Japan's Nukes Following Earthquake

[namlive]

Good web site for information on plumes and dose rates. It has links to other sites:

http://ppalme.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/list-of-radiation-radioactive-nuclear-fallout-monitoring-websites/

It links to TEPCO which puts out  dose rates:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/monitoring/11040105a.pdf

[Sun Dog]

are you eating the veggies and fruits from California?
 

The cannibalistic lifestyle is not for me...but, if it helps reduce the population of Kalifornia I may reconsider...

[HydroDave63]

CNN is reporting today that radioactivity has been found in milk in 2 states.

When does this now get recognized as it should be: much more severe than TMI?

1. And when does the U.S. gov't get involved and say "you need to get this radiation leakage under wraps now, because it's travelling thousands of miles and contaminating our soil.....and we're more than 2 weeks after the fact."

Do we have any people over there working with the engineers?

Have they tried using robots to access highly radioactive areas to see if in fact there is a leak from the main containment? Seems to be a lot of guessing on their part from what I'm reading in spotty news reports.

2.I have a 10 month old daughter, so I don't want her getting anything any more contaminated than the natural environment :/

1. Google " TVA coal pile " for downstream health hazards

2. She is at more risk from the thimerosol in all the "mandatory" immunizations, including Gardasil. Also note less incidence of alzheimer's in countries where flouridation of tap water isn't done.

[Cellman]

Been following this forum for a couple years, but just decided to join....

A question for folks closer to the industry than I. Suppose you were sent back in time 1 year or so. Your job is to provide information that there would be an earthquake and tsunami somewhere in the world that would cause a serious nuclear accident. You contact the US NRC, IAEA, TEPCO, GE, and whoever else has a pile of engineers that could develop procedures. You identify the equipment as GE-4, Mark I containment, and lay out the challenges related to the station blackout, keeping the core cool, hydrogen buildup and explosion, loss of secondary containment, sfp issues, etc.... You're not allowed to give the location of the plant to preclude shutting it down before the earthquake. Knowing the outcome, is there anything that could have been done differently as soon as the earthquake hit?

Many pages ago, someone tossed out the idea of bootstrapping the generator off residual steam. Is this something feasable, or just a "wouldn't it be nice if" Along those lines, how about a limited restart of one unit after the trip to "back up" the EDG's. What about running the HPCI turbine with the turbine exhaust routed to the atmosphere instead of the supression pool. Obviously a release, but would the tradeoff of being able to keep the core cool and suppression pool sub-saturated longer have improved the long term situation? Am I correct in assuming that if the core remained intact there wouldn't be any issues with hydrogen or containment integrity?

It looks as if the plant operators followed accepted procedures early in the situation. When working with a complex system like a nuclear power plant, you need to stay with proven, established procedures. I'm not suggesting that anyone should have responded differently to the situation, just looking to see if a better outcome could be provided if a similar situation is encountered in the future. My research suggests that earlier designs like the GE-4 have a great deal of their core damage frequency estimate attributed to station blackout events. How does that look going forward?

[RealityCheck]

Cellman...I found your question interesting.  Here's a similar question:

Let's say an intelligent, influential congressman managed to get a bill passed that required all pilot compartments on commercial airlines to have a security door installed and in use by September 10, 2001.

I know, the idea of an intelligent, influential congressman is a bit farfetched.

I have found it interesting that many users of this particular post found it incredulous in the early days that the Japanese reactors might actually "melt"...hmmm, as if reactor safety was never a cog in their intellectual wheel.  We even had nuclear educated (an assumption of course) folks that thought approaching a drained fuel pool would actually be possible.  Perhaps they have noticed that we indeed have fuel failure...denial is not just a river in Egypt.

I also found it interesting that the very first post came to pass...we actually did "ship coolant to Japan"

[hamsamich]

Ok I will indulge this silly post with one comment. 

The reason everybody found it silly that people were talking about sending coolant is because calling it coolant is silly.  It is just water.  As for the rest of your post this explains why the rest of the world and media get so riled up over the possibility of any problem with nuclear power.  18000 dead due to Equake and Tsunami this one time, how many dead in the last 40 years due to the COMMERCIAL USE of nuclear power in the western world???

