Monday, March 14, 2011

France believes that the accident Fukushima is worse than Japan says

"Beyond the Three Mile Island, without [the level] Chernobyl." This has been referred to the president of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, André-Claude Lacoste, the nuclear accident at the nuclear plant in Fukushima I, with series cooling problems in three reactors from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on Friday .

Lacoste's words represent a discrepancy with the level of seriousness that the Japanese authorities have so far to the incident. This was rated as level 4 ("accident consequences at the local") on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). However, the French nuclear agency believes that the accident has already reached a level 5 ("accident with far-reaching consequences") and was rated the U.S.

plant at Three Mile Island, near the city of Harrisburg, 1979, or even 6 ("major accident"). The INES scale has a maximum of 7 ("major accident"), which until now has only reached the Chernobyl disaster (Ukraine) in 1986 and that no expert believes to be repeated here. The No. 2 reactor nuclear power plant in Fukushima I (also known as Daiichi) now also has cooling problems.

The difficulties to cool the reactor was attached to the problems in reactors 1 and 3, in which there were explosions. The second, at 3, took place early this morning and, as recorded on Saturday, has not damaged the reactor container, according to Japanese authorities. The central problems in Fukushima prefecture (also Daini plant malfunctions, though less disturbing) have led to the evacuation of some 185,000 people, according to the latest report provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As a precaution, 200,000 doses of iodine have been distributed in schools hosting these evacuees, but for now they will not be administered to the population. Iodine capsules help to saturate the thyroid that element and thus prevents the gland from absorbing radioactive iodine if a leak of that element from the nuclear plant.

Thyroid cancer for that reason was one of the most common diseases among people who were exposed to radiation after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The IAEA also noted that it is already pumping sea water into the reactor 2, Daiichi, a measure similar to that adopted and in reactors 1 and 3 to try to lower the temperature and prevent melting at the core, something and giving authorities yesterday of course it is happening.

In addition, the director of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano Japan, said Japanese authorities have asked the UN agency to send a commission of experts. As reported by the Japanese Agency for Nuclear and Industrial Safety (NISA) in a report submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the structure containing the reactor "is intact," which theoretically rule out a merger of the reactor core.

Eleven people were injured in the incident. Among the wounded military at least one Self-Defense Forces (army) of Japan, with fractures of various bones, while others suffer minor injuries, according to figures released by the local agency Kyodo. The operators have injected seawater, combined with boric acid in the reactor cooling system number 1 to avoid overheating, after failing diesel generators, which were destroyed by the tsunami and the battery backup exhausted.

Now we work on this reactor system to repair the residual heat removal to cool the reactor used and intended to turn it off when cold. Japanese government spokesman, Yukio Edan, has ruled out the possibility that there have been significant leakage of radioactivity after the explosion. At a press conference, has said that half an hour after the explosion, the level of radioactivity three miles of the place was similar to yesterday, so it has ruled out a "mass escape." Despite this, the Japan Nuclear Security Agency has requested that 600 residents were evacuated within a radius of 20 kilometers around the room who do not leave their homes until further notice.

Another consequence of this nuclear accident has to do with the aid began to arrive in Japan just after the earthquake and tsunami. The Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy reported that it has detected low levels of radioactivity among the crews of the helicopters involved in rescue operations near Sendai, the main city of the prefecture which is the Fukushima nuclear plant I and 100 km of this.

According to Kyodo, the fleet has temporarily suspended operations of its boats and moved offshore to an area about 185 kilometers northeast of the plant. The radioactivity was detected in 17 crew members on Sunday three helicopters and the origin was the radioactive cloud released on Saturday Fukushima plant.

Fukushima I is entering its third day of a nuclear emergency with serious problems in two of its reactors by a failure in the cooling system and the fear that has started the meltdown. Shortly before the explosion in reactor three, Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, admitted that this plant is in an "alarming", after detecting a further rise in radiation levels above safe limits (751, 2 microsievert per hour when normal is 500), the prime minister while working to address the overheating of the reactors, officials struggle to resist the containment chamber pressure and the effects of the new explosion to prevent uncontrolled leaks of radioactivity as happened in Chernobyl in 1986.

Since Friday, there have been about 300 aftershocks of the devastating earthquake, and the Japan Meteorological Agency said last night that there is a 70% chance of occurrence of aftershocks up to 7 degrees on the Richter scale until Wednesday, so the authorities are urging caution to the people of the coast to the possibility of tsunamis recur.

