Spent fuel Rod fire could be worse than Chernobyl

reply to post by mrsdudara

I agree..I also think that part of that is in fact due to ....they don't know...they are being spoon fed Tepco info saying
all is well...nothing to see here...

Not to take anything away from the Japanese people but I think you will start seeing them react a bit once the lies all start falling away..

reply to post by SecretsUnfold


I partially agree with what you are saying SecretsUnfold. I agree that the Western media has been derelict in its duty to provide accurate coverage of this event. And I have personally witnessed ridiculous displays of ignorance by so-called "experts" pulled in by the Western media to cover this event.

I've also seen Western media up to 24 hours out-of-date because the news from 24 hours ago was more sensational than the news of the day.

Moreover, I will be totally surprised if criminal charges are not brought against individuals who have perpetrated hoaxes on some alternative media sites. Mostly I think its just general ignorance, but there have been some deliberate hoaxes perpetrated around the web, for who knows what reason.

But when I look at the Japanese media and watch these press conferences I definitely don't go away with the feeling that the Japanese government is providing completely accurate information. In fact, I've observed some very stage managed performances and deliberate evasion of important questions from journalists. As much as they do need to prevent mass panic, and they also can only speak to their own portfolios, these facts alone don't account for the radical supression of the truth that we seem to be seeing.

I don't personally believe there is any risk whatsoever to Americans in the US. There are three primary reasons for this:

* Chernobyl was a far worse explosion and fire than has happened or can happen in Japan. At the time of Chernobyl there was not a significant effect on the health of people in the US (people in Europe were affected).

* The US has deliberately detonated over 1000 nuclear weapons since they were invented. Most of them have been detonated in tests *in the US*. It might be argued that this testing has affected the health of people in the US (radiation levels are twice the world average in the US I believe, though I don't know if the atomic testing contributes to this). But if hundreds of nuclear weapons explosions in the US, including above ground tests, didn't radically affect the health of US citizens, then a little fire or hydrogen explosion all the way over the pacific in Japan is certainly not going to.

* We already know the effect of a *nuclear explosion* (much worse than a mere detonation) in Japan on the health of citizens of the US. Consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There we have a situation where nuclear fallout really occurred at a significant level and was ejected right up into the atmosphere. The tiny (in comparison) problems at these reactors pale into insignificance. Remember that something like 20,000 people *at least* died of radiation sickness due to exposure to radiation and fallout in Japan because of these events. So far no one has died from radiation sickness in the current crisis (a couple of people have died from the explosions on site). Yet what was the effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the health of US citizens?

Having said all that, I simply don't understand what is going on at the Japanese reactors at present. Pissing water at them is simply going to have very little effect. I don't claim these calculations are correct, but from my limited understanding here's what I get:

The spent fuel pools require about 1500 tonnes of water to cover the fuel rods. We must assume that they are nearly empty at least for one of the reactors.

The helicopters delivered about 7 tonnes of water each, most of which missed the reactor (some of the evaporation from elsewhere on the building may help, but frankly that's wishful thinking). Let's be generous and suppose that 15 tonnes of water actually made it to the pools.

There were what, 11 fire trucks, each spraying 5 tonnes? (Figures someone). They can be accurately aimed from 30 feet (?). Let's be generous and suppose 50 tonnes of water.

Another problem. At 100 feet the radiation level was what? 80 mS? It falls off as the inverse square of the distance, so at 30 feet its what? 800 mS? Well above the acceptable level. So how are they going to get close enough to accurately aim this water again?

We also know the fuel is probably emitting about 1MW of power. That's 3.6 GJoules of energy over an hour. It takes about 2.6 MJoules of energy to evaporate 1kg of water. So every hour, a tonne of water is evaporating.

So every day, half the water they are spraying is evaporating again. So they're getting maybe 25 tonnes of filling every day. Time to refill the pool? 60 days.

Now, I'm being fast and loose with the figures here. There's also heat being carted away by conduction and then radiation from the building into the very cold atmosphere in Japan at the moment, and many other factors. But even so, in my opinion, this pissing into the wind is nothing more than a desperate attempt to do something, anything, or even the only thing they can do.

The only chance they have, in my opinion is to restore power to the plants and to repair the damage to the failed water recirculation system at *all* of the reactors.

So the idea was they were putting in a Hard Wire (presumably a transmission line) to the plant from the grid elsewhere to restore power. Now to repair the reactors they've gotta get in there? How they gonna do that with the radiation so high?

So you tell me? Is everything under control here?

Now someone said that they have in fact restored power to the plant? See here's the thing. Either this is true, in which case CNN is responsibly not reporting it for fear that panic will not ensue, or its false, in which case its disinformation, and we should look into the source of that disinformation. So which is it? Sources please.

