Thermal image of fires in reactor No.3 - new image posted of 4 reactors

[flamingdem]

Photo taken Monday morning in Japan


Störfall
Foto: dpa/DPA Eine Wärmebildaufnahme zeigt die Situation am Block 3 des AKW Fukushima 1

Zwischenzeitlich wurden deshalb auch alle verbliebenen Arbeiter am Unglücksreaktor abgezogen. Die radioaktive Belastung auf dem Gelände habe sich aber „kaum erhöht“, sagte Regierungssprecher Yukio Edano später im staatlichen Fernsehen. „Der Rauch muss nicht zwingend von dem Abklingbecken ausgehen, in dem Reaktor sind noch weitere brennbare Materialen“, sagte Edano.

Nachdem sich der Qualm über Reaktor 3 lichtete, stieg auch aus Reaktor 2 Rauch auf. Auch hier war die Ursache zunächst unklar. Behördenvertreter sagten jedoch, es sei unwahrscheinlich, dass der Qualm mit den Bemühungen in Zusammenhang steht, die Stromversorgung der Reaktoren wieder in Gang zu bekommen.

Translate this link for info:
http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/weltgeschehen/article12909886/Wie-schlimm-steht-es-wirklich-um-Fukushima.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. Hadn't seen a heat spectrum picture yet- thank you very much!

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. 128 is above boiling for reference

[flamingdem]

3. Ouch. But the smoke was/is gray/black, not steam

so many mysteries. I wonder what the pool, if there is a pool of water in the spent fuel area still, contains. Probably some level of radiation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I don't know

But I do know centigrade.

0=32

100= 212

[Statistical]

5. Well it depends on the pressure.

If The 128 hotspot is the fuel pond it would be beyond boiling. However A BWR reactor is pressurized to 75 atmospheres of pressure. Boiling point of water @ 75 ATM is 280 deg Celsius.

[flamingdem]

6. What do you mean by 75 ATM is 280 Celsius, what is ATM? nt

[FBaggins]

7. "atmospheres"

It's pretty unlikely, however, that we're seeing anything that's above one atmosphere.

[Turbineguy]

45. My trusty book on Steam Tables

shows that the saturated steam pressure at 128 deg C is 2.5434 bar or 38 psig.

[Statistical]

8. atm = atmospheres of pressure.

Water boils at 100 deg (technically 99.7) Celsius @ 1 atmosphere of pressure (sea level normal air pressure). You can't specify the boiling pont of a fluid without also specifying the pressure. For common usage most humans live at around 1 atm of pressure thus you can assume water boils at 100 deg.

However the core of a reactor is pressurized. The pressure inside a BWR is 75 atmospheres (75x sea level air pressure or 1100 psi). As pressure rises so does the boiling point of a fluid. At 75 atm water boils at 280 deg not 100 deg Celsius.

A side note this is why water doesn't boil in a PWR (pressurized water reactor) despite the core having the same thermal output as a BWR. The water is pressurized to 150 atmospheres of pressure putting the boiling point of water to over 350 degrees.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. 1 ATM = the pressure of the column of air at sea level

Since I cannot see ignored, the boiling point will rise if you have a higher atmosphering pressure. They have observed upwards of two and a half atmospheres, which compress the air and water making it harder to boil.

It is called Boyle's law, and I just simplified it quite a bit.

Oh and no, from what I have seen they have not observed anything higher than 2.5 ATM. 75 ATM would be way higher than where Chernobyl failed.

[Statistical]

10. 75 atm is the normal operating pressure of a BWR. 150 atm is normal operating pressure of a PWR.

A reactor shouldn't be operated in excess of those pressures but to say 75 ATM is failure point is silly. Every single minute of everyday BWR are operating at 75 ATM continually for years. It isn't the breaking point it is the pressure they were designed to operate at.

Now they have reduced the pressure at the damaged reactor in Japan to ENCOURAGE boiling. As boiling allows a more controlled release of thermal energy. Too little pressure is actual more of a danger. When pressure is low water boils at lower temp. Boiling means the reactor transfered energy into the water to raise its temp. The higher the temp it can raise it the more thermal energy removed per unit of water. Higher boiling point makes emergency cooling more efficient. However if the pressure gets too high they can't inject new water into the core.

So it is close outlet valves, inject water, allow pressure to build (improving cooling efficiency), when pressure gets too high that pumps can inject more water, then release outlet valves venting steam, close valves and repeat.

Eventually the core will be cool enough that it has no or minimal boiling even at 1 atm. That is cold shutodwn <100 deg & 1 atm of pressure in the core.

[FBaggins]

14. You're both right and wrong.

There's no point in talking about what pressure a BWR operates at since these aren't operating. the 2.5 you saw wasn't within the the core of the reactor, it was probably in the torus.

