Fukushima - they are planning to move fuel rods from the hottest spent storage pool in Nov. (scary)

[progree]

Title: Insight: After disaster, the deadliest part of Japan's nuclear clean-up

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.

Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.

... The operation, beginning this November at the plant's Reactor No. 4, is fraught with danger, including the possibility of a large release of radiation if a fuel assembly breaks, gets stuck or gets too close to an adjacent bundle, said Gundersen and other nuclear experts.

... Extracting spent fuel is a normal part of operations at a nuclear plant, but safely plucking them from a badly damaged reactor is unprecedented. ... the delicate task of extracting fuel assemblies that may be damaged by the quake, the explosion or corrosion from salt water that was poured into the pool when fresh supplies ran out during the crisis. ... "There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other," Gundersen said. He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn't designed to absorb.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-disaster-deadliest-part-japans-nuclear-clean-012703179.html

There's considerably more at the link on the difficulty and potential consequences of this operation than can fit in the 4 paragraphs.

There was some discussion of this at http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014565091 when the thread got locked as not being Late Breaking News, since it is something they are planning to do in November.

[progree]

1. The problem of spent fuel storage pools at nuclear power plants

In the other thread that was locked for not being late-breaking news, there was a discussion beginning of nuclear power plant spent storage pools. Here's an article I remember reading about it a long time ago -- a much over-looked problem / mode of failure.

NUCLEAR WARRIORS, Time Magazine, June 24, 2001

(about nuclear industry whistle-blowers trying to do something about the dangerous situation of spent nuclear fuel pools at nuclear power plant sites)

The pools weren't designed for this purpose, and risk is involved: the rods must be submerged at all times. A cooling system must dissipate the intense heat they give off. If the system failed, the pool could boil, turning the plant into a lethal sauna filled with clouds of radioactive steam. And if earthquake, human error or mechanical failure drained the pool, the result could be catastrophic: a meltdown of multiple cores taking place outside the reactor containment, releasing massive amounts of radiation and rendering hundreds of square miles uninhabitable.

... Finally, he took the case to the NRC himself, only to discover that officials there had known about the procedure for a decade without moving to stop it. The NRC says the practice is common, and safe--if a plant's cooling system is designed to handle the heat load. But Millstone's wasn't. And when Galatis learned that plants in Delaware, Nebraska and New Jersey had similar fuel-pool troubles, he realized the NRC was sitting on a nationwide problem.

... In fact, Millstone is merely the latest in a long string of cases in which the NRC bungled its mandate and overlooked serious safety problems until whistle blowers came forward (see box).

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,135575,00.html#ixzz2buxU9EGE

[Rhiannon12866]

2. K&R! Great article, a must-read, IMO.

Thanks so much for reposting!

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

3. Damned if they do, damned if they don't

If I'm not mistaken, No.4 is one that was using the MOX (plutonium-containing) fuel. Yikes.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. No, reactor three has the UO2/MOX fuel.

Reactor four is normal fuel, like 1-2, and 5-6

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

5. You're right, it wasn't MOX

I did a bit of searching and found that No. 4 used uranium dioxide fuel.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Still not unicorns and rainbows if it catches on fire though..

Spent fuel by its nature has plutonium in it as well. That's why reactors of this type are valuable to a military industrial complex. They reprocess the fuel, remove the 'impurities', and re-use.

[Art_from_Ark]

14. It's one reason why thorium molten salt reactors were abandoned

The technology for thorium molten salt reactors was being developed back in the '60s, but they consume plutonium rather than produce it like the uranium reactors do. As nuclear fuels go, thorium would be much better than uranium, and it occurs naturally with rare earths in ores like monazite. As it is, the thorium produced during the mining of rare earths becomes just so much radioactive slag.

[progree]

8. All spent fuel rods have plutonium in them - during fission, some of the uranium captures neutrons

and becomes plutonium. And a fairly substantial amount. U238 + neutron -> PU239

Uranium in fuel rods is a mixture of mostly U238 and some U235 depending on how much it is enriched. (Light water reactor fuel is about 5% U235). It's the U235 that fissions and produces energy. The U238 is just there, and does nothing useful as far as energy production. But it does capture some neutrons and becomes plutonium.

On Edit - rats, AtheistCrusader, you beat me to it!

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

10. Thanks to both of you for your explanations.

[DeSwiss]

7. Assuming that TEPCO......

...can find the fuel rods, and the water table stops rising and the buildings don't collapse from the quicksand they're now standing on as a result of the underground dams they built to contain the radioactive water they were spraying onto the exposed fuel rods -- well, I'm sure that the workers there just hope TEPCO can avoid spraying them with radiation water (or dust?) again, by mistake.

[progree]

9. Yup, that's why they are worried - better to TRY to get this done now rather than later

Thanks for all the links!

[Mojorabbit]

13. Great links! Thanks! nt

[hrmjustin]

11. K&R!

[silvershadow]

12. K&R.

[nilram]

15. Funny, it's on Reuter's front page RIGHT NOW, but it's NOT "late breaking news" per DU? go figger.

The news is that they've released plans to do this in November. Yes, DU, it takes time to plan these things out. They're telling us about it now -- that makes it news. It was released five hours ago -- that makes it "late breaking". In November, I look forward to the "OMG, WHAT ARE THEY DOING??!?" thread. But, hey -- moderators, juries, whatever, I'm still appreciative of all the great info I get from DU.

Thanks for posting this. Scary that they're going to try it, but it seems like they've got to do something.

[FBaggins]

39. It's not breaking news because...

Last edited Wed Aug 14, 2013, 07:57 PM - Edit history (1)

...it's neither "breaking" nor "news"

The plan has been in place for many months (late last year they moved the date up a single month) and the activity is months away. So Arnie wants to make up some nonsense to get his name back in the news and scare some people? Big deal... that doesn't make it breaking news.

[Art_from_Ark]

48. It's not just Arnie

NHK (Japan's version of PBS) just ran a news story about 300 tons of contaminated groundwater escaping from the containment area and flowing into the ocean every day, and TEPCO's efforts to deal with it.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20130815/index.html

[FBaggins]

49. Those are entirely different things

Everyone is reporting on contaminated water that's leaking... Arnie is just making stuff up.

The magnitude of the two couldn't be much farther apart.

[davidpdx]

16. Scary shit

The article said the removal of the rods will take a year. I'd say the chance of an earthquake in Japan in a year are pretty damn high. It just is a matter of where and how large.

There is already a huge part of the area around the plant that is uninhabitable, if an accident were to happen it would wipe out an even larger area.

I live within 800 miles of that thing.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. There are earthquakes in Japan every day

Forget magnitude, the main concern is about the *intensity* of an earthquake that might occur in the area around the reactors. There were several aftershocks in the reactor area (known as the Fukushima Hamadori district in Japan) after the 9.0 earthquake, many of them registering as "high potential for major destruction" on the Japanese seismic intensity scale (6 on a scale of 7), and while there was a 6.0 magnitude earthquake in the neighborhood last week, its seismic intensity at the reactor site was calculated as only 4 (hanging lamps, etc., start swaying, some things might fall off of shelves).

At this stage, it would have to be a really catastrophic accident to render an even greater area uninhabitable (currently approximately 230 square miles).

I live about 100 miles from the complex.

[davidpdx]

24. That's a little too close for comfort for me

We have been having our own problems over here with fake parts in nuclear power plants which has caused some of them to be shut down. Then with the huge need for power during the summer they have been talking about possible blackouts where a siren will sound giving people notice that the power will be cut off. Apparently one of the reactors is coming back online this week, but it's going to be very touch and go especially with the high temperatures and humidity. People working in public offices are working without lights and air due to the government cutting back on power usage.

Occasionally when you guys over there have a quake we will feel it over here.

Were you there during the Fukashima quake and tsunami?

