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.
Boric acid added to the seawater to absorb neutrons: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703555404576195700301455480.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
I recommend this for technically credible news updates:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Battle_to_stabilise_earthquake_reactors_1203111.html
The sea water for coolant issue hangs on what it’s for. If it’s make-up for the reactor proper, someone’s getting pretty desperate. If it’s make-up for the suppression torus, then it’s a long way from normal operations, but not mind-blowing. The wording of the WNN story (“injection into the building”) suggests into the suppression pool.
As I’ve said before, the longer this goes on, the less the heat removal problem.
The extreme redundancy involved with nuclear plant design, construction and operation, backups to backups to backups, yet they locate generators critical to the operation during a power failure at sea level(assumption). Where is common sense applied in this industry. During Katrina hospitals, build on land below sea level, lost power when their diesels located in basements were flooded. Common sense again seems to have been lost on those engineers, architects, and builders of these facilities.
I’m sensing a business opportunity here. “Common Sense Analytics” .com
Another thought mentioned earlier, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, is able to shutdown safely during a power failure without any human action. The scientists at Oak Ridge working on LFTR during the sixties would shutdown the reactor every weekend simply by shutting off power and allowing the fluid core to drain, cool and solidify in a geometrically non- critical storage tank. Monday morning they would turn on the tank heaters and pump the melted fluoride salts back into the core to restart the reactor. Thorium is the future of safe nuclear power.
Rich D.
A new low for CNBC – stealing photo of nuclear explosion
http://i.imgur.com/P8Y6y.jpg
Not the best of powerpoints, but the file has good information:
http://www.ati.ac.at/fileadmin/files/research_areas/ssnm/nmkt/06_BWR.pdf
More reactor powerpoints:
http://www.ati.ac.at/fileadmin/files/research_areas/ssnm/nmkt/
BWRs are not my favorite design, but they are still good designs, and quite safe. Part of the reasoning behind them is the larger water path between the radiation of the core and the primary pressure vessel wall. The radiation embrittles the steel, and we must shut thee reactor down long before more common considerations would dictate. The embrittled steel could possibly crack in a fully brittle manner, leading to a large breech in the primary pressure vessel, which would be a significant disaster. The longer water path of the BWR design reduces the embrittlement rate, thus promising longer overall life of the reactor.
Anyway, these things are quite safe. We will make even safer designs with the lessons learned from this catastrophe. The primary cost of these events at the power plants will be monetary. The Japanese will recover with little pain, and we will all benefit in the long run.
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf
44 fatal accidents in wind energy, verses 5 in nuclear in the last ten years . In those ten years nuclear provided thirty times the energy of wind. 44 x 30 equals 1,320 deaths verses five. In the last decade nuclear has been 240 times safer then wind energy on a energy produced verses fatal accidents basis.
The containment building that exploded appears to be Fukushima I. Fukushima I is the first nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and is the smallest Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) of the 6 units at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility.
There are 3 different nuclear facilities in the Fukushima Prefecture, with a total of 17 reactor units. All are run by TEPCO. There are 17 nuclear facilities in Japan, with a total of 55 reactor units.
More will have died from mass transit trains in Japan than from the radiation from these plants. Maybe we should consider banning these before we ban nuke plants. I hate it when the greens gloat in times like these. They are probably pretty giddy right now. no sarc off
These reactor facilities seem to have one major “design flaw.”
The genius that did their “failure analysis” seemed to overlook the fact the large earthquakes are often accompanied by a tsunami.
From the TV images and pictures, these nuclear facilities appear to be built on a rising bank on the side of a river not far from the ocean. It appears from the stories that the backup generators were disabled by water damage, so the backup generators must be near the bottom of the river bank .. a perfect place for a tsunami to disable them.
From the video and the before/after photo of the building where the explosion occurred, I think that one of the main steam lines from the reactor vessel ruptured outside containment. This is bad because it creates a direct release path from the vessel for fission products. It is also good because it completely depressurized the reactor vessel so that low pressure pumps, such as fire pumps, can now fill the vessel and maybe even the entire containment with water, to prevent further fuel failures.
This plant is an older BWR, and the total loss of AC power scenario is well understood, and the plant should have the capability to withstand it by use of the RCIC system and batteries, until additional power supplies can be provided. The ultimate limit for how long it can be sustained is the containment temperature and pressure, because until a normal cooling path is established, all the decay heat is rejected to the suppression pool, which is in the torus. It has a limited amount of heat removal.
In the case where the containment reaches its limits, this plant should depressurize completely, through a filtered vent, so that low pressure pumps can refill the vessel. It looks like the plant has been depressurized, but not intentionally. Instead, as a result of a steam line (or feedwater line) break.
The radiation releases that are described so far are trivial, but of course the media thinks all radiation is dangerous, so that aspect is going to continue to be trumpeted.
Because this is a BWR, uncovering the core is a red herring – during normal operation the top part of the core being cooled mainly by steam. During certain accidents and transients, the operators are taught to actually lower the water level to about 2/3 core height to improve mixing – some fuel may fail, but not catastrophically. You get some gap release, but most fission products stay inside the fuel.
