Spent fuel Rod fire could be worse than Chernobyl

NHK World is reporting that they will start spraying the spent fuel rod pool with a water truck this morning Japan time. If the rods are already on fire the water will be evaporated immediately. Don't they know that this type of fire cannot be put out with water ??? I'm confused.

Wonderful thread. Very informative. Thank you for taking your time to investigate this situation.

As I watched the news tonight (abc), I couldn't help but shed tears for the people of Japan, the wildlife, the oceans...all possibly receiving contamination. I honestly prefer to get my news here. I watch the major networks just to see if they are giving us what we need to know. ABC seemed to be addressing the severity of this issue to a degree, at least tonight they gave us a tad more info...

They still insist that it won't affect us in the USA, but I do not agree. It will affect us all in one way or another.

Our local news (TN) states that the nuclear plant in Oak Ridge is built to withstand catrosophic events.

This I do not believe. In the end, who really is going to win...Man or Mother Nature. My bets are on Mother Nature everytime.

reply to post by okiecowboy


I'm 100% positive that japan's reactors were designed by GE and that they are MK1s from the 70's and there are 50 something sisters functioning in the USA RIGHT NOW!

... It is 11 times more likely for the largest asteroid near the earth to impact the earth over the next 100 years than for an ESBWR operational event to result in the release of fission products to the environment

GE

nice comparison of its safety sorry for off topic!

reply to post by Majestyka


Yep, it's a GE nuclear reactor designed in the USA. Two scientists that reviewed the design in the '70s quit, because they thought the engineering was flawed.

Link: www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Majestyka

GE Hitachi designed and built the nuclear reactors at the Japanese sites in crisis

source

I agree you are right about that...

also seen reports where Japan is planning on building plants in the U.S as well
Source

Regardless of who builds the plants, we have the same type of problem here in the U.S regarding the Spent fuel and waste storage...

The whole planet has alot we can learn from this crisis if we just will

check out this thread if you want to learn a little about GE's BWR



GE's reactor designs

reply to post by Majestyka


Thank you for the link
Great reading

Reports now are that the police are preparing to start spraying water to stop melting of the stored fuel rods...

I wonder when they will give up on the water plan?

NHK World

Talk about PR work...funny that the Nuclear Energy Institute would release a Fact sheet today stating

The used fuel pools are designed so that the water in the pool cannot drain down as a result of damage to the piping or cooling systems. The pools do not have drains in the sides or the floor of the pool structure. The only way to rapidly drain down the pool is to have structural damage of the walls or the floor. As of mid-day March 15, there is no evidence to date that this has occurred.

source

and yet I am watching a TEPCO report that this very pool has a hole in it

NHK

NHK World is reporting that the water dump has not changed the radiation level. In other words: it didn't work.

www.livestation.com...

Radiation plume forecast

link

And no this is not that HOAX map that was going around..

And should be noted this does not show radiation levels

reply to post by AllIsOne

NHK World is reporting that the water dump has not changed the radiation level. In other words: it didn't work.

Yeah I was afraid that plan wouldn't work

reply to post by morder1



I have been hunting all over the internet for two or three days looking for a reliable jet stream radiation prediction from a reputable agency and I think I found one. On this site there is a a moving jet stream simulation that shows the predicted radiation path by the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics. It shows their prediction of when the radiation might hit the U.S.

This institute is in Vienna, Austria so the first language is not English but on the site they explained it in english and gave a link from this Austrian institute that is already google translate ready so that you can click the source link and translate it yourself. It is the only thing I have seen so far from some sort of official meteorological institute. There is also a real good article about the current situation with the spent fuel pools that was just posted today.

This is the link to the simulation.

stretchingminds.wordpress.com...

reply to post by eyeseer


Great resource! thanks for posting that

Have you seen this one

Plume forecast

Great amount of information. I like another poster have been watching some of the tv channels for news, but I come here to ATS for the whole picture. This site is a fantastic site for breaking news.

I have some questions about the fallout issues. During Chernobyl the bulk of the fallout hit Belarus, I found stated amounts of that fallout to be in the range of 50 to 70%, and to this day some areas of Belarus are not inhabitable. I found some sources to say that some of the radiation went into the food chain and in green leafy vegetables and cow's milk. Does anyone know if there are any other foods to avoid? And, are these the top foods to avoid?

As for the reactors I've been trying to find out if these reactors being affected in Japan were more powerful ones than the reactors in Chernobyl. I haven't been able to find the numbers on the quantity of fuel rods, although I'm thinking that the situation with the reactors in Japan seems more serious an event.

Great thread, and thanks for the info OP. I'm trying to send my good thoughts to Japan, and I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a big problem for Northern Canada and the states.

reply to post by Praxilla

I have some questions about the fallout issues. During Chernobyl the bulk of the fallout hit Belarus, I found stated amounts of that fallout to be in the range of 50 to 70%, and to this day some areas of Belarus are not inhabitable. I found some sources to say that some of the radiation went into the food chain and in green leafy vegetables and cow's milk. Does anyone know if there are any other foods to avoid? And, are these the top foods to avoid?

I have been looking into this..but have no good answers either..

As for the reactors I've been trying to find out if these reactors being affected in Japan were more powerful ones than the reactors in Chernobyl. I haven't been able to find the numbers on the quantity of fuel rods, although I'm thinking that the situation with the reactors in Japan seems more serious an event

I think the General Electric Mark 1 reactor in japan is a 500mw unit

the Chernobyl RBMK reactor was a 925Mw unit
source

"The core of an LWR contains 35,000-70,000 long, thin fuel rods

source

in Chernoybl the spent fuel rods were not a issue
in japan we have up to 600,000 rods if that helps you compare

Greetings. I have been a member for a while, but I have hardly posted a reply so far. However, I would like to present the body of an email received from a friend in Japan. Regardless of our convictions, I believe it deserves to be made public, even if only to offer due respect for their current suffering. To the OP, please accept my apologies for this intrusion, however I cannot create threads yet and believe this thread is closely related to the contents of the email.


Received on 16 March 2011 at 05:25 local time:

Here it goes:


" dear friends,

for all the blessings and love
your will to help,to devote,to pray
just feeling enormous gratitude to all of you.



now I recieved a message from a friend
who got the information from the officer of japanese army.

that in Fukushima nuclear plant,the nuclear reactor has started to melt down.
and there is nothing to do for preventing the explosion,
what they are trying to do is only delaying it.

there are 4-5 times more amount of nuclear fuel in Fukushima than in Chernobyl
and what makes this situation worse is that
Fukushima has 6 reactor buildings next to each other.
and 3rd reactor building is run by the Mox fuel,which contains pultonium.
and as you know pultonium has very high radioactive.


what I want to tell you
is that please,don't waste this opportunity.

that is true
there are so much informations going around right now in Japan.
flood of talkings,rumors.....
it is very hard to find out what really the truth is.
media is saying something and we see on the newspaper something else.
there are e-mails of warnings and mobile-alarm for another earthquakes.
electrical company who doesn't inform us the truth on time.
it makes all of us confuse and tired
and the worst case could be,
people would go into panic.



but the fact is this.
the danger we are facing now is yours too.
if the explosion would happen,
the radiation would spread all over the world.
through air,sea,food,everything.

Three mile island disaster on 1979,
Chernobyl on 1986,
we human didn't learn from the lessons which costed us so much.
one proverb in japanese
"after passing the throat,you forget about the heat"
which means when the hottest food is passing our throat,
we feel the pain and say NO MORE!
but the moment it passed through,we don't care any more.
we leave it as if nothing has happenned.
and again we take one even hotter.


I heard that there was an demonstration against the nuclear plant in Germany.
please,keep on!

if we all can't learn the lesson from this catastrophy....
it will cost this planet.
we say one life is equally important as one planet earth,
we already lost thousands of,millions of them.
and
please don't waste time.
if you really think that we japanese need help,
here one thing you can do.

please change the world.

we said
"no more Hiroshima and Nagasaki!!"
and
we Japanese,the unique country who recieved atomic bombs
are facing this human-disaster again.

natural disaster,we can't stop.
but human-disaster,we can stop.
it is maybe time,
don't you think so?


with love and hope
"

reply to post by skepticaluser

thanks
Yeah I really hope we can all learn from this lesson..I I hope the cost isn't too high

reply to post by skepticaluser


Dear Skepticaluser,
Thank you for sharing this. I am almost in tears thinking of the poor people in Japan and the impact this will have on the entire planet.

I just hope governments listen and wake up and realise that some things, even if they are wonderful at what they do, are just not worth the risk. I am of course talking about nuclear power. We must find alternatives.

Regards and my deepest respects,
T

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