Activists and Crawlers
There’s no doubt the nuclear emergency in Japan is serious, so it’s perfectly reasonable for the media to help us understand the complexities of nuclear reactors, meltdowns, radiation levels, and the like. But having watched with the rest of us, I’m wondering when the identifying crawler on CNN or MSNBC or even Fox will identify an expert commentator as an “anti-nuclear activist.” Given their non-stop air time, several must be sleeping in network green rooms. Before the earthquake/tsunami they could be found opposing our nuclear strategic posture, opposing modernization of our strategic deterrent, opposing civilian nuclear power and arguing for eliminating all nuclear weapons. It may be hard to get the physics right, but the crawler should be easy.
Fortunately, no-one can call The US National Nuclear Security Administration’s Consequence Management Response Team “activist”.
Pro-active, maybe … I for one hope so … because this team of experts is technically skilled and *serious* about their responsibilities. If they’re concerned, then I’m concerned.
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http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/16/i-was-told-there-wouldnt-be-maaaaath/#comment-13844
…still waiting for you to tell us where your physics PhD is from.
Are there any climate scientists on that team?
No energy is produced and distributed without consequences to health and life. None. Not even ineffective energy producers like the anti-nuke crows espouses (until it’s ready to go online). The dream of a 100% risk free source of energy is a fairytale for nitwits..
The dream of a 100% risk free source of energy is a fairytale for nitwits …
Just like the fairy tale that markets are efficient and rational …
Just like the fairy tale that global warming is not a sobering reality …
That none of these beautiful fairy tales are true, does not stop some folks from believing in them—the folks who urgently *desire* to believe in them.
That’s why plenty of folks are arriving at a common-sense understand that the far-left and the far-right equally are delusional with regard to these fairy-tales.
Fortunately.
Ah. A believer in AGW and central planning.
*snort*
Just like the fairy tale that global warming is an “inconvenient truth” and means TEOTWAWKI…
Just like the fairy tale that governing elites know better than you what is good for you and yours…
AGW is a very “convenient untruth” for an unemployed divinity school drop-out to make a billion dollars.
there is a difference between the far left and what you call the far right.
crazy people are not like you would want them to be “far right” they are crazy people.
…now crazy people and the far left now there is an apt comparison.
Incidently being a physicist doesn’t mean you are smart.
In addition, Saying you are a physicist, doesn’t make you one! It is just as likely he/she is a Troll! Maybe also!
His “expertise” is probably climate science…or perhaps computer modeling.
There is no way you’re a physicist.
More like his moniker should be “A Phony”, or more appropriate, “A Clueless Phony”.
Just keep barfing the “Narrative”.
No poop. We want to have energy on demand, and we want to pack it into small spaces. And then every once in a while, like a jack-in-the-box, it all come springing out at once, and we wonder what happened. Case in point: electric cars. We want batteries that can hold enough energy to drive a couple hundred miles, and when we pack these high density Li ion batteries in, and something shorts out, they explode like bombs.
With gasoline or diesel oil, we at least store the fuel in a tank where it’s separated from enough oxygen to do any serious damage under all but the most freak circumstances. With batteries, there’s no external oxygen, and the energy’s all in there ready to come flying out. Nuclear power plants are the same way. Other schemes, such as hydrogen are somewhere in between, but it’s safe to say that “green” energy, in general, is more dangerous than conventional sources.
When this is all over, the hard question is going to be, who in the 1960s thought it was a good idea to site a nuclear power plant on a shore facing a major fault? I hope he’s dead now, because if he’s not, he’s going to want to fall on his sword. Major loss of face.
“When this is all over, the hard question is going to be, who in the 1960s thought it was a good idea to site a nuclear power plant on a shore facing a major fault?”
In all fairness, the original design at Fukushima did include provisions for an 8.(something) quake. The plant held together during the 9.0 quake. Now we can certainly quibble about whether they should have better planned against tsunamis since, in retrospect, that was when the most harm was done there (I agree that they should have).
As I’ve read — from Charlie, I believe — they were prepared for a 7.5m tsunami wave, and got an 8m wave.
Please note, Tsunami, is an ancient Japanese word. An engineer friend of mine pointed out that if you build something in a river valley, sooner or later it’s gona’ git flooded. I would suppose that building on the Japanese would carry the same likelihood. Another bit of advice was, the only sure way to be safe from a Tornado is to be some where else! I would the same would be true for Tsunamis! In short snork is right.
Stripped of all activism … this newly release (by TEPCO) photo of Reactor 4 (at right) and Reactor 3 (at left) … shows a scale of destruction that is unimaginable.
It is impossible to imagine that the fuel rods stored at these reactors are in a safe condition.
Enlarge the photo … look for yourself … think for yourself.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/16/world/16nuclear4_span/16nuclear4_span-blog480.jpg
That’s what happens when you get hydrogen in a building. The walls are supposed to blow out. Notice no one was killed? Contrast that to this:
http://dvice.com/assets_c/2011/03/chernobyl1-thumb-550×486-58957.jpg
That’s what it looks like when you actually launch the reactor.
What I would like to know is why the vents were piped to the inside of the building.
“It is impossible to imagine that the fuel rods stored at these reactors are in a safe condition.”
