Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor

[Junkdrawer]

....

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.

At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/japan-lost-race-save-nuclear-reactor

And yet TEPCO is still in charge. You know, the company that cut corners before the tsunami that made this disaster possible and much, much worse.

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x284383

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=283716&mesg_id=283716

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x283840

And:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-27/tsunami-wall-of-water-risk-known-to-engineers-regulators.html

[aquart]

1. They were trying to SAVE the reactors?

I thought they knew that wasn't possible the second they sent in the sea water?

[Junkdrawer]

2. In this context, I think it means "preventing a meltdown and loss of containment"....

Not "Make sure the reactor can be brought back online." That ship sailed on day one of the disaster.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Kick

:kick:

[leveymg]

4. Here are diagrams of the GE MK-1 reactor showing the lower head and the dry well

The lower head would be the yellow area marked #31 on the smaller diagram to the right. The concrete base below the drywell at #20 would be all that appears to stand between any melting rods and the sand and water table below the structure, if the bottom part of the reactor chamber (#19) has also been breached.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/BWR_Mark_I_Containment,_diagram.png/581px-BWR_Mark_I_Containment,_diagram.png

[Junkdrawer]

9. There's big differences between generic designs and "as built"....

Last I heard, Japanese Mark I reactors do NOT have core catchers:

Does Fukushima I have a core catcher?
A popular blog post entitled "Why I am not worried a about Japan's nuclear reactors" claims that meltdown at Fukushima I would be contained, as a last resort, by the reactor's core catcher.

However a comment purporting to be from a young Japanese Atomic Energy Agency researcher claims that Fukushima I has no core catcher: http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/#comment-46

Fukushima I was built in 1970 and the earliest reference to core catchers that I can find is this 1978 patent.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4113560/description.html

It seems unlikely therefore that a core catcher was installed, and since they go underneath the reactor I would assume they are not easy to retrofit. Does anyone have a definitive answer?



https://www.quora.com/Japan-Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear-Disaster-March-11-2011/Does-Fukushima-I-have-a-core-catcher/answers/441086

I dug up the referenced comment in the first link:


Thank you so much for taking the time for this.
Myself I’m young researcher working for Japanese Atomic Energy Agency, though I’m quite new here and what I will say does not speak for my organization, just my personal view.

As far as I know, there is not such thing as a core catcher in a Japanese(GE designed) gen1 BWR. Actually, such feature is one of the main advantages of some Gen3 designs like Areva’s EPR (though I believe there may have been some early German designs using something similar).

Again afaik, the reactor building is actually “the third barrier” if you consider only structural ones. You can think about it as the “fourth” only if you think of the fuel clad as being “the first”. Either way there is one less barrier than I think you described. On such reactor bellow the Reactor Building there are only the RPV and the steel-reinforced concrete coverered drywell.

Finally, the Japanese Government, TEPCO, and Press are doing an incredible job in reporting this matter. Foreign media like the CNN are the ones to blame for inventing their own stories for whatever reason.


The poster praises TEPCO and the Japanese government, but says there is no core catcher.

[bvar22]

5. Recced....back UP to +5

There are people at DU who don't want YOU to have this information.

[dana_b]

6. up to 6!!

why would ANYONE, at this point, still have their heads in the sand or want others to?! Insanity.

[kenfrequed]

29. Usual PR spammers

Many PR organizations now have internet flacks that are hired to monitor many boards and vote up or down things rapidly to squelch stories or reduce impact during a new cycle. It is standard.

Every corporation monitors its wiki page. PR organizations practice hacking and investigation against public participation and opinion and blogging by average citizens voicing their opinion. Metasites like Digg are watched and new programs are being produced that can allow one person to manage dozens of accounts to aid in net-manipulation of the news.

[closeupready]

7. But they have stopped openly defending the nuclear industry, have you noticed?

Very few have continued doing so here. K&R

[50000feet]

11. I'll comment on that.

I'll start with a twofold premise: 1) civilizational advance requires energy technology development and 2) every civilizational advance involves advance into new forms of risk. As hunter-gatherers, we could do very little damage with energy technologies then at our disposal (a piece of wood lit on fire). Run up the scale of advances since then and one begins to see forms of risk materializing that, without those advances, simply wouldn't materialize. On a rough sketch of numbers, the production and use of coal has killed probably millions; the production and use of oil has killed probably tens of millions (auto accidents, industrial accidents, etc). The production and use of nuclear-generated electricity has killed how many? These numbers are surely dwarfed by those for oil and coal.

Before jumping on my voicing a contextual word for nuclear, try to answer my last question above. I'm not undermining the suffering of people and creatures subject to nuclear contamination---that suffering is real and should be diminished as much as possible. I do find it important to gain as much perspective as possible by comparing relevant forms of risk materialization, which in the case of energy technologies is considerable for any technology or energy-source concerned.

