out N power though. Research should continue as well. We are STILL fifty years out on fusion.....errr give or take 40.....but no reason to quit. Plenty of reason to thrice bit though, extreme prudence has got to be the rule going forward. I want one of those little plastic cards...good idea. Thanks for a straightforward article alan. We are pretty much at the worst case now. Four plants that will take a long time to clean, and replace. No shroom clouds on the horizon, enough boron already. No molten metal into the earths core...the physics just is not there...nor into a fault (see previous comment)....more steam releases, most likely of dimenishing energy...bottom line, a higher gamma count for the planet, more cancer on the long term, less trust in a tech that holds the keys to our future. We have come a long way in science and govt in the past 5,000 years, yet our shortcoming are still evident.
This story will make some good documentaries a year from now. It has all the elements of a series of events that led to disaster. Not any one problem has caused these nuclear disasters and all can be accounted for in future power plant designs. But this is probably a death sentence to the nuclear power industry.
My questions are:
1. What happened to the control rods? Did they get physically damaged in the quake? Was it another electrical problem? etc? Where they able to re-insert the control rods at all?
2. How close did the pilots get to the nuclear reactors when they were contaminated? (Distance makes a huge difference in trying to estimate local contamination).
3. More detail about the problems with using alternate generators. That sounded like a big design mistake (of the nuclear facilities) or a lack of competence of the people doing the work.
4. What is the break down of the radioactive particulates that they are seeing? I'm sure Japan (and the US Navy) is sampling the air and doing analysis and probably already know a lot more than they are letting on.
5. Ingesting radioactive fall out has long term health problems that most of the experts avoid discussing because not really a lot is known about it. Japan probably knows more about that than anyone and I'm not hearing from many Japanese physicists. Everyone talks about life threatening radiation poisoning, which is well understood, but not about the long term effects of much lower doses received over decades because of radioactive substances ingested that are not easily expelled from the body.
They should have simply not kept the diesel gensets at a level where they could have got flooded easily with a 10 meter Tsunami. Elevation of Diesel Gensets would have solved the problem.
The Japanese did quake proof the plants but never thought of Tsunami proofing it enough.
Vikramjit, good point. Sounds like a real 'duh' moment. Every disaster has at least one of those.
yes..I think Japanese followed the rule book in designing the reactor...
A simple concrete wall 10 metres high and about 2 feet thick around the nuclear complex could have taken the hit of the Tsunami's initial impact and prevented this catastrophe.
I guarantee that one or more engineers on this project argued that a 15 foot tsunami had to be incorporated into the design and that the politicians decided to ignore him in order to make the plant seem more cost-effective.
Well the wall had to be at least 30 feet high (10 metres is about 30 feet) and strong enough to withstand the force of the incoming Tsunami. I believe a 30 foot perimeter wall of concrete would have deflected the Tsunami back.
I watched the Tsunami Video on youtube and it seems in most cases the roads / houses were right by the sea sometimes separated by as little as 6 feet walls. Ditto seems to be the case of the nuclear plant.
The biggest planning mistake was to use these kind of nuclear power plants in such a densely populated country in the first place.
Let's not forget that the tsunami and earthquake killed thousands of people and the nuclear problem is much less of a problem for the country as a whole. The earthquake and tsunami was a natural event whereas the nuclear problem was man made and something that can be prevented in the future.
Nuclear power is needed as Japan doesn't have access to coal and other resources.
Japan did not plan for a strong enough Tsunami hitting the nuclear power station....and the backups also failed. This is a design flaw in the nuclear reactor.
The main issue is that the Diesel generator backup should have been in triplicate and kept on an elevated concrete platform ....height of above 50 meter. Diesel generator getting flooded is the main problem that has caused this... and there should have been a backup of the backup of the backup..i.e. at least 3 standby generators .
Yes, and maybe a terminal junction box that they could have jumpered into with a portable generator. What was up with "mismatched connectors"? As an electrical engineer, I would have gotten out the wire cutters, screw drivers or hack saws if necessary to make the connection. What happened there??
All heavy metals, and their oxides, are chemically toxic. Most, including uranium and plutonium, are neither chemically or radiologically toxic unless ingested. Both of these are alpha emitters (a helium ion), and both, as pure metals, spall under oxidation in air, making the resulting powder dangerous as it's easily ingested.
