There’s been an explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, but a British nuclear engineer who’s been at the plant seems to think that it didn’t affect the containment vessel of the #1 reactor.
Update: According to Wikipedia, the plant that exploded was targeted for shutdown this month.
Update: The Japanese government is saying that the explosion has not damaged the containment vessel of the reactor, but the evacuation radius around the plant has been increased to 20 km (12 miles).
Update: Here’s some advice from the science writer (and science grad student) at the Stranger:
I’d counsel against panic at this time. If you are in the nearby region, including in the Pacific West or Oceana—right now you should consider taking a multivitamin—better yet, a potassium iodide supplement. Radioactive cesium and iodine, if released in significant quantities into the environment, can replace non-radioactive potassium and iodine in the body. By taking a vitamin now, and over the near future until the situation settles, you can flood your body with non-radioactive variants and reduce risk of cancers and other organ damage. Likewise, radioactive strontium can replace non-radioactive calcium. Tums can flood your body with a little calcium to keep the strontium out. Do not over do it. Take a normal dose of any vitamins or calcium—it’s sufficient to protect you.
I will emphasize again: based on the information available now, the risks seem quite low. If you are getting anxious, and want to do something productive about (what undoubtedly will be hyped up), taking some vitamins is something of use, and low risk.
jeffreyw
Latest updates from Tokyo Power.
mistermix
@jeffreyw: That release is dated 3:00 PM and the explosion occurred at 3:40 PM Japan time. It’s 9:54 PM right now in Japan, so it’s been about 6 hours since the explosion. Who knows what they know.
Cat Lady
Ho.Lee.Shit.
4tehlulz
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF—–
Was it the containment dome that blew, or is that in a building that asploded? The story is vague.
Elizabelle
BBC article with some sane analysis embedded.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219
liberal
@4tehlulz:
Not the containment. A building around the containment.
liberal
I’m not entirely against fission power, but having backup diesel generators for the coolant system taken out by flooding seems like a design flaw.
jon
NPR seems to think it isn’t a huge deal, but they probably want to turn Teabaggers into radioactive fleshy-headed mutants who are like enemies of civilization, eh?
WarMunchkin
Gov’t saying that it was a water pipe burst, not a reactor core related issue. Speaking as someone who has worked with nuclear reactors before, I’m inclined to believe that.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.nuclear/
Also, what’s underreported by the u.s. media since I got here from Japan is how professional and just plain together Japanese infrastructure employees are, and their general infrastructure presence. There are always roads and bridges being fixed and traffic, police and fire personnel in abundance and alert. I have no doubt that they’ll come out stronger.
Boudica
@WarMunchkin: I believe that. From the videos I’ve seen, police/safety workers/what have you all appear calm and helpful. In fact, I haven’t seen much panic from anyone in the videos.
I credit their training and reliance on their warning systems.
stuckinred
So we get a nuclear physicist from MIT giving a detailed explanation of what happened and why it is serious but nothing like Chernobyl and then a aussie reporter in Tokyo screaming about the end of the world.
MikeJ
Nuclear power is perfectly safe until it isn’t.
It’s so safe in fact that they’re keeping people 20 miles away and handing out iodine. Why do all those crazy people go around talking about how unsafe it is?
kdaug
Question: Why not build reactors underground in bedrock?
Cost?
Seems like that would mitigate the consequence of cascade failure, or risk of attack from [pick your favorite].
Cat Lady
@stuckinred:
I’ve seen that movie.
Omnes Omnibus
@kdaug: Angry dwarves.
MattF
I’m just torn about nuclear power. The scientist/engineer part of my brain says “stay calm, it’s fixable”, while the skeptic/”why not democracy?” part of my brain is alternating between a smirk and a dead faint. I avoid getting into debates about this stuff, it’s hard to be arguing with myself while I’m arguing with someone else.
Nathan
Thanks, but I am waiting for Sarah Palin’s Facebook page/Twitter feed to let me know what’s really going on there.
piratedan
sorry, I think the government is doing what they can, its not like it would be a comfort if the government was melting down on national TV screaming “we’re all gonna die! run for the hills!” So far it appears that they are doing what they can, offering folks in the closest proximity, basic radiation protocols and trying to give an overview without getting into details that could cause folks to overreact or panic.
Superluminar
@kdaug
I would imagine that potential contamination of aquifers would be a major concern, also too greater vulnerability to um…earthquakes.
debit
@kdaug: Balrogs.
dr. bloor
@MikeJ:
Nothing’s completely safe. The design and regulation of these things has to be taken out of the hands of the people who make money off them.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Rumproast has a blogger with expertise in this area, so I’ve been relying on him to read all of this and filter out the hysteria.
Neutron Flux
@dr. bloor: Reactors in the US are regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, a branch of the Department of Energy. The NRC could care less if the utility makes money. I work at one of these US plants.
Damien
@MikeJ:
On the aggregate, which causes more damage to the environment and radiation poisoning to the surrounding population: a nuclear reactor over the course of it’s lifetime, or a coal fired power plant for the same duration?
kdaug
@Superluminar: Site them away from aquifers and faultlines.
