When do you stop polluting the ocean and the atmosphere with water at Fukushima?

[Junkdrawer]

Take a few minutes and watch this video from Arnie Gunderson. It's OK, I'll wait....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x568444

Now hundreds of tons of water are leaking through what has become radioactive sieves at those reactors and are coming out as steam polluting the air and waste water polluting the ocean. And why? Because if they don't it will meltdown. Now the Russians answered this problem by installing liquid nitrogen coolers. Isn't that (or something like it) a much better idea? I mean it seems to me that the reactors are now just radioactive teabags brewing up a witch's brew of death that will last, in the case of plutonium, hundreds of thousands of years.

Just a thought.

[MineralMan]

1. Hobson's Choice. They're doing it to keep the reactors cooled

down to prevent even worse consequences. I don't think they can install liquid nitrogen coolers on that plant, assuming that there are any to be had just now. Hobson's Choice all around in this incident.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. What happens when the LN2 runs out?

The reactors just heat back up and the problem still exists. It's not simply that reactors and pools need cooled and that's the end of the problem. They need cooled constantly because radiactive materials are constantly reacting and heating continues. All the cooling does is keep the reactor and assemblies from melting and falling apart.

This "distaster did not happen in a vacuum. There was devastating earthquake and HUGE tsunami... the whole area and infrastructre outside of the plant is devastated as well. The goal at fukushima is to stop criticality and wait a few days for the decay heat to settle down as well as keep the spent fuel intact. Cooling and water is needed to do this... and since the water is leaking, they will have to continue pumping water in until they fix the leaks or transport the fuel rods elsewhere.

[PoliticAverse]

3. They never installed the liquid nitrogen coolers...

that they wanted to use under the Chernobyl plant.
They just filled the space with concrete instead.
The fuel ended up cooling/solidifying on its own.

[girl gone mad]

5. Not exactly on its own..

from watching the Chernobyl film someone posted in the video forum, they dumped tons of lead and boron on the fuel to diffuse the heat and slow the reactions. At Fukushima, containment may actually be hindering attempts at cooling since the fuel is harder to access. They have no choice but to keep flooding it for now, but this process also risks causing more reactions and radioactivity.

[Journeyman]

4. Shit. I was agin' 'em before they were built. . .

precisely for reasons such as this (and a thousand other scenarios that were conjectured, all plopped without apology into the lap of humankind's incompetencies).

I haven't a clue how to stop what I have always believed should never have been started. We may now have entered the realm of magical ponies and ice cream for breakfast. We may be that fucked.

But no matter what happens in Fukushima, if we don't use the remaining authorized capacities of the rest of the world's nuclear garbage burners to wean ourselves off this poison, well, I just hope the physicists and engineers survive long enough to see the full extent of what they facilitated. I can conceive of no retribution one-twentieth so just.

[damntexdem]

6. The simple answer is that you don't -- ever.

This pollution is long-term indeed.

[Junkdrawer]

7. And the answer is Real Soon:

...

It comes after Japan finally conceded defeat in the battle to contain radiation at four of Fukushima's crippled reactors. They will now be shut down.

Details of how this will be done are yet to be revealed, but officials said it would mean switching off all power and abandoning attempts to keep the nuclear fuel rods cool.

The final move would involve pouring tonnes of concrete on the reactors to seal them in tombs and ensure radiation does not leak out.

The dramatic announcement that the four reactors are out of control and will have to be decommissioned was made yesterday by the chairman of the electric company operating the Fukushima plant.

...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371793/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Fukushima-plant-entombed-concrete-radiation-leak.html#ixzz1IDYwomN2

[Junkdrawer]

8. Or is this just someone's wishful thinking?

:shrug: