Japan nuclear crisis: workers 'losing race' to save reactor

[FourScore]

Japan nuclear crisis: workers 'losing race' to save reactor
By Danielle Demetriou and Julian Ryall in Tokyo 7:30PM BST 29 Mar 2011

The core at reactor two of the Fukushima plant may have melted on to a concrete floor, according to experts, running the risk of radioactive gases being released into the surrounding area.

Richard Lahey, who was a head of reactor safety research at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, said the workers, who have been pumping water into the three reactors in an attempt to keep the fuel rods from melting, appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor.

“The indications we have … suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” he told a newspaper.

“I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards...”

MORE AT: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8414554/Japan-nuclear-crisis-workers-losing-race-to-save-reactor.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Holy Freaking China Syndrome, Batman

Take all your atomic poison power (R) away...

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. THAT is one fucking ironic poster.

[AndyTiedye]

5. It Wouldn't be a "China Syndrome" for a Reactor in Japan

Halfway around the world from there is here. :hide:

(yeah, I know it wouldn't really work that way, hits ground water and goes boom and gets spewed up into the atmosphere instead) :hide:

[ReggieVeggie]

8. still, there would be a radioactive cloud headed east

bad news for all of us

[Kablooie]

10. It would be an Argentina syndrome.

[AndyTiedye]

21. Yeah, I Know

and the "China Syndrome" should actually be the "Australia" or "Indian Ocean" syndrome,
but I was continuing the assumption from the movie that the melt would prefer the Northern hemisphere for some obscure reason.

More likely, the whole mess gets ejected into the atmosphere when it hits the water table.

All 30 Chernobyls worth of it (when you include what is in the spent fuel pools).

[Junkdrawer]

2. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x766258

[spin]

4. Could the core of the reactor melt through the drywell ...

and eventually reach ground water causing a steam explosion?


source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/15/6275608-if-theres-a-meltdown-then-what

[AndyTiedye]

9. It Can Melt Through Anything. That is the Problem

:nuke::hide:

[ReggieVeggie]

6. save reactor or save a meltdown?

I think the plant is fershimmel at this point

[stockholmer]

15. they gave up the plant the first time they pumped massive sea water in, the site will be a dead zone

for 1000+ years no matter what

[stockholmer]

7. I have been predicting floor breach since they first admitted vessel rupture on Sunday, the 13th

number 3 will soon follow, as will units 1 and then 4. Eventually no workers will be able to even keep the spent fuel pools at units 5 and 6 cooled.
Sometime in the next week or so, one or more of the units cores will more than likely bore into the ground in a molten nuclear fire mass, and continue till it hits the water table, producing huge blast of radioactive vapourized steam that will explode back up through the borehole, through what is left of the ruins of containment, and tens of thousands of feet up into the air, probably into the jetstream.

Remember we are talking about hundreds of thousnds of pounds (if not several million) of fuel, both spent and active. 600,000+ rods in total.

Plutonium steam kettle time, unless they can pull a miracle out of their collective arses.

Fingers crossed for Japan and the world.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. IF that happened, should I cancel my Christmas plans?

[stockholmer]

13. depends where you live, if the worst case happens and you're in Tokyo, it'll cancel them for you,but

globally, if you have just one or two steam clouds hit the jet stream level, the entire planet will get bathed in radiation, some hardly at all, some very much so, and the long term cancer rates will explode world-wide, especially if one of the stem kettles is MOX-fueled. This tragedy will take decades to play out, and a huge portion of radiological impact will come from the massive irradiation of the seas that has already occurred. The food chain is under profound attack already, even without the worst case scenario occurring.



:(

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Talk about karma.

When I get to heaven , I am going to have a hell of a talk with Truman!

[stockholmer]

17. on Truman..........

Truman:

1 Dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, The atomization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war of more scope than any of the Japanese generals were executed for. If Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then no one ever was.

2 Championed the development of the hydrogen bomb, which makes Fat Man and Little Boy look like firecrackers.

3 The horrific Taft-Hartley Act passed on his watch, and he utterly failed in his attempts to repeal it, thus gutting the Wagner Act, and sowing the foundational seeds of union destruction for the next 60 years

4 Was the first Cold Warrior president, giving left cover to take-over of the US foreign policy by the military-industrial complex

4 Korean War, which he labeled a police action (continuing the War on Terror, anyone?)

5 Failed at true universal health care

6 Tried and failed to push through Universal Military Training (Obama with the mandatory universal service failed as well)

7 Supported enthusiastically the creation of the CIA (enough said there).

8 NATO created with his support, which performed (Opertion Gladio) terrible false-flag terror acts here in the EU for years, killing hundreds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

9 Supported National Security Council Resolution NSC-68 in 1948 (it was classified till 1975), which declared, "a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere." thus completing redefining American geo-political strategy into a global empire.NSC-48 called for an immediate 300 to 400% increase in military spending, thus military Keynesianism was permanently entrenched.

10 Decimated Article 1, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution (the power of waging war rests solely in Congress) by usurping that power when he stated formally - "The president, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, has full control over the use thereof."

11 Tried to draft striking railroad workers in the US Army. Only the unlikely alliance of old-right Senator Robert Taft of Ohio and left liberal Claude Pepper of Florida stopped this.

12 Executive Order 10340, where Truman tried to have the US Army seize the steel mills of the USA to stop a national strike by the unions. Defeated by the US Supreme Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.

13 Supported the UN ramming through of the partition of Palestine, and the creation of Israel, despite privately writing to Eleanor Roosevelt "I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top, they are just as intolerant and as cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath. I regret this situation very much, because my sympathy has always been on their side."

14 Issued Executive Order 9835 which, in 1947, set up loyalty boards to investigate espionage among federal employees.

15 "THE BUCK STOPS HERE", still waiting on Obama for this one.

[in_cog_ni_to]

12. Then what? Where will the poor people of Japan go?!! Should people be making plans?

What about our drinking water here? Our food? Will everything be contaminated? Any suggestions?:scared: My G-d. This has ended up being the nightmare we all hoped it wouldn't be. Those poor, poor people. :cry:

[JuniperLea]

14. Me too...

And I said they won't be able to hide that massive cloud once it starts and that's when we MIGHT start hearing the truth of the situation.

I think it will take only one such meltdown to disrupt the other reactors at that site and cause them all to go eventually.

God help us all.

[FourScore]

18. How do you know that this could be a possibility?

I have been looking for the "worst-case scenario" and can't find it.

[marions ghost]

19. good question

can this be corroborated?

[stockholmer]

20. Worst case scenario: China syndrome

The Sydney Daily Telegraph

http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCIQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailytel.newspaperdirect.com%2Fepaper%2Fviewer.aspx%3Fissue%3D11202011031500000000001001%26page%3D6%26article%3Dfa5a42db-a99c-4c27-95d9-e94c8b0d3b11%26key%3DyAwzYY5a4EZ3OVBmRcFk8w%3D%3D%26feed%3Drss&ei=-p2STcmVFM3SsgaAs5nQBg&usg=AFQjCNEr6ixITIUKDOOR5qCcSha3A29krQ

Core issues: worst-case nuclear reactor scenarios

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/national/national/general/core-issues-worstcase-nuclear-reactor-scenarios/2104028.aspx