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Japan's Damaged Reactor Has High Radiation, No Water

mdsolar passes along this quote from an Associated Press report: "One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and hardly any water to cool it, according to an internal examination Tuesday that renews doubts about the plant's stability. A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No. 2 reactor's containment chamber for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago. The probe done in January failed to find the water surface and provided only images showing steam, unidentified parts and rusty metal surfaces scarred by exposure to radiation, heat and humidity. The data collected from the probes showed the damage from the disaster was so severe, the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment and decommission the plant, a process expected to last decades."

5 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. All that radiation! For decades! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The birth of Godzilla is near!

  2. Re:INSIDE THE CONTAINMENT CHAMBER by ooshna · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well once you create the technology to run the wolds power plants off kittens and sunshine I'll be first in line to protest the nuke plants but till then I'd rather have a nuclear powerplant close to me then a coal plant.

  3. Re:TFA by ATMAvatar · · Score: 5, Informative

    I see your nuclear reactor failure and raise you some coal seam fires.

    --
    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
  4. Re:INSIDE THE CONTAINMENT CHAMBER by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, if they live on that playground, they will receive nearly as much radiation in a year as a resident of Denver.

  5. Re:~space by peppepz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A fission nuclear bomb consumes a large part of its fissile fuel for its explosion. And it contains a small amount of it, to begin with. When a nuclear reactor blows up, it is usually a non-nuclear explosion (steam release, graphite fire) that spreads unspent nuclear fuel all over an area. They're two different phenomena.