Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1006

R1 may be the most stable and capable of being stabilized--scary concept--but they have to figure out what is going on in it, so they're sending a team inside the containment after super-cleaning the air? Am I right on that?
by radioguy 5/6/2011 5:37:24 PM

@markfm : this is really disappointing. if japan made a change, the world would listen.
by Edano 5/6/2011 5:39:11 PM

but they are cowards, industry puppets.
by Edano 5/6/2011 5:39:41 PM

www.mext.go.jp
by elainekirk 5/6/2011 5:40:27 PM

<<<<<<< Is making Starbucks French Roast FRESH for everyone :-)
by Veenie 5/6/2011 5:41:29 PM

@veenie yes please!!!!!
by elainekirk 5/6/2011 5:41:57 PM

Stayin with my Gevalia Traditional Roast, but thanks!
by Markfm 5/6/2011 5:42:24 PM

@Veenie oooh sounds wonderful . yes please.
by Nancy 5/6/2011 5:42:36 PM

@DonnerT 1-3 are all melted inside to some extent. R2 is inside the building and just puffing like a choo-choo train, but it's hard to see anything. It looks like it gets a load from the concrete lifter and then boils it off in a flash, but that may just be gestalt projection. It probably has melted through so keeping it cool for as long as it takes to coll is the hard part, but that may be at least stable enough to see a cooldown?

R3 is destroyed in some way. Seriously destroyed. The RPV seems intact, but that may be all.

@all, is that about what we have?
by radioguy 5/6/2011 5:45:27 PM

#2 also has the interesting high buildups of radioactivity at one of the torus/suppression chamber radiation monitoring instruments. It made it to around 130 Sv/hr a week or so back, had a huge drop, but has been building rapidly again the last few days.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 5:47:39 PM

i still don't understand the shutdown of hamaoka. if there is no actual earthquake threat and no actual safety concern, why shut it down now ? it makes no sense.
by Edano 5/6/2011 5:48:37 PM

@radioguy - I hold some hope for 5 & 6 only because we have been kept ignorant of their true condition. I believe 1, 2 & 3 reactors and
2,3,& 4 pools are very hot bread and soon to turn brown, goners.
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 5:49:55 PM

@Markfm The coriumm sieve crusting and cracking as the criticalities roll inside makes sense to me there, but again, making sense doesn't make it right.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 5:50:27 PM

Veen -- #3 Nozzle temp has risen from 99C to 162C from 2 May to 6 May. Drywell RPV bellows temp has risen from 188C to 238C. Pretty healthy rises.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 5:58:10 PM

@Veenie 1C/h
by xxx 5/6/2011 5:58:34 PM

Been wanting to ask this question for a long time. How many tons of raw glass making material (clay, silica, lime, etc) whould it take to dilute a reactors fuel load to non criticality? And would there be enough room in the reactor and drywell to hold it?
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 5:58:41 PM

construction of a seawall does not afford shutdown. something is wrong. there is more to happen.
by Edano 5/6/2011 5:59:32 PM

Maybe add some nuclear poisons like boric acid and barium.
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 6:00:23 PM

Interesting question. The thing is, to be non critical you have to separate the stuff, not just add molten glass to encase it. The idea of "critical mass" is that there is enough of the radioactive material, close enough together, to sustain a reaction. They've been using boric acid with the water they're injecting, at least early on (no clue if they are still mixing it in).
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:01:12 PM

@Markfm Was that rise sudden, I mean a quick uptic on a curve?
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:02:10 PM

@Markfm So, looks like aprox, 10 degrees per day so 280 C could be reached by the 10th.if it doesn't accelerate ?
by Veenie 5/6/2011 6:03:07 PM

@Edano I can't say that for one single second since it happened I have felt like it was under control in any but the most tenuous way. I keep waiting to breathe even one little sigh of relief.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:03:40 PM

Both temps in 3 and CAMS in 2 are reversals, changing to increasing values, pretty rapidly, as opposed to slow decreases in values. It does look like increasing #3 water injection, now 9 m3/hr instead of 6.8 m3/hr, has helped, but surprisingly the temps did still go up over the day between readings, even with the higher injection rate.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:04:04 PM

@xxx 1Ch ?? wow, that would mean tomorrow afternnon PST.no time to spare, they must be in full bore flooding stage to keep this contained
by Veenie 5/6/2011 6:04:21 PM

@DonnerT Yes. Realistic question, here. Has anyone heard any answer come from anyone "in charge" that seems like it's trying to do anything but keep the lid on this? "The Plan" was timelines for processes I can't even see within visible range yet.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:05:56 PM

