Actually, burning coal releases radioactive isotopes that were contained in the coal. If a nuclear power plant functions correctly, it releases less radiation than does a coal power plant.
So much misinformation.
There is nothing that indicates that the SNF is burning. Radiation readings would be much higher. Yes, depending on the heat of the fuel assemblies, adding water would cause some to be instantly vaporized. That is good. The best way to transfer heat is by boiling water. Transferred heat = removed heat = good. If the SNF cladding is not breached (no reason to believe it is), the only radioactive isotope in the water would be N-16, with a half-life of 7 seconds. This is no different than the water that was vented Saturday/Sunday at the beginning of the crisis. It would be completely decayed by the time it got anywhere.
The amount of water required to the cool the decay heat in each reactor at this point is something on the order of 100 gpm. A garden hose is around 10 gpm. The SNF would require less cooling than that.
While there's no doubt this is a very serious incident, unless you live in Japan there's really no need to worry about radiation coming from the plant.
I didn't say that, I said how much water would be needed to remove the decay heat. I have no idea how much water has vaporized from the pool, and thus no way to know how much would be needed to replace it. Obviously the rate of heat removal from water flow would have to be greater than the rate of heat generation from the fuel to begin refilling the pool.There are reportedly as many as 8 cores worth of SNF in the #4 pool. Are you sure it would take less than 100gpm to restore the pool if there are that many ?
And the flow would have to be greater than the rate that water is being converted to steam, or you would never get anywhere in refilling the pool.
There are numerous reports of fires, what do you think is burning and what is igniting the fire ? If SNF is the ignition source, how could it be hot enough to start a fire and still be intact ?
What I was referring to, and apparently everyone but you understood, was that at the current rate this would/will be a full on meltdown by the time the weather changed. Next time I'll use pictures ..
BTW, shouldn't you be building titanium bike frames out of seawater instead of taking innocuous comments way to seriously and attacking people for them???
Our local governments are preparing for the eventuality of a radioactive cloud coming to Hawaii.
I didn't say that, I said how much water would be needed to remove the decay heat. I have no idea how much water has vaporized from the pool, and thus no way to know how much would be needed to replace it. Obviously the rate of heat removal from water flow would have to be greater than the rate of heat generation from the fuel to begin refilling the pool.
The only sure report I have seen regarding the #4 fires was a lube oil leak. I don't know anything beyond that, except that I think rad measurements would be higher if the fuel was burning.
I don't know what I'm "prefacing" my remarks with, but I'm trying to be as clear as possible in what I think are the facts and what my assumptions and conclusions are.
Salient fact #1 was assumed, although I did not address it directly. SNF that has been inactive for months (as ~1 core was) and 2+ years (as the rest of the cores were) creates less decay heat that fuel from a reactor that was shut down four days ago. I'm not going to address this further than saying that decay heat decays exponentially, you can google it if you'd like more information.your preface was "so much misinformation". Even if you're right, that comment isn't necessary unless you want to draw attention to your superior knowledge. You could just post the info you think is correct.
Now, you have said that it takes less GPM to cool the SNF(s) than it does to cool the cores. You did not address 2 salient facts.
1. there may be 8 SNFs.
2. at a minimum steam is coming from the pool area, implying the SNFs are hotter than they're supposed to be, meaning it's going to take some greater amount of water to restore stable conditions.
So, you wanna stand by your implication that something less than 10 garden hoses will cure the problem ?
No shit, sherlock. But coal power plants don't melt down and release significant amounts of dangerous radiation, which is happening now. If a coal power plant goes haywire and burns all its fuel, the amount of pollution is about the same as if it were operating normally... a lot of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, minerals, and a tiny amount of uranium that exists naturally in coal. You don't have to evacuate a major city 100 miles away.
No shit, sherlock. But coal power plants don't melt down and release significant amounts of dangerous radiation, which is happening now. If a coal power plant goes haywire and burns all its fuel, the amount of pollution is about the same as if it were operating normally... a lot of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, minerals, and a tiny amount of uranium that exists naturally in coal. You don't have to evacuate a major city 100 miles away.
