Atomic Insights Blog

Announcing the new and improved Atomic Insights

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:45:00 +0000

The Atomic Insights Blog has been published here on Blogger since March of 2005. It has been a great host at a terrific price. Who can beat free?

However, there are some limitations to the format and the expandability. Some of my friends have also teased me about having an outdated, old fashioned looking lay out. One of them took it upon himself to design a new site and show me what it would look like if I moved my blog to a different platform with a much more creatively supported blog engine - like WordPress.

The raw material for that site update was the "classic" Atomic Insights web site, the one that sort of looked like a blog created before the word was invented. Actually, for the web historians in the audience, Atomic Insights was more like an e-zine or a webzine - it started life as a paper newsletter in April of 1995. Another friend who called me old fashioned back then took on the task of converting it to HTML and showing me how to publish it on the web. For its first few years of existence, Atomic Insights lived in a directory on a server at the University of Wisconsin. (As you can tell, I am kind of a cheapskate who is willing to use free services if available.)

Anyway, this message is a long-winded way of saying that there is a new Atomic Insights that will be the new place to read updated content and engage in intelligent discussions about energy from an atomic point of view. For the time being, the plan is to leave this Blogger site in place and to finish up the conversations that are still going on.

Once we have worked out all of the kinks associated with starting up a new platform and converting a moderate number of existing files, we will open up comments at the new site. Then we hope to migrate the articles posted here to be archived there. However, there are some technical issues that might prevent that from being a smooth process. I am still a conservative, risk averse nuke at heart, so we are taking a tight pants, belt and suspenders approach and trying to prevent any breakage for all of the links that are involved.

Not that I am complaining, but the task of convincing more than 60,000 visitors to change their bookmarks from http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com to http://atomicinsights.com may take a few reminders. Notifying and modifying the hundreds of sites that provide links here might be an even longer process. For any webmasters in the crowd, if you have links to individual posts, please do not worry or modify them; they will continue to work. The biggest challenge of all will be to get the crawlers to notice the new site and the PageRank algorithm to begin giving the new site the same kind of web cred that this blog has developed.

If you try out the new site and like the way it looks and works, you can get in touch with Jason, the creative and technical force behind the conversion project http://www.facebook.com/correiaj.

Shaken, flooded, stressed by power outages, Fukushima Daiichi moves into second place

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:11:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries that attempted to provide a realistic prediction of the worst case consequences of the one-two punch from a very large earthquake and tsunami on a large nuclear power station on the coast of Japan. It has become increasingly apparent during the past week that my view from afar was not as clear as I would have hoped. I was overly optimistic about the final consequences of the events at Fukushima Daiichi.

On the catastrophic scale of commercial nuclear energy accidents, where Three Mile Island was in second place and Chernobyl was the clear leader, Fukushima Daiichi has moved into second. It is likely that it will end up to be far closer to Chernobyl than to Three Mile Island in overall economic, public health and geographic consequences.

Update: (Posted on March 27, 2011 at 0234) The above paragraph has been changed to specify commercial nuclear energy accidents to avoid complications with discussions about accidents that have occurred in the other aspect of nuclear technology. The commercial and military sides of nuclear are complicated enough to merit two mostly separate conversations. End Update.

There has been enough damage to the plants and enough radioactive material released to pose a danger to public health for someone who does not take any precautions, though actions to evacuate, shelter and monitor contamination have minimized the actual effects - so far. There have also been a fair number of plant workers and other emergency responders who have received substantial radiation doses in the range of 100-200 mSv (10-20 Rem). Those doses are about 20% of the dose required for early signs of radiation sickness (1 Sv or 100 REM) and at the threshold where there is a statistically significant increase in long term cancer risk.

None of those heroic recovery workers has been exposed to the doses that caused radiation sickness for Chernobyl first responders, but the use of emergency limits for large numbers of recovery workers is certainly no cause for celebration among those of us who believe strongly in the importance of safely using nuclear energy. As long as the recovery workers pay attention to their monitoring devices and use caution, there is no reason to expect that there will be anyone exposed to any higher levels than those already received. Achieving the goal of acceptable individual doses will likely require rotating a rather large, well trained work force over a long period of time during the clean up operations.

The radioactive material released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has already complicated recovery and response efforts for the area affected by the earthquake and tsunami. According to a recent story in the New York Times titled Extent of Damage to Japan’s Infrastructure Still Unclear transportation to the area is not easy, and some assistance from normal sources of expertise is being prevented because there is enough contamination to cause insurance concerns. I even heard through the grapevine that some of the US Navy ships that were off of the coast of Japan are having to engage in some complex and expensive efforts to clean up the fallout.

The final results are worse than what I predicted. Even if you are deeply steeped into the science of the health effects of low level radiation and recognize the evidence showing that doses below a certain level have a very good chance of being hormetic, it is not good to "crap up" a large geographic area with a significant mass of fission product isotopes like Cs-137 that will give off strong gamma radiation for many years. (Cs-137 has a 30 year half life.) Though I hope that the Japanese government does not take the step of permanently evacuating large, lightly contaminated areas, there is little doubt that some formerly prosperous farms and fisheries will be out of business for a very long time.

What this event has taught me is that I need to retreat a bit. I remain firm in my belief that human society needs nuclear energy and that there is no other alternative to fossil fuels that has a chance of meeting needs for reliable power. The importance of reducing fossil fuel consumption should be apparent to anyone who is following the current events in the Middle East and North Africa, whose community is a new host to gas extraction, whose mountains are being blown up, or who is concerned about the effects of dumping 20 billion tons of waste gases into our common atmosphere.

However, I am now certain that not all operating reactors are equally safe, equally well maintained, or equally well sited. I have always known that there are risks associate with nuclear energy - it is such a concentrated source of power that it is impossible to ignore just how quickly it can get out of control.

The importance of keeping fission and the resulting radioactive material under control; the importance of careful civil, mechanical, electrical and system engineering; the imperative for intensive, continuing training; and the always vital step of conducting operations and maintenance with a questioning, learning attitude was such a part of my indoctrination into the technology that I projected that attitude onto the entire enterprise. That was a mistake that I will not repeat. Humans can learn to use nuclear energy safely and effectively; we can design and operate systems that do not put the public at risk. However, that does not happen automatically.

There will always be some who are tempted to take short cuts or to fail to correct design errors because they are concerned about short term costs. The best lesson that I can take from Fukushima Daiichi is a better understanding of the scale of the potential losses. Final costs in the tens to hundreds of billions can overwhelm any short term savings in materials and construction time. It is not worth it to engage in efforts to slice a few dollars from initial costs by slimming down the defense in depth that has made most nuclear plants the safest, cleanest and most reliable energy production systems on the planet.

The good news is that no one has been building the types of boiling water reactors whose limits were exceeded at Fukushima Daiichi in many decades. Today's Generation III and beyond reactors include numerous design features that would have provided substantial margins against the specific challenges faced at Fukushima, but that is no cause for complacency. There is always something more to learn and improve.

Additional Reading

The Independent (March 26, 2011) Fear and devastation on the road to Japan's nuclear disaster zone

Depleted Cranium (March 26, 2011) Putting radiation exposure into context

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Meeting - Response to Fukushima Daiichi Events

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:07:00 +0000

***MEDIA ADVISORY*** NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON NRC RESPONSE TO RECENT JAPAN EVENT

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be briefed by its staff on the NRC’s response to the ongoing nuclear event in Japan in a public meeting on March 21 at 9 a.m. at NRC Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md. The commission meeting will be open to public observation and will be webcast at: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/webcast-live.html.

Due to limited space availability, the meeting will be set up for a C-SPAN pool camera crew. Broadcast media outlets interested in receiving the feed should contact the network pool at 202-626-7966. For still photographers, this meeting will be pooled with AP, Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg and Getty.

In order for us to try to ensure sufficient seating for reporters, please notify the Office of Public Affairs at the contact information above if you plan to attend. There will be additional space available in our auditorium on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Pool photographers will have limited space at the meeting in which to take photos. Movement must be kept to a minimum so as not to be distracting and entry into the inner well closest to the Commission briefing table is prohibited. Plan to arrive in advance of the meeting at the Marinelli Road entrance of the NRC with proper media credentials. The NRC offices are located across the street from the White Flint Metro station. Parking is available at the White Flint metro parking garage on Marinelli Road.

If I could attend the above event, I would ask how anyone who understands radiation, radioactive material, doses, dose rates, and contamination could consider an evacuation order to be a conservative approach focused on protecting the public. Putting large populations in motion is always a decision that carries significant potential for causing public harm; that is especially true in the middle of a widespread natural disaster that has strained transportation networks and the logistics support needed to provide food, water and gasoline to the people who have been ordered to move.

However, it is time for me to go back to my day job. You might notice a bit less responsiveness at Atomic Insights compared to what I have managed during the past 10 days; I used up 4.5 days worth of vacation time to do what I think still needs to be done. People need access to more accurate sources of information about the hazards of nuclear energy especially compared to the hazards of all other energy options.

Separate topic - Nuclear Exceptionalism

News flash - the Chiba refinery fire has been reported to have been extinguished as of 0342 EDT on March 21, 2011. That fire was initiated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake. That refinery is about 10-20 miles outside of Tokyo. It dumped thousands of tons of potential hazardous material into the atmosphere in Japan every day for ten solid days. The people who own that refinery could not approach the fire close enough to take effective action due to the high levels of radiation (thermal) being emitted from the fire. My guess is that the fire's fuel finally ran out.

You might recognize some of the footage in the above video. Similar scenes were run several times in the background as the anchors at major news outlets including CNN and CBS talked about the struggles at the Fukushima nuclear station - giving viewers the impression that the dramatic blazes had something to do with nuclear energy.

The reality of the very brief hydrogen explosions was quite different. In those cases, a large, visible volume of smoke erupted and rapidly dissipated. There was no continuing fire, but I am pretty certain you have seen the video clip enough times to have had it impressed into your brain that nuclear plants can explode during an accident. No one has tried to help you put that fact into any context, so it remains unanchored and kind of scary. I can only guess why the only footage I have found of the Chiba refinery fire came during the very first day of the 10 day long blaze.

Have you heard or found any follow-up to the story about the hydroelectric dam that collapsed during the earthquake, destroying 1800 homes? I am just guessing here, but I think that the probability of all of those homes having been empty at the time they were flooded is far lower than the probability of a used pool being emptied. However, no coverage of that accident can be found outside of dusty corners of the internet and no one has even speculated on the death toll from that single renewable energy accident.

Context and comparisons between various sources of energy must play an important role in near term decisions about the use of nuclear energy. We cannot allow people who want us to continue in our present course of consuming fossil fuels as fast as we can extract them to set the agenda for the review. They must explain how slowing nuclear energy helps to improve public safety compared to energy sources like coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal. All have some risk, but the measured, numerical risks must be put on the table and rationally evaluated.

One more topic - there is a new Atomic Show Podcast available. On March 20, 2011, I gathered five pro nuclear communicators together for a discussion about our collective and individual efforts to share as much information as we know in response to the earthquake and tsunami disaster that included a nuclear component that turned into the media's focus area.

You can find the podcast at Atomic Show #164 – Fukushima Discussion by Pro Nuclear Communicators. There is an inline player or you can download the file for future consumption. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing so that you will get the shows whenever they are ready - the production schedule is so fluid as to not actually be a "schedule."

Honor our Nuclear Workers

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:30:00 +0000

Credit - Suzy Hobbs, PopAtomic Studios

This simple graphic says more than I can hope to add. Please visit the original post at Honor Our Nuclear Workers.

To donate directly to the Fukushima workers and their families please go to:

http://www.new.ans.org/about/japanrelief/

Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan Fukushima Status Report - March 19, 2011 12:30 PM EDT

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:25:00 +0000

I am sharing this status report to provide wider distribution. The content is posted without edits other than minor formatting.

Update to Information Sheet Regarding the Tohoku Earthquake

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) Washington DC Office
As of 12:30PM (EST), March 19, 2011

Radiation Levels

At 10:30PM (JST) on March 19, radiation level outside main office building (approximately 1,640 feet from Unit 2 reactor building) of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: 2,854 micro Sv/hour.
Measurement results of ambient dose rate around Fukushima Nuclear Power Station announced at 4:00PM and 7:00PM on March 19 are shown in the attached two PDF files respectively.
For comparison, a human receives 2,400 micro Sv per year from natural radiation in the form of sunlight, radon, and other sources. One chest CT scan generates 6,900 micro Sv per scan.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor

At 4:50PM on March 19, pressure inside the reactor core: 0.205MPa.
At 4:50PM on March 19, water level inside the reactor core: 1.75 meters below the top of the fuel rods.
At 4:50PM on March 19, pressure inside the primary containment vessel: 0.18MPaabs.
As of 9:00PM on March 19, the injection of seawater continues into the reactor core.
Recovery work of power supply is to be scheduled.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 reactor

At 9:05PM on March 18, access to the substation for reserve power supply from external transmission line was completed.
As of 1:30PM on March 19, the work for laying the electric cable from the substation to the load site is being carried out.
At 4:30PM on March 19, pressure inside the reactor core: -0.009MPa.
At 4:30PM on March 19, water level inside the reactor core: 1.3 meters below the top of the fuel rods.
At 4:30PM on March 19, pressure inside the primary containment vessel: 0.135MPaabs.
As of 9:00PM on March 19, the injection of seawater continues into the reactor core.
Activities for connecting the commercial electricity grid are underway.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 reactor

At 0:30AM on March 19, Tokyo Fire Department began to shoot water aimed at the spent fuel pool, continuously until 01:10AM.
At 5:25PM on March 19, pressure inside the reactor core: -0.050MPa.
At 5:25PM on March 19, water level inside the reactor core: 1.85 meters below the top of the fuel rods.
At 5:25PM on March 19, pressure inside the primary containment vessel: 0.210MPaabs.
At 5:30PM on March 19, Tokyo Fire Department began to shoot water continuously aimed at the spent fuel pool.
As of 9:00PM on March 19, the injection of seawater continues into the reactor core.
As of 9:00PM on March 19, activities for recovering the external power supply are underway.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 reactor

No official updates to the information in our March 19 update have been provided.
As of 9:00PM on March 19, activities for recovering the external power supply are underway.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 5 reactor

At 5:00AM on March 19, pump for Residual Heat Removal (RHR) started up and cooling of spent fuel storage pool has started.
At 6:00AM on March 19, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 155.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
At 9:15AM on March 19, making 3 holes in the roof of reactor building to prevent hydrogen from accumulating has been completed.
At 6:00PM on March 19, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 118.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 6 reactor

At 5:11AM on March 19, Fuel Pool Cooling (FPC) pump started to circulate the water of spent fuel pool.
At 6:00AM on March 19, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 151.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
At 9:15AM on March 19, making 3 holes in the roof of reactor building to prevent hydrogen from accumulating has been completed.
At 6:00PM on March 19, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 152.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Fukushima Daiichi Common Spent Fuel Pool

At 11:19AM on March 18, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 131.0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our official sources are: Office of The Prime Minister of Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Press Releases Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)

A few people are reading Atomic Insights

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:24:00 +0000

Vistors to Atomic Insights

Every so often, I like to post a snapshot to show how many people are visiting and where they are coming from. It helps people feel like part of a growing community. Some of you are making amazing contributions to the discussions in the comments. Thank you.

Former NRC Commissioner Jeffery Merrifield Discusses Fukushima Lessons Learned and Those Already Implemented

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:57:00 +0000

Jefferey Merrifield served on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1998 - 2007. He was there when the Commission and the industry engaged in numerous "what if" discussions in the wake of 9-11 and major natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina and Isabella. As a result of those on going efforts, the US nuclear industry has already implemented a number of measures to make nuclear power plants more resilient and even better at protecting public health and safety. The effort certainly will not stop there; one of the things that the public does not fully comprehend about the people involved in nuclear energy production is that they (we) are constantly engaging in an effort to improve, to learn lessons, and to fight the temptation to become complacent.

Aside: I wish that the current Chairman was as calm and methodical as people like Jeffery Merrifield and Dale Klein.

This is an example of why people who lie about their resumes must not be believed

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:37:00 +0000

Arnie Gundersen is making some incredibly wrong statements here. There is an old saying - 'tis better to be silent and thought to be a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt'. Please, watch how he removes all doubt, if you have enough patience for the task.

Focus on food, water, shelter. Dr. Greg Jaczko is wrong and giving dangerously bad advice

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:05:00 +0000

At about 2:22 Eastern Daylight Time a journalist sent me a brief email to inform me that Dr. Jaczko had just told the House Energy and Commerce committee that the fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi unit 4 was dry.

I had just read a status report that indicated that the temperature in that pool as of the morning of March 15, four days after the earthquake and tsunami struck, had been measured as 183 degrees F (about 84 degrees C). Since fuel pools are normally maintained at about 100 F, my "radcon math" brain immediately told me that the fuel pool would not even begin to boil for at least another day after that.

Even that was a very pessimistic number, because as the temperature in a container of water rises, the heat losses to the container and the surfaces increases. Of course, the elevated temperature was an operational concern - the higher the temperature, the greater the rate of evaporation and the greater the amount of fogging on the surface. (Think about what a hot tub surface looks like, especially at a ski resort where the air is pretty chilly. Now imagine that pool at about 60 - 70 F hotter. Lots of fog, not all that much water departing the pool.)

In the past several hours, with a break for a nap, I have done a lot of fact checking and communicating. One of the nice things about being an old ring knocker (I graduated from the Naval Academy almost 30 years ago) is that you can have a pretty useful set of highly placed friends. Some of them gave me enough information to confirm what I suspected. I cannot think of any way to say this gently - Dr. Jaczko was wrong. It is possible someone in his staff provided bad information, but it should not be all that difficult to see the problem with some simple, back of the envelop calculations.

I would think a guy with a PhD could do the math in his head - or at least enough of the math to ask for a verification of the analysis. I would expect someone who is in charge of a large, technically competent organization would double and triple check numbers and statements before going in front of C-Span cameras and a congressional committee and making statements and recommendations that distract the entire world from a real and growing food, water and shelter crisis. If I was in charge, I would not have asked anyone to evacuate any area that did not have a measured, significantly elevated radiation level. I would CERTAINLY not recommend an evacuation radius that was 3 times longer than the one recommended by a very technically competent host country.

In all of this, there are far too many people who are far too narrowly educated and far too polite to strongly question the statements of people who have been appointed to a position of authority - even if they know that the appointee has no professional background that would provide them with the ability to independently verify their statements.

In the interest of time, I am going to repurpose an email that I just shared with some colleagues and friends in response to a NY Times piece in which Dr. Jaczko is quoted as saying "We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

It is time to move from "extremely high" to real numbers. Kyodo News is reporting that the helicopter crews have measured levels above the cooling pool as follows:

At an altitude of 1,000 feet, the dose rate was 4.13 millisieverts (413 millirem)
At an altitude of 300 feet, the dose rate was 87.7 millisieverts (8.7 rem).

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78838.html

Those numbers do not exactly match the normal equations, but I assume that the helicopter crews were reporting their elevation above the ground, not their distance from the spent fuel pools. I have no way of knowing how high those are above the ground, but the distance between the helicopter and the top of the fuel rods is shorter by that elevation. Those dose rates require some attention and care, but they are not, by themselves, life threatening.

Based on those numbers, here is my analysis:

The spent (aka used) fuel pools are not generating much hydrogen. They are not boiling away. They are not empty. UO2 CANNOT burn, it is almost fully oxidized already. (That is what the O2 part of the compound equation is.) Between 90-95% of the material in a used fuel pool is UO2.

The water level in the pool at unit 4 is significantly lower than normal, which leads to higher radiation levels above the pools than normal.

The measured levels can be caused by a reduced amount of shielding above the still radioactive used fuel. Pools normally contain about 6M of water, the tenth thickness of water is .7 meters. You lose 70 cm of water, the dose rate above the water increases by a factor of 10.

As swimmers or hot tub lovers know, it is never surprising to see clouds of vapor rising from hot water on a cold day. However, even with an increased rate of evaporation, pools full of water take a long time to empty out.

The temperatures in the pool at unit 4 rose from about 40 C to 84 C during the first 4 days after the quake/tsunami. That should give you numerically inclined people the confidence to assert that boiling off of 6 meters of water could not have occurred during the 5th day. (Don't forget about the latent heat of vaporization.)

All that said, adding even centimeters of water back to a pool is not something that a few helicopter loads can handle. They cannot carry all that much water; the stuff weighs a kilogram per liter.