Front atomic atomic But the front has not remained in Fukushima. In the afternoon yesterday, the central Tokai (only 120 kilometers from Tokyo) announced that it had cooling problems in reactor number two. "A water pump powered by a diesel generator was stopped by the tsunami, told France Presse a spokesman for the owner of nuclear power, Atomic Power Company.

Yet, again according to the company, were getting steadily reduce the temperature reactor. Still working Monday to cool the reactor. In fact, the Japanese nuclear authorities expect that this plant is cooled down to normal levels of security on Tuesday. A new front opened concern for the Japanese authorities when they found increased levels of radioactivity at other nuclear power, that of Oganawa, 70 km north of Sendai.

But the authorities ruled out problems at the plant and said the increase in emissions was due to the arrival of particles in Fukushima, which is about 100 kilometers. At 22.00 (CET Spanish), Tokyo informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that levels had returned to normal.

Given this cascade of alerts, Kan went on television yesterday to the nation to make a dramatic call for unity of its 120 million citizens. The Prime Minister acknowledged that the sum of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear danger has unleashed "the worst crisis since the end of World War II." Fear of a core meltdown Apart from the problems of cooling plants Fukshima and Tokai, the Japanese government admitted yesterday that a core meltdown in the two reactors affected Fukushima I was somewhat likely.

The plant, 240 kilometers north of Tokyo, has six reactors, the oldest of which opened in 1971. When a nuclear has problems cooling and temperature control, the uranium used as fuel and metal elements that support it can get to merge to form a radioactive magma. That was in Harrisburg (United States) in 1979, the clear precedent of Fukushima.

If the meltdown had come to be or not was discussed and contradictory information. "It's very difficult to diagnose in these circumstances, the status of the core. It seems to have begun to be deformed," said Maria Teresa Dominguez, president of the Nuclear Forum, the lobby groups the Spanish nuclear.

From 2,000-degree heat, the metal sheaths of four meters high and in which uranium pellets are beginning to sag and this is the beginning of the merger. Kyodo news agency had said yes at least partially molten cores of the two reactors affected. The reactor 1 would be in that state since Saturday and 3 would have begun the merger yesterday, according to sources quoted by Kyodo.

The experts consulted insisted that, at this point of serious nuclear accident, was not as relevant if it had blown or not, but whether it would hold the security barriers around the nucleus. The industrial engineer and nuclear expert Tahull Antoni said, "if it started the process of melting metal creates an active magma and metal uranium should stay in contention.

In Chernobyl had no containment." The work continued as in the previous day. To lower the temperature, cooling sea water emergency, proof of the hopelessness of the situation, since the use of salt water precludes the use of the plant in the future. And to reduce the pressure inside the containment, the authorities maintained, as a lesser evil-the emission of radioactive gases to the outside of the two reactors.

At 08.33 yesterday (midnight Saturday) radiation measured outside the plant was of 1,204 microsievert, according to the Japanese government spokesman, Yukio Edan, "when the natural in that area is 0.07. Blow to the industry The accident was initially classified as Level 4 on the international scale of atomic events, ranging from 0 to 7.

Level 4 is "accident consequences at the local." But the sector is considered likely that the rating is revised upwards. "A Chernobyl seems unlikely, but is within the level may rise to 5 or 6," said Tahull. Harrisburg was a level 5 - "accident with far-reaching consequences" - and Chernobyl a 7 - "major accident" -.

Often the incidents are classified initially conservatively and with the details, it raises its severity. The very President of the Nuclear Forum admitted that the incident could end up even worse reclassified. "Level 4 is the minimum. A review will be on the rise. Less not see it." If the incident received a larger category, the blow to the nuclear industry in the world would be much worse.

Harrisburg stood for three decades the nuclear program in the U.S., and environmentalists and anti-nuclear energy will be used as evidence that Fukushima is impossible to generate sufficient safety barriers to a technology with such destructive potential. Engineers generally sector-nuclear advocates and therefore much less critical than that of atomic energy environmental-stress the ordeal that meant for the central nine magnitude earthquake followed by tsunami.

Tahull remember how Japan focused on nuclear energy despite being in the seismic zone of the planet: "California and Japan have discussed a lot if nuclear had so many earthquakes. Japan took the risk and nobody can teach them anything about how plants are built ". For the third world economy with a high population density and no oil or coal, nuclear option was considered as a nearly inevitable.

In 2010 occurred on 29% of the country's electricity. Yesterday, after 11 of its 54 reactors will stop by the earthquake, Japan announced selective blackouts.

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