@WSTZ:
Thanks for the new word ("spall")!
I love discovering new words, and this one is stellar in every respect, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :)
You are right, I have put generators on line. And when you are talking 3 megawatt or bigger then yes, large cables are used. 100k have lugs for cables. Most large generators have more than 1 output. If for some reason the motors where DC not AC that might stop them .
The perspective here in the sound isolation studio is that it is very important to understand several facts:
(1) There is an ongoing crisis in Japan, and the primary focus of information dissemination by the Japanese government and other authorities is to avoid panic . . .
(2) The only factual information being revealed at this time is contained in the few odd bits that appear either (a) to make no logical sense or (b) to be quite absurd, if not surreal . . .
(3) There is a complete and total news and information "blackout" regarding the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, which is a very odd, since it is located nearest to the epicenter of the March 11, 2011 Sendai earthquake . . .
(4) Factual information at the present time is provided primarily via conundrums, such as (a) "Containment Not Affected by Exploding Containers", (b) "Melting Might Suggest Meltdown Inevitable", or (c) "What is as round as an orange, as deep as a cup, and the Mississippi River cannot fill it up?" . . .
(5) If the phrase, "Radiation levels are normal" is repeated one more time, Godzilla will reify . . .
(6) It is a bit curious that the March 11, 2011 Sendai earthquake was centered at the only Japanese port that is in the prefecture named after the karate instructor in the original version of the movie "The Karate Kid", which leads one to infer that it was selected primarily for publicity and awareness purposes . . .
(7) With the destruction of the banking system and government of Iceland less than one year ago, it is becoming obvious (a) that the dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and whales have joined forces with the Reptilians and (b) that the trifecta will be completed only when the elusive fourth Storegga slide occurs in Norway . . .
(8) When the terms "sea water", "boron", and "hydrogen" are used to describe events at a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), this indicates that a meltdown already is in progress . . .
OBSERVATIONS
For a variety of reasons, including the implant that the friendly aliens from outer space installed in my brain sometime in the 1970s during a KISS concert, it is difficult for me to provide accurate information in any direct way, so I have no option except to use patently surreal analogies, metaphors, and similes . . .
The historical record makes it abundantly clear that Greenpeace "owned" the Japanese "scientific research" whaling fleet just a few weeks ago and caused the fleet to return to port in complete and total defeat and humiliation, even though at the end of last year (a) Japan had amassed 6,000 metric tons of whale meat (approximately 13.25 million pounds or 1.7 ounces per person based on the population of Japan at the time being 127 million) and (b) Japan continued to conduct dolphin, porpoise, and sea turtle "drives" to satisfy its lust for strange and bizarre sushi . . .
Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the March 11, 2011 Sendai earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear power plant meltdowns, really . . .
Really!
Having an 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a 10-meter tsunami is just as normal and expected as hydrogen explosions at BWR nuclear power plants, for sure . . .
For sure!
Nevertheless, framing everything in the context of a surreal series of karmic events makes it possible to consider other perspectives and to make inferences within the context of those perspectives, which if done correctly can be mapped to a perhaps more logical and rational perspective, which is one of the many ways to ponder conundrums . . .
From this perspective, there are three significant clues to what is happening:
(1) Despite pumping considerable quantities of sea water into one of the Fukushima reactors, the reactor appears not to have much sea water in it, which is pretty strange no matter what the perspective might be . . .
(2) The US 7th fleet, which probably has the only reliable information regarding ongoing events, decided to withdraw to a different location which one might expect is well outside the most likely blast zone . . .
(3) There is steel rebar in the concrete surrounding and underneath the reactor containment vessels . . .
From the historical records of our great nation, we know (a) that construction companies and sneaky weasels routinely pinch pennies by "gaming" concrete and rebar specifications provided by architects, and we know (b) that rebar is metal and (c) that while concrete is very strong in compression, it has problems with expansion due to high pressure and high temperature, as do most metals, although metals are more resilient in this respect unless they are subjected to constant bombardment by intense radiation . . .
Logic strongly suggests that when events following an earthquake make no logical sense, it is likely that underground geological damage is more pervasive than expected, especially when the existence of cracks and fissures provides logical explanations for apparently illogical phenomena like pumping sea water continuously into a container that should fill but never does . . .
