Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Trouble]

The only tragedy or potential cause of one is irrational fear caused demonstrably inferior and potentially unsafe technology to stay in use years beyond the original planned lifespan. There hasn't been an adequate energy replacement, so we'll just keep extending the life of obsolete designs instead of replacing them with safer ones.

Or Tepco might be Japan's Enron with a history of negligence. That or people on the internet freaking out, I dunno.

edit: apologies for the snark, but I'm really really not comfortable with the idea rolling any responsibility of nuclear safety on the general public.

Absolutely agree, all the things I've read have shown them to be that bad. But I haven't seen anything that demonstrates their horribleness was responsible for the design flaws in that reactor type.

[Merusk]

The only tragedy or potential cause of one is irrational fear caused demonstrably inferior and potentially unsafe technology to stay in use years beyond the original planned lifespan. There hasn't been an adequate energy replacement, so we'll just keep extending the life of obsolete designs instead of replacing them with safer ones.

And then when they fail due to age or catastrophe some will point and say, "See fuckers. That right there is why we said not to do anymore of those. Ha I was right all along, assholes!"

[Simond]

It's going to be awesome to watch what happens, considering the lack of other options besides nuclear.

I really want to see a country with a significant level of power generation from fission plants just to go balls to the walls and just shut down all their reactors and let the chips fall where they may. Brownouts, blackouts, utterly ridiculous hikes in power bills, three-day-weeks, the works.

When people start complaining, the official statement should read: "You all asked for this. What, exactly, did you expect to happen?"

[jakonovski]

Absolutely agree, all the things I've read have shown them to be that bad. But I haven't seen anything that demonstrates their horribleness was responsible for the design flaws in that reactor type.

Well, after having been warned of the deficiencies, Tepco browbeat the Japanese govt into letting them off the hook. If true, it can't get worse than that really.

[jakonovski]

I really want to see a country with a significant level of power generation from fission plants just to go balls to the walls and just shut down all their reactors and let the chips fall where they may. Brownouts, blackouts, utterly ridiculous hikes in power bills, three-day-weeks, the works.

When people start complaining, the official statement should read: "You all asked for this. What, exactly, did you expect to happen?"

The threat of that is allegedly what Tepco used to get their way regarding modernization. So you got your wish.

[Trouble]

Also I want to note I wasn't just talking about Japan. This is true of every country with nuclear power as far as I'm aware. France has only built 5 plants or so since TMI. Germany renewing plants, the US, etc. It's everyone. It's important too because these older generation plants from the first couple generations of nuclear power have serious flaws, not just one a million issues. The public and political will says NO NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS THEY ARE DANGEROUS while ignoring the fact that we rely on that energy and have no replacement.

[MahrinSkel]

So, a day later with more information out, do you still feel comfortable with these statements?

I was incorrect about the number of US plants with the same design. Apparently it is 23, not 16. These plants have their spent fuel storage at the top of the buildings, partially supported by the structure of the secondary containment. These are still in operation and this feature has not been altered.

So, in answer to my own question, apparently current safety standards in the US allow operation with the same design faults that have contributed to this accident. It should be noted that any cooling system power failure that exceeds the battery life of the backup system, eight hours, can potentially cause a similar chain of events.

I have been a supporter of nuclear power all of my adult life. I personally can no longer support the continued operation of these plants. As to the other designs, my trust in the NRC is lower and I will have to review these for myself.

I don't think the danger of repeated circumstances at US installations is high enough that we need to start shutting down and decommissioning the US plants with the same design in the next 5 minutes.  There's time to have a rational debate and come up with a real plan.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this thread for discussing Japan and we can have the slapfight over nuclear power safety in general in a Politics thread some other time.

--Dave

[Mrbloodworth]

The only tragedy or potential cause of one is irrational fear caused demonstrably inferior and potentially unsafe technology to stay in use years beyond the original planned lifespan. There hasn't been an adequate energy replacement, so we'll just keep extending the life of obsolete designs instead of replacing them with safer ones.

