The Nuclear Debate

[Flash]

Nuclear reactors at Fukushima reach cold shutdown temperature

Sep 7, 2011

A core spray has helped bring the temperature of Unit 3 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan under the level needed for a cold shutdown, according to World Nuclear News.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Unit 3’s temperature at the bottom of the reactor vessel read 205.5 F. The benchmark for cold shutdown is 212 F.

Unit 1’s temperature measured 186 F, making Unit 2 the only melted core still above the mark at 235.2 F as of September 6, the article said.

Before September 1, Unit 3’s core was cooled only by steam rising from a pool of water at the bottom of the reactor vessel. The core spray is putting in 3 cubic metres per hour of water while the feedwater line continues at 6 cubic metres per hour. The water isbeing pumped out and taken through a series of treatment lines before storage and re-injection.

The rate of injection will gradually be reduced to 3 cubic metres per hour while the temperature is monitored.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Yes, the temperature drops quickly when the cores melt down through the bottom....
http://enenews.com/tepco-admits-unknown ... g-reactor-3

http://enenews.com/?s=fukushima+china+syndrome

Concerning the NRC and burning waste @ Fukushima..
http://vimeo.com/28014740

[linapo]

just read about the explosion in a french nuclear plant - makes you scared. they can talk about risks as much as they want, but when something happens it's just not a matter of numbers on the paper!


_________________
last chaos

[technosaurus]

I didn't even read the article, from the headlines for all I know it could be the backup diesel generator that exploded, being spun by the media for shock appeal. I think I'll wait for this one to be on Wikipedia to avoid the FUD.

[Bruce B]

just read about the explosion in a french nuclear plant - makes you scared. they can talk about risks as much as they want, but when something happens it's just not a matter of numbers on the paper!

For who? The peasants?

It might be numbers on paper for the money people who don't live anywhere near the damage they create or the fortunes they make.

~

[RetroTechGuy]

just read about the explosion in a french nuclear plant - makes you scared. they can talk about risks as much as they want, but when something happens it's just not a matter of numbers on the paper!

It was a nuclear waste treatment site, not a reactor...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1L3GOO.DTL

As technosaurus suggested, the papers are spinning F.U.D.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Yep...
A generator blows up and the media goes ballistic...

Good...
About time people were paying attention...
Wonder how many neighbors just discovered they live by a nuclear waste treatment facility??

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Here`s VeteransToday`s unique perspective..
Never looked at it that way before...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/16 ... es-to-war/

[Sit Heel Speak]

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, 2009)

has been released to the public domain by its principal author. A copy may be downloaded at

http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20 ... 20book.pdf

If you wish to support the authors, it can be purchased as an eBook on Amazon, and a hardcopy can be bought for $12.50 at Greko Printing, telephone 734-453-0341.

[Sit Heel Speak]

This is an interesting paper: it contains best available figures for reactor fuel and fuel rod inventories. Published for discussion on October 20th, 2011, by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union:

"Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition." By A. Stohl, P. Seibert, G. Wotawa, D. Arnold, J. F. Burkhart, S. Eckhardt, C. Tapia, A. Vargas, and T. J. Yasunari. Reference: Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 11, 28319-28394, 2011.

To get it, go to

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/ ... ssion.html

and search on "Stohl"

or you can directly download it as:

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/ ... 9-2011.pdf

One significant finding:

"Total a posteriori 133Xe emissions are 16.7 EBq, one third more than the a priori value of 12.6 EBq (which is equal to the estimated inventory) and 2.5 times the estimated Chernobyl source term of 6.5 EBq (NEA, 2002)."

According to Yoichi Shimatzu, speaking on the Jeff Rense Internet talk radio program two nights ago, nearly everyone who has the financial means to do so has permanently left Japan. He says that they have settled mainly in Singapore, Shanghai, and New York City.

This report is also worth noting:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/5826

[quote]In the “worst

[Flash]

Xenon-133, a radioactive gas which I believe decays through radon on its way to a stable isotope of something like lead, is created by fission while the reactor is generating power but is trapped within the fuel rods until they are broken open. Turns out that when fuel rods are broken open for reprocessing the radioactive gases within them are usually simply released into the atmosphere. Detection of the Xenon-133 carried downwind is the main clue that the North Koreans were breaking open spent fuel assemblies to get the plutonium. The British fuel reprocessing industry has experimented with capturing the gases and keeping them stored as liquid at cryogenic temperatures, but that is very expensive, and, of course, if the cooling fails the gases heat up and boil away into the atmosphere anyway.

Just something for anyone who thinks nuclear power is a good idea to keep in mind.

