Japan Earthquake: Nuclear Plants at Fukushima Daiichi

[TCups]

Come on, just a small hint, the suspense is killing me here. Its way past my bed time and I can't wait another 6 hours!

Building 4 has already exploded. Two panels have blasted out of the east side and impacted on the west facade of the turbine building for Unit 4, and smoke is pouring out of the east side of Building 4. Your eyes aren't looking for it because you know this is "before" the explosion. But the impacts on the turbine building are real. They weren't there before the explosion.

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34633&d=1303253626

 

[ian_scotland]

No hints. You have to find it yourself.

Smoke venting from top of vent tower between units 3 and 4 ?

 

[ascot317]

Building 4 has already exploded. Two panels have blasted out of the east side and impacted on the west facade of the turbine building for Unit 4, and smoke is pouring out of the east side of Building 4. Your eyes aren't looking for it because you know this is "before" the explosion. But the impacts on the turbine building are real. They weren't there before the explosion.

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34633&d=1303253626

Might as well just be debris from #3 I've looked at different perspectives, sometimes it looks like dents, sometimes like pieces that are covering the roof's edge (debris of #3's roof maybe).

I can't come to a conclusion just by looking at this sat photo. The resolution is just too low (even with the original on flickr), and the perspective is the exact opposite of what you'd need.

I'm not even sure if I can see the wall piece on the two pipes on that photo.

It doesn't help to have clouds/smoke/vapor overhead. If you look closely, you can identify something that looks like vapor comming from the edge of #4 (similar to the hole in #2 sometimes), but that could be comming from the chimney too. However, in the west of the chimney, there's a "cloud", too. Hm.

 

[RealWing]

TEPCO Update Apr 18 - earthquake and current status

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f12np-gaiyou_e.pdf

 

[ian_scotland]

Building 4 has already exploded. Two panels have blasted out of the east side and impacted on the west facade of the turbine building for Unit 4, and smoke is pouring out of the east side of Building 4. Your eyes aren't looking for it because you know this is "before" the explosion. But the impacts on the turbine building are real. They weren't there before the explosion.

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34633&d=1303253626

Good analysis TCups.

But, I can't see the panels laying on the pipes in the "pre-explosion" picture. Damage to Turbine 4 building yes, but not panel on pipes. Could some of the same "stuff" that punctured the roofs of turbine buildings 3 & 4 have caught the west edge of turbine 4 wall too?

Also, I read the smoke as coming from top of the vent stack as opposed to east side of unit 4.

 

[TCups]

Might as well just be debris from #3 I've looked at different perspectives, sometimes it looks like dents, sometimes like pieces that are covering the roof's edge (debris of #3's roof maybe).

I can't come to a conclusion just by looking at this sat photo. The resolution is just too low (even with the original on flickr), and the perspective is the exact opposite of what you'd need.

I'm not even sure if I can see the wall piece on the two pipes on that photo.

It doesn't help to have clouds/smoke/vapor overhead. If you look closely, you can identify something that looks like vapor comming from the edge of #4 (similar to the hole in #2 sometimes), but that could be comming from the chimney too. However, in the west of the chimney, there's a "cloud", too. Hm.

You are correct about the debris on the pipe. It doesn't match. but the imacts on the turbine building look real. The sun is coming from the wrong direction to make them shadows. More panels did blow out later, though.

Addendum:

No, not to be. The stuff on the facade of the turbine building is laying over the edge, not damage from an outward blast. The smoke that looks to be coming from the east side of Bldg 4 is coming from the stack I guess. And the debris are from Bldg 3. So, BTTDB . . .

 

[dh87]

Boiling is not that important - iodine easily sublimes, so it doesn't have to go through liquid phase to become airborne.

This is a solution of iodine in water. I am not sure why the sublimation of iodine is relevant.

and as far as I know, most iodine compounds are unstable, i.e., they tend to readily decompose in favor of other compounds + I2."

I assume that you mean iodides. They're not especially stable in aqueous solutions, although I'm not sure about sweeping generalizations, and pH is likely a big effect. Even if the iodide is oxidized to iodine, I think that it will still stay in solution in water. The solubility of iodine in water isn't very large, but the solubility in seawater will be higher.

