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New images show what is likely to be melted nuclear fuel hanging from inside one of Japan's wrecked Fukushima reactors, a potential milestone in the cleanup of one of the worst atomic disasters in history.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., Japan's biggest utility, released images on Friday showing a hardened black, grey and orange substance that dripped from the bottom of the No. 3 reactor pressure vessel at Fukushima, which is likely to contain melted fuel, according to Takahiro Kimoto, an official at the company. The company sent a Toshiba-designed robot, which can swim and resembles a submarine, to explore the inside of the reactor for the first time on July 19.
"Never before have we taken such clear pictures of what could be melted fuel," Kimoto said at a press briefing that began at 9 p.m. Friday in Tokyo, noting that it would take time to analyze and confirm whether it is actually fuel. "We believe that the fuel melted and mixed with the metal directly underneath it. And it is highly likely that we have filmed that on Friday."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @01:20PM (4 children)
California has a couple of plants situated by the sea...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @02:47AM
San Onofre is shut down.
The operator (SoCal Edison) was caught being lying cheating incompetent crooks.
**OK, so we didn't do the repairs correctly. Just allow us to run at full power and let's see if it blows up.**
(Company officers of power utilities should be required to live right next to the plant.)
Diablo Canyon is indeed located on the confluence of several earthquake faults.
With California producing so much power (from renewables) that 40 percent of the total is effectively given away to Arizona, Diablo Canyon could be shut down today and not missed by Cali.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday July 24 2017, @02:31PM (2 children)
It's not just California. Here in North Carolina, I live at the beach, near the Duke Energy Brunswick Nuclear [duke-energy.com] plant, and it's very close to the sea (map it here [google.com]); it's on the river, about 2 miles from the inland waterway and 5 miles from the ocean proper.
Opened in 1975, the plant provides us... electric power such as that which I'm using to type this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @06:29PM (1 child)
You omitted the point that Southport and the rest of that region has lots of sunshine and rooftops and could meet its energy needs without a nuke.
(I toured that facility when it was under construction and while I was still naive about nukes.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday July 24 2017, @09:36PM
As renewables were not mature and viable in 1975, I'll give them a pass. We are moving to solar energy in baby steps [bemc.org]. There's also pretty reliable wind here in the form of prevailing sea breezes.
Wish I had. Now they just give tours of their media center building and a mock-up of a control room.