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TEPCO finds sign of fresh nuclear fission at Fukushima reactor

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kristopher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 10:30 AM
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TEPCO finds sign of fresh nuclear fission at Fukushima reactor
TEPCO finds sign of fresh nuclear fission at Fukushima reactor

...The latest incident suggests that the plant's seemingly stable situation could be fragile, even almost eight months after the crisis erupted. The world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years resulted in the meltdown of nuclear fuel in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the Fukushima complex.

...

Possible evidence of a recent nuclear fission was found when gas was extracted from the No. 2 reactor's primary containment vessel to check the radiation level on Tuesday.

TEPCO said it has found two types of radioactive xenon that are typically generated by nuclear fission and have relatively short so-called half-lives.

The two are xenon-133 and xenon-135, and as their radioactivity is reduced to about half in about five days and nine hours, respectively, their existence suggests that a nuclear fission took place recently, according to Matsumoto...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111102p2g00m0dm008000c.html
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 10:47 AM
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OKIsItJustMe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 02:00 PM
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2. “…undeniable that fission reaction had occurred…”
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11110203-e.html

Unit 2 (Shut down)
- At approximately 6:00 am on March 15, an abnormal noise began emanating
from nearby Pressure Suppression Chamber and the pressure within the
chamber decreased.
- At 10:10 am on March 26, we started injecting freshwater to the reactor
and are now injecting fresh water by a motor driven pump powered by the
off-site transmission line.
- At 2:59 pm on September 14, we started injecting water to the reactor
through core spray system water injection piping arrangement in addition
to the water injection through reactor feed water system piping
arrangement.
At 4:14 am on November 2, we adjusted the amount of water injection to
the reactor to approximately 3 m3/h through reactor feed water system
piping arrangement, and 7 m3/h core spray system water injection piping
arrangement.
Water is currently injected at approx. 3 m3/h through reactor feed water
system piping arrangement, and at approx. 7 m3/h through core spray
system water injection piping arrangement.
- At 5:21 pm on May 31, we started cyclic cooling for the water in the
spent fuel pool by an alternative cooling equipment of the Fuel Pool
Cooling and Filtering System (From 10:12 am to 11:50 am on Octorber 31,
hydrazine was also injected) .
- At 8:06 pm on June 28, we started injecting nitrogen gas into the Primary
Containment Vessel.
- At 12:53 pm on October 28, we activated the exhaust fan of the gas
management system of the reactor containment vessel in the reactor
building and started test operation. As we confirmed stable operation of
the system, from 6:00 pm on the same day, we put the system in operation.
- On November 1, we conducted a nuclide analysis of emitted gas sampled by
the gas management system of the reactor containment vessel. It was found
out that there was a possibility that short-half-life radionuclide (xenon
133, 135) was detected. There has been no significant variation as a
result of our continuous monitoring of the temperature and the pressure
in the reactor, and the figures of the monitoring posts. However, just to
be safe we injected boric-acid solution through reactor water injection
line from 2:48 am to 3:47 am on November 2, since it was undeniable that
fission reaction had occurred.
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Yo_Mama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Where else could those Xenon isotopes have come from?
I wish I had bookmarked this one article - someone at TEPCO had apparently said that they still expected to achieve "cold shutdown" by year-end, and some professor pointed out that "cold shutdown" and "ongoing fission" are mutually exclusive concepts.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a runaway reaction, but they are quite far from being in cold shutdown.
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SpoonFed Donating Member (801 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 03:22 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I am now expecting every single one...
of the more than a handful of pundits who came across every thread on this topic in the past 8 months to own up and admit they were wrong or lying.
Or at least some sort of apology?

The funniest part of this is that it is TEPCO who is admitting this... where can you run from that?
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