Time.com: China Syndrome “might just have happened at Fukushima”

[FourScore]

Time.com: China Syndrome “might just have happened at Fukushima” — Molten fuel may have “melted through everything into the earth”
May 16th, 2011 at 04:22 PM

Was Fukushima a China Syndrome?, Eben Harrell for Time Magazine, May 16, 2011 at 2:00 pm EDT:

The China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth...It’s a nightmare scenario,the stuff of movies. And it might just have happened at Fukushima...

The fuel itself lies in a clump—either at the bottom of the pressure vessel, or in the basement below or possibly even outside the containment building...

The water is escaping somewhere on a course cut by molten fuel–probably into the basement of the reactor building, though it’s also possible it melted through everything into the earth...

Whatever the end game at Fukushima, get your head around this, folks: it is going to be a huge mess for a long time yet.

http://enenews.com/timecom-china-syndrome-happened-fukushima-molten-fuel-melted-everything-earth

Time article: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/05/16/was-fukushima-a-china-syndrome/

[trumad]

1. Except it won't melt to China..

Hell--- now I gotta go look at a globe.

[FourScore]

2. LOL. Let me know what's on the other side. n/t

[Electric Monk]

5. Near Uruguay and Argentina, fwiw

but it wouldn't come out the other side, it'd stop near the center of gravity.

[Motown_Johnny]

12. it stops when it hits enough under ground water to cool it down

and I was kinda hoping to call it "New Jersey Syndrome"

[Marblehead]

3. Wait till it hits

the water table....:nuke:

[JohnnyRingo]

11. Exactly...

As someone who has seen what happens when molten solder hits water, it won't be something that will go unnoticed. Unfortunately in the case of hot solder, it ends up all over the place.

[leeroysphitz]

4. So at some point the core is going to do a 90° turn while melting through the Earth's crust..

Seriously tho...

I honestly feel for the Japanese people having to contend with two concurrent "once in a lifetime" national disasters.

[izquierdista]

7. Adding it up....

The number of 500 year floods that have occurred in my lifetime, the number of "once in a lifetime" natural disasters, the number of once in a century oil spills, I figure that on my next birthday, I will be 7312 years old.

[wtbymark]

6. for the magazine 'Time', they have their tense wrong

because it IS melting, it is happenNING. It's far from over but the article makes it sound like it happennED 10 years ago. And they refuse to tell you what's going to happen when it hits the water table. Oh, by the way, anyone hear any news about fuel pool #3? No? because it doesn't exist anymore (at least the contents of pool #3), it's spread out over a 2km area around the plant - fuel, fuel rods - oh yea, that was a MOX pool. It didn't defligate, it detonated.

[FourScore]

8. All excellent points. Thank you wtbymark! n/t

[nc4bo]

16. Nice to see someone else picked on the use of past tense.

Just read about #3 - not good.

Guess I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for cable news or any of the 3 major network news corporations to make room in the broadcasts for the really big deal called Fukushima Daiichi.....

[meow mix]

9. guessing the fuel glob is currently in the basement.. (and underwater)

:shrug: just saying, i have no idea though

[robdogbucky]

10. The article addresses only one core meltdown, there have been 3

TEPCO to change reactor cool down method

"The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it will change the method being used to cool 3 reactors now that it's been found the fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor have melted down...

...TEPCO also says the gauges at the No.2 and 3 reactors might not be showing the actual water levels and that both reactors are likely to have undergone meltdowns.

The utility says the situation makes it difficult to fill the containment vessels of the reactors with water as planned, and that an alternate cooling method will have to be found.

It says it is now considering pumping water out of the containment vessels and circulating it back into the reactors after chilling it with heat exchangers..."

Monday, May 16, 2011 21:53 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_32.html?play



Reactor meltdown,in re: "No. 2 and 3 reactors...both reactors are likely to have undergone meltdowns."

So we actually are talking now (TEPCO speak though, it was not happening last week, but it has already happened this week) about 3 cores in meltdown, no?

The core is not the same as the spent fuel pools? We have how many cores in trouble, three? How many spent fuel pools have undergone either detonation or deflagration (whatever that other word is for not an explosion, but the level just below an explosion) has occurred.

There is evidence of plutonium spread over a wide area, presumed to be from explosion of MOX rods in one of the spent fuel rod pools. Sheeeesh. We got cores going down and rods going up. What term applies?

Meltdowns vs explosions.


Hi ho!

[Shining Jack]

13. K&R n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

I thought this was being swept under the carpet?

good old Times

[nc4bo]

17. Yea. It's buried on an internet site and placed in the Health & Science "green" blog section

so it's gets a ton of views and is overall really easy and convenient to find by the majority of the public.

Maybe I'm wrong, I don't subscribe to Time Magazine so perhaps it's also in print form in the "green" tech section of the Health and Science chapter.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. but not on MSM

[nc4bo]

19. I know Rosa - I was being totally sarcastic.

I should have used the :sarcasm: thingy.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. I thought this was being swept under the carpet?

good old Times

[JDPriestly]

15. Fukushima is utterly beyond human comprehension.

So much bad news coming so fast and so steadily. Words do not suffice.