Why?
Uhhh … because Howarts house-elves don’t have much experience dealing with massive reactor explosions and boiling fuel-rod pools?
Seriously … what do you think these pictures are showing us?
Not enough to say that a strongly-built container inside has been damaged.
I’m not extrapolating based on what a dramatic picture, in other words. I’m leaving the assessment to the people who have access to solid facts, not tabloid journalism and a seeming lust for panic.
What these pictures are showing us, is an outer structure of the building demolished (by design)
It shows nothing of the inner containment vessel…that it seems to be buried by debris and out of view in this picture is unfortunate but should not cause panic….It is designed to contain the fuel, even if it melts…the reaction was shut down, only residual heat (not a runaway reaction) remains to be cooled.
How many people were killed at the plant? None that I know of.
How many people OUTSIDE the plant were crushed to death by cars as they swam about? Or killed by falling cinder blocks? Or bled to death from contact with broken glass or other sharp objects? Electrocuted from fallen power lines? Died in fires while trapped in debris?
All of these “causes” of death were due to man made materials and technologies, so what is driving your unique hysteria about this power plant?
Yeah, radiation is a problem, but so is all that gasoline in the tanks of all those cars I saw floating by.
It will eventually get cleaned up, but it will take time…and I’m sure the cleanup at the plant will have fewer lives harmed or lost overall, than the inevitable broken bones, crushed fingers, and “run over” by construction vehicles that WILL take place OUTSIDE the plant, due to the sheer scale of the physical/mechanical task involved in the cleanup.
Get a grip.
Look, until this situation is complete, I am not going to assess “how bad this is” or speculate about disaster. I am not a physicist, and don’t f-ing know how bad it is. What I do worry about is the degree of hyperventilating about nuclear power, when it seems that “problem with the nuclear power plant” seems a fairly unsurprising result of a once in 10,000 years combination earthquake/tsunami. Frankly, if we come out of this situation with not very much radiation, then I would be MORE, rather than less inclined to favor nuclear power, because, quite honestly, the industry has been given one impressive real world test.
AS four this blog’s self-identified physicist, I have to say — If you truly believe that “global warnming is a sober reality”, then you need to worry about a world where oil and gas are the only alternatives, because misimpressions on the safety of nuclear power derived from an unusual event is being broadcast all over the place by a media that long ago abandoned any effort at keeping things in context or in proportion.
This is interesting:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_217
This suggests that they believe that the electrical gear and pumping equipment in the plant is in operable condition, and all they need is a power feeder, and that they’ve been working on this feeder all this time.
This could end the emergency. Cross your fingers.
BREAKING NEWS: The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, said in Congressional testimony that the commission believed that all the water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station had boiled dry, leaving fuel rods stored there completely exposed.
Mr. Jaczko said radiation levels may make it impossible to continue what he called the “backup backup” cooling functions that have so far prevented full nuclear meltdowns at the other reactors.
Mr. Jaczko’s testimony came as the American Embassy, on advice from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told American to evacuate a radius of “approximately 50 miles” from the Fukushima plant.
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At least we needn’t be paranoid that Dr. Jaczko might be “an activist”.
No link?
Tsk.
Has the DOJ weighed in yet?
We certainly want the most objective government assessment possible, so we don’t want any gubamint experts who might have an agenda of their own. The DOJ will see to that.
Maybe Holder will sue the Japanese nuclear industry.
Or GE.
Somebody has got to pay…
You’re irresponsible. You state the fuel rods are exposed with no context in order to create panic. Yes the fuel rods will be damaged if they overheat; yes it will be a cleanup nightmare. You make statements like, “the fuel rods are completely exposed,” and then expect people with no knowledge of nuclear power to fill in the consequence blank. Responsible questions – how long have they been out of the reactor, what was the power history prior to their removal, what is the decay heat generation rate?
Please get a clue.
BREAKING NEWS: “SUICIDE MISSIONS” FOR TEPCO ENGINEERS
What US Nuclear Regulatory Agency officials are saying not-for-attribution:
“We are all-out urging the Japanese to get more people back in there to do emergency operation there, that the next 24 to 48 hours are critical,” the official said. “Urgent efforts are needed on the part of the Japanese to restore emergency operations to cool” down the reactors’ rods before they trigger a meltdown.
“They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission,” the official said.
No link?
Not-for-attribution?
*sigh*
Dr. Michio Kaku said it first … subsequently confirmed via ABC news from “US officials” … further confirmed by Australian, German, and French sources.
Equally significantly … no denials have come from Japan and the White House.
For all engineers and scientists around the world, this is a sober day … these TEPCO engineers and scientists are heroes … they understood fully … much earlier and much better than the politicians and the business owners … exactly what it was, they were volunteering to do for their fellow citizens.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-send-special-nuclear-team-japan-nuclear-regulatory/story?id=13148044
They and the “business owners” both understand it much better than you.
I’ll believe that just as soon as I see video footage of: (1) a high-ranking Japanese politician, and (2) TEPCO’s CEO … both pouring water onto Reactor 3 or Reactor 4, side-by-side with the engineers.
Why?
If you understand it so well, why aren’t you there helping?
