Update on Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

[nebula]

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary/

<snip>

What is of most current concern?

Units 1 and 3: the situation now seems fairly stable. There is some concern that holding pools for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) may have been damaged by the hydrogen explosions, but nothing is confirmed. Provided the pool walls remain unbreached and the SNF is covered with water, the situation should not escalate. Note: Although still

[nebula]

OK - adding this from the above report:

~~~~~~~

The lesson so far: Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won

[other one]

Thanks for this neb.

[hr.jr.]

I saw a nuclear engineer on television last night that actually helped design this reactor. He basically said this entire incident is all media hype. He said the chance of the reactor melting down is 1 in a thousand and even if it melted down it would release almost no radiation. He said there is absolutely no way this reactor could do what the Chernobyl reactor did because the designs are totally different. He said its worst case scenario is a three mile island event.

[ayin jade]

Update on the update ....

All workers have been withdrawn because the level of radiation has gotten too high. 70% and 33% of fuel rods in 2 different reactors have been damaged. It is believed that 3 reactors are in partial meltdown.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

[other one]

A different possib le problem is in the reactor buildings 4-5 and 6. They are in a cold shutdown condition, but they have spent fuel rods that are stored under about 15 feet of water on the fifth floor of the buildings....... problem is that they are outside the core and there is no safety containment. If this is where the fires in reactor building #4 is it would be much worse than a complete meltdown in the active reactors because they are inside the containment vessels, Even if they melt and run down to the bottom of the containment vessel, they can't burn through like Chernobyl. It would be bad but not that bad.

I'm not sure just what the spent rods are capable of so that would be a crap shoot from my knowledge of those rods.

[ayin jade]

The fire is in #4, and they have mentioned the danger of the uncontained spent fuel rods.

Adding to the problem, I just read on NHK (Japanese news in english) that the system they have to predict fall out patterns is not working. Each time I think can it get any worse for the japanese people ... it does.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

[ayin jade]

Photo of reactor 4, showing a gaping 8 meter hole.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_25.html

[ladypeartree]

[nebula]

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-16-march-summary/

Fukushima Nuclear Accident