The Ongoing Events at the Fukushima Dai'ichi Nuclear Power Plant No.

1
Rev 2

17 March 2011

by

Michael Flagg

NOTE: This is a personal observation related to the ongoing events at the Fukushima Dai'ichi
Nuclear Power Plant No. 1. I am a nuclear engineer, but this report in no way reflects the
opinions of my employer or co-workers. This white paper is just a way of giving friends and
family some explanation of what is going on in terms the lay reader can, hopefully, understand.

Summary

UPDATE for 17 March 2011: For once the day ended better than it started. The situation is still very
serious, but looks (as of around 9:30 p.m. Central Time U.S.) to be stabilizing. This could change
quickly. Keep an eye out on what is going on at the spent fuel pools. That is the key.

The Japanese have been able to get water on the reactors for Units 1, 2, and 3 and spent fuel pools via
water cannon and this has bought them time to get a power cable from the grid hooked up to Unit 2 and
hopefully getting power to the other Units soon. The diesel generator for Unit 6 is back up and they are
alternating using it to keep the spent fuel pools topped off for Units 5 and 6. Just because this is better
does not mean we are out of the woods yet, but it does mean that we have a chance to avoid the worst-
case scenario, which in my opinion, would be a sustained fire in one of the spent fuel pools. Right now
this accident is still not as bad as Chernobyl, though it is worse than Three Mile Island. The type and
amount of radiation released to date are NOT harmful to people away from the reactor site. The
workers at the site are taking significant dose, but they are juggling personnel and schedules and are
finally getting more workers on site to help out. I agree with the IAEA assessment that things are
serious, but stabilizing.

PLEASE NOTE: Readers in the U.S. are going to soon be seeing stories about a "radioactive plume"
coming towards North America. Yes, there will be elevated readings in the coming days and weeks.
The type of radiation is not at a high enough level to be harmful and the radiotoxicity of the materials is
not in any sort of concentration likely to be harmful at all. I can't speak for the area immediately
surrounding Fukushima Power Plant No. 1, but even there, with elevated dose readings, it is still not to
a level immediately dangerous to health. This is still more a Three Mile Island type of release and
studies done in the aftermath of that event showed either an extremely low increased chance of cancer
or no increase, depending on your reading of the data. The problem is that things like smoking and
drinking cloud the data - but I can say there was not significant spike from that incident and we are still
in that type of release situation. Now, if the spent fuel pools do somehow ignite (which is looking less
likely, but still a small possibility) then a release that could be harmful to health in Japan could occur,
but this has NOT occurred to date and we have many rad detectors over there right now confirming
this.

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I anticipate this will be a topic of much sound, fury and controversy for years to come. Unless the
spent fuel pools go up, though, from my professional opinion this will have practically zero effects in
the U.S. and low effects in Japan.

Also, the weather forecast has changed, per NHK tonight, it looks like the winds will shift to the
Northeast, NOT the South. This is very good news for Tokyo.

UPDATE for 16 March 2011: This is an update to this white paper I wrote up on the night of the 15th.
This revision tries to take into account some of the dramatic events from today and provide a little more
explanation on radiation dose to humans.

Much of this report will be the same as you read yesterday, but with new information, taking into
account what is going on right now in Japan.

If you spot inaccuracies or have questions, post them on my facebook page or leave a comment on the
scribd.com page.

This is my personal opinion of what is going on at the nuclear reactors at Fukushima Dai'ichi Power
Plant Number 1. Reactor Units 1, 2, and 3 were all operating when the massive 9.0 earthquake popped
off the coast from the power station on March 11th. The tsunami that hit shore roughly an hour after
the quake absolutely devastated the infrastructure around the reactors, wiping out the backup power.
The lack of backup power helped cause a cascading series of failures that has led to partial
"meltdowns" of the fuel in reactor units 1, 2 and 3. Workers at the reactors have had to vent radioactive
steam to the atmosphere. Explosions and overpressure events have seriously damaged all three reactors
and have led to radiation releases.

In addition, the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 somehow either went dry or the water level became low
enough to allow spent fuel to become uncovered, become hot and apparently off-gas some hydrogen
which led to an explosion. We'll discuss this a bit more below, but the short version is that problems in
the spent fuel pool for Unit 4 (and later Unit 3, where TEPCO says water levels are dropping) are
apparently far more severe than I initially thought and this could very well add to the radioactive
materials being released into the atmosphere.

