Japan Earthquake: Nuclear Plants at Fukushima Daiichi

[Joe Neubarth]

'Worriar' vacuum cleaning robot

Cleaning the floor of reactor unit 3

Hummmmmm? So soon, we will find out the status of the fuel rods in SFP3? I still think most of them are there, perhaps in a degraded state. Arnie thinks most of them are gone. Arnie is a far smarter man then me, but I still think I am right.

 

[SteveElbows]

Hummmmmm? So soon, we will find out the status of the fuel rods in SFP3? I still think most of them are there, perhaps in a degraded state. Arnie thinks most of them are gone. Arnie is a far smarter man then me, but I still think I am right.

The cleaning was only to try to reduce the dose that workers will receive when they are installing things such as nitrogen injection equipment in the reactor 3 building, its got nothing to do with the fuel pool level of the building.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

The cleaning was only to try to reduce the dose that workers will receive when they are installing things such as nitrogen injection equipment in the reactor 3 building, its got nothing to do with the fuel pool level of the building.

Thanks for the info. Then, "DRAT!" There are so many theories out there and most of them could be discounted or cleaned up with some sort of survey of the total facility even if it has to be by robots. I think the fuel rods are still there. Some might be melted, but I have not signed on to the Prompt Criticality theory in the fuel pool.

I also think that microsecond later BIG explosion came out of the torus, but that can not be proven until we can shine a light down through the hole in the floor.

 

[Bioengineer01]

Simple, let's check the wind direction and then look for any reports of radiation increases in the region where any fallout should have gone. I may take a few days but will allow us to discard this as a no-event, or maintain it in our list of "inconsistencies" between observations and reported data.

Not sure if anybody followed up on this, but I do see a peak that could be associated with this event, that we discarded as a non-event. Food for thought. Oh, the video that looked like an accident was happening with flashes that looked like fires and explosions and we dismissed as fog and light effects of trucks coming occurred in June 14th.

 

[Bioengineer01]

...I am willing to bet based on running this type of level of complexity projects that the expected date is somewhere after end of June and June 15th was shortest possible date if NOTHING went wrong (something that only a PR or an administrator could think). ...

How well did I do in predicting the actual project completion date? Did I get it right? :)

 

[jim hardy]

It's also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0lRkbMAZM&feature=related", which I find more convenient for looking at still frames in Pause mode.

At 2:17 I just see a view of the east side of the building, with no particularly interesting details.

Did you mean to link to a different video, since this one shows a flyby of unit 4, not unit 3: For example, the reactor cap has been lifted off, with the bolts undone. At 2:49 you see one of the exterior wall segments standing behind the reactor cap.
...

indeed, that's the video i meant to link and indeed it looks like same one on your youtube link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0lRkbMAZM&feature=related

And yes it's a fly-around of unit 4. Photos of unit 3 deck seem to be held close by Tepco.
At 2:17 unit 3 is in the background, looking toward north-nortwest. Make it fullscreen and pause, its top floor is indeed cluttered with roof beams atop bigger beams. This is the only view i remember seeing that gives a decent look from that elevation. And it's not great.



Trying to get a feel for whether the operating deck got steam cleaned from center out,
and whether the darkening of beams is from heat charring the paint or from deposited soot while the black smoke was coming out.

as others have suggested i think TPTB avoid pictures of unit 3 deck so i try to look at them all. Highest resolution picture is that one of the back of IAEA hardhats looking at it from corner opposite this one.

old jim

 

[Atomfritz]

[URL]http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/images/110703_1t.jpg[/URL]
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/images/110703_1.jpg & http://sankei.jp.msn.com/region/news/110703/fks11070314050002-n1.htm : A hose carrying sea water for cooling at unit 5 had a crack and transformed itself into a fountain. It is only sea water, so there is no radiation.

This confuses me.
Do they really expect a makeshift cooling bypass made of plastic tubes for the broken intake pump to last that long?
The text in the linked article suggests so...

(Btw, tsutsuji-san thank you for keeping up with news from Japan!)

Trying to get a feel for whether the operating deck got steam cleaned from center out, and whether the darkening of beams is from heat charring the paint or from deposited soot while the black smoke was coming out.

as others have suggested i think TPTB avoid pictures of unit 3 deck so i try to look at them all. Highest resolution picture is that one of the back of IAEA hardhats looking at it from corner opposite this one.

And this pic was taken long time after explosions. That time the explosion site already looked quite "clean" compared to earlier, less detailed images/videos.
And indeed, not only small debris seems to have been wiped off, larger pieces also. Sometimes I had the feeling that they also may have used the Putzmeister guns for "cleaning" the remains of the roof/top floor.
Maybe this even would make sense, as this would prevent dry dusty debris being eroded and taken away by wind?

And, they seem to be more eager to vacuum the lower floors than to find out what is going on the floors above.

Remember this is sort of a battlefield.
I find it very strange that they didn't attempt to send reconnaissance troops to the higher floors to find out the situation there.
Wouldn't the valuable insights justify to make a recon crew load up 50mSv at one rush?

I really do not understand this. Some other questions are disturbing me also.
Maybe they already did reconnaissance long time ago, just avoiding mentioning the results in the public?
Maybe they entertain us with nice sunny pool pictures from #4 to distract our attention from the other reactors?

And then, wouldn't it be more sensible to find a path that can be paravented with lead walls to make a safe route to the roofs, so they can be cleaned up?
The radiation on the roof floor could be very low, maybe in the order of 1 mSv like on #4 except some (probably lead paravent shieldable) hot spots.
So a worker could work there for more than one, two months before filling up the allowable 250mSv.
Imagine how fast this could be done if thousand workers would work in shifts...