Lots of BWRs have square secondary containment buildings – engineers like right angles. The primary containment inside that square building is some sort of round shape. Depending on the date the plant was built, it could look like an inverted lightbulb, a truncated cone on top of a cylinder, or a simple cylinder. The square buildings have corner rooms with machinery in them. The explosion seems to have blown off the sheet metal panels in the top structure, leaving the structural steel in place. The video looks just like the steam line break videos I have seen before.
Those of you who think that thorium reactors (or some other type) would be insensitive to this sort of event do not understand this technology, and should stay in your current fields. The nuclear industry really does not need any more new research projects (see, e.g. Fort St. Vrain, Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, Pebble Bed Reactor). Good ideas, but not enough money to figure out how to make them work on a practical basis.
I used to regulate reactor fuel designs and BWR safety systems at the NRC, was a Navy nuke, and designed PWRs, and so have some experience here…
Katz at http://www.ustwrap.info/multi/yokosonews::nhk-gtv
has just given his translation of the words of the Secretary General of Japan; he said that Fukushima power plant never prepared for a hit by a Tsunami.
He says they are moving a Toshiba turbine on road to the reactor now, it has been landed at Fukushima airport and is on the road now.
BREAKING – he says: NHK has a press conference on the nuclear emergency: nuclear plant No 1 is being cooled by seawater now, they are starting to put in seawater.
Guys,
Anyone know where fallout would hit the West Coast and where the jetstream is right now?
A full discussion of the TMI accident is in “Normal Accidents” by Perrot. http://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Technologies/dp/0691004129/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299948154&sr=1-1
David says:
March 12, 2011 at 8:27 am
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents
http://www.energyliteracy.com/?p=310 (see pie chart, 8% nuclear, .3% wind)
44 fatal accidents in wind energy, verses 5 in nuclear in the last ten years . In those ten years nuclear provided thirty times the energy of wind. 44 x 30 equals 1,320 deaths verses five. In the last decade nuclear has been 265 times safer then wind energy on a energy produced verses fatal accidents basis.
Sorry for the bad back of envelope-top of head math in my earlier post.
In the 25 years since Chernobyl there have been 7 deaths
rolls eye….
In the last decade nuclear has been 240 times safer then wind
rolls other eye…
think cancer and immune system deaths…
Just got word from some people working over in Japan that they increased the evacuation radius to 16 km and started distrubution of KI tablets. That sounds like major FEF to me, unfortunatly.
Doug Allen says:
March 12, 2011 at 7:09 am
Whatever the outcome, this is a serious setback for nuclear.
And how long to you think the moratorium on Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will last?
TMI was a ‘contributing’ factor to the slowdown in the US nuclear industry.
The larger factor was that ‘expected demand growth’ didn’t materialize.
US Nuclear reactors were running at less then 75% capacity up until 1998.
The same goes for our coal fired plants.
re Dave Springer says:
Someone is certainly still spinning. Sadly, you are probably right that the ‘renewables’ lobby will exploit this heavily to keep pocketing subsidies, and raising energy prices. Of course you have no evidence that wind turbines are still standing or spinning after the 8.9 quake. Ones on higher ground may have avoided damage from the tsunami, but what do you think a tsunami would do to an offshore wind farm?
As plenty of people have pointed out, the reactors were old designs and modern ones are safer. Reactors built in areas where there is no or less earthquake or tsunami risk would be safe(r). Here in the UK, that could be more interesting given we’ve built some on our eastern coastline which could be vulnerable to tsunamis if there’s a repeat of the Storegga slides. But that would take out our offshore wind farms first. Or, look at where the UK’s largest recorded earthquake was. That was at Dogger Bank in 1931, where we’re planning to build a large offshore wind farm. Wonder what soil liquification effects would be on a large wind turbine?
If you want to see real anti-science in action, just look at the fearmongering coming from sections of the mainstream media and green lobby.
“Decay heat is produced by radiocative decay of fission products. This will continue for days. If a plant is not producing power on its own, it then needs external power to operate pumps. You have to remove heat from the source, to a sink (which is usually the ocean or big heat exchangers.) ”
This is a design accident waiting to happen. The reactor shuts down because of an emergency that is big enough to also shut down external power, you will have a problem. This is completely predictable and a poor design.
How can these designs be approved for land based power stations? There are plenty of reactor designs that need no external power to cool themselves in the event of a reactor shutdown.
If they pump sea water into the reactor they have already written the plant off and are just trying to maintain the integrity of the reactor vessel and avoid an even greater mess. The chlorides in sea water can eventually cause stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel, and running a reactor that has contacted sea water would be unthinkable.
boballab,
thanks bob for writing in an understandable way. I’ll be looking for your name in the comments as the story progresses.
Dave Springer says:
March 12, 2011 at 4:08 am
Justified or not this’ll put the kibosh on nuclear power plants
Maybe this will be the impetus for turning to LENR.
It’s now being reported that sea water is being pumped in for cooling and Boron poisoning is being introduced into the reactor. If true, that indicates to me the operators are now fighting a “last ditch” defense.
More from Katz from the press conference:
The 4 people who got injured were near the turbine when the explosion happened. They’re being treated in hospital right now.
The temperature of the reactor is coming down.
NadePaulKuciGravMcKi says:
March 12, 2011 at 5:43 am
Never forget 9/11 lies.
I wish your nutty assertion about 9/11 had been snipped.