It takes a 200,000 liters to raise the level of a pool that is 10 meters wide by 20 meters long by a meter. A CH-46 medium lift helicopter has a capacity of about 3,180 kg. It would require 63 trips to raise the water level one meter if my guess on fuel pool dimensions is reasonable.

See why they want to bring in fire cannons to top off the pool? This is not desperation, it is simple math and logistics.

Here is a great fact sheet from NEI about spent fuel pools.

Used Nuclear Fuel Storage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Additional Reading

Guardian UK (March 18, 2011) IAEA urges Japan to give more information on nuclear crisis.

This quote helps to illustrate why I am hard over on the terrible effects of evacuation orders that are completely unnecessary. They are not a "conservative" approach to a difficult situation, they add an extraordinary level of complexity and burden the people who still have a massive humanitarian crisis on their hands. It is bordering on immoral to add additional stress and anxiety that put real barriers on the ability to effectively take care of the higher priority tasks of providing food, water and shelter.

Officials have warned that the nuclear incident is hampering efforts to deliver aid to victims of last Friday's earthquake and tsunami, with reports that drivers are reluctant to travel to areas even outside the exclusion zone.

If I was the President and I had someone on my staff who provided such lousy advice, I know what I would do. It might not even be a calm conversation and could involve a common send off for a poor performer, "don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out."

FEPC Information Sheet for Fukushima Daiichi on March 16 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:19:00 +0000

Update to Information Sheet Regarding the Tohoku Earthquake

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) Washington DC Office
As of 10:15AM (EST), March 16, 2011
Highest Radiation Levels

At 6:40AM (JST) on March 16, a radiation level of 400 milli sievert per hour was recorded outside the west side of the secondary containment building of the Unit 3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 6:40AM on March 16, a radiation level of 100 milli sievert per hour was recorded outside the west side of the secondary containment building of the Unit 4 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 8:47AM on March 16, a radiation level of 150 milli sievert per hour was recorded outside the secondary containment building of Unit 2 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 8:47AM on March 16, a radiation level of 300 milli sievert per hour was recorded between the exteriors of the secondary containment buildings of Unit 2 reactor and Unit 3 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 8:47AM on March 16, a radiation level of 400 milli sievert per hour was recorded outside the secondary containment building of Unit 3 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 8:47AM on March 16, radiation level of 100 milli sievert per hour was recorded outside the secondary containment building of Unit 4 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 10:40AM on March 16, a radiation level of 10 milli sievert per hour was recorded at the main gate of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

At 4:10PM on March 16, a radiation level of 1530 micro sievert per hour was recorded at the main gate of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

For comparison, a human receives 2400 micro sievert per year from natural radiation in the form of sunlight, radon, and other sources. One chest CT scan generates 6900 micro sievert per scan.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor

At 6:55AM on March 16, the pressure inside the reactor core was measured at 0.17 MPa. The water level inside the reactor core was measured at 1.8 meters below the top of the fuel rods.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 reactor

At 6:55AM on March 16, the pressure inside the reactor core was measured at 0.043 MPa. The water level inside the reactor core was measured at 1.4 meters below the top of the fuel rods.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 reactor

At 8:37AM on March 16, white smoke was observed emanating from the vicinity of the secondary containment building.
At 9:55AM on March 16, the pressure inside the reactor core was measured at 0.088 MPa. The water level inside the reactor core was measured at 1.9 meters below the top of the fuel rods.
At 11:32AM on March 16, the Japanese government announced that the possibility of significant damage to the primary containment vessel was low.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 reactor

At 4:08AM on March 15, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 183 degrees Fahrenheit.
At 5:45AM on March 16, a fire occurred in the vicinity of the third floor of the secondary containment building.
At 7:26AM on March 16, no flames or smoke was observed and thus it was concluded that the fire extinguished on its own accord.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 5 reactor

At 4:00AM on March 16, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 141 degrees Fahrenheit.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 6 reactor

At 4:00AM on March 16, the temperature of the spent fuel pool was measured at 137 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and Accompanying Facilities

As of 12:00PM on March 15, power generation of all facilities was restored to the commercial electricity grid from backup power generation systems. It was confirmed that no fire, damage to equipment, injuries to personnel occurred. Radiation levels were measured at a normal level of safety.

This update conflicts with the rumors that have been flying around regarding the state of the used fuel pool at unit 4. Though the temperature in the pool is high enough to cause operators to worry a bit about getting some cooling water into that pool before it gets too much hotter, it is still almost 20 degrees F below the boiling point of water.

The talk about getting a fire hose to fill the pool brings back a very intense memory for me of one of my duty days as the engineering duty officer. Without getting into any details, I ended up having a very stern talk with the tender's DC Central about my need for a fire hose. After the person on the phone gave the order to get a fire hose down to us NOW, he came back on the line and introduced himself.

It seems that the tender XO was making a round and happened to be in DC Central at the time that I called. As an ensign, I was chewing out a commander. I managed to obtain the services that my ship needed, but oops.

Ted Rockwell - Fukushima: It's Not About Radiation, It's About Tsunamis

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:20:00 +0000

This is a letter from my friend and mentor, Ted Rockwell, with some thoughts about the events at Fukushima Daiichi in the context of the incredible destruction on the northeast coast of Japan.

FUKUSHIMA: IT’S NOT ABOUT RADIATION, IT’S ABOUT TSUNAMIS
A lot of wrong lessons are being pushed on us, about the tragedy now unfolding in Japan. All the scare-talk about radiation is irrelevant. There is no radiation danger, there will be no radiation danger, regardless of how much reactor melting may occur. Radiation? Yes. Danger? No. Life evolved on, and adapted to, a much more radioactive planet, Our current natural radiation levels—worldwide—are below optimum. Statements that there is no safe level of radiation are an affront to science and to common sense. The radiation situation should be no worse than from the Three Mile Island (TMI) incident, where ten to twenty tons of the nuclear reactor melted down, slumped to the bottom of the reactor vessel, and initiated the dreaded China Syndrome, where the reactor core melts and burns its way into the earth. On the computers and movie screens of people who make a living “predicting” disasters, TMI is an unprecedented catastrophe. In the real world, the molten mass froze when it hit the colder reactor vessel, and stopped its downward journey at five-eights of an inch through the five-inch thick vessel wall. And there was no harm to people or the environment. None.

Yet in Japan, you have radiation zealots threatening to order people out of their homes, to wander, homeless and panic-stricken, through the battered countryside, to do what? All to avoid a radiation dose lower than what they would get from a ski trip.

The important point for nuclear power is that some of the nuclear plants were swept with a wall of seawater that may have instantly converted a multi-billion dollar asset into a multi-billion dollar problem. That’s bad news. But it’s not unique to nuclear power. If Fukushima were a computer chip factory, would we consider abandoning the electronic industry because it was not tsunami-proof? It would be ironic if American nuclear power were phased out as unsafe, without having ever killed or injured a single member of the public, to be replaced by coal, gas and oil, proven killers of tens of thousands each year.

Moreover, the extent and nature of the damage from seawater may be less than first implied. Rod Adams, a former nuclear submarine officer, who operated a nuclear power plant at sea for many years, says that inadvertent flooding of certain equipment with seawater was not uncommon. He includes electronics-laden missile tubes. “We flushed them out with fresh water,” he said. “Sometimes we had to replace insulation and other parts. But we could ultimately bring them back on line, working satisfactorily.”

The lessons from Japan involve tsunamis, not radiation.

Theodore Rockwell
Member, National Academy of Engineering

Dr. Rockwell’s classic 1956 handbook, The Reactor Shielding Design Manual, was recently made available on-line and as a DVD, by the U.S. Department of Energy.

John Horgan and Rod Adams talk about nuclear energy in the context of an enormous natural disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Some of you might remember the conversation that I had last summer with John Horgan, a writer for Scientific American and a regular participant on Bloggingheads.tv. He contacted me during the weekend, asking if there was any way we could set up a conversation so that he could get my take on the events happening to the nuclear plants in Japan. As a fairly typical, well educated New Yorker, John has been losing some of the comfort that he developed about nuclear technology following our conversation.

We got together on the morning of March 15, 2011. I hope you enjoy this one. At 65 minutes, it is long enough to overrun most lunch hours.

Why am I so adamant about the impressive performance of Japan's nuclear plants

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:19:00 +0000

You might be hard pressed to gather more than a handful of people who agree with me, even if you live in a place where there are a lot of nuclear professionals. I continue to be impressed by the way that Japan's nuclear plants - like all nuclear plants designed and built to standards that have been in place almost worldwide for more than 40 years - have been able to withstand the worst that nature can throw at them without harming anyone that is not inside the fence line.

I have not checked the news for about twelve hours, and I am sure that there will be some event or another that will have been breathlessly reported during that time. I remain confident in saying that there will be no significant releases of radioactive material outside of the plant boundaries even if one or more cores melts, even if a containment building is "breached", and even if the workers find it impossible to fill the cooling pools with additional water. That is not a statement meant to express a cavalier attitude. It is not meant to express complacency or to diminish the work that the heroes at the plant are doing.

Aside: Yes, for those who have been following me for the past few days, I am officially revising my opinion - the workers are heroes and not just admirable employees. I apologize for my earlier statement, but it was made a couple of days ago when I thought they would soon be establishing a less stressful routine condition. End Aside.

The workers at the plant are striving to prevent the worst possible event, but the worst possible event is just not all that consequential for anyone except the plant owner and the people who will have to pay higher power bills for many years due to the loss of low marginal cost generating capacity.

There are many reasons I can maintain confidence about that outcome in the face of a constant barrage of scare stories. First of all, I rarely watch television news and rarely pick up a newspaper to browse the front pages. I do not even listen to the radio very often. Many years ago, I discovered a whole world of information and news where I get to pick the stories I want to have on MY front page and where I can dig into stories that are important to people in the farthest reaches of the globe. I get to decide what information is important to me, so please do not ask me anything about goings on in Hollywood - I haven't a clue.

Secondly, I have had the great pleasure of getting to know Ted Rockwell, one of the most experienced, knowledgeable and down to earth engineers you would ever want to meet. One of the many gifts he has shared with me is a short, two page article that he and 10 of his most esteemed colleagues published in Science Magazine in the 20 September 2002 issue.

I am confessing to a crime here - I decided on Saturday, March 13 that everyone needed access to that article, even though it does not belong to me. The article, titled Nuclear Power Plants and Their Fuel as Terrorist Targets concisely describes the results of a convincing set of experiments that answer the question "what is the worst that can happen" to a light water reactor with a containment building in a realistic and rational way. Please read their article carefully and pay attention to the bottom line of the worst that can happen.