Not that it makes any real difference, but…
it isn’t the engineers out on the plant handling the hoses and turning the valves, it’s the plant operators and technicians. And I’m sure they’re doing a lot of important but mundane-sounding things like removing motors to be taken to the rewind shop and cleaning up seawater from the equipment so that when they finally do put power to it it won’t self-destruct in the first ten minutes.
If anything, from some of the mistakes that have been reported, they don’t have enough engineering supervision.
as a physicist shouldn’t you be volunteering for the mission. apparently you are the only one qualified (to read what you have written).
It’s hardly a suicide mission. Nobody has yet violated the 25 rad emergency response dose limit.
This reporting of the Japnaese fisson power plant problems is IMO more a matter of old-fashioned journalistic sensationalism, stripped of any vestigal professionalism, than of intentional fabrications for political reasons.
Though also IMO the mainstream media is rapidly getting to complete abandonment of any pretense at objective reporting of matters of political interest to it. I expect to see it descend within about a year to frequent (or even near constant) overt intentional fabrication of political stories (particularly those involving political figures it dislikes), as well as suppression of any events contrary to its political biases where such suppression won’t incite general ridicule. Failure to report the outcome of elections would invite general ridicule.
BREAKING NEWS: Defense Department spokesman Col. Dave Lapan has announced U.S. forces can’t go within 50 miles of the troubled plant without approval and that no one has yet been given approval.
And the Navy has begun giving potassium iodide pills to helicopter crews that might be flying relief supplies or other missions into other areas where exposure is a risk.
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Oh, those nutty liberals who run the DoD … what crazy policies will they implement next?
Seriously … this new exclusion-zone policy reflects an careful professional assessment, by the DoD, of the objective risks that are associated to the disaster in Japan.
Actually, if the DOD said any such thing, it likely represents a standing order or policy, not a reaction to the particular situation.
You still haven’t gotten the hang of sourcing your breathless pronouncements, have you? Given your… hyperventilation… I do not trust anything you say. Without sourcing, your declarations of BREAKING NEWS mean as much as the next 5000 facebook comments made by teens.
Rob,
“A physicist” just jumped the shark. You should be celebrating. There is a classic pattern in such fraud and he just unmistakeably exhibited it.
Yup, he jumped it. I’m reading his comments and saying to myself ‘ Wait for it, wait for it….BINGO”. They never disappoint, do they?
Reuters has the full account of US DoD’s 50-mile exclusion radius.
Has the DoD “jumped the shark”?
Some folks may think so … not me.
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/japan-quake-usa-military-idUSN1614500220110316
Still, Lapan said, the larger no-go zone for the U.S. military was not set in stone. Exceptions could be made if necessary to carry out a mission.
Huh.
And FWIW, Drudge is one of the worst offenders in all of this panic mongering. He needs a time out in the corner.
I think there are a lot of physicists that read this site.
Perle’s admonition is on target.
BREAKING NEWS: From the pages of Nature, which is Britain’s oldest and best-respected scientific journal …
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Fukushima incident is out of control
The headline of this article is not intended to foment panic, but it is my honest assessment of the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
At this stage, there may be little that can be done to stop the chain of events slowly destroying the reactors.
A desperate-looking Yuhei Sato, the governor of Fukushima prefecture, appeared on Japanese evening television. “Please give out correct, accurate information quickly,” he said in a plea to the national government and TEPCO.
———-
The author is Geoff Brumfiel, a long-time Nature writer who has a double degree in Physics and in English.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/160311/full/news.2011.164.html
Really. Nature Magazine is now an authority on nuclear physics? Engineering?
Oh, BTW, Brumfiel’s physics degree is a BS in astronomy from Grinnell College. Wow. Color me impressed.
Tough audience … folks here discount warnings from the Nobel-winning SecEnergy … the chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission testifying before Congress … the US Defense Department … the governments of Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and France … and even the sober words of the Emperor of Japan.
According to DoD officials, overflights of Global Hawk drones are taking place already … hmmmm … could it be that infra-red images from these drones are painting are finally providing truly realistic picture … of what’s *really* going on?
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SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/northrop-grumman-drone-to-fly-over-japan-reactor-to-gather-data.html
Our government would never lie to us.
It’s not like politicians have an agenda like us scum out in the private sector. Gubamint people are completely trustworthy.
Except of course when it comes to spending, taxes, drilling, GM, education, the “stimulus”, health care, economic statistics, regulations, global warming, union contracts, and a few thousand other minor items.
After all, we have a Nobel Prize winner directing everything, and he learned his craft in the squeeky clean city of Chicago. Who could be more trustworthy than that?
But I’m not as trusting as many of us are. The very first thing I think whenever I hear ANYTHING from a gubamint official, elected or not is: “now I know what isn’t true. I wonder what the truth is.”.
It seems the potential disaster has eclipsed the actual disaster by a couple orders of magnitude….Mortality rates ain’t what they used to be. the potential irradiation and slow death that is not so unlike what many of us already succumb to, has diminished the relevance of the quick merciful death of those being crushed by buildings or swept out to sea. Hysterical physicists INO’s get a grip. I’d hate to have to deal with a crisis with the likes of you by my side. I have yet to hear realistic best and worst case analysis of this…why is that…invoking the China Syndrome imagery?