My guess/gut feeling is this is how it will play out. There will be a "massive" release of radiation from at least one of the reactors. The evacuation zone will extended to 80-100km. The region within 10-20km of the reactors will become a radioactive wasteland for years, or people will live there knowing the risks.

Eventually they'll try to pour sand and boric acid onto the reactors, but this will not happen tonight or tomorrow or probably any day this week.

The effect on the US in the worst case scenario: recession due to the world's third largest economy being pulled into a recession as a result of the greater crisis. The radiation effect on health of US citizens? Zero.

Now I want to stress that despite the apparent "calculations" above, it's all based on faulty data, my completely inadequate computations which I did not even check, and all the rest is *purely speculation*.

I'm posting it here because it is my opinion. Let's hope I'm wrong. But even if I am not, there shouldn't be panic anywhere, including Japan. It is a very serious situation, and I hope that I am in fact behind with updates and that they have indeed restored power and that things will not deteriorate further. However, at least last night, when I last looked in detail, things didn't look that rosy.

Originally posted by Xingili
As a physicist who rarely comments on this site I would like to say that you are having all reasons to be scared.

Links to get real information and qualified comments:

simulation of the distribution of radioactive isotopes according to current wind conditions:
www.zamg.ac.at...:50

japanese radiation detection network:
www.bousai.ne.jp...

reports officially created for the german government, updates twice daily:
www.grs.de...

blog of people who know their stuff and who are scared:
armscontrolwonk.com...

Here you can see by yourself, that the spent fuel pools are exposed to the outside and that are at the place which exploded beforehand. You can also see a strange glow in photo 2 and 3, the source of it - radiation or something green around there - I am unsure. If it is glow from radiation the radiation must be really strong. In fact there is a paper with a simulation of the gamma radiation emitted by an empty pool around. I will try to find it for you.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0ff07f872834.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4756e0761880.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2a3bec6238fe.jpg[/atsimg]

"Reducing the Hazards from Stored Spent Power-Reactor Fuel in the United States" by Alvarez et al.
Paper talking about the dangers of accidents in spent fuel pools with a radiation simulation on page 14:
www.irss-usa.org...

edit on 17-3-2011 by Xingili because: added photos apparently showing spent fuel pools...

This deserves a bump so others can see it without having to go through the other pages.... well done! Excellent information and good sources... this might be worthy of it's own thread.

NOTE: Google Chrome is the best browser for the above links because they will automatically translate for you.

~Namaste

reply to post by XtraTL

1844: Japanese authorities have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that engineers were able to lay an external grid power line cable to unit 2 of Fukushima nuclear plant, according to a statement on the IAEA website.The operation was completed at 0830 GMT.

bbc live

someone on another thread heard on CNN that they expect to get power from the main grid Friday morning, Japan time. I think it's not long past midnight over there now, so it's Friday morning. Maybe in a few hrs there will be some news.

Originally posted by Ciora
reply to post by skepticaluser
NHK has been a great source throughout this disaster. Here, they say that the cannon tactic did not work- the hoses were not long enough.

I do not agree with this. I think NHK is not properly equipped to report on a disaster of this kind. They may be doing the best they can, but in my opinion that is nowhere near good enough. I suspect serious questions will be asked about the media at large after this disaster.

Whilst I don't agree with govt interference in media, someone needs to hold the media in Japan, and across the world to account for their gross negligence throughout this disaster.

If the citizens of the world don't do this, then the media itself should, or the regulators should.

Things just keep on going back and forth. It sounds like they are going to be able to restore power to the reactors, which would get the cooling systems running. This could put an end to this nightmare. But with these stories of people being tested positive for trace amounts of radiation, even if they were not near the plant is worrisome.

As quoted in full above by SonOfTheLawOfOne, this post by Xingili provides exceptionally high quality and qualified information:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I agree it should continue to be bumped.

But I'm confused. The recorded radiation dosages seem to have never passed 12mS/hour at the very worst point. So where did these ridiculously high values that we've been hearing come from?

It does say that whilst the police firehoses were unsuccessful, the army firehoses were at least partially successful.

Why does every single piece of information out there contradict every other piece? What is wrong with the govt, media and everyone else, reporting the facts?

Anyhow, the simulation of the dispersion of radioactive particulates in the air currents near Japan is particularly useful. It highlights very well that the threat to somewhere as far away as the US (or places in Europe in this case) is virtually non-existent. There clearly are issues in some parts of Japan though.