[Sit Heel Speak]

Xenon-133, a radioactive gas which I believe decays through radon on its way to a stable isotope of something like lead...is trapped within the fuel rods until they are broken open...

Actually not trapped; isotopes of xenon and krypton are collected and periodically released to the atmosphere in the course of normal nuclear reactor operation. Ernest Sternglass did exhaustive studies, measuring their decay products in grass and dairy products and children's teeth in concentrations falling off in direct proportion to distance downwind from every reactor.

Xenon-133, released to the atmosphere, decays into stable cesium-133.

Isotope.............Half-life........Mode of decay.............................Resulting isotope
54-xenon-133.....5.27 days.....beta (neutron changes to proton).....55-cesium-133
55-cesium-133....stable. It's 100% of the cesium in (pre-atomic-age) nature.

Stable cesium is a nerve poison, but not a radioactive poison. Cesium is mistaken by the body for sodium and potassium, gets uptaken onto the nerve receptors in the places designed for sodium and potassium, therefore ruins nerve impulse transmission. Also does kidney damage. But given time the body can remove it.

What goes unstated in this paper, however, and always goes unmentioned by the proponents of nuclear power, is all the other isotopes of xenon which get produced in every reactor. The xenons with mass numbers 118 through 132 are stable, except 125 and 127. Xenon-127 decays into iodine-127, which is the sole natural isotope of iodine so is not much of a problem. But xenon-125 decays into iodine-125, and this in turn decays (half-life 60 days) into tellurium-125. The decay can cause thyroid cancer if the atom of iodine-125 has been uptaken into the thyroid gland.

The xenons 133 through 142 are all radioactive except for 134. All of them when they decay shoot out a high-energy electron (a beta particle) and transmute into an atom of cesium of the same mass number. Cesium 133 is stable, but cesiums 134 through 142 are all radioactive and, if uptaken into the body when they decay, will do cellular damage, whether or not attached to a nerve cell receptor or kidney cell. Dumbing-down, apathy, and loss of muscle coordination are the primary symptoms of cesium poisoning, aside from the effects of organ failure and cancer which arise from neighboring cells getting disarranged by the high-energy beta particle (electron shot out of the nucleus at a significant fraction of the speed of light) ejected during the decay of each atom of radioactive isotopes of cesium.

After Chernobyl, I created by hand a (relatively) concise chart which shows all the decay chains. I'll rummage around and see if I can find it, scan and post it, and also post the M-shaped curve of daughter isotope distribution, and then you may get an idea of how horrific the true situation of Fukushima really is.

[Sit Heel Speak]

Aarrgh, *stupid* Canon MP210 scanner...the ink alarm is on, low on both black and color, so the @#&^ thing won't *scan*...

[Sit Heel Speak]

OK, I don't have a scanner, so I broke out the trusty Canon PowerShot A620. Sorry it's so large, but, here's the M-shaped curve of fission daughter products. From An Outline of Atomic Physics, 3rd edition, copyright 1955 by John Wiley and Sons, 2nd printing, October 1957:

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/92333fd1e0_2.58MB

This graph summarizes how much of each radioisotope is produced in a nuclear reactor by the fissioning of atoms of whatever the fuel is --uranium-235, plutonium-239, thorium or what-have-you. In a reactor are also produced heavier atoms by addition of neutrons to the fuel atoms --for example, plutonium-239 is created by neutron capture of uranium-238 (actually the uranium-238 first becomes uranium-239 which quickly decays to neptunium-239 which then in turn decays to plutonium-239). Also to some extent by neutron-capture new radioactive atoms are produced from some of the fission products. Cobalt-60 is the most notorious.

Incidentally, it is false to say that thorium is somehow "safer" than uranium as a nuclear fuel. Same distribution of fission products, and slow ("thermal") neutrons are likewise produced in a thorium reactor. Just stick some U-238 into a thorium reactor and you end up with the same Pu-239 as from the usual uranium reactor.

Now let me go hunt for my old chart of decay chains...

[technosaurus]

... here's the M-shaped curve of fission daughter products...

where the M stands for May West

[Sit Heel Speak]

Notice on the left-hand page, just above the middle, where U-235 produces on average 2.5 neutrons per fission, while Pu-239 produces on average 3. This is the reason why Reactor #3 used "MOX" (Mixed OXides) fuel --mixed uranium and plutonium oxides. "Souping up" the uranium fuel with the addition of plutonium gives more neutrons per fission, which results in more heat produced. Therefore a higher pressure steam, therefore 850 megawatts out of the turbine rather than, say, 780 which you would get using straight uranium.

