Fukushima Enters China Syndrome: Meltdown Is Destroying Cement

[stockholmer]

http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/fukushima-enters-china-syndrome-meltdown-is-destroying-cement/

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111130_09-j.pdf

All the news from Fukushima is very bad. This will continue for the rest of our lives. Like Chernobyl, the tendency for urgency will drop over time as people get used to the mess and a fatalist feeling of nothing can be done spreads deeper and deeper just like the present ‘China syndrome’ (sic) event. Of course, this movement towards the center of the earth due to gravity means it will metaphorically come out the other side in the US, not China.
.

The fact remains, we are possibly witnessing something much more dangerous than Chernobyl. Chernobyl dumped immense amounts of toxins and radiation across all of Europe. But Fukushima is more insidious: it is entering the water table of the biggest ocean on earth, the Pacific, and Japan’s water table which the population needs to use for business, agriculture and living in general.

.

Just this week, TEPCO released, only in Japanese, a report on this China Syndrome event. They finally have admitted to what I claimed would happen: the containment vessels are being systematically eaten by a molten mass of core materials. They are, as I explained in the past, chemically reacting with cement which is not rock but rather, is a water-permeable material that reacts to heat which is why fireproof materials have to be used when building incinerators, for example.

.

Here is one news story from this last two weeks about the continuing dangers at Fukushima. The Dragons that live in these reactors have to be groomed and fed water or they will roar back into full bellow: Architect of Reactor 3 warns of massive hydrovolcanic explosion | Fukushima Diary. http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/11/architect-of-reactor-3-warns-massive-hydrovolcanic-explosion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FukushimaDiary+%28Fukushima+Diary%29


snip


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China Syndrome discussed in multiple news reports: Closer than previously believed to burning through ground below reactor

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/fukushima-nuclear-catastrophe-closer-than-thought/story-e6frg6so-1226211693322

Molten nuclear fuel in one reactor at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant burned through the steel pressure vessel and three-quarters of the surrounding concrete containment vessel that formed the reactor’s last substantial internal barrier.

The revelation of the near “China Syndrome” meltdown is yet another revision of the severity of the disaster <...>

The operator and the government agencies in charge of regulating the nuclear industry have consistently underestimated the severity of events at the plant.

Keiji Miyazaki, a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Osaka University, told The Wall Street Journal that questions now had to be posed about why it took so long to come up with a way to cool this reactor. “There has to be a long period of time without any (cooling) water being injected into the reactor for the fuel to melt through the concrete bottom,” he said.


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Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima plant’s reactor was perilously close to full meltdown, ANI, Dec. 1, 2011:

http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/252739

<...> TEPCO and the Japanese Government have revealed for the first time that the nuclear fuel rods in reactor Number 1 likely melted completely, burning a hole through one surrounding vessel and eating through up to three-quarters of the concrete base at the bottom <...>

That brought the fuel closer than previously believed to breaching the containment vessel and continuing to burn through the ground below, a catastrophic scenario sometimes described as the “China Syndrome” <...>

Earlier, TEPCO had said only that it thought unit Number 1′s fuel was more than half melted, and that some had fallen into the containment vessel.

The findings are the latest reminder of how dangerous the mid-March accident at Fukushima Daiichi was and how much remains unknown. <...>



Remember what Kyoto University professor Hiroaki Koide told the News York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world/asia/meltdown-in-japan-may-have-been-worse-than-thought.html?_r=3&src=tp&pagewanted=print “This is still an overly optimistic simulation (by Tepco and Japan gov't ...) even by their own simulation, it’s very borderline.”


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MHLW ignores the medical statistics of Fukushima and a part of Miyagi, Yahoo Japan posting says leukemia up 7 times from last year — Champion wrestler who trained in Fukushima diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia


http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/12/mhlw-ignores-the-medical-statistics-of-fukushima-and-a-part-of-miyagi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FukushimaDiary+%28Fukushima+Diary%29

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) conducts a patient survey every 3 years.

