Monday, March 21, 2011

Infrared (IR) Thermal Heat Map Images of Fukushima Daiichi

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Japanese NHK TV showed these images today (22 March in Japan). Some areas are supposedly 128 degrees C. They also mentioned a core temperature, but I must have heard it wrong. I thought I heard 300-some degrees C. Can't be right.  Black smoke has been coming out of reactor 3.

NHK TV image

Fukushima Reactors 1 through 4 in false-color IR.  Blue and green are cool, orange and red are hot, white is very hot

 
Closeup of Reactor 3

Reactor 3.  The building appears to have been almost totally destroyed.  I can't imagine that the spent fuel pool is intact.  It is located fairly high in the structure -- and there is nothing left much higher than the surrounding low buildings.  I wonder if the reactor vessel top has been crushed or broken off.

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16 comments:

  1. When did No 3 get this bad? Looks like more damage than after the initial explosion, no? Just as we wrap our heads around the severity of the issue, more info is made available and the situation continues to escalate. I hope, more than I can say, that this situation is resolved soon, before even more people are affected and further environmental devastation occurs.

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  2. No 3 uses Plutonium-239, half-life of 24,0000yrs., multiplied by 10 half-lives and this stuff is going to be around for 240,000yrs.
    It seems that the building is slumping, it appears to stand quite a bit lower. I feel for the locals. They've got to contain this dam thing somehow!

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  3. The spent fuel pool is in the lower left of each of these reactor building photos. I would suspect that the pool on number 3 is compromised, either leaking or a wall/dam is missing, causing fuel to be exposed. This causes the high temperature seen there. It looks like they got water into number 4's pool, and thus cooled it down. Numbers 1 and 3 however have additional hot spots in the center of the building -- right where the reactor drywell containment top plug sits. Looks like a drywell leak, with hot steam squirting out of the sides of the plug's o-rings in numbers 1 and 3. Number 2 has an unknown problem, which we can't analyze because the roof is still on. But the roof is hot, and with the suspected suppression torus leak, hot steam is likely escaping from there, and perhaps the spent fuel pool too.

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  4. The spent fuel pool is almost certainly intact. What you are seeing in these photos is the top 1/3 of the building - in every one of these photos, the bottom 2/3 is obscured by the same hill. You can see that hill clearly if you look at other photos of the plant taken from the opposite angle. In the cutaway diagram, the part of the building that's blown off is the part above the actual containment room - you can even see the dividing line between rooms on the diagram. (You can match up the height of this line on reactors 2, 3 and 4 in one of the photos above - the ceiling of the containment room is still intact, or at least appears to be from these photos.) There is some debris hanging down below this line on the outside of the building, but the spent fuel itself is far below this line on the interior of the building.

    Steam is no doubt escaping from the spent fuel pool, but that's a separate issue that's unrelated to whether the pool is intact or not.

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  5. You fear mongers, you... So what if it got to 300°C? Its a friggin nuclear plant, ffs!... What dyou expected it to be in the mid 70°F with cool breeze at around sunset? Temperatures on your suv's motor can reach 500+ °C... CNN even shows an "expert" who says its well over 1000°, just by lookng at these thermal images, while he sits on the other side of the world... Pff

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  6. Paul said...

    It's beyond fear this thing has the potential to poison life for miles and miles. That smoke is some of the nastiest crap on the plant. I recently heard they've asked China to ship over one of their high rise cement mixers. What happens when you pour neutralizing cement on hot fuel rods?

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  7. AFAIK they used the "high rise cement mixer" to pour water there. Pouring concrete is both too early and counterproductive at this stage...

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  8. Yes, I believe they are using the concrete pump as a water pump.

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  9. I posted a quick analysis of damage with respect the spent fuel pools in 3 and 4 here http://bigdustup.blogspot.com/2011/03/fukushima-daiichi-reactor-number-3-and.html

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  10. Hello Scott,
    you are right.
    See below
    Donnerstag, 17. März 2011 14:37
    Konzept: Geschehnisse in Japan - Fukushima

    Sehr verehrte Damen und Herren,
    ich betrachte die Geschehnisse in Japan mit grosser Sorge.
    Nachdem ich die Ursachen und Wirkungen auf die Atomkraftwerke geprüft habe, kommt mir der Gedanke dass am schnellsten und effektivsten vom Meer her geholfen werden kann.
    Stromversorgung und somit die Kühlung der Reaktoren könnte durch Schiffe mit entsprechender Ausstattung sichergestellt werden. Wenn ich höre, dass der Flugzeugträger Ronald Reagan lediglich als Basis zur Betankung von Helicoptern und Flugzeugen dienen soll, dann stellt sich die Frage ob die fehlende Energieversorgung der Kraftwerke nicht durch derartige Schiffe vorübergehend gewährleistet werden könnte.

