Fukushima Reactor 4: “Capable Of Extinguishing All Life On Earth”

Originally posted by unityemissions
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

It's fear mongering for this simple reason:

You provide no evidence, yet wish to believe the crisis is much worse than what's already stated by many scientific reports.

Sure, it makes me uneasy. Doesn't mean I wouldn't accept it if it was true.

Prove it, or shut it.

I provided my observation of the FACTS.

That Chernobyl = 1 assembly meltdown.
(Correction various sources claim Chernobyl had 3 or 4 assemblies begin to melt within an core of 1700 assemblies).

And that Fukushima has over 10,000 assemblies total on site, of which roughly 1.2 thousand are in SFP storage in reactor # 4.

Are you refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality here?

10,000 assemblies vs 1 assembly.
This isn't very difficult to figure out.

Wiki and all these other websites confirm the 10,000 + assemblies claim, even TEPCO admits there are that many on site.

(Read further to see more corrections I have made)

10,000 assemblies in Fukushima vs 1 assembly at Chernobyl.

But somehow even though at Fuku one reactor has MOX which is far more dangerous, there is only 85 Chernobyls worth of Cesium available to release?

This is very simple math.

How does 10,000 : 1 ratio turn into
85 : 1
??????

reply to post by muzzleflash


Incorrect.

A fuel assembly consists of hundreds of fuel rods.

Keep doing your homework.

These are worrying times we live in. The Fukushima disaster is far from over. If the world's people and governments don't heed this latest warning there will most likely be another disaster, then another and another.... Plutonium is mega deadly, what were they thinking? I'd rather light a candle and read a book, go without the "luxuries" of endless elecricity from the national grid. I wonder how many reactors there are worldwide that are on the coast, near a fault line etc. That's the thing about natural disasters, when they happen they aren't always prepared for it. They haven't got every base covered, it would be impossible. It's not worth the risk to our future generations.

Originally posted by unityemissions

Look over Ignoranceisntbliss's posts. He has shown that even the number I'm using as a reference seems high compared to many other reports issued. So I doubt it's as you say. It's likely the opposite. Why do you seem to keep wanting to make this crisis much worse than what it really is? You've been saying it's an ELE for about a year now, yet provide no real evidence. How can you justify this to yourself

edit on 1-5-2012 by unityemissions because: (no reason given)

I never said it was an ELE, I said it has the potential to contribute to the already culminating ELE going on. If you haven't heard for the past 50 years that countless species have been going extinct etc. In the archaeological record this time era will be considered "one of the great extinction events', even if humans and a few thousand other species somehow survive it.

This is just icing on the cake and it acts as a catalyst to speed things up.

To you this is all about personality and "who has most authority" when it comes to reality, that's why you refuse to even entertain questioning the media's presentation.

But actually the truth is this is about philosophy and "do these facts match with known science, history, and logical analysis"?

Originally posted by unityemissions
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

Incorrect.

A fuel assembly consists of hundreds of fuel rods.

Keep doing your homework.

There are over 10,000 assemblies at Fukushima, (of which each contains dozens of fuel rods).

You do your homework !

Wiki- Fukushima Daiichi

At the time of the accident, the units and central storage facility contained the following numbers of fuel assemblies:[32]
Location Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 4 Unit 5 Unit 6 Central Storage Reactor
Fuel Assemblies 400 548 548 0 548 764 0
Spent Fuel Assemblies 292 587 514 1331 946 876 6375
Fuel UOx UOx UO2/MOX UOx UOx UOx UO2/MOX
New Fuel Assemblies[33] 100 28 52 204 48 64 N/A

Read them and weep. 10,000 assemblies, of which 6300+ were in central storage.

In boiling water reactors (BWR), the fuel is similar to PWR fuel except that the bundles are "canned"; that is, there is a thin tube surrounding each bundle. This is primarily done to prevent local density variations from affecting neutronics and thermal hydraulics of the reactor core. In modern BWR fuel bundles, there are either 91, 92, or 96 fuel rods per assembly depending on the manufacturer. A range between 368 assemblies for the smallest and 800 assemblies for the largest U.S. BWR forms the reactor core. Each BWR fuel rod is back filled with helium to a pressure of about three atmospheres (300 kPa).

Nuclear fuel wiki
Scroll down to heading "BWR fuel".