 

[I_P]

Building 4 has already exploded. Two panels have blasted out of the east side and impacted on the west facade of the turbine building for Unit 4, and smoke is pouring out of the east side of Building 4. Your eyes aren't looking for it because you know this is "before" the explosion. But the impacts on the turbine building are real. They weren't there before the explosion.

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34633&d=1303253626

As I mentioned some time back the first reports of unit 4 problems said there were two 8x8m holes, fire evident, etc. After this there were pictures of the roof destroyed. In the first picture it does look like steam coming from the side of 4, but it could also be drift from the large amount coming from unit 3.

 

[ian_scotland]

Just for TCups...


New evidence of how unit 4 got to be the way it is.
There are 3 great forces in Japanese history:

1) Earthquake
2) Tsunami
3) ...





... yup, Godzilla!

 

[M. Bachmeier]

HAPPY EYES WILL FOOL YOU EVERY TIME.

Well, once again, I fear my eyes are happy when they see what I expect them to see. But if I go brain dead and start from scratch, it is a lot easier to discover the obvious!

Take another look at the "undamaged" shot of Bldg 4 after the Bldg 3 explosion. . .

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34633&d=1303253626

Now take a look at the attached hi-res photo "after" Bldg 4 has been damaged . . .

Does anyone else see what I now see??!

No hints. You have to find it yourself.

O.K. I'll bite. Does it look like a small hole in the roof of #4 and is there steam escaping from the east side of the building?

 

[OnlyOneTruth]

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/intro/outline/outline-j.html" from TEPCO after you pipe it through a translator.

Starting from the link to TEPCO's historical fukushima information I posted earlier, I've been digging through TEPCO's website and found some interesting bits I thought I should share:

• Construction of No4 started 9 months after construction of No5 (1972-9 vs. 1971-12)
• No4 is the only FukushimaDaichi reactor built by Hitachi, the other reactors were built by GE/Toshiba

CHronology at http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/intro/outline/outline-j.html has historical photograph of (No1?) construction:
[URL]http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/intro/outline/images/his_11.jpg[/URL]

Chronology also contains links to documentation of security audits, the second PDF on http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/press_f1/2008/htmldata/bi8a07-j.html is an appendix to a 2008 audit of No4 with loads of data and some visual documentation. I'll add two thumbs as a teaser:

I'm a quite tired and haven't checked everything, Not knowing Japanese, fiddling with Google translate, doesn't make things easier, so please be gentle if something I wrote is not accurate. I thought I'd share this before going to sleep. Cheers

 

[razzz]

Unit 4 is preloaded with gases causing the roof to balloon up but then an initial blast is from the lower floors out the lower side/relief panels. Looks a bit sooty at ground level venting areas. Why was Unit 4 steaming away where it was before the unseen blast? Ground water or leakage from the neighbors seeping in? But what is the heat source (and a lot of it) to cause steam at lower levels? Can one dry cask contain enough fuel to cause a steam/hydrogen explosion?

 

[MiceAndMen]

Thanks, Fred. I replied above before seeing your post. It's a start. I, too, remember hearing initially that a helicopter recorded the video, but I don't remember where I heard that.

Replying to myself and |Fred here... Page 31 of this NISA pdf file
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110406-1-1.pdf
has side-by-side pictures of the Unit 1 and Unit 3 explosions. From that I think it's safe to say those pictures were taken from a fixed camera position. Was the video of the Unit 3 explosion from the same vantage point? If so, can we rule out that the video was recorded from a helicopter?

 

[etudiant]

The expertise deployed on this forum to understand the processes which reduced four multi billion dollar reactors to steaming scrap is laudable.
For an outside observer, it would be wonderful if this expertise were also employed looking forward, to help evaluate and understand the challenges and risks posed by the clean up plan.
For instance, Areva is scheduled to have a water processing plant built by the end of June that will process 1200 tons of water/day. There are nearly 70,000 tons currently in the facility, increasing at 500tons/day, so there will be 100,000 tons by the time the plant is operational.
The plant will start to whittle down the flood at about 700 tons/day net once it starts, so it will take 150 days to drain the facility, if all goes well.
That says the cleanup will not begin until very late this year at the earliest.
Is this a plausible schedule? How does it tie into the TEPCO indication that the immediate crisis should be stabilized within 9 months? What are the risks that should be of most concern?

