Melted nuclear fuel from Fukushima disaster is missing, company says

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

Naohiro Masuda, the Chief Decommissioning Officer of the Fukushima nuclear plant, said on Wednesday that operators have yet to locate where the melted nuclear fuel has gone, five years after the meltdown caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“There are melted fuels in units 1, 2 and 3,” Masuda said. “Frankly, we do not really know what the situation is for these (melted fuel), nor where it has gone.”

Speaking to reporters ahead of the disaster’s anniversary on 11 March, Masuda described the first few years of decommissioning work as comparable to working in a “field hospital.”

“The reality at Fukushima Dai-ichi was that we had to work day to day dealing with unexpected difficulties showering down,” Masuda said. “Things have finally started to calm down, we are now able to look ahead in our work, and I am confident that we have made great strides especially in this past year.”

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Read more: http://globalnews.ca/news/2552628/melted-nuclear-fuel-from-fukushima-disaster-is-missing-company-says/

[LiberalArkie]

1. Good comment on the article

Now the ephiphany will hit every one else, in 2011 while all the papers were publishing a fax opinion artical "why there will never be a meltdown at fukushima": and at the same time a few reports were coming out on "mysterious white smoke" from the buildings. The molten slug reached vaporization temperaturues and anyone one that knows Avogadro's theorem and Gibbs free energy KNOWS that an air hydrogen explosion does not have enough energy to throw spent fuel rods into the air or cause a mushroom clould (it was an inefficent criticality).


Now we know why a report of 'statistical spontaneous abortions' hit the US, why the USS CV Ronald Regan crew got sick, and why when there are fires outwest (bio-accumulation) , sometime people pick up fallout by geiger counters on their windshields. Or why the US recently removed death certificate public access for statistical analysis from the public domain.

[bananas]

2. Thanks, I didn't see that.

Didn't see any comments, had to whitelist the site in noscript, ghostery and ublock.

[questionseverything]

3. they do not know where the melted fuel is but

we do know what it is doing

it is heating up the pacific ocean

which is making the fish die

the problem with nuclear power is we start a chemical reaction we can only control under exact circumstances, in this case we have lost control of the circumstances and seem to be powerless

good luck to us

[roamer65]

4. The term "missing" is sugar coating and misleading.

The corium has melted through the reactor vessels. It is either embedded into the cement floor of the containment building or has made its way into the ground below it. From the estimated 300 tons of contaminated water that leaches into the Pacific Ocean on a daily basis, it is more than likely the corium has made its way through the the cement floor.

"Corium" is the name given to the melted reactor fuel plus melted vessel material. Once I read that a test of 15 tuna from the Pacific where all contained radioactive strontium and cesium, I stopped eating all seafood unless I can source it.

[Jopin Klobe]

5. "... operators have yet to locate where the melted nuclear fuel has gone ..."

... uh, does the phrase "China Syndrome" ring a familiar bell, putzy? ...

[roamer65]

6. We will have to rename it.

Not sure what the opposite side of globe is from Fukushima, Japan.

[progree]

7. A few hundred miles east of Uruguay in the South Atlantic Ocean

http://www.antipodr.com/

[miyazaki]

8. This article sums it up well in more ways than one

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/falklands_syndrome_fukushima_meltdown_to_cause_10000_chernobyls_in_south_atlantic/

[NickB79]

10. April Fool's Day article

Did the British SAS succeed in rescuing Colin the wiener dog before the Falklands was incinerated?

[NickB79]

9. We have historical precedents for what really happens in a China Syndrome event

Both 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl had such events; in both of them, the melted fuel and corium didn't penetrate into the Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#China_syndrome

[RobertEarl]

11. Last I heard

Some of it made its way to Europe. After Chernobyl blew up some scientists in Europe set up sophisticated devices to measure radioactive materials.

After Fukushima blew up these scientists found new radioactive particles in their devices and set out, using science, to determine where these new particles came from. They deduced from Fukushima, due to the signatures in the particles.