SallyRand

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_opinion_main

* OPINION
* MARCH 14, 2011

Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl

The containment structures appear to be working, and the latest reactor designs aren't vulnerable to the coolant problem at issue here.

By WILLIAM TUCKER

Even while thousands of people are reported dead or missing, whole neighborhoods lie in ruins, and gas and oil fires rage out of control, press coverage of the Japanese earthquake has quickly settled on the troubles at two nuclear reactors as the center of the catastrophe.

Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), a longtime opponent of nuclear power, has warned of "another Chernobyl" and predicted "the same thing could happen here." In response, he has called for an immediate suspension of licensing procedures for the Westinghouse AP1000, a "Generation III" reactor that has been laboring through design review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for seven years.

Before we respond with such panic, though, it would be useful to review exactly what is happening in Japan and what we have to fear from it.

The core of a nuclear reactor operates at about 550 degrees Fahrenheit, well below the temperature of a coal furnace and only slightly hotter than a kitchen oven. If anything unusual occurs, the control rods immediately drop, shutting off the nuclear reaction. You can't have a "runaway reactor," nor can a reactor explode like a nuclear bomb. A commercial reactor is to a bomb what Vaseline is to napalm. Although both are made from petroleum jelly, only one of them has potentially explosive material.

Once the reactor has shut down, there remains "decay heat" from traces of other radioactive isotopes. This can take more than a week to cool down, and the rods must be continually bathed in cooling waters to keep them from overheating.

On all Generation II reactors?the ones currently in operation?the cooling water is circulated by electric pumps. The new Generation III reactors such as the AP1000 have a simplified "passive" cooling system where the water circulates by natural convection with no pumping required.

If the pumps are knocked out in a Generation II reactor?as they were at Fukushima Daiichi by the tsunami?the water in the cooling system can overheat and evaporate. The resulting steam increases internal pressure that must be vented. There was a small release of radioactive steam at Three Mile Island in 1979, and there have also been a few releases at Fukushima Daiichi. These produce radiation at about the level of one dental X-ray in the immediate vicinity and quickly dissipate.

If the coolant continues to evaporate, the water level can fall below the level of the fuel rods, exposing them. This will cause a meltdown, meaning the fuel rods melt to the bottom of the steel pressure vessel.

Early speculation was that in a case like this the fuel might continue melting right through the steel and perhaps even through the concrete containment structure?the so-called China syndrome, where the fuel would melt all the way to China. But Three Mile Island proved this doesn't happen. The melted fuel rods simply aren't hot enough to melt steel or concrete.

The decay heat must still be absorbed, however, and as a last-ditch effort the emergency core cooling system can be activated to flood the entire containment structure with water. This will do considerable damage to the reactor but will prevent any further steam releases. The Japanese have now reportedly done this using seawater in at least two of the troubled reactors. These reactors will never be restarted.

None of this amounts to "another Chernobyl." The Chernobyl reactor had two crucial design flaws. First, it used graphite (carbon) instead of water to "moderate" the neutrons, which makes possible the nuclear reaction. The graphite caught fire in April 1986 and burned for four days. Water does not catch fire.

Second, Chernobyl had no containment structure. When the graphite caught fire, it spouted a plume of radioactive smoke that spread across the globe. A containment structure would have both smothered the fire and contained the radioactivity.

If a meltdown does occur in Japan, it will be a disaster for the Tokyo Electric Power Company but not for the general public. Whatever steam releases occur will have a negligible impact. Researchers have spent 30 years trying to find health effects from the steam releases at Three Mile Island and have come up with nothing. With all the death, devastation and disease now threatening tens of thousands in Japan, it is trivializing and almost obscene to spend so much time worrying about damage to a nuclear reactor.

What the Japanese earthquake has proved is that even the oldest containment structures can withstand the impact of one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history. The problem has been with the electrical pumps required to operate the cooling system. It would be tragic if the result of the Japanese accident were to prevent development of Generation III reactors, which eliminate this design flaw.

Mr. Tucker is author of "Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey" (Bartleby Press, 2010).

dyna mo

old news. this crisis was a non-issue yesterday/saturday.

Agent 488

yeah guy seems unbaised.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690627522614525.html

There Is No Such Thing as Nuclear Waste

plus dozens of similar pro-nuke trash pieces.

do some research first before posting that crap.

candyflip

Thankfully we have a crazy old man pretending to be a woman, while completely ignoring the fact that he's been called on it coming here just to post news we already know.

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_Richard_

30 seconds:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18300710

SallyRand

From your citation:

"CONCLUSIONS: Thyroid cancer incidence has not increased in Dauphin County, the county in which TMI is located. York County demonstrated a trend toward increasing thyroid cancer incidence beginning in 1995, approximately 15 years after the TMI accident. Lancaster County showed a significant increase in thyroid cancer incidence beginning in 1990. These findings, however, do not provide a causal link to the TMI accident."

_Richard_

can't help you man.

'METHODS: Eighteen years of data (1985-2002) on thyroid cancer incidence were obtained from the PDoH. The three at-risk counties of Dauphin, York, and Lancaster were analyzed with regard to observed numbers of thyroid cancer cases versus expected incidence. Although the nuclear accident at TMI occurred in 1979, 1985 was chosen as the starting point for data analysis because that is when the PDoH began maintaining cancer incidence records.'

your citation:

'..have come up with nothing. '

but as always, what one wants to believe is what one believes.

_Richard_

edit: no, i swear to god, read it yourself.

2MuchMark

All the anti-nuke people need to do their research. The problem with the reactors in Japan right now is NOTHING compared to the fires burning out of control from the oil refineries. The health effects of those fires will be much more severe, much more expensive, and kill many more people in Japan and surrounding areas much faster than anything else.

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Babaganoosh

This guy reminds me of another old delusional white guy running around on GFY.

Has anyone ever seen Pathfinder/theking and SallyRand/Marion together?

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SallyRand

Thank you for your Ad Hominem attack and your absolutley valueless input to this thread.