Nor, I think, should it be overlooked that the reason we as a species accept risks associated with energy development is because civilization advance depends on that development. Thus to further broaden the context, one should place the associated risks and damages I name above in the larger context of what good has occurred through the technology in question. We live in a form of safety and security no other animal or generation on this planet has seemingly ever experienced. In western societies, we have a stable food supply, we have health technologies, we have seen tremendous advances in longevity. These are not small advances for a species more used to starvation at every juncture, at the approach of every winter, etc.

[closeupready]

12. There are other things that need to be accounted for, such as overpopulation,

and energy conservation.

As to your last question, the choice between either nuclear, on the one hand, or everything else, is only binary in a pro-nuclear discussion.

Most reasonable people will want to explore the feasibility and timing of solar, wind, tidal and other less toxic forms of energy production.

[50000feet]

18. Yes, the less toxic the energy source

the better. But nothing stands still, and history must be reckoned in any analysis. As a species, we *learn* about risk the hard way, by actually experiencing manifesting forms of risk that previously were probably at best vaguely perceived. People didn't truly appreciate tobacco risks until those risks materialized. Yes, interested parties actively cover up the extent of materializations, but that's a game played post-experience the risk concerned. The same holds for coal production: who accurately and with detail foresaw types of risk coal miners have faced ... black lung, mine collapses, freaky-this and freaky-that?

And yes, population expansion carries its own problems, though I tend to the view that ecosystems (including the human ecosystem) are self-regulating. It looks to be that when people reach a certain level of material security (brought by energy use), reproduction naturally reduces. I personally think the earth can handle another few or more billion people, though perhaps not more than that. I don't worry about it because natural processes---driven by that deep survival drive---kick in one way or another and add a new regulating dynamic to the mix.

As to the current appropriate or future energy-source mix, nothing is binary. We'll need a mix of energy sources going forward. That will only change when a new technology (god knows what it will be, fusion?) so overtakes other energy sources costwise as to remodel the entire energy industry. I think negative news on the nuclear energy will focus attention in this direction, which is *good.* We need energy for more people, cheap energy that doesn't carry environmental liabilities our present sources carry.

[kristopher]

26. There is a binary choice for energy either the twins of coal&nuclear or renewables

These two sets of technologies are fundamentally incompatible in a market system because the characteristics of the energy sources in the coal nuclear set tend to create a techno-economic system that excluded renewables and renewables/efficiency creates a system where coal & nuclear are excluded.

IOW they are mutually incompatible.

You are operating on the flawed assumption pressed by the coal/nuclear interests that their competition is not capable of doing what we need to do. .

RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

The nuclear industry in particular would have you believe that we NEED nuclear power as a response to climate change. That is false. We have less expensive alternatives that can be built faster for FAR less money. This is a good overview of their claims:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

In a comparative analysis by another well respected researcher nuclear, coal with carbon capture and ethanol are not recommended as solutions to climate change. The researcher has looked at the qualities of the various options in great detail and the results disprove virtually all claims that the nuclear industry promote in order to gain public support for nuclear industry.

Nuclear supporters invariably claim that research like this is produced because the researchers are "biased against nuclear power". That is false. They have a preference,however that preference is not irrational; indeed it is a product of careful analysis of the needs of society and the costs of the various technologies for meeting those needs. In other words the researchers are "biased" against nuclear power because reality is biased against nuclear power. We hear this same kind of claim to being a victim of "liberal bias" from conservatives everyday and it is no different when the nuclear proponents employ it - it is designed to let them avoid cognitive dissonance associated with holding positions that are proven to be false.

The nuclear power supporters will tell you this study has been "debunked any number of times" but they will not be able to produce a detailed rebuttal that withstands even casual scrutiny for that claim too is false. The study is peer reviewed and well respected in the scientific community; it breaks no new ground and the references underpinning the work are not subject to any criticism that has material effect on the outcome of the comparison.

They will tell you that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Actually they do. The sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. However researcher have shown that a complete grid based on renewable energy sources is UNQUESTIONABLY SOMETHING WE CAN DO. Here is what happens when you start linking various sites together:

Original paper here at National Academy of Sciences website: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.abstract

When the local conditions warrant the other parts of a renewable grid kick in - geothermal power, biomass, biofuels, and wave/current/tidal sources are all resources that fill in the gaps - just like now when 5 large scale power plants go down unexpectedly. We do not need nuclear not least because spending money on nuclear is counterproductive to the goal of getting off of fossil fuels as we get less electricity for each dollar spend on infrastructure and it takes a lot longer to bring nuclear online.

In the study below Mark Jacobson of Stanford has used the quantity of energy that it would take to power an electric vehicle fleet as a benchmark by which to judge the technologies.

