Japanese N-Plant Explosion

And he thinks he's joking.

Realistically, that would be an improvement, as would coin flipping or a roulette wheel - we would avoid the extra risk of false confidence. It's much less likely that six reactors would have been built at Fukushima if coin flips had decided the matter. But simple reasoning, applied to the record and risk of the employment of scientific expertise in an area of great scientific uncertainty, and incorporating the common understanding of human failings (the complacency effect, the influence of money, Challenger Logic, etc), would be my recommendation.

I'm an optimist: We can do better than chance, here.

Or we can do worse, by pretending we know what we don't: See the problem?
Bullshit.
I'll stick with fact based assesments over panic based speculation, thankyou very much.

He's completely correct. Nothing in the high tech, specialized world of geological science predicted that earthquake.

On the other hand, a ten year old with a map and a few pins could have told you that any nuclear reactor built on anything like the Fukushima site - let alone a complex of six of them - needs to be able to withstand a 9+ level quake with associated tsunami, plus a safety margin for human error. And plenty of non-geologists, people with a more sensible outlook on the uses of geological expertise at the current state of such expertise, have been saying that for decades now.
:Yawn:
 
Nothing is mutually exclusive with nuclear power - it's so expensive that every alternative (coal, hydro, everything) is compatible with it.

That's why the continual comparison with the hazards of coal, dams, etc, is beside the point.

If that was true then how come countries like France have the cheap electric bills? How come nuclear power has manage as much market penetration so far? And considering the price of nuclear power keeps dropping with newer cheaper reactor designs and the price of oil, coal and gas keep going up and cheap supply dries up I don't see any logic in your statement.

At present solar as a baseline power source (solar plus gird storage) is completely out of economic range, the same for wind, wave and current with energy storage, as intermittent as they are they simply can't provide more 20-30% of electric needs without energy storage. The only other non-polluting steady power supplies are hydroelectric, which is not truly steady and is dependent on rainfall as well as near max capacity in most places in the world anyways.

There is also geothermal but it has limited areas where it can be used viably. Biomass has limited capacity as well. So unless want to keep killing people and the environment with fossil fuels nuclear is the only other option.
 
Tokyo Electric, and their Geophysicists will have a lot of explaining to do.
As far as any of this goes consider this:
Onagawa is much closer to the epicenter than Fukushima Daiichi, it's in a state of cold shut down.
Fukushima Daini is very close to Fukushimia Daiichi, it would have been subjected to the same tsunami and ground shaking characteristics, it's in a state of cold shut down.
Tokai. Also in the quake affected area, and actually older than Fukushima Daiichi, also in a state of cold shut down.
 
Radiation levels around the reactor was last reported at 646 uSv/hr or about 3-6 chest X-rays an hour or 1 full body CT scan every 50 hours worth in dosage. Radiation levels around the plant have been dropping since March 16th.
 
I'm going to go on the record as making a prediction.

There were (at least) two fault lines involved in last weeks earthquake.
The first fault to rupture was the one closest to the mainland.
The magnitude of the individual ruptures was between 8.3 and say 8.6, with the combined magnitude giving the 9.0 assigned to the event.

This prediction is made based on patterns I have observed in the aftershock sequence.
 
In terms of this:
I wondered if there were some way to design the core so that the control rods could drop over and sheathe the fuel rods-basically making them into control sleeves instead of rods, and then have the whole thing fall apart somehow, like a bundle of sticks when the strap holding them is cut?

BWR control rods are composed of blades in a shape of cruciform in order to move through the gaps formed between four channels of fuel assemblies as shown in Figure 5. Types of control rods are, in terms of the absorber materials, boron carbide (B[sub]4[/sub]C), hafnium (Hf) and combination of these.

So in essence, that's what they already do. Each control rod is shaped so that it has four blades, that extend into the space between adjacent fuel rods, and each fuel rod is surrounded by four control rods, effectively sheathing it in a box shaped structure.
 
Oh sure, but in the mean time we can keep building more nuclear powerplants. Its not like renewables and nuclear power are mutually exclusive.

Actually? people tend to forget that resources, investment money, time, social capital, engineering expertise, and whatnot, isn't all in limitless supply.
The Peak oil people are saying that the worldwide financial crisis is related to peak oil, which does seem to be happening; oil production seems to be peaking.
If what they have to say is correct (and I fear they are absolutely right) capital is and can be expected to continue to leave the system.
If nothing else, it's going to become increasingly problematic to fund big projects-big equipment uses lots of diesel.

No, nukes aren't mutually exclusive, but they are in direct competition for increasingly scarce resources, because we have only so much time, money and stuff to use.

