Holy Shit! Smoke may be coming from Number 3's fuel pool

This is just breaking on Kyodo. They are quoting TEPCO.

Holy shit...

That is the reactor that uses mixed plutonium as fuel. I will put a link when they make that available.

Two new updates from Kyodo and TEPCO:


NEWS ADVISORY: Pool stores 514 spent fuel rods at Fukushima No.3 reactor: TEPCO

NEWS ADVISORY: TEPCO unable to confirm temperature at No.3 reactor's spent fuel pool

This is getting out of control.

they need to accept that russian help... due to yes Chernobyl

Just guessing. Plus, outsiders could judge and report on their errors. Or, they are using outsiders but not saying... as in they said the USA is monitoring radiation.. but it could be more

and american excpetionalism look like plays well with others.

and especially with the older people it is much alive.

:-) long and not so funny story these days.

No comment, except this is not a cooling problem any more.

This is a similar situation to what we saw in the Gulf. We, as humans, think we can control and manipulate the earth. But, ultimately, we cannot.

This was true with BP and with the Chilean miners, outsiders solved many problems.

Nuclear operator says one possibility is steam coming from reactor No. 3

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2

Number 3 does not really have a concrete structure anymore.

Spent fuel pool is outside primary containment and inside secondary containment. On reactors #1, #3, #4 secondary containment was blown open in hydrogen explosions.

So there is nothing to prevent it from venting directly into atmosphere. Need to get those fuel ponds refilled. Even if they can't actively cool the pools at least replacing the water that is evaporating will prevent the spent fuel from igniting.

of course not...

:-)

There are days... every expert is saying the steam has radio isotopes in it.

Water is rather resistant to radiation. In a reactor less than 1% of water turns into tritium. So most of the steam is non-radioactive. in a small portion the hydrogen will turn into tritium (radioactive unstable isotope of hydrogen). When bonded with oxygen it is usually called tritinated water. Some of the hydrogen will bond with itself H2 and simply go into high atmosphere (lighter than air). The oxygen is inert in either case. Tritium has a short half life, is a weak alpha emitter and flushes from the body in about 10 days (biological half life).

If you have to emit radiation tritium is about the best thing you can hope for. Right now there is no good solution. Just bad and horribly bad.

The alternative is couple million times worse (not an exaguration). If the spent fuel boils off the water it will eventually ignite and it will vaporize plutonium, and uranium, and radioactive strontium, cesium, and iodine. Personally I would rather drink a gallon of tritinated water than breath one breath of burning fuel rods.

TEPCO says they can not check for the cause of white smoke due to high radiation levels...

It is something else. My guess? At least some of the rods are exposed and burning or at best smoldering.

That was my whole point. Sure dumping tritinated steam into the atmosphere isn't good but the alternative is many magnitudes worse. As in Chernobyl worse.

I sure hope we stay before that alternative.

:-)

.. bet they never even considered having to be concerned about that for the populace.

I think the danger there is one molecule can cause lung cancer.

A wink of the eye (in geologic time).

They need to be cooled all the time with water or bad things can happen.

front gate radiation is fluctuating hour by hour but no health hazard... but the safety agency will make announcement but one time last night 1000 milisevert, and this morning 600 msievert.

At around 10 am increased rapidly reached millisivert,

worker suspended operations (we knew it was hot)

They have evacuated to safe area.

At 1054 AM it dropped, and right now conducting analysis, the most probably thing is that in just as in 2 part of the vessel evaporation is coming out (3) and this time vapor is irradiated, why the high readying and this is not confirmed, but probable scenario.

That's what the German climate modeler suggested would happen. http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?seite=1&artikel=ZAMG_2011-03-15GMT08%3A26

All of them?

Well that is comforting...

broken containment vessel. Part of it is broken and the vapor is coming from there. (SHIT). There is no absolute certainty and a HIGH PROBABILITY. Currently recording high levels of radiation levels. They have not changed evacuation instructions (They are also running out of land)

Number four reactor has spent fuel storage pool preparing to pump water on it, radiation is going up. Believed to be by number 3, pumping is delayed (It is hot) temps rising on number four, five and six, and reporters ask about events to 5 and 6.

Started efforts to cool them down.

------------

Ok people this is beyond bad ok...

Just gave up on transcription... this is really bad

Oh and they are moving counters to the West Coast, EPA is

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x656675

Who is going to make sure those fuel pools are kept cool plus the pressure and temperature in those plants?

That is very high. We were talking micros or 1 Milli as of this weekend.

It has dropped to around 800 Milli sv/hr now from what I have read.

quiet frankly I'd stay at post. I am already dead anyway

I wonder if they have gone to plan for NEXT series of talking points.

Glad I got my milk today... Tetrapak for three months,

It is more than 20 hours since they were instructed to put water in the spent fuel tank on Number 4. They couldn't do it.

than here in Tokyo.

I am getting a bit ill from this. People need to calm down here. I cannot even imagine how we would behave if this happened here. We would be killing each other to get away.

Or maybe not. New Yorkers were wonderfully brave during 9/11, while people in faraway states were buying guns and duct tape, and locking themselves in their houses.

:wtf:

The bald eagle is a nice touch.

Maybe it's time to leave the serious conversation to the grown ups.

Enjoy your jello at the kiddies table though! :hi:

just saying.

That's like the entire state of California. Where would you put them?

we have land.

They don't... they are a relatively large island. They are quickly running out of land. Why I suspect they did not raise the exclusion zone.

:-)

to tokyoites talk they don't seem inordinately panicked.

we have already had several meltdowns.

Blog: Mar11-12 - Mar13 - Mar14 - Mar15

(All times are local in Japan GMT+9)

12:00am
Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, held a brief conference about the nuclear situation, these are the key points.

- An appeal not to panic buy fuel especially in areas not affected by the quake, they think the containment vessel on Reactor No3 has been damaged

- Radioaction levels have fluctuated throughout the day, at one point all staff were evacuated for safety due to a dramtic increase in radiation at the front gate.

- Tempratures are rising in reactors number 5/6 and in the spent fuel rod tank in reactor no 4.

- They are considering the option of spraying water onto the heating reactors from the air.There are issues getting water into Reactor numbe 4 containment pool.