US experts fear 'Chernobyl-like' crisis for Japan

[AntZ]

US experts fear 'Chernobyl-like' crisis for Japan

Posted: 13 March 2011




WASHINGTON - US nuclear experts warned Saturday that pumping sea water to cool a quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactor was an "act of desperation" that may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.

Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome at the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.

"The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don't have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water," said Robert Alvarez, who works on nuclear disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies.

"I would describe this measure as a 'Hail Mary' pass," added Alvarez, using American football slang for a final effort to win the game as time expires.

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday set off the emergency at the plant, which was then hit by an explosion Saturday that prompted an evacuation of the surrounding area.

Workers doused the stricken reactor with sea water to try to avert catastrophe, after the quake knocked out power to the cooling system.

What occurred at the plant was a "station blackout," which is the loss of offsite air-conditioning power combined with the failure of onsite power, in this case diesel generators.

"It is considered to be extremely unlikely but the station blackout has been one of the great concerns for decades," said Ken Bergeron, a physicist who has worked on nuclear reactor accident simulation.

"We're in uncharted territory," he said.

The reactor has been shut down but the concern is the heat in the core, which can melt if it is not cooled. If the core melts through the reactor vessel, Bergeron explained, it could flow onto the floor of the containment building. If that happens, the structure likely will fail, the experts said.

"The containment building at this plant is certainly stronger than that at Chernobyl but a lot less strong than at Three Mile Island, so time will tell," he said.

Peter Bradford, former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that if the cooling attempts fail, "at that point it's a Chernobyl-like situation where you start dumping in sand and cement."

The two worst nuclear accidents on record are the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine and the partial core meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in the US state of Pennsylvania in 1979.

Early Sunday, nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power said radiation levels had surpassed the legal limit at its Fukushima No. 1 plant, hit by a blast the previous day, Kyodo News reported.

"If it continues, if they don't get control of this and... we go from a partial meltdown of the core to a full meltdown, this will be a complete disaster," Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, told CNN.

Cirincione said the presence of radioactive cesium in the atmosphere after the plant was vented indicated that a partial meltdown was under way.

"That told the operators that the fuel rods had been exposed, that the water level had dropped below the fuel rods and the fuel rods were starting to burn, releasing cesium," he said.

Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the Fukushima accident at four on the International Nuclear Event Scale from 0 to 7. The Three Mile Island accident was rated five while Chernobyl was a seven.

The government declared an atomic emergency and said tens of thousands of people living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant should leave after an explosion at the nuclear plant Saturday.

Paul Gunter is the US organization Beyond Nuclear, told Fox News that the evacuation zone might be too small: "If that containment is lost... this will spread a tremendous amount of radioactivity, and it will then be borne on the weather."

The NRC said it has sent two experts to Japan -- experts in boiling water nuclear reactors who are part of a broader US aid team sent to the disaster zone.

Bradford, the former NRC member, said: "This is obviously a significant setback for the so-called nuclear renaissance."

"The image of a nuclear power plant blowing up before your eyes on the television screen is a first."

But World Nuclear Association spokesman Ian Hore-Lacy told CBS News that the threat of a full meltdown is minimal.

"That possibility is remote at the best of times and is diminishing by the hour as the fuel gets cooler and generates less heat," he said.

- AFP/ls/ir



http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...116149/1/.html

[RBP]

Scary stuff!

[Deepsepia]

Doesn't look like Chernobyl. This is one of those things where people are doing a little disaster porn. The article states that you get to a "Chernobyl" situation if you're unable to cool the core. Well, that would be true of any nuclear reactor, so its in the "so what" category. At this point, they're able to cool the core, and with each day that passes, the cooling requirements diminish.

In fact, ironically, the Japanese reactors have performed quite well. From what we know -- which is very incomplete-- the problems that have occurred are due to the interruption of backup power from diesel generators (which seem to have gotten trashed by the tsunami).

Again, its incredibly ironic, but from what we know today, if the Japanese hadn't initiated the emergency shutdowns, the reactors would all be running fine now (because they supply their own electric power -- so long as they're running, you don't need power from anywhere else to run the cooling system. Once they shut down, then you had to get power from the diesels, and then they got trashed by the tsunami.)

So far as has been reported, the reactors themselves were not damaged by the quake or the tsunami, which is pretty incredible . . . the failure here appears to be in the design of the backup generation system, which should have been on high ground.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Unfortunately, the anti-nuclear brigade is going to use the whole 'worst case scenario' scare tactics of what could happen to the Japanese reactors, to harp onto why we shouldn't build any more nuclear power plants in the United States.

[Deepsepia]

Unfortunately, the anti-nuclear brigade is going to use the whole 'worst case scenario' scare tactics of what could happen to the Japanese reactors, to harp onto why we shouldn't build any more nuclear power plants in the United States.

Note that the first guy quoted in the story is an anti-nuke guy-- the Institute for Policy Studies is very left. And he's not a "nuclear expert" so far as I can see, he doesn't seem to have any kind of technical qualification at all . . . reading his bio I'd call him "an anti-nuclear activist". Doesn't mean that he doesn't know anything, or that he might not be right, but I don't see anything in his CV that would make me say "this guy has real world experience with nuclear reactors".

Between 1993 and 1999, Mr. Alvarez served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment. While at DOE, he coordinated the effort to enact nuclear worker compensation legislation. In 1994 and 1995, Bob led teams in North Korea to establish control of nuclear weapons materials. He coordinated nuclear material strategic planning for the department and established the department’s first asset management program. Bob was awarded two Secretarial Gold Medals, the highest awards given by the department.

Prior to joining the DOE, Mr. Alvarez served for five years as a Senior Investigator for the U. S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator John Glenn, and as one of the Senate’s primary staff experts on the U.S. nuclear weapons program. While serving for Senator Glenn, Bob worked to help establish the environmental cleanup program in the Department of Energy, strengthened the Clean Air Act, uncovered several serious nuclear safety and health problems, improved medical radiation regulations, and created a transition program for communities and workers affected by the closure of nuclear weapons facilities. In 1975 Bob helped found and direct the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI), a respected national public interest organization. He helped enact several federal environmental laws, wrote several influential studies and organized successful political coalitions. He helped organize a successful lawsuit on behalf of the family of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear worker and active union member who was killed under mysterious circumstances in 1974.

Bob Alvarez is an award winning author and has published articles in prominent publications such as Science Magazine, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Technology Review and The Washington Post. He has been featured in television programs such as NOVA and 60 Minutes.
http://www.ips-dc.org/staff/bob

We certainly want to think very hard about the vulnerability of back up power supplies. That's the real problem here, and I certainly would vote against a new reactor with that vulnerability.

That said, this was a Generation II design, been operating for 40 years, and the design was at least ten years old when built -- it dates to the 1960s.

The new Generation IV designs have passive safety features (eg: takes energy to keep the core hot, turn off the juice and the reaction turns off and the core cools-- a "dead man's switch)

[Teh One Who Knocks]

But therein lies the problem. If people don't do any research into the person saying things, then on the surface it makes it look like the person is a so-called "expert" on the situation. And they go off spouting the 'doom and gloom' scenario with their only intent being to scare the public at large to further their, in this case, anti-nuclear agenda.

As you pointed out, nuclear power plant design and technology has come a long way since most of the commercial power plants have come online throughout the world and they are ultra-safe. Are they completely disaster-proof? Of course not, but nothing is and no matter how many precautions and safeguards are in place, accidents will happen.

[Deepsepia]

The problem is that the public doesn't know much (about anything, but about nuclear power in particular). And the history isn't filled with electric power companies covering themselves with glory (as in why-the-fuck did the Japanese put this power station on a beachfront !)

But you'll find that amidst the scare stuff, there are people saying sane stuff too -- but it probably doesn't get 1/100 the hits that the "Chernobyl" does

"This is not a serious public health issue at the moment," Malcolm Crick, Secretary of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, told Reuters.

"It won't be anything like Chernobyl. There the reactor was operating at full power when it exploded and it had no containment," he said. As a precaution, around 140,000 people have been evacuated from the area around Fukushima.

Crick said a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island plant in the United States in 1979 -- rated more serious than Japan's accident on an international scale -- released low amounts of radiation.

"Many people thought they'd been exposed after Three Mile Island," he said. "The radiation levels were detectible but in terms of human health it was nothing."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72C2OS20110313

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The problem is that the public doesn't know much (about anything, but about nuclear power in particular).

Exactly why it's easy to scare people

[AntZ]

The problem is that the public doesn't know much (about anything, but about nuclear power in particular). And the history isn't filled with electric power companies covering themselves with glory (as in why-the-fuck did the Japanese put this power station on a beachfront !)

Not sure what you mean by the "why on the beach front?" statement.

Many people know, especially from California! You get cooling two ways, either tall cooling towers like Three Mile Island, Palo Verde, and much of the rest of the worlds plants. Or you draw in sea water like San Onofre on the beach in So.Cal and Diablo Canyon on the beach in Central Calif. The plant in question in Japan also uses sea water, thus the lack of cooling towers. The use of sea water has now been banned in the U.S., from what I understand, they will possibly need to build them and remove the sea water all together at those two plants.

I have not heard that the diesel generators were knocked out by the tsunami, your statement is the first I've heard. In fact, I haven't heard or read the tsunami even touched this plant at all?? This problem with the reactors and failed cooling also affected other plants as well, also untouched by the tsunami! If you have a source, I'm interested to look at it. It does raise some serious questions in planning and design, that equipment is installed for the worst case scenario and it all fails when needed!

