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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNews about Fukushima
The good news is it hasn't blown all to pieces, yet.
The bad news is that it could with an earthquake. The other day, and about once a week for months now, the Live Camera at Fukushima showed all kinds of foggy emissions coming from the broken and crippled reactors. Link to camera:
http://mfile.akamai.com/127380/live/reflector:52045.asx
At that link you can see the exposed yellow dome reactor in the background right. That is #4 reactor where after explosions and fires the top two floors were removed.
On the floor that the yellow dome is sitting is the fuel pool that rods must be removed from very carefully before the pool collapses. There are many tons of radioactive rods in that pool and they must be kept cool by staying in water.
One reason the building exploded and burned was that the pool did lose a lot of water after 3/11.
To the left of that yellow dome is the remains of #3. Not much has been done there since explosion and fire buckled the roof. I figure the fuel pool was blown up and so do many others. This was the place where they had lots of plutonium and the mess is now so dangerous they are staying away from it. Leaving it be.
Further to the left is #2. Robots were sent in there and never came out it is so radioactive, but the building is intact. It is believed that the core there has melted. Same with the next building #1. It did blow up and now has a 'tent' installed over it and the core in there has also melted and robots go in but never come out.
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UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)
chknltl
(10,558 posts)Should number four dump those rods....
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Makes you wonder if they could come up with a purely mechanical extension to a robot, either hydraulic or control cable driven. Maybe a camera getting a feed through optical fiber. The entire pile could be fused into a single mass. I hate to say it but they may have to consider disintegration,...if you know what I mean....
chemenger
(1,593 posts)themselves so once they're in, they're in to stay.
However, you could be right too.
longship
(40,416 posts)The fissionable products cannot make a nuke bomb by themselves. It takes deliberate processes to enrich to weapons grade, none of which are happening at Fukushima.
So that worry is off the table.
That isn't to say that there are no worries. There are. TEPCO screwed the pooch here. I don't know what they were thinking when they saw those reactors blow up from the fucking inevitable hydrogen concentrations. Shit! I learned this shit in undergrad physics in the 70's!!!!
Although I do not see doomsday at Fukushima, we haven't seen the end of this. However, we may have seen the end of nuclear power. As somebody educated in physics I can simpathize both with pro and con sides.
Modular reactors are safe. We've been launching them into space for decades. We can make them very safe now. There are thorium decay channels which have many fewer problems.
However, the fucking waste problem is a fucking deal killer for pretty much all nuke power. What the fuck do you do with stuff which is 1) not natural on Earth; and 2) is the most exquisitely poisonous substance known to humans? The best thing would be to launch it into the Sun. But who would guarantee that that could be done safely?
I think nuke power is dead. But I still see a glimmer for modular nuke. But just a glimmer.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)As long as our political system of campaign bribery is intact, and they can force their customers and the government to keep paying for them, and they can continue to throw safety to the winds, and extract huge profits, who's to stop them?
We've already got one crippled plant on Florida's Gulf Coast, that will cost (rate-payers) billions to repair, but that's not stopping them from trying to build another one, with a customer surcharge to pay for it up front. We'll continue to pay for it until they announce they won't build it (which they might not do), and they get to keep all the upfront charges.
Never believe that good science and common sense will stand between a hare-brained scheme, a corrupt government, and a campaign contribution.
longship
(40,416 posts)It is not one I addressed, but is nevertheless important in this context.
I worked at Argonne National Laboratory in my senior year in physics on a national grant. There, nuke power was important and much of the research surrounded that philosophy. But many of my fellow research fellows did not see it that way. We asked questions at seminars which were difficult, to say the least.
My work was concentrated on electron states in certain minerals which gave hope for new solar energy sources. It was way out there and I do not think it went anywhere, especially now that nano tech has taken over solar and battery research.
But nuclear power still has one, and I believe it is the only, hope for nukes. That is modular nukes. They are small; they require zero maintenance; they can run reliably for decades with no pollution and easily managed radioactive footprints. They are well tested -- the Voyager spacecraft are still running after decades of no fail power.
It is not a panacea. Solar, wind, tidal, etc. sources are the best long term solutions. But modular nuke may help, too, since it is proven, safe, and ultra reliable.
Now, what the fuck do we do with the waste? What good is powering a community for decades for pennies a kilowatt-hour if you have no way to recycle the damned thing.
That is where my argument breaks down.
localroger
(3,782 posts)RTG's are not reactors, they work by using the natural decay heat of a fissile source to create power via a thermocouple. This is a very, very inefficient way to create power, and is only practical for spacecraft because nuclear fuel is ridiculously energy-dense and for a spacecraft it's better than everything else. There is no way to scale RTG technology up to the output of even the smallest reactor, and they use an enormous emount of nuclear fuel to make a relatively modest (if reliable) source of energy compared to what you could get from an actual reactor.
And yeah, the waste is a deal-killer even if the reactors were safe as it stands.
longship
(40,416 posts)It's been four decades since my physics edumacation. One forgets much. And at my age, one forgets much more.
But you nailed it. RTG's, the things used on the Voyagers, are not modular nuclears. (Damn! I had to look it up! Google rules.)
Modular reactors are not like V-Ger. 
But they are a hellyva lot safer than what we're doing today with nukes. They are stable and can work for a couple of decades without much maintenance.
But, as I wrote, there's still the problem of getting rid of the waste.
That, above all, is what kills nuclear power. All other considerations are secondary.
As a person trained in physics, I wish it wasn't so. But as one trained in physics I know that it is so. No hope for nuke power
The only hope is modular. But without a recycle plan, it is worse than worthless. Better put resources into solar, wind, and other perpetual resources.
Edweird
(8,570 posts)From what I've seen the Earth is inhabitable by humans due to a fluke. Radiation is everywhere. There are even places where fission has occurred spontaneously. The Earth is, as far as I can tell, actually quite inhospitable - we just happened to catch it on a 'good day'. Is radiation good for humans? Of course not - it will kill us. But we humans are the anomaly, not the radiation. Even our Sun, which we depend on for our very existence, is nothing more than an enormous hydrogen bomb. I'm not making a 'pro-nuke' argument. I think we should leave that shit alone. I'm simply addressing your claim that it's 'not natural'.
longship
(40,416 posts)Which nukes generate as part of their innate processes. It is not a natural element on Earth. It is, as I said, the most exquisitely poisonous substance known. And that is ignoring that it is radioactive with a half-life of 24,100 years.
The process goes like this:
U238 + n --> U239 --> Np239 + e-
Np239 --> Pu239 + e-
The half life of Np239 is about 2.4 days, so it fairly quickly transmutes to Plutonium.
This is the waste which is so fucking bad. There is no Plutonium on the Earth except that which is man made. What do you do with this shit? The best thing would be to launch it off the planet. But who wants to take that risk?
Better just not to make the shit in the first place.
Edweird
(8,570 posts)I also agree that the Sun would be the ideal disposal solution.
longship
(40,416 posts)Or, into Jupiter.
Launching into the Sun is much more difficult, believe it not. It takes a great deal more energy. I just mentioned that as a good place for the shit.
But Jupiter would be a good alternative. Unfortunately, we have too fucking much of the shit. Tons and tons and tons of it. With the percentage of launch failures, nobody in their right mind would take the risk. It is a non-starter.
The only alternative is to bury it deep someplace here on Earth. But where? Certainly not at a geologically active region. A salt mine would be good, since there is little or no interference with aquafers.
Regardless of whether we continue nuke power or not, we have to solve this problem. There is already too much shit now and it will just become more of a problem in the future. To postpone it, is madness.
The problem is, that no matter where you want to stash the shit, nobody wants it in their back yard -- so to speak.
Maybe Jupiter is the best idea.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)that the way we got into this mess? One of the rules of nature is that we are all connected in some way. Break that rule and we ask for more trouble not less.
longship
(40,416 posts)I was just making a comment that it's not natural and one way to get rid of it is to get it the fuck off the planet. Nobody would ever seriously recommend it because of the costs and the risk of a rocket blowing up would be worse than anything. Plus, there's just too damned much of the stuff.
We probably should find a deep salt mine somewhere far away from tectonic plate boundaries and bury the shit there. That's probably the safest place on the planet for it.
Unfortunately, no state wants the stuff. We're in a pickle on this issue and nobody in power is discussing solutions because the issue is... radioactive, so to speak.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)all of us as much of the nuke-waste is setting in hospitals waiting to be hauled away. And the world seems to be running out of money to solve these problems.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)to deserve our toxic turds? 
longship
(40,416 posts)I was merely suggesting an alternative to shooting it into the sun, which would be very, very much more difficult.
All hypothetical because it would be crazy to even consider attempting either. But these are suggestions which inevitably come up, which is why I brought up the topic in the first place.
I am afraid we're stuck with the stuff. Although we should get it off the planet, we probably should just find a deep salt mine and put it there.
localroger
(3,782 posts)My favorite idea for geting rid of the waste is to bury it in deep wells drilled into mid-ocean subduction zones, where the natural movement of the Earth's crust will carry it down into the mantle to be melted and dispersed over a geological timescale. But that's a little harder than burying it in Nevada and hoping for the best.
longship
(40,416 posts)It is a great idea.
