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.
Info from IAEA
A person’s radiation exposure due to all natural sources amounts on average to about 2.4 millisievert (mSv) per year. A sievert (Sv) is a unit of effective dose of radiation. Depending on geographical location, this figure can vary by several hundred percent.
Since one sievert is a large quantity, radiation doses are typically expressed in millisievert (mSv) or microsievert (µSv), which is one-thousandth or one millionth of a sievert. For example, one chest X-ray will give about 0.1 mSv of radiation dose.
Japanese Earthquake Update (15 March 11:25 UTC) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Update
Radiation Dose Rates Observed at the Site
The Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that the following radiation dose rates have been observed on site at the main gate of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
At 00:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 11.9 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed. Six hours later, at 06:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 0.6 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed.
These observations indicate that the level of radioactivity has been decreasing at the site.
“Professor Richard Wakeford, from the Dalton Nuclear Institute, discusses the radiation leaks from the Fukushima power plant in Japan.”
“Professor Paddy Regan, a nuclear physicist, says the Japanese authorities are doing a good job over the Fukushima radiation leaks.”
Mod, Thanks for fixing the bolding in my last post!!!
The fifty people who stayed on site are real heros, I hope they get through this without harm.
The markets, as usual, are spinning in circles with their shorts on fire but, according to IAEA updates, the situation appears to be stabilizing (reduced background levels) which is great news.
“If I had the ear of the Prime Minister, I would recommend the “Chernobyl Option.”
Put the Japanese Air Force on alert
Assemble a huge fleet of helicopters. Put shielding underneath them.
Accumulate enough sand, boric acid, and concrete to smother these reactors, to entomb them forever.
This is what the Soviets did in 1986, calling out the Red Air Force and sandbagging the reactor with over 5,000 tons of concrete and sand.
We have not yet hit the point of no return. But when we do, I think the only option left is this one.” – Michio Kaku
http://bigthink.com/ideas/31617
@ur momisugly adpack says:
March 14, 2011 at 10:06 pm
When trying to gauge the credibility of these stories, it helps to understand the scale of things. Here is an indicator of the size of generators needed. These vary in weight from 26 to 43 tons. Unfortunately, I don’t know what generators were installed at Fukushima. A second indicator of size is here (pictured at top right is the stator of an Allis Chalmers 7,000hp, 4,000v nuclear circulating water pump with an inner diameter of around 12 ft and an outer diameter of around 18 ft). Steam-powered coolant pumps would need steam to run, but, once the reactors have been shut down, steam production may not be available. Note that the electric coolant pumps have motors that run in the ballpark of 4000v, so the generator would ideally also need to output the same voltage.
All Fukushima Daini units in cold shutdown (World Nuclear Association, March 15, 2011)
“French nuclear watchdog puts accident at level 6”
Latest reports I have seen are:
“Workers have been evacuated from the site.”
“South Korea plans to transfer its reserve of boron to Japan to it stabilise the quake-damaged nuclear reactors.”
The obvious question is if workers have been evacuated does that mean the reactors have been left to do their own thing?
Or are we still not getting the complete picture?
“The obvious question is if workers have been evacuated does that mean the reactors have been left to do their own thing?”
Later report –
“Workers ordered to leave the Fukushima plant have been allowed back after radiation levels fell, the Japan nuclear agency said.”
Note a bad summary and blog here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-16-march-summary/#more-4068
“Japan Abandons Nuke Plant Over Radiation”
One of the things that I don’t believe anyone has mentioned is the concentration of risk by having so many reactors so close together. For example, a hydrogen explosion in reactor x has hampered/crippled efforts to control neighboring reactors. The reactors survived the earthquake fairly well, absent the tsunami. I don’t believe we would have the situation now had the tsunami not hit. So earthquake survivability has maybe been well demonstrated. The tsunami is a different story. They made an effort to provide protection against tsunamis, but they got a whopper that nobody, pro- or anti-nuclear power, can say in good conscience was predictable. Placing the so many reactors so close together, however, I think is a major design/regulatory oversight that should have been foreseen.
There is no question that efforts to control the reactors would have had a better chance of success, had they had to deal with them singly, rather than collectively. The clustering IMHO is the real problem at Fukushima. Storing spent fuel next to reactors, as is done around the world, is another compounding issue that should also be addressed promptly at other facilities. The closing of Yucca Mountain in the US is a colossal mistake that may come back to haunt us. Spent fuel that is stored at nuclear facilities around the country needs to be removed from those facilities ASAP and taken to Yucca Mountain. Fukushima has shown that any problems at a nuclear facility can be compounded, perhaps catastrophically, by the storage of spent fuel in or near nuclear reactors.
