Fukushima news

[Bennyboy]

71. TEPCO’s Risky Operation at Fukushima - The Nation

Cross posted from this DU thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=4040042

be sure to read the thread, lots of good information in there...


http://www.thenation.com/blog/177170/tepcos-risky-operation-fukushima#

Far be it from me to distract from the important blaming and shaming around the Obamacare website. But if we do have a minute left for our actual health, can we talk about the radiation threat that seems to be soaring on the Pacific?

I don’t want to frighten anyone unduly, so I’ll quote the calm people at Reuters:

The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will as early as this week begin removing 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel in a hugely delicate and unprecedented operation fraught with risk.

That’s Reuters. Nuclear researcher Harvey Wasserman says things more to the effect of “What the F’ity F. F?”

The point is, since an earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Plant in March of 2011, the fuel rods at Reactor Number Four have been in dangerously delicate shape. They can’t heat up, be exposed to air or break without releasing deadly gas, but the cooling pool they’ve been resting in is leaky and corroded by seawater and could never withstand another tremor or quake.

Starting any day now, Tokyo Electric or TEPCO, is going to begin plucking more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged fuel assemblies out of where they are and placing them in new casks.