Corium found in reactor 3!!

Surprised this hasn't been posted here already, I saw it somewhere last week, finally some good news coming out of Fukushima

www.ibtimes.com...

www.independent.co.uk...


Not too much to add here, hopefully reactors 1&2 arent even as bad as this, and IIRC reactor4 didn't melt down.


Also, I wonder if all the electricity TEPCO sold from Fukushima, + the plant build costs even come close to the hundreds of billions in cleanup costs, plus the incalculable damage to the environment, damaged lives, relocating families etc etc

I'm not anti nuclear energy at all, but realistically can we even make a sound financial argument for it's use when disasters like this are inevitable AND we still don't have technology to dispose of the waste????

Good info. Keep it coming!

Disasters will become more inevitable particularly in the United States where reactors are being pushed well beyond their originally estimated life expectancy.

Factor in the disasters of the past, and who will you get to man the reactors? ANSWER: lower and lower quality people who are too stupid to assess the ever growing risks.

originally posted by: 8675309jenny
I'm not anti nuclear energy at all, but realistically can we even make a sound financial argument for it's use when disasters like this are inevitable...

Disasters like this are not "inevitable". The likelihood increases when reactors are pushed beyond capacity/lifetime because new reactors cannot be built.

Blame the idiot enviroweenies for making life more dangerous than it needs to be. The same people trying to block nuclear power are also trying to push the world to electric cars, but will be completely surprised when the additional demand on the grid pushes it over the edge.

The complexities and impossibilities of cleaning up a mess like Fukishima are just mind boggling and almost incomprehensible!

In reactors 1 & 2 not even ultra-'hardened' electronics can survive for more than a few minutes.

Cs-137 has a half life of 30 years, and radiation levels inside the reactors is being regularly measured at 1,000 Sv (100 Sv is 100% fatal within an hour).

If they were that close to melted fuel in the core the CCD chip in the camera would be bombarded with gamma radiation, evident in other videos they have released.

They don't even have to get close to the core before the images become saturated.They know where the fuel is and have imaged it before, but still can't approach it for very long, let alone begin to recover any of the tons of melted fuel.

a reply to: EvillerBob

idiot enviroweenies

Yeah.... cuz...

"When looking back on the accident, the problem was that preparations were not made in advance," states the report, prepared by a nuclear reform task force.

That stance represents an about-face for Tepco, which has maintained that it had done its best to prevent an accident from occurring.

"There was a worry that if the company were to implement a severe-accident response plan, it would spur anxiety throughout the country and in the community where the plant is sited, and lend momentum to the anti-nuclear movement,'' the committee said in the report issued Friday.

Tepco admits Fukushima mistakes

The same people trying to block nuclear power are also trying to push the world to electric cars, but will be completely surprised when the additional demand on the grid pushes it over the edge.

The anti-nuclear movement quasi pushed their generators into the sea. Additional demands, additional demands! Adding to what exactly, you fricken idiot nonenviroweenie?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

The Japanese were assured by the American designers of (GE) boiling water reactors that severe accidents couldn't happen because of all the built in redundant safety systems. The reactors were built as strong and safe as thought possible.

Worst case scenarios were down played, what to do with spent fuel, downplayed, what to do in an emergency, downplayed.

originally posted by: EvillerBob

originally posted by: 8675309jenny
I'm not anti nuclear energy at all, but realistically can we even make a sound financial argument for it's use when disasters like this are inevitable...

Disasters like this are not "inevitable". The likelihood increases when reactors are pushed beyond capacity/lifetime because new reactors cannot be built.

Id definitely have to disagree. Gas/coal/peat etc turbines can be immediately shut down. Nuclear plants require ashutdow period of generally 12-30 hours, and cooling is absolutely necessary during that period. It's sadly ironic that they didn't have electricity at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, and that led to relying on the external generators, and the tsunami swamped the generators, so the pumps had no power, while sitting onsite with 4x 1.1 GIGAWATT NUCLEAR REACTORS!!

Nuclear reactions have the ability to carry on by themselves out of control if not subject to a very precision CONTROLLED SHUTDOWN PROCESS. This simple fact makes them terrible for common natural disaster areas like the coastal regions of Japan, California, Chile etc


What really blows me away, is we put all this advanced effort into a controlled nuclear reaction, just to BOIL WATER, LOL!!! Seems like we could just build boiling water turbines near natural magma vents and use the plentiful heat from the earth's core to power as much as wecould ever want.

a reply to: intrptr

Except that the Japanese didn't build the reactors in accordance with GE's recommendations, IAEA's recommendations or even the Japanese government recommendations. Had they done so they would have been able to prevent the meltdowns in reactors 2 and 3 as well as the overheat of fuel pool 4.

originally posted by: intrptr

If they were that close to melted fuel in the core the CCD chip in the camera would be bombarded with gamma radiation, evident in other videos they have released.

They don't even have to get close to the core before the images become saturated.They know where the fuel is and have imaged it before, but still can't approach it for very long, let alone begin to recover any of the tons of melted fuel.

Gamma radiation is greatly attenuated by water. I thought about this myself, and I think the only way they were able to get these images was because of it being an underwater robot.

From what I know, reactor 3 is supposed to be the worst one.

a reply to: 8675309jenny

Well, even if the generators on 1 and 2 hadn't been flooded they still wouldn't have worked because the switchgear for the generators was also flooded. Flooded switchgear = no power.