Maybe the accident site would already have been cleaned up if the s**t had happened in the Soviet Union where people are not so panicky about radiation?

 

[Bioengineer01]

I think I understand what you have explained. So if the people who use the IAEO number clearly explain that it is only a minimum value because it does not account for the water pollution, I would find that acceptable - otherwise it would be cheating.

A friend that does PR for a living once told me that PR is the business of telling the truth in a way that people understand what you want them to understand and that rarely coincides with the truth. I have found the release estimates highly misleading all along. Especially if you look at their history from March 12th and on. The scandal that broke out in England about accident information news management may help us understand exactly how this happened.

 

[etudiant]

This confuses me.
Do they really expect a makeshift cooling bypass made of plastic tubes for the broken intake pump to last that long?
The text in the linked article suggests so...

(Btw, tsutsuji-san thank you for keeping up with news from Japan!)



... And then, wouldn't it be more sensible to find a path that can be paravented with lead walls to make a safe route to the roofs, so they can be cleaned up?
The radiation on the roof floor could be very low, maybe in the order of 1 mSv like on #4 except some (probably lead paravent shieldable) hot spots.
So a worker could work there for more than one, two months before filling up the allowable 250mSv.
Imagine how fast this could be done if thousand workers would work in shifts...

Maybe the accident site would already have been cleaned up if the s**t had happened in the Soviet Union where people are not so panicky about radiation?

My impression is that TEPCO is planning to do nothing to the reactor buildings until the covers are in place,
perhaps because they are concerned that the dust from the contaminated structure would be impossible to control. It is not even clear that there is any practical way to do more than neutralize the site with some sort of permanent entombment as the ultimate outcome.

 

[joewein]

It is not even clear that there is any practical way to do more than neutralize the site with some sort of permanent entombment as the ultimate outcome.

It doesn't have to be permanent. You could build a concrete tomb, but with an air lock for future access. It all depends on how long we're prepared to wait, how far robot technology will advance in the meantime and how much it's going to cost.

Eventually robots will be able to do the job, provided there is funding for them. There is really no point in sending in people *now* more than absolutely necessary, if perhaps in 5 or 10 years robots will be available that can do the cleanup work, about whose accumulated mSv doses you don't have to worry as with human workers.

The trouble is, some tasks (such as preventing hydrogen explosions by injecting inert nitrogen) are absolutely necessary to keep the site stable over a number of years. There is no alternative to getting them done now.

The part I don't understand about the nitrogen injections in unit 3 is this: Weren't they able to inject nitrogen in unit 1 *before* they sent in the first crews? They seemed to be able to use existing pipes from the turbine hall to the reactor core. What's different about unit 3? Did those pipes get destroyed in the hydrogen blast?

If the containments are at atmospheric pressure and are assumed to be leaky, presumably any nitrogen injected will displace whatever atmosphere is currently in the containment. Any guesses what this will do to radiation levels inside the reactor building? Seems to me that they need to do both injection and filtered venting.

 

[robinson]

If another large earthquake happens, as well as massive tsunamis, all bets may be off.

 

[etudiant]

If another large earthquake happens, as well as massive tsunamis, all bets may be off.

Absolutely correct.
However, was there not historical records that indicate these size quakes have roughly a thousand year interval between them? So hopefully there is some time before the strains build up enough for another.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

Absolutely correct.
However, was there not historical records that indicate these size quakes have roughly a thousand year interval between them? So hopefully there is some time before the strains build up enough for another.

Remember the quake at Fukushima was far less than the quake out in the Pacific Ocean that created the tsunami. We did not see a 9.0 quake in Japan.

 

[nikkkom]

It is not even clear that there is any practical way to do more than neutralize the site with some sort of permanent entombment as the ultimate outcome.

It doesn't have to be permanent. You could build a concrete tomb, but with an air lock for future access. It all depends on how long we're prepared to wait, how far robot technology will advance in the meantime and how much it's going to cost.

It is not even clear that there is any practical NEED to do more than neutralize the site with some sort of permanent entombment as the ultimate outcome.

What exactly can you possibly want to achieve by cleaning up the site to "green grass" state?

Even after thermal output will fall to levels which can be dealt with air cooling, central parts of these ruins will contain HIGHLY radioactive corium and residue from evaporated highly radioactive water.

This stuff, even if removed, needs to be stored somewhere; and after it is removed, steel and concrete of reactor pit will be radioactive anyway. If you'd want to dismantle the site, you'd need to remove and store them too, as medium-level waste, for many decades.

IOW: dismantling F1 ruins will definitely have astronomical cost, will possibly require some people to absorb a few more rems, and will still require storage for the radwaste.

The better idea, then, is to threat F1 as *the* storage for its radwaste. Total dismantling is not necessary. After 6-12 more months, remove top part of the buildings. Install heap pipes and radiators for heat conduction from ruined reactor cores and their passive air cooling. Fill reactor pit and torus with concrete. Remove fuel from SFPs. Possibly use Fukushima-1 in the future as the dry cask storage site - it will be slightly radioactive anyway for the next 100+ years, people won't live closer than about 5 km to it.

 

[Sorai]

Hello everyone, I just registered. I am not familiar with the format so sorry in advance for any blunder.

Not sure if anybody followed up on this, but I do see a peak that could be associated with this event, that we discarded as a non-event. Food for thought. Oh, the video that looked like an accident was happening with flashes that looked like fires and explosions and we dismissed as fog and light effects of trucks coming occurred in June 14th.

