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Bargainhunter
climber
Central California
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Mar 17, 2011 - 09:46am PT
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Adam, my point was more about the dangers of nuclear power when the tofu hits the fan so to speak. Chernobyl failed… as the managers there were trying to make it safer. The Daiichi reactors all have multiple safety systems... that failed.
So are you saying that all modern reactors now have fail proof containment structures that can never have a core failure that will compromise the structure (not including a direct meteor strike nor invasion by the Transformers)? That’s like saying climbing equipment never fails. What would Todd Skinner say about it?
Sure modern systems might be safer, until they fail. Then we have to deal with the mess for decades or centuries…
As to BMACD's question, it does seem shortsighted not to have containment structures for the spent rod pools...
Adam you have a lot of confidence in your systems, but have you considered the need to have an outsider look at your nukes and give a real worst case scenario assessment? I think there will be a lot of nuclear power plants in the country that will be undergoing intense scrutiny soon...
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 09:49am PT
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Adam..you are crazy... Wow... You sure told me.
Edit... Nice edit, AFTER I quoted you and replied.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:01am PT
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Adam you have a lot of confidence in your systems, but have you considered the need to have an outsider look at your nukes and give a real worst case scenario assessment? I think there will be a lot of nuclear power plants in the country that will be undergoing intense scrutiny soon... I have an educated confidence, because I understand the details. My confidence is NOT 100%, but very close to it. And outsiders DO look at the systems. In fact, the American Society Of Engineers (ASME), for one, as ASME Sec III is for the code for construction, repair, and replacement of safety related nuclear systems. ASME Sec XI is for Inservice Inspections of safety related nuclear componants.
And, as I said, initially within this thread, before Fuku really became news... We need to get power to those plants, to keep the fuel cool. Why did I say this, sounding an alarm, before it was really ringing? Because it's a big frick'n deal, and I knew the potential consequences of not getting power to those units. ALL of this is due to a loss of power, offsite first, then failure of the EDGs an hour later due to the tsunami. Yes, that should not have happened, and I am confident that modifications will be made to ENSURE this can't happen again. This is why there are so many systems available at my plant for power in the event of a loss of power, or even a terrorist act.
But it has happened, and for the most part (I can't express that enough), the robustness of the containment designs have kept much of the bad stuff in, as the problems are local... So, they have 'for the most part' served their function.
If, they had power... NONE of this would be occurring. If they got power back within a couple days, NONE of this would be happeing, and it would have all been contained 100%.
This is why I had initially said, "we need to get power to those plants".
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:12am PT
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So what does that say about the quality of technical science reporting...
This is a really good book, that explains much of 'why' we are where we are regarding science...
It even has an entire chapter devoted to the decline in science reporting, both in quality and frequency.
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Brandon Lampley
Mountain climber
Boulder, CO
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:43am PT
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I'm on a bus heading from NC to DC. It's notable that uniform military folks are onboard, CBRN patches on shoulder. That's chemical biological radiological nuclear specialists. Some body up there must need advice, or they are mobilized to deploy with OGA's responding.
Granted fallout from worst case scenario in japan will be limited, but seems possible if not probable now.
Available Asia passenger charter aircraft maxed out now.
CBRN's sleeping peacefully btw.
Our govt is now, probably from the start, taking extensive and conservative precautions.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:52am PT
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Adam- Swedish early warning nuke moniters are starting to pick up radiation. They are expecting this to travel across most of the northern hemisphere. Even across USA to Europe. This is not contained....That is.why i say none of that stuff matters anymore.
OK... Think about what you just wrote for a moment here... IF they are detecting this (Fuku) in Sweden, then the jet-stream and/or lower atmospheric winds have blown BACKWARDS for some time, enough for it to blow across all of Asia/Russia/Middle East/Eastern Europe, OR it has already been blown accross the Pacific, the US, the Atlantic, and Western Europe to reach Sweden.