Meltdown? Seal off the tunnel. A mile down, boo-hoo, we’re irradiating fucking rock. Where the hell do you think the uranium and plutonium came from in the first place?
Worried about the spent fuel waste? Try a molten salt reactor. (Hint: we had a running one in the 1950s).
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Nathan:
One thing I have been enjoying lately is how much Palin has not been in the news.
That’s good news!
stuckinred
@kdaug: I think they need beaucop water, no?
Neutron Flux
When you came to the FP, wasn’t energy and energy policy one your passions?
dmbeaster
Damien – considering that the waste generated by a nuclear power plant lasts a rather long time, is highly dangerous, and no safe means of permanent storage has been devised…
Yes, the coal fired power plant has less overall impact.
Jennifer
True story – Faux News had people on yesterday saying that regulations aren’t what’s needed for nuclear plants, SAFETY is!
So glad they could clarify that. Not that subsequent events will make any impact on the brain-dead doofuses who tune in to them every day.
dr. bloor
@Neutron Flux:
Wasn’t really referring to the rulebook, rather, the enforcement of the rules. I don’t really regard telling a company exactly when and how a mock terror attack will be staged at their facility as being rigorous enforcement.
dr. bloor
@dmbeaster:
You must be loving what’s happening in WVa and PA right now.
Neutron Flux
@dr. bloor: I have witnessed these drills. I agree that they are scheduled, as are ALL regular inspections. I do not agree that they share the how component of the exercise. I know for sure that the security force responders do not know the how.
kdaug
@stuckinred: Which? Molten salt(no) or traditional nuclear(yes, as coolant)? Even so, pipe it in, use the hot water to run a turbine.
dr. bloor
@Neutron Flux:
Which I regard as a serious flaw in itself.
Neutron Flux
@dr. bloor: I can understand why you would think that.
However, just because it is scheduled does not mean that it is scripted. These inspections go where the NRC wants them to go. The NRC is never limited to just what is in the published inspection procedure. The procedure is the minimum.
stuckinred
@kdaug: Unlike everyone else here, I don’t know shit about this.
Suffern ACE
@dr. bloor: .
“When” is fair for a drill. Goodness, the point of having them is to train people on what to do in the event of one, not confuse people and then say “this was only a test.”
Svensker
@WarMunchkin:
Fucking marxists. They should spend all that money and personnel on wars, like good capitalist free people!
rikyrah
this is absolutely frightening.
dr. bloor
@Neutron Flux:
When I worked at McDonald’s years ago, someone from Corporate could walk in anywhere, anytime, and look at anything he or she liked. I’d like to think the standards for nuclear power oversight are at least as rigorous as they are for the preparation of my Quarter Pounder.
Damien
@dmbeaster: I was asking about actual pollution impacts that we as a society are living with right now as the status quo, not worst-case potential ones. Try again.
AhabTRuler
Of course, everything is under control, and there is no danger, well there is only a little danger, well things are probably going to get better, well things could be worse, well it’s not Chernobyl.
@Neutron Flux: GAO disagrees.
SECNRC suffers from capture.joe from Lowell
This is scary.
Let’s not let our fears swamp our reason, though.
The number of people killed today by coal power – in the mines, or from the air pollution, or from the water pollution – will be higher than the number of people killed today by nuclear power plants, and this might be the worst day for nuclear-power-plant deaths in a couple of decades.
Judas Escargot
@liberal:
I’m not entirely against fission power, but having backup diesel generators for the coolant system taken out by flooding seems like a design flaw.
It is.
I’m an engineer– not a nuclear one, but I do work on safety-critical systems so the mindset is applicable.
I’m still utterly puzzled as to why the reactor design wasn’t “fail safe”. I had always assumed, in any nuclear plant design, that the control rods would be designed to lower automatically upon loss of power. I understand that they would have lost computer control, but why isn’t there (for example) some brain-dead analog/hydraulic circuit designed to lower the rods (or plates) using battery power as an emergency backup when loss of power is detected? That’s how I would have done it, anyway.
Maybe there are strong practical reasons for doing it the way they did –as I said, this isn’t my field– but I’m still puzzled.
joe from Lowell
@dmbeaster:
You were saying?
joe from Lowell
Nuclear power = 9/11 hijackings
Coal power = car accidents
Damn, those 9/11 attacks were dramatic!
AhabTRuler
@Judas Escargot: Cost, mostly. Pervasiveness of ‘High Reliability Organization” thinking, is another reason. Overdependence of ESDs for a third.
To be clear, the rods have been lowered, it’s the residual heat that is causing the problem. The risks associated with a failure of cooling after shut-down are well known, and have been identified as a weakness in the system for some time. But provided nothing else malfunctions things should be fine.
joe from Lowell
@joe from Lowell: Whoops, forgot the link.
dmbeaster, you were saying?
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: This is not my experience. If anything, the present Administration has been more interested in regulation. This is a good thing, IMO.
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux: Have they gotten Davis-Besse running again, yet?
