Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1544

Don't want any dirty water touching those pristine cores.
by Markfm 6/8/2011 2:17:19 PM

Surely a few tons of radioactive water that is recycled myst be better than 100.000 tons of highly radioactive water that ends up going into the sea when it overflows, they know its leaking trough and just keep adding more, it makes no sence.
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:17:33 PM

If they could contain 5 or 10.000 tons and recycle the pollution would be a lot less than what they do now
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:18:27 PM

lol pristine cores is right , now its all on the bottom anyway, the way they are going it might be better to stop pouring water at all, they are already melted as much as they can be.
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:20:16 PM

Given that 1 has punched through, and 2 and 3 are both hot (especially 3), continued water injection is important. The water treatment section is just needed to knock the radiation level down a bit and get some of the random contaminants out -- TEPCO has had a terrible record with things leaking, they're probably operating on the "whatever we do will leak" principle, so at least trying to get it a bit clean before shoveling it though pipes and back into the reactors.
by Markfm edited by Markfm 6/8/2011 2:20:22 PM

most of that water is seawater. they cant reuse that.
by trh 6/8/2011 2:20:45 PM

if they cant reuse seawater why did they start pumping it into the reactors ?
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:21:36 PM

To my knowledge, they've been using "freshwater" not sea any longer....how would they be able to cyphen that if it was clogging up filtration ?
by Veenie 6/8/2011 2:22:55 PM

1000 kg mutant goldfish swimming in the RPVs :)
by Markfm 6/8/2011 2:23:39 PM

err what "filtration" ? the sieve going down to the basement ?
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:23:50 PM

So they did store the MOX in the SFP? For 10 years? Did we decide whether they double rack japanese SFP as they do in USA? www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-report...7zkbgs-1226031464190The commenter quotes a research paper “Reducing the Hazards from Stored Spent Power-Reactor Fuel in the United States” which was submitted 2000; accepted for publication 2003, written by Robert Alvarez, Jan Beyea, Klaus Janberg, Jungmin Kang, Ed Lyman, Allison Macfarlane, Gordon Thompson, Frank N. von Hippel. The authors state that “Because of the unavailability of off-site storage for spent power-reactor fuel, the NRC has allowed high-density storage of spent fuel in pools …virtually all
by cat 6/8/2011 2:23:59 PM

now yes.. but is is going to where the seawater went
by trh 6/8/2011 2:23:59 PM

"high density" probablt means stack until full ... some of the pools where pretty overfilled in my mind
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:25:18 PM

and.. do they use freshwater?????? did they restore the freshwater supply?
by trh 6/8/2011 2:25:49 PM

are they making any progress at all ?
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:26:00 PM

@Markfm 4.bp.blogspot.com
by Majj via 4.bp.blogspot 6/8/2011 2:26:20 PM

On the plus side, they're pre-cooked, ready to eat.
by Markfm 6/8/2011 2:27:17 PM

"restore" here means pump all the fresh water they can from large barges... , doesnt seem like any part of the regular coolant system is restored to any level, except for reactor 5 and 6
by Kristian 6/8/2011 2:27:30 PM

haven't heard of barges for long time.. are they still carrying water to site
by trh 6/8/2011 2:28:54 PM

@cat I don't think they were double racking like in the states but some of the SFP are really full. IIRC 4 had a big load of rods in it. #1 had less. Japan has been putting some old fuel in casks that get sent to France to be reprocessed.

It looks like storing MOX in a SFP is a standard practice. They did it at another reactor in Japan and it is the standard practice on record in the US. This is why I started asking about total MOX shipments to Japan and where all the assemblies are. Trying to determine if more than the 32 assemblies from 1999 were ever delivered to Fuku

by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:30:47 PM

@Kristian No it means double racking. see link. "virtually all U.S. spent-fuel pools have been re-racked to hold spent-fuel assemblies at densities that approach those in reactor cores. In order to prevent the spent fuel from going critical, the fuel assemblies are partitioned off from each other in metal boxes whose walls contain neutron-absorbing boron. It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. "
by cat 6/8/2011 2:31:10 PM

@lillymunster so was the MOX in with there too?
by cat 6/8/2011 2:32:19 PM

They have watering access to 1-3 reactors via the emergency fire department lines. If those were not there it would be utterly FUBAR.
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:32:28 PM

@trh The only traffic I see near the Power plant is a Coast Guard Boat going up and down.... no one comes or go there ... marinetraffic.com
by Majj 6/8/2011 2:33:19 PM

@cat As far as I can tell so far the 32 assemblies were all loaded into the reactor per public documents saying so. I have not found another shipment of MOX to FUKU as of yet and why I was looking to make sure we had all MOX shipments known. So if what I have so far is right, no MOX in any of the SFPs. Still looking to make sure we didn't miss a shipment.
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:33:47 PM

