Mario Freedom's Space: Reactors

Showing posts with label Reactors. Show all posts

Sunday, 3 April 2011

Fukushima Disaster Worse than Worse Case 3 Reactors 70% Melted

Arnie Gundersun Chief Nuclear Engineer Fairewinds Associates , this independent scientist explains in details that the situation is not as stable as the governments claim the consequences of the Fukushima disaster are here to stay with us for centuries and the real extent of the catastrophe will only be known in full in coming years....this is 4 time higher than Chernobyl says the scientist !!!!

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for the full story www.Trends2012.co.cc ]]

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Fukushima Disaster Worse than Worse Case 3 Reactors 70% Melted

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Chris Martenson Exclusive: New Photos Of Fukushima Reactors

Submitted by Chris Martenson

Exclusive: new photos of Fukushima reactors

Noting that the press has largely turned its resources off of the Fukushima complex, and needing up-to-date information on the status of the damage control efforts there, we secured the most up-to-date satellite photo from DigitalGlobe (dated March 31st), which we analyze below. This is the first photo of the damaged reactor site at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility made available to the public in over a week. That means you, our readers, are the first public eyes anywhere to see this photo.

Drawing upon the expertise of our resident nuclear engineer and Ann Stringer, imaging expert, we conclude that the situation at Fukushima is not stabilized: things are not yet at a place of steady progress in the containment and clean-up efforts. It's still a dance, forwards and backwards, with the workers making gains here and there and the situation forcing them to react defensively.

In this report, we will tell you what we know for sure, what we are nearly certain of, and what we remain forced to speculate about.

Here is a portion of a much larger image (covering 25 square kilometers in total) showing the reactor complex as of March 31, at roughly mid-day:

Photo Credit, 2011, DigitalGlobe

Here's what we can directly observe in the larger satellite image:

Steam is still rising from reactors #2, #3 (circled in green) and #4.Of the four reactor buildings, three are nearly or totally destroyed, while the outside (at least) of the fourth is in relatively better shape.We can count 7 fire trucks 'on site' with another 7 just to the north, all with water lines strung out across the ground.There is only one ship/vessel to be seen, located inside of the breakwater and nearly as far to the north as it can go inside that boundary.A significant number of the vehicles that can be seen at the core of the site have not moved since the first released photos on March 12. There is a parking lot slightly to the north and west with approximately 250 passenger vehicles in it and a side lot with 30 large green tanks neatly arranged in rows.The rest of the area is one, two, and four lane roads (no traffic at all), worked farmland, residential and commercial areas, mostly empty parking lots, and two baseball diamonds.

Nowhere in the 25 km area in the main photo can we find anything that looks like a staging area with a large collection of assets such as tanker trucks, pumpers, cement trucks, piles of pre-staged materials, ambulances, and fire trucks.The cement pumper truck seen a week ago has been apparently replaced by the boom at reactor #4.There's no obvious barge delivering fresh water for the rector cooling efforts as recently reported (it may have come and gone?).Any obvious changes to the roofs of any of the reactors.Any people outside the plants working.

The steam that is venting is a mixed blessing. It implies that cooling water is getting to some hot material, which is a good thing, but it also means that something is hot enough to vaporize water and the continued release of radioactivity into the surrounding environment.

This means that the lack of steam coming from reactor #1 is either a very good sign, or a very bad sign. Good because it could mean that the containment vessels are intact and cooling water is circulating. Bad because it could imply that no water is getting to it and it is a very hot mass right now. According to TEPCO, reactor #1 has had seawater, and now freshwater, circulating through the reactor vessel - and since both containment vessels are intact, we'll conclude the lack of steam is a good sign.

The situation at Fukushima is going to drag on for years. First there's the matter of stabilizing the situation which has not yet been fully achieved. Recent surprises in terms of the amounts and locations of radioactivity are one sign that the situation is not fully stabilized. Still, nothing has blown up in quite a while, the steam venting appears consistent, and the major surprises seem to be over for now. While the TEPCO workers are still reacting to things as they arise, these are smaller things than last week, which is another hopeful sign.

The detected presence of neutron beams, I-134, and radioactive chlorine are all strongly supportive of the idea that criticality has resumed. Our best guess is that these are localized pockets, probably of short duration, and do not involve the entire core mass of any particular reactor conflagrating in some gigantic, greenish blob of uncontrolled fission. The geometries of the fuel in relation to neutron moderators requires precise conditions to support sustained fission and so it is rather unlikely to be occurring in anything other than localized pockets. If the entire reactor in its fully operational state was capable of supporting what we might scale to 100% fission, the amount of fission happening after a partial (or complete) meltdown will be a far lesser percentage. Still, any amount of fission is unwelcome at this point because it is adding to the heat and radiation removal difficulties.

The constantly rising levels of radioactivity found in the seawater are a further unwelcome development, but without a proper isotope analysis we cannot conclude anything about the potential resumption of fission from their gross amounts alone. It's always possible that the leftover fission products are now being washed in larger amounts into the sea for some reason.

These are the most detailed photos yet to emerge into the public space (released yesterday, March 31, as far as I know), and they are purported to come from a drone flyover on March 20 and 24th. They are really quite good, and worth viewing in their entirety here.

Beginning with reactor 3, one thing we can say is, this thing is a right proper mess:

(Source for all that follow)

There's a significant hole to the left of center that goes deep into the sub-structure (with a strange greenish cast that we've not been able to resolve after much conjecture) and it's clear that this building alone will take a long time to resolve.

Interestingly, we get our clearest image yet of the hole in turbine building #3 that was created by something ejected into the air during the reactor #3 explosion.

Looking like one of those cartoon cutouts that happens when the coyote hits the ground, we get the impression that whatever it was happened to be quite heavy and possibly shaped like an Apollo capsule. It has been my suspicion, which contradicts the official story, that the concrete containment vessel was what actually blew up in reactor #3 and I have been looking for evidence of in the form of large, heavy chunks of concrete (especially the refueling plug) lying about. I don't know what made this hole in the roof of the turbine building, but it was heavy.

Reactor #4 provides us with proof that serious damage can result from the effects of an overheated spent fuel storage pool:

Here the watering boom can be clearly seen. A camera was recently attached to the boom and it took some interior shots which were suggestive of the idea that the spent fuel pool is damaged and largely drained of water. Spraying water into this pool, then, is probably a balancing act with the desire to spray enough water on the rods to keep them cool being offset by the risk of having radioactive water drain away for parts unknown.

Almost certainly this same balancing act defines the efforts for reactors #2 and #3 as well.

The efforts at Fukushima are probably weeks away from even basic stabilization and we are years away from any sort of a final resolution. This crisis is going to be with all of us for a very long time. Radiation will continue to escape from the complex into the environment for weeks at best, months or years at worst.

The chief concern here is that things might still take a turn for the worse whereby radiation spikes to levels that prevent humans from getting close enough to perform meaningful operations and work on the site. If the radiation spikes high enough it will force an evacuation from the vicinity complicating every part of what has to happen next from monitoring to remediation.

The general lack of staged materials anywhere in the vicinity indicates that authorities have not yet decided on a plan of action, feeding our assessment that they are still in 'react mode' and that we are weeks away from nominal stabilization.

On Thursday we learned from the Wall Street Journal that TEPCO only had one stretcher, a satellite phone, 50 protective suits, and only enough dosimeters to give a single one to each worker group. Given this woeful level of preparation it is not surprising to see that regular fire trucks, cement trucks, and a lack of staged materials comprise much of the current damage control mix.

We don't yet know enough to conclude how much fission has spontaneously re-occurred, but we have strong suspicions that the number is higher than zero. Here we make our call for the release of more complete and timely radiation readouts and sampling results by TEPCO and Japan so that we can assess what the true risks are. The situation remains fluid and quite a lot depends now on chance and which way the wind blows.

