In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Mark wrote:
On Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:26:58 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Wed, 6 Apr 2011 03:52:52 -0700 (PDT), Bolted
wrote:

On Apr 6, 10:10 am, "dennis@home" wrote:
"Bolted" wrote in message

...

The reactors shut down properly immediately the primary shockwaves from
the earthquake was
detected.
Properly? Doesn't seem to be working that properly now, unless you
really shut your eyes and ears and mind at tsunami +x hours (where x
varies by reactor).
They shut down, they would have gone critical a few minutes after the
tsunami if they had not.
I don't call reactors which have melted part of their cores and which
are being cooled on an open circuit putting out extremely radioactive
water into the plant and the wider environment, reactors which have
been shut down properly.

Call me obtuse if you like.
I suspect there is still a lot we don't yet know about this. If
things are OK why is the IAEA trying to pursuade Japan to widen the
exclusion zone?
pressure from the renewables lobby of course.
If that's the case then they are fools to bow to political pressure.
Any unnecessary "measures" taken will help strengthen any claims that
Nuclear power is "too" dangerous.
OTOH maybe there is more to this incident than we have been told and
it is a wise precaution.

On the faint excuse that things might theoretically get worse.

Which is the basic excuse used by every single anti-nuclear
campaigner when faced with the facts that, in every case, they in
fact, don't.
I am waiting until all the facts emerge (if they ever do) before
drawing conclusions.

Most of the facts have emerged.

That's why media coverage is stopping. Facts are boring. What-ifs,
especially scary nuclear what-ifs, are far more exciting.

The facts are that loss of coolant flow to four reactors means they
have cracked and or damaged rods inside, but thats OK because they are
staying cool enough and contained enough to finally be OK to dispose of

Not quite. One of the reactors was fuelled with MOX, and I hope the
cooling pond with that fuel isn't the one that caught fire. One of
reactors 1 to 4 was shut down last December and the fuel is all in the
cooling pond. An uncooled pond may be more dangerous than an uncooled
reactor, since the latter is at least contained, even if it melts down
because the fuel will be collected under the primary containment where
there is a pile of boron to moderate it. The only moderation in a
cooling pond is water (without any salt in it !).
one torus has probably blown, and thats NOT so good, because fuel rod
material has leaked out.

some tanks cracked and all tanks lost water, which is a bit of an
issue, but now they ore or less have the water back in, those are
stable.

The pull back zone is consistent with what has happened, and a lot
extra for safety. Further pull back is really a question of whether
something else could in theory still happen that was a bit worse. The
japs dont think it can, the IAEA think it's possible.



--
AD

Andrew wrote:
In message , "dennis@home"
writes


"Bolted" wrote in message
...

The reactors shut down properly immediately the primary shockwaves
from the earthquake was
detected.

Properly? Doesn't seem to be working that properly now, unless you
really shut your eyes and ears and mind at tsunami +x hours (where x
varies by reactor).

They shut down, they would have gone critical a few minutes after the
tsunami if they had not.
The loss of cooling is the problem, it boils all the water out because
the decay side of things will be generating a couple of megawatts of
heat for weeks after shutdown.
Without cooling, the core melts, becomes compact enough to become
critical and the whole thing goes Chernobyl.
What they need to do now is hang onto the short half life stuff for as
long as possible to keep it away from people.
This is proving difficult as they are just pumping water through the
reactors and have run out of room to store it.
Normally they reuse the stuff so don't have storage problems.


Cooling is indeed the problem. One of the reactors (#4 I believe) had
had all its fuel removed for maintenance. All these fuel rods were in
the cooling ponds which seem to be right next to the containment vessel
and have boiled dry, due to the additional cooling required. In fact if
they are open-topped, the tsunami may have allowed salt water in which,
AFAIK reacts with the zirconium shields around the uranium and generates
hydrogen. The hydrogen explosions may also have cracked the cooling
ponds - they're keeping quiet about this.


no, the zirconium is quite capable of reacting with steam wirthout the
salt: that just makes it a bi easier that's all.