Even if containment had been severely breached, little radioactivity would have escaped. Few, if any, persons would have been harmed.

Please stop listening to all of those professional antinuclear activists who happen to have earned a PhD in particle physicists, disgraced former Department of Energy officials (like the one who lost his job because he was growing dozens of pot plants in his Takoma Park, MD basement), disgruntled former nuclear engineers who pad their resume, and other experts that the advertiser supported media has trotted out as nuclear "experts" as they spin their tall tales of what they think might go wrong.

Aside: I tried some time ago to obtain permission from Science to reprint it and was willing to pay, but their rules were so complex and time consuming I never got around to finishing the deal. If any Science editors are reading this, please give me the opportunity to pay for the privilege of sharing an otherwise obscure piece in a less complicated way. End Aside.

I also want to direct your attention to a fantastic, heartfelt article from one of the coolest young ladies I know - other than my own daughters, of course. Suzy Hobbs is the Executive Director of PopAtomic Studios, the daughter of a nuclear engineer and a terrific writer. She published a piece yesterday in Casa Cabrones, which is a blog that aims at people like her - people in their 20s who are deeply interested in the world around them and curious about how they can make it a better place. It is a "must read." Nuclear Energy. What We Need to Know, Now. It inspired me to respond with a more personal version of why I have taken some vacation from my day job this week to share my knowledge and confidence in the vital technology that so many have been taught only to fear.

Suzy - Your nuclear engineer father must be very proud of you. As the father of two young professional daughters, I can imagine how he must feel about your accomplishments and dedication.

I have had a similar reaction to the events in Japan for not unrelated reasons. My father was an electrical engineer who spent his career with the local power company. One of the things that is burned clearly into my memory was the fact that one day every month, Dad was still at home when we got up to eat breakfast. Instead of being in a coat and tie heading out at 6:00 am for a commute to Miami where he normally worked, he was in utility clothes and carrying his hard hat for "storm training", which took place in a much closer to home location.

Even though he was a white collar manager type, he was part of the "all hands on deck" team effort that characterizes the way that electric power companies respond to natural disasters that knock out power lines, generating stations, and connections to individual customers. My dad worked for one of the old fashioned "obligation to serve" monopolies that are still common throughout the southeast US. We lived in an area that was prone to hurricanes; at least twice during my youth I remember watching Dad leave our shuttered house almost as soon as the wind stopped blowing so that he could put in 18 hour days to restore access to one of the most vital commodities in our modern society.

Those experiences taught me the fundamental importance of electricity. I decided about half way through high school that I wanted to learn how to make power. With the help of many sessions with my Dad and his colleagues, I determined that the best way to do that was to study nuclear energy. I have spent the past 30 years doing just that.

One of the many things I learned along the way is that there are some very greedy and nasty people in the business of selling energy who do not think of their product in the same way that I do. They simply think of it as a great way to make money. They take advantage of the fact that people need energy and power so much that they will accept prices well above production costs and they will accept terrible environmental consequences.

They hate the fact that there is a better way - an almost unlimited power source that is clean enough to operate inside a submarine.

Too long. I think it is bordering on criminal behavior to focus attention on the nuclear plants whose damage in the face of a terrible disaster is contained within the plant while ignoring the effects of oil, coal and gas facilities that spew hazardous materials out of designed leaks called smokestacks even under normal circumstances.

As you did, I will choose not to focus on what has happened to those facilities in the earthquake and tsunami, but if anyone is curious, use your favorite search engine to find out. The stories are not on the front page and not leading the television news, but the Internet allows us all to create our own front page. This is a completely different and better world that when I was in college. Thirty two years ago, we had a core meltdown in Pennsylvania that did not harm a soul. Back then, when others controlled the front pages, the folks that hate competing with nuclear energy used fear, uncertainty and doubt and some surprising alliances with "the enemies of their enemy" to almost kill off the only real competition they have. They did that so that they could continue to dominate our economy and world politics.

Suggested search term "japan earthquake refinery fire".

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

Additional Reading

Dr. Robert Zubrin in The Corner on National Review (March 15, 2011) Anti-Nuclear Press Puts Japanese Lives at Risk

It is never safe to panic and it is wrong to appear uncertain when you know what to do

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:24:00 +0000

I have spent the past few hours sifting through conflicting news reports and commentary trying to find out if there is any reason at all to rethink my original prediction from Saturday, March 12 regarding the ultimate effect of damage to Japanese nuclear plants caused by an enormously powerful earthquake followed by a higher than expected tsunami. Based on the way that both the media and many of their invited experts are talking, I get the feeling that we are all supposed to be panicking. If we have loved ones anywhere near the area, we are supposed to fear that they are going to be harmed by radiation before we worry about whether or not they have food, shelter or clean water.

There have even been some "guests" who have entered the comment section here on Atomic Insights with almost gleeful reports of each challenge facing the plant operators and pointedly asking me if it is safe to panic yet. On almost every media site that I visit, I have to sift through reports about the explosions, fires, injuries and "many times above normal" radiation levels before I can find the reports about the lack of water, lack of food, lack of shelter, and the thousands of dead bodies. Some sites almost give the impression that those more pressing issues are somehow a result of the nuclear plant issues. Instead, what they should be making clear to their readers and viewers is that the challenges all share the same root cause, a very powerful movement of the tectonic plates.

I have not found any cause for alarm associated with the effects at the nuclear power plants. Even if my own son-in-law (a nuclear trained submarine officer) was at the plant, or even if my own daughter was on one of the ships providing assistance, I would not be worried about their health. I empathize with the difficult working conditions for the plant operators; I have spent a few hours (maybe it was days) in the dark, wearing protective clothing and breathing apparatuses in my time. They do not have an easy job, and their safety is not automatic. It appears to me, however, that they are doing a great job in creatively responding to the unexpected and taking care of protecting the plant.

Though many of my colleagues will disagree, I am reserving judgement on the ultimate, long term fate of the affected plants. I spent way too many years working with people who honestly believe that they can "fix anything" and having them prove it to me to feel comfortable in claiming any piece of machinery as being "beyond repair".

For example, though it cost more than initially expected, and took more time that some predicted, I know that the Navy was able to repair the USS San Francisco, a submarine that suffered a high speed collision with a sea mountain a few years back. I also know a bit about the recovery and repair efforts that put the USS Cole back to sea. (One classmate of my was the CO at the time of the attack and another was the project manager at the shipyard that did the restoration.)

Panic is not a useful response in the face of any calamity. Those who seem bent on inflaming it are causing real harm and negative health effects that are completely unjustified based on the facts in the case. Yes, there have been confusing reports. Yes, there has been some damage to things that we would have hoped would remain undamaged. Yes, there have been reports of detectable levels of radioactive materials. Yes, public officials, acting on the basis of unscientific advice or checklists have ordered unnecessary evacuations. However, there is no evidence that suggests that the quantities of radioactive releases have been sufficient to cause doses to any individuals in the public that are distinguishable from normal background variations. (Note: There are substantial and medically important differences among the terms dose, dose rate, and contamination.)

Some of the people who have come to my site for a visit have been quite insulting and have accused me of being arrogant because I refuse to express doubts and uncertainty about the long term effects of the incidents at the nuclear plants on human health and because I continue to tell people that nuclear related worries should fall to the very bottom of their priority list.

Aside: I do add a caveat to that advice for people that happen to be employed at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. If you are there and reading this - you are doing a find job. Now, stop reading, get a nice cold glass of water, have a snack, and then get back to work. End Aside.

It is not arrogance, however, to calmly share knowledge accumulated over many years that helps people to understand and prioritize. It is not arrogance to take the time to check with esteemed colleagues to verify facts and then share those facts widely and confidently.

Let me say it one more time. There is no need to worry about getting exposed to an unhealthy amount of radiation if you are outside of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station fence. If you are inside the fence, there are probably areas where you need to carefully apply the concept of "time, distance and shielding" to keep your total dose at a safe level. In the fullness of time, the plant owners will make some reasonable determinations on whether or not they should invest in an immediate clean-up and restoration effort, invest in a near term clean-up and decommissioning effort, or invest in a stabilization and entombment effort.

I suspect that the oldest and lowest capacity plants will not operate again. However, the calculus is complicated and best left to a calmer, more reflective time.

There is one more thing I can say without any qualms or doubts - the nuclear plants have once again proven that there is value in having a very dense energy source that can be surrounded by multiple layers of protection and provided with well trained, well paid, dedicated operators. There is no reason at all to delay or suspend world wide efforts to build and operate more nuclear fission power plants in order to enable modern, industrial society to reduce its consumption of coal, oil and natural gas.

Update: (March 15, 2011 0439) Apparently there are now "experts" who are trying to get people up in a tizzy about used fuel pools. I have exchanged private email with some friends who have operation experience at similar types of plants as those at Fukushima Daiichi. In their opinion, it is possible to keep used fuel pools cool enough by simply refilling them with water every once in a while. We talked about using fire hoses and one more numerically inclined contributor to the discussion said that a typical garden hose would provide a sufficient quantity of water in just a couple of hours each day.

The New York Times article titled In Stricken Fuel-Cooling Pools, a Danger for the Longer Term quoted some scary numbers from a 1987 Brookhaven National Laboratory study. I have read that paper; it began with an assumption that all of the fuel in a pool suddenly managed to turn into an airborne suspension (cloud) that then drifted over various populated areas. It never described any proposed mechanism for achieving that initial instantaneous vaporization of 30 feet of water plus a few hundred tons of solid material that is mostly uranium dioxide.

Additional Reading

This NPR story puts concerns about nuclear plant issues into a reasonable perspective. They are mentioned only in passing and more in terms of the way that worries are affecting stock prices. (There is little doubt that the nuclear plant issues will have an economic consequence, even though they will not have a negative health consequence.) Stunned Japan Struggles To Bind Its Wounds

Evelyn Mervine is currently a 5th-year PhD student in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. She will obtain her doctorate in Marine Geology & Geophysics (with a Geochemistry focus) sometime in 2011. She recently posted A Conversation with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan. (It turns out that Evelyn's dad and I are USNA classmates. As you will hear in the interviews, he knows a thing or two about nuclear power plants.)

