WRAPUP 1-High radiation levels at Japanese plant raise new worry

[truthisfreedom]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water has been found at a second reactor at a crippled nuclear power station in Japan, the plant's operator said, as fears of contamination escalated two weeks after a huge earthquake and tsunami battered the complex.

Underscoring growing international concern about nuclear power raised by the accident in northeast Japan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement it was time to reassess the international nuclear safety regime.

Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, making his first public statement on the crisis in a week, said the situation at the Fukushima nuclear complex, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, was "nowhere near" being resolved.

<snip>

But fresh fears were raised on Thursday when three workers trying to cool the most critical reactor were exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than normally found in a reactor. Two of them suffered radiation burns when contaminated water seeped over their shoes.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/25/japan-idUSL3E7EP2ZI20110325

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Augh.

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. they need to pour concrete and boric acid over each one of these reactors

They need to end all the pussyfooting around and accept the loss for what it is. A total loss. And quit allowing more and more people to be contaminated trying to save face.

[thereismore]

2. I agree, but there is one potential problem, which is that burying them will raise

the temperature and make things potentially worse. But I think it's time.

[WheelWalker]

3. Criticality?

[stockholmer]

4. you cant just bury them, as that will guarantee the floor breach 'China Syndrome"

The thousands of tonnes of both vessel-contained fuel and the spent fuel rods will heat up quickly to a point where they congeal into an uncontrolled chain reaction. This nuclear pile will bore through all the containment structures, and continue into the earth until it hits the water table, at which point you get a massive nuclear fire fueled steam blast that will blow up upwards and shatter all its way, including any attempted concrete cap.

I use the term plutonium steam kettle, especially for the MOX-fueled Unit 3.

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. Not if it's mixed with boric acid...

And that's not just my opinion, that's what was recommended by one of our top nuclear physicists.

[caraher]

5. They've already accepted them as lost

The moment they used seawater it was clear they'd never produce electricity again. It's easy to say that we should dump X or Y on them and seal 'em up, but there's some serious engineering analysis that has to go into finding the best solution that we armchair nuclear engineers can't really do.

They probably aren't doing the best thing, but I'm sure they're doing the best they can. Their best may not be good enough, of course, and they do need to learn how to tap outside expertise.

[felix_numinous]

6. Perhaps the Japanese government will use a similar containment design

now being built at Chernobyl-- but somehow make adjustments to make it earthquake proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Safe_Confinement#Design_and_construction