Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2263

I am wondering if some sort of timeline of all these details would help at all?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 6:33:32 PM

Just to add to the confusion, this is what NISA said about events that morning: www.nisa.meti.go.jp
"A sound of explosion was made in Unit 2 and the pressure in Suppression Chamber decreased. (06:10 March 15th) Thereafter it was confirmed that a part of wall in the operation area of Unit 4 was damaged. (06:14 March 15th)
The fire at Unit 4 occurred. (09:38 March 15th) It was confirmed that the fire was extinguished spontaneously. (11:00 March 15 th)"
by es 8/28/2011 6:40:36 PM

@lillymunster This old post is very interesting, but of course the website is unavailable :( Pin suggested by @hudebnik ... @Lurking @Nancy The explosion in #4 was supposedly 6 AM but the teppycam had it intact at the time. The 7 AM teppycam was after both #2 and #4 exploded. (note the airborne debris and the glow) gyldengrisgaard.dk">gyldengrisgaard.dk

by M.I.A. 8/28/2011 6:44:04 PM

Looking at those photos it exploded between the 6-7am shot. That was not just a fire. You can see the extent of the damage as the building is much shorter and no longer a clear outline anymore.
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 6:48:17 PM

Thanks for digging that old post out @M.I.A. The old tepcam photo does indeed appear to show substantial damage to the roof area of Unit 4 by 7am. Unfortunately what we're unable to see from that image is whether or not massive damage was also sustained to the lower decks and outer buildings at the same time.
by es 8/28/2011 7:02:49 PM

For a general framework of what we were hearing at the time, here's The Guardian's quick timeline as reported on the 16th. www.guardian.co.uk
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 7:41:45 PM

Oh, and also, the NYT kept its (sporadic) status reports up through the end of April, filled in in week-long chunks. The Google spreadsheet I pasted up from them is complete through April 29th when they stopped updating. docs.google.com
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 7:53:10 PM

@RadioGuy Sometimes going through the old info gives up some good things. "more than 20 people have been exposed to significant radiation." I dont think we have these people accounted for or a report on their doses.
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 7:58:45 PM

March 16, after the 5:45am fire in the corner of 4: "6am: Abnormal noise from one of the plants. Tepco evacuates non-essential staff at the power station leaving 50. It says: "We sincerely apologise for the great distress and inconvenience this incident has caused.""
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:00:40 PM

also on Wed March 16 : "11.30am: It is not realistic to think the No 4 reactor at the plant will "reach criticality", the chief government spokesman says."
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:01:41 PM

What the heck?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:01:54 PM

@lillymunster "the chief government spokesman", that's me, and the statement is basically correct. :)
by Edano 8/28/2011 8:03:28 PM

@Edano Grin.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:03:47 PM

i54.tinypic.com

Ah, now I see I broke the first four days from the NYT status updates out as a jpg back then.
by RadioGuy via I54.tinypic 8/28/2011 8:07:16 PM

How does the rather smallish explosion er, 'abnormal noise', in basically intact unit 2 severely damage the roof of unit 4?
by M.I.A. 8/28/2011 8:07:30 PM

@lillymunster Yes, the occasional criticality references are baffling. FWIW in the NISA report of 16 March the entry for 10:30 on the 15th March says:
"10:30 According to the Nuclear Regulation Act, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry issued the directives as follows. For Unit 4: To extinguish fire and to prevent the occurrence of re-criticality For Unit 2: To inject water to reactor vessel promptly and to vent Drywell." www.nisa.meti.go.jp
by es 8/28/2011 8:08:24 PM

@M.I.A. I have no idea, and there's still (to me) the big mystery of what crashed in the top of the R4 building. That one still nags at me.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:08:43 PM

Note the reference for R4 on March 15th talks about the explosion resulting from the cladding breaking down. Maybe that statement was in response to that. I'm sure that the GoJ officials, reeling and scrambling from multiple monumental disasters fell as easily as we did into talking about the four units as the four reactors in casual reference.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:11:41 PM

So do we think this means recritcality in the SFP?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:18:38 PM

MARCH 24, 1:00 AM
Temperature within the reactor has dropped to 469 degrees Fahrenheit, but remains well above temperature if it was in "cold" shut down.

Isn't it interesting reading these reports now, knowing that TEPCO knew by the time of this report that the core was melted down and not in any danger of going into cold shutdown. Unless they count the corium leaving the building as cold shutdown. "Oh look, it's below the threshold. It's finally shut down."
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:19:09 PM

They make this statement very late in the day they mention recriticality:
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:19:13 PM

7.53pm: Japanese police announce plan to try to cool the spent nuclear fuel pool at the No 4 reactor using water cannon. American specialists says the spent fuel pool has lost all its water, which would cause the rods to overheat and emit even more radiation.
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:19:14 PM

@lillymunster Unless we buy their story if the "backwash through the venting stacks" how else do you get the hydrogen? Whether the cladding left fuel exposed, or got cooled before that, would be the variable. I'd say it was touch and go for a while and that statement might reflect that.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:21:21 PM

