Apocalypse now?
The scenes on the television are surreal. Buildings and cars and trains and boats tossed around and floating in water like so many discarded toys in a flooded garbage dump.
Fire.
And now, a potential (or already partial) nuclear meltdown. The frantic efforts to avert more major trouble there are a bit hard to follow and quite technical, but so far the damage seems mostly contained although the threat of a far greater catastrophe is present.
Our global communications now are so good that videos of all these catastrophes are beamed into our livingrooms and bedrooms in real time. The combination of modern technology and ancient scourges and primal fears is a shock to the system, and a reminder.
Japan, of course, has had more than its share of these particular catastrophes, although not always together like now. Earthquakes and tsunamis have plagued the island nation for all its recorded history. And Japan has the dubious distinction of having been the only country ever attacked with nuclear weapons. Although a nuclear power plant is not an atomic bomb, trouble there is a small echo of that earlier blast.
The quake that hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was the largest ever recorded in Japan. Although Japan is very advanced at earthquake-resistant construction, such a huge quake was not necessarily foreseen. The largest previous quake near a nuclear power plant occurred in 2007 in the vicinity of the the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan, although it was “only” a 6.6 on the Richter scale. The plant survived intact, but it was shaken “beyond design basis and initiated an extended shutdown for inspection, which indicated that greater earthquake-proofing was needed before operation could be resumed.”
I’m a proponent of nuclear power. But it’s clear that plants need to be located as far from fault lines as possible (very difficult in a country like Japan) and made even stronger. The part of the plant at Fukushima Daiichi that seems to have been most damaged was built in the late 60s and opened in 1971. That’s a pretty old design; things have improved greatly since then. But I have no idea whether even a new design would have fared very well in an earthquake of this magnitude.
[NOTE: Ace has been doing good updates on this.]
The information we’ve got is coming from the Japanese government, which is legendarily paternalistic and closed-mouthed. They never admit more than they absolutely must, until they’ve had time to think about it.
If they’re saying it’s not as bad as Three Mile Island, my guess is it’s a good deal worse.
Let’s hope I’m wrong!
Research into making nuclear plants safe needs to be made a priority. With no assurance of any good alternative to oil, and not all countries situated on oil or coal deposits, nuclear power is only reliable energy source for power plants in the foreseeable future. I’ve always admired the French for having realized this early; it’ll give them the edge in the inevitable occurrence of the Muslims shutting down their oil wells.
“But it’s clear that plants need to be located as far from fault lines as possible (very difficult in a country like Japan)…”
Or my country, wholly atop the Syro-African Rift. I have no idea how strong the Dimona reactor is, details are naturally hard to find.
There are all kinds of watermelon talking points floating around, like ‘hydrogen explosion.’
An accumulation of free hydrogen around a nuclear reactor is a chemical impossibility. The only source for the hydrogen would be water. However, the split second that an atom is ‘cooked off’ it will recombine with all of the oxygen flying around. This reaction rate is one of the highest known to science!
It is the basis of the Shuttle main engines and of the supersonic scram jet. Hydrogen will burn smoothly even in supersonic flow. No other material is that reactive. Period. So NEVER believe that bunk about hydrogen explosions. It’s a watermelon talking point plain and simple.
——–
I’m puzzled as to how it ever occurred to Tokyo to locate ANY atomic plant on their east coast — especially Sendai. Virtually all of the worst tsunamis hit their east coast. It’s a subduction zone. That’s why the water is so deep — the deepest in the world here and there.
By comparison their west coast faces a shallow sea — much in the manner of the English Channel.
The back-up power scheme completely failed to meet the need.
It should have been so constructed as to survive tsunamis with grace. If necessary — place it up on a hill. Then use robust conduits and cables to link back to the seaside plant.
The photos don’t give me any sense that the design can ward off tsunamis at all. What a gaff.
—–
In other news, it appears that the tsunami is going to break the Euro.
Japan is destined to draw down her holdings while the PIIGS are scrambling for roll-over finance.
It’s a perfect storm.
American nuclear plants have been designed to either withstand the largest expected quake in the region that it is constructed or should a quake exceed that limit safely shutdown.
