Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Fordel]

So how far could this spread, if the spent fuel rods are indeed burning?

[MahrinSkel]

Detectably?  West coast of the US will probably see a detectable increase in background in 10-14 days.  Lethally?  Not much, if any, past Honshu.

Anyone have the date that Number 4 was taken offline for the maintenance cycle?  I've seen it in the last few days, but can't remember where.

--Dave

[Tale]

But the fire is out, according to the latest breaking news.

[Khaldun]

By lethally, do you mean, "Lethal right away"? Or is that what you think the limit of meaningful health consequences of any kind for human and other living populations is likely to be? This is where everyone who is saying, "The other consequences of the earthquake & tsunami far outweigh a nuclear accident, no matter what happens" are kind of thinking in a short time frame. Relatively wealthy nations rebuild and recover from even devastating earthquakes pretty quickly under most circumstances, though there are all sorts of lingering personal, economic and environmental consequences. But 30+ years of contamination of even a small area is a different kind of thing, particularly if people are going to avoid a larger area out of fear. If TMI had breached containment, even if the area contaminated hadn't been much more than the lower Susquehanna and part of the upper Chesapeake, it would surely have had a huge impact on all of SE Pennsylvania and parts of Maryland just in terms of people wanting to leave the area. I don't think there would be too many students from around the country going to colleges and universities in the area, for example, whether or not they were actually in a contaminated zone.

[Murgos]

So how far could this spread, if the spent fuel rods are indeed burning?

Latest from Tepco is that the fire is out.

How far it can spread depends on how hot the fire gets, how long it burns and what the wind is doing at different altitudes.  Ash is pretty heavy stuff and the plume should cool very quickly which all works to limit the fall out.  I kept all my old fall out calculation charts and formula and such for years but actually just threw it away last autumn.  Whoops.  From what I recall though if the plume gets up to say, 2000 meters then you could get ash downwind about 5-8 km.

Mostly that's just a guess though without my charts and without knowing how high the cloud would go.  You need something with the heat of a nuke or a volcano to through up the really big clouds that would spread much further than 15-20km though.

[MahrinSkel]

I meant long-term health consequences, including increased cancer rates.  It's not going to have that kind of effect outside of the island of Honshu (the biggest of the Home Islands) and any minor islands that might be caught downwind to the south of the site.  We're still not talking a Chernobyl scale event by a factor of more than a thousand, but it's worse than TMI (and about a thousand times worse than it was a few hours ago).

--Dave

EDIT: Yes, how high the material gets blown initially is critically important, this stuff is *heavy*, especially the really nasty shit, and it can't carry that far unless it gets blown all the way to the jet stream.  But there's a lot of heavy metals in the ecosystem for Honshu, how much depends on a lot of factors.  Being right on the coast is a major plus, in this scenario (setting aside the role of the tsunami in creating the mess in the first place).

EDIT2: deleted, that picture was of the refinery fire.

EDIT3: The blowout at Number 2 was in part of the cooling system, the actual containment is still holding and they're hosing in the seawater.  They've apparently lost the instruments to tell them what the water level inside is.

[bhodi]

Meanwhile, in Kesennuma, in the Miyagi Prefecture, watch how the tsunami washes a city away.

here is a one-link feed merge for anyone who has ADD and wants to watch the streams.

[Fordel]

So are we back to the "mundane" situation of a partial meltdown? 

[MahrinSkel]

So are we back to the "mundane" situation of a partial meltdown? 

Plus a fire that has spread an un-known amount of radioactive toxic waste from a facility we didn't think we needed to worry about, yes.

On the plus side, Fukushima Daiini has gotten "cold shutdown" of 2 out of the 3 reactors they were worried about there, and the other is expected to join them shortly.  So, there's that.

--Dave

[schild]

So. From my friend in Japan:

reactor 2 might have blown its pressure suppression pool, radiation levels up to 400 milliSieverts/h, which is 40,000 microSieverts -- over 50,000 it becomes a health risk, over 100,000 and shit gets real

oh and Nikkei stocks plummeting nearly 13%

[schild]

More:

"I can see the explosion happening ON TELEVISION yet Tepco doesn't report anything to us for a full hour. WHAT IS GOING ON"

On the prime Minister to Tepco this morning JP time:

"you're not evacuating, you're going to see it through, or it'll mean the end of Tepco 100%"

[schild]

uh ok as of three hours ago the building housing reactor 4 was burning. The pool nearby reactor 4 contains 783 spent fuel rods, and Tepco has requested the JSDF and the stationed US military to assist (with what it doesn't say), while continuing to fight the fire and cool the reactor core.

the "pressure suppression pool" within the containment unit of reactor 2 may be damaged, creating a path for possible material escape.

[MahrinSkel]

So. From my friend in Japan:

reactor 2 might have blown its pressure suppression pool, radiation levels up to 400 milliSieverts/h, which is 40,000 microSieverts -- over 50,000 it becomes a health risk, over 100,000 and shit gets real

He's wrong, 1 milliSievert is 1,000 microSievert (so 400,000).  People who were on-site during that period are in some deep shit, medically.

