Flea powder may be saving lives in Japan
There’s a 40 year-old nuclear reactor cooling-down right now in Japan following the big earthquake in that country. Actually there are 11 such reactors cooling-down, automatically brought offline by the 8.9 temblor, but one of those reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi generating plant is not going gracefully and 3000 people have been moved from their homes as a precaution.
Good idea.
I worked as an investigator for the Presidential Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, 32 years ago, and a few months studying the plumbing TMI’s Unit 2, which is actually younger than the errant Japanese reactor, gives me a very healthy respect for the danger in Japan.
That Japanese reactor shut down automatically within seconds of the earthquake, the idea being that dropping the thermal load (stopping the nuclear reaction and cooling-down the reactor) would minimize risk overall from a huge plumbing system that was likely compromised and vulnerable. Radiation and the passage of time conspire to make pipes brittle and aftershocks make brittle pipes break. Not good.
The 10 other reactors behaved as expected, but this unit didn’t. Once the reactor was no longer making steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity the plant was supposed to fire-up diesel generators to make the power needed to keep coolant pumps running. Only the diesels wouldn’t start. It can take up to seven days, you see, to get such a reactor down to where it can survive without circulating coolant. With the diesels out (under water perhaps?) the plant relied on batteries to run the pumps — batteries good for only eight hours.
Tokyo Electric Power Company isn’t saying much. Utilities tend not to and Japanese utilities are notoriously secretive. But we got a clue to what’s happening from U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of all people, who remarked that the U. S. military was delivering “coolant” to the stricken reactor.
“Coolant?” wondered aloud all the CNN and Fox News nuclear experts looking for a lede for their stories. “What is she talking about, coolant?” This is a boiling water reactor and the coolant is water. The U. S. Air Force isn’t needed to export water to Japan.
This shows the limits of cable news experts and maybe experts in general, because Hillary isn’t the kind of person to choose the wrong words. She said “coolant” and she meant “coolant.” Though she may not have known she was saying so, she also meant the reactor was dead and will never be restarted.
A boiling water reactor does just what it sounds like — it boils water to make steam that drives a turbine generator. This is as opposed to a pressurized water reactor that uses the nuclear reaction to heat a coolant that never really boils because it is under high pressure, then sends that coolant through a heat exchanger which heats water to make steam to drive the generator. Boiling water reactors are simpler, cheaper, but generally aren’t made anymore because they are perceived as being less safe. That’s because the exotic coolant in the pressurized water reactor can contain boric acid which absorbs neutrons and can help (or totally) control the nuclear reaction. You can’t use boric acid or any other soluble boron-laced neutron absorbers in a boiling water reactor because doing so would contaminate both the cooling system and the environment.
That’s why the experts didn’t expect it because they are still thinking of how the plant can be saved, but it can’t be.
Though the boiling water reactor has already been turned off by inserting neutron-absorbing control rods all the way into the core, adding boric acid or, more likely, sodium polyborate would turn the reactor off-er — more off than off — which could come in really handy in the event of a subsequent coolant loss, which reportedly has already happened. But that’s a $1 billion kill switch that most experts wouldn’t think to pull.
I’m guessing the US Navy delivered a load of sodium polyborate from some nuclear aircraft carrier reactor supply room in the Pacific Fleet. Its use indicates that the nuclear threat is even worse than presently being portrayed in the news. Tokyo Electric Power Company has probably given-up any hope of keeping those cooling pumps on after the batteries fail. Eventually they’ll vent the now boron-laced coolant to the atmosphere to keep containment pressures under control.
Sodium polyborate, by the way, is something you might use around the house, since it is the active ingredient in most flea and tick treatments.
An earthquake with such loss of life is bad enough, but Japan has also just lost 20 percent of its electric generating capacity. And I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that none of those 11 reactors will re-enter service again, they’ve been so compromised.
[...] Bob Cringley, who worked as an investigator for the Presidential Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island on the thinks most of the 11 reactors will be a write off. [...]
US warships helping the effort have now moved away from the reactor area due to “low level” radioactivity . . . how “low” is “low” anyway?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/us-japan-quake-specialreport-idUSTRE72D25B20110314
Finally something that explains what is happening with the Japanese reactors! Thanks for your insight Bob.
This makes zero sense.
You’re honestly claiming that experts on nuclear power who are struggling valiantly for days to try to prevent major release to the surroundings, evacuating hundreds of thousands of people as a precaution — nevertheless operate under the assumption that “solutions which would permanently destroy the reactor, are off the table”
A $1 billion kill-switch doesn’t sound bad at *all* compared to, in essence, having a Chernobyl in downtown Tokyo – hell it’d be a bargain at 100 times the price.
I believe when Bob said “that’s a $1 billion kill switch that most experts wouldn’t think to pull”, he was referring to “CNN and Fox News nuclear experts” he mentioned earlier, and not those actually at the plant.
