Suppresed Video of Japanese Reactor Sodium Leak

James Hardine writes "Following an announcement this week that the infamous Japanese Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor would be re-opened with a new plutonium core, Wikileaks has released suppressed video footage of the disaster that led to its closure in 1995. The video shows men in silver 'space suits' exploring the reactor in which sodium compounds hang from the air ducts like icicles. Unlike conventional reactors, fast-breeder reactors, which 'breed' plutonium, use sodium rather than water as a coolant. This type of coolant creates a potentially hazardous situation as sodium is highly corrosive and reacts violently with both water and air. Government officials at first played down the extent of damage at the reactor and denied the existence of a videotape showing the sodium spill. The deputy general manager, Shigeo Nishimura, 49, jumped to his death the day after a news conference at which he and other officials revealed the extent of the cover-up. His family is currently suing the government at Japan's High Court."

Governments can suppress the videos

[Aurisor]

Governments can suppress the videos, but they will never stop the first posters.

radioactive sodium too

[wizardforce]

sodium cooled reactors also have a tendancy to produce radioactive isotopes of sodium like Na22 or Na24 from the high levels of neutron radiation exposure, the first produced by knocking a neutron out of Na23 and the second from neutron capture. sodium reacts with water to produce sodium hydroxide [caustic soda] and hydrogen gas, both of which are very dangerous in large quantities for obvious reasons.

Re:radioactive sodium too

[Dun Malg]

sodium cooled reactors also have a tendancy to produce radioactive isotopes of sodium like Na22 or Na24

Eh. The chemical dangers are more significant. Na-22 isn't particularly radioactive, and the highly radioactive Na-24 has a half-life of only 15 hours.

Re:

[X0563511]

Na-24 has a half-life of only 15 hours.

What does Na-24 decay into, and how dangerous is that? How long does that stick around?

Re:radioactive sodium too

[schnikies79]

I'm a chemist, but not big into nuclear.

Na-24 beta decays into Mg-24, which is stable and not dangerous.

Re:

[Z00L00K]

So essentially - all is cool if you stay cool and not pour water on it. Oxidized sodium is of course a bigger problem, but not even that is a big issue.

The big issue here seems to be not the coolant itself - it seems to be a relatively good coolant to use - but the fact that the accident happened. The larger problem that could have occurred would have been a core meltdown instead, and that would have been serious.

This stresses the fact that nuclear power has it's dangers, and that it's necessary to watc

Re:

[Fordiman]

If a coolant leak triggered a switch to manual operations and kept the reactor from actually melting down - well, that speaks to good engineering and shoddy workmanship on the coolant system.

Re:radioactive sodium too

[causality]

The big issue here seems to be not the coolant itself - it seems to be a relatively good coolant to use - but the fact that the accident happened.

The big issue here is not that an accident happened -- accidents have a way of doing that from time to time. Things go wrong, the best plans have flaws, people make mistakes. This is true of ... well, all non-trivial human endeavors. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, especially considering that no one in their right mind is going to deny that a nuclear reactor is a complex device with a non-zero risk of something going wrong.

The big issue here is that the government lied to its people and the fact that they lied was covered up. We need more stories like this of governments around the world because it might just put a dent in the (very dangerous) "government is your friend" mentality that is especially prevalant in the USA.

Personally I wish the definition of treason were expanded to include "issuing false statements to the people with the intent to deceive when done by any government official" or something to that effect. Meaning, you can make an honest mistake and it's no big deal; deliberately lie to the people and you get removed from office and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Does that sound harsh? Perhaps, but they don't seem to think so when they "make an example" of us, as we have seen with the War on (Some) Drugs and are now seeing with copyright law. Not to mention, almost any concept I have of "harsh" goes out the window when talking of wrongdoing on the part of people who consider themselves our masters.

This isn't Athens where people were chosen for public office by lottery. These are people who seek power and have worked very hard to get it. What's wrong with giving them a reason to be cautions with how they use it?

Re:

[mpe]

The big issue here is that the government lied to its people and the fact that they lied was covered up. We need more stories like this of governments around the world because it might just put a dent in the (very dangerous) "government is your friend" mentality that is especially prevalant in the USA.

It's possibly more "government is your friend and anyone who thinks otherwise is a nutjob conspiracy theorist(tm)".

Personally I wish the definition of treason were expanded to include "issuing false statem

Re:radioactive sodium too

[BlueParrot]

The halflife of Sodium-24 is around 15 hours. The primary decay route is beta emission to an excited Magnesium-24 which then emits two gamma rays at 2.75Mev and 1.37Mev. So the snow is probably pretty radioactive too.

Siiiigh, again.. The leak was in teh SECONDARY LOOP. It wasn't any radioactivity in it. Nada, zero, zip... Yes, it was a bad accident, but the only thing nuclear about it was that it occurred in a nuclear power plant. The same thing would be much less likely to occur in the radioactive primary loop, because that counts as part of the nuclear island and is hence under much stricter safety requirements.

Re:radioactive sodium too

[Rei]

Siiiigh again... sodium reacts explosively with concrete. The concrete that the entire containment structure was made out of. The concrete that had a layer of steel over it to prevent sodium, in the event of a leak, from reaching the concrete (they thought the sodium couldn't corrode it). The steel that the sodium nearly ate its way through.

What, exactly, do you think the energy of a 2,000 pound bomb going off in the middle of a reactor will do in terms of letting more sodium leak? What do you think letting more sodium leak will do in terms of further explosions? What do you think all of this will do to the primary?

This was a Very Bad Thing (TM), but could have been far worse.

Re:

[schnikies79]

I forgot to add the Mg-24 is the most common magnesium isotope with about 79% abundance.

So what you think of regular Mg metal is mostly Mg-24.

Re:radioactive sodium too

[khallow]

The thing to keep in mind is that sodium is so popular as a reactor coolant precisely because it doesn't form a lot of long lived radioactive isotopes when irradiated in a nuclear reactor.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing to keep in mind is that sodium is so popular as a reactor coolant precisely because it doesn't form a lot of long lived radioactive isotopes when irradiated in a nuclear reactor.

Wrong. Sodium does form radioactive isotopes like Na-24 (that has a half-live of 15 hours). Water cooled reactors and CO2 cooled reactors produce shorter half-live isotopes like N-17 (that has a half-life of a couple seconds). Water in a PWR or BWR will become slightly radioactive over time due to stripping slight amounts of cobalt from valve seats (in a form like stellite which is used to make hard valve seats) and from the release of fission products that are not due to the fuel particles but from ura

Re:

[thermopile]

Although I've never worked on one, I understand that sodium reactors are a real bear to manage. The US Navy tried it once [wikipedia.org] on the USS Seawolf, but opted for plain-old-water. Some of the reasons were:

1.) The 15 hour half-life of Na-24 prevented immediate entry to the reactor in case of repair. Five half lives (the standard assumed for total decay away) means you're cooling your heels for about three days before you can really do any work. It makes quick response - like the kind Monju would have liked to

Re:radioactive sodium too

[flyingsquid]

So they put liquid sodium on the fissile material as a coolant? Man, is there anything the Japanese *won't* put soy sauce on?

Re:radioactive sodium too

[Anonymous Coward]

Rice.

The Japanese won't put soy sauce on rice.

Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true! I am in japan now and they go bananas every time I want to put soy sauce on my rice. In Sweden, and other parts of europe I guess, we can put soy sauce on the rice. But here in Japan it is not acceptible - sauce on rice is "dog food", very strange.. :) The most funny thing is that when I try to tell them "I like it better this way", they truly do not understand what I mean. It seems food here is not about eating in a way you like but rather eating in a way that the ancients developed thousands of years ago. Weird people.

So mod parent funny or informative! :)

Re:

[quacking duck]

This is so true! I am in japan now and they go bananas every time I want to put soy sauce on my rice. In Sweden, and other parts of europe I guess, we can put soy sauce on the rice. But here in Japan it is not acceptible - sauce on rice is "dog food", very strange.. :) The most funny thing is that when I try to tell them "I like it better this way", they truly do not understand what I mean. It seems food here is not about eating in a way you like but rather eating in a way that the ancients developed thousa

Re:Mod parent up!

[iocat]

It's probably best not to think about the food culture of other countries, it will always seem weird to you, just as your food conventions seem weird to them. So, you prefer water with your plutonium, others prefer sodium. Just try and see what the other people in the contamination suits are doing and follow their lead. In a worst case scenario, pretend you're allergic.

Seriously though, compared to America, Japan really doesn't have a "we do it your way" mentality with food. I once had to endure a twenty minute back and forth between a friend, a translator, a waitress, and (presumably) a cook because my friend tried to order his pizza without squid. Frankly, ordering *anything* without squid in Japan is probably a stretch, but what was worse, was that even after our translator was like "a special order is very difficult to do in Japan," which is polite translator speak for THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN, STUPID AMERICAN, he then spectacularly failed to take the face-saving bait offered by the waitress, "Are you allergic to squid?" and said "no I just don't eat it, I'm vegetarian." Here's a hint: If a Japanese person makes a suggestion like that to you in a service situation, take it!! I don't even know how this scene ended (but I do know the chef's next comment, conveyed by the waitress, was "but vegetarians eat squid"), but I do know it took a long time to finally receive my tasty beef curry, Japan's proudest culinary achievment.

Japan doesn't have a culture -- Japanese people do

[patio11]

You can get food your way in Japan. Really, really easily -- one way is to go into any fast food restaraunt. Hold the pickles, add more lettuce, special orders don't upset us because they're in the freaking manual. Seriously, though, there is a wide spectrum of culinary traditions in this country, from "The chef is the master, you are the student, you should be glad you were even allowed to choose to eat dinner at this restaraunt" to "Hum a few bars and I'll get you something in that general direction" to "Did you know there are 745,000 combinations of ingridients possible with this dish? We have 10 named varieties which are our most popular, or you can just pick one of the other 744,990."

There is also a wide spectrum of cooks having egos. (There is a bad habit among a certain type of Westerner to assume that any odd action taken by a Japanese person is because they are Japanese. That is one theory -- another is that the cook just can't be bothered to help you, or is excessively proud, or is just a disagreeable person. All of thsee will be right at least part of the time.) I assure you, if you visit enough hoity-toity restaraunts in NYC, you will fairly quickly find someone who would not be willing to accomodate a simple request that wasn't in their "vision" for the food. ("Where is the ketchup?" "THIS IS A FOI GRAS AND CAVIAR PATTE SERVED IN A LIGHT BALSAMIC VINAGRETTE."* "I like my foi gras with ketchup!"

