Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Jeff Kelly]

Nominally the pumps are meant to operate at 1050 kPa, but ratings are provided up to 1750 kPa, and the entire unit is hydrostatically tested to 4200 kPa.  The highest credible estimate for reactor vessel pressure I can find is 1764 kPa, which is 2.1 times the design capacity.

Borates has been used as firefighting foam and retardant for a long time, though it's more or less phased out now.  Finding/diluting an appropriate mixture and inserting it into the foam eductor would not be an issue.

kPa as in Kilo-Pascal? That would mean 10 bar or 145 psi. Also probably a flow rate of 250 GPM - 2500 GPM? So DIN-EN certified European designs are not that far off. They range from 8 - 10 bar and from 1000 - 7500 l/m.

Your pressure numbers for the containment vessel seem off, though. As far as I know the coolant pressure in BWRs is maintained at 75 bar/1000psi/7.6MPa and it therefore reaches boiling point at roughly 280 °C, in PWR-designs it would be maintained at 150bar/16 MPa/2100 psi.

That's nothing a fire pump could handle even if it could handle the steam or the temperature without cavitation.

[ghost]

So do any of you guys that understand all this stuff have any idea of what we should believe coming out of the news outlets?  I find all the varied information to be a bit misleading. 

[Arthur_Parker]

If you look back at previous accidents an awful lot of what we currently believe will turn out to be incorrect.  Apart from things like 3 buildings did suffer explosions and the radiation measurements.  I've read crazy reports like reactor 2 suffered the partial meltdown because one of the fire pumps ran out of fuel and nobody noticed for a while, or that the water tank it was hooked up to ran dry, I've also read that they only had 4-5 fire engine pumps at site and most got damaged when reactor building 1 blew.

I've not reposted all that because, again judging on past major incidents, a lot of stuff even coming directly from TEPCO will later turn out to be completely inaccurate for one reason or another.

I still think something really bad happening is unlikely, even given the run of luck so far, I'm also reluctant to believe they aren't throwing everything possible at the problems.

Edit.  Not claiming I understand this stuff either.

[Murgos]

Murgos, I'm totally not snarking here--I just want to be sure I'm reading the radiation monitor figures you linked to correctly. There's a big spike in between 8am and noon March 15th, right? With a couple of other intermittent smaller spikes on the 13th and 14th for much shorter time intervals. But after the radiation levels at the gate fall over the rest of the day on the 15th, they've stayed higher even at the lowest point than almost any other time since the tsunami hit. So regardless of the consequences outside the plant itself, this is evidence that something has changed inside, correct?

Yes, that's correct.  There are two credible explanations for the continued higher radiation levels.  The most likely is that the steam trapped in Generator 2's suppression chamber that blew about the same time last night vented rapidly for a while and is now doing a slow steady leak (this is not the containment vessel it's a return/condensation system for steam).  The pressure in the suppression chamber dropped from 3 ATM to 1 ATM around this time.

The second (IMO less likely) is that the fire at Generator 4 boiled off enough water to expose the spent fuel rods in the pond or that when the suppression chamber blew it cracked the pond the spent rods are in.  The reason I'm not sure about this because the rods would still be below ground level and a few hundred meters of earth and reinforced concrete should shield the gate monitor from that source of radiation pretty effectively (the ponds are designed for exactly that situation).

The helicopter thing is the only thing I've seen that gives more credence to scenario 2 but, there has been so much shit taken out of context (even deliberate misinformation) already that I am really hesitant to trust any media site, even the BBC, without a lot of corroboration.

[Simond]

Meanwhile, something which is definitely putting out a huge plume of toxic material is still on fire: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/refinery-operations-cosmo-idAFTKZ00681720110314

(Reuters) - Japan's Cosmo Oil has not yet extinguished a fire at its 220,000 barrels per day Chiba refinery, a company spokesman said on Monday.

The fire at the storage tanks broke out after a powerful earthquake rocked the country on Friday. The company shut down the refinery, east of Tokyo after the quake.

But it's petrochemical, so nobody in the media cares.

