Japan Says 2nd Reactor May Have Ruptured With Radioactive Release

Source: NYTIMES

TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear crisis intensified again Wednesday, with the authorities announcing that a containment vessel in a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam. That would be the second vessel to be compromised in two days.

The vessels are an important line of defense against large-scale releases of radioactive materials, but it was not clear how serious any new breach might be.

The announcement came after Japanese broadcasters showed live footage of thick plumes of steam rising above the plant.

Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said the government believed the steam was coming from the No. 3 reactor, where an explosion on Monday blew out part of the building surrounding the containment vessel.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16nuclear.html

n/t

the best engineering minds are utilized to create these plants, but yet, it is not clear how serious the breach might be.

Sounds like double-talk to me. Why would you want to clearly assess just how bad a nuclear catastrophe might be, even if you actually could? That would be nothing but bad PR all the way and you might have some very serious impact on profit margins all across the board.

Panic, realistic or not, must also be carefully managed. Truth is an aside here.

That means there is a very good reason to panic.

:nuke: :hide:

Arne Gunderson who is a nuclear industry whistleblower.

in the building next door. Earthquake, tsunami, explosions, radiation. Nobody can go in the rector building itself with a wrench and start fixing things. All they can do is pull levers in the control room, and some of those don't work anymore. They stare at gauges--temperature, pressure, radiation level, gallons/minute--and try to imagine what could be going on next door.

Meanwhile, the public relations department and the legal department of the power company are focused on the future litigation environment. And the news media, with its diminished capacity, tries to deal with the flood of press releases.

I would love to hear real experts, people who have worked on nuclear plant design or worked as nuclear plant operators, discuss technical details. If (when) the uranium fuel rods melt through the reactor vessel, will it drip out slowly, or gush out all at once? The containment building has probably flooded by now. I imagine a foot or two of water has collected on the floor. What happens when molten uranium hits that water? How will pressure escape the containment building? Will it crack and leak radioactive steam for a decade? Or will it fail catastrophically, blowing up in one massive steam explosion that scatters chunks of uranium all over the site?

Once something ruptures, that includes a lot of heat, radiation, water at high pressure, steam and caustic chemicals, the rupture is bound to get bigger.

I mean, a hole in your car radiator just gets worse. This is that times a trillion.

...blown up at leas four times in the last 48 hours. Along with the spent fuel. I mean, it probably has, but I've found myself reading things like this going "Really? Didn't this happen around 8am this morning?"

PB

meltdown following meltdown, etc. It is moving very fast from a Level 6 nuclear event (Three Mile Island) to a Level 7 (Chernoybl)--the worst case scenario--in just a few days. Also, the Japanese authorities are dealing with an increasingly "hot" plant, with four reactors (of six) and "spent fuel pools" (big fire danger) in grave trouble, so that they can't get near some of these plants. They had to take an aerial photo today to sort out an event at Reactors #3 and #4 (next to each other, in a closely packed facility with six reactors). Some sensor stations are down. I believe the control rooms are too "hot" to go into. They've evacuated all but 50 of 800 workers. Therefore there are a lot of things they DON'T KNOW--can't find out (for instance, radiation readings at #3 today)--in addition to things they are holding back to prevent panic or for CYA purposes.

So you are bound to come across confused and conflicting reports, and people at a distance (reporters, bloggers) struggling to figure out what's going on. A fire started in #4 today, that got put out, then a fire started in #3 later on--that sort of thing. It took me hours to find out that this was a new fire. An explosion blew off the roof of Reactor #1 on Saturday, and then Reactor #3 on Monday, and then the side wall blew out in Reactor #4 yesterday.

Here's a very good summary from two days ago--a good start on sorting out events:
By LiberalEsto
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x632395

Here's a good status list on the reactors as of 3/15 Tues afternoon:
By dixiegrrrrl
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x653905

And the Guardian live blog has some good stuff (including photos)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog+world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami

---------------------------

You are not alone in being confused and mindboggled.

puts it in perspective how much of Japan will be affected by this disaster

It's just going to be abandoned, sealed off as best as possible, and then people will live with the consequences and the world will go on as if nothing had happened, and build more nuclear reactor time bombss....

They had a prof from a University in Texas on NPR Morning Edition today. He has made a study of voles and other small animals living in the nuclear wasteland around Chernobyl. He claimed that there were no visible signs of harm to these small animals, though if they were put up to a Geiger counter they made alarm bells go off.

My paranoia told me that NPR -- following their Schiller issues-- is trying to make up to the right wing by putting a good face on this disaster by interviewing a Texan who denied any visible result to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The guy has a Ph.D in science and was saying "yeah, maybe it would be a good idea if we put these voles in a lab and studied them over several generations." But instead all he's doing is observing them and not noting visible problems. It just rang weird in my ear, like he was a shill for the the nuclear industry. Might be quite unfair of me to think so. Still, it seems odd that they are looking for someone who will put a happy face on this nightmare.

warning: graphic and disturbing

http://www.paulfuscophoto.com/#pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=1&a=0&at=0

-- actual experts get tossed aside ...

What they're looking for is new ways to illegal things and not get caught -- !!





The Rightwing Koch Bros. Funded the DLC --

http://www.democrats.com/node/7789

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

If you knew, why didn't you tell us?

If you didn't know, pass it along!

:)