(Sidenote: I do E->J and J->E translation in Japan as one of my work duties. I am not, however, a professional translator. The difference is that the folks who pay my salary pay me to *resolve* issues like "I just don't want squid" rather than just passively relaying the "Oh, we can't do that" response. I understand that the standard practice among professional translators is that you are supposed to not get in the way of the speaking parties at all -- this is why I am not a professional translator, I just translate for money.

P.S. For those of you considering a job in this general line of work, the pay is a heck of a lot better if you pitch yourself my way. Most clients do not appreciate the value of a beautifully articulated "The waitress says no" nearly as much as they do "OK, so here's what is going on here, and here is what I did to get you your squidless pizza. Aren't you glad you hired me." The same fundamental issue scales straight from "I can't give you pizza w/o squid" to "I can't approve that $1 million deal you are suggesting".)

* Sorry, I only eat at restaraunts that cost more than $15 when the client is paying, and then I'm having what he is having, so I have absolutely no clue whether this is actually a plausible French food combo or not. Bonus points: consultants get to eat at dinner, translators don't.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Loke the Dog]

If you are unsure what to put on your plutonium when in a foreign country, it might seem like a good idea to have both water and sodium, just to be safe. But that would be considered very offensive, especially among educated people. People might even run away in horror.

Re:radioactive sodium too

[BlueParrot]

sodium cooled reactors also have a tendancy to produce radioactive isotopes of sodium like Na22 or Na24 from the high levels of neutron radiation exposure

Except that the leak was in the secondary loop, which is never in contact with the core, and hence not radioactive. Had the leak been inside the primary loop you wouldn't have been able to walk up to it with a video camera because there would have been quite a bit of radiation shield and concrete in the way.

Not in this case, apparently

[Len]

According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org],

Fortunately, the leak occurred in the plant's secondary cooling system, so the sodium was not radioactive.

"Secondary" means that this sodium didn't pass through the reactor core so it didn't become radioactive.

Also

[sakdoctor]

Wiki leaks server suffers a meltdown after 9.1 MB video gets slashdotted.

Japanese government doesn't even try to cover it up.

Re:Also

[ceejayoz]

9.1 MB video via https, mind you.

Re:Also

[Jeffrey Baker]

Oh, hell yes. The initial key exchange to start an https connection is wonderfully expensive.

Note to web "masters" everywhere: you cannot distribute huge files to millions of people using MySQL and SSL. Full stop. Upload that shit to Amazon S3 or Akamai or YouTube or _anything_ other than mediawiki. Thanks!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we have hardware accelerators that make https and other crypto protocols run nicely on modern hardware.

Re:

[owlstead]

Yes, then again, without hardware crypto, the symmetric encryption and MACing (for authenticity of the data) of a 9 MB stream will be much more CPU consuming than the initial setup. Asymmetric encryption is much slower than symmetric encryption in general but normally you only need it for initial authentication and session key changes.

If you use a lot of SSL/TLS (the S in HTTPS) you might need an SSL off-loader, a PCI based hardware accelerator or a CPU containing hardware crypto. The first one is most safe

Youtube link

[pirodude]

Uploaded to youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=pwWQLMmn0tM [youtube.com]

Re:Youtube link

[pirodude]

Also, english subtitled video here: http://www.dotsub.com/films/videotape/index.php?autostart=true&language_setting=en_2524 [dotsub.com]

Re:

[Jesus_666]

Dotsub is currently mirroring the incident in more ways than one - their server is on the verge of meltdown. Expect long loading times.

Re:

[TubeSteak]

Here's the subtitle text:

NPJ Video News No. 3
Video taken just after the sodium leak accident at Monju, hidden by the PNC - the so-called 2 o'clock video
Just after the accident, the PNC sent employees to the site to film the leak.
However, due to the graphic nature of the footage, the PNC hid it
The PNC explained that they hid it because "it has no value"
With your own eyes, we want you to judge why the PNC hid the video
This video was not only hidden at Monju (Fukui Prefecture),
it was also discovered later that

Re:

[emilper]

the subtitles are misleading:

"Sodium mist fills the air" and "The mist gets deeper" -- the camera was out of focus and it was quite dark in there; no "sodium" mist; a second after they filmed the "sodium mist", the "mist" dissapeared. There was not enough light, and the operator had to use a large aperture, so the range at which the objects were in focus was short: move the camera from the back of the shining suit in front to the wall that's 3m away and you get "mist".

"Footsteps on white sodium" -- not sodi

Re:Youtube link

[Mike Morgan]

The subtitle text I saw was:

        Narrator: In A.D. 2101, war was beginning.
        Captain: What happen ?
        Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
        Operator: We get signal.
        Captain: What!
        Operator: Main screen turn on.
        Captain: It's you!!
        CATS: How are you gentlemen!!
        CATS: All your base are belong to us.
        CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
        Captain: What you say!!
        CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
        CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
        Operator: Captain!! *
        Captain: Take off every 'ZIG'!!
        Captain: You know what you doing.
        Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
        Captain: For great justice.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a chunk of my ear shot off in a college organic chemistry lab when someone dropped a small piece of sodium in the sink. Those guys were walking through a mist of it,leaving footprints though a powder of it. They have way way more balls then me. If there was water in any of those multitudes of pipes overhead that started leaking, the whole place would have been one large crater.

