Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

[IDemo]

Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 16 Jun 2011 12:50

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.

Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also lead to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.

Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. In other words, it's so out of control that it can't be managed.

Right?

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. It's a shame that the people who are responsible for building those

reactors and putting them in harm's way, don't have the honor system of the Japanese and just end their lives. I suggest they volunteer to put a dome on the reactor. At least they'll die for an honorable cause.

[leveymg]

5. And we should chip in with GE executives, chief engineers, and principal stock holders.

Round 'em up, give 'em protective suits, strap 'em up, open the rear door, and parachute them in. Geranimo!

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. If only...

[nebenaube]

3. I wonder how bad the secondary quakes will be..

When they finally decide to 'crater' the whole site.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Nts.html
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA108989

[jimlup]

4. Actually, I think this isn't a good idea at the moment...

At least they have some access to the reactors. They need to continue their attempts to control the raging beasts. Ultimately, they may have to resort to this but not until they've solved or at least heroically attempted to solve the ground water problem.

[fascisthunter]

6. that's ok

Wiener resigned today, that's obviously more important.

[ensho]

8. kick

nt

[Ganja Ninja]

9. It's kind of the equivalent of a nuclear strike on nuclear weapons storage facility

Nasty poisonous crap spread all around and there's no way to clean it up or undo the damage.

[leveymg]

10. Fukushima went off like the world's biggest dirty bomb, only in slow motion.

And, like other massive terrorist attacks, it was quite foreseeable, and can happen again.

[Ganja Ninja]

11. It's getting ready to happen in Nebraska right now. n/t

[undeterred]

12. How many 9.0 earthquakes have there been....?

This is the only one I've ever heard of.

[leveymg]

15. There was a 7.5 (est.) in the early 1800s in Missouri, the "New Madrid Earthquake".

Wiki: The 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes (pronounced /nuː ˈmædrɨd/) were an intense intraplate earthquake series beginning with an initial pair of very large earthquakes on December 16, 1811. These earthquakes remain the most powerful earthquakes ever to hit the eastern United States.<1> These events, as well as the seismic zone of their occurrence, were named for the Mississippi River town of New Madrid (then part of Louisiana Territory), Missouri.

There are estimates that the earthquakes were felt strongly over roughly 130,000 square kilometers (50,000 square miles), and moderately across nearly 3 million square kilometers (1 million square miles). The historic 1906 San Francisco earthquake, by comparison, was felt moderately over roughly 16,000 square kilometers (6,000 square miles).

[peace4ever]

19. How many nuclear accidents have you heard of?

This is certainly not the only one, and won't be the last, unfortunately

[bananas]

20. There was a 9.3 in 2004 - it was major news

Japanese seismologists are warning of more large earthquakes in the near future.
The 2004 earthquake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
Wikipedia has a list of earthquakes about 8.5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. The tsunami oh three years ago

the Chile quake...

That is just tip of iceberg. Not common...but

New Madrid Fault is thought to have been in that range, regardless of the wiki by the way.

[bananas]

22. You don't need a magnitude 9.0 earthquake

When you add up all the low-probability events that can result in a catastrophic failure, you get an estimate of how often you can expect a catastrophic failure.
Up til now, for the past 35 years, the estimate has been roughly once every 10,000 reactor-years.
With the fleet of 440 power reactors operating worldwide, that averages to one every 23 years (10,000/440=23).
Chernobyl was 25 years ago, so that seems like a good estimate - except this involved 3 reactors and 4 spent fuel pools, so the once-every-10,000-reactor-years estimate was overly optimistic.
Tom Cochran has recently reviewed the actual historical accident rate, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet.

Just as you were unaware of the 9.3 quake in 20004,
you are probably unaware of the near-miss catastrophe at Davis-Besse in 2002: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=299666&mesg_id=299766

And old reactors are entering the wear-out phase of the bathtub curve, so accidents will be more frequent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

[TBF]

13. It has fallen off the news pages and that is what worries me.

I'd love to know what is really going on there. I'd also like to know what's going on at the one in Nebraska:
http://www.truth-out.org/electrical-fire-knocks-out-spent-fuel-cooling-nebraska-nuke-plant/1308155673

Scary stuff.

[WinkyDink]

14. Not "much worse than" I think.

[PearliePoo2]

16. Regarding unit 4 and it's leaning....

"Unit four is the most dangerous, it could topple," he said. "After the earthquake in Sumatra there was an 8.6 about 90 days later, so we are not out of the woods yet. And you're at a point where, if that happens, there is no science for this, no one has ever imagined having hot nuclear fuel lying outside the fuel pool. They've not figured out how to cool units three and four."

THERE IS NO SCIENCE FOR THIS, he said.
fuck
:scared:

[ensho]

17. kicking before I go

nt

[peace4ever]

18. These massive dirty bombs in waiting need to be shut down

ASAP