Evidence of periodic chain reaction in Nuke #1 Fukushima - Arnie Gundersen 4/3

[flamingdem]

See video here:

http://www.fairewinds.com/


Mentions Chlorine-38, in seawater as postulated earlier this week. Telurium-128 - 70 minute halflife.. so something is going on in unit one.

When you see neutrons you know it is a chain reaction, inadvertent criticality.

GOT BORON?

[FBaggins]

1. "When you see neutrons you know it is a chain reaction, inadvertent criticality"

Lol... there's one to record.

[flamingdem]

2. I'm just writing notes on what he said, what is incorrect ? nt

[FBaggins]

3. Neutrons do not come exclusively from chain reactions.

And when they DO come from sustained chain reactions... they come in MUCH highe numbers than what has been detected.

[girl gone mad]

4. How many neutrons were detected?

Post the data.

[flamingdem]

6. I'll check Tepco's site nt

[flamingdem]

7. Tepco update - detected tellurium, iodine, cesium and ruthenium in the air

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11040301-e.html

Apr 3, 2011 ... Below is the status of TEPCO's major facilities. ..... we detected iodine, cesium, tellurium and ruthenium in the air collected at the site ...
www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11040306-e.html

[abqmufc]

33. I am supposed to believe data from the company who is at fault? n/t

Not that I am sure whose data I'd trust, but I will say I don't trust TEPCOs data one bit. Their track record prior to this event was enough. Their initial handling of information during the early days of this accident are the icing on the "I don't trust TEPCO data cake."

Personally I've not seen any data that shows me what I want to know. What I'd like to see is trajectory modeling of radiation plumes into the atmosphere. The only one I've seen is by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, it has been on this site. But I am not 100% this is a real NILU model. I'd then like to see a massive sampling of rainwater in the radiation plume's trajectory. Only rainwater data I've seen is from the Bay Area (UC Berkley) and only on March 17-19. Personally I think rainwater samples should be sampled daily from Anchorage (ideally Kivalina) down to Portland, OR. It seems the modeling I've seen would suggest San Francisco is farther south than the plume's direct path.

I'd also like to see sampling of US agriculture be tested for toxins and radionuclides that are linked to the accident in Japan, this testing should begin now and run through this year's growing season. A lot of people depend on rainwater for food in the USA, be it your back yard garden or commercial fields. Maybe there is nothing to worry about. But having worked with backwards trajectory air quality monitoring for Tribes, I know we can pinpoint where a radiation plume from the Japan site is headed and we can also determine where that radiation may fall from the atmosphere to the ground via rain or snow. Yet I am unsure why this is not being done.

[flamingdem]

35. I agree with all of that

and hope they aren't holding anything back. A site in Moscow found strontium and
this was scrubbed from their website. Sites in Taiwan discuss strontium -- did the
EPA test for it or not, or other organizations.

Right now we are reliant upon science minds and they tend to dismiss the dangers of fallout.
The public has to make a fuss. The EPA wants to raise safe levels and does for times
just like this "emergencies".

As far as Tepco, I think the Japanese people hate them and now distrust what their government says.

[abqmufc]

36. You might be interested in this....

Check out the main article on Trajectory modeling. The model listed doesn't deal with radionuclides but I suspect somebody has a program that would do this for the event in Japan.
http://www4.nau.edu/itep/air/docs/NVFall_05.pdf

I used to work closely with author of this newsletter, NAU's Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP).

[flamingdem]

38. Here are some Hypslit related graphs

http://gramercyimages.com/blog1/tag/hysplit-trajectory-model/

I think there are many but I'm not sure you mean this exactly?

[abqmufc]

40. Yes, thank you

Now to me rainwater samples should be taken in key locations based on these trajectory models. Samples should be taken daily for months....

I think I need to go back to school and get a PhD. I feel like I am developing my own research hypothesis.

thanks for the info.

[flamingdem]

39. These are better maps from U Maryland

http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~tcanty/hysplit/

[abqmufc]

41. Thank you,

now to me those models should be used to determine where rainwater samples should be taken. Sampling should be done daily (I'd argue a full year at least).

[flamingdem]

42. You could contact the students or professors

maybe they are doing this or know someone who will..

I think it might be dawning on them that we have a problem with ongoing fallout.

The person running the Berkeley tests seems very open as well, he responded to posts on the blog.

Later I noticed crazies taking over the blog however

[flamingdem]

11. More data, evolution of phyical qualities of unis 1-3

Plots of reactor data - Fukushima Daiichi - Units #1--#3

Jorge Stolfi
2011-03-23 02:40

The following plots show the partial evolution of physical quantities in the Fukushima Daiichi reactors #1, #2, and #3, after the march/2011 earthquake and tsunami. Note that the incident started on 2011-03-11 (friday), two days before the start of the plots.

