The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said. Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate. The gammas are a different story, but the alphas and betas aren't a worry so long as they decontaminate and wear proper ppe.But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates - still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-131 - suggesting widening environmental contamination. I'm under the impression that the external spraying is going on from firefighters located outside of the wrecked weather shells, so ought to have a pretty good thickness of concrete between them and the neutron sources. Yes, but the really bad stuff is all contained within the general vicinity of the core, rather than being spread across the grounds of the plant (or across the countryside, or rising in a column of smoke into the upper reaches of the troposphere.) Reactor 3 has plutonium in it, there are 3 destroyed reactor buildings, no cooling pumps and one of the reactors has reached 400C. They are desperately trying to spray water into this pool to keep it covered. Standing by one of these will score you a lethal dose of radiation in a few minutes. The levels of radiation being emitted are very dangerous and due in part to the more that 1400 tons of fuel rods stored in reactor 4's fuel pond. The doses the workers are getting aren't lethal and probably won't even cause a significant statistical increase in the risk of radiation-related diseases. Happily, reactor design-even the old Mark I-seems to 'work' and melts down in a fairly benign fashion.

They blew their reactor to hell and gone over the course of a few microseconds and then scattered burning radioactive graphite all over the place.Īt least one of the Japanese reactors have probably melted down completely-judging by the very significant amounts of radiation on the grounds and the fact that the cores haven't had active cooling in days. Plant operators at Chernobyl unintentionally turned unit 2 into a 'bomb' by inserting several dollars worth of reactivity into the core when they lowered the graphite-tipped control rods. Survivors of both are fighting for compensation. Sadly, like the NYC firefighters that died and destroyed their health at the WTC site, the Chernobyl Liquidators are getting the shaft from their respective governments. None of these men want to die, but it is inevitable, and like the Russians, I suspect that the Japanese have such men also.

Japan apparently needs more hero's and need the play it safe leadership to get the hell out of their way. We have seen footage of firefighters volunteering to go to the site to help stop this disaster. The Russian firefighters, helicopter pilots and reactor technicians stepped up to the plate, the Chernobyl Liquidators as they are known and did what had to be done at the peril of their own lives.

Japanese reactor meltdown update