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Speaking at the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said U.S. Air Force planes were carrying "some really important coolant" to the site, but administration officials later said she misspoke. The U.S. offered to send Japan coolant to help with the reactor but the Japanese declined, saying they already had the necessary supplies, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
This is one of those wait and see situations. These reactors have redundant systems. According to the Yahoo article the secondary backup system has partially failed. they still have an emergency system but that apparently is only for short term because it has lower capacity.
Scram the reactor, drop the rods and the carbon core (or whatever material was used) will absorb the radioactive Neutron emissions, and drop the temperature.
Decay heat. Even if the reaction is stopped, the fission products in the fuel elements will continue to emit radiation and that will generate heat. It drops off quickly, but it's not insignificant. (Looked it up. About 7% of the reactor's power at the moment of shutdown. That's actually more than I thought.)
If there's no coolant circulating, that's a lot of heat, and it has to go somewhere.
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Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Decay heat. Even if the reaction is stopped, the fission products in the fuel elements will continue to emit radiation and that will generate heat. It drops off quickly, but it's not insignificant. (Looked it up. About 7% of the reactor's power at the moment of shutdown. That's actually more than I thought.)
If there's no coolant circulating, that's a lot of heat, and it has to go somewhere.
Correct - the plant is already shutdown. The decay heat is now the concern and must be removed. There are a number of redundant systems that can do this, and it is not clear which option they are currently using.
The odds of this becoming a serious safety threat is most likely low.
Oh my..this is not good. Even if they say "slightly radioactive".
That sounds like " a little bit pregnant". And not to worry...radioactive vapor will not effect the environment or humans ?
Like the BP spill didn't effect sea life in the Gulf ?
Japan to release of radioactive vapor at nuke pant - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_quake_power_plant - broken link)
"Japan's nuclear safety agency says pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
The agency said the radioactive element in the vapor that will be released would not affect the environment or human health."
look at the wind currents and the jetstream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
drudge has a link to kyodonews of '1000x normal' radiation at the fukushima plant, so maybe the release has begun. can't access the link right now though.
drudge has a link to kyodonews of '1000x normal' radiation at the fukushima plant, so maybe the release has begun. can't access the link right now though.
Here's a BBC link..they think there might be a leak.
If not cooled down could cause a meltdown. Live updates on the feed in the left column. The aftershocks are even bigger than the main quake was.
Great, this will be twisted and amplified to be used by the "no nuclear power" crowd.
Maybe they'll make a new Stalker expansion pack.
No kidding. I have about 25K invested in nuke energy alone If this goes out of control, everyone knows how the market will react.
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If this goes out of control, everyone knows how the market will react.
