Monitoring Rising Temperatures (spent fuel pool #4)

[neverforget]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_12.html

>snip<
The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number 4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased injections of cooling water.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it will inject 210 tons of water into the pool on Monday, after finding on Sunday evening that the temperature in the pool had risen to 81 degrees Celsius.

The utility firm had earlier limited the amount of water being injected into the pool to 70 tons a day, saying the weight of the water could weaken the reactor building, which was already damaged in last month's hydrogen explosion.

On Friday, TEPCO found that the pool's temperature had reached 91 degrees, so it began injecting 2 to 3 times the amount of water.
>snip<

[Someguyinjapan]

1. It's only a matter of days

Before Japan proudly unleashes its newly-minted army of Transformer-("More Than Meets The Eye!!") style robots that will sally forth, quench the overheated reactors whilst simultaneously decontaminating great swathes of the surrounding country. In addition, Prime Minister Nato Kan (whose name means "He Who Has Descended From The Cherry-Blossom Filled Japanese-Only Heaven") is about to ceremonially launch Japan's very first floating "Comfort City", where stressed Japanese males can partake in various pleasures (provided by a pan-Asian group of non-coerced, willing volunteer women) in order to alleviate the stress brought on by this completely unforeseeable nuclear disaster.

[DCKit]

2. Glad to hear the situation is improving so dramatically.

You're really good at snark. Keep it up, and stay safe.

[buddysmellgood]

4. Could you cite a source please :)

[FBaggins]

5. Transformer technology is highly classified.

Someguyinjapan is posting this at great risk to himself.

[Throckmorton]

3. Closed cycle cooling for this spent fuel pool

Since they don't seem interested in informing anyone on what their plans are, all those of us in the industry can do is sit and wonder just what the hell is going on.

[bananas]

6. That's not good - "Retired nuclear engineer worried by lack of news from Japan"

I saw an article last week:

http://enenews.com/kind-quiet-japan-good-lead-nuclear-engineer-ge-mark-1-reactor-fukushima

“It’s been kind of quiet out of Japan… This is not good” says lead nuclear engineer for GE Mark 1 reactor
April 20th, 2011 at 02:13 PM

Retired nuclear engineer worried by lack of news from Japan, The Pratt Tribune, April 19, 2011:

The recent silence from Japan about conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility that was damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has a local man wondering just how severely the facility has been damaged.

The one thing he does know is that whatever is going on inside the reactors is very serious.

“It’s been kind of quiet out of Japan. This is not good,” said Eddie Petrowsky, nuclear engineer, area farmer and former employee of the Morris, Ill., Dresden No. 2 Nuclear reactor. “They’ve got some major problems.”

Petrowsky worked for two and half years as the lead nuclear engineer at the Morris facility, which is of the same type as the Fukushima facility, so he is familiar with its construction and operation. …

Read the report here. http://www.pratttribune.com/news/x1274032954/Retired-nuclear-engineer-worried-by-lack-of-news-from-Japan

[Throckmorton]

7. my point exactly

Those of us that will be tasked with addressing changes as a result of these accidents (I count 7 btw) would really like to hear more about the nuts and bolts of TEPCO's approach to these problems.