Japanese self-defense forces now deploying helicopter for reactor cooling. live

[Hannah Bell]

to pour coolant/water on it.

on nhk japan.

[Hannah Bell]

1. helicopter is already in air -- deploying to cool reactor #3, the one with smoke/

vapor coming out.

discussion here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yokosonews

[Paradoxical]

2. They need to start considering building an emergency containment building.

[HEyHEY]

3. Okay, I'll be stupid.... why don't the try concrete?

[Codeine]

4. Concrete doesn't cool anything.

We're not at the point where a sarcophagus is needed.

[Paradoxical]

6. Yeah we kind of are.

The reactor buildings and potentially the containment vessels are failing.

[Paradoxical]

5. The fuel is almost certainly exceeding the melting temp of concrete.

Pouring concrete on it won't do much.

They need to continue to pour neutron absorbing material on it.

[ClayZ]

7. ...for how long?

[Abq_Sarah]

9. Water and boric acid

You want to slow down the reaction and cool the fuel. Smothering with concrete isn't a viable option because you can't block out all the air flow.

[GReedDiamond]

8. Here in California...

...we have the "super scooper" airplanes which can get water from the ocean and dump it on wildfires...why not use them in this situation?

On edit: I mean a literal fleet of 'em, bombarding the entire nuke complex with seawater.

Bring in the helicopters inbetween super scooper drops for more specifically targeted areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Scooper

[Abq_Sarah]

10. I imagine the danger of spreading radiation?

Dumping a large volume of water at one time could send a lot of radioactive water back out of the building.

[Hannah Bell]

11. they already evaluated the risk & decided to go ahead, discussed in earlier

presser.

[Abq_Sarah]

13. Helicopters, yes.

Air tankers, no. Helicopters don't carry the same volume of water.

[flamingdem]

12. That's good, they have to do something about No. 3 nt

[SoCalDem]

14. When I saw them I thought of the helicopters dropping boulders in levee breaches

[jtuck004]

15. 5000 tons of sand...

Below is how they put Chernobyl out, found here... with her pictures.

Several things different about this, of course, including the reactor designed to hold a meltdown, no graphite fire. I understand why one would drop water from helicopters, and perhaps they are hopeful things can be slowed till they can get something permanent. The water is going to boil out, no power. Gonna have a helicopter brigade? I hope no continual exposure (probably is, with all the explosions and fires going on).

Hey GE, next time imagine a quake and a tsunami.
______________________________________

"On the Friday evening of April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4, prepared to run a test the next day to see how long the turbines would keep spinning and producing power if the electrical power supply went off line. This was a dangerous test, but it had been done before. As a part of the preparation, they disabled some critical control systems - including the automatic shutdown safety mechanisms.

Shortly after 1:00 AM on April 26, the flow of coolant water dropped and the power began to increase.

At 1:23 AM, the operator moved to shut down the reactor in its low power mode and a domino effect of previous errors caused an sharp power surge, triggering a tremendous steam explosion which blew the 1000 ton cap on the nuclear containment vessel to smithereens.

Some of the 211 control rods melted and then a second explosion, whose cause is still the subject of disagreement among experts, threw out fragments of the burning radioactive fuel core and allowed air to rush in - igniting several tons of graphite insulating blocks.

Once graphite starts to burn, its almost impossible to extinguish. It took 9 days and 5000 tons of sand, boron, dolomite, clay and lead dropped from helicopters to put it out. The radiation was so intense that many of those brave pilots died.

It was this graphite fire that released most of the radiation into the atmosphere and troubling spikes in atmospheric radiation were measured as far away as Sweden - thousands of miles away.

The causes of the accident are described as a fateful combination of human error and imperfect technology. "