CRISISBOOM

globalsecuritynewswire

Coolant is escaping through a newly discovered opening in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s No. 1 reactor pressure vessel, a development that could slow efforts to prevent potential further radiation releases from the Japanese facility, Reuters reported on Thursday (see GSN, May 11).

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power learned the container held less water than previously believed following repairs to monitoring equipment this week; the tank’s fluid quantity was roughly 16 feet short of the depth required to fully submerge atomic fuel if the material had remained in its intended position. The six-reactor site was severely damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing in Japan.

“There must be a large leak,” Tokyo Electric Power official Junichi Matsumoto said to reporters on Thursday. “The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged … the pressure vessel itself and created a hole,” he said.

Ongoing water transfers have successfully curbed the escaped fuel’s temperature, though, and workers would keep pumping fluid into the system, Matsumoto said. The container’s water quantity suggests the rupture is likely several centimeters across, indicating the fuel might have made contact with the air early in the crisis, he said. The vessel’s surface heat level has Read more…