Originally posted by kimar
Things just keep on going back and forth. It sounds like they are going to be able to restore power to the reactors, which would get the cooling systems running. This could put an end to this nightmare. But with these stories of people being tested positive for trace amounts of radiation, even if they were not near the plant is worrisome.

At the moment they have only laid cables to number 2 reactor and it remains to be seen if they power up. There are thn 5 other reactors to do, and some of these may be impossible to renew cables in.

Then there is the issue of the ponds on top of the roofs of the 6 reactors, at least 2 of which are worrysome and nothing is working to stabilize them. If those can't be sorted then levels of radiation around the plant will increase hugely as the rods melt. I doubt that the plant with its 6 reactors would be at all accessible by any workers at all then !!

Originally posted by cosmicpixie
At the moment they have only laid cables to number 2 reactor and it remains to be seen if they power up. There are thn 5 other reactors to do, and some of these may be impossible to renew cables in.

Then why is CNN still reporting that the power lines are still 1 mile away?

edition.cnn.com...

And why have they consistently reported that reactors 5 and 6 still have on site power and that one reactor is running off the power of the other?

What seems to happen is the media outlets are repeating each other. Every now and again an article is updated with a whole pile of out-of-date information in it. Every other media organisation sees the update and thinks it is new information, so repeats it as such:

Reuters is reporting that an explosion at reactor X has torn the building apart raising the spectre of armegeddon and a shortage of lollipops.

I mean, this is ridiculous. How can an organisation with the resources of CNN not be providing up-to-the-minute accurate reporting?

reply to post by XtraTL

We already know the effect of a *nuclear explosion* (much worse than a mere detonation) in Japan on the health of citizens of the US. Consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There we have a situation where nuclear fallout really occurred at a significant level and was ejected right up into the atmosphere. The tiny (in comparison) problems at these reactors pale into insignificance. Remember that something like 20,000 people *at least* died of radiation sickness due to exposure to radiation and fallout in Japan because of these events. So far no one has died from radiation sickness in the current crisis (a couple of people have died from the explosions on site). Yet what was the effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the health of US citizens?

Comparing the effect of one to the other doesn't work....some of the reasons in fact do to the very nature of the blast itself destroys much of the radioactive material ...

Fallout can also refer to nuclear accidents, although a nuclear reactor does not explode like a nuclear weapon. The isotopic signature of bomb fallout is very different from the fallout from a serious power reactor accident (such as Chernobyl). The key differences are in volatility and half-life

A large amount of short-lived isotopes such as 97Zr are present in bomb fallout. This isotope and other short-lived isotopes are constantly generated in a power reactor, but because the criticality occurs over a long length of time, the majority of these short lived isotopes decay before they can be released.

It is clear that average half-life of the Chernobyl release is longer than that for the bomb fallout.

Source

Chernobyl was a far worse explosion and fire than has happened or can happen in Japan. At the time of Chernobyl there was not a significant effect on the health of people in the US (people in Europe were affected)

Care to provide any proof of this? did you read the studies linked to In my first post?

The amount of material in Japan exceeds the amount of material in chernoybl as well as the fact chernoybl did not have MOX fuel present

The US has deliberately detonated over 1000 nuclear weapons since they were invented. Most of them have been detonated in tests *in the US*. It might be argued that this testing has affected the health of people in the US (radiation levels are twice the world average in the US I believe, though I don't know if the atomic testing contributes to this). But if hundreds of nuclear weapons explosions in the US, including above ground tests, didn't radically affect the health of US citizens, then a little fire or hydrogen explosion all the way over the pacific in Japan is certainly not going to

Again did you read the studies?

The amount of material from 1 spent pool fire can excede the radiation release from all those tests combined.

And notice not once did I ever say that this Would have any effect on people in the U.S......but to rule it out is crazy

we are in uncharted waters here...know one really knows at this point

SOURCE: www.msnbc.msn.com...

"The emergency workers focused their efforts on the storage pool at reactor 3, the only unit at the site that runs on mixed oxide fuel, which contains reclaimed plutonium. The strategy appeared to conflict with comments made by US nuclear officials and Sir John Beddington, the UK government's chief science adviser, who are most concerned about the storage pool at reactor 4, which they say is now completely empty.

"The water is pretty much gone," Beddington said, adding that storage pools at reactors 5 and 6 were leaking. "We are extremely worried about that. The reason we are worried is that there is a substantial volume of material there and this, once it's open to the air and starting to heat up, can start to emit significant amounts of radiation.""

CONFIRMED- that's ALL 6 reactors leaking water/blown-up/partially melting down/etc. So tell me doubters/skeptics when will this become a 'serious' issue???