 

[Dmytry]

The expertise deployed on this forum to understand the processes which reduced four multi billion dollar reactors to steaming scrap is laudable.
For an outside observer, it would be wonderful if this expertise were also employed looking forward, to help evaluate and understand the challenges and risks posed by the clean up plan.
For instance, Areva is scheduled to have a water processing plant built by the end of June that will process 1200 tons of water/day. There are nearly 70,000 tons currently in the facility, increasing at 500tons/day, so there will be 100,000 tons by the time the plant is operational.
The plant will start to whittle down the flood at about 700 tons/day net once it starts, so it will take 150 days to drain the facility, if all goes well.
That says the cleanup will not begin until very late this year at the earliest.
Is this a plausible schedule? How does it tie into the TEPCO indication that the immediate crisis should be stabilized within 9 months? What are the risks that should be of most concern?

it is impossible to predict anything there imo. I would of never thought they'd be using 2 robots, one with radiation monitor strapped to it, other to look at the monitor, 38 days in, versus some KHG robot.

 

[rowmag]

OK, then if it's the basement where the torus is, where is the torus on the picture?

Ok, not basement level. Ground level:

[URL]http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/intro/outline/images/mark1.gif[/URL]

(Mark I cross-section from OnlyOneTruth's link to TEPCO site: http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/intro/outline/outline-j.html.)

 

[M. Bachmeier]

Does anyone know about the use of hydrogen peroxide in BWR's during shutdown. I'm interested in storage (in or out of reactor building), added concentrations in reactor and SFP.

For example:

"Appropriate biocides (hydrogen peroxide) at concentrations up to 1000 ppm were added (to the pool water) to control biofouling."

From: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_0944_scr.pdf

Also anyone with knowledge about what chemicals might be stored/used (in or near reactor) during BWR shutdown that might interact with hydrogen peroxide (powerful oxidizer).

I have a feeling that hydrogen peroxide may have played a role in the explosion at the Fukushima Diiachi #4 reactor building.

 

[I_P]

The expertise deployed on this forum to understand the processes which reduced four multi billion dollar reactors to steaming scrap is laudable.
For an outside observer, it would be wonderful if this expertise were also employed looking forward, to help evaluate and understand the challenges and risks posed by the clean up plan.
For instance, Areva is scheduled to have a water processing plant built by the end of June that will process 1200 tons of water/day. There are nearly 70,000 tons currently in the facility, increasing at 500tons/day, so there will be 100,000 tons by the time the plant is operational.
The plant will start to whittle down the flood at about 700 tons/day net once it starts, so it will take 150 days to drain the facility, if all goes well.
That says the cleanup will not begin until very late this year at the earliest.
Is this a plausible schedule? How does it tie into the TEPCO indication that the immediate crisis should be stabilized within 9 months? What are the risks that should be of most concern?

My assessment, FWIW, is that TEPCO was mandated by the government to come up with a plan - so they have, in consultation with experts in and outside of Japan. Given what they know about the state of affairs, the plan is a reasonable place to start. However, working against them are: they don't yet appear to have a clear idea of the state of damage to the reactors (and the four units each have different problems). High radiation levels remain an obstacle to good assessment and will hamper remediation efforts. They really need access by workers to execute the cooling plan; There is a continuing threat of more aftershocks causing further damage and complications; failure of the cooling system now in place could lead to additional release of radiation and change the ground rules; because the state of damage is unknown there is always the possibility that, despite the current appearance of stability, processes at work in the reactors and fuel storage areas could lead to currently unrecognized problems.

This article from Asahi lays some of it out:
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201104190193.html"

I would also say that the nuclear power community as a whole does not have a clear idea of how to proceed with so many unknowns - the problems faced are quite difficult and appropriate tools and procedures are lacking. Look at the debate on the pool chemistry taking place here and elsewhere - its all a 'grand' experiment - both fascinating and terrible at the same time.

