Japan Earthquake: Nuclear Plants at Fukushima Daiichi

Click For Summary
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is facing significant challenges following the earthquake, with reports indicating that reactor pressure has reached dangerous levels, potentially 2.1 times capacity. TEPCO has lost control of pressure at a second unit, raising concerns about safety and management accountability. The reactor is currently off but continues to produce decay heat, necessitating cooling to prevent a meltdown. There are conflicting reports about an explosion, with indications that it may have originated from a buildup of hydrogen around the containment vessel. The situation remains serious, and TEPCO plans to flood the containment vessel with seawater as a cooling measure.
  • #4,231
NUCENG said:
To the contrary, Dmytry, I am saying the iodine does come from the fuel in the pool. But the low concentrations in the pool do not require a massive amount of damage to the fuel. Nor would it require criticality.
Explain then the I-131 to Cs-137 ratio.
 
Engineering news on Phys.org
  • #4,232
Original video is from NTV/NNN , I was not able to find any Japanese version with a sound track. It does not imply that there was not one. I recall that those picture were taken from a helicopter, but can not source it.
Trying to figure out the true-fullness around the audio track is for me a waste of time, I'll rather focus on" prime "evidence for now

And I found an other version with a different sound track that sound as real as the other if not more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4rRKGx7xc&feature=related
Journalist commentate that they could hear the blast
 
  • #4,233
clancy688 said:
I have no clue how these damages [to unit 4] could have come from inside.

Looking at the latest drone video, it seems that the rebar in the outer concrete shell happens to be anchored and segmented in such a way that the internal explosion ripped the bottom and sides of each "panel" more easily than the top side. Therefore several panels remained attached at the top, like curtains. Apparently they opened out and up during the explosion, then fell back, swinging into the building, only to remain trapped there by the rebar.

This mechanism may explain the paradox of several #4 panels that seem to have been pushed inwards. It also fits with the state of the North wall. There, some panels of the second row from the top detached completely from the wall but remained attached to the panels above them.

By some mechanism that I cannot fathom, the topmost horizontal concrete beam on the North face was pushed (or pulled?) inwards, while the concrete beam below it was pushed and bent outwards. Thus the concrete panels in the second row of the North face were left dangling in the air, a couple of feet away from the building.
 
  • #4,234
Dmytry said:
on topic of chemistry... in what form would the Cs exist? Wouldn't it take away O from UO2 becoming Cs2O ? Then in water, CsOH ?
Cs is far more reactive than U. I'd expect any Cs to immediately grab the oxygen from UO2

Cs+ in water, no idea about the solid.
 
  • #4,235
Jorge Stolfi said:
Thanks for the references. However the search site you gave cannot find any of those NUREG reports. Do you have another source?



That matches my understanding. If the Cs and I can migrate in the fuel, and there is an excess of cesium, most iodine should form CsI in the solid state, before water is added. When the fuel is placed in pure water, the CsI will dissolve and any excess cesium should combie with water and dissove as CsOH, with a small amount of H2 as a byproduct. If the solution is evaporated then all iodine will be in the form of CsI.

Once in solution there is no CsI or CsOH, just Cs+, I- and HO- ions. As long as the system remains closed the ratio of Cs+ to I- in the solution should reflect the original "standard" ratio for that type and age of fuel.

However, if the solvent is borated saltwater with all sort of impurities (e.g. calcium leached out from concrete rubble), then there are many other ions present, in much larger concentrations. If that solution is kept in open container exposed to oxygen, I suspect that there will be many chemical pathways for I- to be converted to I2 or HI and escaping the solution. On the other hand, the Cs will probably remain in solution, no matter what.

From the titles, the reports you cite seem to assume the solvent is the original (pure) reactor or SFP water. Have there been any studies of this scenario --- "borated saltwater plus rubble in an open pond"?