So roughly 90 or so rods per assembly.

90 rods x 10,000 assemblies = 900,000 rods on site at Fuku.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

I never said it was an ELE, I said it has the potential to contribute to the already culminating ELE going on. If you haven't heard for the past 50 years that countless species have been going extinct etc. In the archaeological record this time era will be considered "one of the great extinction events', even if humans and a few thousand other species somehow survive it.

MF, I've been on these boards for a long time...you said it more than a few times...

As for the "already culminating ELE", that's entirely different than what this thread is dealing with. You may or may not be correct. You are correct that other species are dying off at a rate greater than 3.5 deviations from the norm, but how this ends up....nobody truly knows.

This is just icing on the cake and it acts as a catalyst to speed things up.

Agreed.

To you this is all about personality and "who has most authority" when it comes to reality, that's why you refuse to even entertain questioning the media's presentation.

Please refrain from putting words into my mouth. I have entertained many possibilities. It's your specific lack of reasoning that I'm pointing out.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

There are over 10,000 assemblies at Fukushima, (of which each contains dozens of fuel rods).

You do your homework !

I stand corrected.



Homework time for unity...


Phew, thought you were making me look like a complete fool! I did look at the section you mentioned...seems you missed this bit:

A range between 368 assemblies for the smallest and 800 assemblies for the largest U.S. BWR forms the reactor core.

How many assemblies were at Chernobyl, again?

Nevermind, I found the answer. According to this document, 1659 fuel assemblies were at Chernobyl 4:

Read it and leap...to safety!

Originally posted by unityemissions

I didn't really have a failure in logic that I am aware of.

I merely asked a hard serious question.

How does 10,000 assemblies = 1 assembly worth of radiation output potential?

I don't think all 10,000 assemblies are in danger, maybe a few hundred or a thousand of them are however.
But this article was counting all 10k of them in their calculations of "85x chernobyl" and that figure is far too conservative and low in my opinion.

Sure Chernobyl's fuel assembly had like 130 or 150 rods within it, versus the Fukushima BWR assemblies with like 90 rods , but it still does not account for the increase in value. For all intents and purposes, the non-MOX material at Fukushima should be fairly equivalent to the fuel used at Chernobyl.

"More than 1000x Chernobyls" is closer to the truth when talking about amount of materials present, potential scenarios involving their damage and the subsequent release of radiation and in what concentrations.

reply to post by unityemissions


Maybe I was wrong, but I was pretty sure that there was like 170 assemblies in the Chernobyl reactor and they claimed only like 4 of them caused the disaster.

So than I misjudged.

10,000 / 4 = 2500

10,000 / 85 = 117

Also I read that only 5% of the potential radiation was released by the damaged assemblies.

Can anyone confirm if either 3 assemblies melted at Chernobyl or if all 170 did.

If all 170 did than perhaps 85x is fairly reasonable (but im not sure how the 5% released factor adds in).

These crap media organizations need to show their math and present us with a full set of facts. I hate having to do 3 hours of research just to double-check their calculations.

But hey I learned a lot so it's alright but still. They make it difficult by just sensationalizing and failing to provide specifics.

reply to post by unityemissions


After further review it seems that this 85x figure may be logical (from whatever particular standpoint) they are calculating it based on.

They are probably using the 5% expected release figure as well in this calculation.

I believe they are counting all 170 assemblies in Chernobyl reactor core rather than the 3 or so specific assemblies that caused the reactor accident.

If all 170 melted down, please let me know (but provide links plz), I was totally misinformed (maybe?).

According to this document: chernobyl book

It claims that 50% roughly of Chernobyls assemblies melted.

Can anyone get some valid figures on exactly how many assemblies melted there?

50% of 170 is 85, 85 is the exact number this article is using "85x Chernobyls".

Strange coincidence. I wonder....

reply to post by unityemissions


Aha, found something worthwhile finally.

Correction also: (Apparently this claims there were 1700 assemblies in the reactor core at Chernobyl rather than 170, which makes 50% of them 850.)

But better than that, we have a listing of the exact KG weights of uranium and plutonium in this document.

book - Truth about Chernobyl

3000 kg plutonium
700,000 kg uranium.

Since all assemblies are diff sizes (BWR vs PWR), and different rods are made of different materials, this KG weight of material is better to judge potentials with.