Best-case analysis: We heard plenty of best-case analysis on this forum in the early days … which all turned out to be wrong.
Worst-case analysis: See the link below … the attitude on this forum has been “Worst-case scenarios can’t happen” … this too has turned out to be wrong.
The attitude of systems engineers is more realistic: fail-safe systems don’t … idiot-proof systems aren’t … unlikely scenarios are commonplace … impossible scenarios are commonplace too … unimaginable scenarios too are amazingly commonplace.
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Pick your own worst-case scenario:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0
‘The attitude of systems engineers is more realistic:’
You are no system engineer
‘fail-safe systems don’t’ – Baloney. They eventually do. Almost invariably the root cause is tracable to human/operator error.
‘idiot-proof systems aren’t’ True. And cute.
‘unlikely scenarios are commonplace’
No, they are unlikely. Commonplace scenarios are commonplace.
‘impossible scenarios are commonplace too’
No, they are impossible. Commonplace scenarios are commonplace.
‘unimaginable scenarios too are amazingly commonplace’
No, they aren’t. Improbable scenarios do come together sometimes, but by no means are commonplace. Commonplace scenarios are commonplace.
What did you do? Read this tripe in a bathroom stall when you were cutting through the science building?
JustPassingThrough, there’s no need to wonder … my preferred reading material is here: http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/16/the-tatler-told-you-first-the-media-is-melting-down/#comment-13777
A p, your troll-like delivery probably has as much to do with the reception your pronouncements from on high are getting as their actual content. If trolling is your intention, you are spot-on; if not, consider changing your style a bit?
And yeah, it is obvious it is a dire happening, but the final outcome is anything but settled.
Worst case scenario is a large dead/quarantine zone. And you link to Billy Madison utubes? (an indication of how you think) What of the dead and displaced? If they can get power to the reactors maybe we can avert the deadzone scenario. If not, deal with it.
Do a web search for “Nature Magazine Climategate” to see just how respectable “Britain’s oldest and best-respected scientific journal” is these days.
Okay, Physicist. We get that you are certain the sky is falling. What on Earth is your point in trying to spread as much panic as possible? You are acting like a hysterical child, and unless you have a good reason to expect the US to get hit with a tsunami and 9.0 quake aimed at our nuclear plants, please try to calm down.
Oh, and if people here want a reliable source on the subject, how about some nuclear engineers from MIT? http://mitnse.com/ The writing is pretty layman-friendly, and they go into detail about what is happening and what might happen.
Nice explanations. Maybe Sendai will be featured in Outdoor magazine, like Chernobyl, in 30+ years.
Oh, cheese and crackers. You want to spray water from a distance with a water cannon. You want to hit the pool. You can’t see the pool. What do you do? You get somebody high enough up to be safe from the radiation, and take pictures with video equipment good enough to see what’s going on.
This isn’t rocket science. Or physics. It’s just good operations planning and management.
Everyone is hyperventilating about radiation. Some types of radiation have longer half-lives than others. Thus, the reactor may be leaking radiation or radiation may be vented as part of steam, but the half-life of a particular type of radiation may only be a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days. Not everything is as powerful and as long lasting or as lethal as plutonium.
But, then, reporters are usually holders of liberal arts degrees such as history, political science, english, and the like. God knows we cannot believe much of the media when they believe, and tell us, that government can create jobs without otherwise harming the economy through taxation and regulation. I am not certain we can believe all the breathless headlines. Rational and technical explanations do not sell newspapers or keep eyes glued to television sets.
Remember, when Saddam Hussein’s armies lit afire all those oil wells in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. We were regaled with all sorts of predictions that all those wellhead fires would never be brought under control, that we would have a mini-global cooling event because of all the air pollution, and that the Gulf there would be polluted beyond repair?
More recently, remember how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would cause such incredible havoc that the Gulf would be destroyed, and the beaches of Florida, both west and east coasts, would be covered with outrageous amounts of oil sludge?
And then, of course, there is global warming.
We humans used to have many very real fears of death and destruction in our daily lives. In the 19th century and before you might sire seven children only to have one or two survive until adulthood. That was a reality–a well founded fear. But, as the world has gotten safer and safer, we seem to need to find, or to manufacture in our minds, visions of pestilence and death.
I am not a physicist, but I do have a degree in history for Harvard. (I do note that my degree and six dollars will buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.) As such I am confident that most people will be filled with panic and mania over the current crisis, until the next crisis comes along.
Besides, no matter how serious the current millennial crisis is, I rest easy knowing that our demi-god president is more concerned about picking winning basketball teams than resolving the current end-of-days drama in Japan.
Yes, I found it amazing tonight, FoxNews O’Reilly had a fella on from Ploughshares Foundation, to comment on Japan’s nuclear crisis tonight. Ploughshares is a George Soros funded entity, and definitely not the type who does not have an opinion to promote on this issue.
Sorry I didn’t catch the clown’s name, though O’Reilly should be on later tonight too, I’ll see if I can stay up for that. And O’Reilly should have known he got suckered!
Activists fully deserve to wear a large forehead label when on TV, but if they did, all on MS-LSD would be sporting such labels.