Radiation rates have risen in Tokyo and other areas downwind, but so far these levels of radiation are
not high enough to be immediately dangerous to the public (that is still the case from I know, as of
March 16th at 10:00 p.m. Central Time in the U.S.). Right now the forecast I heard on NHK says that
winds will continue to blow airborne radioactive material to the southeast, out over the Pacific. They
indicated winds were going to shift to the south some time on Friday afternoon local time. South
means Tokyo, Yokohama, etc. The radiation levels still shouldn't rise to dangerous levels over those
cities, but they will rise.

Nuclear Power Terms

NOTE: No new sections for Rev 2.

NOTE: I've added a section on spent fuel pools for Rev 1.

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A lot of unfamiliar words are being tossed around in the media, so here are some definitions that might
help. I am putting in links to Wikipedia for those wanting more detail:

Reactor Core: This is basically a big metal lattice holding 12 foot tall fuel rods. A fuel rod is a stack
of uranium oxide pellets, each pellet roughly the size of .22 round. These are kept in a stack inside a
metal alloy called "zircaloy." The core for these types of nuclear reactors stays hot for several days,
even after they have been shut down and need pumps operating constantly to keep the water flowing
around to cool off the core. It is like your car's radiator, except in this case, even after you shut off the
car, you need the radiator to work for awhile because the "engine" (the core) is extremely hot.

Click here for more details on a nuclear reactor core.

Pressure Vessel: This is a very large steel container that holds the core. It is at least 20 cm (nearly 8
inches) thick of stainless steel. Possibly thicker, but I am not an expert on the specific reactor designs
at Fukushima. This is built to hold up under enormous pressures and heat.

For an example of what they can handle, when the core at Three Mile Island Unit 2 partially melted
down (about half the core melted and dropped to the bottom of the core), the steel pressure vessel did
not break or melt.

Click here for more details on a pressure vessel.

Containment or Containment Building: The core is in the pressure vessel. The pressure vessel sits
inside a large, thick concrete building designed to seal the pressure vessel and core from the outside
world. This building is constructed to handle a big pressure rise or explosion and still keep all the
nuclear materials inside the building. It has penetrations to allow for water to be pumped in to keep the
core cooled down.

Click here for more details on a containment building (The reactors at Fukushima are Boiling Water
Reactors (BWR))

Boiling Water Reactor (BWR): The type of reactor at Fukushima. In this kind of reactor you boil the
water inside the pressure vessel and that turns to steam to drive turbines to make electricity. For you
folks in Missouri, the Callaway plant is a different design - it is a pressurized water reactor (PWR).

Click here for more details on boiling water reactors.

Boron or Boric Acid (as in pouring in seawater laced with boron or boric acid): Boron is a "neutron
poison" - that means the boron absorbs neutrons and keeps them from splitting uranium atoms. This is
used to keep deformed fuel or melted fuel from "going critical" or releasing lots of energy from the
splitting of the atom. Think of it as a sponge, used to soak up neutrons and keep the situation from
getting out of control.

Click here for more info on neutron poisons.

Spent Fuel Pool: Fuel rod assemblies are used for several cycles in a reactor and, when most of the

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uranium-235 has been "burned" up to make heat they are transferred to a spent fuel pool (also called a
spent fuel bay or spent fuel pond). This enormous concrete "swimming pool" has a steel liner. In this
pool are rack after rack of fuel assemblies. These fuel assemblies are far colder than the fuel
assemblies in a reactor core, but you still need to pump water through this pool to keep it cool. The
spent fuel pool at Fukushima normally keeps 16 feet of water over the tops of the fuel elements. This
is a safety measure. In case the pumps fail, you want to have a lot of water that needs to evaporate
before causing a problem.

Click here for more info on spent fuel pools.

Note on Technical Terms

Translating very technical terms from Japanese into English can cause some real communication
problems. Please note that sometimes the way it is worded may be confusing.

What Happened

Please Note, this is my personal opinion and is based on what I can find that I regard as
reputable. I could be wrong on some particulars, but details are hard to come by at the moment,
so don't take this as gospel.

This includes an update to review the events from 16 March.

NOTE: Rev 2 condenses some of the situation that was discussed in Rev 0 and Rev 1, but has
much of the same text.