• The systems that cool and maintain water levels in the pools are designed to withstand severe events. If these systems are unable to function, the heat generated by the used fuel would result in a slow increase in the temperature of the spent fuel pool water. The operating temperature of the pools is typically around 40 degrees C or 100 degrees F (the boiling point for water is 100 C or 212 F). This slow increase in temperature will result in an increased evaporation rate. Rapid evaporation of the water will not occur.
• Exact evaporation rates would depend on the amount of used fuel in the pool and how long it has cooled. The rate at which the pool water level would decrease (due to evaporation or mild boiling) in the absence of cooling system function would not be expected to lower water levels by more than a few percent per day. Given that there is approximately 16 feet of water above the used fuel assemblies, operators would have a few weeks to find another way to add water to the pools before the fuel would become exposed. For example, water could easily be added using a fire hose.
• If the water level decreases below the top of the fuel assembly, oxidation of the zirconium cladding could occur. This oxidation could result in some hydrogen generation. The rate of hydrogen generation depends on the temperature of the fuel assembly, with hotter temperatures leading to higher hydrogen generation rates. However, only the fuel assemblies with the least cooling time would be susceptible to this oxidation and the temperature of the fuel assemblies decreases exponentially with cooling time.
• Even if the water level in the pools was to decrease sufficiently so that the fuel were exposed to air, the same level of overheating that can occur in a reactor accident would not occur in the used fuel pool because the used fuel assemblies in the pool are cooler than the assemblies in the reactor. It is highly unlikely that used fuel temperatures could reach the point where melting could occur, although some damage to the cladding cannot be ruled out. The likelihood of cladding damage, as with hydrogen generation, decreases substantially with temperature and cooling time.
• There has been some speculation that, if the used fuel pool were completely drained, the zirconium cladding might ignite and a “zirconium fire” might occur. At the surface of the used fuel pool, the gamma dose rate from radiation emanating off the used fuel assemblies typically is less than 2 millirem per hour. If the water level decreases, the gamma radiation level would increase substantially. This increase would be noticed at the radiation monitors near the reactor buildings.
Fossil fuels also contain radioactive materials, mainly uranium and thorium, which are released into the atmosphere. In 2000, about 12,000 tonnes of thorium and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were released worldwide from burning coal.
You're right its just a slower death. Nuclear power is infinitely better than burning fossil fuels.
Just found this NEI fact sheet that has some REALLY good facts on the SNF at Fukushima Daiichi.
Keep making shit up, bro.This is pretty irrelevant at this point for a few of those reactors, there is not even a visible pool left on #3.
You keep walking into a cloud of carbon mono-oxide for half an hour and i will ask you how you feel if you still are alive.
There is reason why firefighters do not allow people back into burning houses. Beside from the heat of the air causing permanent damage to the lung tissue( IIRC my fire and safety course this is about 60 degrees celcius), and because of the build up of carbon monoxide. By the time you realize the danger you loose control of your body. And when carbon monoxide and hemoglobin mix to this new formed duo does not dissolve but also does not provide any oxygen to your oxygen starved tissue.. And when you think you are lucky that you survived a carbon monoxide poisoning, you start to realize that you are sick for the rest of your remaining life.
So you see, it can be just as dangerous when a large scale fire happens.
No shit, sherlock. But coal power plants don't melt down and release significant amounts of dangerous radiation, which is happening now. If a coal power plant goes haywire and burns all its fuel, the amount of pollution is about the same as if it were operating normally... a lot of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, minerals, and a tiny amount of uranium that exists naturally in coal. You don't have to evacuate a major city 100 miles away.
Keep making shit up, bro.
So what you're saying is, you need to see something on an exterior picture to believe it exists? I don't see the pressure vessel in that photo either, does that mean it has been blasted to pieces?
Probably a terrible example, you probably do believe that...
Just found.
Right, because being exposed to CO and smoke in a burning structure is the same as an entire region being made unliveable and unfarmable due to radioactive discharges... I guess there's no reason to evacuate all those people because it's just like a big fire, so you're only affected if you're being burned. Are you people really this stupid that you think fossil fuel power is as dangerous as nuclear power, simply because fire kills people?
did you guys see this?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/japan.nuclear.heroes/index.html?hpt=T1
Heroes indeed.
Pro-tip: The ground floor is not the first floor.