Pick a number, and that reactor is described as being near a meltdown. The news coverage coming out of Japan is even more confused when American media deciphers it. Hopefully hard facts come in soon…
Meltdown occurred according to Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
URGENT: March 12 00:00 PST: Explosion at Nuclear Facility
VIDEO of explosion at nuke plant.
Reuters Live Earthquake News Feed
Several people appear to be injured at Fukushima nuclear plant – NHK
Walls and roof of a building at site destroyed by blast – NHK via Sky News
UPDATE: 22:50 PST: BREAKING NEWS: Pressure successfully released from Fukushima No. 1 reactor: agency
UPDATE: 21:47 PST: Meltdown underway at Reactor #1? http://twitter.com/#!/dicklp
Fukushima fuel cores are melting at 2000C and dropping onto steel floor. Steel melts at 1500C. Could still be brought under control, but Four other Fukushima nuke reactors are struggling with similar problem. If multiple meltdown begins, it will be uncontrollable.
Nuclear reactor coolant systems are running on batteries, and the coolant has reached the boiling point. Extremely critical situation currently at several earthquake affected nuclear reactors. Officials are concerned that a Three Mile Island 1979 meltdown could happen here. Reuters Link
From the LA Times:
Conditions appear to be worsening at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan, according to local media.
The Kyodo news agency reported that the cooling system has failed at three reactors of Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant. The coolant water’s temperature had reached boiling temperature, the agency reported, citing the power plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power.
The cooling system failure at the No. 2 power plant came after officials were already troubled by the failure of the emergency cooling system at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which officials feared could cause a meltdown.
What are you guys watching?
Been watching this all day on BBC,SKY andCNN here in the uk,meltdowns only mentioned in the speculative sense,and then mostly dismissed by the various talking heads shoved in front of the camera.
Even the bbc catastrophist general Roger Harrabin seemes pretty ok with it.
Is there something we`re not being told?
@22:56UTC ” The Japanese government rates the accident at the Fukushima Number One nuclear power plant at level 4 on an international scale of 0 to 7.
Two radioactive substances, cesium and radioactive iodine, were detected near the Number One reactor at the plant on Saturday. Their presence indicates nuclear fission of uranium.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that fuel in the reactor partially melted. It’s the first such accident in Japan.
A level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiologocal Event Scale includes damage to fuel and release of significant quantities of radioactive material within an installation.
It’s the same level as a criticality accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai Village in Ibaraki Prefecture, south of Fukushima, in 1999.”(NHK/World)
As i understand it, No. 1 had the partial meltdown and is cooled with seawater now,
No. 3 just lost its emergency cooling, that leaves number 2 which “failed” but obviously must still have emergency cooling, otherwise they would tell us. So only 2 problematic ones. I assume “failed” just means off grid.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-japan-quake-sixth-reactor-20110313,0,3146984.story
“Another nuclear reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 facility in Japan has lost its emergency cooling capacity, according to the Associated Press, bringing to three the number of reactors at that facility to fall prey to Friday’s magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami. Added to failure of three reactors at Fukushima No. 2, the count is now six overall.”
Guess I better stop eating bananas.
;O)
ultimately, what happens worst case is that the fuel melts and the floor melts and the molten fuel gets diluted to the point that the fission process slows down and it cools down.
Ian L. McQueen says: March 12, 2011 at 3:40 pm
[……………………..]
Ian, your comment says it all, thank you. To my big frustration I am unable to describe our situation so clearly.
Tragically several towns/cities have been swept away, and Government still cannot contact some of them.
Yesterday a town of ca. 18,000 population said that about 10,000 people are missing; hence final casualties may be on the order of tens of thousands, though not for sure.
We thank you for your deep concern from across the globe.
The direct links for Bastardi and D’Aleo are now:
http://www.weatherbell.com/jb/
http://www.weatherbell.com/jd/
Their first postings are excellent. Hop over there and give them ‘grats and a welcome!
Don’t know if anyone has posted this yet, but Japanese NHK broadcasting in English, with current coverage of the situation is available at:
http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/6810.htm
I am Navy Nuclear Power School Class 8503. I have an Engineering degree. I was also a licensed reactor operator and senior reactor operator at a US PWR. I currently maintain an SRO certification as a training instructor teaching others in preparation for the NRC licensing exam. I speak only for myself, not the “industry” nor the company I work for.
By all indications this plant has had significant fuel damage just like TMI. We won’t know the extent for some time. My opinion is based on reports of significant iodine and cesium releases. This does not mean the containment has or will fail. As far as I am aware, no containment has EVER failed at any commercial nuclear plant during an event. Other plants have had fuel damage. Chernobyl did not have a containment.
This is still the best link for status:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Battle_to_stabilise_earthquake_reactors_1203111.html
Also watched BBC World News.
They concuded:
“This incident will undoubtedly affect public confidence in the future of nuclear power stations which are supposed to be earthquake proof.”
Is that news or opinion?
