Anyone else just see the scary discussion they just had on the Fukushima plant and salt water

[Skidmore]

as a coolant? Their expert (never have caught his name) said that the salt builds up on the reactor and makes it impossible to cool it. He was also talking about one of the reactors containing plutonium and monitoring the amount of hydrogen going into the unit or that there could be a catastrophic explosion causing a huge amount of radioactive material to be dispersed in the environment.

We live 21 miles from Duane Arnold, and while we lack sea water in the area, this stuff definitely is giving me the heeby-jeebies.

[enough]

1. There's a lot of info about the effects of salt in this current NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/asia/24nuclear.html?ref=asia

snip>

Nuclear engineers have become increasingly concerned about a separate problem that may be putting pressure on the Japanese technicians to work faster: salt buildup inside the reactors, which could cause them to heat up more and, in the worst case, cause the uranium to melt, releasing a range of radioactive material.

Richard T. Lahey Jr., who was General Electric’s chief of safety research for boiling-water reactors when the company installed them at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said that as seawater was pumped into the reactors and boiled away, it left more and more salt behind.

He estimates that 57,000 pounds of salt have accumulated in Reactor No. 1 and 99,000 pounds apiece in Reactors No. 2 and 3, which are larger.

The big question is how much of that salt is still mixed with water and how much now forms a crust on the uranium fuel rods.

much more>

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. So wouldn't Japan's "engineers" have known that?

Hell of a Catch 22 for them.
but hey, as long as TEPCO and affiliates made some money off those reactors all these years, all is golden, yeah?

[Statistical]

4. Of course they knew that.

They had no other source of water in the quantities they needed. Primary coolant system was down, emergency coolant system was down. Unknown amount of damage to systems meaning no idea how much would work even when they did get power.

Without any coolant the reactor would have melted down in a matter of hours a day at tops.

So what would you have done.
a) use seawater knowing the risks
b) don't use seawater because it could lead to problems later and allowing a complete meltdown to occur.

[godai]

5. Has seawater already been pumped into the reactors?

I'm not sure but sounds like you believe so. I read somewhere recently that they were working on a source for fresh water. I was hoping that this would become reality and that they would begin to use this water source.

I've only seen the seawater being sprayed external to the reactors, to cool them and the pools. Do you think there was a way to pump the seawater into the reactors?

[Statistical]

10. No they have been injecting seawater directly into the cores for over week now.

They are ALSO spraying water onto reactors, reactor buildings, and spent fuel ponds.

The seawater injection began almost immediately after the earthquake. Without coolant being added inside the core it would have melted within hours.

[godai]

11. Thanks for the information. n/t

[Statistical]

17. Your Welcome. This thread has more detailed info on what has/is being done to each reactor.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x282873

[crickets]

6. Thanks for that link.

The description (if accurate) of the emergency pumping scenario that takes place even in a relatively undamaged reactor gives me pause. Yikes.

[Marblehead]

2. didn't know that

the US is being irradiated as we speak, if there was an explosion, and it would be huge, there would be no where to hide:hide:

[Yo_Mama]

15. You can stop worrying

The US is never going to get any significant radioactivity from this. Unfortunately, some of the Japanese are not nearly so lucky.

The US is not being "irradiated" now. Background levels of radiation are not rising. When the governments says it is able to detect the radiation, it is discussing tiny amounts of very short-lived radioactive isotopes that it is detecting rather than actual rises in radiation.

If you want to learn something about what is really happening regarding radiation levels, go to ZAMG which is tracking and publishing "plume" measurements.
http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?seite=1&artikel=ZAMG_2011-03-23GMT10:57

You probably can't read German, so first go here and read this pdf which will explain what you are looking at:
http://www.zamg.ac.at/docs/aktuell/Japan2011-03-22_1500_E.pdf

Note that most of the "plume" shown actually has radiation levels that are indistinguishable from background radiation levels. The way they are tracking this is to look for those same isotopes which would normally not be present at all because they are very transient signatures of fission-generated radioactive emissions.

What you see at ZAMG is a result of the Chernobyl incident. And clearly it is not a US government conspiracy as some have suggested, because ZAMG is the Austrian meteorology institute.

[Baclava]

7. Um, seawater was all they had to keep all the reactors from going molten.

Reactor cores crusted in salt was the least of their worries at the time. You gotta do what you gotta do.

I have seen sea bass cooked in a salt crust, they come out looking tasty.

[driver8]

8. Exactly -- it's not like they had a lot of choices.

Hmmm, let's see -- if we pour seawater onto the reactor, it might become crusted with salt and then we won't be able to cool it in the future. If we don't use seawater, we won't be able to cool it now and we will have a total meltdown which could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

[TahitiNut]

9. It's too bad they can't dual-purpose a nuclear plant ...

... by designing a sea-water coolant system that also converts the sea water into potable drinking water and a supply of salt.

Oh well. :shrug:

[Baclava]

14. Sounds lovely - I wonder what plutonium tastes like. n/t

[jpak]

12. No one has a clue about the chemistry occurring on the surfaces of those hot exposed fuel assemblies

not good

yup

[Yo_Mama]

13. They knew this

As soon as they started injecting saltwater, they knew the plants would be permanently disabled.

It's not like they can let this situation drag on. Everything they have been doing since then is to get to the point at which they can safely shut down. Along with the seawater they put in boron to fight fission.

[CJvR]

16. Salt...

... will only be a major issue if they keep using it while the water boils off.

As soon as they switch to fresh water any salt deposits will dissolve. If it gets real serious they can simply cycle the water out before the solution becomes saturated with salt.