However, it turned out that they eliminated the data of Fukushima and a part of Miyagi from their statistics this time.

snip


Date: Nov. 21
Survey of medical association of each local government
April through October
Leukemia cases have increased 7 times since last year
Chairman of medical association said that the connection between unusual increase of leukemia and Fukushima is not clear
60% of the total leukemia cases are acute leukemia (highest ratio since 1978, when they started taking this survey)
80% of the patients are from Northern Japan and the Kanto area
Fukushima has highest rate, then Ibaraki, Tochigi, Tokyo
The Announcement

To clear up this “confusion”, a Japanese citizen asked Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for the truth, to which they replied that they take all patients statistics but that this year they eliminated the data from Fukushima and a part of Miyagi from the whole statistics report.

They say it is to support the reconstruction of Fukushima and Miyagi, but we all know that in reality abandoning the survey only makes the situation worse.

On 3/11, earthquake and Tsunami hit Miyagi and Iwate for most of the part while Fukushima suffers from radiation mostly.

If they really wanted to try to “help reconstruction efforts” (sic), they should eliminate the data of those three prefectures, with Iwate and Miyagi given a higher priority.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare does not give any more specific reasons why.

------------


A Wrestler in Fukushima got acute myelocytic leukemia, Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki, December 1, 2011:
http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/12/wrestler-in-fukushima-got-acute-myelocytic-leukemia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FukushimaDiary+%28Fukushima+Diary%29

Nagashima Kazuyuki

Won silver medal at Asian wrestling league in Koshu last year
30 years old
From Gunma
Belongs to a company in Iwaki Fukushima (Source) where he used to train.
Felt ill in early September
Diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia during a medical test on 9/10/2011

[FirstLight]

1. if there's a full melt-through

it won;t go all the way through the earth, the core is molten...sooo what will really happen? or does nobody really know?

it's freaking scary though, especially considering the water that makes our snow and rain here in CA comes from that ocean, and how much is already coming down on us?

[Angry Dragon]

5. There is a worry that if it hits water underground then there will

be explosions as far as I have been able to determine
I do not fully understand the science and I am not sure if anyone truly fully understands

I do know that nuclear out of control is not a very good thing

[backscatter712]

7. The worst case scenario for a China Syndrome event.

Is that the core material melts through the containment vessel, through the concrete underneath, and keeps melting its way down, down, down until it hits the water table. Then, water meets several-thousand-degree molten uranium, flashes to steam, and KABOOM!!! Huge explosion sending deadly radioactive fallout everywhere!

[TheWraith]

9. Except that the core temperature is now less than 100 degrees celsius.

Really, this is yet-more panic mongering, based on making people believe that something could happen now which no longer can.

[intaglio]

13. The core no longer contains the bulk of the fuel

Tepco do not know what temperature of the mass of fuel currently eating through the concrete containment has.

As far as reactor 1 is concerned the core temperature is meaningless and the same probably applies to the other reactors. Partial and complete fuel melt place the bulk of the fuel outside the areas where temperatures can be meaningfully be measured.

Nice to see you sticking to your guns over this - I just wish you would apply your intellect to the real situation not to the fantasies disseminated by Tepco and the Japanese government.

[AtheistCrusader]

67. This is the same shit that was posted last week. Verbatim.

It is highly unlikely to punch through the entire containment. If it does, it still can't possibly be as bad as Chernobyl. Chernobyl was running at an indicated 33 gigawatts thermal output when it exploded, and almost the ENTIRE core was thrown, burning, into the sky. There's just no fucking comparison.

We've lost entire reactors at sea. We've dumped (as a species) uncountable tonnage of radioactive material at sea, as 'disposal'.

Drop. In. A. Bucket.

It's very bad for the Japanese people, and that's just about it. This is, by and large, a localized problem.

[stockholmer]

16. wrong, the 'reactor vessel core' temp is meaningless as the molten fuel mass is no longer inside it

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world/asia/meltdown-in-japan-may-have-been-worse-than-thought.html?_r=3&src=tp&pagewanted=print

NYT: “Increasingly grave scenarios” at Fukushima — Tepco admits melted fuel may be one foot away from crucial steel barrier — “An overly optimistic simulation” says Kyoto expert


Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor of physics at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute

I have always argued that the containment is broken, and that there is the danger of a wider radiation leak.