Here is a link to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, with past data from Maebashi City, about 10 Km away from Takasaki City where the CTBTO monitoring station is located:

http://www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etrn/view/daily_s1.php?prec_no=42&prec_ch=%8CQ%94n%8C%A7&block_no=47624&block_ch=%91O%8B%B4&year=2011&month=6&day=14&elm=daily&view="

And here is a link to the PDF with the data from CTBTO in Takasaki:

http://www.cpdnp.jp/pdf/110701Takasaki_report_Jun25.pdf"

Both links are in Japanese, but hopefully some google translate in the case of the JMA data may be good enough and the CTBTO chart can be consulted without any knowledge of Japanese, I think.

From what I have seen, the peak in June 11 corresponds to rainy weather, 15 mm accumulated during the day, which is the maximum registered during the whole month. The wind direction data seems to be only for the maximum registered, but during June 10 it was South-East and for June 11-12 it was North-West.

 

[joewein]

Do they really expect a makeshift cooling bypass made of plastic tubes for the broken intake pump to last that long?

Perhaps their attention focused so much on Fukushima 1, units 1-4 that unit 5 and 6 (and perhaps Fukushima 2) don't get as much attention as they still deserve. "Cold shutdown" is not a state that you once achieve but that has to be actively maintained.

Units 5 and 6 survived because one of the diesels at unit 6 was air cooled, so losing the sea water pumps didn't kill it. Other than that single diesel, units 5 and 6 still depend on either the grid or truck-mounted generators. I have not heard anything about moves to replace the dead diesels.

The plastic pipe incident shows that the sea water pumps still haven't been restored. The whole "cold shutdown" setup for units 5 and 6 seems very temporary still.

And this pic was taken long time after explosions. That time the explosion site already looked quite "clean" compared to earlier, less detailed images/videos.
And indeed, not only small debris seems to have been wiped off, larger pieces also. Sometimes I had the feeling that they also may have used the Putzmeister guns for "cleaning" the remains of the roof/top floor.
Maybe this even would make sense, as this would prevent dry dusty debris being eroded and taken away by wind?

I doubt they would want to wash contaminated dust onto the surrounding of the reactor building. Unit 3 was the most serious source of scattered highly active debris, because of its unique combination of a large explosion and large amount of radioactivity leaked. Unit 1 had a milder explosion and a lot less radioactivity. Unit 2 had somewhat more radioactive release but a largely intact building. Unit 4 had a smaller explosion and the least amount of radioactive contamination. Removing hotspots of several hundreds of mSv/h was very important for being able to get any work done near unit 3.

And, they seem to be more eager to vacuum the lower floors than to find out what is going on the floors above.

That's because they don't have to go upstairs right now to get the nitrogen injection going, which is their first priority. The heat exchanger for the unit 3 SFP is already hooked up working, which was the primary reason to go upstairs in unit 4.

Maybe the accident site would already have been cleaned up if the s**t had happened in the Soviet Union where people are not so panicky about radiation?

Maybe it would, if you had volunteered ;-)

 

[joewein]

What exactly can you possibly want to achieve by cleaning up the site to "green grass" state?

Even after thermal output will fall to levels which can be dealt with air cooling, central parts of these ruins will contain HIGHLY radioactive corium and residue from evaporated highly radioactive water.

This stuff, even if removed, needs to be stored somewhere; and after it is removed, steel and concrete of reactor pit will be radioactive anyway. If you'd want to dismantle the site, you'd need to remove and store them too, as medium-level waste, for many decades.

IOW: dismantling F1 ruins will definitely have astronomical cost, will possibly require some people to absorb a few more rems, and will still require storage for the radwaste.

The better idea, then, is to threat F1 as *the* storage for its radwaste. Total dismantling is not necessary. After 6-12 more months, remove top part of the buildings. Install heap pipes and radiators for heat conduction from ruined reactor cores and their passive air cooling. Fill reactor pit and torus with concrete. Remove fuel from SFPs. Possibly use Fukushima-1 in the future as the dry cask storage site - it will be slightly radioactive anyway for the next 100+ years, people won't live closer than about 5 km to it.

I don't disagree with your suggestion of using F1 as a dry cask storage site, provided tsunami defenses are beefed up sufficiently first. However, I disagree with leaving the corium in there for longer than a number of decades. This kind of waste needs to be stored for millennia in geologically stable formations, not in a building on a tsunami-swept sea shore never intended to be used for more than 40 years that has already suffered a major accident.

I am not a geologist, but in my opinion the safest storage site for Japanese nuclear waste may not even be found in Japan, which gets 20% of the world's earthquakes (and for that reason alone probably should never have built nuclear power stations in first place). The final storage problem would be solved better through international cooperation. Some countries have more suitable formations than others and if something goes wrong, the radioactive plume will does not stop at national borders and 12 nautical mile zones, as we have found out with Chernobyl and the Fukushima disaster.

 

[tsutsuji]

http://www.asahi.com/national/jiji/JJT201107040042.html At 9 PM on 3 July, The flow of water injected into unit 1 began to slowly decrease from the 3.5 ton/hour flow, although the pump was running normally. At 8:13 AM on 4 July, the flow reached 3 ton/hour, causing an alarm to ring.

Viewing that the cause of the problem might be the presence of a foreign body blocking the water, Tepco temporarily pushed the flow of water to 7.5 ton/hour and this action was successful in achieving the restoration of a 3.8 ton/hour flow at 8:50 AM.

The foreign body is believed to have come from the filtrate water from the dam.

http://www.nikkei.com/news/headline...19490E2E6E2E2E18DE2E6E2E5E0E2E3E39F9FE2E2E2E2 As a consequence of the sea water PVC hose failure yesterday, Tepco plans to change every PVC hose by something stronger. Tepco has yet to check all the locations where these hoses are used, but this concerns mostly the piping between the water treatment facility and the reactors.