Periodically the earthquake resistance of each existing plant is reviewed and plant safety systems are revised. Plants that are exposed to quake are studied so that designs for new plants can be improved.
While it is unclear the amount of damage that an American nuclear plant would suffer in the event of a nearby 8.9 earthquake, they are designed to shutdown safely.
American nuclear plants probably have the largest safety margins of any structure built by modern man. I hesitate to say that they are over designed. Because of the dangers of radioactive contamination, I suppose in some sense it is not possible to over design one.
Further, the designers assume that corners will be cut, that the designs will be modified during construction, and that some percentage of construction workmanship will not meet standards. That means that they increase their margins of compensate for real world issues.
A number of years ago design reviews determined that, due to an computer error, one of the critical structure limits had been under specified by a factor of ten. That is the structure in question was 10th the strength that the design had called for. In evaluating the actual plants they determined that other structural concerns had caused the structure to be built to a much stronger standard than called for by the incorrect specification. Further surrounding structures were so massively over built that the strength of the structure in question offered more than enough safety margin.
I can’t speak to the design requirements of a 40 year old plant built in Japan. I grew up next to two nuclear plants. I knew the men that built them, some of them were the fathers, uncles and brothers of my schoolmates. I met some of the men that designed them. I know some of the men that maintain them today. These people take safety seriously.
The report by STRATFOR is possibly the most lame and brain damaged report I’ve every seen in all my life. What is clear is that these folks haven’t a f-ing clue what is going on in these nuclear plants.
As the pile of nuclear material in the containment vessel gets hotter and hotter it will create a bit of hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O) gas from the moderating water (H2O) causing a build up in pressure. The operators usually vent some of this excess gas into the containment building which surrounds the containment vessel. Over time this creates a very explosive environment within the containment building till .. “pop” .. the containment explodes. (Hydrogen gas usually explodes in a quick almost invisible pop). This is not a “meltdown.”
While this isn’t a good situation, this isn’t the biggest problem they have on their plate. They still must finish cooling the containment vessel, which they can probably still do even with the containment building in rubble, so the pile won’t melt into a molten nuclear mass at the bottom of the containment vessel (or worse, melt through the bottom of the vessel). At this point it seems that the damage to the reactor most likely will be irreparable, but it’s not the end of the world.
I couldn’t believe that the German anti-atom movement is staging protests today to shut down Germany’s reactors. Not even one day to think about the Japanese. These folks have their eyes on the next local elections.
It’s hard to grasp that towns have been totally wiped out, to say nothing of the grief of those who have lost family, friends, and their home towns.
My personal guess as to the source of the explosion is super-heated ground water.
The tsunami drastically changed the water table.
Said water seeped close to the reactor containment — heated up — but was capped by the floor of the building.
Finally it reached such pressure as to erupt — rupturing the floor — and blowing the curtain walls off their frames.
The core has NOT melted through — but things did get toasty.
The over design of the containment gives us some margin for our stupidities.
——-
BTW, earthquakes are brutal on steam turbines and high pressure heat exchangers. So all known systems kill themselves upon seismic shock. I can’t imagine tempting fate with even a conventional plant let alone the hysterically emoted nuke.
expat,
Crises, they’re not for wasting. Be it the Tucson shootings or this disaster, it isn’t in the nature of the Left to choose human decency over political expedience.
Three things:
1) The Richter scale is logarithmic, not linear. That means the energy released by a 9.0 quake is a THOUSAND times greater than that released by a 6.0 quake, not the linear 9.0-6.0/6.0=0.5 or 50% that most folks intuit.
2) Minimized, not even mentioned by the Greens, is the hazard of release from spent nuclear fuel, which is stored on site, both in Japan AND in the USA. In our case, stored on site because the E-whackos have successfully kept the Nation from using the Yucca Mtn, Nevada storage facility for ~20 years.
3) Because our energy policy is in the hands of anti-human chickenbrains, and the MSM is similarly held, the anti-nuclear hue and cry to come from an ignorant, ill-informed populace will be deafening. That’s how “community organizers” work. Fukushima is a Godsend for them; their non-prayers to their non-God have been answered.
