What the Japanese Won't Admit about Fukushima

I don't understand "message control". It always blows up and makes you look bad, but every government and large corporation religiously practice message control in the hopes that people are idiots and will simply buy the story being retailed and never bother to find out the truth.

Here's the truth about Fukushima as published in the UK's Guardian newspaper:

The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

...

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.

Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."

The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.

"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."

...

In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.

There is much more detail worth reading in this article. Go read the whole article.

I'm surprised that there isn't already an international "swat team" to advice governments. I'm even more surprised the Japan has not replaced the incompetent "management" at Tepco with experts who can direct the containment and shutdown of Fukushima and undertake the necessary evaluation of all other reactors in Japan to decide on what needs to be shutdown, what needs safety upgrades, and what meets proper safety standards. I understand that Japan is a "consensus" society which can paralyze decision-making, but there are situations where you have to act and get consensus later otherwise the cost is astronomical. I would think a core meltdown is one of them. But apparently this truth has not yet dawned on Japanese officials.