In order to prevent the megafloat from pitching, the water must be injected into different chambers to ensure some balance. For that reason, injection was stopped on 3 July while the injection location is being switched to another chamber. It will resume on 4 July afternoon. Did you know that while it is meant to be multi-purpose, the most famous purpose intended for the megafloat was to make an extension to Haneda airport, but it was refused in 2010?

Tepco is installing shields to protect workers from radiations in unit 3's reactor building. The purpose is to be able to start nitrogen injection on 8 July.

 

[NUCENG]

I originally posted this on the TEPCO Management and Government Performance Thread and the Other Political thread. It hasn't generated any discussion there. There was a lot of speculation early on about how much NRC knew. These references are interesting reading because it looks almost like we were as well informed as they were. Also of interest is how their different ideas and speculations mirrored what went on here.

For anyone interested in NRC contacts with Japan in the early days

FYI NRC has responded to FOIAs

FOIA/PA 11-0118, 0119, and 0120

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html

Rough count is way over 1000 pp.

 

[benzyme]

Thanks for that, NUCENG. I was in the habit of checking that FOIA page from time to time, but after a couple months just assumed there would be some kind of "emergency" exception that prevented their release.

 

[zapperzero]

I originally posted this on the TEPCO Management and Government Performance Thread and the Other Political thread. It hasn't generated any discussion there. There was a lot of speculation early on about how much NRC knew. These references are interesting reading because it looks almost like we were as well informed as they were. Also of interest is how their different ideas and speculations mirrored what went on here.

For anyone interested in NRC contacts with Japan in the early days

FYI NRC has responded to FOIAs

FOIA/PA 11-0118, 0119, and 0120

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html

Rough count is way over 1000 pp.

I think there's been some interest, just not many comments. I, for one, haven't yet found the time to do much more than a quick skim-through.

EDIT: the idea of printing out e-mails, then collating them in a scanned PDF? Who came up with that one? There's zero excuse here - while I can understand why rules and regulations would have treeware master copies, this is just stupid, verging on willfully incompetent.

If I sound frustrated, it's 'cause I am. I have good text processing, indexing and search tools at my disposal - and none of them work!

 

[zapperzero]

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1117/ML11175A296.pdf

pp 113:

water level and pressure graphs for a hypothetical long-term station blackout at Peach Bottom NPP. Looks quite familiar.

EDIT: and by familiar, I mean similar to actual plots of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 2 data.

 

[zapperzero]

I don't disagree with your suggestion of using F1 as a dry cask storage site, provided tsunami defenses are beefed up sufficiently first.

I do disagree. If life gives you lemons, you should return them and ask for a refund. But seriously, it's not such a good place to store lots of radwaste. There's a city nearby and the site geology is real bad.

 

[MiceAndMen]

At 9 AM on 3 July, The flow of water injected into unit 1 began to slowly decrease from the 3.5 ton/hour flow, although the pump was running normally. At 8:13 AM on 4 July, the flow reached 3 ton/hour, causing an alarm to ring.

Viewing that the cause of the problem might be the presence of a foreign body blocking the water, Tepco temporarily pushed the flow of water to 7.5 ton/hour and this action was successful in achieving the restoration of a 3.8 ton/hour flow at 8:50 AM.

I trimmed the quote, but my intent is to thank you, tsutsuji, for your continued valuable contributions.

 

[Azby]

Has this been discussed already and I missed it? Arnie comments on the old SFP3 underwater video, thanking Ian Goddard for pointing out that one fuel bundle appears to be visible in the corner. After reminding everyone that reactor 3 is the one that was "blown to smithereens," he implies that the rest of the fuel has vanished from the pool, but just says,"Where are the other bundles?"

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoddardsJournal

Comments?
(Just in case anyone has doubts, I think Gunderson is a self-promoting bundle of smarm and falsehood)

 

[Most Curious]

I read this thread for good science, not "green" editorializing or politics. Those belong elsewhere, IMHO. Not that I am without opinions too, just prefer a thread that is nearly pure science and engineering.

I really value the opportunity to read the thoughts of very well qualified individuals who have first hand knowledge of the processes and systems - the engineers, operators, physicists and others with direct experience in the real world. Yes, some is over my head but I am here to learn and do a lot of that in reading the good science here.

Were I interested in conservation, politics of waste disposal or appropriateness of nuclear power I would search out and read threads dealing with those issues. (Not likely to waste my time on ANY "green" crap, however.)

 

[Joe Neubarth]

Has this been discussed already and I missed it? Arnie comments on the old SFP3 underwater video, thanking Ian Goddard for pointing out that one fuel bundle appears to be visible in the corner. After reminding everyone that reactor 3 is the one that was "blown to smithereens," he implies that the rest of the fuel has vanished from the pool, but just says,"Where are the other bundles?"

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoddardsJournal

Comments?
(Just in case anyone has doubts, I think Gunderson is a self-promoting bundle of smarm and falsehood)

I would not speak ill of the man as I believe he is well intentioned. Still, when I saw that video, I wondered if that was an area of the SFP that only had one assembly in it. If the pool blew all to hell, where did all the assemblies go? I do not see the circular rods lying about the grounds. Besides in an earlier video of the Number 3 SFP, it looked to me like there were a whole lot of assemblies under water. Though the SFP has a lot of debris in it, I expect that most of it is still there. If it had exploded as Arnie postulated, I doubt that it would still be holding water.

 

[Morbius]

Comments?
(Just in case anyone has doubts, I think Gunderson is a self-promoting bundle of smarm and falsehood)

Azby,

I'd agree with you there. He and a few others I can think of have been promulgating very poor and inaccurate scientific information.

They are just media whores of the first order.