Tom, don’t forget the community organizers have Obama who’s pretty good at politicking.
My expectations are that the Japanese will show the world their unique survival skills but I hope the US gives them all aid and help in a respectful manner.
In 1993, I think, I joined a temp crew doing discovery for Westinghouse that was being sued by Trojan nuclear plant in Portland, Oregon for delivery of defective steam generators. The case was just one of many others that had been engineered by trial lawyers as a shakedown. No suits ever went to trial and it was just one of the many prongs of the attack against America’s energy independence.
The Midwest is not usually thought of as an earthquake zone but a big one centered on the New Madrid fault in the mid 1800s reportedly rang bells in Boston. There are several nuclear plants in the region. If another big one hits, it would be devastating.
Well said, Tom.
Karl Denninger also has a new post up: On The Japanese Quake and Tsunami
Talk about irony. One of the TF commenters linked to a Washington Post article that said the affected reactor was due to be shut down on March 26.
Link
“That means the energy released by a 9.0 quake is a THOUSAND times greater than that released by a 6.0 quake,”
Actually I believe it is 30,000 times greater. For some reason the Richter scale works so that 2 full points result in 1000 times the energy release. I am most assuredly not an expert – if someone really knows I would be happy to hear it – but I think the Richter scale may record wave motion which may not be directly proportionaly to energy released.
Gary: Your comment reminded me I should always check the facts before plunging ahead in the belief my memory is accurate.
Fortunately, I can now report that Wiki says,”The Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude (ML) scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale….”
There is a lot more to estimating earthquake energy than the now-old Richter, but key is that all quantifying efforts re earthquakes are non-linear.
The earthquake “in the mid 1800’s” was in 1811. The Mississippi flowed backward for three days, Lake Reelfoot and the Okeefenoke swamp were formed, as was Caddo Lake, in East Texas, on the shores of which I spent most of my adolescence. That fault runs from Missouri to East Texas, and the Midwestern nuclear reactors are at least a couple of hundred miles to the west. I can’t worry about everything, so I’ll put anxiety about an earthquake breaking up a midwestern reactor rather further down the list.
Neo says “I’m a proponent of nuclear power.”
Once again, her common sense pervails.
Nuclear energy, while extremely dangerous, is our best answer. The industry needs severe oversight and monitoring, but this Fukushima event brings up more points of support for nuclear, than negatives.
This earthquake was nearly a world-wide record.
The failure appears to be the worst in Unit 1 of the nuclear plant. The recent earthquake exceeded the design parameters of that unit by more than 4000%.
Try any human-built equipment in conditions 4000% beyond design.
okay, “prevails”
New keyboard….
FWIW – after having run reactors for 12 years, I find the steam plants far scarier than the reactors.
This is an example, actually, of how SAFE nuke power is (or have we forgotten the massive inferno of a refinery pumping smoke into the atmosphere?) – the bloody thing can slag itself into the bottom of the vessel … and then sit there. We may vent some gas. Some of it may be radioactive. Some people may get doses of radiation equivalent to getting X-rays, or even transcontinental flights, and some nuke workers may get more.
The reactor may be unsalvageable, but thanks to the lessons learned from SL-1 (never build a reactor capable of going critical with only 1 rod up), and hazards we avoided through foresight (no positive-void reactors with FLAMMABLE moderator materials – think Chernobyl), that will almost be the worst of it.
DESPITE an earthquake at or above expected worst-case strength for the area.
*shrug*
Gary:
On a Log scale, each full unit is a factor of 10, so 2 would be 100 and 3 would be 1000.
That is, if you have a scientific calculator–Log (1000) = 3.
geran,
I am quite familiar with how logarithms work, thank you. From the Wiki article on the Richter scale:
“. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude (shaking amplitude) of the largest displacement from zero on a particular type of seismometer (Wood—Anderson torsion). So, for example, an earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0.”
But then in a following paragraph:
“The energy release of an earthquake, which closely correlates to its destructive power, scales with the 3â„2 power of the shaking amplitude. Thus, a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6 ( = (101.0)(3 / 2)) in the energy released; a difference in magnitude of 2.0 is equivalent to a factor of 1000 ( = (102.0)(3 / 2) ) in the energy released.”