And there’s a corollary lesson for the climate crowd: if you’re going to be an activist, you forfeit your credibility as a scientist. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong, just that you forfeit the benefit of the doubt. You now have to prove everything to a higher standard, and aren’t simply granted credibility.
OmegaPaladin provides links to a high-quality scientific site run by MIT.
Please let me site is excellent, and my posts (so far) have agreed with almost everything on the MIT site (unsurprisingly).
Be aware, however the MIT site *does* run 24-48 hours behind events.
In particular, no-one knows what’s going on at Reactor 4, which has been heavily damaged by explosions whose origins are still mysterious, but are thought to be associated to its fuel rods.
There is increasing apprehension that Reactor 4 (and/or Reactor 3) are undergoing re-criticality events. It will therefore be very surprising to me, if the MIT site does not begin to discuss the technical possibility of re-criticality by Friday or Saturday at the very latest.
Of course, that will be rather too late, to *do* anything about these events.
As a followup, check the latest satellite photo, in which Reactor 4 is at-left.
Reactor 4 was in cold shut-down when the quake hit. Now it has suffered catastrophic damage.
What happened? No-one knows … but every conceivable explanation is ominous.
Charlie was claiming “lubricant fire” … but in view of the photographic evidence, that hypothesis is no longer tenable.
More credible would be this scenario: (1) the pool drains, (2) to prevent a zirconium fire, TEPCO orders the pool refilled with seawater, (3) a criticality event occurs in the reactor pool—no boron in seawater, (4) overheated rods in seawater generate by a massive hydrogen release, followed by (5) an explosion in Reactor 4, comparable to that of Reactor 3.
It was at this point, perhaps, that Japan finally asked the United States for help. Good.
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http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/7274/51702369japanearthquake.jpg
Now we KNOW you are not a physicist. No criticality event is possible in one of those storage pools — the geometry is wrong.
Being an anti-nuke jackwagon isn’t (quite) the worst thing in the world, why don’t you just identify yourself as such? Why the fraud?
**AP busily looking up “critical mass” on wikipedia**
“What? It’s not just mass?
strangely enough, japanese authorities think the criticality is, indeed, possible:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78393.html
”The possibility of recriticality is not zero,” TEPCO said as it announced the envisaged step against a possible fall in water levels in a pool storing the rods that would leave them exposed.
so according to Dave and snork, TEPCO people are not physicists either. imagine that, not physicists in charge of troubled nuclear plant…
There may not be boron in seawater, but there’s lots of chloride. The chloride in seawater has the same macroscopic cross section as 100 ppm borated water.
It’s embarrassing to read the hysterical US press and people going on about radiation clouds fretting about wind patterns. Meanwhile, here in Japan, people are not panicked and are simply quietly doing the best they can under unimaginably bad situation (There was this tsunami you see, that wiped out whole towns. That’s plenty to deal with without getting all antsy about what might happen with the nuclear plants.)
Are you all a bunch of drama queens who need more excitement in your life or what? Deal with it. Do something constructive. But stop whining, for god’s sake. You’re not in danger. Others are,and they aren’t whining. Learn from that, please.
“Yank in Japan”, it was Eisenhower who famously said: “Plans are useless, but planning is essential.”
Eisenhower’s maxim is particular true when it comes to fast-paced disasters like reactor melt-downs, and slow-paced disasters like global warming.
In both cases, a sure recipe for disaster is passive ignorance and willful denialism.
In-depth technical analysis of disasters is good, right?
Even when the truths uncovered, are inconvenient, right?
So when respected international engineering journals like IEEE Spectrum publish articles like Japan Nuclear Accident: Worse than Worst, Again , that’s an important public service, right?
———
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/japan-nuclear-accident-worse-than-worst-again
Dude. You realize that that’s an editorial, don’t you?
I have engineered nine BWR mark I nukes, this type, in the states, and frankly can not make any sense of the news reports. In the same article, a US NRC Commissioner states the Unit 4 spent fuel pool has no water, but two paragraphs later, the Japanese state the pool water is at 82 deg C., the temperature of hot coffee. If our guy is correct, a lethal situation exists for large Japanese populations. If they are correct, things are almost normal, and the US has grievously injured a close ally. Somebody is lying, or incredibly irresponsible, yelling fire over a lighted match at the Super Bowl, putting millions through H. Other reports state the pool holds a recent full core off load, a energy intense source, which can boil some pools if no cooling systems work. Without water, you will die, quickly, if you approach a loaded (old) spent fuel pool. I do not know this plant, but all nukes must have water and power.
I do know that the photos of the brave chopper scooping water from the Pacific reveal not one row boat off shore. Last Saturday, there should have been an armada of water tankers, Diesel Generators, Fuel Oil tankers, hospital ships, heavy construction equipment, troop transports filled with talent of every kind. A floating city, arriving at flank speed, from everywhere. The Japanese are fighting Godzilla with a toothpick, and losing their island. Choopers make good photo ops but they can not move water and get it where it is needed, quickly. They must have water, electricity, and spare equipment. Or lose.
On the good side, IF, IF, fission has stopped in all reactors, and never started in the spent fuel pools (should never happen), every passing hour allows the short term half live isotopes to die.
