NRC: No Water In Spent Fuel Pool Of Japan Plant

Originally posted by rubbertramp
reply to post by PoorFool

 

i'm still waiting.
come on now, i just offered a free way for you to go help.

i wouldn't even be doing this x-cept for the fact that you insinuated to me being a puss.

I thought of going the moment I heard of the earthquake. But I can't due to certain circumstances.

Originally posted by PoorFool

Originally posted by rubbertramp
reply to post by PoorFool

 

i'm still waiting.
come on now, i just offered a free way for you to go help.

i wouldn't even be doing this x-cept for the fact that you insinuated to me being a puss.

I thought of going the moment I heard of the earthquake. But I can't due to certain circumstances.

yea, i have certain circumstances also, guess we're both pusses.

i've been to disasters before. it is not a joke. i was in mexico city after the big one.
very ugly, was there as a tourist to go visit the pyramids and museum of anthro.
once it hit, i was in the el presidente hotel right downtown. i spent 2 days pulling people out of rubble.
once the situation was becoming closer to organization and rescue i was actually asked to leave.
they cordoned off the area and i left the city.

Originally posted by rubbertramp

Originally posted by PoorFool

Originally posted by rubbertramp
reply to post by PoorFool

 

i'm still waiting.
come on now, i just offered a free way for you to go help.

i wouldn't even be doing this x-cept for the fact that you insinuated to me being a puss.

I thought of going the moment I heard of the earthquake. But I can't due to certain circumstances.

yea, i have certain circumstances also, guess we're both pusses.

i've been to disasters before. it is not a joke. i was in mexico city after the big one.
very ugly, was there as a tourist to go visit the pyramids and museum of anthro.
once it hit, i was in the el presidente hotel right downtown. i spent 2 days pulling people out of rubble.
once the situation was becoming closer to organization and rescue i was actually asked to leave.
they cordoned off the area and i left the city.

edit on 16-3-2011 by rubbertramp because: (no reason given)

Sorry if I offended you. Seems like there's nothing any of us could do about it at this point anyway.

I'm not a total expert on this specific topic, but I do have a degree in physics. I had a sudden realization moments ago as to an extremely dire consequence of the spent fuel pool going dry, which I haven't seen discussed anywhere.

I'm assuming that there are other physicists out there who are involved in managing this disaster who have thought of this. At least, I really hope there are otherwise the workers might make a dire mistake.

If so, then they are keeping the phenomenon that I'm about to describe a secret.

To keep things simple, water is intended to serve a very different purpose in a reactor core than in the spent fuel pool.

Water is pretty good at absorbing dangerous gamma radiation, so by keeping the used fuel rods under many feet of water, workers in the plant are shielded from the gamma radiation they are emitting. The water of course also keeps the rods from getting too hot.

In the reactor core, water actually serves to make the nuclear reaction go critical. I won't go into all the technical details (see the article below for them - it seems pretty well written), but water serves to make the fuel rods go into critical reaction. Without the water in most (maybe all) modern reactor designs, criticality simply won't happen (the rods might still get hot enough to melt down without water, of course).

The water does this by slowing down neutrons emitted as the nuclear fuel undergoes its normal radioactive decay. Because of some very complex quantum mechanics, these slower moving neutrons are more likely to interact/collide with other radioactive atoms in adjacent fuel rods, as opposed to just "flying through" adjacent fuel rods. This collision/interaction causes radioactive decay that results in more neutrons being emitted. Because these new neutrons are also slowed by the water, they are also more likely to result in additional fission, etc, etc. This is what is referred to as the chain reaction of nuclear fission. Because of this phenomenon of slowing the neutrons, water in the reactor is necessary in order for the fuel to reach criticality, where the fission reaction is stable at a certain level.

Now we get to the problem that might be happening now that the spent fuel pool has gone dry.

In addition to slowing down neutrons and hence making them more likely to cause fission, water also absorbs/blocks neutrons. These two things result in the opposite effect. In the reactor core, the fuel rods are configured to be very close together that few neutrons get absorbed by the water before reaching a neighboring fuel rod. This makes the effect of slowing the neutrons outweigh the effect of absorbing them, and hence we get criticality and a nice chain reaction of fission.

Normally in the pool, the spent rods are stored far enough apart so that the effect from slowing down the neutrons is far outweighed by the amount of neutrons that are absorbed before they reach a neighboring used fuel rod, since the neutrons have to travel so far to reach a neighboring rod.

With no water in the pool, the outside casing of the fuel rods will have begun to burn and also to oxidize with the air. This can cause it to become very brittle and crack, and the fuel pellets might be falling out and collecting on the bottom of the pool. A bunch of pellets might be collecting in piles which are geometrically more favorable for criticality. There could also be puddles of molten fuel collecting, which might have a geometry more favorable for criticality. Additionally, the force of the explosions likely knocked the fuel rods around, and some might have been knocked closer together. In this case, if water is added back to the pool it could cause things to go into a critical reaction that would generate huge amounts of heat and radiation and be extremely, extremely bad.

So, I'm afraid that we might have a chicken-and-egg problem on our hands. Without adding water the used fuel will burn and melt, and release insane amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Adding water could cause the fuel to go critical - which would be a whole other level of badness.

The extreme and sudden radiation spike that forced all workers to temporarily evaporate may have been due to used fuel that was submerged under the last of the water in the pool going critical. The heat of the critical reaction would have very quickly turned the last of the water to steam, and then the chain reaction would have ended without the presence of water. So, that spike seems like evidence that my above theory is correct.

Sorry for the bad news…

Why are the officials keeping this secret? Is it possible that no other physicists have thought of this!!! If so, somebody should warn the authorities NOW that they need to be VERY CAREFUL if adding water to the used fuel pool.

I'm tempted to call the white house, but I doubt that whoever I talk to will know enough about nuclear physics take me seriously and actually connect me to someone in charge.

What should we do to get this information out there???

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

reply to post by PoorFool


your really didn't, i just found this,

Fortunately for Japan and for the world, there are dozens if not hundreds of men risking, or rather giving up, their lives in order to fix this. I'm glad they're not like you.

to be more directed at me than praise for those risking and sacrificing their lives.
all's good.

AND recently Comrade Obama said, it's full speed ahead with the nuclear industry in the U.S.A. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now Fukishima, clearly nuclear power is too dangerous. Of course though Barry O' Puppet man will do whatever his Corporate masters tell him to.

reply to post by PhysicsAlive


thank you for taking the time to explain that.
double thanx for doing so in a way i understood.
now i really worry, but thanx.

jeez, i'm watching cnn on cable.
congressional hearings, guy mentioned in o.p. article has now told of how dire this is.

cnn is now like listening to alex jones.

i have what may be a relatively ignorant question.
while watching the steam come from these reactors, how much of a difference does the outside temp make?
if it was hot there, would there be less steam, colder more?

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

www.livestation.com...

reply to post by AllIsOne


didn't check your link yet, but i was just watching some vids of the helicopter drops.
high altitude, high wind, looked to me like all the water dispersed before it got near the plant.
i can only assume they were at this high elevation due to the radiation.
please correct me if wrong.

cnn just reported, 'high radiation outside of zone'.
18+ miles, which puts it beyond the japanese governments zone of saftey.