--Dave

[schild]

So. From my friend in Japan:

reactor 2 might have blown its pressure suppression pool, radiation levels up to 400 milliSieverts/h, which is 40,000 microSieverts -- over 50,000 it becomes a health risk, over 100,000 and shit gets real

He's wrong, 1 milliSievert is 1,000 microSievert (so 400,000).  People who were on-site during that period are in some deep shit, medically.

--Dave

Ok, does it change the fact that shit got much worse than "was possible?" No. Ok. Thanks for the correction.

[Ghambit]

Deja vu.

[Teleku]

Meanwhile, in Kesennuma, in the Miyagi Prefecture, watch how the tsunami washes a city away.

here is a one-link feed merge for anyone who has ADD and wants to watch the streams.

Abagadro posted this much earlier in the thread:

Insane footage of tsunami at ground level.

Not that you can be blamed for missing it, as it was quickly buried under pages of Expert Nuclear Physicist slap fighting each other.  Though his loads a lot faster than the gizmodo link.

Going to try to call my friend who's currently sleeping at the high school she teaches at in Osaki, north of Sendai.  She has a cell phone, but no electricity, food, or a home.  Seems to be in good spirits though from the 1 facebook post she managed to make from god knows where.  Should be interesting to hear a first hand account from somebody who was right near the epicenter.

In other news, Gilbert Godfrey is the latest casualty of the Tsunami:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42077764/ns/today-entertainment/

JSDF and the stationed US military to assist (with what it doesn't say),

To fix the problem the only way we know how.  Bomb it back into the stone age!

[MahrinSkel]

US Military on or near the site includes reactor crews for a CVN and a few nuclear subs.  Nobody has better training on how to manage a damaged reactor.

--Dave

[Ghambit]

 
One can hardly imagine what the scenes are like with the weather being below 0 degrees, when many areas are still covered in water(now ice), bodies, and mud.  Horrible.
Place has to thaw before cleanup can really commence one would assume.

Nuke question:  how do nuke plant cooling ponds react to decatons worth of mud and debris being poured into them?  I know of no pump that could handle it.  Kind of a given they're left with firehoses, even if they still had power.

[Fordel]

What is a CVN?

[MahrinSkel]

What is a CVN?

Nuclear-powered fleet-grade aircraft carrier.  The USS Reagan (CVN 76), to be specific.

--Dave

[schild]

"The French embassy in Tokyo warned in an 0100 GMT advisory that a low level of radioactive wind could reach Tokyo in about 10 hours, advising its citizens to leave the city."

[Sand]

"The French embassy in Tokyo warned in an 0100 GMT advisory that a low level of radioactive wind could reach Tokyo in about 10 hours, advising its citizens to leave the city."

Why is the French government being so sensationalist about the "nuclear threat"?!?! Huh!!??
Why didnt they tell them to leave for the tsunami or the earthquake!! Why!?!
Why are they giving so much attention to the reactors, when everything is going to be fine? Worse case some steam will be let out. Havent you ever been in a steam room at the gym? Its not that bad!
 

[MahrinSkel]

We passed that point with the fire in #4.

--Dave

[Abagadro]

Can I just say how much I hate local news with a passion?  I never watch it but caught the first lead story on after something else. The LEAD STORY was a breathless report about how two Salt Lake City attorneys happened to be a few hundred miles south of the epicenter and felt the earthquake. Fucking parochial assholes.

[Tale]

Reporter/presenter's blog about trying to accurately convey the disaster:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/blogarticle/122692/A-long-night-in-the-newsroom/blog/Reporters-Blog

[Sheepherder]

One can hardly imagine what the scenes are like with the weather being below 0 degrees, when many areas are still covered in water(now ice), bodies, and mud.  Horrible.
Place has to thaw before cleanup can really commence one would assume.

Nuke question:  how do nuke plant cooling ponds react to decatons worth of mud and debris being poured into them?  I know of no pump that could handle it.  Kind of a given they're left with firehoses, even if they still had power.

You can actually do contruction work pretty easily in below zero temperatures.  Happens all the time in Canada and the northern US.  Just after New Years is usually pretty busy for EMS / Firefighting, and for the latter the conditions are a bit of a reprieve, since bunker gear is hot as all fuck since it's built on the basis of absolutely no ventilation whatsoever.  Putrefaction slows down a tad as well, and that's to the better.

There are a shitton of pumps that can handle mud.  Anything that's centrifugal, for example, will eat a fair bit of grit before the (usually) brass impeller is fucked, which is part of the reason why they appear on fire trucks, in trash pumps, or in water treatment plants.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that whatever water line they have installed is caked in mud to the point where it provides insufficient supply under heavy load, creates cavitation in the pump, and thus vibrates the impeller into a piece of deformed shit.

[Arthur_Parker]

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

Cooling of No. 5, No. 6 reactors appears not to be working properly: Edano 16:42 15 March

Fukushima's spent nuke fuel pool may be boiling, reducing water 17:29 15 March

[Ubvman]

They may be getting to the point that the Russians faced at Chernobyl where dealing with the situation is going to require people who are going to die. I don't think they're going to be able to do what the Russians did, which is basically conscript people and lie to them about the consequences.

