Anti-Nuclear Press Puts Japanese Lives at Risk ("impossible for them to sustain a fission reaction")

National Review Online ^ | 3/15/11 | Dr Robert Zubrin

[coaltrain]

Let us be clear. Compared to the real disaster at hand, the hypothetical threat from the nuclear stations is zero. The reactors in question were all shut down four days ago. The control rods have been inserted, and the cores have been salted with boron. It is physically impossible for them to sustain a fission reaction of any kind at this point, let alone cause another Chernobyl. Only the fission-byproduct decay heat remains, and it is fading fast as the short half-life material (which accounts for most of the radioactivity) performs its decay reactions and ceases to exist. At this point, the total heating power in the reactors is only about 0.3 percent of what it was when the reactors were operating. That means that a system previously capable of generating 1,300 megawatts of heat would now yield 4 megawatts thermal — about the same as that emitted by a dozen 100-horsepower automobile engines. The Japanese engineers can certainly deal with that with water cooling. And even if they were to stop, there just isn’t enough heating power in the system anymore to generate a dangerous plume of radioactive materials, which is doubly impossible at this point since all the more active short half-life stuff is already gone.

No, the threat does not come from the power plant, but from panic spread by press misinformation. After Three Mile Island, the press spread hysteria as well, but at least there conditions in the rest of society were normal, and so the only victim of the press campaign was the nuclear industry.

[coaltrain]

About author: "Dr. Robert Zubrin is the president of Pioneer Astronautics and the author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil. He holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering."

[Retired Greyhound]

Drudge is an hysterical ass.

[rlferny]

The hysteria is unbelievable. Wish people could think or even read. Radioactivity spreads globally through radio active dust. That dust has a very, short shelf-life, 4-5 days max. Even it it made it across the pacific it would be much decreased in energy and harmful effects.

When the bombs went off in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I didn’t see mass death on the west coast of the U.S. There was exponetially more radio active dust and particles sent into the atmosphere then.

[tsowellfan]

That's why I didn't listen to western media on this whole story. Once the nuclear reactors became part of the story I knew where the liberal media would be taking this.

I got all my news and continue to get it from NHK TV english. Just like the day after sept 11th, all politics goes away quickly from the local media when its your country that's suffering the disaster. Well, I find NHK more credible at this time. No anti-nuclear sentiment, no political party finger pointing, just the facts.

That being said, during the live hourly news conferences it was Tokyo Electric, Japan's nuclear scientists and the PM of Japan that were warning the people to stay inside, do not go outside, brush off your clothes, cover all parts of the skin if you are outside, close all windows and turn off all air conditioners... not the media. They only used the media to get their word out.

Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

You can rest assured the anti-nuke people will take advantage of this story. And that's a shame

[tsowellfan]

I’d go to Drudge only to see the headlines but I went to NHK live and got the story (several times... there was no story related to the Drudge headline or if it was...certainly not as serious as Drudge or CNN or CBS tried to make it out to be)

[blueplum]

If you look at the data from the Nevada/Utah blasts, you will see there were significant effects on the east coast although they weren’t documented for decades (cancer rates).

One notable story relating to that time was the government notifying Kodak plants on the east coast and in the Midwest when radiation was expected so as not to interrupt film production - the radiation was fogging their film.

[Retired Greyhound]

that may be, but let us know when anything remotely resembling a blast occurs.

[rlferny]

Was there a direct coorrelation established between the rise in cancer rates? Because our modern society is full of radiation and the rise in cancer may not just be from nuclear blasts. As a matter of fact a lot can happen in 30 years. i.e. our poor diet raised the cancer rates the last 30 years also.

This material is going over 5000 miles of ocean and will greatly disperse.

I think it’s worse to shut down your thyroid on a hunch.

