nuclear-news

While Japan’s govt and media focus on nuclear restart, Fukushima plant remains critical

 the government and major media are focusing too much on issues of the restart  .

Experts warn of possible catastrophe at Japan reactor, THE HINDU, TOKYO, June 13, 2012 Some nuclear experts are warning that spent fuel rods at a damaged plant in Japan could trigger a major catastrophe despite the government’s declaration in December that the emergency phase of the nation’s worst nuclear disaster was over.

Fifteen months after a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami struck the
Fukushima Daiichi plant and led to meltdowns, fears about reactor 4
have grown as its building holds a storage pool filled with 1,535
nuclear fuel rod assemblies.

The pool, which is 30 metres above ground, has been left uncovered
since a hydrogen blast last year blew off the upper part of the outer
wall of the containment building. Most of the assemblies are spent
fuel rods with a total amount of radioactive caesium equal to 5,000
atomic bombs of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima, said Hiroaki Koide,
assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor
Institute.

The government estimated the amount of caesium—137 already released by
the Fukushima disaster were equal to that of 168 Hiroshima bombs.

If a large quake or other event were to cause the pool to crack and
drain, it could lead to a new catastrophe, Koide said.

“We just all have to pray that an earthquake does not happen before
that fuel is removed,” Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer of US-based
Fairewinds Energy Education, said on his website.

The plant suffered meltdowns at three of its six reactors. But each of
the three units holds fewer assemblies than reactor 4….. cranes that
were supposed to carry spent fuel rods to a safer place collapsed
during the disaster last year. TEPCO would need to erect a new
building to support cranes.

The operator said it would start to remove the fuel in December 2013.
The cleanup of the complex is expected to take decades.

Koide said he thinks TEPCO has been working on it with a sense of
crisis, but that the government is eager to restart idled reactors and
appears to lack that sense.

Critics say the government and major media are focusing too much on
issues of the restart  …..
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3522293.ece

June 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general