Lack of Data Heightens Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

[jpak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/world/asia/09nuclear.html

Nearly one month after Japan’s devastating nuclear accident, atomic energy experts, regulators and politicians around the world are still puzzling over a basic question: How much danger is still posed by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant?

That depends to a considerable extent on how hot the uranium fuel rods at the power plant remain, and whether fuel has escaped its containment, or might still do so. Yet remarkably little is known for sure about what is really happening inside the reactors because some areas remain far too radioactive for workers to approach, and some instruments have malfunctioned.

The paucity of data and the conflicting estimates of what the available information really means have prompted a series of confusing analyses and a rift between officials in Japan and those overseas — and even between one member of Congress and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The commission speculated this week that the nuclear fuel in the core of one of the stricken reactors had probably leaked from its thick steel pressure vessel, its most important protective barrier. If that proved to be accurate, it would raise the prospect of continuing fuel leaks and high levels of radioactive releases that would vastly complicate containment and the cleanup.

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[Logical]

1. Thanks for the post! n-t

[kristopher]

2. This is a good read. K&R

[Fledermaus]

3. I believe that some of the instrumentation on the reactors is damaged.

I think the solution ot this problem is beyond resources TEPCO can produce.