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Suppresed Video of Japanese Reactor Sodium Leak
James Hardine writes "Following an announcement this week that the infamous Japanese Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor would be re-opened with a new plutonium core, Wikileaks has released suppressed video footage of the disaster that led to its closure in 1995. The video shows men in silver 'space suits' exploring the reactor in which sodium compounds hang from the air ducts like icicles. Unlike conventional reactors, fast-breeder reactors, which 'breed' plutonium, use sodium rather than water as a coolant. This type of coolant creates a potentially hazardous situation as sodium is highly corrosive and reacts violently with both water and air. Government officials at first played down the extent of damage at the reactor and denied the existence of a videotape showing the sodium spill. The deputy general manager, Shigeo Nishimura, 49, jumped to his death the day after a news conference at which he and other officials revealed the extent of the cover-up. His family is currently suing the government at Japan's High Court."
sodium cooled reactors also have a tendancy to produce radioactive isotopes of sodium like Na22 or Na24 from the high levels of neutron radiation exposure, the first produced by knocking a neutron out of Na23 and the second from neutron capture. sodium reacts with water to produce sodium hydroxide [caustic soda] and hydrogen gas, both of which are very dangerous in large quantities for obvious reasons.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Uploaded to youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=pwWQLMmn0tM
An English subtitled version can be found here until that also runs out of bandwidth. Also a link to a version on YouTube but this is with Japanese subtitles only.
The next generation of nuclear power reactors is on the drawing boards today, and they aren't pressurized liquid sodium.
Oh, hell yes. The initial key exchange to start an https connection is wonderfully expensive.
Note to web "masters" everywhere: you cannot distribute huge files to millions of people using MySQL and SSL. Full stop. Upload that shit to Amazon S3 or Akamai or YouTube or _anything_ other than mediawiki. Thanks!
So interesting, that i took the liberty of finding the source.
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm
Coal mining accidents might not incur the risk of significant radioactive contamination, but the combustion of coal does release massive amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, and people living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to more radiation than those living near nuclear power plants.
I've always found these statistics to be interesting:
Of course, in the case of an extreme nuclear accident, as in Chernobyl, we have a very big problem to deal with right away that wouldn't be possible with coal. But I think it's worth remembering that a great deal of radioactive material is accumulating from coal-fired power plants, and that could someday be a major problem too. Nuclear power is not the only source of radiation released because of human activity.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
Would not have made much difference to be honest. If you get several atmosphere pressure of radioactive water suddenly blowing a hole in your sub and disabling its power system, you would be fairly stuffed as well. The US navy stopped using sodium cooled reactors mainly because they wanted to standardize on one design. Sodium would have a lot of merits, even at sea. In particular, because it doesn't boil at the temperatures used you don't have any pressure in the reactor, so an explosion or leaking of primary coolant is a lot less probable ( and sodium or not, leaking of primary coolant would certainly be a show-stopper for a naval mission ).
Oh, and btw, the summary is misleading. Sodium is very corrosive to concrete and a lot of other materials, but provided it remains pure ( i.e, doesn't mix with water / air ) it is in fact very non-corrosive to steel, which is one of the reasons why it is used. It is certainly a lot less corrosive than 300 C water with boric acid in it.
Of course, in the case of an extreme nuclear accident, as in Chernobyl, we have a very big problem to deal with right away that wouldn't be possible with coal. But I think it's worth remembering that a great deal of radioactive material is accumulating from coal-fired power plants, and that could someday be a major problem too. Nuclear power is not the only source of radiation released because of human activity.
There is another factor to consider in this. Chernobyl used a design whereby a lack of water caused a positive feedback loop in the reactor to cause it to get even hotter. U.S. and most other designs use a negative feedback loop so the less water/coolant there is in the reactor, the less energy is put out. A Chernobyl type accident is physically impossible in any reactor used in the U.S. 3 Mile Island is about the worst nuclear accident that can occur in a U.S. nuclear power plant and about three dozen things went wrong (including stupidity on the part of the plant operators) in order to cause it.Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Actually, they partially are. Breeders can be reduced to dramatically reduce the amount of waste generated, thus eliminating one of the major issues with nuclear power. I've seen predictions from 95% to 98% less waste.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
A number of reasons:
a) It is liquid at temperatures suitable for the reactor operation meaning you don't need any pressure in the cooling system. In contrast pressurized water reactors and gas cooled reactors need to keep the entire core under high pressure.
