Spent fuel Rod fire could be worse than Chernobyl

I asked this before on another thread and got no answer and have been searching for hours. Does anyone know the situation in the stand alone spent fuel pool?

Afterthought:

If an explosion (source unclear - but either from gas release/build up, core purgeing, spent-fuel-rod tank drying out... and that broke the tank apart, or if the tank drained and ignited, ABOVE a reactor structure also experiencing over-heatng...could the spent-fuel-rod matter heat to a point where it melts down INTO the core structure and even make contact with the core?

reply to post by okiecowboy


Sorry if i screw this up, but this is my first time posting.

You mentioned you didnt know how much used fuel was stored...

but does page 4 and page 9 of this help out at all???

www.nirs.org...

Deny ignorance, knowledge is power.

The whole thing sounds insane. Initially, I wondered why so much potential energy is needed to spin a few turbines, esp. in light of a runaway reactor episode. You can't get the media goons to even get dressed for work, let alone tell us what sort of energy is being set off, in any terms we could understand. For instance, it would be nice to know how long the burning reactor fuel was intended to power it's region, a kilowatt number, anything. Now I hear they jam tons of spent rods in this same catastrophe corner, and mum's the word on how many reactors we can add to the dozens he Japanese have constructed on this site. Do these spent rods essentially mean more reactors (in equivalence) in the event of fire, etc???

Something's very wrong with this energy scenario. I don't understand why so much radioactive liability is sitting around a live core! It sounds as if they took the easy way out and just stored the spent rods there out of convenience. It is probably happening here too, in the states. While obama parties, and fracks every shale plate in the country he will eventually run from, allowing his halliburton budds to poison the ground water with impunity.

reply to post by curioustype


I would have to say yes.. and recent info done by TheRedneck on ATS has learned that the zirconium cladding on the spent fuel rod..when exposed to hydrogen..can become explosive themselves

reply to post by utsaME

I asked this before on another thread and got no answer and have been searching for hours. Does anyone know the situation in the stand alone spent fuel pool?

I have not seen much on it since early on..I saw reports of the building being damaged some...but that is all
I have seen

2046: Japan's foreign ministry has asked foreign diplomats and government officials to remain calm and "accurately convey information provided by Japanese authorities concerning the plant", according to NHK television.

2038: Experts warn that if radiation levels become too high, workers at the plant would not only be prevented from approaching reactor 4's spent fuel pond, but also the adjacent reactors, which also have malfunctioning cooling systems. "

2027: Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has said it is also concerned about the spent fuel storage pool inside the building housing reactor 3 at Fukushima Daiichi. The pools at both reactors 3 and 4 are reportedly boiling - there may not even be any water left in reactor 4's pool - and unless the spent fuel rods are cooled down, they could emit large quantities radiation. Radioactive steam was earlier said to be coming from reactor 3's pool. If cooling operations did not proceed well, the situation would "reach a critical stage in a couple of days", an agency official told the Kyodo news agency.

2019: The US military will also fly one of its Global Hawk unmanned high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over the site, possibly later on Thursday, to take photographs of the inside the building which houses reactor 4, Japanese government sources have told the Kyodo news agency.

source: BBC news
www.bbc.co.uk...

I think all of this just reaffirms that you are on the right track here OP.

Anyone know any more about whether throwing water at those spent-fuel stores looks either a). possible, or b).likely to deter the heat build up? Is it a question of it melting or exloding first?

Water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor may be boiling, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on March 15. Temperatures in the rod-cooling pools of the shuttered No. 5 and No. 6 reactors rose as high as 63 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Fahrenheit) at 2 p.m. yesterday from 60 degrees Celsius at 7 a.m., a Tokyo Electric official said. Reactor pool No. 4 contains 142 tons of fuel that could burn on exposure to the atmosphere, Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist for Washington-based Physicians for Social Responsibility, said in a telephone press conference arranged by the group. He cited Tokyo Electric statements.

