What's the most scientifically reasonable solution for the Nuclear Reactor Crisis?

[Ron_Tomkins]

Last night, I saw an interview on professor Michio Kaku, in which he says that we're wasting time trying to cool down the nuclear reactors by throwing water on them from helicopters. That doing that is equivalent to trying to put out a fire with a squirt gun.

When asked what he would do, he said the best option is doing something that was done on a similar crisis a while ago, in which war planes (or some other kind of planes) threw sand and boric acid, which proved much more effective.

My first question is: Is this a scientifically reasonable approach?
My second question is: If it is, why isn't professor Kaku doing a more critical attempt to convince everyone to do it?

 

[geni]

My first question is: Is this a scientifically reasonable approach?

If you want to kill of chain reactions it is a reasonable approach. The problem is that it is not very good if you want to cool things down. Water has a very high specific heat capacity and a comparatively low boiling point so it is very good at cooling things down. They have also been mxing a lot of boric acid with the water so they are already reducing the number of chain ractions.

Dump a sand and boron mix on the the stuff and it will just continue to heat up until it melts and which point it may flow together resulting in more radioactivity.

There is also the question of how on earth you would inject sand and solid boron into the reactors.

 

[KingMerv00]

Get the reactor coolant system working again.

 

[wipeout]

Get the reactor coolant system working again.

Yup, I read a short while ago that they intend to have power to two reactors on Saturday and the other two on Sunday. Sounds promising.

Tried to find the quote again and can't though. It was probably the BBC articles I was reading.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Get the reactor coolant system working again.

That assumes there's anything left for them to work with. Those buildings look to be in pretty bad shape physically. It's hard to imagine that the coolant system are all still completely intact. I suspect that isn't going to be an easy process in each and every case, but I agree it's a "must be done" step if they ever want to regain control.

 

[Michael Mozina]

What are the power requirements of those pumps, and how come they couldn't just fly in some portable generators, or "fire up" one of the power stations to supply power to the pumps? They didn't all go critical the first day.

 

[Joey McGee]

My second question is: If it is, why isn't professor Kaku doing a more critical attempt to convince everyone to do it?

It's a safe bet that he is doing all he can with his influence behind the scenes. He posted this on his blog...If I Had the Ear of the Prime Minister, I Would Recommend the "Chernobyl Option"
and seems like he mentions it every time someone talks to him. What would be a more critical attempt in your eyes?

Don't criticize Michio or dare call him Michio Kookoo! He is my choice for all-powerful world leader when the scientific dictatorship/nwo takes over.

 

[sts60]

I'll be happy to criticize him for the out-of-his-expertise fearmonger that he is. And so, I dare say, will most of the folks who have ever worked to power spacecraft with RTGs.

Now, I'm not a reactor guy, but if I want advice on reactors, I'll go to a reactor expert, not a string theorist.

 

[Ziggurat]

Last night, I saw an interview on professor Michio Kaku, in which he says that we're wasting time trying to cool down the nuclear reactors by throwing water on them from helicopters.

That's not what the helicopter drops were trying to do. Those water drops weren't intended to cool down the reactors, they were intended to keep the spent fuel pools filled with water. It's hardly an optimal solution, but that doesn't mean it's useless.

When asked what he would do, he said the best option is doing something that was done on a similar crisis a while ago, in which war planes (or some other kind of planes) threw sand and boric acid, which proved much more effective.

Boric acid is used because it's water soluble and contains boron, which absorbs neutrons. If you pump boric acid into the reactors themselves, the boron will help prevent the reactor from going critical again because of its neutron absorption. And in fact I think they've done exactly that. But while boron will help stop a chain reaction and prevent criticality, it won't stop the spontaneous decay which is powering the current crisis It will cut down on neutron radiation, but if you're just air-dropping sand, that boron can be in any form you want, there's no reason to use boric acid rather than something else with boron (including just pure boron). The problem with air-dropping sand is that while it won't boil off like water, it also won't absorb heat as fast. Furthermore, even if you cover your spent fuel rods with sand (and that's what they're using the helicopters for, not the reactor), that doesn't actually insulate them from contact with the air. So they can still release radioactive materials into the atmosphere if they overheat.

 

[Skwinty]

What they are doing right now is the most correct and reasonable solution.

 

[lomiller]

What they are doing right now is the most correct and reasonable solution.

This

 

[steve s]

The best solution is to not build nuclear reactors in areas vulnerable to tsunamis.

Steve S

 

[macdoc]

That assumes there's anything left for them to work with. Those buildings look to be in pretty bad shape physically.

all you are and can see is a thin steel shell that covers the crane to load the reactor.
There is no damage of any significance to the actually containment structure.
The hydrogen build up in the steel shed caused the explosion - a vapour flash.

suggest reading
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/17/fukushima-17-march-summary/

gives you an interior view of the reactor sliced open..

The best way is cool it so the reactors can be properly dismantled and replaced and the fuel rods moved to the long term pools as they should have been.

This is a multi-billion dollar power plant and you want to bury it ....