In reality, it’s impossible to look inside the reactor, and most measurement instruments have been knocked out. So nobody really knows how bad it is.

[chervilant]

34. hmm...

Are you basing your assertion on the information disseminated by TEPCO, the IAEA and the Japanese Government? Do you think those entities are providing accurate information?

If the fuel has melted through the containment, is the temperature of the 'core' relevant?

I didn't get that the author of the OP is fear-mongering. Rather, I view this OP as an effort to provide more accurate information about Fukushima.

It would be nice if we could pretend that Fukushima isn't as bad as all that. However, such denial will not make this disaster go away.

[Rex]

47. Are you sure about that?

[rhett o rick]

58. And you pulled that fact out of where?? nm

[greiner3]

59. As of Septemer 2011;

The #2 reactor is at 112.9 Celcius. This is 233 Farenheit. I assume you mean that a temperature ABOVE boiling point of water will cause the big BOOM the OP said. Plus, this temperature remains this low only so far as they can keep pouring water into the containment vessel. Once the vessel is breached there will be no way to keep any water poured into the then hole in the ground from seeping into the groundwater. At this point the fuel will reach critical mass and you can stop your worrying about "yet-more panic mongering."

The core will always have the potential for going critical, until enough fuel rods/molten uranium/plutonium have been disengaged.

Be afraid, be very afraid!

[Yo_Mama]

63. Here's an updated reactor status as of this week

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1322711797P.pdf

Note that not only are the reactor temps far below that value, but they are deliberately letting them rise.

The core can't go critical - not in the state it's in. It's not very core-ish any more. Some of it is probably blobbed on the RPV bottom, some in the drywell, and all of it is amalgamated with contaminants now. It's nearly nine months after the meltdown, for heavens sake! These fuel blobs are producing heat from radioactive decay. They are hot. They have to be cooled, and the radioactivity controlled, but they're definitely not burrowing down through the earth at this point.

This is a system that's LOSING energy, not gaining it.

The reactor vessels are already breached somehow, because the water they are pouring in them is seeping down into the basement. From whence they pump it out, run it through a purification system they have rigged, and spray the water back in at the top.

Your theory here kind of ignores reality.

[Taverner]

11. It's the water table we worry about

Once it gets past that though, we at least won't have anything new to worry about

[caseymoz]

48. It will melt into the ground lower and lower until the radioactive isotopes

are dissolved and diffused enough that fission stops. Then the heat will abate, and they will solidify again. Now, if that happens before they reach the water table, you could always dig them back up, barrel and sequester them (along with all that earth). The problems really come when or if the materials reach the water table or if they are released into the Pacific. Then you will have toxic and radioactive isotopes being absorbed into organisms, and finally, into us.

That's really bad, but I don't anticipate any worse. Though of course, there might be unforeseen consequences, and we either have to foresee them, or have to deal with them as they come.

Or not.

[FBaggins]

65. Fission stopped almost nine months ago.

The heat produced is a tiny fraction of what it was putting out before it shut down (about 1/1000th).

And it resolidified months ago as well.

[caseymoz]

80. Are you like, looking at it?

First, common sense: if it solidified months ago, it wouldn't be a danger of melting through the containment vessel and through concrete. Now, there might be differential melting temperatures, but the melting temperature of that containment vessel has to be higher than the melting temperature of those fissionable materials.

Second, if it's producing so much heat that it melts through things, no fission has not stopped. It has critical mass. Otherwise, they would have not been able to handle those materials, pre-fission, to put them in. Would they?

This was my field. I know what I'm talking about.

[Response]

75. It hits groundwater and then there will be massive contamination of the water table.

[Whisp]

2. thankyou for posting this. Lest we forget. nt

[okieinpain]

3. i haven't forgotten, zombieland coming soon and it's all

president obama's fault. he should have shutdown those nuclear plants in japan a long time ago.

