High Res Photos of Damage at Fukushima

It obviously has the most structural damage, and what "used" to be the upper half of the reactor is now comprised of the debris inside, that of which did not get blown to smithereens as distant as a kilometer away, outside after the explosion.. It no longer still has a spent fuel "pool" that "was" attached to the upper half of two or more sides of the walls, so all of the spent fuel rods (that is IF they are still in the form of rods) are now mingled amongst the debris and the floor of the reactor. I have to believe that Reactor #2 has also probably lost its spent fuel rods pool and the only reactor of the four most damaged that likely still has its spent fuel rods pool completely intact is #4.

So when the crews spray water inside this reactor, there is no "pool" to refill, and the water apparently just soaks through the irradiated debris and then must leak out "somewhere" through the floor or the foundation of the reactor, if it isn't released as radioactive steam. How can TEPCO possibly ever know if or when these tons of spent fuel "rods" and those that were being used at the time the reactor was shut down, are cooled enough to attempt to bury the reactor? How will they ever know what condition of the hundreds of tons of spent fuel "rods" are in, and that possibly if not probably most, if not all, have long ago lost their protective sheaths of zirconium cladding, and instead are now broken apart and are more accurately described as tons of exposed fuel pellets layered throughout the debris and upon the reactor's floor?

Fuck GE's design. I find it rather ironic that the CEO of GE is named 'Immelt.'

WASF.

yup

put a Nuclear Power Plant next to an ocean? It makes no sense to me. Why take the chance of destroying an ocean?

WASF

discovers anything about it by sheer "accident".

If it can't be seen near or on the surface of the seven seas, then it is "all gone"..out of sight, out of mind.

BP, while ignoring the index finger wagging of our leaders in DC, swept their mess under the "rug" of the GOM using toxic Corexit dispersants, which, in addition to reducing the observable surface and near surface spread of the crude, sank much if not most of it down to the seafloor so that when/if over time, their responsibility involving noticeable losses of massive amounts of marine life and any long-term or delayed illnesses and deaths of those living near or on the Gulf Coast can perhaps be plausibly denied.

Corporate lords eat toxic fish and glow! Pretty soon they'll have to eat their damn money.

Only one-third of the thermal energy generated is converted into electricity. The rest is dissipated into the environment through a cooling medium - water. Lots and lots of it (500,000 to 1 million gallons per minute). Japan does not have many large lakes or rivers, so they use the ocean.

I thought this was causing problems of rust. The ocean water was a 'junk shot.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_feedwater">Feedwater is normally kept separate:

Pictures are good.

It's a shame that the GE Design was flawed from the beginning....keeping the spent fuel rods.

and that's why estuaries are their favorite locations. Lakes can work, as can major rivers, but they all need to be by a large body of water.

That's one of the main reasons there are no large commercial plants here in NM, although there are several small research plants at universities and national labs.

Salt screws up the fuel rods, I thought. I've heard nothing of a desalinization plant nearby.

And keeping these damn spent fuel rods around (thank you GE for bringing things to DEATH) was beyond stupid. Scientists quit working at GE at the time ('70's) because of this dumbass design.

Now, CEO, Immelt (interesting name, huh?) takes no responsibility whatsoever.

seen on in NM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary

have you?

I'd think they might want to be located above a big aquifer....but I better look that up as well.

Listen, I get enough crap IRL....I don't need it here at DU...dick

the link is located just above on the left side of the top of the slim dialog box that has Home>>Discuss>>General Discussion