A Possible Fukushima Fix? An Optimistic Connecting of Some Dots

Okay, so we are all in agreement that Fukushima is a clusterfornication of the highest order and a potential ELE. Yet all we seem to do is wring our hands and rant about how greed and governmental cronyism and garbage prioritizing of resources have doomed us all. So here's a possible step in the fixing this thing direction.

This is worse than Chernobyl, of course. Chernobyl was entombed relatively quickly, but a great deal of trouble with entombing Fukushima has to do with its location. So much of this mess involves the radiation spilling into the ocean. Can't really entomb coastline...

Or can we? Roman Concrete was a mystery for nearly 2,000 years. Capable of withstanding millennia of exposure to not only land based elements, but the constant pounding of the sea, the recipe for Roman Concrete was only recently figured out. It was not on anyone's radar at the time of the Fukushima meltdown (when entombment was first considered), because we had no way of making the stuff. Not only is it insanely durable, it cures underwater.

Now, don't get me wrong this is only a possible start to a Fukushima fix. Actual engineers would need to determine the how of the thing, but this can be a major new tool in addressing a bad situation.

Anyone know if this has been on the radar out there? I haven't found any mention of the two concepts within a thousand yards of one another.

Thoughts?

reply to post by RobertAntonWeishaupt


Certainly a part of any solution but for the fact that the core is so hot. The steam would just blow the top off of any sealed encasement.

If that could be addressed, entombment or maybe even extraction could be attempted.

One thought I had was to fire boron rods (hundreds or thousands) in an attempt to diffuse (not defuse folks) the uranium slab and slow down the uncontrolled reaction. Basically, use a kinetic weapon to reintroduce the control strategy by force if that is physically possible. Any one else have any ideas?

Great thread, just talking about solutions is positive!

reply to post by greencmp


Good point on the core temps, though I still think the Roman concrete could be a good tool for closing up these leaks. I assume that if the water wasn't "leaking" that it would be going through some sort of secure scrubbing and replenishment system, so sealing these entirely accidental leaks should be a top priority.

They would have to fill all the drains with it, and ant natural streams. Surface run off water could be diverted with it. Could they put a layer of it under the plant and in the area?

Get those fuel rods out asap, then lay a mix of highly liquefied concrete/lead and other materials as a base and start building a huge wall of same material including steel around it. then more base, repeat. that's a start.

The reason the buildings are still sitting there today is because of the radioactive contamination. Each buildings situation is unique and has been/ is being addressed differently. I'm not saying they aren't doing everything they possibly can, but there are problems with containing it, removing fuel rods, melted cores and cleanup.

The amount of fuel in these monsters is huge. Hundreds of tons of melted stuff that apparently is still hot and fissioning. That pic of the day of the steaming ocean is proof there is still activity in these stricken plants.

Something is still generating enough heat to do that. Thats proof there is still fission going on somewhere in there. If they were to put a lid on that, seal it up, then hydrogen gas from that ongoing fission would begin to build up and could result in more explosions.

The "cover" on number one building is supposed to be controlling the release of these gases from its melted core. Filters are capturing the gases before venting to the atmosphere. How that is working and what to do with all the contaminated filters is another matter. Sealed up, the gasses would build until some electric arc in a relay or solenoid would explode the "cover". Other buildings there are just being allowed to vent to the air. That has been occurring since day one.

The fuel rods present another problem in that to remove them, the damaged apparatus like over head cranes and water trenches have to be rebuilt enough to allow for removal. All the fuel rods that were ever used in these reactors were being stored on site when the earthquake struck. They didn't have any place else to store them...

then, and I don't know about now. So the cooling in place continues which, since the pools and cores are damaged is (leaking) and being pumped out into storage tank farms. I heard that they are at 90 % of capacity for those tank "farms".

The water in these tank farms is still on site because nobody has worked out how to clean it yet or the process is so slow, that the amount of water is building faster than they can "clean" it (whatever that means).

To build a dam or barrier of some sort down below ground water table--- Wait, what? Think about that for a minute. Even if that were possible somehow, the whole site would fill up to become a giant swimming pool and eventually run over/under anyway.

Water does that.

Sorry about the doom and gloom, I'm not saying there isn't a solution to this, just looking at the current problems with what they are telling and showing us.

reply to post by intrptr


So your saying any concrete containment would likely explode from trapped gasses, while it was being built..
what about liquid containment covered with filters? or would the weight compromise the ground?

reply to post by all2human

So your saying any concrete containment would likely explode from trapped gasses, while it was being built..

