(Contrary to what you may have heard on DU) "Containment vessels also damaged"

Containment vessels also damaged

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Not only the pressure vessels, but the containment vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were probably damaged within 24 hours of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s analysis of the nuclear crisis.

In a report on the analysis, the utility said it carried out minute calculations on internal pressure and other measurements in the nuclear reactors after the earthquake.

The report was submitted to the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on Monday night.

TEPCO said it found that an isolation condenser, a type of emergency cooling device, did not work properly at the No. 1 reactor. This caused the core meltdown to progress until it damaged the bottom of the pressure vessel about 15 hours after the earthquake.

Along with the meltdown...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110525006455.htm

Constant claims that Japan/Tepco/whoever are now "admitting" something... that was never hidden?

Water that is being pumped into the RPVs has been known to be leaking out of at least two of the three reactors... and this has been known since just a couple days into the timeline. Obviously there's SOME kind of damage to the containment vessels.

What a shocker.

I posted this yesterday "TEPCO: reactor damage includes holes" here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x295997

The first response was:


Now that was written yesterday and 3 out of the 14 total posts are by you. You are engaging to divert the discussion to anything but the topic. None of those posts, however, had you engaging with Atheist Crusader to explain he was questioning something "that we've known all along".

Clearly he didn't share your belief the water being pumped in was evidence that containment had been breached, and yet you curiously failed to ridicule his doubts. I suppose it could be his was an attempt to downplay the situation as one where containment was not breeched, and since that aligns with your goal of minimizing everything possible about this event you only chimed in to further disrupt discussion.

Now, when the conclusion is clearly stated by authorities, you abandon the tack you endorsed just yesterday with your silence and attack this thread from 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

What a shocker.

FBaggins post 1 this thread:

Though no... it's not examples of "attempts to disrupt the discussion". You consider ANY post that corrects your errors to be such an attempt.

I posted this yesterday "TEPCO: reactor damage includes holes"

Yeah? And that was several hours after I posted the exact same thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x295926

Clearly he didn't share your belief the water being pumped in was evidence that containment had been breached, and yet you curiously failed to ridicule his doubts.

The difference is in what you consider "breached". To me, the fact that water leaks out means that it is "breached"... to AC (and many here), it implies that the core has (to a greater or lesser extent) escaped from containment. I've said that either standard is fine with me so I would hardly "ridicule" it's use. His post was accurate. It WOULD be nice if they would more accurately identify whether they're talking about the RPV or containment and this WOULD be the first time that I've seen the suppression pool of #1 identified as damages (but that would only be identifying a location, not an event).

Note that it isn't a difference in what he believed happened, merely what he calls it. I also don't see him arguing there whether containment is "breached"... so I don't see how you identify him as "clearly not sharing the belief". Apart from your constant need to construct straw men.

You started the thread with "contrary to what you may have heard". The story says nothing about the core burning through primary containment. It really says nothing more than that water is leaking out. If that's "contrary to what you may have heard" then you haven't been paying attention.

There is no other accepted definition. Your duplicity and intent to disrupt are obvious.

To me, it suggests the core burning and penetrating the containment. To others it may mean a crack in the containment from the loads presented by the earthquake.

In this case, it may be a single valve, that simply needs to be turned.

It is cut and dried.

In the technical sense, yes. But that's not the connotation here. We knew they were "breached" immediately after the explosions when everyone's radiation monitors went apeshit.


'Breached' implies something entirely different. ESPECIALLY within the context of a core meltdown.

The water could be leaking through a service valve that simply needs to be turned. Very different connotation from a big-assed hole through the containment. How the hypothetical hole got there is important too, given that it could be a crack/earthquake damage, or basically holy-shit worst case scenario burn-through.

You don't get to rewrite the accepted definition for standard technical terms just to help you mislead people.

A breach that lets out a cup of water is not the same thing as one that lets out thousands of tons... and a breach that lets out thousands of tons of water is not at all the same thing as one that lets out a few tons of molten core.

You don't get to rewrite the accepted definition for standard technical terms

There isn't even a "standard technical term" for what constitutes a meltdown. By all means provide us with some reference material for what constitutes a "breach".

It is a standard term.

I would argue using that word in that way, is misleading.