[Arthur_Parker]

Radiation leak feared at spent fuel pool, water injection ordered

A nuclear crisis at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant deepened Tuesday as fresh explosions occurred at the site and its operator said water in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods may be boiling, an ominous sign for the release of high-level radioactive materials from the fuel.

The government ordered the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., on Tuesday night to inject water into the pool at the No. 4 reactor to cool it down ''as soon as possible to avert a major nuclear disaster.''

TEPCO said the water level in the pool storing the spent fuel rods at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant's No. 4 reactor may have dropped, exposing the rods. Unless the spent fuel rods are cooled down, they could be damaged and emit radioactive substances.

The firm said it has not yet confirmed the current water level or water temperature in the pool and will try to pour water into the facility from Wednesday through holes that were created following an explosion earlier Tuesday in the walls of the building that houses the reactor.

Due to high radiation levels at the No. 4 reactor, workers on Tuesday were unable to prepare for the pouring of water into the troubled pool. Difficult conditions have led the utility to evacuate around 730 of the 800 workers from the site, according to TEPCO.

The firm said its workers were only able to remain in the central control rooms at the Fukushima plant for 10 minutes to avoid exposure to excessive radiation levels. They have retreated to a remote site to monitor data on the reactors, it added.

At 6:14 a.m. on Tuesday, a blast occurred at the No. 4 reactor and created two square-shaped holes about 8 by 8 meters in the walls of the building that houses the reactor. At 9:38 a.m., a fire broke out there and smoke billowed from the holes.

The utility said it could not deny the possibility that the early morning explosion was caused by hydrogen generated by a chemical reaction involving the exposed spent nuclear fuel and vapor.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference, ''We believe very high-level radioactive substances have not been emitted continuously from the No. 4 reactor,'' citing radiation monitoring data at the plant.

The nuclear agency said the water temperature in the pool stood at 84 degrees C as of 4 a.m. Monday, higher than the normal level of 40 to 50 degrees. Usually, the upper tip of the fuel rods is at a depth of 10 meters from the surface of the pool, it said.

Agency officials said the fuel rods will not reach criticality again as they have been stored in racks containing boron to prevent it.

Edano said water temperatures in the pools at the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at the Fukushima plant have been rising as well.
...
The agency said among the three, the situation is the severest at the No. 4 reactor because all the fuel rods are stored in the pool due to the change of the reactor's shroud. At the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, up to one-third of the rods are being kept in the pools. The more fuel rods are kept in a pool, the more radioactive substances could be emitted.
...
The utility firm said later in the day the massive radiation amount of 400 millisievert per hour, or 400,000 microsievert, was recorded around debris in front of the No. 3 reactor and that the material may have come from the nearby No. 4 reactor.

TEPCO has been continuing operations to pour seawater into the troubled No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors to prevent overheating and further damage to their containment vessels. But despite the injection of water, fuel rods in the three reactors remain partially exposed.

Specific details for a change.

[Chimpy]

But it's petrochemical, so nobody in the media cares.

The nuclear boogeyman gets more eyeballs.

Discussing the equally toxic (or even more toxic in some cases) byproducts of our highly industrialized society is not as sensational a news event.

[penfold]

You know what upsets me, knowing tha the company employees and emergency services are going back in day after day, knowing full well it might well kill them within a few years. There's no RadAway to take.

Having said that, I'm another thoroughly confused by the conflicting stories, blogs and forum posts across the Net. I've seen lots of very good counterpoints to media hysteria, and explanations of how it can never be another Chernobyl.  This is at the same time as watching huge explosions, fires in storage pools, and some other expert opinions, all pointing to things being FUBAR indeed.

So if a core melts through the containment/core catcher, or if the storage pool boils away and 1500 tons of spent fuel starts burning, won't that be another Chernobyl situation? I don't understand how it can only be localised environmental damage that would result from either scenario. Is there no chance of a failed containment leading to the core burning or hitting water, and would the storage pool contents not give off radioactive smoke particles?

[Lantyssa]

So do any of you guys that understand all this stuff have any idea of what we should believe coming out of the news outlets?  I find all the varied information to be a bit misleading. 

Believe little of it, believe even less of internet speculation, pray for those there if you're so inclined, and wait.

