THE MEDIA DID NOT HYPE FUKUSHIMA

[PamW]

12. Hydrogen bubble turned out to be a mistake.

Remember the ‘hydrogen bubble’ they were worried about at Three Mile Island?
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There never was a "hydrogen bubble" problem at TMI. That's why the concern went away overnight.
Hydrogen all by itself is NOT explosive. A hydrogen-oxygen mixture IS explosive. You've probably also heard this truism said about gasoline. Gasoline is not explosive, but a gasoline-air mixture is explosive.
In order to have an explosive mixture; you need free oxygen to mix with the fuel.

It was a mistake by someone at the NRC, Roger Mattson, that caused concern about the bubble. Concern went away when Victor Stello demonstrated Mattson's mistake:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/peopleevents/pandeAMEX88.html

On Sunday afternoon, while Carter was still there, Victor Stello found the proof he needed. They discovered that Mattson and his team of consultants had been using the wrong formula to determine the risk posed by the hydrogen bubble. Stello concluded that "hydrogen under pressure will prevent water from breaking apart into hydrogen and oxygen because it will tend to suppress the creation of more hydrogen. Without free oxygen, there can be no explosion."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09088/959200-96.stm

Next, the NRC said a hydrogen bubble inside the TMI reactor might explode. Not true, as it turned out. But an already rattled public waited with growing trepidation as experts, working to stabilize the situation, quit trying to correct media doomsday reports that fueled public panic.

There was no free oxygen inside the TMI coolant loop to create an explosive mixture. TMI did have a stuck open safety valve that let hydrogen out into the containment building where there is oxygen to create an explosive mixture.

In fact, there WAS a hydrogen / oxygen explosion at TMI as there was at Fukushima. However, the TMI containment building completely contained that explosion, whereas the Fukushima building blew apart. It's more of a testimony to the difference in regulations between Japan and the USA.

PamW