JAPAN WEIGHS NEED TO BURY NUCLEAR PLANT
March 18th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.
But they still hoped to solve the crisis by fixing a power cable to two reactors by Saturday to restart water pumps needed to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods. Workers also sprayed water on the No.3 reactor, the most critical of the plant’s six.
It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work.
“It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first,” an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, told a news conference.
it would have to get much worse (!) for them to even seriously consider the entombment scenario, imho. that’s just based on my observations so far of TEPCO management and the nuclear safety officials. you have to take into account that population density on Japan’s Pacific coast is quite high. i’m guessing it is a lot higher than Ukraine. all that spent fuel… in a few dozen feet of concrete… doesn’t seem very realistic to me. they are going to have to come up with something much more convincing or there will be some serious repercussions in terms of public disorder, imho.
Does anyone else sense a symmetry between this situation and the Gulf oil spill debacle last year?
A natural disaster damages a primary energy-resource structure, creating a long, drawn-out human and environmental catastrophe that exposes years of corporate safety-malfeasance and winds-up with a “we can’t really fix it so we’ll cap it off with concrete” solution.
Sigh….I guess I’d surmise that eventually the reactor(s) will be contained, the media will get bored and move on, and public demands for greater corporate responsibility will be buried as the next media circus-event comes along later this year.
@lagavulin, Funny you should mention BP. Always misunderestimating the oil spillage. And for good reason. Legal liability.
Very difficult for me to be unemotional about Japan right now (I guess if you’ve read any of my comments this week, HAR, you wouldn’t be guessing). I’m a sensitive.
I sent this link to Kevin about 5 minutes ago. Seriously, not about how important it is, but it is BP and I think it points out how people lie about things when their bottom line as a corporation is in question. Its not an honorable thing to do. And in Japan, I’m hoping for more honorable actions for the people than that extended to U.S. citizens by a Queenly owned version of a horror movie titled something like a horror show named “Suck You Gulf of Mexico.”
@tochigi
if you are in Japan, according to NPR, Tokyo is the most highly populated city on Planet Earth. Uh, I’m hoping they’d be sealing that sucker up quicktime, and I don’t care HOW THEY DO IT.
BP on Insider Trading
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/03/bp_officials_queried_in_federa.html
yep, i’m here. thanks for your concern.
and yep there are 33 million people in the greater tokyo area. and when all the trains stop on a weekday afternoon, like last friday, it means 10 million people walking from the central city to the suburbs. put it this way, i’m glad only the cops and the yakuza carry guns. and that most people are calm and community-minded.
Thank You for writing Tochigi. I’m so sorry to have been so hysterical in my writings. I mean well. My concern for people’s well being tends to send me over the top.
Yes, Friday on NPR was an awesome segment on the Japanese people and how they are dealing with this tragedy. I (of course) was crying when I listened to it: and now I can’t find it. It was about a taxi company named “Smile, Smile, Smile,” on All Things Considered, about 6:15 p.m. EST on Friday 18-Mar-2011. I know I heard that story.
Yeah right. Now that the dildoes who vote to choose everything NOT for the people, including NPR, don’t expect even NPR to have a repeat.
Man this sucks. That program on NPR was one of the most moving stories I’ve heard about the Japan quake and tsunami. And now I can’t find it on the NPR website? NICE (nice is a joke around here. I have a coworker who walks around the office saying NICE like you would say ICE, but in Pittsburgh-eezie slang.) NICE is pronounced like SLICE, or ICE, but with a long on the ICE part of it. Doesn’t matter how he pronounces it. This is just a flucking slum job by NPR or some other alien nation that can’t handle the REAL STORY to get all hung up in their underwear.
Shit people, if you don’t have a clothes line out back where you hang your guchees, bras, or whatever the hell you want to in the light of day, AND IF YOU CAN’T DO THAT BECAUSE OF WHAT THE NEIGHBORS WILL SAY:
I say to YOU NPR: SHIT OR GET OFF the POT.DECIDE WHETHER YOU ARE GOING TO BE A TRUTHTELLER OR NOT AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY.
HERE”S A CLUE: CAN’T HEVE IT BOTH WAYS. And who’s butt exactly are you trying to kiss?