    Zur aktuellen Situation (die mir bekannt ist)
    Wasserbedarf/Kühlung.
    Fahrbare Betonpumpen (Reichweiten von 65m Höhe möglich) können zielgenau eingesetzt werden und haben einen möglichen Wasserdurchsatz von ca 160m³/h

    Der Durchsatz kann enorm erhöht werden (600m³) indem die eigentliche Betonpumpe abgekoppelt, und das Fahrzeug lediglich zur "Rohrführung" herangezogen wird.

    Die Fa. Putzmeister ist international führend im Bereich Betonpumpen und war auch schon in Tschernobyl aktiv. Kontakt siehe unten!

    Die Fa. könnte beispielsweise geeignete Pumpen kombinieren.
    http://www.sterlingsihi.com/cms/de/home/home.html
    http://www.sterlingsihi.com/cms/de/home/kontakt/adressen-weltweit/adressen-asien.html

    Bitte prüfen Sie meinen Vorschlag!
    Für Fragen stehe ich Ihnen Gerne zur Verfügung.
    Hubert Sommer
    Dipl.-Ing Bau- und Umwelttechnik
    Hauptstraße 12/1
    89601 Schmiechen
    Tel 07344 952586
    Mobil: 0171 144 7864
    email: hatt@hattech.de

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

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  11. The above comment by Hubert Sommer is very close to being an advertisement, but I am letting it stand because his pumps and systems could indeed be helpful. I read German quite well, but for those of you who do not, you can easily translate the whole thing to almost any other language using Google.

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  12. Could they just drop a nuclear bomb on it? That out to make the problem go away. It makes everything go away.

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  13. Hattech Information schrieb on last Sunday to important people in Europe:
    Sehr verehrte Frau Dr. C... L..., sehr verehrte Damen und Herren,

    sicherlich ist es auch für Sie ernüchternd, wie in Japan mit der Reaktorünglück umgegangen wird!
    Meine Einschätzung der Situation ( Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:51:19 +0100) war doch logisch und richtig.
    Stromversorgung und somit die Kühlung der Reaktoren könnte durch Schiffe
    mit entsprechender Ausstattung sichergestellt werden. Wenn ich höre,
    dass der Flugzeugträger Ronald Reagan lediglich als Basis zur Betankung
    von Helikoptern und Flugzeugen dienen soll, dann stellt sich die Frage
    ob die fehlende Energieversorgung der Kraftwerke nicht durch derartige
    Schiffe vorübergehend gewährleistet werden könnte.

    Nun aber zur aktuellen Situation (Stand 27.03.2011)
    US-Marine und andere Schiffe bringen Süßwasser zum kühlen
    Im Kampf gegen zunehmende Strahlung aus dem überhitzten Atomkraftwerk Fukushima 1 sollen jetzt große Frachtschiffe der US-Kriegsmarine zur Hilfe kommen. Ihre Ladung: Süßwasser.

    Wichtiger HATTECH-Hinweis: Es muss ein provisorischer Kreislauf geschlossen werden:
    Wasser wird von 1 Frachtschiff in die Reaktoren pumpen.
    Weitere Frachtschiffe gewährleisten die ausreichende Zufuhr von Süsswasser.
    Evtl. Erstellung eines prvisorischen Beckens um den Reaktor.
    Austretendes Wasser wird kanalisiert und in einem weiteren provisorischen Becken nahe des Meeres gepeichert.
    Dieses kontaminierte Wasser wird in ein grosses Tankschiff gepumpt (Funktion wie Absetzbecken bei SIWA)
    reicht die Zufuhr von Süsswasser nicht aus, dann wird das kontaminierte Wasser wieder ins Frachtschiff gepumpt
    Das kontaminierte Wasser im grossen Tankschiff kann nach Beendigung der Aktion entsorgt werden.
    Die Anzahl der Tank-Schiffe in Abhängigkeit des Bedarfs bzw. Vorhaltung.

    Hello Scott
    Hope you can translate in right way.
    For sure i have a commercial idea and a full tecnical concept for german companies. But this would be a win-win effect for Japan and Germany. But no reaction from Japan... You know they say that they would loose their face. But they allready lost much more i think.

    So we have to wait and wait, till they accept help.

    Best regards
    Hatt
    Therefore i have more time for my small company, that is in a much nicer section than to job in big technical solutions for countries who do not want help.

    ---
    Mortorbike season is starting.
    www.hattech.de

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  14. very interesting article thanks for the info!

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  15. Very interesting thanks for publishing!

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  16. very interesting thanks for sharing!

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