Posts Tagged ‘nuclear power’

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Elfte dagen av tsunamikatastrofen

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

Uppdatering 21:16

Inget nytt från NISA eller JAIF, men en intressant artikel från NHK.

Strömmen har kopplats in till 3ans kontrollrum. Man jobbar nu på att få igång alla instrument och på onsdag(det är redan tidig onsdag morgon i Japan) ska man försöka starta pumparna. När vi vaknar imorgon så kanske vi förhoppningsvis kan få reda på ifall pumparna i 3an fungerar efter explosionen. Om de fungerar så bådar det gott för 1an och 2an. Får man igång pumparna till alla tre reaktorer så är nog krisen mer eller mindre över. Men vi får se hur lång tid det kommer ta, man har väntat och hoppats på det nu sen i lördags.

Uppdatering 16:25

TEPCO och NISA har släppt en uppdateringar med aktiviteter i havsvattnet. Om vi kollar sista mätpunkterna och konverterar till Bq per liter får man följande:

Nuklid   Bq/liter    Halveringstid

Co-58 16,68   70,86 dagar
I-131 1190   8,03 dagar
I-132 1362   2,30 timmar
Cs-134 150,4  2,07 år
Cs-136 23,5 13,04 dagar
Cs-137 153,5  30,08 år

Jag blev först lite rädd för att det skett en återkriticitet när jag såg så mycket I-132 i vattnet. Det har gått 132 halveringstider för I-131 sen reaktorerna stängdes, men jag ser nu att man kan få I-132 från sönderfall av Te-132 som har en halveringstid på ungefär 3 dagar och vid fission skapas ungefär dubbelt så mycket Te-132 som I-131. Det är därmed en jäkla numerisk slump att aktiviteten av de båda jod isotoperna är desamma. Eftersom Te-132 har en tredjedel av I-131's halveringstid och pga att det just nu finns en tredjedel så många Te-132 kvar sen fissionen stoppades så får man en lika hög aktivitet av I-131 och I-132(eftersom I-132 är i ungefärlig sönderfallsjämvikt med Te-132).

 

Pust där kan man lugna ner sig igen!
Bananekvivalenten pga I-131 innehållet i en liter vatten är 262, jag har inte doskonverteringsfaktorerna för de andra isotoperna framför mig så jag orkar dessvärre inte kolla dess bananekvivalenter.

Kyodo rapporterar att man fått igång el i kontrollrummet i 1an och 2ans gemensamma kontrollrum. Än så länge bara ljusen men förhoppningsvis snart också all instrumentation. Hoppas vi får mer info om statusen för 1an och 2an när de får igång mer instrument!

Statusen för reaktorerna ser annars i stort sett oförändrad ut

 

 

 

Uppdatering 11:40

NISA har släppt nya uppdateringar(1 och 2).

Reaktor 1.
Härdtryck 328 kPa
Vattennivå 1.8 meter under toppen på bränslet
Inneslutningstryck stabilt på 175 kPa
Wetwell(torusen) 155 kPa
Havsvatten sprutas in kontinuerligt

Reaktor 2
Härdtryck 83 kPa(det är lägre än atmosfärstryck så mätaren är nog trasig)
Vattennivå 1.35 meter under toppen på bränslet
Inneslutningstryck stabilt på 110 kPa
Wetwell(torusen) inga data
Havsvatten sprutas in kontinuerligt
El inkopplat till elcentralen

Reaktor 3
Härdtryck 137 kPa
Vattennivå 2.35 meter under toppen på bränslet
Inneslutningstryck stabilt på 100 kPa
Wetwell(torusen) inga data
Havsvatten sprutas in kontinuerligt

Reaktor 4
Ingen data från bassängen, men TEPCO säger att de uppskattat att det finns vatten.
El inkopplat till elcentralen

TEPCO har också meddelat att de kommer stänga ner hela kraftverket, inklusive reaktor 5 och 6 som inte har skadats.

