Posing perhaps the greatest danger to the greatest number of people on Earth is next months beginning of the fuel rod removal at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. This is a procedure which will take over a year to complete so this will be a extended period of danger.
1300 fuel rods are stored in a damaged storage pool which is elevated more than 50 feet above the ground. The radiation potential if released in an accident during the removal is 14,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
Normal removal from an un-damaged storage pool is accomplished by a computer controlled crane. This removal will be by a manually controlled crane. If the rods become exposed to the air they will burst into flame and burn releasing so much radiation that the site would have to be evacuated. The storage pool was damaged by a hydrogen explosion and has debris in it. It leaked badly after the explosion and sea water was pumped into it to keep the fuel rods cool. Sea water is very corrosive so the viability of the components is unknown.
The worst case scenario is a collapse of the elevated pool dumping all the rods into a pile, a catastrophe of global proportions. Chances of this are said to be low, but so was the chances of three of the six reactors melting down. Even an "event" of lesser seriousness could lead to the evacuation of millions of people including from Tokyo.
Interesting that the corporate media has not found this important enough to report on.
Probably because nuclear power is perfectly safe...until it isn't.
1300 fuel rods are stored in a damaged storage pool which is elevated more than 50 feet above the ground. The radiation potential if released in an accident during the removal is 14,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
Normal removal from an un-damaged storage pool is accomplished by a computer controlled crane. This removal will be by a manually controlled crane. If the rods become exposed to the air they will burst into flame and burn releasing so much radiation that the site would have to be evacuated. The storage pool was damaged by a hydrogen explosion and has debris in it. It leaked badly after the explosion and sea water was pumped into it to keep the fuel rods cool. Sea water is very corrosive so the viability of the components is unknown.
The worst case scenario is a collapse of the elevated pool dumping all the rods into a pile, a catastrophe of global proportions. Chances of this are said to be low, but so was the chances of three of the six reactors melting down. Even an "event" of lesser seriousness could lead to the evacuation of millions of people including from Tokyo.
Interesting that the corporate media has not found this important enough to report on.
Probably because nuclear power is perfectly safe...until it isn't.
