2011年3月30日水曜日

What I Think of Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Accident

I begun to write the blog around 10 days ago. I am too late to upload the blog for my own reasons. The situations of the earthquake, tsunami and power outage, which were described by me in this blog, are different from the current situations. Bear this in mind when reading the blog.
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Fukushima nuclear reactor accident, its situation is changing time to time. It seems that the sea water pouring action into the used fuel pool of the Fukushima Daiichi No.3 nuclear reactor become effective to prevent its overheat. The workers are trying to introduce the power lines into the nuclear power plant. There is a report that they succeeded in connecting the power lines to a nuclear reactor in the power plant. It is reported that radiation leaks from the nuclear power plant have been scattered over a broad area. The area where I live must be distanced at least 150 km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. Radiation iodine and radiation cesium have been detected although their amounts are minute. Those radioactive substances are found in the spinach or other leaf vegetables. Shipment of those vegetables is now refrained. I am nervous when going out.

Of the earthquake disaster, Tsunami, rather than earthquake, seems to give big and misery damage. As already reported, the damage is disastrous. In the case of MinamiSanriku-machi, almost one town was flown away. Around 10,000 residents are still unknown. This town is located near my hometown. My relatives, friends, distant and younger-days memories, histories of my family and myself, memorable buildings and others were broken and flown away. This is a real thing. I have no word to express this tragedy and shock.

Takashi Hirose (journalist) wrote about the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor accident. The title is “Could we avoid the catastrophic end of … ? - Truth of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor – “ (Diamond ONLINE). I carefully read the report. Hirose already wrote a book titled “Nuclear Reactor Time Bomb”.
He has doubts on the value of the 9.0 magnitude. He said also that before about 100 years we had experience of the immense Tsunami, which is larger than of the present Tsunami. And he believes that the nuclear reactor accident is a man-made disaster.
Hirose describes a state that the nuclear reactor plant goes damaged: After one hour from the earthquake, the AC power source to the reactor plant stopped, and then the control/drive systems in the plant stopped. In this state, Tsunami attacked the nuclear plant. Oil tanks were flown away and the power systems are under water. The ECCS (emergency core cooling system) started to operate but they lost their functions immediately. Was there something to deal with the situation at that time or before the tsunami attacked the plant?
The nuclear power plant accident should not occur, absolutely.

I have hoped for the nuclear power plant as the most promising clean power generator. I expected that many countries would also have the thoughts on the clean energy power plant, which are similar to my thought. My hope has easily crumbled away. The forces of nature ignored and treated condescendingly the technologies on which we absolutely rely. I think that the building of the nuclear power plants will be a taboo phrase, while we clearly recognizes the need for the nuclear technology.

A large-scale power outage occurred. In the earthquake area, the nuclear power plants have halted their operations. The power supply is being intentionally stopped in the earthquake area including Kanto and Tohoku to cover the electric power shortage caused. I have never experienced such a large-scale power outage like this. This indicates the seriousness of the current situation.
Electric power will be suspended for over 3 hours in the morning tomorrow.
Electricity is used to light the rooms, and to drive heaters and cookers. Choice left to me is to go to bed. I don’t want to go outside. I am afraid of atmospheric radioactivity.

In the power outage by the earthquake, the current centralized generation explicitly showed its inherent defect, while having been highly managed and maintained. I guess that if the decentralized generation is employed, the power outage problem could be considerably eased. I should think that the government employs the fuel cell-based decentralized generation for the national power distribution system. The power outage this time is caused by the earthquake. If a war (I do not want to suppose it) causes the power outage, the situation will be more serious. If the enemy attacks the power generation stations in pin-point style, the power outage situation will be reproduced.

The fuel cell technology is not yet matured. I understand this fact. The (PEM) micro CHP system for home use, which is in the early stage market, has a price problem. Its price is still too high. The micro CHP is to be reduced to half price in around 2015. A new type (SOFC) micro CHP system will be launched into an early stage market soon. There is no reason that we must do nothing till that the technology and products are completed in satisfactory levels and matured. The fuel-cell micro CHP system has been commercialized though imperfect.

I think that a measure that legally supports the fuel cell developers to give a strong incentive to the developers and motivates them to develop the fuel cell is one of effective solutions, and increases the number of the fuel cell products while reviewing the state of the progress. In this case, the measure will be executed while minimizing problems raised anew.

The power supply frequency in the western Japan is different from that in the eastern Japan. I wonder that this frequency difference has some merit. Why do we have the different power supply frequencies in this small country?
In an emergency like this, it is impossible for the disaster area to receive a sufficient amount of electric power from the area not damaged. This is out of the question. I think that the government should immediately take some action to make the power supply frequencies equal to each other. This action should be executed at a stretch by, for example, the premier's instruction. This is the perfect chance to change the power supply frequency.
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2011年3月4日金曜日

ARIOS’ platinum catalyst formation rate is 50 times compared to the conventional one

ARIOS Inc., in cooperation with Prof. Toru Yonezawa, Hokkaido University, has developed a process for forming platinum catalyst at extremely high rate.
The in-water microwave-excited plasma process was used for forming the platinum catalyst. The catalyst formation rate was 5g/hour. This value is 50 times as large as that of the conventional process.
In the catalyst forming process, platinum nanoparticles of 2 nanometers in particle diameter
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