“SOYLENT GREEN says: March 11, 2011 at 7:58 pm
If ever there was an ad for thorium salt reactors, this, unfortunately is it. They can’t “melt down” because the fuel is already molten. When the power fails, the fuel cools and the reaction stops.
I just hope they can cool these suckers down enough to remove the rods.”
You, me and everyone else with any functioning brain cells!
On the thorium side it would be nice if everyone against nukes could watch this
The funniest part to me was that during the 1960’s they ran one for 5 years and shut it down on weekends to go home! Apparently (from my limited understanding of it) they and a refrigerated “plug” of the salt mixture between the upper reactor and the lower storage container. When the power was shut off (or went off) the plug melted quickly and gravity did its thing so the reactant flowed out to the lower storage container. When they came back in on Monday they would turn the power back on and pump the reactant back to the top reactor.
Elegant design IMHO.
[snip -over the top – Anthony]
It’s likely we will be asked by TEPCO to agree to rolling power cuts from next week.
Silver Lining ?
It sounds like free Hydrogen is being generated via high temperatures from the core somehow, enough to cause the large explosion.
Could this be a viable technique for producing Hydrogen for cars ? Seriously, by keeping the active temperature just below the “meltdown” point…
Does anyone know the Chemistry and Physics involved here?
Another question, if the H is from H2O where does the Oxygen go?
King,
Hey, it’s not a refinery ever exploded, or a coal mine collapsed…
Hobo says: March 12, 2011 at 12:27 pm
You forgot to mention the earth rotation has now sped up…
The quake, which lasted about two minutes, sped up the earth’s rotation by about 1.6 microseconds.
Yeah, and on top of daylight savings time, too.
For what it’s worth, some second hand vague recollections –
A good number of years ago, my dad took a job earthquake-proofing the Cordova, Illinois nuke plant. Lots of steel and concrete involved. From his descriptions, in a meltdown of the Pressurized Water Reactor, the fuel has to melt through the thick steel of the reactor vessel, which alloys and dilutes the fuel with iron, then drops down to the floor of the containment structure, which is several feet thick of steel and concrete designed to take an airliner hit. The bottom of the containment is higher in the middle, so the fuel doesn’t concentrate in a puddle, but disperses to the outside, forming a thin ring. The bottom is also full of a boron compound, which is a neutron absorber and quenches any chain reaction, so you have only the decay heat of the individual atoms to deal with.
“This incident will undoubtedly affect public confidence in the future of nuclear power stations which are supposed to be earthquake proof.”
Is that news or opinion?
Opinion, but probably the truth nevertheless. I think we can rule out embracing nuclear in the USA for a while.
The earthquake didn’t affect the power station, it survived.
It was the tsunami that wiped out the cooling units and their generator power units which meant they couldn’t cool the reactor units. The reactors shut down immediately as expected but they couldn’t cool the whole system as the power was out.
Here’s Tepco’s press releases.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html
This could come in handy: RADIATION UNITS explained,
from the ‘Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety’
An overview of the different units used for radiation measurements (rate, energy, exposure dose, etc.):
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/ionizing.html
“All day yesterday, my dad kept saying “Ohhhh …” when he heard the news about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant being hit by an earthquake and then a tsunami.When I interviewed my dad earlier today, he had much to say.
My dad … is a nuclear expert who has worked on both nuclear submarines and nuclear power plants. I wanted to find out why my dad is so concerned about the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, so I called him up just a few minutes ago and recorded the call. I asked my dad all of the questions I had about the nuclear disaster. I hope this phone interview answers some of the questions you have. If you are at all concerned about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, you MUST listen to this conversation.
I hope to transcribe this conversation later, but for now here is the audio recording:”
http://i4.simkl.com/AuF/N4/d079ba76c70ebd02df8945cbbb8587f4.mp3
http://skepchick.org/2011/03/a-conversation-with-my-dad-a-nuclear-engineer-about-the-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-plant-disaster-in-japan
Just one comment.
It has been close to a couple of days since the shut the reactors down.
The reactors are now producing much less heat.
Oh yeah, CNN had the science guy try to explain the heat removal problem.
The slide was that of a PWR reactor.
Reactor #1 was due to be decommissioned this month anyway. Not sure about the others but they might simply decide to go ahead and decommission both #1 and #3 at this point.
I believe they were put online in the early 1970’s and were nearing the end of their useful life anyway.
My wife says I watch CNN only to get my blood circulating faster.
They interviewed a nuclear physics PhD, a rational fellow who stated that the measurements of radioactive materials at the perimeter of the plant were not alarming, and were not evidence of a meltdown.
Apparently he was too rational for CNN.
After a 5 minute commercial break Wolf Blitzer was back, foaming about the mouth about a meltdown.
Guess the treadmill will get a rest tonight.
From: http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110313-2.pdf
Previously, from http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110313-1.pdf:
So, it seems that there may have been a large decrease in detected radiation at monitoring point #4: from 1015 microSv/h to 40 microSv/h.