Well, once it was "sealed". Like I said, Number one is "tented" much like a termite tenting on a home. It has fans and filters to remove the nasty, but I don't really know how thats working. Initially they said they would do that to all four buildings, but they haven't.

Another way of looking at it... Say you are boiling water on a stove and the steam is toxic with radioactivity so you clamp a lid on it, but are unable to turn off the stove. Eventually there is going to be trouble. Before the plants blew up they were trying to control the build up of pressure by venting. This was our first sign on Saturday (one day after the quake) that the plants were in visible trouble. Heres a video, look at the stack on the right (number one) towards the end of the video. See the plume?


Note the upload date March 12, 2011. This bit of video was captured before the plants blew. They were venting gasses from the main stacks. They had to.

what about liquid containment covered with filters? or would the weight compromise the ground?

The ground is said to be getting "mushy" from all the water being poured onto the plants to keep them and the pools cool. I don't know about turning the whole place into a giant bathtub. Thats years of work. First they need to remove all the nuclear material... the race against time is if they can do that before the site is totally uninhabitable. Every fresh "spike" in radioactivity brings them closer to losing that race.

reply to post by intrptr


I guess the question would be: What would they be doing with this water if it weren't "Leaking"?

The language out of Japan (even the newly "honest" disclosure) still suggests that these leaks are accidental. This suggests that they have a methodology in place for dealing with all the water they're putting in. If stopping the leaks is untenable because we would be dealing with a radioactive reservoir, then we TEPCO needs to admit that they do not have a leak but are in fact dumping these levels of radiation in the sea.

reply to post by intrptr


Why not build actual cooling towers around them?
cantelever'd or buttressed on well seated concrete footings with external cooling..
with giant filtration sytems on-top





big problems require big solutions..
This isn't going away unless we deal with it

Originally posted by RobertAntonWeishaupt
reply to post by intrptr

 

I guess the question would be: What would they be doing with this water if it weren't "Leaking"?

The language out of Japan (even the newly "honest" disclosure) still suggests that these leaks are accidental. This suggests that they have a methodology in place for dealing with all the water they're putting in. If stopping the leaks is untenable because we would be dealing with a radioactive reservoir, then we TEPCO needs to admit that they do not have a leak but are in fact dumping these levels of radiation in the sea.

You are right. They are admitting it "a little bit". The plants have been leaking to the sea since day one. Any idea that the normal recirculating machinery that was in place before the explosions destroyed it is mistaken or 'misled'. In lieu of operating normally, they are "pumping" water onto and into the pools and reactor core vessels.

Since some portion of these cores have melted down and thru the bottom of the containment then it is logical to conclude that some of the water is "leaking" thru the bottom of the containment as well.. Not much can be done about that highly radioactive water that is seeping into the groundwater table right adjacent to the ocean.

The tank farms are growing and reaching capacity. What they are planning to do after that is...?

Originally posted by all2human
reply to post by intrptr

 

Why not build actual cooling towers around them?
cantelever'd or buttressed on well seated concrete footings with external cooling..
with giant filtration sytems on-top

The cooling towers in your picture are cooling secondary reactor cooling loop water and are part of working reactor power plants. The steam coming out of the towers is clean. At Fukushima that steam would be highly radioactive, drifting on the wind. It already is. Fission by products are being produced all the time in the open air and rising above the plants, as well as being "washed' into the ocean thru the ground water table below them. It is invisible for the most part.

The problem is decontamination. Before any major new construction can occur, the contamination must be removed. That is what they are focusing on. Stopping that to drive piles in the ground or pour new foundations is like trying to build new houses in the midst of a forest fire.

Whatever limited, ever decreasing time workers have on site is spent working on restoring machinery so they can remove the still volatile fuel rods from the pools that are slowly crumbling because of the water they are pouring on them which they have to pump out and store in the ever increasing storage tank farms. That is to prevent any more open air burning of fuel rods occurring and is the HIGHEST priority at this time. All their efforts are directed at that.

I can't even begin to imagine the scheduling nightmares and finger in the dike or sorcerer's apprentice magic mops and buckets of water fire brigade going on over there. Would be neat to see a time lapse camera set up at the site.

reply to post by intrptr


Hmm..assuming this is a global problem, where is the global response?

