Temperature at No.2 reactor remains high.

[bluecoat_fan]

...no longer able to properly cool down the melted down nuclear fuel

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120206_29.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. Jeepers.

Out of sight, out of mind seems not to be working with this problem.

[kestrel91316]

2. I'm sure the pro-nuke lobby will be chiming in any time now to tell us that this doesn't matter

since the teensy bit of radiation involved is harmless.

[kenfrequed]

3. I am surprised they haven't hit this already.

Usually these sorts of posts do attract a load of people that try to utterly dismiss any stories about reactor leaks or meltdowns still occuring. Maybe Monday is a busy day.

[truebrit71]

4. They have...over in the Environment Group...

,,

[bluecoat_fan]

7. You got that right. I got one trying to tell me #4 is safe from falling over(nt).

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Nice 'excerpt'.

Also from this page:

1. No xenon, no criticality.
2. Still about 30 degrees below the threshold considered 'cold shutdown'.
3. Single thermometer reading.



Still waiting for those 'hydrovolcanic eruptions' from the melt-down. Still waiting for all of Japan to be uninhabitable, like so many hyperventilated about in the DU2 verson of this forum.

Especially given that actual experts on the subject are saying people can go home now, PENDING ACCURATE MEASUREMENTS AND INFORMATION.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/science/chernobyl-experts-hopeful-on-fukushima/article_c2d02504-a64b-5483-98df-48ef18a2c1f6.html

Of course, nobody's going to post that article, even though it contains the critical point: the Japanese Government and Tepco need to get their shit straight and tell people PRECISELY what is where, and whether it is an actual danger. I certainly have some complaints about their straightforwardness so far.

[MjolnirTime]

6. Can you tell us where the fuel from Reactor 1 is? Tepco can't.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. No, TEPCO won't.

At least not more specifically than about 37 CM inside the steel wall of the primary containment floor, having completely melted through the steel RPV and fallen to the floor of the primary contaiment, burning through about 65cm of the concrete inside the primary containment.

That they won't comment publicly on it's precise location doesn't mean they don't know where it is. Then again, it is something that is difficult to measure with any specific level of accuracy, beyond whether it is inside the steel wall or not. It's not like they don't know what they are doing, it just really can't be done.

If it gets through the PC wall, we'll know.

[FBaggins]

10. The dance never ends, does it?

Tepco isn't willing (isn't able really) to guess whether some of the fuel remains in the RPV (and, if so, how much... and, if so, how much is still above the support plates)... or how much of it fell all the way to the bottom of the primary containment. They can't say for certain whether it then burned through one inch... of two inches... or perhaps six inches of concrete. So they can't tell you exactly where every ounce of corium currently sits...

...so of course the nuts at enenews take that to mean that it's equally possible that the corium is several meters below the reactor outside of any containment and about to hit the water table some tmie tomorrow afternoon. Hey! They don't know exactly where it is, so logically it could be anywhere!

This is hardly unique to this issue. Tepco announces (today?) that there's no sign of any recriticality in unit 2 and their title, of course, it "Tepco checking if 'chain of nuclear fission has occurred again in melted fuel'"

Tepco announces that the new piping appears to have changed the water flow within the reactor, since the temperature has risen in one part (but not the others)... so the fuel isn't cooling as well as it did previously. Their title? "no longer be able to properly cool down melted nuclear fuel" as if the reactor was now out of control and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Hey! It says they're not able to cool it!

And how many seconds did it take them to breathlessly turn a leaking pipe in California into "could have lead to meltdown, China Syndrome, catastrophic radioactivity release " ???

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Well on December 2nd, they said it was unlikely any fuel remained in the RPV.

Unit 1 didn't get cooling water for 14 hours, so the damage is simulated to be quite a bit worse than the other two reactors that were hot at the time.

By 'any' fuel, of course, they don't mean it's shiny and clean, just little more than residue remained in place.

But I agree with the rest.

[FBaggins]

14. Yep... but "unlikely" isn't definite enough for this gang.

When they say that recriticality is not absolutely impossible, but it highly unlikely... how do they hear that?

I read one yesterday that said that Tepco had been lying all along about reactor #4 and that fuel had been loaded into the reactor just before the earthquake.

In the container vessel of reactor4, melted fuel is stocked,but there is no technology developed to pick it up,It’s only the matter of time for it to have melt-out.The longest time would be one year. (ooh... any day now!)If another earthquake hits it, it’s over.Technically speaking, if it goes melt-out, it would flow to the sea.Pacific ocean side of Japan and west side of America won’t be inhabitable anymore.

http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/01/nuclear-fuel-reactor-4/

[stonecutter357]

11. K&R...

Can you tell us where the fuel from Reactor 1 is?

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Inside reactor 1

[bluecoat_fan]

8. Your experts are unnamed Ukrainian nuclear experts, Japan Gov't and TEPCO?(nt)

[sulphurdunn]

15. This pobability analysis

for a nuclear reactor meltdown was compiled before Fukushima and included Chernobyl. The probability has now gone up a lot. Hell, it's just a matter of time, and the time interval is getting shorter all the time.

http://www.ippnw-students.org/chernobyl/meltdown.pdf

[Gringostan]

16. We need to turn this into a reality show

We need to turn this into a reality show - I can work out the details....