OTOH, it's also silly to talk about where Chernobyl failed. It was a different type of reactor that wasn't SUPPOSED to operate at those pressures. BWRs do all the time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. By the way I confused the EXTERNAL building where

the 2.6 ATM was reached and the actual reactor, where the ATMs are at 65 or so...

What is 10 ATM among friends?

Internally since water is compressed that highly... the boiling point for water will be much higher than 100 centigrade and right now I am too lazy to solve that equation.

Here you go for it

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/boyle.html

[Statistical]

35. The dangers of ignore. The "problem" was solved 3 hours ago.

:)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

11. thats 128 Celsius? ...awhich is about 500 degrees Fahrenheit?

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. 262.4 F

[wtmusic]

51. 262°F, not hot enough to bake chocolate chip cookies.

Nukes are for wimps.

[flamingdem]

13. More thermal images

comment from zerohedge.com
Note the area indicating 128 oC Celsius. We would assume that is the reactor core area (which refutes the lie). If, instead, that is the spent fuel rod area, then we have some very big problems, even if TEPCO is telling the truth for once.

another comment:
by FranSix
on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 14:55
#1082575

What causes grey smoke in a fire?

"Thin, light-coloured smoke moving lazily out of the building usually indicates a small fire involving ordinary combustibles. Thick, dark grey smoke “pushing” out of a structure, suggests a larger, more intense fire. Afire involving petroleum products will produce large quantities of black, rolling smoke that rises in a vertical column."

by Iam_Silverman
on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 15:04
#1082617

"We would assume that is the reactor core area"

The region shown as being (much) hotter than the surrounding area is consistent with where the fuel pool would be - not the reactor itself. I'm not sure that the labels are correct. It may be that the arrows are not precisely placed. That large white-hot blob is most certainly NOT 62 degrees C.! What concerns me are the four hot areas surrounding what would be the primary containment (drywell). Those look like the "diagonals" (or ECCS equipment rooms) where the two Core Spray and two RHR pump rooms are. That is bad.

other comments and snark here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/thermal-images-fukushima-indicate-blistering-128-degrees-celsius-zone-reactor-3

[Statistical]

15. IT is interesting that #2 is different.

Just evenly warm without hot spots.

Er wait I just made the connections. Isn't #2 the reactor that secondary containment (rector building) is still intact? IF so that would make sense as the heat from pond and reactor is circulated inside the air in secondary containment and evenly warms the entire building.

I wish they have provided a number for that even orange color.

[flamingdem]

16. What do you think of the white areas being out of range

for calculation? They could be any temperature.

[Statistical]

17. Unless it is a consumer grade thermal image the white is simply the hotest point.

Any professional thermal imager will allow a custom range. The actual sensor (very similar to digital camera sensor) has a dynamic range far beyond what you would need to use (say -50 Celsius to 1500 Celsius). So you crop the displayed range by setting the max temp (which shows white) and the min temp (which shows black). The rest of colors are simply points between min and max. Higher quality magers can constantly adjust the dynamic range based on recorded data. So you record everything and it then runs some algorithms to set min & max to provide the most differentiation (detail) between colors bands.

The best analogy to use would be a custom white balance in a digital camera. Except you are calibrating to peak infrared output. It is unlikely that they can't record high temps due to clipping. Recording high temps is easy. It is recording low temps (close to absolute 0) and small temperature changes that is difficult.

Still IF it is indeed clipping (temps beyond max of what is can detect) there would be no way to know what that temp is without knowing the specs of the equipment they are using as any max range would be equipment dependent.

[flamingdem]

18. Yes, no way to know if that is meltdown temperature in the white areas nt

[Statistical]

19. Of course you do unless they intentionally set a wrong range to clip it?

I thought you were talking about can't tell due to equipment limitation.

Are you saying you think we don't know what the white points are because they intentionally clipped the image to remove information?

[flamingdem]

21. No, not intentional, it might indicate > over 100 however nt

[FBaggins]

29. Sure... but when did ">100" equal "meltdown"?

It's pretty late in the cycle for there to be a meltdown. Certainly not in any of the three cores - and there would be lots more than a little smoke if we were talking about the fuel pools.

[flamingdem]

30. Let's just say criticality of the spent fuel rods, most likely to be going on nt

[FBaggins]

31. Most likely?

That's pretty ridiculous.

It's almost impossible for fission to start up in one of those pools and it wouldn't be just hours after they dumped tons of water on it... and the temperature would be MUCH higher than what they've shown... not to mention radiation levels.

[flamingdem]

32. Google it. You'll see the experts disagree, and we don't know the real temperature nt

[FBaggins]

36. They disagree on some details.

But no expert is saying that it's most likely a meltdown... let alone fission restarted.

