All of the well-informed posts, news articles and other information I have read in the last couple days says that the chance of a “China Syndrome” is zero. The way you’re using the phrase seems to be that if it “burns through the core” (e.g. primary containment?) then that’s a China Syndrome. But that’s not what the phrase actually means. China Syndrome (from the fictional movie) means that the molten core burns through main containment andthe bottom of the building and travels into the earth.
Even assuming the reactor(s) in Japan do completely melt down and become molten, the molten material will be stopped by the thick concrete foundation of the structure. It is impossible for it to it to burn through the foundation and penetrate deep underground. Even in the much more shitty construction of Chernobyl that did not have such thick concrete foundations as Japan, a “China Syndrome” did not occur.
How can you take a cite seriously when it says that a dirty bomb is “far worse” than a nuclear bomb? A nuclear bomb has huge heat and immediate destruction AND widespread nuclear fallout. A dirty bomb is certainly no picnic and can cause huge problems, but it’s a much much smaller local explosion and the spread of nuclear fallout to a smaller area than a true nuclear bomb.
Actually, from my limited knowledge of physics my understanding is that it’s certainly not good to spread long-lived nuclear byproducts around the environment willy-nilly, but the long-lived byproducts are not the “truly nasty problematic ones.” By definition, long-lived byproducts have a longer half-life and are thus less radioactive. It’s the short-lived byproducts which are more radioactive and pose much more of a threat. Isotopes that persist for days or weeks or decades are a problem, but those that persist for thousands of years!!!1!! ZOMG!! have very little radioactivity and are not much of a threat. As has already been pointed out in this thread, the Japanese rebuilt Hiroshima and Nagasaki on their original sites, and it’s not like they’re all dropping dead or having long-term devastating health consequences.
Also, I just have to ask - Magiver, you’ve been a member of the board for almost eight years, do you have something against quote tags? Putting your cites in bright blue instead of quote tags is a little annoying. Also, in the past on this board there has often been a correlation between hysterical and/or illogical posters and the use of colorfulexcessively emphasized FONTS!!!
The term as used by the author described a runaway situation. What occurred in Chernobyl involved dumping sand and boron on top of the pile and injecting liquid nitrogen underneath it. That was after the core was exposed. The cores have not exploded at Fukushima yet and won’t likely but the situation existed during shut down. Had they not been able to vent the inner core then the hydrogen buildup presented a serious situation. As cited they already had an incident with a vent valve sticking. It was no small event to have a building explode that could be heard 25 miles away. That’s a substantial amount of energy to impart on the infrastructure such as monitoring equipment, electronics, valves, pipes etc…
As already stated, it didn’t burn through because they drilled and injected liquid nitrogen underneath it while trying to stop the reaction from above. Where it stands now 1 week later: “‘Unit 3 is our utmost priority’
Smoke billowed from Unit 2 at the plant, and its cause was not known. An explosion hit the building on Tuesday, possibly damaging a crucial cooling chamber that sits below the reactor core.” They’re STILL using helicopters to try to cool the reactors which means they haven’t successfully shut them down.
The statement you’re questioning was self explanatory. “in terms of radioactive contamination” as in Chernobyl. If any of the cores exploded it would have spread contamination in a way that would render the area uninhabitable. As I stated earlier, it would be a bigger deal for Japan to lose real estate than Russia. They have a much higher population density. A smaller area of uninhabitable land would be a bigger burden.
The difference between a fully detonated bomb and a dirty bomb is the difference between Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
Magiver, your use of terminology continues to be confusing. Could you please explain exactly what you mean when you say “inner core” and “outer core”? Because it seems to be different from the way those terms are used by people in the industry (and everyone else in this thread, for that matter). My understanding as someone who is not a nuclear expert but has done a lot of layman-level reading on this issue is that “inner core” typically refers to the reactor pressure vessel itself. I have no idea what “outer core” is supposed to mean. That term seems nonsensical to me, but again maybe someone else knows more and can explain.
