Japan's nukes...worse case scenario

[Ravi]

I don't know anything about nukes...so what happens if they can't get the cooling systems working again?

 

[Valerie]

Eleven reactors nearest the quake's epicenter automatically shut down upon sensing vibrations in the early hours of March 11. "Reactors shut themselves down automatically when something called 'ground acceleration' is registered at a certain point, which is usually quite small. It will instantly drop control rods into the [nuclear] core," Professor Tim Albram, a nuclear fuel engineer at the University of Manchester in the U.K., explained to the press.

Those control rods block neutrons from entering the core and inducing the fission reactions that produce nuclear energy. When the rods drop into the core, the heat put out by the nuclear fuel rods they surround plummets instantly, reducing the core's temperature to less than 5 percent of normal in a matter of seconds.

A base level of heat from nuclear decay continues to flow off the rods, however, and that's the problem in the Fukushima and Onagawa plants. Officials say they do not have enough electric power to pump water through the cooling systems and dissipate the extra heat. Water levels continue to drop.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters that there is serious concern in Japan whether the cooling of the core and removal of residual heat could be assured. "If that does not happen, if heat is not removed, there is a definite danger of a core melt ... fuel will overheat, become damaged and melt down."

"Even if fuel rods melt and the pressure inside the reactor builds up, radiation would not leak as long as the reactor container functions well," Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, told Reuters. Still, no one wants to take the chance.

Earthquakes Put Japan's Nuclear Reactors on Red Alert - FoxNews.com

 

[Ravi]

So what if it doesn't stay contained? I'm sure they don't want to spread panic but it would be good to know.

 

[Valerie]

So what if it doesn't stay contained? I'm sure they don't want to spread panic but it would be good to know.

Love your new Irish hat, Rav...(I am not a hat hater, AT ALL.)

Thousands of residents were evacuated from an area around a nuclear plant in Japan after a powerful earthquake raised fears of a radiation leak, but local officials said problems with the reactor's cooling system were not at a critical level.

There were no signs of a radiation leak, but the U.S. air force delivered coolant to the nuclear plant to avert a disaster within the wider disaster of the biggest earthquake on record to hit the country.

Experts said there could be leakage if water levels in the Fukushima reactor -- some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo -- fell and the temperature of the nuclear rods rose, but that this danger did not appear to be imminent.
UPDATE 4-Japan declares emergency at nuke plant, no radiation leak now | Reuters

"Even if fuel rods melt and the pressure inside the reactor builds up, radiation would not leak as long as the reactor container functions well," Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, told Reuters. Still, no one wants to take the chance.

The power plants are trying to restore power to its emergency power system in order to be able to pump water inside the reactors, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman said.