Readying for Fukushima fuel move

What's going with the other reactors? 1 and 3? Are the remnants still to radioactive to send anyone in?

This is encouraging that progress is being made, however there is still a long road in the clean-up aisle.

RickinVa

Human0815
reply to post by BABYBULL24

 

Ca. 75- 100 Feets, ca. 4'th Floor.

For the removal the Height was not that difficult
but that the whole Machine was gone.

Tepco needed to build a new Building with the Lift,
Crane and Security, in the beginning you can see
a File with a better Explanation.

Regards

Ps: they update this Process every Monday
and now they removed already 12,5-15% of the Rods!

edit on 25-1-2014 by Human0815 because: spell

Got to love that Tepco math.... we got 15%!!! Don't pay attention to the 85% we haven't removed.

Logic says that they have to remove the easiest ones first... why? because a lot of them aren't going to be quite so easy and the risk of a fuel assembly breaking or coming apart increases with each one removed. By removing as many as they can before disaster hits, they can mitigate some of the damage that is possible to occur with removal.

Doom porn says there is 11,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of radiation in the spent fuel pool... I have no idea if that is true or not. But again, logic dictates when tackling a difficult problem (fuel rod removal), grab the easiest ones first... that way you can get experience before you go on to the not so easy to remove assemblies.... some of them are bent out of shape... and have been for almost 30 years.. they weren't an issue until March 11, 2011. Soon they will be front and center.

Does it really matter at this point if only 200 of the 1500 assemblies start to fission because of an accident? Is that a good thing? Oh look, it could have been worse! We got 1300 out before Murphy's law kicked in.... We should have never had to tread this ground in the first place. Bottom line.

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There's an analogy that removing these rods is like removing a cigarette from a crushed pack. "Take that analogy," TEPCO engineer Masayuki Ono said in Japanese, "and imagine that the cigarette in that box is lit."

wouldn't let me correct the edit... see below

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reply to post by RickinVa

There's an analogy that removing these rods is like removing a cigarette from a crushed pack. "Take that analogy," TEPCO engineer Masayuki Ono said in Japanese, "and imagine that the cigarette in that box is lit."

Ono said they have removed 15 percent of the fuel from Reactor 4. But it will be far more difficult to retrieve fuel from the other three reactors that melted down. Those are so radioactive that the technology to dismantle them does not exist yet.

Bold by me

www.cbsnews.com...

A Tepco engineer admits Arnie Gundersons cigarette pack analogy was correct, just worse..... interesting indeed!

note the point in the video where he states "this is what Tepco wants us to see". kinda makes you wonder what they don't want them to see.

Doesn't it bother anybody but me that the road map Tepco has for decommissioning involves technologies that haven't been invented yet?....In other words, it's still a pipe dream at this point.

This will a topic on ATS for a long long time I am afraid.

I just noticed today that I registered on ATS exactly 6 years to the day before 3/11/11. Maybe it was my destiny to investigate Fukushima lol

After the 15'th of March 2011 there was also no Way
to remove the Fuel of Nr. 4 until Tepco done it!

The molten Cores of F'Shima are not "that" different from TMI
but it is the Amount of molten Fuel.

We still have 10 Years or more before we can touch
this Fuel and i am sure that we can do it.

Or maybe they even don't touch it at all

wishes

Human0815
reply to post by RickinVa

 

Every Journey start with the first Steps!

But we can see again our differences,
i am a Optimist because i cant live with Negativity,
you are different but this is up to you!

Also the bend Fuel Rods are only a few (2-3?)
and it is logical to start with the most easiest ones.

When i go hiking i take a Train which brings me
into the Nature

Where did you get the information that only 2-3 rods are bent?!?

Human, where did you get the information that only 2-3 rods are bent?!?

reply to post by wishes

It must be from the explosion! Or from something TEPCO has done since the accident, whatever it is!

No.

If TEPCO is to be believed, TEPCO has been hiding the damages for at least 10 years; the oldest damage was from 25 years ago.

According to Yomiuri Shinbun (11/12/2013), that's not clear, and you would be excused if you thought the damages were recent (after March 11, 2011).

From Yomiuri Shinbun (11/12/2013):
東京電力は１２日、今月中に取り出し作業が始まる福島第一原子力発電所４号機の使用済み核燃料プールの１５ ３３本の燃料に、変形などのために取り出しが困難なものが３本あることを明らかにした。

On November 12, TEPCO disclosed that there were three fuel assemblies out of 1533 fuel assemblies in the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that were deformed and would be difficult to remove. The removal of fuel assemblies from the Reactor 4 SFP will start this month.