In closing, I would submit that events at Fukushima may have been very different in a very positive way had the situation not been compounded by the clustering of reactors and the storage of spent fuel near the reactors. Those last two may end up being the difference between a controllable, albeit very serious situation, and one that is vastly more difficult, costly and dangerous.
Good point Phil. I get the feeling that land constraints is the reason, ie with limited land they tried to cram as many on as possible. So in effect a $$ and land decision.
Of course the other down side of so many reactors is that the plant staff now have to cope with multiple problems so leading to data overload and mistakes. It’s very had to imagine the stress the plant staff have with so many problems, the worry about health and also perhaps worry about loved ones elsewhere.
Andy
1324: Japan has raised the maximum radiation dose allowed for nuclear workers, to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts. It described the move as “unavoidable due to the circumstances”, AP reports.
So it’s flexible. Not much point having it if it is though 🙁
Reactors 5 and 6 are now having water poured onto them via helicopter. I have not heard much of them before today but they seem to be also causing some concern now, or else they are just making sure.
Andy
From: http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110316-3.pdf
For Fukushima Dai-ichi:
From: http://ansnuclearcafe.org/ (quoted text will scroll off the screen as this url is for rolling updates)
Notice that the radiation level at the main gate at 4:10 P.M. is measured in micro sieverts, whereas all the other the measurements are in millisieverts. IIRC, the main gate is about 2.5 km from the reactors or something like that, so the radiation seems to be falling off rapidly with distance, at least for now. The down side is that it appears as if the reactors themselves are becoming too hot to work on, so that means that further radiation releases are to be expected.
That’s a constant 12mSv an hour so 24 hours is past the new maximum allowed in about 1 day. Where is observation point 6 in relation to the plant? What are the workers getting ? They really should just pull them out and leave it I think, clear up later even if it costs more money.
It seems that the helicopters could not fly due to radiation levels so they have resorted to asking the police to spray water using water cannons. There was an old saying when I was growing up that the next war would be fought with nuclear weapons, the one after that with bows and arrows, I am reminded by this when all the very sophisticated backups finally have to call on a policeman with a device meant to control riots. They are pissing into the wind and are too proud to admit otherwise.
I really do think they should pull everyone out and just hope for the best, winds will blow off Japan for the next 4-5 days . On the larger scale nobody will have problems but in the plant area they will.
Further from the plant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12763273
There is enough people displaced in Japan without having to deal with this “icing on the cake”. I can’t imagine Japan ever going back to large scale nuclear even though the plant has done very well considering the stress it was put under and the design limits due to cost as Phil pointed out.
Andy
@AndyW says:
March 16, 2011 at 11:26 am
From: http://www.olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_fire_p15.php
Scroll down to the last picture captioned:
I believe the riot truck has been turned into a fire truck. It is necessary to get water into the spent fuel pool. Things may be too hot (i.e. radiation plus risk of more hydrogen fires/explosions) to get someone to go into the building, so this seems like a very good idea. I can’t think of a better way to deliver large quantities of water where it is needed when you simply can’t get very close. The water cannon was adapted for riot control, but I believe its origin was in firefighting. There probably aren’t any airports close enough nor would the tsunami debris make it easy to drive one of those monsters (10 ft wide) to the power plant. I can imagine someone asking where he can get a water pump like that mounted on crash trucks and then someone says that they don’t have any firetrucks but there is a riot truck parked somewhere close with the same type of equipment on it (this being Japan it probably hasn’t been used very much). So the riot truck just became a fire truck. I would say this is good news, because it shows that they are thinking outside of the box. Let’s hope that the water cannon can get enough water into the pool to cover the spent fuel rods and keep them covered. I wish them godspeed, for theirs is an unenviable task.
Monitoring Point 6 (MP6) appears to be near the main gate.
Big problems with exposure of spent fuel rods in their dry storage pools:
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/03/16/japan-nuclear-emergency-update-with-reactor-status-list031604.aspx
“Nuclear Whistleblower Explains Design Flaws Of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant In Japan”
@pwl says:
March 16, 2011 at 5:15 pm
God help us! Spitzer is appallingly ignorant and the “whistleblower” doesn’t see any problem with having the spent fuel pool outside of secondary containment. In fact, he can’t even imagine why there was a fire at the spent fuel pool in Unit #4, because the reactor was down for maintenance! And he helped design this thing? We are being led by the blind (no offense).
Furthermore, the design flaw that he described had ZERO to do with the events at Fukushima. It involved coolant loss due to a break in a steam line in the primary coolant system, which nobody has reported as being the case at Fukushima. It’s sort of like having an expert witness testifying about a car accident and stating that there was a design flaw with the steering. Then the attorney questioning said expert points out that the accident was due to faulty brakes and that the steering did not, in fact, fail or have ANY role in the accident. But it was still an accident!!! Wasn’t it? How this stuff gets on TV and/or informs the debate is a real mystery.
