No Fuel In the Fukushima Reactor #1

An anonymous reader writes To nobody's surprise, the Japanese press reports that a new way to look at the inside of one of the Fukushima 1 damaged reactors has shown the fuel is not in place. Engineers have not been able to develop a machine to directly see the exact location of the molten fuel, hampered by extremely high levels of radiation in and around the reactors, but a new scan technique using muons (details on the method in the media are missing) have shown the fuel is not in its place. While Tepco's speculation is that the fuel may be at the bottom of the reactor, it is a safe bet that at least some of it has burned through and has gone on to create an Uruguay syndrom.

Comments

What on earth

[beelsebob]

What on earth is "an Uruguay syndrom", and why does google have no idea either.

Re:What on earth

[Anonymous Coward]

The highly radioactive material must of melted through the center of the Earth and appeared in Uruguay. What else could it be?

Re:What on earth

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Japanese for "China Syndrome"

Re:What on earth

[digitalPhant0m]

I think they are trying to be clever and play on the term China Syndrome, where the fuel melts all the way through the earth to it's Antipodal point.

But since this is Japan, the author speculates that the antipodal point is somewhere in Uruguay, which it is not (it's kinda close though).
You can check here: Antipodal Map

Re:What on earth

[pitchpipe]

What on earth is "an Uruguay syndrom", and why does google have no idea either.

And I thought that /.ers were supposed to be smart.

An Uruguay Syndrom[e] is very similar to Collins' Syndrome, except that it is much bigger and involves radiation from uranium fission instead of Cesium/Deuterium. Think of it as an Atlantis Complex times 100.

There, was that so hard?

Re:What on earth

[DRJlaw]

What on earth is "an Uruguay syndrom", and why does google have no idea either.

An attempt to be cute with the concept of the "China syndrome," but since the reactor is in Japan you name somewhere in the Western Hemisphere. This is actually a marginally better form of cute since China and the US are both in the Northern Hemisphere, and Japan and Uruguay are actually separated by the equator as well. Your seemingly self-sustaining molten nuclear fuel melts its way through the earth - then up and out the other side (*eye twitch*).

The problem being it's utter bollocks. Anything that becomes molten will mix into the fuel and dilute it, lowering the reaction rate and moving you further and further away from a self-sustaining reaction.

The real concern is that you melt through the containment vessel (apparently not likely; but then explosions within the containment vessel and seismic activity aren't helping you any), through the earth, and down to the water table so that there is a steam explosion. That potentially scatters the nuclear fuel and fission products out the containment vessel.

Re:What on earth

[mrchaotica]

But since this is Japan, the author speculates that the antipodal point is somewhere in Uruguay, which it is not (it's kinda close though).

Ironically, "Uruguay syndrome" is a more accurate term because Uruguay is a heck of a lot closer to being an antipode of Japan than China is to being an antipode of the US.

Re:What on earth

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I think they are trying to be clever and play on the term China Syndrome, where the fuel melts all the way through the earth to it's Antipodal point.

Thank you as I had no idea at all what this was. I think somewhere Dennis Miller is reading this and saying "Even by my standards that's obscure."

Re:What on earth

[Nutria]

"Even by my standards that's obscure."

Nah. He's old enough to remember the movie.

Fears of a "China Syndrome" were quite high in the 1970s. Of course, if you were born in the 1980s (heck, even in the mid- to late- 1970s) then it probably is obscure!

No GOML you whippersnapper!

Re:What on earth

[ceoyoyo]

"Anything that becomes molten will mix into the fuel and dilute it, lowering the reaction rate and moving you further and further away from a self-sustaining reaction."

There's that, yes. And also the antigravity that's required on the second half of the trip.

Re:What on earth

[sh00z]

Continental US, that is. Looking at the linked map, looks like Botswana is opposite Hawaii.

Re:What on earth

[internerdj]

Thank you. I'm now glad I never finished my hole through to the other side of the earth. My parents would have been loads of pissed when the Indian ocean drained out into our yard.

Re:What on earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there such a thing as "northern Antarctica"? Would that just be the entire coast of Antarctica?

Re:What on earth

[SuricouRaven]

It was never a serious name. The famous movie itsself even pointed this out - it said that in practice the fuel will burn down until it hits groundwater, then disperse in a steam explosion.

Re:What on earth

[Pinhedd]

That is in fact actually what it refers to.

In North America, we call it the China Syndrome because China is opposite North America on the surface of the planet.

Uruguay is approximately opposite Japan.

Safe?

[chinton]

Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.

Job Security

[BarbaraHudson]

With the decommissioning expected to take 3 to 4 decades, that's pretty good job security.

Just too bad that the half-life of the workers will be less than the half-life of the job. But it "is" a lifetime job."

The genius of holes

[RSilverlok]

Remember, building one at fukushima-Daichi contained a G.E. mark one (BWR) which has holes in the bottom that the control rods would supposedly use. If the fuel is not in the core it would quickly have melted the seals around those holes and oozed into the CV ( 'containment' vessel ). On estimate, it would only take about four hundred pounds of corium ( melted fuel globs) to burn through the CV bottom. This would have taken less than 24 hours from the initial incident. Since the core contained tons of material it is impossibly naive to believe that it is even remotely contained. BUT more importantly, since reactor #1 doesn't have any core material , and it was one of the least spectacular 'explosions' at the plant, How can Tepco get anyone to believe that the really spectacular explosion at three did anything less than blow core materials through the roof like the world's nastiest party popper?

Re:The genius of holes

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if there had been any dispersal of reactor core materials, it would sort of have been obvious? Like "In the red forest near Chernobyl, where most of the large particles loaded with reactor fuel fragments rained down, literally everything was dead within days" obvious?

Radiation spectrometers are really quite good at identifying the radioactive elements present based on the energies of the gamma rays. Virtually all contamination from Fukushima is volatiles: Cesium, strontium, iodine, xenon. Things that would have been coming off corium as vapor then either continuing as vapor or contaminating the water droplets inside before floating out. Nonvolatile elements don't generally become airborne of a whim; unless you have e.g. a burning reactor core at Chernobyl to make small particles, and a ferocious thermal convection updraft to waft them up. And even there, most of the horrible transactinide-laden particles rained down within a few miles.

Re:The genius of holes

[Anonymous Coward]

> Since the core contained tons of material it is impossibly naive to believe that it is even remotely contained.

I agree with you completely, but want to point out that a great number of armchair physicists online have been scoffing and mocking people who indicate that the reactors melted down, that the fuel pools are not fully intact, and that the earthquakes caused real damage. Slowly, the picture of damage is becoming clear and those armchair physicists are being proven wrong. It's almost like global warming deniers. Fukushima deniers?

Obligatory

[ArcadeMan]

Ford Prefect: How are you feeling?
Arthur Dent: Like a military academy. Bits of me keep passing out. Ford? If I were to ask you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford Prefect: We're safe.
Arthur Dent: Ah. Good.
Ford Prefect: We're in a cabin of one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur Dent: Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word "safe" that I hadn't previously been aware of.