Originally posted by all2human
reply to post by intrptr

 

Hmm..assuming this is a global problem, where is the global response?

edit on 2-9-2013 by all2human because: (no reason given)

The "problem" with using radioactive elements for boiling water is well known by the scientists that designed these nuclear power plants. The "problem" doesn't exist unless the reactors suffer catastrophic failure (meltdown). The odds of that occurring are so small they decided to go with production of thees plants despite they didn't know what to do in a worst case scenario, let alone even what to do with spent fuel rods from "normal" operations.

Heres the problem: Once meltdown has occurred and radioactive elements escape into the environment on such a mass scale there is nothing that diminishes the danger to the bio sphere (meaning life) except decay over time, period.

I am pounding on my key board as I type this I am so angry.

Originally posted by all2human
reply to post by intrptr

 

So your saying any concrete containment would likely explode from trapped gasses, while it was being built..
what about liquid containment covered with filters? or would the weight compromise the ground?

edit on 2-9-2013 by all2human because: (no reason given)

would it be possible to include a valve to the concrete containment to allow trapped gas to escape, therefore not exploding the concrete containment unit.. dont know just a little input...

reply to post by intrptr


Um..care to elaborate? Biosphere?
you mean affecting just the local plant? surrounding area? japan? or the world?
If so what does that mean exactly?
maybe I shouldn't have asked, doesn't sound optimistic..

Originally posted by flipflop

Originally posted by all2human
reply to post by intrptr

 

So your saying any concrete containment would likely explode from trapped gasses, while it was being built..
what about liquid containment covered with filters? or would the weight compromise the ground?

edit on 2-9-2013 by all2human because: (no reason given)

would it be possible to include a valve to the concrete containment to allow trapped gas to escape, therefore not exploding the concrete containment unit.. dont know just a little input...

That might prevent some gas escaping out the top, but do little to keep it form being washed out the bottom under the plant. Meltdowns imply they have lost plant control and integrity and now they are pouring water on the mess to keep it cool and that water is running over the hot mass of melted fuel and (eventually) out to sea. They mop up as much as they can, but some will escape and that stuff is the dirtiest, nastiest plethora of radionuclides and isotopes known to man. Imagine the Periodic Table of the Elements but all the elements are radioactive.

Number one plant has a tent that isn't concrete but is filtering the gases before releasing it to the atmosphere. Thats the above ground containment. From what I understand the water they pour into the core fills the basement and they are constantly pumping it out and filling tanks with it.

Originally posted by all2human
reply to post by intrptr

 

Um..care to elaborate? Biosphere?
you mean affecting just the local plant? surrounding area? japan? or the world?
If so what does that mean exactly?

maybe I shouldn't have asked, doesn't sound optimistic..

I know less about that. I have asked people if radioactive atoms rise into the atmosphere because they are hot thermally and just keep rising until they leave the atmosphere. I think some of these "hot" atoms are born aloft and travel around the world and fall out in rain. There are a lot of people that think that is what is happening. Like UFOs on YouTube though, there is so much crap about it I don't know which is real anymore. I been trying to find out how much radioactivity rises in evaporation from water and becomes clouds and rains out anywhere. HOw much of it is dust on the wind along with coal smoke and CO2?

There are people on ATS on the Japan disaster thread that know more about this than I do.

The chain of life is a nutrient chain that travels from the muck on the bottom of oceans to crustaceans, to fish, our bellies, bones and connective tissue where it is absorbed because it appears to our bodies to be food.

I do know that storms, tides, human activity all churn up the ocean, the muck, and cast that ashore during hurricanes and high tide. The big mixer of the planet is the water system from oceans to clouds to rivers and lakes. Erosion and storms all add to the mixer.

Others assert this is occurring and we all dead from it, eventually. I want evidence of cancers and deaths due to links to this disaster. I know it will take time (years) for the stuff to work its way around the planet, be absorbed by us and give rise to diseases. How will we find out the truth about death statistics? How will they be linked to actual proof that Fukushima caused them? There are so many other causes of toxicity in the environment that also give rise to cancer. We have entered the great unknown World Biological Experiment.

I thought I would ad this:
How Is Fukushima's Fallout Affecting Marine Life?www.whoi.edu...
A sobering thought on nuclear waste disposal through history:en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by all2human

Thanks for those two links. I bookmarked them. I learned a new word from the first one.

Biomagnification.

Of particular concern for top-level consumers is the potential that these radioisotopes will be concentrated as they make their way up the food chain—what ecologists call biomagnification.