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Say bye to any nuclear power pipedreams...

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.

At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.

Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.

"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."

The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines.

A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool.

In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.

The warning came as the Japanese authorities were being urged to give clearer advice to the public about the safety of food and drinking water contaminated with radioactive substances from Fukushima.

Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, has met Japanese cabinet ministers to discuss establishing an independent committee charged with taking radiation data from the site and translating it into clear public health advice.

"What is fundamentally disturbing the public is reports of drinking water one day being above some limit, and then a day or two later it's suddenly safe to drink. People don't know if the first instance was alarmist or whether the second one was untrue," said Gale.

"My recommendation is they should consider establishing a small commission to independently convert the data into comprehensible units of risk for the public so people know what they are dealing with and can take sensible decisions," he added.
:eek:
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Thank the FSM that the WSJ has reported that "Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl".

WSJ.com on March 14th said:
If a meltdown does occur in Japan, it will be a disaster for the Tokyo Electric Power Company but not for the general public. Whatever steam releases occur will have a negligible impact. Researchers have spent 30 years trying to find health effects from the steam releases at Three Mile Island and have come up with nothing. With all the death, devastation and disease now threatening tens of thousands in Japan, it is trivializing and almost obscene to spend so much time worrying about damage to a nuclear reactor.
I mean, they're reporting on news and not pushing a conservative, pro-nuclear agenda in order to control the message, right?
 

Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
Tsunehisa Katsumata on Wednesday was speaking to reporters in Tokyo for the first time since problems at the plant surfaced. The firm's president, Masataka Shimizu, was hospitalized for hypertension and dizziness on Tuesday night.

Not radiation related-that's for the proles to deal with.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
Japanese authorities are now admitting the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility was far more severe than they had previously admitted. On Monday, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency more than doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation that leaked from the plant in the first week of the disaster in March. The agency has also admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at three of the plant’s reactors.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/7/headlines#1
Uh, yea, that seems like a pretty large omission. :think:

I'll try to see if I can find a less...slanted... news source that confirms this.
 

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
An official report, which Japan will submit to the UN's nuclear watchdog, says nuclear fuel in three reactors at Fukushima has possibly melted through the pressure vessels and accumulated in outer containment vessels.

Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper says this "melt-through" is far worse than a core meltdown, and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.

This is the first official admission that a "melt-through" may have occurred.

In the report, Japan also admits it was unprepared for the scale of the Fukushima disaster, which struck after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.

The report also acknowledges there was insufficient communication between the government and the plant's operator.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/08/3238720.htm?section=world
 

valve bouncer

Master Dildoist
Feb 11, 2002
7,843
114
Japan
In other news, after having no earthquakes at all around here for at least two years (unheard of) we've now had 2 in the past week. Tiddlers, but they say a big one is coming....but they always say that.
 

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
not too shocking really.....i cant believe there has been ZERO coverage in TV news about any of this

Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.
The formal announcement, expected from the government in coming days, would be the first official recognition that the March accident could force the long-term depopulation of communities near the plant, an eventuality that scientists and some officials have been warning about for months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/world/asia/22japan.html?_r=1

another article
Areas within three kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant likely will be kept off-limits for an extended period--possibly for several decades--because they have been highly contaminated with radioactive substances, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The ban on entry to these areas will remain in place even after the 20-kilometer no-go zone around the plant is lifted when the crisis at the nuclear plant is brought under control, according to government sources.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110821002920.htm
 

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
surprised this actually made it to the news. it still seems there is less and less coverage on this


Japanese officials unveiled a decades-long plan Wednesday to decommission the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where reactor cooling systems failed after the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.
The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the work schedule would proceed over three or four decades to scrap the four crippled reactors at the site.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/21/world/asia/japan-nuclear/index.html?iref=allsearch
 

dan-o

Turbo Monkey
Jun 30, 2004
6,499
2,805
This is going to be a huge cluster fvck.
The japanese are so full of **** regarding their lack of control over this situation.
 

DaveW

Space Monkey
Jul 2, 2001
11,160
2,685
The bunker at parliament
Oh bloody marvelous.... Well done TEPCO. :disgust1:
Mothra will not be happy. :fie:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23918882

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour.

However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts.

The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1,800 millisieverts an hour.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
The upside is that they are also developing super powers.
Crew members, many of whom are in their 20s, have been diagnosed with conditions including thyroid cancer, testicular cancer and leukemia. The Department of Defense says the Navy took "proactive measures" in order to "mitigate the levels of Fukushima-related contamination on U.S. Navy ships and aircraft” and that crew members were not exposed to dangerous radiation levels.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/the-stream/the-stream-officialblog/2013/12/16/uss-reagan-sailorsreportcancersafterfukushimarescuemission.html
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
My brother was a Nuclear Engineer. Interesting bit of trivia though, turns out nuclear energy isn't all that great and self-sustaining. The actual cost to engineer the plants, build them, secure them, perform maintenance on them, exceeds the potential cost-benefit of nuclear power in the first place. This is one big reason why we haven't made any new plants in a long time. It's not because of hippies or satan, in the long term cost it just doesn't really work out. At best, it's sporadic in it's usefulness. There are benefits in places where you can just flush money down the toilet, like with the Military, having a sub that can remain submerged for months and aircraft carriers that don't need fuel oil (except they do need aircraft fuel and other petroleum products, so they are still kind of tied to refuelers) are big tactical advantages.