Actinide oxides. That is the key word here. The cesium is bad, but the actinide oxides are catastrophic. It looks like the only radiation that is going to leak from these reactors are fission by-products, assuming that the containment vessels hold. The spent fuel pools, on the other hand, have a real risk of leaking actinide oxides into the environment and none of them have containment – anywhere in the world. Actinides: uranium, plutonium, etc. There truly is no vaccine against stupidity.
Phil.
I disagree with most of your statements about what the ‘whistleblower’ said in that video.
“doesn’t see any problem with having the spent fuel pool outside of secondary containment. In fact, he can’t even imagine why there was a fire at the spent fuel pool in Unit #4, because the reactor was down for maintenance! ”
he didn’ys say that and if you re-watch the video towards the end he does say that its possible that because raector 4 was shutdown for maintenance that the spent fuel in teh recator hall fuel pond could have been somewhat hotter than any spent fuel in the ponds of reactor 1,2 and 3. I’d agree with him on that point. Whats he is questioning is how the fire started in Reactor 4. There is still a lot of confusion on this point.
IMO we should all be questioning the information being put out in the officail press relases from TEPCO and NISA. We should be questioning the reported levels of radiological releases. Just look at the videos and the close up images of the severe (and most definitely not ‘cosmetic’ as The Register referred to it) damage done to Reactor 3 and 4. Under no circumstances could what has happened to the Fukushima reactors be referred to as a ‘triumph’ (as once again The Register has done).
So far I’ve been pretty much spot on in regard to what I suspected was likely to happen.
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/fukushima-confusion/
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/fukushima-reactor-3-blast-looks-serious/
I take no satisfaction whatsoever from being much more accurate than most of the so called ‘nuclear experts’ wheeled out by the MSM TV channels. What has annoyed me most is the consistent playing down of the significance of the damage caused to the reactors at the early stages of these incidents. At least now they MSM are actually wheeling out experts who have actually had some experience of working directly in the nuclear industry, some actually former designers or operators of NPPs.
Safer Nuclear Reactor Designs Are A Must, not to mention refitting existing reactor sites to have technology contingency systems to deal with total coolant loss.
http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/safer-nuclear-reactor-designs-are-a-must
@KevinUK says:
March 17, 2011 at 4:22 am
My tone may have been in greater disagreement with you than my words. I apologize for that. With respect to the part that you quoted, I don’t think that we are that far apart. My sentence construction is confusing. The sentence (i.e. “he can’t even imagine why there was a fire at the spent fuel pool in Unit #4, because the reactor was down for maintenance!) was inartfully phrased, as this was his initial reaction. I had read your first link some time ago with great interest, but I have only read your second link just now. His initial reaction I think is based on the idea that the hydrogen that presumably caused the fire originated in the reactor. Your posts have repeatedly made that point. I have re-read your posts and I don’t see where you or anybody else mentions the possibility that the hydrogen originated anywhere other than the reactor and that the hydrogen ended up in the reactor hall or under the roof of the main building either from venting of the reactor vessel or from a breach in the reactor containment.
So, it seems as if most everyone was focused on a hydrogen explosion or hydrogen fire being linked by cause and effect with an operating or fueled reactor, such as Units #1, #2 and #3 – NOT Unit #4. Unit #4 had IIRC all of its fuel removed, so the hydrogen could not have originated inside the reactor vessel and, somehow, then made its way outside of it. That is what I inartfully was trying to convey. The exclamation point was my comment on the disbelief that someone who actually participated in the design of these reactors didn’t see the spent fuel pools as a major risk. Initially he initially says that the location of the spent fuel pool is very convenient for servicing the reactor during refueling and maintenance. You can almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he thinks about the fact that there is a hydrogen fire in a reactor building where the reactor is essentially empty of all fuel and, you are correct, that, towards the end, he says that it is possible that the fuel that they had pulled out of the reactor for maintenance may have been somewhat hotter than usual.
I have re-read both of your posts and I don’t see anywhere where you mention the possibility that hydrogen could have come from a reaction between the zircalloy in the fuel rods in the spent fuel pool and steam, due to the water level dropping in the pools, rather than the reactor. I have worked in designing and constructing large industrial facilities and so I look at this from a different perspective. I have also been involved in reconstructing industrial facilities that have suffered damage from earthquakes and have had a large industrial facility that I helped design and build hit by a 7.5 earthquake not long after it was completed. There was a structural failure, but the redundancy of the structural design prevented any damage. In fact, there wasn’t even a cracked wall or cracked window near the place where the structural failure occurred. I was no longer affiliated with the facility, so I pointed out to the management that they had something that needed to be seen to right away, but they were more perturbed by cracked sidewalks, which can’t fall on you.
