Tsunami in Japan

[Guest bkelm18]

Just sayin'

Classy. Real classy.

[Guest mikedwood]

Yeah great stuff Leroy thanks again. Seriously you know your nukes and thank you for taking the time to write it down.

I wonder if instead of the earthquake messing up the lines it was dumping all that salt water in it. Salt water is totally nasty and also boil or let the water evaporate and you have a crusty salt that is an ugly mess (I use to have salt water fish tanks). That was certainly a last ditch effort (probably no choice). Isn't the water in those usually highly filtered?

I am in agreement with OhShoot about the waste. I think part of the problem (and it's my perception not only of nuclear waste but everything government from parks to water systems) they come up with a great idea (maybe not but they like it) build that sucker and then don't maintain it. Look at all the school tennis courts around and parks falling apart. Then they build a new school or park and can't fund the mainentance on the older ones that are still in as much use as the new stuff.

I remember something about the nuclear glass but only that I heard something. Is it this? From Here to Eternity: Vitrification -- How nuclear waste is turned into glass

It seems that the 1,2,4,5,6 plants have iodine and cesium with short lives as the main product. Is that correct? Also if there is no wind or water to transport the radio activity it's not going mauch of anywhere. I'm thinking Death Valley or yucca mountain would be perfect. Wouldn't want it near population or crops for reasons that hindsight might lend.

And actually as bad as it is this disaster in Japan is proving to me that nuclear plants are much safer than I thought. It's going to be bad in the long run but honestly I thought Japan would be molten glass by now considering what's happened. And it's not.

And thanks for hanging in there with me guys. I don't know anything about much but I am curious as a cat.

[Oh Shoot]

....The guys at ORNL did a bunch of work on vitrification (...turning to glass...) of radwaste several years ago. There were also a bunch of tests of "in place vitrification" conducted if i remember right. I wonder how they turned out?..

I've held chunks of that glass (not hot); my ex used to be involved with some of that.

Vitrification is still being done to some extent worldwide; of course it's complicated and expensive process and a more dangerous endeavor to the workers doing it than just dumping in a pool of water. And it's still hot, of course. It's just that it keeps the physical material from fragmenting and migrating, like waterborne or windborne.

- OS

[Oh Shoot]

It seems that the 1,2,4,5,6 plants have iodine and cesium with short lives as the main product. Is that correct?

Well, as I understand it, that's the rad stuff that gets out easiest, due to weight, spread by wind and water.

And actually as bad as it is this disaster in Japan is proving to me that nuclear plants are much safer than I thought. It's going to be bad in the long run but honestly I thought Japan would be molten glass by now considering what's happened. And it's not.....

Well, "meltdown" doesn't mean it melts anything but the core itself and holes in containment walls. And it can't go boom. But there's plenty of nasty gamma stuff there with long half lives. Let's just say that if the site fails to extent of having to be abandoned, the Japanese won't be planting snow peas or farming carp around there for the next 400 to 30,000 years, depending.

Btw, Yucca Mountain has been dead in the water for some time, but only officially dead recently:

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good example of our arrogance, that. Turned out wasn't a good place at all, if you're thinking REALLY long term. Matter of fact, I don't personally think storage is an option. We need to develop science to recombine it to something safe on atomic level. It's the modern equivalent of the alchemist's aim of lead to gold.

- OS

Edited March 29, 2011 by OhShoot

[Guest mikedwood]

Well, as I understand it, that's the rad stuff that gets out easiest, due to weight, spread by wind and water.

Well, "meltdown" doesn't mean it melts anything but the core itself and holes in containment walls. And it can't go boom. But there's plenty of nasty gamma stuff there with long half lives. Let's just say that if the site fails to extent of having to be abandoned, the Japanese won't be planting snow peas or farming carp around there for the next 400 to 30,000 years, depending.

Btw, Yucca Mountain has been dead in the water for some time, but only officially dead recently:

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good example of our arrogance, that. Turned out wasn't a good place at all, if you're thinking REALLY long term. Matter of fact, I don't personally think storage is an option. We need to develop science to recombine it to something safe on atomic level. It's the modern equivalent of the alchemist's aim of lead to gold.

- OS

Wow all of a sudden we have a new wealth of knowledge! Good stuff Oh Shoot.

I have to ask wtf have we made and planning to make more nuclear plants without a plan for storage and or Oh Shoot's Philosopher's stone? Then if they do they will cut funding one day and that's something that doesn't need funding cut on.

[leroy]

All:________________

RE: The fuel reprocessing issue. It seems good ole USA quit reprocessing spent fuel in the Carter era (...imagine that!!...). We know how to reprocess spent fuel (...we did it at Hanford (...plutonium for the first bombs...)) and at Savannah River (...navy nuc fuel...).

