Wednesday, March 23, 2011

57,000 to 99,000 pounds of salt now interfere with reactor cooling

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/asia/24nuclear.html?src=twrhp
Begin quote from above article:
Richard T. Lahey Jr., who was General Electric’s chief of safety research for boiling-water reactors when the company installed them at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said that as seawater was pumped into the reactors and boiled away, it left more and more salt behind.
He estimates that 57,000 pounds of salt have accumulated in Reactor No. 1 and 99,000 pounds apiece in Reactors No. 2 and 3, which are larger.
The big question is how much of that salt is still mixed with water and how much now forms a crust on the reactors’ uranium fuel rods. Chemical crusts on uranium fuel rods have been a problem for years at nuclear plants.
Crusts insulate the rods from the water and allow them to heat up. If the crusts are thick enough, they can block water from circulating between the fuel rods at all. As the rods heat up, their zirconium cladding can ignite, which may cause the uranium inside to melt and release radioactive material.end quote.
With 57,000 pounds of salt buildup in reactor 1 and 99,000 pounds apiece on reactors 2 and 3, and the basic fact that getting close enough to chisel the salt away means death, unless there is some chemical that doesn't blow up under extreme heat that the reactors can be dosed with in quantity to loosen or turn NACL(Sodium Cloride or ocean salt) into something else that will boil away or blow away, or wash away this whole thing might get worse instead of better during the next 10 days to 2 weeks.

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