The sarcophagus. Yeah, that's what I meant by "clean up". That may be how the Japanese eventually "clean" them up, just bury them in concrete.Originally Posted by Gigabyte
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The sarcophagus. Yeah, that's what I meant by "clean up". That may be how the Japanese eventually "clean" them up, just bury them in concrete.
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These buildings aren't as badly damaged, and the reactor fuel (apart from that in the ponds) is all in its containment buildings...it's not lying around in chunks and "lava" flows that are now disintegrating into dust. The damage in the reactors is more extensive than at TMI, but sounds basically the same in nature, and something that can be handled using similar techniques.
Note that the cleanup at TMI unit 2 wasn't completed, there's some being left for later when the site is decommissioned, which may not happen until 2034. Defueling took nearly 10 years, though, and damage was less severe and there weren't spent fuel pools that needed to be cleared out first.
Order of Kilopi
TMI was 1979. A partial meltdown of fuel (didn't melt through the pressure vessel) They didn't open the reactor until 1984. The 150 tons of fuel took over five years to remove. (1990) This was a perfectly sound building, an intact pressure vessel, with no explosions, no fuel ponds damaged, and it took 5 years to remove the damaged fuel.
Fukushima might take a but longer.
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The ripples continue to spread.
"Japan has urged businesses and households in parts of the country to cut electricity use by up to 15% to avoid possible blackouts.
The country is facing power shortages this summer because its 50 nuclear reactors have been taken offline."
Full article from the BBC here.
Last edited by Extravoice; 2012-May-18 at 04:39 PM.
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Thus the energy death spiral continues........
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It's terrible when a bunch of destroyed leaking reactors cause people to be careful about other reactors. Cut electricity use by 15%? That might mean turning off the TV sometimes. Those poor people.
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"It is the decision of this court that you be made to be taken to a place where you will avoid advertising not watch television for 20 years,..... and may God have mercy on your soul. " .
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More likely, people will have to turn off air conditioners leading to an increase in deaths.
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I somehow don't think there's going to be another 9.0+ earthquake over there for quite a while. Besides, most of those reactors IIRC went to power industry. The real loser is their economy.
Bad Post-Doc
Yeah, a fifteen percent reduction is a bit more than just not watching TV. In the right circumstances, which are not difficult to imagine, that could cost a lot of lives.
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"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
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The Electric power consumption (kWh per capita) in Japan was 7819.18 in 2009, according to a World Bank report, published in 2010.
15% is 1173 kWh, that's 134 watts continuous draw over the course of a year for each and every resident.
Achieving that reduction will take more than just a lot of CFL's.
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And even if there is only one extra death from the summer heat, that will be infinitely more than killed by radiation from Fukushima. (Not that we could identify 1 extra death as being caused by power restrictions; but there is likely to be a significant uptick in deaths this summer.)
Should be a good year for sellers of wind chimes, watermelon and eel....
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I'm surprised this didn't get blamed on Fukushima:
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktl...,1289208.story
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Not Fukushima, but the nearby San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was mentioned by some, I'm sure.
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Is it still 'informed opinion' that the only effect of Fukushima as it is now will be to cause a 2% increase in thyroid cancer cases in Japan only, and then only in 10-15 years time?
Is there any plausible way that Fukushima could yet degenerate in to an ELE, or a major hazard to humanity?
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/nuclea...don-the-world/
Order of Kilopi
Yes, there is a way that Fukushima would generate into an extinction level event. The guardians of the galaxy see the way we talk about it and come to the conclusion that we are a neurotic species and that euthanasia is probably best for our own good, so they send a death star and blast the earth to smithereens.
That's about the only way I could think of. Maybe others with more fertile imaginations could come up with something else. I'm not absolutely positive, but I think that the uranium at Fukushima could be divided and fed to humanity and that we would still survive. Math isn't my best subject, but what I came up with so far:
About 400 tons of uranium at Fukushima, divided by 7 billion people, comes to about 0.0006 kg, so 0.6 mg per person. In rabbits, the lethal dose of uranium was measured at 0.1 mg/kg, so that if we extrapolate for a human with say 50 kg, you get a lethal dose of 5 mg. So it would still be under the limit.
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
No, there is and never was any plausible way for the Fukushima event to develop into an extinction level event, even if all six reactors had completely melted down.
