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.
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At 11:05 PM on 11 March, Lonnie E. Schubert had written:
–
Heck, I’ve been reading for some time about the notion of “mining” the huge amounts of coal-fired powerplant ash residue for thorium to be used as fission fuel.
Thorium is the principal reason why environmental radiation emissions associated with the combustion of coal means that this old-technology non-nuclear electrical power generation method actually results in more ionizing radiation release (and a helluva lot more in the way of chemical carcinogen release) per megawatt-hour than light water fission power generation ever could.
Though I can’t say with absolute reliability that one has to be either stupid or insane to push the “environmentalist” line of bullpuckey, all the indicators seem to come down in favor of that supposition.
ggm;
“breader” reactors? Are those the kind that make bread? As in $$, or from flour?
I prefer the breeder type, myself.
😉
;pPpP
V says, “Can someone comment on the credentials of the Union of Concerned Scientists commentary at this stage.”
Here are the details,
Union of Concerned Scientists (Discover the Networks)
“The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with more than 100,000 members. Seeing its mission as building a “cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world,” … It opposes genetically engineered foods, condemns SUV vehicles, and proposes measures aimed at combating what it deems the imminent dangers of global warming. It also opposes the vast majority of American foreign policy decisions, and calls for a unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles. UCS disseminates to lawmakers and news outlets its opinions about each of these matters, with the intent of ultimately influencing public policy.
Students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded UCS in 1969. “Through its actions in Vietnam, our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions,” reads the UCS founding document. That sentiment continues to this day, with UCS condemning American efforts in the War on Terror and the 2003 War in Iraq.
UCS typically minimizes threats posed by foreign rogue regimes, and challenges U.S. assertions about the intentions and military capacities of those governments. In 1998, for instance, UCS assured the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang regime was still many years away from being able to develop such an arsenal.
UCS vigorously opposes America’s development of a missile defense system. It also calls for the “adoption of a U.S. nuclear no-first-use policy”; “a U.S. rejection of rapid-launch options, and a change in deployment practices to provide for the launch of U.S. nuclear forces in hours or days rather than minutes”; “the elimination of all U.S. ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons, intended for use on the battlefield”; “verified unilateral reductions to a total of 1,000 strategic warheads (including deployed and stored), accompanied by warhead dismantlement”; and “a commitment to further reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, on a negotiated and verified multilateral basis.”
UCS admonishes American corporations such as McDonald’s and Burger King, asserting that the presence of antibiotics in meat used by fast-food companies contributes to large-scale antibiotic resistance. In 2003, bills based on UCS research aimed at prohibiting the use of eight classes of antibiotics in livestock used by fast-food producers were introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate. Soon after, UCS admitted that the majority of its claims were speculative. UCS has also warned of the alleged dangers of genetically modified food.
Another issue of concern to UCS is that of global warming. The organization circulated a petition that drew the signatures of some 1,600 scientific experts demanding that the United States ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
A Union of Concerned Scientists declaration, entitled “Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making,” charges that the Bush administration “has continued to distort and suppress science in pursuit of its political goals — despite a plea from top U.S. scientists to restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process.” According to UCS President Kevin Knobloch, “We found a serious pattern of undermining science by the Bush administration, and it crosses disciplines, whether it’s global climate change or reproductive health or mercury in the food chain or forestry — the list goes on and on.” The signers of this document portrayed themselves as objective scientists with no political agenda. But in truth, over half of them were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes. […]
UCS is a member of the Save Our Environment Action Center, a leftist coalition that describes itself as “a collaborative effort of the nation’s most influential environmental advocacy organizations harnessing the power of the internet to increase public awareness and activism on today’s most important environmental issues.“
Actually the best source of information is not World Nuclear News, its Tokyo Electric.
For anyone who wants to know the plant status at Fukushima, go here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html
and just click through the latest two reports. There are two reactor complexes at Fukushima.
In short, all reactors were fully shut down. One worker received a radiation dose of 106 mSv (the permissible limit for 1 year is 20 mSv) and extremely unlikely to have any effect. Two workers were injured by falls at the time of the quake (broken bones). The takeway from this is that nuclear plants are built so strongly that they are still standing when everything else has been knocked flat.
V: UCS has zero credentials on anything nuclear (or anything else except Beltway lobbying). They have no engineering expertise, no nuclear physics expertise and no radiation health expertise. Their great skill is drawing conclusions on everything based upon knowing nothing.
Lonnie, the biggest problem with BWRs is that because of their single-loop system the containment has to be so huge.