Something I'd love to see here (the U.S.) is a rent-to-own homeowner's PV program funded by the government...but our government's kind of bankrupt. Due to stupidity, not peak oil...but peak oil appears to have arrived...

they simply can't provide more 20-30% of electric needs without energy storage.

Agreed and agreed...but neither renewables nor the energy storage technologies are mature

Saying they can't currently suffice is valid. Saying they can't possibly do so is overly pessimistic.
Once again, I maintain that we pour more social capital into nuclear it reduces the chances we will find the ways to make renewables sufficient.

And another thing I keep ranting on about is the need for building houses and buildings radically different from the ones we have now-ones that use thermal mass to provide passive heating and cooling, so that we end up needing a fraction of our current draw.
 
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Paranoia in the US seems to be growing. I was watching the Sky News anchor grill a "scientist" over US contamination yesterday. It is continuing today. The level of ignorance in "informed" people is quite funny, God only knows what the "uninformed" are thinking. I expect they'll be living in old cold-war bunkers soon. But with all the "experts" back-pedalling like mad, maybe I shouldn't blame them. People want answers, and there aren't any to be had yet.
 
Here is the Uranium Area Distrubance Ranges for the Nuclear Facility.

20 feet
77 feet
286 feet
1,065 feet
3,965 feet

At thes points Uranium draws form the static background at the facility, and creates area disturbance.

It appears also that Isotope formation will be high untill the 4 th of Aprill?
DwayneD.L.Rabon
 
Until the reactors stop reacting, new fission products will continue to be formed. I've not seen any evidence of Plutonium getting out yet though. That's the one you really need to keep an eye on..
 
God only knows what the "uninformed" are thinking. I expect they'll be living in old cold-war bunkers soon.

There'll be a run on duct tape and painter's respirators. People will start slugging back betadine with potassium chasers. They'll be drinking seaweed mixes and evacuating the west coast.

You know, the usual.
 
...and then have the whole thing fall apart somehow, like a bundle of sticks when the strap holding them is cut?
I had a thought in this regard. It has the potential to make a situation worse than it needs to be.

Consider, for example, the final state of TMI2.
tmi2-core-es-config.jpg


What you're proposing would have dropped the unmelted fuel rods into the pool of molten corium, which would have turned a partial meltdown into a full meltdown. Or had the potential to anyway.

Now, also consider the scenario where the mechanism to cut the band holding the bundle together fails in a mode that cuts the band - resulting in the unmoderated fuel rods falling into a pile on the bottom of the reactor core - or for that matter the failure mode where the reactor fails to scram, but the bundle is severed anyway.

You now have the scenario where unmoderated fuel rods are lying in a random pile on the bottom of the reactor vessel, with no way of moderating them - additionaly, it's likely that some, or most of the fuel rods will now have less spacing between them than they're designed to (and no moderation) which seems to me to be the perfect scenario for a potential criticality accident.

At least when a scrammed reactor melts down, fully or partially, the material the control rods are made out of (I believe) melts with it, and continues to provide a proportinate amount of moderation.

You'd be better off designing a system that floods the reactor chamber with Xenon gas (as a last resort - it has to be a last resort because then you have the problem of purging it to restart the reactor). This would work best if you had a source of Xenon enriched in [sup]124[/sup]Xe (I think - absorption cross section depends on neutron temperature).
 
Hi Chimpy. Got ya request BTW. Thanx for that..

My ex-sister-in-law was American so I know there's some smart people over there..(My Ex-Wife was Sioux)..
 
(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Friday that it was aware of the ultimate "Chernobyl solution" to contain the nuclear disaster at its quake-hit nuclear plant by covering it in sand and encasing it in concrete, but added that it was currently focusing on efforts to restore power and cool down the reactors.

(Created by Linda Sieg)

The first indication that reality may be sinking in...
 
Geiger counters in the US may start clicking faster by weekend.
It will not be at harmful levels though, says Obama.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ck-Obama-No-risk-of-radiation-to-America.html

I don't know will it? By the time it gets here it might not be detectable above background radiation.

(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Friday that it was aware of the ultimate "Chernobyl solution" to contain the nuclear disaster at its quake-hit nuclear plant by covering it in sand and encasing it in concrete, but added that it was currently focusing on efforts to restore power and cool down the reactors.

(Created by Linda Sieg)

The first indication that reality may be sinking in...

Sort of redundant as it is already encased in concert.
 
I'd be amazed if no readable radiation reached the US. I don't think that's a plausible scenario.
 
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