Re:

[BlueParrot]

If there was water in any of those multitudes of pipes overhead that started leaking, the whole place would have been one large crater.

I give you one chance to guess why the reactor was built to carry the hot sodium far away from the reactor before using the heat from it to boil water for the turbines. Also, the white powder was probably not sodium ( sodium is silver-like in colour ) but rather sodium-oxides produces when the sodium is oxidized in the air.

Now for the record, had those pipes actually been ca

This video will drive one procedural change

[xC0000005]

They'll be certain to address the cause of the leak - videotapes. Whether or not the sodium leak problems will be addressed I can't say, but they'll ban video evidence of problems for sure.

Safe Nukes

[Doc Ruby]

See, nuke power is safe, and we always know how bad even these contained breakdowns are.

Re:

[X0563511]

This is not a power station! That's not what breeder reactors do!

The fast breeder or fast breeder reactor (FBR) is a fast neutron reactor designed to breed fuel by producing more fissile material than it consumes. The FBR is one possible type of breeder reactor. [wikipedia.org]

WRONG

[WindBourne]

this is a prototype of a power station. Most breeders today are too small to generate more power than they consume, but once scaled up, they will. ALL future reactors will be breeders in advanced countries will be breeders. It is far too expensive for them not to be.

Re:

[toppavak]

Especially the new micro-reactor types like this one [slashdot.org] discussed on slashdot earlier. While I dont think that the most effective application of these is in power generation for neighborhoods or small towns, I can see where a self-contained reactor that will generate 200kW for 4 decades might be useful in ships and spacecraft.

It makes me sad how much baseless fear there is of nuclear power out there. A coolant leak is a pretty major breakdown as Nuclear disasters go, and AFAIK nothing truly bad happened in th

I am amazed that we are not doing nuclear ships

[WindBourne]

Yes, several were built and were decommisioned. But first they were designed poorly and that was when oil was CHEAP. Now it is pricey. We would be smart to either build nuclear ships or perhaps even better would be to build the bering strait brdige or tunnel.

Nothing will stop the resurgance of nuclear power

[religious freak]

(continued title)
... except stupid people.
This SHOULD show that even a "disaster" is minimal by nuclear standards and that safety is about a billion times better than any type of plant, but who knows how this will be interpreted by those who are inclined to panic at what they don't understand.

Re:Nothing will stop the resurgance of nuclear pow

[Big Frank]

The next generation of nuclear power reactors is on the drawing boards today, and they aren't pressurized liquid sodium.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The next generation of nuclear power reactors is on the drawing boards today, and they aren't pressurized liquid sodium.

They aren't fast-breeder reactors or its sister design the Integral Fast Reactor [wikipedia.org] which has the benefit of producing no long-term radioactive waste (it decays to original levels of radioactivity after only 200 years or so).

Too bad.

Re:

[WindBourne]

3rd gen are past drawing board. The FBR and IFR are gen 4, and are almost certainly going to happen.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it's your kind of arrogance that is more dangerous. Your comment suggests that government can do no wrong. Yes, there are smart and honest people in government, but it's not those people that necesssarily have the power, it's the corrupt ones. If you think judges are impartial, I think that's quite naive.

Democratically elected governments do not remain so for very long if they are allowed to muzzle citizens and the media.

Re:Safety is not the issue

[Jeffrey Baker]

Here's a hint: if something has a half-life of 4.5 /billion/ years, that substance is not dangerously radioactive.

what?

[mofag]

I watched the whole video and I didn't see anything of note. I didn't see the "small mountain of sodium" and I didn't see anyone die. What is it? can anyone explain what I was meant to see please?

Re:what?

[megaditto]

You are not supposed to actually watch that video. You are supposed to just switch to the OMG WTF NUKULAR BAD groupthink.

Face it, nuclear power is Bad, so the fact that there is a video showing a bunch of kids in hazmat suits re-enacting Blair Witch in their school basement should we all the proof you need. Any grainy image of sewage pipes is a bonus.

Re:

[iminplaya]

Here's the correct link [comedycentral.com]

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

At several points in the video you can see a white substance coating things, especially on the underside. This is probably the sodium, meaning that the stuff escaped, despite assurances that this hadn't happened, contradicting earlier statements by the agency. Consequently, it means that there may have been a corrosive effect to a (much) larger part of the facility, meaning that the plant probably was damaged to a much greater extent than has been made public, but also that the consequences of another incident could be far worse.

Re:what?

[Scorillo47]

Sodium is not white - it is a silverly soft metal - similar in consistency with frozen butter. It can melt easily, and generates sodium vapors when heated. I didn't see sodium in the picture as it probably was alreayd covered with oxyde.

In fact when heated in air in quantities more than a few grams, sodium will simply burn (with violent flames) generating that white-yellow "smoke" which is a combination of sodium oxyde (Na2O) and sodium peroxyde (Na2O2).

Note that both sodium oxyde and sodium peroxyde are highly reactive, burning in contact with water, generating sodium hydroxide. Sodium peroxide also reacts violently with flammable organic materials that can easily "give" a hydrogen or hydroxil radical, such as alcohols. In this reaction, it generates more sodium hydroxide. Sodium vaports will slowly react with the oxygen in the air, again generating white sodium oxyde.

