Nuclear Catastrophie

[Dean Los Angeles]

The possible cause of the leaks in the spent fuel pool.

A possible source of the leak in the Unit 4 pool may be the seals around the doors (or “gates”) on one side of the spent fuel pool. These gates are shown in the diagram below. They are located between the pool and the area above the reactor vessel. They are concrete with metal liners, and are roughly 20’x 3’.

When fuel is moved between the pool and vessel, this whole region is filled with water, the gates are opened, and the fuel can be moved to or from the reactor core while remaining under water. The water not only keeps the fuel rods cool but acts as a radiation shield.

When the gates are closed, they are made watertight by an inflatable seal, similar to a bicycle innertube, that runs around the sides and bottom of the gates. Electric air pumps are used to inflate these seals and keep them inflated as air leaks out of them over time.

These pumps are powered by electricity from the power grid, and not by backup diesel power or batteries. So once the power grid in Japan was knocked out, these seals could not be inflated if they lost air over time. If these seals lost air they could lead to significant water loss from the pool, even if there were no direct physical damage to the pool from the earthquake or tsunami. This may be what happened at pool 4, and could affect the other pools as well.

We saw an example of this in the US at the Hatch nuclear plant in Georgia in December 1986. This reactor is very similar to the reactors at Fukushima. In the Hatch case, the line supplying air to the inflatable seal was accidentally closed, the seal lost pressure and created a leak, and by the time the problem was identified several hours later some 141,000 gallons of water leaked from the pool—about half the water in the pool Fortunately, the source of the problem was discovered and fixed before the water level uncovered the fuel.

[Geo]

Keep posting Dean. All the rocks have not been turned over yet.

I have been looking at the newest design using liquid metal as the cooling and heat transfer medium. Passive cooling with no need for electricity.  I'm sure there is some switch or valve that needs power to get through a disaster. However, if no water is needed to cool it then there is no need to build by any water.  However what happens when the liquid metal leaks out?  What do you cool it with then?

Then there are the human decision makers...  Can we get rid of them?

Geo

[hotrod]

Then there are the human decision makers...  Can we get rid of them?

Geo

Complex systems are always more vulnerable to failure due to human interactions and decisions than they are due to mechanical failure.
Even the best system can be compromised by a poorly thought out decision to save $30 by someone who has no clue what they are doing.

Accountants are by far the most dangerous decision makers in an industrial environment, immediately followed by managers with MBA's and no technical experience.

The accountants drive poor decisions by management types that have MBA's but no technical background in the systems they are managing. As a result they do not listen to the technically trained staff that try to tell them they really should not be doing something that cuts some corner to avoid some paper work or the the nuisance of actually doing safety inspections, or failure analysis to determine the real cause of problems vs the symptom.

Unfortunately it is the symptom that usually gets treated just well enough so it goes away and although the device is trying to tell you something is wrong they just duct tape it or squirt WD-40 on it until it stops complaining and go on blissfully ignorant of the impending problem.

Larry

[fastman614]

Your words- hotrod larry
Accountants are by far the most dangerous decision makers in an industrial environment, immediately followed by managers with MBA's and no technical experience.

The accountants drive poor decisions by management types that have MBA's but no technical background in the systems they are managing. As a result they do not listen to the technically trained staff that try to tell them they really should not be doing something that cuts some corner to avoid some paper work or the the nuisance of actually doing safety inspections, or failure analysis to determine the real cause of problems vs the symptom.

Unfortunately it is the symptom that usually gets treated just well enough so it goes away and although the device is trying to tell you something is wrong they just duct tape it or squirt WD-40 on it until it stops complaining and go on blissfully ignorant of the impending problem.

These are now my words-
Having been a mechanical maintenance technician almost all of my working life, I SAW the company I worked for go through the various phases until the division I worked for was just another operation that broke like all the other ones.... for decades, the veneer and plyood operation was wold renown for duality product, being arguably the fastest veneer lathe in the world, running with a downtime percentage of less than 1%.... etc....