 

[rowmag]

Chronology also contains links to documentation of security audits, the second PDF on http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/press_f1/2008/htmldata/bi8a07-j.html is an appendix to a 2008 audit of No4 with loads of data and some visual documentation. I'll add two thumbs as a teaser:

The first one is a suppression chamber strainer that they replaced.
The second one is inspected points on the jet pumps that are arrayed around the outside of the shroud.

Looks like they found a leaking fuel assembly. See page 26:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/press_f1/2008/pdfdata/bi8a09-j.pdf

Would something like that have been left in the SFP after replacement, or would it have been stored in isolation somewhere else?

 

[ascot317]

it is impossible to predict anything there imo. I would of never thought they'd be using 2 robots, one with radiation monitor strapped to it, other to look at the monitor, 38 days in, versus some KHG robot.

Especially this being Japan.
I mean look at that:


I can't figure out how they suddenly seem to be a 3rd world country in terms of technology.

 

[Dmytry]

Especially this being Japan.
I mean look at that:


I can't figure out how they suddenly seem to be a 3rd world country in terms of technology.

article from 2000:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20000413b5.html
they canceled the project within a year under notion that they don't need that.
Both Germany and France offered robots ages ago.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

I am quite a few pages behind, but before I go to bed, I wanted to ask to see if I am out in left field with a broken mitt.

TEPCO is still pouring water into the top of Reactor Two. Days ago there was steam flowing out to assure us that the reactor core was being cooled.

Now, the water is not reaching the core as no steam is being generated, but hot gases are erupting from the reactor as if it was a volcano.

Dudes, is this the beginning of a China Syndrome situation. Where the 'ell is the core? Maybe somebody has already answered this, if the water always seeks lowest ground and the core is going down as it melts what else could be happening? The Core went right and the water is going left or vice versa? How?

Is the core in the Earth under the plant and debris has fallen in on it and the water has flushed a path to the sea or some underground pocket...

 

[Dmytry]

i think core is in RPV cooking itself, and I think consequences of this may - in worst case - leave you wishing that it just melted through and mixed with some molten concrete etc, blown itself apart, or did something else that'd make it cook colder. I really have no idea into what fractions the corium is going to fractionally distillate itself, and I do not want to get educated on this topic by experimental data. I only know that the hotter fuel cooks, the more stuff gets out of it, and I estimate it can boil itself. Literally.

 

[MJRacer]

From

don't know if the whole of this vid has been posted before?

at about 51 seconds

image stabilised t-hawk video?

at about 2:05

Why does it look like this?:

Notice how close the top of the reactor is to the outside wall in Mark I containment systems:

I have marked in red the part of the drywell that seems to have been blown away. But, if so, how?!

 

[hoyrylollaaja]

From



at about 51 seconds



at about 2:05

Why does it look like this?:

Notice how close the top of the reactor is to the outside wall in Mark I containment systems:

I have marked in red the part of the drywell that seems to have been blown away. But, if so, how?!

That is the control room, supposed to be at high SW corner of RB.

 

[|Fred]

Now, the water is not reaching the core as no steam is being generated, but hot gases are erupting from the reactor as if it was a volcano.

where did you see that , I must admit i no longer watch nhk 247 (especially since they resume regular program)

 

[ascot317]

From



at about 51 seconds



at about 2:05

http://i55.tinypic.com/mskgid.png

Why does it look like this?:

http://i53.tinypic.com/2jcj1hd.jpg

Only that it doesn't look like this and is nowhere close to it. Look a few frames back and forth. The Drywell is >10m wide and round, the piece in the video isn't.

 

[|Fred]

From
Why does it look like this?:

It does not, and it is not.
I can not be 100% positive that it is the floor control basement the only picture we have for this control room are from unit 3 an do not match

 

[MJRacer]

That is the control room, supposed to be at high SW corner of RB.

The object I have circled in red looks like it is round and does not appear to be in the corner, but away from both walls a certain distance.

Here is appears to be a picture of the control room:

where the floor control rooms gone ? supose to be in the south west corner but the remains do not seems to fit the structure

 

[MJRacer]

Only that it doesn't look like this and is nowhere close to it. Look a few frames back and forth. The Drywell is >10m wide and round, the piece in the video isn't.

Exactly. The drywell appears to be completely gone and it appears as if we are looking right at the stainless steel reactor vessel (sans yellow cap).