Posted on 03/17/2011 11:53:01 AM PDT by Red Steel
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the troubled nuclear power plants in northeastern Japan, said that high-pressure streams of water shot Thursday evening by plant workers effectively cooled down an overheating spent fuel pool.
However, radiation levels detected around the facility have not been reduced. The latest figure indicate that after the water sprat maneuver was completed, radiation level at about 3,600 microsievert per hour, unchanged from before.
Five fire-trucks shot 30 tons of water at the No. 3 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in an effort to cool down the pool that contains spent nuclear fuel rods outside the reactor wall.
Among the six reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the buildings that house the reactors have been destroyed by hydrogen blasts at the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, while the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel suffered damage in its pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.
The No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors were operating at the time of the earthquake, but the automatically halted – it is believed their cores partially melted as they lost cooling functions after the quake.
Exactly right.
It appears that the big modification that the Japanese made to their worker expousre PAGs was to up it from 10 Rem to 25.
That is the level that is permited in the US for life saving activity. 10 Rem was for protecting valuable facilities, same as here. IIRC acute doseage doesn’t show up in blood tests until about 50 rem (white cell count depressed).
All of it is unhealthy, but unlikely to be fatal. The risks even at 25 Rem are stochastic.
I am hoping that once they get the fuel pools filled up and handle the recirc problems in the reactors themselves, there will be time to back out and gin up a robotic solution to picking up the pieces and getting stuff into safe storage. I’m pretty sure the Japanese can do that.
The key is to stop the particulate and gaseous emissions from migrating off-site.
nobody is keeping that exposure for anywhere near that length of time—
You base this on what? Maybe they aren’t now, did they prior?
We probably will never know...
And what about those who were there during the big spikes? What about the Japanese reporting their equipment wasn’t working and they didn’t know how high it was..?????
What about when it was 10,000 times too high??
The range you quoted was 6-18. 2 x 3.6 = 7.2 is inside that range.
The multiple reports about evacuating workers and then rotating workers. If you haven't seen those, I can provide you links. But I believe you already made reference to them.
And what about those who were there during the big spikes? What about the Japanese reporting their equipment wasn’t working and they didn’t know how high it was..?????
It is a major disaster with a lot of damage. It is important to get it under control or it could have be come far worse for many others.
I did reply to you that I expected workers will get some radiation sickness. The job has some dangers. It is part of the reason it pays better than working in warehouse.
I'm trying not to get confused by having conversation with you on two different threads. My apologies if I mix them up or repeat something said already on the other thread. I'm trying to keep each discussion complete for those reading it.
You will have to give some more information than 10,000 times too high. What values do you mean?
Those plant personnel are all wearing dosimeters. They know exactly how much of dose they have all taken.
They are taking calculated risks based on the counterbalancing benefit to society.
It does not appear to me to be a suicide mission anymore than a cop, firefighter, steelworker, miner or any other member of a dangerous occupation doing their job. There are risks involved. They seek to manage them to get a tough job done.
The danger is greatly magnified in the mind of the lay person simply because the risk factors and management strategies are not well understood by most people.
3.1 mSv/year = 3100 uSv/year
3100 uSv/year = 8.5 uSv/day
8.5 uSv/day = .35 uSv/hour
Yeah, my math was off by a factor of 1000. Mea Culpa.
But 3.1 mSv/year is just background radiation and that varies widely. According to the NRC, people in Denver, Colorado have around 10 mSv/year in background radiation.
Get 2 chest x-rays in that year and you are adding around 25 mSv a year to your total. Smoker? Even half a pack a day will add around 10 mSv to that total.
So someone who lives in Denver (10), who smokes a pack a day (20), and gets an single chest x-ray (12) runs at:
42 mSv/year = 42000 uSv/year
42000 uSv/year = 115 uSv/day
115 uSv/day = 4.8 uSv/hour
That’s not counting flying anywhere or laying out in the sun.
Also as a first order approximation, based on the level measured at the gate, the gate is about 400 meters from the reactor(s). At that distance, the three reactors could probably be treated as a point source, for one to two significant figures of accuracy.
You are absolutely right, you wouldn't want to be anywhere close to those fuel rods until they get some water on them.
The fog of bad public information (and quite a bit of misinformation) is getting pretty thick. It makes it very hard to figure out what is going on.
I have been involved in emergency response and planning for many years with a special focus on rad. I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the risks. Even so, I have to say that the videos of the reactor buildings exploding was horrifying. Those were truly massive blasts. Why or how the hydrogen levels built up to such levels is something that will occupy the minds and time of scientists and engineers for years to come.
I think in the end, we'll see a very expensive mess to clean up. It really is the worst possible scenario - not one but four reactors destroyed all at once. But, I also an coming to believe that as bad as it is, it will not live up anywhere near to the sort of apocalyptic scene that was first planted in the popular imagination by The China Syndrome.
when working with ranges, the expected value would be mid range, or 12. 50% of the subjects would get more... 50% would get less.
you realize you should move to DU if you’re looking to fear monger
You are correct . I was confounded between milli and micro, thanks.
“Why or how the hydrogen levels built up to such levels is something that will occupy the minds and time of scientists and engineers for years to come.”
You are getting the cooling water so hot it is breaking into hydrogen and O2 molecules, none of which is vented to the atmosphere. The H2 is lighter than the O2. You have heat by definition to rstart the oxidation process.
Yep, those are valid numbers. And there is evidence that the first uSv/hour or so is probably beneficial. Then it might be good to get a break to revitalize the immune system after tweaking it with the radiation. Of course there is always a risk of the wrong kind of genetic change, but that could happen through a chemical process as well.
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