Removal of fuel rods begins at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant

intrptr

That they built the cover is indicative of the expectation they could encounter problems removing fuel rods.

If that occurs, the filters and ventilation apparatus will allow venting to the atmosphere preventing the earlier resulting explosion from the build up of hydrogen gasses. The gasses will be vented… to the atmosphere… to prevent an explosion.

They DO expect problems, because there are going to be some. The place is a friggin' wreck. They've probably got hydrogen recombiners in there too, I would.

Supposedly they have cameras and sensors on the hoist to quickly detect if they are loading the motor with too much strain during lifting. Any strain detected during slow creep for each fuel assembly and they will halt and try to clear any snagged debris or misshapen rods.

I bet more of them are messed up than not, in terms of either being deformed, cracked, or hooked into debris.

I'm calling Bull ****!!

Why didn't they just simply use a crane a couple years ago?

Does this have anything to with that new law in Japan about Fukushima Media Information??

Now the BS will fly!!

Unbelievable!!

AbleEndangered
I'm calling Bull ****!!

Why didn't they just simply use a crane a couple years ago?

You generally don't just have this stuff laying around.

Also, you have to have some idea of what you're dealing with before you go lurching in and grabbing things, and,

when this sort of thing first happens you've got a lot of really hot isotopes belting out some really bad radiation levels. A couple of years is a reasonable cool-down period. It's probably putting out less than half the hard radiation it was right after the accident.

Fukushima Day 321 - Gamma rays seen in out-of-focus streaks & flashes at Reactor 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=beqDlhM87SI
www.youtube.com...


That is Raining Boiling Sea water in Reactor 2...

Activity:







just a heads up.

reply to post by AbleEndangered

The streaks and white flashes are from the water spray system in the top of the reactor well. The gamma strikes are the colored dots flashing on the screen like static. The spray is to cool what lays below and to control any releases of dust or isotopes. The water falls to the bottom of the reactor and exits thru holes into the basement. There it is pumped out, concentrated and stored in tanks.

I couldn't tell you how much of the water goes down below the reactor building into the water table, I dont think they know either.

AbleEndangered
I'm calling Bull ****!!

Why didn't they just simply use a crane a couple years ago?

The fuel rods were too hot right after the accident. both radioactive hot and heat hot.

They may have even burned if they had been exposed to air at the time.

Water slows down neutrons better then air and cools better.

Getting the fuel rods out and into casks with better spacing between rods will allow them to cool better.

Increase the spacing between fuel rod bundles by twice and you get 8 times less neutrons between bundles.

This allows a lot more cooling an less chance of a reaction.

reply to post by Teye22


Are you just speaking of them removing the rods from the 4th floor of building four?
Yea it must be Building Four, they were shoring it up, that's why they had to wait.

Building was going to fall a those rods were on fourth floor,

People have no ideal How bad it is there, you could get life time dose of Radation in ONE Hour, if you work there.

Any one want a gjob, the pays real bad too if your just working by the Hour.

Any you guys Scuba, you could check out that glowie thing under the water.

I say concrete and lead lots, lot's of in Lead and concrete.

OOOOOO
reply to post by Teye22

 

Are you just speaking of them removing the rods from the 4th floor of building four?
Yea it must be Building Four, they were shoring it up, that's why they had to wait.

Building was going to fall a those rods were on fourth floor,

People have no ideal How bad it is there, you could get life time dose of Radation in ONE Hour, if you work there.

Any one want a gjob, the pays real bad too if your just working by the Hour.

Any you guys Scuba, you could check out that glowie thing under the water.

I say concrete and lead lots, lot's of in Lead and concrete.

edit on 19-11-2013 by OOOOOO because: (no reason given)

edit on 19-11-2013 by OOOOOO because: (no reason given)

They will be removing rods from other reactors as well, but it seems #4 is the priority as it has been damaged much more than the others, if I got this right.

The fuel rods to be removed over the next 12 months or so are mostly in reactor four, which was offline when Fukushima Daiichi was shaken by powerful tremors and swamped by towering waves.

In the subsequent hydrogen explosions and fires, debris rained down on the large pool that holds 1,533 fuel rod assemblies —1,331 used and 202 unused. Another roughly 1,500 assemblies in the three other reactors are to be removed as well.

Source

A lot of very valuable information has been added on here and I thank all of the contributors, I am currently reading articles online to find more info but it seems that a few of you guys are faster than I am

Well back to my reading now. I'll be back a little later hopefully with new stuff.

Again thank you all!

I found this article that I find very interesting. It describes well the operations underway and mostly, the risks associated with them.

Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and chief engineer of the Fairewinds Energy Education non-profit, cautioned that there was no system to stop a nuclear chain reaction, if one should occur, at the pool, and recommended that the operators "throw all sorts of boron into the water" (boron captures neutrons and slows down chain reactions) before they start pulling the rods out.

Lets hope the reaction doesn't start! scary!

Workers are pumping out some 400 tons of water a day from the reactor basements and the ground nearby, to a total of almost 500,000 tons at present stored at the plant, while another 300 tons a day are running into the ocean. The three molten cores require constant cooling with water, most of which escapes the breached reactor vessels. To make matters worse, Fukushima Daiichi is near an ancient river bed at the base of a hill at the ocean shore, and it is constantly being flooded with groundwater.

devastating!

There has been a lot of speculation and few hard facts recently about ocean contamination, with one of the more esoteric dangers identified by scientists being that "buckyballs" of uranium fuel could drift all the way to North America in the next year or so. [6] But though simulations suggest that radiation from Fukushima would spread across the entire Pacific in the next few years, scientists also say that it will be so diluted that no panic is warranted.

Tell that to all the sea "life" washing up on shores all over the place...

reply to post by rickymouse


Seriously, what took them so long?

phantomlord
reply to post by rickymouse

 

Seriously, what took them so long?

What do you know and what do you understand?

First Reason is that the Rods needed Times to slow down
Second Reason is that they needed to build a Superstructure
around of the old broken Nr. 4 Building which is capable
to hold all the Weight of the Crane which is a massive one
and the whole new Removal System,
they needed also new Electric and a Air-Filter as well as a Air Condition System!

Edit: Here, this is a good Picture, everything you see here is new,
only the Pool is old!