Neutron Flux
@dr. bloor: This in fact is the case at NPP’s in the US. The resident inspectors have complete and unrestricted access to any record or activity that the deem important. This includes financial records.
It seems however, that your mind is made up.
scav
oh, and for those that want around running screaming more convenient and closer to home, there’s been a 5.3 in the gulf of CA. No doubt coming soon as a sign of the inevitable apocalypse to a TV station near you.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: The NRC website shows Davis Besse at 100% power yesterday.
Citizen_X
DEAD HAND OF REGULASHUN! Japan needs moar FREEDUMB!
MikeTheZ
For all the people saying “THIS is why we can’t use nuclear power!” I submit that this is the 7th largest earthquake in over a century hitting very close to these plants. This is literally the worst case scenario. And AFAIK, so far this hasn’t even hit Three Mile Island. So lets see what happens, then make judgments, k?
Damien
@joe from Lowell:
Thank you! That’s what I’ve been trying to say.
Look, nobody here is denying that a nuclear power accident is a bad thing. The problem is that it’s not the worst, and it’s less bad than the status quo. Coal and oil pollution are insidious. Once the smoke dissipates below odor threshold people act like it’s gone. It’s not, and the damage it does is far greater.
We as a nation, if we ever grow the hell up and seriously consider our energy situation, would likely decide that a combination of remote site thorium breeder bed nuclear reactors and region appropriate renewables would be the way to go.
America will never do this, however. Our politicians are effectively controlled by the money flowing from the coal and oil industries. And even if they weren’t, there are too many people opposed to anything with the word ‘nuclear’. It’s like the anti-vaccine movement; while filled with all the good intentions in the world it’s overflowing with pseudo-scientific fear and paranoia.
patrick II
CNN reports that
The earthquake moved the whole island eight feet. I don’t know how as much of it held together as it did.
Superluminar
I think someone is not aware of all Internet Traditions.
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux: Oh, good, I’m glad they took care of that nasty little problem.
Note: to those who haven’t followed the issue, the link goes to the NRC’s page featuring images of a “pineapple-sized” hole eaten through the Davis-Besse reactor vessel’s lid and cracks in the vessel’s external cladding. Despite the NRC and the Nuclear Power industry’s attempts to minimize this problem, it call into question the ability of private operators to safely maintain their equipment and the NRC’s ability to oversee such operators. I highly recommend the GAO’s reports on the issue (linked above), as well as the work of Charles Perrow on the attendant organizational dangers associated with Nuclear power and other dangerous processes.
Mike in NC
It is pretty safe. I’ve worked in the business for a few years and they take safety extremely seriously. Plus the Navy has been operating nuclear reactors for over 50 years without a serious incident.
But the very subject of nuclear power sends our worthless, sensationalist media looking for comparisons to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
“Fucking nuclear power, how does it work?”
AhabTRuler
@MikeTheZ: Japanese officials are reporting that fuel elements may have melted, cesium has been released, and that the explosion was a hydrogen explosion. That exceeds TMI territory right there.
Davis X. Machina
@scav: Damn gay marriage. It’s not like we weren’t warned this would happen.
Davis X. Machina
@Judas Escargot: I think, from articles, that the reactors scrammed o.k. but that even after the chain reactions are halted, there’s a lot of residual heat that needs to be dissipated still, hence the continued need for the cooling.
After all the purpose of the reactor is to create heat.
AhabTRuler
@Mike in NC: Well, the Navy, as a hierarchical organization with strong external incentives for attentiveness is not a private power concern. Furthermore, while the US navy has a history of safe operations, the Nuclear power industry doesn’t have as reassuring a past, and when you start breaking down the actual run-times of different models and types of reactors, the industry’s “experience in the safe operation of nuclear reactors,” doesn’t stand up nearly so well.
I’ll be the first to admit that there is a great deal of sensationalized information about nuclear power, and that given the large number of nuclear weapons that have been detonated in atmosphere or water, radiation isn’t necessarily the bugaboo it is popularly made out to be. That being said, people really should stop blowing sunshine about this accident and nuclear power in general. Any close examination of the history, including Japan’s, reveals that things are not nearly as rosey as engineers, scientists, and executives make them out to be. There are some serious questions to ask about the for-profit operation of nuclear power.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: I agree. Cesium and Iodine are clear indicators of fuel clad failure.
Hydrogen production generally comes from the Zirconium/water reaction that only occurs at very high clad temperatures. > 2000 degrees F.
While the new designs account for the sustained loss of all ac, operating plants are not.
burnspbesq
@dr. bloor:
“The design and regulation of these things has to be taken out of the hands of the people who make money off them.”
And given to whom?
Neutron Flux
@Mike in NC: Did you find work after the utility you worked for pulled the plug on the AP-1000?
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux:
I would be far less concerned about the development of newer designs that better account for the loss of external power, current designs are vulnerable, as the present situation demonstrates.
I am actually pro-nuclear power, as I think we need it as bridge technology to other forms of power generation, but rose-colored glasses and profit-driven thinking are not the ways to do it safely.