PopAtomic produces useful training aid to explain Fukushima Daiichi to school children

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:40:00 +0000

Corrected copy (spelling): My friends at PopAtomic Studios recently posted this graphic as a resource for teachers and parents. Here is the credit provided:

It is important to explain the situation at Fukushima to children in a way that is not alarming. Please share this image with parents and teachers. Special thanks to the Student American Nuclear Society Chapter at the University of South Carolina, and photographer Christine Kennedy.

IMHO it might also be useful to share with your friendly neighborhood journalists and politicians.

Performance of old nuclear plants in Japan demonstrates why much of current regulatory structure is overkill

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:30:00 +0000

My thoughts and prayers are with the people in Japan as they struggle to first survive and then to begin rebuilding their lives.

Not surprisingly, people who are professionally invested in actions to slow or kill nuclear energy developments are working at a feverish pitch to try to spin reality around. They have been working overtime during the weekend to make uninformed people forget that an enormous earthquake and tsunami have devastated much of nation of Japan. Instead, they want people to focus on a series of breathlessly reported stories about mysterious explosions at nuclear power stations and on the fact that the operators at the nuclear plants are struggling - like many of their countrymen - in the face of a broken infrastructure that cannot supply reliable power.

I want to keep it short this morning to give people more time to focus on more important things, like how to help people find enough clean drinking water and food and, longer term, how to help the Japanese economy recover. The activities at the nuclear plants will continue, the well-trained operators will continue to do their jobs admirably (not heroically, because they are in no personal danger either), and the anti-nuclear professionals will continue to hope for the worst and continue to be disappointed.

If you want to understand more about why nuclear reactors can experience brief hydrogen explosions, I highly recommend that you read a recent post at Brave New Climate titled Further technical information on Fukushima reactors.

Bill Tucker, the author of Terrestrial Energy, also has a piece worth reading in the Wall Street Journal titled Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl (I am tempted to add a subtitle to that - I think it would be accurate to put it this way "Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl: Much to the Disappointment of Professional Anti-nuclear Activists")

I have also been participating in interesting conversations at Can U.S. Nuclear Plants Handle a Major Natural Disaster? and Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant - Aside: Can someone explain to me why Scientific American could not locate a more qualified nuclear operations expert than Peter Bradford? End Aside. It would be nice if some of you could come and join me to add a bit more perspective, information and sanity to the discussions.

I also think it is important to recognize the opportunity to explain to people why there will be no health consequences to the public from challenges at Japanese nuclear plants and why that prediction could confidently be made almost as soon as the earth stopped shaking, long before all of the details of the events began to unfold. This event should be understood and should certainly not lead to any additional uncertainty about whether or not it is a good idea to build as many new nuclear power stations as possible, even in places that occasionally shake, rattle and roll.

Because nuclear fuel is so energy dense, we can afford to wrap it up in numerous layers of engineered materials that protect the public even in the rare event of an earthquake that measures 9.0 on the Richter scale that is followed in close succession by a 30 foot high tsunami wave that wipes out emergency power supplies. We have known how to do that for a long time; even the 40 year old plants with 50-60 year old technology are coming through without harming the public. When nature throw all of that at you and the worst that happens is that you lose the services of a few industrial facilities for a while, you have a pretty darned resilient technology.

People who have been studying the lessons learned from the past have made some improvements in nuclear plant construction techniques. Newer plants in Japan are fairing better than older ones and the new plants that we will be building will be even more resilient. However, there is NO need for additional layers of regulation increased requirements that will simply add cost and make more dangerous natural gas more attractive for short term thinking energy executives.

Not that I want to gloat or anything, but can anyone tell me how the natural gas transmission and delivery infrastructure, the LNG reception infrastructure, and the oil refining infrastructure has weathered the natural disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011 in Japan? Has the fossil fuel industry managed to contain its hazardous and explosive material well enough so that it has not contaminated any areas outside of their gates and not hurt any member of the general public?

As you are watching all of the breathless tales about the unfolding nuclear plant issues that seem to be taking up about 50% of the coverage of the tragedy, notice how many times the stories are broken by advertisements from companies that sell natural gas, oil and coal. Think suspiciously about the flow of money that makes that inaccurate and emotionally charged coverage possible.

Additional Reading

Daily Mail Online (March 13, 2011) - Trains tossed around like discarded toys: Terrifying pictures reveal full horror of Japan's worst quake

Slate (March 4, 2011) Nuclear Overreactors (Highly recommended reading!)

Information Sheet Regarding the Tohoku Earthquake from Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:59:00 +0000

I received this information sheet. It is important to disseminate the facts that it contains as widely as possible. In the interest of making sure that the information transfer is successful, I have not edited it.

Information Sheet Regarding the Tohoku Earthquake

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) Washington DC Office

As of 4:30PM (EST), March 13, 2011

At 2:46PM (JST) on March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred near the Tohoku region of Northeast Japan. The epicenter of the earthquake lies 17 miles below the earth’s surface in the Pacific Ocean, 81 miles off the coast from Sendai City. Intense shaking could be felt from Tokyo to Kamaishi, an arc of roughly 360 miles.

The earthquake generated a tsunami with waves of more than 30 feet that caused widespread damage to a swath of the northeast Japan coastline. In addition to the significant destruction of buildings, infrastructure, and human property, two of Japan’s 17 nuclear power stations (sites)—Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini—suffered damage due to the tsunami. All three of the six operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and all four reactors at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station, both operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), shut down automatically in response to the earthquake. TEPCO is one of ten member companies of The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC).

A state of emergency was declared at Fukushima Daiichi at 7:03PM March 11. Unit 1 and 3 reactors at Fukushima Daiichi lost primary reactor cooling because of a loss of all electrical power. Emergency cooling systems were engaged to lower the core reactor temperature. In order to alleviate the buildup of pressure, slightly radioactive vapor, that posed no health threat, was passed through a filtration system and emitted outside via a ventilation stack from Unit 1 reactor vessel at 9:07AM on March 12 and Unit 3 reactor vessel at 9:20PM on March 13. At 3:36PM on March 12, an explosion occurred at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor damaging the roof of the secondary containment building. The explosion—caused by the interaction of hydrogen and oxygen vapor between the primary containment vessel and secondary containment building—did not damage the primary containment vessel or the reactor core. Four workers who were injured by the explosion were transported to a nearby hospital.

In order to control the pressure of the reactor core, TEPCO began to inject seawater and boric acid into the primary containment vessels of Unit 1 (8:20PM, March 12) and Unit 3 (1:12PM, March 13). There is likely some damage to the fuel rods contained the reactor core of Unit 1 and 3 reactors. The water level in the reactor vessel of Unit 2 reactor is steady. Personnel from TEPCO are closely monitoring the status of Unit 1, 2, and 3 reactors. The highest recorded radiation level at the Fukushima Daiichi site was 1557 micro sievert (1:52PM, March 13). The most recent reported level at Fukushima Daiichi is 44 micro sievert (7:33PM, March 13).

While representatives of the Japanese government have acknowledged the potential for partial meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 and 3 reactors, there is no danger for core explosion, as occurred at the nuclear power station at Chernobyl in 1986. Control rods have been successfully inserted at all of the reactors, thereby ending the chain reaction. The reactor cores at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini power stations are surrounded by steel and concrete containment vessels of 40 to 80 inches thick that are designed to contain radioactive materials.

At 7:45AM on March 12, a state of emergency was declared for Fukushima Daini. There is electricity available at all four of the reactors at Fukushima Daini, including Unit 3 reactor. Although there is limited availability of the cooling water pumps at Unit 1, 2, and 4 reactors, TEPCO is working effectively to maintain constant cooling in the primary containment vessels. TEPCO confirms that no radioactivity has been recorded outside of the secondary containment buildings at Fukushima Daini.

Two other plants in the Tohoku region, Onagawa Nuclear Power Station and Tokai Nuclear Power Station, were automatically shut down in response to the earthquake. The four reactors at these plants have functioning cooling systems and are being monitored by plant operators. The Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and accompanying facilities, located far north of the tsunami zone in Rokkasho Town, is operating safely on backup power generation systems. Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), which operates the Rokkasho facilities, drained a 600-liter spill from the containment pool for spent fuel through a specialized wastewater treatment system. Two casks of low-level nuclear waste (LLW), which were being prepared for transport from Mutsu Ogawara Port when the earthquake occurred, have been successfully received at the Rokkasho facility.

Japanese nuclear facilities are built to exacting safety standards. They are designed to withstand powerful seismic events, such as earthquakes. In this earthquake—the strongest recorded over the past 100 years in Japan—the containment structures of Fukushima Daiichi maintained their structural integrity. These facilities were designed to withstand tsunamis within a range of assumed strength. In this event, however, the force of the tsunami exceeded the assumed range and flooded diesel generators at Fukushima Daiichi power station, thus precipitating the loss of power for the reactor cooling systems.

In order to minimize adverse health effects of any potential radioactive release, the Japanese government issued an evacuation order at 9:23PM on March 11 for a radius of 1.86 miles around Fukushima Daiichi. By 6:25PM on March 12, the evacuation area has been enlarged to cover the approximately 70,000 residents within 12.5 miles of Fukushima Daiichi and 6.2 miles of Fukushima Daini.

In addition to supporting the evacuations near Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power stations, TEPCO is collaborating with the Japanese government to ensure the safety of the all people in the affected region. Iodine tablets, to counteract the effects of radioactivity on the thyroid gland, have been distributed to people at the boundary of the evacuation zone. Sophisticated radiation screening equipment has been mobilized to measure radiation exposure for people close to the evacuation area. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that as many as 160 people may have been exposed to radiation around the Fukushima Daiichi station. TEPCO and the Japanese government will continue to use their full professional and technological resources, as well as those offered by international organizations, to ensure the safety of those displaced by the earthquake and tsunami.

The automatic shutdown of the 11 operating reactors at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, Tokai Nuclear Power Station, Fukushima Daiichi and Daini, represents a loss of 3.5% of electric generation capacity for Japan. In addition, several thermal power stations were damaged in the earthquake and are currently under repairs. In order to compensate for this loss of electricity production, TEPCO has instituted rolling blackouts, information about which can be found on the TEPCO website. The Japanese government is also urging all residents in Japan to minimize their electricity use in order to support the relief and recovery effort in Tohoku.

FEPC, in cooperation with TEPCO and related organizations, will continue to work tirelessly to provide the public with the most accurate and timely information on the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power stations.

End of quoted information sheet.

