DISMANTLING UNCERTAIN, ECONOMIC DISASTER GUARANTEED

TRANSLATED FROM AN ARTICLE BY FRANCOIS LECLERC FROM PAUL JORION'S BLOG, 30/05/12

It’s already well established that Tepco, the operator of Fukushima, is in control of very little in the devastated nuclear plant. Not the ongoing, endemic contamination of the atmosphere and of the sea, not the status of nuclear fuel reduced to a state of three coriums which either can’t be localized or are stocked in pools from which they cannot be removed. Nor, even less so, the potential impact of new seismic shocks on the battered systems, including in the first instance that of Reactor N° 4’s cooling pool , a tremendous source of worry given the enormous mass of fuel it contains.

1535 fuel assemblies* are stocked 30 metres (110 feet) above the ground in a structure which has had to be consolidated and which is open to the air, representing 85 times the quantity of Cesium-137 released during the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor…..Enough to render the whole of Japan uninhabitable and beyond, for it is on this kind of scale that the potential danger can be measured.

FUKUSHIMA: THE FUEL COOLING-POOLS GIVE THE EXPERTS NIGHTMARES

TRANSLATED FROM AN ARTICLE BY MARC MOLITOR

 

Reactor N° 4

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is meeting up for five days in Vienna to discuss nuclear safety in the world. It will pay special attention to the situation in Fukushima. The damaged reactors are still under high surveillance, in particular the cooling pool containing spent fuel rods.
Above all else it is the now famous reactor n°4 which is proving to be the the most worrying. Situated on high, it contains numerous radioactive fuel assemblies which are protected by water. In spite of it having been reinforced, there are serious fears that a new violent earthquake could cause it to collapse. In this case, it is difficult to predict what the consequences would be. Apocalyptic scenarios, sometimes completely deluded, are sometimes advanced on the internet.

Certain people even talk of the planet being rendered uninhabitable - but this is misguided. Even in the worst case scenario, the radioactivity released if the pool collapsed would render neither Japan, nor the Northern hemisphere, nor the planet uninhabitable. Nonetheless, it would of course have a very significant impact on public health over the long term - especially in Japan. There are several possible scenarios: the water draining completely out of the cooling pool, the collapse of the pool, or a fusion or rupture of lots or some of the fuel rods, leading to a significant or a limited discharge of radioactivity.