Bigger evacuation area needed -- Unit 4 has NO water!!!

[FourScore]

Bigger evacuation area needed for Japan reactors-NRC
WASHINGTON, March 16 | Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:36pm GMT

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - The top U.S. nuclear regulator told Congress on Wednesday the United States will not be hit by harmful radiation from Japan's crisis-hit reactors and that the evacuation area around them is smaller than what it would recommend.

Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also said at a House energy and commerce subcommittee hearing that the spent fuel pool at Japan's troubled number four reactor has no water.

"There is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures," Jaczko said. (Editing by Dale Hudson)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. No surprise there. Japan has said for the past 2 or 3 days they cannot get near to put water in it.

This has been going on since whenever it first caught on fire and they had the subsequent spike in radiation where they expanded the evacuation perimeter.

[FourScore]

2. My cable has been down for 24 hours

so I've been a little out of the loop.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. Sorry. That wasn't directed at you.

I should have been more clear. My apologies.

They've not actually said it was OUT of water before. Just that they can't get near it to add water. I was snarking how boiling hot water in a building which keeps catching on fire would have evaporated.

Peace! :hi:

[FourScore]

13. No need to apologize Lone_Star_Dem.

I'm just sooo glad to be back online. I actually had to watch the MSM to get updates. Now I remember why I get all my news from the internet.

:hi:

[suffragette]

14. And that might account for the white steam/smoke

that's been pouring out of there.

I posted a timeline Reuters did and noticed there are also access issues they're starting to discuss and, hopefully, address.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x659146
Times are Japan time, which is GMT +9, unless stated)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16

13:27 - Japan's nuclear safety agency says operators of the damaged nuclear plant plan to bulldoze an emergency route to the facility to allow access for fire trucks.

[denem]

3. They kept asking TEPCO what the temperature of the No 4. pool was.

83C degrees was the answer.

Is that the firgure from two days ago?

Yes

Do you have more recent data?.

No. The radiation is too high to allow us get a later figure.

LYING FUCKS

So the temperature rose to 100 C - boiling point? - color me shocked.
And there was too much radiation to even allow water / boron to be dropped by helicopter.

I salute the Fukushima 50 - thank you, will all my heart.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. It was Monday when they got the last temperature reading

Then it was already twice as high as it should have been, they said. After that it had a hydrogen explosion, killed two people and caught on fire. Which caused the radiation spike. Since then they've not been able to get anyone near enough to do a thing with it.

As for the dropping of water and boric acid by helicopter. They said the hole from the blast was several meters from the storage pools. They just couldn't reach it via air. Today they're supposed to be trying a water cannon. I wish them all the luck in the world.

[FLPanhandle]

5. Reactor cooling issues I can understand.

They require lots of water flow and therefore lots of energy to keep it moving.

As someone totally ignorant of nuclear power plants, I would think fuel rod pool design for emergencies should be simple. Imbed the storage pools deep into the ground with an emergency pipe to the ocean. If all else fails, open the value.

[whosinpower]

6. Trying to keep up with it all

Am I clear on this - on reactors 1 and 2, the containment vessels are compromised.
Reactor 3 has had several fires....
Reactor 4 has no water in the spent fuel pool and radiation levels are extremely high.

I know they keep saying this is nothing like Chernobyl....but can't help but worry that Japan will have a 60 mile dead zone by the time this is finished....

[flamingdem]

8. no. 3 has MOX mix including Plutonium, and it's leaking nt

[flamingdem]

7. The biggie, imo, is No. 3 - Just in: Japan Nuke Agency not clear why levels have jumped around 3!!??

RT @zerohedge: Japan Nuclear Agency says still not clear why radiation levels jumped near No. 3 reactor .

[k2qb3]

10. #4 is now a much more serious situation than #3...

A full spent fuel pool with no water is about as bad as things get.

It will be 9000C in that pool, no containment whatsoever and several cores worth of fuel. Too hot to get water on it. We don't know how long it's been dry either.

#3 still has enough of a containment they can keep water flowing to it, at this point the worst thing about #3 is it might do the same thing as #4...

[flamingdem]

15. Have you found info on what might happen to those spent fuel rods?

Some scientists mention that it could lead to criticality and a chain reaction.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. 28,000 more people being evacuated - NHK

More people evacuating to avoid radiation

An additional 28,000 people have been forced to evacuate from their homes to other areas to avoid possible radiation from a nuclear power in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. Friday's earthquake and tsunami crippled the nuclear plant.

NHK has learned that as of Wednesday, 31 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture accepted at least 28,152 evacuees, in addition to those who had already taken shelter in those municipalities.

But many temporary shelters set up in the prefecture were already too crowded to accept the newcomers.

At a shelter about 100 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 295 evacuees joined the 38 people who had already been staying there since the earthquake.
Some of them say they were forced to move there because the first shelter they went to was overcrowded. They also say some of them have not yet received any radioactive screening tests.

Read more: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_01.html

[Rex]

12. Hey corporate suits, please stop using the words 'could be'.

We all know that things ARE bad and worse now, using weasel words just pisses off the small part of the population that knows you are downplaying the tragedy. Sometimes when you are fucked, it is a good idea to tell everyone else they are fucked too. They lie and people die, just like it was safe to breath the air after 9/11...which turned out to be a total lie.