問題の３本には、過去の作業で生じたわずかな変形や損傷がある。放射性物質の漏れは確認されていない。東電 は、ほかの燃料の移送を優先させ、３本の取り出しと移送の方法は今後検討する。原子力規制委員会は、取り出 し作業の安全性を認めており、作業は月内に予定通り開始される。

The three fuel assemblies has slight deformation or damage caused by the past work [in the SFP]. No leak of radioactive materials has been observed. TEPCO will transport other fuel assemblies first, while they figure out how to remove and transport these three fuel assemblies. Nuclear Regulation Authority has already approved the fuel removal, and the work will start within this month as scheduled.


So, are these fuel assemblies new? used? How long ago was the "past work"?

I found the answer in Fukushima Minyu, one of the local newspapers in Fukushima Prefecture. It was long before the start of the March 11, 2011 nuclear accident, with the oldest "past work" 25 years ago...

From Fukushima Minyu (11/13/2013; part):
東電によると、損傷した燃料の1体は「く」の字に折れ曲がっている状態。25年ほど前に燃料を取り扱う際に失敗 し曲がった。ほかの2体は10年ほど前に破損が分かり、異物などの混入で外側に小さな穴が開いた状態という。

According to TEPCO, one of the damaged fuel assemblies is bent at a 90-degree angle [literal meaning: bent in the shape of a Japanese character "く"; actual angle could be less]. It was bent 25 years ago when a mistake occurred in handling the fuel. The other two were found to be damaged 10 years ago; there are small holes on the outside from foreign objects.

燃料損傷について当時公表したかどうかは東電が調査中。

TEPCO is investigating whether the damages to the fuel assemblies were made public when they were discovered.

Ex-Skf

According to TEPCO, one of the damaged fuel assemblies is bent at a 90-degree angle [literal meaning: bent in the shape of a Japanese character "く"; actual angle could be less]. It was bent 25 years ago when a mistake occurred in handling the fuel. The other two were found to be damaged 10 years ago; there are small holes on the outside from foreign objects. 燃料損傷について当時公表したかどうかは東電が調査中。 TEPCO is investigating whether the damages to the fuel assemblies were made public when they were discovered.

reply to post by Human0815


Finding out they've had damaged rods for 10-25 years only worsens their almost impeccable track record of being reckless and secretive. Bent at a 90 degree angle?!? by accident?!? What kind of accident would cause this? And they're going to investigate 'if' they made that public... I'm going to guess they did not make it public.

So they own up to '3' assemblies bent from 10 and 25 years ago no one knew about ... but "no" damage from the earthquake/tsunami/explosion next door despite the recent CBS video showing them saying Arnie's analogy of a bent pack of cigarettes is very accurate, except it is much worse - imagine the cigarette is lit.

So are people still enraged enough in Japan to continue demonstrating or has that been outlawed with these new laws too?

wishes

According to TEPCO, one of the damaged fuel assemblies is bent at a 90-degree angle [literal meaning: bent in the shape of a Japanese character "く"; actual angle could be less]. It was bent 25 years ago when a mistake occurred in handling the fuel. The other two were found to be damaged 10 years ago; there are small holes on the outside from foreign objects. 燃料損傷について当時公表したかどうかは東電が調査中。 TEPCO is investigating whether the damages to the fuel assemblies were made public when they were discovered.

reply to post by Human0815

 

Finding out they've had damaged rods for 10-25 years only worsens their almost impeccable track record of being reckless and secretive. Bent at a 90 degree angle?!? by accident?!? What kind of accident would cause this? And they're going to investigate 'if' they made that public... I'm going to guess they did not make it public.

So they own up to '3' assemblies bent from 10 and 25 years ago no one knew about ... but "no" damage from the earthquake/tsunami/explosion next door despite the recent CBS video showing them saying Arnie's analogy of a bent pack of cigarettes is very accurate, except it is much worse - imagine the cigarette is lit.

So are people still enraged enough in Japan to continue demonstrating or has that been outlawed with these new laws too?

Everyone seems to be forgetting the problem that attempting to remove the fuel rods in SFP#4 is being done by a procedure that has never been attempted before. That doesn't exactly put out a warm fuzzy feeling.... too many things could go wrong.

The rods get replaced every 18 months so saying they were damaged 25 years ago makes no sense.???????

mikell
The rods get replaced every 18 months so saying they were damaged 25 years ago makes no sense.???????

Those bent fuel assemblies have been in the pool for decades because there was no way to safely remove them...........they only became an issue on 3/11/11. Tepco would have been more than happy to let them sit there another few decades but the earthquake and tsunami prevented that. Now they have to move them and they don't know they are going to pull it off.


Kind of makes you wonder how many more instances like this exist in the fuel pools around the world? We would have never known that there were bent fuel assemblies at Fukushima if 3/11/11 had not of happened. My guess is that Fukushima is not the only place that has bent fuel assemblies.

According to the Tepco link, as of today, 6-1-2014, they have removed 303 of the 1533 rods that are supposed to be removed by years end. According to my math they have removed 5 since February. Not looking too good. Does anyone even remember this? Oh wait, Obama just did something.... I feel sorry for the fishermen in the gulf.....