ScribbleLive

here are a bunch of questions/comments that occured to me as I read the Tepco explanation, and the hiroshimasyndrome posts. Tepco seems to be using the formulas for a 'normal' reactor situation and I wonder if they would still be valid in such an unusual circumstance. The probability percentage for Cm244 to spontaneously fission is 0.000137%. Doesn't that imply that a pretty large sample of Cm244 would have to be in the RV just to arrive at the figures presented for Xe135 (1.7X10^-5 bq/cm3)? Tepco mentions that increased boronation didn't decrease Xe135 reading. But how can they assume that the boron got to where it needed to go? They say that it takes 214hrs to have the water circulate (just shy of 9 days)- is that figure based on dispersion without a circ. system, or with? In either case, the boron wouldn't be effective yet, would it? And that's not even considering that it might have never achieved full concentration near a corium that may be partially sited in a ground water/ injection-trickle-down soup. With that same thought about the 'where's waldo' corium, and the dicey instrumentation, tepco doesn't really know what the temp of the corium is. The bulk of it could be far from any sensors, working or not. And the pressure wouldn't show a change of any note because it LEAKS. On the bottom of page 1, they say "However, we didn’t see any
significant changes in the parameters and the temperature at the bottom of nuclear
reactor lowered as the amount of injected water decreased. (Document 4). Unless this is a bad translation, if the temp lowered as the water injection decreased- water is both a moderator and facillitator of fission, maybe less water (whatever the effective concentration of boron) had a damping effect on fission? Oy, my brain hurts...So many variables!!! BTW, I find it interesting that Iodine131 decays to Xe131, I133 to Xe133, I135 to Xe135.