Source

The Associated Press reported that Japanese officials denied all the water has drained and said the reactor, known as Unit 4, is stable. Radiation at the Japanese site is fluctuating and at peak levels is life-threatening, Jaczko said. The peak levels “would be lethal within a fairly short period of time,” he said. The pool at the plant’s Unit 3, which was in service, may be cracked and losing water, Jaczko said. U.S. citizens in the area have been urged to evacuate to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the plant site, the same distance in the event of a nuclear accident in the U.S., Jaczko said. “We would recommend an evacuation to a much larger radius than has currently been provided by Japan,” Jaczko said.

Source

sounds like the US is going to cut the "PR" losses and throw japans nuclear program under the proverbial bus.....
why try to cover up something that is going to be so obvious when you can point the finger haha

reply to post by curioustype


Doesn't the analogy of dumping a molten slag car into a pond (but in reverse) kinda apply??? The pond explodes (not like fireball-type explosion, but steam etc explosion). If we dump water- be it from choppers, manual water cannons, etc... the heat will vaporize the water into steam...further carrying the radioactive material out of the containment vessels???

If all the water from the cooling pool is gone, the material is heating up that much hotter, that much faster?? Increasing the amount of water needed to counteract the heat??? So then it would take that much more water, therefore steam, to cool the rods??? I think this is why people are starting to say we're beyond the point of no return. Am I on the wrong path here with this thinking???

reply to post by starless and bible black

It is probably happening here too, in the states.

It is in fact...japan has 53 nuke plants producing these spent rods and other waste...The U.S. has 104

The quantity of spent fuel is often measured in terms of metric tons of heavy metal (MTHM), based on the fresh (pre-irradiation) form of the fuel.

As of early 2008, about 57,000 MTHM of commercial spent fuel was in storage across the USA, in 35 states. This stock of fuel is growing at the rate of about 2,000 MTHM annually

source

We have been fighting the storage issue for a while...we do the same things here in the U.S.
and sticking them in a vault at Yucca mountain isn't the answer

reply to post by crazyray


nope your pretty much getting it...water at this point is not the answer!
I think they feel They Have to do something...and this is the best they can do at this point

reply to post by crazyray


Yes, and in addition, even if they were in some way able to carefully apply (which appears to be in doubt due to the building levels of radiation around the buildings - high enough that they may not be able to get past even adjacent reactor buildings...) measured amounts of water onto the spent-fuel-rods, it is not clear whether the vessels/tanks they were stored in have retained their integrity, so they may not fill up, and you can only hope for a very steamy plume? Which brings us back to the info on Zirconium decay posted by TheRedneck...?


This could surely outstrip Chernobyl within a couple of days.

If I were in Japan and could afford a ticket, I'd be out, no question, at least for a couple of weeks...

There is a worryingly growing sense that I am seeing (via official sources) that even access to the site is becoming a loosing battle, and with multiple reactors and stores all within reach of each other and several looking really wobbly... it's genuinely terrifying, and I just hope TEPCO know something I don't about the cable and pumps...?

reply to post by Majestyka

Source


The Associated Press reported that Japanese officials denied all the water has drained and said the reactor, known as Unit 4, is stable. Radiation at the Japanese site is fluctuating and at peak levels is life-threatening, Jaczko said. The peak levels “would be lethal within a fairly short period of time,” he said. The pool at the plant’s Unit 3, which was in service, may be cracked and losing water, Jaczko said. U.S. citizens in the area have been urged to evacuate to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the plant site, the same distance in the event of a nuclear accident in the U.S., Jaczko said. “We would recommend an evacuation to a much larger radius than has currently been provided by Japan,” Jaczko said.

I thin that statement was VERY carefully worded, for example:

"denied all the water has drained and said the reactor, known as Unit 4, is stable. " - Was there a spent fuel storage in building four - 'cos they don't mention the status of that do they - and by the way, the US thinks they may not be able to get near raector 4 to do anything now anyway?