[chimmike]

Interesting to note that one of the world's largest concrete pumps is being sent from savannah river to Daiichi, along with several others made by Putzmeister (is that the correct german company?), with the intent of pumping more water in.

More water? Could this just be a cover story for their actual intended purpose of pumping concrete? They have pumps run by EDG's right now, right? Feeding water to the reactors via various means.

CNN just shared a story where they just filled a conduit tunnel with a special polymer blend with newspaper and something else to stop the water leaking into the ocean. But they don't know the source of the highly radioactive leak, yet.

I dunno. I just think that the more time goes on, the more they realize there's other damage they didn't notice earlier due to other more critical issues. This is a big, big mess.

[hamsamich]

I wouldn't think you'ld need to cover up pumping in cement.  Whatever is the right answer just do it water or cement.  They could use these pumps later for cement, that may be a bonus reason for gettting them.  TEPCO already said we won't be using these reactors anymore, so who cares how we make them safe?  Pouring cement over decaying fuel could insulate them from cooling water and cause them to catch on fire depending on how old they are.  Maybe they could use some cement in another area to plug  up a hole somewhere, but why would this be a big deal to hide it?  Tepco like to hide things as we all know so maybe they will try to hide it, but I see no reason to here.  Hard to hide a mega cement pourer from the world though so I don't think so.

[namlive]

On the Putzmeister pumps: My understanding is that there are only 3 in the whole world. Two are headed for Japan, one from SRS, another from California. They are being refitted to pump water instead of concrete. They are too big for conventional transports. A special Russian made transport plane is being used to fly them to Japan. Liberal talking head Rachel Maddow did a piece on this the other night. She sited the Augusta Chronicle as her source.

[JustinHEMI05]

Local news did a story about Peach Bottom. Nice to see some news trying to get facts instead of succumbing to gonzo journalism.

http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=14368058

[Cycoticpenguin]

Cellman...I found your question interesting.  Here's a similar question:

Let's say an intelligent, influential congressman managed to get a bill passed that required all pilot compartments on commercial airlines to have a security door installed and in use by September 10, 2001.

I know, the idea of an intelligent, influential congressman is a bit farfetched.

I have found it interesting that many users of this particular post found it incredulous in the early days that the Japanese reactors might actually "melt"...hmmm, as if reactor safety was never a cog in their intellectual wheel.  We even had nuclear educated (an assumption of course) folks that thought approaching a drained fuel pool would actually be possible.  Perhaps they have noticed that we indeed have fuel failure...denial is not just a river in Egypt.

I also found it interesting that the very first post came to pass...we actually did "ship coolant to Japan"

You can "what if" and "how come" all day. The necessity for certain things comes as an after thought. Reverse engineering is how the nuclear community works. Theres only so much foresight we can have. None of us here have gone through an 8.9 earthquake combined with a shattered infrastructure all the while keeping a plant in some modicum of safety. Containment was never needed because we had highly skilled operators working on highly technical safety equipment that could never break down. We also had a giant boat that could never sink. We had submarines that were put together by safe and skilled laborers that have been doing there job for many many years.

The point is, we dont know until we see it first hand. We can speculate on things that COULD happen all day. Then we're getting into the realm of the incredulous, and cost will begin to be a factor. Sure, we can design some super plant that can withstand an F5 tornado, a 9.9 richter scale, full area flooding, and catastrophic terrorist events, but where do we draw the line?

[Pman52]

To follow up Charlie's great post, I must say that in order to make things as close to indestructible and failure proof as possible, we must first learn from past failures to understand what caused the failure and what must be improved and how. 

Anyone who feels that we can design something for the uninevitable every time needs to read a book called "To Engineer is Human" by Henry Petroski.  Petroski is a civil engineer who explains the role failure plays in successful designs.  We have to learn from past mistakes to further improve on what we currently have.  We must also understand as Charlie mentioned that Economics plays a LARGE role in the engineering world. 