My previous post is probably not quite clear because the superscripting in Wiki did not copy. Where it says “101.0” and “102.0” it really means 10^1.0 and 10^2.0 (i. e 10 and 100).
Still not completely clear – I’ll just link to the article which I believe generally supports my original post:
Richter Scale
Sorry I even mentioned it.
Hint: Richter scale is logarithmic, but the “moment magnitude scale” involves the exponent 3/2.
I think we can all agree it was a big earthquake.
If you look at the historical seismicity, you’ll see there is no low-earthquake zone in Japan
geran Says:
“Try any human-built equipment in conditions 4000% beyond design.”
Yes we can… The newest design uses a smaller reaction and molten lead for cooling.
So, the smaller amount of fuel used in the reactor produces better results in the event of a problem…
While the lead doesn’t float into the air or ground water if accidently released (it just sort of sits there ready for cleanup)…
This quake is so astounding….
It seems linked to Christchurch and three ultra recent volcanoes.
Something truly rare has happened.
Japan, itself, is being wracked with aftershocks so powerful that they would qualify as earthquakes of note any where else at any other time.
As for the suffering…
It must be vast.
Before and after photos make crystal clear that entire communities were wiped out in moments by the tsunami.
Wave action reached the FOURTH floor of the central hospital. All around there is death.
The town was erased from the Earth in moments.
!
At the Belmont Club, some commenters are nuclear engineers (“Josh,” “Whitehall,” one or two others.)
If you’re interested in their take on what might be going on with the Japanese reactors, check them out.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/03/11/a-wired-world-in-its-own-mirror/#comment-148505
“Whitehall” at the Belmont Club has this to say:
Understand that the people who REALLY knew what was going on were next to the explosion.
But let me offer an updated personal profession estimate but remember that I’ve been wrong before. Still, it’s my best guess and I’ve been paid to contemplate accidents similar to this for 35 years.
Flooding the containment with seawater is indeed a last-straw move but an effective one for protecting the core and preventing releases. One of the sister plants in the US, Pilgrim in MA, definitely had this feature — I remember it well from the design drawings when I did some work there as a journeyman engineer doing internal flooding analyses. It struck me as a elegant solution.
All of Japan’s reactors that I know of are next to the ocean on either coast. This increases efficiency by a couple of percentage points and saves capital costs. However, the Japanese have underestimated natural forces before. Three years ago, several reactors on their West coast suffered physical damage and a fire due to an unanticipated undersea fault. Japan is a very seismic place with volcanoes to boot.
Flooding containment also implies that there is pumping power available. It could be engine-driven or electrical motor-driven pumps. Even domestic tap water pressure would work if the containment has already been vented. It should prevent both further core damage and smother the radioactive debris if any.
Similar US BWR/3s are Pilgrim near Plymouth, MA, Quad Cities 1 and 2 near Moline, IL, and I think one in upstate NY but I’m not sure on that one. They produce between 500 and 600 MW of electrical power.
As our perceptive commenters have noted, thousands have been washed out to see or crushed in their homes but the remaining drama is a nuclear reactor where one could expect only a handful of casualties.
As to the emergency electrical power, the plant has to have two and might have three large diesel-driven electrical emergency generators — maybe a gas turbine too. These are about the size of a very large locomotive or tugboat engine — maybe 5,000 hp or so each. Each engine is in separate fire-proof cells with a small “day tank” of fuel that can run the engine at full load for maybe an hour or so. There will be a large buried underground tank of fuel oil for each engine with redundant electrical pumps to refill the day tanks automatically. My guess, shared by others, is the proximate chain of events is the earthquake or tsunami failed that fuel oil transfer system.
Once the off-site and on-site AC power has completely failed, a sequence called “station blackout”, a turbine-driven pump can keep the reactor topped off at any pressure from 100 psi to the 1050 psi reactor safety valve lifting pressure. It uses reactor steam as motive power but needs battery-supplied DC for controls and valving. In the US, most plants are required to prove 8 hours of battery power for this system. This covers almost all loss of grid and station blackout scenarios and history in the US. One can operate the turbine manually but if the reactor steam is too radioactive, it would be dangerous duty.
