Tepco to conduct fuel removal test at reactor 4

[agent46]

Source: The Japan Times

...The test was requested by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The government-affiliated agency called for an initial test that would include transporting a protective fuel cask from the No. 4 storage pool to another pool in a different building about 100 meters away, to provide more stable conditions for cooling spent fuel, the sources said.

The agency has already inspected the equipment to be used in the operation on behalf of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. It has also urged Tepco to have its work evaluated by a group of Japanese and overseas experts formed by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, a Tokyo-based organization founded by Japanese government agencies, nuclear facility manufacturers and electric power companies....

...The building housing the No. 4 reactor and the storage pool, however, was hit by fires and a hydrogen explosion after the station lost power, disrupting the pool’s cooling system. More than 1,300 spent fuel assemblies and more than 200 fresh ones, including some containing plutonium-infused mixed-oxide fuel, remain in the pool.


Read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/04/national/tepco-to-conduct-fuel-removal-test-at-reactor-4/#.UnkGMr7TlhG

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Time to cross our fingers.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. A step to do something is positive....

In a soul shuddering fear of impending doom sort of way.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. What an incredible pain in the ass to clean up.

Wishing them luck

[Daemonaquila]

3. They were going to just do it, no test.

TEPCO scares the crap out of me. They were going to start the process on 11/8 without running any tests first. The process isn't even the standard process, since there's too much damage. There are a multitude of concerns about the building being able to support the massive cask during loading, broken assemblies erupting into a nuclear fire, etc. I can't think of any reasonable engineer who wouldn't say "Hey, let's run a few tests before we commit and can't put that genie back in the bottle." But not TEPCO, oh no...

[Katashi_itto]

4. 1300 RODS, TAKEN MANUALLY OUT OF A SMASHED STRUCTURE

normally handled by computer in a perfect operating pool.....

This is considered the most complex engineering feat ever attempted.

Do not hold your breath it will go well.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Bit of hyperbole there...

"most complex engineering feat ever attempted"

Pretty sure the Mars Rover landing was a tad more complex.

[Katashi_itto]

6. When it goes south remember you said that.

Several experts have already stated as much. Your statement is that of a denying deer in the headlights.

Moreover:
The problems and dangers

One nuclear fallout expert, Christina Consolo, spoke to RT News to answer the outlet’s questions regarding the situation in Fukushima. She detailed a list of potential problems authorities might encounter when they attempt to move the spent rods. Those potentially catastrophic hurdles include (from RT News):

The racks inside the pool that contain this fuel were damaged by the explosion in the early days of the accident.
Zirconium cladding which encased the rods burned when water levels dropped, but to what extent the rods have been damaged is not known, and probably won’t be until removal is attempted.
Saltwater cooling has caused corrosion of the pool walls, and probably the fuel rods and racks.
The building is sinking.
The cranes that normally lift the fuel were destroyed.
Computer-guided removal will not be possible; everything will have to be done manually.
TEPCO cannot attempt this process without humans, which will manage this enormous task while being bombarded with radiation during the extraction and casking.
The process of removing each rod will have to be repeated over 1,300 times without incident.
Moving damaged nuclear fuel under such complex conditions could result in a criticality if the rods come into close proximity to one another, which would then set off a chain reaction that cannot be stopped.
What is most likely to go wrong?

When asked what the biggest potential dangers are in removing the damaged spent fuel rods, Christina Consolo replied, “The most serious complication would be anything that leads to a nuclear chain reaction. And as outlined above, there are many different ways this could occur. In a fuel pool containing damaged rods and racks, it could potentially start up on its own at anytime. TEPCO has been incredibly lucky that this hasn’t happened so far.”

She also expressed concern for the human workers that will have to submerse themselves into a highly radioactive environment and then perform extremely precise movements. Not only might their senses and thinking be affected, but their protective gear will make the entire operation somewhat clumsy.

“My second biggest concern would be the physical and mental fitness of the workers that will be in such close proximity to exposed fuel during this extraction process,” Consolo told RT News, “They will be the ones guiding this operation and will need to be in the highest state of alertness to have any chance at all of executing this plan manually and successfully. Many of their senses, most importantly eyesight, will be hindered by the apparatus that will need to be worn during their exposure to prevent immediate death from lifting compromised fuel rods out of the pool.” http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q32013/japanese-gamble-armageddon-in-last-ditch-fukushima-effort/

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Experts love headlines.