I am not pretending we aren't getting tens of thousands of tons of radiocative water out of the containment. That's bad. But it's sort of to be expected when injecting water into the core to cool it. It has to go somewhere.

Tell me, do you think it's fair to say the containment was 'breached' when they vented steam from the reactors prior to the hydrogen explosion?

Because under your usage, that IS technically correct. I agree. But the connotation is completely useless for casual conversation.

AtheistCrusader on Wed May-25-11:
1. It would be nice if they could more clearly delineate between RPV and Containment, and reactor 1 or 2. Reactor 2 is the reactor where it has been generally accepted that the suppression pool was damaged by the explosion. (Further bolstered by it's inability to hold pressure, since)
This is the first suggestion I have seen that the suppression pool on reactor 1 is damaged, and I suspect it is a mistake/error in the statement. Reactor 1 has been holding pressure. As has 3. But reactor 2 is clearly in bad shape.

Kristopher:
3. they've pumped 10K tons of H2O into #1. They do not know where it is going. Do you?

AtheistCrusader:
4. I do not know. I could speculate all day on ways that do not imply a hole in the suppression pool on reactor 1. I will wait till they KNOW where the water is going.

Atheist Crusader now:
I am not pretending we aren't getting tens of thousands of tons of radiocative water out of the containment. That's bad. But it's sort of to be expected when injecting water into the core to cool it. It has to go somewhere.



It isn't a matter of "the connotation is useless for casual conversation" it is a matter of you trying to minimize negative perceptions of the nuclear industry by the public. Nothing more, nothing less.

Any more than you saying that supporting nuclear or centralized thermal power generation supports coal.

By the way, I note you haven't responded to my point about concentrating solar power in that thread. Do I support coal by supporting concentrating solar, or hydro, or geotherm?

You state that containment in 1&3 are "holding pressure" in an effort to minimize the information in the OP that stated the "reactor damage includes holes".

When called on that with the water being pumped in, you say that it is premature to "speculate" on where the water is going, as if knowing that they have to keep pumping in water (and pressure) to "hold pressure" isn't enough to negate your comment.

Committing your words to the forum is an act. By acts our intentions can be determined. Your intent is to downplay the problems and minimize negative perceptions of the nuclear industry by the public. Nothing more, nothing less.

No paraphrased strawmen allowed.

"There is no critical area where these rare earths are in a position to derail or significantly impact a shift to renewables. There are some marginal improvements that depend on some that are currently in short supply, but that supply can be met through the normal economic response to supply/demand signals."

Rare earths are used in distributed generating scenarios such as low-utilization wind turbines, in far greater tonnage per watt than a nuclear reactor's turbines. But you intentionally downplay any challenge facing renewables. I don't have a problem with that. I think it's a fine thing, and I don't even call you a shill for it. I think it's perfectly understandable. It would be nice if you would extend the same courtesy to pro-nuclear people trying to minimize CO2 emissions by any and all means available.

Maximizing problems with nuclear power:

"Because what I've read tells me that large-scale deployment of nuclear technology leaves us with emissions that are on par with natural gas."

This ignores the ample supplies of fuel that will last for MANY decades, de-milling Russian and American warhead stockpiles, and other weapons programs where the CO2 cost of obtaining the raw ore has already been invested, and further CO2 investment exists only in physically moving the material from one location to another.

"The first cite comes from wiki, and begins with, "Over the years of its operation, the plant has experienced several incidents, none of which have resulted in exposure to dangerous levels of radiation."

That is the "reassuring message that is standard from the industry. The second cite is from the UCS and is from a discussion of the role of regulatory failure in the safe operation of NPPs. It is far, far less reassuring than the claim that "no dangerous levels of radiation" have been released.

PS Did you know that before the NRC released any information on this to the public, they first coordinated for several days with the nuclear industry's lobbying group? "

Here you injected problems at the wrong reactor type into a concern thread about the GW LWR design.

K: "There is no critical area where these rare earths are in a position to derail or significantly impact a shift to renewables. There are some marginal improvements that depend on some that are currently in short supply, but that supply can be met through the normal economic response to supply/demand signals."

