Chain Reactions Reignited At Fukushima 234
mdsolar writes "Radioactive byproducts indicate that nuclear chain reactions must have been burning at the damaged nuclear reactors long after the disaster unfolded. Tetsuo Matsui at the University of Tokyo, says the limited data from Fukushima indicates that nuclear chain reactions must have reignited at Fuksuhima up to 12 days after the accident. Matsui says the evidence comes from measurements of the ratio of cesium-137 and iodine-131 at several points around the facility and in the seawater nearby."
Not surprising: (Score:4, Insightful)
If you melt the fuel, you can get localized criticalities.
Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more I see the attempt to design and operate Nuke plant as a very dangerous game of Whack-a-mole. Operator error, Wham, Design error, Wham, Maintenance failure, Wham. Earthquakes. Wham. Tsunamis, Wham. Terrorism, Wham,
and, what do we do with the waste for the next 20,000 years? Wham, Wham, Wham, Wham........
Miss one time, game over.
Kurt
And operating a coal plant is akin to all the moles poked out of their holes and looking at you while you shrug and say "working as intended."
Re:Without a moderator? (Score:4, Insightful)
The scientific method in general terms consists of observation, then hypothesis, then designing an experiment to prove the hypothesis.
You are arguing "shouldn't it" and closing your mind to the understanding of the observed results - it doesn't matter what it "should" and "shouldn't" do under current models - what is important is what it actually did. Which means that either a) there were conditions that we don't know about that enabled the reaction or b) there are additional underlying scientific principles that we don't fully understand yet. My money would be on the former. However that the data do not agree with what you expected does not necessarily mean the data are wrong. It means you are wrong. Especially in a situation like this where I am sure that the data have been double and triple-checked.
If you stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, this will help you understand the universe better.
It might be worse than that. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"The decay heat, which is 7% of 1000 MW"
IIRC, the reactors were 1000MW *electrical* output. Because of thermal efficiencies of steam generators of around 35%, I believe that means the thermal output of each reactor would have been about 1000/.35 ~= 2800 MW thermal energy.
So, instead of 7% of 1000MW = 70MW, I think you're looking at 7% of 2800 = 196MW.
That's a LOT of heat to get rid of, even if it is a small percentage of the 2800MW full output.
Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:1, Insightful)
False dichotomy much. And obviously intentionally too.
Both fossil fuels and nuclear fuels will end soon. And even if they wouldn't it's still just plain retarded backwards redneck shit technology.
We're in the motherfucking 21st century! Where's the geek in you?? We should only be using straight unprocessed energy from our fucking awesome giant fusion reactor in the sky by now!
We should be full circle in environment neutrality through balancing of all natural cycles that resulted from our actions by now!
Because that's how awesome I expect a humanity to be, that I consider worthy of existing!
Interestingly, nature agrees. And she always wins. She doesn't care if we wipe out the planet and pollute it to death. Something will survive and prosper. :P
But with all you idiots, it sure as hell won't be your version of humanity!
Re:Another good reason to switch to Thorium (Score:4, Insightful)
With difficulty, but it's possible.
As for any claim that Thorium is some magic pixy dust that prevents all forms of nuclear accident.... pah.
Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:4, Insightful)
What waste issue, you do realize you're surrounded by radiation now right? Granite counter tops, bananas, air line travel [boom headshot]. Btw some thing will kill you, be it cold, or starvation b/c you don't live next to the food you eat, or perhaps bacteria growing in the natural environment that decided you were a good place to set up shop. But hey, you keep trying to make everybody confirm to your nanny-state, gaia fueled fantasy and let me know how that works out.
What? No. It's a triumph of engineering. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is:
It was the worst natural disaster in Japan's history, one that was the perfect storm of conditions, all affecting an ancient design of plant which was NOT designed to handle such disasters, and yet despite this- still to this very day- has not had a substantial meltdown (some radiation leakage is not crowd on the beach in Melbourne)... and you're *complaining*?
Inevitable car analogy is as follows. If I own a regular Toyota Prius, there's a reasonable expectation that if I get into a fender bender I won't die. It's engineered to tolerate that. The car may be a write off, but I'm fairly safe.
But if a TANK shoots my Prius? Well, then I'm fucked. I'll die and it's *not Toyota's fault*, much less the fault of the automotive industry at a whole. You accept that, right? You accept that anything built by anyone, ever, is built to a limited amount of tolerance, and beyond that failure is not the fault of the manufacturer, let alone the whole industry?
In this metaphore, a tank shot my Prius in the engine block... and to the astonishment of most the Prius fucking TOOK IT. That armour-piercing tank shell bounced off like a motherfucker, leaving a huge dent, and shaking the car so I wacked my head, but hey. I'm alive and whole. I walked away after the worst imaginable thing happened, far beyond the design specifications of the vehicle. Yeah, there was a little blood-slash-radiation leakage from my head, but it's not that bad. I could have a concussion. I should probably get checked out, but it could have been MUCH worse. Furthermore, I am astounded on how this Prius is eating tank shells. That's some serious engineering work right there. Damn, dog... ... and yet, people are still like, "Oh, but I'm bruised a little bit, it didn't protect me completely. Priuses are so unreliable!"
Seriously.
Tank.
Prius.
Tepco might be incompetent lying morons, but the reason why the old plant was still around was in no small part because of anti-nuclear fear-mongering ("Not in MY backyard!"). That's the reason that newer, far more safter, reactors are not everywhere. Because constructing new nuke reactors is verboten, like we're still in the 70's or some shit.
If we treated nuclear power with the respect it deserves, keeping the technology up to date and learning from our mistakes... then we can progress.
Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:4, Insightful)
Horse shit. Pure horse shit. Radiation levels at the moment are still extremely minor. Plant workers are still not exceeding their yearly allotment, they're being pulled out before hand. The yearly allotment is below the level that shows even a minor increase in cancer rates. The government has stopped fishing mostly for trust reasons - it's unlikely that anyone would've been made sick, but they want people to feel safe buying the fish when they do open it up.
This is a big problem, and it shouldn't have happened. But this event has made a few people sick (like a sunburn) for a few days because they didn't follow proper protocol. Meanwhile, the triggering event has killed, what, 20,000? Versus a couple people with minor injuries.
If you have evidence to refute the above points, I'd love to see your citations. I've been following this pretty closely, so I'd be very interested to see if I've been wrong.
But it seems like you're just making stuff up. There are plenty of facts in this debate. Don't go inventing nonsense just because the facts don't fit your opinion.
I'm not a nuclear fanboy, by any means. As an engineer, current plants make me nervous because they rely on active safety. But I'm more annoyed that NIMBYs aren't allowing research and production of the intrinsically-safe plants, than I am about the operators of the plant. Nuclear plants "feel" unsafe? Well they have just about the best safety record of all industrial facilities. This particular plant had multiple failures after design specifications were well exceeded, and even then the problems they've had have been extremely minor in relative and absolute terms.
In short, you're being irrational.