Greg

 

[Azby]

I would not speak ill of the man as I believe he is well intentioned. Still, when I saw that video, I wondered if that was an area of the SFP that only had one assembly in it. If the pool blew all to hell, where did all the assemblies go? I do not see the circular rods lying about the grounds. Besides in an earlier video of the Number 3 SFP, it looked to me like there were a whole lot of assemblies under water. Though the SFP has a lot of debris in it, I expect that most of it is still there. If it had exploded as Arnie postulated, I doubt that it would still be holding water.

Yes, I spoke inappropriately. I will rephrase it as,"I have rarely found anything Gunderson has said in the past to be accurate or backed up by solid evidence, so I discount most of what he says in this video."

As for what may have happened in the pool, does anyone else think it's possible that one or more bundles may have been dislodged and forced upward, while the others remain in place below the rubble?

 

[NUCENG]

Arnie Gundersen has one unchallengeable point that we cannot deny. Fukushima is a nuclear reactor accident that shouldn't have happened. Its consequences are still unfolding, but are devastating in cost, health and social impact.

It galls me to the core that this accident could have been prevented. I am trying hard not to let my anger and embarrassment prevent me from seeing that opponents like Arnie may have some valid points. As long as he has the media spotlight he is influencing public opinion. The only effective way to deal with that is to expose his misinformation, errors and faulty conclusions with facts, corrections, and logic. But that will be an uphill battle against the images of Fukushima, Chernobyl, and TMI2. Name-calling and blanket judgements based on our perception of his motives only reinforce impressions of arrogance on our part.

Time will reveal where he is wrong, and we can speed that process along the way, but we can't afford to ignore where he is right.

 

[sigyn]

Arnie Gundersen has one unchallengeable point that we cannot deny. Fukushima is a nuclear reactor accident that shouldn't have happened. Its consequences are still unfolding, but are devastating in cost, health and social impact.

It galls me to the core that this accident could have been prevented.

Mr. Nuceng,

Thank you for your informative posts on this thread.

Would

a)a higher seawall

and/or

b) waterproofing diesels and electric distribution have sufficed to prevent this in the face of earthquake followed by tsunami ? I understand that integrity of various RPV penetrations were compromised by earthquake alone, and disaster of some flavor might still have ensued even without tsunami.

sigyn

 

[robinson]

It may be too early for Tepco to even know exactly what went wrong and when. It does seem obvious that even a 30 meter wall wouldn't have prevented the immense pressure to the intake/outflow areas, the pipes that actually have to be directly connected to the ocean for cooling.

The turbine rooms and other areas may still have failed even if somehow they had a wall high enough to stop the ocean. From careful observation of the tsunami waves, it isn't just a matter of stopping the waves. The intakes have to be connected to the ocean. A wall would have stopped the damage to the buildings, but not to the intakes and where they connect to.

Loss of cooling may still have happened, both to the diesels and the reactors. It's an issue that probably wasn't planned for at all.

 

[jim hardy]

placing electrical switchgear down in the basement with diesels made it safe from tornadoes and falling airplanes
but in retrospect it needed a submarine hull around it.

to my mind one's diesels should be stand-alone, that is able to start and run independent of switchgear and intake structures. Had they been up on top of the hill and cooled by radiators things could have gone a lot better.

Our plant had two that were so cooled, compressed air start and shaft driven cooling fans for the radiators. If you had DC from battery they'd go.

old jim

 

[joewein]

I do not see the circular rods lying about the grounds. Besides in an earlier video of the Number 3 SFP, it looked to me like there were a whole lot of assemblies under water. Though the SFP has a lot of debris in it, I expect that most of it is still there. If it had exploded as Arnie postulated, I doubt that it would still be holding water.

I don't think TEPCO has posted any other videos of SFP 3, only of SFP 4. That's the one you may be thinking of when you talk about seeing lots of assemblies under water.

Here's a Youtube posted version of the the complete TEPCO video for #3 from which Gundersen shows a clip. The handle can be seen in the top right corner between 1:55 and 2:02:


Later, around 2:12 you see what may be empty racks at a different spot.

FWIW, in the https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3382117&postcount=10379" we don't see any isolated, single fuel assemblies, though we see racks in which a single row (10x1 assemblies) is populated.

 

[NUCENG]

Mr. Nuceng,

Thank you for your informative posts on this thread.

Would

a)a higher seawall

and/or

b) waterproofing diesels and electric distribution have sufficed to prevent this in the face of earthquake followed by tsunami ? I understand that integrity of various RPV penetrations were compromised by earthquake alone, and disaster of some flavor might still have ensued even without tsunami.

sigyn

Understanding that a 5.7 m design basis tsunami was insufficient basd on scientific evidence and historical evidence prior to 1896 would have been the start. It should have initiated a detailed review and may even have shown that a 15 m tsunami was possible. If a design could not be found to mitigate that risk, the plants should have been shut down.

However, I believe that a risk analysis and design basis review would have pointed to increasing the floodwall height, strengthening and water-proofing buildings, protecting the seawater pumps by building a strengthened pump house, providing additional air cooled backup power sources. Reviwing severe accident procedures might have provided additional coolant makeup sources or questioned the initiation pressure for containment venting and potential delaysfrom needing government approval to vent. And there are more options that I haven't thought of. Even if an accident still occurred it could have been less severe.

If wishes was fishes we could feed the world! That didn't happen and now there is both a need to deal with Fukushima as it is and a need to make sure it doesn't happen somewhere else.

 

[MiceAndMen]

Arnie Gundersen has one unchallengeable point that we cannot deny. Fukushima is a nuclear reactor accident that shouldn't have happened. Its consequences are still unfolding, but are devastating in cost, health and social impact.