We've gone over SFP racking multiple times. Pretty sure Daiichi didn't stack, but rather they went to higher density single layer.
by Markfm 6/8/2011 2:35:06 PM

@lillymunster In a lot of ways, it's a moot point. The spent fuel is the SFPs has the whole assortment of nasties in it.
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:35:34 PM

@radioguy The initial question was if there was fresh MOX in #3 SFP and could it have contributed to the power of the blast etc. at 3. So far not finding anything to say that was the case.
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:36:29 PM

I did find that the decay heat in MOX stays hotter longer when looking at over a year out. So the core in 3 could run hotter longer.
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:37:09 PM

@lillymunster I thought there was 180K ? MOX at fuki. Not sure of exact amount. Could that all be in the core?
by cat 6/8/2011 2:40:24 PM

@ Nancy I understand, and not to minimize the MOX at all, because it's plutonium, but that spent fuel is so bad, the distinction is almost a critic's point. Still the reactor with the plutonium did blow up in a very convincing manner.
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:42:08 PM

@Markfm When we were discussing before we were not considering unused MOX in there.
by cat 6/8/2011 2:42:10 PM

@Kristian beamer has a better grasph on the source of the water being used that I do, have not been following it to much, but the issue of barge water (as the source) vs a supply line from outside the plant may have something to do with the "chemistry" of the water... I don't know what thype they we barging in, but they may not and may still not have the ability to adjust the chemistry as much at the p;ant.. the systems to prep the water may be incapasitated at the plant.. I have not seen reports either way... just conversation and practiclaity thoughts with bearmer.. if you see him on you might ask him
by fitter 6/8/2011 2:43:50 PM

@lillymunster. What happened to the MOX that localactivists prevented from being loaded in 2010?
by cat 6/8/2011 2:44:11 PM

@cat I have not heard that number. Are you sure that isn't the total of all fuel? This is the info I have on the 32 assemblies for #3. "32 assemblies - 225kg of plutonium plus several tons of uranium"
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:44:13 PM

@cat the standard assemblies contain about 180 Kg of fuel. I don't know how much more the MOX assemblies weigh, but it's probably about that still. If you know the percentage that is Pu and multiply by 180 and then by 32
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:44:24 PM

A New York Times article states that 32 assemblies in the spent fuel pool of Unit 3 are MOX. The MOX fuel rods were stored in the pool but TEPCO announced they were being loaded into the core last fall, so we think those are currently in the core.
allthingsnuclear.org
by trh 6/8/2011 2:44:27 PM

@trh As hard as they fought to get permission, I bet they were in the core before the ink was dry on the OK.
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:45:26 PM

@Nancy I'm actually glad we haven't (yet) identified more MOX on-site at the time of the accident. 32 is enough really. I wonder if they bothered to think through the fact that, yes, the MOX makes those rods too deadly for terrorists to handle once they've been in the core for a while, but it makes them pretty hard for plant workers to handle in an accident as well. I wonder if the trade-off is worth it (assuming that's the real reason they wanted the MOX.)
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:50:25 PM

Blackout hits Fukushima nuclear plant's Nos. 1, 2 reactors

TOKYO, June 8, Kyodo

The crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered power outages at its Nos. 1 and 2 reactors Wednesday, with lights cut off in the units' central control room, and water level and pressure indictors for one of the reactors out of service for more than three hours.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the blackout did not affect its water injection operation to prevent the crisis from worsening and no evidence of abnormalities was found in data on the No. 2 reactor after power was restored in the evening, but the government urged the utility again to diversify power sources at the six-reactor complex.

The power outage occurred around 2:20 p.m. and electricity began to be restored around 5:30 p.m., the utility known as TEPCO said, adding that it is investigating the cause of the incident.
by Veenie 6/8/2011 2:53:48 PM

@radioguy As am I. The more I read the more concern it raises for how dangerous this fuel is, not just in running it in the reactor but the amount and types of byproducts it puts out, but the long term volatility of it. The decay heat takes longer to go down and spent MOX requires 500 years of safe storage vs. 50 years for LEU fuel. I am assuming that is cask storage.
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:54:51 PM

Though I have to admit, the definition of "terrorist" has become pretty fuzzy on this issue. Notice that the majority of the letters in TEPCO are also in "terrorist"? In fact, they're all in the phrase "Corporate Terrorist".
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:55:18 PM

More science groups join the ocean research www.newswise.com
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:56:05 PM

@radioguy ?? Like in a google search?
by lillymunster 6/8/2011 2:56:41 PM

No I was just being silly there. But really, they're trying to ramp up terrorist fears again to distract attention from the fact that NO terrorist has ever done the damage to all of us that BP and TEPCO (and Wall Street) have done over the past few years.
by radioguy 6/8/2011 2:59:29 PM