– Fukushima: now for the tough part (Reuters, Nov 13, 2013):
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will as early as this week begin removing 400 tonnes of highly irradiated spent fuel in a hugely delicate and unprecedented operation fraught with risk.
Carefully plucking more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged fuel assemblies from the plant’s unstable Reactor No. 4 is expected to take about a year, and will be seen as a test of Tokyo Electric Power Co’s ability to move ahead with decommissioning the whole facility – a task likely to take decades and cost tens of billions of dollars.
If the rods – there are 50-70 in each of the assemblies, which weigh around 300 kg (660 pounds) and are 4.5 meters (15 feet) long – are exposed to air or if they break, huge amounts of radioactive gases could be released into the atmosphere.
The hazardous removal operation has been likened by Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, to trying to pull cigarettes from a crushed pack.
When the time comes, extracting spent fuel from the plant’s other reactors, where radiation levels are much higher because of core meltdowns, will be even more challenging. Reactors No. 1 and No. 3 sustained heavier damage than No. 4 as a result of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that knocked out power and cooling at the Fukushima station, triggering three meltdowns that sent a plume of radiation into the air and nearby Pacific Ocean.
The urgency to clear Reactor No. 4 of the fuel assemblies is because of the risk in having spent fuel stored at such a height – some 18 meters above ground level – in a building that has buckled and tilted and could collapse if another quake strikes.
Also, if the pool housing the fuel assemblies is punctured and the water drains away, there could be a fire that releases more radiation than during the 2011 disaster, threatening Tokyo, some 200 kms (125 miles) to the south.
“Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date,” independent consultants Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt wrote in a recent World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
CHALLENGING TEST
Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has shored up Reactor No. 4 and erected a giant steel frame over the top of the building which lost its roof in the 2011 explosion. It says the building can withstand shaking similar to the 2011 quake.
The utility has removed the larger debris left from that explosion from the pool that has been cooling the fuel assemblies for the past two and a half years. As the water used to cool the rods has had to be pumped in from the ocean, there is a risk that some may have corroded from the seawater.
Tepco has already removed two unused fuel assemblies from the pool in a test operation at Reactor No. 4 last year, but these rods are less dangerous than the spent bundles. Extracting spent fuel is a normal part of a nuclear plant’s operations, but there is little normal about Fukushima today.
Widely criticized for a series of missteps in its handling of the post-disaster clean-up, Tepco says it recognizes the operation will be difficult, but believes it can carry it out safely. The utility has struggled to stop radioactive water overflowing from another part of the Fukushima facility, and experts have questioned whether it should still be in charge of the clean-up and decommissioning.
Tepco says the assembly removal process will begin around mid-November, withholding the actual date for what it says are security reasons.
“I agree with doing Unit 4 first as it may give them some experience as to how to approach the more difficult jobs at Units 1-3,” said Dale Bridenbaugh, a former General Electric engineer and manager, who has previously worked at Japanese nuclear plants including Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor No. 1. “It will also provide a pathway for use in deciding how to move the remaining fuel and debris from Units 1-3.”
TRUSTING TEPCO
The steel frame that now perches above the damaged reactor holds the cranes that will pluck the 1,331 used radiated fuel assemblies, which are packed tightly together, and another 202 unused assemblies also stored in Reactor No. 4’s cooling pool. The cranes and equipment normally used to extract used fuel from the reactor’s core were destroyed in the disaster.
The fuel assemblies are held in a 10 x 12 meter concrete pool, the base of which is on the fourth storey of the complex. The assemblies – which contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances known – are under 7 meters of water.
“They must be handled one by one, very carefully,” Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, said after approving the operation recently.
The assemblies must first be pulled from their storage racks and individually placed in a heavy steel chamber – kept all the while under water to prevent overheating. The chamber, which weighs around 90 tonnes when filled and shields the radiation pulsating from the rods, is then removed from the pool, lowered to ground level and transported by trailer to a common storage pool in an undamaged building about 100 meters away.
Teams of six will operate in 2-hour shifts, with as many as three rotations each day, manually guiding and operating the cranes that will transfer the rods, Tepco said.
Spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai said Tepco will carry out a test operation for moving the heavy chamber later on Wednesday.
“A lot of debris fell into the fuel pool as a result of the March 2011 hydrogen explosion. The large pieces of debris have been removed,” Takashi Hara, a Tepco employee in charge of the fuel removal, told reporters during a recent plant tour. “If, for some reason, the water levels drop, the fuel would quickly heat up,” he added.
The operation to remove all the fuel would normally take about 100 days, and Tepco initially planned to take two years before halving that timeframe in recognition of the urgency.
“We are all worried … Every day we read news about the plant, and we are aware of their plans to remove the spent fuel rods,” said Ichiro Kazawa, 61, a former real estate manager from the nearby town of Hirono. He lost his home to the tsunami and now lives in temporary housing.
