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Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant Radiation Issues

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What you must know about the Japanese earthquake and its radiation potential

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The Honshu, Japan Earthquake and Chronic Radiation Dangers and Continuing Repairs

Mar 19, 2011

by JSMaresca
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

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The Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant- The Continuing Radiation Dangers and Repair Efforts
By : Dr. Joseph S. Maresca

The recent 8. 9 earthquake in Honshu, Japan precipitated
a considerable nuclear power crisis.   Following the earthquake,
the nuclear reactors shut down. The cooling systems failed allowing
the reactor core to overheat. The tremendous heat lead to explosions
which did considerable damage to the building physical site and
portions of the containment systems which preclude radioactive
materials from escaping into the open air. Some material has escaped
into the atmosphere and the challenge is to minimize the level
of the nuclear contaminants. Ponds containing used fuel rods
overheated and lead to further contamination.

The fuel rods first emit hydrogen gas when exposed to the air.
This gas causes an explosion in the side of the reactor building itself.
Uncontrolled, the rods continue to overheat releasing more
radioactive gas into the open air. If the rods melt, dangerous quantities
of radioactivity are released. The radiation releases, if uncontrolled,
could approach Chernobyl levels of radiation. Helicopters in the region
continue to dump water onto the involved reactors to cool down the
rods at the core. Levels of radiation have increased incrementally and
our State Department has advised citizens to stay at least 50 miles or
more away from the site.

When a nuclear plant is next to a large volume of water (big river, lake or sea),
cooling can be achieved by simply running water through the plant and discharging
it at a slightly higher temperature. There is then hardly any use in the sense of consumption
or depletion on site, though some evaporation will occur as it cools downstream.
The amount of water required will be greater than with the recirculating set-up, but the
water is withdrawn and returned, not consumed by evaporation. In the UK the water
withrawal requirement for a 1600 MWe nuclear unit is about 90 cubic metres
per second (7.8 GL/d).

Many nuclear power plants have once-through cooling, since their location is not at all
determined by the source of the fuel, and depends first on where the power is needed
and secondly on water availability for cooling. Using seawater means that higher-grade
materials must be used to prevent corrosion, but cooling is often more efficient.
In a 2008 French government study, siting an EPR on a river instead of the coast
would decrease its output by 0.9% and increase the kWh cost by 3%.

Any nuclear or coal-fired plant that is normally cooled by drawing water from a river or lake
will have limits imposed on the temperature of the returned water (typically 30°C) and/or on the
temperature differential between inlet and discharge. In hot summer conditions even the inlet
water from a river may approach the limit set for discharge, and this will mean that the plant
is unable to run at full power. In mid 2010 TVA had to reduce power at its three Browns Ferry
units in Alabama to 50% in order to keep river water temperatures below 32°C, at a cost of
some $50 million to customers. This was the same week when Rhine and Neckar River temperatures
in Baden-Wuerttemberg approached the critical 28°C, and nuclear and coal-fired plants were
threatened with closure.       1) thru 13)

Sometimes a supplementary cooling tower is used to help, giving a dual system, as with
TVA's Browns Ferry and Sequoyah plants in USA, many inland plants in France and Germany,
and at the Huntly plant in New Zealand, but this means that some water is then lost by evaporation.
In mid 2010, Brown's Ferry situation mentioned above, the six "seasonal" mechanical -draft cooling
towers 18-24 m high were operating at full capacity and had been for most of the summer.
TVA will spend $160 million to add one larger (c 50 m) mechanical-draft cooling tower
there by mid 2011 and then progressively replace four existing ones with improved designs shortly afterward .

Fukushima Daiichi is in crisis; however, new power lines and workers
may offer a glimmer of hope. Firefighting vehicles have been dispensed
to the site to replenish water spent in the fuel pool. According to reports,
Unit 3 hasn't stabilized yet. The new power lines are designed to revive
electric powered pumps to supply a steady water supply to the troubled
reactors and depleted fuel pools. The now famous Fukushima 50 remain
onsite- perhaps doomed to death by radioactive poisoning. The only
possible remedy might be antioxidant cocktails having levels of
Vitamin C and other antioxidants far in excess of normal doses.

The Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant problems were due to the
earthquake. In contrast, Chernobyl was a man-made problem.
Workers at Chernobyl were running a test to establish
coping mechanisms in order to handle the shutdown of the
cooling system. The test failed precipitating a gross and
uncontrolled power surge which blew the roof off the reactor
vessel and building. This explosion resulted in the reactor
core being exposed which resulted in radioactive material
leaking into the atmosphere uncontrolled. With today's technology,
Artificial Intelligence and Advice Giving Systems may be utilized
to draw upon a community of experts in order to minimize
cooling system problems and uncontrolled power surges.
A search of USPTO Patents will produce additional methods to
deal with coolant system problems and uncontrolled power surges
at nuclear power plants.

Another important difference from Chernobyl involves the
automatic shutdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Plant when the
earthquake commences. This shutdown mechanism will be
triggered by sophisticated motion sensors which track
earth movements and halt plant operations in a relatively
short period of time. Once the coolant begins to overheat, the
plant shuts down without human intervention. 14)

The problems at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant imply the need
for the following types of enhancements:

o Redundant water , cooler systems and uninterruptible power sources

o The use of artificial intelligence and advice giving systems to
articulate cooling system problems and uncontrolled power surge events.

o Locating new plants away from earthquake fault lines.

o The use of Unmanned Monitoring Devices to establish baseline profiles for tremor activity.

o A comprehensive , tested and updated Contingency Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan for nuclear power plant
operational continuity and de-activation in an emergency

o The "Artificial Sun" Fusion Power Plant may be the longer term solution.

o Robots and unmanned probing devices may reduce the level of human intervention
needed at contaminated sites in the not-too-distant future.

An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale jolted near the east coast of Honshu, Japan 1:13 p.m.
local time (0413 GMT) on Thursday, 3-17- 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter, with a depth of
25.3 km, was initially determined to be at 40.19 degrees north latitude and 142.20 degrees east longitude.
The quake is 271 km east of Fukushima, where the Fukushima nuclear power plant was damaged
by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake last Friday.    15)

The nuclear energy industry and chemical process industry are the leading users of
zirconium and hafnium. Zirconium is explosive at 2000F and emits hydrogen gas .
Chromite and olivine can be used instead of Zircon for some foundry applications.
Dolamite and spinel refractories can substitute for Zircon in certain high temperature
applications. Columbium (niobium) , tantalum and stainless steel provide limited
substitution for zirconium alloys in nuclear applications. Titanium alloys and
synthetic materials may substitute for Zirconium alloys in some chemical plant uses.
Zirconium can be used interchangeably with hafnium in certain superalloys.    16)

On June 26, 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, the nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical
output of 5 MW was connected to the power grid. The world's first nuclear power plant
generated electricity for commercial use. On August 27, 1956 the first commercial nuclear power plant,
Calder Hall 1, England, with a net electrical output of 50 MW was connected to the national grid.

As of Jan 19, 2011 in 30 countries, 442 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity
of about 375 GW are in operation and 65 plants with an installed capacity of 63 GW are in
16 countries under construction.

As of end 2009 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 64,600 billion kWh.
The cumulative operating experience amounted to 14,174 years by September 2010.    17 )

References:
1) UK Environment Agency, 2010, Cooling Water Options for the New Generation of Nuclear Power Stations in the UK.
2) EPRI 2002, Water and Sustainability (volume 3): US Water Consumption for Power production - the next half century, EPRI Technical Report
3) DOE/NETL 2006: Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements, DOE/NETL-2006/1235
4) DOE/NETL 2008: Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements, update, DOE/NETL-400/2008/1339
5) DOE/NETL 2009: Water Requirements for Existing and Emerging Thermoelectric Plant Technologies, DOE/NETL-402/080108
6) EPRI 2008, Water Use in Electric Power Generation, EPRI Report 1014026.
7) EPRI 2011, National Cost Estimate for Retrofit of U.S. Power Plants with
Closed Cycle Cooling, EPRI Technical Brief 1022212;
and Closed Cycle Retrofit Study: Capital and Performance Cost Estimates,
EPRI Technical Report 1022491.

8) DOE/NETL August 2010, Water Vulnerabilities for Existing Coal-Fired Power Plants, report 1429.
9) DOE/INL 2010, Cooling Water Issues and Opportunities at US Nuclear Power Plants, Oct 2010, INL/EXT-10-2028.
10) OECD Projected Costs of Generating Electricity 2010,
11) Nuclear Engineering Handbook 2010
12) ESAA, Electricity Gas Australia 2010
13) http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/cooling_power_plants_inf121.html
14) Why Fukushima Daiichi Won't Be Another Chernobyl,
     Michael Marshall, New Scientist Physics and Math
15) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/17/c_13783698.htm
16) http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commo...irconium/zircomcs07.pdf
17) http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia...er-plant-world-wide.htm