If anyone knows of a comparison, or where to find the figures, regarding the radiation levels at Chernobyl vs. the ones immediately proceeding, AND decay, for Hiro/Naga/3-Mile we could have an idea of potential short/long term exposure rates. As well as helping to make a more accurate forecast for the plume heading our way.


*-*-*-*-@okie- HIVEMIND!!!!!!

reply to post by XtraTL


And how far away were the cables in the first place? It's a power station for goodness sake. Presumably there were cables all the way up to the reactor originally. And the tsunami didn't even go that far inland I thought. So maybe it was already up to 1.1 miles away from the reactor after the quake and its now 1 mile. On its own, this is useless information.

To illustrate this, here is an article that state the Fukushima plant is 30 miles inland:
[url]http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1410592_pictures_and_video_huge_earthquake_in_japan_triggers_pacific_wide_tsunami_warning[/url ]

So, the tsunami went 30 miles inland at this point? If not, how did the reactor get damaged by the tidal wave?

reply to post by XtraTL


Thanks!

While atmospheric conditions are favorable right
now, asia will be in a real mess if the wind should chane direction. Unfortunately I have no idea how often this happens. In any way local wind pattern might result in contamination of large parts of Japan. The resulting doses might be real scary in case of a burning fuel.

By the way: German authorIties have detected radioactive stuff on the hull of an ANA plane coming from Tokio.

reply to post by XtraTL

But I'm confused. The recorded radiation dosages seem to have never passed 12mS/hour at the very worst point. So where did these ridiculously high values that we've been hearing come from?

Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said earlier in the day he had given the go-ahead for the helicopters to drop water as the radiation level was 4.13 millisievert per hour at an altitude of 1,000 feet and 87.7 millisievert at 300 feet.

source

The plant's owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, evacuated all but about 50 of their workers from the plant following Tuesday's explosion at the No. 2 reactor. Radiation levels at the plant have increased to "levels that can impact human health," Edano said -- between 100 and 400 millisieverts, or as much as 160 times higher than the average dose of radiation a typical person receives from natural sources in a year.

source

dangerously rising levels of radioactivity up to 1000 mSv/h

wiki

there are so many reports of all the radiation levels..it's hard to keep track of any of them at this point

reply to post by XtraTL

Why does every single piece of information out there contradict every other piece? What is wrong with the govt, media and everyone else, reporting the facts?

Because Containment of the truth is about the only containment that still works in Japan :-)

As someone already pointed out, what the heck is restoring power to a crippled plant going to achieve??? I mean really? Obviously the main structure (s) are damaged. From the eq, tsunami, and EXPLOSIONS. Anyone can see that from the pictures. Will these buildings hold coolant??? I would also be amazed even after they managed to get the "power back on" if the cooling system even worked. But I do understand that they have to try.

As to the poster who mentioned the FEMA camps (that we all know about) ----------
Have you ever considered that maybe they're not for Americans. They just might be for a situation such as the "mass exodous" that is going on right now in Japan that I've been hearing about on CNN.

For the life of me I cant understand why the international community isint more involved in this dire situation. Also, all of the secrecy from TEPCO/lack of desire of outside help really makes me worry that things are far worse than what they are telling us. That is WHEN they tell us anything at all.
All that being said, I am wishing for the best and praying for the people of Japan and the world.

reply to post by okiecowboy


Some of those facts are true.

However in the case of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, less than 1g of the 600g of material were transformed to energy (you can compute this from Einstein's famous E = mc^2 equation). The rest of the fissile material probably evaporated and was pushed up into the atmosphere, most of which rained back down on the city and in nearby fallout.

What you cannot deny is that there was a massive quantity of radioactive fallout in Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped and that a huge amount of contamination was pushed up into the atmosphere.

Yes, a reactor explosion and fire *can* release more radiation than a nuclear bomb. But it is highly questionable to state that the reactors in Japan have done or will be able to do that.

The Chernobyl accident was as a result of a massive steam explosion after the reactors increased their output dramatically to tens of Gigawatts. In the Fukushima case the output of each reactor was dropped to just a few megawatts within minutes of the earthquake.

The dosages of radiation at Chernobyl were fatal within minutes. They were clearly thousands of times higher than has ever been the case at the Fukushima reactors.

The radiatioactive fallout extended over 1000 km within a few days and was subsequently detected over nearly all of Europe. A 30km exclusion zone remains to this day, and that is after more than half a million "liqiudators" (people with shovels and wheelbarrows) carted away the radioactive remains of the disaster and after the reactor was entombed in concrete.

