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Page added on May 8, 2012
Japan Nuclear Expert: There are known to be broken fuel rod assemblies in Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 — Large amount of radioactive material has fallen to bottom — “Many years” to get fuel out
Footage of the NYC Press Conference May 4th 2012
Cinema Forum Fukushima
Japanese Nuclear Scientist and Japanese and US medical doctors to discuss current radiological health conditions and concerns in Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor catastrophe.
Hiroaki KOIDE / Nuclear Reactor Specialist and Assistant Professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute
Excerpts
Large amount of radioactive material has fallen to the bottom of that pool [in Unit 4 …]There are already known to be broken assemblies as a result of the debris and structural elements that have fallen down on top of them.
Many years to get the fuel out of Unit 4… praying for no large quake.
7 Comments on "Japan Nuclear Expert: There are known to be broken fuel rod assemblies in Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 — Large amount of radioactive material has fallen to bottom — “Many years” to get fuel out"
BillT on Tue, 8th May 2012 1:12 am
Praying for something does NOT make it happen. This is what I have read previously at other sites. Radiation is spreading all over the northern part of the world and is especially bad in the garden state of California where a lot of the Us’ food comes from.
DC on Tue, 8th May 2012 3:11 am
You know, its quite possible that material will NEVER be removed. Even if the clever and inventive Japanese do manage to invent a technology to remove those fuel rods….then what? Where would they be moved *to* exactly. Another open air exposed coolant pool? To long term storage facilities that dont exist? To another country? Good luck with any of that. Chernobyl opted for entombment, except the tomb was practically open to the air amd started crumbling and falling apart within a few short years of its initial construction.
Yea nuclear is totally safe, despite the ‘risks’…
Hugh Culliton on Tue, 8th May 2012 4:05 am
We’re just magnatude 6 away from the worst day since WW 2. With several tons of fuel rods (6% Pl I think) residing in the upper floors of a badly damaged building, there is the potential for a truly horrendous disaster with global ramifications. All that in addition to the fact that large areas of Japan would be potentionally uninhabitable for decades. That the reactor area is so contaminated that even Tokyo Power is starting to fess up to the realistic clean-up timelines is scary too. The longer the clean-up takes, the greater the risk of another earthquake spilling several tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere and ocean.
BillT on Tue, 8th May 2012 4:23 am
DC, there is something called dry keg storage that is used and is perfectly safe, but each keg costs $1 million and there would be a need for hundreds of them. THAT is why nothing is happening. TEPCO did not and does not want to spend perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars worth of yen to do it. It would bankrupt the capitalist corporation. That is not allowed in today’s world of bankster finance. Al Capone is rolling over in his grave with what today’s mobsters are doing and getting away with.
DC on Tue, 8th May 2012 6:27 am
Im well aware of dry key storage, but those dry kegs still have to end up being stored. And those damaged rods are far too toxic to vitrify or keg in any event, there simply too hot. If dry keg was a cure-all for nuclear waste, it would be more widely practiced, expensive or not. While your quite right that the for-profit nuke industry is too cheap and negilgent to use those casks, they are still not the *solution*, only a part of it. The cost of permanent storage for dry kegs still dwarfs the cost of the kegs themselves, thus as we all know, it all gets left out in yard, so to speak. My point still stands, there is really no place to move those damaged\destroyed rods to, in any event.
BillT on Tue, 8th May 2012 1:41 pm
DC, yes, you are correct, but they could have been dry stored as they were produced. But profit warps judgement and now the entire world is at risk and Japan may not survive this event if another quake takes out what is left of the protection.
Japan is in an area that experiences quakes everyday and magnitude 5+ quakes every few days. How long do you think it will be before #4 collapses and the West Coast of the Us is getting deadly doses of radiation? 10 years from now? Ten weeks? Ten minutes? I’m actually glad the typhoon season is starting here in the Philippines so that the prevailing winds are from the south west and not the north east.
Kenz300 on Tue, 8th May 2012 3:43 pm
The spent fuel storage pools are now seen as a huge risk. Why is this not getting more medias attention? TEPCO is essentially bankrupt and will be taken over by the government. The taxpayers of Japan will be paying for this disaster forever. The whole world needs to come to the aide of Japan. TEPCO and the government of Japan have down played the risks since the first day of this disaster.