It galls me to the core that this accident could have been prevented. I am trying hard not to let my anger and embarrassment prevent me from seeing that opponents like Arnie may have some valid points. As long as he has the media spotlight he is influencing public opinion. The only effective way to deal with that is to expose his misinformation, errors and faulty conclusions with facts, corrections, and logic. But that will be an uphill battle against the images of Fukushima, Chernobyl, and TMI2. Name-calling and blanket judgements based on our perception of his motives only reinforce impressions of arrogance on our part.

Time will reveal where he is wrong, and we can speed that process along the way, but we can't afford to ignore where he is right.

NUCENG, you are one of the bright lights in this thread. It has been said that a man's ability to understand something is directly affected by his paycheck depending on him not understanding it. You have consistently shown a willingness to be open-minded and willing to suffer the slings and arrows of some of the more anti-nuclear people who show up here from time to time. If the industry as a whole had people like you leading it we would all be in a far better place than we are today. (I am no fan of Arnie Gunderson, but you are right IMO with respect to some of his points.) Kudos to you, sir.

 

[NUCENG]

NUCENG, you are one of the bright lights in this thread. It has been said that a man's ability to understand something is directly affected by his paycheck depending on him not understanding it. You have consistently shown a willingness to be open-minded and willing to suffer the slings and arrows of some of the more anti-nuclear people who show up here from time to time. If the industry as a whole had people like you leading it we would all be in a far better place than we are today. (I am no fan of Arnie Gunderson, but you are right IMO with respect to some of his points.) Kudos to you, sir.

Thanks, I hope you are wrong about the paycheck motivation. The way I looked at it my paycheck has always been based on finding truth about whatever I am working on and solving problems based on that truth. If I was correct then the problems stayed solved. My success came from the fact that I did better than the defifintion of an engineer. (Engineer: a person, who, given a 50/50 chance, is only wrong 90% of the time.)

If I can't be right 100%, then Arnie can't be wrong 100%. ;-p

 

[Joe Neubarth]

I don't think TEPCO has posted any other videos of SFP 3, only of SFP 4. That's the one you may be thinking of when you talk about seeing lots of assemblies under water.

Here's a Youtube posted version of the the complete TEPCO video for #3 from which Gundersen shows a clip. The handle can be seen in the top right corner between 1:55 and 2:02:


Later, around 2:12 you see what may be empty racks at a different spot.

FWIW, in the https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3382117&postcount=10379" we don't see any isolated, single fuel assemblies, though we see racks in which a single row (10x1 assemblies) is populated.

The video you listed is the one I was referring to. I did not know that Arnie was taking a portion of that video to show one fuel assembly top. In the opening seconds of the entire video when the bubbles are coming up and blocking the image you can briefly see a regular pattern that could be the top of the fuel assemblies. To do so, you have to look around the bubbles, preferably to the top and left.

Starting at about second 25 do a series of stops and starts to capture stills of the video. Granted there is lots of debris blocking the image, but I can see some fairly consistent regularity to the patterns partially visible underneath the debris. I believe that to be the top of the fuel assemblies.

All of that debris is sitting on top of something flat down there. NOW, what I can not tell you is the state of the fuel rods that extend down from the assemblies tops. All I can see is a fleeting pattern that suggests the fuel assembly tops are down there under a dozen feet or more of water.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

Thanks, I hope you are wrong about the paycheck motivation. The way I looked at it my paycheck has always been based on finding truth about whatever I am working on and solving problems based on that truth. If I was correct then the problems stayed solved. My success came from the fact that I did better than the defifintion of an engineer. (Engineer: a person, who, given a 50/50 chance, is only wrong 90% of the time.)

If I can't be right 100%, then Arnie can't be wrong 100%. ;-p

Funny, when we went through Nuclear Power School in the Navy we always used to say that the proof of a true Navy Nuc was that when given a Fifty Fifty chance, He'd blow it EVERY time.

 

[nikkkom]

If wishes was fishes we could feed the world! That didn't happen and now there is both a need to deal with Fukushima as it is and a need to make sure it doesn't happen somewhere else.

Wrong, the need to make sure it doesn't happen was there even before Fukushima! The fact that Fukushima happened only finally made it nearly impossible to deny that.

And yet, so far I saw only Japanese admitting their NPPs need work in increasing safety. Not one single other country yet admitted that in light of Fukushima, they found something in need of improvement in their NPPs. (Unless I missed some news, in which case feel free to post URLs). Not NRC, nor French or Russian regulators came forth with concrete measures they found in need of implementing right away.

Yes, there is talk about the need of unspecified improvements in safety nearly in every meeting of nuclear regulators. It fails to reassure me. I fear we will see too little and too late of said improvements.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

placing electrical switchgear down in the basement with diesels made it safe from tornadoes and falling airplanes
but in retrospect it needed a submarine hull around it.

to my mind one's diesels should be stand-alone, that is able to start and run independent of switchgear and intake structures. Had they been up on top of the hill and cooled by radiators things could have gone a lot better.

Our plant had two that were so cooled, compressed air start and shaft driven cooling fans for the radiators. If you had DC from battery they'd go.

old jim

Fukushima One's first four reactors were just one tsunami away from destruction from the first day they put number One in operation about 40 years ago.

Consider this:

1. When they lost one Utility Power Line leading to the plant, there was no backup source of commercial electricity. (Was this the case for 40 years and nobody realized what a serious error it was in site design?)

