Status-Fukushima nuclear power plants Sunday midnight (renewed nuclear chain reaction feared-Unit 4)

[stockholmer]

Source: Kyodo News Japan

TOKYO, March 20, Kyodo

-- Reactor No. 1 (Operation suspended after quake)
Partial melting of core, cooling failure, vapor vented, building housing containment of reactor damaged by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 (Operation suspended after quake)
Damage to reactor containment structure feared, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing containment of reactor damaged by blast at adjacent reactor No. 3, blast sound heard near suppression chamber of containment vessel, seawater pumped into pool holding spent-fuel rods on Sunday, access to external power restored Sunday.

-- Reactor No. 3 (Operation suspended after quake)
Partial melting of core feared, cooling failure, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing containment of reactor badly damaged by hydrogen explosion, seawater dumped over spent-fuel storage pool by helicopter Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground for four days in a row through Sunday.

-- Reactor No. 4 (Under maintenance when quake struck)
Renewed nuclear chain reaction feared at spent-fuel storage pool, fire at building housing containment of reactor Tuesday and Wednesday, only frame remains of reactor building roof, temperature in the pool reached 84 C on March 14, water sprayed at pool on Sunday..........."



Read more: http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79849.html

---

not a good sign

[gateley]

1. Wow - it's hard to keep up. I think the last I heard was essentially

they were "getting things under control".

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Progress restoring power to the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has apparently stalled

after a full day of work Sunday, although the situation has not deteriorated any further."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci--japan-reactor-damage-20110320,0,7441237.story

[CountAllVotes]

2. they need to cement coffin all of these nukes

Bye bye once and for all. Do it now you greedy fucking idiots!

:kick:

[cynzke]

15. Amen!

Why are they wasting so much time and risk, when this is the one and only solution. Spending one more minute won't change the outcome!

[mysterysoup]

18. Would that work, or is it too soon? Concrete decomposes at hi temps.

[Aerows]

19. If there is a chain reaction occuring

I don't know if concrete would do anything.

[wtmusic]

3. Old news

This is a summary of all events since the earthquake. Please delete or amend.

[stockholmer]

4. no, - released on Kyodo News within last hour(it's only 2AM in Tokyo now, update is for Midnight)

[wtmusic]

6. It's a summary.

This is describing all events to date. The fire was four days ago.

Again, please amend or delete.

[bvar22]

8. The possibility of...

...renewed nuclear chain reaction at spent-fuel storage pool #4 is NOT old news.
It is frightening NEW news, at least for me.

[wtmusic]

9. Look at the post.

It's listed before news from Tuesday and Wednesday of last week.

OLD NEWS.

If you want to get concerned about something, worry about fluctuating pressure levels in #3 that might lead to a release of plutonium.

[stockholmer]

13. renewed possible chain reaction in Unit 4 is not old news, nor recycled, nor a good thing

[buddysmellgood]

5. This is the first I've heard about a chain reaction possibly starting in the pool.

[kestrel91316]

23. Please delete YOURSELF.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

7. our resident Nuclear Physicist FrodoBaggins assured me that a renewed reaction was impossible

I guess that's what you get when you listen to an armchair physicist.

[wtmusic]

10. Unrecced for bullshit hysterical recycling of old news

and inability to admit error. :thumbsdown:

[stockholmer]

11. the facts disprove you,sorry, but this is new, & from official sources,unrec away,its your info loss

:thumbsdown:

[wtmusic]

12. Irresponsible and pathetic.

Bye. :hi:

[City Lights]

14. Bye.

:hi:

[axollot]

35. immature - let the mods do their job. n/t

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

21. you're wrong, dude. TEPCO adds updates to its press releases cumulatively.

That is why there is old news mixed with new news.

The bit about a restarted chain reaction in #4 is new.

[trud]

27. wtmusic is right, this news is out of date. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

39. +100

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. I appreciate the summary which includes new info.

It is a summary of status, and nothing wrong with a summary painting the whole picture.

thank you, stockholmer.

Rec....

[ladywnch]

20. posted 16 min ago......'we have come to a situation where we are very close to getting the

situation under control'

So who are we to believe?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110320/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

22. because they have gotten power back to 5 & 6 (which were never a problem), they can claim "control"

They neglect to mention that they have been unable to refill the pool at #4.
That is where a nuclear reaction could be restarting with no containment.

[ladywnch]

30. ah ha. nice to know somethings never change.

Last night I watched a 2004 documentary on the Three Mile Island incident. You'd think it was filmed today in Japan.....the misinformation, false assumptions, ass covering, out and out lying and, what can only be described as a completely, 'let them eat cake' arrogant callousness toward the people in harms way.

[TatonkaJames]

24. The damage is already done

The amount of radiation or damage, which is not being reported, similar to the BP oil catastrophe, has contaminated everything already.
Air, ground and water. If you think 50 miles is the cut off point, forget it. Planes flying in the area then landing in the USA are detected with
low levels (supposedly). That doesn't go away, so anyone flying on these planes will be subjected to it.
The soil will grow tainted food, water also. The water in the sea flows out and spreads. The steam released goes into the atmosphere traveling around the globe.
There is so much we haven't ben told, less is best is the manta of all these large companies.
Just a bad situation for us all when six reactors are damaged. We have Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island and now this. And still, nuclear power, because of payoffs to
representatives who's states they are in refuse to oppose them and begin what is inevitable, alternative clean resources are put on hold. When will they begin
in earnest putting people back to work building what we need now for the future? Wind, solar, battery, etc power ? Just 150 square miles of solar panels in AZ would
be more than enough to run the ENTIRE United States. Google it for info.
But as we all know, they will wait until they say there is only enough oil for one year from the worlds oil supplies, create a crisis and bail out the oil companies so they
can make the switch and take over the alternative power sources, only to charge more for its use. How they will argue the Sun is costing them more each year so they
can raise prices like they do now, I can't wait to hear.

