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Increased radiation released as Fukushima cooling systems lost power

Fukushima Spews More Radiation … Due to Tepco’s Carelessness Zero Hedge by George Washington on 03/21/2013 Power was lost to the cooling systems to virtually all of the spent fuel pools at Fukushima for more than a day.

Some of these fuel pools have lost containment, and are arguably the top short-term threat to humanity … and America’s national security.

The loss of cooling increased the radiation output from the pools.  And the loss of power was due to carelessness by the operator of the Fukushima reactors.  As nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen notes:

 Is TEPCO doing an adequate job of keeping the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power site safe?

We don’t think so.

To have such a massive power failure last almost 24 hours is unconscionable. Because this problem lasted almost one day, and because several cooling systems were simultaneously disabled, Fairewinds believes that a common electrical component is the equipment that failed, likely a junction box or a transformer. Nuclear plants are supposed to be built to be single failure proof, meaning that if one component fails the systems still remain operational via other equipment. The loss of spent fuel pool cooling simultaneously in three nuclear reactors means that a common mode failure, or worse yet a single failure, was somehow allowed to occur in TEPCO’s jury-rigged design. This simply should never happen.

TEPCO claims that there was no radiation release from this recent power failure, but that is a scientific impossibility. When power is lost in a spent fuel pool, the radioactive fuel rods heat the pools up. As the pools heat up, evaporation increases resulting in a white “smoke” (steam). That steam is radioactive, containing some of the radiation that was previously in the pool. As the water warms up, radiation releases will increase.

Yesterday’s power loss is further proof that the conditions at Fukushima Daiichi are still unstable, despite what TEPCO and the Japanese and US governments say…….. http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-21/fukushima-spews-more-radiation-%E2%80%A6-due-tepco%E2%80%99s-carelessness

March 22, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2013