b) Sodium is a metal and hence conducts heat very well, this allows you to build a very compact reactor that is still capable of dissipating its heat after shutdown even if the cooling pumps were to fail.
c) Sodium doesn't absorb neutrons nearly as much as water does, and this allows you to build a reactor which produces more plutonium than it consumes, thus eliminating the need to enrich uranium.
d) Sodium atoms are heavier than hydrogen atoms, so the neutrons will not lose their energy as quickly. As a consequence the neutron spectrum is a lot harder, and capable of destroying much of the long-lived waste. The Waste from a breeder reactor would hit uranium levels of radioactivity in 300 years rather than tens of thousands of years.
e)While sodium is corrosive when mixed with air or water, pure sodium is almost completely non-corrosive to steel. This is in sharp contrast to 300 C pressurized water with boric-acid dissolved in it. A sodium cooled reactor generally experiences virtually no corrosion to the reactor core unless an accident occurs.
Basically, if it wasn't for the fire-hazard sodium would be close to an ideal reactor coolant.
Oh if that was the ONLY thing that was wrong with it...
1)The end of the control rods were made of graphite, which accelerated the reaction rather than slowing it when the operators pushed the panic button.
2)The channels that contained the control rods were far too narrow, causing the control rods to get jammed when they deformed due to the intense heat.
3)The reactor did not have a containment building, allowing the radioactive gases to escape into the atmosphere after the accident blew the roof of the reactor itself.
4)The reactor core was unusually large, containing much more nuclear fuel than other reactor designs, thus making the radioactive release worse.
5)The reactor was staffed with uneducated workers that didn't have significant experience with nuclear reactors.
6)The operators were not told about the design problems with the reactors even thou they were well known at the time.
7)The operators ran the reactor outside of safety regulations, withdrawing many more control rods than the reactor was designed to operate with ( that this was even possible is another design flaw ).
You can get food your way in Japan. Really, really easily -- one way is to go into any fast food restaraunt. Hold the pickles, add more lettuce, special orders don't upset us because they're in the freaking manual. Seriously, though, there is a wide spectrum of culinary traditions in this country, from "The chef is the master, you are the student, you should be glad you were even allowed to choose to eat dinner at this restaraunt" to "Hum a few bars and I'll get you something in that general direction" to "Did you know there are 745,000 combinations of ingridients possible with this dish? We have 10 named varieties which are our most popular, or you can just pick one of the other 744,990."
There is also a wide spectrum of cooks having egos. (There is a bad habit among a certain type of Westerner to assume that any odd action taken by a Japanese person is because they are Japanese. That is one theory -- another is that the cook just can't be bothered to help you, or is excessively proud, or is just a disagreeable person. All of thsee will be right at least part of the time.) I assure you, if you visit enough hoity-toity restaraunts in NYC, you will fairly quickly find someone who would not be willing to accomodate a simple request that wasn't in their "vision" for the food. ("Where is the ketchup?" "THIS IS A FOI GRAS AND CAVIAR PATTE SERVED IN A LIGHT BALSAMIC VINAGRETTE."* "I like my foi gras with ketchup!"
(Sidenote: I do E->J and J->E translation in Japan as one of my work duties. I am not, however, a professional translator. The difference is that the folks who pay my salary pay me to *resolve* issues like "I just don't want squid" rather than just passively relaying the "Oh, we can't do that" response. I understand that the standard practice among professional translators is that you are supposed to not get in the way of the speaking parties at all -- this is why I am not a professional translator, I just translate for money.
P.S. For those of you considering a job in this general line of work, the pay is a heck of a lot better if you pitch yourself my way. Most clients do not appreciate the value of a beautifully articulated "The waitress says no" nearly as much as they do "OK, so here's what is going on here, and here is what I did to get you your squidless pizza. Aren't you glad you hired me." The same fundamental issue scales straight from "I can't give you pizza w/o squid" to "I can't approve that $1 million deal you are suggesting".)
* Sorry, I only eat at restaraunts that cost more than $15 when the client is paying, and then I'm having what he is having, so I have absolutely no clue whether this is actually a plausible French food combo or not. Bonus points: consultants get to eat at dinner, translators don't.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.