Battle at Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is just beginning, says reactor troubleshooter

[flamingdem]

ttp://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/mar/16/battle-is-just-beginning-says-nuclear-reactor/

snip

If workers are unable to get additional cooling water into the reactor vessel, the molten fuel core will collapse into the water in the bottom of the vessel. Eventually the heat from the decaying fuel would boil away the water that's left, leaving the core sitting on the vessel's lower head made of steel.

Should that happen, "It'll melt through it like butter," Allen said.
That, in turn, would cause a "high-pressure melt injection" into the water-filled concrete cavity below the reactor. Because the concrete would likely be unheated, the reaction created by the sudden injection of the reactor's ultra-hot content would be immense, he said.
"It'll be like somebody dropped a bomb, and there'll be a big cloud of very, very radioactive material above the ground," Allen said.

Should these events happen, the best outcome would be if the winds are blowing east and push the radioactive plume over the ocean, he said.

"It (the radioactivity) will fall out in the ocean and everything will be fine," he said.
The worst case, Allen said, would be if winds pushed a radioactive cloud south toward Tokyo and Japan's highly populated cities. If that were to happen, he said, the consequences would likely be greater than the 1986 accident at Chernobyl, where about an entire area of Ukraine had to be evacuated because of the radioactive conditions that increased the risk of developing cancer.

[Tx4obama]

1. There is a total of over 1240 TONS of nuclear fuel at Dai-ichi (Chernobyl was 180 tons)

Here are the numbers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x666399

And there's a video link to Maddow there in the comments area.

[flamingdem]

2. This is why no. 3 is ultra important and criticality is already going on

known by the boiling there, or so I read.

One molecule breathed in = lung cancer. A nice thing to get into the food chain too.

[thereismore]

3. One molecule = lung cancer? Where do you get your "scientific" information? nt

[Tx4obama]

5. No.3 building has MOX, plutonium in the rods.

Watch the film 'Silkwood'.
All it takes is the amount that would fit on a pin to kill you.

[thereismore]

6. A pin is a LOT more than 1 molecule. Don't spread panic. nt

[nc4bo]

4. I'm especially comforted that a highly radioactive cloud would drift over the ocean

and all will be fine. Fine until 5 headed whales and 8 legged tuna start showing up on dinner plates.

Oh yeah - warm and fuzzies all over.

:sarcasm:

[undeterred]

7. "It (the radioactivity) will fall out in the ocean and everything will be fine," he said.

No, not really.

The problem is harder to locate, removed for the moment from human population- but its not gone.