Kath, that report is utterly worthless if it doesn’t give concentrations. Detected at what concentration? Parts per billion? Parts per million?
Looks like they are slowly getting things under control. The Unit 1 Daiichi reactor seems to be the problem child at this point. Looks like once they release the pressure in the containment vessel, they can get more water in there.
The higher the pressure gets in there, the more water it forces out of the core.
BUT people need to remember that these reactors are shut down. While they do take time to cool down, with every passing hour they do lose more heat. This should be much less of a problem 12 hours from now than it is right this minute.
As a followup to John Robertson’s earlier comment, even decay heat isn’t a problem in CANDUs. The reactors are so big relative to the power density that all of the decay heat can simply be radiated into the building structure even in the event of loss of ECCS.
“Looks like they are slowly getting things under control. The Unit 1 Daiichi reactor seems to be the problem child at this point. Looks like once they release the pressure in the containment vessel, they can get more water in there.
The higher the pressure gets in there, the more water it forces out of the core.”
Sorry, Crosspatch but you’re well off beam there. Water levels in the reactor vessel aren’t a function of the pressure in the containment – even just venting decay heat steam, the reactor will be pressurised (at a guess) to perhaps 5-10 bar – well above the pressure in the containment.
As John W. has pointed aout above, the problem is simpler. The primary containment will only stand a certain level of overpressure without uncontrolled venting into the sencondary containment (the reactor building). That’s not catastrophic, but it’s not a desirable outcome. That’s why they’ll be using controlled venting to reduce pressures.
As an aside, there’s a certain irony here. Last week, the NRC gave last stage design approval (only one more hoop to jump through) for the latest iteration of the reactor types at Fukushima – the “Economically Simplified BWR” (ESBWR).
The ESBWR is a beautifully elegant design. Direct Cycle, inherently safe and – here’s the real beauty – doesn’t use coolant pumps at all. All the make-up systems are gravity fed, and there’s a “S**t or bust” option to simply submerge the whole reactor. Even at full power operation, it’s a natural circulation design. So, loss of power to coolant pumps isn’t an issue – there aren’t any.
“Lonnie, the biggest problem with BWRs is that because of their single-loop system the containment has to be so huge.”
Absolutely not. BWRs (at least post the BWR6) have much smaller containments than PWRs of equivalent power. They use a “wet” contaimant, and don’t use heat exchangers.
The trick is the ability to drive fast-acting isolation valves to cut the steam supply/return to the turbine.
– – – – – – –
Andy Dawson,
Glad to get your comment. Thanks.
Regarding the potential that that there was/is a failure of the suppression pool make up system at the 1F1 plant of concern, the suppression pool at that plant (if my oldish mind remembers correctly) is a toroidal design (aka a torus). The suppression pool is, of course as required by the fundamental design, below the level of the RPV.
1F1 is a BWR model that does not have (as I recall) a gravity feed water makeup (supply) system, unless a plant modification was done recently. That is, it doesn’t have a pool of water at an elevation higher than the suppression pool (torus) so that you could just open a valve for makeup water. The plant must therefore have a shutdown mode makeup system that uses electric motor driven pumps. If they had a complete simultaneous loss of incoming grid power (an off site power supply), both Emergency Diesel Generators and all other internal electrical power then suppression pool makeup water would be unavailable. The media and internet sources I have seen are consistent that they had an electric power source blackout, so that explains no suppression pool makeup. I think rigging up a temporary electric source isn’t a long term problem.
That said, I do not think (guess) they have a lack of water in the suppression pool unless it was damaged and leaked the water into the secondary containment; I just do not know if it was damaged. But I would think (guess) that there probably is sufficient water in the suppression pool. The problem would rather be with the lack of electric power to pump water from the suppression pool back to the RPV to keep the water level sufficient high to cover the core to the needed height. Anyway, even if the suppression pool lacked water for make up to the RPV, there are by plant design potentially several other redundant sources of water to put in the RPV besides the suppression pool. But they also require electric power to pump to the RPV. I think that is the problem, not any one system’s failure by physical damage but lack of electric power, but I just do not know.
Andy, there some significant factors that I just do not know, so although it would be great to discuss the strictly speculative possibilities of the plant conditions, this is not the appropriate environment to do so. People are prone to out-of-contexting.
John
Japanese authorities have successfully released pressure from the quake-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor and thus avert a potentially catastrophic meltdown, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on Saturday.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article1531579.ece
Good links from Crosspatch and Colin. I find it most revealing that better information on this non climate related incident is found at WUWT rather than the lame stream media. New media wins again. If I can steel myself with a bottle of reasonably priced Australian red, I might click over to see where the Guardian coverage is at. Or not…
Well, I was repeating what TEPCO said. They said they couldn’t get more water in there until they vented the pressure in the containment vessel. That might be a function of the cooling system they are using which I believe is a backup system on that reactor.