Gunnar, downtown Tokyo is approximately 180 miles by car from Fukushima city itself, which is also a significant distance from Fukushima Daiichi 1.
Ben: take a step back and think about this a second: When Chernobyl blew it’s stack, the Soviets kept mum about it until a nuclear plant in SCANDINAVIA started recording workers that had contaminated clothing — workers that were on their way *TO* *WORK*. Now I’m not sure of the distances between Chernobyl and that Scandinavian plant (the details of which escape me just now. I’m sure Wikipedia has some decent info on it), but I know with 100% certainty that there are parts of Belarus and Russia that are still so contaminated as to be considered unfit for human habitation that are in excess of 200 miles from the reactor. Yes, it was weather driven, and yes, there are parts that are closer than 200 miles that are clean, but I doubt there’s an expert that’s worth the time it would take to pronounce their name that would hesitate to permanently squelch a badly broken reactor if the risk of another Chernobyl (which has been compared as being bigger than Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The Japanese have in-depth first hand knowledge as to just how some isotopes can harm human tissue, and if they’re running out of first hand knowledge, I’m sure there are people in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and a whole bunch of other European countries that can lend them first hand and scientifically proven data.
I’m thinking that Gunnar’s right. The Japanese may be trying to salvage the reactor, or they may be getting ready to throw (or have already thrown) that Billion Dollar Kill Switch. But I think it’s blatantly preposterous to think that anyone would be using any financial considerations if they had any kind of reputation as an ‘expert’ that they had any desire to maintain.
Furthermore, I would give any articles from a site that would call itself “Brave New Climate -dot- Com”, and any articles therein regarding engineering written by anyone but a qualified expert in Nuclear Engineering (Economists need not apply) a very cynical reading.
Chernobyl “meltdown” released radioactive material into the atmosphere – which traveled world wide – falling to earth everywhere! Radioactive iodine from Chernobyl fell on pasture lands across Canada. Naturally cows ate the radioactive iodine laced grass growing in the pastures.
The Canadian Federal government tested the milk coming from the above cows, for radioactive iodine; and got readings of 10 to 20 times the legally maximum level allowed! The latter milk was still sold to an unwitting public. Imagine the impact on a young child’s thyroid gland. 400,000 people world wide came down with cancer as a result of this radio active iodine and other isotopes!
Everyone also needs to know that all “safe” operating plants on this planet are killing infants every week. There is no such thing as a safe nuke plant. They all leak radioactive isotopes – everyday – all days! The nuke industry euphemistically re-names the leaks to “emissions”.
The world’s foremost expert on the nuclear sponsored radiation illness and death, is biometric specialist Dr. Rosalie Bertell (she’s a nun, mathematician, scientist – for example, you no longer get an annual tuberculosis chest X-ray because of Bertell’s research for the USA gov.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Rdgo5cXrO94C&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=dr.+rosalie+bertell+nuclear+power+plants+down+wind&source=bl&ots=AOzscOd8MA&sig=sbp9ALMUdQmA9NIqevxDxtj_7N8&hl=en&ei=p0yHTbbqB46tgQfiuPXLC...
The nuclear plant is 200 miles from Tokyo, so the remark that this is like having Chernobyl in downtown Tokyo is hyperbole, at best, and a complete misrepresentation of the two incidents. Chernobyl was driven completely by human errors and that the Soviets were too cheap to put the reactors in containment vessels. Here is a blog entry by an American who works in Japan about how this event played out. It is really worth your time to read it.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/
Saw the link in Risks Digest earlier today. Thanks to Peter G. Neumann.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
I think this might help explain some of the things going on there. It’s not as bad as the media would have you think.
good review…. obviously, the presence of radioactive cesium and iodine was the ‘sky is falling’ trigger for the newsmongers, who want to ‘latch eyeballs’ to their commercial laden feeds.
I do think that the fact that the US Navy shipping in ‘coolant’ is the appropriate ‘staging’ of next steps (you don’t want to take any supplies away from other reactors, because of the potential of aftershocks causing further problems.
Most of my twits have acknowledged the overengineering of the Japanese plants.
I think the bigger question is, after 40 years, is the risk analysis flawed. Knocking 10-20% of the power off the grid, given today’s dependency on electricity – Should be be engineering in more resiliency (and/or replacing 40 year old design with newer, safer, and hopefully smaller PBRs and the like). And that then leads to spent fuel handling and ‘permanent’ containment. Can Mother Nature defeat any overengineered solution?
Please note that fukushima-simple-explanation was written not by a nuclear expert, nor even by an engineer, but by an economist. Furthermore, it was written to his family in Japan but was published to the Web by his cousin, where it went viral. The Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT has issued corrections to its many errors.