All these compounds will cause severe burns even if you expose the human skin to less than of gram of this stuff. Concentrated sodium hydroxyde simply melts the skin, nails and bones, and sodium oxyde/peroxyde is even more dangerous. In fact - this is how soap was made for centuries - just boil some fat in concentrated sodium hydroxyde and soon you will have some soap.

It's obvious why these workers have to wear special suits.

More fun stuff about sodium - check out the famous Sodium Party that Theodore Gray had a while back (or wikipedia)

Next

[93 Escort Wagon]

Tomorrow's top story on Slashdot: The Chernobyl meltdown! Followed on Tuesday by breaking Three Mile Island news...

Maybe they were just trying to fight the monsters

[antifoidulus]

from "Horror at Party Beach" and thus needed....sodium! Someone should sing a song about it.

Sodium reactors and the Navy

[Scareduck]

I remember reading about some fracas with some congressman wanting to install sodium-cooled nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers. Hyman Rickover, who was running the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet at the time, got hauled in front of a congressional panel; he dropped a small chunk of metallic sodium into some water and asked, following the ensuing fire and explosion, whether there were any questions. The Navy commissioned one sub with a sodium-cooled reactor (the U.S.S. Seawolf), but it was the only one.

Re:Sodium reactors and the Navy

[BlueParrot]

Would not have made much difference to be honest. If you get several atmosphere pressure of radioactive water suddenly blowing a hole in your sub and disabling its power system, you would be fairly stuffed as well. The US navy stopped using sodium cooled reactors mainly because they wanted to standardize on one design. Sodium would have a lot of merits, even at sea. In particular, because it doesn't boil at the temperatures used you don't have any pressure in the reactor, so an explosion or leaking of primary coolant is a lot less probable ( and sodium or not, leaking of primary coolant would certainly be a show-stopper for a naval mission ).

Oh, and btw, the summary is misleading. Sodium is very corrosive to concrete and a lot of other materials, but provided it remains pure ( i.e, doesn't mix with water / air ) it is in fact very non-corrosive to steel, which is one of the reasons why it is used. It is certainly a lot less corrosive than 300 C water with boric acid in it.

Re:

[E-Lad]

Yeah, it's psychotic to want sodium cooled naval reactors.

The Soviets experimented with metal-cooled reactors in their Alpha class submarines. I believe the reactors in those boats employed bismuth, though. The problem with metals is that it was a maintenance nightmare. The ruskies had to build piers with steam plants on them just for the Alphas so the they could dock and shut down their reactors, less the liquid bismuth solidify in the coolant pipes and essentially writing off the entire boat. I do believe

Re:

[BlueParrot]

Actually their main problem was that the plants they built ashore in order to heat the reactors didn't manage to supply enough heat so they ended up running the reactors non-stop without service, and they were not designed for that so they eventually broke under the stress. Also, lead-bismuth and sodium are very different coolants. While sodium reacts explosively with water , lead does not. Lead does however corrode steal quite aggressively while sodium is completely non-corrosive to steel ( unless it is mi

Re:Sodium reactors and the Navy

[DerekLyons]

I remember reading about some fracas with some congressman wanting to install sodium-cooled nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers. Hyman Rickover, who was running the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet at the time, got hauled in front of a congressional panel; he dropped a small chunk of metallic sodium into some water and asked, following the ensuing fire and explosion, whether there were any questions.

An urban legend without a shred of truth to it. Rickover in fact was initially in favor of sodium cooled reactors - because, in theory, they would allow plants that were more compact and higher power than water cooled reactors. However, as usually happens, theory and reality failed to jibe. Sodium plants turned out to be heavier, more expensive, more complex, and far more maintenance intensive that water cooled plants.
 
Ever the pragmatic engineer, Rickover chose to stay with what worked and cancelled the sodium reactor program.

I find it odd

[stox]

If there was any radioactivity in the area being videoed that there is no observable scintillation. Did they use shielded video cameras?

Re:

[BlueParrot]

There wasn't any radioactivity in the area. The leak occurred in the secondary loop which is not radioactive. The primary loop is inside quite a bit of shielding so even if there was a leak there you couldn't just walk up to it with a video camera.

Those arn't space suits!

[BobSixtyFour]

They're top-secret nuclear-powered "Gundam" or (Generation Unsubdued Nuclear Drive Assault Module) Mobile Suits!!

Worse than what?

[Rie Beam]

Dangerous or not, how is this any worse than coal mining, products unearthed by miners who risk their lives for the sake of simply having work? I understand uranium must be mined, as well, but at the same time, the quantity mined is no where near that of coal, simply because you need less uranium to produce the same amount of energy as burning coal.

Also, let's talk about the environmental effects. My family actually has a history with this, living in West Virginia and finding work in the mines. Ever heard of a process called "strip mining"? Tearing the tops off of mountains and letting mining sediment flow into valleys and adjacent creeks? Nuclear waste is more dangerous pound per pound, but it also can be contained, stored, and most importantly, reprocessed into other nuclear fuels. Coal burns and releases carbon.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm willing to risk the occasional "breeder screwup" every couple of decades for cheaper, more environmentally-friendly fuel that doesn't involve razing land en masse and sending people into under-inspected mines because the product itself is simply so worthless unless produced in bulk.