[VTenigma]

Hi folks, I haven’t logged in for a while, but I feel compelled to do so by the ongoing threads about how this is nothing and it’s contained. I’ll preface my comments by saying I’m a staunch supporter of nuke power. That said, this is a very high level disaster. Why would there be a fire in a spent fuel pool? Loss of cooling function may have allowed the coolant to sublimate, either by flashing to steam or by evaporation. What’s burning? Imagine exposed fuel rods with no coolant, probably more than the critical mass than contained in the reactor itself. Why is this bad? An uncontrolled critical mass, probably larger than in the reactor itself and outside of the primary, secondary, and tertiary containment, virtually exposed to the enviroment. I’ll let you do the math there. And that’s just one of the many issues here. Also anyone who thinks a few 1500 gallon a minute fire truck pumps at a discharge head of 200’ are any match to multiple 30,000gpm high head coolant pumps are fooling themselves, sorry for being such a downer

[chimera]

Why would there be a fire in a spent fuel pool? Loss of cooling function may have allowed the coolant to sublimate, either by flashing to steam or by evaporation. What’s burning? Imagine exposed fuel rods with no coolant, probably more than the critical mass than contained in the reactor itself.

They seem to be having problems establishing and maintaining circulation. Why that is is not clear. Maybe loss on onsite power to run the pumps. Maybe damage to the pumps and cooling loops. Whatever. There seems to be a lack of active cooling capability and that is causing the boil-off and need for replenishment of the coolant volume. Boiling itself is not a problem. This is a BWR and the fuel was designed to handle boiling. It is departure from nucleate boiling (DNB)that is the problem. If you get into the film boiling regime, you run the risk of approaching the burnout heat flux.

Why is this bad? An uncontrolled critical mass, probably larger than in the reactor itself and outside of the primary, secondary, and tertiary containment, virtually exposed to the enviroment.

If they get significant melting and slumping then you've probably lost your moderator as well. No moderator means no criticality for thermal reactors.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Western civilization has officially lost its mind.

[blueplum]

http://www.dceg2.cancer.gov/atlas/download/gif-gs/accswm7g.gif
http://www.dceg2.cancer.gov/atlas/download/gif-gs/accswm5g.gif
http://www.dceg2.cancer.gov/atlas/download/gif-gs/accsbm7g.gif

if the links don’t come up by themselves, this link shows the categories - click on a red button, then above, click on view map (it doesn’t just go right thru to the map-bad web design)

contrast the maps above with the maps on the left about half-way down are of interest at this site: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.982,y.2006,no.1,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

“In a related activity, we evaluated the risks of thyroid cancer from that exposure and estimated that about 49,000 fallout-related cases might occur in the United States, almost all of them among persons who were under age 20 at some time during the period 1951-57, with 95-percent uncertainty limits of 11,300 and 212,000. The estimated risk may be compared with some 400,000 lifetime thyroid cancers expected in the same population in the absence of any fallout exposure. Accounting for thyroid exposure from global fallout, which was distributed fairly uniformly over the entire United States, might increase the estimated excess by 10 percent...Most of the people under study who were exposed to fallout or direct radiation—for example, A-bomb survivors—at very young ages during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are still alive, and the cumulative experience obtained from all studies of radiation-exposed populations is that radiation-related cancers can be expected to occur at any time over the entire lifetime following exposure.”

http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=xi6i6nJGw48vKULXvfEIZOOm8IOPKgCE
http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=xi6i6nJGw4+EAIUukn0VVqyE9lgKboA6
http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=xi6i6nJGw49IRDOYfyp6Id0OscjVJv13
http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=xi6i6nJGw491nMZYoycD0vAyeUriy6x/

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/26/health/testing-in-nevada-desert-is-tied-to-cancers.html?n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,+Conditions,+and+Health+Topics/Leukemia?pagewanted=1

this should get you started on your own research

[rlferny]

Thanks for all the info. But I guess you got to die of something. I’m going to take my chances.

[TYVets]

,,,,multiple 30,000gpm high head coolant pumps,,

I am curious.

How many 30,000 gpm high head coolant pumps are there at this nuclear plant?

And

It has been stated many times that 13 diesel generators were disabled. How many horse power and kw are we talking about per generator?

Thanks

[GATOR NAVY]

Thanks, I was going to post this if it wasn’t already up.

[Waco]

Not to mention, sssshhh (don’t mention this) we’ve been putting nuke reactors in subamares/boats for 50 yrs. or so and these ‘’boats’’ have visited ports round the world. Shazam, wait till the MSM hears about this new development.