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Atomic gardening

does it say where the image is from?

it wants to say that the hottest spot is not at the bottom of the vessel, but at the lower wall, and there is a certain chance that the entire bottom head falls down.

Chinese PWR corium experiment scitation.aip.org

Creep-tests of French & German RPV steel www.iasmirt.org

@lillymunster if the analysis is correct, then the rpv can have two possible scenarios:
1. complete loss of rpv bottom (#1 reactor) with complete fuel loss
2. burnthru holes in the lower wall section. this scenario could explain why tepco insists that there is still corium in the rpv (#2 and 3). corium jets out of or drips thru the holes in the rpv wall, but a big part of it stays in the bottom calotte.

if there is really only 600° at the bottom, and not 1100°, the penetration holes could eventually hold it.

@Edano ah! Your right. So either holes in that hot zone or total bottom head failure. Plop!

Rice output down due to March disaster

The March 11th disaster has led to slumping rice harvests in northeastern Japan. Fukushima is especially hard hit.

The agriculture ministry says nationwide rice output for this year, excluding rice for processing use, was 8.13 million tons. This is down 1.3 percent from last year for the 3rd straight year of decline.

But the Tohoku region, which is a major rice producing area, saw a bigger drop of 6.3 percent after many rice fields were inundated by the tsunami.

In Fukushima Prefecture, where rice planting was banned on farmland contaminated with radioactive fallout from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, output dropped nearly 20 percent.

But overall output still exceeds the nation's demand for rice, which is estimated at 8.05 million tons for the year, in a continued trend of oversupply.

The agriculture ministry says it will work to decontaminate farmland in Fukushima prefecture where radioactive cesium beyond the government's safety level has been detected in rice produced in the area.

Thursday, December 08, 2011 11:45 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

@MaryW holy cats! The cows are migrating...
I bet the 12.21 big project is the cameras from sweden...
Mary's post is worth the read. I hadn't seen Happy's posts recently

I hope this is a translation oddity:
Thank you for your help very much. Was finally released now than previously planned. It really is like the capacity of the tank is full. @ ookawauoten: @ My name Okawa fish shop and sunnysunnynismo. Jobs are as tired. Today, the Tokyo Electric Power contaminated water into the sea

Sounds like possibly already running out of water space?

@MaryW yes and yet another unintended consequence, migrating radioactive cows. Like the worker mentioned, they will keep going and eventually be out of the zone. Then they will be a safety hazard plus they will need to determine what to do with them to assure they don't end up in the food supply. They can't just pawn them off on a nearby farmer. BTW, the ostriches are still running wild around Okuma. The govt won't let the rescuers bring them out because they are not "pets".

I would call this more than minor. Limerick RCIC and IC valve inoperable for a month.

NRC CITES LIMERICK UNIT 2 NUCLEAR PLANT FOR INSPECTION FINDING
OF LOW TO MODERATE SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE
The Limerick Unit 2 nuclear power plant will receive additional oversight from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following the finalization of a “White” (low to moderate safety significance) inspection finding for the facility, which is located in Limerick, Pa., and operated
by Exelon Generation Co., LLC.
The inspection finding involves inadequate procedures related to the operation of two main feedwater system valves. During a Limerick Unit 2 start-up on April 22, 2011, the valves failed to fully close, resulting in one of the plant’s safety systems, known as the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system, being inoperable from April 23 to May 23, 2011. Specifically,
the partially open valves created a flow path that would have prevented the majority of water flow from the RCIC system from reaching the reactor during an accident and thereby helping to mitigate the event. Because nuclear power plants are equipped with multiple safety systems, the reactor still could have been cooled and the plant safely shut down despite the condition. However, the unavailability of the RCIC system would represent a reduction in the plant’s safety margins.
In addition to the impacts on the RCIC system, the partially open valves also rendered a Primary Containment Isolation Valve inoperable during the same period. Such valves would be used during an accident to close off the plant’s containment building during a significant event in order to prevent the release of radioactivity to the environment. The plant’s other containment isolation valves remained available to perform their function. Once the problem was identified by plant operators, they fully closed the valves and restored the operability of the RCIC system and the Primary Containment Isolation Valve.

“Because the valves in question failed to fully shut, the majority of the cooling water from one of the plant’s safety systems would have diverted to the condenser rather than flow to the reactor,” NRC Region I Administrator Bill Dean said. “While other systems would help ensure safe shutdown of the reactor during an emergency, the NRC considers any degradation of

@MaryW fixed! :-)