Uranium isn't a solution to any major environmental problem, considering that such a novel idea simply doesn't exist right now. But it's still more than coal. It's something I'd be willing to put myself behind if a nuclear plant were proposed near my home.

Suicide

[Fizzl]

...Shigeo Nishimura, 49, jumped to his death...

I don't get these "suicide to save face" issues.
I like Benders approach better.
Bender: I am so embarrassed.. I wish everyone else was dead!

Re:Video down?

[hyperherod]

An English subtitled version can be found here [dotsub.com] until that also runs out of bandwidth. Also a link to a version on YouTube [youtube.com] but this is with Japanese subtitles only.

Re:

[ceejayoz]

I can't imagine it helps that they linked to it on a secure server. That's going to be one melty server.

Re:

[tomhudson]

"nuclear reactor would be re-opened with a new plutonium core,"

"Someone set up us the bomb!"

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[$RANDOMLUSER]

How many people die yearly in coal mining accidents? How about accidents on oil drilling rigs?

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[Martz]

Instead the burning of coal slowly kills thousands of people a year through air pollution.

And as we all know, that's not news because it isn't sensational enough.

One study I found when searching indicates that 25 reactor meltdowns per year would be required to being it inline with coal pollution deaths.

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[NevermindPhreak]

So interesting, that i took the liberty of finding the source.

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm [isu.edu]

Re:

[Zymergy]

Not to mention the un-filtered combustibles from coal-fired power stations release vast amounts of Mercury Vapors that contaminate our environment and food chains.
Scrubbing the gaseous elemental Mercury from the combustion gases is very expensive and not that efficient and many countries don't even bother. Look it up in your own country.
I'd rather have the *fear* of an unlikely contamination of my environment from non-global-warming nuclear power than the *certainty* of air pollution and Mercury in my f

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[CrazedWalrus]

I don't know about that study, but the statement itself seems to agree with this:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste [sciam.com]

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash--a by-product from burning coal for power--contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.

At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Re:

[CrazedWalrus]

Any time.

I was just in my home state of Pennsylvania yesterday and saw a bumper sticker asking "Why not coal?" (Coal Miner's Union) The major industry around my area used to be anthracite mining, and when that collapsed, the town kinda went to shit, although it's coming back slowly. Given that, I understand why they'd want coal, just like I'm sure people in Detroit want the auto industry back, and the midwest wants ethanol.

Unfortunately, even though it would probably be a boon to my home town, I can't agree

Re:

[sethstorm]

Given that, I understand why they'd want coal, just like I'm sure people in Detroit want the auto industry back, and the midwest wants ethanol.

Perhaps if there wasn't that blow delivered to them in the 70's-80's (from environmentalists and people with a hate for Detroit/"Big Labor" that exceeds the hate for Bush), that mistake wouldn't have been realized.

You underestimate the amount of people who will buy Detroit/UAW(and not at exhorbitant prices) despite the push to kill it. They are not of the type that will just settle for an import just because some non-voting person wants us to go in a direction contrary to the citizens' wishes.

I was just in my home state of Pennsylvania yesterday and saw a bumper sticker asking "Why not coal?" (Coal Miner's Union) The major industry around my area used to be anthracite mining, and when that collapsed, the town kinda went to shit, although it's coming back slowly.

Maybe there

Re:

[Smidge204]

That's funny, I thought a "meltdown" was when the core overheats and actually begins to... you know, melt. I can't think of any reactors that actually use carbon as a mediator anyway...

=Smidge=

Re:

[TooMuchToDo]

Technically "meltdown" is when the plant shuts down and the carbon rods retract.

A meltdown is when for some reason the nuclear reaction isn't mediated, and the reaction "runs away" or takes off out of control. This would happen in older reactors if there is a loss of coolant and the control rods weren't dropped into the reactor (also known as a SCRAM) to stop the nuclear reaction from occurring. With breeder reactors, I'm unaware of what their procedure is for handling any sort of failure with the sodium coolant.

Re:

[timmarhy]

the 1950's called and they want their nuclear tech back. no one has built a new plant based on water cooling in 50 years.

Re:

[khallow]

The retraction of the carbon rods is called meltdown.

No, a meltdown is when the fuel rods and surrounding material starts to melt. Worst case, the fuel completely melts and pools at the bottom of the reactor container, melts through the floor of the reactor container, and keeps going for a while till enough other material, particularly neutron-absorbing material (graphite, bismuth) (which in the worst case for old, poorly designed reactors may be ample portions of bedrock underneath the reactor) has mixed in to bring the fuel density below criticality. Ther

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[Shining Celebi]

Those do not incur the risk of radioactive contamination, which has long-term consequences that are more worrying than those resulting directly from the incident (I'm not saying every nuclear incident goes the way of Chernobyl -- just pointing out there is a risk). So it's not just a matter of comparing casualties resulting from the particular explosion/meltdown/whatever.

Coal mining accidents might not incur the risk of significant radioactive contamination, but the combustion of coal does release massive amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere [ornl.gov], and people living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to more radiation than those living near nuclear power plants.

I've always found these statistics to be interesting:

For comparison, according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.

Of course, in the case of an extreme nuclear accident, as in Chernobyl, we have a very big problem to deal with right away that wouldn't be possible with coal. But I think it's worth remembering that a great deal of radioactive material is accumulating from coal-fired power plants, and that could someday be a major problem too. Nuclear power is not the only source of radiation released because of human activity.