But technically complex. We could do it, but it would be a huge project. Maybe like Apollo, or bigger. That's a long way to drill down.
I can just see Bruce Willis getting involved. And when things go terribly wrong, Steve Buscemi looks into the camera and says, "Embrace the horror." For some strange reason Ben Affleck does not appear in my vision of this. However, Liv Tyler does.
Interesting, eh?
Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)When the nuclear fuel rods heat up enough (as some of the cores and fuel rods have), if enough material pools together a [link:v|criticality] can take place which is a mini runaway nuclear chain reaction, which (if unchecked) will cause the material to A) produce a neutron burst and B) cause the material itself to explode, usually dispersing itself- but not necessarily ensuring that some level of fission isn't still going on or that, in a molten state, that the material does not eventually pool up again to form another criticality.
None of this is like an atom bomb explosion, more like a conventional explosion.
If you search for "criticality" AND "neutron" on DU alone (esp. the old DU site), you'll find quite a bit of information about this. Multiple neutron bursts from the area indicate brief-lived criticalities which blew themselves up.
PB
flamingdem
(40,944 posts)Goodbye fish from Japan, Alaska and the rest of the West Coast.
The tuna is already showing unacceptable levels of radiation.
longship
(40,416 posts)Iodine isn't. It has a very short half life and you can take iodine -- which the Japanese should be doing -- to limit the uptake of the radioactive version.
But the damned Cesium-137 has a half life of 30 years and metabolizes into bones. That's a huge problem.
I don't know what they're going to do about it, but I would be recommending that they seal those reactors up as fast as they can. I don't see any way to clean them up without killing the workers doing it. Hell! Just sealing them up would likely kill a bunch of workers. Just like at Chernobyl.
Somebody's going to have to make that decision. I am glad it isn't me.
This isn't going to go away. They're going to have to do something eventually. They can't just ignore it.
BTW, the exclusion zone is very likely too small. Just saying.
Poor Japan. They're in a lose-lose scenerio.
I do not know about the radioactivity in tuna and such. Small exposures are not generally harmful. Physicists work in those environments for decades and still live long lives. But radioactive food is worrisome because it's absorbed into your body. I hope somebody is monitoring this, just in case.
Frankly, I don't think there are any easy solutions. It won't be doomsday as some here have suggested. But it's a pretty big problem which isn't going away. Japan undoubtedly knows this. Indecision is understandable and probably does not have a huge downside, in spite of what some say.
But if they take the wrong action, it could have a monumental down side. I would rather they wait and get it right than screw it up and make an even bigger mess. They already have screwed things up bad enough. Best to be cautious at this point. I think.
I may be wrong. But I watch NHK news every afternoon and they haven't said much about a solution even though they talk about Fukushima regularly.
It is scary, though.
malaise
(296,886 posts)is just as frightening
dixiegrrrrl
(60,167 posts)bothers me a great deal.
The broken nuke plants cannot just sit there spewing radiation into the sea and air every day with no letup.
Even without any further damage from earthquakes or typhoons, the accumulated radiation is growing, uncontained.
This is a global problem.
malaise
(296,886 posts)This is a global problem
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)They have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders not to investigate matters that could harm their profits.
They don't want the US involved because that would only make it look more unsafe and lead to speculation that it could happen here further eroding confidence in the industry.
If the whole mess finally boils over and starts dumping in the Pacific? Ah, they've always thought it was an overrated ocean anyway.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Gee, maybe of we ignore it, it'll just go away.
longship
(40,416 posts)We'd be truly fucked!
And don't get me started about Monster Zero.
Andromeda Strain? Fogettaboutit!
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Tax breaks if fallout migrates overseas.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)that Fuku will produce a mushroom cloud, aka a nuclear explosion.
That does not mean things are good ok. But, an explosion, nope, the physics are NOT there.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)When #3 blew the cloud was quite similar to clouds shown from ground based nuke tests. You-tube. And it tore the heck out of the building. A building that is too dangerous to even tear down it is so radioactive. #3, you may recall, had the MOX fuel in it. A fuel that had a measure of plutonium which is highly fissile and is used in nuclear bombs. And the pressure buildup in the reactor core would have simulated a nuke bomb core process to explosion.
As for it now blowing again, the reactors are so damaged there is no pressure container like there was. But there have been clouds rising all the time from the melted fuel rods.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)that is not what we are talking about. We are talking of hiroshima/ Nagasaki
The physics of getting actually a nuclear explosion are simply not there.
