News Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, & Nuclear Disaster

[Thunder Chicken]

The problem is: How do you build a pyramid also BELOW the cores - the pyramid principle only protects the air, but not the soil and the water.

It is actionism, not more - if you have tons of contaminated water you also need to keep that in check.

Wells could be drilled near the reactors and pumped out periodically. This would cause the water table to flow toward the reactors (clean water going in vs. contaminated water flowing out). This system is used to decontaminate groundwater and limit spread of contaminants from large chemical spill sites.

I would say that encasing the reactors where they stand, get some structure around them to protect them long term from earthquakes & tsunamis, and use a groundwater monitoring system to limit contaminant spread. Otherwise you're just trucking the problem to other sites.

 

[statisticsnerd]

Fukushima 50: We Are Ready to Die

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/japans-nuclear-rescuers-inevitable-die-weeks/

May God bless them. They are true heroes.

 

[Urwumpe]

Fukushima 50: We Are Ready to Die

What a waste. For every nonsense Japan has robots, but when it comes to fight a nuclear disaster, they need Kamikaze?

That isn't heroism, that is just plain stupidity and could have been prevented already a long time earlier by some TEPCO managers just doing their duties instead of now hiding in hospitals.

In the current situation, it is a suicide mission for no gain at all. Especially: They are just 50. In Chernobyl, 600,000 people risked and lost their health for fighting the disaster. And this here is nothing even slightly comparable to Chernobyl, but I wouldn't say that 50 are the right number for solving the many problems until the reactors are under control again.

If Japan would have at least 50,000 people in constant rapid rotation and long enough phases to recreate from the radiation injuries that will happen inevitably, there could be some sort of meaningful effect. If the radiation measurements are correct from the border of the 30 km safety tone, these workers will be deadly ill after a week. and then you need another 50. For the next months to come. Without active and effective counter measures, a meltdown could go on in phases of heating and cooling for years until the radioactivity dropped to tolerable levels.

May God bless them. They are true heroes.

Poor is the country that needs heroes.

 

[Alfastar]

Your life sacrifice for you Motherland

Heroes so, they still exist in this time, I wish them good luck.

 

[Wishbone]

I was stricken by this quote from the above-mentioned Fox news piece:

Banri Kaieda, the interior minister who also acts as a deputy head of
the nuclear disaster task force jointly set up by the government and
TEPCO, said 500 to 600 people were at one point lodging in a building
within the complex. He told a media conference it was "not a situation
in which minimum sleep and food could be ensured."

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says that workers were
only eating two basic meals of crackers and dried rice a day, and
sleeping in conference rooms and hallways in the building.

Holy Mother of God! This is not some third-world country, but the third largest economy in the whole world... At the very least, hot meals and desserts could be provided. Grrrrrr....

EDIT: now I can cite IAEA alert log instead of acquaintainces :

The Russian Federation, Singapore, Ireland and Switzerland reported the detection of very small amounts of iodine-131 and cesium-137 in air. Highest levels found are in the order of a few millibecquerel per cubic meter. The levels are not of any radiological concern.

 

[dimo_stoianov]

The ugly truth is that TEPCO personnel spend first critical hours "waiting for instructions". Another extremely stupid thing is that they've build a new 220kV power line to restore power supply of the station in two weeks, because according to safety instructions it is forbidden to place 22kV power cable on ground surface, it must be buried into the ground. I know that it's forbidden, but not for temporary power lines that will save your ass from nuclear meltdown. According to military manual maximum allowed speed for laying cable 22kV, 4x185 mm square from truck directly on the ground is 8 km/h. Now because for most of Japanese engineers everything that's not in the instructions does not exists we have what we have. I thing that in near future I would buy this game

 

[steph]

I was wondering when the Shadow of Fukushima thing would start :lol:
As for the other, my totally uneducated guess is that they might have feared damage to the power line if laid otherwise than according to specs. Just out of curiosity, can a 22kV line cause arching if laid on the ground?

 

[dimo_stoianov]

Only if you use an axe or heavy car. I'm talking about placing isolated cable for underground power lines on the surface. It's like on picture, but bigger, and sometimes it has external armor.

And to protect cable from damage you can use this

or this

 

[JEL]

hot meals and desserts

It seems like they should've been served beer... yeah I thought this was an april fools day joke, but then I figured no one would joke with an issue like Fukushima unless they were really cruel and heartless, so I guess it's true:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15971327

Radioprotective activities of beer administration for radiation-induced acute toxicity in mice.

Monobe M, Koike S, Uzawa A, Aoki M, Takai N, Fukawa T, Furusawa Y, Ando K.