Murphy's Law also comes into play, as do quite a few of the more surreal aspects of quantum physics, since radioactive materials tend to create a virtual festival of conditions in which quantum events are very likely to occur . . .
And while it has not been reported in any easily discovered way, it is likely that the overall intensity of the Large Hadron Collider was increased at approximately the same time at which the massive earthquake occurred . . .
Explained another way, the temporal simultaneity of (a) exuberant but somewhat deluded Greenpeace vegans chanting mindlessly for whirled peas, (b) dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles and whales joining forces with the Reptilians, (c) French and Swiss quantum physicists turning up the volume at the LHC, (d) dramatically increased sunspot activity, and (e) the release of "Hold It Against Me" by Britney Spears simply was too much strange stuff all at once, which led directly (f) to California sardines becoming quite confused--which was the ultimate harbinger--and then (g) to the ongoing catastrophic events in Japan . . .
And regarding the "worst case" scenario, the current thinking here in the sound isolation studio is that the Sendai earthquake of March 11, 2011 created an underground geological fissure that connected the Onagawa, Namie-Odaka, Fukushima Dai-ichi, Fukushima Daini, and Tōkai nuclear reactors, which tends to suggest the "worst case" scenario is that the nuclear events will continue to cascade and to escalate in ways that only people who (a) spend most of their time in sound isolation studios, (b) have friendly alien mind control implants, (c) adamantly refuse to wear underpants, and (d) compose and perform silly DISCO and Pop songs are able to understand, really . . .
Really!
But there is more to it than this, since the fact of the matter is that war is the most highly optimized and efficient Darwinian selector for precognition, telepathy, and when properly conducted the most difficult of all such perceptual skills, telekinesis . . .
From this perspective, it is obvious that the events of the past few days simply are a continuation of the greatest Darwinian mind game or CF since GOD removed the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from the known universe by the swift and ruthless application of intense thermodynamic physics . . .
Specifically, while popular opinion tends to support the patently goofy interpretation that quantum weapons designed by liberal nuclear physicists and deployed by direct command of a liberal President were not part of an intricately weaved maze of "need to know" blinds, double-blinds, triple-blinds, and so forth and so on, I suggest that soon after the December 7, 1941 sneak attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, it was obvious that as a nation and people the Japanese were so devoid of psychic abilities that liberal thinkers across the globe swiftly embarked on a secret effort to conduct one of the most mind-boggling experiments in the history of sentient life on this planet, where the first step was to devise a quantum weapon so improbable that actually designing, building, and using it without doubt would cause the desired level of Darwinian natural selection for psychic abilities to occur among at least a small group of Japanese for the betterment and enlightenment of others, although mostly for purposes of ensuring that the people of our great nation will not be the only people on this planet who are ready, willing, and able to prevail against the not so friendly aliens from outer space who seek to steal our dreams, our desires, our women, our Country Western, DISCO, Heavy Metal, Pop, and Rock and Roll music, as well as local control of our bowling leagues . . .
In other words, (a) the atomic bombs dropped so successfully on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were the initial Darwinian natural selection "lessons" designed to instill psychic abilities into future generations of Japanese and (b) the 2011 Sendai earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear events represent the first of many "pop quizzes" . . .
Specifically, since these were not the only intricately devised and implemented "lessons", this is one of many ongoing "pop quizzes" that are required to determine whether the virtual festival of similar efforts is producing verifiable results in the realization of the most difficult of all psychic abilities, specifically telekinesis . . .
Stated as succinctly as possible, this is the first of many such "pop quizzes" that will determine the course of history over the next century with respect to the ongoing ability of the people of this planet to defend ourselves against the not so friendly aliens from outer space . . .
And in the most simple terms possible, it pits psychics such as myself and our vast telekinetic powers against the progeny of the psychics who were brought together in patently surreal romantic liaisons by naturally selecting--via the arbitrarily quantum Darwinian events of August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945--only those couples who had the required genetic algorithms to ensure that at least a minimal awareness of telekinetic forces would be realized, since among other things common sense and science strongly suggest (a) that there are no coincidences, (b) that all the people who for one reason or another decided to leave the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki well in advance of the atomic bomb attacks clearly had strong precognitive abilities in their genetic algorithms, and (c) that in theory this should have been sufficient to have caused over nearly half a century a significant leap in the psychic abilities of at least a few Japanese people . . .