Do not for a minute think there is no danger of a meltdown, as subsequent events have shown. Worst case? All four damaged reactors will melt down releasing lethal radioactivity, the wind will shift, and Tokyo will be toast.
[...] Flea Power May Be Saving Japan http://www.cringely.com/2011/03/flea-powder-may-be-saving-lives-in-japan/ [...]
Taking the long term view, how will Japan replace all of that generating capacity?
Nuclear? Very Doubtful.
Hydro? Not much capacity there.
Solar? Doubtful that it has enough to support the commercial economy, but maybe for home/residential power.
I’m thinking natural gas possibly or some other hydrocarbon (not coal).
Their economy is really screwed if they don’t have the electrical capacity to power it.
I don’t know that they’ll have a choice. The fact that Japan had very few natural resources of their own was one of the driving factors behind their pre- and during-WWII expansion plans. An economy of their scale is going to need to get that capacity back and fairly quickly. Otherwise energy costs are going to skyrocket, and that will do more to destroy the Japanese economy than just about anything else. Unless someone can come up with some way of generating the hundreds of thousands to millions of megawatts that they’ve lost due to the earthquake damaged nuclear power stations, they’re going to be in for a very serious economic downturn. I’m sure that this, in conjunction with the economic nastiness in the US and elsewhere, could potentially cripple one of the largest economies in the world.
And no, I don’t have any answers either.
Folks:
The #1 Reactor was in service over 40 years ago, and on another Site there is a comment about a planned removal from service next year. So the out-of-sequence permanent shutdown is no joke to the Utility’s plans for supplying electricity to the customers, but it is not that big a hit. I do not see Japan wanting to pay for the huge, and ever-growing, cost of Natural Gas, via Cryogenic Tankers, to a major natural gas-fuelled Electrical Utility.
Nuclear Reactor Designs have evolved, quite a bit, over the last 50 years. There is the “liquid-thorium fluoride reactor”. See [http://energyfromthorium.com/].
Since _I_ live in the Canadian province of Alberta, in the southern part, I see quite a few WindFarms going up. The proponents all claim that WindFarm electricity comes from a free wind source, and is reliable. Heh. I grew up on a mixed farm, 8.5 miles SW of Claresholm, Alberta, and shared, with neighbouring teenagers, the hated experience of pumping water, by hand, for domestic animals, when the wind did not blow, or blew too weak, or blew too strong. Some of our neighbours had 32V DC Winchargers, on top of a tower that had a 12 ft by 12 foot square building at its base, Two thirds of that building was filled with lots of shelves of 6V lead-acid batteries, arranged in 6 x 6 in Series, then as many as it took, of those Series chains, in Parallel, to have enough plate area to run the Farmstead during the unsuitable wind times. When the batteries got too weak, a 32V DC Delco generator was spun by a gasoline engine.
In closing, I point out an interesting lack: There have been Zero pictures of Wind&Solar Emergency Power Trailers being loaded on aircraft flying to Japan. But there were no pictures of such working at New Orleans, after Katrina, either.
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This is late, but one thing worth point out is the favorable weather patterns.
In winter time, most of East Asia gets no precip at all. The reason is because of the Siberian High Pressure system that develops over Southern Siberia/Nothern Mongolia during the winter months. This controls all of Asia’s climate east of Afghanistan. It is that powerful of a high pressure zone.
Each March, high winds from the Gobi desert (on the China Mongolia border) push “Yellow Dust” (top soil) over Korea and Japan (the result of over grazing/farming in that region). This is a well known irritant and health problem every year in March to the Koreans and to a lessor extant the Japanese.
So, for the most part, the prevailing winds, at least for the rest of March, are likely to be from the west moving to the east.
For the most part then, Tokyo and the rest of Japan should be safe. However over the next three months, as the high pressure system desolves, a massive low pressure system develops over Northern Afghanistan/Pakistan/China/Central Asia (about where all these nations border, essentially). That lower pressure system creates the summer monsoons that brings massive amounts of rain to all of Asia east of the Indus river – Including Japan and Korea.
At that point the winds reverse. The real danger then, isn’t to Tokyo, but to Northern and eastern Japan, Korea, Manchuria and Russia’s Far Eastern territories and China proper itself.
I’m pretty sure the problem will be fixed by then. Of course that doesn’t mean a wind towards Tokyo couldn’t develope, but it is unlikely. I’m willing to believe that this phenomina is the reason they built the power plant where they did in the first place – because otherwise, the plant on the west coast would be more isolated from Tsunami’s and Earth Quakes.
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[...] — I have written previously about other aspects of this subject here, here, here, and here. I am not by nature an alarmist about nuclear power or even particularly [...]
[...] — I have written previously about other aspects of this subject here, here, here, and here. I am not by nature an alarmist about nuclear power or even particularly [...]
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