nuclear-news

The smallest slip up could trigger nuclear catastrophe

VIDEO and AUDIO Fukushima decommissioning slip-up could trigger monumental chain reaction, expert warns One slip-up in the latest step to decommission Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant could trigger a “monumental” chain reaction, experts warn. ABC NewsWithin days, Fukushima nuclear plant operators will begin what is being described as the most dangerous phase of the decommissioning process so far.

In an operation never before attempted, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) will start removing 1,331 highly radioactive used fuel assemblies from a deep pool which sits high above the ground in a shattered reactor building.

The Fukushima nuclear plant’s reactors were sent into meltdown by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Experts around the world have warned ever since that the fuel pool is in a precarious state – vulnerable to collapsing in another big earthquake.Yale University professor Charles Perrow wrote about the number 4 fuel pool this year in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.He said one pool contains 10 times the amount of radioactive caesium present in the Chernobyl disaster and warned one slip-up with the removal could trigger a chain reaction.

“This has me very scared,” he told the ABC. ”Tokyo would have to be evacuated because [the] caesium and other poisons that are there will spread very rapidly. ”Even if the wind is blowing in the other way, it’s going to be monumental.”….. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-31/fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-tepco-tokyo/5059514

November 1, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2013, Japan, Resources -audiovicual, safety