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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Another reactor at Fukushima nuke plant loses cooling functions |
| 2011-03-13 |
| Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday another reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plants had lost its cooling functions, while at least 15 people at a nearby hospital were found to have been exposed to radioactivity. The utility supplier notified the government early Sunday morning that the No. 3 reactor at the No. 1 Fukushima plant had lost the ability to cool the reactor core. The reactor is now in the process of releasing radioactive steam, according to top government spokesman Yukio Edano. It was the sixth reactor overall at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants to undergo cooling failure since the massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck Japan on Friday. The disaster raised fears over radioactive leaks from the plants after cooling systems there were hampered, most seriously at the No. 1 reactor. An explosion Saturday at the No. 1 plant blew away the roof and the walls of the building housing the No. 1 reactor's container. The government and nuclear authorities said there was no damage to the steel container housing the troubled No. 1 reactor, noting that the blast occurred as vapor from the container turned into hydrogen and mixed with outside oxygen. Tokyo Electric Power has begun new cooling operations to fill the reactor with sea water and pour in boric acid to prevent an occurrence of criticality. Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said in a press conference Sunday morning that there had been no major changes in the results of monitoring radioactivity near the No. 1 reactor. Following the explosion, the authorities expanded from 10 kilometers to 20 km the radius of the evacuation area for residents living in the vicinity of the Fukushima plants. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Obvious lesson from Katrina & now from Japan: Never, ever locate your emergency generators where they can be flooded. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-03-13 22:31 |
| #5 excellent discussion here |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2011-03-13 21:26 |
| #4 The fission products in the reactor are still decaying and generating heat. The chain reaction was stopped when the quake started, but there is no mechanism to influence radioactive decay. |
| Posted by: Shoth Snolump4059 2011-03-13 19:38 |
| #3 moose, They scrammed but the residual heat in the scrammed reactors needs to be removed or the water will boil off and the reactor could melt. The circ pumps run off grid or local generators, the grid is down and the gens are down. They might have located the gens in a better location it seems. |
| Posted by: Hellfish 2011-03-13 11:50 |
| #2 They did shutdown when the quake occurred. They went on their emergency diesels when the local power went away. The diesels were lost when the tsunami wrecked their fuel storage tanks. The building damaged in the explosion (a hydrogen explosion) was not the containment itself but the building that houses the containment. Evidently they've had a partial meltdown in at least one of the units. Dose rates are reportedly relatively low and only one person has been reported to have exceeded the required limit. The evacuations are being played up as an indication of total disaster but the media fails to state that evacuation is required by law when events of significant nature occur. Every US nuclear site has the same rules regarding evacuation. I expect that we'll see hysterical responses in the northwest along the lines of "We're all going to die" enabled by an incompetent media and a dishonest anti-nuclear movement. |
| Posted by: Omiting the Younger 2011-03-13 11:38 |
| #1 Did the Japanese neglect to include a SCRAM function in their reactors? That is simply inserting control rods that strongly limit the nuclear reaction. Typically, the way reactors are designed, unless they are functioning in the nominal range, it is hard to prevent an automatic SCRAM. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-03-13 10:57 |