MaxedOutMama
Monday, March 28, 2011
Just Some Odds and Ends
Update: Yup, they found it. Plutonium. In the soil, must have come from the spent, exploded, fuel pond over reactor 3. This testing was announced a few days ago and was being done by an outside agency (the testing). That's a very hot site they have there. See Kyodo News. End update.
The whole trench water deal is not surprising. It would be more surprising if there wasn't contaminated water on site given everything that has happened and the need to douse the fuel pools with massive quantities of water. Will Davis.
You wouldn't want to put the very highly contaminated basement water in the ocean, but most the trench water is less contaminated. Given the overall situation, if speed forces pumping some of that into the ocean it might be the best option. People get a little neurotic about radiation; what you just can't do in normal chronic operations is acceptable in an emergency as a very short-term solution. Sure, if you have another quick, feasible solution, use it. But this stuff is going to dilute very rapidly in seawater. (Testing offshore.)
There is not a ton of news coming out, so I suppose they are trying to -- reconsolidate and plan.
JAIF has a summary of some of the major issues.
The Japanese are doing a plutonium survey of the area surrounding the plant. This is probably because they got better video on 3 and some heavy equipment seems to be in the spent fuel rod pool, so damaged fuel rods there are a definite possibility.
I don't know what the feasible opportunities for significant control on reactor 2 are. Surely getting rid of the contaminated water quickly so you can assess the leak rate would be the first step. They are facing a mountain of difficulties. To date they have avoided major contamination of the countryside. Obviously they can't stop water circulation in the reactors.
The high amounts of Lanthanum 140 and Barium 140 reported in the latest test results on the basement water probably have a lot of significance.
The whole trench water deal is not surprising. It would be more surprising if there wasn't contaminated water on site given everything that has happened and the need to douse the fuel pools with massive quantities of water. Will Davis.
You wouldn't want to put the very highly contaminated basement water in the ocean, but most the trench water is less contaminated. Given the overall situation, if speed forces pumping some of that into the ocean it might be the best option. People get a little neurotic about radiation; what you just can't do in normal chronic operations is acceptable in an emergency as a very short-term solution. Sure, if you have another quick, feasible solution, use it. But this stuff is going to dilute very rapidly in seawater. (Testing offshore.)
There is not a ton of news coming out, so I suppose they are trying to -- reconsolidate and plan.
JAIF has a summary of some of the major issues.
The Japanese are doing a plutonium survey of the area surrounding the plant. This is probably because they got better video on 3 and some heavy equipment seems to be in the spent fuel rod pool, so damaged fuel rods there are a definite possibility.
I don't know what the feasible opportunities for significant control on reactor 2 are. Surely getting rid of the contaminated water quickly so you can assess the leak rate would be the first step. They are facing a mountain of difficulties. To date they have avoided major contamination of the countryside. Obviously they can't stop water circulation in the reactors.
The high amounts of Lanthanum 140 and Barium 140 reported in the latest test results on the basement water probably have a lot of significance.