[closeupready]

4. But since it could have been worse, this is a success story!

:sarcasm:

[thesquanderer]

55. Funny, that's the argument made about the stimulus package

"But since it could have been worse, this is a success story!"

Sounds familiar!

[dtexdem]

6. Well, given where Japan is, it won't be "China" Syndrome.

Maybe America Syndrome. ;-)

[rhett o rick]

57. No, no. The opposite side of the globe from Japan will first of all be below the equator.

It would be some where off the eastern coast of South America about Uruguay.

[FBaggins]

8. Lol! Whoever wrote that hasn't a clue.

They can be forgiven for not being able to understand Japanese... but not for inventing their own content.

The "Cement" that was destroyed (not "is destroying") was the first third of the cement inside the primary containment. There's not evidence that any corium burned through the rest of it... let alone the steel containment shell... let alone several meters of concrete beyond that... let alone the total BS in that first paragraph.

[stockholmer]

17. “Concrete Attack by Corium” "Time to Rupture" English-language model in Tepco handout from Nov. 30

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111130_09-j.pdf

[FBaggins]

18. So?

Both events happened several months ago.

The corium "attacked"'the concrete and the concrete won... and he RPV did rupture (at least in unit 1).

[DCKit]

36. Wow, you've been wrong about everything, every step of the way, from the beginning.

We find your knowledge invaluable. :sarcasm:

[FBaggins]

39. Can you provide an example or two?

Seems that I it's "from the beginning" it should be an easy task.

Here's a good thread pretty close to "the beginning". Take a look at some of what this "DCKit" character said.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=669591&mesg_id=669591

[DCKit]

77. Great example, but which of us were you trying to prove correct? nt

[FBaggins]

79. A simple "no" would have sufficed.

which of us were you trying to prove correct?

There's little need to "prove" that which is obvious. You could be excused for little understanding just a few days after the incident began, but you've had months to catch up.

Do try reading your posts. If you can't see 4-6 obvious errors feel free to ask for some help.

[TheWraith]

10. Unrec for the content being wrong, and fearmongering.

Deliberately leading people to think that something could still happen, when it cannot.

[FBaggins]

12. Well... "something" could still happen.

But not this... and it's intentional dishonesty to lead people to believe that this is currently happening.

[stockholmer]

19. Yomiuri Shinbun: Gov’t Study: Reactor pressure vessel may be “tilted” after corium melted through

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/11/institute-of-applied-energy-corium.html


TEPCO’s worst-case scenario (here http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/11/now-they-tell-us-series-tepco-admits.html and here http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/11/tepco-says-corium-would-stop-at-70.html) pales in comparison with the analysis by the Institute of Applied Energy, also presented on November 30 at the workshop held by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

From what Yomiuri Shinbun reported (01:01AM JST 12/1/2011): http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/20110316-866921/news/20111130-OYT1T01135.htm

The analysis done by the Institute of Applied Energy commissioned by the national government, 85% of fuel dropped to the Containment Vessel in Reactor 1, and 70% of fuel dropped to the Containment Vessels in Reactors 2 and 3. The researchers at the Institute pointed out the possibility of the damage to the stainless-steel shroud that surrounds the fuel core, and of the corium having eaten away the concrete floor of the Containment Vessel up to 2 meters deep. Because of that, they also said it was possible that the RPV got tilted

[Shining Jack]

45. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

:eyes:

[Divernan]

54. Oh, come on . You unrecced because O has close ties/support from nuclear industry.

[fascisthunter]

68. you seem to be a pro at BS... since everything you say turns out to be BS

and yet, you still are at it full speed ahead. WOW!

[FBaggins]

73. What an ironic post.

It's the OP that's BS.

"Full speed ahead" indeed.

Five years from now these nuts are still going to be claiming that the cores are burning their way down to the water table and there will be a massive steam explosion any day now. Ten years from now the reactors may very well have been removed and the site cleared... and they'll be claiming that it was all a cover up and the cores are still down there in the ground ready to go off at any moment.

