I find the situation with regards to the damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan quite worrying on many levels, one of which is the playing down of the severity of the situation.

Senior officials advise that there has been ‘no significant worsening’ and other such statements to that effect.  This type of statements always ring alarm bells for me.  Questions such as no significant worsening from what spring to mind and how bad was it to start with?

MSBNC report on the current crisis:

Emergency workers seemed to try everything they could think of Thursday to douse one of Japan’s dangerously overheated nuclear reactors: helicopters, heavy-duty fire trucks, even water cannons normally used to quell rioters. But they couldn’t be sure any of it was easing the peril at the tsunami-ravaged facility.

Three reactors have had at least partial meltdowns, but an even greater danger has emerged. Japanese and U.S. concerns were increasingly focusing on the pools used to store spent nuclear fuel: Some of the pools are dry or nearly empty and the rods could heat up and spew radiation.

It could take days and “possibly weeks” to get the complex under control, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko said. He defended the U.S. decision to recommend a 50-mile evacuation zone for its citizens, a much stronger measure than Japan has taken.

A senior official with the U.N.’s nuclear safety agency said there had been “no significant worsening” at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but that the situation remained “very serious.” Graham Andrew told reporters in Vienna that nuclear fuel rods in two reactors were only about half covered with water, and in a third they were also not completely submerged.

If the fuel is not fully covered, rising temperatures and pressure will increase the chances of complete meltdowns that would release much larger amounts of radioactive material than the failing plant has emitted so far.

Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself. Still, the crisis triggered by last week’s earthquake and tsunami has forced thousands to evacuate and drained Tokyo’s normally vibrant streets of life, its residents either leaving town or holing up in their homes.

Physicist Michio Kaku tells msnbc’s Richard Liu that cooling attempts like using helicopter drops to cool down the 700 tons of spent fuel at Japan’s Fukushima reactor site won’t be enough, that they would be better served with a ‘Chernobyl’ approach.

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8 Comments CherryPie on Mar 17th 2011

8 Responses to “Nuclear Meltdown”

  1. ivan says:

    I would have thought the Japanese were the best people to judge on nuclear fallout – after all they are the only people that have had two atomic bombs dropped on them.

    The Americans are very good at making atomic bangs and little else in the nuclear field. The French have nuclear power and are making a big fuss about it, which to me says that EDF wants more money – oh look, it’s dangerous. Our government has whackey Hune going for a ‘lights out’ green power generation policy and the MSM is pushing ‘nuclear disaster’ for all it’s worth and almost ignoring the loss of life and homes of the people as well as the loss of a very large proportion of Japan’s agricultural output.

    For those that are interested in a rational outlook at the power stations then a read of these from the Register co uk are a must:
    2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
    2011/03/15/fukushima_update_tuesday/
    2011/03/16/fukushima_wednesday/
    2011/03/17/fukushima_thursday/
    Sorry these are a bit messed up but the spam filter doesn’t like full URLs.

    • CherryPie says:

      My initial thoughts are that MSM media in the reports I have read, have played the situation down. This is natural, people don’t want to here the truth they want to feel safe. I have not seen any reports that predict a nuclear disaster apart from the one I post here that suggests a more proactive response to the problem which I think has been played down by the media in general.

      I think these are the links from your post -

      March 14

      March 15

      March 16

      March 17

      I will take time to read them before I comment.

      Thank you :-)

      • ivan says:

        Yes those are the links.

        One other thing that should be considered – the Japanese reactors are not the graphite moderated type so there can not be a Chernobyl type of escape of radioactive material.

        • CherryPie says:

          Very interesting articles, thank you. I had forgotten how good The Register is to read. I used read it often for public sector articles and technology.

          The loss of lives, homes and the difficulties they are experiencing are appalling to me. I am told though that the Japanese take such things in their stride because it is part of their life. I got that information from a friend of my who lived in Japan for a number of years. So perhaps that goes back to your comment about the atomic bombs too.

  2. Janice says:

    Three Mile Island (TMI) had no quake, no tsunami, no power outage, only 1 reactor involved and only one explosion which did not breach the containment wall – it was classified as a level 5 accident. It’s amazing that the Fukushima Daiichi plant has 6 reactors in stress, many explosions, an earthquake, a tsunami and finally a lot of damage and it too is considered only a level 5 by the Japanese. Yet one cannot help but forgive this mistake in light of the extreme devastation now facing this nation after the one two punch just received from the quake and ensuing tsunami. How overwhelming it all must be. If anyone can rebuild from this it is the Japanese whose strength and courage are well known..

    • ivan says:

      I hate to say this but my experience is that the Americans like to have everything bigger and better than everyone else, be it a small problem with a reactor to the latest gulf oil explosion and its aftermath which turned out to be not as bad as the president made out.

      • CherryPie says:

        Your comment about the American’s made me smile. It reminded me of a holiday I once had in Yugoslavia (you can tell how long ago that was ;-) ). The Yugoslavian people had some comments along those lines that made me chuckle.

    • CherryPie says:

      I agree if anyone can the Japanese with their stoicism will be able to.