Japan Finally Admits TOTAL Meltdown at 3 Nuclear Reactors Within Hours of Earthquake … And More Than DOUBLES Estimate of Radiation Released After Accident
For months, Tepco and Japanese officials refused to admit that there had been any meltdowns at Fukushima.
Then they said there were meltdowns at reactors 1, 2 and 3 … but they might have only been partial meltdowns.
Finally, today, they admitted the obvious: there were total meltdowns at all 3 reactors. As CNN reports:
Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country’s Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.
The nuclear group’s new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
***
Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.
***
But Tokyo Electric [on May 24th] released a second possible scenario for reactors 2 and 3, one that estimated a full meltdown did not occur. In that scenario, the company estimated the fuel rods may have broken but may not have completely melted.
***
Temperature data showed the two reactors had cooled substantially in the more than two months since the incident, Tokyo Electric said in May.
***
Tokyo Electric avoided using the term “meltdown,” and says it was keeping the remnants of the core cool. But U.S. experts interviewed by CNN after the company’s announcement in May said that while it may have been containing the situation, the damage had already been done.
“On the basis of what they showed, if there’s not fuel left in the core, I don’t know what it is other than a complete meltdown,” said Gary Was, a University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor and CNN consultant. And given the damage reported at the other units, “It’s hard to imagine the scenarios can differ that much for those reactors.”
As the Japan Times reports today, the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has “more than doubled its estimate of the radioactive material ejected into the air in the early days of the Fukushima nuclear crisis”.
Japan Times also notes that plutonium has been found in soil outside of the nuclear complex – about 1.7 kilometers from the front gate of Fukushima. However, the plutonium probably came from the so-called “hydrogen explosions”, which hopefully won’t happen again. (However, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen believes that at least some of the explosions were caused by nuclear reactions in the fuel pools.)
While it is tempting to believe that the worst of the crisis is over, some of the reactors are more radioactive than ever, and nuclear chain reactions may still be occurring.
And it’s not just the reactors themselves.
Remember that – when the spent fuel rods stored onsite within the reactor buildings are included – the amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs Chernobyl.
For background, see this.
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
June 6th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
The moral of this story?
When it comes to nuclear reactors, cheaper is NOT better. Especially when your ass is sitting on one of the most active seismic zones on the planet.
So much for the big, Japanese, rebuild.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:17 am
Regarding what appears to be the most serious of events so far in the entire disaster — the explosion at unit 3 and what happened to the #3 spent fuel pool:
A view of the unit 3 explosion which was caught on a camera (set up 30 km away by a Japanese broadcast station) indicated an explosion far more violent than the others. And Gunderson released his theory over a month ago. Yet the NRC report just prior to that release mentioned nothing about an event which ejected tons of uranium and highly radioactive isotopes far and wide into the environment with immense force. Clearly this was the most serious event at Fukushima, not withstanding the full meltdowns and containment structure breaches only lately reported.
The #3 pool was found to be nearly empty when a camera was finally able to be brought in close enough for a good look, since so much debris had covered the pool after the unit 3 blast. Yet little or nothing of the obvious nature of this was forthcoming from Tepco.
The theory developed by Gunderson is that the unit 3 explosion which was the most violent of all the hydrogen explosions, was not due to hydrogen alone, but to what Gunderson suggests in his video. The pressure of the hydrogen explosion initiated a brief super-critical condition in the pool and this was why the pool was emptied of much of its fuel. The explosion blew tons of fuel far and wide across the surrounding landscape and into the ocean, accompanied by an immense cloud of dust and ash, thick with radioactive isotopes that traveled much further.
Looking at the unit 3 explosion in slow motion one can see that many huge, heavy pieces of the plant were lifted thousands of feet into the air. In contrast it was known that the spent-fuel pools in the other buildings in which hydrogen explosions occurred were barely disturbed.
One is led to wonder if Tepco made available to the NRC in late March only the material they wanted the commission to have for that report. The report became available in April and there was only a passing reference to radioactive material found between units 3 and 4. Yet obviously Tepco knew the area was highly radioactive, as they sent in earth moving machinery to cover the debris under tons of earth before workers could even go near it.
How is it that it took three months for Tepco to finally begin to admit any of this? And in light of that we are left to wonder how much more serious was the contamination of the ocean than what Tepco has said with tons of seawater pumped into three molten reactor cores and all this confusion about contaminated water reservoirs ? Seems more likely it all just ended up in the ocean and its likely ongoing as well.
The way I learned it… a half truth is a whole lie.
Some scientists are more than a little concerned:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Assessing-Fukushima-s-Impact-on-the-Pacific-Ocean-201168.shtml
June 7th, 2011 at 7:37 am
Regarding Chernobyl, the reactor core there contained graphite, and the roof was covered in bitumen. In the explosion these materials caught fire, and this caused the great spreading of radioactive material to the surrounding areas. In Fukushima there is no similar mixing of fuel and combustible materials.
Not saying that there may not be continuing and further serious releases of radioactivity, but there is not necessarily a one to one relation between the amount of fuel on site and the seriousness of the disaster.