 

[Corsair 115]

The best solution is to not build nuclear reactors in areas vulnerable to tsunamis.

Or make sure any seawalls built to protect water-sensitive equipment are even larger than the worst of the worst case tsunami height projections.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Or make sure any seawalls built to protect water-sensitive equipment are even larger than the worst of the worst case tsunami height projections.

There has been a recorded tsunami of 524 meters in height. There is a certain point at which our human ingenuity has failed to come up with truly effective counter measures against the worst of natural disasters. Long before that point however is the area in which building the countermeasures themselves costs us more than the disaster would itself. Seriously, how many lives would be lost and devastated if we attempted to build even a 100 meter concreate wall reinforced against the possibility of 100 meter tall megatsunami waves around the eastern coast of Japan?

I am not saying we would should give up or never strive to defeat this disasters, but there is going to be quite a bit of disagreement over what is reasonable safety precautions. The plant buildings themselves were of such hardy manufacture that they weathered the tsunami very well. Is it reasonable to demand that nuclear power plants be built this tough? I think most anyone would say yes. Would it be reasonable to demand all buildings in coastal Japan be built this tough? Likely not. How tall of walls are you suggesting, would they even be effective and are they cost effecient? Bearing in mind that by cost I do not just mean wealth.

ETA: On the other hand, the nuclear power community seems to be of the mind that the better solution to this sort of danger is to replace BWR plants with PWR plants in high risk zones. This way the issue of backup generators does not exist. You need power to keep running. Power goes off the SCRAM automatically happens. Over the long term you need power to keep the set up safe, but in the short term power loss like just happened in Japan the PWR safety systems are more ideal.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

... There is no damage of any significance to the actually containment structure. ...

This may well turn out to be the case or to have been the case but at the moment the people working at the plant haven't explicitly stated that. Their updates continue to list "Damages Suspected" and "Might be ”Not damaged”" for "Containment Integrity" of two of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

Fortunately for us they take a less cavalier attitude towards the damage caused by the explosions than some of the posters on this Forum.
Once again, you may well be correct on this point but not because the explosions "could not have caused" any damage.

As I understand it - There was a drop in pressure inside the containment vessels immediately after the explosions which did not stabilize in each one of them. With the pressure not stabilizing being the operative part of the sentence because the venting itself was purposeful and designed to reduce pressure. The following (probably Hydrogen) explosions were much less controlled and the lack of pressure stabilization -exacerbated by the failure of monitoring instrumentation (Due to a combination of earthquake/tsunami and explosions) was cause for concern among the people working at the plant. As the status estimates indicate they've changed their speculation regarding Reactor 3 to "Might be "Not Damaged" from the previously "Damage Suspected" but Reactor 2's status is still listed the way it has been listed for days now. They may well erring on the side of caution but that does not change the fact that they are considering the possibility of damage. They appear to be (have been) encouraged that radiation levels aren't/weren't rising beyond temporary spikes in these specific areas but they weren't ready to make that assessment/assumption based on the state of their instrumentation at each specific point on the compound.

This is accurate information -as I understand it- based on the daily updates provided by the people working on the plant and their supervisors combined with updates from regulatory bodies inside and outside Japan.
Once again you may turn out to have been correct but at the moment that sentence in the excerpt I quoted from your -repeated- comments isn't a certainty. (Yet)
I do hope you're correct but the situation isn't resolved. (Yet)

If you have something more recent than this which contradicts the JAIF estimate update from 10:00 JST I'll gladly change my position. If you have information that otherwise corrects any of the errors I've made in this summary I would also welcome that.

I see positive improvements but don't think they're quite done with the place (Yet)

Forgot the link:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/aij/110319FukushimaEventStatus-14e.pdf

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

JAIF status estimate 16:00 JST:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/aij/110319FukushimaEventStatus-15e.pdf

 

[macdoc]

The issue is clearly with the risk from the containment ponds which is real - particularly that the interim pond had an entire reactor load in it. The after math question will be if that is a breach of procedure.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that the situation at reactors 1,2 and 3 appears to remain fairly stable.
The spent-fuel ponds at units 3 and 4, however, remain an important safety concern.

exactly.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

The issue is clearly with the risk from the containment ponds which is real - particularly that the interim pond had an entire reactor load in it. The after math question will be if that is a breach of procedure.
exactly.

That excerpt you quoted was from the IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Emergency (18 March 2011, 14:00 UTC), wasn't it?

There is also this from the IAEA : Japan Earthquake Update (19 March 2011, 4:30 UTC)
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

To me it suggests they are treating the Hydrogen explosions as non-trivial events within the secondary containment structures and are keeping a close eye on the containment vessels as well as on the -steadily improving- situation in the spent fuel pools.

[P.S. Even replying with something like: "possible but unlikely" and "hopefully they were merely being prudently overcautious" would have been appreciated.]

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

Those pressures we were talking about earlier ... the procedure for dealing with that -after carefully balancing options given the circumstances on the ground, we've seen that solution before, correct?