<http://www.globalresearch.ca/scientists-warn-of-extreme-risk-greatest-short-term-threat-to-humanity-is-from-fukushima-fuel-pools/5357344>
Scientists Warn of Extreme Risk: Greatest Short-term Threat to
Humanity is From Fukushima Fuel Pools
By Washington's Blog
Global Research, November 08, 2013
We've long said that the greatest short-term threat to humanity is
from the fuel pools at Fukushima.
The Japanese nuclear agency recently green-lighted the removal of the
spent fuel rods from Fukushima reactor 4?s spent fuel pool. The
operation is scheduled to begin this month.
The head of the U.S. Department of Energy correctly notes:
The success of the cleanup also has global significance. So we all
have a direct interest in seeing that the next steps are taken well,
efficiently and safely.
If one of the pools collapsed or caught fire, it could have severe
adverse impacts not only on Japan but the rest of the world,
including the United States. Indeed, a Senator called it a national
security concern for the U.S.:
The radiation caused by the failure of the spent fuel pools in the
event of another earthquake could reach the West Coast within days.
That absolutely makes the safe containment and protection of this
spent fuel a security issue for the United States.
Award-winning scientist David Suzuki says that Fukushima is
terrifying, Tepco and the Japanese government are lying through their
teeth, and Fukushima is "the most terrifying situation I can imagine".
Suzuki notes that reactor 4 is so badly damaged that - if there's
another earthquake of 7 or above - the building could come down. And
the probability of another earthquake of 7 or above in the next 3
years is over 95%.
Suzuki says that he's seen a paper that says that if - in fact - the
4th reactor comes down, "it's bye bye Japan, and everyone on the West
Coast of North America should evacuate. Now if that's not terrifying,
I don't know what is."
The Telegraph reports:
The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant
will begin a dry run of the procedure at the No. 4 reactor, which
experts have warned carries grave risks.
***
"Did you ever play pick up sticks?" asked a foreign nuclear expert
who has been monitoring Tepco's efforts to regain control of the
plant. "You had 50 sticks, you heaved them into the air and than had
to take one off the pile at a time.
"If the pile collapsed when you were picking up a stick, you lost,"
he said. "There are 1,534 pick-up sticks in a jumble in top of an
unsteady reactor 4. What do you think can happen?
"I do not know anyone who is confident that this can be done since
it has never been tried."
ABC reports:
One slip-up in the latest step to decommission Japan's crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant could trigger a "monumental" chain reaction,
experts warn.
***
Experts around the world have warned that the fuel pool is in a
precarious state - vulnerable to collapsing in another big
earthquake.
Yale University professor Charles Perrow wrote about the number 4
fuel pool this year in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
"This has me very scared," he told the ABC.
"Tokyo would have to be evacuated because [the] caesium and other
poisons that are there will spread very rapidly.
Perrow also argues:
Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are
perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear
reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from
all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate,
would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo.
Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common
storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission
and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.
Former Japanese ambassador Akio Matsumura warns that - if the
operation isn't done right - this could one day be considered the
start of "the ultimate catastrophe of the world and planet":
(He also argues that removing the fuel rods will take "decades rather
than months.)
Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen and physician Helen Caldicott have
both said that people should evacuate the Northern Hemisphere if one
of the Fukushima fuel pools collapses. Gundersen said:
"Move south of the equator if that ever happened, I think that's
probably the lesson there."
Harvey Wasserman wrote two months ago:
We are now within two months of what may be humankind's most
dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
***
Should the attempt fail, the rods could be exposed to air and catch
fire, releasing horrific quantities of radiation into the
atmosphere. The pool could come crashing to the ground, dumping the
rods together into a pile that could fission and possibly explode.
The resulting radioactive cloud would threaten the health and safety
of all us.
***
A new fuel fire at Unit 4 would pour out a continuous stream of
lethal radioactive poisons for centuries.
Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata says full-scale releases from
Fukushima "would destroy the world environment and our civilization.
