Crews 'facing 100-year battle' at Fukushima

[highplainsdem]

Source: ABC

Crews 'facing 100-year battle' at Fukushima
By Mark Willacy and David Mark

Posted 8 minutes ago


-snip-

"As the water leaks out, you keep on pouring water in, so this leak will go on for ever," said Dr John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation.

"There has to be some way of dealing with it. The water is connecting in tunnels and concrete-lined pits at the moment and the question is whether they can pump it back.

"The final thing is that the reactors will have to be closed and the fuel removed and that is 50 to 100 years away.

"It means that the workers and the site will have to be intensely controlled for a very long period of time."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/01/3179487.htm

[drm604]

1. Can we FINALLY learn this lesson?

How many times will it take?

[RKP5637]

3. Humans are slow learners and often following generations have to relearn what

earlier generations learned. Technology IMO consistently progresses faster than the capacity of humans to grow emotionally and socially to manage the technology.

[ladjf]

11. You have said a lot of smart stuff in just a few words. Thanks. nt

[RKP5637]

13. Gee, that made me feel pretty good! Thanks!!!

:hi:

[angel823]

16. Indeed

Well said.

[Prometheus Bound]

4. nope: "Quake-Prone Indonesia Pursues Nuclear Power"

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2062173,00.html

[Tesha]

5. It will take at least one full scale incident in the US before we even begin to learn the lessons.

Murcans are pretty slow learners.

Tesha

[Marblehead]

2. That is going to cost

big bucks. Guess who will have to pay for it.:nuke:

[99th_Monkey]

6. Near end of article "Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the Pacific 4,385 times the legal limit..

"Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the Pacific off the plant have been recorded at a new high of 4,385 times the legal limit. "

This sounds horrendous. Think of the sea life, the fisheries, damn.

[JJW]

7. Let's bail them out

Sounds like a job for US tax payers with no collective bargaining rights or affordable health care.

[sendero]

17. Sounds like the prototypical response..

... of this administration.

[northernlights]

8. gee. I wonder who's going to volunteer for duty there

after the current 300 workers die from this?

Seriously, who the fuck is going to volunteer for that suicide mission?

And "the workers...will have to be intensely controlled?"

Somehow I don't think it will be any TEPCO execs, nor their children, nor their children's children. :eyes:

[PoliticAverse]

9. 24 years after the Chernobyl accident over 3,000 people work at the site...

and the sarcophagus is slowly degrading and needs to be replaced.

The Three Mile Island cleanup took 14 years before it was finally completed.

[Modern_Matthew]

10. Reminds me of Lost when they had to enter the numbers into the computer. nt

[applegrove]

12. Oh ****!

[freshwest]

14. Oh, just '50 to 100 years away?'

Quit being hysterical! Nothing to see here, move along.

:sarcasm:

The people that say it's no big deal can fly over there to fix the place so none of the chickenlittles will get hurt.

Their faith will save them. Mind over matter.

[joshcryer]

15. They need to build some sort of robot to take care of this.

I'm dead serious. If not 'a' robot a series of robots that can latch on to the top of the thing, cut a hole in it, cap it off with a gas separator, defuel it into a constantly cooled container, and remove the rods for safe disposal. It would take years to design the thing for all contingencies though.