As originally published:
Abstract

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85. Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge. Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs. Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs. Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85. Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations. Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended. Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended. The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality. The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss. The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs. The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73 000–144 000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300 000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15 000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020. In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2009/EE/b809990c

Mods this is the one paragraph abstract shown above reformatted by me for ease of reading.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/image/GA?id=B809990C


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Then we have the economic analysis from Cooper:
The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse
This graph summarizes his findings where "Consumer" concerns direct financial costs and "Societal" refers to external costs not captured in financial analysis.

Cooper A Multi-dimensional View of Alternatives

Full report can be read here: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse

Another independent economic analysis is the Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf


The price of nuclear subsidies is also worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell you the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables. That statement omits the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/


In other words: subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
Full report: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf



CBO estimate on nuclear loan guarantees

For this estimate, CBO assumes that the first nuclear plant built using a federal loan guarantee would have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts and have associated project costs of $2.5 billion. We expect that such a plant would be located at the site of an existing nuclear plant and would employ a reactor design certified by the NRC prior to construction. This plant would be the first to be licensed under the NRC’s new licensing procedures, which have been extensively revised over the past decade.

Based on current industry practices, CBO expects that any new nuclear construction project would be financed with 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt. The high equity participation reflects the current practice of purchasing energy assets using high equity stakes, 100 percent in some cases, used by companies likely to undertake a new nuclear construction project. Thus, we assume that the government loan guarantee would cover half the construction cost of a new plant, or $1.25 billion in 2011.

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings.

Note the price - $2.5 billion was to be only for the first plant. Future plants were, according to the assumptions provided by the nuclear industry, expected to have lower costs as economy of scale resulted in savings.

In fact, since the report was written (2003), the estimated cost has risen to an average of about $8 billion.

Wonder what that does to the “risk is that … the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources”?

Now you have to ask yourself, does that risk diminish or increase when the price rose from $2.5 billion to $8 billion?

Planning for the transition

What plans are out there? Here is one where achieving 100% renewable energy is described:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030


Here is a PDF link for another such plan by:
The Civil Society "Beyond Business as Usual"
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/Beyond%20BAU%205-11-10.pdf

Their website has lots of information:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/


Also see these other papers by Amory Lovins
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly


http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

[50000feet]

27. I accept much of what you say,

Kristopher. I disagree that the technologies are binary---they may be so practically, the way things have gone, but that's nothing intrinsic to the technologies themselves. It's just the way power works. More-power-me-good, etc.

I don't personally buy the climate change predictions I normally hear, which verge on the apocalyptic (everybody's got an apocalypse to sell, ever noticed?). So I don't agree that nuclear is needed to avoid climate problems.

I can't really comment on whether alternatives are in a place to compete pricewise with nuclear. My educated sense is they now cannot, but could with sufficient development. Nor am I convinced alternatives are sufficiently scalable to eliminate carbon and mineral energy sources. I do think carbon-burning is archaic. The future is ours to develop and have if but for a little political will.

[kristopher]

28. Your disagreement doesn't alter the economic dymanics that make it so.

While it's true that a range of scenarios could be trotted out where an either/or choice is avoided, the world we live in has existing rules and a cultural matrix with great inertia. To deny the validity of my claims is to descend into an an exercise in sophistry where alternate and non-existing realities are accorded equal weight with the daily world we live in.

It is a view of life I can muster little respect for, frankly.

[uppityperson]

15. One of them got ts'd, one of the nasty ones.

[marions ghost]

24. yep

n/t

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[damntexdem]

14. Well it was up to 24 with my rec.

[CreekDog]

31. +1

:eyes:

[jpak]

10. K&R

TEPCO has not come clean with what is really going on there

The IAEA has to take charge and release info in a timely transparent fashion free of weasel words and obfuscation.

yup

[damntexdem]

13. Save the reactors? How about save Japan? Save the world?

In any case, I thought that once they were flooded with sea water, the reactors were dead meat.

[Junkdrawer]

17. See Post #2 n/t

[Uncle Joe]

16. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Junkdrawer.

[jimlup]

19. I don't think most have really grasped how serious this is

but I feel sick to my stomach hearing this...

[SpiralHawk]

20. Holy flipping China Syndrome...

[closeupready]

21. That was released, like, a week before TMI happened.

:scared: And while I had the mumps, too!

[Junkdrawer]

22. Kick

:kick:

[Junkdrawer]

23. .

[SoCalDem]

25. They "lost" the race on DAY-ONE, when they failed to realize that this was beyond their control

and did not send out an immediate SOS for any and all experts to help them figure it out...instead of drafting a small suicide squad of 50-75 people, and continuing to sugar-coat their news releases..

It;s like treating tonsillitis aggressively while ignoring an obvious cancer elsewhere in a patient..

[crickets]

30. +100,000

The Japanese people as a whole have been handling the situation admirably, but TEPCO... it's criminal to be this inept. I don't understand why the government hasn't grasped the inevitable and stepped in to take charge. This can't go on.