[FBaggins]

17. There isn't any data

The last report I saw merely said that they had (at the time) detected a "neutron beam" (sic) 13 times about a mile away over a three-day period..

At that distance, they reported detecting one to two hundredths of a micro sievert per hour. (that's .00000001 to .00000002 sieverts/hr)

Now... their frequent error of reporting activity in terms of effective dose make a direct comparison essentially impossible, but it's certanly a very low number.

It hardly matters, however, because the simple enough point is that sustained fission sn't give off a "neutron beam" just once every 6-8 hours.

[girl gone mad]

29. Then how can you say...

"they come in MUCH highe numbers than what has been detected."

Can't imaging that beams would be very common in these reactors because they should be designed so that most of the neutron flux distribution is contained within the core. A beam once every 6 to 8 hours doesn't sound unreasonable for a sustained fission event. Obviously, not all of the neutrons being emitted are going to be escaping in the beam.

It's hard to communicate with you because your level of knowledge seems very low. I think your time would be better spent reading and learning rather than pretending to be an expert on internet forums.

[FBaggins]

43. Because there was enough information to make a comparison.

A beam once every 6 to 8 hours doesn't sound unreasonable for a sustained fission event. Obviously, not all of the neutrons being emitted are going to be escaping in the beam.



You're kidding, right?

Do you have a brand new definition of "sustained fission"?

Is there a peak-hole that opens and closes... no no wait... I know... it's a moving fission that dodges in and out of view?

Come on.

[flamingdem]

5. Did you look at Tepco's latest data?

Gundersen is referring to new data.

[FBaggins]

18. He really isn't.

He starts off with the 2-week-old "neutron beam" story and then moves on to isotope data that was corrected a couple days ago.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/plant-operator-reviews-radiation-data-20110401-1cry9.html

Some actual new data (in the last day or so)"

In Unit 1 the indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV is relatively stable at 259°C and at the bottom of RPV at 117°C. The RPV pressure indications are fluctuating and Drywell pressure is slightly decreasing.

How is this possible if an active sustained chain reaction is going on inside that reactor?

[flamingdem]

24. What explans the chlorine and telurium being created? nt

[FBaggins]

25. Simple. Lab errors.

They don't have a tricorder with them that infallibly tells them which isotopes are in the air at a given time. They can come close on overall activity levels and types... but there's a lab process involved for identifyind specific elements/isotopes.

As I think you pointed out a week or so ago, some (specifically Plutonium) are very difficult to detect.

So they simply made an error.

But I'll try to ask the question that you guys have been avoiding for days now for the dozenth time:

If there's an active fission reaction going on in one of those cores (not just millisecond flashes of local short-term chain reactions)... where are all the other symptoms???

An active sustained chain reaction in one of these reactors is NOT something that could be hidden. It isn't something that they're cobbled-together cooling plan could possibly handle. There wouldn't be ANY questions of "hmmm... I wonder where that isotope came from?"... it would be obvious and disasterous. The anti-nukes would finally be able to use the word Chernobyl as a comparative without looking foolish.

[flamingdem]

26. Gundersen is pointing towards 2 issues that will make the plant to hot to work there

Skyshines - radiation reflected back down on the plant that comes from the fuel pools and this latest video points to neutron flashes / beams whatever they are is not clear - making it very dangerous for workers.

It seems to be true that they are desperate to stop levels from rising at the plant and have resorted to jumpers going in for very short amounts of time.

We'll see what the latest reports tell us.

[FBaggins]

27. It will be very "hard" to work there.

But that's an entirely seperate discussion from whether or not fission is an ongoing problem.

Shyshine is overblown as a threat, but they eventually have to do some work on those pools, and anything above them could be a dangerous task... they probably have to open up the cores at some point as well... and we don't know whether they'll be able to flood that well at all.

and this latest video points to neutron flashes / beams whatever they are is not clear

If the core is opened up (to remove the fuel) at some point in the future, then yes, those "flashes" could be locally very dangerous.

They're pretty insignificant as a heat source, but would be incredibly dangerous to an unshielded person.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. There may be a few fuel rods in a proper configuration to go critical with the

addition of water. As water is a moderator. Depending upon the damage to the core, perhaps a few fuel rods are in proper place, and exposed to each other in such a way as to go critical when water is added. Just like we see under proper operating conditions.

Remember, this type of reactor inserts its control rods from below. They don't gravity drop from above like a PWR.

I don't think it's a given that the entire reactor would go full critical, and we would see the levels you are expecting of these fission products. It is possible. Not absolute. We really don't know what the inside of that core looks like.

Could make for bad times. Lot harder to work on the reactor.

