MIT Decay Heat chart; wind maps & satellite photos; why not spray water on the reactor vessel?
Robin Whittle
some figures from an MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering blog message
detailing the Decay Heat of the three reactors and how it may be
expected to decline in the coming days, months and year.
That blog post is one of several which are most informative. Please
check their site, since I imagine they will continue posting valuable
material there:
I have linked to better wind maps including:
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/amedas/205.html?elementCode=1
and to an IR satellite image animation page which gives a good account
of cloud movement in recent hours. With care, and sorting out which
clouds are low-altitude (the gray ones are low, I think), this could be
a guide to the recent wind behaviour and therefore some kind of guide to
the likely wind directions in the hours and days to come:
http://www.firstpr.com.au/jncrisis/#weather
The situation has deteriorated further - there are no more people
working at the plant, so I guess there is no more water being pumped
into the reactors. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, since the
decay heat keeps on coming and will do so for weeks and months.
I imagine it would be good to have a fire hose pumping water onto the
top of the reactor vessel, so that water runs down the side of the
vessel and cools the whole thing firstly by being cool to start with,
and then by evaporation. Then, perhaps, the steam generated inside the
reactor would condense on its inside walls, without the need to vent the
reactor steam to the outside world, and without the need to replenish
that water.
I guess this could be done with a fire brigade extension ladder and
pump. However, anyone who did this now would probably risk deadly
radiation poisoning. This assumes that the reactor can be reached from
above, which I guess is the case for Units 2 and 3, judging by the new
photo (see my page) of the damage to their buildings.
There's no doubt good reasons why this is not being done - I am just
saying I don't know what they are.
- Robin