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Spraying of spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 is still underway. Visual inspection of Unit 4’s pool showed water in the pool, and so efforts have been temporarily focused upon Unit 3. While efforts at using helicopters to dump water onto the pools had been largely unsuccessful , army firetrucks used in putting out aircraft fires have been employed with some success. The elite Tokyo Hyper Rescue component of the Tokyo fire department has arrived on scene and is conducting missions of roughly two hours in length, during which they spray the pools for 7-8 minutes, wait for...

TOKYO (Nikkei)--Japanese officials have installed cables to supply electricity from Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s (9506) power grid to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a step they hope will help inject water more efficiently into the facility's crippled reactors that are at the center of Japan's nuclear crisis, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said at a news conference Thursday night. Officials will try to connect the cable to the plant's No. 2 reactor on Friday, the agency said. The No. 2 reactor's containment vessel was partly damaged in its pressure suppression chamber. The reactor building is emitting vapor...

Units 1 and 2: TEPCO has released estimates of the levels of core damage at these two reactors: 70% damage at Unit 1 and 33% at Unit 2. They have also stated that Unit 1 is being adequately cooled. Outlook: It is difficult to make conjectures at this point about the final disposition of the damaged fuel without further information. However, during our only operating experience with a partially melted and subsequently cooled core, Three Mile Island, the fuel mass was fully contained by the reactor vessel, resulting in minimal radiation release to the public. A decision is currently being...

Kan raps Tokyo Electric's handling of nuclear crisis TOKYO, March 15, Kyodo Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday strongly criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co. for its handling of the earthquake-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. ''The TV reported an explosion. But nothing was said to the premier's office for about an hour,'' a Kyodo News reporter overheard Kan saying during a meeting with executives of the power company at its head office. ''What the hell is going on?'' Kan strongly ordered the company not to withdraw its employees from the power plant, which has been facing a series of...

In Stricken Fuel-Cooling Pools, a Danger for the Longer Term By WILLIAM J. BROAD and HIROKO TABUCHI Published: March 14, 2011 Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger. The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been unable to take emergency steps because of the multiplying crises. The threat is that the...

Seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko claimed that an accident was likely and that plants have 'fundamental vulnerability' The timing of the near nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi could not have been more appropriate. In only a few weeks the world will mark the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear plant disaster ever to affect our planet – at Chernobyl in Ukraine. A major core meltdown released a deadly cloud of radioactive material over Europe and gave the name Chernobyl a terrible resonance. This weekend it is clear that the name Fukushima came perilously close to achieving a similar notoriety. However, the real...

Why Worry? Japan's Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage Ishibashi Katsuhiko August 11, 2007 I had warned that a major earthquake would strike the Chuetsu region around Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, and about the fundamental vulnerability of nuclear power plants. The 6.8 magnitude temblor of July 16 caused considerable damage to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), proving me right. In the 40 years that Japan had been building nuclear plants, seismic activity was, fortunately or unfortunately, relatively quiet. Not a single nuclear facility was struck by a big quake. The government, along...

Fuel rods at Fukushima nuclear complex's No. 2 reactor had been entirely exposed, fuel rod meltdown not ruled out. Reactor operator TEPCO said water levels have risen and fuel rods are now only half-exposed.