Accordingly, I have seen the damage strong earthquakes can cause, especially with respect to elevated water storage facilities. IMHO, I don’t think that you should EVER build elevated water storage facilities in an earthquake zone, such as the spent fuel pools or, at least, not within the same building as a nuclear reactor. One of the comments in your second link I think is right on the mark:
boballab says:
March 15, 2011 at 2:52 am
Seems like a bad design to keep the spent fuel pool in the same building as the operating reactor (The plant I was at that was
a separate facility) ….
What if the spent fuel pools developed cracks during the earthquake (especially at Unit #4)? Then, perhaps the source of the hydrogen in Unit #4 was a reaction between the zircalloy and steam from overheating fuel rods in the spent fuel pool, in the manner that you described. Could it also be that the spent fuel pools overheated in Units #1, #2 and #3 as well? Or to put it another way, can the spent fuel pools be ruled out as a source of hydrogen at any of the reactors in trouble at Fukushima? What about the spent fuel pools at Units #5 and #6?
I won’t repeat the remark, but I think that the combination of (a) building elevated water storage facilities in an earthquake zone, (b) using such facilities to store (even temporarily) dangerous radioactive materials, and (c) not building any substantial containment over these is and was extremely unwise.
Phil,
Thanks for your reply to my earlier replyto your comment and for your insight into the strutral integrity o fthe spent fuel ponds on all six recators. From waht you’ve said its ceratinly possible and probably likely that there coudl eb leaks in all six ponds.
The main reason I first posulate dthat the hydrogen woudl most likely have come from zirconium and superheated steam reactions within the reactor pressure vessel. This was an informed guess a sI’v eseen these type sof reactions during controlled experiments. If th ecoolant levels have dropped significantly in the recator veseel at any point then ther will be superheated steam in the space above the ercator and if it drops low enough then definitely hydrogen production. In such circumstanes it makes sense to vent this into the recator hall above if you ned to get coolant into the recator agian. This is what I thought had caused the Reaxtor 1 explosion. I stiull think thi sis th emore probable cause but hydrogen produced from uncovered spent fuel in teh R1 fuel pond is certainly feasible. The zircalloy steam reaction is much more vigourous if the steam is superheated.
The Reactor 3 explsoion wa smuch gretaer than teh Reactor 1 explosion and there was clearly much more damage to the reactor building. Because the R3 explosion went upwards with large pieces of debris (the remains of the refuelling bridge and its running rails IMO) launched up to a high height an clear evidence of damage to the recator hall floor I guessed that the explosion in Reactor 3 was from the area below the reactor hall floor rather than above it (as appears to have happened in R1). Because it wa sso much larger than the R1 explsoion then I would say thatthe hydrogen is more likely to have arisen from the recator pressure vessel than from teh spend fuel pond.
Reactor 4 has puzzled me the most. The damage to the Reactor 4 building looks not that dis-similar to the Reractor 3 building after it first exploded yetthere don’t appear to be any repoets of large hydrogen explosions of teh same size as that for Reactor 3 at least. So what caused all that R4 damage? There have been reports of a number of fires in the R4 building but no significant explosions from what I can see. If the R4 spend fuel pond was leaking as a result of cracks in it walls then I can understand why it was the last of the reactors to get into trouble as any leak I suspect would be likely to be small.What do you think.
Reactor 2 was reported to have made loud noises insid eteh building at one point with the implication thatthe suppression pool had been breached. This was said to be very serious/concerning at the time and it was reported that they were considering making a hole in the R2 reactor building to reduce pressure within the building and to release any possible build up in hydrogen. There is evidence that they did exactly that and so appear to have, as a result, avoided a similar explosion (to R1 and 3) on R2.
Is there a possibility that the Reactor 5 and 6 fuel ponds have suffered similar problems to the R4 fuel pond. Our UK Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington seems to think so. Perhaps he needs to ask Lord Oxburgh to ‘play a blinder’ on this one as well as he did during his Climategate inquiry.
If you are worried about the Fukushima spent fuel storage ponds perhaps it would be worth have a look at this forum
http://204.74.214.194/forum1/message1398164/pg1
I most definitely agree with you that its not the best idea to have the spent fuel pond located at above ground level within a building located on a fault line.Its probbaly not a good idea to have a spent fuel pond at ground level either just as it doesn’t make an awful lot of sens eto build any kind of nuclear facility (particularly a fuel reprocessing plant) in a seismically active area. The Japanese seem to think that they can manage it largely becaus ethey have made nuclear power generation an integral part o ftheir energy policy. Maybe post Fujushima they will now change their minds and build a pipeline to Sakhalin Island.