[Art_from_Ark]

29. Interestingly enough,

while I have lived relatively close to the Fukushima disaster area for years, by a twist of fate I was far away on the day of the mega-disaster, and did not experience the huge earthquake firsthand. It was nonetheless a really weird, almost surreal, time for me. If I had been doing my regular routine on that day, I would have been in a high-rise building in Tokyo getting shaken around like a rag doll, and I would have been stranded in Tokyo that night because public transportation out of the city was shut down. As it was, communications were also shut down, and I couldn't contact anyone for hours and hours. I started wondering if my house was still standing and if people I knew were injured, or worse. Fortunately, my house is at least far enough from the sea that the tsunami was not a problem there (although it caused considerable havoc 30-40 miles away)

Anyway, I was finally able to get back home a few days later, just after the nuclear plant explosions, and radiation levels in my city were well above the comfort level (but not nearly as bad as those closer to Dai-ichi). It was like a ghost town for a while, as a lot of people had apparently self-evacuated, despite the fact that transportation was severely limited. Supermarkets were nearly devoid of shoppers and shelves were half-empty, as a lot of food had to be diverted to the hardest-hit areas. Gas stations had fuel only sporadically, and it was quickly sold out, leaving some drivers waiting in long lines for nothing. Nearly all street lights were shut off as well. It took a couple of weeks before things started to get back to something resembling normal.

I had a few personal experiences during that time that were kind of strange as well. One experience occurred while I was talking to a local greengrocer after I had just gotten back in town. He was playing some American R&B songs on his shop's audio system. After a while, he asked me whether I planning to stay in Japan or move back to my hometown (which is in Arkansas). At that exact moment, the singer sang "Tell your mama, tell your pa, I'm gonna ship you back to Arkansas!" It really freaked me out.

[davidpdx]

43. I heard a lot of foreigners did leave or move to other places in Japan

I don't blame them. I probably would have packed up and it the road.

Our biggest looming disaster is the madman across the boarder with artillery pointed at the Seoul area. I'm about 25 miles south of the boarder. I think the son of a bitch is crazy, but he well knows if he does anything it will be a death sentence for him and his nation. The first few years I was here it scared me a bit, but now a days I just shrug it off like the South Koreans do.

[Art_from_Ark]

45. There was (still is?) an official advisory to US citizens to not stay for more than a year

within 50 miles of the reactors. And the 12-mile exclusion zone is still in effect, so people not connected in some way with the cleanup/containment effort are still not allowed to live within 12 miles of the reactors. Some Europeans I knew in my area did pack up and leave. Some friends back in the US were advising me to hightail it out of the area. But for various reasons I decided to stay.

And I understand about your local madman. He just recently lobbed a missile toward Okinawa. And his crazy father lobbed a missile over Hokkaido.

[davidpdx]

47. The Korean Navy just got a new submarine

I was saying to my wife I wish they'd sail up to North Korea and lob a missile up Kim Jong Un's ass.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. This picture was taken a few days after the 3-11 earthquake

The sign says that the expressway between Mito and Fukushima Iisaka was closed due to the earthquake.

[PearliePoo2]

26. Earthquakes In Japan? We GOT your earthquakes in Japan right here...

Check this out!
I've got it set to show just this last week, (there have been 12!) but you can set it to show ALL of them back to the fateful day of March 11th, 2011.
Whoaaa...holy shit.
http://www.japanquakemap.com/week

[Art_from_Ark]

28. The seismic activity for March-May 2011 is really amazing

[madokie]

18. Tell me how building these things were a good idea to begin with

We have somewhere around 100 operating nuclear power plants here in the USA. Some, or many I should say, are near large metropolitan areas with many millions of peoples lives at stake. For the life of me I can not square this round hole

[Art_from_Ark]

19. In Japan, at least,

nuclear power plants were promoted as a way to 1) provide "cheap" electrical power in a country which has few conventional energy resources, and 2) stimulate economic development in (at the time) isolated, low-income areas.

[Sirveri]

20. Good, that's the correct course of action.

If you can't guarentee the containment structure will not fall down and spill everything everywhere, move the stuff to somewhere safer.

[Junkdrawer]

21. Yes it is. But it will be dangerous as hell....

Fingers crossed.

[FBaggins]

41. Why?

Seriously... why is it "dangerous as hell" ?

Unit 4's pool wasn't seriously damaged... the fuel is obviously intact... they aren't using some portable crane, they took months to build a steady structure.

Despite Arnie's nonsense, it isn't possible to get a criticality accident by dropping a fuel bundle back into the pool. These things have been modeled for decades assuming more-than-worse-case scenarios (non-borated water, compressed fuel, lack of racks between the two bundles, bundles directly in contact with one another, etc).

