Why not make a series about the mess in Fukushima?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the Chernobyl accident. They slander what happened in the USSR, Soviet science and Soviet people. And let's remember the recent accident at Fukushima, about the lies, mess and unprofessionalism of the Japanese …

There have been many recent talks about the Chernobyl accident. Someone is discussing the credibility of the series, and someone is arguing about who was to blame. They put a stigma on what happened in the USSR in those years, on Soviet science and Soviet people.

Let's remember what happened in Fukushima not so long ago. Let's remember about lies, hiding information, mess, unprofessionalism at a Japanese nuclear power plant.

As you know, at 14:46 on March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake occurred in Japan, followed by a tsunami.

The earthquake of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant itself did not particularly damage. As provided by the instructions, as soon as the seismic alarm sounded (or how it works for them), the station was immediately drowned out.

But even a damped nuclear reactor tends to warm up due to the decay of uranium fission products. Therefore, it must be cooled. The pumps that cool it are powered by the reactor itself or from emergency diesel generators. But clever Japanese and American designers have come up with nothing better than place these same generators in the flood zone … And they, in fact, flooded. The station was left without electricity at all (even the instruments in the control room did not work, so then the reactor was collapsed almost blindly), and, most importantly, without cooling the reactor.

In reactors of this type (American BWRs), a system is provided that allows them to cool for some time, as if by inertia - due to the so-called. isolation mode capacitor. The problem was that for this system to work, one small latch had to be opened, which for some reason turned out to be closed on block No. 1. And you can only open it (surprise!) using an electric motor … And it runs on the same station electricity, which is not. There is no alternative to tie the system to electricity, which should provide cooling of the reactor in the event of a power outage - this is Americans, of course, are handsome capital.

The most interesting thing is that the kind the Japanese basically DIDN'T KNOW that their reactor is melting a little. They thought that everything is ok, the capacitor of the isolation mode is working and the next 10 hours the reactor is not in danger. But then at 18:18 (four hours later!) After the accident "spontaneously" (this is a quote) power (?) Was restored to some of the station's instruments, and the operators were surprised to see that the latch was closed. That is, it turned out that reactor No. 1 had been left stupidly to itself for 4 hours.

Fitted mobile generators. But it turned out that they give wrong tension, which is needed to power the pumps of the cooling system.

Station director Yoshida suggested pouring water into the reactor with the help of fire engines, of which there were as many as three at the station. But it turned out that the station workers handle the firemen not trained, and the staff firefighters said that there was probably radiation in the same place, so they will not go, because this is not provided for by their contract.

Second fail: it turned out that from the station staff nobody knows, where the cherished hole is located through which water can be poured from an external source. Well, somehow, they have not been honored for 7 years from the moment the system was put into operation, they have never conducted appropriate exercises!

While they were bargaining with the firemen and looking for a hole, it was midnight. The pressure in the inner vessel of the reactor reached about 60 atmospheres. As a result, even when they found the only person (!) At the station who knew the location of the hole, and somehow settled with the firefighters, it turned out that pumping water into the system was a fire engine pump can not, since it develops a lower pressure than what was in the reactor.

It was starting to smell very bad.

And only then (12 hours after the fun began) the director of the Yoshida station decided that, apparently, it was necessary to inform the government that something had gone wrong.

While he was explaining to the authorities, the pressure in the reactor SUDDENLY dropped without any action from the personnel. In principle, today it is clear what exactly happened: the core left without cooling melted and burned through the inner case, falling out into the outer one. But this simple thought it never occurred to anyone - and if someone smarter and came, then he preferred to pretend that he did not understand. "Hurray, the pressure has dropped, supply water!" - ordered Yoshida. But if the inner reactor vessel can in principle withstand up to 80 atmospheres, then the outer one cannot. Yes, it is not intended for this, its task is to prevent leaks of any radioactive muck. When the molten substance of the reactor (corium), sintered into a red-hot and terribly radioactive drop, broke through the bottom of the inner case, all the steam from the cooling system, which was in the inner case, also got into the outer case. This vapor blew the outer casing almost to the limit (4 atmospheres out of 5 provided). And then Yoshida and the company began to pour new water into the reactor, which, in contact with the red-hot reactor, instantly evaporated, increasing the pressure.

We decided that it was necessary to bleed off steam from the inner case, that is, to release a certain amount of strongly radioactive water vapor from the reactor bluntly into the atmosphere … They started to bleed, but it turned out that the valves designed to relieve pressure are opened by a pneumatic system that is activated … you guessed it? Right: using electricity. While looking for how to open the valves, the pressure inside reached 8 atmospheres. At 14:00 on March 12, steam was released and the pressure was reduced to a safe level. Water continued to flow into the reactor. It seemed that everything was already good.

And at that very moment an explosion thundered.

There could be no doubt about its nature: it was exploded by an explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in the air. Where does hydrogen come from? And straight from the reactor, where water vapor heated to enormous temperatures entered into a corresponding reaction with the zirconium of structural elements. In theory, such hydrogen, even if it were released, would have to settle in an external hermetically sealed housing filled with inert nitrogen. However, this hull probably cracked due to the high pressure, and part of the hydrogen leaked into the premises of the station, where it formed an explosive mixture. The explosion was not very strong, although it led to a new leak of radiation outside the station, and most importantly - smashed to hell with all the impromptu cooling system that had been painfully created over the past day.