From earlier today: "With the increase in injection to 9 cubic meters/hr, #3 temp still rose by 5C and 3C respectively at feedwater nozzle and bottom, between 12:00 on 5 May and 6:00 on 6 May. 3 core now reads 162C and 147C. Similarly drywell RPV bellows and HVH measurement points have risen from 228C/118C to 238C/132C."
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:06:19 PM

@mark ty I have deleted my unverified glad we now have figurres
by elainekirk 5/6/2011 6:08:34 PM

@Markfm - It seem obvious to me you don't put out a neclear fire with water, which itself is a modulator and necessary to convert radiological energy to thermal. The coreum (sp) that is now growning is hot enough to melt the glass minerals and the natural convection in the core would mix them with the fuel. After all that is what evenually put out TMI and Chernobyl.
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 6:08:39 PM

@DonnerT I don't know the answer to that. But keeping it cool with a moderator does seem to have issues at this point.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:09:23 PM

@radioguy: Seems to me the more diluted the fuel is in the reactor and then maybe the drywell the less likely the fire will last lone enought to breach both.
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 6:11:19 PM

Compare the latest temp rises to what happened the day before, prior to increasing water injection: From 5:00 4 May to noon 5 May the increases were 34C/5C in the core, and 34C/14C in the drywell. So, the good bump in water injection seems to have helped slow the rate of increase.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:11:27 PM

@Markfm It just seems so much right on the edge of critical, like they are keeping it just this side of under control. A completely daunting job. I'm sure.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:22:24 PM

What I personally don't understand is why 9m3/hr isn't enough to damp #3, the temp still rising. They mentioned that there had been a temporary decrease in flow rate some days back -- it must have been enough decrease, for long enough, to put the #3 core into a configuration that's generating more heat.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:24:44 PM

@radioguy Ok, i have a question, we been seeing steady steam coming out, however it is not linear, so do they have the steam pressure valves working again ?.AND if the temps are at 240C, this means, immediate evaporation, so shouldn't the steam be continuous ?......and isn't the steam radiocative?
by Veenie 5/6/2011 6:25:34 PM

Been raeding @all this and the only thing I can think of is a proposal by the Russians sometime ago was to inject a liquid metal. I haven't seen that brought up lately and it seems like the Japanese poo pooed the idea thinking it wasn't that bad to try something like that. Well one thing is consistent with these operators, they are consistently wrong.
by Jim 5/6/2011 6:26:00 PM

In #3 I do see a drywell CAMS spike, 3 Sv/hr increase, on 29 April, similar to a 4 Sv/hr rise seen on 16 April, in otherwise downward-trending data, but that's all -- then again, no core CAMS readings.
by Markfm edited by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:28:55 PM

@all i have a question, we been seeing steady steam coming out, however it is not linear, so do they have the steam pressure valves working again ?.AND if the temps are at 240C, this means, immediate evaporation, so shouldn't the steam be continuous ?......and isn't the steam radiocative?
by Veenie 5/6/2011 6:29:59 PM

@Markfm Perhaps the balance is swinging back and forth, the pendulum effect, more water cools, but also provides a moderating effect to slow nuetrons and restart the fission process. Maybe the water is part of the problem, I think someone may have alluded to that already--so that's why I went back to looking at the liquid metal.
by Jim 5/6/2011 6:31:57 PM

@Veenie Unless we assume that system has integrity, we have to assume some of that cooling-look-concentrated water is escaping as steam. I've been wondering if it IS instantaneaous, and what we're seeing as puffs is the concrete loader they dump huge loads of water with dumping, raising and dumping. I have no idea how long that process takes.
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:32:14 PM

cooling loop
by radioguy 5/6/2011 6:32:25 PM

Trouble with that is you probably have only one shot at it. It has to work the first time.
by Jim 5/6/2011 6:34:25 PM

@you: Glass raw batch material can be pumped through pipes just like water with the Putxmeister cement pumper and put where ever needed. Glass materials produce very little or no steam when melting. I don't think 2000 to 3000 deg would present that much of a problem until the fire went out. I would risk a short spike in radiation to kill the fire over a very long term radioactive steam guiser.
by DonnerT 5/6/2011 6:34:49 PM

Good questions. No idea at all which instruments in #3 are even really working. With that increase in water injection the reported data only shows a 50mm increase in measured water level in #3 compared to the prior day. It's either going poof as steam, they're able to pull it back out again in a loop, the instruments are broken (including the #3 core pressure monitors, which appear to be generating garbage readouts of very low pressure), or some combination.
by Markfm 5/6/2011 6:35:06 PM