It's easy to come up with a scenario that would be bad news... but "dangerous as hell"?

Not so much.


Now... talk to me when they try to open the RPV of a unit that melted down. That will be something worth talking about. But it's still years down the road.

[Junkdrawer]

51. "Arnie's nonsense"??? Really?

Arnie's probably forgotten more than you know about nuclear fuel bundles.

[FBaggins]

52. Yes... really.

In fact, "nonsense" is the polite word for it.

Arnie's probably forgotten more than you know about nuclear fuel bundles.

That's entirely possible. In fact, he appears to have forgotten everything he may have originally known on the subject.

An unstoppable ongoing nuclear reaction? Fuel rods catching fire if they're exposed to air? A high risk that they'll drop a bundle because the computer that used to track where every bundle was won't be assisting (it will be a different computer)?

And let's not forget that this is the same guy who to this day insists that the explosion at unit 3 was a nuclear criticality. That was nonsense at the time, but at least there was a one-in-a-billion chance that it could have happened... but that chance fell to zero just days later when it was clear that the fuel pool was not leaking.

[Art_from_Ark]

22. So then the question is,

where is a safe place to store 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel? And how can it be transported there safely?

[Sirveri]

37. The safe place is clearly not where it currently is.

Transport would likely be via truck and dry cask for any undamaged fuel cell assemblies.

They might end up dumping it into the Marianas trench, I know that the US used to do that in the Atlantic trench. The main thing is to get it out of a compromised structure that is at risk of collapse.

[Art_from_Ark]

44. Of course, transporting such hazardous materials by truck would not be so safe,

especially considering that such trucks would be traveling through populated areas.

And dumping 400 tons of toxic nuclear waste in the Marianas Trench would probably not be looked upon appreciatively by the international community, especially by the countries in the vicinity.

I imagine some of that spent fuel might be transported by ship to a reprocessing center up the coast.

[PearliePoo2]

23. I've got a really bad feeling about this...

More from the article:
Spent fuel rods also contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances in the universe, that gets formed during the later stages of a reactor core's operation.

"There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other," Gundersen said.
He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn't designed to absorb.
"The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can't stop it. There are no control rods to control it," Gundersen said. "The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction."
The rods are also vulnerable to fire should they be exposed to air, Gundersen said.

The fuel assemblies have to be first pulled from the racks they are stored in, then inserted into a heavy steel chamber. This operation takes place under water before the chamber, which shields the radiation pulsating from the rods, can be removed from the pool and lowered to ground level.
The chamber is then transported to the plant's common storage pool in an undamaged building where the assemblies will be stored.

Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris during an investigation into the chamber earlier this month.

Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician, who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.

"Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don't have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods," Kimura said.

And if an another strong earthquake strikes before the fuel is fully removed that topples the building or punctures the pool and allow the water to drain, a spent fuel fire releasing more radiation than during the initial disaster is possible, threatening Tokyo 125 miles away.

Tokyo?? Tokyo has a population of over 13 million!

fuck...

[Art_from_Ark]

30. The Tokyo Metro Area has 30 million population

And there are millions more living between the metro area and Dai-ichi, as well as on the other side of Dai-ichi.

[PearliePoo2]

33. 30 plus million??? Good grief!

I can't even imagine that kind of density!
If this nuclear shit-storm goes even more critical, where and how would you even evacuate millions of people?
It would be a catastrophic, logistical nightmare of epic and probably deadly consequences. Panic would surely ensue.
Do you or does anyone you know test your foodstuffs for contamination? I hear it takes a fairly sophisticated and expensive machine to get a true accurate read-out for food.
I certainly would never trust what TEPCO or the present government officials are saying. They are proven liars that have tried to sugar-coat this disaster from the beginning.
Personally, I am now avoiding all food products that are sourced from Japan. Mushrooms, rice, soy sauce and seaweed (nori) are at the top of the list.

