Tepco: "We have no idea where the water went" from Reactor 1 Containment Vessel

[flamingdem]

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-tepco-presser-may-12-am-part-1-we.html

NOTE: Yesterday workers discovered that the readings were incorrect and there was no water in the RPV of #1 and it is in full meltdown. This is from a press conference - at the link.

Rough translation from the Q&A:

Regarding the water level in the Containment Vessel of the Reactor 1:

"The pressure gauge for the Containment Vessel is working, but we cannot properly measure the water level inside the Containment Vessel. Therefore, we do not know where the water level is."

About the water that's been poured:

"We are trying to figure that out. In the initial stage when the reactor core was still hot, the water might have been evaporated and escaped from the Containment Vessel. But now, the reactor temperature is between 100 to 120 degrees Celsius, so the water would remain water. We are assuming most of the water escaped the Containment Vessel into the surrounding reactor building. However, there is no water in the northwest corner of the basement of the reactor building, as far as we can see by the camera. We don't know where the water has gone. Possibly, it may have gone to the reactor building, the turbine building, or the waste disposal facility. But we haven't identify it yet."

About the leak location - whether the Containment Vessel itself has the leak or the building foundation has a leak:

"The water may be escaping from the bottom of the Containment Vessel or the RPV, but we haven't identified the location."

[phantom power]

1. "we haven't identified the location."

(QOTD runner-up)

[flamingdem]

2. Ya Think? Officials think melted fuel burned a hole in #1 and leakage

“Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima” — TEPCO worried fuel burned a hole through bottom of containment vessel
May 12th, 2011 at 10:10 AM


Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant, Telegraph, May 12, 2011:

One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor’s containment vessel.

<..> Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

“We will have to revise our plans,” said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. “We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak”.

Tepco has not clarified what other barriers there are to stop radioactive fuel leaking if the steel containment vessel has been breached. Greenpeace said the situation could escalate rapidly if “the lava melts through the vessel”.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Again, conflation between Reactor Pressure Vessel, and Containment.

One is a steel tank-like container for the core, (RPV), and the other is thick concrete housing. They are separate things. The containment will be the last thing breached, if it can be breached at all.

[flamingdem]

4. The original info has both I believe but you are right big diff nt