Earth quake in Japan!

[Maryak]

Imagineering

I am an Atheist

Western societies laws have their basis in religious texts

Freedom of Speech which has been exercised.

Freedom of Belief which has been misinterpreted.

IMHO your remarks were offensive and my freedom of speech needed to be exercised as much as yours.

Thank you for your apology

Bob

 

[steamer]

We'll I am a man of faith. That amount is my business. I don't usually try to mix it in with other subjects, However, I feel the comments by Tin and others to be COMPLETELY relevant to this forum and it's members. I don't know if you remember any of the other natural disasters that have plagued this world over the last couple of years, but I do. This Forum was there in spirit at the very least for all our members in those area's hit by fire and flood to think of two.

We all give what we can give as we care, and we enjoy each others company. Tin gave freely of his heart and good nature in a way that he knows how. That's all any man or woman can do. Owing to the destruction I see in Japan, I'd take all the help I could get!

I find Imagineerings comments way out of line. JMHO. Not necessarily shared by the managment of any forum here or any other parallel universe.

Steamer

 

[steamer]

Yesterday, I sat in my truck at a stop light near my home. I had just come from a Bagel store with the "foraged" breakfast for the family as my wife and I hadn't really woke up yet.

As I sat there, my engineers mind was still trying to grasp the amount of energy expended in all those stunning videos of Japans recent natural disaster.

In a "Gadunkin" moment, I imagined a 10 meter high wall of water coming at me from the other side of the intersection....I could envision the cars there being hurtled forward at over 30 MPH by this immense force....what would/could I do?...how could I possibly protect my family and belongings? .Actually there is probably not a damn thing I could do.....what a truly fragile race we are us humans huh?

My heart and prayers go out to those still fighting for survival in Japan.

 

[BillC]

Leave it to an engineer.....Hey steamer, my off the cuff guess is an Exajoule

BillC

P.S. I give a little prayer often for various reasons - usually in thanks. A couple for the Japanese have been passed along too.

 

[steamer]

Leave it to an engineer.....Hey steamer, my off the cuff guess is an Exajoule

BillC

P.S. I give a little prayer often for various reasons - usually in thanks. A couple for the Japanese have been passed along too.

Hi BillC,

Well, take a column of water 10 meters high by 2000 meters wide x 500 miles long,,,,Rho G H !

My guess is your number probably low! :'( I'm afraid to add it up.......

 

[BillC]

Then how about a yottajoule....! That's probably too high - that's about the inertia of the coriolis effect.

BillC

 

[Ken I]

Like everyone else my heartfelt commiserations to the Japanese and the human tragedy they find themselves in.

Any physisists out there ? - the official position on those pesky reactors always seems to be a step behind the reality and possibly disingenous.
Claiming that the explosion was caused by the building collapse was nonsense and the next day admitted it was Hydrogen - which is what I suspected.

It appears they were using the overhead crane (the operator reported as seriously injured) - why would they be doing that knowing Hydrogen to be present unless in serious trouble.

As far as my limited knowledge goes hydrogen can come from several processes within a reactor - the most worrying being incandescent temperatures - suggesting that the core is not completely shut down and at least part of it is in meltdown.

The fact that 3 of the 4 reactors are now being "emergency cooled" with saltwater suggests none of the reactors were properly scrammed.

To put that in perspective the British Windscale (now Sellafield) reactor that melted in the late 50's is to this day being cooled with seawater - although it is on the cards to start dismantling / decommissioning this year.

Very worrying.

Comments...

Ken

 

[Foozer]

I feel that I must take you to task over your "praying".

Its just a word Pray "to make a request in a humble manner"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pray

Regardless of the term, I feel for those people, I wish them well, so I pray to the powers that be, for human nature to contain itself as we enter the aftermath to which peoples nerves do and will give out, causing a normally reasonable person to act unreasonable.