“Even at full power operation, it’s a natural circulation design. So, loss of power to coolant pumps isn’t an issue – there aren’t any.”
Yeah, same way the AP1000 works.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/radiation-leaks-at-japan-quake-hit-nuclear-plant-2011-03-12
Second report. Crisis apparently averted.
“Andy, there some significant factors that I just do not know, so although it would be great to discuss the strictly speculative possibilities of the plant conditions, this is not the appropriate environment to do so. People are prone to out-of-contexting.”
Fair point, and thanks for the info (although I wasn’t aware that suppression pool water return to the RPV – is that a good idea from a radiological perspective?). I don’t claim BWR expertise – CO2 and graphite is my background!
Might have been a hydrogen explosion in the secondary containment.
One of the nuke reactors blew up, and the radioactivity was measured to be ca. 1 milliSievert at just outside of the reactor site. This may mean that a person inhales a dose, equivalent to one-year dose in normal life, only in an hour.
Could be a really terrible situation for those living nearby.
So we might have seen a non-catastrophic explosion of accumulated hydrogen in the secondary containment. Reactor pressures had actually been dropping rapidly according to this report:
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110312D12JF516.htm
So while this isn’t a “good” thing, it might not have damaged the primary containment.
Sort OT:An Italian Institute says that after preliminary analysis the earth axis was displaced 10cm. So, how many studies about earthquakes and climate ?
http://translate.google.it/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fit.reuters.com%2Farticle%2FtopNews%2FidITMIE72A0GB20110311&sl=it&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
– – – – – – –
Kath,
I am confident the sources you show are in the best possible position to mention the possibility of the ‘melt’ word.
I can just mention that the severe agitation of the fuel rod (they say containers) by the 8.9 eartquake ~80 km away coupled with scram thermal transients might have caused some mechanical cracks in the fuel clad that could have potentially caused release of fission decay products into the water. That would give the same isotopic indicators in the water that the sources above mention. So, melting I think is possible and the sources known best about the actual plant situation, but mechanical damage without melting is also possible.
At this point without further input I will wait for more confirmation of the suggestion by the authorities of melting. Inspection later after the plant is stabilized will show the actual fuel condition.
My thoughts are with the teams of the Japanese utility, consultants and government as they solve this technical situation.
John
crosspatch,
re
“Yeah, same way the AP1000 works.”
No, the AP1000 can run on natural circulation in decay heat removal mode. In normal operation, it uses circulation pumps. The ESBWR doesn’t use them at all
This seems to be a good site with useful information on the BWR design features, including some nice drawings:
http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-links-on-fukushima-daiichi-1.html
This also provides a link to a nice publication on GE Mark I BWR containment structures by fellow Illini Prof. Magdi Ragheb.
Quote: That caused Tepco to declare an emergency and the government to evacuate thousands of people from near the plant. Such a blackout is “one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant,” according to experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S. based nuclear watchdog group.
“If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited,” the group warned.
Good to know we’ve now got the real experts on the job!
“No, the AP1000 can run on natural circulation in decay heat removal mode. ”
It is my understanding that it can operate at 100% capacity with passive cooling. Indefinitely with an external water source.
http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_psrs_pcs.html
Apparently the AP600 can run two weeks without external water, the 1000 runs 3 days.
@Colin:
(the permissible limit for 1 year is 20 mSv)
When I was a rad worker, the occupational limits were (3 Rem) 30mSv/quarter and (5 Rem) 50mSv/year.
Chernobyl design critiques,
it is true that the Chernobyl reactor had a positive void coefficient of reactivity (steam void increases, reactor power increases), operational limits and safety interlocks were in place to prevent such accident from occuring. It did indeed occur not because of design, but because operational procedures were violated, and saftey interlocks were defeated in order to conduct a test. The test was to trip the coolant pumps to see how much flow they would provide while coasting down. The plant was in an unsafe condition when the pumps were tripped, and the plant blew up. The releases of radioactive material was measured in the mega-curies. I was used to seeing measurements of micro-curies. 1 curie = 3.7 x 10^10 disintigrations(decays) per second.
0855 GMT Saturday 12 March: Some pictures have come through now on Japanese TV of that explosion at Fukushima. It looks very strong. You can see debris being blasted from the building, then a cloud of smoke mushrooming up from the plant.