Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
- Thread starter Barking_Mad
- Start date
elbows
Well-Known Member
I dont really have the right words to express myself in regards the loss of life from the tsunami. I know that side of things got split off into its own thread some days after the horror began, because obviously the nuclear news went on for much longer. Massive earthquake and tsunamis hit Japan
As for the nuclear disaster, 10 years ago things were firmly in the 'reassuring bullshit' phase. In that various experts went through their reassuring scripts on tv. Their credibility suffered by around 6.36 AM UK time the next day, the 12th, when a hydrogen explosion occurred in reactor 1 building. Some tried to carry on with the spin but subsequent hydrogen explosions and detection of radioactive material in various locations mostly crushed their attempts to downplay the disaster. In some respecs it was like this pandemic, where reassuring bullshit had a much shorter shelf life than those entrusted to spout it were used to. Little time for their seeds to grow before their manure was blown away by rapidly unfolding events.
On some levels when looking back its actually quite impressive how timely some of the key new events were actually reported publicly. There were various specific cover-ups and deliberate obfuscations, but enough of the picture emerged in near-realtime that a reasonable sense of what was happening was actually within public reach not too long after various key moments happened.
For example, authorities dragged their feet when it came to frank statements about extent of meltdowns, and whether containment had been breached. Even when some basic facts & data could tell an obvious story, they were not keen to tell it. Zirconium fuel casing melting with the fuel and causing reactions with concrete containment floor that generated hydrogen which then leaked out of containment and into the building, reaching explosive levels lead to the visually dramatic parts of this disaster that could not be hidden. And that sequence of events contains answers to plenty of the big questions, so it was very tedious watching authorities spend quite some time trying to remain vague on things like extent of fuel melting and containment having been damaged.
One of the things I learnt from the disaster is to pay more attention to mundane aspects. Prior to this disaster, a lot of the more 'exciting' reading about nuclear accidents involved far more dramatic aspects. Criticality incidents, or reactions in a reactor that go out of control, perhaps control rods failing to do their job, or graphite fires. Prior to events of 10 years ago, I cannot say my attention had ever really been drawn towards the more mundane subject of decay heat, and quite how long the fuel needs to be actively cooled after doing its job. Certainly learnt about that as a result of these melting reactors. Some of the fears about spent fuel pools turned out to be far wide of the mark, caused in part by confusion about the reactor 4 building explosion (given that reactor was not even in service at the time and had no fuel in its core due to maintenance/upgrade work). Attention turned to its spent fuel pool as the source of hydrogen that caused the explosion there, but as time went on the alternative theory emerged that the hydrogen came from reactor 3, since those 2 buildings were joined by pipes due to using a shared vent stack. And in subsequent years they managed to remove the fuel from that pool, a feat that would not have been accomplished in at all the same manner if some of it had melted.
I remain unhappy with the politics, reporting etc on possible health consequences. There are some good reasons why this remains a contentious area, and some bad reasons. And plenty of tendencies to verr to far towards either extreme sense of damage done. I am certainly dissatisfied by the trick of making personal health risk with such nuclear issues all about very small dose rates, and not about ending up with hot particles inside your body.
I dont think I will forget Monbiots approach either. Taking the stance he did on climate change and energy it was hardly surprising that he would seek to defend nuclear power. Because nuclear power was on his list of necessary things in order to deal with the climate and traditional pollution threats he was so focussed on, it was a weapon that he did not want to abandon in the battle against coal. But in order to leap to the defence of nuclear power his trick, aside from the usual use of figures relating to radiation risks and deaths, was to simply not draw any attention at all towards evacuations and loss of land/homes/communities. I still believe the very least he deserved for writing that was for someone to have dumped bags of soil on his allotment with the joke/protest label of 'Fukushima topsoil' written on them.
As for the nuclear disaster, 10 years ago things were firmly in the 'reassuring bullshit' phase. In that various experts went through their reassuring scripts on tv. Their credibility suffered by around 6.36 AM UK time the next day, the 12th, when a hydrogen explosion occurred in reactor 1 building. Some tried to carry on with the spin but subsequent hydrogen explosions and detection of radioactive material in various locations mostly crushed their attempts to downplay the disaster. In some respecs it was like this pandemic, where reassuring bullshit had a much shorter shelf life than those entrusted to spout it were used to. Little time for their seeds to grow before their manure was blown away by rapidly unfolding events.
On some levels when looking back its actually quite impressive how timely some of the key new events were actually reported publicly. There were various specific cover-ups and deliberate obfuscations, but enough of the picture emerged in near-realtime that a reasonable sense of what was happening was actually within public reach not too long after various key moments happened.
For example, authorities dragged their feet when it came to frank statements about extent of meltdowns, and whether containment had been breached. Even when some basic facts & data could tell an obvious story, they were not keen to tell it. Zirconium fuel casing melting with the fuel and causing reactions with concrete containment floor that generated hydrogen which then leaked out of containment and into the building, reaching explosive levels lead to the visually dramatic parts of this disaster that could not be hidden. And that sequence of events contains answers to plenty of the big questions, so it was very tedious watching authorities spend quite some time trying to remain vague on things like extent of fuel melting and containment having been damaged.
