6 ms·

Highest radiation reading since March 2011 detected at Fukushima No. 1 reactor

60 points by Sami_Lehtinen 10y ago

dang 10y ago
Url changed from https://sputniknews.com/science/201702041050336701-unimaginable-fukushima-reactor-radiation-levels/ https://sputniknews.com/science/201702041050336701-unimagina..., which points to this.
bootload 10y ago
“Confirming the conditions inside the reactor is a first step toward decommissioning,” Going to be a very long time before this happens. How long will this take? 30-50 years? Longer? Another recent post (no new facts): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564303
std_throwaway 10y ago
Inside the reactor building where it belongs, so nobody is in danger outside of the reactor building. Headline could be clearer.
- Filligree 10y ago
  And at a location which was previously too dangerous to approach.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  ...for now. Sudden spikes might be a warning of an emerging problem, and some problems have a way of bursting their containers. I remember a lot of similarly sanguine comments when the next of the Fukushima disaster first broke.
jonathankeith 10y ago
Some important distinctions of the statements made in this article have been published by the Safecast team, who have been independently measuring radiation levels in this area for years: http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fukushima-daiichi-are-not-rising/ http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fuku...
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > It must be stressed that radiation in this area has not been measured before, and it was expected to be extremely high. While 530 Sv/hr is the highest measured so far at Fukushima Daiichi, it does not mean that levels there are rising, but that a previously unmeasurable high-radiation area has finally been measured. This completely invalidates the Japan Times article.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  The Safecast article is much clearer (and certainly less frightening). As an engineer it's fascinating to me to see what sort of problems a failed reactor bring to table. One of the reasons all of this is new R&D is because its only the second major event in history. Given the relatively small volume of the fuel mass I have always wondered if there might be a way to build a coring drill that could be used to separate from the main mass a useful amount of material, which could then be put into a fairly conventional cask for transport to a secure storage / disposal facility. For example there has been a lot of study of the 'elephant's foot' which is the column of fuel that froze once it became subcritical underneath the reactor at Chernobyl. Could you repeatedly core it with a system to remove a few 10's of kilos with each core? What about a system that cut basically puck side nodules that you then put into the cask? There doesn't seem to be a lot of papers on how you might achieve this sort of disassembly sadly.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    My understanding was that the radiation was too intense to allow machinery to operate. Beyond a certain intensity no non-sci-fi technology works reliably. Not only are electronics fried, but metals and ceramics literally fall apart. And humans die in seconds, never mind minutes. So unfortunately there are one or two problems to be worked out before corium engineering can become a thing.
    - Gravityloss 10y ago
myrandomcomment 10y ago
I fail to understand the need to "clean this up". Figure out a sphere around the site that is safe to work in. Dig it out and incase everything in and be done with it. Sucks to loose the area but much simpler. Heck, turn the site into a nuclear dump site. Yes you have to monitor for leaks, etc. No it's not an ideal site geology wise. You can engineer around that. Yes, I understand physics and engineering and earthquakes (and spent years in Japan). I am trying to be practical.
- 21 10y ago
  I think you vastly underestimate the amount of dirt/concrete/steel needed to encase any meaningful area.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Does he? That's part of how Chernobyl was mitigated.
    - myrandomcomment 10y ago
      Exactly, but I was down voted for asking a rational question. People you do not have to agree but there is no reason to down vote a question that is clearly not a troll! Oh, they poured 16200 cubic meters of concrete for a project in L.A. in 2014 and that was just the foundation. China poured 6.6 gigtons 2011-2014. To the person that down voted me, this is just an engineering issue. Period. Sorry you do not understand that.
- toyg 10y ago
  It's also a political problem: who's gonna pay for that? Japan is not exactly booming, public debt is sky high, they have had multiple earthquakes and flooding events in the last few years... the Chernobyl sarcophagus was paid for by several countries over decades, here it looks like Japan is pretty much alone for a number of reasons. Every engineering problem has an inescapable cost dimension, and on this scale it inevitably spills into global politics.
smb06 10y ago
> a margin of error of plus or minus 30 percent Seriously? 30 percent?