Twenty years from now they'll claim that everyone in Japan is dead and the nuclear industry controlled US government is in on the coverup.

[AtheistCrusader]

70. Well, it could get hit by a giant fucking meteor.

That would be bad.

[Logical]

78. If it is wrong then post the wrong part. One sentence does not explain shit.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

14. Dillutoin is the solution to pollution. n/t

[Gregorian]

15. Not when it comes to ingesting radioactive particulates.

Dilution is nothing less than dispersion.

[freshwest]

20. Where are the 'STHU, you ignorant luddites' media pundits that usually slam these stories?

Did the nuke industry cut their paychecks? It's a recession, maybe they can't afford to pay them by the word. They won't be missed...

[FBaggins]

21. Where are they? Laughing mostly.

This guy has confirmation bias on so many steroids that he literally reads the report to say exactly the opposite of what it says... And the paranoid anti-nuke lemmings cheer right along with "see? We were right!!"

How can one do anything but laugh?

[freshwest]

29. Project much? n/t

[FBaggins]

33. Not projecting on them...

... I'm laughing too.

[DeSwiss]

22. K&R n/t

[Downwinder]

23. A tunnel to Japan. Cutting shipping costs all the time.

[FBaggins]

24. A 70cm tunnel?

I wouldn't go placing bets on shipping discounts just yet.

[Downwinder]

26. Big enough for a high pressure gas line.

[FBaggins]

27. Lol... Not 70 cm wide

It's estimated at 70 cm long.

[Downwinder]

31. Have to be patient. There is drilling fuel for what, 10,000 years?

[FBaggins]

32. Nope.

Finished "drilling" a week or so into the event.

[zeemike]

25. There is some good information there

And it is well explained with diagrams...thanks.
I just wonder if it will reach some equilibrium when it gets fare enough below the water table to where the mass becomes a steam engine pumping hot water up in a giser...the thought of that is scary....but so are all the other possibilities.

[Yo_Mama]

61. Think twice

That fuel is already in constant contact with water. At this point, it probably is pretty much wherever it is going to go, until it's finally disposed of which I probably won't live to see. But I will live out my natural lifespan without Fukushima-induced death and/or traumatic injury.

It's losing heat, not gaining it. It's not fissioning - the radioactive elements are slowly decaying. This is a link to the 11/30 status summary:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1322711797P.pdf

Note that they are deliberately reducing water injection as part of a strategy to lower hydrogen gas levels. This is not a system out of control, even though it's not in designed control. There aren't going to be big sudden catastrophic events barring another superquake, and that would probably just create more infrastructure damaged and further water leakage, which is why they have been trying to keep the basement water levels low.

[zeemike]

72. Well thanks for that

That was interisting...but I am no scientist and only know the rudimentary things about fusion.
But I see problems looking at this situating.
First the material is in a molten pool resting on concreat...and no amount of water will change that...and it was designed for the maxim amount of surface to be exposed to water to remove the heat....now that surface has been greatly reduced...and the heat at the bottom of the pool will always be in contact with the cement or what it rests on....and if it is destroying that surface it will dig a hole and in that hole water will have little effect to remove the heat.
And to me this says that it is not under control at all...and that things could get much worse...and if it were to melt through the containment and reach ground watter you would have in effect a guesser because the water would come now from the bottom of the hole and go up as a gusher of steam.
And just then the question...If I am right will it still be true that you can live out your life without it affecting you?

[FBaggins]

74. I'm afraid you'll have to lower your self perception even further.

Even the "rudimentary" things went astray.

know the rudimentary things about fusion

It's fission... but that hardly matters since neither has been going on.

First the material is in a molten pool resting on concreat...

Nope. Hasn't been molten for many months. Likely since just a few days after the incident began.

and no amount of water will change that

Of course it will. An operating reactor puts out over 1,000 times as much heat as these cores are creating now and water keeps their cores from "molten" status quite effectively.

and the heat at the bottom of the pool will always be in contact with the cement or what it rests on

You haven't by any change seen the photos of the formerly molten core at Chernobyl, have you? Fission was not cut off in that case (in fact the core powered up substantially) and they failed almost completely in getting water to it. So can you tell me why that core didn't keep on burning through the basement and down to the water table?

