Japan’s ‘Hail Mary’ at Fukushima Daiichi: An Underground Ice Wall

N Y Times ^ | 29 Aug 2016 | MARTIN FACKLER

[henkster]

The Chernobyl rods also melted down into the basement. Here's what it looks like:

Called "the Elephant's foot," it is a congealed slab of reactor core, called "corium." The Russians say it's pretty radioactive.

As for the 800,000 gallons of radioactive water, the solution is obvious but everyone will go nuts over it. Just dump it in the ocean. Seriously, 800,000 gallons is literally a "drop in the ocean." In fact, ocean water is a really good way of cleansing radioactivity. Look at the sunken warships at Bikini Atoll that were "expended" in the A-bomb tests. Scuba divers can go dive them now, the radioactivity has been "washed away" by the seawater. Of course, I know that the radioactive particles are still out there, but the point is that they have been so dispersed by the ocean that they are no longer noticeable.

[lefty-lie-spy]

Yes. You can put too much water in a reactor depending on the cicumstances. Water is both a reflector and a moderator. Nuclear physics is amazing, and one of my favorite hobbies to study historically, culturally, politically, and for pure science. It’s interesting that there is still a lot we only can surmise from all the work that went on from 1938 until we made the right assumptions about how it will all probably work out until the build up Trinity in 1945.

I ref my found a great website that blogs an unbiased view of nuclear engineering, war, energy, criticality accidents, and all that came with it.

Have a look at nuclearsecrecy.com and click on “post archive” on the right hand sidebar for some very nice articles on the history of nuclear research.

[Kickass Conservative]

I live 15 Miles from San Onofre.

The reason is it being shuttered is because the Replacement Steam Generators they installed, built in Japan by Mitsubishi, experienced premature failure of the internal steam tubes due to a design flaw that found its way into the two production units.

The location of the Plant has nothing to do with the shutdown.

Since we are SDG&E Customers, we are paying for the shutdown along with Edison Customers.

[minnesota_bound]

The Russians have been dumping all kinds of radioactive waste into their oceans.

[henkster]

The Soviets/Russians have never been the eco-friendly sort. They love backing radical “greens” in the west to undermine us, but don’t practice what they preach. The slice of the former East Prussia they own, Kaliningrad, has been their toxic waste dump since 1945. They asked the Germans if they wanted it back, but the Germans said “no thanks.” Probably too polluted for habitation.

I’m not keen on just randomly dumping radioactive waste into the ocean as a standard policy. I have no problems with dumping waste into the oceans if done correctly; send the waste to the bottom of a deep ocean trench in a subduction zone, and let it be reabsorbed into the earth’s mantle.

But for an incident like Fukushima, a controlled dump of radioactive water is OK. Don’t dump it all at once, but do so over about a year’s time, and the world will never notice it.

[minnesota_bound]

Except for the giant shrimp. Ahso.

But for an incident like Fukushima, a controlled dump of radioactive water is OK. Don’t dump it all at once, but do so over about a year’s time, and the world will never notice it.

[Conan the Librarian]

And think about the fact that a guy went scuba diving into the water filled chamber to take that picture.

[SgtHooper]

Just ask Charlie Tuna! :-)

[Moonman62]

With all the spending to recover from the 2011 tsunami, Japan should have the hottest economy on earth?

...

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp

[Moonman62]

Because over the last 25 years, they were pouring cement for their Keynesian stimulus. Now, the geniuses and central planners have discovered they should be pouring ICE WALLS instead. Soooo much better than concrete. Brilliant!

...

Never let a crisis go to waste, so the politicians and their cronies become incredibly wealthy while everybody else gets poorer.

[Terry L Smith]

dear kick,

San Onofre was a hotly contested item, when i lived in SoCal over 25 years ago.

Now, let’s go across the nation, to Long Island, NY, for a moment. Look where Brookhaven Lab (which has a ‘smaller CERN’), is located and go north to Shoreham. That is where the nuke plant was supposed to be built.

The difference between San Onofre and Shoreham is that in SoCal, you had highways that could get you away from there. On Long Island, the roads run east and west, and to get OFF Long Island, you had to NYC, then go north across bridges to CT. But that was no good either, because the plant sat on the south shore of Long Island Sound directly acroos from CT.

As a former customer of the power company on Long Island, I did too.

[Terry L Smith]

dear lefty,

You must be aware then, that the ‘original pile’ that led to ‘The Manhattan project’, was located UNDER the tennis courts at Univ. of Ill, Chicago, right?

Think on this for a moment ... EVERY radar system in every fighter aircraft uses a radioactive tube as a ‘shut gate’ to prevent transmitted radar electromagnetic energy from flooding back into the receiver system with each outward pulse.

[Kickass Conservative]

I lived on Long Island when I was a Kid.

You are right, outside of having a Boat, your escape routes are very limited.

My Wife has a Friend whose Husband is a Nuclear Engineer at San Onofre. I’ll have to see is she can get the skinny from her Friend about what happened there.

[Polynikes]

“Lots of Brave people died there.”

Read up on the Fire Dept. that responded. They immediately realized what was going on and that they could only slow the progression of the disaster. They stood, fought and died. No retreat no surrender.