Huge 8.9 quake plus tsunami - Japan

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Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Mar 19, 2011 - 04:00pm PT

Granite and Riley,

The accident you discussed at Los Alamos is vividly portrayed in the movie:

"Infinity"
and acted by Matthew Broderick, portraying the life of physicist Richard Feynman.

It's a very good movie. I highly recommend it. The accident you speak of at Los Alamos is vividly acted out. Pretty serious stuff and very sad. Richard Feynman was part of that Manhattan Project team.

Sparky

Trad climber

vagabon movin on

Mar 19, 2011 - 04:04pm PT

For those of you who have a audio system with a subwoofer set up to your computer...listen to Japan's quake. Pretty impressive stuff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110318/ts_yblog_thelookout/listen-to-japans-massive-quake

Lots of energy between 4hz and 8hz on the recording...but the recording was sped up 16 times to make it more audible. That puts the real thing at 1/4hz to 1/2hz. Put another way, the Earth rocked back and forth every 2-4 seconds. Scary stuff.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Full Silos of Iowa

Mar 19, 2011 - 04:16pm PT

re: Harry Daghlian

Some of you might find his biography interesting. Here's a bit:

http://arnold_dion.tripod.com/Daghlian/
http://arnold_dion.tripod.com/Daghlian/accident.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Full Silos of Iowa

Mar 19, 2011 - 04:42pm PT

What is a "demon core" and what does it have to do with the disaster in Japan?

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

2. arguably, nothing

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Mar 19, 2011 - 05:01pm PT

Geek alert...

I got into the 'inspection business' through NDE (Nondestructive Examination), which is basically inspecting things without having to ruin them. One technique, radiography (hello, Ed), uses either x-rays or gamma rays from radioisotopes that have been 'activated' by neutron flux in a reactor. The two most common in industrial radiography are Iriduim-192 (Ir-192) and Cobalt-60 (Co-60).

These sources are TREMENDOUS gamma emitters, with a 100 curie Ir-192 source putting out 590 R/hr (590,000 mR/hr)at 1 foot, and 100 curies of Co-60 putting out 1,400 R/hr (1,400,000 mR/hr) at one foot, AND the kicker is these are VERY small... The average Ir-192 source is only .142" in it's maximum dimension, and Co-60 is under .25". And, these are ALWAYS emitting intense radiation, so they are kept shielded in depleted uranium, and handled remotely to aquire an image. They decay down, just like any source, with half lives of 76 days for Ir-192, and ~5 years for Co-60.

I have used a 300 curie Co-60 source, that if oyu were to hold that little pea sized object close to you for just 10 minutes, you would get a leathal dose... Just touching it with your finger for less than a second would cause radiation burns in a day or so.

Note that there is a lot more punch to Co-60, due to its energy (~1.14 MeV, capable of pair production [actually creating matter [a positron / electron pair] from a single photon of that energy, a la E-mc^2) and compton scatter), where Ir-192 has only about .65 MeV... For a sense of reference, a normal x-ray at the doctors office is only about .06-.1 MeV, or 65 - 100 KeV.

We use these sources to radiograpgh welds, and other stuff, just like a dentist x-rays your tooth.

I ended up becoming the Radiation Safety Officer at one of the companies I worked for doing radiography and other types of NDE.

Below are a few images you may find of interest, the first two were done of a couple valves out here at my plant recently, and the last is an image of the actual Liberty Bell that was shot some time ago by an old school radiogragher I knew... They actually had to get Kodak to make a special piece of film to shoot that, due to it's size...

Mike Bolte

Trad climber

Planet Earth

Mar 19, 2011 - 05:16pm PT

cool images

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Full Silos of Iowa

Mar 19, 2011 - 05:28pm PT

rAdam,

Did you already mention the plant you work for, also your job function? or did you decide to keep these private? Which would be totally understandable of course.

Thanks for your useful links above.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Mar 19, 2011 - 05:46pm PT

I did my apprenticeship way back when at a steel fabrication plant with an N stamp.

The radiography was always done on the graveyard shift behind roped off areas. Along with a cobalt source there were some huge X ray machines that as an electrician I'd have to run power for once in awhile. These things were so big they had water cooled X ray tubes.

Now any plant that size has its own community of semi feral cats. The cats used to like to snuggle up to the Xray machines at night because they were warm.

It killed some of them, but we had an large number of odd patterned calicos as well.

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Mar 19, 2011 - 05:54pm PT

I work at a nuke in North Carolina.

I am a QC/NDE Inspector for my utility, and work mainly at my plant, although we other units so I work at all of them during refuel and inspection outages.

I am also in charge of all Radiography (RT) done at any of our nuclear sites, given one of my certs... I own and write the procedures for RT, as well as I certify people to do it at our sites, or review their certs if they are contractors. I also do a lot of Ultrasonic Inspections, as well as Civil, Mechanical, and Welding inspections, along with a few other NDE methods... Mainly ensuring that all work done on safety related systems is done IAW the applicable code or Spec (E.e, ASME, ANSI, etc...).

As I wrote in another reply, I am a federally protected employee who doesn;t report to anyone at the site, so I can be a 3rd party. I enforce and ensure parts of 10CFR50, especially Appendix B, and Appendix J. I interface a lot with the NRC, and several other oversight organizations.

Prior to hiring on fulltime out here... I lived in Long Beach, Ca, (The LBC, where I grew up) and inspected nukes all over the country as a contractor during outages, and major construction projects at nukes... Been doing nukes since about '96, and before that my QC/NDE experience was in petrochem and aerospace, even done parts fo the Space Shuttles, bridges, amusement park rides, and even brewries... Working fulltime at a few labs in Torrance and Long Beach, Ca.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Full Silos of Iowa

Mar 19, 2011 - 06:02pm PT

rAdam,

Thanks for the reply.

Surprised you have enough time left over to mix it up - quite well I might add - on the God, religion, philosophy and science threads. As that can be a full-on occupation...

EDIT to ADD

...I mean, to get to a place, a level of understanding, where you don't sound like an idiot.

Ref: Klimmer.

(How do you make a downward ^^^ anyways?) ;)

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Mar 19, 2011 - 06:03pm PT

A very important conversation that is not white-washing it all on RT TV . . .

As best I can tell, this is from Thursday (3-17) or Friday (3-18).

Thom Hartmann: Radiation & nuclear experts reveal the best and the worst of what's coming next
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x564858
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdnY69sMsLA

*Note the conversation regarding external radiation exposure vs. internal radiation exposure. This is what I've been saying all along.

Also just heard on NPR (3-19) that the food supply grown, raised in the region surrounding Fuku does indeed show elevated radiation levels now, such as Milk and other plant products. But then they are quick to say the low levels do not pose any harmful levels to health.

No, there isn't any "safe" levels for chronic internal exposure to radiation taken up by the body. It is a big unknown mostly. The effects are long term and don't show up for 10, 15, 20 years. There are few studies.

Like Tom Hartman did in Germany after Chernobyl I would go grocery shopping for food in the grocery store with a Geiger counter (apparently he made the German authorities nervous when he did so - ahhhhh too bad for them). I wouldn't purposefully purchase food that set it off. Yes, I'm fully aware there are food products sold right now everyday, in the grocery store like particular salts that will set-off my Geiger counter. I'm not purchasing or eating those either. Nor am I eating Coleman Lantern mantels, nor am I eating off of Fiesta Ceramic Ware made in the 50s and 60s with bright red glazes that have Uranium oxides (I have a plate, Cup and Saucer for demo purposes and it makes the Geiger counter sing rapidly when I hook it up to an external speaker for all to hear) nor am I sleeping with my fire alarm that has Americium-241 under my pillow at night to be safer from fires . . .

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Mar 19, 2011 - 06:10pm PT

I'm a science geek... I judge science fairs locally, representing my company, and even help the kids who we pick to move on to county and state fairs to improve their projects, and I prepare hands on lesson plans and ideas for teachers to "WOW" kids into science, and make it cool... Mainly for elementary and middle school levels.