Yes, the hydrogen was a serious situation. And they were able to vent it. What does that have to do with a “China Syndrome” And how can you say the “situation” of core explosion could have existed during shut down? Once the earthquake was detected the reactors shut down without incident. There was no out of control power surge like with Chernobyl. It’s a completely different situation.
Good for them, maybe that helped keep the molten core from not going through the subbasement. But Fukushima does have a thick concrete underlay. So what does this have to do with anything in the current situation?
My impression from the recent news is that the helicopter drops are also trying to cool the core, but primarily they’re trying to cool the spent fuel rods, which may or may not have completely empty pools. Thinking about it, even if there are small cracks in the primary and/or secondary containment, how much water would actually get into the reactor core? Very little. Whereas the spent fuel rods are more exposed and would benefit more from water drops.
Also, my impression from the recent news is that the spent fuel rods may be as big a problem as the reactors, if not an even bigger problem.
But the cores did not explode as they did in Chernobyl. Even if the cooling fails and the fuel rods either in the core or in the spent fuel rod ponds do melt down, they will not “explode”. If they melt they will release some radioactive material into the air, but they won’t blow up like Chernobyl, which actually spewed big chunks of radioactive material miles away. That’s what made the area totally uninhabitable.
Yes, the Thai government, caught off guard by the force of the criticism, has changed tack and is now going to rescue all its Thai brethren stuck in Japan. All 20,000 of them, 5000 of whom are ominously missing. Story here.
japan has now rated this a level 5 nuclear accident. france has suggested it is a level 6. the International Atomic Energy Agency has given no rating.
low levels of radiation have been detected south of Tokyo.
also from the AP this morning:
"The actions authorities are taking to cool the reactors are the best ones available, experts say. Eventually, the plant may be entombed in concrete, as was done hastily after the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident.
But pressures and temperatures must be controlled before then, said Mario V. Bonaca, an adviser to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Otherwise, he said, overheated nuclear fuel will melt or burst through the sand, cement or other covering and release more radiation. "
While all this talk and panic over the reactors and evacuating foreigners is going on, the 20,000 dead or missing and the 450,000 displaced people and the 300km of destroyed coastline is going pretty much forgotten.
forgotten by you? I don’t think anyone else has forgotten, and I’m sure the Japanese are doing just about everything they can do, but it’s a little harder to airchair quarterback the rescue efforts, which are probably going about as well as they can. The Japanese are far better at this sort of disaster than the US is.
Hardly forgotten by me. My husband is one of the 100,000 search and rescue on the ground. It is never out of my mind. Our ancestral home is in Iwate along with lots of relatives.
So with an undergraduate degree in physics and a class or two in nuc engineering, you are highly qualified. I see.
Yus, thaz the problum. With just a electrical engineering dagreee, a Mynor in Fisics and no classez in nuclar injurinering, plus my Work as a design Enginur and 20 years in the electronics pheeld clearly shows that I’m incapable of understanding things which you physics majors can.
I went and got mySelf one of fancy dicionaries, like them reeally smart people have to look up 3 sylable words and it Takes awhile to go through it. I was using an yello highlighter but my laptop monitor got too dim to use. Ain’t it amaizing how small they aer? U r really smart, so how does that work?
I cannever tell who to Belife and who know, espepeically sinse you say I’m listening to “sorta” and not real experts, like them guys I quoted. The engineer incharge of cleanup at 3 [del]foot[/del] mile Iland. Your’re right. I bet his degree isn’t in Fsycs either.
then their’s that guy who writes trash liek
he’s obvisly info “feer mongering” like yoou say. Can you use that phansy E-male thingy to set him right? Theres a bunch of them who writ that papaer includeing a profasser at Prinstun Unnaversaty, but it didn’ say if he had an undergrauduate degree in phisics like you do, so I’m sure he would like your help.
Now, that payper says things like
and since Fukushima reactors’s pools are get dry really fucking quick, and without any information from TEPCO, us idiots could never made a connection between these things, because we are too busy screaming than reading white papers from front to back.
No, it never occurs to us non-physics majors to consider sources, to read research papers, to note when thing are written about one type of reactor, that it doesn’t mean it necessary to the type at Fukushima, and that the practice of dense-pack storage routinely practiced in the States may not be done in Japan.
Because we our degrees are only in electrical engineering and we “listen to sorta experts that are into fear mongering rather than a calm rational analysis of the situation,” it would never occur to us to call our friends; the scientist with a PhD in EE from that fly-by-night institute Sanford University, or that guy who is a structural engineer for a major Japanese firm, to get their take on the situation.
Funny thing is, that structural engineer who designs to for protection from earthquakes, and if very familiar with earthquake protection wouldn’t make a guess one way or other on the Daichi reactors since he isn’t privy to their specifics. I should put you too in contact so that you can tell him how to be so certain of things which you don’t know.
Or maybe you do know, and just haven’t shared it with us.
How is the structural integrity of all of containment structures, the ones designed to withstand an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.2, and got the signoff by the same people who approved the seawalls?
Are there potentially cracks which haven’t failed yet, but could if the pressure continues to increase?
How much spent fuel is being held in the pools. Yes, the ones which are not within the containment structures, e.g. in open air now?
How densely packed are the pools?
How old is the fuel?
How much cesium-137 and other highly volatile elements are there?
If one of the pools “goes bad” and starts to really spew a lot of really ugly junk into the air, how long can we ask the really brave workers to keep adding water to the other pools? If that happens, would it be a “good thing?”
What is the specific risk of any of the pools, especially no. 4, catching fire?
Since three of the reactors (numbers 4 through 6) where shut down for routine maintenance, was the fuel transferred to the spent fuel pools, which are now in open air?
If those pools lose water and the self-defense forces are unable to refill the pools, would it be a “good thing” or a “bad thing?”
Would this case be something which is described like this
Would this be a “good thing?”
I could go on all day, but see, because we didn’t get out degrees in physics, we are just too fucking stupid to even think of the right questions to ask.
Absolutely. This is why people like Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies;
Jan Beyea, Consulting in the Public Interest; Ed Lyman, Nuclear Control Institute, Allison Macfarlane, Security Studies Program, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Gordon Thompson, Institute for Resource and Security Studies; Frank N. von Hippel, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University are wrong because they obviously are failing to comprehend how spend fuel fires “CANNOT be as bad as Chernobyl", even if they did footnote their paper. Yes, and Mr. Advarez doesn’t like nuclear power, so it should be really easy to refute the science in his white papers.
But my guess is that these people aren’t as qualified as you to make that judgment.
A couple of final comments. Unlike you, I’m not claiming to be an expert. I’ve never stated what will or will not happen. I certainly hope the hell that the worst case scenario and I actually give a shit about what happens to my adopted country.
Maybe you still can get a refund for that tuition.
You think I don’t care? You don’t think I don’t give a shit? And you seem to confuse worst possible case vs likely case (which btw changes day by day, so don’t try to pull some look how bad it is now vs what I said days ago about it baloney).
There are plenty of points along this disaster where things could have (and honestly probaby should have) taken a turn for the better rather than a turn for the worst. For example, the spent fuel rod pools. Early on they were fine. But, for whatever reason they didn’t or couldnt couldnt get get on top of that situation and now they are a big deal (and quite possibly the bigger deal).
If I had loved ones there, I’d be giving them the same semi-educated advice I’ve given here. Heck, if I was there personally I’d feel the same way. I’m here to counter the hysteria. If you want to freak out, thats your perogative.
You’ll note I havent said anything in the past (I’m pretty sure) about the spent fuel rod pools.
And if things really get bad, you can blame your adopted country for not running a nuclear reactor properly, rather than me hoping that things arent worst case and knowing that they don’t HAVE to be.
But, its probably easier to get mad at me, so have at it.