I'm not saying it's low risk, it's INCREDIBLY high risk, just not nearly as complex as, for instance, putting that rover on mars on 100% automation.

Plow the rover into the surface of mars, nobody dies. Fuck this fuel rod removal up, and people can potentially die. The critical nature of the procedure doesn't make it a more complex engineering feat.

[Katashi_itto]

8. Whatever you say.

As a former nuke ET. I bow to your obviously superior ability to compare the two.

Everything in the mars probe was handled by computer.

This is all manual.

All of it.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Which actually simplifies the engineering quite a bit.

No need to be upset. I am not minimizing the risks. Just calling out the absurd headline/commentary.

Building the reactor complex itself was a larger engineering feat than this fuel extraction.

Edit: Comparing slightly more like-for-like the removal of the destroyed core at 3 Mile Island was a pretty complex engineering feat as well.

[Katashi_itto]

10. Ok i agree we disagree

[RobertEarl]

16. Thanks, Katashi_itto

The person you are replying to is someone who used to argue that all the reactors were contained. So... for whatever reason they have, they have been in error or denial all along.

I will say that the dif between this and the Mars efforts, are that they could put their hands on the rovers. In this Fukushima case, there is NO hands on. It will all be done remote.

Fuel pool #4 has about 20 feet of water shielding people from the rods, so standing above is not too bad. But when those rods come up from the depths the radiation may be very deadly and very hot, depending on the condition of the rods.

I have read they have a plan to sink a tube into the bottom of the pool and insert the rods into that tube. Then lift that tube - now full of water and rods - and transfer that tube over to another pool that is on the ground where it will be much safer.

The pool in question is at least 50 feet above the ground which is alarming because if it falls over....... no shielding, no containment, no nothing that could be done but suicide missions or run 200 miles away.

I wish the operators a great amount of success. But I have my doubts they can pull this off, considering they are the ones responsible for this mess to start with.

[Katashi_itto]

19. THANKS!

[AtheistCrusader]

22. Don't misrepresent what I said.

I said the cores were inside the containment. In response to hyperbolic bullshit about the cores melting down through the foundation into the earth.

The containments are clearly leaking, but the vast bulk of the core material has gone nowhere. Particularly contrasted with Chernobyl, in which case a large amount of the mass of the core was launched into the atmosphere from a containment-less reactor design.

Misrepresentation is a form of lie.

[RobertEarl]

28. You are wrong

Tepco can't even tell you where their own cores are. So you are just blowing it out your ass.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Actually, they have. You may have missed it.

[RobertEarl]

31. I read about it all the time

You have a link that says they know where their own cores are?

Go to enenews.com, right there on front page is article by a scientist who says no one knows where the cores are. But they know little by little the cores are entering the pacific.

You say in containment, but then say containment has leaks. Leaking means not contained. Real simple. If it was contained it would not be leaking. Containment has failed, is failed.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Call me a pedant but

"Tepco can't even tell you where their own cores are."

TEPCO can and does, and has, and has revised it as well. (Initially they claimed 65cm into the drywell floor, later revised to 70cm on Reactor 1)

That the containments are leaking radioactive material does not imply the cores themselves have escaped the containment, certainly not in the sense that was originally being discussed in that thread, which claimed the cores had burrowed down out of the building.

The cores have certainly escaped the RPV's, and the containments are leaking water that is bearing radioactive material. I never argued with that.

[Kelvin Mace]

12. You have a point

but the consequences of botching the Mars project not the same as the consequences of that structure falling apart while they try to remove radioactive fuel rods from that tangled structural mess.

I am not as alarmist as some about the possible dire scenarios if things go wrong, but I do not understand why TEPCO is still trusted to handle this.

[BlueToTheBone]

17. except that the Mars Rover won't

possibly destroy the entire Pacific Ocean...and aren't all the oceans connected?