But the land around you has been hit with a 9+ magnitude earthquake and a 23-foot tsunami. The substations are whacked, transmission lines are out, the roads are washed out, and everyone who works at the station but wasn’t on shift is either taking care of their family or a victim of the tsunami and is sleeping with the fish. That’s why the US military was asked to fly in portable generators so the staff could hook them into the plant’s electrical system. 4,160 volts would probably be the preferred voltage and many mil-spec generators have multi-tap transformers outputting at various voltages. Still, it won’t be an easy or quick job.
Now, get this. If you are one of the heroes who stood at your post, trying to save the plant but died trying, US Workman’s Compensation would be your surviving family’s reward. Last I checked, that’s $860 per month for 10 years to your wife and one child in California, just as if a box fell off a shelf and killed a stock clerk at Wal-Mart.
I once wrote my senator, Barbara Boxer, suggesting upgrading this might be a contribution to nuclear safety she could support but I was ignored. //endit
I’m very disappointed with Fox News selection of nuclear energy experts. Except for one from the Heritage Foundation all I’ve seen are watermelons, e.g., one guy from “Beyond Nuclear.”
Nothing like a event to give one the chance to pump up the scare… but at least they think they have discovered empathy in chickens…
the nuclear plants ultimately are not going to be much of a problem including the ones that are blowing. they are blowing on steam and pressure not nuclear (other than heat).
some peoples comparing to Chernobyl just shows how ignorant they are. Chernobyl had no containment vessel (and many to this day believe it was not an accident but a test).
what we are going to see is a great example of how little damage compared to its potential there will be, and how little the people will ‘get’ that, and so whatever damage, since its not zero, will mean a whole new wave of anti nuclear wackaloons.
“The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn’t explode.”
“The nuclear reactor is surrounded by a steel reactor container, which is then surrounded by a concrete building,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
“We’ve confirmed that the reactor container was not damaged. The explosion didn’t occur inside the reactor container. As such there was no large amount of radiation leakage outside,” he said.
Edano said due to the falling level of cooling water, hydrogen was generated and that leaked to the space between the building and the container and the explosion happened when the hydrogen mixed with oxygen there.
Hydrogen explosion is a very real threat for boiling water reactors, since after cooling water level in the vessel drops below active zone, temperature of exposed fuel rods quickly rises. Only boiling water can cool them rapidly enough. At 1800 F zirconium tubes containing fuel pellets enter into chemical reaction with water vapour, displacing hydrogen from water, and this hydrogen escapes into building through safety valves. When its concentration reaches several procents, any spark results in volume explosion. No building structure can sirvive such explosion.
Before and after photos of the areas hit by the tsunami.
/hat tip Tami at AoS
James Drake, I fully agree. Fox News disgraced itself yesterday, playing up the fear factor every way it could, with Chernobyl comparisons and banners describing radiation “spewing” into the atmosphere, commentators discussing the risk of “nuclear fallout,” and almost no level-headed, well-informed commentary. I would expect such sensationalism from MSNBC or NPR but am very disappointed to find it on Fox.
I quit watching TV news after the 2008 election. I’ve been getting all of my information from the internet. Although I haven’t watched any TV coverage of Japan this weekend, I’ve seen many, many comments about how ignorant and sensationalist the coverage has been. The MSM, Fox included, is apparently in full Katrina mode.
I guess next they will be reporting that the nuclear plant workers have resorted to cannibalism.
As an old nuke, let me offer this non-technical observation:
1. Notice that no technically qualified expert was interviewed by any of the US/Euro news. Only Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientests etc.
2. Even if the worst happens at the plants we get a local (on-site) mess, and a temporary evaculation of surroundings for safety. No worse than other industrial accidents.
3. While the news is focussed on the nuke, there are hundreds of thousands of missing people in Japan, whole cities destroyed, ships and trains missing etc. Shouldn’t we not put any cities or railroads in harms way?
4. The Tokyo electric people are much more open on events than in the past (their press releases are pretty good if in Japlish). For a extraordinary event they have been calm, resourceful and industrious.