“Everybody’s concerned and just hoping there will be no major accidents. No one here trusts Tokyo Electric.”
So what’s so dramatic about Fukushima reactor No. 4 SFP?
Fukushima reactor No. 4 “SFP contains something on the order of 400.000 kg of hot plutonium”.
“They say that one microgram of plutonium could theoretically kill a person.”
“There are billion micrograms in a kilogram and there are 400.000 hot kilograms in this pool.”
Do the math.
And if those fuel rods are catching fire … it’s ALL OVER.
– Big Earthquake Near Fukushima Would ‘Decimate Japan, Lead To US West Coast Evacuation’
– Japan’s Top Nuclear Official: I Am ‘Much More Worried” About Fukushima Reactor No. 4 Fuel Rods#
– Fukushima: While No One Is Watching Humanity Faces The Most Dangerous Situation Ever
The leakage of water from these cores is bad enough but the most dangerous thing is the cooling pool of unit 4. Now it is terribly dangerous because the entire hot core of reactor 4 had been removed and put in this cooling pool shortly before the tsunami. So, there was a hot core in this cooling pool the entire superstructure building was blown off in a hydrogen explosion.
The entire area is weakened and there is a great risk of an aftershock. Now this pool contains something on the order of 400.000 kg of hot plutonium. So, the thing that people should be aware of is that TEPCO is going to begin attempting to remove these rods from this pool to some other type of storage. This has never been done with plutonium rods that have been out of a core for such a short period of time.
There is a great danger of a thermonuclear reaction if these rods become exposed to the air and the cooling pool itself is just barely containing the temperature levels of the core as it is.
…
The media coverage of the situation has been almost non-existent. The public must become engaged and the governments must become engaged because this is a global threat. They say that one microgram of plutonium could theoretically kill a person.
There are billion micrograms in a kilogram and there are 400.000 hot kilograms in this pool. So, if these rods combust, if the set of rods begins a thermonuclear reaction, it will vaporize the water in the pool and the entire pool can become an uncontrolled nuclear reaction open to the air. These particles will be spread through the northern hemisphere.
This is perhaps the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. And I think you would acknowledge there has been far too little attention given to this at this point and the measures that the Japanese government is discussing at this point are not sufficient, I believe. Other governments must become engaged in this.
– Fukushima Is Falling Apart: Are You Ready … For A Mass Extinction Event?:
If they are MOX fuel, containing 6% plutonium, one fuel rod has the potential to kill 2.89 billion people. If this pool collapses, as Senator Wyden is now saying too, we would face a mass extinction event from the release of radiation in those rods.
That is, if we aren’t in one already. Nuke experts like Arnie Gundersen and Helen Caldicott are prepared to evacuate their families to the southern hemisphere if that happens. It is that serious.
So now you know, if you didn’t before. We are in big trouble.
Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4 – with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground – collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4.
In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel. Indeed, they are open to the air, which is quite dangerous.
This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced.
He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries.
Ambassador Murata informed us that the total number of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).
– Arnie Gunderson: More Cesium In Reactor 4 SFP Than All Nukes Ever Exploded
– Fukushima Reactor No. 4 Meltdown?
– Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-Founder Of Physicians For Social Responsibility): What We Learned From Fukushima (Video – April 2, 2012):
Dr. Helen Caldicott: If Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 collapses I am evacuating my family from Boston.
– Worst Case Scenario: Where To Go When Reactor No. 4 SFP Falls On The Ground?:
‘Dr. Arnie Gundersen warns they need to go further than 450km.’
– Confirmed: Fukushima Reactor No. 4 Is Falling Apart, Wall Was Lost On The South Side (Video, Photos)
– TEPCO: Fukushima Reactor No. 4 ‘Air Duct’ Explosion On 4th Floor
Arnie Gundersen: “… It could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed.”
Trust TEPCO? How can anyone trust anything they say or do? Look at what the workers will deal with, 600 pound rods, 15 feet long….exposure to air can cause them to add far more poison to the atmosphere.
What are they doing? After 33 months of hiding, denying and doing the minimum, they are bringing in low wage, uneducated, untrained workers who will be paid $200. a day……or, their widows and families will……they will die from the exposure. Why not scientists and engineers?
Why are they not doing this with care?
It is beyond my understanding. Why have other nations sat by silently while this destruction has continued?
The only answer I can find is that they have no way to stop it, so they have sat silently by hoping for an invention or something to fix it. There is no way to stop it.
Millions will die, perhaps our entire species. Cause: Greed.
Years ago, my first husband said man would never die from nuclear war, the instinct for self preservation was too deeply ingrained in all of us.
Well, I guess he might have been right, but this nuclear fallout is from corporate greed, and greed seems to overcome all human sensibilities.
Could this be the signal for the HAARP ?
Fire off a low frequency blast at the conjoin of plates and that will be that.
Goodnight Irene.
What geniuses decided to build a nuclear plant in an earthquake-prone area?