Hazardous Situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Getting Worse?

The first four articles (links are in the subject line) this morning are about the increasingly hazardous situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. For the first time the Japanese have asked for help from the United States while Japanese officials are now admitting that disaster response was lacking. What took so long for their request for assistance?  We know that the Government officials were facing a huge crises with the powerful earthquake and the tsunami, but the threat of compromise at the Fukushima nuclear power plant should have been a priority.  Relying on Tapco who has been prone to lying about nuclear incidents at this same plant in the past was irresponsible.

Have almost zero knowledge about nuclear power plants but putting spent rods in a pool on top of a building in an earthquake zone makes zero sense.  From everything that I've read, it seems the spent rods will get extremely hot when exposed to air so they are kept under water.  Chances of a crack developing in the pool following an earthquake seem extremely high.  One expert on CNN was questioning the dropping of water from buckets onto the roof as it could shift the rods.  That added another dimension to this growing threat of disaster. 

There is absolutely no threat to any part of the United States according to Government officials but people on the West Coast are still requesting Iodine pills to be on the safe side.  The lack out information out of Japan about Fukushima has led to all kinds of wild speculations.  With the IAEA Chief Amano on the ground in Japan today, hope that better communication with the world is forthcoming with facts not spin we have been hearing out of Japanese Government officials along with some pundits on TV.    

On top of everything that has happened Tokyo could experience massive blackouts due to the lack of power being generated by the Fukushima plant that feeds power to Tokyo.  Cold temperatures in Japan have increased the power use as people turn on their electric heaters. With an already strapped power grid due to Fukushima being off-line, rolling blackouts could turn into a total blackout. So far the rolling blackouts are working in Tokyo as no blackout of the entire city has happened. Electrical workers are racing to get power lines up so that the Fukushima plant will once again have power to cool instead of relying on generators that  burn up.

When you are dealing with nuclear reactors that are this old, the first thing that should have been done was to bring in every expert you could find. The head of the IEAE is flying into Japan today because he could not get enough information out of the Japanese Government.  Amano made the decision this trip was necessary in order to have a face to face meeting with Japanese Government officials to get the facts and a better understanding of what problems the Japanese are facing at Fukushima.  IAEA Yukiya Amano who is a native of Japan is not going to visit the plant but has scientists with him will go in the general direction of the plant to assess the situation.  

An image released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. shows the damage to the Fukushima
nuclear plant's fourth reactor building. (Tepco, AFP/Getty Images / March 17, 2011)

U.S. nuclear officials suspect Japanese plant has a dire breach

A leak in a spent fuel pool at the Fukushima nuclear plant would be an unprecedented problem with no clear remedy, experts say.

By Ralph Vartabedian, Barbara Demick and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

March 18, 2011, 1:50 a.m

Reporting from Los Angeles, Kesennuma and Tokyo— U.S. government nuclear experts believe a spent fuel pool at Japan's crippled Fukushima reactor complex has a breach in the wall or floor, a situation that creates a major obstacle to refilling the pool with cooling water and keeping dangerous levels of radiation from escaping.

That assessment by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials is based on the sequence of events since the earthquake and information provided by key American contractors who were in the plant at the time, said government officials familiar with the evaluation. It was compelling evidence, they said, that the wall of the No. 4 reactor pool has a significant hole or crack.

Unlike the reactor itself, the spent fuel pool does not have its own containment vessel, and any radioactive particles and gases can more easily spew into the environment if the uranium fuel begins to burn. In addition, the pool, which contains 130 tons of uranium fuel, is housed in a building that Japanese authorities say appears to have been damaged by fire or explosions.

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Japan Asks for US Help in Nuclear 'Race Against the Clock'

Mar 18, 2011 – 3:40 AM

YAMAGATA, Japan -- Japan reached out Friday to the U.S. for help in reining in the crisis at its dangerously overheated nuclear complex, while the U.N. atomic energy chief called the disaster a race against the clock that demands global cooperation.


At the stricken complex, military fire trucks began spraying the troubled reactor units again Friday morning, with tons of water arcing over the facility in desperate attempts to douse the units and prevent meltdowns that could spew dangerous levels of radiation.

"The whole world, not just Japan, is depending on them," Tokyo office worker Norie Igarashi, 44, said of the emergency teams at the plants.

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Japanese official admits disaster response was lacking

"In hindsight we could have moved a little quicker," says Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano. The nation reclassifies its nuclear accident from Level 4 to Level 5 on an international scale of seven.

By David Pierson
Los Angeles Times
March 18, 2011, 5:01 a.m.

Reporting from Beijing— Japan's top government spokesman said Friday that the country's leadership was overwhelmed by last week's earthquake and tsunami, which slowed its ability to respond to the following humanitarian crisis and nuclear emergency.

"The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said, according to the Associated Press.

"In hindsight we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster," he said.

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CORRECTED-IAEA chief: Japan nuclear incident "grave and serious" accident

Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:51am EDT

(Corrects second para to say ... scientists will head in general direction of plant ... not Amano himself)

TOKYO, March 18 (Reuters) - The crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is "grave and serious", Yukiya Amano, head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, said on Friday.

Amano returned to his native Japan and says he will not visit the plant, but that a team of scientists will go in its general direction.

Japan has been battling for nearly a week to bring under control the overheating nuclear plant after it was battered by a massive earthquake and tsunami last week. (Reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Joseph Radford)