Japan Plant Fuel Melted Partway Through Reactors: Report

[FourScore]

Japan Plant Fuel Melted Partway Through Reactors: Report
Friday, April 15, 2011

Nuclear fuel has melted in three reactors at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and fallen to the lower sections of their container vessels, raising the specter of overheated material compromising a container and causing a massive radiation release, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan said in a report released on Friday (see GSN, April 15).

The group played down the possibility of a container breach, though, noting that only a small amount of fuel had melted so far and affected material had assumed a granulated structure and remained relatively cool, Kyodo News reported. The six-reactor plant was crippled by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami that hit Japan on March 11; the confirmed death toll from the events now exceeds 12,000 people.

The melted fuel was thought to have dispersed uniformly across the lower portions of the containers of reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, making the material highly unlikely to resume the fission process in a "recriticality," according to the organization, which said fuel rods in all three reactors had been harmed. Fuel in the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors has made contact with air, while the No. 3 reactor's rods have remained underwater, the group said...

SNIP

...Plant personnel pressed ahead in efforts to prevent additional radioactive material from escaping the site, deploying steel barriers around a No. 2 reactor pipeline and proceeding with the insertion of nitrogen gas into the No. 1 reactor to prevent additional hydrogen blasts. Pressure in the No. 1 reactor has fallen to a certain degree, pointing to the possible escape of air, but radiation in the area has remained largely unchanged...

http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110415_5020.php

[Scuba]

1. Just how cool is "relatively cool". Is that like "Steve McQueen was relatively cool"? Or like...

...only slighter hotter than the surface of the sun?



Why do my bullshit detectors chirp every time these guys say anything?

[kristopher]

6. They are maintaining cooling, the danger lies in any event or failure that stops them

from being able to keep the pumps going. They're backing up the system with two separate outside power lines, and a set of on-site generators they've positioned on a hill above the threat of a tsunami.

They are still frazzled, and they said on the news yesterday that if they are kept from working the pump system for 2-3 days, there could be serious consequences, or words to that effect.

They have to get that water out of #2 and there are some issues with that which hadn't been resolved as of about noon today. I think they are really worried that there might be earthquake damage they can't spot to the place they want to put the highly radioactive water in. Whether they move the contaminate water or not, they will have to keep pumping it into the reactor. If they can't move it, it will cause another flood into the ocean and if they do move it and don't know of a leak, it will potentially get into and contaminate ground water (that last part is inferred, not heard).

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. If this goes worst case... new talking points will be needed

thanks

[uppityperson]

3. "only a small amount of fuel had melted so far" sounds like being "a little bit pregnant"

[FourScore]

4. lol

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. And yet, when people were talking about this possibility last few weeks,

they were called "alarmists".
Even when Arnie Gunderson said it was more than likely there was meltdown happening, TEPCO denied even the
possibility in ONE reactor, much less more than one.

Mark this well, because there is a very high likelihood that the same mental midgets here in the USA will be lying to us about a reactor problem one day soon.