Big quake in japan

[Big Frank]

I does seem like it's nothing at all or it's the China syndrome. The truth has got to be somewhere in between.

[Timothy]

Having spent a decade working in and around nuclear power, it's pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff on whats accurate reporting or pure BS.  Unfortunately, TV news will put anyone in front of a camera.

I don't watch much news on the TV anymore because of that.  

In a nutshell, this is very serious business we're dealing with.  The doses being reported, as Tom noted, are not acutely dangerous but, if I had no need to be there, I'd be leaving.  I sponged radiation for eleven years and made a pretty shitty living doing it while contractors were making a 100K to my 30....

This will take decades to clean up.  TMI took 14 years and 800 million bucks between 1979 and 1993.  Imagine what this will cost!

[billt]

This will take decades to clean up.  TMI took 14 years and 800 million bucks between 1979 and 1993.  Imagine what this will cost!

Where does all the money go in the clean up process?  Bill T.

[Timothy]

Where does all the money go in the clean up process?  Bill T.

Just a sampling.  Nothing is cheap in this industry.

July 1980    Approximately 43,000 curies of krypton were vented from the reactor building.
 
July 1980    The first manned entry into the reactor building took place.
 
July 1984    The reactor vessel head (top) was removed.
 
Oct. 1985    Defueling began.
 
July 1986    The off-site shipment of reactor core debris began.
 
Jan. 1990    Defueling was completed.
 
July 1990    GPU submitted its funding plan for placing $229 million in escrow for radiological decommissioning of the plant.
 
Jan. 1991    The evaporation of accident-generated water began.
  
Aug. 1993    The processing of  2.23 million gallons accident‑generated water was completed.

Today, the TMI‑2 reactor is permanently shut down and defueled, with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off‑site to an appropriate disposal site, reactor fuel and core debris shipped off‑site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored. In 2001, FirstEnergy acquired TMI-2 from GPU. FirstEnergy has contracted the monitoring of TMI-2 to Exelon, the current owner and operator of TMI-1. The companies plan to keep the TMI-2 facility in long‑term, monitored storage until the operating license for the TMI‑1 plant expires, at which time both plants will be decommissioned.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html

Keep in mind that all of this has to monitored constantly and Health Physics Techs in the industry are making 100 bucks an hour or more depending on their contract.  Multiply that by several thousand over the years and as with anything else, labor is your largest expense.  A janitor at a utility is clearing 50-60K a year easy!

Several GOOD men and GOOD friends I worked with were part of the initial assessment back in 1979-80.

[Timothy]

I have another thought on costs.

Consider this, for a one day visit to work on my equipment at Susquehanna in PA, I would drive one day, go to the plant and train, get my bio assay, body scan, visitor paperwork done on the second day, enter the plant with an escort for about three or four hours to tune up the gear, process out and drive home the next day!

Four days billable at 800 bucks a day, plus expenses for about four hours of on-site work.  Some plants and the DOE sites were even worse.

I was badged at a few sites to reduce the costs to the utility.

Multiply that evolution by an exponent or two...

[Sponsor]

[billt]

The Japs will go broke after this.  Bill T.

[tombogan03884]

The Japs will go broke after this.  Bill T.

They already have been since the 90's.
But they will get the job done in 1/2 the time or less.
Other than that one plant this whole earth quake thing will be a memory in 6 months.
They will put refugees into work gangs and get the job done, Unlike those whiny drones in New Orleans, (Govt. had to allow illegals to work since the locals were to f*cking lazy ) and Haiti. The only thing wrong with the Haiti earth quake was that it did not kill enough of those lazy SOB's.

[Timothy]

The cost will be nothing anyone has ever considered in our lifetimes.

Japan has 54 reactors in an area the size of California.  California has four.....

One thing that will help is the amount of dry storage available for them and the ability to ship the stuff over the ocean rather than over the road as with our transport problems.  Not every state likes having spent fuel running over the road.  Only in extreme circumstances has that happened.  Most spent fuel is stored on site because the Feds dropped the ball, again, on a repository.  

[Timothy]

They already have been since the 90's.
But they will get the job done in 1/2 the time or less.
Other than that one plant this whole earth quake thing will be a memory in 6 months.
They will put refugees into work gangs and get the job done, Unlike those whiny drones in New Orleans, (Govt. had to allow illegals to work since the locals were to f*cking lazy ) and Haiti. The only thing wrong with the Haiti earth quake was that it did not kill enough of those lazy SOB's.

They COULD just take the stuff out to sea and dump it like the Soviets and Russians STILL do!

The Mariana Trench should suffice...

 

[tombogan03884]

Lots of damned deep water handy if they go that route.