Uppdatering 09:20

Här är även JAIF's uppdateringar(1 och 2),

Stråldoser, tryck etc verkar i stort sett vara som igår. Vattennivån i 3an verkar ha sjunkit 30 cm. Alla reaktorer är inkopplade på nätet och man räkna med att börja dra igång utrustning i 1an och 2an idag. I 3an och 4an verkar man ännu inte jobba med att kontrollera utrustningen. Man sprutar återigen vatten in i bassängen vid reaktor 3. Vid det här laget kan man nog gissa sig till att bassängen läcker rätt rejält, annars hade den varit vattenfylld.

Ingen mer rök från 2an och väldigt lite från 3an.

Små steg i positiv riktning alltså. Vi får ännu hålla tummarna för att pumpar odyl faktiskt ännu fungerar i reaktorerna.

Uppdatering 09:00

TEPCO meddelade vid 09:00 japansk tid (8 timmar sedan) följande statusuppdatering:

Unit 1 (Shut down)
-Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke
 were confirmed after the big quake occurred at 3:36PM Mar 12th. It was
 assumed to be hydrogen explosion.
-We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel. 

Unit 2 (Shut down)
-Reactor has been shut down and the level of reactor coolant had dropped
 and the reactor pressure had increased because the Reactor Core Isolation
 Cooling System stopped. Measures were taken to lower the pressure within
 the Reactor Containment Vessel and to inject sea water into the Reactor
 while carefully confirming safety. The level of reactor coolant and the
 pressure of the Reactor resumed.
-At approximately 6:00AM on March 15, 2011, an abnormal noise began
 emanating from nearby Pressure Suppression Chamber and the pressure
 within this chamber decreased.
-We completed receiving electricity from the external transmission line
 up to the auxiliary transformer. We installed the power cable from the
 transformer to the temporary power panel. At 3: 46 PM, March 20th, we
 started energizing the load-side power panel.
-We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 3 (Shut down)
-Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke
 were confirmed at 11:01AM Mar 14th. It was assumed to be hydrogen
 explosion.
-At 8:30AM on March 16th, fog like steam was confirmed arising from the
 reactor building.
-At approximately 6:15AM on March 17th the pressure of the Suppression
 Chamber has temporarily increased. We were preparing to implement a
 measurement to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessel
 (partial discharge of air containing radioactive material to outside)
 in order to fully secure safety. However, at present, it is not a
 situation to take a measure immediately to discharge air containing
 radioactive material to outside now. We will continue to monitor the
 status of the pressure of the reactor containment vessel.
-We are working on receiving external power supply to Units 3 and 4.
-We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 4 (outage due to regular inspection)
-Reactor has been shut down. However, at approximately 6AM on March 15th.
 We have confirmed the explosive sound and the sustained damage around
 the 5th floor rooftop area of the Nuclear Reactor Building.
-On March 15th and 16th, we respectively confirmed the outbreak of fire
 at the 4th floor of the northwestern part of the Nuclear Reactor Building.
 We immediately reported this matter to the fire department and the
 related authorities. TEPCO employees confirmed that each fire had already
 died down by itself.
-At this moment, we do not consider any reactor coolant leakage inside the
 reactor containment vessel happened.

 

Reaktor 5 och 6 är utom fara sedan tidigare. Nu håller man på att testa all el-utrustning i reaktorer 1-4 så att man inte kraschar elförsörjningen när man kopplar in saker. Arbetet fick avbrytas vid tillfällen under dagen då rök och ånga sporadiskt visade sig.

TEPCO meddelar också att man nu uppskattar att vågen som träffade anläggningen var ca 14 meter, d.v.s. det dubbla mot vad man hade räknat med. Mer om det på NHK World.

IAEA meddelar att strålning på 161 mikrosievert per timme uppmäts på en plats i staden Namie i Fukushima prefekturen, ca 20 km från kraftverket. Det är 1600 mer än normal bakgrundsstrålning. Ingen information än om vad det är för ämne man uppmätt, vilket har stor betydelse för hur snabbt det försvinner.