AC: "Rare earths are used in distributed generating scenarios such as low-utilization wind turbines, in far greater tonnage per watt than a nuclear reactor's turbines. But you intentionally downplay any challenge facing renewables. I don't have a problem with that. I think it's a fine thing, and I don't even call you a shill for it. I think it's perfectly understandable. It would be nice if you would extend the same courtesy to pro-nuclear people trying to minimize CO2 emissions by any and all means available."

K: "No critical area" means just that, no critical area. The rare earths used in wind turbines are a minute part of the overall potential of current technologies and if they didn't exist at all, it wouldn't change the calculus related to the potential of wind turbines. We KNOW THAT DEFINITIVELY because the marginal improvements (do you know what that means) resulting from rare earths are only recent developments and as sucj come long after the the question of whether existing renewable technologies could deliver the energy needed by global civilization was settled in 1992.

The shortage of rare earths for nuclear impacts reactor vessels, not turbines.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html

K:"Because what I've read tells me that large-scale deployment of nuclear technology leaves us with emissions that are on par with natural gas."

AC: This ignores the ample supplies of fuel that will last for MANY decades, de-milling Russian and American warhead stockpiles, and other weapons programs where the CO2 cost of obtaining the raw ore has already been invested, and further CO2 investment exists only in physically moving the material from one location to another.

K: No, it doesn't ignore anything. The issue at hand is how to meet global energy needs going into the future. 20 years into the future isn't the criteria by which energy sources must be judged. And even on that kind of time horizon, meeting our carbon reduction goals in the manner proposed by the nuclear industry would require 1500-2000 new 1GW reactors within that time frame, a rate of new build averaging 1-2 new reactors being brought online every week. Nuclear doesn't scale up in a friendly fashion from a number of perspectives:


http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html


K: "The first cite comes from wiki, and begins with, "Over the years of its operation, the plant has experienced several incidents, none of which have resulted in exposure to dangerous levels of radiation."
That is the "reassuring message that is standard from the industry. The second cite is from the UCS and is from a discussion of the role of regulatory failure in the safe operation of NPPs. It is far, far less reassuring than the claim that "no dangerous levels of radiation" have been released.
PS Did you know that before the NRC released any information on this to the public, they first coordinated for several days with the nuclear industry's lobbying group? "

AC: "Here you injected problems at the wrong reactor type into a concern thread about the GW LWR design."

K: Since you don't include the links (why not?) I'll go by memory - You made a comment that tried to portray the lessons learned from Fukushima as being limited to 1) siting and 2) "GW LWR" reactor design. That is the narrow view that is promoted by the nuclear industry in ALL accidents. They wish to exclude any discussions of lessons learned that actually challenge the wisdom of using a technology with such extreme consequences for failure. Showing what happened at Davis Besse exposes the fact that the common thread running through ALL accidents and near misses like Fukushima and Davis Besse is the element of human failure and the inability of any oversight structure to perform its role in a manner that allows the industry to compete economically in an open market AND do so safely.
It might not have comported with your messaging objectives, but it followed the topic and was an accurate representation of reality.

I expect we will start, or be in the process of completely phasing out nuclear power.

Is that 'schill-y' enough for you?


I will respond in a bit on the rare earths bit.

I suspect that while I think that is a good thing, you think it is a waste.

I have no emotional attachment to a particular blend of technology.

I would, in fact, LOVE an immediate conversion to a reactor type/fuel type that would get us away from military blend components like Depleted Uranium, and weapons grade U/PU, but of course that can't happen anytime soon either.

To a degree I think it might be necessary for space travel, but maybe not. We'll see.

I stand by my statement; otherwise you'd realize that reactors of any type are the problem, not the solution.

ETA: Cost, proliferation, safety, and waste products are what make that so. The current focus on once through uranium is the best compromise to solve them, and it fails to an unacceptable degree in all areas when compared to the viable alternative renewable technologies.

I re-iterated my support for removing loan guarantees, federal insurance, and other federal incentives for nuclear, and divert those to truly clean power?

The market would then solve the problem in its own course, yes?

Maybe some geotherm and tidal. We should have several suitable geothermal sites in this state. I don't believe we have tried to tap any of it.

