International Nuclear Watch & Discussion

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Mar 2011 00:11

NRao wrote:Japan-style earthquake and tsunami unlikely to hit Southern California, experts say

This is non-sense. Along the Oregon coast there are water marks on the hillsides which show there was a giant tusnami long long ago. Discovery Channel had a show on that a year or two back. the geologist point to the water line about 400 feet up from sea level on the hill side.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 16 Mar 2011 02:03

Reactor Design in Japan Has Long Been Questioned

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But the type of containment vessel and pressure suppression system used in the failing reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant — and in 23 American reactors at 16 plants — is physically less robust, and it has long been thought to be more susceptible to failure in an emergency than competing designs.

¶ G.E. began making the Mark 1 boiling water reactors in the 1960s, marketing them as cheaper and easier to build — in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.
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In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended in a memo that the sort of “pressure-suppression” system used in G.E.’s Mark 1 plants presented unacceptable safety risks and that it should be discontinued. Among his concerns were that the smaller containment design was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
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A written response came later that same year from Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the N.R.C. He called the idea of a ban on such systems “attractive” because alternative containment systems have the “notable advantage of brute simplicity in dealing with a primary blowdown.”

¶ But he added that the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.”

¶ In an e-mail on Tuesday, David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Program at the Union for Concerned Scientists, said those words seemed ironic now, given the potential global ripples on the nuclear industry from the Japanese accident.
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Questions about the G.E. reactor design escalated in the mid-1980s, when Harold Denton, an official with the N.R.C., asserted that Mark 1 reactors had a 90 percent probability of bursting should the fuel rods overheat and melt in an accident. A follow-up report from a study group convened by the commission concluded that “Mark 1 failure within the first few hours following core melt would appear rather likely.”
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Several utilities and plant operators also threatened to sue G.E. in the late 1980s after the disclosure of internal company documents dating back to 1975 that suggested the containment vessel designs were either insufficiently tested or had flaws that could compromise safety.
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Several utilities and plant operators also threatened to sue G.E. in the late 1980s after the disclosure of internal company documents dating back to 1975 that suggested the containment vessel designs were either insufficiently tested or had flaws that could compromise safety.
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What role the specifics of the G.E. design is playing in the rapid deterioration of control at the Fukushima plant is likely to be a matter of debate, and it is possible that any reactor design could succumb to the one-two punch of an earthquake and tsunami like those that unfolded last week in Japan.

Although G.E.’s liability would seem limited in Japan — largely because the regulatory system in that country places most liability on the plant operator, the company’s share price was down more than 2 percent at midday Tuesday as the situation at the Fukushima plant deteriorated.
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In that sense, Mr. Lochbaum said, G.E.’s the boiling water reactors should be no better or worse in weathering accidents than any other design.

Should the ability to cool the reactor completely fail, however, Mr. Lochbaum said, “I’d certainly rather have a bigger, thicker containment structure.”

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 16 Mar 2011 06:14

Fire at Reactor Adds to Challenges as Japan Weighs New Plans to Cool Fuel

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 16 Mar 2011 06:16

Fire erupts again at Fukushima Daiichi's No. 4 reactor; nuclear fuel rods damaged at other reactors

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 16 Mar 2011 07:28

Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami

There are several pictures, so web page might be slow to load on your computer. The first image is for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

Move the slider to compare satellite images from before and after the disaster.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 16 Mar 2011 07:55

Georgia Residents Still Support Expansion of Local Nuclear Plant Despite Japan Crisis

Japan's woes prompt Venezuela to halt nuclear plan

What Scares Germans About Japan’s Nuclear Fallout

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 16 Mar 2011 08:33

U.S. stands by nuclear power

Applications to build 20 new reactors are pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the White House had proposed billions of dollars to support the expansion of atomic power. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday that more than 30 experts from the Energy Department had been deployed to assist Japanese officials as they struggled to stabilize reactors and assess the potential fallout.

Chu said that U.S. reactors, which generate about 20% of the nation's electricity, meet the highest safety standards. Those near seismic fault lines and the coasts, he said, were designed to withstand the double blow of an earthquake and tsunami that rocked the reactors in Japan. In the U.S., the industry has been looking at a first wave of expansion with four nuclear projects. The future of three is unclear, Chu told lawmakers, while the fourth — at the Vogtle plant near Augusta, Ga. — remains contingent on regulatory approval.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 17 Mar 2011 04:07

U.S. Calls Radiation ‘Extremely High’ and Urges Deeper Caution in Japan

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 19 Mar 2011 03:43

1] The reactor continues to receive seawater/boron injections. The fuel core is damaged.

