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Large Japanese electricity utility Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) confirmed on Thursday, March 19 that nearly all fuel in one of four damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has melted and fallen into the containment building.
With the design of the Fukushima Daiichi plants, the containment building was a very simple shell protecting the reactor from the elements, but provided no real protection in the event of a nuclear accident. Instead, the nuclear reactor was enclosed in primary and secondary containment vessels, which sat atop a thick concrete pad at the base of the containment building.
In the event of a meltdown, the thick concrete pad is the only barrier between highly radioactive molten fuel and groundwater.
While there has been suspicions that nuclear fuel did melt its way through the containment vessel and to the base of the containment building, until Thursday there was no definitive proof meltdown had occurred.
The implication of the findings is that it will be very difficult to remove the highly radioactive molten fuel from Unit 1. As well, the molten fuel must continue to be cooled with water until it is removed.
Holes and fractures in the concrete base of the reactor building also means that groundwater continues to seep in and become irradiated before draining into the Pacific Ocean, causing an ongoing nuclear disaster.
The official decommissioning plan tells us the plant should be fully shut down sometime after 2022.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kbahey on Tuesday April 07 2015, @01:25PM
There are radiation traces of cesium from Fukushima that reached British Columbia in Canada [www.cbc.ca]. Not dangerous, but noteworthy.
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:19PM
Yeah! And now I can find my maguro sashimi... in the DARK!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:15PM
While true news like linked in your post is sadly not understood by most people. Isotopes are wonderful stuff for detecting even the smallest effects. It is not good or bad that the cesium is detectable in Canada. I would say its fairly normal and expected.
I do not work with Cesium, but are more familiar with carbon and oxygen isotopes. For example, its normal to correct for the bomb spike [noaa.gov]. I guess you could make fairly scary headlines saying that the bomb testing increased radioactivity in the air we all breathe by a 500 times! And its visible in all trees growing since then (hence, its also in your salad, and many of these C atoms from food will end up being incorporated in your body).
I know you acknowledged its not dangerous, but there is something about radioactivity that gives people the creeps. Actually I worry least about most forms of radioactive pollution because it is so easy to measure. There are much worse things dumped in the sea every day and we have either no way of measuring directly (often because we do not even know what to look for), or that are low or even below detection until they accumulate in our food to toxic levels (mercury).
(Score: 2) by kbahey on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:28PM
Not only me. The article itself is non-alarmist as well, and says that the levels are perfectly safe.
The reason I posted it is that it is relevant to the event at hand, and also confirms that there is some radiation leak despite the denials prior to the article.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:52PM
I admit I may have responded to strongly and agree the article actually does actually a good job of explaining its not so worrisome. The measurement of Cs in water reminded me that after similar measurements of the atmosphere 2 years ago, some sites were claiming that Americans were already dying [newrepublic.com]....