The physics of a mushroom cloud are simple, oxygen is sucked in fast, but has nothing to do with a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION, which is what the physics cannot produce on any reactor around the world. What you have though, quite possible, is a dirty bomb, but not a fission bomb. THere is a world of difference.
Sorry for not being much clearer here. There is no way on this god's green earth that you can get a fission bomb, period.
And yes, if you watch a large enough CONVENTIONAL explosion, you will see at times a small, as in very small, mushroom cloud.
Here, as way of comparison
Conventional explosion, mountain top removal.
Nagasaki
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Showing one thing and describing another...
Go look at the pics of #3 blowing up. You tube or google. And did you know that some nuclear science types do think that #3 explosion was nuclear?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)those same types even made the distinction, but you probably did not know that.
Odd, I am actually on your side, but I prefer to be quite exact when it comes to this. And I prefer to deal with facts, which are horrific enough.
For example, if the pool on reactor 4 falls down, we may have (will actually) something that will make a certain russian reactor look like a walk in the park. and a pile reactor to boot due to lack of water and renewal of criticality, and since there is nothing between it and the open air, that will spread the crap at much higher levels and much faster than Chernobyl. That is horrific enough.
And due to that criticality, depending on how fast it goes, you may even have another one of what the scientists have described but not as a fission bomb. They are responsible and they know the difference. You should educate yourself on that as well.
No, I am not going to tell you to go eat your bananas either... and if you have no idea what that is about, running gag from the first week when yes, our pro nuke folks were telling us this was not going to be any worst than eating a banana.
Now the PHYSICS of a mushroom cloud is quite simple and easy to understand, so is the shockwave. All explosiona have the latter as a component by the way.
As to the MSM, I just showed you the difference of what you are implying. It is there.
kentuck
(115,461 posts)Where would be the first place they would cover? Alaska? Oregon? The Rocky Mountains?
Or do they just dissipate? Does anyone know?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)The wind stream takes the crap around the world.
They do dissipate somewhat, time distance is an adage for nuclear dor a reason. But Cesium reached in measurable (very low mind you) in Europe, for example.
CrispyQ
(41,020 posts)I read that some young people are doing that. But eventually it will be everywhere. It's been a lifelong dream of ours to move to the Pacific northwest, but not anymore.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)Let's build more!!
No one talks about Fukushima anymore. Looks like it's for very good reason.
Response to RobertEarl (Original post)
darkangel218 This message was self-deleted by its author.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)That said, border protection tests every piece of cargo comming to the US...they did after Fuku.
But a Geiger counter sgould work, Geiger counters have to be read by somebody in the know.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Cheaper. Measures accumulated exposure. Make sure it is the right type. E. G., you don't want one for X-ray techs (gamma).
On the other hand, I cannot imagine what would be radioactive in your car. That's just not the way things work. Myself, I wouldn't worry. I don't think Cesium is taken up in automotive manufacturing processes. All other products are too heavy to be carried away and iodine half life is very short, so no trouble there.
Relax and enjoy your ride.
indie9197
(509 posts)He need something that measures contamination (counts per minute)
indie9197
(509 posts)Somebody there could survey your car if you are serious about this. Do you know something about the history of your car that makes you think it was near Fukushima ?
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Which is not close to Fukushima plant. However a number of people have said that it might contain radioactive residue which tends to store in upholstery. I would like to have it checked just in case. Maybe Univ. Of Central FL might have one of those radiation detectors? If not I will search the ones you suggested and I will update. Thanx!
PearliePoo2
(7,768 posts)I heard about unscrupulous used car dealers getting the abandoned cars left near the Fukushima plants, cleaning them up and trying to re-sell them. They even scrubbed the VINS and got new ones. The cars still read positive.
It may have been Russia (I'm not sure) that turned away a container ship full of cars because it was setting off their alarms at the Port. Same thing with electronics that were shipped to the Middle East. Turned away.
You may want to do a Google search for more info.
Good luck on your car.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)postulating that it will take decades to develop the technology needed to clean up the Fukushima disaster. Some might shrug their shoulders and observe that decades would be 'too long,' but the 'it's not so bad' crowd needs to remember the half-life of the radioactive waste generated by this catastrophe.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Just recently decided that the problem with the waste is one that they don't know what to do about.
NRC, and the court that reminded them of this problem, surely have taken note of the way Fukushima fuel pools have burned just because they lost coolant for a few hours.
It could happen here in a matter of minutes.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)would surely cover such a life-threatening disaster!
(The lack of coverage and the handful of people who persist in minimizing the extent of this catastrophe are inconceivable to me...)