Fuel debris removal attempt halted at Fukushima Daiichi.

[NNadir]

The big bogeyman at Fukushima gets a lot of attention, of course, certainly more attention than the roughly 90 million people who have died from air pollution since the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 destroyed the coastal city and the nearby reactors.

The number of people killed by exposure to radiation is vanishingly small, if not zero, nearly so, although the evacuation related to fear of radiation is not zero.

Comparison of mortality patterns after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant radiation disaster and during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Motohiro Tsuboi et al 2022 J. Radiol. Prot. 42 031502)

The paper cited open sourced, but an excerpt is relevant:

However, in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant(FDNPP) accident, no direct health hazards due to radiation, such as acute radiation injury, were observed, while various indirect health effects were reported even in the acute phase [2, 3]. Major health effects are attributed to the initial emergency evacuation and displacement, deterioration of the shelter environment, evacuation from nursing homes, and psychological and social health effects. In addition, there were also the effects of medical collapse, where lives that could normally be saved by medical care could not be saved due to a lack of medical resources [4, 5]. It is known that these effects are particularly susceptible to the socially vulnerable [6].

.

On the other hand, close to 20,000 people died from the act of living in a coastal city, from collapsing buildings, drowning, and related causes as a result of a city being inundated with seawater. There is no movement of course, to phase out coastal cities, of course, although given extreme global heating and its implications, perhaps it is worthy of consideration, although it's more likely that such abandonment will occur as a result of disaster rather than planning.

Of course, these deaths went down the rabbit hole. Nobody gives a rat's ass about them.

I have argued that the money spent on efforts to "clean up" Fukushima to standards we apply to nothing else - that no one, irrespective of their lack of education with respect to nuclear issues can even imagine someone dying from radiation exposure related to the destroyed reactors - is wasted, since few lives are actually at risk. We could save more lives by spending the same amount of money to build new (and better) reactors.

I'm sure my argument falls on deaf ears. Never underestimate the power of marketing and propaganda.

This said, the situation with respect to the behavior of the fuel during the meltdown of the reactors is, to me at least, of extreme interest, since it took place under highly refractory conditions that may have even exceeded the high melting point of uranium oxide, given its poor thermal conductivity. We can learn quite a bit about the behavior of nuclear fuel by looking at the morphology and composition of the melted components.

Thus the money spent on "cleaning up" Fukushima beyond simply building a Chernobyl type sarcophagus, is not entirely useless.

However an effort to recover these melted components has failed, perhaps because of Keystone cops planning that is nonetheless not all that serious:

Fuel debris removal attempt halted at Fukushima Daiichi

Subtitle:

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has suspended the first attempt to extract fuel debris from within the primary containment vessel of unit 2 at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after an error in the setup of the debris retrieval device was identified.

Some excerpts of the short article:

On 19 August, Tepco announced that it planned to remove a few grams of melted fuel debris from unit 2 on August 22. The operation was expected to last about two weeks using a telescopic device equipped with a gripper tool. The device can extend up to 22 metres and access the debris through a penetration point in the primary containment vessel (PCV). The removal technique, which is being used for the first time in unit 2, will then be gradually extended to unit 3, where a large-scale recovery is expected in the early 2030s.

"Unit 2 was selected as the first block for the recovery of the fuel debris because we take into account the situation in terms of safety, reliability, speed and progress in the removal of the used fuel elements," Tepco said...

...However, it was then noticed during the final checking process that the order of the first push pipe was different from the planned order. The workers had in fact prepared the second push pipe for insertion instead of the first one. It was confirmed the push pipe that should have been in the first position was in the fourth position. The incorrect order of the pipes meant they could not be connected correctly...

...A pre-investigation of the area directly below the pressure vessel - known as the pedestal - was carried out in January 2017 at Fukushima Daiichi 2 using a remotely operated camera on a telescopic probe. Photos taken during that investigation showed a black mass and deposits near a grating in the pedestal area, possibly melted nuclear fuel...

... n Fukushima Daiichi units 1 to 3, the fuel and the metal cladding that formed the outer jacket of the fuel rods melted, then re-solidified as fuel debris. To reduce the risk from this fuel debris, preparations are under way for retrieving it from the reactors. The current aim is to begin retrieval from unit 2 and to gradually enlarge the scale of the retrieval. The retrieved fuel debris will be stored in the new storage facility that will be constructed within the site.

