Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2910

@Pedro Jesus politics here has become very inward as so many problems here have hit a point where people won't tolerate it.

@Dean, It is good to see some actual attention to fracking after watching the problem evolve. Your right, it shouldn't have happened in the first place. It seems like another situation where business desires and profits trumped science. This is the problem with so many things.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 2:37:06 PM

www.world-nuclear.org very good read and informative
by dean 1/26/2012 2:40:26 PM

An article worth reading.

"What does it take to change a lightbulb?" (Dave Levitan) www.guardian.co.uk

""There are about four billion screw-in sockets out there [in the U.S.], and today only a quarter of them have an energy-saving bulb in them," said Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "When the standards are in full effect, we'll cut our nation's electric bill by about $12.5 billion a year and eliminate the need for 30 large power plants and all the pollution that comes from them. It's a big deal."" [bold added]
by Pedro Jesus 1/26/2012 2:47:29 PM

going through unit 4 heat images per last night's discussion.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 2:49:49 PM

breakfast time... every one is invited.. :)
by dean 1/26/2012 2:51:03 PM

Unit 4, warm rubble by road upper left of image
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 2:51:09 PM

Going through unit 4 heat images. There was more of a hot spot up by the road than I remembered plus found all the other hot spots around 4 that were preplexing. will put all these images into a peer review page to save room here.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 2:59:05 PM

Ok, one more. This really shows the warm debris up against the building across the road
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 3:01:23 PM

As to the current seismic safety of the reactor buildings, tepco devined, "it has been confirmed that the Reactor Buildings in Unit 1 and 4 have no seismic safety issues according to the seismic safety assessment that need resolving."
www.tepco.co.jp
by Peter 1/26/2012 3:20:23 PM

Unit 4 heat images www.simplyinfo.org
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 3:30:26 PM

@Peter so unit 2 and 3 are falling down? May 2011 that was before they went and did reinforcement work at 4.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 3:31:00 PM

Morning all - Pls sign this petition - thank you! They have collected 15,700 signatures and are shooting for 20,000. The Minister of the Economy has just ordered the eviction of the Fukushima mothers peacefully camping outside METI to demand a radiation-free future for their children. We have just 24 hours before police move in to tear down the tents ! www.avaaz.org
by Mid Valley 1/26/2012 3:33:37 PM

Oh Well, have to head for work anyway. @All take care.
by Shadow 1/26/2012 3:41:26 PM

@dean @all Good morning, or evening etc. Interesting read. As usual, I see no mention of long term solution for spent fuel in the operating (or cost per KH). Which I understand as there is not any plan as of today. (other than kick the can down the road.)
by Shadow 1/26/2012 3:41:29 PM

Am I in Mod?
by Shadow 1/26/2012 3:41:31 PM

sorry Shadow didn't catch it in time. I was on another page. Your on auto approve now
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 3:41:51 PM

I just added an article about the METI mother eviction with links to contacts and forms www.simplyinfo.org
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 3:42:19 PM

In relation to Dean and Shadow's comments there is an upcoming NRC public meeting on spent fuel strategy and a period for public input that ends very early Feb. If they don't get enough public concern they sound like dumping it all in parking lot casks will be the long term plan. :-(
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 4:12:37 PM

Spent fuel public involvement page www.nrc.gov
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 4:16:11 PM

The draft report to be commented on pbadupws.nrc.gov
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 4:16:50 PM

Jan 31st Webinar sign up. You have to sign up ahead of time rather than dial in for a meeting or watch video. www2.gotomeeting.com
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 4:18:54 PM

@all: a thought i've been thinking of since a long time: is the technological / economical revolution that we experience in our "first world" since ww2 connected with nuclear technology ? all the big economies have nuke power (direct or imported). is the wealthiness and the economic power of the rich countries caused by the always available cheap and endless nuclear power ? is this the key technology for development ? what do you think ?
if this is true (i think it's obvious but i never heard of such an analisis), then we also have to see the other side of the medal: the enormous pollution that was caused by the technological revolution after world war 2. nuker power may be carbon emission free, but it obviously enables the polluting industry that would otherwise not be possible due to lack of energy. thinking this way, they should not speak of "clean energy" anymore and stop exporting it into the second and third world.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:14:25 PM

@Edano nuke power was an afterthought after WWII, these big govt. contractors (GE, Bechtel etc.) saw their cash cow ending. This is why we have nuclear power, not because it was a great solution. We would have had other technology sooner if it wasn't for the huge energy companies including oil companies in the US killing it off. The oil companies killed all our public transit and national rail because it was competition. Now they fight renewables and calls for more public transit again. They are very active in killing new transit rail projects in very direct ways.

I think there still would have been 1st world post WWII booms, they would have just looked a bit different. The US would look much more like Europe with more dense cities, public transit and more efficient systems and buildings. McMansion houses didn't really drive the economy here, Wall Street games to sell dodgy financial products drove the housing. We probably would have to have dealt with pollution sooner without nuclear but all we did was kick in down the road. There was a big uptick here in energy conservation, solar panels and passive solar homes in the 1970's due to the oil crisis. All that ended when Reagan took office and we went back to business as usual.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:22:01 PM

If it wasn't for the profit motive I think nuclear reactor technology would have spent more time in the research phase within govt. science realms. We either would have found a better safer technology before it was released to the public or it would have been decided as a technology with only specific uses like science and medicine. Instead we had things like Pathfinder and the experimental reactors in the mid-west. They let Allis-Chalmers play with reactors without a decent staff of experienced nuclear engineers. Cities out here ended up being test beds for things that should have been done at govt. installations.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:25:32 PM