Robert

 

[steamer]

Ken,

The engineer in me agrees. They're in deep doo!....I just hope they can contain it and it doesn't go "Chernobyl" on us. THAT would be REAL bad


I am told that they have a 6" thick stainless containment dome around the reactor for just such cases. Something that Chernobyl didn't have. and that it is still intact.....Thousands of construction workers died while building a concrete cap after the fact in Chernobyl.......I cringe just thinking about it

 

[Tin Falcon]

I just hope they can contain it and it doesn't go "Chernobyl" on us. THAT would be REAL bad

There was a bit of commentary on NPR on Friday about worst case scenarios.
a Chernobyl type incident is not likely it would be more of a Three Mile Island, still not GOOD .but much less disastrous in a highly populated country that has had to deal with massive radiation sickness in the past.
tin

 

[Ken I]

The situation at the Fukashima plant continues to deteriorate.

They have now evacuated the #1 plant - which is good news - probably means it is completely and safely shutdown and quiescent.

The really bad news is there is a fire in the #2 waste storege facility - this is potentially a greater problem than a reactor meltdown. At least the reactor probably (don't know for sure) has a "core catcher" chamber underneath it - the waste pond almost certainly doesn't and may contain way more fissile material than the reactor.

If they don't get this under control quickly this really could go "Chernobyl" - a prospect I initially dismissed as unlikely.

Ken

 

[steamer]

Hi Ken,

I've been trying to follow along with the reports...most of the ones I read are kinda "washed" of technical content....what sources are you looking at?


Dave

 

[Ken I]

Dave,
I am "reading between the lines" plus my limited knowledge.

I am regsitered as a radiation worker and have performed "hot" work under a nuclear reactor in the core catcher space - generally used to store "hot" tooling and equipment.

I have found the Wiki site to be more up to date than most of the news sites - of course that may mean like me its more speculative.

Visit www.world-nuclear-news.org/
but the website is a bit swampped at present.

The UN and IAEA have yet to licence a high level radiation dump anywhere in the world - so they store spent fuel rods (often for later reprocessing) in the cooling ponds - most older reactors have had to increace their ponds to accomodate this waste.
If the Fukiyama plant has a lot of "spent" fuel rods in the pond and have accidentally exposed these rods (perhaps because of the quake - or using the water on the reactor - I don't know) it would seem that an uncontained reaction has started there - this is very bad news indeed.
When CNN offhandedly announced that there was a fire in the storeage pond - my hair stood on end.
Such an offhand comment by reporters with no real knowledge of the import of such a statement.
It could of course just be an ordinary chemical fire but not likely.
If it is nuclear then there is no pressure containment and trying to cool it down is going to release a lot of Hydrogen - it is also going to be radiologically very hot and impossible to get close to.

This also possibly suggests why they were using the crane - to redistribute "stuff" in the pond.

The fact that they have evacuated #1 suggests radiation levels are now at an unsafe level - thus complicating matters. If they have to pull back and (horrors) evacuate the control rooms (most of the containment efforts will be remote from the control room) then it is likely all three reactors and their ponds will follow suit.

That scenario could be worse than Chernobyl.

I hope to hell they get this under control - its like watching a slow motion train wreck.

#1 is a 460MW unit 2,3&4 are 784MW units amongst the largest in the world - Japanese built to a GE design.

If the reactors had been properly scrammed the control rods and safety rods should have gone in - bringing the reaction to a near complete halt - the residual and decay heat does not need that much cooling - the reactor is only supposed to be at 290°C at the concommitant steam pressure.

Even in a worst case scenario the water without circulation should absorb this heat by boiling and venting - undesirable because of radioactive products in the steam - sure you have to restore cooling sooner or later but the amount of heat coming from these reactors suggests that at least portions of the core are still active.

Caveat - I know enough about the processes but nothing about the actual Fukiyama plant design also the information I am basing my speculation on (for that's what it is) could be wrong or simply misreported - so I could be unduly alarmist.

Please do not take anything I have written here as Gospel - I could be wrong - but I am very concerned.

Regards,
Ken

Update,
The pond fire has been extinguished and has been attributed to hydrogen (reaction between overheated pond water and zirconium - 100°c - its boiling - should be 40° ) - so its a chemical surface fire - that's a relief. Still leaves some unanswered questions ?? such as how has the hydrogen been stopped ? Did they get it cooled down etc. etc.

 

[BillC]

Was GE line dancing again - right out of the country...?? I wouldn't buy a light bulb from GE - they're done!

BillC

 

[Bernd]

#1 is a 460MW unit 2,3&4 are 784MW units amongst the largest in the world - Japanese built to a GE design.

