Earthquake Japan

[Jim Goose]

Cheap speak for yourself.... as your the one who has turned this into a nuclear power is safe for everyone soap box.
Your the one who has turned tried to turn this into a left wing/ right wing discussion...

Media outlets all over the world are reporting that a 3rd reactor is now having cooling issues.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...00733720110314

Nuclear fuel rods fully exposed at Japan reactor - Jiji

Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc
9501.T
¥1,621
-500.00-23.57%
03/14/2011

TOKYO, March 14 | Mon Mar 14, 2011 7:00am EDT

TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - Nuclear fuel rods at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor are now fully exposed, Jiji news agency said, quoting the plant's operator, Tokyo Eletcric Power Co .

The report referred to the Fukushima Daiichi complex's No.2 reactor, where levels of water coolant around the reactor core had been reported as falling earlier in the day.

The Jiji report said a meltdown of the fuel rods could not be ruled out. A meltdown raises the risk of damage to the reactor vessel and a possible radioactive leak, experts say. (Editing by Mark Bendeich)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1226021487299

Oh my, even fox news, is reporting the same thing!!
It MUST BE left wing media hype then who has infiltrated FOX!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...an-nuke-plant/

SOMA, Japan -- The fuel rods in all three of the most troubled Japanese nuclear reactors -- each of which lost its cooling system in Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami -- appear to be melting, the nation's chief government spokesman said Monday.

"Although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

Water levels dropped precipitously Monday inside a stricken Japanese nuclear reactor, twice leaving the uranium fuel rods completely exposed and raising the threat of a meltdown, hours after a hydrogen explosion tore through the building housing a different reactor.

Water levels were restored after the first decrease but the rods remained exposed late Monday night after the second episode, increasing the risk of the spread of radiation and the potential for an eventual meltdown.

The cascading troubles in the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant compounded the immense challenges faced by the Tokyo government, already struggling to send relief to hundreds of thousands of people along the country's quake- and tsunami-ravaged coast where at least 10,000 people are believed to have died.

March 12: This image provided by the U.S. Navy shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan underway in the Pacific Ocean en route to Japan to render humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

March 12: This image provided by the U.S. Navy shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan underway in the Pacific Ocean en route to Japan to render humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Of all these troubles, the drop in water levels at Unit 2 had officials the most worried.

"Units 1 and 3 are at least somewhat stabilized for the time being," said Nuclear and Industrial Agency official Ryohei Shiomi "Unit 2 now requires all our effort and attention."

Workers managed to raise water levels after the second drop Monday night, but they began falling for a third time, according to nuclear agency official Naoki Kumagai. They are now considering spraying water directly on container to cool it. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the Japanese goverment has asked the agency to send experts to help.

In some ways, the explosion at Unit 3 was not as dire as it might seem.

The blast actually lessened pressure building inside the troubled reactor, and officials said the all-important containment shell -- thick concrete armor around the reactor -- had not been damaged. In addition, officials said radiation levels remained within legal limits, though anyone left within 12 miles of the scene was ordered to remain indoors.

"We have no evidence of harmful radiation exposure," deputy Cabinet secretary Noriyuki Shikata told reporters.

On Saturday, a similar hydrogen blast destroyed the housing around the complex's Unit 1 reactor, leaving the shell intact but resulting in the mass evacuation of more than 185,000 people from the area.

So the worst case scenario still hung over the complex, and officials were clearly struggling to keep ahead of the crisis.

Some experts would consider the apparent melting of the fuel rods to be a partial meltdown. Others, though, reserve that term for times when nuclear fuel melts through a reactor's innermost chamber but not through the outer containment shell.

Officials held out the possibility that, too, may be happening.

"It's impossible to say whether there has or has not been damage" to the vessels, nuclear agency official Naoki Kumagai said.

If a complete reactor meltdown -- where the uranium core melts through the outer containment shell -- were to occur, a wave of radiation would be released, resulting in major, widespread health problems.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...-of-tokyo.html

Tokyo Electric Power Co. engineers tried to stabilize three nuclear reactors damaged by the biggest earthquake in Japan’s history after the plant was struck by a second explosion and as water levels dropped at one reactor, exposing fuel rods and increasing the threat of a meltdown.

The cooling system failed at the Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor today, said Tokyo Electric, which runs the Fukushima nuclear plant 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the nation’s capital. Fuel rods at the reactor may have melted after becoming fully exposed, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

A hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 3 reactor today, following a similar blast on March 12 at the No. 1 reactor that destroyed the walls of its building. The utility has been flooding the three reactors with water and boric acid to reduce the potential for a large release of radiation into the atmosphere following the March 11 earthquake-generated tsunami that smashed into the plant, disabling electricity supply and backup generators.

“They are managing the situation, they have very qualified personnel there,” Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear expert based in Obninsk, Russia, said by telephone. “We will have a week or 10 days of this uncertainty, but the situation should normalize. What we need is for the water supply to be constant.”
Radiation Concerns

U.S Navy ships and planes involved in earthquake rescue efforts were moved after radiation was detected on three helicopters.

“Low level radioactivity” was detected on 17 air crew members when they returned to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier operating about 100 miles northeast from the plant, Navy spokesman Jeff Davis said in an e-mail.

Japanese officials yesterday evacuated more than 200,000 people and handed out iodine, used to protect the thyroid from radioactivity, as they extended an exclusion zone around the plant to 20 kilometers.

Winds in the area of the Fukushima plant are blowing at less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) per hour generally in a northeasterly and northerly direction, according to a 9 a.m. update from the Japan Meteorological Agency today.
Core Intact

The vessel containing the No. 3 reactor’s radioactive core is intact after today’s blast, Edano said. The likelihood of a large radiation leak is very small, even as radiation levels at the No. 3 reactor are rising, said Edano, the government’s spokesman.

Tepco, as Asia’s biggest utility is known, said at least four employees and two contractors were injured in the blast. The company’s shares slumped 24 percent.

There are six boiling-water reactors at the Fukushima Dai- Ichi plant, three of which were shut for maintenance before the earthquake.

Unit No. 1 is a General Electric Co. (GE) model that can generate 439 megawatts of power and began commercial operation in 1971, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The No. 2 reactor was built by GE Toshiba and the No. 3 by Toshiba Corp.

Tokyo Electric said the sea water used to cool the two reactors is being retained at the plant. “We will look into what we will do about the water,” spokesman Shogo Fukuda said by telephone today.

Flooding the reactors with sea water renders them useless for future power production.

The disaster at Fukushima isn’t the first quake-related accident for Tokyo Electric.

A 6.8-magnitude temblor on July 16, 2007, caused a fire and radiation leaks that shut down the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant, the world’s biggest. It took almost two years to restart.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net; Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at aprakash1@bloomberg.net

Must world wide conspiracy....