[Art_from_Ark]

36. It is pretty darn dense

Roughly 10,000 people per square mile in the metro area, by my calculations. Of course, the 23 wards/boroughs that make up what is considered the city of Tokyo are much more densely packed-- 9 million people living in 623 square kilometers (240 square miles)! The 13 million figure you cited is the population of what they call here the Tokyo Metropolis-- or, Tokyo State, if you will (like New York City and New York State)-- 13 million people living in 845 square miles (including the 23 boroughs). There are millions more on the west side of Tokyo (Yokohama, Kawasaki, etc), on the north (Saitama, Urawa, etc), on the northeast (Matsudo, Kashiwa), and along Tokyo Bay. All very crowded, high-density areas. My city roughly 40 miles NE of Tokyo (considered to be on the edge of the metro area by some interpretations) has a lower population density of "only" about 1000 per square mile, and it's a little less compact than a neighboring city.

Trying to evacuate the area between Dai-ichi (excluding the exclusion zone, which is already evacuated) and Tokyo would be a logistical nightmare. And that's not even counting the people who are living on the other side of Dai-ichi.

[hobbit709]

25. not as scary as leaving them there.

[Safetykitten]

27. Hey, the Fukiexperts say will say...wait. Where are our experts?

[Octafish]

31. Ask your doctor if plutonium is right for you.

DOE-STD-1128-98

Guide of Good Practices for Occupational Radiological Protection in Plutonium Facilities

EXCERPT...

4.2.3 Characteristics of Plutonium Contamination

There are few characteristics of plutonium contamination that are unique. Plutonium
contamination may be in many physical and chemical forms. (See Section 2.0 for the many
potential sources of plutonium contamination from combustion products of a plutonium fire
to radiolytic products from long-term storage.) [font color="blue"]The one characteristic that many believe is
unique to plutonium is its ability to migrate with no apparent motive force. Whether from
alpha recoil or some other mechanism, plutonium contamination, if not contained or
removed, will spread relatively rapidly throughout an area. [/font color]

SOURCE (PDF file format): http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/techstds/docs/standard/DOE-STD-1128-2008.pdf

[WinkyDink]

34. You know what the 1% say to the possibility of 30 million deaths?

Same thing they say about lawyers.

[RobertEarl]

35. Reactor #4

The building lost it's top two floors to an explosion and fire. No video of that exists that I have seen.

The reactor was not running at the time of 3/11. It had just had its fuel removed to the spent fuel pool, so that was some very reactive fuel on 3/11.

The fuel pool must have lost its cooling waters after 3/11, either from leaks or boiling away what little water was left, as the pumps could not replace or circulate the cooling water.

A main concern was that the building holding the pool 3 stories above ground was about to collapse, spilling the rods all over the place. There is now a new structure over the pool which contains the apparatus required to remove the rods.

The feeling is that since the rods in the pool already overheated, the rods may have disintegrated and not be intact, as when placed. If that is true, then any movement may lead to another catastrophic sequence of events.

Keep your fingers crossed and know that we do live in interesting times, where actions half a world away could still result in injury to you and your loved ones.

Indeed, the webcam from the plant showed a foggy atmosphere at 3 in the afternoon JST. Something is overheating there now.

[FBaggins]

40. Hardly a thing right in there.

The building lost it's top two floors to an explosion and fire

Nope. It lost the non-structural outer shell of the upper two floors. The structural members were intentionally removed months later to make room for the fuel-removal equipment.

The fuel pool must have lost its cooling waters after 3/11, either from leaks or boiling away what little water was left, as the pumps could not replace or circulate the cooling water.

Nope. You've been corrected on this multiple times over the last couple years. In the initial days of the accident it was worried that there might be a leak... but that has long-since been dismissed as an error. The pool was never dry.

The feeling is that since the rods in the pool already overheated, the rods may have disintegrated and not be intact, as when placed.

Nope. There's no longer a valid concern that the fuel overheated or that the rods "disintegrated". They've had a clear view into that pool for over two years and the fuel is undamaged apart from debris falling into the pool.

If that is true, then any movement may lead to another catastrophic sequence of events.

Nope. The margin of safety in a fuel pools is many MANY times larger than the worst scenario of dropping a fuel bundle. You could drop one outside of the pool and that would be a mess for the people who had to clean it up... but there is no catasrophy scenario for unit 4 apart from the collapse of the building itself (which was never really in danger).

we do live in interesting times, where actions half a world away could still result in injury to you and your loved ones.

