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TEPCO: Nearly All Nuclear Fuel Melted At Fukushima No. 3 Reactor

Posted by timothy on from the bit-warm-in-here dept.

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."

1 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I am still waiting... by Charliemopps · · Score: 1, Troll

    Back when the accident happened, a significant number of Slashdotters were saying that no meltdown had occurred, that there was no significant structural damage, that no radioactive material would reach the sea, that the incident was overblown and that the plant would be largely still operational.

    God, we're sure lucky to have someone so intelligent as you to save us from ourselves... lets review the first article on slashdot about Fukushima so we can let you revel in our combined humiliation:
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

    What's this? The post had meltdown right in the title? How could this be?!!?
    Oh that's right, you're full of shit.
    And just to make it clear, if you read through those posts... the Slashdot consensus at the time was the same as yours: The worlds over... big corporations just killed us all.

    The current death toll of the disaster: 0
    With 1 worker who died of esophageal cancer... so maybe 1
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

    Long term affects:

    Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima are predicted to be extremely low to none.

    http://blogs.nature.com/news/2...

    Your reactionary statements are not based in fact.
    Nuclear power is fairly safe, modern reactors literally CANNOT melt down.
    The nuclear industry is prevented from upgrading their plants to safer models because people like you panic and protest.
    Japan moved to coal to replace the power lost due to the loss of nuclear power:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
    24,000 people per year died because of polution from coal fired power plants:
    http://www.catf.us/fossil/prob...

    get a clue