Two Japanese Nuclear Reactors Have Melted Down ... Problems at 4 Others → Washingtons Blog
Two Japanese Nuclear Reactors Have Melted Down ... Problems at 4 Others - Washingtons Blog

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Two Japanese Nuclear Reactors Have Melted Down ... Problems at 4 Others


Early this morning, the Fukushima I nuclear power plant melted down:

And see this.

Now, MSNBC reports:

A partial meltdown is likely under way at second quake-stricken nuclear reactor [the Fukushima III reactor], Japan's top government spokesman said Sunday.

Fuel rods were briefly exposed and radiation levels briefly rose above the legal limit at the nuclear plant where both reactors are located, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

His statement came after Japan's largest electric utility started releasing steam Sunday at the second nuclear reactor while trying to stop a meltdown that began a day earlier in another.

MSNBC also notes that "the government [is] warning there could be an explosion at a second reactor [i.e. plant number 3] crippled by Friday's devastating earthquake."

BBC points out that a meltdown at number 3 could be more serious than number 1, because it uses plutonium as well as uranium:

The plant’s operator says pressure is rising inside reactor No. 3 after it lost its emergency cooling system.

A similar problem led to a blast at the plant’s No. 1 reactor on Saturday. …

But the BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the second reactor is a different type which uses MOX (plutonium plus uranium) fuel and the consequences of a problem there are potentially more severe.

Hopefully, the problems at the 4 other troubled Japanese nuclear reactors will be contained.

Many experts have said the disaster is not as bad as Chernobyl. But Forbes' William Pentland notes, nuclear expert Kevin Kamp says:

"Given the large quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel in the pool, the radioactivity release could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe of 25 years ago.”

And the Telegraph writes:

Tokyo, at least, appeared to have got away without the scale of casualties seen in other parts of Japan. That was before news of an explosion, and warnings of a possible "meltdown", at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As the evening turned to night, the world's second-largest metropolis was still waiting to know whether it had been exposed to what would be perhaps the world's worst nuclear disaster.

5 comments:

  1. Fukushima I plant has six reactors, of which three were active when the tsunami happened. These are reactor 1, 2 and 3. The explosion and first meltdown are from reactor 1 while the second meltdown is at reactor 3 at the same Fukushima I plant. Reactor 2, located between the other two, was also experiencing problems.

    NISA has declared that the explosion could only happen because of the reactor (the hydrogen buildup story may be a lie). There are, it seems, other three reactors in other plants also experiencing cooldown issues.

    It is, I understand, Chernobyl multiplied.

    ReplyDelete
  2. At the moment there have been NO melt-downs. The explosion at 1 just demolished the outer housing of the building.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shouldn't a melt-down mean the whole building is gone?

    Either that, or melt-down's aren't nearly as dangerous or significant as we've all been lead to believe ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. A melt down is quite serious. What a melt down means isthat the reactor core has lost cooling capability. When this happens the fuel rods inside the reactor core super heat themselves and melt. The danger in a melt down situation is loosing containment of the nuclear fuel. If containment is maintained then the danger to the public from radioactive release can be minimized.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And to answer your question. No a meltdown does not mean the entire structure is gone. See chernobile as an example.

    ReplyDelete

→ Thank you for contributing to the conversation by commenting. We try to read all of the comments (but don't always have the time).

→ If you write a long comment, please use paragraph breaks. Otherwise, no one will read it. Many people still won't read it, so shorter is usually better (but it's your choice).

→ The following types of comments will be deleted if we happen to see them:

-- Comments that criticize any class of people as a whole, especially when based on an attribute they don't have control over

-- Comments that explicitly call for violence

→ Because we do not read all of the comments, I am not responsible for any unlawful or distasteful comments.