600 tons of melted radioactive Fukushima...

[humble3d]

600 tons of melted radioactive Fukushima...

 

fuel still not found, clean-up chief reveals

 

The Fukushima clean-up team remains in the dark about

the exact locations of 600 tons of melted radioactive

fuel from three devastated nuclear reactors, the chief

of decommissioning told the ABC’s Foreign

Correspondent program in an exclusive interview.
The company hopes to locate and start removing the

missing fuel from 2021, the Tokyo Electric Power

Company's (TEPCO) chief of decommissioning at

Fukushima, Naohiro Masuda, revealed.

 

The fuel extraction technology is yet to be elaborated

upon, he added.

 

Following the tsunami-caused 2011 meltdown at

Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant uranium fuel of

three power generating reactors gained critical

temperature and burnt through the respective reactor

pressure vessels, concentrating somewhere on the lower

levels of the station currently filled with water.

 

The melted nuclear fuel from Reactor 1 poured out

completely, estimated 30 to 50 percent of fuel from

Reactor 2 and 3 remained in the active zone, Masuda

said.

 

The official estimates that  approximately “200 tons

of [nuclear fuel] debris lies within each unit," which

makes in total about 600 tons of melted fuel mixed up

with metal construction elements, concrete and

whatever else was down there.

 

Five years after the Fukushima tragedy, the exact

location of the highly radioactive “runaway” fuel

remains mystery for TEPCO. The absolutely

uncontrollable fission of the melted nuclear fuel

assemblies continue somewhere under the remains of the

station.

 

“It's important to find it as soon as possible,”

acknowledged Masuda, admitting that Japan does not yet

possess the technology to extract the melted uranium

fuel.

 

“Once we can find out the condition of the melted fuel

and identify its location, I believe we can develop

the necessary tools to retrieve it,” Masuda said.

 

TEPCO’s inability to locate the melted fuel could be

explained by huge levels of radiation near the melted

reactor shells. It is so high that even custom-built

robots sent there to get information about the current

state of affairs there get disabled by the tremendous

radioactivity flux. Human presence in the area is

understandably out of the question.

 

The company’s decommission plan for Fukushima nuclear

power plant implies a 30-40 year period before the

consequences of the meltdown are fully eliminated. Yet

experts doubt the present state of technology is

sufficient to deal with the unprecedented technical

task.

 

“Nobody really knows where the fuel is at this point

and this fuel is still very radioactive and will be

for a long time,” the former head of the US Nuclear

Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko, told

Foreign Correspondent.

 

“It may be possible that we're never able to remove

the fuel. You may just have to wind up leaving it

there and somehow entomb it as it is,” said Jaczko,

who headed the USNRC at the time of the Fukushima

disaster.

 

Melted uranium fuel and tons and tons of highly

radioactive water aren’t the only issues troubling

TEPCO’s clean-up team at Fukushima. There are also

some 10 million plastic bags full of contaminated soil

concentrated in gigantic waste dumps scattered around

the devastated nuclear facility.

 

“But that is not enough. It will probably cost more

than $240 billion. I think 40 years [to decommission

the plant] is an optimistic view,” Kan said.

 

Estimated 100,000 Japanese citizens evacuated from the

Fukushima exclusion zone will be unable to return to

their homes until TEPCO can show that the Fukushima

plant is in a stable condition, Masuda said.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/344200-fukushima-melted-

nuclear-fuel/

 

[vibranium]

The radioactive leak into the ocean, the effects of that are still being debated.

[pc71520]

 

15 hours ago, humble3d said:

600 tons of melted radioactive fuel

Holly...