Generation 4 is already prototyped and running in Germany and china.

[ghost]

Also I want to note I wasn't just talking about Japan. This is true of every country with nuclear power as far as I'm aware. France has only built 5 plants or so since TMI. Germany renewing plants, the US, etc. It's everyone. It's important too because these older generation plants from the first couple generations of nuclear power have serious flaws, not just one a million issues. The public and political will says NO NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS THEY ARE DANGEROUS while ignoring the fact that we rely on that energy and have no replacement.

France has a ton of nuclear plants.  If I am remembering this correctly, about 80% of their power comes from Nuclear.  They may not have built any more simply because they didn't need to. 

[Trouble]

The only tragedy or potential cause of one is irrational fear caused demonstrably inferior and potentially unsafe technology to stay in use years beyond the original planned lifespan. There hasn't been an adequate energy replacement, so we'll just keep extending the life of obsolete designs instead of replacing them with safer ones.

Generation 4 is already prototyped and running in Germany and china.

Oh no I know, not claiming shit is just stopped forever. I'm just commenting on what the reality for the last three decades has been, and apparently what the next few are shaping up to be now that people have blown all the milk into their cheerios over this Japan thing. At the end of the day the tame non-disaster disaster of a 40 year old nuclear plant that's two generations away from modern will be used to justify why we can't build any new plants. And we'll (at least in the US), instead of building these new far safer plants, just renew decades old plants that should have been long shutdown. It's just incredibly frustrating at how stupid it is. NO NEW NUKE PLANTS, so keep the ones from the 60's running instead.

[slog]

 There's time to have a rational debate and come up with a real plan.
--Dave

This made me laugh.  Rational Debate and a real plan?  In the United States?  

[Surlyboi]

So on "average days" you have a number of reactors with spent nuclear fuel on fire and the possibility that the prevailing winds will shift blowing the smoke and particulates on to your city?
No one is saying the CURRENT radiation levels in Tokyo are bad, they are saying there is the POTENTIAL for them to get bad and they dont want to be there should that happen. So why not leave until the situation is resolved?

So whatever the average background radiation in random city "X" is anywhere makes no fucking difference in this situation.

Because all of that POTENTIAL is based on idle speculation by a bunch of people who know fuckall about what's actually going on and are armchair nuclear physicisting from thousands of miles away for no other reason than our "if it bleeds it leads" neswmedia's rating bonanzas. Tokyo people will do what Tokyo people have always done. They'll buck up and soldier the fuck on 'til given a legitimate reason to leave. Almost every one I know there has told me they're not going anywhere 'til there's a clear and present danger. Shit, if I was still there, the only place I'd be looking to go is north to Iwate to try to help the tsunami victims put their lives back together.  

[KallDrexx]

On topic, Guardian has a video showing Japanese people rescuing their neighbors during the tsunami.

*edit* they also have some crazy/scary videos from the tsunami

[Arthur_Parker]

Saw that video on the news earlier, very moving when they rescue the woman and she feels she has to thank them  .

[Jeff Kelly]

Cite. Because I can't find any information on this supposed steam explosion which was 25 times larger than Hiroshima.

OK so I now went back to the documentary feature (alas in German, that's why it takes time to research english sources ) from German public television that presented that and then went through their source lists for citations.

Now my already low esteem for journalists (that should be an expletive) has sunk even more.

There are several simulations that tried to recreate the events of the Chernobyl reactor explosion (I won't have access to Springerlink and IEEExplore until tomorrow, so only a few citations below) which in reality were not one but at least three,

1. The 'expansion of steam' from the runaway nuclear reaction that lifted the 2000 ton reactor lid and destroyed the reactor.
2. The subsequent explosion caused by hydrogen that was created due to the heat (>2000 °C) and the reaction of water with the zirkonium shielding of the fuel rods
3. a thermonuclear explosion of the molten uranium

At the time of the incident the chain reaction already doubled the thermal output every two miliseconds. There are different accounts but most estimates put the thermal output at the time of explosion at several terajoules which would be the equivalent of 500 tons to 1 kiloton of tnt. The source in 1 puts it at a lower 200 ton.

