Here’s what went FOOOM:
Note that the explosion only blew out the panels at the top of the building. I can’t speak to the nuclear industry, but in the solid rocket industry, propellant mixing buildings are often built in a similar fashion; when an explosion occurs, the panels blow out leaving the skeletal structure of the building more or less intact. If the panels are built to blow out easily, then they tend to blow out at a lower pressure… which means at a lower velocity. This leads to less damage nearby, while opening up the building sooner to lower internal pressure. In theory, the building can be easily rebuilt; with the structure intact, you just need a bunch of new panels, some rivet guns and a shitload of screen doors.
Note also that this reactor was built in 1967 and installed by General Electric in 1971. It’s older than I am. And I can assure you that had I been hit with a thirty foot tsunami, I might be melting down too. For future reference in dealing with the inevitable anti-nuclear activists… had the anti-nuke crowd not killed the US nuclear industry, GE could easily have produced a newer generation reactor to replace this one *decades* ago. If this thing melts down… blame Greenpeace. Make sure to hold them accountable, since they pretty much made it inevitable.
And by the way:
5 Responses to “Fukushima Reactor Building”
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It should be mentioned that the newer generation of reactors do not require electricity in order to cool down during emergencies.
Hell, the newest generation of reactors in development produce nuclear waste that is only harmful for decades, compared to millennial, and can use old nuclear waste as fuel.
I suspect anti-nuclear will ignore these inconvenient facts, though.
AND note that Reactors #1-3 rode out the 8.9 earthquake just fine (#4-6 were down for maintenance) and were SCRAM’d as part of a normal procedure for safety. It was the flooding out of the Back Up Diesel Power Systems that is the root cause of this disaster.
Now me, *I’d* recommend that they look at a Monolithic Dome(tm) (with a freaking high, braced, intake and output tower … with a snorkel on top) as ‘containment’ building for the new Back Up Power System.
That last graphic is inaccurate. You need to add in the dose of the X-rays at the airport now.
-G.
I still want to know what the shockwave that blew vertically out of the top of the building was all about.
In the cutaway drawing, you can see that the reactor containment was a large circular concrete hatch on its top (I assume this gets removed for refueling). That getting blown off by the hydrogen explosion would neatly account for the shockwave heading skywards.
That would also mean that the top of the reactor itself is now exposed and should be visible in aerial photography.
The one satellite photo I’ve seen so far shows the roof of the building intact with vapors emanating from the building itself, which suggests that it was taken as the steam venting was going on prior to the explosion.
Reactor Unit One uses conventional uranium fuel rods; Reactor Unit Three, which the Japanese are now stating is suspected of having a partial meltdown in it also, is fueled by a uranium/plutonium mixture called MOX.
Although the IAEA has offered to send Japan nuclear experts to help them deal with the malfunctioning reactors, Japan hasn’t asked them to help yet…which could be just national pride… or it could be that they don’t want to have the IAEA see what’s really going on over there.
One interesting thing is that the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, located to the north of the Fukushima plants seems to have weathered the earthquake and tsunami far better than the Fukushima plants, despite being considerably closer to the quake’s epicenter:
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20110312/capt.photo_1299923245413-36-0.jpg
There’s a side view cutaway showing the fuel rod cooling pool and inverted lightbulb-shaped containment here:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/files/2011/03/GE_BWR_Containment_Diagram.jpg