2. If anybody can see a real sea wall in the photos of Fukushima, I have yet to see it. The actual Tsunami was 4.2 meters in height. As we all know from seeing the ocean, a swell at sea can be two feet high but when it crashes onto the shore, the run up from that swell (wave) can be considerably higher than two feet. An approximate rule of thumb (This is not engineering practice) would be to take the height of the expected Tsunami and move the decimal point one place to the right to determine the height in feet for a wall to protect the plant. Thus the expected 4.2 meter tsunami at sea would require a 42 foot sea wall. I do not see a 42 foot sea wall at Fukushima.

At San Onofre where the projected worse case scenario would have a Three meter tsunami, (3 Meter Swell => 30 Foot Wall) the sea wall was built 30 feet high. San Onofre made an attempt to estimate run up from the swell. Fukushima site engineers blew it out their arse. It almost looks like the engineering firm gave it no consideration. Maybe they did not know what a Tsunami was in Japan. Most unusual considering that it is a Japanese word.

3. Emergency Diesel Generators, Electrical Connection Boxes, Motor Controllers, Pump Controllers, Power Cables and Data Cable Runs were all built in places where they could be swamped and flooded by a wave washing over the essentially non existent sea wall at Fukushima.

4. The steam shut off valves leading to the towers failed shut upon loss of electric power. The Japanese engineers had not designed an easy means of reopening that valve manually from a safe distance. Thus when they needed to manually reopen it to prevent Hydrogen Gas from escaping inside the reactor plant building and exploding, they could not reopen it because the steam was radioactive and exceeded the limits for the man who was frantically trying to reopen the valve (or valves in question.)

 

[robinson]

I would say 100% many Japanese (and the rest of the world) actually had no scientific understanding of what a tsunami actually is like. Most still don't.

For example, there is no run up like a regular ocean wave has. And there is also no run out after the wave. They are not like ocean waves at all actually.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

I would say 100% many Japanese (and the rest of the world) actually had no scientific understanding of what a tsunami actually is like. Most still don't.

For example, there is no run up like a regular ocean wave has. And there is also no run out after the wave. They are not like ocean waves at all actually.

Surely, you jest. Tsunamis are very much like ocean waves. They are usually far larger, and they are broader, but their action is exactly like a wave washing up on the beach. Because of breadth they can appear to be in slow motion, but they can do an awful lot of damage. I do not know where you get such a silly notion. Wave dynamics are wave dynamics. They wash up and they wash back out again, just like a wave on a beach and you can see it on any video footage you want. If you watch wave action on any beach you will see that to be a wave the water does not have to curl and roll over on itself. It just needs to roll up on the beach and then flow back out again, creating a wave in the near opposite direction.

Webster's dictionary defines a wave as "a disturbance or variation that transfers energy progressively from point to point in a medium and that may take the form of an elastic deformation or of a variation of pressure, electric or magnetic intensity, electric potential, or temperature."

The most important part of this definition is that a wave is a disturbance or variation which travels through a medium. The medium through which the wave travels may experience some local oscillations as the wave passes, but the particles in the medium to not travel with the wave. The disturbance may take any of a number of shapes, from a finite width pulse to an infinitely long sine wave.

 

[robinson]

Surely, you jest. Tsunamis are very much like ocean waves. They are usually far larger, and they are broader, but their action is exactly like a wave washing up on the beach.

OK I had to stop right there. That is exactly what I am talking about. The closest thing to understanding a tsunami would be a tidal bore, except that it is moving upriver very very fast, and is much larger than any known tidal bore ever recorded.

The term "tidal" wave actually describes the effect, as if a monster high tide is approaching very fast. This no doubt needs a topic. So I will not sidetrack this thread further.

 

[NUCENG]

Wrong, the need to make sure it doesn't happen was there even before Fukushima! The fact that Fukushima happened only finally made it nearly impossible to deny that.

And yet, so far I saw only Japanese admitting their NPPs need work in increasing safety. Not one single other country yet admitted that in light of Fukushima, they found something in need of improvement in their NPPs. (Unless I missed some news, in which case feel free to post URLs). Not NRC, nor French or Russian regulators came forth with concrete measures they found in need of implementing right away.

Yes, there is talk about the need of unspecified improvements in safety nearly in every meeting of nuclear regulators. It fails to reassure me. I fear we will see too little and too late of said improvements.

You are right that the need was there, and it wasn't done. Wishing won't fix that - as I said. So what was wrong?

Now, you have made the assumption that the same vulnerability exists in US plants, French Plants or Russian Plants. I can't speak for the French (outside of lessons learned from Blaiais flooding event. I hope the Russsians learned from Chernobyl.

On this forum I have pointed out a statement to the Convention on Nuclear Safety that the Japanese did not review plant design bases after a plant was built unless there was a new plant being built. That is one tremendous difference in the US. We are expected to work on design bases validation every time we conduct inspections, design modifications and review operating experience from other plants. Reviews have been initiated and NRC is preparing generic guidance requirements. I have posted links to those reviews performed at every US plant and available on the NRC website. NRC Commissioners have indicated they probably will require additional protection for backup power sources and coping with station blackouts. We have discussed clear indications of both government and management negligence in Japan.

All you are offering in rebuttal is your fear and opinion. You apparently have missed or ignored or disbelieved my posts and the links I have already provided. Feel free to go back and review and come up with something concrete to discuss. It still takes an honest effort to learn. Show me that further effort on my part won't waste my time.

 

[NUCENG]

Funny, when we went through Nuclear Power School in the Navy we always used to say that the proof of a true Navy Nuc was that when given a Fifty Fifty chance, He'd blow it EVERY time.

That is known as the Rickover effect. No matter how hard you work, you could work harder. No matter how right you are you can still learn more, so you are still wrong.

 

[etudiant]

You are right that the need was there, and it wasn't done. Wishing won't fix that - as I said. So what was wrong?