When the quake hit, units 1, 2 and 3 all survived the quake and shut down safely. When I say "unit"
that just means that there are multiple reactors, all with their own containment buildings, at this site.
For those of you in Southeast Missouri, a way to compare it is that the Sikeston Power Plant has one
coal-fired unit and the AECI power plant at New Madrid has two coal-fired units at the plant.

Fukushima has 6 units. Units 4, 5, and 6 were already shut down for maintenance.

The reactors shut down. The electrical grid, which powers their pumps, went down, so they turned on
their backup diesel generators. Remember, they need this power to keep water circulating over the hot
core. They need their "radiator" working. The backup diesels operated fine for an hour. Then a 30
foot tall tsunami caused by the quake washed ashore. This was a taller tsunami than they had designed
the plant to withstand. The water got over all the barriers and then wiped out the switch yard (where
you would hook up to the grid or where you would hook up extra diesel generators). This also
apparently wiped out the diesel fuel supply and the backup power went down.

There are batteries that then kicked in to run the pumps to keep the cooling system working. They ran
out of juice (these are big pumps and put a hard drain on the batteries). The tsunami had wiped out the
switchyard, making it impossible to quickly bring in new generators and get them hooked up.

For a variety of reasons, including this loss of all power systems the coolant systems began to fail.
They had a very, very, very hot "engine" and their radiator had stopped circulating properly.

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Over the next few days, the water began to boil off, exposing the core to air Unit 1, then Unit 3, then
Unit 2. Recall, the pressure vessel and containment is sealed off, so the steam that was boiling off
began to create enormous pressure inside the reactor pressure vessel and containment. Think of it like
a pressure cooker you might use to cook with, except the bleed off valve is stuck shut. The fuel rods
were then exposed to air. Air does not conduct heat away very well and so the temperature of the fuel
rods began to rise. Eventually they got hot enough to melt the zircaloy, which meant part of the core
deformed and some/much has probably fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel. This also put a lot
of radioactive material into the air, which got entrained in the steam.

Okay, so now we have a very hot, very highly pressurized and very radioactive atmosphere inside the
containment building.

Well, the plant operators began to vent some of the steam to the outside. This caused the radiation
levels nearby to rise (we'll talk about rad levels in a minute). They vented the steam to keep pressure
from building up in the containment building.

While this is going on, the Japanese know they have to get water over the core. So they begin pumping
seawater laced with boron into the pressure vessels. This eventually resulted in getting water up over at
least portions of the fuel rods in Units 1, 2, and 3, though radioactive material did continue to be vented
and the containment buildings

In the first few days of the accident, there were some spectacular explosions in Units 1, 2 and 3 due to
hydrogen buildup. These explosions, while making scary TV, did not significantly damage the
containment buildings - it was the pressure inside that did the real damage, though there is worry that
these explosions have damaged cooling systems that might be used once power is restored.

Radiation levels have been high on the plant site and managers there have had to juggle staffing and
personnel to keep dose as low as possible. This will get easier because on the 17th at least 100 new
personnel got the site, along with 30 new firefighter crews (per NHK broadcast tonight).

A diesel generator has finally gone online in Unit 6 and they are switching the power from it to power
the pumps for the spent fuel pools in Units 5 and 6. This is a positive development.

As of the evening (in the U.S.) of 17 March, things are as bad, but not worse than yesterday. The
situation is still not catastrophic with regards to the units 1, 2, and 3. They are apparently getting water
over the cores in Units 1, 2 and 3, but the fuel is still uncovered. They are close to getting grid power
back on site. That will help, though the damage from the hydrogen explosions will have knocked out a
lot of systems.

By "not catastrophic" I mean that three reactors are still hot (but cooling down) and some radioactive
material has been spewed out and nearly 200,000 people have had to evacuate the area, but there has
been no deadly release of radioactive material outside the plant to where locals would be immediately
made sick or hurt.

Now let's talk about the spent fuel pools. There are a lot of fuel assemblies in a spent fuel pool. This is
normally no big deal. There is a lot of water to keep them cool and the racks are of metal that has a lot

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of boron in it, to absorb any stray neutrons. These fuel elements are far cooler than ones in a reactor
core, but if the water were to somehow expose them, they could begin to grow hot. From what I read,
it appears that spent fuel can actually be exposed a bit above water and not become so hot as to affect
the fuel cladding, though it might start generating hydrogen from the heat. What you really want to
avoid is the water getting so low that the rods get very hot, which generates hydrogen and which then
makes it hard to cool down. It is like trying to fill a very hot radiator with cold water - it will flash to
steam. The reason you want to avoid it is that you don't want damage to the racks that hold the spent
fuel - if you disturb them or they partially collapse, you might get enough uranium piled on itself to
have it go "critical" which means that there would be enough fuel around to have a brief burst of energy
come from fission. That can damage the fuel and possibly release material into the atmosphere of the
spent fuel pool building.

