Nitrogen injection ups pressure in reactor

[FBaggins]

Fuel rods inside the reactor are nearly half exposed after a loss of cooling water, creating a dangerous buildup of oxygen and hydrogen and fears of another explosion.

The company says that after injecting 413 cubic meters of nitrogen gas until 5 PM on Thursday, the pressure reading inside the vessel was 1.76, up 0.2 from before the injection started. The company says it will continue the work for 6 more days and study a similar operation in the Number 2 and 3 reactors.

Tokyo Electric also admitted that the level of highly radioactive water in a concrete tunnel of the Number 2 reactor rose 5 centimeters in the 24 hours until 7 AM local time on Thursday.

It says the rise may be a result of work on Wednesday to stop highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a cracked concrete pit. The company says the water is about a meter below the ground level, and that it will keep monitoring it to prevent an overflow.


http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_37.html

Admitted? This is good news. If you plug a leak but water levels don't rise behind the leak... it just means that the water is getting out somewhere else.

As for the pressure rising... this is quite obviously a lie. The rector vessel can't hold pressure when the core has resumed criticality and melted through the bottom. Who do they think they're fooling? :sarcasm:

[thereismore]

1. Rising water could mean less leakage or more influx. Let's hope for #1. nt

[thereismore]

2. It can maintain pressure to some extent if the hole is "plugged" by radioactive lava. nt

[FBaggins]

3. How would it stay "plugged"?

We're told that the core has resumed active fission. Why... it must be thousands of degrees in there! pay no attention to the actual temperature reports (or the man behind the curtain)!

[thereismore]

4. The hole may be on the bottom of pressure vessel. In it you have slow-moving lava. Sort of a plug. n

[FBaggins]

5. That works fine if there's a small puncture...

...that just coincidentally happens as the fuel cools to the point of solidity.

But we're talking about an active fission reaction here (or at least so we're told).

That puppy is half way to the water table by now!

[thereismore]

6. I think so. Hopefully the fission is just intermittent or stopped. nt

[Nihil]

7. One possible mechanism for "intermittent criticality" ...

If the reason why criticality has become possible (despite the damping
effects of the added boron) was due to the salt build-up preventing the
boron from getting close enough to the fuel, one reason why it could
have stopped again would be that the crust was broken by the heat created
from partial criticality (or by the potential mobility of the so-called
"lava"), thus allowing new pathways for the boron to penetrate and thus
dampen the reaction.


BTW: Before anyone rabidly jumps on this speculation, please note that it is
*exactly* that: speculation during a morning coffee break ... just thought
I might as well join in with the "armchair experts from X thousand miles away"
team for a moment!

:hi: