Hydrogen Explosion At Fukushima Number 3 Reactor (March 14)

[tekisui]

Run time: 00:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx6IS0vrZOk   Posted on YouTube: March 14, 2011 By YouTube Member: ProducerMatthew Views on YouTube: 327   Posted on DU: March 14, 2011 By DU Member: tekisui Views on DU: 2369

 

[Skip_In_Boulder]

1. Isn't it kind of strange that everything has now become a Hydrogen explosion.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Indeed.

PB

[Skip_In_Boulder]

4. I think we are suppose to be comforted by that

"Oh, it's just a hydrogen explosion, well no big deal." But when I think of the word hydrogen, and maybe it's because I grew up during the height of the cold war, I think of hydrogen bomb. That is not particularly comforting to me.

[Aleric]

18. It is a very critical disctinction

If they are talking about a hydrogen explosion, they are talking about a hydrogen CHEMICAL explosion. i.e. Hydrogen bonding explosively with another element, likely oxygen. It is likely to carry gamma radiation outward which will dissipate relatively quickly. (NOT harmlessly but quickly compared to the alternative).


The next levels up are 1) meltdown (fission reaction reaches critical) or 2) fissile explosive reaction (fission reaches supercritical). Either of these cases is a Chernobyl or worse.



I do not believe that a fusion explosion is possible in this case. Be glad of that.

[Aleric]

20. Correction:

I have to correct myself - the hyrdogen explosion has been carrying more than gamma radiation. The radiation detected 60 miles away is particulate matter. That's not going to dissipate quickly.

[2banon]

7. you mean as opposed to a nuclear explosion? n/t

[Aleric]

17. No, not really

If you understand the fission process you will realize that Hydrogen is likely to be a very abundant by-product of fission, especially in the current situation. Hydrogen also happens to be the strongest *chemical* explosive known to man. (Which is due to the fundamental fact that hydrogen bonds with 13.6eV to other atoms - that is more energy per chemical bond than any other chemical substance.)

Now if you want something stronger, you're looking at a nuclear reaction which is happening inside the reactor, of course. However, that reactor has not yet reach critical (meltdown) or supercritical (Boom, goodbye large city).

[sharesunited]

2. An open society with state-of-the-art live image capture.

So ironic that the host of the only nuclear detonations used in anger is hosting this.

[jpak]

5. Holy Cow - far more violent than the explosion at reactor #1

:wow:

[Poll_Blind]

6. Yeah, I love how they say "The wall collapsed". Fuck that, the whole thing blew up!

Seriously, especially when listening to the Japanese reports, even maybe U.S., they used the words "Part of the wall collapsed." and stuff like that. Bullshit, it was blown sky high.

PB

[NoTimeToulouse]

8. Technically it did collapse. It just did it over a 1 mile area of wreckage.

[Poll_Blind]

9. LOL, so true.

PB

[juxtaposed]

11. The truth is that the square building is not a containment building

I has a sheet-metal roof and knee walls at the top. It holds no pressure its just for keeping the weather off the RB. With an explosion with that much force it could have only come from either the concrete Reactor Building or the Core.
I'm willing to bet the core has been breached because of a meltdown.

[Old and In the Way]

12. It sure makes you wonder about the integrity of the containment vessel.

I'm no engineer, but given the stresses on the vessel through this 3 day event, a spectacular explosion like this can't be helping the condition of the vessel. If it is breached, this is not going to end well for the people of this region.

[juxtaposed]

14. After the first one blew high levels of radiation were detected 60 miles away.

This link shows what the operators have been dealing with

http://www.ansn-jp.org/jneslibrary/BWR_Safety_Design.pdf

[Old and In the Way]

21. Yikes....that 'simple' 74 page Safety Design overview is way over my ability to comprehend.

I did understand one page, though. Page 6. Physical barrier / Proejection Levels. We're pretty much out of the boxes. :-(

[juxtaposed]

10. The strange thing is they have been reporting that the reactor

building is intact. and the core has not been breached. If that was true we would have seen overhead images after the first explosion of the concrete reactor building top intact. There's one reason I can think of why not, because the Concrete RB blew it's top off and the core is exposed! If the core is exposed there would be so much radiation that you couldn't film it from above. Also on the two explosions I haven't seem a fireball that one would expect from a hydrogen explosion. I'm willing to bet that the RB (reactor building) blew up from high pressure in the core, or a small Hydrogen explosion in the core.
Below is a real good link above the as built of these reactors with drawings too.


http://www.ansn-jp.org/jneslibrary/npp2.pdf

[Poll_Blind]

13. What I heard in the case of Fukushima No.1 was they had vented hydrogen from the core but....

...while they were attempting to vent the hydrogen gas (which, of course, is highly explosive), it mixed with the air and something happened to ignite it, which traveled back into the building and blew off the siding.

But I have no idea WTF, really.

PB

[juxtaposed]

15. What I've seen when venting is you don't vent into a confined space

If they were to vent from the hot side (radioactive side) to cold side if would have been vented out a stack away from the reactor.

I'd stock up on iodine, and fish.

[Poll_Blind]

16. Yeah, I will give you that- the story doesn't quite make sense in either case.

Especially since the same story is being used to describe both cases.

PB

[Aleric]

19. Assume you're being lied to

Despite what I said above, you can assume we are not getting accurate information.