And as I detailed in the Alert report I issued soonafter the tragic events of the Japan earthquake and tsunami on March 10th, the impact of Japan's tribulations on the global economy will be large and vast. World markets are simply unpreapared for the third-largest economy to suddenly and violently downshift. The persisting crisis at Fukushima simply worsens the picture.

As always, we'll continue montioring developments closely and reporting our findings and conclusions on this site.

best,

Chris

Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (40 votes)

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Chris Martenson Exclusive: New Photos Of Fukushima Reactors

Submitted by Chris Martenson

Exclusive: new photos of Fukushima reactors

In this report, we will tell you what we know for sure, what we are nearly certain of, and what we remain forced to speculate about.

Here is a portion of a much larger image (covering 25 square kilometers in total) showing the reactor complex as of March 31, at roughly mid-day:

Photo Credit, 2011, DigitalGlobe

Here's what we can directly observe in the larger satellite image:

Beginning with reactor 3, one thing we can say is, this thing is a right proper mess:

(Source for all that follow)

Interestingly, we get our clearest image yet of the hole in turbine building #3 that was created by something ejected into the air during the reactor #3 explosion.

Reactor #4 provides us with proof that serious damage can result from the effects of an overheated spent fuel storage pool:

Almost certainly this same balancing act defines the efforts for reactors #2 and #3 as well.

As always, we'll continue montioring developments closely and reporting our findings and conclusions on this site.

best,

Chris

Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (40 votes)

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Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Some progress at Fukushima, but no coolant at reactors 3 and 4

By Mike Adams

explosion

There is some good news emerging in this nuclear catastrophe: TEPCO has been able to restore grid power to buildings 5 and 6, which also house enormous quantities of stored fuel. Neither of these buildings was considered the primary threat in the first place, but it is at least a hopeful sign that TEPCO might have a chance at preventing a meltdown (http://www.smh.com.au/world/headway…).

Japanese crews are now working on an attempt to restore the functionality of the pumps that circulate water to cool the fuel rods. Those pumps are reportedly working in buildings 5 and 6, but no one even knows if the pumps are functional in buildings 2, 3 or 4. (They may have been damaged in the explosions that rocked the site.)

To make matters even worse, it appears that the cooling pool in reactor No. 4 has a leak and won’t hold water. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, “The pool at reactor No.4 has the hottest spent fuel and is thought to have either holes in the pool or another leak that is allowing water to run out. It is thus imperative to cool those heat sources first.”

Japan’s government raises “safe” limit of radiation exposure

Japanese workers who have been at the forefront of all these efforts are dwindling in numbers as they’re pulled off the front lines due to excessive radiation exposure. In order to cope with this, the Japanese government simply increased the allowable dose of radiation it now considers “safe” for workers. It used to be that 100 millisieverts was considered the maximum allowable level, but Japan has now arbitrarily raised that number to 250 millisieverts for no justifiable reason. (Radiation didn’t suddenly become less dangerous overnight, unless the laws of physics suddenly changed and nobody told us about it…)

[more...]

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Friday, 18 March 2011

MEDIA COVERAGE OF JAPANESE REACTORS AND THE TRUTH

Last night Channel 4 "News" broadcast an item from somebody standing in front of a taxi rank in Tokyo who said that the fact that there were taxis there unused (2 of them) proved that residents were staying home, which in turn proved a level of panic.

My girlfriend, who has been in Japan, said that, because people downsized from Japanese industry, had gone into taxiing there was always a considerable oversupply of taxis. It is not like Britain and in particular London, where licencing regulations keep the numbers artificially below market demand. Clearly C4 were deliberately lying to promote their anti-nuclear scare story to the British audience.

The fact is that nobody has been killed in this "catastrophe"; nobody has been injured; less radioactivity has been absorbed by anybody offsite than would be absorbed from an X-ray, air flight, or probably from eating a banana; far less radioactivity is being emitted than a conventional coal burning plant would over time (coal contains natural radioactives, like bananas & everything else). There is no honest journalist or politician who says or implies that nuclear is less than 100s of times safer than conventional power.
-----------------------
That is a comment I put up on Channel 4 News' site this morning. It has yet to appear.
I also sent a letter based on Saturday's entry to dozens of newspaper's worldwide, none of whom, according to Google News, have published it.