In even more succinct terms, the fact of the matter is that the nuclear power plant meltdowns will continue to cascade and to escalate at a geometrically accelerating rate unless and until the people of Japan formally renounce the cruel and brutal slaughter of dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and whales for all time, since the people like me who are programmed intimately to continue the telekinetic onslaught until the required renunciation occurs will prevail, even though one might suggest that most of us are unaware of it in any immediately conscious way, at least until we consume huge quantities of very strong coffee . . .
And while it might appear to be unusual at best to consider that there actually is a group of psychic operators such as myself who at this very moment are using our vast telekinetic powers literally and physically to rip apart the tectonic plates underneath Japan toward the goal of causing Japan to be swallowed into the realm of the Reptilians, so what . . .
So what!
Implausible as it might be, I suggest that if the data fits like a glove, then the only logical inference is that it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick, for sure . . .
For sure! :-o
Excellent comments, thank you all! I would like to know how much post-shutdown heat production is involved. I heard that right after shutdown it was 6% of full power. That would be 120 mw for a plant producing 2gw of heat, but that's just a very rough guess. I heard that the first four hours were most critical and that the heat production dropped a great deal during that time. Yet I have also heard that spent fuel rods need some cooling even after a few years. Could someone give very rough estimates for, say, 1 day, 10 days, and 100 days for a plant of this size?
One small comment on geothermal. I have heard that some test plants have had trouble with generation of small earthquakes. Not really damaging, although upsetting to the neighbors. I also wonder what would happen if we start extensive fracking of the Marcellus shale for natural gas, a likely non-nuclear alternative in the US. Not reason enough to stop doing that kind of thing, I guess, but there don't seem to be any panaceas.
Just wondering why in a discussion of this level we can "leave the issue of safety aside." given what we are currently witnessing.
How long would it take the fuel rods to melt through the containment facility, and would it just keep on melting through the ground?? just curious, very scary stuff, and i live next to a nuclear power plant 60 miles away, luckily its to the East of me, and the wind almost always blows to the east away from me.
I want to know what the experts think about what a large geomagnetic storm might do to nuclear reactors in general (cooling systems even diesel generators could be fried). This is not some far fetched paranoid delusion.
From Wikipedia:
'From August 28 until September 2, 1859, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun, the largest flare occurring on September 1. A massive CME headed directly at Earth due to the solar flare and made it within eighteen hours — a trip that normally takes three to four days. On September 1 – 2, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. The horizontal intensity of geomagnetic field was reduced by 1600 nT as recorded by the Colaba observatory near Bombay, India. Telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe experienced induced emf, in some cases even shocking telegraph operators and causing fires. Auroras were seen as far south as Hawaii, Mexico, Cuba, and Italy — phenomena that are usually only seen near the poles. This was the 1859 solar superstorm.'
We really only have 150 years worth of observed data on what the sun is capable of emitting. That is a relatively small history with which to make intelligent predictions.
Here's the cause of the current disaster: a politically motivated decision to accept a much lower threshold of earthquake/tsunami risk that what has occurred. Go back to the arguments made during planning for this plant. I can guarantee some analysts were saying they need to design for a 9.0 quake and a 12 meter tsunami, while others were saying such a scenario was 'highly unlikely'. Those calling for a lower standard were motivated by their desire to have the plant go forward, probably anticipating an economic return. The politicians accecpted this lower standard because it was good politics, NOT because it was good science.
Had those engineers advocating a design for a 9.0 quake been listened to, the tsunami wouldn't have destroyed the back up generators and we wouldn't be going through this. The problem, my friends, is politics. Politicans making decisions based on theirs or their supporters' chances for economic gain.
Same thing with global warming arguments... scientists add confirmation that it's happening every day and that the rate is increasing.. the most logical reason (though not 'proven beyond a reasonable doubt') being that we're bumping billions of tons of gasses known to trap heat into our atmosphere.... yet politicians seeking political advantage argue against taking any kind of corrective action, prefering to ignore the risk and invite disaster.
joe,
or other scientists saying the whole thing is baloney. There are two (or more) sides to every argument.