Douglas
@Mike in NC:
It can be pretty safe – how safe it actually is of course depends on how much you’re doing to ensure it’s safety…
Completely unrelatedly, the president of the company that ran the Fukushima plant had to resign in 2002 because they had… falsified reports and not reported numerous safety violations.
Energy companies – they have a better track record than the soviet union… so far.
lee
Keep in mind that this was an earthquake of historic proportions. There was ONE nuclear plant that had a problem. The problem did not result in a complete meltdown of the plant. The problem did not result in the uncontrolled release of radiation (sounds like all the releases were controlled).
Yes it is scary but so is living in Michigan right now :)
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: Obviously I am pro nuclear power.
I do not think I fall under the rose colored glasses category. I think I know where the real problems are and where they are not.
For example you mentioned Davis Besse. Clearly a failure of such proportion that it still influences programs and procedures today.
I do not try to minimize that event, but I also understand the corrective action that the NRC, INPO, and licensees have taken to prevent re occurrence.
Damien
@AhabTRuler:
And this is where I sound like a dirty commie, because something that dangerous (even with low probability of failure), and so vital to national security, really shouldn’t be in the hands of for-profits.
The navy successfully uses nuclear because they have a vested interest in not fucking it up and they long ago realized that petrofuels weren’t a viable fuel source for their needs. In my personal opinion a lot of present day private infrastructure industries could use the same type of organizational structuring and motivation.
Just one more pipe-dream.
robuzo
Have an explanation for the explosion; hot steam contacting the exposed fuel rods caused hydrogen to be produced. Hydrogen go boom. Asahi Shinbun science reporter says this was predictable, so the question is whether TEPCO had taken any measures to remove the hydrogen. I’m guessing not.
danimal
I’ve found the explanation for current events. First on a billboard and now on the internets. So we know it’s true.
Repent, Obots. And send money to get the word out….This is a limited time offer.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@stuckinred:
always good to have choices. isn’t having both sides what equality, or freedom, or some other high concept all about?
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux: I am less concerned about the technological problems, as they can be addressed fairly easily (although how cheaply is a different question). The organizational issues are far more worrisome, and less easy to solve. As for this country, anyone who puts a great deal of faith into industry or governmental oversight in this modern era is, in my mind, living in a fantasy world.
Davis-Besse isn’t just a problem that needed to be fixed, but is instead an example of so many of things that the public and critics were repeatedly assure would never happen. The problem was identified in a manner that would have allowed for an easy an safe solution, but action was not taken for financial considerations alone, allowing damage to progress to the point that it did. Anyone who marginalizes the amount of erosion that occurred or how close the pressure vessel came to failing is not, in my mind, credible. While I am reassured that changes have occurred in the aftermath, the very existence of the problem in the first place is an indictment, not of the the Nuclear Power industry, but of the industry’s mindset.
I am not a nuclear engineer, but I wasn’t born last night either.
AhabTRuler
@robuzo: Well, yes, hydrogen production at this stage of an “event” is a well-known animal. It was one of the concerns at TMI (H was present, didn’t blow because we were lucky). But since you are trying to ‘contain’ the atmosphere in the building, the question of what to do is more difficult.
Also, too” Given the latest update, I would point out that I really don’t think anyone in America has too much to worry about right now. Given what we know, it would seem that any risks would, for the time being, remain fairly localized.
I really want to emphasize that aside from the health risks to Japanese locals and other residents (which is worrisome, but in no way dire), the event is more about the safety, operations, practices, and assumptions of the industry.
AhabTRuler
@AhabTRuler: So far.
PanAmerican
@AhabTRuler:
In the chaotic news drops yesterday, there were some reports that they could not get a release valve open.
dr. bloor
@Neutron Flux:
If you’re saying inspectors can walk into Indian Point this morning, unannounced, rip the place apart, and that meaningful penalties will be exacted due to issues that do not meet standards, then I’m satisfied. You didn’t mention the former, and I remain skeptical about the latter, because I’ve lived in different areas where operators of local plants have skated or run stall tactics to address shortcomings for long periods of time.
Just to be clear, I’m actually on your side wrt nuclear power in general. And I’m not accusing the NRC of any negligence. In addition to McDonald’s, however, I also used to work in hospitals, and they looked very, very different on days that regulatory agencies were coming through than on days when they weren’t.
AhabTRuler
@PanAmerican: Which is pretty typical in any industrial plant. Emergency valves that are seldom used don’t function. Temporary repairs fail. Maintenance disables certain systems. Part of the problem is that nuclear reactors are incredible complex systems with many interlocking systems and parts. Certain emergency functions might depend on everything else going exactly correctly, much like security tests that occur at a known time (terrorists are terribly punctual). The interactions that advance a near-accident to a full-blown accident are difficult to anticipate.
We need more and better information in order to draw firm conclusions, but by examining the history of numerous industrial and organizational failures, to say nothing of previous nuclear events, incidents, or accidents, one can generate a general understanding of the overall situation. I would add that the somewhat hysterical reaction of the media and PR on both sides of the issue (i.e. “everything is absolutely fine” or “It’s the end of the world as we know it“) is similarly understandable (not as in ‘rational’ but ‘knowable’.
Cermet
never in the history of human conflict has so few lied so much when they said “that it didn’t affect the containment vessel of the #1 reactor.” Yeah, buildings housing reactors blow up all the time due to air systems like AC running too long … . Asshole, this was hydrogen build up exploding … lets see, water is made of hydrogen and it takes very high temps to breack it down to free hydrogen … lets see, where oh where are temps in a fucking nuclear power plant high enough to break water down? oh shit – the core but a reactor is covered with water, no fucking way it gets that hot … oh, wait, if part of the core is exposed (no water) this is exactly what happens (see three mile island asswipe.)
But wait, how could the hydrogen get outside the contanment building … Now that is the issue and thirty-seven billon dollare question: unless they released it by automatic or accident, the fucking containment shell has been fucking breached!!!
Cermet
@AhabTRuler: Don’t talk of what you don’t know about three mile island – I was here then and it damn well did undergo a hydrogen explosion and badly breached the reactor (but yes, (and I hope this is what you really ment – the containment shell, held.)
Cermet
I am worried (not about fission material getting here in amounts to concern us) – the ONLY issue is one of the most advance countries in the world that was fucking nuclear bombed and has the best record in the world dealing with earth quakes utterly failed in building a simple reactor that can withstand a generally accepted level of earth quake (the 8.9 was far away in the ocean and they were in the low to mid sevens at best – even amerikan reactors are said to be able to withstand that level.) – shit, that does not brood well for the nuclear power industry!
Neutron Flux
nt this morning, unannounced, rip the place apart, and that meaningful penalties will be exacted due to issues that do not meet standards, then I’m satisfied. You didn’t mention the former, and I remain skeptical about the latter, because I’ve lived in different areas where operators of local plants have skated or run stall tactics to address shortcomings for long periods of time.
AhabTRuler
@Cermet:
My apologies for the error. I did precisely mean that, as opposed to the present, more catastrophic circumstances.
dmbeaster
For everyone in love with the private nuclear industry as such an allegedly viable option, consider this. Would it be in business but for the socialization of the risks of the operation, which are in two forms? One is the liability cap for an accident, which is very low in relation to the risk of harm (think BP and the Gulf Oil spill as an example). Second is the fact that the government conveniently agrees to take the waste off their hands so that they are not financially responsible for it (as opposed to private industry having Superfund liability for nuclear waste dumps). Without these subsidies, I doubt there would be a private nuclear industry in this country. And that should tell you something about how private industry assesses the viability and risk of nuclear power generation – i.e., no effing way unless these risks are taken out of the equation.
I wish it was more of a viable option to our current dirty means of power generation, but it is not. Viewing it as a bridge solution is foolishness – you will never switch it off once it is justified as “temporary.”
Being doubtful of the viability of nuclear power as a substitute source of energy does not make one a lover of the abuses of big coal, such as the fantasy of “clean coal” or mountaintop removal mining. So can we please not go there any more?
If the explosion was a hydrogen explosion, this is already more serious than TMI.
Neutron Flux
@dr. bloor: And, just to be clear, I take no offense at your concern.
There are certainly issues that you should be concerned about.
Maybe it’s because I am so close to the industry, but I am more concerned about the cargo that Semi’s and Trains are carrying. I know how we are regulated but railroads and interstate trucking companies, don’t know.
AhabTRuler
Well, they are going with the last-ditch method of cooling.
Cermet
@AhabTRuler: I am wrong and applogies (the reactor did blow its top – the images were published) but the wiki says no and since that is what most people would correctly base their facts on I have no right to call someone out for using that information. The wiki is full of shit (I know, I saw the images of the reactor top (unless they made them up …right) and they so reported that it did.) That said, the wiki offered proof that it didn’t blow – they said hydrogen can’t explode without oxygen – I specialize in material science and this is a total, incorrect and complete lie – hydrogen can and does react with its self and can explode – not any where as powerful but it does. The wiki is dead wrong on that and unless I was lied too back then, it did breach the reactor top (but the damge wasn’t huge.)
No matter, you are in the right and I was totally out-of-place to say you weren’t right – again, sorry.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: Shit. I did not want to hear this.
You do not do this as a precaution. You only do this as a response to certain indications of more than minor fuel damage and the boron indicates restart concerns.
Shit.
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux: What is the risk of thermally shocking the containment vessel? Isn’t the reactor itself an old one (40 yo?)?
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: The only reason that you would flood containment is if the vessel is compromised. If it was not compromised this flooding will surely compromise it.
This IS truly a last thing to do.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: In addition, in the US passing out KI tablets and evacuating to the 12 mile zone are not precautionary. This risk of a panic response by people to an evac order can be as significant as the risk of low levels of airborne radiation.
So, to do these things means that you have positive indication of a severe problem.
dmbeaster
The reactor core is probably compromised as with TMI, although unlike TMI, at least a newer facility has not been destroyed. I would assume that the flooding will work to cool the thing down unless it has melted down to such an extent that it wont cool (which I doubt has happened, although there is probably at least some core damage).