It does get complicated, doesn't it? In all my research I have yet to find a study of seawater as reactor coolant. That may have been a big OOPS. But I am probably following the same line of reasoning as the operators and managers at TEPCO. It is how we've been trained and that may help others point out where we may be off base. If so, I welcome finding out where I'm wrong.

Did you search using the title? Sometimes it can't find the document numbers. If you don't find them there try the Web Based ADAMS search on the NRC website. In the last recourse you may find some older documents by a google search of the document number or title. I have found all of these references and downladed them this way in the last month. Although I remember using some of them previously in engineering projects like conversions to the Alternative Source Term.
 
  • #4,236
NUCENG said:
I have found all of these references and downladed them this way in the last month.

Well, you could zip and upload them to a sharehoster... ^^

This would be very nice. :)
 
  • #4,237
Borek said:
Cs+ in water, no idea about the solid.
I meant, when Cs2O reacts with H2O you get 2 CsOH
Cs+ and OH- i would think.

This entire talk about there being primarily CsI from the fuel sounds like BS to me, coming from some idea of there being just Cs and I. There's a lot of reactive stuff, like oxygen left over from original UO2 after U fissioned (or fissioned into something other than Cs or I). No reason to think Cs would bind to I (how would it find I?) rather than grab O from UO2 or grab free O from fission, or from the molecules broken up by irradiation. Cs and I are just few reactive things out of many.
 
  • #4,238
Dmytry said:
Explain then the I-131 to Cs-137 ratio.

I have tried to explain in previous posts that there is no fixed time corelation of the ratio of I-131 to CS-137 in samples from different locations. There is a clear progression of the ratios of the total Cs and I in the core after shutdown. However, at any given point of sampling this ratio can be higher or lower than the total core source term. Transport paths, chemical reactions, deposition, plateout, and reevolution of I gas can all change the ratio at a specific sample location. If all else remains constant, you may get information from trending results at a specific sample point over time. But in an accident like this even that will be difficult as conditions change.

In short, I can't explain the ratio in this sample. I am saying it can be explained without deposition or criticality or the kind of damage that would release large amounts of hydrogen. It doesn't prove these things didn't happen, it just means there is not yet proof they did happen.
 
  • #4,239
Dmytry said:
I meant, when Cs2O reacts with H2O you get 2 CsOH
Cs+ and OH- i would think.

This entire talk about there being primarily CsI from the fuel sounds like BS to me, coming from some idea of there being just Cs and I. There's a lot of reactive stuff, like oxygen left over from original UO2 after U fissioned (or fissioned into something other than Cs or I). No reason to think Cs would bind to I (how would it find I?) rather than grab O from UO2 or grab free O from fission, or from the molecules broken up by irradiation. Cs and I are just few reactive things out of many.

PhD may just stand for Piled Higher and Deeper, but I have references that I will try to make available. I asked Clancy688 for a how to.

This is one quote from NUREG-1465

"3.5 Chemical Form
The chemical form of iodine and its subsequent
behavior after entering containment from the reactor
coolant system have been documented in
NUREG/CR-5732, Iodine Chemical Forms in LWR
Severe Accidents (Ref. 18) and in ORNLITM-12202,
"Models of Iodine Behavior in Reactor Containments,"
(Ref. 21).

The results from Ref. 18 indicate that iodine entering
the containment is at least 95% CsI with the remaining
5% as I plus HI, with not less than 1% of each as I and
HI."

Authors are listed as: L Soffer, S. B. Burson, C. M. Ferrell,
R. Y. Lee, J. N. Ridgely

If you disagree with the number, I can only say it isn't my BS.
 
  • #4,240
|Fred said:
Original video is from NTV/NNN , I was not able to find any Japanese version with a sound track. It does not imply that there was not one. I recall that those picture were taken from a helicopter, but can not source it.
Trying to figure out the true-fullness around the audio track is for me a waste of time, I'll rather focus on" prime "evidence for now

And I found an other version with a different sound track that sound as real as the other if not more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4rRKGx7xc&feature=related
Journalist commentate that they could hear the blast

The audio doesn't have to come from the same source as the video.