That greatest of American thinkers, Jimmy Carter wanted to stop "nuclear proliferation", and ordered the US to stop fuel reprocessing. It seems his concept didn't work; everybody else kept reprocessing their fuel (...looks like some of them used it for weapons...). Carter's idea didnt work ---think packistan, india, north korea, etc... It did accomplish one thing; all the commercial spent nuclear fuel generated by plants in the USA is laying around in spent fuel pits and in dry storage on individual plant sites (...i think...). That is not happening in lots of other countries.

Re-prossessing would cut down tremendously on the volume of nasty stuff to strore. It would also reclaim some of the products (...plutonium and some u235...) for fuel. The biggest problem seems to be that no one wants a spent fuel processing plant in his neighborhood.

Check this article out for some thoughts on the subject from that noted rag, the NYT: Is the solution to the U.S. nuclear waste problem in France? - NYTimes.com .

By the way, since lots of other nations reprocess spent fuel (...they seem to be a bit smarter and more pragmatic than our "genius" Carter; and a bunch of other stupo and demigogue politicos...); mabee we can send our spent fuel to them and get them to reprocess it. Looks like everybody else that might need a bomb already has one.

leroy

[analog_kidd]

Here's a link to some pretty impressive video footage of the initial tsunami wave:

http://freevideocoding.com/flvplayer.swf?file=http://flash.vx.roo.com/streamingVX/63056/1458/20110311_japan_wave_successions_sky_1000k.mp4&autostart=true

[G27]

PM - Japan considers covering Fukushima with fabric to contain radiation 30/03/2011

Doesn't sound like things are going well...

[Guest db99wj]

The news this morning was talking about the contamination of the sea water around the plant and new aerial photographs suggested that the blown out buildings were missing some essential plumbing, and that the radiation leakage is more than likely coming from that.

If you haven't already watched the video that Analog Kidd posted, watch it, I've seen parts of that video, but not that whole thing, it is amazing what water can do and the amount of devastation that it did.

[tyguy]

If you're woried about spent fuel reclaimation taking place in your backyard, you folks in the tri cities need look no further than a few miles south. A private company in Unicoi Co. processes fuel from spent powerplant waste.

[Guest db99wj]

Here's another vid of the Tsunami. I don't think it is possible to understand the scope of these things, due to not being in there in person and only seeing the video.

[Lumber_Jack]

How terrifying that must have been for the people on that roof. The first couple mins you keep thinking "ok its gonna stop anytime" and it just keeps coming more and more. Unbelievable. In my imagination, probably from TV, I always pictured a tsunami as a huge crashing wave, which it may have been in some places, but not this slow gradual devastating flood. Its just as if the ocean decided to flow onto land. Very scarry stuff in that vid

[Caster]

Years ago I read about in one of those , out of publication now, survival magazines; About a guy who lived in a large house boat set on huge wood beams..........out in the desert area of the western US. At the time it seemed to be lunacy, but maybe he knew something???????? Granted, it would take some seriously powerful engines to guide it, and that's all you could ever do is just guide it, but still!

[Lumber_Jack]

Years ago I read about in one of those , out of publication now, survival magazines; About a guy who lived in a large house boat set on huge wood beams..........out in the desert area of the western US. At the time it seemed to be lunacy, but maybe he knew something???????? Granted, it would take some seriously powerful engines to guide it, and that's all you could ever do is just guide it, but still!

Was his name Noah? if so maybe we should check it out

[Guest nicemac]

Years ago I read about in one of those , out of publication now, survival magazines; About a guy who lived in a large house boat set on huge wood beams..........out in the desert area of the western US. At the time it seemed to be lunacy, but maybe he knew something???????? Granted, it would take some seriously powerful engines to guide it, and that's all you could ever do is just guide it, but still!

If you watch some of the videos like the one posted above ( http://freevideocoding.com/flvplayer.swf?file=http://flash.vx.roo.com/streamingVX/63056/1458/20110311_japan_wave_successions_sky_1000k.mp4&autostart=true ), even the boats are destroyed as they [attempt to] ride the wave of debris.

When you number is up, it's up…

[G27]

Was his name Noah? if so maybe we should check it out

[leroy]

....If you're woried about spent fuel reclaimation taking place in your backyard, you folks in the tri cities need look no further than a few miles south. A private company in Unicoi Co. processes fuel from spent powerplant waste. ....

Nuclear Fuel Services (...owned now by Babcock-Wilcox, the biggest builder of navy nuclear propulsion reactors; they may be the only ones --- i dont know....). They fabricate nuclear fuel (...not reprocess it---that being said; this may be a "semantics problem" ---see the next sentence ....). They do, however, take highly ennriched fuel (...bomb grade material from russia and elsewhere, i suspect, but dont know for sure...) and blend it to a "lower" level (...of enrichment...) for initial fuel for navy and other reactors. They dont do any spent fuel reprocessing (...that i know of....). This type fuel aint a big problem as far as radiation is concerned.