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[Ironsides]

Of course, in the case of an extreme nuclear accident, as in Chernobyl, we have a very big problem to deal with right away that wouldn't be possible with coal. But I think it's worth remembering that a great deal of radioactive material is accumulating from coal-fired power plants, and that could someday be a major problem too. Nuclear power is not the only source of radiation released because of human activity.

There is another factor to consider in this. Chernobyl used a design whereby a lack of water caused a positive feedback loop in the reactor to cause it to get even hotter. U.S. and most other designs use a negative feedback loop so the less water/coolant there is in the reactor, the less energy is put out. A Chernobyl type accident is physically impossible in any reactor used in the U.S. 3 Mile Island is about the worst nuclear accident that can occur in a U.S. nuclear power plant and about three dozen things went wrong (including stupidity on the part of the plant operators) in order to cause it.

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[BlueParrot]

There is another factor to consider in this. Chernobyl used a design whereby a lack of water caused a positive feedback loop in the reactor to cause it to get even hotter.

Oh if that was the ONLY thing that was wrong with it...

1)The end of the control rods were made of graphite, which accelerated the reaction rather than slowing it when the operators pushed the panic button.

2)The channels that contained the control rods were far too narrow, causing the control rods to get jammed when they deformed due to the intense heat.

3)The reactor did not have a containment building, allowing the radioactive gases to escape into the atmosphere after the accident blew the roof of the reactor itself.

4)The reactor core was unusually large, containing much more nuclear fuel than other reactor designs, thus making the radioactive release worse.

5)The reactor was staffed with uneducated workers that didn't have significant experience with nuclear reactors.

6)The operators were not told about the design problems with the reactors even thou they were well known at the time.

7)The operators ran the reactor outside of safety regulations, withdrawing many more control rods than the reactor was designed to operate with ( that this was even possible is another design flaw ).

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[urcreepyneighbor]

basically a criminally bad design being operated by nicompoops.

Communism in a nutshell.

zing!

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[c.r.o.c.o]

Have you done any reading on the status of Chernobyl lately?

Since the accident, the natural wild life has returned in full force, and the region's ecosystem is healthier than it has been for centuries. Obviously without an in depth study we cannot be certain of mutation and cancer rates in those animals. But I'll venture a guess that natural selection took its course, and the overall population is healthy, allowing it to adapt and thrive in a mildly radioactive environment.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/33784558.html [nationalgeographic.com]

So there goes your whole argument. Now read up on blue fin tuna that has such large quantities of mercury that even 6 pieces of sushi per week exceeds the safe limit. Read about the Exxon Valdez spill and countless others that directly destroyed entire ecosystems.

At this point nuclear energy is safer than any conventional other energy source. It is also the only economically viable energy source, at least for the time being. People who believe that solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources are the way to go obviously have NO idea how much electricity is consumed in industrial processes. Statements like "this windmill can power thousands of homes" are meaningless, when a single steel foundry consumes that much in a half hour.

Re:

[sholden]

Because the people left. And people, it would seem, have a bigger negative impact on wildlife than the radioactivity from the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history...

Re:

[m0rph3us0]

Technically you're right, there is no "risk" of contamination from coal, it just plain contaminates everyday. There is enough uranium and thorium in most coal that if you could extract it economically would produce more power than the coal itself. Coal is somewhat radioactive, how do you think they do carbon dating?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste [sciam.com]

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[Artifakt]

Nothing that involves a high concentration of energy and a low concentration can ever be completely safe. Energy is the ability to do work, and it may end up doing work you don't want it to do. Now here's the real problem: You feel you have been lied to, that somebody promised you breeder reactors are completely safe, or that other kinds of reactors are completely safe or something. Well, somebody lied to you all right, when they told you that any power generation could ever be completely safe.
        Read up on 'loss of blade' accidents for windmills, dam failures for hydro, and how coal releases radiation (lots of it) and other toxins (lots of them). Read up on what chemical compounds are used in solar cells, or just how hot a commercial sterling solar engine is at the mirror's focal point. Look at the political consequences of breeders, but also at the political consequences of the existing fuel oil demand. Look at the environmental consequences of nuclear, but also at the environmental consequences of big oil. Find out how even wave and tide, if scaled up to produce tens or hundreds of gigawatts, means thousands of small boat accidents a year, plus Manatees and probably many other species will inevitably become extinct and whole ecologies such as the everglades will likely follow. For any power source, read up on where it is to be located, and the human costs of sending the power to where it is to be used. THERE IS NO SAFE!

Quite right, and since the dawn of the human race

[Kupfernigk]

We are descendants of a hunter gatherer species. For a long time our energy source was our own muscles, and in order to get plenty of high quality food to supply them, a relatively small primate had to learn to kill animals large and strong enough to kill it. The rewards of risk taking (i.e. hunting large ungulates) presumably outweighed the risks, because eventually we learned to domesticate them. There seems to be some evidence growing that civilisation was a step backwards caused by climate change because, even with intensive farming, humans have to work much harder to get sufficient food. Hence the pyramid system feeding the rulers and warriors, the priests that justified it, and the conflict between nomads and town dwellers.

