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You are here: Home / Fukushima by Morning

Fukushima by Morning

by $8 blue check mistermix|  March 27, 20118:36 am| 29 Comments

This post is in: Fucked-up-edness

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The new bad news from Fukushima is that unit #1 has extremely radioactive water in the turbine room (more than 1 sievert/hour at the surface), which is even more dangerous to workers than the water that injured workers in #3 (which is now reported at .75 sievert/hour). This level of radiation can only come from core of the reactor, so the question is how it got there.

In my feeble understanding of boiling water reactors (BWR), radioactive water is sent from the reactor core into the turbine room, so any leak in the piping there could lead to a release of radioactive water. In other words, it’s upsetting but not surprising that there’s a leak after a major earthquake. The question is whether that water indicates that there’s a more major breach in reactor containment, which nobody knows.

The other issue with the discovery of this water is that the turbine rooms need to be pumped out before human workers spend any length of time there.

The more serious public health problem at the moment is that leakage into the sea is increasing. The level of iodine-131 is now 1850 times the allowed limit, up from 1250x yesterday.

The Times’ reporting on this has been excellent, and this morning’s story is a good round-up.

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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    kdaug

    March 27, 2011 at 8:50 am

    Dunno what to do, reckon nobody does at this point, but I’ll raise my glass to the poor sonsofbitches trying to fix it.

    Goddamned heroes in my book.

    This ain’t “put your ass on the line”. This is “You will die.”

  2. 2.

    StonyPillow

    March 27, 2011 at 8:59 am

    A little kelp pill now and then
    Is relished by the wisest men.

    KEPCO is being dragged step by step into admitting facts. Engineers and MBAs will simply not tell the truth unless forced by indisputable fact, and then no more than they must.

    At this point, you have have no choice but to assume the reality in those buildings is still far worse than they’re saying.

  3. 3.

    Maineiac

    March 27, 2011 at 8:59 am

    These are the workers the WSJ refers to in a headline as “grunts”

  4. 4.

    kdaug

    March 27, 2011 at 9:00 am

    And please excuse my intemperate and vulgar language. Wrong side of the bed, and all that.

  5. 5.

    Jack

    March 27, 2011 at 9:01 am

    While it looks like the radiation levels are elevated, the “spike” initially reported in Unit #2 was not accurate. There’s a second reading underway.

    MSNBC.com

  6. 6.

    Superluminar

    March 27, 2011 at 9:19 am

    Alsotoo, radiation levels in Reactor #2 ten million times higher than usual. That sounds completely safe then. I wonder if they could insert TEPCo management as additional control rods?

  7. 7.

    keithly

    March 27, 2011 at 9:41 am

    The invisible hand of the free market man will fix everything!

  8. 8.

    Maude

    March 27, 2011 at 9:42 am

    I was not awake, but I heard on WCBS radio news that a county near nuke reactors handed out potassium iodide to the residents because they nervous because of what happened in Japan.
    That was a smart move. If they had said that it could never happen here would have increased fear.

  9. 9.

    AhabTRuler

    March 27, 2011 at 9:47 am

    @Superluminar: See Jack above.

  10. 10.

    Jude

    March 27, 2011 at 9:50 am

    If you’re getting anything close to 1 Sv/hr, that means that you’ve either had serious release of fuel into the coolant, and that coolant is leaking somewhere in a bad way OR (if they have such a system; I am not familiar with the entirety of this design) the ion exchanger/filter mechanism has been compromised, which would lead to a serious spreading of trapped, activated corrosion particles. Or both.

    I’m betting on #1. for those poor bastards to get 200-600 Rem doses to their feet (2-6 Sv), I’m thinking that just has to be compromised fuel material.

  11. 11.

    amk

    March 27, 2011 at 9:57 am

    Japan Radiation spike report ‘mistaken’.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-asia-pacific-12875327

    hmmm…

  12. 12.

    Cranky Observer

    March 27, 2011 at 10:10 am

    Although this is an industry-sponsored source, it has quite a bit of good factual information on reactor design and operation:

    http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

    Links on reactor designs:

    http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/reactor-designs/

    This US NRC document describe BWRs and their safety systems in a step-by-step process that is very understandable:

    http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/teachers/03.pdf

    Cranky

  13. 13.

    Ben Wolf

    March 27, 2011 at 10:16 am

    @Mistermix
    Your link to the Japan Times states extremely high levels of iodine-134 were found in the contaminated pools. Iodine -134 has a very short half-life, less than an hour if I recall. So if this isotope is accumulating rapidly it would mean there is an ongoing reaction occuring in the core. Note this doesn’t mean a meltdown is imminent, but it is of concern because the engineers currently have no way to seal any leaks thanks to the high radionuclide levels caused by the leaks.

