Hardly any water in Reactor No. 1 after flooding effort — “Containment vessel is likely to be broken

[Generic Other]

Mainichi News:

JNN’s investigation has revealed that there is hardly any water inside the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) and the Containment Vessel of the Reactor 1 <...>

The water level inside the RPV had shown that more than half the height of the fuel rods (4 meters) was under water. However, when the water gauge was repaired, the actual water level turned out to be so much lower that there was hardly any water in the RPV, according to the JNN’s interview with a government source. <...>

There was hardly any water in the Containment Vessel, the source also revealed. <...>

he Containment Vessel is likely to be broken and leaking water.

http://enenews.com/just-in-hardly-any-water-in-reactor-no-1-even-after-flooding-effort-containment-vessel-is-likely-to-be-broken-and-leaking

[Poll_Blind]

1. Broken, sounds more like shattered. How is it possible to re-contain that whole...

...vessel or otherwise seal it up?

:shrug:

PB

[Generic Other]

2. Seems TEPCO ought to be good at cover-up

I am losing patience with them.

[aquart]

8. It. Isn't.

They gambled. We lost.

[Hannah Bell]

11. ...

The utility company also believes that the water is leaking from the containment vessel into the reactor building. This is because the estimated volume of water inside the containment vessel appears to be less than what leaked into it from the reactor.

Tokyo Electric says temperatures at the bottom of the reactor are between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, suggesting that the fuel has fallen and is being cooled in the water below.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_23.html

[aquart]

3. Uh huh. Now what?

[al bupp]

4. That's the problem, nobody knows.

From what I understand, it'll be up to robot technology and essentially suicide missions. The fifty kilometer radius around the plant will be uninhabitable for at least a generation.

[robdogbucky]

5. More from the wires....

Japan's stricken nuclear plant has new leak

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy and wires

Updated 5 hours 47 minutes ago



"...The update comes as emergency crews battle to bring the tsunami-hit and radiation-leaking plant into stable "cold shutdown" sometime between October and January. The giant ocean wave triggered by the magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 knocked out the plant's water cooling systems, leading fuel rods inside several of the reactor cores to partially melt down.

TEPCO says new measurements taken this week, after workers in protective suits fixed gauges in the badly hit reactor No. 1 building, indicate that water pumped into the pressure vessel had quickly leaked out. The water level inside had fallen below the bottom of the four-metre-long fuel rods, suggesting they had been exposed to the air, increasing the risk of a dangerous full meltdown...

...Samples of seawater taken near the plant contained caesium-134 at a concentration 18,000 times the permitted level, the company said, adding that the spill had been stopped by filling the pit with concrete. "We have continued to investigate the route of the leakage into sea and why it happened," TEPCO spokesman Yoshinori Mori said.

Top government spokesman Yukio Edano called the leak "deplorable" and apologised to the fishing industry and to neighbouring countries."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/12/3215377.htm



FUCKING WEASELS

[robdogbucky]

6. I'm sure many here were skeptical when I posted this yesterday

from a rather alarmed blogger in Hawaii. Now it does not sound too far-fetched.

I would like some shill to explain what is wrong with his assumptions leading to his doomsday suggestion:


Will Fukushima’s Next Earthquake Start A Global Extinction Event?

May 9, 2011
By Tom Burnett

Those of you who have been following me at HawaiiNewsDaily or on my blog may not have been thrilled with my initial assessments back in March – and ongoing – that Fukushima isn’t going away.

The reactors can NEVER be placed in ‘cold shutdown‘ because the cores are partially melted together. We are talking about hundreds of tons of fissile material inside reinforced concrete containment vessels. The containment vessels are cracked. They are releasing radiation. Fission excursions are still occurring and no one can go inside those containments for hundreds of years – even if they could get to the fuel.

They continue to pour water on them and drain it off into the ocean because there is nothing else they can do. If they stop pumping water, the genie comes out. If they keep pumping water, it has to go somewhere and that somewhere is the ocean. It is still a stop gap. Those reactor cores cannot be put into ‘cold shutdown’ or dismantled or entombed. Ever.

They cannot treat as much radioactive water as they have to keep pumping in. No one can. So the radiation is going to come across the Pacific and impact the US and, certainly, Hawaii. Yes, I read that they are going to start treating it or storing it, but the task is impossible. Reactor cores have to be maintained in a ‘clean room’ environment or the water picks up particles – which then become radioactive – which then irradiate the reactor plumbing – and, eventually, become fuel. That’s why they have to keep pumping fresh water in and dumping it out. They cannot recirculate it, even if they manage to get new plumbing installed. The next major earthquake there will begin an extinction event...

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/05/will-fukushimas-next-earthquake-start-a-global-extinction-event/



Vessels cracked: check
Cold Shutdown impossible: check
Release of radiation continues unabated into ground, into ocean, into air: Check
Water poured into reactors is leaking out, no solution: Check
These reactors cannot be entombed ala Chernobyl: Check
We will continue to experience radiation leaks that will migrate radiation to the US West Coast: Check



Can you hear me now?


Local extreme enviroweenie biased claptrap spewing radical here, signing off for now. (that is what DUer called me on March 11)


rdb

[flamingdem]

7. Hawaii is closer, they already had Strontium in the milk there

Heavier elements reach Hawaii but there's still plenty for the West Coast and the rest of the world. Meanwhile the EPA is back to testing only quarterly, and this happened after Hillary Clinton met with her counterpart in Japan. They can risk letting a percent get cancer here in the USA to keep economies afloat. Their crap is working, nobody I know other than people here even think about what's in their milk or greens...

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Major environmental problem? Yes. "Global Extinction event"? No.

I'm certainly not one to under-play the seriousness of the shit at Fukushima, or apologize for the nuclear industry or its clusterfucks.

But, sorry, this blogger sounds like a bit of a nut; "The economic collapse IS coming. The radiation IS coming."


....plus it sounds like he's got a survivalist seed-selling business, so he may be financially invested in the imminentized eschaton industry.

People need to keep things in perspective. Words mean things.

[defendandprotect]

10. k/r --

[defendandprotect]

12. k