[pxib]

So if a core melts through the containment/core catcher, or if the storage pool boils away and 1500 tons of spent fuel starts burning, won't that be another Chernobyl situation?

Fire was what created the fallout after the explosion at Chernobyl, so yes that would be a similar disaster. Prevailing winds would blow radioactive dust over Hokkaido and out into the Pacific where most of it would sink and disappear. In the former Soviet Union, they blew directly over land.

At sea, the only major risk to North America would be radioactive iodine-131. Fairly friendly with water, it's likely to wind up in rain clouds and fall on the Pacific coast of Canada and the US. Its 8 day half life makes it both likely to survive the trip and quite reactive when it arrives. It's most dangerous to children and young adults since they have the most active thyroid glands and the thyroid is the main location for iodine concentration. Risk of thyroid cancer is quite high for those age groups and considerably lower for adults. Might also want to avoid seafood for a few months.

Worst case scenario for Japan is a small Chernobyl style dead-zone. Worst case scenario for America is considerably less intense than we did to ourselves during our nuclear bomb testing in the 1950's and 60's.

I have no idea how likely that scenario is, or any other one. There are too many conflicting sets of data right now.

[Khaldun]

The one thing about confusion and multiple information streams to remember is never substitute conspiracy for chaos as an explanation. There may be no one, even the people on the ground, who fully understand all of what's going on, and there may be a good deal of improvisation and conjecture everywhere. I'm sure there is plenty of CYA behavior inside TEPCO, inside the Japanese government, among experts who represent the nuclear industry, but equally there's a lot of people who are just looking for something to confirm their own weird understandings of the world. None of those people is necessarily acting in a masterful way, or even with a great deal of self-aware instrumental intent.

[Mosesandstick]

Having a fire does not mean you're going to have a Chernobyl-type event, though it's obviously not a good sign. Apart from Chernobyl, afaik, the most significant accident with fire was the Windscale fire in the UK.

[Ghambit]

Having said that, I'm another thoroughly confused by the conflicting stories, blogs and forum posts across the Net. I've seen lots of very good counterpoints to media hysteria, and explanations of how it can never be another Chernobyl.  This is at the same time as watching huge explosions, fires in storage pools, and some other expert opinions, all pointing to things being FUBAR indeed.

So if a core melts through the containment/core catcher, or if the storage pool boils away and 1500 tons of spent fuel starts burning, won't that be another Chernobyl situation? I don't understand how it can only be localised environmental damage that would result from either scenario. Is there no chance of a failed containment leading to the core burning or hitting water, and would the storage pool contents not give off radioactive smoke particles?

The storage pool does not need to "boil away."  As soon as it BOILS you're taking some rads (there's nothing keeping radioactive vapor from escaping, it just floats away to contaminate anything it touches).  Granted, this boiling doesnt produce as much rad as the spent fuel rods burning from being exposed to air. Per Tepco, at some point during measurement one of the pools was around 85C, so 15C below boiling, but it's likely no. 4's spent fuel had boiled its pool at some point and exposed the rods to air due to a) the fuel was actually quite fresh  b) the fire accelerated heating if not damaged the pool altogether.  Furthermore, they're wondering if it hadnt boiled off in the 1st place hence the spike in rads right after the explosion.  

Luckily, all they have to do is keep dumping water on it.  Albeit, now they're doing it from helicopters and per Tepco have no real idea what the temp. in the pool is due to a malfunction.

The pool is too far from the hole in the roof to cool via chopper

 

[Sand]

Taking anonymous internet dickheadishness a bit too far.

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/14/warning-do-not-trust-death-reports-on-google-person-finder/

Just in case people missed this earlier.

There are people, going on to Google's people finder right now, and saying they are hospital workers, doctors, government workers, and verifying the deaths of individuals who arent dead. Causing their families anguish and grief.
HOW FUCKING TWISTED DO YOU HAVE TO BE  TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT! 

[MahrinSkel]

If there's a crack in the embedment for Number 2, then there's a possibility that in a full meltdown some portion of the melted fuel could escape through to the groundwater.  The containment also may not sustain the pressure in an extreme scenario.  The integrity of the embedment is the last line of defense, and it being compromised is definitely not a good thing.