Marv Fertel, President NEI, on Meet the Press regarding effects of Japan's earthquake on nuclear power plants

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:04:00 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sowing calm in the face of a focused campaign of FUD from professional anti-nuclear activists

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:15:00 +0000

My prayers and best wishes continue to go out to the people who are struggling to survive, to account for loved ones, to find shelter, and to begin dealing with the aftermath of the 5th most powerful earthquake recorded in human history.

My anger continues at the efforts to take advantage of the tragedy by professional anti-nuclear activists with long standing agendas to inhibit the development of the only form of reliable power that has the potential to break modern society's damaging addiction to hydrocarbons. It is incredible to me that there are people in the world who believe that the most important thing on the agenda of Japanese government officials at the present time is a continuous stream of updates regarding the events that are unfolding at a few nuclear power plants that are having some difficulty providing post shutdown cooling.

As I explained in yesterday's post titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries, the details should not be important to anyone outside of the plant boundaries. The systems are strong and resilient and the operators have a whole series of options that will ensure that the public does not get exposed to a dose of radiation that will cause negative health effects.

There might, however, be a nuclear plant or two that is damaged enough so that they will never again produce reliable, emission free power. So far, it looks like the only plant that has fallen into that category is Daiichi Unit 1, which has already served to reduce fossil fuel consumption for about 40 years. It is a relatively small plant that is the same age as some of the plants that anti-nuclear activists are working to shut down in the US even without having suffered from an earthquake and tsunami.

Just in case you missed the link, here is an article that forms the basis for my confidence that the worst possible damage at the plant will still not hurt the public. The article was published in the 20 September 2002 issue of Science Magazine and was titled Nuclear Power Plants and Their Fuel as Terrorist Targets. Please do not let the title put you off; the article was coauthored by 11 of the most experienced and respected nuclear experts in the United States in an attempt to explain how the defense in depth strategy in place since the 1950s has proven to work based on actual experiments and analysis.

Despite the efforts of calm, rational and knowledgable people like Margaret Harding, who has been quoted several times by the Washington Post and the New York Times because of her proven boiling water reactor expertise, and Dr. Barry Brook, the host of Brave New Climate, the advertiser supported media is still hopelessly confused and displaying a poor selection of priorities. Here is a screenshot that provides some back-up for that assertion. Take a look at the caption of the video clip to see how the headline writer is treating the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami.

According to the writer and editor who approved the summary, "An explosion at a nuclear power plant on Japan's devastated coast ... made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat menacing a nation." Apparently aftershocks, fires, broken dams, washed out highways, lack of clean drinking water, damaged sewer systems, destroyed airports, and at least a thousand known fatalities are not as much of a threat to the nation of Japan as the possibility that a few people might be exposed to a radiation dose that is roughly equivalent to the ones administered every day as part of routine medical procedures.

In the most active comment thread on any of the more than 1700 posts on Atomic Insights, I have received a number of atta-boys, but also a fair number of accusations that my efforts to calm fears and share technical information make me an "industry shill", an apologist, or a industry servant. I am none of those things; I am just a guy who suffers from bouts of insomnia, who invested a significant portion of the past 30 years learning and practicing various aspects of nuclear technology, and who has an overwhelming desire to provide a good return on the investment that the US taxpayers made in my nuclear education.

Apparently, there are a few people who think my comments were worth reading or recommending to others. Thank you all for visiting. The accompanying graph from Google Analytics shows what happened to the visit log at Atomic Insights yesterday.

Though I have never operated a reactor of the same model as Daiichi Unit 1, I understand how H2O interacts with steel and zirconium alloys and I have a pretty fair level of knowledge about the chemistry, physics, material science, thermodynamics, and engineering associated with all light water reactor plants. I feel it is my duty to try to help confused people better understand the stories and rumors they are hearing so that they can put the nuclear plant issues into some kind of broader perspective.

Unfortunately, some professional anti-nuclear activists who actually know very little about nuclear reactor plant operations are attempting to do just the opposite; they want to confuse people and make them believe that the nuclear issues should be at the top of their priority list of worries that keep them up late at night.

If you visit the UCS web site, you can find a featured video that highlights one of their star performers. In the first part of the video, you will see Rachel Madow make several glaring technical errors - which is okay, because she is just a journalist trying to understand a complex story - followed by Dr. Edwin Lyman's complete endorsement of everything she said. I can name a dozen or more people who read Atomic Insights that can claim more nuclear power plant operations expertise that someone whose main claim to fame is that they once earned a PhD in physics and subsequently used that degree as a weapon with which to fight against nuclear technology developments. I am also quite certain that many of you would do a better explanatory job on camera.

There are also plenty of Atomic Insights readers who have a greater claim to atomic expertise than a lawyer who was a politically appointed NRC commissioner when that body totally confused and scared the public following the Three Mile Island accident. Scientific American published an article yesterday titled Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant, but apparently the only two experts who were working on Saturday were a guy who "who did research on nuclear reactor accident simulation at Sandia National Laboratory" and Peter Bradford, the former NRC commissioner who serves on the board of the anti-nuclear UCS.

There is plenty of work that will need to be done in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in recorded human history. I look forward to continuing the effort to reassure confused spectators that building nuclear power plants, even in an occasionally unstable island nation, is absolutely the right thing to do, especially when compared to the alternatives.

Additional Reading

A view from an Australian living in Kawasaki, Japan - Why I am not worried about Japan's nuclear reactors

Suzy Hobbs with her always enlightening, human centered point of view - Now is the time to speak out in support of nuclear energy.

Christian Science Monitor (March 13, 2011), Japan's nuclear crisis and Chernobyl: key differences - Note: this is a very reasonable explanation of the situation.

Explosion at nuclear plant occurred in the secondary containment structure

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:44:00 +0000

Corrected with New Headline (Updated information and graphics on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 0440 EDT)

I am going to leave my original text below, so it does not look like I am using updated information to avoid responsibility. During a day of confusion, there were conflicting reports about the source of an explosion and cloud of white smoke at Daiichi Unit 1. I theorized that the explosion happened in the turbine building and came about as a result of earthquake induced leaks in the hydrogen cooling system that I suspect is used for the electrical generator.

As time progressed and the fog of coverage lifted, it became more clear that the building that was damaged was, indeed the reactor building and that the specific section of the building damaged was the secondary containment steel framed structure. The type of construction in that section is sheet metal attached to steel frame, those sheets can be blown off by a very small pressure differential between the inside and outside.

Here is a link to a New York Times photo that helps to illustrate the current state of the area identified by the red brackets in the included graphic. http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/03/13/world/13nuclear2.html You can find a detailed explanation of the damage to Daiichi Unit 1 at Events at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan

Bottom line - my guess was wrong, but the important part of the containment remains intact and continues to protect the public from any negative health effects as a result of any core damage that is occurring due to a lack of circulating cooling water.

Original text follows:

I initially posted the following as an update to the post titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries but have now decided to post this as an independent observation and expand a little bit on it. Here is what I posted at 11:20 am EST on March 12, 2011.

There have been reports of a hydrogen explosion and walls crumbling to expose a steel frame at what is described as an outbuilding at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Those reports triggered my memory of a hydrogen explosion that occurred at the Tampa Electric Company Gannon coal fired power plant on April 8, 1999.

In the Gannon Station case, the hydrogen for the explosion came from the cooling system for the very large electrical generator. Maintenance workers apparently did not ensure that the system was properly purged before opening it for maintenance.

My guess is that a similar generator cooling system was in use at Fukushima Daiichi. Considering the devastation that has occurred as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami, it would not be terribly surprising if the electrical generator cooling system developed some hydrogen leaks. From what I have read about the actions taken to cool down the nuclear fuel inside the reactor, which is inside a robust containment building, not a steel frame building, I am guessing that the explosion had nothing to do with the heat source that normally supplies the the steam to turn the turbines that turn that electrical generator.

I am quite willing to eat crow if it turns out I am wrong.

Since posting the above, I have watched the video of the explosion several times. It appears to confirm my guess; the explosion takes place in the background of the reactor buildings that are visible and there does not appear to be any damage to any of those reactor buildings.

When the video moves to a closeup, however, there is the potential for confusion because the reactor building to the far right is cut out of the picture leaving one to believe that the explosion might have occurred in the third of three visible reactor buildings.

Update: It looks like I might have been guessing wrong. About thirty seconds after I posted this blog, a friend passed a link to a photo clearly showing that the top of the reactor building had been damaged and exposed a steel frame.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/03/13/world/13nuclear2.html

The reports still indicate that the actual containment and reactor vessel are not damaged; the area at the top this kind of BWR is not part of the containment structure.

Anyone know a restaurant that serves edible crow? End Update.

Then I found the below discussion on CBS News that includes some additional video that seems somewhat deceptive. I have been to a number of nuclear power plants and looked at even more diagrams and drawings, but I have never seen any structures that look like the ones that seem to be burning at the 36 second mark in this video. Can anyone help me to identify these objects?

Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:03:00 +0000

Update (Added on March 18, 2011) There has been an incredible amount of coverage, fear mongering, and "worst case scenario" predicting. The Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission risked offending one of America's staunchest allies by recommending that all US citizens within 50 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant evacuate. The recommendations coming from such highly placed appointees have led to additional panic, more difficulty in delivering supplies and more people packing into shelters. However, the predictions in this post have so far been born out. Even with the worst that nature can throw, and without perfection in response efforts, and without any off site power for a week, there is still no indication that anyone outside the fence of the plant will be exposed to any radiation doses high enough to cause a negative health effect - even over the long term.

There are some workers who are in areas where the dose rates are high enough to require judicious use of the principles of time, distance and shielding and they are having to be rotated to keep their total doses under control. Though this might be dated information, the highest recorded dose that I have seen for anyone was a single worker who received 10 REM in the very early stages of the response effort. I have searched carefully without finding any reports of any higher doses than that.

Here is a link worth reading - Early Radiation Data From Near Plant Eases Health Fears I intend to add more as time goes on.

BBC New (March 18, 2011) - Power hopes rise at Japan plant

End Update. Original post follows.

My thoughts and prayers are with all of the people who are struggling to deal with one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. I have spent most of the past 24 hours trying to grasp the extent of the tragedy. It has been incredible to watch video replays that remind me of Hollywood movies that can best be enjoyed by employing the technique of "suspension of disbelief" that I learned while studying fiction story telling techniques. It is very difficult to imagine what it would be like to live in a comfortable, modern city one day and find it washed away within minutes. That wave could recede after having threatened your life, taken away all that you know and killed many people that you love.

