I didn't address the fuel storage areas before, obviously.

Post #340,559 by Another Scott 3/15/11 9:13:16 PM Reply	I didn't address the fuel storage areas before, obviously. http://www3.nhk.or.j...nglish/16_05.html TEPCO: Spraying water from air "difficult" Tokyo Electric Power has found it difficult to spray water from a helicopter to cool down a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel inside the No.4 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The reactor was undergoing an inspection when the quake occurred. The firm says the temperature of the storage pool for spent nuclear fuel was 84 degrees Celsius on Monday morning, more than double the normal level. More recent temperatures are not available due to a technical failure. On Tuesday morning, an explosion was heard and the roof of the building that houses the No.4 reactor was damaged. Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the plant, says it appears a lack of coolant caused the fuel rods to be exposed, adding that a hydrogen explosion might have occurred. If the reactor can't be cooled, the fuel rods may emit hydrogen or melt down. Tokyo Electric Power considering pouring water onto the storage pool in the containment vessel through a hole on the roof created by the blast. However, the firm concluded that it would be extremely difficult to spray water from a helicopter as the hole is dozens of meters from the storage pool and a helicopter can only carry a limited amount of water on a single flight. Workers are currently unable to approach the storage pool due to the high radiation levels. Tokyo Electric Company is studying the possibility of using fire engines and other options to inject water into the reactor. Wednesday, March 16, 2011 03:04 +0900 (JST) TEPCO apparently presented a paper in November on how they do wet-storage and dry-storage of fuel bundles. http://www.nirs.org/...-1_powerpoint.pdf (26 page .pdf) Most of it is over my head, but it sounds like there's a lot of fuel being stored there, and they recently "upgraded" Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 1-6 to let them store even more... - Increase the capacity of spent fuel pools by re-racking - Installation of common spent fuel pool - Installation of dry cask storage facility Aye Carumba! :-( The wet storage facility is in slides 9-11. HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #340,560 by Ashton 3/15/11 10:54:18 PM 3/15/11 11:07:35 PM Reply	Aye, TMI (info, not 3Mi-Island) of generic kind -- way too little from which one can deduce useful things. Understandably, the sorts of details we'd like some accurate info about just won't happen until in retrospect; neither time nor patience to bring in a sci-literate 'scribe + camera' to get the words out. Bring your own floodlights and lunch? Among the minefield of unknowns: whether the tsunami immersion so screwed up pumps, temp/px monitoring sensors, hyd. actuators and controllers -- that even were a US flattop to bring in a self-contained AC power unit via a huge Huey: Would much of the stuff and its controlling electronics still function? But how such things as, say the Px-relief valves in the torus? can be operated at all without AC power from Somewhere? -- I don't grok (either.) As to intermixed Boron and elephant feet blobs, it seems a mares nest of not-calculable cross-sections; if cooling of the blob-surfaces could.. be accomplished, then further neutron absorption could come from concentrated borate slurries, one supposes. No need to ponder moderators and spacings, I'd think: what you want is lots of the best n-absorbing substance available. By express Lear Jet. But this is rapidly ceasing to be an enviro where a robot could eat the Rads, even to haul a fire-hose end up to a steaming pool, given a debris-covered floor (We don't even know if any? many? of these pools' 'containment integrity' has been compromised) And it seems that TEPCO's workers/mgment have also PO'd the government minions, having failed to inform of the 6am-ish most recent fire, for some hours. Who's not leveling with whom? Apparently it was machine lube oil which was burning at #6 following the (alleged) release of nascent-H via water + overheated Zircalloy spent-rod cladding, that which caused that explosion. Watch and wait.. PS: NYT is collecting (intelligent) questions today, to be 'answered' tomorrow by whatever selection of boffins they have managed to corral: http://green.blogs.n...n-japan/?ref=asia Some noticed, appear to be al punte ... re several of those puntes. Edited by Ashton March 15, 2011, 11:07:35 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #340,561 by Another Scott 3/15/11 11:37:41 PM Reply	Thanks. The BBC is reporting that a government spokesman said the 50 remaining workers are being withdrawn (Temporarily? Who knows...) due to excessively high radiation levels. http://www.bbc.co.uk...-pacific-12755739 :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #340,606 by Ashton 3/17/11 1:57:19 AM Reply	NYT answers to selected Qs submitted yesterday http://green.blogs.n...-crisis-in-japan/ Seems to be in (expected) decent English, without garbling of concepts ... on a quick scan of replies. FWIW
Post #340,612 by Another Scott 3/17/11 7:59:14 AM Reply	Good Q&A. Would be nice if more reporting was like that...

Welcome to IWETHEY!