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Nuclear events taking place in Japan.

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Dr. Drone

Fri Mar 18 2011, 05:20PM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
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Pinky's Brain

Fri Mar 18 2011, 06:02PM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
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Carbon_Rod wrote ...

20-20 Hindsight is ultimately a pointless endeavor.

Not really hindsight, it was already being recognized that that spent fuel pools were weak points before this happened.

Personally I just can't understand how they thought it was a good idea to build a spent fuel storage pool at elevation in an earth quake zone. They will have a hell of a time covering this up with sand and cement ... a hole in the ground would have been a lot easier.

Patrick

Fri Mar 18 2011, 07:29PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
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Chris Russell wrote ...

Dr. Shark wrote ...

...And never mind that the really bad stuff, Iodine and Cesium, are created by neutron radiation so a failing fusion plant would spew out just as much as Fukushima may be doing now.

Sad but true. Fusion (well, most kinds we know lots about) produces neutrons, so fusion reactors gradually become radioactive.

You are right to point out the ignorance/corruption of many people Chris, like the Kennedy family, who demand wind farms until one is put off their coast line, then the licsence and permits are conviently challenged and invalidated in court. No more wind farm. So everyone wants some magic source of electricity with no consequence.

I dont see anywater soluable (other that tritium) compounds that cant be "abandoned in place" for 300-500 years. As I dont see any large volume of Strontium, Calcium, Iodine, Cesium, generation being possible (then global mass release) as we are seeing with fission.

Proud Mary, when all this started--the Castle Bravo test did come to mind. As well as a test reactor, which failed throwing one of the control rods out pinning an air force technician to the ceiling killing him (like a thumb tack), but the name of this case evades my memory at the moment. (oops! ! guess it was an army guy)

EDIT: January 3, 1961. - National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho, USA â€“ Accidental criticality, steam explosion
That's the one I was trying to remember, look up SL-1 reactor. I geuss being able to put your hands on a control rod in order to move it was forbidden in the US after this accident. Power control (hydraulic or electric) only from 61' onward.

Proud Mary

Fri Mar 18 2011, 11:39PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
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The MOX in the one Tepco Fukushima reactor that uses it was supplied to them by British Nuclear Fuels, located at Sellafield, in Cumbria, a huge sprawling site that includes the fiercely radioactive remains of an atomic pile, the seat of the Windscale Fire of 1957, when Wigner energy ignited the air-cooled graphite blocks, and flooded the surrounding countryside with radioiodine.

In 2001, UKAEA was still working out its 'decomissioning strategy' for the atomic pile. "Decommissioning Pile 1 has a high priority. This is because of the condition of the fire damaged zone, and the possibility that the fuel, which is in uncertain condition, could lead to a fire in the event of a disturbance." *

But despite the 'high priority,' and the passage of 44 years since the accident, it was quickly found that there was no known safe way of quenching the molten mass of metal in its concrete sarcophagus, and "Phase 2 Decommissioning" was postponed until 2020. The only measure that was even slightly successful was the changing of the installation name from 'Windscale' to 'Sellafield,' as if this act - this sleazy corporate rebranding - could make the ongoing nature of the disaster fade from conscious mind.

The leukaemia cluster around 'Sellafield' is purely coincidental, because government epidemiologists say it is. That's the nuclear industry all over.

* UKAEAâ€™S DECOMMISSIONING STRATEGY â€“ SEPTEMBER 2001
VOL. 2 PART 5: WINDSCALE SITE STRATEGY

Ash Small

Fri Mar 18 2011, 11:53PM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
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Posts: 4245

I went there ten years ago, PM. I could hear a 'buzzing' in my head, and I had to leave because I felt sick. It was only afterwards that I discovered/realised where I'd been.

Proud Mary

Sat Mar 19 2011, 12:00AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Ash Small wrote ...

I went there ten years ago, PM. I could hear a 'buzzing' in my head, and I had to leave because I felt sick. It was only afterwards that I discovered/realised where I'd been.

My Goodness, Ash! There have been well-attested cases where people living close to high power radars could 'hear' the pulse waveforms in their heads, and a similar case in Cornwall where a man's amalgam dental fillings were found to be demodulating a strong local radar signal.

Patrick

Sat Mar 19 2011, 12:05AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
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That MOX is going to bite back....Hard.

EDIT: wow, that Windscale event Proud Mary, was a serious f*ckup. Consider as bad as it was--it could have been much worse.

haxor5354

Sat Mar 19 2011, 03:40AM

Registered Member #2063 Joined: Sat Apr 04 2009, 03:16PM
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would nuclear fusion power plants in the future ever fail this this?

Patrick

Sat Mar 19 2011, 04:19AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

haxor5354 wrote ...

would nuclear fusion power plants in the future ever fail this this?

I'm going to say no. No fusion plant would fail like a fission plant, maybe some tritium, maybe some radioactive solid structures would need to be abandoned, maybe some workers killed at site. But as for endangering/exposing hundreds of thousands of square miles with Iodine, Cesium, Strontium like Idaho SL-1, Chernobyl, Windscale, and Fukushima. I think the answer is no.

But Im sure others will disagree.

Pinky's Brain

Sat Mar 19 2011, 10:19AM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
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Unless of course you use the fusion to breed fuel for fission, which has been suggested quite frequently. With the amount of private money caught up in fission plants I would even say it's a likely direction research taking if ITER is successful soonish (since politicians can be bought).

I hope solar/thermal becomes economically unbeatable long before that ...

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