I love hydro, but I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. Two-three really hot, dry years in a row, and we could be in deep dung. Can't always use it for power if we have to let slip more water to keep the salmon alive. (When the rivers get shallow and hot, bad times for the fish)


I was wrong about one thing, we do still have one coal plant in WA, but it's scheduled to be closed in 9 months. Last one. Time to start whittling away at Gas and Hanford. I'm not terribly concerned about the other nuclear plants in our state at the moment, but they will become obsolete, sooner rather than later I believe.

It means that although they are elements they are not earths and not especially rare. Joke a geologist friend told me. Most are available in high concentration ores and these ores are rare but there are lower yield sources which are fairly abundant. In addition PV generation can use organic compounds although at present they are not sufficiently efficient, all we need is a photostable organic compound that releases electrons with the efficiency of chlorophyll.

Regarding emissions from nuclear plants I would suggest you check the history of Windscale/Seascale/Sellafield (the name depends on the decade) and why the Irish government hates it.

Nuclear power is not safe, it does not cause the immediate chronic problems that fossil fuel plant can but it can render huge swathes of countryside uninhabitable when it does go wrong, causes an unquantifiable number of deaths due to cancer, causes an unquantifiable number of miscarriages and causes vast problems during and after decommissioning. Comparatively: coal causes problems on a time scale of decades, perhaps as much as a century; nuclear causes problems on a timescale of centuries and, conceivably, millennia.

It was a crash-course weapons material production plant. (I would like to know what idiot thought cooling a uranium reactor with ATMOSPHERE was a good idea)


Most certainly the new Siemens direct-drive wind turbines utilize rare earth metals in the generator. Dyspro, and others. What is a better use of materials source from environmentally damaging mining? A centralized set of very large generators utilized at 90% or better, or a distributed set of generators that are only utilized at 40%?

Mining seems to be lower on the list these days, but you can bet it'll be a higher priority issue in the future. When we've consumed weapons material from our nuclear programs in civilian power, mining will become an issue for nuclear power again as well.

Fortunately we have non-carbon based options for centralized power generation.

However you are aware it did operate a pile, that it is one of the few places in the world that carries out reprocessing and been responsible for some appalling contamination.

You seem to miss the point that no nuclear plant is safe for current or future generations.

... And yes we have non-carbon based options for power generation, GE accepts now that PV is likely to be a cheaper option than coal or nuclear power. I suspect that wind and tide too will show cost benefits over elderly, damaging and dangerous technologies.

But it IS the definition that I've been using. So I don't see where you think you're making a point.

The primary purpose of containment is to "contain" the core. And by far the most substantial failure would be if it failed to do so. We both know that there were dozens of posts here early on in the incident that claimed that neither the RPV nor the primary containment structure were properly designed to keep the core from exiting containment. We also both know that when people here read "containment has been breached"... they THINK that's what you're talking about.

The term is standard and non baggy usage is standard. The containment vessel is to prevent the release of radioactivity into the environment. The usage includes escape of water via seals around piping, conduits, gasses and yes, the freaking core itself.

ALL of that is supposed to be CONTAINED by the CONTAINMENT VESSEL,

Holding pressure (reactors 1 and 2) is not the same thing as 'not leaking'. They've been putting more water into those reactors, than they can accout for, for over a month. That isn't news.


The suggestion Reactor 1's suppression pool is damaged was new. I was only asking for clarification/bitching about the quality of the reporting.

The thread is there as a record.

On another topic I guess you are having trouble with the UCS report on safety problems and the NRC.

And yes, the thread stands as a record of that fact.

I haven't finished reading that report. Parts of it are pretty grim though.

would help a lot. Maybe you need to look inward for the answer to your question, Mr. FBaggins rather than continue with the charade you've been on.

Would be my answer to you.

... Nor does it justify additional exaggerations.

pretty sad to watch you come back to shill their minimization everyday.

You just did.

You have consistently posted deceptions, slandered engineers and made fun of people on this board voicing genuine concern.

Can you accept the following:

1) The reactor vessels at units 1, 2 and 3 are breached;

2) Containment at units 1, 2 and 3 are breached.

Given these and given you early denials that such events occurred can you admit you were wrong?

Can you deny that groundwater in the aquifer at Fukushima has been and is being catastrophically contaminated?

