nuclear-news

100 years before Fukushima’s nuclear fuel rods are safe

Crews ‘facing 100-year battle’ at Fukushima, ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)By David Mark, Mark Willacy, 1 April 11, A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.

The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant’s operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster…….xperts agree capping the damaged reactors with concrete is not an option…..

Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the Pacific off the plant have been recorded at a new high of 4,385 times the legal limit.

In 2002, the plant’s operator TEPCO admitted to falsifying safety reports, leading to all of its 17 boiling water reactors being shut down for inspection.

TEPCO has already vowed to dismantle the four reactors at the centre of the world’s worst atomic accident in 25 years, but now Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan says the Fukushima plant must be scrapped.

Crews ‘facing 100-year battle’ at Fukushima – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

April 1, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - Fukushima 2011