And as the report makes clear... when hot corium is in contact with concrete ("attacks" in the language of the report), a gas is created. A gas that hasn't been detected in some time.

[zeemike]

76. Well you know more about it than I do I am sure.

And I guess you can tell what it is doing without seeing it....but I can't.
But to me is seems like a dangerous situation considering that what we are dealing with is extremely harmful to life itself.
this is not an oil spill in the Gulf where it will dissipate after a year or two but will be around for your life and probably the life of your children and has the potential to shorten your life and that of your children.
So I hope your right but I have my doubts still.

[sce56]

28. No one is saying panic and commit HariKari but the news is not good and is starting to trickle out

Faster than the melted fuel has dropped!

Published: December 1st, 2011 at 06:19 PM EDT | Email Article Email Article
By ENENEWS Staff
17 comments



All N-fuel may have fallen to outer vessel / TEPCO: Up to 68 tons likely melted in No. 1 reactor, eroding concrete of containment unit, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 2, 2011:

<...> The nuclear fuel at the No. 1 reactor melted as its temperature reached nearly 3,000 C at one time, TEPCO estimated. In the No. 1 reactor, TEPCO believes, almost all of the about 68 tons of fuel melted. <...>

Only 37 centimeters of concrete remains between the fuel and the vessel’s outermost steel wall in the most damaged area, TEPCO said.

Without water, the No. 1 reactor’s fuel temperature was more than high enough to have melted everything inside the pressure vessel, not only the fuel itself but also the fuel control rods, the utility said.

TEPCO currently maintains a steady supply of water to the three reactors, enabling the No. 1 reactor to always have about 40 centimeters of cool water at the bottom of the containment vessel, enough to cover the melted fuel, according to the utility. <...>



Obfuscate and confuse that is all they are good for not the truth!

[Yo_Mama]

62. You are quoting a TEPCO press release to prove that they are lying?

The study about the damage, which is a simulation, was released by TEPCO, you know.

[Taverner]

30. Fuckall, I hope we don't get a radioactive plume...

[TheMadMonk]

35. Did not. Will not. Can not. Maybe perhaps could have, but didn't quite.

Despite conditions enormously outside the design specifications the brute force last ditch containment efforts held, if only barely.

And that was with a good deal of mismanagement in the immediate aftermath of the emergency.

First of all there was a US fleet in harbour which could have provided emergency power before the batteries ran out.

Secondly, if steam venting had been used early and often, before the cores came apart into easily dispersed radioactive oxides, the overall amount of contaminants released non-locally would have been far, FAR smaller, at the expense of high levels of very short term (minutes) and easily avoided localised exposure.

Avoidance of assignable blame seems to have been too much the watchword in the early handling of the incident. Best (doomed) effort to prevent, rather tham imperfect efforts to deflect and guide until far too late, resulting in unavoidable widespread contamination.

[sce56]

37. Here is the Offiical report I got through my work contacts

INPO 11-005 November 2011 Special Report on the Nuclear Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations

About three weeks ago a GE Sales rep came by work, this one while not a Nuke sales rep still a rep that works for GE which is the company that designed those units. The unofficial rumor going around them is that one of the spent fuel pools had all of the fuel rods melt down! So the depleted Uranium is now melting down through the fuel ponds. That alone is what forty years worth of used fuel!

It is hard to know the truth since they have used the security of the facility and proprietary laws to keep as much as possible secret. All I do know is I don't trust what they say period.

[femrap]

46. I wonder if GE

nuclear scientists are working on some way to STOP this China Syndrome...or has man created its own demise?

That GE Design should NEVER have been allowed into existence.

[Sirveri]

38. They need to pick a story.

One story is that it was causing radioactive steam to vent out of crack in the ground surrounding the plant. Now they're saying it's still trying to melt through containment. Both are ignoring that the core has been sub critical with possible small sporadic critcalities for almost 8 months and likely is barely generating enough decay heat to boil water. Yet it's supposed to somehow burn thru a 20 foot concrete slab.