[AtheistCrusader]

18. Keep reading downthread. The specification I responded to was not 'Most Dangerous Engineering Feat'.

It was 'most complex', which is utterly untrue.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Risk compounds complexity, just as walking on a straight line laid on a floor is inherently simpler

than walking on one 40 ft above ground.

Mental aspects and emotions come more in to play with increased risk thus adding to the potential for mistake.

[AtheistCrusader]

21. That doesn't increase complexity.

In this case, they are substituting human operators for engineering complexity. The engineering in play here is actually fairly simple.

Walking on a line 40 feet above ground is not more complex from an engineering standpoint. The consequences of failure, are steeper, only.

[Uncle Joe]

23. The steeper consequences make it more complex.

The keyword in human operators is "human" and extreme stress or emotion diminishes mental acuity.

Diminished mental accuity increases the chance of error or accident.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. No, it does not make it a more complex feat of engineering.

Recall the original claim:

"This is considered the most complex engineering feat ever attempted."

That is bullshit.
com·plex [adj., v. kuhm-pleks, kom-pleks; n. kom-pleks] Show IPA
adjective
1. composed of many interconnected parts; compound; composite: a complex highway system.
2. characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc.: complex machinery.
3. so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with: a complex problem.
4. Grammar .
a. (of a word) consisting of two parts, at least one of which is a bound form, as childish, which consists of the word child and the bound form -ish.
b. complex sentence.
5. Mathematics . pertaining to or using complex numbers: complex methods; complex vector space.

If you substituted 'dangerous' for 'complex' the statement might be valid. The reactor design itself is a more complex 'engineering feat' than the plans to remove the fuel from this pool.

[Uncle Joe]

25. You skipped over psychology

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complex?s=t

Psychology . a system of interrelated, emotion-charged ideas, feelings, memories, and impulses that is usually repressed and that gives rise to abnormal or pathological behavior.

(snip)

6. psychoanal a group of emotional ideas or impulses that have been banished from the conscious mind but that continue to influence a person's behaviour.

(snip)

usage Complex is sometimes wrongly used where complicated is meant. Complex is properly used to say only that something consists of several parts. It should not be used to say that, because something consists of many parts, it is difficult to understand or analyse

Furthermore the reactor design is more "complicated" but removing the fuel in the manner they are is more complex because of the inherent danger and human emotion involved in undertaking the endeavor.

[AtheistCrusader]

26. FEAT OF ENGINEERING.

Good fuckin' grief. It is PLAIN ENGLISH.

Clearing that pool is not more complex than the effort to build the entire complex in the first place. Psychologically or otherwise.

"Feat of engineering" doesn't even encompass operator error. It's all front-loaded shit that happens before day one of the plan going into action.

[Uncle Joe]

27. How long did they take to plan, get approval and build that plant?

Psychological stress was minimized by those steps taken, the cleanup doesn't have that kind of "front loading" nor time.

As you stated in your above post, the cleanup is also manual.

In this case, they are substituting human operators for engineering complexity. The engineering in play here is actually fairly simple.

They don't know what they will find until they get in to it.

"Feats of engineering" don't just include the technical aspects but human ones as well which gives meat to the bones.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. Every example you offer shows what they are doing is not complex/comprehensive engineering.

More complex engineering actually reduces, not increases, the need for human operators. From an engineering standpoint, the computer-operated gantry loading system that was originally built for that pool, before it was blown to shit, is incredibly complex.

The OPERATION of the substitute recovery system is incredibly complex. It is not an incredibly complex feat of engineering.

To get back to the reactor design, you not only have to take into account the nuts and bolts design of the reactor, but engineering considerations for seismic events, for materials fatigue and corrosion over time, iterative revisions to previous reactor designs, etc.

The recovery system for the fuel rods doesn't even approach the reactor itself in engineering complexity. Rushing it, the high stakes involved, etc, do not increase the engineering complexity of the system. It increases the risk to the operators, the risk to successful completion of the project, an the rest of the world. That is an entirely different matter.

I didn't intend to build a giant thread fork off what amounts to a grammar Nazi critique of the use of a single word, where 'dangerous' would have sufficed, but there it is.