Dagens länksamling (uppdateras löpande)

Myndigheter:

SSM
STUK

Tidningar:


DN(1, 2)
SVD
Aftonbladet(1, 2, 3)
Expressen(1, 2, 3 )

Bloggar

Fukushima-far-vissa-att-alska-karnkraften
Yttre krafter påverkar inte vår kärnkraft
Bygg ut de orörda älvarna
Lek med elden
Kärnkraft är ingen lösning på klimatutmaningen
Hur bra är det egentligen med kärnkraft
Hur mycket orkar Japans folk

 

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Posted in Commentary, Fukushima, Swedish | 9 Comments »

Nuclear friends: this is a call to arms

Monday, March 14th, 2011

 

The worst disaster Japan has seen in modern time is unfolding live on TV, right before our eyes. And yet they havn't even been allowed to bury and mourn their dead before the anti-nuclear opinion makers use and abuse their plight to gather support for their own cause.

This must not be allowed to stand unopposed!

Steve Packard at the Depleted Cranium blog has posted a call to arms, and we are following suite. Everyone in support of nuclear power must take these b-tards head on. Yes, I'm cussing here because it makes me furious that the anti-nuclears are so singlemindedly focused on abolishing nuclear power that they do not even allow the dead to cool before they try to use them!

I am copying Steve's rally here.

Pro-nukes can’t take this sitting down. There are some things we should have learned by now:

  • Don’t apologize.
  • Go on the offensive right away. Don’t take this sitting down. Get up in the faces of the anti-nukes and call them on their dishonesty. Shame them for instilling panic on a nation which is already dealing with tragic events. Drive hone the higher ethical authority that honesty brings. Pull no punches in showcasing their disgraceful media-whoring. Be sure not to forget the victims in this are the people of Japan who have endured the earthquake and call the anti-nukes for subjecting them to a campaign of fear.
  • Focus on the fact that the damage is confined to the plant. Remember that this was an enormous earthquake that destroyed nearly every industrial structure and facility. The plant will take a long time to repair, but bear in mind that this is the real concern, that it will take time to repair and that in the meantime, there can be power shortages.
  • Don’t forget that there are thousands dead from the quake and tsunami or that there’s an oil refinery burning. This is not a nuclear event. A nuclear plant may have been damaged, but this is not a nuclear disaster, it’s an earthquake.
  • Be careful about saying that newer reactors are “safer” or have better systems. While this may be true, it can also imply that the technology is inherently unsafe.
  • Avoid talking about a “disaster being averted” as that implies that the situation posed a threat of a disaster. Never acknowledge that any significant risk of a regional event existed, because it didn’t.
  • Take on the most ridiculous claims of a global disaster or the possibility of a meltdown causing deaths as far as the United States. Show these claims to be part of a campaign of fear that reaches the level of absurdity.
  • Don’t be afraid to call names. A liar is one who lies. If you lie, you’re a liar. When you catch someone lying call them a liar. It’s not an ad-hom attack, it’s a fact. They lied.
  • Comment! Comment! Comment! There are a lot of news stories out there (thousands) and most of them online allow readers to comment. It’s critical that the alarmist stories do not go unchallenged and without solid information to back the up. We need as many pro-nukes to make as many comments on as many stories as possible. It’s a lot of work, don’t get me wrong. This is all the more true considering many news organizations require you to register to comment. However, it’s also very important. If you can refute these on a few sites, you’ve done something to really help. If we can get major news stories to contain several pro-nuke comments, we’ve already made a huge impact.

So... go get'em... this is our Three Mile Island. Let's not mess this up...

/Michael

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Posted in Commentary, English | 3 Comments »

Chris Busby and "The Tall Tale Of Ten Tons Uranium Gone Missing"

Monday, February 7th, 2011

Professor Chris Busby is a man that has made himself somewhat of a career in being the golden boy of nuclear opponents, saying just the things they want/need to hear. There is only one problem with this: he doesn't have a foot to stand on when it comes to his tall tales about the evils of nuclear power. Previously we have exposed his claims that the Chernobyl disaster supposedly caused an increase in breast cancer in Sweden. This turned out to be an unfounded conclusion, based on frivolous interpretation of data along with some outright cherry-picking and willful suppression of data that didn't fit the claim.