2] The situation was fairly stable on Friday, but white smoke was seen rising from the unit, which was rocked by an explosion Tuesday morning.

3] More than 100 tons of water have been dumped and sprayed at the spent fuel pool. "They are probably trying to prevent what's already happened to the number 4 pool," said Rod McCullum of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

4] The NRC believes there is no water left in the spent fuel pool and radiation levels are "extremely high." TEPCO reports that part of the pool's reinforced concrete wall has fallen away, leaving just a thin stainless-steel liner.

5] Water levels are dropping in the fuel core vessels of units 5 and 6.

6] Diesel generators are providing power for cooling in units 5 and 6.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 20 Mar 2011 05:50

When the impossible happens

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 20 Mar 2011 05:51

Don't be too hasty to reject nuclear power

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 20 Mar 2011 07:19

Could 'Chernobyl’ scaremongers cost our nuclear future?

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 22 Mar 2011 05:39

Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 22 Mar 2011 10:41

As has been said, with the live fuel sitting out in the open for many days (3-4) are partially uncovered for remaining part of the week+ time, as well the reactor containment breach(s) the bad news despite all the attempts to underplay the magnitude of the disaster will keep coming in, unfortunately we will find the full extent of damage due to radiation poisoning etc only over a 10-20 year period as the information held back slowly leaks out.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/japan-tepco- ... 698-2.html

Japan: TEPCO worried over high radiation levels

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on Monday said radiation at much higher levels than normal was found in the Pacific Ocean near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which may have been related to rain in the area and the hosing of the reactors with seawater.

Some nuclear experts however questioned whether TEPCO might be dumping some of the seawater used to cool the Daiichi reactor cores and spent fuel pools back into the Pacific.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 22 Mar 2011 12:06

Meanwhile, this one came to my attention... We know who'll be applying right?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 22 Mar 2011 14:10

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ... =0&sp=true

Special Report - Fuel storage, safety issues vexed Japan plant

REUTERS

Along with questions about whether Tokyo Electric officials waited too long to pump sea water into the plants and abandon hope of saving them, the utility and regulators are certain to face scrutiny on the fateful decision to store most of the plant's spent fuel rods inside the reactor buildings rather than invest in other potentially safer storage options.

"I've long thought that the whole system is crap," said Taro Kono, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and a longtime critic of nuclear power who sees the need for a government-directed reorganization of Tokyo Electric.

"We have to go through our whole nuclear strategy after this," Kono said. "Now no one is going to accept nuclear waste in their backyards. You can have an earthquake and have radioactive material under your house. We're going to have a real debate on this."

When the quake hit, almost 4,000 uranium fuel assemblies were stored in deep pools of circulating water built into the highest floor of the Fukushima reactor buildings, according to company records. Each assembly stands about 3.5 meters high and even a decade after use emits enough radiation to kill a person standing nearby.

The spent radioactive fuel stored in the reactors represented more than three times the amount of radioactive material normally held in the active cores of the six reactors at the complex, according to Tokyo Electric briefings and its presentation to the IAEA.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the spent fuel was vulnerable because it was protected only by the relatively "flimsy" outer shell of the reactors and reliant on a single, pump-driven cooling system.

"It's a recipe for disaster and that disaster is now unfolding in Japan," Lochbaum said.

And it goes ON and ON and ON.

The below is the same sort of nudge-nudge wink-wink and "you dont need to know" currently on display in terms of India and trying to shove the EXACTLY same philosophies down our throat

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 22 Mar 2011 16:39

Sanku wrote:
"I've long thought that the whole system is crap," said Taro Kono, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and a longtime critic of nuclear power who sees the need for a government-directed reorganization of Tokyo Electric.

"We have to go through our whole nuclear strategy after this," Kono said. "Now no one is going to accept nuclear waste in their backyards. You can have an earthquake and have radioactive material under your house. We're going to have a real debate on this."