What I saw take place was accountants and college educated buffoons become "the flavor of the month" people- the "saviors" of the company etc.... we maintenance people became greedy featherbedders who were only in it for the overtime we could make and nothing els.... and NOT to be trusted.....There are reasons that I no longer work for them...

So, in my "new" career path I work as a service engineering technician... a bit less hands on but in the midst of everything to do with rebuilding ore processing equipment in mine concentrators.... and the bean counters and book learned people are the lords and saviors to the mining companies as well!!!!.... OMG!... the "bone-headed" decisions that we see being made on an alarmingly regular basis is incredible.... just one example- run the grinders until just before the liners wear out.... we can save a the equivalent of two liner changes a year for 10 machines at a cost of 1/2 a million dollars each and the week of down time each with the resultant lost production....the only trouble is, based on empirical data, they were already running the liners to the ragged edge.... the times between had been stretched by several weeks already- due also in part to better quality liner material as well as weekly inspections (which also got pushed back- first to bi-weekly and then monthly)...

And then, in the course of one year.... wearing seriously through the liners and compromising the integrity of the mill shells on three of them.... oops!.... now they are looking at replacing the mills and the truth as to why is not being told.... production is down because they cannot run full charge through the mills.... and several million dollars is what it will cost to repair.... with months of down-time.... but the "spin-doctors_ also known as bean counters and MBAs are touting the "new investment" in labor saving costs and new efficiencies that will ultimately make the mining companies even more money... and they have the spreadsheets to prove it... the shareholders are generally completely lacking in knowledge, the boards of directors pretty much the same as well.... and now. pathological liars firmly in control where it matters most and they should be nowhere near....

It is very difficult that, in an era where it is "profits before people" and increase the profitablity by 20% more than the industry trailing average on a year over year basis, there would be none of these so-called management techniques pervasively ensconced within the power utility company over in Japan too.

[Dean Los Angeles]

If you want to look on the down side of nuclear:
http://allthingsnuclear.org/
Interesting reading, very interesting.
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/3581726548/fission-stories-35-down-is-up-up-is-down
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/3309040106/fission-stories-33-not-so-cool
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/3179948287/fission-stories-32-luckiest-workers-in-tennessee
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/3048174782/fission-stories-31-boston-t-party
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/2810919384/fission-stories-29-a-133-000-gallon-drop-in-the-ocean
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/2492730228/fission-stories-26-three-weeks-below-the-mast
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/2401726417/fission-stories-25-please-dont-flush-the-toilet
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/2312059880/fission-stories-24-drainy-night-in-georgia
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/1350931673/fission-stories-16-candle-in-the-wind
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/966875429/fission-stories-7-indoor-pool
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/897763210/fission-stories-5-where-theres-smoke-theres-a

[4-barrel Mike]

Sorry, Dean, but UCS is, in my opinion, a lunatic group. 

The first few words from their website under the heading Global Warming: Global Warming The Earth is warming and human activity is the primary cause.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

Having read that, I don't have time to read their (presumably) anti-nuclear energy rhetoric.

Mike

[DocBeech]

I like nuclear energy when its done correctly. Plus we need depleted uranium shells for our ammunition. Cutting buildings in half in Iraq was very amusing, and helpful. When people would barracde themselves in, we would use LAV 25s with Thermal Sights to remove the threat. Without those depleted uranium shells we could have never cut through walls like they didn't exist.

Also nuclear power is great when its done correctly. Im sure you can read up on horror stories about how power plants of all types have caused some pretty big disasters. This plant got too complacent. Thats what we need to watch out for. They got to comfortable and forgot about the hazards they needed to be protected from. Now they have dumped massive amounts of cooling water in to the pacific via the fire hose cooling.

Complacency Kills - Always remember this. We would say it every time we left the wire on a patrol in Iraq.