One of the things I learnt from the disaster is to pay more attention to mundane aspects. Prior to this disaster, a lot of the more 'exciting' reading about nuclear accidents involved far more dramatic aspects. Criticality incidents, or reactions in a reactor that go out of control, perhaps control rods failing to do their job, or graphite fires. Prior to events of 10 years ago, I cannot say my attention had ever really been drawn towards the more mundane subject of decay heat, and quite how long the fuel needs to be actively cooled after doing its job. Certainly learnt about that as a result of these melting reactors. Some of the fears about spent fuel pools turned out to be far wide of the mark, caused in part by confusion about the reactor 4 building explosion (given that reactor was not even in service at the time and had no fuel in its core due to maintenance/upgrade work). Attention turned to its spent fuel pool as the source of hydrogen that caused the explosion there, but as time went on the alternative theory emerged that the hydrogen came from reactor 3, since those 2 buildings were joined by pipes due to using a shared vent stack. And in subsequent years they managed to remove the fuel from that pool, a feat that would not have been accomplished in at all the same manner if some of it had melted.
I remain unhappy with the politics, reporting etc on possible health consequences. There are some good reasons why this remains a contentious area, and some bad reasons. And plenty of tendencies to verr to far towards either extreme sense of damage done. I am certainly dissatisfied by the trick of making personal health risk with such nuclear issues all about very small dose rates, and not about ending up with hot particles inside your body.
I dont think I will forget Monbiots approach either. Taking the stance he did on climate change and energy it was hardly surprising that he would seek to defend nuclear power. Because nuclear power was on his list of necessary things in order to deal with the climate and traditional pollution threats he was so focussed on, it was a weapon that he did not want to abandon in the battle against coal. But in order to leap to the defence of nuclear power his trick, aside from the usual use of figures relating to radiation risks and deaths, was to simply not draw any attention at all towards evacuations and loss of land/homes/communities. I still believe the very least he deserved for writing that was for someone to have dumped bags of soil on his allotment with the joke/protest label of 'Fukushima topsoil' written on them.
Picturing the invisible: The Fukushima disaster 10 years on | BBC Science Focus Magazine
10 years on from the Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster, an exhibition at Royal Geographical Society looks at how the area is recovering.
www.sciencefocus.com
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
elbows
Well-Known Member
Inside reactor 1 is a big mess, lots of melted fuel and missing concrete in the pedestal area:
Inside the Primary Containment Vessel of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 1
Pedestal with Exposed Reinforcing Steel By Kamisawa Chihiro (CNIC) Survey of the pedestal exterior in the Unit 1 primary containment vessel On February 9, 2022, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO) and the International Research Institu...
cnic.jp
elbows
Well-Known Member
Just doing some tidying up of previous strands I poked at back in 2018 when the documentation was only available in Japanese and where I have only recently gone back to see the english versions that eventually came out.
Here is the English version of that document about the reactor 2 pedestal area survey. Some of the clearest images with the most useful location context so far are still to be found in this document. ANd it was indeed a fuel bundle handle pictured in one of the photos, they were even able to read part of its serial number.
Loading…
www.tepco.co.jp
I think they've since been back to reactor 2 and extracted a sample of what they assume is melted core.
I also found a site with pretty useful and brief summaries of their current understanding of the meltdowns progression at the three reactors, including diagrams that illustrate their sense of how much of the reactor cores fell out of the reactor vessel, and whether concrete-core interaction is thought to have occurred at each reactor:
Reactor 1: https://fdada--plus-info.translate.goog/wiki/index.php?title=1号機の事故進展&_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ja&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Reactor 2: https://fdada--plus-info.translate.goog/wiki/index.php?title=2号機の事故進展&_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ja&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Reactor 3: https://fdada--plus-info.translate.goog/wiki/index.php?title=3号機の事故進展&_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ja&_x_tr_pto=wapp
There is other stuff on that site that I havent attempted to look at yet, including attempts to analyse any of the fuel debris samples they remove from the reactors.
elbows
Well-Known Member
If you like watching really old videos and arent too bothered by not being able to understand what is being said, then try this one:
"Dawn - Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Construction Record, produced by Nisei Kagaku Film Works, Ltd. in 1967"
Packed full of poignancy because extensive views of the cliffs are shown. And analysis of the sea and its waves. And the wind and airflows. And farming scenes. And music that turns menacing at times, including when showing the sea. And then in the last 7 minutes of the first video you get to see them bulldozing and blowing the fuck out of the cliffs, which was arguably the original mistake when it came to this disaster.
Unlike other videos on this subject, this one ends before the construction of the reactors and buildings really gets going. Other videos, probably mentioned here a long time ago, that do show that stage of things include and
"Dawn - Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Construction Record, produced by Nisei Kagaku Film Works, Ltd. in 1967"
Packed full of poignancy because extensive views of the cliffs are shown. And analysis of the sea and its waves. And the wind and airflows. And farming scenes. And music that turns menacing at times, including when showing the sea. And then in the last 7 minutes of the first video you get to see them bulldozing and blowing the fuck out of the cliffs, which was arguably the original mistake when it came to this disaster.
Unlike other videos on this subject, this one ends before the construction of the reactors and buildings really gets going. Other videos, probably mentioned here a long time ago, that do show that stage of things include and
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