NYT:Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say

[jannyk]

WASHINGTON — As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.

But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination.

Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html?_r=2&hp

Much more at link

[Tesha]

1. And remember folks: Nuclear power is safe as mothers' milk* and too cheap to meter!

*Well, mothers' milk that's contaminated with radioiodine and strontium.

[PA Democrat]

2. So it will not be safe for people to return to their homes for quite sometime,

and a shift in winds could blow radiation toward cities, rather than out to sea.