Physicist Michio Kaku warns that Japan nukes may go 'beyond Chernobyl'

[Tx4obama]

Physicist Michio Kaku warns that Japan nukes may go 'beyond Chernobyl'
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/physicist-michio-kaku-warns-japan-nu

Rachel Maddow - total amount of Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods in the pools at Dai-ichi plant
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x666399

Maddow Video with fuel graphs: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#42121003

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. And this post may get a trillion rec's.

[Bluebear]

25. indeed

[femrap]

2. Get the concrete out and

bury these insidious WMD.

[Tx4obama]

6. I'm not so sure they can get close enough to the buildings to do that.

And dropping concrete from a helicopter isn't an option.

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. I saw a video earlier where they're dropping seawater from helicopters. ???

Which, to my untrained eye, looked like a move born of desperation. If the cores and rods are that hot, it seems to me that the water would evaporate before it ever came in contact. I hope they know something I don't (which is very likely).:shrug:

[Tx4obama]

13. The majority of the water didn't fall on the building, so they stopped yesterday.

I don't know if they are going to try again or not.
Too much radiation is preventing the helicopters to get close enough to the buildings.

[PCIntern]

14. ...and to my untrained eye, fricking missed the reactors with 80%

of the water. It looked like they were dumping it back in the ocean, like a scene from "The Longest Yard".

[jtuck004]

35. Dropping sand. boron, and dry concrete might wind up being the only solution until there is enough

of a barrier that pumpers can get in there.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter2.html

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.

In keeping with a long tradition of Soviet justice, they imprisoned all the people who worked on that shift - regardless of their guilt. The man who tried to stop the chain reaction in a last desperate attempt to avoid the meltdown was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He died 3 weeks later.

Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for the next 48.000 years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries. The experts predict that, by then, the most dangerous elements will have disappeared - or been sufficiently diluted into the rest of the world's air, soil and water. If our government can somehow find the money and political will power to finance the necessary scientific research, perhaps a way will be discovered to neutralize or clean up the contamination sooner. Otherwise, our distant ancestors will have to wait untill the radiation diminishes to a tolerable level. If we use the lowest scientific estimate, that will be 300 years from now......some scientists say it may be as long as 900 years.

I think it will be 300, but people often accuse me of being an optimist.

This is a different kind of disaster, but if we can't cool it we have to get the boron to it and enough sand and dry concrete to begin to build a shield.

The difference being is that at Chernobyl there was just a big shell around the reactor - when it blew the pilots could drop right on top of the fuel.

Here the hottest fuel is encased in structures (inside the buildings, and inside the secondary containment which had the "spent" fuel rods) that would block the boron in the mix above. Which makes it a more interesting technical issue.

[girl gone mad]

8. Can't do it while they are still generating lots of heat.

They have to be cooled sufficiently or the pressure would build up inside of the containment.

[femrap]

18. This nuke stuff

is simply wicked...so we need more water first, right?

[Tx4obama]

19. But water is NOT going to help with the spent rods that are in pools that have been.....

cracked/damaged in the explosions.
If the concrete pools are damaged they will leak like a sieve and not hold water.
The spent rods must be 'covered' in water and the water has to be circulated in order to cool the spent rods down - and it takes months/year to cool them down completely.

[femrap]

21. So we're up

the creek w/o a paddle....I wish nuclear fission had never been invented/discovered/came into being.

And isn't this a GE design...keeping the spent fuel rods around??? Many of these nuclear power plants are getting old...damn.

[Tx4obama]

22. As I see it - yes - we are up a huge creek w/o a paddle.

I don't understand why the talking heads are so cheery about the electric line to 'one' building.
That is not going to help much when the majority of the buildings/pools that are damaged.
There is somewhere around 2500 tons of nuclear fuel at the Dai-ichi plant and hooking up electricity to only one building is a drop in the bucket!

[xchrom]

3. we're gonna find out one way or the other. nt

[Tx4obama]

4. More info

Danger of Spent Fuel Outweighs Reactor Threat

SNIP

Figures provided by Tokyo Electric Power on Thursday show that most of the dangerous uranium at the power plant is actually in the spent fuel rods, not the reactor cores themselves. The electric utility said that a total of 11,195 spent fuel rod assemblies were stored at the site.

That is in addition to 400 fuel assemblies that had been in active service in reactor No. 1 and 548 in each of reactors No. 2 and 3. In other words, the storage pools hold more than seven times as much radioactive material as the reactor cores.