Can you deny that the sea water at Fukushima has been and is being catastrophically contaminated?

If you cannot admit these things then you must have no expectation that we will give any credence to your continued defence of the nuclear industry and you would be better joining Lewis Page's merry band of cheerleaders at "The Register".

The last month or so a lot of facts have been slowly revealed (obviously not to cause panic to the general populace of Japan).

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

This article does nothing more than claim that water is leaking out of the reactors. If you haven't known that since pretty early on... then you haven't been paying attention.

:applause:

:rofl:

"Don't confuse me with the facts... I've already made up my mind"

Odd that ...

Or perhaps facts confuse you

On a point that I had already responded to elsewhere?

Yeah...that's "odd"

It's not "what we knew", physicist-genius, it's about "what they should have told us earlier as part of their responsibility to the residents of this country because it directly effected them". If you can't figure that out.

It speaks directly to the credibility of TEPCO as well; if they have been reticent on releasing such basic information, what else are they holding back that has not been able to be deduced by secondary sources? What other surprises await us that we are completely unprepared for? You need to look beyond your own (questionably accurate at times) nitpicking of factual information and try to piece together that these things aren't compartmentalized, that they have wider ramifications that you seem curiously unable to conclude.

And yeah, SOME kind of leakage-that's a nice, reassuring non-number? Has that even yet been made public? And if they do finally make it public, can it now be trusted given that TEPCO/the government's credibility with the way they have managed information about the crisis has been totally destroyed?

Anyone who listens to the crap handed out on DU about Fukushima probably is suffering from a bad education.

The more the anti-nuke squad prattles on about Fukushima and how it was the worst energy disaster of all time, the more and more and more and more and more assinine they look.

Meanwhile, in <em>prestigious</em> scientific journals, like, um, <em>Science</em>, Nature, and Geophysical Research Letters, a fiercely debated topic is the question of whether the Zipingpu dam triggered the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 that killed 80,000 people in a matter of <em>minutes</em>.

How come our distracted little whiny anti-nukes remain blissfully unaware of this far <em>larger</em> tragedy.

Probably because they spend their time whining in scientifically illiterate posts about what is heard on websites where any fool can (and does) post incredible tedious bull.

Sorry, kiddie. The tsunami - even counting the tens of thousands of non-nuclear deaths, never mind the <em>non existant</em> radiation deaths won't even match the next week of air pollution deaths, and all of the illiterate whining about nuclear fuels - about which anti-nukes know zero and have always known zero - won't stand to the test of time.

For the record however, anti-nuke ignorance is killing still and will kill again. Ignorance, as usual, wins.

Did you read this? It's a great article and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Why nuclear power will never supply the world's energy needs
May 11, 2011 by Lisa Zyga

(PhysOrg.com) -- The 440 commercial nuclear reactors in use worldwide are currently helping to minimize our consumption of fossil fuels, but how much bigger can nuclear power get? In an analysis to be published in a future issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE, Derek Abbott, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide in Australia, has concluded that nuclear power cannot be globally scaled to supply the world’s energy needs for numerous reasons. The results suggest that we’re likely better off investing in other energy solutions that are truly scalable.

As Abbott notes in his study, global power consumption today is about 15 terawatts (TW). Currently, the global nuclear power supply capacity is only 375 gigawatts (GW). In order to examine the large-scale limits of nuclear power, Abbott estimates that to supply 15 TW with nuclear only, we would need about 15,000 nuclear reactors. In his analysis, Abbott explores the consequences of building, operating, and decommissioning 15,000 reactors on the Earth, looking at factors such as the amount of land required, radioactive waste, accident rate, risk of proliferation into weapons, uranium abundance and extraction, and the exotic metals used to build the reactors themselves.

“A nuclear power station is resource-hungry and, apart from the fuel, uses many rare metals in its construction,” Abbott told PhysOrg.com. “The dream of a utopia where the world is powered off fission or fusion reactors is simply unattainable. Even a supply of as little as 1 TW stretches resources considerably.”

His findings, some of which are based on the results of previous studies, are summarized below...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html

this is why nuke advocates get no traction, and rather make people sick. zero class while spreading thier ridiculous and transparent lies