What Does A Melted Nuclear Core Look Like?

[wtmusic]

"One of the most useful ways to overcome fear of the unknown is to gain knowledge about the source of the fear. There have been a lot of scary sounding reports recently about the state of the nuclear fuel cores inside the pressure vessels at Fukushima Daiichi units 1, 2, and 3. Many of them have breathlessly implied that there is still danger to the people who live within 20-50 miles of the plant boundaries.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Those nuclear cores stopped producing fission heat about 80 days ago and their decay heat production has decreased rather dramatically.

The materials inside the pressure vessels melted and a few of the many radioactive isotopes escaped with some leaking water, but the vast majority of the material has solidified inside the reactor pressure vessels. No one outside of the plant boundaries is in any danger; the people working inside the boundaries need to take some protective measures, but they are at a higher risk from normal industrial accidents than from radiation."

http://theenergycollective.com/rodadams/58247/what-does-melted-nuclear-core-look?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29

(video of Three Mile Island core at link)