Now time to find out the exact kg weight of Fukushima materials (in total).

The solution to stopping this is probably too horrible for the Japanese to contemplate. A small nuclear device or large conventional bomb. Blow it apart, the chain reaction has to stopped, A nuclear bomb at least has a single big impact, and you can decide when to set it off (so that most of the cloud goes out to sea.)

Maybe this chart is fairly accurate:

Characteristics of fuel assemblies

#'s are BWR first then PWR second.

Fuel rods per assembly 63 - 264

Uranium/assembly, kg 183.3 - 461.4

UO2/assembly, kg 208.0 - 523.4

So doing the math, divide number or rods per kg of Uranium.

2.9kg uranium per rod
3.3 kg UO2 per rod

So now let's assume with 10k assemblies at Fuku with roughly 90 or so rods per assembly (900,000 rods) ...

900,000 x 2.9 =
2,610,000 kg uranium
and
2,970,000 kg UO2

At chernobyl the reactor had (claimed) 700,000 kg uranium within it during the accident.

2.6 million / 700k = 3.7

So by pure weight of Uranium alone, it's 3.7 x worse. (Wow I didn't know that, why hasn't anyone ever told me about this weight comparison?)

3.7 x is way way less than 85x.

What's going on here?

Does the MOX fuel somehow increase this value significantly?
There is plutonium in those, but I cannot find figures of exactly how much.

Chernobyl had 3000 kg of plutonium in it's core during the accident.
Now let's find out exactly how many MOX assemblies there are at Fuku and how much KG weight of Plutonium is contained within them and add it up.

To go from 3.7x to 85x we need something major to bump the figures upwards. MOX may be the answer to solving this riddle.

reply to post by muzzleflash


You're getting closer to the truth, but the thing is some of those fuel assemblies will be partially spent, or close to new. This gives you yet another figure to take into consideration.

Honestly, I don't think we can do any better than a rough guess. Keep up the work, though.

No matter which way I look at this or calculate things the media's numbers don't look right.

So even though I am still learning things the hard way (by having to look it up), I strongly suggest the media start presenting facts and show the people exactly how they arrived at their supposed conclusions.

It would have saved me a few hours and it would have served the same purpose to educate me about facts I had little to no knowledge of prior.

But anyways, my final answer is in the post above. I'm going to stick with that one for now.
Still looking for facts on MOX fuel assemblies kg weight for plutonium.

Originally posted by unityemissions
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

You're getting closer to the truth, but the thing is some of those fuel assemblies will be partially spent, or close to new. This gives you yet another figure to take into consideration.

Honestly, I don't think we can do any better than a rough guess. Keep up the work, though.

Thanks, it would be really nice if we had access to some documents which gave us a general idea of the amount % of difference between the potential radiation hazards posed by spent fuel vs fresh unused fuel.

That would be terribly helpful. I am sure it exists but finding it will be the hard part.

Just as an update to my rambling posts : 85 x seems too high of a figure now that I calculated various claimed figures.

We need way more info and specific details which we lack to really get a accurate #.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Dude, who would listen

Most people are.... not interested, to say the least.

I know it sucks.

chernobyl is still a problem they are building a new cover, the old one is getting old. still burning thru down thru the ground, if it ever hits the water table....that would be terrible....

After reading up on the doomsday weapon known as a Cobalt Bomb, I am wondering how much of a chance the Fukushima radiation has to spread worldwide before the radiation levels have dropped enough to keep an ELE from being possible.

The theory behind the cobalt bomb was to 'salt' a thermonuclear device with cobalt in order to get radioactive fallout with a long enough half-life to be lethal after the time required for it spread worldwide.

The mechanism for spread of the fallout is much different with an airburst thermonuclear weapon than with a power plant meltdown. The radiation from Fukushima will spread mostly by the action of ocean currents, I think. Some is airborne, but basically that doesn't go very high into the atmosphere, and is scrubbed out by rain relatively close to the accident site.

So I guess the questions are...... What are the half-lives of the various isotopes released at Fukushima?
Have there been any studies released about radiation spread in oceanic systems?

One good thing is that water is a good neutron moderator, so it would give some neutron shielding effect for ocean life.

Any nuclear physicists out there to chime in with some correct info?