In the close to 5000 days since the reactor melted, many of the heat generating radioisotopes present at the time of the meltdown have decayed to stable isotopes of stable elements. For example, pretty much all of the ¹⁴⁴Ce has decayed to the naturally occurring (slightly radioactive) isotope ¹⁴⁴Nd, found in most magnets including those in wind turbines and electric cars. About 6 one millionths remains. Almost all of the ¹⁰⁶Ru has decayed to the valuable stable isotope ¹⁰⁶Pd, about 1 ten thousandths remain.

The heat load of nuclear reactors on shut down decays rapidly. One can learn about the evolution of heat loads by appeal to Dr. Kristina Yancey (Spencer's) wonderful 2013 Master's Thesis reviewing the behavior of used nuclear fuels:

https://catalog.library.tamu.edu/Record/in00003477980

Figures 20 and 21 on pages 58 and 59, respectively.



The caption:

Figure 20. Total heat load of all the spent fuel from operating reactors for each of the reference times used in the Spent Fuel Database, shown with a logarithmic vertical axis.

The caption:

Figure 21. Composition of the total heat load of all the spent fuel from operating reactors after (a) 0 years and after (b) 20 years.

Have a nice day.

Eratta: The original version of this post stated that 9 million people have died from air pollution since 2011. This is a typo resulting in an error of an order of magnitude. The number is greater than 90 million people, roughly, slightly larger than the population of Germany.

[blue sky at night]

1. Thanks!

I read your whole post, but I did not click on the links, but that’s unusual because usually I get totally bored by about halfway through some posts… very interesting. I’m wondering your opinion on eating fish from the Pacific Ocean especially the northern Pacific Ocean.

[NNadir]

2. Virtually all of the radioactivity in fish in the North Pacific has the same source it has had for millions of years.

It is related to the decay product of the nearly five billion tons of uranium present in the ocean since the evolution of oxygen in the planetary atmosphere, specifically ²¹⁰Po, an isotope of polonium that is present in the decay series of ²³⁸U.

I discussed the very stupid media drive brouhaha about fish in the north pacific here:

Deluded Scientists Think They Can Reassure the Public on the Fukushima Tuna.

The Fukushima tuna fish was one of the best indicators of my often stated (partially) joking assertion that one cannot get a degree in journalism if one has passed a college level science course with a grade of C or better.

The concern over radioactivity in fish, particularly the very, very, very stupid carrying on about tritium releases, is absurd and silly to the extreme. However the upside is that fear of radioactivity in fish may be environmentally advantageous inasmuch as it may help restore depleted fish stocks. The concentration of tritium in seawater has been falling dramatically since the abandonment of atmospheric nuclear testing by the US and the former Soviet Union in 1963. People have been eating fish in the entire period between 1963 and the present day, with the environmental result, again, of the depletion of certain fish stocks.

[blue sky at night]

3. Thanks again...

I will read that as well...IMO I wish everyone would just back off on the Killing of Fish so the idea of the disaster helping replenish stocks is cool. I am an avid fan on YouTube of blue water sailors but I have come to hate it when they kill beautiful Tuna and especially Mahi Mahi. I eat fish but mostly wild caught fresh water species like Perch and Walleye. Your posts have changed my thinking...thank you sir.

[JoseBalow]

6. Regarding all that contaminated water

that they have stored up and released back into the sea... Can you explain to me why they wouldn't or couldn't just let the water evaporate, then dispose of the much smaller solid material that is left? I'm sure there is some explanation why that option isn't feasible, but I've always wondered why not. Would evaporation release contaminants back into the air in a way that couldn't be controlled?

[NNadir]

7. In theory, I don't think it would have made much difference to have done it that way, evaporation, but...

...the rate would have probably been much slower.

It is also possible that the public perception, as silly as it is, would have been worse, since the concentration of tritium in the atmosphere would have been somewhat higher. Rapid diffusion in seawater quickly leads to dilution to even more trivial concentrations.

It has not proved possible to detect tritium in seawater outside the Fukushima reactor since the concentration is very near background.

The water being released at Fukushima is passed through ion exchange resins to remove any other radioactive components, soluble fission products like cesium radioisotopes that may be in the water, again for public perception purposes, as the ocean is way more radioactive naturally than anything Fukushima can do, largely because a naturally occurring isotope of potassium ⁴⁰K is present in vast quantities. It is also in all living things, as potassium is an essential element to life.

