The truth now begins to spew out from Fukushima - but not as fast as the radiation into the Pacific
ENERGY NEWS
11/08/2013
BBC,
Nov. 8, 2013 -
But visiting the plant, it struck me that in our
obsession with reactor four we may be missing the real story at
Fukushima. [...]
As our bus left reactor four and drove along the sea
front, I pointed my new monitor out of the window towards reactor
building three. Suddenly the needle started to spike – 1,000 counts per
second, then 2,000, 3,000, finally it went off the scale. There, outside
the bus, just a few dozen meters away is the real dead zone, a place
where it is still far too dangerous for anyone to go.
No human has been
inside reactor three since the disaster. To do so would be suicide.
No-one knows when it will be possible to go in. When I asked the same
experts how long it would be until reactors one, two and three could be
dismantled, they shook their heads. When I asked them where they thought
the melted reactor cores were, they shook their heads again. [Tepco]
was happy to show us reactor four, but please do not ask what they
intend to do with reactors one, two and three.
Asahi Shimbun,
Nov. 7, 2013: [...] The locations and the condition of the melted fuel
for these reactors remain a mystery. It apparently dropped to the
containment vessels through the inner pressure vessels housing the
reactor cores. [...] In addition, TEPCO has not determined the extent of
damage to the pressure and containment vessels. [...] The road map for
decommissioning work could drastically change depending on the
conditions of the melted nuclear fuel and the damage to the containment
vessels.

NHK, Nov. 6, 2013: TEPCO will also need to clear rods from pools at 3 other reactors in a worse state. [...] They have been hampered by intense radiation and problems like inflow of rainwater. They’re anticipating a bigger challenge in removing molten fuel from reactor containers. TEPCO hopes to start that stage in 2020. Workers are prevented by high radioactivity from fully studying the reactor interiors. [...] TEPCO officials are seeking international cooperation to develop a machine that can remove the molten fuel, an operation never tried before.
CNN, Nov. 8, 2013 (at :30 in): There are strict rules about we can and cannot film. But this is the part of the plant Tepco wants us to show, Reactor 4.
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