Official: Rods likely melting in Japanese reactors

[FourScore]

Source: AP

TOKYO — Japanese officials say the nuclear fuel rods appear to be melting inside all three of the most troubled nuclear reactors.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Monday: "Although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening."

Some experts would consider that a partial meltdown of the reactor. Others, though, reserve that term for times when nuclear fuel melts through a reactor's innermost chamber but not through the outer containment shell.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/03/14/general-as-japan-earthquake-nuclear-crisis_8354983.html

[meow mix]

1. 3 meltdowns brought to us by the friendly nuke industry thanks guys

and nothing will change your mind not even this. id wish you into the cornfield.

[closeupready]

2. I'm sure it won't be long before their shills are telling us 'Fukushima showed the system worked!'

:eyes:

[paparush]

7. You must have missed today's WSJ article that says that very thing -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576198421680697248.html

[closeupready]

10. Is there like a nuclear propaganda correspondence course in this kind of stuff?

You know, "Remember: a nuclear disaster is never a 'disaster'; rather, unless everyone dies, say that it 'was a fluke that demonstrates that the system worked.'"

[Kolesar]

20. "A commercial reactor is to a bomb what Vaseline is to napalm. "

That's just so god damned drop-dead folksy!

But tell it to the investors, Mr. WSJ. Capital was not flowing toward nuclear as it was and this ain't gonna start it flowing.

[abqmufc]

3. I think I've now counted 4 plants and 6 reactors at risk.

It has been tough to follow, but I think from all the reports I am seeing a total of 4 nuclear power plants have some threat of risk with a total of 6 reactors having issues with cores heating up beyond the controlled level. Anyone else confirm this?

[abqmufc]

4. Bangkok Post - FULLY EXPOSED RODS

FYI
CNN also reporting this as well.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/226670/reactor-fuel-rods-fully-exposed

[snagglepuss]

8. Oh god. The rods became fully exposed because someone accidently

turned off an air flow gauge. I don't fault whoever did as it must be a nightmare for workers inside the reactor but it is horrifying that human error can have such an enormous consequence.

snip
Air pressure inside the reactor at the Fukushima No 1. plant, located 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of Tokyo, rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was accidentally turned off,... That blocked the flow of cooling water into the reactor, leading to full exposure of the rods at around 11:00 pm Monday (1400 GMT), it said.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

9. I don't understand how anyone working there could make such a fatal mistake

accidentally... VERY weird for people who I assume are highly trained and educated on this issue to make an error like that.

[snagglepuss]

12. Stress. Everyone at those reactors know their fate is sealed given the

massive amounts of radiation they are being exposed to and the stress of knowing the catastrophic consequences of complete meltdown. The conditions those workers are in right know are unimagineable.

[Poll_Blind]

13. Actually, if you look at major disasters involving human error, that's exactly the kind of thing...

...you typically see. Normally this is in reference to airline crashes but it can be applied to many catastrophic failures in the past. As one airline crash investigator once put it "An airplane crash is not usually just one thing. It's usually the culmination of lots of little errors and that, at a certain point, there's that last error which pushes things over the line and you have a catastrophic failure."

If you read up on nuclear disasters you can find lots of instances where it wasn't one thing which led to the failure, it was a bunch of little things which set up a situation and then the event occurs. I used to be able to give more specifics on this sort of thing in regards to nuclear accidents but time has dulled my recollection.

Even in structural failures, it's often the case that one can trace the failure not to one thing but to a series of things which precipitated the calamity.

In situations like this, it's not uncommon for someone to do the incorrect thing. That sort of thing happens all the time. It just almost never has the weight that it did in this case.

PB

[Turbineguy]

14. Tired people

working well outside the accustomed procedure.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. It may have been turned off or it may have been as NHK is reporting now

The utility firm said on Monday afternoon that fuel rods are exposed at the Number Two reactor of its Fukushima Number One plant after the level of coolant water dropped. At around 6:20pm, the power company began pumping in seawater.

Tokyo Electric says it had to halt the process due to fuel loss for the pumping system, possibly leaving the fuel rods in the reactor exposed. The firm says a core meltdown might have occurred.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says that pumping seawater into the reactor is working now.

Earlier in the day, the firm told the government that the reactor had lost all cooling capability due to a failure of the emergency power system.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_46.html

Who knows which is accurate? I'm rather hoping it was human error and rather than they've been having disruptions in fuel supply for the pumping systems. However, to put out a story later which has worse implications for their long term ability to cool the rods seems unlikely to not be true.

[Zorra]

5. Nuclear energy supporters: Time to drop the flat earth head in the sand beliefs

about nuclear energy. The evidence is indisputable. Sometimes events prove us wrong, and we either have to be adult enough to admit that we were wrong, or be a blatant fool. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but nuclear reactors are a very real and uncontrollable danger and direct threat to me you our kids and even subsequent generations.

Please get on board with the movement to end the use of nuclear reactors as a source of energy and help us force governments to implement policies of funding intensive research for alternative energy systems as well as immediate implementation of the most viable safe alternative energy systems currently in existence.

[fatbuckel]

23. Yea,yea yea. How many accidents from nuclear reactors has there been ever?

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Eat GMO mutant food to protect yourself. Smirk." - Monsanto (R)

[madrchsod]

15. to bad the designers did`t protect the standby diesel engines

if they had there would`t be a problem

[leveymg]

16. Couldn't have foreseen (a tsunami) in Japan? Isn't that a Japanese word?

Strange omission in planning. But, nuclear plant cooling system problems related to earthquakes are more serious than just the backup generators.

[Kolesar]

18. The Great Wave off Kanagawa

[leveymg]

19. How do you say, "Row!" in Japanese?

[Kolesar]

21. Mercy? eom

[Auggie]

17. Ironic...

Would have been a fraction of the cost spent on designing/building the reactor housing

[fatbuckel]

22. I wish everyone would work themselves up this much whenever there is a bad auto accident.

10.2 MILLION Deaths in the year 2008. Ten point two million deaths via motor vehicles. Let`s eliminate motor vehicles.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s1102.pdf

[50000feet]

25. That's 10.2M accidents.

Deaths are in the 40,000/yr. range.

[BB1]

24. I'm not that worried.

Since the Big Boom in Tsjernobyl, safety has improved a lot. These reactors don't blow up, like the one in our neighbourhood (North West Europe). They might melt their core, but that won't put out nearly as much radiation as blowing the lid would. No doubt the Japanese Govt will downplay the radiation risk, but anything that lasts through an earthquake and a huge tsunami is obviously well built.