Graduate School of Science Technology, Chiba University, Japan.

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We previously found that drinking beer reduces chromosome aberrations in blood lymphocytes that were collected and irradiated in vitro. In this study, we investigated the radioprotective activities of beer-administration for bone marrow and intestine in mice.

METHODS: C3H/He female mice received an oral administration of beer, ethanol or saline at a dose of 1 ml/mouse 30 min before whole body irradiation with 137Cs gamma rays or LET 50 keV/microm carbon ions. Radioprotective activities were estimated using a LD(50/30) (The dose required to kill 50% of the mice within 30 days) and a microcolony technique for intestine.

RESULTS: The LD(50/30) for the beer-administered mice was significantly increased in comparison with saline administered mice. The LD(50/30) of gamma-ray was 7.8 Gy (p < 0.05), 7.6 Gy and 7.3 Gy for beer-, ethanol- and saline-administered group, respectively. The LD(50/30) of carbon ions was 6.6 Gy (p < 0.05), 6.2 Gy and 5.9 Gy for the beer-, ethanol- and saline-administered groups, respectively. The crypt survivals that were semi-logarithmically plotted against dose were well fitted to a linear regression line. The dose reduction factor (DRF) (D10) of beer- and ethanol-administered mice for gamma rays was 1.09 and 1.08, respectively. The DRF (D10) of beer- and ethanol-administered mice for carbon ions was 1.08 and 1.07, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: The radioprotection by beer-administration is due to not only OH radical-scavenge action by the ethanol contained in beer.

Science is cool, but some studies are just bizarre.

 

[dimo_stoianov]

It seems like they should've been served beer... yeah I thought this was an april fools day joke, but then I figured no one would joke with an issue like Fukushima unless they were really cruel and heartless, so I guess it's true:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15971327



Science is cool, but some studies are just bizarre.

It's simple. With beer,wine,vodka,sake etc. you''l get a lot of clean liquids in your organism. After that you'll use a restroom. You are washing your body from the inside.:lol: You can do the same thing with water and some medications, but alcohol is cheaper and has less side effects. Humans are drinking alcohol for at least 6000 years (think evolution and adaptation). :thumbup:

 

[JEL]

The reactors are apparently going to be entombed:

http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site

Initially, the pump from Savannah River Site, and another 70-meter Putzmeister now at a construction site in California, will be used to pump water -- and later will be used to move concrete.

"Our understanding is, they are preparing to go to next phase and it will require a lot of concrete," Ashmore said

 

[RGClark]

The reactors are apparently going to be entombed:

http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site

From the article:

The pump was moved Wednesday from the construction site in Aiken County to a facility in Hanahan, S.C., for minor modifications, and will be trucked to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where it will be picked up by the world's largest cargo plane, the Russian-made Antonov 225, which will fly it to Tokyo.

This is a pretty big deal. The Antonov 225 is the largest cargo plane in the world and the only one that could lift it. They must really want to get it there fast.
As I said in post #717 in this thread, I'm not sure entombment is the way to go. I think other methods should be investigated first where we could actually remove the radioactive fuel from the site.
I do like the fact though that all the countries in the world with nuclear experience are offering supplies, equipment and expert personnel in trying to solve the problem.


Bob Clark

 

[SiberianTiger]

This is a pretty big deal. The Antonov 225 is the largest cargo plane in the world and the only one that could lift it. They must really want to get it there fast.

Okay, so Buran program was apparently not altogether useless. It at least produced a unique carrier aircraft.

 

[C3PO]

Okay, so Buran program was apparently not altogether useless. It at least produced a unique carrier aircraft.

You never know, eh?

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

 

[Urwumpe]

Okay, so Buran program was apparently not altogether useless. It at least produced a unique carrier aircraft.

The pumps are all by the same German company, Putzmeister, one further smaller pump of the manufacturer had also been loaded on An-124 in Stuttgart yesterday, another will follow from there the next days.

http://www.pmw.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-3C6E00FC-D108D737/pm_online/hs.xsl/9419_ENU_HTML.htm

The manufacturer has experience with such missions, his concrete pumps had already been used for entombing Chernobyl.

http://www.pmw.de/pm_online/data/BP_1148_D.pdf

 

[Cairan]

Okay so they'll pump concrete... But I sure hope they remembered that it also produces heat as it "cures" and will also need it's own cooling.

 

[Urwumpe]

Cairan: These pumps currently pump water, they are especially designed for also assisting in such missions. You just need to install a few more cameras on the current models and you have a special high precision water pump with a flexible 62m robot arm, that is far superior to helicopters or water throwers, since it delivers lots of water in a small area.