Believe me, if fission had started in one of those pools... there would be no disagreement possible.

[flamingdem]

37. What if it's happening slowly, what if that is what the gray/black smoke is from

No one knows the answer to that

best to google "re-criticality" I don't see where they say it's a fast process - it can happen in stages

[FBaggins]

38. They don't know the answers to SOME things... they DO know the answer to that.

Fission starting up is an either/or thing.

The concern in the pools is really overheating (FAR higher than a mere 128 degrees) and bursting/burning. That could release LOTS of radiation.

best to google "re-criticality"

About three out of four hits appear to be the same quote from a few days ago saying that the chance of re-criticality is not zero.

And it isn't. But it's awfulyl darn close to zero.

But if it happens, you won't miss it. It won't just be an unexpected wisp of smoke.

[flamingdem]

39. I'm glad, but there was dark smoke billowing from somewhere and they

don't even know the source for that, so while fission is either or melting and burning off radiation might be occurring that will poison the area w/or w/out an explosion.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

40. the guy who is trying to argue with you is a Nuclear Physicist. He has a vested interest.

He will tell you all is well til the end.

[FBaggins]

48. Did I just get a promotion?

I'm not a Nuclear Physicist and don't work anywhere near the industry.

I do love the spin that the only people actually in a position to be experts on the subject are all supposedly part of some grand conspiracy and it's the people who can't seem to understand the basics of the subject who we should really be listening to.

You might make a great apologist for creationism. It's the same argument.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. #3 looks like a big blob of meltdown to me.

[flamingdem]

23. What will happen over the next week, idea?

The water trick looks short term. No doubt it is a lie that the reactors are contained. Look what they have at stake: 34 million who live 50-150 miles from the plant. Food and water supplies. Limited transportation if a panic happens.

They have to have a better solution fast.


-------------------*Read this on zerohedge.com
by jkruffin


They won't be able to keep it cool soon. The hotter it gets, and it will each passing day, the water will begin to have no effect and vaporize on contact, thus compounding the problem.

They should have just built some huge 6 inch thick lead boxes to place over the top of the entire buildings, then bury them all in the sand.

This water trick, is not going to win. They are just trying to put on the show that they are at least trying, so people don't freak out as bad.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

24. oil drills to drill under the cores and fill them with liquid nitrogen to keep it contained ......

so they can get lead under them too

that's what the Russians did with Cherenobyl....that fuckers gonna containate evrything in the ocean too, besides their own soil and drinking water supply

they need to do it NOW!

call Russians for help

[flamingdem]

25. I'm sure the Russians are giving some advice

I hope so but the burying idea keeps getting nixed, at least until they are cooled some more apparently.

The USA sent a radiation team. My guess is that no one wants to go near the plant to help and the Japanese will have to use soldiers on death missions.

In which case they might simply do nothing. They could make is worse afterall.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

28. That's how Russia did it "death missions" ...it is the only way to get it done....

and they better get on it before it is way too late and they contaminate the whole of Japan due to their hesitation
and contaminate the whole of the US too with cesium 137 and iodine falling on our farmlands too.

I don't think most people realize the magnitude of this......people are going to starve because of it...the Pacific fish will be useless as a food source for many years.

Fukushima has 50 to 60 times more spent fuel and reactors then Chernobyl....and geographically it is 100 times worse because of the Pacific Ocean being involved.

Chernobyl was centered in the middle of the continent at least landlocked and far from any ocean or sea currents to carry it around the globe

[Turbineguy]

46. These fires could have been started

by putting electrical power to shorted out equipment. There's enough time to start a fire before the breaker trips due to the short circuit.

[jpak]

49. Holy Cow - No.1 and No. 3 do not look good - especially No. 3

n/t

[ElsewheresDaughter]

22. I don't like the way that looks...like a big melted blob....jesus

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. Residents of Tokyo being told NOT to DRINK TAP WATER....MSNBC

sounds like meltdown has reach down to water table level?....seems like it to me

[flamingdem]

27. That is another increase in danger, earlier they said it posed no danger

to human health.

There must be a major run on bottled water, already in short supply.

[FBaggins]

33. The reported level was 2.9 Becquerel of iodine per kiloliter of water

That's a ridiculously low level... almost undetectable. It's something like 1,000 times lower than the safety limit in Japan (which itself is much lower than the US and European limits).

Who on earth is telling them not to drink it?

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

41. so, no tap water in Tokyo and all is well. Riiiiiight!!!

[FBaggins]

42. Could you by any chance post a link that backs up your BS?

The only source so far claiming that there's "no tap water in Tokyo" is you... and you have a habit of letting your imagination run away.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

43. except for the person who started this subthread. she got it from msnbc.

good enough?

[FBaggins]

47. No... not even close to "good enough"

Think it wouldn't be on MSNBC's site by now? Or somewhere?

I'm supposed to take the word of someone who thinks and IR scan looks like the reactor must be in meltdown because the image is orange? Who thinks that Tokyo's water is contaminated because the core on one of these reactors has burned through all containment and hit the water table... and then presumably traveled all the way to Tokyo? Who thinks that the only option left is to drill under the reactors and flood in liquid nitrogen to stop the core? Who thinks that 128 celcius is the same as 500 farenheit? And that's just this one thread.

No... I think it's far more likely that the poster misunderstood what she was hearing or simply imagined the entire thing.

A number of measured levels have been reported... and not a one of them (except in the ocean right next to the reactors) has been high enough to be a concern.

[flamingdem]

50. 1,600 times higher than normal good enough?

Radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels has been detected in an area about 20 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, International Atomic Energy Agency officials said Monday.

Data collected by an IAEA team show that radiation levels of 161 microsievert per hour have been detected in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, the officials said.

The government has set an exclusion zone covering areas within a 20-km radius of the plant and has urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80057.html
Alert | Hide Thread | Net recommendation: +12 votes (Your vote: +1)

[FBaggins]

56. "Good Enough" for what?

Are we changing the subject from drinking water in Tokyo to whatever you think the most dangerous number you can find is?

Data collected by an IAEA team show that radiation levels of 161 microsievert per hour have been detected in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, the officials said.


Ok. So that's 4 millisieverts per day if you were unprotected (you know... like be being evacuated?). If it stayed at that level (it hasn't) and if it was the same all over that 20km circle (it isn't), you would start to have a dose to worry about after a few weeks.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

54. NO I didn't misunderstand a friggin' thing!...here's your gd link

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/03/radiation-in-tokyo-water-slain-firefighters-honored/#

In Tokyo, investigators have discovered small amounts of radioactive particles in tap water. Radiation has already entered the food chain through milk and other crops from farms located in the Fukushima area. Firefighters who lost their lives responding to the Fukushima plant are being mourned by their colleagues and the nation, and an 80-year-old woman and her grandson have been rescued after nine days trapped in rubble from the tsunami.

Watch this report from ABC’s “Good Morning America”, below:

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23372196

[FBaggins]

55. Of COURSE you misunderstood.

The alternative would be that you were lying. I'm just not going to assume that.

Strangely missing (from your three posts attempting to back up your claim) is anything that says that residents of Tokyo are being told not to drink the water. As I expected... you heard that radiation was detected and you let your imagination run away with you.

Loads of people have much higher levels of radiation in their drinking water, particularly if they're on a well.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

57. get bent!........I heard that said on MSNBC ....I'm done talking to you now...ciao

[FBaggins]

58. What you "heard" and what what actually said are not necessarily the same thing.

Take, for instance, your three posts trying to back up your original claim. You obviously thought that they supported that claim, but they don't. They only say that miniscule levels of radiation have been detected in Tokyo's drinking water, yet you assumed that they supported a claim that the city's water was now undrinkable.

Why on earth woudn't we just assume that you did the same thing yesterday? You heard that there was radiation detected and assumed that must mean that the water was undrinkable.

It's no big deal. So you were wrong, so what? Don't tell me that you actually prefer that you had been right and radiation from the incident was many hundreds of times higher than thought?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

53. here ya go..."Good Moring America" link and video ........is that:good enough?!?

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/03/radiation-in-tokyo-water-slain-firefighters-honored/#

In Tokyo, investigators have discovered small amounts of radioactive particles in tap water. Radiation has already entered the food chain through milk and other crops from farms located in the Fukushima area. Firefighters who lost their lives responding to the Fukushima plant are being mourned by their colleagues and the nation, and an 80-year-old woman and her grandson have been rescued after nine days trapped in rubble from the tsunami.

Watch this report from ABC’s “Good Morning America”, below:

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23372196

[ElsewheresDaughter]

52. here's your link....no I don't have that habbit!

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/03/radiation-in-tokyo-water-slain-firefighters-honored/#

In Tokyo, investigators have discovered small amounts of radioactive particles in tap water. Radiation has already entered the food chain through milk and other crops from farms located in the Fukushima area. Firefighters who lost their lives responding to the Fukushima plant are being mourned by their colleagues and the nation, and an 80-year-old woman and her grandson have been rescued after nine days trapped in rubble from the tsunami.

Watch this report from ABC’s “Good Morning America”, below:

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23372196

[flamingdem]

44. I bet the worst part is bathing, many already drink bottled

except of course the poor who always get hammered.