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Merged nuclear power safe?

Latest update from World Nuclear News...

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Possible_damage_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2_1503111.html
... Radiation levels on the edge of the plant compound briefly spiked at 8217 microsieverts per hour but later fell to about a third that.
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Please note that 8217 microsieverts sounds really nasty, but it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds. As referenced in an earlier article, a real concern would be 100,000 microsieverts, which is over 10 times what was detected. The article goes on to explain there may be some kind of containment leak, but that isn't for sure. They still have engineers in working on the situation.

So the situation is very messy, but being dealt with.

ETA:
Nosi said:
People told to get 30 kilometers away ( I forget by who ) from plants.
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Calm down, it's just a prudent precaution.
 
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Travis said:
He was asking if the reactors would have survived if they had not been shutdown automatically. I'm curious myself as it now seems like they would still be operating normally if they hadn't been SCRAMed.
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These plants don't have the capabilty to be self sustaining after the grid is lost--the turbine trip would force a reactor trip--I would doubt any plant could have held on during the tsunami as it would swamp the turbine. Once the rods are in, the focus is on cooling and that is where the problem obviously is.

However, if the plant did have the ability to be run self sustaining after the earthquake, it would have been OK if the turbine was intact--assuming the tsunami didn't hit and then trip the turbine. Since the tsunami did hit, it would have been worse since the plant would have gone into blackout with the reactor critical. The tsunami wiped out the diesels in unit 2 which were working for an hour or so to run emergency pumps and cool the plant.

Nuke plants in the US willl shutdown more orderly as it is less of a transient on the plant if a Hurricane is on the way

glenn
 
MattusMaximus said:
According to this report - not sure how reliable it is - there was a brief leak of radiation from one of the reactors after another explosion. However, as is stated in the last paragraph...

Quote:
... Detectors showed 11,900 microsieverts of radiation three hours after the blast, up from just 73 microsieverts beforehand, Kinjo said. He said there was no immediate health risk because the higher measurement was less radiation that a person receives from an X-ray. He said experts would worry about health risks if levels exceed 100,000 microsieverts.
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I expect the media and scare-mongers to scream long & loud about this one, though :rolleyes:
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Oh crap, my parents are glow-rays!
 
MattusMaximus said:
Please note that 8217 microsieverts sounds really nasty, but it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds. As referenced in an earlier article, a real concern would be 100,000 microsieverts, which is over 10 times what was detected. The article goes on to explain there may be some kind of containment leak, but that isn't for sure. They still have engineers in working on the situation.
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If it is 82 mrem per hour at the gate or the boundary of the owner controlled area, then this is really bad.

I think the limit would be 8 mrem per month for that location but not sure.

I would think at this point that all actions have failed and all containments have been compromised at all three affected plants. I would say they are lucky three plants were shut down when the earthquake and tsunami hit.

Those radiation levels indicate that a significant release of contamination has occurred.


"A real concern would be 100,000 microsieverts per hour ?"

That's a level of misinformation I have not heard since the nuclear engineers at MIT said the hydrogen came from water/steam under high pressure dissassociating into oxygen and hydrogen. Which unfortunately is way too short a time frame.

Time to find some radcon rangers worth their salt to post the boundaries at 20 usieverts per hour.
 
bobdroege7 said:
If it is 82 mrem per hour at the gate or the boundary of the owner controlled area, then this is really bad.

I think the limit would be 8 mrem per month for that location but not sure.

I would think at this point that all actions have failed and all containments have been compromised at all three affected plants. I would say they are lucky three plants were shut down when the earthquake and tsunami hit.

Those radiation levels indicate that a significant release of contamination has occurred.


"A real concern would be 100,000 microsieverts per hour ?"

That's a level of misinformation I have not heard since the nuclear engineers at MIT said the hydrogen came from water/steam under high pressure dissassociating into oxygen and hydrogen. Which unfortunately is way too short a time frame.

Time to find some radcon rangers worth their salt to post the boundaries at 20 usieverts per hour.
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Yes, this is something that was mentioned in another thread, and I haven't seen any more info on it. My big question now is whether or not the measured radiation levels mentioned here are consistent or were just a temporary spike? I had thought, based upon what I've read so far, that they were just a spike; though if it is true that those readings are consistently that high, then it is a much more serious situation than I had previously thought.

We need more data before coming to any conclusions, methinks.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Yes, this is something that was mentioned in another thread, and I haven't seen any more info on it. My big question now is whether or not the measured radiation levels mentioned here are consistent or were just a temporary spike? I had thought, based upon what I've read so far, that they were just a spike; though if it is true that those readings are consistently that high, then it is a much more serious situation than I had previously thought.

We need more data before coming to any conclusions, methinks.
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This one says 11,900 microsieverts 3 hours after the blast up from 73 microsieverts before the blast.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14248009

The other one you cited said that the 8217 microsieverts was a spike that dropped to about a third of that, but still a steady 2700 microsieverts or so at the plant boundary is bad.

The operators are pretty tight lipped but seem to be opening up.

I'm glad at least that now we are getting real radiation level readings, not some mish-mash x times background or so many x-rays etc.

I think we can learn from this and continue to use and expand our use of nuclear power, but really the experts have to stop lying to everyone.

Props to the Japanese people for their behavior thoughout this ordeal.
 
MattusMaximus said:
This ^^^

Boy, this mess is going to cost somebody a helluva lot of money :boggled:
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Didn't someone say that a couple of these units were decommissioning in a matter of weeks.

And just so I dont fear monger. Its when they start dumping graphite on the reactors we know we have a real problem...yes?
 
WildCat said:
Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise

This is starting to look very, very bad...
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That fourth reactor had been turned off and was under refurbishment for months before the earthquake and tsunami hit the plant on Friday. But the plant contains spent fuel rods that were removed from the reactor, and experts guessed that the pool containing those rods had run dry, allowing the rods to overheat and catch fire. That is almost as dangerous as the fuel in working reactors melting down, because the spent fuel can also spew radioactivity into the atmosphere.
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:covereyes
 
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