SNIP

Richard T. Lahey Jr., a retired nuclear engineer who oversaw General Electric’s safety research in the early 1970s for the kind of nuclear reactors used in Fukushima, said that the Japanese authorities may not have entirely understood the importance of keeping cool the spent fuel. The zirconium cladding on the fuel rods can burst into flames if exposed to air for hours when a storage pool loses its water, he warned.

When zirconium ignites, it emits extremely hot flames that warm up everything nearby and are very hard to extinguish, added Mr. Lahey, who helped write a classified report for the United States government several years ago on the vulnerabilities of storage pools at American nuclear reactors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimes

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

16. Did NYT censor itself to avoid embarrassing "Japanese authorities"?

Original article: "Richard T. Lahey Jr., a retired nuclear engineer who oversaw General Electric’s safety research in the early 1970s for the kind of nuclear reactors used in Fukushima, said that the Japanese authorities may not have entirely understood the importance of keeping cool the spent fuel. The zirconium cladding on the fuel rods can burst into flames if exposed to air for hours when a storage pool loses its water, he warned."

Now says: "Richard T. Lahey Jr., a retired nuclear engineer who oversaw General Electric’s safety research in the early 1970s for the kind of nuclear reactors used in Fukushima, said that the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods could burst into flames if exposed to air for hours when a storage pool lost its water."

[Tx4obama]

17. Well that is interesting. n/t

[laundry_queen]

26. Jesus, just like the graphite at Chernobyl.

That doesn't sound good at all.:scared:

[FLPanhandle]

5. I hate experts that come on and say "may"

I read this and it's full of "could", "can", "may", "might".

Every expert that uses such language needs to give the odds of each event when talking to the public.

e.g. Monkeys COULD fly out of my ass, but the odds are extremely low they will.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Flying monkeys spotted over Florida.

"They smell like shit," commented one observer.

[Tx4obama]

9. Additional info NOT in the Maddow links

SNIP

.... a separate facility fuel pool on ground level (not in the six buildings) contains 1,097 tons of nuclear fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage.

Above info at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-fuel-fukushima

[meow mix]

10. at least someone is telling the truth, its far from over

[11 Bravo]

12. And a rabid squirrel may infiltrate your house tonight and feast on your genitalia as you sleep.

"May" is such a special word.

[PCIntern]

15. Gives new meaning to the phrase:

Nuts to You!

[madmax]

24. lol nt

[MilesColtrane]

20. Just to be safe, I recommend we set our hair on fire and run screaming, naked, down the street.

...because fore warned is fore armed

[pokerfan]

34. ...

When in danger or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!

[Bluebear]

41. Whatever.

[Hugabear]

33. Except that Michio Kaku is one of the brightest physicists in the world

So when he says something "may" happen regarding an area that he has expertise in, I would take that a little more seriously than the threat of rabid squirrels munching on your nuts.

[Tx4obama]

23. Michio Kaku was on Lawrence O'donnell's show a few minutes ago! n/t

[originalpckelly]

27. Michio Kaku "may" be full of crap.

Or he "may" not. Who knows? Not me. :P

[Tx4obama]

28. I would put my money on that he isn't. n/t

[slay]

29. He's quite a good theoretical physicist IMO

i've only read one of his books and only had 1 year of college physics so i admit i'm no master of the physics-verse - but from listening to what he said - the physics of how those elements will react in water and fire seem correct. i would trust his judgement over the government's for sure! still, all this is just a possibility at this point - but a very possible one indeed. i would not take his warnings lightly if i were japan. that may be why they have not tried turning the power back on at reactor #2 until they know exactly how much of each element is present and how it would react to a spark/fire. :shrug:

[Hugabear]

32. Yeah, what the fuck does he know

I'm guessing more than any of us on DU

[ReggieVeggie]

30. Kaku's opinion is an educated one

I'll take his over those of posters to an internet chat board (no offense)

[Liquorice]

31. I've always liked Kaku. He is a very good writer and I've read all his books. I trust

his educated opinion too. He is not someone who seems prone to exaggeration.

[marew]

40. I've seen him in several documentaries.

And I've been impressed. I would more than tend to believe him.

[Karmadillo]

36. Kick

nt

[rdking647]

37. kaku is a theoretical physicist

Michael Bluck is an engineer.

Ill take the word of an engineer over a theoretical scientist


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

[thanks_imjustlurking]

38. I've felt that was obvious for several days now. nt

[JDPriestly]

39. Thanks for posting this.