At this point, to compare the accident in Japan with Chernobyl is just folly. And I think comparing it to the hundred of nuclear bombs detonated *in the US* is entirely reasonable. The output from these dwarfs Chernobyl, which dwarfs Fukushima. We know this because of careful measurements of trace quantities of radioactive material in the atmosphere and fireplace soot and other such measurements from all around the world after the era of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The contribution of Chernobyl to this is lost in the noise, except in Europe.

Moreover, the dangers from passive smoking *far* outweigh the risks from this material.

We can argue about the actual figures. But in the large I don't think the figures support that this accident should be compared with either of the other sources of radiation pushed into our atmosphere.

I will admit that the nuclear explosions in Japan released much less radiation into the environment than Chernobyl and that 65 years later there is virtually no trace of the radioactive material even in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That may not be the case for this Fukushima accident.

However, at this stage, it is still my opinion that whilst the radiation from Japan may be measured in the US or the atmosphere with highly sensitive equipment, the effect on human health in the US will not be measurable, even with extremely careful statistical studies in 50 years time.

No, we shouldn't just write it off without checking. But the level of concern in the US is by all reports hysterical. I do not personally know a single person where I live in the UK who has rushed out to buy Potassium Iodide tablets. And I'd be unsurprised to find out after the fact that incidences of some other well understood understood health issues will go up due to people taking additional sources of Potassium Iodide.

The fact that people seem to consider it an antidote to radiation sickness is also pretty hilarious. It lowers the long term risk of cancer after exposure to radioactive material. That's all.

Sorry, getting off topic now. I know you weren't trying to convince me to take Potassium Iodide. This is for the idiots who think I should (half of them are probably part of pharmaceutical scams making money out of selling fake PI at exorbitant prices).

NHK world reports that the power lines should be run to the buildings on friday sometime, they had to delay today because of radiation and other issues. They also said that other than reactor 2, all the others will require repair or replacement of the cooling pumps as they got damaged from a variety of sources (sea water, quake, tsunomi etc).

www3.nhk.or.jp...

I also watched the video that is supposed to show that water still covers the spent fuel rod pool in #4, it's all based on a very brief flash of silver between some collapsed steel beams. It could be anything so I'm a little doubtful that it has to be water. www3.nhk.or.jp...

Are the media playing it up for viewers? likely.
Is it worse then they are telling us? likely.
Are the Owners of the plant down stating the troubles to avoid bad PR? Very Likely
IS radiation going to kill people in the US? Very Very unlikely.

Originally posted by okiecowboy
reply to post by XtraTL

 

But I'm confused. The recorded radiation dosages seem to have never passed 12mS/hour at the very worst point. So where did these ridiculously high values that we've been hearing come from?

Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said earlier in the day he had given the go-ahead for the helicopters to drop water as the radiation level was 4.13 millisievert per hour at an altitude of 1,000 feet and 87.7 millisievert at 300 feet.

source

The plant's owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, evacuated all but about 50 of their workers from the plant following Tuesday's explosion at the No. 2 reactor. Radiation levels at the plant have increased to "levels that can impact human health," Edano said -- between 100 and 400 millisieverts, or as much as 160 times higher than the average dose of radiation a typical person receives from natural sources in a year.

source

dangerously rising levels of radioactivity up to 1000 mSv/h

wiki

there are so many reports of all the radiation levels..it's hard to keep track of any of them at this point

Well done. And sorry to quote the entire post, but this is important information.

Those are precisely the reports that I too have heard.

So, here is the graph I was referring to:

www.grs.de...

Note the data is taken from 8 remote sites and also at 3 other points nearer to the reactors, including the main gate of the reactor site.

Am I misinterpreting this graph or does it show the levels never exceeding 12,000 µSv/hr, which is 12 mSv/hr?

So what gives? Can someone explain this to me?

Originally posted by okiecowboy

dangerously rising levels of radioactivity up to 1000 mSv/h

wiki

This one I think is concocted by the media. Wikipedia seems to list two sources, CBS News and Yahoo News. I couldn't find the figure in the article at the latter source.

In the former case, I think this came from a CNN mistake. They reported that the levels measured were 167 times the average radiation exposure of a person in a year. If you look it up for the US, this gives you 1 Sv = 1000 mS.

However, CNN's source was IAEA, where it is explicitly stated they are using the *world average* of *background radiation* and that the measurement was 400 mSv.

So I think we can totally discount the 1000 mSv figure as being typically inaccurate Western media reporting.

400 mSv is plenty high enough anyhow.

The figure of nearly 88 mSv/hr at 300 feet is pretty scary. At 30 feet it must then be of the order of 8.8 Sv/hr = 8800 mSv/hr. With any luck most of that radiation is being directed upwards out of the pool and not laterally or down into the reactor building. Otherwise they are royally screwed.