There are fires at refineries, breaks in hydroelectric dams, explosions associated with natural gas systems, and massive quantities of contaminated land where the water overturned or damaged what were thousands of well designed containers full of hazardous materials. (For example, every automobile and truck that you see overturned by a wave contains a lead acid storage battery and tanks containing somewhere between 10-200 gallons of hydrocarbons. There is a 100% chance that some of that material has been released in an uncontrolled manner to the environment.)

The aftermath of this event will be a long and difficult clean up. Even in a well ordered and wealthy society like the one that exists in Japan, there will be places where physical evidence of the disaster will be detectable for decades. No one alive in Japan today will ever forget where they were on the afternoon of March 11, 2011. I can make those statements in such a positive manner because the record of recoveries from extensive natural disasters is as long as recorded human history; there is no reason to believe that this one will be substantially different.

What is incredible to me, however, is that there are many people who are focusing on the wrong thing and worrying about low consequence details of the damage that should only be a major concern for the people who are directly involved in accident response. I know it is hopelessly rational of me, but when faced with a confusing array of dangers, I have been trained to handle the ones most likely to hurt me or my loved ones first. Prioritization and triage are important tools in damage control; wasting resources on those aspects that are being well handled means you have less time and tools available to respond to the really pressing details.

There is at least one nuclear power plant that is apparently in danger of suffering long term damage. The operators are doing what they have been trained to do and working hard to keep their already shut down nuclear core covered with cooling water as the fission products decay away. Because they are in a place where all basic services have been cut off, getting electricity to their cooling water supply pumps is a serious challenge. As hospitals in Louisiana found out after Katrina, emergency diesel generators only supply power if you also manage to continue to deliver a sufficient supply of fuel to keep them running.

The almost certain scenario at all of the nuclear plants in Japan is that all of the hazardous material will be contained within the carefully engineered and constructed reactor pressure vessels and the surrounding containment building that were installed before the plants were ever started. During the course of events, there will almost certainly be a need for at least some of the the plant operators to carefully release non-condensible gases from their containment building. Some of those gases will be chemically inert "noble" gases that contain radioactive isotopes. No one will receive a high enough dose of radiation to cause any negative health effects.

I have no first hand knowledge of the specifics at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, or at the Fukushima Daini plant or any of the other plants that might experience similar challenges during the next few days. However, I spent a decade or so being trained and serving as an operator and department head for a nuclear power plant cooled by ordinary water (what we call "light water"). That deeply engrained experience helps me to have a pretty fair idea what must be going on at standard issue reactor plants constructed to international standards in the case where supplying even emergency electrical power is nearly impossible.

I have also studied the reports of the post accident material autopsies conducted at Three Mile Island Unit II in enough detail to be reasonably confident of my understanding of what might happen if the struggling operators are unable to power their cooling water pumps for an extended period of time.

Because standard water cooled nuclear reactors need to be supplied with more water as fission products decay and they cool down, their fuel can be damaged if the water is not delivered. Without water, even the ceramic fuel pellets that can withstand extremely high temperatures can melt. However, the fact that even moderately well trained nuclear specialists may not fully grasp is that the melted fuel is only generating enough heat to melt itself; it is not generating sufficient heat to melt through the thick steel pressure vessel where it resides.

At TMI, the widely predicted and discussed "China Syndrome" did not happen, even though 20-30% of the core melted and slumped to the bottom of the pressure vessel. That melted corium froze again once it contacted the thick metal walls - the maximum measured penetration was just 5/8ths of an inch. Anyone who has ever watched as welder employs a torch to cut through a thick steel wall will understand just how much concentrated power it takes to melt several inches of steel. Avoiding the China Syndrome was not a matter of luck - the scenario is imaginary and only works in fiction. Physics and material science make it impossible.

The plant's containment dome will be contaminated as a result of being the reception location for the steam that boils away while the operators are trying to restore cooling flow. That water will have contacted the core and will contain some of the core material as the cladding gets overheated and damaged.

Radiation levels inside the containment will be many times higher than usual, but that is okay because no one needs routine access inside containment buildings and no humans will be over exposed. The containment walls, reactor coolant piping, and other equipment inside the containment building will condense and capture much of the radioactive materials that are entrained in the water. Other than those vented noble gases mentioned above, essentially nothing will be released to the environment.

If you do not believe me, please read the compact, two page article that was published in the 20 September 2002 issue of Science Magazine titled Nuclear Power Plants and Their Fuel as Terrorist Targets. That article, jointly written by 11 of the most eminent nuclear specialists in the United States clearly lays out the possible consequences of the worst possible damage that can occur at a light water reactor with a containment dome licensed to "Western" standards.

Though technically incompetent professional fear mongers like Harvey Wasserman and Congressman Edward Markey will do their best to use the Japanese tsunami as another arrow in their quiver of antinuclear propaganda, the aftermath will show that all of the hype and fear will signify nothing. There may well be some damage at the plant, but the damage will be contained as a result of the defense in depth strategy that is enabled in nuclear power plants because of the exceedingly compact nature of the fuel material. Since nuclear fuel is so compact and so inexpensive, we can afford to surround it with several protective layers and still produce power plants whose output is affordable and normally very reliable.

From a nuclear power plant point of view only, the worst long term effect of the earthquake will be the fact that there might be a dozen or so plants that remain shutdown for an extended period of time. Because there is so much fear associated with radioactive materials, the standards set for inspection before restarting the plants is quite high. Based on the experience of the less consequential earthquake that affected the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear station on 16 July 2007 it may take a couple of years before plants that were shaken by the 11 March 2011 quake are allowed to start up and begin supplying customer needs. At Kashiwazaki-Kariwa only three of seven plants had been started up by June 2010, three years after an earthquake did not substantially damage them. It takes a long time to inspect the large quantities of piping and equipment associated with large nuclear power plants to the exacting standards applied.

As the Japanese economy recovers from the quake and power customers get their supplying wires restored, the demand for power will be met by importing more fuel oil, importing more Liquified Natural Gas and importing more coal.

Those additional demands on an already stressed fossil fuel market will cause world wide prices to be even higher than they would have been. There are already investors who are working hard to figure out how to play that very predictable consequence of the accident for their own gain. If you do not believe that statement, I recommend reading Bloomberg's March 11, 2011 article titled Japan’s Post-Quake Energy Import Surge Will Boost Reliance.

Only after putting you through the experience of reading the above do I feel good about sharing a completely different and breathless kind of report from a journalist who makes a number of technically incorrect statements in an attempt to tell a story that he just does not understand, but which he and his producers think will attract viewers so they will watch the commercials that keep his employer in the black. Watch the below at your own risk - it is designed to scare you and to provide the same kind of entertainment that some pay for when they watch badly scripted disaster movies.

Update: (March 12, 2011 11:20 am EST) There have been reports of a hydrogen explosion and walls crumbling to expose a steel frame at what is described as an outbuilding at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Those reports triggered my memory of a hydrogen explosion that occurred at the Tampa Electric Company Gannon coal fired power plant on April 8, 1999.

In the Gannon Station case, the hydrogen for the explosion came from the cooling system for the very large electrical generator. Maintenance workers apparently did not ensure that the system was properly purged before opening it for maintenance.

My guess is that a similar generator cooling system was in use at Fukushima Daiichi. Considering the devastation that has occurred as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami, it would not be terribly surprising if the electrical generator cooling system developed some hydrogen leaks. From what I have read about the actions taken to cool down the nuclear fuel inside the reactor, which is inside a robust containment building, not a steel frame building, I am guessing that the explosion had nothing to do with the heat source that normally supplies the the steam to turn the turbines that turn that electrical generator.

I am quite willing to eat crow if it turns out I am wrong.

Update: (March 18 7:20 PM) I did have to eat some crow on this analysis. The exact source of the H2 explosion is not known, but it was not in the turbine building and not associated with the electrical generator. End Update:

Additional Reading

ANS Nuclear Cafe Tsunami updates

Brave New Climate discussion thread Japanese nuclear reactors and the 11 March 2011 earthquake

World Nuclear News (March 12, 2011) Battle to stabilise earthquake reactors (This article is being updated as events unfold.)

Atomic Engines for Peace - Circa 1946

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:41:00 +0000

(Picture is a link to 1.5 MB PDF)

Yesterday, two different readers of Atomic Insights shared gifts of knowledge with me. One of those gifts was a book titled "Power Plant Cost Escalation" published in the same year that I graduated from college; digesting that will take a few days. The other, however, was something that was so cool that I just had to share it with as many people as possible as quickly as I could manage.

In 1993, I founded a tiny company called Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. with the (admittedly grandiose) idea that I would help to save the world - and make a ton of money - by developing small atomic power plants that could push ships, supply power to remote areas, and perhaps even propel locomotives. For a variety of reasons, that company never achieved any kind of commercial success; we never completed a machine and never sold any of our designs.

Until yesterday, however, I never knew that we were pursuing an idea that had been conceived with great optimism in 1946, the year my father left the Navy and the year before he started college on the GI bill. If you click on the picture, it will take you to a pretty detailed description of the kinds of technology that remain possible using atomic fission. It even mentions the basic concept technology on which I wanted to build Adams Engines in the following passage:

Some possible methods of using heat are shown in the illustrations. The hot water could be used to heat boilers which then feed steam turbines which in turn drive electric generators. Or air could be heated and, in expanding, drive a low pressure hot-air turbine. Or the heat could be used directly for drying processes or for room heating, or in short, in any way in which heat can be used.
(Mechanix Illustrated, March 1946 pg 46-47)

Note: Adams Engines actually use nitrogen (N2) gas instead of air, but the concept is almost exactly the same. After all, air is 80% N2.

That passage should inspire all of those people who recognize that one of the biggest challenges facing our world today is charting a course that will allow modern society to flourish without burning as much coal, oil and gas as we do today. Though it is a bit of a simplification, nearly every bit of each of those fuels consumed every day is burned to produce heat, which is the same product that is produced in a fission based energy system. Fossil fuels and nuclear fuels are competitive alternatives in creating a fungible and widely used product. Using more fission leads to using less combustion.

It does not matter why you think we need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. If your motivation is a cleaner environment, you should recognize that burning fossil fuels produces a lot of residue, some of which is poisonous and some of which is just plain dirty. If your motivation is the recognition that spending many hundreds of billions of dollars every year is putting a lot of money into the hands of some unsavory people, you should recognize that slowing the flow of money is worth some effort.