[Uncle Joe]

33. The difference between our opinion is that you take a very narrow view of the word "complex"

while I take in to account the psychological ramifications in the use of the word and the actions undertaken.

The cleanup is definitely the most dangerous aspect on that we agree and it's being performed by humans, we agree on that as well.

I'm about burnt on this discussion as well, so this will be my last post on the subject.

Peace to you and have a good night, AtheistCrusader.

[RobertEarl]

34. AC doesn't even get 'contained'

The complexity of this removal of fuel rods is due to they
'DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN'.
That makes it as complex as can be.

AC, as a nuke supporter always tries to make the least of this complex problem. He's done it again here. I doubt he's fooled anyone but itself.

[AtheistCrusader]

35. You still willfully misconstrue the use of 'containment' I was objecting to.

If you can show most or all of the cores have escaped the containment of Fukushima Dai-ichi units 1-3, by all means.

All we are seeing is leaked contamination. Which actually underscores the threat. This is a clear delineation between Fukushima and Chernobyl, and highlights how very much WORSE Fukushima could be. x3

Also, I am no longer a nuke supporter, though that was accurate prior to the 3 meltdowns at that site, which I believed was functionally impossible at the time.

[RobertEarl]

36. Let me tell you something

Tepco dropped a camera into one of their 'containment' structures.

They were surprised. They had been dumping water in there and the level they found was way lower than what the geniuses thought it should be.

And what did the picture show them? Nice placid water with whisps of steam. No, no boiling water over a hot core, just whisps of steam.

Know what that told them? The cores were not in containment.

No, AC, you are the one willfully misconstruing the use of the word.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Placid my ass.

It looks like a fucking monsoon in there.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/nuclear-aftershocks/video-inside-the-fukushima-reactor/

Feel free to quit making shit up any time now.

[RobertEarl]

38. Monsoon

Versus a tornado. Or hurricane. Do you get it yet?

You know they use those reactors to create thousands of pounds of steam pressure, right? And there was no real pressure, and no boiling, just a bit of monsoon, like India gets above ground. Give it up, AC, become a nuclear atheist when it comes to nukes and this screwup. Quit believing they can handle this. Its already been two years and seven months and they are losers.

But your faith is kinda funny given your moniker. You are like a fundy nuker.

Hey, new term!! Fundy Nuker; nuclear bible beaters all gather at the nukler church now! And sing the hymns at the nucliar altar! No problems, people, keep the faith, nukes will save us, our nuke messiah will come back any day now! And rule the world! Just you watch.

Puke.......

[AtheistCrusader]

39. I don't believe they can handle it.

I have since called for the shutdown of most/all non-medical reactors, and abandonment of the AP1000 design, which was the great white hope of the industry.

I don't know where you get all this shit you presume to know about me.

The reactor core is not critical. It is only generating decay heat. The isotopes it is producing prove that. Your expectation of the conditions inside the containment reveal how little you know about the subject. If it were in the state you seem to be expecting, that would actually be some scary shit, and we would be seeing short lived criticality products. We aren't. You're wrong. And these posts, and this thread will still probably be here for the world to see when they get down to the nitty-gritty of removing the contents of the containments over the next 30 years.

I was wrong about the consequences of the quake, and the integrity of the containments in the wake of the quake, during the meltdown. I owned that. Hope you can own your comments about the current location of the corium, when they actually start scooping that shit out, like we had to do at 3 mile island, only worse, because a bunch of it has escaped the RPV.

[The Stranger]

40. Who gives a motherfuck about the Mars rover?

This is just a tad bit more pressing here on our own planet.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. A test is something you do in relative safety

this is not a test, it is the real thing, with real consequences if it goes wrong.

[flamingdem]

13. TEPCO has zero credibility

This should be an international effort. Too much at stake.

Pray for Japan, really.

[The Stranger]

41. Japan?

Try praying for the Pacific Ocean and every species that lives there, not to mention any land it touches, including California.

[fredamae]

14. I heard one report

that these rods are very, very fragile with a very high risk of shattering while being moved and there are apparently Many to move...
I'm worried.

[AAO]

15. They won't even tell you went they'll begin this - too many eyeballs watching...