Japan’s public TV station, NHK, produced a special report, to try and explain how bad the Fukushima Daiichi crisis is. Basically it is worse than Chernobyl, and must require international efforts to control. One analyst said the situation is “unprecedented” for nuclear power plants (in other words it is worse than Chernobyl).
The report compared the Three Mile Island accident, in the U.S., the Chernobyl disaster, in Soviet Ukraine, to what has happened at Fukushima Daiichi so far.
‘So far’ is one of the determining factors. NHK pointed out that there is no end in sight to the spewing of highly radioactive isotopes. No true control can be gained over the Japanese nuke plant until Cold Shut Down happens. Because of conditions at the plant, they can’t do that.
French nuke experts suspect that fuel rods in at least three reactors may be slowly melting down (Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, involved one reactor each, as I pointed out in earlier postings). Cooling efforts have not been enough to bring the temperatures down, they are still dangerously high after one month. Recently surface temperatures of one reactor shot up.
Workers are flying blind. The tsunami damaged so much equipment, and they can not get power to the control rooms, which means they don’t really know what is going on inside the reactors. In order to get power back to the control rooms they must clear large radioactive debris, some caused by the tsunami, others caused by the hydrogen gas explosions. Even then, radiation levels are so high that workers can not operate for more than 15 minutes in some cases. Remember, this is just to get to a stage where they can try to initiate Cold Shut Down.
Three Mile Island achieved Cold Shut Down less than one month from the time the cooling accident was discovered. It has been one month for Fukushima Daiichi, and it is still out of control.
Three Mile Island did not emit cesium contamination. Chernobyl is still off limits because it spewed cesium. Fukushima Daiichi is spewing cesium, from three reactors. Even plutonium has been found. Also, analyst interviewed on NHK said many other radioactive isotopes are being spewed, and are not being reported to the public. The level, and types, of radiation being emitted from Fukushima Daiichi make it worse than Chernobyl.
Analyst say they must assume that melt down is occurring. This could be the only explanation for the level, and types, of radiation being emitted. Also, analysts are worried that the highly contaminated water, that is spilling out of Reactor 2, might be from a breached reactor core. Three Mile Island avoided a full melt down, mainly because the cooling accident did not physically damage the building. Chernobyl’s reactor blew up, and full melt down occurred (it literally began melting into the ground) forcing the Soviets to make the final decision to entomb the reactor with concrete, sand, lead and boric acid. It must still be monitored today.
Fukshima Daiichi suffered major damage to the buildings, from the tsunami, then from several hydrogen gas explosions.
Cleaning up Three Mile Island’s Reactor 2, a relatively mild accident compared to Chernobyl, ended up costing $1 billion. Much more than what it cost to build the pant. It also took 14 years to ‘clean up’. Imagine how much the clean up for Fukushima Daiichi will cost. The longer this goes on the more it will cost, and the longer the clean up will take.
Japan probably won’t be able to handle the cost, that might be why organizations that influence international economies (like the G7 and G20, IMF, etc) have said they will work to help Japan. Not being prepared always costs you more money when the disaster happens.
Bill Nye the Science Guy recently said why don’t they “…pave it over?” It’s now clear the Japanese truly believed something like this would never happen. One analyst pointed out that most of the actions of Tokyo Electric Power Company are reactionary, not proactive, to the crisis.
They are now building a thick steel fence in the Pacific Ocean to try and reduce the amount of radioactive water getting into the currents. Several of the worlds largest concrete spray trucks, from Germany, modified in the U.S., are on their way to Japan on Russian transport aircraft. They are the same type of truck that the Soviets used on Chernobyl. Shipments of boric acid have been sent from the U.S. and South Korea. There were some reports, in the Japanese media, that large amounts of concrete are being stockpiled. It sounds like they are getting ready to “pave it over”.