In the case of The Tall Tale Of Ten Tons Uranium Gone Missing, Busby and his colleague Cecily Collingridge have issued a report where they claim that there has been a leak of enriched uranium from the British nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point in the order of about 10 000 kg. We analyzed the data which he used to make his claim, and took the same steps as he did, following his chain of reasoning from data to conclusion. The result is hardly flattering for the Busby and Collingridge, because the claims they make hinge on...

- Unsupported postulates

- Sparse and highly uncertain data

- Graph fitting done on this data, while ingoring uncertainties

- Low resolution geological surveys

- Misreading of said surveys

- Ignoring local variations in said surveys

- Ignoring missing indicators that must be present if their claim was true

All over the place...
When you can fit any random graph of the data, in this case an elipsoid, something is not right.

The full analysis can be found in our forum. But I'll just cut right to the chase and ask the obvious question: how would 10 tonnes(!) of uranium go missing without anyone noticing? And more important: why didn't anything else go missing? The data that Busby uses to make his claim shows barely detectable levels of fission products, such as Cobalt-60 or Cesium-137. Considering that uranium is a lot less mobile than these products, if uranium goes missing but not the fission products, there cannot be a leak in the reactors because any such leak would have seen more fission products escape than uranium.

This leaves only one path as to how 10 tonnes of uranium could escape into the environment: when reactor fuel arrived fresh at the plants, someone took some fuel elements aside, stripped them of their cladding, ground them to dust and blew them out over the surrounding areas. Alternatively someone made a bonfire with them. And all of it happened without anyone noticing.

Since this is clearly not a reasonable explanation, we must conclude that Busby and Collingridge are wrong: there has not been a leak of 10 tonnes of uranium from Hinkley Point. The data they rely on does not support the claim, and it is only through their frivolous interpretation of the data, misreading some of it, and making unsupported assumptions that they arrive at the claim.

This begs a final question: claims have been made that there are numerous health problems around Hinkley Point, such as an increased incidence of childhood leukaemia. If there are no leaks from Hinkley Point, how would this be explained? Well... to find that answer, maybe you should go ask the one person making the claims: a certain professor Chris Busby.

/Michael Karnerfors and Mattias Lantz - members of Nuclear Power Yes Please

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Posted in Analysis, Bad Science, Commentary, English | 8 Comments »

Say Yes To Fourth Generation Nuclear Power

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

By Michael Karnerfors, previsouly published at Currents, the Swedish-American Chambers of Commerse magazine

Today’s policies on nuclear energy dictate that we shall put fuel that is unspent – 95 percent of it – in an expensive hole in the ground. There are better ways. Fourth generation nuclear power helps save us from our own foolish plans.

Picture this…

You are on a family car trip. You need gas, so you stop at a station and fill up twenty gallons of fuel in your car. You drive ten-fifteen miles down the road, using up one third of a gallon of gas, and then you stop. To the puzzlement of your family you siphon all of the unused gas out of the tank. Two thirds of a gallon you pour out on the road and set fire to. The remaining nineteen gallons you give back to a gas station. Your family asks you: “Why are you doing that?!”. You reply to them: “Oh that gas will be sent back to the oil well and put it into the ground again, not to be used”

By now your family will call for an ambulance and have you committed on grounds of insanity, because such behavior is without doubt utterly ludicrous.

But what if I told you that this is how most counties in the world are managing their stock of nuclear fuel, including the US?

In the middle 1980’s most of the nuclear power plants that are in operation in the world today had been built. They are of the so called second generation nuclear power. After thirty years in operation the results from these plants are quite excellent. Apart from Three Mile Island (TMI) accident – which incidentally didn’t hurt anyone – none of the pressure and boiler water reactors of West or East Asia have had a major accident. They are sturdy and reliable designs.

They do have a few drawbacks though:

  • Only 5 percent of the energy in the fuel is extracted.
  • Of the energy extracted from the fuel, two thirds is washed away as waste heat.
  • When the fuel is taken out from the reactor, it is highly radioactive, necessitating storing it for 100,000 to 1 million years while it decays.