5. The Tsunami is the culprit and we are just beginning to understand them (as a Father of young Geologist I get pretty well informed on this). 255K killed in Indian Ocean, probably > 50K in Japan against
I was just watching the news and the talking heads were commenting on the fact that our military forces in Japan are providing assistance. This is of course a good thing.
As example they point out that the Ronald Reagan is providing much needed assistance.
They miss the irony of what they are saying.
The nuclear powered Ronald Reagan is providing much needed assistance.
Don’t look now, but…
Japanese volcano erupts
A commenter at Ace said yesterday, “Japan has hit for the cycle in disasters.”
I mentioned the issue of a nuclear reactor on the Syro-African Rift (The Great Rift Valley). Here’s an interesting piece:
Experts: Israel should prepare nuclear reactor for quake
From YNET, which I don’t like quoting but might be a little more accurate when discussing something not having to do with the local conflict. The geology professor quoted in the article notes, appropriately, that the financial factor cannot be ignored:
Quakes on the Great Rift Valley may not take place so often as in Japan, and not with such force, but that was no comfort for the inhabitants of Safed in 1837.
I am also appalled at the number of inaccuraces in the article Neo linked. The anonimous author of this report obviously fails to distingish containment vessel and superstructure built over it. Only the latter was damaged by explosion, while the former is intact. And the definition of “meltdown” here is completely wrong. It has nothing to do with control rods, only with adequite cooling. The reactor was shutdown at the first signs of earthquake, and failure of cooling happened a hour later, when tsunami destroyed back-up diesel generators. Comparison with Chernobyl disaster is also completely bogus. A different type of reactor in the most important aspect: Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel. It also was not shut down when explosion came. In Fukushima case, the possible radiation release is in form of gases, like iodine, crypton, xenon and tritium. Particle contamination will not occure even if complete meltdown results. All these gases have short half-life and can not produce prolonged radiactive contamination.
At least I found an analysis by a real profi, a nuclear physisist from MIT. See
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-12/japan-nuclear-fallout-how-bad-could-it-get/
Here are some good books about earthquakes:
1) When the Earth Moves: Rogue Earthquakes, Tremors, and Aftershocks [Paperback]
Patricia Barnes-Svarney
2) The Earth in Turmoil: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Their Impact on Humankind – Paperback (Sept. 15, 1999) by Kerry Sieh and Sifu Simon LeVay
3) Earthshaking Science by Susan Hough
The first is available used from Amazon for a penny.
And here is a good earthquake energy calculator:
http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpseismograph/earthquake_seismometer_seismic_energy.php
For the more advanced reader there is
Anatomy of Seismograms $688.88 from Amazon (note: that IS the actual price exclusive of shipping).
From what I have been able to gather the exposure levels around Daichi peaked at around 100 mrem/hour. Troublesome, but not of great concern. In the USA the occupational exposure limit is 5,000 mrem per year. If (I automatically assume the Japanese are competent) the workers are shuttled in to the work zone for brief periods (1 hour at a time) there is no reason to believe there will be any significant exposures to workers nor to the general public which has been evacuated 10-12 miles from the reactor site. (Exposure levels fall off at the square of the distance measured in feet.)
It is true that flooding the containment zone with sea water is a drastic measure and it will complicate the clean up effort. This will be costly, but doable. To me, it looks like they have gotten past the critical phase and have the situation under control. Again, they have a big and expensive mess on their hands but the silly idea of the ‘China Syndrome’ can be laid to rest, nor is this comparable to Chernobyl. However, if there are strong after shocks that spoil their containment efforts we will have to wait and see the outcome.
BTW, just in case anyone is interested, the LD50 for radiation exposure is an acute exposure of (approximately) 500 rem, depending upon age and over all health at the time of exposure. No one, as far as I can determine via the info I have found on the internet, has been exposed to anywhere near the LD50. (LD50 means lethal dose, 50% so exposed die.)
yes sergey…
but they cant let this go to waste…
they cant let the testimony of it be seen as a plus for nuclear, they have to mobilize to make it a negative.
in truth.. they ALSO have to equalize it with the communist farce that was Chernobyl…