masterwordsmith-unplugged

The NYT carried an interesting article about how a Rat Chase Backfires At Reactor In Japan. Hiroko Tabuchi wrote:


Workers at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant who were installing wire nets Friday to keep rats away from a vital cooling system instead tripped that system, causing it to fail for the second time in weeks.

The spent-fuel pool at the site’s No. 3 reactor went without fresh cooling water for almost three hours on Friday afternoon, said the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco.

Cooling was restored by late evening on Friday, and there was no imminent danger to the 566 nuclear fuel rods stored in the pool, according to the company. It would have taken at least two weeks for the pool to have risen above the safe level of 149 degrees Fahrenheit, Tepco said.

Still, the recent power failures have raised concerns over continued vulnerabilities at the plant two years after a large earthquake and tsunami knocked out its vital cooling systems, resulting in multiple fuel meltdowns and forcing 160,000 people to evacuate.

The debris-strewn plant still relies on makeshift cooling systems, some of which were hastily put together in the accident’s frantic aftermath. The spent-fuel pools, which hold far more radioactive material than the reactor cores, have been a particular source of concern. More HERE.

Over here, Tyler Durden commented:


Cooling was restored by late evening on Friday, and there was no imminent danger to the 566 nuclear fuel rods stored in the pool, according to the company. It would have taken at least two weeks for the pool to have risen above the safe level of 149 degrees Fahrenheit, Tepco said." Of course, TEPCO would certainly tell the truth to all those it lied to for weeks in March 2011, the same TEPCO where a rat is the weakest link in its meltdown avoidance planning.

This time however, TEPCO, credibility and professionalism once again in tatters, was forced to reveal a little more, namely that "radioactive water may have leaked into the ground from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the latest of a series of troubles at the facility."

Blame the rats again? And don't worry, it was just "this much" caesium leaking into the ocean, so who's really counting. Sadly, it will be years before the irradiated fauna - both fish and humans - has a sense, over the daily lies, of just how vast the damage has been. By then, however, Japan will have enough hyperinflation to keep it sufficiently distracted from the third arm growing on the back.

MORE HERE.