Effects of radiation on water

[SinbadEV]

Im not an expert but im pretty sure the water vapour can't 'carry radioactivity'. Only things that are radioactive can give off radiation, bringing something into contact with radiation does not make it radioactive.

steam can carry radioactive particulate if it is ejected explosively... water itself, apparently, cannot be made radioactive (unless you count tritium or whatever that other guy said...)

[knorke]

Um the core of reactor 1 is partially exposed.

Exposed fuel rods sounds dramatic but some reports say it might have been done on purpose: otherwise they could not have pumped in more water. (the pipes and pumps used could not stand the higher pressure)

What astonishes me is that they did not plan how to run the pumps when the electricity grid dies.

Even if there is sudden total lose of power the momentum of the still rotating turbines can power the plant for ~ 1 minute. That is enough for the diesel generators to start. Also batteries. Both worked, just the quake stopped them later: generators flooded or w/e and could not transport in more batteries on damaged roads.

I think the point is that it survived multiple catastrophic failures in multiple redundancies which was significantly more then has been needed to set off meltdowns in the past (usually human error or poor maintenance of simple things like valves).

They did not have cables to connect the backup generators. Imo that is "human error or simple things."

Im not an expert but im pretty sure the water vapour can't 'carry radioactivity'.

Not sure but even if water vater vapour itself can not carray radiocactivity it probally could carry small radioactive debris like dust or ashes.

Why not just a enterprise-carrier sized powerplant offshore?

Largest ships are a bit over 400x60 meters. Would that be enough to fit a whole powerplant sized reactor?
If there was a problem with such a ship it would be pretty hard to fix Burning oil plattforms/ships can sink or capsize due to the water for fire-fighting when they are burning. Bringing in new stuff would be more dangerous and complicated. Hooray for foading nuclear fuel rods from ship to ship? Also ships sink or ram each other like all the time, contaimnent would crack and blabla.

[smoth]

irradiating water would be a cool weapon in ba.

[Cheesecan]

A current trend is small nuclear reactors. These guys are about 1/10th the capacity of the current generation of reactors but are so small that they can be built underground, have self-sustaining cooling and some are breeder reactors which can use spent nuclear fuel to operate. Many of them are also modular. Have a look:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

For instance the 4S reactor 30 MWe has a core of 0.68 x 2 m, can be built below ground and is capable of running for three decades without refueling. Plant cost is just US$ 2500/kW and power cost 5-7 cents/kWh.

[dizekat]

You need far larger number of small reactors, for same power output, though. They still have to show that larger number of small accidents is better.

[Sgt Doom]

I think there are/were plans to increase the fallout of nuclear bombs by putting gold or cobalt inside.

Yeah, those are called "salted bombs"

[Cheesecan]

You need far larger number of small reactors, for same power output, though. They still have to show that larger number of small accidents is better.

Yes but some of these reactors are entirely self-contained. They are slightly safer thanks to that & automatic cooling. Plus they can also be more efficient. So there will be a smaller number of accidents..

[knorke]

breeder reactors

I think those are fail. If the coolant in them becomes steam due to failure it does not slow down the reactor as in normal reactors where the water acts as moderator and lose of water stops/slows the reaction. In breeder reactors, lose of coolant increases the reaction. Also the coolant is not water but natrium which lol-burns when in contact with water or air.

[SinbadEV]

Helpful Chart*

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

*according to the chart's author

[PicassoCT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hS ... r_embedded

[SinbadEV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hS ... r_embedded

I believe you may have just won the Internet.

[PicassoCT]

Hurray, im a win-dozer.

[Dmytry]

they forgot about giant bowls of poo next to stinky boy, the poo that can catch fire and explode all over the place.. ahh and stinkyboy is farting onto a candle.

For what, 10 days since first explosion, they have been trying to pour water with fire trucks and helicopters, as for forest fire, which didn't work coz you need a lot of water and helicopters just spray all over the place barely getting any water into pool. Only on 22th they started using a machine not to its original purpose - pouring water using a concrete pouring machine, the kind with very long arm. That was done in Chernobyl.

Then the measurements. In Chernobyl a regular video camera, radiation measurement device, etc. strapped to a toy tank's chassis was used. (I had same toy tank when i was little). Japanese, where's them flying over the reactor with toy helicopters with sensors strapped onto it, if the radiation levels are too high for real helicopter? US drone is cool but it flies once or a few times and it does NOT measure radiation. No way they'll do that! The party line is that Chernobyl was all retarded. Start studying it and using solutions which were successful at Chernobyl, and you can't keep the 'it is not at all like Chernobyl' party line.
No the party line is that everything is going according to plan and every machine is used to its planned purpose. It is all being handled by Nuclear Experts using State of the Art Nuclear Rated Machinery.

Nevermind that 2 workers are hospitalized due to radiation over exposure from water in boots - they haven't got any real protective gear - no they're going to claim workers got what, 0.17 or 0.18 Sievert. Right, they're going to know dose delivered by radioactive water in boots as the workers were stepping around and the water seeped in - and some radioactive materials got adsorbed through skin - to the accuracy of 10% . A great way to handle public relations. Public is calmed, anyone with any knowledge how doses are measured and what Sievert actually means reads between the lines and sees 'ok we got marketing guys over for making up figures and we don't even care that it is even remotely plausible that we aren't making figures up'.

[zwzsg]

Why not just a enterprise-carrier sized powerplant offshore?

Largest ships are a bit over 400x60 meters. Would that be enough to fit a whole powerplant sized reactor?
If there was a problem with such a ship it would be pretty hard to fix Burning oil plattforms/ships can sink or capsize due to the water for fire-fighting when they are burning. Bringing in new stuff would be more dangerous and complicated. Hooray for foading nuclear fuel rods from ship to ship? Also ships sink or ram each other like all the time, contaimnent would crack and blabla.

Hmm, you do realise the largest carriers, submarines, icebreakers have been powered by small inboard nuclear power plants for the last fifty years?

[knorke]

yes but 100-200 MW on (really large) ships VS 1000+ MW in powerplants?

[Karl]

Guy at work says we should dump a couple tons of gold on it which would melt, coat the reactive materials and then block further reaction... would this work?

Wouldn't it too expensive to use gold for it? since they are stuck with other problemm too so i dont think they would be able to afford large amount of gold

what is about Plumplum or Lead? Dont they block radiation too?

[knorke]

they struggle to get enough water in, how should it work with gold?

[Wombat]

dunno why they dont use ice :/

[Dmytry]

hmm airdropping a huge block of ice could be very interesting. Smash the spent fuel, add water as moderator... kaboom.

[Dmytry]

Fukushima cs-137 fallout 60% of Chernobyl.

Other interesting thing is how reactors are said to have risk of severe accident of less than 1/10 000 for the plant lifetime, yet clearly they are not being built to withstand one in 400 000 years tsunami (reactors with design lifetime 40 years). Probably not even one in 200 years. Makes me wonder if reactors even have this alleged less than 1/10 000 risk in the first place, not that it even matters very much.