Japan nuclear plant: Just 48 hours to avoid 'another Chernobyl'

[FourScore]

Japan nuclear plant: Just 48 hours to avoid 'another Chernobyl'
By Gordon Rayner and Martin Evans 10:52PM GMT 16 Mar 2011

Japan has 48 hours to bring its rapidly escalating nuclear crisis under control before it faces a catastrophe “worse than Chernobyl”, it was claimed last night.

Nuclear safety officials in France said they were "pessimistic" about whether engineers could prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant after a pool containing spent fuel rods overheated and boiled dry.

Last night radiation levels were "extremely high" in the stricken building, which was breached by an earlier explosion, meaning that radiation could now escape into the atmosphere.

Tokyo Electric, the owners of the plant, said five workers had been killed at the site, two were missing and 21 had been injured...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8387051/Japan-nuclear-plant-Just-48-hours-to-avoid-another-Chernobyl.html

[rhett o rick]

1. Is there any real info available? How many pools are uncovered?

How many are in serious condition of melting? What is being done now?

[CoffeeCat]

3. Doesn't this make you frustrated???

There are so many unanswered questions!

I'm out here in the cheap seats, and I'm no expert on nuclear energy--but there has not
been ONE article that lays out the EXACT situation and what is happening--and the likely
eventualities.

Articles are vague, and often times they are a matter of opinion. Headlines like, "The
worst is not expected to happen" or "Everyone hopes for the best" do not help!

Experts are constantly contradicting one another or offering up differing opinions--while
everyone avoids real information that we can all understand and find useful.

I'm not asking that reporters predict the future. Obviously, this situation is tumultuous
and ever-changing. The central frustration is that there is no solid reporting on exactly
is happening with each of these reactors--and what those happenings mean/could mean for the
future.

It's maddening.

If there is ANY possibility that this could be be a Chernobyl-like (or worse) situation--then
don't the 'powers that be' have an obligation to tell us what is happening--and help the
world to prepare?

[rhett o rick]

5. Exactly. I know what can happen, I want to know what is happening. nm

[TNLib]

13. From everything I am reading the focus is on unit 4 and Unit 3

Because Unit 4 has little or no water in the suppression pool and the spent fuel rods are heating up.

Unit 3 either has very little water or is heating up and those rods are more harmful because the contain Plutonium (MOX) just google Mox and it will explain high it's more dangerous.

Tepco seems to be running the show and doesn't seem to want to tell anyone in detail what is going including US officials on the ground. So know one really knows what the hell is happening.

[truedelphi]

4. There are over 100K rods

Spent nuclear rods, that the water is no longer covering.

This is one problem.

And the other problem: lying, lying, lying that is going on is incredible.

Nonetheless, despite countless analysts stating that our "American" plants are different and safer from the ones in trouble in Japan, an expert actually offered up yesterday on TV that over twenty of our nuke reactors are the same model as the Fukushima problem child (These were designed and built by all American company GE, which also owns NBC and MSNBC)

These twenty-some plants are about one quarter of all operating plants in the USA.

[Citizen Worker]

7. And Jeff Immelt, current chairman of GE, heads up Obama's "jobs" initiative and has a direct line to

the White House.

[rhett o rick]

9. There is a lot of misinformation floating around. I find it very hard to believe

that there are 100,000 rods uncovered. Do you have a source? I would honestly like toknow how many are uncovered. But I doubt it more than 50 or 60.

[k2qb3]

11. There are about 800 assemblies in each of the pools on 3 and 4.

There are several dozen rods in each assembly.

It's between 1-2 reactor cores worth in each pool, once they're cool enough they move them to the main pool which is in the building behind the reactors. 2/3rds of the spent fuel on the site is in the big pool.

There's more than 100,000 rods in the plant but not that many are at risk at the moment, and there's a big difference between rods and assemblies, rods are very thin.

[truedelphi]

12. Thank you for the clarification. n/t

[Johonny]

14. The answer is yes

but remember the area is highly radioactive. It's not like people can walk right into the area and look. A lot of the data known has been collected remotely and at a distance. While there is technology that could get even better data, it generally means bringing in more personnel that are untrained to the hazards.

Thus people must interpret the available data. This generally leads to a spread in the probability of what is happening. People then pick from the range a more general story. Some are optimistic, some are pessimistic.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Let's hope the French are wrong on this one!

n/t

[Dappleganger]

6. Who is in charge?

Is it TEPCO or the Japanese government or some other entity?

[k2qb3]

8. The status of the #4 pool seems to be a matter of debate...

PBS just reported that our (US) analysis of the data from the global hawk survey indicates the pool is dry. France seems to agree, Japan says it's OK and are concentrating on #3...

It's frustrating, as close as they seem to be to getting some real pumping capability there it could be the difference between everything getting under some semblance of control and everything going to hell very rapidly.

Most of the fuel is probably stable now, they say they have water flow in 5 and 6 and they're not worried about the big pool that holds 2/3rds of the spent fuel on site. Pretty much just 3 and 4 that are a concern as long as they can work at all on the site.

[Norrin Radd]

10. It's too bad it isn't the raining season there, now.