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Merged nuclear power safe?

Q for the crowd: Why isn't thermal imagery being published? Surely spy sats and monitoring stations are seeing something, yes?

I find the lack of hard information disturbing. It may be that things are simply so chaotic right now that dealing with the press is simply impossible for the Japanese, but why doesn't IAEA have monitoring stations set up, independent tests running, and teams with the proper equipment and training either standing by or already helping?
 
Sometimes when I read the post of some people (on all forum/news story comment), I do feel they *want* the situation become worst so that it become the swan song for nuclear and nuclear get world wide stopped.
 
DallasDad said:
Q for the crowd: Why isn't thermal imagery being published? Surely spy sats and monitoring stations are seeing something, yes?

I find the lack of hard information disturbing. It may be that things are simply so chaotic right now that dealing with the press is simply impossible for the Japanese, but why doesn't IAEA have monitoring stations set up, independent tests running, and teams with the proper equipment and training either standing by or already helping?
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Thermal imagery would tell us ... what ? It would only tell us an approximate temperature repartition within the plant. It does not tell us anything about temperature inside containment (for which the thermal sonde are) or even radioactivity.

There *IS* hard info. You can even download all the measurement around the plant from tepco, I gave the link somewhere in this thread or the other.

I just advise to forget nytime , cnn or other foxnews normal outfit. They usually get some things wrong.
 
I still have my previous question, though: the Fukushima Daiichi reactors have been shutdown for 16 days, now. When can we expect to cool the hell down ?
 
Belz... said:
I still have my previous question, though: the Fukushima Daiichi reactors have been shutdown for 16 days, now. When can we expect to cool the hell down ?
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The cooling of the reactor vessels with fuel elements are going to require constant cooling.

Even when they eventually remove the fuel elements from the reactor vessel, the elements are going to require constant cooling. The reactor vessel without fuel elements will not require cooling.

This cooling must continue until all residual heat has been removed.
This takes a number of years.
 
Skwinty said:
The cooling of the reactor vessels with fuel elements are going to require constant cooling.

Even when they eventually remove the fuel elements from the reactor vessel, the elements are going to require constant cooling. The reactor vessel without fuel elements will not require cooling.

This cooling must continue until all residual heat has been removed.
This takes a number of years.
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This can takes a few weeks only to abate the heat from the decay of the short lived elements. The medium lived one will make the material heat for years, but it will stop heating so quickly after a while.
 
The only fuel element that does not require cooling is a brand new fuel element. That is a fuel element that has never been in a reactor core for a burn cycle.

Any fuel element that has been through 1, 2 or 3 burn cycles will require cooling for at least 5 years before cooling can be stopped and the element stored in dry storage.
 
Skwinty said:
The only fuel element that does not require cooling is a brand new fuel element. That is a fuel element that has never been in a reactor core for a burn cycle.

Any fuel element that has been through 1, 2 or 3 burn cycles will require cooling for at least 5 years before cooling can be stopped and the element stored in dry storage.
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I haven't heard any estimates on when cold shutdown might be achieved on reactors 1-4, which is what I am more interested in. Though I suspect the lack of information may be thta officials don't really know.
 
Skwinty said:
The only fuel element that does not require cooling is a brand new fuel element. That is a fuel element that has never been in a reactor core for a burn cycle.

Any fuel element that has been through 1, 2 or 3 burn cycles will require cooling for at least 5 years before cooling can be stopped and the element stored in dry storage.
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I agree with that, but my understanding is that the amount of cooling is not the same after the first 2 weeks, than after the first few month or later near the end of the 1st or 3rd or 5th year.
 
Walter Wayne said:
I haven't heard any estimates on when cold shutdown might be achieved on reactors 1-4, which is what I am more interested in. Though I suspect the lack of information may be thta officials don't really know.
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This will give you an idea of the various normal operating states.

Ideally, the target for Fukushima is to have the fuel in the reactor vessels cool enough to get to spent fuel pools.

Obviously that is the crux of the matter.
When you consider the collateral damage to the plant, this objective is a serious challange which will take lots of time and care.

It is difficult to assert exactly what "state" the reactor is in, but if you look at the definitions of the "normal operating states", you can get a rough idea.

When you consider the existing damage then you should understand why the ideal state has not yet been achieved.
 

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They reported that the radiation was 4 times over the legal limit. If the hourly dose, 250 mSv is the maximum for a year, for a worker in an emergency, how can 1000 mSv (which is an hourly dose) be 4 times over the limit?

They are comparing the year limit, a cumulative dose of 250 mSv, with the hourly rate, 1000 mSv.

Isn't that wrong?
 
Aepervius said:
Sometimes when I read the post of some people (on all forum/news story comment), I do feel they *want* the situation become worst so that it become the swan song for nuclear and nuclear get world wide stopped.
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That is pretty clear by the way they distort what is said constantly.

A friend tells me that posters he most often sees posting against alternative energy and for coal mining are trashing nuclear now...
 
I'm shocked that anyone would let their political views influence their perceptions.
 
Aepervius said:
Sometimes when I read the post of some people (on all forum/news story comment), I do feel they *want* the situation become worst so that it become the swan song for nuclear and nuclear get world wide stopped.
Click to expand...

What's funny is, if they have their way, they'll still have to switch to nuclear at some point, if only because they're out of options.

It's very difficult to get people to remove from their minds the notion that nuclear problems are inherently worse than others because of the radiation. They don't understand half-lives, dosage, or the fact that a dead person is a dead person, no matter how he/she died.

It's also surprising that ecologists don't speak up against windmills and all the birds they kill.
 
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