I can't find any numbers on the force of the hydrogen blast yet. The thermonuclear reaction on the other hand is estimated to have also been in the 0,5 to 1 kiloton range

So the reporters only missed the mark by a factor of thousand.

Still looking for sources that substantiate their claim that the explosions of the bubble pools would have caused a 5 Mton type explosion but now it seems unlikely.

So I apologize for my rude remarks. Another example of things you should research for yourself

[Arthur_Parker]

US Navy delivers protective suits to Japan

WASHINGTON - THE US Navy delivered special protective suits and masks to Japan on Thursday to help workers struggling to contain damage at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, officials said.

The US Navy's 7th Fleet said '100 nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) firefighting suits and masks were delivered from the USS George Washington to the government of Japan this morning for use at the Fukushima power plant.' The suits are designed to protect against radiation or other toxic materials.

US President Barack Obama has promised Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to give Tokyo any support needed in the face of a deepening nuclear crisis triggered by last Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The US Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration has reportedly sent 33 experts to Japan with 7,700kg of equipment to assist Japanese authorities.

The US experts will help monitor and survey areas of the country for possible radiation.

The American military has provided equipment and logistical support but has not been asked by Japanese authorities to join directly in the emergency effort at the damaged Fukushima plant

Stretched Japan asks EU to coordinate quake relief

BRUSSELS - STRETCHED Japanese authorities have asked for European Union relief to be coordinated to ease delivery to the devastated nation, Europe's aid chief said on Thursday.

Humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said that with over half a million people in shelters, the EU stood 'ready to provide any help' in the face of requests for blankets, mattresses, water, water tanks, food and tents.

'Given the enormous difficulties in delivering assistance, Japan asked us to coordinate and bring together' relief in Europe, with a team at the other end working hand in hand with the Japanese Red Cross, she said.

'The efficiency of delivery matters more than speed,' she said.

'They want anything that comes not to stretch their capabilities.' A team of civil protection experts was readying to fly to Japan to coordinate logistics for European relief, she added

SA has a thread going with a charity list if you want to donate some money.

[Jeff Kelly]

Generation 4 is already prototyped and running in Germany and china.

As far as Germany is concerned, after this incident nuclear power in Germany is done.

The last administration already implemented steps to phase out nuclear power over the next twenty years, a decision the current administration overturned without voter consent or licence of parliament. They already faced some voter backlash for their clandestine operation that involved secret meetings with the power companies and contractual obligations that are secret and may not be revealed to the public or parliament.

Now after the incident the majority of Germans that already supported the last administration in their efforts are increasingly displeased by the current administration and Chancellor Merkel. While the majority of Germans want nuclear power to end they have extended lifetimes by 12 years and even bought back two reactors that were privatized a few years ago. So in an impressive u-turn that must have caused whiplash for some of our current ministers, the "extension" decision has been reverted, they've already selected 7 plants that shall go off-line and even already ordered the private companies to power two of them down immediately.

So essentially 7 of our 19 reactors that only yesterday were deemed to be essential for generating the power germany needs are so "essential" that they can be turned off at short notice without any consequences whatsoever.

They did this so quickly because in two weeks time there are a number of elections at the state level that they already were afraid of losing even before the incident in Japan's Fukushima plant.

[Simond]

Which is vastly amusing, as the only replacement is coal-burning plants and German coal is poor-burning, sulphur-laden crap that puts out even more CO2 than 'normal' (anthracite) coal.

So, yeah. Pick your poison - literally. 

[Arthur_Parker]

How Much Spent Nuclear Fuel Is At the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors?

Reactor No. 1 fuel pool: 50 tons of nuclear fuel
•    Reactor No. 2 fuel pool: 81 tons
•    Reactor No. 3 fuel pool: 88 tons
•    Reactor No. 4 fuel pool: 135 tons
•    Reactor No. 5 fuel pool: 142 tons
•    Reactor No. 6 fuel pool: 151 tons
•    Also, a separate facility fuel pool on ground level contains 1,097 tons of nuclear fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage.