One of the reactors was burning mixed Plutonium/Uranium. I should think
the cooling pond full of that stuff is of most concern to them.



All reactors produce a certain amount of plutonium anyway. so its merely
a question of degrees.

On Mar 28, 12:45*pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
If you had been following this thread, you
would also have realised that the amounts of radiation released are not
really significant. Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is
there was no nuclear accident.

NSC is considering upping to INES 7 reportedly.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/84721.html

On Apr 11, 9:26*pm, Bolted wrote:
On Mar 28, 12:45*pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
If you had been following this thread, you
would also have realised that the amounts of radiation released are not
really significant. Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is
there was no nuclear accident.

NSC is considering upping to INES 7 reportedly.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/84721.html

Done, apparently. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_05.html

On 4/6/2011 1:32 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Tim Streater wrote:
In article
,
Bolted wrote:

On Mar 28, 12:45�pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is there was no
nuclear accident.

Out of interest is that still your view? No nuclear accident at all,
not even a little one?

What counts is whether there were any killed or injured, and whether
there is any long term damage to the environment. And that is true for
any industrial accident.

What counts is whether the renewables lobby can keep the hysteria up
long enough for the glaring shortcomings in their agenda to be hidden
long enough to bang in a few thousand more useless white elephants on
cast iron subsidy contracts.

You are not being very objective, in fact your emotional involvement
with your own agenda is clouding your judgment. This is a very serious
accident, and the full scope of it is not yet clear. Nobody can say at
this point what the human health consequences will be, in terms of
increased cancer rates, but tens to hundreds of thousands of people's
lives have been severely disrupted (on top of the tsunami impact), and
decommissioning the plant will be enormously expensive.

On 4/6/2011 10:10 AM, Bolted wrote:

How do they compare? Very cursory search says 7mSv/year for
Cornwall. The released levels are levels way beyond 7mSv per hour in
places outside the evac zone.

I don't think it's clear how many people will be affected and in what
way or for how long. But pretending there isn't a nuclear accident in
progress just seems bizarre to me. I'm quite pro-nuke and I don't
think it helps the cause. I think it would be better to be honest and
upfront, and deal with it. It's a very old plant, built to superceded
standards many decades ago, with no real containment over the SFPs
unlike even the later BWRs. And near to a very active fault line
where (perhaps with the benefit of hindsight) they underestimated both
the quake and tsunami risks. That's something which can be dealt with
for future plants by being less complacent rather than more
complacent. It's pretty clear that slack regulation allowed them not
to harden the vent stacks despite that being a required update in the
US. It's clear they were very slack about inventory in the SFPs.

There will be all sorts of lessons learned from this accident which
will progress the cause and the safety of nuclear power. Pretending
it isn't even an accident is an industry trope which will only
increase rather than decrease trust.

I second all your remarks.

Gib Bogle wrote:
On 4/6/2011 1:32 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Tim Streater wrote:
In article
,
Bolted wrote:

On Mar 28, 12:45�pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is there was no
nuclear accident.

Out of interest is that still your view? No nuclear accident at all,
not even a little one?

What counts is whether there were any killed or injured, and whether
there is any long term damage to the environment. And that is true for
any industrial accident.

What counts is whether the renewables lobby can keep the hysteria up
long enough for the glaring shortcomings in their agenda to be hidden
long enough to bang in a few thousand more useless white elephants on
cast iron subsidy contracts.

You are not being very objective, in fact your emotional involvement
with your own agenda is clouding your judgment. This is a very serious
accident, and the full scope of it is not yet clear. Nobody can say at
this point what the human health consequences will be, in terms of
increased cancer rates, but tens to hundreds of thousands of people's
lives have been severely disrupted (on top of the tsunami impact), and
decommissioning the plant will be enormously expensive.