The pool for #4 being or potentially going dry drastically increases the potential contamination of the area, especially since that reactor was apparently taken down for maintenance pretty recently (a month or so ago) and some of those rods are very "hot".  The most likely scenarios for contamination that reaches Tokyo would involve that pool.

--Dave

[Comstar]

Err, if it reaches Toyko, would that cause the city to be evacuated? How big an exclusion are we talking about?

For that matter, the Economic explosion of the worlds 3rd largest economy going into Meltdown's going to have a wider effect. 

I guess we now know where the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R game will be set.

[Khaldun]

BBC reporting a new fire in reactor #4. Lots of smoke visible apparently.

EDIT: BBC live feed is reporting many flames visible at reactor #4. Also that TEPCO has officially announced the helicopter idea is off because it won't work and there are concerns about safety of pilots.

BBC live feed also mentions some evidence of panic buying of iodine tablets in British Columbia and US Northwest.

[Arthur_Parker]

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/

Fire breaks out again at 5:45 a.m. at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor: NH

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78378.html

A fire broke out again early Wednesday at the troubled No. 4 reactor of the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

Around 5:45 a.m., a worker at the plant saw a fire at the reactor's building, where an apparent hydrogen explosion caused a fire Tuesday morning in the wake of last Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake.

Radiation Map (Grateful if somebody explains the scale on this, cpm?)

[Khaldun]

#
2216: The BBC's Matt Frei in Tokyo says spent fuel rods in reactors five and six are also now believed to be heating up.

[Jeff Kelly]

you cannot directly convert counts per minute to sievert or rem because it depends on the detector.

[FatuousTwat]

BBC live feed also mentions some evidence of panic buying of iodine tablets in British Columbia and US Northwest.

Really? Ugh.

[MahrinSkel]

The government in Japan has invoked Article 15, essentially slapping a censorship blackout on information concerning Fukushima Daiichi and all radiation data gathered by the government everywhere.  So it's going to get harder to get good information.

--Dave

EDIT: I have two teenage stepsons in Seattle with their father right now.  I understand the impulse.

[Simond]

I was 11 when Chernobyl dumped radioactive waste all over Europe, so I'm finding panicky Americans worrying about potential microdoses of radioactive iodine (half life: about a week) highly amusing.

Oh, and the fire's out again. They think. Maybe.

[Khaldun]

Yeah. You know, news media aside, this goes back to a point raised earlier: narratives are more compelling when you don't know what's going to happen next, no matter what the circumstances. I think in a way everyone knows what happens next with the tsunami and earthquake aftermath: people clean up, they mourn, they suffer, there is damage which gets fixed or doesn't get fixed, it's terrible and human and what can you do? With the nuclear crisis, every hour brings a new wrinkle, a new question, a new unknown. So I don't think it's just some horrible media distortion that explains why this is a story that people follow: it's because it is, in some profound sense, a story where the ending is unknown, and every attempt to skip to the last page and say what happened afterwards has so far been wrong.

[Soln]

Living in Seattle the local health orgs are working to calm fears.  Let me know if you believe the opposite.  This is all starting to feel like H1N1.   

Updated: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 04:06 PM
Nuclear event in Japan poses no health risk in King County

The Washington Department of Health advises that there is no health risk to Washington residents from the nuclear reactors in Japan. Air sample readings in our state remain normal. The Department of Health Radiation Protection Program doesn't expect any change in environmental measurements taken in Washington.

Information updated March 15, 2011
Japan Earthquake 2011 - What does it mean for Washington?

Frequently Asked Questions: How the nuclear reactor event affects Washington
 
    How much radioactivity do you expect to come to Washington from Japan’s reactors?

    We don’t expect significant levels of radioactivity in our state, and there’s no health risk. Japan is thousands of miles from our state, and if radioactivity from the reactors there is released to the upper atmosphere it would be thinned-out by the winds before it could reach us. We could see a very small increase in radiation levels — well below levels that would be a health concern. We’re working with federal, state, and local agencies in a coordinated effort to monitor radiation levels in the air and rain water.