PeakVT
@kdaug: There have been several proposals for small PWR reactors put forth in the past decade, and all of them are located underground. However, at 100-300 MWe, they are much smaller than the existing plants, which are generally rated at 900-1200 MWe. The containment buildings for the big plants are something like 120ft wide by 200 ft high, which is a pretty big hole to dig, especially next to a body of water. The small plants are expected to be manufactured off-site and brought to the site in large modules. Existing designs are mostly constructed in place, which would be somewhat harder if restricted to the inside of a pit.
Neutron Flux
@dmbeaster: The presence of Cesium and Iodine in the release is confirmatory for fuel damage.
losingtehplot
@joe from Lowell: a lot of people will die from coal mining, coal gas, etc. but the majority (not all) of those deaths won’t go any further than that individual’s death. Google ‘defects around nuclear power plants’, ‘defects from depleted uranium’ or try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Proving_Grounds and follow the links to read about how radiation is the gift that just keeps on giving, down the generations.
AhabTRuler
NYTimes:Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the plant, located 160 miles north of Tokyo, plans to fill the reactor with seawater to cool it down and reduce pressure. The process would take five to 10 hours, Mr. Edano said, expressing confidence that the operation could “prevent criticality.”
__
The company also said its workers also added boric acid to the containment vessel on Saturday night to poison the nuclear chain reaction.
__
Mr. Edano said radioactive materials had leaked outside the plant before the explosion, but that the explosion did not worsen the leak and that, in fact, measured levels of radioactive emission had been decreasing. He did not specify the levels of radiation involved.
__
Officials said even before the explosion that they had detected radioactive cesium, which is created when uranium fuel is split, an indication that some of the nuclear fuel in the reactor was already damaged. Experts said the plant probably experienced some fuel damage. But officials insisted that the fuel damage was limited and that the prospect of more radioactive leaks had receded.
Martin
@dmbeaster: Well, they’re dumping borax into the reactor, so the reactor is done for. This is the beginning of a permanent shutdown of that reactor.
Honestly, this is pretty close to the worst case scenario for a reactor to face, and while this one isn’t faring great, so far I’ve heard of no loss of life associated with it. If there is loss of life, or even direct injury, it’ll be very small numbers – less than the platform explosion in the gulf, less than a typical mine disaster. Yeah, it’s scary, and yeah, evacuating 12 miles of people is a huge pain in the ass, and yeah, economically it’s going to be massively expensive to clean up after, but comparatively speaking – this is still incredibly safe.
How many people died when that hydro dam in Japan failed and washed away a town? We don’t know yet. Hell, I’d bet more people died in that refinery explosion we saw on TV than in the reactor problems.
So as bad as this still looks to be, it still doesn’t look worse to me than coal or oil.
Neutron Flux
@martin
It would interest me to hear your technical basis for this assertion.
quaint irene
Damn, wish I hadn’t just seen that movie, ‘On The Beach,’
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler:
This can only be true if they have devised a method to inject borated water INTO THE CORE. Not the containment building.
Martin
@Neutron Flux: Devised a method? Standby Liquid Control Systems are standard on all BWR reactors, including these. The whole point of the system is to dump borated liquid directly into the core – enough to shut down even a supercritical reaction.
Neutron Flux
@Martin: And the SLCS needs electrical power.
This is the sustained Loss of All AC power scenario. No pumps work. The tsunami made the EDG’s inoperable.
If the SLCS were operable, then core temperature would not have risen to the level that results in fuel element failure.
Martin
@Neutron Flux: SLCS works in a LOOP scenario. It has to. That’s the point – it’s the solution of last resort. It has a dedicated battery system that is all the power it needs to operate.
They didn’t activate SLCS because SLCS destroys BWR reactors like these and creates a much larger cleanup problem. They indicated early on that this system appeared to be intact but that they were trying to cool down the reactor without activating it. It sounds like they’ve now determined that there’s no alternative.
Neutron Flux
@Martin: See this is where your information is incorrect. The LOOP (Loss of Offsite Power) assumes that the Emergency Diesel Generators (EDG) work.
The correct classification for this event is Loss of All AC power.
Ask the folks that are providing your information to assess the impact of a Loss Of All AC power for 30 hours.
An earthquake coincident with flooding is an Unanalyzed Condition.
Ask them what an Unanalyzed Condition means.
And if you think that batteries can provide enough power to operate pumps, well I don’t know what to tell you.
chopper
@Martin:
i’d have expected boron to be added earlier on if possible. reactor 1 was slated to be permanently shutdown in two weeks anyways.
Neutron Flux
@chopper: Adding boron pretty much means that you have lost control of the reactor. I believe that it was not possible then, and is not possible now.
JGabriel
@Svensker:
The Japanese signed a treaty after WWII saying they would refrain from that for a while.
.
RalfW
@Neutron Flux:
Stratfor says the reactor vessel is breached. So you could maybe get borated liquid in that way, but it’s sure not the recommended method.