It just does not make any sense, unless of course you stand to profit from this in some way, or are totally ideologically poisoned to the point where you're willing to ignore basic physics to push your own position.

[glinda]

40. K & R n/t

[robdogbucky]

41. Today's updates from an Extreme Enviroweenie with Biased Claptrap

I sure hope the Industry DoucheNozzles that roam these parts take note, but I know that is against their protocol.



Fukushima fuel rods eating through solid concrete

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy

Updated December 02, 2011 17:42:36

Molten fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant may have eaten two-thirds of the way through a concrete containment base, the plant's operator says.

The statement from TEPCO is based on a new simulation of the March meltdowns. It says its latest calculations suggest the nuclear fuel inside the number one reactor has melted entirely.

Simulations predict the molten fuel has eaten through 65 centimetres of concrete in a containment base below, stopping just 37 centimetres short of an outer steel casing.

It is also believed that the molten core has eaten part of the way through the concrete bases of the number two and three reactors...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-02/fukushima-fuel-rods-eating-through-concrete/3707916


Japan nuclear meltdown ?maybe worse than thought?

(AFP) – 1 day ago

...Until now, TEPCO had said some fuel melted through the inner pressure vessel and dropped to the containment vessel, without saying how much and what it did to the concrete, citing a lack of data.

"Almost no fuel remains at its original position," TEPCO said in the report.

Two other reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant also went into meltdown when the tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the plant.

However, only about 60 percent of their fuel dropped through to the concrete floor and caused less damage, the report projected...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j_3KbSOIuOHpiAhdeflZXYhHY9Kw?docId=CNG.017a81500c7adf1d02b69eed35946522.a01






Expert urges more disclosure from TEPCO

Professor Hisashi Ninokata of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who is analyzing the accident, says the report explains more clearly how it progressed and puts forward measures to prevent similar incidents.

But he says the in-house probe by the utility had its limitations, as the report has no mention of why workers stopped the emergency cooling system at the No.1 reactor, an act that eventually led some fuel rods to meltdown.

He says officials in charge of the probe may have feared that providing details could force someone in the company to take responsibility.

He urges TEPCO to disclose more about the chain of command and communications at the plant, saying that such information is necessary to learn lessons from the accident and regain public trust in nuclear power.

Friday, December 02, 2011 19:17 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20111202_31.html



TEPCO: Cooling stoppage info was not shared

A miscommunication between workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could have delayed a response to the accident on March 11th.

The operator says the plant's chief did not know for several hours that the only backup cooling system for the Number 1 reactor was manually shut down on the day of the earthquake and tsunami.

NHK has obtained Tokyo Electric Power Company's interim report on the accident to be released on Friday.

The report says workers in the reactor's control room stopped an emergency cooling system shortly after 6 PM. It says the plant chief, Masao Yoshida, and others in the facility's office building were unaware of the manual shut-down...

Friday, December 02, 2011 10:20 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20111202_11.html

[fascisthunter]

42. Spin the Meltdown.... quick! This may eefect your investments intot he nuke industry

spin!!!!!!!

[sulphurdunn]

43. There were 434 operational nuclear reactors

in the world in 2011 with 65 more under construction. Two have melted down and 6 others have gone off line this year due to natural disaster. Two of those are in the US which has 104 reactors. The other 6 are in Japan at Fukushima. The average age globally for nuclear plants is 23 years. Half the reactors in the US are 30 years old or older.

[lovuian]

44. I'm looking in a crystal ball and see more Nuke plants

going off line and going out of use

[sulphurdunn]

51. If they all went off line

or were decommissioned, no one has bothered to deal with what to do with all the spent fuel rods and the other waste that remains hot.

[Shining Jack]

49. K&R n/t

[stonecutter357]

50. K&R...

:yourock:

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Oh goody, so where is the happy talk now?