  14. 14.

    Linda Featheringill

    March 27, 2011 at 10:17 am

    It looks like one of two things is going on:

    1. The Japanese are too dumb to know what is happening with those plants [I find this very difficult to believe],
    or
    2. Somebody is not being very forthcoming [much more likely].

    I generally assume that if a fellow allows himself to look stupid, he probably is hiding something worse.

    In a culture where status and “face” is very important like in Japan, allowing yourself to look dumb is even more suspicious.

    We see a whole layer of businessmen and technical people acting like they are too primitive to handle the mechanics of nuclear energy. That is unlikely to be true. Ergo, they are hiding some really bad news or really bad culpability.

  15. 15.

    Superluminar

    March 27, 2011 at 10:22 am

    But it must be ten million times because far more people died diring the firebombing of Tokyo so that proves you are all incorrect, even if you do have the “facts” on your side.

  16. 16.

    cathyx

    March 27, 2011 at 10:34 am

    Radioactivity 10 million times the usual level at reactor 2.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707

  17. 17.

    Cermet

    March 27, 2011 at 11:07 am

    @StonyPillow: Yeah – already they are saying one reactor core has breached and another is probably – then the venting and/or water dumps will continue. The fuel element storage pools have over 45 tons of solid salt each much of which is coating the fuel elements preventing proper cooling; the salt has killed many components (still unknown relative to main pumps) and far worse, the main pumps must be drained and air removed manually by workers! (which may have led to the near fatal radiation burning of three workers) five workers are know to be dead, two are (as last I heard) still missing and presumed dead, they still can’t cool the pools of waste fuels properly nor the cores, and two cores may be still partially (totally) uncovered by water, the radiation levels are far beyond human acceptable levels in at least two reactor/pool buildings, each reactor building (including!) the active reactors have spent fuel rods which may or may not be getting enough water and … still more that I am getting tried of listing and we still don’t know when any of this will be corrected – if this isn’t their fucked, I don’t know the meaning of the word.

    Thank God for the brave suicidal workers who are hero’s as the asswipe executes mouth off lies, misleading statements and reluctant truths – three mile island was a truth fest compared to this and a minor accident by far compared to this nightmare – thank god for amerikan containment outer structures – those fuckers really do work.

    Oh, other than that we still are facing climbing oil prices even through Japan has reduced its oil consumption (for now) by over a million barrels a day – people, peak oil is getting closer.

    AS the storm crow, just a bit of cloudy weather in a Sunday morning … I now better understand why the walking brain dead (read average/typical republican voter) watches fake news … .

  18. 18.

    amk

    March 27, 2011 at 11:10 am

    @cathyx: Latest BBC – false alarm

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-asia-pacific-12875327

  19. 19.

    MarkusR

    March 27, 2011 at 11:13 am

    My prediction is that the long term view of Fukushima is another Chernobyl. So far all the comparisons between the two were in regards the short term danger, but this is beginning to look more and more like a long term comparison.

  20. 20.

    Superluminar

    March 27, 2011 at 11:16 am

    @Cerment
    Thanks for providing a link in that last thread, I had gone to work and not got back to it until much later. I genuinely had not heard anything about any deaths in what I had read, hence why I asked for linkage. I am fairly pro-nuke, and thought a lot of the initial reporting on Fukushima alarmist bullshit, but the more we’re learning now, the more I want to see bad, bad things happen to TEPCO execs.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    March 27, 2011 at 11:50 am

    I’m thinking we need new regulations that say the executives have to personally don protective gear and be physically involved in the cleanup when there is a serious problem.

    I don’t recall the details, but I remember reading that they did this with regard to the manufacture of parachutes. (maybe during the war?) If I recall correctly, the people who were making the parachutes had to actually jump with a certain percentage of randomly selected parachutes. Do I need to say that the failure rate dropped dramatically as soon as this policy was implemented?

  22. 22.

    ErinSiobhan

    March 27, 2011 at 11:56 am

    FWIW, I think that their statement that a breach is likely indicates that at least one of the reactors has damaged fuel rods with leakage into the water/steam circulation loop. Sea water has been added more or less continuously to the circulation loop – and you can’t keep adding water into a fixed volume loop without taking something out. So it is likely that they are either venting steam or dumping water back into the ocean. And it’s likely that water/steam is contaminated.

    I’m not sure if they are dumb, hiding something, or simply lack information. The lack of power for process control/instrumentation means that they aren’t getting any instrument readings (pressure, temperature, flow, etc) and have to rely on local gauge readings. It’s very difficult to diagnose a problem without decent data and that data may be impossible to get.