The reactor cores themselves contain less than 100 tons of fuel, Resnikoff noted.

Power has been restored to reactor 2 as well, so things are looking better and better.

Edit reports No 1 reactor has been supplied electricity as well now.

[Ubvman]

....

It's the trap of low expectations. When you say something is better than Chernobyl, it means nothing. Chernobyl was a potential nuclear explosion in the megatons, and it would've been dirtier than similar sized nuclear bombs by an order of magnitude.

No, it wasn't. Nuclear material cannot suddenly go super-critical. You need explosives packed to condense the material in a specific way timed very precisely to do that. There was a potential steam explosion which was averted it was feared that the steam explosion would have spread the radiation (it would have)

If you define "super-critical" as going BOOM - suddenly releasing  lots of  energy via nuclear chain reaction (as opposed to chemical - via steam and Hydrogen exploding). Nuclear materials can certainly go boom without the help of conventional explosives. To get a much bigger boom for nuclear weapons, you need the conventional explosives to compact the nuclear material and hold them together a few microseconds (nanoseconds?), longer  for more of the U235, Pu239 atoms to chain reaction fission.

Criticality accidents

In Chernobyl, there were TWO explosions. The initial explosion was water/steam/Hydrogen that blew the 2000 ton reactor lid off and a subsequent   NUCLEAR explosion 2 seconds later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Experiment_and_explosion

However, the ratio of xenon radioisotopes released during the event provides compelling evidence that the second explosion was a nuclear power transient. This nuclear transient released ~0.01 kiloton of TNT equivalent (40 GJ) of energy; the analysis indicates that the nuclear excursion was limited to a small portion of the core.

Chernobyl had a Nuclear explosion with the equivalent force of 10 tons of TNT (0.01 1KT), not the 1 kiloton quoted in a post above. If it had blown with the force of 1KT, it would have been a whole lot of a level worse - Halifax explosion.

I admit comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is a bad comparison, only because Chernobyl was super crazy insanely bad, whereas Fukushima is only insanely bad.

[Jeff Kelly]

So I actually go to some lengths to find a few credible scientific publications that cite official research reports by the IAEA and other sources and even link to one only to be confronted with the wikipedia article on the subject? I give up 

[Ubvman]

So I actually go to some lengths to find a few credible scientific publications that cite official research reports by the IAEA and other sources and even link to one only to be confronted with the wikipedia article on the subject? I give up 

             

sorry

[Goumindong]

If you define "super-critical" as going BOOM - suddenly releasing  lots of  energy via nuclear chain reaction (as opposed to chemical - via steam and Hydrogen exploding). Nuclear materials can certainly go boom without the help of conventional explosives. To get a much bigger boom for nuclear weapons, you need the conventional explosives to compact the nuclear material and hold them together a few microseconds (nanoseconds?), longer  for more of the U235, Pu239 atoms to chain reaction fission.

I generally define it as an explosion. Radiating thermal heat and fast decay and radiation emission is not a nuclear explosion. Its an uncontrolled nuclear reaction

Nuclear excursion =/= nuclear explosion

As for the Malko article, Its good, but I worry about translation error since the concepts are similar yet distinct and since it was obviously not written by someone fluent in English.

In short, I think you two are confusing a criticality accident with a nuclear explosion

edit: note that for the wiki article, when you click on the link for "nuclear excursion" it takes you to the criticicaliy accident page, where it is explained that they are not nuclear explosions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

[Fordel]

Is that Oil refinery fire still going, or did they manage to stop it?

[Jeff Kelly]

The difference between deflagration, explosion and detonation is just the speed of the reaction ( from cm/s to >1000 m/s). A nuclear blast is in essence just an 'uncontrolled nuclear reaction' that progresses very fast and produces a lot of energy in the process.

I fear if we continue to discuss this though, that we'll derail the thread completely, so we should discuss it elsewhere.