Svensker
@JGabriel:
Yes. This made them soshulast wussies with good infrastructure.
Neutron Flux
@RalfW: I think this is correct.
Imagine turning the heating element on your stove to low. Then cover it with an upside down pan. Now imagine trying to cool the element by pouring water onto the pan.
This plan will only work if the pan has a hole in it and even at that you are limited in the amount of cooling that gets to the heating element by the size of the hole in the pan.
Arclite
Sorry, but the Japanese government isn’t giving the whole story. My wife was watching Japanese TV. There was an interview with the plant engineers. They were fielding questions and unable to answer, so the TV cut the feed. All channels simultaneously. My wife found a ustream feed that was still secretly broadcasting, choppy and lo res like a webcam feed. The reporters were extremely hostile, and the engineers were stammering and not answering questions. They are dancing around something big that they don’t want to say. They said that the Geiger counter broke, so they don’t know the radiation levels. Total bullshit. Radiation levels at a hospital 4km from the plant are reporting radiation levels many times above normal.
It may not be Chernobyl yet, but it’s already something huge and devastating and the truth is being hidden. This kind of fits with Japanese culture, where they hide the truth from the victim. Cancer patients aren’t told they have cancer, but their families are. The same thing is happening here.
Neutron Flux
@Arclite: I am a Nuclear Professional and I do not see how this turns out good.
Comrade Mary
@Arclite: Hey, are you @arclight on Twitter?
Mike M
I don’t intend to minimize the risks from the reactor crises, but at least people have already been evacuated from those areas. Uninformed speculation is not helpful to anyone. In contrast, there are tens of thousands of people in the Sendai area that are in need of immediate assistance. According to reports, fears of radiation exposure are hampering efforts to deliver assistance to people far beyond the evacuated areas surrounding the two reactors.
An American woman living in Tokyo who was interviewed on CNN said that many ex-pats in her building were at the airports waiting for flights out to escape the problems at the nuclear reactors. She said that some companies were sending private jets to rescue her people. There was no one on the air to suggest that these fears might be overblown, even in the worst case of a full core meltdown.
Right now, there are many people in the hardest hit areas that remain buried in buildings or are seriously injured from the aftermath but are without medical assistance. There is a real danger from lack of water and food, and exposure from the elements. There are also continuing problems from gas explosions and conventional fires.
The greatest loss of life is likely to come from the more ordinary aspects of this horrific disaster.
ErinSiobhan
If they are flooding the reactor with sea water, does that mean the reactor is no longer generating heat? If it is still generating heat, will adding sea water lead to production of more radioactive steam that will have to be vented?
Does the boron (essentially) serve the same function as the control rods? Is what they are doing now basically an attempt to kill the reactor? Will it always work or is it possible that there is more residual activity than can be absorbed by the boron?
Arclite
@Comrade Mary: That’s not me. I’m not on Twitter.
Wile E. Quixote
@Mike in NC:
The Navy has it’s own problems with nuclear reactors. A few years ago the crew on the USS Hampton was found to be gundecking their reactor chemistry reports..
BD of MN
Now reactor #3 isn’t cooling, 9 people have tested positive for radiation poisoning, but according to Fox Business’ Eric Bolling, this is an example of how safe nuclear power is and why we should be expanding… of course that was yesterday, think there’ll be any mea culpa?
AhabTRuler
@BD of MN: It’s full-on damage control, and not just in Japan:
Wile E. Quixote
@JGabriel:
Treaty, schmeaty. We signed the Geneva Conventions, but when it came time for us to do the manly thing and torture some motherfuckers we didn’t let that namby pamby bullshit stop us.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: NEI=lobbyists
AhabTRuler
@Neutron Flux: Yeah, but you gotta admit that his attempts to get ahead of the language are pretty brazen.
Oh, and al-Jazeera English just reported Reuters as saying 70-160 exposed to radiation, although the severity of the exposure was not mentioned.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: It is not helpful in my opinion.
WRT to exposure, it is in fact irresponsible to speculate. Without knowing the extent of core damage, there is no place to go.
BTW, with reasonable numbers for core damage, there are pretty good methodologies to figure this out.
AhabTRuler
I wish that news channels would timestamp the video that they broadcast, as it is challenging to develop a clear sense of what is actually happening at any given time.
dmbeaster
Martin
The issue with nuclear power is not so much power plant safety, which is hazardous but manageable in my opinion. It is disposition of the spent fuels. No one has come even close to figuring out what to do with the most toxic of all industrial pollution. Pretending that nuclear energy is viable with no meaningful solution to handling the waste is pure folly. Unless you believe in the Russian solution of just storing or dumping it somewhere, and currently, the international fad is just to ship it to Russia who accepts it for the hard currency it generates.
Neutron Flux
@AhabTRuler: True. And for me, my usual sources of information, NRC and INPO are strangely quiet.
I fully expected that they would have been in front of this.
Neutron Flux
@dmbeaster: Elephant, meet room.
Arclite
@BD of MN:
This is a pretty old reactor. I’ve heard that new designs, like pebble bed reactors actually cool down if they lose power, reducing the likelihood of a meltdown vs. the older designs. They still have all the other problems like what to do with the nuclear waste, etc.