We know they fine-tuned their story and spin once they figured out what they needed to hide, so the early docs seem to have bits of either slipped truth or fog-of-disaster fiction. If you look at the state of truth and fiction these days, it's often hard to tell. ;)
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:23:21 PM

@RadioGuy would the situation in #4 spf be enough to create all that hydrogen through either some ongoing reaction or fuel melt. Would the pristine condition in the fuel pool be possible if it was melting cladding?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:23:32 PM

@RadioGuy that is where I get a bit mixed up. Not sure what is truth, spin or statements made with a lack of knowledge...
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:24:17 PM

@lillymunster We saw they melted from the center out in the reactor. In the SFP it would be from hottest spot out. If that were low and away, it might not show from the surface.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:24:48 PM

@lillymunster Exactly
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:25:12 PM

Iy doesn't help when you have reporting agencies intentionally adding to the confusion
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:25:34 PM

we saw bubbles in #4 pool water ...
by Edano 8/28/2011 8:27:31 PM

This is an area we've never been able to get very deep into, because of lack of data. We know SFP 4 is the hottest pool unless there were MOX outloaded in R3, and we all know how long it was ignored becasue R1-3 were far more critical, no pun intended.. it's just the word needed there.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:27:55 PM

We all instantly assumed the R4 hydrogen explosion was from cladding reactions. In fact, tell me... weren't you shocked when you saw that footage of R4 SFP?
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:29:22 PM

Just a thought they said at one point they had to cover the reactor parts that were out for the maitainance/shroud replacement (long after intial event if I remember ) - at the same time they reported filling the reactor with water - as the equipment pool is across from the sfp and the reactor between them if sfp 4 was empty would the heat generated by the reactor oarts have emptied that pool too? was there a gate twixt parts pool and reactor? was the parts pool neglected and water concentrated on the sfp? did the parts pool (empty of water?) generate the hydrogen? or the reactor well /shroud? combination of all
by elainekirk 8/28/2011 8:29:37 PM

I found this image here, just as I recalled, there was no visible damage to unit 4 as a result of the unit 3 explosion: images.smh.com.au
by Peter Melzer via Images.smh.au 8/28/2011 8:31:54 PM

@elainekirk All the right questions.
@Peter Melzer And isn't the vent stack piping already broken in this picture? We'd have to look at the larger one to see.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:34:35 PM

I think we were right all along. The hydrogen for the R4 explosion came from cladding reactions. The question that needs answering is: how badly damaged was the cladding. I assume we'd know if it had actually burned all the way through anywhere, wouldn't we?
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:37:44 PM

Yes, it is. But that is not supposed to be pipe for the Standby Gas Treatment System according to tepco. That sports a similar but thinner piping below the fat pipes shown in the pic I posted this morning.
by Peter Melzer 8/28/2011 8:37:57 PM

@RadioGuy yes the vent pipe was severed when 3 blew up, before 4 had the visual damage
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:37:58 PM

@Peter Melzer Ah. But, I dunno. Life has taught me a healthy respect for Occam's Razor.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:40:26 PM

@elainekirk the early reports said the extra parts were in the fuel pool rather than the equipment pool but we never saw them in the video of the fuel pool. Later, like within the last 1-2 months they filled the reactor well with water when they put the recirculating system on the SFP. We do not have any images of the equipment pool. It appears to be buried in rubble. It also didn't make heat signatures. A big object in that equipment pool could have been the mystery projectile that Joe said hit the wall from the inside causing the top to cave in and the lower part to bulge out...
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:41:32 PM

@Peter Melzer are those smaller pipes then shared into the larger vent system?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:42:05 PM

How much cladding would have to melt to create enough hydrogen to destroy the building?
by lillymunster 8/28/2011 8:43:43 PM

See, I was misled by this pic, too. Look at the insert box at the bottom. Its arrow does not point to the junction of the fat pipe, but to some much smaller piping below it that just happens to look the same. Tepco presumes that is the culprit. I find this somewhat difficult to believe as well: i1214.photobucket.com
by Peter Melzer via I1214.photobucket 8/28/2011 8:44:35 PM

@lillymunster , I presume they feed into the stack which would be on the right outside the pic.
by Peter Melzer 8/28/2011 8:47:04 PM

Here are the R4 briefs from the NYT as they were posted at the time in the updates:
MARCH 15, 6:00 AM
A hydrogen-gas explosion created by chemical reactions with the spent fuel rods damages the building. A fire also breaks out.
MARCH 15, 7:00 PM
Temperature in the spent fuel pool is 183 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 77 degrees).
MARCH 16, 5:45 AM
A fire is reported in the building. An inspection 30 minutes later finds no sign of a fire.
MARCH 17, 5:00 AM
The chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the water covering the spent fuel rods may have boiled off.
MARCH 17
Engineers say the spent fuel pool appears to be leaking as water is disappearing too quickly to be only caused by evaporation.
by RadioGuy 8/28/2011 8:47:12 PM