Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without humans

Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by pfdietz on Sunday September 26, 2021 @09:39AM (#28660802)

Among the lessons I think should be learned from Fukushima is: nuclear power plants should have vents with cesium filters.

Almost all the long term dose from a nuclear accident is from 137Cs. So, if you can vent steam (and hydrogen) and trap the cesium, you can avoid much of that dose. The cost of doing this shouldn't be very high, and it would have helped a lot at Fukushima. It might even enable the other safety systems (like, the containment building) to be made cheaper/smaller.

This idea is somewhat in the spirit of the famous "Cockcroft's Folly" at Windscale.

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by c7DJTLrn on Sunday September 26, 2021 @10:00AM (#28660953)

I don't believe that would've helped in the case of Fukushima because of the hydrogen explosions that would've expelled radioactive dust.

I'm not a nuclear engineer but it seems to me that we should try to find an alternative material to zirconium. It can decompose water into hydrogen gas. It's why hydrogen built up inside Fukushima Daiichi and it's suspected that's why Chernobyl Reactor 4 had two explosions, one of them being hydrogen. Alternatively, we could try to circulate another liquid through reactors which won't decompose into hydrogen, possibly something with a higher thermal capacity too, but that might be expensive.

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by pfdietz on Sunday September 26, 2021 @10:17AM (#28661070)

I think at Fukushima it would have enabled the hydrogen to be vented to a stack in a controlled manner, not into the buildings where it exploded.

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by varjag on Sunday September 26, 2021 @09:52AM (#28660900)

Is cesium filter something that actually exists?

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by pfdietz on Sunday September 26, 2021 @10:05AM (#28660990)

Also filters iodine.

https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12248A021.pdf

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by varjag on Sunday September 26, 2021 @11:02AM (#28661397)

It does appear to bind iodine, but no mention of Cs tho?

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by pfdietz on Sunday September 26, 2021 @11:04AM (#28661416)

See page with the title "Experimental data base – Conclusion of the tests (II)"

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Re:Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without h... by varjag on Sunday September 26, 2021 @11:31AM (#28661660)

Indeed; thanks!

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