The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
From HUMAN SURVIVAL ON A PLUTONIUM-CONTAMINATED PLANET
After 82 days of fasting, protesting the opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Project [WIPP], the facility near Carlsbad, NM, designed to hold low level nuclear waste produced by our country's manufacture of nuclear weapons, Charles did collapse. Friends took him to Carlsbad Hospital and revived him, before calling the power of attorney.
Since then Charles has served as an example of the sort of activist who has done all he could, and then lapsed into a Zen-like acceptance of the fact that the planet has been irremediably poisoned. He called WIPP "a nuclear waste distribution facility. You can't keep plutonium isolated in wet salt."
He also told Willson that if he were forty years younger, he'd be working on plans to evacuate the planet — he called the imaginary project, "Exodus." But he fretted that only the wealthy would be allowed to escape the poisoned planet, and he admitted that that did not satisfy him.
From How capitalism made Japan’s disaster worse
The Japanese government has told people in the area of the nuclear reactors to move 10 miles away. Yet all the corporate executives have been told to relocate at least 50 miles away. Most have fled to luxury hotels in Tokyo. Massive government-sponsored airlifts have been provided to evacuate corporate bloodsuckers from Japan, while working people freeze and go hungry.
Salute Japanese nuclear workers
The perilous job of racing to stop a nuclear catastrophe is being heroically and selflessly carried out by a small group of workers. The amount of radiation levels they can “safely” absorb is constantly raised by those sitting at a safe distance.
While adults and children were dying, the first “emergency” measure taken by the Japanese government was to dump almost half a trillion dollars into the stock market to prevent a crash.
The G7 countries held an emergency meeting March 19 attended by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. They discussed their fear that the global capitalist crisis was deepened by this tragedy.
They each pledged to put money from their central banks — the working class’ money — into propping up currencies. Did they take up relieving the largest rise in food prices in 36 years? Did they discuss the fate of the Japanese people, or the planet? No, their concern was how to shore up the currency markets.
From Surviving Nuclear Toxicity
The Japanese government has told people in the area of the nuclear reactors to move 10 miles away. Yet all the corporate executives have been told to relocate at least 50 miles away. Most have fled to luxury hotels in Tokyo. Massive government-sponsored airlifts have been provided to evacuate corporate bloodsuckers from Japan, while working people freeze and go hungry.
Salute Japanese nuclear workers
The perilous job of racing to stop a nuclear catastrophe is being heroically and selflessly carried out by a small group of workers. The amount of radiation levels they can “safely” absorb is constantly raised by those sitting at a safe distance.
While adults and children were dying, the first “emergency” measure taken by the Japanese government was to dump almost half a trillion dollars into the stock market to prevent a crash.
The G7 countries held an emergency meeting March 19 attended by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. They discussed their fear that the global capitalist crisis was deepened by this tragedy.
They each pledged to put money from their central banks — the working class’ money — into propping up currencies. Did they take up relieving the largest rise in food prices in 36 years? Did they discuss the fate of the Japanese people, or the planet? No, their concern was how to shore up the currency markets.
From Surviving Nuclear Toxicity
What does radiation do to us? It burns the cells, kind of like burning down a house. It is well known that radiation burns our cells by creating too much free radical damage. Now of course this is like talking Greek to medical officials and professors because if they knew this they would be on the bullhorn telling the public what to do to minimize free radical damage.
This is important information because just about everyone in the northern hemisphere, within a short period of time, will have to live with a gentle radioactive mist all around them and their children. We always have been surrounded by radiation but increasingly so in recent decades because of all the nuclear tests and accidents and use of nuclear materials in warfare (God forbid they are using depleted uranium weapons in Libya) and, of course, the wireless revolution.
But now comes our worst nuclear nightmare, an out-of-control nuclear station belching out plutonium and other very nasty nuclear materials. Imagine it as a mist for that is what it is. If you can conceive of Geiger counters around the world picking this up you know it’s raining nuclear particles just about everywhere. Within the space of only two weeks radiation is being reported in a huge area.
Okay, it’s only a light nuclear rain so far but who wants to go out even in a mild nuclear rain without a nuclear umbrella? But for those poor unfortunate souls who live and work within 50 miles of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, it’s a downpour, and perhaps ‘only’ a strong rain as far away as Tokyo. Now we understand why they tell people to stay indoors, the nuclear density (rain) in an area will only increase the longer the source continues to emit radioactive particles. Staying indoors only affords partial protection for the contamination seeps through in the air, water and food that we breathe and eventually eat and drink.
They can only say that this amount of initial radiation is safe because biological entities do have built in systems to handle very unsafe radioactive particles. Low levels of radiation speak about the quantity of nuclear materials, to their density, but not to the capacity of each nuclear particle to wreak havoc inside our cells by creating flurries of free radicals.
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