Mother Nature has killed tens of thousands of Japanese citizens. But professionals, all over the world, are adding more pain. The, “might bes, could bes, somebody said” experts do not help. Japan, the world must have facts, the truth. Why is it that teenagers can call each other, but we can not get data out of crippled nukes? Could someone put a SKYPE camera on the U4 SFP water line? Water will boil at 100 deg. C.
I can not say how bad it is. I have been praying on my knees for a suffering people.
Just in today 3/17, ~ noon EST. On my point, supposedly (not stated) on the U4 SFP.
TEPCO officials say that although one side of the concrete wall of the fuel pool structure has collapsed, the steel liner of the pool remains intact, based on aerial photos of the reactor taken on March 17. The pool still has water providing some cooling for the fuel; however, helicopters dropped water on the reactor four times during the morning (Japan time) on March 17.
My GUESS: My pool liners were basically steel form work, good for water quality, but may leak like a sieve, particularly after a level 9 quake. The unit MAY be in a bleed and feed mode. IF the fuel is bad, this will crap up the world, the leaking water MAY carry extremely hot particles, lethal pepper grains. They must have water, water collection and pump it back into the pool for 2,500,000 years or when ever they fix the leak.
“some cooling”, GUESS, IF and MAY, in nuclear power plants makes me scream. Engineers prefer cover height over the spent fuel, fuel temps, bulk pool temps, radiation levels, gpm leakage rates, and locations. Last Saturday.
Some executive(s) should be severely sanctioned.
Keep praying.
I think you’re jumping the gun a little. Real plant operations after a major event like this are never according to the O&M manual, and there’s always a “fog of war” involved. People who know this plant down to the last valve are doing what they understand is the necessary sequence of work in respond to an unfolding reality. But after a quake and a tsunami, it’s like a battlefield, and these guys have to make certain determinations in the face of unknown unknowns.
Based on the reports so far, I’m not all warm and fuzzy that they’re making the best decisions, but our information is so poor, we don’t yet have the right to criticize. There’ll be plenty of time to do that later. It’s not time to hang anybody from lamp poles yet.
Have you spent your entire career in design and construction? Working around real operating plants when the stuff hit the fan gives you a respect for the people who run these places.
And I’ll tell you something else. No Japanese wants to be the reason for something going bad. They may or may not be doing the best things right now, only time will tell that, but I can assure you that they’re doing their damnedest.
“can not make any sense of the news reports. In the same article, a US NRC Commissioner states the Unit 4 spent fuel pool has no water, but two paragraphs later, the Japanese state the pool water is at 82 deg C., the temperature of hot coffee. If our guy is correct, a lethal situation exists for large Japanese populations. If they are correct, things are almost normal, and the US has grievously injured a close ally. Somebody is lying” – exactly.
and in this situation, who has more motivation to lie?
“I do know that the photos of the brave chopper scooping water from the Pacific reveal not one row boat off shore. Last Saturday, there should have been an armada of water tankers, Diesel Generators, Fuel Oil tankers, hospital ships, heavy construction equipment, troop transports filled with talent of every kind. A floating city, arriving at flank speed, from everywhere.” – exactly again.
can it be that nobody is there because of… radiation?
Or maybe it’s because the tsunami destroyed the port.
The major problem is the media has lost it’s credibility. They spew so much garbage it’s hard to separate truth from lies, truth from exaggeration, or truth from half-truth. They are low life’s dealing in hyperbole.
Worse than that, they don’t know the difference themselves. They hear some rumor, and it sounds like news to them. They go to anti-nuke activist groups for their expert advice. All-around malpractice.
What I find incredibly ironic is that they had no shortage of lame-brained reporters willing to go into a very dangerous situation in Egypt only weeks ago, resulting in assault, kidnapping, and rape, and they’re all petrified to go stay in a hotel in Tokyo now. Not a clue about relative risks.
Well, the Make Belive Media is useful for one thing.
Once they speak with a united voice, you know what the truth isn’t.
I would be absolutely convinced that the Japan incident is no threat at all if Hannity wasn’t pretty much agreeing with the msm. He’s been right about a few things in the past, so it gives pause.
It would be hard to agree more with R.L. Hails. I have spent a good amount of time (years) working in BWR nuclear plants and am having a difficult time parsing the available information. What the heck has happened to Unit 4? How did the refuel floor structure (the metal building on top of the reactor) get destroyed? It is extremely doubtful that the spent fuel cladding has caught fire as this would have lofted tremendous amounts of radioactive material. Reports from the Tepco website, however report fires were identified and extinguished. In general, there is not much on refuel floors to burn. They are large, open areas. Since the unit was not operating there may be more combustibles than normal in the area for outage work, but there should be nothing to cause a catastrophic fire that would destroy the structure (except spent fuel cladding). Sounds to me more like that they dealt with a couple of minor fires. They would not have been able to get near, let alone extinguish a major zirconium (fuel cladding) fire. Physicist above may be on to something. I am sceptical though that a criticality was the problem as these are localized events in an array such as spent fuel is in and would not sustain chain reactions. More like a quick spike in radiation and heat produced. The fuel itself, if it was truly uncovered, would however, be sufficiently hot to dissociate any water introduced back into oxygen and hydrogen and then … boom. Was the fuel pool empty and then they introduced water again? Were rods partially exposed and they hit the top of the rods with water (I think one of the fill lines is near the top of the pool)? Bigger question: they could have used fire department pumper trucks to keep fuel pools filled by day three. I’ll be curious to learn what they tried and what they considered doing and didn’t when this event is documented for posterity.
