Analysis: Seawater helps but Japan nuclear crisis is not over

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/13/us-japan-quake-nuclear-seawater-idUSTRE72C40320110313

(Reuters) - Pumping seawater into troubled nuclear reactors in Japan should keep them from a catastrophic full-scale meltdown, but conditions are still so volatile that it is far too early to declare the emergency over, nuclear experts said.

It is probably the first time in the industry's 57-year history that seawater has been used in this way, a sign of how close Japan is to facing a major nuclear disaster following the massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday, according to the scientists.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) workers on Sunday were pouring seawater into two reactor cores at the coastal Fukushima Daiichi power plant and were considering using seawater on a third. Authorities have been forced to vent radioactive steam into the air to relieve pressure in the plant and reactors at the company's nearby Daini plant are also troubled.

"I am not aware of anyone using seawater to cool a reactor core before. They must be desperate to find water and the seawater was the only thing nearby," said Richard Meserve, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and president of the Carnegie Institution, in an interview on Sunday.

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[AC_Mem]

1. Seawater

Is there a reason that you wouldn't want to use seawater to cool the reactors? I mean, it is right there, it is cool and it is certainly in abundance.

Wouldn't it be interesting if it turns out that the water on our planet is what ends up saving us from a bigger disaster than what the water from our planet created....

annette

[Angry Dragon]

2. It corrodes the reactors and makes them useless

Any reactors they use seawater on they have to shut them down permanently

[eowyn_of_rohan]

5. Well, wouldn't THAT be a shame?

:sarcasm:

[Angry Dragon]

7. But then they have to figure out to seal them off to make them safe

[eowyn_of_rohan]

9. it's always something...

i was hopeful there, for awhile.

[NNadir]

10. Both reactors were already scheduled for shut down, unlike the um, burning refineries.

They are old reactors.

The fact that moral morons are obsessed with these reactors, are cheering in hopes of people dying from them, and care not a whit about the people who died from thousands of other causes, doesn't say anything at all about the reactors, but it does say a lot about selective attention.

[Lucinda]

3. I have been reading that the seawater will render them useless

in the future due to corrosion. If that's the case, it explains why this is a last ditch effort.

[PamW]

6. Seawater is corrosive to metal.

Is there a reason that you wouldn't want to use seawater to cool the reactors?
============

The seawater will do the cooling job. It's just that it is also corrosive to
metal. You don't want to use seawater long term to cool a metal object.

Even the small amount of corrosion from a few days use of seawater cooling
for those reactors probably means they will never run again.

The nuclear regulations are quite strict, and the slightest amount of
corrosive contamination will probably mean the reactors will be written off.

PamW

[AC_Mem]

8. Ah, okay, thank you

I can understand that.

Thanks for the info -

Annette

[madrchsod]

4. every piece of the reactor that the seawater touched is scrap.

then they have to find a way to get rid of the contamination.

japan has a huge problem finding future sources of energy.