No serious, seems all those folks who told us this could NOT happen and we did not understand science are like very silent now.

[Shining Jack]

53. Look at posts 9 & 10

Unbelievable! :banghead:

[FBaggins]

66. Nope. We're not "silent" at all. We're laughing at you

The thing that the author claims "is happening" - and that he's been predicting all along... and that he claims the report proves...

...is directly contradicted by the report itself.

The cores are not "burning their way to the water table"... they're not even outside of the building... they aren't even through the meters of concrete under the primary containment structure... they aren't even at (let alone through) the steel shell of the primary containment... they aren't even through the couple meters of concrete at the bottom of the drywell within the primary containment...

... the worse of the three appears to have burned through 70 cm of that 2 meters of concrete and then stopped (months ago). The other two don't appear to have even significantly melted through the RPV.

So the "folks who told you that this could NOT happen" were exactly correct.

And getting one heck of a kick out of the fact that you can't see it. :rofl:

[thereismore]

56. Leukemia 7x increase since last year? Is that before they excluded Fukushima or after?

Fucking fucks. And the Japanese people just take it from the corporations and their government.

[FBaggins]

69. Nope.

There hasn't been a reported increase in leukemia in Japan. Some nut just made that up.

It doesn't even have to be argued if you understand the health physics. Leukemia takes far longer than that to develop even if you ignore the fact that all of the far more likely impacts of radiation exposure are lacking.

[Yo_Mama]

71. JMA denied it, which is pretty important

since the rumor claims that they reported it.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsankei.jp.msn.com%2Faffairs%2Fnews%2F111130%2Fdst11113016260008-n1.htm

What JMA said in their statement is that they have no such evidence, that it would be too soon to pick up a Fukushima-related spike in leukemias, and that high doses of radiation are required to cause leukemia.

That doesn't mean that in a couple of years they might not have such a spike. There are lots of rumors. Many times they are wrong.

[Yo_Mama]

60. This is not an ongoing process

Whatever has happened has happened, but the reality is that in the worst reactor (1), the RPV is holed. When they put water in there it drops down on top of the fuel in that concrete vessel. From there, it seems to wind up in the basement. TEPCO believes that all the reactor pressure vessels are holed. TEPCO is pumping highly radioactive water out of the basements of 1, 2 and 3, running it through a purification system, and then spraying the same water into the reactor vessels as coolant. It's containment of a sort.

The fuel from number 1 may be in the basement already for all we know, but wherever it is, the implication that it's just about to burst out of containment is false. The significance of the simulation that it got close to the steel walls is that it could have eaten through them, but that danger is past. Once it eats into the concrete like that, the central mass is going down, not out.

My guess is that some of the fuel made it into the basement at reactor 1, which is quite a bit worse then this simulation shows. But even if I am right, there is not going to be some sudden further catastrophe. As long as they keep doing what they're doing, the fuel blobs, which are now pretty mixed with other materials, will just continue slowly cooling. It's very radioactive. It's very hot from radioactive decay, especially in the interior of the blobs. It's not going to keep burning down through the earth to hit the earth's core, and it's in direct contact with water already, so any idea that it suddenly hitting the water table will someday cause a huge explosion is pretty laughable. This occurred almost 9 months ago. Active fission has long since stopped. We are out of the acute phase and into a long, long containment/cleanup phase which will require decades.

I am basing my belief that some of the reactor 1 fuel is in the basement on the reports at one point that the water in the basement was steaming and the sudden drop in level at one point this summer.

[robdogbucky]

64. Arne addressed buildup of hydrogen recently

November 16, 2011

Hydrogen buildup at Fukushima? What does it mean & why does it happen?

A 6:23 video:

http://www.fairewinds.com/updates

TEPCO recently discovered hydrogen buildups within the containment buildings in Fukushima Units 1, 2 and 3. Could there be another explosion, and if so how? Fairewinds conducts a laboratory experiment to show that if oxygen is present with hydrogen in a nuclear power containment, a deflagration explosion might occur




Always helpful to hear anything on the topic from someone that has been so right about it all along.