R.L. – perhaps you know: how were they venting Units 1 and 3 into the refuel floors? What equipment/piping is up there that could be used for that purpose? What other vent path is possible? It sure looks like Unit 4 has suffered the same type of damage.
Larry Reisinger, P.E. and Eufordem are both dead right. (I am jumping the gun; my old boss would have my head for it.) The external pros simply do not know critical facts, except that Japan moved 8 – 20 ft last week, tens of thousands are dead, and hundreds of millions are terrified. China is having riots over iodized salt. It is absolutely necessary to be candid; state, this I know, this I GUESS. But not fudge it, hype it, or talk techno-babble.
FYI – I have engineered 24 nukes, developed the Mark III, GG, headed the first ISFSI in the US, along with 48 fossils and ten years assessing advanced technologies, mostly in materials and energy. This means I am old and worn out. I knew the pros who went into TMI, and Chernobyl. My prime interest is the organization response, and the similarities in top management (not the guys in the buildings) and the general media are incredibly similar early on. I want to give some real straight context to the fog, to the fixated world.
What do pros guess? I concur with Eufordem. IF the fuel assemblies in the pool lost geometry, fell like jack straws on top of one another, due to the quake/ explosions, and if the boron poison (protection) in the water was “washed away”, the monster will awaken without a cage, sustained critically COULD have occurred. I do not think so, or really, really bad things would have happened last weekend. He is probably right, hot fuel disassociated some water, caused flash fires, and radiation spikes. MAYBE the pool is leaking.
I disagree with Larry on one key issue; Tokyo has been slow, has not brought the full weight of their resources into the fight. It is always CYA time until the world sees you naked. The response: no station power, water, spare equipment brought on line, heavy construction and health services, for days (I could be wrong) is lethally unacceptable. And I would not infer that multitudes of people MIGHT probably die slowly and horribly, until I was very sure of my facts. I just do not know. I have no info pipeline, just gray hairs.
Some pro has got to speak with knowledge and wisdom.
“IF the fuel assemblies in the pool lost geometry, fell like jack straws on top of one another, due to the quake/ explosions, and if the boron poison (protection) in the water was “washed away”, the monster will awaken without a cage, sustained critically COULD have occurred.”
that’s *exactly* what i keep telling people here. i think by this point, it’s “when”, not “if”, unless they manage to somehow restore boronised water supply to the pools.
if japanese government didn’t start distributing iodide tablets to the public yet, they’re grossly negligent and will face the consequences.
God willing, we are beyond this. It all depends on the design and present configuration of the racks/ spent fuel, post accidents. Modern US racks contain boron variants, poisons. I pointed out worst case but we MAY be OK. They are dumping, and pumping. If they worried about gross fuel movement, this would not happen. (Spent fuel is a misnomer to me; most of the nuclear energy remains in the fuel, the “tin can’s” metallic properties are slightly spent from the neutron bombardment.)
A point on iodine; the Japanese authorities should really be on this. The CDC has spoken for the US. This is not my field, but I starkly remember the debriefing on Chernobyl, by a world renown Health Physicist. The massive post accident medical surveys discovered horrible public health problems in the population, due to poor diet and hygiene. A major problem was an almost total lack of salt in their diet. Their salt starved bodies sucked up the radioactive salts, which led to troubles. (They also would not leave the area due to a wide spread fear that the government was going to steal their newly privatized pigs and cattle. The bus fleets were useless; people waited for cattle trucks and sat bare headed in fall out. Horrible alpha and beta burns.) I was advised that a normal healthy intake of iodized salt, maybe a pinch more a few hours before and after the worse contamination, would aid greatly in combating long term thyroid cancer. The danger is the amount of uptake stored long term in the body. Radioactive iodine is hard to remove, but the body tends to flush excess salt away.
I have never seen this in a report. Again, some pro has got to speak with knowledge and wisdom. I beg for a rebuttal from a real expert; I am not. People need facts,information on what to do. It lessens fear.
Boron isn’t the only thing you can use as a neutron poison. Chloride, which seawater has in abundance, will suffice.
I didn’t mean to suggest that everything up the chain of command and all the way back to Tokyo was wonderful, just that there’s probably a lot more going on on the site that any of us can imagine. And frankly, I’m glad it’s them rather than me, because I’m also a bit too old for the macho 30-hour straight adrenaline-driven kind of work that somebody is doing there right now. Coffee only goes so far. I’ve been there.
They’ve probably made numerous mistakes, and they’ll make some more. It’s like war. But eventually, they’ll come out of it. The news so far today (it’s afternoon there) is hopeful. I think they’ve turned the corner. But maybe not.
…. I’m wondering when the identifying crawler on …. FoxNews will identify an an Anti-Nuclear Activist ….
