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TEPCO: Nearly All Nuclear Fuel Melted At Fukushima No. 3 Reactor
mdsolar (1045926) writes "Almost all of the nuclear fuel in the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant melted within days of the March 11, 2011, disaster, according to a new estimate by Tokyo Electric Power Co. TEPCO originally estimated that about 60 percent of the nuclear fuel melted at the reactor. But the latest estimate released on Aug. 6 revealed that the fuel started to melt about six hours earlier than previously thought. TEPCO said most of the melted fuel likely dropped to the bottom of the containment unit from the pressure vessel after the disaster set off by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami."
A large amount of radioactive material was released into the ocean where it will remain in the food chain for decades. Approximately 100,000 people are unable to return to their homes and a large area of land in a country where land is scarce and precious is uninhabitable. But...that's just the short term. Long term: Japan will have to deal with electric power shortages for years until their power generation can be rebuilt with new technology. Hundreds of billions of dollars will have to be spent over the next 20 years to decommission the mess at Fukushima and attempt to decontaminate the surrounding downwind land. All of this was avoidable...but happened because the resident village idiots were able to prevent realistic plans from being implemented for electric power generation at Fukushima. The Onagawa power station was closer to the earthquake epicenter and yet it survived undamaged thanks to a losing battle by the resident village idiots to ensure that it was built according to their idiot plans. They lost at Onagawa but 'won' at Fukushima. Idiots who said...why spend a lot of money on a bigger seawall at Fukushima? Idiot engineers at GE who said 'there's no need for a failsafe design for something that will never happen,' and idiots who say 'what's the big deal about a meltdown?'
The total amount of radioactive material put out by a coal power plant is actually larger, per unit of energy produced, than a nuclear power plant.
No it isn't. The claim that it does can be traced to a single paper written in 1978 by a scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab. The paper only considered nuclear plants during normal operation. Yet more than 98% of radiation from nukes is released during accidents, which the paper ignores. The paper also ignores the biological characteristics of the radiation. Nukes emit radioactive cesium, iodine, and strontium, which tend to bio-accumulate. Nearly all the radiation in coal is thorium, which has no biological role, and just remains inert in the ash.
There are plenty of good reasons to oppose coal. But "radiation" isn't one of them.