Nuclear accident follows Japanese earthqauke

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Jun 2011, 08:16

Video taken by packbot robot within #1 reactor building. The steam suggests this is still a boiling water reactor! Radiation measures at 3 to 4 Sv per hour (that's in the pretty much instant death range), the highest they've recorded so far.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/11031.../110604_09.zip

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/04_16.html

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Jun 2011, 20:27

This post appeared on physicsforums.com today, posted by 'Lambert'. It followed someone linking to a you tube video which was quickly removed.

Originally Posted by jim hardy
...
also the youtube linked three pages ago is now "removed by user

musta been good?
Yeah it was a interview of Kei Sugaoka, here is the info from the youtube video before it was nuked:

"Uploaded by laborvideo on Jun 3, 2011

GE Nuclear Inspector And Whistleblower Kei Sugaoka Speaks Out About Fukushima , GE & Obama
General Electric nuclear plant inspector Kei Sugaoka was one of the inspectors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2000. He noticed a crack in the steam dryer which he videotaped. He was later ordered by TEPCO to edit this part of the tape which is illegal in the United States. He went public and some TEPCO managers were fired. He thought that things would change but they have not. Additionally as a result of being a whistleblower he was also fired by General Electric and has been struggling to get the truth out about these dangerous plants. This interview was done on May 5, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBjiLaVOsI4&feature=
http://criticality.org/2011/05/whist...lear-reactors/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/wo...usion.html?hpw
http://www.baycitizen.org/disasters/...-nuclear-react...
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0040523x2.html
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org laborvideo.blip.tv
(c)2011"

most of the links are dead now, kind of crazy... here is another link i found which is also interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...A0A2E17C94FC6C

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 05 Jun 2011, 08:21

Here's a time-lapsed version of TEPCO's webcam at Fukushima from yesterday.

It might have been rather dull were it not for an intrusion of nature about 8 seconds into the video.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fuku1live#p/u/3/-ljGxLDpHlc

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 05 Jun 2011, 13:40

Interesting interview with Michio Kaku (he who knows a thing or two about nuclear physics).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67v9O3ti ... r_embedded

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 06 Jun 2011, 08:34

Here's a neat description of a problem.

etudiant wrote:So we have 3 reactor cores, each dissipating about 6 megawatts of residual decay heat (4 in the case of unit 1, which is much smaller). That will continue for the next few years largely unchanged, albeit with a modest downward trend. Assume the cores are hot, but not yet melted, at around 1000 degrees Kelvin.
A reactor core is about 100 tons of uranium oxide, plus additives. Uranium oxide has a specific heat of 240 joules/kg per degree K. So we have 100,000 kg of fuel producing 6 megawatts of heat, or 6 million joules/second. Heating the fuel 1 degree will take 240 * 100,000 joules, or 24 million joules, about 4 seconds worth of heat output. So to heat the fuel to the boiling point, somewhere around 4000 degrees Kelvin, will take 3000 times that long, about 12,000 seconds, less than 4 hours.
I'd recommend sticking with the water option.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread ... 0&page=561

It followed a debate about whether pouring thousands of tons of water onto what's left of the reactors is a good idea, considering that this water then becomes contaminated and has to be put somewhere safe, or whether just burying the whole show in sand and cement might be better. It seems it wouldn't!

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 06 Jun 2011, 13:22

Sounds sensible. A water flow of 0.1 cumecs will suffice to cool all three. If we take the Black Tide to be a conservative 100 km wide, 100 m deep flow 2 knots, that's 10 million cumecs, so it's easy to dilute down to 1 part in 10^8.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 06 Jun 2011, 14:07

So you're suggesting all the water they use for cooling should be dumped straight into the Pacific!!! Even TEPCO and the Japanese government do not include that as a remotely plausible strategy.

They are working hard to find all the water leaks and stop them, capture all the water, store it and then clean it at whatever cost it takes.

The Cabinet Office's Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan (NSC) had estimated that the total level of radioactivity stood at around 630,000 terabecquerels by April 5th (two months ago), but this figure was criticized as an underestimation. The figure has just been revised to 850,000 terabecquerels. (nb. A becquerel is about buggerall but a terabecquerel is terrible.) Chernobyl may have released over five million terabecqerels all told.

That doesn't include the present and ongoing leaking of contaminated water.

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 06 Jun 2011, 15:27

Well there you go then, TEPCO are obviously doing a very good job.

Many commentators have commented on the dilution afforded by the Pacific currents - I just thought I'd mention it just in case you hadn't noted that particular remedial factor of the situation.

All them becquerels! Just calculated that my body (and certainly yours) has produced 3*10^10 Bq since Fukushima (K40). The population of the UK has emitted 1,800,000 Tera Bq since Fukushima.

Estimates of contamination levels would be more to the point.

Post by **adam2** » 06 Jun 2011, 16:50

biffvernon wrote:Video taken by packbot robot within #1 reactor building. The steam suggests this is still a boiling water reactor! Radiation measures at 3 to 4 Sv per hour (that's in the pretty much instant death range), the highest they've recorded so far.

Yes, 1 seivert can be dangerous, and several seiverts would be fatal.
Therefore not quite instant death, exposure for an hour would give a dose of several seiverts, and death would follow relatively quickly, though not instantly.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 06 Jun 2011, 18:32

Yeah, I'm a geologist. death would follow relatively quickly = instant

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 06 Jun 2011, 20:07

An Inspector Calls wrote:Just calculated that my body (and certainly yours) has produced 3*10^10 Bq since Fukushima (K40). The population of the UK has emitted 1,800,000 Tera Bq since Fukushima.

Not quite sure how you did your arithmetic. Things (or people) don't emit Becquerels. One Bq is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which there's one decay per second. I think there's about 4000 Bq of K40 in our bodies so it would take almost 200 trillion people to account for 850,000 terabecquerels.

I know some folk think the UK population is already too big but...

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 07 Jun 2011, 09:37

I stand corrected.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Jun 2011, 11:42

Thank you, Inspector.

Interesting to hear the BBC news are today reporting that the Japanese have now doubled their estimate of radiation released in the early days. You read it here yesterday. The BBC seem to be regularly late with their Fukushima reporting. Not that I will ever be a conspiracy theorist

Here's a new video taken earlier today from a Tokyo suburb showing how radioactive material accumulates on the ground near gutters and drains. Probably cesium 137 washed down and concentrated. From the point of view of a child's health relying on average measurements over areas is really dumb. A place registering 5mS/hr is not a place for toddlers to be toddling. But this is the suburbs of one of the world's biggest capital cities. How do we solve a problem like this?

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 07 Jun 2011, 11:51

But this is the suburbs of one of the world's biggest capital cities

I thought Tokyo IS the world's largest city with 35.5 million people in the greater Tokyo area..... not the sort of place you need these sort of readings.

I think we all know what the answer is.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Jun 2011, 21:40

Whoops...sorry

Here it really is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9a0Q1v9 ... dded#at=13

(Exciting, wasn't it?)