Think about it. Use that gray matter between the ears.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:55am PT
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OR it has already been blown accross the Pacific, the US, the Atlantic, and Western Europe to reach Sweden.
Well, duh!
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:00am PT
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Earlier this morning I wrote...
Point is, it's not like these nukes are designed and constructed to meet minimum requirements, and just run to make power... The entire industry is ALWAYS modifying and making changes to enhance safety. They look for any and every way to maximize safety, and even though this costs LOTS of $$$, we still do it. My plant is also 40 years old, but we are still adding additional layers, on top of additional layers, that have been added through the decades to make it safer, and safer.
Also, the nukes share information with other nukes imediately, to ensure that any issues (real or percieved) are addressed at all plants... This is done through not only the NRC, but also INPO:
http://www.inpo.info/
And, sure enough, here at my nuke (Note that this went to ALL nukes), we recieved direction from INPO to verify certain things, BECAUSE of what has happened in Japan... Just an experpt, as it is 'limited distribution':
Verify the capability to mitigate conditions that result from beyond design basis events, typically bounded by security threats, committed to as part of NRC Security Order section B.5.b issued February 25, 2002, and severe accident management guidelines. Include, but do not limit, the verification to the following:
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:03am PT
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The person doing the monitoring is in Sweden but the monitering device is somewhere over the pacific...it didn't say where.. Then what you wrote...
Adam- Swedish early warning nuke moniters are starting to pick up radiation. ...is misleading, as I, and apparently DMT, took your words to mean in Sweden.
This is my main issue... Misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and misleading information... All of that leads to BS speculation and fear that is not appropriate given the actual threat.
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Brandon Lampley
Mountain climber
Boulder, CO
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:05am PT
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Bet ya it's detectable in the aleutians too, easy to imagine trans polar transport to Sweden.
Within a few days minuscule amounts will be detectable all over the n hemisphere.
I agree it's no big deal outside the immediate area and the plume for a couple hundred miles out to sea, but rrrADAM, you come across as having your head in the sand now.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:10am PT
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Fear and speculation are ALWAYS part of the human equation. Its something you pointy headed technicians and engineers need to relearn over and over and over again.
Your calls for calm consideration will be ignored. You all in the Nuke business need to understand this and come at your PR campaign in a vastly different manner.
Calculators and long winded explanations will not calm the riled beast.
DMT Agreed.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:12am PT
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It's almost midnight in Japan and we've had less information today than on any previous day. All they've told us is that they dumped four bucket loads of water this morning which may or may not have helped (they can't say), and they have managed to spray the # 2 reactor with several tons of water from police water cannons. They think the water canons have worked as they think they may have seem steam rising from the cooling tank afterward.
Tokyo electric is now announcing they hope to have power up and running to the # 2 by tomorrow. Of course nobody has any clue whether the equipment will still pump or not even with electricity, or how that might help the other 5 reactors on site.
Meanwhile, the Dept. of Defense and my university have been sending out emails instructing govt. ID holders on what the evacuation procedures are. Okinawa is of course still doing fine and no one here is going anywhere.
Meanwhile, I'm giving it up and going to bed. Hopefully I'll wake up to some better news tomorrow.
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:15am PT
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Good post up there Dingus.
DD
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:15am PT
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Thanx for the link, QITNL... From that article:
"It is only a question of very, very low activities so it is nothing for people to worry about," De Geer said.
"In the past when they had nuclear weapons tests in China ... then there were similar clouds all the time without anybody caring about it at all," he said.
And, as DMT just correctly said, "people will still be afraid", ignoring or not trusting that it is insignificant. It's the picking and choosing of what the media reports, and pays attention to... "Radiation detected...", vs "Insignificant levels of radiation detected...".
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:15am PT
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I don't think he's got head in the sand. He's just saying that based on existing info, those of us in the US shouldn't panic. This isn't Chernobyl, and most likely won't ever be. That was a running reactor that exploded pretty much directly into the atmosphere. This is not that. And even with Chernobyl, the really bad effects were liimted to the Eastern Europe/Ukraine area. It's not like Japan got alot of radiation out of that. And the US is just as far from Fukushima as Japan was from Chernobyl.