[technosaurus]

Notice on the left-hand page, just above the middle, where U-235 produces on average 2.5 neutrons per fission, while Pu-239 produces on average 3. This is the reason why Reactor #3 used "MOX" (Mixed OXides) fuel --mixed uranium and plutonium oxides. "Souping up" the uranium fuel with the addition of plutonium gives more neutrons per fission, which results in more heat produced. Therefore a higher pressure steam, therefore 850 megawatts out of the turbine rather than, say, 780 which you would get using straight uranium.

I thought they were pressurized water reactors? ... if so then MOX and power are not directly related, the limit is normally the operating pressure capacity of the primary system or flow capacity in the steam generator. They use MOX because they recycle their spent fuel (Pu comes from u238 that has absorbed neutrons). besides the heat produced by the actual fission of Pu is only during operation (well except for spontaneous fission)

The only permanent modifier of Reactor Power during critical operation is Steam Load (well that and a scram) . If the steam load goes up, then it takes more heat out of the primary. This causes an increase in reactivity when that colder water hits the core (because of a negative "alpha T" or temperature coefficient of reactivity) The increased reactivity then causes output temperature to rise thereby increasing the delta T but equalizing at roughly the same average temperature, but at a higher power ... and vice versa ... Its a pretty beautiful thing actually.

[Flash]

Okay I got the details wrong in my last post, but my main point, that nuclear reactors produce radioactive gases about which nothing can be done except vent them into the atmosphere, is still valid.

I was actually thinking of krypton-85 when I wrote my last post but forgot its name and got it confused with Xenon-113. Both are radioactive gases which are produced by the fissioning of uranium and plutonium, or so it seems.

Here's an abstract of
Conclusions on plutonium separation from atmospheric krypton-85 measured at various distances from the Karlsruhe reprocessing plant

Abstract

For wide-area atmospheric monitoring, krypton-85 is the best indicator for clandestine plutonium separations. The detection and false alarm rates were determined from weekly samples at five different distances from the Karlsruhe reprocessing plant between 1985 and 1988. The detection rate for the separation of 4 kg of plutonium per week was found to be as high as 80–90% at a distance of less than 1 km, 70% at 5 km, 40% at 39 km, and 15% at 130 km. At distances up to 40 km, the false alarm rate is less than 3.5%. On average, the fuel released 28 TBq krypton-85 per kg plutonium. For weapons-grade plutonium, the krypton signal would be lower by a factor of 2. Hence, the given percentages correspond to the detection probabilities for the separation of a significant quantity (8 kg) of plutonium per weekly sample under the specific meteorological conditions of the WAK. The minimum separation rates that could have been detected are 2 gram of weapons-grade plutonium per week at a distance of less than 1 km, 40 g/week at 5 km, 200 g/week at 39 km, and 1000 g/week at 130 km.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Here is a nice live shot of Fukushima..
http://mfile.akamai.com/127380/live/reflector:51361.asf
Looks as though they have nearly completed the coverup of #1..
The other day 2 was smoking, but seems clear today...
3 is just destroyed... I still assert Hydrogen didnt do that...
4 is starting to sag, looks like it may collapse....Not good..
Lotta spent rods 1100 + and over 200 new rods in the pool...
Lotta MOX..lotta nasty...

So, as horrible as it is...it aint over yet....

A blog from a concerned Japanese citizen..
Some very "first person" perspectives...
http://fukushima-diary.com


The Energy News site
http://enenews.com/

Anyone, well besides the Media , still think it isnt a problem now???
3 melters, and a "leaning tower" of fuel rods...
Radiation all over the place...Air, water and food...
What a mess... And the people are basically forced to ignore it...
You just couldnt write this stuff.. no one would believe it...

[puppyluvr]

Hello,

Little by little we see the truth...

An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

Following the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant [...] clear targets were set so that anybody anticipated to receive more than five millisieverts in a year were evacuated, no question [...]

Were Japan to impose similar strictures, officials would have to evacuate some 1800 square kilometres and impose restrictions on food produced in another 11,100 square kilometres, according to estimates of the contamination presented by Dr. Kozo Tatara for the Japan Public Health Association

A more personal perspective...
A woman in Minamisoma shi Fukushima has been blogging about what is happening around her and herself since August.

She used to work for a high school but she quit it and now opening her private tutoring school because she couldn’t take telling lies.

She started her blog on 8/6/2011.
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kmasa924/28532025.html

Because the content was too shocking most of the readers did not take her seriously.

From the post of 12/17/2011
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