@lillymunster @Edano Indeed, there must be a relationship. Fast growing economies increase energy demand exponentially. Nuclear power surely powered the fastest growing economies around the world, it cannot be a coincidence. But that was in the past century. The energy paradigm has shifted and, fortunate or not, the nuclear power technology didn't evolve accordingly, so much so that it faces extinction in many heavily developed countries around the world.
by Pedro Jesus 1/26/2012 5:27:13 PM

i especially think of the chemical and heavy mashine industry in germany. i think the development of this high energy consuming industry would not have been possible without nukes. maybe without nukes our planet would be cleaner, though it seems contradictory at first sight.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:31:28 PM

Actually, Obama's State of the Union speech addressed the new energy paradigm and his words were very clear when he demanded "clean and cheap" energy. Nuclear power is neither, so I think he was pretty clear about his ideas for the future of US energy sector: shift to renewable or you're out of the loop. But nuclear can still be crucial in sustaining low-carbon industries in developing countries. It won't be the end of the road for nuclear power companies; they will only have to offset their investments onto other areas of the globe.
by Pedro Jesus 1/26/2012 5:31:38 PM

@Edano Without state-of-the-art technology we wouldn't be able to harness the power of the elements... I don't think you have a point there. One thing [clean energy] wouldn't have been possible without the other [heavy industry]. It's all a matter of allocating resources... but you need to create or collect resources in order to have them in the first place. A never ending loop.
by Pedro Jesus 1/26/2012 5:34:50 PM

To explore Peter's observations about Unit 4 IR imagery, I lined up IR images of Unit 4 with an overhead photo and floor plan. This is a quick example of just one IR image from March 28, and we can see that the area of heat north of the pool coincides with the reactor well exactly.

I've lined up over a dozen IR images and there's consistently heat in the well area. Yes, the heat at the well varies from day to day, but it does at the pool too and at the same time. So daily variations do not exclude there being fuel in the well since the pool also varies in relative heat from day to day. I expect the variation is a function of water levels rising and falling and/or relative solar heating of the surrounding environment.
by Ian 1/26/2012 5:35:44 PM

The risk is they are putting reactors in some very unstable 3rd world countries without the needed infrastructure to assure their safety. There has to be some sort of standard and international approval to run a power reactor. We probably should have had that all along seeing what pollution and risk has been done by past accidents and as we now know the problem becomes global.

I see nuclear as WWII technology. It hasn't evolved in the realm of power generation. Evolve or die. Meanwhile progress has been made in scientific and medical use. Nuclear power has largely been shuffled off to the private sector and went there to stagnate. Now those stagnated ignored facilities are coming back to bite all of us.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:36:12 PM

@Ian Dean mentioned that over the years the inside of the RPV and inner equipment becomes irradiated itself and shows "hot". Like why they put some parts into the fuel pool when they do maintenance to shield them.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:37:34 PM

@lillymunster, that sounds like mixing two definitions of 'hot', thermal and radioactive heat.

by Ian 1/26/2012 5:39:17 PM

Meant 'radiative hot' not 'radioactive heat'. Is a uranium rock thermally hot? I don't think so but maybe it is. ??
by Ian 1/26/2012 5:41:41 PM

@Ian yes, it is indeed warm, but not hot.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:42:17 PM

My understanding is that metal becomes radioactive and to an extent if gives off some heat but it could have been partially due to the recent fuel removal? TEPCO did flood the reactor well when workers started going into 4 to lower rad levels for them
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:43:45 PM

@lillymunster I don't see any problem at deploying latest generation fast breeder reactor power plants that produce energy out of non-enriched uranium or plutonium in unstable countries. You can't make bombs with that fuel and in the case of an accident the risks are very localized. Nothing compared to what happened in Chernobyl or Fukushima. There wouldn't be any global threat in case of an accident or terrorist attack to such a facility.
by Pedro Jesus 1/26/2012 5:44:11 PM

@Edano, warmer than another rock? If so, that seems to imply to forced cooling would lower radioactivity, but I've heard that's not the case. Does snow melt faster where there's more fallout in Fukushima? I bet not.
by Ian 1/26/2012 5:44:12 PM

The fly overs IIRC were temperature only, they didn't have a gamma camera or anything like that on them
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:44:34 PM

There is a difference between fallout and irradiated metal? Dean or Peter etc. could probably explain this with far better authority than me. :-)
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 5:45:23 PM

@Ian yes, uranium is definitely warmer than other rocks. it is not stable and emits energy.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:45:32 PM

Some elements become activated with neutron irradiation, that is neutron capture results in radioactive isotopes.
by Peter 1/26/2012 5:45:42 PM

yes, other materials are able to catch neutrons and then its nucleus gets instable and it emits radioactivity itself.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:48:50 PM

@Edano, that might be a good theory about the well heat!
by Ian 1/26/2012 5:52:05 PM

radioactive fallout consists of fission byproducts like iodine 131 and cesium 137. in contrary to this, the metal of the core is radioactive itself, e.g. ferrum catches neutrons and becomes instable. this process needs a lot of time and extreme high radiation, because these materials do not tend to accept neutrons.
by Edano 1/26/2012 5:53:57 PM

In the videos, the Unit 4 pool looks pretty full of fuel (as I recall), not a lot of empty space that might account for fuel that hadn't yet been placed from the core.
by Ian 1/26/2012 5:56:13 PM