Nuclear plants are EXPENSIVE machines and saving money is important to the utility so that the construction is not a loss on their part.  Safety should never be compromised and I don't feel it ever has in the design and construction of Nuclear power plants in the U.S. or Japan.  But Engineers can't put some outrageous margin of safety figure out there and conclude that it will withstand the inevitable and that it will be attainable with the budget of the project. Engineers have to find the "middle ground" where practical engineering safety standards are met and a large enough safety factor will cover enough of the "worst case scenarios". 

Japan just had a record-breaking earthquake and tsunami hit them that is a once in a lifetime event. We can't discount the magnitude of this disaster and analyze how the Fukushima plant contained "flaws".  These are the flaws that we will learn from and improve on in existing plants as well as new plants to be built in the near future.  We must learn from our mistakes.  Looking back on history of Commercial Nuclear Power, I don't think the record is bad at all. 

Look at statistics.  A lot more people die from drunk driving accidents each year then they do from nuclear power reactors.  So why does the media make such a big deal about the safety of nuclear power plants when the numbers are on the table? 

[DLGN25]

I suppose if a comet hit the site, the question would be, "Why did the engineers not consider this contingency in their design?"

I know one thing for sure, and that is virtually every large airplane that has a "station blackout" results in the death of everyone aboard.

I still fly. 

[drayer54]

Local news did a story about Peach Bottom. Nice to see some news trying to get facts instead of succumbing to gonzo journalism.

http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=14368058

Wheres the article mentioned? "This comes after an Associated Press article that claimed a power outage could lead to a partial meltdown."
Sounds like someone is playing jump to conclusions!


*I am talking about the article mentioned in the one Justin posted, not his CM

[Cycoticpenguin]

Wheres the article mentioned? "This comes after an Associated Press article that claimed a power outage could lead to a partial meltdown."

Sounds like someone is playing jump to conclusions!

Sounds like you are. Justin posted it up earlier....

this is for you :

drayer

Justin your simulator is WAY nicer then ours haha are you guys doing a power upgrade??? 1.3 billion is a lot of hooch

[JustinHEMI05]

I try to live by Marlin's rules, CM. 

Anyway, CM, I don't work there anymore but they are just about "power uprated" out. There may be a new FW heater or two in the future, but that is about it. And, that 1.3 billion is to be spent over the entire fleet. Yes, they are building essentially a whole new plant with all the power uprates across the fleet for 1/6th of the cost. When all is said and done, they will have about 1000MWs of new capacity.

Justin

[Marlin]

I try to live by Marlin's rules, CM. 

I wish I followed my own advice more.  

Maybe I just like to hear myself type. 

[JustinHEMI05]

Sometimes I slip myself, but when someone posts such as that above, it is easy to remember them.

Justin

[radbrat]

I wish I followed my own advice more.  

Maybe I just like to hear myself type. 

Dont you mean "hype".

[Marlin]

Dont you mean "hype".

Mom always liked me best. 

[Cycoticpenguin]

I try to live by Marlin's rules, CM. 

Anyway, CM, I don't work there anymore but they are just about "power uprated" out. There may be a new FW heater or two in the future, but that is about it. And, that 1.3 billion is to be spent over the entire fleet. Yes, they are building essentially a whole new plant with all the power uprates across the fleet for 1/6th of the cost. When all is said and done, they will have about 1000MWs of new capacity.

Justin

key words here   good upgrades though, too bad a lot of those plants wont get more then 20 years out of it.

[JustinHEMI05]

key words here  good upgrades though, too bad a lot of those plants wont get more then 20 years out of it.

Not necessarily true. They are doing this in order to be able to get another 20 year extension, when the time comes, for a total of 80 years online.

[JustinHEMI05]

http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/

Good thing I got my tin suit and hat on. I have also stopped collecting rain water for post apocalyptic living for the time being. 

[Cycoticpenguin]

Not necessarily true. They are doing this in order to be able to get another 20 year extension, when the time comes, for a total of 80 years online.

Lets hope so, with the amount being dumped in, would seem to be a shame to "Waste" those upgrades. Im sure the number crunchers and engineers have a good idea of whats going on anyway. Just curious how the RE-RE-licensing thing works ...

[leroygm]

anybody hear of any contract companies hiring yet (Rad Techs) to go to Japan?