"The pool at the plant’s Unit 3, which was in service, may be cracked and losing water, Jaczko said." - Now didn't they say a day or two ago that reactor three was one that "may have been breached"?

How come this man talks about the spent fuel store at building 3 but not the reactor, and the reactor at building four but not the fuel store - solid PR job perhaps?

reply to post by curioustype


so far I've felt the lack of information out of japan is due to the safety concerns regarding nuclear energy as a whole. I read a quote yesterday that Bill Nye the science guy had said "there is all this talk about safety and the programs in place to stay safe but no-one in their right mind has ever created a meltdown to test these systems" (loved Bill Nye as a kid! still do)

you are correct in saying that it is perfect PR, but i feel that the US is going to start putting down Japan's nuclear program in a way that paints the US program in a "safe" light

Japanese events have convinced me that no matter how much you call an apple and orange it will always be an apple. nuclear power will never be "safe" and neither will its waste products.... at least for the next 1-100,000 years or so.

reactor 3 or reactor 4.... i may be wrong but from what i remember 3 was offline before the quake even happen and had been since the beginning of the month for "maintenance"
reactor 4 was functioning and shut down when the quake hit..... ive also read that building 4 is strictly storage and the reactor there was also not functioning.
i also read on the 12 of march that iodine and cesium were found in small amounts in the cooling water and
outside the plant indicating that there had already been a breach of containment prior to the first blast.

Trace amounts of Cesium-137 and Iodine-131 were found in the air around the plant starting March 12, around 1:30 p.m. local time. The two isotopes are produced when the fuel rods inside the reactors overheat and react with their casings.

Source

pardon me if i have an error in my information and please set me straight as all of us on the west coast would like to know what the truth is... its no nuclear holocaust but id rather not live in a "mild glow" for a few year or more

WHERE IS HOMER SIMPSON???

reply to post by Majestyka


Hmm exactly, so if buidling four - which is clearly shown shredded top-to-bottom by explosions was mainly storage (a tank above the reactor - but still with rods in?) it has clearly experienced devastating and very dangerous trauma to at least the stored fuel, which we now know is very nasty and is likely to get very hot and very unstable within hours or days now that it's exposed and un-cooled, furthermore re-starting pumps may not do much if the storage tank has been badly compromised (or destroyed).

Similar issues appear to face other buildings there from the info coming out. So is that 6 reactor buidlings and additional storage, hours-days left before site becomes the scene of either a massive explosion or unsurviveable radiation levels, or have I missed something?

Just to give you an idea of the size mentioned in the original post: a 29,000 square mile uninhabitable zone is roughly a circle with a 96 mile radius, Area=(π) * radius^2.

Here's a map with about a 100 mile radiusπ at the edge of the pink:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/921f7a12d617.jpg[/atsimg]
Keep in mind they have been talking about evacuating Toyko also, so this map may be on the conservative side.

Fukushima I Nuke Plant to Tokyo is about 160 miles
Distance calculator: www.daftlogic.com...

reply to post by okiecowboy


S&F. Thank you for a great summary.

I have in-laws about 120 miles from the nuclear power plant. I told them to leave, but there is very limited fuel for the cars, and trains are not running.

Please pray for their safety.

reply to post by Majestyka

reactor 3 or reactor 4.... i may be wrong but from what i remember 3 was offline before the quake even happen and had been since the beginning of the month for "maintenance" reactor 4 was functioning and shut down when the quake hit

I think it was reactor 4 that was not currently producing power when the quake hit...BUT all the Fuel rods etc were still there..

And yes there is ALOT of PR pressure in place to try and save face with the nuke industry...
IN FACT..many of the nuke reactors in the U.S. were made by Japan..so they have alot a stake here in many ways

reply to post by okiecowboy


I should imagine all nuke operators worldwide will be forced/pressured to re-locate, or accelerate relocation of ALL of their spent fuel to safer storage facilities in the wake of this, which ain't gonna be cheap.

I think they might try dropping a few members of TPTB into those reactors - The ice in their souls should cool things down pronto.