The real problem (and potential source of radioactive materials that could be released) continues to be
the spent fuel pools for units 1, 3 and 4 as of 17 March. According to the Japanese, the situation at the
Spent Fuel pool for unit 3 is the most serious. The Japanese continue to say that Unit 4's spent fuel
pool still has some water in it, though it is decreasing. Same for the spent fuel pool in Unit 1.

The spent fuel pool for Unit 4 is a source of significant controversy. The Japanese continue to state that
there is water in the spent fuel pool and released a photo purportedly showing water in them. The head
of the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission, Gregory Jaczko, continues to say that he believes that
spent fuel pool #4 was dry. The fact that the Japanese are still saying one thing and the head of the U.S.
nuclear regulatory body continues saying completely opposite things points to a huge potential
problem.

I continue to believe that the water in the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 at the very least did decrease to
where some of the fuel rods were exposed. I do NOT believe there has been a zirconium fire (where
the metal allow on the outside of the fuel gets so hot it actually catches fire), but I can't think of any
other way we would have seen a hydrogen explosion of the size that blasted the walls of the spent fuel
pool in unit 4.

The spent fuel pools are the key to how the rest of this accident will play out. I want to reiterate that.
Yes, the conditions at the reactors are bad, but the containment buildings, even those that are damaged
have held and it appears the pressure vessels have held, so by continuing to pump seawater on them,
that is manageable. If these spent fuel pools do dry out we could see a lot of damage to a lot of old fuel
which could cause a serious contamination event. If the fuel in these pools does begin to melt or
become damaged, then it will become a very serious problem for the crews working to secure these
plants. Right now, radiation levels around these buildings, while high, have stabilized, so I still believe
there have been no zirconium fires in the spent fuel.

In short, things are still bad, but maybe, just maybe, today marks the day when they turn the corner.

Radiation Levels and Health

I'll spare you the lecture on radiation safety. Just keep this in mind - if you hear about radiation levels
measured in "milli-sieverts" that can be bad. If you hear about radiation levels measured in "micro-
sieverts" this is not nearly as bad and is a radiation level you can probably work in or evacuate through.
When your teachers told you that prefixes matter, they weren't kidding. Earlier tonight Minister Edano

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from Japan misspoke and said that radiation levels were in the 600 - 800 milli-sievert/hr range (a very
large dose to take) when he meant to say 600-800 micro-sieverts (not good, but a lot, lot less radiation
to deal with).

Also, the rate is important. Most every radiation level reported will be in dose per hour.

Time is very, very important. You can handle a very high dose, if you are only exposed for a few
minutes. It is like handling fire. Let's say you have a roaring bonfire. You can run and leap over that
bonfire and not even be scorched. You don't want to walk slowly up into the middle of the bonfire and
stand there. Time matters.

If things become catastrophic and a big release of material happens, Japan will be significantly
affected, but the U.S. will not. Don't believe the rumors and hype that might follow such an event. We
are far enough away that the worst radiation will be diluted.

For details on what levels of dose begin to cause health problems, click here.

Conclusion

The Japanese are working hard to keep these reactors from spewing out large amounts of radiation that
would affect public health. So far they have been successful. There have been releases, but they have
not been of sufficient dose to cause immediate health problems.

The spent fuel pool problem remains my biggest worry right now.

Keep an eye on things.

Words to watch for that indicate things are getting worse:

• the spent fuel has dried out and has caught fire (unlikely, but this is my big worry right now - it
would lead to a big release of radioactive material)
• massive breach in containment for unit 1, 2 or 3
• dose readings in the high milli-sievert/hour range

Let me know what you have questions about and I can update this as we go along.

Online Resources

NHK World (English language news broadcast, constantly streaming).

The wikipedia article on this has a lot of good info as well and is updated constantly.

CNN has a timeline that looks fairly complete for more details and pictures.

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