Today tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel are sitting in casks or storage pools around the world, waiting for us to come up with a solution for it. For countries that do not allow reprocessing, there has only been one solution seriously proposed so far: deep geological repositories. You build caves deep into stable bedrock, and stuff the nuclear fuel there. Seen from a safety perspective that is a good idea because we know from the natural nuclear reactor site in Oklo, Gabon, Africa, that such repositories are extremely safe. A geological repository will keep spent nuclear fuel locked inside for literally billions of years. The only major worry is human intrusion.

Seen from a resource and sustainable development standpoint though, this is an awful(!) idea. 95 percent of the energy in spent nuclear fuel is unused. Why would we want to put that in the ground for hundreds of thousands of years when we can use it to get clean, safe energy instead?

Fourth generation nuclear power is an umbrella term for emerging reactors designs. Some of them have existed as experimental plants for decades. Countries like the U.S., Russia, France and India have been working on fourth generation for quite some time. The advantages of this new nuclear power are substantial: 

  • Fourth generation reactors use what we call “waste” today as fuel and extract twenty times the energy, used nearly twice as effective.
  • The storage time for the nuclear waste goes down to approximately 500-1,000 years instead of 1,000,000 years.
  • They can use plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons as fuel.

Two things have held fourth generation nuclear power back so far. First the negative attitudes towards nuclear power after TMI and Chernobyl. The second factor has been the fact that Uranium has been – and still is – dirt cheap considering the fantastic amounts of energy that is extracted from the material, even with the second generation reactors.

But today, when we are faced not only with the problem of nuclear waste but also the urgent need of phasing out fossil fuels, these accidents have in the grand perspective proven to be exceedingly rare and either harmless – like TMI – or not relevant to the issue of future nuclear power, because no one is building dangerous Soviet junk-reactors designed in the 1950’s anymore. Nuclear power is without doubt coming back.

While countries like the US and Sweden are mulling over how to get people to accept nuclear waste dumps in their neighborhoods, others – like Russia and South Korea – are moving forward aggressively in the field of new nuclear power. With the current rate of expansion China will be the world leader in a couple of decades; the country is breaking ground for ten(!) new nuclear reactors every year.

Until fusion power is commercially available, the question is what role the western world will take in the continuing history of nuclear power. Will we:

  • Stop the development of our own nuclear power and bury our nuclear fuel in the world’s most advanced and expensive garbage dumps, hoping no one touches it for a million years?
  • Move forward, develop new nuclear power and produce clean energy for hundreds of years while eliminating nuclear waste and nuclear weapons?

If the first option sounds good to you, I urge you to get a siphon and start draining your gas tank…

Michael Karnerfors, Lund, Sweden

The author is a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering, and co-founder of the independent network Nuclear Power Yes Please” (NPYP) which seeks to gather people who consider the issue of nuclear power too important to be squandered with junk arguments and outrageous claims aimed more to scare and terrify people rather than informing them on the issues for and against nuclear power.

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Posted in Commentary, English, In the media, NPYP in the wild | 2 Comments »

Atomkraft? Kernenergie? Kernkraft? Ja, bitte!

Friday, September 24th, 2010
By Michael Karnerfors, 2010-09-24

For our German friends, there are now three versions of the Smiling Atom artwork available for download in German.

In case you are wondering why there are three versions, well it's because our german friends are a little ambivalent to the whole concept, which reflects on the language. :) Nuclear power can be translated synonymously to "Atomkraft" (Atom(ic) power), "Kernenergie" (nuclear energy) and "Kernkraft" (nuclear power). The person that requested a version (you know you can do that, right?) in German wanted "Kernenergie" and "Kernkraft". But in the old days, when the Smiling Sun logo was made, it said "Atomkraft? Nein Danke", so I included that as well.

I hear nuclear power in Germany is facing quite a few upturns and much debate, so I reckon this might come in handy soon. Best of luck to you!

Atomkraft? Ja, bitte

Atomkraft? Ja, bitte

(more...)