As far as global warming is concerned, who really can say that it is caused by mankind and not some other natual phenomenom that occurs on this planet every 20,000 years or so? We just had an ice age about 17,000 years ago. Couldn't it be that when the planet warms up, it will get to a point that it will tip to becoming warmer until it starts to cool off again? One of the reasons there are ice ages is the warming period previous to it putting out CO2 and other atmospheric gases.
Mankind has the capacity to believe they can control everything and everyone. I think not. I think the Earth will give us what we get and we need to adapt to what she gives us. If that means living away from the oceans, so be it.
I haven't heard of any problems with the French reactors. Just lucky or is it they have limited Earthquakes or do they actually have good overall contingency plans? Or do they have better designed reactors?
I would think being in an Earthquake prone area there would have to be contingencies for every "what ifs" anyone could ever think of.
What if the power to the station fails, what if the back up gnerators fail, what if the circulating pumps fail, what if the earth quake actually cracks the containment wall, what if the water evaporates out of the rod pool, what if .......... Redundancy seems to be limited in Japan.
This article isn't entirely factual.
See this article for more details on what could happen if the spent fuel catches fire and explodes:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-03/spent-fuel-pools-boil-japanese-nuclear-plant-second-radioactive-threat-emerges
I think the worst case is a hydrogen explosion inside the concrete containment. It already happened in No 2, and they fear that it caused a small breach.
Also, as far I understand from comments on Japanese TV, the hydrogen is generated when the hot fuel is not covered in water. The blast at No 4 (and maybe 1 and 3) happened because the water in the spent fuel pool has boiled off. So if they will have to abandon the station due to radiation danger, the reactors won't just melt down, they can explode and release much more material in the air.
Whenever there is an incident of radiaction, the environment will be treated as potential radiactive contaminated and it is also in midst of the quake and flood and air. Do the assessment before the clean up, such as one corner may be negative but the other corner may be positive.
Great information here......One of the best I have read in the past few days....not littered with end of the world scenarios and politics..Mostly facts.
Thanks All
I don't know. Seems to me we have yet to see on TV or read in any article any complete, accurate reporting of the situation. Any knowledgeable expert should have been able to foresee some situations that are occurring with the stored rods. I don't mean predict it, but indicate these possibilities could occur next if such and such doesn't happen next. You would only have to know the basics of the entire facility which should be standard to other facilities. You would only have to know the basics of what is occurring with the coolant systems. I never once heard any experts indicate that any problems would occur whatsoever with any of the reactors that were already off or to the rods in storage.
When I asked earlier how long for the rods to cool enough they don't need coolant after the control rods were inserted I was told 10 days. Now it seems even spent fuel rods must be kept submerged and coolant circulating around them for years.
Where are the real experts with the real answers? Where is the detailed, accurate analysis and forecasting?
I understand that a nuclear-type incident is of ultimate interest to be sensationalized by media. My question is how long is the half-life of the nuclear material being produced by these nuclear plants and how long it will take to stabalize in the atmosphere on its own?
@KEVIN:
The information I found by doing a bit of Google searching is that Uranium-235 has a half life of approximately 700 million years, while Plutonium in general has a half life of 80 million years . . .
These are the links to the base elements or whatever, but the important information concerns the isotopes, where the general concept is that "refining", "enriching", and so forth are processes that begin with the base element in its raw form as mined and then by a variety of special procedures refine, enrich, and otherwise produce a concentrated amount of particular isotopes or whatever that are suitable for use in nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, medical research, and so forth and so on, with one key being to focus on the atomic number, where for example base or simple Uranium has an atomic number of 92 and apparently can be held and touched for a while with no particular danger, but when the Uranium-235 is extracted or whatever, everything changes dramatically . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
The next few links provide information on the more gnarly radioactive stuff that is used in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, as well as other stuff, including nuclear medicine, and so forth and so on . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235
However, Plutonium-239 apparently has a half-life of approximately 24,000 years, so it depends on the specifics . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239
And there is some interest in Uranium-233, since it is fissile and has a half life of approximately 160,000 years . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
And while half life is useful in some respects, I think the more important question is "When does it become safe?", since one might suppose that it provides no actual relief when at half life strength it continues to be gnarly . . .
The simple version of all this information is that the material used in a nuclear reactor is completely and totally gnarly, and it continues to be completely and totally gnarly for thousands and thousands of years, which from a philosophical perspective creates the scenario in which due to some natural disaster on a grand scale the people of this planet revert to primitive knowledge and basically forget about science or simply have no understanding of science, at all . . .