You are talking bull****.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...free_of_facts/

On 4/12/2011 7:58 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Gib Bogle wrote:
On 4/6/2011 1:32 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Tim Streater wrote:
In article
,
Bolted wrote:

On Mar 28, 12:45�pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is there was no
nuclear accident.

Out of interest is that still your view? No nuclear accident at all,
not even a little one?

What counts is whether there were any killed or injured, and whether
there is any long term damage to the environment. And that is true for
any industrial accident.

What counts is whether the renewables lobby can keep the hysteria up
long enough for the glaring shortcomings in their agenda to be hidden
long enough to bang in a few thousand more useless white elephants on
cast iron subsidy contracts.

You are not being very objective, in fact your emotional involvement
with your own agenda is clouding your judgment. This is a very serious
accident, and the full scope of it is not yet clear. Nobody can say at
this point what the human health consequences will be, in terms of
increased cancer rates, but tens to hundreds of thousands of people's
lives have been severely disrupted (on top of the tsunami impact), and
decommissioning the plant will be enormously expensive.

You are talking bull****.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...free_of_facts/


An accident scale ranking of seven is not serious to you? I think you
are not serious. I have observed that there is a flight from the facts
on both sides of this issue, which illustrates yet again that most
people tend to believe what they want to believe.

On 4/7/2011 1:57 AM, Bolted wrote:
Doesn't that say Bq per cubic metre?

No, it says Bq per cm2

cm2 of what? cm2 isn't a useful measure AFAICS.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

cm2 is a perfectly useful measure of area, but as Tim has pointed out
that was a typo for cm3, which is a useful, if odd, measure of
volume. They had been reporting values per litre but obviously wanted
to take the numbers down an order of magnitude so used cm3 instead.

That looks like three orders of magnitude to me.

Gib Bogle wrote:
On 4/12/2011 7:58 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Gib Bogle wrote:
On 4/6/2011 1:32 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Tim Streater wrote:
In article
,
Bolted wrote:

On Mar 28, 12:45�pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere
wrote:
Of course the plant is wrecked, but the point is there was no
nuclear accident.

Out of interest is that still your view? No nuclear accident at all,
not even a little one?

What counts is whether there were any killed or injured, and whether
there is any long term damage to the environment. And that is true for
any industrial accident.

What counts is whether the renewables lobby can keep the hysteria up
long enough for the glaring shortcomings in their agenda to be hidden
long enough to bang in a few thousand more useless white elephants on
cast iron subsidy contracts.

You are not being very objective, in fact your emotional involvement
with your own agenda is clouding your judgment. This is a very serious
accident, and the full scope of it is not yet clear. Nobody can say at
this point what the human health consequences will be, in terms of
increased cancer rates, but tens to hundreds of thousands of people's
lives have been severely disrupted (on top of the tsunami impact), and
decommissioning the plant will be enormously expensive.

You are talking bull****.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...free_of_facts/



An accident scale ranking of seven is not serious to you?

It isnt a 7 class event.

Just saying it is, doesn't make it so.

Go back to your day job selling ind turbines.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...


It isnt a 7 class event.

Just saying it is, doesn't make it so.

That's going to be a problem then as the experts say it is.
Now if we can't trust the experts then we may as well make it up and panic
or not.

Its a seven with large amounts of radiation released, but in a small area
ATM.
Chernobyl release about 10 times as much over a large area.
Which is worst depends on where you are.
I would be careful about what sea food I ate if I were in Japan.

dennis@home wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...


It isnt a 7 class event.

Just saying it is, doesn't make it so.

That's going to be a problem then as the experts say it is.

The real experts don't actually.

Now if we can't trust the experts then we may as well make it up and
panic or not.


well that is what these so called experts want you to think.


Its a seven with large amounts of radiation released, but in a small
area ATM.

Very small amounts released, but in a small area. which makes the
readings look worse then they actually are.

Chernobyl release about 10 times as much over a large area.

Try 10,000

Which is worst depends on where you are.
I would be careful about what sea food I ate if I were in Japan.