In fact, it was not scary. Everything bad that could happen to the reactor due to the loss of cooling has already happened, and even last night. Here director Yoshida should remember what he actually has 5 more power units, at least two of which also stand without refrigeration. But instead, with the stubbornness of a maniac, he continued to restore the cooling system of unit 1, driving away the employees of units 2 and 3, who tried to draw the attention of their superiors to the fact that their situation was also not ay.

On Units 2 and 3, the emergency cooling system, which did not start on Unit 1, started working, and for some time the situation there was almost normal. But the emergency system is an emergency system that is not designed for long-term operation. And by March 12, she began to die little by little (on block No. 3 a little faster, on block No. 2 a little slower). Then Yoshida would have caught himself and throw all his strength into blocks No. 2 and No. 3, but instead he continued to "extinguish" block No. 1, where there was nothing to extinguish … In short, they realized when the situation at block No. 3 has become the same as at block No. 1days earlier - catastrophic. Nothing hesitating, Yoshida repeated the same procedures with block No. 3 as with block No. 1 , and received a completely identical result: melting of the core, destruction of the inner vessel, release of hydrogen into the reactor room, explosion.

Unit 2 was more fortunate. Having safely blown up two blocks, Yoshida guessed that it was necessary FIRST to release steam from the outer building, and then pour water there. Eventually reactor # 2, of course, melted, but at least it didn't explode. And thanks for that.

Reactor # 4 exploded instead

Why he jerked is not completely clear: the situation was more or less there, the unit was stopped and even the fuel was unloaded. Probably, hydrogen exploded, which was pulled into the block by the ventilation system from blocks No. 1 and No. 3. Apparently, the Japanese and Americans who built the station did not hear the phrase “Design cut of communications in case of an accident”. As a result of three explosions, the radiation level at the station in places jumped to refreshing 800 roentgens per hour at a lethal dose of 400 roentgens (well, not X-ray, but RER, but to hell with the details). As a result, Yoshida announced the evacuation of personnel, leaving only 50 liquidators, mostly elderly workers, to monitor the operation of the pumps and from time to time release excess pressure from the reactors.

Basically, the first part of the story ends here. Three of the six (No. 1, 2 and 3) reactors in Fukushima-1 melted, three (No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4) exploded. The active zones of the melted reactors turned into red-hot drops, which burned through the structure of the station and safely went into the soil. There they are to this day, washed by groundwater, which in the process themselves become highly radioactive. Nothing can be done with them: they "shine" thousands of roentgens per hour. According to ecologists, every day 300-400 liters of highly radioactive water are still discharged into the World Ocean with groundwater.

A nice bonus: all the premises of the station, located below the level of the reactor, were flooded with highly radioactive water, some of which soon had to be bluntly dumped into the ocean, because it interfered with work. The rest, the most "dirty", in the amount of 800 thousand tons, was pumped into special containers that are on the territory of the nuclear power plant. Nobody knows what to do with them next. Working version: wait 30 years until the radioactivity of the water decreases due to the natural law of radioactive decay, after which, again, pour it into the sea. And pray that during this time in the vicinity of Fukushima there will not be another earthquake that will destroy the containers.

In general, the process of eliminating the consequences of an accident expected to be completed by 2050 (!) year.

If we compare the accidents in Fukushima and in Chernobyl, then the difference is approximately the following: in Chernobyl all the dirt was thrown into the air at once, in Fukushima its outflow continues slowly and sadly, stretching for decades.

And now for the most delicious. After the accident, a 20-kilometer zone around the station was resettled. But in May 2011, it turned out that fairly high levels of radiation are observed far beyond this zone, including areas that are 40 km away from the station. An option was discussed to resettle everyone within 40 km from the station, but this was considered too expensive procedure. Instead of this Japanese government … changed sanitary regulationsby increasing the maximum permissible radiation dose for the civilian population in 20 times … As a result, the zone contaminated with radiation turned out to be not contaminated with anything, but quite clean. For understanding: the US Embassy recommended its citizens living in Japan not to settle closer than 80 (!) Kilometers to the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. The Japanese have been resettled from the 20-kilometer zone, from the 30-kilometer zone it is possible to move out “voluntarily” (without compensation from the government, yeah). In short, Japanese women still give birth, or how is it supposed to say in such cases?

It is even more interesting with estimates of the number of victims. For example, during all this time in Japan, only about 20 cases of thyroid cancer associated with the accident were recorded (after Chernobyl, there were 4,000 such cases). Why so few? But because the Japanese government decided: if the person received less than 100 roentgens, then, if he got sick with anything, then he did not get sick because of Fukushima and let him not invent it. And 100 roentgens is, by the way , the lower threshold of acute radiation sickness, those. in fact, never a small dose: the liquidators were supposed to be "written off" at the Chernobyl NPP after 25 x-ray … You understand that this is a fairly convenient way to calculate the number of victims of an accident, it is a pity that the USSR did not know about this.

The most interesting thing is that neither the WHO, nor the UN, nor other IAEA, let alone Greenpeace, this whole situation, including the highly radioactive slurry constantly seeping into the sea, does not bother at all, although traces of cesium, strontium and other sweets from Fukushima are from time to time found in the sea off the coast of even Germany and Sweden, not to mention all kinds of China or the far east. But the world community condescendingly looks at the Japanese, who are slowly picking with a file what is left of the nuclear power plant, which has been actively polluting the environment for 8 years now. Well, what, the key ally of the United States in the Pacific region, it is more expensive to present such a claim.