[SPARKY]

applies to equipment also---you take it for granted ---it is probably going to BITE you

[McRat]

Hats off to the technicians who continue to work on the reactor.  News reports now indicate they are willfully sacrificing their lives to save others.  They have received huge doses of radiation, but continue to work.

There is a need to retire the first gen powerplants.  Newer models are far safer.  The Fukashima reactors were very old designs.

[wobblywalrus]

They are old designs - AND THEY ARE BUILT IN THE WRONG PLACE. 

[DocBeech]

We we should just retire all things old and be done with it 

Just teasing.

[Geo]

It seems time to post a snap of events as of three weeks after the disaster in Japan. First is the status of the damaged power plants. I have read some reports that are not correct so I gathered the info from source documents.

The easiest description of cold shutdown was from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 

A reactor is in cold shutdown when, in addition, its coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and at a temperature below 200 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 95 degrees Celsius).[1] This temperature is low enough that the water cooling the fuel in a light water reactor does not boil even when the reactor coolant system is de-pressurized. 

For the four units not at cold shutdown pressure readings are not available and some may be leaking as known by radiation found in the air and ground around the plant.

NISA as of March 29, 2011 almost three weeks after the disaster. Up date 4-1

Note: The first four reactors have (-) negative water levels.

Dai-ichi
Unit 1 (460MWe): automatic shutdown    Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] -1,650
               Temperature at the bottom head of RPV: 135.8℃

Unit 2 (784MWe): automatic shutdown    Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] -1,500
               Temperature at the bottom head of RPV: 143.6℃

Unit 3 (784MWe): automatic shutdown    Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] -2,250
               Temperature at the bottom head of RPV: 121.1℃

Unit 4 (784MWe): in periodic inspection outage   Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] ?
                  Reactor water temperature ℃ ?

Unit 5 (784MWe): in periodic inspection outage, cold shutdown at 14:30 March 20th                      Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +2,333
               Reactor water temperature ℃ 3-29 40.5  4-1 44.1

Unit 6 (1,100MWe): in periodic inspection outage, cold shutdown at 19:27 March 20th                      Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +1,904
               Reactor water temperature ℃ 3-29 30.3  4-1 29.8

Dai-ni
Unit1 (1,100MWe): automatic shutdown, cold shut down at 17:00,
March 14th         Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +9,296
            Reactor water temperature ℃ 27.2
Unit2 (1,100MWe): automatic shutdown, cold shut down at 18:00,
March 14th         Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +10,296
            Reactor water temperature ℃ 27.7
Unit3 (1,100MWe): automatic shutdown, cold shut down at 12:15,
March 12th         Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +7,823
            Reactor water temperature ℃ 39.2
Unit4 (1,100MWe): automatic shutdown, cold shut down at 07:15,
March 15th         Reactor Water Level*2 [mm] +8,036
            Reactor water temperature ℃ 34.0

This got me thinking about what training and preparations are made to respond to these events.  Reading the reports reminded me of the roadster drivers telling about the things they do during spins and after all the steering, switching off systems and pulling the chute it all ends up with "hold on tight", wait for the spinning to stop and check for damage.  Just what is a Monte Carlo Dynamic Event Tree – MCDET? And why is Monte Carlo part of the name?

Then I investigated environmental changes over the years from previous radioactive release events, i.e. Chernobyl because I came across an article on radioactive wild boars in Germany, which led me to other releases of radioactive material.

And taking another step to finding out what happens to radioactive waste at nuclear power plants and can this be applied to the Japan debris field around the plant?

Enjoy the links and be concerned because the people in charge seem to have the Alfred E. Neuman approach "What me worry?"  Perhaps they do not worry enough$

An intriguing report that brings up the issues causing and resulting from the Japan incident without a good outlook for the future safety. Much of what we have been discussing here.  Not much hope when a disaster occurs.
http://www.euronuclear.org/pdf/HIGHLIGHTS-TOPSAFE2008.pdf
All papers from TOPSAFE can be downloaded freely from
http://www.euronuclear.org/events/topsafe/transactions.htm.