Maybe someone with a camera or audio recording equipment captured the sound but not the explosion, maybe at a different location, and the two sources were thrown together.
 
  • #4,241
TCups said:
The explosion rips off the roof from the southeast corner, The expanding gas from the explosion continues to lift the roof slab off of the girders and billow it like a sail full of air, the weight of the what is left of the roof slab is borne by the north wall of the building. It begins to fall back into the building, dragging part of the north wall inward and downward (D)

Makes me go mmm.
looking at your figure D, I understand that you think that falling back , the former north edge of roof tar slided in the building, that the sail broke and while some of the roor tar had cut and slide the rest broke and went away some how.
Most of the roof tar is in my opinion between the turbine building and the east wall.
but above the line o breakage of the sail of the stabbing tar is not consistant with what I'm seeing: the rising edge sticking out is too perfect , rectiline; for me it is the former northern edge of the building roof tar; and if so .. The bending does not fit your theories as I understood it.

if anything I'll would rather think for now that the bended slided in tar is a consequence of the roof giving down and in.

Maybe someone with a camera or audio recording equipment captured the sound but not the explosion, maybe at a different location, and the two sources were thrown together.
In deed, as for the rest my opinion stand
 
Last edited:
  • #4,242
|Fred said:
Original video is from NTV/NNN , I was not able to find any Japanese version with a sound track. It does not imply that there was not one. I recall that those picture were taken from a helicopter, but can not source it.
Trying to figure out the true-fullness around the audio track is for me a waste of time, I'll rather focus on" prime "evidence for now

And I found an other version with a different sound track that sound as real as the other if not more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4rRKGx7xc&feature=related
Journalist commentate that they could hear the blast

In that German news sound track you can also hear four distinct louder sounds going on. (Yes it is 4 distinct loud sounds not 3)

In the NTV version the telephoto lense was ready and waiting for the explosion so I would think there was a long range mike aimed also to pickup sound (like those miniature satellite dishes you see in football broadcasts) and that's why the delayed audio sounds surreal (magnified or concentrated). Also, in my mind, the extracted sound graph matches the cloud formation.
 
  • #4,243
NUCENG said:
In short, I can't explain the ratio in this sample. I am saying it can be explained without deposition or criticality or the kind of damage that would release large amounts of hydrogen. It doesn't prove these things didn't happen, it just means there is not yet proof they did happen.
You're speaking in too abstract terms. Making it sound that there's something small to explain.
When was the reactor 4 shut down? Sometime before 29 November 2010 from, what I can find.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(11th+march+2011+-+29+November+2010)/(8+days)
at least 12 half lifes. That's factor of 4000 edit: and for 6 months that is a factor of millions.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Most_fuel_in_Fukushima_4_pool_undamaged-1404117.html
reported values:
220 Bq/cm3 of iodine-131, 88 Bq/cm3 of caesium-134 and 93 Bq/cm3 of caesium-137.
2x iodine to caesium.
Elsewhere (seawater, puddle water, soil samples, everything) nowadays they are measuring well less than 8x iodine to caesium.

You need to explain factor of more than 1000 better releasing of iodine than caesium in the pool versus the reactors (or for 6 months, factor of more than million). You don't explain it but you say it can be explained. I say until someone explained it, we'd better assume it is going critical there (or the aerial deposition is insanely high, which might well be true, i'd expect then it to be confirmed sometime by the bio-ionization-chamber measurements :/ [a dark pun at chernobyl's 'bio-robots'] ) 30GBq/m^2 that is a lot rly.

edit: and I don't believe in special role of CsI due to there being a lot more different elements and compounds besides Cs and I.
 
Last edited:
  • #4,244
NUCENG said:
Did you search using the title?

Thanks for the tip, serching by title worked fine. From the first ref:

The results from Ref. 18 indicate that iodine entering
the containment [in case of an accident that leaks
the reactor coolant water into the containment]
is at least 95% CsI with the remaining
5% as I plus Hi, with not less than 1% of each as I and
HI. Once the iodine enters containment, however,
additional reactions are likely to occur. In an aqueous
environment, as expected for LWRs, iodine is expected
to dissolve in water pools or plate out on wet surfaces
in ionic form as I-. Subsequently, iodine behavior
within containment depends on the time and pH of the
water solutions. Because of the presence of other
dissolved fssion products, radiolysis is expected to
o man d lower the pH of the water pools. Without any
pH control, the results indicate that large fractions of
the dissolved iodine will be converted to elemental
iodine and be released to the containment atmosphere.
However, if the pH is controlled and maintained at a
value of 7 or greater, very little (less than 1%) of the
dissolved iodine will be converted to elemental iodine.

If I read correctly, the report also says that about 35% of the iodine and 25% of the cesium present in the fuel will be released with the coolant leak, in the early stages at least. is this correct?

The second ref (summary) says

In situations where pH levels fall below -7, the formation of I2 will occur in irradiated
iodide solutions. A correlation between pH and iodine formation is needed so that the amounts
of I2 in water pools can be assessed. This, in turn determines the amount of I2 in the atmosphere
available for escape by containment leakage. [...] The most important acids in containment will be nitric acid (HNO3), produced by irradiation of water and air, and hydrochloric acid (HCI), produced by irradiation or heating of electrical cable insulation. The most important bases in containment will be cesium hydroxide,
cesium borate (or cesium carbonate), and in some plants pH additives, such as sodium hydroxide
or sodium phosphate.

If the seawater was treated with sodium borate, it should probably be alkaline. If they used boric acid, I don't know. B(OH)3 seems to be a weak acid; will it be enough to lower the pH below 7? In hot water?

(My greatest achievement as a teenage chemist was distilling ethanol with boric acid to obtain something which I fancied to be ethyl borate. At least, it burned with a nice lemon-green flame, as theory said it would. Presumably that would mean that B(OH)3 does act like an acid? :smile:)

The last report you cited seems to have a more limited scope than the first. But its main conclusion, again, seems to be

In systems where the pH was controlled above 7, little
additional elemental iodine would be produced in the containment atmosphere. When the
pH falls below 7, it may be assumed that it is not being controlled and large fractions of
iodine as I2 within the containment atmosphere may be produced.

My conclusion is that, given the unknown/messy chemistry and the unusual physical conditions of the pool, a low concentration of radiogenic iodine in the pool water, a month after the accident, may not imply low level of fuel damage, since an unknown amount may have escaped as I2 or HI with the steam. The level of radioactive cesium in the water may be a better indicator. What does the latter say?
 
  • #4,245
NUCENG said:
The results from Ref. 18 indicate that iodine entering
the containment is at least 95% CsI with the remaining
5% as I plus HI, with not less than 1% of each as I and
HI.

Strange way of describing the reality.

Are they dissolved? Are Cs+ and H+ and I- the only ions present? What is I - is it intended to be I- (if so - why CsI and HI are not listed as ions) or I2? I don't get it.

If solution doesn't contain anything but Cs+ and H+ and I- 95% & 5% can make a little bit of sense, although in reality it means some known concentration of I-, and two counterions - Cs+ and H+ - in 19:1 molar ratio. But usually solutions are much more complicated and thay contain many different ions as well, it is easier then to list concentration of each ion separately, and don't try to make compounds out of these. There is no difference between solution prepared by mixing CsI and NaCl and solution prepared by mixing NaI and CsCl (assuming we did minimal effort to use correct concentrations).
 
  • #4,246
rowmag said:
rowmag said:
From the coloring and shape, I am beginning to suspect that it is concrete wall panel from #4's own wall, that somehow got blown upwards to land on its own roof.
Tcups said:
No, the simplest explanation is the correct one. It is a piece of the roof[...]

Hmm, you're right! The corrugation pattern on the underside is visible in the following photo from houseoffoust.com:

(img removed from quote)

Another beautiful theory slain by ugly facts.

Rowmag and Tcups, can I please take a moment to say THANK YOU! Thank you for these two absolutely pure rational logical conclusions. This thread is becoming so wildly speculative, I am almost amazed people haven't come out and said these explosions were an inside job...
 
  • #4,247
ascot317 said:
The audio doesn't have to come from the same source as the video.

Maybe someone with a camera or audio recording equipment captured the sound but not the explosion, maybe at a different location, and the two sources were thrown together.



I think you're right about the audio may have come from another source.

If this audio came from a source far removed from the camera, the distances used here almost guarantee that nothing will match to what is seen on the video.

Video cameras are notorious for having compression and limiting that removes the peaks and lows of the dynamics in order to work with the rather limited dynamic range in which most video is broadcast.

Even FM stereo radio quality audio has limited dynamic range that ruins many an artist's best intents which is why a strong guitar intro. to a song will disappear into the mix once the rest of the instruments come in.

Listen to that same song on vinyl or a good CD and you can clearly see what broadcast "compression" or "optimization" does to dynamic range.

It is likely the camera audio simply sucked.

There is no conspiracy save for the fact that they needed something more dramatic.

One more thing...You can't really use youtube video for any scientific discussion because it seems one can send a perfect concert music video clip and the sound ends up skewed timewise or compressed by youtube in the name if lower bandwidth.
 
Last edited:
  • #4,248
Jorge Stolfi said:
Looking at the latest drone video, it seems that the rebar in the outer concrete shell happens to be anchored and segmented in such a way that the internal explosion ripped the bottom and sides of each "panel" more easily than the top side. Therefore several panels remained attached at the top, like curtains. Apparently they opened out and up during the explosion, then fell back, swinging into the building, only to remain trapped there by the rebar.

This mechanism may explain the paradox of several #4 panels that seem to have been pushed inwards. It also fits with the state of the North wall. There, some panels of the second row from the top detached completely from the wall but remained attached to the panels above them.

By some mechanism that I cannot fathom, the topmost horizontal concrete beam on the North face was pushed (or pulled?) inwards, while the concrete beam below it was pushed and bent outwards. Thus the concrete panels in the second row of the North face were left dangling in the air, a couple of feet away from the building.

Ya think maybe installing spring loaded hinges on the side panels to allow them to swing open then close again would prevent so many flying objects?
 
  • #4,249
NUCENG said:
PhD may just stand for Piled Higher and Deeper, but I have references that I will try to make available. I asked Clancy688 for a how to.

Wouldn't have noticed your message if you wouldn't have posted this... ^^;

You got mail.
Jorge Stolfi said:
My conclusion is that, given the unknown/messy chemistry and the unusual physical conditions of the pool, a low concentration of radiogenic iodine in the pool water, a month after the accident, may not imply low level of fuel damage, since an unknown amount may have escaped as I2 or HI with the steam. The level of radioactive cesium in the water may be a better indicator. What does the latter say?

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110414e20.pdf

around 100 Bq/cm³.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #4,250
NUCENG said:
From an ORIGEN2 calculation of a BWR the core inventory of I-131 at 6months after shutdown is 5.03E-3 Ci per MW. Assuming 760 MW Electric and a 33% efficiency for Unit 4 leaves a total I-131 at the time of the accident of 5.23E5 Ci. In Taking 5% (gap release) and converting to Bq leaves 9.67E14 Bq.

Hm, I am confused:

1 Ci = 3.7e10 Bq

5.03E-3 Ci/MW * (1/.33 * 760 MW ) = 11.58 Ci = 4.3e11 Bq

1 foot = 30.48cm - so I get 9.06e8cm^3 for the SFP.

And with your 5% release I get 4.3e11 Bq * .05 / 9.06e8cm^3 = 24 Bq/cm^3

Did I get something wrong?
 
