Posted on 08/22/2013 5:19:13 AM PDT by xzins
A nuclear expert has told the BBC that he believes the current water leaks at Fukushima are much worse than the authorities have stated.
But some nuclear experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than either Tepco or the Japanese government are willing to admit.
Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity
"The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic," said Mycle Schneider,
"What is the worse is the water leakage everywhere else - not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.
The tanks store contaminated water that has been used to cool the reactors.
"It is much worse than we have been led to believe, much worse," said Mr Schneider, who is lead author for the World Nuclear Industry status reports.
The lack of clarity about the water situation and the continued attempts by Tepco to deny that water was leaking into the sea has irritated many researchers.
"They are entering the oceans at levels that then will accumulate in seafood and will cause new health concerns."
There are also worries about the spent nuclear fuel rods that are being cooled and stored in water pools on site. Mycle Schneider says these contain far more radioactive caesium than was emitted during the explosion at Chernobyl.
"There is absolutely no guarantee that there isn't a crack in the walls of the spent fuel pools. If salt water gets in, the steel bars would be corroded. It would basically explode the walls, and you cannot see that; you can't get close enough to the pools," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
"There is absolutely no guarantee that there isn't a crack in the walls of the spent fuel pools. If salt water gets in, the steel bars would be corroded. It would basically explode the walls, and you cannot see that; you can't get close enough to the pools," he said.
fl
Dont worry..the FR crowd will be here soon to say nothing is wrong, TEPCO wouldnt lie, Japan wouldn’t lie..go right ahead and live near Fukushima..all is well.
But those of us concerned were called envirowackos and reminded how radiation was in bananas.
Nothing is wrong.
Or rather, the nuclear radiation damage and health threat is only a portion, and a relatively small portion, of the total damage and health threat caused by storm, wind, waves, mold, mildew, bacteria, chemicals, sunburn, etc., and the totality of the Fukushima incident.
Go right ahead and order up some of those radioactive fish. They will make a fine sushi meal.
Sorry no sushi.
The fish cook themselves before you can carve them up.
“The Japanese have a problem asking for help. It is a big mistake; they badly need it.”
Sounds ominous.
As a regular visitor to these shores, i can only hope someone intervenes and takes Tepco out of the loop. If another earthquake strikes that area it would be game over for the entire country.
Why the entire country?
Some of us understood they had a serious problem from the beginning. Others still have their heads in the sand.
Well if a fire or another earthquake happened before the fuel rods are removed certainly it would be a situation of extreme
danger that could possibly render a large area of Northern Japan uninhabitable. Even if the ground continues to sink, which it is expected to, the entire structure could collapse, which would fully drain the cooling pool and cause a catastrophic meltdown. It would be disaster of unprecedented magnitude.
Maybe Bizarre foods could visit there.....
Too bad we don’t have Thorium Reactors that don’t have to be build near water sources to operate....
Too bad we don’t have thorium reactors what can “burn” the isotopes in “spent fuel rods”...
They had Thorium Salt reactors in the late 60’s at Oak Ridge, but government/General Electric/Military Industrial Complex meddling scrapped the idea because they couldn’t make bomb grade material, and GE couldn’t sell their expensive fuel pellets to the Nuclear Power industry....
We Business and Government get into bed under rule of law we all lose...
US Government and G.E. Nuclear...
Japan Government and Tepco...
The unholy alliance between business and government is just as bad a special interest groups and government and we haven;t had a free market since the early 1900’s....
If I woke up to a terminal cancer illness and only had 6 months to live I think I would volunteer to help clean up fukishima...
Maybe the radiation would cure my cancer....
It would be a better chance than Obama care...
One of my best friends here is a nuclear physicist. I am going to be meeting him for drinks in Shinjuku tonight. He promised to tell me if it was time to start getting worried.
I’ll know more tonight, I guess.
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