Catastrophic Reactor Meltdown May Force Abandonment of Area, & All 3 Reactors

By NCD on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 11:09pm |

It appears the latest, the third, explosion at the Fukushima nuclear reactor complex may be the game ender, if the steel containment chamber is open or leaking on unit 2, as may be the case, the lethal radiation levels which would result would force the abandonment of all 3 reactors. If abandoned, all the reactors will likely suffer more and larger releases of radiation.

Anymore political posturing by Japanese officials or the IAEA that the accident is only a Level Four incident, and less serious than 3 Mile Island, seems to have come to an end. This is the worst nuclear reactor disaster since Chernobyl. It is a sorry day indeed for Japan and the world.

Update - reactor containment chambers still intact and venting, radiation was due to fire in used rods in open containment pool, which fortunately has been 'put out' at least for now.

Every hour that the place doesn't blow up means it is less likely to do so and is cooling, keep your fingers and toes crossed.

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?hp

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I was rather afraid of that.

by cmaukonen on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 11:47pm

From BBC Live blog.

0355: The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says that Japan's nuclear safety agency says it suspects the explosion may have damaged the vessel that holds the number two reactor. That would make it a more serious incident than the two previous explosions at Fukushima that were thought just to have damaged the buildings that housed the reactors.

by cmaukonen on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 11:58pm

The UN's IAEA is still posting happy talk at its IAEA Japan Incident page:

"Japanese authorities yesterday reported to the IAEA at 21:05 CET that the reactors Units 1, 2 and 3 of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant are in cold shutdown status. This means that the pressure of the water coolant is at around atmospheric level and the temperature is below 100 degrees Celsius."

Then again, the UN was the outfit that sent Nepalese soldiers from a region that had uncontrolled cholera to a camp in Haiti 'upstream' in the quake crippled country, without thoroughly testing the soldiers for vibrio cholera, with defective privies to boot, and then denied the epidemic of Nepalese Asian strain cholera was their fault. It may be the UN is the ultimate international club of seasoned diplomats who cannot under any circumstances be made to face the truth.

by NCD on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 1:02am

Spent fuel burning-IAEA, the IAEA is catching up, now they say:

Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 04:50 CET that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere.

A NYT article just appeared that said a spent fuel fire is more hazardous than a reactor meltdown:

A 1997 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island described a worst-case disaster from uncovered spent fuel in a reactor cooling pool. It estimated 100 quick deaths would occur within a range of 500 miles and 138,000 eventual deaths.
The study also found that land over 2,170 miles would be contaminated and damages would hit $546 billion.
That section of the Brookhaven study focused on boiling water reactors — the kind at the heart of the Japanese crisis.

by NCD on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:13am

From the Guardian Live Blog.

4.02pm: One of the men brought in to clean up Chernobyl has strongly criticised Japan and the IAEA over the current problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Reuters reports. Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev said a fire today, which released radiation, involving spent fuel rods stored close to reactors, looked like an example of putting profit before safety. Andreev said:

The Japanese were very greedy and they used every square inch of the space. But when you have a dense placing of spent fuel in the basin you have a high possibility of fire if the water is removed from the basin.

He said of the IAEA:
"This is only a fake organisation because every organisation which depends on the nuclear industry - and the IAEA depends on the nuclear industry - cannot perform properly.
It always will try to hide the reality. The IAEA ... is not interested in the concentration of attention on a possible accident in the nuclear industry. They are totally not interested in all the emergency organisations.

by cmaukonen on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:12pm

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