TEPCo faces an even more dangerous engineering problem than leaking water tanks, although these tanks are very fragile and would not survive another major earthquake. Experts say there is a 98% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima within the next three years. TEPCo must remove 1535 fuel rod assemblies from the Unit #4 pool which sits 100 feet above ground, has no containment, and is vulnerable to collapse. The entire Unit 4 reactor, an early design by GE, including its elevated pool is listing. [photo] If the pool collapses it would impact the nearby common pool containing 6,375 fuel rods of the total 11,421 spent rods stored on site. According to former US Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, there is more than 85 times the amount of radioactive cesium on site than was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Mr. Alvarez writes that the fuel assemblies cannot be simply hauled into the air by crane and carted away. They must be transferred in water and heavily shielded before being placed safely in dry casks to avoid a radioactive spent fuel fire. This sort of operation has never been done before. Clearly TEPCo is out of its depths and needs worldwide expert assistance with the continuing disaster at Fukushima. As one medical doctor who lead the parliamentary investigation into the accident succinctly put it, "Japan is clearly living in denial. Water keeps building up inside the plant, and debris keep piling up outside of it. This is just one big shell game." If one of the spent fuel pools collapse at Fukushima, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said, "move south of the equator if that every happened..."Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Fukushima Now More Dangerous Than Ever
The inept owner of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, Tokyo Electric (TEPCo) said it dumped more than 1,000 tons of contaminated water into the Pacific after Typhoon Man-yi lashed the facility on Monday. According to the company the release was mostly rain water with levels of radiation below the 30Bq per liter limit set by the Japanese government. Tanks of toxic cooling water are spread across the site and some of the hurriedly erected vessels are beginning to leak. TEPCo has no clear plan what to do with the thousands of tons of cooling water that was poured onto melting reactors to keep the reactions moderated. Steam continues to rise from the hot rubble indicating chain reactions somewhere--exact location unknown--below go unabated. The company also estimates 300 tons of contaminated groundwater are entering the ocean everyday.
TEPCo faces an even more dangerous engineering problem than leaking water tanks, although these tanks are very fragile and would not survive another major earthquake. Experts say there is a 98% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima within the next three years. TEPCo must remove 1535 fuel rod assemblies from the Unit #4 pool which sits 100 feet above ground, has no containment, and is vulnerable to collapse. The entire Unit 4 reactor, an early design by GE, including its elevated pool is listing. [photo] If the pool collapses it would impact the nearby common pool containing 6,375 fuel rods of the total 11,421 spent rods stored on site. According to former US Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, there is more than 85 times the amount of radioactive cesium on site than was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Mr. Alvarez writes that the fuel assemblies cannot be simply hauled into the air by crane and carted away. They must be transferred in water and heavily shielded before being placed safely in dry casks to avoid a radioactive spent fuel fire. This sort of operation has never been done before. Clearly TEPCo is out of its depths and needs worldwide expert assistance with the continuing disaster at Fukushima. As one medical doctor who lead the parliamentary investigation into the accident succinctly put it, "Japan is clearly living in denial. Water keeps building up inside the plant, and debris keep piling up outside of it. This is just one big shell game." If one of the spent fuel pools collapse at Fukushima, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said, "move south of the equator if that every happened..."
TEPCo faces an even more dangerous engineering problem than leaking water tanks, although these tanks are very fragile and would not survive another major earthquake. Experts say there is a 98% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima within the next three years. TEPCo must remove 1535 fuel rod assemblies from the Unit #4 pool which sits 100 feet above ground, has no containment, and is vulnerable to collapse. The entire Unit 4 reactor, an early design by GE, including its elevated pool is listing. [photo] If the pool collapses it would impact the nearby common pool containing 6,375 fuel rods of the total 11,421 spent rods stored on site. According to former US Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, there is more than 85 times the amount of radioactive cesium on site than was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Mr. Alvarez writes that the fuel assemblies cannot be simply hauled into the air by crane and carted away. They must be transferred in water and heavily shielded before being placed safely in dry casks to avoid a radioactive spent fuel fire. This sort of operation has never been done before. Clearly TEPCo is out of its depths and needs worldwide expert assistance with the continuing disaster at Fukushima. As one medical doctor who lead the parliamentary investigation into the accident succinctly put it, "Japan is clearly living in denial. Water keeps building up inside the plant, and debris keep piling up outside of it. This is just one big shell game." If one of the spent fuel pools collapse at Fukushima, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said, "move south of the equator if that every happened..."