And I seriously doubt that informed opinion holds that thyroid cancer rates for all of Japan will increase by 2%. I doubt that will be true of the subset of Japanese population that actually worked at the plant.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...kushima-radiat
Order of Kilopi
You can do a bit better by grinding fuel from the core into fine dust, design a dust inhaler that expels it efficiently, then force everyone in the world to use the inhaler. (Note that there's a higher risk from inhalation than ingestion.) But don't bother to just try to blow dust into the air, hoping it will be carried around the world by the wind. These are pretty dense elements, after all, and they tend to settle out pretty quick. No, if you're set on causing an extinction level event, you need to use the individual approach. Regular use of a properly designed inhaler should give decent chances of developing cancer in a few decades.
Maybe another option would be to make needles out of the stuff, and then just have a doctor stick them into people's hearts in a simple medical procedure. Repeat for everyone on the planet: Forced radioactive needle distribution. There, the mechanical effect will probably be the most important effect.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
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Sounds to me like you guys would plant a garden at Rocky Flats too. This is bizarre. From a couple of months ago: http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html
In that letter Matsumura-san asked Bob Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 assemblies. In part Alvarez notes:Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel assemblies, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive assemblies are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced...
It may not be the end of the world as we know it, but I've certainly never seen anything like it before and have never, repeat never, seen a media blackout like this. We were all over both Chernobyl and TMI. Now, all we're hearing about is how Justin Bieber walks into doors!?!?!?The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters.
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According to Associated Press, there were – at the time of the earthquake and tsunami – 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools plus 877 tons of active fuel in the cores of the reactors.
Order of Kilopi
It's not a blackout, it's because it hasn't reached beyond the yawn level.
And that stuff about a global catastrophe? Sorry, but that guy has no idea what he's talking about.
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/wo...pagewanted=all
“The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool,” said Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute and one of the experts raising concerns. “Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment.”
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, expressed similar concerns during a trip to Japan last month.
The fears over the pool at Reactor No. 4 are helping to undermine assurances by Tepco and the Japanese government that the Fukushima plant has been stabilized, and are highlighting how complicated the cleanup of the site, expected to take decades, will be. The concerns are also raising questions about whether Japan’s all-out effort to convince its citizens that nuclear power is safe kept the authorities from exploring other — and some say safer — options for storing used fuel rods.
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Pretty good article, as one would expect from the NY Times, and while it may someday win a Pulitzer, somehow it never makes the nightly news for whatever reason. Personally, I don't think it's the yawn factor, but rather because people are already freaked out by the economy, zombie/cannibals and all other forms of weirdness goin on. Now, when the next earthquake takes out that containment pool we might see more interest. But then again, we'll likely here the "nothing to see here, move along, the experts have everything under control" mantra. In the meantime, let's have some lunch, so please pass the tuna...lovely
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I wouldn't call it "yawn level". 70,000 people remain barred from their homes inside the exclusion zone.
Order of Kilopi
But that is a static situation, "news" includes the word "new".
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Established Member
Fair enough.
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Actually there's something "new" going on over there every day. A Canadian guy (who has since moved his family to the south pacific) turned me on to Energy News. This one came out today, for example: "Tepco adds 60-ton cover on No. 4 fuel pool"
http://enenews.com/tepco-adds-60-ton...us-4-after-311
There's actually some pretty cool architectural diagrams of the operation etc.
Bad Post-Doc
That is kind of surprising. It's awfully badly cited, for the New York Times. I mean, do you see anyone cited who has anything to do with the plant now?
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Established Member
For me, it's all about balance. In this case, while a spokesperson for Tepco is not individually identified, there's plenty of "Tepco said," this or that, which I interpret as the "official" position of the plant, followed by statements from others (former employees, professors, scientists etc) who are more doubtful of Tepco's (and the government's) sincere assurances. In other words, it's not all "Tepco is good" or "Tepco is bad". Rather, the story is presenting both sides in as fair and objective a way as is possible for post-modern journalism today. At the very end, for example, the authors note that had Tepco's original plan for "casking" the spent fuel been allowed to proceed sans-protest, the danger today would be way less. Ironic ain't it.
Order of Kilopi
There certainly is. Do you expect the NYT and BBC to headline it every day? Recall, they did just that during the time the disaster was fresh and the outcome uncertain. Now, it has evolved into an expensive engineering problem and on a day-to-day basis, that isn't news.
As for TEPCO, yes, they're tight-lipped and have been from the start. So was Metropolitan Edison and the Soviet Union during the previous two major nuclear accidents. Comes with the territory, although of course the USSR took it to a new level.
There is no media blackout and there is no impending disaster. The disaster already happened. What remains is the post-mortem, a significant but static number of displaced residents and, as I said, an expensive engineering problem.
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