Maybe we should stop discussing the nuclear disaster at all, there are after all thousands dead or missing from an earthquake and tsunami, although we've seemingly forgotten it already.

[Trouble]

Generation 4 is already prototyped and running in Germany and china.

As far as Germany is concerned, after this incident nuclear power in Germany is done.

The last administration already implemented steps to phase out nuclear power over the next twenty years, a decision the current administration overturned without voter consent or licence of parliament. They already faced some voter backlash for their clandestine operation that involved secret meetings with the power companies and contractual obligations that are secret and may not be revealed to the public or parliament.

Now after the incident the majority of Germans that already supported the last administration in their efforts are increasingly displeased by the current administration and Chancellor Merkel. While the majority of Germans want nuclear power to end they have extended lifetimes by 12 years and even bought back two reactors that were privatized a few years ago. So in an impressive u-turn that must have caused whiplash for some of our current ministers, the "extension" decision has been reverted, they've already selected 7 plants that shall go off-line and even already ordered the private companies to power two of them down immediately.

So essentially 7 of our 19 reactors that only yesterday were deemed to be essential for generating the power germany needs are so "essential" that they can be turned off at short notice without any consequences whatsoever.

They did this so quickly because in two weeks time there are a number of elections at the state level that they already were afraid of losing even before the incident in Japan's Fukushima plant.

Keep buying it from France...who make it from Nuclear. Planning for the future is easy fuck yeah.

[Arthur_Parker]

UPDATE AS OF 11:35 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MARCH 17:

TEPCO officials say that although one side of the concrete wall of the reactor 4 fuel pool structure has collapsed, the steel liner of the pool remains intact, based on aerial photos of the reactor taken on March 17. The pool still has water providing some cooling for the fuel; however, helicopters dropped water on the reactor four times during the morning (Japan time) on March 17. Water also was sprayed at reactor 4 using high-pressure water cannons.

Hadn't seen the concrete wall collapse mentioned before, I have a vague memory of the steel liner being 3/4" thick.

[Jeff Kelly]

Keep buying it from France...who make it from Nuclear. Planning for the future is easy fuck yeah.

We are currently net exporter of energy, just saying.

[Simond]

What percentage of the German power output is supplied by nuclear plants? 20%? 25%? Good luck staying an exporter when that's all shut down permanently. 

[MahrinSkel]

Can we move any nuclear discussion not directly related to the current situation at Fukushima Daiichi to the politics thread?

--Dave

[Surlyboi]

Is that Oil refinery fire still going, or did they manage to stop it?

Still going.

[Fordel]

Is that Oil refinery fire still going, or did they manage to stop it?

Still going.

Well fuck, is it spreading, or contained at the site still?

[Ingmar]

Is that Oil refinery fire still going, or did they manage to stop it?

Still going.

It will run out of oil to burn eventually I suppose...

[Tale]

Pretty much no matter how you slice it it won't get that bad. Spent Fuel is nasty, but its not going to be Chernobyl. A re-activiation of the nuclear material inside of the cores would be nasty, but its not going to be a Chernobyl.

You're talking about a single spent fuel pool going up. There are multiple pools and multiple reactors with problems. If radiation from a SFP disaster meant the area had to be abandoned, they probably wouldn't be able to control the other pools and the other reactors, leading to six nuclear problems side by side. A single SFP disaster might not be Chernobyl, but three reactor meltdowns and three SFP fires is not exactly level 4.

[Merusk]

UPDATE AS OF 11:35 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MARCH 17:

TEPCO officials say that although one side of the concrete wall of the reactor 4 fuel pool structure has collapsed, the steel liner of the pool remains intact, based on aerial photos of the reactor taken on March 17. The pool still has water providing some cooling for the fuel; however, helicopters dropped water on the reactor four times during the morning (Japan time) on March 17. Water also was sprayed at reactor 4 using high-pressure water cannons.

Hadn't seen the concrete wall collapse mentioned before, I have a vague memory of the steel liner being 3/4" thick.

Well fuck.