Is there a reason the "Chernobyl Solution" won't work in Fukushima?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

Why can't they just bring in the concrete trucks and start encasing these reactors like they did in chernobyl. The Chernobyl reactor underwent a complete Meltdown, not just a prtial. Why not just write off the 3 or 4 reactors as lost and start entobming them?

Maybe they can work quickly enough so at least reactors 5 & 6 can be saved/operated until a new powerplant is constructed.

[GodlessBiker]

1. I think if the reactors are too hot, the concrete will melt.

They poured lead into Chernobyl to help cool it, but some lead vaporized into the atmosphere. Not a good thing.

[RKP5637]

4. I heard something like that a couple of days ago. I also heard they might be near

or beyond that as a solution if the containment casing is cracked, the problem being a radioactive lava type stream could flow into the ocean since so close.

[RKP5637]

2. One would think that would be the case by now. There is so much conflicting

information it's hard to tell what's going on ... Maybe part of the plan is to keep the information muddled. There have to be an awful lot of Oh Sh**'s going on.

[Paradoxical]

3. They didn't encase the reactor at Chernobyl 4.

In fact, the reactor was blown to fucking bits and the nuclear fuel melted and seeped into the basement of the building.

They built a giant concrete structure around the reactor building.

And I guess they could do that at Fukushima. But I doubt they have robots to do that. Which means it's going to take thousands of people. And a lot of them are going to suffer the same fate as the Chernobyl liquidators.

[jp7]

11. Why the Chernobyl approach won't work (yet).

You bring up a good point about the Chernobyl reactor. The containment vessel was destroyed and the core was open to the air above, allowing the liquidators to dump tons of lead and sand directly into the reactor via helicopter. Here, the supposed structural integrity of the containment vessels prohibits such an approach, and prematurely entombing the reactors could actually worsen the situation since a full meltdown would likely result with the abandonment of internal cooling efforts.

[Paradoxical]

12. None of the lead or boron enriched sand actually covered the reactor.

They attempted to bomb the reactor vessel with helicopters. They failed miserably.

The reactor vessel is sill uncovered at Chernobyl 4.

Some sand that was in the walls of the reactor vessel also seeped out and mixed with the melted core. But that was totally by accident.

[Oak2004]

17. The lead worked, the sand and boron did not

It was the lead, which melted from the heat to form a cap over the reactor, that finally reduced the radiation above the reactor to the point where the sarcophagus could be built. It was still an essentially suicidal task (esp. cleaning the reactor debris off the roof), but there is a difference between "dies almost instantly" and "dies weeks or months or years later, after putting in a few weeks work at the plant).

I've been reading about the Chernobyl liquidation. Decisions had to be made to send men, usually soldiers, into situations that few were likely to survive. If they did not send some men to their deaths, far more people would have died. The same decisions are being made, or will soon need to be made, in Fukushima, though I'm sure the authorities don't want us to know how grim things become in such a cleanup. That, in case of nuclear accident, some people must be ordered to their deaths, is not exactly a selling point for nuclear power.

[Demeter]

5. Chernobyl isn't "Solved"

and this is so much worse than Chernobyl.

A nuclear disaster, like a nuclear reactor, is forever--or at least, for the foreseeable future.

The only "solution" I've seen proposed, and that was in science fiction, was to dump the whole caboodle into the sea, to quench all the immediate problems, and trust that the sea could handle the pollution....which nobody thinks, anymore, especially in a nation so dependent on the sea for food as Japan is.

[Paradoxical]

6. The reactor is in better condition than Chernobyl 4.

Chernobyl 4 was blown to kingdom come. By the time it was all over, the reactor vessel was pretty much empty. The Fukushima plant is in better condition because the vessel is still somewhat intact and the fuel has not exploded.

[FBaggins]

10. How is this "much worse than Chernobyl"?

Even conservatively, there were thousands of people killed, injured, or given cancer by Chernobyl.

So far there are 17 people with a dose high enough to give them a slightly higher chance of cancer later in life.

[Paradoxical]

13. It's more than slightly higher.

[FBaggins]

14. Not really.

At least... not at the reported levels.

The reported doses are just barely over the level below which they have been unable to identify a statistically significant increase.

With a group of only 17 (that will surely grow somewhat), the sample size isn't large enough to be able to tell. If, for instance, their change rises from 42% to 45%... you wouldn't be able to spot that with such a small sample.

[Paradoxical]

15. Exposure to the levels seen by the plant workers...

Will greatly increase their risk of cancer in the future.

This is not simply an increase by 3%.

[FBaggins]

16. Can you document that?

There have been scores of studies... I haven't seen one where 100-200 mSv results in a more significant increase.

In fact, most of what I've seen indicates that it's less than that.

100mSv is thought to give you a .5 to .8% chance of a radiation-induced cancer... and that's from the LNT groups.

Here's a decent reference from some of the experts:

There is substantial and convincing scientific evidence for health risks following high-dose exposures. However, below 5–10 rem (which includes occupational and environmental exposures), risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or are nonexistent.

http://hps.org/documents/radiationrisk.pdf

[Paradoxical]

18. NEWS FLASH: Documented levels at 1 Sv per hour.

[FBaggins]

19. News flash... There is no such thing.

The news regularly mis-reports activity levels in terms of effective dose... But it isn't so.

Nobody has received an efrective whole-body dose anywhere close to that.

[MineralMan]

7. Something like it will probably be done, but there's a lot that

has to be done before any such encasement can happen. Secondly, since the outer buildings of more than one reactor have been severely damaged, that will complicate matters, as well. It's just not that simple, actually, and no such work will begin for months, I imagine.

[Paradoxical]

8. Unless you're the USSR. Then you just use your troops as human sacrifices.

[Ian David]

9. I heard that if they do it before the reactor is cooled enough, it will burn DOWN into groundwater.