A well thought out disaster scenario that needs updating after the Japan incident to make it closer to reality.
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1158672136

SARNET - Severe Accident Research NETwork
http://www.sar-net.eu/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11345935

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,709345,00.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_germany_radioactive_boars

Canadian water release
http://www.opg.com/news/releases/110316lowlevelwaterrelease.pdf

Ground water contamination events.  Wow, quite a lot.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/tritium/sites-grndwtr-contam.html

Incident reports
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/tritium/plant-info.html

What may become of the vast debris field caused by the tsunami destroying the adjacent town?

Is there a rapid response team for cleanup of radioactive debris like the fire department has?

Waste management
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull314/31404683742.pdf
http://www.nucleartourist.com/systems/rw.htm

New reactors produce more rapid release isotopes than old style reactors.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/new-nuclear-plants-will-produce-far-more-radiation-1604051.html

Geo

[Dean Los Angeles]

The United States DOE says that 70% of the core in reactor #1 has suffered severe damage.

The Japanese experts said it's only 3%.

No one will be able to actually look at the core for many years, if not decades to actually make the call.

It was 5 years before the actual damage to Three Mile Island was known.

To fill in the gaps a very sophisticated program was developed to look at the radiation signatures to be able to tell the actual damage without examining the facility. For instances like this one where it looks like everybody on site is giving little information and much of it suspect. Trust the DOE number.

TEPCO admitted that it only had 450 radiation dosimeters. Only the team leaders get one. They claimed that they had 5,000 but the rest were destroyed in the earthquake. I read that to say that they only had 450 in the first place. Seems like those could have been acquired from their other facilities.

Two weeks ago a spike in ocean radiation was detected. I just figured they were illegally pumping the overflow from the fire pumps in the ocean. It was clear to me that water had to be pouring in at a high rate to get the readings they were seeing. Now they are trying to seal a huge leak because they just discovered water was going in the ocean. I don't need to be on site to detect these things either.

As the days go on the damage from the earthquake alone it seems was pretty severe.

There are over 1,000 corpses in the evacuation area that no one will touch because of the radiation levels.

This disaster is very far from over.

It was mentioned that the 50 mile evacuation zone that the U.S. is recommending in Japan, if it were applied to the San Onofre nuclear plant in San Clemente, CA, half way between Los Angeles and San Diego would involve evacuating 7 million people.

The future of nuclear power is not going to be determined by newer safety measures, better storage of waste fuel, the push for green energy, or the absolute need for more power generation.

It's going to be determined by the bankers and insurers. The huge liability in this situation and massive payouts will make the bankers take their money away from nuclear projects. The insurers won't touch them either.

[Tman]

Dean, I agree with you on all those points. All that water HAD to be going somewhere! DUH!

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Oh, boy, how do I say this right?

I know the thread here (Non-LSR) is theoretically open for most everything.  And I know that I am personally reading the poss here with avid interest.  But -- I also have to watch it with the eyes of the administrator of the biggest (and best, he modestly proclaims) site on the internet for all things land speed racing-related.

So I'm faced with a quandary.  I would think that at this point it's time to take the nuclear reactor situation resulting from the earthquake and tsunami - take it of the land speed racing website.  I say that because theoretically, discussing nuclear stuff would imply that anything else is okay for "non-LSR" discussion, too, and I don't want recipes for pumpkin & curry soup and lawn seed mixtures for temperate but humid areas and so on ad infinitum to show up under the same general and very-wide-open topic.  There are apparently only a few of us that are avid readers of the thread - and maybe we should consider going private - PMs and emails, or maybe a completely different Forum where this subject is discussed and watched by all.

But - again, I don't want to simply throw my "administrator" status around and dictate harshly what should and shouldn't be said.  I'll keep an eye on the new posts here to see if there's any obvious input that would lead me to making a go - no go decision.

Thanks for your forbearance and understanding.