One result of Chernobyl - the company improvised back then to also support such accident relief duties, with high success, and now made this part of the design.

News:

There is a 20 cm fracture in the containment of unit #2, it is leaking contaminated water with 1000 mSv/h. This is the first direct confirmation of containment breaches at unit #2, after it was already suspected because of the explosion damage.

No news yet about the RPVs of all involved reactors.

 

[Cairan]

That's bad... 1 Sv/h water leaking around and probably soaking the grounds with a nice mix of radioactive I/Cs is going to make things even more edgy.

The idea presented earlier in the thread to pump water out of the water table to induce a negative gradient towards the Fukushima site is actually interesting, so that it does not either get farther inland or to the ocean by way of the water table. Also being so close to the ocean, I'd consider digging trenches down to below the water table depth and filling those with cement and a liner on both sides, to create a "bathtub' around the site and drain out the water inside that box.

 

[MeDiCS]

Current status according to JAIF (update 57):

Status in Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS site:

- Radiation level: 0.83mSv/h at the south side of the office building, 131μSv/h at the Main gate, 59μSv/h at the West gate, as of 15:00, Apr. 2nd.

- Radiation dose higher than 1000 mSv was measured at the surface of water accumulated on the basement of Unit 2 turbine building and in the tunnel for laying piping outside the building on Mar. 27th.

- Plutonium was detected from the soil of the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS site on Mar. 28th. The amount is so small that the Pu is not harmful to human body.

- Radioactive materials exceeding the regulatory limit have been detected from seawater sample collected in the sea surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS since Mar. 21st. Radioactive Iodine, I-131, 4,385 times higher than regulatory limit was detected on Mar. 30th. It is discovered on Apr. 2nd that there is highly radioactive (more than 1000mSv/hr) water in the concrete structure housing electrical cable and this water is leaking into the sea through cracks on the concrete wall.

- Radioactive materials were detected from underground water sampled near the turbine buildings on Mar. 30th.


Influence to the people's life:

- Radioactive material was detected from milk and agricultural products from Fukushima and neighboring prefectures. The government issued order to limit shipment (21st-) and intake (23rd-) for some products.

- Radioactive iodine, exceeding the provisional legal limit, was detected from tap water sampled in some prefectures from Mar. 21st to 27th.

- Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan released prediction of radioactive material spread caused by the accident (Mar. 23rd). This prediction was based on the calculation using computer code called SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information).==> http://www.nsc.go.jp/info/110323_top_siryo.pdf

And some remarks from the same document:

Progress of the work to recover injection function:

- Water injection to the reactor pressure vessel by temporally installed pumps were switched from seawater to freshwater at Unit 1, 2 and 3.

- High radiation circumstance hampering the work to restore originally installed pumps for injection. Discharging radioactive water in the basement of the buildings of Unit 1through 3 continue to improve this situation. To find a place the water to go becomes a problem.


Function of containing radioactive material:

- It is presumed that radioactive material inside the reactor vessel may leaked outside at Unit 1, 2 and Unit 3, based on radioactive material found outside. NISA announced that the reactor pressure vessel of Unit 2 and 3 may have lost air tightness because of low pressure inside the pressure vessel. NISA told that it is unlikely that these are cracks or holes in the reactor pressure vessels at the same occation.


Cooling the spent fuel pool:

- Steam like substance rose intermittently from the reactor building at Unit 1, 2, 3 and 4 has been observed. Injecting and/or spraying water to the spent fuel pool has been conducted.


Prevention of the proliferation of contaminated dust:

- There is a plan to spray synthetic resin to contain contaminated dust.

Plus, another document published by the same site (Earthquake Report 40) highlights misc effects, including:

IAEA reports lower radiation levels in Iitate:

The International Atomic Energy Agency says radiation levels in a village 40 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have dropped below its criterion for evacuation. [...]

Higher radiation levels on SDF helicopters:
[...]
GSDF sources say hundreds of microsieverts of radiation per hour were detected at engine inlets and other parts of the helicopters, which monitored radiation levels and took aerial pictures of the plant. [...]

TEPCO to get a massive floating platform:

Tokyo Electric Power Company is going to get a massive hollow floating platform from Shizuoka City. TEPCO plans to use it to store radioactive water at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. [...]

Program errors force TEPCO to review all data:

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will review all data on radiation leaked from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, citing errors in a computer program. [...]

 

[Sky Captain]

Just found a very interesting video showing dismantling of reactor core after Three Mile Island meltdown. The cores of Fukushima reactors likely are in similar or worse state.
Part1

Part2