  • #4,251
htf said:
5.03E-3 Ci/MW * (1/.33 * 760 MW ) = 11.58 Ci = 4.3e11 Bq

I think there's the problem. 33% is multiply by 0.33, not divide. Or divide by 3.But I'm not sure as to what those 33% efficiency apply to in the calculations.Edit: Screw that - you're right... ^^;

33% = the 760 MWe, 100% = total MWt

Hm, I also get your results...But I think there are more factors contributing. First, it has not been 6 but 5 months or less since shutdown. And second, the pool is totally full AND there's probably debris inside, plus it's probably not filled up to the top. So if I double your 24 Bq/cm³ three times (three half times, less then one month) I get ~200 Bq/cm³. And because of the fill status /debris / water height there's probably not 900 billion cm³ water inside, but less.
 
Last edited:
  • #4,252
Robots entered Reactors Nos. 1 and 3 on Sunday and measured the radiation inside. But when two robots entered Reactor No. 2 on Monday, the steam inside was so dense that a robot mounted with a camera was unable to get a clear image of a radiation sensor carried by the other robot, Japanese officials said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/world/asia/20japan.html?_r=1&ref=world"
:eek:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #4,253
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #4,254
NUCENG said:
After 9/11 many plant and site drawings were removed from ADAMS and were considered as Safeguards information. These drawings may have been missed or a mistake. Or maybe somebody finally figured that this wouldn't really help a terrorist.

That could definitely be part of the reason. After the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed in 2007, I was looking for maps of the area. At the time there was a proposal by an energy company to build a generating station just upriver of the site. The Dept of Energy's website had specifically pulled the plan documents from public view because they didn't want evildoers to see them. And that was not a NPP. Some federal law mandates it, as far as I know.

I'm actually surprised the NRC has so much information online, to be honest. I have a feeling that (without going over to the black helicopter side too far) if you went to the NRC with a list of blueprints you wanted to look at that you'd end up on somebody's watch list. I'm not generally prone to paranoia, but in my web searches for 'hydrogen', 'explosion', 'nuclear' and 'blueprints', some of the hits that come back - the stuff I'm not looking for - give me pause to wonder what anyone watching my search activity might think.
 
Last edited:
  • #4,256
NUCENG said:
I agree with everything you say but if you eliminate hydrogen from SFP4 what is left? However improbable, and to date unproveable, it had to come from an external explosion. The initial report of the explosion talked of "an explosion inside the facility" and then they found damage to unit 4. It doesn't sound to me like they knew for certain that the explosion was inside unit 4. Your guess is as good as mine.

looking at the sources (digitalglobe pics, drone video) already posted, i can not imagine any outside source for the damage in #4.
the most damage is on the south side, opposite of #3.
you can see rebar bended outside on all 4 sides of the building.
the damage on the north side doesn't look like an impact as well, rather as if the pillars had been knocked of quite low from the inside, then the roof went inwards.
maybe (though i don't vote for that) it is possible, that something from outside had triggered the explosion in #4, but most of the damage has been done from the inside.

it's hard to tell, what is #3 and what is #4 from the angle of the webcam, but it looks like, that there has been lot of black smoke, when #4 exploded (even an hour after the explosion): (at 2:24)

fires have been reported, but i can't find any soot.

btw: i would estimate the mass of the roof quite low, iron sheets with tarboard, not likely to cause much damage (to concrete pillars) when coming down from a short flight.

what exploded in #4?

hydrogen released by zircaloy oxidation?
would require a dry pool, water spray started days after the explosion -> not possible
steam explosion?
i have not found any reference to this possible risk anywhere in the literature. were all the engineers that did the risk analysis wrong? rather not -> quite unlikely
acetylen?
can't tell, but has been rebutted in this forum -> unlikely

what else is left:
hydrogen generated by radiation?
hydrogen generated in steam bubbles at the bottom of the fuel?
both unlikely (the 'steam explosion' argument is valid for both).

i am running out of ideas

anyone?


Ms Music said:
I am almost amazed people haven't come out and said these explosions were an inside job...
if i could make up a motive, i would ;-)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #4,257
Dmytry said:
idiots. They've been offered KHG robots.
That was over 2 weeks ago - didn't they accept?
 
  • #4,258
TCups said:
RE: THE EXPLOSIONS AND PATTERN OF DAMAGE AT BLDG 3 & 4 -- SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERNECES


@Fred:
M. Bachmeir did extensive analysis of the sound frequencies and concluded that Bang 1 and Bang 2 were similar and were explosions and that Bang 3 was fundamentally different from the first two, as I recall. Maybe he would comment again about the possibility of one of the audible bangs being a mechanical transient from a large falling object.
Ya, that was in the working notes/speculation I forwarded to you TCups. The problem is I can't say for certain from the data that the third explosion is wholly different from the previous two, because I was not able to eliminate the possibility that some post processing (normalization, volume adjustment etc.) had been applied to the sound track.

The best evidence for that is in the stretched and pitch adjusted remake (4 x longer, original frequency 592.593 Hz. - 705.882Hz). Listening to that playback is very revealing. Echos from each explosion (between the explosions). Five distinct sound events. The second explosive sound hit the highest peak energies, but the third had greater energy output overall.

Note: the two sound events at the beginning and end both resemble steam release.

If the third sound is the collapse of the FHM into the SFP, that would explain the last sound (superheated... rapid boiling/steam) triggered when the FHM made contact with the SFP.

If anyone knows where I can upload the modified (stretched) audio file, please let me know.
 
  • #4,259
about unit #4 explosion: "IF" there would be fuel in core then this explosion wouldn't be simpler to explain ?
 
  • #4,260
Dmytry said:
You're speaking in too abstract terms. Making it sound that there's something small to explain.
When was the reactor 4 shut down? Sometime before 29 November 2010 from, what I can find.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(11th+march+2011+-+29+November+2010)/(8+days)
at least 12 half lifes. That's factor of 4000 edit: and for 6 months that is a factor of millions.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Most_fuel_in_Fukushima_4_pool_undamaged-1404117.html
reported values:
220 Bq/cm3 of iodine-131, 88 Bq/cm3 of caesium-134 and 93 Bq/cm3 of caesium-137.
2x iodine to caesium.
Elsewhere (seawater, puddle water, soil samples, everything) nowadays they are measuring well less than 8x iodine to caesium.

You need to explain factor of more than 1000 better releasing of iodine than caesium in the pool versus the reactors (or for 6 months, factor of more than million). You don't explain it but you say it can be explained. I say until someone explained it, we'd better assume it is going critical there (or the aerial deposition is insanely high, which might well be true, i'd expect then it to be confirmed sometime by the bio-ionization-chamber measurements :/ [a dark pun at chernobyl's 'bio-robots'] ) 30GBq/m^2 that is a lot rly.

edit: and I don't believe in special role of CsI due to there being a lot more different elements and compounds besides Cs and I.

Please reread my earlier posts. I have given my best to give people a strawman to shoot at. I may be wrong, but I am on record with my guesstimates.

I have explained how much Cs and I can be released from the fuel gap into a spent fuel pool. There are other explanations including criticality, but there is no proof of that either (measured neutron radiation, newly generated short lived isotopes, etc).

You asked me to explain the Cs/I ratio. I told you I can't because I haven't got enough information to calculate the isotopic transport to the sample location. Telling me I "need to explain" it again is a circular absurdity.

I referenced my source for the 95% CsI number. You don't like it. OK.

I don't know how to answer better. Perhaps you can explain where I am wrong with something better than "I believe" or is that not abstract?
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
49K
  • · Replies 41 ·
2
Replies
41
Views
5K
  • · Replies 2K ·
60
Replies
2K
Views
451K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
6K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
20K
  • · Replies 763 ·
26
Replies
763
Views
274K
  • · Replies 38 ·
2
Replies
38
Views
16K
Replies
6
Views
4K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
11K