If you think that the world needs to avoid the conflicts associated with limitations on fossil fuel supplies, you should recognize that using less fossil fuel by replacing some use with atomic fission based heat will lead to more peace because abundant resources are not worth fighting about. Finally, if your motivation is to think about future generations, you should recognize that one of the best legacies that any generation can provide for the next is to develop new knowledge and new technology that can be later improved.

Of course, if you insist that we must keep burning fossil fuels as fast as possible because your livelihood depends on continued growth in that industry, you and I are simply going to have to disagree and - figuratively, of course - duke it out.

NRC Will Issue License Renewal for Vermont Yankee

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:56:00 +0000

I recommend a visit to both Yes Vermont Yankee and Idaho Samizdat for details, but I wanted to let you all know that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to renew the operating license for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant for another 20 years. The extension will last through 2032; the NRC has determined that Entergy "meets all of our requirements and standards needed to be able to operate for another 20 years."

It would be completely illogical, but not beyond the realm of possibility, for the state of Vermont to decide that the plant has not earned a certificate of public good. How can anyone possibly state that a well-maintained, reliable, emission free electrical power station that can provide more than 80% of the electricity used by the entire state every year is not a "public good"? (I would be happy to debate, with numbers and references, anyone who disputes my characterization of the plant.)

Exelon CEO Thinks Electricity is Cheap and Clean Enough Already - Sees No Need to Encourage New Supply

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:48:00 +0000

NASDAQ.com published a Dow Jones news wire story about a recent talk given by John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, to the American Enterprise Institute. The article headline is Exelon CEO: No New US Laws Needed To Shift To Cleaner Energy, and indicates a rather significant course change for a man who has been one of the most active CEOs in Washington politics for the past several years. Though he has worked diligently for nearly ten years to convince Congress to pass a cap and trade bill - while telling investors how the bill would add close to a billion dollars per year in revenue for his nearly emission free company - he now believes that the market is doing just fine. Here is a quote:

"Unlike most people who come to Washington, in my post-carbon-bandit outfit, I am not here to ask Congress for anything; in fact, I'm asking that Congress do nothing," Rowe said during a speech Tuesday morning at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

"Electricity," he said, "like horse racing, gambling and prostitution in Nevada is too much fun to leave to the market." But Rowe said government mandates should broadly frame the markets and leave the actual outcomes (to) commerce. Natural gas has already "jumpstarted" the U.S.'s transition to cleaner energy and will continue to drive it.

I recognize that Mr. Rowe was just trying to be amusing, but I find it incredible that a man in charge of one of the largest electric power generating companies in the United States puts his vital product in the same category as vices that are not tools for any other productive enterprise in the country. Electricity is too important to leave to the market. People who are only motivated by short term gains make really lousy decisions about systems that require the ability to focus on both the here and now and the ability to maintain a vision for the future.

Despite the fact that Rowe is often touted as a leader in the nuclear industry and runs a company that is a prominent member of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's primary trade and lobby group, he came down in strong opposition to strengthening the loan guarantee program, one of its primary legislative goals.

Rowe said that Congress should not expand the nuclear loan-guarantee program and should maintain it at $18.5 billion.

I am positive that he will be quoted and re-quoted by the professional opposition to nuclear energy. They love it when someone who is supposedly an industry insider indicates his reluctance to build new facilities. His opposition to increasing the authorized size of the loan guarantee program might confuse some people, but it makes more sense if you understand how markets work. Rowe's company is not in line for any loan guarantees to assist new plant construction because he has determined that there is already too much supply in the market.

The sufficient supply of electricity is driving down prices and hurting his company's profits since its operating costs have already been driven down as low as reasonably achievable by cutting staff.

New natural-gas plants or plants converted from coal to gas are the cheapest option for producing cleaner megawatts of energy, Rowe said. Building new nuclear plants, or those involving carbon capture and sequestration "are not economic" because of low gas prices, excess generating capacity and low growth in demand, he said. Nor are wind and solar options economic, he said. All these options cost more than $100 a megwatt hour of energy versus $70 a megawatt hour for gas, Rowe said.
(Emphasis added.)

Zion Nuclear Power Plant

In fact, Rowe is so convinced that there is too much supply that he is doing just the opposite of building new plants. His company is actively destroying the 2100 MWe Zion Nuclear Power Plant, an emission free power source that could be restored at a price that is about 20% of the price of building a new plant with similar capacity.

Rowe and his team are so focused on limiting the supply of electricity to drive up prices and near term profit margins that they are ignoring their fiduciary responsibility to long term shareholders. They are actively destroying an asset based on old financial models without recognizing a substantial future opportunity. In coming years, energy production systems that can qualify as "clean" might be even more highly valued if they can meet the standards that are being proposed. Those standards cast a wider net and recognize the contributions of various forms of technology that can all substantially reduce emissions. Many observers believe that the broader classification is more politically acceptable and might even be able to be passed into law.

Even though they are currently helping to avoid the dumping of more than 650 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, existing US nuclear plants will not qualify for the standard because they would not reduce the US's overall emission of CO2 - their clean production is already included in our total. However, "qualified nuclear energy" is a different story.

Under the title of Federal Clean Energy Standard that was proposed in the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2010, "qualified nuclear energy" is defined as "energy from a nuclear generating unit placed in service on or after the date of enactment of this section."

Since Zion was shutdown in 1998 and its operating license was returned to the NRC, it is impossible to classify it as a nuclear plant that is in service today. A restored and relicensed Zion Nuclear Power Plant would would certainly "be placed into service" after the passage of the act and meet the definition of "qualified nuclear energy". The Clean Energy Standard Act of 2010 was never passed, but who knows what the future will bring? There is no rush and no regulatory requirement that forces Exelon to destroy Zion now, especially when a little patience might bring some significant long-term rewards.

In my correspondence with representatives of the company, Exelon continues to maintain that the plant restoration is "not economical" and also implies that there is no precedent for getting it relicensed. On February 22, 2011, the NRC hosted a public meeting on the Zion Decommissioning Project to reassure the public that the process would be done safely. Nancy Thorner, the lady leading a one woman crusade to restore the plant, attended the meeting and took the opportunity to speak directly to NRC employees.

The employees she spoke to carefully pointed out that the decision to decommission the plant was Exelon's, not the NRC's. Their role in the process is to ensure that the decommissioning is done safely. In response to a question about the feasibility of obtaining a new license, if the plant was restored, the regulator acknowledged that the agency could allow a refurbished Zion to be relicensed, "with the condition that all safety measures would first be met".

Even without my understanding of the proposed Clean Energy Standard, I have long favored a serious reevaluation of the proprietary economic model that has been used to justify the destruction of what could be a valuable, productive asset. The idea that a well-built nuclear energy facility should be taken apart after just 22 years of operation offends the conservation philosophy of "waste not, want not" that was instilled by my Depression Era parents.

Knowing that the primary reason it was shut down in the first place was to establish management dominance over a recalcitrant union offends the liberal, worker supportive philosophy that I developed during many years of working with sailors and manufacturing employees along with remembering the influence of my mother, aunts and uncles who were all public school teachers and members of the teacher's union.

Knowing that Zion remains shutdown because the plant owner has determined that selling affordable, emission free electricity is only as valuable to society as "horse racing, gambling and prostitution in Nevada" and should just be a fun, money-making venture simply offends me.

McMurdo veterans' cancers FAR more likely to be caused by cigarettes that by Nukey-poo

noreply@blogger.com (Rod Adams) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:29:00 +0000

PM-3A McMurdo Station

Note: (This story corrected on March 8, 2011)

The world's ignorance regarding the health effects of radiation is occasionally incredible. I just came across a story from New Zealand titled Health fears around polar nuke leak that attempted to implicate the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's PM-3A, a small nuclear plant that supplied heat and electricity to McMurdo Station in Antarctica during the period from 1964-1973, as the root cause of death for a man who passed away in 2010.

Let me put this into perspective - the Navy completed its removal and cleanup of PM-3A from the McMurdo Station in Antarctica in 1979. That while I was still in college; I am now a 51 year old grandfather. I have a copy of the final report from the removal; it provides details of the results of the intensive sampling conducted both during operation and after removal. There is no way that the sailor's disease was caused by exposure to radiation from that plant.

I devoted an entire issue of the original Atomic Insights to the PM-3A that powered McMurdo. The article about the removal operation was titled How clean is clean? Blasting out frozen soil.

Apparently, the old sailor who passed away could not deal with the fact that many people in his generation - and in every generation - will die from cancer. He apparently spent a lot of time trying to convince the VA that it was the nuclear plant at McMurdo that must have caused his cancer.

That disease is responsible for about 30% of all human fatalities each year. It would not be surprising for people who served in remote stations while in the armed forces during the period from the 1940s-1990s to notice that their service buddies seemed to be affected at a higher rate than the general public. That particular segment of the population had a very high portion of cigarette smokers.

That was an era when cigarettes were added to ration kits, when they were sold in commissaries for low, tax free prices, when one of the few sources of relief from the stresses of boot camp came when the platoon leader said "smoke if you got em", and when cigarettes were a reliable form of barter.

Things were different by the middle of my navy career, but I will never forget the experience of attending training sessions in the crew's mess of a submerged submarine in the early 1980s and having the ash tray on the table be filled to overflowing by the end of the hour long session. It is not terribly surprising that some medical professionals might mistake the type of cancer caused by smoking for the types of cancer attributed to high doses of radiation - heavy smokers can be guilty of giving themselves internal radiation doses far in excess of what would be allowed for a radiation worker.

Corrected: (March 8, 2011) A retired Radioman Chief Petty Officer who served at McMurdo Station during three winters contacted me to inform me that I was mistaken when I referred to the PM-3A an Army plant. All of his officers in charge were Naval officers, he was in the Navy and most of the operators were in the Navy. I did some additional research.

The PM-3A was built for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by the Martin Company as a part of a branch that provided engineering support for the Department of Defense. The branch is often better known as the Army Nuclear Power Program, but it built reactors for other services when they needed systems similar to those used by the Army. PM-3A was a Navy project funded by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFACENGCOM), which had responsibility for providing shore based power to the research stations in Antarctica. It was not a ship propulsion plant and not assigned to the Naval Sea Systems Command nuclear power branch (NAVSEA-08) that is better known as Naval Reactors.