I understand the French reactors are different in there design to heat the water than the GE design. Alot safer than the GE design. Is that true?

Bernd

 

[Ken I]

I can't speak for the GE design but the French Framatome designs have several fail safe features including overpressure deployment of control & safety rods triggered and driven purely by overpressure in the reactor - ie it can't be overridden and even if the operators don't / can't do anything it will still shut down (SCRAM).

We have yet to see exactly how this went down but I suspect the earthquake caused loss of all power, the tsunami knocked out the backups. Without power I don't think they could deploy the control or safety rods - falling back on to manual release of the safeties was too late and some deformation now prevented full insertion hence some portions of the reactor are uncontrolled needing massive cooling that was simply not available.

Some pumps ran and then failed - suggesting alignment problems caused by the earthquake etc. - these things are huge (I seem to recall somenthing like a 4MW pump at an overhaul I was involved with.)

The latest in the elliptical Japanese language translations is that a major component at the base of #2 reactor is badly damaged and the core is uncovered.

For that you can perhaps read :- "Hot molten core material has punched a hole in the bottom of the reactor, we can no longer cool it and all hell is breaking loose."

Obviously they do not want to unnecessarily alarm the population but I would prefer the truth.

 

[Dan Rowe]

"According to Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry Ordinance 62, every Japanese nuclear power plant unit installed an automatic seismic trip system (ASTS). "


"In the USA, only two plants in California – Diablo Canyon (DCPP) and San Onofre (SONGS) – have installed the ASTS. There, the two ASTS implemented were not the result of NRC regulation, but were remnants of advisory committee for reactor safety (ACRS) concern about the use of equipment beyond the level of qualification in an active seismic region."

From: http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectionCode=76&storyCode=2053108

Chernobyl was a loss of control at FULL power. This is not the case in Japan as I read the events. All this type of engineering is a learning curve the human race has not mastered yet. Things that were not in the design happen and plants are modified where the risk is considered worth the cost as regulated by the various governments in charge of overseeing public safety.

Dan

 

[Ken I]

I see the media consistently reporting 3 Mile Island as the USA's worst nuclear accident.

Most Americans are not aware that the US Army's prototype reactor SL-1 blew up on Jan 3 1961 killing its three operators (40 miles West of Idaho Falls).

No one died at TMI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

The stupidly designed reactor had only one control rod and one of the operators tried to unstick it by pulling it out - it went prompt critical from 3MW to 20GW in 4ms and blew up.
One of the operators was nailed to the roof of the containment building by one of the core plugs.
Although they died from physical trauma - the radiation would have killed them anyway.

Ken

 

[lordedmond]

Chernobyl was a loss of control at FULL power. This is not the case in Japan as I read the events. All this type of engineering is a learning curve the human race has not mastered yet. Things that were not in the design happen and plants are modified where the risk is considered worth the cost as regulated by the various governments in charge of overseeing public safety.

Dan

partial quote AFAIK the Chernobyl reactor went from 20% power to 500% in 3 seconds , then the operators turn off the safety interlock by mistake

its about time they developed the fusion reactor than thing would be much safer then thimbleful of sea water would power the UK for a year


Stuart

 

[Ken I]

The latest in the elliptical Japanese language translations is that a major component at the base of #2 reactor is badly damaged and the core is uncovered.

For that you can perhaps read :- "Hot molten core material has punched a hole in the bottom of the reactor, we can no longer cool it and all hell is breaking loose."

Okay - update - a blast within the reactor (Hydrogen again) has damaged the primary containment vessel - the lower torus coolant ring is fractured.
This makes pressurisation impossible - it also appears to even be preventing getting a column of water to cover the core.

I presume they are going to attempt to repair the fracture - some poor SOB is going to have to weld that - if so my best wishes to that brave soul(s) - this may not even be possible as it is possibly too "hot".

So I presume they will now fill the core catcher volume with boreated water (the idea to catch the meltdown as it dribbles throught the floor of the primary containment - last line of defence which should work but is going to be very messy.

They have requested US military assistance to drop water ?? I can only presume into the storage pond (the roof is gone but that's the only water drop target I can think of).

It looks like they are starting to get #3 & #4 under control but the situation at #2 is still very very serious.

Good luck guys.

Ken