[abqmufc]

37. Can you answer me this?

I am genuinely wondering if you might know if anyone is doing large sampling of rainwater from Alaska down to Oregon and checking for any contaminants linked to the accident in Japan?

I've seen UC Berkley data from March 17-19. Those dates are too narrow for me (do they match up with trajectory modeling of radiation plumes anticipated to cross the Pacific) and it seems the samples are only from the Bay Area (farther south than the only trajectory model I've seen).

To me it would make sense to do the following:

1) Use trajectory models to figure out where high does of radiation released from the sight are headed. Use those models to figure out where rainwater samples would be likely to see spikes.
2) Collect daily rainwater samples from now until winter (cover the entire growing season) in areas as far north as Alaska (Kivalina lets say) down to Portland, OR and also include the corn belt in this sampling.
3) analyze those rainwater samples for any contamination linked to the accident in Japan
4) Test U.S. produced agriculture, 1/4 of my vegetable intake comes from my backyard garden, I wonder what risk my garden is in Albuquerque (from rainwater exposure) as well as commercial agriculture nationwide.
5) Tell the general public this is what you are doing, and that you don't expect any real findings, but you are being safe.


It seems this type of study is not that difficult to do. Maybe I should go back to graduate school and do this as my research.

I know such studies are being done for Mercury deposition nationwide, I've worked closely with the folks at the Mercury Deposition Network at the University of Illinois for years. I also know such studies of mercury deposition are way under funded on purpose. EPA doesn't fund mercury monitoring to the scale it should be at to lessen what evidence is available from sampling (meaning the issue is worse than most people realize, and the federal government limits funding and studies to keep the mercury issue under wraps).

[flamingdem]

8. A guess: if No. 1 is melting TEPCO has to entomb, thus entombing the nuke biz? nt

[Warpy]

9. TEPCO already knows it's going to entomb

and the cement delivery arrangement has already been transported from the US. It will take some time to set up, remember it's a disaster zone.

[flamingdem]

10. What if the plant is too deadly for workers? Tricky via remote controlled robots nt

[Warpy]

28. Russia did it. All you need are volunteers who won't mind

shortening their lives in return for a short hero's lifestyle. You'll get them, too.

Besides, tricky doesn't mean impossible.

[TheMadMonk]

12. First of all there is always going to be some spontaneous fission.

Between cold spontaneous fission and a fully self sustaining chain reaction is a zone of "some activity" where one decay event might set of a dozen other atoms in a row then peter out.

There might be some interesting physics happening, we may have to do something about improving the way "control rods" interact with the fuel and coolant.

One idea that occurs to me, is to build a mechanism capable of rapidly powdering a reactor's entire load of fuel rods and dispersing it in a suitable quantity of neutron gobbling salts.

Any number of ways of avoiding widespread catatstrophe can be devised if instead of attempting to prevent all possible adverse events in all possible situations, we accept the posibility of catastrophic failures and make sure that when they happen, they happen the way WE want them to.

First of all establish some protocols which automatically relax emission rules in true emergency situations. Favour dirty solutions with a high probability of success over clean solutions which carry any significant risk of failure or worsening of the situation.

We man never know for sure, but there is a bloody good chance that if operators had been able to vent "dirty" steam directly into the atmosphere, the hydrogen explosions could not have happened and matters would be a lot easier to deal with today. If we must vent hydrogen laced steam into a confines space, arrange to pass that steam over a platinum grid to catalytically recombine that hydrogen with oxygen safely.

[kristopher]

13. I think that is a sensible approach

I think that is a sensible approach. It is exactly the right way to design response to crisis management.

All anti-pro BS aside, I think this industry needs to go away for 20 years and rethink itself. Cost, safety, waste and proliferation are the variables that all must come together in one design and they are an inevitable part of the landscape of the industry as it now exists. There is nothing "waiting in the wings" that can play "white knight" either. There may be potential in taking SMRs back to the drawing board but they so far aren't anywhere near ready *and proven*for manufacture and use as the solution they are being advertised to be.


However you'd better have a strong eye to costs with it, though because 20 years from now solar is going to be everywhere.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. That's a good point.

I can't help but notice the parallel between the oil drilling companies, going deeper and farther offshore, in environments difficult to manage a failure (like Deepwater Horizon) without innovating in disaster management/recovery from equipment or environmental issues, and the proliferation of nuclear power plants.

Yes, the plants are well designed. But not well enough. Not in situating them. Not in protecting them from environmental issues like quakes. Hell, the reactors at Fukushima experienced shaking in excess of the planned EQ resistance of the site, well before the wave even got there.

Who knows what damage THAT caused.

And here we are, like Deepwater, we are in a situation were NOW we have to innovate on the fly to clean it up/halt the problem. Very little in the way of textbook responses apply, for fixing this. Hell, they basically did a 'junk shot' yesterday on the water leaks into the ocean.

