BBC: ‘The real dead zone’ at Fukushima — Monitor went off scale, over 180,000 CPM — Experts shook their heads when asked where melted fuel is — Tepco: Don’t ask what we’ll do with Reactors 1, 2, 3 — CNN: Tepco only wanted to show us Reactor 4, strict rules about what we could film (VIDEO)

BBC: ‘The real dead zone’ at Fukushima — Monitor went off scale, over 180,000 CPM — Experts shook their heads when asked where melted fuel is — Tepco: Don’t ask what we’ll do with Reactors 1, 2, 3 — CNN: Tepco only wanted to show us Reactor 4, strict rules about what we could film (VIDEO) (ENENews, Nov 8, 2013):

BBC, Nov. 8, 2013: […] But visiting the plant, it struck me that in our obsession with reactor four we may be missing the real story at Fukushima. […] As our bus left reactor four and drove along the sea front, I pointed my new monitor out of the window towards reactor building three. Suddenly the needle started to spike – 1,000 counts per second, then 2,000, 3,000, finally it went off the scale. There, outside the bus, just a few dozen meters away is the real dead zone, a place where it is still far too dangerous for anyone to go. No human has been inside reactor three since the disaster. To do so would be suicide. No-one knows when it will be possible to go in. When I asked the same experts how long it would be until reactors one, two and three could be dismantled, they shook their heads. When I asked them where they thought the melted reactor cores were, they shook their heads again. [Tepco] was happy to show us reactor four, but please do not ask what they intend to do with reactors one, two and three.

Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 7, 2013: […] The locations and the condition of the melted fuel for these reactors remain a mystery. It apparently dropped to the containment vessels through the inner pressure vessels housing the reactor cores. […] In addition, TEPCO has not determined the extent of damage to the pressure and containment vessels. […] The road map for decommissioning work could drastically change depending on the conditions of the melted nuclear fuel and the damage to the containment vessels.

NHK, Nov. 6, 2013: TEPCO will also need to clear rods from pools at 3 other reactors in a worse state. […] They have been hampered by intense radiation and problems like inflow of rainwater. They’re anticipating a bigger challenge in removing molten fuel from reactor containers. TEPCO hopes to start that stage in 2020. Workers are prevented by high radioactivity from fully studying the reactor interiors.  […] TEPCO officials are seeking international cooperation to develop a machine that can remove the molten fuel, an operation never tried before.

CNN, Nov. 8, 2013 (at :30 in): There are strict rules about we can and cannot film. But this is the part of the plant Tepco wants us to show, Reactor 4.

Watch the CNN broadcast here

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.