Some of the Russians knew they were going to die, regardless of what they were being told. They were not stupid and they went in anyway. That is real bravery, because it had to be done - and if it wasn't done, thousands of others would die terrible deaths.

I don't think the Japanese engineers would be any less brave if it came down that (which I hope to god, won't).

[MahrinSkel]

As I understand it, these are variations on piston pumps (they're pushing water in against hundreds of kPa).  They wouldn't take well to mud, but that wasn't the problem here.  The diesel generators were either in the open or in light outbuildings where they were destroyed by the tsunami, and the batteries couldn't drive the pumps nearly heavily enough in that first few critical hours after the emergency shutdown (there was also apparently a problem with hooking up the replacement generators).  At Fukushima Daiini, there was earthquake damage to the cooling systems of three out of four reactors, but the generators stayed up and they kept the cooling systems operating well enough that they were never at this kind of risk.

Newer designs can operate on pure passive convection and wouldn't have the problem to begin with.

--Dave

[Sheepherder]

As I understand it, these are variations on piston pumps (they're pushing water in against hundreds of kPa).

Most firefighting centrifugal pumps are rated from 1420 - 3785 LPM @ 1750 kPa / 375 - 1000 GPM @ 250 psig.  Using two such pumps (or a dual impeller design) will double the output pressure or volume: in series it will be pressure, in parallel it will be volume.  I wouldn't discount a centrifugal design solely based on the pressure required - there's no real limitation on the number of impellers that you can stick in series that I'm aware of.

[MahrinSkel]

I wonder if that was why they were using a fire engine on #1: It was the only thing handy that didn't run on electricity and could hit the needed pressure.

--Dave

[Jeff Kelly]

I don't know about US or Japanese fire engines but the standard water pumps used by european firefighting units use pumps that pump water at 700/1400 l/min at 6 - 8 bar pressure (8000 hpa) and have a maximum lift of 7 metres. You cannot increase pressure much over that 8 bar because the pumps aren't designed for more, you only put pumps in serial config to increase lift or to bring pressure back to 8 bar if you need to transport water over longer distances.

The pumps are also only designed to handle water from hydrants or natural sources of water, the intake has a coarse filter that keeps most of the dirt and mud out. Thex can't handle other liquids that are corrosive (we hav especial pumps for that), they can't be operated in environments with potentially explosive mixes of gas or dust (we have special pumps for that). They would be rather inadequate to pump water/steam mixed with boric acid into a hot reactor that is operated at 70 bar (70.000 hpa).

Maybe the on-site fire services have access to specialized pumps (they should be euipped to handle all of the hazardous materials on site) but I don't assume that they use standrad fire hoses (made from hemp or linen) and standard attack equipment

[Murgos]

Ok, does it change the fact that shit got much worse than "was possible?" No. Ok. Thanks for the correction.

The containment vessels are still doing what they're supposed to and haven't gotten any worse, '"Than was possible"' or otherwise.  That part hasn't changed.

[Merusk]

Can I just say how much I hate local news with a passion?  I never watch it but caught the first lead story on after something else. The LEAD STORY was a breathless report about how two Salt Lake City attorneys happened to be a few hundred miles south of the epicenter and felt the earthquake. Fucking parochial assholes.

Local news here broke in to Friday evening's programming, not because of the quake, but because a barge restaurant had broken-free of its moorings and floated 100 feet downstream.  They breathlessly covered that story for an hour and fourty-five minute.  "Almost 100 people have to walk across this improvised bridge! Let's watch!" 

[Khaldun]

Richard Black, BBC reporter:

It appears that for the first time, the containment system around one of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors has been breached.

Officials have referred to a possible crack in the suppression chamber of reactor 2 - a large doughnut-shaped structure below the reactor housing. That would allow steam, containing radioactive substances, to escape continuously.

This is the most likely source of the high radioactivity readings seen near the site. Another possible source is the fire in reactor 4 building - believed to have started when a pool storing old fuel rods dried up.

The readings at the site rose beyond safe limits - 400 millisieverts per hour (mSv/hr), when the average person's exposure is 3mSv in a year.

A key question is whether this is just a transient spike, which might be expected if number 2 is the source, or whether the high levels are sustained.

Come on. Is it so hard to say, "Ok, maybe we underestimated what could happen?" This is the kind of thing that yesterday more than a few experts were saying, "Don't worry, can't happen, not possible". Right, I know the fall-back position: no, no, the experts were only refuting the dumbshit China-syndrome radioactive reaction falling into the earth's core or blowing up like a bomb stuff, or refuting the idea that these reactors would burn in the exact same way that Chernobyl did. Read back some, or read the various experts who've been linked to, and you'll see them saying something stronger: that containment would not be breached, that the situation was under control, and that there would be no significant release of radiation. The WSJ guy said, "Oh, stand on top of the chimney of any of these reactors and maybe it'll be like flying on a plane". Does it look like that to you this morning?