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:16am PT
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In Washington, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in congressional testimony Wednesday that a deep pool in unit 4 holding uranium fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi facility sat empty of water needed to prevent releases of radiation. “And we believe that radiation levels are extremely high,” he added. WP-17MAR2011
“Extremely high” is a meaningless subjective term that conveys no understanding to the event which is occurring. The world needs real time radiation data placed in geospatial position and compositional context for a more complete understanding of this crisis. It appears that the Japanese government and Tokyo Power are unable or unwilling to comply. The DOE and the DOD need to step up to the plate and force Japan to greater informational transparency, as well as release data which one would hope these USA government agencies are capable to collect from afar given that in the DOD case their hardware was designed to fight a nuclear war, that never came; and the in the DOE case that they dreamed up that hardware.
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Brandon Lampley
Mountain climber
Boulder, CO
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:33am PT
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I didnt mean to call out rrrADAM. Just saying that the super calm tone lends itself to misinterpretation. We're not a bunch of idiots here, and this is obviously currently an out of control emergent situation.
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Aya K
Trad climber
New York
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Mar 17, 2011 - 11:42am PT
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Thanks, rrrAdam for all the info and links to stories with actual information rather than all the hype. I can't even watch the news anymore because all the speculation, the leading questions by the reporters, etc are driving me nuts.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
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DMT -- "Its something you pointy headed technicians and engineers need to relearn over and over and over again."
LOL
You're as bad as I am ... LOL
Lab coats ..... :-)
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:36pm PT
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Ok here it is...I know we will have to rehash and repeat the entire thread concerning doses, dispersion...panic for the 100th time....the point is there is no containment... I'm not gonna rehash anything, as some people choose not to believe it for their own reasons, Howeverm I will try to put some of what you just said into a propper perspective... If you, or others choose to accept it, fine, if not, oh well...
See bold above...
First, we do NOT know the magnatude of the breach in secondary containment, as from all I've heard, it is secondary containment that is likely breached, and in just one reactor. The rector vessel (Rx) from ALL accounts is still intact, and that is the primary containment.
So, we have steam and fission prodcuts vented to releave pressure from the RX, and this can get out of secondary if it is breached. Steam and some products do not equal the core, not even remotely.
Also, the amount of breach in secondary aslo matters... Remember, Chernobyl had no containment, so it was ALL esposed to the atmosphere, and the intense fire spread that material in a plume up to 30,000 feet high. At Fuku, the amount of contamination that can spread is proportional to the size of the breach (think a window, more stuff can pass through a bigger window than a smaller one, or even just a crack in the glass), the amount of contamination available to be spread (fission products), and a FORCE to push it through the breach (think window again) to the outside.
Imagine a pile of fine ash in your house (contamination is the same)... What would it take to get that ash outside of your house, and blowing around? (E.g., space under your front door, small window, large window, etc) See, it is relative to size of the breach? And, it would also take some force to get it out of your house through that 'breach', otherwise, it would just site there.
Now, if we want to look at the cores of Units 1-3, then we need to put that pile of ash in an airtight vessel in your house... Even though a window may be open, it isn't get out of the vessel.
So, sayng that "there is no containment" is a bit misleading, as there is a containment structure, but it has been breached, and we don't know to what degree... Using the analogy I've givem that would be like saying "there is no house", when only a window is open.
That said... The spent fuel pools are another story, as that is not contained in a vessel. BUT, it also isn't anywhere near as active as that which is in the core, and was critical less than a week ago.
And again... Material from Chernobyl spread all around the world, and was detectable here in the US. How many of us have a 3rd eye as a result? In fact, just because it is detectable does not mean it is something we need to worry about. Technically speaking, we are ALL exposed to contamination still in the environment from the A-bombs dropped at the end of the war and ALL nuclear bomb testing. It is a matter of how how what type, how much, and for how long.
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