Wednesday, September 28, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 2 Achieves "Cold Shutdown"

and Yomiuri Shinbun has this extremely hopeful diagram that they came up with to celebrate the occasion. It shows part of the melted fuel inside the shroud of the Reactor Pressure Vessel and part of it at the bottom of the RPV, both cooled below 100 degrees Celsius inside the RPV, supposedly.

Yomiuri says:

東京電力は28日、福島第一原子力発電所2号機の原子炉底部の温度が、同日午後5時時点で99・4度と、3月11日の事故後、初めて100度を下回ったと発表した。

TEPCO announced on September 28 that the temperature at the bottom of the reactor of Reactor 2 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was 99.4 degrees Celsius as of 5PM on September 28. It was the first time since the March 11 accident that the temperature there dropped below 100 degrees Celsius.

これで1~3号機すべてで、原子炉を安定して冷却する「冷温停止状態」の2条件の一つである「100度以下」を達成した。

Now one of the two conditions for the stable "cold shutdown", "temperature below 100 degrees Celsius", has been achieved.

The other condition is to suppress the release of radioactive materials. Then the national government will make a declaration that the Fukushima accident is over, residents will return home, and we can all forget about the accident ever happened.

The red dot on the bottom right of the RPV indicates the location where TEPCO has been measuring the temperature.

Never mind that the basement of Reactor 2 is flooded with highly contaminated water. Needless to say, the RPV leaks, and the Containment Vessel (drywell) leaks. And we know that the suppression chamber leaks after it exploded in March 15.

14 comments:

Stock said...

Simply and keep repeating it....show me the corium in a picture, all of it that you can. And you best guess on the stuff you can't yet find.

Anonymous said...

Remember these.

USA - Japan
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201109260363.html

Radioactive waste
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/thousands-of-radioactive-waste-barrels-rusting-away-on-the-seabed

IAEA
http://www.jm-rico.at/

Anonymous said...

...and they lived happily ever after...

Anonymous said...

The people of Japan must realize that their country is being slowly destroyed by the events occurring at Fukushima. Pretending things are not so bad or that things are getting better will not change the reality of what's really happening. Someone famous once said something like this,

"You can ignore reality, but you will not be able to ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
7:32-san, do you live in Japan? Are you aware that there are safe zones in Japan? Are you aware that almost all of Europe was contaminated from Chernobyl more than the 20% or so of Japan that got fallout? The rest of Japan is clean while Europe is contaminated to this day. How about the US from atomic testing in the '50s-'70s? From Nevada to the Mississippi got high levels of fallout. Check your maps.

Anonymous said...

fallout from nuclear weapons disappears at a much faster rate than a nuclear reactor. check out hiroshima and nagasaki as great examples of how quick it happens. Fukushima has been blasting out radioactivity since the accident up to this day. Clearly your a government blowhard or just plain ignorant 8:20.

Anonymous said...

japan is now safe for tourism, even this blaggard admits with this posting.

Anonymous said...

This picture isn't a diagram of real reactor, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reaktor.svg In actual reactor there are hydro pump, and rod channels, and possibly dry cavity under RPV. However in case of Fukushima incident this design also at least partially failed: large amounts of highly radioactive water were produced and nuclear fuel has possibly melted through the base of the pressure vessels. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110607005367.htm

Anonymous said...

@Anon 9:18

Keep living in your fantasy world this isn't a cold shutdown, that can only be done to intact reactors. The Japanese are just building a nuclear Potemkin village and some fools are more than happy to live there. The stories of Japan's nuclear incompetence and outright lying are so numerous it has deeply affected tourism. Nobody with any sense is going to trust official proclamations coming out of Japan.

Tourism flatlines as visitors avoid Japan:

"Close on six months after the March 11 disasters hit northeast Japan, the official numbers for overseas tourists visiting the country look even bleaker than expected.

According to the Japan Tourism Agency -- a part of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism -- spending by incoming visitors in the April-June quarter was down 46.9 percent on a year earlier."

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/visit/tourism-flatlines-visitors-avoid-japan-378105

You know it's bad when even the Russians won't visit.

"MOSCOW, September 19 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian tourists still fear having holidays in Japan after the accident at Fukushima-1, which happened in March of the current year, and demand for tourist trips to Japan is close to nil, Russia’s association of tourist operators /ATOR/ said on Monday.

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/228893.html

Anonymous said...

The extreme positivism and in consequence the neglection of the outcome provoked since March 11 are fascinating me.

Is not bad to realize that we must change and act in that direction, what I feel is happenig is people been too pasive with their lives and trying to ignore the events.

Anonymous said...

Really? To me, the extreme negativism and the continued calling for bloodshed from the posters on this board are fascinating to me. Just try to voice your opinion that this event isn't armageddon, and you are immediately labeled a shill or a stooge or just plain stupid.

Anonymous said...

Nuclear Potemkin village! LOL!

The only thing in cold shutdown is the conscience of the government and TEPCO.

Anonymous said...

The plant’s operator also said that it was possible that the pressure vessels in the three stricken reactors, which house the uranium fuel rods, had been breached as well. But most of the fuel remained inside the vessels, the company said — far from a more severe nuclear meltdown in which molten fuel penetrates the ground, a calamity known as the “China Syndrome.”

That's from the NYT in May. I wish someone would challenge TEPCO about the location of the melted fuel rods. If they've breached the reactor pressure vessel, the above diagram is useless. If they haven't, then we're doing ok.

Anonymous said...

This TEPCO photograph of the pedestal area of unit 5 at Fukushima Daiichii. Unit 5 is the same design as units 1-4 and was built last of the BWR units at Fukushima Daiichi. The photograph is interesting in that it shows a rarely photographed area below the reactor vessel. This area is likely heavily damaged in units 1-3 as the fuel melted out of the reactor vessels. http://houseoffoust.com/group/?p=3376

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