Sanku
How can he be so sure? So many experts are willing to wager their life and rent their backyard for storing radioactive carbon free Waste material . Ironically Fukushima was LDP project and Japanese have done well in trying to contain the accident.

Debate, yes it will be there despite all "facts", come what may.

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 22 Mar 2011 17:22

Japan’s nuclear melt downs and impact on India

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 22 Mar 2011 22:49

Russia opting for ‘fast reactors’ for fourth-generation nuclear power

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 23 Mar 2011 04:15

China Concrete Pumper Gets Into Nuclear Effort

Changsha-based Sany Group Co. says its 62-meter truck-mounted concrete pump, used to build some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, is on its way to Fukushima at the request of Tokyo Electric Co., or Tepco.

Man jailed for spreading radiation rumors

Police in eastern China have jailed a man for 10 days and fined him 500 yuan ($76.13) for spreading rumors online that a blast at a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear plant had contaminated Chinese waters, state media said.

Ravi Karumanchiri · Post by **Ravi Karumanchiri** » 24 Mar 2011 00:14

X-POSTED from a comment I just made on the Globe and Mail website http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1952403/
X-POSTED India Nuclear News And Discussion

On the Globe and Mail website I wrote: The press handling of nuclear power issues is *atrocious*! This compels me to clarify: There is a BIG safety difference between the enriched uranium-fuelled, light water reactors (LWRs) like the ones in Fukushima (and the ones made by GE/Hitachi, Westinghouse and Areva), and the natural (un-enriched) uranium-fuelled, heavy water reactors (HWRs) like AECL’s CANDUs. Simply put, if the LWRs lose their cooling water, the reaction runs out of control until you get a melt-down. By comparison, if HWRs like the CANDUs lose their heavy water, the reaction stops automatically.

That’s right: CANDUs cannot melt down, even if all safety systems fail and the reactor looses all of its heavy water. To be sure, CANDUs do have safety concerns, most notably their inherent production of tritium. But this problem has now been solved by in-line ‘detritiation’ technologies, which were pioneered by Indian nuclear scientists operating CANDU-type reactors. (Note: Tritium is the primary fuel of experimental fusion reactors like ITER, which may one day provide for all of humanity’s energy needs.)

On top of which; LWRs like the ones in Fukushima need enriched uranium; which require enrichment plants and therefore also more radioactive waste, and also the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Conversely, HWRs can run on un-enriched (natural) uranium, or even on cheaper and more plentiful alternatives like thorium, without the need for an enrichment plant.

So therefore, HWRs like CANDUs entail less waste and pose lesser proliferation concerns. For this reason, among many other unique features of CANDUs (such as online refuelling, the ability to burn ‘spent’ fuel from other reactors, or even generate power from decommissioned nuclear warheads); I believe that the “nuclear renaissance” will eventually demonstrate a preference for AECLs technologies, once all of the dust has settled from the Fukushima disaster.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 25 Mar 2011 05:16

Russia Plans to Test Reactors For Ability to Survive Quakes

The C'noble started with a test, did it not? Just a thought.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 25 Mar 2011 05:24

New Problems at Japanese Plant Subdue Optimism

The restoration of electricity at the plant, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, stirred hopes that the crisis was ebbing. But nuclear engineers say some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks are still ahead — and time is not necessarily on the side of the repair teams.

The tasks include manually draining hundreds of gallons of radioactive water and venting radioactive gas from the pumps and piping of the emergency cooling systems, which are located diagonally underneath the overheated reactor vessels.

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.

Crusts insulate the rods from the water and allow them to heat up. If the crusts are thick enough, they can block water from circulating between the fuel rods. As the rods heat up, their zirconium cladding can rupture, which releases gaseous radioactive iodine inside and may even cause the uranium to melt and release much more radioactive material.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 25 Mar 2011 10:00

Some new 4th gen monoblock modular reactor thinge for civil application

SVBR-100 -- link

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 25 Mar 2011 15:36

Water radiation 10,000 times above normal spurs leakage fears

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 26 Mar 2011 18:20

I am rather surprised that with the techs Japan, and perhaps the US, has that they cannot place a remote controlled camera (which I would have thought would exist from day one) in places where they could gather more meaningful information. Or have other means of detecting failures.

????