FoxNews with its tiny handful of “moderates” and RINOs and its scores of such Fascissocialist Psychosis-suffering barking mad totalitarians as Kirsten Powers, Gerry Rivers, Juan Williams, Shepard Smith, Greta van Screeching, Bob Beckel and old Lefty-Lite the Leprechaun, on its very best days but gives a glimpse of what the self-imposition of the fairness doctrine looks like.
But it is likely naive to expect FoxNews to “stand for” other than its owners’ media-money-making-genius, Rupert Murdock’s, desire to attract the biggest possible audience and sell it at the highest possible price to NewsCorp’s advertisers.
How else to explain the insufferable Yellow-Press anti-Capitalist to the Marrow of his bones Lefty-Lite the Leprechaun — and/or to attract and market to the Leprechaun’s mindless “TV-Watcher” Inside Edition Demographic?
I’ve followed Mr Murdock’s life since, screwed out of the bulk of his Dad’s estate, the Adelaide Advertiser comprised his entire “empire.” Mr Murdoch will always be one of my corporate-meritocracy heroes but, in fairness, a quick run around the world look at his/NewsCorp’s papers and other media outlets comes up with 99 varying shades of fascissocialist for every objective “reporter” and/or objective “commentator.”
In Australia his The Australian could be mistaken for the Goebbels’ Globe — or for Pravda. On steroids. SkyNews projectile-spews the modified Marxist line and his Limey papers and other media outlets are as
absolutely Left wing. These days Mr Murdoch’s liberated Chinese wife probably feels less at home in the perilous preserve of the Peking Predators, than does Mr Murdoch!
But it’s for sure that if Mr Murdoch has determined whatever it is is what the audience wants to watch and/or to read? Its what the audience will get!
So I’m not wondering when the identifying crawler on …. FoxNews will identify the Anti-Nuclear Activists FoxNews uses to advance the anti-nuclear activists point of view!
Whoops – forgot to sign in – Please, Moderator?
…. I’m wondering when the identifying crawler on …. FoxNews will identify an an Anti-Nuclear Activist ….
FoxNews with its tiny handful of “moderates” and RINOs and its scores of such Fascissocialist Psychosis-suffering barking mad totalitarians as Kirsten Powers, Gerry Rivers, Juan Williams, Shepard Smith, Greta van Screeching, Bob Beckel and old Lefty-Lite the Leprechaun, on its very best days but gives a glimpse of what the self-imposition of the fairness doctrine looks like.
But it is likely naive to expect FoxNews to “stand for” other than its owners’ media-money-making-genius, Rupert Murdock’s, desire to attract the biggest possible audience and sell it at the highest possible price to NewsCorp’s advertisers.
How else to explain the insufferable Yellow-Press anti-Capitalist to the Marrow of his bones Lefty-Lite the Leprechaun — and/or to attract and market to the Leprechaun’s mindless “TV-Watcher” Inside Edition Demographic?
I’ve followed Mr Murdock’s life since, screwed out of the bulk of his Dad’s estate, the Adelaide Advertiser comprised his entire “empire.” Mr Murdoch will always be one of my corporate-meritocracy heroes but, in fairness, a quick run around the world look at his/NewsCorp’s papers and other media outlets comes up with 99 varying shades of fascissocialist for every objective “reporter” and/or objective “commentator.”
In Australia his The Australian could be mistaken for the Goebbels’ Globe — or for Pravda. On steroids. SkyNews projectile-spews the modified Marxist line and his Limey papers and other media outlets are as
absolutely Left wing. These days Mr Murdoch’s liberated Chinese wife probably feels less at home in the perilous preserve of the Peking Predators, than does Mr Murdoch!
But it’s for sure that if Mr Murdoch has determined whatever it is is what the audience wants to watch and/or to read? Its what the audience will get!
So I’m not wondering when the identifying crawler on …. FoxNews will identify the Anti-Nuclear Activists FoxNews uses to advance the anti-nuclear activists point of view!
From Instapundit … click through the links. http://www.captainsjournal.com/2011/03/17/status-of-the-fukushima-reactor-accidents/ Tons of real information about what has been happening. Where the has the MSM been on this?
Although CNN seems to have some of the best graphics, their daytime anchors are unwatchable. The night time celebrity guy is not much better. Everything is “desperate”, “disaster”, “last ditch”, etc. That same vapid female anchor introduced one piece by saying there were huge concerns because radiation was not decreasing and the technical reporter got on and stated that things were looking up because they were not increasing! She then lead in with how the families of the workers were distressed, angry, and rebellious and then cut to an interview with a worker’s wife who calmly was stating that she was proud of her husband, that he was doing what he liked and what was his duty, and they had been in contact with each other. The anchor still sighed at the end of the piece as if what the woman actually said and how she said it matched the anchor’s introduction.
Now I know why I get almost all my news from Internet.
The above-ground detonation of over 900 nukes — the majority of them much more powerful than Hiroshima — from 1946 to 1963 in the Nevada and New Mexico deserts resulted in the total devastation of the continental United States. Manhattan, for instance, is a ghost town inhabited by mutant roaches and rats. All the people in LA died decades ago.
Fox is slowing morphing into CNN…..