Fukishima watch: A rush to remove spent fuel rods from Reactor 4

I have been reading a lot about this. I read that TEPCO plans on building a refrigerated barrier to try and contain the radioactive water that is presently being dumped into the ocean. I forgot the amount of water, but it might be 300 million gallons per day. Building a refrigerated barrier might work, but many people are skeptical. And think of the amount of electrical power required to operate this giant refrigerator. I could see the project using a megawatt per day or more. And where might this source of electrical power be derived ? And, what if the power goes out ?. No doubt about it, TEPCO will go bankrupt, and then the Japanese taxpayers will have to foot the bill, but for how long ? I'm sure that the Japanese government officials will try their hardest to keep the refrigerator running at least until Japan is chosen for the 2020 Olympics, and if chosen at least until the Olympics are over, but after that, all bets are off. Japan's economy has been in real bad shape since the early 80's, but the IMF and the World Bank have helped them in the past with building their train system. This time, the IMF might not be so generous, and might let Japan self destruct and go bankrupt. But if anything goes wrong when relocating the fuel rods, the whole planet might self destruct, or at least the northern hemisphere might be un-inhabitable. Then, if something does go wrong, will the media tell anyone ? I doubt it. If the information is leaked out (which I believe it will be), then there is going to be a panic and mass exodus of people in the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere which might be spared. People better get their passports NOW ! And places like Australia and New Zealand better get ready for a population explosion.

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Posted in reply to the post by Attic:

Tepco, the owner of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant plans to remove a staggering number of fuel rods that have built up over time. Over 1,300 spent fuel rods are held at reactor Number 4 and they are capable of emitting the radiation of about 14,000 Hiroshima bombs if they are not handled within extremely small tolerances. The scheduled removal operation has now been moved up a week to November 8, according to an Oct. 30 EneNews article.

The rush is on because reactor Number 4 is sinking and is tipping over. The cages holding the rods are crumpled. As a result, the structure cannot withstand another high magnitude earthquake.

Japan's earthquake experts have predicted a high magnitude earthquake before year's end. This is based on the idea of a 75 year "recurrence interval". The last such interval occurred 75 years ago in 1938. There was a magnitude 7.4 quake that occurred in May. Two quakes, magnitude 7.7 and magnitude 7.8 occurred in November. When the three were combined, scientists arrived at a "moment-magnitude" of 8.1. This reasoning has led some scientists to predict a 9.0 quake before the end of this year.
In other words, they are very concerned that a high magnitude quake could finish the collapse of Reactor 4, leading to an unrecoverable catastrophe at Fukushima and around the world.

The rods are resting in a spent fuel storage tank that is 80 feet above ground and on the upper floor of the reactor. They weigh a total of about 400 tons.

A 273 ton mobile crane has been located in a separate room from the spent rods. Operators will remove them from their high position in what will be in a remote-control operation. The rods must remain covered by water as they are loaded into a steel chamber. The tolerances, as small as a millimeter, are critical and the crane operators will be operating without direct visual observation of the physical space.

Once the rods are in their steel chamber, they will be relocated to an intact building at the Fukushima power plant.
This will be a slow operation. If the work begins on November 8, it could go on throughout 2014. If the rods fall, are dropped or come within the millimeter tolerance of each other , they could explode, melt down and emit a massive amount of radiation that will never be contained. According to an Oct. 25 article, Global Research reports that radiation equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshimas could be emitted if anything goes wrong during the operation.

This novel operation has never been tried before and many experts are gravely concerned that a mistake could cause both fission and an explosion. Tepco has been responsible for several accidents and misjudgments, withholding the truth or outright lying.
The situation is one where Tepco and the Japanese government have lost the trust and support of the international nuclear science community. There has been a lot of talk about corruption in hiring workers, unbelievable errors made by operators, and concerns whether Tepco should be removed and put out of business. There are new reports that "Intensive contamination areas" exist far away from Fukishima, including Tokyo. In the end, the threat of a high magnitude earthquake and the rush to move such a massive number of spent, yet potentially active fuel rods is a very worrying matter.