dagblog - Comments for "Catastrophic Reactor Meltdown May Force Abandonment of Area, & All 3 Reactors"

From the Guardian Live

cmaukonen — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:12:29 +0000

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

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.

Spent fuel burning-IAEA, the

NCD — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 06:13:32 +0000

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

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.

The UN's IAEA is still

NCD — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:02:45 +0000

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

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.

From BBC Live blog.0355: The

cmaukonen — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:58:40 +0000

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

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.

I was rather afraid of that.

cmaukonen — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:47:43 +0000

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

I was rather afraid of that.