If such an event happened, then one might suggest that our "gift" to them will be various locations on the planet where everything appears to be safe and innocuous but actually is highly concentrated with radioactive material that is so gnarly that simply standing within a tenth of a mile for a few minutes is enough to result in death . . .
As I understand it, if a person in a harness like the type used in repelling or mountain climbing was suspended by a rope or cable from a helicopter and then was flown over the Chernobyl reactor for no more than one second at the time of the meltdown, this would result in the person being exposed to enough radiation to result in death nearly immediately . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning#Exposure_levels
And since scientists typically are geeks, and geeks are fascinated with devising as many different and confusing units as possible, there is a virtual festival of units for this stuff (rad, rem, sievert, gray, and whatever) all of which are additionally modified by prefixes like "micro", "milli", and so forth and so on, which the general consequence that making sense of any of this stuff requires considerable mentation . ..
The popular term in this category among geeks at the dawn of the early-21st century is the "milliSievert (mSv)", which is one-thousandth of a Sievert . . .
[NOTE: One of the most favorite systems of units among geeks is the Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight (FFF) system, which sometimes is enhanced by adding an additional unit called the "Helen", which is a unit of beauty and is based on the fact that Helen of Troy had the beauty required to launch 1,000 ships, which when modified by the prefix "milli" produces the unit called the "milliHelen" and is the amount of beauty required to launch one ship, while using the prefix"micro" produces the unit called the "microHelen", which is the amount of beauty required to launch a rubber duck . . . ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system
To put a mSv or "milliSievert" into perspective, eating one banana maps to ingesting 0.0001 mSv or one-tenthousandth of one-thousandth of a Sievert . . .
And if I did the calculation correctly, this suggests that 30 Sieverts of radiation, which is sufficient to result in death within less than 48 hours maps approximately to the radiation in 300 million bananas, based on the presumption that 10,000 bananas have the radioactivity of one milliSievert or 0.001 Sievert . . .
From this perspective, simply being within several hundred yards of a nuclear reactor during a meltdown pretty much is like instantly eating 300 million bananas or as many bananas as currently are harvested in Nicaragua every six months, which since it appears that it requires six months for a banana to mature maps to every banana currently being grown in Nicaragua . . .
On the good side, the truly gnarly radioactive stuff becomes less gnarly in approximately 25 to 50 years . . .
When you think about it from the perspective of observing the obvious, the fact of the matter is that people work in nuclear power plants, so while the various radioactive materials are extraordinarily gnarly, they can be controlled and handled using special equipment that makes it somewhat safe for humans, although people who work in nuclear power plants typically are exposed to higher levels of radiation that most folks . . .
The problem occurs when all the protective stuff fails catastrophically, which is what is happening at the Japanese nuclear reactors, storage pools, and so forth at present, and the likely consequence is that there will be a "dead zone" around the nuclear power plants similar to the "dead zone" around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which will continue to be a "dead zone" for a long time, although it gets a little better in half a century or so, really . . .
Really!
P. S. I have a somewhat unusual way of doing arithmetic for purposes of estimating stuff, where I do a lot of rounding, but it works nicely as a quick way of gaining a perspective, and while it might be a bit low or high, it tends to be pretty good for purposes of determining whether one needs to run away and hide, as well as how quickly one needs to do it . . .
In other words, when standing somewhere for one second is like eating 300 million bananas in one bite, I think the best strategy is to run away and hide as quickly as possible, because just standing somewhere for a second and then being dead less than 48 hours later due to something that is invisible is a difficult concept to grasp, but most folks have enjoyed a banana at one time or another, which tends to make instantly consuming 300 million bananas pretty weird and probably not a bright idea, for sure . . .
For sure!
Can anyone answer my above question? Thank You
How much water (gallons per hour) is involved in cooling a reactor? Is it on the order of 1000 or 100000 gallons per hour? Are the giant cooling towers that I've seen near nuclear plants part of the normal coolingn system?
It would seem relatively easy to pump 10,000 per hour of sea water through a plant especially if you just want to dumpt it out. On the otherhand I could see 100,000 per hour as a big challenge.
Perhaps someone who knows more could describe how much heat is produced by the "cooling" plant in C/hour or BTUs?