60 points by Sami_Lehtinen 10y ago

dang 10y ago

Url changed from https://sputniknews.com/science/201702041050336701-unimaginable-fukushima-reactor-radiation-levels/ https://sputniknews.com/science/201702041050336701-unimagina..., which points to this.

bootload 10y ago

“Confirming the conditions inside the reactor is a first step toward decommissioning,” Going to be a very long time before this happens. How long will this take? 30-50 years? Longer? Another recent post (no new facts): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564303

std_throwaway 10y ago

Inside the reactor building where it belongs, so nobody is in danger outside of the reactor building. Headline could be clearer.

Filligree 10y ago
And at a location which was previously too dangerous to approach.
anigbrowl 10y ago
...for now. Sudden spikes might be a warning of an emerging problem, and some problems have a way of bursting their containers. I remember a lot of similarly sanguine comments when the next of the Fukushima disaster first broke.

jonathankeith 10y ago

Some important distinctions of the statements made in this article have been published by the Safecast team, who have been independently measuring radiation levels in this area for years: http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fukushima-daiichi-are-not-rising/ http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fuku...

jessriedel 10y ago
> It must be stressed that radiation in this area has not been measured before, and it was expected to be extremely high. While 530 Sv/hr is the highest measured so far at Fukushima Daiichi, it does not mean that levels there are rising, but that a previously unmeasurable high-radiation area has finally been measured. This completely invalidates the Japan Times article.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 10y ago
The Safecast article is much clearer (and certainly less frightening). As an engineer it's fascinating to me to see what sort of problems a failed reactor bring to table. One of the reasons all of this is new R&D is because its only the second major event in history. Given the relatively small volume of the fuel mass I have always wondered if there might be a way to build a coring drill that could be used to separate from the main mass a useful amount of material, which could then be put into a fairly conventional cask for transport to a secure storage / disposal facility. For example there has been a lot of study of the 'elephant's foot' which is the column of fuel that froze once it became subcritical underneath the reactor at Chernobyl. Could you repeatedly core it with a system to remove a few 10's of kilos with each core? What about a system that cut basically puck side nodules that you then put into the cask? There doesn't seem to be a lot of papers on how you might achieve this sort of disassembly sadly.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  My understanding was that the radiation was too intense to allow machinery to operate. Beyond a certain intensity no non-sci-fi technology works reliably. Not only are electronics fried, but metals and ceramics literally fall apart. And humans die in seconds, never mind minutes. So unfortunately there are one or two problems to be worked out before corium engineering can become a thing.
  - Gravityloss 10y ago

myrandomcomment 10y ago

I fail to understand the need to "clean this up". Figure out a sphere around the site that is safe to work in. Dig it out and incase everything in and be done with it. Sucks to loose the area but much simpler. Heck, turn the site into a nuclear dump site. Yes you have to monitor for leaks, etc. No it's not an ideal site geology wise. You can engineer around that. Yes, I understand physics and engineering and earthquakes (and spent years in Japan). I am trying to be practical.

21 10y ago
I think you vastly underestimate the amount of dirt/concrete/steel needed to encase any meaningful area.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Does he? That's part of how Chernobyl was mitigated.
  - myrandomcomment 10y ago
    Exactly, but I was down voted for asking a rational question. People you do not have to agree but there is no reason to down vote a question that is clearly not a troll! Oh, they poured 16200 cubic meters of concrete for a project in L.A. in 2014 and that was just the foundation. China poured 6.6 gigtons 2011-2014. To the person that down voted me, this is just an engineering issue. Period. Sorry you do not understand that.
toyg 10y ago
It's also a political problem: who's gonna pay for that? Japan is not exactly booming, public debt is sky high, they have had multiple earthquakes and flooding events in the last few years... the Chernobyl sarcophagus was paid for by several countries over decades, here it looks like Japan is pretty much alone for a number of reasons. Every engineering problem has an inescapable cost dimension, and on this scale it inevitably spills into global politics.

smb06 10y ago

> a margin of error of plus or minus 30 percent Seriously? 30 percent?