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Posted in Nuclear Power? Yes Please, Smiling Sun | 5 Comments »

Election gives no clear answer on nuclear power in Sweden

Monday, September 20th, 2010
By Michael Karnerfors, 2010-09-20

After the election in Sweden september 19, 2010, the situation for the Swedish nuclear power remains uncertain. While the pro-nuclear Alliance coalition did take the biggest count, and the anti-nuclear redgreen leftist coalition fell flat on its face, neither coalition got majority which leaves the the xenophobic Sweden Democrats (sd) with tiebreaker seats in the Swedish riksdag (parliament).

For the past 30 years in Sweden, no permit for building nuclear power reactors has been given, because it has been prohibited by law. The center-right Alliance that won the last election in 2006 tore up that law in June this year... almost anyway: it's not going away until the end of this year. The redgreen coalition, with the Green Party in it, promised they would rip up this decision and reinstate the law. For the most part it looked like a clean cut situation: if the Alliance wins, we get new nuclear power. If the redgreens wins, we get none.

Now when all the premilinary counts are in it turns out we landed on the knife's edge: neither coalition got majority. The (sd) party are pro-nuclear, by all means, but the question is what the Alliance will do now.  Will they seek passive support from (sd), or will they - as has already been hinted - seek support from the greens and have that party move from their redgreen coalition just to keep (sd) out of the government? And if the greens - which are dogmaticly opposed to nuclear power - end up in the government, what happens then?! It's completely impossible for them to go along with any pro-nuclear proposition, or they will split down the middle. On the other hand, three out of four parties in the Alliance are strongly pro nuclear and they went into this election that way, so they can't back down either and suddenly say no to nuclear power again.

So... all in all: this election leaves us with no clear answers on the nuclear power in Sweden for now.

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Posted in Commentary, English | No Comments »

The Swedish ban on nuclear power lifted after 30 years

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

 

By Michael Karnerfors, 2010-06-17

By a narrow margin, after over 10 hours of debate (minus breaks), the Swedish parliament just made the decision to lift the 30 year old ban on giving permits for new nuclear reactors. While this is very uplifting, and certainly a big thaw in this deadlocked issue, it's not over quite yet. We have an election coming... (more...)

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Posted in Commentary, English | 4 Comments »

We do not need nuclear power

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
By Michael Karnerfors, 2010-06-15

A common argument against nuclear power is this:

"We don't actually need nuclear power, because we could potentially use other clean sources of energy".

I am not going to argue against that particular statement, because it is true. We could potentially rid ourselves of nuclear power and have clean energy from other sources.

There are a few implications and practical matters that must be addressed though. So let's take this kind of reasoning a few steps further. What other areas is this statement true for? What more could we potentially be without?

Not needed?

Do we actually need any of these?

(more...)

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Posted in Bad Science, Commentary, English | 2 Comments »

Merkel wins big in Germany; can drop anti-nukes.

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

This just in on the news: Angela Merkel and her party CDU/CSU wins the 2009 federal election in Germany, along with the Free Democrats while the Social Democrats does their worst election since World War II. Merkel has announced her intention to form a government with FPD.

The upshot of this is that Merkel does not have to have the nuclear hostile SPD or the Green Party on her government, which in turn means that the German moratorium on nuclear power can now be reviewed and perhaps dropped.

If this happens it means that with Sweden, the UK, Italy and Germany reconcidering their stances on nuclear power and moving in favour of this form of energy, 2009 is a year of tremendous success for European nuclear friends.

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Posted in Commentary, English | 7 Comments »

How to get professionals to agree with your opinion

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

...or...

How the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives used nurses to lie to the government.

Surveys and questionnaires are a simple and effective way of gauging people's opinions. The result can then in turn be used to influence the opinions other people hold, most often to become opinions you want people to have.  And the more supposedly trustworthy the people you survey are, the greater you can expect the compliance to be.

Let me show you an example of this. This is a TV advert from 1949.

Simple enough isn't it? If many medical doctors like this brand of cigarette, it must be really good, right? Right! Doctors can't be wrong. Moving along...

Surveys and questionnaires that you make yourself have a nice bonus: you can make them any way you want. The advantage of this is that if you phrase the questions just right, you can get any answer you want.

(more...)

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Posted in Bad Science, Commentary, English | 10 Comments »

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