[gateley]

25. I agree. And the thing about 'low levels' of radioactivity is - it's

your friend for life! It doesn't dissipate, it doesn't wear off, it doesn't move through your system - it's cumulative. So after enough repeated exposure to 'low levels' of radiation, we're like walking nukes! (A whopping exaggeration, granted, but you get my point.)

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

31. it's continuous at these levels from now until the day they finish sealing it all in concrete

it took 9 months to build Chernobyl's.

Who cares if it doesn't kill you on contact,
it will be continuous for months and months.

[trud]

29. TatonkaJames

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Or not.

I have rarely seen so much incorrect information in one post. Probably never before.

This situation is analogous to Three Mile Island, which is now completely clean after ten years (The Exxon Valdez area will probably never be clean). The PA Dept of Health followed 30,000 nearby residents of Three Mile Island for eighteen years and found no evidence of an increased incidence of cancer. Chernobyl was an entirely different situation since it had no containment and infinitely higher levels of radiation. That's what happens when our friends on Communist countries build stuff with no concern for the environment, ex: giant rivers of toxic sludge in China.

[TatonkaJames]

41. I was a bit off on the facts of Three Mile

But here are some studies done;
Twenty-five years later, there has been no significant rise in cancer deaths among residents living near the Three Mile Island site. A new analysis of health statistics in the region conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project has, however, found that death rates for infants, children, and the elderly soared in the first two years after the Three Mile Island accident in Dauphin and surrounding counties.

It's not about the sky falling, it's about reality and greed. When will the oil companies give up their profits when we switch to wind, solar and battery power ? Never, they will wait until the last drop is taken and then make a crisis out of it and charge us for the fix, which will be solar, wind and battery. Until then we risk more Chernobyl's and Fukushima's. The dust particles from the explosions are in the atmosphere, fact. They travel and fall as rain on the rest of the globe. That doesn't go away.

Not looking to argue with you but no one can put up an argument that 4 - 6 reactors melting down is a good thing for all the world.

[fascisthunter]

34. shows how insane our reps are

that or completely ignorant fools; probably both.

[axollot]

36. Oh they'll say the cost to maintain and update the panels etc keeps going up

even tho they don't upgrade it, maybe add some changes to local transfer stations to make it look like they are "doing" something. Interesting on the square mileage/solar panels. I even know a fantastic area for them besides AZ like NV. Or bits of both. Full sun nearly all year then stored and transfer it to the sub stations. Plus sub stations w/back up batteries via local panels in every state. It has money making potential NOW but getting capital for it...good luck.

Cheers
Sandy

[aquart]

26. Which explains the post of relocating US military personnel out of Japan.

We think 4 is a Roman candle.

[trud]

28. old news, not detailed, misleading

They've actually made a lot of progress. The best news is they have electric cable run from a working electric plant and are in the process of hooking it up. Radiation levels have dropped by half at the plant.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

32. they haven't been able to get water to stay in #4 pool. rods have been exposed for days.

without containment.

it matters little if they have restored power at 5 & 6 if there is a chain reaction occurring in 4.

[TatonkaJames]

42. Plus the spent rods

were in storage above the containment part of the reactor and when it exploded, those rods went all over the area.
Plus, the radiation is leaking next to the water so there's an steady flow of it contaminating the ocean. Not good.

[fascisthunter]

33. what exactly is a Nuclear Chain Reaction?

I found this:

"A nuclear chain reaction occurs when one nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more nuclear reactions, thus leading to a self-propagating number of these reactions. The specific nuclear reaction may be the fission of heavy isotopes (e.g. 235U) or the fusion of light isotopes (e.g. 2H and 3H). The nuclear chain reaction releases several million times more energy per reaction than any chemical reaction." - wikipedia

[Hannah Bell]

37. as we already established in another thread, that link is a timeline

of events at every reactor, & the "fear of a chain reaction" is from the news of the 15th/16th. It is not current.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=700496&mesg_id=701145

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbs=nws:1&source=hp&q=fear+chain+reaction+pool+4&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=4902021d154fb488

i really don't understand why you posted this.

predictably, your post has done nothing but elicit a bunch of "omg's!" & "what? i just heard something completely different!"

congratulations.

you've just added to the confusion, hype & fear.

[golfguru]

38. chain reaction is the only reason reactors generate power

they control the heat generated by various cooling mediums and by adjusting position of fuel rods.
So when the tsunami compromised the cooling pumps, the reactors started to overheat.

But the same thing happened at TMI. What minimized the radiation leak was the containment shield.
Radiation will leak at Fukishima for sure and how much all depends on how compromised is the
containment shield. If 98-99% of it holds up then we are looking at something similar to Three Mile Island.

[BeFree]

40. plus

The rods from #4 were removed just recently, so those rods were super hot.
They placed these extra hot rods in a pool to cool.
The pool leaked and the rods are no longer being cooled.

The #4 core is empty. It is the now the rods in air that are the problem as they were the hottest of all outside in the air. That's why when #4 blew it was really big. May be the only reason we haven't yet had super problems is that the rods got blown apart somewhat?

[golfguru]

43. the barrage of sea water might have helped also?

Thankfully the newer reactor designs have better methods of storing spent fuel rods.
Whoever designed storing fuel rods on top of the reactor outside of the containment shield
should be run out of town.