    Would increased radiation levels cause health effects?

    It’s not possible for enough radioactive material to cross the ocean to cause any health effects to our residents. There’s no need for people here to take protective action....

[Ingmar]

I was thinking the same thing earlier; at this point the nuclear plant is the only ongoing part of the story that covers the "new" part of the word "news". Little wonder it gets more coverage, especially now that new footage of waves and broken buildings has essentially stopped showing up.

[Soln]

crowdsourced radiation map

How the Map Works:A growing number of Radiation Monitoring Stations across the country, using various models of Digital GeigerCounters, upload their Radiation Count data in real time to their computer using a Data Cable, and then over the Internet to this web site, all of this accomplished through GeigerGraph for Networks software.

[Arthur_Parker]

Link is to a pro nuclear site (near as I can tell anyway).

Found below comment interesting.

TEPCO, which operates the Fukushima power plant, is still considering the use of high-pressure fire hoses to spray cooling water into the spent-fuel pool.
Radiation levels are far too high to permit workers to bring hoses anywhere near the pool’s edge to re-flood it manually.
U.S. nuclear safety experts agreed. David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says a study done for Connecticut nuclear power plants concluded that in a situation such as this one, radiation would be so intense that a worker at the pool’s edge “would receive a lethal dose in something like 16 seconds.”

I have the non classified US report on spent fuel risks but I didn't see much point reading it all, can't really trust any information about what's happening anyway.

[Lantyssa]

So I don't think it's just some horrible media distortion that explains why this is a story that people follow: it's because it is, in some profound sense, a story where the ending is unknown, and every attempt to skip to the last page and say what happened afterwards has so far been wrong.

Which is exactly why I say people need to stop freaking out about something they cannot control nor influence and to wait, instead of inciting panic.  It's like yelling 'FIRE' in a theater.

[Furiously]

My idiot brother in law just forwarded an email about buying potasium iodine to protect yourself. (apologies to anyone who was offended by my initial description of my brother-in-law)

[MahrinSkel]

People are responding to a novel danger, and buying some potassium iodide "just in case" is something potentially productive they can do about it.  Since it's fairly cheap, and safe enough as long as you don't take excessive doses, it's comparatively harmless.

In a few more days, when the stuff is going for $5/pill on eBay, *that* will be ridiculous.

--Dave

EDIT: Never mind, we're already there.

[Simond]

and safe enough as long as you don't take excessive doses

ETA on first death due to (non-radioactive) iodine overdose/poisoning?

[MahrinSkel]

and safe enough as long as you don't take excessive doses

ETA on first death due to (non-radioactive) iodine overdose/poisoning?

It appears to be pretty difficult to poison yourself with either potassium or iodine.  So probably Thursday.

--Dave

EDIT: Which goes to the point behind the slapfight.  Panic is likely to be worse than anything that comes directly from the reactors.  There's almost no chance that Tokyo (or indeed, anything outside a few miles from the plant) will see significant radiation.  But if 25 million people try to vacate Tokyo in a hurry out of panic, there will be a lot of deaths and hardship on top of what the earthquake is already causing.  In the US, that would already be happening.

Clapping on the censorship may forestall that, or make it worse as the absence of good information leads to turning to rumor, actual experts not under the blackout lack information to make judgements while fearmongers leap on every puff of steam shown on the news to prophesy doom.

[UnSub]

Reports I've seen generally indicate that the Japanese population isn't panicking. A massive nuclear death cloud heading to Tokyo might start a panic, but to date that appears unlikely to happen.

What this event does raise is the question of how Japan is going to provide its energy needs going forward. Last I checked 20% of its national power infrastructure is offline and the safety of nuclear power plants is going to go under a very sharp microscope moving forward. I've seen some educated speculation that Japan will probably continue down the nuclear path, just with more modern designs, but that remains to be seen.

[Ghambit]

Dont forget about the fishing industry.  Japan's #1 source of food is seafood and they're the #1 consumer of seafood.
a)  Many of those fishing villages are destroyed now
b)  With potential fallout over the fishing grounds, eating said fish may become problematic