Only the risk that irrational fears might drive you over the edge. Fukushima was never a big risk to those hald a world away... and it certainly ceased to be even that much quite some time back.

Indeed, the webcam from the plant showed a foggy atmosphere at 3 in the afternoon JST. Something is overheating there now.

Riiight... because "foggy atmosphere" can only be caused by something that endangers the entire globe. See my irrational fear comment above.

[RobertEarl]

46. Haha

You have been wrong about Fukushima from day one. You really are blind to the truth, aren't you?

Well, the science that the 'crazy' anti-nukers have been saying for 2 years now is dripping out bit by bit.

All one has to do is see the pictures of the damaged #4 concrete structure blown apart, and the fire company boom pumping water into the fuel pool.

And notice there are no pictures of the rods in the spent fuel pools, no videos from deep in the #4 pool.... Or do you have one pic up your sleeve?

Your wishful thinking and denial of pictorial evidence reminds me of the style of climate deniers.

[FBaggins]

50. Hilarious

You have been wrong about Fukushima from day one.

And yet... for all the times you've repeated that and been challenged on it... you haven't provided a single example.

And notice there are no pictures of the rods in the spent fuel pools, no videos from deep in the #4 pool.... Or do you have one pic up your sleeve?

There have been lots of such photos and videos... and you've been given them multiple times in the past. Including those from pool #3 where you and Arnie continue to claim that there was a nuclear explosion in the fuel itself (yet it sits right there). They've even removed two fuel bundles from the pool to check for damage and measure any corrosion from the use of seawater.

&feature=player_detailpage

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201208290020

[RobertEarl]

53. Heh

Again.... no pics showing the pool #4 in depth, showing the conditions of the rods therein. So how would you know the condition? And if it was all so simple and safe, why did they go out of their way to build a huge covered structure just to remove the safe rods from the pool?

Looking at the webcams one can see the heat signatures of the reactors/pools rising in the air. Given the right humidity and temperatures a nice radioactive fog forms. It's a normal atmospheric reaction.

And there is the idea that the melted cores having burned down into the ground are acting like geysers which burp on occasion as geysers are wont to do. We have a grand experiment happening and guess who the lab rats are?

[FBaggins]

54. Even more hilarious... keep 'em coming.

Again.... no pics showing the pool #4 in depth, showing the conditions of the rods therein.

The rods are in bundles that are themselves enclosed within racks. If you could see the fuel rods, that would be evidence that something had happened. The fact that they're sitting right where they started proves that they didn't melt down (which wouldn't have been physically possible knowing what we know now - that the pool is intact).

Looking at the webcams one can see the heat signatures of the reactors/pools rising in the air. Given the right humidity and temperatures a nice radioactive fog forms.

Humidity and temperature produce radiation now? What you mean is that you imagine that it's radioactive... but we've already seen how far afield your imagination takes you sometimes... haven't we? Hey! Here's comes one now!

And there is the idea that the melted cores having burned down into the ground are acting like geysers which burp on occasion as geysers are wont to do.

Such "ideas" must be chemically-induced or from a dream state... Because they certainly aren't the result of scientific inquiry. All of the evidence to date says that 99%+ (probably > 99.9%) of the cores are either within the RPVs or on the floor of the primary containments. The most comprehensive simulation that I've seen implied that the corium in the worst-melted unit burned about 1/3 of the way (inches) through the first layer of concrete above the steel bottom of the contanment vessel (which is then above 25 additional feet of concrete).

[RobertEarl]

55. So, you got nothing?

Last edited Thu Aug 15, 2013, 06:38 PM - Edit history (1)

No pics, or anything other than your wishful thinking that's its all good and under control?

I get the denial. It is normal human action to deny the facts when dealing with such a calamity. This is a major screwup and the radiation is leaking all over the place. Not just from the melted cores that are polluting the groundwater but also into the air. Every worker there (about 20,000 so far) has to be suited up just to enter the gates. And there are still 150,000 residents who have been forced from their lands, never to return.

ON EDIT: The vid FB posted may or may not be from #4. Even if it is, it shows just a small section of the huge pool and that part may just be the UNUSED rods that have never been heated up which is what has been removed: UNUSED rod.

If it was all so cool, they would just yank the rods out and be done with it. Thank gawd FB is not running the show over there, eh?

