Saturday, March 19, 2011

Another Nuclear Reactor Facility at Onagawa has radiation levels 700 times over normal



This video describes clearly the issue that I touched on earlier in that the reactors are clustered in close proximity and can make it impossible to handle containing damage in related but independent reactors. The reality is that a perfectly operating/capable reactor may not be so perfectly operable or capable after people and maintenance resources are not able to reach the site. If there are other explosions or events that could further damage the capability to control the other reactors or handle related facility emergencies.

Again, reports like this are NOT on the US or Japan's media.

Here is another article worth reading quoting Masashi Goto: Nuclear Scientist Recycled Fuel Containing Plutonium at Fukushima Plant Increases Meltdown Stakes
Nuclear Plant Designer Masashi Goto Says Japanese Government Suppressing Scale Of Crisis

A former nuclear power plant designer has said Japan is facing an extremely grave crisis and called on the government to release more information, which he said was being suppressed. Masashi Goto told a news conference in Tokyo that one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was “highly unstable”, and that if there was a meltdown the “consequences would be tremendous”. He said such an event might be very likely indeed. So far, the government has said a meltdown would not lead to a sizeable leak of radioactive materials.

Mr Goto said the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant were suffering pressure build-ups way beyond that for which they were designed. There was a severe risk of an explosion, with radioactive material being strewn over a very wide area – beyond the 20km evacuation zone set up by the authorities – he added. Mr Goto calculated that because Reactor No 3 at Fukushima-Daiichi – where pressure is rising and there is a risk of an explosion – used a type of fuel known as Mox, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, the radioactive fallout from any meltdown might be twice as bad.

He described the worst-case scenario: “It is difficult to say, but that would be a core meltdown. If the rods fall and mix with water, the result would be an explosion of solid material like a volcano spreading radioactive material. Steam or a hydrogen explosion caused by the mix would spread radioactive waste more than 50km. Also, this would be multiplied. There are many reactors in the area so there would be many Chernobyls.”

He accused the government of deliberately withholding vital information that would allow outside experts help solve the problems. “For example, there has not been enough information about the hydrogen being vented. We don’t know how much was vented and how radioactive it was.” He also described the use of sea water to cool the cores of the reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi as highly unusual and dangerous