It's the "spent fuel" that has been in the reactors and fissioned (...split into two lighter elements -- always radioactive...) that is the problem. When you hear of Iodine 131 and Cesium 135, Strontium 90, fallout, etc; that is a fission product in the spent fuel. Check out this link for more info on fission products: Some Physics of Uranium: Education: World Nuclear Association

That's the fuel that is giving so much problem in the japenese reactors. You get all the nasty fission products (....stuff where the u235 or plutonium fuel has split...) that become radioactive from the fission and need to be cooled down for some time as well as shielded to keep down the radiation hazard. No one that i know of now reprocesses commercial nuclear fuel in the usa. They may reprocess some of the navy nuclear propulsion fuel at Savannah River; it seems i remember they used to; but i dont know about that for sure.

The link for NFS is here:Nuclear Fuel Services | Home

Interesting read on their website. Gives the "public" history of NFS. There is a "legend" that says that the initial fissionable material for the Israeli nuclear weapons program was spirited out of this very facility way back when. Of course, its just a legend, but it's a very interesting one.

Hope this helps

leroy

[leroy]

All:_______________

Check this link out: Japan nuclear 'suicide squads' paid fortunes as 'battle is lost for reactor 2' | Mail Online

Great pictures. I dont necessarily agree with the article and analysis; but the pictures show just how bad these plants were hit and damaged.

leroy

[Guest db99wj]

Bing Maps

I found the site on bing maps, kind of interesting to see the before picture.

Of course these maps are piece milled together, you can go north along the coast, and it appears that you can see where water just cleaned off the surface of the land. At least that is what it looks like to me. Here's the area, looks like piles of debris. http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/?org=aj#5003/0.6002=q:FUKUSHIMA,+Japan:nelat:37.33637804164:nelong:141.039595852246:swlat:37.3260210956634:swlong:141.012773762097:nosp:0:adj:0/5872/style=a&lat=37.482984&lon=141.026444&alt=57.666173&z=16&pid=5874

Edited March 30, 2011 by db99wj

[Caster]

If you watch some of the videos like the one posted above ( http://freevideocoding.com/flvplayer.swf?file=http://flash.vx.roo.com/streamingVX/63056/1458/20110311_japan_wave_successions_sky_1000k.mp4&autostart=true ), even the boats are destroyed as they [attempt to] ride the wave of debris.

When you number is up, it's up…

Well, like I said, maybe he knows something. Debris is not something you can really defeat, but depending on where you are in the desert, I don't think debris will be near as bad as populated Japan.

I'm not a big believer of fate, but yeah, when a wall of water and cars and buildings is headed your way....tell the person sitting next to you how nice it was to know them.

[leroy]

All:__________________

Take the time to check out this link for some work photos at the nucelar plants: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Hi-Res Photos 2

There are some great photos of folks working that shows the problems with doing this stuff in protective clothes. There is also a photo of workers spraying "sticky stuff' to bind up the dust to prevent contamination from spreading. What amazed me was the level of destruction all around.

leroy

[Guest mikedwood]

All:__________________

Take the time to check out this link for some work photos at the nucelar plants: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Hi-Res Photos 2

There are some great photos of folks working that shows the problems with doing this stuff in protective clothes. There is also a photo of workers spraying "sticky stuff' to bind up the dust to prevent contamination from spreading. What amazed me was the level of destruction all around.

leroy

Wow! That's a mess. Wonder they can work at all.

[Oh Shoot]

Wow! That's a mess. Wonder they can work at all.

They're eventually gonna have to concrete the whole thing over or whatever and abandon it, methinks.

Proximity to the ocean probably makes it more problematic than Chernobyl, though.

- OS

[leroy]

All:________________

Notice what's goin on in "spraying" picture. The guys are using what looks like a garden hose to spray the blue green stuff over the ground (...and eveything else...). This is a pretty commonly used method (...it appears to be some sort of inexpensive, soft setting, flexible, polymer...) to bind up contaminated particles and keep them in one place. They do it pretty regularly inside the plant on everything that gets contaminated with dry particles. You spray it on (...to bind up the particles to keep them from blowing around...), let it dry, peel it off (...it comes off easily...), then put it in the radwaste "trashbasket". My guess is that they will spray a bunch of this (...both inside and outside the plant...), clean it up (...by the square mile, almost...), and start taking things apart. Once they get things decontaminated inside the plant, they can assess the damage and figure out what to do.

I wouldn't be a bit suprized if OS isn't right about the ground contamination around the plant toward the island. I bet they figure out how far the particles went and fence it off.

It will be interesting to watch this one. My guess is that the TEPCO guys will do a real thorough assessment to see if the RPV is damaged. If it is, that's a bad thing. If it's not, they can most likely fix everything else if they have enough money. Real estate to build stuff (...like powerplants...) on in Japan is extremely rare and valuable. My bet is if the plant can be saved or the real estate reused somehow; thats what TEPCO will do. Japan desperately needs electric power (...just like every other developed country...) both in the near and far term.

leroy

Edited April 7, 2011 by leroy
spellinnn

[sigmtnman]

Areva unintentionally released a chilling report regarding the believed progression of the incident.

http://klima-der-gerechtigkeit.de/files/2011/04/fukushima-areva.pdf