Wednesday, April 13, 2011
No, Japan's Nuclear Reactors Are Not "Stable"
The Japanese government and Tepco claim that the nuclear reactors are "stable" and that radiation releases have subsided to low levels.
But world renowned physicist Michio Kaku - who studied under atom bomb developer Edward Teller - told Democracy Now today:
Tokyo Electric has been in denial, trying to downplay the full impact of this nuclear accident. However, there’s a formula, a mathematical formula, by which you can determine what level this accident is. This accident has already released something on the order of 50,000 trillion becquerels of radiation. You do the math. That puts it right smack in the middle of a level 7 nuclear accident. Still, less than Chernobyl. However, radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors. The situation is not stable at all. So, you’re looking at basically a ticking time bomb. It appears stable, but the slightest disturbance—a secondary earthquake, a pipe break, evacuation of the crew at Fukushima—could set off a full-scale meltdown at three nuclear power stations, far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.
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When the utility says that things are stable, it’s only stable in the sense that you’re dangling from a cliff hanging by your fingernails. And as the time goes by, each fingernail starts to crack. That’s the situation now.
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TEPCO is like the little Dutch boy. All of a sudden we have cracks in the dike. You put a finger here, you put a finger there. And all of a sudden, new leaks start to occur, and they’re overwhelmed.
I suggest that they be removed from leadership entirely and be put as consultants. An international team of top physicists and engineers should take over
I suggested the same thing with regards to BP during the Gulf oil spill.
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It was Albert Einstein who once said. "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."
ReplyDelete--So True-- Enough politics, we need the most knowledgeable scientist in control, to gain control of the Fukashima nuclear situation before it becomes a World disaster.
If the nuclear reaction can not be shut down and disassembled, it is in an emergency event and out of control and will not be in control until they can shut down the nuclear reaction and remove the fuel rods. The situation is out of control no matter how much they lie about it being in control.
There have been no steps that I know of; to separate and seal the individual spent fuel rods in stainless steel vessels and then removing them from the emergency area where they are presently fuel for the fire. Indeed, the thousands of spent fuel rods are stored on top of the reactors! That is pretty crazy and unscientific.
If nuclear energy is to survive, the old style GE plants need to be shut down and replaced with modern nuclear plants that are safe.