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 26 Mar 2011 18:20

Radiation in seawater off nuclear plant spikes to 1,250 times normal

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 26 Mar 2011 18:27

US naval barges rush freshwater to Japanese nuclear plant where radioactivity is rising

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 27 Mar 2011 19:43

NRao wrote:Radiation in seawater off nuclear plant spikes to 1,250 times normal

Radiation spike report 'mistaken' -- BBC, 27 March 2011 Last updated at 13:31 GMT

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 27 Mar 2011 22:48

A U.S. Navy Barge filled with 225,000 gallons of fresh water goes to support cooling efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. High levels of radiation have been detected in the ocean waters around the plant, according to Japanese officials. (EPA / U.S. Navy / March 26, 2011)

Japanese Rules for Nuclear Plants Relied on Old Science

In the country that gave the world the word tsunami, the Japanese nuclear establishment largely disregarded the potentially destructive force of the walls of water.

Japanese government and utility officials have repeatedly said that engineers could never have anticipated the magnitude 9.0 earthquake — by far the largest in Japanese history — that caused the sea bottom to shudder and generated the huge tsunami. Even so, seismologists and tsunami experts say that according to readily available data, an earthquake with a magnitude as low as 7.5 — almost garden variety around the Pacific Rim — could have created a tsunami large enough to top the bluff at Fukushima.

“We can only work on precedent, and there was no precedent,” said Tsuneo Futami, a former Tokyo Electric nuclear engineer who was the director of Fukushima Daiichi in the late 1990s. “When I headed the plant, the thought of a tsunami never crossed my mind.”

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 28 Mar 2011 05:33

Merkel Loses Key State on Nuclear Power Fears

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 28 Mar 2011 05:34

3/27 :: 7.15 PM ET :: Higher Levels of Radiation Found at Japan Reactor Plant

Protesters marched in an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo on Sunday

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 28 Mar 2011 07:18

Meanwhile in China:

Nuclear construction milestones at Haiyang 2

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 29 Mar 2011 01:37

A Radical Kind of Reactor

While engineers at Japan’s stricken nuclear power plant struggle to keep its uranium fuel rods from melting down, engineers in China are building a radically different type of reactor that some experts say offers a safer nuclear alternative.

Rather than using conventional fuel rod assemblies of the sort leaking radiation in Japan, each packed with nearly 400 pounds of uranium, the Chinese reactors will use hundreds of thousands of billiard-ball-size fuel elements, each cloaked in its own protective layer of graphite.
The coating moderates the pace of nuclear reactions and is meant to ensure that if the plant had to be shut down in an emergency, the reaction would slowly stop on its own and not lead to a meltdown.

The technology under construction here, known as a pebble-bed reactor, is not new. Germany, South Africa and the United States have all experimented with it, before abandoning it over technical problems or a lack of financing.

Despite Japan’s crisis, China still plans to build as many as 50 nuclear reactors over the next five years — more than the rest of the world combined. Most of this next wave will be of more conventional designs.

China is building a repository for high-level nuclear waste, like conventional fuel rods, in the country’s arid west(is it in xinjaing or tibet). But the far less radioactive spheres, or pebbles, like those from the Shidao reactors will not require such specialized storage; China plans to store the used pebbles initially at the power plants, and later at lower-level radioactive waste disposal sites near the reactors.

More nukes would let China reduce the heavy reliance on coal and other fossil fuels that now make it the world’s biggest emitter of global-warming gases.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 29 Mar 2011 04:25

The demise of the pebble bed modular reactor

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 29 Mar 2011 04:54

Damaged reactor may be leaking radioactive water, Japan says

Three plutonium isotopes -- Pu-238, -239 and -240 -- were found in soil at five different points inside the plant grounds, Tokyo Electric reported.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 29 Mar 2011 09:08

2 GE nuclear reactor wins US approval

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 31 Mar 2011 20:21

Some high resolutiion pictures of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 31 Mar 2011 21:21

Big money moves for Areva

Areva has made some financial changes to allow investment from Kuwait. It is soon to pay around €1.62 billion ($2.29 billion) to buy out Siemens' 34% stake in their shared reactor business.
<snip>

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Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 31 Mar 2011 21:23

Swiss nuclear organisation targeted

A suspected letter bomb has exploded in the offices of the Swiss nuclear trade organisation, swissnuclear, injuring two people.