Now, you have made the assumption that the same vulnerability exists in US plants, French Plants or Russian Plants. I can't speak for the French (outside of lessons learned from Blaiais flooding event. I hope the Russsians learned from Chernobyl.

On this forum I have pointed out a statement to the Convention on Nuclear Safety that the Japanese did not review plant design bases after a plant was built unless there was a new plant being built. That is one tremendous difference in the US. We are expected to work on design bases validation every time we conduct inspections, design modifications and review operating experience from other plants. Reviews have been initiated and NRC is preparing generic guidance requirements. I have posted links to those reviews performed at every US plant and available on the NRC website. NRC Commissioners have indicated they probably will require additional protection for backup power sources and coping with station blackouts. We have discussed clear indications of both government and management negligence in Japan.

All you are offering in rebuttal is your fear and opinion. You apparently have missed or ignored or disbelieved my posts and the links I have already provided. Feel free to go back and review and come up with something concrete to discuss. It still takes an honest effort to learn. Show me that further effort on my part won't waste my time.

While the guidance requirements seem to be pretty effective, they are not totally robust.
If memory serves, the Besse Davis reactor vessel had the head almost corroded through, as no one asked where the copious rust in the water was coming from. More seriously, slowly emergent problems such as the risks posed by overfilled spent fuel pools do not seem to be surfaced very effectively. Is there an industry mechanism to help bring such generic problems to the foreground?

 

[jim hardy]

Joe Neubarth - a nice summary you put up above at 2:25. Thanks for your kindness.

I have to believe that, after that 1995-ish report of potential for huge tsunamis, had somebody made those TEPCO executives aware of their plant's vulnerability to inundation they'd have spent the money to fix it.
Quality is a cornerstone of Japanese business culture. [Google Demming]
Usually the folks at the bottom have to point out weaknesses for after all they are the ones best positioned to discover it. Smart managers encourage that, and listen.

"For want of a nail a shoe was lost..."

 

[Bandit127]

<...>[Google Demming]<...>

Jim, I have no need to Google him.

W Edwards Deming. A physicist at Bell Labs that had to travel all the way to Japan to find an audience that was willing to listen. And when they listened they learned, and they were able to transform their way of industry to become one of the world leaders. The foundations Deming laid see Toyota as one of the top selling car manufacturers in the USA.

Sadly his own countrymen didn't listen, much to their own loss.

To bring this back on topic, I think the data (evidence) based culture that Japan has as a result is why they don't want to interpolate. TEPCO simply say that (for instance)

At approximately 6:00 am on March 15, an abnormal noise began emanating
from nearby Pressure Suppression Chamber and the pressure within the
chamber decreased.

Interpolation of this data - that an explosion blew a hole in the SC - is entirely natural to us and our journalists. But the evidence (data) is exactly as stated by TEPCO.

This gives rise to frustration and the opinion in some minds that TEPCO are witholding information. In fact, TEPCO are only witholding interpolation and opinion. Rightly in my mind.

 

[nikkkom]

You are right that the need was there, and it wasn't done. Wishing won't fix that - as I said. So what was wrong?

You said:

Reviwing severe accident procedures might have provided additional coolant makeup sources or questioned the initiation pressure for containment venting and potential delays from needing government approval to vent. ... That didn't happen and now there is both a need to deal with Fukushima as it is and a need to make sure it doesn't happen somewhere else.

What is wrong with it? Wrong that you regret that *after this disaster* (word "now" in the above quote has that meaning), there is a "need to make sure it doesn't happen somewhere else". Which is WRONG, THIS NEED WAS THERE EVEN BEFORE THE DISASTER. Waiting for a disaster to happen in order to start looking at the problems seriously is WRONG.

How can I say this even more clearly?

Now, you have made the assumption that the same vulnerability exists in US plants, French Plants or Russian Plants. I can't speak for the French (outside of lessons learned from Blaiais flooding event. I hope the Russsians learned from Chernobyl.

On this forum I have pointed out a statement to the Convention on Nuclear Safety that the Japanese did not review plant design bases after a plant was built unless there was a new plant being built. That is one tremendous difference in the US. We are expected to work on design bases validation every time we conduct inspections, design modifications and review operating experience from other plants. Reviews have been initiated and NRC is preparing generic guidance requirements. I have posted links to those reviews performed at every US plant and available on the NRC website. NRC Commissioners have indicated they probably will require additional protection for backup power sources and coping with station blackouts. We have discussed clear indications of both government and management negligence in Japan.

All you are offering in rebuttal is your fear and opinion. You apparently have missed or ignored or disbelieved my posts and the links I have already provided. Feel free to go back and review and come up with something concrete to discuss.

Wrong again. I don't have to prove that plants are unsafe. It's the other war around - the nuclear industry must prove to the satisfaction of the people that they are safe.

There is a direct parallel with Challenger disaster. Engineers who voiced concerns about O-ring erosion were asked to provide a proof that O-rings can be breached. Rogers Report specifically points out that managers were dead wrong about it. Shuttle can be launched not when engineers can't prove it's unsafe to do so, it can be launched only if engineers are sure that it is reasonably safe to do so!

Your believe that everything is shiny in France, Russia and US just because this disaster happened in Japan, not those countries. I am not so sure about it.

I read post-disaster reports after both Shuttle disasters, I know how stubborn people may be in (self)deception about safety when it comes to multi-billion projects. NASA managed to self-hypnotize itself into believing Shuttles are safe even after NASA itself dramatically proved it's not true.

We are basically in port-Challenger state right now in regards to NPPs, and unless we start to do something differently now, we are going to get Columbia.

The reaction of worldwide nuclear community up to now is mostly PR. PR is not going to convince me. I need to see deeds, not words.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled", said Richard Feynman, and I fully agree with him.