Here's one I did recently for a middle school science teacher:

The Yellow Lemon

Wanna know how to change the color of a lemon? It’s all about speed baby…

We all know that as a motorcycle, car, or boat comes towards and passes us, the sound we hear changes from an “Eeeeeee” to an “Ahhhhhhhh” as it passes. That is the Doppler Effect. This is due to the sound waves becoming compressed as they come towards us, like a towel on a kitchen floor being pushed up against a wall, it has to crumple up. Counting the number of waves over a particular distance gives its wavelength, and counting the number of waves over a set amount of time gives its frequency. The pitch of the sound that we hear is the frequency or number of cycles per second (Hertz, abbreviated Hz). For example middle C on a piano is 262 Hz, and the A above that is 440 Hz. As the waves get compressed, the cycles per second goes up, as does the pitch – The “Eeeeeee”. As it passes, it now gets stretched out, like pulling that crumpled up towel leaving fewer bumps. The result is fewer cycles per second, or lower pitch – The “Ahhhhhh”.

Now the same thing happens with light… For example the radar gun that the cops use to give a ticket works on the same principle. Radio waves, which is light below the frequency of the visible light we see, can be compressed or stretched in the same way. As a car moves towards the radar gun the radio waves get compressed and stacked up, just like our towel, thus the frequency of light changes as a direct result of that relative motion. Same goes if the car is moving away from the gun, as the radio waves will get stretched out. A small computer in the radar gun is able to quickly calculate the speed of the car based on the change of frequency.

Now, imagine a lemon… A bright yellow lemon. The frequency of yellow light is about 518 THz (TeraHertz) or 518,000,000,000,000 Hz. If you or the lemon move really fast (as in millions of miles per hour fast) away from each other, the light waves will stretch and the frequency will change, just as above, and the lemon will change color towards red – From yellow (518 Thz), to orange (492 THz), to red (460 THz), depending only on speed. If you or the lemon move towards each other, really fast, it will change color towards blue – From yellow (518 THz), to green (570 THz), to blue (640 THz).

Astronomers use the same technique to measure the speed of galaxies moving away from us in our expanding universe, as the light from them gets redder the faster they are moving away from us. A few of them, like our neighbor the Andromeda galaxy, is getting bluer, meaning it is moving towards us, and will eventually collide with our own Milky Way Galaxy far into the future. They even use the technique to measure how fast a galaxy is rotating, as one side appears redder and the other bluer, as one side rotates towards us while the other rotates away.

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

So, if we make science "cool and interesting", many kids will want to learn it and look deeper on their own.

Wanna know the funny part? I'm basically self-taught, as I am a highschool drop-out.

klk

Trad climber

cali

Mar 19, 2011 - 06:29pm PT

I am a highschool drop-out

heh

me, too

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:03pm PT

HFCS,

To add a little more clarity to what I do now, at the nuke, as I kinda wear a few different hats...

I am in a group called NOS (Nuclear Oversight Section)... They have this group at all US sites, and we do not report to anyone at the site. We are basically the in-house oversight group, that looks at EVERYTHING in the plant, from Operations, to Licensing, to Chemistry, to the Healt Physics Department, to Security, to Maintainance (that's mainly my part), to Management, etc... We are in the business of looking for weaknesses or things that are wrong. We are all federally protected, as we often make waves UP the chain, as well as down. We do NOT suggest how to make things right, as that would compromise our independance, as then we would have to evaluate the results of OUR own suggestions/recomendation/actions... Like the fox guarding the henhouse.

(My wife hates the fact that I've done this for so long, that I tend to do it ALL THE TIME, as evidenced by the discourse I get into online, including at home. :/)

We in NOS all interface with several regulatory and oversight agencies often (E.g., NRC, INPO, EPRI, WANO, etc), as they are the outside oversight groups, and they value our input, insight, and findings. I also sit on a couple TACs (Technical Advisory Committees) with EPRI, doing R&D for new technologies, to either adapt them for nuclear, or to see if there is a benifit to nuclear applications. We also 'benchmark' other utilities to look for 'best practices', and they us. Nukes in the US, and even many outside the US (WANO) are very transparent in this way, as there is a constant exchange of information.

I do enjoy discourse, as I am into edification, and especially appreciate when someone shows me a different perspective on things, even showing me that my head is in my a*# at times... DMT, for one, has done this from time to time throughout the years.

Oh, and I am a Gemini, like long walks on the beach, my spelling sux, and was one of the founding members and even used to be one of the owners of rockclimbing.com years ago, but I was even more of an internet ass back then.

Bargainhunter

climber

Central California

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:05pm PT

Get your NY Times articles while you can. In a week they will start charging to view their articles.

"Lessons From Chernobyl for Japan"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.html?_r=1&hp

Excerpt:

"The death of a nuclear reactor has a beginning; the world is watching this unfold now on the coast of Japan. But it doesn’t have an end.

While some radioactive elements in nuclear fuel decay quickly, cesium’s half-life is 30 years and strontium’s is 29 years. Scientists estimate that it takes 10 to 13 half-lives before life and economic activity can return to an area. That means that the contaminated area — designated by Ukraine’s Parliament as 15,000 square miles, around the size of Switzerland — will be affected for more than 300 years. All last week, workers frantically tried to cool the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 140 miles north of Tokyo. But one had to look at Ukraine to understand the sheer tedium and exhaustion of dealing with the aftermath of a meltdown. It is a problem that does not exist on a human time frame."

-----------

Some ideas posted recently that I like:

Tom Cochrane “one of the best things about ST is the ability to put something out there and rapidly receive feedback from someone more knowledgeable."

Hfcs' idea of a 2000’ deep mineshaft to deep six the whole thing when it's FUBAR ;)

-----------

An idea that I don't like:

that 90% of all US reactor have only 4 hours of battery back-up power... (yikes!)

-----------

What is strange to me in terms of the back up cooling design, why not incorporate passive thermosiphon methods to allow the warmth of the heated water to draw cooler water up and circulate it, much like a passive solar hot water heater? Reliance on power to operate everything seems foolhardy...

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:10pm PT

An idea that I don't like:

that 90% of all US reactor have only 4 hours of battery back-up power... (yikes!)

You seem to have missed an earlier reply by me regarding this some pages back... You really should look at it.

We have dedicated SAMA Diesel generators that are there only to charge these batterries, indefinately, if need be. So, basically, we have two independant and redundant systems to provide backup electricty (E.g., the EDGs and the SAMAs).

...why not incorporate passive thermosiphon methods to allow the warmth of the heated water to draw cooler water up and circulate it,...

We do... IT is caled "Natural Circulation", and from what I understand (remember, I know little about thermodynamics) it won't last indefinately, and there is no heat sink (Service Water or Torus) to send the heat to when in this mode.

While some radioactive elements in nuclear fuel decay quickly, cesium’s half-life is 30 years and strontium’s is 29 years. Scientists estimate that it takes 10 to 13 half-lives before life and economic activity can return to an area. That means that the contaminated area — designated by Ukraine’s Parliament as 15,000 square miles, around the size of Switzerland — will be affected for more than 300 years. All last week, workers frantically tried to cool the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 140 miles north of Tokyo. But one had to look at Ukraine to understand the sheer tedium and exhaustion of dealing with the aftermath of a meltdown. It is a problem that does not exist on a human time frame."

See also post made today regarding Chernobyl, and the people who live in the city, and the 'nuclear touriosts' that visit it.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:19pm PT

Get your NY TImes articles while you can. In a week they will start charging to view their articles.

That is sure to go over really well and make them more popular. Not.

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:30pm PT

I am a Gemini, like long walks on the beach,

What, is ST turning into some sort of dating website?

Yes, it will be interesting to see if the NYT's subscription based model will work. They've got a lot of free, quality competition.

hb81

climber

Mar 19, 2011 - 07:40pm PT

To anyone interested in the topic of nuclear power plants (and the problems that come with them) I can highly recommend this movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoyKe-HxmFk

A documentary about the first final storage for used nuclear fuel that is under construction (and will be for another 100 years) right now in Finland.
Very interesting and thought-provoking as they're discussing the various problems that arise when one tries to construct a place that should last 100,000 years. Yes that is one hundred thousand years.

Great stuff!

edit: here's the complete movie on youtube (shh!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XygsveIwfk