[CJvR]

14. Venting...

"We man never know for sure, but there is a bloody good chance that if operators had been able to vent "dirty" steam directly into the atmosphere, the hydrogen explosions could not have happened and matters would be a lot easier to deal with today."

There is a fairly simple filter you can build to give you that option. All Swedish reactors have it. It works like an air dryer, you lead the steam into a silo packed with gravel where the water vapor condenses on the rocks. A bit more expensive then a filtering pool but it allowes a relatively safe venting of irradiated steam. The Hydrogen would still have escaped but most of the stuff it was mixed with would have stuck in the filter.

[aquart]

15. Now that's really annoying to hear.

How much of this mess could those cheap bastards have prevented by using that filter?

[kristopher]

16. They ran the deliberately vented steam through filters.

The Japanese are not amateurs. Their nuclear program is arguably the best in the world.

[CJvR]

19. Then why...

...did they blow up the reactor buildings?

If they had vented and dried the steam what was all that hydrogen doing inside the buildings?
IIRC in the earlier stages of the meltdown it was remarked upon that the reactors didn't have steam dryers or even a filtering pool.

http://litefranovan.blogspot.com/2010/08/blog-post.html

This is Barsebäcks verket, now closed due to politiac bribery, but it was the first plant fitted with the drier filter. You see that big white silo? That is it. I have not seen anything like that at Fukushima or heard any reports that would indicate they have anything like it.

[FBaggins]

20. Hydrogen wouldn't be caught by filters or drying.

It isn't "wet", and it's too small to filter.

[CJvR]

22. Hydrogen no.

But if it is mixed in with high preassure steam you could have vented the lot and caught the steam in the filter and only released the hydrogen. Rather than venting it into the outer building elements and them blowing the place to hell!

[kristopher]

21. The power was out, remember?

I first read of it in the daily logs that OKisitjustme has been posting on E/E. (highly recommended)
However there are so many of them I gave up and googled it to find this NYT article:
"To prevent a catastrophic primary containment system failure the operators vented the primary containment through the safety venting system trying to reject heat and excess gases up the 100 meter tall stacks at the plants," he wrote. "Normally there are operable fans and filters to control this dangerous mixture, but there was no electrical power for the fans. So most, if not all, of this dangerous mix of hydrogen gas seeped into the reactor building in Units 1 and 3. The hydrogen, being lighter than air, mixed with air in the upper large refueling floor area."

Some source ignited the explosive mixture, blasting away the sheet metal roofs and sides of the top section of the outer secondary containment building in units 1 and 3, he said. Braving dangerous conditions, workers had time to remove a wall panel at the top of the unit 2 reactor building providing an exit for hydrogen, avoiding a similar roof-level explosion, he said. The damage to the buildings 1 and 3 and the opening in 2 created an exit route for radioactive releases from the spent fuel pools at the top of the reactor pools.

Barrett's analysis is shared by many officials and experts. A series of slides created by Matthias Braun, with the German office of Areva SA, the French nuclear reactor builder, depicts the sequence of events Barrett describes. It is also being widely shared among U.S. nuclear experts."
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/03/25/25climatewire-us-experts-blame-fukushima-1-explosions-and-19903.html

Links to that presentation have been floating around for the past couple of days if you want to dig it out.

If you have concerns about how the Japanese have handled this, I can understand. However you should bear in mind what I said - their nuclear program is arguably managed better and with more of an eye to safety than that of any other country. If they can't get it right, it means it is unlikely anyone is getting it right, but they just haven't had to suffer the consequences yet.

[CJvR]

23. Intresting.

But it seems as if they didn't have the ability, or willingness, to vent steam directly from the high pressure system - perhaps because they knew they didn't have a proper filter to deal with it. Rather they released(or it leaked) gasses inside the primary containment and then had to move them with fans when the gasses reached dangerous levels, another backup system depending on electricity.

Swedish filter system, capable of catching some 99%+ of the radiation. This is what the Fukushima reactor don't have IIRC.
http://www.vattenfall.se/sv/fem-barriarer-och-ett-filter.htm

Still if the pressure inside the containment wasnt enough to eject the gasses then having a filter wouldn't matter much.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Do we know the hydrogen even came from the core?

If the storage pools are leaking, and the water level started dropping before it could be steamed/boiled away, once the rods are partially exposed, given the zircalloy cladding, you have everything in the pools needed to destroy the outer containment building via hydrogen explosion.

The buildings experienced shaking in excess of design tolerance, after all.

[kristopher]

34. That is my speculation also.

We know now that the earthquake caused the massive crane mechanism to fall into the spent fuel pool; almost certainly crushing the rods and rupturing casings. The explosion in #3 was qualitatively different by a huge margin from the others.