[FBaggins]

56. Oh... my apologies.

I didn't realize that you were visually impaired. I should have been more sensitive.

You've been given pictures and video of clearly undamaged fuel bundles in the pool. You've also been given a link to a story with a clear photo of one of the fuel bundles (undaamged) that has already been removed from the pool.

You're the one that's "got nothing". Absolutely zero evidence that the pool was every dry... or that the fuel there ever overheated (let alone melted or caught fire).

I get the denial.

"Get"? Buddy... you embody it.

Every worker there (about 20,000 so far) has to be suited up just to enter the gates.

Untrue... but let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Someone has to wear a suit when working in a nuclear facility that had multiple meltdowns? Oh the horror!

Right now the largest impact to that group has been a much less than 1% increase in their lifetime risk of getting an almost entirely benign thyroid cancer years down the road.

And there are still 150,000 residents who have been forced from their lands, never to return.

Not keeping up with the news on that either... eh?

[RobertEarl]

59. Wow

You really are in deep denial about Fukushima.

It matters not what you believe, or say, The facts are the facts and the crisis is escalating and nuclear power business is dead. DEAD. Finally.

[FBaggins]

60. Five reactors under construction within spittin' distance of your front door

And two more a couple years behind them even closer.

Plus scores of them under construction or on order around the world and Japan gearing up to restart theirs.

But yeah... I'm sure that proclaiming on the internet that nuclear power is dead DEAD makes you feel better.

[magical thyme]

57. the structure is likely tilted and is bulging after its last explosion

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUKBRE97D00M20130814

Tepco has shored up the building, which may have tilted and was bulging after the explosion, a source of global concern that has been raised in the U.S. Congress.....


Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris during an investigation into the chamber earlier this month.....

"Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don't have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods," Kimura (former Tepco technician) said.....

"I think it'll probably be longer than they think and they're probably going to run into some issues," said Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University who is an expert on nuclear containment and worked at the San Onofre nuclear plant in California.

Corrosion from the salt water will have also weakened the building and equipment, he said.

[FBaggins]

58. Not really.

They surveyed in great detail early on when people used poor internet photos to claim that it was toppling over. The variation from square/true was minuscule (still within tolerances for a new building). Of course, when those variations were reported, the internet loon-mill translated it into proof that they were right all along. That the building was in danger of falling over with the next strong gust of wind. Multiple earthquakes since then (some fairly strong) have not done the least bit of damage... but they are undeterred.

Structural engineers have confirmed that even another quake as large as the one that started the whole chain of events, would not endanger the building or the SFP.

Tepco has shored up the building,

Actually... no. They added additional supports under the pool even after they confirmed that there was no structural damage to the existing supports. All they've done to the building itself is remove debris and cut away pieces that would have obstructed their ability to get to the fuel.

Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris

Wait! What you're saying is that when explosions blow debris into it he sky above a pool of water... some debris ends up in the pool? Goodness... that's shocking!

[magical thyme]

62. No, I'm not saying. Reuters is saying, based on the people they interviewed

such as former Tepco workers who have been on site. But then, what the hell would they know compared to an anonymous keyboard warrior on DU?

Oh, and welcome to ignore.

[DonRedwood]

38. k and r for solar and wind

[PufPuf23]

42. Incalculable rational; rational to move spent fuel to stable off site location for best case.

Suppose civilization devolves to a second world at extreme -- archaic nomenclature -- status for a generation or more.

The Earth, but more rightly humanity, has created hundreds of nuclear power plants that have a long life of toxic but may decay in a dark age in humanity.

The Earth has entered the Anthropogenic geologic epoch that ends the Holocene.

The Anthropogenic geologic epoch will likely be a boundary condition in a geologic time frame.

Humanity has taxed the slack out of our environment causal to period of mass extinction and disruption of ecosystems on a global scale.

Each nuclear facility now in existence is a potential Fukushima at some order of scale.

Humanity will tend not to stagnate or become toxic by living our lives within the realm of contemporary natural science and a large margin for risk.

Humanity has not had the technology, morals, nor will to use atomic energy in a manner to not diminish Earth nor our own society in my 60 plus years.

Please solve this problem.