Yutsano
@JGabriel:
They went a bit further than just signing a treaty.
Mike in NC
@Neutron Flux:
The ESBWR team at GE Hitachi was downsized when management decided to shelve the project at worst point of the Bush Recession, and all of the subcontractors and consultants were dropped. After 14 months I was hired to support another operation within GEH. ESBWR is apparently funded again but I don’t know to what extent. They just passed some milestone with the NRC.
AhabTRuler
I’m watching NHK English and they report that the fuel elements were half exposed.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“It is disposition of the spent fuels. No one has come even close to figuring out what to do with the most toxic of all industrial pollution.”
Not a nuke engineer, but am tangentially involved coal project, and personally have looked enviously at the guys in our shop that are involved in nuke power ‘cos I think what they’re doing is way more eco-friendly than what I’m doing in clean coal land, even with the potential for carbon sequestration.
Dealing with nuke waste is pretty frickin’ tractable problem compared with “where the fuck do we put all this CO2?” or “how to we un-fuck ourselves when CO2 is at 500+ ppm in the atmosphere”. Shit, even vitrifying, while expensive, at least immobilizes the products even under a worst-case scenario for most of the period when it’s really hot.
I’d rather have a long-term, localized problem that screws a limited part of the globe compared to a global problem that fucks us for centuries. I’m a lot more worried about the 50 MW lignite plants China’s building every two weeks than what’s happening in Japan right now.
The ash and volatile metals from coal are pretty feckin’ bad on their own, in addition
Mankind’s energy demands are equivalent to 3 cubic miles of oil a year. Anything that’s going to make a significant dent on that is going to have significant ecological footprint.
virag
@stuckinred:
the nuclear engineer from mit is full of shit. he’s paid by the industry, so what do you think he’s gonna say. nbc news, ge, ya know, says it’s all good, too.
so i guess that settles it.
no danger. nothing to see here. take this pill, it’s nothing to worry about.
in boston.
JGabriel
@Yutsano: Thank you. I was just being dry, but further info is always welcome — I did not know Japan had foresworn war as part of their constitution too.
.
Wile E. Quixote
@dmbeaster:
Bullshit. There are plenty of ways to deal with this waste, however due to politics we’ve chosen not to implement any of them. There’s reprocessing, which Jimmy Carter shut down in the 70s due to proliferation concerns. There’s the DUPIC proposal to burn down LWR waste in modified CANDU reactors. There are more exotic technologies such as the integral fast reactor or burning the waste down in a molten salt reactor. All of these technologies reduce the plutonium in the waste.
As far as just putting the stuff in a deep hole and letting it sit, why not? That’s where we got the stuff from in the first place, and after 500 years it’s not going to be any more radioactive than the original ore it was mined from.
Oh, and in case you weren’t aware we have no way of dealing with the waste from coal power plants either. We dump the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and build huge slurry pits for the coal ash they generate and hope that those containment areas don’t fail.
Not only is that coal ash nasty, filthy stuff it’s also slightly radioactive and contains large amounts of mercury, compounds of which are so incredibly toxic as to make plutonium look like table salt in comparison. The volumes of coal ash generated by our coal burning power plants dwarf the radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants by orders of magnitude, even if you factor in the low level waste left over from mining in the form of uranium tailings.
virag
@Damien:
all that uranium has to come from somewhere. the mining is astonishingly dangerous AND polluting, so the greenhouse and other pollution from nuclear power winds up being worse than coal all said.
Yutsano
@JGabriel: I only know this because my Japanese instructor in college (who incidentally was Chinese) hammered that point over and over again. Given his age I had a feeling he had a vested interest in the internals of modern Japan.
virag
@Wile E. Quixote:
nobody wants that big deep hole under their bathtub. i assume you’ve just volunteered.
and it’s bullshit to say that we COULD solve the spent fuel problem if only we WOULD solve it. bullshit. if we could, we would, if it made sense financially. since nobody’s payin’, assume it’s not as easy as you make it sound or even possible in any PRACTICAL way.
now, should we be perfecting these technologies for the sake of engineering and experience? that’s a debate to have.
should we pretend it makes sense to generate power with such an expensive and polluting technology? no fucking way.
PaulW
I’ve been busy all day, just got home, so let me be the 3rd billioneth person on the planet to say
OH FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
I don’t care if radiation doesn’t get out. Any explosion at a nuclear reactor is gonna make me break out the lead-lined suits and dive for the nearest underground shelter.
henqiguai
@dmbeaster (#129):
Way back in my youth, as a drop-in student to the nuclear engineering graduate program, the issue of spent fuel rods was discussed more as an economic and political issue; the engineering was available. Sort of like Yucca salt caverns for long term storage; a solution is there, but the politics just won’t allow implementation.
AhabTRuler
Welp, they’ve begun to release steam from #3 and radiation levels have started rising again. Reportedly.
liberal
@AhabTRuler:
Unfortunately, this applies to a whole list of so many different things.