The coverage of an incident which has neither killed not injured anybody at all now clearly greatly exceeds that for the rest of the entire Tsunami/earthquake. Occasionally MSM reporting will include, very quietly, a mention of the fact that the amount of radiation anybody is going to experience is on the level of eating a banana. However far more often they get somebody on from some eco-fascist organisatio9n to tell all sorts of alarmistt lies without allowing any balance (eg C4 again had a Greenpeace spokesman balanced by a government one in the knowledge that the government one would not dismount from the fence).

Sensible discussion comes from Jerry Pournelle and interestingly enough from The Register. Do yet again we see the blogsphere is where you go for actual information. Presumably why in America now and Britain next year, more people choose to get their news online than from the press.

On the other hand if you think journalists talk nonsense look at how the EU are describing zero injuries as the "Apocalypse"
Labels: eco-fascism, International politics, Media

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Nuclear Power Reactors Do Not Belong On The Surface of the Earth

As the frightful nuclear crisis in Japan unfolds, with the ultimate outcome far from certain, a brief pause in the mad rush to pursue mass construction of nuclear power reactors can be witnessed. However, with the emergence of major new economic actors in the global economy, in particular China, India and Brazil, the world’s demand for energy, especially electrical power generation, will continue to rise, and probably revive the policymakers’ receptiveness towards atomic energy. In this drive, they are being increasingly joined by a strange new ally; environmentalists, those who classify themselves politically as left-leaning progressives, who see nuclear power as an emissions-free alternative to other forms of feeding the insatiable electrical grids of the global economy, most of which are major emitters of green house gases, believed to be the major contributor to climate change.

In 1956, the Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Alvin Weinberg, said that, ” there is an understandable drive on the part of men of good will to build up the positive aspects of nuclear energy simply because the negative aspects are so distressing.” His point underscored a perception by many of the leading scientific minds involved in the creation of the nuclear arsenal and militarized nuclear reactors to provide propulsion for the submarines carrying the nuclear tipped missiles that comprised the ultimate deterrent of the major powers. While supporting and contributing towards making nuclear power and atomic weapons available to military forces highly disciplined and skillfully trained in their maintenance, they harbored great reluctance to see this technology disseminated freely throughout the civilian economy. The risks of such technology being managed by civilian organizations, especially privately-owned utilities, were far too grave, in their estimation.

The uranium 235 fuel utilized in a nuclear reactor is enriched to 20 percent, unlike nuclear weapons, which require a minimum of 80 percent enrichment. This means that in an accident, an atomic detonation would not occur. However, virtually all the other evil consequences of a nuclear blast can occur in a catastrophic accident involving a nuclear power reactor. A plethora of toxic radioactive isotopes, some with a highly persistent half-life, are released into the atmosphere, soil and aquifers of surrounding areas, with frightful consequences for human beings. The economic damage resulting from widespread nuclear contamination can also be severe and long-lasting. In effect, a nuclear power reactor located within twenty or thirty kilometers of a major population center is the ultimate radiological bomb. Its promise of cheap, safe and supposedly clean electricity exists only in a parallel universe, where human failings and mistakes do not occur, terrorism is non-existent and natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis do not happen. In our world, such a promise is illusory, as already demonstrated in the past at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now so terrifyingly underway in Japan.

Dr. Edward Teller was the inventor of America’s hydrogen bomb, a weapon thousands of times more devastating than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. He was politically a rightwing hawk during the Cold War, and strongly supported the buildup of America’s nuclear arsenal, including the development of nuclear reactors for military purposes. However, this genius of nuclear physics had a far different view when it came to building nuclear reactors as a means of generating electricity for widespread civilian use. In 1965 Teller stated, “In principle, nuclear reactors are dangerous…In my mind, nuclear reactors do not belong on the surface of the earth. Nuclear reactors belong underground.”