I wouldn't.

You are not being very objective, in fact your emotional involvement
with your own agenda is clouding your judgment. This is a very serious
accident, and the full scope of it is not yet clear. Nobody can say at
this point what the human health consequences will be, in terms of
increased cancer rates, but tens to hundreds of thousands of people's
lives have been severely disrupted (on top of the tsunami impact), and
decommissioning the plant will be enormously expensive.

You are talking bull****.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...free_of_facts/


I am with you on this one.

Latest Register/Lewis Page article he

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/12/fukushima_ffs/

Unfortunately the facts typically get distorted when observed through
the lens of a politician or most journalists.


D

On Apr 12, 12:58*pm, Tim Streater wrote:
I'd call this a relatively meaningless scale. It does *not* equate to
Chernobyl, where the actual core suffered a mini-fission explosion and
the graphite moderator was on fire, thus ensuring a plume of radioactive
smoke that spread everywhere.

It's very insensitive, it could do with a decimal point or something.

Most of the so-called "level 7" radioactive material is in the cooling
water and is, therefore, contained.

Careful, the NISA and NSC statistics specifically relate to radiation
"released to the air".

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/f...20110412-4.pdf

Another cunning bit of news management.

On 4/12/2011 11:58 PM, Tim Streater wrote:
An accident scale ranking of seven is not serious to you?

I'd call this a relatively meaningless scale. It does *not* equate to
Chernobyl, where the actual core suffered a mini-fission explosion and
the graphite moderator was on fire, thus ensuring a plume of radioactive
smoke that spread everywhere.

Most of the so-called "level 7" radioactive material is in the cooling
water and is, therefore, contained. The low-level stuff that was
released into the sea is going to be diluted, eventually, by the more
than 300,000,000 cubic miles of seawater in the earth's oceans. Which is
already radioactive to some degree, by the way, and always has been.

You appear to be saying "Oh! Level 7! Chernobyl was Level 7!" and then
wetting yourself.


If I appear to you to be saying something totally different from what I
said, then you appear to me to be delusional. Look carefully, I did not
mention Chernobyl. I did mention the number seven.

On 4/12/2011 9:19 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

An accident scale ranking of seven is not serious to you?

It isnt a 7 class event.

Just saying it is, doesn't make it so.

Go back to your day job selling ind turbines.

You are hearing voices. You have no idea what my day job is, but I can
assure you it has no connection with wind turbines. You are in the
state of denial that you ascribe to your perceived foes (a foe being
anyone who points out your lack of objectivity). Ironically, I was at a
gathering a couple of days ago, with some people symmetrically opposite
to you, who claimed, on the basis of my statement that this was not in
the same league as Chernobyl, that I "love nuclear power". They didn't
like the idea of balance either.

On 4/7/2011 6:46 AM, Bolted wrote:

As I've said before, the precise definition of accident in this context
is a bit irrelevant. What counts is what I said befo

1) Number of people killed
2) number injured
3) long term damage if any to the environment

just as in any industrial accident. Of course, there is a lobby that
would love to call this a major disaster when it isn't. Chernobyl was.
TMI wasn't.

I'd agree with all of that.

So would I.

In message
,
Bolted writes
On Apr 12, 12:58*pm, Tim Streater wrote:
I'd call this a relatively meaningless scale. It does *not* equate to
Chernobyl, where the actual core suffered a mini-fission explosion and
the graphite moderator was on fire, thus ensuring a plume of radioactive
smoke that spread everywhere.

It's very insensitive, it could do with a decimal point or something.

Most of the so-called "level 7" radioactive material is in the cooling
water and is, therefore, contained.

Careful, the NISA and NSC statistics specifically relate to radiation
"released to the air".

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/f...20110412-4.pdf

Another cunning bit of news management.
According to latest pronouncements it apparently is as bad as Chernobyl.
--
hugh
"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, Or who said it, Even if
I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own
common sense." Buddha