Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2013, 09:45 PM - Edit history (1)
Everyday at least 300 tonnes of radiated water from the destruction flows into the Pacific. That's about 100,000 gallons a day. Times 900+ days.
Reactor #3 is so badly radiated that humans can't get near it and robots die in minutes when set there. It has at times seen to be smoking away, releasing more and more radiation into the air.
Reactor #2 is similar. They keep dumping water into it to keep it cool and that water drains away into the Pacific. Same with reactor #1.
There are fields of tanks holding highly radiated water sitting on the hill above the complex and there have been many reports of those tanks leaking into a ditch that flows into, yep, you guessed it, the Pacific. Every time it rains, that ditch gets more water.
The fuel pools of all 4 reactors are pretty much the same: Bottoms are at least 50 feet from the ground. #4 tho, has some very hot nuclear waste in it that was, 3 years ago, going critical and boiling water. That waste can still boil water and after 3/11 it has been said that waste caused pool #4 to boil the water. Those waste rods are believed to have melted somewhat and that is why removing that mess has become such a problem that the US was called in to help.
Also, #3 and #4 have what they call MOX. Mixed OXide fuel. A Uranium and Plutonium mixture making the waste far more deadly than just Uranium by itself.
Indeed, some experts have said that is why #3 blew up like it did, and why #4 burned like it did: Because of the presence of highly volatile Plutonium. Duke power in the US tried some MOX in its plants and those plants almost blew up. So they stopped doing that. Tepco thought they were smarter and could handle that MOX fuel. Well, they can't, so they called in the US.
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