[JoseBalow]

8. Thanks for explaining that

I've always been amazed the volume of water being collected and stored. I had heard that they were running out of room to store it, and thought "hey, just open the cap and let it dry out."

[WhiteTara]

4. when I first started reading your posts, I was a sceptic

but time has proven you correct in your statements. I remember the 3 martini lunch days when the first reactors were being built, and I have no faith in those individuals.

Thank you for educating me about nuclear power.

[NNadir]

5. The people who built our nation's first reactors were highly competent and remarkable scientists and engineers.

The one of very first textbooks on nuclear engineering (1959) was coauthored by a Nobel Laureate, Eugene Wigner, working and writing with the then Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Alvin Weinberg.

Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors.

The man who led the way to the commercialization of nuclear reactors in the United States was also a Nobel Laureate (and a Democrat) who worked as head of the AEC in addition to his work as an educators and most importantly, his prodigious and unparalleled scientific output:

Glenn Seaborg

These reactors were built by engineers and scientists who worked with slide rules or with ancient computers less powerful than those in a wristwatch today.

The reactors these people built still serve humanity, more than half a century later.

These were not people hanging out in bars drinking martinis. They were not unserious people. They were among the finest minds ever to have lived. The demonization of their work has led to a vast tragedy for generations past, and will continue to lead to great tragedy for generations to come.

In my view, the ongoing destruction of the planetary atmosphere is a direct consequence of that demonization.

[WhiteTara]

9. sorry it took so long to respond to your post

my true love is in rehab after a fall that broke his neck and fractured his leg.

I did not meant to disparage the scientists. I do remember contractors were not as dedicated to excellence. The Challenger blew up because of a $1.00 o-ring. Also, there were many mishaps along the way because of shoddy contractor work.

[NNadir]

10. No problem. I wish your true love a speedy and full recovery.

But let's turn to your comment.

I would like to submit a challenge, which is to show that nuclear power plants built in the 1970's in the US have killed as many people as space craft have, or for that matter, aircraft failures, or automotive engineering failures.

The United States has led the entire world in nuclear power production for more than four decades, with reactors built on engineering and materials and construction largely carried out in the 1970s.

These plants were built by American contractors using Union Labor.

The North Anna Nuclear Power Plants were just approved to operate for another two decades, extending their lives to 80 years.

NRC approves 20-year extension for North Anna 1 and 2

Every single glitch, minor or otherwise, at a nuclear power plant generates nearly hysterical coverage from our "but her emails" media, but for all the carrying on, the death toll is essentially nonexistent. However all of this "reporting" is ripe with "if" and "could" statements.

When a house blows up because of a dangerous natural gas leak - even in events that kill people - it hardly gets as much coverage as a minor fault at a nuclear powerplant is sure to get almost every time.

Nuclear power plants do not need to be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. They do not need to be harmless to be less harmful than their alternatives. Specifically, it is not true that a death from radiation exposure from a leak at a nuclear power plant is more important than the 7 million deaths that take place each year from the normal operations of combustion based facilities. That is an immoral calculus in my view.

My view of nuclear power changed from that of a rote opponent - and frankly an unthinking and ignorant opponent - to that of an adherent, when the Chernobyl reactor exploded, answering, for all time, what the worst case is. It took some time and some critical thinking about that event, but within three years, by 1990 I had become a supporter of nuclear energy and remain one today.

I note that the country where Chernobyl is located, the one being attacked by fossil fuel powered weapons of mass destruction using funding provided by antinuclear Germans who sent oodles of money to Putin for gas, oil and coal, Ukraine, is planning to embrace nuclear power when the invaders are defeated:

Energoatom moves ahead with plans for new four-unit AP1000 plant

Given that the status quo has left the planet in flames, the worst case, Chernobyl, for nuclear power is of far less import than the best case for the status quo, the status quo being fossil fuels and lipstick on the fossil fuel pig, things like so called "renewable energy" and even worse, absurd energy storage schemes, also lipstick on the fossil fuel pig, batteries, hydrogen, CAES, blah, blah, blah. The status quo case is a planet in flames, vast ecosystems dying, extreme weather destroying towns, cities, and with them human lives. How do the bogeymen at Chernobyl, Fukushima, TMI compare?

Nuclear power plants save lives: Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

The Union workers who built our plants in the 1970s did a hell of a good job; they left a tremendous gift for future generations, including the one of which I am a member. We owe it to the future to do the same.

[WhiteTara]

11. thanks NNadir

I appreciate your advocacy for nuclear power and your efforts to educate us all.