    Even after they get the control system operating, they are still in trouble because a lot of equipment is probably damaged and inoperable because of the tsunami. What a total nightmare – no power, no controls, no instrumentation, damaged equipment, and a radioactive environment that makes it dangerous to send workers out into the plant to diagnose problems/make repairs. And you can’t just walk away from it because the consequences would be unthinkable.

    I will never bitch about my job again.

  23. 23.

    rapier

    March 27, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    Water cannot be radioactive. Water can contain radioactive things. In a BWR the steam (water) going to the turbines and then the condensers isn’t radioactive. If it were such a design couldn’t exist.

    The fuel in reactors is held within tubes so that it does not mix with the water. In this case the tubes are damaged so the water has the fuel mixed in.

    Got it?

  24. 24.

    Cranky Observer

    March 27, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    > Water cannot be radioactive. Water can contain radioactive
    > things. In a BWR the steam (water) going to the turbines
    > and then the condensers isn’t radioactive. If it were such
    > a design couldn’t exist.
    >[…]
    > Got it?

    You may want to go re-read the description of how a BWR works, and what happens to the water in the steam cycle. In fact the steam does contain (relatively short-lived) activation products (primarily Nitrogen-16), and both the turbines and condensers have to be shielded. Generally these products decay within a few hours of shutdown, but by the design of the system it is also possible for other activation products and anything released from damaged fuel rods to be carried downstream. The polishers are supposed to take that out of the water, but they can fail as well.

    Cranky

  25. 25.

    PeakVT

    March 27, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    @rapier: Primary coolant loop water in a BWR contains N16 and N17 (and O17 in an excited state for a very short time) during normal operations, which is why the turbine halls have to be shielded.

  26. 26.

    Monkeyfister

    March 27, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    This is really worth reading…

    http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl=/6124656-R8y05j/

    Good cutaway image of this type of BWR:
    http://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/custom/4d78ae7e33.jpg

    Once the Bottom head is breached, the corium then moves into the Drywell, and then if allowed to further heat and melt, pours into the Suppression Chamber (wetwell). Hot meets cold, and whoosh. Pressure builds. Would seem something in the Suppression Chambers gave out.

  27. 27.

    Robert Sneddon

    March 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    When reading the reports, both the official ones from the Japanese authorities and the press reports keep in mind that the engineers and technicians at the Fukushima Daiichi plant don’t know exactly what the conditions are in the reactor cores, reactor vessels, the containment structures around the reactor veseels and the spent fuel rod cooling ponds. The instruments which report pressures, temperatures and radiation levels in those areas are damaged and untrustworthy where they are reporting information at all, and until the coolant systems can be restored then nobody is going to get close enough to make an accurate survey of the exact physical damage to the fuel rods in the reactors, the core structures, the reactor vessels and the containments, that is assuming the radiation levels from contamination permit access at all in the near future (weeks or years).

    The only accurate information that can be supplied right now is that collected outside the reactor buildings and in the surrounding areas which is mostly contamination levels and direct radiation measurements.

    There is some older information which is almost certainly accurate; the reactors went into shutdown when the earthquake was detected, the control rods were fully inserted and fission stopped at that point. A full core meltdown was very unlikely after that, with only residual heat from isotope decay left to cause overheating damage to the fuel rods when the coolant systems shut down several hours later after the battery power gave out. For the rest of it they are making educated guesses. They can’t keep information they haven’t got from the world and they are being lambasted for this.

    BTW I noticed someone upthread referenced the godlikeproductions website. I believe the term for the people running that site is “disaster groupies”. They made a name for themselves during the Macondo Gulf oil spill last year by forecasting apocalyptic disaster scenarios involving the floor of the Gulf of Mexico collapsing because of the oil leak and releasing a tsunami of flaming methane among other fanciful predictions. When called on it they explained they were merely “entertainers”.

  28. 28.

    Danny

    March 27, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    @mistermix

    There’s a mixup between the reactor number and the name of the power plant in your reading of the japantimes piece you’re linking to. It actually says that reactor #2 at Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima 1) had the 1,000 millisievert reading – not reactor #1.

  29. 29.

    Sharl

    March 28, 2011 at 9:55 am

    @rapier: Just for the record, and regardless of what is going on with the Fukushima reactors, pure water CAN be radioactive, if the hydrogen in H2O is the isotope known as tritium. I don’t work in the fields where tritiated water is commonly used, but sometimes one will see “T2O” for fully tritiated water, at least in informal usage.

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