[Southern Belle]

My ex is on "apocalypse alert". He called me twice last night about it. Once to ask how long seeds in those little packets would stay viable. Then to tell me I needed to start buying extra canned food.
I already have about 300 lbs of dehydrated food that my paranoid former best friend bought after she became a follower of Alex Jones. ffs

[Deepsepia]

Not sure what you mean by the "why on the beach front?" statement.

Not something that makes the most sense in a zone well known for tsunamis. Build inland with cooling towers, or build behind a massive headland and or seawall. But you look at the siting of this, and it's very exposed to what was not an un known risk.

I have not heard that the diesel generators were knocked out by the tsunami, your statement is the first I've heard. In fact, I haven't heard or read the tsunami even touched this plant at all?? d!

There are no reports that any of the nuclear stations suffered anything other than minor damage from the earthquake itself. They're built to withstand seismic shocks and they did. They were automatically put into shutdown mode with the quake, but then (it appears from all reports) the tsunami took out their backup generators.

The source for this is the International Atomic Energy Association, viz

Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) that today's earthquake and tsunami have cut the supply of off-site power to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In addition, diesel generators intended to provide back-up electricity to the plant's cooling system were disabled by tsunami flooding, and efforts to restore the diesel generators are continuing.
*

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html

[minz]

Chernobyl Was a completely different design to the station used in Japan and an accident just waiting to happen, sure its a bad situation to be in but I very much doubt you are looking at another Chernobyl. They have added boron to the sea water to help cut out any reactions, seems to me they are doing their best in very difficult circumstances, scare mongering doesn't do anyone any favours.

[AntZ]

I'm sure there are other problems that led to this, Japan has a long history of corruption and covering up any and all short comings. Things just don't seem to add up! A few quotes in various news stories help paint the picture:

The blast at the Japanese nuclear facility came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) was working desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor.

The company has had a rocky past in an industry plagued by scandal. In 2002, the president of the country's largest power utility was forced to resign along with four other senior executives, taking responsibility for suspected falsification of nuclear plant safety records.

High-pressure pumps can temporarily cool a reactor in this state with battery power, even when electricity is down, according to Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who used to work in the U.S. nuclear industry. They can open and close relief valves needed to control pressure. Batteries would go dead within hours but could be replaced.

The IAEA said "mobile electricity supplies" had arrived at the Daiichi plant. It wasn't clear if they were generators or batteries.

It just seems that things became too critical too quickly! I'm sure no one will ever know because usually no Japanese blow whistles.

[Deepsepia]

I'm sure there are other problems that led to this, Japan has a long history of corruption and covering up any and all short comings. Things just don't seem to add up! A few quotes in various news stories help paint the picture:

It just seems that things became too critical too quickly! I'm sure no one will ever know because usually no Japanese blow whistles.

Not sure what your point is.

The reactors were shutting down fine after the quake. Perhaps the Japanese are lying about that, but this is a hard one to conceal-- there are a lot eyes on this.

So reactors are in shutdown, with the main fission reaction stopped, but you still have the decay elements going (eg Cesium, Iodine). So you have to keep the thing cool till those reactions stop.

Then tsunami hits, taking out the backup power . . . they're apparently still running on batteries at that point (which means that the cooling system is still working-- it just needs a lot of power).

After batteries run down, the cooling system is unpowered.

That's bad.

You very quickly get very high temperatures and very high pressures building up-- you have to vent them.

Trouble is, inside the containment vessel the pressures and temperatures have split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen . . . what you saw was the explosive recombination of those two elements after venting

But the core problem remains the failure of the backup power due to tsunami-- there's no sign in any of this that the quake itself did any damage to the reactors (though it may have taken out the connection to the power grid itself).

[Noilly Pratt]

Well, depending on which local news media you see here where I (and GF and to a lesser extent because of distance, Hal) live, they at first were predicting tsunamis off our island coast, which didn't come to pass. The waves looked "different in rhythm" is all they would say.

Now they're like "I don't want to panic you, but the jet-stream puts the radioactive fallout right overhead eventually if something does blow. Now, let's see how Charlie Sheen is doing. "

Ah good then. It could be bad, then they leave you hanging and don't inform you about much.
They're doing a disservice by not giving facts to the public. (Example - bottled water lasts usually only 6 months.)

So many friends have called me asking what to do if that happened because I took a disaster recovery course. My smart-ass answer....

Upon seeing the ocean now replaced by nothing but molten lava coming towards us, put your head firmly between your legs...and kiss your a** goodbye!

Here's hoping that it gets alll solved. I can't do much about it other than keep some supplies on-hand.