This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic
debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human
survival."
Even Japan's Top Nuclear Regulator Says that The Operation Carries a
"Very Large Risk Potential"
Even the head of Japan's nuclear agency is worried. USA Today notes:
Nuclear regulatory chairman Shunichi Tanaka, however, warned that
removing the fuel rods from Unit 4 would be difficult because of the
risk posed by debris that fell into the pool during the explosions.
"It's a totally different operation than removing normal fuel rods
from a spent fuel pool," Tanaka said at a regular news conference.
"They need to be handled extremely carefully and closely monitored.
You should never rush or force them out, or they may break."
He said it would be a disaster if fuel rods are pulled forcibly and
are damaged or break open when dropped from the pool, located about
30 meters (100 feet) above ground, releasing highly radioactive
material. "I'm much more worried about this than contaminated
water," Tanaka said
The same top Japanese nuclear official said:
"The process involves a very large risk potential."
BBC reports:
A task of extraordinary delicacy and danger is about to begin at
Japan's Fukushima nuclear power station.
***
One senior official told me: "It's going to be very difficult but it
has to happen."
Why It's Such a Difficult Operation
South China Morning Post notes:
Nothing remotely similar has been attempted before and it is
feared that any error of judgment could lead to a massive release of
radiation into the atmosphere.
***
A spokesman for Tepco admitted, however, that it was not clear
whether any of the rods were damaged or if debris in the pool would
complicate the recovery effort.
Professor Richard Broinowski - former Australian Ambassador to
Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Central American Republics
and Cuba - and author of numerous books on nuclear policy and
Fukushima, says some of the fuel rods are probably fused.
Murray E. Jennex, Ph.D., P.E. (Professional Engineer), Professor of
MIS, San Diego State University, notes:
The rods in the spent fuel pool may have melted . I consider it
more likely that these rods were breached during the explosions
associated with the event and their contents may be in contact with
the ground water, probably due to all the seawater that was sprayed
on the plant.
Fuel rod expert Arnie Gundersen - a nuclear engineer and former
senior manager of a nuclear power company which manufactured nuclear
fuel rods - recently explained the biggest problem with the fuel rods
(at 15:45):
I think they're belittling the complexity of the task. If you think
of a nuclear fuel rack as a pack of cigarettes, if you pull a
cigarette straight up it will come out - but these racks have been
distorted. Now when they go to pull the cigarette straight out, it's
going to likely break and release radioactive cesium and other
gases, xenon and krypton, into the air. I suspect come November,
December, January we're going to hear that the building's been
evacuated, they've broke a fuel rod, the fuel rod is off-gassing.
***
I suspect we'll have more airborne releases as they try to pull the
fuel out. If they pull too hard, they'll snap the fuel. I think the
racks have been distorted, the fuel has overheated - the pool boiled
- and the net effect is that it's likely some of the fuel will be
stuck in there for a long, long time.
In another interview, Gundersen provides additional details (at 31:00):
The racks are distorted from the earthquake - oh, by the way, the
roof has fallen in, which further distorted the racks.
The net effect is they've got the bundles of fuel, the cigarettes in
these racks, and as they pull them out, they're likely to snap a
few. When you snap a nuclear fuel rod, that releases radioactivity
again, so my guess is, it's things like krypton-85, which is a gas,
cesium will also be released, strontium will be released. They'll
probably have to evacuate the building for a couple of days. They'll
take that radioactive gas and they'll send it up the stack, up into
the air, because xenon can't be scrubbed, it can't be cleaned, so
they'll send that radioactive xenon up into the air and purge the
building of all the radioactive gases and then go back in and try
again.
It's likely that that problem will exist on more than one bundle. So
over the next year or two, it wouldn't surprise me that either they
don't remove all the fuel because they don't want to pull too hard,
or if they do pull to hard, they're likely to damage the fuel and
cause a radiation leak inside the building. So that's problem #2 in
this process, getting the fuel out of Unit 4 is a top priority I
have, but it's not going to be easy. Tokyo Electric is portraying
this as easy. In a normal nuclear reactor, all of this is done with
computers. Everything gets pulled perfectly vertically. Well nothing
is vertical anymore, the fuel racks are distorted, it's all going to
have to be done manually. The net effect is it's a really difficult
job. It wouldn't surprise me if they snapped some of the fuel and
they can't remove it.
The Japan Times writes:
The consequences could be far more severe than any nuclear accident
the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes
entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include
a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of
these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly
radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting much of Japan - including
Tokyo and Yokohama - and even neighboring countries at serious risk.
CNN reports:
[Mycle Schneider, nuclear consultant:] The situation could still get
a lot worse. A massive spent fuel fire would likely dwarf the
current dimensions of the catastrophe and could exceed the
radioactivity releases of Chernobyl dozens of times.
Reuters notes:
Experts question whether it will be able to pull off the removal of
all the assemblies successfully.***
No one knows how bad it can get, but independent consultants Mycle
Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear
Industry Status Report 2013: "Full release from the Unit-4 spent
fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far
the most serious radiological disaster to date."
***
Nonetheless, Tepco inspires little confidence. Sharply criticized
for failing to protect the Fukushima plant against natural
disasters, its handling of the crisis since then has also been
lambasted.
***
"There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are
distorted and get too close to each other," Gundersen said.
***
The rods are also vulnerable to fire should they be exposed to air,
Gundersen said. [The pools have already boiled due to exposure to
air.]
***
[Here is a visual tour of Fukushima's fuel pools, along with
graphics of how the rods will be removed.]
Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris during
an investigation into the chamber earlier this month.
Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted
by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician,
who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.
"Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the
exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they
don't have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk
that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods," Kimura said.
***
Corrosion from the salt water will have also weakened the building
and equipment, he said.
ABC Radio Australia quotes an expert on the situation (at 1:30):
Richard Tanter, expert on nuclear power issues and professor of
international relations at the University of Melbourne:
***
Reactor Unit 4, the one which has a very large amount of stored fuel
in its fuel storage pool, that is sinking. According to former prime
Minister Kan Naoto, that has sunk some 31 inches in places and it's
not uneven.
And Chris Harris - a, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and
engineer - notes that it doesn't help that a lot of the rods are in
very fragile condition:
Although there are a lot of spent fuel assemblies in there which
could achieve criticality - there are also 200 new fuel assemblies
which have equivalent to a full tank of gas, let's call it that.
Those are the ones most likely to go critical first.
***
Some pictures that were released recently show that a lot of fuel is
damaged, so when they go ahead and put the grapple on it, and they
pull it up, it's going to fall apart. The boreflex has been eaten
away; it doesn't take saltwater very good.
Nuclear engineers say that the fuel pool is "distorted", material was
blown up into air and came down inside, damaging the fuel, the roof
fell in, distorting things inside.
Indeed, Fukushima documents discuss "fuel that is severely damaged"
inside cooling pool, and show illustrations of "deformed or leaking
fuels".
The Urgent Need: Replace Tepco
Tepco is incompetent and corrupt. As such, it is the last company
which should be in charge of the clean-up.
Top scientists and government officials say that Tepco should be
removed from all efforts to stabilize Fukushima. An international
team of the smartest engineers and scientists should handle this
difficult "surgery".
Bloomberg notes:
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being told by his own party that Japan's
response is failing. Plant operator [Tepco] alone isn't up to the
task of managing the cleanup and decommissioning of the atomic
station in Fukushima. That's the view of Tadamori Oshima, head of a
task force in charge of Fukushima's recovery and former vice
president of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party.
***
[There's] a growing recognition that the government needs to take
charge at the Fukushima station. "If we allow the situation to
continue, it'll never be resolved" [said Sumio Mabuchi, a government
point man on crisis in 2011].
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