We are also poor at judging risks outside our biological programming, which is why we deem it a reasonable trade off to have over a hundred thousand people a year across Europe and the US die in accidents, rather than have universal public transport. If a hundred thousand deaths a year is OK so we can go to the office exactly when we feel like it, why isn't it OK so we can turn on the dishwasher exactly when we feel like it? - and that's meant to be a serious question.

Re:Quite right, and since the dawn of the human ra

[sjames]

It's more of the poor risk analysis. Deaths from coal based pollution and auto accidents happen daily in a series of small dramas affecting a handful of people at a time. When a nuclear accident happens it's all over the news and millions are involved in the same drama at the same time. That skews our risk assessment so that the emotional reaction to the infrequent large event is much greater even though the many small and frequent events kill far more people.

reletive novelty also plays a role. A video of one guy being killed by a bull will get a LOT more airtime than a thousand fatal carcrash videos will.

Jaws scared a great many people out of the ocean. I would guess that many times more people have died on the way to or from the movie than due to shark attack.

Re:

[kabocox]

Find out how even wave and tide, if scaled up to produce tens or hundreds of gigawatts, means thousands of small boat accidents a year, plus Manatees and probably many other species will inevitably become extinct and whole ecologies such as the everglades will likely follow. For any power source, read up on where it is to be located, and the human costs of sending the power to where it is to be used. THERE IS NO SAFE!

Be honest though. As long as it is safe for humans, we don't care if it kills off every lif

Re:

[Artifakt]

I agree that the human race is unlikely to make the decision to save the Manatees at the cost of less jobs, fewer lifestyle options, and such, but it is becoming apparent that impoverishing the rest of the capital E Ecology or even local ecologies hurts us as well. Maybe Manatees aren't that significant, maybe Alligators can all go, just maybe we could pave the whole everglades without losing carrying capacity for humans, but take out enough species, whole biomes, and so on, and it will hit us too.

Re:

[Artifakt]

Iron doesn't fission or fuse, so steel is only risky if it's got mechanical potential energy. Ergo, we must ban weightlifting and tall buildings. All other elements besides iron are potentially capable of liberating energy by either fusing to make iron or fissioning to make iron, so it's all other elements we must ban. If we just make the whole universe iron, and pack it all into one ball so nothing can fall any farther, then everybody will ,at last, be safe. Uhm, wait...

Re:

[sjames]

Actually, breeders can do both. Early examples were primarily for weapons grade Pu production but many designs exist geared more for commercial power production. The Pu they produce is well suited for further use in a reactor, but is much more difficult to process into weapons material. That, of course, is a big plus these days when the world has quite enough bombs.

Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming

[Jesus_666]

Actually, they partially are. Breeders can be reduced to dramatically reduce the amount of waste generated, thus eliminating one of the major issues with nuclear power. I've seen predictions from 95% to 98% less waste.

A minor correction...

[Jesus_666]

Breeders can be used to reduce nuclear waste. The reduction of breeders does not help with that.

Re:

[BlueParrot]

Are breeder reactors the type people are advocating for a return to nuclear power? I don't think so...

There are other coolants you can use for breeder reactors. My personal favorite is the lead cooled system. It can safely shut itself down even without any computer or operator intervention (thanks to thermal expansion of the core ), there is no pressure in the reactor, so it can't explode, lead doesn't boil at the temperatures involved, so a loss of coolant accident as happened at TMI is unlikely, and it ca

Re:why sodium?

[BlueParrot]

A number of reasons:

a) It is liquid at temperatures suitable for the reactor operation meaning you don't need any pressure in the cooling system. In contrast pressurized water reactors and gas cooled reactors need to keep the entire core under high pressure.

b) Sodium is a metal and hence conducts heat very well, this allows you to build a very compact reactor that is still capable of dissipating its heat after shutdown even if the cooling pumps were to fail.

c) Sodium doesn't absorb neutrons nearly as much as water does, and this allows you to build a reactor which produces more plutonium than it consumes, thus eliminating the need to enrich uranium.

d) Sodium atoms are heavier than hydrogen atoms, so the neutrons will not lose their energy as quickly. As a consequence the neutron spectrum is a lot harder, and capable of destroying much of the long-lived waste. The Waste from a breeder reactor would hit uranium levels of radioactivity in 300 years rather than tens of thousands of years.

e)While sodium is corrosive when mixed with air or water, pure sodium is almost completely non-corrosive to steel. This is in sharp contrast to 300 C pressurized water with boric-acid dissolved in it. A sodium cooled reactor generally experiences virtually no corrosion to the reactor core unless an accident occurs.

Basically, if it wasn't for the fire-hazard sodium would be close to an ideal reactor coolant.
 

Re:

[schnikies79]

The NaOH isn't the problem. Sodium Hydroxide can be easily neutralized.

The problem is when Na comes in contact with water, it gives off hydrogen gas, and being that the rxn is exothermic, the hydrogen can be ignited resulting in an explosion.

2Na + 2H20 --> H2 + 2NaOH

Re:

[BlueParrot]

No you are right. Lead, Bismuth, Helium, Molten Salts, and even Water has been suggested. As for the last one, water is often claimed to be unusable in a breeder reactor because it absorbs too many neutrons. However, this is only true if you run the reactor on plutonium and use a thermal low-enrichment neutron spectrum. It is quite possible to design water/steam cooled reactors that have a fast neutron spectrum, and if you use heavy water it is even possible to design breeder reactor running on U-233 / Thor