The switchgear and the generators should have been located outside the flood zone as recommended. Generators are easy to relocate, but switchgear is much more problematic for a number of reasons.

originally posted by: 8675309jenny

originally posted by: EvillerBob

originally posted by: 8675309jenny
I'm not anti nuclear energy at all, but realistically can we even make a sound financial argument for it's use when disasters like this are inevitable...

Disasters like this are not "inevitable". The likelihood increases when reactors are pushed beyond capacity/lifetime because new reactors cannot be built.

Id definitely have to disagree. Gas/coal/peat etc turbines can be immediately shut down. Nuclear plants require ashutdow period of generally 12-30 hours, and cooling is absolutely necessary during that period. It's sadly ironic that they didn't have electricity at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, and that led to relying on the external generators, and the tsunami swamped the generators, so the pumps had no power, while sitting onsite with 4x 1.1 GIGAWATT NUCLEAR REACTORS!!

Nuclear reactions have the ability to carry on by themselves out of control if not subject to a very precision CONTROLLED SHUTDOWN PROCESS. This simple fact makes them terrible for common natural disaster areas like the coastal regions of Japan, California, Chile etc


What really blows me away, is we put all this advanced effort into a controlled nuclear reaction, just to BOIL WATER, LOL!!! Seems like we could just build boiling water turbines near natural magma vents and use the plentiful heat from the earth's core to power as much as wecould ever want.

Two additional comments...

1. Shutting down the reactors proper is a fairly speedy process, but it's the cooling of the remaining fission products which takes time.

2. The location of geothermal heat sources such as volcanos and the like are even more unstable than where Fukishima is located.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
The complexities and impossibilities of cleaning up a mess like Fukishima are just mind boggling and almost incomprehensible!

In reactors 1 & 2 not even ultra-'hardened' electronics can survive for more than a few minutes.

Cs-137 has a half life of 30 years, and radiation levels inside the reactors is being regularly measured at 1,000 Sv (100 Sv is 100% fatal within an hour).

Agree. And from the article:

And while finding nuclear fuel debris would mark a major milestone in the cleanup process, it will still likely take time. Estimates say a full decommissioning of the plant should take decades at a cost of $188 billion.

“At the current stage, we will proceed with the decommissioning in line with the road map,” industry minister Hiroshige Seko said Tuesday, referring to the 30- to 40-year timeline of decommissioning the plant.

This is IMHO, an UNCONTROLLABLE situation. I also think the amount of debris they're finding is minimal to the amount they're not.

a reply to: intrptr

Well. Send the yakuza down to the pipes for maintenance and they'll obviously smoke your whole plant.

...
In a previous story, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese engineer who worked at the Unit 1 site, says that he wasn’t surprised that a meltdown took place after the earthquake. He sent the Japanese government a letter, dated June 28, 2000, warning them of the problems there. It took the Japanese government more than two years to act on that warning. Mr. Sugaoka has also said he saw yakuza tattoos on many of the cleanup crew staff. When interviewed on May 23 he stated, “The plant had problems galore and the approach taken with them was piecemeal. Most of the critical work: construction work, inspection work, and welding were entrusted to sub-contracted employees with little technical background or knowledge of nuclear radiation. I can’t remember there ever being a disaster drill. The TEPCO employees never got their hands dirty.”
...
On May 15, TEPCO went some way toward admitting at least some of these claims in a report called “Reactor Core Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit One.” The report said there might have been pre-tsunami damage to key facilities including pipes. “This means that assurances from the industry in Japan and overseas that the reactors were robust is now blown apart,” said Shaun Burnie, an independent nuclear waste consultant. “It raises fundamental questions on all reactors in high seismic risk areas.”
...

Meltdown: What Really Happened at Fukushima?

a reply to: 8675309jenny

Except that the environmentalists don't allow those types of plants to be built (gas, coal, etc.). Those types are too damaging to the environment because they cause global warming, and we are all supposed to be forced to go to electric cars because the other kind causes global warming.

Where are we going to get our electricity?

Japan has a reputation for tsunamis.

When designing the backup power systems for a nuke plant that is in an area that has seen earthquakes and tsunamis, you should install all of the backup power systems as high as possible. Not on the ground floor or in the basement, that's just pure stupidity. That's asking for meltdowns.

a reply to: ketsuko

I dunno, put your fingers in the socket?

Enviromentalists are not one homogenous group and there's solar, wind, hydraulic and hydrothermal power to be used as well. Me? I don't hold any grudges against clean coal, or clean gas for that matter. Your whole talking point is ridiculous at best.

originally posted by: fredrodgers1960
Japan has a reputation for tsunamis.

When designing the backup power systems for a nuke plant that is in an area that has seen earthquakes and tsunamis, you should install all of the backup power systems as high as possible. Not on the ground floor or in the basement, that's just pure stupidity. That's asking for meltdowns.

And this was exactly the recommendations from GE and the IAEA, but Japan didn't follow them.

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: ketsuko

I dunno, put your fingers in the socket?

Enviromentalists are not one homogenous group and there's solar, wind, hydraulic and hydrothermal power to be used as well. Me? I don't hold any grudges against clean coal, or clean gas for that matter. Your whole talking point is ridiculous at best.

All of those green sources you mention are situational. Hydroelectric has additional problems because activists don't like the natural watersheds being impeded by dams.

Thing is that it doesn't take the environmental lobby as a whole to cause problems. It only takes committed groups to stop projects or cause long-lasting detrimental impacts.

Look at how the last administration openly waged war on the coal industry through the EPA and by extension, coal fired power plants.